Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - The Artisan Soul, Part 1: God-Given Creativity

Episode Date: March 15, 2014

We are all artists with the ability to create something beautiful. Every action we take, the love we show, and the relationships we build have the potential to become something meaningful and inspiring. God put creativity in each one of us–with Hi... Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody at all of our life churches and our network churches and those of you from countries all over the world at church online. I want to tell you two weeks from now, we're starting a brand new message series that is really going to be a powerful one. It's called the counselor. And we're going to look at four different stories in the Gospels when Jesus actually would kind of counsel people. We're going to see where he asks questions that will help lead people to truth. We're going to see Jesus ask someone, do you want to be made well? We're going to see him ask someone, why are you so afraid? We're going to see him ask someone, do you think I can do this?

And we're going to see Jesus address some of the biggest problems that we all have. Many people doubt. He's going to say, why do you doubt? We're going to look to God and we're going to receive counseling from the greatest counselor of all time, the Holy Spirit, through God's son, Jesus, that starts in two weeks. Today, I want to introduce to you one of my very, very good friends, one of the greatest pastors I know, the pastor of Mosaic Church in Los Angeles. If you know people looking for a great church in L.A., this is a great church. He is a designer.

He produces films. He produces all sorts of different products in fashion. He's a tremendous evangelist, a great leader. One of the best communicators I know. He has a brand new book out called The Artisan Soul. crafting your life, your life into a work of art. I asked him to come and to bless our church talking about how God made you extraordinary

as the work of an extraordinary God. Would you join me and welcoming my good friend, Pastor Irwin McManus? How fun. Hey, thank you so much. Hey, thank you so much. Great to be here with you guys. It is so amazing to be here in Oklahoma.

And Craig, I've got to tell you, you are one of my heroes. And I've said so many times, other people that you have, for me, reestablish so much confidence in faith in pastors in the church. Not only are you exceptional at what you do, but you have a character that is rare.

And so I am just grateful because I would love for you to be my pastor. But then I know I would never see you. It is so exciting to be here with you guys. Thank you so much. for giving me this opportunity. Six years ago, I stopped writing books and I stopped being a part of a broader conversation and needed to take some time

and just sort of step into a different space. And maybe you've been in a place in your life where you felt like other people wanted your life except for you, and you wondered if you could take the crucible that you were in and face the challenges that were in front of you. And one of the things that has really, pressed against my own soul over the journey that I've been on,

is how strange it is to be in a place where someone actually thinks you're good at something. If you're like me, I was not one of those kids that had any natural talent. I mean, I had friends that had natural talent. I had a brother who had natural talent. In fact, my brother, best I could tell, was the fastest kid in the United States

by the time he was in sixth grade. He was a quarterback, broke all the passing records in our high school. You know, he was that kid. Imagine having an older brother, in the same grade with you who was that guy. The guy who was the fastest guy, the most talented guy, the most athletic guy, and by the way, he's also an intellectual genius, because it wouldn't be fair for him to have an arena that he could not excel in.

And so I grew up with this sense of, you know, why can't you be like your brother Alex? And by the way, my brother was named after Alexander the Great. My name is Irwin. Just let that sink in just for a moment. So what I want to talk to you for a few moments is about the extraordinary nature of being human. Because my sense is that there are fewer people like my brother Alex who just knew they were really good at something. They had inherent natural talent. I think most of you are like me, spending a great deal of your life wondering if God somehow forgot you when he was dealing out

talent and gifting and capacity and intelligence. And what I love, about the people in the scriptures, is that we know the end of the story, so we go, oh, wow, that's an amazing person. Who doesn't want to be like David? Who doesn't want to be like Joshua? I mean, who doesn't want to be like Esther or Ruth? But if we looked at their story from the beginning, we would go, I don't want to be like them.

But the way God does things is that he takes a person who looks like they start from a very ordinary beginning, and he does something so extraordinary that when you look back on their life, you go, that person was special. One of those people was Moses, and I want to read a particular passage in the book of Acts, chapter 7. This is a part of the one time Stephen actually gave a message before he was stoned to death. I'm going to begin in verse 18, and it reads like this. It says, then another king, who knew nothing about Joseph, became ruler of Egypt.

