Free People – Living Free

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason and Liz Burns in Access Church in Lakeland and Bartow, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Well, good morning, Access! How are we today?

My name is Kayla Erickson.

I have the absolute privilege and honor of being your communications director here at Access.

That means that if you've ever been on our social media or if you've gone to our website, or if you've even gotten an email from Access Church, you don't know it, but you and I have already connected.

You've heard from me.

But today I have the absolute privilege and honor of closing out our message series free people.

But before we get there, I just wanna I just want to talk for a second and tell you guys how much I love our church.

And there's so much that I love about our church.

I love Pastors Jason and Liz and their kindness and generosity and what amazing leaders they are.

I love my job.

I love the work that I get to do here and that I get to do it amongst the staff that I just genuinely love.

I love you guys and the way that you show up for our city, and you're dedicated to making a difference in the name of Jesus.

But there's a special reason that I have a soft place in my heart for access, and that is this is where I met my husband.

And when I mean I met my husband, like y'all, I mean I met my husband here.

That is us.

Ten feet out those doors.

This is the moment.

I did not ask someone to take this picture, by the way.

They're like of their own volition.

This was our third conversation ever.

This was me, not gonna lie, straight up shooting my shot.

Ladies, there ain't nothing wrong letting the man know you were interested, okay?

So we met serving an access kids, and then sure enough, I shot my shot.

He got the hint, slid into my DMs, and then we went out for coffee, and that was five years ago, this October.

So there's a lot that I love about this church, but I love that I met the love of my life here.

So, but today I have the absolute honor.

We're closing out our message series, free people.

Somebody say free people.

Now we've spent the last seven weeks going through the book of Galatians.

Now, if you've missed any of it, don't fret.

You can go back and listen to any of our previous messages at access.tv slash messages.

You can go to YouTube if that's your thing.

I'm a podcast person.

You can find us at AccessChurch on any of your podcasting apps.

I hear someone really lovely and beautiful.

Make sure that gets online for you guys every week.

So you should take advantage of it.

But let me kind of give you some context for where we're gonna be today and summarize sort of what's happened in the letter so far.

And the first thing you need to know is that this is a letter.

This is a letter from the Apostle Paul.

He was a big leader in the early church.

He went on to write most of the New Testament and he helped plant this church in Galatia.

It's this church community.

He left, some things kind of have gone askew, so he writes this letter and says, Hey, let's get back on track.

A bulk of the letter is him just really unpacking this theology of freedom.

And if I were gonna boil it down, it would just basically say, You are free in Christ.

And that's where he is for most of the letter.

But as we sort of wind down, he's getting into the practical side of things of living in freedom.

Last week, Pastor Jason talked about what it means to walk in the Holy Spirit.

I highly encourage you to go back and listen to it.

And today, as we close out this entire series, I want to answer this question: How do we live free?

And I think if we can grasp this, if we as a church can take hold of this, I think we could truly be a church that turns the city upside down.

About a year ago, I was at a small concert venue with my sister.

And anybody else like a fan of concert venues that are I'm sorry, actually, let me clarify.

Is anybody else a fan of not standing for three hours at any event?

Yes, my people.

I don't want to go to a concert, I don't want to go to a sports game and be on my feet for three hours.

I'm sorry, I paid for the ticket, I want to sit, I want to relax, I just want to enjoy.

And so we went to this like small concert, and it was so nice because we had a table, we had chairs, but we still got there like way earlier than we needed to, and so we had so much time to kill before the opener.

So I asked her this question that had been on my mind.

I say, Hey, what's like something that you think I could work on in myself?

Like what's what's maybe like a blind spot in my life?

What's just something that you think I could work on in?

Not to brag, but it did take her a couple of minutes to come up with an answer.

But when she did, she said, Okay, so your frugality is awesome.

Like it's a gift, but there is more of a cost to things than just money, and I think you need to consider that.

For context, we were kind of a frugal family growing up.

We were the family that like we weren't ordering appetizers and drinks at a restaurant.

Anyone else?

I remember going out with a friend and with her family to dinner, and she ordered like a coke with her meal, and I was like, Oh, y'all are rich.

We don't live that kind of life.

We had like hammy-downs and we we shopped at thrift stores.

