Okay, if you’re not familiar with it, it’s backed by popular demand this summer and that is our playlist series.

We skipped a summer or two, but old tradition came back.

And basically, it’s you pick the you you pick the song and we do the message.

That’s kind of the rule. And so, uh, that’s cool. Everybody wants to rule the world. I’m glad this one won cuz I like this song. Everybody, it’s old.

You got to be old school like that song, right? Okay. I want to thank How about this? You may be seated.

I want to thank um all of our first of all our worship team for making it fun around here. Thank you so much.

How many of you like lively church? You like church where we have fun and have life and and the rest of you do too. You just decided not to clap. You You don’t You’re not being lively right now. But I want to thank all of our youth leaders, all of our youth volunteers who made our camps the best ever this year all week long. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We had record attendance in our youth. Last I heard it was north of uh north of 700 that were there this year.

And you know for us it’s really important that we are we we think three.

We we invest in our children and our children’s children. We do it passionately. We do it devotionally. So, like was said at your locations a few minutes ago, uh, as we were talking about giving, uh, I I want to just thank every giver. I want to thank we can’t do this stuff without our our giving givers and without those of you who are committed, consistent to support the work of the church. There’s really no better place to invest than in the church. uh when it comes to value, you can’t you can’t put money into anything that creates more value on earth than God’s great church. And so, thank you for being consistent, supporting, tithing. Thank you for being consistent in the summertime.

Uh for remembering that at church, nothing really changes. It’s kind of like your house in summer. You know, the kids are off school, but the bills go on.

Yeah. And and you still have to have food in the fridge and all that kind of stuff. Well, our summers, as you know, are like stacked with all kinds of good stuff and events that make it a really special time. And so, thank you for your faithful attendance. Uh you can go on vacation, have fun. We encourage that. When you’re in town, like, don’t miss. Be here every week. be here like you are today on the weekend over in Yakamal, over in Dupant, over in Belleview, right here in Tacoma. Thank you for being faithful in your attending, in your giving, in your support. We call it best summer ever.

Best summer ever. So, there’s there’s some you’ve seen a little bit about team church, what’s coming up with that, but the half has not been told, honestly. like weekends are you’re going to love our weekends. You’re gonna love it with playlist, but then we got some stuff starting up uh the 26th and let me just tell you from this from this I can’t say it all. You’ll hear more about it. 26th is a really special Sunday and one of the things that make it special to me and to you is that July 26th on Sunday evening we will host our first what is called True North night.

True North night. And Lord willing, we will be releasing our new book that is called True North: Pursuing Truth in a World Full of Lies.

The Apostle Paul says that the church is to be the pillar and foundation of truth. And there’s never been a more important time for God’s people to know the truth and to stand in truth.

In a world where there a lot of talk about false ideologies, false religions, it’s our time to teach and learn and be devoted to biblical truth. Amen.

And so this is unique in that I asked some of my friends who are smarter than I am to join me. And we’ve got Pastor Josh Bingle, my daughter, Pastor Jody.

We got Pastor Lonnie Keane, and we got Pastor Jason Warman. These guys from across the nation that are authoring with us this book. It’s not available right now. I’m just talking about it to get you excited. Hopefully, I’m going to frustrate you a little bit. Talk about it. You can’t buy one. Okay. It says right there, not for resale. It’s not for This is what’s called a proof copy that I and our team approves. And these are going to be hot off the press, rolling off the press this week hopefully.

But Sunday night 26, True North night, we’re going to make it available to our church at all locations. Um, we’ll be making it available for all of you who attend that night.

And yeah, that that night we’re going to talk about things and in fact all day long there you we have guest speakers that are going to be here. You’ll hear more about that. just focus, have your antennas up because I don’t think any of you want to miss what’s coming on the 26th. And the people that are going to be here and my our guest who I’m going to talk to, we’re going to interview them and we’re going to talk about real stuff, like real issues. And we’re going to talk about the truth of God’s word and how we’re standing in a world of lies. Okay, I’m preaching now, but somebody say, “Best summer ever.” Best summer ever. Okay. So, Everybody Wants to Rule the World is the song and our message title today is Trading Control for Trust.

Trading Control for Trust. Say it with me, “My heart’s open. My heart’s open. My mind’s ready. My mind’s ready. Make me better, God.

Make me better, God.” Say it again. Make me better, God. Make me better. By your word. By your word.

I receive it. I believe it. I won’t be the same again in Jesus name. Can I just tell you nobody wants to rule the world more than a Karen.

