We're gonna jump into a conversation that we started last Sunday called Rest for Your Soul. Rest for your soul. Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 through 30. This is Jesus talking, so you gotta pay careful attention. He says, Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light. Now, how many of you hear those words and go, yeah, I'm all in for that? I want that. You know, I said last week there's just certain things that Jesus says sometimes, and in in in simply his words, you see his heart. And you see this deep desire in these words for him to give us something that the world cannot offer us. When you think about the idea of rest for your soul, your soul is a deep part of who you are. It's your thoughts, it's your desires, it's your will, it's your motivations, it's it's really what drives you much of the time, which is why when it gets tired and exhausted, life in every aspect is just a challenge. If you have an exhausted soul, you'll never thrive. Because so much of what you do, it comes out of the strength of your soul. But if your soul's at rest, that's that's a powerful thing. And we live in a world that cannot offer us rest for our soul. The reason our world can't offer us that is because our world is never at rest. I mean, look at the last few years. Uh, if you want a word to describe the time that we're living in right now, it is a time of unrest. And there's all kinds of unrest, right? There's political unrest and economic unrest, there's cultural unrest, there's racial unrest. It's just unrest everywhere you look. And no matter what your opinions on that unrest are, no matter what your views on what the cause of that unrest is, what the solution might be, there's no denying that we live in a time of unrest. And so, how can a world that is never at rest offer you rest for your soul? It can't. You cannot give what you don't have. But you know, Jesus is different. Because Jesus lived in a time of unrest as well. He lived in a time of great political unrest. He lived in a time where diseases like leprosy were running rampant and there was a lot of fear, there was so much uncertainty, there was deep poverty. Jesus lived in a time of unrest, so much so, by the way, that just a few decades after Jesus was raised again to life, his part of the world was decimated by war. Completely and totally decimated. He lived in a time of unrest. And yet, when you look at the life of Jesus, he was not a person living in a state of unrest. See, as scary as the unrest out there might be sometimes, the unrest in here is worse. And sometimes we get so distracted by looking at the unrest out there that we forget to pay attention to the unrest in here. But it's the battle within that really matters. Study history, you find that most great empires that have ever existed were never really conquered by another more powerful empire. They fell apart from the inside out. They weakened internally. And that's when they they fell. It's the unrest in here that we have to watch out for. But if we are people who have rest in our souls, then we can be people who have sanity in a world that's gone insane. If we're people that have rest in our souls, we can have a calmness and a steadfast faith in a world that is absolutely terrified. If we have rest for our souls, and that is what Jesus offers us. That's what he promises us. Rest for your soul. We're gonna spend a few weeks unpacking this powerful statement of Jesus. We've broken it up into four pieces. Last week we started with his first words, come to me, come to Jesus. If you want rest for your soul, the first step is to come to Jesus. It's always about someone, not something. We we often spend time trying to find another thing to add to our lives, but if you have the right who, you're good. So we start by coming to Jesus. Today we're gonna look at the second part. He says, essentially, let me lead you. We come to him, we let him lead us. Next week we'll we'll look at him saying, Let me teach you. We have to let him teach us, and then finally we have to let go. So come to Jesus, let him lead you, let him teach you, let go. That's what we're gonna be looking at over the course of these few weeks. If you weren't here last week, I encourage you to catch up. But today we're gonna jump into this statement that he says, Take my yoke upon you. In other words, let me let me lead you. Now, I I hope that in this room and with everyone watching online, I hope that there are those of us who can say, I have been fortunate enough, blessed enough to be led by some amazing leaders. And I would love to see a show of hands. Those of you online, uh, feel free to put names down. Bless the people who have led you well. Like, how many of you have been led by someone who was a phenomenal leader at some point in your life? There, there's nothing like that, right? When you've been underneath the authority of someone who's a really strong leader, whether it's a coach or a teacher, maybe a parent, a boss, you name it, it it's it's invigorating. Like it's energizing, it makes you better. And I saw