Pastor Brodie Kalamen | Intentional Relationship With God | October 5th, 2025

Thank you, Lindsay.

Where apparently worship is the best time of her service.

So I really appreciate the warm introduction today.

Hear that, Jamin?

She loves you.

Well, she also said that free food's the best food, but her husband's a caterer and a chef.

So I don't know, like, I don't know if the stage is the place for you, Lindsay.

She gets free food at home.

She has free food from the best chef.

That's the that's the best.

Well, well.

Thank you all for being here today.

Um and for sticking around for the sermon.

That's wonderful.

Uh today we're launching a new series, and uh, I'm so grateful to be able to uh push push this forward today and launch strong.

Um we've got some uh great uh just uh the month of October is some great uh dates for like a lot of events like our marriage conference and Thanksgiving and all kinds of uh small groups have launched, and we're just so excited to be launching strong.

And for all the newcomers here today, welcome! Welcome today.

For I just I love coming, just introdu uh getting introduced to new people, and people are bringing people, and it's always awesome.

Uh, this new series title is called On Purpose.

On purpose.

What do you say on purpose?

On purpose, right on.

Yesterday I went on a run, and people are like, Yay for Brody.

I went on a run and they said, You did it on purpose?

Like, you did that on purpose.

And I was going to uh meet up with my wife, and my youngest son was playing a game of basketball, and I said, How about I just meet you there?

And uh it was about 15 kilometers away, and so I started my run, and uh people when I got to the gym, you know, I looked, I looked the part, and uh I I came in and people are like, You ran here, and they're like, Why?

Like on purpose, on purpose, like your vehicle didn't break down, you're not in this thing with your wife, or you needed like some spare, some free time by yourself, or you guys are getting along and everything's okay.

It's like, well, how did why would you run here?

It's because I did it on purpose.

Intentionally, you're building resilience and you're building a stamina and you're you're pushing yourself to a place where your body doesn't want to go.

How many of you know that doing things on purpose isn't always easy?

You but you need to be intentional.

That's why we're doing our intentional conference, an intentional marriage.

We're building marriages, don't just happen by accident, they happen with intention.

And our life and our relationship with God doesn't just happen by accident or by default, it happens on purpose because you're intentional on the direction.

So intentionality matters.

Perhaps you've been it on a car uh or a road trip, and you've heard kids, you know, in the backseat fighting, and one says, Mom, he did that on purpose.

Like he crossed that line.

You remember the line in the car, you know, when you're on a road trip?

My side, your side.

And someone just like puts their hand on your side.

It's like, why are you doing that?

You did that on purpose, didn't you?

Just to get on my nerves, just to get me riled up.

And how many of you had a sister in your life?

You know, it was like their job to do that, push you on purpose.

Here's the truth: your relationship with God doesn't just happen by accident.

When you say it doesn't happen by accident, it happens on purpose.

And so for years, people have defined our generation and our culture as a culture of individuals, of people, who aren't living life on purpose.

In fact, a generation, Gen Xers, any Gen Xers in the house?

Yes! We're called X because they didn't have, it was defined that they didn't have a purpose.

They didn't have a reason to be here.

They just happened to be here, but they were always searching for purpose.

And that continuance of that same message has continued for uh generations here.

But I'm telling you today that even though there's a generation coming and there are young people that are now up in Breakfast Club, which is so we can talk about them today, it's like they are here, and people have this vision of them that they're lacking direction, lacking faith, lacking purpose, that they're living with just a meh perspective to God, but in fact the sentiment is changing, and the heart of a nation is turning.

In January 2021, I have a graph here.

In 2021, they it was said that uh only uh how much is that about 19% or 20% actually dipped down in 2022 of uh about 20% of people actually believing in God has shifted and changed, and now it's over double, rising to this last uh poll up to 2025, a 45% of students today believing that there is a God.

There's a shift because when people begin to connect to God, connect to their creator, they begin to connect with their purpose.

And their purpose in itself is that challenge and is that driver towards their future.

It's a surprising reversal.

Gen Z being referred to is an open generation, 4.4 million teenagers in Canada, and I believe those 4.4 million teenagers are gonna be used to reach the other 40 million people in Canada.

