What’s Next? – How We Grow

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.

Today I'm honored you're with us because we're starting a new series of messages called What's Next?

And we're gonna get to this in just a moment, but before we do, I wanna um I wanna celebrate some numbers for just a moment.

And some people are like churches are all about numbers, whatever, whatever.

I want you to listen to me.

Every number represents a person and every person matters to God.

Can I get a good amen on that, everybody?

So for a few weeks I've been saying, hey, would you do me a favor and invite your family and friends to church?

You guys don't play.

Now, before I show you the number, let me tell you what I need from you because this is important.

On the first number, I need a clap.

I need you to celebrate because it's fun.

On the second number, I need you to lose your stinking minds.

Everybody understand that?

First number, because of you, because you're the best of the best.

Last weekend at Access Church, we had 5,842 people.

Unbelievable.

You are amazing, amazing, amazing.

But this is the number that matters.

This is the one that heaven rejoices over.

And if heaven is celebrating, we should celebrate.

Last weekend we had this many people make a decision to follow Jesus.

247.

Come on, everybody.

I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

Wow.

And listen to me.

Don't stop because Easter is over.

People matter to God.

Heaven and hell are realities, and we are playing for keeps.

Come on, one more time.

Can I hear a good amen on that?

Everybody, it matters.

It matters.

Well, today I'm really glad you're here because we're kicking off, in my opinion, a really important series of messages.

And this message series applies to everybody.

If you've been following Jesus for 75 years, 75 seconds, or maybe you came today and you don't believe any of this stuff, but someone promised you lunch after church and you're just here to appease them and to get you an omelet at brunch, if that's the reason you're here, this series applies to all of us.

Here's why.

All of us have a next step with Jesus.

God's desire is for us to get closer and closer to Him.

And so to get us started today, um, something weird about me is as you're a pastor, one of my main jobs is I love to communicate God's word, but I always like to teach you things that are fun and interesting.

So because of that, I have become a professional curator of good stories.

And everywhere I go, I like to ask people, what's the craziest thing that's happened in your job?

What's the funniest thing that's happened in your job?

Now, my wife hates this because it makes things awkward sometimes.

But if you want something fun, like next time you go through a bag check, ask the person who's checking the bags, hey, what's the funniest thing you've ever seen?

You are gonna get some weird answers.

You're gonna get some weird looks.

My wife always gives me a weird look.

Uh one one of the last times we went through to Disney, we went through the bag check and I said to the guy, What's the weirdest thing you've ever seen?

He goes, Bro, you are not gonna believe this.

A couple weeks ago, I was opening someone's bag and a live octopus looked at me in the bag.

I don't know if it was for food, I don't know if it was for companionship, I don't know why they brought it out.

Octopus, whatever.

Here's a weird thing that happened.

Uh, a couple years ago, my wife and I went to a jewelry store for whatever that anniversary was.

We had decided that we were gonna get her wedding and engagement ring reset, and so we go to this jewelry store, and I'm just making small talk at a jewelry store, and I said, What's the craziest thing that you've ever seen happen here at the jewelry store?

And this lady said to me, she goes, You know, we buy jewelry, we buy gold and silver, we also buy coins.

And so she goes, Recently a person came in and they had these like two handfuls of coins that they really needed to sell.

And so we looked at them and we knew what most of them were and how much they were worth, and we pay everyone a fair price for them.

But then there was a small handful, like five or six coins, that we had no idea what they were or if they were real, if they were fake.

And so we just said, look, we don't know, we'll take a gamble on these.

How about five dollars per coin?

And the man was super excited, he sold them for five bucks.

So they took these coins and they sent them off to someone who knows coins, and the person said, Most of them aren't even real, most of them aren't worth five dollars, but there's one of them that you paid five dollars for that.

Get this, it's an ancient coin valued at$127,000.

Can you imagine?

Can you imagine being the jewelry store owner?

That's a good day.

Can you imagine being the person who sold the coin?

That's a bad day, you know this, right?

And and someone was walking around holding something that had immeasurable value that they didn't understand.

And I just wonder how many Christians walk through this life with all the immeasurable value and purpose inside of them, and they can't see it for themselves.

