Perfect Christmas Week 1 - All I Want for Christmas - Pastor Erik Kutchen

Thank you for listening to this message from Life House Church.

All right, good morning, good morning, and good morning.

How are y'all doing today?

Doing good?

Who's excited for Christmas?

Okay, good, just making sure.

Sometimes the holidays are not so exciting for people and I was having them in mind.

But I personally had a great Thanksgiving.

Not only did I get to spend it with family, I got to watch the Lions win by just barely.

Yeah, the Lions fan, let's go.

And yeah, and just getting that food baby, the annual food baby, who can relate?

Yeah.

But Thanksgiving is now over, but now the Christmas season is upon us.

Yeehaw, right?

How many have already got their Christmas wish filled out?

Yeah, yeah, okay.

We got a couple here.

Yep, yep.

So if you haven't filled it out yet, we got a little notepad for you on the seats.

So go ahead and fill that out for this Christmas.

If you're an adult, make sure you put socks, underwear, and a t-shirt, because you know,

anyway, as a kid, we always like hated getting those things, but as an adult, you're like,

socks, t-shirts.

You know it's true.

But Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year.

It's that time of year where we get to spend with family and friends.

And while we're with our family and friends, there's totally, we're totally not fighting.

There's totally no drama or attention whatsoever.

It's just the perfect Christmas.

It's so wonderful that the whole family and kids are just sitting by watching those chestnuts

roasting over an open fire.

And I mean, has anybody even seen that done before, by the way?

I mean, I feel like that was, that's so forever ago.

And kids don't even have the attention span to watch chestnuts roasting over open fire.

Heck, I don't think I have the attention span.

But nowadays, kids would be like, no, mom, put the Grinch on, you know, put, and then

the other said, no, no, no, no, put, put elf on, we need to watch elf.

Or maybe it's frozen.

One girl says, oh, put frozen on.

That's not even a Christmas movie.

But there's snow in it.

I yield.

It's the Christmas season that it seems that it's the most important thing to uphold our

traditions.

Right?

The expectation may be that you are going to find that perfect tree and or have the

perfect lights on that tree.

But maybe the tree that you get's too tall for the household.

Maybe the lights that you got, there's a section of it that's just not lit, lightened up.

So classic, right?

You begrudgingly go back to the store, either get a new tree, you get new lights, you fight,

you come home.

Okay, I did it.

And then you get it set up.

And then, okay, hon, it's time for the ornaments.

Let's get the ornaments on.

Okay, I got this one and that one.

Oh my gosh.

Where's the special box?

Where's the one with all the sentimental Christmas ornaments?

The one I got, the one ornament I got from my grandmother's, my birthday party that my

grandma gave to me 10 years ago.

Where is it?

What's going to happen?

Christmas will never be the same if I don't have these ornaments up on this tree.

Anybody can relate with that?

We all have special ornaments.

But it's that moment when your heart is racing, your anxiety is rising, you're breathing faster.

Oh my gosh, we have to find that ornament.

We all have our traditions.

We all have those things that we want to be perfect.

We desire the perfect Christmas.

We may not realize it, but it is the one time of the year we strongly desire for things

to go just right.

And it's not just one day.

I mean, we could deal with one day, but a whole season of perfection, day by day, upholding

those traditions, getting it just right.

No way know how anything's going to go wrong, right?

From the tree to the lights to family getting along, watching your favorite Christmas movies,

so on and so forth.

But we learn that when expectations are not met, disappointment follows.

Amen.

Can you imagine if you gave your kids their wish list, right?

And said, fill it out, and then you gave them everything that wasn't on the list.

How disappointing and heartbreaking would that be for the kid?

And yet God says the Christmas season is not about us, it's about Jesus.

It's about him.

Christmas is not about what you can get, but what you can give as a result of knowing him.

So who would know what Christmas is about more so than any other than Mary and Joseph?

Amen.

They experienced it firsthand.

