Good morning, Ebenezer. I'm so glad to be with you here today. If we haven't met, I'm Fred Lodge, I'm pastor emeritus here and filling in for our pastor as he's recovering from the trip, getting back and getting over that laryngitis. We're praying for him along those lines. I'm just so glad that we're part of a church that loves the Lord Jesus Christ, but we love to bring people to faith in Christ, even worldwide.

So I'm glad our mission team to Scotland is back and back there safely. So it's my joy to continue this journey that the Lord has had us on through our pastor looking not only at the kingdom, but how it's an upside down kingdom. Back last year, pastor taught us through the parables of the kingdom and what the kingdom was like. And then in conversation after that we got thinking, you know, every one of those is just upside down to what we're living with every day in the society and the worldviews which we have. And so we've been looking at that pretty consistently.

And we're going to do that again today, looking with a paradoxical saying that Jesus said when he said this, the first will be last and the last will be first. Now, if you will turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 20 and find verse 20, we're going to be there in just a moment. But as I do, I want to quote myself something I've said over and over again and I want to say it again this morning is they're the first to fill in the blanks in your notes. It's so important to understand context. So here's what you've got before of you always keep the text in context.

That's important when you're studying the Scriptures. Sometimes we can take just one verse out of what all its meaning and think it's meaning something and calls it to meaning something, believe meaning something that it really has nothing to do with whatsoever. And so pastor taught us in a great course that he's done here on Wednesday nights of how to take some of those most beloved passages from but be sure that they keep in context. So let me just tell you about this context. At the beginning of this chapter, Jesus tells a very unsettling kind of a parable.

He said a landowner that owned a big vineyard went out early one morning to hire the people that was going to work in the vineyard that day. And this was standard for them. Day started at 6 in the morning. And so he gathered those that were there in the marketplace that were willing to work that day. And he agreed with them on the amount of common days wage was a denarius.

So y' all go work and I'll pay you at the end of the day. He went out again three hours later at 9 o', clock, some people were still standing around. He said, go to work again at 12, again at 3, but then at 5 in the afternoon, the day ends at 6. At 5 he went out, there were still some people hanging around that hadn't had any work to do. So he said, you go work to me also and I'll settle up with you when the day is over.

So after the day was over, the landowner told his steward, I want you to go out and pay everybody, beginning with those who've worked just the one hour, the last, all the way until the first. And so we did. And so those who came out and only worked an hour, they received a full day's wage, a denarius. And those who'd been there since six in the morning, they said, oh wow, I wonder what we're going to get. Yeah, because if they get a denarius for one day's work, what do we get?

Well, as they were each one paid, they were all paid the same amount, a denarius. And those who'd worked all day long, they kind of started grousing a little bit, you know, and you know, they said, we thought we would get more. And the landowner said, now wait a minute, wait a minute. Didn't you agree that you'd work with me all day long for this amount of money? I'm not doing anything wrong by you.

And if I just want to be gracious with my money, it's my money to do with what I want. So why do you find evil with that? I'd love to just talk about just that parable, but that just is to set the context that Jesus wanted people to know, and this is where he said it, that the first will be last and the last will be first. Now immediately after him saying that, the scene changes. And Jesus has got his key people, his 12 disciples around him and he begins to tell them something about what's about to happen.

This is not the first time he said this. It's not the second time he said this, this is the third time he said this. He said, we're about to go to Jerusalem and when we get to Jerusalem, I'm going to be arrested, I'm going to be very vilely treated, I'm going to be beaten, I'm going to be crucified. Now, this is the first time he's actually said the means of his death. I'll be crucified, but then I'll also be resurrected.

So he mentions this stark contrast now. It's amazing what's happened here. Nobody gets that.

Nobody really lets that settle to heart. Why? Because they didn't want to hear it. Can I say that again? See, they didn't want to hear it.

They understood that the Messiah was going to come and lead them into the golden age again, that David had years and years ago, and they were excited about that. There was nothing that they could find anywhere about the Messiah being badly treated or crucified or whatever. So they just didn't want to hear that. You say, well, how could they not hear that when Jesus speaks? Well, let me explain that to you, or let me explain to you ladies how that works.

