My Way or Gods Way

Frank Sinatra's classic and signature song was, I did it my way. And that song reflects a self-assured independence that will not let anybody tell me what to do. I'm going to do it my way. I'm going to live life my way. I'm going to choose what I want to do. And nobody's going to tell me how to live life or what to do. And so that song kind of captures that individualistic, rugged spirit that says, nobody else is going to tell me how to live. I'm going to do it my way. And you know quite interestingly, it is often those people that are thought to never have any trouble with stress or burnout. People who run their own lives, people who don't let anybody else call the shots for them or anything else. In reality, that attitude, I did it my way. That attitude is a setup for stress and burnout. As we're going to see in an example in the Bible today from the life of Moses. We're this morning turning a corner in our series on the subject of stress. The last four messages we've dealt with, the understanding of stress, what it means. And we've talked about how stress relates to our personality, how it relates to our thinking, how it relates to our feeling, how it relates to burnout. Today we're going to begin talking about principles for coping with stress. Okay, if I understand how it works, how it affects me, or where it comes from, then how do I deal with it? And the very first principle in dealing with stress is the principle of God's enablement. This is so critical, it is so crucial to understand the principle of God's enablement. If we try to live life our way, do it our way, we're going to crash and burn. If we do it with God's enablement and God's empowerment, then we have the capacity to live a life that's pleasing to Him and honoring to Him, glorifies Him, and counts for Him and for eternity. That is an important lesson. Now we're going to see this morning in Acts chapter 7, and I invite your attention to the seventh chapter of Acts. We're going to see how Moses crashed when he was depending upon his own resources and how he learned to depend upon God's enablement, God's empowerment. Stephen is doing the preaching in Acts chapter 7. He's deacon in the church, and he's preaching a message, a message that eventually got him stone that caused the people to kill him. But in this message, he spends part of it talking about the Old Testament's story of Moses. What he does is he crafts for us this picture of how Moses depended upon himself and then learned he needed to depend upon the Lord. First of all, Stephen talks about his credentials. In verses 20 through 22, he lists four credentials that Moses had that in everybody's eyes would make you think, this guy's got it all together. This guy's got everything it takes to really be successful in life. First of all, he had physical credentials. Look at verse 20. At that time, Moses was born and he was no ordinary child for three months. He was cared for in his father's house. I want you to look at that little expression. He was no ordinary child. In the account in Exodus chapter 2 where the life of Moses begins, it says that his parents saw that he was a fine child. In the account in Hebrews 11, it says that Moses was again like this, no ordinary child. Most Bible commentators feel that that expression refers to the fact that Moses had some kind of physical appearance that was just striking even from birth. His parents could look at him and tell there was something unusual, something different, something special about this little boy. The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that Moses was so striking in appearance, he had such exceptional strength and he was so handsome that Egyptians would gather around just to get a glimpse of him. So he had all the physical credentials that you would expect would make a person say, this is a successful person, but he had not only physical credentials, he had social credentials. Look at verse 21. When he was placed outside, Pharaoh's daughter took him and brought him up as her own son, which means he grew up in the unimaginable wealth of the Egyptian palace. I mean, here was a man who had everything socially afforded him that you could possibly ever want. He had all the social credentials to be successful in life, but he also had educational credentials. Look at verse 22. Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, which means he had the best education in the world in the most highly civilized country in the world. I mean, he's studying astronomy under the people who developed the most sophisticated calendar of the day. He is studying engineering under the people who built the pyramids. Here's a man who is studying medicine with the people who refined the craft of embalming. And from what we know, from secular historians about how future Pharaoh's would be trained, he studied a lot of other things like chemistry, theology, philosophy, law, military, history, and strategy. He studied literature. He studied the arts. The kind of arts he would have studied would have been sculpture, painting, music. You see, here's a man who had a rigorous academic training. He was disciplined in all the learnings of the best schools of the world of his day. Anything that you could expect by way of academic credentials Moses had. But he not only had physical and social and educational credentials, he had personal credentials as well. Verse 22 again says, Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action. Today we would say the guy had charisma. He had a win some personality