Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Overwhelmed, Part 1: Overwhelmed

Episode Date: October 22, 2017

So much to do, and so little time to do it ... sound familiar? When you're spread thin, it's easy to feel defeated—but you don't have to be Overwhelmed. Let's look at how we can bring some strength and sanity to our daily lives. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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.church. 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. For many of us, we can live our daily lives in a constant mode of what feels like so much to do and so little time, leaving us feeling defeated.

Well, in today's message, we'll see how having the right perspective and the right priorities can bring strength to our everyday situations. In a special message we're calling, overwhelmed. Hey, Life Church, before we dive into this week's message, I want to tell you about next week. We're launching a brand new message series. I'm incredibly excited to teach. It's called When the Devil Knocks.

We often forget, as believers, that every single day, we're in a spiritual battle. It's not like if we're going to be under spiritual attack. We are under attack, and the good news is that we have the weapons to fight back against the lies of the enemy. I promise you this series will equip you, empower you, inspire you, and give you the tools that you need to fight against the temptations of the evil one. Hey, I also want to tell you some amazing news that about three years ago, we launched a

church in Wichita, Kansas. About a year and a half ago, they moved into a new building, and it is so exploding that, guess what? We've actually purchased a second piece of land in Wichita, Kansas, and we'll be moving dirt soon for yet another life church location. I want to say thank you to all of you for your amazing passion, your generosity. We're going to do anything short of sin to reach people who don't know Christ. Speaking of Wichita, Kansas, I want to introduce to you our speaker for the day, Pastor Tim Doremus, is the amazing leader and pastor of this church. He is a fantastic man of God today. He'll be teaching for the second time. And when you hear him teach, you're going to want to hear him for a third time. I love this man. You're going to love him too.

Would you please help me welcome from Life Church, Wichita, Kansas, Pastor Tim Doremes. Remus. Thank you so much, Pastor Craig. And to say that it is humbling to be introduced by our pastor to preach to you all as an understatement. But I want you to know this. For the last seven years, I've gotten to know Pastor Craig better and better. And as I have my admiration and respect for him has just continued to increase, and I am thankful that he is my pastor and proud to call him that. And I know that the same is true for you as well. Speaking of our pastor, I've been fortunate enough to hear him talk through our series. It starts next weekend when the devil knocks. It is incredible. you're not going to want to miss it. It starts next weekend. And last but not least, you heard him announce a second life church location in my town in Wichita,

Kansas. And here's what I want you to know wherever you are. I want you to know that there are people going crazy there right now. And they're going crazy not because we're going to put a new building there, but because God has used this church to change their life. And they have friends and family that they're praying for, that God will use this tool to do the same. So thank you so much for your prayers. Thank you for your generosity. God is using you in my community. to change people's lives. As we get started today, I have a question for you, and here's my question, do you ever feel overwhelmed? Do you ever feel overwhelmed? It's that feeling that there's more coming at you than you could possibly handle. Do you ever feel overwhelmed? I was in the lobby of our church a week ago, and I walked out, and there was Matt, a brand new dad with his three-week-old baby boy, and I looked at him, and I said, Matt, that is a good-looking baby man you have. isn't being a dad great. And with his mouth, he said this. He said, yeah, it's awesome. But his eyes said something completely different. He had like this fear and this sleep deprivation and this,

I don't know if I'm going to make it through this look in his eyes. I call him new dad eyes. I had them at one point. I've seen them in other people. It's that feeling of being overwhelmed. I don't know if I can handle all of this. Maybe for you, it's time. There's not enough time to get everything done. You rush out of the house, getting some kind of food in the belly of your kids. You get them to school. You get to work on time. You do two people's jobs and one person's pay. After work, you rush home. You get your three kids. You put them in the car. You take the first to karate. You have 15 minutes to make a 20-minute drive to the other side of town to get your second kid to baseball practice. Somehow you make it on time. You then go to Chick-fil-A. You put your third

kid in the play place so you can have a moment's piece. Then you pick up dinner. You retrace your steps. You're feeling pretty good about yourself when you get home, only to realize that you left kid number three in the playplace at Chick-fil-A. We've either done it or we've been close to doing it. We feel overwhelmed, right? There's too much. Maybe it's your finances. It's that feeling in your stomach as you walk to the mailbox because there's already been more month than there's been money. And it's that feeling of dread of what's waiting on me when I open this up.