You say something to your husband and you say, don't forget. And the volume just disappears.

That's called selective hearing. And it takes years to master that, doesn't it, guys? It does. It takes years to master that if we don't want to hear it, we won't hear it. And this is exactly what was going on.

This is the third time that Jesus has said this, but they don't want to hear it. And so it kind of falls on deaf ears. So you've got this strange parable about the last will be first, the first to be last. And then Jesus saying, this is what's going to happen to me. And immediately we have the scripture that we're going to start reading here.

Now, really weird and out of place, but let's read it. Matthew 20, beginning with verse 20. Then the mother of Zebedee's sons, that's James, and John, came to him with her sons, kneeling down and asking something from him. And he said to her, what do you wish? And she said to him, grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on your right hand and one on your left in your kingdom.

But Jesus answered and said, you don't know what you ask. And then to the two guys, he said, are you able to drink the cup that I'm about to drink and be baptized with the baptism that I'm about to be baptized with? And they said, we're able. So he said to them, well, you will indeed drink my cup and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with. But to sit on my right hand or my left is not mine to give, but it's for those for whom the Father is prepared.

And then when the ten heard it, they were greatly displeased with the two brothers. No kidding. All right. But Jesus called them to himself. He said, come here, boys.

And then he said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and those who have exercised great authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you. But whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

Let's pray.

What a paradox, Lord, what a strange thing you're saying here. The first will be last. The last will be first. If I want to be great and important and have a position of prominence, I got to be like a slave.

Strange words, but that's because we're living in an upside down world. A world that these values are just missing. Lord, help us to sense your word today and to come right straight to our heart and speak your word right into where we're living here today. We ask in Christ's name, Amen. Well, this has been quite a journey in this upside down world.

These things changing from week to week and how we've always looked at things. And here we come to another one. This first will be last, and this last will be first. It sounds crazy with the kingdom in which we're living, doesn't it? You see, in the upside down kingdom where you and I live today, it's about status, about power, it's about prestige, it's about position, it's about getting all you can and then canning what you get, and then sitting on the can.

That's the world in which we live. We climb the corporate ladder. That's the goal of many. To be the boss to buy out the company and then be the boss to pick yourself up by yourself. Bootstraps.

This is the philosophy and the pride of the world. This is what it means to succeed in the world in which we live. But you know, in the upside down kingdom of Jesus, earthly success, power and wealth does not always equate to status and power in the kingdom. As a matter of fact, in Jesus kingdom, greatness is determined through humility, service. Not in how much you've got, not in how big a position you have, but in humility and service.

True leadership, as modeled by Jesus, does not come down to being served having people underneath you, waiting on you hand and foot and doing your bidding, but rather you being that kind of person. First to God and then to others. Those aiming to do good in God's kingdom must make themselves a servant to all. So come on, let's dig into this. This takes some head scratching.

This takes some thinking. God, what are you speaking into our hearts here today? So this is the third time that Jesus has said this. And again he was tuned out. But he's doing this because he is a servant and he has a servant heart.

And the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit had decided before the world even began that rebellious men would have to be redeemed. And how was that going to happen? God himself was going to become a man. Jesus Christ live a godly life, but be crucified to where he could take the sins of the whole world upon himself and then rise again the third day that he could give his very life to each and every one of those who believe in Him. That was the plan from before the beginning of time.

And it all hinged on God the Son being a servant to the Father and a servant to each and every one of us, to do for us what we desperately needed but could not do for ourselves. That is the DNA of the God that we serve. This is genuine greatness.

But what he didn't mention until now was that the means for this to happen was going to be the cross. And this was something that was absolutely ugly.

Crucifixion was something that the Romans came up with. It wasn't known before then. I mean, not as a. As a mass means of execution. They did it because it was so horribly undignified.