It's gonna come from the youth.

Right now, the largest demographic of individuals who are coming to church are within the 18 to 34 bracket.

Amen.

That's good news.

People are coming, people have made choices often, and here's what's unique is that it was because of COVID, something that I believe the enemy wanted to use to actually shrink the church, shrink faith, shrink your relationship with God, actually pushed a generation into seeking real community and seeking real hope and real meaning for life.

God created purpose.

Now, every day I spend prepping and connecting with people, I'm keenly aware and reminded of the fact that there are people now coming to church who, even though they're driven to us and driven here on purpose, their knowledge and their and their understanding of the Bible doesn't relate.

Like they don't know who a Matthew, Mark, or Luke or John is.

They don't know what a scripture is.

What's a scripture?

They get confused with the points of the Bible and the and different types of Bibles.

And one kid said that he loved kids' church, but the parents swore so much, saying Jesus Christ all the time.

It's like they only knew Jesus Christ is a swear word.

And it's the reality.

And it's something that we can we can shrink back from, but the fact is if we lean in, we can actually connect to a generation that is here on purpose.

One Hope International.

Uh I was on a call with Alpha Canada this week, and they did a study with uh preteens, and this is what some of the reports were.

It says that they're curious.

68% of all Gen Alpha preteens, that's uh preteens right now, say that their faith, religion, or spiritual journey is an important part of their identity.

Isn't that awesome?

27% of non-religious preteens believe Jesus is the Son of God.

19% of all preteens engage in alternative spiritual practices like astrology, tarot, or manifesting, not disinterest, but they're spiritually seeking.

We have a generation right now of students that are seeking God.

So the the challenge then turns back to the church.

How do you focus?

How do you respond to a generation that is seeking after God?

And if that isn't a challenge to the world, it's really a challenge to us internally about and related to our faith.

Here's some more, uh just last statistic here.

They're bolder than their beliefs.

73% of all Christian preteens feel confident sharing their faith.

I love seeing my son walking into basketball with a Jesus' King shirt on.

Like Jesus' Lord.

I love seeing that boldness in their faith.

50%, 7% say they feel responsible to share their faith.

One of the stories was of a girl who uh gathered a number of other girls.

They wanted to, they decided that they wanted to actually start a Bible study, and yet none of them had ever been to church before.

And this uh this uh leader, priest uh of this uh kind of very traditional organization down in um uh Vancouver was just sitting in like an empty hall, and this girl comes in and she says, You know, a number of my friends have decided that we want to actually begin to follow Jesus.

And we've all bought Bibles, and I'm leading the Bible study, and yet no one's ever taught her about the Bible.

She says, I found out that I'm the leader of this group, so I better find someone to teach me so I can teach these girls.

And they went ahead in their faith without anyone else reaching out to them to actually go after God.

God is doing something supernatural.

We ask for this, we pray for this, we say, Lord, send revival, and he's sending it.

Isn't that awesome?

58% said that they've been taught that they have been taught how to share their faith.

And it's true.

So this shift is happening, and this stirring is happening.

There is a hunger, and this generation is beginning to realize that you can survive without God, but you'll never truly thrive without Him.

You need God to thrive in your personal life, in your soul, in your with your emotions, in your life, with your purpose to grow old with a sense of mission and accomplishment.

Here's part of the reason.

Some people see God, and it's a theological framework.

They see God as a deistic God.

And this is a perspective where God, that the God that you see is a God that would like wind up a wind-up toy or a clock and then just put it down on the ground and let it just run chaotically.

That God just steps back and has a social experiment and just watches and is entertained by a world that's spinning out of control and watching people live within chaos, disorder, a sense of like a sense of randomness to your life, and like, why am I here?

And God is just watching, He's far, He's distant, He's difficult to know.

The deistic approach, and then there's also the theistic approach, and this is what we uh abide by.

This is what we believe is that God isn't a God who's afar off.

God is a God who is present with us, he's relational with us, he sustains us, he's active with us.

It's the reason why I can come to church and call out to God, he hears me and he answers me.

I can knock and he'll open the door.

He's a God who creates me for a purpose and doesn't leave me alone to accomplish it on my own, but is decided to co-mission with me, co-labor with me to see that accomplishment fulfilled, see that mission fulfilled.

