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Sometimes I buy random things and just see what can be done with them. I bought something random recently, as in, like, this morning. Have you ever ridden a tandem bike before? From 1963. This is a beast of a bike. Excuse me. Guitar. Probably very valuable. All right, so this is a tandem bike. I know there's a community called tandem. This is your night. This might be your actual gift. At the end of the night, let's get off the stage. Pop a little wheelie. Yeah, boy. All right, now we go. Now we're good. All right. So I picked this up this morning, and nothing to do with the teaching. This was just sheerly. It was $40 on Marketplace. It was. It was a why not? I did check with the fam. I mean, sometimes they're like, what are you doing to our house? But I was like, first of all, we've never worshiped God exactly this way. That's always my argument. I'm like, you may not get to do this in the New Kingdom. And so you just. We need to try it, you know? And so they're like, how much? I'm like, I can resell it. It'll be different when I'm done, you know? So I get it this morning. Have flat tires. It has a chain. It has two chains. This one's not on right now. I took it off, but it has two chains. Chain in the back, chain in the front. I pumped up the tires. They were like, you're gonna need new tires. And I was like, that's what you think? You just gotta put air in them, you know? And so I put air in the tires. They said, it needs a new chain. I was like, that's what you think? They were right on that one. Actually tell you that story in a minute. But I got it. I got handlebars, had been kind of all jacked up and off of it, and everything need to be tightened and adjusted. I just had, like, 15 minutes, just went after it, and then right when I got it, like, vertical like this, and the tires were pumped up and everything's going. Seth walks out, you know, barefoot, you know, just no helmet, no nothing. And he's like, dad, that is awesome. And I'm like, yeah, two of us think that in our family now. And then he goes, let's go for it. And I was like, you want. You want to. We're at the top of my driveway. There's a hill in my driveway that's then connected to other hills. And so I said, well, hop on. And he starts to go like this. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, man, hop on, you know what I mean? And so he hops on and I didn't know what else to do but just go. It was kind of a why not moment. No helmet for him, no shoes, no plan. We're supposed to have dinner in three minutes. They said three minutes, dinner's ready or lunch is ready. And so we just go down the driveway and we return about 35 to 40 minutes later. Lots of adventure. The Harris's know this because they were riding on their golf cart watching us with these adventures. This moment, what we had happened to have this morning, it was just such a powerful moment for me and my son that when I was driving, or about to drive here and was getting in the truck, I looked at that bike and I was like, oh, this bike like, did something to me today, so I'm going to like bring it up tonight. And I did. So job done. We'll maybe keep mentioning it in a second. Let's look at Psalm 23. Let's look at Psalm 23 and let's see if it connects because I don't have much time here. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Okay, we want to look at this from a little bit different angle. You're probably familiar with this. You've heard it. When I think about, there's an old, like war movie, I think like Saving Private Ryan or something like that. Watched like back in the 90s or whenever it was around. And I remember like, that was like one of many different, like things I go, oh, this is a thing that if you're like, you know, don't really know Christ well, or you just go to church, or you just barely ever say, this is, this is one of those verses, right, that ends up in your, in your brain that you just, you pray it when you're nervous. Even though you don't like Christ and don't know Christ, but you feel like you just got in a wreck and you need to pray something. You pray this or you say this. So my introduction to it has been far more of like, it's a thing you say. But the way that I would like to introduce it tonight, we're not going to really teach it. I'm going to give you a framework for it. Is this is a guy named David. And you're like, oh yeah, the guy who took down the giant and the guy that was king. Well, this is a guy named David that, you know, slept with somebody else and had her guy killed. And this is a guy who messed up a lot. A very normal, very average dude who writes different things, different times. But. But he's not repeating it from someone else, right? The Lord's not whispering this in his ear. He's creating this in writing as a song or a psalm or a poem. He's creating it. And so I want you to listen to it. Not as a thing that we repeat and clone. Someone else said, I want you to listen to it just for a second, as if. What is he thinking when he's writing it? The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. It's a proclamation that the Lord is the one leading me right now. Now, what is his circumstances? I don't know. Is he in a rough moment? Some people say yes. Some people say this is actually a weird low