Blessed in the Stress Series | Unfollow Fear | Pastor Jeremy DeWeerdt

All right, hello, City First. Thank you so much for being a church today. Keep clapping for everybody at all the locations. Give it up for Cape Coral, Janesville, God behind bars. We love you, Dixon, and we love you, Hardy, and everyone that's joined us on the Pando app and City First Anywhere. We are so glad that you are a part of the City First fam, and we begin a brand new message series. It's a mini message series. It's only gonna be two weeks, but very important, and we are calling it Blessed in the Stress. Blessed in the Stress. Actually, it was about a year ago at Easter, we did surveys of everybody that came, and we said, hey, what are some topics that you would like us to talk about that maybe right now are relevant to where you and your family or friends are at? And the two topics I'm gonna talk about this weekend and next weekend were actually in the top four of what people wanted us to discuss. And so we're talking about this week, anxiety, and next week, we're gonna talk about worry. Now, I will tell you that both of these kind of, in a sense, mindsets are on the rise right now in our culture. You probably have heard a lot of talk about anxiety or worry or fear.

You've maybe even talked with your family or friends about it. Maybe you personally experienced anxiety. And we've read the stats, and I would just say this. All of us need to probably acknowledge the fact that right now, there's a lot going on in our world that can create anxiety. Can I get a big amen on that, right? We may have talked about them already, but these two things are still kind of hanging around even ever since COVID. And so we wanna talk today about anxiety and what the Bible has to say about anxiety. Next week, I will talk about worry. I'll talk about worry. Okay, so here's the thing. We have a war going on in Iran right now. We have an economy that can be somewhat challenging, a little bit of inflation and such like that. Our culture seems more polarized than ever before, at least in recent history. I was even reading about AI, and I'm a fan of AI. I'm not anti-AI, but I think AI is gonna have some dark sides and some downturns. In fact, I was reading an article in Forbes Magazine last month, and they said this, that the author said, the best guess, best case scenario is in the next five years, 50% of all white-collar entry-level jobs will be eliminated because of AI. This is creating a little bit of anxiety,

especially for some college students. We also have our own personal challenges, right? And we have whatever personal battles we're going through. Maybe it's a health battle. Maybe it's a job or a financial stress. Maybe it's a relationship stress. Maybe it's in your marriage or dating or your friendships, or maybe your relationships at work. Maybe it's raising kids. All the things, right? All the things. And those things weigh heavy on our hearts and on our minds and on our souls, and many times, the result is anxiety. Back in 2001, a long time ago, I was a youth pastor here at the church, and I recently had been promoted, you could say, and now, all of a sudden, I wasn't just kind of running what I was running, but actually, my job description almost doubled, and at this point, I became the leader of the entire youth group, as well as our leadership college. My staff that I was managing doubled in numbers overnight, and on top of that, the very weekend that all of this happened was also the weekend that our second son, Connor, was born, and for those of you that have multiple kids, you know this, that when you go from one kid to two kids, it's not addition, it's multiplication, right?

And so, that was creating stress, and also, the church here was in an interesting season. There wasn't necessarily a lead pastor. It was in between lead pastors, and so, it was kind of in a funky season, and then, Jen and I are young. We had been married about maybe six years or so, and we're trying to parent, and we're trying to lead ministries, and we're trying to stay sane, and I remember one night, we were in our little home, and we were watching TV, and we were watching an old show, some of you remember this show, called ER. Anybody remember ER? And we liked ER, and we watched it. For those of you that maybe you're too young to remember ER, it's basically about a staff that works in an emergency room of a hospital, and it is written, so it's 24-7 crazy. People are coming in and they're injured and they're missing their heads. And I mean, like all the things that everybody's like, ah, you know? And so it's kind of like an intense show and stuff. And I remember I was watching and sitting on the couch with Jen and all of a sudden I couldn't breathe. I literally couldn't breathe. And the room started to kind of close in on me. Never had this happen before in my entire life.

