What Makes You Tick

Sounds like to me that guy's got some real stress issues, right? Somebody needs to walk up to him and say, what makes you tick? You remember the old watches before crystal quartz type deals, where the old, you take the back off of them and you'd see all these little wheels and springs and things going worrying and all kinds of stuff. That was the works that made the watch tick. That's what made the watch work. What made it tick? Well, I think every one of us has some stuff going on inside behind the face, behind what we portrayed other people, behind what we show by way of dealing with life stresses. A lot of us, all of us, have something going on inside. We've got our own set of pulleys and bells and whistles and all the rest that are calling the shots that are either driving us or motivating us to do what we do. When it comes to stress, all of us need to ask ourselves, what makes me tick? What is behind the surface? What's going on inside that makes me live life the way I do? Respond to situations the way I do. React to people and things the way I do. What's going on inside that motivates that? In fact, that's another way to ask the question, what is my motivation in life? What makes me do what I do? What are the reasons behind the things I say to people and the way I respond to situations? What is my motivation in life? We're looking at this series on Sunday mornings at stress and in the last few weeks we've been talking about keys to coping with stress. We've looked at four keys to coping with stress already. We've looked at God's enablement, trusting His strength rather than our own strength. We have looked at love in relationships. Our relationships ought to be dominated by love for God and love for others. We've looked at our priorities and we've looked at the issue of perspective, how we look at life. This morning we're going to look at something that I think is even more basic and that is our motivation. What makes us tick on the inside? Why do we respond the way we do to life's issues? There are two basic motivations in life. One of them will lead you to more stress, just like we saw, and the other will lead you to a contented, peaceful, joyful, satisfying life. Gordon McDonald in his book, Ordering Your Private World, refers to these two motivations as either being driven or called. I want to adopt that terminology, borrow that terminology from Him today, and talk about two people in the Bible, one of whom represents a driven life and one of whom represents a called life. Let's look first of all at the one who represents a driven person, His name is Saul. If you would please open your Bibles to the book of 1 Samuel, 1 Samuel chapter 9, where we find an introduction, our first introduction to this man named Saul, a driven person. So let's begin by just going over a brief history of Saul's life. I want to introduce you to him in 1 Samuel 9 and then we'll just summarize a brief history of Saul's life. Chapter 9 verse 1 says, there was a Benjamin, a man of standing, whose name was Kish, son of Abiel, son of Zoror, son of Bechirath, son of Afea of Benjamin. He had a son named Saul, an impressive young man, without equal among the Israelites, a head taller than any of the others. Now we are introduced to Saul here and immediately we find three unerned characteristics that can either be tremendous assets to him or tremendous liabilities. All of these things he was born with, he just had their unerned, he didn't really merit them or anything like that and they can either be assets or liabilities. The first one is he had wealth. Verse 1 says, his father was a man of standing, that means to have standing in the nation in the community, it means he had wealth. So Saul was born into a wealthy family. Secondly, he had an attractive appearance. Verse 2 says, Saul was an impressive young man. That Hebrew word has to do with physical stature or the way he looked. It's used in Genesis chapter 39 of Joseph and talks about him being a very handsome young man. So the idea here is simply that the guy looked good. He was an attractive handsome young guy. And then the third asset was he was a physically imposing guy. The Bible says he was a head taller than any of the others. You could not miss him in a crowd. He just stood out above everybody else. Now those three characteristics, wealth, physical attractiveness, good physical appearance, and physically imposing stature, powerful guy, all of those things are external. They command immediate respect and attention, but if they are not accompanied by more going on on the inside, if they are not accompanied by moral and godly character, then they become tremendous liabilities rather than assets. That's exactly what we're going to find happens to Saul. Now, let me just jump ahead a little bit and kind of fill you in on the story, given you just a brief history of Saul's life. By chapter 11, Saul has an immediate victory. He has not yet been recognized completely by all the nation as the king, but there's a group of people called the Ammonites who threaten a northern city in Israel, city of J. Besh Gilead, and they call out to Saul for help. Saul rallies people in Israel, men of Israel, they come together, win a stunning victory over the Ammonites, and Saul's position as king is solidified. There's no question now that he is to be the king, but almost immediately signs of driven this begin to appear. Signs of the wrong kinds of motivation begin to appear in Saul's life. By chapter 13, we find that he is now in a battle with another nation called Amolek. Excuse me, the Philistines in chapter 13. And he goes out against the Philistines, but before he goes into battle, he has been instructed by Samuel, wait for me to