Hide And Go Seek

Well, hello Salt Church. How are you doing this morning? So glad you're here with us at Holiday Inn and Sweets, and if you're online with us today, we're so, it's Sweets, you know? Sweets are coming soon because our fast is almost over, right? But thank you so much for being with us, and if you're online with us as well, we're so thankful that you're connecting with us from home.

Be sure to share this service, connect with somebody, high-five somebody, we'll have some people online interacting with you, letting you know that we're here and we're loving you. If you have prayer requests, post those below. We would love to pray for you today or during our prayer times during the week. We would love to connect with you that way. Also, fill out that electronic card, saltchurch.

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Also, if you're new with us and not familiar with how it works here, we aren't handing out paper notes right now. We may go back to that. We may never go back to that. I don't know. So we're kind of electronic people in this age.

So if you want to connect with the event today through the Bible.com app, it's the YouVersion Bible app. Most people have that most popular Bible app out there. And you can find Salt Church, which is a live event. You can save it.

You can go to the notes and you can follow along with our sermon. So I'm super excited about ending this message series. But we got some really good stuff coming up as well. So the fun never ends, guys. Okay?

Isn't that cool? So next week will be, I like to set aside one week to just share vision. Just to kind of have a heart to heart with everybody about where we are as a church, my heart, why we started to kind of revisit the reason for Salt Church and the direction we're going. I'll also share some numbers with you, financial numbers and things like that. So you guys are very aware and we're transparent with everything that's going on here at the church.

And so that's next week. And I hope you can be here. If you can't, join us online. And I'll obviously have a great piece of Bible message for you, too. So it's going to be an awesome, awesome time.

The following week will be Super Bowl Sunday. And I know this is, yeah, yeah. Look, all you football fans, there's one of them. Woo! I know that's a lie because half of you aren't here today because you're watching football, okay?

But, or you're getting prepared for the football game, at least. But it will be football Sunday and it's going to be fun. In fact, we're going to have a giveaway to the best dressed fan, okay? So I want you to come and show up dressed in your favorite ball team, wear your jersey or whatever. But if you really want to go all out, I want to see some face paintings.

I want to see some people, like, represent their team hard. I know they might not be in the Super Bowl, but you can come and still pretend like they're in the Super Bowl this year, right? And we will give a prize away to somebody. But you have to be here in service. You have to be present in service to receive that raffle.

So be with us. Let's have a great time. And the following week, interestingly enough, is Valentine's Day. And we always like to do a little something. We're beginning a message series called It's Complicated, But It Doesn't Have to Be.

It's Complicated, But It Doesn't Have to Be. So we'll be launching that next month on Super Bowl Sunday, in fact. But if you're present and you're married, a couple here in the church, we will be also doing a giveaway. We got lots of giveaways, right? We're just giving away stuff, a giveaway.

But get this giveaway. It is a date night that includes an overnight stay at a hotel and a nice dinner. So who doesn't want that, right? I want to enter my name in. So we'll be giving that away on Valentine's Day, February 14th.

And I just can't wait till this series. It's always a challenging series, but a great series. I see many break. Breakthroughs happen through our relationship, our times where we talk about relationships. It's for everybody.

It's not only for married people. It's for singles. And not only for those. It's about relationships in general. It's about children.

It's about all those things. We're just going to be dealing with a lot of different areas about where we use that phrase, it's complicated. So I'm looking forward to that. But today I want to end the series face-to-face. And I hope your fast has been going well.

I hope that God has really been making some major breakthroughs in your life. I'm praying that God's going to have an excellent year. I know it's been a rough start. We entered into 2021. And we're like, holy cow, it just got even worse, right?

We were like, greater, greater is this year going to be. We had all these prophecies coming out in the church. And then we're like, whoa, hold back. You know, like what's going on here? But what we can do when we're going through times like this is we can lean into God and encounter Him.

And that's what we've been talking about, encounters with God. People that had encounters with God where they experienced Him, they encountered Him face-to-face. And that's not just for the Bible. That's not just for the Old Testament. That's not just for Paul and those guys back then.

That's for us today. And we can in fact experience God face-to-face. And today I want to end it with, and let me just backtrack in case you're catching up. The first week we talked about Jacob and the struggle that he had and how he had to really wrestle with God to get that encounter and get that blessing. And then sometimes we have to wrestle a bit.

Week two, we dealt with Moses and all the issues he had about his identity and things like that. And where's that going, you know? And God showed him who He was, that it wasn't about who He was. It was about who He is, who God is. And if we keep our focus on who God is, then everything else works out, right?

