Becoming a Person of Integrity | The Unfair Advantage

One more time, are you excited to be at church today? So pumped that you're with us. Hey, well, my name is Aaron Burke and I'm just so glad that everybody's with us. We're gonna take out those notes. We are in part three of a series we are calling The Unfair Advantage. We are looking at all of life's unfair moments, whatever has been handed to you, whatever struggle you've been given, and I wanna help you leverage it for God's glory. And we've been talking about the life of Joseph and looking at the life of Joseph, someone who God put a dream in his heart, but that dream to come to a destiny went through a difficult season. And if you're in a difficult season, this series is for you. And I'm gonna show you how to leverage life's difficulties for God's glory. We talked last week on rejection. And if you've been living any amount of time, you know that rejection is such a normal part of our life, but God uses rejection for our redirection to something even better in life. And today's subject is vitally important to your life. Today's subject is so crucial that I don't believe it just, if you don't get this subject, it won't only take your life down,

it can take your family down, it can take our community down. And honestly, it's the downfall of every nation when this area goes. And this is an unfair thing that we have to do that if you'll learn to do this unfair thing, you'll have an advantage towards what God wants to do in your life. So we're gonna pick up the life of Joseph. Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers. He's purchased by a man named Potiphar. We realized last week he ends up thriving even in a season where it's very, very difficult in Potiphar's house. And then something little spicy happens. Let's pick up Genesis chapter 39, verse six. And it says it like this. So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care with Joseph in charge. You see how God had accelerated him. God had promoted him. Then it says it like this. He did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Come on, somebody. How many know that's the good life to live right there? That's that Davis Island life. Come on, that's a snail isle. He just, no concern, just living the dream, all right? So then look what happens.

And it says in the next verse, now Joseph was well built and handsome. Now some of my brothers know this pain. Come on, some of y'all know what it's like to just walk around and just go, it's the burden that God has given us for his glory. I don't know that pain, but I can imagine that it is a difficult thing to deal with. Verse seven. And after a while, his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, come to bed with me. She thirsty, somebody. She's thirsty. She's thirsty. I wanna talk to you today for a few minutes about the subject of becoming a person of integrity. Becoming a person of integrity. How do we live in a world where we have to make a decision to choose integrity, even though it's unfair, even though we can't do what everybody else wants us to do, and how do we leverage it for God's glory? It was 1998. Now, some of y'all might not remember 1998. Some of y'all weren't even alive in 1998. But I remember 1998, 14 years old, and as I'm 14 years old, I'm watching the television as the president of the United States is being interviewed. And as he looks at the screen, the scandal is everywhere, but he looks directly at that camera and he said,

I did not have sex with that woman. And I turned to my parents and I said, well, that settles it. That settles it. How in the world would somebody who has the highest office in the land ever be able to say something that is not true? There's no way. I'm naive in this thing thinking that there's no way. Now, no shame on him. I'm not trying to throw shade at him, but I want you to know that if you don't know history, it was only a few months later that he looked right back at the camera and said, I did have sex with that woman. I was not telling the truth. And I learned something, that we live in a culture that charisma can take you to the top, but it's your character that'll keep you there. And we have a world who's thriving to get ahead, but they're missing a key ingredient called integrity, your character, who you really are. Now, the word integrity comes from a Latin word, which is integer, and here's what it means. It means the state of being complete or whole. In other words, you're the real deal. There's not multiple versions of your life. Can I say it this way? There's not a Friday night Ebor version and a Sunday morning church version.

