Called Out - Unlikely Crew

If you want to click, flip in your Bibles, we are going to get over to Matthew chapter 10 in just a minute.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

We are in the series called Out.

We're looking at spaces where Jesus called things out of people.

Sometimes they were uncomfortable, sometimes they were not so uncomfortable.

And we're going to look at this called out today, and we're going to talk about a sermon entitled Unlikely Crew.

That Jesus has a knack for picking unlikely people to be a part of his kingdom and ministry.

If you were born in the 1900s, then you would know this thing that happened in 1980 known as the miracle on ice.

If you don't ask Chat GBT to educate you later on today or hop on YouTube, okay.

There is a moment in 1980, the miracle on ice.

The Soviets had won four Olympic gold medals in a row in hockey.

And the Olympics should have been a fifth gold medal to the Soviet Union in hockey.

But on February 9th, 1980, I was actually born that year, so there you go.

I'm either really old or really young to some of you.

And so if I'm young to you, let's be best friends from here on out, all right?

1980, they played the Soviet in an exhibition game in which the Americans lost 10 to 3.

Two weeks before the Olympics, the Americans got it handed to them 10 to 3.

The Olympic hockey team was the youngest one in the entire Olympics.

It was made up of nothing more than amateur and college athletes.

The guy who was coaching the hockey team didn't even make the cut for the 1960 Olympic hockey team.

And so they were playing with an absolute chip on their shoulder in a game that they should have never won.

An unlikely crew had been brought together.

And by the time that game ended, the Americans won four to three.

On paper, it should have never happened.

It was an unlikely win by an unlikely group of people who just showed up and said, Hey, I'm going to give it my best with what I have and trust the results to happen.

And the beauty of God's kingdom still today is that he operates the same way.

God does not pick extraordinarily gifted people to do his work and just them alone.

Over and over again in Scripture, we see moments where God nabs ordinary people that most people would not pick.

And he says, Hey, I want to use you to do something for me.

And oftentimes when I talk with people, I have people tell me, Hey, Pastor, I want God to use me, but.

Some of us have some big butts.

Not those kind of butts, the other butts.

All right.

Easy.

All right.

Don't get mad at me quite yet, okay?

We have some big butts when it comes to God.

I want you to use me, but I'm not good enough.

I see those people.

I'm not there.

So you could never use somebody like me.

That oftentimes we have these moments where we're like, man, God, I want you to use me.

I wish you could do something through me.

Like we often have people tell me, I've asked them, hey, would you love to lead a life group or consider hosting one?

I would, but I just don't know enough scripture.

And I'm afraid somebody's gonna ask me a question I don't know.

Hey, there are questions I don't know too.

And you know, there's three really powerful words when you don't know.

I don't know.

But let's find out together.

All right.

I tell that people often, if you come to me one time with a question and I don't know the answer, I'm gonna tell you, I don't know.

Let's find out together.

That we don't have to have all the answers to be used by God.

That there's often moments where we say, Man, I wish God could use me, but I still got some stuff I'm struggling with in my life.

And one day when I overcome those things, I'll let God use me.

And yet, over and over in scripture, all God ever used was ordinary people who didn't have all the answers, who still had some stuff in their life, and he said, Hey, I want to use you anyway.

Acts 4.12 is one of my favorite moments because the apostles were standing before the council, and it says, Acts 4.12, the members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see they were ordinary men with no special training in scripture.

I love that.

Ordinary men, no special training in scripture, and yet they were amazed at how God was using them.

There's moments in my life, I hope, one day when I'm not here, that when somebody talks about my life, they said, Man, I'm really surprised God could use somebody like that to do what he did.

I hope like that people would never say, Man, I can see why.

I hope people are surprised just like that in that moment.

Why?

Because God just uses ordinary people.

God uses ordinary people for his eternal purpose.

You and me.

This room right now, every one of us.

God uses you as ordinary or unqualified, or however big that but might be as to why God can't use you.

He will use you in spite of it.

That he doesn't need a perfect person to have all the answers.

