Breaking Down the Walls | July 20, 2025

All right.

Thank you worship team.

I just wanna make a little

acknowledgement here.

Uh, this is Robin Chrisman.

Could you stand up, Robin?

I realize that, uh.

Behind you.

We have some tan wood and

your hair just blends in.

So we have been playing auto piano today.

We just hit a button.

No.

Oh, there she is.

Okay, thanks Robin.

As you can tell, it is the eve of

vacation Bible school and uh, the look on

different members of the worship team as

they stagger through the chaos and maze.

But lemme tell you, the next

three nights are gonna be amazing.

It's gonna be awesome.

And, uh, today I want to

share with you some thoughts.

As I'm about to lose this backdrop to

preach from, I figure I better snag a

couple thoughts and, uh, I also wanna

share a little encouragement at the end

this morning about what's coming this

week, vacation Bible school, and, uh,

maybe a little word of encouragement

for us as we serve in that capacity

and what we're doing as a church.

So we're gonna kind of try

something a little funky.

I know you guys tried in the sharing

time to have your own sermon.

Pretty impressive.

Nicely done Bow.

Got it.

But I'm gonna do like a little

ish one, and then another

little tiny clip at the end.

So together we'll make one big sermon

out of what we've got together today.

Thank you, Tracy, for your amen.

That's great.

I was thinking about this song, and

this is my surrender, and I love

this phrase, break down the walls.

You know, this, this knocking

down and crushing all of our

established kind of, not, not, not.

Disciplines and ways that

we try to live our life.

But, but literally the stuff that

we've come to worship in place of

our relationship with God, we do

these duties and responsibilities.

We wanna break down the walls of

religious structure that is just outward

appearance and get in touch with why

those things existed in the first place.

God wants to break down the walls

of what we've built sometimes.

And I've been thinking about this idea

on this castle a lot over the last few

weeks, and this thought has been really

just kind of percolating in my mind.

And I wanna share it

with you this morning.

Uh, especially maybe in light of

thinking about this idea of God

wanting to break through and some

surrender in areas of our life.

I want you to envision this

reality that we are the castle.

That this is a castle of our life.

We've been using it as an illustration of,

you know, the White Castle or maybe the

frozen brick castle ice land, whatever.

But what if we envision this as

kind of us, you and me, we are this

mantras, stone Stronghold, as Rusty

talked about last week, this walled

off fortified place, because I think

here's something that we sometimes

can get busy doing some religious

things or some duty kind of stuff,

or we can look the part in some ways.

But I think that for some of us, and

maybe for a lot of us, our hearts

can be really hard towards God.

Our hearts can be really walled off

from the work that he wants to do in us.

And like this castle, we can give

God a little bit of space or a

little bit of room, but we can

be really fortified against him.

Scripture uses this idea of

hardness of heart towards God.

And we can see in the scriptures

where Jesus tried to do some things,

but because of people's hardness of

heart and their lack of faith, he was

prohibited in accomplishing the work

in their life that he wanted to do.

And for you and for me, we may give

God some, but do we give God full reign

and full access to all of our life?

Or do we have walled barriers built

between us and what he wants to do in us?

Proverbs 28 says this, blessed is the one

who fears the Lord always, but whoever

hardens his heart will fall into calamity.

Whoever fears the Lord,

not terror, not not.

Just horror, but a sense of awe and

reverence and a right place where God

is king and Lord of all, someone who

fears the Lord, not sometimes, but

always in a constant, perpetual state

of him being Lord and him being king.

That person in scripture

says will be blessed.

But those who harden their heart,

who have a stubborn and fortified

heart against God, and they give

God some, but not all, they're gonna

fall into something called calamity.

And that's a destructive, painful

place to be where things come to ruin.

And there is great hard suffering

and destruction in the, I mean,

Russell touched on it, just a little

bit of the things we hold onto and

then they maybe sometimes they're

just gone and they fall apart.

God allows calamity in our life sometimes

because of our hardness of heart.

