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[0:00] Well, let me just go ahead and ask you what the slide's asking you. Have you ever been triggered before?! Does everybody even know what I mean by that?

[0:12] ! Some of you triggered. You're wondering if I'm asking you if you've ever been shot. It's not what that means. If you've spent any time on the curse that is social media, then you have probably come across somebody saying, you're triggering me?

[0:30] It means you are, something is causing in you a powerful negative emotional response. And so that's what we're talking about when we say, have you been triggered?

[0:44] Listen, that's not the topic of today's sermon, but it is a good lead-in to it. And so, what we're actually talking about is controlling our attitude.

[0:56] Attitude. Or, to keep it in the theme of our series, Summer Stretch, stretching our attitude. We've talked about stretching our time. Talked about stretching our talk.

[1:09] Last week, we talked about stretching our habits. We're trying to break it down into where we live, week in, week out, day in, day out. How do we stretch ourselves like God wants to stretch us?

[1:23] The easiest thing is to never stretch. We did this in week one of this series, and I think some of y'all really enjoyed it. So, go ahead. You have permission. Let's all stretch.

[1:35] Just get a nice, good one in there. That way you don't get it out when I'm about halfway through the sermon, and I think that you're falling asleep on me. Stretching can feel really nice, right?

[1:49] But like we said a few weeks ago, how about when you go to physical therapy? Does stretching feel nice at that point? If it does, they'll very quickly fix it and make it not feel nice, right?

[2:01] That's their job, is to stretch you beyond your comfort zone. Well, believe it or not, that's what God wants to do with us, too. He wants to stretch us beyond our comfort zone. Would you go to Numbers chapter 13?

[2:14] Numbers chapter 13. Today we're going to talk about stretching our attitude. I need to go there myself.

[2:28] Numbers chapter 13. We're going to look at a few verses in chapter 13, and we're going to get into chapter 14 as well. We're reading quite a number of scriptures.

[2:41] I'm going to let you keep your seats today. But as we get into this idea of stretching our attitude, let's keep that in the back of our mind as we read through this passage from the Old Testament. The Lord spoke to Moses.

[2:54] Boy, that ought to get your attention. Anytime God is speaking, we ought to listen up, right? So the Lord spoke to Moses, send men out to scout out the land of Canaan. I'm giving to the Israelites.

[3:05] Send one man who's a leader among them from each of their ancestral tribes. So Moses did it. This is, without diving into a lot of the backstory and taking up too much time for you this morning, let's just focus on God promised this land to his people.

[3:25] And so they have arrived. They've gotten out of their captivity in Egypt, and they have gotten to the place where he says, all right, now it's time to go and scout out this land that I promised to you.

[3:36] And so he said, here's how you're going to do it. You're going to recruit some spies, some secret agents, and these guys are going to go on a top secret mission, and they are going to check out this land that I have promised to you.

[3:46] So they did it. Skip down now, would you, to verse 17. Tell you what. So let's look back in verse 6.

[3:58] One of the spies was Caleb, son of Jephunneh. I was waiting to see if anybody corrected my Hebrew, but there you go. From the tribe of Judah. Then jump down to verse 16.

[4:14] These were the names of the men Moses sent to scout out the land, and Moses renamed Hosea, son of Nun. That's why we didn't read verse 8, Hosea, son of Nun. Moses renamed him Joshua.

[4:26] Joshua, the son of Nun. Who was the only person who had no father and mother? Joshua, the son of Nun. Thank you.

[4:37] I'm a dad. I have to throw a dad joke in there somewhere, all right? Somebody just got that. That's good. All right, verse 17. When Moses sent them to scout out the land of Canaan, just like God had told him to do, he told them, go up this way to the Negev.

[4:51] Then go into the hill country. See what the land is like. Whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. Is the land they live in good or bad? Are the cities they live in encampments or fortifications?

[5:03] What's the deal here, guys? Give me a good report. Verse 20. Is the land fertile or unproductive? Are there trees in it or not? Be courageous.