He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die. at that time Moses was born and he was no ordinary child for three months he was cured for in his father's house when he was placed outside Pharaoh's daughter took him and brought him up as her own son Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians that was powerful in speech and action

when Moses was 40 years old he decided to visit his fellow Israelites he saw one of them being mistreated by the Egyptian so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them. But they did not. The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, men, you are brothers. Why do you want to hurt each other?

But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, who made you ruler and judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday? When Moses heard this, he fled the Midian, where he settled as a little. foreigner and had two sons. After 40 years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight as he went over to look more closely. He heard the Lord's voice, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses traveled with fear and he did not dare to look.

Then the Lord said to him, take off your sandals. The place where you are standing is holy ground. I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groanings, and I have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt. Now, I know the story of Moses is familiar, but I think sometimes we overlook Moses' background. I mean, if you ever saw a story of a person whose life should never amount to anything, it would be Moses.

Have you ever met someone who you felt had so much untapped potential, someone who had all of this latent capacity, but they never lived out to that potential. In fact, if you're 15 years old and someone says, do you have great potential, you should take that as a compliment. If you're 25 years old and someone says you have so much potential, just waiting to be at least, you should still feel encouraged. If you're 35 years old and someone's saying to you,

you have so much potential, what they're actually saying to you is, what's going on? What's taking so long? If you're 45 or 55 like I am and if someone comes to you and says, you have so much potential, you should just fall on your face and start weeping. Because what that person is saying to you is somehow you've missed out on the life you are supposed to live. But so many times what happens is that, well, it's the experiences we've been through, the pain that we've experienced, the wounds that cut deep inside of us,

the failures that we've known, that create this space for doubt and fear. And so many people will say, well, if you'd been through what I've been through, you would understand why I'm where I'm at. If you'd gone through my pain and my struggle and my suffering, then you would know why I've not lived up to my potential. But look at Moses. Moses was born in a terrible moment.

I mean, the backdrop of Moses' life is that there was a genocide across the land, that everyone in his generation, every boy who would be his peer, was killed, was violently massacred by an empire that held his people captive and in slavery. Can you imagine being the only man of your generation, where every time you walk the streets, every mother sees you and is reminded that their son is dead. Every father, when he sees you, doesn't celebrate that God spared Moses, but asks God this deep and overwhelming question of why did you not spare my son? Moses became a metaphor for the massacre of his people.

Moses became a metaphor of the inaction and inactivity of God. Moses became a symbol that God did not show up when his people needed him most. Imagine growing up with that carrying your life. Imagine being born into a world where your parents decided the safest thing for you is to put you in a basket, drop you into a river and hope the crocodiles don't eat you. And then if that were not enough material for dysfunction, imagine having that basset go down and land on the shores of the daughter of the man

who wants you dead. And then she picks you up and decides to adopt you and make you her own son. And you are raised in the home of the Pharaoh who commanded the massacre of your people. talk about psychological dysfunction, talk about family issues. See, I'm an immigrant from El Salvador, first generation. Spanish was my first language. My grandparents raised me for the first five years of my life.

I met my mom essentially when I was around five years old. This is my first real memory of her because she came to America, lived in Miami while I was living in El Salvador. I remember when I was around five years old, my mom came back to get us, and it was as if a stranger was taking away from my mother and my father. I have only one slight memory of my real father, and I'm not really sure if it's my memory

or the memory of other people imposing that memory by telling me the story. Because my father was a linguist, and he spoke multiple languages, but he was also an alcoholic, and he was abusive. And when my mom was pregnant with me, when she was 19 years old, she already had my brother Alex. And so my father threw her down a flight of stairs, trying to cause a spontaneous abortion, broke her legs. And that was the last time they were together.

My one memory is when he kidnapped me as a little boy, took me away and we were eating ice cream somewhere. And I grew up with this deep sense of loss of identity. My mom later married a man who was involved in what we called Creative Underground Economies. Later, you'll figure out what that means, but if you're from New York or Chicago, you'll understand right away. and I'm not really sure what his real name was

but my mom met him and 17 days later they were married and he felt well she felt we needed a father and he needed an alias so he took us to a police station convinced the police that we've been robbed and I walked out Irish I don't know if you can tell

even though my last name is MacManus I am not Irish so I grew up with my name being Irwin Raphael MacManus McManus is an alias, Irwin is an alias, and Raphael is misspelled. I had no idea who I was. And so by the time I was 12 years old, I was in a psychiatric chair. I was an overachiever in psychosis.