He needs a surrendered person that says, God, I don't have it all, but here you go.

Take what I got.

I'm giving it to you.

Make the best of it.

And he's like, perfect, I got you.

That's the invitation.

That's what Jesus is calling out of all of us in this moment, that we can't do anything of eternal significance on our own.

But when we are willing to let Jesus use what we have and give it to him, he can accomplish extraordinary things.

Matthew 10, starting in verse 1, there's this list that Jesus gives us in this moment.

It says, Jesus called his 12 disciples together, and he gave them authority to cast out evil spirits and heal every kind of disease and illness.

Here are the names of the 12 apostles.

First Simon, also called Peter, and then Andrew, Peter's brother, James the son of Zebedee, John, James' brother, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James, the son of Alpheus, Thaddeus.

How many of you guys knew Thaddeus was even one of the twelve?

Okay, good.

I didn't either until I reread this and I kind of forgot about Thaddeus, just to be honest with you.

Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

Like if you're like me, when I hit a list in scripture, my eyes kind of glaze over and I tend to start speed reading, right?

Because sometimes those name lists get really long.

But what I love about this list is it's a reminder.

If you look at who it was that Jesus used, they were just a bunch of ordinary men that he called together.

In fact, if I were to take this same list and replicate it today, here's the reality.

If these people applied for a job at my church, I wouldn't hire them.

Wait a minute.

You mean it's just the truth.

In today's world, sometimes I think we assume there's a standard and we forget that God can use any of us and all of us.

And in this moment, it's this reminder because we tend to look at what these guys accomplished down the road.

But I think before we start going down the road to what they did, we need to stop and look at who he called and where they were at in this moment.

Four of them were fishermen.

Blue-collar, not like bass fishermen that were out on the weekend.

Blue-collar guys who were doing this for a living.

They were out in the boats working hard.

They were running a family business together.

They had servants that worked for them.

They were blue-collar people that just understood hard work and the meaning of a hard day's work.

These are my kind of people right here.

This is why I like cowboy church.

I like blue-collar people.

This is the kind of people that Jesus called.

There's a whole group here of nameless, faith, faceless people.

The reality of we probably haven't read or understand who any of these other guys are because they really don't pop up in scripture again.

Thaddeus, I mean, who knew?

I didn't even know he was one of the 12, right?

There's Philip, Bartholomew, James is not the guy who wrote the book of James.

It's a different one.

And Thaddeus, these guys don't pop up anywhere else in Scripture.

There's not a lot of other big stories that follow their name of all the incredible things that they did.

Why does that matter?

Because there are still moments that will never be in a spotlight.

There are still moments that may never make the social media reels that draw attention, but God still uses nameless, faceless people in the background to accomplish his kingdom work if we're willing to surrender to him and let him use us.

There's somebody like Matthew, the tax collector.

If you haven't figured this out yet, there's never a moment in history where anybody likes the tax collectors, okay?

Anyone like writing your check every April to the IRS?

Nope.

I don't enjoy that donation at all.

I feel like I'm being held hostage actually every time I have to write that check.

Okay.

It's the same this time of history.

Matthew may have been a Jew, but everybody hated him because he was collecting taxes for Rome.

And then he was taking advantage of his own people and making them pay extra so that he could get rich too while he's doing it.

Nobody liked tax collectors.

It was not a thing anybody wanted to be around or hang out.

And Jesus said, Hey, I'll take you to be part of my team.

Then there's Thomas.

Man, this guy is so challenging and polarizing.

One moment Thomas is like, okay, as we're going to Lazarus, let's just follow Jesus and all die together.

And then there's another moment when Jesus is dead and he says, I'll never believe he's resurrected unless I can put the fingers in the holes in his hand.

Which one is it?

Thomas, are you with me?

Are you not?

You ever have those moments where you like, I feel like I'm hot and I'm on fire for what God wants to do?

And the next moment, it's like, man, God, where are you at?

I'm out.

And Jesus called somebody that was struggling to figure how committed they could be.

