Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Pray, Part 1: Strengthened With Power

Episode Date: May 2, 2015

Prayers aren't empty words hurled at the sky. They’re conversations—in fact, they're the most important conversations of our lives. Find out just how much it matters when you Pray. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being. So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. I am so thankful to have all of you with us today at all of our life churches. and I hope that some of you will join me in giving praise to our God that we're celebrating over 2,000 people being baptized today made new by the grace of Jesus Christ. Truly overwhelming to every single one of you.

I thank God for you. Amy and I were praying for you today. Your sins are washed away. You are new, raised by the power of Jesus to serve him faithfully. And we can never take this for granted that we get to be a part of a community. community seeing so many people find new life in Christ. For those of you that are new with us today, we're actually starting a brand new four-part message series. And what we do is we'll take a book of a Bible or maybe a chapter or a theme or a character. And for a few weeks, we'll talk about

that week after week. And we're starting a four-part message series on the word pray. We're going to talk about how do we learn to pray with power, with passion, in a way that we would grow in our intimacy with God. Now, I need all of you to help me out all of our churches. How many of you would say, I absolutely believe in the power of prayer, and yet I probably don't pray as much as I should? Would you be honest today at all of our churches? I'm seeing tons and tons and tons of hands going up, which is really interesting to me. Why is it that we know that we have a good God who answers the prayers of his children, and yet so many of us don't pray as we know we should? I think there are probably several reasons why. Some people honestly don't really know how to pray. We lack

confidence in knowing that, you know, are we doing it right? Some people, some of you may actually get bored while you're praying. I hate to actually admit this in public as a pastor, but I've been known rather often to fall asleep while I'm praying. How many have you ever done that before? God bless you. I see those hands. Thank you. You can be set free like me in the name of Jesus. You're like, How insulting is that? God, please, oh, I'm sleeping. Hope you answered that prayer. I'm gone. You know, how bad is that? And then a lot of you, you're probably a little bit like I am. I can be like an ADD prayer guy. I got great intentions. I'm like, dear God, I'm praying for a miracle. Miracle whip makes me think I'm hungry for a sandwich. And there's a shiny thing. Where'd that come from?

How do I lose focus in one sentence? It's just the way we can be. Sometimes, like, prayer meetings can be a little awkward. You go to a prayer meeting and you hold hands with people you've never met before. What I hate about holding hands in prayer meetings is I'm always unequally yoked with my prayer hand holders. I always get, like, a hard-squeeze prayer guy on one side and dead fish hand on the other side. You know, a hard-squeezed prayer guy, the loud of the prayer gets, the harder he squeezes as if there's going to be more power. if he cuts off all the blood to your fingertips, and then you're a dead fish guy. You're like, you know, give me something.

Is that thing alive? You know, like, you know, I'd rather you be hot or cold, but I'm going to cut you off, you lukewarm, dead fish hand prayer guy. You know, anyway, sorry, I'm venting. And sometimes you'll get intimidated when someone really prays good. How many knows what I'm talking about? You got like Moses, the little brother is in your small group, you know? and he's like quoting scripture like you know dear god the name of jesus i thank you that you said in

in Deuteronomy 28 that we're blessed coming in and blessed going out we're the head not to tell and they're just like calling down angels and binding demons and all this kind of stuff and you're like dude that's good i mean i'm thinking if i were god i'd like i'd answer that prayer just because it's good and you don't want to ever be competitive when it comes to prayer stuff but sometimes i am i'm like okay, well, I can't let them out pray me, so I'm, you know, I was a brand new Christian, like, trying to, like, pray it up, like, God, you said in your word, you are Jehovah Nissan. And, God, you're so good, God, you're good to the last drop. I thank you, God, you're like a good neighbor.

You'll always be there. I love your word, Lord, your word. good, it melts in your mouth and not in your hands, and I thank you for your blood, which is thicker than water. I don't know. I'm trying anything I can to stay in the prayer game, and so I don't feel inadequate in my prayer life. I don't know if you ever have frustrations like that, or you lost all respect for me as your

pastor in the last three minutes, I don't know. But what I want to do over the next four weeks is really let God do a work in us to teach and move us to pray with power and with passion. And I want to start today with what I believe are two big prayer mistakes that so many of us tend to make. If you're taking notes, the first one is this, big prayer mistakes. Number one, our prayers are often too small. And number two, our prayers are often too general.