Well, what I want to do for the next four weeks is I want you to I want you to see from God's perspective how he sees you so you can become the kind of person and live out the dreams that he's called you to live.

To get us started today, I want to show you this interesting verse that shows this.

In the book of 2 Corinthians, Paul is writing to this church that's in this city that's really, really messed up called Corinth, and he says this, and I'm gonna read the whole verse, and it's a really weird verse, but I will explain it to you.

Here's what he says 2 Corinthians chapter 3.

2 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

He says, But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Now that's very wordy, it's very theological.

I'll try to make it understandable.

He says, We all with unveiled face.

Now you need to understand in the Old Testament that it was believed that when you came to the church, the temple or the tabernacle, that there was places you could come to, but if you were not the high priest, there was a place that you couldn't go.

It's called the Holy of Holies.

And what separated the Holy of Holies from everyone else was this large veil, this large curtain or large sheet.

And literally the presence of God was so strong in there that if people walked in with sin in their hearts, they would fall over dead.

And you couldn't go, and I couldn't go if we weren't the high priest.

But we know from the Bible that when Jesus died on the cross, it says the veil was torn in two, which means God wants us to be close to him and there's nothing separated us.

Well, some people, as a religious tradition, would cover their face with a veil.

And what Paul wants you to understand is with an unveiled face, it literally means you're stepping into the presence of God with confidence that he wants you there.

That's the first part.

That with an unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord.

Well, when you and I look in a mirror, we see a reflection.

We see a picture of what we actually look like.

But what Paul wants you to understand is that when you see yourself from God's perspective, if you could look in a heavenly mirror, so to speak, what you would see back is not a reflection of who you are.

You would see you as God sees you.

You would see your full potential, you you would see your full worth, you would see how God sees you.

And then he says this, and it's we are being transformed into the same image.

And this is important for you to understand that when you make a decision to follow Jesus, he starts the process of transforming you into who he's called you to be.

Something supernatural happens and you're made new, but there's a process where we work through our issues and we work through our hangups and our challenges and our past.

And God wants to take you on this journey.

Let me show it to you a different way.

In the book of Psalm, chapter 16, David says this.

Psalms 16 · chapter mention

He says, You make known to me the path of life.

You fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasure at your right hand.

Here's what I want you to understand.

David says that God has a path for us.

And what I want you to understand as your pastor is I don't just see myself as a pastor, I see myself as a spiritual tour guide.

I want to help you understand that God has a plan and a purpose for you, but to get to the plan and purpose, you've got to follow God's pathway to it.

So that's what I want to talk about for the next four weeks is how can we become the kind of people God told us to become by taking the path that God has for us.

Now, if you read the Bible from cover to cover, it's interesting.

There's not a lot of prayers in the Bible.

There's a lot of talk about prayer and how to pray.

There's not a lot of prayers in the Bible.

In the book of Ephesians, Paul, who we just read from, who wrote like half of the New Testament himself, Paul gives us this prayer and it's beautiful, and in it, Paul shows us the pathway.

Now, before I even get to it, let me be really clear about this.

We believe this pathway is so important.

You can find it from cover to cover in your Bible.

I found it as early as the book of Exodus, all the way through the book of Revelation.

It's so important that we have literally oriented our whole church around this pathway.

And my hope is that every single person who comes to this church will jump in on the pathway to discover all that God has for them.

In this prayer in the book of Ephesians, chapter 1, Paul's gonna lay out God's pathway.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

He'll use four unique phrases.

I'll count them out as I read them because I want you to see the pathway God has for you.

Ephesians chapter 1, verse 16.

Ephesians 1:16

Paul says, I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom in revelation.

And here's the first one, so that you may know him better.

God wants you to know him.

Number two, he says this.

He says, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.

Now this feels funny, and we'll talk about this next week, but your heart doesn't have eyes.

But what Paul is saying is that our hearts really do, because everything we see through our natural eyes and all the potential and hopes and dreams we have for the future are filtered through the condition, the good, the bad, the ugly, the brokenness, and all the beauty of our hearts.

Pray that number two, the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.

In order that you may, number three, know the hope to which he has called you, you need a purpose for your life that is bigger than you, and the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people.

God wants to set you in a family to do something with your life that matters for all of eternity.

