Restoring Worship and Consecration

It's so, so good to be here. Could you turn in your Bibles

please to second Chronicles chapter 29 and when I read a

2 Chronicles 29 · chapter mention

couple verses from there and and then get into to what I feel is

on my heart for for you all tonight.

Second Chronicles 29 to verse one.

And while you take your time to get there, I was trying to have

just a little bit of fun on worship.

Not this much fun. So when I have that much fun, my

voice goes, so I need a little bit of holler back.

Are you is this the kind of church that hollers back at the

preacher? OK, we got we got two people

there. Is there any any other holler

backers? OK, OK, so you know, Rory always

tells me this is a free church. Is that right?

OK, so if you need to stand up and say no, I disagree, that's

cool. Let's talk, you know, but let's

do this together as we open the word of God.

Amen. Have you found it?

Good. If you haven't, it'll be on the

Bible. Just give up at this point.

All right, Second Chronicles, chapter 29, verse one.

2 Chronicles 29 · chapter mention

Hezekiah began to rain when he was 25 years old.

Anybody give or take 25 years in this room tonight?

No, like you're Jay. Sit down.

No, no. That bed.

Like when? Like, say it.

Yes. Me.

OK. This is the very quiet church.

All right. OK.

Thank you. Anyone like between 20 and 25,

just holler at me. OK?

Thank you. Good, good, good.

Hezekiah began to reign when he was 25 years old, and he reigned

for 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abija, the

daughter of Zechariah. And he did what was right in the

eyes of the Lord according to all that David his father had

done. Stop there for a second.

Hezekiah has been on my mind as I've been thinking about this

Sunday night service here at 3 CI, partly because there's a lot

of young UNS in here and you're really only as young as you

feel. So anyone around 25 in this

room. OK, that's all of us.

Thank you. When when I look at the the mess

that Hezekiah inherited as a king, it was a great big mess.

His dad was more evil than most of the kings.

The Bible tells us Hezekiah stepped into a situation where

wars were coming against Israel. There was a lot of bad things

happening. And here comes this 25 year old

and he takes over as as king in there.

And I want to look at what he inherited and what kind of

transformation came from the decisions that this young man

made at the beginning of his rule.

Amen. But let me quickly introduce

myself a little bit more if you're confused by my accent.

So am I OK? I have lived in my wife and I

have lived in America for 24 years.

We lived in South Africa for, you know, two years or 24,

depending on how you counted and a little bit of somewhere else.

So Akus Afrikaans. Yeah.

In a three month, you saw worse course work up to Khan.

Oh, come Lach. Yellow.

Yellow. OK.

So, yeah, honey prepared Afrikaans protein.

I'm going back to English. My wife and I found each other

at Hatfield Church. Clint, sorry to create you, but

we were never in three CI. We were at Hatfield, but we were

buddies with people here. Steve and I used to play in

bands together, and it was just the party.

We have 4 kids. Can I show you a quick picture?

Yeah. So you you look at me and you

think like, David, you're like 29, right?

Yep, that's right. Our son Connors, 21, Abigail

with a radish here is is 19, Nasia 15, Charlotte 13.

And they're upfront here. And we just, I love my kids and

we live in Ohio. Ohio is in the USA.

We live in a city called Columbus where Ohio State is the

Buckeyes. And as Clint said, I was in

finance for 25 years, but about 10 years ago, we we felt that

the cultist started church called 614 Church.

If you're wondering about the 614, if it wasn't Pretoria, it

would be 01/2 Church. Nice and easy.

Good, you got that one. That's exactly what it was.

And then a few years ago we purchased this old 100 and

something year old Lutheran Church and we renovated this

building. There's a picture up here that

we're going to see in just a minute.

That one there in the middle. Isn't that cool?

Is there? The sand glass window picture

coming up. That's it.

That's right there in the middle of our church.

