Today we start a new series together, The Good Shepherd, Jesus. He's the one who we're seeking and we want to grow in our relationship with Jesus. This is the 10th year where we've began the year with an intentional time of prayer and fasting. Now, when you think back over those 10 years, some of you have been journeying every year through this and others, it's brand new. So, the way you begin's important. Jesus began the day, the Bible says, by pulling away from the crowds and the demands, and he was intentional to spend time with the Father. That's beginning the day. Then when you think about the week, this is the first day of the week, Sunday. The resurrection of Jesus was Sunday morning, the first day of the week. How do we start the week? It sets the tone when we come and we worship together as a church family. And when we begin a new year, these three weeks, 21 days, prayer and fasting, this comes from Daniel. And in the Bible, Daniel had a three-week fast. And during that time, God moved. There were spiritual battles, there were victories. In fact, fasting is throughout the Bible, and Jesus used the words, when you fast. In other words, it's part of our rhythm. It's part of a healthy relationship with God. And what is fasting? Fasting literally means to cover the mouth. In the Bible, most of the fasting has to do with food. As we begin these 21 days, you can choose. Some people will choose desserts or certain foods. Other people will choose different meals. Some people will choose different days they're gonna fast. You kind of have a sense that fasting is new or you've been doing this for a while. What does it look like to set something aside like food? For other people, it might be social media or phones or entertainment, but to set something aside that's a giving up, And then there's a gain, more time in prayer, more time with God, more time in scripture, serving, that you intentionally build in things that are gonna help you develop your faith. Think about it this way, what's gonna help you be less distracted and drawn near to God? And what would it look like to really walk closely with Jesus during these next 21 days? Take those intentional steps. If you haven't decided yet, today is really the day to decide, to get started together, because if you don't choose why you're fasting or what you're gonna fast from, it's simply not gonna happen. We don't naturally fast in our culture, we feast. much more than we fast. Fasting is like, wait a second, that's in the Bible? What is that? And we need to rediscover what Scripture says. When there's fasting, there's closeness to God in the Bible. When there's fasting, there's clarity and wisdom in decisions. With fasting, there's God's protection. There's healing with fasting as well. There's so many blessings. The spiritual battle we're in, fasting brings breakthrough spiritual power. We know God blesses fasting. Let's take that step of faith together. During the last 10 years, we've had different themes each year. The theme this year is restoration and healing. Because I really think we need that in our hearts, in our homes, and in our land. Restoration and healing. We're choosing the good shepherd, both from John chapter 10, Psalm 23. Psalm 23 is kind of the springboard with the different weeks and what we'll emphasize with restoration. Today, we're looking at still waters. The Good Shepherd leads us to still waters, emotional restoration. Next Sunday, we'll talk about green pastures and physical restoration. And then the third Sunday, the table in Psalm 23, relationships that need to be restored. In these different areas of our life, emotional, physical, also relational and then spiritual with God that our souls receiving the mercy and grace of God. That's the journey we're going on together. And a couple of resources. We have a handout today. Our team did a great job of putting that together. That's gonna help you if you have questions about fasting. It'll take you from scanning that QR code right to our 21 days of resources. Every day there's scripture. There's a devotion, there's a video. You're gonna hear about emotional restoration today, but then this week you take a deep dive each day in scripture, in time with God, and with those videos. So that's the journey we're going on. Those are some of the resources. You can go to justchoosehope.org as well. Everything's there, you can print it out if you like a hard copy or else it's all available digitally. And this really is a journey together. None of us know what God's gonna do the next 21 days, but we know Jesus is our good shepherd and he restores deeply in our lives. God wants to do a deep work in our lives as we start this year. Now, one encouragement is that when you first wake up in the morning, turn to Psalm 23. I know for some of us, it's like, where's the coffee? Or for some of us, it's like, give me my phone, social media, or the news. It's like we all have a first thing we typically do when we get out of bed, brush your teeth, whatever that first thing is. We wanna bring Psalm 23 for every one of the 21 days and make that a go-to to start the day. Make that a go-to and go deep in that scripture. We're not gonna unpack that Psalm today, but we wanna give you seven days in that Psalm, and then next week, we'll talk more about it. To begin with Psalm 23, the words here are on the screen, and let's all say this out loud together. This is Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his namesake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, 