And in our world in which we live,

we've been trained as Christians to

see calamity as the work of the enemy.

That hardship, difficulty suffering.

That's because Satan's winning this

round, but maybe there's hardness in our

hearts towards God, and he's allowing

calamity because he's not Lord always.

He's just Lord some of the

time and some of the space.

And when it's convenient or when you've

negotiated it, and that calamity that

comes in has a purpose to do this

refining work in us and bring us back

to a place where we fear him as Lord.

And King always says over

in, uh, Ephesians, they're

darkened in their understanding.

People darkened in their understanding,

alienated from the life of God.

Because of the ignorance that's in them

due to what their hardness of heart,

because of their hard hearts towards

God, because of their resistance to

allow God to do the work that he wants

to do and have access to the places in

their life that he wants to have access.

Because of those things, they become

darkened in their understanding.

Or if you pay attention to where our

world's at, when it comes to gender or

sexuality, people have become darkened

in what their understanding is, what they

believe to be true, what they believe to

be natural and normal and appropriate.

Right?

People's understanding, their

comprehension has become darkened.

It's moved away from the righteousness

and the light that God shines in

truth, and it's moved into shadow.

It's done that because of their ignorance

that's due to the hardness of their heart.

They say, no, God, you can't

speak to my life in this area

of sexuality or en gender.

You can't speak to that.

You can talk about Sunday

morning and singing songs.

That's fine.

Maybe you can talk a little bit

about stewardship strategies

and financial pieces.

But when we wall ourselves off

from all that God wants to speak

into us, there becomes darkness.

And our understanding is in the shadow.

It's not in the light and

it's not in the truth.

And in the shadow you believe, you see

things that you don't, that aren't real

and that aren't true, but the shadow

affects your perception and you believe

it's true and you fight for it as truth

and as a great deception of the enemy.

And as that darkening happens more

and more, we become alienated.

It means we become foreigners to

God and the life that he has for us.

It stops looking normal

to walk in righteousness.

It stops looking normal to

walk in gender or in marriage.

Covenant relationship as God

clearly lays it out in his word.

And we live in the shadow.

And we think in the shadow.

And now our perception has shifted so

much that we live in a land that is

foreign to the land that God has for us.

And the ways that we live and

the practices of our life no

longer reflect his design.

And his design isn't bad, it's

not burdensome, is not horrible.

It's not, it's great.

It's good.

It leads to abundant life.

But in the shadow you don't see it.

'cause you're just looking at the shadow.

The understanding is darkened,

we're alienated and there becomes

legitimate ignorance in us foolishness.

We just don't know the truth because

we live in the shadow and because we've

walled ourself off from God and our

hearts are hard against his truth, and

just like these heavy castle walls,

we reside in this space and say, God,

you can't come in and you can't be.

Lord

Roman says this, because of your

stubbornness and your unrepentant

heart, what you're really doing is

you're storing up wrath against who

yourself for the day of God's judgment.

When his righteous

judgment will be revealed.

The day of God's wrath.

Here's the truth.

Hearts that are unrepentant, right, that

are stubborn, that are hard towards God.

Say, I'm gonna live in the

shadow and you can speak some

truth into my life, but not all.

And I won't listen to everything, but

I'll listen to some of the things.

What happens is we are storing up, you me,

we're storing up consequence and wrath for

the day of judgment that is going to come.

And it's because of the stubbornness and

the lack of repentance in our hearts to

say, God, please forgive me for my sin.

Recently had some conversations

with some people about this whole

idea of plea bargains, and I heard,

I heard a judge once say that

looking for leniency and grace in

this judgment said, this courtroom

is not a place of grace and mercy.

It's a place of judgment.

And we forget that you and I right now.

Live in a land where there's prosecution

against us by the enemy, right?

We live in a land where there's a plea

deal on the table where we can come

before Jesus and say, with repentant

hearts, hearts of repentance, saying,

Jesus, please forgive me for my sin.

I come before you.

I confess my sin.

I say, I'm a sinner and I need you.