[5:15] Did y'all catch that? That was their instruction. Be courageous. Some of you who already know how this turned out know the significance of that. Bring back some fruit from the land.

[5:27] By the way, it was the season for the first ripe grapes. When we're talking about ripe grapes, this is what we're talking about. So let's jump down to verse 27.

[5:43] Tell you what, just by sake of the slide on the screen, let's look at verse 23. They scouted all this area, then they came to the valley of Eshkel. They cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes.

[5:56] Now look, my favorite place to buy grapes is Spring Market. Have y'all noticed? The grapes there are better than anywhere in Wichita Falls.

[6:07] They are awesome. I've gotten grapes at I think just about every grocery store in Wichita Falls, and the best ones are at Spring Market right here. So, now yeah, you know, Costco, or what is it, Sam's Club has the cotton candy grapes and stuff like that.

[6:24] But we're not talking about your bougie, just grapes. They're good. But I have never seen a cluster that looked like that. So what did they do?

[6:34] They had to carry it on a pole with two guys, one cluster of grapes, unique to this valley of Eshkel. So jump down now to verse 27.

[6:47] They got back. They got home. And I can imagine that these guys starting out on their journey had a little different attitude than they did when they got back.

[6:58] Why? Well, we're going to see in just a minute. But starting out, it's like, hey man, this is cool. We got selected for a top secret mission. This is awesome. We're going to go do the spy thing.

[7:10] We're going to hang out with our buddies, and we're going to go out, all 12 of us. You put 12 guys together on a road trip, you think some hijinks are not going to ensue? It's going to get crazy.

[7:22] So I'm sure they had themselves a time. Until they got to Negev and Hebron and this area where the descendants of Anak were.

[7:42] Do you know the significance of that? We're about to read it. Verse 27. They reported to Moses. We did it, Moses.

[7:53] We accomplished our mission. Mission accomplished. We went into the land where you sent us. Indeed, it is flowing with milk and honey. That's an expression that means it was very fertile. It was great for growing crops.

[8:03] It was good, attractive land that you would want to settle in. Here is some of the fruit. See, Moses? Have a great. However, verse 28.

[8:15] The people living in the land are strong and the cities are large and fortified. We also saw the descendants of Anak there.

[8:27] The Amalekites are living in the land of the Negev. The Hethites, Jebusites, Amorites live in the country. And the Canaanites live by the sea along the Jordan.

[8:40] Do you realize who all these people are? They're all Israel's enemies. They're all big, strong, scary warriors. The descendants of Anak were mighty, mighty people.

[8:53] So, these guys brought back the grapes. And they also brought back this terrifying report that this land is inhabited by our strongest enemies.

[9:07] God didn't know what he was doing by promising it to us. This is crazy. We can't go there. So, Caleb jumps in. Remember those two?

[9:19] Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb. Caleb quieted the people in the presence of Moses. Now, why would he have to do that?

[9:31] Why would he have to quiet all the Israelite people after the ten spies got done talking? Fear.

[9:42] Because they're scared, right? They're freaking out. What if I got up here today and said, listen, there's a group of people that want to kill us and they're all circled outside the church waiting for us to leave. Would you all just settle in and enjoy my sermon?

[9:54] Some of you would be jumping up. I'm packing, baby. Let's go. Now, there might be a little unrest, right? And so, that is what is happening as the people are intent on going into this land.

[10:10] They've marched there. They're ready to go. And all of a sudden, it's going to be war. So, they start talking. Caleb gets up and quiets them in the presence of Moses and says, let's go up now and take possession of the land because we can certainly conquer it.

[10:26] Why would Caleb think that they could take on all their enemies and win? Because God's on their side. We have this thing called faith, right?

[10:38] We believe in the one true almighty God, right? He promised us this land, right? Okay, let's go take it. Do we think he's not strong enough to beat these armies that hate us?

