The message this morning is for anyone who wants to see something happen in your life. This is for anyone who wants to see something change. Maybe there's one part of your life, one area of your life where you'd be willing to say, I would like to see this get 100% better. I would like to see like 100% improvement in this one area. Today's message is for you. Before we jump into the teaching, specifically, though, I want to show you a picture and ask if you know what this is, because this is a very specific picture of a very specific thing. And I want to know if anyone recognizes this. So go ahead and put that up there. What is this? Anyone? An El Camino. I heard it. This is not a car. It is also not a truck. It's a weird Frankenstein hybrid car truck from the 1960s and 70s called an El Camino. You ever experienced someone who invents a problem and solves it, but it never needed to be solved? You know, that's like what our government does, right? Like instead of solving actual problems, we'll just invent problems and solve those. And like no one asked for that. No one asked for that. No one cares. That's what the El Camino is. It's a problem that didn't need to be solved. People who wanted cars had cars. People who wanted trucks had trucks. No one wanted a weird giant car truck boat slash. It's weird. It's a weird thing. If you can't tell, not a big fan of El Caminos. All right? Some of you, if you have them, great, awesome. More power to you. The reason though, you'll understand this, the reason I am not a fan of El Caminos is because I first got introduced to this vehicle in 1999 when I pulled out in front of one. And interesting lesson in physics. The average car weighs about 3,000 pounds. El Caminos, between 4,500 and 4,900 pounds. Turns out, if you are in a car that is not moving and it weighs 3,000 pounds, and a 4,900-pound monstrosity comes at you 50 miles an hour and hits you, that car wins. That's the car that wins that battle. That's what happened to me. I was 16 years old and uh was not a good driver because there's no such thing as a good driver who is also 16 years old. I know some of us in the room are 16, you're you're protesting, you're like, no, I'm a good driver. You're not. You're just not. Just own it. There's no way you could be. You haven't been in enough situations to be a good driver yet. You're just not. And I and I wasn't, and I I had one of those moments where I just miss, I misgauged a situation. I looked, I thought I had enough time to pull out into this road and make my turn. And then I hesitated, I got out, was like, ooh, maybe I don't have as much time. That thing, it's coming at me. It looked further away. What do I do? And I chose to just sit there and uh see what happened, you know? Like, I'll just hang here. Maybe the guy will stop. And no, he did not. So what happened was he hit me. Thankfully, no one else was in the car. It hit the passenger side, not the driver's side. My car looked like a crumpled up piece of paper, and his car looked like that. It looked the exact same. It had no visible damage whatsoever. Um, because it's an El Camino made of solid steel. All right, take that down before it causes further trauma. Um I learned a valuable lesson that day that sometimes the worst thing you can do is nothing. In hindsight, I was so frustrated because if I would have just hit the gas, I think I could have made it. If I would have just gassed it, I it would have been a scary close call, but I think I could have made it. Or if I would have just shifted into reverse and gone a few feet backwards, I'd have been fine. But in the moment, in the confusion, because of my lack of experience, I just I just did nothing. And sometimes the worst thing you can do in a situation is nothing. Jesus actually talks about this exact same dynamic in the lesson that we're going to look into today. If you're just joining us, we're in a series called A King in His Kingdom. We are studying the teachings of Jesus, which is a good thing to do if you're a Jesus follower. One of the kind of tragic realities of the American church is that we we tend to find as Jesus followers, we are far more familiar with what Jesus did than with what he said. We're far more familiar with what Jesus did than with what he said. And so we know about the miracles, we we know the stories of Jesus, and he healed these people, he walked on water, he died on the cross, and he rose again. But if we're not familiar with what Jesus said, we're not gonna be able to actually live out the life that He has He's won for us. So we've got to know what our what our leader actually said. We're studying His teachings. And if you study His teachings for long, you recognize that there's a theme that runs through them. And it's this idea of kingdom. He's always talking about the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is like this, the kingdom of God is like this. It's a thread that runs throughout the teachings of Jesus. And when he talks about the kingdom, he's talking about God's way of life. He's announcing himself as a king, and he's saying that life in his kingdom, in other words, life under his authority, under his reign, it looks like this. And he's teaching us time and time again about the culture of the kingdom of God. What does God value? What does God prioritize? What does God really care about? When we sit at the feet of Jesus and we learn from his teachings, we learn how to live as part of his kingdom. What we find is that his way of life is beautiful, it is powerful, but it is very different. It is extremely counter-cultural, and it takes