Submit to His Authority | Todd Jones

What is up, Heights? Hope you guys are doing

good this morning. It is good to be with you.

Welcome to all of you here. Welcome to those

of you online, whether you are watching by yourself

with a group of people, whether you're in Paulding,

Baghdad. I got to visit them a couple weeks ago.

So, so glad to be able to hang out with them

and glad that you guys are joining us today as

well. This summer, I got to go on a trip to the

Dominican Republic, and I got to take a group

of people from Heights with me, specifically

students. And as we were on this trip, man, we

did so many incredible things. I could show you

pictures of so many amazing things that we did

on this trip. We got to pray with people. We

got to serve people. We got to do... camps for

kids and all these amazing things. But one of

the things that we did that's kind of a snapshot

I could show you of this trip is we had this

game going throughout the whole time where if

somebody fell asleep, whether it was on a bus

or a plane or anything, we encouraged our students

to take a snapshot of somebody sleeping. All

right, so this is what we ended up with. It was

pretty awesome. It was like that. For embarrassment's

sake, can you go ahead and just leave that up

there the whole service? I'm just kidding. I'm

just kidding. You can go ahead and take that

down to save them some of that embarrassment.

But man, we took it a little crazy. There was

bounties put on people's heads. They're like,

listen, if you get Pastor Todd sleeping, that's

two bags of Skittles. I had a price on my head.

It got crazy. And I show you that because a snapshot

like that, a simple snapshot, really tells a

bigger story. It tells you a story of the fun

that we had. It tells you a story of some of

the things that happened on that trip. And that's

what a snapshot does. It's a picture. It shows

a picture of a bigger story. And so as we're

in this collection called snapshots, the idea

is this, is that we're looking at the book of

Exodus. And as we look at the book of Exodus,

this snapshot shows us a picture of how great

our God is. It leaves us in this place where

we go, what a God. What a God we serve. And as

we look at a snapshot today, here's the background

of what's going on in the snapshot that we're

going to unpack today. God goes to Moses and

tells Moses, go into Egypt because my people,

the Israelites, are enslaved in Egypt. And I

want you to go to Pharaoh and I want you to say,

let my people go. And so Moses goes to Pharaoh

and he says, hey, you need to let the Israelite

people go. And Pharaoh looks at Moses and goes,

heck no, tech no, not happening, bro. Right?

He's like, not going to happen. Not letting those

people go. And so he goes, all right, so if that's

your response, here's what's going to happen.

These plagues are going to come. Plagues are

going to come. Things like flies, things like

hail, things like boils, things that you don't

want to happen. And they're going to come. And

there's two reasons. One is to show that God's

in charge. He is powerful. He's the one that's

in charge. And two, when you get so annoyed with

these, you're going to let these people go. Now,

listen, if I was Pharaoh, I'd be like, listen.

go, get out of here. I don't want to deal with

this because I know firsthand, because right

now at my house, I have the plague of ants happening

at my house. Like they're literally everywhere.

It doesn't matter how much we clean. It doesn't

matter what we do. We wake up the next day and

there's ants. We're like, what? And listen, I

don't have regular ants at my house. I have like

ninja ants. You know what I'm saying? Like, like

they show up everywhere, like in my bed. I'm

like, how did you get here? Like, it's crazy,

right? I'm like praying to God. Who do I need

to let go? Do I need to let some people go? Like,

what is happening here? Why is this happening?

All right, if I was Pharaoh, I'd be like, get

out of here. But Pharaoh didn't do that. And

so God's continued to send these plagues. And

so the first plague is that he turns all the

water to blood. The second plague is this plague

of frogs. Why frogs? Because the Egyptians in

this time, they worshiped a frog goddess, the

goddess called Hecht. And this frog goddess was

this goddess that had a woman body and a frog

head. And what they would do is they would worship

her and she was supposed to keep the frog population

at bay because they live by the Nile River. And

so frogs would come up, right? And it was supposed

to keep the frog population at bay. I love what

God does here. He's like, oh yeah, you think

that little goddess is gonna keep the population

at bay? Boom, frogs everywhere, right? So they're

getting this, but because the frog is a goddess

that they worship, the frog is sacred in this

Egyptian culture, which means that they cannot

kill the frogs. And so frogs are everywhere.

I mean, they're showing up in their bed. They're

showing up in their kitchen, right? They're at

work. They open the drawer of their desk and

a frog hops out. Like it's everywhere, but they

cannot do anything to take care of it themselves.

