Hey sites, I'm Judy West. I'm one of the pastors here at Grants Trail, Fenton, mid Rivers, everybody online, everybody at Chesterfield in 2022, David Hawkins. We all know him. He's our friend. He taught here a few weeks ago. He invited Will Coleman from Cone Church to come to one future STL. David introduced Will to Greg. Greg introduced him to the rest of us, and within minutes we became family and our churches have been doing life together. Will's from St. Louis came up through back to St. Louis through Life Church, Oklahoma. A lot of you know Craig, Rochelle and his church, and he's back here. Now. I cannot believe we've only known each other two years because I feel like you've been my brother and I've been your sister forever. So I am thrilled. Would you help me? Sights? He's gonna hear you. Would you help me? Welcome now to our, to our church, to our stage for the first time, will Coleman from Cone Church. Good, good morning Crossings. Shout out to all the sites. I didn't have to do that last night, but I wanna shout y'all out And something I told the, uh, the five o'clock crew, um, I told them not to tell you all something. Now I'm gonna tell you don't tell them something. Okay? So you can always tell who loves Jesus the most by who gets up the earliest to come worship him. So while they got here, they came last night. You got up earlier than they did. So let give yourselves a round of applause this morning. Thank you Judy, for that, uh, introduction. It has, it's only been two years, but I feel like we've known each other for years. And when I came to the, uh, to the church last night to preach to the five o'clock, some of the staff they like started cheering my name and I was like, is there another wheel here that I just don't, I don't know about? Uh, and I was like, that's, that's too kind. But it truly is an honor to be with you all. I have to give a huge shout out to Pastor Greg and the entire crossing staff. They have welcomed me, uh, my church as well as my family. Like we've known each other for years. And so just treat me like I'm your cousin, like you've known me for a long time. Uh, and speaking of my family, my wife and daughters came last night. They would've come this morning, but around 10 o'clock last night we got a puppy and we became a dog family. Uh, and so they were like, Hey, we came. We gotta start training, miss Do. So they're at home. But I brought pictures so that you all can see my family, not the dog. If you wanna see the dog. I'm sorry I didn't have the pictures of that yet. But this is my family. That's my amazing wife, Davina. She's beautiful, she's awesome. We've been married for 18 years. Yes. And outside of giving my life to Jesus, marrying her is the best decision that I have made in my life. Literally, I would not be standing here today if it were not for her. And then the three young ladies standing next to her, those are our greatest blessings. Those are our daughters. From oldest to youngest is Hadassah, Willow and Zoe. And they make life very special for us. And it's a wild ride being a girl dad every single day. But I don't know any different. I really don't. I don't know any different. That's all I know. But, uh, love them so very much and, uh, our, our journey here in St. Louis. Well, I, I grew up here as Judy said, but I left and I was in Oklahoma for like 20 years. And so like the journey back to St. Louis really started about five years ago. Um, about 31 years ago, my parents started, uh, our church. And my mom is actually here this morning sitting right over there. I know she don't want me to point her out either. I'm sorry, mom. Sorry mom. But her and my father started the church, uh, back in 1993 in our living room. And they pastored it together until my father passed away in 2014. And then my mother, who is a my hero, continued pastoring even in the midst of her grief and all of that, continued pastoring the church, uh, up until 2021 when God had called my family here. But it started in 2019 when God spoke to me and was like a, it's time for you to go back home and I'll tell you a little bit more about that particular journey and how we got here. But fast forward two years later, I became the pastor and really six months before that, in June of 2020, how many of y'all remember what was going on in 2020? That's when we moved here and we moved into my mom's basement and to pastor a church, uh, that, that they had started. And we didn't know what God was gonna do by coming back here to St. Louis. But I I want to tell you all this because you all have been a part of this journey that in the last three and a half years we changed the name to Cone Church, which you may have heard that. And some of y'all were like, what is, what is what, what is that? Cone Kone is actually the Hebrew word for a dream, a revelation, a vision from God. And if you look in Proverbs 29 18, it says, where there is no vision, people perish or they run astray. That word vision is kone. And so when you, whenever we say that where there is no God-given dream, where there is no God vision, people will do whatever they think is right. And God called us to bring his vision to the St. Louis area, specifically North County. We're located in Jennings. Uh, we're just a few minutes from Ferguson and he called us to bring