Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Face the Giant, Part 2: Facing Your Giants

Episode Date: March 24, 2019

Whether you’re staring down anxiety, pain, guilt, failure, or anything else that feels too big to battle on your own, you can find the courage to Face the Giant in your own life. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, thanks for joining us here at Life Church, where we are one church meeting in multiple locations and reaching around the world thanks to what God is doing at Church online. If you ever have any questions, or you want to learn more about us as a church, you can always check us out online simply by going to life.curch. We'd love for you to stay connected throughout your weekend, everywhere you go with the Life Church app. It's free and available wherever you download your apps from. With that said, let's go to this week's message.

Hey, it's great to have you guys at Church this week. Let me tell you next week I'm starting a brand new message. series. It's called Things Jesus Never Said. So many of us are going through life, believing things that are not from Jesus, but the truth from Jesus. I promise it will change and set people free. I can't wait to start that message series next week. But today, guess what? Back by popular demand. You loved him last week. We were very blessed to have him back this week. From Houston, Texas. His church, it's called Hope City Church. Look up the podcast, listen to it all the time, follow him on social media, this is one of the most powerful, energetic, passionate, true men of God that truly love Jesus.

It's an honor to have him back today. Would you help me welcome today? Pastor, come on. Let's give Jesus an ovation of worship. Every location. Come on. Let him hear you. Man, what an honor it is to be with you guys again at all of our locations. And let me just tell you this. If it's your first time at Life Church, I just, I just, I want to be. want to invite you back because you owe it to yourself to come back next weekend and hear one of the greatest Bible communicators that our generation has seen. And I truly believe Pastor Craig is one of the best in the world and just so good. And such a blessing. In fact, I'll tell you this message that I'm going to minister this weekend, true story, I had to double check it

because I had to make sure that it wasn't Pastor Craig Groshell's sermon. Um, Because if you don't know, because of the open resources and all of the stuff that you guys share, not only does Pastor Craig preach his messages, but pretty much everybody else does as well. In fact, our campus pastors, whenever they preach for the first time at their campuses, we have four campuses and launching another one in May. And our campus pastors, the first time they preach their campuses, I said, look, just go to open resources, get any Pastor Greg Grichelle sermon and preach it. And you'll be good. And they did. And it was phenomenal.

So as good as he is, he shares so much with everybody else. And it's such an honor to be with you guys. And I cannot wait for what God's going to do next weekend. I'll be tuning in and getting notes for our next series, which will be right after y'all's series. So this weekend we're talking again about facing the giants. Turn to your neighbor and say, you've got to face the giant. Philippius chapter 4, verse 6.

And I love to hear Pastor Craig talk about what you guys are going to talk about next weekend. because I believe this is going to dovetail right into things that Jesus never said, because there's a lot of people that do believe that, and it creates giants. Philippians 4-6 says, do not be anxious about anything. But in every situation, by prayer and petition, with Thanksgiving, present your request to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding. Aren't you glad that peace gets there before understanding does? There may be things I never understand, but I have the peace of God, and I love that.

but it says the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Now, there's a whole lot that this says, and there's a whole lot that it doesn't say. And the misinterpretation is what creates these expectations on God that God never promised to live up to. It says he will guard your hearts and your minds, not your situations, not everything you walk through.

God will keep you from all of it. It doesn't say that at all. and if you're not careful, you'll believe that God's going to do something that he never promised to do. And that creates a giant in your life. How many of you, all of our campuses, how many of you love to sing? Raise your hand if you love to sing. Doesn't mean you can sing. Okay, more people raise their hands.

That's awesome. You will never make it on the Life Church Worship team. We love you. Thank you, but probably not. But you love to sing. And you're in your car and you're jamming. You're just, you're having a good day. And all of a sudden your jam comes on.

You're like, that's my jam! And you start singing. You ever had that having? And then have you ever had somebody else in your car with you? And you're singing, and then you're saying, you're like, that's my song. And you start singing your song. And they look at you and they say, you don't even know the words to your own song? Have you ever sung a song wrong for years?