When we pray to God, I believe so many of us, our prayers are really too small or they are too general. To me, sometimes I think God must honestly be a little bit frustrated with the lack of faith that many of us have in what we pray for. For example, I think a lot of people pray like this. God, thank you for this day. I pray you'd bless me or bless so-and-so, and sometimes I wonder if God didn't go and have you look where you live and the part of the world you're in. You're already blessed, but, you know, I'm happy to do it. Or we're like, God, just be with us today, you know, and again, God's like, I told you I'd never leave you for forsake you, and you're asking me for something I gave you already again.

You, God, you know, give us traveling mercies as we go today, and God's like, okay, easy, you know, give me something big. In other words, I wonder if God does never say, like, ask me for something that will help show off my glory when I answer it. Why is it you're kind of undercutting the power of a God who said with me, all things are possible. I wonder if the lack of specificity and the breadth of possibility ever insults the heart of God. I could do so much more if you would just have the faith to ask me, and yet many of us we pray very small and very general prayers. I'm going to encourage you to pray big and specific

prayers because general prayers do not move God to specific actions. I'm going to say that again because many of you missed the power of that moment. General prayers do not move God to specific actions. James says that we do not have because we do not ask. What I want to do is I want to ask God for a very specific request and have the faith to believe that he can do things that otherwise would be impossible to ever see. And when all of a sudden we do see them, then there's no one that could deny that that must have been by the hand of God. because it would have taken God to pull something like that off.

I want to pray big, faith-filled, specific, and passionate prayers. In fact, I'll give you an example of one such prayer. I love to read the prayers of others because they inspire me and teach me to pray even better. This is a crazy story about Martin Luther, who was the father of the Reformation. And he had a friend named Friedrich Myconius, who was his assistant and kind of helped serve him as he was undergoing the enormous task of reforming the church in the 1500s. Well, in 1540, Myconius, his assistant, fell deathly ill and was on his deathbed. And so he wrote a letter, a farewell letter to Luther saying,

The End is Near, I love you, and all this kind of stuff. Luther wouldn't stand for that. And instead of praying a safe little, you know, may the Lord be with you and comfort you and all, He prayed a massive, specific, faith-filled prayer and wrote this in a letter back to his friend Miconius. And this is what Luther wrote. He said this. I command you in the name of God to live because I still have need of you in the work of reforming the church. The Lord will never let me hear that you are dead, but will permit you to survive me.

for this I am praying because I seek only to glorify the name of God. Boom! That is a pig and specific prayer. What's even crazier is Myconius had already lost the ability to speak. He was evidently hours away from death as they thought. When he heard this letter, it engaged his faith, and miraculously the guy was supernaturally healed. He lived six more years, and guess when he died?

Two months after Luther died, that's how specific the response was to a specific and faith-filled prayer by a man who had big enough faith to believe that all things are possible with God. We're going to learn to pray this way to tap into the power of God. So what we're going to do over the next four weeks is this. We're going to look at four different texts that Paul, the Apostle Paul, wrote. Now, if you don't know, Paul used to be Saul. He was a guy that persecuted Christians, killed Christians, hated Christians. He met the grace of Jesus, was transformed.

And so he would start churches and kind of build them up and then go start more churches. Then he would write letters to them. He wrote a big portion of the New Testament. We're going to be looking in what's known as the Pauline Epistles. If you want to impress your friends and neighbors just say, yeah, we're studying the Pauline epistles. They'll say, what's that. I don't know.

It's just what my pastor called it. Okay. It's kind of seminary language sounding stuff. And when Paul would pray in his epistles for the churches, he had this, he kind of prayed the same way over and over again. What he would do is he would say, I pray, and then he would say for what he prays, and then you'll see again and again, he'll say, I pray, blank, so that. And then he gives the reason why he's praying.