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 your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your grace, your love, your mercy, your patience. Jesus, thank you that you are a good shepherd. Without you, we wander, we get discouraged, we're lost, we lose our way, we stumble, we fall. But Jesus, we know you've come to bring abundant life. The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but we know in this world there's trouble. You have overcome the world. And God, we pray over these next three weeks that you would touch our lives, speak to us through your word. In our times with you, there would be fresh revelation. And God, I pray that together we would be changed by you, Jesus, during these three weeks. We pray in your name, Lord, amen. When you're driving, a dashboard is helpful. A dashboard gives you a glimpse into what's happening with your car. It helps you to know the condition of your car and different insights. I had an experience a little over a year ago where they rotated my tires and when they finished, there was a new light on my dashboard. I didn't know what it was. It was orange with an exclamation point. And I went back and I said, this light just came on. And they said, oh, that's the light that tells you how much pressure air is in your tires. And they said, it'll turn off in a couple minutes. It goes on if it's too low or too much pressure, but we just checked again. You've got the right amount of pressure. It's gonna go off in a few minutes. Over a year later, it hasn't gone off. Taking it to a couple of mechanics and nothing has changed. And this is kind of a picture, because during the year I've thought to myself, well, how will I know if there is too little air pressure in my tire now? How will I know? Is it real? Is it not real? Is it still going? Like, do I turn it off? What should I do? Should I just put duct tape over it and ignore it? You know, what's the solution? Some of us feel this way about our emotions. We all have a dashboard in our lives. If you think about how we're doing spiritually, relationally, how we're doing physically, how we're doing emotionally, and what happens when a light comes on, there's a warning, the Holy Spirit, someone saying, I think something is off here with the condition, and we just don't know with our emotions sometimes. Should this be on? What triggered that? Why is it still on? Should I take it seriously? Should I ignore it? Like, what do I do with all of this? And emotions are part of our experience as human beings. We are made in God's image, but what do we do with emotions? Here's two extremes to avoid, two traps. Some people live in the one extreme, the land of denial. The land of denial. I don't know why the echo just kicked in for the land of denial. That wasn't meant to be an exclamation point or a jab or any kind of guilt right there. but people who really like to control, they have all the plans, they wanna look really spiritual, or they just don't know what to do with emotions, they don't identify their emotions, they don't take their emotions seriously, or they think emotions are just a nuisance, they don't even know why we have them, they think everything in faith is cognitive, it's heady, there's principles, we're human doers, whatever, there's a lot, sometimes it's pain, a lot of people just go to denial. Like there's no emotion here, carry on, nothing here to look at. And some people live in that for decades and they just stuff pain and they stuff things all the time. So that's one extreme to avoid biblically. The other extreme to avoid is that some people are led by their feelings and feelings are everything. Like forget obedience and doing what's right, just go with your feelings, just wherever your heart leads you. And a lot of times those people are always trying to figure out how's everyone else feeling? And can we make everyone else feel just perfect? And everyone's feelings is what matters the most. And it's kind of some insecurities under that. Instead of being led by Jesus, this is led by feelings. Those are two extremes biblically to avoid. What do we do with our feelings that God gives us? We all have feelings. We love God with all of our heart. The Psalms, they are prayers with people going deep and sharing their feelings and their experiences with God. Jesus had feelings. They're throughout the scripture. So what do we do with this? See, God loves us so much that we love God. And that includes our affection. We're made in God's image. He made us with feelings. He's not surprised by any of the feelings. Love God with all of your heart, not just all of your mind. Yes, all of your mind, but also all of your heart, your devotion, your affection with Jesus. This is our response. So today when we talk about emotional restoration, we're gonna look at four different situations that are common, experiences with emotions that are very common. And the Bible is relevant, the Bible's relatable. All of us experience these feelings. The challenge is how do we abide with Jesus and how do we respond? What decisions, what choices do we make when we have these different feelings? Four different situations. One of these might stand out to you more than the others, but let's consider all four. And then this week, daily, we'll take the deeper dive. Today we have a range of emotions in our lives. Let's take a look at some specific situations. The first one, when you experience disappointment. When you experience