Oh, welcome crossing family. Today we are starting a brand
new series. There has to be a place, but
we've heard we've done that. There has to be a place a bunch
of times. But the new tagline is with real
stories of real people with real faith.
I want to welcome those of you joining at all of our different
locations, those of you watching online, and those of you who are
part of our inside family. Last week we talked about what
God did in US and through US over the past year.
And in addition to all the stuff we talked about, we broke ground
on the new multi site building starter repairs on the Camp Dam.
So that way it'll be full of water next year.
Set records in every measurable area, updated our app.
But you guys know this. Our work remains undone.
And So what we, what you may not know is what we're going to be
doing this year. And so I figured I'd take a
little bit of time today to kind of let you know what is going to
be coming at you over the next 12 months.
And one of the things I want to do is I want to walk you through
the sermon series that we're going to be taking you through.
Now. I love all the sermon series
that we do as a church, but I am incredibly excited about what we
have in store for you in 2026. We're going to be doing.
There has to be a place for the next 4 weeks and then on Super
Bowl weekend we will be having a Defend Your Turf weekend and we
will be inviting in Sean McDowell.
Now Sean McDowell is the son of Josh McDowell.
Those of you who grew up in church, you probably know that
name. He was the author of More Than a
Carpenter and helped shape the faith and defend the faith for
millions for decades. And his son Sean is a professor
of Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, and his main
focus is on apologetics. Or how do you know that your
faith is in the right thing, in the right place?
How do you have a reasons for the faith you have?
Because Christians, we do not have some blind faith.
It is a measurable faith. It is a faith that is tangible
and it is backed by history and science and reason and
rationality. And he has a YouTube channel
focusing on the biggest questions about God, morality
and culture with over 374,000 subscribers.
His videos have been seen over 54,000,000 times.
And I mean this, he will become a great resource for you and
your family when you're trying to make sense of the world or
trying to make sense of the word.
And it will be a great weekend for you to invite the people
that are close to you but far from God.
Then right out of that, we will jump into a seven week series on
the names of God. You've heard me talk about this
before. Lots of people will say negative
things about the God of the Old Testament, but what they might
not know is that the Old Testament gives God some of the
most beautiful and meaningful names.
And these names contain power and promises for every seeker
and for every believer. And then we're all going to have
an epic Easter weekend at the crossing.
And then right after that, we are going to launch into a five
week series on marriage and family.
We know that one of the biggest challenges people face is having
a godly marriage and raising a godly family, and we want to
help. Then we're going to do a
three-week series on generosity and Kingdom impact.
And when we do that, we're going to be looking at behind the
scenes of every great movement of God stands a few generous men
and women. And we're going to learn from
their stories, from history, and hopefully as a church, we will
follow their example to believe in God, to step out in faith,
and to serve the purposes of God in our generation and in our
region. And then we will step into what
I believe might be the most powerful sermon series of the
year where we are going to take 4 weeks to learn about the Holy
Spirit. The role of the Holy Spirit in
the life of the believer might be one of the most overlooked
and most needed issues in our day.
Now one of the ways you can help us is that way we don't have a
huge fight between our different teams that work here at the
crossing is we don't have names for a couple of these series.
So if you hop on your app right now, you can actually vote on
what the next those two series, the marriage and family series
should be called and what the series on the Holy Spirit should
be called. And I'm hoping you guys make the
right choice because there's one that I desperately want in both
of those categories, but I'm just trusting the Holy Spirit to
guide you into what the sermon series on the Holy Spirit should
be called. But whatever, whichever, you
only get to vote once, so make it count.
But whatever you vote is what we're going to end up calling
it. And we'll reveal it when we get
into the marriage and family series.
And we'll reveal it when we get into the Holy Spirit.
When you open up your app in the For You section after you take
it, say, hey, I'm here. You can pick on the options for
marriage and family. The marriage and family ones are
fun. Just so you know you're going
to. You'll dig it if you have it and
you can do it right now. You don't have to listen to me.