In fact, if I can tell you the truth, my goal as your pastor is to get every single person set into a family of believers to use their giftings and talents to make a difference that's felt for generations to come.

The kind of life that leaves a legacy that keeps on keeping on.

Now, I said this earlier, we have built our whole church around this idea and it's working.

And we are seeing people come to faith in Jesus and get on God's pathway.

And again, if you've been a Christian for a hundred years, there's still a step for you to get closer and closer to Him.

Jay Oswald Chambers says, You are you and I are as close to God as we choose to be.

What would it look like if we all just made this decision to get as close as we possibly can?

According to Paul in Ephesians chapter one, here's the four things.

Now, here's our language that we've put to it.

We want every person who comes to our church to get on this pathway.

And number one is we want you to know God.

Now I'll unpack this a little more in a second.

The second thing is we want you to find freedom.

Freedom from your issues, freedom from your past, freedom from your hangups and all of your hurts and your pains.

We want you to find freedom so that you can discover your unique purpose.

Why did God make you?

And here's the reason we want you to make a difference with your life.

As your pastor, can I tell you my goal?

My goal is that every single day when you go to bed, you say, That's it.

That's how you live a day, that's how you make a difference, that's how you make a change in the world that's felt for generations to come.

Now, as I read the list, nobody freaked out at the first one.

In fact, the funny thing is, most of us think, I got that one.

It's the other ones I struggle with, but I but I know God.

Here's the thing: the word no, it's an interesting word, isn't it?

The word no, we think of no, and if I could be honest, I think what we think when we think about the word no is we know about.

Okay, so like my wife and my daughter and I, we've gotten into this game show.

It just wrapped up, it was it's on Fox.

It's called The Floor.

I don't know if you've seen this game.

The way the game works is two people compete against each other, and there's a category, and they'll show pictures, and you've got to say out loud quickly, what is that picture of?

And as soon as you get it, it goes to the next person, and you go back and forth until one person runs out of time.

My daughter Ella loves it, so we've watched this whole season together.

Last night, we watched the season finale that aired maybe a few days ago, and one of the categories was boy bands.

And I'm not kidding when I say, my wife sat up straighter and taller than I've ever seen her.

It was like there was this glaze in her eyes, this twinkle, if you will.

And they started flashing up boy bands.

She knew every single one of them.

Don't clap for that.

And I was like, do you like read your Bible?

What do you do in your free time?

You know what I mean?

Like, what?

What are you doing?

And she knew all of them.

And here's the thing: she knew about them, but she didn't know them.

At least I hope she didn't know them.

She didn't know them, okay?

Here's another one.

I am a lifelong die hard football fan.

I love football.

It is like my only hobby outside of church.

I love football so, so much.

I really do.

And the thing about football is it's my team is the Dallas Cowboys, they're God's team as well.

I love the Cowboys.

And don't boo.

Okay, whatever.

You need to know God, okay?

Um, so I I love them.

And the thing is, if you want to have an intellectual conversation about the Cowboys, I'm your guy.

I love it, I study it, I know about their draft picks, I know where they went to college, I know everything about them.

I know the Cowboys, but I don't know them.

I know about them.

I think a lot of us, if we could poll our church, if I were to say, tell me about what it means to know God, we would talk about all the stuff we know about him, but as you read the Bible from cover to cover, God makes it clear that his desire is for us to really actually know him.

In fact, in the New Testament alone, uh 122 times there is this word.

It's the word gnosko.

Genosco in Greek translates know, but this isn't the word know about.

This word gnosko literally means to know on an intimate level.

As you read through the Bible, Jesus himself, multiple times in the book of John, he says that God wants to know or gonosco you, and I think his audience would have been like, what?

Because genosco, it means to know intimately, passionately and close.

It would have been a word that if parents were talking about physical intimacy in a marriage, they might use gonosco because it's a safer, kinder, less graphic way to talk about physical intimacy in marriage.

And Jesus comes along, and all throughout Paul's writings we see it, that God, he doesn't just want us to know about him.

He doesn't just want us to have an intellectual relationship about him, he wants us to know him heart to heart, soul to soul, intimately and close.

And here's the thing I'm convinced that so many church-going, wonderful, godly Christian people have settled for a know about God relationship and have missed the beauty of actually knowing him.