Let me try again. There's not a football buddies version and a church small group version. Like there's not like this private version of your life. And then there's the church, praise the Lord, lift the hands and worship version of you. There's not multiple versions of you. I want you to be the real deal, being whole. Here's a good question. question to ask is the integrity question, is who are you when no one else is looking? Like, who are you really? Like, I get what you put on social media, and I get who you present yourself to be at church, but who are you really? I live by this quote, and I've taught it to our leaders for years. It's by a guy named William Hershey Davis, and he says it this way. He says, reputation is what you're supposed to be, but character is what you are. Look, he goes on to say, he says, reputation comes over from without, but character grows from within. Reputation is what you have when you come to a new community, but character is what you have when you go away. Reputation is made in a moment, but your character is built in a lifetime. Reputation is learned in an hour,

but your character does not come to light for a year. He goes on to say it this way. He says, your reputation is what men say about you on your tombstone, but character is what the angels say about you before the throne of God. And D.L. Moody, the great preacher, says it this way. If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of itself. So we have to be a people that value integrity, character, being the real deal. Your primary goal right now should not be what do people think about me, but the primary goal should be what does God really know about me? And if I'll deal with what God really knows, what's going on in the inside, then he can promote me in due time. And Joseph, in our story, we learned that he was a man of integrity even when it was difficult. So I'm gonna break it down, and I'm gonna show you very practically three things of how to become a person of integrity. And if you feel like you've totally blown it in this area, there's hope at the end of this message. Stick around and watch how God does some healing today. Here's the first one. Look, it goes, Genesis chapter 39. Now, Joseph was well-built and handsome.

He told me to say it a second time, all right? So he wanted everybody to know. And while his master's wife took notice of him, he said, come to bed with me. Look at verse eight. But he refused. He refused. An integrity decision. Now, let's see why he refused. Look at verse eight. He refused. He goes, with me in charge, he told her, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house. Everything he owns, he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you. Like, you're the only thing off-limits. And he goes, because you're his wife. Then how could I do such a wicked thing and sin against who? God. Notice it wasn't sin against her. Notice it wasn't sin against himself. It was sin against God. Because he knew a value of integrity. Now, how do we know in this moment how to become people of integrity? Here's the first one is you gotta understand this. That remember that sin always comes at a cost.

Always. Katie and I, in our first year of marriage, we were so broke. And I remember we always tried to do a date night. Like, a date night every week is like a non-negotiable for us. And so I remember we were doing date night and we were driving around trying to find a restaurant to go to. And we saw this little restaurant in a strip mall kind of area. And we're like, oh man, let's go to that restaurant. And it was a bistro. We're like, a bistro? It must be real cheap. It'll be great. And we went into this place. And have you ever sat down at a restaurant and you open the menu and realize this is way out of your price range? Come on, anybody have that moment? And we sit down there. I mean, we're newly married. We're so broke. And I remember looking at her going, there's no way she's gonna stay here. We can't do this. We can't do this. So I said, I said, Katie, we can't afford this place. She's like, I know, this is crazy.

But we had ordered water and everything. I said, you gotta leave first and then I'll get out of here, too. Come on, don't act like you ain't done it sometime in your life. And so I said, act like you're gonna use the restroom. You go and then run to the front door and then I'll run after you. And I remember we got in that car and we took off and we're like, man, we escaped this thing. We were gonna go broke over little, little, little, you know, Italian bistro place. It was crazy. By the way, if you ever go to a restaurant and they don't have the price on the menu, you can't afford it, okay? You can't afford it. And if you have to ask the price, it's not for you, okay? Just want you to know that. That's not the restaurant for you. Here's the thing. It always comes at a cost. So you gotta know what the cost is. And the enemy does a great job at blinding us of the cost of sin. So he tries to get you to think that there's never a consequence or a result of it. So I teach this about, I learned it when I was about 18 years old, this principle through the Old Testament that I learned

and I've taught it as a youth pastor for years. And then I teach it every two to three years here at Radiant. So if you've been a Radiant for a long amount of time, then you've heard this before. And I just want you to know, if you come in two years from now, you're gonna hear it again. Because it's that integral to what God has done in my life. And it's called this phrase, and it's a Hebrew phrase. And I'm gonna give it to you in just a second. Don't put it up on the screen. I just wanna give it to you, because it's this phrase. Aharit. Okay, so we're gonna practice it, but we're gonna do it with a little bit of h. Okay, you ready? And it's gonna be really weird. Some of our buildings are real tight, and everybody's real close, but you got the idea. All right, so we're gonna practice our Hebrew. It's aharit. Ready? One, two, three. Aharit. All right, good, but a little bit more h. All right, ready? Aharit. Okay, we got one, two, three. Aharit.