You can pull up the app and vote.
Then we are going to launch into another Bible engagement
initiative. In 2022 we did Ecclesiastes and
the Gospel of John. In 2023, we did the book of
Romans. In 2024, we did Decisions in the
Desert, which took us through Exodus and Leviticus.
Last year we did First Corinthians, but this year, the
sermon series that I am the most excited about.
We are going to walk you through the longest recorded sermon in
the Bible by none other than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
That's right, we will be doing an entire sermon series on the
Sermon on the Mount for 17 weeks.
And I'm telling you, if you're a new to faith, when you realize
what Jesus is doing, not just for believers, but he's wanting
to do and invite you into you and the Sermon on the Mount,
it's going to be transformative. Then we'll do what we always do.
We'll have a powerful Christmas series and get ready to remember
to celebrate the birth of Jesus. And then we'll be at State of
the Church and 2026 will be behind us.
Now, I should probably clear the air on a couple of things.
One, I absolutely love preaching to you.
I love that you allow me to be one of the primary spiritual
voices in your life. However, I don't want to be the
only voice that is spiritual in your life.
And how many of you? Now, don't mess this up,
especially if you're sitting with your mom.
How many of you enjoy mom's mom's cooking?
If you didn't raise your hand there and your mom sit next to
you? That's weird.
OK, guess we're going out to eat.
All right, OK, yeah, I love moms cooking, man.
I love it. But sometimes I like it when we
get to go out to eat and we get to try something that we haven't
tried before, eat something we haven't eaten before, or we just
get to show up and allow somebody else to to service in a
really big way. And so every year what I try to
do is I try to give you as much of Mama's home cooking as I
possibly can, but over the course of the year, I actually
like to take you out to eat and allow other people to come in
and speak words of wisdom into your life.
And so this year we're going to have another incredible lineup
of leaders and pastors from across the country that will
come in, I think four or five times that we're going to come
in and share with us. And I am really excited about
our guest speaker lineup for 2026 especially.
Well, I don't want to give it away.
The hope is that through these series and through all of our
speakers that this will be a great year of spiritual growth
for you and for those you love. However, you will not grow as
much as you need to grow if you are only eating spiritually once
a week on the weekend. If you are wanting to become all
you are to become in Christ, it will not happen if you have a
weekly routine but you don't have a daily discipline.
So how do you establish a daily discipline in the Lord?
Let me walk you through it. The first thing you need is you
need a time. You need to make a commitment.
Hey, when am I going to spend time with the Lord?
For me it is. I don't say it's the first thing
I do in the day. It is the first thing I do once
my kids are away from me. Because trying to have a quiet
time and your kids ask you questions is hard.
So for you, depending on your season of life, you need to pick
a time. Then you need to pick a place.
Where are you going to go to have that time?
For me, it's either my Home Office or the desk in my Home
Office, or it is the desk at my office at work.
That as soon as I get there, before I do anything else,
Jennifer rehabbed one of our closets upstairs.
Sometimes she goes up there, sometimes she just does it on
the bed, 'cause you know, she's cool.
You might choose. And then you're going to need a
Bible. Now when I talk about Bibles, I
want to give you a little insight.
I'm a big fan of all the apps and all the things that are out
there. But one of the reasons why I
really like a paper Bible is because it doesn't send you
notifications from your friends. It sends you notifications from
God. And if you're like me, you pull
up your iPad and next thing you know, you get notifications on,
you know, how the bears did last night.
And that can, you know, you can go, yeah, that was for a couple
of. No, you guys are asleep.
All right, Well, listen. So what I want to do is I want
to give you a couple of notes on how to get a Bible.
So one the translation that our church uses almost all the time
is the NIV and if you are a person who's going I want to
understand the word of God a little bit more, I'm going to
encourage you to get an NIV study Bible.
This is the Bible I got before I started the campus up in Macomb.
In fact, inside of here it has Jennifer checking in Kennedy.
The first time Jennifer was no was was a Hensel.
I put that in there. I was like you belong to me now.