That our purpose and our identity is found in that. Last week we talked about Isaiah and the time of Uzziah the king when he passed away. The nation was going through tremendous times and Isaiah heard and saw the Lord. He looked up to the Lord. The Lord revealed Himself to him and he kept his mentality focused on that.

Well, this week I think is probably the most important piece. This is my favorite piece. I think this has the potential to change everything, okay? In any situation you're going through. Because this gets God's attention more than anything.

Anything that I've talked about, this gets God's attention more than anything. So hold on for a second. Take, let's go to John 4 verse 23. And it says this, yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

So a time is coming when true worshipers, he's not talking about fake worshipers, okay? There has to be fake worshipers if he's indicating there's true worshipers. So we're talking about spirit, the spirit, worshiping in spirit and in truth. Spirit, the literal meaning of spirit is breath, is pneuma. That's where we get the term pneumonia from, right?

So it's not a breathing, it's a breathing problem. It's not a, it's not a, when we're connecting with God, we are seeking Him. It's a breath. It's about everything that's in us. So it really is about worship.

Today I want to talk about worship. I want to talk about being a truthful worship because we worship in spirit. That means everything that's in us, but we also place it on the person, the person of Christ, the model of Christ. Who are we focused our worship on? That's who we want to talk about today.

So here's the theme of my message, just to put this down into perspective. When you can't find God, worship Him. When you don't see Him, worship Him. When you can't find God, worship Him, and He will find you. When you don't know where God is, when you can't hear Him, when it's dark, when it's complacent in your life, what do you do?

You worship Him. And He finds you. In fact, Hebrews says it like this, anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who what? Earnestly seek Him. Earnestly seek Him.

Run hard after Him. Have a passion for Him. Want to know Him more. And you're not going to find God if you go halfway. You're not going to find God if you're just coming, I'm going to try God.

You can't just get to Him by trying Him. You've got to be all in. You've got to be earnestly seeking Him. In fact, that word worship, it's a Greek word. And if you understand Greek, there's a lot of different words that can be used.

I mean, there's a lot more words in the Greek alphabet and the Greek word category to explain a word. So you can use them in different things. But this particular word is proskeneo, which means to kiss. To kiss. But not in a romantic way.

In fact, it's a picture of a dog licking the hand of a servant. Think about that. If you've got dogs, how your dog loves you and how your dog's excited to see you when you walk in the room or when they're just waiting at the door. Or I think about the secret life of cats and dogs. How many of you are not?

What is it? Pets. The secret life. I think cats and dogs is another movie. But the secret life of pets where you have, you know, he's waiting at the door and he's just waiting, you know, he's like, oh, I miss you.

I miss you so much. I miss you. I want you. I miss you. I just want to.

I can't wait for you. Or or if you've seen the cartoon, I have a lot of Disney and a lot of Sony and all that stuff kind of kind of animation stuff going on because I got young kids in my house. So I watch this a lot and I like it, too. But at any rate, if you go back to up, you know, Pixar's up and you got Doug. Right.

And what's Doug? Oh, I love you. I love you. I love you. Hey, where are you going?

Hey, come back. Oh, you are my master. You're my best friend, you know, and you're thinking, wow, you know, this when I was growing up, we had a lot of dogs and stuff. And we had this one dog. I can remember it.

It was a Cocker Spaniel. And I don't think he ever left a door when we left the house. But when we started walking up to the door, we could hear his little paws, you know, coming up to the door. And he would literally when we walk in, he would run and he would chase. He'd chase his tail and he'd start spinning and he'd start spinning.

He was so excited. I could just imagine him thinking, oh, I'm so glad you're home. My owners are home. I'm so in love with you. I'm so glad you're here.

I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're here. And that's, you know, that's how we are to be as worshipers. We should be lining up at church. Oh, I'm so glad.

I can't wait to get in there. I can't wait to experience God. I can't wait to be with my family. I can't wait for God to come. And I'm just so excited to be here.

What is God going to do today? We are worshipers. But for many of us, we come to church and, okay, God, what are you going to do today? And you sound more like a cat than a dog. It's true.

Thanks. Thank you, cat lover. Never been a huge fan of cats. Part of that is probably because I'm allergic to them. So I give them an out there.

But if you draw near to God, he will draw near to you. I'm going to give you three examples in the Bible. I couldn't pick just one example today because there's so many of them where worship changes everything. We're leaning into God changes everything. Second Chronicles is where I want to start.

