Why God Prefers Your Bloopers Over Your Highlight Reel
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This series In Real Life, the big idea behind it, here's the big idea behind it for you, is everybody's got bloopers behind the show reel. Life is made up of highs and lows, and wins and losses, and moments of grandeur, and Moses, moments of absolute sorrow and regret. But the here it is. God uses it all.
He uses it all. That's your story, and he turns it into something of his big story, which is really cool. Now, the problem with today, which I didn't have growing up, was the fact that you have got AI and you have got socials, and you've got stuff everywhere, and so everybody filters, everybody crops, everybody carefully curates their photos that they put upside.
You only see the show reel. And I was thinking about this, 'cause someone came to me the other day and they said, "Listen, you really need to write a book about our transition away from a religion into the way. How do you get to the way of Jesus, unhitching from temple and empire?" And I was thinking, "Oh, man, I don't got time to write a book."
But I thought, "If I sh-," like I if I'm gonna write a book, maybe I should look, like work with AI and come up with a, an image that would be really good for selling a book." I did a little bit of tweaking on it, and this is what we came up with
Look at that
And so I'm probably not going to write the journey of our history around the 10 words and come to that. I think I'm gonna write a romance novel And the thing about this part is that when I see it, I get really emotional because I remember I'm ne- I'm never gonna look like that again.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker: A time in my, a time in m- You stole my line, man.
And then I realised I never looked like it in the first place. There you go. But everyone's got this showreel thing that they put up, and we kinda hide the bloopers. All of our mistakes, all of our meltdowns, our messiness, it's all nicely hidden away. But here's the deal: the pressure to be perfect is exhausting.
It's exhausting, and it causes all sorts of problems. So this whole thing of in real life is gonna be a look, five weeks, gonna pull back the curtain on some of the heroes of faith and have a look at Moses and David and Peter and a few others and see what we can learn, because God never required anybody to have a perfect showreel.
He didn't have that. He doesn't wait for perfection. In fact, He seems to take great joy out of working through the moments that you would like to delete. The ones that you really wanna delete and just, "I wish that never happened." He seems to delight in doing that. So across this season, my hope and my prayer is that if you happen to be sitting here feeling like I've disqualified myself by my past," or you're busy trying to perform and you're trying to create this showreel and you're exhausted, that you might come to the freedom of just being authentic and just being real.
Stop curating all the photos and cropping all the mess out and just be real. And when you do, you'll discover something that's really gonna be a key piece of scripture behind the whole series. When Jesus was talking to some people and Paul wrote it down for us, this is what Jesus said. He said, "My grace is sufficient for you.
My grace is sufficient for you." Now, listen to this second part. "My power is made perfect," in what? Your weakness. "Your weakness." He says His power is made perfect in your weakness. But we're too busy hiding our weaknesses and presenting our showreel, so I'm just asking the question: does that mean you miss a dimension of God's power?
I think it's worth pondering and considering. See, your showreel, like the photo I put up, it inspires someone and gets a bit of a laugh, but when someone shares their bloopers, their mistakes, that gives other people hope. So my hope really out of this one is that you will realise that your worst moment doesn't disqualify you from God's best permos- purpose.
Your worst moment, think of your worst moment, that doesn't disqualify you if it's brought and it's surrendered to God. So the first thing I want to talk a little bit about is when temper tanks your testimony. Now, those of you who've been around here for a while, you will have heard this story before.
It's very well known. It's documented, probably in Wikipedia, I don't know. I haven't looked. But I have a bit of a struggle in this area because my dad had a struggle in this area. He didn't have a lot of patience for things that didn't work. So when they didn't work he would give it one or two little goes, and then all hell would break loose, and he would lose it.
