God Doesn't Give Up | With Craig Hilbing

Oh, welcome crossing family. Today we are starting a brand

new series. There has to be a place, but

we've heard we've done that. There has to be a place a bunch

of times. But the new tagline is with real

stories of real people with real faith.

I want to welcome those of you joining at all of our different

locations, those of you watching online, and those of you who are

part of our inside family. Last week we talked about what

God did in US and through US over the past year.

And in addition to all the stuff we talked about, we broke ground

on the new multi site building starter repairs on the Camp Dam.

So that way it'll be full of water next year.

Set records in every measurable area, updated our app.

But you guys know this. Our work remains undone.

And So what we, what you may not know is what we're going to be

doing this year. And so I figured I'd take a

little bit of time today to kind of let you know what is going to

be coming at you over the next 12 months.

And one of the things I want to do is I want to walk you through

the sermon series that we're going to be taking you through.

Now. I love all the sermon series

that we do as a church, but I am incredibly excited about what we

have in store for you in 2026. We're going to be doing.

There has to be a place for the next 4 weeks and then on Super

Bowl weekend we will be having a Defend Your Turf weekend and we

will be inviting in Sean McDowell.

Now Sean McDowell is the son of Josh McDowell.

Those of you who grew up in church, you probably know that

name. He was the author of More Than a

Carpenter and helped shape the faith and defend the faith for

millions for decades. And his son Sean is a professor

of Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, and his main

focus is on apologetics. Or how do you know that your

faith is in the right thing, in the right place?

How do you have a reasons for the faith you have?

Because Christians, we do not have some blind faith.

It is a measurable faith. It is a faith that is tangible

and it is backed by history and science and reason and

rationality. And he has a YouTube channel

focusing on the biggest questions about God, morality

and culture with over 374,000 subscribers.

His videos have been seen over 54,000,000 times.

And I mean this, he will become a great resource for you and

your family when you're trying to make sense of the world or

trying to make sense of the word.

And it will be a great weekend for you to invite the people

that are close to you but far from God.

Then right out of that, we will jump into a seven week series on

the names of God. You've heard me talk about this

before. Lots of people will say negative

things about the God of the Old Testament, but what they might

not know is that the Old Testament gives God some of the

most beautiful and meaningful names.

And these names contain power and promises for every seeker

and for every believer. And then we're all going to have

an epic Easter weekend at the crossing.

And then right after that, we are going to launch into a five

week series on marriage and family.

We know that one of the biggest challenges people face is having

a godly marriage and raising a godly family, and we want to

help. Then we're going to do a

three-week series on generosity and Kingdom impact.

And when we do that, we're going to be looking at behind the

scenes of every great movement of God stands a few generous men

and women. And we're going to learn from

their stories, from history, and hopefully as a church, we will

follow their example to believe in God, to step out in faith,

and to serve the purposes of God in our generation and in our

region. And then we will step into what

I believe might be the most powerful sermon series of the

year where we are going to take 4 weeks to learn about the Holy

Spirit. The role of the Holy Spirit in

the life of the believer might be one of the most overlooked

and most needed issues in our day.

Now one of the ways you can help us is that way we don't have a

huge fight between our different teams that work here at the

crossing is we don't have names for a couple of these series.

So if you hop on your app right now, you can actually vote on

what the next those two series, the marriage and family series

should be called and what the series on the Holy Spirit should

be called. And I'm hoping you guys make the

right choice because there's one that I desperately want in both

of those categories, but I'm just trusting the Holy Spirit to

guide you into what the sermon series on the Holy Spirit should

be called. But whatever, whichever, you

only get to vote once, so make it count.

But whatever you vote is what we're going to end up calling

it. And we'll reveal it when we get

into the marriage and family series.

And we'll reveal it when we get into the Holy Spirit.

When you open up your app in the For You section after you take

it, say, hey, I'm here. You can pick on the options for

marriage and family. The marriage and family ones are

fun. Just so you know you're going

to. You'll dig it if you have it and

you can do it right now. You don't have to listen to me.

