Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Desperate for Hope | Book Club | Part 2

Episode Date: June 16, 2024

Do you feel held back by your past or stuck in the present? You’re desperate for hope—wanting to believe there’s good ahead. There is. God has so much in store for your life! ABOUT THIS MESSAGENo one has all the answers. That’s why we need diverse voices to help us grow. During Book Club, we’ll get fresh perspectives on living out our calling with confidence, purpose, and freedom.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/getprayerNEXT 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://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/appFIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/life.churchTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lifechurchYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LCNowCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIGYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/craiggroeschelFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@craiggroeschel#lifechurch #christinecaine #bookclub Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I don't know about you, but these are the most exciting times to be alive as a follower of Jesus on the earth. There is more opportunity to see people say because the world has lost its ever-loving minds. So people are desperate for hope and people are desperate for answers. And how many know that there is an answer and his name is Jesus. And he continues to give us life and hope. I want you to turn with me to the Gospel of Luke chapter 17 verse 20. If you're wondering about my accent, this is how King Charles wishes he could speak. English. This is what happens.

They put us on a ship as convict sent us down into the colonies and we refine the language. This is exactly how it happens. So we are in Luke 17, verse 20. It says being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come. He answered then the kingdom of God is not coming with something observable.

No one will say, see here or there, for you see the kingdom of God is in your midst. Then he told the disciples, the days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the son of man, but you won't see it. They will say to you, see there or see here, don't follow or run after them. For as the lightning flashes from horizon to horizon and lights up the sky, so the son of man will be in his day. But first. Everyone say, but first. That sound a very American on every campus, but first.

Say with an Australian accent, but first. It is necessary. that he suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of man. People went on eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day Noah boarded the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. It would be the same as it was in the days of Lot. People went on eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building. But on the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur, rain from heaven and destroyed them all.

I bet you are so glad you've come to church today. You are like, this is awesome. I'm so glad I brought my Aunt Gertrude to church on this day. This is just getting better. It will be like that on the day the son of man is revealed on that day. A man on the house top whose belongings are in the house must not come down to get them. Likewise, the man who is in the field must not turn back. Remember, Lott's wife, whoever tries to make his life secure will lose it.

And whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you on that night, two will be in one bed. One will be taken and the other will be left. and I tell my husband regularly, I am not the one that's going to be left behind. You do you, but I'm not being left behind. Two women will be grinding grain together, one will be taken and the other left. Where Lord they asked him? He said to them where the corpse is, there also the vultures will be gathered.

This is the word of the Lord and you're wishing I had another word of the Lord today. I can see that. You know, here we have a text and, you know, it is called an eschatological text, big word, just meaning a text about the end times. And you're like, Christine, of course you're going to pull that out. We are living in such crazy times. And I mean, it has just been a very crazy last really four years. We've, we've had pandemics and we've had natural disasters and we've had wars and rumors of wars and more wars. And there seems to be so much economic instability and social instability and environmental instability and moral instability. And the world seems to be tipped upside down.

And then you're looking at this text and you're thinking, is this what it's talking about? And we've got Noah and we've got the flood and we've got Sodom and we've got Gomorra and there's fire and sulfur and floods. And it just seems like we could be speaking about today. I love the fact that in there it says, hey, hey, make sure that you just don't go following everything. Because what happens in days like today is people like to go on social media or down on Facebook and they go down rabbit trails and, you know, basically predict. when the end of the times will be because the world is in such a mess. I'm about to save you. A lot of hours going down rabbit trails. You can actually now binge watch that Netflix series that you wanted to binge watch because I'm going to save you a lot of time. I just finished my

master's degree at Wheaton and I studied all the different theories about the end times and I'm going to save you a lot of money and a lot of time after four years of study. This is my entire end time theology. You get ready. This is it. Hold on to your seeds. This is it. No one knows. That's it. I saved you a lot of money. Don't buy the books. Don't go down the rabbit trails. This is how we should be living. We live as if it's going to happen tomorrow and we prepare as if it's not going to happen for generations. Every follower of Jesus should be living like that all the time. I know we are in the midst of so much instability. There is so much fear and heartache and pain and so much instability all over the world. But you and I as followers of Jesus do not need to lose our mind just because everyone around us is.

