Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Relationship Goals, Part 1: Christ Centered

Episode Date: February 10, 2019

The #perfectmarriage isn’t always as easy as it looks. Sometimes a #lovinghusband forgets an anniversary, and an #amazingwife might occasionally set the thermostat too high. There’s a lot more tha...t goes into a healthy relationship than what shows ... Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Starting point is 00:00:01 Hey, Life Church, we're so excited you're here with us today. We also want to make sure you know how to stay up to date with all the things God is doing through Live Church. And let me just tell you, it's a whole lot. It's simple to do. Just download the Life Church app. You can do that wherever you download your apps from. But for now, though, we want to get you to Pastor Craig Groschell's message for this week. Well, I'm excited that you're at church today, and I'm excited to start a brand new message series.
Starting point is 00:00:48 It is called Relationship Goals. And I would love to set the tone for this four-part message series by Starved. together in God's word. We'll be in Genesis chapter two. God had created man, but at this point, man was still alone, and this is what scripture says. Then the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone.
Starting point is 00:01:10 I will make a helper who is just right for him. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took out, one of the man's ribs and closed up the opening. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man, and the man exclaimed, at last. That's funny to me.
Starting point is 00:01:44 God, the giraffe, that was cool. The porcupine, confusing. The woman? At last. Adam says, This one is bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh. She will be called woman because she was taken out of man.
Starting point is 00:02:12 This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one. The two will be. become one flesh. Today we are starting a message series called Relationship Goals. If you're on Instagram, you've probably seen the hashtag relationship goals. It's been used about 11 million times.
Starting point is 00:02:47 I have my own Instagram hashtag I use whenever I show a picture with Amy. I always call her my bride. She, being technical as she is, says technically speaking, I'm not a bride. That's a woman who gets married on her wedding day. But I will say until the day that I die, she is my bride, she is my bride, she is my bride. And so I use the hashtag, my bride. If you look at the most popular my bride hashtags, you'll notice we dominate the page.
Starting point is 00:03:14 We crush it. We're everywhere. I love showing off, my bride. Inevitably, whenever I post a picture with Amy, a bunch of people will comment relationship goals, couple goals. In other words, we want some things. version of that, whatever we see, that, I want that, I want that. What I see is I want that, I want that. There's so many classic images of relationship goals. In fact, I found a photographer that has
Starting point is 00:03:40 just amazing relationship goals photos. I want to show you one of them, and people may look at this when I say, oh, that's what I want. That's what I want. I'll be completely honest with you, even though that is an amazing photo, I have never, ever wanted that, ever. I have never been driving in a completely warm car on a very cold day and said, Amy, let's stop, let's get out of our warm car, let's go sit on cold, snowy concrete,
Starting point is 00:04:14 we'll get a kid to go get out our iPhone and move us around in the cold until we're just right, and then you can take the picture. So many people see glimpses on social media and say, I want that. What I want to tell you is that's not always real. Sometimes it's a very carefully edited, crafted moment in time that is not exactly what we want. But I want that. If we ask them to explain what is that that they get fuzzy.
Starting point is 00:04:42 Like, I don't know that. You know, like love walks on the beach, romantic photo shoots in our bedroom with our new pottery bar and comforter before we slow dance by the fireplace. I want that. So if you ever look at our marriage, an image, and say, I want that, what I want to do is, I want to be very clear what that is that you want. What do we have that you may want? What we have, honestly, is an absolutely completely incredible, God-ordained relationship that is far better than I ever, ever imagined that marriage could be. I promised you with all my heart, my bride is my best friend. I would rather be with her than anybody in the world, especially guys.
Starting point is 00:05:26 I want to be around her as often as I can. If we spend three days together on a little getaway, when I come back, I'm miserable going to work being away from her. I'll text her four or five times. They miss you, miss you, miss you, I'll want to be with you. We have incredibly genuine and intimate conversations. Our deal is walks when the weather is nice. We'll go three, four walks a week, hour, a longer,
Starting point is 00:05:48 talking, sharing our hopes, our dreams, talking about our kids, talking about ministry. We serve God together. We're blessed in ministry. there's a unified vision, we have a rich spiritual life together. It is better than I could ever describe. That's what you want. But before you gag at our hallmark love story, that's just part of it.