about half the hands went up with uh with, yeah, I've been under the authority of a really good leader. Those of you watching online, again, post their names, bless them a little bit, like let them know that they were great. Or maybe they currently are. Let's let's flip that though. Show of hands. And those of you online don't post names on this one. Um how many of you have ever been underneath the authority of a poor leader? All right, more hands. It's funny, if you look at the world, apparently leadership ability is not a requirement for leadership. Uh, there are a lot of people in leadership that aren't leaders at all. And we've probably all experienced what it's like to be under the authority of a poor leader. And just as being under the authority of a good leader is invigorating and energizing, being under the authority of a poor leader will drain you like few things can. I was thinking about some of the leaders that I've I've had that are great, and I have been blessed, uniquely blessed, to be led by some really amazing people, some of which are in the room right now. Um I've also been under some really interesting people that I wouldn't be able to classify as good leaders, and it's come at a variety of stages of my life. For example, um, you've probably been underneath at some point in time the authority of a hesitant leader. A hesitant leader. I uh I waited tables for several years while I was in college. It was a great job while I was in school, I loved it. Um, just gave me a chance to talk to all kinds of people, taught me how to not get mad when someone gets my name wrong. So to this day, uh many of you who go here will come up and say, you know, hey Jason, which isn't my name. Uh my name's Justin. But I've never corrected you because I just don't even care anymore. Because when you wait tables, you get called by the wrong name so much. You're like, I'm starts with a J. I'm just proud that you got that letter right, and we're good, you know? Um so I waited tables for several years, loved that experience, and I had a variety of managers, lots of different types, but I had this one guy that just sticks out in my mind because he was so hesitant, he wouldn't make decisions. He he he has something that I've actually researched and looked up, I think he he could clinically be diagnosed with this, it's something called trochophobia. Um you've probably never heard of trochophobia. It's the fear of buses. Let me explain what I mean. Um, every night, when it was time to start letting some servers go home, the way restaurants typically work is you know, you have a group of servers, they kind of come in waves. You know, some come earlier and then more come so that by the time things are at their peak, you have everybody on, all the tables are open, but then you start to cut those down. So by the end of the night, when things have slowed down again, those who got there first have gone home, and those who got there last are still there, so hopefully they're still getting tables. Um, and so what you're supposed to do as a manager is start making cuts when things slow down. But but this guy was terrified that like a bus would show up. And I worked there for four years, never once. Never, not joking, not one time did I ever see a bus pull into the Chili's Bar and Grill on in Liberty, Missouri. Like no one goes to Liberty, Missouri. There's no buses anywhere. And it'd be like 9 p.m. And you say, hey man, I got here at like two. Haven't had a table in 45 minutes. Um, you think maybe you might make cuts? And he'd always just, he's like, man, I don't know. You just you just never know when a bus might pull up. You know? I'm like, I kind of think we do know when a bus might pull up. Not at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday. He just wouldn't make a decision, and it was maddening because you'd sit there just like, I'm just I'm just waiting for this person to make up their minds. When you're under a hesitant leader, it's tough, but Jesus is different. You know, Jesus wasn't reckless, although there are moments in his ministry where if you had different goals, if your if your goal was survival, maybe he was reckless, but that wasn't his goal. Jesus was never reckless, but he was never hesitant. He was decisive. I mean, you you read his story and you look at the decisions that he had to make. Jesus had to make incredibly difficult decisions on a constant basis. And here we are 2,000 years later talking about him. I think he made the right calls, made the right decisions. He's not a hesitant leader. If you if you follow Jesus, he'll make the right decisions. You can trust that. Some of you have probably been underneath a uh, this is worse than a hesitant leader, an incompetent leader. Show of hands, real quick. Someone who did not know what they were doing, and yet somehow you are underneath them, right? That's fun. And this happens, this happens a lot in like family-owned operations where someone has a job because of their last name. Um, happens a lot in politics, you know, and and I don't know if any of you have