Jesus one time was preaching in Matthew chapter 7, and at the end of this sermon, he says this phrase, and the phrase he's going to say, honestly, it's scary.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

This should be one of the scariest verses in the Bible, particularly if you're the kind of person who's been a Christian for so long that you tend to come to church out of obligation and you go through all the religious stuff just to feel like you did your part.

Here is what Jesus says.

Matthew chapter 7, verse 21.

Matthew 7:21

He says, Not everyone who says to me, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.

Hold up.

What do you mean?

Not everyone.

Not everyone who gets to heaven and says, Lord, Lord, like I know about you.

They won't all get into heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven.

Not many, not everyone, not everybody's gonna get it.

And then the next verse he starts with another quantitative word.

He says, Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, and then they're gonna list off all of their accomplishments.

Did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?

They're gonna get before God and they're gonna try to list off all the stuff they did for God.

And you could insert into this list on your own all the stuff you do for God.

Lord, Lord, didn't I give faithfully?

Lord, Lord, didn't I serve?

I worked in acts as kids.

Lord, Lord, wasn't I faithful with my church attendance?

Lord, Lord, and you could list off all the stuff you do for God and look at his response.

Then I will tell them plainly, I never gonoscoed you.

I never knew you.

So away from me, you evildoers.

Scripture's clear.

Revelation chapter 20 says that there is coming a day for every believer when we will stand before God and give an account for our lives.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

And Jesus makes it really clear, Paul makes it clear multiple times throughout the New Testament, that when we stand before God, we're gonna have to give an account for our life.

And the account isn't listing off all of our religious checklist accomplishments.

It's one question.

Did you know Genosco me?

Yesterday I had to go over to Clearwater for the afternoon, and my car was messed up, so I had to get an Uber ride to take me.

And so this Uber lady shows up and she is like so old, and it sounds like her the way she talks, it sounds like she smokes six packs of cigarettes on the way to my house, and she coughs in between every third word.

It was just this really weird experience.

I get into the back seat of her car and she's gonna take me over to Clearwater, and she doesn't say, Hi, or how are you?

She doesn't start with the pleasantries like that.

She starts with this phrase, you know what I hate?

And I was like, Let's go.

What do you hate?

She goes, I hate Disney traffic.

I said, Girl, get in line.

Nobody likes Disney traffic.

Nobody does.

I hate Disney traffic.

And we take off and we drive from my house and we drive to get on I-4.

We drive right past our North Lakeland location.

Shout out to our North Lakeland location.

Pastor Isaiah, love you guys so much.

We drive past it and I point at it, and I just play dumb, which is not playing hard for me, actually.

I point at it and I say, um, that seems like a pretty good church.

And she coughed three times and then went, uh, uh.

I said, what?

Now I left out a very important detail.

When I got in the car, this was what uh was on the floor right next to me, a fork and an empty bowl.

Okay, you got it, right?

And then I I point at our North Lakeland location, I said, that looks like a pretty good church.

And she goes, uh uh, uh.

I said, what do you mean, uh?

And then she said these words.

She goes, I don't do the God thing anymore.

And I said, Well, what does that mean?

And she goes, I did the God thing.

And she started listing out all kinds of stuff, but all the stuff she listed was church hurt.

All the stuff she listed was going to church, hating going to church, feeling drug to church.

All the stuff she listed was church stuff, not God stuff.

And it's really easy to conflate the two.

It's really easy to think that by doing all the stuff, all the religious stuff for God, that you've got it.

But I want you to hear this.

And if you get nothing else in this series, I hope you get this.

It's that God isn't looking for a religion, He wants a relationship.

And again, I said it a moment ago, Revelation chapter 20 says that we're gonna get to heaven, and there's gonna be a day.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

I don't know how this is all gonna play out, but in Revelation 20, it's called the Great White Throne Judgment.

It's where we will stand before God and give an account for our lives.

And God's not gonna pull up your tithing record and ask how many dollars did you give?

He's not gonna pull up the the check-in log to see how many hours you serve people.

He's not gonna see how faithful were you to church.

And all of those things are good and they're all important, and I love all of those things, but he's gonna ask the question, Did you know me?

