Family Photo Album | Ps. John Wyatt

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando podcast.

Thank you so much for listening today.

We hope it encourages you and inspires you.

Here's today's message.

Oh yeah, I got one.

Before I even got up here, I got an Oh yeah.

Good to see everybody.

Hey, thanks for having me out today.

I just want to thank uh real quick, Pastor Keith and Megan.

Maybe they're they're checking us out even online.

Can we put our hands together and welcome our online audience?

Everybody who's tuning in today, including the Pittmans.

Hey, we love you guys.

I've known them the better part of uh 15 years.

We've been serving at Celebration Church together.

And I just love your pastors here, man.

They do an awesome job.

I'm so glad that they get to go and do this.

And I'm honored that they would invite me to come and speak into the community of faith here.

You guys got some great preachers here, man.

I know about Nate.

You know what I'm saying?

I know about Lindsay.

I know about Vinny.

Come on, you got a house full of pastors and preachers here.

You know what I'm saying?

I know that any number of you probably could get up here and give a word that would that would edify the body of Christ, but it's awesome to be invited to come and to speak into the community here.

Um we're one family, uh, one church, many rooms.

I bring you greetings from Tim and Jen Timberlake, our senior pastors there in Jacksonville, our whole staff, our whole uh, our whole family there in Jacksonville.

We love you.

We pray for you often.

We love to get together uh every Tuesday.

We pray for you guys specifically in Orlando for everything you're doing.

And I just bring you greetings on their behalf.

And uh I just want to say thanks to a whole team here.

Put your hands together for the team that serves you here week in and week out.

Awesome.

I love your staff here.

It's not just Keith and Megan, you know what I'm saying?

Like I said, I love Lindsay.

Man, she uh I watched her grow up in Jacksonville before she moved down here when she was just Lindsay Carter.

Lindsay Carter, I used to call her.

Lindsay Carter.

Anybody, I don't know, I'm showing my age here.

Mr.

Cartea.

Uh, but man, we love Nate.

Uh look, I love honestly, Rachel's one of my favorites.

She's not here.

I told everybody to go wish her, uh wish her well.

It was her birthday last week.

She serves as just CKids.

You guys know Rachel and CKids, she does an awesome job.

Put your hands together for her and for our whole team.

I was like, hey, everybody, stop by and tell her happy birthday.

Yeah, she's on a trip.

Uh so anyway, get her next week, right?

Wish her well.

We love your uh your team here.

We love hope.

Uh man, just incredible people.

And uh, I'm so grateful for the team that serves you here, as well as all your serving teams, outreach teams.

You're doing amazing work here in Jacksonville, and I'm sorry, here in Orlando.

And uh we're just grateful to be a part of what you're doing here.

Why don't we open up our Bibles to John chapter 17?

John 17 · chapter mention

John chapter 17 for the next two hours and 48 minutes.

John 17 · chapter mention

I'm going to- is that what that says?

I have 10 hours and 59 minutes to preach?

That's awesome.

Oh, that's that's the time.

No, just kidding.

We just have a few minutes together, so I'll dispense with the formalities.

But uh I wanted to read to you as I was praying for you know what God would have me share today, seeking the Lord.

I was just reminded of how easily distracted we are from the things in life that matter the most.

Would you agree with me on that?

Like it's pretty easy to get distracted from the things in life that matter the most.

Life's full of white noise, it's full of opportunities, there's a million things going on.

You ask anybody on earth, well, how are you doing, man?

What do they say?

Man, I'm busy.

Everybody says, man, there's a million things that you can spend your time doing.

Sometimes it's it's easy to forget about the things that maybe matter the most.

I want to show you in the Word uh that Jesus is our example, that even though he only lived on earth 33 years and only really did ministry the last three of those, God activated him and from 30 to 33 or so.

Uh, he did the work that we read about today in the Bible.

He he did what we're gonna see in the scripture, he accomplished all the purposes of God for his life.

How about that in just such a short time?

Now he didn't heal every single human being on earth, he didn't cast out every demon that was manifesting itself in a person, right?