So we're going to be reading Matthew chapter one, verse 18 will start off.

So before we begin, let's pray for the Lord just to open our hearts and receive his word

today.

Lord, we just thank you for your awesome presence.

We thank you for your goodness, your kindness, your mercy, God.

And Lord, today we seek you.

We honor you, we praise you, and we open up our hearts to receive all that you have for

us today, Lord.

Open our eyes, sharpen our vision, make our hearts sensitive to what you want to speak

to us today, Lord.

And may we hold on to that forevermore.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Matthew chapter one, verse 18, this is how it starts.

This is how Jesus, the Messiah, was born.

His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph, but before the marriage took place,

while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly.

So he decided to break the engagement quietly.

As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream.

Joseph, son of David, the angel said, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.

For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and she will have a son,

and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord's message through his prophet.

Look, the virgin will conceive a child, she will give birth to a son, and they will call

him Emmanuel, which means God whizzed with us.

When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife,

but he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born, and Joseph named

him Jesus.

We learn a lot about Joseph in this passage.

It says he was a just man, a righteous man, so we know that Joseph is the kind of guy

that faithfully follows Jesus, or God in this case, because Jesus wasn't born yet.

But he loves God, he follows the law closely.

So once he gets the news that Mary was pregnant, and him being pretty sure he wasn't involved

in the matter, what was he to think?

What do you think when the person that you love seemingly betrays you?

Maybe he thought, the one person I gave my heart to betrays me.

The person I made a public announcement to, family and community-wide, that I want to

marry her.

I desire for her to be my wife.

I choose no one else.

And yet, and yet, she was with another man.

Mary, this can't be you.

How can this be?

What happened?

See, it was never on Joseph's wish list for this to happen.

He didn't have written down, I want Mary to be with another man, I want her to be pregnant,

that's not for me, and live with the public shame and humiliation of it all.

That was not on Joseph's wish list, okay?

He did not want that for her.

As a matter of fact, the Bible says he didn't want to disgrace her publicly.

Instead, he planned to break the engagement quietly.

The wish list for Joseph was being formed in his head.

The wish list was becoming, I just want to do what's right and be done with this.

It's like, this is too much.

But God had a different wish list in mind, a different plan for Joseph.

Despite the circumstances, Joseph was still open to God's voice and direction.

He just wanted the truth.

And because he desired the truth, God spoke to him in a dream.

That she had not been with a man, but instead was impregnated by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We learn from Joseph that we must be open to God's interpretation of our circumstances.

Every day we face circumstances, every day desires are being formed in us within those

circumstances.

Any situation we faced, we already have either a preconceived idea or desire to end it, to

protect yourself or just get out of it.

These circumstances will always be a testing of our faith.

Is our desire to pursue his will in them or our own will?

The Bible calls these times of testing as temptations, okay?

The Greek word for temptation, just because we all have a preconceived notion of what temptation

is, temptation, the Greek word is paraso, and it simply means to be tested.

One Bible dictionary puts it like this, to put to the test in order to ascertain the

nature of something, including imperfections, faults, or qualities.

So a temptation's purpose is to test where you're at in your faith, not to test you where

you're not in your faith.

Does that make sense?

It's a test to see where you're at right now.

And it's a blessing in that we are given an opportunity to become more like Jesus.

Amen?

Temptations don't come about so you can fail.

Temptations come about to test where you're at in your faith and how you need to trust

God more in the future.

It's a surrendering of our wants, desires in the midst of unfavorable circumstances

in the exchange that we get his desires.

We get his grace for fulfilling his purposes.

Scripture states in 1 Corinthians 10, we all experience times of testing, which is normal

for every human being.

But God will be faithful to you.

He will screen and filter the severity, nature, and timing of every test or trial you face

so that you can bear it.

And each test is an opportunity to trust him more, for along with every trial God has provided

for you, a way of escape that will bring you out victoriously.

