Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - I Declare War, Part 2: Act Like a Wolf

Episode Date: December 1, 2019

The hardest battles we fight can be the ones we wage against ourselves. It's time to take on your inner critic. Say I Declare War to the hidden struggles, negative thoughts, and anxieties that keep you from becoming who God created you to be. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, Life Church, welcome back for another week where we gather together to honor God together by lifting up his name and sharing in his word. Hey, next week, we're starting a brand new message series, and this is one that's very dear to my heart. What I really hope to do is prepare your hearts to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. New message series starts next week, but guess what? This weekend, we have back in the house, Pastor Levi Lusco. Pastor Levi, we love you so much. We honor your family.

If you missed last week, Pastor Levi is actually talking to us from his book. I asked him to talk on this subject. I declare war. All of us have different hangups in our life. Strongholds, addictions, things about us that we don't like today. He's going to bring God's word in a way that really speaks to our life, and I believe brings about life change. Pastor Levi, I love your ministry at Fresh Life Church.

Fresh Life is reaching 13 locations based out of Montana, but they're in four different states. This guy travels around the entire world preaching, and if you've never heard them, you're going to see why. My favorite thing, though, is the way you love your bride, the way you love your children. And you're a dear friend of mine, and our church loves you like you're a part of our own. Could you guys please help me welcome, Pastor? Me by Lester. Thank you. Life Church!

It is such a special privilege to be back. And this is the third time I've got to come and be with you for a little series. And every time, just to see you grow and take more ground. And, you know, it can be so easy as time goes on to sort of chill down a little bit. But you guys are like doubling down every time, expanding more places, more people. And that's one of the many reasons why it is so inspiring to be around your pastor and his wife and this whole team that God has raised up for such a time as this. And you guys obviously are doing a great work in your life. communities in all 34 locations.

And yet, of course, you know it spreads around the world as you're reaching out through church online, reaching out through podcasts and the leadership podcast and YouTube and the way that you so generously equip other churches. If you weren't with us last week, I just took a moment to hopefully help you understand and see from one local pastor just that our church is better. You're making our trying to drive the devil out of our region. Come on a little bit easier because of what you're giving. to us. So thank you for having such a kingdom, mind, and mindset and being so generous with your

resources. This series of messages, this two-part series that we have been in, is all about winning the war within yourself. Because the truth is, whether you like it or not, you are at war. You're at war with the enemy without. You're at war in a sense with the world. That's a complicated relationship, because in the Bible we're told, do not love the world. We're like, okay, don't love the world. Great. First John, thanks a lot. But then the Bible also says,

God so love the world. We're like, wait a minute. And we're supposed to be like God who loves the world. And that's because we're in the world, but not of the world. We are citizens of heaven, if we're Jesus followers.

Our citizenship's not here. It's in heaven where our Savior is, and he's going to come back, take us to heaven. We're going to leave this world, go to heaven, but then heaven comes down. So we're back on this world again. Like, hold on a second. So to live on this planet with our heart set on heaven is a challenging one.

It causes us to have to fight against the two most common temptations. That is imitation on the one hand, where we imitate the world, we act just like the world does. We lose the saltiness. We lose the light. We lose the uniqueness. So imitation is a mistake. Where we're so like the world, we no longer have anything to offer to the world because we're just as lost as the world is. But then the other hand, there's this separation where we separate from the world.

This is how the Pharisees were. We don't want this sick world to get its cooties on us. Jesus, how can you let those sinners touch you? Why would you eat with sinful people? The problems with the holiness and the separation and the keeping ourselves pure, the kind of monastery mentality is this. We can't very well reach a world that we've abandoned. And when the church tries to live like,

we're already in heaven, we effectively say to the world, go to hell. And so imitation and separation are both mistakes. What are we supposed to do? We're supposed to approach it like this. Infiltration. We've got to infiltrate the world. We've got to infiltrate our neighborhood, our workplace, our school classroom, and we have to be out there in the world, rubbing shoulders and doing life with and encouraging people to know Jesus and to shine our lights before men. So it's a complicated relationship with the world because the world does bring us tribulation and opposition and persecution, but we're to love the people of the world without loving the worldview that's hostile to the gospel. So you're in a battle whether you like