come, and I will present an offering to the Lord, kind of concentrate the whole, or consecrate the whole battle to the Lord, make sure that we're seeking his direction. You wait for me, we'll offer that sacrifice, and then you go into battle. Saul waits for a few days, but his army is starting to get restless. So he says, I don't know if Sam is going to show up or not, so he just offers the sacrifice himself, and right at that time, Samuel shows up. Now Samuel wasn't playing games with Saul. God wanted any king in Israel to function in a setting where he would be humble and responsible to others, accountable to others. He did not want a king who had all the power concentrated in himself and just did whatever he wanted to do. There was going to be a system of checks and balances in the government of Israel, just like there is in our government. You know, in our government, we have three branches, the executive branch, the legislative branch, the judicial branch, President, Congress, Supreme Court, and there's a system of checks and balances to keep any one person from getting too much power. That's exactly what God was doing in Israel. The executive branch is the king. The legislative branch is the law of Moses already given. God was the law giver, the lawmaker in Israel. The judicial branch were the prophets. The prophets were to interpret the law and apply the law so that Israel's king would know what he was supposed to do. And the king was supposed to work in tandem with God's law and God's prophet. Our Saul just demonstrated he's unwilling to do that. He wants to be a one man show and signs of drivenness begin to appear. By the time you get to chapter 15 of the book of 1 Samuel, we find a third enemy, the Amalakites. And Saul has been specifically commanded, you're to go take the Amalakites, you are to destroy them, destroy everything. All their animals, all their people. This is God's judgment for what the Amalakites did to Israel when they were coming into the land. And Saul just directly disobeys God. He saves the king and he saves a lot of the animals. And then when Samuel discovers that and rebukes him for it, Saul tries to pass the blame on to the people. Well, the people want to, you know, kind of made me do this. And anyway, we're going to sacrifice the animals to the Lord. And he kind tries to wiggle his way out of it. It is at that point that Saul has discredited himself from being king and Samuel delivers the Word of the Lord. Your kingdom has been ripped away from you. You are no longer God's choice. God's going to give your kingdom to somebody else. And it is at that point that Saul's driven this takes a very drastic turn. And he begins to try to hang on to his kingdom, his throne, any way he can. God has chosen another to be king. His name is David. And Saul jealously feels threatened and tries everything he can to do away with David, to kill David. You see, the marks of drivenness are becoming more pronounced. It gets to the point where Saul turns against his own son, Jonathan, because Jonathan recognizes what God's doing and becomes David's friend. And Saul turns against his own son. It gets so bad that Saul ends up at a point in his life going to a witch to try to foretell the future of a battle rather than seeking God. And Saul ends up losing his life in a battle that the nation loses to the Philistines. Here was a man whose drivenness drove him straight to the grave. Now Saul illustrates a number of marks of a driven person. So let's take a look at those. What are the marks of a driven person? Mark number one, satisfaction only with achievement. A driven person is satisfied only when they are accomplishing something. They can see results. They have an achievement. They can kind of rack up, you know? And that may have started with you in childhood where you find, maybe the only way to get attention was to accomplish something, to do something, to show some results. And you kind of became addicted to that. And you finally figured out the only way I'm going to get noticed in life is for me to accomplish something, to achieve something. And so you get real good at it. You learn to multitask so that you can have a number of things going at the same time. And maybe a number of achievements all coming together at the same time. You become driven to succeed to achieve and you begin to see life in terms of results. You will do whatever it takes to get those results. Whatever it takes, you will do it. There's a story about an unemployed guy who went into a men's clothing store and asked for a job. And the manager did not really have a job at that time, but he was impressed with the determination of the guy. And so he said, I tell you what, I really don't have a job, a full time job to give you, but tell you what, if you will hang around here for this afternoon, and if you can sell this purple suit on the rack over, it's been on the rack for six years, if you can sell this purple suit, I'll give you a part time job. And so the manager walked on out and went out the lunch. He came back from lunch and looked at the rack and sure enough, the purple suit was gone, but he found the sales guy lying on the floor with his clothes all in tatters and his scratches all over his face. And he walked over to the guy and said, what happened? Did a customer get agitated and attack you or something? And the guy said, no, no, he said, what happened? He said, tell you what, I sold the suit. The guy's seeing eye dog literally tore me to pieces. Now, that's, that's getting results. I mean, that's a guy who says, I don't care what it takes, I'm going to get the, I'll sell the suit. Some of you live that way. You are so driven that no matter what it takes, you're going to get