Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Struggles, Part 3: Authenticity

Episode Date: September 20, 2014

As you scroll through your day, does it feel like everyone else has it all together? Someone always has the best job, cutest kid, or happiest relationship. We're pressured to measure up to other people's status updates and left with more #struggles. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, I'm excited to share with you a very important message today. We're in part three of a five-part message series called hashtag struggles. We're talking about following Jesus in a selfie-centered world. Now, before we dive into today's message, let me tell you about next week. I have something very, very heavy on my heart to talk about next week. We're going to talk about compassion, and we're going to look and see specifically how and why social media and technology is actually causing people to care less about other people, which honestly, as followers of Christ, this is totally and completely unacceptable.

God calls us to something way higher, and I can't wait to share that with you next week. Today what we're going to do is we're going to talk about authenticity. How do we become authentic in a selfie? Hang on a second. I haven't done my selfie Sunday picture yet. Let me see. I get struggles just right back there. I get one from this angle.

It's pretty good. I might post that later. So anyway, if you're not involved in social media, selfies, it's when you take a picture of yourself. And this is a new term. We didn't have selfies growing up, and it's coming on with amazing momentum. In fact, if you just go back 11 months ago, 11 months ago, 11 months ago, in a one month period on different forms of social media, there were 35 million hashtags with the word selfie in it somewhere.

35 million, 11 months ago, just last month, there were 170 million in one month with the word hashtag selfie somewhere in it. If you're younger, it may be difficult for you to understand, but my generation, we would not have ever turned a camera on ourselves. That's just something we didn't do. And this is a, it's kind of a new thing today. The reality is for us, we actually hated getting our picture taken. Many of you will remember the worst day of the year was what? Picture day at school. It was horrible. It was the only

day I'd ever bring a comb, and I'd go in the bathroom, fluff my hair back, center, part down, wings, you know, up on the side. And you would walk in and they would take your picture, and you only had one shot. One take and one take only. And when they said one, two, three, it didn't matter if you're like this or something in your teeth. You would have that picture define your entire sixth grade year throughout history. That's what you would be known for.

And it was horrible. They'd take the picture and then you wouldn't even know what it looked like for weeks or even a couple of months. And sometimes if you didn't have the money to buy the stupid little packets, you didn't have the money to buy the stupid little pack. you wouldn't know what it looked like until it came out in the yearbook. Things have massively changed. Now, we are a selfie-obsessed culture.

We'll take a picture of ourselves and then put a filter on it. Now, you may not know what a filter is. A filter basically is where we can change the color. We can make it black and white, soften it, brighten it. You can take away red eye. You can edit and remove a double chin. If you've got a zip, man, back when we were kids, You had to pop it and hope for the best.

You're like, should I pop it? Should I pop it? Should I pop? Now you can just edit that thing right on out, and we can filter our lives and show people, this is the filtered me I want you to see. My workout partner doesn't do social media, and so he's kind of learning as we go through this series, and we were at the gym, and he came, he got there earlier than I did. He came running out of the locker room.

He said, Craig, come quick. There's a guy in there doing it. that thing you were talking about. And so we went in and he had me kind of lean around the lockers to look. And so we're like, looking like this. And there is a guy, God is my witness. In fact, guy, you might be here today. And I'm talking about you.

Okay. He is a maybe 22 guy, no shirt on. And he, you know, he was in good shape. He was standing in front of the mirror. And he would, he had his camera pose. He would come into the mirror like this. Click. And you do it again.

And you do it again. I'm sitting there. We're all there. I came out. We started watching. Everybody's there. The old naked man in the locker room is watching. Because there's one in every locker room.

I don't know why. But there's an old naked man in every locker. They probably sit around and give out assignments. Like, I'll take Monday. You take Tuesday. Just hang out and be naked. Man, you don't look good naked when you're 30. You darn sure don't look good naked when you're 78.