Just like the cow is sacred in India, the frog

in ancient Egypt was sacred. They couldn't do

anything about it. And so Pharaoh goes, we gotta

do something. We gotta take care of this. The

only thing that can happen here because we can't

do it and we've tried everything on our own is

this. Exodus chapter eight, verse eight. Pharaoh

summoned Moses and Aaron and said, pray to the

Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people.

And I will let your people go to offer sacrifices

to the Lord. He's going, listen, I need you to

pray to God and take care of this. What Pharaoh

is doing here is Pharaoh acknowledges where true

power comes from. He acknowledges the true source

of power. Listen, if you're taking notes today,

write this down. We must acknowledge where true

power comes from. We must acknowledge where true

power comes from. comes from. When I was in high

school, I got my very first job. I was about

15 years old and I worked with my friend's dad's

company. He owned a flooring company. And so

my friend and I would go in and we were the demo

guys. We would rip out the old carpet. We would

scrape the glue off the floor so that the guys

who actually knew what they were doing could

come in and install new flooring and they could

do that. And so we would be in a room just scraping

floors for hours with this little like four inch

blade and we'd just be scraping the glue off

this floor. The problem for me though was this,

my friend, he was a sweater. Anyone in here know

someone who's just a sweater? You know what I'm

saying? They're just like, takes like nothing.

Some of you are in church right now, just sweating,

right? People are looking at you, you're like,

I'm praising Jesus extra hard, okay? I saw my

friend. He'd be in there. We'd be working, and

my friend's dad would walk in, and he'd look

at both of us, and he's like, wow, Todd, you

should work as hard as Matt. And I'm like, Matt

should sweat like a normal person. That's what

should happen. But we'd be in there. We'd just

be scraping these floors all day long. We'd be

working on it, and then usually towards the end

of the day, this guy would come in, and he had

this big machine literally called the Terminator.

And the Terminator had like a four -foot blade

at the front, and it would push down, and in

10 minutes, it would just scrape the entire floor.

And I'm like, why am I here? Why am I doing this?

The true source of power came in, and I'm like,

what the heck? And I listen, I think that's you

and I in our lives a lot of times. In our lives,

we're like Pharaoh. We're gonna try everything,

but we have to get to a place where we acknowledge,

listen, there's a true source of power. Instead

of turning to the true source of power, we try

to do things on our own, and I need you to know

this. You can't. do it on your own. I don't know

what it is in your life, but you can't do it

on your own. Let's play a little Mythbusters

church edition. You ready? Because I know you've

heard this from a pastor before. I know you've

heard this in a video before. I know you've heard

this somewhere where somebody said with conviction,

God will not give you more than you can handle.

And everyone says, amen. And that is false. Myth

busted. Boom. That's a myth. That's not in the

Bible anywhere. God will not give you more than

you can handle. Yes, he will. Yes, he will. You

know why he will? Because he wants you to trust

him. Because if he gave you just what you can

handle, then you wouldn't need him. It's not

in the Bible. In the Bible, it says he won't

tempt you beyond what you are able to bear, but

it never says he won't give you more than you

can handle. He will always give you more than

you can handle so that you rely on him. You can't

do it on your own. But some of you, you're going

through it. I don't know what it is, but some

of you are going through it in your life right

now. It's difficult. It's hard. And you're asking

the question of why. Now, why am I going through

this? And I can't answer why you're going through

what you're going through, but I can tell you

this. God does not change you with a magic wand.

God changes you through circumstances. And so

whatever it is you're going through, I know that

God is trying to teach you something in your

life. It's not even about that circumstance.

It's about you. When I look back on my life,

the things that I've gone through, when I've

lost a job and going, I don't know how I'm going

to support my family. I don't know how I'm going

to get through this. I don't know how I'm going

to do this. What God is trying to teach me is

God was trying to teach me the importance of

humility. When my baseball career came to an

end and I'm going, God, this isn't what I want.

This isn't the plan that I had. God was trying

to teach me that my identity was not in what

I did. It was in him. When I packed up my whole

family and moved to a place that I didn't know

anybody, I didn't know a single person, I'm going,

this is difficult, this is hard. God is going,

yeah, but I'm trying to teach you to trust me.