By the way, I know some awesome people named Karen who are not Karens.

And I know some people who are not named Karen who are a Karen.

I got your attention now. Right. A Karen is a slang term used to describe a person who’s rude and pushy and wants her own way.

She doesn’t just want a solution. She wants her solution. She wants to control.

She wants to control the rules, the room, the conversation,

the parking lot, the vacation,

the noise level, and probably the thermostat.

Turn to your neighbor and tell them, “Don’t be a Karen.

Don’t be a Karen.” Is this funny? Like everybody kind of like sheepishly turns. See, a control issue is rarely funny when it’s yours.

Come on. Am I talking truth with you today?

But there’s a reason why that phrase connects with people. Everybody wants to rule the world.

There’s a reason why that phrase like catches our attention.

And maybe we don’t want to rule the whole world, but our world,

our schedule, our kids, our outcome,

our image, our future, our peace can go on and on.

So maybe we’re not looking at the whole world.

But it’s common human nature for some more than others. Yes. But there’s something in all of us that has a tendency to want to control.

We’re going to start in Genesis 3 scripture and we’re going to read it.

Genesis 3:1 it reads like this. It says, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild,” this, remember, this is creation, the time of creation. And it says, “The serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals that the Lord had made.

So the serpent said to the woman, to Eve, did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?” Like, did God really say that?

And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.” Everybody say, “God said.” God said. Everybody say, “That wasn’t a fun statement.” That was truth.

And then the serpent said, “You will certainly not die.”

Everybody shout, “Lies.” Because God knows that when you eat from the tree, see what he knows is that your eyes are going to be open and you’re going to be like God, knowing good and evil.

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eye, also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and she ate it. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it. And then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized they were naked.

So, here’s what I want you to see in this scripture is that the first temptation was not just to break a rule or eat the fruit. It was to take the throne.

First temptation was to be in charge.

Why? Because everybody wants to rule the world.

I’ll give you lessons later, team. I’ll I’ll help you. I know you want a voice like mine. Everybody can’t be blessed like this. Just the serpent’s message was you don’t have to trust God.

You can decide good and evil for yourself.

You can define truth for yourself.

You can run your life without him. And that’s still the temptation.

The serpent’s oldest lie is still his favorite lie. And that is you don’t need God.

And God cannot be trusted.

And here’s the point. Every control issue eventually becomes a trust issue.

That’s good.

When we stop trusting God, we start trying to become God.

We we start to play God. We we appoint ourselves captain of the world.

You know in a family you have to differentiate between what is your family policies versus how we make room for individual preferences.

And to all the Karens, relax.

Look at somebody by you and say, “Don’t be a control freak.” Don’t be a control freak.

So again, back to the family. There’s family policy.

See, at our church, you don’t get to decide what we what we do on the platform. Nobody coming here gets to decide which songs we’re going to sing, not going to sing. Nobody gets to decide what I’m going to say. Lots of people don’t like that. But go get your own church.

Like, you don’t get to decide that.

You don’t get to decide what’s off limits for me, what’s not off limits or what what is off limits, what’s not. Did I say I don’t know why that doesn’t make sense.

Anyway, you don’t get to decide the fact that sometimes I don’t make sense and I’m going to be replaced. You don’t get to decide that.

You don’t get to decide what we do next door in terms of uh the safety of our children. At all of our locations, we have safety policies. You have to go through a process before we let you in a classroom with our children.

You might not like that, but this is family policy is what I’m talking about.

And every every family, spiritual or your natural family should have family policy. Like, you know, as long my dad used to tell me, as long as you live in my house, Right.

Here’s what you will do.

I grew up like that family policy, right? And then Sheila and I as we started our life together, we realized that we were different. Like really different.

Like incredibly different.

And little things we started to do to like just try to keep our marriage together is to drive separate cars, you know, like you you know, you can’t just reach up and turn the station on the radio. You can’t just listen to your I want to listen to my song like and and so come on. You know I’m telling the truth because why everybody wants to rule the world, right?

So we got family policy but we also have had individuality.

And then now we have our daughter is married. Ryan and Jody are our kids. They have two sons named Cody and Ken. Now I got to give each of them $5 because I just said their name in my message. It’s kind of how we go here. Uh so we have two grandsons. I won’t say it again. We have two $5 each.

Okay. So what we realize though is that Ryan and Jody have their own schedule and they have their own life.

And we stopped a long time ago expecting them to be where we are and want to go where we want to go and re and we we we don’t want and we’re not supposed to control. Right.