it or not, against the devil and against the world to some degree, but you're also facing the most challenging battle, and that's the battle with yourself. We talked last week about how me, myself and I are for all of us, truly, our three biggest problems. The problem, though, is that we can become blind to our own blind spots. I was reminded of this past summer when we were in our house, and we have a nanny who's with a kid sometimes because we travel and do that kind of stuff. And we called out to our Alexa, you know, the little Alexa echo thing you could talk to, we called out and we said, Alexa, turn off the Christmas tree.

Alexa, turn off the Christmas tree. It was summertime, so that was weird, right? We're, of course, all getting our Christmas trees out. Now it's the appropriate time to do so, by the way. If you've had your Christmas tree up for months, you're a sinner. All right. So when we were talking to our Alexa, the only weird thing about that is that there was no Christmas tree anywhere in the room. And when we said Alexa turned the Christmas tree on, one of the lamps in the corner turned on.

And here's what happened. Last holiday, we plugged the Christmas tree into this Alexa plug that is powered by the Internet. I don't know. It's getting confusing. you guys. And while we're on the subject, do any of you ever feel like you're cheating on Siri when you talk to Alexa? You ever mix it up and say Siri and it's Alexa? And like, oh no, it's like, she's almost like, I smell her on you. You've been with her again. You're like, no, you're the only invisible person for me, Siri. So anyhow, it's too much, really. But we had plugged the

Christmas tree into this little plug you can get and so Alexa could control it. But then when the tree went away for the remainder of the year, someone plugged a lamp into it, but we didn't go into the settings and change the name. It was just, and so for months and months, for all of our kids, my wife, myself, we'd say, Alexa, turn on the Christmas tree. The lamp turns on. Alexa, turn off the Christmas tree. The lamp goes off. And this particular girl who is stepping in to be a nanny in our house, she had never been in the home, and we're showing her around. And someone just goes, Alexa, turn on the Christmas tree. And she's like, what kind of a weird family would have a Christmas tree? And there was none.

We looked everywhere, but no one looked up but her, because we were all used to it. And she's like, why is that lamp on all of a sudden? That's my only real question. And you see, the truth is we didn't flinch because this dysfunctional behavior had gone on for so long. We were completely oblivious to it. It's, listen to me, it's impossible to see dysfunction that you've tolerated so long that it's become normal to you. And the Bible says that for free, freedom, Christ has set us free.

But I wonder if there's not in your life an area where you've tolerated bondage, where you've tolerated a stronghold, a pattern of thinking or responding or spending or consuming where you don't even notice it anymore. And in this climate that we're living in, with all of us having our phones on us all the time, it's perhaps like that anecdotal frog in the kettle, something where you're not even noticing how much of your freedom you're giving away. They say that we now touch our phones, on average, 2,660 times per day. 2,660 twice per day.

Y'all, there's only 1,440 minutes per day. That is to say, we touch our phones more times than there are minutes in the day. And what's happening as we reprogram ourselves? I came across to study a while back of rats. They had in a cage. and the rats were given access to a little button that they could push. And if they pushed the button, they would receive a pellet. And then rats were really excited in this experiment for a little while.

But then they wore off. And they thought, every time I push that button, I'm going to get a pellet. So I don't really care about it too much anymore. So they changed it up a little bit. And they made it to where only sometimes when the rats pushed the button, they got a pellet. Now the rats sat there compulsively pushing the button because they didn't know if they were going to get a pellet or not. and to the detriment of their health,

they would sit there pushing that button, which is why it's been proven social media clusters likes. You don't always get a like or a comment or a tag when you open up Instagram. You don't always get that you were tagged in a photo when you open up Facebook. If you got it every single time without fail, you would lose interest in it.

It's because they withhold it and then they give it, and they withhold it, and then they give it. So it lights up the same parts of your brain that a gambler in a Las Vegas nightclub would be getting, because they don't know if I'm going to get it or not. Am I going to get it or not? I'm telling you something. We have to realize we're being used to some extent.