But he's there. I'm there. We're all watching this. I finally changed clothes into my workout clothes, went into the bathroom, came back out, talked to a person from Life Church of guys that, hey, introduce himself. Probably three minutes or so we have a conversation. A good, solid six minutes has gone by. I walk around the corner and guess who's there? Selfie muscle man is still going at it. I'm kind of like, put the camera down, go work out. It might get better if you try that. I don't know. but here we are in this selfie-centered world taking pictures of ourselves putting filters on and kind of the heart behind this message if you think about it is this the more filtered our lives become

the more we show others the me we want them to see the more difficult it is to be authentic culturally we're becoming so trained to filtering the picture and then editing perfectly the caption because the caption matters you've got to have the right hashtag and it's got to be clever but not too clever and it's got to be right but not looking like you're trying too hard and we edit that perfectly we filter it and we send it out there so that the rest of the world can affirm us and like who we are showing them that we are last week we talked about three different ways that technology is impacting relationships. And we've got to acknowledge that there are so many good ways. I mean, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what's possible now

for blessing relationships, it's truly amazing. At the same time, there are some unintended negative consequences to social media and technology. And we're talking about a few of those. I want to highlight one in specific today, if you're taking notes, how is technology changing relationships. Write this down. People are starting to fear and avoid unfiltered communication. They're starting to fear and avoid unfiltered communication. For example, we are so used to being able to edit what we say and filter what we show that if we don't have that luxury, a lot of people are very nervous in talking. In fact, the reality is there are a lot of a lot of people, and you'll know this is true, that are creating online personalities.

Look at who I am. That in reality is very different than the true person that they are. They're showing you a fake self trying to get you to believe that's who they really are. And if we take it a level deeper than that, we see people are now very afraid, a whole younger generation, many are uncomfortable in a conversation. that they cannot control. For example, this is very normal now. I met with a bunch of young adults from our church, and they all agreed they'll do this, that whenever the phone rings, back when we were growing up, people my age, we actually didn't know who was on the other side. And to find out

who was on the other side, you actually had to pick up the call. And then you had to talk, and you didn't know what was going to be said or what they might ask. And so we learned how to have unfiltered communication. Today, you have the luxury, the blessing, or the curse of being able to what? A phone call comes in, send it to voicemail. Then what a lot of people do is they listen to the voicemail, and then how do you respond? You respond with a what? With the text, because you stay in control. You don't have to talk and not know where the conversation is going. In fact, I asked the same young group of students that I was meeting with from our church, how else does this impact you? And one girl said, I'm so nervous to talk on the phone that what I'll do is I'll script out

what I'm going to say before I call somebody. And so I just ask, curiously, you know, what type of phone conversation would you script? And she said, you know, like if I'm calling to order a pizza, I'm going to write down how I'm going to say, because I'm that nervous. Now, don't be shocked because this is very, very normal with a generation that hasn't been exposed to learning how to communicate in an unfiltered way. I asked the group about 25 students. So how many of you would actually script down a phone call for something like ordering a pizza? And about 75% of them raise their hands because what we have now is a group of people so used to

being in control of the conversation that to be out of control is actually unsettling for a lot of people. The filter is now on. The more filtered our lives are, the more difficult it is to be authentic. And the reality is this is not just a modern day problem. This has been a problem that's been going on since the beginning of time. In fact, today, if you want to follow along in your U-Versian Bibles, we're going to be in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, and we're going to look as Paul refers back to a story from the Old Testament in Exodus 34. We're going to be in 2nd Corinthians 3, but Paul was talking about when Moses ascended to the top of Mount Sinai, received the 10 commandments from God, and after 40 days and 40 nights with God, he came down from the mountain, and his face,

this is really cool, was actually glowing. The glory of God was on his face. Every now and then when I start preaching good, I get a little tent. It actually sweat. But his face was glory, was glowing, and so Moses put on a veil. I always thought, well, he did that to protect people from seeing the glory. But if you look at the text closely, he actually talked to the people first, and then he later put on the veil. Paul implies that he did not put on the veil

to protect people from seeing the glory, but he put on the veil to keep them from seeing that the glory was actually starting to fade away. He put a filter over his face so they would not see the truth, but the glory of God was starting to fade away. So let's look at 2 Corinthians 3, verses 13 through 18. We're going to read a big chunk,

and then we're going to come back and look at a few verses from this. Let me give you the context, and then we'll read it. Paul was actually showing the Corinthians how much greater the new covenant was than the old covenant. And here's what he said. He said, verse 13, we are not like Moses, who put a veil over his face, Watch this.

To prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away. Just as the old covenant was passing away. So the glory was fading from his face. And we can assume one of the reasons he put the veil on was to keep them from seeing the glory was fading away. Verse 14, but their minds were made dull. For to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is red. It has not been removed.

because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day, Paul said, when Moses has read, a veil covers their hearts. What is he saying? He's saying basically, whenever the old covenant is read in the synagogues, the unbelieving Jewish people cannot see the truth because they are blinded from seeing and experiencing the truth.

Paul said this later on in 2 Corinthians 4.4. He said, the God of this world, little G, meaning our spiritual enemy, the God of this world, has blinded the minds of unbelievers that they cannot see the truth. The veil was covering their eyes from seeing the truth of who Christ is in the new covenant. Verse 16. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, this is good news, the veil is taken away. Now, the Lord is the Spirit. and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

We're going to come back to this. And we all, who with unveiled faces, contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with everlasting glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit, unveiled living. The problem is, most of us, we're wearing a veil. We've learned and become very skilled at how to filter our lives and show other people to me that we want them to see. And Paul implies that this is what Moses was doing. I'm covering the fact that the glory is fading away.

The challenges by nature, we tend to do this. By nature, when we are insecure, when we don't feel good about ourselves, when we sin, rather than confessing our sin as the first response, by nature we tend to hide, and to put veils on and to filter our lives. You can go all the way back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned against God. They didn't say, God, I'm so sorry. God, I shouldn't have done that. The Bible says that they realized they were ashamed

because they were naked and they were afraid, so they hid. They put fig leaves on, a picture of the veil. I don't want you to see the real me. And we all do this, whether in social media or in other ways. In fact, only Christ can take the veil away. And the good news is I have found significant spiritual victory in an area of my life where I've been in bondage for the approval of people for way too long. By the power and the grace of God, I now have total and complete freedom with my toes.

Oh yes, this is a big thing. Really big if you've seen my toes. For so long, if you've been a part of our church for a while, you know I've got cavemen feet. Never showed you because I was way too embarrassed. My toes are so big. I've got a size 12 foot, about 40% toes, pure toes, 100% toes, longest things you've ever seen ever. Amy, man, she's like, she is the greatest wife. She said, Craig, I love everything about you.

You're perfect in every way. I love you from the top of your heads to the bottom of your ankles. Everything in there I love. She hates my feet. She hates him. She's the ugliest feet ever. She's like, please put some socks on before you come into the bedroom. She's like, if I'm at my house sitting around in just, you know, a pair of shorts and nothing else,

and someone rings the doorbell, she never says put on a shirt. It's all, cover those feet up. Don't let them see your toes. And so for years, I've been like self-conscious, and I hate all you sandal wearing people. Their toes getting sun tan, feet all comfortable in sandals. I've never worn a pair of sandals in my life unless it was like very close toes sandals. Well, this year, guess what? I just thought, I'm in my mid-40s.

I'm happily married. My wife loves almost every part about me. And I don't care what anybody else thinks. And I bought me a pair of sandals. I wore them out to restaurants. I wore them out in the park. Sure, sometimes little kids will scream and cry and run away. But where there is freedom in the Lord, I have been set free.

That may not mean anything to you, but. If you see me out in sandals, just keep talking to me being I and nobody will get hurt. Okay? Here's the deal. Here's the deal. It's kind of a joke, but actually it's very true. I want to ask you this. I veiled my toes forever because what are people going to think if they see my cavemen feet? I want to ask you a real serious question and get you to be honest today. What veil are you wearing? What image are you trying to portray in your life that maybe you're not really? And when you think about social media, man, I mean, it almost trains us to do this. For example, you may portray yourself as, hey, I'm spiritual guy.

I'm spiritual girl. Here's my U-Version Bible verse showing that I'm doing a devotion. Here's my cup of coffee in my Bible open. I'm spiritual guy. When in reality in the back of your mind, there is an ongoing secret sin that you have still not confessed to anybody. haunts you and it makes you crazy. But hey, here's spiritual guy. Or you might be with it, mom. Hey, look, here's a picture of my baked goods for my kids. And here's me at soccer with my kids. And here's my kids with matching lunch boxes on their first day to school. Picture of my kids.