[10:50] Of course he is. But the men who had gone up with him outvoted him. They responded and said, we can't attack the people because they're stronger than we are.

[11:05] We by ourselves or we with God? I'm sure that's what Caleb was trying to make the point. So, they gave a negative report to the Israelites about the land they had scouted.

[11:17] Now, watch this. The land we pass through to explore is one that devours its inhabitants. All the people that we saw in it are men of great size.

[11:30] There are no women there, apparently. Just men of great size. We even saw the Nephilim there. The descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim.

[11:41] To ourselves, we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them. They went from, hey, there are our enemies living in this region, to all of a sudden, the fish story just got bigger and bigger and bigger, and now there's these like mythical creatures who are going to eat you is kind of how they passed it off to the people of Israel.

[12:09] It just kept getting worse and worse and worse as they talked. The Nephilim, if you want to know about the Nephilim, talk to Wade Pierce.

[12:19] He's sitting back there. He can tell you all about it. I am not going to take the time in this sermon, but go back to the beginning of the Bible. We don't even know 100% sure what it's talking about, what it says.

[12:32] The sons of God came from heaven and bore children with the daughters of men, and it produced this crazy race or species of people that was like giants and huge and massive.

[12:44] This is kind of what we're talking about here, okay? The little guy on the left down there, he's about six feet tall. Legend has it, they grew as big as like 36 feet tall.

[12:55] Who knows, y'all? Well, I don't know that we've found dinosaur bones or human dinosaur bones that would correlate to that, but listen, saying the word Nephilim was like a buzzword around the Israelites.

[13:10] Man, what? The Nephilim are there? And then there was this rumor that they were bloodsuckers and maybe even cannibalistic, and so if we go into the promised land, we're going to get eaten. That was kind of the terror that they were experiencing at this moment.

[13:23] And what happened? Verse 14, the whole community, I'm sorry, chapter 14, verse 1, the whole community broke into loud cries and they wept that night.

[13:35] Probably had bad dreams too. And then they started complaining, and then it just got worse from there. Now look, without following this story on, you should keep reading in numbers.

[13:48] Fascinating reading right here. But without following to its conclusion, let's stop and see what the power of your attitude can do.

[14:01] Your attitude can change everything. Yours, mine, it can change everything. So, let's see what Paul has to talk about it when he was teaching Timothy.

[14:20] We talked about this last week. Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales. I brought this verse back in.

[14:33] Because last week we talked about training, we talked about habits, we talked about all that stuff. But look, this right here has exactly to do with what those ten spies were doing. Two of them had faith, Caleb and Joshua.

[14:47] But the ten, their attitude was completely overtaken, completely changed, completely affected by fear and lack of faith in the one who had brought them all that way.

[15:01] So the warning is, don't get caught up in that trap. and then don't you be the one to spread those godless myths and old wives' tales.

[15:13] And often, our attitude will make us do that. If we are against something, then we'll all of a sudden make it sound a whole lot worse than it really is.

[15:24] Because we don't want to do it. Or we don't like it. So we're going to go on the attack about it. And we're going to trump it up in our mind. And it's going to become bigger than it ever really is.

[15:40] Instead, train ourselves to be godly. Start those habits. And we talked about that last week. So, how do we do it? How do we stretch our attitudes? How do we change our attitudes? First of all, we have to understand that our attitude shapes our perspective.

[15:55] Our attitude shapes our perspective. perspective. You ever been triggered by something? Those spies got triggered by giants.

[16:07] Listen, I think I would probably get triggered by giants too. If all of a sudden God wanted me to go out and fight a giant, I would be a little terrified. I'd be like, God, can you put me on the phone with David or something?

[16:21] Because I need a lesson in how to do this. But our attitude shapes our perspective. So, if I have an attitude of faith and reliance on God and he said, you get out there and fight that giant, then I would say, God, kind of like Peter when God told him to get out of the boat or Peter when God told him to put the boat back into the water and go catch fish when we've been fishing all night and caught nothing and say, God, I don't really know what you're doing.