You can pull up the app and vote.

Then we are going to launch into another Bible engagement

initiative. In 2022 we did Ecclesiastes and

the Gospel of John. In 2023, we did the book of

Romans. In 2024, we did Decisions in the

Desert, which took us through Exodus and Leviticus.

Last year we did First Corinthians, but this year, the

sermon series that I am the most excited about.

We are going to walk you through the longest recorded sermon in

the Bible by none other than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

That's right, we will be doing an entire sermon series on the

Sermon on the Mount for 17 weeks.

And I'm telling you, if you're a new to faith, when you realize

what Jesus is doing, not just for believers, but he's wanting

to do and invite you into you and the Sermon on the Mount,

it's going to be transformative. Then we'll do what we always do.

We'll have a powerful Christmas series and get ready to remember

to celebrate the birth of Jesus. And then we'll be at State of

the Church and 2026 will be behind us.

Now, I should probably clear the air on a couple of things.

One, I absolutely love preaching to you.

I love that you allow me to be one of the primary spiritual

voices in your life. However, I don't want to be the

only voice that is spiritual in your life.

And how many of you? Now, don't mess this up,

especially if you're sitting with your mom.

How many of you enjoy mom's mom's cooking?

If you didn't raise your hand there and your mom sit next to

you? That's weird.

OK, guess we're going out to eat.

All right, OK, yeah, I love moms cooking, man.

I love it. But sometimes I like it when we

get to go out to eat and we get to try something that we haven't

tried before, eat something we haven't eaten before, or we just

get to show up and allow somebody else to to service in a

really big way. And so every year what I try to

do is I try to give you as much of Mama's home cooking as I

possibly can, but over the course of the year, I actually

like to take you out to eat and allow other people to come in

and speak words of wisdom into your life.

And so this year we're going to have another incredible lineup

of leaders and pastors from across the country that will

come in, I think four or five times that we're going to come

in and share with us. And I am really excited about

our guest speaker lineup for 2026 especially.

Well, I don't want to give it away.

The hope is that through these series and through all of our

speakers that this will be a great year of spiritual growth

for you and for those you love. However, you will not grow as

much as you need to grow if you are only eating spiritually once

a week on the weekend. If you are wanting to become all

you are to become in Christ, it will not happen if you have a

weekly routine but you don't have a daily discipline.

So how do you establish a daily discipline in the Lord?

Let me walk you through it. The first thing you need is you

need a time. You need to make a commitment.

Hey, when am I going to spend time with the Lord?

For me it is. I don't say it's the first thing

I do in the day. It is the first thing I do once

my kids are away from me. Because trying to have a quiet

time and your kids ask you questions is hard.

So for you, depending on your season of life, you need to pick

a time. Then you need to pick a place.

Where are you going to go to have that time?

For me, it's either my Home Office or the desk in my Home

Office, or it is the desk at my office at work.

That as soon as I get there, before I do anything else,

Jennifer rehabbed one of our closets upstairs.

Sometimes she goes up there, sometimes she just does it on

the bed, 'cause you know, she's cool.

You might choose. And then you're going to need a

Bible. Now when I talk about Bibles, I

want to give you a little insight.

I'm a big fan of all the apps and all the things that are out

there. But one of the reasons why I

really like a paper Bible is because it doesn't send you

notifications from your friends. It sends you notifications from

God. And if you're like me, you pull

up your iPad and next thing you know, you get notifications on,

you know, how the bears did last night.

And that can, you know, you can go, yeah, that was for a couple

of. No, you guys are asleep.

All right, Well, listen. So what I want to do is I want

to give you a couple of notes on how to get a Bible.

So one the translation that our church uses almost all the time

is the NIV and if you are a person who's going I want to

understand the word of God a little bit more, I'm going to

encourage you to get an NIV study Bible.

This is the Bible I got before I started the campus up in Macomb.

In fact, inside of here it has Jennifer checking in Kennedy.

The first time Jennifer was no was was a Hensel.