When in reality, you feel guilty because you're overwhelmed. You feel overworked. You feel like you don't have any friends. You feel like you don't have a life. You feel like you're not a very good. but here's with it, mom, or you might be the dad at the park. Here's me. Click with my kid at the park. Look, I'm pushing my kid on the swing. I'm a good dad. I'm a good dad.

I'm a good dad. When in reality, you feel like a failure as a dad because you're short with your kids and you're not always engaged with them and you're working too much. And when you're with them, you're not really with them because your mind is somewhere else. but hey, here's the dad I want you to see. You might be protein shake guy. Here's my protein shake. I'm getting in shape.

The truth is you just ate a whole bag of chips and you worship regularly at the altar of Ben and Jerry's. Here's my protein shake. I'm getting in shape. It might be the obligatory anniversary picture. Here I am with my honey. Best friends forever. I love my smoo-chee-poochie-pooh.

We have such a great marriage. when in reality you don't have a good marriage at all. But here's the me I want you to see. I've even talked to people who admit that they think, okay, I got to post something. It's not hashtag TBT so I can't use an old picture. Oh, got to come up with something new. So, hmm, what could I do that would make a good picture?

Well, maybe we could go do this, and then we could take a picture of it, and then we could post that. Okay, hashtag, how sick is that? Okay. You're living to create a social. social media moment, all because we want to show this life that we think people want to see. So you may say, okay, Craig, so does that mean like you're always honest and show everything on

social media? Yes, I'm always going to try to be honest, but no, I'm not going to show everything on social media. For example, if I tweet on a Saturday before I preach the Saturday service, hey, I'm so excited about this message, I can't wait. That's true. But there are times when I do not tweet what is true. Other times I'm thinking I'm exhausted. I'm in a bad mood. I haven't had a day off since who knows when. I don't even know if this message makes sense. I can't figure out what I'm trying to say. It's probably going to be horrible. And besides, the state fair is going on. Half my stupid church is going to be riding the zipper looking at cows and eating fried butter. You laugh. You go out and eat that, you know, stuff. Those of you and know,

states and other parts of the world, you're like, but we don't have the state fair. Hashtad count your blessings. And a few smart people said, amen. I don't trust anybody who likes the fair. I just want you to know. I don't trust you. You can like it. We can be friends from a distance, but I don't trust anybody who likes the fair.

So the bottom line is everything that we say must be true, but everything true does not have to be shared on social media. Okay? Some of you, your overshaer's, thus saith the Lord, shut thy trap up. You say too much. Everybody doesn't want to know all your feelings

about everybody and pray for my kid because she's rebelling and that's going to help your kid when he finds out you posted that. Some lady wrote on my Facebook page, pray for my husband. Okay, there's her real name. She puts his whole name and says, he is the biggest jerk who's ever lived.

I can't stand him. I don't want to be married to him another day unless the Lord Jesus Christ redeems his soul. I have no place in my heart for this man. Please pray for my husband. Like, darn straight, I'm praying for him because he's married to you. You're stupid. He needs prayers from you. You're sharing that. Oh, dear Jesus, I'm praying for him. Social media is not the place where you always remove the veil. But if you don't remove the veil face to face sometimes, you're always going to be longing for something more. So we put the veil on, we post something, and we say, did you like it? Did you like it? Did you like it? Did you affirm me? Did you

affirm me? And yet we still feel empty because we're not being totally real with anybody and vulnerable in the way that God wants us to be. And the veil continues to stay on. Verse 15, this is what Paul says. He says, even to this day when Moses is read, what happens? Let's all say, All of our churches, even to this day when Moses has read, everybody, a veil covers their hearts. Don't miss this. If you're taking notes, a veil that first covers the face eventually covers the heart. I'm preaching so good, I don't know how you guys are standing it, but I think I'm starting to glow. A veil that first covers the face eventually covers the heart.