Okay, here's what aharit is. It's all in the Old Testament. You've never seen it in the Old Testament because it's Hebrew, but here's what it means. Ready, you can write it down. It means the end result or the final consequence. So the actual phrase in the Hebrew means this. It means that which comes after. That which comes after. So there's a way that you're living, and the enemy is enticing you with sin, but you don't know there's something that comes after it. There's something that comes after it. Let me just show you where it is in the scriptures, okay? Proverbs says it this way. There's a way that appears to be right. Okay, I want you to hear that in St. Pete. Look at this. It seems to be right, but the aharit, that's the phrase. It's three words in English, one word in Hebrew. The aharit, it leads to what? To death. Okay, so there's death, but the enemy doesn't want you to see the death. He wants you to see all the fun along the way, but there's death on the other side. So Proverbs 5 is the great passage on adultery, and you should read a proverb a day, every single day. Proverbs 5, so the fifth of every month, you're reminded about how destructive adultery is,

and look what it says. It says, my son, pay attention to my wisdom. Turn your ear from my words of insight that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge. Look what he's saying. Now he gets real gritty, ready? For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey. Ooh, she looks good. He looks good. Oh, he's been working out. Oh, man, she's taking care of herself. Oh, man, and then look what it says, and it says, in her speech, ooh, she slides into your DM. So good. Oh, he says the right things. He compliments you on your outfit. It's smoother than oil, but, ooh, ooh, ooh, but let's look at the aharit. There's that phrase, in the end, that's the aharit. The end, it's bitter as gall. Do you really think the enemy wants you to see the bitterness on the front end? No. He hides the bitterness so that you're enticed by what looks good, and that's what sin does. Sin always over-promises on fun and always under-delivers on fulfillment. It always promises satisfaction, but it delivers sickness into our life.

It always promises that it's gonna be a good time, and he never shows you how it's gonna destroy your life, and look what he says in verse 11. At the end, in the aharit of your life, your flesh and your body will be, you're gonna be groaning, and I've seen it. I've seen the people sit down in my office where they're confessing sin to a spouse, or they're telling your kids something, and I'm watching as their life is groaning, and I'm going, oh, there's no way they would have done this if they would have seen this at the beginning, but your enemy's, write it down, your enemy's primary strategy for destroying your life is to deceive you from the aharit, the consequences of your sin, and listen, I understand it's not popular in our culture today to talk about sin, but my job is not to be popular. It's to be your pastor, and I'm not here to entertain you. I'm here to equip you to say you have a real devil that wants to destroy your life. He wants to destroy your family, and he wants to destroy your calling, and I gotta warn you, sin is really dangerous to our life, and here's what it does. The enemy, he always shows us the bait, but he never shows us the hook. You know what I mean? Now, this hook is the biggest hook I've ever seen in my entire life,

and nobody in their mind, no little fish in their mind, if you put this in the water, they're gonna go over and they're gonna go, ooh. There's just no way. There's no way, because no fish is gonna do that, and no person is gonna sit there and go, let me make sure my kids hate me, and they bite that hook. Let me make sure the IRA shuts us all down. Let me just make sure I get back into that addiction, because let me just make sure I end up just in another program there. I'm just gonna, let me just ruin where I'm at. Nobody does that, because the enemy doesn't show you the hook like this. He disguises it so small, and he puts that hook, and he tries to put it on things that you just, like it's just so small. But even like this, it's not how to, let me give you a good example, okay? Y'all stick with me a little bit, because this just helps me. Now, let me show you an example of what it means to just not know the. Come on somebody, come on one day, put me on the conveyor belt with a hot glaze. Just put me underneath it, just going under the waterfall of the glaze. Krispy Kreme is the best example of sin because it's so great in the moment, isn't it? And isn't it just amazing in the moment?