ever watched the show Parks and Rec. I'm sure some of you have. Any Parks and Rec fans in the room? Like I always think of uh Paul Rudd played a character named Bobby Newport in that show, and he's just a moron. But his dad is really important, and so he's like a political leader, just for that very reason. Being underneath an incompetent leader will drive you crazy because you know that you know more than them. And and you can't say that though, right? Because you have to have respect for authority. God has actually put authority in place, and sometimes you're like, God, you make some interesting calls, but whatever. Um, but like you have to be respectful, but it's hard when you know that you know more than the guy or the lady telling you what to do. It's just you sit there and it it like it makes you it just makes you want to do bad things. You know, that's what it makes you want to do. It's hard to be under an incompetent leader, but Jesus is different. He's not incompetent, he's a genius. You can't you can't deny just how brilliant Jesus is. I mean, the things that he said are still being talked about to this day. He's affected the entire world's culture like no one else ever has. And what's interesting is that Jesus could have been that person who just showed up because he happened to have a father who was really important. No one's ever had a father more important than Jesus. And yet Jesus laid aside all the privileges that came from being the Son of God, and he worked from the ground up to earn the right to lead us. Jesus is amazing. Some of you have definitely been underneath uh an egotistical leader. This is someone who's just all they're just all about them. You know, it's all about them. They they always take the credit. You work really, really hard, and and somehow it just sort of goes to them. And and no matter what they do, they might even be really competent, really good at what they do, but it's just it's all about them. And and being underneath that kind of leader, it's actually kind of nauseating, right? When the person that's in charge of you is just so clearly filled with pride, Jesus, by all logical accounts, should be egotistical. I mean, like, come on, like if you were Jesus for a day, you'd have a swelled head. Let's be honest. Like all of us in the room, if someone said, Hey, hey, what'd you do today? Ah, I just healed a couple blind people, you know, no big deal. Wasn't really a major thing. There's this one guy, he couldn't walk, he's actually never walked his entire life, but then you know, I just kind of looked at him and he started walking, and it's kind of, you know, no big deal. You know, it's not about me, but like if you were Jesus for a day, the typical person, it would be so hard not to be not to be filled with pride. And yet Jesus is humble because he's different. He's different, he's confident, right? It's not a false humility. Sometimes people mask pride with false humility, where it's like, oh, you know, I mean, I'm just I'm just here to serve, but clearly you're here to, you know, whatever. But like, no, it wasn't a false humility. Jesus is just different, he's confident. He knows that he's the only one who can do the things that he does. But he's not egotistical because he pours all of himself out and gives all of himself to others, and egotistical people never do that. Jesus is different. I think the worst type of leader to be under, and I'm sure many of us have been under someone like this, is an abusive leader, someone who's obsessed with power, they love power, they flaunt their power, and they look for every opportunity they can to make other people feel small. How many of you have been underneath someone like that? That's rough. Some of you aren't raising your hands because you're like PTSD. You don't want to go there. No one has ever had the power that Jesus displayed in his time on this earth. And not only did he not abuse that power, he didn't even use that power for his own benefit. He used his power to bless people, to raise people up, to take people from places that were low and lift them higher. That's what he still does to this day for all of us. Jesus is different. He's just a different kind of leader. Now, I think we have to be honest as people and recognize, and I think this is especially true of Americans, it's like our whole history and culture, we don't always like being led. You know, we don't we don't like being told what to do. But man, when you find a good leader, when you find a leader who leads well, who leads strong, someone who's competent, someone who's decisive, someone who's servant-hearted, someone who has power but uses that power to lift other people up. I don't care how adverse to being led you are, if you find someone like that, let them lead you. Let them lead you because it will go well for you. Jesus is worth following. He is worth surrendering to. And he calls us, he calls us to, in a sense, tether ourselves to him, to let, to let him lead us, to let him be the one that guides us. He actually uses a very specific phrase. He says, Take my yoke