Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - The Power of Conversations | Book Club | Part 1

Episode Date: June 9, 2024

Do you ever hold back from sharing your faith? You might worry that you don’t know enough or get nervous. Willie Robertson is giving us helpful tips on how to share our faith and the power of conversations. ABOUT THIS MESSAGENo one has all the answers. That’s why we need diverse voices to help us grow. During Book Club, we’ll get fresh perspectives on living out our calling with confidence, purpose, and freedom.PRAYERIf you're facing something difficult, you don’t have to carry it alone. If it’s on your mind, it’s on God’s heart. We want to pray with you and support you through whatever you’re facing. Share your prayer request: https://www.life.church/getprayerNEXT STEPSHave you made a decision to follow Jesus? You may be wondering what’s next on your journey. We want to help! Let us guide you to your next steps in your walk with Christ: https://www.life.church/nextABOUT LIFE.CHURCHWherever you are in life, you have a purpose. Life.Church wants to help you find your next step. Our hope is that your journey will include joining us at a Life.Church location throughout the United States or globally online at https://live.life.churchFind locations, videos, and more info about us at https://www.life.church or download the Life.Church app at https://www.life.church/appFIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/life.churchTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lifechurchYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LCNowCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIGYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/craiggroeschelFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@craiggroeschel#lifechurch #willierobertson #bookclub Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Something real sweet happened before I came to speak here. This is my first time to speak here. That's not the sweet part. My daughter, Sadie, has already spoken here. So I called her and got advice. Isn't that awesome when I'm calling? And I was thinking about all the times, like, I gave her advice when she was growing up.

And here I am as a grown man calling her, said, what's it like? Give me some tips. Give me some pointers. And she helped me out. So if I don't do a good job, it's Sadie's fault. Well, I have a lot to cover today, and I can't wait to talk about the book. And we're going to be talking about conversations today and how meaningful conversations can be.

And I want to start with a story. The other night, I went to see Jordan Peterson speak. And if you don't know who Jordan Peterson is, he's like, one of the smartest guys on the planet, I believe. He is a Canadian psychologist. He's a doctor. Really smart dude. And I was at an arena that they filled up the entire arena just for

him to give a speech. And I started thinking about that. I don't even know, I mean, that's kind of unheard of because it's not necessarily, it's not like he's a preacher. He's just getting up and giving a long, long speech and people pay to go hear this. And so my wife is this is one of her favorite people. She loves this guy.

I have been hearing this little Canadian accent from her closet and from the bathroom and from her car. She listens to him all the time. And he sometimes, well, most of the time he's a little bit over my head. And I don't know what's more frustrating is me trying to listen to him or her trying to explain him to me. But either way, some of us going over my head. So we were there the other night.

I thought about how did this start and how did I actually get to know this guy? And it all started with a conversation. So last year I was invited to speak at a business thing. And Dave Ramsey's entree leadership event. And I was invited to speak. And the other speakers were Jordan Peterson and Malcolm Gladwell. Well, I didn't even tell my wife that I was even part of this. And so the invitation came in and my wife walks in and she's looking.

looking at the paper and she says, wow, you're speaking at this deal. Do you know who else is speaking there? And I said, yeah, and she goes, Malcolm Gladwell and Dr. Jordan Peterson and you. And I've been with her long enough. I knew exactly what she was thinking. One person does not belong on this stage. And then I knew the second thing she was thinking. Finally, being married to you has paid off for something. I'm going to get to meet Jordan Peterson and you're my ticket in. And I was like, yeah, yeah, this is going to happen. Well, the event is coming up. My daughter Sadie has her second child. Corey, yeah. Well, it means that Corey has to stay home to be the great grandmother that she, hey, mama, that she is. And I've got to go and Corey's not going to be there

and she's going to miss this opportunity. So Corey starts calling me, like I'm a child. And like, okay, now, now make sure, make sure before he speaks, make sure you get in the green room, wear something nice, don't say anything stupid. I got it, I got it. So right before he speaks, I'm late,

I miss the green room. Now I'm like, totally screwed this up. And I'm like, oh, no, she's going to be so upset with me. So I get down there, they're like, he's already up speaking. he spoke for one over an hour. The title of his message was this long. I didn't even understand what the title meant, okay?

So I sit through and afterwards, I go up to meet the guy. And I said, they were like, Dr. Pearson, this is Willie Robertson. And I go, hey, how you doing? Good speech. And he's looking at me and he says, so what brings you to the conference? He was being so nice. I said, well, I spoke.

