Sowing Seeds of Faith in a New Year

All right.

Well, it is awesome to begin the new year with you.

My name is Russ.

I'm one of the pastors here at Church at the Grove, and I want to say a big welcome.

Welcome to everybody.

And I'm so excited you're here.

If you're here for the first or second time, especially excited that you're here.

Would love to get to meet you personally.

If that's possible, maybe stop on your way out and introduce yourself to me.

I'd love to get to know you.

And you know what?

You guys get brownie points because you show up, you showed up the first Sunday of the year.

And there is this minute possibility at this point, at this point, that you could have perfect attendance for the whole year.

So as a matter of fact, so you could tell somebody at work this year, you've got to come to my church, man.

Everybody was there on the first Sunday of the year.

That was there.

Right?

And so that was there.

So I'm kidding.

Um it is awesome, awesome.

Um we are beginning a new series called Foundations, and today is to this morning is a little bit of a uh of a foundation for this series uh called Foundations.

And I want to tell you, I want to tell you about a cool story um that happened just a couple of weeks ago, and I'm gonna try not to um I'm gonna try to keep it together while I'm telling this story.

So I get a I get a phone call uh from a young man, and he he's a grown man, but to me he's a very young man.

Um and I've probably known him almost his whole life.

If not, if I didn't know him as a baby, it wasn't I I definitely knew him as a as a toddler uh elementary school kid, and I I've just I've known him his whole life, and he um he's been a part of Church of the Grove, uh, and and he's come and then he'll uh there's been some seasons where he hasn't been engaged, and um and the Lord brought a a wonderful woman into his life.

He's got two kids, and and so a couple of weeks ago he he called me, and and it's this is this was out of the ordinary because I just not used to him calling me.

And so he said, Hey, can we can we meet?

Can we meet and get together?

And I said, Sure, what are you gonna do?

So we we decided to uh uh to to meet, eat eat Mexican food together, and so I had no idea what he wanted to talk to me about, and and we're sitting across the table from one another from this young man I've known his whole life.

And he said, Russ, I need the Lord.

I need the Lord, he said, the Lord's been working in my heart, and I need the Lord, and and I and I'm gonna just be honest with you, I I I made an assumption.

And you know what happens when we make assumptions?

I probably shouldn't even refer to that in church.

Um I just assumed that he knew the Lord, and I knew I knew him enough.

There were some periods where he was out of fellowship with the Lord.

Um, but I just assumed he has at some point had put his faith in the Lord.

And you know, you know how I found out that he had not?

I I asked him.

I said, has there ever been a point where where you just you know we talk about repent and believe, and and we turn and put our faith in Jesus, and he said, I I can't I can't think of it.

I don't I don't remember ever doing that.

I said, You've been in church your whole life.

He goes, Yeah, but I don't remember ever doing that.

I don't remember ever giving my heart to the Lord.

And and so I had the blessing of sitting across the table from this young man and praying with him as he asked Jesus to forgive him of his sins.

And that he and he and he said, I repent and I believe and I put my faith in Jesus.

Hey, listen, that's the way to begin the year, isn't it?

That's the way to begin the year.

And listen, here's you need to know that I had nothing to do with that.

I don't even know why he called me.

You know why he called me is because I'm a pastor.

The pastor should know how to how to how to handle this conversation, right?

He could have, but he could have talked to any of y'all that know the Lord.

There's nothing significant about me leading somebody to the Lord.

If somebody comes to know the Lord, somebody can know comes to know the Lord, they can come to know the Lord through through just them and the Lord.

Or it could be one of you explaining.

And so we went over the gospel.

I made sure there was some clarity.

And and he he turned and put his faith in Jesus right then, right there.

And you say, Russ, that is so exciting.

But what blows my mind and what really checked my heart and spirit is the assumption that I had made that he had made a decision to follow the Lord.

And I and I don't want to assume that.

I don't ever, I don't want to take that for granted.

I don't want to assume that.

I don't want to, and and let me tell you, it wasn't just that day.

We met, we met and ate Mexican food.

It wasn't just like, oh, I, hey, let's let's talk about the Lord.

No, we you know what had been has been happening in his life, his whole life?

He's a grown man.

The Lord has been working in his life ever since his parents first took him to church, which was probably when he was a baby.

