Nothing Held Back, Nobody Left Out | Pastor Chris Kouba

Grab your Bibles.

Colossians chapter one is where we're going to be.

Thank you for whoever you cheered about that.

Appreciate that.

Colossians chapter one is where we're going to spend a little bit of time today.

In 2018, whenever I got the phone call from the search committee that asked me to begin discussions about the possibility of being the pastor here at this church, I remember, you know, I'm kind of trying to get to know them and they're trying to get to know me.

And so we're kind of asking each other some questions back and forth.

And I asked them the question, can you tell me a little bit about the church?

And what I discovered was one, all of them began to speak with just fond affection for how God has moved in their families and how God has moved in their personal lives and mission trips and things like that that they've been a part of.

But I also picked up on as they began to talk to me about the church, they all used different names to refer to the church.

What you saw was that some referred to First Baptist Umble.

Okay, that was the historic name of the church.

Some called it Umble's First whenever they talked about the church.

Other people talked about the hub.

That was the name of the church at the time, whenever the church had called me.

Other people called it Umble Arias First Baptist Church.

And then somebody else, while we were on the call, said H A F B C.

And I'm like, wait a second, what does that even mean?

That stands for Umble Arias First Baptist Church.

There were all these different names.

And what I quickly discovered is that while there are all these different names, every single name represented a season in the life of this church where God moved in profound ways.

Where like people gave their lives to this place.

And they served this place and they allowed God to use them in the midst of each one of these various seasons.

What you quickly heard as they began to describe all of these names was how people got saved during every single one of these names and seasons of the church.

What you also heard is that people got buried during those seasons as well.

Like they it's fond affections for each different season in life of the history of this amazing church.

And so I then asked them this question so where are we going?

And with without fail, it was like a continuous echo of the same response.

We don't know.

We feel like we're kind of stuck and we need a direction of an identity moving forward.

When I came down to visit for the very first time, again, I'm trying to kind of date them, they're kind of trying to date me.

We're trying to figure this whole thing out.

I thought it was funny.

I go into my hotel room, and inside of my hotel room, there's like a gift basket.

And inside of this gift basket was a big bunch of cookies.

Check out these cookies, okay?

This is an icing on a cookie of all the various names and logos the church had had over the years.

Okay?

Check this out.

I mean, there's some one pretty good logos for it today, all right?

There was some pretty good stuff up there.

But it's got God's family place, was kind of an emphasis at one point.

And you've got the hub, and then you've got all these other ones, the different logos and things that are represented, and many of them have been on signs and been in literature that have been sent out to the community.

I thought it was so interesting, though, that they also, in the midst of all of the things that they put, they gave these two cookies as well that were right next to it.

Pick one.

TBD.

Like, I mean, they were just kind of leaning into the fact that, hey, we know how God has used us in the past, but we're not quite sure what that's gonna mean for the future.

Clearly, the group was not saying, hey, we need to figure out if we're gonna read the Bible or not.

That's never been a question in the history of this church.

It wasn't whether the Great Commission is something we're gonna be about.

Of course, that's what we're gonna be about.

But what does that look like for the next season of our church in Northeast Houston going forward?

Whenever it became clear to me that God was calling me to come here and to be the pastor, I knew that this was gonna be a great responsibility to try to figure out, okay, what is this gonna look like for us to have an identity?

And what I did not want to do was somehow bring me being somehow the outside guy that knows everything, bringing in saying, hey, here's what we need to do, here's some things that I like, here's a name that I like, here's a mission that I like, because I had no idea.

At the end of the day, I needed to be faithful to the community that we were a part of, and I knew that I didn't want to just come up with something that sounded good, and two weeks later, no one has any idea what it is.

Maybe that eventually it just shows up on a cookie later on for somebody else to come and see.

So we brought in an outside consulting group.

And this outside group, we had a group of us that were some on staff and then some that were inside the church, and we met for a year, an entire year.

And that process helped us discover what is this church going to not only be called, but more importantly, what are we gonna be about as we go forward?

In the midst of that whole process, what began to emerge out of it is we began to do a little bit of self-discovery and we realized a number of things about this area and this church that we happen to be a part of.

One, this area is extremely diverse.

City of Houston is incredibly diverse relative to most places, but but this area also is very diverse.