Starting point is 00:06:11 What we have in our marriage, it's a journey, it's not a destination. In other words, we haven't arrived, and that is all that we ever have. What we also have is we have challenges. hardships and struggles to overcome. I will say with complete integrity before God and all of his people that Amy can be really stubborn. Don't you let that pretty little face fool you for a moment. The chick can stand her ground. I can be very demanding, controlling, and at times harsh. Our marriage is filled with massive
Starting point is 00:06:50 miscommunications, painful misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and what I would call intense conversations. Intense conversations. That's preacher language for fights. Last time we had a fight, Amy came crawling to me on her hands and knees and said, get out from under that bed, you coward and fight like a man. If you want that, I don't you know what that is. One time she might have on a shoe, which I caught with one hand and put on, which made her even more angry. I've slammed doors. She's hung up phones on me once, maybe twice, perhaps three times in our 28 years of marriage. She tried to get out of a moving vehicle.
Starting point is 00:07:48 She was so mad at me. I'm like, no, you're not getting off that easy. You're not going to die doing that. Get back in here. We're going to finish this thing off. Let me tell you what we fought about. We fought about the house, how we keep the house, what we put in the house, her piles, my messiness in the house.
Starting point is 00:08:04 We've thought about how to load the dishwasher in the house. We fought about how I drive, how she drives. We fought about how long I run the water. You want to see her come unglued? Just watch me leave the water on. If I walk away, demons come out of that godly woman. We fight about the temperature in the house. We fight about what we're going to watch on TV.
Starting point is 00:08:26 We fight about her unwillingness to turn the lights on inside of her house whenever we entertain. She thinks it's romantic and mood city. I think it's dark. We've got company over. I'm turning them on. She's turn them off. I'm turning them on. We're giving each other this like, look, ah!
Starting point is 00:08:39 And they're going to, why are you? I thought you had a good marriage. Like, turn the lights on. Turn them off. And she does this. We worship, we fight about whether I tuck my shirt in or leave it untucked when I preach messages. We fight about how to discipline our kids. We fight about the worship style at church.
Starting point is 00:08:58 If you've ever said, I don't like that song. Amy didn't either, but I did. So we did the song at church. Just so you'll know. We fight about what to watch, who to hang out with. We fight about what I eat, what I don't eat, when I eat, how much I eat, how much I should eat. In fact, back when I did eat pancakes and Amy was making them the wrong way, I tried to bring loving correction in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Starting point is 00:09:21 She put her shoulder into me and physically removed me from her kitchen like a linebacker would push off some kind of rookie. And she told me not to come back in her kitchen for six months, and I did not. So if you ever look at us and say, I want that, I hope you'll understand exactly what that is that you want. Relationship goals. Relationship goals. What I like is, I like that people want something different. I like that people are craving something better.
Starting point is 00:09:51 Because what normal is today isn't something that I really want. When you look at normal relationships today, you see a lot of fear, you see a lot of hurt feelings, you see a lot of anger, you see a lot of bitterness, you see a lot of mistrust, you see a lot of fights about money. you see a lack of unity about how to raise our kids. You see two people doing their own thing without any kind of common vision. So I hope that you do want something different and something better. And that's why today we're starting a message series called Relationship Goals. We're going to look at four goals that I believe that we should all have in order to have the relationships that truly honor God. Week number one, today we're going to talk about our first goal, and that is to be Christ-centered.