Did you gonosco me?

And some of you are like, well, that's fine, but like you that you just took one verse out of context.

In the book of Matthew, Matthew records this, another story from Jesus, Matthew 15.

It says, Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and they ask him this weird question.

They say, Why do your disciples break the tradition?

Hold on to that word.

Why do they break the tradition of the elders?

It's like, why are they not following all the rules?

And this was the rule they were weren't following.

He said, they don't wash their hands before they eat.

Now, in Jesus' day, there was this ritual, the ceremonial washing, and I don't really know all the details, but it was about how you washed and how you let your hands dry.

And the disciples apparently weren't doing it good enough or up to the religious standards and traditions.

And it says, Jesus replied, and why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?

It's like you aren't following the rules of God to honor God, you're following the rules to follow the rules, and in doing so, you've missed the forest from the trees.

You've missed God in the process.

He goes on a couple verses down.

He says, Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

You've ignored the stuff that matters to God, so you can follow all the rules.

Because you hypocrites, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you.

Now, this was 740 or 50 years before Jesus, Isaiah prophesied, and he said, These people, they honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

They worship me in vain because their teachings are merely human rules.

And I wonder how many of us, if we could zoom out of our church experience and our relationship with God, what we really could boil it down to is just trying to do all of the rules and follow all of God's laws and all of his rules and regulations, and we've missed the beauty of what he's been after the whole time.

How can you know?

Like what's the litmus test to know if you're doing all this stuff but you've missed the heart of God altogether?

Here, here's a couple of them.

Number one.

Is maybe you have a frustration with trying to do good.

And this is hard.

Because if you see your relationship with God as an endless list of rules and regulations, you will always be exhausted and you will always miss the point.

Rules outside of relationship lead to rebellion.

Rules in relationship lead to proximity and closeness.

I don't have rules for your children, but I have rules for my children because I love them and because I want the best for my children.

In the same way, God has rules for you and for me, but none of them are to stop us from fun.

They're to protect our heart for that which actually matters.

It's kind of like this.

It's like when you're actually in love with your spouse, staying faithful isn't a rule, it's a delight.

If you're not in love, staying faithful feels like something that's gonna just be another rule, another temptation, another problem.

You're missing it altogether.

When you're in love, the rules aren't rules, they're relationship uh factors that bring us closer to Him.

Here's another thing.

Another way you can know is if you're envying others who seem closer to God than you, you'll be tempted to think, well, they must have something special that I don't.

And what happens is when you envy them, you miss out on the beauty of what God wants with you.

Here's a third one, and this is maybe the most real one for Americans.

It's a sense that something is missing.

Here's the funny thing.

All of us at one point or another in our lives are gonna feel like something is missing in our lives.

What most Americans unfortunately do is they chase the wrong thing.

So they'll chase the diet, they'll chase the exercise plan, they'll chase the spending, they'll go out and buy stuff that they think makes them feel better.

They'll chase something to numb the pain, or they'll take something to numb the pain.

And we do stuff to fill that void, but we've missed it all together.

There is only one thing who can fully satisfy you, and it's not a thing, it's a person.

It's God.

So when I was in college, I fell head over heels for this girl.

Her name was Liz Munizi.

And I fell head over heels for her.

I was in love with her, smitten from day one.

And Liz was this singer.

She could sing the paint off the wall.

She was contracted by Disney and others to come out and sing for them.

And we started dating, going into our final semester of college together, and she got one of the lead-starring roles in a Broadway play called Fiddler on the Roof.

Anybody remember Fiddler on the Roof?

It's a fun one.

It was a Broadway play, it was the musicals all over the country.

It was a movie at one point, a very long movie.

And it was so much fun.

And this is how much I liked her.

I want to be clear about this.

I don't like Broadway.

I don't like plays.

None of them make sense to me at all.

It makes no sense at all.

One of the first ones I went to see with her was West Side Story.

Have you seen this?

And she's like, ooh, watch this.

This is the fight scene.

And nobody fights.

They snap.

Make it make sense.

Punch somebody.

Pull a gun.

Make it make sense.

Whatever.

So I fall head over heels in love with this girl, and so they do three performances.

Here's some pictures of her from college.

It was just fun.