The Lord has worked through his whole life to prepare him and to prepare his heart to be hungry for Jesus.

And I think without putting words in his mouth, let me tell you what he's asking or what he's thinking.

He said, There's got to be more.

There's got to be more than this.

I mean, hey, hey, grow up, get a job, earn a paycheck, get married, which is a wonderful thing, have kids, that's a wonderful thing.

But at the end of the day, there's got to be more.

There's more.

When you lay down your head on your pillow and you are staring at the ceiling fan and you're thinking about the most important things in your life, a lot of times you're asking that question, there's got to be more.

Is there more?

Is there more?

And I've been doing this a while, and I've had a lot of these conversations.

I've had conversations with people who've never been in church, and then I have conversations with people who spent their whole life in church, and I'm telling you, the things that I hear is is there's got to be more.

That's the question I hear.

There's got to be more.

There's got to be more.

Sometimes people just say, you know what, there's got to be more to life.

I'm I'm bored.

If this is all there is to it, I'm bored.

I'm bored with life.

And that's a lot of us with, we also think this.

We think, well, is it yeah, this church thing is okay.

I mean, I get a little something out of church, but please tell me there's more than just church.

And there is.

It's Jesus.

It's Jesus.

And sometimes we feel like, hey, I I there's nothing, everything just seems so ordinary.

And you know what we want?

We want extraordinary.

And if you want ordinary, just show up at church.

If you want extraordinary, you give your heart to Jesus.

And so have you ever found yourself asking that question?

Is there more?

Is there more to this life?

And yes, there is.

The truth is that we've neglected, and I and I I'm pretty hard on the American church.

Sometimes I'm very critical of the American church.

And the reason I'm critical of the American church is because there has never been a nation so blessed as our nation and so quick to forget where that blessing comes from.

And so, yes, I get frustrated with our American version of Christianity when I know that there were Nigerians that were killed this past week because of their belief in Jesus.

Specifically, their belief in Jesus.

And so the truth is we have neglected in the American church really what it means to follow Jesus wholeheartedly and to give him everything.

You want more?

That's the more.

To give your whole heart, life, everything to the Lord.

And we've settled for a consumer Christianity.

We've settled for, hey, let me find a place where they've got good music, cool music, you know, uh good preaching, great, great kids' program, great youth program, all those things that we work so hard at having.

And we believe in those things.

But at the center of those things is the Holy Spirit and the person of Jesus that is where life change takes place.

But we settle, we settle, we settle for being bored, we settle for just going through the motions.

Diedrich Bonhoeffer in his book, The Cost of Discipleship, he says this.

He says, cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without the confession, absolution without personal confession.

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Is your version of grace cheap?

Have you prayed a prayer and just said, hey man, I'm I'm I'm good.

I'm good.

I've got my ticket to heaven.

I'm just gonna go about my life and carry on.

I'm gonna work, I'm gonna pay the bills, I'm gonna raise the kids, I'm gonna move on.

Or, or are you wanting more?

You want more of Jesus?

Do you want the more, more of the fullness of the Holy Spirit?

Do you want to see God do more through the body of Christ?

Do you want more?

I'm on, I'm we're we're streaming, but I'm just I'm breaking the rules.

Since you won't say it, I preach it, Pastor.

Preach it, amen.

Yes, I want more.

I'm back.

We've settled for a version of Christianity that centers around what we can get for ourselves, but fails to cost us anything.

We have been content with salvation, but no sanctification.

Hey, sanctification, that'll come.

That'll come.

I got salvation.

Sanctification will come, God will work.

Conversion, but no commitment.

And so, why does the Christian life seem dull, safe, ordinary?

Maybe because we aren't truly living the radical lifestyle of Jesus and obeying the teachings that He has given and the guidance that the Holy Spirit wants to give us.

How can some followers of Jesus live lives of full excitement, full joy?

How is their connection to the Lord real and active?

We ask these questions.

Sometimes I ask these questions about other people that I know that seem so alive in the spirit.

And there's some that are that just seem like the Holy Spirit's working in their life.

There's an anointing, that there's something that separates them from the ordinary to the extraordinary.

And I believe that it's not it's not that God is not with us.

God is there with us.

He is wanting to speak to us, he is wanting to work in our heart.

St.

Augustine said this.

He said, without God, we cannot.

Without us, God will not.

And that's the big eye for that's the big idea for today.