So in this text, Jesus is talking about really the twofold nature of the kingdom of God, the fact that what theologians would call the already and not yet, that Jesus, when he came here on earth in the flesh, the kingdom had come, but it is not yet fully realized. How do I know it's not yet fully realized? Because there's still human trafficking in the world. There's still injustice. The people still die.

There is still sickness. There is war. There is famine. There is disease. But a day is coming where he will return and all things will be made new. And there will be no more pain and no more suffering and no more sickness and no more disease and no more injustice.

And we long for that day. But that's not really what I'm here to talk to you about. book club today. In this text about the end times, Jesus drops these three seemingly insignificant random words. I mean, he's talking about Sodom and Gomorrah and Noah and the flood. And then the second shortest verse in the Bible, he just drops it in there just randomly. All of a sudden, all he's talking about all this stuff, he just goes, remember Lot's wife? I'm like, okay, that's random. I've been doing chicks ministry for decades. There's 170 women that are either alluded to or mentioned in scripture, 170.

And yet there is only one woman that Jesus ever tells us to remember. He tells us the woman that poured the perfume, her deed will be remembered. But there's only one woman he ever tells us to remember. And that's Lutz wife. and he tells us to remember Lott's wife within the context of speaking about the end times. I wonder whether 2024 would be a really good year to remember the one woman that Jesus told us to remember. I wonder in the context of a world that is unraveling whether perhaps now might be a moment for the Church of Jesus Christ to go, maybe we'll remember that one woman that Jesus talked about. Now listen, if I was Eve, I would

be ticked off. Because I'm like, what do you mean? Remember Lott's wife? I was first blamed for all the problems of humanity ever since it all started. I mean, if I was Sarah, I'd be, listen. I popped out a kid at 90 without an epidural. Come on.

Why not remember me? I mean, if I was married, I'd be like, what do you mean, remember Lott's wife? I birthed you. Why did you not remember me? But Jesus says, remember Lutz wife, this nameless woman that appears on the pages of scripture only quick enough to disappear. We don't even know her name. We don't even know her name. I mean, imagine, what's your name?

Lots wife? Honey, that ain't going to cut it in 2024. That's not going to go well. So she doesn't even have a name. And of course, I start going back and start thinking, what is it that we know about this woman? So of course, in Genesis 13, verses 12 to 15, We read the text, Abraham settled in the land of Canaan while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked and great sinners against the Lord. So all we know is that Lot set up camp at Sodom when him and Abraham separated. I don't know. Is that where he met his wife? I don't know. Or did he meet her in Sodom? And then of course, it says Sodom was very, very wicked. The men of Sodom were really, really wicked.

And in Genesis 18, we see that God had given them so much mercy, so many opportunities to repent. And basically, because of their sin and iniquity, the Lord was like, okay, I'm done with that. Now, most of us, whether we're churchgoers or not today, when we hear kind of the word Sodom and Gomorrah, we normally associate immorality with that. And we normally think of immorality. and iniquity and sexual sin, and of course, the sexual sin we most focus on is whichever one we're not committing that day. That's the one we love to highlight as the greatest one. But I do want you to see from scripture what the prophet Ezekiel says is the greatest sin of Sodom, because sometimes we miss this in the church. It says in Ezekiel 1649 to 50,

now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom. She and her daughters had pride, plenty of food, and comfortable security but didn't support the poor and the needy. They were haughty, and here we go with what we normally know, and do detestable acts before me, so I remove them. You see, when God says I'm about done, normally you can understand that pride, arrogance, comfortable security. When you have a church that kind of just thinks,

well, you know, where all that, We're the only ones that are right. And there's this arrogance of like, well, I'm just the one that God likes and nobody else and this sense of security that we no longer care about a lost world. We no longer care about injustice. We no longer care about the poor and the need. It's just us for and no more. And we're great.

The Lord's like, you know what? I'm about done with it. That's really not my design for church, which is why I think he loves life church so much because you are obsessed. not by how many come here, but how many are still out there waiting to hear the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ. Obsessed with that. Not how many are following you, but how many are not following Jesus. That's what gets us out of bed every day.