The person was stripped naked. I know you see all those pictures with a nice little blowing cloth on Jesus. That's not the way it was. Stripped naked, nailed and tied to the cross and there to just slowly die. There for the birds to come and peck at your eyes and you couldn't wave them away there when the sweat and the blood would run down your face, you couldn't wipe it away.

As a matter of fact, it was impossible to breathe because in that position, people have told us, physicians to tell us that all of the pressure is on the chest and the diaphragm lowers and all of the oxygen goes out. And so the only way to breathe in is to push against the nails in the feet and pull against the nails in the hand and get a breath and it all goes out.

And eventually the person didn't die of blood loss. The person died because they suffocated themselves. They would slowly but surely not have the strength left to breathe and would die. And Then they would be left on the cross for a long period of time for animals to come and rage and all the rest of those things. This is what the Romans came up with.

And it was such an ugly, horrible way to die that it was their patented way of doing things to bring humiliation. And then to a Jewish society which when somebody dies, they have to be put in the ground and buried within that day before the sun goes down, to have these corpses hanging overnight and sometimes for days and weeks was the epitome of yuck. But they did that to humiliate. And so when Jesus says, I'm going to Jerusalem, I'm going to be arrested, I'm going to be badly mistreated, I'm going to be crucified.

No, no, no, that ain't happening. That isn't happening. And that's why first time Jesus said this, Peter just said, lord, that's not the way it's going to be. No, no, no, no, no. And that's when Peter had to say, get behind me, Satan, because you're thinking like the world's thinking.

This is the destiny I have embraced for myself. So he gives this, and as soon as he gets these words are out of his mouth, probably no time at all. Here comes Salome, bringing her two sons with him to make this request. Now, who are these two guys? James and John?

They're known. They're called the what? The Sons of what Thunder?

Because they were always fighting. They were always in so much trouble. They were always just causing some kind of hateful whatever going on everywhere they went.

And my two fine boys here, I want you to give them positions of prominence in your kingdom. Well, Jesus had just talked about the way he's going to be lifted up and it wasn't going to be on a throne.

She didn't catch that.

Neither did they. They were expecting something very, very physical and, you know, regal robes and authority and all this kind of stuff. And look at me, I'm one of the top 12. Christ never had it in mind it was going to be that way because he didn't come to be served, but rather to be a servant. There's a couple things wrong with this request.

I want to point out the obvious ones to you. First of all, it was born out of ignorance. Jesus said, you don't know what you're asking. You have no idea what you're asking. Because he knew and he just said it.

Yet it's interesting how these men turned out. I'll talk about that in a few moments. Secondly, it was Lacked any heavenly direction whatsoever. They were wanting this to where they would have authority, they would have position, they would have this prestige. They would be able to lord it over others.

Oh, look, Jesus chose me. One to sit on the right and one to sit on the left. And it's. I think it's okay to speculate that Peter probably slung a little bit of that around himself already. Because, you know, Jesus has said, you know, you are my rock, and upon your confession of faith, I'm going to build my church.

And he was probably already going around with his chest also out. Look at me, I'm rock. He called me rock. We don't know all the specifics about that, but I think it's when you see all the different times Jesus says, they're grumbling back and forth with who's going to be greatest in the kingdom. They had their sights appear.

And Jesus said, that's not where greatness lives. In my kingdom, greatness lives down here. Whole different aspect. And finally, what's wrong with this was this was of the world. It was of the flesh.

It was literally of the devil. It was motivated by pride on their behalf. And pride is what motivated Satan in his fall. He wanted his own kingdom. He wanted to be a kingdom over God himself.

He got thrown out to the earth. As a matter of fact, he even tempted Jesus with the kingdom. He said, I can make you boss over this whole world and everything that's in it. I've got it in my power to do that. And he did.

Jesus refused that kingdom because he was already king of kings and Lord of Lords. What are you going to give him that he doesn't already have? So what was the. What happened across this? The other ten people got indignant.

I think they started plotting. Let's get these two boys aside and we'll teach. I don't know whether that happened. It could have. The crowd I ran with, it would have happened.

