OCT 25 2026 | Storm Proof: A Study in James S2E3 | We must be brought low, before we are lifted Up

in. I love those little videos. Isn't that really cool? Whoever made it up, just give it up for them. I don't even know where they're at. Wow, there's a lot of you. All right. My name's Joe Brandes. I'm on staff here. I'm a pastor that's also a missionary, just to let you know, and we lead monthly trips to visit orphans in Tijuana, if you ever want to come. We went yesterday. My buddy Nick, who's on the board, led the trip, and I just had to give a little plug and just so you know me a little better. So Pastor Adam's gone, and I'm here, and we're finishing or we're in this series of Stormproof, a study of in James. And I'm just going to pray real quick again. Father God, you've gathered your children in your home, in your church, all over the nation, all over the world. Thank you. Jesus, thank you for being head of your church. Thank you for living for your church and dying, rising, ascending, interceding, and coming back again. And Holy Spirit, thank you for counseling us. Thank you for giving us ears that want to hear. Thank you for inspiring the prophets and the apostles to write the very word of God that we sit under right now. Move us, Holy Spirit, convict us, but also encourage us, and speak through your servant, your preacher today. In Jesus' mighty name, and all God's people said? Amen. Amen. I have this little chair here because I need it for some reason, because my leg's been out. So James 4:7-10, "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he'll flee from you. Draw near to God, and he'll draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you." This is a little pericope. A pericope is within a chapter. It's like a small unit that can stand on its own, and there's some heavy stuff in here. There's some heavy stuff in here. It's pretty sobering, and before I get into it, the key words of this sermon is obedience, repentance, and gospel. Obedience, repentance, and gospel. And the big idea is God commands us to obedience. We repent of our sin, and we turn to Jesus. God commands us to obedience. We repent of our sin, and then we turn to Jesus. And the first point is submit to God, right out of the passage. Verse seven, "Submit yourselves therefore to God." I don't know if you know this, but there's a huge sport globally and nationally growing, and it's called jujitsu. Has anybody heard of jujitsu? Raise your hand. How many people practice jujitsu? Raise your hand. Not many. Oh, wow. Okay. But at least you've heard of it. All right. At least you've heard of it. And what this sport entails is basically you roll around with somebody on a mat, and they try to get you to submit by tapping you out, either putting you in an arm bar or... Want to do a rear naked choke on me real quick to show how it's done? Or a rear naked choke, tap out, things like that. And they like this. I don't know. I met with this guy named Mike Powers, who leads a Sunday night discipleship right in the fellowship hall, for two months to get one-on-one, because I thought if I met one-on-one, I could fast-track and just move up in belt so I could just be this powerful, dominant man someday. And I did it for two months, and I quit. And why do you think I quit? Because I hate submitting. I hate submitting. You literally have to tap out, and you're in this vulnerable position where you're totally weak. Props to you all that have moved up in belts and that are so humble, and you kept going. And how many of us love that word submit? I'm an American individual, and nobody tells me what to do. Is that in your gut as Americans? I don't know. It's in mine. All right? Just being real. Any entrepreneurs out there? I'm an entrepreneur. I have a little nonprofit. I'm also on part-time staff here. Super part-time. Shout out to somebody that makes fun of me when I say that. And if there's any entrepreneurs out there, what's your really deep why? Yeah, you're creative. Yeah, you like to have your own schedule. But really, you don't like a boss. I don't know. I don't like a boss. Pastor Adam has said multiple times, "Why don't you come here full time?" And I was kind of sitting there listening after the fifth time he said it over 10 years, and I'm like, "I really don't like a full-time boss, to be honest." Because I have a little rebel inside me. And if you're a Christian, and you're a Jesus follower, if you're honest Do your hearts and actions have an immediate posture of wanting to submit to God, even when those certain passages you read are hard for you? We love to read the Bible, the nice parts. But when there's hard passages, do we have an immediate humble acceptance of His commands? And are we self-aware enough to know that we have a little rebel inside of us? Do we delete or gloss over or not let the gravity and weight of God's commands land on us? Do we read and talk about things about God that only focus on the stuff we like? Have you ever heard of Thomas Jefferson? I remember as a literature major, after I changed my major three times in college, took me six years, yes. And Thomas Jefferson wrote his own Bible. Did you know that? I looked it up, my AI friend. I looked it up on AI to confirm. And 1820, he wrote the Thomas Jefferson Bible. What was this Bible? He was an Enlightenment