Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Jesus and We, Part 3: Irrationally Generous

Episode Date: January 17, 2015

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We know that love gives. We love because God first loved us and gave his son that we could live. Therefore, as a church, we will lead the way with irrational generosity because we truly believe it's more blessed to give than to receive. All right, let's dive in. Welcome today to everybody to another week of Jesus. And we, what we've been doing, if you're new with us, is for four weeks during this month. What we're doing is we're looking at different values of our church. leading any type of organization, what you want to do is create some values that will help create

culture. One of our values is big faith. We like to say that we are big thinking, bet the farm, risk takers. We will never insult God with small thinking or safe living. One of our values is serving. We are not spiritual consumers. We are spiritual contributors. The church does not exist for us, but we are the church and we exist for the world. Today, I want to talk to you about a value that honestly was not one of the original seven values when we started the church in 1996. Don't miss the power of this. This was not one of the original values. Over time, God did a big, big work in my heart and in my church, and we added a value

that was not an original value, but is now one of the driving forces of who we want to be as God's people in his church. It's the value of generosity. I want to take the words of Jesus that were recorded in Acts 2035, and this value comes from the words of Jesus when he said, it is more blessed to do what? All of our churches, it is more blessed to give than to what, than to receive? It is more blessed to give than to receive. What makes this value so important to me is that I was not generous at all.

This is something that God has done in my heart, and I want to tell you a little bit of that story. today. It was years ago that I read for the first time Stephen Covey's work in the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He talked about the difference between a scarcity mindset and an abundance mindset. If you've never studied this, I really recommend the difference between scarcity thinking and abundant thinking. I grew up quite honestly with a scarcity mindset, meaning someone who believes in a scarcity mindset believes that there's simply not enough to go around. There's always a lack and you've got to get what you can because there's not enough. Someone with an abundant mindset believes there's always more.

There's always more. If we take it from a faith perspective, we serve an abundant, powerful God and our God can always provide. In a very rational sense, it would be a little bit like to say, if we had a cherry pie, Now, I don't know if you've noticed how many of my illustrations are food-related during our 21-day fast, but it just seems to keep on happening no matter what. If I had a cherry pie and you cut out one-fourth of it and took it, a scarcity mindset says, there's not enough for me. I want to guard what's mine.

An abundant mindset says, you can have half, and we can make another one. There's always enough to go around. And so with this scarcity mindset, I grew up very afraid and honestly terrified to give. I was not a generous person at all. In fact, one of the only ways I would give was in re-gifting. How many know what re-gifting is? Am I re-gifting? And to me, the gift card was like the classic re-gift.

Perfect. God provides to you and you give to someone else and it cost you nothing. Okay? Until I got busted. A guy was painting one of my bathrooms, and he was not a Christian. And I wanted to be a blessing to him and encourage him. He did a good job. So I gave him an extra above what I paid him, a gift card, $25 gift card to Chili's.

And I said, I just want you to know, you did a great job, and I believe that warrants more. And he was, like, genuinely touched. You could tell he almost got like emotional, and he's like, no one's ever done this for him. Like, man, I want you to be blessed. and I'm trying to kind of like help him be drawn to the things of God. So he went to Chile. He was that night, evidently. The reason I know is because he called me from there.

So here's his number. And I picked up the phone. He goes, hey, guess where I am? And I heard noise in the background. I don't know. He goes, I'm in Chile. Okay. Now, he wasn't a believer.

And so what he said to me next, I'm not going to say in church. But he said, what the bleep-de-bleep were you thinking? And suddenly he went from being blessed to evidently not happy with me. And he said, here I am with my buddy, drinking some beer. ordered a lot and I gave them this gift card and there's only $2.43 on this gift card. Nowhere to hide. I re-gifted a mostly used gift card. If you're ever going to re-gift a gift card, rule number one, check the balance. Rule number two, make sure your name's not on it somewhere. Just saying from experience, those are very important things. And so here I was, like trying to do

something even sort of generous, and yet I just couldn't quite get there. What I want to do today is talk about one of the values that we have as a church, and I believe that God's people should have. And I want to start with a teaching from the book of Corinthians. Let me give you the context of this. Paul was trying to inspire the Corinthians to give to kind of like the Jerusalem church. It was like headquarters and such. And he was telling the Corinthians about a group of people known as the Macedonians. The reason the Macedonians were so moving to Paul is because they were dirt poor. They were living in deep poverty, and the Macedonians gave this massive gift. And so Paul was bragging on them to give context.