upon you. Take my yoke upon you. This is Jesus saying, attach yourself to me and let me lead the way. Now, in our culture, in our time, our language, the word yoke, it's not like a very pleasant sounding word. Like if I said at the beginning of the morning, who's ready to get yoked today? I'm pretty sure none of you would have raised your hands. Like, I don't know, that doesn't sound good at all. I don't want, I don't ever want to be yoked. What does that mean, right? It's just kind of an ugly sounding word in English, but this is actually a really powerful uh it's a powerful picture. It's one we see very often in scripture, it's an agricultural term. Um, we have to remember when we read the Bible, we're reading something that's very old. I know sometimes we forget that. Sometimes people get offended because they'll read something in scripture and it just doesn't line up with the values of the day, and they're like, this is offensive. It's like, that was 3,000 years ago. You know, so just like chill a little bit, right? You read the Bible, you're reading stuff from a very long time ago, and this was an agricultural pre-mechanical society. And so if you would have been, if you've been walking around just living life, you would see animals yoked together all the time. And so this language pops up very often in scripture, and almost always it's used in a negative sense. It's it's warning us, saying, do not be yoked, do not be tied to something you shouldn't be tied to. For example, Acts chapter 15, uh, this really crazy phenomenon was happening in the church at the time where people who were not Jewish were beginning to believe in Jesus. And at first that was like, oh, we don't have a category for that. Because everyone who had started following Jesus had come from Judaism. And so now you have people who were never Jewish following Jesus, and the question was, well, do they have to be Jewish too? Do they have to become a Jewish person, convert to Judaism, then become a Christian? And, you know, if you were a man, that just meant this little thing called uh being circumcised. And uh that was, I mean, honestly, it's a big deal. Like, it's a big deal. And so they had all these conversations, they had to figure this out. In Acts chapter 15, it says the apostles and the elders met together to resolve the issue. You know, do these people coming to Jesus have to first become Jews? And at the meeting, after a long discussion, Peter stood and he addressed them as follows. He said, Brothers, you all know that God chose me from among you some time ago to preach to the Gentiles so that they could hear the good news and believe. God knows people's hearts. And he confirmed that he accepts Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he cleansed their hearts through faith. So why are you now challenging God by burdening the Gentile believers with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear? We believe that we are all saved the same way by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus. He's saying, guys, why would we, why would we take on the yoke of the law when we've been freed from it? Sometimes people will try to turn our faith in Jesus into a religion again. And by religion I mean this set of rules and regulations that feels like a burden. Jesus didn't do that. And we have to fight that. He says, don't be yoked to that. So there it's used in a negative sense. We also see it used in a negative sense in 2 Corinthians 6.14. Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? What fellowship can light have with darkness? That sounds really harsh out of context. If you read the entirety of 2 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, all those letters that Paul wrote to that church, it's not harsh at all. Paul's really saying, hey, if you're gonna tie yourself to a person, think like marriage. Or maybe you're gonna start a business with someone. That's a big decision. And you want to make sure that in doing that, by tying yourself to that person, if you have that choice, if you're in that situation right now, pray about that. Really think about that, because you know, as they go, so will you. There have been times in my life, being married to my wife, that I know that if not for her faith, if not for her prayers, I don't think I would have made it through certain seasons. And I'm I'm so blessed by that. I'm so blessed that I have a spouse who prays, who hears from the Lord, who seeks the Lord, who gives me wise advice. There have been so many mistakes that I would have made if not for my wife speaking sense into me. In fact, I always think back to when I interviewed for this job, uh, sat across the table from the couple that started our church, and we interviewed together, Megan and I. Uh, and Megan squeezed my leg like six times during the conversation, which meant shut up. Um I talk a lot. I talk way less than I used to. Um, I don't clap. That's that's a you know, thank you. I talk enough. I talk enough. I actually had someone recently that I, you know, there was a little frustration in a