You are not alone.

God is here with us.

He's as close as the whisper of his name.

That's our God.

We can find fragments of purpose without him, but we'll never find our true purpose, we'll never flourish away from him.

We need to find this life, and so this relationship with God, the first area where we need to push in purpose, live on purpose, is in our relationship to Christ, our connection to our creator, God.

We connect to him through prayer, we connect to him through worship, we connect to him through community.

And it's interesting that the tension is real, that God says, come join me with a group of people, come join me in a celebration that's very corporate and organized, but I also want to know you in the early morning, when you're walking up a mountain, when you're sitting in your closet, when you're kneeling beside your bed in a personal way.

God wants both the large scale and the personal scale.

He wants to pull you, he wants to keep you in that place of relationship.

Colossians chapter 1, verse 26 to 29 is a letter written by Paul to the church in Colosse.

Colossians 1:26–29

It's one of my favorite scriptures.

It's one of my missional scriptures here.

It says this, the mystery, because there was this idea that in order to get to God, you had to unlock a particular mystery.

You had to find out the secret way to get to God.

And everyone at this time in Kloss was selling their own private, private way to God.

Different means of finding God.

And Paul comes in and he disrupts everyone's organized business, spiritual business, and he says the mystery that's been kept in the dark for a long time, but now is out in the open that God wants everyone, what do you say, everyone?

Everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out.

Now, how many of you know that in Klossy would be like, what is it?

It's out in the open, I don't have to pay for it, I don't have to work for it.

It's it's here for everybody.

He says, regardless of your background, regardless of your religious standing, the mystery in a nutshell is just this.

Christ is in there, they're in you.

Therefore, you can look forward to sharing in God's glory.

It's that simple.

That is the substance of our message.

I love that word, simple.

That was gonna be my whole title.

Simple.

We preach Christ, warning people, don't add to the message.

We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity.

To be mature is to be basic.

Christ, no more, no less.

That's what I'm working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me.

Keep it simple.

Keep it about Christ.

We've got a generation that's looking to follow Christ, we've got a generation that's hungry spiritually, we've got a generation that's turning to the church, and what we don't want to do is add to the message.

Coloss, people were adding to the message.

You can have Jesus, but you also have to be circumcised.

That's for some reason that church never took off, the circumcision church.

It just never happened.

You can't go to church unless you're worshiping angels.

Don't go to church unless the Sabbath looked a certain way.

Don't go to church.

You can't get to God unless you eat a certain particular food.

You can't get to God unless you worship a new moon or a special moon.

You can't go to God unless you change your name and change your, and all these things were added to the gospel.

And Paul is pleading with the people.

I work day and night, day and night to keep the gospel simple.

It's about Jesus.

Jesus is in you.

The hope of glory, the hope of everything that you'll ever need can be found in Jesus.

To be simple is to be basic.

One of the most privileged titles I can get is Brody, your message is so basic.

I'm like, thank you.

It seems like you're so simple.

Thank you.

I thank you for this.

You know that meat, bread, and like meat and milk, the Bible says, like, there's the milk of scripture.

The milk is great.

The milk is something that I can feed you.

It's simple.

It's what it's the most basic.

The meat is what you do.

I don't feed you meat.

I don't take Nick out and cut his steak and feed him his steak.

I don't do that to you.

What do you do with meat?

You feed yourself.

You take the milk, and then you go home and you dive deep into the scripture.

And you dive deep into your relationship with God.

You allow God to unlock in you the mystery of who he is and what he's done and what he's doing.

And then that becomes the meat of your faith.

But for me, the gospel to you is simple, and I'm gonna keep speaking it day in, day out, day after day after day.

Jesus, get in relationship with Jesus, stay connected to Jesus, and you will find your life, your real life that is hidden with him.

That's where your life is found.

From the beginning, we became aware that we're not people who made mistakes and just need a second chance, but we're the type of people who inherited sin, and sin separated us from God to the degree that we were sinners in need of a savior.

I don't need a second chance, I need a new heart, a new mind, a new mission and vision.

And if you're not careful on this journey of faith, you'll begin to focus on the wrong things, and life will become complicated, it will become confusing, and eventually you'll just get complacent.