That's the repeatable statement.

That's the statement I want you to remember for today.

Without God, we can't.

Without us, he won't.

Without God, we can't.

Without us, he won't.

And so for us to become all that God wants us to be, there needs to be a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

And there is this mysterious connection between our volitional will, our choices, and the Holy Spirit's work in our heart that we have no control over.

It is a work of God.

Now hear me.

Don't hear me saying incorrectly that our salvation is based on something that we do or the work of the ministry we do.

That's not what I'm saying.

What I am saying is once you have encountered Jesus, it can't help but change you.

It is being born again.

I'm not talking about attending a church service.

I'm not talking about a baby dedication.

I'm talking about an encounter with Jesus where you are born again.

You say, Well, I believe in God.

Well, Nicodemus believed in God, but he came to Jesus, and Jesus said, You know what you need?

You need to be born again.

And so I want to look at this familiar passage of scripture, and we're going to walk through this.

Mark chapter 4, verses 3 through 9, and then also 13 through 20.

Mark 4:3–9

It's called the parable of the soils.

The parable of the soils.

Let's read it.

Listen.

Jesus says, verse 3, listen.

Exclamation point in my English translation here.

Listen.

A farmer went out to plant some seed as he scattered it across his field.

Some of the seed fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate it.

Other seed fell on shallow soil without with underlying rock.

The seed sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow.

But the plant soon wilted under the hot sun, and since it didn't have deep roots, it died.

Other seed fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants, so they produced no grain.

Still others fell on fertile soil and they sprouted and grew and produced a crop that was 30, 60, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted.

Then he said, Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.

And so as I'm having this conversation with this young man who gives his heart to the Lord, by the, I mean, it's the that's the easiest fruit I've ever, that's the easiest fruit to pick right there.

The fruit was about to fall off the limb.

I probably didn't even have to show up for lunch.

And he would get his heart to the Lord in front of the waiter or waitress.

I mean, he he was he was so ready, and the ground was so fertile.

And what I realized is all through his life, from the point he was born, God had walked him through these different soils to get him into the right place where the soil would produce good fruit.

Four soils, four types of soils, but with two very different results.

In three of the soils, the seed is scattered but doesn't bear fruit.

But only one soil produces the fruit.

That's all that Jesus tells to the crowd as he teaches.

That's what he tells them.

He who has ears, has ears, let them hear, hear.

He who has ears, let them hear a short message that was supposed to lead to a deeper meeting.

This parable sometimes, sometimes we hear things over and over and over, and it becomes kind of common to us.

And that's not what this parable is meant to be.

It's meant to be fresh and new every time we read it.

Just to make sure his followers understood this parable, Jesus pulled his disciples to the side and he told them the meaning, which was not just beneficial for Jesus and the followers that he was with, the disciples that were with him.

It has been beneficial to every single person that's heard it for the last 2,000 years.

And there's four four different hearts that come out of these four different soils.

And the the first is the path.

It's the path.

You know what the path is?

The path is a callous heart.

It's a hard heart.

It's a callous heart.

It's the person who I try to strike up a conversation, and they say, hey, number one, I don't want to talk about that.

I don't talk about religion.

Don't want to talk about God.

I'm I I just I just don't want it.

And this path would have consisted of dirt that had been walked over repeatedly, repeatedly.

And typically they would walk on that path to protect the crops that were planted on either side.

And so these paths, and I've been to Israel, you see these paths and and where they have stacked rocks and and laid out certain little pieces of property, and you see the paths where people walk so they don't disturb where where the uh where the soil would produce something out of the soil.

And so obviously, when the seed is thrown on this type of soil, there's no receptivity.

You throw on the on the pathway, there's there's nothing that can get it down into the dirt.

This is a callous heart.

This is a hard heart.

The seed does not get embedded into the ground, but instead it sits on top of the soil and it becomes an easy target for birds, other animals.

Jesus tells us that the heart that is represented by this soil is one that hears the message, but it goes no further than that.

You know, you know this.

You know people, you know people in your family, you know friends, you know people that have heard the gospel.

They've heard it, they've heard it preached over and over and over.

And it doesn't get down into their heart.

It doesn't produce any change.

It's really where we see a lot of people in our culture today.

I mean, you see people driving down the highway angry.

You see people that work across the hall from you, and they're just angry.