Like you have this moment, like if you ever go and you see that hot glaze sign and you just go and you don't eat one, nobody eats one, you're crazy. No, you eat a dozen, you know? And you're eating the dozen and you're just like, this is how the enemy entices you, he's like, just have one. All you need is one, just have one, just have a good time with one. Anybody want to take a bite? No, don't take a bite, okay. I had a kid in one of the earlier services and he was like ready the whole time. But the reality is you eat more and more and more and what do you do? You get hooked and then it's so crazy because I don't know if you've ever eaten at Krispy Kreme, but after you eat it, you feel horrible. Like absolutely, like I remember just leaving one time. I mean, the last time I had like a major binge on it, I left feeling so terrible and I remember sitting there going, if I remembered how I felt right now, I would have never, I'll never eat one of those again. And isn't it interesting the commercials never show you walking around, holding your stomach going, oh, terrible decision, terrible decision. What did they do? The commercials are like,

wah, wah. That's the first donut I've had in a while, that was good. And it's the same with sin because sin always, it doesn't look bad at first. It could just be just building your business and you're just going for it and you're just having like, it's not a bad thing. It's just, you don't understand, there's a hook in there. There's a hook in there of materialism that if you're not careful, it'll catch you and then you find yourself getting stuck into something that you're never supposed to get stuck into. Let me just try this one because this, let's get real for a second because it's just a cell phone. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. Like it's only a few messages. It's only a few apps. It's only, there's no way it could hurt. I'm telling you, you gotta be careful. Are you finding, are there hooks in there that are catching your life? Here's what sin does, write it down because sin does hurt the sinner, by the way. I'm just trying to expose the lies of the devil right now. He will hurt your life. He does not have your best interest in mind. He does not have your health and your life to the fullness and all.

And Joseph knew that. He said, no, I've been promoted. Why would I destroy my promotion? He saw something. He saw how this will hurt his life. But it also, I want you to get this, sin hurts fellowship with the Savior. It does. Now, I wanna be very clear theologically. Every time you sin, it does not break your fellowship with God. It's not like, oh, I was a Christian. Now I'm not a Christian. Now I'm a Christian. It's like some of y'all, like some people get up and they're like, I gotta get rebaptized again. I'm like, you've been baptized. You're fine. Like just repent and do life different now. Like to have a moment where you just say, okay, I'm gonna do life different, but it does break the fellowship. In the same way, if I sin against my wife, we are no, it's not like we are no longer married. It just breaks the intimacy of the marriage. So just understand the enemy wants to destroy your life. He wants to hurt you and he wants to hurt the fellowship with God. All right, let's keep going. Number two.

All right, I'm gonna teach you guys something today because it's an unfair advantage if you can learn how to live in integrity in a world that just lacks it so much. All right, let's keep going. Verse 10. And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her. Or look at this phrase. Never saw this before, right? Never saw this before. Or even be with her. Like he's sitting there going, oh, she's walking into the kitchen. I'm walking around the living room. I'm getting away from this girl. She's coming towards, she's like, hey, I have another thing. He's like, I don't know, I can't talk. He was so adamant about avoiding this woman. And I think it's so incredible. And I'm not, listen, it's not a woman thing. It's not a man thing. It's the fact of it's a very important symbol of sin. And I want us to get this. Here's how you become a person of integrity. Number two, is you got to avoid compromising situations. There are some things that you're doing that you are sitting there and you're going, I just, I really, I think I can overcome it. I can overcome it.