We have two of those that literally fill both sides of our

auditorium. And this is where the glory of

the Lord loves to live. Let me tell you, He loves to be

here with us. We're also about a few blocks

from Ohio State University. The shirt that Clint was

wearing, 68,000 students from 50 States and 112 countries at our

doorstep. And let me tell you, God has

been moving on the campuses, the universities of America, and I

believe around the world as well.

And I'm going to tell you a little bit about that tonight

because I don't know where you're at in your walk with the

Lord or your relationship even with the country that you live

in. But what Hezekiah came out of a

big mess. And I'm telling you, if we do

things the way the Lord calls us to do it, transformation can

happen. Transformation is possible, and

that's what I want to talk about tonight.

You with me? Any chance?

Years in here. Skimpity.

Come on. Yeah.

Yeah. So I want to share about 6 or

767 things every Anyone with me. OK.

About 6-7 things here. My daughters love that one.

All right, let's start. Let me tell you a little bit

about Hezekiah. If you don't know what 6-7 is

about, it doesn't mean anything, But it's a thing these days.

So here you go. As I said, Hezekiah came from

not so good as stock. His dad was Ahaz.

He was consistently remembered through our scripture as a

wicked, wicked king. Ahaz embraced idolatry and he

sacrifice one of his own sons in the fire.

Imagine that being your dad, all right, and want to have some bad

family stories. OK, try this one.

He he, he followed the Moloch worship.

He, he closed the door of the temple.

He closed up the altars in every street.

And the nation of Judah was suffering because of this wicked

king. Now you guys, I, it's been a

while since I've been in South Africa, but you've got a few

little problems here, right? A couple little things going on.

I know there's high unemployment, corruption, crime,

gender based violence feels like America as well.

But but there's things going on in this country and some of you

are feeling it in terms of your own job security, in terms of

your own future, in even in terms of your own hope for what

God has in this country. But if I'm, if I'm going to show

you correctly here from Chronicles 29, that the Lord can

bring about national transformation when we turn to

worship him again, when we turn to do what he calls us to do,

when we turn to become the people that God has called you

and I to be, an absolute national transformation can

happen. And we've got to believe that is

what is happening here in this country.

I love seeing this room so full. Is God moving in this place?

Is He moving in your heart? Is He moving in your friends and

in your families? This is just the beginning,

friends. It's just the beginning of a

revival that is is hopefully going to sweep this nation and

bring the kind of transformation that God has in mind and has

always prophesied over this country.

Amen. There is a hope.

There is a hope. There is a hope.

I mean, America is in a mess too, but we don't go into that.

They like to publicize all their messes.

So you all can quote America's messes because they like stats

and they just tell everybody. So we are seeing I, I hesitate

to call it revival because I don't think we're there yet, but

we're seeing hundreds, hundreds of people in just our city ask

questions about the Lord, the whole Charlie Kirk assassination

just a few weeks ago. That Sunday, we saw so many

people come to our church. One guy sat and spoke to me.

He said, I haven't been in church in 17 years.

I said, what brings you here, Sir?

He said, well, I live about an hour and a half away and you

know, one of my kids told me about this place and I just knew

I had to be somewhere else than in my living room watching the

mess that's going on here. Another couple came to me,

hadn't been in church in 25 years, and I found them in the

lobby. Why are you here?

Well, I don't know, but but we need Jesus.

We need Jesus, and that's just one man's assassination.

That that is just the cherry on the top of what God has been

doing over the last few months and years in our city, in our

campus. There's a many, many little

revival going on in Ohio State, a public university.

And you guys know, America has removed God from schools,

removed God from colleges. There is.

I was at an event two weeks ago where nearly 2000 students on a

public university on the ground, sanctioned and sponsored by the

university, allowed them to worship and preach the gospel.

Football players, American football players.

Ohio State football is at the moment, the best in the nation.

And it's about akin to you guys saying the Springboks are like

you like the Springboks? Yeah.

Was that fun last night? That was pretty good.

Hey, I mean, there's a slight little bit of idolatry, but But

no, you know, we do, we do the same thing, right?

