“A Strategy for Struggle” by Pastor Daniel Floyd

Welcome to Gateway Churches Podcast.

Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

Welcome to church, everybody.

How are we today?

You good?

You good?

Want to say good morning to all of our campuses.

Everyone joining us online or on demand later in the week, of course, our gateway gatherings and our prison campuses.

If you're here for the first time, let's put our hands together and welcome everyone that is at church.

Maybe first time or first time in a long time.

We're really glad that you're here.

And as you saw, there's so much happening in the life of the church.

You don't want to miss out on that.

From live recordings coming up over the next few weeks to uh Summerbash, and then of course YouthCon in July.

We're not taking church off in the summer, everybody.

The devil doesn't take off.

We don't take off.

Come on, can I get a better amen?

And uh I know my kids will be involved, and all those things will have them registered because I have a big gap, and they will be in Summerbash and they will be at YouthCon.

And uh because you have a first grader at 49.

It's just what you do these days.

And you live forever.

Uh so um, but it's a good day to be in church.

And uh, I'm concluding this series called Between Sundays.

We've been talking about how to have a faith that doesn't fade.

And uh, we've been working from this uh scripture in Ephesians 4, kind of been the foundational verse for us, Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

And here's the idea we don't want to be immature, and uh because when you're immature, you're tossed and you're blown about.

You're just everything, your life is unstable, and so what do we do?

The Bible teaches us we've got to keep growing, and what we're gonna keep growing in is this becoming more and more like Christ.

That's the whole goal.

We want to look more like Jesus, uh, and he's the head of the church, he's uh he's in control of the whole thing.

And as we do this, as every part does its part, we grow and we become healthy and we're growing what?

And full of love.

And that's ultimately what we want at the end of the day is that we are growing.

If if you don't want to just be inspired on Sunday, but you want to have a faith that on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, no matter what life is throwing at you, continues to thrive, then you've got to keep growing.

If you missed any of them, of course, you can go online or on the app and you can catch those.

I want to bring a message today around this idea: a strategy for struggle.

You gotta have a strategy for struggle.

Let's pray together.

Father, our hearts and minds are open.

So, Holy Spirit, speak to us.

We believe your word has the power to change us and we'll never be the same because of it.

We pray this in your great name.

Everyone said a big amen.

Amen.

So, my oldest Owen, when he was about, I think 11 or 12, uh, we had this ping pog table in our basement.

And uh, so I know we don't have basements in Texas, I'm learning this, but we had basements in Virginia.

And uh the basement, when we built the house, Tammy and I's agreement was all the kids' stuff will go in the basement, and it won't stress us out because it won't be cluttered on the main floor.

We just won't go down there very often.

You all with me?

You ever get you got that room?

It's just like close that door.

I don't want to see it because Tammy very much likes everything put together.

And I was like, we just won't go down those steps.

Uh so we got this ping pong table, and Owen and I would play ping pong, and I'm not one of those dads that lets you win.

I think it doesn't prepare you for life.

Not everyone gets a trophy.

But I'd get a better amen in Texas.

And so I would mercilessly like beat him.

Like I was like hitting it hard over, it would bounce off, hit him in the face, and things of this nature, and and I would I would win.

Well, uh, I didn't play him for a little while, and his friends would come over and they would play, and then if a sitter came over, he would get the sitter to play, and so then I played him again after uh several weeks, maybe even a month or so of this happening of not playing him, and then I played him, and all of a sudden he's leading.

And in my mind, I thought, I've talked a lot of trash.

And and I've I've made a lot of comments about his ping pong skills.

And in that moment, I thought, I've always had a strategy for winning.

It was trash talking.

I haven't had a strategy for losing.

And how many of you know that in life, that's often how we approach it?

We're good when life is winning, right?

When everything's going our way, whenever, you know, the career's moving in the direction we got into the college we wanted to get into, the the dating relationship is going the way that we want.

But I want to talk this week about what do you do when you struggle?

Do you have a strategy for when the deal doesn't close us?

Well, do you have a strategy for when the relationship doesn't go the way that you thought it was?

Do you have a strategy?

Because the Bible says this, not to discourage you, we will get encouraging.

Jesus said, in this world you're gonna have trouble.

Welcome to church.

Aren't you glad you came?

All right, let's be dismissed.

Leave you there.

In this world, you have trouble.

Jesus said, but take heart, I've overcome the world.