You see, what starts out as a superficial covering became a spiritual. condition. And now today we have a generation that has been so conditioned to filter everything that now they do not know how to open up. I've talked to so many of them. There are dozens in my home. And I ask them, is there anybody that knows the real you? No. Is there anybody that you share the deepest parts of your heart? Well, no. Well, why not? Well, I really don't know. how to open up. And then when we get a little bit deeper, here's the key. But if I really did show them who I am, I'm scared to death that they wouldn't like me. A veil that first covers the face, eventually covers the heart. And this is not just a 20-something-year-old problem, because there are

those of you much older, and you know it's a problem in your life as well. How are you doing? Oh, we're fine. How's your marriage? Oh, it's fine. How are you doing in relation with God? Oh, it's going great. And the reality is there are so many parts of you that you have not shared in maybe decades. You've got the veil on. You're playing the part.

You're playing the role. You're play acting. What is that? Jesus would call it hypocrisy. The veil that covers the face eventually covers the heart. And some people are so used to showing the fake self. They don't even know who the real self is anymore because I'm this person for that group of people

and this person for that group of people and this person for that group of people and suddenly we're just living for likes. Do you like the me I'm showing you? Do you like this picture? Did you like the filter? Did you like the caption? Do you like my shirt?

Do you like these earrings? Do you like my new hair? Do you like my car? Do you think my kids are good enough? and all this time we're living for likes and we're longing for love because until we show who we really are, until we know and are fully known, we're always going to be longing for something more. What's the problem? When we're always filtered, when we're always showing our best side, we may impress people some, that they might be impressed. But we're not. We're

not connecting. The difference is this. Don't miss this. We connect with people through our weaknesses. We may impress them with our strengths, but we connect through our weaknesses. You've done this before. You've met somebody like, they're so perfect, I can't stand them. They're so perfect. They're so perfect. Then you get to know them and you realize, oh, they struggle here. And oh, they're like, oh, I like them. Why? Because we connect through weaknesses. So often we're trying to impress the world with, here's the me I want you to see, and yet we're longing for something more, because we may impress people with our strengths, but we connect through our weaknesses. As long as the veil starts on the face, eventually it covers the heart. So what do we do now? Okay? What do we do now?

We've got literally a generation that's being trained on filtering their image. Image management. Here's the me I want you to see it. This point, normally what I would do is give you some practical suggestions, like try to be yourself. Good advice. Don't use a filter every time. Good advice. Try not to care what people think.

Good advice. If your toes are long, wear sandals, and we'll go out together. Okay? Whatever. You know, that's good advice. But more than good advice, what I want to do is I want to give you godly advice, and that is this. And do not miss this. Here is the whole message.

This is why you're here to hear from God's word today. Only Christ can remove the veil. Only Christ. Only Christ can remove the veil. 2 Corinthians 316. But whenever anyone does what, I need everybody to help me here, but whenever anyone does what? Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, what happens? Then the veil is taken away.

Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Whenever you turn to the Lord, there are some of you, you are here for this moment because you've been turning to everyone and everything else for affirmation, and you still don't have it. But when you turn to the Lord, you don't even have to remove the veil because he does it for you. When you turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away. And suddenly you're not getting your approval from their likes, but you're getting it from his love.

Oh, that's so good. You are no longer living for the approval of people, but you are living from the approval of God. You recognize, I am acceptable to God through Jesus. I am the righteousness of God in Christ. Christ is sufficient all in all. When I realize he is all that I have, suddenly I realize he is all I need. And I don't need approval from someone else because I've got approval from him. Dwelling within me is the same spirit that raised Christ from the grave.

My identity is not in how many followers I have. My identity is who I am following, and I am following the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, I have no need of the veil. The veil can be taken away. And verse 17 says this, where the spirit of the Lord is. And let me tell you right now, the spirit of God is here can you sense him. Where the spirit of the Lord is, what is there? Say it with me.

There is freedom. Where the spirit of the Lord is, what is there? There is freedom. Come on, church. Be the church. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all who, watch the beauty of this. with unveiled faces.