It's ratio or racially diverse, it's socioeconomically diverse.

There's also a lot of divisions that exist in this area.

Think about it.

59 is a division, right?

Uh you you think about it, the river is a division.

Uh you you can live on Westlake Houston, you can live north of the river, you can live south of the river.

You can live in Huffman and Crossby, or you can live in Atasca City.

There's a there's a bridge that literally goes between dividing these things.

There's just natural barriers.

99 and Beltway A are just natural barriers that we have to think about.

In addition to that, just think about the fact that, like, you know, each area in this in this community is different.

If you make a certain amount of money, you're gonna live in this zip code.

If you make another amount of money, you may live in a different zip code.

There's all these different things.

And so I remember asking the question to the group when is a time whenever the church, and when is the time when the community has really been rallied around each other and without fail, everybody said Herkin Harvey.

Everybody helped everybody.

No matter who you were, what your background was, where you lived, if you lived in this community, you pitched in to help.

I've heard stories now, even as I look back and think about it, uh, Summer Creek opened up its doors to Kingwood High School.

Okay, what you begin to see is that people who didn't flood open up their homes to people who did flood, and it made no difference where they were from or what their story was.

They just opened up their doors and just said, come on in and help.

People pitched in, people served, people loved everybody else, and it was all just simply because this natural disaster took place, but they knew we need to rally together, we need to come together.

So it began a situation where the the where the church itself, which personally flooded, also shined the brightest.

I hear the stories of our church in that season, and it's just incredible.

They they they won, they kept meeting under a tent out in the parking lot in August, and then they mobilized day after day after day, despite the fact that the own their own building was was in disarray and having flooded itself to go help the community and those who were in need.

It shine the brightest.

So here was the question for our group that we met together.

What would it look like for us to be able to have that same gospel unity, that same serving our community, that same idea of being able to help those in need around us, not only in the aftermath of a natural disaster, but on a random Tuesday going forward.

As we met, we ultimately came up with the mission statement that we adopted as a church in 2020 that has served us for the last six years, and I pray, God willing, will serve us for decades to come.

And here's what it is everyone, every day, crossing every divide to live united in Christ.

We prayed over this for months.

We felt like it was something God gave to us.

As I was studying this week in Colossians chapter 1, the next section that we're gonna look at uh in the book of Colossians, I wish that I would have known what this passage says when we came up with that statement.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

Because it looks as though we got the statement out of this text.

Like it's exactly what we are needing to be about and what we should be all about.

And instead of us just getting good words that could go with a good sentence that seemed to be catchy, we found something.

I found this past week.

This mission statement comes out of Colossians chapter 1, verses 25 through chapter 2, verse 5.

Colossians 1:25

I just wish we were smart enough at the time to have been able to realize it at the time.

Let me set the scene back up for you as we get into the text.

Uh, we see the Apostle Paul in a Roman jail cell, and he's writing a letter to a church in Colossae that he's never met.

This church had been planted by a contemporary of his named Epaphras.

Uh, and and what happened was is people began to get saved and come into the church, and then you had false teachers that came alongside of them, and they weren't discrediting Jesus, they weren't denying Jesus, they weren't saying you shouldn't follow Jesus, they were just saying, hey, Jesus is a good start, but you need something else.

You need to add on to Jesus.

And so what Paul is doing is he's writing this letter, not by making arguments against what they say, he's writing this letter by lifting up the person of Jesus, wanting you to behold him so that you will see you don't need to add anything to Jesus.

He is all that you will ever need.

This section we're gonna look at in Colossians 1, the end of chapter uh 1 and the beginning of chapter 2 is the most personal section of the letter where Paul, if you will, writes out some kind of, here's my motivation.

He writes out, think about it this way: his mission statement for his life.

And I would argue by seeing his mission statement, it becomes our mission statement.

Not only for your personal life, but for us corporately.

Let's begin reading Colossians chapter 1, verse 24.

Colossians 1:24

And would you stand in the honor of the reading of God's word together?

Verse 24.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.

And in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known.

The mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints.

To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those that lay out of sea, and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments, for though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

You may be seated.

First one is this every one, everyone.

One key piece of our mission statement is implied all over this passage, is that it is for everyone.