part of David's life. Some people say, well, he's just gotten through that. We don't exactly know how to pinpoint exactly where he is, but we know he had a lot of ups and downs, a lot of reasons to be scared, a lot of days. And he's writing this in a way where he's proclaiming, the Lord is my shepherd. And he's saying, I shall not want. Okay? Shall not want doesn't mean I die to all desire. It just means I don't have to worry about not having what I need to survive. I'm not going to find myself inadequately prepared for a moment because I have a shepherd that's so intimately close to me. So it's a proclamation of confidence, of what he believes about God. Next slide. He makes me lie down in green pastures. Now, again, don't get too weird on the words here. This is not a forceful, like, pushing him down. It's a strong, like, invitation of a shepherd to bring a sheep, you know, to a spot where we, the sheep can eat, right? So green pastures. This is a desert culture. This is not lush green grass for miles and miles. This is. He's saying, I trust my God to give me today what I need for just today. That's how sheep think. That's how shepherds operate. You don't. You don't find fields that you're going to be at for, like, six months and go, we're good. There's tufts of grass, just enough for today. So if you're the sheep and you suffer with, like, massive anxiety because you have to have all of your life planned out, you wouldn't survive in the desert, right? Because your shepherd goes, we're going to eat this little bit of salad, you know, that's all you get for today, that's enough for your body now. What about tomorrow? We'll find some more tomorrow. So he calls me to lie down in green pastures, you know, to sit in green pastures and find enough substance for the day. And he leads me beside still waters. Why? Why still waters? Because in desert culture, you either have no water, right, it's a desert, it's dry, or you have rushing water that. What's called wadis. Little like basically like little ditches. And when that rain hits in that wadi, by the time it rolls and rolls and rolls on down, it's going to be walls of water that will just destroy whatever in his path. So if you're standing there in a wadi, one of the times I went to Israel, within a few days when we were there, we were in a dry wadi. It was totally normal, all kinds of just walking in dry area. And I think two or three days later, I think a handful of people were killed in that exact same spot because it rained about 20 miles up the road. And it just hits that dry ditch and it just runs down and just destroys everything with like a 6 foot, maybe 8 foot, 10 foot wall of water going, you know, so, so fast. And you just get in it and you just get turned around and done. So what he's saying is I have a shepherd in the Lord God who leads me to the kind of water that's there and it's not going to kill me. Like, he knows the water, he knows where the grass is, he knows what he's doing. Next slide. He restores my soul. So you see something about David. He's been through some hard times. He's had some things in his soul lost. He's had some things hurt. He's felt separated from God and he's able to say confidently, not he restored. He is actively restoring. He will continue to restore. He has restored. It is who he is to restore my soul. And he's saying it. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake. Every one of these passages, there's a connection intimately between David and God. It's not just a thing. He does not just God, like drops his thing and then leaves, you know, for his namesake. He's saying, I'm intimately connected with God in such a way that my thriving, my success don't. Think health, wealth and prosperity. Think health, think love, think mercy, think grace, think shalom. The more that I am led to green pastures, to still waters, the more that I have what I need for today to survive. He feels like my shepherd, my God feels like he's the one getting glory, right? He glorifies me or helps me or solves my problems or sees issues where I'm struggling. He meets me in them. And when he meets me in them, he doesn't go, like, well, you're really annoying. He goes, oh, man. Like, I did that for my namesake. Wait a minute. David's going, my name is wrapped up in your name. Your name is wrapped up in my name. Our names are together. What happens to my name, David? You're saying it affects your namesake. And that's a really deep proclamation that the God of the universe is so deeply connected to David as a person in creation that he's going, I want to lead you to righteousness for my own name's sake. What I do with you, that affects me. Like you. You are image bearer of me. My name is wrapped up in who you are and what you're doing in your life. Next slide. Now watch this. You're going to see the pronoun change here. He was talking about God. You're going to see an evolution of thought here where he begins to talk to God. You know how we do worship songs where you're, like, sometimes going, like, am I talking to God or about God? I'm talking to y' all about him. Talking to him about y'. All. What am I doing? He changes up. He's the great worship writer of lyrics because he does the same thing. Even though I walk through the valley, the shadow of death. Okay, we can go into this