We're in a series right now called Elijah Shah, and I know it sounds like I'm just slurring my speech, but I promise you I am not intoxicated. What we did was we we blended the names Elijah and Elisha together because that's what we're doing right now, is we're studying the lives and the stories of Elijah and Elisha, these two prophets in the Old Testament whose stories flow together. These are two men who lived almost 3,000 years ago in a completely different culture, a completely different part of the world, obviously a different time. And you might ask yourself, like, why? What can we gain by studying the lives of these men? How is this relevant to us today? And the answer is Jesus, because like in church, that's always the answer. Just say Jesus. The answer is Jesus. Hebrews 13.8 says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. One of the amazing things about the Bible, about Scripture, is that it's all about Jesus. Like God's an amazing storyteller, even though Jesus doesn't show up in person until you know a little past the halfway point, the whole Old Testament, like the old stuff, it's all hinting at Jesus. It's all pointing to Jesus. And so when Jesus shows up on the scene, Jesus does things that are very reminiscent of things that have been done before. Jesus performs miracles that are very reminiscent of miracles that men like Elijah and Elisha performed. And the reason that's the case is because these men were doing things that were foreshadowing Jesus. These men were doing things through God that were, we're painting a picture, an early picture, the first brush strokes of who Jesus is, what Jesus can do. And so as we study these men, their lives, their stories, what God did through them, we are studying Jesus. And as a church, as a church, we've got a lot of people from a lot of different places, a lot of different walks of life. And maybe you're here this morning and you're just kind of contemplating the whole God thing and wondering if this is for you, I want you to know first and foremost that we believe Jesus is the answer for life. We believe that when we know Jesus, when we're connected to Jesus, the more we understand Jesus, the more Jesus is at the center core of everything we do, everything we are, that's when life is what it's supposed to be. We need someone, not something, and Jesus is that someone. And so as we study this, as we open up God's word and we go through this and we learn more about who God is and who Jesus is, we grow. That's what we want to see happen. We want to leave here better, we want to grow. Okay, so let's recap really quick. We met Elijah a few weeks ago. He shows up out of nowhere in 1 Kings chapter 17, and the first thing he does is he challenges a terrible evil king named Ahab. He basically throws a gauntlet down and just says, Hey, here's this challenge from God. And then the next thing he does is he runs for his life. Because that's what you do when you challenge an evil, an evil king. You run. And God told him to, God told him to flee. And so we kind of looked at his journey last week. He went from Samaria. We actually have a map here, you can see this. He went from Samaria, which was the capital city of Israel. He goes all the way to this place called Kareth Brook, which was on the east side of the Jordan River. And he hangs out there for a while until the brook dries up. He has no water, and so he goes next to a place called Zarephath, which is way up in Phoenicia, not even in Israel. This is the last place that Elijah would ever, ever have thought to go. And that's where we're at in the story today. So we're going to go ahead and pick it up in 1 Kings chapter 17, verse 8. Then the Lord said to Elijah, Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. I have instructed a widow there to feed you. So he went to Zarephath, and as he arrived at the gates of the village, he saw a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her, Would you please bring me a little cup of water? As she was going to get it, he called to her, Bring me a bite of bread too. But she said, I swear by the Lord your God that I don't have a single piece of bread in the house, and I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jug. I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal, and then my son and I will die. So God has sent Elijah to a widow to be provided for. God just forgot to provide for the widow so that she could provide for Elijah. God forgot to give her what she needed to do what God told Elijah she would do. And look, there's moments like this in Scripture all the time, where it looks like God doesn't know what he's doing. And you may have lived with faith in God and oftentimes thought to yourself and maybe been brave enough to say it out loud, God, I don't think you know what you're doing. It doesn't seem like you're doing what you ought to be doing. And when you read the Bible and you come into those moments where you go, God, what are you doing? Stop and ask. God, what are you doing? Because those are the moments where you often find God's doing something really interesting, something very intentional. Okay, so we'll we'll keep reading in verse 13. But Elijah said to her, Don't be afraid. Go ahead and do just what you've said, but make a little bread for me first. Then use what's left to prepare a meal