You're not the customer of Instagram. You're the product. The businesses who pay for advertisements to show up are the customers. The app is free. You've never given a dollar to Facebook. Your attention, your eyeballs, your life is being sold. We have to realize to some extent, we're being taken advantage of.

This isn't the anti-instagram message or the anti-Amazon or Jeff Bezos is the anti-Christ sermon. There's many good things that have come through technology. Here we are at Life Church, getting to preach the gospel to hundreds of thousands of people utilizing the tools that God's given to us.

We've got to find a way to use these things for good and not for evil and to get our souls back. our attention, our time is the most precious thing that we have. You know, they say that there can be such a fatigue of consumption, consumption of information, consumption of ideas. Your brain can't tell the difference between a podcast or a book on Audible and someone that's talking to you in person.

And so it's always trying to pay attention to figure out where you stand in a social pecking order. And so it can be fatiguing. I wonder if, in part, some of the higher levels of depression and anxiety and some of the just fatigue that we're feeling isn't in part because it's non-stop Netflix, TV, Hulu, Apple Music, and the ESPN SportsCenter on to fall asleep at night. We've got to be still and know that He is God.

There's got to be space in your life for silence and quiet and solitude. We've got to take our lives back. We've got to fire our autopilot because we can be programmed to do things without even thinking about it. That's one of the things I talk about in I declare war, how to realize how through compound interests, things can just escalate out of control, little decisions at a time, and all of a sudden we can wake up one day further from where we want to be than we even realize. Now, as we continue this dialogue, if you have a Bible, would you please open up with me to First Thessalonians chapter 5? First Thessalonians chapter 5,

I want to give it to you a message that I'm calling act like a wolf. Act like a wolf. act like a wolf. Just jot it down. You're like, that's the weirdest sermon title. Pastor Craig would never make me write anything like that. He'll be back next week. First Thessalonians chapter 5. I love this.

I'm reading out of the message translation, and it's just precious. It says, your sons of light, daughters of day. We live under wide open skies and know where we stand. So let's not sleepwalk through life like those others. Let's not swipe and scroll and double tap like those others. Let's not just aimlessly pull out of our phone just because we're bored.

Let's not just give our life. Let's not sleepwalk through life like those others. Let's keep our eyes open and be smart. People sleep at night and get drunk at night, but not us. since we're creatures of day, let's act like it. Walk out into the daylight, sober, dressed up in faith, love, and the hope of salvation. God didn't set us up for an angry rejection, but for salvation by our master, Jesus Christ. He died for us, a death that triggered life, whether we're awake with the living or

or asleep with the dead, we're alive with him. Who's thankful? I want to give to you a sermon in a sentence. The whole message just boil down to one statement. So if you fall asleep or you leave early, you'll get the just of what I want to talk to about. I want to talk to you about how your daily activity should come from your new identity.

Your daily activity should come from your new identity. I want to talk to you a little bit about why you should act like a wolf. Now we began last week, if you're a little confused by the all of a sudden introduction of the wolf metaphor. We talked last week about how Teddy Roosevelt, our 26th president, he said that in a battle, when he chose to go forward, when he wanted to retreat inside, he found that the power like a wolf rose up in his heart. And we're using that analogy to talk about how when we declare war on the things that are holding us back on, if we are willing to get out of our own way, we will find that power like a wolf rising in our hearts, that we can. can be the wolf that we were born to be. Now I understand if some of you are like, hey, hold on a second, Pastor, Guy, pal, if that is your

real name. Wolves are big and they are bad and they are scary. As far as you didn't know that, the three little pigs actually taught me that. And, you know, not to try and do your job for you and step on any toes, but Pastor Guy, the Bible actually does not have anything positive to say about wolves. I can't believe. You're not aware of that. What sort of Bible college did you go to?

