Letting Go of Control - Here I Am To Worship Part 1

Hey, good morning, Real Life Church.

It is so good to see you this morning.

I just invite you to stand to your feet and worship as we kick

off the Christmas season right here at Real Life Church.

Hey, hey, hey, hey. Hey.

Unto you this day a baby's born, He's Christ's Messiah.

Shepherds have come, the angels sing.

They follow the star, the three wise kings to come and bat on

bended knee. The king is here, the king is

here. Hey, hey, here, Good tidings of

great joy unto you A Savior is born.

Hey, hey, in a danger laze Christ the Lord all have come to

endure, to worship him. Our Savior, the King is here.

The King is here. Hey, hey here, good tidings of

great joy until you, a savior, is born.

Here good tidings of great joy, until you, a Savior, is born.

Glory to God in the highest. Glory to God in the highest

peace on earth and goodwill towards men.

Glory to God in the highest. OK.

Hey, hey, come on, give it a book for.

Jesus this morning, and it's so good to worship him in every

season, but especially in Christmas with the anticipation

and the hope and the expectation of what is to come in this

season. So lean into that this morning

as we worship Him with anticipation, with expectation

and hope of who He is. In the darkness we were waiting,

without hope, without light, till from heaven you came

running. There was mercy near us to

fulfill the Lord and prophets. To a virgin came the world, from

the throne of him is glory to a cradle in the day Praise the

fire, praise the sun, praise the Spirit. 3 And one God of good,

my Jersey. Praise war ever to the King to

reveal the Kingdom coming, and to reconcile the lost to redeem

the world creation. You did not despise the cross

for reaping any or suffering. You saw to the other side,

knowing this was our salvation. Jesus, for our sake you die.

Come on you pray, go for him this morning.

Praise the God, praise the sight, praise the Spirit.

Oh God, oh go me my just need praise forever to the king of

King, and the morning may use all of heaven.

Heaven its brother said that storm was moved for good for the

Lamb and conquered death. And the dead rose roaming their

tombs. And the Angel stood in all.

For the souls of all who come to the Father are restored.

And the Church of Christ was born.

Then Spirit lived the flame, Now this gospel truth of world shall

not me, shall not breathe by his blood and in his name.

Then he's free. Oh, I am free for the love of

Jesus Christ who has resulted me.

Praise the Father, praise the Son, praise the Spirit in the

world, Heart of the Lord, my just

please praise forever to the. Luke 1 verse 26, in the sixth

Luke 1:26

month of Elizabeth's pregnancy gets in an Angel Gabriel to

Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledge to be married to

a man named Joseph, a descendant of David.

The virgin's name was Mary. The Angel went to her and said,

Greetings, you who are highly favored, the Lord is with you.

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of

greeting this might be. But the Angel said to her, Do

not be afraid Mary, you have found favor with God.

You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you're to call him

Jesus. He will be great, and he will be

called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the

throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's

descendants forever. His Kingdom will never end.

How will this be? Mary asked the Angel, Since I'm

a virgin. The Angel answered, the Holy

Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will over

shadow you. So the Holy One to be born will

be called the Son of God. And we skip down to 48 or to 46.

And Mary said, my soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices

and God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state

of his servant. From now on all generations will

call me blessed, for the mighty One has done great things for

me. Holy is his name, His mercy

extends to those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm.

He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their Thrones, but has lifted up

the humble. He has filled the hungry with

good things, but has sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be

merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as He

promised our ancestors. Man, that Scripture is so

powerful. And Mary shows us that even in

the waiting, there's worship and surrender, even in just a simple

posture of saying, God, I'm here.

Even how, even though I don't understand what is about to

happen, God, I'm here. So as we continue in worship

this morning, man, that is my prayer for us.

So we lean into Jesus that we can worship in the waiting, with

expectation, with anticipation, and with hope.

If faith can move the mountains, let the mountain move.

We come with expectation. Waiting here for you.

Waiting here for you. You're the Lord of all creation,

and still you know my heart, the author of salvation.

You've loved us from the storm, waiting here for you with our

hands lifted high. And it is.

We adore singing.

You are everything you promised. Your faithfulness is true and

we're desperate for your presence.

All we need is to you. Waiting here for you with our

hands lifted high it rain and it's you we adore.

We're singing on Man Lose. The.

With our hands faking hard. It plays and it's you.

We're done. We're singing.

We're waiting here for you with our hands.

Waiting here for you with our hands lived in hard, I in

praise. And it's you we adore.

We're singing on a loose. You're singing on a.

Man, just to hear you guys worship in the Spirit.

Man, the Holy Spirit's moving through this crowd, through

these people, through through God's children, and man to give

that worship back to God. Man, who here is thankful for

the Holy Spirit today. Can we give it up for him, man,

if you guys don't do this, the Holy Spirit is our comforter.

He's the power that we have to worship, man.

He's the promise that Jesus will come back again, man.

So it is so awesome just to get to worship with you guys in the

Spirit today. And we are so thankful you chose

to worship with us here at Real Life today.

I want you guys to know we have a lot of new people with us and

met him coming in. They're with us here in person

and online. So we can can we show everybody

that's new here some love today. Give them a round of applause,

man. Winter is in and it's cold

outside, but it is hot in here with God just moving.

So hey, I know, right? So I want you guys to take 30

seconds and just screw somebody around you.

Let him know how much you are exact studies are to see him.

All right, you guys can go ahead and be seated.

Hey, I want you guys to know you guys are getting ready to set on

an awesome card. And this card is for everybody

in the house. So if you call real life home,

we love it. When you fill this card out, let

us know what's happened in your life.

Maybe something awesome happened this week.

You had an answer to prayer, or maybe you got a prayer request.

Maybe you got something heavy, something you want us to know

about you come talk to some person.

But hey, if you want to ride it on a card, that's awesome too.

If you're new or newer with us, we're not.

I'm going to I'm so excited that you're here today and we're not

going to ask anything else from you except maybe a simple

introduction. And if you fill out the top of

this card, just give us your information.

We're not going to do thing weird.

We won't show up at your house, but we would love to have a way

to send out some more information due this week about

real life, who we are, why we do and maybe how you can be

connected here at real life. So again, we'll let you guys

know in a little bit what you guys can do with that later on

in the gathering. We do everything that we do for

setup, to tear down to connection cars because we are a

church on a mission, right? My mission is to see people far

from God discovered their real life and their purpose in Jesus.

What that simply means is, is that that life's not always

easy. It's not always, it's not

always, you know, Christmas presents under the tree and all

that kind of good stuff, right? Which that's coming up.

We're going to have a great season here, but life pieces

down doesn't always go our way. But no matter what season you're

in, God's got something big for you in it.

And we don't always get to live on the mountain tops, but we

always have God there with us, whether you're in the valley or

you're on the mountain. And that's what we're called

here in real life, keep people connected to Jesus because if

you don't have Jesus, it doesn't matter if you live on the

mountain time. It's an empty place to be.

And God makes everything real. And that's what we're called to

do to get people committed. And that's what we love.

And we get to see people commit their lives to Jesus week in and

week out. That's the joy.

That's why we do what we do. So we're excited for you guys to

be on mission with us. So we're kicking off a new

series today. And maybe some of you guys are

are like that. And what I talked about.