Like me recently, literally recently, like just a few years ago, a Christmas song. Like how do you mess up Winter Wonderland? I did. Walking in a winter wonderland. Later on, we'll postpone. As we dream by the fire. Think about it. It makes sense, right?

You perspire by the fire. We get too close. Oh, my goodness, we're perspiring by the firing. And my wife was like, that ain't what that song says. And I was like, well, what does it say? He says, we'll conspire by the fire. And I was like, oh, okay, I don't know what that word means. So I looked it up, and here's what conspire means.

To make secret plans jointly to commit an unlawful or harmful act, as in they conspired against him. What kind of Christmas song is this? Like later on we'll think of horrible things we can do to you. I mean, like, there's no joy in that. I think my version makes more sense, right? Later on, we'll perspire. Let's jointly change the song, okay? It's not going to work. It's not going to work. It doesn't matter how loud I sing it, how long I sing it, it's not going to make it the original intent of the song. And this is the same thing that is true with the scriptures. If you learn it wrong, you'll live it wrong. And it will create a giant in your life because you will expect God to do something that he never said that he would do. It creates this expectation gap. Think about it.

God will never put on you more than you can bear. That's not accurate. Some of you are like, no, I have a magnet that says that. Like I have a crochet. God will never give you more than you can carry, you know, and made a blanket out of it. But it's talking about Tim, God will give you more than you can bear. He'll never give you a life that makes him unnecessary. Think about Paul. Paul's an apostle, does amazing things, writes tons of the New Testament, gets his head chopped off, more than he could bear. Right? But if, but if, I'm sorry, that was a little callous, but real preacher will be here next weekend, guys, it'll be amazing. It's my last time. Let's go for it, Right? Jesus was very clear. John 1633, I've told you these things so that in me you may have peace, period. In this world or in this life, you will have trouble, period. That's a promise between two periods. We like to declare all the promises of God, but nobody's making a t-shirt out of that one, right? Guys, be sure you get your in this life, you'll have trouble bracelets. We're going to pass them out at all the campuses. But nevertheless, it's true. And if we're not careful, we will believe that.

that God's going to do something that he never promised that he would do. He never promised to get us out of every situation that we ever go through, but he did promise to walk through them with us. And so you have to rightly divide that. Aren't you glad that we're a part of a church that rightly divides the worth of truth? And we have a pastor who cares about the interpretation of the scripture. Thank you, Pastor Craig, for helping us. Sometimes you'll be in a moment where you develop fear in your life based on something that you really shouldn't even be afraid up. A few years ago, I got the honor, the opportunity to get asked to go to the war-torn country of Hawaii. I know. It's hard. I know. I said, here am I, Lord. Send your servant. I will go.

So I took my wife over there and we preached this conference. And after these guys said, look, you look like your guy who likes adventure and stuff. And I am. I love to hunt and fish and all that stuff. And they were like, would you like to go spearfishing with us? And I was like, yes, yes, I would. I've never thrown a spear. I love this. idea. And so we went and the guide looks at us and says, have you ever been snorkeling? And I'm like, yes, I have. I didn't tell him twice. Two times. Like, and so when we got the gear, I didn't, like, I don't know. I just didn't realize, like, you're not supposed to put the gear on before you get in the water, right? Like, you put the gear on like right before you get, no, I put it on in a car,

okay? And so I'm like walking across, like, I got my mask on, I'm all, got my snorkel hanging out. I'm ready to go, guys, you know. And the guide, there was this guy, there was this guy, He was in the church, and he was this super awesome guy. His Puerto Rican dude, super, super motivated. And he was like, he pulled us together. He says, okay, okay, okay, guys, listen to me very carefully. You need to understand something. The water that we are getting ready to go into is tiger shark water.

And he could see the nerves. He's like, it's okay, preacher. It's okay. You see anything bigger in 10 feet. You let us know, we get out of the water. I was like, bro, if I see a big turtle, I'm going to be. Jesus walking on the water, okay? Y'all, I couldn't even have any fun.