And all of a sudden it was like I felt claustrophobic and I didn't deal with claustrophobia. And panic started, best thing I can say is it started here. I don't know, but it just radiated throughout my body. And I looked at Jen and I was like, turn the TV off. And she's like, why? And I'm like, just turn it off, turn it off. I don't know why, but for some reason I feel like I'm gonna die. Like literally I was having trouble breathing and for the very first time in my life at the age of 32 years old, I experienced my very first panic attack. Now I didn't know what it was at the time. And quite honestly, I didn't even understand it because I didn't feel like I was a candidate for panic attacks. Like I've always been a type A leader, always been kind of a driven individual, always been the kind of person that's like, take the mountain, you know, no fear, take risks. That's been my life. And yet all of a sudden I'm sitting in my living room and I feel like I was suffocating, literally suffocating. And this was kind of like not my first rodeo of having my job expand or more weight or having to lead more people. I've carried pressure in my career literally since I was 23 day one. I've been out over my skis since day one, trust me.

Like the Lord has always put me in situations that I was not ready for. So even though I was kind of leveling up, you could say in my responsibility, it was different this time. The weight, the pressure, the expectation, the responsibility, I don't know, but it was silently doing something inside of me that I was unaware of in that moment, that night watching that show, it broke. And I internally started to spiral into panic. And I started having over the next season multiple panic attacks. And I remember thinking to myself, I'm thinking, am I going crazy here? Like, what is going on? Like, this is not me. And they would just come out of nowhere. I might be like sitting in my office or laying in bed at night and the room would close in. And some of you, as I'm describing this, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You've experienced something like that too. And over the next year, I had to figure out what was going on. And honestly, let me just tell you, the solution is not what culture many times says, about attacking anxiety. Culture says, find a life that's safer and easier. Actually, over the next year of my life,

my life became more complex. It became heavier. The responsibility became greater. My life did not become easier, but I figured out how to unfollow fear, which is the title of my message today, and how to attack anxiety. Didn't mean that it went away forever. Doesn't mean there aren't still times that I deal with fear. But my point is this, is that I found a way out through God's word and through the help of some other people. And I wanna communicate that with you today. In fact, I'm gonna get in a moment here, kind of really analytical. For those of you that are dealing with fear or anxiety, take notes today. Get on our app, all right? Get out your smartphone and take pictures of the points that I'm going to say. I will also say, if you're not dealing with anxiety, do that also because you probably know somebody who is dealing with it. And you can help them. Stress-related ailments right now in America are costing our nation $300 billion, with a B, billion dollars every year in medical bills and lost productivity. It's a thing. In fact, one psychologist said that his report,

the average high school student right now in America has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950s in America. So life is heavy. And some of you are like going, is it heavy? Have you seen the news? I mean, have you seen what's going on, right? People are exhausted before they even get out of bed. They've been wrestling all night in their fear, anxiety, thoughts, not being able to sleep. And anxiety has become so common in our culture, especially post-COVID and that whole era that was super fun, right? That you know what? It's become so common that a lot of people think this is the way life is, it's now normal. Well, today I wanna offer you a different vision for your life. I wanna offer you a scriptural vision. And I wanna start with what the Apostle Paul writes in the New Testament in the book called Philippians. And the Philippian church was under some pressure. And this is what he says. He says this, don't worry about anything. Okay, that's really easy for you to say, Paul, right? But if you study Paul's life, actually, he had a lot to worry about and he was carrying a lot of weight. So don't think this is coming from a lightweight.

This is coming from like a literally of that day, a global leader of the church, all right? And he says this, don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. Paul is not denying that life has pressure, all right? It is, I mean, there's gonna be anxiety. What he's saying is he's not allowing anxiety to become the controlling narrative of his life. Here's the reality, feelings and feeling anxiety is human. It's human. Living imprisoned by anxiety is optional. And so today, I wanna give you guys a key to unlock the prison that some of you are in right now. And the Bible says this in Psalms 37. It says, do not fret. Now, it's an old-fashioned word for fear. Do not fret, it only causes harm. So let's talk about how to keep anxiety at bay. And I use those words very specifically. I said keep anxiety at bay. I didn't say eliminate anxiety. Because here's the reason why. We live in a hopelessly broken world and there are gonna be times that fear starts to attack us. It's gonna happen. It will happen in life where fear rears its ugly head and anxiety becomes the symptom. It's gonna happen.

So how do you keep it at bay? Here's what I know. The kingdom of heaven works on the principle of faith. The kingdom of hell works on the principle of fear. So whenever we experience fear, we know the enemy's meddling. Let me also be clear before I get into these practical points. I am not saying that anxiety is gonna disappear from your life with one sermon or one prayer. You hear that? For most people, including myself, it was a journey. So here are some very practical biblical ideas when it comes to fear. Number one, redirect your focus. Redirect your focus. When anxiety begins to rise, our natural response many times is to focus on whatever that fear or that situation is. We start to analyze it. We obsess over it. We replay it. We magnify it. We think worst case scenarios. But here's the problem. The more attention that we give fear, the larger it appears and the more energy it has. We fixate on either building or tearing down our faith by what we focus on. Jesus illustrated this with a very famous story.