Thousands of people did it in

California, I heard recently, right?

People come to him and say,

please forgive me for my sin.

I confess my sin before you.

And in that repentant heart,

Jesus makes a deal with us.

He says, I'll take your sin.

I'll take the wrath that you have

stored up and I'll put it on myself.

And in the day of judgment, when you

stand before God, because every man,

woman, child's going to, and in that day

and in that space, when the consequences

do you, I'll step before the judge

and say, no, we have an agreement.

There's been a plea bargain.

We've worked this out and the price has

been paid, and the wrath of God, scripture

says, is satisfied through Jesus.

But for those who choose not to be

repentant and who remain stubborn

in heart, the reality is that

they're gonna face the wrath of God.

When his don't miss this.

Righteous judgment will be revealed.

God is righteous.

What's the root word?

Right?

If we live in sinful rebellion

against God and we stand before him

and he condemns us, he's not wrong.

He's right.

His judgments are right, righteous,

and there is no escaping that reality.

We will all face it.

It simply comes to whether or

not we've had repentant hearts.

That aren't stubborn before God,

but instead give him access.

Right?

This idea here of Jesus

coming and knocking, right?

I couldn't get this thing to work

too well, so just kind of disregard.

But if we're the castle, the crazy

part is we don't have to go out

and chase down this plea deal.

It comes right to our door in Revelation.

Jesus says, here I am.

I stand at the door and I knock, and

if anyone hears my voice and opens

the door, I will come in and eat

with that person and they with me.

This word in the Greek here

literally means to suck.

Jesus will wills with you.

I got a really cool t-shirt that

I'm trying to convince Jamie of.

It's all the disciples of the

last Supper, and they're all

saying, sup, sup, sup, sup, right?

Like to sup to supper.

Here's why that's important.

Jesus isn't saying, I'm gonna come

in and I'm gonna do, he's just, I'm

gonna come in and do life with you.

I'm gonna be in your life.

We're gonna eat, we're gonna

do work, we're gonna play,

we're gonna do life together.

I'm gonna do life with you.

I'm gonna s with you.

I'm gonna be with you.

And what's cool is this isn't something

that's offered to the select few.

It's open to who?

Anyone.

But not just anyone gets to S with Jesus.

'cause see, he's knocking.

Right?

And anyone can do something,

but they have to do something.

What do they have to do?

They have to open the door.

And when our hearts are so stubborn and

we're so unrepentant, and we got the

music cranking inside the castle walls,

Jesus isn't kicking down the door.

He's not blaring on a megaphone.

Hey, I'm knocking.

He's just knocking.

At a reasonable volume.

And you could hear him if the

volume in your heart was reasonable.

But if the noise and the culture

around you that you've allowed to

become center stage in the castle

of your life, drowns out his

knocking, you're not gonna hear it.

And that's why the stubbornness of

our heart needs to shift towards God.

The hardness of our heart needs

to shift and we need to listen.

And when he knocks, we need to respond.

Maybe in this cheesy castle metaphor,

we could say simply this, will you

lower the drawbridge and allow Jesus

access into the castle of your life?

Will you open the door

and let him come in?

'cause he's a gentleman

and he's gonna knock.

He's not gonna kick it down, and

he's knocking on every heart.

Some of us have felt it.

Some of us know what that's like.

Some of us wonder.

And lemme tell you, if you soften your

heart, that's the opposite of hardening.

If you soften your heart to God,

you can hear and you can feel his

knocking and you can hear his voice,

maybe not in an audible sense, and

you don't need to, but you can know

through the power of the Holy Spirit,

him saying, Hey, I wanna su with you,

and I also want to maybe warn you that

Jesus loves you enough in this crazy

castle metaphor to lay siege to your life,

to lay siege to the castle of your heart.

Siege is an old word, and maybe

it's a little intense here in this

usage, a military tactic where an

army surrounds a fortified place

like a city or a castle to cut off

its supplies and its reinforcements.

Forcing it to what?

Surrender.

This is my surrender.