Over and over and over again, when Paul prays, you'll see him, I pray for this, so that this would happen. And we're going to learn and pray for the very things he prayed for, and we're going to learn and be inspired by God to pray on purpose. God, for this very reason, I ask you to do this, so that this will happen in the world. And the first prayer we're going to look at is found in Ephesians chapter 3. Paul wrote this prayer around the year 60 AD from a Roman prison to the churches in Ephesus, and he started his prayer this way. way. Ephesians chapter 3, verse 14 and 15. He said, for this reason, I do what? Somebody help me on all of our churches. He said, for this reason, I kneel before the father from whom every

family in heaven and on earth derives its name. He said, for this reason, I kneel. Now, when you pray, it's important to know, you can pray in any posture you feel comfortable praying. You can pray standing, you can pray sitting, you can pray laying down. You can pray while you're driving. If you pray while you're driving do what Jesus said, and that is watch and pray. Don't close your eyes when you're driving. You can pray kneeling. What's interesting is for a Jewish man, the most normal way to pray in Paul's era was to pray standing with palms lifted up toward heaven.

But in this particular case, Paul decided to kneel before God in prayer. I would encourage you just to vary the postures. And I do this all the time. based on the intent, the heart, and the need of the prayer. For example, when I kneel before God, there is something in me that just says, God, I am giving you due reverence. In other words, I'm worshiping you. I'm acknowledging my weakness.

I'm acknowledging your strength. And kneeling is a great way to do this. It's a way to show reverence. I also, whenever there's something I'm really petitioning God for, I like to kneel, it helps me to focus, and it's just a very valuable way to do it. you might try kneeling this week as you're praying. He said, for this reason, I kneel before my father. And then verse 16, he says, I pray.

Everybody say I pray. He says, I pray that out of God's what? That out of God's glorious riches. Okay, let's stop there for a moment. Out of his glorious riches. When Paul is praying, he is recognizing that his heavenly father has every spiritual blessing in heavenly realms. available to his children.

I am praying to a gloriously rich God. I pray that out of his glorious riches, earlier in Ephesians, Paul had said this. He said, I thank my God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing from the heavenly realms. He was saying, God has already made available to us, every possible spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. This is the God to whom,

I pray. I pray that God out of his glorious riches. Paul said in Philippians 4, he said that my God will meet all of your needs according to his glorious riches. We serve an infinitely, spiritually rich, heavenly father, and yet so many of us are living like spiritually impoverished children. We serve a God who has every spiritual blessing available to us in heavenly realms. He desires to give those blessings to us, and we're often praying small and general prayers. You ask specific faith-filled prayers, and God delights in blessing his children with every spiritual blessing from the heavenly realms. So Paul says, I pray that out of his glorious riches, that he may do what, let's all say

this allowed, that our God may strengthen you with what? With power. That he may strengthen you with, say it again, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being. Now, why did he pray that? The reason is, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And there's the first time we're going to see this pattern. I pray so that.

He says, I pray that God may strengthen you with power. That he may strengthen you with power. That he may strengthen you with power. The Greek word translated as power is the word duname. We get our word dynamite from this word. It means the explosive, miraculous power of God. It's not just like human power. It's the power of God.

I pray that he may strengthen you with duname, with supernatural power. It's available to you. In fact, as a side note, every year, what I do with our staff at the beginning of the year in January is I have them prayerfully select one word as a prayer focus, one word that all through the year they're going to be praying that God would develop this or do this in their life. They might pray for discipline. They might pray for patience.

They might pray for gratitude. My prayer for this year, my prayer word was the word power. because I honestly need, I desperately need, the power of God in my preaching. I need the power of God in my parenting. I need the power of God to overcome temptation that continues to take me down year after year after year that I should be beyond by now. I need the power to stand strong against spiritual opposition. I need more than I have in the physical realm.

I need power. And Paul says, I pray that out of his God, glorious riches, that my God would strengthen you with duname, with power. And it's available to you, and yet so many of you are not tapping into what is available to you. Give you an example. 24, 25 years ago, Amy and I bought our first house together. It was a house built in 1910, and it hadn't been updated much since 1910. It's all we could afford. We were so broke. We lived on love. All we had was love and thank God we had love because that's all we had. We had a lot of love, six kids love, boom, that's how much love we had.

And so anyway, I can't believe I just did that. I haven't done that all weekend long, but it felt right. And so you got the bonus round today. Okay. And so we were so, so totally broke that whenever something would break, we wouldn't have the money to fix it. And we just leave it broken. It would just stay broken. When we got there, our disposal was broken.