The whole time, the entire time everybody else is seeing pristine water, you can see 65 feet down. It's amazing. People are spearing fish, and all I can hear is dun dun, dun, done, done. Like the Jaws soundtrack, I'm praying for other people around me that they'll swim slower than me. I'm like, God, I'm more anointed than that guy.

I know I have a call. I'm sorry, that's the truth. God's still working on me. I couldn't even enjoy it because it was a afraid of something that didn't happen. I wonder how many of us are allowing fear to control our minds. Your breakthrough begins in your mind before it shows up in your mess. And it's important for us to give our minds, our entire whole situation to God. A lot of us have fears. Some of you're like, yeah, I'm not that scared. I know. I looked up a bunch of fears before I preached this sermon. I did the

research and I found some. I don't know that some of you may have dealt with this before. A plutophobic That's the fear of washing or bathing. Some of you have it. I watched people next to you in worship. You raised your hands and they were like, oh, like moved over. You need to get baptized and we'll throw some soap in there. We won't do that.

Yes, we will. Alodoxophobia. That's the fear of opinions. Every husband in here went alidoxia. I need to write that down next time. So let me tell you what I think. Oh, babe, I'm scared. Remember, I'm scared of that.

You can't tell me. This is one of my favorite ones. cathisophobia. Cathisophobia is a fear of sitting down. Like, how do you, like, I'm so tired. Ha, ha, ha, ha. It's just like rest all the time. This is my favorite one.

This is my favorite one. And I'm going to have them put it on the screens at all of our campuses so that you can see it. It's sesquipedalophobia. That's the fear of long words. That guy's a jerk. Whoever came up with that? He's rude.

And most of you, at all of our locations, online, you're like, man, I don't have any of those fears. But as you get to looking at other fears, in fact, our pastor, Pastor Craig, I wrote a book called Soul Detox, and he outlines four fears in that book, and that's my way of saying part of this sermon came from him. Number one, the fear of loss, fear of losing your family or your marriage or your finances or something happening to your family, or losing your passion or losing your youth. And the fear of failure. This fear paralyzes people from starting a business that you know you should have started from doing anything. I'm just

afraid. I'm afraid to go back to school. I'm afraid to jump into something new. I'm afraid to, I'm afraid to go to a group. The fear of failure, I'm going to get in there and it's not going to work out. And then the fear of rejection. Many of us fear rejection and abandonment. It's what keeps people from from actually entering into relationships because we're afraid. In fact, I know a lot of marriages that have dissolved because people have an unhealthy fear of rejection so they actually build walls against their spouse, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and they actually reject them. And finally, the fear of the unknown. Most of us kind of deal with the dread of what's going to happen next. I don't know what's going to happen next. And a while ago, you were like, I don't have any of those

fears. And now you're like, I have all, all of those. Second Timothy one, seven, says, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love and of power and of a sound mind. So here's what I want you to understand. If you're dealing with fear, if you're dealing with anxiety, if you're facing those giants. Here's what you need to understand. According to the Word of God, God did not give you that. So your life should not be ruled by fear and anxiety and depression and doubt. Nobody had more opportunity to be afraid and deal with fear than David. David is called at a very young age to become the next king. He's completely forgotten by his father. The prophet comes to his house and says, the next king is going to come out of your house. Bring all of your sons. And Jesse, his

father brings everybody but David. Thanks a lot, dad. And then the prophet says, it's none of these guys. Do you have another son? He goes, oh, yeah. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah. He didn't forget about him. He completely overlooked him. He ever felt overlooked? He calls David in, and he anoints him to be the next king. And it's a powerful moment. You know what happens? You know what happens right after he anoints him? He goes right back out and he keeps watching sheep. Because sometimes there takes, there takes a moment between the anointing and the appointing, because God wants to see what you'll do with that time in between. And so he keeps serving like crazy.

And then a battle ensues, and there's a giant in a valley. Most of us have heard the story. If you've never heard the story of David and Goliath, Google it. Or just read it in the Bible, or I'll just tell you the quick version. There's a giant in a valley screaming obscenities at the people of God. And all of the mighty, powerful warriors are afraid. And David's watching sheep, and his dad says, hey, look, I'll pack some Pomenese cheese sandwiches for your brothers.