What bill is there that I don't have money for? I feel overwhelmed. Maybe it's your marriage. You're going, you know what? A loving, caring relationship sounds awesome, but to be honest, I would just settle for civility. Like, could we just not argue for one day? It's too much. I'm feeling overwhelmed.

Maybe it's comparison, right? As you see your best friend posting a picture on social media of the from scratch, gluten-free, non-dairy, no-dye meal that she has just made, it looks like it's straight out of Pinterest. And you're eating frosted flakes for the third time that week. right do you ever feel overwhelmed some of you are saying i didn't before but now that i'm a church i feel overwhelmed welcome to life church we're glad that you're here we all feel overwhelmed at one point or another and here's what i want to do today i want to look at god's word because i think it has something to say to us when we feel overwhelmed and it's talking about 10 men who understood what it was like

to feel overwhelmed we're going to pick up in luke chapter 17 beginning in verse 11 where it says this it says as Jesus continued on towards Jerusalem, he reached the border between Galilee and Samaria. As he entered the village there, 10 men with leprosy, that's an important point. Ten men with leprosy stood at a distance, cried out, Jesus, master, have mercy on us. So we're introduced in this story to 10 men, who if anybody understood what it was like to feel overwhelmed, it was these 10 men because they were being overwhelmed every single day in every single part of their life. they were being overwhelmed physically. They had leprosy.

It is an infection that doesn't show up in symptoms for five to ten years after you were infected. Once it does, your nervous system's attacked and you begin to lose feeling in your extremities. Then those extremities become deformed as they swell, your nose, your eyebrows, your ears, your feet, your fingers. Then those extremities begin to die and decompose while they're still attached to your body, smelling, rotting. Then they fall off only to be followed by death because there was. no cure for these men. They're being overwhelmed every single day by this disease physically. They're being overwhelmed every single day, relationally. Because there was no cure, all they could do in Jesus' day and time was remove them and put them outside of town so they could no longer touch the face of their wife anymore.

They could no longer hug their children. They were separated from everybody they cared about. Relationally, they were being overwhelmed. They were being overwhelmed financially. They couldn't work, so they had to beg. They were being overwhelmed spiritually because they couldn't go to church to worship God alongside their friends and their family anymore because they were unclean. If anybody understood what it was like to feel overwhelmed, it was these 10 men. Yet catch this. With everything going wrong in their life, they had one thing going right. They had one thing going right.

They were in the best place that they could possibly be. Right? They were in the best place that they could possibly be because they were in the presence of Jesus. They were in the presence of Jesus. What do we do when we're feeling overwhelmed? It's all about choices. And the first choice that we make is this. We choose to be in the best.

place. Right? We choose to be in the best place because it is impossible to live right. It is impossible to live right when we are in the wrong place. So we're going to choose the best place. I'm going to let you in on a little bit of a pastor secret here. I talk to a lot of people who are feeling overwhelmed. Maybe it's their health or their job or their kids. I don't know what to do with them. It doesn't matter the circumstance. The pastoral advice that I speak into their life always starts with the exact same thing. It always starts with the exact same thing. And here it is. It's participate in church regularly. Participate in church regularly. What am I saying? Choose the best place. Participate. It's kind of a weird word, but it's a purposeful word because when we go to church,

it's not a passive activity. It's an active pursuit because we come to church to actively worship God. We come to church and he begins to change who we are in our core. We come to church to church to serve others. we come to church to be in transformational relationships with others, and it begins to change who we are at our core. What do we do when we're feeling overwhelmed? We choose the best place. We participate in church regularly. My family loves to do outdoorsy things.