Starting point is 00:10:34 Everybody say we're Christ-centered. Christ-centered. Being Christ-centered is a lot different than just calling yourself a Christian. You can have two people in one marriage that call themselves Christians, and just because you call yourself Christians does not mean that you're Christ-centered in the way that you live. I'm going to say this again. Just because we call ourselves Christians
Starting point is 00:10:56 does not mean that we're Christ-centered in the way that we live. We're going to be Christ-centered. When we're Christ-centered, we tend to become mission-driven. The problem is so many of us are driven by the wrong things were driven into separate ways. We are going to be led by the power of God into caring about what he cares about. Our second goal is to be mission driven in our marriages. The third week we're going to talk about being devil-kicking. Everybody say it with an attitude.
Starting point is 00:11:22 We are devil-kicking. We need to understand that we are in a spiritual battle, and our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities of this dark world, and that our spouses never ever are an enemy, but we do have an enemy that hates everything that matters to God, and he hates marriage because God ordained marriage, and we need to learn to stand together and fight against the schemes of the evil one. We are going to be Christ-centered, mission-driven, devil-kicking,
Starting point is 00:11:45 and we are covenant-keeping. Everybody say we're covenant-keeping? Because we don't enter into a contract. We enter into a holy covenant, and we're going to learn what that means and how we honor God. Let me give them to you again that I want you to say them together. What are we going to be? We have relationship goals.
Starting point is 00:12:02 We will be Christ. centered, mission driven, devil-kicking, covenant-keeping. All of our churches say it loud with me. What are we? We are going to be Christ-centered, mission-driven, devil-kicking, covenant-keeping. One more time, I need you with me. It's no fun without you. What are we going to be? We have goals. We're going to be Christ-centered, mission-driven, devil-kicking, covenant-keeping. What does it mean to be Christ-centered in our marriages? What does it mean to be Christ-centered in our lives? It's a very, very fair question. And we need to start with the understanding that no matter who we are, no matter what our
Starting point is 00:12:37 relational status is, our lives are centered around something. If you are married, your marriage is centered around something or some things. If you're not married, your life is centered around something. What is your life centered around? Those of you that are married, you may be married to somebody else, but your marriage is really centered around you. Self. It's what I want.
Starting point is 00:13:01 You're not meeting my knees. I'm upset with you. You're not doing what I want to do. It's centered around self. Many marriages are centered around children. We're going to do what you want. Go everywhere you want. We don't invest in our marriage because we're investing in you.
Starting point is 00:13:14 It's all about you. Kids, it's all about you. We're going to take them all these activities. And then one day when your kids are gone, you wake up and wonder who the heck is this person living next to me in my house because you had no time with them because you are so centered around your kids. Some is centered around money or material things or success or your career. or your image.
Starting point is 00:13:35 We want to show everybody from the outside that we look like we're good on the inside. On the inside, we're really messed up. But we're going to try to show you that we have this amazing, happy marriage with this materially blessed life. It's centered around something. The problem, in my opinion,
Starting point is 00:13:51 with the whole idea of relationship goals, I want that, I want that, is this idea, it ends up driving in this myth that I call the myth of the, The one. The myth of the one. So many people today wrongly believe this cultural truth that to really be fulfilled in life, to really be happy in life, to really do all that you're supposed to do in life and have all the meaning you're supposed to have,
Starting point is 00:14:17 you have to find the one. To really be happy and fulfilled in life. You have to find the one, perfect one, that makes you goosebumps and tingly, wingly, wingly. And all the love songs on the radio makes sense. And every time you're together, you feel that special little bond and you've got to find the one. And so a girl meets a guy, and he's kind of cute. And he opens up the car for her, and he's the door.
Starting point is 00:14:43 And he says, I think I met the one. She tells him, I think I met the one. He's so amazing. I mean, this guy, like, he went to church one time back in the 80s, and he has a job, you know. And my last three boyfriends were unemployed and wanted to be professional video game players. But this guy has a job from 9 to 5. I think I met the one.