See, that's God's goal for

your life, for your heart.

Not that you would be vanquished, not

that you would be defeated, but that as he

surrounds your life, as he knocks on the

door, that you would willingly surrender.

But it's not a loss.

That's what the shadows

would say to you, right?

Living in the shadow, looking

like, oh man, Jesus is gonna win.

I'm gonna lose, dude, you're gonna win.

His ways are better.

His ways are good.

He offers abundant life.

We get to come outta the shadow and into

the light and find joy and peace and hope.

But the enemy would say

to us, oh, surrender.

Failure.

Loss.

Oh man.

Talk to some people who are

running in their stubbornness

and their hardness of heart.

They're struggling and they're

miserable, and they lay awake at night

trying to make sense of the craziness.

'cause the dots don't connect

and the math doesn't add up,

and there's emptiness in them.

And hollowness, Jesus

loves you enough guys.

He might surround your life and cut off

the supply of evil and cut off the evil

reinforcements and cut off the access to

stuff that's destroying you because he

loves you to choke out all of the things

of this life that are pulling you away

from him, so that you can hear, so that

you can turn, and so that you might, as he

says in his word, be healed and forgiven

because of his crazy awesome love.

He might lay siege to

the castle of your heart.

And maybe in a real simple

way, if we're the castle, it's

important for us to remember this.

There can only be one king.

There's only one king in this

kingdom and in this throne room.

And the question really that we have

to answer is, who's sitting on the

throne of your heart, of your life?

You guys have been

marketed an interesting form of

Christianity that somehow you can

go to church and sing some songs and

maybe help do a youth group activity

and do what you want to do with

your life and give God maybe 10% of

your time, energy, and resources.

And he's cool with that.

You're king.

90.

He's king.

10 works great.

That's not a biblical picture

of Christianity at all.

Jesus said, if you wanna find

your life, you're gonna lose it.

If you want hope and life,

you're gonna give your life away.

You are going to surrender and you're

gonna stop being king of your life.

You're gonna stop being on the throne.

Jesus is not your co-pilot

stupidest bumper sticker ever.

He's not your co-pilot.

You're lucky to be in the tail wing

with him while he is flying, right?

He is the king of kings and the

Lord of Lords, and he's a good king.

And listen, we just got done

celebrating two weeks ago and shooting

off fireworks 'cause we kicked the

king out of our country in America.

We got a little king problem.

Totally understand that we're independent

and we're fierce, and we do our own thing

because Jesus will settle for one role in

one position in your life, king and Lord.

We sing songs with the word Lord,

but we have no context to understand

what it looks like to serve him, to

submit to him as Lord of our life.

And let me just.

Lemme just tell you the truth,

thinking you and Jesus kind of copilot

this thing and team up together.

That's the shadow.

That's not the truth of God's word.

That's the enemy's version of

what it looks like to sort of

play this game of following Jesus.

He loves you.

He died for you.

He's fighting for you.

He is knocking on the door,

and you can let him in and you can give

him access, but you are going to have

to abdicate the throne of your life.

You're gonna have to get off the

throne and step away and let him

sit on the throne and dictate terms.

What's the Lord's prayer?

Your will be done.

That's not my will be done.

Your will be done.

We submit to his will and

we surrender to his will.

And if we're not willing to do that,

Jesus says, we're not worthy of him.

If we're not willing to pick up our cross

and follow him, we're not worthy of him.

And it scares me to death to think

of the number of people who will

stand before that throne in judgment

one day and say, oh Lord, Lord, we

went to church, Lord, we sang songs.

We led the choir.

We helped in youth group.

And he's gonna be saying,

I don't even know you, man.

That's the truth.

Jesus warned us about that.

Do not harden your heart.

Do not be stubborn.

A repentant heart.

A contrite heart.

I will not despise, says the Lord.

We can come to him in repentance, confess

our sin, and he wipes it away and he

gives us access to relationship to him.

One of the dangers that we see in

American church is we have amazing

rallies where thousands of people come and

they say, Jesus, forgive me for my sin.