disappointment, choose depth. Hannah desired to have a child, and she had no child. That can be massively disappointing, it can be heartbreaking, and it's difficult to know the reasons, the answers, the longing is so deep when parents wanna have a child. Lori and I, we went through miscarriages. It's extremely difficult. That's the situation, 1 Samuel chapter one, starting in verse seven. This went on year after year. And whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. Her husband Elkanah would say to her, Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than 10 sons? Not wise counsel, words, empathy. Don't do that right there. That's a don't do. Now, there's layers of disappointment for Hannah, and there's the disappointment of having no child. Year after year after year after year, she desires to be a mom, there's no child. Then there's also another layer. Her husband, Elkanah, is married to two women, Penina's the other one, she's the rival, and the rival, Penina, has a lot of children and keeps provoking her and taunting her and just rubbing it in. In addition to that, her husband doesn't really understand. You have a community at that time that would drive by guilt and say you're cursed. God doesn't love you, so she had hate from the community. And then also Eli the priest, do you think the priest would understand? No, as she prays, the priest assumes she's drunk. When you have disappointment, it's not usually one layer. It's usually multiple layers and involves multiple different people, reactions. She's overwhelmed, tears will flow year after year. She's been carrying this burden. It's exhausting, it's tiring, but she makes this choice. She's gonna go deep with God. because she knows that she knows there's only one who hears, there's only one who fully understands, there's only one who cares all the time, and this is God. So she goes to God. She has these moments, and we can all relate, they're difficult moments, where you hit a point in life, and it could be a certain age or situation, and you think to yourself, this is not where I wanted to be. I don't like where I'm at right now. I thought by this time, I would have had A, B, C, and D. I thought when I hit this age, this would have been here, this would have been here, this would have been here, but instead, all those dreams I had, all those dreams Hannah had of holding her own little child, they were just dreams, they were just in her head. She has no child to hold, and disappointment doesn't even fit in the room. Have you been there at different points in your life where you just thought, this is not what I thought life would look like. This is not what I want. And how do you respond? A lot of people just shut down and they just shut people out. A lot of people go to denial. A lot of people just start drinking. A lot of people put up the walls. Hannah's gonna open up her heart to God. going to God in the middle of the disappointment. That's what we see with Hannah. 1 Samuel 1, verses 15 to 17. Not so my Lord, she's responding to Eli the priest. Hannah replied respectfully, not so my Lord. I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer. I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman. I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief. And then Eli answered, go in peace and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him. I'm praying out of my disappointment, I'm praying out of my grief, that disappointment, that grief becomes a fuel, he imbounds as deep desires, deep burdens lead to deep prayers. praying out of that. The disappointment was driving her to persistent prayer and to seek God and to cry out and to pour out her heart. That's what Psalm 62 says, trust in God and pour out your heart to God. Pour out your heart to God. Well, we understand what that looks like. Physically, there's a woman in the Bible who takes an alabaster jar of expensive perfume and pours it out on Jesus. She is criticized, they say it's a waste of money, it's a waste of perfume. They don't understand that this is worship, this is love. She is honoring him, he's gonna die for her sins. On the cross, she pours out her perfume, the alabaster jar. Well, we know what it's like to physically pour it out, but what does it look like to emotionally pour it out? To give God thanks for your blessings, to give God your burdens, to give it to the Lord. A lot of people don't give it to the Lord, they hold onto it. They hold onto it and stuff it, and it just, the disappointment, it ends up pain that taints their view of God. Instead of trusting God and pouring out your heart to God, it's not meant to stay in there. Hannah isn't meant to carry all of this year after year. She's gonna give it to the one, to her maker. She's gonna give it to God who's benevolent. She's gonna pour out her heart. See, to pour out your heart, you have to know what your disappointment is. You actually have to go there and identify it. And then you have to know God and trust God and say, relationally, I'm not just going through the motions in prayer, I'm not just going to church, I'm not trying to look spiritual on the outside. God, do a deep work, deep cries out to deep, and that disappointment drives me to go deeper with you, God, in prayer. in prayer, and she pours that out to the Lord. Now, she does that before she has a child. Eli says, and this is a prophecy, it's true, yes, she had a child. Samuel was his name. He ended up being a leader. She dedicated Samuel to the Lord. Samuel means God