And there was a king of Judah named Jehoshaphat. He was discouraged. He felt like God wasn't there. He began to cry out to God. In fact, there were vast armies around him that were coming into his city, into the city of Judah, into Israel.

They were under attack. Vast armies were surrounding them. And he didn't know where to go or what to do. So the first thing he did was call a fast. For the whole land, children, everyone came in and he began to call out to God, an act of worship, call out to God, ask God, inquire of God that he would share or speak to them.

And get this, this is really cool, starting with verse 14, it says, then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jehazel, the son of, and get this connection here, Jehazel, which is the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaniah, and the son of Jael, the son of Mataniah, a Levite, so he was from the tribe of the Levites, and a descendant of Asaph. A descendant of Asaph. What significance does that have? One of the psalmists in the Bible is Asaph. He was one of the chief worshipers in the book of Psalms.

He was an instrumental worshiper, so he was a worshiper. Jehazel was a worshiper of God, so God decides to put his spirit on the worshiper. When Jehoshaphat could not see, God laid his spirit on the worshiper because the worshiper began to see. And he proclaimed, and that's where he got his confidence in worship, and the king was looking at one thing, but the worshipers were looking at another. And he began to proclaim this.

It says, early in the morning, they left the desert of Tekoa as they set out, and Jehoshaphat stood and said, let me go back there. I just skipped a whole passage there. And he said, listen, King Jehoshaphat, and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem, this is what the Lord says to you. Do not be afraid or discouraged because this vast army is going to be taken care of. For the battle is not yours but God's.

The battle is not yours but God's. See, some of you need to be there right now. Like, if you're going through some battles, it's time to worship God, to give him the glory. Be a worshiper. You need to be a chief worshiper in your own right.

We are all worshipers. We may not play music. We may not sing. But we can worship because we are meant and made and created to worship God. And that's where he found his confidence, and that's where he got his encouragement to share this.

And here, going back to the scripture that I skipped ahead just a second ago on, let's go back to that. So early in the morning, they left the desert of Tekoa, and they set out, and Jehoshaphat stood and said, listen to me, Judah, and the people of Jerusalem. Have faith in the Lord your God, and you will be upheld. Have faith in his prophets, and you will be successful. And then after consulting the people, Jehoshaphat, here's what he did.

This is really cool. He appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army saying, give thanks to the Lord for his love endures forever. As they began to sing the praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they defeated each other. Now, I want you to get a picture of this. He's going out, and they're going into battle, but before they go into battle, they put the worshipers in the front.

They took the guys with skinny jeans and electric guitars, and they put them in the front. Praise God, you know. Just hipster hats. They put the hipster hats in the front of the line. Let's praise God.

Let's put him first, and the armies defeated each other. The king's mood changed when the worshiper was anointed by the Lord and gave that, and he sent the worship out, and the weapons were, how great is our God. How great is our God. It thanks to the Lord for he is good. Right.

Amen. Hallelujah. Let's sing it. Actually. You know, just as a side note, that was actually a psalm where they would proclaim that, and then the congregation would say, the Lord endures forever out loud.

So they were worshipers, there's interactive worship going on, amen? And that's what was going on here. Now, moving on. Another story. David and his mighty man of valor.

They were battling in a war, in a battle, all day long. Defeating, conquering. The people around them in these territories. And while they were out battling, the Amalekites, rather, had come back around and swung back around and burned down their town, took their women and children. And here they were.

So let me go to 1 Samuel 30. If you want to turn there, shoot over there. Beginning with verse one, it says, Three days later, when David and his man arrived home at their town of Ziklag, they found that the Amalekites had made a raid into the Negev and Ziklag. And they had crushed Ziklag and burned it to the ground, and they carried off the women and children and everyone else, but without killing everyone. So they took them away.

They didn't kill anybody, but they took all the kids, and they took all the things, and they just burned everything. So just imagine coming home after a hard day's work, and you're rolling around, how great, yeah, we had some victories today. And you're just singing, and you just had a great day, and you show up, and your house is gone. Everything's burnt to the ground. Everything you've lost at that moment.

Here's how they responded. They carried off the women and children, and when David and his man saw the ruins, they realized what had happened to their families, and they wept until they could not weep no more. They wept until they could not. Have you ever been in a place where you just were so broken that you just wept until you couldn't even weep anymore? That you were in such a dark place, you just couldn't, or just a sad moment that you couldn't weep anymore?