Even those of you, maybe it's your first time at church, you might have heard this story about Jesus. The disciples are out in a boat in the Sea of Galilee, trying to cross the Sea of Galilee at 3 a.m. in the morning. And a storm whips up and the waves are crashing and the water's spilling into the boat and they're bailing water and they're trying not to drown. And all of a sudden, Jesus comes walking on the water at 3 a.m. in the morning. They think he's a ghost. And he answers back and he says, it is me. It is Jesus. And then Peter says this, this is very interesting, Matthew chapter 14. Peter answered, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. Jesus said, come. To which Peter probably thought, why did I say that? So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water. Whoa, whoa. Peter got out of the boat and he walked on the water. Miraculous. Like it's a miracle. Jesus is doing a miracle here. Peter actually walks on the water and came to Jesus. Now listen, but when he saw the wind, in other words, when he saw the result of the wind. and the waves, the crashing, the swirl. When he saw the storm, what happened?

He was afraid and he began to sink and cried out, Lord, save me. Listen, Peter was actually walking on the water while he kept his eyes on Jesus. The minute that his eyes came off of Jesus and he noticed and fixated on the storm, that's when he began to sink. And in the same way with you and I, when we fixate on the storm, which is so easy to do, it's human, when we do that, we begin to feel like we're sinking and we're drowning in whatever it is that we are facing. But when we keep our eyes on Jesus, God gives us the ability to overcome and to be able to shift our attention from the storm to the Savior. The environment didn't change, do you hear that? The environment hadn't changed. The storm was still there. Peter's focus changed. Many of us today, we feel like we're sinking. We're sinking in all the things, right? And it isn't that the storm isn't real. What you are in right now is a storm. It's not a figment of your imagination. The problem is that our eyes are locked on the storm when they should be locked on our Savior. Faith doesn't deny reality. Faith chooses where to look for Jesus in the middle of that reality.

And you can give that a huge round of applause, right? It's not easy to do, friends. I'm not trying to make it sound like this is a cakewalk. It's not, it's something I had to learn. And it's something I had to really concentrate my senses on. Instead of rehearsing the problem over and over and over again, begin to declare the truth. The truth is that God has been faithful. He's been faithful to you before. He'll be faithful again. God is in the middle of your situation. He's not forgotten you. He's not MIA. He's not asleep at the wheel. And God knows how to make a way where there seems like there is no way. Fear grows when we stare at the storm. Faith grows when we stare at the Savior. The second thing is this. Examine your inner world. These next few thoughts, I'm talking about what's going on in here, what's going on in between your eyes. Most people assume that the source of anxiety is their circumstances. And I would say this, those are triggers, but many times the real battle is what's happening inside of our minds. The psalmist in the Old Testament said it this way.

Search me, O God, and know my heart and reveal my anxious thoughts. What the psalmist is saying, I don't even know if I understand all what's going on inside of me. Reveal it. That's a dangerous prayer. God, don't reveal what's going on in my circumstances. Reveal what's going on in my soul. That's a, but that's the problem. See, the issue is many times anxiety is just an indicator of what is going on inside. And many times it's what we are feeding into our minds. So we gotta watch our intake. It's another thought underneath managing your heart and your soul and your mind. Watch your intake. What are you filling your mind with every single day? Is it all the things happening around the world? You know, one of the reasons why I think we have so much anxiety in our culture is because of those little smartphones that now we know everything going on. Like, we used to kind of have an ignorant bliss in culture. We didn't know what was happening all the time on the other side of the world. Now we know about this specific tragedy that happened 20,000 miles away from us. That's an over-exaggeration. But you know what I mean?

