Jesus Is My Shepherd

Let's go to part two of our series, guys. Jesus Is. Because it's important that we know about Jesus and who He is, because there's a lot of Jesuses out there. But I'm getting back down to the nitty-gritty of who Jesus is. We just went through a whole theological teaching and got a little deeper the first part of the season.

I say it like it was a bad thing. It was a really good thing. But we got real heavy, you know. We went through the Apostles' Creed and talked about the elements of the faith that we understand. Got a little deeper in understanding that.

But my job is to take something complicated and make it simple. That's why I study Scripture all the time. That's why I try to do my best in looking at Scripture, parsing it correctly, and bringing it down to a very simple level. Because you want it in very simple chunks. All of us, you know, we read the Bible from time to time.

What the heck does that mean? You know, like, what's going on there? But Jesus' message is very, very simple. Paul was a philosopher. Paul was a theologian.

Paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees. And Pharisees, not in the bad look at it. When we think of Pharisees, we think of those who are religious. Yeah, he was religious. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees.

But he was very smart, too. He was educated very well. And he said this, you'll remember, friends, when I first came to you, I didn't try to impress you with polished speeches. I didn't try to give you a bunch of theology and stuff or the latest philosophy. I deliberately kept it plain simple.

First, Jesus and who he is, then Jesus and what he did. Jesus crucified. He brought it back down to that very thing. It's who Jesus is. And that's what we're looking at.

Who is Jesus? Because we get a lot of ideas of Jesus. People teach a lot of things about Jesus. And frankly, even in the church, a lot of those things about Jesus aren't Jesus. So we're going back to see who Jesus is.

So we started off last week just seeing Jesus as a friend. He's our best friend. Look, if every friend in the world betrays you, if every friend walks away, guess what? Jesus will be there. Amen.

He is always there. He's always with you. You can have a best friend all the time 24-7 available to you. Go back and listen to that and you'll learn that Jesus is your best friend. But today I want to talk about part two.

I want to talk about him being your shepherd. Jesus is your shepherd. I love John 10, 10 and 11. It's real famous. But the context of that is shepherding.

And he's speaking to religiously about the religious leaders of that day who were oppressing the people with their religious attitudes. But he was also pointing to something very sinister that was going on. And that was the devil himself. And he says this, the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. That's what the thief does.

That's what that's what people were doing in that day. The Pharisees were doing. They didn't care about shepherding them. They didn't care about how they were doing. They only wanted them to abide by the The law, and they would do it any way they could, and they were oppressing the people.

But He says, I have come that you may have life. I didn't come so that you would be oppressed in darkness. I come so that you may have life, and not only have life, have it to the full. The fullness of life is what He gives us. And then He says this, I am the good shepherd.

Because there's a lot of shepherds out there, and some shepherds are wolves in sheep's clothing. They're dark shepherds. They give you, they think that they're giving you, or you think that they're giving you life, but they're not really. They're all phony. They're all fake.

That's not our shepherd. Our shepherd has something good for us. Our shepherd has life for us. Life and life to the full. The fullness of life that you can experience in this world and in eternity.

He has life available for you. He is our good shepherd. And one of the most favorite things that Jesus liked to talk about is being a shepherd. He liked to talk about being a shepherd and the flock. He called us the flock.

There's a lot of symbolism in Scripture. There's a lot of ways they talk about the church. First of all, the church is a family. We're a family. That's why I said, let's do Easter together as a family.

We're not just here, there, dissected all over the place. People have a habit of divorcing their families, like they divorce their marriages and stuff like that. But the church is a unit that is a family. We love each other. Even when we disagree, we love each other.

Amen? We work things out. We stick together. That's what a family is. It's a relationship.

The church isn't just an organization. It's a relationship we have with each other and with our Lord Jesus. So we're a family. It's also a fellowship that we have unity. We have unity under what we believe.

We're doing what we do. We have unity in that Jesus needs to be made known on this earth and present heaven to people, the gospel to people that are lost. So we have unity and fellowship, family and fellowship. And then we have the body of Christ, which is explained in Scripture, that we all have different gifts that we bring together. But today I want to talk about the flock.