And hear me, I love that.

I love that part of my childhood.

I love that's the person it made me.

If you go to my house now and you point at any piece of furniture, it came from Facebook Marketplace.

I promise you.

I love that about myself.

But the point that my sister was trying to make is that frugality is good, but there's more of a cost of things than just money.

So I say, you know what, I received that.

Thank you for that feedback.

The next day, I fly from Lakeland to Wilmington, Delaware, which flying a vellow should just show my frugality in and of itself, because I also love a small airline.

But I go to Wilmington, Delaware, because I'm meeting my husband while he's on a work trip in Philadelphia.

And I had to do research on how to get from the Wilmington, Delaware airport to the Amtrak so I could take the train into Philadelphia.

And I'd see it online that there's a bus system that stops at the airport and also stops at the Amtrak.

And I'm like thinking, great.

And the tickets are only$2.

I'm like thinking, better.

I love spending only$2.

But I get there, and the ETA of the bus is like over an hour away.

But my ticket isn't for some time.

I'd booked it out in advance, so I'm thinking, that's not great, but I'll still have time.

I'll risk it for the biscuit.

I did, however, just to be safe, see how much it would cost to get like an Uber or a Lyft or something.

And it was like$25.

And I was like, I don't want to spend$25 when I'm spending two bucks on a bus ticket.

However, the bus comes, I get on it.

There's no like signage like detailing the stops, like the routes up ahead.

And so I'm just looking at my phone to see like what direction we're going in.

And very quickly, I realize we are going in the literal opposite direction of the Amtrak.

Amtrak North, we're heading south.

And we just start making stop after stop in like this random residential area of Wilmington, Delaware.

After too long, I finally get the courage to go ask the bus driver, hey, are we enemies stopping in the Amtrak anytime soon?

To which he tells me, You were supposed to get off a while ago and transfer bus systems.

How am I supposed to know that?

But it's fine because we are gonna stop at the Amtrak eventually.

Now we do, but by that point, I had already missed my train.

And so I had to spend twice as much money to book a new train ticket than it would have been to buy the Uber.

The moral of the story is that literally 24 hours before, I had just gotten this great insight into myself of okay, yes, I need to weigh the costs.

And then I put myself through two hours of total stress, ended up spending more money because I didn't want to compromise on spending$2 versus$20.

I say all of that because we've spent the last seven weeks really building out this framework of an identity of freedom.

What it means for you and I to be sons and daughters in Christ and the freedom that that gives us access to.

And that insight, I think, is so beautiful and powerful.

And it can also potentially offer us such little benefit if we don't figure out how to apply it to our lives.

So as we approach this scripture and as we wrestle with this question, how do we live free?

My challenge for us today is to really take this to heart so that we can take all of the work and the fruit of this series and really put it into action.

So Paul opens the end of this section of the letter saying, Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently.

But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.

Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves.

Each one should test their own actions.

Then they can take pride in themselves alone without comparing themselves to someone else, for each should carry their own load.

Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor.

Now, Paul has like a ton of great wisdom and community guidelines in this section to the point where it can almost give you whiplash, and we're gonna unpack all of that in just a second.

But the place I'm gonna start is the underlying prerequisite to what Paul is saying here.

And I think if we can get this, we can orient ourselves towards living in freedom.

If you're taking notes, write this down.

If we're gonna live free, we have to participate in a community of believers.

What is a participant?

Well, if I buy a ticket for a sports game, I'm not really a sports girlie, but let's imagine, if I buy a ticket for a sports game, am I participating in the sport by sitting in the stands?

No.

The people on the field who are football players, baseball players, whatever it might be, they're the ones who quite literally have skin in the game.

They are the ones who are actively participating in the event.

I in the stands enjoying my popcorn and hot dog and whatever else I spent$25 on in the stadium.

I'm a spectator.

And I think for some of us, we we've sort of gotten into this groove of treating church the same way.

Now hear me, hear me.

If this is new for you, starting as a spectator is completely normal.

That is where we are meant to start.

You if you're just kind of kicking the tires of things around here, we welcome you, and I am so grateful that you're curious enough to be here.

The problem is that if we start to stay there so long that we never get to draw in closer to being a participant into what's happening here.

Now you might be thinking, all right, sure, but like why does participation matter?