for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says there will always be flour and olive oil left in your containers until the time when the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again. And so she did as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her family continued to eat for many days. There was always enough flour and olive oil left in the containers, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah. So Elijah is a very, very bold man. Bold enough to challenge a king, bold enough to say to a widow, who says to him, This is all I've got left. I'm gonna prepare this food for myself and my son, and then we are going to die. This is it. We're going to starve to death because this is all we've got. And Elijah says, Yeah, yeah, will you just make me a little bit first? Before you do that? Like, go ahead and do that, but just can I have some? And either Elijah and God by extension, because Elijah's just doing what God is telling him to do, either Elijah and God are very callous or they know something. They're aware of something. Something that this widow needs to know. And we've got to park here. We've got to stop here and examine this, unpack this, because there's a dynamic at play here that is vital for us. There's a mindset that God wants us to learn through this scripture and other scriptures like this. It's a mindset that if we can grab a hold of it, if we can begin to think this way, it not only changes our lives, but it changes us. It's a mindset that will transform the way you view yourself, the way you view your life. And I'll just say this the people I know in my life who live with the least worry, the people I know in my life who live with the least amount of anxiety and fear and worry, this is the mindset that they have. The mindset that we're going to explore today, but we've got to get there. Okay? So the first thing that we have to understand is that God never runs out. God never runs out. And that's something that Elijah is very confident in. Elijah's like, look, just don't be afraid. There's always going to be enough flour. There's always going to be enough for you. Because God never runs out. This this miracle that Elijah does, that God really does through Elijah, is very, very similar to some miracles that Jesus did. Like I said earlier, Elijah, the prophets, they're hinting at Jesus. And so Elijah is involved in this miracle where food miraculously multiplies. That happened with Jesus all the time. Jesus once turned water into wine. Some of you I thought would be more excited about the concept of that. But Jesus turned water into wine. Jesus fed over 5,000 people multiple times by miraculously multiplying food. And it's very important that Jesus did things like that. Because it completely and totally took the wind out of the sails of his opponents, the Pharisees, the religious leaders, because they could not say something like, like, oh, well, Jesus, you know, he may be a prophet, but he's no Elijah. They couldn't say that. They couldn't say, oh, Jesus, yeah, he might be some prophet. Maybe he hears from God, but he's no Moses, he's no Elijah, he's no Elijah, because Jesus would do miracles like those guys, but then he'd take it to a whole other level. They could not deny that. There's so many parallels between what Elijah does here and what Jesus does. For example, in Matthew chapter 14, we get to see this miracle that takes place, very similar. Then he told the people to sit down on the grass, and Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. And then breaking the loaves into pieces, he gave the bread to the disciples who distributed it to the people. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterwards the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers. About five thousand men were fed that day, in addition to all the women and the children. So this is Jesus doing Elijah's miracle, but to a much, much greater degree. But there's a similarity. Even beyond just the food multiplying, there's a similarity, and it's very, very interesting. Because if you know that story of Jesus feeding the 5,000, he's got these five little loaves of bread, these would be like dinner rolls. And he's got two fish, these would have been sardines. That was actually the main food source of that area, the Sea of Galilee. They fished for sardines, essentially. So Jesus takes a few little dinner rolls and two sardines, and he feeds over 5,000 people to the point that there's baskets of leftovers. Like baskets of leftovers. But where did the fish and the bread come from? It came from this little boy who happened to have that on him, packed with him. It would have been his probably only meal for that day. And Jesus asked that boy to give to him what he had. And then Jesus used that to provide for all these people. Elijah asks this widow to give to him what little she has, and it's through that that this miracle takes place. It's a very strange concept because God never runs out. God is infinite. God lacks for nothing. There's nothing that God needs. God never feels fear about not having enough. There's no such thing as scarcity to God, and yet that is our reality. We live in a world where we're reminded of the scarcity of things. And so we have this infinite God who lacks nothing asking people to give to him what little they have. It's a very interesting dynamic. Because