The Buck Starts With You

I was hot a second ago. Yeah. So I had my microphone cut off because that was me making the speakers go crazy. So again, it's so good to have you here today. Welcome to Salt Church.

I am so excited about the message today. I think it's going to be inspiring. I hope you're online with us if you weren't able to make it to church today. But before we start, I want to reiterate, bring back, we've got a big week next week, guys. The Turkey Drop is happening next week.

I expect to see everybody here with frozen turkeys in hand. We have a 250 turkey goal next week to bless families in need. We're partnering with the JCOC. There will be Dave's barbecue here. We'll have all kinds of things for the kids.

We make it fun. It's an event. Come out. Let's do some Thanksgiving together. Amen.

We give in thanks to what God has done for us. So don't miss out next week. It's a big, big, big week. And the news channel will be here. It's turned into a really big thing for our community.

And it means a lot that you guys are here and present and a part of what's happening here at Salt Church. Also, I want to recognize all of our veterans today. It is Veterans Day weekend. If you are a veteran, somebody who has served in our country in some way, and would you stand with us so that we can just celebrate you? Thank you so much for your sacrifice, everything you've done, everything you've done to keep our country, to keep us in this free nation.

We are able to worship here freely today because of these people that have served our country and protected our freedom. We thank you so much. We thank you so much. How many of you want an overflow in your life? We started our message series.

Oh, amen. Hallelujah. How about you guys online? Just start waving. Start waving.

By the way, if you're on our Facebook page, we are sending you over to YouTube. We're pumping through YouTube today because we've had some challenges with our Facebook blocking us and stuff, so we're going over to YouTube. So head over there as quick as you can if you're looking for us. But yeah, I'd love to have overflow in my life, and God wants us to have overflow. In fact, Proverbs says, It says it like this, honor the Lord with your wealth and the first fruits, your first fruits, the first fruits of all of your crop, then your barns will be filled with overflowing.

We need some barn people, amen. Last week, if you want to go back and hear that message, if you haven't heard it, we talked about moving from the bag mentality to the barn mentality. And today, I want to talk about something that I believe that most bag mentality people have. What is a bag mentality? If you weren't here, just a quick review.

It's found in Haggai 1, 5 and 7. It says, Now this is what the Lord Almighty says. Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvest little. You eat, but never have enough.

You drink, but you're never filled. You put on clothes, but you're not warm. You earn wages, this is the part where we get the idea, only to put them in a purse with holes in it. This is what the Lord Almighty says. Give careful thought to this.

Think about this for a minute. When you have a bag in your hand and you hold on to that bag, what happens? It deteriorates. The coinage in the bag deteriorates and it falls, and it's like we never have enough. It's this mentality, I never have enough.

And it puts fear in our hearts. I don't think people have a problem with understanding, if we're believers at least, we don't have a problem understanding that God can supernaturally overflow our barns. I think there's a fear factor there. I think we were faced with fear. I think we need to...

that's the devil's ploy is to bring fear into our hearts. And for so many people, with the way things are right now, you're afraid. Maybe you've lost money. Maybe you're in a place where you feel so strapped. And a large portion of our country is in debt.

We're in debt to our eyeballs. If we're in debt, how can we even have the freedom to be able to give freely? And we're not being taught well by our government. I mean, it seems like the national debt is just rising and rising and rising. And then we just decide, okay, we're in a tough place.

Let's just pump more money that we don't have into something because we need it right now. And then people get the money and they go out and they just...what do they do? They don't save it. They spend it.

And that's what the government wants you to do, to spend the money. And there's nothing wrong with that because it helps the economy. I get that out debt. We're living in debt. So many people have debt in their lives and we're upside down.

And we know...we don't know where our money's going, right? We don't know what's happening to our money. I'll get my paycheck and it's gone. So how do we break free of this?

Well, first of all, we need to know how we got there in the first place. How do we get there? Well, the first thing we do is we believe a lie. We believe a lie. And your enemy has one weapon and that's lying.

