Last Sunday, we started a new series. And it's called In Light of All This. And here's the setup, really basically, for about two years, we've been going through this letter in the New Testament, the letter to the church at Rome. It's called Romans. And uh and if you if you're not familiar, if you're new to the whole church thing, the whole Jesus thing, Romans is pretty deep stuff. It is the most comprehensive explanation we have of who Jesus is, why did he come, what's he trying to do, what has he done in our lives. It's deep. But that should not intimidate you if you're new to the whole Jesus thing at all. Here's why. You have been created by God with the capacity to know him. You are a spiritual person. Doesn't matter if you've been coming to church for 20 years or if this is your first time, if you're watching from home just kind of thinking about this stuff, you have been created by God with the capacity to know him. It's actually a huge part, maybe even the main part, of why you exist, to be known and loved by God. Sometimes we think that we were created to love God, but that's not true. God is not insecure, he doesn't need anyone's love. Scripture actually says in Ephesians that we were created by God essentially to be the focus of his love. So you were created by God so that he could know you and love you. You have everything within you to understand this stuff. So don't ever be intimidated as we open up scripture and start reading this stuff, and you might hear words you're not used to, whatever. Don't be intimidated at all. You'll be blown away by how quickly this stuff will click because you've been created by God to get it. But Romans is, it is deep, it is comprehensive. And the first part is all, to be frank, like theological. That's the best word I can think of. It's a lot of ideas about who God is and kind of very like big concepts about God. It's theological stuff. But then in Romans 12, there's a shift. And it's like Paul the author says, hey, in light of all of this, in light of who God is and what he's done, and all that Jesus is and all that he's done, let's live this way. In light of all this, let's let's live a different kind of life. And Romans 12 through Romans 16 kind of lays out what that new life looks like, how it operates. And so last week, last week we looked at Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, which just says, offer yourselves as living sacrifices to God. Give everything to God, is what it says. Give it all to God. Don't hold anything back from God because He's not holding anything back from you. Give it all to Him. In light of all that He's done, what James shared as we did Lord's Supper, in light of what Jesus did on the cross, just give him your life, because he's already given you his. Give it to him. And that looks different depending on where you're at in life. Sometimes for me it's a reminder to go, oh, am I holding back any part of my life from God? Is there any aspect of my life that I'm just kind of keeping separate from him? There's no reason to do that. So I have to remind myself continually, Lord, it's all yours. It's all yours. My kids, they're yours. They belong to you. What do you want me to do with them versus what do I maybe want them to do? They're yours. My marriage, God, it belongs to you. My career, all those things. It's all yours. For some of us, that might mean getting baptized for the first time. That's a step of obedience you take early on. Baptism, sometimes people talk about baptism, like they have to get to some level where they're ready for it. Like they're not good enough to be baptized. Look, we're all good enough to be soaked in water, okay? It's not a high bar. Baptism is not, it's not a finish line, it's a starting point. It's a step of obedience. And if if you've given your life to Jesus but you haven't been baptized, man, that do that. Sign up for that right away because that's this early step, and you're saying, God, I'm yours. I offer myself to you as a living sacrifice. And then it said, do not conform to the pattern of this world. Don't just do what the world does. Don't simply go with the flow and go the way the world is trending. Instead, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Let God shape the way you think. Let God change the way that you see yourself and you see the world. Let's be different. And Paul continues, Romans chapter 12, verses 3 through 8. This is what we're looking at today. For by the grace given me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought. But rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body. And each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy, in accordance with your faith. We'll talk about what that means in a little bit. If it's serving, then serve. If it's teaching, then teach. If it's to encourage, then give encouragement. If it's to serve in children's areas at church on Sunday morning, then do that. If it's giving, then give generously. If it's to lead, do it diligently. If it's to show mercy, do it cheerfully. I was joking, but that's not me having a flippant attitude about scripture. It's me knowing God has a sense of humor. Okay. So I love what James shared during Lord's Supper, because James and I had not spoken this week at all. He didn't know what the message was about, and here he is talking about how we're in this together, right? And that's very much about what this scripture is talking about today. So the Holy Spirit knows what we need to focus on. This is cool. This particular piece of scripture, this little section, it's big, it's very simple, but in many ways, it's kind of a blueprint for how to actually enjoy life. It really is, it's like a blueprint for how to avoid a lot of frustration and angst and how to experience a tremendous amount of fulfillment and joy. And it begins by Paul saying, don't think of yourself too highly. Don't think of yourself more highly than you ought. I couldn't