Maybe you're walking here with something heavy, man.

Maybe you have an unanswered prayer, something that you can't

control, something that you don't know what to do with next,

and you're at your wit's end. Today we're going to look at one

of the best acts of worship that Mary did in the Bible in Luke

Luke 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1. And my prayer for you guys today

is that when you hear this message, you know that God is

for you. God has something big for you

today and you don't have to juggle all these plates on your

own. You don't have to fix everything

on your own. You peel on your boots by

yourself, man. God's got something for you

today. So I want you guys to buckle in

and let the power of God just reach into your hearts today.

Let's give it up for Pastor Sean as we kick off our first part of

series. Here I am to worship good.

Morning guys. Hey, it saves me a good day.

We finished up our series grateful last Sunday and a

couple things I'm really, really grateful in for in this season.

Last week we had two people commit to life to Jesus.

Amen. That's just why we do this.

So it's exciting. So those who come to Christ this

year, we have this thing called baptism, right?

And Jesus asks you to do that. And last week it was so amazing.

There's a lady, I've been friends a long time, her fiance

was in my youth group, all sorts of stuff.

She came to Christ a few weeks ago and decided to get baptized.

Checked the box said hey I wanted to get baptized on 28th

and so we'd have about 8 people signed up so far to get baptized

on 28th. Amen.

Fantastic. That's like the only metric I

think you find in the Bible. Like go and baptize and we can

measure sending and measure baptism.

I would encourage you guys to get baptized.

If you do not get baptized, and I can't say this enough, baptism

is not a bad person becoming good.

You not get upgraded, you don't go to the self help section at

Barnes and Noble. Been a while.

Come on, somebody, they're they're making a last stand by

the way, right. But you don't go there and

improve yourself because if you could improve yourself, then you

could just be a better person. You can say glory to me, but the

reality is it's all glory to God.

And so when we get baptized, it's something very special

happens. And Jesus was baptized.

It was a picture of something, and he was leading the way for

us and for Jesus. When he got baptized, it was a

start of his public ministry. It was a new season that came

after his baptism. And for us, when we get

baptized, it's a start of a lifelong journey of obedience to

Jesus. We said yes to Jesus.

You're receiving a free gift. Amen.

But when you get baptized, that's like your first decision.

You're like less of me, more of you, Lord.

And for the rest of your life it's that same commitment.

I'm going to come under Jesus and follow him.

That's what we're called, the first step of obedience.

So Jesus calls to be baptized. There's a lot of things that

come together in your life to get baptized.

Amen. It's one thing that to say I

love the grace of God. It's another thing is that I'm

going to live for you. And I think that's why God asked

to do it, to step into that call and you're going to see that

today. But it's, it's an act of

worship. It's an act of surrender.

It's, it's because of salvation, not for salvation.

But I would encourage you, if you've not been baptized and

maybe you grew up in church even, or baptized as a, as a

baby or a kid before you knew Jesus, I would encourage you to

get baptized. Our church has been very, very

good at having a lot of people getting baptized in our church

because there's conversion growth, there's people coming to

Christ and then getting baptized in obedience.

We set a goal this year. You never know God's going to

do, but like, hey, we'll be baptized 50 this year.

That'd be pretty amazing. Like we've baptized 35 one year

before. Like we've never been to 50.

We're like Lord, let's get to 50.

Like let's try it. And so the idea behind that was

let's think a little differently.

Like how could we get to 50? Like we don't control like

outputs, but we control inputs, Amen?

So if we can increase our evangelism, can increase our

outreach, increase our conversation when somebody comes

to Christ, we can increase, increase our follow up, like

that's our vision. And maybe we get 50, maybe we

don't, but I know we're getting close.

Amen. And so if you're on the, the the

fence, you're like, man, I'm not sure we'd love to do this last

night of the year. And that's where I asked the

team already for next year's like, you know what we're doing

really good, by the way, a difference maker.

So about a second. But next you're like, what if we

baptized 100? Like, why not like, like the

Lord's willing, like what, what can we teach and share with our

people? What can we lead and model for

ourselves and increase our scattering?

Like actually like taking the gospel to a work, live play and

study and build a different relationships and just help

people know Jesus. Like we need to get really,

really good at being hands feet of Jesus outside of Sunday

morning. Amen.

And so we're just going to lean in.

That's that's next year, like with division heart behind that.

But I encourage you guys step in.

If you're not been baptized, we'd love, love to do it.

There's a card on your chair, Big Blue card.

We had three turn in last week, Amen.

And maybe you're in today. Like, man, I want to do that and

we'd love to do that. So difference maker, I'm not

going to say a lot about it. We're going to celebrate next

week with our celebration Sunday, revealing all stat

stories, all sorts of cool things, participation.

It's going to be awesome. I will say this, we are like

super close, super close. I'm like tempted.

Should I change my number just to make the number, you know,

but I would, I would just encourage you if you've not

participated yet. And I'm grateful.

Thank God for what God's done in our church.

Like when we set out this number that the number is not like it

was a stretched number. I'll just put it that way.

It was like above and beyond what the people coaching us and

seeing our numbers are like you could probably do.

Boris said, OK, Laura, let's just shoot for the stars, maybe

land on the moon, right? And there's a lot of people that

have not participated in this as well.

And I would encourage you. This is today is like the best

time to get in because one day there's going to be a building

that's full of hope and, and full of healing.

And it's like an incubator for the things of God to go out.

And you can be like, I planted some seeds in that season that's

producing fruit well beyond myself.

And like, we all love investments, you know, at least

I do. And I like return on my money.

Like I like to see things happen with my money.

And for us, spiritually speaking, this is a great

investment to see God move and change our city and change us.

So I'd encourage you to just play part of the story.

If you've not yet, it's not too late.

Nobody's judging, nobody's hating, but I just want you to

know I love part of the story. And you can make that difference

to move that number, like right there.

Come on, somebody right. So next week we're going to view

the story. It's going to be great.

So we'll, I'm talking too much about already, But today we're

diving into 4th part or 4th part, a four part series called

Here I am to worship. Do you guys remember the song

Here? I'm to worship Show of hands.

Remember that song? If you don't know the song,

that's cool. Say what?

Oh, come on up here, Holly. So you can sing it for us.

So this is like came out. The song came out in 2001.

It's written by Tim Hughes. It was written like 99.

Took him like a couple years to really get it nailed down, put

it out. And this is like that season

where worship music was like awkward and weird.

At least it was for me and then became really good.

And that like was there's, there's like numerous songs like

turn the hinge on like worship style and, and the music.

And this was very reflective song.

It's a very like responsive song.

It's just all of us just Lord, like I'm just here to worship.

And he pictures these different things about the song that why

we worship. And one of the things in the

song it, it, it starts out the the the light of the of what's

light of the the world stepped down into to darkness.

Hello, it's Christmas. Like it, it, it's just, why do

we worship? It's because the God of all

gods, the God of the universe, Jesus himself, stepped out of

heaven and eternity into our eternity, into the worst

neighborhood and became God with us it it and became as a

sacrifice for our sin, our Emmanuel, Amen.

So they were going to worship Jesus.