We love our football players. There were 5 or 6 football

players sitting on the stage giving their testimony about how

Jesus has saved their life, how Jesus has trained and

transformed their life. For instance, it is happening in

our city and it's happening specially in Gen.

Z. And I trust that you're going to

begin to see the same thing happening in this place.

From the look of it, you are Amen.

Change is possible. Can you look at Second

2 Chronicles 30 · chapter mention

Chronicles chapter 30? I started in chapter 29, the end

of the next chapter after he did all these things to bring back

worship to the Lord. Is that rain come on in that

glory? Yes, Second Chronicles 30 verse

2 Chronicles 30:26

26 it says so. There was great joy in

Jerusalem, for since the time of Solomon the son of David, king

of Israel, there it be nothing like this in Jerusalem.

Then the priests and the Levis arose and blessed the people,

and their voice was heard, and their prayer came to His holy

habitation in heaven, the prayers of the Saints.

The incense arose to the Father, because the nation turned back

to the Lord, and they restored the altars, they restored the

place of worship, they restored the focus of worship and

bringing out their lives consecrated to Him.

That's what happened there. Church and revival history tell

us that a lot happens when people begin to pray, when a

people begin to call on the name of the Lord, when worship

becomes a a focus and a priority within a community.

Maybe you've heard of the Moravian revival back in the

1700s where a small group of people in Germany began 24/7

prayer that lasted 100 years and that sparked global revival when

a group of people got together to pray, to make worship and

prayer the main thing, to make ministry to the Lord, the main

priority of their lives, and called on the God who saves, who

heals, who delivers, who can change a nation in one moment.

They called on Him and transformation started

happening. Recently in America, you've

perhaps heard of the Asbury, I say revival in courts.

It wasn't quite a revival, but there was an awakening going on.

Anybody heard about Asbury? That's about 3 or 4 hours from

Ohio State, from where we live. And for a few months, the the

concept of worship and prayer just spread out throughout that

campus. And the Lord was moving as they

came to, to repent at the altar, to consecrate their lives at the

altar, and to offer worship to Him was worship.

It was not a big production. It was not a big, big produced

thing or an advertised thing. But people all over the world

heard about what was going on there.

And that has had a ripple effect over the last two years that I

believe is, is igniting a fire in the universities of America.

And let me tell you, the universities of America are not

a pretty place for clean living. It's a mess that the Lord is

reviving Gen. Z he is reviving them he's

they're turning back to him. Our story at 614 church.

I showed you the picture, but we started this college ministry

about just over 2 years ago. My friend Danny, who's with us,

leads this college ministry for us right now.

And our our goal was to to to reach college students at the

most impressionable and life. How many big decisions did you

make when you were in college about your career, about your

partner, about where you're going to live, the kind of

person you're going to be to reach kids at that age and

introduce them to Jesus and introduce them to a church where

they can grow and be spiritually formed.

So we have this college ministry and we have hundreds of kids who

have come through the doors of this college ministry couple.

100 most Thursday nights come and worship for almost an hour.

I know it's scheduled for 30, but it goes an hour.

They preach and then we go back to ministry and then they

worship for another 30 to 60 minutes.

Again, college students with no mom or dad told them to go.

They choosing to come, choosing to walk there and encountering

Jesus. Amen.

We made Thursday night a big focus.

Life groups, small groups, connect groups.

What do you call yours? Life groups?

A big focus because that's where connection happens and where

spiritual formation happens in each believer's heart.

That's a big deal for us. And people are getting safe.

They're being baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Danny, I love him. He's my friend.

You know, part of me thought, let's do a college ministry and,

you know, entertain a little bit, have some fun, you know, to

play some games. And then he's like, I don't want

that. And people don't want that.

I was like, OK, So what do you want to do?

Well, let's preach the word and let's worship Jesus.

OK. It's always been a good recipe

with me. And it's happening and people

are encountering Jesus. Let me tell you about one young

man named Isaiah. Isaiah.

Isaiah came about a year ago. It was about a year ago.

