Word. It's in Jesus's name that we pray and God's people said: amen, you may be seated. There's a reason that every single time I pray, I say in Jesus's name, and all God's people said: it's because I want you to participate. We are in a series. Anyone remember what the series title is called?

You don't have to know it, it's okay if you don't, but anyone remember it? Interconnected. Last week I talked from Colossians, chapter 1, about the idea that everything is connected and that we really need to put Jesus at the center of Our Lives because it's in him that our connections actually fire the right way. I'm. I'm not just talking about like things working out in your life, I'm talking even even down to in your mind.

It's in Christ Jesus that every aspect of our biology is held together. Many of us, we, we don't just struggle with our relationships, we struggle with neurons misfiring. That's me right in here. ADHD, that means my neurons are misfire and things aren't synapsing. I don't know the word.

I'm not a like. I'm not that kind of doctor. I'm not. I'm not a doctor. I don't know how it works exactly, but I know it's Jesus who holds it together.

Right, somebody is Jesus who holds it together and we've been in this series called interconnected, and the goal of this series is to help you connect at a deeper level to God, to yourself and to others. I want you to be firing on all cylinders, not just successful in one area and feeling inadequate in another area. So the hope of interconnected is for us to have the right things in our lives and in our minds and in our relationships so that we would feel, at the end of the day, not like we did it all right, but we feel all right, we feel peace, we feel calm, we feel content. So if you have your Bibles, I'd encourage you to open up to the Psalms. That's in your Old Testament.

If it's in your table of content, it is in your table of content, so you might need to go there. In my Bible it's page 657, but that's not your Bible, so don't even try the page number. It wouldn't work for you. I want to talk to you today about connecting with God. I could give you a flowery sermon title, but I'm not going to.

I'm just today. It's about connecting with God. Now I'm going to ask for participation. How many of you want to connect with God? All right, let's try this again.

I'm just going to, I'm going wean you into it. Say Amen. If you want to connect with God, look at your neighbor and shake your head like this: if you want to connect with God, all right now, stand up and walk around the room shouting: no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, don't do it. I mean, unless the spirit leads. The spirit would lead you in the pathways, just FYI, not running into people.

That's really what everybody wants to do. Someone go tell the kids, turn that down a little bit. I heard it. It's stressing me out. Every one of us wants to connect.

Y'all hear it too, don't you? It's like they bumping. Now you know, we got good kids experiences. They're connecting with God back there. I don't know about you guys- only a couple of y'all was into it- but they're connecting with God back there they're bumping.

It's a dance party. I hope it's not anyways. Anyways, we all want to connect with God. That is one of the biggest questions I get: how do I connect with God? And I'm not going to say it's simple, because it's not necessarily simple.

There are nuances to how you can connect with God, and the farther you go into your relationship with God. You're going to understand those. However, it's not as complex as we often make it, and so what I want to do today is utilizing Psalm 121. I want to talk to you about a simple way that you can live your life and regularly connect with your Creator, and I want to cavey out this upfront. I just want to disclaimer: this is not going to be new.

It's probably not going to be the profound thing you might be looking for, because when God says that he wants to connect with us, he makes it to where everyone who tries can connect with him is not something that there's this little secret to connecting with God. He wants all of creation to know him, and so he makes the on wrap, on-ramp actually fairly simple. So let me read the text and then I will jump into a few different points. It might actually sound familiar to you. Psalm 121.

Starting in verse one, I lift up my eyes to the mountains. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and Earth. He will not let your foot slip. He Who Watches Over you will not Slumber.

Indeed, He Who Watches Over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord Watches Over You. The Lord is your shade, at your right hand. The sun will not harm you by day, nor the Moon by Night. The Lord will keep you from all harm.

He will watch over your life. The Lord will watch over your coming and going, both now and forever more. It's a very simple passage, but I want to highlight a couple things before I dive into the meat of the message message. First off, this Psalm is the second Psalm in a collection of Psalms called The Psalm of Psalms of ascent. Meaning this is the Psalm that, like, connects you with God when you're in a good season or in a difficult season.

It's something that enables you to regularly remind yourself of the goodness of God. This Psalm starts out in the first two verses was kind of a rhetorical, and by rhetorical I mean he says it. It's not that there needs to be a response to it. He's asking this question. He says I lift my eyes to the mountains: where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and Earth. He, he asks the question and then he answers it. So it's not something that is meant to be responded to, as if the psalmist doesn't know the answer to the question. He knows it. What he's doing is he's reminding himself about how to connect with God.

