Back to the Start | Part One | Pastor Brodie Kalamen

Thank you for listening to the Kelowna Christian Center podcast.

Our desire is that today's message will be fresh and encouraging to you.

For more information on KCC and how to connect, visit us at KCC.net.

Hey, we before you're all seated, uh, I just want to recognize we have two people in the house today.

Sean and Val Alon are here.

Front and center, they they s I'm not gonna put you on the spot to come on up and share for a minute, but but maybe I should.

Let's do that.

Is that okay, Sean?

Can I do that for Val?

You did just take a moment.

I'll just grab a microphone.

They I wasn't sure if they'd make it this morning, but come on up, Sean.

Come on, Val.

Come on, Val.

We love you guys.

Would you just share a little bit about what God has done?

And uh maybe we can have another time when you actually like share, share, but share, share.

Share, share, share.

So I'll share.

Uh God's been really good to me.

Uh I just want to thank everybody uh that helped.

Uh if you don't know, I've been in Mexico getting uh cancer treatment uh for my liver cancer.

And uh the long and the short of it is is uh that God is performing miracles in my body.

And uh I'd love to tell you more about it.

I will tell you more about it, but you just need to know that we serve a powerful healing God, and uh this uh this year is going to be uh a year of victory for us, for all of us, and uh so we just want to thank you all for uh your continued support and uh help and just want you to know that uh you know God is real, don't ever doubt God, because God is uh, you know, all the seeds you have sown uh are have come, the fruit is growing.

So just keep uh praying and believing with us, and uh we'll we'll pray and believe with you too.

It's a two-way street, right?

It's not just you guys believing for me, it's me believing for you as well.

And uh in that we're just gonna uh take over, you know, reach some souls for Jesus.

Thank you.

That was really good.

Thank you, everyone.

Um Mexico was really good.

We're to be honest, I was a skeptic, but God really used that time there for sure.

And Sean's feeling better.

He's not uh healed yet, but um we're believing and we're gonna keep praying, and we're thankful for every single person.

I just really reflect in the new year.

I was just like, man, I I'm so thankful for what this disease has done for our family, which is weird.

Um, but just in that, it's brought relationships and people.

Thank you for everyone who's supported us this last year.

We're so thankful, and we're believing for a total healing and miracle in Sean's life.

And like you said, we're believing for other people too.

So we're praying with you guys, and thank you.

Awesome.

I'll tell you, they put a smile on my face when I see them, and when I see Val, of course.

Val, you put a big smile on my face.

Um, it's awesome to have you with us today, and uh, I just want to tell you, we're going into 21 days of prayer, as Brian mentioned earlier.

Uh, we're believing, prayer changes everything.

Prayer changes everything.

If you came in this morning, you probably had opportunity to pick up a uh one of our prayer journals.

This is a personal prayer journal for you to take home.

This outlists a little bit of our process of prayer.

If you get, if you're just starting out and saying, you know, I've never really taken a prayer kind of prayer campaign or a mission to develop a habit of prayer, then take this book and just read it like page by page, page throughout the day, or uh a page a day.

And even some of the prayers in here are already listed for you.

You can just engage with us and uh participate with us in terms of praying together.

One of my favorite pieces of this prayer, other than perhaps my little write-up at the beginning, is the very last page, the very last two pages, uh maybe two, three pages, um, where it actually talks about your own personal prayer focus.

That personal prayer focus, I believe, is is really it's about you.

It's about you and what you're believing for.

It's about, you know, I can believe for things myself, but I can't believe for things for you.

You need to pick it up.

You need to ask God.

The Bible says, ask, believe, and then you'll receive.

And so you need to ask, and we need to be an asking church.

We I know we we try and stop kids from asking and saying, you know, dad, dad, mom, mom, can I, can I, can I, can I?

They're always asking, asking, asking.

Well, God loves that about us.

We gotta keep on asking, keep on believing, keep on asking, God, and keep on praying.

Pray for our government.

There are big changes happening in Canada in this next year.

There, or there may be.

Uh there, pray for our family, pray for our church, pray for life, our own life.