And here's what he said, 2, 2nd Corinthians 8, verse 2 about the Macedonian Christians. He said, in the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in what, let's all say it allowed it, weld up in rich, generations. Then he said in verse three, this is stunning, if you think about it. For I testify that they gave what, let's all say it, they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability. Pause there for a moment and ask yourself, when is the last time that you gave as much as you were able? And maybe even pushed it beyond that. That's a point. pretty convicting question for me to ask myself. He says this entirely on their own. Now, this is

interesting. They urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord's people. In other words, they urgently pleaded. We want to give. And I don't know if this happened or not, but I can almost imagine the Apostle Paul saying to them, you know, this isn't for you guys to give. In other words, you guys have your own problems. We'll let some wealthier people do this. I can't prove he did that, perhaps he did. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. We want to give. Please let us. We want to do this. We want to give to further the mission of God. This is something that we want to do. They urgently pleaded for the privilege of being able to give. How different is that from what we see today? I mean, think about it.

In ministries, churches, non-profits, charities, it's almost like you have to do gimmicks to get people to give, right? It's like, you know, we'll sell products to raise money. We'll do cupcake sales to make money. If you sign the card, your three-year pledge to give money, for a $100 gift, we'll send you your own prayer cloth and water from the Dead Sea and anointing oil from Israel for $100. And it's like, if you send your money, we'll do this. How different is that from a very poor group of people saying, we urgently plead with you, please, for the honor of giving toward furthering the mission of our Savior, Jesus Christ. They urgently pleaded for the opportunity to give.

And then verse 5 says, and they exceeded our expectations. I love this. They gave themselves, what, let's all say this aloud. Where did they give first? They gave themselves first of all to the Lord. Stop there for a moment. They gave their lives to God. fully and completely, Jesus, take my life.

It's not my own. I give it to you. And then, by the will of God also to us. It started by giving their lives completely to Christ. Then Paul says, but since you excel in everything, see that you also do what? See that you also excel in the grace of giving. Let's be great givers. One of our values is generosity.

And we love to say it this way. We will lead the way. As a church, we will lead the way with irrational generosity. Why? Because we truly believe it is more blessed to give than to receive. As a church, let's all say this aloud. We will lead the way with irrational generosity. Why? Because we truly believe it is more blessed to give than to receive.

We will lead the way with irrational generosity. In fact, my oldest two daughters moved out a while back. They're on their own. and one of my daughters just got hired as an associate youth pastor in Jinks, Oklahoma. It's a community in the greater Tulsa area. Shout out to my peeps in Tulsa. And so Katie and Mandy are entirely on their own. In other words, they pay all their own bills 100% of everything,

and I believe this is a way you help build responsibility. And so everything, they're completely 100% on their own. Well, Mandy was moving to Jinks, and so she was in Tulsa. meeting a roommate from a campus there, and they were at a restaurant talking about getting an apartment together, and neither one of them had hardly any furniture. And again, they're entirely on their own. And so they were talking about it, and a lady came up and did not know who my daughter was, no idea, and said, I really apologize, but I overheard that you guys are trying to get furniture, and the lady said, I like to be irrationally generous. And I want to bless you all with some furniture,

if that wouldn't be too weird. Mandy called me, she's like, Dad, you're not going to believe how good God is. This lady said to me, she wants to be irrationally generous. I said, Mandy, do you realize she goes to our church? Mani's like, how do you know? Because no one says irrationally generous in a church, you know, anywhere, unless they've heard that phrase before.

Should you really think so? Absolutely. And long story short, the lady actually goes to Mandy's campus and Jinks, had no idea who she was, and a culture of irrational generosity just blessed my daughter with potential furniture and didn't cost me a dime. And I love the fact that we've got thousands of crazy people like that out there looking for opportunities to be irrationally generous because we truly believe as followers of Jesus. It is more blessed to give than to receive. Now, if you were with us the last couple of weeks, what I ask you to do is kind of,

rate yourself when it comes to faith and rate yourself when it comes to serving. I want to get you to do something again. I want to ask you to look at a little sliding scale of one to ten and ask yourself, are you less generous or are you more generous? Are you irrationally generous? And before you go ahead and put something down, let's just talk it out. Okay, don't put ten unless you were sinless and gave your life for the sins of the world. Okay, don't put ten.