He calls us a flock. So we're looking at us, a sheep, and he's the shepherd. Psalm 100 says it like this, Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

The closest English word we get to shepherd is pasture. Okay? So if you go to the original Greek, poimen is the original Greek. It's basically shepherd, pastor. Pastor, shepherd is used interchangeably in Scripture.

So it's the same word. So that would be weird. That would be awkward. But that's basically what it is. It's a shepherd.

Jesus, and Jesus is not just a pastor. He's not just a shepherd. He's my pastor. Pastor. He's your pastor.

He's a personal pastor. We have pastors in the church that take care of us, right? But Jesus is a pastor that is available to us and all of us need a pastor. All of us need a pastor. Even in the church, all of us need a pastor.

We need somebody to care for us. We need a pastor or elder. Elders are pastors. Overseers are pastors. All of those people are pastors in some way.

We all need people to care for. I need people to care for me. You need people to care for you. We all need people to care for us. But Jesus isn't just a pastor.

He is the pastor. He is the shepherd. In fact, 1 Peter, as he was talking to the church about or the leaders of the church, the elders and the pastors of the church at the time, he wrote this letter and he said, Peter wrote this letter, Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers. Not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be. Not greedy for money, but eager to serve.

The chief shepherd appears. You will receive a crown of glory that will never fade away. They call him the chief shepherd. And my heart is for everybody to know Jesus as their pastor. To know them as their shepherd.

That he is available. He is your shepherd. And here's what a shepherd does. Many of you know this scripture. It's a famous scripture.

The Lord is my shepherd, right? Y'all know that scripture. Well, we're going to it. Psalm 23, 1 and 6. By the way, if you're new with us, you can go to the Bible app and pull up our notes there in the events section.

Find Salt Church or write your notes down any way you want to. But I encourage you to take notes. So it says this, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil. Amen.

Don't have to fear evil. You are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before the presence of my enemies. Amen to that.

I get to eat while I watch my God fight for me. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Amen. Amen. Surely his goodness and mercy. The Lord is my shepherd. And I hope that you can intimately know Jesus like this.

This prophetic message about who Jesus is, the chief shepherd who is available to us. We get six things from this. First of all, that he is our provider. I find it interesting that it starts out, I shall not want. Because I think, that's the most- The most- Difficult thing for people to get past that.

Is my God really my provider? Does He provide for me? If I'm going to take this next step, or if I'm going to do, is God really my provider? Can I just say this? I'm trying to figure out where to go with this.

I know for a fact He is a great provider. He provides all of our needs according to His riches and glory. Throw that up, Matthew, in Christ Jesus. He provides all of our needs. Why do I know this?

Because I can't tell you how many times He's provided for me. When I look back, I can't believe how God has provided for me even to this day. Some of you are like, well, didn't you start the church with a good bank account and all that? No, we didn't. We didn't have anything.

When we started the church, or when we were considering starting the church and praying about it, and God kind of let us begin to step out, we had a ministry that was going to provide us financially for a year. So we were like, oh, yeah, that's good. That's good, man. We can work with this. We can try to figure it out.

And I don't have to work two jobs and try to figure out how to lead a church or start a new church and do all that. So I stepped out in ministry, left a job. I was actually dual-employed then as a pastor and also working in another area, had a regular nine-to-five job. So I left it all to start this church. And overnight, so many things happened.

Number one, the ministry that was supposed to support me reneged. They weren't able to support me. Miranda, my wife, who was up here singing a second ago, she was working for a company and had just lost her job because they were going through some stuff, some legal battles with some things. So she was basically laid off. We had two little children.

One of them was just born. And everything in my flesh would have said, Lord, you're not my provider. I need to do it myself. But the Lord called us to do something. And it would have been easy to say, Lord, it's more important that I take care of my family than to follow your will.

But what I learned that God is a provider. And I saw him provide, and Miranda can testify to it, checks would just come in the mail out of nowhere. A few states over, people would just drop a letter and say, you know, the Lord told me to do this for you, to pay our rent and to take care of our kids and to do all the things. One day, we walked out to our mailbox and found a few thousand dollars in cash just sitting in our mailbox. We have no idea where it came from.

Nobody mentioned it. There was no letter or anything. It was during a time when we didn't know if we were even going to be able to get our kids Christmas that year because we were really budgeting so tightly. I grew up in a window. I grew up in a pastor's home.