us some time to acclimate. And that's what we're here to do. And so the teaching we're looking at today is Matthew chapter 25, verses 14 through 30. I'm gonna read right from our mobile app, it'll be on the screens. And if you have this book with pages called a Bible, you can use those as well. Those are awesome. Here we go. Again, it will be like a man going on a journey. When he says it in this translation, some of your translations might say the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. He's talking about the kingdom. He's been teaching about this. He's using a variety of stories and parables to illustrate the kingdom, so that it is the kingdom. It will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. And then he went on his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more, so also the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But when the man who had received one bag went off, he dug he went off, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master's money. After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. Master, he said, You entrusted me with five bags of gold, see? I've gained five more. His master replied, Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness. The man with two bags of gold also came. Master, he said, You entrusted me with two bags of gold, see, I have gained two more. His master replied, Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things, I'll put you in charge of many things, come and share your master's happiness. And then the man who received one bag of gold came. Master, he said, I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. Uh, quick aside, those of you who maybe feel like you're being called into a meeting with your boss one day and you have not performed, insulting your boss's character or making accusations about your boss, probably not the best way to butter him up. So here's the response, right? So I was afraid. I went out and I hid your gold in the ground. See, here's what belongs to you. His master replied, You wicked, lazy servant. So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed. Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags, for whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have, will be taken from them, and throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. So it ends on a real high note. Um a lot of Jesus' parables end just like this. They really, really do. A lot of Jesus' parables are warnings, they are they are tales of caution. And if you were here last week, we looked at a story called the parable of the unforgiving servant. It ends the exact same way. There's a servant, he's been forgiven billions of dollars of debt by the king, and then he goes out and tries to have someone thrown in prison because this person owes him a few thousand dollars. And when the king finds out, he throws him out, utter darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is this is like eternal judgment language in scripture. It's really intense. So clearly, Jesus is trying to get our attention. Anytime Jesus ends a parable with, and the person was thrown out where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth, that's when you go back a few sentences and reread whatever it's said. Because that's important. This parable is extremely rich. It's actually incredibly practical. Like I said, this is for those of us who want to see something happen. We want to see something change, we want to see something get done. But before we jump into the takeaways, I want to make sure that we we really get some of the nuance here. That we we relate to this the way Jesus intends us to. Number one, don't feel bad for the third servant. Don't feel bad. Jesus does not tell this story in a way that's designed to have us sympathize with this third servant. It's like last week when we did the unforgiving, you know, unforgiving servant, you didn't feel bad for that guy. When he gets cast out, when he gets what he deserves, you're like, serves him right. You know, what a jerk. He got forgiven billions, and this other guy only owed him a few thousand. He was gonna have him thrown in prison. Like, come on. Jesus didn't set him up as a sympathetic character. The same is true here, but but we might not see that because we can easily miss just how much of an opportunity this man had. This man has an incredible opportunity, but the language is a little vague to us, and so in the translation I read, it said it said bags of gold. Some of your translations may actually have the actual Greek word, which is talent. This is often called the parable of the talents. The word talent to us means ability. It means like a skill that you have, but that's actually a fairly new meaning for the word. It's a meaning that has actually become popular in large part because of the story and its impact on history. But in Jesus' time, a talent was a weight. It was a weight. It's a way that they would use to measure money. The question is, how much is a talent? How big are these bags of gold? When you read this, that one servant got five talents or five bags of gold, the other servant got two, the the other the third servant got one. How many of you pictured like a small bag, like a pouch, you know, like a lunch bag or something, like here's your bag of gold? Anyone picture something about that size? Okay, that's pretty. Anyone picture like a Santa Claus sized sack? Someone like, here's your bag of gold, and here's another one. Anyone picture something that big? Anybody? Like, no one. No one naturally pictured a large bag of gold. But here's