God doesn't need what they have to do the miracle. So why is he asking? What is he getting at? What is going on? What does he want them to learn? What does he want them to understand? What does he want us to understand? That's what we've got to explore today. This concept of an infinite God who never runs out, asking people to trust him with what they have. Now I just want to get this out of the way before we continue. Today's message is not about money. Okay. You guys aren't excited about that. Hold on. Today's message is not about money. I'm gonna do this. I think this is important. That's better. I bought that at Party City yesterday, because I'm a high roller. Um and I because anytime, anytime a pastor talks about a message like this, like a story like this, where God is miraculously multiplying resources, it is like you know what's coming next. You know, it's always like, okay, people start to get uncomfortable because it's a message about money. It's a message about, it's a message about like your resources being given to something, so that God will miraculously multiply, you know, whatever, in your life or in the church's life. And so you start to hear these stories if you're in church long enough and you go, okay, what new thing is about to happen that I'm gonna be asked to have faith and dig down deep in. But today's message is not about money. Because, and this is so important, God does not want your money. There we go. God does not want your money, and that's because God wants your everything. He doesn't want your money, but he wants your everything. See, when when Elijah asks this this widow for what she has, it's not it's not like she is well stocked. It's not like she has this full pantry. And Elijah says, Hey, can I have a little bit of that? He's essentially asking her for everything. And this is that dynamic that I'm talking about. We have this infinite God who has everything, can do anything, and he asks people for everything. And that is risky. Like that. To trust God with with anything is difficult. To trust anyone with everything, that requires risk, and we don't like risk. We are not risk-oriented people. We we are risk-averse, naturally. Some of us in here might be adrenaline junkies, but typically speaking, we don't like risk. We live in a world that that helps us minimize risk everywhere we go. I know this for a variety of reasons. One example is what I mentioned earlier with the story about the foster family. Uh, trees, so dangerous. These trees, you know? Rhonda Hunter is an amazing uh part of our family here, and Rhonda has a God story. If you haven't seen it, it's awesome. You can see it on our on our website, on our mobile app, um on YouTube, or whatever. And and in her story, she was in a car and a tree fell on the car while she was in it, and it's a miracle that she's alive. It's a crazy, incredible story. Trees are dangerous, that's what I'm trying to say. Like, you gotta watch out for trees. And and I live in this house and we have all these trees, and I'm starting to look at the trees a little differently. Now that I have children, I'm like, that one could fall. That'd be bad. If that one fell, it hit our house. That one's a little too. I need to get these trees removed. Like, I'm actually planting right now all the trees that need to go. Because I see these trees and and I can imagine them falling. My children see those trees, and all they can imagine is climbing them. When's the last time you looked at a tree and imagined yourself in it? My kids do that all the time. We look at trees and we imagine our car being destroyed, our roof being destroyed. Because our imagination leads us to worry the older we get. I heard a quote last week and I thought it was just brilliant. It said that worry is simply a misuse of imagination. Worry is a misuse of imagination. We worry very well. We are good at imagining all the things that can go wrong. We are good at imagining all the bad things that could possibly happen. And of all the worries that we have, all the worries that we deal with in this world, it's maybe the worry of not having enough that we are confronted with the most often. It's a worry of lack. It's a worry of not having enough to do what maybe we want to do, we feel like we have to do. And it's so interesting because we live in the most prosperous civilization in human history. We carry devices in our pockets that cost more money than most people ever see in a year. One of the biggest industries in America, the fastest growing industries, is the storage industry. Because we have more stuff than we can fit in our house. Like, I'll caught myself saying this. Yeah, my house doesn't have that much storage. Like, well, it's got multiple rooms. I have too much stuff, that's the problem. And yet I still fear lack. We know what it's like as Americans, and I'm sure we've all been, some of us have been through some really tough situations, but most of us are much more familiar with the fact that we've eaten way too much than we're familiar with what it feels like to really be hungry. But even still, we fear lack. We fear not having enough. And that's not because we're bad people. This is not a moment where we're like shaming and saying, how, you know, come on, realize how blessed you are. What we are is actually living proof that there's no amount of money, that