Were you not even paying attention? Jesus is the shepherd, he shall strike the wolf, we are sheep, we are not wolves, wolves are bad. Look, all I will say to that is how like the devil to get you to completely write off an animal that God created that has characteristics you desperately need to possess. What animal, out of all the animals, represent Satan more than any? I would say to you the serpent. First time we see the devil showing up in scripture, he's a serpent. And yet did not Jesus directly say that we, his followers, are to be as harmless as doves, but as cunning as serpents.

So we're to be like the animal that more than any other epitomizes Satan. Now, how about lions? Lions are complicated. I'm not going to lie to you. because, I mean, I love lions. I wrote a whole book about lions. I got love in my heart for lions. But the Bible says that the devil, your adversary, prowls about like a roaring.

But then it also says that the righteous are supposed to be bold as a lion. So could it be that an animal that the devil likes is also an animal that we are meant to be like as well? I submit to you, yes. And I submit to you that the wolf, which has been revered across cultures and across civilizations and countries as the epitome of the warrior spirit is indeed very much what Jesus Christ, the lion of the tribe of the Judah, the lamb who is slain and yet rose, the one who's the first and the last, the alpha and the omega, that he wants you to have that strength, to have that power, to have that warrior spirit. We know wolves are ferocious, but what I didn't know is I began to do the research for this book and to look into them was that wolves are incredibly complex creatures. Yes, of course, power and yes, of course, ferociousness, but also just a tenderness. You see, wolves out of all the animals, are one of the only that are known to practice adoption. How tender is that? Have you ever heard the expression

raised by wolves, right? We don't say that as a compliment usually. But the reason we say that is because it's actually true. A wolf is known to be willing to adopt into their own family, into their own den, into their own tribe if they find and come across an orphaned pup, even if it belongs to a rival, which is absolutely unthinkable in the world of apex predators. There's no other king of beast like the lion that will come across,

You know, like, I'm telling you, scar will eat Simba every time. It's like, no, we got to protect the bloodline. We want our child to be on the throne. But wolves, wolves have a tenderness in their spirit. They're also incredibly empathic creatures. And a big part of the I declare war message is for us to ratchet up our level of empathy, to be socially smart, to be switched on. You know, in this world, we talk a whole lot about IQ.

How smart are you? what are your grades, what's your GPA? They have long since proven that your EQ is actually a better predictor of your success in almost any enterprise than your IQ. How good are you at reading people? How socially aware are you? They say, and you can do tests on this, of course, you can find them on the internet, that if you can raise your EQ, your emotional, intelligent quotient,

that you can have a prediction of a $1,300. increase in your annual take-home salary for every point you're able to raise your people-smarts. You're reading yourself, regulating your mood, and all of these things. Well, wolves are incredibly good at empathy. They read each other. They're one of the only animals known to be susceptible to contagious yawning. Now, a preacher bringing up yawning, this is dangerous territory, right? We're already risky when it comes to falling asleep in church. Someone told me recently, I love your sermons. I fall asleep every night listening to them. And I was like, ah, that's just what I wanted to hear.

Thanks for that. Right. But even just saying the word yawn, they say it's so intense that for human beings, the word yawn, oh, there it happened. And there we have it. Fight all you want. It's coming for you, man. Oh, I can see your hangy ball in the back of your mouth, sir.

And by the way, that will continue to ripple throughout the environment for the next 15 minutes because you will be contagiously receiving it from someone around you. Wolves receive that as well. So to be a wolf is to be a brave warrior, but it's also to be a loving nurturer. And that is your destiny. To be strong in the ways that count, but also to be soft in the ways that count as well. Just like Jesus, who had majesty and strength, but also tenderness and weakness. He could drive out the money changers with a whip.

Indiana Jones. I did it again. Unbelievable. I'll never be invited back, right? But to think about that, but then at the same time, he could also come to this woman and where are you accused this woman, neither do I condemn you go and sin no more. He was soft, and children would come to him and sit on his lap, and kids are such a good judge of character.

And so as we learn to act like a wolf, and that's what we're going to focus in on, in the book I talk about fighting like a wolf and thinking like a wolf and speaking like a wolf, but I want to specifically talk about acting like a wolf because our text said it, Let's look at it one more time in verse 8. Since we're creatures of day, let's act like it. Since we're creatures of day, let's act like it. How do we act like a wolf? Number one, you've got to join a wolf pack.