You you see people out at sporting events, and they're and they're they're they're just angry.

You see people interacting with their kids, and they're angry.

You see, you see, you see all of these things, and people have hard hearts.

They're not interested in the Lord, they're not ready yet.

And our philosophy that has permeated our culture, we call it postmodernism, is this idea that, hey, there there is an individual truth for every individual.

And your truth is your truth, and you you live your truth according to what you decide is your truth.

When we all know and we understand who know the Lord, that there is one truth.

And first of all, that person has a name, and his name is Jesus, and he has given us, he has given us his truth.

He has given us the truth in written form.

God spoke.

He spoke and created.

We see the evidence of God.

He came as a human being.

That's what we celebrate at Christmas.

And we also have a copy of his word that teaches us the rest of the story, including his life and his death and his resurrection, and the fact that he ascended to the Father and He promises to return someday.

Praise God.

Amen.

And so the second soil is a rocky soil.

It's rocky soil.

It's this idea of a shallow heart.

It's the idea of a shallow heart.

This soil is typically on the outskirts of the field.

It's when the farmer's preparing the field for planting, he would remove all the rocks and would throw them in a pile.

That's what you see when you go to Israel and you look out over the area where Jesus taught the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, and you see rocks laid in order on the edges of probably what were property lines.

And this soil is immediately receptive to the word.

This soil is responsive immediately.

They like what they hear.

This is awesome, man.

This is such good news.

They respond, they receive the message.

However, their receptivity is short-lived.

Man, we're excited one moment, the next moment, we're busy.

We're too busy for what God has for us.

And so they might sit in a gathering.

There's even a response sometimes that's emotional.

They get caught up in a moment.

But that moment is fleeting.

When things get complex, when life gets challenging, they shrivel up.

Their faith, it doesn't have the strength to withstand all the challenges of life.

I mean, they're happy about Jesus, and they're Jesus is they might even wear the right kind of t-shirt or a hat.

They show up occasionally.

Certainly, they show up at Christmas, they show up at Easter.

But they've gotten bored.

They've gotten bored with faith.

There's a shallow heart.

That's the same.

Some of you are dealing with that right now.

You're dealing with this.

You're coming out of the old year, and you so desperately want something new for this year.

But you just struggle.

A lot of the people that need to hear what I'm saying are not here.

And then there's thorny soil.

The thorny soil is a divided heart.

So you've got a callous heart, a shallow heart, and then you've got a divided heart.

And this thorny soil, weeds are everywhere.

Matter of fact, you go to Israel, weeds are everywhere.

You go out onto the area where Jesus gave the summer of the mount.

You go around the Sea of Galilee.

You go throughout, especially the northern part of Israel that is so fertile and has so much water and it's so beautiful.

Weeds are everywhere.

And mixed in with those weeds are plants that actually are supposed to produce fruit.

But you can't get something good out of something good and bad that's mixed together.

Typically not good.

And so the soil represents the divided heart.

This is where probably where most people that are in the American church find themselves today.

We have responded to Jesus.

We love Jesus.

We're going to put Jesus on our Facebook.

We're going to put Jesus on our Instagram.

We're going to put our put Jesus on TikTok.

And if you don't know what TikTok is, talk to one of the young people sitting on the front row over here.

And so we have this, we have a divided heart.

A divided heart.

1 John 2.16.

Listen what it what John says.

He says, for all that is in the world, and that when he's talking about the world, he's talking about this world that we live in that is in conflict with the gospel and the good news of Jesus.

He says, for all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world.

And we're consumed.

We're consumed by the lust of the flesh.

And it's the temptation to feel it's passions, sexuality, lack of integrity.

The lust of the eyes is the temptation to have.

Give me more, give me more possessions, give me more money, give me more.

Well, our response should be generosity.

The pride of life is the temptation to be popular, to be somebody, to have followers and to be an influencer and to uh gain as much status as we can.

Where the way of Jesus is down, the way of Jesus is humbling ourselves, not lifting ourselves up.

It's not about how many followers we have, it's about how well we follow the right person.

Churches today are filled with people with divided hearts, and as a result, they aren't living in the fullness that Christ offers.

They're not producing fruit.

There's no fruit.

We should be having these conversations every day.

We should be celebrating baptisms every week.

We should be celebrating people giving their heart to the Lord.