He said, Hey, come with all of your doubts and struggles and be a part of my crew with me.

The religious zealot Simon, man, these guys were radical Jews that would go around doing everything they could to overthrow the government around them, including kill government officials and people that were part of that crew.

And then, of all the people, Jesus picks Judas, a betrayer.

I mean, this guy did nothing but create trust issues on the entire team.

And there's something about Judas I think that we have to catch here because I think sometimes we mistake proximity to Jesus with salvation.

And Judas is one of those people that bothers me as a Christian because he walked with Jesus, he talked with Jesus, he saw every miracle that Jesus did, and yet he had never allowed Jesus to have his heart transformed.

That's a scary place to be.

So many times we come into church and think because I'm in proximity to Jesus, I must be good.

And proximity to Jesus is not what saves us.

Surrendering our life to Jesus and letting him transform us saves us.

That is the challenge with somebody like Judas.

And yet Jesus said, You can be a part of my team too.

What a ragtag crew.

I can promise you this crew did nothing but create headaches for Jesus at times.

I mean, Peter, the guy who was a hothead and strapped a sword up in the garden.

I can promise you, somewhere, Jesus had to look at Peter and say, Bro, we lay hands on people, we don't throw hands at people.

All right.

I need you to calm down a little bit.

That that having the tax collector with the zealot would have been a bad combo because that dude would have wanted to kill Matthew, not hang out with him.

And nobody on the team would like Matthew.

And so if you've ever been in a space where you feel like I'm the odd man out, Matthew was the odd man out.

And yet he still stepped into this space with Jesus and said, God, use me.

That there were faceless, nameless people that nobody ever got to know.

And you may feel like you're just another faceless, nameless person in the crowd, and yet Jesus said, I can use you too to be a part of my kingdom.

Over and over, Jesus has a knack from Genesis to Revelation of picking ordinary people like you and me and saying, Hey, I want to actually use you to do something more significant with your life than just build something here on earth.

And that is the invitation that continues to come over and over again.

And I love it because Jesus didn't call qualified people, and Jesus didn't ask those people when they came to be anything different than what they were when they came in the first place.

Like it's interesting to me, Jesus simply redeemed what they were already good at and used it for his kingdom.

A working class people would understand what a hard day's work is like.

They would understand there are going to be some grueling days where we're going to get up where the sun comes up.

We may work long past when the sun goes down, and we're just resilient enough to keep showing up and doing the hard work that nobody else wants to do.

That is me.

I have never been the most talented person on any room or team.

But one thing I can promise you is nobody would ever outwork me.

In basketball, I was never the star player.

I was a six-man off the bench.

And what I did not have in talent, I promise I outworked everybody else.

I would make the starters mad in practice because they would have to run around the whole time chasing me on the basketball court.

I couldn't beat them because I was good enough.

I just wore them out because I was too dumb to stop.

And that is the people Jesus said.

Hey, I need some people like that in my kingdom.

That's the people Jesus invites in these moments.

Those fishermen understood teamwork.

Those fishermen understood business skills.

That they may have been running a fishing business, but Jesus said, Hey, bring those skills over here and let me use them for kingdom business, and I can build something even better than you ever could in the business world if you let me use that skill.

Here's a concept for some of you.

I just blow your mind.

God has given you the ability to run businesses and have businesses.

And it's so easy to think on this side of eternity that God just did that so you could build up a bunch of wealth.

But what if God has given you that business and that wealth because he actually wants to use it to fund kingdom purposes?

I can tell you a man I knew growing up whose family was well-to-do because he was a very shrewd businessman in a good way.

He knew business and how to make money.

And many people judged him as a Christian because they didn't like the fact that he understood business and how to make money.

But I also watched that man behind the scenes give away millions of dollars to kingdom things.

And God took something he was good at and used it for his kingdom.

And now that he's no longer here, I've watched his family do the same thing with their dad's money.

Why?

Because he laid the groundwork for them.

In fact, we are here today because some of those same family members took what he worked so hard for in a business world and said, I want to bless your church with some of what we've got so that you can do what you do.