So you now for those of you who are young in your faith, let me
say something. When you get an NIV study Bible,
there's a line at the bottom of every study Bible.
Everything below that line is a really smart person who has
spent a lot of time learning about Jesus talking to you, but
it is not Jesus talking to you. Everything above the line is the
word of God. So everything up here is the
word of God. Everything below it is the
people of God trying to help you understand the word of God.
But the stuff below the line is not the word of God.
And if you get one of these because you're going to have
questions when you read the Bible, I still have questions
when I read the Bible. It will help you navigate it.
Now, some of you you may have already had one of these for a
long time. You're looking for something new
and something fresh. If this this is like your you
know, fellas, this is like your this is like your all-purpose
Bible. This is this is your this is
your super black eagle. This is that's what this is OK,
now this right here, this is your Barrett 50 Cal all right,
this bad boy, look how pretty this is.
OK, now this is super expensive. This is called a Skylar NIV
Bible. It is an absolutely beautiful
Bible and it will become like an heirloom if you get one of
these. It's going to the kids, they're
going to want it. It lays flat, it's beautiful to
read. It's got decent sized print, and
here's why I wear it. You know how sometimes when you
get dressed up like you just feel a little bit better about
yourself. You get up, you take a shower,
you clean yourself all the way up, you put a tie on or
whatever. You just feel Sometimes I want
an elevated experience with the Word of God.
And so I have a Bible that gives me an elevated experience.
When I open this, I feel like something special is going on.
You, you might be going. I've been reading my Bible for a
long time. I need a little change up.
That's a great change up for you.
What's the next one I got? OK, now this is totally nerddom.
This is total nerddom. OK, this is also super
expensive, but I'll tell you, this is one of my favorite
purchases I've made and I can't tell you how long.
This is called the Bibliotheca Bible.
All these are in the thing. OK, this is turn to your
neighbor and say he's a nerd. Oh boy, get ready.
This is a hardback lay flat special font.
That watch has no verses and no chapters.
If you were to like open a scroll in the Old Testament and
you were to just read it, it didn't have verses, it didn't
have chapters. You just read it.
Here's why I like this. You're reading in the Gospel of
John and John 316 just jumps out at you because you didn't
realize you were in 101112131415.
It's just it springs up on you. It is designed.
Listen to the sentence to create an immersive literary
experience. Girls, you know how you're
reading a book like Harry Potter or whatever it is you girls read
and you just keep turning the page.
That's what this is designed to do.
It is designed to have a font that is easy on your eyes.
So you start reading your Bible and you don't stop.
Now here's what I'm doing. I did this.
This was my I think this was 24. I went all the way through.
This is just the New Testament I've got right now.
I'm doing the old, I'm doing the, the Pentateuch.
Then it's got this is the writings, this is the profits,
OK? The only downside is now they
only sell this with the apocrypha.
So it's kind of expensive because you just throw the
apocrypha in the trash. You don't need it.
Sorry about that, Catholics. We'll talk about that when we
later. But here's why I'm telling you
all this, OK, here's what I did with this one because it's so
immersive. I wrote in the margins all
across it, and that's completely OK for you to write in the
margins of your Bible. Now here's what I'm doing with
this. I'm taking all of the margins
once I go all the way through the Bible.
And this is what I have for my sons.
This is an NIV journaling Bible that is designed to allow you to
write in the margins. And what I will do once I get
all the way through the Bible, writing all my notes in the
margins, is Jennifer and I are going to go through and
highlight everything that I wrote and highlighted in my
Bible. And this will become a gift to
my boys on their wedding day. And it will have all the things
that their dad learned in the scriptures for them.
The reason why I'm telling you this is sometimes you're going,
man, I'm having a hard time engaging in God's Word.
I'm having a hard time learning and growing.
And what I would, what I'm telling you is start an
adventure. Pick a different Bible that
might change the way you interact with the text.
Pick a reason why you're getting involved with the text and start
allowing the text to form you and shape you.