[16:50] This doesn't seem like a good idea. It doesn't seem like it's going to work. But because you told me to do it, I'll do it. Sometimes that's enough faith to change our attitude enough from a no to a yes.

[17:04] Listen, I'm not saying that there weren't dangerous enemy tribes waiting for the Israelites in the promised land. There were. But God was going to give them victory over them.

[17:16] And all they had to get to was from a no to a yes. And that is what God is waiting for me and for you to do. We don't have to be sunshine and roses all the time.

[17:29] We don't have to be all bubbly about everything that we feel like God is leading us to do. But we have to get from a no to a yes. And that's going to come from our perspective.

[17:40] So, the ten spies' perspective is fear, panic, discouragement.

[17:52] Joshua and Caleb's perspective was faith, courage, and truth. They knew. They knew that God would deliver them. And the attitude shaped their perspective on it.

[18:08] Yes, there are enemies, but we have God on our side. So, let's go take them. Let's go see God win a mighty victory. Not, let's run in fear.

[18:20] 1 John chapter 5 talks about this. Everyone born of God overcomes the world. I underline that word. It's in this verse three times, these two verses. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.

[18:35] It's not our strength, it's not our might, it's not our smarts, it's not how good looking we are, thankfully. It's not how big our bank account is, thankfully. It's not contingent on all those human things, it's contingent on our faith in almighty God.

[18:52] Because if we have faith in God, then that unlocks God's power to step in and move. So this is the victory that's overcome the world.

[19:03] It's our faith. Faith is the victory. There's an old song that said that. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes.

[19:17] If you really believe, then faith will change your attitude. Faith will change your perspective. And you can go from one who cowers in fear or a negative Nancy, so to speak, into an overcomer.

[19:36] This is what Caleb was trying to get the Israelites to do. He was trying to break through into those spies' mind and say, listen guys, yeah, they look scary, but we can be overcomers.

[19:50] So are you an overcomer today? Does that characterize your life? Have you been able to overcome everything that the devil throws at you? You cannot in your strength, but by faith you can.

[20:02] By faith you can overcome. So attitude shapes your perspective. Can I get a volunteer up here? I need a volunteer. Christopher, I saw your hand first.

[20:15] Come on, let's go. Let's go, brother. Come on, son, run, let's go. Come on, let's go. I don't get to coach anymore, I just wanted to do something like that.

[20:28] All right, sir, can you look out there and see the crowd pretty well? Yes. You see everybody's faces? Yes. They look nice, don't they? Some of them. Some of them? Wow. I did not even coach him to do that.

[20:40] He just, we need to stop and pray for your heart right now. All right, cool. Would you just put these on? Do you wear glasses? Yes.

[20:51] You do wear glasses? I have contacts. You have contacts. That ought to make this real fun. All right, here you go, man. Would you mind looking through those and just see, do they look as clear as they did before? No. No?

[21:02] Can you describe how they look right now? No. No? There are no words, right? Can you see Clayton waving at you down there vaguely? Yeah.

[21:13] Is it a little blurry? Yes. Okay. Okay. That's great, man. So would you say that those lenses are affecting your vision and how you see our beautiful church? Yes.

[21:24] Okay. Good to know. Great to know. You can take those off. Would you say that distorted or changed your perspective a little bit?

[21:35] Yes, sir. Okay. Would you try those on? Yeah. Yeah. Look at that. Pretty cool, right? By the way, these were Dollar Tree's finest lenses right here, so.

[21:48] What does that do? How's everybody look? Darker. Darker. Darker. Interesting. You can see them more clearly probably, right? Yes. But everything's a little darker? Yes. That's cool.

[21:59] All right, man. Would you take those off? You see everybody good again? It didn't permanently damage your... No. All right, good. All right. Thanks, man. That was awesome. High five. Let's give them a clap. You did great, buddy. By the way, do you want these?