You know, he didn't do it all, but he did exactly what God had prescribed for him to do.

And that's true about us as well.

God has a plan and a purpose for your life, friend.

I'm here to tell you that today.

I came all the way from Jacksonville, Florida to tell you that today.

God has a plan and a purpose for your life, a divine design, something special and unique that He's crafted you for.

And if you blink, you might miss it.

We have to be intentional about these things and making sure that we grab a hold of every one of those moments that matter the most.

Amen?

We're gonna look in the scriptures about that a little bit here today.

Let's let me read this to you.

I'll unpack the verse, the the this passage a little more in a moment, and then just hit you with a couple quick examples, and then we're gonna go out and dunk people in the baptism pool.

Oh yeah.

Well, let me read John 17, verses 1 through 4.

John 17:1–4

This is Jesus, he's praying, and again, I'll unpack it here in a second.

Let's read through the text straight through, cold read.

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.

Glorify your son, that the son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.

For the next few minutes, I just want to speak to you briefly about prioritizing the moments in life that matter.

And I call this message Family Photo Album.

Are you ready?

You're ready.

Give me here.

Oh, yeah.

All right, I'm in the right place, man.

Heavenly Father, we love you.

Thank you so much for opening up the scriptures to our minds and our hearts today.

Thank you for speaking truth that we can count on.

We can take it to the bank.

If it's in your word, God, it's true.

We're just such a treasure, God, that there is something, a standard that we can go by to God and to build our lives on your principles and your promises.

So, God, we welcome your presence into this place, into our hearts.

God, we want you lead and guide us as we as we hear from you today.

May the words of my mouth and meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight today, as I bring your word in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Oh, yeah, and I love it.

I love that spiritual flow, brother.

Thank you so much.

Woo! Listen, everybody, grab your phones just real quick.

If you don't have them on your hands already, why don't you grab your phones?

Kids, I know we dismissed our middle and our high school students.

Probably told them before they left to put their phones away or something.

But grab your phone real quick and open up the photo app on your phone, right?

And I want you to tell me, I want to just survey the crowd here.

Uh find out who has the most pictures in their recent album.

I have 14,264 pictures in my recent album.

I think it goes back.

I looked earlier, man, and like the oldest picture was like 2017.

Like that isn't that's like three, six years of of work.

Who's got more than me?

Who's got more than me?

How many of you got?

41,000 pictures.

41,000 pictures in your phone.

Yes, that's what I'm talking about.

Anybody got more than that?

Anyone more?

More 41,000?

How many you got?

107,000 plus photos in your phone.

Come on, put your hands together.

What a it's the most powerful tool on earth, the cell phone.

I've traveled here from back in time today.

I come from the land where we used to carry our video cameras on our shoulders, and we used to have the to and from button on them to make them zoom in and zoom out, and we used to take the cassettes and put them into the TV, into the VCR, and watch those movies.

I also come from the land of film cameras.

Anyone?

Film cameras?

Wave at me if you okay.

Most of you, I don't know.

We again we sent out the teens, but film cameras.

They're making a comeback.

My 21-year-old daughter has a film camera.

She thinks it's so cool, those disposable ones.

The film camera, this is what I was born on and raised on, was the film camera.

Because think about this, this is what you do.

You you it count it.

When you want to take a picture of something and capture the moment, you would really have to be very intentional about it.

Right?

You'd have to get just the right group of people together, and you got to get just the right lighting and everything else.

You want to count it down.

Because if you take that picture and you accidentally twitch, that picture ain't coming out, right?

Or and you don't got another shot at it.

If somebody blinks, it'll ruin the shot.

You know, when you take the picture, so you're very intentional about creating a moment that you could capture.

And then what do you do?

You take the film out of the camera, you got 24 on, or 24 pictures on a film roll, a standard film roll, right?

You you take it on down to the Walmart, right?

And you go up to the photo place and you fill out the little envelope and you stick it in there and seal it with that gummy stuff that's not nasty.

Who knows how long those have been there?

Uh who what got stuck is like fly paper, you seal those things up with, and you drop them in the little container, right?