I want you to take them out there, and he's like, all right, tra-la, chala, chala, la-la. He goes out to the battlefield. First time anybody's ever skipped like this across this cage, right here, okay? First time. Takes them out there and delivers them to his brothers. And as he's delivering them, his brother's like, hey, David, come. Get out of him. Get out of it.

Shh, shh, shh. Quiet. What's going on? Listen. And out in the valleys, the giant screaming, send me a man to fate. I don't know if you talk like that, but I like it. So I'm going with it. And if I defeat him, I don't know if he was Scottish, but I'm going for it.

If I defeat him, you will become our slaves. But if he defeats me, we will become your slaves. That will never happen. Ha ha ha ha ha. And everybody's afraid. And David does something nobody else does. David steps out and says, who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he would defy the armies of God?

David. Language. That's going to be in the Bible. Are you sure you want to use those words? But what David understood was this man had no authority to speak against the people of God. He said, we are not the people of fear. We are the people of faith. And I'm not going to allow something to speak to me that has no right. Some of us, if we're not careful, we allow things to speak to us. And at some point, if you're taking notes, write this down. You don't have to just face the giant. You have to face your giant. There's always a giant between you and your destiny. Chances are if you ask God to go to another level, a giant's going to show up. It's a lot like Mario brothers. You have to defeat the little dragon at the end of each level. The challenge is some of us don't want to deal with the dragon, so we just keep bouncing and getting the coins and get in the mushrooms and say, I'll just live

here. And God didn't call you to stay where you are. He called you to go forward into what he is designed for your life. At some point, you have to face your giant. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's bills you can't pay or grades you can't make or people you can't please or relationship, you just can't seem to figure it out. A marriage, you can't get put together, a past, you can't shake it, a future. You don't even know what to deal with. But you do. At some point you've got to face it. How? Write this down. You got to learn how to convert your fear into faith. You got to learn how. Listen, heroes and cowards both deal with fear. The heroes just learn how to convert the fear into faith. I've heard people say, faith is the

opposite of fear and fear is the opposite of faith and I just disagree with that. The opposite of fear is certainty. When you know for sure something's going to happen, you don't have any fear. Faith involves some fear and doing it anyway. And at some point you've got to stand up to it. Notice, look at the brothers. They look like soldiers. They act like soldiers. They walk like soldiers. They talk like soldiers. They talk like soldiers. But in the face of a giant, they cower. David is a shepherd. But he's got a God on the inside of him. And he's been out on the backside of a field, spending time with God. You want to be strong, spend time with God.

You want to convert your fear into faith, spend time with God. And he'll start helping you use fear as fuel for your faith to trust that God can do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that's at work and the inside of us. Same giant, different mindset. So how do I do this? how do I convert fear to faith? I'm glad you ask. Taking notes, write this down. Change your perspective. You've got to learn how to change your perspective. You've got to learn how to look at it

different. I want to show you something. In all of our locations, if you're listening to the podcast and you're driving, don't do this, okay? Everybody else, hold your hands out in front of you like this right here, hold them out in front of you like this, and then I want you to cross them over, okay? Cross them over, and then I want you to interlace your fingers, okay? Interlace your fingers, just like that. Look at your neighbor. Make sure their thumbs are down. They've interlaced their fingers, you're doing it right. Look at your neighbor at your campus. Look at them. Just give them a nods. Yeah, that's really good. Okay. Now, here's what we're going to do. On the count of three, don't anybody do it. I'll tell you when on the count of three, we're going to flip our hands.

Not inside out. We're going to flip our hands over, okay? So we're going to have thumbs up. Okay, one, two, three. Okay, thumbs up. No, no. Deer in the headlights. Okay, I'm a communicator. Sorry about that, guys. Every campus did that wrong. Okay, shake it off, shake it off. Okay. embarrassing in front of Pastor Craig. All right. Interlace your fingers. Interlace your fingers again. Okay.

And then on the count of three, I just want you to turn them over. Okay, you ready? One, two, three. Thumbs up. Anybody see it. Anybody. Anybody.

