Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Defeat Your Negative Thoughts

Episode Date: February 28, 2021

ABOUT THIS MESSAGEOur thoughts are powerful. They change our perspective, impact our decisions, and influence our habits. But what do we do when we become trapped by our thoughts, unable to escape negative and unhealthy thinking? Let’s learn what it means to take our thoughts captive and win the war in our minds.Learn more about Winning the War in Your Mind: https://www.life.church/media/winning-the-war-in-your-mind/Start the Winning the War in Your Mind Bible Plan: www.go2.lc/warWE’RE OPENTo ensure safety at all of our Life.Church locations, our weekend services have been redesigned to create a sanitary, touchless environment that allows for physical distancing. Learn more about everything we're doing to keep you safe and how you can help by using hand sanitizer, washing your hands often, and more: https://www.life.church/updatesFind a time and attend a service with us: http://www.life.church/locationsNEXT STEPSHave you made a decision to follow Jesus? You may be wondering what’s next on your journey. We want to help! Let us guide you to your next steps in your walk with Christ: https://www.life.church/nextABOUT 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.church. Find locations, videos, and more info about us at https://www.life.church or download the Life.Church app at https://www.life.church/app. FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/life.churchTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/lifechurchCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIGYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIIdiIO-Y20hRW9niR0CA8AFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/craiggroeschel#lifechurch #craiggroeschel Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I wonder how many of you are in the middle of a pretty decent life for the most part, but still find yourself complaining a lot? Why is that? That our lives can be pretty special most of the time, and our minds can drift to the things that we don't like or the things we want to complain about. What do we know about our minds? Our mind is a battlefield. And most of life's battles are one or one.

lost in the mind. In other words, the life that we have in so many different aspects is a result of the thoughts that we think. What comes into your mind tends to come out in your life. If you have a negative mind, it's almost impossible to have a positive life when your mind is consumed with negative thoughts. I want to review today as we start our message on my book, Winning the War in your mind. I want to review a key thought from 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 3 through 5. When the Apostle Paul said this, he said, for though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, our weapons, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. What is a stronghold. It's a wrong pattern. It's a wrong pattern.

of thinking. Many of us are held hostage by the lies that we believe. He says, we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive. Somebody say, we take captive. Type it in the chat. We take captive. What do we do? We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. The title of today's message is defeat your negative thoughts. And with that, let's go before God in prayer. Father, we ask that by the power of your word and the presence of your spirit, you would renew our minds with truth.

Demolish every stronghold, every argument, every pretension in our minds, God, that sets itself up against the knowledge of truth. Give us the power, God, to grab the negative, hurtful, toxic lies. capture them and replace them with truth. God, give us your mind that we can live according to your will. We pray this in Jesus' name, and everybody said, amen, amen. If you've been with us over the past couple of weeks, we've been talking about the power of the mind.

As God created the mind, the mind is so incredibly powerful. And we talked about the reality that it's incredibly complex, but we have something that's called neural pathways. What's so interesting is every time you think a thought, you're actually creating patterns or pathways in your brain. And the more often you think a thought, the easier it is to think that thought again. I want to expand on that idea today and introduce what will be a some idea to some of you. I want to talk to you about what people call cognitive biases, or it's often called a mental filter. What is a cognitive bias? A very simple definition for a cognitive bias is a mistake in reasoning

based on personal experiences or preferences. It's a mistake in reasoning based on what you've experienced or what you prefer. We could call it a mental filter or a mental framework in your life. In other words, if you grew up in a context and you had something really bad happened to you, a lot of times you have a framework of thinking or a filter through which you might see a situation inaccurately. For example, maybe, unfortunately, there are many of you that grew up around very abusive men. And so because you were hurt and abused by men, now a lot of times when you see men, all men aren't hurtful and all of them aren't abusive. But because of what you endured, your filter tends to shape how you see men.

And because of what happened to you, oftentimes you may make an inaccurate judgment about someone around you. Or, for example, you might have grown up with parents who said bad things about wealthy people. Like all wealthy people are bad. They're evil, they're whatever. And then you find yourself starting to succeed

financially later in life, and you might feel guilty or ashamed. And it's not that it's bad, but your filter shapes how you see. see it. The filters you have shape how you see life. What's interesting is if you change the filter, it often changes how you feel. Change the filter changes the feel. And we know that if you're posting a photo that's not very good on social media, but you change the filter. How many of you have ever done that before? I liked this picture that I had of Amy and me until one of my kids got a hold of it and change the filter.