So if Joseph is not open to God's interpretation of his circumstances, Joseph never would have

found his way of escape.

Make sense?

In every circumstance, there is a route for overcoming by the grace of God.

You're not trapped.

You just need to depend on God.

If Joseph did not place his trust in God, then God would not have supplied the grace

that he needed to overcome said trial, said testing.

Without trusting God, Joseph never would have received an answer in his dreams.

Joseph was still open to what was happening.

He still wanted God to speak to him amidst the unfavorable circumstance, and he gave

him a word.

So let's go through this together.

Joseph and Mary engaged, right?

What did it mean to be engaged back then?

In some translations, if you read it, it says betrothed or a spouse.

Basically it's an engagement period.

For Jewish culture, it was a legally binding agreement, okay?

To be engaged in Jewish culture was a legally binding agreement.

Once you made the public announcement to the family and community, you cannot get out of

it.

You are legally bound to marry this person.

It's not like today's engagements where two people are head over heels for each other.

You know, they get engaged.

They got all the pictures, the photographers hidden in bushes and this is how I propose

and then move on and say, oh my gosh, we're going to get married eight months from now.

And so now they have from engagement to the day of the wedding, the in between is still

optional in the modern day context.

It could be three weeks before the wedding and the guy's just like, you know what, babe?

I was, it's not easy for me to say, but I'm just going to give you the facts, okay?

I was on my spreadsheet last night, okay?

And I just made a column, pros, cons, and okay, I love her, she's cool and you got a

good job.

And then the cons, you list it.

He says, oh, wait, I was doing the spreadsheet and you know what?

The cons far exceed the pros.

So I'm going to have to break this engagement, guys.

Just don't think it's a good decision.

Took you that long to figure that out?

That may fly now, but in Jewish culture, that's a serious offense.

You're actually breaking the law by breaking the engagement.

Matter of fact, the only way you could get out of that agreement was a bill of divorce.

Interesting, right?

So in a way they're married, but in reality, it was a promise, but a not yet thing.

Can't back out on your promise.

Jesus taught that.

Let your yes be a yes and your no a no.

Once the engagement period began, they legally belonged to one another, but they were to

not engage any form of sexual activity or even go outside their parents' household.

They were to remain with them.

It was meant to be a full year of purity and preparation for marriage.

It's in this time period that Jesus finds out his betrothed, Mary, is pregnant.

Yowch.

His heart sinks, but he looks to God in what he should do.

The Bible says Joseph is a just and righteous man, which means he loves God.

He wants to follow him closely.

And he knows that the scriptures state in Deuteronomy, suppose a man meets a young woman,

a virgin who's engaged to be married, and he has sexual intercourse with her.

If this happens within a town, you must take them both to the gates of that town and stone

them to death.

Yikes.

Secondly, but if the man meets the engaged woman out in the country and he rapes her,

then the only man must die.

Do nothing to the young woman.

She has committed no crime worthy of death.

She is as innocent as a murder victim.

So on one hand, if Mary is not a victim here, she is be put to the, she is be put to death.

I don't know why it's so hard to say.

On the other hand, if she was raped, she is innocent, but at the same time, she's no longer

a virgin.

So even if Mary is innocent, she would still have to deal with the shame and humiliation

of being the one who got impregnated by a man that wasn't her husband.

But Joseph was merciful in that he planned to divorce her quietly and not publicly.

And as he was considering this, considering divorcing her, God spoke to him in his sleep.

Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife for the child within

her was conceived by the Holy Spirit and she will have a son and you are to name him Jesus.

All of a sudden, Joseph's entire perception of what was happening shifted.

It was no longer, Mary betrayed me.

How could she do this?

As a matter of fact, it was, wow, God is in the works.

His plan of redemption is quite literally coming to life.

The best part, this goes to show how open Joseph was to God's interpretation of his

circumstances.

After God spoke to him in the dream, it says he did as the angel of the Lord commanded

him right after he woke up.