So a few weeks ago, we went canoeing. I have a picture of my awesome kids getting ready to start the canoe trip that day. They were excited. We got in the canoe, and there were three canoes on this trip. There was the man canoe, so that would be myself and my eight-year-old son, Jack, who was in the front. Then there was the lady canoe, which was my wife Katie and my daughter, Olivia, in the front of her canoe. And then we had a third canoe. It was my sister-in-law, Haley, and our friend Danielle. So the only canoe with two adults. As a result, they were in front of the

rest of us. We said it was because we let them. We're not competitive or anything, but we let them be in front. About eight miles into this canoe float, we're having a great time. The river made a hard turn right. When it did, the water speed picked up. It was a rapid at this point in the river, but there was a problem. And the problem was. this, that a tree had fallen across the river. So there's this partially submerged tree in the middle of a rapid, which if you've ever been whitewater rafting, if you've ever been canoeing, if you've ever floated down a river in an inner tube, you know that's a dangerous situation. Right, it's this dangerous situation. So Jack and I are watching from a couple hundred yards off as Haley and Danielle

begin to make the turn, but the current pushes them against this tree. And they're laughing. They're like, we're stuck. We can't get off this tree. We don't know what to do. But then the current begins to build against their canoe and it slowly starts to rotate. And it's until eventually the water comes over the side, it overwhelms their canoe, and they and everything in their canoe fall out into the water. At that point, their laughter turns to screaming. Right? Their laughter turns to screaming

because they're getting pushed up against the log in the river, and they're not wearing their life jacket. They're not wearing their life jacket, and so what I see from a couple of hundred yards off is them struggling, trying to grab their life jacket while they're in the midst of this rapid, getting pushed up against this tree, and trying to put it on to keep their head above water.

And every single one of you are listening and saying, it would have been wise for them to put their life jacket on before they fell out of the boat. Right? It would have been wise to put your life jacket on before you fall out of the boat. And yet as a pastor, I see it so often. We wait until we fall out of the boat to choose to be in the best place, right, to choose to be in church. And yet here's the good news for you today. If this is your first time ever to walk through a church door, or if you've been here for 25 years regularly attending a local church, participating in church, you're in the best possible place that you could be today. You're doing it. Check the box. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 25, says this to us, the church, and let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do. Right? Church attendance is not a modern issue. Let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do, but encourage one another. Come to church where you can

be encouraged, where God can begin to transform who you are. What are we going to do when we feel overwhelmed, we're going to choose the best place. Those men, with everything going wrong in their life, had one thing going right. They were in the best place that they could possibly be. Here's what happened next in verse 14. It says this. He looked at them. So Jesus looked at these men. He looked at them and said, go show yourself to the priest. Don't miss that. Go show yourself to the priest. What did Jesus do? He said, go to church. Right? Go to church. Don't ever underestimate what God can do when you go to his house regularly. He says, go to church. Next, it says, as they went, as they went, they were cleansed of their leprosy. It's at this point that I'm reminded that I'm not

Jesus, and I know you were very clear on that fact before we started, but here's the deal. If I'm going to perform this miracle, I'm going to do it in a different way than Jesus. Here's how it would have looked. I would have looked at these 10 men crying out for help on the edge of town. I would have looked to the disciples and said, hey, I want you to go in the village, and I want you to get everybody. I want you to bring them out here, you're going to circle up, we're going to get the 10 men, we're going to put them here, I'm going to lay my hands on them, and I'm going to heal them, boom, it's going to be spectacular. It's going to be extraordinary. Right, it's going to be extraordinary. It's going to be immediate, and yet that's not what Jesus does. Instead, he says, go show yourself to the priest, and as

they went, they were healed. Literally, what did they do? They walked. Right? They started putting one foot in front of the other, and as they did the most ordinary thing that they could possibly do, brought healing into their lives. You see, when I pray for healing in my own life, what I often pray for is the extraordinary, the miraculous. And yet what I've experienced as a follower of Christ, and what I've seen as a pastor is this, is that God sometimes brings healing into our life through the extraordinary, and it is miraculous. And yet sometimes God will choose to bring healing into our life through the ordinary, and it's just as miraculous. Here's what it may look like for you. I'm feeling overwhelmed in my marriage, God. I don't know if I can do it any longer, and yet you make a choice that as you go,

