Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Because of You

Episode Date: November 24, 2024

What you do matters. Because of your faithful serving and giving, our church has been able to bring the love of Jesus to people worldwide! To thank you, we’re sharing just a few stories of the lives you’ve helped reach.Feeling depressed, anxious, or alone? Find spiritual support with these helpful resources: https://finds.life.church/reason-for-hope/ABOUT THIS MESSAGEWe believe whoever finds God, finds life. Because of You, more people are experiencing the love, hope, and healing only found in Him. Let’s celebrate what God has done and look forward to what He will do next.PRAYERIf you're facing something difficult, you don’t have to carry it alone. If it’s on your mind, it’s on God’s heart. We want to pray with you and support you through whatever you’re facing. Share your prayer request: https://www.life.church/getprayerABOUT LIFE.CHURCHWherever you are in life, you have a purpose. Life.Church wants to help you find your next step. Our hope is that your journey will include joining us at a Life.Church location throughout the United States or globally online at https://www.live.life.churchFind locations, videos, and more info about us at https://www.life.church or download the Life.Church app at https://www.life.church/appNEXT STEPSHave you made the decision to follow Jesus? You might be wondering what’s next for you. We want to help! Check out these resources to ​​discover what saying yes to Jesus means: https://www.life.church/yesFIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/life.churchTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lifechurchYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@life.churchCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIGYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/craiggroeschelFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@craiggroeschel#lifechurch #craiggroeschel #becauseofyou Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today, we're going to do something different. And what I want to do is I want to take a moment to say thank you to every single one of you. And my goal today is to show you, and I'm praying that God would do this, to show you that you matter more than you realize. That your presence here today at all of our churches, your presence online, it matters. Your worship matters. When you lift up the name of Jesus, when you praise them, it matters. your prayers matter your faith matters when you serve it matters when you invite people who are far from god to join you at church it matters who you are matters what you do matters you matter more than you

realize and i want to show you a portion of scripture that reminds me of you when the apostle paul said to the thessalonians he said this he said so we have been greatly encouraged in the midst of our troubles and suffering. How many of you know there's a lot going on in the world right now, a lot of pain, and you are encouraging me, just as the believers encourage, Paul. We've been encouraged in the middle of our hard times, dear brothers and sisters, because you have remained strong in your faith. I'm thankful for a church that remains strong in their faith, and it gives us new life to know that you're standing firm in the Lord. Paul said, how we thank God for you. You. you. And then he says, because of you. Everybody say because of me. Everybody said again, because

of me. Online, type it in the comment section, because of me. Because of you, and I want you to feel this, because of you, we have great joy as we enter God's presence. Because of you, I have great joy. Because of you, there are people all over the world that have great joy as they enter into God's presence. Today, I've invited a few people to help me say thank you to you. And I want to start with Pastor Josh, and I want to show you what God is doing because of you through our church in a very special place. Josh has been on staff for seven years. He was with Life Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Shout out to Hendersonville before he moved to the lone star state to launch Life Church in Austin, Texas.

Very, very special. So all of you who give to new locations, because of your generosity, this campus exists. The building used to be a Coles building, but they sold clothing. Now we clothe ourselves in Christ. That's a little preacher joke, okay? And because of your generosity for cash with no debt, we transformed that building into the the 45th Life Church location. Please help me welcome from Life Church Austin.

Pastor Josh. What's up? Life Church, man. It is such an honor to be here today. Pastor Craig, thank you for the opportunity to first of all say thank you. It's because of you that we actually see these life change stories coming out of our church. And thank you for the opportunity to be able to just celebrate the fact that we worship a God that does more than we can ask, think, or imagine. And that has never resonated more deeply in me

than whenever I met my friend, Curtis. You can see Curtis right up here, and you're probably thinking, why are you showing a little kid and a Christmas sweater? And unfortunately, that's because that's where we have to start. You see, Curtis was born at his first breath with fetal alcohol syndrome. And he would continue to grow up in a home that was toxic,

full of drug addiction, neglect, many nights, not even knowing, where am I going to eat my next meal, who's going to help me with my homework? And that would help him find the crowd, and unfortunately, the wrong crowd. You see, Curtis began to run with some different people, and ultimately it would land him at 10 years old till 16 in juvenile detention because of armed robbery. And you would hope that it would get better, but the odds just kept stacking. You see, he got out and he would fall into drug addiction, which would take him back to prison from 19 to 21. This is a story about the odds. Whenever he gets out of prison, you hope it gets better and it just keeps getting worse. And he falls into the peak of his drug addiction. For 17 years, it would grip him and it would not let him