She got the the role of uh this role here was amazing, and I always I would look at this guy, I would just stare him down.

I'm like, watch your hands, watch your hands.

Whatever.

Anyway, she gets this role and it's fun.

If you don't know the story, the story's important.

The story is set in the early 1900s in what's called czarist Russia.

It's modern-day Ukraine.

And in those days, everything was about family, and everything was about following the rules.

It was all about tradition.

And there's this dad, the dad's name is Tevya, and Tevya is this father, he has five daughters, and in those days, the father would pick the spouse for their daughters.

They would use a matchmaker.

And so Tevy has these five daughters, and he goes through the process of picking, but he has this problem because times are changing.

And his first daughter falls in love, and she wants to marry the boy she fell in love with.

But the father is hung up on tradition.

In fact, there's this scene where he walks around and he sings a song that goes, tradition, tradition.

And he sings it.

He does this weird thing with his hands.

That's like what he does.

And he's all about the traditions and she's about the love.

In fact, it's actually sad because it breaks and severs the relationship.

And as the story goes on, he starts to feel conflicted because, on one hand, he loves the tradition and he loves the way things used to be.

But the problem is now he has these daughters who want to marry for love, not because their dad picked it for them.

And in the middle of all of this, he thinks to himself, I wonder if my wife loves me.

Weird question.

He had a matchmaker pick his wife for him.

Does she love me?

So she he walks into the house as he's thinking this.

No one's there but his wife, and she's cooking or cleaning or ironing, and he sings this song.

He says, Do you love me?

And the wife says, Do I what?

He says, Do you love me?

And then she does this thing that all of us do when we think about loving God.

She starts to list all of the things.

Now she sings it, but she says, For 25 years I've washed your clothes, ironed your clothes, I've cooked your meals, I've cleaned your house.

For 25 years, and she lists all the things she's done for him.

If I could speak for God for a moment to you, the question I want you to wrestle with is do you love him?

Like actually love, do you actually know him?

I'm not asking, do you know all about him?

I'm not asking how many Bible verses can you recite?

I'm not asking how much good and serving and giving, and I'm not asking how much have you done.

I'm asking, do you actually take a no scope?

Like soul to soul, heart to heart, do you actually know him?

I gave you a list of some challenges to know if you love him.

Let me give you some steps to actually knowing him.

Whether you've been a Christian your whole life or this is all new to you, all of us can take this step.

Here's number one.

I want you to open your eyes to how much God, look at this, actually loves you.

This is important for you to understand.

It's that God loves you with a perfect love.

All of our love has strings attached, they're all conditional.

God's love is unconditional.

I said this last week, Romans chapter 5.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

Uh, Paul says this.

He says, While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

How does the verse start?

But God demonstrates his own love for us.

Love is only love when it moves from emotion and feeling to action.

You can say you love someone, but until you put action behind your words, all you have is wasted breath.

And God loves us so much that he did the unimaginable for us.

He sent his son for us.

So, like I love people so much, I do.

And if you were to say to me, hey, I like you, we should be friends, but one of the conditions of our friendship is for you to take one of your children who you love and to sacrifice them for me.

I'll say, I'll see you in heaven.

I want nothing to do with you now.

Because there's always strings attached to our love.

God's love is unconditional.

Here's the other beauty of God's love.

Because he loves you with a perfect love, it means he cannot love you any more than he does right now.

And here's the wonderful news for somebody today.

It also means he cannot love you any less than he does right now.

How would you act differently?

How would you stop striving?

If you could once and for all take a deep breath in and exhale and know wait, he actually loves me.

Number two, I want you to confess your sins and ask God to forgive you.

If God loves with an unconditional love, you need to know that he also forgives with an unconditional love.

He's not gonna hold it over your head, he's not gonna beat you up over it.

So what we do is we we confess.

The word confess is made up of two words.

Ko means with, and then confess means like to speak something.

You need to confess your sins.

You need to get it off of your chest and out of your mouth, out there to God.

The book of 1 John says, when we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

The book of James, chapter 5, is a fun one.

James 5 · chapter mention

James says, confess your sins to one another that you might be healed.

So many of us walk around with the hangups and the hurts and the pains of our yesterdays.

We make every decision based on the pain that we've walked through.