It says he's the father of you. He's the king of lies. He lies all the time. And he'll say, isn't that better over there? Isn't that what they have better?

Isn't she better? Isn't he better? Isn't it better? And this is in every area of life. This isn't just money.

This is what we're triggered on all the time. Wow, I could have that. And I could have it now. And I want it now. I need it now.

And the devil tells us, you know what? The grass is greener on the other side over there. Isn't that nice, flourishing green grass? But what they don't tell you is that there's manure all in that grass. And that's what's making it so green.

And the water bill is a lot higher over there to keep the grass green. Because it will always cost you something if you believe the lie. And there's a few things we believe about money in particular. We believe that money brings us security. Oh yeah, it makes us secure.

The more money I have, I'm more secure. That's a lie. You can never have enough money to be completely secure. Ask those who have lots of money and are suffering from a terminal illness. I mean, God forbid anybody have that happen to them.

But not all the money in the world can bring you from the fact that death is approaching us at some point in our life, right? The only security you can have is in God. It's God alone that we find our security. That's why Hebrews says, keep your lives free from the love of money. And trust in God.

He will never leave you or forsake you. Amen? He will never leave you or forsake you. So we say with confidence, the Lord is my helper. And I'm not afraid.

I'm not afraid of not having enough. Because God supplies all that. What can mere mortals do to me? I find my security in God. Another thing is significance.

We think that money brings significance. And this is a really sad thing because so many people are working and working and slaving, trying to get more money and more money and more money to make themselves significant. And if your value is in money, then you have an identity crisis going on, no question. Because your identity shouldn't be on the value of what you have in your bank account. Your money should, you should be who you are in Christ.

Your identity is who you are in Christ, not the money you have. And so many people have lots of friends, but they feel so alone because their focus is on the wrong thing. Who is the real me? And that's why Luke says, be aware, be on guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.

Jesus said that. Life isn't measured by how much you own. So be careful when you place your value in money and the things that you have. And then happy. And then happy.

We think that money buys us happiness, but research over and over again tells us that no matter how much money you have, it has no effect on how happy you are. You can have all the money in the world and people are still unhappy. They can still be unhappy. They can still be miserably rich, miserably wealthy, because happiness does not come from wealth. That's why Ecclesiastes says those who love money will never have enough.

They're trying to find happiness and how it's served to think that wealth brings true happiness. It doesn't bring happiness. There was a survey done, and this is very interesting, it was back in the early 90s. If y'all are familiar with James Patterson, he's a best-selling author. He partnered up with somebody else, and they did a thorough study on morality in America to see where people stood morality-wise.

And they asked this one question, what would you be willing to do for $10 million? What would you be willing to do for $10 million? Get this, 25% of people would abandon their entire family. 25%, pop that up on the board. 25% of people would abandon their entire family.

23% would become a prostitute for a week or more. 16% would give up their U.S. citizenship. That's very interesting.

10% would withhold testimony letting a murderer go free. That's pretty serious, right? For $10 million. Get this, 7% would kill a stranger. 7% would kill a stranger for money.

And 3% would, yes, 3% would put their children up for adoption. Some of you are like, I'll do that for free, okay? Just kidding. So why, why, why? Because both secular and biblical sources point to one thing.

Both secular and biblical sources, if you dig down to the root, it's the seed of pride. We're self-absorbed. It's about us. It's not about others. It's not about being generous.

It's about what we get. And that's why Proverbs 16, 8 says, Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. If we get prideful, if we get self-absorbed, we're heading into danger. And if we know what causes it, if pride is what causes it, we have the antidote to beat it. What is the antidote?

It's called humility. It's called simplicity. It's called contentment. See, Satan is attacking our contentment. That's where he gets us.

Oh, you're not, you don't have what they have. You can't do what they can do. You can have that and you can have it now. And you're like, yes, I know I can have it now because I deserve it. But you need to be, we need to be people of humility.

Whenever we have success in our lives, it's easy to get caught up in us doing it. That's why. and I know you haven't died yet. There we go. But the best people, the most humble people that are successful are those who are on their knees during success.