Amen. That's what Christmas season is

all about. Just focusing back on the birth

of Christ and truly his love for us.

And this whole thing is going to be a response that my prayer

throughout this whole series is that you have these moments, not

just a moment, but you leave here and be moments during the

message, during the works, during your time that you would

just open your hands and say, Lord, here I am the worship.

And not just your hands, but your heart, like all of you

getting in front of Jesus and then saying, Lord, whatever it

is yesterday, man, I want to follow you.

And so we're going to be in the Bible there.

Luke chapter 1, If you got your Bible or if you got your Bible,

Luke 1 · chapter mention

hold your Bible up. You got your Bible.

Make sure you bring your Bible. Amen.

You might have on your phone. We love you, but I would

encourage you bring a Bible. I saw somebody said this in our

men's text group. It said, man, if you're going to

find a church, don't want to find, don't find one close to

your house. Find one close to Scripture.

I thought, dude, that is a quote.

That is a great quote because there's a lot of just just a lot

of things I see. I'm like, man, what is that?

You know, And it should just look like the Bible.

And so we're going to be Luke chapter 1 and be diving in.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

But a lot of you guys participate.

It makes more fun. Just going to tie into the

message, but how many guys just show hands are control freaks,

Show hands, show hands. Yeah.

You know, you are a little bit, right?

Like just there's a certain way, right.

Like if you have to have the GPS in your hand, you know, like you

always have to drive some of y'all looking at your spouse

right now, like put two hands up, you know, I mean, it's just

you to the T and Dime's looking at me.

I'm a recovering control freak. Pray for your pastor, pray for

Diane, right? And it's easy to like take

control. Like just you have a plan, you

have a destination, you have a way, like all these things.

And then the Lord's always interrupting our way for a

better way. Amen.

But if but but we're really good at like hedging and planning and

pursuing and dilly dallying into our own vision and scheming.

But the Lord has a plan and we've got to be open to God's

plan. And so we're going to look at

how to let go through control and how to follow God's plan in

Luke chapter one, verse 26. Holly read these verses earlier

on the world's smallest Bible. I'm so glad she could read it up

here, but it said this verse 26, in the sixth month of

Elizabeth's pregnancy. OK, who's Elizabeth?

Who's the baby that Elizabeth's going to have?

John the Baptist, OK, says God sent the Angel Gabriel.

This is a messenger Angel, Nazareth, a village in Galilee,

to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to

a man named Joseph. A descendant of who?

Yeah. King David.

We're going to come back to that a little bit.

Says Gabriel appeared to her and said, this is this is the words

greetings favored woman. That's a good start.

A lot of things angels say in the Bible doesn't go that well,

right? But greetings favored woman.

The Lord is with you. I mean, this God with us,

Emmanuel, the Lord's with you. I mean, God has just put this

Theo so perfectly. And her response is like so many

of us, and I've been this season so many times, confused and

disturbed. Mary tried to think what the

Angel could mean. Confused.

And have you guys been confused and disturbed by what happens in

your life? I mean, I don't know if you

think it's going well or you had something working out and then

the Lord throws A curveball. Like if you think you're stepped

to the plate and you've read the pitch and you're going to swing

for the fences and God's like whoop and he puts a curveball in

and it doesn't go to plan and you're confused.

You're like, Lord, why would this happen?

And for some of you guys, just as a pastor, I mean, these these

last weeks have been a little crazy.

Like there's been moments for some of our church where your

breath has been taken away, like where the world stands still,

like you don't know, like what's going to happen next.

We we've had people commit to difference maker and then all

their HPC goes out. You know, there's a sag in your

sewer line. Worst words everyone of you

hear, right? We're going to tear across your

whole basement. It's going to cost a lot of

money and you're like, Lord, what are you doing?

Like I thought I was going this direction or there's a health

concern or the it's just relational things.

I mean, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I mean, it's, I don't know, it's great at moments.

And it's also like kind of disappointing.

You're like, what in the world is going on with the Jerry

Springer episode right now, right?

I mean it just like it has all these different things and

you're like, Lord, and this disturbs an interesting word

because to be disturbed with Lord, I don't think I've ever

thought about this. To actually be disturbed, Lord,

I don't understand. I don't like it.

It doesn't fit in at all with anything.

Even believe right now about you.

This isn't making any sense. You guys ever been there before?

I mean it, it's easy to step in and I can't handle this.

I'm overwhelmed. This bothers me.

There, there. There's some seasons of

unsettling, which I think God allows us to see where we're at.

It's like a test of faith. And for Mary, she hears his

words and she's like, I don't have a clue what you're about to

do. This makes no sense.

And it's actually kind of disturbing when you've been

talking to me. It's amazing her what the Angel

says to her, verse 30, the Angel says, don't be.

That's the line we need to hear today.

Amen. Don't be afraid because

oftentimes we think what happens in our life, like the Lord is

trying to like almost punish us, or the Lord's trying to, or like

maybe you're scared by the Lord. You should never be scared what

the Lord's doing, Amen. But it's easy like, Oh no,

because my plans are being wrecked right now and we're

scared, but the guy's not trying to scare us.

He's trying to shape us, Amen. He's trying to remind us of the,

the priorities and, and worship and what really matters.

And sometimes we we get out of sync with our version of reality

and we get scared, but we we don't have to be scared.

The Lord Amen. And so the angels comes out.

Don't be afraid. Mary, the Angel told her for you

have found favor with God. And it's interesting if you know

anything about Mary, she's young, she's her name.

She's not famous. She has nothing going for her in

a sense of the world. But you're going to learn about

her character here in a little bit.

And that's why she found favor is because she's humble and

she's she's low and she seeks after God.

She knows scripture. She's searching for God.

First 31 says you'll, you will conceive and give birth to a son

and you will name him Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus means the one who saves. It's pretty amazing.

Like when you call on Jesus, Jesus save me, you're saying the

one who saves save me. That's what you're like being

saved. Just saying the name of Jesus,

Jesus you saved just at the name of Jesus because it means to

save. And this is who the Angel says

you're going to have a son that's going to be the one

that's going to save. Amen.

Verse 32. He'll be very great and that's

an understatement and will be called the Son of the Most High.

The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David,

and he will reign over Israel. How long?

Forever. And his Kingdom will never end.

Exclamation point, the Angel is excited and is sharing this

news. And we talked about this a

little bit earlier when we had this series with difference

maker that this Davidic covenant.

Remember David, he, he said, hey, man, I built this palace

for myself, but there's this Tabernacle on the hill.

Who am I to build my home when his house sits in shambles?

And then God was so pleased, he said, I'm going to build my

Kingdom through line of David forever.

Now David thought maybe my son or something, we're going to

live forever. That wasn't the case, right?

That there's going to be somebody born that's going to

fulfill that covenant and it's going to reign in David's line

forever. And here is the fulfillment of

that covenant. Amen.

That's a huge deal. And then Mary asked the Angel

the response. We would all probably ask like

how is this even possible? Like what in the world is going

on? This doesn't make any sense.

And she says I'm a virgin. The Angel replied, the Holy

Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will

over shadow you. So the baby to be born will be

what holy and he will be called the Son of God.