think of a statement that's more custom crafted for the culture that we're in right now. And it's amazing how scripture does that. You're like, this thing written 2,000 years ago to a group of people in a totally different place, totally different culture, should not be this on the nose with where we're at in our culture today. But scripture does that time and time again because God's truth is timeless. It's timeless. It doesn't matter who's hearing it, it applies. And so last week we we looked at something really interesting. I showed you guys an image from a commercial that I saw about six, seven months ago. It's one of my favorite commercials I've ever seen. And if we could actually put this up on the screen, uh, it's by Nair, and it said, Worship yourself. And this is like a whole series of commercials. Now, this was not me like shaking my fist in anger, you know, a Christian pastor mad at a commercial is like a cliche. You know, that's not what happened. I looked at this and I was excited. I was like, thank God, some honesty. Because our culture has been saying this for years just much more subtly. I mean, think about it. We've grown up in this culture that has said, hey, just be yourself. You know, find yourself, be true to yourself, celebrate yourself, treat yourself, believe in yourself, express yourself. And I love that because the logical conclusion, like, where does that end, is just, you know what, go ahead, just worship yourself. I mean, what do you do with something that you believe in and celebrate and put your hope in and put all your focus in? You worship it. You know, it's funny, ancient cultures were obsessed with having a God they could see. And so they would take wood and carve little wooden statues, idols, and they would worship those, even though that's really silly. Or they would build these giant statues, these giant temples, and they'd have these statues to the God of whatever their culture's gods were, and they would worship that because ancient cultures were obsessed with having a God you could see. We don't really do that anymore. We don't do the statue thing because our culture is just obsessed with having a God you can see in the mirror. But it's the same issue. It's just idolatry. You just elevate something in a place it doesn't belong. And the thing is, you would you would think logically that, man, if you put yourself first, like if you place your happiness and your fulfillment above everything else, and that's your number one priority, you live for yourself, you believe in yourself, you depend on yourself, you worship yourself, you would think that would logically lead to happiness and fulfillment. I mean, if my whole life is about me, I should be pretty happy. But there is no statistic you could find that would support that claim. In fact, we live in a culture right now where we have the highest standard of living anyone's ever had. Like, have any of you had the macaroni and cheese at Chick-fil-A? I'm just asking. Mac and cheese at Chick-fil-A. Anyone tried this? Okay, if you haven't, you've got to wait till tomorrow, but but give it a shout. Um, give it a try. Like, if you I ate that last night. And it's probably better, not necessarily better for you, um, but it's it's probably better than like whoever the king of England ate, like 200 years ago. I guarantee you, you take some king from 300 years ago, take him through the drive-thru at a place like Chick-fil-A, he'd be like, this is the best thing I've ever put in my mouth. You know, like better than like boiled whatever bird they ate back then. I don't know. But it's just, it's like we experience a tremendous quality of life. In fact, even those of us who are below the normal standard of living in America live better lives than most people on this planet currently live or could have ever dreamed to live. That's why if you ever hear someone say, like, what era of history would you like to go back to and live? None. You'd be insane. Like someone's like, I wish I could go back to like two, three hundred years ago, like, why? Why? Name one good reason. Like, there's no, don't do that. That's a trap. If that ever becomes a possibility, stay away. So we have the highest standard of living, and yet, study after study shows that we are so unhappy. Because this whole worship yourself thing, elevating yourself, it just doesn't work. It's it's backwards, it's upside down. It does not work. And Paul says, don't think too highly of yourselves. This is an early step in the process of experiencing this changed life that Jesus has won for us. So that kind of begs the question: well, how highly should I think of myself? Like, where's that line? How high is too high? How low should I go when it comes to my view of self? And I would offer something else that Paul wrote. 1 Timothy 1:15. This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it. That's a bold way to preface a statement, by the way. Like, what I'm saying is true, and everybody should agree with me. But that's what he says. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and most of us would go, yeah, that's awesome. And I am the worst of them all. Now, Paul said this. And I think there's part of me that just kind of thinks Paul's being clever or he's trying to make a point, but does he really believe that? Like, does Paul actually believe that he's the worst? Some translations say chief, chief of sinners. Like, I'm not gonna ask for this because it'd be weird, but if I said, hey, show of hands, who thinks you're the worst one in the room? You know, like eventually someone's gonna raise their hand. But most of us are like, I'm not. Like, I'm not. Most of you think you're better than maybe the person even sitting next to you, who maybe you're married to. I don't know. But like you at least say, I could, I mean, it's 50-50 at the very least, right? But Paul, and if you know anything about our faith and the history of our faith, like