Maybe God has given some of us the ability to have a business because he's trying to teach you how to make wealth.

Yes, to benefit you, but to also build his kingdom.

Ordinary people, man, ordinary skills, eternal things that God wants to use.

For some of us, there's a matter of, and there's just some administrative people that understand details and get all of the work that comes with details.

You understand that, man, there are a lot of things that have to be organized and put together in this world.

And the reality is there are moments just like that that the tax collector, if you know at all what that was, he was a very educated bureaucrat who understood how to speak both the Greek language and the Jewish language.

And he understood all the details it took to run money and spreadsheets.

And then Jesus took that guy that understood how to keep everything organized and structure things and keep all those details straight.

And he said, Hey Matthew, why don't you write one of the gospels for me too while you're at it?

He took what he was already good at and used it for a kingdom purpose.

That he's looking for ordinary people in these moments, for somebody like a zealot that was out there passionate about building God's kingdom, maybe in the wrong ways.

He redirected that passion and said, Hey, come follow me.

And I don't get rid of the passion.

Let's just channel it in another direction.

That he would actually go out and take the gospel into the furthest parts of North Africa and end up one day dying for his faith.

Why?

He still had the same passion.

He just said, Jesus, take this passion and use it for your purpose instead of mine.

That there was moments with somebody like Philip, that name is a Gentile name.

He would have been an outsider.

And yet there was something where Jesus even took a guy who would have felt like an outsider, come in, because there are other outsiders that you'll reach that I'll never reach.

And so why don't you come in and be part of my crew too?

So those outsiders, often you'll even see in scripture once or twice where Philip's name pops up in scripture, and they talked with Philip first, and then Philip took them to Jesus.

Why would they do that?

Because he was an outsider they could relate to, and they felt comfortable coming to Jesus through him.

You ever feel like an outsider?

You ever feel like I'm not sure there's a place for me here?

Perfect spot for Jesus to do something through you.

That these are the moments with somebody like Matthew or Judas would have had to be highly administrative in what they did.

And that's the invitation that Jesus always brings still today.

He says, take what you're good at and let me use it.

Some of us still believe that God gave us a career path to provide for our family.

And while, yes, I do believe that is a part of it.

That is not the only part of your career path.

Ministry is much bigger than standing on this stage.

You are an opportunity to be a light for Jesus in rooms and offices and boardrooms and businesses that I will never walk into.

And so your business may provide for your means, but it may also be the ministry that Jesus has called you to to be a light for him where he's planted you.

That he's not waiting for your pastor to come to your work to convince them they need Jesus.

He's waiting for you to live for him in your work in such a way that you draw people to Jesus, that you invite them here to be a part of what God is doing.

He uses ordinary people in ordinary situations.

Can you build things?

Can you weld?

Can you do electric work?

Can you plumb?

Great.

God has given you a skill he wants to use for his kingdom.

We got a home we're trying to remodel, and one day a church we're trying to build.

We'll take the skills that God has placed in your hands and we'll use them to build something eternal together.

There's no ordinary men or women.

Every gift, every skill is an opportunity.

You're good with technology and you understand IT and all those things.

Great.

We have an opportunity for you to use technology for his kingdom.

Come join our audio visuals team.

Praise God.

You able to cook and care for people that need help?

Great.

We got a team for that.

Man, we'd love to partner you up with some people that could cook some meals for people when they're in hard moments and show the love and care for them as a church that they need.

God use ordinary skills like cooking to make an eternal impact for his kingdom.

Teachers, educators, administrators, I got room for you in kids' church, baby.

Ah, you love kids, I got room for you in kids' church.

I got room for you at check-in.

You can be the first person that's so fun and engaging as they come in.

You can help just be an adult in the room to let's call redirect the energy of the kids at times in a positive direction, right?

Yeah.

Maybe you like to teach and you can teach kids and don't tell me I don't know scripture that well.

That's okay.

They don't either, all right?

And we have it all written out for you to help you along the way.

And where you get it wrong, they will let you know.