there's no like magic line of income or or anything that takes that fear away. That you cannot have so much that the fear of going without goes away. We fear not having enough. And that becomes a bit of a crisis when you're dealing with a God who is willing to ask you for everything. Jesus asks for everything. Matthew 16, 24. Jesus said to his disciples, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, which is everyone's favorite thing to do, and take up their cross and follow me. This is Jesus giving a sales pitch, by the way, to people who might want to be his followers. You want to be my disciple, deny yourself, take up your cross, which means be willing to die and follow me. And if you think maybe he's just grabbing attention, and then he's about to get into all the benefits of being a Jesus' follower, the very next statement, he says, Whoever wants to save their life will lose it. But whoever loses their life for me will find it. Whoever loses their life, whoever gives their life will find it. This is Jesus asking us for everything. Asking us to trust him with everything, asking us to risk everything, all that we are, everything that we have, to trust him with everything, to give him ownership of everything. And that is the big ask. It is a transfer of ownership. Jesus is asking us to transfer ownership in our minds of everything to him. And if we can do that, if we can actually get to the point where we see everything that we have and everything that we are as belonging to Jesus, that is when Jesus says we find real life. That is when we discover a life that's actually worth living. When we transfer ownership of everything that we have to him. I said earlier that there's this mindset that people have, and the people I know who have this mindset have less worry than anyone else I know, and it's the mindset of owning nothing. Of owning nothing, of viewing everything as belonging to God. The people I know who really believe that God owns it all, who see everything that they have as simply something they've been entrusted with for a season, but ultimately it belongs to God. Those are the people I know that have less worry than anyone else. Because you really only worry about what you own. I don't worry about other people's houses very much. Maybe I should. Maybe I should be more compassionate. I don't worry about other people's phones. I don't worry about, you know, anything. I love you guys. No, I like the when you own something, when you see it as belonging to you, you worry about it. And so I bel I agree with the statement that we said earlier that worry is a misuse of imagination, but I'll add something to that. I think worry is a misplacement of ownership. It's a misplacement of ownership. And when you can transfer ownership of what you have and all you are to God, the worry goes away. Like I've experienced this in some pretty tangible ways in life. Um used to have a couple dogs, Wojo and Roxy. Wojo we got when we first got married. Megan and I, I think we've been married for like a year, and we got Wojo, and then we got Roxy several years later, and then we had children, and we realized that we are not good at being parents of humans. That's Roxy. Yay. Um we were not good, she's one of those so ugly she's cute dogs. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's just that's she's a Pekinese, which we had a shihtsu, wojo is a shih tzu. A peeking's is just a shih tzu that sheds. So, you know, if you've ever, if you have a shih tzu and you're like, what would it be like if this thing left hair everywhere, go buy a Pekinese, and you'll know. Um and so after having children, we just realized we couldn't, we weren't good at the dog and human dynamic. It was uh we couldn't take care of both, and we chose our children. And so we we gave our dogs away. And we gave Wojo to my brother, and Wojo lived out the rest of his life with my brother, and then uh we gave Roxy to a friend of mine whose daughter really wanted a dog. And I will never forget the day that I took Roxy to my friend's house. I had her in the passenger seat of the car, she's little peekingies. Umort and sneeze, but it somehow was cute, I guess. Um she's in the car, I had her buckled up, she was safe, don't worry. Uh, drove there, and uh, I'll never forget it. I'm standing at this guy's door, I ring the doorbell, he opens the door, and there's his daughter, and she's so excited, and you know, I hand Roxy to them, and we talk for a few seconds, and then they say thank you, and the door shuts, and there I am, and I don't have Roxy. And it was one of the happiest moments of my life because I hated that dog so much. Like, I used to be a dog person until I had Roxy. And I might be a dog person again one day, but it's gonna take time. Like, I need space, I need, I need to heal because that dog was terrible. Horrible. Not intelligent unless it was like an intelligence for criminal activity. Like to get into something she could figure it out, but go to the bathroom outside, couldn't figure it out no matter how much we tried, none of that. She wasn't loyal, she didn't love us. I don't understand. This dog did not love us. Like we took care of this dog, we provided for this dog. It's a peekanese, she's not gonna go hunt for food, okay? It's like God did not make peekanies, we made those, okay? So I would open our front door and she