Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - The Vow, Part 1: The Vow of Priority

Episode Date: June 11, 2017

Wedding vows are more than a declaration of love—they hold the keys to a strong, lasting marriage. Whether you hope to get married someday or you’ve already tied the knot, discover what The Vow can mean for the future. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Thanks for joining us here at Life Church, where we are one church meeting in multiple locations and reaching around the world thanks to what God is doing at Church Online. If you ever have any questions or you want to learn more about us as a church, you can always check us out online simply by going to life.church. Or we'd love for you to stay connected throughout your week and everywhere you go with a Life Church app. It's available for free today wherever you download your apps from. Now coming up today, we start a brand new message series that no matter what your relationship

status, you're going to set yourself up for a God-honoring marriage. But here's the thing. So many marriages today have priorities, but those priorities are in the wrong place. And today we'll see when we make God our number one and our spouse are number two. We're set up for a lifelong marriage. So let's join our senior pastor Craig Rochelle for week one of his message, the vow. Hey everybody, welcome to Life Church this weekend. I am so thankful for all of our Open Network church partners. We love partnering with you. your pastors, all of you at church online all over the world. You're not on the other side of a computer screen by accident. We believe that God brought you here, especially for this community.

Let me tell you what I'm excited, that we're launching into a new four-part message series called The Vow. I don't know if any of you have known this, but notice, but there are marriages struggling all over the place. Has anybody seen this going on, maybe in your own life or in other lives? And I believe that this is not acceptable to God. I believe that he has something so much better for us. And so for the next four weeks, what we want to do as a church is invest in the lives of those

who one day will be married so that years later you don't say, I wish I'd have known that back then. But right now, you'll be equipped with spiritual truth that will help prepare you for a relationship that would honor God. and we want to speak directly into marriages to strengthen them to become everything that God would want them to become. So, if I can get a little bit of help from all of our churches, I'm curious, ladies, let's start with you.

Ladies go first, how many of you, when you were a little girl, you fantasized one day about having the perfect wedding with the perfect guy, living in the perfect house, and you even named your perfect children before you ever had them,

Ladies, if you had something close to that, would you raise your hands right now? Raise my hands up all over the place. Ben, let's talk to you. You probably had a little different fantasy when you were a teenager. Pretty simple. How many of you dreamed about getting married and having sex twice a day? Raise your hands. Now I want to talk to everybody.

How many of you are still dreaming to this day? It's kind of the way it is, right? Just kind of the way it is. It's interesting how some of you. Sometimes our expectations of what we hope marriage will be seems to fall way short of what it actually is. And when you look around today, you have to admit that so many marriages are just not working. In fact, it's really, really scary when you start to read about the statistics. You know, depending on what article you read or what survey or study you read,

somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% of marriages don't make it. That is horrifying. Think about it in any other area of your life. If there was something important that you could lose and there was a 50% chance that you would lose it, don't you think you would seriously approach it, be dramatic in your preparation, and do everything possible to eliminate that potential danger?

In other words, if you have children and there's a 50% chance they're going to get killed in a car wreck today, don't you think you're going to put a helmet on them before they get in a car? or make sure you know the driver or, you know, do something different. If there's a 50% chance, you're going to get attacked by a bear when you go to the mailbox. I know that would probably never happen, but where I live it could, you know, if you've got to get the mail, you're probably going out in full armor, you got a gun.

If you're from my home state, you know, if you're from some other state, you might have a knife. I don't know what it is. But you're ready for this. And with the odds being what they are, with so many people going to marriage today, I would argue the reason that marriages are struggling is because so often people are not actually spiritually prepared to live a marriage that honors God. If you ask me, is a God-honoring great marriage possible, I would tell you emphatically, absolutely, and completely, yes, it is. Yes, yes, yes, yes, it is. But, but it's not likely if you follow the path that so many people follow today.

And that's why for four weeks at our church, we're going to invest into the lives of the people that God loves so much to help prepare them for a marriage that would honor God and go the distance. We're calling this message series The Vow, and what we're going to do is look at four different vows. I want to give credit to Jimmy Evans, who in 1994 first published a book called Marriage on the Rock. And in it, he had some different vows. I've edited them and made them my own, but we're going to look at four vows over the next four weeks. Today, if you're taking notes, we're going to look at the vow of priority, keeping the priorities in the proper place in our relationships. Next week, going to be crazy fun.