So anyway he was kindly, when I first got, Anne and I got married and got our own home, he gave me one of his old whipper snippers to use, and it wasn't a very good one. But this thing was very frustrating, and so I, I'm out there this day, and I'm going
That's the one I told you not to put up until I finish the story. Let's go back. So that is the reality. That's the end product right there. That is the end product. But what happened was I go out there and I get the whipper snipper, I'm trying to start this thing. And then, you start it again. And it went on for three times, and I seriously just lost it.
It must have looked, from people watching on, like someone doing a hammer throw in the Olympics. I swung this thing out and I threw it across the yard, smashed down in the yard, and I'm yelling at this thing as I'm coming across, "You will never cause me to sin again." And I went to the, I went to the shed, and I got a shovel.
I'm in the middle of this, and I'm whacking this thing with a shovel. I'm whacking, there's pieces of whipper snipper flying off everywhere, and I'm just losing it. And then I ran to the shed again, and I, 'cause I went to put it in the bin, but it wouldn't fit. So then I got out there, and then I sawed this thing up, and I put it inside there, and I said, "You will never cause me to sin again."
And I looked, and there was Anne and Anita in the window. And they're looking at me, but they're also going... what's that all about? And then I look across, and there's my neighbor. My unchurched neighbor, Mark, just looking. And do you know what he said? "Praising the Lord today, are we, Pastor?"
To which I went And I don't know why, but I never got opportunity to lead him to follow Jesus. He just, whatever I had, he didn't really feel like it was worth following. And, unless, and I'm a pastor at this point in time, but, so this anger thing was just there. And I have to be very careful with computers because-
they really wind me up. It's it's just something that's there, I inherited. Pete Scazzero says m- "Jesus might be in your heart, but Dad and Mum and Grandad, they're in your bones." "And they're still trying to get out too." Yeah. Anyway. That's one of mine, one of many. I don't share a lot of my backstory because I toured in bands and similar to Paul, but on a worse scale, because he did it as a Christ follower.
And so I have a lot of bad stuff in there. And I don't like to share it 'cause I don't like to give any glory to that. But I can tell you this thing, if anybody deserved to be disqualified, it would've been me. It would've been me. I remember coming to faith in Christ, and I came and I was so broken, and I just, I basically just said, "God, here's my life.
You can do anything with it. Take it. I've completely wrecked it." And I'm only in my early 20s. I said you have it." And He graciously took it and said, "I can do something with that." If I was God and I handed me my life, I would say, "Thanks for the offer. You can keep that one." But He's not like that. He's generous.
He's so generous. But what's your blooper reel? Maybe you've got a failed marriage that you're hanging onto. Maybe there's some unfaithfulness in there. Maybe you've got an addiction, or there's a struggle, or there's something there in your history that you're ashamed of. And you, that's the thing that you carry around in your, with your, in your pocket all day long.
The thing that you keep hidden But I finally realized after a little while, that was my past. That was what it was. It was part of my story, but there was opportunity in all of that weakness and all that brokenness for God to reveal Himself in strength and power, provided I could be repentant. Now, if you don't if you're not new to church life here, the word repent means to turn and go the opposite direction.
That's all it means. Just means I was sorrowful about the way I'd lived my life and the mess that I made, and so I made a decision to turn my life towards God and walk with Him. But if you're in that place and you surrender and you're serious, God shows up. And I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this.
You've all got your own whippersnipper story
Probably not as elaborate as that, but you've got your own thing, but we have this... We've reached this place where it's just, it's all, everything is curated. It's all showreel. Get the best angle. Get the filter out the flaws. Crop. I've got a few photos for you to have a look at on this one.
So this is what, this is the one you post. This is the reality. Every day. Let's do it again. There, there's the curated one. Ah, there's the real. The, it... No one's posting that. Remember this one. And this one, of course, is marvelous. I love this. Look at that beautiful thing there. He's holding his computer up around a toilet seat
The pressure to appear perfect is exhausting. And you and I both know, we all know Behind all that perfection And the pressure to be perfect. There is one more, there's one small outburst of what's in my pocket could rise up and change everybody's opinion about me. We're only ever one moment away from being exposed to who we really are and not the show world that we got going on.