This means two things.

First, every one of you has been sent for a purpose like Paul.

Like your assignment may look different, but your calling is the same.

Too often we have made this idea like there are people on staff who are called to ministry, and then there's everybody else.

But those distinctions do not exist in the New Testament.

What we instead see is that whenever you receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior, it changes the way you view all of life, including what you're made for.

You become a called-out believer in Jesus who happens to do that in various ways.

You see, back in the day of Colossians, what you had is that you had people kind of moving in, trying to act like they were tears of being a believer.

So what you would do is you'd have folks that kind of come in and said, Hey, Jesus is awesome.

He's like the entry point.

But if you really want to be a Christian, then you have to have Jesus and this thing.

And if you want to be like a super Christian, you got to have Jesus and this and this.

We're going to talk about this more in the book of Colossians, how this continually creeps into the church.

But this idea of a tier system is the same thing that we have bought into when it comes to our relationship with Christ, so much so that we would say, Hey, I'm a believer, I'm just not nearly into it as much as maybe other people.

Maybe this is an example of a tier system that maybe you follow, take a look at this.

This is a kind of a ladder deal.

Maybe you would look at this and you say, okay, like there's missionaries.

Like they're for real.

Like they like go overseas or go somewhere else, and they like learn a different language, they don't live here, and then they go and try to tell people about Jesus.

Like, if you're like that, you're like the Green Berets, right?

You're the Navy SEALs.

Like, deh.

I did this when I was growing up.

I don't know if this is the case.

Now that I am one, it's definitely different.

I used to idolize my pastor.

Like I thought, man, that guy never does anything wrong.

Like he's on the golf course, misses a bad shot.

He doesn't even get mad.

He just acts totally normal.

He never cusses, clearly, right?

Uh, he never does anything that, and now that I am a pastor, I'm realizing like I gave him way too much credit, all right?

But maybe you think that, all right?

You think, I mean, like pastors, like that's different.

I mean, they're like they need money from the church.

Like, this is what they do.

This is what they give their whole lives to this.

I've amazed.

It doesn't matter who you are.

I've literally met people who are as pagan as they can possibly be.

Everybody has a praying grandmother.

It's unreal.

Have you noticed that?

Like, everybody's got a grandmother who like is like walking with the Lord.

I was sharing the gospel with a guy recently, and I'm talking to him, and like nobody in this family uh has faith.

He's like, but you know, my grandmother, she prays for me every single day.

It's amazing, right?

So maybe you're thinking, like, I'm I'm all in on Jesus, but I can't be like praying grandmother status.

That's like a whole different level.

Maybe you would think somebody like a small group leader, whatever it is.

Most people, though, whatever their ladder is, they make sure they're not on it.

Because they think, well, I can never be that.

Like there's a Bible study that I'm never gonna do, there's a Bible reading plan that I'll never complete, there's a book that I've never done, there's a quiet time that I would never be able to do all of that.

And we rank ourselves somehow with the goal of being able to disqualify ourselves to thinking, I'm in on Jesus, I'm just not like that.

There are no tier systems when it comes to the faith.

All of us, all of us can be growing.

We're gonna talk about that here in just a minute.

However, we must recognize there's not like these people are called, and then these people over here are not called.

What you instead see is this is that all of us are called, some of us just happen to be called and we get to live out that calling in a classroom.

All of us are called, some of us get to live that calling out on an O rig.

All of us are called, some of us just happen to be able to live that calling out in an office.

Whatever it is that you are, know this.

You're called.

Everyone means everyone.

All of us are a part of this.

The question is, who are we called to?

It says that in verse 28.

Look at what it says again.

He says, Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Three times one word is mentioned in one sentence, probably means it's important.

He's not making any distinctions as to who you go after.

He says, everyone is warned, everyone gets taught.

The goal is that everyone is in the same finish line.

You have to understand how radical this would sound to the modern or the first century reader whenever they heard this.

Because in their minds, they had this idea that in order for you to follow after God, you had to become Jewish in order to do so.

Yet now Paul is coming on the scene and he starts telling everybody that they need to be mature.

Look at what it says in verse 26 and 27, that they're gonna have a mystery that was hidden for ages, which has now been revealed.

