Amen. I'm so excited to bring the Word of God today.

And it would be very easy for me to hit play on the sermon that God has written into my heart

and just sort of perform out of the overflow of my study time and all the times that I do this message out loud,

sort of envisioning this moment. It would be really easy for me to

just go into that right now, but I felt like it would be inauthentic to get up here and

proclaim a truth about the Word of God from a position where it looks like I receive this

in the context of a life that has it all together. I had a terrible week this week.

Anxiety, like hitting me to a level that hasn't been familiar for a year and a half and at the most unlikely of times, going home with an

attitude that was absolutely unacceptable to my wife and to my kids, short-tempered, angry, handling situations. I have so

many conversations with people in our church that stuff that's really sensitive and requires

all of your energy to even participate in a conversation. And it's like, I've been doing this for

seven years now. So you've had the conversation where so-and-so's leaving the church and you've had the conversation where somebody has a question about something that was said in a sermon and you've got to explain it, but also like guide them and pastor them. And then you've had the conversation with a mom who's losing her mom, who's been in a 10-year battle with cancer. And then you have another conversation with the staff issue here. And, man, I was just exhausted. And at the end of myself, and at the end of this week going, I still got to get up there on Sunday. And I was like, you know what, Lord, when I get up there on Sunday, you're going to be faithful because you're more passionate about your word going out than I am.

But as you do that, God, I don't want to get up there and proclaim the word you've given me and

them go, see, he's just got this access to the Holy Spirit of God.

And his life is void of the trouble and the busyness and the craziness of mine.

And so I know that even as I preach sometimes, because of the gift God has given me,

the struggle looks inconsistent with what your daily life looks like.

I want you to know I'm with you in it, and I'm working through things in my own sanctification

that many of you are.

But at the same time, I had a time with the Lord in His Word on Friday, where I do not exaggerate when I say this,

and I don't want to say this like it's cliche or normal, God spoke to me.

And I know people say that, like, God spoke to me, and he said, and it's like, stop right

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