You know, if you ever think about Jesus, he didn't possess a

sin nature like we do. Like the sin nature is passed

down from the lineage of a man, like Adam sinned and therefore

all humanity is laced with sin. And since Jesus didn't have an

earthly father in conception, he doesn't carry the sin nature,

Amen. And it is important to

understand that there is a time in humanity before sin nature

was in it. Like we like Adam had a time

period with Eve before they had sin nature, Amen.

And so we can go back to like, that's what it the first Adam

was like, and that's what Jesus is called the second Adam, he

came to reverse the curse. But it's interesting.

Wouldn't it be interesting? Mary just said, Hey, this is

really convenient timing for me. I mean wouldn't be amazing, like

like a door doors Angel, you know, like I appreciate you

coming, but I'm awful busy, man. Like, you know, it just this

thing about like I forgot my wedding dress.

I'm not really going to be pregnant during my wedding.

Like I've got a plan. Like am I married?

Like what about my my fiance, like my five year vision, man,

my five year plan. It just doesn't fit in, but just

come back once I get my life figured out, like I'll give and

my fines just look good, right? Like I'll serve when it's more

convenient time. And it's just complete opposite

for her response. Like for us, it's really kind of

hard to let go of control. She was in the right heart and

the right space. It was easy for her to let go of

control because she's been doing it day in and day out.

It's interesting. She got a direct word from God

through an Angel and she surrendered to it.

But it's really difficult to do that still, because we have this

word and it's still very difficult at times to say yes

and Amen, right? Like we can know it, we can

memorize it, and then we can be like, but Lord and we go

somewhere else, right? We have seasons of disobedience.

And for, for Mary, she just said yes and Amen.

Like she opens up the things of God.

And I would encourage you like there's things we know to be

true in Scripture and we need to say yes and Amen and go in on

them like whatever area of life that's far from God, a place of

your life that needs to be surrendered.

It, it could be anything. It could be financial, it could

be sexual. It it it could be just a vision

that's just yours. You know what you're holding on

to. It could relationship you

restore. There's all these things.

But the Lord wants us to come below him as a servant, like

you're going to see Mary do and just say yes, Lord, I want to

worship and follow you. It's it's easy to hear the word,

but it's difficult. I often times to obey it and the

call is to obey. Amen.

Because you know your life is better, God's plan is better and

his ways are better than your ways.

And Mary just knows this and you're going to see this.

She's going to just respond in amazing way.

Verse 38, Mary responded, she, she said, I am what to say the

Lord's Wow, have you ever called yourself that before?

Ah, most of us don't like the word like I'm a servant, right?

Like we, we don't like people like we like to other people to

serve us right, but to to serve someone else.

Like Lord, I'm just here. Whatever you need, Lord, I will

do it. She says, may everything you've

said about me come true. And then the Angel left her.

Like that's all the Angel need to hear.

Amen, Amen. Count me in.

Whatever you need. I'll do whatever it is, whatever

it is, Lord, Yes and Amen, whatever the matter.

I don't need the rest of the story.

I have a lot of questions, but I trust you.

Whatever it is she she's going to pay the she's going to pay a

price. She doesn't know what it's going

to cost her yet. You ever signed up with a

contract not know what the contract is?

That's what she's doing. She's just signed her name.

I'm all in Lord, I trust you. It says this in the ESP a little

different version, the other one's NIV, but it says then Mary

said, behold, the maidservant, Lord Lucas says, let it be to me

according to your your word, just just at your word.

I trust you. Just let it be to me according

to your word and that that's a sentence of worship.

Amen. Like it, it's open handed, just

just whatever it is, Lord, like I don't, I all my plans are just

completely wrecked right now. Like everything I was thinking

would happen in the next week and six months and really the

rest of my life has been rewritten.

But whatever it is, write it your way.

This is the ultimate surrender statement in the Bible.

Let it be for me according to your word, that that's something

we need to pray every day. Amen.

Just trust and obey. This is Mary's act of worship.

It's a surrendering yes if you don't call it that, and I would

encourage you guys, surrender begins with trusting God's word,

just taking God at his word. You know, you can know

everything you know about the Bible or about Jesus by just

saying yes to his word. If you read a scripture and it

says flee youthful lust, you say yes to Amen.

Doesn't mean you're perfect, but it means Lord, I'm going to

trust you with this. How's my marriage?

What's it should look like? Lord, I trust you.

This amazing thing, ChatGPT. Come on, somebody you can be

like, tell me what the Bible says about dah dah, dah dah.

And it does a pretty good job. Hasn't been tainted too much

yet, but it may be well. But I'm just telling you, you

can learn everything in your life for life.

And God, this as first Peter says and just open this word,

Lord, show me and that you just go to it with open hands.

Amen. It's always interesting to me

when people pick out parts of the Bible they really love and

then they follow it and there's parts that they can't quite

swallow and they're like, I can't do that.

It doesn't really work that way. Like God does not share his

throne very well. Like he kind of just like he

just shows you. I would encourage you to just

put your life under Jesus. This ultimate statement of

surrender. Look at her, like her, His word

in her life released control for herself.

She lost her reputation. I mean, Can you imagine walking

around pregnant, not married and going, oh, I guess you all

figured it out. No, the Lord did it.

It was the Lord who is going to believe you.

Most people won't. Amen.

You start following God is very few people go Oh, good job.

Most people start throwing stones and kind of looking down

to you and thinking you're weird.

I was called a Jesus freak all my way through high school.

Once I met the Lord. You're a Jesus freak.

I'm like, cool. Sounds good, man.

That's a that's an awesome book album, everything.

Let's do it. You know, they get relabeled.

Her plans for marriage got shifted.

I mean, an Angel had to intervene just to to keep her

fiance around, right? Like she didn't know how that

was going to go out. Her future was just messed up

and she lost control. That her comfort, her timing.

This doesn't fit anything. But she just said yes, Lord, if

you think about worship, you know, we can make the mistake of

bowling worship down to three songs on Sunday morning.

Like we, we can say, oh, well, how, how was the worship?

How'd it go in the worship? You know, and and it's like,

it's it's more than a song. It's another great song, right?

Heart of worship, if you didn't know, I just talking to die

about this. But Tim Huser wrote here in the

worship took a big spot in Matt Redmond's life and wrote other

songs. So hard to worship and hearing

worship. I mean, like, come on, dude.

Like they're, they're like the same song, you know, same feel

everything about it, but it's more than the song.

It's surrender. Amen.

Like, like we come here and, and not just come here, but like our

life is surrendering constantly to Jesus.

We have to give our will up every day.

By the way, if you're like me at all, like, I mean, I like it my

way and I have a plan and then I have to pay attention to what

the Lord's doing. I have to intentionally spend

time with Jesus. If your life isn't going

anywhere with Jesus, you're like showing up to church and like,

man, I don't feel like it's going anywhere.

Could I encourage you? It's because you're probably not

listening to Jesus. You've got to get your ear to

the Scripture. You've got to put your heart on

the Holy Spirit. You've got to think deeply about

what the Lord's asking you to do.

You've got to pray and seek after, get wisdom from people,

move. The Bible calls circumspectly,

which means with wisdom. And you just need to say yes,

Lord, it's not about coming and performing a Christian duty.

Most of Christianity in America is adding things to your life.