But the reality is we will have trouble.

And if we're gonna have a faith that doesn't fade between Sundays, then we have got to learn how to build this muscle of faith, not just on Sunday, but every day.

Because we're gonna face some things.

And you've got to have faith has got to answer that door whenever it comes in your life.

And I want you to think about faith in in really kind of two different ways.

There's many ways to think about it, but for the purposes of today, there's this general idea of faith that if someone were to say, Are you a person of faith?

you would say, Yeah, there's that idea.

Or I have a strong faith, or um, I'm of the Christian faith, that we would speak out of it in general terms.

But there's also this idea of a specific faith, meaning there is this faith that is what carries us through the challenging times in life.

It's it's our trust in God, it's our belief in God, it's it's God, I got faith that you're gonna get me out of this situation, or God, I've got faith that you're gonna see me through this challenging.

That is the faith I want to talk about today, and you've all been given a measure of faith.

According to the Apostle Paul in Romans, everybody's been given a measure of faith if you have a relationship with Jesus.

Some of you may be thinking, well, I got a teaspoon, that's all God gave me.

But we've all been given a measure of faith, and so here's our job is to grow our faith.

The challenge is faith often grows best in the gem of pain, or in the gem of challenge, or in the moments of struggle.

Can I get a better amen?

And so, how do we grow that faith, that muscle of faith?

Because God's expectation, I think, of us is that we would grow our faith, that we would learn to trust him more and more and more every day.

And so I want us to look at the life of a character in the Old Testament named Abraham.

If you're not familiar with Abraham, pretty big main character vibes.

Like, pretty important guy in the scriptures.

Um, and you can go ahead and read it in the Old Testament.

I want us to look at a little summary of his life in the New Testament, in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 8 through 10.

Hebrews 11:8–10

If you're with me, say amen.

All right, by verse 8 says this.

It says, by faith, there's the word faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went.

I think God wants more obeyed and went kind of people, not negotiate and see.

Even though he did not know where he was going.

By faith, he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country.

He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Four thoughts for you today.

If you're the note-taking type, write it down.

If not, let's go ahead and write it down, anyways.

Good job.

Number one is faith begins with a word.

Faith begins with a word.

Now, to understand a little bit of the context of Abraham's story is this Abraham is completely fine living his life, and God comes to him and gives him this word, and the word is this.

We call it uh the Abrahamic covenant that I'm going to make you a great nation, and I'm gonna bless all the peoples of the earth through you, which God did fulfill his promise because through Abraham came Jesus, and Jesus is the blessing to everybody on the earth.

Are you with me?

Say amen.

Okay, you got that?

But when Abraham got the instructions, he didn't get the whole picture.

Abraham got, I'm gonna bless you, I'm gonna make it a great nation out of you, and the instruction that God gave him was I want you to leave your home country and go to a place I will show you.

Not I am showing you.

Some of us like to walk by faith when God gives us point one, point two, point three, point four.

That's not faith, that's a plan.

But he says, just go to a place I'm gonna show you.

This is literally what it would be like if you packed up your car and you got on 35 East, which really nuns north and south.

That was weird when I got here.

And you just started driving.

It was like, all right, Lord, no, no, no, GPS, no, no address to put in.

He had nothing.

All he had was a word from God.

All he had was that God has spoken, and he anchored his faith in that, and we know that he anchored his faith in it because he packed up his whole family and started moving.

Because faith is an active response to a word from God.

And so he he started moving.

That's how we know he anchored his faith in a word.

Now, I want to say on the flip side of that, God's not obligated to bless what you come up with.

God's not obligated to bless your plan.

Some of you are frustrated at God because you took off on something and God was like, I never instructed you to do that.

I'm not, I never told you to date him.

I never told you to start that business.

I didn't tell you to buy that house.

Are y'all trying?

I didn't tell you to go to that school.

And some of you are all like twisting, like, well, I'm not walking by faith, and you know, I'll I'll come to church and I'll I want to check the box, I want to go to heaven one day, I want some fire insurance, I don't want to go to hell, you know, but I'm not gonna really lean into this thing of faith because I tried it and it didn't work out, and God's like, I'm not here.

Let me say this: God's not obligated to do a God thing in a me way.

Write that down.

Numbers chapter 20.

Numbers 20 · chapter mention

What happened to Moses whenever God said, speak to the rock, and Moses got so frustrated that he struck the rock.