And when you change the filter, it completely changes the feel, right? It's same, not just in a photo, but it's very true in your life. Change the filter, it changes the feel. What is a cognitive bias? A cognitive bias is what we might call a default filter.

It's when our brain is pre-wired to think in a certain way or to pre-wired to interpret a situation, even if our interpret isn't completely accurate. This is why two different people can respond totally differently to the exact same situation. It's not the facts that are different. What is it?

It's the filter. For example, you might be at your workplace and your supervisor might go and give the exact same feedback in the exact same way, almost in the exact same time, to do two different people. and the way they receive the feedback can be very, very different. One person gets offended. Why are you telling me that? You don't know how valuable I am.

I don't even like you anyway. Who do you think you are giving me that feedback? You don't know how much I bring to this company? And the next person with the same exact feedback. And a different filter may say, well, thank you. That was really helpful. Now I can do a better job. I really appreciate the fact that you valued me.

Thank you for that feedback. It's not the facts that are different. What is it? It's the filter. Type that in the chat. It's the filter. Two different people can walk into a church, two people together, and one can walk in convinced that all Christians are hypocrites. I hate the music. This place is stupid. I never want to come back. And right next to that person can be someone else who experiences the very same thing that says these people are amazing. They're so loving. I love the music. Maybe I'm here because God wants me here. It's not the facts that are different. What is it? It's the filter.

depending on what news sources you consume. You can read or watch some news sources, and you can be convinced that the vaccine is the answer to every problem this year. Or if you read different sources, you can be convinced it's the most dangerous thing that will kill you, and it probably has a chip in it to track you, right? It's not the, I know I'm getting into dangerous territory, but just work with me, okay?

I know your side is right, whatever it is. You're right, I know you're right, because I'm not informed, right. Okay, you're right. It's not the facts that are different. What is it? It's the filter. It's what you take in. You can see examples of this even through scripture. There's a powerful one if you want to read about this in the Old Testament. It's in Numbers chapter 13 and 14 when Moses sent 12 spies out to explore the land. Twelve of them went out, saw the same exact thing, but the reports were entirely different. It wasn't the facts that were different. What was it?

it was the filter. Two of them came back and said, oh my gosh, it's beautiful, it's amazing, it's perfect. God has given us us, let's go take the land. Ten came back, which is funny to me that it was 10 out of 12 that were negative, almost perhaps representative of hopefully not our church, but a lot of places out there where it's way more easy to be negative, afraid, and critical than it is to fight for a positive attitude. Ten came back and said, this is dangerous.

The land devours people, which is really funny. The land devours people and their giants. And we are like grasshoppers in their eyes. What I promise you is nobody went up and interviewed one of these giants. What happened is their filter changed their perception of how they felt, and they felt like grasshoppers in the eyes. It wasn't the facts that were different. What was it?

It was the filter. But it's not just the filter that matters. It's also the frame. You can be in the very same situation, and how you frame something determines how you see it. And I want to give you a tool that I've worked with my counselor on that's called reframing. Let's adapt a tool called reframing, and I'm going to give you a simple definition of reframing. What does it mean to reframe a situation or reframe a relationship? Reframing is creating a different way of looking at a situation or relationship by changing its meaning.

It's simply creating a different way of interpreting or looking at a situation or a relationship by changing its meaning. And I'll give you an example of how you can reframe a day. Let's say you wake up and you determine ahead of time, this is going to be a bad day. If you frame a day like this, you can say very easily, this is going to be a hard day. I got so much to do today. I work with these people that drive me crazy today. I don't know how I'm going to get it all done.

I'm so overwhelmed. I'm so tired. Life is hard. Life is bad. Oh my gosh, what am I doing? My husband driving me crazy. These kids, why do we have all these kids? I'm sick of my stupid car.

I hate the people I work with. I hate my job. The very same day, you can have a bad day. if you frame it the wrong way. If instead you take the exact same situation and you reframe it, you may wake up and say, oh, I've got a lot going today,

but I'm so thankful my God is with me. I'm thankful that he's for me. I'm thankful he's given me a job. I'm thankful for my old clunker that gets me to this job. Even though some people drive me crazy at work, I'm actually thankful for them because they're pretty good people.