That that's where they were, but here's the response, and David was now in great danger because all of his men were very bitter about losing their sons and daughters, so the men were angry with them. They were actually thinking about stoning him and taking him down, and they began to talk about stoning him, but David found what? Strength in the Lord, and he looked at the priest, and he said, bring me my ethad. That was a robe, a worship robe, or ethad. Some Jewish people call it ethad, or ethad, whichever way you want to pronounce that.

And this is a worship robe that was placed on an individual when they worshiped God, when they came into the presence of God. So what did David do immediately? He called the priest. He said, come and bring me my robe, because I'm going to worship some Lord. I'm going to worship my Jesus.

I'm going to worship my God. And he began to receive strength, and the rest is history. He comes out, and the mighty men go out, and they go and fight the enemy. They chase the Amalekites down, and they take back the women and children, and nobody was harmed, and they defeated. Their battle was won.

Amen? Man, your battle can be won. His response was worship for him, and the response is worship for you. Moving on to the New Testament, we have Paul and Silas. Paul and Silas.

They were ministering. People were being healed. People were being saved. They were planting churches. They were doing amazing things.

But yes, this woman was chasing them down, calling out to them, your God, worrying them to death. She was possessed by a demon. She was a soothsayer, a fortune teller, and she just would not leave them alone. Yep, Paul just becomes very aggravated. He ignored her long enough, and he immediately turns around and says, leave her spirit, and cast out a devil, and she loses her.

Her fortune-telling ability, she's delivered at that moment. That didn't make the people in that city happy because she was a slave girl and she was making money for, and she was trafficked for money for telling this soothsaying, for all these soothsaying things that were happening. Didn't make them happy, didn't make the owner happy, so he began to stir up the crowd against them, and a mob formed quickly, and it picks up here in Acts 16, 22-26, and a mob quickly formed against Paul and Silas, and the city officials ordered them stripped and beaten with wooden rods, and they were severely beaten, and then they were thrown into prison, so they weren't having a great day, guys. This was not a good day for them. The jailer was ordained to make sure they didn't escape, so the jailer put them into an inner dungeon and clamped down their feet in stocks.

Around midnight, Paul and Silas began what? Praying and singing hymns. Praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening, and suddenly this massive earthquake happened, and the prisoners, and the prison was shaken to its foundations, and all the doors immediately flew open, and the chains of every prisoner fell off. So what was their response to their really bad day? They were in circumstances that seemed bleak, but what did they do?

They began to worship, and they began to worship in spirit, and in truth, and it wasn't just a quiet prayer. It was a loud prayer because people heard it, and they were singing out loud, and they were praising God, giving Him glory in that prison, and what happened? Not only were they blessed, the chains fell off of them as well as the people around them. I tell you what, when you begin to worship in your environment and your situation, it starts to affect people around you. Right here in this room, when you come into worship service and you start to worship, it starts to affect the whole place.

Did you know that? It does something to everybody in here, this worship, and it helped everybody around them. So God is looking to and fro for true worshipers. He's waiting for you to worship Him. He's looking for those who eagerly seek Him.

So I'm entitling this message, Hide and Go Seek, because that's what God does. I think about my kids. My kids love hide and seek, and I'll play it with them sometimes. We'll go around the house, and I'll hide in another area of the house. I'll get behind the bed.

It's hard to hide in our house. It's not a very big house. So there, I always check the same places. I'll throw stuff on me and just get real quiet, and I'll just wait for them. But the purpose of hiding is not so that I'm not found, because I would still be hiding, right?

It's to be found. And I think about God in that way. Like, God, He's hiding, but He's not hiding. He's waiting for you to come around the corner looking for Him. He's waiting for you to show some type of expression that you have a desire to find Him.

And I think about when I go in that room, or I go in that closet, and I find my kid, or they find me. When they come in that closet, or they come in that room, and they find me, how I immediately, I can't, I don't stop. I just jump out, and I get, they're like, whoa, and they're surprised. And they're like, ah, and they start laughing, and they start running the other direction. And I grab them up, and I scoop them in my arms, because there's a moment of joy when we connect in that way.

And God's the same way. You're searching for Him. You're trying to find Him, but you're going to worship Him. You know, you may not see Him. You may not experience Him right now, but what you need to do is lean in and worship.

Lean in and find, eagerly look for Him, eagerly seek Him. Jeremiah 29, 13, you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. When you have a heart to seek Him, He will find you, and He will scoop you up, and He will chase you. He will begin chasing you, and you will find Him. So He's looking for people who are seeking you.