thinker. He was a deist, which means that God created the world, wound up a clock, and kind of just let us do what we want to do. And he took out all the supernatural aspects of the Bible and cut them out and printed that. Check it out. I remember learning about it in college, and I re-looked at it, and that's what we do, if we're honest. We want to kind of not focus on the parts of God's word that we don't like. Submission, 38 times in the New Testament. The Greek, hypostaso, it means to submit, to subject oneself, to place oneself under another's authority. In Hebrew, shachah, to bow down, to prostrate oneself, or to worship. God has laws and commands in the Old Testament, and he has laws and commands in the New Testament, and they're actually beautiful. They're actually beautiful. Even though they're hard to obey, they're beautiful because we have a beautiful, holy God. Philip Melanchthon in 1509, after the Protestant Reformation, he was a Lutheran theologian and pastor with Martin Luther and John Calvin, a reformer, a Swiss reformer. When they're trying to understand, there's so many laws in the Bible. How do we understand them all? One, God's law restrains city evil, corporate evil, national evil. If people actually, like there wasn't punishment, we would just go ham and go crazy, and there'd be anarchy. So it restrains evil. Two, it's a beautiful path. It's a guide. Could you imagine if everybody lived by the Ten Commandments all over the world? What a beautiful world it would be. And then the second use of the law, it actually shows us our sin and shows us that we can't do it and that we need a savior. But this third use of the law, it's beautiful, and it's a good guide. James actually says it in 1:25 and 2:12. It's the perfect law, the law of liberty. We're going to be judged by the law of liberty. God's law is not always the enemy of freedom. And when you encounter somebody that's obeying outwardly some of God's law and inwardly wanting to do it, it's a beautiful thing. Says practice hospitality in the New Testament. Practice hospitality. Have you ever been in a home around somebody that is just amazing at hospitality? Like everywhere you look in their house, it's just beautiful. The art is the right place. You go in their bathrooms, there's scented towels. And everything's in place. Nothing's dirty. And they have all the ornate matching forks, and I'm improving here, forks and plates and all that stuff. And you might need something like, "Oh, I have a headache. I need an ibuprofen." They have ibuprofen. They give it to you. They have decaf. They have regular. They have oat milk. They have whipped cream. They have everything. Everything is perfect because they've thought through it, because they love hospitality. And God says practice hospitality. Diane Garraway, I still remember in Santa Cruz, she was so good at hospitality. It was just Mary Ann Lutz in Santa Cruz, and then my surfboard shaper's, Robert's wife. She's not going to hear this, but I just thought I'd mention it. And after you experience this hospitality, you feel glowing. You feel like you've experienced the presence of God, the love of God, because inwardly, they probably have the spiritual gift of it, but they've thought through it, and they want to do it, and outwardly, they're doing it. And they're actually walking in God's ways. That's just one aspect. But counter this with a guy's event. Okay? A man's event. Like I'll have people over my house, or we have a men's group. "Yeah, come in, dude. Open the door. Pizza, it's in a box. Open it up yourself. I hope you brought your own drinks. By the way, bro, throw out your own trash." What else? We're so bad at it. And it's kind of like, to be honest, it's ugly. I've often thought, the dudes, we're ugly at practicing hospitality. At least we sometimes open up our houses, but I don't know if it's a gender thing, but women just seem to be better at it. And it's a beautiful thing when we practice God's law. And has there been a time when you were in some circumstance and you didn't even know... Like you couldn't get out of it. You couldn't make peace with somebody. The waters were too big in the situation, and all your mental whatever, deductions could not figure out how to get out of it. And then one of God's word pops into your brain. You try to do it. I was working at P.F. Chang's, I don't know how long ago. How old am I? I don't know. Like 20 years ago is a really high moment in my life. I had been a pastor. I'd been through a church split, and I had to do three part-time jobs, Starbucks, P.F. Chang's, and like a limo driver. Yeah. And And tips are a big thing. Tips are a big thing, and I was a server, and this other guy was a server, and I was subbing in for him, and I did something wrong. And he comes up to me, big eyes, not a Christian. I was the only Christian there with 15 staff. And he's all, "Bro, whatever you did, they're angry with me. I'm not getting a tip." And I'm all, "Ah." I couldn't get out of it. And then this thing in Proverbs says, "When you give a gift in secret, it can avert wrath." And I'm like, "I'm just going to give him seven bucks." At the time, it was a big deal to me. Or 10 bucks. And I gave it to him, and after, he's like, "Thank you so much. That was so kind." And it re-got me into peace with him