You have places where you're employed, places where you're working, your employers, pray for your close friends, put people's names down in whom you're believing for that they would just encounter God on their own in a real deep, rich way.

Keep believing.

How many of you have someone that you can pray for this year?

Someone who you can believe for this year, then we gotta keep praying for them this year.

Amen?

And believe together.

So during this uh month, we're gonna be opening up the uh lobby on Wednesday mornings uh at eight at 7 o'clock till eight o'clock.

And we're just gonna invite the church to come together and just to pray together.

But we're encouraging you to do that day by day.

Make this 21 days of opportunity to pray.

Um, it is, we believe prayer does make a difference.

And everything that we start with needs to start with that position of prayer.

We go to God first, not second, not third.

We go to Him first.

First in our morning, first before we make that push, first before we uh, you know, we take that step, first before we face that obstacle, we just go to God first.

That was the the lesson that we've learned through the scripture, and it's a lesson we've practiced that's uh really important for us.

So 2019 is gonna start with prayer, amen.

Um 19, 2019.

Now I hope everyone had a great New Year's.

You guys have a great New Year's, lots of food, lots of fun, lots of family, lots of fats.

That's good, fats are good for you.

Um, but for some people, the year, uh this new year, when it comes to actually 2019, it's about new beginnings.

Some people, it's about looking back and saying, in 2018, what did I do and what would I need to change in order for this next year to move forward?

They make forums or resolutions.

I like to call them intentions.

It becomes a year of intention for us in terms of pointing ourselves in the right direction, making a change.

But um 2019, you know, if we could go back, what would we change?

And the thing is we can't time travel, we can't go back, so we actually make decisions today about what we're gonna do from this point on moving forward.

And I think all of us moving forward, we would say, you know, there are some things that need to change.

And the whole they say 40% of people actually make a New Year's resolution, and they called January 12th National Quitter's Day, and we're halfway there.

That means there may be a percentage of you who have already quit.

They've got statistics in terms of gym memberships and dropouts in terms of the uh in terms of you know people going out and making special plans and for their own lives.

We're gonna make it through January 12th, right?

And that's where we just push through.

And we want to make new changes moving forward because um there are things that may need to change.

And change is one of those words that everyone just hates.

I don't want to change.

I don't want to make that move.

I don't want to make that, I don't want to, but in order for you to make a difference, if you want to stop doing the things that you were always doing and expect and get the same results that you always got, you gotta make a change.

And that change is oftentimes uncomfortable.

So, my hope today and part of this series, back to the start, is actually bringing us back to the beginning and saying, what things do we need to change, but what things need to get back to the beginning and actually need to remain concrete, remain solid in our lives.

Uh, I want to reestablish in these next few weeks some very important, very structural uh points in your life journey uh not to be forgotten in this season.

And so some of these things will require you to change.

Hopefully, they uh there'll be small adjustments, but uh they will require some change.

You know, every year the world changes, every year things become a little bit different, and uh it might come as a shock to some of you, uh but there are some people who actually make a profession, they make a living.

In other words, people send them a check each month for uh going online and posting videos on a on a platform called YouTube.

You ever hear of it?

YouTube.

There are people who are YouTubers.

Now you might think, I kind of know that, but did you know that right now, if you were to go to a grade school and you were to ask children today, what would you like to be when you grow up?

Being a YouTuber is number three on their list.

Now you remember when you were children?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

A policeman, fireman, dentist, garbage man, YouTuber wasn't on that list.

Because things and times change.

YouTube has changed.

These kids aspire to be this great YouTuber, this influencer.

And most people don't even think that a number of years ago, you know that there's a company today that in the last five years has developed itself to be the largest hotel that has more rooms than the largest hotel chain in the world, and it's called Airbnb.

How many of you have ever used an Airbnb?

Raise your hands.

Yeah, it's a massive shift, it's disrupted the hotel industry.

This little, little program that someone created at first on a just a simple website to provide an airbed and a breakfast has now disrupted the whole chain of hotels.

It's now the largest chain of rooms available that you could you could access at the at the touch of your fingertip.

Or this week, 10-year anniversary of Bitcoin was celebrated.