He lost the promised land.

Why?

Because he did a God thing, providing water for the people, that's a God thing.

But he did it in a Moses way.

You've got to anchor your faith in what God has to say, in a word from the Lord.

And so, how do I know that it's a word from the Lord?

How do I know it's not bad pizza?

From the night before.

How do I know that God is speaking to me, right?

And what is a word?

And maybe you're new to church and you're like, I've heard people use this church language, I got a word from the Lord.

And you're like, is it an adjective?

Like, are we talking about parts of speech?

Like, you know, an article, a noun, like preposition.

Okay, what are we talking about here?

And how do I get it?

Well, I want to give you, um, let me give you a few questions to help you discern do I have a word from God?

Because that's where you anchor your faith.

And can I tell you something?

That when the storms come, if you're not anchored to what God said, you'll be tossed all around.

You've got to know that you're anchored in that.

Let me give you a few questions.

Let me show you.

Here we go.

Number one, what does the God's word say?

Write this down.

Question number one, what does God's word say?

The B-I-B-L-E.

Yes, that's the book for me.

I stand alone on the word of God, right?

So, what does the word of God say?

I've got to open the word of God.

This is why all the time I'm like, you've got to spend time daily in the word of God.

You give out devotionals with different series.

Why?

Trying to get you in the habit of getting into the word of God because through the word of God, the voice of God's gonna speak to you.

And so as I open the word of God, God's gonna speak to me, and then I'll know something to anchor my faith to.

Now, not everything and every decision we make in life is found in the Word of God, right?

Like, you can't go to 1 Corinthians and find out if you're supposed to go out with Bubba.

It's not in there.

But what is in there is some precepts and principles.

There's some things like don't be unequally yoked together.

So there you go.

Okay, that's a principle.

I need to look for a godly man.

If a man doesn't work, he shouldn't eat.

Okay, I need one that's out of his mom's basement.

Come on, all the dads said again.

Okay, right?

Are you following me?

There's some precepts and principles in there.

And then as you read the word of God, the Spirit of God will begin to speak to your heart and begin to challenge you.

Are you following me?

But I've got to get into the word of God to be able to hear it.

And if if if what I'm sensing and feeling isn't lining up with God's word, then it's not from God.

Because God's not obligated to bless your feeling.

Are y'all tracking with me?

Even if someone else comes up and with a good heart and and they're they share something with you.

I believe God told me to tell you this.

You need to test it against the word of God.

You need to test it against the principles.

Are y'all with me today?

God is still speaking.

We believe we serve a speaking God, but you need to test this against the word of God, and you can't create like new truth.

That's called Gnosticism, everybody.

We don't do that.

We're Christians.

And so I've got to test it through the Word of God.

Number two question I would ask is have I prayed about it?

So have I read the Word of God and allowed the Word of God and the Spirit of God to speak to me?

And have I had a conversation with God about it?

Here's another good question.

Will it make me more like Jesus?

If the word I have from God that I'm gonna anchor my life in makes me more bitter, that's not of God.

If it makes me more selfish, that's not of God.

Does it make me more like Jesus?

Here's another good one.

What does godly counsel say?

Not your broke friend.

Not your mom.

I'm talking about what is godly people.

This is why you need multi-generational mentorship around you.

You need some people that have that have done this for a while and can go.

If you head down that path, I've seen this story before.

If you make this decision, I've watched this play out before.

You need some godly people around you that'll be, hey, you need to stop right.

Hey, timeout right there.

You need to take a pause on that, let that breathe a minute before you take that another step.

Are y'all tracking with me?

You need some godly people around you, some multi-generational people around you that'll love you enough to say, hey, that may not be the best idea.

That may not be of the Lord for you right now.

Let me let me give it the last one.

And I would say, in this order, too, is do I have the peace of God?

Don't start with the peace of God, start with the word of God.

I've been doing this long enough that I've had people come up to me and be like, Pastor, I'm doing this thing and I just got the peace of God.

And in my head, I'm going, that's not in the Bible.

Or I'm thinking, it's really just stupid.

But I don't say it like that because I'm a pastor.

You gotta say it kinder, more palatable.

What I really want to say is how they say it in Tennessee, where I grew up.

That's just stupid.

I don't know how you spell that, but that's how you pronounce it.

Are you with me?

We anchor our faith in the word of God.