That gap from where we appear to be f- where we really are often is only just one meltdown away. And there's no positives when you melt down. When you do that, there's no getting that back when you bash the waitress for the death. There's no getting that back. You've tagged your testimony in there. But here's the w- there is one, one positive thing in this.
When you do finally release out what's in your pocket and it comes out, your true friends stay there The ones that just wanted you for a season have used you. They disappear. They high-tailed it out "I didn't know that about you," and they're gone. So we gotta be real. We gotta start getting real. Your skeletons will find a way to get out of the closet And if you don't surrender them, if you keep carrying them around, here's where it's gonna land for you.
You're gonna elevate your brokenness to such a place that you will not feel like God can use you in any way, shape, or form. And you'll develop this weird mindset that I'm not good enough for God to use me or do anything, and you self-eliminate on everything before it even gets anywhere down the track.
And it doesn't help, like when we read all the Bible characters, they're such bastions of character. They're such champions of supernatural holiness. Are they? That's what we're gonna do. We're gonna pull back the curtain and have a look behind the scenes. So today, we're gonna have a look at Moses
That's his Instagram shot. It's definitely his Instagram. He's putting... Looks a lot like Charlton Heston. Now, let's deal about Moses, and you can read about him in the second book of the Bible, Exodus. Gene- Genesis then Exodus. He wrote those first five books. But you can read about him in there, and his story is he was born at a time when Pharaoh was killing the Israelite boys.
His mum came up with this idea, "I'll just hide him in the reeds in this little boat thing," and she goes, "I just hope someone will find him." Anyway, Pharaoh's daughter has mercy on him, picks him up, and he goes into the palace, and then he lives in the palace. So he's living and growing up in, in opulence, and then he becomes a young man.
And then, suddenly, one outburst of anger and he is running for his life, and he's running into the wilderness, and he's probably thinking to himself what we do, "Man, I am sunk. I have just disqualified myself." But no, that's not the case at all. Moses is actually proof that God's not looking for polished, He's not looking for perfect.
He's just looking for people who are available. But that one moment of rage, he saw his fellow Israelites being treated badly, so he came up with this idea, "In this rage, I'll just kill the servant of Pharaoh and surely my people will know that I'm for them." It didn't go well at all. This anger came up. He kills them.
They turn on him as well, and he is running for his life. His temper has tanked his testimony, just like my whipper snipper. Moses has an anger problem. Surely that means God's done with him. Oh, no. God turns up a little while later in a burning bush. He comes up in a burning bush. It's not burning, but it's on fire.
It's a bush. And calls him and says, "This is holy ground, Moses." So God is turning up to a broken, stuttering, self-doubting fugitive, and He taps him on the shoulder and says, "Moses, you're the one." And Moses replied with Peter Garrett's song, "I don't wanna be the one." "I don't wanna be the one."
No, you're the one, Moses." So of course, Moses responds straight away by saying this to the Lord in Exodus. He says "Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else." Even on the run for 40 years because your anger tanks your testimony. God's coming to you to give you another crack at things, and you're saying no, don't send me.
Send someone else." It's so not only does Moses have an anger problem, he's refusing to listen to God and obey God. He has an obedience problem as well. Surely that tanks him. He's out. Oh, no. No, he gets to lead millions of people out of slavery in Egypt. He's used as the facilitator of 10 plagues with miraculous things happening.
He gets to part the Red Sea lets them all go through to safety while all the poor old Egyptians die in there And then he gets to meet God up the mountain, find out this law that they've got to have from Mount Sinai. It's man, I thought for sure he would've been out
Surely after that. Now Moses would know that God is for him. So he's okay now. He's not gonna have any more anger issues, no more obedience issues. He is okay, with the exception of one thing. He's in the wilderness, and he has to lead people. And people are difficult to lead because they get unhappy about everything, and so they're whingeing.