I don't know what it is that you are going through,

but what if what you're going through is an opportunity

for you to rely on him in whatever it is you're

going through? To acknowledge where true power

comes from. Get to a place like Pharaoh and go,

listen, I'm gonna acknowledge him and I'm gonna

acknowledge where true power comes from. And

here's what I've noticed. That acknowledging

him and his power is directly related to the

amount that you pray. Because what prayer is,

is prayer saying, God, I can't do it. I need

you. It's inviting his power into your life because

you don't have the power. Like, I can't do it

on my own, so I'm going to invite God in. That's

what prayer is. That's exactly what prayer is.

And Pharaoh got to a place where Pharaoh was

like, I've tried everything. The Bible says that

he invited his magicians to come in and try to

fix the frog problem. And guess what they did?

They made more frogs. They made it worse. Not

only could they not fix it, they made it worse.

And he's going, listen, I got to acknowledge

that you need to pray to your God. Pray to your

God to fix this. Prayer is acknowledging that

you're not in charge. If you're taking notes,

write this down. Take your problems to prayer.

Take your problems to prayer. Right, we try to

solve them. Take your problems to prayer. And

I think there's a couple barriers in the way

of us praying when it comes to prayer. The first

barrier that I think is in the way with us is

that we think we have to pray flowery prayers.

All right, we think we have to pray the old King

James prayers. You know what I'm talking about?

Dear Heavenly Father God. Right, you're like,

what is this, medieval times? Is like a horse

gonna ride in right now? All right, we're like,

dear Heavenly Father God, we thank thee on bended

knee. because of ye. I don't have any more rhymes

for you, but man. Because we try to flower up

these prayers to God, a lot of times they stay

in a religious box where we go, okay, we bust

those out when we need them, and they never make

their way into our everyday life. Prayer needs

to make its way into your everyday life. I think

another barrier for the reasons that we don't

pray is that we don't like the solution to be

in someone else's hands. We would rather, when

it comes to prayer, we like to be problem solvers

instead of prayer warriors. I got this. Have

you ever seen a mismatched couple before where

you see them together and you're like, I don't

know how those people go together. That's me

and my wife. Because you look at me and you're

like, man, that guy is really good looking. I'm

just kidding. That's not why. That's not why.

That's not why at all. Don't laugh at that. That

just encourages me. Come on, don't do that. Here's

the deal. My wife is so much smarter than me,

and it's apparent to everyone. Everyone's like,

dude, wow, why did she choose you, right? She's

the voice of reason in my life. Husbands, you

know what I'm talking about? Your wife's the

voice of reason. And the voice of reason speaks.

And here's where it plays out in my life is I'll

go, okay, yes, I prayed for this, but now I've

got to figure out how to solve this. And she

goes, well, didn't you pray? Haven't you put

it in God's hands? And I don't like that because

I like action. Because prayer, I go, okay, well,

what's my action plan? What do I need to do now?

If I just pray, then it's just in God's hands

and I don't have anything for me to do. It's

not the action that I want. And I think that's

what we do a lot of times. So usually what we

do is we try everything else. We've tried everything

else. And then we turn to prayer. And when all

else fails, at least we can pray. Listen, what

if prayer was our first response instead of our

last resort? What if us as a church came in and

our first response to whatever it is in our life

isn't to try to solve it ourself, but to say,

hey, listen, I'm going to put it in God's hands.

What if prayer was our first response instead

of our last resort, but we don't like to do that?

Because when you're sick, you know what you do?

You start Googling your symptoms. And you're

like, oh, baby, I think I'm dying. I got a headache.

It's probably a brain tumor. You self -diagnose.

Always you want to tell yourself the worst case

scenario, then you stress out about it instead

of praying about it. Or when you have a relational

issue and you go, man, I know I have to have

this tough conversation. You know what you do?

You get in arguments in your head with that person.

You ever been in a shower argument before? Right,

you're in there and you're like washing and you're

like, oh, and they said this and I said that.

And I said this and I won. You didn't win anything,

you're crazy. You're arguing with yourself in

the shower. You know the conversation's coming

so you stress out about it instead of praying

about it. You have a situation come in your life

and what do you do? You gotta ask chat GPT, right?

Chat GPT, what's wrong? How do I fix it? Instead

of praying about it. I would have prayer in our

life became something constant, not just when

we were in trouble. What if it was a conversation

that we had? Here's what I know about prayer.

Prayer is the foundation for what happens next

in your life. Are you building a foundation?

Prayer is the foundation for what happens next

in your life. What if we as Heights Church, aka

you, because the church is not a building, it

is a people, what if we as a church built a culture

of prayer? A culture of prayer where prayer was

woven into our daily rhythms. It was just something

that we did. It was a part of our day, not just

before our meals, but it was a part of our day.