This is who I am, warts and all. This is who I really am when I show you with unveiled faces. We, not me, but we, because life is always better together. We contemplate the Lord's glory because it's not about me. It's not about a selfie-centered world I exist to give him glory. and we contemplate the Lord's glory. And then when we do that, guess what happens? We are transformed, not into the person

that we think they want us to be, but we are transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory because where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we with unveiled faces. How do we get unveiled faces? When you turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

And we with unveiled faces are being transformed into the image of Christ, not for the approval of people, but for the glory of God. Because we are not called to elevate self, but to die to self and follow Jesus, to give him glory in all that we do. And that's how we follow Jesus in a selfie-centered world. It's time to turn to the Lord. Father, we pray today that in your presence, you would give us the power. to turn to you. All of our churches, as you're reflecting in prayer,

you recognize many of you that you've got on a filter, you've got on a veil. I would argue that every single one of us because of our sin nature in one way at some time or another, do this. And the Spirit of God is speaking to you and you are longing for your identity to be in him, to turn to the Lord and to have the veil removed

to all of our churches. Our theme today is authenticity. If you want true authenticity from Christ, your identity is in him and him alone. You want him to remove the veil that you can be truly who he created you to be, loving and being loved as you really are. If that's you today, would you lift up your hands high right now? God is speaking to you. Just lift them up all of our different churches.

There are more of you at other campuses. Just lift them up and say, yes, God is speaking to me about this. Father, thank you so much. Where your spirit is there is freedom. And God, so many have been in bondage for sure. so long for the shallowness of who's following me and who liked my pick and who commented and who retweeted. God, we thank you that you've got a life much deeper and much more meaningful than that. That our identity is not in the approval of others, but our identity comes from the

approval of your son, Jesus. God, help us to turn to you. And I don't know what that means for different people, but in whatever way to turn to you. And when we turn to you, God, trusting you will remove the veil. Where the spirit of the Lord is, God, we thank you. There is liberty. There is freedom. We step into that today by faith. As you keep praying today at all of our different churches, some of you, you recognize all your life's about playing the role. Here's who I am. Here's who I think you want me to be. Man, that's like my biography growing up. I was so skilled at like, hey, I'm with my party friends.

I'm this guy. Hey, I'm with my jock friends. I'm this guy. Uh-oh, I'm with the girls. I'm now I'm this guy. Oh, my parents are watching. Now I'm this guy. I'm around church people.

Oh, now I'm this guy. And I tried so hard to be who everyone else wanted me to be. I didn't even know who I was. And it was only when I realized that my sin nature was leading me to do things it broke the heart of God and hurt people. But I turned to God at the bottom in the middle of pain. I just, I turned to the Lord. And I didn't really know how to pray,

but I prayed the best I could. I'm going to tell you what, he removed the veil. He forgave my sins, and he made me new. And that's why some of you, that's why you're here today. And you know it. You know it, and you know it, and you know it. It's time to turn away from yourself and your sinfulness and turn to him.

And when you do, when you call on him, and he will forgive every sin you've ever, ever, ever made. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, there is forgiveness. And that's why you're here. All of our churches, those of you who say, that's me. I need his forgiveness. I need his grace. I'm tired of living for others today by faith.

I surrender to him. I don't want to be selfish-centered. I want to be Jesus-centered. I trust him to save me. I trust him to forgive me today by faith. I give my life to him. I turn to the Lord and surrender. That's your prayer.

Lift your hands high. Right now, all of our churches say, yes, that's my prayer. Leave your hands up, if you will. I want to see you. Both of you right here together. Praise God for you right here. All three, four of you in this section right back here. I just wanted, nobody else needs to look around.

Both of you right over here. All three of you together right here. Praise God for you. Sir, right back over here. Others of you in this section over here. I just want to give you the affirmation, praise God for you. Say yes to Jesus. Right back over here.

Where we're here as well. Right back over here in this section. Say yes. Church Online, you click right below me. Others of you today. a little bit afraid what somebody might think. And you're going to say, you know what? I surrender to Jesus.

Lift your hands right now. One, two, three. Say, yes, I surrender to him. Both of you right over here. God bless you guys right here in the middle. Say yes, yes, sir, right here. Pray aloud with those around you. Everybody pray.

Just pray. Heavenly Father, today I'm turning to you. Trusting that you will remove the veil of sin. I believe. Jesus died for me, and he rose again so I could live for you. Fill me with your spirit so I could know you, so I could serve you, so I could follow you for the rest of my life. My life is not my own.

Today I give it to you. Thank you for new life. Now you have mine. In Jesus' name I pray. Life Church, would you worship big, loud, give praise to God. Welcome those today born into the family of God.