Now, if you happen to have your phone and your Bible, I'm gonna read from Numbers 20. Another book in those first part of the Jewish portion of the Bible. But let's have a look at it. Another thing, let's have a look to see how this is going. People are having a whinge. "Now, there was no water in the community, for the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron.
They quarreled with Moses and said, 'If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the Lord.'" Oh, this is so dramatic. "'Why did you bring the Lord's community into the wilderness, that we and our livestock should die here?'" Listen to this. "'Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place?
There's no grain, there's no figs, there's no grapevines." There's no pomegranates. For us it's probably there's no barbecue shapes and salt and vinegar chips. I don't know. It's something along the same side. "'And there's no water to drink.'" What a bunch of whiners. What a bunch of whingers. These guys have just experienced deliverance out of Egypt.
They've watched all these miraculous things. They've experienced this all. They've gone through the Red Sea, and now they're whining. And it's starting to affect Moses. So Moses does the right thing. He goes straight to the Lord. They go to the assembly, and present their full damn before the Lord. The Lord says to them, "Take the staff, you and your brother Aaron, and go and assemble."
And this is what you gotta do, Moses. "Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out water." Just speak to the rock. Okay, got it. Got it
That wasn't complex. It's not like he didn't... God didn't give him a job description that had 40 different points on it. There's one thing there, just speak to the rock. Just speak. Speak. Speak. That's all you gotta do. Let's see how we're going. "So Moses took his staff from the Lord's presence, just as the Lord commanded him, and he and Aaron gathered in the assembly together in f- in front of the rock.
And Moses said to them, 'Listen, you rebels!'" Moses is he's getting angry again. This is not gonna go well. Now, have a look at this. "'Must we bring you water out o- out of the rock?'" He can't bring water out of the rock. Now he's trying to steal credit. He's so angry, he doesn't even know what he's saying.
This anger thing is rising up in him Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff, and water gushed out, and the community and all their livestock drank. Wow Moses' anger issue has not gone away. It's still there, and it caused him to lash out at God. Now, Moses might have had a problem with not listening too, because he might have had a bit of presumption, because this same thing occurred back in Exodus.
And the Lord said to him, when they were whingeing the last time, He said, "Strike the rock once." So he might have had a bit of that God did it that way last time, so He's gonna do it this way again," and maybe he missed the whole speak. Either way, it was not good. But it revealed that Moses has got a lot more going on in him than just anger.
He's not listening. He's presumptuous. He's disobedient to God. Now, when I read all this stuff from the scriptures, it actually confirms to me the authenticity of this book. I can trust it. Put together over a 1,500-year period, 40 different authors, three different continents, and it's in total unity with itself.
I have five staff who are living at the same time four offices apart, and we can't get on the same page. It's miraculous. But what's miraculous, and why I say that, is that God doesn't cut, God doesn't edit, God doesn't polish, God doesn't remove the defects. If I was God, I'd have cut all that stuff out.
Let's just make him look like, make him look like Charlton Heston, and that will be perfect, and everyone will think it's perfect. I would've done that. But no, God doesn't. He just goes no, let's leave it all in. Let's leave it all in so you can see and learn this guy's no different to you." He's no different to us.
"But then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 'Because you did not trust me enough...'" Oh, so he's got a trust issue as well. "'... to honor me as holy...'" Oh, he's dishonoring as well. Oh, dear. "'In the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community in the land that I give you.'" When your temper tanks your testimony.
He didn't get to go in because he didn't trust God, and he dishonored God, and his anger that is still there has got the better of him again, and he's not listening. This guy, he shouldn't be on the team. Should find a better one. There's plenty better out there, ones that'll listen. N- but no, God just seems to enjoy that.
He seems to enjoy taking people that have got a weakness, and then use it at times to promote and perfect His strength and His power. So let's just recap it. Moses, anger, murders, goes off 40 years in the w- wilderness. God shows up. He doesn't want anything to do with it, tries to get out of it. Finally, he s- goes 10 plagues, miraculous kind of stuff, delivers people over the Red Sea, destroys Pharaoh's gods.