for hours. Let me just say this is a really rough time. That's what he's describing. This is walking through something where you are at the lowest you can go. You are broken. There is no way out. Everything's against you. They have all the guns. You have none. Their boot is on your face. This is what he's talking about. He goes, even though I walk through. Not when I walk, if I walk, but maybe one day I'll walk. I am walking. Even though I am walking through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Wow. That's a proclamation of confidence. For you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. He knows what God's got available to him. He's got sort of like a corrective measure, and he's got sort of a protective measure, and he's got both of those with him, and he's confident in those. Even though one of those might, by some theology views might not be Pleasant to David. He's confident that even that brings about comfort. Even having a God in heaven that loves him so much, that disciplines him. That's confidence for him. So next slide. Now he's able to go. You prepare. Look at the connectedness. You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. He's got enemies, people trying to kill him, trying to hurt him. He's like, but you, God, you're preparing a table for me in the presence of them. You care about me that much. That's what's going on. You anoint my head with oil. It's a sign of deep connection, of sacred kind of set apartness of God wants to say, you are special to me. I favor you. I am for you. My cup overflows. My cup overflows. Next slide. He says, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Man. Think about, Imagine saying that surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. That's a strong proclamation. Like, he's not at a coffee shop arguing, is God for or against him. He's not asking heaven or hell. He's going, surely, surely. As surely as I know anything, goodness and mercy from God will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Once saved, always saved or not once saved, surely I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. That's confidence. It's confidence. Let's try to say this one time together. And the first time, it's okay if you're just, like, mumbling about it. We're not trying to be like Braveheart at the moment, but let's try to say this together. Just say it with me. We'll go to get. That may breed lack of confidence. You might go, when's he going to start? Well, how's he going to pronounce it? He's on the mic. I'm not. Well, good. Well, I'm the one that will sound weird because I'm on the mic. Just let yourself go with this. But as you say it, I want you to say it in a way that you're starting to believe and connect with that. What David is saying has something to do with unlocking something in us. We should be saying this, not repeating it. We should be able to say this. This is not contextualized. It's not, oh, only David could say this because he was an anointed king. I don't think so. This is kind of for everybody. All right, so say these words with me. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Good. All right, let's take a quick look at one aspect of this. This is going to be. I have a lot of scriptures, some of which I have on slides. We may not get to go through very many of them. But I just want to talk to you about something that has helped me understand this. What we're debating or talking about or wrestling through here is the idea of confidence. You know, I would suggest as a form of worship of God. So listen to this. This is the idea. If you just get this. The rest of it is just my opinion. What I'm proposing biblically is that when you are confident in what the Lord says about you, it's a form of worship of him, right? When you are not confident of what he says about you and for you and about Himself and everything, then it's not a form of you're not glorifying God. Right? So let's deal with kind of the elephant in the room. A lot of times when we think about the idea of confidence, alright? So confidence, what sometimes comes to mind is the idea of arrogance, right? Well, I don't want to be arrogant. I'm going to actually move this over here a little bit so you can actually see the board. So what comes to mind a lot of times with us when we think about confidence is, is the idea of like, wait a minute, I don't want to be arrogant. And you're right, that's a very dangerous idea. You know, in Proverbs. Proverbs, what is it? Number six, 16. Well, that was close. Almost like, almost the devil's number. Proverbs 6, 16. There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him. And the first one listed of the thing God hates is haughty eyes. Okay, we don't use that word a lot, but what it means is when you have a view of yourself, that you're better than everybody else. When you walk in a room and you're like, you know, like we say a lot of times, I'm a here I am person, not a there you are person. That's the first things listed in Proverbs as the thing the Lord hates. Haughty eyes, the idea that you would veer over into arrogance. All right, so arrogance is not an affirmed idea in Scripture. To walk into a room and be arrogant means you're not humble, you're not lowly, you're not self aware, you think so highly of yourself that now it's