Paul, he's kind of an important guy. And he says, I'm the worst of them all. I believe very much that Paul believed this, but not in some self-deprecating way. This isn't something that's meant to bring you down and make you feel anguish in your soul. I'll share a quote from a pastor who uh lived in Germany years ago named Dietrich Bonhoeffer. If you've never uh heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, look up his story. He was a pastor in Germany during World War II, and he became part of a resistance movement to uh to assassinate Hitler, and it failed, and he was imprisoned, and he was ultimately executed by the Nazis right before the war ended. And while in prison, he wrote a book called Life Together. And I read this when I was in college, and he had been removed from the ability to have to have fellowship, to have time with other Jesus followers. And so he wrote about how important that is and how we should engage with one another. And in part of that book, he talked about this very scripture that I just read where Paul says, I'm the worst of them all. And here's what he says: there can be no genuine acknowledgement of sin that does not lead to this extremity. If my sinfulness appears to me in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I'm still not recognizing my sinfulness at all. My sin is of necessity the worst, the most grievous, the most reprehensible. Brotherly love will find any number of extenuations for the sins of others. Only for my sin there is no apology whatsoever. Therefore, my sin is the worst. He who would serve his brother in the fellowship must sink all the way down to these depths of humility. How can I possibly serve another person in unfeigned humility if I seriously regard his sinfulness as worse than my own? Would I not be putting myself above him? Could I have any hope for him? Such service would be hypocritical. You know, there's this idea that Jesus talks about of those who have been forgiven much, love much. You know, if you're someone who believes like Paul believed that, look, I I just I'm the chief of sinners, I'm the worst. If you believe that, then you're gonna have this awe of the fact that you've been forgiven of all of it, that it's done, it's paid for, it's over. That Jesus, when he died on the cross and he said, it is finished, your sin completely and totally demolished. Forgotten about, forgiven in the eyes of God. But if you believe that, like, it's not that big of a deal, you're not gonna have that same sense of awe and wonder. You're gonna miss out on experiencing the full measure of the wonder of God's grace. I'll put it this way, and this is this is an analogy that I've I've used before, but but imagine you're you're walking on a street, you're crossing the street, and you almost step into a puddle. There's a puddle right in the middle of the street, and your foot's about to go in it, and some stranger runs and shoves you out of the way of the puddle. Like, what would you do? Some of you would fight that person, right? Some of you would be like, what is wrong with you? Because there was a puddle. You're like, yeah, I know, but like my foot would have been wet. You just shoved me. I I that was a little extreme. Like, come on, calm down. That'd be odd. You wouldn't be filled with gratitude. You wouldn't be like, oh, thank you so much for saving me from the agony of a wet sock. Even though, let's be honest, wet socks are pretty terrible. But you wouldn't be filled with all you wouldn't go tell stories about this years later. Have I ever told you the time that a stranger rescued me from stepping into a puddle? Let me sit back and hear this one, right? But what if what if you're crossing a street and there's a semi-truck that almost hits you, and some stranger shoves you out of the way and in doing so takes the hit themselves and dies. Like, what would you even do in response to that? That would change your entire life. That that would give you this profound understanding that you're living a life that maybe you shouldn't be living. That the time you have, maybe you shouldn't have. It was it was given to you as a gift, and someone else sacrificed for you to have this, and and the awe and the gratitude you would have for that person, and the way that that would change, the way you see the rest of your life and how you live it, would be profound. If we see our sin like it's a puddle in the ground, and yeah, it's nice that Jesus died on the cross to like save us from that, we'll never be filled with the kind of gratitude and awe that changes our lives. But if we, like Paul, have the humility to say, you know what, my sin is it's as bad as anyone's. The thoughts, the struggles, the judgment, all that, it's as bad as anyone's. I can't judge anyone. My sin was like a semi-truck headed for me, and Jesus saved me from that. You will be filled with so much awe and wonder, it'll change everything in terms of the way you live. And so when Paul says, you know, we shouldn't think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think of ourselves, the question is, well, how highly should we think of ourselves? Really simple answer: better than no one. Think of yourself as better than no one. And this isn't self-deprecating, it's actually freeing. It's amazing because when you really step back and look at your life, at least if you're like me, the older you get, the more you realize you can't take credit for almost any of the good stuff. Like, I think very often, and I know I've shared this before, but the way I became a Jesus follower, we moved in the summer between third and fourth grade, and I was so excited because we moved to a house that had land, and we're I was just gonna play. Like all summer long, I'm gonna sleep in, I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna run, I'm gonna explore. It was I was so excited. My family never really went to church. My mom had grown up as the daughter