I was one of the speakers. And I'm not making this up. He looks me up and down. He goes, oh, he goes, you were. Now, the next thing he said, guys, you're not going to believe this. I didn't take offense to it. It was one of the funniest things I've ever heard. He said, to the whole group.

I thought there was like a maintenance section. You put the chairs out, and I spoke to that group. But now I'm lumping myself in with him as one of the speakers. I said, yeah, I spoke right there on the same stage as you did. He looks at me, he goes, what did you talk about? Well, now I got him. I said neuroscience and Canadian politics. Two of the things I'm into.

For the first time in his life, he was speechless. The man who gives speeches was speechless. And so that's how we met. Now, from that, here's what happened, there was a conversation. Then, oh, let me get it. So then somebody says, I said, I'm just joking we. And somebody says, he's from Doug Dynasty. And his whole face changed.

He was like, Doug Dynasty. And then we became friends. And so from there, he invited Corey and I to do his podcast. And so I still got to be the hero. Corey got to meet him. We did this podcast, like two hours long. And really long. From that, he invited us to come speak in London with all these world leader, like world leaders.

It was like this giant conference. And here I am again on a stage, except this time I'm with him and with Corey and we're talking. And we were going through all these things about the earth and what we need to do as a society. And these are big issues. And I'm being interviewed by a lady. And everybody's talking about the theory and how do we do things. And she goes, and I was like, we've got to go share. the gospel with people. We have a message for people. Like, we need to believe in Jesus. And she said,

Willie, second accent I've done tonight. Willie, how do you suppose we do this? I said, well, I guess we just get up, get out there, and get after it. And literally, it took her back. She went, oh, you just say, get up, get out there, and get after it? And I said, yeah. Yep, that's what I said. She goes, brilliant. Sometimes I think we make things so complicated. We just need to get out there and get after it, all right? That may be a little river speak, but it's just kind of the way we grew up.

And so sometimes I think when we share our faith, it's the same way. We start waiting for all the theories, and we get so caught up in all these things, which is why I wrote the book Gospeller. Gospelor is an old word that simply means one hundred, who shares their faith, either publicly, like I'm doing now, or personally. And it's not necessarily pastoral. It's not like it's some official thing. Normally it's just like some guy, and they would be known as someone who shared their faith. They would be a known gospeler. And I was blown, Corey found the word. I was writing this book about sharing my faith, and she said, Willie,

I found this word. And it used to be like a common word, but in the last couple hundred years, it's gone. And I kind of thought, wow, that may be because, is actually sharing her faith and being known for that is kind of sliding away as well. And so I wanted to put this down. This was like, it was a long time coming. I mean, I've shared my faith. And I'll talk about that at the end of the talk about what really inspired me. But what happened was during COVID, I couldn't do things like this.

And so I was home a lot. And so I had went and heard Lee Strobel give a thing on evangelism. And he was talking about how we needed to be intentionally. about evangelism and it's a ministry that a lot of churches don't even have. And so what happens people don't even know how to do this. And so we're during COVID. And so I go to the guys at my church and say, hey, who's in charge of evangelism around here? And they were like, I guess the pastor.

I said, okay, I'm just wondering because, you know, we need to be intentional. I'm kind of giving Lee's message. I'm like, we need to be intentional about this. So typical pastor move. About a month later, I get a call. Hey, Willie, do you love evangelism? I do. You want to head that ministry up?

I guess I stepped into that one. So I said, yeah, let's go. And it was fascinating. It was fascinating. Everything I learned from putting this together and teaching people. So I asked the group, I said, hey, give me the list of people. Who is out there getting after it and sharing their faith? And I had a pencil and paper.

I was going to write them down. I figured, I mean, there's a couple thousand people with this building. And I said, who are they? And that's the first people I'll go meet with. Guess I mean names I got. A couple of thousand people. Guess I mean names I got. One.

One. One person. It was a guy in his 70s and he passed out some tracks to people. It was the only guy they could think of who was known as someone who was always sharing his faith. And you know what I said? Well, we can improve on this. And we started right there and we started training.

And so what I found was here's what holds people by. that you come up with a lot of excuses as to why we don't share our faith. Well, I don't know the Bible well enough. And I bet there's some people listening who think, I don't know the Bible well enough. I'm not great at that. That's not my gifting. When I think about that, that's not my gifting.