his vision there. Not because we're special, there were other churches doing a great work there, but he wanted another church in that area to continue the work there. And you all been a part of that journey. In the last three years, we've seen almost a hundred people commit their lives to Jesus Christ at his own church. Yep. And next month we're going to baptize at least 10 people, probably more than that. And that will be mean that we will have baptized over 50 people in the last three years. And that is all because God cares about St. Louis and what's going on here. And so I'm so appreciative of the crossing coming alongside of us. And so I just want to say thank you all. Uh, we're your cousins up there in North County. So I made that drive here today to be with you guys and I'm very, very excited. And our time together is gonna be a lot of fun. I like to have fun at church. I hope you like to have fun at church as well. But, um, while everything I'm gonna do this morning is all about Jesus, I want to make sure, and I don't know if, if, if any of the cone folks are here, if you from Cone, they may not have come to this. They ca a lot of 'em came last night. But if anybody came up this early, let me tell you something, I'm gonna tell Jesus, um, to put an extra crown on, okay? They're not here. They may come to the next one, okay? May come to the next one. But it's not about me up here on the stage. But I will tell you, it is really nice as a pastor to get some crowd participation. And you all have already been doing a good job. You've been laughing at some of my jokes. It's awesome. But if anything that you hear is good, you can say amen. Praise God. Hallelujah. Yes sir. You can do any of that. Okay? Let's practice so that we can, we can, we can be used to it. God is good. Perfect. Let's do that throughout the message, okay? Throughout the message, stay with me. We're gonna have a great time. So let's look at the answers that you all put in our question this morning. What is the most common title for Jesus in the New Testament? You know what? Nine o'clock I knew, I knew there was something special about you all. One or two things. Either you, you woke up this morning, you had a great breakfast or two you cheated and asked the five o'clock service. 'cause you all got it right. The correct answer is the Lord. If you put Lord, give yourself a pat on the back if you put the other ones, those are not wrong. They're just not the most used title, the most used title is Lord. And it's mentioned over 700 times in the New Testament, depending on the translation of version that you read. Now the other ones are powerful, don't get me wrong. Like is Jesus the son of God? Yes he is. If you come from another religion that may have been something that you had to wrestle with and struggle with. But he is the son of God. He is the Savior and our redeemer. And we love that. We love the fact that he died for us. He paid for our sins. He saved us from sin, from death, from shame. He saved us from that. But here's what I need you to know. If something is mentioned more than once, it's probably important. If something is mentioned over 700 times, it might just be the most important. And that's what we're going to look at today. The title of my message today is that Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Now what I know is that um, all of those that we saw out there were great, but if you really think about it, none of those cost us anything. Those other ones, like it didn't cost you anything for Jesus to be your savior. It didn't cost you anything for him to be the son of God. It doesn't cost you anything for him to be your redeemer. And many of us, we love the fact that Jesus calls some of us, not all of us, some of us friends, right? And we want Jesus to be our friend. How many of y'all remember the early two thousands? I'm aging myself a little bit where they had the Jesus is my homeboy shirts. Remember these, remember those back in the day? Some of You'all had 'em and we love that. But you know what? That that doesn't even cost us anything. What costs us something is Jesus being our Lord. And we're gonna wrestle with that here today. And we're gonna look at what does it really mean for Jesus to be Lord in our lives? Because I really think that that phrase Jesus is, Lord, has lost some of its meaning. We say it so often. Yes, he's my Lord, he's my savior. And that is very true. But he must be our Lord. And we're gonna look at what does that mean for us in our lives? So let's pray and let's get into the word. Heavenly Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for bringing us all here. Open up our hearts that we may hear you. Let it not be me speaking, but you speak through me. Draw every person here closer to you, no matter where they are at in their faith journey, in their faith walk. God, I pray that by the end of this message, we all would surrender to you as our Lord. It's in Jesus name we pray, everybody said amen. Amen. Amen. So let's define Lord so that we're all on the same page and we know exactly what we're talking about. According to Miriam Webster's Dictionary, here's the definition of Lord. It is one, having power and authority over others. It's a ruler to whom service and obedience are due. So when we say Jesus is