It begins with a word.

I need to go through those questions.

He goes on to say that to a place, so he left, he got called out to a place that he would later receive as his inheritance.

Number two, know this about faith.

Faith is developed through a process.

Rarely, rarely, rarely, maybe sometimes, but rarely do we see with God promise made, promise fulfilled in a moment.

God's the God of glimpses.

He's the God of yes, but not yet.

He's the God of let me pull the curtain back just a little bit.

Let me see, let me, maybe I'll even show you the final scene.

Joseph, I'm gonna let you see everybody bowing down to you.

Then I'm gonna shut the curtain.

I'm not gonna let you see the pit.

I'm not gonna let you see Potiphar's house.

I'm not gonna let you see falsely accused.

Hello, somebody with me?

I'm not gonna let you see the prison.

I'm not gonna let you see the cupbearer forget about you before the king, and it'd be another two years before you ever get.

Why?

Because some of us, if God showed us the whole picture, we'd never take the step of faith.

He's like, I'll give you a glimpse here and I'll give you a glimpse there.

Abraham was 75 years old whenever he got the word that I'm gonna make a great nation for through you, and I want you to pack up everything and leave.

But he was 99 before God ever mentioned Isaac.

24 years.

Some of us, God doesn't move in 24 hours.

We're just like, I'm forsaken by the Lord.

He's forgotten me.

24 years.

It wasn't promise fulfilled when he was 76, 85, 95, but he just stayed faithful to the word because he knew he had a word from God.

And when his faith is anchored in the word, you can step through the process.

Come on, if you're gonna clap, let's do it.

Because there's a promise to possess, but there's also a process to the promise.

And some of us eject out of what God wants to do in our lives because we're unwilling to lean into the process.

We get the word, and when it gets hard, instead of leaning into the hard, we question the word.

Why would that be what we revert to?

Shouldn't we anchor our faith in the word and go, God, you've spoken?

And because you've spoken, I'm gonna keep walking.

I want to speak to somebody that maybe today, that it's been a while since you obeyed and went.

Remember the text said he obeyed and went.

Obeyed and went.

Some of us are like, contemplate and procrastinate.

God speaks and we're like, well, let me think about that.

And here's what we call it, maturity.

Could it be complacency?

Well, I'm mature in the faith now.

When I was younger, I used to just like, when God would speak, I'd step out in faith.

But now I need to exegete the text and see the theological implications of the original language in the text, and I'm not sure that's exactly what God wanted us in.

Maybe what happened to God spoke, we obeyed.

That's maturity.

The more I walk with him, the more I hear his voice, and the more I hear his voice, the quicker I am to respond.

What about some that got stuck because you took a step of faith and it didn't turn out immediately the way that you thought?

You didn't know there was a process to this thing.

And so you decided to kind of be in, but not all in.

Can I just say to you, there's a process to the promise?

There's a journey to this thing.

There's a walking this out day by day, moment by moment.

Abraham, I'm gonna show you.

And for 24 years, you're gonna hang on to that word.

The problem in our generation is we want an Amazon God.

We want promises on prime.

Can a drone get it to the house by 3 p.m.

this afternoon?

Come on.

Am I telling the truth or not?

We want two-day shipment God.

God's not a God of Amazon, God is a God of generations.

God is thinking about your next decade, your next 30 years, your next 50 years.

He's zooming out, seeing it a little bit bigger than just the moment that you're in.

He is working something in you because here's the deal the promise isn't the point, the journey's the point.

Because while there is a promise to possess, and there are wonderful promises of God, the promises of God are yet.

Destiny men in Christ Jesus, the scripture says.

In other words, you can count on it, you can take it to the bank, but on the journey to the promise, God is doing something in you, and that's the point all along.

The promise is great, but the development He does in you on the way to it is the point.

And so, what do I do?

How do I hang on in those moments if I'm in this process?

Two thoughts real quick.

Number one, you remember the promise.

But maybe even more important, number two, you remembered God's pattern.

This is why the Bible talks so much about remembering.

Remembering, because we have short-term memory and long-term memory loss.

But when you are in the middle of the process and waiting to see God do the thing that you've been praying for and believing for, you have to go back and look back and remember how faithful he has been before.

And the same God that was faithful before will be faithful now.

Can I work this out a little deeper?

Can we go a little further on this thought?

Paul talked about this.