Like we we have a TV at home, and and uh I've worked really hard to making how many of you remember back in the day when you had like five remotes sitting across your counter, and you had one that would turn on the TV, the next one would turn on the sound bar, the next one would shift the data box to be able to turn on, to be able to load the TV with all the stuff, and the other one was just for music and for sound, and you were sitting there with five different remotes, and you know what you ended up doing at the end of the day?

Turning the TV off, like the TV never got on.

Why?

Because it was too confusing that it led to a complacency and a distance from it.

And what we can do with our faith is add to our faith so much that the message becomes anything but simple.

I want a device.

How many of you don't have a phone?

They were like, we're gonna remove all the buttons, and people were like, that's crazy.

We're just gonna make it simple.

We're gonna put one button.

How many of you owned an iPhone with one button?

You push the one button, and you were like, wow.

Now you've got an iPhone that you just tilt it up and it turns on by itself.

Simple.

Simple.

The act of making things more and more and more simple in your faith.

That's what we're going to work on with our faith is keeping it and our relationship to God simple.

Scripture says this come as you are.

And even for years I struggled with this.

Because I don't want this to be a permissive side that says you can come as you are and stay as you are.

Like it's just like you just, there was this like an avoidance in me to the spirit.

But the more I look at the scripture, even though the message may sound weak and the approach, it's the most simple invitation to people and biblical invitation to everyone.

That Jesus made this message to come as you are.

A number of years ago, this movie came out called The Jesus Revolution, and my parents had been in California during the Jesus movement, and they remember telling me stories.

The churches, it wasn't about your suit and your tie and your shoes.

It wasn't about your Bible and your education and all your mannerisms.

It became sandals, flip-flops, your Bible, your t-shirt with the Jesus one way.

It's simple.

Like it became the message.

And I look at that and I think, Lord, how do we wanna, how do we fill your house?

How do we reach people with your message?

And we're gonna do it through a profound common sense.

Matthew 11, 28 says this Jesus, his invitation, come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

This is not painting a picture of someone in perfect pose.

This is painting a picture of someone who is overworked, tired.

How many of you can fit that, Bill?

Stressed out, feeling the weight of the world, and the Bible says that those are the type of people that Jesus is saying, come on in.

Welcome.

All you who are are heavy laden, all you who are are under the pressures of life.

You don't have to have it perfect, just come as you are, and you're welcome here.

But I don't know it.

I don't know all the ins and outs, I don't know the the like the I don't know what a Leviticus is, I don't know any of those things.

It's okay.

If we're going to reach the generation, if we're gonna reach people today, if we're going to do the mission of sharing the gospel of the kingdom, it's going to be in a spirit of profound common sense.

We have to do it on purpose, intentional.

It's not that, it's not otherwise.

John chapter 7, verse 37 said this.

John 7:37

Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.

What was the concern Jesus had?

The concern was that there's a need.

And the need is what actually mattered, that if you have a need, you can come to Jesus and find that need fulfilled.

Paul wrote to a church in Corinth again.

That was Jesus' calling, but then Paul writes again.

And this place was like any other major city.

It literally, the things that were going on in Corinth, you couldn't even write about today in the social media.

It would be censored.

The stuff that was going on.

It was a perverse place.

And Paul says this so it was with me, brothers and sisters, when I came to you.

I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God, for I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.

My message, my preaching were not wise and persuasive words, but with demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith may not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power.

It's about this common sense.

I want to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Some people, when they look at the Bible, they look at our faith, they look at our religion, they see like you would at a ticking time bomb, you know, in the movies, and they've got red wires, blue wires, and they're like sitting there and they're like, what should I do?

What should I do?

What should I do?

What should I do?

And there's like just press the stop button.

It's all that needs to happen.

The foundation of our life, the foundation, it's not complicated.

The foundation of our life has to has to be rooted in this simple space.

Like if you were to come to my house, I'm really proud of the house we built.

Um, you know, 20 plus years ago, we were fortunate enough to like get into the market early, get a house built.

And when we built the house, we there was a lot of effort.

Some of the uh contractors are here with us today, and like it's an amazing house.