Joseph didn't wake up from the dream and think, wow, that was so far off from the truth.

I mean, come on, what a wacky dream.

Clearly Mary is an adulteress.

Conceived by the Holy Spirit?

Okay, that's a good one.

Instead, he wakes up and immediately did as the Lord commanded him and took Mary to be

his wife.

So, in order to get God's perspective in our circumstances, we must surrender our own perspectives

and be open to him as it is happening.

Amen.

Is it possible that God wants to speak to you in your circumstances?

In the circumstances you found yourself in lately and you're not sure what to do about

it, you might think you are justified in what you know and how you handle it, and yet you

don't sense any of God's peace.

You don't sense his presence.

You don't sense his favor or pleasure in what you're doing right now.

You question it.

Is it possible, just maybe, we are not being open to what God wants to speak to us and

allow him to do what only he can do in our circumstances and totally alter the course

of action?

He wants us to surrender our wish list for his wish list.

These are tests put into place so you can reign victoriously through Jesus Christ who

gives you strength as you trust and obey him.

Amen.

It's one thing to trust God.

It's one thing to obey him.

You can't have one without the other.

To have the complete picture of what God desires for us, you must trust and obey.

Joseph and Mary are such godly examples in the Bible.

We really don't talk enough about them.

A lot is said about Joseph, but we've talked about him.

Now we're going to talk about Mary.

Interestingly in both the passages in Matthew chapter 1, and we're about to be in Luke chapter

Matthew 1 · chapter mention Luke 1 · chapter mention

1 in just a second, Joseph and Mary don't interact with each other at all in these passages.

So it's a specific encounter with God concerning the birth of Jesus in both of these chapters.

So we're going to read out Luke chapter 1 verse 26.

Luke 1:26

Verse 26, chapter 1 of Luke.

In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a

village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary.

She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David.

Gabriel appeared to her and said, Greetings, favored woman.

The Lord is with you.

Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.

Don't be afraid, Mary, the angel told her, for you have found favor with God.

You will conceive and give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus.

He will be very great and be called the son of the Most High.

The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David, and he will reign over Israel

forever.

His kingdom will never end.

Mary asked the angel, How can this happen?

I'm a virgin.

The angel, pride that Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will

overshadow you.

So the baby to be born will be holy and he will be called the son of God.

What's more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age.

People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth

month.

For the word of God will never fail.

Verse 38, Mary responded, I'm the Lord's servant.

May everything you said about me come true.

And the angel left her.

So I can't help but wonder, why would God choose Mary?

Why would God choose Joseph to do such a task?

Who is worthy to do such a task to father, to parent the son of God?

And part of that answer is given by the angel Gabriel here.

He says in verse 28, greetings favored woman, the Lord is with you.

Verse 30, you have found favor with God.

So it seems that Mary has a humble heart to do whatever the Lord asks of her.

Thus God found favor in her.

So in order to get God's wish list done, we first need to be people who he finds favor

with.

Amen.

We want to be people that God finds favor with.

But Pastor Eric, how can I earn God's favor in this?

It's not something that you earn.

Grace is not something that you earn, but something God freely gives.

Joseph and Mary did not earn the favor to raise the son of God.

Rather, in humility, grace was given to do the task.

Amen.

James 4, 6 says, and he gives grace generously.

He gives it generously.

As the scriptures say, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

God gives grace to the humble.

What's grace?

Grace is God's unmerited favor.

Okay.

Grace, according to one Bible dictionary states that grace is the divine influence, favor

upon the heart.

So even though grace is unmerited, God gives it generously to those who are humble and

resists giving it to the proud.

The Bible actually instructs us to receive with meekness, humility, the implanted word

of God.

The word of God is received in your heart, in the soil of your heart, when God speaks

a word, it enters into your heart.

And thus you are empowered to do the will of God, not by your own might or strength,

but by God's grace.

By his powerful favor, we are able to live a Godly life.