really going to create significant amounts of problems. Now similarly kind of going to a similar kind of idea right now if we were to bring about a word like humility. Sometimes the same people that conflate confidence with arrogance are the same line of thinkers that confuse or conflate humility with the idea of insecurity. So sometimes when we say, well, I don't want to be arrogant, we come down to this line and go, let's pick between these. And a lot of times when you're reacting to arrogance because you don't know what confidence is and you don't know the difference the outcome is, sometimes you end up thinking a little bit differently about insecurity, trying to be humble, and these things get kind of messed up. But is insecurity okay in the scriptures? Are we allowed to be insecure? Let's take a look at that kind of right side and see for a minute. I would say insecurity is not a good thing, right? This is arguably, if you look at Genesis, Genesis chapter three, this is why Eve ate the fruit. She's insecure at some level. She's insecure about God not giving her all the trees to eat, and she falls into temptation. She's insecure about the way she wants to get wisdom. She's insecure about these kinds of things. She doesn't believe in that moment that God has the best plan for her. And she grabs the fruit and she's deceived because she wants something. She wants something she doesn't think she has. And yet the God of the universe is right there going like, I got you, I got you, I got you. We see this first John 3, 3:19 says this. By this we shall know that we are of truth and reassure our heart before him. For whenever our heart condemns us, that's insecurity. When your heart condemns you and you start going like, I view myself as bad and ugly, isn't that humility? No, that's not humility. Insecure. We'll define this a Little better in a minute. But insecurity is when your heart is now ruling the show because you don't feel feel a certain way, you're going to beat yourself up. Self deprecate. And so John is pushing against this. He says, when our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God. So what he's saying is like, insecurity is not the move, Arrogance is not the move. And if we were honest about it, pride is really the connection point of these two ideas. We think these two things are related left and right. These are not. What's related. This is related, right? Arrogance and pride and insecurity, they're all in bed together. They're all connected. Now that insecurity, one can hurt our feelings really quickly. I mean literally, because you can go like, wait a minute, I suffer from insecurity, right? I'm not trying to be in sin here. I'm not trying to be prideful. Explain that to me. I would say, here's the way I understand insecurity. Insecurity is when you're so centered on what you think about yourself. Notice it's a cousin of arrogance. Here I think highly of myself, here I think less of myself. But it's still so centered on myself. Right? That's the common denominator. And what is thinking of myself? The flesh. What is the flesh? Pride. When all I can see is the perspective of the world from my eyes, or if I can see myself in my interpretation of the mirror, that pride now runs the show. Now the difference is arrogance looks like pride. Insecurity sometimes evolves into fear, and that fear doesn't look the same way. So when we see somebody who's insecure, we see somebody who's fearful, and we tend to go, well, let's not come up to them and call that pride because they look fearful and that's sad. I feel sorry for them. I feel compassionate for them. And you should. We're not saying run around to insecure people or beat yourself up and go, why am I such a sinner? All I'm saying is the root of insecurity. Most times I've seen it, most times I can understand it Biblically. It begins not with fear, it begins with pride. There's some initial thought where you wake up in the morning and you go, I don't look pretty or I don't feel connected to God, or I didn't read my Bible yesterday. And it's an I statement. A me statement. It's all about me. And then that evolves into fear. We start going, oh, God doesn't love me because I didn't read my Bible. You know, it's like, well, then you don't want to come home. Somebody, what's up? Your pride? Be careful, right? We don't want to be bullying everybody here, but sometimes we have to get that back to where it's supposed to be. And. And where that's going to go sometimes is a place that's really dark. Because it is about pride. It has to be confronted. Well, I'll say it sometimes like this. Pride is when you say to God, I'm the best no matter what you say or think. Insecurity is when you say to God, I'm the worst no matter what you say or think. See how they're so related? When you say, I feel this way, I think this way. I am this way. And you can finish the sentence, no matter what you God say or think, this is how you. You got to deal with it. I'm a mess, and this is how I am. That's what pride is. And yet what sits on the other side of the equation is this beautiful way to let these two play together. Right? And where does this begin? This begins with the idea of humility. And humility breeds confidence. So if you can begin your day, begin every moment, begin interaction with somebody, then