Lord, we are saying Jesus, you have power and authority over me. Jesus, you are a ruler and my obedience and service is due to you. That is what that means when you say Jesus is Lord. Now some of you all in here when when you saw that definition you didn't like, you don't like it, you don't like it because you don't want anyone to have power and authority over you. You want to be your own person. Self-made, let me do me. I don't want anybody having a control over my life and others of you. You don't like that because, and I have to acknowledge this, you've been hurt by people who were in positions of power and had authority in your life. And I want to as a pastor apologize for that. I'm so sorry that that happened to you. And I know that wherever you may stand with with not liking that, that Lord definition, here's what I need you to do, just for a few moments that may be the reason why it's hard for you and difficult for you to, to really lean into Jesus being Lord. But stick with me throughout this message, okay? Stick with me throughout this message because you don't serve a God that is a Lord who treated, who hurt you like those other folks. He's a good Lord, a good God who loves you. So stick with me, okay? This morning, now in the uh, the, in the New Testament, Paul and the, the new, the New Testament writers, when they would write, Lord, it was actually the Greek word curios. Everybody say curios. And here's what it actually meant. It defined the relationship between Jesus and those who believed in him as Christ Jesus was their Lord and their master who was to be served with all their hearts and who would one day judge their actions throughout their lives. And matter of fact, in the, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, when you oftentimes when you would see God, it was the word curios. So the people at that time when they were reading this, they would see that Jesus is Lord, but they would also go, Jesus is God. So they had this understanding about that. Now again, I told you that it was that word curios is mentioned over 700 times in the New Testament. Now my good friend Pastor David Hawkins, how many of you all remember him a few weeks ago? You were in the building, he's been here for years, ministering to you all. He and I were talking a few weeks ago. I was like, tell me about your experience. You knew that I was coming here to preach. And I was like, okay man, what do I need to be prepared for? He was like, listen, will I asked if I could speak as long as I wanted to, but they only gave me 35 minutes. That's what he told me. And I said, David, 35 minutes, I have 700 verses that I need to take the whole church through. I need a lot more than that. He's like, you're gonna have to ask for it. And so I asked and it was granted. You guys ready? We're gonna go over all 700 verses. I hope you you're ready. We've moved the 11 o'clock back. I'm just kidding. We're, we're not gonna go over all 700, but can we just look at four? Can we look at four? Okay, let's look at four because I want you to see in God's word the importance and why, how many times we see it in scripture. It's not just something we say, but it is in scripture. First verse that I want us to look at is Romans 10 verses nine and 13. And it says this. Now when when we get to the word Lord, let's all say it together, okay? Even at the sights, let's say it together. If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So you see here we talk about him being our, he saves us, he's our savior. But before he is our savior, what is he Lord? When you declare he is the Lord, that's when he becomes your savior. Next verse Acts 10 36. This is the message of good news for the people of Israel that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all, not just of some of all. And then Jesus himself said, I am Lord. In Luke six verse five, it says, and Jesus added, the son of man is even Lord over the Sabbath. He's Lord. And one of the most powerful scriptures in all of the Bible, Philippians two verses nine through 11. And I love these verses. Therefore, God elevated him who Jesus to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven on earth and under the earth. And every tongue declared that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Jesus is Lord. Now when I first started reading the Bible, when I gave my life to Christ at at 12 years old, um, I often would read it not understanding some of the illustrations and connections that they would make at that time. 'cause you have to remember something. The Bible was written for us, not to us. This is this, these collection of books were written thousands of years ago, but it still speaks and ministers to us today. But the authors were writing to a particular group of people who, who lived a life like we did. Now, if those same authors were here today, and if Jesus was physically here today with us, like in person sitting in this room physically, he probably, when he wouldn't use those same agricultural illustrations, he may use something that we are more connected to, like technology and things like that, right? And so when I would read this, I would go like, all right, I don't really understand this whole Lord thing 'cause I live in America. America, the US of a and here in America we don't have Lord William of Barrington Downs. There's no Lord Judy of Chester Philia here. Like we put, we elect officials, we get to choose. If you get to have authority, we elect you. But the people of this time would un, they understood lordship because they lived at a time when there were emperors and kings. So it was very easy for them to understand all of this. And so I, when I would read this, I would go, I don't, what is that really? I don't have a Lord. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like how do we really put this in our terms? And so as I was praying to prepare this message, the Lord showed me that you and I understand lordship a lot better than we actually think. Raise your hand if you have ever needed a place to stay and you rented an apartment, an Airbnb or a house, raise your hand. Look at that. So many people now raise your hand if you've ever owned a place that you rented out to others before. So everyone in here or just about has interacted with a say it with me land Lord. So you've done this, we've all done this. And if you haven't, that's just because you just have not reached the age or your parents haven't let you leave the house yet, okay? But we understand this better than we think. So what I want to do for the, the remaining time that I have is I want us to look at the responsibilities of landlords and tenants so that we can correlate Jesus being Lord in our lives and put it in modern day terms. Okay? So what I did was I researched what are the responsibilities and duties of landlords and tenants. Now there's a bunch of them, but each one of them can be put in about three responsibilities. So we're gonna look first at the responsibilities of a landlord and we're going to see does Jesus fulfill those responsibilities? Then we'll look at the tenants and we'll look at, do you and I fulfill those duties? Okay, let's go. Here are the responsibilities of a landlord. There's three of them. Number one, purchase of property. You find a property that you want, you put your money up, you purchase it, it becomes yours. Second thing is provide a contract or an agreement. You get to make up the rules for what happens in the property that you purchased. You get to say what paint colors can be in here? Can somebody put something on a wall? Can they smoke in here? Can they have parties in here? You get to decide all of that because you are the landlord. And thirdly, you respond or you maintain to the property that you purchase, it is yours. So if there are issues that come up, you go, I gotta fix 'em 'cause you bought it. So let's look. Does Jesus fulfill these responsibilities as Lord? Number one, did Jesus purchase anything? The answer is yes. Jesus purchased us. And our freedom according to scripture, here's what it says, that we were bought with the price. One Corinthians six, 19 and 20. Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you and was given to you by God. You do not belong to yourself. I'm gonna say that part again. You do not belong to yourself. For God bought you with a a high price. So you must honor God with your body. When Jesus willingly got on a cross was beaten beyond recognition, shed his blood, that was the price that he paid for your freedom. And when you commit your life to him, guess what? You no longer belong to yourself. You belong to him. That's why he's Lord. And he fulfills this duty. He purchased us. You are his. He's yours. So we can say Jesus purchased a property. Number two, did Jesus provide an agreement or a contract? Yes he did. Matter of fact, I brought one right here just so nobody could say, I don't know what he's talking about. The Bible, the word of God is God's agreement. But this actually isn't a contract. This is a covenant and there's a difference. See, a contract is just something that two parties can come to say, okay, you have a part. I have a part. If you don't fulfill your duties, we can just end this whole thing. If I don't fulfill my duties, it's over. We walk away. No, doesn't matter. I might have to pay a little something, but we can just walk away. A covenant means relationship. And many times when you would actually see in scripture, covenant was also was oftentimes bound by blood. So it was a deep relationship. And if we severed a covenant, then there is a tearing and a ripping apart of from me and from the other party. And it hurts. It's deep. That's what this is. This is not just a contract or an agreement. This is the living word of God. And it's also not just something written, it's a person. Jesus Christ is the word made, flesh made human. And inside of here, the Lord puts everything that we need to know of how to take care of what belongs to him. He says, okay, inside of that particular temple that I gave to you that I bought with a very high price, I don't want you to be reckless with it. I don't want you to just give that body to anybody. I don't just want you to live any O'Connor way. I don't just want you serving anyone, but you have to be able to look inside of the covenant to find these things out. Now, I don't know about you all, but oftentimes when I lived in the apartments, I did not look at all of the contract and you all didn't either. Some of you all listen, I tip my hat to you. You go through the whole thing. I just do the big things. I