But if I was taking you through the house, I would take you through like this is where we chill, this is where we eat, this is our backyard, all these things.

But I probably would not take you to under the stairwell where you can see the foundation, be like, check it out.

Look at it, it's impressive, isn't it?

I I wouldn't take you, it's not the showpiece that you show, but it's upon that foundation everything else is built.

And it's what matters.

Paul, uh Jesus, that Matthew, when they what they're recording here is that everything that Jesus says needs to be come back to that place of casting your burdens on God, throwing everything on Him, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

So throw it on to the one who cares for you.

If you're wanting to be mature in your faith, maturity is basic, maturity is simple.

Let me share with you this today.

Keep it about Jesus.

John chapter 1, verse 17 says this.

John 1:17

Moses was an Old Testament uh prophet, he was an Old Testament leader, and he came with the law, and the law over time became something that was added to.

So Pharisees decided to add to the law.

Like Moses was given the Ten Commandments, and the Pharisees added over 600 rules to those commandments.

And Jesus went about every day breaking those rules.

One person comes to him with a crippled hand, but it's on the Sabbath day.

And the law says you can't heal on the Sabbath day.

And Jesus just looks at the man with the crippled arm and he says, Stretch out your hand.

And the man stretches out his hand and becomes well.

And the Pharisees are like, How dare you break the rules?

And I found in Scripture that people like rules, they like boundaries, they like, they like that sense of superiority, and they would walk around Jesus and they would say, I know the five books of the Bible by heart.

I know all these things.

I've kept all these rules since I was a child.

And so the rich young ruler comes to Jesus.

He says, What do I need to do to be born again?

To experience eternal life.

And he goes, and he goes to impress Jesus with what he's done.

And Jesus says, Well, you've heard the law, like you know the law of Moses, and and the rich young ruler says, Yeah, and I've kept every one of those laws to the T since I was young, and I'm perfect.

And he goes to Jesus, and Jesus says to him, Okay, great.

This you're doing great.

And with great love, the scripture says, he says to him, Now sell everything you have and give it to the poor.

And at that point, the rich young ruler who had made his God his money, and his heart wasn't aligned with God's heart.

He wasn't willing to submit that place of his life.

Walked away saddened because he couldn't do it.

Jesus went above and beyond the law.

The law was given through Moses.

The law was given there to them, and Jesus said, I've come, like the law is one thing because people wanted a transaction.

I did all this, I am so good.

Now, God, you can give me salvation because of the things I've done.

I've gone to church, I know the Bible, I've kept all the rules, I've done as much as I can, like literally to the point where, you know, one illustration Jesus says is if your donkey or your sheep falls into a ditch and is stuck and it's on a Sabbath day, who's not gonna like get them out of there?

Like you're not allowed according to the law to even pick that animal out of the ditch.

Jesus said it's ridiculous.

Tense the reason why they wanted to kill him.

Because they're he was wrecking and disrupting their sense of valid salvation.

If I keep the law, I'll find salvation.

It was transactional.

Instead, Jesus said it's not about the transaction, it's about the relational aspect.

We move from transactional to relational.

So Jesus says, you know the ten laws, and I'm telling you, those ten laws are made up into two, upon which your laws are just hung.

Your laws are hung on my superior law, Jesus said.

Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind.

Is that a transaction?

No, that's a relationship.

Love him with your soul, your mind, your body, your strength.

Give him and then love your neighbor like you would love yourself.

Jesus said, That's the law.

And Jesus went back to simplifying 600 laws and 600 rules and summarizing them down to two.

How many of you love that?

I love that.

That's the power of Jesus.

So the law was given through Moses.

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

The law was hard, rigid, distant.

Jesus was full of himself as a person of grace and truth.

So he didn't come to remind you of sin.

The law would be a reminder of all the things you had done wrong.

He came to give you remission of sin.

Remove your sin.

And I'm so grateful for that because Jesus did what I could not do.

He gave me what I did not deserve.

And that's the grace of God.

The grace of God is that unmerited favor of God.

It means I don't deserve this, but you decided to give it to me.

And when you walk in grace, you walk in a spirit of gratitude.

We'll be talking about this next week at Thanksgiving, because there's intentional gratitude.