You know, and now it's like, we're like, wow. Well, if that happened to that person over there on the other side of the world, that can happen to me. Negative conversations. We find ourselves with people with a lot of negativity or social comparison on social media or worst case scenarios we play out in our minds. I'm an expert at worst case scenarios. Like Jen can tell you. Like, I think it's the dark side of my strength. My strength is I'm a leader. The dark side of it is I can tell you where all the problems are gonna be probably, you know? And here's the thing. Whatever fills our mind eventually shapes our emotions. That was worth your morning, by the way. That point right there. Whatever fills your mind is what shapes your emotions. So garbage in, garbage out. What are you taking in? Also another thing when it comes to mind management, check the imbalance. Many times we give more weight to our fear than our faith. We put enormous. importance on things that probably won't even matter a year from now or won't even remember it. The opinion of your classmate, that conversation with your co-worker, that situation that you're going through in life, maybe a year from now you're not even going to remember it. But right now you're putting tons of weight on that and make it's very heavy. Temporary problems, imagined outcomes, when we give greater weight to God's promises, those perspectives right now begin to turn to faith rather than fear. The goal is not that we try to control every situation. Some of

us are control freaks in here, we can't do it. You cannot control everything, but I tell you what you can do, you can guard the condition of your spirit. So another thing we got to do when it comes to managing our mind is that we seek integrity. This is for some people in the room, maybe not everybody, but sometimes anxiety grows when life becomes divided. What I mean by that is we're one person in public at work and we're a totally different person at home and we're a different person online. And that kind of fragmentation becomes exhausting over time and it creates anxiety because you're trying to spin all the plates. You're trying to make sure that the people that know you this way don't find out about this you. And you start feeling all this anxiety. And so I would say understanding peace thrives in honesty. It's being honest with yourself, honest primarily before God, and honest with significant others. Our life, when it aligns, all of a sudden our soul can find rest. Even when James says to confess our sins and our shortcomings to one another, that's that honesty moment. Because anxiety many times is present because duplicity is present. James said a double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. We just studied him in the last series. Another thing, this is a big one for some of us, practice isolation in moderation. Some of us, we're just alone too much. We're alone too much. We're alone in our thoughts. We're alone, maybe even physically, in not wanting to hang around others. And we say, well, I'm an introvert. And that kind of personality is an indicator, not a dictator. In the same way that I would look at someone who's extroverted and say, that's an indicator of your personality, that should not dictate who you are in your life. Some of us, we need to join a life group. You're afraid to join a life group. You need to do it because it's good for your soul. Some of us, we need to get out of, you know, from behind the computer or the screen and actually go and have coffee with somebody because again, it's good for our soul. Too much aloneness is detrimental. That's why solitary confinement is punishing in prisons. When you're alone too much, it's punishing. The enemy loves to convince you in your aloneness that you are the only one struggling. And I will tell you that healing often comes when you understand I am not alone in this. In fact, as a pastor, can I tell you this? Because people tend to confide in me. They tend to be honest with me from time to time, not always. But there's a lot of people struggling and a lot of people that are alone. And you are not alone in what you're struggling in. In fact, I could take a ping pong ball and throw it in the room and I guarantee I'll hit somebody that's probably struggling with what you're struggling with. So we need to get around other people

to help each other become whole. Number three, view anxiety as a signal, not a life sentence. This is where I'm going to depart from cultural thought a little bit here, which I believe my view is based upon scripture. And that is this, is that your anxiety does not have to be your companion for the rest of your life. It is not your identity. It is something that you are struggling with now, but that God will help you overcome later. Usually we treat anxiety like an enemy. And this is what I want us to look at. Sometimes anxiety is actually a signal that something deeper needs attention. It's a symptom. It's not the root problem. It's kind of like, you know, the dashboard on your car. Some of you are driving your life like you're driving your car. All right. All the idiot lights are on. And you're like, I know that big engine light came on, but it's okay. I'll just keep driving that little oil light. That's all right. I can go another 10,000 miles. And some of us were ignoring. The lights on our dashboard. Anxiety is just a light on your dashboard. It means you need to pop the hood and see what's going on underneath. The problem is many times we pretend that it's not there. We're just driving, oh, I'm great, I'm fine. No, no, honesty. In fact, admitting I feel anxious right now. Something inside of me under the hood needs attention. And we could ask better questions like why did that situation at work today trigger such a strong reaction? Why did that happen? God, help me understand that. Why is fear, what is that fear underneath this feeling that I'm feeling right now? I'm feeling X, Y, and Z. Well, what's the core fear here? Or what truth do I need to tell myself

to combat the lie that I'm believing right now? See, these are helpful questions because growth rarely happens when you suppress emotions or reality. Growth happens when we process those realities before God and with his people. Number four, reimagine the future. This is more than just like, you know, Pollyanna kind of thinking, all right? Our minds are very powerful. And this is so important. This would be the second probably reason you're here today. The first one I talked about that your emotions kind of frame, you know, your present. But here, this is another one. The pictures we carry about the future often shape the way we experience the present. So how you are envisioning what's going on now and in your future many times dictates how you think about what you're really going through. It in a sense builds your reality. And we constantly imagine disaster and we constantly imagine a worst case scenario, then we begin to live that way now. But when we allow God's promises to shape our imaginations, hope and faith actually begins to grow. Paul writes this in the next verse, Philippians 4.8. He says, now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts. Can we all say that together on the count of three?