I believe today's going to be a good day. We're going to grind it out. We're going to get a lot done. It's not the facts that change, but it's how you frame it. I'm afraid that there are so many people that start to frame even God by saying, I don't like what's going on, God, rather than looking for the goodness of God in the day. It's not just the facts that are different.

It's often the filter or it's often the frame. And what do we know about what goes on in life? You can't control what happens to you, but you can control how you frame it. You can't control what happens to you, but the good news is you can control how you frame it. What I want to do is slow this down for just a moment and ask you to think about your life right now. Think even about the expectations that you often have in your mind. And I wonder how many of you wanted something in life, but right now you're experiencing the opposite.

You thought that by this time I would be doing such and such, or I would be in this place, or would have this, or I would have accomplished this, or I would have had this relationship. And you really, really wanted something, but instead of achieving or accomplishing or having or being where you wanted, instead you're maybe at the exact opposite. Maybe some of you dreamed about having a great marriage, and that's exactly what you wanted.

And you prepared for it, and you prayed about it, and you were pure, and you worked towards. with everything in you and you married your sweetheart and then years later you ended up where you never wanted to be brokenhearted and divorced. Maybe for you, you went to college and studied and got the degree and felt like you were prepared to do something that would be meaningful. And now instead of being in a job that you love, you're in an unrelated job that seems like it's way beneath your education and you wonder, how in the world did I get here? Maybe for you it was that you got to a point in your life where you thought I'd be married or I'd be financially

out of debt or I'd be able to travel or I'd have a ministry or I'd be making a difference or I'd be, I would have started my business or I'd be leading the business or my kids would have been better off and you find yourself waking up going, why am I not where I wanted to be? And you're so confused by it. If you ever wake up and think this isn't what I wanted, I wanted the exact opposite. The Apostle Paul, knows exactly what you feel like. In fact, his story is incredibly emotional to me because he had a heart for God

and only wanted to serve God and only wanted to please God. And he felt called to go to Rome to preach the gospel. And he knew if he could reach the people in Rome, that would be the strategic place to help the gospel spread all over the world. So his dream, his bucket list,

his top prayer list, his greatest desire, his calling was to go to Rome to preach And instead of being in Rome preaching, he finds himself in Rome as a prisoner, locked up in-house arrest, awaiting possible execution, everything that he wanted. And he got the exact opposite. Paul could have framed the situation in one of different ways. He could have framed it on the negative side,

and this is what he would have said if he had framed it that way. from Philippians chapter 1 verses 12 and 13 from the NWV version. NWV stands for the new whiner's version. He could have said this. He could have said, Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what's happened to me really sucks. As a result of all the hell I've been through,

I'm quitting life group and I've never going back to church. That's what he could have said in the NWV. Now, for those of you that are new to church, I just want you to know that's not a real version of the Bible. I just feel like I should say that. You're like on your U version about where's my NWV? I can't find it. And where's my favorite version?

Okay, that's not real. What he did, though, is he refrained it. And I want to read you the verse. This is what the verse says. He said, I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me, although it may really look bad to most people, it is actually served to advance. The gospel. He said this, give me the next verse. He said, as a result, it's become clear to those in the palace guard. Guess what? Even though it looks like I'm in bad shape, when I reframe it, it's clear to

everyone else that I'm actually in chains for Christ. What's happening? I'm locked up to a Roman guard. Eight hours, every eight hours, I get a new one. Who do you think the real prisoner is here? I'm getting to preach to a captive audience. And I get it. get a new influential person every eight hours who has to sit there and listen to my eight hour sermon on how good Jesus says verse 14 he says this and because of my chains most of the brothers and sisters have become even more confident in the Lord and guess what it looks bad but because I'm in chains they are daring to proclaim the gospel even more boldly without fear it's not the facts that are different is how you frame it. And what I want to do today is I want to talk to you

about how you can reframe your story and your relationships. Because what I know right now, many of you, you've got a battle going on in your mind. Your life may have some complications. Guess what? We all do. We all have stuff. Every single one of us. There hadn't been a day without some stuff. It's stuff in your family. It's stuff with your kids. It's stuff with your neighbors. It's stuff with the people you work with, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff. Bad doctor reports stuff, bad behavior, stuff, fighting with your spouse, stuff, financial problem, stuff, fear, stuff, bad news on the news, stuff, bad news in your family, stuff, bad news in your extended family,

stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff. And so often, so much of life is generally pretty decent, but often it's the small part of the stuff that ends up taking up, out of God's perfect will. I want to talk to you about reframing your story and relationships, and I'm going to give you three specific tools that can help us renew our minds, win the war in our minds so God can change our thinking, which will change our life. Let me give you three really simple tools. The first thing is, number one, is I want to encourage you occasionally to thank God for what didn't happen.