Seeking Him. Seeking Him in worship. And with all your heart, if you put everything into it, all your efforts. I love how the message says that very same scripture. Quotes that very same scripture.

When you come looking for me, you'll find me. Yes, when you get serious about finding me, and want it more than anything else. If you want it more than anything else, if you're seeking Him with all your heart. Not halfway. Not one step in.

But fully committed. 100%. You won't just experience God. You'll experience the fullness and glory of joy overwhelming. It's a joy unspeakable and full of glory.

It's just amazing. So today, I'm going to, in application, and Mark, I've got a lot of scripture today, guys. Y'all know me. I'm just a scripture guy. I'm a Bible guy.

In my youth group, back in the day, I had my prayer guy. You know, he was Mr. Prayer. He was like, prayer room guy. Prayer, prayer, prayer, prayer.

And I'm like Bible guy. Like Bible, Bible, Bible. So we're just like kind of working off of each other. So, a lot of scripture today. So, in Mark 12, it says this.

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating, talking about Jesus. Jesus. Sorry. Went down the wrong pipe a little bit there. Devil, flee.

Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, He asked Him, of all the commandments, which is the most important? The most important one, answered Jesus, is this. And hear, O Israel. Listen up. Hear, O Israel.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. So, there's three things He shares with us here. The first one is, all your heart and soul. All your heart and soul.

It's an expression. I worship God by expressing my affections to Him. It's an expression of your worship. It's just like anything else. It's, if you don't express love for someone or something, you probably don't love that thing.

With my wife, if I can tell her all day long I love her, but if I don't buy her things, if I don't take her out to eat, if I don't even, you know, share things with her, if I sleep in another room, if I don't ever tell her or show her or express in some way that I love her, then she's probably not going to believe me. So, love is expressed. Love is shown. And if we love the Lord our God with all our hearts and souls, we are free to express. We want to be expressive with it.

We want to show Him that we love. We want to be in, and we want to be fully expressional. And some people are like, well, I don't express my love. And I actually have people sometimes say, well, do y'all have a traditional service? And I'm like, yeah, we have a traditional service.

We shout. We clap hands. We praise God because, look, we've got 150 books and 150 letters in a book that shows you that it's expressive. And that's tradition. That goes back before hymns and everything.

This was the expressive worship. God desires that we be expressive. Expressive today. Expressive. Secondly, all your mind.

God desires us to worship Him with all our mind. It means I worship God by focusing my attention on Him. I focus my attention on Him. That means I start my day off mentally thinking about Him. That means I worship God by focusing my attention on Him.

That means I worship God by focusing my attention on Him. That means I worship God by focusing my attention on Him. That means I worship God by focusing my attention on Him. I'm connecting with Him first thing in the morning. Before I go to Twitter, before I go to Instagram, before I go to my mail, before I do anything, I decide, I make it intentional that I'm going to connect with God, and I'm going to think about Him, and I'm going to get Him in my mind and my thoughts, and I'm going to go to His Word, and I'm going to spend time with Him, and I'm going to listen to Him, I'm going to put that together.

Now, I'm not saying that that's an hour on a morning session or something like that. It's different for everybody. I'm talking about a lifestyle of keeping my mind and thoughts on Jesus all the time, that I walk through the day, I talk to Him regularly, I spend time with Him, I'm keeping my mind focused, when the things of the day come at me, and my mind begins to wander to other things, or wander to my flesh, or go other directions, I lean in, my mind leans back into God. I begin to quote Scripture. That's why Scripture memorization is so important, that we can have those weapons available to us, so we can pull them out when our minds begin to focus on other things, so I worship God with all my mind.

It's not just a time I choose, it's a life I live. It's prayerful conversation every day. And thirdly, it says this, with all your strength. With all your strength. I worship God by using my abilities.

That everything I am, my very being, all that I do, everything. I'm all in, God. That, that, that, that, not just my mind, not just my soul, but, but, and I'm thankful that we have volunteers, we have serve teams here, we have people that come in every week and put this together. Praise God. I want you to give them a hand clap, the people who are given all their strength.

And your strength's different than my strength. My strength today is, is speaking, is communicating up here in front of you. It's just leaning in. If I didn't decide that, uh, uh, 17 years ago when God called me to ministry, if I didn't make that decision, uh, uh, I wouldn't be up here today. I, you know, he, he said, I, I need you to worship me with all your strength.