Wow, that's a rousing sound of applause.

Way to go, Bitcoin, 10 years.

10 years, this alternate currencies, 10 years ago, an alternate currency was developed to decentralize the financial market.

And at first you could buy a Bitcoin for under a dollar, and today that Bitcoin is worth over 3,500 USD dollars.

10 years ago, I don't suggest you go and buy Bitcoin right now, but I'm saying and I'm suggesting right now that the world is changing.

And you might know not know what an where to look for an Airbnb, or you might not know what a little bit of a coin is or how to find one, and don't ask me.

Um, but you might you might need to know right now that the world is changing, and the world is changing in terms of those things, change is going to happen, but there's some things that do not change.

Even though there's huge disruption on one side, there's some things that remain the same.

And the Bible talks about God, it says, I'm the same yesterday, today, and forever.

So no matter what the world is doing around you, swirling around you, there's some things that remain the same in Christ.

So certain things won't change.

The human soul hasn't changed.

We still, the human soul still has particular needs.

It hasn't changed that today.

We all need love.

We all need our families around us to provide us that love.

We all need that boost of self-esteem.

And that's why God gives us work and business.

We have places that we do we have need for the soul for knowledge.

We have a hunger to know something and to be known by someone.

And so that's why God provided education.

There's a a place in the whole human soul for aesthetic, the arts, beauty, color.

My kids have been loving watching Bob Ross recently.

Can you believe it?

Bob Ross.

Like when I was a kid and Bob Ross was on TV, I was like, no.

But my kids are like, Dad, can we watch a Bob Ross?

Now our tables are covered in paintings of sceneries.

All thank you to Bob Ross.

But which I can't believe my kids, which is really a signal of the generation they come from and the culture they're from.

Like, here's this guy with uh a white guy with a massive brown afro painting and talking in gentle voices, and just let your brush whisper across the page.

And and they're like in love with Bob Ross right now.

It's he's their hero.

But we love security.

All of us feel the need to be secure.

These things don't change.

We feel the need for freedom.

We all need a sense of opportunity for freedom.

That's why we have freedom of the media, freedom of the press.

Security is provided or should be provided by the government.

We have certain needs that will not change.

One of those needs is every human soul needs spirituality.

We need the knowledge of God.

It is by far the most supreme need, is the need to know God.

Martin Lloyd Jones said it's our supreme need.

And it needs to become our first priority.

What do you say first priority?

First priority is that we know God.

In the Apostle Paul, he emphasized this in a lot of his writings to the church.

He started his writings, his letters to the church in Ephesians and Colossians, and he said the same thing.

He said, listen, in it to the Ephesians, he says, I want you to know God better.

That you would know God better, that he would give you wisdom and revelation of knowing him better.

I pray that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened and that you would know him in a new and fresh way.

Paul was praying this prayer for the people because he knew that they needed to know God.

Again, in Colossians, he says, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.

There's a place of growth that happens when we come to know God better and better.

Now, how many of you think, you know, that's your prime, that was one of your resolutions this year.

I want to know God better and better.

Do you know that in resolutions, it's the top ten in the world?

Like one of the top ten resolutions in the world is that people would actually have a deeper relationship with God.

This is coming from a secular standpoint.

A secular, not inside the church, but the world has this desire to know God.

I believe that within all of us there is there exists a strong desire to be known and to be known by someone else.

And that's the power of community, and we all need it.

And we see this power of community, and we see it especially in the social media circles.

You know, people want to be known.

In fact, they want you to know what you they had for breakfast.

They want just go on social media for a little while, scroll through Instagram, take your thumb and just roll through, and you're gonna see people and their uh their like what they were eating, uh, what kind of shoes they bought, the way they look this morning, their funny hairstyle, like it, whatever it is.

They're gonna look, they're gonna show what kind of coffee they were drinking, all these things.

Why do people share it?

I'll tell you why people share it, because people like to see it.

People wouldn't share it unless someone was actually going, hey, I like that.

I like that breakfast, so I like those shoes.

Because inside there's this deep desire to share yourself with someone, and there's this deep desire to be known and to know.