of a pastor, and he was one way on Sundays and a different way at home. And so when she left, she basically said, never doing that again. And for many years, that's the way that my mom and dad lived. We we went to church a couple times, I can vaguely remember, but it was never a part of our life. And so we move into this new house, and I have all this space to roam. I'm like a fourth grade kid with acreage. I mean, that's awesome. And our our neighbor, just uh right across the street, this little farm road in Missouri, said, Hey, why don't you guys come with us to church? And so my parents said yes. And we went to church every Sunday after that. And at first I was so angry because I had to wear dress pants. And and I want to say, like, my children, if you've if you've raised your kids here, they don't know the pain of dressing up for church, right? Like, you guys are free to dress up. If you're wearing a suit this morning, man, go for it. But like, you don't have to. This is a true story. Don't ever, don't ever tell this, doesn't leave the room, okay? Except that it's online. But um, our son had to wear, uh, our oldest had to wear khaki pants recently, and he didn't know how. And we were like, what do you mean? He's like, I don't know how to do how to do this. And we realized that he's only ever worn like shorts and sweatpants his whole life. He's never worn something with a zipper. We've we how did he's 11 years old. And he's been at church every single Sunday of his life. And he's never worn any, he's because his hands, it's like, yeah, shorts, sweatpants, it's fine. So I was so angry having to wear like dress pants as a fourth grader, tucking in my shirt, it was the worst. And the thing is, that neighbor that invited us to church, he got arrested a week later. He was a firefighter, and he'd embezzled a lot of money from the fire department. Never saw him again. But we started going to that church, and my family fell in love with it. And we met Jesus there, and it changed my parents' lives, and it changed my life. And about a year later I got baptized and never looked back because a criminal invited me to church. And I love that. And so, well, and I I mean it's awesome, right? But like, what if we had moved two weeks later? Like, honest, I've thought about that. Because literally, like, we we were only neighbors with that person for a week. So, what if we had moved two weeks later? See, I my point is I can't take credit for it. I can't say, oh, I was someone, I was seeking God. And I found him. No, not at all. Not at all. I I was angry. But God took care of that. That's why it says in Ephesians 2.8 that God saved you by his grace when you believed, and you can't take credit for this. It's a gift from God. The older I get, the less I can take credit for anything in my life. It's all a gift from God. And so the point of this is simply to understand that whoever you are, no matter how successful, no matter how healthy, it's all a gift from God. You can't take credit for any of it. And if you really think about it, even the things that you're like, no, no, I I did that. It's like, did you? Did you really? I'm the pastor here because a friend of mine was offered the youth pastor job and turned it down. And then told them, there's a guy that I know though that might be interested. He called me, and at this point in time, I was I was done with the idea of working at a church, I had had a bad experience, and he calls me on the phone and says, You've got to have a conversation with this church in Georgia, and I'm like, not interested. And he said, You are running away from what God has called you to do. And I said, Fine, I'll call. Right? I can't take credit for that. I'm saying I can't take credit for any of it. And so if we live our lives and we have this attitude that I'm better than no one, I'm better than no one. If that's the case, we experience so much gratitude for everything that we have. We recognize that it's all a gift from God, and it puts Us in a totally different place to experience joy and fulfillment because it's not us. I mean, what feels better? Let's be honest, and we'll move on. What feels better? Like working really hard and earning a wage and getting a paycheck? Or someone just giving you a gift that you couldn't possibly deserve? It's the gift. It feels better. It may not scratch that itch of pride, but it, if you're honest, like gifts. Everything that you have from God is a gift. So just accept it and be grateful for it. But don't for a minute believe that you've earned it or you're somehow more worthy of it than someone else, because none of us are. Those who have been forgiven much love much. So we're better than no one, but it doesn't stop there. The point of this message is not that you're better than no one. So just remember that. Go out, have a good week. Don't think highly of yourselves. Come on. That's not. We're better than no one, but here's the cool thing. Because of what Jesus has done, we get to be part of something that's bigger than anything. So we're better than no one, but bigger than anything. We'll go back to Romans chapter 12, verses 4 and 5. It says, just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We're part of a body. We're all in this together, like James said. We are part of the movement of Jesus. And if you want to talk about something that's a big deal, Jesus is a big deal. And it's okay for us to say that. Like that's not us bragging on ourselves because we're not Jesus. But Jesus is a big deal. If you look at the scope of history, I love history. And you think about some of the big things that have happened in history. Some of those things that would, you know, if you're studying all of human history, several chapters would be devoted to. They pale in comparison to the impact on the world that Jesus has had. Let's take our country right now, the United States of America. We're almost at 250 years as a nation. That's