Oh, this is amazing. This is amazing. And then he gets to go up and down the mountain, delivers the law of Sinai. Man, but then his outburst cost him going into the dream, into the Promised Land. He was robbed of going in right at the last minute I digress here. On Wednesday night at the State of Origin
I text Phil and I said, "I'm worried about one person, the old boy Tedesco." I said, "I got a bad feeling about that guy." And then of course what happens? Last minute, Tedesco flies up there, and then they kick it, and we're robbed of the promised land. We're robbed. Anger is like Tedesco. It's in your pocket.
It's waiting to come out. It's looking for that opportunity to ace you out of things. It's really, if you really read this and you read the scriptures, 'cause we encourage everyone to read and to journal together and share together, you discover this thing with Moses followed him his entire life.
But that doesn't mean he lost everything. Man, he's still referred to by God as the meekest man that ever lived. Now, meek is not weak. Meekness just sim- means strength under control. I've already showed you, he fails in that quite a lot, but God still says he's still one of the meekest men. He got to write the first five books of the Bible, that we are still reading several thousand years later.
His contribution is still enormous. And he actually got to see the promised land. Do you know that? Even though the consequences aced him out for what he did then with his anger, he got to see it. Matthew chapter 17, Jesus is about to go to the cross. He's about to pay the price for the sins of the whole world, and He's bringing to a close the old covenant of ancient Israel.
And so He takes Peter, James, and John up the mountain, 'cause Peter and James and John are the key players in founding this new way which would eventually become the church. So they go up this hill, and then suddenly Jesus starts shining like mad. It's like this is not normal. But then what's even more not normal is suddenly Moses and Elijah turn up.
Moses is the law giver, Elijah's the prophets. The law and the prophets. And so He's got them all up the hill there before His Father, and it doesn't say exactly everything, but I think it was probably something like, "Hey, Moses and Elijah, you did an amazing job. Amazing job, guys. But your part in this journey's over.
Now, Pete, James, John, you're about to pick this up. This is a new way. It's not 2.0 of what we had over here, this is a new way." And then to seal the deal, because of course Peter just wants to stay there, he wants to build churches for everybody. He wants to seal the deal. Then He says, "The Father spoke and says, 'This is my beloved Son, whom I love.
Listen to Him.'" So Moses got to enter the promised land. He got to see it. Not at that time, 'cause consequences cost him in his angry outburst. Here's what I want you to remember. He's called a friend of God. He's written about in Hebrews, in the hall of fame heroes. A few failures does not disqualify you from God using you miraculously in the course of life.
God's grace is greater than your worst moment. Think about your worst moment, God's grace is greater than that. Doesn't matter what the issue is that you're struggling with. Doesn't matter if it's the same as Moses', anger, or what it is. Presumption, failing to listen to God, disobedience, dishonoring, lack of trust.
Doesn't matter what it is, we are no different from Moses. What we have that's different is that, "My grace is sufficient for you," Jesus says, "and my power is made perfect in your weakness." So if His power is made perfect in our weakness, why are we trying to hide all of our bloopers and all of our mistakes?
Now that you know this, what are you gonna do about it? You can do a little bit, do a lot, do nothing. But I would encourage you this, stop letting your worst moment define you. You are more than your greatest mistake And carrying failures in your pocket will actually rob you of your future and any potential in Christ, 'cause you will self-eliminate.
Own your outtakes. Own your bloopers. Don't keep hiding them. If you hide them, put them in the dark, they build, they grow, and they keep causing you to fail You need to have a close friend or a close intentional missional village, someone that you can talk to, where you can actually confess some of your mistakes and some of your bloopers.