Don't worry.

I promise.

And he'll use you in an ordinary way to do extraordinary things.

A business person, use your kingdom to be a light, use your business to be a light for his kingdom.

Use the knowledge he's placed inside of you to make money to bless his kingdom and build his kingdom in other places.

That the reality is there might be moments for people that are administrative and have leadership skills to be a part of God's kingdom.

Here's the reality that I love, man.

There are people every week that take all of those skills and they serve this church.

Brandon helps lead our setup and tear down team and has to build schedules and organize things and communicate.

And I'm thankful for people like him.

Jen, with our connect team and prayer team and all the ways she jumps in.

I mean, people.

Often talk about the things that I do for the church, but you guys don't understand that the one who really is the backbone of so much of the structure is not me, it's my wife because she just lives in the background and she's a thaddeist.

Man, I'm not even sure what she does sometimes.

I just know things work because she's there and I don't think about making those things work.

That is a gift.

One is not more valuable than the other.

You want to know who the most important person is in this church?

Us.

Not me.

I can stand up here and preach, but if somebody didn't have that sound system working and running, you guys would not enjoy this.

If somebody didn't show up to sit down, I mean they get here at 6:30 or 645 every Sunday morning, and some of those people are here till the end of the day at 12:30 or 1 o'clock.

They give up six or six and a half hours of their Sunday on their day off to serve you so that these chairs can exist, so kids' areas can get set up so you can grab a donut and have coffee on the way in, and we get to experience Jesus because of them.

And if I took those things away because somebody didn't want to do it, I bet we would struggle a little bit more in getting together on a Sunday.

This is the value of his kingdom.

Everybody has something to offer, everybody has a role to play.

The value of Jesus' kingdom isn't to come check a box and go back home and do nothing.

That eventually somewhere, yes, we have to consume so that we can grow and experience Jesus.

But somewhere, maturity, just like our kids, anybody that's about to raise adult kids or just has the goal of raising an adult kid was what?

To raise a contributing member of society who gives back.

Amen.

It's the same in the faith.

Like at some point, we realize I know you got some big butts.

Maybe we'll do a sermon series sometime called Big Butts.

But he's just waiting for somebody that would say, Hey, I don't have it all together, I don't have it all figured out.

But use me.

Just use me.

Whatever I got to offer, as imperfect as it is, I'll give it to Jesus.

I'll make room for you.

Police officers that provide safe environments for people to come into church, former military people that are used to and trained in ways that we don't understand, but they can provide an environment that people can come in.

Medical professionals that honestly helped save somebody's life at one point after one service right back there.

And they responded and jumped in and helped.

I'm thankful for people like that.

God took a skill you had and used it to bless somebody else's life.

I didn't give her any warning on this, but to me I love it because it's it's in those work environments that your light shines.

A week or two ago, we were at the hospital with a family in church, somebody was having surgery, and one of our own, Amanda, came out there.

And you're gonna make me cry now that you're sitting in this service.

Whether it was her job or not, whether it was a box that she had to check for what she was doing, she came out to check on us.

Do you need anything?

And I mean, just a coffee or a juice or a drink or like it would be something that most of us would think was so insignificant.

But in that moment, I did not see a person checking a box because it was my job to do.

I saw a woman that walked in with the love and the joy of Jesus Christ, and it exuded off her in that workspace and impacted us in that moment.

That's ministry.

Those are the moments, an ordinary thing that we're not even sure if anybody ever sees or notices making an impact on somebody's life.

That's the invitation from Jesus in this moment.

That He brings us to this spot.

Some of you kids out there that like to play sports, I got a news flash for you.

He didn't give you that gift to elevate yourself and make yourself look good.

He didn't even give you that gift so hopefully one day you can get a college scholarship and get a free ride somewhere.

He gave you that gift because he's put a platform in front of you to be a light for him.

And if you will use it for him, he will elevate you.

If you will use it for yourself, he'll take it away from you.

But he put this love and desire inside of me to play.

He did.

Because he wants to use that platform for his kingdom and glory.