To thank God for what didn't happen. I'll give you an example of this. There was a 20-year-old girl that said, mom and dad, I've got really bad news to tell you. I need you to sit down. And she said, let me tell the whole story, and I just want you to stay calm, but it's really bad news.

I went out to a bar. I met a guy. We drank too much. He came back to my apartment. We hooked up. And I'm embarrassed to say I'm pregnant. The good news is that his probation will be over in a year, year and he's going to start looking for a job once he's out of rehab and he'll consider marrying me

but since we can't afford to get married now he's just going to move in right now and she let it hang for a moment then she said actually none of that's true the truth is i got a d on my chemistry exam and i just wanted you to know it could be a whole lot worse there may be a time where some of you ought to thank God for what didn't happen in your kid's life, right? I don't know what it would be, but maybe you missed your goal at work and you had a target so you could get your bonus. And you ended up not getting your bonus. And you feel devastated by that.

But you can thank God in a very challenged and compromised economy that you didn't actually lose your job. And suddenly, you're reframing a situation whether than just focusing on what's wrong, you can actually see what's right. you might get in a car wreck. One of my kids, not too long ago, we get a little fender bender. Oh my gosh, you're going to be expensive.

And there's insurance hassle, they're a deductible, and we're not going to be in a car. Or you can say, you know what? Thank God nobody got hurt. Thank God that it wasn't that big of a deal. And the whole scheme of things, there are some things that are a big deal,

but so often it's things that aren't that end up taking us off. And if you'll take a step back every now and then and look with a broader perspective, instead of focusing on what you hate, may just change the frame and say, God, I thank you for what didn't happen. There are so many good things, I'm not going to let this one category take me off of being encouraged by your will. Thank God for what didn't happen. The second thing you can do is practice what we call pre-framing.

Pre-framing, deciding how you'll frame a situation before you engage in the situation. Why does this matter? because our thoughts or frames often shape what we experience. If you go in and say, this meeting is going to be horrible, I hate these people, it's so dull, you think you're going to have a good meeting, you don't have a bad meeting. If you go in instead and say, you know what, we're going to do our best, we're going to be productive, we're going to enjoy the people that we're around, it's going to change.

Oh, we're going out, I hate all this, I hate these stupid events, it's going to be a pain. You know what? I'm thankful. I'm with some people that I love. We're going to have a good time. the way you frame it often changes how you perceive it. And I'll give you an example of how I reframe to failure. Back in high school, one of the sports I played was tennis,

and I've got some pictures of evidently all I knew how to do was hit a backhand in the pictures. But my sophomore year, I played number one singles for a little Ardmore, Oklahoma. And in the state finals, I was in the quarterfinals. I was playing against the number four ranked seed, a guy named Mandy Ochoa, who was a legend. So I'm an unranked, unseeded nobody against a senior. I'm a sophomore, and he was a legend.

And somehow we split sets, one set to him, one set to me. In the third set, I was up five games to one, 40 love against the number four ranked player in the state. Big crowd, massive crowd of like 12 people gathered to watch this potential upset. If I won any of the three next points, they're called match points. You win any one, and I win the match. Well, I didn't win those.

He went on a dues. I ended up having seven match points in the third set. I was up 5-1, 40-love with seven match points. I lost them all, and Mandy Ochoa came back to beat me seven, five in the third set. Oh. And I developed a reputation and a nickname called Grochoka. If Groschelle gets in a tight match, he's going to tighten up and he's going to choke. And I started to own a very negative label.

Thankfully, I had a great mentor and a coach who sometime later got up into my business. And essentially, he didn't use this term, but essentially he said, we're going to reframe that. What I want you to realize is you've been in some of the tightest matches around. And what have you learned? I said, I learned what doesn't work. He said, what doesn't work? Whenever you get tense, whenever you don't hit out. So what do you do in a tight match?