the truth a talent weighed 80 pounds. Roughly 80 pounds. And so, this guy who got five bags of gold, the word bag is a very, very like ambiguous word. I mean, there's a lot of different bags. You know what I mean? And so it's not, we're not talking like a lunch bag here. We're talking about a giant stuffed duffel bag filled with gold. And when you want to talk about monetary value, okay, one 80-pound bag of gold is gonna get you about $1.7 million. Right? So don't feel bad for the third servant. That's my point. Don't think, oh, the guy only got one little bag of gold. What's he supposed to do with that? You know? The other guy got five, and the other guy got two. This guy gets one bag of gold, cut him some slack. This man was given $1.7 million at least, and he buried it in the ground and he left it there for years. For years. Now, we don't see that because you know, we're we're disconnected from this culture, but everyone that Jesus was originally speaking to would have been like, what? Like, if someone gives you that level of an investment, there's things you could do. There's things that you could do that you've never even dreamed of doing because it doesn't seem like you should dream about it. It's too impossible. And he had that and he did nothing for years. So, so don't feel bad for the third servant. He's not painted in a way that's supposed to make us feel sympathy. He's he's painted in a way that's supposed to warn us. Now, the second thing is these other two servants they get to hear something from the master. And I don't I don't know about you, I know, I know not all of us in the room are Jesus followers. Some of us are figuring that out. If that's you, we're so glad you're here. This is for you. But those of us who have crossed that line in our hearts where we've said, I follow Jesus, I remember reading this story when I was a kid. And ever since then, I have this incredible desire to see God face to face one day and hear him say, Well done, my good and faithful servant. Anyone else have that desire? Like, you just imagine can you imagine what it would be like to be praised by God? Like, we praise him because he deserves it. But you you look at you look at this this story and these servants who hear their master say, Well done, my good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with with what I gave you, so I'm gonna give you more. Now come and share in my happiness. Scripture teaches us that we actually share in the glory of God. That God loves us so much that we become co-heirs, Scripture says, with Jesus. I want to experience what it's like to be praised and promoted in God's kingdom. We spend a lot of time trying to get praised and promoted in this life on earth, right? We want to hear people above us say, well done. We want to be given a raise, given a promotion. Well, if you desire to be praised and promoted in the kingdom of God, this story tells you how to do it. So let's break this down. Let's talk about what this story teaches us, because there's so much here. The teachings of Jesus are so rich. There's always a main point, but then there's always so much more, and we can just we can just eat it up. Again, this is for those of us who want to see something happen. You want to see something get done. Does anyone just want to see something get done in your life? Raise your hand. Just everyone raise your hand. Because clearly, some of you are like, nah, nothing. I'm good, nothing. Everything's great. Cool. If you want to see something get done, here's where we start. Number one, do something. If you want to see something get done, do something. See, so so often, even as people of God, we we are waiting for God to do something, and God might look at us and say, do something. You know what God's favorite vehicle is? It is not an El Camino, by the way. I know that. It's people. It's people. There are times in Scripture where God just bypasses people and does something crazy, does something completely independent of us and makes his will happen on this earth with no partnership with people whatsoever. But those are actually very few and far between. The vast majority of the work that God does on this earth is when he partners with us. It's when he uses us. His favorite vehicle is us. He does his best work through us. And so there's times where we're we're waiting for God to do something, and God's like, well, do it. You do it. I experience that as a pastor sometimes. People will come to us and sometimes say, you know what the church ought to do? And they're talking about us. Like, you know what the church should be doing. And I love it, I love it. By the way, if you ever come to me with that, I'm gonna tell you how I'll respond. I'll just give it to you. I I'm like, yes, here we go. The church ought to be doing this. And I go, great news, you're the church. So, why don't you do that? And then the church is doing it. Problem solved. And that's that's half sarcastic because we do love, we love to partner with people who do things. We do that all the time. But the point is, so often we're we're like, something needs done, I need to see something happen, this needs to change, and somebody ought to do this, either God or somebody else, and God might look at us and go, you know, the fact that you have that burning passion and that desire, the fact that you've identified the problem, maybe that means you're supposed to be part of the solution. Do something. Do something. God loves work, He really does. We see the very first story of people in Genesis chapter 2, and one of the things it says in verse 15 is that the Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. This is before sin entered the world. This is before we messed anything up and we were given a job. We were given work to do. And what we have to all realize, every one of us, is that each of us has something to tend to. Every one of us has been given something to tend to. And honestly, like what we have to tend to is usually pretty obvious. If you have kids, there you go. Do something in their life. Do something to invest into them. If you're married, there that's something to tend to. You don't have to look far. Do something. Do something that would that would bless your marriage. Do something that would make your marriage better. If you're a student, you're in school, there you go. Do something. Do whatever is is has been given to you to do. If you have a job, just there it is. Do it. Do do something. Notice that in this story, the the servant, the third servant who's who's punished at the end, he's not punished for doing the wrong thing, he's punished for doing nothing. He didn't lose the money. He just did nothing with it. And you almost get the sense in the story that if he had come back and said, Hey, I'm so sorry, I thought I had an incredible investment. I did all the research, I did my best, I invested, it just fell apart, it fell through, I lost all that you gave me. You almost get the impression that the master would have would have been happier with that than the fact that he just didn't do anything. It ends with Jesus saying, Those who have will be given more, and those who who don't have, even that will be taken from them. That's a weird kind of concept for us, but but the idea there is you gotta use it or lose it. And that's how life works sometimes. Like you have skills and abilities that if you don't use, they'll go away. Right? When I was in college, I took Latin for three semesters for a really stupid reason. I was getting married, not that I needed Latin to get married, that'd be weird. Um I was getting married, so I needed money. And uh and I found out that the book for Latin cost $17 and you used it for all three semesters. And all the other books cost like $100, and you had to buy a new book every semester. I was like, you're telling me for $17 I can I can have three semesters worth of classes? I'm sold on Latin. You know, Latin, if you don't know, is a dead language. What I found out is that it died for a reason. Um it is incredibly complex and hard. And what's funny is that by the end of the third semester, I was like translating things in Latin. We were translating Latin writings, and it was like it was hard. I wasn't like great at it, but I could sit down and like actually, like, oh, this is what it says. And then a year and a half later, I graduated college and got my degree, and they printed our degrees out in Latin. And I could not read a word like at all. I remember Megan was like, ooh, you know Latin, what does it say? And I was like, ah, I have no idea. She's like, how you took three semesters. I was like, yeah, but the second that third semester was done, I turned the Latin part of my brain off, and I haven't turned that back on since, and it just isn't, I don't know where that is. That information is lost. That's how life works sometimes. If you don't use something that you have, you end up losing it. So do something. You want to see something get done, do something. Number two, do something now. Do something today. Look at how the story starts in verse 16, whenever the master leaves. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work, gained five bags more. So also the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master's money. I get the impression that this man thinks that he's gonna come back to it later. You know, I'm gonna I don't know what to do now. I'll put it in the ground today. Later, I'll I'll figure out what I'm gonna do with it. And then maybe time just got away from him. I don't know. But the other two, they go to work right away. They go to work right away. We we have this tendency as people to make commitments to do things later. We are so good at that. We are really good at saying we're gonna do something tomorrow, are we not? Scientifically, this is interesting. We are less likely to do something if we tell someone we're going to do it. Isn't that weird? You would think it's the opposite. Well, I told a bunch of people I was gonna do it, so now I have to do it. Nope. Scientifically speaking, if you say to someone, you know, tomorrow I'm gonna start working out, I'm really gonna start dieting tomorrow, tomorrow's the day, your brain actually releases a chemical that makes you think you've accomplished something. You're like, I am, you know what? Like, I could tell a friend of mine, I'm gonna do this, and I'm thinking to myself, like, I am gonna do this. That's right. I I kind of already started if you want to look at it a certain way. We don't think about this consciously, but that's actually what happens. And scientifically speaking, you are less likely to do that thing if you go tell a bunch of people that you're gonna do it. But we are really good at saying, I'm gonna do something tomorrow. What can you do now? What can you do today? When I started working here, um, and Doug, I'm just gonna have to say thank you because uh Doug Bennell was one, he's my boss back in the day. Now I'm your pastor. How's that working out? That's funny, isn't it? Huh? Huh? Never saw that? I'm teasing you. Um, Doug is one of the best bosses I ever had. And uh, and Doug used to use this quote all the time. It's George Patton, one of