Starting point is 00:15:01 What I would love one time is for people to recognize and realize that you do not need another person to complete you. Single is a whole number. Jesus had a pretty good run without needing a wife. He pretty much pleased God in a massive way. We don't need another person to complete us. Christ completes us and we can do what he calls us to do. Therefore, I would love it. If one day, when you meet that amazing,
Starting point is 00:15:35 amazing perfect guy. Instead of saying, I think I met the one, you would instead say, I think I met the two. I think I met the two. Because in a Christ-centered marriage, Jesus is your one and your spouse is your two.
Starting point is 00:16:04 When our marriages are truly centered around, Christ, not just in word, but in the way we live. We're all about Jesus. And all the rest comes under him. In fact, this is what Jesus said whenever a guy asked him in Matthew 22, what is the greatest commandment of the law? If we're going to know one thing, Jesus, what's most important? And he said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your
Starting point is 00:16:35 mind. In other words, we're going to put our God first. He will be the center of all we do. That is the most important force in our life. Why does this matter? Why am I talking about being Christ-centered? Let me just say again that all of you, something is in the center of your life. I'm going to show you some diagrams that will help maybe bring this into better understanding. There's something in the center of your life. I'm going to ask you, what is it? Whatever goes in the center of your life, it all of you, it all of you. influences what? Your values and your belief. Your values and beliefs are driven by what is in the center of your life, which then influences your actions and your decisions, which ultimately
Starting point is 00:17:21 influences your influence and impact. In other words, the difference you make in this world and the fulfillment that you feel, feel honoring God is all a result of what your life is centered around. What is your life or your marriage centered around? It could be yourself. If it's centered around self, I promise you, your influence and impact will be incredibly limited. It could be around your kids. If it's all about your kids, your marriage will suffer and you will never please God, ultimately in the expression of your family the way you could otherwise. It could be about your lifestyle. Or for those of you that want something better, even deeper relationship goals, your life could be centered around Christ.
Starting point is 00:18:05 When you are Christ-centered, then Jesus, the Son of God, influences your beliefs, which influences your actions and your decisions, with ultimately leads to a life of impact and fulfillment. If it's not centered around Christ, then you've got the wrong goal driving your relationship. Now, to those of you that are not married yet, if you have relationship goals, I want that in the future.
Starting point is 00:18:41 Let me just say this to you. If you want a Christ-centered relationship in the future, live a Christ-centered life today. If you want to honor God with putting him first in a future marriage, honor God by putting him first today. What are you waiting for? I see all the time, unfortunately, is someone who says, yeah, one day, you know, once I find that person that special, my love muffin, my snuggle above my soul mate forever,
Starting point is 00:19:09 then we're going to serve God in church, and then we're going to get our lives together and such. But this is my time, and I'm going to do what I want. My time, and I got my knees, and I'm going to party right now. I'm going to do my thing. Listen to me. Anytime you do your thing apart from God,
Starting point is 00:19:21 that's always called sin. It's always called sin. And you don't build a life of righteousness in the future on a foundation of sin today. Thank you, Chris. I don't know if they're getting this. If you want that in the future, embrace that today.
Starting point is 00:19:48 I'm not waiting for someone to finish me so I can start serving Jesus. Then I am serving him, following him, Christ-centered, loving the Lord, my God, with all my heart, my mind, my soul and strength. today. There's a big difference between calling yourself a Christian and living a Christ-centered life. I was born in the USA. I'm not a Muslim or a Buddhist, so yeah, I guess I'm a Christian. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's in word. Christ is Lord. He's first. He's a savior of my life.
Starting point is 00:20:22 You don't build a life of righteousness in the future on a foundation of sin today. So how do we do it? If we want to be Christ-centered in all that we do, how do we become Christ-centered in our marriages? Had I taught this maybe 10 years ago, I would have given you a whole list of really good things, good ideas, good suggestions, but there would have been a problem.