Anybody. Okay, so here's what happened. I told you to do this, but then I just did this. Some of you are still trying it. Stop it. It's impossible. See, here's what I want you to understand.

I was saying one thing, but I was doing something totally different. and as believers, I can't just say that I have faith in God. I have to actually walk in faith and not just talk in faith. Well, how do I walk in faith? Colossus 2-7 says, let your roots grow down into him and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught

and you will overflow with thankfulness. When we gain new perspective, it changes the way we look at a situation. And I might be going through something hard. and maybe you're brand new to church, and you're here for the very first time, and you're going through a challenge, and you're saying, I don't even know if I can do it. I promise you, if you'll just put your trust and your hope in God, your situation may not radically change, but I promise you who's with you in your situation

will radically change, and God will give you the strength to face it. David has three things that he's looking at. One, David's smaller than the giant. The second thing is his brothers are against him. Sometimes the people around you are the ones that will come against you, most. You ever wondered why that happens? You say, I'm going to start a business. People are like, ha ha, you are? Good luck with that. I wonder sometimes why does God allow my own brothers to challenge the things that he's given me to do? I believe I've found an answer. Because if my brothers can talk

me out of it, I would have never have made it through an attack from the enemy. But it's that strength that comes with me saying, no, God has called me to do something great. He's called me to fight through this and make the marriage work. He's called me to get in the group and trust that God's going to bring somebody in my life to help strengthen me. His brothers are against him. In fact, whenever David walks up and he says, hey, I'll fight the giant. They're like, hey, hey, bro, why aren't you back out there watching the sheep? I hear him calling you right now. They're like, David, come back. Come back. Don't laugh at stuff like that. That's dumb. His brothers are against him. But he's, remember, he's converting his fear into faith. He's changed his perspective. Even though he's smaller than the giant, his brothers are against him,

and he's all alone. Those things, those things, those things, they're real, but they're not entirely true. Feelings are often real, but they're not always true. Let me ask you a question. What is being wrong feel like? Now, at all of our campuses, I want you to answer back just a little bit, okay? You can just say it out loud. What is being wrong feel like?

Anybody? Anybody? Bad, it feels guilty. failure. Okay, so you guys are all wrong because you described what finding out you are wrong feels like. What being wrong feels like is right. I can be wrong and think I'm right and confidently go in the wrong direction. Every husband here could say amen to that right there. We've all been arguing with our wife before and in the middle of it realized I'm wrong. I got to to change the subject so I don't have to admit this. Go back and watch the relationship series on the

podcast, okay? At some point, you have to realize that just because I think this is what's happening, that's not always what's happening. Because David's smaller than the giant, but his God is bigger than the giant. His brothers are against him, but his God is for him. And he may feel alone, but his God is with him. And if God be with us, who can be against us? At some point, at some point, you got to fight. I remember I was raised in church and I remember one time I was a kid and I was probably seven years old and we had long services. I told you last weekend we had we had long church and I was sitting under, I was sleeping under a pew because we had church so long I could get naps and still get good worship in. So I was sleeping under the pew and it was a gospel church and my dad was the pastor and he was up

there preaching and every time he made a good point the guy sitting on the pew right over me would say Amanda and he would kick me right in the head and I was like first who is Amanda? and why are you kicking me in the head? Every point. Amanda. And I was like, this is not the will of God. So I began to pray for him. Lord, send him right now, God, with the power of your holy fire.

And that didn't happen. So I looked at his little wingtip shoes. And they were out of the will of God. Those laces were separated. And I said, Lord, you prayed to the Father that men would dwell together in unity. So I'm going to unify those laces right now. So I meticulously begin to tie his shoelaces together.

And the next point that my father hit, this dude didn't just rear back. He stood up. He said, hey, man, and he hit the ground. He fell down. The problem was I went to a gospel church. They didn't know he fell down. They thought he fell out. They were like, hallelujah. He was like, now, turn me loose. They were like, turn him loose, Lord. Set me free. Set him free, go. This dude turned around and started punching me under the front pew. My dad was like, leave that boy alone. And then dad realized what had happened. And he called me out from under the pew. He was like, you get up here and you sit on the platform and I'll take care of you when we get home.