You do not want to miss next week. we're going to talk about the vow of pursuit. How do we continue to pursue our spouses after we already have them? Week number three could get a little bit tricky. We're going to talk about the vow of partnership. We're going to look at what is a covenant different than a contract. We're going to look at leadership and submission. Oh, scary, scary word. We're going to look at leadership and submission and see how this God plays this out in the vow of partnership. And then week number four is incredibly important, we're going to talk about the vow of purity. Wherever secrecy lives in a marriage, intimacy dies. And we're going to look at how do we live a pure life in a very,

very impure world in a way that would prepare us for marriage. Today, we're talking about the vow of priority. I want to start with a very common belief in our world today. Your little kids are taught this from Disney princess movies or fairy tales. or love stories, but it's the common idea of that to really be fulfilled in life, you have to meet the one, to really, really be happy, to really, really have a life that has meaning. You have to meet that one perfect person that gives you goosebumps, that when you smell them, the hair on the back of your neck kind of curls up, that every song on the radio makes sense. You want to buy every card at the drugstore for that your lovely, w-dove. You know, you have to. You have to

find the one, to really be fulfilled in life, you have to find the one. To really be happy in life, you have to find the one. What I'm hoping after this message, that there'll be some of you who are very, very different. Instead of saying to really be fulfilled in life, I just met the one. I just met the one. He's so adorable. He's so cute. He's got a job. Last three guys, I didn't, didn't even have a job. They're addicted to their PS4, but he doesn't even know what a video game is. She's amazing. I love when she worship. She's so cute. Her little, it's like, I think I just met the one. I'm hoping that some of you, instead of saying,

I think I just met the one. Instead, you're going to say, I think I just met the two. I think I just met the two. He's so amazing. He has a job. She's so amazing. She loves God.

I think I just met the two. Why would you be excited about meeting the two if you're taking notes? Because God is your one and your spouse is your two. God is your one. and your spouse is your two. Even Jesus said this very clearly when someone said, what's the most important command? He said, above anything else, make God number one.

He said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. God is first, then people come next. Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. This is priority. To really have a marriage that honors God, we put God first in our relationship, and then our spouse is number two. Now, I'd like to talk to those of you

that are not married. If you're not married, all of our church, raise your hands right now. Raise your hands right now. Leave them up for a minute, just look around. Just look around. I'm giving you a second. Just scan the aisles.

If your eyes meet and you hear a love song, you just go with it. Start a life group. Whoever finds God finds life. Whoever finds God finds a life. I just go with it. If you want to, sometimes it just,

It just happens. And so I want to say to those of you that one day hope to be married, this would be kind of your vow. You can just jot this down in your nose if you want to. Your vow would be this. I'll seek the one while preparing for my two. I will seek the one while preparing for my two. It's a little bit like this one girl who was a Christian growing up,

and then in college she walked away from Jesus and got into every kind of party thing she could get into. to drugs and everything that went with it. And one day at her sorority party, she met the most amazing Christian guy. She called her mom and said, Mom, I want to, this is the guy. I mean, he's perfect, he's godly, he's a leader, you know, I think he's amazing.

And the mom just said very tenderly, but very truthfully, said, sweetheart, you need to understand, if he's everything you're saying, a guy like that's not looking for a girl like you. And this is just, I mean, that's just the way it is. This is why what my friend Andy Stanley says, I believe it's absolutely so important. You may just jot this down in your nose.

He said, become the person you're looking for is looking for. I love that. Become the person that you're looking for is looking for. In other words, I'm going to seek the one. I'm going to live for God. My whole life is going to be devoted to him. He is king. He is first in my life.

He is preparing me for someone that I can serve him with. but he's always my one. I'll seek the one while he prepares me for my two. For those of you that are married, this is your vow. If you're taking notes, write this down. This is your vow if you are married. I promise God will be my first priority and my spouse will be my second.

Let's all say it aloud. I promise God will be my first priority and my spouse will be my second. This comes from Genesis chapter two. The context is Adam was living and there was no suitable helper for him. God said, this isn't good. He put him into a deep sleep, took out his rib, formed Eve,

and Adam saw her and said, whoa, man, and thus her name was woman, cheesy joke, but don't whoa, man. And Genesis 2.24, sorry, it gets worse, just hang with me. Genesis 2.24 says this. This is why a man does what? Somebody help me out. This is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife. This is why he leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife.