I put that in there. I was like you belong to me now.

So you now for those of you who are young in your faith, let me

say something. When you get an NIV study Bible,

there's a line at the bottom of every study Bible.

Everything below that line is a really smart person who has

spent a lot of time learning about Jesus talking to you, but

it is not Jesus talking to you. Everything above the line is the

word of God. So everything up here is the

word of God. Everything below it is the

people of God trying to help you understand the word of God.

But the stuff below the line is not the word of God.

And if you get one of these because you're going to have

questions when you read the Bible, I still have questions

when I read the Bible. It will help you navigate it.

Now, some of you you may have already had one of these for a

long time. You're looking for something new

and something fresh. If this this is like your you

know, fellas, this is like your this is like your all-purpose

Bible. This is this is your this is

your super black eagle. This is that's what this is OK,

now this right here, this is your Barrett 50 Cal all right,

this bad boy, look how pretty this is.

OK, now this is super expensive. This is called a Skylar NIV

Bible. It is an absolutely beautiful

Bible and it will become like an heirloom if you get one of

these. It's going to the kids, they're

going to want it. It lays flat, it's beautiful to

read. It's got decent sized print, and

here's why I wear it. You know how sometimes when you

get dressed up like you just feel a little bit better about

yourself. You get up, you take a shower,

you clean yourself all the way up, you put a tie on or

whatever. You just feel Sometimes I want

an elevated experience with the Word of God.

And so I have a Bible that gives me an elevated experience.

When I open this, I feel like something special is going on.

You, you might be going. I've been reading my Bible for a

long time. I need a little change up.

That's a great change up for you.

What's the next one I got? OK, now this is totally nerddom.

This is total nerddom. OK, this is also super

expensive, but I'll tell you, this is one of my favorite

purchases I've made and I can't tell you how long.

This is called the Bibliotheca Bible.

All these are in the thing. OK, this is turn to your

neighbor and say he's a nerd. Oh boy, get ready.

This is a hardback lay flat special font.

That watch has no verses and no chapters.

If you were to like open a scroll in the Old Testament and

you were to just read it, it didn't have verses, it didn't

have chapters. You just read it.

Here's why I like this. You're reading in the Gospel of

John and John 316 just jumps out at you because you didn't

realize you were in 101112131415.

It's just it springs up on you. It is designed.

Listen to the sentence to create an immersive literary

experience. Girls, you know how you're

reading a book like Harry Potter or whatever it is you girls read

and you just keep turning the page.

That's what this is designed to do.

It is designed to have a font that is easy on your eyes.

So you start reading your Bible and you don't stop.

Now here's what I'm doing. I did this.

This was my I think this was 24. I went all the way through.

This is just the New Testament I've got right now.

I'm doing the old, I'm doing the, the Pentateuch.

Then it's got this is the writings, this is the profits,

OK? The only downside is now they

only sell this with the apocrypha.

So it's kind of expensive because you just throw the

apocrypha in the trash. You don't need it.

Sorry about that, Catholics. We'll talk about that when we

later. But here's why I'm telling you

all this, OK, here's what I did with this one because it's so

immersive. I wrote in the margins all

across it, and that's completely OK for you to write in the

margins of your Bible. Now here's what I'm doing with

this. I'm taking all of the margins

once I go all the way through the Bible.

And this is what I have for my sons.

This is an NIV journaling Bible that is designed to allow you to

write in the margins. And what I will do once I get

all the way through the Bible, writing all my notes in the

margins, is Jennifer and I are going to go through and

highlight everything that I wrote and highlighted in my

Bible. And this will become a gift to

my boys on their wedding day. And it will have all the things

that their dad learned in the scriptures for them.

The reason why I'm telling you this is sometimes you're going,

man, I'm having a hard time engaging in God's Word.

I'm having a hard time learning and growing.

And what I would, what I'm telling you is start an

adventure. Pick a different Bible that

might change the way you interact with the text.

Pick a reason why you're getting involved with the text and start

allowing the text to form you and shape you.