Everyone understand that?

The word of God gets implanted into your core that you're being, and you are empowered to

do his will, because he doesn't expect you to do his will apart from his power.

If it was in your power, you would get the glory, you'd get the credit, but you know

that you know you can do nothing apart from him.

So we trust and obey him according to his word.

That's exactly what happened with Mary and Joseph.

The angel Gabriel shows up to both of them and spoke the word of the Lord to them.

The angel Gabriel says, Mary, God has chosen you to be the vessel of the Lord most high

and that you are going to be impregnated by the Holy Spirit and you're going to call him

Jesus.

Mary asked the question, how can this be?

I'm a virgin.

Now that's an important part right there too, because Mary wasn't like, yeah, right.

She was like, how can this happen?

And you can learn from that humility receives answers, but pride has its mind made up already.

If Mary had a reputation for being proud, God never would have given her grace.

If Mary were proud, she would have said to the angel Gabriel, no, I don't believe that.

That's not possible.

You need two to tango here.

And I know I wasn't betanguing with anybody, okay?

This is all just an illusion.

Matter of fact, I think someone set me up.

You know what?

I think it was Joseph's mom.

Yeah, yeah, she always had it out for me.

It's just not true.

It's not happening.

God justifies your case, but it never leads you to truth.

It never gives you favor.

How can we accomplish what is on God's wish list if we already have a justified case of

why we can't do his will?

That man or woman who has a justified case cannot do the will of God, because if God's

will does not matter to them, then they will never receive the grace to accomplish his

will.

You may be thinking at this point, just for clarity purposes, Pastor Eric, God can work

through anything.

Those with pride too.

And you're absolutely right if you're thinking that.

Because God orchestrates his plans as he sees fit.

Jesus taught those who humble themselves will be exalted, and those who exalt themselves

will be humbled.

So the plan of God is for the proud to be humble, to become humble, that they may receive

his word and do his will.

Does that make sense?

It's not that God can't work through a proud person, but he wants to humble them so they

can do his will too.

Jesus also taught that many are called and few are chosen.

It can be a scary verse to read, but everyone has a call in here.

Everybody.

God did not create somebody unintentionally to not have a purpose or a calling.

Everyone here was created on purpose for a purpose.

But not everyone chooses to respond to his word.

And therefore few are chosen.

Joseph and Mary were chosen because they were responsive to the word of the Lord.

We must choose to be someone God finds his favor in.

We must choose to be people who diligently listen for his word and obey the word.

That is when the grace of God is.

That's when you start seeing the miracles and blessings that you so desire to see in

your life.

Mary's cousin Elizabeth, who was mentioned earlier, said this to Mary after Mary got

the news.

Mary, God has blessed you above all women, and your child is blessed.

Why am I so honored that the mother of my Lord should visit me when I heard your greeting,

the baby in my womb jumped for joy.

She's pregnant too.

But she says this, this is important.

You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said.

Amen.

You are favored because you obeyed God.

See, we can be people who God finds favor with, and he gives grace to those who humbly

receive his word to do his will.

If our wish list matters more to us, he simply will not give the grace to live that he's

called you to live.

Amen.

So are we people that willingly in humility are willing to believe God, no matter the

circumstances?

Not only believe, but act on it.

Just like Mary and Joseph did, their hearts will humble and ready to trust and obey God.

Like I said, pride, your mind's already made up of what you're gonna believe and what you're

not gonna believe, but humility says I'm open to what you're saying, Jesus.

Our hearts posture for the glory of God, or for our own wish lists.

Are we like Mary and say, I am the Lord's servant, may everything you said about me

come true.

You know what that is?

That's the amen.

That's why we say amen.

We say let it be true.

Let it come to pass, Lord.

Amen.

Mary's heart was to serve the Lord and she knew that in order to accomplish God's wish

list, accomplish God's will, we must be seeking him.