I remember sitting in that psychiatric chair going through all the different tests, looking at the ink blots as they asked me, what do you see? I remember the night my mom and stepdad said to me, they wanted to send me to a psychiatrist. I panicked. I mean, I was 12. And I started screaming, I'm not crazy! I'm not crazy!

I'm not crazy! Then I had this moment of self-awareness that I looked absolutely crazy. And so I calmed down after they were panicking, you don't have to go, you don't have to go, you don't have to go. And then I said, no, you know, if I'm crazy, I need to know. I don't know if you're crazy. So I don't know.

But I went to find out. And I went through a series of testing, and then I ended up in a hospital. You see, for about five years, I had nightmares every single day. And I lost the ability to begin to draw the line between my imaginary world and the world in which I lived. And I couldn't go to sleep at night and couldn't get up in the morning. And then the nightmares, when I was awake, they'd stay with me, and I'd have to talk myself down and say, it's not real, it's not real, it's not real. and I began to live in this internal world

and became incredibly reclusive and introverted and I started feeling pain all over my body and I had a sickness they couldn't identify so they put me in a hospital and they operated on me and I have a scar across my stomach where they opened me up to see what was wrong with me but there was nothing wrong with my body it was my soul that was sick

see I understand where Moses came from and I think sometimes we underplay and understate the amount of pain and brokenness that Moses had to overcome to become the man that God created him to be. I mean, think about it just for a moment. He's 40 years old. He sees an Egyptian mistreating an Israelites. So what does he do?

He kills the Egyptian. But we just gloss over that because anything, anyone, God chooses in the Bible, whatever they do, it has to be okay, right? See, oh, yeah, that must be God's plan. It was never God's plan for Moses to kill the Egyptian. But it's interesting to me that it says Moses killed him because he thought that this would cause his people to see that God sent him. You know what's odd? You can actually have a real destiny, a calling from God, an intention that God created you to live out, but have such a broken moral

compass, such a broken internal sense of self that you don't even understand, not what God wants to do in your life, but how God wants to do it. Moses somehow thought killing this man would fulfill God's intention for his life. Of course, he knew enough that it was wrong. to bury the body. And the next day when he tries to become a judge over his people, a reconciler, a peacemaker, he was found out not as a man of peace, but a man of violence. And what does every great hero do?

He ran for his life. For the next 40 years, he not only ran from who he was, but who he was to become. See, I think a lot of us spend our lives wondering why God let us down why he wasn't there when we needed him most, why he allowed these wounds and this pain to come to us. And then when we start making devastating choices, and we start choosing a path that takes us away from who we are to be,

we wonder why God wasn't with us that. But I love this one line, and that's what we're going to get to. See, what Stephen says about Moses was a part of the cultural understanding of Moses. We read it again in Hebrews. says when Moses was born, he was no ordinary child. I've thought about that for a long time. What does that really mean? When Moses was born, did he look extraordinary?

I don't think so. I think Moses looked like a human. I think it looked like a baby. I mean, have you ever noticed that, of all the species, humans are born hideous? I mean, we don't say that because we pretend our babies are beautiful. But I think that if you did a survey,

mothers actually think the babies are beautiful. But they've been traumatized by labor. There's no way they're going to go through all that pain and go, it's hideous! But the fathers, no. The dads, no. The dads know. They're like, oh, my, is it?

We're just like a giant head with a little appendage. I mean, some animals are born beautiful. Baby calf, beautiful. Baby tiger, gorgeous. puppies. Who doesn't love puppies? I hate cats, but I love kitties. Humans. Humans are hideous. When humans are born, they're absolutely incompetent, incapable of any meaningful activity. They're goofy and lopside. You could roll them, but you can't really enjoy them. You have to feed them and clean after them. They whined. They cannot communicate. I mean, really,

what is a pre-human good for. Until about the age of 29, they're still trying to grow up. And when Moses was born, he was no ordinary child. It's not telling us what they saw when Moses was born. They're projecting back through the life of Moses and rewriting his story. And God has an amazing way when you begin to entrust him with your life, when you begin to realize that there's something inside of you that only God can awaken, that your story will be really.

written to its first day that when you were born, you were no ordinary human being. Science tells us this. Science tells us that every human being is extraordinary when they're born. In fact, it tells us that even neurologically, our brains are so pliable up to the age of 12 that we're basically savants. Did you know you were a creative genius when you were born? You were going, no, I wasn't. Quick survey. How many here would say, I'm creative? Raise your hand. Have some? Okay. How do you say, I'm artistic? Raise your hand. Even fewer. How many say you that you're a linguistic savant? You're great at languages. Anyone? Okay, that's because there's a lot of white people here. Okay. And you see, because, see, I'm going to, I'm going to risk something.