knew, okay, I can't paint and I don't want wild parties in here. Don't leave holes in the walls. That's all I knew. And oftentimes we're the same way. We know don't kill anybody, don't steal, but we don't look through the rest of this. But he did provide it. He provided and a contract. Thirdly, and what did Jesus do? Does Jesus maintain and respond to what belongs to him? Yes, he does. Here's what scripture, uh, uh, tell a matter of fact. Lemme go back to the other one. I apologize. I'll skipped one. Lemme let me go back to the provide and the con. The covenant two Timothy three 16, all scripture is inspired by God and it is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong. It teases us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare his peop and equip his people to do every good work. Look inside the con, the covenant. He provided it. Now lemme go back to number three. Do he, does he maintain and respond to the property according to John 1426? Yes he does. But when the Father sends the advocate as my representative, that is the Holy Spirit, he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything that I have told you. What does Jesus do when he ascended into heaven? He sent the Holy Spirit as a live in resident to remind us of what the covenant says. And he responds when we bring issues to him. That's why the the Bible tells us, come close to God and he will come close to you because he's going to take care of what belongs to him. So when I look at those three responsibilities, the question is, does Jesus fulfill his responsibilities as our Lord? Yes, he does. Is anybody glad that Jesus and thankful that Jesus has fulfilled his duties as our Lord? Is anybody just me, just a few people? So the question is, what are our responsibilities as tenants? Let's go over these fairly quickly. There are three responsibilities as tenants, people who live inside the property that was purchased by somebody else. Number one, maintain the property. Number two, honor your neighbors. And number three, report issues as they come up. Number one, let's look at do, do, are we maintaining the property that we did not purchase? You did not manifest your own birth. God spoke you into existence at this time. There's a reason why you were born now and not 200 years ago and not 200 years from now. God chose when to plant you right here on this earth. You are not your own. So do you take care of what you didn't purchase? Do you keep this temple clean? Now, I don't just mean by what you feed it, that's part of it, but also mean what you let into this temple via these eye gates and these ear gates. Are you avoiding recklessness with this life? Are you doing whatever you want to do in the property that was purchased by somebody else? Ask yourself that. Are you continuing to review the covenant on a daily basis because this is the only way that you're gonna keep this clean? Don't be like I was. I I know the big stuff. Okay, we're good. Gimme the keys every day. Okay, God, I gotta, I gotta be, I gotta be reminded because I, I just want to, I want do whatever I want to do inside of this temple, but I gotta be reminded, oh, I gotta treat people right? Okay, I gotta forgive people. Uh uh. You sure about that? All right, what else do I need to do? Oh, I need to seek you every single day. But, but what? But, but I don't want, I don't feel like doing that. Here's the thing, as a tenant, can you do whatever you want to do in the property that you don't own? Technically you could, but that comes with a penalty. See, my desires to do whatever I want to do, do not supersede what the Lord put in this contract. If the Lord says, don't paint the rooms, don't paint the rooms. Now you can paint the room if you want to, but when you move out, if you don't paint it back, you're going to get a penalty. Maintain the property. Are you doing that? Ask yourself. That's oftentimes the biggest difference between people who believe in Christ and those who don't. Believers should be living as though Christ is their Lord. Are you maintaining your property? I'm sorry I'm all in your business today, but you decided to wear open told shoes that says not, not my fault. Number two, you first you maintain the property. Number two, you honor your neighbors. Now, in an apartment or a home, oftentimes the landlord will tell you, no, no parties, no loud music after 10:00 PM stuff like that, are you honoring your neighbors? Because in this covenant, it is just not about loud music, but it may include some wild parties. Go to the book of Ephesians. It talks about that. Are you honoring your neighbors? There was this group of people who went to Jesus in the New Testament and they said, Hey, who is our neighbor? And Jesus told this amazing parable called the Good Samaritan. Maybe you've heard some of you all have heard it before. And at the end of that parable, Jesus said, you know, who's your neighbor? Everybody. That's right. Everybody is your neighbor. That means the person that doesn't look like you, doesn't believe like you, doesn't vote like you. That is your neighbor. Are you honoring them? If I went to your Facebook page or your ex page or Twitter, I still call it Twitter. I'm sorry, Twitter. If I go there, would I be able to tell that Jesus is your Lord? Are you upholding your