And the nice thing about the journaling Bible is it already

has space on the sides for you to do a spec so you can every

time you're reading a scripture, you can look for a sin to avoid,

a promise to claim, an example to follow or a command to obey.

Now, once you have a time, a place and a Bible and there's

you can get all kinds of Bibles, but we are this one doesn't come

in NIV. It's a special one off

translation. All the rest of these are NIV's.

The only reason I'm telling you NIV is that's what we use 99% of

the time at our church. So if you're going, hey, I want

to be when I read my Bible, I want it to be the same Bible we

were talking about. But the next thing you're going

to need is you're going to need a plan.

And the reason why you need a plan is because you need a

guide. You know, if you're trying to

lose weight this year and you're only going to eat right one day

out of the week, you're going to stay fat.

If you're trying to get in shape this year and you're only going

to work out one day a week, those jeans are going to get

pretty tight. And so I want you to have a plan

to grow spiritually, not a regret that you didn't grow

spiritually. And one of the best tools I

think I can give you is Mark Moore was one of my favorite

Bible college professors. He's actually preached at our

church multiple times. And he's written a bunch of

books, but his three most recent books will help you grow in a

meaningful way. In 15 minutes a day.

Every single one of you has 15 minutes.

If you were to get Core 52, it is a DAILY GUIDE that will help

you build your Bible like you. If you're looking to build

confidence in God's Word, have a guide to help you get through

the maze of Scripture. This is like your Disney fast

pass on Bible knowledge. You'll love it.

Then there's Quest 52 and that is a DAILY GUIDE all about

Jesus. It is a year long pursuit

designed to help you not just know Jesus more or know more

about Jesus, but to know Jesus more.

And then his most recent book is Wisdom 52 and it is a 52 week

guide through the Proverbs that helps you live with clarity,

character, and peace. Now you can get resources all

that on your app so that way you can grab as many of the things

you want to get so you don't have to remember it.

All right now why am I telling you that I want you to do this?

I'm going to give you 2 reasons. 1, you need a light for your

path. The world is dark and it is

going to try and trip you up this year.

Psalm 119105 says your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on

my path. Second thing is, is the Bible is

our weapon against the enemy. The Bible tells us that our

struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the

spiritual forces of evil in this Dark World.

And Ephesians chapter 6 says that you and I are to take up

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

the sword of the spirit which is the word of God.

In other words, unless you are a person of the Word, you will not

be able to make a difference in the world.

If you don't commit yourself to the Word of God, you will be

susceptible this year to the schemes of the enemy.

Now, to illustrate this, I've asked one of our elders to come

up and share a bit of his story. For those of you who don't know,

our church is overseen by a group of men called elders.

They are deeply committed not just to Christ, but deeply

committed to this church. They oversee our vision, our

mission, our theology, our initiatives, our expansions, and

our finances. And there are ten of these men

in our church and they come from five of our locations.

Now, they are not like a House of Representatives where we're

trying to get, you know, elders from each and every single one

of our locations. That role is reserved for our

campus pastors who are the point leaders at all of our locations.

And I am incredibly grateful for that group of men.

I lovingly refer to our elders as the our Supreme Court Justice

Justices, OK, because they have lifetime appointments and their

job is to be prepared to stand before God for the decisions

that were made at this church. And did we accomplish the

mission of this church? And for the last four years,

Craig Helbing has served as the chairman.

And before each of our elders meetings, he gives a devotion to

make sure that our hearts are in the right place as we prepare to

make decisions regarding the present challenges and our

future possibilities. And one of his devotions was so

moving that I told him that one day he would share it with our

whole church. What you might not know is that

Craig is a man who regularly lives out what I just talked

about. Craig is a man who has a time, a

place, a Bible, and a plan. And it is because of the years

of regular daily devotion that he can share with power and

confidence what you are about to experience.

So, crossing family, would you give Craig Hill Bing a warm

welcome? Wow, thank you.

I just came today. I just wanted to share with you

the fact that God doesn't give up.