And then uh about a week or so later, maybe more, uh, you get a phone call, you reach over to your uh phone connected to the wall and you say, Hey, hello, this is John White Residence.

How can I help you?

And uh, and and uh the other side, it's like this is uh Walmart, not an automated Walmart, but a real human being here to let you know that your pictures are are full developed and they're back and ready to be picked up.

Thank you so much.

Drive back to the Walmart, get them out, and you you run out to the car, right?

Can't wait to see if the pictures turned out.

So you run out to the car and you get in the car before you drive anywhere, you open them up and you start to thumb through them, man.

Oh, look at the shot.

This is amazing.

It came out just like I had hoped.

Oh man, that's a throwaway, throwaway, throwaway, throwaway.

Here's like another good one.

This one came out.

Oh man, Uncle Stan blinked.

Oh man, you're going through them.

You get you get like a few.

Most of the pictures, to be honest, they end up like in like a shoebox and probably like pitched or something like that.

I don't know, man.

They you they I don't know, they're they're kind of tucked away in different parts in your storage.

If you ever move, you find shoeboxes full of pictures.

Like, what in the world?

Where are these from?

I haven't seen these in years.

But the best of the best of the best would make it into what we call a photo album.

Photo album and into from the past, I've brought a couple examples of photo albums to show you today what these things look like.

Some of you are with me.

This one says Carrie and John, May 24th, 1997.

Me and my bride got married on May 24th, 1997.

Come on, 26 years we just celebrated.

The moments that matter most.

Here's me and my wife.

We're on vacation.

I scooped my wife out, child bride, right out of high school, man.

She was 18 when we met.

I was 23.

I can't believe her mom didn't chase me off.

But um, she's married.

We're 20 years old.

I married my wife.

I was 25, and uh, you know, I'm like, man, let's go see the seven wonders of the world for our honeymoon.

She's like, no, I want to go to Disney World.

So here's the 25-year picture of the castle.

You saw the 50th one, man.

The 25th was pretty spectacular.

Here's us by the train, you know what I'm saying?

Up in the sky ride.

This is there anymore.

I talked her into going on a cruise, though, for the second part.

Here's us in San Juan.

Oh, yeah, come on.

It's taking me back.

Even just looking at the pictures kind of takes you back.

The moments that matter most, man, my my honeymoon.

Oh, here's a here's a good one.

Oh, look at that one, man.

Look at the the dog ears on the outside.

That's what I'm talking about.

I scoop this out.

There's there's about 15 of these in a big case in my house.

I just grabbed the one on top, opened it like to a random page here, man.

See if I can bring back a memory.

Daughters are 21 and 19 now.

Here they are.

Little tiny little stroller, little chunky monkey.

Oh my gosh.

Here's my dad.

My dad's here today.

Hi, hi dad.

Oh, yeah, my stepmom Kim.

Hi.

They live here in Orlando.

He's a pilot in the army.

Here he is with his little tiny infant baby granddaughter.

How about this one?

Here is with a cat.

The cat's long gone.

Baby's still here.

All grown up.

It takes you back to a moment, man.

We're gonna dress them up in my hats.

We're gonna put my different hats on the baby girl.

My wife was a stay-at-home home mom.

We took pictures a lot of the baby, man.

And this is just our oldest.

We've got tons of these laying around, and they capture the moments that matter most.

You know what you won't find in there?

Pictures of my desk at work.

I'm a pastor.

My work's important, right?

You won't find a single shot of my desk at work.

You won't find pictures of me answering emails.

You won't find pictures of me scrolling through Instagram.

Instagram didn't exist near the internet.

I don't think it did anyway.

It might have been secret covert internet, but we had no access to it at the time, right?

You won't find pictures of the moments that really don't matter.

You find pictures of the moments that matter the most in the family album.

And even though we've got 107,000 pictures in there, I started scrolling back through 14,000 pictures on my phone.

I'm like, I don't remember.

Most of this is like a bunch of stuff.

The rare ones are harder to find.

They capture the moments most.

The moments that matter the most to you, kind of you ever tried to like pull your pictures out of your phone and put them into an album?