And yet we still have family policy when we sit down at the table together.

We pray like we all pray. We have family policy on, you know, how we treat one another and behavior. Like we don’t do that around here. Like we we all agree. Like we have context for agreement and what we do and but we’re not supposed to control.

right now. The two younger guys, they’re still living at home. So, they of course have policy. The one’s only 11 and one’s 16. But we also Did I get that right? 11. Yeah. Okay.

So there’s policy in that home for sure with the boys, but we’re also encouraging individual preference and there’s a tension in that.

So like there’s things that they want that there’s no harm. It’s not how I would do it, but there is no question on the fact that we go to church on Sunday.

There’s no question of the fact that we worship God in our house.

There’s no question in the fact that we pray together, that we honor the Lord.

Like that’s all that’s policy. Policy policy. It’s like, you know, it it’s it’s it’s like uh Joshua, as for me, in my house, we’re going to serve the Lord.

Policy. Policy. Okay.

And there’s a tension sometimes. Anyway, I got to keep moving here. But control looks different in everybody’s life.

Hang with me here. Sometimes control is loud, but other times control is done by withdrawing.

and being silent, getting in a mood.

So somebody will come and say, “You okay?” Yeah, I’m okay. No, really. Are you okay? We’re control. People control like that. Just a word of advice for your children.

When they start to be that way, ignore them.

Ignore that. or just say, “Hey, snap out of it.” Like, because people find ways to control cuz everybody

How am I doing with this message? You you picked the song like I’m loving this. Like some control with anger and others do so with guilt.

I know pastors often times they manipulate people with guilt, guilt, guilt.

I’m going to speak the truth and if you feel conviction, let absolutely let the word set you free.

But I’ve never pedled guilt because I realize that’s a form of manipulation and control.

that I’m not supposed to assert myself in.

You know, I believe everybody ought to be baptized, but if you’re not of age, you have to have parental permission.

See, see, you can’t just come get baptized without parental permission.

Well, come on. Children need to be baptized. I agree. But there’s an overreach.

And by the way, this is happening in society right now with school teachers and educators. Not all of them, but there’s overreaches toward family, toward households, toward parents.

Government trying to be parental.

I hope everybody, every family, every household goes through this book when it gets released on true north because we need to be wise and we need to understand that everybody including our government wants to rule the world including false religions want to rule the world.

So, I’m talking about how control comes differently through different people.

Some of you are getting really quiet right now because I’m in your living room and I am right in your space.

Some people will dominate the room and others will quietly orchestrate and coordinate and control the environment.

And you only realize later, oh, they they made that happen. They coordinated the environment.

Control, you see, can wear a lot of costumes. Control doesn’t always look aggressive.

Sometimes control looks responsible.

Sometimes it looks spiritual.

Like if you grew around up around church, especially some churches like I grew up around like the the the God told me right for you and you better like a single person sometimes a single girl would tell a single guy, God told me we’re supposed to get married.

Oh my god, the spiritual. They take a spiritual thing to control a person to have the outcome they want to have. I’m preaching so good and like you you know what I’m saying? It’s true.

Sometimes control looks like I’m just trying to help. I’m just concerned. But underneath it is the question, do I trust God with what I cannot control?

So for me as a pastor, I preach the word. I speak the word. At the end of the day, this is God’s church.

This is God’s people. Do I trust God?

I need to. I have to. I should. And that’s the question for all of us. Yeah.

Okay. Let me give you three things.

Control is typically rooted in these three things. Number one is pride.

Pride says I know best. Right.

Pride says if I’m not in charge, it won’t be right.

If it’s not done my way, it’s wrong.

Pride doesn’t just want a voice. Pride wants the final word. All right.

And sometimes we’re trying to control what belongs to God or is for other people to decide.

And that will that will eventually it will exhaust you, Karen.

Scripture says Proverbs 3, trust in the Lord. Yeah. with all your heart.

Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him. Right? Can you shout amen?

Can somebody shout amen?

So remember when control is happening the first thing the first source of that is pride. The second source of of controlling attitudes and mindsets and spirit is self-reliance.

This is the second cause. Self-reliance says it’s all up to me.

Now, let me just tell you, responsibility is good, but carrying God’s role is not.

And there’s a difference between doing your part and carrying God’s part.

God gave you responsibility, not sovereignty.

I’m setting some people free today. Some of you family members, you’re sitting here going, “I hope she hears this.

I hope he hears this.” Come on, pastor. And you don’t want to say amen too loud because Yeah.

They might look at you and take control like see you are responsible for obedience but God is responsible for outcomes.