[22:12] Here, Chris. You can have these. Catch. Yeah! Nice catch. That was awesome. Brandy was like, you are going to kill me. Does anybody wear 3.25 reading lenses?

[22:24] Anybody? No? Just like, thumbs down. Nobody wants them! All right. Somebody come get them. They're right up here. I do not wear them. All right. The first time he looked through the enhanced readers, y'all looked blurry.

[22:40] I know that because I tried them out myself earlier. He's still wearing them. That's great. You're awesome, Chris. The second time, he could see clearly, but everybody looked darker.

[22:56] Everything looked darker. Now look, that's a silly little example. But the truth is, depending on the lens you are looking through, everything can look a little darker than it really is.

[23:12] Believe me, I've been there. Or, everything can look distorted. And you are not getting an accurate view of what you're looking at.

[23:23] It's all because of your lenses. Y'all didn't change. We didn't change. The truth, reality, did not change. Do you know who always has 20-20 vision?

[23:38] God. He's the only one who sees reality as it really is. The rest of us are looking through different lenses.

[23:52] Looking through different lenses at different moments. Those are driven by our emotions. Those are usually driven by circumstances. Those are driven by what's going on around us, the people around us, our experiences, the triggers that set us off.

[24:11] And that immediately changes our lenses. And now, the reality that we're seeing, the people that we're listening to, what we're watching happen in the service, what we're seeing happen in the community, what's happening with our loved ones, our friends, what's happening at home, what's happening the truth about ourselves, those all of a sudden become distorted.

[24:35] We're not seeing it accurately. Or, it might become darker. Everything just doesn't look as bright anymore. Everything doesn't look as cheerful.

[24:46] Everything doesn't look as good. The lenses are our attitudes. And that changes our perspective. Philippians 4.8 tells us how to combat that.

[25:00] Think on these things. Whatever's true, whatever's righteous, whatever's worthy of praise, there's a whole list. Philippians 4.8. This is what you think on.

[25:11] This is what shapes your attitude. So, what you look through, the lens you look through, shapes how you see life. And a small shift in that perspective can have big impact in your life.

[25:26] number two. Number two. Before we get there, I forgot to put this up there. Do you see obstacles or a chance to overcome? Do you see obstacles or a chance to overcome?

[25:38] You can put that in your bulletin. Caleb was trying to get the people to be overcomers, but the lens those spies were looking at changed their opportunity to overcome into obstacles that they just could not see past.

[25:55] You ever been there? Had an obstacle in your life you just can't see how to get around? God says you can be an overcomer. You might have to take the long way.

[26:06] Might be tough going through it. But God says nothing is too hard for Him. You've got Him if you're His child.

[26:16] Now look, if you're not His child this morning, then I can't help you. You've got to take that first step. You have to take that first step. Become a child of God. Recognize that Jesus Christ came and died for your sins.

[26:29] Not for anything He did wrong, but for your sins, for mine. Sacrificed His life on the cross and then rose back from the dead. We heard a wonderful gospel presentation from Ford Bachman on his video this morning before he got baptized.

[26:42] He put his faith in that. So many in this room have put their faith in the saving power of Jesus to forgive your sin, to make you His child, to give you a home in heaven forever. That's step number one.

[26:53] And then, God can help you change your perspective. God can help you look through His lens, not yours. Point number two, wow, I am really getting ahead of myself and I apologize for that.

[27:04] Before we get there, oh, that was not supposed to be in there. That's like an old version of my slide. Sorry guys, I gave you the wrong thing. Let's move along. That was last week. If you missed it last week, it's on YouTube. Here we go.

[27:16] How do we stretch our attitudes? Our attitudes shape the people around us. Isn't that interesting? Our attitudes do not just shape our perspective, they also shape our people.

[27:32] They affect the people that you care about. I can promise you, when I've got a rotten attitude, everyone in my home knows it.

[27:44] And Bo is like the biggest empath in the world, you know, he feels deeply and so he will come to me and be like, Dad, are you stressed? I'm like, man, you're too young to be asking me that.