results, you're going to achieve, you're going to accomplish, you're going to be successful. And we see that with Saul when David was already becoming entrenched in helping Saul lead the army and they would come back from a battle and Saul would hear the women of the city singing this little song. Saul has slain his thousands, David his 10,000s and that went all over Saul because nobody is going to achieve more than me. Nobody's going to get more results than I do. I got to be at the top. And so he was driven. You see, by this characteristic of being satisfied only with achievement, the second mark of a driven person is a preoccupation with symbols of success. If you are a driven person, you are all about symbols. You are very aware of power and status and the symbols that show that. You're really into titles, you're really into the office size and location. Your position on the organization or charge is really important to you. You kind of look at that and think of how many people are under you and how high you are in the organization, the privileges that come with that position. That's really important to you. And you're impressed with who you know so you drop names all the time. Oh yeah, I know this. I had lunch with this person. And you're really impressed by that kind of stuff. And it's not only who you know, it's what you do to get where you are. That's the organization you're in, you know, that you can kind of say, well, yeah, I mean, that organization, I always do. And you're really impressed with that kind of thing. And the house and the car have to be the status symbols of success. You see that in Saul's life because of his jealousy of the throne. The throne was his and he's not going to give it up. And everything else is leaving him, including the endument of power by the spirit of God. When that's gone, the only thing he has left to show for anything is the throne. It's mine. I'm going to keep it. That's what was important to him. And so you see that Saul was all about status symbols of success. A person who's driven is going to be really consumed with that kind of thing. The third mark of drivenness is an increasing disregard for integrity. Less and less thought is given to the inner man, inner person, and developing character traits, developing integrity. More and more time and more and more attention is drawn away to being deceitful so that you can get what you want to get or you can get to the place you want to be. You begin to compromise values in your life. You begin to cut ethical corners to get things done and to get where you want to be in life. You become a pragmatist. In other words, whatever works, that's what I'll do. I don't care if it's right or wrong. I don't care about the moral value of that action. If it works, man, I'm into that. I'm going to do that because it works. It'll get me where I want to go. You become a pragmatist. That's the way Saul was. You can see it in his disregard for God's commands. God says, wait for the prophet. Saul says, that takes too long. I got a better plan. God says, I want you to do my bidding and my will. I want you to completely slaughter the Amalekites as my judgment against them. Saul says, I don't think that's a good idea. I would see it begins to cut corners ethically and morally to do what he thinks is best or what will get him what he wants. He has become a pragmatist. Fourth characteristic of a driven person is a tendency to use people. Projects become more important. Gaining what you want to get out of life becomes more important to you. So you'll use others to reach your goals or to get your results. It doesn't matter who they are. Or you will see others as obstacles, hindrances in the way of you reaching what you want to reach. When you become a driven person, people no longer matter as much as what you want to get to, the position or the place or the things you want to get. So you'll use people. I mean, it got so bad for Saul that even turned against his own son. When his son realized that David was the next king and allied himself with David, there were a couple occasions where Saul actually and anger tried to kill his own son. You will use or turn against anyone to accomplish what you want if you're a driven person. For many years, Tom Landry was the highly successful coach of the Dallas Cowboys football team. He died in February of 2000 and it was only when he died that a number of other stories about his integrity came out. Landry was a believer. He knew Christ as his savior had an unashamed testimony for Christ. He was a man of outstanding integrity and character. But stories began to come out from former players. One of those former players was a man by the name of Obert Logan, who was a free safety on the 60s teams for Landry. Obert Logan was now a coach at a little high school somewhere in Texas. He had lined up coach Landry to come down and speak at the school's athletic banquet at this little high school in the outer back of Texas. Just so happened, that was about the time the Cowboys got a new owner and the new owner fired Landry. The city of Dallas decided to have a big parade for Tom Landry. He had been such a man of stature in that community and decided to have a parade. The problem was the parade was going to be on the same night as that banquet. So the Obert Logan noticed the conflict when he heard about the parade. So he called Landry's office and talked to his secretary and said, I understand that Dallas has got this big parade for Tom Landry and I understand coach is not going to be able to come. So that's just telling him I know and that's okay. Just a few minutes later, Obert Logan got a call from Tom Landry. And Landry was saying, Obert, I scheduled your banquet. I'm going to be there