And the nice thing about the journaling Bible is it already
has space on the sides for you to do a spec so you can every
time you're reading a scripture, you can look for a sin to avoid,
a promise to claim, an example to follow or a command to obey.
Now, once you have a time, a place and a Bible and there's
you can get all kinds of Bibles, but we are this one doesn't come
in NIV. It's a special one off
translation. All the rest of these are NIV's.
The only reason I'm telling you NIV is that's what we use 99% of
the time at our church. So if you're going, hey, I want
to be when I read my Bible, I want it to be the same Bible we
were talking about. But the next thing you're going
to need is you're going to need a plan.
And the reason why you need a plan is because you need a
guide. You know, if you're trying to
lose weight this year and you're only going to eat right one day
out of the week, you're going to stay fat.
If you're trying to get in shape this year and you're only going
to work out one day a week, those jeans are going to get
pretty tight. And so I want you to have a plan
to grow spiritually, not a regret that you didn't grow
spiritually. And one of the best tools I
think I can give you is Mark Moore was one of my favorite
Bible college professors. He's actually preached at our
church multiple times. And he's written a bunch of
books, but his three most recent books will help you grow in a
meaningful way. In 15 minutes a day.
Every single one of you has 15 minutes.
If you were to get Core 52, it is a DAILY GUIDE that will help
you build your Bible like you. If you're looking to build
confidence in God's Word, have a guide to help you get through
the maze of Scripture. This is like your Disney fast
pass on Bible knowledge. You'll love it.
Then there's Quest 52 and that is a DAILY GUIDE all about
Jesus. It is a year long pursuit
designed to help you not just know Jesus more or know more
about Jesus, but to know Jesus more.
And then his most recent book is Wisdom 52 and it is a 52 week
guide through the Proverbs that helps you live with clarity,
character, and peace. Now you can get resources all
that on your app so that way you can grab as many of the things
you want to get so you don't have to remember it.
All right now why am I telling you that I want you to do this?
I'm going to give you 2 reasons. 1, you need a light for your
path. The world is dark and it is
going to try and trip you up this year.
Psalm 119105 says your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on
my path. Second thing is, is the Bible is
our weapon against the enemy. The Bible tells us that our
struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the
spiritual forces of evil in this Dark World.
And Ephesians chapter 6 says that you and I are to take up
the sword of the spirit which is the word of God.
In other words, unless you are a person of the Word, you will not
be able to make a difference in the world.
If you don't commit yourself to the Word of God, you will be
susceptible this year to the schemes of the enemy.
Now, to illustrate this, I've asked one of our elders to come
up and share a bit of his story. For those of you who don't know,
our church is overseen by a group of men called elders.
They are deeply committed not just to Christ, but deeply
committed to this church. They oversee our vision, our
mission, our theology, our initiatives, our expansions, and
our finances. And there are ten of these men
in our church and they come from five of our locations.
Now, they are not like a House of Representatives where we're
trying to get, you know, elders from each and every single one
of our locations. That role is reserved for our
campus pastors who are the point leaders at all of our locations.
And I am incredibly grateful for that group of men.
I lovingly refer to our elders as the our Supreme Court Justice
Justices, OK, because they have lifetime appointments and their
job is to be prepared to stand before God for the decisions
that were made at this church. And did we accomplish the
mission of this church? And for the last four years,
Craig Helbing has served as the chairman.
And before each of our elders meetings, he gives a devotion to
make sure that our hearts are in the right place as we prepare to
make decisions regarding the present challenges and our
future possibilities. And one of his devotions was so
moving that I told him that one day he would share it with our
whole church. What you might not know is that
Craig is a man who regularly lives out what I just talked
about. Craig is a man who has a time, a
place, a Bible, and a plan. And it is because of the years
of regular daily devotion that he can share with power and
confidence what you are about to experience.
So, crossing family, would you give Craig Hill Bing a warm
welcome? Wow, thank you.
I just came today. I just wanted to share with you
the fact that God doesn't give up.