You can't be a wolf if you're running solo. Why? Because a lone wolf has no protection. Wolves are known to be pack creatures. What did Kipling say? The strength of the wolf is the pack. And the strength of the pack is the wolf. And so it is in the church.

We are not meant to do this life alone. We're to do it with each other, with each other's best interest at mind, to care for each other, to beat each other's lives, not just to be in large groups listening to the message and singing corporately. That's powerful. There's an importance to that, but also in small groups, doing life together, praying for each other, caring for each other, holding each other accountable, being a part of.

of that pact. And let me tell you something, it could save your life. We talked about Teddy Roosevelt and how, you know, he faith battles. Well, one of the biggest battles of his life was when he was giving a speech. He was running for re-election as president, and he showed up to this town on his train, and an assassin tried to take him out, shot him right literally through the chest. In fact, we dug up a picture of the shirt he was wearing. Can you believe that's the blood streaking down his shirt from when he was shot? Now his aides all said, we need to take you to the hospital. And he said, no, take me to my speech. And he went to give a speech that lasted for 90 minutes dripping blood the entire time.

And then he finally finished and said, now you can take me to the hospital. How punk rack was Teddy, all right? So don't mess with the bull moose, y'all. Homie speak softly but carried a big stick, right? So anyhow, when they finally peeled off his jacket, they found that the notes for his speech, he had many pages to a manuscript doubled over and put into the pocket. the bullet was slowed down by the pages, and that's why it didn't kill him that day. The message is, how you speak can save your life.

When you're willing to tell other people in your life, you need prayer and you need help and you need care, you're dealing with depression, or you're dealing with suicidal thoughts, or you just need, we need each other. We need the wolf pack. I came across a study that found that socially isolated men who deal with three or more levels of stress, just stressors. in their life, maybe loss of a job or maybe company downsizing or divorce. Three incidents of stress in a year triples the death rate for socially isolated men,

men who don't have close relationships in their life. But the same study found that men with close relationships, that those stress incidents had no impact on their mortality whatsoever. And that's because they had people in their life to help absorb the difficulty and the chaos and the pain. Come on, you need to be in a small group. You need to do so today. Get people in your life. You've got to get yourself a wolf pack. You're the average of the five

closest people in your life, they say. This is true financially. This is true when it comes to morality, your worldview, what you consume media-wise. So the easiest way to change your life is to change your friends. And I submit to you right here in the Life Church House is the people that could help change your life. This is the place to see your life. life change. If you're going to act like a wolf, you've got to be in a pack. Secondly, jot this down. You've got to change your posture. When you look at a wolf, there's lots of different things that they use nonverbally to communicate to each other. Their lips being curled, their teeth being bared, whether their tail is wagging or straight, their ears up or down,

whether a wolf is tense or relaxed. There's lots of things that they can use to communicate the power and the strength. They actually say those who watch, I remember, I remember, read a 600 page book or something, people who lived with wolves for like six years. And they said, literally, through a scope, you can watch a wolf as a puppy and you could tell what position in the pack they would have as an adult just by how they carried themselves. They're bearing, their body language, the strength that radiated from them. Because in a wolf pack, there's, of course, the alpha. We would say alpha male.

But did you know there's alpha females in every pack as well? And y'all, ladies, you've got to hear me. God has such a plan for you as you rise up in strength to lead and to do all that God's called you to do. Praise God for some alpha females up in here, up in here. So, but there's not just alpha wolves, there's also beta wolves. Lieutenants they call them who are there to execute the vision of the alpha wolf. It's incredible to think about those who can passionately pursue a vision that's not theirs, who are here to say, hey, tell me what to do.