So the whole time we lived there, it never worked. We were selling the house several years later, and the realtor said, is there anything we need to disclose is broken? I'm like, oh, get your list now. First of all, the disposal's broken. And so she opened up the cabness and she looked down there and she said, have you ever seen that little tool that's sitting down there? Yeah, so for years it's the little L-shaped thing that's just right there.

It's been there the whole time. She said, well, have you ever just put it in the bottom and twisted it? Like, no. And so she went like this, did it? She turned it on, and that thing hummed to life like it was brand spanking new. For years, we lived with a non-working disposal. The whole time this far away was a tool that with three twists would have fixed it, and that's how stupid I was that I had no idea.

Then we went into the living room, and she said, anything in here or not working. I said, well, the outlet, electrical outlet doesn't work. And she said, well, how do you watch TV? I said, well, whenever no one's here, we take this orange cord, and we take it around this room into the kitchen, We unplug the refrigerator only for a short period of time and plug it in there and that's how it works. And she said, well, that's crazy. And then she flipped a little switch on the side and she said, well, what does this switch do?

And I said, nothing at all. We never could figure. And of course, you figured it out by now. It turned on the electrical outlet. All that time, one little switch, one little twist. All the power was available to us and we never tapped into the power. I came to tell somebody there is more power available to you through the Holy Spirit out of the glorious riches of God if you will call on it, if you will ask him for it.

And so Paul says, I pray, not that you'll be blessed and safe, but that you'll have power so that the presence of Christ may dwell within your hearts. Then in verse 17, he continues, and he says, I pray that you being rooted and established in love. Man, if I want my roots planted in anything, it's in the love of my Savior, Jesus, that you being rooted and established in love. May have what? Somebody help me, and don't just help me with weakness, say it right, that you may have what? That you may have power together with all the Lord's holy people. To what? You need power to grasp how wide, how long, and high, and deep is the love of Christ.

Now, why do you need power to know how much he loves you? Because you need to know that this love surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. If any of you ever look on and you think, why do they have something that I don't have spiritually? Why is it that they seem to have a peace that I don't have? Why is it they seem to have an assurance? why do they seem to have something that I don't have?

The answer might be because they have something that you don't have. They have all that God has available to them, and this comes from a supernatural understanding of the love of God. This is what's crazy. You cannot naturally understand God's love. It must be supernaturally revealed. Our finite minds do not have the capacity on our own to comprehend just how much God loves us.

That's why, parents, one of the most important prayers you can pray for your children is that God would give them the power to understand how much he loves them. Suddenly, when their approval comes from God, then they don't need approval from people. They're not sucked into the temptations of the world, but they stand strong out of the approval of God.

They're not living for the approval of people. they already have the approval of God. That's why spouse is one of the best things you can pray for your spouse, is that he or she would have the power to understand how much God loves them. Then they will be drawn intimately into a loving relationship with God and be totally transformed. And this knowledge is not something that is naturally understood. It has to be supernaturally revealed.

And that's why anytime I try to talk about the love of God, I fail miserably. I do not have the vocabulary. Nobody does to give his love justice. Because with God, love is not what he does. Love is who he is. It's the essence of our God. God is love. God is love.

It's not just what he does. It's who he is. And when you recognize that's who he is, then you stand from the strength of there's nothing I can do to cause him to love me more. And there's nothing I can do to cause him to love me less. He doesn't love me because of what I do. He loves me because of who he is. And when that overtakes me suddenly Christianity is not a something I do on Sunday. It's the essence of who I'm called to be.

I am a Christ follower. I have power that dwells within me so that Christ lives in my inner being. Suddenly I'm not living for the lower things of this world. I'm not drawn down, but I have power. That's why sometimes you meet people like, well, how do you stay so calm? How come they gave you a bad doctor's report,

but you just have this supernatural peace. There's just this peace about you. You know how? They got power. They got power. They flip the switch, They twisted the deal. There's power coming to them.

Other people, we are living underneath a spiritually, gloriously rich father, and yet we're living like spiritually impoverished children because we haven't tapped into what he has available for us in the heavenly realms. One of the most important prayers you can ever pray for those you love. But they may have power to understand just how much God loves them. In fact, someone asked the famous trumpeter Louis Armstrong one time to explain jazz. Louis, tell us about jazz. Can you explain jazz to us?