And you keep falling. And I want you to hear this. You keep falling, not because you're not strong, but because you're kind of stupid. I know they got it at North Tampa. I just wanted you to get it. Because you're even declaring greater is he that's in me than he that's in the world. And Lord's like, you got to get yourself out of that dumb situation. Like you're surrounding yourself with stuff that's going to destroy you. rule your life. Here's a verse that you need to live by. You don't get anything else out of today's message. Here's your takeaway verse, ready? Ecclesiastes nine, written by Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived. He said it this way, wisdom is better than strength. It's better than strength. I don't care how strong you think you are, how much you pray, how much you think you can overcome. Some of y'all just need a little bit of wisdom to avoid some compromising situations, to learn how to live in such a way that you know what? I'm not gonna do what the rest of the world does. I'm not gonna go where the rest of the world goes. Not because I'm living in legalism. It's not legalism, it's just being wise. And I've just learned in my life,

part of the reason by God's grace that I haven't had some major failure in my life is simply because I just have some wisdom to not do some stupid stuff that everybody else does. Wisdom gives us a strategy to avoid sinful situations before we ever have the opportunity to fall. So there's situations and there's people and there's surroundings that I just don't put myself in because I know through wisdom that I'm just gonna not get around it. I've heard wisdom described this way. It's that it takes knowledge to build the Titanic, but wisdom avoids the iceberg. And we have a lot of very knowledgeable Christians, but we don't have very wise ones. That's why we keep falling all the time. So how do we do it? Jesus, I mean, the Bible says in James, if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God. Oh, it's a daily prayer of mine. Oh Lord, let me be wise. Let me be wise. So let me just give you some wisdom. If you struggle with alcohol addiction, like it runs in your family, it's a thing, then you probably shouldn't be at the bar. Well, you're like, well, you know, the spirit of God's inside of me. I understand, but there's also spirits right there that are like, you gotta be careful, all right?

If you found victory over porn, if you haven't found victory over porn, then you probably shouldn't have your phone next to your bed at night by yourself. Now, I'm not being legalistic. You go, well, Aaron, I need it. I hear it all the time. I need it for my alarm. Go to Dollar General and buy a thing called an alarm clock. They still exist. They do. If you have a love for gossip, then you need to remove yourself from some friends that feed that gossip in your life. Like some of y'all, if you wanna wait, if your desire is to live godly and wait until marriage, then you probably shouldn't be over each other's house till midnight watching Netflix on the couch together. It's just not wise. Like you're like, but God's gonna give us strength. He's giving you wisdom. Just don't do stupid stuff. Can I hear a better amen at our campuses today? I was talking about this with our pastors this last week, and one of the pastors said, well, that's why I changed my gym membership. I said, what do you mean? He goes, I was at crunch. A little tempting. He goes, now I went to the YMCA.

No temptation. Come on, somebody. Now, that's funny right there. I think that is funny right there. Here's a motto I live by. Others can, I won't. Others can do it, I won't. Pastor, you wanna be part of this conversation? No, no, I won't be part of that. Hey, you wanna partake in this? No, I don't wanna do that. Hey, you wanna go to this area of time? No, I don't do that. It's not because I'm better than anybody else. I just know the calling of God on my life. And people get all weird, especially when you come to church and they go, you know, everybody's accepted in our church, and they are, everybody's loved, but then you wanna start serving? Oh, we have a standard for you. Like, others can do that, but you can if you're gonna serve. Oh, but you wanna lead at our church? There's another standard. Someone asked me one time, they're like, Aaron, I just think it's ridiculous all the double standards at this church. I go, oh, we have way more than double, way more. You wanna start leading?

There's another standard. You wanna lead a group? There's even another standard. You wanna be on our staff? There's even a higher standard. You wanna be on a pastoral staff? There's even a higher standard. You wanna be one of our location pastors? There's a higher standard. You wanna, Katie and I, we even live in a higher standard, because I just know that if you're never gonna go up unless you give up. And I'm gonna live a life like Joseph to just say, you know what, I'm willing to do whatever God wants me to do so that I can fulfill the calling in my life. And people mock Billy Graham and oh, the Billy Graham rule, and he was legalistic, and he did a, let me just tell you, that man lived with integrity and he finished well. So if I'm an heir, I'm an heir on the side of integrity. Can I hear a better amen today, church? Paul says, I have the right to do anything. I can do anything. I can go anywhere I wanna go, but not everything is beneficial. I have the right to do anything, but not everything is constructive. What are those things that are destructive to your life? You need to figure it out. You need to remove them from your life,