Come and sing, come read your Bible, pray together, join a

men's group, go live group, add, add, add, add.

Real Christianity is about subtraction.

Less of me, Lord, here I am. I worship you, Lord.

You can have my life, Lord. It's not about me, Lord, I want

this. But Lord, is that from you?

If it's not, I don't want it. Lord, you're subtracting your

will and your way and replace it with God's way.

And that's when you start getting that fire inside your

soul. Amen.

It's no longer it's like a Christian duty or I show up on a

Sunday. It's no Lord, I want all of you

every day. I want all of you and you are so

good. Your promises are so true and I

follow you. When's the last time that you

didn't just lift your hands in worship, but you lifted your

heart and worship? Because it's one thing to hourly

have a symbol and, and, and to do this, but what's another

thing to say? No, truly, all of myself is

yours, Lord, And I try to get with in that posture as much as

possible, as much as possible. Like if I can make it through a

whole day and not say, Lord, my life is yours, I will take

control of that day. Just naturally.

It's like human nature, Shawn's way.

And that's why I love having the worship, but like at least a

little bit before I speak because it changes my heart.

Amen. So I I need to remind myself

that's what the the songs do is they remind me of some truth I

need to be living for and I just open my hands, my heart to

Jesus. But when's the last time you did

that? You know, in life you don't

always have the power to to decide everything around you

really have no power, right? But you can't surrender.

Like I've got to the point where like suffering and pain and loss

and and just things that are weird things that disturb you.

And I always just look, say, Lord, you're doing something.

I trust you. I don't know what you're doing,

but man, I know it's going to be good.

Amen. You've got to get to that point

in your Christian walk where you just know everything from God is

good. Everything is God is good.

And so I just trust them. Even the hard seasons, even the

difficult seasons, even when it doesn't make sense, it takes

your breath away. I was like, Lord, I would never

write this story this way, but I know you have a reason beyond I

can even understand or see, and I just trust that you're writing

a masterpiece. I was thinking like a big puzzle

the Lord's putting together. And sometimes you're like the,

the this black dark kind of stormy piece and he, God snaps

it in and you're like, Oh no, but you don't really realize

It's just like this amazing, like sunrise coming out behind

the storm that God is going to put together next.

But I trust that. Amen.

Because I just walk to God long enough to know how the book goes

and who his character is and how much I can trust him.

And so I just worship even in the darkness.

It's amazing too because one act of worship can actually cause

other people's surrender into worship as well.

And this is what you see with Mary, which is just amazing.

The verse 39, it says at that time, it says Mary got ready.

The first miracle on the bottom is good, I'll stop, I'll stop.

I'm a married man for at least another 3 minutes.

At that time, Mary got ready and hurried to a town and the Hill

Country of Judea. I'm still trying to get past

that. I won't say that again.

But this town, you might read that and like, oh, wow, that's

really cool. But that town's 80 to 100 miles

away where she's at. Like, you know, that for her

would be like walking 10 miles a day or 20 miles a day for four

days. Like, this isn't just like, oh,

she just ran to, you know, Elizabeth's house.

Like, that's a journey that she's going to go on because

she's so excited for what God has just done.

Verse 40 says where she entered. OK, so she went to this country

and then she went 40 miles where she entered Zachariah's home and

greeted Elizabeth. She didn't even care about

Zachariah. You know, he's probably not

home. And then when Elizabeth heard

Mary's greeting, Lugo says the baby, this is John the Baptist.

What to say? Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it?

Like, like, like here's this this not fetus.

Come on somebody, a baby who heard Mary in the womb and and

leaped with joy and Elizabeth's filled with what Holy Spirit.

That's what happens when God shows up like Mary brought the

the the son of God Jesus himself into Elizabeth's president who'd

been waiting for this moment as well.

And this is just don't miss this, that John the Baptist, an

unborn baby. It is truly in the New

Testament, the first act of worship, truly the first act of

worship leapt for joy, right? There's a leaping of joy.

This this unborn baby recognizes this is the Messiah.

That's amazing to me. It's it's the innocence in the

power and there's so much scriptural theological truth of

how we should live in our time by the fact a baby recognizes

Jesus. That's just unreal to me to see

this, but we can read that verse and skip by and totally forget

about that first after worship. It's actually fulfillment of

prophecy in Malachi 3 verse one. So the last book of the Old

Testament says I will send a messenger who will prepare the

way before me. This is talking about John the

Baptist. Then suddenly the Lord you are

seeking will come to his what? His temple.

So, so Jesus is going to come to his temple.

The messenger of the covenant whom you desire will come, says

the Lord Almighty. What's the temple?

Well, the temple, the Holy Spirit is what us did Jesus go

to the temple of the Old Testament and say, this is my

temple. No, this is talking about the,

this is talking about the incarnation.

There is the Son of God now in the womb of Mary.

This is a direct fulfillment of that prophecy.

Amen. It's like God kind of wrote

this. It's crazy.

And then Elizabeth to response. She's like in a loud voice.

She exclaims. So now she's just excited just

immediately. And and what's the what's the

first thing it says? Help me out, blessed, Blessed.

You got to do a loud voice. By the way, what'd she say?

All right, we're getting there. Blessed, are you among women in

what? Blessed, Blessed some y'all

going to do. Blessed are you my women, bless

your heart. Blessed is this child.

Blessed is this child you bear. Exclamation point.

But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord, talking about

Jesus, should come to me just so humbling that God's presence

would even come into her. So as soon as the sound of your

greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

You're getting better. Thank you.

That was good if you don't know Jesus today, we're always not

this weird, but today it's going to be weird.

OK, blessed is she who has believed in the Lord believe

that the Lord would what fulfill his promises to her.

She she's excited and this is a like a think about blessed,

blessed, blessed right. This is the longest blessing in

the New Testament you get from a woman.

Blessed, blessed, blessed. It's all about worship and glory

and magnification. Just all to Jesus.

Amen. And God records it in scripture

for all of attorney. And Mary's surrender caused joy

to Elizabeth and John the Baptist and caused blessing from

Elizabeth. Mary's choice impacted other

people immediately with worship from others.

This becomes one of the longest passages by woman in New

Testament. Second longest speech that's

recorded from a woman in New Testament.

The next one, lo and behold, comes right after it.

Because this is how God's going to do it.

And I was to encourage you before moving to the next piece

of Scripture that your surrender will often impact other people's

surrender and worship. Like, like, think about it.

If you're a dad and you surrender to Jesus, there's a

high likelihood that your whole family surrenders to Jesus.

If you're a man of God, there's a very likely chance that your

spouse and your kids are going to follow Jesus just because you

chose to worship and follow Jesus.

That's impact, Amen. And that you're late and you

follow Jesus, you have impact on your children.

And as a business leader or an employee, you follow Jesus at

your workplace. Other people around you will

start to surrender to Jesus, find Jesus and worship Jesus

because you're a witness for Christ, Amen?

Like our decisions in really affect other people all the

time. Like if you don't like what's

happening around you, a lot of times we got to change what

we're doing inside of us. Like we got to become somebody

different. It's like when you have your

first kid and you're all like, Dang it, you're going to be too

much like me, right? She's punching, right?

Because there's just parts to me that don't look like Jesus.