Can you shout amen? Come on. This is good. And bottom line is if it’s all up to you, you’re carrying too much.

Right? That’s great. You’re carrying too much. Yeah.

So what you can do, let me tell you some things you can do. You can do your part.

This doesn’t mean you, you know, just become passive in life and passive in family. No, no, no, no. You can do your part. You can pray your prayer.

God, I pray for my children.

I pray God for them to make wise choices. I pray that Lord, they’ve heard the things that we put in their heart. I pray they’ll find direction and guidance in Jesus’ name. I know that, you know, 22 right now.

I know that she’s got children and she’s 31. And you can pray your prayer. Yeah.

You can make your call, your phone call of encouragement. You can have the conversation. A lot of a lot of times people won’t have a conversation because they think that’s control. That’s not control. It’s a conversation.

So you can do your part. You can take the step. But don’t confuse responsibility with control.

That’s very good. Okay.

So the third place that excessive control over control comes from is fear.

And fear says what if? What if?

So fear is an imagination steeped in worry and uncertainty and it will result in control which becomes an attempt you know that’s pure in the sense that you just want to eliminate uncertainty but just be careful. See, we try to manage.

We try to manage tomorrow because we’re afraid of what might happen if we don’t.

Fear tries to manage before manage tomorrow before tomorrow gets here.

And Jesus taught and he said like don’t worry. Everybody shout don’t worry. Don’t worry.

So worry comes from what? Fear. Like don’t worry.

Like look at the grass of the field. Did I not clothe the grass of the field?

Look at the birds of the air. Do I not give them something to eat? How much more will I not provide for you? Like calm yourself and put trust in me.

I’m here to be your provider. Right?

You don’t need control over tomorrow when you have confidence that God is already there in your tomorrow. Amen.

Everybody shout, “No fear.” Say it again. No fear. No fear.

When you understand that God is already in the future and that he has good plans, right?

Sing a song. He has good plans. He has When you when you have that, like when you are aware, when that’s really high in your life, you can release control.

Fear. Fear will write stories in your imagination that God is not the author of.

And our human tendency to control puts trust in ourselves more than in God. Are you are you hearing me? Am I helping you? Come on. As trust increases, control decreases.

As your trust in God, your need for control goes down.

Amen.

I’m trying to I’m not just saying this as something today like will help you psychologically. This will help you with your family.

This will help you with your relationships. This will help you in your marriage. This will help you in your parenting.

The word of God. I’ll go to one last verse. Jeremiah, let me read this to you. Jeremiah, just listen to listen to this word.

Jeremiah 17 reads like this. Verse 5.

This is what the Lord says. Cursed are those who put your trust put their trust in mere humans who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the Lord.

They are like stunted shrubs in the desert with no hope for the future. They will live in a barren wilderness in an uninhabited salty land. Everybody shout shrubs.

Say it again. Shrubs. Shrubs. Say shrubs in the desert. Shrubs in the desert.

Remember who’s he talking about? He’s talking about people who put their trust in mere humans and rely merely on human strength like shrubs. But verse seven says, “But blessed,” somebody shout blessed.

“Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.” What are they like? They are like trees planted along a riverbank with roots that reach deep into the water.

Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought.

Their leaves stay green and they never stop producing fruit.

Isn’t that beautiful?

Isn’t that beautiful? Shrub versus tree. Shrub versus tree.

Dry.

Grinding it out. Trying to control what is not ours to control. That’s a dry life. It’s a frustrating life. It’s a miserable life. The tree light is the person who is trusting and believing and and has confidence in God. For the things that are not up to us, they are up to God and they are up to other people. They are not ours to control.

One life will be dry. The other life will be nourished. Which life do you want? Like one life is going to be barren and another’s going to be fruitful.

Anybody want the fruitful life? Anybody want to live in the Come on. in in the space of trusting God.

Let’s do a little exercise. I know I’ve had you talking to each other. Maybe you have a favorite friend. Maybe it’s your husband, wife. I I do like you to interact a little bit. And so, um, how about you just look at somebody and just you can be the same person. You can just say this. Say, “Have faith in God.” We’re going to keep doing this, but next line is look at your neighbor and tell them, “Trust in God.”

Uh, one more. Don’t be bothered by the heat in Seattle. No, I’m kidding.

The heat in life. or worried about the dry season. Worried about the dry season.

That’s the shrub. See, that’s the shrub.