My dad pastored in the 70s back when pastors had to make ends meet on prayer and, you know, Holy Spirit, basically, that's what the church thought anyway. They didn't pay their pastors. I think my dad was making $200 a month at the time. There were times they had to dig change out of the couch just to go to McDonald's and get a burger so they can split it between themselves. And we were little kids and there was a time, they shared this story all the time.

They didn't have anything. They had just given us their last bout of food and they didn't know what to do. They didn't know what to do. Yes, they did. They got on their knees and prayed.

That's the only thing they knew what to do. They got on their knees and they began to pray, God, God, you own the cattle of a thousand hills. You own it all. You have everything under your control and you love your children and you want to provide for us. They prayed that day on their knees.

And then the doorbell ring, they walked outside like a few hours later and there were two grocery bags sitting on their porch. And the guy standing back there and there was an interstate that kind of went by where we lived and he said, I don't know why. And I don't even know if the guy knew the Lord. They said, I don't know why, but something told me I needed to go to the grocery store and get you some food. It was provided for us.

God's a provider. God's a provider. And there's so many stories of that. God, I can't, I can't even count how many stories God provided for my family when I was a kid, when my father was in ministry and how many times God provided for us. But I assure you, trust God.

He will provide. He, if you walk in his path and path of righteousness, if you walk in his calling, he is going to provide. Do not worry. Some of you are worried to death because the economy is crazy. I know I looked at my bank account this week and I'm like, oh my gosh, groceries are through the roof and everything else and we don't have much money.

This is not the same as it was about a year or two ago. I know it's, it's tough, but you know what? I'm not worried. I'm not worried because my God is my provider. He'll provide all of my needs.

He owns it all. He owns it all. And he'll, he'll provide for me. It's, it's much like a child when my kids aren't worried when they wake up in the morning and go to the kitchen. They know, Max knows there's going to be pancake mix right there, you know, to create, do his pancake.

Yeah, my, my son wakes up really early, 11 years old, goes in the kitchen and makes himself a pancake. He knows that's going to be there. Why? Because he knows his parents is going to provide. My, my kids aren't worried about clothes and, and food.

That's not even, because good parents do that. Good parents provide for their children. Good parents, as long as they stay in right relationship with, that, you know, it flows. Provision flows under right relationship with. As long as you are in right relationship with Him, He owns it all and He will provide it for you as long as we stay under Him.

And that is why Philippians said He meets everything according to our needs. According to His riches in glory, because His riches in glory are far more than any riches on this earth. He will provide for us and we can trust our Shepherd to provide for us. Number two, He restores us. He restores us.

He gets us back to where we once were. How does He do that? Well, it says He makes us lie down. And He leads us by still waters. And some of you have been through some very, very tremendous times in your life.

You've been through things that have shooken you up so bad you don't know which way is which. Maybe you've faced betrayal. Maybe you lost a loved one that was really, really close to you. But He is there and He offers this to you. It says in this Psalm that He leads you, He makes you lie down in green pastures, right?

Luscious green pastures. What does that mean to a sheep? It means food. It means that they have something to nourish them. They can lie down and they can eat and they can enjoy and they can recuperate after a long travel.

And that's what God has available to us in His Word. You have the Word available to you. You have the Bible available to you. You need to not only get into the Scripture, but allow the Scripture to get into you, to feed you, to fill you up, to strengthen you. God has provided that to us.

Man, there's some peace that you guys are missing out on if you're not in God's Word. He has peace available to us. John 14 says it like this, Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I do not give you as the world gives because their peace is different and it doesn't last very long.

Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. That comes from the Word of God speaking to you about those of you who may be going through some fear in your life. Those of you who have been going through some times where you don't even know if God's there. Guess what? He is available to you in stressful times.

He brings peace to us. He wants to be the peace of our life. He wants to offer us peace and He leads us into green pastures so that we can receive that peace and He leads us by still waters. What is that? That's worship.

That's the worship that is worshiping God. There's something about worship that brings peace to me. When I wake up in the morning sometimes, I'm just not interested in worshiping. Have you ever been there where you've woken up early in the morning and you're just like, God, I don't even feel like worshiping you right now? I know I'm supposed to say, you know, Lord, this is your day.