You're not Jesus. At the same time, don't put one because that's the devil, and we're going to believe you've done something, at least open a door for somebody which qualifies you for two. Fair enough. But I want you to put yourself somewhere on the scale, and I want you to think about it. This takes a little more work because this can be tricky. Let's think about it. You can have a lot of money and give what most people would consider to be a lot, but for you it's really not. and so you could give a big amount and yet really not be that generous, right?

On the other hand, you could have almost nothing, and you could give what most people would consider not much, but for you it's a lot, and that makes you more generous. So I want you to think about it, maybe not so much in how much you give, but maybe think about it in how much you keep for yourself. Fair enough. So just go through your mind. Maybe you're a tither, and maybe you give offerings,

and maybe you pray about what else to give and your strategic, maybe you have a giving budget, maybe you give a lot of your time and you serve and such. And you might be a seven or an eight or nine. You might be, on the other hand, one who finds it very difficult to give, like I did for years. You might be one right now that you're kind of angry that we're talking about this in church.

Let's call it what it is, right? You're sensitive to this subject, and you don't like it. That could be an indication of a scarcity mindset, and it might tip you a little bit lower on the scale. What I want you to do is think about it. How much do you keep? How much do you really use to be a blessing to others? Where would you rank yourself on the scale?

I will go two to nine because we're not going to hit those extremes. You are not Jesus and you're not the devil. If you are the devil, please leave as soon as you can. Go ahead and put it somewhere on that list. What would you be? Now, what I want to do is, is, encourage you if you're a follower of Jesus to become irrationally generous. You don't have to be a Christian to be irasional generous. In fact, I know a lot of non-Christians who are crazy, crazy

generous. You don't have to be. But if you are a Christian, I believe that you really should be irrationally generous with what God trusts to you. Isaiah 32 verse 8 says this, but generous people do what? All of our churches, let's say it aloud, but generous people plan to do what? And is generous. And they do what? They stand firm in their generosity. They plan to do what is generous. Generous people plan to do what is generous. They stand firm in their generosity. They plan to do it. Stingy people plan how they can get more. I often will plan how I can buy something. If there's some tech toy I want, I research it, I study it, I make the kill. A generous person does the same thing with giving.

They plan, how can they be more generous? They stand firm in their generosity. When all of culture says, consume, consume, consume, a generous person stands firm and says, no, I give, give, give. Because giving is not just what we do, but generous is who we are. Don't miss the power of that. Giving is not just something we occasionally do. Generous is who we are.

And what I want to do is a little something different today. I want to tell a longer version of the story that may help inspire you to take a step toward irrational generosity. And I want to tell you where I started again, I was not generous at all. And the big hang up where it first started for me, quite honestly, was seeing people give to the church, quite honestly seeing my parents give to the church. I remember being in high school, and we'd go to church every now and then, and I remember them writing a $20 check or putting a $20 bill in the offering bucket.

And I remember thinking, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, do you know what that could buy? And that's what I would think back in 1982. Because I remember thinking two of those $20 checks would buy one polo shirt, of which I do not have, which is the doorway to popularity. You see, I had a knockoff night to the round table. Some of you know what I'm talking about, and now you know why I have issues. I didn't have a guy on a horse with a polo stick. I had a guy on a horse with a flag that was meant to look like a polo stick, and you can't get a date.

We're a knight to the round table. Oh, what could that money have been used for? And as I became a follower of Jesus in college, I heard a pastor teach very convincingly about the power and privilege of the tithe. And I never will forget him teaching what the tithe is, returning 10% of what God blesses to us, back to him through the local church. And I remember being stunned and disoriented and angry and like no way. And he was so convincing saying the tithe predated the law. And Jesus and Matthew 2323 affirmed the tithe in the New Testament. And the tithe is mentioned in Hebrews in the New Testament.

And this is a beginning point. And then the thing that was a killer. And he said the scripture actually teaches when you don't do this, you're robbing from God. And I remember thinking, well, that's nothing. because back in high school, I used to literally rob from God. I was an usher, two ushers, me and my buddy, and we would go at First United Methodist Church, Ardmore, Oklahoma. We ushed in the balcony.