and he had the ability to communicate with ease and with force. He had natural leadership qualities. Again Josephus, the Jewish historian tells us that by age 30 Moses was a military leader in Egypt. The Egyptian army was embroiled in a conflict with the Ethiopian army. And they were losing. They were losing the war and Moses was put in as the leader of the army and he rallied the troops and led them to a resounding victory over the Ethiopians at age 30. So here is a man with physical, social, educational, personal credentials who is making a name for himself in Egypt. I mean, this guy is primed for the throne. He is earning the respect of everyone. He is highly qualified. He is highly competent. Here is a man who is the pride of Egypt. He's got all the credentials you could possibly expect of someone to be the ultimate success story. But Stephen goes on to tell the story of Moses. Not only do he have impeccable credentials, but he also made a choice. I want us to look at his choice. In the next few verses, in verses 23 through 25, Stephen is going to develop for us the choice that Moses made. It was a choice to turn his back on everything he had in Egypt and to identify with his own people, culturally, racially, the Hebrews. That was an amazing choice that he made. We're going to see how Stephen develops that choice. First of all, at verse 23, where he talks about this choice involving, first of all, a good motive. Verse 23 says, when Moses was 40 years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites. He says, okay, what's that about? He goes out to visit them, sit down, have a little tea, pass the time of day. No, that's not the kind of visit we're talking about. You see, his people were enslaved in Egypt. I believe the Bible would support this. What's happening here is that God had already put in Moses' heart a stirring, a desire to identify with his people and to be their deliverer. So Moses goes out to see them. He has not forgotten the training of his mother and father. You see, even though he was found as a little baby by Pharaoh's daughter because he needed someone to take care of him as a small child, God providentially arranged that that would be his own mother. So he spent several years in his own home being trained by his own parents. And I'm sure that he never forgot who he was, that he was a Hebrew. He was not an Egyptian. And I believe at this time God is stirring in his heart and he wants to go out so that he can identify with his people, finding some way to become one of them, if you will. Hebrews chapter 11 says it this way, by faith, Moses, when he had grown up, this is the choice he made, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded this grace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt because he was looking ahead to his reward. You see what the Bible says about this phase of Moses' life is that he had made a conscious choice to disassociate himself from all of the things that Egypt had given him and to identify himself with his people. I think God was already stirring in his heart that desire to lead his people to freedom. So this choice that he makes begins with a good motive. He's wanting to do what God is putting in his heart to do. But what we find next is a brash murder. Look at verse 24. He saw one of them, one of his own people, his fellow Israelites. He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian. So he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. Now what happened here? Did Moses just all of a sudden snap? Well, I think he definitely was angry and overly so. As we saw in an earlier message in this series, he demonstrated the kind of anger that stress can bring in a stressful situation. But I don't think he snapped mentally. I think Moses in his anger saw an opportunity to strike a blow for his people. I think he went out there with the desire stirring in his heart to identify with his own people and now he sees an opportunity. I can strike a blow for my people and rally them around me. They will see that I want to lead them. Now the problem was he took the situation into his own hands. The problem was he did not wait on God's timing or God's way to do that. He took things into his own hands. You ever done that? Sure you have. I have too. Where we rush into a situation, believing God wants this done or that done, but we take it into our own hands. We push our own way. We feel like God needs a little help getting this thing started because he's obviously not doing it yet. So we push our own way forward and rather than waiting on him, rather than seeking his peace, his direction, his will, we rush into something saying, okay, I'm going to make my mark. I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to do it my way. Here we find a brash murder. It is an expression of Moses acting in the flesh and his own resources, his own strength to try to do something that God is putting in his heart to do. That leads to a third part of this choice of Moses and that is a covered up mess. Look at the text again, verse 20. Where am I? Is this Sunday or is this Monday? I don't know, where am I? Verse 24. He went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. Now this text does not talk about this, but in Exodus chapter 2 where it tells the historical scene, the story it does say something else about the covered up mess that Moses found himself in. Says this, glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. This is what happens. Moses takes things into his own hands, pushes his own way to try to help God