What if prayer was our first response instead

of our last resort? What if prayer became so

much of what we do in our lives that when we

see one another, we just celebrate all the amazing

things that God has done? What if when we see

each other, we're like, oh my gosh, I can't tell

you what God has done in my life. It's so amazing.

I've been waiting all week to tell you that I

have a celebration because God answered this

prayer. And then the person you're telling it

to is like, oh my gosh, you're not going to believe

what God did in my life because we are people

of prayer. What if we lived into a culture of

prayer? Pharaoh asks Moses to pray. He says,

hey, can you pray to remove these frogs? Can

you get rid of these frogs? Because I acknowledge

where the true source of power is and so all

of the frogs die. God says, I'm gonna answer

your prayer. He takes care of all of it. And

then in verse 15, it says this, Exodus 8, 15.

But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he

hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses

and Aaron just as the Lord had said. And isn't

this fascinating? Isn't this fascinating that

he saw God move and then he walked away. He saw

real true power on display because he couldn't

take care of the frog. So he prayed and God actually

did what he couldn't do. And he saw firsthand

the power of God. And then he walked away. Like,

how can you witness that and not believe, not

live into it? How can you witness it and then

turn away from it? I don't understand that. Because

seeing is believing. Seeing is believing. If

you came up to me right now and you asked me

a question about crew neck sweatshirts, I would

say, hey, listen, I know a guy. I know a guy.

Because I've seen. In fact, that's all I've seen.

Some of you still don't know who I'm talking

about. You need to come to church more. I'm just

saying. Be like, I've seen. So I know. All right,

if you've seen it, you believe it. And you go,

okay, listen, I've seen this. I believe it. I

think of Peter in the New Testament. Peter, a

guy who walked with Jesus. Not only did he walk

with Jesus, he walked to Jesus on water. A guy

who was with Jesus when he healed people, when

he raised people from the dead, when he healed

blind people, when he saw somebody who could

not walk, pick up their mat and walk away because

of the power of Jesus. And he witnessed all of

that. And then when it counted, when it mattered,

Peter denies Jesus. He denies him. I don't even

know who he is. And I think it's easy for us

to look at these characters in the Bible and

to judge them and go, how in the world, when

you saw the power of God firsthand, could you

walk away from it? But I think the truth is that

all of us have done the exact same thing. You

and I do the exact same thing because we've seen

the miracle that is God changing our life. And

yet we go right back to our old ways. You've

walked through it. You know who you were before

Jesus. You know how much he's changed your life.

You've witnessed the same amount of miracles

that they've witnessed, but you go back to your

old ways. Why do we go back to this? Why do we

do that? Write this down. It happens when we

acknowledge God's power without submitting to

his authority. When we acknowledge God's power

without submitting to his authority. I feel like,

yeah, I show up to church because I acknowledge

his power. That's why you're here today. That's

why you're sitting here. Because God's in charge.

I acknowledge his power. That's why I'm sitting

here today. But my life doesn't look any different.

Yeah, I'm a Christian. Of course I follow Jesus.

I show up. I show up to church. I would tell

people I'm a Christian, but you don't live any

different than anyone else. Because you acknowledge

his power without living and submitting to his

authority. And I think we don't like that. That

makes us feel something inside because we don't

like two of those words. We don't like authority.

And we don't like submitting. And when you put

them together, it's an atomic bomb of nope. I

ain't doing that. Not happening. Submitting to

authority? That's not me. I don't want any of

that. And so we live in a state where we don't

submit to God's power because we go, okay, yeah,

yeah, I recognize it, but I don't want to submit

to his authority. But here's how it works. We're

able to submit to his authority, not because

God is a dictator, but because we have a relationship

with God. We're able to submit to his authority

through a relationship. Because when you love

someone, you want to submit to them. It is not

something that is forced upon you. But when you

are in a loving relationship, you want to submit.

And because of a relationship, because we have

a loving God, we are able to have a relationship

where we can submit to his authority. So how

do we allow him to be the Lord of everything?

How do you allow him to be the Lord of everything,

not just the one thing in your life? How do you

not fall back into your old life? I want to give

you three practical steps as to what that looks

like in your life. Number one is this. Deal with

your undealt with sin. Deal with your undealt

with sin. Moses prays and goes, hey, would you

take care of these frogs? God kills all of the

frogs. And so now the Egyptians have to deal

with these bodies of these frogs. They couldn't

kill them, but they can clean them up. And so

they're shoveling them, right? They're carrying

them. They have all these, like anyone want frog

legs? And everyone's like, we got them too, right?