It goes, it's a cycle of social, the social side of the human soul, the part of this relationship between us and God.

So, most importantly, all people desire to know their creator, and that's really the power of fellowship, and that's why faith is so important.

It's why you're here today, because there's something about gathering together that enables us to know God in a different way than you can when you're just at home on your own.

Why does the church get together?

The church gets together because there's this power in community, this power in the ability to come together and sing songs to God and pray to God and hear God's word to you that does something different to you than when you're alone.

It opens up your the spiritual channels, it opens up the heart to actually know God.

And oftentimes it's a it's an area where we neglect it.

It becomes secondary.

It's like I've got other things happening Sunday, I've got other things happening first thing in the morning for my devotions, I've got other things happening in the evening.

It becomes neglected.

And my my position to you today, my PowerPoint to you today is that we need to put God first.

And the knowledge of God first is gonna benefit you in 2019.

Knowing God in a deeper, richer, more personal way will benefit you, will benefit your family, will benefit your community, will benefit everyone around you when you know God in this deeper, richer way.

And so, why is knowing God needing to be our priority?

Let me share a few points with you today.

Um, and let me just say this like the reason why it can be neglected is not that we're just terrible people, it's the fact that we live a lifestyle of faith.

Serve an invisible God.

He's invisible.

I didn't wake up next to God this morning and see him.

I woke up next to her.

I saw her.

It's hard to neglect her.

It's hard to forget about her because she's right there snoring.

No, I'm teasing.

She's right there beside me.

Not tonight.

I'm gonna take a drink for a moment here and just reset.

2019.

It's hard to neglect the people that are around you that you see.

But you can go a whole week and not think about God.

Unless you're intentional.

And so today I'm sharing about why you should be intentional, why you need to be intentional.

My first point is this eternal life depends on it.

Knowing God.

Eternal life depends on it.

John 17, 3, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, Jesus Christ, whom you've sent.

Eternal life, according to the Bible, involves entering into a personal relationship with God.

It's more than just knowing about God, it's knowing God.

There's a big difference there.

The Bible says even the devil knows God, but the devil is not going to spend eternity with God.

It's about a deep, rich personal experience.

It's one of the awesome things about our faith that is different than any other religions, is that any other religions, you can't know God.

You can't know Buddha or Muhammad, but you can know Jesus by his spirit.

It's what we have that no one else has.

We can know the Creator God.

Part two here, point two here, I have is that knowing God really, your peace depends on it.

Your peace depends on it.

I just, how many of you love peace?

My wife said over the holidays, let's do lots of stuff together and go, go, go, go, go.

And she made this one choice.

She said, We're going to a movie.

And I was like, hey, I'm all into a movie.

Let's do it.

We're gonna go see Mary Poppins.

I was like, die to me.

I was like, babe, you're welcome to go.

Go.

And all the kids are like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And she was kind of upset, and I was like, you know what?

I just blut, I'll get you popcorn and drinks and just go, enjoy yourself.

Well, what are you gonna do?

I'm just gonna sit at home.

And they went to Mary Poppins, and I heard Nathan took a little snooze, and that was that was great you were there for them, Nathan.

But but peace is a wonderful thing.

Peace, the scripture says, be still and know that I'm God.

Would you do something with me?

Would you just take a moment and just be quiet?

I'm just gonna put 30 seconds on my internal clock here.

And let's just be still.

If you need to close your eyes, just be still.

They're uncomfortable with it because there's turmoil and it becomes something that they're comfortable with.

And when silence comes, it's difficult to adjust.

The scripture says peace.

There's peace that's associated with silence.

Know that I am God.

When you know God, there's a there's a sense of peace that's associated with that silence.

Um my kids sometimes get scared.

And when my kids got scared, I would just say, it's okay, dad's with you.

And when they know, or I take their hand, and when they know that you're with them, there's a sense of peace that rests with them.

And when sometimes we need to be still and just realize, hey, no God is with us, and when we know that that security and that peace is there, direction in our life depends on it.

John 14, 6 says that I'm the way, the truth, and the life.

Anyone who comes to the Father can come through me.