But in the midst of that disagreement, Jesus took this opportunity to teach a very practical lesson. And this is what we need to look at today. What he taught about was that in his kingdom, we would not follow the examples of this world. Our example would not be some corporate executive, would not be some president, would not be some mega millionaire, would not be some influencer, would not be some Hollywood star. Our pattern would be the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

And that would be very different from the way the world looks at things. He came to be a servant. So when he calls you, it's to be a servant.

You know, too many times in Too many churches. Churches don't want servants. They want to be celebrities. They want to be the ones calling the shot. They want to be saying, well, it's too hot or it's too cold.

You need to change this. This is the wrong color. Whatever the case may be, you know, too many churches are blessed with too many celebrities and not enough servants. But can I brag on my church for a moment? I love the servant heart of Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Service is a privilege and a joy and something you got to stand in line to get to do around here. It's modeled by your ministers, it's modeled by your deacons and those other spiritual leaders within our church family. If there's a toilet running over, you're going to have to stand in line to go work on it, because that is our DNA here. This is the people that you're surrounding yourself with. This is maybe the church you want to join because this is the role of our master.

He'd be the first one with the towel and the last one standing back telling somebody else what to do. No, he would be in the middle of what was going on because of this. The key to greatness is not in position and not in power, but in character. Character. You and I have got to identify with the core value of Jesus Christ if we're going to understand what it means to be significant in his kingdom.

And his core value is servitude, being a servant. He used two different words. We can translate both of them, servant if we want to. But in this passage in 27, he used the word servant. That is the same word we have for Deacon.

It means a servant. It means somebody who was in service. And it's a low calling, but it's a high calling at the same time. But the second word he used was literally the word slave. And this is somebody who was owned body, mind and soul by somebody else.

He wasn't really making that much of a distinction between the two, though there is a distinction. All slaves were servants, but not all servants were slaves. Some servants sold themselves into servitude because that was a way of life that they could benefit from a great deal and care for their families and so on. But others were slaves because they had been bought. Doesn't really matter.

They're both servants. And that's what Jesus is saying. This is my calling for you. If you're going to grow in your spiritual life, you'll only grow as far as you're willing to serve. Let me run that by you one more time.

Just in case there's somebody else here in the slow class. Okay? All right. If you have any desire to grow in your spiritual life, you will only grow as far as your attitude of humility and service will take you. That is the secret for the kingdom.

You know, if young Samuel, when he was learning to be a servant in the house of the Lord as a child, he was taught that whenever he sensed the voice of God, that what he would say is, speak, O Lord, your servant hears. In other words, to hear is to obey. Speak, O Lord, your servant hears. Let me tell you something. If that's your attitude, here's how that's reciprocated.

From heaven down, God says, speak, O servant. Your master hears. Because when you're in a servant heart and a servant mind, God's ready to talk, to talk to you. So Salome didn't know what she was asking for. You know, she learned her lesson the hard way.

The Bible tells us that Salome was with Mary and John at the foot of the cross.

She was there looking up at Jesus stretched out on that cross, bleeding slowly but surely dying. But then she looked on either side of him, and what did she see? Two other crosses. Thieves.

This was what she was asking for her sons, where they come and be on either side of you as you move into your kingdom. And I think a shudder ran down her spine.

But Jesus asked those boys, are you willing to do whatever it takes? And they both very quickly said, yes. But let me tell you this. They did. They did that same.

James was the very first martyr in the Christian Church. He was the first one to give his life for the cause of Jesus Christ. He did exactly what Jesus knew he would do. He would be a faithful servant, even unto death. The very first of those 11 men, 10 of the 11 faced horrible, horrible executions because of their faith in Jesus Christ.

Some were ran through by swords or spears. Some one actually had the skin peeled off his body until he bled to death. Another one was sawn in half. I mean, really not like the magician does, but really, what about John? Didn't John live to be a ripe old man?