get this deliverance program off the ground. And when he commits murder, what he finds is he's got a body on his hands, he's got to do something with, he's got a mess, he's got to cover up somehow so he hides him in the sand. Whenever we take things into our own hands, whenever we try to rush what God wants to do or try to do something our own way or live life on our own terms, we're going to find a lot of messes we have to cover up. Lies that we try to explain, people we've hurt that we try to smooth over, bad motives that we've been involved in that we have to somehow cover up, but just like Moses, the truth somehow catches up to us and the sand reveals its secrets because this didn't stay a secret very long. And then suddenly some people saw what happened and Moses had a shallow grave, was not able to successfully cover this thing up because the next day when he goes out, he finds out that the Israelites, it's common knowledge what he's done. The word has already spread that he killed an Egyptian. You know, it's fascinating to me that Moses could not successfully cover up one Egyptian when he tried to do this in his own way, deliver God's people in his own way in his own time. Later when it is God's time and it is God's way, God covers up a whole Egyptian army with water. You know, if we just let God do things in his way in his time, he does a much better job of it. When we try to force ourselves into the picture and say, I can do this, look at all these credentials I've got. Man, I'm going to be this kind of leader, I'm going to do this or that, I'm going to take the bull by the horns and force this situation to happen. We end up having messes to cover up and we usually don't do a very good job of covering them up. Well, that's what happened to Moses. Is that music just in my ears or is that really happening? I just, boy, I'm not sure what's going on today. Go ahead and answer it, that's okay. That leads to the fourth thing Moses said, or Stephen says about Moses' choice and that is a bold move. Look at verse 25, Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. Now I want you to see the first part of that verse especially, Moses really believes that what he has done will send a signal to the Israelites that I'm your man. You know, look at me, I'm your man. I'm the one who's going to deliver you and I've proven myself. I've shown that I'm on your team that I want to lead you and I'm convinced that Moses believed that the children of Israel would now rally to his side. That's what verse 25 is saying. I'm sure he felt that all he needed to do was make another appearance and they would be ready. They would have their pitchforks in hand, ready to storm the palace, just lead us, oh great Moses, oh great deliverer, you're our man. I'm sure that's what he was feeling. That's what he was thinking. That's why he went out the next day. Verse 26 says he went out the next day. He has already proven his loyalty to the Hebrews and now he's going to return to the scene, rally the troops and lead the great revolt and deliver his people. That's his plan. The problem is it's not God's plan. It's not God's time, it's not God's way. And I don't know that Moses has really given any thought to God's plan, God's time and God's way. He's a man with tremendous credentials who sees an opportunity to do it his way in his time, just like we often try to live life. On our own terms, I did it my way without praying, without seeking God's will, without really depending on him, waiting on him, we push ahead and we find that sometimes even our choices that have good motives end up with brash murders covered up messes and then a bold move that explodes in our faces. Because Moses' choice is followed in verses 25 to 29 by his collapse. What happens next is not a great triumph. Instead of going out the next day and finding the people ready to rally behind him, things go a much different direction, things go south in our hurry for Moses. Let's read what happens. Again, verse 25. Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. Verse 26. The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, men, you are brothers. Why do you want to hurt each other? But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, who made you ruler and judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday? When Moses heard this, he fled the midi and where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons. Can you imagine in one moment, in just a few moments, Moses' whole plan, his whole dream, his whole feeling of what he thinks his life is about, collapses at his feet? I can only imagine what he must have felt in those moments. Even though the Bible characters were no different than us, they were people just like us, men and women who have the same kind of feelings and identify with the same kind of thoughts all that we have. And there is no question in my mind that the first thing Moses must have felt when he heard this, when he experienced this, was shock. There is no question in my mind that Moses collapse began with shock. He arrives, he is back on the scene the next day, expecting according to verse 25, that the people of God will realize he is there, man, he is there, leader, grab your pitch forks, we are going to storm the palace, we are going to get out of here and they are fighting. And so Moses intervenes and breaks up the fight, no doubt thinking that these people will, these two guys will say, oh, sorry, Moses, we know we should have been waiting for you. We want to follow you, sorry, we let this little