They become one flesh. The word leaves comes from the root Hebrew word, azab. It's also the same word that guys use sometimes when they see other guys. Azzab! I told you, it got worse. Just I told you. Azab! Anyway.

And that's as bad as it gets. From here on out, we're on the plane saying, Azab. This word means to loosen or... or relinquish. In other words, when you're growing up, your priority relationship is mom and dad. You always honor mom and dad,

but your priority shifts from that being your primary relationship to now it's your spouse. God is your one, and your spouse becomes your primary human relationship after God. The problem is, so often, when we believe you have to meet the one

to be just happy, they have to meet the one to be fulfilled. When you believe that your spouse is your one, eventually you will idolize somebody and then one day you demonize them. You idolize me. You're amazing. You're perfect. You're everything. You're everything I've wanted. Ladies, you know, he's so laid back. He's so relaxed. Then you get married. You demonize him. He's a lazy bum. He won't mow the yard. You idolize. You demonize. She's so organized. She's so driven. She's amazing. You get married. Demonized. She's going to drive me crazy. I need to be set free for her in the name of Jesus.

You know, you idolize and demonize. And the problem is, you're not. And the problem is, you're amazing. And you get married. And you're The problem is you're asking your spouse to meet a need they were not designed to meet. Because God is designed to meet your number one need of priority and not your spouse. Together, you serve God, but that person is not designed to meet the need that only God can meet. And this is kind of what tends to happen when you're early on. You make your girlfriend your priority. You know, your boyfriend's your priority. Maybe when you get married, you're still the priority.

you're still the priority. And then kids come along. And suddenly, instead of the marriage relationship being the priority under God, suddenly the kids are the priority. And then sometimes, like, the husband may get a little jealous, like, well, I've got to go. And he pours himself into work.

And maybe the wife drops them off for daycare and pours herself into work or pours herself into the kids. And suddenly, the marriage relationship gets put on the shelf. Fast forward to your deathbed. To your death bed. If you can imagine, if you are blessed enough to have weeks, maybe to prepare,

for eternity, that's where the priority become incredibly clear. I've been with, as a pastor, too many people to count, and there's two things that matter. God and family. People may not believe in God their whole life. They're on their deathbed. Oh, if there's a God, I wonder where I stand. God becomes priority. Where do I stand with God? Is my family nearby? It becomes incredibly clear. God and family. God is my number one priority. My spouse is my number two. Whenever anything takes the place of God or takes the place of the priority of the marriage relationship, even something good, when those priorities are out of order, your marriage can never be what God intended it to be because you're not living according to the God-ordained priorities. If I can be really, really

honest, it was when my priorities were out of order that Amy and I first struggled in our marriage. What I'm going to tell you is so embarrassing, and Amy can sit over there and nod and say it's so true, and don't judge me. I only made this mistake once, I learned. But when we had our first child, Katie was born on a Thursday in 1994, I was in full-time ministry and full-time seminary. And I had a class that I had to take in order to graduate in that semester, or I would have had to go a whole extra semester. The class happened to be an all-day class on Friday and an all-day class on Saturday. and I had a preaching responsibility on Friday and on Sunday. So, Amy gave birth on a Thursday.

Happiest moment ever. Friday, dumb, dumb, went to class. I preached Friday night. I went to class on Saturday. I preached Sunday. In my mind, in my mind, honestly, and I know this is stupid, but this is like, this is a man for you.

Ladies, it's a man. I was doing the right thing for my family to prepare us for the future. I had no idea that when I allowed one of Amy's friends, sorry, to drive her home from the hospital, that I told you not to judge me. Hey, I'm not up in your business and I got to mic. I can get all up in your business in a moment. I, like, thank you. I thought my church at least have some grace. I had no idea, no idea, no idea what an inconsiderate thing that I'd done. That's why we had six kids. I had five times to make it up. I had a lot of ground to make up for that. And I think you can at least say I never, ever, ever did that again.