would bolt, and not bolt like she wanted to play, she wanted to escape, like she was escaping from prison, and I had to go chase this stupid dog and bring her back to my house, and all I wanted to do was shut the door and let her live out her dream. But I couldn't do that because I own the dog. And you can't do that, right? And I'll never forget the moment that the door shut and Roxy was no longer in my possession. I didn't own Roxy anymore. And I felt so free. And I thought to myself, some Someone else's problem. Right? Someone else gets to worry about this. Just so you know, um, I didn't pull a fast one on my friend. He offered to pay, and it because I'm a Christian, I said I cannot accept money for this dog. Okay? You are doing a service to me like you cannot imagine. Stand that dog. But I didn't own her anymore. So I didn't have to deal with the stress. I didn't have to deal with all the stuff that went along with it. All that all that stress and anxiety that she used to cause because she was just so terrible. Do you understand what I'm saying about this dog and how horrible of a dog? You get what I'm saying? You don't, I don't think you do, because this I just, I gotta stop because I could tell stories. You don't have time. But I was free, like I was free. Someone else now owned my problem. Worry is a misplacement of ownership.

Okay?

Here's what God's word says in Proverbs 16, 3. Commit your actions to the Lord and your plans will succeed. And we read the word commit and we think dig down deep, work hard. But that's actually a Hebrew word, galal, which means to roll away. And so it's actually in the sense, if you committed someone to a hospital, it's now that hospital's job to take care of them. That's what it means. So it doesn't say commit your actions to the Lord, like, come on, just do this. It's saying give it to God. Transfer ownership to God, and you'll find success. Psalm 55, 22 says, give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. What burdens are you carrying today? What burdens do you own? What problems do you take ownership of in your life? And God is telling you, He is asking you to give those to Him, to transfer the ownership of your burdens to him. To view those things as God's problem. Think about that. 1 Peter 5 7 says, give all your worries and cares to God. Some translations say, cast your anxieties on God. Give all your worries and cares, all your anxieties to God, for he cares about you. This is God saying, transfer ownership of your worries and your anxieties to me. What are you worried about today? What are you stressed about? What are you worried about? God is asking you to transfer the ownership of those worries to him. And have him own your worries, and you don't have to own them anymore. Psalm 37, 5 says, Commit everything you do to the Lord, trust him, and he will help you. Commit everything, roll everything to God. What would it be like if you actually viewed everything you have and everything you are as belonging to God? I mean, think about this. Like, money is just the tip of the iceberg. This is not a message about money. Money is an obvious way to go with it. You know, my thing with money is if you fear losing money, if it's this thing where the idea of being generous and giving to someone in need is hard, you just have to ask yourself, do I own my money or does my money own me? Like that, that's that's something I have to wrestle with, we all do. But money, it's just the tip of the iceberg here. This is everything. Like it says, give everything to God. Transfer ownership of everything to God. Elijah asked this widow to give everything. And look, God does not make mistakes. It's no coincidence that Elijah showed up the day she had the last amount of food. It's no coincidence that the moment Elijah shows up is the moment she's gathering sticks to make a fire to cook this last batch of food. God knows what he's doing. He waited until the moment when what he would ask for this woman was everything. Jesus asks us to transfer ownership of everything to him. So I think about my children. And many of us here have kids, many of us here who don't have kids will have kids. My kids don't belong to me. They belong to God. Now I want to be clear, I take responsibility for my children. But there's a difference between taking responsibility and taking ownership. Jesus told a parable about a master, a wealthy man who leaves town, leaves the country, and he entrusts his wealth with three servants. And those servants took responsibility for their master's wealth, but they did not take ownership. So I take responsibility for my children. It's my job to raise them and protect them to a degree, but ultimately they belong to God. And that is such a freeing way to think. Because there are so many times where I look at my kids and I'm like, God, I don't know what to do. You know, you're gonna have to figure this one out, Lord. Like you're gonna you're gonna have to you're gonna have to speak to them, you're gonna have to do something, you're gonna have to give me something I don't have because I can't, I alone cannot do this. I'm serious, I love my children so much, but I I don't see them as belonging to me. And if I view them as actually belonging to God, if I have that mindset, then I don't feel like it's all on me. I don't live with the pressure and the stress and