let's go with all our might, with all, they enforce the Alpha's vision. It's incredible. But there's also Omega wolves. And the Omega Wolf is the weakest wolf. It's the scrainiest wolf. They'll see that wolf eating last. But they play an important part too because they function kind of like court jesters. And they're kind of like, ah, and it's like, hey, Larry, oh, Larry, right? Oh, Larry, right? Every church has a Larry, right? Every small group's got the Larry. It's like, oh, the Omega will. But they keep everything up and they're always cracking and jokes, and it's incredible to think that the posture has everything to do with their standing within the community. Let me encourage you to think about the posture. I found, and I talk about it

pretty openly in the book, that as a preacher, as somebody who gets up to speak, a lot of times when I'm feeling nerves, when I'm feeling spiritual warfare, a lot of time what I want to do is kind of hunch over, I'm sitting there prepping, and I kind of have my hands on my neck, you know, kind of what we all do and we're nervous. And what I don't want to do is to stand up ramrod straight like the Holy Spirit has filled my soul with a message. Sometimes what I don't want to do is raise my hands up and praise God. But I'm telling you, those are the very things that give you strength. It's that posture.

It's that strength. Show me the Psalm. Show me the Psalm where David says, God, I worship you hunched over with my hands in my pockets. I show up during the third song. I'm telling you it's always about raise your hands up and a shout of triumph and clap your hands. Oh, you people. You can't be rolling up in the church during the third worship song,

treating worship like it's the previews before the movie. I'm telling you, worship is the main event. Y'all got to be up in here early. You need that strength. You need that, the posture, the strength that comes. And the less I feel capable of it, the more I know I need it. And a lot of times by choosing to stand believing, like the book of Joel says, let the weak say I am strong.

And to believe that, right? our daily activities should come from our new identity. We've got to act like a wolf even when we don't feel like a wolf. I found one of the most effective things for me is a deep breath. They say many of us live in a state of perpetual shallow breathing. And our shallow breathing causes our hearts to race. The problem is when our hearts get to 120 beats for a minute, our minds grow fuzzy.

And when our heart rates get to 150 beats a minute, we're not able to make good decisions at all. which, by the way, when you get into an altercation and you're getting flustered, you breathe shallow, and your heart's racing, that's why after the conversation's over, you'll think of the perfect thing you should have said. Jerk storm. Ah, right. I should, ah, uh, why? Because your heart was racing, so your mind was prioritizing blood to your quad so you could run or to your fist that you could fight to your pupil so you could see the danger that's coming, right? And it's shutting down decision-making.

It's shutting down emotional intelligence. And afterwards, when you're breathing again, blood's going back to the part of the brain that's able to make good decisions. And now all of a sudden, you think of what you should have said and you realize what you should have done or what you shouldn't have thrown. Or that you shouldn't have punched through the drywall. What good did that do? Do we feel better now, everybody?

Tantrum over. And so a lot of times what I've found is in the moments when I get the most flustered, one of the best things I can do is stop and go and just calm myself down and take some deep breaths and with that believe for the Holy Spirit to fill me and to give me the strength and to think about my posture and to stand up right and to enter into all that God has for me. It's just helping anybody at all? Just some practical things. And you're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We came to church and heard you tell us we need to have good posture and breathe good. Hey, hey, listen to me, the problem for most of us is not that we don't know what to do, it's that we don't know what we don't do what we know. And it's the simple things. We're asking for a revival and a breakthrough and God's

like, you're dehydrated. You know what I'm saying? Like, right? I mean, I need to be delivered. No, you need to stop drinking so much sweet tea, honey. All right, so that's, I have headaches and I's probably a demon. Maybe not. All right. The third P is pregame. What's your pregame like? I read this book called American Wolf and it talked all about how wolves before they hunt, they'll do a rally and they'll jump on each other. It's like a pile of furry bodies. And then they go out and hunt. They know a pregame is important. They got to get themselves psyched up. How do you get yourself psyched up for the day? We talk about a quiet time, but I really think it's important to think about what does your pregame look like? We focus on the day. What about your pregame? What about the game

before the game? How do you get yourself psyched up to obey God, to love people well, to serve Jesus? Focus on your pregame. Figure out what it takes for you to be your best. How to you? How to is how do you suit up so that you can be at your best when you show up? Spend some time with Jesus. Get into your U version out. Listen to some of the life church worship. Let your soul be nourished before you go out to your day. Fourth and finally, props.