Starting point is 00:20:45 If I'd give you a bunch, you're going to do none of them. I would have said you need to read your Bible together, which is important. You need to go to church together, and you need to learn to forgive one another, and you need to learn to submit to one of them. another in love and you need to learn to forgive each other, need to rejoice in each other, need to show love and respect and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Starting point is 00:21:03 And I give you a whole list and you wouldn't have done any of those. I've learned that a better strategy is to ask for one thing that has the highest impact, the highest value that tends to lead to the other things, and then you might just do that. So what I'm going to do today is give you what is my opinion of the highest return action that can help you be Christ-centered in your relationship. If you do one thing that I believe will help you become Christ-centered in your marriages, I would suggest that you very simply commit to pray together daily. Just pray.
Starting point is 00:21:39 Short prayer every single day. One action that I believe can lead to all the other actions that will help really truly give you a Christ-centered relationship. Now, in this holy moment, as we're talking about prayer, let me just acknowledge that some of you are thinking right now. now? Oh, crap. I don't want to pray to my spouse. Should have skipped church today. That's what some of you're thinking. It's too personal. It's too intimate. Prayer life. That's private. What I want to promise you is if you are both followers of Christ, you can pray together. That's too private. May I remind you, and it's kind of embarrassing, to say this out loud, but it's incredibly true.
Starting point is 00:22:30 The chances are if you've been married any time at all, you probably go to the bathroom in front of each other. Maybe you don't. Most of you do. That's private. Most of you probably had babies together. That takes get a little bit intimate. You know, you swap spit.
Starting point is 00:22:59 Whatever. And other stuff. That's intimate. I promise you. You can pray together. You can. I think this is one of the most underutilized tools to create true spiritual strength.
Starting point is 00:23:27 I think if I were the enemy, I would try to keep every Christian couple from ever praying together. Because if I can keep them from praying together, I can keep them from bonding spiritually. I can keep them from becoming more mission-driven. And since they're not going to God together in prayer, they probably won't be devil-kicking.
Starting point is 00:23:44 They're going to be getting their tails ticked by the devil. And then ultimately, they won't be coveted. keeping. You see, when you pray together, you bond. It's hard to do really bad things that hate each other when you know you're going to have to pray. Think about this. You're praying later in the day? You can't really fight and pray. You kind of got to resolve things. If you've got an ongoing battle with some sin issue, lust, it's really hard to go look at porn and then pray with the person who's being incredibly faithful to you. Somehow it empowers you and boldens you maybe to work through some issues
Starting point is 00:24:28 so you can truly have that intimacy together. When you do pray, let me tell you what, it generally leads to other things that helps strengthen your marriage around Christ. You may end up talking about spiritual things because you prayed together. You may end up moving your kids towards spiritual things because you prayed together. You might start sharing what you've done in a U-Versian Bible plan or even start doing the same plan together because you prayed together.
Starting point is 00:24:54 Chances are pretty good that you're going to be the church together because there's a big difference between going to church and actually being the church, that you might start serving together. You might start being mission-minded together whenever you're under attack, you're going to realize we're under spiritual attack and you fight back together. It's amazing what tends to happen
Starting point is 00:25:14 when you truly pray together. If you're hesitant, I'll tell you right now, I didn't pray with Amy for a long time. Every day, regularly, we didn't. Part of the reason was it takes her so long to get warmed up. I mean, a long time. Like warm up breathing and praises to God for a long time. Like, he knows he's good. Let's just get on with this.
Starting point is 00:25:42 But if there's one thing that's helped us be Christ-centered, it's praying together. So how do we do it? If you're willing to give this a go, where do we start? How do we do it? I'll give you three thoughts about how to pray with your spouse. The first thing is, let me make it easy. If we keep it short, this isn't an hour-long intercessory prayer thing,
Starting point is 00:26:01 so just get that out of your mind. How about pray 60 seconds? Hey, if that's going to push you, let's pray 30 seconds. You do that enough, it may grow to two minutes and five minutes. You may end up praying together for an hour sometime, but you'll never pray for an hour if you don't start with 30 seconds. Let's just take the pressure off. This isn't fancy.