And very depressed. There's ministry at the end of

our sermons. And he comes forward and he

says, I need prayer. I said, what for?

He said, well, a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety.

Can you pray for me? It's it's big and, and it comes

like his waves and waves and he tells me his story for just a

minute and I start praying for him.

The Lord gives me something for him.

But I felt the Holy Spirit say, oh, he needs he needs me.

He needs to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.

He needs a, an empowering of the Holy Spirit.

He's trying to fight this on his own.

So I said to the young Isaiah, I'm like, Isaiah, have you been

baptized in the Holy Spirit? And he looked at me, if you can

see my face, frown on my face. What do you mean?

I'm Baptist. I said, yeah, but have you

received the Yeah, I'm a Christian.

I said, OK, I know what you mean.

But have you received the infilling of the Holy Spirit

like we see in Acts chapter 2? And he said, no.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

I said, well, I'm not going to make you do anything, but could

I pray for you? He said, sure.

So we start praying within a couple minutes.

This kid, I have not seen that much snot coming out of one

human being in a long, long time.

There was a pool of it. It got sticky on the wooden

floor. But the Lord started meeting

this young man, his whole body vibrating, vibrating.

As we were praying. I was just praying quietly.

I'm like, I don't know what to do with this kid.

Like I'm like more than double his age.

I can't identify with Batsis, where he comes from or anything.

I'm just Holy Spirit. Will you fill him?

The next thing I know, he's talking and he's talking and and

he's saying something. I'm like, what?

Sorry, what? And and he's just bubbling over

and we never once talked about tongues.

Never once. I'm like, I'm not trying to put

that on anybody, but this kid started bubbling over in

tongues. He's a Baptist.

They don't do that. Is that OK to say here?

You're going to get some emails, All right, But nobody talking

about this, this young man simply opening himself up to all

that the Lord has got filled with the Holy Spirit and his

life was transformed. He was sitting there for over an

hour just weeping and just more and more just coming out of this

man and a life was transformed. Amen.

Another story. It's OK.

Baptisms. We love baptisms, my goal, my

dream and I speak to the Lord like this.

I said, Lord, if we could do like 3 CI and have baptism every

Sunday during worship, that would be awesome.

And and it's getting there. We're getting most or every

other week we're seeing people get baptized, but Danny was

doing some baptisms with the kids at the college ministry as

well, and believing that baptism isn't just a symbol.

There's something that the Lord does in a young man and woman's

heart as it happens. And then we prayed for this kid

before it happens, and he manifested just before he got in

the water and had a little bit of a session going on there.

The Lord set him free, and then he got baptized, came out, life

transformed. France, this isn't pretty.

We're not trying to put up a nice show.

We're not trying to put up a nice clean message.

We're trying to say that our lives are a mess.

Our country is a mess, our politics is a mess.

Our ability to save ourselves, to change ourselves isn't

working. That's why everybody's stressed

out, full of anxiety and full of depression.

There is so much lack of connection in in in most of us

today. So we're pointing people to

Jesus and we're not ashamed of the gospel.

You guys are going through Romans chapter 8, but it starts

Romans 8 · chapter mention

in Romans one, verse 16. I'm not ashamed of the gospel,

for it is the power of God to salvation for all who believe.

There's power. There's power in the gospel.

Just two nights ago, three nights ago, a young Muslim girl

who'd been coming around for about a year on and off.

And I'll take a long story, make it really short, but on Thursday

night came into the meeting and her phone just blowing up her

very religious Muslim family, giving her a lot of grief about

where are you, what are you doing?

And her basically just putting it down, coming to the front and

saying I would like to give my life to Jesus.

And she gave her life to Jesus, Amen.

And I started praying for her. And again, we don't make

deliverance a big deal in our church.

We're not trying to say, hey, we're the deliverance church or

the tongues church or anything. We're not trying to be any of

that. We're just trying to say, Holy

Spirit, would you come and fill this young lady?

And before you know it, she had a major deliverance on Thursday

night. And her life is going to look

completely different. And she's going to have a hard

time getting out of that Muslim family and dealing with it.