Many of us, the struggle isn't that we don't know how to do, it is that we don't regularly remind ourselves. In fact, this Psalm was one that, pilgrims in the ancient world. When they're traveling to and from different places, they would recite this Psalm. I lift my eyes to the hills of the mountains: where does my help come from? My helps come from the Lord, comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and Earth.

And then the rest of the Psalm is about, about the reality that God guides and guards me throughout my entire life, my coming and my going, my, my waking and my sleeping. That's the idea of this Psalm. It's a Psalm of remembrance, about the fact that God protects and many of us. We need to remember that reality. Often, pilgrims would recite it on their way to Jerusalem.

Now, if you didn't know this already, because you haven't been to Jerusalem or because you haven't watched The Chosen series, I don't, I don't know. Even the chosen series wouldn't tell you necessarily. I didn't realize something about Israel. Jerusalem is actually at a higher elevation than the vast majority of the country, and so when you're traveling to Jerusalem, it's actually at a higher elevation and so even from afar- say you're traveling from Galilee or cesaria by the Sea, somewhere at a lower elevation- you can look up to the hills and recognize that you're traveling toward the temple of God. I know we view things differently these days, but this is something they would recite as they were on their pilgrimage to and from Jerusalem.

Now there's your context for the passage, but Scholars disagree quite a bit on what this passage actually mean. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do my best to blend what different Scholars say, but I'm not going to make it like super high level for you. I'm going to make it simple. Y'all cool with simple shake your head.

We'll make it real simple and I'm going to break down this first couple of verses in such a way that I think might be psychologically and emotionally helpful for you. We, cool with that, say Amen, awesome. I want to break it down first off. He says: I lift my eyes to the mountains. My first point is in the text.

He says: I lift. Look at your neighbor, say you got to lift it up, you got to shift your position. You don't have to tell them this part. You got to shift your position. I want to talk to you about posture and position.

I know he's talking about his eyes- we'll get to the eyes in a second- but I want to. I think the Lord stopped me here because so often many of us fail to apprehend the nature of God because we have the wrong posture. I told you when you came in here a second ago during the welcome- and I did it last week too- I said lean in. Right, I said lean in because I recognize that your physical po? Ure has an impact on the way that you receive information and many of us we find ourselves in a funk.

Anyone ever been in a funk before the rest of you might not be self-aware. We should talk about that in next steps- class right after this. If you've ever been in a funk before, what you recognizing is that that that funk causes you to in some ways, turn inward or cave in. That's a posture. Some of you- anyone been stubborn before, some of you still unaware we need to get you into a class or seeing a counselor.

Most of us find ourselves stubborn once in a while. That stubbornness, yes, it comes from a mindset, but it's a, it's a posture. It's a posture of rigidity, like when someone comes to me with information, I am unwilling to receive it. And I could keep going. Our posture has a huge impact on the way that we interact with not just information, but our creator, our posture.

He says: I lift, I got. I got to start with that because if, if I'm in a funk, sometimes all I want to do that's what it feels like. You get a migraine and stuff you. You just lay here. Actually don't know why it's doing that, but anyways, I don't know why I'm laying like this either, but that's how it is right.

You get into this funk and I know some people right now who are going through life and stuff's happening to them and there's external circumstances, but there's also a chemical imbalance that's causing them to respond in a certain way and their spouse doesn't get it. And there are other people around them trying to help, but they don't understand how to help that person who's in that, kind of depressed state or shame-filled Funk and they're laying here and they don't know what to do about it. And, your body naturally wants to cave in and just relax or rest and close yourself off from the world. That is a posture, and so when you're in this posture, it's very difficult, to move yourself into a different position. But the psalmist says first, he says I lift my eyes to the hills or the mountains, but he says I lift.

And there are many of you and I want to talk directly to the camera because I'm willing to bet that there are some people who are going to watch online because they weren't willing to lift themselves out of that funk to come here today. I don't want you to feel bad about it, but I want you to know this: that there is something to be said about shifting your posture. I've recognized this: that if I can choose, even when I don't feel like it, to get up in the morning and put myself into a new posture or position, it actually impacts my psyche and I respond better. There are many people in here. You need to shift or lift your posture, and it's not just for those in a funk, it's for some of us who regularly wake up with a negative posture.