Well, yes, after being tortured many times. As a matter of fact, at one time, he was literally thrown into a huge vat of boiling oil. And how he came out of that alive is just a miracle. And then they exiled him to an island, the Isle of Patmos, an old slave colony. And there he stayed by himself with all of those wounds and all this stuff for a long period of time.

Eventually, when command and control changed up, the food chain. He was released from that, he made his way back to Ephesus, where he was the pastor until his death. And he spent his years caring for the mother, Mary and seeing to it that all of her needs were met, just like Jesus asked him to from the cross. So both of these men, they did exactly what Jesus said they would do. You're going to.

You're going to be my servants. You are not going to be like what you think. You're not going to be on thrones in my kingdom, but you're going to be. You're going to be my servants. And I'm going to be proud of you.

Now, what's the lesson we take away from this? Let's draw some things together before we're finished. The main lesson is, I want you to hear, is to be a Christ follower. It takes a certain mentality, a certain attitude. It takes humility.

It takes learning how to follow. It takes learning how to follow. Let me give you the whole sermon in a sentence. You can look back at your notes now. We're gonna pick up where I left off.

Here's the whole sermon. If I could put it in a sentence, it would just be this. The key to getting ahead in your Christian walk is to learn how to stay behind. The key to getting ahead in your Christian walk is to learn how to stay behind.

You get ahead by staying behind in Jesus Kingdom. If you can't see Jesus clearly, you're in front of Him.

Get in line, get behind the Master. Don't lag behind. Don't get distracted, Keep him in sight. But you get ahead by staying behind. If you're in front of him rather than following him, you are in a very dangerous situation.

Don't get ahead of him, but stay close behind Him. Don't lag behind. It's always been this way. You look to the Old Testament and over and over again you see this reiterated in Deuteronomy, chapter 1, verse 30. The Lord our God goes before us, and He Himself fights on our behalf.

In chapter 31:8, the Lord is the one who goes ahead of you. He will be with you. He will not fail you. He will not forsake you. Do not fear, do not be dismayed.

The psalmist cries out, you go before me. And Isaiah 52, the Lord will go before you. The Lord of Israel will lead you and even be your rear guard. All throughout our Old Testament, the Bible that Jesus taught and read from every day over and over again, the admonition is, stay behind God. And he even made it very Visible to where you.

You can't miss it. Remember the story, the episodes of how Moses led the children of Israel out of. Out of Egypt? How did he lead him? He.

He manifested himself as this huge pillar, column of cloud by day and fire by night. He was obviously there, and it would rest upon the ground, and that's where they stayed. And somebody was always watching the pillar. And at some point it would get up, it would rise up, and then it would begin to move. And as it began to move, everybody's packing their stuff, getting their tents pulled down, getting the light, livestock, and the babies together and following after.

Wherever the pillar went, that's where they went. And when the pillar slowed down and set back on the ground, that's where they'd set up camp. And this is the way they found their way from Egypt all the way to the promised land. They kept watching the presence of God. And when he moved, they moved.

When he sat still, they sat still. I've sought to follow that admonition most of my life. In my former church, we were making some great plans to make some huge strides within our community. Everybody knew we were working on things like this, and they were excited about it. But my deacons, my ministers and I, we were just waiting on the Lord to get the clear understanding.

And people were getting anxious. They were ready to move. Let's do something. Let's get this plan on the word. And I was confronted one day out in the foyer of the church by one of my men.

And he said, I want to know when we're going to move forward. And I said, well, I'll tell you when we're going to move forward. As soon as the pillar of cloud lifts up and moves, we're going to be right behind him. But until then, we're waiting on the Lord. That's hard.

Is waiting hard for you? Waiting is hard for me. Waiting is hard for everybody. But being a follower means you don't go anywhere until your leader steps up and goes, and then you're hot on his heels.

You get ahead by staying behind, not getting out in front. You're in serious trouble when you do that. So let me give you some key aspects here. Just a few things. These are in your notes here.

You fill in a couple of blanks as we go. Key aspects in following Jesus and not trying to lead him. Following him and not leading him. You have to trust in his timing. Following involves waiting on his firm leadership.