We should be celebrating people sharing their faith.

That is a victory.

You can't always control the outcome, but you can control your obedience.

And so finally leads me to the good soil.

There is a good soil, and it's it's the fruitful heart.

It's the fruitful heart.

And this is where this story comes in.

Is is man, I got to experience the good fruit, and it had nothing to do with me.

Had everything to do with the home that he was raised in.

He was taught the truth in his home.

He was brought to church and taught the truth at church, and he probably had other people in his life that were sowing seeds of truth in his life.

And I sometimes we can't control, we can't measure, we can't predict how the Holy Spirit is going to work, but he will work.

This is the soil that has been loved and nurtured.

This is a uh the soil that's been been poured over.

Hours invested in making sure that the soil is ready to receive the seeds and and there's been the removal of rocks and tilling the soil, stirring it up uh to make it soft and uh and and and receptive and and and getting rid of getting rid of thorns and weeds that that might be uh lying under the surface.

And then it's watered and it's fertilized.

The soil has been cared for, and as a result, it is receptive to the seed and produces a massive harvest.

30 times, 60 times, a hundred times.

All three of these numbers would be supernatural, and that has happened.

That happened throughout history.

I would say that Pentecost Sunday was supernatural.

3,000 people coming to Christ on one day, being baptized on one day.

I'd say that's pretty supernatural.

I'd say it's it's pretty supernatural to think about a life like Billy Graham, who was able to preach the gospel probably to more people that's ever been able to hear the gospel.

All together.

He was willing to cross lines and barriers.

He was willing to face criticism for going to the Soviet Union back when it was the Soviet Union.

It was a Soviet bloc, a nation committed to atheism.

And Billy Graham.

How in the world does Billy Graham get permission to go inside this atheistic country to preach the gospel of Jesus?

The Lord.

The Lord provided it, gave him the opportunity.

And you know what?

There's fruit.

There's fruit.

The fruitful heart is soft and receptive to the truth of Jesus and the voice of the Holy Spirit.

And as a result, there's supernatural work that is done producing spiritual fruits, which is which is seen in our attitudes, actions, and and and and the reproduction of disciples.

Constantly producing disciples.

And here's what I want us all to see that the seed itself comes from the Lord, and it's something we can't grow.

We can't produce it.

It's something God has given us.

He has given us to sow it.

And if you really think about it, we also don't control the growth of the seed.

That is only done by the Lord, but we can control the condition of our heart.

God controls the growth.

We control the conditions for growth.

He gives us synopsis of this different kinds of soil.

But here's the beautiful thing that isn't talked about often.

Soils can change over time.

If the soil is hard, like a path, it can be tilled up.

There is hope.

There's hope.

Even if there's a hard heart, there's hope because the Holy Spirit can till that hard heart up.

If the soil is rocky, you can remove the large stones and rake out the small ones.

And God sometimes will change your circumstances and puts you in a position and a place where he will break up those rocky, large stones, and then he'll rake out the small stones.

He's constantly at work.

If the soil is thorny or full of weeds, you know what you do?

You get your bucket, get you a bucket, and you sit on it and you pull those seeds like my daddy made me do when I was eight or nine years old.

And I didn't like him for it that day.

It's not a one-time deal.

It's not something that can happen overnight.

It's not something that's going to happen immediately.

Sometimes it takes time.

And so God promises to work.

If the soil can change for the better, the soil left unattended can move in in a negative direction.

Thorns can begin to creep in.

Rocks emerge from below the soil.

And eventually, with enough rain and foot traffic, the soil can become hard.

And here, listen to this.

Listen to this.

Christianity is not a one-time decision, but it is a life of discipleship.

Christianity is not a one-time decision, but it is a lifetime of discipleship.

It is a lifetime pursuit of getting closer and closer to Jesus.

It is a lifetime journey of listening and paying attention and obeying what the Holy Spirit leads you to.

And so without God, we can't, without us, He won't.

So where does that leave us?

Where does that leave us?

Jesus said, Matthew 7, 17 through 20, he said, likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Matthew 16, 24, then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

And so what does that leave us for today and for the new year?

You know, these action steps don't change, they're constant.

The first one is protect and practice your spiritual habits.

Practice spiritual habits.

Pastor Andy Stanley says this, and I heard him say this years ago, and it's stuck with me.