And if we can take it a little bit more, Amy went so into our baby that I started to feel a little bit neglected. Like, okay, you're into that baby. What about your big baby over here? What about this baby? And so I poured myself into work, and she poured herself into first child, and it was the first time that we ever had any tension in our marriage. And it wasn't because something bad got in the way, because so often it's not something bad that ruins a marriage. So often it's something good that is not in the right priority.

God is my one. My spouse is always my two. And we have to live according to these priorities if we want to. to really honor God. And what I didn't understand is Amy had a real legitimate jealousy about me being away. I always thought jealousy was wrong. There is such a thing as legitimate jealousy. In fact, one of God's name is jealous. God is a jealous God. There is a sinful jealousy and there's a legitimate jealousy. Anytime we put anything ahead of God, he is legitimately and righteously jealous. It's called an idol. If you put anything ahead of God,

He has the right because of who he is, a holy and a righteous God, to be legitimately jealous. And that's why every now and then, you may find yourself in your marriage, go, I'm a little bit jealous of your time with the kids. Because truthfully, yes, we should have time with the kids, but our marriage relationship should be a priority to keep it strong so we can be a blessing to the kids. Well, I'm jealous of your time with your friends. I'm jealous of your time with your friends. There are some cycle people who think you should never have a friend.

I'm not talking about that, but I'm talking about if you're always out doing something else and not making your marriage a priority, that's a legitimate jealousy. I know some people that are jealous over their spouse's phone. Right next to each other in bed. That's all you can come up with to do? I mean, I've literally heard of people like throwing their phone to cross.

It's like a legitimate jealousy because you're, your phone is in the wrong place and the priorities. And so that's why I want to give you one big thought, one simple thought, and I want to introduce it with this. Again, it's not always the bad things that destroy marriages. It's often good things that are out of place in the relationship. One big thought, and the big thought is this. Protect the priorities.

Protect the priorities. If you will recognize, listen, if you're going to get married later on in the future, embrace it today. God will always be your number one and your spouse will always be your number two. My God is my first priority and my spouse is my second. If you're married today and you are struggling in any way, I can almost guarantee you. You can trace it to this root issue that you're not putting God first. You're not putting God first. We're not seeking him first. You want your marriage to grow. Serve him in the church together. Seek him first every single day. Pray together, be centered around God's word, seek Jesus together, put him first, and then make sure you come together and your relationship with each other is number two.

I want to get just real practical. Let's just get real practical. One of the ways that we did this after I overcame my baby fiasco, okay, is when we started producing kids all the time, every time I would look at Amy, she would get pregnant. You're pregnant. You're pregnant. You're pregnant. For a while we thought that's what it's causing it later on. figured it out. But anyway, what I would do whenever I'd come home is I'd have four or five, six little kids coming up to me and I'll always say, no, no, no, and they'd be hanging on me and I'd drag them through the house and I always say, Mama gets the first kiss, Mama gets the first kiss. And I would go up there and give Mama kiss. Mama would actually get a little extra special kiss that nobody else did, right? You know what I'm talking about. You know, Mama get the first kiss, mama get the first kiss. And then I'd go and kiss the

rest of the kids. And one of them to understand is mom actually comes before you in the relationship. And since you kind of were booing at me earlier on, I want to get up into your business a little bit and tell you some things that are going to make some of you mad. But it's only because I love you, and this is so true. Do not be child-centered in your marriage. Don't be child-centered. Children are important. Children are a gift from God. But if you want to love your kids, prioritize your marriage. One of the best ways you can be a blessing to your children is to strengthen your marriage. And you all know, you've all seen it. Some of you, unfortunately, you've lived it. Your whole life revolves around the kids. Oh, the kids, the kids, the kids. And that's the

common interest that keeps you together. One day's the kids grow up and you look each other and go, who are you? And what'd you do with that person I'm married 20 years ago? And suddenly, you don't have any intimacy because your whole life is revolved around your children. Here's that you need to understand. And remember, children are a temporary assignment. They're a temporary assignment. You will have them for 18, 19 years, unless you have a millennial. They may be there for 30 years or whatever.