And in Colossians chapter one, verse 29, it says it this way in
the NCV version. And I love the way that it says
it. It says I work and I struggle
using Christ's great strength that so powerfully works in me.
And you know, all throughout the Bible there's a pattern that you
can't miss. And that pattern is this, that
when people doubt themselves, when they feel unqualified, when
they fail, God doesn't give up. You know, in the Bible, when
Joseph was betrayed by his own brothers and then thrown into a
pit, abandoned and forgotten, God didn't give up.
When Moses stood in front of the burning Bush and he said, Lord,
you've got the wrong guy. I don't even speak.
Well, God didn't give up when an entire nation of Israel, they
were freed slaves. They stood on the edge of
freedom and they said we'd rather go back to Egyptian
slavery than to trust God with what's next.
God didn't give up. And when Peter promised loyalty
that Jesus had dinner during the Last Supper and then denied even
knowing him a few hours later, God did not give up.
And when the human hands of the soldiers fasten the divine hands
of Jesus to the cross with spikes, it wasn't the soldiers
who held him there. It was the love of God who held
him steady, a God who would give up his only Son before he would
ever give up on us. And, you know, everyone thought
that the story was over, but God took the crucifixion of Friday,
and then he turned it into the celebration of Sunday.
But oh, how Satan loves to make us think that God won't do that
kind of reversal in our own lives.
I mean, he's the master at making our worries over our past
mistakes and our fears over our future haunt us because he uses
things like our guilt and our shame and our lack of
self-confidence to cause us to step out of the race.
But that's a lie straight from hell.
And as followers of Christ, we need to know this, that the
Spirit of God lives in us, that He will do what we cannot.
He doesn't give up. And I definitely don't say that
as someone who has it all figured out, God is teaching me
every day. But over time, God has patiently
taught me what it means that He doesn't give up, even when I was
convinced that He should have. And this truth, it became clear
to me. I don't know exactly when, but
it was probably about 12 years ago.
And I remember that year clearly because it was the same year
that I had just started to be an elder in training.
And some of you may know my story, but for those of you who
don't, I just want to say this so that I can put this in
context. When I was 16 years old, I was
driving a car and I was involved in an accident that killed my
best friend, and it was negligent.
Alcohol was involved and I was 100% responsible.
And for many years after that, before the Lord really opened my
eyes to the truth of the gospel, my life was marked by bad
decisions and trying to deal with the things that I had
broken. So like I was saying, about 12
years ago I was asked to go on a mission trip to Florida with
some high school kids and a young pastor who's since become
a great friend of mine, Josh Bailey was leading the trip and
it was him and I going down and we had quite a few kids going,
so we needed larger vans to fit everyone in.
And a few days before the trip, Josh called me and he said, hey,
I need to pick you up from work because we need to go down to
the DMV and get the classification changed on your
driver's license so that you can be the driver of one of the
larger vans and then I'll drive the other one.
And so he picked me up from work and we went to the DMV and, and
Josh stayed in the van while I went inside to get the changes
made. And I went up to the counter and
I told the woman I was going on a mission trip and what I was
doing. And she pulled up my
information. And she paused, and she looked
at the screen. And then she called another
employee over. And after a moment, she said,
I'm sorry, we're not going to be able to do that.
You were involved in an accident where someone died.
And because of that, you'll never get that classification on
your driver's license. And so with all the guilt and
the shame that Satan could put on me, I had to walk outside,
back outside and tell Josh what had happened.
And that was hard and it was embarrassing.
And I don't remember us having much conversation on the way
back to work. If we did, I don't recall it.
But what I do remember is the voice in my head that was
saying, do you realize what you've done?
Like you're a fake and you're a phony and you shouldn't even be
on this trip, You see, because Satan knows what he's doing.
And when things break in our lives or were damaged in certain
areas, he knows exactly where to attack.
And what I didn't know was that after Josh had dropped me off,
he went and found another van that was smaller and one that I
was licensed to drive. And he what we did was is he
drove 1 van, I drove another and then my wife and his wife drove
our minivan and we were able to fit all the kids and, and make
it work. And you know, we went on that
trip and God did some incredible things.