God's doing amazing miracles in front of you, but all you see is the stuff that's lightly out of place and you, you need to lift up a little bit. I had to lift myself up this morning, guys. I'm just, I'm just being honest with you. This is the first week that they started back to school and I woke up this morning and I didn't do so, right, my mom and I, we came together this morning and I texted her last night. I said, all right, we're leaving at 5:15.

You know what my call time is? It's: it's 5:00. I said we're leaving at 5:15, oh, and so I woke up at 4:30 and I'm like, oh man, this is not good, and all I wanted to do was sleep. But I'm like I'm late. So then I got up, took a shower, got dressed and made sure my mom was up, cuz she lives in our nextg suite, and so we came to church and I'm sitting here and I'm like, oh no, I didn't think about the fact that it was the first week of school.

Maybe something's going to be out of place. So I walk in and something's lightly out of place, but my posture is already negative. So I'm not viewing it as something to, an obstacle to overcome. I'm viewing it as an obstacle that means that the Lord's frustrated or that nothing's working out right. And so I sat down for a second.

I had to shift my posture, I had to lift up my perspective. And I sat down and I opened God's word and I started reading. And I was reading the text that I was going to preach today and, though I've prepped it, it spoke, it preached to me. He says: I lift mat. You got to lift guys.

You've got to lift, you've got to shift your posture. And I know this isn't what the psalmist is exactly saying, because I'm about to preach the rest of that, but the Lord spoke it to me. You've got to shift your posture. I don't know what it is for you. I don't want to just preach to everyone.

They got to wake up at 5 or 6 in the morning. That not might not be good for you. Some people are night people. But what posture in your life do you need to shift? Is it a posture that says I don't want to go to work this morning?

Well, when you start with that posture- and I know it's normal- I'm not like I. I happen to have a job that I love, but sometimes I wake up and I'm like I know if I want to do this, is anyone going to show up this morning? We all have that and what we have to do and we can choose this: look at your neighbor. I'm going to tell you to do it again. Say you can shift it.

You can shift your posture. You don't have to change your mentality to shift your posture. Did you know that? All you have to do is say: you know what, I don't know, but I'm going to take every thought captive: The Obedience to Christ. I'm going to be my body and make it my slave and I'm going to move from this point to this point.

Just do it, just stand up, just shift your posture. And if you can shift your posture, it will shift your perspective. Because he doesn't just stop there. He says: I lift my what eyes? Eyes.

So it's not just you're lifting your posture, you're adjusting your position, you're also shifting your gaze or, let me say it this way, your attention, I think, your eyes, what your eyes look at, or what you're giving attention to. And while you might need to shift your position, I think it's a valid point. Many of us need to not only shift our position, we need to shift what we're paying attention to. I know you can choose it, but it's hard. It's hard to shift what you're paying attention to.

 Because there are things in life that are difficult. The easiest ones to talk about are those external circumstances that aren't happening to other people, but are happening to you for some reason, and though God is blessing you in ways that you're not fully comprehending right now, you're looking at the fact that God is Not blessing you in specific areas because what you give your attention to affects your mindset, and now you're in a bad posture because you're paying attention to things that aren't helping you lift up. Well, thanks, Matt, for telling me about how I'm paying attention to the wrong things. How do I fix it? Well, in a lot of ways, it's, it's as simple as that first point you got.

It's actually easier- easier to shift your gaze. It's easier to shift your attention than it is to shift your Earthly position. You might not be able to get out of that situation you're in. It might be a long time coming for you to get out of that situation. It might be difficult for you to live the way you're currently living, and God's going to send people into your life to, bless you and help you and get you out of that position or get you into a better position.

But it's not come yet, and so right now, you can't shift your position. All you can shift is your perspective and your attention. I did an illustration one time- and I didn't do it here today cuz I didn't want to trash this stage- but I did an illustration where I took a trash can and I poured a bunch of stuff out onto the ground and I looked at all of that stuff. And I am one of those people who has the tendency to look at all the stuff that I would consider trash in my life and say, man, I've got to clean this up so that I can feel better. But what I would encourage you with is looking at the trash.

Paying attention to the things that aren't good actually doesn't help you get where you want to be. It might help you clean some stuff up, but it actually doesn't change the your spiritual state. It doesn't change what you desperately need to change. And so what do you do instead of focusing on all the stuff you want to clean up? I'm talking about difficult situations.