If I went home and told Corey, Corey, I've decided I'm never going to bring your name up publicly for the rest of my life because it's not my gifting. What do you think she would say to that? And so to me, when I think about whether we bring up the name of Jesus and talk about our faith, it should be as natural as when we talk about our spouse. So there was a lot of reasons.

I heard a lot of reasons while we don't. So I was trying to break those down. In this book, I go through that and talk about that. And I talk about a lot of stories, stories where I've shared with people. But mostly what I do is stick with the New Testament. And I just go through the stories in there. It's full of stories there.

I have about seven passages that I go through with people when I generally talk to people. I have a lot more, but I felt like that's about all people can take at one point. You know, like, my youngsters, when I'm teaching, they're like, I'm going to tell them this, then I'm going to tell them this. Then I'm going to tell them this. I'm like, hang on now. A person can't take in that much stuff at one time. So I break it down.

It's a big old Bible, and so I break it down to where we can kind of understand that we launch in. I talk about my gospel story. I talk about the gospel story, and then I talk about the response to the gospel story. So it's a simple book, and it's not, there's different ways than there's all things people do, but hopefully it inspires the church. It's not, I'm not worried about the pastor's preaching the gospel. But when the church starts preaching the gospel, when the church starts preaching the gospel, when the church starts preaching the gospel,

we will then start seeing a movement. Because if I wanted to get the word out, I wouldn't just get Craig to say it. I would take all you guys to get the word out. And so that's the magic of it. Matthew 28. Matthew 28 is where I start. Pretty much the whole premise is based on this.

You guys have heard this. Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. Therefore go. and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, the Holy Spirit. Teach them everything I've command you.

Surely I'm with you to the end of the age. Three things. Three things he said go do. Make disciples. Baptize people, teach people. You know what I decided, guys? I decided that as long as I live my life on this earth, I needed to be associated with those three.

things. Because it's the last thing Jesus said to his people. He said, here's three things to do. And I knew, I said, if I'm not doing any of those, if I'm not associated with any of those, then I may have a problem with my mission. Because that came from the Great Commission, which becomes our mission. And I'm convinced some of us have been living our whole lives with a bad mission. We just have a bad mission. We don't understand what our mission is. We thought our mission was like,

I thought you were just supposed to show up and try to go to church for an hour a week and be a good person. That's not a mission. If that were the mission, Jesus would have said, here's what's going to take.

These are the three things he said. So I want to be associated with those. Those are the three things that you'll see over and over in the book. The first thing, that's going to lead to the conversation. conversation, try doing those three things without opening your mouth and having a conversation. Every one of them takes a conversation. Think about it. You're going to have to talk to someone else.

First thing we got to do, if we're going to have a conversation, we've got to care about people. Conversations start with caring. And I've got to be honest, that is harder and harder and harder to do is to care. about people. I think now because we know so much about people, now with social media, we have the news on all the time. And actually what happened was we really see people a lot and we're like, ugh, I can't stand these people. Who are these people? These people live in our country and what happens is, and we're like, I've got to get around people that I like and that are like me. And so then we go that way and then the other people go this way and everybody separates and we stop caring for people. And we're like, well, I do care about people, the people that I like to care for.

If Jesus didn't give us the best example of caring about people, who was he talking about at the end of his life? The people that were actually crucifying him. Think about Stephen in the book of Acts, right at the end of his life. As they were throwing stones at him, he said, Father, forgive them. That's caring about people that you don't like. And that's where this starts. If you want to know a great example of caring about someone, go to John chapter 4.

We have the woman at the well. Jesus gives a master class on how you talk to somebody that you particularly don't know and you probably shouldn't be talking to in the first place. Jesus encounters a woman at the well. She's a woman. She's from a different part of the area. He's not supposed to be talking with her. And Jesus starts this conversation.

Here's what happens, guys. What we start thinking is, well, I don't know the bottom one. How exactly, Willie, when you're talking to someone, how do you, you know, what theologically should you start with? How should it start? And here's how Jesus started this big conversation. Can I get a drink of water? That was the question.