They're humbly, Lord, I wasn't able to do this without you. I cannot continue to do this without you. I give you the glory in all this and I continually need you so that I don't get caught up in myself. Because this is not me, this is you. Contentment.

And the one sin that you cannot hide is pride. You can hide all kinds of other sins, but pride's out there. Everybody sees it and they know it, right? But guess what overshadows pride? What shines brighter than pride is humility.

Humility will overcome pride. So we don't believe that lie. It's a lie to believe that that brings happiness and brings hope, that money and having more brings hope. And then if we dip into that lie and we start to believe that lie, we engage in self-destructive behaviors. And this goes in every area of life.

Pride comes in. We believe the lie. Satan speaks to us. And when we start acting on that lie, self-destructive behaviors happen. We end up spending where we don't need to spend.

We keep going in debt deeper and deeper because we believe that we need it, right? I've got to have it now and I deserve it, right? I'm not doing anything bad. I'm not harming anybody by doing this or spending this or being involved in that. It's not really hurting anybody else, which is also a lie because it does eventually hurt others.

And it hurts you. That's the person that's hurting. Or you say, I need this. I need this. Proverbs 14 says it like this.

They're a way of life that looks harmless enough. It looks like it's not that big of a deal. It's not going to hurt anybody. But look again, it leads straight to hell. I love how the message is so direct with that.

It's a downward path that comes to places where you can have... It will be hell on earth for you. It will be bad for you. It looks good, but that's what the devil does. He's deceitful.

Number three, we associate ourselves from those who can help. When we get to that self-destructive stage and we don't deal with it there, it starts going that downward spiral into isolation from other people. People that can help you and even isolation from God. We isolate ourselves. We put on the mask and we say things like, I don't owe an explanation to anyone.

They don't understand me. I've heard this so many times. They just don't understand. You don't understand what I'm going through. You have no clue what I'm going through.

How can you even begin to relate to what I'm going through? I can't help myself. I just can't help it. That's who I am. I just cannot beat this.

I don't need... I don't want anyone to know I'm embarrassed about it. They become embarrassed about it. And the big thing is they say, I can do it on my own. I'm able to beat this on my own.

And I don't want you... Oh, there it is. Thank you. To have to do that on your own, because nobody can do anything on their own. That's why Proverbs says, whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire, he breaks out against all sound judgment.

It's hard to have good sound judgment when we don't have people in our lives, people that we can bring in to help and guide us and show us. And then this is the place I hope nobody gets, because if we don't deal with it at those three levels, it comes to this fourth level, and it's, we find ourselves in a really dark place. We feel like we just can't get out. We're so deep, how do I ever get out? How am I so deep in debt?

I don't think I'll ever get away from it. An average American has about 16 credit cards. I mean, that's how much we just want to spend and go in debt. We're prone to it. And maybe you've made some dumb decisions, you know, when you were younger.

I mean, all of us can relate. You probably know what it's like to not be thinking through things. I remember when I was a teenager, we had these things called CDs, and these CDs. Some of you say, well, cassettes. I was sort of in the cassette period, and I moved into the CD period, you know, when I was a teenager.

We were kind of bouncing back and forth. I had the cassette player and the CD player in the car. I had the mobile CD player in the car that would skip when you hit a bump. It's like, zik, zik, zik, zik, right? And there was this company called Columbia House.

Do y'all remember Columbia House, where you get like 20, 15 CDs? Free CDs! And all you have to do is put a little penny on a piece of paper, put it in the mail, and that's it. Boy, they had you then, because the next CD that you bought was about 30 bucks, and 30 bucks was a lot back then. And then, as kids, you kind of miss the period, the grace period, and then you even have to pay more.

So, I mean, it's hard when we don't have a lot of knowledge and don't have people to help us and guide us. And when we're in those dark places, sometimes we get in really, really dark places, and we make poor financial decisions. When you're first married, you might, I need the house. I need the car. I need all this stuff, you know.