and peace with other people. Sometimes when we practice God's law inward and out, it brings freedom, and it brings beauty. But the world does not want to submit to God. And by the way, this is pretty much a one-point sermon, and my other two points are sub-points, just to let you know, because I don't want to be rushing through this. Okay. But the world does not want to submit to God. They don't see God's law and his commands as a beautiful thing. "I did it my way." Who sang that song? Frank. Frank Sinatra. "I did it my way." What a beautiful voice with a literally a satanic- ... mindset. We can coat things to be so smooth and buttery, but actually, they're anti-God. People's resistance to God is not always an intellectual problem. "Oh, God, prove himself. There's no evidence." Really, they don't want anybody to lure their lives. When I wasn't a Christian, I didn't become a Jesus follower till I was 21, it was what happened to the California Indian. Most people when I say this, it's like, "What?" I grew up in NorCal. I grew up on property, and there was Indian grindstones, and there was the Miwok Indians. And I didn't like what we did to the California Indian. I was a super hippie, too, back in the day. Which is fine, but I don't know why I said that. So anyway, I just had a really big heart for them, and my thing was I cannot believe what we did, and I'm like, "The Christian God represents the white man, and they did this to the Indian, and therefore, I don't like church. I don't believe in God. I'm becoming agnostic." But was that really the issue? The real issue is I didn't want to submit to God. I didn't want him to tell me what to do. I want to do it my way. Maybe that's some of y'all. Maybe some of y'all in here. I don't know. Wes Huff. Anybody heard of Wes Huff? He is a leading apologist that deals with manuscript, how the Old Testament and New Testament's put together. I was at this pastor's conference two weeks ago, and he was actually in San Diego, and he's getting interviewed. He's been on Joe Rogan, he's been on Jordan Peterson. You should check him out. Wow. And he said, "You know what? I have all PhD and all these different answers, and when I interact with non-believers, the main reason they don't want to come to God is because the problem of pain and evil, the problem of a heart issue and what's happened, and they have an incorrect perception of God. How can an all good God do this, to allow this to happen?" And in 1994, I want you to go there for some of us that were born way after that. 1994, there's a movie set in Montana. There's this supermodel guy that I know he's rated top beautiful people in the world that year or five years in a row, and he had long, blonde, flowing hair, and his name was Tristan. I'm trying to complete this up. And there was two other brothers, and what's the name of this movie? "Legends of the Fall." I was trying to help you out. And Brad Pitt was the star. And in World War I, to protect his younger brother, he went and followed his younger brother when they were on trench warfare and the battle lines. And his younger brother gets shot, and then he's caught in barbed wire. And he's trying to rip out the barbed wire as he holds his brother. And this is hard for me to say, but non sequitur, there'd been nothing said about God the whole time. He screams out, "I hate you, God. I hate you." Because of the problem of evil and what had happened to his little brother that he adored. And a lot of us in the world, we can grow distant from God, even as Christians and Jesus followers, because of bad things that have happened to us, and we start to question God's goodness. But God is good, no matter what. And think of Jesus, the problem of evil. God so loved the world that he sent his Son to die. We say that so often, we can kind of get used to it. But he had his beard ripped out. You ever had your beard ripped out? I like pluck out an arm hair, and it hurts. He had a crown of thorns. He was spit on. He was beaten up, and then he died. And then he was buried as a substitute for all who will have faith in him. And he rise from the dead. Even our God, the God man, went through the problem of pain and suffering. And submission is not only hard for the world, it also was hard for Old Testament Israel. In the period of the Judges, for about 300 to 450 years, in 1200 to 1050 BC, those numbers don't line up, I know. In Judges 21:25, it says, "In those days, there was no king in Israel, and everybody did what was right in their own eyes." Meaning everybody wanted to be their own authority. And then finally, in James' audience, which is the book we're reading, the immediate context was written to Jewish people that were going to church that were scattered. It says written to the 12 tribes. It was one of the earliest book probably written in the mid-40s To supposed Jewish believers who had intellectually believed in the one God. Even in the scripture it says, "You believe in one God, good. Even the demons believe," and shudder. But they weren't acting in line with God's word and loving their neighbor. The majority of their audience was not submitting to God. And I'm going to read a list of all the ways they were not submitting to God, because we're in a series of James, and we want to sit under his word. They were showing partiality to