So when you know God, when you know Jesus, when you know him, there's there's there's the way that's made in front of you.

There's the the the truth is there.

You're not worried about being manipulated or deceived.

And there's life, and this life is eternal, and it brings good to your soul.

There's this eternal life.

The the the compass.

When you're when you know God, you've got this compass.

At our small group this week, one of the thoughts that came up is that there are many plans that a man has, but it's the Lord who directs his steps.

And it comes to a place where the whole world can be spinning around you, and you don't know which way is up or down, and you might have your plan, but you got to trust the Lord and that he'll direct your steps and he'll direct your way.

He's your director.

He's your he holds the compass.

Our spiritual growth depends on it.

The more one, the more time you spend with God, the more intellectually and experientially, the more time you spend with him, the more you become like him.

The more you become to grow like him.

In time, knowing God results in being like him.

I I knew nothing about coffee.

Nothing, absolutely nothing about coffee.

I grew up on church coffee, and I thought whoever drank it had something wrong with them.

Like it's church coffee was the worst coffee until Lisa came into our life and Pastor Ad came and helped restore our faith in Jehovah Java, our awakener.

And but it is our hope.

I knew nothing about it until I started seeing Natalie.

Natalie worked at uh Starbucks, and she got me hooked a little bit on coffee, and every time I'd pick her up after work, she'd have a drink ray for me.

And at first it was like an apple cider, caramel apple cider, then it was like a hot chocolate, then it was a hot chocolate with coffee injected into that hot chocolate.

Next time I wanted a hot chocolate and it didn't taste the same, it was because the shots weren't in there, and I'm like, hey, where's the good stuff that was in here before?

At our home, I started watching her make coffees, and years went by and I was spending more time with her, and I got to know what she was doing.

I got to ask questions and be a little critical and like, why are you doing this and why are you doing that?

And now who makes better coffees in the house, Natalie?

Yeah, I do.

That's right.

Because I warm that cup, I perfectly tamp that shot, and that coffee comes out with a layer of creme on top that's just like silk.

It's beautiful.

Are you guys wanting a cup of coffee right now?

It's beautiful, and it's all to my barista wife, Natalie, right here.

But now she's like, Brody, can you make me a cup of coffee?

And I'm like, I don't know what I got myself into, but now I'm I'm in that place.

But here we come to a place where when you spend time with God, you become more like Him.

When you get to know Him and know His ways, it becomes personal to you.

Understanding ourselves depends on it.

Uh when we get to know God, we get to know our Creator, and a Creator always creates something on purpose.

When God created, when the creator of this microphone, when He created this microphone so that it would work, oh, this side, it would work a certain way.

It would relay this signal and project it to a speaker system that would project it to you and the audience.

He created it to function.

When the chair that you're sitting on, someone created and formed that chair and engineered that chair so that when you sat on it, it would support your weight and be comfortable to you.

That's when God created you, He created you with a purpose.

And so the more you become knowledgeable of your creator, the more you understand your purpose.

So knowing God helps you understand yourself.

You were created, you are the best at doing what God created you to do.

So that's why knowing your purpose, knowing your your uh your place on this earth is so important.

And lastly, our worship depends on it.

Our worship depends on it.

When it comes to a place where it says that there's this depth of riches, there's this depth of wisdom, there's this depth of knowledge in God.

And the more you come to know God, the more you realize there is of God.

And the realize that there is always more.

There's more love, there's more joy, there's more opportunity, and it be it just converts in your heart to worship to God.

The more I get to know God and how much he loves me, the more I begin to extend thanks to God and praise to God and thanksgiving to God.

Is anyone out there with me who can call that out?

You just you just get so excited, you begin to think about what God has done and who he is and what he wants for your life that your heart just begins to bubble up and explode for him.

There's worship that's in our heart.

Worship is in our heart because of our knowledge to him.

2019 will not be the year you need it to be unless you come and commit to knowing God.

That deep, serious, rich knowledge of God.

It doesn't matter what you're going through.

If it's a challenge, allow it to bring a depth of knowledge of who he is.