Now, you can seek a lot of counselors, and that's a good thing to do. You can stay in his word. You can pray, you can talk with your spouse, those that you have as your prayer partners, your accountability partners, all of these things are good and wonderful things you need to do. But you don't move until you feel that motion from God pushing you forward. And then you move because you're ready.

Understand, this may mean embracing a very hard way rather than the easy way. True discipleship takes the hard way, the long way. It means surrendering your agendas. See, all too often what we want to do is say, lord, here's, here's the direction I feel I need to go in my life. Here's the job I want, here's the person I want to marry.

Here's the school I want to go to, whatever the case is. And it all looks good to me. So here, come here, come here, come here. Bless this because I'm going to go do this.

So after you get out there ways and you find your knee deep in alligators, you say, oh God, where's that blessing?

You're way out in front of me here, dude. Can't bless you out there. Come on back. Some of you are there. You're right where you are in your life because you have gotten way, way ahead of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's time to come on back. Take your spot where you belong, right behind him and listen to him and let him lead. Obedience is more important than convenience. Obedience is more important than convenience. Let me say that one more time.

Obedience is more important than convenience. It won't always be convenient to be a follower of Jesus Christ. But when we get ahead of him, we cause a whole lots of trouble. And everybody else around. So let me jump on a couple of core principles that I wanted to leave you with.

Core principles of following versus leading. Core principles of following versus leading. Here's where it starts. Jesus said this. If any man will come after me, that means any of us women, children, anyone wants to come after me, here's what you do.

You deny yourself. Now let's pause there a minute. What's that mean, to deny myself? That means I have to take my dreams, my hopes, my aspirations, my way of doing things and I have to submit them. What does that word mean?

It means I put that under the table. What's on top of the table? God's will and his desire and his dreams and his lifestyle and his values. That's what I'm following. I've got to deny myself.

And I am a prideful, stubborn, hard headed, stiff necked rascal.

And that's not an easy thing for me to do. But you know what? He's broken his neck a time or two and he's bent that spine more than off a few times to keep me following rather than getting ahead. If any man will follow me, let him start off by denying himself. It's not about you anymore.

It's about me, son. And then take up your cross. What is that? That's a symbol of death. A symbol of dying.

Dying to my old way of life and being raised to the new life that God has given me in him. And then follow me.

You get ahead by staying behind.

Trust in him, even when it's unknown. You see, one of the reasons I have gotten in front of God so many times is because of anxiety or fear of the unknown. And I'm this kind of person that when, you know, when things aren't going the way I expected to, I'm going to reach out and grab handles and I'm going to make this thing go. I'm going to make this survive. You know, that's made me a good paramedic for quite a few years.

I'm going to do what necessarily has to be done. Doesn't matter.

But the problem is, in the process of doing that, sometimes you can get way ahead, way ahead of the Lord, and you got yourself extremely vulnerable in the process. This has to do with active obedience. How do I stay behind the good Shepherd? That's in your notes. How to stay behind the good Shepherd?

You need to learn to wait. Wait on him now. Sometimes it's hard to hear his voice. So it's really good to have great counsel. It's good to talk to pastors.

It's good to talk to other spiritual leaders, your spouse and your family, people that you trust, because we're not always tuning our ears to hear him. So it's good to get some schooling on how to do that. But I'm dying to myself daily. I'm embracing his timing, and that's so hard. There's a great preacher.

Years and years ago, his name was Philip Brooks, and one of his friends came to visit with him one day and found Philip Brooks pacing back and forth in front of his fireplace. And he was puffing on a cigar. He just said, Dr. Brooks, what's the matter?

He said, I am in a hurry and God isn't.

Anybody else live there? I'm always in a hurry. I'm always ready for things to get done right now. You know, sometimes God says, you know, just gonna have to wait. Wait for my timing, wait for My timing and focus on the relationship.

Focus on the relationship with God. You can't hear the voice of God that you don't know very well. So how do I know Him? I spend time in his word. I spend time in prayer.