responsibility to honor your neighbors? Some of you are like, well, I don't even, I don't even post anything on there. If I followed your life on a daily basis, would I be able to tell that you're upholding your responsibility to honor your neighbors? We have a responsibility. This is not, it's not my property. I don't get to choose to treat other people how I want to treat them. The covenant says honor them, love them. Are you doing that? So are you maintaining the property? Are you honoring your neighbors? And thirdly, you, our responsibility is to report issues as they come up. Which, how do we do this? We communicate with the Lord. That means we pray, we come before him if there is a problem. What I love about, uh, God is our Lord. He handles minor issues and he handles major issues. Both of them. He handles them. But it's our responsibility to bring those issues to him. Now, there were some issues when I lived in the apartment. I didn't need to bring every little thing to the landlord. Like I didn't need to tell the landlord. My light bulb went out. The Lord landlord was gonna tell me, purchase a new light bulb. If the electric doesn't work, call me. And there are some things we don't need to go to the Lord for. You know why? 'cause that in the covenant, I don't need to go, Lord, my neighbor disrespected me. Can I slap 'em? We already talked about that. Honor them. You don't need to ask them that. You can tell 'em, but you don't need to ask them. But there were other things you need the landlord. One time we had a, a leak in our, uh, town home that we lived in. And there was water coming from the top floor. It was in our light fixtures coming down to our, to our, our bottom floor. And we were freaking out. I called the landlord, we got a leak. We need somebody over here quickly. And they were like, we got it. We'll be over there. And eventually they came and they fixed all of that. 'cause I didn't know how to do it myself. Now, if I would've never told the landlord about the leak, there would've been some terrible damage in my home. If you never go to the Lord, he's, you've gotta communicate with him. He says he will handle the, the, the, when the, the issues as you come to him. But you've gotta go to him. I told you earlier, there's a scripture that says, come close to God, he will come close to you. You've gotta report it. The leak may not be water in your life, the leak in your life. It may be pornography, it might be anxiety and depression and jealousy that you don't know how to let go of that on your own will call up the Lord and say, God, I can't handle this. I need your help. And let me tell you what he will do. He will report to that report. Somebody needs to hear me this morning. But we have to understand that the sometimes the hardest thing to do is to wait on the Lord to show up. When I called them about that leak, they didn't come. As soon as I hung up the phone, it took some time. It's you and I as tenants have to learn to be able to wait on the Lord to come in and fix the situation because he's Lord. So Jesus handles his responsibilities. Are you handling yours? Just think about it. Just think about it. Here's what I need you to know. Jesus is the Lord, but he's not a slum Lord. He's a good Lord. And you are not slum property. You are so valuable that he said, I'm not just going to pay a little bit for them. I'm gonna pay a high price for them. He loves you so much. He is a good Lord and loves you so very much that he was willing to give his life for you. That is why he is Lord of all. Even if you struggle with this, he's still, Lord, even if you don't wanna believe this doesn't matter. He's still Lord. Now I told you that there are penalties that come with not upholding to your duties with the co, the covenant. Right? There are penalties. Scripture tells us that everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Here's the good news. Jesus is not like an earthly letting Lord, who when you don't uphold your contract, you've gotta pay for it. He goes so much further. When we, my wife got pregnant with our oldest daughter. We lived in an apartment we were not supposed to paint according to the contract any walls. But I was about to be a girl dad, y'all. And I wanted my baby girl to have a pink room. And I didn't care what the contract said. That girl was getting a pink room. So I painted it. And a year later we knew we needed to paint it back white before we moved out. But we were parents tired, parents of a toddler and had no sleep over those first 12 months. When it was time for us to move, I just said, I'll be willing to pay the penalty. I ain't painting it back. And we left and I knew I was going to be penalized. I wasn't gonna get my deposit back and I was probably gonna have to pay extra because of the extra work they had to do. But six weeks later, I looked in the mail and there was a check. It was our full deposit that they sent back to us. And I said, I gotta call them because maybe there was a mistake. 