go. And fast forward, that's how we get to Austin, Texas. At the worst part of his life, Curtis was 100 pounds. He had not eaten in almost a month. And he had not eaten in almost a month. And he was, he knew his body was shutting down and he thought to himself, I'm going to die. Nowhere to go. No, where to go. No hope. He cried out to God and he said, God, if you'll just save me, if you'll save my life, I promise you, I'll give it all to you. And then he looks up and he sees a food truck. But this is no ordinary food truck. You see, this is our local mission partner, mobile loaves and officials that exist to actually rescue people like Curtis out of homelessness and to save their life. And so with every bit of energy that Curtis had, he began to inch his way through the crowd

where he would finally meet his hero, Sandy. And Miss Sandy, she would take him in her arms, and she would give him clothes and she gave him food to eat. You guys, Sandy literally saved Curtis's life. And because God, he held up to his end of the deal, Curtis actually, held up to his too because it was in that moment that Curtis gave his life to Jesus, you guys. He was transformed. He was set free. Look at the transformation on this guy. This is a guy that was made new because of Jesus. And so he would begin to grow. And yes, he would have ups and downs just like all of us, but he pressed into Jesus. But there was one problem. He didn't have a local church. But wouldn't you see fit that God,

would actually give him a new job that would move him on the north side of Austin, because Austin's really big, if you've never been there. He moved to the north side of Austin. And because he had been invited for years to Life Church, he remembered, man, maybe I'll check out this Life Church. How far away is it? And he pulled it up on Google, and it was less than 10 minutes away. And Curtis thought, maybe I found my new church. I'll give it a shot. And on June 23rd, the day that our brand new doors to our brand new building, because of you, because of your generosity. Thank you. Life Church, Austin, exists for the world, but it does not exist without you. So thank you. On June 23rd, the brand new doors opened up in Curtis. He walked through on the same day

he would celebrate one year of sobriety. Curtis found his new home. He found community. He began to realize I don't just go to church. I am the church. And he began to serve on the host team. And it is my greatest honor to tell you that on Wednesday nights at Switch, our youth ministry, Curtis is my son's small group leader making a difference. And he would just keep taking step after step. We announced that we're going to have our very first baptism in our building.

And Curtis said, that's going to be me. Curtis was the very first person to be baptized. at Live Church Austin declaring that God makes all things new. This is a story that defies all odds. What are the odds that a boy from Oklahoma would land in Austin? And what are the odds that a local mission partner would be at the right place, at the right time? And what are the odds that on June 23rd we would open our doors the same day he would celebrate one year of sobriety?

And what are the odds that he would have a brother with the exact same story? The same past, but because of Jesus also the same future. What are the odds that that brother would be the youth pastor at Life Church Derby, Kansas, by the name of Kevin Curley. You can see Kevin right up here after years of praying for his brother Curtis and inviting. He got to go to Austin, Texas, and he was the one. to baptize his brother declaring that Jesus changes everything. And while it's such a joy to tell you the story and share the pictures,

it's actually a greater joy that Curtis, he is so passionate about what Jesus has done and about his church that he is here today. Can you guys celebrate the fact that Curtis is here, loving Jesus, loving his church, and he is all in. Curtis, I love you. I believe in you and the best is yet to come. And lastly, to you, I just want to say thank you. We are able to serve communities in 45 locations with locking arms with mission partners

and all around the world bringing restoration to people just like Curtis. Jesus, it's all because of him, but because he uses people, I can also say it's because of you. Thank you. Powerful. Curtis. man, we love you, and our church thanks God for you. And for all the rest of you, thank you for contributing to a story like this.

And if any one of you are in a place where you feel low or know someone that is, this is a place where everyone is welcome, where everyone is needed, and where everyone is changed. And so we praise God for you. We praise God for our mission partners. And I want to tell you another story, which is indescribably emotional. to me because my salvation story was when I received a free Bible from the Gideon organization. And if you can imagine the Bible that changed my life is now a Bible that we're able to give away to people all over the world. And if you don't know, our church, Life Church, created the

U-Version Bible app. And we've been given the U-Version Bible app away for free because of the generosity of a lot of people like you to hundreds of millions of people. around the world, hundreds of millions of people. And although there are hundreds of millions of people that use God's Word daily free, given by the generosity of people around the world, I want to share one of those stories of how God's Word impacted a girl named Sidney.