I don't know if ushed is a verb, but it just became one. We ushed in the balcony. And when people would put their money into the big gold thing, we would have to walk from the balcony down to the main floor, down to the basement in order to give the ties and offerings to the grown-up ushers. and on the way down, every now and then or quite often, there'd be a loose one or a five sitting there, and we'd reach in, and we'd put it in our pocket,

and we'd smile and give over the rest of God's money, and then we'd sneak out the side door and run as fast as we could to the convenience door and buy an orange sherbert push-up, and take that top off and push that thing up, and eat that thing down, and sneak back in before the sermon ever started, and wipe away the swirbert,

boils of orange and stood in the house of God. If you're wondering, is lightning about to strike me at this moment? I'm wondering too. That's what I did. I stole from God. I stole. And as I learned what the tithe was, I was afraid to do it because I had a scarcity mindset. I never will forget when I gave my first tithe, and I saw the miraculous provision of God. And I started to understand that 90% with his blessings goes further than 100% without. And I've never not tithed from that very first moment, and that was the beginning of changing my theology from a scarcity mindset to a God who is an abundant God who provides for his people. That was the beginning. From there, years later, I felt like I heard two words. I don't know if you ever feel like.

God says something to you. Sometimes I'm convinced it is. Sometimes it's probably you had pizza too late at night and you had a dream or whatever. You know, it's hard to know. But I felt like God was leading me to two words, round up. And whenever I give, just round up, round up, whatever it is round up. And so the first place I did it was at a drive-in restaurant. I went in, I ordered a cherry lime-aid and it was maybe a buck-fifty. And all I had was a bigger bill. Normally I would have gotten and changed and given the quarters. And I just, you know, said, just go ahead and keep this. And the car hop looked at me, looked down, look back at me, look down, looked at me again.

I said, yep, it's for you. Have a great day. And I drove off. Well, what I found out later was the car hop actually knew who I was, didn't like me, didn't like our church, and was so moved by what they consider to be a generous tip, actually said, well, maybe I misread this thing and I'll give it a shot. That person ended up coming to church. Several weeks later, that car hop surrendered to Christ.

And now that car hop is a campus pastor. I made up that last part. But wouldn't that have been really cool? I just made that up. I had momentum and it was going there, and that's totally not true. But the part about coming to Christ is completely true, and that was evidence of the power of God in rounding up. I told that story here, I don't know how many years ago, and now we've got a church

full of people that round up. I know people who, if their tithe was going to be $185, they just round on up to 200. I know people who, if they were going to tip 18%, they round on up to 20. Some people 22, some go crazy and go to 25%. They just round up. I know one guy that gave a car away, and instead of just giving the car away, he went and had it detailed and filled it up with gas. Why? Because he rounds up. If you're going to give your cat away, give a dish and the food and the toys. Why? Because it is way more blessed to give your cat away than it is to ever receive a cat in any form.

Thus saith the Lord. We round up. We round up. Then in 2006, everything changed. January of 2006, people were starting to say, Craig, can we be able to be? buy your messages? Can we buy the different products the church has? Because we didn't have a way to sell them at that point. Our church was younger. And there became a demand. And quite honestly, I always knew in the back of my mind that day might come. And honestly, I knew that there could be a significant

revenue stream for the church. And if I can just say it like it is, there could have been a real significant revenue stream for my family had I set it up that way. And that was always in the back of my mind. And at this point, we were positioning ourselves to do what every other church and every other ministry had done with integrity and done well for years, just make those available at a reasonable price and provide great resources in the church or whoever can make a little bit of money. And we thought, okay, if generosity, which became a new value, was real to us, what if instead of selling, we just gave it all away? Okay. I cannot put into words how difficult of this. decision this was, not because our heart wasn't there, but because we didn't have much money as a

church. We were in the, we had the most debt that we'd ever had. We were literally, as a church, we were kind of living like paycheck to paycheck. There were months upon months that we didn't know if we're going to make payroll. It was so, so, so tight. And I hate debt, and we had a lot of it, and I was scared to death. And we basically decided to put our money where our mouth was and said, if we're going to be irrationally generous, then we're going to be irrationally generous. And we started giving away resources. It started with sermons and then transcripts and then the little videos that we produce, the little openers that you see. These are played at churches all over the world. Kids curriculum, kids' videos, student curriculum, small group curriculum, the switch videos and on and on

and on and on. Well, as of last year, there were 160,000 churches that benefited from free resources. There's only 400,000 churches in our country, 160,000 churches around the world benefited from free resources. We've given away 6.2 million, 6.2 million free resources to churches all over the world. We will lead the way with their rational generosity. We've created something called church online. Church online last year impacted over 5 million people from every country in the world. Churches around the world wanted to say, we want to do church online, how can we do it? quite honestly, they don't have the tech geeks that we have and they don't have the money to do it.