And in Colossians chapter one, verse 29, it says it this way in

the NCV version. And I love the way that it says

it. It says I work and I struggle

using Christ's great strength that so powerfully works in me.

And you know, all throughout the Bible there's a pattern that you

can't miss. And that pattern is this, that

when people doubt themselves, when they feel unqualified, when

they fail, God doesn't give up. You know, in the Bible, when

Joseph was betrayed by his own brothers and then thrown into a

pit, abandoned and forgotten, God didn't give up.

When Moses stood in front of the burning Bush and he said, Lord,

you've got the wrong guy. I don't even speak.

Well, God didn't give up when an entire nation of Israel, they

were freed slaves. They stood on the edge of

freedom and they said we'd rather go back to Egyptian

slavery than to trust God with what's next.

God didn't give up. And when Peter promised loyalty

that Jesus had dinner during the Last Supper and then denied even

knowing him a few hours later, God did not give up.

And when the human hands of the soldiers fasten the divine hands

of Jesus to the cross with spikes, it wasn't the soldiers

who held him there. It was the love of God who held

him steady, a God who would give up his only Son before he would

ever give up on us. And, you know, everyone thought

that the story was over, but God took the crucifixion of Friday,

and then he turned it into the celebration of Sunday.

But oh, how Satan loves to make us think that God won't do that

kind of reversal in our own lives.

I mean, he's the master at making our worries over our past

mistakes and our fears over our future haunt us because he uses

things like our guilt and our shame and our lack of

self-confidence to cause us to step out of the race.

But that's a lie straight from hell.

And as followers of Christ, we need to know this, that the

Spirit of God lives in us, that He will do what we cannot.

He doesn't give up. And I definitely don't say that

as someone who has it all figured out, God is teaching me

every day. But over time, God has patiently

taught me what it means that He doesn't give up, even when I was

convinced that He should have. And this truth, it became clear

to me. I don't know exactly when, but

it was probably about 12 years ago.

And I remember that year clearly because it was the same year

that I had just started to be an elder in training.

And some of you may know my story, but for those of you who

don't, I just want to say this so that I can put this in

context. When I was 16 years old, I was

driving a car and I was involved in an accident that killed my

best friend, and it was negligent.

Alcohol was involved and I was 100% responsible.

And for many years after that, before the Lord really opened my

eyes to the truth of the gospel, my life was marked by bad

decisions and trying to deal with the things that I had

broken. So like I was saying, about 12

years ago I was asked to go on a mission trip to Florida with

some high school kids and a young pastor who's since become

a great friend of mine, Josh Bailey was leading the trip and

it was him and I going down and we had quite a few kids going,

so we needed larger vans to fit everyone in.

And a few days before the trip, Josh called me and he said, hey,

I need to pick you up from work because we need to go down to

the DMV and get the classification changed on your

driver's license so that you can be the driver of one of the

larger vans and then I'll drive the other one.

And so he picked me up from work and we went to the DMV and, and

Josh stayed in the van while I went inside to get the changes

made. And I went up to the counter and

I told the woman I was going on a mission trip and what I was

doing. And she pulled up my

information. And she paused, and she looked

at the screen. And then she called another

employee over. And after a moment, she said,

I'm sorry, we're not going to be able to do that.

You were involved in an accident where someone died.

And because of that, you'll never get that classification on

your driver's license. And so with all the guilt and

the shame that Satan could put on me, I had to walk outside,

back outside and tell Josh what had happened.

And that was hard and it was embarrassing.

And I don't remember us having much conversation on the way

back to work. If we did, I don't recall it.

But what I do remember is the voice in my head that was

saying, do you realize what you've done?

Like you're a fake and you're a phony and you shouldn't even be

on this trip, You see, because Satan knows what he's doing.

And when things break in our lives or were damaged in certain

areas, he knows exactly where to attack.

And what I didn't know was that after Josh had dropped me off,

he went and found another van that was smaller and one that I

was licensed to drive. And he what we did was is he

drove 1 van, I drove another and then my wife and his wife drove

our minivan and we were able to fit all the kids and, and make

it work. And you know, we went on that

trip and God did some incredible things.