Can I get a drink of water? If you can ask that, you are on your way to being a gospeler. That's where it started. That's where it started. So he says, can I get a drink of water? Can I get a drink of water? And then they start this conversation. And watch what happens through the, watch what ends up happening in this story. So gets the water, Jesus starts talking to her. First thing he's showing that he cares about her, right? I'm talking to you. And so he starts giving her some heavenly ideas, spiritual ideas, living water. And what just, she doesn't understand what he's talking about. She's talking about. She's talking. about where's your cup, where's your ladle? Like, let's, I thought you wanted some water. Don't be surprised when you're talking to somebody and they have no idea what you know and what you believe and what you live for. That's normal. Okay? When I talk someone and they start cursing,

of course they would. They don't know who I know. They don't act like the church. That's why we need to have the conversation. I want to show them that I even care enough. I'm telling you, in the world today, there are people who are dead on a street and people step over them and just keep on walking. You want to talk about not caring for people. This whole world is full of people who don't care about anybody else except themselves. And look at what happens. They start talking. Then he says, hey, I got to get into your story. So every time I'm talking to someone, I want to hear their story because everybody got a story. And then she gets a story. And then she gives him a little of the story, but not the whole story. Hey, go get your husband. Let's keep talking

about this. Well, actually, and then Jesus does, he goes in there a little bit deeper and says, wait a minute, wait a minute, let's go ahead and talk about this. You know why I'm convinced that they had to talk about that? Because if she couldn't deal with that, she was going to have no idea what it was like to follow Jesus. These are small towns, even in this town, you start having five or six husbands and spouses, but everybody going to know. Everybody knew anyway. And Jesus said, let's go ahead and deal with it. Let's just deal with it. Then she goes back to her village. And she says that, this is crazy. She goes, hey, I just met this guy. He knew everything about me. And that should have, in my, that would have been a negative. I would have been like,

oh, everything. But it wasn't a negative. It was a positive. It was the positive. It was the opposite. And she starts preaching about Jesus. And then the whole village goes to meet him for themselves. And then the whole village gets converted to Jesus. The whole village, one of the first gospelers, was a woman right there in John chapter four. It started with, can I get a drink of water? It ended with the whole village coming to the Lord. One conversation that started with can I get a drink of water. John chapter 8, there's another one. There's another woman called an adultery. Jesus did what? Should he cared. He gets down on his knee. Let me get down here with you. Shoulder he cared. We got to care about people if we're going to have conversations.

See if I got time for this on it. So, the other day, recently, I have this friar that you fry like massive stuff is. and all this stuff goes down. I think it's called a Cajun fire and the sediments, and you can use it for a long time. I cook some shrimp in it. Got a little bit of funkiness there. I was like, eh. I think my grease's getting bad.

Now, my guys, and I'm ashamed to even say this as a man, my guys will take care of that for me, you know, because I'm gone a lot. You know, I'm busy. I was sitting there, and I got about two hours before I fly out, and I thought, I'm just going to clean this sucker myself. So they got a little valve on the bag, and I just opened it up. And I had a little bucket there.

Just like a black sludge. I said, huh. So then I did what any person would do. I googled it. How do I clean out this thing? So, well, heat it up, do the thing. I'm like, I ain't got time for all that heating it up and stuff. So I thought, I know what I'll do.

I'll do them. This is where, sometimes I scare myself how smart am. I said, I'll just pour boiling water into it. It ain't on, so don't. so don't worry. I mean, it's off, but I'm like, the hot water will, so I dumped that a whole pot of boiling water into the old grease. And I had this little poker, and I'm poking it through there, and it's like, and I can feel something, and I'm like, uh-uh, and so I'm sloshing around. I'm like, come on. So I got my little bucket. What happened next? There was a projectile.

I can't even say what the projectile was like on this stage, but like, I've seen things like, It just exploded out of this mall. I ain't got near enough bucket, okay? It was hot boiling water, old grease, old flour, just all in my face all over me. And I'm like, what have I just gotten into? Now I've got a flower in an hour. And I'm completely covered in grease. Grease is all over the outside.

I'm the only person at the house. And I'm like, well, Corey's going to kill me. I'm like, my dog is going to be why. Now I've got to clean this up, and it took me forever. I tell you that, say this. When you go stick around and poking into people's lives, get ready. You may need a bigger bucket, okay? Now, here's the deal, guys.

Did that tell me, don't ever do that again? No, it just told me next time I'm going to be way more prepared when I started asking those questions. When we ask those questions, get ready for that. We got to care about people. Conversations take courage. Conversations take courage. Acts chapter 8, Philip and the Ethiopian.