the greatest military leaders in our nation's history, the world's history. A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. It's a great quote. One of the things I love about good quotes is that if they hit you and you're like, yeah, that's true, they probably line up really well with Scripture. Because Scripture's true. And this is this is something that fits that bill. Ecclesiastes 11 4 says, Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant. If they wait, we Watch every cloud, they never harvest. We are we are so consumed sometimes with waiting for the perfect moment, the exact right moment that we just we miss today. And today's all we're guaranteed. So if you want to see something happen, you gotta do something, and you gotta do something now. What can you do today? Whatever area of life you want to see the most change in, just seriously, what can you do when you leave here? Now, second service people, had you come at the first service, you would have more time today. But you made your bed, you have to lie in it, all right? Half the day's over, so you gotta get at it. You gotta come at it more aggressively when you leave here. Actually, don't come to the first service. There's way, there's a lot of kids at the first service. You need you guys to stay in. Sleep in. All right. Number three, do something small. Do something small. Look at verse 21. His master replied, Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness. This is a principle Jesus actually communicates elsewhere. Luke 16, 10 through 12, if you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you're dishonest in little things, you won't be honest with greater responsibilities. And if you're untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? And if you're not faithful with other people's things, why should you be trusted with things of your own? Those who are faithful with a little, more will be given. Do something small. Another boss that I had used to say, if you want to see your area of responsibility be a hundred percent better, start by making it ten percent better. And that was a really freeing thing to hear. Because so often we look at problems, we look at scenarios, and we we don't know how to make it 100% better. There's times where I look at a problem, I'm like, I don't, I don't know how to solve this completely, but you probably know how to make it 10% better. You can probably think through some things that would that would make it a little bit better right away. And what you find is that is that people who experience real success, whether that's in their marriage, their careers, their finances, their physical health, whatever it is, it's almost always because they do little things over and over and over again. Dave Ramsey is one of the foremost experts in our nation on getting out of debt. Many of you are probably familiar with Ramsey, and one of the big things that he pushes is that if you want to pay your debt off fast, you you pay off the smallest debt first. You're really you make the minimum payments on the others, but you are aggressive with that smallest debt you have. And once you pay that off, you roll that into the minimum payment of the next smallest debt, then the next one, the next one. And statistically, people who do it that way, they get out of debt much faster than those who just try to kind of cover all of it at once. Be faithful with the little things, and you'll be given more. You don't have to think of some epic thing. Some huge thing. And it and specifically in your relationship with God. If you have a desire to please him and a desire to do things that get his attention, so often we think, well, we gotta do something epic. We gotta quit our jobs and and go start some huge thing. And he might call you to do that. But but no, it's it's it's so often the little things that get his attention. Look at something like 1 Timothy, chapter 6, verses 17 and 18. Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud of and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others. Now, that phrase good works, we we read that and we think, oh, okay, feed the homeless, um, do some big high-impact outreach project. We do a lot of the stuff like that as a church. We're passionate about that. But but that translation is a little misleading for us. Because the actual Greek word that gets translated works is this word ergon, and it means your job, it means occupation. And so the way we talk today, it might be better if it said good work. Do good work. And so, if you want to know how to how to please the Lord, if you want to know what His His will for you is, it's like do a good job at whatever whatever you have in front of you. Do the little things. Don't get so preoccupied with some epic thing that you want to do that you miss out on the little things right in front of you. If you're married, be a really good spouse today. If you're the CEO of your company, then treat your employees really well. Be an example to them of what God is like. And if you're if you're on the lower tier of your company, then just work really hard. Do your job really well and trust trust the Lord in that. If you're a parent, parent your children with love and compassion and also discipline. And do those little things, do them over and over and over again, and you will watch things grow. God is faithful. He sees that, he will give you more. That's a promise that he makes. Let's keep going. Next thing. This seems obvious, but but sometimes it's it's not as obvious as you might think is do something good. Do something good. There's never a good reason