I'm talking about your current struggles. I'm talking about the people in your life that you wish weren't there right now. I don't know who they might be, but you look up instead of looking at the things that are frustrating you. Now don't hear me say, and you would ignore those things- you look up, you look to the place where you could actually be helped. You look to the place that'll shift your posture toward things.

You look to God. What you pay attention to will actually have a significant impact on the way that you live your life. That's how the reason we don't connect with God very often is because not only are we in a weird Funk or a position that makes it hard to connect with God, like I'm one of those who who struggles, if I'm laying in my bed reading the Bible, to stay awake, I have to shift my position in order to connect with God. So that's helpful, but I also have to shift what I'm looking at, and many times I'll I'll- I'll preach to somebody here for a second. The, the very same thing that I utilize to get closer to God and read Scripture is the very same thing that I look at.

That completely distracts me with Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook, Netflix, all of that stuff that I can have right here on my phone and in that all I have to do is swipe up and shift what I'm looking at. But it is difficult because what you pay attention to will impact not only your excitement- or like lack thereof- about your life, but it'll affect your ability to connect with God. This is why Paul says in Philippians, chapter 4: he says: think on the things that are true, right, honorable, pure, lovely and of good repute. He says: I lift my eyes. You've got to lift your perspective so that you can see the stuff in your life more effectively.

Anyways, I know there are some of you in here that are struggling. The only reason you're here today- I'm not saying this is a bad reason- the reason you're here today is because you got problems welling up in your life and you want them to be fixed. You want a solution for that. The solution is to shift your perspective and allow God to do what only God can do, and I'll get to the full solu solution in a second. But if you can, if you can lift up, shift your attention and then focus on things above.

He says: I lift my eyes to the mountains. I lift my eyes to the hills. Now, my wife and I and a couple other people, we went to Sedona this past weekend and we did a hike yesterday, and it wasn't a hard hike. I intentionally chose a pretty easy, flat hike because for some reason every time I choose a hard hike, someone's like you took us on a dangerous route you shouldn't have done. You're a terrible person.

So I took him on a really simple route. But in order for it to be simple but to still get a view, it's got to be a little bit of a longer route. And so what we did was we did a canyon walk and it took like a mile and a half to get there. And I'm walking and I got my kid behind me and I know I can tell by what he's paying attention to. He's just looking down the whole time and my kid- I love him to death.

He, he is Anointed by God to do something powerful. I hope you know like he is Anointed by God, but he was being very annoying yesterday and he was, he was walking and he was looking down. He said: this is taking too long. I want to do something fun. This isn't fun.

And I keep saying: hey, look up, you see that stuff. It was a canyon, it was beautiful red rocks and he's like H, but it's too long, it takes forever. We should have gone to Cathedral Rock, I'm like, but your mom gets scared of Cathedral Rock, so we're not going to Cathedral Rock, Let's go. We're going this way. There's going to be something good at the end of this walk.

But you're not looking at it. Look at this, can you see it? He's like yeah, and then he looks right back down and This Is Us. Like I lift, I've got to lift my eyes to the mountains. I've got to look at what's coming.

He says: Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, but sometimes we don't see the fact that the Lord's going to help us because we don't have hope. And we don't have hope because we're not looking in the distance, in the Horizon, to see what the Lord might be bringing. It's as simple as a hike and each of you were on your own journey and you're walking and you're looking down. You're looking at your feet.

You're like I wish my feet were bigger. I wish I wish I had better shoes. I wish I could run faster. I'm just looking at my feet. I wish my legs were thicker and make the dating pool easier.

I wish I did my squats. I wish people didn't call me chicken legs man. I wish I had six-pack man. If I had all that stuff, maybe I'd have more friends. I wish I had more friends.

I wish that I had a companion to do this with, so at least I could look at them once in a while and then actually not realize it but become their biggest problem in life because I haven't figured my own stuff out and maybe I'm just looking down, I'm looking at this stuff, but then I got to go to work and I haven't prepared for work because I escaped work on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But then I got to go back and I'm not mentally prepped to go to work and so now I'm going to get frustrated, not sleep well on Sunday night, and I'm not going to do these kind of string of thoughts every single week, but I guess I'm doing it two weeks in a row and I keep looking, I keep looking down and I think the Lord and me telling you this today, based on what the psalmist says, it's like no, if you can shift your attention and look at the hill, you might need to go super far in the distance, say: man, one of these days the Lord's going to return. One of these days all of my pain is going to cease. I'm going to be face to face with God one of these days. My kids are going to get through this situation that they're going through one of these days.