distraction get in the way, now come on, you are our leader, let's go. But they don't. They push him aside and basically say, fancy boy, what are you doing here? Who made you leader over us? You go back to the palace with your fancy duds, we don't need you. There is no question in my mind that he must have, that must have stung him and shocked him. Everything he had expected is being thrown in his face. The shock was followed by confusion. I know if it were me, I would have been confused, what's happening? God you put this in my heart to deliver your people, there is this stirring to identify, like Hebrews says, to turn away from what I have found in Egypt to identify with my people, I have lit the match but the kindling won't catch fire. Nothing is happening. What's wrong? Why won't this thing get going? He is confused. God, what are you doing? What are you allowing? Why? Why? The shock and confusion are followed by fear and Moses becomes fearful. It's the only way you can explain verse 29, when he heard this he fled to Midian. Fear gripped his heart. You see, he had already turned his back on Egypt and he had crossed the bridge and burned the bridge behind him. He had killed an Egyptian. He can't go back. He is already a traitor to the Egyptians. He is only hope for the future lies in the Israelites rallying around him. But that doesn't happen either. And so he's like a man without a country. He has nowhere to go. The Egyptians are going to hate him. The Israelites haven't accepted him as a leader. What does he do? In fear he runs. The last thing you see in verse 29 is he's running. He's running to the desert. Now I'm sure that as Moses ran toward the desert. He wasn't skipping merely a long singing. I did it my way. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. He's full of shock and confusion and fear. Everything he has hoped and dreamed and planned on lies shattered at his feet. This man is in a total free fall. He is collapsing. Everything around him is gone. Can you imagine the feeling some of you probably can? Because some of you are there today. Right now at this point in your life everything you had hoped on, everything you had dreamed about, everything you had planned for, everything you were working toward seems to be evaporating. Seems to be leaving quickly. It's shattered. You're facing a potential burnout. Stress has gotten the best of you and you feel life just collapsing at your feet. You are right where Moses was as he runs into the desert, not knowing what's going to happen to him next. But I'm thankful that's not the end of the story. Because the last scene that Stephen paints in this wonderful sermon is his commission. And I choose that word carefully. Commission means to be sent with a message or a purpose with something to do twice in these next few verses we're going to read twice it is said for emphasis that God sent him. He is commissioned by God himself, God sends him. It's like God now steps in and says, okay Moses, you've given it your best shot and you see where it got you. You went out in your own strength. You see what happened? Now it's time for me to move. It's time for me to step in. Was the end of the school year and that a field day at school and the children had invited their parents to come and enjoy the time and they would be food and games out on the playground and the field. During the events of the day one of the parents collapsed and fainted and collapsed onto the field and a number of people gathered around to try to provide any help they could and one woman in particular, he'd knelt over this man and was providing some first aid help and all of a sudden another man came barging in, pushing people out of the way, barking out orders, pushed the woman aside and said, let me in here, I just had a course in CPR. I know what to do. So he starts doing CPR and the woman who had been working with this gentleman who was passed out just kind of stood by quietly, watched the man for a few moments and then said, by the way sir, when you get to the point where it says call a doctor, just remember I'm already here. We do that with God. You push our own way, push everybody else out of the way, we're going to do it my way. I've got all these credentials, I've got all these resources, I know what to do, I'm going to do it my way and all the time God is standing there saying, okay, go ahead. I'll let you, if you're intent, if you insist on doing it your own way, just remember when you get to the part where you need to call out the God, I'm already here. That's where Moses finds himself in verse 30. And what we see is that God now commissions him. First of all, the Bible says that God calls, God calls. Look at it, verse 30. After 40 years had passed, there was a lot of living in those few words. And after 40 years had passed and we just go right on, there was a lot of humbling in those 40 years. There was a lot of God taking Moses down and teaching him your own resources can't do it but anyway, after 40 years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to look more closely, he heard the Lord's voice. Look at what God said in verse 32, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look. Then the Lord said to him, take off your sandals, the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt. God calls, Moses hears God's voice in the desert and God calls him and says, I want to send you back to Egypt. I have to work for you to do there. Sometimes, folks, what we need to hear is God's voice. Where are we going to hear that? We are going to