Like what difference does that actually make?

To which I would say freedom is accessed by Jesus and it is also sustained by community.

Now hear me, it starts, it absolutely has to start with an encounter with Jesus.

And there is also a sustaining power that can only come from community.

There was a couple years ago where I had just uh just an awful season of my mental health.

I I don't have time to go through like all the ins and outs of it today.

So I'm just gonna quickly summarize it as I had a lie that was just dropped in my head and I could not get rid of it.

And through those several months of me wrestling through this, if if you've ever dealt with like intrusive thoughts, you you can have some empathy for that experience of when your mind just is not a safe place anymore.

And I was really, really wrestling for several months spiritually, emotionally, mentally.

And in those months of struggle, in those times of darkness, my identity never changed.

I never became not a daughter of God.

I never became somebody who was not free in Christ.

But I don't know how I would have gotten through that season if it wasn't for my community.

The day after it happened, I call my mom and I'm like, hey, this is what's going on.

I think this is what's true, but I just need someone to talk through this with me.

And she says, Thank you so much for telling me that you're right.

I don't think this is true.

I think you can dismiss it.

And for somebody else, that would have been enough.

But again, if you just walk through those seasons where your mental health is just a struggle, it's just not always that simple.

And I don't know how I would have gotten through it if it wasn't for like my mom and my sister, who sometimes on a weekly or daily basis, I have to call and text and be like, this is what's in my mind.

Can you please tell me what's true?

And also you have to have people who understand the truth that you need to be pointed back to.

So even though freedom was always there for me in that season, it just didn't feel like it.

And in order to be carried day in and day out, I needed my community.

But you can only have that when you are skin in the game, when people here know your name, when they know you well enough to know your issues.

Now, if we're gonna participate in community, this begs the question: what is that community supposed to look like?

So let's return back to the wisdom that Paul has for us.

It looks like restoring each other gently.

The key word here, gently.

Anybody else like me?

I used to pride myself on being like a tough love person to the point where it was like, I don't mind if this hurts you, I'm gonna rip off the band-aid, you're gonna thank me later.

And I look back at some of the conversations I had with people, and they were coming to me in their great hour of vulnerability, and I'm honestly embarrassed with the way that I spoke to them because it was just so devoid of compassion.

And later, going through my own crises, I would learn it's because I had such little compassion for myself.

And can we all also just agree?

How many of us are just tired of also seeing people try to do this online?

Anyone else tired of seeing people try to show up in comments and have an all-out keyboard warrior moment trying to fight and knowing it's never gonna come to any fruitfulness?

So if we're gonna restore each other, we have to do it gently.

Here's a good like barometer.

Sit down with someone where you can meet them eye to eye.

And if you're not in the space to do it gently, that's fine, just don't do it yet.

The community is also supposed supposed to look like carrying one another's burdens.

Paul says, in this way you fulfill the law of Christ.

And what does this look like?

It looks like showing up for emotional needs, sitting with someone in their hour of anger or grief or frustration.

Also, what he was talking about a lot was material needs.

And the early church was marked by their willingness to give up what they had for the sake of others.

And I want to let you know, if you're compelled to that, you're in a good place because when you give to access, you don't give just to access, you give through access.

And we are constantly meeting the tangible needs of people in our church and in our community.

Now there's so much more that could be said here about generosity and what this means, but I'm just gonna encourage you to go back and listen to one of Pastors Jason's messages on generosity because he can say it a lot better than I can, and there's just so much to be said here, but I don't want us to miss this.

What else should community look like?

It should look like carrying your own load.

But you might be like, Kayla, how can I carry my own load and somebody else's burdens?

Well, here's the difference.

Carrying your own load means always maintaining personal responsibility.

Even if we belong to a community, and it's so beautiful and it's so important, we never can let go of the accountability for our own actions.

At no point can you control somebody else, but you can always, at the end of the day, control what you do.

Lastly, it looks like sharing all good things with your teachers.

Another way I would say this for us is just supporting your leadership.

And we have some of the best people here who do that.

I have story after story of the way that you guys just show up for our pastoral team, for all of us on the team here, with love and kindness and donuts.

Oh my gosh, so many donuts.

Please stop bringing donuts with acts of kindness and service.