Jesus taught, ask and it will be given to you, seeking you will find, knock and it will

be opened to you.

For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds.

To him who knocks, it'll be opened.

So seeking is an active thing, okay?

It's an intentional thing.

You don't accidentally seek for something, it just doesn't happen.

You know how much you care about something by the measure of urgency that you give it,

right?

And the lengths you would go to find it.

So take for instance that precious moment, okay?

You just finished your Sunday church gathering, you go home, maybe you make another coffee,

have some lunch and you know, the football game is about to start.

You're going home for the Eagles, the Steelers, you know they start at one o'clock, right?

So you go, change out of your church clothes, sit on the couch, and you reach for the remote,

and it's not there, and so you kind of do a double take.

Where is it at?

Check inside the little cushion.

Hon, where's the remote at?

I don't know.

Okay, well I left it here, and now it's not here, so where is it at?

I don't know.

Okay.

All hands on deck.

The game starts in literally two minutes.

Call the neighbors, call your parents, call 911, because this is an emergency, all right?

Y'all know you get frantic once you lose the remote.

The person is in a panic.

The game is about to start.

You're relentlessly searching.

It's frantic, it's urgent, it must be done right now.

Same thing happens when we lose our cell phones.

Trust me, I lost it over the weekend.

It's an emergency.

Nothing else matters but finding that lost thing, the cell phone, the remote.

But unfortunately, that only happens, shouldn't say only, that happens typically when it's

about what we want, because if we really want something, we'll go to the depths and lengths

of urgency to get it done, to find it.

But what if it was what the Lord wanted it in those situations?

What if it was what He wanted?

Maybe it sounded like this.

God wants me to seek His will?

Nah, He's a patient God.

He can wait a little bit longer.

Maybe it's He wants me to seek His wish list?

Nah, He's got a lot of other people to get that done.

I think what I'm in right now is pretty important, so I'm sure God can send somebody else to

do said task.

God knows my heart.

Why does God need me to pray right now?

He's sovereign.

Whatever will be, will be.

You don't have to do anything.

It's just going to happen.

The point is God's will should be taken seriously.

We should long and thirst for God's grace to make the kingdom of God known and experienced

in this life.

It's readily available to those who simply will believe.

Zach, if you'd come up and...

Barry and Joseph were chosen by God because they let God determine their circumstances.

They were chosen because they humbly believed God no matter what the circumstances were.

They sought His will regardless.

They knew that nothing matters more than accomplishing God's purposes in this life because they were

created to do those purposes.

He had a plan the whole time.

It's about accomplishing God's purposes and serving others that they may walk in their

God-given purpose as well.

You ever think about that, how your purpose actually leads somebody else into their purpose?

It's important that we serve God.

It's important that we have a relationship with Him.

It's important that we take seeking His will seriously because it's not just you that's

affected.

It's other people.

What if Mary and Joseph never obeyed?

What if they just, like some parents today, said, oh, here's a baby.

But that's also how we can handle the stuff that God gives us to do.

Say, well, I don't know what to do with it.

Don't really want it.

Serious thing.

And that's not to strike fear in anybody, but have a sense of the fear of God in you

because it's only the fear of the Lord that we get wisdom, that we get understanding,

that we get grace, that we learn to humbly just love Him because if you love somebody

or something, you take it pretty important.

It's pretty serious.

You have to know that God's will, if you just want to be all in and surrender to God, you

don't have to go into full-time ministry.

Just know that whatever is placed in your life, the desires that you have in your heart,

God's placed them there for a reason.

And He wants what's inside of you to come out into life.

Is family God's purpose?

Absolutely.

It's the best darn job that you can to raise your family according to the Lord.

Is a healthy marriage God's purpose?

You better believe it.

God designed marriage to glorify Him.

Not one another, but mankind.

That the world may see that Jesus loves this person like that guy loves his wife.

We need believers that take seriously the call of God in their life.

Many are called, but few are chosen.

Few respond.