you. You might be thinking, are they better than me? Are they less than me? Am I better than them? Am I less than them? If you can begin any moment being as low as you can possibly be, I mean, some of the greatest advice I ever got was from an African American preacher that I've never met. Don't know his name. I was listening on the way home from a gym about 18, 17 years ago. And I've told you all this story, I'm sure, before, but he's like, he's just going off on one of those random radio stations that I would never listen to, but my little radio got stuck and I was like, what is this station where they. Did somebody just listen to preachers all the time on the radio? Do they not have Spotify or whatever I listen to? And so I'm like, okay, what is this? This guy's like, I tell you what, when I got in the ministry years ago, you know, somebody, my grandfather told me, that's my one piece of advice. And I'm like, I like the way this guy talks, you know, and he's like, he just told me, stay low, stay low. That way when God drops you, you don't got that far to go. And I was like, that has never left my brain in 18 years. I think about it and every, probably every day of my life, and I think about his voice. Stay low, stay low. That way when God drops you, you don't got that far to go. And I'm like, that is such sound biblical advice that God draws close to the humble. And when God draws close to the humble, then out of humility, what does that breed? It doesn't look like insecurity. It breeds confidence. And that confidence to a judgy Pharisee over here is going to go, what are you, arrogant? What are you? Where did it originate from? Did it originate from pride in me, pride in my flesh or pride in God? Right. If we boast in the Lord, that's not arrogance. Like, we boast in the Lord, that's what we're called to do, you know? And so there's a lot of verses on this. I'll try to give you a couple really quick. Proverbs 14:16. This is about the idea of arrogance here. A fool rages in his confidence. Notice that his confidence, that's arrogance. Confidence in yourself is arrogance. And a fool would do that. A fool would walk around and go, I'm this, I'm this. I'm this. I'm this, I'm this. Everybody's gonna go, you're kind of arrogant, right? Because every sentence is about you. And then Proverbs calls that out. Philippians 3, 3. Put no confidence in the flesh, although I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. So Paul's gonna go, don't do this. But if anybody, we're gonna say, put some confidence in the flesh. Watch my. Watch my resume. He goes, if anyone thinks they have reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. I was circumcised on the eighth day. What? The people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of Hebrews. As to the law, a Pharisee. As to zeal, I'm the most zealous person out there. I persecuted the church. I was so zealous, beat me at that. Murdered Christians, who can beat me at that. I mean, he's like, I've done it all. As to righteousness under the law, blameless. Whatever gain I had, I can count it as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as lost because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, my Lord. So he's saying, I don't want any of this self stuff. I don't want to be self deprecating, but I don't want to be self centered, you know, how do you move over to this column? You begin to think low and humble. What does that look like when you act and look low and humble? 2nd Corinthians 10:1 says this. I, Paul, myself, entreat to you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I who am humble when I'm face to face with you now. Kind of weird to say I am humble. It's always that moment of like, how do you do that? How does it come out of your mouth? But you're allowed to say that in confidence, right? If you're allowed to say I am being low right now, it's okay to self identify going, I think I'm as low as I know how to be. And Paul goes, that's what I'm doing. And watch where that evolves to later. In that same letter. It says in verse 13, but we will not boast beyond limits, but will boast, okay, what? He's humble, but he's boasting. Eh, Paul, Eh, sin. Sin much, Paul. And then he goes, no, no, no, I'm not boasting about all that long list of things I do. He goes, I only boast. He says in verse 13, in regard to the area of influence God assigned to us, you think I'm making a lot of disciples? I have confidence that he's making disciples. You know how I know it's him? Because I stayed low and Christ filled in that gap. God, that's that gap everybody loves to see. That's Christ, you know. And so I'm confident in the works of him, not of me. He says, you know, I only boast where he's influenced me to go. He says, Verse 17, Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends. Somebody walks in a room, go, I got a seminary degree. Great. What has God done in you and through you? That's what we're. That's what we're. That's what confidence is. You're either leaning against a wall that is slow, solid, or you're just making stuff up as you go. And making stuff up as you go is a quick way to either head this direction towards, like preachers on stage going in the Greek, in the Hebrew, I'm right, you're wrong, I'm an elder, you're not. Or they're going to go this