So thank you for your encouragement.

Because y'all, sometimes ministry is hard, but it is so beautiful when you can feel the love and encouragement of your community inside of it.

Now, here's the thing: I think all of us would agree that that is a beautiful picture of community and one that we would want to be a part of.

It's a community where you are looked after, where people show up for us, our needs are met, we're maintaining personal growth and responsibility, and our leaders are the best version of themselves because they're held up by our encouragement.

All of us would say, that's beautiful.

But I think some of us might hesitate to wanting to actually contribute to it.

A lot of us would say, yes, the church should be a life-giving, world-changing place, but we also aren't willing to step up and be life-giving world changers.

Now, hear me, I'm not trying to point fingers.

I don't want to bring up any shame if that's coming up in you.

I just want to say, please put that to the side.

But I do want to take a moment of self-reflection to understand where we might be at at this moment.

And a good way for you to do that is just to ask this question.

Am I asking my church to do work I'm not willing to contribute to?

Am I asking my church to do work I'm not willing to contribute to?

And here's the thing: please don't count yourself out from being a contributor.

There is room for you at this table.

And not only are you gonna be better for it, we are gonna be better for it together.

Paul continues in his letter.

He says, Do not be deceived.

God cannot be mocked.

A man reaps what he sows.

Whoever sows to please their flesh from the flesh will reap destruction.

Whoever sows to please the spirit, from the spirit will reap eternal life.

Side note here, eternal life doesn't just mean life that never ends.

It also has to do with the quality of the life that you are experiencing here and now.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

If you're taking notes, write this down.

If we're gonna live free, we have to invest in who you're becoming.

We have to invest in who we're becoming.

When I was about 15, my mom uh taught at the home at class.

That was her background, she was a home at teacher, and she taught a home at class at my school, and we were going over financial literacy, and she started teaching us about the power of compound interest.

Now, pause here.

I'm gonna be so honest with you guys, I don't totally understand compound interest.

If that's your thing, love that for you.

Please don't find me after this and be like, this is how it works.

I'm gonna be so honest, I don't actually care.

But I do understand the benefits of it, which look a little something like this.

So when I was 15 years old, my mom set me up with a$50 a month contribution to, I think, like a Roth IRA.

And she said, We're gonna start you on this now, because if I'd known the power of this when I was your age, you would have a much bigger inheritance coming for you.

So we're gonna start you off the right way.

Now, this is just a figure of if I only did$50 a month at an estimated return of 3%, I don't know if that's good or not, it's just what I Googled.

But if that's all I gave for 50 years, up to the point where I was 15 to when I was 65, I would have double the return on what I put in.

That's the power of when you invest in something, it compounds over time, and you get even more than you put into it to begin with.

But this isn't just true with money, this is true with our lives.

And what Paul is talking about here is that principle.

It's the law of sowing and reaping.

What you put in, not only do you get it out, but you get out tenfold.

You put in a tiny little tomato seed, you get a beautiful tomato plant that produces all kinds of fruit.

You get a tiny little basil seed, you grow a basil plant, you get all the lovely herbs.

But this is true for our lives, right?

You reap what you sow.

You put in too many hours at work, you don't maintain healthy boundaries, you prioritize work over your family, you reap a strained relationship with your spouse and kids.

You have an addiction to your phone, you can't part uh put part yourself from the news cycle, and you're always looking at every new salacious headline from the New York Times or Fox News or social media, whatever, you reap paranoia and anxiety.

On the flip side, you sow weekly date nights with your spouse, regular counseling sessions and retreats to make sure you're taking care of your issues, showing them affection and whatever their love language is, you reap a healthy marriage.

You sow going to the gym regularly and moving your body and having a balanced diet, but also including a sweet treat because we're not trying to deprive ourselves.

And you go uh sow moving regularly and not missing annual physicals, you reap a healthy body, right?

You sow, you reap.

Now, I think most of us get this.

This is not like really a comprehension issue.

The problem is we just don't live with our lives, live our everyday lives with this in mind.

And the thing is, you and I we're we're constantly being formed.

You are constantly, right now, you are headed in a direction in your life.

You are becoming a specific kind of person.

And the decisions and habits that you have right now are perfectly designed to get you to the point where you're gonna become someone.