And so, God cares about the poor and the needy. God cares about us living a life on mission, and he cares about our personal holiness and righteousness as well. It all matters to God. But the Lord was like, you know what? I'm done with that. And then what he decides to do is, although he was done with Sodom and Gomorrah, he wasn't done with Lot or his wife or their two daughters.

He still had a plan for them, but the plan was in the future. He still had a purpose for them. The purpose for them was still in the future. He still had a promise for them and a promise for them was still in the future. See, there are times when certain things in our life are over, when they're finished, but the purpose of God is never over. the promise of God is never over, the provision of God is never over, it's always in the future. So he sends, in Genesis 1917, he sends two angels of the Lord and they grab them by the hand.

They pull them out of everything. Life as they knew it is now burning down. And it says, and as they brought them out, one said, escape for your life, do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills lest you be swept away. if life as I knew it was burning down and I was literally being touched by an angel and being taken out of what was burning up to go into the promise of God in the future, I would do the one thing

that I was told to do. But this is the only thing we know. Remember, Luke 1732? Jesus in the context of talking about the end time says, I need you to remember Lot's wife. This is the only thing we know about Lot's wife. And we see it in Genesis 19, 20, it says, but Lot's wife behind him looked back and became a pillar of salt.

And that phrase looked back in the original languages. She looked back with longing, lingering. It wasn't just what she was looking back at with her eyes. Her heart wanted to go back to the thing that God was done with. And what happened was she got calcium. calcified. She got calcified and stuck in a place she was only meant to be passing through. She prioritized her past over her future. She wanted what she was leaving more than what God had for her in the future. And she ended up getting stuck. She ended up stopping. She ended up not only destroying her life. But if you go on and read this chat, it's deeply disturbing because what happened to her daughters with their father because their

mother got stuck. Can I just tell you when you get stuck, it has implications for the generations that are to come after you. It does not just affect your life. And right now on the earth, we have a generation of Jesus followers that are feeling stuck because life has changed so much and we're looking back going, I want what was. I've just, come back from doing another lap of the globe ministry on every continent. And everywhere I go, I hear some version of the same thing. And that same thing would be this. Christine, I just wish things would go back to normal. And I would have conversations with people. And all the conversations, and especially if you're talking maybe around church life or talking about their businesses,

or talking even about family or schooling, the phrase often starts, the whole sentence of conversation often starts with, well, before COVID. Do you know, church, there was a time when BC stood for before Christ. There was a time when we thought Jesus is what split time. And we've given over that power to something that happened years ago. And we have a before and after. Well, before COVID. And many of us have been stuck because of all of the instability, the political,

the social, the emotional, the moral, the ethical confusion that is happening on the earth. We all feel like we've got whiplash. Things have changed. Technologies change. Morality has changed. And so many of us are paralyzed and stuck. Yet the scripture says that Jesus is this hope we have as an anchor for our soul, both firm and secure, that Jesus is the same. yesterday, today, today and forever. And although everything around us has changed, I'm not minimizing it, I'm not denying it, I'm not dismissing it. But what I am saying is although everything's changed ultimately for us as Jesus followers,

nothing's changed. Because our hope is in Jesus. And all the promises of God are in Christ Jesus. Yes, and amen. And Jesus is our hope. Things come and things go. Empires rise and empire's fall. Things change, but Jesus is this hope we have.

And yet so many of us are just stuck, stuck in the trauma of the last eight years. Stuck in the economic instability. Stuck in so many of the divisiveness and chaos that's happening all over the world. Stuck in our offenses. stuck in our unforgiveness, stuck in our bitterness, stuck in our disappointment, stuck in our discouragement, stuck in our disillusionment, and we're stuck in a place we were only meant to pass through. The reality of the world and the shifts and the changes, it's real.

But what is more true than real is that Jesus is this hope we have. we were born for this moment in history. God chooses the times and the places and the seasons that he puts us in. You and I are not a product of time. We are a product of eternity. God has plucked us out of eternity, positioned us in time, filled us with His Holy Spirit, and said, go into all the world and make disciples of all nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. That is our job profile. You mean with so much political instability? Yes. You mean with so much economic instability? Yes. You mean Christine with wars and chaos and division and changing morality and changing ethical systems.