going to take one step after another. I'm going to get up today. I'm going to make the choice that I'm going to die to myself. I'm going to put the needs of my wife before me and I'm going to serve her like Christ serve the church. And then I'm going to get up the next day. And regardless of how she responds, I'm going to get up the next day, I'm going to do it again. And I'm going to get up the next day and I'm going to do it again. And I'm going to get up the next day, I'm going to do it again. And here's what's going to happen. One day you're going to look back and you're going to see that as you went, as you put one foot in front of the other doing the ordinary, God has brought healing into your life and it's just as miraculous if it was extraordinary. As they went, they were

healed. And yet here's what's crazy about this story is that the miracle is not the high point of the story. Right. The miracle that Jesus performed as they went, they were cleansed of their leprosy, was not the climax of the story. The climax of the story is the response to the miracle. Right? It's the response to the miracle. Here's what it says in verse 15. It says, one of them. There were 10. Right, there were 10, and it says one of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus shouting, praise God. He recognized that his healing came from God, right? He shouts, praise God, and then he fell to the ground at Jesus' feet, thanking him for what he had done, for this man was a Samaritan. What does that mean? It means he was half Jewish, half non-Jewish. He was

the least likely of all 10 to recognize the work of God in his life, and yet he was the one who returned to praise God and to give thanks. And when I read this story, I have questions, right? And you have questions, and Jesus has questions, because in verse 17, here's what it says. It says that Jesus asked, didn't I heal 10 men? It's the same question that I have. Where are the other nine? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give glory to God except for this foreigner, suffered the least likely out of all of them. And yet Jesus said to the man, stand up and go, for your faith has healed you, for your faith has made you well, for your faith literally has saved you. He had already experienced physical healing. Now he experienced whole life, spiritual healing.

And yet we have questions, the same questions as Jesus did. What happened to the other nine? Why did one man return and nine not when they experienced the exact same thing? because I read the story over and over and over. And what I saw was they all had the identical experience. They all had leprosy. They were all outside of town. They all cried out to Jesus for mercy. They were all sent to the priest.

They were all healed as they went. They all had the exact same experience, but only one out of ten returned to Jesus. Why? Because apparently two people can look at the same thing and see something completely different. Right? Two people can look at the same thing.

same thing and see something completely different. It's a matter of perspective. You see, because when the nine looked and saw that they were healed, when they looked, here's what they saw. They saw that our cries for mercy have been heard. And yet when the one looked, what he saw was this, that Jesus, Jesus heard my cries for mercy. What the nine saw was this. They saw that we've been healed. What the one saw was this, that Jesus has healed me. What the nine saw was this, they saw that Jesus had given them exactly what they asked for, but the one saw this, that Jesus had given him more than he could ever even deserve. Because what the nine saw was this, we've been restored to our old life.

But what the one saw was this, he saw that Jesus has given me a new life, which is so much better than my old life. How can two people look at the same thing and see something completely different? It's a matter of perspective, isn't it? Because where you sit determines what you see. And when you sit at the foot of the cross, you can't help but see Jesus at work in your world. Where you sit determines what you see. What do we do when we feel overwhelmed?

We choose the best perspective. My wife has a best friend. Her name's Lacey. They've been best friends since they were babies. They literally shared a crib together at times when they were babies. They went to school together. they went to college together. They roomed all four years together. In fact, when I met my wife, Katie, I literally met Lacey at the same time. Wherever you saw Lacey, you would see Katie. They were inseparable.

To call them best friends, a little bit of an understatement, they're like sisters. So about seven months ago, my wife and I were standing in the kitchen, and her phone rang, and it was Katie's mom calling. And they were talking for a minute, and I was working on something. I wasn't really paying that much attention until I heard the tone in my wife's voice change. and I heard her voice begin to tremble. And I turned and I looked at her and her face was completely pale. And she was crying on the phone,

but she wasn't saying anything. And so she got off the phone and I walked over and I was trying to comfort her, but I was also trying to figure out what in the world is going on. After a few minutes, she was able to get out this phrase. She said, Lacey has brain cancer. Lacey has brain cancer.