to speak to those kids. Dallas wants to have a parade. They can do it some other time. But I made a commitment to you and I'm going to be there. It was those kinds of things that endeared his players to him because he was a man of integrity. When he gave his word, he kept it. Now that's not the sign of a driven person. A driven person will give his or her word but then if it doesn't suit them, they'll find some way out of that so that they can do what works for them best. It's a driven person. Driven person will use others to get what he or she wants. The fifth characteristic of drivenness or driven person is a highly competitive spirit. Everything becomes a winner-lose situation and you have got to win because you're not going to come in second to anybody. You've got to look good. You've got to show everybody how important you are, how right you are, how valuable you are. So you become driven to be number one. Saul is seen doing that and his jealousy against David. David will not take my throne. Nobody will sing about David's 10,000 victories and me only having a thousand. I will be number one. He was driven to be at the top. He would not let anyone else have any acclaim or glory at a highly competitive spirit. Sixth mark of a driven person is a volcanic explosion of anger. Volcanic explosions of anger. An anger can erupt whenever you sense opposition, whenever you sense a disagreement, whenever you sense someone criticizing you or giving an alternative view and that anger may be verbal or it may be physical. But it comes out. Now sometimes at work people will put up with that because they know your value to the organization. They see you as highly successful or maybe they're afraid to confront you. But an explosion of anger, volcanic explosions of anger, just like Saul, when Saul would be sitting in his throne room, David would be playing the harp to try to sue them when an evil spirit was troubling Saul. And all of a sudden Saul would break out of that peacefulness and grab a spear and try to pin David to the wall. It was volcanic eruptions of anger. Young man by the name of Alan, not anyone here in our church, young man by the name of Alan, though grew up in an angry home where everybody always fought. And so it was no surprise when he came home at Christmas time from college. And sometimes he sees an anger management book on his dad's desk. And you'd never seen the book before and the thing that surprised him was it was kind of tattered on the corners and the book cover was ripped a little bit. So he went to his dad and he said, Dad, when did you get this book? Dad saw I just got it a couple days ago at Christmas. And he said, well, how come it's all bent up and stuff? He said, oh, well, your mother threw it at me last night. Volcanic eruptions of anger. You find that happening a lot. Obviously some personality stuff involved here. I know some people are more emotional people and wear everything out on their sleeve and they get angry. But are you finding yourself erupting an anger at other people? Then it may very well be you are a driven person. The seventh sign of drivenness is a focus on busyness. Focus on busyness. You're too busy for relationships. You're too busy to cultivate that marriage or to spend time with your children or develop any friendships. You feel that your reputation for busyness is a sign of your importance and success. So you have ways of letting everybody know how busy you are. You complain about how busy you are, but really, you're not complaining. You're trying to let people know how busy you are. Because you feel like your busyness and people recognizing that is a sign of how important you are and successful you are. And it's really just a sign of drivenness because you won't listen to suggestions for tempering or differing your schedule some, making more margin in your schedule. It becomes a way of life to you. And you begin to think, I feel guilty if I'm not busy. I can't let down to be with family or to do things like that. And has said, we are the only nation on earth with a mountain named Rushmore. And we are. I mean, this is the way we live, right? Rushmore. Get in there. Are you driven? Do you find these characteristics, these marks of drivenness in your life? Are you like Saul? Well, I would hasten to encourage you to think of where Saul ended up. Saul ended up in the ditch. He was poorly and spiritually and professionally. He ended up in the ditch. What I want to do for the next few moments is contrast someone else in the Bible. His name is John. John the baptizer is an illustration of a called person. While you're finding your place in John chapter 3, let me make sure that you understand what I mean by called. I'm not talking about having a special call to ministry. I'm not talking about a call in the sense of hearing God or sensing that God is moving in your life to put you in vocational ministry. That's what we usually think of when we think of the word call or a call. But I'm not using the word that way. I'm talking about a called person in the sense of your life moving in sync with what God wants for you. I'm talking about your life being in submission to Christ, about really the motivating force of your life being to please him and to be faithful to him, not all of this other stuff that we saw in Saul's life. Talking about the kind of person who says, you know, really what drives me in life, what motivates me in life is simply to be a pleasing child of God to honor him, to be faithful to him, whatever that brings otherwise. That's fine. But my motivation is to please him. That's what I'm talking about. So let's look at a brief description of John's life. By the way, that was a test. Some of you had already written the word