I just, I'm not feeling well. I'm tired. I didn't sleep well last night. There's a lot of things going on in life right now. The money, the bank account's a little dark and deep right now.

You know, there's nothing there, God. The kids are, this is going with the kids. You know, you have all those things like, God, I'm just not my distractions are all over the place and things are just too busy and I just don't have time to worship. But he says, come, come, come, let me lead you by, let come to these still waters, because worship is where the still with the flowing waters of worship. When you listen to a stream and those flowing, that flowing water that gives you peace and relaxes you, God has that available to you.

Worship, sometimes I'm, I've got, you know, I go into my living room early in the morning and I pull that remote to my TV and there's this thing called YouTube where you get all the free music you want to and you can make playlists, it's pretty awesome. And sometimes I'm like, I don't even want to cut this on, Lord, I don't want to put this on at all, I just don't, and I just say, Lord, but I'm worshiping you. And I put it on and the Spirit fills that room when that worship's going and I don't even have to try. His life and his joy just fills my heart and excites me and gets me stirred and gets me started today. And I'm telling you, if I ignore the voice of the Lord that says, worship me, I'm not going to have a good day because I'm going to start that day off bad.

I'm going to be arguing with my children when they get up in the morning because they, you know, did this or did that or, and things are just not going to go well. But anytime I worship God, it always starts my day off just the way I need it. If you can give me a few more minutes, Alex. I'll call you up. On point four, if you want to come on up, because I'm only on point two.

And I'm sorry, guys, I'm moving on. I shared a little too much at the beginning there. Are y'all okay? Are y'all okay? Y'all ain't hungry, are you?

Okay, we got about, give me about six more minutes, okay? Six more minutes, okay. The shepherd leads to, number three, the shepherd leads. He leads us the path of righteousness, okay? He leads us in the path of righteousness.

There's a lot of paths we can take. There's the paths of righteousness, which are the Lord's path. In fact, it says His name's sake. Those paths that He has available for it, He actually has His name written on them. But there's also paths of destruction.

There's paths that could take us to harmful places, paths of trouble. And He has paths available to us. And we have a choice where He leads us. And we have a choice whether we're going to follow Him or not. He gives us paths of righteousness.

In fact, John says it like this. The sheep listen to His voice. He calls His sheep, His own sheep, by name and leads them out. And His sheep follow Him because they know His voice. But they will never follow a stranger.

Why? Because it's not their shepherd. In fact, they will run away from Him because they don't recognize the stranger's voice. Now, this is very interesting. There was a guy who was studying.

He was a pastor. He wanted to study shepherds. Shepherds, like real-life shepherds. So we can... He can understand how to be a shepherd better in his church, and what he learned is sheep know the shepherd's voice so much, if two shepherds come together and the flocks come together, one shepherd can call out and the other shepherd can call out and the sheep will actually scatter and go to the shepherd because they know his voice.

That's why he uses this scenario to demonstrate the will and the voice of God. Like, sheep know their shepherd. And you know the thing about God's will? You know the thing about God's will? A lot of us ask, what's God's will for my life?

Well, number one, the will of God's life is right in front of you. You have it available to you. And he's calling you. And you know my voice, my voice, my kids know my voice. Vax was actually sharing this right before he came to church.

They were in the Shamrock Marathon and his teacher, Miss James, was yelling out and hundreds and hundreds of people were there. It was like rowdy. And he says, I was running yesterday and I heard Miss James voice, Max! Max! Max!

Go Max! Max! I see you Max! I knew it was Miss James voice because I know her voice. And it was so like, when he said, I'm using that this morning because that's cool because she's the teacher, she's the one that shepherds those kids at school.

And he knew her voice. My kids know my voice when I yell. And, well, when I yell. Yeah, they really know it when I yell. They know the voice.

They know it. When a friend calls, a good friend calls, and you pick up the phone, they don't even have to say who they are, do they? You know who they are. That's what a close friend is. And that's who God is.

So, what's the will of the Lord's? Right here, right now, what you're doing. And not only that, if you want to hear the Lord's voice, you want to decipher the Lord's voice, you need to get to know the Lord. You need to have like a really, really close relationship because, you know, the devil speaks too. And sometimes the devil's going to show you things or say things that aren't necessarily of God.