I talked to a I heard a story of a baseball coach one time, coaching a traveling team for a decade or more.

And his story he started to tell was he said, I've baptized over a hundred of the boys that I've coached in my lifetime.

I love that.

Baseball might have been his love, but it was also his ministry.

I wasn't just trying to raise players who could make it to college and play baseball.

I was trying to point people to Jesus Christ so they could experience him.

And coaching baseball just happened to be the way God used him to do that.

And he baptized over a hundred boys on a baseball team playing traveling sports.

Think of Coach Dere every week, man, a locker room full of students and FCA students.

There were over 100 kids a week ago.

I bought 12 dozen donuts and they were gone like that when all those kids showed up, man.

And it's just, man, I'm just showing up to a sweaty gym where some of these kids are still tired at 7.05 when they come rolling in, but man, they're hearing about Jesus and they're finding other people in their school that love him, and they're learning that I'm not on my own and I can be a light in the school just like Jesus called me to be.

Ordinary people, ordinary moments, eternal consequences.

This is what Jesus does.

It's the beauty of the gospel.

It's not a career anymore, it's an opportunity to build his kingdom and bring his bring him glory, and it just happens to provide for my family while I'm at it.

That it's more than a passion, it's an ability God gave me to invest in others.

And for some of you in here, that you would say your butt is because you're not secure enough in the way you are.

You feel like there are other people that are better than you and other people that can do it better than me, so I'll never do it.

Listen, don't let your insecurity keep you from God using you because it's not about how good you are, it's about how good He is.

And if you use insecurity as an excuse for God not to use you, it's actually pride.

You're saying God can't use somebody like me.

That's pride.

Your insecurity is actually pride from the enemy keeping God from using you because he doesn't need your perfectionism, he just needs your availability.

You want to be used by God.

There's three things.

You can take a picture, you can have this on your phone, you can write these down.

Three ways to discover how God can use me.

If you want to know three ways, real fast, I'm gonna give them to you.

Jot these down and evaluate your life.

What is something I have the skills to do?

You can work on cars, cool, man.

God can use you.

What is a skill I have that God has given me?

What is something I have a passion for?

Sometimes we think this passion inside of us was put there by somebody else.

I think sometimes we forget God is the maker of all things, and maybe He put that passion inside of you and you're just using it for the wrong thing.

What am I skilled at?

What am I passionate about?

This last one is the one where most people get stumped because they realize I got some skills, they realize I got some passions.

But here's the last one.

How can I make room?

How can I make myself available for God to use me?

You can have all the skills in the world, you can have all the passion in the world, but if you can't make room for God to use you, he can't use you.

Because you're not making room for him to use you.

My life is full, great, everybody's is.

I try not to say I'm busy anymore because here's the reality: we're all busy.

If I'll make room, he'll use me.

If I'll make room in my life and give him a shot and say, I'm available to be used by you, he'll use me.

That is the invitation.

You can be used to serve donuts and host along the way.

You could be used to be one of the faces up front as people walk in to be a part of a service.

You know what?

Somebody experienced Jesus today through a smile of somebody handing them a donut and telling them they love him.

Somebody experienced Jesus today when they walked through the front doors and got a handshake or a hug.

Somebody experienced Jesus today when somebody checked their kids in and they made them feel loved and valued.

Somebody experienced Jesus today because somebody is willing to run a soundboard or a computer and make this all feel seamless and flow so that we could come in and experience Jesus.

People are serving kids right now so they can experience Jesus.

This is the beauty of who he is.

This is the beauty of the work he does.

And it's the invitation that he gives all of us.

If you really want the honesty in this moment, this message means a lot to me because I still don't understand why God uses me.

I don't have a pedigree of pastoral people in my life.

My grandfather was a Chevy mechanic and turned wrenches his whole life.

My dad was in construction and spent the last couple of decades building things for hospitals.

I followed in his footsteps in construction for a while and then spent about seven years in sales and management for a concrete company before finally at 26 or 27 saying yes to ministry and what God called me to do.