Amen. And so I had the I had the hard

work of saying yes to Amen every day.

So I become the man of God that God is calling us, calling me to

be right. But your surrender kind of lock

other people's future. So then Mary, she responds and

she responds with something that is really known as Mary's song.

I don't even think she meant this to be like recorded down

and put together as a song, but it is a song.

It's like a doxology. It just is like outpouring.

You think about your mentor, your friend, She's older

Elizabeth, like she's walking the Lord.

She's married. She's got a husband that serves

in a temple. Like she's looking up to

Elizabeth, right. And Elizabeth just looks here

and says bless, bless, bless, bless.

And she's so excited. And then Mary, in response, she

just cries out. It becomes this doxology, this,

like worship song out of her lips.

And it's absolutely amazing. It starts in verse 45.

And Mary said, my soul what? Yeah, glorifies in the other

version, it says magnifies like I'm just lifting up the Lord.

It says my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

In in church history, they took that word magnifies and they

actually said this song is actually known in church history

in church history as the magnificent like this is the

magnificent song and for thousands of years now this is

what church history has said about this song.

This song magnifies the Lord Jesus.

It says for he has been mindful of the humble state of his.

What? It's pretty interesting to me

that the Lord is mindful of the humility of mankind.

Like it's not about anything else, It's not about status,

it's not about relationship, it's not about occupation, it's

not about being known, it's not about popularity, it's not about

obscurity, it's not about anything else.

It's just about humility. And the Lord sees that.

Amen. That's good news for all of us

because all of us can be in that posture.

We all can be less of me, more of you, Lord.

And the Lord sees us and He blesses us.

It says from now on all generations will call me

blessed. And you might think, well,

that's really prideful. Kind of feels that way when you

read it like, oh man, I'm blessed.

But it it's a state of humility. It's actually prophetic is what

she said. Because she's saying that Jesus

is going to bless all people. She's already thinking about

future generations, future nations, future kingdoms,

thinking about eternity, thinking about knowing sin is

going to be abolished, knowing this is the chosen of God that

reverses the curse. She's thinking the future.

This is a missionary statement. This is a prophetic word.

And she says they're going to look at me and say you're so

blessed because you got to carry the blessed One, Jesus himself,

who's going to bless all people because the name of Jesus, we've

all been changed, Amen. And Mary got to play a small

part of the story and that's who she's humbled.

Thank you, Lord, I got to play a small part of the story.

You see Mary's song, it's really all about God.

She goes on verse 49 says the mighty One has done great things

for me. Holy is his name, his mercy

extends to those who what Yeah, fear him.

We can do that too as well. Like we we can fear the Lord.

It doesn't nothing matters. Bank accounts, education level,

socio economic status does nothing else matters, but we can

fear the Lord. It's it's a great reminder of

what we can the store we can play a part of it says from

generation to generation, we can still fear the Lord.

That's us. Amen.

So if you're fearing the Lord today, guess what, the Lord's

hands upon you, his, his, his, his blessing is on you and says

this verse 51, and I want you to see this.

This is a very interesting part of this.

Mary sees herself as a part of something that many theologians

have called the great reversal. This last part of this song is

amazing. They're going to see these

opposites. It says he has performed verse

3051. He has performed mighty deeds

with his arm. He has scattered those who are

proud in their inmost thoughts. That's pretty good.

You know, sometimes you think evil is winning.

You watch the news, right, and you think evil is just going to

conquer the world or you get kind of downhill from your

friend group or or an outside of a job situation or something

happens and you think, man, there's so many psalms in this

too, like the the evil and the wicked triumph.

But do they? They do for a season in their

own little world and their sandcastle.

But ultimately God, he humbles the proud and this is what he

says right here that God has scattered those who are proud in

their utmost thoughts. Verse 52, look at the the

dichotomy. He has brought down rulers from

their Thrones. Talk about these prideful rulers

and he has what lifted up the it's pretty good.

Amen. Like that's how God's economy

works. Like in the world's economy,

like, oh, you get a head dog eat dog, cheat the corner, take the

corner, pause brass get the promotion go.

But in God's economy, he takes the humble and he goes, guess

what, I'm going to promote the humble and lift them up and this

person just going to scatter like chaff.

It's amazing. And and she's blown away by

God's choice, like she's a nobody in her own society,

right? But guess what, she knows the

Lord, she fears the Lord, she worship the Lord, she knows

Scripture and she says this verse 53 and he has filled,

listen, filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the

rich away. How so?

So the hungry are get filled with the things of God.

They can't afford a meal, but the wealthy people have

everything they're leaving empty.

This sounds familiar. This is true even today.

Wealth does not make you happy or filled with things of God.

It just makes you more what you are right?

And this is how God works and she does not wealthy, she's

hungry. But God has done this dichotomy,

so it's called the great reversal.

She's worshiping God for his different economy.

Verse 54, it says he has helped the servant Israel remembering

to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as

he promised our ancestors. This is pretty amazing because

she's she's referring all the way back to the Abrahamic

covenant in Genesis 12 one and two.

She's going all the way back and this just doxology just crying

out to the Lord. You see that Paul does this and

Romans 11 very last part of Romans 11, he just cries out to

the Lord. Thank you for your mercies.

And here she's just crying out and she just remembers like

Davidic covenant, Abrahamic covenant, Psalm 103, Psalm 138,

Psalm 34. She literally, if you study this

Scripture, she has 12 other passages in the Old Testament

that she has alluded to or directly quoted.

That's pretty amazing, isn't it? Like how many of us have the

Lord spoke to us, we bust out a song and we've been able to

quote 12 different pieces of the Bible and just say thank you,

Jesus and worship. This tells us two things about

Mary. One, she knew scripture.

She'd have a lot of money, but she knew scripture.

Amen. She'd have a big name for

herself, but she was humble. And not only did she know

Scripture, she filtered every experience in her life through

Scripture. If there's one thing you get

from the message day is to filter everything in your life

through Scripture. She immediately recognized this

is from the Lord. I'm in CERN of this.

I see the promise fulfilled. I recognized that this baby is a

promise of fulfillment of Scripture from Abraham, from

Psalms all the way till now. Thank you Lord and she cries

out, I don't know about you. This song you remember this is

impromptu, right? It took two years to write here

I am to worship it. It took 20 seconds to write the

one of the greatest songs in all the history.

Amen. Because it was already in her.

She always just saying what she already knows to be true.

She sang from her spiritual memory.

It's pretty good. Amen.

And you will always default to filtering our life, the thing

that is in our heart, we have to change our filter.

Like my life is not any easier or better than anybody else's,

but I do have a filter through Jesus.

Amen. And your life could be changed

just by changing your filter of worship, change your

understanding of scripture. So in this Mary did not invent a

song. She simply sang scripture.

And this is, I believe you defeat a lot of things in your

life, anxieties, fears, doubts, insecurities, worries, habits,

habitual sin. I think it's nothing more than

writing a song full of Scripture for your own heart and fighting

to follow that song every day, Amen.

Like you've got to replace it with the truth.

This is now the longest New Testament passage by woman in

all the New Testament. That's pretty good, Amen.

And you think about this, This passage is 100% Scripture and

it's 100% worship. And God said, yeah, we'll put

that in the book. Amen.