He said, This one thing, I taught this to the young adults a couple weeks ago.

He said, This one thing I do, pressing toward what is ahead and forgetting what is behind me, I press towards the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus.

So he says, I forget what is behind me.

That idea of forgetting is a fascinating thought because it's to understand forgetting in that thought, you have to understand what remembering is.

And one scholar said it this way: that remembering the faithfulness of God is where you pull from your history into your present reality something that God did for you in the past, so much so that it has potency in your current reality.

Meaning you may face something in life: a phone call, a wall, a disappointment, a betrayal, a tragedy, a struggle, whatever it may be.

And the Bible idea of remembering is this that in that moment I go, I may not have been at this exact crossroads before, but I've been at a similar crossroads before.

And I remember what God did for me before, and you bring it so much into your present that it affects your attitude, your heart posture, your spirit, where you may have been like, oh Lord, what are we gonna do?

How are we gonna get through this?

Your remembering causes you to go, nope, same God that was faithful yesterday, same God that is faithful today, same God that is faithful tomorrow.

Let's keep moving forward in Jesus' name.

So I remember the faithfulness of God in the process.

And if he did it before, he'll do it again.

This is why the Bible says you cover come by the blood of the Lamb.

Why?

Because that re cleanses all of our sin and the word of our testimony.

Word of our testimony.

Why?

Because it's powerful to remember the faithfulness of God.

Is this helping anybody?

Number three is this thought is faith is seen through actions.

So faith is begins in the word.

It's developed through a process, but it's seen through actions.

The scripture said this in Hebrews, by faith he made us home.

So he moved in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country.

He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

You can know a lot about the Bible, but it doesn't mean you have faith in the Bible.

There's a big difference in the two.

Just because I know something doesn't mean I have faith for something.

Just because I have knowledge of something doesn't mean I have faith for something.

Faith must have a correlating action.

You're blind, I'm gonna put mud on your eyes, go wash your eyes off.

If that blind man had never washed his eyes off, I firmly believe he would be blind until he died.

Because the faith wasn't God putting Jesus putting mud on his eyes, it was that he believed if he would go wash the mud off and he actually did it, then his eyes would be open.

Are y'all following me?

It was the bringing five loaves and two fishes to Jesus, believing that that could feed a crowd of thousands.

There was action to the faith.

And we exercise faith all the time, right?

Like we get we get in a car, and I think most of us we kind of went to turn it, turn it on, and we didn't think.

Is this gonna turn on today?

Maybe some of you, you're like.

But you had faith, right?

You sat down in your seat, you had faith.

You didn't you didn't push on it and be like, well, I you know, went overboard on dessert this week.

Just want to check the seat, make sure it's gonna uphold me, right?

No, we didn't do that.

Why?

Because we have faith for those things.

Because faith is action.

Faith is action.

I've got to take an act.

And so here's here's I want to explain this.

Look here, look here.

The Bible says to give and it'll be given back to me, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.

Well, if I have faith for that, then I live a generous life.

If I don't live a generous life, I can know that verse, but I don't believe that verse.

Because faith is required.

There's an activation required for faith.

I I can hear the word that says, I'm to forgive those who hurt me and speak well of those who speak evil of me, but if I don't do that, then I don't have faith for that verse.

I have a knowledge of it, but I don't have faith in it because it requires action.

If you're with me, say amen.

And why is this so important?

Because without faith, Hebrews 11:6, it's impossible to please God.

Hebrews 11:6

You can't please God if you're not walking by faith.

Faith is the requirement, and faith is seen through my actions.

Faith is seen when I love someone that's unlovely.

That's faith.

Faith isn't I know how to exegetaus text.

Let me see.

The devil knows the Bible, everybody.

That's not a big deal.

It's can I live the Bible?

That's the big deal.

Can I act on the word when the word is spoken?

That's how I build the muscle of faith.

That's how every day I get in the gym of faith and go, God, I'm gonna believe what your word says and I'm gonna act upon your word.

You want a faith that fade, that doesn't fade, that is strong, that is thriving through the week?

Go live what it says.

And it'll stretch you, and it'll grow you, and it'll make you more like Jesus.

If you're with me, say amen.

All right, one more thought.

Faith is anchored in an eternal perspective.

Faith is anchored in an eternal perspective.

Listen to what it said in the verse, the last verse of that Hebrews passage.

For he was looking forward to this city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

You know what this clues us in on?