And I just think if Satan would have had one in that moment, in
my mind, God would have missed. I would have missed all that God
was doing at that time. I mean, during the trip, two
kids were baptized in the ocean, and it was really special.
But what really stands out to me is what happened on the way
home. You see, we had to leave about
4:30 in the morning because we were going to drive straight
back and drop the kids off that evening.
And so we were driving on this really busy Interstate.
It was 4 lanes. It was going in each direction
and, and I would I was leading and, and Josh was in the van
behind me and we have been driving for a few hours.
So it was daylight when a drive shaft fell out of a pickup truck
in front of me and I was able to avoid it.
But when I looked in my rearview mirror, I saw that Josh had hit
it and the van bounced up in the air.
And he immediately pulled over to the inside lane of the
Interstate and, and there was barely enough room there because
there was concrete barriers on the side.
And I pulled off on the outside shoulder a little ways down the
road, and my wife pulled in behind me and we had walkie
talkies. And I heard Josh say in a panic
voice, the van's on fire. Everybody out.
And so I jumped out of the van and I took off running across
this four lane Interstate and there was cars coming and my
wife was screaming at me to stop, but I didn't care.
I, I just kept going. And when I got to the van, there
was smoke everywhere, but it wasn't fire.
It was, it was antifreeze that was spraying on the hot exhaust
pipe. Because you see, when the the
drive shaft had ripped off from the underside of the van, it had
broken those lines loose and they were spraying on the
exhaust. And so knowing that the van
wasn't on fire, we were able to get all the kids back in the
van. And there was antifreeze all
over the ground and it was hot. And I laid underneath the van
and we had a roll of duct tape in the van.
And I was able to hook the lines back up.
And then we took a case of water that we had inside the van and I
was able to fill the radiator back up and we were able to limp
the van to the next exit where there was an AutoZone.
And and Josh and I got the parts and we fixed it.
And we got back on the road. And I remember driving the rest
of the way home knowing that, you know, all the kids were
fine, but I was covered in antifreeze.
But I had this tremendous sense of peace and my necklace was out
because I've been crawling on the ground so much.
And it's a necklace I got when I accepted Christ.
And on it was Galatians 220 and it said I have been crucified
with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but
Christ who lives in me. And this life I now live in the
flesh. I live by faith in the Son of
God who gave his life for me. And that's when I realized that
God did have a purpose for me on that trip, that I wasn't
disqualified, and that Satan is a liar because our God doesn't
give up. And I said all that to say this,
that every day, you and I, all of us, we face things that we're
we can't do by our own power and strength.
And we just have to remember to tap into the one with the power
that lives inside of us. I love this first and 2nd
Corinthians chapter 12, verse 9. It says this, My grace is all
you need. My power works best in weakness.
You know, there is a reason that the windshield is bigger than
the rearview mirror. And it's because our future
matters more than our past. And we need to say this with the
Apostle Paul when he wrote this in the book of Philippians, he
said, forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies
ahead. I strain to reach the end of the
race and receive the prize for which God is calling us.
Thank you. Great.
Job. Thanks man.
I don't know where you are on your spiritual journey today,
but I want you to know that Satan is a liar and God can
still use you. You might feel unqualified.
You might feel like a failure. You may have walked in here
today covered in guilt and shame.
You might be right now on the verge of giving up.
But our God is undefeated at using broken and willing people
in a mighty way, which means He can still use you.
The question is, will you let Him?
We're moving to a time of decision.
Yeah, it's really not a matter of if or is it, you know, real,
like there are broken people in this room and there's broken
people who are listening to my voice right now.
And, and if I had to guess that brokenness, what you have been
trying to do over and over and over again is just saying how
can I fix myself? How can I get out of this
brokenness? What can I do?
What can I read? Where can I go?
And I just need to give you some really, really good news for
those of you who do not know Jesus Christ as your personal
Lord and Savior. There is no better day.