the anxiety of going, you know, the fact that they're gonna turn out into these amazing people, that's not all on me. A lot of that's on God. And I need God to protect them when I can't, I need God to provide for them when I can't, I need God to speak to them and speak into them things that I don't even know. I need God to do what I cannot do. And the beautiful thing is they belong to God and He's gonna do that. If you if you view even your children as belonging to God, so much of the pressure and stress of parenting dissipates because you realize it's not all on you, you're not alone. I think about Megan, my wife, and it's interesting when I think about her as my wife, our relationship does not go very well. Because when I think about her as mine, I start to have thoughts like shh my wife isn't meeting my needs. You know, my my wife ought to be more sensitive to my desires. My wife ought to be doing more of this for me. When I think about her in terms of possession, she's mine, our relationship stagnates. It is not healthy. But when I think about her as God's daughter, very different. Like maybe I'm frustrated with Megan. Hypothetical situation obviously never happens. So maybe I'm frustrated with Megan. And I'm praying in frustration, which again, totally hypothetical, and I'm praying, God, you know, my wife is driving me crazy. My wife does not seem to understand that I need this and this. God, my wife, if I flip that and I start saying, God, your daughter, very different conversation. I don't get very far in the complaints when I think about her as God's daughter. I start saying, you know, God, your daughter is, you know, I mean, she's amazing, obviously, and she's your daughter. I know you love her, and uh, obviously, obviously, I'm gonna take care of her. I'm gonna go serve her, you know? Like, if you if you need something to change in your marriage, start praying for your spouse and seeing them as belonging to God when you do and see what happens. Any relationship that you have, see that person as belonging to God's and ask God what you can do to help him. Ask God what you can do to help to help him make them into the person that he wants them to be. And you'll see your relationships change. Megan belongs to God, not to me. I love the fact that our church is named his hands. Because it reminds me that it's not mine. It's not anybody's, it's his. And I don't really want to. Because there's moments where I run out of ideas, there's moments where I run out of patience, there's moments where I run out of time, where I run out of love, but God never runs out. God never runs out of ideas, he never runs out of patience, he never runs out of time, he never runs out of love, he never runs out of power. And if we let him own what he really owns, we experience the God who never runs out. But we have to let him own it. You think about yourself. It's kind of a crazy concept, but if you belong to Jesus, you don't belong to yourself. 1 Corinthians 6.20 says that I have been bought for a price. And that's pretty crazy. Like when you think about that, the Bible uses that phrase a couple times that we've been purchased. We were purchased with the blood of Jesus, we were bought at the price of God's Son. I heard someone say one time that the value of something is only determined by two things: who made it and how much someone is willing to pay for it. And that is it. And so you think about that in terms of yourself, who made you, and how much were you worth? How much was someone willing to pay for you? Jesus paid everything for you. And that's amazing. That should validate you so much, but it also means that if I believe that, if I've given my life to Jesus, my life is not my own. It belongs to God. And I spend so much time worrying about my life. I spend so much time worrying about the decisions that I make and all the things that can happen. And if I would transfer ownership completely to God, if there's one aspect of my life that I'm holding on to that I'm trying to control, if I would just transfer ownership and say, God, I'm yours. It's yours. I give it all to you. If I would transfer complete ownership and see even myself as belonging to God, that worry dissipates. And what I'm left with is trust and faith. Faith is powerful. When the world encounters a crisis, there's really three responses that we're taught. There's fight, there's flight, and there's freeze. And in our flesh, we all respond to crises like that. We either fight it, we run, like flight, or we just freeze. But when you know Jesus, you get a fourth response, and that's faith. When you give it to God and you view it as it belonging to God, and everything you have, your job, your finances, your house, your children, your stupid dogs, everything belongs to God. Your dogs aren't stupid, mine was stupid. That was not an insult. Roxy was not intelligent. It's it's I can I could probably prove it scientifically if I knew how. But like, everything belongs to him. So the challenge that we face as followers of Jesus is actually giving ownership to him. That's the challenge. And worship team, if you guys want to come out, we'll we'll wrap this up. But you know, a few things to think about. And this applies to those of us who have been following Jesus. This applies to those of us who who haven't yet ever. We've never made that decision. You know, we