My name is Sydney. I was born in 2004 in Kathmandu, Nepal. I was left outside a police station, and I was found by a police officer a couple of days later. I was brought to an orphanage, and I didn't have a name. I didn't have any identification. They gave me a name Priya Balika, and Balika means orphan girl, and then Priya means beloved. When I was two, I was adopted by my mom.

I moved from Nepal to Minnesota. At about fourth, fifth grade age, I started to see my friends connect with their biological parents in a way that I feel like I was missing out on, and I just really wanted to know who they were. In about ninth grade, I would go to a place of they didn't want you, you know, what if they have other kids that they kept or, you know, you were left there to die because I was on the street by myself, and so what could I have done at two days old that made someone want to lead me that fast. I became a Christian my sophomore year of high school. The Bible I really

contributed to the part of my faith when I really started to see God speaking to me, just even thinking about coming across the verse in Romans 9, where he says, her who is not called beloved, I will call beloved, the whole first part of my life. I really focused on the orphan part, like the Belika part, I would say, and I didn't feel the Priya part, I didn't feel beloved at all. And then to read in scripture that it says her who is not called beloved, I'll call beloved was really cool because that's exactly what God did with my name and with my life, my whole story. My life before Christ, like it just feels so, it just feels like hazy and gray compared to life now.

Like it just feel, I feel alive. What a special story. want you to understand because of you, because of your faithfulness, because of your generosity, if you can imagine our church is blessed with the responsibility, we are stewarding what is the greatest Bible engagement tool in the history of the world, meaning there's never been more people engaging in God's words or any resource, and we're honored to steward that on behalf of the kingdom of God. And to give you just an idea, of how God's using you.

I want to show you in real time right now people using the U-Version Bible app. Everywhere you see a light going, that's someone opening the app right now at this moment, people around the world, opening up over and over and over and over and over and over again, God's Word. And in the past 12 months, just the last 12 months,

in the U-Version Family of Apps, we've seen over 130 million devices, people downloading, and 130 million in one year and we are on track to hit one billion devices by late next year. Come on somebody, one billion with a B, people engaging with God's Word because of you. How we thank God for you, because of the way God is using you, one little church and people all over the world to get God's Word out. We got a vision for God's Word.

We've got a vision. We've got a vision. And if you want to help me out with it, we have a vision to get God's word to every word. Everyone, everywhere, every day. Say it with me. We have a vision to get God's word to everyone, everywhere, every day. One more time for the people and back. We have a vision by God, for God, for the glory of God to get his word to everyone, everywhere, and every day.

Can you believe we get to be a part of sharing the Word of God with people all over the world? Because of you, the living word is touching lives all over. Let me introduce you to an amazing staff member. She is one of everybody's favorite. Britton Bill, she's married to her husband. They both joined our staff 12 years ago. Britain's husband, Isaiah, is the campus pastor at Life Church Jinks. Shout out to the Jinks campus.

And for those of you all over the world at Life Church Online, we love you. We thank God for you. We thank God for the hundreds of you who volunteer leading small groups who are engaged. And so you will recognize our Life Church online communicator. She also serves as the ministry leader to Life Kids. Would you please help me welcome the one and only, Pastor Britton Bill? Thank you, Pastor Craig. It is such an honor to be here with you today.

And did you know that Life Church is a part of something truly revolutionary happening in the prison system because of your generosity? We get to partner with God Behind Bars, one of our Life Church mission partners to reach one of the most unreached people groups in the United States and that's those who are incarcerated. So let me paint this picture for you right now. So on over half a million secure devices,

prison inmates are able to access life church messages 24-7 whenever they want, but not only that, they're invited to write letters to a team of volunteers right here at our church. Letters back and forth over a 16-month, period of time where they're connected to someone who is praying for them, who is walking alongside of them and sharing hope with them every single letter. So because of you, these men and women who are often cut off completely from the outside world, they're experiencing something

profound. They are hearing about a God who loves them. They're receiving encouragement, being connected to the church, and most of all, they are learning that no matter their past, they can have a new future. And I'm obviously. honor to share just one of those stories with you today. And this is a letter from Ted. You see, Ted's story is one of deep pain, but also of miraculous transformation. So in this letter, right here, Ted talks about how the pain started for him really early on in life when his father told him that he was a mistake, that he shouldn't even be here, followed by his mother abandoning him at the age of five to never return again. And as you can imagine, Ted began to look for ways to cope with this pain.