cancer. Not long after that, Lacey found herself in a meeting with her neuro-oncologist. Lacey's sitting there with her husband, Brad. I have a picture of Lacey and her family. Her four kids were back at home, but Lacey's sitting there with her husband, Brad, with the neuroancologist, and he begins to describe what's happening inside of her head. And this is what he says to Lacey. He says, Lacey, what you have is stage four geoblastoma. And he says, and he says, he says, And geoblastoma is aggressive, and it's mean, and it's hard to treat. And so he looked at this mom with four little kids, with her husband sitting next to her, and he says, Lacey, the average life expectancy with stage four geoblastoma is 14.6 months

with treatment. And she said, as she heard that, she began to feel overwhelmed, the fear, the grief. And then he looked at her, and he said, but we're going to do everything that we can. We're going to do surgery. We're going to do chemo. We're going to do radiation. We're going to try some new things. And if everything goes well, if everything goes well, maybe you'll get two to three good years.

Right? Maybe you'll get two to three good years. And she said at that point, she was completely overwhelmed and she began to think about things like this. Brad may be raising these children alone. I may not get to see my kids graduate from high school. I may not get to meet the people that they marry when they grow up. I may never get to hold my grandchildren.

I may not get to grow old with my husband. And she said she was being completely overwhelmed when all of a sudden her neuro-oncologist who's describing medically what's going on inside of her changed gears, he got down in her face and he knew where she had started the week before in church. And he said this to her.

He said, Lacey, Lacey, I want you to remember whose you are. Right? I want you to remember whose you are. And I don't understand why God has allowed this to happen to you, but I do understand this, that every step of the way he is right there beside you and he will be supporting you. And she said it's like a light switch went off. She stood up a couple of weeks later to a group of ladies, and she was sharing her story.

And this is what she said. She said, when God allowed me to have that brain tumor, he gave me the best gift that I never asked for. He gave me the best gift that I never asked for because I started to see God at work in places that I'd never seen him at work before. and I started to experience joy that can only come from God like I had never experienced before. He gave me the best gift that I never asked for. She was writing something later and she said this phrase and it stuck with me. She said, if this is God's will for my life to have this tumor, if this is God's will for my life, there's no other place that I would rather be.

There's no other place that I would rather be. How does somebody say that when that's their circumstance? Right. How does somebody look at something that the rest of the world looks at and goes, that's a curse? and to say it's the best gift that I never ask for. It's because they've chosen the best perspective. And she understands where you sit, determines what you see,

and when you sit at the foot of the cross, you can't help but see God at work in the midst of your circumstances. So what do we do when we're feeling overwhelmed? We choose the best perspective, which is the perspective that has Jesus Christ at the center of our world. Here's what that perspective looks like,

Isaiah chapter 55, verses 8 and 9. It says, my thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord. My ways are far beyond anything you can imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways. And my thoughts are higher than your thoughts. We choose the best perspective, which is the perspective of God. For the last couple of years, I've been praying this prayer every single day. And I say this, I say, God, give me your eyes.

Give me your eyes so that I can see what you see. God, give me your ears so that I can hear what you hear. God, give me your mouth so that I can speak what you would speak. God, give me your mind so that I can think what you think. God, give me your heart so that I can feel what you feel. What am I praying for? God, give me the best perspective. Why?

Because having the best perspective may not change your circumstances, but it'll change what you see in your circumstances. What do we do when we're feeling overwhelmed? We choose the best place, and we choose the best perspective. Third, we're going to choose the best priorities. We choose the best place. We choose the best perspective, then we're going to choose the best priorities. Because where you sit may determine what you see, but what you see will determine who you will be.

Your perspective will determine the priorities that you live out in your life. As a follower of Christ, I understand pretty clearly what my priorities are called to be, that I'm going to love and serve God first and foremost in my life. After that, I'm going to love and serve my wife like Christ serve the church. After that I'm going to love and serve the gift that God has given me and my children, Olivia and Jack. After that, I'm going to love and serve the people he's put around me, others. And last, I'm going to love myself because he loves me. It's pretty clear what our priorities are to be that God is first and foremost.