I've repeated it probably several times here.

Your direction, not your intentions, determine your destination.

I mean, a lot of people have good intentions.

But if you if you're if your directions are in this way and you need to be going this way, you need to change.

It's not your you have all the good intentions over here, great intentions.

But if you don't actually turn and go the other way, there's no life change.

Number two, live in biblical community.

We talk about this all the time.

The relationships that you develop inside the body of Christ are the relationships that sustain you.

They're the relationships that you need to count on.

There's a sweet, sweet lady in our church that had a minor stroke a couple weeks ago.

And so going to see her in the hospital, checking in with her over the last couple of weeks.

You know what I know what I hear?

I hear my small group, they're bringing me food.

They got food scheduled every other night over the next couple of weeks.

We've had so much support from this group and this group, this person, this person.

What they're they're sharing is we've been through a crisis, and the biblical, biblical, the community of the church has been there for us.

And then third is to learn.

To listen and obey the Holy Spirit.

Listen and obey the Holy Spirit.

Listen and obey the Holy Spirit.

The Bible teaches that those who follow the Lord know his voice.

He is a shepherd.

Jesus said, I am the sheep.

He says, I am the shepherd.

You are the sheep.

He said, My sheep know my voice.

Hebrews 3.15 says this.

Remember what it says.

Today, when you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled.

And let's take a moment.

And every eye open.

And every head up looking at me.

And I'm going to just take them on.

It's going to be a very short, short opportunity.

There's some of you, you've been in church your whole life.

But you've never been born again.

You're like Nicodemus.

I believe that there's a God.

He's out there, but I've never given my heart and life to him.

I've never been born again.

I've never, I've never never never trusted him.

I've never repented and turned to put my faith in Jesus.

And if you have, if that's you this morning, I want you to stand up.

I mean, is there somebody that has the courage to say, you know what, I thought I was a believer, or I know I'm not a believer?

And this morning, I want to give my heart and life to Jesus Christ.

I want to repent and believe in the gospel, the good news that Jesus came, that he lived, and that he died, and he rose again, and he is praying for me at the right hand of the Father.

He will return one day and he will restore everything back to the way that he intended it to be in the Garden of Eden.

There'll be a new heaven and a new earth.

There'll be no more tears.

Everything will be hunky dory.

That's right out of the Greek.

Stand up.

If you want to put your faith in Jesus, if you're not sure about it, this is a chance for you to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

I'm gonna give you a short window.

If you want to stand up, say I want Jesus.

Alright.

Let me ask you this.

Either most of you know Jesus, probably, probably most of you do, maybe some of you aren't ready.

Who would be willing to say, you know what, this is the year.

This is the year.

And and listen, I'm not gonna ask you for a commitment that you're gonna break in two weeks.

That's that's not what I'm saying.

What I'm asking is, I'm asking, are are you willing, are you willing to chase after Jesus this year?

And say, you know what, 2025, we're gonna see God do some amazing things.

We're gonna see God continue to do amazing things.

We're gonna see God do some things that we can't explain except by supernatural means.

And if that's you, if you believe that and you want to be a part of it, why don't you stand up right now?

Our prayer as we close this morning is to ask God to give us faith.

God, give me something I can't produce in my own strength.

Give me faith.

Give it to me.

God, give me faith.

Give me faith to step out and talk to that person that I've been thinking about, but but I've been nervous.

Rely on the Holy Spirit, the strength.

Don't let fear conquer you.

If you need to step out and be baptized, you've never you've never taken that step of obedience.

Don't let fear control you.

You step out and you go public with your faith.

God, give me faith.

Give me faith.

There's somebody at work I need to talk to.

There's a neighbor I need to invite to church.

There's a conversation that I need to have.

God, give me faith.

Father, we love you and we worship you.

And we ask that you would use this time as we sing back to you that this would be a prayer for 2025.

That you would give us faith.

Give us faith over the enemy.

Give us faith over our sin.

Give us faith to share the gospel.

Give us faith to be generous so we can provide more space to reach more people that are moving into this community.

Give us faith that we could live out our journey as disciples.

God, may we be a people that aren't simply a people that prayed a prayer.

We are a people that are disciples and followers of Jesus Christ.

So, Father, would you work?

Would you work in a powerful way this morning?

We thank you.

And it's in Christ's name.