hear it in a burning bush or something like that? Probably not. God used those kinds of miraculous interventions before his word was complete to get the attention of people because they did not have his word to turn to, to learn about him. So, he used more drastic means. We have a complete revelation of who God is and what he wants of us in this book. Why look further? I mean, let's hear God's voice in this book. God calls to us in the Bible. And sometimes what we need to do, rather than just getting up the next day and going out to do it again, and my own strength and my own energy is to let God speak to me in His word. Listen to His voice. Bring myself into a submissive place to what God says. Let Him lead the way. Let Him call the shots. Let Him determine the strategy. God calls. There's no more Moses did this. Moses did that. Moses had these credentials. It's all now, Moses listening to God and God saying, I am going to do this. I am going to send you. God calls. But secondly, God empowers. God empowers him. I love verse 35, the way it's stated. Look at it. It says, this is the same Moses whom they had rejected with the words, who made you ruler and judge. He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God Himself through the angel who appeared to Him in the bush. I love the way it says at the end of verse 35, this is the same Moses. No difference. It had same credentials, same qualifications, same Moses. What's the difference now? But God Himself is sending Him. That's the difference. You see, God is sending Him with His enablement, with His empowerment to do what He wants Him to do. That's the difference. Same Moses, but now going in God's strength, God's empowerment, rather than in His own strength and own resources. One of my favorite movies of all time is The Movie Hoosiers. The movie was made when I was a Hoosier. We were living in Indiana. So we had great interest in the movie when it came out. In fact, a number of the fellows who played on the ball team and Hoosiers played high school basketball there in Indiana and our area, a couple of them went to Grace College and played basketball there. So we knew of some of them and knew who they were. It was kind of neat to see the film. It's always been one of my favorite movies since it came out. The movie is about, it's actually kind of loosely based on true story, about a small high school in 1951 called Mylam High School that won the Indiana State Basketball Championship. You see, that's a big deal in Indiana because in Indiana, until a couple of years ago, every school, no matter what size, played for the same championship. You didn't have class A, class B, class C, or single A, AA, AA, AA. Everybody played for the same championship. Rarely ever did a small school make it past the first game in the tournament. So the movie is loosely based on that true story, but The Movie is about a college coach who was kind of washed up. He'd been kicked out of his college coaching job because the way treated his players and besides, he's going to start life over, if you will, in this small little Indiana town. Comes to teach in a high school, starts coaching the basketball team. He's got a lot to overcome in the community because people are against him. They're not sure, you know, this outsider, if he's going to do right, and that kind of thing. But before long, he molds that team of eight boys into a real team. And they start working together and they start working hard and they start winning games. And then they get into the tournament and they start winning tournament games. And the whole area is now excited about him. In one tournament game, it's very close to the end of the game and they're tied with the team they're playing. And one of the best players is injured. And the coach decides I've got to take him out. And I've got to put in a guy that I don't really want to put in. A guy they'd nickname Strap. Now Strap is an old Indiana farm boy, he's a son of a preacher. And he's a big old kid. You'd like to have him under the basket to clear out some room, but you don't want him shooting the ball. And so look at what happens when the coach decides to put Strap in the game. Let's watch it. It's a great clip. Same Strap, same player, but now the Lord is his strength. And he's able to play like he's never played before. Same Moses, the difference is now he's going in God's strength, God's power, God's empowerment. And that makes all the difference in the world. And that's what leads us to say that now it is not only as God commissions him, God calling and God empowering him. But the third thing about his commission is that Moses endures. Moses is able to stick with it this time. Remember the first time when he went on his own strength, he bottomed out, he washed out, he burned out, he crashed. But notice what verse 36 says about Moses. He led them out of Egypt and did wonders and miraculous signs in Egypt as the reds, at the red sea and for 40 years in the desert. Same Moses, verse 35 says, same Moses, but now in God's empowerment with God's strength, with God's power, he sticks it out for 40 years. It is God's empowerment that enables him to confront Pharaoh. It is God's empowerment that enables him to announce the plagues. It is God's empowerment that enables him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. It is God's empowerment that now enables him to stand at the red sea until the Israelites stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. It is God's empowerment that enables him to lead them for 40 long years