I'm just saying, I'm just saying, I'm just, so I told you I'll poke back at you. You poke at me, I'll poke back at you, right? You may have them for 30 years, but at some point, it's healthy to push them out and say, you go serve Jesus and you live on your own. They're a temporary assignment. Your marriage is till death do us part. It's till death do us part. It's not until we're not happy anymore. It's not until you're not meeting my knees anymore. It's not until something better comes along. It's not, I'm going to trade you in for a different model. It's till death do us part. Your marriage is a permanent God-honoring commitment. And that's why we have to

continue to prioritize it even above the children. That doesn't mean we don't feed them and don't give them baths and don't put clothes on them, especially the boys who would be naked if you didn't, but you honor the marriage in all that you do. If you want your children to succeed in marriage, show them what a God honoring marriage looks like. Show them what a God honoring marriage looks like. I thought that this whole message would be very incomplete, unless I had a little bit of help.

And so we had people present some questions, around this topic, and I wanted to give Amy a chance to respond to some of the most common questions. I want to be a great wife, right? And I really can't do that unless I first am a great follower of Christ. And that to me is the key. I can't love Craig the way I need to love him. I can't be patient the way I need to be patient if my relationship with God isn't strong. My pride, my stubborn heart can so easily get in the way of helping me to be a good, excellent wife that I need to be. And so nothing is going to deal with my heart more than me prioritizing that time with God. And what that looks like practically, oh gosh, you know, it's just time with him.

It's set apart time in the mornings, but it's just walking with him throughout the day, independence, just continually acknowledging his presence with me and my need for him. just try to be slow to speak and listen for his promptings. It's not easy, and I don't always get it right, but I do get it right when I'm depending on Christ. Keeping Christ first doesn't really work together unless we have it individually, right, first. So what works so well is that we both have real authentic individual relationship with Christ, And so it just makes it's so much more natural that when we're together that, you know, Christ is our life and it becomes our marriage and it becomes our conversation. And when we're struggling, we share those struggles together and we go to God in prayer about those things.

And, you know, he's just one with us in all that we do in our conversations and how we lead our family, how we want to prioritize our marriage. it's just not something that can be separated from who we are as a couple. This is a really tough one because I am crazy about my kids. I'm crazy about kids, but they didn't come first, and my marriage did. And my kids can't be the wonderful people, thriving children of God that I want them to be without my marriage being strong. It's not just that I want my marriage to be good, so my kids are good. But the marriage is, the children are expression of us and our love.

But to be very practical, you've got to do some things. You've got to make marriage the priority in the family. And the ways that that looks like for us is having date night. And that may be that we don't even go anywhere, but it's the kids are in a separate room and we have our room and we're off limits. It may mean that lock on the bedroom door. it may mean that a lot of different things, it may mean that you just have couch time and they're not there with you, but the kids cannot be first or else the marriage won't last.

Let's give a little bit of thank you to some good wisdom. And I just need to publicly say how much I love you and how honored I am to be your man and how thankful I am that you're my girl. And what I want to acknowledge for a moment is that there are so many hurting relationships right now and I hurt with you. And, you know, our hearts break. What we're talking about today,

what I want you to understand, it really is simple, but it's not easy. Okay? It's really simple. Meaning what we do is we put God first. Not just we say that. We do it. We do it.

We do it. it. God is first. We pray together. We're people of His Word. We're involved in his church. We're seeking to live out in His Word. We're letting the Holy Spirit live through us. He's first. And then we work hard to protect the priority of the marriage. And we have to work hard. You have to work hard. I mean, we work harder today at it because there's so many obstacles. Everything in society pulls us away from each other. And so what I want to do is just talk to the men because I feel a little bit more freedom to talk to the guys. I'll let Amy, you know, get up in the girls' business. And so, what I'll is more. But the guys, what I want to tell you is if I can just charge you, take responsibility

to protect the priorities because you're protectors. Gentlemen, if someone breaks in your house and attempts to attack your family, how many of you will fight back? Hands down, no doubt about it. You can be in your tidy, witty underwear and you turn into a fierce tiger. I got nunchucks, baseball bats. I got weapons all over the house. Any room in the house, I'll take you out. You mess with my family. You may have to kill me, but you'll have to kill me to stop me. I'll protect my family. That's easy to do because we're wired to do it. We will die for those that we love.

God calls you to live for those you love, to live for them every single day. In fact, gentlemen, what I hope you'll understand is you are charged by God essentially to live or to give your best, to give your best for two things, for Christ and to lay down your life for your wife. That's what you're called to do. Protect those priorities. In fact, I love just the teaching of Paul in Ephesians 525. Husbands, here's your calling.