But they miss saying,

Jesus, be Lord of my life.

I surrender to your will.

Don't miss that 'cause if you do,

it's only part of the picture of

what it means to follow Jesus.

Lord, thank you for the imagery

and the truth of what it looks like

to harden our hearts against you.

Thank you for the very painful

and convicting reminder that

you're supposed to be the Lord.

We're not colos or co kings, but

that we are to lay down our life and

surrender to you, and to serve you.

And Lord, I pray that you would break.

The, the bondage of the enemy

that he has over our head and our

heart that tells us that somehow

being your servant is miserable.

Being your servant is no

joy and no hope and no life.

And we lose everything.

We, God help us to see the truth that

you are good and help us to trust you

and to get off the throne of our own

life and step away and throw open

the drawbridge and let you come and

be king of kings and Lord of lords.

And God for any of us this

morning who are listening here or

online, and we've not done that.

We don't have to come to

the front and kneel down.

We don't have to have a big spectacle.

'cause you're right there

with us in this moment.

And God, for anybody who's

not allowed you to be, Lord

confessed with their mouth that Jesus

is Lord and repented of their sin.

God, I pray in this moment right here, you

give 'em the courage to utter those words

quietly to you to have a repentant heart.

Father, please forgive me for my

sin and a heart of surrender to

say, Lord, be Lord of my life.

I surrender to you.

And God, I pray that as we pray

that prayer in authenticity, that

you would begin to transform us.

And Lord, for those of us

who think we serve you, who dabble

in it all the way up to trying

to do it really well and our

flesh gets in the way so much.

I pray you'd forgive our sin and you'd

cleanse us from all unrighteousness,

and if we're trying to sneak back

towards that throne just a little bit or

ease onto the space, I pray that you'd

help us just to step away and fully

surrender that to you today as well.

Take the reigns, take the throne, and

lead us Lord, into what really matters

and what really fulfills in this life.

In Jesus name, amen.

We have a really cool logo.

I don't know, I didn't design

it, but I think it's kind of cool

for what we're gonna do tomorrow.

Knights of White Rock, and there's a

really cool tagline, servants of the King.

It's a great reminder of the role

that God calls us to, to be men and

women and teenagers, kids who serve.

Not ourselves, but the King of

Kings and the Lord of Lords.

And in just a second, I'm gonna share

some thoughts with you that I really

want you not to miss as we think

about what that's gonna look like.

But there's a few other things going

on in ways that we're serving the

king that you need to know about.

So just really quickly tonight, whoop,

I don't know where everything is there.

The teens are going to the

fair, so lemme change that.

Okay.

Four 30 and the colleges

are going to the fair.

But next Sunday, right after

church, we have a super important.

Teen orientation meeting.

So all teen leaders.

All teen parents, teens of parents,

parents of teens, sorry, all teenagers.

Please join us next door.

If you're coming in from sixth

grade, we're really excited to share

with you some of what's going on.

So please, teens, parents and youth

leaders next door right after church.

It won't be a long meeting, but a really

important one we don't want you to miss.

There's also a lock in, lock out.

I don't even know what this is.

Get locked up.

Some stuff coming for

the teens down the road.

Don't miss that.

It's gonna be super cool.

Uh, get that on your calendars.

There's a men's fishing trip coming

up in a couple weeks and there's

a thing to sign up in the back.

If you don't sign up in the back.

Doesn't mean you can't go.

Just means that we won't have any idea.

You're going and we may start

without you or you might be.

Walking on the water with Jesus.

If you're gonna try to

get a boat, I'm not sure.

So make sure you get signed up on there.

That helps us kind of know

some food logistics as well.

And then we're really excited about

this cool comedy night that's coming.

We're bringing somebody in who's a

Christian girl who likes to share comedy

and use this as a way to kind of impact

and, and share the, you know, a little

love of Jesus in the midst of things.

It's kind of built as an educator's night.

So if you have teachers, you know,

people in education, we wanna bless

them with some ticket options.