What he's saying is this Paul's coming and acting like you don't have to become Jewish in order to follow after Christ.

The first century reader would hear this, verse 27, and they would be like, Okay, I get it.

It says there uh that you're not that Christ lives inside of people.

They don't have a problem with that, they have a problem with who he lives inside of.

They would be fine if it was Jewish people.

Paul is saying everyone includes Gentile people, people without a ancestry, people without a covenant, people with no reason to expect anything.

He's opening up the doors of everyone.

See, a lot of times we're like, oh, we're all about everyone, as long as they look like this, act like this, and like or they're like me.

He's saying, no, no, no, no.

Everyone means people previously you thought were your enemies.

That's how big everyone is.

Look at what it says in chapter 2, verse 1.

He is struggling for Colossae and Laodicea.

Laodicea, geographically, is really close to Colossae.

So what he's saying is this he's all about people that he's never met.

Remember, he'd never been to Colossae, he'd never been to Laodicea.

Paul's everyone wasn't just the people that he knew, Paul's everyone was people that he didn't know.

Think about the implications of what this means for our church.

If we actually believed and lived this, it would mean that we are all about the people that are in northeast Houston, and we're also all about the people in Puerto Rico and Poland and Albania and Brazil, places that we send money and missions teams to, even though we may not ever see any of the direct fruit in front of our eyes.

Because God has called us not just to something for us, He's called us for something for everyone.

This is why we partner with the Great Spirits Church and help to plant them in Colony Ridge, because just up the road from us, we have people that we may never meet, but guess what?

We get to be a part of it.

Why?

Because all of us get to be a part of reaching everyone.

That's what God wants us to do.

This is why, God willing, our church will be a place that not only plants churches in northeast Houston, but plants campuses in northeast Houston.

Why?

Because we know there are people we have not yet met that we want to go after and we want to tell them about Jesus.

Folks, I'm really excited about this.

This past week we had the opportunity as a church, uh, we partner with a group called the Houston Church Planner Network.

It's a it's a it's a group that's all throughout Houston, a bunch of pastors all throughout Houston, with the sole goal of coming together to try to saturate the city of Houston with gospel-centered churches.

And and we've been a part of this for a while.

We recently just gave a$25,000 check uh out of our giving dollars to be able to go towards Houston Church Planner Network, which is just incredible.

But they also have these regional gatherings.

Whenever I first got here seven years ago, I wanted to try to figure out how we could get pastors in the area to come together, not in a spirit of competition, but instead a spirit of collaboration and cooperation.

And we just thought this was going to be the way to do it, where we could plant churches together in this area.

And this past week we hosted a regional.

Let me show you the picture of it, the largest gathering that we've ever had.

We had church planners in the area that were there.

We had local pastors in the area of large churches of medium-sized churches, all praying together.

And we just got to be the host.

And what it showed us so clearly is that as much as God is moving in United City Church, He's moving in all of the churches around us.

And please hear me.

If we're gonna reach everyone, it's gonna require a lot more churches than just us.

And so, therefore, we don't want to be jealous of somebody else's success.

We want to celebrate and give and serve those successes.

We believe that that all the boats rise when the water goes up, and so we want to pray a fresh outpouring of God's spirit, not only in this place, but we want to pray for every single church that's all around us.

Why?

Because we know that we want to have a heart for the Laodiceans and the Colossians people we may never even meet.

Why?

Because every one of us are not only called, but every one of us gets the opportunity to go after every one out there.

Look again at verse 25, because Paul tells us when he does this.

He says, Of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make the word of God fully known.

Second idea here is this everyone, every day.

Every day.

This is my word, not Paul's.

He never uses the word every day in this entire passage.

But I think that's what he's implying here in verse 25.

He uses two words to describe what he is.

He uses the word minister and the word stewardship.

Let's pick on the word stewardship for a second.

It's the word Greek word ortonomia.

It means household management.

A steward was often a slave who ran an estate.

The property that he had was not his.

He didn't choose it.

He didn't buy it, he couldn't sell it, couldn't make improvements on it.

He was just responsible for handling it.

Being a steward is not a job that you're like, I'll do this on Monday through Thursday, and then I'm going to take Friday through the rest of the weekend off.

It's not how it works.