And I just think if Satan would have had one in that moment, in

my mind, God would have missed. I would have missed all that God

was doing at that time. I mean, during the trip, two

kids were baptized in the ocean, and it was really special.

But what really stands out to me is what happened on the way

home. You see, we had to leave about

4:30 in the morning because we were going to drive straight

back and drop the kids off that evening.

And so we were driving on this really busy Interstate.

It was 4 lanes. It was going in each direction

and, and I would I was leading and, and Josh was in the van

behind me and we have been driving for a few hours.

So it was daylight when a drive shaft fell out of a pickup truck

in front of me and I was able to avoid it.

But when I looked in my rearview mirror, I saw that Josh had hit

it and the van bounced up in the air.

And he immediately pulled over to the inside lane of the

Interstate and, and there was barely enough room there because

there was concrete barriers on the side.

And I pulled off on the outside shoulder a little ways down the

road, and my wife pulled in behind me and we had walkie

talkies. And I heard Josh say in a panic

voice, the van's on fire. Everybody out.

And so I jumped out of the van and I took off running across

this four lane Interstate and there was cars coming and my

wife was screaming at me to stop, but I didn't care.

I, I just kept going. And when I got to the van, there

was smoke everywhere, but it wasn't fire.

It was, it was antifreeze that was spraying on the hot exhaust

pipe. Because you see, when the the

drive shaft had ripped off from the underside of the van, it had

broken those lines loose and they were spraying on the

exhaust. And so knowing that the van

wasn't on fire, we were able to get all the kids back in the

van. And there was antifreeze all

over the ground and it was hot. And I laid underneath the van

and we had a roll of duct tape in the van.

And I was able to hook the lines back up.

And then we took a case of water that we had inside the van and I

was able to fill the radiator back up and we were able to limp

the van to the next exit where there was an AutoZone.

And and Josh and I got the parts and we fixed it.

And we got back on the road. And I remember driving the rest

of the way home knowing that, you know, all the kids were

fine, but I was covered in antifreeze.

But I had this tremendous sense of peace and my necklace was out

because I've been crawling on the ground so much.

And it's a necklace I got when I accepted Christ.

And on it was Galatians 220 and it said I have been crucified

with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but

Christ who lives in me. And this life I now live in the

flesh. I live by faith in the Son of

God who gave his life for me. And that's when I realized that

God did have a purpose for me on that trip, that I wasn't

disqualified, and that Satan is a liar because our God doesn't

give up. And I said all that to say this,

that every day, you and I, all of us, we face things that we're

we can't do by our own power and strength.

And we just have to remember to tap into the one with the power

that lives inside of us. I love this first and 2nd

Corinthians chapter 12, verse 9. It says this, My grace is all

you need. My power works best in weakness.

You know, there is a reason that the windshield is bigger than

the rearview mirror. And it's because our future

matters more than our past. And we need to say this with the

Apostle Paul when he wrote this in the book of Philippians, he

said, forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies

ahead. I strain to reach the end of the

race and receive the prize for which God is calling us.

Thank you. Great.

Job. Thanks man.

I don't know where you are on your spiritual journey today,

but I want you to know that Satan is a liar and God can

still use you. You might feel unqualified.

You might feel like a failure. You may have walked in here

today covered in guilt and shame.

You might be right now on the verge of giving up.

But our God is undefeated at using broken and willing people

in a mighty way, which means He can still use you.

The question is, will you let Him?

We're moving to a time of decision.

Yeah, it's really not a matter of if or is it, you know, real,

like there are broken people in this room and there's broken

people who are listening to my voice right now.

And, and if I had to guess that brokenness, what you have been

trying to do over and over and over again is just saying how

can I fix myself? How can I get out of this

brokenness? What can I do?

What can I read? Where can I go?

And I just need to give you some really, really good news for

those of you who do not know Jesus Christ as your personal

Lord and Savior. There is no better day.