And we get into debt, and, you know, that's why it says, and it makes you feel this way, in Psalm 88, it says, You have made my friends to loathe me, and they have gone away. I am in a trap with no way out. So you feel like you're just in this place where there's just no way out. Some of you are so deep in debt. Some of you are so deep even in sin.

And debt is not a sin, but there is, it does, can lead to sin. And you might be in sin, you feel like, Lord, I've heard it so many times. Pastor, you do not know how deep I am. You do not know how bad it is. You do not know how hard it is for me.

There's no way. I can't be saved. I can't be rescued. I can't get out of this pit. It's just so deep.

And that's a lie. That's a lie because the truth is, in Psalm 34, 18, the Lord is near to those who are discouraged. And He sees those. Those who have lost all hope. He sees you, he knows you're there, and there is a way out.

When you're in a bad place, it gets God's attention. He sees it, and he wants to help like any good father. A father would come into a situation and help his child. When you're young, when you're kids, if you've had kids, I've been a kid, and you make stupid mistakes all the time, and, Dad, I've done something stupid. Well, that's okay, son.

That's why I'm here. I'm here to help you and get you out of this. I'm your father because I'm here to guide you and help you until you reach the rightful age of being able to make those decisions on your own. Our Heavenly Father is always with us and able to help us and guide us to make the right decisions, and he's there for us. And if you've lost hope, if you've lost hope, this message is for you.

If you've lost hope today, if you're so deep and you're drowning, this message is for you. 1 Corinthians 10, 13 says all you need to remember is that God will never let you down. He'll never let you be pushed past your limit, and he'll always be there to help you come through it. So it doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't matter how deep you are.

It is not too far. He raised himself from the dead. He can raise you from your situation. You've got to believe that today. Believe that today.

So today we want to turn this around. If you're in that place of no way out, how do we get out? Let's turn it around. How do you do that? First of all, you have to acknowledge where you are.

That's a first step that a lot of us don't take. Perhaps we're embarrassed or we're just not willing to admit it. But we need to see, hey, you know what? I made some dumb decisions. I'm where I am.

It's okay. I've done something that I didn't need to do. I'm admitting where I am. But what happens, we want to put on a facade, right? I don't want people to know.

I don't want people to... We try to put a facade or a mask on in front of God even. Like, God, I'm okay. God knows better. So the best thing to do is just admit, hey, you know what?

I've let things get the best of me. I've allowed my significance. I've allowed security. I've allowed the love of money or whatever it might be to get the best of me. I love how Dave Ramsey says it.

We tend to buy stuff we can't afford with money we don't have to impress people we don't really like. And let's just confess that today. You know, that's what we often do. That's what we often do. And debt isn't a sin, but it takes us out of step with God's purpose.

If we're financially unsound, if we're financially all over the place, how are we able to even function as generous people that God has called us to be? How can we be healthy? How can we be healthy as a church if everybody's just in debt to their eyeballs, right? How can God do things in the world? So he gives us principles in Scripture and he tells us.

Psalm 51, it says, I've been out of step for a long time in the wrong place. I've lived this way since I was born. I was born with innate sin. I do these things without even knowing it. But what you're after is what?

The truth. Truth from the inside. God doesn't expect you to be perfect. He just expects you to tell the truth. He doesn't care about your imperfections.

He already knows that. That's why He gave His life on the cross, because you were imperfect. He just wants you. It's that simple, guys. I know it doesn't sound that simple or feel that simple, but it's that simple.

Be truthful. Tell the truth. Here I am. I'm in a mess. And I'm keeping this before you.

I'm confessing it today. I mean, maybe some of you just need to do that. You know, just say, Lord, I just messed up. Psalm 32 says it like this. When I kept it in the inside, and here's what happens when you keep it in the inside.

My bones turned to powder. My words become day-long groans. The pressure never let up. All my juices of my life dries up, and then I let it out. And I said, I'll make a clean breast of my failures to God.