heard me, God heard her. But before the blessing came, notice the choice in the disappointment, she chose depth with God. Let the disappointment you're going through, We all have it. It might be related to your job, your finances, your health, something in life. Life is cruel a lot of times, but don't let that become something you project on the good shepherd, Jesus. See Jesus for who he is and then draw near to the Lord. Hannah, that's her choice, she's intentional. And I encourage you during this time of fasting and praying over these next 21 days, this week, bring your disappointments to the Lord fully and let God minister and restore and heal. Jesus was intentional in the morning. I don't know where you're setting things up the next 21 days, but one thing God's doing for me is saying, wake up earlier than you usually would. and start that morning time with me in prayer, in prayer. So that's one thing that I'm sensing through these 21 days. I just share that, that you also would just be listening to God. God, where do you wanna take me? And restoration, where there's been disappointment, yes, Jesus, yes, let's go there together. So that's one experience as we start. Disappointment leads to depth. Here's a second experience. When you have resentment, Release. When you have resentment, release. Resentment's tricky. It's like, you know, on our teeth, we built a plaque, and we don't even realize, right, how much is there. Resentment is built up, and it's sticky, it sticks around, and it's just there. Some of it's been there for years, some of it, we carry bitterness, and what would it look like today to finally release the resentment that we've been carrying? We're not designed to carry that, it's poison. Now, let's take a look at Peter and his response, Matthew chapter 26, and starting in verse 50, the situation is right before the arrest of Jesus. They're going to obviously betray him, spit on him, mock him, beat him, crucify him, but now they're showing up and they're gonna take Jesus. Of course, we know he's laying down his life, but here's the scene. Jesus replied, do what you came for, friend. It's Judas. Judas is showing up with this group. Then the men step forward. They seize Jesus and arrested him. With that, one of Jesus' companions reached for his sword. That's Peter. This story is in the Gospels. We get more information from the different Gospels. This is Peter, who reaches for his sword, draws it out, and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. That man's name was Malchus. Then Jesus says, put your sword back in its place. for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think, and I love this question, do you think I cannot call my father and he will at once put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels? It's like, Peter, I appreciate your desire to protect me, but do you really think that I couldn't just call the heavenly armies right now and take care of everybody? And so Peter's thinking through this. Okay, what response should I have? Peter has a righteous anger, and we should have a righteous anger over a lot of things that we're seeing these days. A righteous anger. Anger is not sin. The Bible says, in your anger, don't sin. The anger isn't sin, there's a righteous stirring. There's things that should stir our hearts because they're wrong. Peter looks at this scene and here comes Judas, the treasurer, to betray Jesus. How wrong is this? And then who does he bring? Well, here comes the religious leaders, full of hypocrisy, self-righteous, they're coming. And then we have these soldiers, these guards. So, okay, they're bringing out the force, they're doing it at night. That's illegal, he's sinless, he's innocent. This is wrong on every level and Peter is ticked. When we see injustice, we want to tackle it. We want to be part of the solution. Peter wants to take action. Instead, Peter goes into classic fight or flight. When we get angry, the classic reaction is either fight, Peter pulls out his sword, Melchizedek, take that, whoosh, ear falls to the ground. Jesus picks up that ear, puts it back on. Peter, no, no, it's not the right choice. Peter, put the sword down, put the sword down. So he wants to fight. And then shortly after this, there's opposition to Jesus. He chooses flight. Three times they say, do you know Jesus? Are you with Jesus? Nope, nope. I don't know him. I don't know Jesus. Don't know anything about him. Never seen the guy. Who are you talking about again? Come on, really, Peter? Because there's opposition, because there's injustice, there's a crucifixion, now you're gonna run? So classic fight or flight from Peter, the answer is to abide and respond. Now, this is a complex topic, so I wanna point out a couple things. First of all, this topic does not go against self-protection. There's people who wanna come up and physically hurt you, protect yourself. That's a good thing. You can report when there's abuse and you should report. We have a legal system. We have the laws of the land. We have consequences. We're grateful for law enforcement. Like there are a lot of things in place to protect 100%. This is not just let everything be damaged and hurt and stealed and killed and destroyed and abused and just act like it's all fine. That's not what this passage teaches. There's also a difference between someone approaching you personally and then nationally on that level, and we have a military to protect us as well. So don't twist this passage and then land somewhere where