Our job profile hasn't changed. The same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead lives on the inside of you and me. Therefore we can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens us. We have that same. Power. We don't have to get stuck looking back. How much are we looking back with a longing? Man, I wish things would go back to the good old days. I wish we could just have church how we used

to have it. I wish our family would just go back to what it was. I just wish, you know what I think the last few years have revealed to us, church? Do you remember the two disciples going back to Amas. They were so disappointed because they thought Jesus was the one. And remember that after Jesus was crucified and buried, they didn't know that he was resurrected. And so what happened was they were going back to Amas. Because what happens is often when you're disappointed with God, you'll go back to the thing that he rescued you from. They're going back. And there's a lot of people on the earth right now going back. A lot of Christians thinking, you know what, this thing's just, and they're going back. A lot of people just walking away and going back. Jesus turns up on the road to Amas with them

and they're walking with him and they don't even recognize them because what happens is when you are disappointed or offended or disillusioned or discouraged, you will lose sight of the fact that God is with you because he will never leave us and never forsake us that he is with us at all times. many of us have lost sight of God in the last few years because we're just so focused on what's happening in the media or in social media or what our friends are saying or what we are saying to ourselves and we've lost sight of the fact that Jesus is with us. And I think, remember when they said in Luke 2421 they said, but we had hoped that he was the one. I wonder over the last few years if those words have come out of your mouth. But I had hoped that business was going to

make it. I'd hoped that marriage was going to make it. I'd hoped those kids were going to be living for the Lord by now. I had hoped that ministry opportunity was going to open up. I had hoped that God was going to give me this opportunity. And I think what's been revealed in the last few years and the Lord's allowed some of that to happen is to reveal to us where our misplaced hopes were. because that person and those things could never give you what only God can give you. We've been trying to get from people and things what we can only get from God and then we get disappointed when they don't deliver, but idols never deliver. And idols will always disappoint.

So there's been a shaking. But the scripture says only those things that can be shaken will be shaken so that those things that cannot be shaken will remain. And what has remained is that Jesus Christ is sovereign, that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, the life, that there is no other way but through the way of Jesus Christ, that he is kind, he is gracious, he is compassionate, he is loving. And Jesus is like, am I enough for you, church? Stop looking back at what you wish it was and start fixing your eyes on Jesus.

Faith is always future-focused. The promise of God still prevails, the provision of God still prevails, the purpose of God still prevails. The purpose of God still prevails. but we are to fix our eyes on Jesus. He is the author and he is the finisher. And if you are here in church today and there is not a white chalk mark around your body, honey, it means you're alive.

It means God's still got a plan, God's still got a purpose, God's still got a destiny. Fix your eyes forward. If you've still got a pulse, it's not over. I am not minimizing the pain or the heartache or the suffering of the last few years. But church, I implore you,

don't buy into the narrative. of this age that says that you are a victim of your past, what we have to learn to do is to make what Jesus did for us bigger than what anyone has done to us. We have to make what Jesus did for us bigger than what anyone else has said about us. Yes, it's been difficult,

but I'm the kid that was left in a hospital unnamed and unwanted. I'm the kid that was sexually abused for years, grew up in the poorest zip code in my, state. If I believe the narrative of this age, I would not be doing anything that I'm doing today. But in and through a relationship with Jesus Christ, I have discovered your history does not define your destiny. What happened at Calvary was greater than what anybody else has done to me. So you may have hoped you had a better start. You may have hoped you had a different education. You may have hoped that those things that happened to you didn't happen and I am not in any

way minimizing the trauma of it. I am just saying that there is still a force on the planet that is greater than any of that. Can I just say to you the most powerful force on the planet always was and always will be the blood of Jesus Christ. It sets people free. Jesus still frees, he still delivers, he still heals today. I don't know what you had hoped. but I am here to say to you today in Zechariah 9 verse 12, the children of Israel had been in Babylonian captivity for 70 years, and they came back to Israel, and they had hoped that Jerusalem was going to be just thriving, but in fact it was decimated.

It was decimated. Jerusalem was in a mess. The temple was in ruins. The city walls were just all fragmented, and they were surrounded by enemies. and the prophet said to them, you were physical exiles in Babylon, you were physical prisoners. Now you've gone back home. You need to be prisoners of hope. And what we the church need to be in this hour, we need to chain ourselves to Jesus and say, oh, we are becoming of our own volition with our own agency prisoners.