We're going to ask ourselves, is that my life?

Is it full of Scripture? Is, is my life a response and

worship? Am I humble enough to say yes,

Lord, like I'm going to go first.

Lord, I don't know. Everybody's going to judge me.

It's going to look weird. But Lord, you're not.

I live for you. We need, we need to have this

posture in our hearts every single day.

And a matter of fact, you actually can.

It's just so interesting that the words that Mary used, if you

look back to verse 38, then Mary said, behold, the maidservant,

the Lord, and she said this word.

She said, let it be to me according to your word.

This is interesting because it's it's it's a moment of surrender.

Like she could have easily said, let me be got a lot of things

going on. I love you, but I got some stuff

I'm doing right now. Just let me be I've got I've got

to build this thing over here. This relationship's kind of

sideways. I'm always really going to think

about that, you know, so I've got to kind of get that squared

up. So let me be Lord, be close

handed. If we're real honest, this is

probably most of our lives, right?

Instead she says the very opposite thing.

So let me be in defiance. She says, Lord, let it be to me

according to your word. That's what makes a worship

Amen. She surrenders.

This is really interesting, like the word Amen.

You know we say like in Jesus name, Amen, right?

That's how we pray. Pray to the Father through the

Holy Spirit, through the sun, the Trinity in our prayer, and

we end it with Amen. Why do we say Amen?

Yeah, we don't say Amen because it's a fun word, right?

We don't just add it in. Not our favorite 4 letter word,

right? Amen.

Amen. Why do we do that?

That that word has meaning it, it means to.

So let it be so let it be. So we pray, we're praying

through the power of Holy Spirit and we always add Amen.

We always throw it in like Amen. It doesn't mean it means Lord,

we trust you, like have your way, we surrender to you.

I want your way in my life now, Lord, like I don't even know the

direction. Like I'm praying, I'm trying to

figure out, I think this is what it is.

But so let your will be done. Like every time we pray, we're

saying yes to Amen. And when you pray and you're

faking it, you're not saying yes, Amen, right?

That's just, that's just another 4 letter word.

But in your heart, if you're like Amen, just say Amen.

Amen is worship. Amen.

It's just worship. Just the word Amen is worship.

And I'll prove it to you. DMI 8 Ezra opened the book.

This is you. Don't you'll go back to it real

quick. Ezra comes back from the second

remnant of Babylon. They've been taken captive of

the disobedience. He comes back home.

Nehemiah's are there. They're trying to build the

walls. But Ezra comes back and goes,

hey, this temple is barely functional and the worship is

frankly pathetic. He's upset.

He's a priest, he's nobody like he's not a warrior.

But he comes back and said, I'm going to bring this temple back

to where I should go. I'm going to get the worship of

the people. Should go and says you open the

book, the book they've not been reading the Old Testament, the

law. She opens the book of Moses and

this is what it says. All the people could see him

because he was standing above them.

If you don't know the story here, but they're built this big

wooden platform and put a little platform on top of it.

It was like the OG pulpit. I don't know.

And they put in front of everybody and he stood up on

there. He opened the Bible and it says

this, it said to people and he stood up and then Ezra, praise

the Lord the great God, and all the people lifted their hands

and responded how it's probably better than that, right?

He opened the Bible and he's like, here it is.

We've kind of walked away from it.

Lord your great Lord, your mighty.

They stood to their feet. Cue my church stood to their

feet, cueing my church. They stood to their feet.

They stood to their feet. What they do.

Yeah, there it is. Right.

And they get excited and they give versions.

Amen. Amen.

Amen, Amen. Let it be.

Let the word of God be. Let the things be.

Let the Scripture be true. We want to follow your way,

Lord. Like we should get excited when

the Bible gets opened. Like, oh, wow, that's the Bible.

That's the power, man, like that's the power of God, the

royal power of God coming into our church, coming to your life.

It's your signpost, it's your substance, it's your provision,

it's your, it's everything. And they just heard the word of

God that has been destitute for them for for a long time.

And they heard this preach and they said Amen, Amen and Amen.

And they did something really crazy, which I'm not going to

ask you to do, but you can if you want to.

It says, then they bow down and worship the Lord with their

faces to the ground. It's really interesting because

you stand up and you lift your hands.

It's it's a sign of surrender and it's also a sign of worship.

But when you bow down, it's just a sign of surrender.

I mean, you're just like Lord. And there's moments like you

have to crawl under your desk, get next to your bed and say,

Lord, I have nothing left but you.

I trust you, I worship you. And I believe today could be one

of those days for you, like maybe the first time ever that

you truly worship the Lord. Matter of fact, you say the word

Amen. It's actually really cool

because you're not just saying a word, you're actually saying a

name. Revelation 314 says these are

the words of the what of the Amen.

You see, it's a capital letter. That's that's Jesus name.

So, so when you say Amen, you're saying so let it be, but you're

all saying Jesus, let it be. Isn't that amazing?

How many guys do that? When you prayed, you're actually

praying through Jesus name, literally when you say the word

Amen, it's crazy. And so we say yes Lord, it's a

sign of worship. And so the question is, what are

you trying to control that God wants you to surrender today in

worship? What part of your life are you

holding on to that you need to surrender to God?

Where's the area that God is speaking to you and maybe for a

long time is asking to say, you know, it's time to go.

I have the plan for you and you may be putting off or maybe

there's something happened this week and you're like, man, I

don't understand it, but your Lord, I still trust you.

Like what's that one area to say yes to Jesus in?

And today our response is simply here I am.

Come on, somebody to worship. That's why I came today.

I didn't come to hear some great message.

And here because I came because I worship you, Jesus.

And that's how we came today. If you didn't come today, that's

how we're going to leave today. And so, Father, we just open our

hands, not our fists, but we open our fists to your hands to

worship you. How many of church today would

just raise their hands and just worship and say, Lord, I need to

get better worshiper, I need to surrender to you.

There's something I'm holding on to.

I've got 99%, I'm surrender, but there's 1%.

I'm holding on to God. But I'm going to give you that

area. I trust you, let it be to me

according to your word. And so God, we worship you, God,

we give you glory, we magnify your name.

We came here for no other reason but to make your name more

famous. Less of me, Lord, more of you.

God, thank you for choosing me for anything and everything good

that's ever happened. God, you get the glory.

God, who am I to take a piece of glory?

God, I fear you. I worship you.

I home myself before you. God know you see me.

Thank you Lord, thank you for Jesus, the name that saves above

all names. For some of you, this is all

new. For some of you, this is the

first time in your life you've heard this story about Jesus.

And today you recognize that that one to save made a way for

you. That we're not here just setting

up to have religion, we're here because of Jesus.

For some of you, today you say yes to Christ.

For some of you maybe to get on your knees and bow down and say

Lord, I've made everything about myself to put myself in the

throne in the driver's seat, but today I need to put you in the

driver's seat. I need to give you the glory.

God, your way is better and I trust you today.

This Jesus, the one who saves, the Bible says came 2000 years

ago down a cross for your sins and has made a way for you to be

forgiven through the cross. The Bible says you believe in

Jesus just like Mary knew what happened, that you be set free

for your sin and made free through the blood of Jesus who

paid for your sin in full so you could truly come into God's

presence as a son and daughter of the King.