You have to scroll through 10,000 pictures to find a good one.

Or there's like 38 pictures of the same one.

It's hard to really focus in on the moments that matter the most.

Would you agree with me?

So Jesus, in order to accomplish everything that he had to accomplish, I would be willing to bet that he had to focus on the moments that matter the most.

And I want to share with you today, in just these last few minutes together, that I believe that it's up to you and I to really spend our time and our energy focused on the moments that matter the most.

Not the random moments that you'll never remember again, but the ones you'll find in a photo album one day.

And you'll pass them on to your children and your children's children.

Those things will endure because they capture a moment where you did something significant for the kingdom of God, or where you did something incredible, where you invested in your family, or sacrificed so that others could have something that they didn't do before.

The moments that matter most.

Let's see what Jesus did in this passage right here in John chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

Now here's the context.

We did a cold read earlier.

The context of this is John 17 is found in a part of the scriptures that it's known as the upper room discourse.

So this is Jesus.

And uh he's with his disciples, and they're in the upper room, they're they're taking communion together, they're having uh they're having uh a Passover Seder meal together, and he starts to teach them because he knows at the end of the night he's gonna be arrested, he's going to be crucified, and he's going to be put into the ground, and then he's gonna be dead, buried, and resurrection, like resurrected.

All this is about to happen.

This is his last time with his disciples before they're scattered.

And so John, the apostle John, the disciple John, he's the one that wrote this.

I love how he calls himself the disciple that Jesus loved the most.

He's a humble guy.

Um, but he writes this down, he gives us like several chapters.

He tried to make us a fly on the wall in the upper room discourse.

And here's Jesus.

Jesus is telling them the final instructions, the most important things that they need to remember before he goes away, and they're in charge of the gospel.

And uh he starts to pray.

As he spoke in these words, he he begins to pray.

I love how he says he uh in verse two, he since you have given me authority over all flesh, I give eternal life to all that you have given to me.

Authority over all flesh.

He has raised the dead, he's healed the sick, he has displayed, he has put on display that he is God in the flesh, that he is all authority in heaven and earth, belongs to him.

He's put that on display.

He's the God that we can love, the God that we can trust.

We can put our faith and our hope in him.

He is true and trustworthy.

It says in verse 3, this is eternal life.

I love it.

Jesus is gonna define eternal life for us.

All right, eternal life, some people in our imaginations we can come up with, eternal life.

What is eternal life?

Is it reincarnation?

Is it floating around in heaven like a little fat baby with wings shooting arrows at people?

Like people, if left to our own devices, we can think that we get to define what eternal life is.

But Jesus defines it for us right here.

And what does he say is eternal life?

He says that they know, not just the disciples in the room, but he says, for all who would come after, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

Friends, the one true God is the God of the Bible.

The one true God, I don't know, I'm preaching to the choir here, right?

This is stuff maybe you've heard before, but this is something that's rare and unique in our culture today, that something is defined for us, and it's not up to us to redefine it.

All right, the one true God has defined what eternal life is.

And what is it?

It's simply to know it, it's to have a relationship with the one true God, the creator God, the great I am, the God of the Bible.

Yahweh is his name.

I always found that amazing.

We sing songs to Yahweh, I'm like, that's a pretty cool name, Yahweh.

Yeah, it's the name of the one true creator, God, the triune God of the universe.

I'm like, man, that's a pretty powerful name.

Yahweh, the one true God, and his son, Jesus Christ, who he has sent.

Jesus was Yahweh in the flesh, fully God and fully human.

And he he brought to life something that's promised throughout the whole of Scripture that God would provide a Messiah, a savior.

God's all about gathering to himself a people.

And he does that in a way that we don't get to tell him what to do.

He's God.

He defines for himself a people and he defines them as this those who put their faith and their hope and their trust in my chosen son Jesus.

That's why we put our trust in Jesus.

We're gonna see baptism later today.

This is people declaring that they're putting their hope and their faith and their trust and their loyalty in Jesus.

And in doing so, they're they're they're receiving eternal life.

It doesn't just happen when we get there, it happens when we surrender to Jesus.