the text doesn't want you to go. What can we gather from this? Jesus is the good shepherd, he is the way, and he's teaching Peter the way. Now, Jesus is both gonna be murdered and laid down his life for us, but what he's reassuring here with Peter is that he has the final say. that he is the one, not us, who's gonna go for revenge. Revenge is the Lord's, not ours. What he's trying to build in Peter is that you can trust Jesus and he's gonna redirect Peter, yet he's gonna draw a line. The line in this passage is, Peter, put down your sword. Here's the line for us when we're angry because Sometimes it's gonna be expletive. Sometimes it's rage. Sometimes we're gonna say things we regret. Here's the line regarding resentment. God makes it so clear that we are to forgive everyone fully. That means get rid of bitterness, get rid of resentment. And some of us feel like, okay, is 50% enough with resentment? Is 75% enough? Jesus, can we work a deal? Like, I mean, some of these people have been bothering me for years. Like, can I just hold on to 5% resentment for a while? Can we talk shop here, Jesus? And the line with Peter is put down the sword. And the line to every follower of Jesus is get rid of 100% of resentment and bitterness and revenge. Put it down, put it down, because it's a poison in your soul, and you're not getting the other person back. It's actually destroying your life, your walk with God, your relationships, your peace, your joy. Your resentment is killing your joy. Some people wonder, why don't I have more joy? Why don't I have more peace? Why am I always stressed out? Why am I always angry? Because you haven't let go of resentment. Peter, put down the sword. It could be with your spouse, your kids, your parents, your coworkers, your church family, people in the city, leaders. It's so easy to be finger pointing, slandering, looking down upon people. That's not our call. So our calling is to abide and respond because God loves us, we love. Now, do we tackle injustice? 100%. Here's something that's completely wrong, human trafficking. It's absolutely wretched, it's from the pit, it's evil. Okay, so what do we do? We take action, right? In our church, we've got a ministry for restoration, for protection. Like, we take action. That righteous anger, you take action. Thursday, we've got a gathering here at the church, and who's gonna be here? A former FBI director. We've got a pastor's daughter who's gonna be here. Someone that survived labor camps. There's gonna be a gathering here at the church. Why? Because it's a ministry. You can talk with Christine. You can serve in that ministry, right? Because we're gonna take action. We're not gonna be in denial. And we're not gonna be foolish, but we take action. And so that's the posture. Peter is gonna learn this from Jesus and he's gonna learn how to bring good news and how to shine the light in the darkness, how the good overcomes the evil and how many lives will be transformed when you're faithful to share Jesus with sinners. That's part of the solution. So let's be part of the solution. Let's walk with Jesus and let's today in worship, let go of resentment and bitterness. Now, here's a third experience. When you walk through bereavement and we have all lost loved ones. When you walk through bereavement and you're grieving, still receive. Lazarus dies, this is John chapter 11, and starting in verse 17, we read this. On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been dead in the tomb for four days. Now, Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. Now, notice there's a lot of people comforting. God will bring people, and his love and comfort will come through those people. I've seen at our church, we have life groups, and when someone's going through a tragedy or a loss, the life group will gather and pray. The life group will bring meals. The life group will be there in the hospital. That's one of the reasons we have life groups, and that's what we need. We need we, not just me. We need to go through life together. And this is a time here where Mary and Martha are grieving. They're gonna be upset. They're gonna say, Jesus, if you had been here, like Lazarus, our brother has been dead four days. If you had come earlier. When people are hurting, sometimes they say things and it involves some guilt and shame. And when there's loss, people at times are in the flesh and guilt and shame. Some people will turn it inward. Oh, if I've only would have done this, if I would have noticed this, if I would have said this, if I would have, if I would have, and they'll stay in guilt and shame for years when someone dies. Don't do that, it's not from God. Other people will turn and say, well, if you would've done that, if you would've only died, if you would've done this. Like, no, go to Jesus, and he brings healing, he brings hope. When there's grieving, guard the unity. in your family. Guard the unity when there's grieving. People are more important than possessions or a will when you're grieving. When you're grieving, give freedom. Some people will cry more, some cry less. Some talk more, some talk less. Some will be more functional, some are gonna need additional support in different ways. Be gracious, be kind when people grieve. And if someone's grieving, don't enter in with like your best sermon and telling them, oh, it's gonna be better in a couple days. Don't just start talking, that's Job's friends. They were foolish in their words, but instead, enter in, grieve with those who