And yet far too often, as a follower of Christ, I have these kind of thoughts. And far too often, as a pastor, I hear these kind of thoughts. say, well, if I had more time, right? If I had more time, then I would start my day in God's word. Then I would start my day praying if I had more time, but life is crazy, right? Or if my schedule wasn't so crazy, then I would be in church every single week. But little Johnny loves baseball. I mean, his eyes just light up. He loves baseball. Maybe when baseball season's over, then we'll be in church. Or if I had more money, then maybe I would put God first in my financial life. Growing up, I had a great mom, and she would do something that only moms could do every now and then.

She would have me sit down at the kitchen table, and she would look across at me, and she would say this phrase, she would say, Tim, I love you, but. And some of you are chuckling because you had somebody in your life who would say something similar. Son, I love you, but, and whenever I heard that phrase, I knew what was about to happen. She was about to drop a truth bomb in my life. maybe not what I wanted to hear, but what I needed to hear. When we start thinking those things, well, when life's not so crazy, or when I have more, we need a little bit of a truth bomb. So Life Church is one of your pastors, I love you, but when we say those things, what we have is not a time problem, what we have is not a financial problem, what we have is not an opportunity problem,

what we have is a priority problem. What we have is a priority problem. Joshua chapter 24, one of my favorite passages of scripture, he stands before the people of Israel, the chosen people of God, and he says, choose this day. Choose this day who you're going to serve because he understood something. Every single day when we wake up, we make a choice. What is the first and foremost priority in my life?

And that's what I'm going to serve. And so he says, choose this day who you're going to serve. But is for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord our God. what does it look like when God is our first and foremost priority in our life? Here's what it may look like for me and for you, that I'm going to start my week in church. I don't come to church in order to win God's love. I come to church because he's already won my love. I'm going to start my week in church.

I'm going to start my day in God's word. Because I know the more time I spend with Christ, the more I become like Christ. So I'm going to start my week in God's, or my day in God's word. I'm going to start my prayers with Thanksgiving. I'm going to start my prayers with thanking God because express gratitude may be the purest measure of my own spiritual condition. So I'm going to start my prayers with thankfulness. I'm going to start my pay period with the tide because I've learned that 90% with God is so much better than 100% without God. Some of you are hearing this and you're going, Tim, you've got a little bit of fire

inside of you on this topic and you're right. Because there's been times in my life where my perspective has not been Christ-centered, where my priorities have not been Jesus Christ first in my life. One of those times was 15 years ago. My wife and I got married 15 years ago this December. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. At that point, I had a perspective and a priority problem, though. We started every single week in church, but I'd never given a penny back to God. I'd never given a penny back to God because I had this thought, and this thought was this, I need it. Right? I need it. I need it. I need it more than he does. I need to learn how to be a provider for my new family.

I need security. I need it more than he does. And yet there was a problem with that thought process, and it was this. It was called a joint checking account. We got married, and a weekend, I thought, oh, my gosh, she is going to know what we do or don't do with our finances when we go to church. And she had an expectation that we were going to be tithing. So God brought a little bit of fear of the Lord through my wife into my life.

And so the first week we went to church, I wrote out a tithe check. And she told me this week, Tim, I can remember your hand trembling as you wrote it. And I had this thought when I dropped it in, and it was not a holy thought. It went like this. There it goes. Right? There it goes. I'm never getting it back.

And yet here's what God has shown me in the 14 and a half years since, that I had a priority problem. Because I was at the middle of my own life and I need it. And yet as I started to let go, my hands started to open and God started to fill them. You see, the reward of putting God first in the financial part of your life is not the provision that he brings, although I can tell stories of that, is that he fills it with himself. He will fill your open hands with himself. I started this message with the question, and the question was this, do you ever feel overwhelmed? Do you ever feel like there's more coming at you than you can handle?

And we all have that feeling because of our circumstances at some point. And yet my prayer for you is this. My prayer is that this message does not keep you from feeling overwhelmed. My prayer for you is that it would not keep you from feeling overwhelmed, but did you might feel even more overwhelmed? Not overwhelmed like the nine who saw their circumstances around them, but overwhelmed like the one who saw God at work in his life and returned to thank God. Not overwhelmed by the things of this world, but overwhelmed by the goodness of God at work in your life. Not overwhelmed. Not overwhelmed, realizing that God has given us what we asked for, but overwhelmed realizing that God has given every single one of us more than

we could ever deserve. My prayer for you is this, that you might feel overwhelmed because the reality is every single one of us is like those lepers. At some point, we are separated from God, not by a disease that we carry, but by the sin that we've committed. And we are separated from God, and we cried out, Jesus, master, have mercy on us. And at some point, Jesus looked to you, he heard your cries, and he's brought healing and mercy and forgiveness far more than we could ever deserve.