[27:55] Yes, I am. Sorry. But you know what? It helps me start changing my attitude because it's like, yeah, you know, it's affecting the kids and they don't need to carry that burden right now. Truth is, I don't even need to carry that burden right now.

[28:07] I need to give it back to Jesus. He's the one who can carry it. So our attitude shapes our people. Ephesians 4, 29, do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths but only what is helpful for building others up.

[28:24] We talked about that a couple weeks ago. We talked about shaping our talk, building others up, not tearing them down, according to their needs that it may benefit those who listen.

[28:35] I promise you, someone is always listening. Someone is always watching. Someone is always affected. And I'm not even talking about the sense in that someone's checking up on you.

[28:50] I'm talking about the sense that whatever you do, say, think, it affects others. And usually, the ones that affect the most are the ones you care about the most.

[29:04] The ones I care about the most. So let's benefit those under the sound of our voice. Those in our circle of influence.

[29:18] The ten spies fear, spread, panic. You know what else it did? Their negative attitude caused Israel to wander in the desert for 40 years.

[29:31] But Joshua and Caleb, their response was faith. The people of Israel still had to pay the price.

[29:43] But Joshua and Caleb and all their families got to go into the promised land someday. Because they had faith. Their attitude of faith affected those around them positively.

[29:59] Those spies' attitude of fear affected all the people negatively. Ephesians 4.29 told us to speak words that build up, not tear down.

[30:12] Can I tell you something? Attitudes are contagious. You saw what happened with the children of Israel. Those guys started telling their tall tales of just how bad it was and they're going to get eaten and all that stuff.

[30:25] And what happened? The people lost it. They freaked out. That attitude was contagious and it spread like wildfire through the people. So if attitudes are contagious, make yours worth catching.

[30:38] Caleb and Joshua's attitude was worth catching that day. Not too many caught it. So, look at the person next to you, would you? Say, watch your attitude around me.

[30:54] Come on, y'all can do it. Say, watch your attitude around me. I don't want to catch your bad attitude. The kids are having way too much fun saying this to their parents, man.

[31:07] Bible says respect your parents, alright? Honor them. But listen, sometimes parents, we got to watch our attitudes around our kids. Sometimes kids, you got to watch your attitude around your parents or around your siblings or around your friends.

[31:22] sometimes parents, we got to watch our attitudes around each other. We got to watch our attitudes in moments of conflict, moments of disagreement. Watch your attitude around me.

[31:34] Why? Because it's contagious. Because it can affect so much. It not only affects your perspective, it affects the people around you.

[31:44] And then number three, your attitude shapes your path. It shapes where you're going. It shapes what you're heading, where you're heading. Anybody like Patti LaBelle?

[31:58] Nobody likes Patti LaBelle in that room. Okay, alright, thank you. Penny, count on somebody. I'm feeling good from my head to my shoes, know where I'm going and I know what to do. I tidied up my point of view.

[32:09] I got a new attitude. There you go, alright. Nobody listens to that stuff. That's alright. Listen, I went through that song, I was like, is there anything wicked or unbiblical in this song?

[32:20] We're like, no, alright, we're safe. Look, did you catch that line though? That's a silly kind of example, but did you catch that line, I know where I'm going and I know what to do. Why? Because I got a new attitude.

[32:31] You know when you usually don't know where you're going or what to do is when you got a rotten attitude about life. And that's when you're kind of sitting around like, I don't know what to do. Like, no, but God does.

[32:43] If you start looking through the lens of the Holy Spirit, all of a sudden He tells you what to do. The next thing is, go make up with your wife. Go make up with your kids. Go make up with your brother or sister in Christ. Go open the Bible and read it.

[32:56] Go for a walk. The dog probably wants to. God will help you figure out what to do next. It'll shape your path. And usually what God's going to do is give you the next thing, not the next hundred things that's going to take you ten years to accomplish.