Uh, and if you want to come

yourself, you can check it out.

Um, we're gonna be limited in space, but

we're gonna try to make that available

as kind of just an outreach ministry.

So please, uh, take advantage

of that, check that thing

out and that will be great.

Tom's gonna sneak up here real quick

and share a couple quick logistics on

what's going on for where we're gonna be.

As you can tell, we're

transforming this room.

Uh, next Sunday is probably going

to be a confetti fest, so just

bring your high boots, right?

Tom, Tom, step up here if you

would real quick and, uh, just a

couple logistics and then I wanna.

A little scripture and some thoughts

here as we wrap up this morning.

Great job, man.

Great message.

That's good stuff.

Um, the, uh, biggest important thing,

you got your shirts in the back.

Hey, thank you everyone for volunteering.

We have over 75 kids signed

up to be a part of this.

So we normally have like

25 to 30 kids next door.

So, um, it's gonna be a great outreach.

We have over 75 of you guys

signed up, so thank you so much.

It'll make things go, go great.

Um, your shirts were in the

back and a table in the back.

You may have already gotten 'em.

If you haven't, we have

them there for you.

Uh, be mindful inside that bag is a

piece of paper that has great directions.

It'll get you most prepped for,

for what to expect from you guys

and, and from us there for, uh.

For Tomo, the start of

our VBS tomorrow night.

Um, and, uh, and there are

some shields back there.

We have a limited amount of 'em, but

they're, they're a decent sized shield.

If you feel like taking one home

and decorating 'em and rocking

it, uh, the next few days, uh,

it, it, it brings more hype.

So, thank you guys.

Love you so much.

Yeah.

If you've not, uh, if you've not been

a part of a VBS, I would encourage

you to sneak out Monday night.

Just check it out, cheer 'em on.

It's probably the coolest

thing that we do all year.

Tons of hype, tons of fun, lots of

music we're bringing back from 11

years ago with a little twist and, uh,

puppets, confetti cannons, the Standard

Church Day at White Rock Fellowship.

But, uh, what a cool thing.

And the reason I wanna encourage you to

maybe find a way to plug in or encourage

is because we are called to be servants of

the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and

this idea of Jesus being on the throne.

Even a kinda a thing.

The disciples struggled just a

little bit with, we read over in

Matthew chapter 18, this interesting

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

interaction where the disciples are

talking to Jesus and they ask him this.

That was his answer.

He was like, listen up, bro.

At that time, the disciples came to Jesus

and they asked, they said, who then is

the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

They wanted to know status, right?

And this megas word is status and rank.

They wanted to know who was

the most important, who was the

greatest, who's, you know, well

second in line to the throne.

They wanted to know about being

in charge and having status.

Right?

And Jesus does this really cool thing.

He calls a little child to him

and he places the little child

among them, and he says, this.

Truly, I tell you, unless you change

and become like little children, you'll

never enter the kingdom of heaven.

I'm like, what?

That's, that's wild.

We have to change and

become like little children.

He said, therefore, whoever takes the

lowly position of this child is the

greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Sons and servants filled the similar role

in biblical times where Jesus is talking.

A kid was subservient to his

parents, not in charge of the house.

Like today.

A kid did what Mom and dad said.

A kid was not on the throne at home.

A kid was obedient and under the

authority of the king of the house Dad.

That's what it looked like.

And Jesus says, Hey, look at this kid

unless you humble yourself other places.

He says this, unless you become

a servant of all right, who's

the greatest, the servant of all.

A slave, he says, so we lower ourselves

to the status of servant, and unless

we do that, he says, we won't even

get into the kingdom of heaven.

Do you know why he says, you

won't even get into the kingdom

of heaven unless you do it?

Because what we talked about this morning,

because unless you humble yourself

before the Lord and you have a repentant

heart, and there's no hardness and

stubbornness, you're gonna be sitting

on the throne on the day of judgment.

He's not gonna be in the castle with you.

Right?

And so unless we take this lowly

position of humility before the Lord

Jesus says, we're not even gonna

make it into the kingdom of heaven.