And suddenly the pressure was gone. My guilt dissolved, and my sin disappeared. Isn't that crazy? Like our bones, when we keep things in, it's like our bones turn to powder. It's like we groan, we groan, but when we confess to God, it clears things up.

It dissolves the guilt and the shame we have in our lives, and our sin goes away. Our sin goes away. So we start there. And the next thing we need to do is actually do something about it, okay? It's nice to have a good experience here in church.

You know, wow, God really spoke to me through that message, or God really spoke to me through that song, and I was willing to open up and confess, Lord, this is where I am. But it means nothing, and it doesn't do anything if we don't actually take steps to do something about it. If we don't actually say, you know what, I'm going to leave here. Develop a plan of action when I leave here. I want to develop a plan of action, not just because I know what I'm up against, but that I actually want to do something with it.

I want to go somewhere with it. So we do something about it. Proverbs says it like this, The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it. Simple people, they just keep doing the same thing over and over again and just falling deeper and deeper and deeper into what's going on in their lives. But the prudent, the smart, the wise, those people, they take refuge.

They see it coming, and they say, you know what, I'm going to plan ahead of time. Jesus said it like this in Luke, so don't follow me without considering what it will cost you. For who would construct a house before first sitting down to estimate the cost of completing it? How many of you go into building something or putting something together without considering the cost? Be a part of the coach there's another way to talk about management is needed.

the b president in the strike position which is at the stage the police completaet name, Mom's will find out enough power, but hey, let me look all the way to account of what happens. You have to consider it a cost. You have to put a plan together. And the first thing people think, when they're scared to death about giving and generosity, I don't have enough, right? I don't make enough money.

I need to get another job. When you're just living outside of your means is all it is. You're really just living way beyond where you should be. And there's some things that you can do, and let me just give you a few practical things, that you can do if you are having trouble with your finances, if it's hard for you to give, if there's some fear in your life because you are in debt or whatever that might be. First of all, there's this thing called a budget.

It's a B-U-D-G-E-T. And it really does work. I know we don't think it works and we know better. And we just use our credit cards and hope for the best at the end of the month. You know, if we're under, we'll figure it out, I guess.

But there is this thing that's called a budget that actually creates margin in our lives. And we need margin. And there's some functional ways you can do that. Now, when you make the budget, you have to honor the budget, right? You don't just ignore the budget, right?

Oh, wow, that looks nice. I'm going to hang it on my wall. I'm not going to follow it, but... And a great method, and Miranda and I learned this from Dave Ramsey. In fact, a lot of this stuff does come from Dave, who's a great financial teacher, Financial Peace University, is take cash out.

What we discovered is we ate way too much food outside the home. I mean, we went out all the time. We ate out all the time, and we spent like three times what we should be eating out. So we decided we're going to have this budget for eating out every month. And there's something really powerful about having cash instead of a credit card.

Because when you have cash in your hand, you're like, hmm, I don't want to let go of that. That's real money, right? Because credit cards, they're not real money. We could just swipe and eat and do and pie and all that. But there's something special about having that green in your hand.

And you're like, hmm, maybe I won't get that today. I mean, there's something really cool about that. So we take out every month, and that's our budget, you know? And when it's gone, we're like, in most cases anyway, it's gone. It's gone, you know?

And try to honor that budget. And then the second thing is just quit borrowing money, okay? You borrow money, you take out credit cards like crazy. You need to get rid of your credit cards if you have trouble with credit cards. Now, I'm not saying that some debt isn't bad.

There's some times where Dave Ramsey would beat me up for saying that. He says all debt's bad. But I would say that there is good debt, but credit cards aren't one of those good debts, okay? Okay? And maybe you're a person who needs to, maybe you've taken out credit cards, 0% finance.

Guess what? These 0% finance, they're really, man, they really know how to attract you, right? Right? 0% finance for 12 months, for 6 months, but most people don't pay it off in 6 months or 12 months, and then they end up with this really, really big interest rate, and then they tack on the interest of every month before then. So they end up paying a lot more for something in the long run.