I'm handcuffing myself to Jesus. I'm putting myself into. doesn't matter ultimately what happens politically or economically or socially or morally or ethically or environmentally. Ultimately, that is not going to affect my disposition, my faith, my hope, the way I parent, the way I'm a wife, the way I lead my organisations. No, no, no, because I am a prisoner of hope. I'm not a prisoner of any political system. I'm not a prisoner of any moral system or ethical system. I am a prisoner of hope. And Jesus is this hope I have as an anchor for my both firm and secure. He is my hope. That's why you and I don't need to look back, but we fix our eyes on Jesus. We know our tell us, this is the great message of the gospel.

We basically live here from there, not from back there. God is drawing us into a future. I tell you, in this day and hour, Christians ought to be the weirdest people on the earth, not super fruit loops, just super weird. There ought to be a glint in our eye, a little spring in our step. We ought to be a little bit naughty, not illegal, not immoral, not heretical, just naughty. There ought to be something about us that says, you know what? People look at us and go, what are you on? What have you been smoking?

How can you be full of hope? And we go because of Jesus, I know what the world is like. But Jesus is this hope I have. in this day and in this hour. So let me finish, because you're all too excited. This church is too excitable. You think you believe in Jesus or something.

We're not denying the reality. Listen, I rescue the victims of human trafficking. In the last 24 hours, we had a three-year-old brought into our care. You don't even want to know what they did to that child. So I will tell you I'm not ignorant of evil and injustice on this earth. I'm not ignorant of the reality of pain and suffering on this earth.

But there's a longing inside of me, not for what was, but for what will be. That all things will be made new. That sky is going to split. He is going to come back. All things will be made new and all wrong things will be made right. So what does Paul say from a prison cell? As he writes to his beloved Philippian church, when the world isn't necessarily going to get any better,

but his revelation of Jesus is just getting greater. It's what I pray for the church in this hour. Paul says, brothers, I do not consider that I've made it my own. But one thing I do, everyone say one thing, one thing. Forgetting what lies behind. Don't get stuck, church. Forgetting what lies behind, both good and bad. Because sometimes we can get so stuck in our own success

that we miss what God has for us in the future. He says, forgetting what lies behind. and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. That is what we are doing right now. Paul says, forgetting. For some of you today, this is going to be a defining moment for you. You've been stuck for years.

When I say forgetting, Paul's not saying that the blood of Jesus gives you amnesia. My past happened. It's a reality. I don't have amnesia. I was abandoned, I was abused, I was adopted. It's a reality. But what the blood of Jesus does is it gives me a life beyond my past. You don't have to be defined by your greatest failure, your greatest mistake,

or what was done to you. Paul says, my history doesn't define my destiny. This one thing I do. Forgetting for some of you today, that's the most powerful thing. You've got to let some things go. You're hanging on to that offense, that unforgiveness, that bitterness, that disappointment. it's not ever going to come round and it's not, you can't go back. But what God's got for your head is so much greater and you're going to miss it

if you stay calcified in a moment you should only be passing through. And so what happened was, he says, forgetting and straining. I think the church has forgotten to strain. That's exerting a steady force. You've got to exert force. Of course, your pastor is the greatest in the world for knowing, to lift, heavier weights, you've got a strain. But what we did was we all got lazy. Some of you, it's 2024 and you have still not worn hard pants. You're still in your sweatpants from 2020.

Church, it's time to strain. It's going to hurt a bit. It's time to exercise those faith muscles again. We've been just sitting paralyzed for too long. It's time to get moving. It's going to take some straining. And finally, he says, I press on. And that word in the Greek is to exert a steady force against. Some of you, it's time to get up and get some backbone again. You've been sitting out in the bleachers for too long, stuck in that moment. And I'm not minimizing what was done to you or said about you, but I am saying what Jesus did for you is bigger than anything that happened to you. And so we can move beyond it into the future that God has. And it's just time to press on. Exert a steady force against complacency or apathy or lethargy or indifference. Exert a steady force against entitlement. Exert a steady

force against the fence of bitterness or unforgiveness or rage or anger. Exert a steady force against lust or greed or envy or gossip or slander. Exert a steady force. It's time for us to start pressing. Nick and I were coming down from our hotel to come to church. And there was someone standing in, you know, at the elevator ready to go down from the sixth floor to to the lobby. And this person was having a very loud, unsanctified conversation with the elevator. And they were using many four-letter words, none of them were love. And they were obviously very frustrated because the elevator was not coming down quickly enough. And then I kind of looked and I thought, there's no light.