I'm going to figure this out and I'm going to look back and see how God used it one of these days. As I continue to pursue God, something's going to shift in my spirit and in my life, and while I might struggle right now with things like self-awareness, I might struggle right now, with not being where I want to be. If I look into the future and recognize that following Jesus and looking at God is the way that I get all of my hopes and dreams fulfilled, if I can keep looking up, I've got to shift my position, I've got to shift my attention and I've got to make sure that I'm getting a higher perspective. That's why it says: the mountains, man. If you can see the mountains in the distance, it'll give you hope.

If you can, if you can, elevate your perspective, it'll give you perspective, it'll give you a vision, it'll give you the big picture. And- and so that's what I love about this Psalm- in one little verse, or one half of a verse, he says: I lift my eyes to the Hills. This is a memory verse for ancient Judaism. It should be a lifestyle choice for us to lift my eyes to the mountains. Where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and Earth. And here's the beautiful thing. There are a lot of nuances to connecting with God, but if you can shift your posture, lean in and look at him, he'll actually do a lot more work than you think he will. Here's what the rest of the passage tells us. The first, the like, the real action In this passage by you is: I lift my eyes to the mountains.

He says: Where does my help come from? My help com from the Lord, the maker of Heaven and Earth. He will not let your foot slip. He watches over you. He will not Slumber.

He. He will neither slumber nor sleep. He watches over you. He is your shade, at your right hand. The sun will not harm you by day, nor the Moon by Night.

The Lord will keep you and guard you from all harm. He will watch over your life. The Lord will watch over your coming and you're going, both now and forever more. And so often we think our responsibility is to do more than just lean in and look, but it actually is that simple. We're going to do baptisms today.

Baptisms are a public profession of the reality that Jesus has saved us on the inside. These are people who have confessed with their mouth that Jesus is Lord. They have believed in their heart that God raised him from the dead. All they did was accept the Salvation that he provided for him, for them. That's that's all we do.

Is we say, yes, that's what I want and I'm going keep following you for the rest of my life. Your job, yes, you're going to learn some stuff, but your main job- is to look at Jesus. This is why Hebrews says: I fix my eyes on Jesus, who's the author and perfector of my faith, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross. I look at him. I, I don't have to be perfect, I don't have to get all my stuff together before I do it.

I, I, I don't have to talk right all the time. Sorry, talk rightly all the time. You see, anyways, whatever I, I don't have to figure it all out. All I have to do is look at him. It's so cool.

In the Old Testament, there's a scene where the Israelites are being disobedient. And so I don't, I, I can preach on this some other day. So the Lord sends a bunch of snakes and it starts biting these disobedient people and they're- they're- dying. But then the Lord provides a solution in the form of a bronze Serpent, and all they have to do is look at that bronze Serpent and they'll be healed. There's a whole lot to unpack there, but it's very simple, because John refers us back to it early in his Gospel.

The reality is, all you have to do is lift your eyes to the Savior, where your help comes from, and he will guard you and keep you for your entire life. And so what do I tell people who are ready to make their faith public? What do I tell people who trust in Jesus for the first time? I don't tell them: stop sinning. I tell them to ask forgiveness of their sin.

I, I don't. I don't tell them to stop cussing, but they probably should watch their mouth a little bit. You know what I'm saying. Like your parents taught you to stop doing that, right, just use good language, edifying speech. I don't tell them to change every aspect of their lifestyle, though there are Lifestyles that God would call you to change.

I want to be very clear about that come to next steps. If you want to hear some of those things right, here's what I tell people: if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And in the prayer I say, I commit to follow Jesus for the rest of my life- and this is crucial, whatever that means. So what am I inviting you into? I'm inviting you to fix your eyes on Jesus, to lift your eyes to him so that he would guard you and keep you.

And keep doing it, keep looking at him. Don't keep say all right now that I'm a Christian, now that I follow, follow Jesus. I got to get all my stuff together. There's stuff to get together, don't get me wrong, but you're not going to get it together by taking that broom and just sweeping it up and figuring out what to do with it. You're going to.