conversation. They're like, you talked for like 60% of this conversation. I was like, that's a big improvement. Um because like 50% would be right, and I used to be more of an 80% person. Now I'm six, so you know, um, like I just always talked a lot. And and all jokes aside, I in that conversation, I did talk too much. It's just I tend to do that. And so Megan squeezed my leg several times from the table, like, that's enough. And I stopped and I got the job, and I really I don't think without those leg squeezes I would have. I'm being honest. I would have just kept going, and they would have been like, no, like, you know, when you're when you're yoked with someone who's wise, who prays, who seeks the Lord, and you know, that's kind of a funny example, but when our son was in the NICU for two weeks, there were times where my faith faltered pretty hard, but hers didn't. But we're yoked together, we're tied together. And so as she goes, often I go. And so I'm just saying this real quick aside, those of you in the room that are making those kind of life decisions right now, be careful that you don't choose a partner based on how they make you feel. Because right now they might make you feel amazing. Trust me, if you're married long enough, they won't. Um it's gotta be more than that. It's gotta be more than that. It's gotta be something where you're like, I I I want to tie myself to them. Because as they go, I will go. And I see them going toward the Lord. Just pray about that. So usually when this word yoke shows up in scripture, it's like in the, it's like, don't, don't be yoked to that, don't get yoked to them. But Jesus uses it in the positive. He says, take my my yoke upon you. And guys, this is such a it's a beautiful picture. See, in in his culture, when you would have a young ox that wasn't strong, wasn't ready to plow a field, you would yoke that that young ox to a strong ox, and they would they would walk side by side, pulling whatever they were pulling. Pulling a plow. And that young ox would feel like they were doing it. That young ox would be like, you know, if they could talk, I don't really, you know, just picture what an ox thinks. I don't really know what they think. But that young ox would be like, man, we're doing this. And the big ox is like, I mean, we is a little bit generous of a term here. I'm doing it. But in walking side by side, that that young ox would learn how to carry the weight. And as that ox would get stronger bit by bit, it would begin to pull a little bit more and a little bit more. And eventually it would be strong enough where it wouldn't need that ox. But that was only possible because they were yoked together. And they went side by side. The strong ox didn't pull the young ox behind it, didn't drag it. Oftentimes that strong ox would have to slow down intentionally just to let the young ox keep up. But being yoked together meant that that young ox got to grow, got to strengthen. Because they were side by side with strength. Jesus says He wants He wants us to take his yoke upon us. That's what he's talking about. It's not Jesus dragging us. It's not him shoving us into some situation we're not ready for. It's not Jesus thrusting us into situations where he knows we're gonna we're gonna fail. It's Jesus walking side by side with us, always there, always available, carrying the brunt of the weight, but allowing us to also take part in the adventure. He doesn't do it for us, he does it with us. And we don't have to live for him, we get to live with him if we're yoked together with him. I actually got to have a really cool personal experience with that this week. My my middle son Judah, who just turned five, we got him a pair of roller skates a year ago. We got we got all of our older kids roller skates. And you know, he's younger, and so a year ago he wasn't he wasn't happy about roller skating. We tried in the driveway and he screamed, and then he went to the grass and he would roller skate on the grass, um, which is really no different than walking, but uh but it he felt he felt confident, right? But all of a sudden a few weeks ago, it's like something something just clicked, and he's like, I want to roller skate. And so he's been roller skating like crazy for the last few weeks. And he and I have started going on walks in our neighborhood, and he roller skates and I walk next to him. It's been really awesome because you know he's he's the middle child, he's the middle boy, and so we don't have a lot of time one-on-one, and these have become really precious moments for me. He usually just he talks the entire way, so uh he's me. Um and so a few days ago, we're we're doing our normal, our normal thing. This is something we've been developing over the last few weeks. And so I walk next to him, and he's not very steady yet. Like he stumbles a lot, and he's kind of always almost about to fall, like the entire time. He's just like, you look and you're like, you are not, this is bad. Um so I grab his hand, but he doesn't want me to grab his hand, you know, because he's at that age where he he wants to