And but we're going to be there for her.

Amen. This is what the Lord is doing

with us. Can I show you 2 quick little

videos? I don't know why that kid was

jumping on our chairs, but we'll deal with that.

Like our service is on only an hour and a half.

We like it like that, and God moves a lot in it.

But we just couldn't close the meeting one after another wanted

to get baptized. We went another hour long and

worship was just going on like that.

Friends, let me tell you, we're not.

I wish I could tell you how we did it.

I wish I could tell you I can't. I can't.

But we have been praying for years now.

There have been other people praying on our campuses for

decades now that the Lord would bring a move of God to that

place. And, and the only thing I can

point you to right now is Scripture when I look at what

Hezekiah did. Let's look at that.

Just man, I'm going. So can we look quick, go back to

the Bible, Second Chronicles 29. Are you with me?

I get so excited. You guys told me to speak about

614 and then, you know, I get going.

You with me, you with me, Church.

All right, Second Chronicles 29, verse 3.

2 Chronicles 29:3

Here's Hezekiah 25 just takes over in the first year of his

reign. In the first month he opened the

doors of the House of the Lord because his dad had shut them

and he repaired them. Verse four, He brought the

priests and the Levites and assembled them in the square on

the east, because his dad had done away with them.

And he said to them, Hear me Levites, now consecrate

yourselves and consecrate the House of the Lord, the God of

your father's, and carry out the filth from the holy place.

The very first act this young man did was get worship restored

back in the nation of Judah. He opened the temple again.

He brought the priests again the the altars were back so that

worship could be re established in the nation of Judah.

Consecration is we start there. We don't just select, OK, I read

it and we're going to try now. We start in inwardly.

Lord, I bring myself the idols. I put them down the, the, the,

the wrong thinking. I put it down the idolatry in my

mind. I put it down the way I've been

living. I put it down the girlfriend I'm

sleeping with. I put it down the money I've

been stealing. I stopped that practice.

I consecrate myself. I want to set myself apart,

Lord, and I want to come back into the presence of the Lord

and say, Lord, all I have is yours.

All I have is yours. Friends, there's no more time to

play games. There's no more time to play

games. This country needs you, needs me

to come and and consecrate ourselves and bring ourselves

back to the altar of the Lord and worship him and minister him

and say Lord, you are above this building.

You are above my home, you're above my life.

You're above my Internet usage, you're above my phone usage.

You're above the way I conduct my life.

I consecrate myself to you. Lord, I set myself apart for

you. We're not going to see the

results of the great revivals by playing games.

We're not going to see it. We're not going to see the

result of great revivals by by not consecrating ourselves

suffering for the sake of His name that others may get to know

about the great name of Jesus. This is what we've been called

to in this house, our house at six on four.

We've been made this commitment that it is a House of prayer as

Jesus declared it to be. We pray every Wednesday morning

at 7:00 AM. Now that's ridiculous.

College students, 7:00 in the morning, sometimes eighty, 9000

people come 7:00 in the morning and they come and call on the

name of the Lord. It's not anything we did, but

it's a group of people whose hearts have been gripped by

Jesus and saying, Lord, I'm going to give you my all, going

to give you my all. We pray before services.

We pray long before college nights.

We pray in our life groups. We, we make a commitment daily

to pray. You know, they say that you, you

create culture by what you tolerate and by what you

celebrate. And we are creating a culture of

prayer, of prayer, of prayer in this place so that we can as a

church, say, Lord, would you? Would you come back?

Would you come back? Would you come back to our House

of worship? Would you come back to our

houses? Would you come back to the way

we live and conduct our lives? Can you imagine planting a

garden but letting the weeds just go unchecked?

Soon the weeds will just take over.

The weeds don't ask for permission, they just happen.

But the things that things that we tolerate in our lives is what

your garden is going to look like, the things you tolerate in

your lives. And I'm not trying to get

legalistic here with anybody. I'm just trying to get us to be

sober about the fact that if we want to see the Lord move in

this country, are we going to give our all to him?