It's a trust that you are under all the time, whether you're thinking about it or not.

It's the difference between a project and an assignment.

A project, start date, end date, and then you maybe move on to another project.

An assignment defines who you are.

Meaning this.

If my assignment is being called out by God, then I serve him on a mission trip for a week, but then I also serve him when I'm back home, not on the mission trip.

If it's a project, then I'm going to go serve God on the mission trip, but then I'm going to go back and do the rest of life.

Okay?

An assignment means this that I am not I'm going to serve God on serve day, but I'm also going to serve him whenever it's not serve day.

I'm going to serve him on a random Saturday, but I'm but then I'm going to get back to my real life.

No, no, no.

It's instead saying he's not describing a hobby, he's describing the shape of his existence.

Romans 1.16 says it like this: for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

The gospel is not something that you're ashamed of anywhere or in front of anybody.

You may be thinking, well, how am I supposed to live this way all the time?

Look at verse 29.

For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

You don't operate as a minister every day with your strength.

You're instead operating out of the resources that God has already provided for you through Christ.

If that is the case, that means there's no off-seasons.

Let's just ask has your faith become a hobby or do you see it as a sacred trust that you've been given?

Because one of those has an off-season.

So many people have already made a decision.

I'm going to follow Christ at church, but I'm not necessarily going to follow him at work.

He's going to have rule and reign over everything that I do when I'm with church people.

But the dear leaves with my boys is a different thing.

God, you're going to be the one who's going to dictate my life and my schedule unless the ball coach decides to schedule something over that time, and then he gets to determine everything that I do with all of my life.

Folks, please hear me.

The order is messed up.

It's instead my assignment is this.

And in light of this, what is it that I need to now go and do?

God is calling us, every one of us, every day, operating out of the strength of the Lord to fulfill what he's called us to do, which is what?

Everyone, every day, crossing every divide.

Crossing every divide.

Look at verse 24.

Probably the most difficult verse for sure in the passage, probably in the entire book.

Paul says he is filling up in his flesh what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of the church.

Like at first glance, you almost think this means that the cross came up short and Paul's suffering makes up the difference.

We're going to find this out next week in Colossians chapter 2, verse 14, that the record of the debt that stood against us was canceled and nailed to the cross, meaning there was nothing left on a table.

Colossians 2:14

So that means that nothing that you suffer adds a dollar to a bill that's already been paid.

Okay, so it can't mean that God's Christ's sacrifice wasn't enough and he's at it.

So what does it mean?

We are repeatedly told in the scriptures that we're to share in the sufferings of Christ.

When Jesus was here, he advanced his message through suffering.

On the cross, he confirmed it through suffering.

And in so many places ever since, one of the main ways that the message moves is through people that are willing to suffer for it.

In fact, Paul, after he was converted, God sent a man named Ananias to go get him.

And here's what God says describing Paul in Acts chapter 9, verse 15 and 16.

Acts 9:15

But the Lord said to him, Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.

For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.

Paul's assignment is to take the gospel to the Gentiles, but his assignment is to also suffer while he does it.

Okay, so what does this look like for us?

It's really, really hard to apply for us, okay?

Because we have no idea what it's like to suffer like this.

Okay.

Our idea of suffering is this we come to church and somebody is sitting in our seat.

They know it's our seat.

Ask the pastor.

He sees me here every time, right?

And it's just like, what in the world are they doing?

Like they do they not realize what this is?

And that's not suffering, okay?

Or I show up on a Sunday and the lobby is slammed, and as much as I try not to look at the first impressions people, they actually engage in a conversation with me.

That's suffering, right?

Not really, okay?

It's hard for us to apply this because we live such comfortable lives.

It's not that hard for us.

Oh, I don't want to have to invite my my neighbor to at the movies because then they might say no.

Oh man, how hard is that?

Right?

Like we we have all these built-in excuses.

I mean, it's just it's just so hard.

Wait, please hear me.

If you want to live for your faith outside of these walls, you will eventually experience suffering.

And what God is inviting us to do is to live lives of suffering.

How do we do that?

By crossing every single divide that we need to in order to be able to experience not just suffering for suffering's sake, but to advance the mission and the cause of the gospel.

What does it look like for us to cross every single divide?