And I just sort of stepped around the person very politely and pressed the button. Let me leave you with this today, Life Church. It's time for some of you to press the button. and get moving into the purpose and the promise that God has for you in Jesus' name. In Jesus' name. Amen and amen and amen. All right, church. All right, somebody said, press the button.

Christine, thank you for an amazing word. One more time, all of our live church locations for each other. Chris, thank you. Nick, we love you. Chris, we love you. Hey, some of you, this is a defining moment. Let's just keep our heads up eyes open right now. Some of you might be a little bit stuck,

and you realize it's time to move forward. I want to tell you the way is through, not out. If there's something holding you back, something holding you down. You've been discouraged. You've been stuck for a long time, discouraged. Maybe it's time to let go and to forgive. Maybe it's time to believe that you can do all things through Christ who gives you strength. Today, at all of our churches, if there's a weight,

if there's something holding you back, if you've lost hope, if you feel stuck, if you feel discouraged, if you know there is something that is holding you away from what God is calling you to, let's just be bold right now

as an act of faith in front of everybody. Let's say, it's not going to hold me back anymore. By the power of God, I'm moving forward. Would you lift up your hands right now all over the place? Lift them up. Man, praise God, for breakthroughs.

Even now at this place online, type in the comment section. With God's help, I'm moving forward. With God's help, I'm moving forward. And so, Father, right now, we believe that this was a prophetic word to build our faith. That what someone did to us pales in comparison to what Jesus did for us. God, that what happened in our past would never rob us from the future, the plans that you've created and called us to live out.

So by faith, Jesus be our strength. By faith, Jesus be our hope. God, when we're weak, would you be strong in us give us the power the faith to let go to step forward believe that you are with us that you are for us that you have spoken to us and because of your word your presence your power we're not looking back by faith we're stepping forward as you keep praying today at all of our churches there are those of you that if we sat down and just had a conversation and I ask you where you stand with God, you might kind of hesitate. You might not know where you are.

Spiritually, you might kind of be stuck. You have some questions. You might be like I was years ago, and there were things in your life that you were really ashamed of. And I think after what I did, how would God ever love me? And I want to be very, very clear right now and tell you that there are those of you that God brought here for this moment. It's time to get spiritually unstuck in a way that you were not expecting. And I want to tell you, our God, loves you. He's here with you right now and he loves you so much that he sent his one and only son, Jesus, Jesus, the sinless son of God who died in our place. He paid the price for our sins. And the good news is by the power of the Holy Spirit, God raised him from the dead,

defeating death, hell, sin, and the grave. If there is anything holding you back, today we're giving to Jesus. We're stepping away from our sin. We're repenting from any sin and we're grabbing a hold of Jesus. We're believing that he is enough, that he is the son of God, that he will be our Savior. Scripture says, when you call on His name, God will hear your prayer, forgive all of your sins. If you confess your sins to God, he is faithful and just to forgive all of your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteous. There are those of you God brought here for this moment today to step away from your past to let go of your sin to cling to Jesus. All of our churches, those who say, that's me. I want his forgiveness. I want his grace. I need his power. I'm stepping away from my sin. I'm

surrendering my life to Jesus. That's your prayer. Would you lift your hands high right now? All over the place say, yes, that's my prayer. Lift up your hands as we have people today at all of our churches. Calling on the name of Jesus, lift up your hands and say, yes, Jesus. I surrender. Online type in the comment section. I am surrendering my life to Jesus. And as we have people all over world trusting Jesus to save them, would you pray aloud with those around? You pray, Heavenly Father, forgive me of my sins. Save me. Jesus be my Lord. First in my life. Fill me with your spirit so I could know you and serve you and follow you. My life is no longer my own. I give it all to you. Thank you for new life.

Now I'm kind of weird. I'm full of joy. I belong to Jesus. You're my Savior. You're my Lord. In Jesus' name I pray. Could somebody celebrate welcome those born into the family of God? Come on, church.

Thank you.