Are we going to concentrate, consecrate our lives, our

families, this place to say, Lord, may this be a House of

worship. This is the call to us.

Look at verse 10. Now it is in my heart to make a

covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, in order that His

fierce anger may turn away from us.

Verse 11. My sons, do not now be

negligent, for the Lord has chosen you to stand in His

presence, to minister to Him and to be His ministers and make

offerings to Him. He was saying this to the

Levites as he was bringing worship back.

But can I read this to you? Peter tells us you're a royal

priesthood, you're a chosen people.

You're a, a royal, a holy nation.

Can I read this to you? And this is, this is the word of

the Lord to you. My sons and daughters, do not

now be negligent for the Lord, the Lord, the Lord has chosen

you. The Father has chosen you,

friends, to stand in his presence and to minister to him

and be his ministers and make offerings to him.

I go to a lot of church. I'm a pastor now.

This is what I is what I do. I left the bank about four years

ago. So now I'm in a lot of church

services. Friends, do you know how often I

stand in the front and I'm in worship?

And I'm like, I'm a musician, so I can hear when the drummer

doesn't do a good job. So I'm like, OK, miss that beat.

All right, keyboard. I don't like this song.

That backing vocalist is flat. Look at that electric guitars.

He looks like a rock star. Like, who's he doing this for?

I can so easily become so critical about worship because

that's that my thing. And then I stand here, and

before I know it, I've made worship about me.

I've made worship about my preference, about how I think it

should be. When what Hezekiah is calling

you and I to be is will you consecrate?

Will you stand before the Lord? He chose you to stand before

him, to minister to him, to minister to him.

So now when I'm standing in worship and I begin to get all

consumerist, are there any consumers in here?

My wife was trying to keep their American economy going with her

Amazon purchases. Any, any, any anybody else?

You know, I mean, we're all, we're all consumers here, you

know, but, but, but are you going to be a consumer at

church? Are you going to be OK?

All right, we'll, we'll correct that later.

She said all the shopping's for me, but OK, maybe it is Maybe.

But are we going to stand here on a Sunday morning or on a

Sunday night? And we're going to be, I wonder

if they're going to play my song tonight.

I need some more upbeat songs. Why don't we sing in Afrikaans

every now and then? Why don't we do this?

Why don't we do that? Are we going to be consumers?

And eventually, so I don't like this church anymore because they

don't minister to me anymore. Or we're going to say, the Lord

has chosen you. He has chosen you to stand in

his presence where a whole generation before Jesus was

unable to come into the presence of God.

Now when you are, you're chosen to stand in the presence of God,

to minister to him. So now that when I come and

worship, I'm like, I don't care about this song.

I love you, Jesus. I love you, Lord.

You saved me again this week. You saved me apart this week.

You helped me. You redeemed me.

You brought me out of my mess. And we come and we worship the

Lord. We come and minister to the Lord

and begin to see how insignificant the Music Choice

becomes when our focus is Him and our focus is Him, Amen.

Friends, we have to war against consumerism in the church, not

just take a lightly. We don't just tolerate it, we

war against it because this is a House of prayer for all nations.

This is a house where we have been called with the presence of

God is here so that you and I chosen can come and minister to

Him, Amen. The consumers mindset is like

being in a movie theater. You sit back, cross your arms

and expect to be entertained. You critique the acting, you

critique the pacing and the ending of the story.

And I'm going to critique a lot of Marvel movies lately.

They're just ticking me off. But the worship mindset is more

like, it's like in a marriage. You don't sit back and critique

your spouse's performance. Well, some of you do.

That could be why you're having this problem.

But you know, you give of yourself to your wife, you give

you serve your wife. You're not a consumer in your

marriage. You're in a covenant

relationship. When we come into the presence

of the Lord, we don't come to be served.