Like they have to take them. And so they go and

they pile them up in the corner. We just got

to get it out of the site, clean them up, make

sure nobody sees them. And we pile these frogs

up in the corner. And so they pile up the dead

body of all these frogs in the corner and they

get them over there. And this is what it says

in verse 14. It says, they were piled into heaps

and the land reeked of them. The land reeked

of them. They spent a ton of time, a ton of energy,

a ton of effort hiding them and pushing them

to the side and dealing with the remains so that

nobody would see them and everything would look

good. But the problem was, is that they still

stunk. And that's what you and I do with our

sin, is we spend a lot of time, energy, and effort

trying to hide it, trying to push it to the corner,

trying to deal with the remains and go, okay,

if no one sees it, then it's good. But the problem

is, is that you stink. Is that your sin stinks.

And here's what it says. It doesn't just say

it stayed in that pile and sunk. It says the

entire land reeked of it and your sin will not

just stink up one area of your life, it'll stink

up everything. When you have undealt with sin

in your life that you just wanna hide and you

just wanna push to the side, what it's doing

is it's stinking up every area of your life.

And when you have this in your life, we need

to get to a place where we can bring it to the

light because here's what I know, is that footholds

that are kept in the darkness turn into strongholds.

And when that little sin is just a little foothold

in your life, when you keep it hidden in the

darkness, it will turn into a stronghold in your

life. It will have control of you if you do not

bring it to the light. Jesus said, I am the light.

In me, there is no darkness. And so we have to

acknowledge it. We have to acknowledge that sin

in our life. We have to quit hiding it. We have

to bring it to Jesus. Some of you are like, I

don't know. That's just not me. I don't really

have any of that. 1 John 1, 8 and 9. If we claim

to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the

truth is not in us. You have sin, you do. Another

translation says, if you claim to not have sin,

you're a liar. Thank you for that. Appreciate

that, John. Verse nine says, though, if we confess

our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive

us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

If you confess your sins, if you bring them to

Jesus, You know what that is? That's dealing

with your undealt with sin. That's dealing with

your brokenness. That's dealing with the thing

that you've pushed to the side and said, okay,

as long as nobody sees it, then it's not a problem,

but really it's stinking up your whole life.

If you're going to submit to his authority, you

have to deal with your undealt with sin. Number

two is this. If you're gonna submit to his authority,

then you have to pursue God's purpose. Pursue

God's purpose. See, a lot of times you say, God,

I wanna follow you, but this is my life. God,

I'm all for you. I wanna follow you here, but

don't touch my life. This is mine. I get to plan

this. I get to do this. I get to take care of

this. All right, but submitting to his authority

means allowing the Holy Spirit to direct you,

not you telling God what you're gonna do. Because

a lot of times we're going, yeah, I'm gonna follow

you as long as you go exactly where I want you

to go. I'm gonna follow you as long as you act

according to my. plans. But we must submit to

God's authority by pursuing God's purpose in

our life. And God has a purpose for your life.

God has a purpose for your life. Every single

one of you are here on purpose for a purpose.

When I was 17 years old, I heard clearly that

God was calling me into ministry to be a pastor.

Clearly enough, he said, I want you to be a pastor.

And I said, absolutely not. That is not what

I want. That is not the direction I have for

my life. That is not the plan I have for my life.

My plan is to play professional baseball. That's

all I want to do. That's all I want to do with

my life. I just want to play baseball. And so

I went going, okay, God, you might want something

from me, but I got my own plan, God. And once

you catch up to my plan, then we're going to

be in a good place. And I had the opportunity

to go to college and play baseball through college.

And so when I went to college to play baseball,

I went to a college that I was able to choose

my major in Christian studies because I needed

a good backup plan. God, here's where I'm going,

but I'll just keep a backup plan of what you

want for my life. I'll just keep that right there.

And God had to peel it away. God had to peel

away for me to understand that his calling, if

I'm gonna submit to his authority, if I'm not

just gonna acknowledge his power, but I'm gonna

submit to his authority, it means my life needed

to submit to his authority. And I needed to make

my life about God's purpose, not about my purpose.

And I had to get to a place where I... I had

calls continuing to come in from professional

organizations that I had to say, no, I'm done.