history in their head, didn't you? You know who you are. You are driven. Did you know that? Yeah. You wanted to get through the outline before I did, right? You wanted to beat me. Be number one, right? Okay. I know who you are. You're the people who, when we finish the last fill in in the outline, you close your Bible. It's done for you. You don't want to hear the conclusion. You're driven to finish the outline, right? Okay. That was a test. That's why I changed the word. We're going to talk about a brief description of John's life. We're not going to take the time to look at this passage because we don't have the time. But in Luke 1 verses 11 through 19, you will find the angel speaking to John's parents and describing who he will be and what he will do. And that's really a description of kind of a brief synopsis of his life. His whole purpose in this life and the angel said he will be great among men. But his purpose in life was to be the one who was the forerunner of the Messiah, the one who paved the way, who made the way straight, who prepared the way for the Messiah to come. And so he was going to be preaching strong messages of repentance. Turn from your sin. Get your heart right with God. Prepare yourself spiritually for the Messiah because the king is coming and he's bringing a kingdom and you've got to be spiritually ready for that. That was John's whole ministry. That was his whole life. Now with that in mind, I want us to look at John chapter 3 and the marks of a called person because what we find here is John is in exactly the same position Saul was in. His vocational future is going downhill. His vocation is going down. His sense of identity is being threatened and how he responds is exactly the opposite of how Saul responded. He responds like a called person would respond. First mark of a called person is the understands stewardship. She understands stewardship. Now I want to get to that in verse 27 but let me back up just a couple of verses and let you know what was happening. By this time in John's ministry, Jesus has already started ministering, verse 22. Jesus and His disciples are baptizing people and the Bible says the great crowds were leaving John going to Jesus to hear Jesus speak. So there's a big transition going on here. John is losing his audience and they're all flocking out of here this new preacher, Jesus. And some of John's disciples are ticked off at that and so they come to Jesus or to John and they say in verse 26, Rabbi or teacher, that man, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan, the one you testified about, well he's baptizing and everyone is going to him. Huh, how you like that? We don't like that John and John's response is classic. It shows what it means to be a called person, not a driven person. Notice verse 27, he understood stewardship. John to this replied, a man can receive only what has given him from heaven. You know what he's saying there? He's saying you people think those were my crowds, right? They're not my crowds. God gave those people to me for a brief time so that I could fulfill a purpose of preparing them for Jesus. They were never my crowds. This is not about me. This is about being given something for a time by God to use well for him and then turn it back over to him. That's what that's about and that's what stewardship is. Wait a second. What about Saul? When Saul's kingdom is taken from him, what does he do? He tries to hold on to it with everything he can because it's my throne, my kingdom, my right. When John has his ministry crowd taken away from him, he says, what am I to start with? God just gave that to me for a time. He wants to take it away. That's his prerogative. It wasn't mine. It was about your job, your assets, your possessions, your health. Do you own that? No. God gives whatever He gives to us for us to be good stewards and manage it well for him. If he decides to take any of those things away or all of those things away, if you are a called person, if you are living in a desire and an effort to please God, then it will not destroy you on the inside. Nothing will change on the inside when those things are taken away. But if all those things are status symbols for you, they are the things that show you are number one and you are hard worker and you are on and on down the line and you'll be devastated when those things are taken away. No person understands stewardship. Secondly a called person knows exactly who he or she is. Verse 28, you yourselves can testify that I said, I am not the Christ, but am sent ahead of Him. Well, isn't that great? John had no illusions about who he was and who he wasn't. He said, you people think, I'm the Messiah. I'm not the Messiah. I know perfectly well who I am. I was a foreowner, a preparer of the way for the Messiah. I have no illusions about abilities that are beyond what God has given me or place that beyond what God has given me. I have no illusions about that. He knows who he was and one who is living a called life doesn't listen too closely to what others say about him or her. If people are saying good things, you don't believe those press releases too strongly. You know your own weakness. You know who you are. You know what your abilities are. You know what your weaknesses are. You know that if anything is accomplished, God gets the glory and the praise. John knew that. And a called person does. The third mark of a called person in verse 29 is he or she has an unwavering sense of purpose, an unwavering sense of purpose. Look at this, great, in verse 29. The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine and it is now complete. John says, I know my purpose. My purpose was not to be the center of attention anyway. And he uses an