to do the wrong thing. And sometimes when we have big goals and we're going for it in life, our character has a tendency to like drop just a tad. That's just human nature. My son had a friend over last night, and they're they're kind of like best friends slash rivals, and so they they compete. That's all they do. In fact, at about nine o'clock last night, I'm like, how about we don't do something where it's you versus you? And I'm watching them play basketball in the driveway, and it's intense. And I notice that the closer the game gets to the final score, the more they lie. Like they're starting to call fouls that aren't fouls, and they're starting to say, Oh, you traveled, and it's just like they want to win so bad that they're willing to, you know, be a little loose with the rules if that's what it takes. And as people, sometimes we want something really badly, we stop and we forget about the fact that however we do it, we have to do it in a way that brings honor to God. Like that's the most important thing. The most important thing that you will ever do in your life is bring glory to God. Because all the glory, it all belongs to him. And it's this interesting cycle. Like we do things, we bring glory to God, we give him all the glory, he receives all the glory because it belongs to him, then he gives us some of that glory. It's it's crazy. But everything we do, we're supposed to do it for God's glory. 1 Corinthians 10 31 says, Whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. All of it. I love that. Go out and have lunch for the glory of God today. That's what it says. You know, when you I love it, starts with eat or drink or whatever. Enjoy it. But but give praise to God for it. Do something good. Matthew chapter 5, verse 14 through 16. You are the light of the world. This is Jesus talking. Like a sitting on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly father. Not so that everyone will praise you, so that everyone will praise your heavenly father. The biggest thing you can do in life, the most important thing, is to bring glory to God. And the funny thing is, is if you do things small and you're faithful, if you do the little things that are in front of you, that's what's gonna happen. That's what's gonna happen. You're gonna bring glory to God in what you do because people are gonna notice that there's something different about the way you do things. There's just something different about it. You serve people in a way that's not normal. You have joy that you should not have. Maybe you work with people and they're like, why are you happy? We we have the same job, right? We work at the same place. Why are you smiling? It's because, oh, you think you work for that person or this company. I work for the Lord. And I know he's pleased with me. Whatever you do, you do it for the glory of God. So do something good. Do something that would bring God glory. Just ask that question. Hey, God, what would bring you glory today? What would make you smile? What would make you happy in this place that I'm in right now, where I'm at right now, what would bring you glory? And then do that. One final thing, and we'll wrap up. We've said do something, we've said do something, do something now, do something small, do something good. This last one might be my favorite. Do anything. Just whatever. I do anything so long as it's good. There's tremendous freedom when you're living in the will of God. And there's tremendous freedom to do pretty much whatever you want. Notice in this story, by the way, that the master gives the servants freedom. He doesn't tell them what to do. It's funny that the third servant complains about this guy, which is clearly a lie. Like when he says that you're you're a hard man and you're dishonest. Clearly not. Everything we've seen of the master up to this point is he's he's like the best boss you could ever have. He's a boss who gives you millions of dollars and then leaves you alone for multiple years to do whatever you want with it. Like, if you hate being micromanaged, that's the exact opposite of that. You know? Here's enough money to you know live on and work on for years, and I'll be back, I don't know, five, six years from now, have fun. Like, that's a great boss. And then when his when his servants do well, he praises them and he promotes them. He's a good guy, but he gives them tremendous freedom. He doesn't micromanage, he doesn't tell them everything to do. Sometimes we have these ideas of God's will or the Holy Spirit that are the opposite of that. Like with the Holy Spirit, sometimes we think that God's will is that everything we do, like every little decision, that we have to hear the Holy Spirit on it. And I'm not saying that the Holy Spirit doesn't guide us, that's a promise that he makes. But the Holy Spirit is a unique thing. The Holy Spirit is not this entity that is outside of us that's like over our shoulder, constantly whispering, go left, go right, go left, go right. Like if you were typing something on a computer and someone was over your shoulder being like, A, B, L, period. Like, that's not even a word. I don't know why I said um like I was just trying to think. Like that, that how frustrating would that be? How many minutes could you stand it before you were like, you have to stop. You have to stop. But then sometimes we want the Holy Spirit to do that, and that would be the most frustrating thing in the world. No, scripture says that when we give our lives to Jesus, the Holy Spirit joins with our spirit, and we actually become part of God in that sense. Like he's enmeshed with