And so today if you need new life in Jesus, very first time

you surrender to him. If that's you, we just lift your

hands high and surrender us. I need Jesus today.

I worship you today. I'm open my hands to you today

for the first time in my life. I'm giving you everything Lord,

I'm not holding back. Your way is so much better if

that's you just pray this prayer with me.

The prayer does not save you but your heart towards him.

Say thank you Jesus for loving me enough to die on a cross.

You'd come as a baby in a Manger and make a way for me to know

you. God.

Thank you for down across my sin.

God, I'm a Sinner and need of a savior.

Thank you Jesus for saving me, the one who saves.

Save me in the name of the one who saves.

And the church said, Amen. Come on, give some glory to God

today. Amen.

You guys keep you seated. Thank you guys.

Man, what just a powerful it's a powerful message and reminder

today just of worship and surrender.

And then some of you surrendered your life to Jesus today for the

first time. And if that is you, we are truly

so excited for you as you're taking this next step with

Jesus. And we would love just to walk

alongside you and help you in that.

If you would grab that connection card that's on your

seat, fill out your information on that there in the top and

check that box that says I committed my life to Jesus.

And you can drop that in the giving buckets as they pass here

in just a few minutes. Just by doing that allows us to

get a couple things to you. And the first one is a free

book. It's called begin short read,

but a really powerful one that we know will be a blessing to

you. Also as you leave today.

There's a table with some red bags.

There's a Bible and some other resources in there as well.

Please grab one of those as you exit today as well.

And if you are new with us at Real Life Church, this is your

first time here. Thank you so much for being here

today and choosing just to spend your morning here at Real Life

Church. I know that God had something

for you today and when we would love nothing from you this

morning except for this. And that's just to introduce

yourself to us. And you can do that simply just

by grabbing that same connection card on your seat.

Fill out your information on that and check that First Time

Here box and you can drop that and then give in buckets as

well. Or you can hold on to it and

take it to the new here booth. As you leave today, there'll be

somebody there that would love just to take your card and do

some selves to you and get you a free gift.

I just our way of saying thank you so much for being here with

us today. And hey, we'd love to see you

back next week right here at 9:00 and 10:45.

Man, next week really is going to be just one of those Sundays

you're not going to want to miss.

It's really kicking off a new season at real life church and

that is celebration Sunday. Man, next week we're going to

show here's some significant numbers, we're going to share

some stories of bold faith. We get to share all sorts of

stats on participation and all that God has done through this.

And ultimately we get to share the number of pledge towards

difference maker. And so you're not going to want

to miss that as well. Also next Sunday, celebration

Sunday, that's really our time, our first time together as the

body of Christ to give to really kick off this difference maker

initiative. And so we're asking that you

bring your stored resources gift.

Maybe it's just your best one time gift to really kick off

this pledge together. I also to just want to give just

a little bit of clarity when you give towards Difference Maker

online, when you give online towards that, if you want to

give towards your pledge in the Difference Maker initiative in

the drop downs there, when you click the drop down, you want to

choose that top option there. That's the ministry fund.

The Ministry Fund really is a combination of our pledges and

expected giving kind of all wrapped up in one.

And if you have questions on that, you can see me after the

gathering. But just wanted to give a little

bit of clarity on that. I mean, every week we are seeing

commitment cards come in of people pledging to be difference

makers. And so if that's you, I just

want to say a heartfelt thank you so much for pledging to be a

difference maker in this next season, in this next chapter of

real life church. And then there are a lot of

things you can give your money to.

There's a lot of ways you can spend it.

Some of it's worth it, some of it's not.

I was just thinking, man, I can buy a pizza for my family.

It's gone in like 2 minutes flat.

Worth it maybe in the short term, but man, this is something

that's worth it. Man, it is worth it to see two

to three people come to know Jesus every week.

It's worth it to see 50 people baptized this year.

Man, it's worth it to see potentially 100 people baptized

next year. Truly is an eternal return on

investment. When people raise their hands,

when they get dunked under the water and come back out and we

celebrate, man, that is credit to your account.

And it truly is about 100% participation.

All of us saying yes to being difference makers really in this

next season, in this next chapter at real life church.

So I also want to invite you, if you haven't turned a card in

yet, man, today's a great day to do that.

You can grab, there's physical commitment cards on your seat.

You can also scan that QR code that's up on the screen and

that'll take you to a digital commitment card as well.

And hey, if you call real life church home, there's a lot of

ways that you can give today. You can check out the screen

there, you can text, you can scan the QR code.

You can head to our website. You can drop cash or check in

the buckets as they pass as well.

There's also a giving box right in the back as you leave.

You can drop cash or check in there or your card as well, if

that is more convenient for you. And as always, especially in the

season, if you or your family are in any kind of immediate

need this week, food or clothing or shelter, whatever that looks

like for you and your family, would you please reach into the

bucket as they pass and grab any loose cash that you see just so

that we can bless you, that we can help you in your time of

deed. Let's pray.

Father, thank you so much God, just for this just powerful

reminder of worship and of true surrender and what that looks

like. God, I pray just for the the

gifts given today, God, that you would bless it, Father, that you

would multiply as we just desire God to see more soul saved, to

see the lost come home and ultimately to find their real

life and purpose in you. And so God, we give today back

to you. We love you, we praise you, it's

in Jesus, Jesus name we pray, Amen.

Amen. What a blessed day.

Before you guys get out of here, I have a couple things for you

to mark your calendars. First of all, I want to see all

of you bring all your friends and all your family, anybody

that you can think of, invite them out for our Christmas Eve

service. We're going to have a service at

2:00 and 4:00 PM and I'd love to see all of you out there with

all the guests that you can muster up.

And then for the parents in here, if you are the parent of a

6th through 12th grader, we a few days after for that are

going to be celebrating the new year, New Year's Eve.

We are going to main event. Then we're going to come back to

the Hope Center, celebrate with ice cream and watch the ball

drop. And this is big.

If you are interested in having your student go, please sign

them up as soon as possible. You can scan the QR code.

It's only $40 that covers transportation, all the games.

We're going to do a main event dinner, ice cream after.

It is a bargain. Please help me out.

It is going to help me get a head count as soon as possible.

Love to see all the students out there.

And then for all the guys out here this Saturday we are going

to have our men's breakfast with our fearless leader, Scott

Jermaine. We're going to talk about how

the year 2025 impacted us. We're going to have breakfast,

We're going to have good conversation and we're going to

get in our Bibles is going to be a great morning.

And then if you guys don't mind, I'd like to end today kind of

how we've been going the whole time and end in some worship in

2nd Corinthians 120. It says for all the promises of

God find their yes in him. Think about it.

Jesus is our yes from God. That is why through him that we

utter our Amen to God for his glory.

In Psalm one, O 648 says, blessed be the Lord, the God of

Israel from everlasting to everlasting and let all the

people say, help me out. Amen, praise the Lord.

If you need prayer to talk to a pastor, there's going to be

somebody down here for you. I'd love to see all of you again

next week at 9:00 or 10:45. And remember, whoever finds

Jesus discovers real life and purpose.

Have a good week. This is the end of this podcast.

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