He said, he said, you go for it, you bring more into it, you let loose, you bring your, you bring your energy, you, you excel, and you bring your best, you bring your all. And he said, what I want you to do is essentially reframe your situation because of your experience now, you are prepared to become a great pressure player. That very simple little thing, I'm telling you, I was just a kid. It has stayed with me to this day. Hey, I may have, I may have choked in some tight situations, but listen to me, because of my experience, God has enabled me to be great under pressure in the most complicated leadership situations.

When I visualize how I will lead, I never see myself choking, never see myself failing. I see myself walking in with the power of God, his spirit within me, completely confident. I will lead well. because I'm a pressure player. I've already pre-framed it. Some of you, you're pre-framing your failure before you ever get there. Take whatever shortcoming you has,

learn from it, pre-frame it, and walk in believing that God will enable you to be successful. What can you do? You can thank God for what didn't happen. You can pre-frame a situation. And the third thing is, you can look for God's goodness.

You can look for God's goodness, because I promise you, you will always find what you're looking for. If you look for the good, you can find good. If you look for the bad, you'll find bad. If you want to see what's wrong every single day, you can find what's wrong every single day. If you want to not like people, you can find a ton of reasons not like people. But if you want to look for God, if you want to see faith,

if you want to see the best, you can. It's just like the difference between a vulture and a hummingbird. What does a vulture find every day? Vulture flies around. What is a vulture find? Dead stuff. Dead things. Roadkill. But what is a hummingbird find? Every day the hummingbird finds sweet things. I promise you, you'll always find whatever you're looking for. If you want to see what's wrong, what's bad, what's not working, what's wrong with the world, you can live a really depressed, negative life. but instead, if you want to look for where God is working, you can see he's still on the throne, and he's still good, and he's still powerful, and he still answers prayers.

It's called cognitive reframing. And a good therapist will do a tool with you. Cognitive reframing is empowering you to decide the meaning of an event. You decide. I'm going to take it up a level and say this. Let's not just do cognitive reframing. framing where you decide, but let's let Jesus help you decide the meaning of a situation. Let's let Jesus frame it for you. And I'll show you what this means to me. Amy and I were at an

event recently. I spoke at a pastor's event with, there were probably a hundred, 125 pastors of what would be considered the most prominent churches in the country. Many of you would know, many of the pastors who were there. It was interesting is almost to every single one when we talked privately, they said last year was the worst year ever. And their spouses talked to Amy on, it was the worst year ever.

And there was just this heaviness and this sense from some almost of hopelessness of how do we recover in the church world. And I looked back over last year and I've had those thoughts and every single one of you in your own way had your own version of this. And so I don't want to pretend like my year was worse than yours,

but you had some version. My version was, you know, quarantined as like one of the first people in the country back in February, and then the church shut down. And there's this massive fear of like, what do you do when you can't meet? How do you even navigate through that for almost three months? Then there was the, well, if you reopen,

you're dangerous, was what some of you thought. If you don't reopen, you got no faith is what others have you thought. And then there was a whole mask thing, like meaning if you wear a mask, you're a flaming liberal. If you don't wear a mask, you're dangerous to the world. And I mean, we're talking about hatred from Christians. And then there was the growing awareness of the racial tension. And even with the purest of intentions of trying to love people well, it doesn't seem like any of us got that exactly right.

Then the political divide, which we all know so well. And here we find ourselves in the middle of a very difficult situation, look and going, this was the worst year ever. Or, was it? Because when I started looking back through my old pictures on my phone, I didn't see any of that bad stuff. And I'll show you just a small glimpse of what I saw. I was one of the first people quarantined.

I was exposed to the virus in Germany and February, came back, and for 14 days, didn't see Amy. This is the closest I got to her, is this photo. This is me, the guy in the right down the bottom with a mask on and a shirt over his head. For some reason, I thought that would help the virus

from jumping across the yard to get her. And I'm telling you right now is, it was the most intimate, spiritual, meaningful time with Amy. We FaceTime and talked from across the house, and I fell more in love with her, not being with her. And it's amazing how much I loved her. Then my married daughters were quarantined

back in March and April. I don't know what they were doing, but somehow we ended up getting these two amazing little blessings. And then at church, we had some restructuring, which enabled my son-in-law Luke to get promoted to a youth pastor job at his church in the greater Tulsa area. And Anne and Luke bought their first house, and they didn't have a baby. They had a dog. And then this doesn't mean anything, but Amy learned to cut hair, which I thought was funny. But I got more time with my kids. And instead of working out in the gym, I worked out with.

with my sons and had more time with them. And then I had what I call Adventures with Joy, where we went all over the place and we found some sort of a skull here. We're not sure if it's a cowhead or a dinosaur head. We think it's probably a dinosaur head. But as I look back over the last year, it's easy at first class to think it was the worst year ever.