I spend time in worship. I spend time with other people who are listening to him as well and jointly trying to seek his direction and go forward together. Here's the paradox of it's always upside down. It's always upside down to the world in which you and I know where we've grown up when we've always thinking about this is what success looks like. But success in the eyes of God looks like obedient servanthood.

And that's very different. Some of us are end up with something I call the destination disease. It means we're so concerned about where we want to be and where we want to go at a certain time that we're missing something. Let me tell you something about discipleship. Discipleship is not about a destination.

Disciple is about the journey. It's about the process of getting there. And getting there is the best part of the journey. Can I tell you a little story with this? We'll close this morning.

It's a lesson taught to me by my stepfather. He grew up way down in the sticks of South Georgia on a farm, very much that was at home to him. In my younger years, I was a city boy. I didn't know much about being down on the farm or whatever. When we went down to visit Grandma and Grandpa, the running water was in the kitchen and you had to pump it, and that's all the running water there was.

So out the back porch, down a path a little ways was the outhouse. Did I mention that I was a city boy? Okay. I understood pretty much what that was about because anytime you get near it, you could smell it, okay? So I would make use of that during the day.

But then, you know, nighttime came. And when nighttime came, invariably that urge began to hit.

Well, it was darker down there than a thousand midnights in a cypress swamp.

I knew basically what direction it went in. There was no outside lights. And so I'd go to my daddy, daddy, can you. Can you go with me out to the outhouse? Now, he could have just stood on the porch and shown his light down there that way and says, you, Honor, there it is, son.

Go on. But he had the good sense not to do that. He took the flashlight and he put it right behind his belt right here and sounded on the ground.

He knew every inch of that farm in the dark. So he'd walk and I'd follow, looking down at the flashlight, seeing nothing but his heels and a little bit of the path we were walking on. We'd eventually get to where we were going. He'd stand around there, wait a little bit for me, and then we'd turn around and we'd make our way back. And he'd just shine his light down right there.

And all I could see was his heels and a little bit of the path.

But I learned something.

If I'm going to follow my heavenly Father, he's not going to shine a spotlight out there 50 years. He's going to give me enough light to see right now and to be obedient in following him.

Will you bow your heads with me? Let's do business with God.

For some of you here today, that first step of business is simply to say, God, I am not a follower of yours, but I sure want to be.

I don't know how to do that with your heads bowed and eyes closed. Will you do this for me? Here's what I want you to know. Me and the other ministers are going to be close by. Some of us will be here at the front, some are going to be in the back.

Some people are going to be at the connection center. You can ask any of us, we'd love to tell you how to take the first step of following Jesus. Or you can look right there on your bulletin, there's a little QR code. You can just flick that and it'll take you to a place that you can begin to find some of these same things or make an appointment to talk to one of us.

But the joy of my life would be to know yet somebody else has taken that first step. So you do that today. Others of you have already taken that step of following Jesus. But maybe like your hard headed pastor emeritus, you've gotten out in front of him again, made a mess of things and you have to cry out, lord, I done done it again.

Take me back home, get me back behind you. Shine the light. And I promise, Lord, I'm going to follow. I'm going to do better. With your help, by your grace, I'm going to do better.

And maybe there's some of you today that the Lord's got you making a big decision.

And you're watching that pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. You're watching, living in the Word and you're praying every day and you're talking to those you trust. And you may be in that time of waiting can I pray patience on you right now. But be ready. Have your bags packed.

When God says move, it's time to go. Father God, in these next few moments, as our praise team leads us in this time of worship. Part of worship is saying yes to you and being obedient. Some of us need to come to the altar and just pray and say, God, I've got out of step with you. Forgive me, please.

I just to want take me back in step. I gotta get back behind you.

Others are saying, I don't know what the first step is, God, but I'll come talk with somebody and find out.

Maybe there's a big decision that you'd like to share with one of us. Let's pray with you. This is your time and God's time. Just these next few moments are holy and precious.

May we do what you put on our heart to do, Lord, we ask in Christ's name. Amen. You stand, please.