So we need to be careful with that. Don't stop borrowing money. Start saving money. In fact, Dave says to save up, before you do anything, have at least a $1,000 emergency fund. And then ultimately you need to save up, you know, 3 months of expenses in case you lose a job or something like that, of living expenses.

But before you do anything, before you pay off any debt or anything, you need to build up that savings account and just have that for a rainy day, emergency fund. Just start there. It's small. And then you need to kill debt. You've got to get rid of debt, because if you've got debt in your life, then, you know, you're not going to have margin, right?

And some of you might have a lot of debt. It might be different things. Student loans, house payments, all these things are going on. And what we tend to do is say, well, I'm going to pay off the highest interest rate first because, you know, it's capitalizing more. There's more interest on that, and it would be better to do the lower interest rate first.

But a good recommendation is to start out with just your lowest amount. Say you have a loan that's $1,000 or $2,000. Just focus on that. Pay it off. And what happens, you snowball and you begin.

It builds motivation to pay off other loans. Oh, I got that paid off. I'm going to hop to the next highest loan. And then you pay that off. And then before you know it, you're getting things paid off.

And you're like, look at this. Look what's going on. This is wild. This is amazing. It's a powerful thing.

So pay off your debt. And then, you know, some of you are like, well, I still don't think I'll have enough to get started. This $1,000 that you said I need to save. Well, sell stuff. You can sell some stuff.

There's eBay. There's all these different types of accounts now today. You can just sell stuff. I mean, you don't need 50 pairs of shoes. Some of you got shoes that you've worn twice, and it just sits in your closet, me included.

You can sell some stuff. You don't need a whole surfboard room in your back room. Sell some stuff. Sell it. Sell it.

Build up. Build up some cushion there. And those are just some practical ways that you can begin to budget and take care and build margin. We need to build margin. Angela Cornelia says it like this, and Dave Ramsey uses it all the time.

Debt is bad. Saving is good. Giving is fun. Stuff is meaningless. Debt is bad.

Saving is good. Giving is good, giving is fun, stuff is meaningless, yeah. And giving can absolutely be fun, and God wants us to be cheerful givers, and it can be real fun when we are able to break this curse of debt, this debt that's over us that keeps us from doing what God has called us to do. We stepped out of line. Not only do we need to make a plan of action, we need to not just sit on the plan of action, we need to do it now.

Today is the day to begin to do what God has called you to do. Today is the day of salvation. That's why 2 Corinthians 6 says, I tell you, now is the time for God's favor. Now is the time for God's favor. Now is the day of salvation.

This is the moment. This is the moment you need. This is the moment God has carried you to. This is the moment. Accept this moment.

Seize the moment. Seize the moment. Allow the moment to be the moment that you take command of your life, that you take command of your finances so that you can in turn be a spiritual and generous giver. That you can change. Look, look, if we do it now, if we do it now, imagine, imagine if everybody in here was debt free.

The things we could do, the health of our church, the health of a community that's able to do things for our community. It's powerful. It's a powerful thing. It's an incredible thing. So we do it now.

And then lastly, we humbly ask your father for help. See, we started off the message with pride, right? Pride, being self-absorbed. Now we're realizing that our father, we're humbly asking our father for help, humbly asking. Humility puts us back in the favor of God.

Humility puts us back in the favor of God. And when you're humble and you realize where you are, you make a plan, right? You do it now and God shows his favor in the process. When you begin to walk towards God, God begins to walk towards you. God is standing right beside you.

In fact, he's there waiting right now. He's there. He's just waiting for you to take that step. Take that next step. Do it now.

Whatever it might be in your life. I'm not just talking about money. Maybe you're in something else. And you feel like you're just so far, so far away. God is right there, ready to receive you.

But it takes humility. You need the father. You need the father's help. You need to pray for the father. 1 Peter 5, 5 and 7.

God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. Humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him for he cares for you. And it really is that easy. Yeah, y'all can clap.