walk in some wisdom, and watch how you'll be a man or woman of integrity. Can I hear a good amen? Amen. Last one, let's close it out with this one. Look what he says. One day he went to the house to attend to his duties and none of the household servants were as inside. So he had did his best. He was walking in wisdom. He was making sure he's avoiding all these issues. And look what happened. All right, crazy girl. She caught him. And guys, this could be the opposite. It could always be. It's not an attack on her, it's an attack on the fact the enemy's always trying to go after you. And she said, come to bed with me. But he left his cloak in her hand and he ran out of the house. Here's number three, ready? How do you become a person of integrity? You take God's way out. You take God's way out. You gotta get out of this scenario. And if you're tempted and you're overwhelmed in temptation, I want you to know there's always a way

that God wants to get you out of it. And God's got a strategy. I feel it's so important to recognize that the verses before this situation and the verses right after, both scenarios, it says the Lord was with him. Look at verse three. The Lord was with him. Verse two. And then look at verse 20 right after this. The Lord was with Joseph. I'm telling you, how did Joseph walk in victory? Not because he was strong enough, not because he learned how to overcome it. It's because God led him to victory. And Hebrews, I mean, 1 Corinthians says it this way. No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful. I want you to hear that today because so many people are sitting there and you go, it feels overwhelming. I want you to know God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. And some of y'all are going, Aaron, I'm at that limit. I want you to know God, he's gonna provide you a way out. He says, but when you are tempted, notice he doesn't say if you get tempted. He says, when you are tempted, why?

Because we live in a world where there'll always be temptation, always. And your temptation might be different than my temptation, but we all deal with temptations. But when you are tempted, he says, he will provide a way out. A way so that you can endure it. And I wanna encourage you today that if you feel like, man, Aaron, I just keep falling, I keep falling, I keep falling, I want you to know that's why we have our God with us. That when we are struggling and we've avoided as much as we can avoid and we know it has a cost and we know it's gonna destroy everything, but when we are still overwhelmed with that temptation, he provides a way out. We just gotta lean on him. Yeah. When we fight temptation in our flesh, the result is always failure. So if you're fighting that addiction, you're fighting that insecurity, you're fighting that battle in your flesh and you go, I just keep losing. Well, it's always failure in our flesh. But look what the scriptures tell us to do. He didn't say to fight it, he said to flee from it. So here's what we do. When we flee temptation by his spirit,

the result is always victory. Amen. He wants to bring you victory in your life. Can I hear a good amen today, church? He'll provide you a way out. Why don't we do this? So nobody moving around at all of our campuses, why don't you stand to your feet? I wanna pray for people who are struggling with temptation and addictions and just feels like it's overwhelming. This summer, I took my family on a family vacation and we went to the Northwest, the Pacific Northwest, and we did a lot of hiking. And hiking's awesome, except when you have five children that are 10 and under. It's a lot of work. So we took them hiking. I remember I looked up one hike in Oregon and there was this beautiful waterfall. It's two and a half miles in, it's this beautiful waterfall. I said, Katie, we can do it. She's like, well, what do they say online? Normally she'd look it up because she didn't quite trust me with this. And I said, it's a moderate hike, we can do this. We're moderate type people, we can do it. She's like, are you sure, are you sure? I'm sure, I'm sure. So we started going on this hike.