We don't have to wait to die to experience eternal life, to know God.

How about that?

That's pretty powerful stuff.

And this is where I want to camp here in verse 4.

He says, Jesus says, Father, I've glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.

He lived 33 years, he was a student and a carpenter for the first 30.

And then at his baptism, how about that?

He is a public announcement of the coming of his ministry, was a baptism.

And you know it's in the family photo album because we see it in the gospels several times.

It's recorded there, it's a spectacular moment.

Jesus comes forward, John the Baptist is there, man, takes him, puts him in the water, he comes up, the heavens scroll back, man.

A voice from heaven comes out that everybody hears.

This is my son, in whom I am well pleased.

Come on, man, like affirming that this is the one you can trust.

This is the one who is the hope of the world, this is the one that can help you enter my kingdom and be a part of my people.

This is the one.

Spectacular moment when Jesus is baptized.

And that's kind of what we're celebrating here today.

It's amazing that Jesus would say, We're gonna go and baptize people, just like I was baptized, baptized the whole world, everyone that will believe, everyone who will trust me, everyone who will say yes to Jesus.

We baptize them, and it's symbolic of dying to yourself and your sin and coming back up, a new creation.

The old is gone, the new has come.

It's a powerful, powerful moment, and it belongs in the family album.

Amen.

And that's what we're celebrating here today.

Come on, we're gonna be taking some pictures for the family album right here today, June 4th, 2023.

Some of you getting baptized.

This is a day that you will never forget.

I promise you.

And as the family of God, we could not be more excited about what is happening in your life.

It means that you're receiving eternal life.

The authority that belongs to Jesus is coming into you by the power of the paraclete, the Holy Spirit, just like we've learned over these last few weeks.

It's an exciting moment.

Now, for the rest of us, maybe you're not getting baptized today.

I just got five minutes and 24 seconds.

You're gonna have to bear with me.

If you're ready for this, say, oh yeah.

I'm just gonna give you three simple things that I believe there's a million things you can say, but I'm gonna give you three.

That if you'll prioritize these things, I think you'll do well.

If you prioritize these things, I think you'll capture life's most magnificent, memorable moments.

It'll cut through the clutter, cut through the white noise, and help you put value on and capture those moments that are gonna that they're not just measured in years like our lives.

In eternity, our lives are measured in moments.

The moment we receive Jesus, the moment that we're activated in the Holy Spirit, the moment that we begin to share the gospel.

These moments are super important.

I'm gonna spill show you my whole hand.

I'm gonna spill my whole uh my whole uh message to you, is prioritize God, family, and friends.

It's God, it's family, and friends.

We have to prioritize these things.

Let's start with prioritizing God.

Matthew 6.33, very familiar verse to many of you.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Very familiar verse.

This is Jesus, this is the Sermon on the Mount, one of his most famous sermons.

If you seek first yourself and you seek first your comfort, you seek first the things that you need, you seek first all the things that benefit you, you won't quite inherit the kingdom.

But if you seek first the kingdom, everything you need for life and godliness, it gets put in your hands.

It's this weird upside-down kingdom that we're a part of as followers of Jesus.

That the last will be first, the first will be last.

It's this weird thing that Jesus says, Hey man, lay down your life and you'll receive it.

We seek first the kingdom of God, we prioritize them.

Here's some ways that I wrote down some thoughts.

How we can prioritize God, serve the poor.

Come on, I love what you guys do.

Come on, you're going out on Saturday, second Saturday.

What memorable moment.

That thing is going in God's photo album in heaven when you go out and serve the kids who need to be served with the love of God.

I might go out on a boat on Saturday, I'll forget all about it.

Next week I won't even remember what it was like to be on that boat.

But if I'll say no to the boat, and I'll Go out and I'll serve, it makes all the difference in eternity, friend.

I'm telling you, man, this is how you capture, you can go on boats.

I'm not preaching against boats.

I love boats, man.

Not preaching against boats.

Mow your lawn.

You have to mow your yard.

You know what I'm saying?