way and they're going to crash and burn. And if you're on that train and you're becoming part of that train, this is your outlet too. Pride is going to get you one of these two ideas and these are flesh movements, right? But this is going to get you to a place where, where you're able to walk in life, walk in Walmart and go, you know what? If a demon possessed person came up to me right now, I might get a little nervous, but I have confidence that the Lord would come into me, would allow me to do the simple, difficult things in the New Testament. And even the scariest thing that could happen at a Walmart at midnight with a demon possessed person isn't going to make me not shop at Walmart, right? Because I have confidence in me. Nah, confidence in the Lord. Those guys, a long time ago when Jesus was with them, they didn't know what they were doing either. But you know what they did? They ran to Jesus and they were like, what do we do? He's like, fucking and pray. And they're like, all right, you know, and so he's going to say the same thing to you. It's the same God. It's always been the same God. That's what's going on. He can give you some examples of biblical confidence real quick. 2nd Corinthians 3:4. Such is the confidence we have in Christ through towards God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything is coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant. Not the letter, but of the Spirit. Confidence is a biblical fruit of when you are leaning into Jesus, arrogance and insecurity is a fruit of the flesh. That's when we're thinking about ourselves a lot. But if your eyes are on Jesus, Peter, water. Jesus is good. Peter, look at water sink. You know what I mean? That's because it's a self thing now that insecurity, me, me, me, me, fear sink. You know, Philippians 1, verse 6. I'm sure of this. That is he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ. Paul's so confident, not just even in himself, he's confident what God's going to do in other people. He can look at a people, look at a group of people and say, I'm confident. God's not finished with you. He's going to keep working. He's going to keep going. So why this bike? Because it was a meaningful moment to me this morning. This afternoon we were riding around, and we get on the bike. He's rolling with me. We're going downhill, and I. I tell him. I look back, and I start to hear him go, dad, dad, he's back here. And the first thing he says is, my handlebars don't turn. I'm like, I don't know how. I've never been on one of these before. That's my first 10 seconds on it. But we'll pretend for the next few minutes that I knew what I was doing. But just to be honest, I don't want to be arrogant about the story. I really didn't know what I was doing. I was just like a dad does sometimes. You just act like you're not sweating and breeds a lot of confidence around you. But. So he's on the bike, and we're going really fast. I knew that I had the leg span to control. At any moment, I could put my hands at my head. And that's what first thing I said to him. He's. He's yelling, we're going really fast. I have not tried the brakes yet. I don't even know how brakes work on this car. We're all used to, like, clickety click. And I'm like, hey, you got any clickers back there? He's like, no clickers. I'm like, I don't know what we're doing. And we're just going down Merrifield really fast, you know? And so we're just rolling. And all I'm thinking is, I can control the bike. That that's the Jesus take the wheel moment, right? I mean, Jesus is at the wheel. I'm playing the role of Jesus in this analogy, right? Because I'm in control at that level where I can put my feet down any moment and save my son's life and if I got to do it. But he doesn't know that, right? I mean, he's in the back, and I realize he's got no control. You don't turn anything by moving this, right? You just feel less like you're part of the equation. You're just like, I'm just holding on. I could just be holding a shovel for all. I mean, what does this even do? You know? This turn. This does nothing. So he's like, dad, doesn't work back here, you know? And he's getting nervous. He's getting more nervous. And I'm like, okay, son. I didn't say, son. I said, seth, listen to me. I never say son. You know? I said, seth, listen to me. I said, here's what you're going to have to do. You have to hold on tight, and you're going to do everything I say, because we're moving right now, you know, And I just looked back to him. I said, you opted to jump on this thing, remember? You know, and then we're just going. I mean, wind in our hair. We're just going down. You know, cars are coming. This is right when church is getting out or whatever. There's a party across the street, so they have all these cars parked, and we're just, like, going around. We were speeding and speeding and speeding up. And then. And then I just said, seth, here's what we're going to do. Do what I say. Watch what I do. I think we're going to be all right, you know, he goes, all right, dad. All right. You know, he's just holding on, and then. And then we're going down. And then I said, we're going to get a lot faster before we get slower. We're going to try to see if this thing has brakes. He's like, try to see if it has brakes, you know, And I'm