And unfortunately, it was unhealthy ways that led him down a path of destruction that eventually landed him in prison where he's now been serving over 20 years. And in this letter that he wrote to our church, he described how that spiral of destruction just continued to happen during his sentence. He said this right here, that every day of my sentence, I felt deeper and deeper. into an abyss of despair and sorrow. I just didn't have any hope left. I finally reached a point where I felt I was of no use to anyone, especially God.

My life has been nothing but abuse, loneliness, and rejection. At my lowest point, I decided no one would even miss me if I was gone. But who knows that our God reaches the unreachable And in that time, amen. In that time, God began to speak to Ted when he opened up the Pando app one day. And he saw a message from Life Church that said, does God still love me? And while he was listening to that message, he says it's as if God was speaking directly to him through Pastor Craig. And for the very first time, he believed that his past, his wounds, his pain no longer had to define him, that he could have a new future.

He said that because of Jesus, he found new hope that day. And we celebrate that with Ted. Amen. Amen. And at the bottom of this letter, church, he wanted to share something with you. At the bottom of this, he wrote, thank you for saving my life. I pray that God uses you to touch someone else who's living on the edge.

And I hope to one day be accepted as a part of the Life Church family. And Ted, Ted, I know that you're watching right now. And on behalf of our family, I want you to know you're not just a part of the Life Church family. You are a part of the family of God because the old has gone. The new has come. And we celebrate your new life in Jesus Christ. And here's the thing. This is just one of the hundreds and hundreds of stories we could have shared, even thousands,

because so far this year, through Life Church messages being played in prisons all over, Ted is just one of 2,750 people who have surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ. Yes. And every single one of these letters is prayed over. It's responded to. And a team of over 100 volunteers from our church are walking alongside people, providing hope and encouragement to those who are incarcerated. And each of these letters is a testament to the power of your generosity at

work. So in Matthew 25, Jesus says, I was in prison and you visited me. Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me. So I believe one day when we stand before Jesus, he will say to us, he will say to you, thank you for visiting me while I was in prison. Because every time you give, every time you pray, every time you serve and write a letter, lives like Ted's are being transformed. Thank you so much. So what you do to the least of these, you're doing to Jesus. And I think one more time, I think as our church family and people all over the world, we should just tell Ted that we love them. Come on, church. Ted, we love you. Thank God for you. And if someone else is in a place like you were right now, you feel hopeless, there's always hope

in Jesus. There's always hope in Jesus. There's always hope in Jesus. And you heard now about a couple of mission partners and the last one, God behind bars. What I want to tell you, you because of you, we have mission partners at all 45 life church locations. And instead of going out and trying to do the work of Jesus and create ministries on our own, what we find is we find the best of the best in different areas. And then we send them very generous financial gifts and we send them people. So we send them financial resources and we send them human resources of spirit-filled, powerful believers who come in and serve. So not just money, but we send them people. And we send them people because we believe that's the best way to impact lives all over the world. When you give

here and when you serve, you are helping impact 158 different local mission partners and communities around the world. 158. Anything that you can think of to help the under resource, to help the hurting, to help the broken, you are giving to make a difference. Every single time you give to local and global missions. You're not just giving financial resources, but we are sending people to work with the best Jesus glorifying, live transforming ministries around the world. And that's why there are people, just like Ted, thanking God, because of you every single day. At our church, we love to say this. You can say it with me if you know it. We will lead the way with irrational generosity because we truly believe it's more blessed to give than to receive. Let's try it. We will lead the way with

irrational generosity because we truly believe it's more blessed to give than to receive. Well, back in 2006, we decided to give away as much as possible to serve churches and pastors around the world. We took everything that you could imagine to give to them from sermons, videos, curriculum, blueprints, on and on, kids' videos, student videos, messages, transcripts, to help pastors be more effective at their ministry for free, no strings attached. We scrub life church off of it, say take it, use it, be blessed, and reach more people. And I want to introduce you to one of those pastors, Pastor Jeff, from Restore Church in Yankton, South Dakota. I'm Pastor Jeff. I'm a church planter right here in Yankton, South Dakota.

This was the hardest thing we've ever done, and those early years were probably the hardest years of our lives. We were under-resourced. We had a very small and inexperienced team. We were very inexperienced. I was the tech guy. I'm the camera guy. I'm the preaching guy. I'm like the problem solve for everything because we just didn't have the talent to take care of everything that needed taken care of. I got writers block. I couldn't. I couldn't write a sermon. I spent literally 80 hours in this week doing nothing but trying to write my sermon. And I couldn't. And I spent my whole night in my office until 6 a.m. And I had a blank screen with no sermon. And so I just walked up to the pulpit. And I opened my Bible and I made something up. And it was terrible. One of my leaders resigned and left a letter on my desk and said, hey, I'm done.