But maybe God wants you to go out and serve on a second Saturday, and maybe He's gonna let you lead one of those kids to Jesus and make a memory, make a love mark in their life that they will never forget for the next 80 years on earth.

You mow your yard again next week.

You won't even remember.

But that kid might be transformed forever.

Come on, prioritize God.

Love the lost.

Come on, somebody got me an oh yeah on that.

Sometimes we gotta take time out and focus on what is gonna make it into the photo album.

Come on, worship your face off like nobody's watching.

Take a mission trip and share the love of Jesus.

Study the scripture, the time, the timeless and eternal word of God.

Pray big prayers and watch God answer them.

I'm telling you, man, when we prioritize God, our life is, we're gonna collect in an album for our lives.

And at the end of our days, we'll be able to say, Oh man, I've accomplished everything that God has given me to do.

We're gonna prioritize God, we're gonna prioritize family.

Everybody say family.

1 Timothy 5.8, ooh, this is a tough one.

1 Timothy 5.8, ooh, this one might be a little uncomfortable to hear.

But if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for members of his household, he is denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

You can go hide back here behind this curtain.

Ooh, my goodness, that's a strong teeth, that's a strong word.

Now, in the ancient Near East, in the culture, it was a patriarchal culture culture, there wasn't much for welfare.

You know what I'm saying?

Like the dads and the families, it was very important.

The family is the source of provision and strength and safety and food.

Everything happened within the family.

And so if the leaders of the family were corrupt or kept to themselves and didn't care for their own family, it was bad.

There was no uh no net, there's no plan B.

And so it's very strongly worded here.

But I would say that's the same as true today.

Man, people need fathers and mothers, they need brothers and sisters.

Look at this.

Just a couple ideas.

Here's what we need to do.

If we want to prioritize family, we want to capture these most memorable moments, we gotta budget them in.

We gotta make time.

You ask anybody, man, how are you doing?

Oh, I'm busy, right?

You ask people how they're doing they're busy, man.

We gotta make it's not just budgeting your money for it, it's budgeting your time.

I don't know about you, man.

Time is more valuable than money to me.

It's hard to find some time.

We gotta prioritize time for our family, energy for our family.

How are you doing when you come home from work?

Are you just completely spent?

Or do you have like a good packet of energy left for your wife and your kids?

Or your husband?

Do you have good energy at the end of the day?

Are you investing in your in your family?

Uh, here's some a few more.

Be present.

Put the phone down, make eye contact, go to their games, celebrate together.

Birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, graduations.

It's graduation season.

Come on, high school and college, graduates.

Man, let's party together as family.

Let's celebrate these things together.

Cook them dinner and eat meals together, take communion together around the table, pray for one another.

Shabbat shalom.

Come on, ask them questions.

Get them know them better.

Ask them questions.

Ask your kids questions and listen to them without judging their answers.

My kids are adults now, but the hardest thing is to listen to them and just listen.

And I'm not trying to correct them or judge them or fix them.

I'm just trying to understand their heart.

Woo! End of the album.

Those are important, and no one can do it.

There's only one person that can fulfill the ministry of dad to my daughters.

That's me.

If I'm at work or doing my emails or checking my stuff and not paying attention, I might miss that moment.

It doesn't make it in the album.

Come on, man.

We gotta work, y'all.

We gotta work.

We still have to work and earn money.

I'm telling you, I go to work.

I do work.

But at the same time, it's prioritizing.

What can you say no to so you can say yes to your family?

Last one, prioritizing friends.

Galatians 6, 10.

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, especially to those who are in the household of faith.

Come on, the people at church.

If you don't have a few good friends at church, man, you're missing out on one of the most important things in life.

If all of your friends are outside this room, you're missing out.

I'm here to tell you, I'm from the past.

I've come here in my time machine at 88 miles an hour.

I've found my way here to the future.

And I'm here to tell you, man, you need a few good friends at church.

Man, you need people who you can walk alongside with and learn with and learn from and who know you and know when you're having a bad day and can speak into your life, encouragement.

Not just a few pastors, you need a few friends.

And in this room are some of the look to your left and your right.

The people you don't know yet, look to your left and right.