It won't align with God's word. It won't align with God's vision for your life. But you need to know God's voice. You need to know Him and how you do that through getting the word in you, worship, gathering together in places like this, gathering in small groups during the week, being around people who love the Lord, in the word, just being fed by the word. And church, it's not just once a week in church.

It's all the time. We are fed Christ. Number four, the shepherd supports. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Now, the idea of support, you know, when you have somebody support you when you go through hard times, it's really, really comforting, isn't it?

When you're dealing with a lot. 2 Timothy says it like this, no one came to support me. This is what Paul was telling Timothy. He says, no one came to support me. He was going through some tough times, but everyone deserted me.

But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength. He gave me strength. He gave me strength. The Lord stood at my side and gave me strength. He didn't have anybody.

Everybody had left him. Everybody had deserted him, but the Lord was by his side. He is a good shepherd. He will always be by your side. Everybody else can leave you.

Everybody else can forsake you, but you need to sometimes just encourage yourself in Jesus Christ. You need to encourage yourself in the Lord. The Lord is with you. The Lord is walking with you, and He's... This is really cool.

The shepherd defends... Oh... His rod and staff comfort me. Now, a lot of people see it this way. His rod and staff comfort me?

You know, they think... Of Jesus with a rod just beating people down, right? Maybe that's what you've been taught about Jesus. Don't do that! Stay away from that!

Align with this, you know? Heck, some people you face in church like that, and that's why you left church, and you didn't want to come back to church, right? But our Lord's not like that. Our Lord... It makes you think that God's just spanking everybody with a rod, right?

But the shepherd will protect you. He will defend you. He has a rod to comfort you, and a staff to comfort you. A staff... What is a staff?

A staff gathers sheep close to Him and pulls them in. When they're in distress, it pulls them in. It defends them. John 10, 11 says, The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. And it goes on to say, He prepares a table in front of your enemies.

Isn't that really cool? That's like one of my favorite images of how God has a nice dinner. I have a nice, you know, silverware, and nice china, and the best feast. And just sit and watch God fight for us. Amen?

God is there to fight for us. I know it's a strange image, but it gives us comfort. We can be comforted in knowing that God is defending you. And I know what it's like, okay, to be hurt and to be hit and to be betrayed. And all of us do.

We've been through it. Look, sometimes, yes, we want to talk to people about it. Or to the person about it. But sometimes, God just tells us, you just need to eat at my table. You need to just sit down and eat at my table.

Let me handle it. I'll take care of that. As long as you stay in the path of righteousness. As long as your integrity is in check. As long as you're living for me.

As long as you're doing the right thing. You stay... Look, I trust you. I've entrusted this to you. I've entrusted this ministry to you.

I've trusted this life to you. Trust me. There's going to be enemies. There's going to be devils. There's going to be false shepherds coming to your path.

But you can trust me. I will defend you. I have a rod and I have a staff that will protect you. And I fight your battles for you. And then finally, the shepherd blesses.

The shepherd blesses. Perhaps you've been told all your life that... Thank you. God's been withholding things from you. Maybe that's your interpretation or how you see God, that God's like this cosmic killjoy that just keeps...

he doesn't want you to be blessed. He wants you to live a certain way that just makes life horrible. It's just not a fun life. But can I tell you the reason that God has set parameters up in your life, the reason that God has the Word of God to guide you and direct you down certain paths and not others is so that you can be blessed. He wants to give you life and life to the full.

He wants to give you opportunity. He wants your life to flourish and be fruitful. And this is not...I'm not talking about a health and wealth thing here, okay? I'm talking about blessing.

Blessing in every place of your life. Whether you're poor, whether you're rich, wherever you are, there is a joy available to you when you follow the... My grandmother, she left this world with hardly anything, guys. Didn't have much money. Didn't have...

her and my grandfather, she and my grandfather, they gave their lives to children in orphanages. I mean, they raised...my granddad had a lot of sons and a lot of daughters. She had a lot of daughters. They had a lot of people, a lot of kids that they raised in orphanages.

And they didn't have a lot, but they had the Lord. They were happy people. They were blessed people. And I can remember, we called her Granny. Granny would come around the corner and she had her little bun.

She was an older Pentecostal woman, you know. You hardly ever saw her with pants on, you know. Later on in her life, she was wearing pants. I said, Granny, you're sinning. What's going on?