a long time. That's a quarter of a millennia. And it's also about ten times less in terms of time that the movement of Jesus has been active on this planet. Because for over 2,000 years, the name and the message of Jesus has spread to every single people group you could imagine. And it's changed lives left and right. It's shaped history. So our country, as amazing and powerful as our country is, it's like, if you want to make like a timeline, it's like, oh yeah, look at the little United States of America. It's so cute. If you compare it to Jesus. The British Empire was the most powerful political force in the world. And at the height of the British Empire, it covered like, if you've never studied this, like Australia, India, a lot of Africa. You've got England and some parts of Europe. You've got the colonies here in the United States, and then Canada, which is cool. Because Canada is kind of there, you know, and it's like that was all that was all England. And the British Empire lasted 400 years. 400 years, that was an empire. And while impressive and amazing, this whole Jesus movement, 2,000 years plus not slowing down, it's just it's a bigger deal. The longest lasting political force nation that's ever existed in the world's history is the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire lasted a thousand years. A thousand years. And gone. And here's the movement of Jesus. 2,000 years plus, we're part of that. We're the body of Christ. That's what it says, that we are actually part of Him. And we play a role, we play a function. And it's not just to go to church on Sunday mornings. This is where we get encouraged and inspired, hopefully. This is where we get to connect with God and be reminded of who he is and what he's done for us, but we are part of something great. I'm going to read 1 Corinthians 12, verses 12 through 27, and we'll start to wrap up. It says the human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. And Paul was writing: some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, some are free. In our culture, we could replace those with all kinds of different things. We all come from different places. But we've all been baptized into one body by one spirit. We all share the same spirit. Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. If the foot says, I'm not a part of the body because I'm not a hand, that does not make it any less a part of the body. If the ear says, I'm not a part of the body because I'm not an eye, would that make it any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Also terrifying. If your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything? But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it had only one part. Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, I don't need you. The head can't say to the feet, I don't need you. In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary. And the parts we regard as less honorable are those with, we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen, with the more honorable parts do not require this special treatment. So God has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have even less dignity. This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it. And if one part is honored, all the parts are glad. All of you together are Christ's body, and each of you is a part of it. Each of us. We're part of the body of Christ. We have a role to play, we have a function. We'll go back to Romans 12, 6 through 8. We have different gifts according to the grace God has given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance to your faith. Sometimes we think of prophecy as like predicting the future. Prophets would do that, but a prophet is really someone who just speaks on behalf of God. And usually it's someone, it's not just because they've studied it, it's because they're so connected to the heart of God, it's almost like they share his heart, and what breaks his heart breaks theirs. So they can express that in a really unique way. Many of you, that's who you are. If it's serving, then serve. If it's teaching, then teach. If it's to encourage, then give encouragement. If it's giving, then give generously. If it's to lead, do it diligently. If it's to show mercy, do it cheerfully. In other words, really simply, do your thing. Like, do your thing. You are part of the body of Christ. You have a role to play. Do your thing. That's one of the amazing things about being a church is we get an opportunity to come together and do something really powerful, really amazing. There are things that we can do together as a church that none of us could do individually. Or the very least, very few of us, if any. I mean, I think about last year alone. Some of the things that we got to experience together as a church, some of the work we got to do in the community and the needs that we got to meet. Everything from what was going on in Afghanistan to the families that were impacted by some really intense tragedies in our community. All the organizations that we get to work with, like if you were at For the King, our event that we had last year, we raised enough money to provide over 200,000 meals in Africa through that. I could never do that on my own. And the thing is, none of us are more important than anyone else. Like, like, I'm honest, I'm not more important than anyone else who's here. In fact, in many ways, you guys get to do more real ministry than I do because I work at a church, and 100% of the people I work with already love Jesus. But you get to go out into your schools, those of you who are students, into your jobs, and you get to share the light of Jesus with people who maybe have never experienced it or they think they've been burned by it, but they haven't encountered the real Jesus. You guys get to do that. I'm just a mouth. That's all. In fact, when anyone comes up and says, hey, great message, I just plagiarize. I just read