Write it down props. You're like in a movie? Like the props? Yeah, actually. What does verse 8 say? We need to go out dressed up in faith. love and the hope of salvation. You got to make sure your wardrobe's on.

If we're creatures of the day, let's act like it. Actors need props. Props do two things. They suit you up in the way you're supposed to be, but they also can prop you up. They can actually give you strength and support. I brought some of my favorite props today. Well, one of them is noise-canceling headphones.

They say that if students go to school and take tests under the flight path of an airplane, they get worse grades than if the same students, is in a school without the flight over it. We need silence and solitude in our daily lives. Maybe one of your props could be that you have some earplugs or some headphones just to block out some of the craziness of your life. Another prop could be a journal.

I brought my journal where I pour out my heart before God, where I can write down things that I'm thankful for. Studies have shown that if people write down even just five things they're thankful for, as infrequently as one time per week, their perceived sense of happiness will increase by as much. much as 25%, the prop of a journal. My wife has a prop. If Jenny was here, she would tell you about her bracelet.

When she's feeling like she's not being the wife she wants to be, she had read about in this book called What It's It Like to be married to me, that she could change a bracelet from one hand to the other. And so when she's not being the wife she wants to be, she'll take her bracelet off and put it on the other wrist. I made the mistake one time when she was not being her best to reach for her bracelet. And she said, you change her own dang bracelet. Come on, shove your neighbor.

Tell them, change your own dang bracelet. My other prop, and this is the last one I want to show you, are these glasses. These glasses are incredibly valuable to me because they are non-prescription, but when I was having a challenging season, I needed them to become the version of me that I was born to be. And on days when I was struggling with it, I would put them on, and with it, I was putting on faith. I was dressing myself in hope. I was only allowed to be a son of the day and a son of the light while I was wearing these glasses.

And I don't know if you need a special ring that only brave, kind moms are allowed to wear. Or if you have a special mug to drink your latte, that only dads who are present for their kids on family day are allowed to drink. But something that just is a reminder to you of the things that God is speaking to you. Now, maybe I can hear one or two of you like, are you kidding me, props? This is ridiculous. Like, what are you talking about? You're asking me to be fake. You're asking me to be phony.

And I would just say this. I'm not asking you to pretend to be something you're not. I'm telling you should act like who God says you are. And who God says you are is a son of the day. It's a daughter of the light. So let's act like it. In Jesus' name. Father, thank you that we don't have to live our lives based on our feelings.

The Bible never tells us to feel what's right. The Bible tells us to do what's right. Thank you that when we do what's right, the feelings often follow. If you're here, as we're praying, closing this message down, and you haven't become a son or daughter of the day yet. You're still living at night. You haven't received what Jesus triggered when he rose from the dead. You don't have the confidence to go into the grave with your sins forgiven.

You've never said yes to Jesus. Today's the day and now is the time. Right here, it's the day of salvation. It's the moment your whole life is pointing. to where you get to receive what Jesus bought for you on the cross with our heads bowed and eyes closed would you like to give your life to Jesus if so why not right now if you i'm describing and you'd like to open your heart up to the savior who died for you who loves you who wants to make you a son of the day and a daughter of the light could i ask you to raise your hand up every location right now right now

all across the room every location all 34 church online raise your hand up praise god for everyone one of you. Click the button right below the screen. You can put your hand down. Pray with me. All of us praying, dear God, I give you my heart, my fears, my pain, my sin. Thank you for dying for me. By your spirit, help me to live for you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. God bless you, Life Church. Love you. Until next time. Hey, thanks for joining us here at Life Church. You know, as a church, it's always our desire to help you take your next steps in your relationship with Christ, and we'd love to be able to do that. All you have to do is go to life.church slash next, and you can find all kinds of resources

to help you in your faith journey. And if you've been enjoying our messages, all we ask is that you would subscribe and be a part of our community. Again, thanks again for joining us, and we'll see you next time.