Jesus' word is not mine.

It's only by grace that we bring God's influence into our lives.

So today maybe you realize you've been doing a lot according to your own strength.

That you know, you might know that God wants you to do something, but you do it to your

own strength.

And what I mean by that is God says, do this, and you're like, I got that.

That's me.

But you're not believing Him.

You're not believing Him to have that power to serve Him.

Today is a day where we can willingly surrender our wish list to Him.

And that's so that we might get His wish list.

So maybe you did it, you filled out some of those wish lists, you put the socks on there

and stuff.

But simply, that's what you want.

What does it look like for God's wish list to write them down?

And this can be a moment where you write that down, where it's like, oh yeah, that's right.

God was speaking to me to do this.

He wanted me to talk to that person at the register.

He wanted me to hang out with friends today because you really need a friend today.

That's how He leads.

It's just a humbling, a surrendering to see what He wants to speak.

And know this, He doesn't want you to just fulfill your own wish list.

He will find ways to divert you into His wish list.

Remember the whole pride falling down and that they may be humble?

That's what He likes to do when we're not listening.

He's saying on His wish list, I wish you would just forgive your spouse.

I wish that you could just trust me.

I know it hurts, but I just wish you would forgive them and bless them, love them like

I called you to.

He's saying, I really know you want to marry so and so, but you just have to trust me right

now.

It's not that time.

Trust my process.

He's saying, I know your heart's hurt and it's hardened to me.

I just wish you would hand it over the keys to your life.

Give them to me and I'll do the driving.

You just be the passenger with me.

I'll drive you places you never thought you could go, but you got to hand over the keys

to your life and join me for the ride.

Are you willing to do that today?

Matter of fact, let's just stand up.

The very core of our being is our hearts.

What you allow into your heart will direct your life.

And so, ask yourself this question.

Am I spending time in God's word?

Am I readily listening to him more than I desire YouTube, more than I desire texting

or whatever?

Not that those are bad things, but whatever you fill yourself with, it will direct you.

It will take you back to where you heard it.

Okay?

This is a time where we can surrender those things.

Put our hands into the Lord's care.

Hear him.

Be loved by him.

Be embraced by him.

To be a child of God.

So with that to you today, we want to pray with you.

Don't pass this up, because God wants you.

He's seeking you out so you can accomplish his purposes.

Amen?

You guys ready?

All right.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you that your heart is pure and kind and loving.

God, we make mistakes, but we return to you, because you don't condemn us.

You don't shame us, Lord.

You bring us back to yourself.

And Lord, we just say, your will be done.

Not my will, but yours be done.

You're the only thing that matters.

And Lord, we know when we love you, when we serve you, things fall into place.

Even despite unfavorable circumstances, Lord, we can be vessels that shine the light of

Christ.

That we can be people that have grace to change our atmospheres.

So God, right now, I just pray you continue to speak to these individuals.

An active step into surrender, Lord.

An active step into your will.

And God, we just give you glory.

We give you honor.

We totally change what we see in order to see what you see.

Lead us, Lord.

Lead us into those circumstances where you would have for us.

Test our faith.

We dare you.

Because if it means being closer to you, Lord, we're all for it.

If it means having more favor, more ability to glorify you, God, I'm in.

We're in.

Fear can leave.

Anxiety can leave.

Our doubts can vanish all by one word, Jesus.

We thank you, Jesus, for all that you're doing and continue to do.

And Lord, let us hold on to the word that you've spoken today and hold firmly to it.

That we may change someone's life that you're calling out today and forevermore.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Believe it or not, God chose you.

He's chosen you to do His will.

But it takes humility.

It takes seeking.

He chose you.

Let's respond.

Amen?

Thank you for tuning in to this message from Lifehouse Church.

We pray that you were impacted powerfully by this message.

If you have been personally affected by our ministry and you would like to partner with

us as we love God, love people every day, visit our website at www.lifehousecog.com.