Ready? I didn't count to three, did I? I do that all the time. You're like going, no fair. It was a test. No, I'm just kidding. One, two, three, fix your thoughts. Fix your thoughts on what is true, what is honorable, what is right, what's pure, what's lovely, what's admirable. Think on things that are excellent and worthy of praise. This is a choice. Your mind left up to its own is always gonna go pathological. It's always gonna drift to worst case scenarios. Your brain is gonna drift into the ditch. You gotta put up guardrails of the word of God to keep your mind and your thoughts fixed on the right things. Fixed is a little bit of a double entendre. Fixed means that some of you need to literally like fix your thinking. Like take the spiritual wrench and fix your thinking. Some of us in here, we need to fix our thinking, which means that we focus. We focus on the right things, right? This isn't denial. This is really kind of a spiritual training of your mind. Instead of imagining the worst case scenarios, you imagine what God is doing. Imagine breakthrough.

Imagine healing. Imagine a future where you are free from whatever it is that you are battling right now, and you realize that God can carry you through it. Let me give you a great example of this. This is gonna blow your mind, all right? Imagine right now, think of what it was that you have battled in your life, and it could have been recent, it could have been 10 years ago. Something you thought was gonna take you out. What was it? You thought it was gonna take you out. Maybe it was a breakup of a person you really loved. Maybe it was a situation that your career took a hard left and you didn't expect it. Maybe it was a sickness. I don't know what it was, but whatever it was, it was gonna take you out. Now, here, ready? I have a truth for you. You're still here. Now, I know you're like going, give me more. No, no, no, no, that's it, all right? You thought you were done, and you're still here. You thought it was gonna take you out, and yet, here you are. Okay, okay. That means God has carried you to this point. Now, some of you might still be battling whatever it is,

but listen, the fact that you're here means that the lie that the enemy tried to sell you, that you are gone and you are dead. dead and it was all over. It's a lie, you're still here. You're still here. Some of you are like, wow, I never thought about that before. Yeah, because a year ago, five years ago, five minutes ago, I don't know. Whatever it was you thought was gonna take you out and yet God has brought you through it to where you're at today and he'll continue to do that. Last point, last point and I left it, the most important one I left towards the end because I wanted you to remember it. Okay, I didn't put it at the beginning because you might forget it. But the last point is this, is that in your anxiety and your fear, worship and pray. This sounds churchy, it's not, it's revolutionary. I know you expect me to say it because I'm a pastor. I'm not saying it because I'm a pastor, I'm saying it because it works. Prayer and worship, worship and prayer. Paul says it this way, he says, rejoice in the Lord sometimes. No, rejoice in the Lord always. And then he says this, I will say it again, rejoice. In ancient literature, if an author was repeating something,

it meant that it took like utmost importance. So Paul is telling the Philippian church, hey, listen, rejoice always, even under pressure, even under attack, even under all of the stuff that the enemy is trying to do, the fear that surrounds. Rejoice always, worship always and again I say, rejoice. Sometimes you worship because you had a victory, sometimes you worship because you need a victory. All right, so here's the thing, worship. In the morning, when you get up and you're like, I'm gonna drive in my car to work or school or whatever, do this, put on a worship song. Yeah, I'm not against other music, I'm against some of the other music, but not all of the music. But maybe the first thing out of the chute, what you need is you need heaven to get in your soul. You need to worship God. You worship if you've had a victory, you worship if you need one. And then prayer, prayer is declaring who God is and what he will do. And I would say this, pray the scriptures and declare his truth over your situation. I'm gonna tell you how right now in the next 60 seconds. Psalm 27, here's a verse, pray the scriptures. The Lord is my light and my salvation, so why should I be afraid? Lord, you are my light, you are my salvation. I am not gonna be afraid.