the rich and dishonoring the poor. They were failing to care for the needy. They were failing to control their tongues. They were harboring envy and selfish ambition. They were fighting and quarreling with one another, coveting, praying with selfish motives, friendships of the world, living in pride and arrogance, speaking evil and judging one another, boasting about their plans, knowing the good they ought to do but failing to do it, withholding wages from their workers. Some of you owe me some Venmo money from a time we ate together, so please give that. Living in luxury while others suffered, oppressing, condemning the righteous, grumbling, failing to practice the truth, and I could go on and on. And that was the immediate context in James. As I was reading that list, and have you ever done any of that list? Do you see yourself in that list? Why are we in that list? Because we have a sinful nature. If we were born after Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, we were born in sin. Even though we're born in the image of God, we still have a sinful nature. And in James 1:14-15, it says, "Each person is tempted when they're lured and enticed away by their own desire. And when it's conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin, fully grown, it brings forth death." Lawlessness. Anomia, living as though God's will and commands do not govern us. There's different words of sin, and one is lawlessness. Steven Charnock, a Puritan theologian, said, "The self is the great antichrist, an anti-God in the world that sets itself up against all that is called God." It's a lot heavy, a lot of holy word there. Yeah? You guys encouraged yet. But true believers, true Jesus followers and believers, we actually want to submit to God, don't we? I want to submit to God, but I don't do it perfectly. I want to submit to God, and I want to do it perfectly. And I did not send the slide in to Jeff, but in Romans 7:14-25, Romans 7:14-25, I want to read all this, but I'm not going to, but maybe I will. Let's see what happens. Okay. "We know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin." Now, this is Paul, I believe as a Christian, struggling with wanting to do what's good, but in the same part of himself, there's a part that wants to do bad. To me, this describes the Christian experience. "I know that the law is spiritual, but I'm under the flesh, sold under sin. I don't understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." You ever done that before? You say something like, "Where did that come from?" And then you have to say sorry for that, but actually, you wanted to say it. Right? It came from somewhere, but you didn't want to say it at the same time. "Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So now it's no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want, that's what I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want, it's no longer I who do it, but the sin dwells in me. So I find this law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law in my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. What a wretched man or woman that I am. Who will deliver me from me, from this body of death?" Who will? Because I can't do it. "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." That's all law. I just preached to you the path, and the second use of the law and how it kills, and it's a mirror showing us our sin. Magnifying glass. No filter. No filter. But there's one who perfectly submitted to the law. There's one who perfectly submitted to the law, and his name is Jesus Christ. Jesus the Christ. Jesus actively fulfilled the law in his active righteous. You never thought, I don't know if it was R.C. Sproul or I don't know who said it, that Jesus didn't just be born and then a few years later go right to the cross. Do you realize there was like three years of his public ministry where he actively obeyed, perfectly giving glory to the Father, perfectly obeying the Ten Commandments, perfectly loving God and neighbor to be the perfect human where Adam failed, where corporate Israel failed, and where we failed. So he actively attained righteousness, so when he went on the cross and God poured out his wrath, he was that perfect lamb that would die and live as a substitute. Our sin and guilt was laid on him and transferred to him. It says he became a curse for us. And when we put our faith in him, his righteousness gets credited to our account Reckoned, imputed, transferred. And when you put your faith in him, that's called justification. You're not just forgiven of your sins, you're actually counted as righteous. You're forgiven and counted as righteous because of his righteousness. By faith we rest and receive his righteousness. We're perfectly justified, not by our perfect submission, but by his perfect submission. And then when we believe, he gives us that Holy Spirit. Do you have the Holy Spirit? I can't see, but do you have the Holy Spirit? Ask him for the Holy Spirit. That Holy Spirit slowly kills that rebel inside of us throughout time, and it's not-- Right when you become saved, it might go and then it might go . But there's always going to be a slow trajectory of this work of sanctification, this process where God slowly conforms us in the image of God and makes us want to submit to his law. And