But actually, I see so many incredible blessings when I reframe it. And when you look at the church that had to close down for months and yet, and then attendance says like half of what it used to be, but somehow in the middle of that, my God who is always faithful managed to see more people come to Jesus last year than any year previous. And now when I look back, it doesn't seem so bad. It doesn't seem so bad. it's reframing. In other words, if God is working in all things for good, then it's time to reject the unhealthy thoughts. Do away with those frames that tell you can't and you won't and

you're nothing and you're a failure and you're not smart and we're going to reframe it. And what we're doing is we're not passively receiving circumstances, but we're actively interpreting it. And guess what? We're not interpreting the goodness of God through our circumstances, but we're interpreting our circumstances through the goodness of God. What has happened has actually served to advance the gospel because you cannot control what happens to you, but you can control how you frame it. Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And when you know the truth, the truth will set you free. So, Father, we ask today that by your power and your spirit, you would help us reframe some things going on in our lives right now. God renew our mind. Any area, God, we're filled with a stuff. We're confused. We're hurting. We're disappointed. We're afraid. God, help us to see you in it. All of our churches as you're praying today, those who say, yes, God, help me maybe reframe and see your goodness. Would you lift up your hands right now? You need to reframe something. Father, I thank you that you're working. God, even as people are

watching online, God renew our minds with truth. I know there are real significant burdens that people are facing right now. Real significant burdens. And God, even in the middle of those trials, I pray we could experience your grace that sustains us, your strength that carries us, and your spirit, God, that comforts us. Help us to see you even when we're hurting God. Give us the power to see your goodness. to sense your presence and to do your will, God, and all that we do. As you keep praying today at all of our different churches

and those of you that are watching online, some of you may say, well, I really don't see God working in any area of my life. And if I could submit to you, maybe it's because you don't have God in your life in a real way. You don't have a real relationship with God. Let me tell you about how much he loves you.

He loves you so much that he became one of you. He didn't shout his love from heaven, but he showed his love on earth. He became one of us in the person of Jesus. It was God in human form, God in the flesh. Jesus was without sin. He was perfect in every way.

And he's called the Lamb of God. He was the innocent sacrifice. He was the sinless one who went to the cross for the forgiveness of all of our sins. Jesus gave his life. and the power of God raised Jesus from the dead so that anyone, this includes you, it doesn't matter how dark your life feels,

how bad you've been, how much you've done wrong, anyone who calls on that name that is above every name, the name of Jesus. Your sins would be forgiven, and you would be made brand new. Today at all of our churches or watching online, those who say, I want that. What do we do? We're simply going to turn away from our old life.

We're going to repent of our sinfulness, and we're going to turn toward Jesus. We're going to call on Him. And when we do, he hears our prayers. He forgives our sins, and he makes us new today at all of our churches or online. Those who say, yes, Jesus, I want you. Yes, Jesus, save me.

Yes, I'm turning from my sins. I'm giving my life to you, Jesus. Today I surrender my life. If that's your prayer, lift your hands high now, all over the place and say, yes, that's me. I'm surrendering my life to Jesus. Those of you online, just type it in the chat. We'll celebrate with you.

I'm giving my life to Jesus. I'm giving my life to Jesus. And as we have people in countries that from around the world and all of our churches, finding new life in Christ, would you just pray with those around you in a moment? We're going to celebrate new birth through the power of Jesus. Just pray aloud. Pray Heavenly Father, please forgive me for all of my sins.

Change me. Fill me with your spirit and make me new. My life is not mine. I give it to you. change my mind, cleanse my heart, direct my steps. I surrender my life completely to you. Use me to show your love. In Jesus' name, I pray.

Could you celebrate big right now? Welcome those today, born into God's family.