us. His spirit, our spirit, they're they're joined together. And so it's a very unique partnership. And there are times when the Holy Spirit speaks to us in a way that makes it really clear. But what the Holy Spirit actually does is redeems our flesh, our judgment, our thinking, as we surrender to God, as we mature, to the point where the thing that we would do is what God would have us do. And we still seek direction and we pray, but but the Holy Spirit wants to grow us into people that don't have to stop and ask like 50 questions every time we have a decision to make. That's that's not that's that's not the will for you as parents with your kids, is it? You know? I got four kids. I get asked a lot of questions. And there comes a certain point where I just don't care anymore. It's gonna happen at six o'clock tonight. I don't care. I don't care. Eat whatever you want, watch whatever you want. Stop asking me questions. And that's a little bit of exaggeration. But I'm tempted sometimes. Obviously, God cares about us. My point is that He wants to mature you and grow you into a person that has good judgment, good discernment. And you have the freedom to do what you think is best. And you can do that with confidence. The will of God, that's an idea that we tend to see very limited. We we think the will of God is like a tightrope. Anyone willing to say right now, you've had a season where you're searching for God's will for your life? You've used that phrase or that thought. I've just I'm searching for God's will. We tend to see God's will like a tightrope. That there's there's one good decision to make and all the rest are disaster. But that's not that's not how it works. God's will is all about freedom. We actually see this in the story of the garden. It's the clearest picture we have, other than the person of Jesus, of God's will on this earth, is the Garden of Eden. It's before there's sin, we have a great relationship with God, everything's good. We read Genesis 2.15 earlier. Let's go back to that and continue on a little bit. The Lord God placed the man in the garden of Eden to tend and watch over it, but the Lord God warned him, you may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you're sure to die. Now notice that in God's perfect garden, there is one tree they're not supposed to eat from. And who knows how many they're allowed to eat from? There's tremendous freedom. We tend to think about God's will like it's the exact opposite of that. Like God made the garden, and He's like, this is the one tree you're allowed to eat from. You get one tree. Every other tree, bad. One tree good. That's how we tend to view God's will. One good thing, thousands upon thousands of bad things, and that makes us paralyzed with fear. Because what if we miss it? What if we miss it? Now, now let me, this is nuanced. Jesus is the narrow path. He says that narrow is the gate. He's the gate. He is the one, the one person who gives us access to the Father. But if you think about the phrase a straight and narrow, you've probably heard about that, the straight and narrow. That's actually a nautical phrase. It's like the Strait of Gibraltar is a very thin body of water that leads into a wide open sea, the Mediterranean Sea. God's will, there's freedom. Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? There's a pastor that I absolutely love, and I've listened to him since I was in college, almost every single week. And I heard him tell the story of how he came to his church. His church is about 17,000 people. And when he came there, there were like 50. And I listened to him tell his story, it was the most amazing thing. He said, a person came up to him and said, years later, once this thing was a huge success and it's still doing amazing things for God's kingdom. Like, how did God tell you that this was it clearly? And he's a spirit-led person. He talks in those terms. Like, what did God do? How did God let you know that this was the right place? He said, Oh, I wanted it. Yeah, I came here and I interviewed, and I was like, I really want to work there. And it was a very underwhelming answer, right? Like, wait, you didn't see like some sign from God? There wasn't some, you didn't have a dream that night? Like, you just you're saying that you chose this because you just wanted to? He's like, Yeah, I was living in the will of God and I wanted it, and I said, God, I'd really like this. This would be great. Can I have this? Can I can I work here? And they offered me the job and I did it. Sometimes it's that easy. Like, so long as your desires are are filtered through what is right and what is true and what is pure, what is good, knowing scripture really helps with that. What do you want to do? Do it. Do it and watch God bless it. Don't be paralyzed with fear that there's this one choice and it's the right choice. If you're a student, I want you to hear this. There is not one college. And if you don't attend that college, your your future is over because you missed it. You missed God's will for your life. That's not how it works. There's not there's not one. If if you're in a job, you're searching for some career goal, there's not one career. One career that you're you're meant for. And if you don't end up doing that one thing, then you just you missed it. That's not true. People in the Bible change their careers all the time. All the time. There's a lot of shepherds who end up leading nations. It's a weird job path. You know, I started watching sheep, then I got people, but people sometimes act a lot like sheep. So maybe it's the perfect path. I don't