Love your wives. It's your calling. Love them. Serve them. Honor them. Love your wives. Just as Christ loved the church and did what? Gave himself up for her.

Protect the priorities at all cost. What does that mean? Gentlemen, we keep God first. We are people of the church. We bring our families to church. We serve in church. We are people of the word. We are daily in God's word.

We're modeling this for our kids. Community is a point. part of who we are. We're in a life group doing life together with other believers. God is our priority. We make time for each other. When everything pulls us away, we make guarded time to talk. If you don't talk, you can't have any intimacy. We, I mean, as practical as it is, we're going to have a date night. We're going to have a little getaway night. Some of you, you're going to tell me you can't afford it. You don't have time. Listen, if you're lazy, you'll make an excuse. If you love, you'll make a way. Let me say it again. If you're lazy, you'll make an excuse. If you love your spouse,

you will make a way, you will make a way, you'll make a way, you'll put on a video in the other room, put on Netflix, lock the door, give your kids some Benadryl, put on some romantic music, lock the door, go on the other room, and dance the night away, whatever it is. You know, don't tell me you can't afford to get away. If you're in a life group, you got a free babysitter. Drum them off at their house this weekend. Next week and next week the party is at your house. Get a tent. Put it up in the backyard.

Light a fire. Put a candle in there. Make sure you got water to put the fire out. If things get crazy, you knock it over. You can do this. When Amy and I were first married, I mean, we didn't have any money, but I said, we're going to go out of town. We used to go to hotel so cheap, honest of goodness,

for 25 sins you could make the bed vibrate. One time the bed got stuck. Vibrated all night long. Wow, that was a blotted vibrate for a quarter. Listen. Love, true story, true story, and all the people said, amen. Love makes a way, love makes away, love makes away, love makes away. So what are we going to do?

We protect the priority. At all costs, we protect the priority. Why? Because you never can be fulfilled in life until you finally meet the one. You can never be fulfilled in life until you know the Lord God, he's your one. God is your one and your spouse is your two. I will always honor God as my first priority, and my wife will always be my second. And I'll protect those priorities with everything in me.

And if I start there, the foundation will be laid to have a merit that can truly honor God. And that is worth building a life on. All of our churches, let's take a moment and pray, Father, thank you so much that you're going to equip and empower us to honor you. God, I know there are many relationships that are hurting and struggling today. we pray God that we can put you first. Reprioritize our life around that which matters most and find healing through your son, Jesus. All of our churches, those who are not married

and want to seek the one while God prepares you for your two, would you lift up your hands right now? Just lift it up. Those who are married and say, even no matter what's going on in my marriage right now, it may be great, it may be the lowest point ever. With God's help, we will make him our one and make our spouse our number two.

would you lift up your hands? I want to pray for you. Father, today, I pray for those who would one day be married. God, that you would give them a foundation of righteousness to build upon, that they would seek you with all their hearts today. And God, as they seek you, they'd be conformed to the image of your son, Jesus, becoming more like him as you are preparing them to serve you with their number two. God, I pray for those who are married today. I pray for those marriages that are strong that they would be strengthened and protected from the attacks of the evil one. God, I pray for those who are just floating along and those that are struggling in a significant way. I pray, God, today that you would rattle them with deep conviction, that you are to be their number one.

That we don't go to church whenever we can or whatever. Your house is our priority. We don't read the Bible every now and then. Your word is the bread of life. We don't do life outside of the strength of a Christ-filled community in a life group. we need your people, God, to strengthen us. Help us, God, in our marriage to learn to make you number one. Then God, lead us, empower us. I pray especially for the men, God, that you would empower them to protect the priorities. God, for the conversations that may take place today and in the

week to come, may they be productive and full of grace, looking to ways that you can improve our marriage, not throwing accusations, but God seeking you to change us to become who you want us to be to serve you better with our two, bring healing, bring intimacy, bring strength and restoration. As you keep praying today at all of our different churches, some of you right now, you should feel the weight of what you don't have. God wants to be your number one. He wants to be number one, not in name only, but in the way that you live. And I hope you'll understand our God is a jealous God. When you put anything else ahead of him, that is an idol. That is a misplaced priority. And our God is a jealous God. He is the righteous king of kings