These are your brothers and sisters in Christ right here.

Come on, man.

You need to have a few good friends at church.

People that you can serve God together, have a great time together.

Join a serve team or a group.

You heard Pastor Nate talking about groups.

Join the community of faith, not just on Sunday mornings.

Connect, open up, be vulnerable, and allow your life to intersect with the life of the people in your church family.

Amen?

It's you're the only one that can do it.

You are the steward of your life.

No one can force you to make friends.

As a pastor, I can encourage you.

The Bible says to do it, so let's try.

But it's up to you to actually give it a go.

Prioritize God, prioritize family, prioritize friends.

I'm closing up with this.

Why don't you go ahead and grab that phone one more time?

We're gonna add to your family album 107,000 and what?

Get that phone, get your camera out.

Yes, and here's what I want you to do, man.

In case you are new to planet Earth, I'm gonna show you how to take a selfie.

You might not know how to do this, but yeah, here we go, man.

Oh, yeah, that's going on the gram, baby.

Take a selfie.

You're here by yourself, take a selfie.

You're here with your group, your family, take a picture of yourselves right now in church.

Get this thing, this moment recorded.

Isn't it funny that we come to church and go, come and go, come and go.

We never take any pictures.

These are some of the most important and memorable moments that will mark your life forever, are your time spent in church.

Man, let's get some pictures with your family here, your friends, man.

Add it to your photo album.

These are the people that are gonna be there when your kids, as your kids grow, they're gonna serve your kids in the youth ministry.

These are people who are gonna go on mission trips with you.

These are people that are gonna bring you lasagna when you're sick and you've been in the hospital.

Come on, these are the people that you're doing life with.

Oh yeah.

I'm telling you, man, let's prioritize these things.

God, family, and friends.

Let's share the love of Jesus till it hurts.

Let's worship our faces off.

Let's serve like crazy.

It's okay.

The things that you say no to to say yes to that, oh man, you won't miss them a bit.

But if you prioritize those things, you'll get to the end of your life and you'll be glad you did.

Father, we love you.

Thank you so much, God, for your word.

We want to accomplish everything that you've called us to do.

Not everything total, everything that you have called us to accomplish.

And so we need your voice.

We need to hear your voice.

We need to follow you and know you and let you help guide us.

Help us to prioritize you, God.

Help us to prioritize our family and our friends, the relationships.

I thank you for we see in this passage how important relationship is.

We see this picture of your son talking to you in a moment of deep despair and a pivotal and critical moment in all of human history.

He has relationship with you in order to be able to just have a conversation with you.

So God help us.

Help us prioritize our relationships with you, our family and friends.

At the end of the day, we know these are the moments that matter most.

Help us speak to us even now.

What do we need to let go of?

You know, where have we been a little stingy with our time or with our energy?

Where have we not been others focused?

Help us to let go of some things today so that we can embrace, we have a little more margin available for you, for family and friends, God.

We surrender to you today.

We love you today, God.

Thank you for enriching our lives so that we can give glory and honor to you.

Just like Jesus says, we're gonna share eternal life with the whole world, and that enriches our lives in such a powerful way.

Thank you, Lord.

We worship you today in Jesus' name.

Amen.

We're going into the song of worship, but uh to close out.

But those of you who are being baptized today, we want to go ahead and dismiss you as we stand in a moment to worship.

If you're getting baptized, we'll let you go.

Our team will take good care of you.

Why don't we all stand to our feet so they can maybe move out through the aisles?

Um, everybody else stay in here for just a minute.

We're gonna close the service today, not in this room, but out front, watching our friends and our family, our brothers and sisters get baptized.

We're gonna take communion together.

It's gonna be powerful.

And so let's just press into God just for these next few moments together as Lindsay and the team lead us.

Let's worship a little bit deeper than we ever have.

Amen.

Come on, let's worship.

Thanks again for listening.

We hope you enjoyed today's message.

We'd love for you to subscribe to our podcast and review and share what you've heard today.

If you'd like more content like this, or you'd like to connect with us, go to celebrationorl.org.

We hope you join us next time.