do it. And so when I grab his hand, usually he just knocks it away and he says, No, I don't need your hand. I I want to do this. A couple days ago, we were taking a walk and we went a different route than normal. And on this route, we got to a place in our neighborhood that has a pretty steep hill going down. And we got to it and we just kind of both stopped and we looked at it. And I'm like, is this a bad idea? You know, if Megan were here, what would she do? And I ignored that thought pretty fast. Uh she's not here. So it's okay. At that moment, we were unyoked. It was fine. Um but but I'm just looking down. I'm trying to figure out is this a good idea? Because it's pretty steep. And he just, it was awesome. He's just looking at it, calculating in his mind, like, wow, I'm I don't know if I'm ready for this. And he just looked up at me without saying a word and just went, he's like, hand, please. And so we're normally he's knocking my hand away, he just reaches up and I took his hand and we went down the hill, and it was amazing. It was awesome. And it was really cool. Like, I actually got to let him go pretty fast to the point where he's kind of nervous, but then I would like squeeze his hand and give it some strength to let him know, I've got you, man. You're fine, you're not gonna fall. And we had this really cool adventure together. That's what it's like to walk side by side with Jesus. At any moment in time, you can just reach up and say, hand, please. And he's gonna take your hand, and he's gonna walk with you, and he's gonna lead you. It's a beautiful thing. Like when Judah reached up his hand, I didn't say no. You said you didn't want my hand, so I'm just gonna shove you down the hill and you're gonna learn the hard way. Like, I didn't do that. I mean, there have been times where I've wanted to, but I didn't do that, you know. I just took his hand, and I and as a father who loves my son, I'm honored. I'm honored to be able to hold his hand and make sure he knows that he's safe and he knows that he's gonna be okay. God the Father, he loves you. And Jesus wants to walk by your side, and at any moment in time, he's there, he is never far away from you. You are always in his thoughts. He always desires to help you, to bless you. Now, that doesn't mean that life is not without its challenges, because sometimes in leading us, Jesus knows we need to go down the hills. We need those experiences sometimes. Sometimes we need to stumble a little bit just so that we realize that we can get back up. But that's what it's like to be yoked to Jesus, to be led by Jesus. I think the words of David in Psalm 23 paint this picture so beautifully. And you know, David lived before Jesus, but Jesus shows up and he uses a lot of this language when he teaches. He uses a lot of shepherd language, he calls himself the good shepherd. And it harkens back to scriptures like this. David wrote, The Lord is my shepherd. I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green meadows, he leads me beside peaceful streams, he renews my strength, he guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name. Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you're close beside me. Now, pay attention that it just said he leads me along right paths. Sometimes the right path takes you through a dark valley. Sometimes we like to think that, man, if I'm making the right decisions, if I'm going the right direction, if I make the right choices, I'll never have a valley, I'll never have to go through a troubling time. That's not how it works. It says he leads me along the right paths. And then when I walk through the dark valleys, some verses say, some translations rather say the valley of the shadow of death. Sometimes the right path includes dark valleys. But you don't have to be afraid. Why? Because he's right beside you. He's right beside you. He says that his rod and his staff protect us and comfort us. You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. That was something they would do for kings at that time. My cup overflows with blessings. Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life. And I will live in the house of the Lord forever. It's one of these scriptures that it's kind of like Matthew 11, 28, that we started with. You read it and you're like, Yes, I want that. Worship team, you guys can make your way out. We uh we have to be people who are who are able to be led well. Especially if we desire to be people who want to lead anyone anywhere in life. And one of my greatest privileges is not only been being able to be led by great people, but I've also been able to have some pretty amazing people under the leadership that I've had, whatever leadership God has given me. And uh, you know, one of those people is is Matt who leads our worship team. Um that's Matt right there. Matt loves attention, he enjoys it, right? No. It's such a it's such a god thing that Matt's a worship leader because in his normal personality, like a spotlight is the last thing Matt would ever want. Um, but I remember a few years ago when when Matt was