There is no better moment, there is no better time, and there is
no better place than to completely surrender and start
this relationship with Jesus that you were made for, that you
were created for, and you could be wrestling with all sorts of
things. But I need you to hear this.
When Craig said yes to Jesus, he had no idea how God was going to
use him in the future. He had no idea what God could do
or would do in him or through him.
But here's what you need to know.
He knew enough. He knew enough to know that he
needed Jesus. And I'm just going to tell you
this in this room, if you've been listening, if you've been
here for a while or you just been here for today, you know
enough. You know that Jesus loves you,
He cares for you, and He wants to walk with you step by step,
that you don't have to go through this journey by
yourself. You don't need to continue
trying to do things on your own. He says you can be saved through
faith, through grace that Jesus provides, not because of
anything you can do. And here's what I know.
Every time we get to this moment, there's probably another
voice you're hearing, There's probably some things that
you're, you're thinking and your subconscious that keeps telling
you, man, he's not talking to you.
He's saying, hey, hey, maybe you just wait.
Maybe next week, hey, maybe when all the the world and the
galaxies all align, that's when you can go all in for Jesus.
You're not ready. You don't know enough.
Do you know what you did last night?
Do you know what you said on the way to church?
There's no way you can get in the waters of baptism.
There's no way that God would accept you.
Can I just tell you something and can I just declare
something? That is the voice of Satan and
you heard it time and time again.
Satan is a liar. And we will stand on that truth.
We will stand on that ground. And here's what I want to invite
you to do instead of listening to that voice say not today, not
you. Maybe it's the person next to
you. Maybe it's next week.
Start listening to the voice of the Father calling you, calling
you home when you come into that intimate, personal relationship
with Jesus. There's a story that Jesus
tells, and I just got to give you the imagery real quick, the
story of the lost son, the prodigal son, the voice of the
father's calling him like he's waiting for his son.
And when the son comes back home, finally the father meets
him, greets him, puts a a coat over his shoulders, gives him
sandals on his feet, puts a ring on his finger, and he he
celebrates with a meal because his son, who was once lost, is
now found. His son who was once dead is now
alive. And when you start a
relationship with Jesus, the Father wants to embrace you.
And so in just a moment, the worship team is going to come
out like they always do. And we're going to sing some
songs in response. Some are going to come to the
steps and they're going to pray. But if you are here, you're
like, Nope, today's the day. I'm going to give my life to
Jesus. But you have questions or you're
like, hey, what? What's next?
There's going to be a couple right by the baptistry that
would love to help you take your next step, your most important
step of following Jesus. For the rest of us in this room,
to those who know Jesus, who are walking in that relationship,
maybe you're one of the 1389 people who started that walk
with Jesus last year, or you've been walking with Jesus for five
years or 20 years. Listen, can we just be honest?
Satan still tries to lie to us. He still tries to get us to
believe that we cannot be used, that we've gone too far away.
And I just want you to know, listen, God can still use you.
And I believe that there's something God is wanting to call
you to do. And so maybe for you, you just
simply need to just listen a little bit more, lean in a
little bit more, commit to spending more time with him.
Maybe during this song, your step would just to become up to
these steps to get down on your knees and ask God to do this.
Would he light a fire inside of you to pursue him even more on a
daily basis? Would you ask God to give you a
direction or a word or a or a name that you could go, but just
trust that he wants to lead you to your next step?
Would you stand with me? Let's pray and let's let's
respond. Let's ask God to light a fire
inside of us. God, you are everything.
You are everything, everything we do.
You are so good. What a God you are and we're
going to sing that out. What a God you are that you made
away when it seemed like there was no way like it.
It doesn't make sense the type of love that you have for us.
But God right now in in humility, I pray God that we
just OfferUp our praise, OfferUp our surrender, OfferUp our time,
OfferUp our mind and our hearts to you in this moment.
Would you speak to us? Would you move in us?
Would you use us? In Jesus name I pray.
Amen.