That Abraham wasn't just looking for the promised land here on earth.

He was looking beyond the promised land.

He was looking to heaven.

He was looking forward to a place whose architect and builder is God.

Can I say it this way?

Your faith will never really thrive at the level it can if you're putting all your eggs in the earth basket.

If everything is about the here and now.

Man, if you'll just live with a little bit of that perspective, it'll change how you live.

And it'll change how you struggle.

Because on your worst days, you've got better days coming.

And even if you're not struggling, on your best days, you've got better days coming.

And so either way, we win.

It's like what Paul said in Philippians chapter 1.

Philippians 1 · chapter mention

For me to live is Christ and to die is gained.

He's like, man, I'm torn.

If I live here, I get to live for God, but if I die, I get to be in heaven.

He's like, oh, that's a tough decision.

Why?

Because we're not living for this earth.

This is not all there is.

I love the way C.S.

Lewis said it in his book, Mere Christianity.

I'll close with this.

He said, if you read history, you'll find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.

The apostles themselves who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English evangelicals who abolished the slave trade, all left their mark on earth precisely because their minds were occupied with heaven.

It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

And I love this thought.

Aim at heaven and you'll get earth thrown in.

Aim at earth, and you'll get neither.

Aim at heaven, you get earth thrown in.

Because now earth has purpose, has meaning.

The best days have meaning, the worst days have meaning.

Why?

Because I'm living for something greater.

But aim only at earth and you miss both.

So what do you do in this struggle?

How do you grow a faith that doesn't fade?

But you gotta begin with a word from God.

You gotta know what God is saying.

So you gotta spend time in His Word.

You gotta listen to the Holy Spirit.

You gotta pray, you gotta seek godly counsel.

You gotta have the peace of God.

You gotta know it's a process, it's developed over time.

We serve a crock pot God, everybody.

It's old school.

My mom used to put things on the crock pot before church.

You got home, the house smelt good.

That's how God works.

It gets better with time.

So it's a process.

It's seen when you act.

You gotta act.

You gotta live this out.

You weren't meant to know it only.

You were meant to be doers of the word.

Right?

And you gotta live with an eternal perspective.

You do that, and over time you will build a faith that doesn't fade.

Will you pray with me?

Every head bowed, every eye closed.

Maybe you're here today or joining us online or at a campus.

And you've never taken the most important faith step.

It really is the first one.

The first step of faith is to say, Jesus, I believe that you died for me and that you rose from the grave three days later.

So that I could have the forgiveness of sin.

That is the first step of faith.

The scripture tells us that if you do that, that you become a brand new creation.

It's one of the best promises in all the Bible that the old is gone and the new comes.

All things pass away.

All the issues, all the mistakes, all the sin, all the things you would never want anybody to know.

He says, I wash all that away.

And I give you a brand new beginning.

And that's where some of you are today.

I believe many of you in the room, you're in a place where you need a fresh start in God.

You need a brand new beginning.

And it is your faith, it is an act of faith.

It is saying, I believe you died for me.

I believe God raised you from the dead.

And I make you the Lord and Savior of my life.

I surrender control.

And so if that's you today, if you'd say, Pastor, that's me, I need that fresh start in God.

In just a moment, we're gonna pray together.

Before I do, I just want to know who I'm praying with.

Already today and every week, people take this step of faith.

When I count to three, I just want you to shoot your hand up high enough long enough for me or Pastor at your location to see.

And then we're gonna pray together.

No one's gonna embarrass you or point you out, I promise you that.

But I believe your hand going up is kind of your first act of faith saying, God, that's me.

I need that.

So if that's you on three, you shoot your hand up, then we'll pray together.

One, two, three.

You just shoot it up all over the room.

God bless you.

God bless you.

Just keep it up.

Incredible.

I see you.

God bless you and you.

It's beautiful.

You can put it down.

Church, let's pray this out loud for the benefit of those who just slip their hand up.

Just say, Jesus, I need you.

I ask you to forgive me of all my sin.

I believe you died for me.

I believe God raised you from the dead.

Today I make you my Lord and Savior.

Thank you for a brand new beginning.

In Jesus' name.

Everyone said a big amen.

Come on, can we clap our hands for those who made that decision?

Thanks for joining us today.

If you'd like to connect with us, text Connect to 71010 or visit gatewaypeople.com.

We hope you have a great week.