[33:13] He's got all that figured out, but your attitude day in and day out, moment by moment will shape the path that you're on. So, Romans chapter 8 and verse 6, the mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.

[33:35] I love that it uses the word governed. We've got some people in the room who are in county government. We've got some people in the room who are in school government.

[33:45] We've got some people who understand firsthand what governing is. It's a legal term. Whose laws are you living by?

[33:57] Whose laws are governing your mind? Is it your own? Is it mine? Is it society's? Is it culture?

[34:08] What's governing you? Your weaknesses? Your flesh? Your rotten attitude? The mind governed by the Spirit equals life and peace.

[34:23] We're all chasing peace, aren't we? We all just want that inner peace. Gurus and shamans and everybody out there, self-help people, they're all trying to figure out how to get inner peace.

[34:35] Jesus is the only way to find peace. God gave us his Spirit to walk with us every moment, never leaves us. So let him govern your mind.

[34:49] And that's kind of how I want to close this morning. Whose laws are you living by? Or we could ask it this way. What lens are you looking through?

[35:03] Christopher, thanks for being a good sport up here. He's still looking through those lenses. It was a little bright in the room, wasn't it? Now it's all darker, yeah. The lenses make a difference.

[35:15] That cityscape is so blurry until you put on the correct lenses. Change your lens, change your life. That's our takeaway this morning.

[35:28] Change your lens, change your life. It's my challenge to all of you, to all of us. Whatever is going on, it doesn't really matter.

[35:39] What triggers me is different than what might trigger you. When the longhorns lose, I get triggered, all right? But there's serious stuff, isn't there?

[35:50] If everything's not okay with me and my wife, I get triggered. She knows that. It's like, I gotta have everything okay. I don't need to be looking through my lens at that moment.

[36:02] I need to be looking through the lens of the Holy Spirit. So moment by moment, whatever the conflict is, whatever triggers you, whatever's going on in your little world, give it to Jesus and say, God, change my lens.

[36:18] Change my lens right now. I might be looking through a blurry lens and it's distorted. I'm not seeing an accurate picture of this situation. I might be looking through a polarized lens and everything's a little darker and it changes the color and things just don't look as good as I know you really are.

[36:38] So God, change my lens. Would you make that your prayer this morning? Would you bow your heads with me right now? I've been trying to give you a little prayer to say and listen, this is not anything magical, it's just helping you out if you need that.

[36:52] So I'll give you this right now and if you'd like to pray it in your heart, if you'd like to pray it out loud, you can do this. God, help me see through the lens of trusting you. I'll say it one more time if you need to hear it again.

[37:07] God, help me see through the lens of trusting you. Change my attitude and change my life. Change my attitude and change my life.

[37:21] In Jesus' name, amen. God, that is what we pray for in this room. God, there are people who don't know you personally as Savior in this room.

[37:32] I believe that in a group this size, it'd be foolish to think otherwise. I'm sure the majority of the people in the room would raise their hand and say, yes, I'm a Christ follower.

[37:44] I do my best to follow Jesus. Truth is, we don't always do our best. But God, we just don't want to say no. We want to get to that amount of faith where we say yes to whatever you're telling us to do.

[37:56] There might be somebody in the room who needs to put on the lens of your Holy Spirit and say, I see how God wants me to see this. I'm going to stop looking at it through the lens of my selfishness, my pride, my self-centeredness, my lack of experience, my lack of wisdom.

[38:14] God, you're the fountain of all that, so let me see through your lens and trust you in this situation. How many of you would raise your hand and say there's something going on in my life that I need to trust God in and ask him to help my perspective on it, change my attitude on it.

[38:31] Would you slip your hand up right now? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Some of you are in prayer and I don't want to disturb you from that. Would you just keep your seats for a moment? Linda's praying.

[38:43] If you need somebody to come pray with, Jared and I are up here, you can come grab us. If you need to turn around and kneel in your seat, do that. If you need to come kneel at these steps, do that.

[38:54]  Whatever you need to do to do business with God for just a moment. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.