There is no better moment, there is no better time, and there is

no better place than to completely surrender and start

this relationship with Jesus that you were made for, that you

were created for, and you could be wrestling with all sorts of

things. But I need you to hear this.

When Craig said yes to Jesus, he had no idea how God was going to

use him in the future. He had no idea what God could do

or would do in him or through him.

But here's what you need to know.

He knew enough. He knew enough to know that he

needed Jesus. And I'm just going to tell you

this in this room, if you've been listening, if you've been

here for a while or you just been here for today, you know

enough. You know that Jesus loves you,

He cares for you, and He wants to walk with you step by step,

that you don't have to go through this journey by

yourself. You don't need to continue

trying to do things on your own. He says you can be saved through

faith, through grace that Jesus provides, not because of

anything you can do. And here's what I know.

Every time we get to this moment, there's probably another

voice you're hearing, There's probably some things that

you're, you're thinking and your subconscious that keeps telling

you, man, he's not talking to you.

He's saying, hey, hey, maybe you just wait.

Maybe next week, hey, maybe when all the the world and the

galaxies all align, that's when you can go all in for Jesus.

You're not ready. You don't know enough.

Do you know what you did last night?

Do you know what you said on the way to church?

There's no way you can get in the waters of baptism.

There's no way that God would accept you.

Can I just tell you something and can I just declare

something? That is the voice of Satan and

you heard it time and time again.

Satan is a liar. And we will stand on that truth.

We will stand on that ground. And here's what I want to invite

you to do instead of listening to that voice say not today, not

you. Maybe it's the person next to

you. Maybe it's next week.

Start listening to the voice of the Father calling you, calling

you home when you come into that intimate, personal relationship

with Jesus. There's a story that Jesus

tells, and I just got to give you the imagery real quick, the

story of the lost son, the prodigal son, the voice of the

father's calling him like he's waiting for his son.

And when the son comes back home, finally the father meets

him, greets him, puts a a coat over his shoulders, gives him

sandals on his feet, puts a ring on his finger, and he he

celebrates with a meal because his son, who was once lost, is

now found. His son who was once dead is now

alive. And when you start a

relationship with Jesus, the Father wants to embrace you.

And so in just a moment, the worship team is going to come

out like they always do. And we're going to sing some

songs in response. Some are going to come to the

steps and they're going to pray. But if you are here, you're

like, Nope, today's the day. I'm going to give my life to

Jesus. But you have questions or you're

like, hey, what? What's next?

There's going to be a couple right by the baptistry that

would love to help you take your next step, your most important

step of following Jesus. For the rest of us in this room,

to those who know Jesus, who are walking in that relationship,

maybe you're one of the 1389 people who started that walk

with Jesus last year, or you've been walking with Jesus for five

years or 20 years. Listen, can we just be honest?

Satan still tries to lie to us. He still tries to get us to

believe that we cannot be used, that we've gone too far away.

And I just want you to know, listen, God can still use you.

And I believe that there's something God is wanting to call

you to do. And so maybe for you, you just

simply need to just listen a little bit more, lean in a

little bit more, commit to spending more time with him.

Maybe during this song, your step would just to become up to

these steps to get down on your knees and ask God to do this.

Would he light a fire inside of you to pursue him even more on a

daily basis? Would you ask God to give you a

direction or a word or a or a name that you could go, but just

trust that he wants to lead you to your next step?

Would you stand with me? Let's pray and let's let's

respond. Let's ask God to light a fire

inside of us. God, you are everything.

You are everything, everything we do.

You are so good. What a God you are and we're

going to sing that out. What a God you are that you made

away when it seemed like there was no way like it.

It doesn't make sense the type of love that you have for us.

But God right now in in humility, I pray God that we

just OfferUp our praise, OfferUp our surrender, OfferUp our time,

OfferUp our mind and our hearts to you in this moment.

Would you speak to us? Would you move in us?

Would you use us? In Jesus name I pray.

Amen.