Once you learn to become offended, once you become offended, you forget the grace that's been being given to you and you become ungrateful.

But when you know God's grace and you couldn't earn it and you didn't deserve it, but God Himself loves you so much that He poured out His grace upon you, that becomes something different.

The woman, when Jesus was at uh at the table, and a woman comes in and she she has a bottle of perfume and she's preparing his body for an eventual uh crucifixion and burial.

And I just can't imagine Jesus like carrying this smell on him as he's carrying the cross and as he's being whipped and beaten and going on to the cross.

She came to him and she took a bottle of perfume that was worth a year's worth wage, a year's wage, and she broke the bottle and she poured it over Jesus, and his disciples are losing their mind.

They're like, you know what we could have done with that amount of money?

You know what we could have done had we sold that bottle of of perfume?

And Jesus looked at her and he said, and he appreciates her and he cares for her and he values her and he recognizes in her to whom much has been forgiven, there's great gratitude that comes out of you.

Those who have forgiven little love little, but those who have been forgiven much love much.

For you and I to know what we have been forgiven from and loved despite of, all of a sudden that should turn our heart into the greatest act of worship.

That's why the church should never be a quiet church in worship and praise, because we realize where God has brought us and what he's brought us from.

Jesus is full of grace, Jesus is full of love, full of truth.

Jesus is full of truth, and Jesus loves you the way you are, but he loves you so much he doesn't let you stay that way.

How many of you have ever had something in your teeth?

Or had bad breath?

And when someone you lean over and you tell that person that you married, hey, and she goes, your breath doesn't smell that great.

How many of you know that that hurts a little bit?

Or when a friend comes to you and goes, You got something there in your teeth, and you're like, Oh man, that's truth.

And it hurts and it stings a bit.

But what's it there for?

It's because they love you enough to tell you the truth.

And so we value that in people.

And God, even though He may instruct us and you may come to church and be like, God, yeah, like it feels like painful here.

It feels like I'm I'm dealing with some stuff that you're tender that is tender towards me, tender in me, and God's like, but I'm dealing with it in you because I care for you.

I'm dealing with you because I'm I have grace for you, but I'm also a person of truth, and I am Jesus.

The message is Jesus, what we preach is Jesus, and we approach each and every person with what?

Grace and truth.

And we live in a society right now because truth really produces trust.

That it like if you've had something in your teeth and you went all day with that, and your friend's like, yeah, I saw it this morning, I just didn't want to tell you.

How many of you wouldn't trust that person ever again?

But because you know them, you trust them, and we live in a world today where where you pursue, like we pursue tolerance, we pursue um in this pursuit of tolerance, like we remove truth.

And so we don't want to say what's truthful to a person because we don't want to offend them.

And instead, the the fact that we're not telling someone the truth is very unloving.

So we can say it with love, but we need to base everything on the truth, and so here are just a few thoughts about how truth sits.

Truth, number one, people base their truth on their feelings, and I'll tell you why that's not a good idea because your feelings change a lot.

One day it's high, you go outside, blue skies, I'm happy.

Next day it's raining, I'm sad.

It's like you just like what you ate, what you like, all these things affect your feelings and your emotions.

And what you feel doesn't always, isn't always the truth.

And so we, if it was up to me, like it's it's like feelings really shouldn't matter too much.

I have to always keep my feelings in check, do a checkup on my feelings to make sure that my feelings actually are are under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, like that I will feel like I may not feel like getting up today, but I choose to get up.

I don't feel like loving my wife today.

Well, tough.

Tough.

It's a commitment.

I don't feel like going to the gym.

Tough.

I don't feel like reading the scripture, tough.

It's not about your feelings, and that's a tough thing to live on, but the feelings matter to people, to people more than they should.

Friends, people base their truth on their community that they're in, their social network.

All my friends, we all believe this, and it becomes this identity that you slip into, and it becomes a politic in your life.

And how many of you know that like life is kind of like left and right?

It's become more and more left and right, liberal, conservative, republican, democratic, all those things.

Instead, my friend is Jesus, and his way is the kingdom way, and I'm going to push kingdom value on every politician that's out there.

Base that needs to become the basis of your truth.

And it doesn't matter if you're red or blue or left or right, I choose the kingdom.