We're going for about 15, 20 minutes. It's all good until we then get to this part. And no lie, it's probably two to three feet wide of a little gravel thing with about a five to 700 foot just drop right there. Nothing, no rail, no anything. And I've got five kids. They're like little, just everywhere. So my wife, she's freaking out. She's like, we gotta do this, we gotta turn back. I was like, no, we gotta get to the waterfall. We gotta get to the waterfall. And so I said, if you take a lease, our four-year-old, I said, I'll be in control of Adeline. Adeline's our two-year-old and she doesn't listen to anybody. And I said, we gotta control it. Like I got her, so I grabbed her hand. I said, you gotta stay next to me. I don't wanna hold your hand. No, you gotta stay next to me. Well, I wanna go over here. She wanted to stay on this side with the cliff. I'm like, no, no, no, you're sitting on this side. So you're holding her hand and she's fighting it the whole time. I'm squeezing that hand so hard. I'm telling you, I knew for a fact that baby ain't going over this cliff right here. Now I understand it was not wise.

I get it, I don't need the email. I get it, it was a dumb choice. I told Katie, but we made it to the waterfall and it was awesome. And when I got there to the waterfall, my daughter, Adeline, she looked at me and she's like, she was so excited. She'd get there, she's playing in the water. She just looks at me. She's like, daddy, I made it, I made it. And I remember sitting there looking at her. going, you didn't do a thing. You would have been over that cliff two miles back. The only way you made it is that you had a good father holding your hand the entire time, making sure you don't fall off that cliff. I want you to be encouraged today. When you feel like there's a cliff that's about to take you under, you have a good father that you just grab his hand and you say, father, lead me out, lead me in victory, lead me to overcome it. So I just want you to close your eyes across our campuses. You're here today and you go, Aaron, I'm struggling. There's a temptation. There's something that's coming after me. I want you to just to do me a favor even in this moment. Come on, just reach a hand up to heaven right now. Just reach a hand up to your good father who's taking your hand, who will always lead you, who will always guide you and say, God, when temptation comes, lead me to an escape. Bring me victory. Bring me victory over this addiction, over this eating disorder, Lord, over this depression. Bring me victory over this insecurity. You are the victorious one. I latch onto you. And in this moment, God, we cry out that we need you more than ever before. In Jesus' name, we pray. Come on, let's lead it, church. Oh, we need you, we need you, we need you. Come on, let's lift our hands and sing, Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, oh, how I need you. You stay the same. You are good in your ways. Jesus, Jesus, oh, how I need you. You are enough on my trust. Let's declare, you are powerful. I believe in you. I believe in you. You do miracles. The impossible. I believe in you.

Just with your eyes closed, let me just encourage you. Joseph, there's a calling on your life. There's destiny that God has for you. The enemy wants to take you out. Choose today. I will be a man or a woman of integrity to live out the calling that God has for my life. Lord, we commit to you that we'll recognize the aharee, that sin comes at a cost. We recognize that we got to use some wisdom to avoid some bad situations. We also recognize, God, that you provide a way out, and we're going to lean on you when times get tough. In Jesus' name, we pray. One last group that's here today at all of our campuses is those who don't have a test. I want you to know you can never overcome sin. You can never overcome addiction on your own. You can't give your way out of it. You can't serve your way out of it. The only way you can do it is surrender. It's like my daughter on that hike. You've just got to surrender. I'm going to follow you. And that's what you have to do with Jesus. And this is your moment right now. You've been trying to do it on your own. God's saying, today's your day. Give your life to Christ. If that's you on the count of three, I want you to wave that hand at me and say, today's my day, Aaron. I'm giving Jesus my life. And watch how he'll save you right there in your seat. All of those, even at the Heights, those in Brandon, those in East St. Pete, I know God's going to speak to some people right now. The Spirit's drawing you. That's you on the count of three. Lift that hand. One, two, three. Come on, raise those hands. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So many people. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I see you over there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Why don't you do this? Why don't we all pray this prayer out loud together, and then our location pastors will come and take over. Say, dear Jesus. Come on. I give you my life. I give you my sin. I give you my shame. Forgive me. Wash me clean. Give me a fresh start. For the rest of my life, I'm going to follow you. Be my Lord and be my Savior. In Jesus' name we pray. And everybody that believes this says, come on, let's celebrate those who just made the best decision ever.