Get them out of your pocket so you don't have to carry them around all the time. So you have to be with a trusted person, someone that you know has your best interests at heart. And consequences are not equal to disqualification. Moses had consequences. Couldn't go into the land. Had to go running off in the wilderness for 40 years.
But it didn't disqualify him. He still ended up on Mount Transfiguration. He ended up in the promised land God wants to redeem. He wants to redeem our weaknesses, our mistakes, and our failures. And this is This is so important, 'cause God's called us, He's called us to go and make disciples of all people.
To partner with the Holy Spirit, teach people to love God, love others, make disciples, and make disciples. To do that in community through multi-generational groups of intentional small groups. Focus on family and healthy relationships underpinned by these values. But here's the deal: if you never let anybody see your blooper reel, you will never be able to help them.
Because they will look at you and say, "Oh, he's got absolutely everything together. I can't identify at all." Which is why it's good to read the scriptures and to learn from the things of the past, because it encourages us to say these heroes aren't no different to us. They've got some great showreel things, but man, they got some horrible things in the background, too, some horrible bloopers."
I would encourage you this week, share one of your bloopers with someone you trust. Something that you're carrying around in your pocket that you know is actually stopping you from accepting what God wants you to do, 'cause He wants to use your weakness to perfect His power. That's what He wants to do.
Remember, life's made up of highs and lows. If you don't get a high and a low, and you're lying in a hospital bed on a machine you're dead. You need highs and lows. Ah. No. You don't want this. That's a bad sign. You have successes, you have some wonderful s... You have some failures, you miss the mark.
Doesn't discredit you. You have things that you're deeply sorrowful about. I have things in my closet that I w... I share with people pr- privately, 'cause I know it will help them at the stage that they're at, but I don't wanna drag that kind of stuff up. But those things become ways of people identifying with you.
They become ways that they get to identify with you. Man, I hope that God continues to grow us in this. We've become a people of the way, the people that don't judge, th- they love. They're not here to pass judgment. That ju- that's over to Jesus and the angels when He returns. We're here to love people.
We're here to represent Christ, extend grace and love to all. Let people know that your worst failure, God can use that and still do amazing things. You have not disqualified yourself
That's why our family values are really important, because we can actually go back to them. Because when someone comes up to you, and people come up to me, "Oh man, I just, you're not gonna believe what happened. I was trying to come into church, and me and the missus had this massive barney, yelled at the kids, and everyone's just..."
And then we walk in and go, "Oh, praise Jesus."
The real person says to you, "I did that last week. We still got a way to go. Let's pray together. Let's ask God to help us because we know, we're to honor and respect, we're to show love and generosity, courage and conviction. So go back and put that go back and apologize to your wife and your kids."
See, that's a real community. That's an authentic community. When we honestly share our struggles, it sets people free. Otherwise, they sit there, they're going I can never be like that. That guy's got it all together. He's perfect. That... She's perfect. Look at that. I can never do that." And then you keep eliminating yourself because you're hanging onto the things that you shouldn't hang on to Now, that story of Moses has a direct application to us where we're living in this time, in what's called the New Covenant, which is from Matthew through to Revelation in the, in your Bible.
If you're new and you're thinking about your Bible, it's a collection of ancient documents. Genesis to Malachi is for ancient Israel. Matthew to Revelation is for us to live out. So you need to understand that. Obviously, you can try and apply things you shouldn't apply. But when Moses struck the rock It disqualified him Move over into the New Covenant, Jesus became the rock that was struck by God's judgment, the judgment that should have been mine and yours.
Humanity rejected God. He didn't reject us. We walked away. We broke it. We made the mess. We brought this whole mess that you see in the world on us, and God then knew there was no way back. Humanity was never gonna be able to build that bridge, so He had to do something Himself. And so Jesus becomes the rock, and He takes the full strike of the judgment of God that we deserved, so that when we, now in the New Covenant, when we lose it and we lash out and we strike, we don't have what they had under the Old Covenant, which is a severe, fast, ending penalty.