So all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. As the worshipers come up, because this is worship time. My question for you is, are you all in? Because I think that will bring about the greatest encounter, revelation that you'll ever experience in your life. And as I shared at the beginning of the year, I shared at Christmas, I shared it over and over again.

If you'll give God a year of your life, or you say, I'm 100% in. God, you've got my heart, my soul, my expressions, I express myself to you, you've got everything. You've got my mind, Lord, my thoughts, and my strength. God, you've got my abilities, you've got my, my finances, you've got my, my children, you've got my, my giftings, my ability, my family, my property, my everything. This is all yours, God, and I want to lean it in to you.

So I want to ask you just a few questions today. And this is what I want to leave you with today. There's three questions. What do you love the most? What do you love the most?

What do you think about the most? Second question, what do you think about the most? And the third one is, what do I do the most? What do you do the most? What do I love the most?

What do I think about the most? And what do I do the most? and whatever you love, whatever you think about and do the most probably has your love and intention. What I do the most, I think about the most, I'm involved in, love the most probably has See, God doesn't care that you have other loves. He just wants to be first.

He doesn't care if you have other things that your heart is drawn and pulled towards. He just wants to make sure your heart is fully drawn towards Him first. He wants you to be first in His life. He wants you to make a decision that I am yours first, Lord. And the beauty of it is when we make Him first, there's a principle of firstfruits first even in our spiritual lives that when we put Him first.

See, He's a jealous God. And a lot of people are like, wow, how can a God be jealous? But you don't understand the jealousy of a God. The jealousy of a God is a jealousy that is best for you. That He loves you that much that He has to be the only God.

He has to be the only thing. So, I submit to you today, is that you? Do you have Him first in your life with all heads bowed and eyes closed? This moment, I want to pray for you. Everybody is on a different spiritual journey.

I would back up and say we're all on the same spiritual journey, actually, but we're in different places on the journey. We're all on the same journey to God. And there's only one God we're all journeying towards. And some of you, maybe you've been a believer for a while, but you're still at the weeping stage that David was feeling at that time, and you haven't leaned all in in worship. Because the creator of who you are, the one who saved you, who rescued you, He doesn't want that other thing in your life to be in the way of what He wants to do in your life.

So, if that's you today, if you've had a strong desire to be, if some of these questions that I asked today that I shared with you, if you're like, oh, that's me, Pastor. Pastor, I need to lean in more. I need to, I really struggle with this. I want to be, if that's you today, I want to pray for you. If you just gently lift your hand and just say, God, I'm ready to be 100% in.

I don't want to just be 50, and I see the hands going up. We don't want to just be honest here in the presence. Nobody's looking around. I just want to know who you are so I can just pray with you over this place. Amen, amen, amen, amen.

God, I pray over these people who are ready to make a stand, that are ready to lean in, to be 120% in with you. God, today, I'm believing that, God, the Spirit of God is going to do something amazing in their lives as they have made the first. That's the first act of worship, God, that we say, we're in, God. We're in, God. We're fully in.

In Jesus' name, if you put those hands down with the same spirit, every outline. There are some of you here that have never even taken the first step because it really starts, the being all in starts with a relationship with Jesus Christ. You've explored other religions. You've explored other ideas and philosophies. You've tried to do it for yourself so many times, and you just feel empty, and you feel stuck, and you feel like you're in a dark place.

That's because you haven't found life in Jesus. You haven't found a friend in Jesus. Can I tell you, he is indeed a friend. He's the creator of the world and flesh, and he came down and made a way for you so that you didn't have to be in that darkness anymore, that you didn't have to be in that emptiness anymore, that you didn't have to be stuck. He wants your life, he wants your soul, but he doesn't want it just because he's jealous ending of itself.

He wants it because he loves you, and he died for you, and he wants you to be with him and experience the fullness of life throughout eternity and beyond. He wants you to meet me, and have to be with him forever. He wants you. Today is the day to make that choice. If that's you, I'm not going to embarrass you.

I'm not going to have you come up to the front or anything like that, but I want you to make a very bold statement today. By lifting your hand and saying, that's me, Pastor. I'm ready to make a commitment to Jesus. I'm ready. I'm ready.

Or anybody else? This is the time. Eternity is present now. Put those hands down and just pray. Father, in the name of Jesus, just pray this with me.

I believe that you are the Son of God and you died on the cross for a sin. Today I receive you as Lord and Savior of my life. I no longer have any other gods. And the way of who you are. You're my God.

And I know you died on the cross for my sin. So come into my life. Come into my heart. Change me from the inside out. Make me new.