said earlier that God wants your everything. Another way to look at that is that God wants you. And He wants all of you. Do you know anyone who really wants all of you? I'm not saying that to insult you or anything. I'm thinking about myself. Like, do I know anyone that wants all of me? I don't know. Like, there's parts of me I'm pretty sure that nobody wants. There are situations in life that no one's gonna call me. No one's gonna trust me with this. I don't know, I don't even want all of me. Like, there's parts of me I'm trying to get rid of on a day-to-day basis. And God wants my everything because God wants all of me. He doesn't just want the good, he doesn't just want what he sees as useful, he wants all of me. Because he loves all of me. He loves all of you, he loves every piece of you. And that's a powerful thing to think about. And so who actually deserves to own something? The person who loves it the most. Who deserves to have ownership of anything? The person who cares the most about it. So one of the things that we use as a filter here in our ministries. Because by the way, and this hopefully this, I don't know, maybe this will give you a lack of faith. I don't think it will, though, is experience, expertise, those are not the main things we choose when it comes to the people who lead our ministries here. We've got a lot of people here leading and doing great things that don't have a lot of experience. But the main filter we use is who cares the most about it? Like who cares the most about it? And that's the main thing we use. No one cares more about you than God. And so today is about a transfer of ownership. Today is a call for you to give total ownership of yourself to God, to see everything that you are as belonging to him. You can trust him because no one, nothing, loves you like he does. He wants all of you. Every bit. And if you if you don't know Jesus, then I just pray that today is the day that you give yourself to him. That you trust him with your life, that you say, I'm yours. You own it, you own me, you take me. And I'm telling you, when you say yes to Jesus and you give him ownership of your life, worry is going to begin to fade. Faith is going to grow, joy is going to grow. And those of us, by the way, who have been following Jesus maybe for years, the challenge we face is holding on. And so you may have given your life to Jesus, but you've held on to some part of it. You've given your life to Jesus, but then at some point in time you're like, ooh, that didn't go the way I wanted to, so I'm gonna take that back, God, just for a little bit. And he's such a good God, he's so patient, he's like, okay, you know, like I'm not gonna force you. Give it all to him. Because he never runs out. And when you're running on fumes, and when you don't have enough in the tank, and when you don't think you can, when you have no ideas, when you have nothing left, God has everything. And when you give him your everything, he gives you his. So transfer ownership to him today. You know, if you've never been baptized, for example, get baptized. Go all in. We have baptisms next Sunday. Go sign up at the info desk and go all in and say, I'm all in with Jesus. I'm giving total ownership to him. If there's one part of your life today that you're thinking right now, I do not let God in there. I don't allow God to mess with that because I'm nervous, because I'm anxious, because I'm worried, I'm worried, I'm worried. Give him ownership and stop worrying and feel joy and freedom. Give your Roxy away. That's what I'm trying to say. You don't need that. We're gonna worship with one last song. It's a chance for us to say in our hearts, I belong to you. We've already kind of sung that today a couple times. And we didn't plan it that way. The Holy Spirit knows what he's doing way more than we do. But we we belong to him. So let's remind ourselves that we belong to him. Let's rededicate that. Let's say to in our hearts, God, in case you, in case I haven't given you knowledge of this, God, in case I've been living in a way that communicates otherwise, I want you to know right now that I'm yours, that I give total ownership of myself to you, that I trust you. I want you to have everything, God. I want you to have everything. I want you to own everything. All my burdens, all my cares, all my worries, please pray with me. Jesus, thank you, thank you, thank you. That you look at us and you say, I want that. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you look at us and all of our problems and all of our mess and you say, I want it all. You're asking for everything. You are comfortable asking us for everything. You do it all the time. And Lord, we want to be people bold enough to say yes. We want to be people who let go of our worry, who let go of our fear, who understand that if we don't own it, we don't have to worry about it. If we don't own it, we don't have to live in fear of it. If we transfer ownership to you, Jesus, if we give you everything, faith replaces worry. And we need that, Jesus. We pray that. We pray that that happens in your name. Lord, I pray if there's any person here who's never given ownership of their life to you, that that happens this second, right now, and that we would surround them as a church and help them grow. We love you, Lord. And we ask all this in your name, Jesus. Amen.