But you can walk in a different kind of freedom when you confess your sins and then allow God, this is important, to forgive you once and for all.

So let it go.

To move on.

Number three is this I want to challenge you to go all in with God.

And if I could be honest, a lot of Americans are very all in with God.

We're very Christian when we need God.

And the moment life gets good or easy, we tend to drift away.

What would it look like if we just made this decision to say, no, no, for the rest of my life, chips to the middle of the table, I'm stepping across the line of faith.

I'm all in with God.

The book of Jeremiah, again, written hundreds of years before Jesus came.

Jeremiah prophesies and he speaks on behalf of God and he says, You will seek me and find me when you seek me with what?

All your heart.

Nothing wrong with doing all the godly things.

Be the best giver, be the best server.

Never miss a Sunday at church ever.

Do all those things.

But really, you seek God and you find God when you seek Him with all that you've got, all of your heart, chips in the middle of the table.

God, I'm all in.

So let me challenge you.

Let me step all up on your toes for a moment.

I challenge you not to leave without making this decision to say, God, here's what I'm doing.

I'm giving you one year.

All in.

All in no games, all in pursuing you, all in knowing you, goodness going you.

I'm not just gonna check the religious God card.

I'm not just gonna show up to church so I can feel better about the start of my week.

God, I'm all in with you.

Why do we do all the stuff we do?

Why do we serve and why do we give?

And why do we live lives that honor the things of God?

It's because those are the things that God established for us in relationship to draw us closer to Him.

But you'll never be able to discover your purpose.

You'll never live a life that makes a difference until you start here.

I was created, and you were created to know God, heart to heart, soul to soul, actually know him.

So here's how I want to end today.

I'm gonna pray two prayers.

The first one is I'm gonna pray for all of us to have the courage to take a step closer to God.

The second prayer, though, is gonna be for some of you today.

And in our first service today, we had lots of people respond.

Some of you you hear this, and it defines your relationship with God.

You're exhausted, you're tired.

But what you're really tired of isn't God.

You're tired of trying to follow all the rules without the relationship, and it's causing your heart to lean towards rebellion.

So, what if we made this decision today?

Say, God, I'm all in.

And whether you need to start or restart your relationship with God, what if today was the day that everything changed for you?

All of our locations, would you bow your head and close your eyes for just a moment?

Let me pray for you.

So, God, give us courage.

Courage to actually know you.

God, for some of us, our relationship with you is really nothing more than a relationship we've had with the church.

It's been a relationship with rules and regulations, and we've missed you in the process.

God, I thank you that all of us can get on your pathway and all of us can grow closer to you when we make this decision to say, God, I choose to know you.

God, for those of us who have played games, for those of us who have kept you at arm's length and only drawn you close when we've needed you, we ask for your forgiveness.

May this be a church that doesn't play games, but God, may this be a church full of people who are passionately pursuing intimacy, closeness, relationship with you.

God, for those of us who have settled for the rules and the religion, we ask for your forgiveness.

And from this day forward, we choose to pursue you with everything we have.

In Jesus' name.

With your head still bowed and eyes still closed in this place, maybe you came and you're not right with God.

Whether today means you start or restart with God, this moment is for you.

But if you need to start or restart with God, I want you to take five seconds of courage and say, Jason, this is me.

And would you right now raise your hand and say, Jason, I need to make things right with God to start or restart.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Wow, wow, wow, wow.

If this moment is for you, would you pray this with me?

Listen, praying only changes things when you mean this with your heart.

Would you say, Jesus, today I make this decision?

I give you my life.

Would you be my Lord and my Savior?

Would you change me and make me brand new from the inside out?

Jesus, I believe that you are the Son of God.

I believe when you came into this world, you came to give your life for me.

And because you died in my place, you you bought the price for my forgiveness, for my salvation.

So, Jesus, today I say thank you.

I confess that I need you to save me, and I invite you to do that.

Would you save me, change me, make me brand new?

Jesus, from this day forward I choose to follow you and I give you my life for the rest of my life.

I want to know you and I want to follow you.

And it's in your name we pray, Jesus.

Amen.

Church fam, everywhere.

We just had people pray to make a decision.

Come on, let's celebrate like it matters, everybody.