when we don't submit and our wives call us out on something, or we're in ministry and you said that the wrong way, it hurts. You might defend yourself, but after a while, you go, "You know what? You're right." And you wouldn't say you're right unless you had the Holy Spirit inside you. So, the good news, when you put your faith in God, when you put your faith in Jesus, that perfect one who submitted, that Holy Spirit, that I believe will never leave you, will conform you more and more into the image of his Son. And that is good news. That is good news. We're called to submit to God, but we're also called to resist the one who draws us away from him, the devil. And this is just a minor point. The minute you think of the devil, I don't know where your brain goes, and the visuals and stuff, and he is real. He's real. And it says in 1 Peter 5, "Be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him." And that word for resist is to withstand, oppose, to stand one's ground like a military. I love old Viking war movies, and they're trying to hold the line and all these Braveheart stuff. You need to hold the line and stand against the devil. It's really hard to do it alone. And notice when they fought a war, they were together. Why are we trying to stand against the devil alone? Oh, individual American Christian, me and Jesus only. No. Stand in community. Don't forsake the gathering together, but encourage each other all the more as you see the day approaching. The devil has methods of temptation, deception, accusation, and division. I think we know a lot about temptation. We could see division, but I believe the accusation, deception really lands on Jesus followers here. I've walked now for Jesus with 30 years now, and the whispers I-- My buddy that I talked to in Panama, he's like, "Dude, I think the devil is lying to you." He said this to me five times. I don't even think of the devil, but I think he might be right. If you're a Jesus follower and his child, and those accusations and the negativity is just all the time, is that the voice of God, or is that the voice of the devil? We're called to resist him, to believe in God's promises, that when you put your faith in the Lord Jesus who died and rise for you and will come again, that-- The gospel means good news. It's good news that's too good to be true. It came from another world that we couldn't think of, that his righteousness becomes mine, that I'm declared righteous, that I'm adopted. That it says in Ephesians, when you believe in him, you're raised in him, you're hidden in him. We will be glorified. That is such good news. But if we're giving so much attention to things we've done wrong from the past, that we've said wrong, whatever, maybe we're not resisting the devil, and we're letting his voice, instead of be a whisper, be like a megaphone to us. And that's why we need to encourage each other. Half the time I don't like being called a pastor or minister because I'm so hard on myself. I'm so hard on myself from the ancient whatever, coaches. And I need people in my life to encourage me. I would think you need people in your life to encourage you because the world and the flesh and the devil are warring against you. A roaring lion. We need to encourage each other with grace. Not for the sake of truth, but with grace. And then lastly, draw near to God. Draw near to God. Verse eight. "Draw near to God and he'll draw near to you." What is your practice of drawing near to God? What is your practice? How do you personally draw near to God? John Mark Comer used to be a pastor in Portland, Oregon. Now he's in Orange County, and he wrote various books. He said, "God is waiting for you outside the noise of the modern world and the busyness of your daily life." There's always noise in the world. There's always noise from the phone. There's always noise in your head. The Cranberries singer says, "In your head, in your head, in your head." And it takes commitment and practice to draw near to God, to get free of that noise. It was a few weeks ago, and yes, I do set my own schedule, but turn on your phone, turn your emails and texts, what I need to do today. And I don't know. I needed extra time with God, and I'm in the Word a lot, but there's always the noise, the bees in my head, and people are texting me about something. And I didn't turn on my phone for an hour, and I opened up the Bible. Opened up the Bible. I'm in the Word. One minute goes by, five minutes, 10 minutes. Didn't have that illumination, didn't have that peace. 