through the wilderness and not give up. Moses endures. He endures. You know why? Hebrews 11 tells us the answer. Verse 27 of Hebrews 11, as you can see it on the screen. By faith, he left Egypt, not fearing the King's anger. Here it is. He persevered or endured because he saw him who was invisible. He had seen him at the burning bush and he kept that vision in his heart and mind through that whole time as he went back to deliver the people. And for 40 years, he kept looking to the one who was invisible. And as he drew on God's strength and God's power rather than his own resources and his own credentials, God enabled him to endure and make it for the long haul. Now, my friend, I'll tell you this. Stress and burnout are more likely when you're depending on your own resources. In fact, if you're depending on your own resources, your own strength, your own ability to make it through another day to get done. When you get done, what all you've got to get done, it will lead to stress and burnout. The Titanic, of course, is a well-known story, a ship that was thought to be unsinkable that sank in the icy waters in the Northern Atlantic. As the Titanic was crossing the North Atlantic from England to the United States, they came in contact with Cape Race, Newfoundland, around 930 in the evening. The wireless room became very busy sending passengers, routine messages to family members and business associates and friends in New York. During that very time that the most important warnings were ignored, repeated warnings were sent to the Titanic and they were ignored. One morning, for instance from the Californian, said this in Morse code, I say, oh man, we are surrounded by ice. The reply from the Titanic, shut up, shut up, we're busy. They were busy cabling messages from people to their friends and family members. Despite the repeated warnings, seven clear warnings in all, the Titanic just kept barging right along in its own power. Until finally it hit that huge iceberg that tore a gash 200 feet long in the side of that boat and ripped open six of its watertight compartments. The engineer who helped build the boat was on deck, he knew it would go down. Within two hours he knew it would go. And so they began to warn people to put on the life vests and get on the deck, but most people didn't listen. Many of the passengers just kept on partying the night away, drinking, dancing, gambling, having a great time. Not conscious of what was going on around them. Some others put on their life preservers and went up on the deck and started dancing having a good time. Some of them chipped off ice off the iceberg that they could reach and start having snowball battles with each other. Others wouldn't put on the life vest because they didn't want to wrinkle or soil their evening gowns and their tuxedos. There were others who went below, went to sleep, thinking everything was okay. Within two hours the Titanic had sunk and over 1500 people lost their lives. I don't care how strong you are, I don't care how smart you are, I don't care how when some you are, how wealthy you are. You will at some point hit an iceberg, you can't handle. It's too big for you. And if you haven't learned before that time, I plead with you then to please learn to call on the Lord, to learn to get His strength. Rather than just plowing ahead on your own, depend on God's enablement. The first principle for handling stress is God's enablement, God's empowerment, we must have that or we will not make it. Please learn to trust His Word, to listen to His voice and trust it. Learn to wait on Him, to listen to Him speak, to learn the power of the Holy Spirit and lean on the power of the Holy Spirit. Learn to pray and cast yourself wholly upon Him so that His strength will come to you, rather than you just going ahead, heedless of His warnings in your own strength. Some of you here this morning have been trying to live life on your own and you've been trying to make it all work. You've been trying to keep everything together, family, job, personal responsibilities, your own life, and trying to hold it all together, trying to make it all work. And you are basically at the end of your rope. You are so tired of trying to make life work. You know what? It could be that you have never come to the place where you have depended entirely upon the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation. And you've never called upon the Lord to save you and to come into your life and give you a new life to begin to lead you and direct your steps. Maybe that's the step you need to take this morning. Maybe for others of us here this morning who have trusted Christ as our Savior, but we're still plowing ahead on our own strength. How foolish that is. When we have the Holy Spirit and the Word of God and the availability of prayer to call upon the Lord's strength and His power, please, my friend. If you're suffering today because of all of the pressures of life that seem to be collapsing you under their weight, please learn the principle of God's empowerment. Let's pray together. Father, help us to learn what it means to depend upon you and not upon ourselves. I pray for anyone who's never done that in the realm of salvation that today would be the day when they trust Jesus as their Savior. And for those of us who know Christ but need to learn better dependence upon you every day rather than depending on our own strength, I pray that you'd help us to learn to depend upon you, not to depend upon ourselves. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.