You do not think you're a creative savant or a linguistic savant, but you probably did not learn English when you were 18. You didn't learn English when you were 12. You learned English when you were around the age of two. When you were two, you were introduced to one of the most difficult languages in the world. Do you know that English is one of the hardest languages in the world to learn?

And you were two, and you learned English, easy. You learned everything you wanted. Anything you wanted to ask for, anything you needed, anything you wanted to communicate, you learned a language for it. You've been convinced that you're not a linguistic genius, but you are because at two, they could have moved you anywhere.

They could have moved you to China. you would learn Mandarin or Japan. You were to learn Japanese. You could have moved to the Philippines. You would have learned Tagalo. You could have moved to Brazil. You would have learned Portuguese. You could have moved to England, and you would have learned English.

Because when you were born, you had extraordinary capacity. And in fact, when they study divergent versus convergent thinking, they find that about 95% of children are naturally divergent their thinking. They think creatively. You give them one problem. They'll find a hundred different solutions. But what happens about the age of 12, the numbers flip from about 95% being divergent to about 5% thinking divergently. See, somewhere between when we are born with this great imagination, with this creative essence, when we are born with this intrinsic genius inside of us, by about the age of 12, it is beaten out of us,

and we learn how to conform. we become like everyone else. We standardize. It's the same way in our own spiritual journey. It's a strange thing. I see it all the time. We have a sense, well, someone else was created by God to do something that matters. Someone else is gifted by God to make a difference in the world.

You know, yeah, I can see it in him or I can see it in her, but not me. And what I want you to realize is that in the same way your brain rigidifies and around the age of 12, it only stays good at what you focused on. It's the same way with your soul. See, what ends up happening is if you don't allow God to expand your faith, if you don't allow God to expand your capacity to trust him, if you don't allow God to enter into your imagination and begin to dream new dreams and see new visions, if you don't allow God to expand the borders of your experience

and of your courage, your soul will rigidify and you will feel as if there's nothing extraordinary about you. But I want you to know when you were born, you were no ordinary child. But the great tragedy is, somewhere between our first breath and our last breath, most of us who are born extraordinary die painfully, tragically ordinary,

having lived the lives that are hollow. One of the things that God does that for me is both a gift and a curse is he gives us this capacity to imagine. Have you noticed that we humans are different? We can actually imagine us off that we're not. We can imagine a world that we've never lived in. We can imagine a future that doesn't exist. For years, I've been a part of this community called TED.

It stands for technology, entertainment, and design. And I would travel the world and get to interact with the greatest thinkers in the world. And most of them have a specialization. Or they specialize in botany. Or they specialize in environmentalism. or they even specialize more than that. Some people study one plant all their life. Or they study the movement of whales all their lives.

Or they study a certain bacteria, not bacteria. That's way too general. A specific bacteria all their life. And when you started doing it, you realize I need to pay attention to something. And the first time I was at TED was in Arusha, Tanzania. I was really uncomfortable because you're around all these brilliant people and you're worried that someone's going to ask you a question. We're like, what do you do?

And so I was kind of looking around, and everybody looked, you know, too powerful, too interesting. And so I thought, who do I talk to? And I'm a social introvert anyway. And my kids literally call me on the phone and go, Dad, go talk to people. Do not stand in the corner. Move right now. They coach me, you know, engage humanity. And so I try and I move.

And so I saw this woman. She looked older and there's no one talking to her. So I thought, I think she needs a friend, right? Because the best way to have a friend is to be a friend and look for someone who has fewer friends than you. And then you become more valuable. And so I thought, I think she doesn't know anybody. And so I went up to this woman and she was older. And I said, hi.

My name's Irwin. Are you here for Ted? She goes, yes. And I said, do you have anyone to sit with for lunch? And she goes, no, I don't. And I said, would you like to sit together? She goes, sure. So we grabbed our buffet line food. We sat at this table and then about eight more people joined us. For the next hour or more, we just talked and talked and had a great time and all the other eight people just listened.