25 minutes, finalmente, I felt the peace of God. He lifted my head up above the clouds. He just-- I believe subjectively what is objectively true for those who are in Christ Jesus, and it takes work to draw near to God. And Adam said this a lot, but do we ever turn off our phones? Do we ever turn off our phones when we're spending time with God? And we were working with the college students this summer, and I asked them one time, "Do you ever turn off your phones?" And none of them said yes. Love the college students, but even when we're in the Word, if people are texting you while you're in the Word, they're not bad people, but you're distracted. They're doing Drea, and I'm saying Dre's name so I can get another five minutes to finish my sermon. Dre and Adam are going to lead a trip to Scotland. It's probably too late to register because it's like in a week or two. But the whole point is to get away and get in silence with God. And all David, King David, and Bernard of Clairvaux, and Jonathan Edwards, and all the great saints used to get alone with God, but they also didn't have this. So I love this. I love you. But it also can be a really bad distraction. And I remember a few years ago, I had started Uni For Orphans, and all this stuff happened, and I was losing Uni For Orphans. Woo. We're past it now. It's come back now. But I was driving up to NorCal, which is an eight-hour drive, and I turned on the Psalms. I'm in the Psalms. I'm in the Word. So immediately it's good, right? It took two hours for me to draw near to God subjectively where He lifted my from down here and all the anger, and the pain, and the sadness, and the to up above the clouds to where Jesus is, to where I am already by faith, and where you are already by faith. And we will be someday the new heavens, new earth with a glorified body. It took two hours for me to subjectively draw near to Him. So why do we think we can do it in five minutes or 10 minutes? Maybe you can. I can't. Sometimes when we're going through a hard time, you need to turn that phone off, get in nature, and let His Word wash over you. Draw near to God. It says, "Cleanse your hands, mourn, weep, wail," all that stuff. We need to not be cavalier about sin as we draw near to God. And when we draw near to God, one reason I don't like to draw near to God is I'm afraid of what He's going to say to me, to be honest. I'm afraid. It's weird. I'm like not afraid of Him. I am afraid. I don't know. Maybe not. I don't know if that works for you. He's clean. He's perfectly holy, holy, holy. God is love, and God is holy, holy, holy. Two twin truths at the same time about our God. And I remember as we close with cleanliness, I used to work at a mechanic shop. I'm a horrible mechanic, but it was a part-time job, and you get all this stuff all over your hands, all this black stuff, oil and grease and this and that. And I went to wash my hands with normal soap. Does it come off? No. No. And then the Bruce Tor, the owner, says, "Hey, there's this Gojo stuff." It's this white paste, and you rub it, and it kind of gets it off pretty good, but there's still the black stuff under your fingernails. God calls us to subjectively kind of clean ourselves in a sense, coming back to Him, repenting, and confessing, but we don't do it perfectly. Second image is this one time I was, I think I was four or five, and I grew up around fences with rusted barbed wire because we had cows. And I remember a scratch. I had a little scratch on my thigh, and no big deal, right? Well, a month later, my thigh was like that big. And I pulled up my Tom Selleck little short shorts and showed my mom one time. Remember those things? And she went, "Oh my gosh, Joey." And she, for about a month, she would put me in the hot tub and ripped off the scab and would push as the pus would come out, and we'd clean it over and over and over. And that's what God does with us. He picks off the scab of our sin, and He washes it over and over and over and over by His Holy Spirit, applying that blood of Christ to us. It's been applied once and for all when you believe in Him, but there's like a daily washing that needs to happen by the Holy Spirit. And some of you, even as you draw near to God or try to submit to God and be clean for God, you're like, "It just reveals the dirt, God, and I don't want to draw near to you, God. Help me, God. Clean me. Draw me near." And as we close, finally, finally close, is there's only one person that submitted perfectly to God. There's only one person who's perfectly clean. There's only one perfect person who's resisted the devil. And that person is the God man, Jesus Christ, who left heaven to become a man, to live in that perfect life, and die a death that you should have died. Have you put your faith and trust in Him? Do you want to be clean? Do you want to have a heart that wants to submit to Him? Even if you don't, say, "God, make me want to submit to you." May Jesus be lifted up And may we be humbled. He needs to bring us low so that he can lift us up. And as the amazing worship band is behind me, and they're strumming on their guitars. This was one of the hardest, most convicting weeks of my life. I don't know. It was a week ago or something, Adam, in between services, "Hey, you're preaching in a week." I'm all, "No, I'm not. I'm going hunting with my dad." But my leg was injured, so I couldn't hunt with my dad. And I love not preaching because I can just, I don't know what, do whatever I want to do because I don't like... And James is so convicting. I had to, three times, I had to leave three different voice notes to three different people repenting and asking for forgiveness. It was so hard. But I feel so light right now as I talk to you. If I had that sin and that lack of reconciliation with those people, God's word's still God's word, but it wouldn't be the same way. Today's a new day. Today's a new day. Let's repent. Let's confess. Jesus has taken care of all of it, and he's already cleaned you. He's already saved you. And now let's keep in step with the Spirit. In Jesus' mighty name, amen. Be exalted now in the heavens