I'm not doing this anymore. I absolutely hit the most destructive brick wall. I was looking online for ministry resources because I needed help. And praise God, one of the first results was just open network. I think it's called a hero banner. And it literally changed my life. They said, don't let sermon prep steal your ministry. And I stopped and I thought for a minute. I'm like, I've never thought about sermon prep as hindering me from living out my calling. I can find myself getting lost in the variety of resources available. I've really enjoyed looking at blueprints. There's stuff for our hospitality team. Something happened to our ministry more so than me just having access to some of the best sermons in the world. I actually became a better preacher for it.

We've grown by hundreds of people and everything we do is so much help. behind this resource is this incredible church and this incredible organization who legitimately just has a heart to help me do ministry more effectively. So thank you for giving to Life Church because what you give helps stories like mine become possible. Come on, Pastor Jeff, we're honored to partner with you and everybody at Restore Church. Pretty cool. Whenever Pastor Jeff started using Life Church resources, they had about 80 people coming to his church, which is about the median size church in the U.S. They started about 80.

Now, they've grown from 80 people to this month. They just had a record of 470 people at the church. And we celebrate that with you, Pastor Jeff. And I just want to say, if you want to know what kind of impact you're having, they email in to get free resources. And because of your generosity, we have served 1,037,602 pastors and church leaders come on all over the world. People are thanking God because of you.

I want to introduce Pastor Heather to you today. Pastor is the campus pastor at Life Church in Lenoxa, Kansas. She's been part of the church all the way back to college in Stillwater, Oklahoma shout out to the Stillwater campus. She met her husband, Aaron, while she was serving in Life Kids. So, if you're not married today, and you hope to be married, today be a good day to serve in life kids. I'm just saying. And she is an incredible spiritual leader and pastor. Please help me welcome, Pastor Heather.

Thank you, Pastor Craig. I want you to imagine receiving this prayer card on a Sunday morning. I was handed this card and it said, I left you a letter from student. And over the next four weeks, I received letter after letter. after letter addressed to me from student. And I want you to feel the weight of what was inside of these letters. One of the letters, the first thing read, I know that I am never going to be good enough for anyone. I've never felt more alone. I just can't take it anymore. The next one, I don't know how to trust God when I've been feeling like this for a long time. Why hasn't he helped me? The next one, I was saying alive because I thought that maybe you would get better,

but now I'm at the breaking point, realizing all the pain, it wasn't worth the fighting. I don't really feel anything anymore. And then this final letter, I honestly don't know why God is still keeping me alive and waking me up each morning because this is hell. The next letter I received was the final letter I would get and it said, I'm sorry my mom will be calling you because I'm gone. You'll imagine what the next, those weeks, weeks looked like. We had a team of prayer warriors because what we realized that day is we are fighting for someone's life on behalf of them. We are fighting for their life. We are matching handwriting. We would take prayer cards we had received. We'd say what T's looked the same, what A's look the same. And the

student changed their handwriting every letter. They didn't want to be found, but they wanted to be seen. And we learned that day, that final letter, that student, her name is Kate. And that was the day we were no longer fighting for her life. We got to fight for her heart. And for weeks and months to come, Kate would come into our office because she didn't want to do school by herself remotely at home. She'd come into our office and that's where she got to build community. She began serving and realized the church is a place that she can belong before she

believe that she can wrestle with doubts. She can have questions because God meets her in that very moment through the church community from people just like you. And here's the best part is after all of this wrestling, there was a Sunday morning at 1130 in the front row of the first seat on this row. Y'all look down and Kate's hands high in the sky when she got to accept Jesus to be her Lord and Savior. And it was from that moment it got real fun because then Kate decided She's going to go public with her faith. She got baptized. Y'all, the room was erupting because people knew what God was doing in her life. She found a mentor. Her name was Emma. And even in the journey, just because she had said yes to Jesus, it didn't mean the rest of it. Hard wasn't over. She needed her people. So Emma, she would text her, hey, I don't know if I can do another day. Kate, yes, you can. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. It was the people. She started serving in every capacity that she could. If there was a role, she showed up. She grew. She grew. enough confidence in who God had called her to be that in our switch ministry, she stood on stage at the end of one of our services, and she actually gave to give the call to Christ, and people

gave their lives to Christ when she presented the gospel. And then we got to send her out, and she's done a life internship at our Stillwater location, and it's so cool to see how God has worked in her life. In this coming March, y'all, we are celebrating three years where Kate has not harmed herself or tried to take her life. Three years of freedom. So church, I want to go back to Kate's statements that she said earlier. The first one, I've never felt more alone. And if you're hearing this, I want you to put your name in here. I want you to know, scripture says that you were to fear not, for I am with you. But do not be dismayed because I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right.