Now, whoever welcomes one such

child in my name, Jesus finishes

the thought and don't miss this.

Whoever welcomes these lowly little

kids with their runny snotty noses

and their poopy diapers and their

crazy loudness, whoever welcomes one

of those kids in my name welcomes me.

Welcomes me.

The gospel of Mark Jesus is recorded as

saying, whoever welcomes one of these

little children in my name welcomes me.

And whoever welcomes me welcomes not

only me, but the very one who sent me.

So do you understand that when you

welcome a little child in the name of

Jesus, when you welcome a little child

and show 'em the love of Jesus, and you

surround 'em with joy and hope, and help

'em understand that there's a heavenly

Father who loves him, you're not just

welcoming a little kid, you are welcoming

the king of kings and Lord of Lords, the

one who sits on the throne, God Almighty,

is invited into your presence and you're

not just doing it for your kid, it's as

though you are doing it to him himself.

That's the status.

He recognizes that as.

It's why Dwight Moody once said, if I had

it to do all over again, you know, like

the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago,

great evangelist, Dwight Moody, he said,

if I had it to do all over again, I'd

spend my whole life evangelizing children.

I love that quote.

God loves all of us, but he is very

adamant about how we love kids.

So lemme tell you, it's gonna be psycho

for the next three days around here.

'cause you guys love kids better

than anybody I've ever seen.

And we're gonna have a ton of fun.

And next Sunday we're gonna have

kids up here singing and we're

gonna celebrate the week that was.

And we're gonna honor all the

cool things and we're gonna

share some of the messaging.

We'll bring some crazy puppets out,

these holes and crevices of this castle.

Not because we wanna have fun and goof

off, but because we wanna acknowledge

that when we welcome a child in the name

of Jesus, we welcome almighty God himself

into the room and that he has status in

place right here with us little children.

Man, they, they matter.

Don't neglect.

And man, make sure you welcome.

So I wanna encourage you, whatever

your role is with the 75 people

who are signed up to serve.

You can just show up and we'll

give you a spot to stand and

high five and knuckle some kids.

Make sure that if you're a greeter,

that you recognize you got the

best job in the house, right?

'cause if you're welcome a

kid, you're welcome, Jesus.

That's a big deal.

But we're gonna serve, we're gonna

love, we're gonna do some cool

things as servants of the king.

And if you're trying to figure out

what that looks like to serve the

king and get off the throne of your

own life, you might rearrange your

schedule for a couple days and pop out

and see how you can just roll up your

sleeves and help clean up some messes.

'cause there's nothing like

vacuuming glitter in the

church, or no, it's not true.

Alright, Lord Jesus, thank you

for this amazing church family.

Thank you for the incredible

privilege that we have to serve you.

Lord, I pray over everybody who's gonna

help serve the next three days in vacation

Bible school the next three evenings.

Lord, I pray your Holy Spirit would

show up in crazy cool ways that every

child who steps onto this property

would feel your presence and your

love, that they would walk away saying.

If they don't even go to church, Lord,

they walk away saying, I think God loves

me just because of the love of your

people poured out over the next few days.

Pray for all the crazy logistics

and all the chaos of organization.

I pray for safety and protection,

and God, I just pray that there would

be a whole bunch of kids who get

connected to you and discover your

love in a whole fresh and new way.

I pray for moms and dads that it

would spill over into them as well.

And God, I pray for all of our

volunteers that they would be

transformed in service to you.

We commit this time to you, Jesus,

and God I pray for every other

role, every other lowly position or

lofty position that you've allowed

us to step into as your servant.

And I pray that this week you would

give us opportunity to see the impact

of serving you instead of serving

ourselves in all the venues you got us.

Help us, Lord, this week as we serve

the King of Kings 'cause we're all

knights, princes and princesses in

your family, but sons and daughters

called to be servants, so help us

live that out in some cool ways.

I pray.

Thank you, Jesus.

In your name, we pray all these things.

Amen.