Wow, this is so fascinating. They're not even interjecting. They're interrupting us. We're just having this amazing conversation. While they're all listening in, I must be fascinating. But this woman knew more about guerrillas than any person I ever met in my whole life. I mean, if you want to know anything about gorilla, she knew it. And after about an hour, I looked at her and I said, Jane, could I ask you a question? And she said, sure, of course. I said, are you Jane Goodall? She goes, yes, I am. I said, that explains the whole gorilla thing.

But I'm kind of like past my prime. I can't start studying a species now. I'm not going to catch up and become an expert, and I realize I spent my entire life studying one particular species, humans. And I like humans. They're my favorite species to study from a distance. And I really enjoy learning about humans.

And let me tell you, one of the things that makes humans different than every other species is that humans materialize the invisible. See, humans have a unique capacity to imagine something that does not exist and then begin to translate that through passion, skill, discipline, and courage into reality. I'm telling you, it's what makes us different than gazelles and lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my. It makes us different than all of us.

I mean, there are, there are just no antelope out there going, I don't know, I don't know, I know, I know, I'm an analogue, but I just, I just feel like I'm, I'm an artist, you know, and I don't feel like I'm getting to create. I mean, how do you create with holes? I, you know, I'm limited, and I don't know what to do with my life. There are no lions out there going, I know I'm the king of the jungle, but I just feel like I'm underachieving. And I, right, it's just not happening. There is no gazelle who's ever gotten up in a morning saying, you know, this, this vicious cycle, we eat grass, lions get up, hunt us, we run, they're the hunters, we're the hunted, slowest guy never comes home, I'm done. I'm not going to be a part of the system. Today, I am the hunter. We're going after a lion. Who's with me? It's not happening. And if, and I'll look back. ever did that, it would be their last day.

Beaver don't sit there and go, another dam. I think this has been done. You know, it's like, you know. No, this is what we do. We make dams. Cooperate.

No, I'm going to do bridges. I'm like, I'm about bridges. See, because when you're a beaver, you just do dams. If you're a bee, you create hives. But what humans do is they imagine what doesn't exist. We imagine who we are not, where we've never been. We imagine something we can create and we're haunted by it

because God created you in his image and likeness. See, when you were born, you were no ordinary child because you are a reflection of the essence and nature of God. When I wrote The Artist in Soul, my wife came and asked me, what are you writing about? And I said, I'm writing a book called The Artist in Soul. And she goes, oh, great. I'm happy you're writing a book for people like you. But what about people like me?

And it frustrated me because we've been married for 30 years. I said, this is why I'm writing this book. Because people like you need to know that they're as creative as everyone else on the planet. and people like you keep denying your creative essence you keep denying your artistic soul you keep denying that God had created you in his image and likeness and your imagination is exploding with a future waiting to become a reality didn't go well

and see the problem is that we look at Picasso and Michelangelo and we think oh I'm not an artist we look at the work of Frank Lloyd Wright or of Kevin Durant, we go, yeah, I'm not much. And instead of being inspired by their creative genius, to realize that they have the same essence as a human being that you do. That God has created you within an imagination. That God has created you so that he could have a playground to whisper into your soul,

the person you can become in the world you can create, and allow him to create that future through you. You know what you are as the creation of God? You are God's instrument for creating the future only he imagines right now. It's time we break free from the Industrial Revolution and stop treating humans like they're cogs in a machine. It's time you stop accepting that you are less and start knowing that you are more. Just a few weeks ago I was in New Zealand speaking with filmmakers and media personnel and radio and television and one of the men who was a director said,

you're talking about unleashing human creativity. How do you reconcile that with how little room the Bible gives for creativity? This is the fundamental problem. We need to take the scriptures back from those who made it a manuscript for conformity and reclaim it as a manifesto for creativity. The whole story of God's interaction

with humanity begins with God creating the universe. Everything in the scriptures is letting us know that God is the creative God. He created you to create. He imagined you to imagine. And God designed you so that through your life, the future of humanity could come into being. What I love about what God does is he chooses to use human beings as his instruments to create everything that is beautiful and good and true.