like, dude, just. I think you go backwards. And then he goes backwards before I go backwards, and we're flying. And I realize when he goes backwards, he hits back and it splits the chain. The chain flies off on the front. So now I don't have brakes. You know, it just. This thing. Just this thing does whatever it wants to do now. You know, it's not connected to anything. And so we're going down the road, you know, and so I put my feet down, control the bike, stop us, get him off. And he gets off. He gets off. And he goes, dad, that was crazy. That was super crazy. And he goes, let's do it again. And so I fixed the chain, and I'm like, all right, this time, listen to me again, we're going to keep going down the hill. So we get on it. The hill works. Because if you've tried to start, we're going to bring this to the marriage retreat, I'm going to say, because this really bonds two people, you know, me and my son felt like we had got through Vietnam War today, you know what I mean? Because we were like, we made it. But so we do the first one, and we go down, put the chain back on. And then I said, okay, we're going to try to pedal together this time. The hill's not helping us. We're going to pedal together now. We're a little bit flat now. We start to pedal together and first, the first thing he does is he like barely touches. He goes, I'm scared. I want to pedal because we're going to make it, you know, go faster. I'm like, well, I can't pedal by myself. And he's like, well you just pedal when I say pedal. Okay. Now he's slow to the take. And so I push down far and it snaps the chain again. I'm like, this chain is going to break every, it's got a little snapper on it. So I snapped it back in. I said, seth, I think I know what's happening. Every time I do all the work and you do none of the work or vice versa, this thing's going to snap. If I carry your weight down this thing, it's not going to work. You know, I mean I can carry your weight. The way we're connected, it's not letting me. And every time you put the brakes on and I'm going forward, the chain, it snaps six times in 38 minutes. You know, we snapped a chain. But at the very end, at the very end he, I just said this time like we practiced a little bit. Just do what I say. You feel good? You feel alright? You feel ready to rock? He goes, dad, let's do it. And he gets on the bike and we ride that thing all the way back home like screaming like two little kids that have some old like pure movie where kids just like played in their backyard. And we are going, and we're going and he's just yelling, dad, we got this, we're doing it. You know what I mean? And what I'm thinking is yes, we are doing it. But in the equation all you've had to do is watch what I do and do what I do. And the confidence that changes my son after 7 or 8 like chain rip offs at the very end, the confidence he gets that we are going in tandem and I'll say break and we'll break in tandem. I mean we got to the last stop sign and we are going about, I mean we're going fast, we're going like 15, 20 miles an hour on this thing. And a black truck pulls out right in front of us. And I said break now. And we slam on the brakes and I turn around and he's like, dad, that was awesome. You know, that confidence in my nine year old, it came from keeping his eyes on his dad, that that's all it came from, that he wasn't trying to tell me what to do from the back seat he understood that I have the control up here. He understand I have the legs. I have the steering. One time we had to turn around. He goes, dad, reminder. I can't turn. And I'm like, trust me, bud. Just trust me. Just like you pedal when I say pedal. And I turned and I said, now. Now you pedal. Get me around this car. And then he would pedal. One time, we were both so in sync. We got that thing up to probably 20 miles an hour. We didn't know he still have a helmet on. I was like, what we were doing, but that's why I bring this bike up here, is to tell you that we. We're riding tandem with Christ. He's the greater party. And the humility to admit that we sit here and he sits here is the beginning of developing the kind of confidence to have a lot of fun in the kingdom of God on earth. Are you with me? We can ride this thing. You can do a work space with your co workers and share the gospel. You can do a marriage. You can raise kids. You can go speak the gospel to your mom, who's estranged. You can do all these things right through Christ who strengthens me, Right? But if you get that order wrong and you think you're sitting here, that's the kind of pride that's going to go, look what I'm doing. Wreck into a tree. Oh, my goodness, I'm so scared. Wreck into a black truck at the stop sign, you know, but you sitting back here and Jesus is like, I got you. I got you. Just listen to what I'm telling you step by step. Don't argue, stay low. I'm the Lord. You're not. Trust me. I love you. I'm for you. I am the shepherd. Follow me. Let's say this one more time. Say these words after me or with me. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. You feel what Seth felt on the back of that bike? I mean, 38 minutes later, I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I trust you. You know, I can be confident. We can have some fun. We can laugh. We can play. It's hard, but we can play.