You got pants on. She said, Oh, Lord. That's what she would say. She was from the mountains of Virginia. Oh, Lord, Leon.

Follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in his house forever. She understood what goodness was. Goodness isn't the things that you have. Goodness is the joy you have in Jesus Christ in your heart. To live out the God of peace who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead.

Our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, equip you with every good thing. With everything good. Leasing to him through Christ Jesus to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. And if you know him, he will change the way you live.

He will change the way you act. He will change the way you experience things in life. If you know Jesus, if you know who Jesus really is, he'll change everything. He will change everything. And he is available for you.

So what do we need to do? We need to know the shepherd. It's time to know the shepherd. I think about my two daughters. I've got two Malteses at home.

They're little guys. They run all over the place. They sleep a lot and they play a lot, okay? That's about all they do, but Cosmo in particular, he's the boy and he's a little bigger. He gets in trouble a lot more because he breaks things and does things and all that, and Piper's the little one.

She's kind of a little bit more rebellious. She doesn't listen to me when I call her in. I have to really, really go and get her. But Cosmo always listens and he comes. He knows my voice, man.

When I'm out there, Cosmo! Cosmo, come on! He's coming. And what's also interesting, I was thinking about this, the Lord was speaking to me on this, is that when I'm stern with Cosmo, he doesn't run off. He doesn't run away, you know, oh no, that mean guy or whatever.

Cosmo, how come you, what he does, it's so funny. He'll come and he'll get closer to me and he'll get all up against me and he'll just love on me and rub against me like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm sorry. And what do I do? I pet him, I rub. Of course, you can't help it when they're sweet like that, you know.

They come up and you just hold them and he understands. He understands that, what I'm trying to say. But why does he react that way? Because he knows I'm not going to harm him. He knows I'm mad at him.

He knows that he's done something wrong and he needs to be disciplined with my hard voice. I don't have to spank him or anything or I don't have to hit him with a rod. That would be terrible, right? All I have to do is like, Cosmo knows my voice. He knows my voice.

And you need to know your father. You know, sometimes your father's going to be sharp with you. Don't do that. Stop it. Sometimes your father's going to be kind to you.

I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. Keep doing what you're doing. Sometimes God's going to call you to do things that you have to be brave to do. Things that are scary.

I need you to step out and do this. And you're just going to have to trust him and step out. Know your shepherd. He's got your back. He's with you.

He wants to use you and you have purpose. You have purpose. Do you know the shepherd today is my question. Do you know the shepherd? Perhaps you've come here today and you're trying to figure this whole God thing out.

You know it's not great out there. You tried it the other way, right? But it's time, you know, to come home. You know the shepherd's calling you. He's been calling you for a long time.

Something in your heart saying, you know, I need a shepherd. I need someone to care for me, to love me, to guide me, to lead me, to help me, to fill me, to feed me. We all need that. Do you have that? If you'll bow your heads with me.

All heads bow. Well, thank you very much. Let's take this moment very seriously, if you're here today, and I would just ask everybody to stay here just for a moment, just for a moment, is that you today? Do you need Jesus? Do you need a shepherd?

There's no magic formula, there's no magic prayer that you have to say, it's just a confession, Lord, I see that you are the real shepherd, you're the true shepherd, and I invite you in my life, and I want to make you my friend, I want to make you my shepherd. Would you make that decision today? I can promise you, you will never be the same, that you'll know Jesus in a different way, you won't see him as just some place that you have to come to to experience him, but you can experience him wherever you are, because you can have a personal relationship with your God, with your Savior. Would you pray this with me if that's you today? Father, I believe that you are indeed the Son of God that died on the cross for my sin.

Today, today I want to make you my shepherd. Come into my life, Lord, lead me. Be my best friend, Lord. Be my God. I believe that you rose from the dead, and that you're alive today.

Raise me from the dead too, Lord. Raise me from my darkness, and make me a new creation in you. I give my life to you today. I surrender my heart to you today. I give it all to you today.

From this day forward, I'm stepping out, and I'm walking with you. I'm giving you an opportunity to guide me. The world's guided me in all different types of ways, but today, I'm making you my Savior and my King. I give my life to you. Amen.

Amen. Hallelujah.