And maybe you were like me a straight D student first through 12th grade. You know, my high school teacher last day of school said, Irwin, have you thought about going to college? I said, you will never make it. You know? I wandered around. I had to beg my way to go to college. When I became a follower of Christ, me and my brother both went forward the same day

to say, maybe God's like calling us to preach the gospel, to speak, and to teach the scriptures. And my mom hugged my brother and said, we knew God was calling you. And then I was waiting, and she came over to me, and with all the honesty she had, she said, but what in the world is God going to do with you? I thought, that's a great question. See, I think that God loves working with people who look under-talented, who would look like they just don't have all that. I love the fact that God is the fulfillment of the promise that there has never been an ordinary,

a human being born into this planet. When you were born, you were no ordinary child. But it's up to you to decide whether you live your extraordinary life. Let's pray together. Father, I pray that from this point of reference, you would begin a revolution of human creativity. That we would no longer see the gifts and talents you put inside of people at war with your glory, but that we would see that you've created us with gifts and talents.

You've created people with passion and intelligent. You've created each person with a uniqueness that is the fingerprint of God, and that it is not in conflict with your glory, but when we live our lives to the fullest, we give you glory. I pray, God, that all the voices that make us less would be silenced. and that we would hear your voice calling us to discover our creative genius that all of us would begin to know that you have given us this artisan soul and it's time for us to dream and to risk and to create we pray in Jesus name as you continue an attitude of prayer at all of our churches let's continue seeking God. Father, thank you so much for your word through your servant that speaks to all of us

and inspires us. Father, we ask that you would pull out of us your divine creativity that we could honor you and all that we do. And all of our churches, as you continue to pray today, I wonder how many of you that you're allowing God to speak to you and you may feel rather ordinary. And you look at your life and think, I thought I could do more and I wish I would be doing more, but I'm really not doing a whole lot right now. And the Holy Spirit is really speaking to you that God has put way more in you, that you are a creative genius. And you want to seek God, hear from God, and allow God to tap into what he put in you to use in this world for His glory. And all of our churches, those of you would say, yes, God is really speaking to me. And I really want His work, his divine creativity,

to create the future through me that he wants to happen. If that's, you would, you would You just lift up your hands right now, just in a moment of prayer before God, and all of our churches. Is there our hands everywhere? Father, thank you for sending a very creative person to speak to very creative people, to God, to pull out of us what you've put in us. God, we thank you that you created us as your masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus to do good works that you prepared even before we were born.

Father, I pray that all that the world is beat out of us, that you would love back into us. God, that we would know that you gave us divine gifts and a heart and a passion and talents to make a difference in this world to show your love. God, I pray that you would lift up those who feel discouraged, and God, that you would stir up the gifts within your church that we could make a difference showing the love of your son, Jesus, in this world. As you keep praying today at all of our different churches,

I'm so thankful for the message that Irwin brought today, because I know there are so many of you right now that you're being drawn to God right now, but you're not exactly sure why. In fact, if I just ask you, are you committed to the cause of Christ to following Christ? You'd say, in a heartbeat, no, I'm really not, but there's something about this that's really appealing to me. And yet when you look at your life, you feel like, you know, I'm not good enough for this yet. I need to, you know, if I'm going to do this thing, I've got to clean up my life first, and I'm just not quite there yet. And I want to tell you, if there is longing for something more, it's because I believe that God has created you for something more,

and you know it. You know that you can sense that this life is not all there is, that there is something more, and there is. And that's God drawing you. And yet we often feel just unworthy and not quite good enough, and that's because the reality is we are not good enough. That the truth is, all of us, we have massively failed God's standard, and we can never, ever be good enough. But our creative God and our loving God did something for us that we were incapable of doing for ourselves. In his grace, he sent Jesus, who was perfect and without sin, to become sin for us on the cross, to die so our sins could be forgiven when he was risen from the dead. And now, when any of us call out on his name, God will hear our prayer, forgive our sins, and make us

brand new. And quite honestly, that's why many of you are here, and you can sense that today. Today's today when you put your faith, not in yourselves, but in God's son, Jesus, and say, I want to be who he wants me to be, I want to turn from my sins, I want to surrender my life to him. By faith today, I give my life to Christ. At all of our churches, those of you who would say, that's my prayer today. By faith, I trust in him. Would you just lift your hands high? Right now, all of our churches just lift them up and say, yes, that's my prayer.

Those of you at church online, if you'll click right below me, I would love it. if all of you at all of our churches would just join your hearts with others and pray this aloud pray heavenly father forgive me of my sins make me brand new i believe jesus died for me and he rose again so i could live for you fill me with your spirit so i could follow you for the rest of my life thank you for new life i give you mine in jesus In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.