Do you actually know the direction that you're headed in?

Now I'm gonna give you a little bit of a homework assignment to help us answer this question a little bit more.

It's an actual homework assignment.

I'm sorry, but you'll thank me later.

It's something simple, it's called the eulogy practice.

And it's exactly as it sounds.

Sometime today or this week, I want you to pull out a pen and a paper or pull up your open uh notes app.

And I want you to write your eulogy.

And by eulogy, I mean like what is gonna be said of you at your funeral.

Now, I've started working on mine, so I'm gonna give you guys like a little bit of a glimpse.

Um, successful millionaire, acclaimed author, and beautiful wife.

That's all I got so far.

But I'm working on it.

Do you actually have an end in mind?

Do you have a direction or an orientation of your life that you're intentionally pulling yourself towards?

Because this isn't something that just happens to you.

You don't drift or just happen to become a free person.

You don't just happen to become somebody who is marked by the presence of God.

It doesn't just suddenly happen to you.

You become that person day in and day out with every choice, every habit, every small decision compounds over time to not only give you the end result that you're headed in the direction for, but sometimes even tenfold.

Now, if you're thinking, I don't I don't really have a good vision in mind.

Or honestly, for some of us, we have a vision, but we might agree it's not quite the right vision.

It's a vision that's oriented on status and wealth and money and success and what people think of us, and we kind of miss the point.

But if you go back just a chapter in the book of Galatians, Paul lays out the vision for us and the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

Imagine your time has come, you're dead, buried, and gone, and your family stands up and says of you, Wow, she was so loving.

He was so joyful.

They were peaceful and patient and kind and good and faithful and full of self-control.

Imagine that being said of you.

I think that's what most of us want.

We just aren't orienting our lives.

We're not investing in becoming that kind of person.

You'll know that when you start making that orientation, you'll know that it's starting to work because you'll hear the feedback.

I'll be really honest with you guys.

Like, two things that I'm actively trying to work on right now is my patience and my self-control.

And what I mean I'm working on it, like I'm working on it through prayer, through self-reflection, through counseling, praise God, but I'm working on it.

And I know it's starting to see progress when I'm having a conversation with my husband, and he says, Thank you so much for saying it like that.

If there's anybody who's gonna know you well enough, it's gonna be your family, especially your spouse.

Thank you for the progress that you're making.

You're gonna hear that feedback, but it's only gonna happen when we invest our everyday lives to be oriented in the direction of the person that we want to become.

Paul finishes out the letter saying this.

He says, May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything.

What counts is the what?

New creation.

Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, to the Israel of God.

From now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear my on my body the marks of Jesus.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters.

Amen.

If I can just challenge us for a moment.

If we're gonna live free, we have to prioritize transformation over performance.

We have to prioritize transformation over performance.

A fun fact about me is that I'm a performer.

I started doing musical theater when I was a child.

I was eight when I did my first musical.

I did it all the way up into high school.

I got my bachelor's degree in theater performance, and I still teach acting at a local community theater in town.

It's a big part of my life, and I love it.

I've always loved playing pretend.

A couple years ago, I had the honor of playing Belle in Beauty and the Beast.

Um, no, I will not sing any of it for you, please don't ask.

But one of the best parts about playing a Disney princess is all the kids.

Because to you or to them, you really are that Disney princess.

They come up to you in their little, like minnow like mini bell outfits, and they're just so enamored because they just saw everything, the show that you just put on, and to them, that's it.

That's the real deal.

But these little girls who I'm taking their picture with, they don't know that, like, as soon as I'm done that, I'm going backstage, I'm taking off my wig, I'm putting on my overalls, and I'm going to the joinery to have some ramen.

That's the reality.

There is a separation from the show that I just put on and the person that I actually am.

And for some of us, we've started to treat our faith in a similar way.

We've made a bit of a performance.

Or we come to church or wherever and we we perform for the people for the sake of applause or whatever it might be, but then we go home and we take off our Christian costume.

And we know that there is a difference between the performance that we're giving and who we actually are.

And I think the reason we feel compelled to do this is because we believe deep down that those messy, broken parts of us that we don't want the people in this room to see are parts that Jesus cannot possibly want.