God's way always comes first.

So friends are important, but they don't matter to truth.

And lastly, it's your fantasies.

I wish, I wish the world could just get along.

I wish that if I was tolerant and accepting, that everything would be okay.

I wish that I could just say whatever I want to say and it would be the truth.

And it doesn't work like that.

Your fantasy doesn't matter.

The truth is only found in the person of Jesus.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, the life.

Anyone who gets to God has to go through that way.

And where there is truth, there is freedom, and there's liberty.

And that freedom and liberty will make a difference for you.

Amen.

We invite the worship team to come up.

To come up today.

Keep the gospel simple.

Keep the message simple.

And it's going to require you to do this on purpose.

On purpose, you're keeping it simple on purpose?

Yes.

Are you going to be ridiculed because it's so simple?

Yes.

Are you going to continue to keep it simple?

Yes.

What is it about?

It's about Jesus.

It's about grace and truth.

It's about what Jesus has done for me and what I didn't deserve.

And it's about the truth of God's word and how it reflects on me and my life today.

And that is going to be the truth that's going to drive us forward and move us into that place of finding that relationship with God that will satisfy every desire, every need, every mission that will be in your heart that comes from him will be accomplished.

That is where we find it.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

It's not about complicating it.

It's about keeping it profoundly simple.

Profound common sense.

It's about being a part and connecting to the rhythm of grace that God has in your life.

And you say, Lord, I just submit myself to you today.

Would you just do that?

Just maybe close your eyes today and just connect with God and just say, I submit to you.

I submit to you.

Come into my heart that I might know you.

That I might have a relationship with you.

If you want to right now, just begin to reflect on the grace over your life and just say, it's amazing grace.

It's amazing, amazing grace.

Nothing that I did or could do could do what you did for me.

You took me out of the out of the mess I was in.

You gave me a message.

You took every test and you gave me a testimony.

You have set me up for my future.

You've given me a hope and a vision and a plan.

And all those things are there because of you.

Thank you, Lord, for your creation in me.

Thank you for Christ being in me.

You're my hope.

You're my peace.

You're my joy.

You're my person.

You're Jesus in me.

My life is identified by you today, Father.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus, for the life in me.

In you I live.

In you I breathe.

In you I move.

In you I have my being.

It's not about what I do, it's about who you are in me.

It's not what I do, it's what you've done for me.

And I'm so grateful today for your care for me today.

Hallelujah.

Thank you, Lord.

If you're here today and you're listening to this message and you're like, I want that relationship with Jesus.

I just don't know where to start.

I I want to know that life in me and I need that simple introduction.

Would you just introduce me to him?

I just want to make that simple introduction for you today.

If there's anyone in this room, we're just gonna pray a simple prayer and we're going to introduce you to Jesus Christ.

Would you just raise your hand?

If you're here today, you've never made that decision before.

Anyone in this room, I see that hand.

Yeah.

Anyone else?

Would you just as a church take a moment here and let's just pray together and say, Father, I thank you for Jesus.

I thank you that you loved me enough to send your only son to die for me, to provide for me forgiveness of sin.

I accept you today, and I confess today that I have sinned, I've fallen short, and I need help.

I want today to have that relationship new with Jesus.

Come into my heart, fill my life, and allow me today to start with you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

If you have never prayed that prayer before, you've never had that experience before, we want to be in touch with you.

We've got a slide on the screen just to let you know how you can just, how we can help you take the next steps from here.

But God loves you enough.

He gives you the grace, he loves you enough to tell you the truth, that uh that our life doesn't have to be ruled by laws and religion.

It can we can each and every one of us can have a relationship with Jesus.

Isn't that wonderful?

Amen.

And because of that, we're grateful.

Will you just place your hand on your heart?

May the Lord bless you.

May the Lord keep you.

May his face shine upon you, may he be gracious to you, lifting up his countenance over you.

May the Lord give you peace over your mind, your soul, your body.

May this be a blessing over you and over your family.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

God bless you.

If you'd like prayer today, we have our prayer team over on the front or take communion off to my right.

Bless you for the newcomers and for people who would like to connect with some of our team.

Come on downstairs, we'll have some food and uh connect.