hand. The next thing is, why hasn't he helped me? It's because God is our refuge and he is our strength and he is our ever-present help in a time of need. The last thing is why is God still keeping me alive? Kate, I want you to know the reason you are alive today is because many are the plans in a person's heart, but it's the Lord's purpose that will always prevail. And church, I ask Kate, what do you want me to share with the church? Because of you, what's next? Her words are too beautiful. to come from me. So we please welcome Kate to the stage to join me. So Kate, would you share with our church because of you, how have they impacted your life? Because of you, I am alive, not only physically, but spiritually and eternally. Every aspect of this church has played a part in me having a relationship

with Jesus and hope for the future. So Kate, I'm proud of you, girl. So church, I hope you hear this. because of you people just like kate they are wrestling with doubt they're wrestling with pain they come to a place just like our church where they get to feel welcomed and they find hope because of you every time you show up to serve you give you smile you give a welcome you show up consistently because of that you are a safe place for people to hear the good news of who jesus christ is and what he can do in their life and church because of you people just like Kate from all backgrounds and stories who are wrestling, they will find God and they will find life. So thank you, church. Because of you, because of you, because of you, people like Kate and people all over the world are thanking God. When you give, when you serve on the host team,

when you lead a life group, when you serve in life kids, when you're an example to the teens and switch, when you invite people, when you welcome people who feel far from God, God is changing lives. And just this year, just this year, because, because of you and the work of the Holy Spirit in people's lives. We've seen 45,473 people from across the world say yes to the grace of Jesus, and that is a very, very big number, but every number has a name, and every name has a story, and every story matters to God. because of you, lives are being transformed all over the world.

And I want you to hear it. I want you to feel it. I want you to believe it because of you. People are thanking God. So, Father, we pray that by the power of your Holy Spirit, you would serve us up to be your church. Today and all of our churches, I'm just going to say right now, if you're not serving somewhere,

if you're not giving faithfully, if you're not praying, you're missing out. If you recognize you're not maybe as involved as you could be and you want to take a step into the action, I'm going to ask you right now, just boldly, don't think about it, just raise your hand, raise them up right now. I'm not serving like I could be it. Raise them up right now.

I'm not giving like I could. I'm just raise them right now. I'm not praying, I'm not inviting. Lift up your hands today. Hands in all of our churches online. Just type in the comment section. I want to be even more faithful. And Father, thank you that your Holy Spirit is stirring up.

the gifts within your church to empower us to be the body of Christ. We don't just go to church. We are the church. The church doesn't exist for us. We are the church and we exist for the world. Stir up the passion to use what you've given us to be your church. As you keep praying today at all of our churches, some of you would recognize you don't know where you stand with God.

And this isn't just because of you. This is because of Jesus, because of Jesus, because of who he is. He is the son of God who never sinned. He was perfect in every way. Jesus came for the broken. He came for the lost. He came for the sinners. He didn't come to condemn the world.

He came to save the world, and he gave his life on a cross. Three days later, God raised him from the dead so that anyone, and this includes you, who calls on him would be saved. Someone like Ted, it's time to be safe. Someone like Curtis, it's time to be safe. Someone like Kate, it's time to be safe. You don't know where you stand with God. When you call on the name of Jesus, he hears your prayers.

He forgives your sins. You may feel suicidal. He'll give you a reason to live. You may feel guilty. He will forgive your sins, no matter what you're feeling when you call on Jesus. He hears your prayers and forgives your sins today. And all of our churches, those of you online, you recognize you need His grace. Step away from your sin and step toward Jesus and say, yes, I give you my life.

That's your prayer today. Lift your hands high right now. All of the place, lift your hands high right now. Praise God for those that are coming to faith in Christ online. Type in the comments section, I'm surrendering my life. to Jesus. I'm surrendering. And we have, as we have people today from all over the world, would you pray aloud with them, pray Heavenly Father. Forgive all of my sins. I surrender to Jesus. To be my Savior. To be my Lord.

Fill me with your spirit so I could know you and serve you. My life is not my own. I give it all to you. thank you for new life you have all of mine in Jesus name I pray because somebody worship God right now thank God your praise to God come on church come on church come on church