Think about this.

Just remember, Paul is writing this from a Roman prison cell.

It is guaranteed in Scripture, following Jesus will make your life harder, not easier.

We're not trying to sell you a feel-good life.

We're being honest with you and telling you following after Jesus is worth it, but it's hard.

So, what does it look like for us to cross every divide?

Let me just paint a picture for you of what I believe this could be.

We want to be a church that reaches successful business leaders and a church that reaches former prison inmates sitting on the same row, singing the same songs.

We want to be a church that reaches senior adults who've walked with Jesus for 65 years, who cry and have so much joy when they see a six-year-old give their lives to Jesus and get baptized.

That's what we want.

We want to be a church that right now we're experiencing this.

We've got two mature adults who are giving their lives to go on the mission field right now, exploring what that looks like.

And the same church has two young adults who right now are exploring what it looks like to go and instead of building their career, instead give their lives to Jesus for the next few years and let Jesus build their career.

We want to be a church that has coaches and teachers and administrators who grieve more over their kids' salvation, then they're worried about what the HR policy says about what they're allowed to say or not in the classroom.

We want to be a church that has students who, even at the cost of their relational investment with people around them, actively reach out to try to reach their friends, inviting them to hear the message of Jesus.

Let me ask you, what divide do you need to cross?

A real one or a made-up one?

What has to get crossed for you to go after somebody with the gospel?

It isn't just about being friends with them.

Look at the very end of this, though.

Everyone, every day, crossing every divide to live united in Christ.

Our goal is not just that we would be good citizens, although we really hope that we as a church are made up of people that are good citizens.

Our presence here in this area is not just so that the area is glad that we are here, although we want that to be the case.

The goal of why we exist is found in Colossians 2, too.

That their hearts may be encouraged, be knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ.

We want to introduce people to the person of Jesus, and then we want to disciple and grow them into the person of Jesus.

Colossians chapter 1, verse 28 says that we would present everyone mature in Christ.

Colossians 1:28

All of us, every one of us is growing and has the next step.

We all have more to know, we all have more to learn, we all have more to do.

And this ultimately leads us back to the purpose of this series.

Not that you would think that Jesus is a good starting point, and then you add a bunch of things on top of it, but instead that we would behold the person of Jesus, and as we look at him and as we behold him, and as we admire him, and as we see all that he is, to whom all belong, the one who is for all things and from all things and through all things, the fact that he even knows our name, the fact that he cares about us allows us to then receive the glory that he has given to us through the person of Jesus dying on the cross and rising from the dead, so that we would be a church that is not known for our activities, for our worship, or all of our stuff, but we are known for Jesus.

So that Colossians 2, 4 and 5 would be true about us.

I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.

For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ, meaning that we're so locked in on Jesus, the moment we see anything that would distract us or deter us or cause us not to focus on Jesus, we immediately put it out.

We're not trying to find the latest and greatest thing, because we have the best thing, which is Jesus.

Everyone, every day, crossing every divine to live united in Christ.

Everything falls apart if you don't have the last two words in Christ.

Some of you here are near Christ, you're around Christ, you're in the church, but you've never given your life to Jesus so that he could be in you.

Would you bow your heads and would you close your eyes all from me all across this room?

I want to invite all of you.

I want to plead with you to turn from your sins and receive the forgiveness that was accomplished for you by Jesus.

He died on a cross.

He rose from the dead, he now gives you the chance to believe in him.

And for you to be in Christ.

You must turn from your sins, turn from your way of doing stuff, turn from religion, turn from spirituality.

Turn to Jesus.

If you've never done that, I want to invite you to pray a simple prayer of faith right where you're seated with me like this.

God, I know that I'm a sinner.

I know that because of my sins, I deserve death and punishment.

I believe you sent your son Jesus to die on the cross for me.

And that he rose from the dead, and right now I turn from my sins and receive his gift of eternal life to come inside of me so that I can be in Christ.

Man, what an amazing time that we had today.

Hey, if you know of someone that needs to hear this message, we'd love for you to share that on socials.

We'd love for you to actually go and check out our socials so you can stay up to date on everything happening in the life of United City.

And if you need to take the next step, we'd love to help you do that as well.

Love you guys so much.

We'll see you next week.