grieve, be silent, listen, your presence means a lot, and just enter in and care. Now, Jesus enters in, he weeps, he's listening, and then he brings hope. There's grieving and hope. Grieving doesn't make you less spiritual. but as you grieve, continue to receive. And there's a hope even greater than the loss, even though they love Lazarus. Now, Jesus says it this way in John chapter 11, verse 25, he says this here, in the gathering, in the funeral time, Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die, and whoever lives in believing in me will never die. Do you believe this? "'Yes, Lord,' she replied, "'I believe that you are the Messiah, "'the Son of God, who is to come into the world.' "'After she said this, she went back, "'called her sister Mary aside. "'The teacher is here,' she said, "'and is asking for you.'" I can't tell you how many people at funerals put their trust in Jesus for the first time. I know a pastor that's led hundreds of funerals and the number of people who realize, wait, life isn't forever. We need a savior. There's victory over death. His name is Jesus. He is the resurrection, the life. He declares that because that's who he is, then he demonstrates it and he raises Lazarus up. He has victory over death. Jesus brings hope that's infinite and indestructible. And it's a mistake if we deny the loss and it's a mistake if we deny the hope. So grieve, but receive. There's more people that love you than you realize. There's more people praying for you than you realize. There's more people that will help you than you realize. God is near. He hasn't left. His promises still stand. Just keep receiving His uncomfort. And a lot of people shut down. They shut other people out when there's loss, and they just go into an island. And I'm telling you, there's not healing and restoration on the island of shutting God out and shutting people out. Just receive that love. receive that love. That's what Jesus is guiding as a good shepherd into Mary and Martha's hearts that are hurting so much, but they receive that hope as they grieve. Now, here's a fourth experience. When you feel confinement, choose courage. Bartimaeus, he's blind, he's been begging, and in Mark chapter 10, starting in verse 46, here's the situation Jesus is walking by. Then they came to Jericho, and as Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus, which means son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Many rebuked him, told him to be quiet. But he shouted all the more, son of David, that's a messianic term, the Messiah in David's line, son of David, have mercy on me. Bartimus had felt confined for so many years in so many ways. Physically, he didn't do what he desired to do. It affected him financially, vocationally, emotionally, relationships, on all these levels, he felt restricted and confined. But here comes Jesus, here comes hope. Hope has a name, his name's Jesus, and he cries out, Jesus! Jesus, out of his pain he cries out, Jesus. And then what does the crowd do? They turn over to Bartimaeus and they tell him, be quiet. Shut up, beggar. We don't wanna hear you. They see him as second rate. There is hate, they wanna confine him, and Bartimaeus has a decision to make. The Bible says, all the more. Okay, I hear you, and I'm coming louder this time. Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. We see in Romans 12, the world wants to squeeze us into its mold. The world wants to limit our faith. This tension probably touched on his insecurities. It probably brought anxiety and worry. What's the crowd gonna do when I'm not quiet? but I say it louder. He is not gonna give into fear and timidity, but instead he makes a decision. I will not have a lukewarm faith. My voice will not be silent. You will not belittle me. God empowers me. I'm crying out to Jesus. Don't give people too much power. Don't give people too much power. He throws off the comments, the opinions, the restrictions, and all the more with courage, he cries out to the Lord. Some of you are gonna be bolder in 2025 than you ever have been with your faith. And it's time to break out of the confinement of this culture and live for Christ. You see, these deep emotions in these four passages, what did we really cover today? When we have disappointment, and all of us have all four of these, but one of these today out of the four might really stand out to you. When you're going through times of disappointment, let that disappointment become a fuel to go deeper with God and to draw near to God. And then the second one, that was Hannah. Resentment like Peter had, release resentment and bitterness today. in your worship of God, release it fully. And then what about bereavement and grieving and loss of a loved one? Don't shut God and everyone else out. Receive, receive the love, receive the encouragement. And the last one, confinement. When this culture tries to box you in and push you down and say no more, you say, I'm going with God, not you, not you. And with courage, rising up. See, this is part of the emotional restoration that comes from our Good Shepherd. This is John chapter 10. And let's wrap up by saying this out loud together. And this is John chapter 10, starting in verse 10. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the Good Shepherd, I know my sheep, and my sheep know me. This is a moment of invitation and reflection. We're gonna have a worship song right now. It is well with our soul. Our Good Shepherd restores our souls. Emotional restoration as well.