I'm done because my plan is not bigger than God's

plan. And I was able to say that not because

I'm better than anyone else, but because God

worked on my heart to say, listen, if you're

going to submit to my authority, if you're going

to submit to my authority, it means setting down

your agenda in order to follow my plan. We have

to pursue God's purpose. It's about making him

famous, not you. And when I say famous, I don't

mean like literally being famous. I mean, are

you the main character of your story? Because

a lot of us, we want to be the main character

of our story. But submitting your life to God's

purpose is not about making you the main character.

It's about making him the main character. If

you're going to submit to his authority, you

need to pursue God's purpose. And last is this,

is we need to be fueled by the power of the Spirit.

It's not on your power. It's on the power of

the spirit. So what does that look like? It looks

like acknowledging his power. God, I can't do

this on my own. I'm acknowledging your power.

It's trusting his power through prayer. Living

into a culture of prayer by trusting his power

and going, God, instead of me trying to fix this,

I'm gonna let you fix this because you have power

and I don't. It's submitting to his authority

in your life. Because I think a lot of us will

pray for God to guide us, but then when he gives

us an opportunity to step into where he's guiding

us, we say no. Submitting to his authority in

your life is saying, God, I'm willing to do what

you've called me to do. I'm willing to go where

you've called me to go. I'm willing to let go

of what I want in order to pursue what you want.

And I think some of you today walked in and you

came in here today and you go, but, Todd, you

don't know how much of a mess I am. You don't

know how broken I am. You don't know how messed

up I am. You don't know what I did. You don't

know what I've done. You don't know where I'm

at. And you feel a whole lot more like Peter,

who maybe you've encountered God, or maybe you've

said yes to Jesus, but now you've walked away

and you've turned your back on him. And when

it mattered most, you denied him. And maybe that's

you today, where you're going, that's where I

showed up today. And man, I love this account.

This is one of my favorite accounts in the Bible.

And here's why. Because it gives me hope. Peter

gives me hope. Because I can't stand up here

and tell you how much of an idiot I really am.

And we had this view of pastors where you look

at us and you're like, oh, pastors got it together.

Listen, I'm such a mess. Pastor John is such

a mess. Pastor Ben, Pastor Bob, we are a mess.

But we're able to stand here and we're able to

tell you the truth of the gospel because of someone

like Peter. Where Peter, a mess, who denied Jesus,

who did everything he could to walk away from

him, the resurrected Jesus, after he rose from

conquering sin and conquering death and he rose

from the grave, the resurrected Jesus went to

Peter. And he didn't look at him and go, well,

you've done too much. You denied me. You walked

away. You saw my power and you turned your back.

No, no. He opened his arms and he welcomed him.

And he said, Peter, come on back home. Not only

am I welcoming you back, but I'm inviting you

to be on my team. Just go feed my sheep. Go be

a part of the mission. Go be a part of the calling

because I know that you know it's not about you.

It's about me and my arms are open wide welcoming

you back. And I think there's some of you in

here today that you need to come back to Jesus.

That you've acknowledged his power in your life,

but you have not submitted to his authority.

You have not said, listen, I'm done trying to

do this on my own and I'm willing to step in

to what you've called me to, Jesus. Jesus' arms

are open wide and he's saying, come on back.

Come on back. He's saying, listen, there's power

that is bigger than you and we need to submit.

to that power. We need to deal with the undealt

with sin in our life that is stinking up our

life. We need to pursue God's purpose. We need

to be fueled by the power of the Spirit. But

it all starts by coming to Jesus. And for some

of you today, that's what needs to happen. You

need to come to your Savior, whose arms are open

wide, who are saying, come to the altar, come

to me. I'm welcoming you here because I loved

you, because I died for you, because I want to

work in and through you. And I'm inviting you

to be a part of my team. Let's pray. God, thank

you so much for who you are, Lord. Thank you

so much for what you've done for us, God. Thank

you so much, God, that in our brokenness, when

we turn our back on you, God, You still love

us. Lord, I pray for those of us in here today,

God, that have acknowledged your power, but have

yet to submit to your authority. I pray that

we would be different because of you, that we

would submit to your authority, God, that we

would deal with the undealt with sin in our life,

God, that we would pursue your purpose for our

life and make it not about us. God, that we would

be fueled by your spirit, that we would be a

people of prayer. God, I pray for anyone in here

today that needs to take that step to come back

to you. Lord, I thank you that you are waiting

with opened arms, that you are welcoming back,

that you are loving. I pray today that we would

step into that love, that we would embrace that

love, that we would praise you for who you are.

We love you, Jesus. We thank you, God. We praise

you and we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.