We have limitless grace because of what Jesus did for us. And when you share your struggles, and when you confess to someone there's something you're struggling with, you know what they do? They go, "Ah." They exhale because it's "Oh, thank God, I didn't think I could make it back." Your exhale moment becomes their exhale moment.
"Oh, man, so God... I could still do something with God." Absolutely. Anything that's brought to the cross that you surrender to Him and you've asked forgiveness from it, He will take that, and He will take that weakness, and He will restore it with His, through His power into something really significant. I want us to be, I want us to be more and more a community where people can come and they can lash out knowing that it's safe.
Get it out. And then hopefully over time, as we walk together, they also learn the fact that, "Hey, maybe in my community we should talk about this stuff before it's in my pocket, comes out again-" So you learn to actually deal with it before you actually start striking out at people and at God. We wanna be a community marked by transformation.
We rise, we fall, we rise again. Moses rose, he fell, but through his anger, but he rose again. He was still at the promised land. Life is full of highs and lows, successes, failures, moments of righteousness, moments of anger, moments of depression, moments of regret. But God uses it all. He uses every bit of it if it's surrendered to Him, and He perfects it in some way to display His power Your current fall is not your final chapter unless you keep it in your pocket.
It's not your final chapter. God specializes in sequels. It's not your final chapter. People think, and I run into this all the time, they think God is angry with them
God is for them He says, "For God so loved the world." He's not angry with the world. There are certain people out there would like you to think like that, certain spiritual forces too, that God's angry with it. He's not angry with the world. He loves the world. That's why He went to all this trouble to create a way for us to live an authentic life before, before Him, showreel and blooper.
And we all learn together, and we all love together, and we all grow together. God is not after perfection. He's just after availability And that's what real life is gonna be about You are not the sum total of your previous mistakes unless you choose to hang on and keep it in your pocket, and that will stunt your growth.
But if you'll surrender them, God will do the most amazing things. He will take that and present and perfect His power through the whole thing So welcome to real life Let's pray Father, I just thank You. Lord, I remember how difficult this was when I first started journaling on it and then thinking about the series, 'cause so many of us are carrying things around in our pockets that we shouldn't be carrying around.
Our mistakes, our failures, and we're letting them define us when they don't. They shouldn't define us. They should be surrendered to Christ so that You can perfect your power in them. So Lord, right now I wanna pray for people, and I wanna encourage you this morning even s- even in a simple act, if you know what it is that you're carrying, just reach into your pocket and pull it out.
It's a s- it's a s- a symbolic act. Just if you know that it's there, just reach into your pocket or your bag or wherever you got it, just pull that thing out. Just pull that thing out and say, "You know what? I've been hanging onto this too long." And as the team just begins to sing, I want you to just, to take it out and then open your hands and then tip them over.
Like it's just, "I'm letting this thing go. I'm tired of being defined by the mistakes of my past. I want that redeemed." And if you're sitting here or you're online and you've never given your life to Christ, and you're wondering, "I don't really know where to start," where you start is just acknowledging that you're broken.
You're so broken, you cannot fix yourself. And you do what I did at 21 years of age, you say, "Oh, God, look, if you can do anything with this, it's yours. I know I'm broken." And then you invite God to come into your life by His Spirit, and you say, "Jesus, I will follow you if you will help me. I will muck up along the way, just so you know," and He knows that, too, "but if you'll help me, I will follow you as best I can.
And maybe you can do something really significant. Maybe you can change me. Maybe my life can become this real testimony of your grace and your power so that others might see the evidence of you around." So Holy Spirit, right now we ask that you would just help us, you would strengthen us to go on this journey, 'cause it's gonna be a little confronting for us as we realize that perhaps some of us are holding onto things that we're actually using as the reason to not follow the directives that you want us to follow.
So give us courage, give us strength, and Lord, we choose to allow you to define us and not the things of our past. Help us remember your grace is sufficient and your power is made perfect in our weakness, and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.