So we raised the money from generous places, people, and we decided to give that away. As of today, there are now 8,700 churches that use the free church online resource to reach thousands of people around the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Absolutely and completely free. We created a church metrics management system. In our world, there's nothing like it. this would cost thousands of dollars in other resources. There are 28,000 churches that use this as a free gift to make a difference in their ministry. Then one day, churches started coming and

say, well, could we use your message, not every now and then, but could we use your video teaching message every week? And could we use your kids videos? And could we use your student videos? And do you mind if we use your small groups of? Basically, can we do a live church but not be a life church? Was the question. And so we thought, well, if our goal is to get the message down, of course you can. And they said, well, how much are you going to charge us for that? And since we were on a roll, we just said, no charge. So to all of our partnering network churches that are live right now all over the world,

it is our gift to partner with you and our great honor to lead the way with irrational generosity to get the message out to help people all over the world. One day, we were able to create the U-Version Bible app. As of today, 166 million people have received the free U-Version Bible. Bible at people say all the time, why don't you sell it for 99 cents, just 99 cents. Think about all the money you can make. They don't understand that back when I was in college, someone gave me a free Bible, and that Bible changed my life.

Therefore, our Bible is not for sale. We are on the way to giving away $1 billion is our goal, and it's simply going to be who we are. When we go into a community to launch a new campus, now we go in bearing gifts. The last community we went into, there's a rough neighborhood nearby, and we wanted to be a blessing. We brought in gifts to the school, got the teachers gift cards, are working with the district to maybe build a playground because they don't have one, unleashed hundreds of volunteers to go into the school district and into the neighborhood, to serve and make a difference and help rebuild lives.

When we go in, we want to see lives impacted. We want to see people be glad the church is in town. We want to support mission partners all over the world. We help, because of your generosity, to help children survive. wouldn't survive otherwise. We help with micro financing and developing countries to give entrepreneurs the ability to start businesses and to better their own families. Whenever there's disaster, we partner with organizations around the world to bring relief.

I don't care where you give. If you don't like me, don't trust me, don't like this church, don't give a dime here. Don't give anything here. Find a local church you believe in and give their first. Return 10% their first. Why? Because the local church makes the deep. the spiritual impact in the lives of people. And when people are transformed, communities are

transformed, and then the world is changed. I'm telling you, honestly, find some place you believe in, plug in there, use your gifts there, give generously there. Then give beyond that. Look for some kids who need furniture and be rationally generous when you don't know who they are. Look for some ministry that you like and give your time there as well as your money there. Because as followers of Jesus, I believe that we could be like the Book of Acts, where it said two different times, if there was someone in need, Christians would take what they had, sell it and give the money so it could meet the needs of people who were there. What's shocking to me is there's not one specific story of this ever happened. There's no woman who sold her earrings to give the resources

to the poor. There's no dad who inherited a table from his dad that sold that table. There's not one specific giving story. The only specific story is when someone didn't give. When Ananias and Sophia was stole and they died. And Luke thought, hmm, now that's different. Don't miss the power of this. There is no specific story about giving. One could argue because it was so common.

It happened every day. The church just did this. Don't miss the power of this. Every single day is just what followers of Jesus. did. And when they did this, when they did this, Acts 433 and 34 says, and God's grace was so powerfully at work where? Say it with me. His grace was at work in them all, not just some, but in the whole church of Jesus Christ. His grace was at work in them all so that there was what? So that there was no needy persons among them. Could that be possible today? I'm here to tell you, if our churches

would get on fire and realize that we will lead the way with irrational generosity because we truly believe it is more blessed to give than receive. I believe we could meet the needs of the people in our communities. I believe we could get their attention. I visualize the church of the irrationally generous people who start with the tithe as a beginning point and then give offerings well beyond that. I see a group of people who are not entitled but see themselves as entrusted with God's resources to do more, to whom much has been given, much is required. And we have been given much, therefore God expects much. I see a group of people who believe deep within their heart that it is more blessed to give

than it is to receive. Therefore, as followers of Jesus, we will be irrationally generous. And when people look on and they may say, I don't know if I believe. what you believe, but I don't know why you're doing what you're. Why are you being so generous? And then at that moment, we will tell them about our generous God, who gave more than we could ever imagine when he loved us so much that he gave his one and only son, that whosoever would believe in him would not perish, but have eternal life. So if you're not a Christian, man, I hope you're irrationally generous, because you can make a big difference.