We come to serve. We come to serve, we come to

give ourselves to Him. Restoring the altar isn't built

one revival moment at a time, but by thousands of small

decisions to prioritize the presence of the Lord, to seek

Him, to honor Him, and over time begin to recognize that it's

presence over performance is living in the Holy Spirit,

living with Him and ministering to the Lord.

Amen. My sons, do not now be

negligent, for the Lord has chosen you to stand in His

presence, to minister to Him, and to make and to be His

ministers and make offerings to Him.

This is not just Hezekiah's call to a nation thousands of years

ago. This is the Father's call to His

children today. We have been called to minister

to the Lord. We have been called to put Him

first. Jesus put it this way, seek

first the Kingdom of God in Matthew 633.

Seek first the Kingdom of God and then your paycheck will come

after, then your provision needs will get met.

Seek first the Kingdom of God. So I want to ask you today,

obviously I don't know most of you in this room, but Are you

ready to to give your life to Jesus?

Perhaps you've been a church attender.

Perhaps you've been someone who's who's done the Christian

thing, but you haven't ministered to the Lord.

You haven't said, Lord, you are my All in all.

I would love to lead you in a prayer tonight that that it's

not say these magic words after me.

I just want to give you some language to begin to have an

honest conversation with the Father, to surrender your life

to him. Would you mind closing your eyes

for a second? Is there anyone in this room

during worship, during this, this talk I've just given during

this time of, of greeting your heart as just it's, it's like

there's a there's a call, there's a tug in your heart.

You know this more and you want to give your life to something

that matters far more than the life and the existence you've

been living. Is there anybody here would like

to give their life to Jesus? If that's you, would you just

stick up your hand so I know who I'm praying for?

Thank you. I'm looking this side.

Hands all over the place. You like to give your life to

Jesus. So many hands over here.

Oh Lord, here on this side. Anyone you like to give your

life to Jesus? The call to follow Jesus will

cost you everything, but it's in losing your life in Him that you

truly find who you were made to be.

There's so many of you have lifted your hands tonight.

Church, can we all pray this together?

Say, dear Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God and I want to

give you my life tonight. Jesus, I admit that I'm a Sinner

and I ask you for your forgiveness.

I believe that you are Lord. I believe that you died on the

cross. I believe you rose from the

grave, and I commit my life now to following you for the rest of

my life. Jesus, will you help me to

follow you? Amen.

Friends, this is just the beginning.

This is this is just some language I wanted to give you,

but if you made that decision for the Lord tonight, the Bible

says all heaven rejoices with every soul that comes in.

Can we just give a big hand for those people?

Since I'm going long, can I just finish here?

I mean, there were a lot of you who responded now friends that

that's the best decision you've ever made in your life.

But I believe for all of us, there's a moment here for us to

respond to consecrate our lives to the Lord, to make a decision

tonight. Jesus, I, I've been living for

me, I've been living for my kids, I've been living for my

career. I've been living for to just be

safe in this country. And that's been my main

priority. And what the Father is saying is

you have been chosen to stand in his presence and to minister to

him. I want to ask you, how are we

going to respond to this night tonight?

Maybe you're a student, you're and you're in res or a dorm or

you're, you're living with friends.

Is could you, could you set up an altar, quote UN quote, in

your house and begin to pray with your roommates?

Maybe you've been feeling a tug to to start a life group and

support the incredible things that's happening in this church.

But but just by taking a step forward and say, Lord, I want

to, I want to give you more of my life.

Make a commitment tonight to speak to one of the leaders.

So how do I, how do I give more? How do I, how do I offer my life

up to you? But even deeper tonight, What

are the idols in your life that have to be put down tonight?

What are the idols? It's easy for me to say this in

America. I've been living there for so

long, but in America that the biggest idol is Self.

The biggest idol is self in the Constitution is, is this right,

this pursuit of happiness? And we have this right to pursue

happiness. And all it does is it makes you

the center of everything. When this tells me Jesus is the

center of everything. Jesus is the center of

everything. No wonder we're so confused when

we are the center of our lives and we're spinning around it

versus spinning around Jesus, looking at him, gazing on his

beauty.