illustration of a wedding. Now when you go to a wedding, if you're at the rehearsal or the ceremony and the best man is getting all the attention, that's not right. The best man is not there to center everything around him. The best man is there to point to the groom. The groom is the one that gets the bride, not the best man, right? The groom is the, and the bride are the center of attention, not the best man. The best man trying to be the star of the show, he's out of place. And John's saying, I wasn't the groom. The bride wasn't for me. I was the one who was pointing at the groom. And when I hear the groom's voice, I'm happy about that. And when the groom comes and calls the bride, and it just so happens that the people that were flocking to Jesus used to listen to John preach. But John knew that his purpose was to simply point them to Jesus. So when the crowd shifts over to Jesus, he says, that's just a fulfillment of my purpose in ministry. That's what I was supposed to do. I'm happy with that. No driven person could ever say that. Only a called person can say that. The truth mark of a called person is he understands an unswerving submission to Christ. Look at verse 30, unswerving commission for commitment to Christ. He must become greater. I must become less. Again, no driven person could see that. Could say that. I've got to become greater. The driven person would say, I've got to be number one. That competitive spirit kicks in and you will step and climb and crawl over anybody to get where you want to be. Even Jesus Christ. You will not give him the glory. You will not give him your life and submit your will to his because of his will, conflicts with what you want to do. His will goes by the wayside and your will is pursued. You see, John knew what it meant to have an unswerving submission to Jesus Christ. He becomes greater. I become less. That's fine with me because the whole purpose of my life is to be submitted to him. And you know what that leads to? The fifth mark of a called person. Called person possesses peace and joy. It's kind of found back in verse 29 where he says, full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice, that joy is mine. You see, when you live as a called person under submission to Christ, not trying to build your own little kingdom in this life, not trying to draw the attention to you, not driven by your own selfish motivations. When you become a called person living in submission to Jesus Christ and wanting him to receive the power and glory and whatever belongs to him. When you do that, that leads to great peace and joy. Great peace and joy. Your significance is not tied up in your career or the activities of your life or being number one because if that's the case, you'll be crushed when those are taken away from you. If those are taken away from you, though, and you're a called person, you say, well, thank God. It was all about him anyway. It's not about me to start with. Now in closing, here's the real question, how do you change? Because some of you have recognized, you know, I got a lot of drivenness in me. You say, how can I become more of a called person? One who's really living in submission to Christ. Let me give you three quick things. Receive input from others. You know, one of the greatest blessings of John's life is he had parents who knew who he was supposed to be. You know, God had communicated to his parents. This is what your son's going to be. It's who he's going to be. It's what he's going to do. And I'm sure they drilled that into him. So listen to parents, listen to mates, listen to children, listen to co-workers, listen to fellow believers in the body of Christ. Whoever it is that occasionally gets in your face and says, you need to think about this. They may be God's messenger to you to point out your drivenness. So listen to the input of others. Secondly, get alone to reflect with God. John spent a lot of time in the desert. Luke 3 says, that's where he lived was in the desert. He had a lot of time to think and to pray and evaluate what God wanted of him, all of us need that and into busyness of life. One of the best things you can do for yourself to keep yourself from drivenness is to take a time out occasionally and say, I've just got to get alone with God and really refocus my life on who I am, what I'm supposed to be doing, what God expects of me. And then the third thing you can do to become a called person is to learn from hardship. John lived a hard life. You know, when you know a little bit about his diet and his dress, it was kind of rough. John lived a hard life, but hardship is quite often God's method of weaning us from our drivenness. Because God sends hardship to help us realize you're not quite as hard as you thought you were. You really do need me, don't you? And we learned that lesson in hardship. So we become more submissive to Christ and we put him back in the right place in our lives and we take our place under him. We become more called and driven. Let's pray together. Father, I thank you that you've given us in your word examples of what it means. It means to live either a stressful, driven life or a calm and peaceful, joyful life that is called. Help us to make the adjustments necessary in our lives, to listen to your call, to hear your voice, to put ourselves under you rather than pushing for our own way and our own things in life. Father, I know that for someone here this morning that may need to begin with a willingness to put themselves under you for salvation, a willingness to stop pushing through life and listen to you tell them about their need for Christ as their Savior. That's the case with anyone here this morning. I pray, Lord, they'll come today. In Jesus' name, amen.