You ever heard that? I looked up. that word care, not the same definition. It's not, I was scared of care bears for years because of that. But at some point, you got to realize that you have a giant and you have to do something to fight that giant and the God of the heavens will be with you when that thing is coming against you. Now, here's what I love about this. As ridiculous as that mistake was that I made when I was seven years old and I got in trouble for it. My father didn't neglect me. He didn't kick me out of the house because I made a mistake. Listen, a single mistake is not a final mistake. You have a God who loves you and who will find mercy in his heart for you. You keep making mistakes. He keeps making mercy.

That's how good he is. My Bible says his mercies are new. Every morning, great is thy faithfulness. So how do I get this faith? Psalm 37 and 4 gives us a formula. It says, delight yourself also in the Lord, and he shall give you the desires of your heart. Now, there's been a lot of preaching that's a little bit wrong on this. Like God's going to somehow just give you whatever you want. If you delight yourself in, oh, Lord, I love you now. Give me everything I've wanted. And that is not a proper definition of this verse of scripture.

It's not rightly dividing the word of truth. Because that word delight means to wrap yourself in the will of God. And whenever it says he will give you the desires of your heart, that word give is the Hebrew word nathan. And it means to give as in to grant or bestow or place. So what that means is when I wrap my life in the will of God, God will place the desires in my heart, not give me whatever I want.

He'll change my desires. So if I want to have faith in God and face the giant, I wrap myself in his will, he begins to change my desires. It begins to change me from the inside out. And then I can boldly walk into a valley where everybody else is scared, and I can have faith and trust that God is with me.

You can do this, but not without God. So how do I delight myself in the Lord to face these giants, to change my perspective, to convert fear into faith? Three things I'll end with. You got to pray. You got to pray. You got to stay prayed up. There's no new tricks on that. You just got to pray. You got to stay connected to God. Let me show you what I'm talking about. Thanks, man. I just have a question for you. All of our locations. Which one of these is alive and which one is dead? The truth is both of them are dead. This one just doesn't know it yet. And it gets real judgy on that one. Like, look at how disconnected he is. Look at he's dying. Look at that. But in a few hours, this guy will look just like that.

We ought to stop looking at what everybody else is doing and start planting ourselves in the house, planting ourselves in a group, planting ourselves in prayer, trusting that God knows what he's doing. Pray. Secondly, move forward in faith. Move forward. Move forward. in faith. Trust God with your finances. Show your trust in God through generosity. This church is so generous to so many people. You guys helped people in the city of Houston during Hurricane Harvey. You blessed us. You blessed so many churches. Thank you for the way that you give. That takes faith. Thank you for leading groups. Thank you for going on mission trips, for doing what you do. Thank you. And then finally, you just got to trust God. You just got to trust God.

It's not rocket science. You just delight yourself in it. I have a buddy who was in a pretty intense math class in college. And the professor realized how intense the class was. And so he called them all together and he said, look, on your final exam next week, what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a formula sheet because I realize how many formulas I've given you

and how hard this is. I'm going to give you, I really want you to pass. I'm going to give you a form. formula sheet and I want you to take home this test. So it's going to, you're going to have the formula sheet and it's a take home test. And all the students were like, yeah, you, all right. And 50% of the class promptly failed it. The next weekend they came in, the professor slammed the papers down on the table. And my friend Kip told me, he said, it was unbelievable. He said, I passed, but not, the whole class didn't pass. And he said, the professor looked at them and said, I don't understand.

how you failed this. It was an open book, take-home test. You knew the formula. You just didn't do the math. If you want to face the giant, it's an open book, take-home test. You know the formula. Now you just got to pray. You just got to trust God. You've got to move forward in faith. And he will be with you. When you face your giant, I promise you this, that God on the inside of you, you is bigger than the giant in front of you. So let's trust it. He knows what he's doing. Even when I don't, I trust you, God, and I'll give my life to you. Come on, let's give Jesus a great big ovation of worship.