new in his leadership role, leading our worship team. And uh I didn't I should have asked your permission to share this story. Is it okay? What are you gonna say? Like, how are you supposed to say? Like, he's no, okay. Well, never mind, you'll never know. Um, but you know, Matt Matt came to me and he was like, Man, I just I don't know, I don't know how to lead. You know, I just can you help me out? And he was just he was being really honest and vulnerable, expressing just a little bit of uh of uncertainty in how to lead. And I looked at him, I said, Man, you know exactly how to lead because you are you've been so easy to lead. Like, you know how to be a good leader because you've been an amazing follower. So just lead the way you've been led and trust people to follow you the same way that you followed. You know, what makes us great leaders is by first being great followers. And if you ever want to get to a place in life where you can say, I'm a person who has rest for my soul, my life is in a really good place. I have a calm and a faith that's strong. I have I have real wisdom to tackle whatever life throws my way. If you want to get to that place in life, you've got to be led there. You're not gonna find it yourself, you're not gonna stumble into that. You've got to be led there. And there's no one who can lead you like Jesus. Because there is no leader like him. Without realizing it or not, we're all really good at taking other people's yokes upon us. We allow ourselves to be tethered to other people all the time, and very often to leaders that are far, far less than Jesus. And then sometimes, even as longtime Jesus followers, we can be, we can be kind of like my son Judah, who when the father reaches his hand down, we say, No, I want to do it myself. No, no, no. Let Jesus lead you because he will lead you well. You know, when it comes to leadership, there's really two motions when you're underneath a leader, there's really two things that are important. The manner in which they lead and the place they lead you to. You can have a leader that takes you to great places, but the journey is terrible. And you might get to a great place, you might get to some success, but you'll look back at the years that it took to get there with bitterness and resent because of the manner in which they led you. Jesus will lead you well. He's gentle, he's humble, he's patient, he's kind, he's forgiving, more so than you could possibly imagine. Sometimes we beat ourselves up because we feel like we've failed God. And we never need to do that. I'll never forget what Madison said about a couple months ago. He said, Don't beat yourself up. Jesus was beat up for you. He took that for us. He leads us well. The manner in which he leads you is one you will enjoy if you let him lead you. But he's not gonna force you to follow him. He's never gonna grab your hand and pull you down the road. Like if you saw me doing that with my son, if you pulled into my neighborhood and and I'm just dragging this five-year-old on roller skates crying, and you're like, what are you doing? I'm just leading him, you know? I don't think you are. Like, what's going on? No, he's not gonna do that. But he will lead you well, so trust him. Day by day. I'm saying, day by day, maybe right now is the first time you've ever done it. It's a good day to do it, a good moment to do it. Say, Lord, I'm gonna let you lead me. I'm gonna put my trust in you, I'm gonna put my faith in you, I'm gonna take your yoke upon me. I'm gonna reach up and say, hand please, and I'm gonna let you take me where you want me to go, trusting you that you've got me. And even when I go through a dark valley, I'm gonna have the faith that says, maybe this is because I'm on the right path. And you're right beside me. The manner in which he leads is is good. So let him lead you. Don't do it on your own. But number two, you gotta you gotta have someone that leads you to a good place. I mean, it's no good to have a leader who's really kind and nice and gentle and humble, they just don't take you anywhere, right? That's not leadership. Jesus is gonna lead you to places in your life that you can't even imagine. He's gonna lead you to rest for your soul. Psalm 23, it says, He leads us beside still waters. He leads you to a place of peace. You know, I've had the chance to see that in really unique ways in the role that I play. When I became a youth pastor years ago, um, in part it was because I just didn't want to grow up, I think. Um, you know, let's hang hang out with young people, have a good time, and we did, and it was great. And then bit by bit, you know, God just kept kind of leading me, and and the people who were over me led me, and I found myself in this role. And I never thought about things like doing funerals. You know, I've done about 75 funerals, and I never once, when I went into ministry, thought about that, you know. And I'm just being really honest, like I've I've been in some really, really hard funerals. Where as I walked through those families in that process, there was no peace. And even