If it's a celebration and a wondrous thing that you're going through in your life, allow it to bubble up knowledge of who he is in that moment, in that time.

So we need to see the riches, see the mystery, get to know him this year.

So, how do we find God?

Proverbs 8:17 says this.

Proverbs 8:17

It says, I love those who love me, and those who seek me will find me.

There's a story that was told of, and it's a real interesting phenomenon that happens in Southern America where the Amazon River flows into, I believe it's the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic Ocean.

Atlantic Ocean.

And as it flows into the ocean, um, it just it just moves so fast into the ocean with such a strong tide that there was these uh there were these uh sailors that were out on the ocean, and they'd been on the ocean for so long.

It was before the times where there was radar and radio and communications like we have today.

They uh sailors used to signal each other with flags.

Sometimes they do that today.

And they were out on the water for so long they exhausted all their food and they didn't know where the land was.

They couldn't see land and they'd run out of all the fresh water.

So you're surrounded by water, but you're literally dying of thirst.

And they see a ship in the horizon coming by and they pull out the flags and they start flagging to the other ship, and they start saying, they start saying, uh, we need water, help, we need water, you know, we're dying of thirst, you know, come.

And the reply back says, Let down your bucket.

And they said, well, maybe they didn't quite understand.

You know, we're do it again.

So they pull out the flags, help, we need water, we're dying.

And the reply from the passing ship says, Let down your bucket.

And they're out in the ocean.

And so the captain just says, you know what, we've got nothing to lose.

It's been days without water, we're exhausted.

What we're gonna do here, just take the bucket and they drop the bucket overboard.

And as they dropped the bucket overboard, they pulled it, when they pulled it out of the water and they took a drink from it, it was pure water.

And what they didn't realize is that when the Amazon was coming out from the Amazon River, it created such a rush that, and it was such pure water, it would actually press down the salt water, weighed the salt water would be weighted down, and along the top of the ocean would be up to 200 miles out, would be a layer of fresh, clean water that would still surge on top of the ocean water.

And they didn't realize that where they were, surrounded by water, the opportunity and the and the answer was right under their noses.

And so often I believe that we as Christians or people in general are living life and we're saying, Where's God?

I want to know, I want to know where the direction is, I want to know where the peace is, I want to know where my hope is, I want to know where all these things are, I want the blessing, where the blessing is, the favor is, the the where the answers are, where that compass is, and it's all around us.

It's all around us.

The Bible says, knock and the door will be opened.

Seek and you will find.

Ask and it will be given to you.

This is the God we serve, the God who holds back nothing.

What do you say?

Nothing, nothing good from us.

We're his kids.

So when you where we at we're at right now, can you find God?

The answer is most assuredly yes.

He's here.

When two or more are gathered together, he's here.

When you're he inhabits the praise of his people, he's here.

He's here for you today.

He's here for you right now.

This is how how close he is to us.

So the question is then how do you come to know God?

How do I come to know God?

And I I think back at the time where I was with my kids, and we were at uh we were going to Disneyland, which was a great little family vacation for us, and we just waited for my son.

He was just at that height where you know he could get on to some of the rides.

And we got to one ride, I was super excited.

We had we had jazzed it all up for him.

We said, Man, this ride's such a great ride.

You're gonna be so excited to go on this ride.

It's like a roller coaster.

And he was young at the time, I think he was about eight years old or seven years old, and he's and I was so excited.

And we got in line, we got to near the front, and one of the employees pulled us over and he said, He said, Hey, could hey son, could you just stand up against this wall?

And my son went up against the wall, and he just put his back up against the wall, and they measured him, and he was a quarter inch too small.

He was like that, he just didn't measure up.

And no matter what, you know, I you know, just oh, I'm so sorry.

And we just checked out of the line.

I someone had to check out with him because he couldn't check out by himself, and like we couldn't go on the ride without him.

He was seven or eight.

I wanted to, but he we stood by and we just kind of waited for the other group to come through, and they came off, oh, it was the best ride ever.

My son was pretty bummed out about it, and we said, All right, so this time, and this is what I'm known for in my family.

I'm like, we're gonna work this thing.