You're going to figure it out by seeking him, like if he is your destination and you keep walking toward him. He is going to give you Clarity on the pathways to take. He will help you and if you fix your eyes on him, he is going to help you shift, in due time, the things that need to be shifted, and I want to give you a really small example. I just mentioned cussing. I don't think cussing, I w be very clear here.

I'm not just saying walk around to first time guess and say, man, what the's going on, how you doing today. That's not what I'm saying. I don't want to shift our culture in the wrong direction, but, like it's words right and they may not be the ideal words, but if someone comes to me and they've got a potty mouth, I'm not looking at them and thinking like, oh man, I got to fix that before I talk to him about Jesus, I'm saying let me talk to him about Jes. Jesus and the spirit of God will reveal to them, when they need to shift, that that's what I do. And so for me, I didn't even know I was sitting there listening to Eminem.

In eighth grade I thought I was cool, playing baseball, cussing like a sailor and listening to Eminem on the church camp trip all the way on that bus. I'm just listening to Eminem. You know old school Eminem 2003. Eminem, you know I'm. That's bad stuff, right, I'm listening to it.

Sorry if you know that you're a terrible person, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. That's what I'm listening to. And some people were like you need to quit doing that. You know what that did.

It's like I'm G, turn it up louder, let's go, don't mess with me, don't tell me what to do. I'm stubborn like that. My posture was all off. But what some people did is they said, hey, I like you should know Jesus so you can spend eternity with him and not spend eternity separate from him. And when that clicked to me over time- look at your neighbor, say it takes a minute over time- what God did was he convicted me of my sin first.

John says he will. If you confess your sin, as you're convicted of it, he will forgive you of your sin and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. But the point is: don't go to your sin and try to fix it. Don't go to your struggles and try to fix them. Though there struggles to fix, go to Jesus and he will fix them in due time.

He will forgive you of your sin and he will cleanse you from all of your unrighteousness. I'm trying to say that if you look up at Jesus, he will shift it. And there's too many people in this world. They're looking around, they, they, they say I love Jesus, but I'm gonna fix this stuff. People come up to me all the time.

They say, hey, man, like I'm ready to get baptized, I believe in Jesus. I said: all right, cool, when you going to do it? He said: when I get my stuff together. And I'm just like: no, the good news of Jesus is that, in the midst of my squalor, not not having anything together, he died on the cross for my sin and he raised to walk 3 Days Later, validating the reality of my forgiveness of sin. He's saying: you can be in the worst position possible and all you got to do is, while you're stuck in this terrible position that you don't know how to get out of, all you got to do is look up, and there's some people in here.

You need to look up. You need to muster up the courage right now to lean into what the psalmist is saying. You need to lift your eyes to something better, and some Scholars would say that the mountains are, symbolic of Jerusalem, which is at a higher elevation. Other Scholars would say: when you look in the mountains, what you're seeing are the potentials of danger and people who would steal from you and other animals and beasts that would be lurking around the corner that could attack you like they. They interpret it Every Which Way.

But then there are others who interpreted it in a more allegorical sense, and what they would say is: , that the mountain. When I lift my eyes to the mountain, what I'm doing is I'm lifting my eyes to the character of God, and we see no better embodiment of the character of God than in Christ Jesus. And so I want to encourage you to look up at Jesus. So if everybody would bow their heads and close their eyes, you might even shift your posture a little bit so you don't feel bored or fall asleep while your eyes are closed, you might shift your posture, you might. You might lift your head up so that you have some semblance of a higher perspective.

You, you're going to pray this prayer out loud, all together with me, for the benefit of those who are praying it for the first time, and right after this would be a good time for those who are getting baptized to go ahead and, go, get changed. Repeat after me: God, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I believe he died, died on the cross and Rose from the grave. Father, forgive me of my sin, make me a new creation and I will follow you, whatever that means, for the rest of my life. If you just made that decision, we want to celebrate that.

But before we celebrate it, I want to give you a very quick directive. If you prayed that prayer and made that decision today, I want to encourage you. What does it look like for you to shift your posture and make that Faith public? If you're ready to do that in a second, while we're worshiping, you'll walk right out of those doors and I'll be out there, and I'll walk you through what it looks like to make your faith public in baptism. I think we've got what we need and if not, it's okay.

You know we'll figure it out, and but just just so they know we're on the same page as them, can we celebrate those who just made that decision to trust in Jesus? We're going to show you what it looks like like to make your faith public. But, man, we're