And you know what Louis said? He said, if you got to explain it, you ain't got it. Okay? If you got to explain it, you ain't got it. If you have to try to explain the love of God, it could be that you haven't. been immersed in it. You haven't been overcome by it. In fact, I'm really praying that there are many in our church who would really have deeper and more meaningful spiritual encounters with the Holy God. That it wouldn't be just, you know, I'm singing a song at church, but it's like I'm dwelling

in the presence of God. I'm hearing his voice. His spirit is guiding me. When I'm reading his word, it's like it's jumping off the page, giving me encouragement or convicted. me away from my sins or is leading me into the right places. I'm having the faith to do things that would seem impossible otherwise. It's a little bit like Charles Finney, who was a famous evangelist in the 1800s. He was a follower of Jesus, but then he had a deeper encounter with God. And here's how he described it. He said this. He said, the Holy Spirit descended upon me in a manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul. And I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity going through and through me.

Indeed, it seemed to come, and here's the part I want you to notice. He said, it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love. Waves and waves of liquid love. For I could not express it in any other way. It seemed like the very breath of God. It came in waves and waves of liquid love. To me, this is a beautiful image of the love of God. I pray, I really do, that you have power,

supernatural power to understand how much God loves you. And that you would be like waves of, just when you think you understand it more comes, and just when you think you sort of, more comes, waves and waves and waves of love. And then one day, things start to change in your life because maybe for years you've been dissatisfied. You have so much, and yet you want so much more.

And for years, maybe you battle with depression or feelings of loneliness or an adequacy. But suddenly those things start to melt away. Why? Because the power of God is dwelling within you. The same spirit that raised Christ from the dead takes up residency inside of you. Your identity is not based on what you have or what you do, but on what God thinks about you. And there is a deep assurance of his love because it's not been natural. learned, but supernaturally revealed, therefore you are never the same. And then guess what?

Your prayers change when you know how much God loves you and when his power dwells within you. Your prayers aren't, you keep us safe today, God bless his food and be with us and yeah, that's all I can think of. Amen. You're praying for big things, big things. You're never praying, God, just keep my kids safe today and keep them off drugs. No, no, no, no, no. No. God, raise up my children to be spiritual leaders in their school. God, may they stand out for the glory of Jesus. I pray they would be bold in their faith, that they would be leaders in their faith. You're praying specific and big prayers for your children. You're never praying, God, help me pay the bills this month. Help me pay the bills. No, God, you promised me that I would

never beg for bread, that you would be blessing me as I come in and go out, that you're going to provide for all of my needs according to your riches and glory. And I believe, God, that I will be able to be massively generous and be a blessing to others who are in need today. That's how much you will bless me. Oh, God. Oh, God. I pray for my husband who's a jerk. Make him less of a jerk if you can. Oh, God. Touch the heart of my husband, God. I pray that he would bow his knees in full surrender to your son, Jesus. And he would stand up a fully devoted follower of Jesus, a man after God's own heart, that our family would be different because he leads us to the things of God, and he is close to Jesus, hearing from his word, that generations would be different because my husband

will fully belong to you. You pray big prayers. You pray specific prayers. You believe in a God who says all things are possible with me. And then your faith grows, and it grows, and it grows, because you have the power of the risen Christ dwelling within you. And let me show you how Paul wraps this thing up. He basically says that you may be full, the full measure of all God has for you.

And then in verse 20, it's almost like an anthem. He says, now to him, now to Christ, who is able to do how much somebody helped me with this. He says, now to Christ who is able to do immeasurably more. In other words, you cannot even measure how much he's able to do. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. The greatest thing you can picture in your mind, our God can do more. The greatest thing you can dream up, our God who can do, he can do more. According to his what?

Somebody said, according to his power. Does it work where? Within us. Within you. That's where his power is. You are not on your own. When you are weak, his power is made perfect in you. Now to him, who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,

according to his power that is at work within us. To him be glory in the church, the church that he loves, the bride of Christ, and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Do you see the faith in this prayer? this isn't God to help us through the day, help us through the week. This has made generations be different. Why? Because you can do exceedingly and abundantly more, immeasurably more than we can ask, think, or imagine.