But if you're a follower of Jesus, we should be irrationally generous because we serve the most generous God who gave it all. Therefore, we will lead the way with irrational generosity because as followers of Jesus, we truly believe it is more blessed to give than to receive. Father, I pray that you would stir within the hearts of our church today that if we're a three or a four or a five, you would move us, God, to an eight or nine in generosity. And all of our churches, as you take a moment to reflect today, let me just ask a very simple question.

I don't care where you fall on that scale, but you want to be more generous. You want to have an abundant mindset. You want to give not out of obligation or duty, but you want to plead in the privilege of being able to share in the blessing of giving to make a difference in the lives of others. God help me with my time

with my resources, with my heart, to be more generous. If you'd like to move up that scale and generosity, leading the way in irrational generosity, representing our generous God, would you lift up your hands right now, all of our different churches, just hands going up all over the place. God, thank you so much for people who really are beginning to grasp

who you are and what you've done for us. And God, we want to show love to others. I pray, God, that we would start being generous in our church. And God, that as the church, we'd be generous with the world. That God, we see ourselves, not the church being the people in the building, but we see ourselves as the church being the people in the community, looking for opportunities to make a difference in the lives of others. Holy Spirit, we pray, you do a work in our hearts, that you move us all to a greater place of irrational generosity. Believe in God, you're an abundant God, and you bless those as they give. And we are blessed, God,

to be a blessing. As you keep praying today, at all of our churches. Campus pastors, look at me, campus pastors. I'm going to do an audible. We're going public with this one, so campus pastors be ready. I want everybody looking up here. Nobody head down, everybody's eyes open. I am so afraid that there are so many people that know about God, but do not know them personally. And I want you to hear this. God loves you so much. It doesn't matter how alone you feel. It doesn't matter how alone you feel. if you believe in him, doesn't matter if you feel like you're mad at him, he loves you. And he did something for all of us that's hard for us to get our minds around. He became one

of us in the person of Jesus. He was God in the flesh, who was without sin. Jesus gave his life, gave his life, so that we could be forgiven. Our only reasonable response, I'm so afraid that some people like pray a prayer when they're 12 and like, okay, check the box and move on or kind of do this. Our only reasonable response is not just to say, hey, Lord, save me, but to give our lives back, to say, I want to be like Jesus. I want to follow him.

I want to commit my life completely to him. I want to commit my life to him. I want to give it to him. And all of our churches, there are some of you, you're going to recognize, you may be a church guy like I was, but you've never truly given yourself to him. In the Corinthian text, if you'll remember first, they gave themselves to the Lord.

Some of you, it's your time to give yourself to the Lord. and I'm going to give you the privilege of doing it publicly in front of everybody to say, you know what? He gave his life for me. I'm giving my life for him. I want to become a follower of Jesus. I need my sins forgiven. This is not just in word.

This is with my whole life. First, I give myself to the Lord. At all of our churches, those of you who say, you know what? That's me. That's me. In front of God and everybody, I want to publicly say, today, by faith, I surrender my life to Jesus. By faith today, I give my life to him. That's your prayer.

Lift your hands high right now. all over the place, lift them up and say, yes, that's my prayer. Right back back over here. God bless you. Others of you say yes, right back here in the middle section. Praise God for you. Right back over here, up here close to me. Yes, God, I surrender.

Others of you who say, yes, that's my prayer. Jesus, I surrender and give my life completely to you. Church online, you click right below me. You may want to type it out. Anybody else before we go to prayer? One last chance. In front of God and everybody, I surrender my life to Christ. God bless you.

Now I'm right back there. I'm becoming a follower of Jesus. Right back over here as well, sweetheart. Yes, I surrender to Jesus. Would you all pray with those around you? You pray, Heavenly Father, by faith, I give my life to you. Because Jesus died for me, I give my life to you. Forgive me of all my sins.

Make me brand new. Would you be my Lord and be my Savior? Holy Spirit, fill me. that I could serve you well. Make me like Jesus. That I could live for him. My life is not my own. Today I give it to you.

Thank you for new life. Now you have mine. In Jesus' name I pray. Would you worship big, worship loud. Welcome those born into God's family today.