Starting point is 00:26:21 Let's just join hands for 30 seconds a day, a minute, whatever you want, and say, Jesus, help us center our relationship around you. Keep it short. Keep it consistent. In other words, we're going to do it at a certain time of the day. This is our prayer time. And then, if you miss a day because you probably will, don't miss two. Don't miss two.
Starting point is 00:26:45 Keep it short. We're uniting. Keep it consistent. I would suggest maybe you pray before something. This is the cue that leads to the habit that leads to other good things. We pray before we start the day. I'm walking out the door, we join hands, we pray before we start the day. You might pray before you enjoy a meal.
Starting point is 00:27:08 God, we thank you for this meal. And you pray before you start a, there's your cue. Maybe you pray before an event, a something, a conversation with a kid, a difficult presentation at work, a new, job interview, but when you hear bad news, before you face the bad news, we pray to get together because that's what we do. Let's make it simple. You may say, I don't really know what to pray. Well, I will give you a very simple prayer. I'll post this in different places on social media so you can have this and pray, and you may just want to go ahead and pray aloud with me. Here's how,
Starting point is 00:27:38 here's a prayer. Just say it with me. Everybody say, dear God, give us wisdom and clear direction in all we do today. help us to show your love to each other and shine your light into the world. Keep us close to you, away from temptation, and always in your will, in Jesus' name, amen. There you go. Every single day. Before long, you may add a few of your own words, and before long, you're going to wake up and realize, oh, my gosh, we are more Christ-centered, which has empowered us to be more mission.
Starting point is 00:28:17 driven, which has enabled us to be more devil-kicking. And all the way through and through, we are covenant keeping. We pray together. Those of you that are not married, you may say, well, what do I do? Well, if you want a Christ-enter marriage in the future, you want to have a Christ-inner life today. You pray. You pray right where you are. One of the things I did is I came out of the party scene, and Saturday night was a big party night. So I devoted Saturday nights after I was a Christian to seeking God. And I used to listen to cassette tapes on marriage. If you don't know what a cassette tape is, just go to Wikipedia and help you know what a cassette tape is. And I would journal about the man of God I wanted to be for my future wife, and I would write down my prayers
Starting point is 00:29:00 for the woman that would one day be my wife. I'd never met Amy, but I knew one day God would bring me somebody. And so I wrote down prayers and love notes, and I had a whole shoebox full of them. And when I was dating Amy, and I realized that she was my two. I took out my shoebox and said, hey, I just want you to know, long before I met you, I was praying for you. And here's a reflection of my heart and prayers for you. She read through those and cried all the way through. And that is the very reason why we have six kids today. And I told her, these are for you.
Starting point is 00:29:37 And if for any reason you break up with me, I need those back because, like, Amy, won't you come up here with me if you don't mind. You guys want to just show a little love for my bride, hashtag my bride. I want to try to tell you one reason this is so important to me, and I love you. We have a very blessed life, and there are parts of it that are very difficult just like yours. What makes ours a little bit different is that there are so many people that we're involved in their lives. We had our staff, all of them gather in, 700 and some odd staff members. and the burden that some of our staff members are carrying, that alone keeps us praying like you wouldn't believe.