One more time, can you guys help me tell? Pastor, thank you for a great word. All of our churches, let's just do what Pastor Jeremy told us to do. Let's go before God together in prayer. Father, thank you for your living word, which transforms our hearts and our lives. at all of our different churches as you're reflecting today in prayer. I wonder how many of you are facing some kind of fear.

There might be an opportunity that you sense this is something I'd like to do, I want to do, but yet you're hesitant. It could be that there's an obstacle, a trial that you're facing. You're not sure what's going to happen. You don't know what the medical report would be. You don't know what the outcome might be.

You're afraid. You're facing a giant, an obstacle, a mountain in your life. If you're facing some type of fear today and you'd like to go before God and with whatever faith you have, put your trust in him. You trust him with the outcome. You want the faith to believe. He's with you. He's for you. He's working in all things.

If that's you today, would you just lift up your hand at all of our churches just at a moment of faith saying, yes, God, help me to trust you. Father, thank you for people at churches and online all over the world. putting their trust in you. God, if you're calling us to take a step of faith, give us the courage to trust you, to be obedient, God, and to trust you with the outcome. God, for those who are facing a trial, an obstacle, some type of a struggle, a mountain in their lives, we put our faith in you. God, we believe that a little bit of faith can move mountains. We pray for healing. We pray for miracles. God, we pray for provision. We pray for breakthroughs.

And God, ultimately, we trust you. As you continue today in an attitude of worship and prayer at all of our different churches, some of you might have fear about your standing with God. If we just sat down across from a table and had a conversation, and I ask you, where do you stand with God? You might say, well, I hope I'm okay. I'm not really sure. I don't really know.

I mean, I'm better than a lot of people, I've done some things wrong, and you might kind of hem haul around and not really know where you stand, and there might be a little bit of fear. Maybe it's not always present, but in an honest moment, sometimes late at night, sometimes when you're going through something difficult, you wonder, where do I stand with God? The good news is, and I hope you'll hear this, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a power, of love, and of a sound mind. Jesus is the son of God.

He came, it was born of a virgin. ever, ever sinned. He was perfect in every way. Jesus put his trust in God. He was obedient, even to death on a cross. He finished his assignment. He was the innocent one who died in our place on a cross. He looked up to heaven. He said, it's finished. I've done what you sent me to do. Into your hands, I commit my spirit. He gave his life for us. Three days later, God proved himself faithful. What did God do? He raised. His Son Jesus from the dead. Why?

Because God defeated death. God defeated hell. God defeated the grave. Now, whoever puts their trust in the perfect work of Jesus. Scripture says their sins would be forgiven and they would be made brand new. At every one of our churches today

in people viewing online, there are those of you, you don't know where you stand with God. Today is the day, you can put that to rest. You put your faith in Jesus. Scripture says all of your sins are forgiven. You are made complete. You are made completely new. Many of you, that's why you're here today.

That's why you're watching at this moment. It is your time. This is your moment to turn from your sins. To trust in Jesus and Jesus alone, he will make you new. At all of our churches, those who say, yes, I trust him. I give my life to him. Today, I surrender completely to Jesus. That's your prayer.

Lift your hands high right now. At all of our churches say, yes, I surrender my life to Christ. as we have hands going up at all of our different churches and those of you at church online, you just click right below me and as we see hundreds and hundreds of people today at all of our churches coming to faith in Christ, would you join your hearts in prayer with those around?

You just pray aloud, Heavenly Father, I turn from my sins and I turn to you, Jesus. Forgive me, save me, change me, make me new, fill me with your spirit so I can live for you. Help me face my fears. And to live by faith, may all that I do honor you. Thank you for new life. I give you all of mine.

In Jesus' name I pray, could I get somebody to celebrate the day at all of our churches, celebrating new life in Christ? As a church, it's our honor to play a small part in all that God is is doing in and through your life. And we would love to continue with you on that journey. To find out what your next steps could be in your relationship with Christ, all you have to do is go to life.church slash next. You know, here at Life Church, it's our mission to leave people to become fully devoted followers

of Christ. That statement drives everything we do as a church, all because we know and we believe. Whoever finds God finds life.