That’s the shrub. We’re just encouraging one another today. Hopefully encouraging ourselves. And let me I’m I’m going to close with like a machine gun style of David’s examples of how he grew in his trust for God. How many of you want to grow? You want to grow in your trust for God? Okay. This is what the psalmist did. Let’s let’s look at his words.

Let’s listen to how he talked. Your your words matter.

Like your words will build confidence and trust in the Lord. So we’re going to look at a bunch of them. I’m going to say them and they’re going to be on the screen starting with Psalm 27 and1. He said, “The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear and whom shall I be afraid?” So good.

Not only did David like declare God was his light and his salvation, but he also said, “The Lord is my shepherd.

I lack nothing.” Wait a minute, David. Where’s your next meal? The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing.

God is our refuge, he said, and strength and everpresent help in trouble.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.

And saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Fear the Lord, you his holy people, for those who fear him lack nothing.

He says, “The lions, they may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord, they lack no good thing.” He says, “The Lord upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.

The eyes of all look to you and you give them their food.

and seasoned.

You open your hand. He’s talking to the Lord. You open your hand and you satisfy. Lord, I thank you that you satisfy the desires of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all of his ways. He is kind in all of his deeds.

The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call out to him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him and he hears their cry and he saves them. The Lord preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.

He says, “My mouth will declare the praise of the Lord.

Let every creature bless his holy name forever and ever.

I read all of that to show you like verbiage and narrative and how David didn’t just kill lion or didn’t just kill lions and bears and giants without something inside of him that already decided I’m going to put my trust in the Lord.

I’m going to trust God with every situation, all adversity, all circumstances.

Amen.

What do you need to remind yourself of today? What What do you need from God today? What do you need? Like you just just remind yourself like God is my provider.

He’s my helper.

The The Lord is giving me wisdom. I know I got some tough decisions coming up.

What do you what do you need today? You need to decide that the Lord gives wisdom to those who ask him. That’s the book of James.

So, we’re gonna we’re gonna sing a song.

The church isn’t over. Please stay where you are. Have the most important thing to do before we leave. But I’m going to ask you to stand and we’re going to sing a song about trust in the Lord.

I’m going to ask you to just lift your voices with our team today.

You can lift hands. You can lift your head. You can just make this a moment of turning toward him. Amen.

[The service continued with a worship song and closing prayer.]

Amen. God, you know better than any of us our tendency as humans to have too much pride, self-reliance to have fear that then we act on and act out.

And I pray for men and women all around these rooms today, Champion Center who right now, Lord, they’re they’re in a challenging scenario, a situation, or God, they realize and in the word today, they just realize, well, I’m too much of that. I’m too much of being that way.

And that my desire to rule things is it’s just not right. Things that I’m not supposed to rule that belongs to the Lord. And so today we decide in our heart God to trust you and to put you on the throne of all that is going on and we just simply pray come your kingdom and be done your will. We trust you in Jesus name. I pray that moms Lord today will be set free from fear having to do with their children. I pray in Jesus name grandmas will be set free God today from fears about their children and grandchildren. And God, I pray for men in the room who are self-reliant and it’s all about they feel the weight. God, they feel the weight. Everything is on their shoulder.

And I pray for them right now that you would comfort them and bring ease and confidence to them today. I pray help them to trust you and to not carry things, God, that they are not meant to carry. Set us free. Set us free. Help us, Lord, to not be too proud today to humble oursself and to say, “God, I relinquish things to you today cuz you’re a good God. You have a good plan for my life in Jesus’ name.” With heads still bowed and eyes closed, I’m going to invite everybody today who is not at this moment in your life. You’re not ready for heaven. You’re not ready to meet God. You there you’re not living in the place and the space of, you know, of rightness with God or toward God. And today you you want to be right with God.

You want to be in right standing with him. It’s called the gift of righteousness that comes from heaven.

It’s not about your own works. It’s about a gift God gives you. If you’re ready to receive that, would you raise your hand today around the rooms that we’re in and just say, “I receive God’s grace. I receive the gift of righteousness today. I want to be in right standing with God. I want to leave here different than I came.” Good.

Hands are going up. Hands are going up here. And I’m believing in every room online. Good. I surrender my life to you, Lord. Have your way in my life in Jesus name. Say with me, church.

Everybody say this together. Lord Jesus, welcome to my world. Forgive me of all my sin. Come into my heart. Make me a new person. I receive your salvation.

You are my hope. You are my savior. And I boldly declare I’ll never be the same again in Jesus’ name. I am a child of God. I belong to God in Jesus name. Come on and everybody said a great big amen. God bless you church.