Starting point is 00:30:34 Really, really big spiritual challenges. Our life group, our family, our friends, personal issues, we hurt and are burdened and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray. We have to. Last week, we got another blow. We heard more sad news about someone that we love. and we stopped to pray, and it looks like this. When we gather, we join like this,
Starting point is 00:31:01 and we knew how to stand together, and we knew who to go to and where to go. If we were not Christ-centered, we would be like hoping and hoping, and that'd be it. But we know how to stand. together. If there's one thing, there's one thing that could help you become Christ-centered, which will leave to being mission-driven, which will empower you to be devil-kicking, which will help you to be covenant-keeping, it's learning to lock hands. One time a day. Short
Starting point is 00:31:53 prayer, simple, consistent, authentic, and real. And that could be the beginning, not just calling yourself Christian, but being Christ-centered in all that you do. So with that, let's pray, and I'm going to ask you to pray. Just don't do that long, warm-up thing. Father, thank you for our church family. We ask God that you would help us be Christ-centered. At all of our churches, whether you're in a relationship, not in a relationship, no matter if you're young, you're old, whoever you are, if you are a follower of Christ, you say, I want to be more centered around Christ. Would you lift your hands right now? Just lift them high. All of our churches, people saying yes, Amy, would you do the honor of simply praying over our church family? Yes. Heavenly Father,
Starting point is 00:32:45 Lord, we thank you that we're here today to hear such an amazing, powerful message. Father, stir our hearts even more so that we cannot let go of what you're drawing. us to you, Father, to your heart. I pray that everyone here as they've raised their hands, that we would lean more and more into you, that we would love you with all of our hearts, soul, mind, and strength. Father, forgive us for when we put ourselves first, when we put other things first, other than you, Lord, we commit ourselves to you afresh. We return to you with all of our hearts. Set us on fire for you. May we hunger and thirst for you. May our relationships be centered around you and all that we do.
Starting point is 00:33:31 We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, baby. All right, campus pastors, I'm calling an audible. Every head up, every eye opened, all of our churches here. Those of you're going to recognize right now, you're not Christ sinners. Let me just be real clear.
Starting point is 00:33:48 What does it mean to be made right with God? We are not made right with God by our good works. We're only made right with God by His grace. Who is Jesus? He is the sinless son of God who is perfect. in every way. He was obedient to his father, even to death on the cross. On the cross, Jesus became sin for us. He died in our place for the forgiveness of our sins. On the third day when the stone was rolled away, Jesus was not there. He was risen from the dead. Why? So that anyone,
Starting point is 00:34:18 and this includes you, who calls on the name of the Lord, would be saved, would be forgiven. If I can be so bold to say, there are those of you watching right now online, there are those of you at life churches around the world who recognize your life is not Christ-centered. There are going to be married couples today you recognize. You call yourself a Christian because you went to church. You can call yourself a duck, but you can't fly. You're no duck. You need your life centered around Christ.
Starting point is 00:34:42 Jesus, the son of God. Not in name only, but in the way you live. Because of who he is, our only reasonable response is to give him our life. Not to earn his love, but because of his love. We say, I need you. I surrender to you. And all of our churches, those who recognize, I'm not a follower of Christ. Yes, everybody's looking and we're going to confess boldly.
Starting point is 00:35:04 When you confess him before people, Jesus says, I will confess you before my Father in heaven. So let's just call it what it is, and let's just get bold and say, I need Christ. My life is not centered around from him, so I turn from my sins. I turn toward him. Right now, at this moment, publicly, I don't care who sees. I surrender my life to Christ. That's your prayer. Lift them high right now all over the place.
Starting point is 00:35:26 Let us celebrate you right now. God bless you. And right back over here and here in this section. In front of everybody, I need Jesus. I need His grace. Oh, church, would you thank God? Right back over here, coming to Christ together. Right back over here, both of you together.
Starting point is 00:35:40 I need Jesus. I need His grace. I need His love. Church online, you click right below me. Church, would you celebrate a little more, a little louder? Help them feel love. Help them feel welcome. We're all going to pray together,
Starting point is 00:35:55 simply pray aloud, pray Heavenly Father, I give you my life. Jesus save me, forgive my sins, be my Savior, be the Lord of my life, be the center of all that I do, fill me with your spirit so I could follow you. My life is not my own. I give it to you. Thank you for new life. now you have mine. In Jesus' name, I pray. Life Church, could you worship in a big way? Welcome those born into God's family today. Hey, thanks so much for joining us,
Starting point is 00:36:34 and we want to remind you we don't want anyone to do life alone to help you with your next steps. Just go to life.church slash next. There you'll find a ton of resources to help you grow with your relationship with Christ. And remember, whoever finds God finds life.

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