That is my pedigree.

I don't have a Bible college degree.

I did online courses to keep educating myself and do the best I could to equip me.

There are people that understand the Bible way better than me and could argue circles around me.

And yet I still get up every day to read the Bible and grow in what God has called me to do.

There are a lot better people out here that could stand on stage and give a lot better presentation than I could ever give.

And some people say, like, man, you're pretty good at what you do.

Listen, it's 20 years of practice of something I don't really like doing.

I would rather somebody else stand on stage.

But somewhere along the way, I just I learned that I couldn't just give God the things that I wanted him to do in me.

I had to give him the things that I didn't want to do either.

And so, man, if I'm gonna be used by you, God, I I in the stages where you place me, I would rather not be there.

But if that's where you want me, then I'm gonna give the best I can in this moment and use me.

In fact, I can remember the moment when I finally decided to go in ministry full-time.

I was working for the concrete company.

I was ironing my clothes before work.

Yes, there are still people that like to iron their clothes.

With steam and starch and get all the wrinkles out before I go, okay?

Some of you that like to throw your clothes in the dryer before you put them on, it's a cheap substitute, okay?

I was sitting back at that ironing board and I was having this conversation with God in this moment because I felt like he was telling me it's time to go into ministry full time.

And for me, I was just like, man, God, uh, if you just want another pastor, I don't want to go.

That was my exact conversation with him.

I don't want it.

You don't need another pastor.

There's plenty of them out there.

But if you'll use me to do something for you, I'll go.

Ordinary guy working for a concrete company just was willing to go.

It's the same for us.

Every one of us in the room, all he's looking for is somebody that will say yes and make themselves available.

You want to be used by God, it starts with surrendering to him.

That's the beauty of it.

That's where it starts.

So with every head bowed, every eye closed, maybe you're here in this place, maybe you have never surrendered your life to God before.

And my prayer is that he's stirring some things up in your heart.

There's a tug happening inside of you.

It's because he's inviting you to surrender your life to him.

That he wants to use you, but he doesn't need to use you to make up for your mistakes.

He wants to use you because he saved you and you're following him.

It's a byproduct of a walk with Christ.

So if you're here in this place, you've never surrendered your life to Jesus before, but today you want to.

If that's you, would you just slip your hand up so I could pray with you real quick?

Yeah.

I see your hands.

Can we just pray together?

Can we do that real quick?

Would you join me in prayer?

There's nothing magical about this prayer, but if you mean it, it's the beginning of that process.

Let's pray.

Say, dear Jesus, I need you to come into my life.

I surrender my life, my sins, and all my shortcomings to you to use me as you see fit.

Help me to love you.

I want me to live for you.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

If you raised your hand after service, man, I'd encourage you to go see Jin.

Stop by over there.

I just have a gift we want to give to you, something to help you keep growing in that relationship.

It's not a one-time decision, it's a lifetime decision.

The rest of us, if we can stand all across this place, here's the thought I want to invite you to as we have a moment of prayer together.

We're going to get ready for baptism.

And so if you are part of that baptism team, you can get right ahead that way.

After we get through here, we're going to move back in that direction.

But the invitation today that I would give to you is just, man, where is Jesus inviting you to make room for him to use you?

What is he inviting you to surrender to him?

Our prayer team is gonna come forward.

My friends are gonna be right up here up front.

And maybe there's something in your life that you're just struggling to surrender to Jesus.

And maybe you would like somebody to pray with you.

Maybe you're just going through some stuff in life, man.

There's some battles you're fighting, there's a struggle that's happening, there's a family issue, a health issue.

Uh, I don't need to know the issue.

He does.

And the invitation from Jesus in this moment is for us to pray for each other.

And so if you're here as we get ready to worship, you need prayer for anything at all, step out as we sing, calm down, let one of my friends pray with you.

And let's give God just a little space here to work.

And for the rest of us, just ask God, where are you inviting me to surrender and make room for you to use me?

What gift do I have I can give to you and let you use?

That would be my prayer to you as we worship.