the Bible and I go, This is what I think it's saying, and here's maybe a way to understand it. It's not a complicated thing. It's just, here, let's read this. Here's you know, it's all I do. I'm just a mouth. I've always been just a mouth. It's the only thing I've ever been good at is talking. That's it. And it's not like you can clap for that, but wives, let's say you have a husband who's really handy and can fix things, would you trade that gift that he has for like him just talking a lot? No. My wife would trade my mouth for a variety of skills that I do not possess. I promise you. It's just a mouth. But but we've got to do our thing. We've got to be a church where we all say, I have a part to play. I have a part to play. And I'm not gonna take this and bring it back to working in the kids' areas, although I could. It's tempting. I could put that graphic back on the screen. This would be a great time to really hit it hard. Like, I don't know what your thing is, but God does. And you do. And if you don't, ask him. And he'll help you figure that out. But whatever it is, you gotta do it. You gotta use that as part of this body because let's be honest, when the body's not functioning properly, it's miserable. Like, if you have a foot that falls asleep, how frustrating is a is a foot that's asleep. I don't even I don't really understand the body enough to know what's happening, probably like circulation or something, but like that, like try walking across a room with a foot that's just asleep. It's miserable. I don't want to be a sleeping foot in the body of Christ. Does that make sense? Like I don't want to be that. I don't want to be, I don't want to be a spectator. Unless I have a gift for encouragement and I can really speak into and encourage those who are doing something special. I want to be an active part. And I want us all to know that as a church, we've always been really simple. I had someone email me this last week and ask how membership works at his hands, and it's really simple. We don't have membership. We don't. We've always been kind of like a sandlot baseball team. We've used that analogy. Just grab a glove, jump in. And if you're really bad at what you're doing, we'll just move you. You know? Um, I'm just teasing. But like honestly, like, what an opportunity we have to be part of something bigger than ourselves. And I'll wrap this up full circle, we'll pray and be done. I said earlier that this scripture really holds the key for us to avoid a lot of frustration and experience a lot of fulfillment. Here's why. Ironically, the people who are the most focused on their own happiness, the people who are the most focused on themselves, are the least happy people you will ever meet. The more fixated you are on your own personal happiness, if you are the biggest thing in your life, you will experience constant frustration. But if you live as part of something bigger than yourself, and you devote every ability and gift you have to something greater than yourself, you will experience a joy that nothing else in this world can touch. And there is nothing bigger, there is nothing greater than Jesus Christ. And so do your thing. Instead, say, hey, Lord, I I'm gonna take the low position. I'm a humble servant, and Lord, I just want to be part of what you're doing. So what do you want me to do? What have you given me the ability to do? What do I have a knack for? I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna do it for you, not for me. For you, because when you live as part of something greater than yourself, you experience joy and passion. You experience fulfillment that is not just tied to your own personal experiences. When, as part of the church, like when someone in our church experiences something amazing, we all get to celebrate that. When a part of our church experiences something hard, we can all rally around them. Devoting yourself to something greater than you, it is a major key to happiness. Because that's how God's designed things. And here we are, we have the opportunity to be part of something truly great, the body of Christ. We do our thing, we step up, we serve, we do whatever we're good at, and we serve other people, and we experience fulfillment and joy through that. And so I want to ask you just to wrestle with that this week, to think about that. Are you living for something greater than yourself? Or are you, like the world tries to program you, are you obsessed with fulfilling your own desires? You can go that route, it just doesn't lead to a good place. But if you'll if you'll have the humility to say, I'm better than no one, I'm not more important than anyone, I'm definitely not a God to be worshipped, and say, Lord, I'm I'm part of the body. What part am I? Tell me I'll do it. You will find joy. Because we're all meant to be part of something greater than ourselves. And there's just nothing greater than Jesus. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for this awesome church. God, I love being part of this specific body. And ultimately, Lord, we're part of the church all over the world. It's not just here, it's not just in our part of the world, it's not just in Georgia, it's not just in Atlanta, it's everywhere. But this specific group of people, this body, I am so grateful that this is where I get to be. Because this is a special place, and you're doing really special things through this place and in this place. So, Lord, I pray that you would inspire every single one of us to take that humble, low position and not to think of ourselves as more important than anyone else. But instead, Lord, to get our identity and our sense of meaning and our sense of fulfillment out of being part of something greater than ourselves. God, show every single one of us the part we're meant to play, and give every single one of us the commitment, the conviction to do it, to just be people who do our thing. We love you, we praise you. Amen.