Go read it. I was coming in to Dallas one night. I had an Uber driver. It was three in the morning. I was hoping there'd be an Uber driver. Getting the guy's car, he's got worship music playing. Like worship music. when's the last time I heard somebody

listening to worship music in an Uber car and I could tell from his accent he wasn't from around here and I was like he's not from here and he got in the car and I said hey are you a believer? We're going to start this conversation right here you got worship music going

are you a believer? He just looks up at me and I forget how I look because he's scared to death of me I'd love hearing him tell this story like I get a homeless guy in my car and I'm like I'm just hoping he pays you know

And he just looks at him and I said, are you a believer? He said, yes. I said, where are you from? He said, Ethiopia. And I went, you don't say. Philip in the Ethiopian, Acts chapter 9. Philip comes after this. And he just looks at me and goes, chapter 8.

Of course you would know. Way better than I would know. The spirit tells him to go by this chariot. This guy has just left Jerusalem. he had been worshiping God. He was reading the book of Isaiah. I'm going to tell you right now, I would have missed.

I would have pulled up and said, he looks good to me. He looks good to me. He just left worshiping God. Now he's reading the book of Isaiah. So let me, he left here. He left church. And now he's reading his Bible

with the stoplight. And I'm like, hey brother, amen. Notice he didn't let that stop him. Philip asking him a question. Do you understand what you're reading? What a great question. Sometimes we just got to ask better questions. That's why I don't ask people, do you go to church? I don't even know what it means, because we are the church. So I don't know. You go, and then I'm, you know, I don't leave. I'm like, so I want to ask them good questions. And that was a great question. Do you understand what you're reading? If we're going to have conversations, they take

courage. That was courageous for him to pull up beside somebody who didn't know. and then to ask him that question. The guy gets baptized, he ends up back in Ethiopia. Conversations can create change. Remember Zichias? Remember Zakeas? Luke 19? Remember this little unsavory little dude? Climes up in a tree.

He wanted to check Jesus out from afar. He's up there. He wanted to see what this is all about. This could be sometimes people that come and sit in our buildings. this one come check it out like what is all this i'm hearing stuff about this going on jesus looks up at him now he didn't always do this but this is what he did in this move he invited himself over to his house well that's a bold move that takes some courage shows he cared about him nobody liked the guy i'm sure the guy knew everybody couldn't stand him and he goes over to his house and he went over there

expecting change. And I think this is the difference in our conversations with what I read in the New Testament. We're not looking for change. We're just like, I'm there and I hang out and I talk to you. Man, he was going for the change. Zakias looks, we don't even know what they talked about. He's like, I'm giving half everything I got away. And if I cheat anybody, I'm giving it back. And what did Jesus say? This is why I came. This is why I came to seek and save what was lost. Conversations can lead to change. Those are three stories that are in the book. There's more. There's stories that I've got. Y'all need to go check out some of the stories. I want you to know the answer to the story when the guy says, I got hundreds of people in his yard. And he goes, Willie, tell people what you

told me that night in that hotel. That's one of my favorite ones in there. Read about the story where the guy would pull out my face and go hunting. He goes, I need to get baptized right there in that cowpon. It's 18. degrees. That's a good one. All kind of stories. All this is to spur you on so that you can care about people, that you realize that conversations can change. I just pray that we're courageous. There was a preacher who got a car, drove to a bar 50-something years ago. We just made a movie about it called The Blind. And he preached a gospel to my dad. when no one ever thought this guy could ever change.

And that guy cared about him. He was courageous. And he walked in that bar expecting there to be a change. And he sat down in an adversarial situation preach the gospel. If he doesn't do that, if my father doesn't obey the gospel, if my mother does not forgive him, if they don't stay together and that family doesn't stay together, I'm not standing here right now. talking to everybody that's hearing my voice. That's the power of the gospel and a conversation and what can come out of that.

It has now, that conversation that happened 50 years ago has now affected you. Isn't that amazing? So what conversations do you need to have? Who do you need to care about? Where do you need to be courageous? Who do you know that needs some change? There's probably a lot. and I pray we have the message.