know. Um but like there's freedom if you're if you're single. There's not one person, there is not one magical unicorn of a person who is gonna like come alongside you and perfectly fit you and make your life what it's meant to be. That's not that's not true. Don't you listen to Matthew McConaughey movies? They lie. That's not true. Like, now some of you are looking at your spouse right now, going, like, not you, you're my soulmate. Don't listen to him, you're perfect for me. Like, yeah, you have so my wife is my soulmate. I've been with her for 18 years. She's my soulmate because I picked her. And for some reason I have yet to figure out she picked me too. And every day we pick each other. Every day we choose each other. Now, there's times that we don't we don't get along. We are not two puzzle pieces that fit together, and that is a that is not, it is iron sharpening iron, right? Which is not a pleasant experience sometimes. But what makes us partners is that we we we made a decision and we follow through with that decision. So, what I'm saying is there's freedom. God's will is not it's not a tight rope. He gave these servants freedom to do whatever they wanted to do, so just find that and do it. Do anything. So let's let's let's wrap this up. Worship team, you guys can come out. If you want to see something change in your life, if you want to see something happen, then take Jesus' words here and let them sink in. Do something, be a person of action. James 1.22 says, Don't just listen to God's word, you must do what it says. Be a person of action. Do something, do something today, now. Do something small, make something in your life 10% better. Do it, do something good that would bring glory to God. Do anything because you have the freedom to choose. God has given you so much freedom. So use it. Do something. Be a person of action, be a person who sees yourself for who you really are. You're the temple of God. That's what we're we're talking about in scripture that we are God's temple, that his spirit lives with us. We get to be the vehicles that God rides around in this world in. We're the El Caminos, yay! So slam into something today. You know what I'm saying? Don't take that literally. Um, but you have tremendous power inside of you, so go do something. When we leave this place, just do something today. If you want to see something get done, do something, and we'll we'll wrap up with this. It all starts ultimately. The the big thing you need to do the first time and then many times after is just surrender to Jesus. Because you actually can't do all that you might desire to do on your own. That is true. Remember in this story, these these servants they they did they did amazing stuff, right? They doubled the investment. They worked hard. Hard work is a great equalizer. They worked really, really hard. It's hard to double something, except your weight. That's easy. Um it's hard to double something. But they didn't do it on their own because they weren't the ones that had the initial investment. They had a deposit that they were able to work with. If you want to see something happen in your life, something truly meaningful, it's not gonna happen on your own. You need a deposit. You need God to deposit something into you that gives you what you truly need to do whatever it is he's called you to do. And that's a relationship with him. That's his spirit inside of you. And when you have him with you, when you give your life to him, you never have to do anything on your own. That's why Ephesians 3.20 says, Now all glory to God, who is able through his mighty power at work within us to accomplish infinitely more than we might think or ask. It's God working within us, partnering with us. We're his vehicle. So if you really want to see something happen, you start by surrendering everything to Jesus. You give it all to him. Sound good? If you want to do that, by the way, the very first step in that process is to be baptized. And guys, do we have someone that's about to do that? Because I'm not help me out. Thumbs up? Do we? Thumbs up, thumbs down. Yes? Perfect. Oh, it says that on the little screen. One baptism, tank one. Okay, here we go. I didn't see it. Oh. So getting baptized, that's your first step. And we have someone about to do that. Woo-hoo. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for today. Thank you for bringing all of us together, Lord. We love you. And we want to be people of action. We want to be people who see things happen. Lord, we want to be the people who sit who hear you say, Well done, my good and faithful servant. And so I pray, Lord, you give us the boldness to be people who get things done. That we would recognize how much you've given us. You've given us yourself, you've given us a relationship with you, Lord. You've given us all these gifts and abilities, you've given us talent, so to speak. And you want to watch us do something with it. So, Lord, let us be people who just act, who take the freedom and the love that you give us and do something really meaningful with it. Lord, we love you. And as this person goes all in with you right now, Father, I pray that we would come around them as a church and support them. Lord, I also pray if there's one person in the room that is yet to do that, that hasn't partnered with you yet, that hasn't given their life to you, that they would do that in this moment right now, that they would walk out of these doors. They would go sign up to be baptized right away, Father, because you are so all in with them already. We love you, Jesus. It's in your name we pray. Amen.