I mean, it's not illegal to clap. All of our anxiety, we can cast on Him. Humility is what we're looking for. And we need to have humility in our finances. We need to eliminate fear, trust God, be humble, create margin.

We need to give so that you can be generous on all occasions. He wants us to be generous on all occasions. That's what overflow is about. We need to be a part of creating overflow. It starts with us admitting where we are.

You know, Lord, I've done it wrong. I've done it my way for a long time. But, you know, your principles, I'm going to give it a shot. And I'm not going to live in fear. I'm going to begin to make steps to create margin in my life so that your Spirit can work through my life to carry me to places that I didn't think I would go or I would need to go or I could do the things I could do.

He can do above and beyond what you can even think or imagine in His name. And He wants to use you as powerful agents for His kingdom, His kingdom purpose. And prayer does really work. And your Heavenly Father owns the cattle of a thousand hills. Did you know that?

Your Father owns it all, okay? Everything that you have, everything that's been given to you has been given to you by your Heavenly Father. And I go back to last week as we started the series. If He can trust you with little, He can trust you with much. He starts out by trusting you with what you have.

And if you take what you have and you give it to God and you steward it well, God will create overflow in your life. In your life. So, let's pray. Just join in with me. Father, I pray for this church.

We confess that we can't live another day without you, without your presence. That everything you give us, Lord, is from you. And we humble ourselves. We never let ourselves step out of your favor. We don't want to allow ourselves to step out of your favor.

And we renounce any fear in this house, Lord, when it comes to our finances, when it comes to our morality, when it comes to anything that we may have dipped into, Lord. We are not going to allow fear, but we're going to embrace what you have for us, Lord. We're going to embrace the vision that you've given to our church. We're going to embrace the vision that you've given to our house, our lives, Lord. Each individual person here, we want to give you glory.

And we pray for life. I pray for life, and I pray for hope over every person represented here. I pray for life and hope over every family, every individual, God, that you would create a healthy overflow in their life so that you would be able to work through them to be world changers, to be God people that pours favor out through them. Through the land, through the city, through the highways and byways, creating an opportunity for people to come to You, Lord. This is our hope, Lord.

This is my hope. My hope, God. Because You've given us great vision. You've given us great opportunity, Lord. Father, Father, we seek Your voice.

We seek Your face. And we humble ourselves before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords today. In the same spirit, if you are here today, and maybe you feel far away from God, you are just one step away from knowing Him. You are just one step away from turning to Him today. You can make a decision for Him.

He can save you. He can forgive you. Maybe you feel like, oh, I'm just so deep. I'm so far down. I'm so in my...

There's no way, Pastor. There's no way. There is hope. He is there. And He is ready to receive you.

A loving Father who gave His Son to die for your sin. You can give your life to Him today. Give your life to Him. You're just one step. And if that's you today, won't you pray this with me?

Won't you just believe it in your life and in your heart? Father, I believe that You are the Son of God and You died on the cross for my sin. I give my life to You. I step towards You, Lord, because doing it my own way, I was drowning my own way, Lord. But today, I take the guilt and shame that I'm too...

I'm not able to carry. I'm too weak to carry. And I place it on You, Lord. I give my life to You. I'm completely Yours.

Thank You for loving me. Thank You for giving me life. In Your name. Amen. Amen.

Hallelujah. Can you all give God some praise today? Hallelujah. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Before we leave today, just one more reminder. Let's fill the house next week with turkeys. Amen. Amen.

Let's fill up ... Let's do what we say we want to do or we say we do. Let's put some action behind it, OK? Also, if you're a giver today, if you're new with us, don't feel obligated to give. But you can you can give.

Some of you like to give check or cash. You can drop it in the box on your way out. You can give online at salchurch.org. You can text the amount to 84321.

If you're online, you can do that. Very simple ways of giving. I pray that God blesses you and overflows our barn so that we can be a dynamic impact in this world and you can be a dynamic impact in this world. God bless you guys. I thank you for being with us today.

Love to meet you outside the service online. We love you. See you next week.