You are my fortress and so therefore you are protecting me. I have the God of the universe that is protecting me, so why should I tremble? You see how I just prayed that verse? I personalized it. Psalm 23, very famous psalm, you've heard it before. Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid. What I'm walking through, God, right now, I am not gonna be afraid. You know why? You have not abandoned me, you are close. You are beside me. Your rod and your staff will protect me and you will give me comfort. Psalm 46, God, you are my refuge and my strength. You are always ready to help. You're not a thousand miles away sitting on some cloud somewhere with a white beard. No, you are with me, you are ready to help me, always ready in my time of trouble. Psalm 91, Lord, your faithful promises are my armor and my protection. I stand on your word, God. I don't stand on cultural thought or even my own thought. I stand on the word of God and declare that true over my circumstance right now. Psalm 57, I will hide beneath the shadow of your wings until the danger passes by, which means I'm just passing through this season.

God, I'm gonna cry out to you, you are the most high and even in this season that I'm battling and I don't like it, I hate it, you will fulfill your purpose in me. You will send from heaven rescue. You will be my rescue. Psalm 16, last one, I will keep my eyes on you in the middle of the storm. You are right by my side. I will not be shaken. I will not be shaken. See, I took those verses and I made them into prayers. Find a verse that corresponds with the battle you're going through, the fear that you are facing right now and you begin to pray that scripture over and over and over again, declaring the word of God and his truth over your circumstance. For some of us, we need to unfollow. fear. On social media, you might have unfollowed some people. That's great. We probably do need to unfollow some people. But I will tell you, today, City First, is our day that we unfollow fear. Fear keeps on showing up in our feed. Fear keeps on giving messaging that creates anxiety. Fear is trying to paint a dark future. And it's time to hit that unfollow button. And say, I'm no longer going to do it by applying these truths. Today, take these truths with you into your workplace, into your school, into your neighborhood, into your family, into the situations you're in right now. And say, God, I'm going to stand on your word, and I'm going to unfollow fear. Heavenly Father, I thank you. You've not given us a spirit of fear, the Bible says. But power, love, and a sound mind. I pray soundness of mind right now for us. Lord, some of us in the room, anxiety has made us feel a little crazy. God, today, we have a hope that you will help

us overcome that, and we will have soundness of mind. May our thoughts be fixed. If our thoughts are broken, Holy Spirit, fix them. Lord, if our thoughts are attached to the wrong things, help us to focus on the right things. Lord, thank you that you're with us, that you care for us. Even when the world is crazy, we could have peace that passes all understanding. Why? Because our trust is in you. We love you. In Jesus' name, and everybody said, amen. Come on, let's give God a huge round of applause. Well, what an amazing message from Pastor Jamie. I just want to quickly speak to some of you who may have listened to today's message. You're like, man, I need a relationship with Jesus. I don't want to live by anxiety or fear or worry. I want the peace and the hope and the joy that comes with a relationship with God. And if that's you, I just want to encourage you, repeat this prayer after me. We're going to take some time and repeat this prayer so you can accept Jesus into your heart. So repeat this prayer, please. Say, dear Lord, I know that I've made mistakes and need your forgiveness. I believe that you died for my sins. I now invite you to be the leader and forgiver of my life. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. And if you made that decision, that is the best decision you will ever make in your entire life. And we want to come alongside you as a church family, just to encourage you to do a few things. First off, tell someone, whether it's dropping it in the chat, clicking that button that says you made that decision, or telling a family friend or a coworker, someone, because that is a decision worth celebrating. And the second thing we want to encourage you to do is to scan that QR code and download our new beginnings resource. It's actually a 14-day devotional specifically designed to help answer the questions of what does a relationship with Jesus look like now? And I also encourage you to keep coming back to church. It's going to be an amazing time. That's right. And the next step that you can take is signing up to participate in GrowthTrack. GrowthTrack is a four-week course that we have here at City First Church, and it's going to help you discover your God-given purpose, lean into your faith and what that means, even the decision that you just made today. And it's an incredible thing to learn more about the church and learn more about yourself. And so you can do that by visiting our app or signing up on the website as well. Yes. And if you need a prayer for anything, church family, make sure to download the City First Church app, where you can be praying over others and you can post your prayer requests that people in our church are praying for. And it's going to be an amazing time. And so we encourage you to do that if you need prayer for anything. That's right.

And it has been an incredible day. Again, we are so excited that you have joined us. If you know somebody that needs to hear this message, share it with them. We encourage you to do that so they can receive hope, joy and peace this week. But otherwise, it has been incredible being with you. We hope you have an amazing day and we will see you next time.