Who has that kind of faith? Someone who has the power of God dwelling within them. And I believe with all my heart that our church will be filled with people who've been touched by the power of God and have the faith to believe big things, for bigger things, and for God to do the impossible. And when he does, we're going to tell everybody, it's only because God showed up and showed off. But that happened. May he get the glory for generations to come. Father, I pray in the name of your son, Jesus, that you would minister to people today.

And God, I pray that out of your glorious riches, that you may strengthen the God, this church with your power, that Christ may dwell within hearts. I pray God that they would have power to know how much you love them so that they could glorify you in all they do. And all of our churches today, I just want to ask a few questions. Nobody looking around, this is between you and God. Those of you who would say, Craig, I'm with you for the next seven days. I'm praying Ephesians 3.

I'm praying it for myself. I'm praying it for those I love. I'm praying for power. How many will do that with me for the next seven days? All of our churches, would you lift your hands? Men, thank you, God, for people who participate. Don't just come to church, but you are the church.

The next question I want to ask, how many of you right now there is something big and something specific that you want to believe God for? Would you lift up your hands right now? All over the place, tons of hands. Father, today, I pray that over the next seven days, as we seek you for power, that you would release the spiritual blessings that you have stored up for us,

ready to give for us in heavenly places, and we would begin to see the reality of your power in our daily lives. God, I pray for those that we love, that they would have the power to know how much you love them. I pray, God, that we would see a difference in the lives of the people that we love because you are revealing your supernatural love for them. And, God, for those who are going to believe you for the impossible, I ask God that you would continue to build their faith, that all things are possible.

And when those little voices say, well, God doesn't care or God won't do this, we just continue to believe in faith. And God, if you do answer our prayer, we will praise you. If you don't do what we want you to do, we will praise you. Because we don't come to you for what you can do for us, but we come to you because we need you and we want to know you. So build the faith of this community that we would experience. the true power of the resurrected Christ dwelling within us.

As you keep praying today at all of our different churches, there are some of you, I want you to listen very carefully. Nobody looking around, but listen carefully. Some of you, you are one prayer away from changing the course of your destiny. You are one prayer away from changing the course of your destiny. and many of you, you can kind of sense that right now because there's something happening spiritually that's drawing you toward the things of God.

Many of you right now, you're not a church person, you're not religious, some of you, maybe you were a little while, and then you kind of veered off. There's something right now drawing you to God, and yet there may be a reservation or questions in your mind, but what if I, this, and I don't know quite enough yet, and I'm still not good enough, listen to me,

God wants you to come exactly as you are. That's how good he is. Some of you right now, he's just now starting to reveal, to you a glimpse of his love, that he loves you so much that he became a person, God in the flesh, in the form of his son, Jesus, who is perfect in every way and without sin. Jesus went to the cross for the forgiveness of our sins, died, and he rose again on the third day. Why? So that anyone who calls on his name would be saved, forgiven, and made new. And all of our churches there are many of you, this is why you are here now.

You are one prayer away, one prayer of surrender, one prayer of repentance, of changing the course of your destiny and you know it. All of our churches, those who say, yes, that's me. Yes, I need the forgiveness of Jesus. Yes, I need his grace. Yesterday, I turn toward him and I surrender my whole life. By faith today, I give my life to him.

That's your prayer. Would you lift your hands high right now all over the place and say, yes, leave him up, if you will. No, but here in the middle. section one, two, three of you, four of you, both of you, three of you in this section. God bless you guys. Both of you right here, all of you together on this row, right back over here, right back here toward the back, both of you together right up here. Praise God for you. Man, right over here, both of you, three of you, fan, thank you God. Others of you say, that's my prayer. Yes, Jesus,

I surrender to you. Church online, you click right below me, others today. Others of you, you're leaning into it and you say, forget the pride, I'm doing it right now. Say, yes, I surrender to Jesus. I give him my life back here toward the back. Pray aloud with those all around you. Everybody together, pray Heavenly Father, I come to you today to give you my whole life. I need your forgiveness through your son, Jesus. Make me brand new. Fill me with your spirit that I would have power to know you, to serve you, to follow you. My life is not my own. God, I give it to you. Thank you for new life. Now you have mine.

In Jesus' name, I pray. Life Church, would you worship bid, worship loud. Welcome those born into God's family today like you need it. Thank God for new life in Christ.