as those people were nearing death, you you could tell there was no peace. But I've also, again, sounds like a strange thing to say, been to some really good funerals. I've been able to see firsthand what it's like to have rest for your soul such that you do not even fear death, such that you don't even fear the unknown. I've been with some people at the end of their life that were less panicked about death than I was about some little tiny detail in my week. And it's humbling when you're in those situations and you realize, oh, this is what happens when you let Jesus lead you for the long haul. He will give you peace, he will give you rest, he will lead you in a manner that you will enjoy, and he will lead you to a place that you could never be otherwise. And what I'm trying to say is, Jesus is different. Let him lead you. It's an act of daily surrender. It's not striving, it's not you trying to do it for him, it's just you reaching up and saying, hand please. And I know this is kind of cheesy, and I don't usually do this stuff, so if you're someone who gets really annoyed by cheesy things, just don't participate. Um but but I think it would be really powerful for us right now in this moment, do this genuinely. Just reach up your hand and just say in your heart, hand please. I can tell you, as a dad, just a few weeks ago, a few days ago rather, when my son reached his hand up to me, and I got to take it and squeeze it, and it's so small, you know, his hand's so small in my hand. The second that I squeezed his hand, it's like I could feel this surge of of bravery. And he kind of got he kind of like got ready. Like we're about to go. And you know what, guys, we're gonna leave this room in a little bit, and there's food trucks on the other side of it, so that's a huge thing. Um, yeah. Food trucks always take a long time. You know that, right? I just want to make sure understandings. They make it to order, so okay. All right, don't have like a McDonald's drive-thru mentality in a food truck line, it'll be a bad day. Um, some things are worth waiting for. You know, you're about to leave this place, and once you get past the food trucks, um, you're gonna go out and live your life. And there's challenges ahead. Some of you right now might be on the right path in the moment where you're facing a dark valley, but you're with Jesus. And so every time this week, every single time that you feel scared, that you feel worried, that you feel uncertain, every time you face criticism, every time someone reminds you that you're not adequate, that you're not enough, that you've got these things to work on, that you're not performing in the way you should perform, every single time you're faced with anything like that, you can do it physically if you want, or just in your heart, but just go. Hand, please. And he will never swat your hand away, he will never look at you and say, No, you do it yourself. He will take you by the hand and you will feel a surge of bravery and courage swell up inside of you because you are in the Father's hand. And Jesus actually says that we're in his hand and that he's in the father's hand, so it's just like a complicated thing, but it just means you're good. He's got you. So let him lead you. Let's pray. Father God, I want to thank you so much for this morning. I want to thank you for this amazing group of people. I want to thank you for everyone that's watching online right now. We need to be led by you, Jesus. And Lord, I know right now in this room there's a lot of people who are in leadership here. There's a lot of people who are the ones at their businesses or in their homes that are making the tough decisions. I know there's a lot of people in this room right now, a lot of people watching online or even listening to this later, Lord, that are in the midst of a very challenging decision. And their desire is to make the right decision, Lord, because of the people that they lead. They want to make the right decision for their family, for their for their employees, for their teams, for their students. And I pray right now that you remind all of those people who are in positions of leadership that what they really need is to reach up their hand and let you guide them. Because you will guide us well, you will take us along the right paths, and when we get to a valley, you'll walk us through it because that's what you do. And Lord, I pray for anyone in this room that has never given their life to you, that's never had that first moment where they've said, I surrender to you. I'm gonna take that yoke of your leadership upon me. I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you be the one that guides my life. I pray right now in their heart that that happens, that right now in this moment, they surrender their lives to you. They go all in with you, that they get they get baptized, they go the full measure. Because Jesus, at the end of the day, you're the only one worth surrendering to. So help us. Help us be leadable. Give us the strength to do that this morning, Lord. We pray all this in your name. Amen.