That they cannot be transformed by his love.

And please hear me.

That is so far from true.

It is so far from true.

I would I would say it very frankly like this: Jesus is not interested in performative faith.

He's not.

He is not interested in the performance that you feel like you might have to give.

And for you, that performance could look really differently than somebody else.

It could look like going to church every week or listening to the right kind of music or dressing in a certain way or listening to the right kind of podcast or voting with whatever political party you've deemed as the Christian political party.

You might have a different performance from somebody else, but here's the thing: you can go through that whole performance without any fruit of the Holy Spirit.

You can do all of that without being loving and patient and kind and good and faithful and full of self-control.

You can go through the motions and find yourself never truly connected to God.

And if we are living in that way, friends, we are just missing it.

This is why Jesus called the Pharisees the religious leaders of his day, the ones who were everybody looked up to for their religion and their relationship with God.

He called them whitewashed tombs.

Because he said, you might look good on the outside.

Like I can see you've done the work, like if you look all squeaky clean, but I know that inside of you is just death.

And friends, if we're gonna live free, we have to swap performative faith for genuine transformation.

And you might be thinking, okay, but transform into what?

What am I transforming into?

And if if I were to give it such a simple definition, to the point, honestly, of some oversimplification, I would say transform into the person that Jesus told us that his followers should be, which simply is a person of love.

It is a person of love.

And we can only get there, friends, by starting with Jesus.

By starting with an encounter with Jesus.

And then we move into participating into a community of believers because even though that is accessed by Jesus, it has to be sustained with a group like this.

And then lastly, we have to constantly invest in maintaining that direction for our lives so that by the end of all of this, we are transformed.

As we close out this series, I just I kind of want to sit with this question.

What would it look like?

Like really, what would it look like if our church, Access Church in Lakeland, Florida, was marked by its freedom?

If we were a group of people who said, we're gonna take community seriously, we're gonna invest in who we're becoming, we're gonna have that in mind.

And we are gonna be marked by genuine transformation from the presence of God.

I don't know about you, but I think that's the kind of church that could truly turn a city up on its head.

As we close today, I just want to leave you with this challenge.

Like I said at the beginning, all of this insight is so great, and I hope it's offering you benefit, but we have to learn how to apply it.

And so I just want to invite you today to make a commitment to say, for one year, I'm gonna go all in.

I'm just gonna ask you to give God one year.

You can be really surprised what He can do in a year, and say, This is gonna be a year that is marked by pursuing freedom.

To the point I mean, like open your calendar, go to July 25th, 2027, and put one year of walking in freedom.

And you can have regular reminders or check-ins or however it is that you need to sustain that.

But I want you one year from today, reflect on all that God has done.

And it's on a Sunday, too, so you can like come find me or any of your pastoral leaders and say, hey, it's been one year of marking of walking in freedom, and we're gonna celebrate that with you.

But in the same way, of we're not gonna just drift into freedom.

This isn't just going to happen to us unless we step up with our personal agency and say, I'm gonna commit myself to following this path so that one year from now I can look back and see all that God has done.

All across this room, can you bow your head and close your eyes?

I just I want to make space for a group of people who you might be listening to all this and think, okay, that's all well and good, but friend, I I don't really know where to start.

To which I would say, if you've never made a commitment first to Jesus, you can only commit to walking in freedom if you first commit to following Jesus.

They cannot be separated.

I want to give you an opportunity in the privacy of this moment with every head bowed and every eye closed.

If you want to say, hey, I want to make that commitment, I want to start this road to freedom, and I want to start with Jesus.

I'm just gonna ask you to have three seconds of courage and raise your hand in the air right now.

Three, two, one.

Just raise your hand.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All across this room, we're gonna keep our heads bowed and our eyes closed.

But I want to pray this prayer together.

Because here at Acts is we don't stand alone.

And this prayer is not anything magical, it does not just transform you, but like making vows at a wedding ceremony, it is an external commitment of the decision that you just made.

So, all across this room, can you do this with me?

Everybody say, Jesus, say Jesus, I want to live in freedom.

As a child of God, I commit today to following you.

Change me, make me new as I choose to follow you all the days of my life.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Friends, if we just have people dedicate their lives to Jesus, can you give it up today?

Give some praise.