'cause I know we weren't supposed to get this back. And I called 'em and said, Hey, you all sent us the full deposit back. Uh, did you not see the rooms? They said, oh no, we saw her, sir, it's been taken care of. Have a good day. You have your full deposit back. You don't have to pay anything. And that's what Jesus did for us. You broke the covenant. You broke the covenant. You broke the covenant. We all broke the covenant. But instead of him saying, you gotta pay for it, he said, I will. I'll take the penalty. They don't have to pay for it. Isn't that good? That is why he is Lord. See those of you that struggle and wrestle with the fact of him being, Lord I, I need you to know you would have every right to do that if he was a Lord that used and usurped his power and authority to just force you to, to, to follow after him. But he doesn't do that. He chooses your life over his. That's why he is Lord. That's why he's good. And there are others of you that, that you don't, you, you wrestling with this because you don't wanna, you don't want to give up certain parts of your life. And I get that there were parts I don't, I didn't want to give up. There were parts of my life I didn't want to have to surrender either. But what I love about Jesus, I read to you earlier, Philippians two verses nine and 10. But let me read you the verses that came before that because this is why it is important to surrender every part of your life to Him as Lord. Philippians two verses five through 11. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had, though he was, God did not think of it. Equality with God to give up, uh, to as something, to clinging to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges. Remember, he let go of those divine privileges. He took the humble position of a slave was born as a human being. When he and appeared in human form. He humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on the cross. So again, you don't wanna let go of stuff, but you gotta understand what he did. He was like, I know they don't wanna surrender it, but I'm gonna surrender my life to set an example to show them that they must surrender their heirs. And it's because of that, that we go to verse nine. Therefore, because he surrendered his life for yours, God elevated them to the highest, to the, to a place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names that we sang. A powerful name, a wonderful name, a beautiful name. And that the name of Jesus every niche should bow in heaven on the earth and under the earth. And declare that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father. He doesn't force it. Yes, He humbles his self. He surrendered his life so that you and I would say, God, we'll surrender ours to you. Will you surrender your life and fulfill your duties as a, because here's the thing, you're not just a tenant. You're his child. He loves you. He cares for you. You have to learn to surrender it. Though I told you all that five years ago that the, our journey to St. Louis really began, and I heard the Lord speak to me about moving to St. Louis, which you have to understand is when I heard the Lord say that, my first response was, no, absolutely not. I grew up there. I love St. Louis. I'll rock St. Louis hats all day long. But I don't wanna live there. God, I'm trying to go someplace where it's warm all year long. I don't want St. Louis November to March. I want St. Louis from May to August. That's all I want. And a matter of fact, I, I didn't want to come so much that I didn't even tell my wife. 'cause I knew if she didn't want to come either, she's from Texas. She was like, you're taking me further away from my family. We didn't want to come here, but after prayer and getting Godly counsel, we had to come to this place of surrender. My life is not my own. I don't get to just say, I'm gonna do whatever I want to do. 'cause I didn't pay for this. I didn't want to surrender that part. I wanted to go my own way and I, I could've. But I remembered what he did for me. And if he says to go, I go. If he says don't go, I don't go. If he says to stop doing something, stop doing it. If he says to do something, I must do it. That's how we've gotta live. Because he is the Lord. Is he the son of God? Yes. Yes. Is he your redeemer? Yes. Is he your savior? Yes. But he's none of those. If he's not first your Lord, are you willing to surrender to him and his lordship because of what he did for you? There was uncertainty in me moving here, but there was certainty in his lordship. And I trusted that. Will you do the same? Some of you all need to let go of some things. You need to surrender. A, some of you need to surrender your life period to him. Others of you, you're keeping this one little area tucked away. I don't wanna surrender that. I'll surrender everything else, but I don't wanna surrender that. Not yet. But he's Lord of all, will you let him be Lord of all? He fulfilled his responsibilities. Will you fulfill yours? Let's all stand today, even at all the sites. Would you all stand up? We're gonna close this message out with a time of reflection through a song. It's a powerful song. It's a hymn that if many of you all may know, some of you may not. But it's called I Surrender All because this is the posture that we all must have. Jesus is Lord, whether you like it or not, he is. But I don't wanna be forced to declare that he is Lord, at the end of all of this, I would rather choose to acknowledge that He is Lord. Will you do that? As we sing this song, sing it. But more importantly, let's live it out as we sing. I surrender all.