and Lord of Lords. He is a supreme creator of the universe. The holy righteous God sitting on the throne and he wants to be first in your life. The problem is by nature, we're all sinners. We've all we all step away from God. We all do things that are wrong and we need to recognize that. Call it what it is. It's not a mistake. It's sin. And when you recognize that you're a sinner, then you'll recognize you need a savior. And this is why God is so amazing because he loved you so much that he became a person like you in his son, Jesus. God became flesh. Jesus, perfect in every way. Died on a cross on the third day. He rose from the dead. He defeated death, hell and the grave. Why? So that anyone, and this includes you, no matter how dark your life is,

no matter how many sinful mistakes you make. Anyone who calls on his name would be saved, sins forgiven, made completely brand new. And all of our churches there are those of you. You recognize you need his grace. You need his salvation. You need his mercy. At all of our churches, those who say, yes, today, I trust him.

Yes, today. I give my life to him. When you call on him, he'll forgive your sins and make you new. All of our churches, you say, yes, I make him my one. I give my life to him. That's your prayer. Lift your hands high right now, all of our churches, and say, yes, I surrender my life to him. As there are hands going up at all of our churches, church online, you click right below me,

and would you join your voice with people all around you coming to faith in Christ? And pray aloud, pray Heavenly Father, I give you my life. Save me from my sins. Be my Lord and first in my life. Jesus save me. fill me with your spirit so I could follow you. You are my one.

Thank you for new life. Today I give you mine. In Jesus name I pray. Life Church, would you worship big, worship loud today? Welcome those born into God's family. At Life Church, it's our honor to play even a small part in all that God is doing in and through your life.

And we would love to continue with you on that journey. I know many of you, after hearing a message like this, much like myself, have thought to yourself I haven't always done a great job at putting God in that first priority spot. One of the best ways to do that is by spending time in God's word each and every day. And one of the biggest honors we've had here as a church is to play a part in enabling millions of people around the world to engage with God's people each and every day, everywhere we go, through the U-Version Bible app. In fact, it's been downloaded over a quarter of a billion times by people in every country around the world, some of them reading God's word for the

very first time. Two of those people, Tina and Teddy Campbell, are in Los Angeles, California, and they use God's Word and the Bible out to find healing and renewal for their marriage when it was at their worst. Check it out. Tina Campbell, better known to many people that might be familiar as one half of the gospel group, Mary Mary. I am a drummer by profession. I did The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, American Idol. I toured with Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, 98 degrees. We went on to put out about seven albums

and won a few Grammys and won a few American Music Awards and all of that kind of stuff. We also have a reality show called The Merry Mary Mary Show on We TV. We have been blessed to have a platform where we can share Jesus with many people who would otherwise not be interested. So my relationship with my wife took a term when the overwhelming demands on our life was professional and personal. I became aware of indiscretions in my marriage and I thought I was going to lose it.

It was just our personal struggle at first and then it ended up being on TV because it was our reality. You know, the devil's playing in my head all these tormenting thoughts you no good for your kids. Now you can't even sing the gospel because you're not. You don't even believe in it and God doesn't love you. And every night was a night of torment. Every day was a day of sadness. I didn't know this person that I had become. I screwed up as a man.

And so in my search of trying to be a better man, a better husband, everything pointed to Jesus. And I told God, if you won't let me die, show me how to live. No residue of the remnants of what happened to me. And so I started reading the Bible. So I opened up the word. I didn't just find silence for the day. devil, silence to the noise and torment, I found life in every aspect of my existence.

And all of a sudden, I saw a plan that was exactly what I needed. And that changed my life. So I spend every day of my life on my View Version Bible app every day. I had my phone, and I could open up the Word of God, and I could find answers and solution and knowledge and understanding. I lived on that app. Everything together now. Music, writes songs together, produce records together, put books out together, everything we do together. I'd like to think that this app saved my life. It made the things of God easier for me to take in and to understand. Well, people are going to come up to you in heaven and say, thank you for being a part of that church that launched one of the most, one of the most powerful

communication tools ever made. If you don't already have the U-Version Bible app available on your phone, you can download it today completely for free from your Facebook. favorite app store and begin to read God's Word each and every day, just like Tina and Teddy do. You know, here at Life Church, it's our mission to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. That single statement drives everything we do here as a church, all because we believe whoever finds God truly finds life.