And here's what I know, that when we choose to start in the best place, when we choose the best place, when we choose the best perspective and put Jesus at the center of our world, and when we choose the best priorities, and make God first, where he deserves to be, that you will begin to wake up every single day feeling overwhelmed. There's more than you think you could even handle, but you're being overwhelmed by his goodness.

you're being overwhelmed by his grace, you're being overwhelmed by his power, you're being overwhelmed by his mercy, you're being overwhelmed by his unconditional love, and that, as a follower of Christ, is the only way I want to live. If at every life church location and church online, if you will bow your heads and close your eyes

and a spirit and attitude of prayer, I know that some of you when you walked in here today are feeling overwhelmed. Feeling overwhelmed by the circumstance of your life. And yet if you're a follower of Christ, that's not the way that God wants you to live. He wants you to be overwhelmed,

but overwhelmed by his goodness, by his grace, by his mercy, by his love. If that's you and you're overwhelmed by your circumstances, but you want to be overwhelmed by God. Just go ahead and raise your hand up right now with mine, saying, Tim, that's me. There's hands up at all of our life churches. I'm going to pray for us.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much that you care for each and every one of us. Lord, I pray that you help each and every one of us make the right choices. Lord, help us to choose the best place, the best perspective, the best priorities. Lord, and I pray for every single one of us that we would feel overwhelmed every single day, not by the things of this world, but we would be overwhelmed by you. As we continue in an attitude and a spirit of prayer,

I know that some of you also walked in here today feeling overwhelmed by the things of this world, and yet here's what I want you to hear. You're in the best place that you could possibly be. Maybe I got to the second point. it was choose the best perspective, Jesus being at the center of your world, and you thought, I don't know that I've made that decision before. You're going to have the opportunity to make that decision today. Because here's what the Bible tells us. The Bible tells us that we are separated from God by our own sin, by the fact that I'm not perfect and you're not perfect.

But God was not okay with that reality of us being separated from him, a holy God. And so he acted. And here's how he acted towards you. He sent his one and only one. son, Jesus Christ, into our world to live a perfect life, to go to the cross, not for his sins, but for my sins and for your sins, so that anyone, so that anyone, no matter what you've done, no matter where you've been, no matter how far removed you feel from God, can look to him and to say, God, I'm ready to receive your grace and your forgiveness that you've offered me through Jesus Christ. I'm going to confess with my mouth that you are Lord, and I'm going to believe in my heart, that Jesus Christ did not remain in the grave, but that God raised him from the grave,

and you can have new life through him. If you're here today and you're ready to make the decision to commit your life to following Christ at all of our life churches, at all of our life churches, if you're ready to call out on the name of Jesus to experience his grace, mercy, and forgiveness, to turn from your sin and to follow him, raise your hand right now. At all of our life churches, I want you to raise your hand right now. If you're ready to commit your life to following Christ, Back here in the back, I see a hand going up. Praise God for that. Over here on the right, another hand.

Praise God for you. In the back, I see another hand. Life Church, we're going to pray out loud. Church online, I want you to click on the button below me if you're ready to commit your life to following Christ. Life Church, if you will pray out loud with me, every voice together because nobody should pray alone at church. Pray out loud with me.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for loving me enough to send Jesus, to die on the cross, and be raised from the grave. so that I can be saved. Because you've done that, I'm ready to turn for my sin and to follow Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for this new life you've given me. And it's in Jesus' name that everybody said, amen, Life Church, why don't we worship, worship God for what he's done today. As a church, it's our honor to play a small part in all that God is doing in and through your life.

And we would love to continue with you on that journey. 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, our mission is simple. It's to leave people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. That statement drives everything we do as a church to impact people in our local communities and around the world, all because we believe whoever finds God finds life.