I pray that we can go be gospelers. Father, I'm so grateful to be here at this place with these people. Father, I just pray as I continue to lay out the gospel, Father, in different ways to do it. I pray that we realize that it's not the method that we use. It's the message of the cross. And Father, I just pray that there's a spirit of boldness, that the church will wake up

and the church will preach the gospel and the church will tell everyone they know about who they are and the good news of the gospel of you, Jesus Christ. Father, we're so grateful to be in your presence. I pray that we go out and we change our whole identities and we are known as

gospel as gospel flooring out of our lips all the time. Through Jesus, we give you this prayer. Amen. Thank you guys. Come on church. Thank you. powerful. And so sometimes it just starts with a conversation. And what I want to do is I just want to

continue an attitude of prayer and I want you to think about someone that you know that needs the touch, the love, the grace that Jesus offers. And we're going to pray for them. Before we pray, I took some good notes and I want to tell you that next week is a good week to bring someone to church. And so your assignment is to give them. up to get out there and to get after it. There are people that God put in your life that you're gonna see this week, and it can simply start with a conversation.

Let's pray for them. Father, thank you so much for the love of Jesus. Thank you for who He is. Thank you for the way He transforms our lives. I pray God, for everyone here that is a follower of your son, Jesus, that you would empower us with divine boldness. Give us a heart to care. heart to care. God, give us the courage to share. And God, we thank you that a conversation

empowered by your spirit can create change. Use us, oh God. May we be light into a dark world. Use us. Give us eyes to see, a heart to care, to transform lives. Even as you're praying right now, if there's someone in your life that you know in love that doesn't know Jesus, just pray for them. pray for a mom, pray for your dad, pray for a son or a daughter, a brother, a sister, someone that you work with. Use us, Jesus, to help share your love. As you keep praying today, nobody looking around. There may be those of you that you're one conversation away from having your whole life changed. And I wish that maybe if you've got spiritual questions or maybe you're in a place where you've done some things you're not proud of.

I wish we could just sit down and have a conversation one-on-one and we'll just, I'll do the best I can right now and just tell you conversationally that our God is so good. He loves you right now, even as you are. You've probably done some things you're not proud of, maybe some things you're embarrassed. Dev, I know that I have. And the Bible just very clearly calls that sin. It's anything that is not God's will. And sin separates us from God.

We feel guilty. We feel bad about it. But God, he closed the gap. He loved you so much. much that he didn't just shout his love from heaven, but he showed it on earth. He became one of you. Willie was talking about him. Jesus. Who is Jesus? He's a son of God. Why did he come? He did not come to condemn, but he came to save. He didn't come for those that were already healthy, but he came for those who were sick. He came for the broken people just like you, just like me, who needed

his love and needed his forgiveness. Jesus is God in the flesh. He was perfect. He was without sin. And he died on a cross for the forgiveness of our sins. And he died on a cross for the forgiveness of our sins. The good news is, the amazing thing is, he didn't stay dead. God raised him from the dead. He has risen so that anyone, and this includes you, it doesn't matter what you've done, anyone who calls on his name, your sins will be forgiven, and you can be completely saved.

There are those of you. God brought you here today to hear about Jesus from a guy that tells it just a little bit different. You know why? Because you need to hear it a little bit different. You need to hear about a Savior who loved a broken woman, the Savior who loved the man that everyone else rejected. A savior that will love you and forgive you even now.

Today at all of our churches, those of you would say, I don't have peace with God. I want it. I don't know where I stand with God. You take one step today. Step away from your past, away from your sin, and say yes to the grace of Jesus. I want to follow you.

I want to know you. When you do that, scripture says that God forgives all of your sins. They're gone. You become new. You're not better. You're different. The old is God. and you become brand new.

Today at all of our churches, those who say, yeah, I want to step away from my sin. I need the grace of God. I want his love. I want to know him. I want to be forgiven. Today, by faith,

I give my life to him. That's your prayer. Would you lift your hands high right now all over the place? Lift them up and say, that's my prayer today. Praise God up there and others today say,

yes, right, back over there. Praise God for you. Others today who say, Jesus, I want you. I need you. And all of our churches to say, yes. I want to follow him.

And online, you can type in the comment, section, I'm choosing to follow Jesus. I'm devoting my whole life to Jesus. And today, wherever you are, let's just stop right now and pray together. There's nobody going to pray alone. Just together as a family of God, let's all pray aloud. Heavenly Father, I trust Jesus. To save me and to forgive my sins. Jesus be first, the Lord of my life. Fill me with your spirit so I could know you and I could show your love give me a heart to care give me courage to share and thank you that your gospel changes lives thank you for changing mine my life is not my own

I give it all to you in Jesus name I pray could you celebrate big today sir welcome those morning to God's family come on sir come on sir come on Oh!