So the next time we went, we brought thicker shoes and we put on double socks.

What did we do?

We just loaded him up.

We had a lesson beforehand where we just said, This is how you stand your neck, we're gonna get you an extra quarter inch if it kills us, right?

And the next time we went to that uh check-in, there was another attendant there, and he stood up against that wall, and those shoes worked, and that padding worked, and he stretched out his neck, and he measured up and we got on that ride.

And I was like, Yes, we did it.

And I kind of manipulated the system a little bit there, but it was okay.

God was with us apparently.

And uh, so in this in this moment, in this situation, though, I I looked at it and I thought about the scripture that says Romans 3.23, it says virtually, it says, no one can measure up.

And all our attempts at measuring up fall short.

All of sin falls short of the glory of God.

Romans 3.23, it's it's like one of those verses that just tells me, Brody, no matter what you do, no matter how tall you stand, no matter what you put in your shoes, no matter what you buffer your life with money, fame, prestige, good works, all these things, there's nothing that can help me other than Jesus.

The good news to us today, church, is this the scripture says God so loved the world.

He didn't just love us, he so loved us.

He's so in love with us that what happened, he sent the answer.

He sent Jesus into our life to take care of us, to help us, to support us, to be a substitute for us.

That no longer do I have to try and measure up against this wall.

Jesus says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let me measure up.

He measures up and then he lets you in.

That is righteousness, church.

There's no way that we can know God in and of ourselves.

I'm not someone special because I know God.

I know God and that makes me special.

I know God.

I know God and He's placed something in me now.

This new life and this new start and this new beginning.

So Jesus didn't come to make bad men good.

He came so that dead men could live.

And I was a dead man.

And the people around you, if you look down your aisle, they were all dead men and women too.

And the scripture doesn't say, listen, in order to be saved, you must behave.

It says, if you believe, you'll receive.

And today, church, I'm just challenging the church.

You gotta believe.

You gotta believe.

Amen.

Amen.

Would you just bow your heads with me today?

There may be a restlessness in your spirit.

You may be listening to this word today and saying, Man, I need to know God.

I'm just gonna have two points here.

That if you're in the church today and every head's bowed and every eye's closed, and you're saying to yourself today, Brody, Pastor Brody, I want to just commit myself this year, commit myself 2019 to just having a deeper, more experienced relationship with God, more personal relationship with God.

I want it to grow deeper this year.

Would you just raise your hands?

Just raise them up, real tall, to say, this is me.

I want to have a deeper knowledge of God.

I want to know God in a deeper and real way.

Amen.

I just I believe God just sees that act as like a profession to say, hey, I want to know you, God, and God's saying, Hey, I'll let myself be known by you.

I'll chase you down, I'll hunt you down, I'll come after you.

But then there's another audience today.

I just want to pray for you, and I want to and I want to just lead you through some words.

I believe these words make a difference.

It's a prayer.

And if you've never received Christ today, you've never known God, not even for the first time, but you want to start this first step of your journey today in actually knowing Jesus and knowing him, it's gonna start with a prayer.

And I'm gonna lead you in that prayer, and I just want you, if you're in this place and you think, hey, that's me, I want, I want to know God, would you just raise your hand as well?

Just is there anyone here today?

It's your first time you want to make a decision to know God in this church.

Anyone here today?

I want to know God, I want to start 2019 in a place where I'm in relationship with God.

I'm gonna make a choice to follow Him.

I want to pray with you today as well.

And as a church, if we could take a moment and just pray this together, I believe these words have power, I believe they do make a difference.

Would you say this with me, Heavenly Father?

Today is a day of new beginnings.

I want to know you and be known by you.

I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and right now I give you my life, I give you my heart from this day forward.

I'll follow you, and I receive your love, and I receive your forgiveness.

This is my new beginning.

I want to turn from my sin and I trust in you.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Father, thank you today.

Thank you today for your presence with us.

Thank you today that you're all around us.

We're not alone, you're here with us.

You're the peacemaker, you're the life giver, you're the miracle worker, and Lord, 2019 is going to be better because we know you.

Amen.

Let's give them a round of applause today.