Fix Your Faith | Pastor Earl McClellan

He's trying to remind you sons and daughters of God that you do not have to rely on your strength. This all happened to show that the all surpassing power is from God and not from us. So I can be hard pressed, but I'm not crushing. I can be perplexed. I'm like God, what's the world is going on right here? Why did this happen? But I don't have to be in despair and I will not be in despair. I might be persecuted, but I'm not alone. I'm not abandoned. I might be struck down, but I'm not destroyed. And watch me get up time and time and time again because God is on my side. We're gonna read verses seven, eight, and nine. Some powerful verses here, but we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed, perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not abandoned, struck down, but not destroyed. This will be our text for today. Turn to somebody next to you, say it's gonna be a great day. Come on, tell us it's gonna be a great day. You may be seated, family, you may be seated. When I was growing up, my mom, who's right there?

Look at my mom, mom. Give me a wave, mom, she's running away. Running away, thank you, and a kiss, thank you. I love that lady right there. I love her so much. She's the best. My mom, I'm not gonna say any other jokes after that too. I know you're expecting me to say something else. I'm not going to, so I love her a ton. But I was growing up. My mom, if I had like a little attitude or something, which didn't happen often, 'cause I was basically a perfect child. My siblings were the terrors, but there'll be some times I might have a bad attitude and my mom would say to me, she'd turn to me and she'd go, boy, you better fix your face. Did your mom ever say that to you? You better fix your face. I'm like, oh yes, man, yes, man. And if I didn't, you know, the belt came out. Anybody know about that? If you don't, that's why you're ratchet, okay? (audience laughs) You needed somebody to whoop you behind when you're growing up. No, kidding, I don't endorse that. We, or my mom, the best, fix your face, fix your face. The other day, on the other day, this is a couple of weeks ago, I was driving.

And I was thinking about, man, I had so many different things, you know, on my brain, different things, you know, personally with the family, and then, you know, church, and you know, these new locations that were starting, and just all these different, you know, moving pieces. And I started getting like, oh boy, there's a lot going on, you know, right now. But this is a lot. I can feel myself kind of like wearing it. You ever been here? Ever had more month than you had money? You're like, I'm feeling this. Something like, your job, you start feeling it. So I'm feeling it, and I'm like, this is not good. Feel myself getting a little bit sad, if you will, just a little bit weighed down. And I just heard a little whisper in my heart. Earl, not fix your face. Earl, fix your face. - Earl, fix your face. - Fix your, boy. You better fix your faith. You better get your eyes back on the right thing, which is not on you, and it's not on your problems. You better get your eyes back on the risen Savior, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. You better fix your faith. And the reality is here, I know, I know, to all of our locations, and here in this room online,

I know that we are battling and going through different things in this life. Wearing some really heavy and intense things, maybe some things, nobody else even knows about things that you just got an email or a text about this week or in the last few weeks. But I'm praying after we are done here today, that God has grabbed a hold of all of our hearts, and our faith would be fixed, not on ourselves, but on our risen Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Go with me again to this first second Corinthians, rather. We're gonna dig into this, chapter four, verse number seven. Let's now walk through this some. But we have this treasure. Nobody say treasure. We have this treasure, this treasure. What is this treasure when you're reading through first Corinthians and second Corinthians? The treasure is Jesus. The treasure is this glorious gospel. The treasure is the glory of God. The treasure is like, oh my goodness, can you believe that in Christ's death, burial and resurrection, we're made right with God. It is put in not beautiful, perfect containers. It's put in jars of clay. Anybody remember that Christian ban from back in the day? Okay, jars of clay. Look him up on spotify maybe, jars of clay.

What's he saying here? God has taken something so valuable and put it in something so fragile. That you and I, as gifted as we might be, or as called and anointed and all the things as you might be and as much as your grandma thinks you're the perfect person on the entire planet, you're still a jar of clay. (mumbles) That you can break like I can break. And God said, I'm gonna take my treasure and I'm gonna put it in these jars of clay. Of this past week, I went to a little lunch. Matter of fact, it was yesterday. Went to a lunch with our son Grayson. He's 16, so every month, we go to a Brazilian steakhouse together, okay? So, I mean, this is a very expensive lunch. But, or dinner. But we do this once a month. I just have some time together, you know? Dad's son time, bro time. You know, I have the daddy daughter date, you know, once a month when we go get our nails done. I say, we, Elle. But I might get a little pedicure too every now and then. But Elle, you know, loves the daddy daughter day to go and get her nails done. But Grayson and I, we have our time together and he loves a Brazilian steakhouse.

So, we go to a Brazilian steakhouse and there's a couple different ones we go to and we're there yesterday and we're sitting now and we're, you know, you're just killing, you're just smashing this meat. They're gonna lose money on us today. That's what we're thinking. You're gonna lose money on us. Well, bring it, bring it, bring it, bring it. We are just stuffing ourselves and we're connecting. But after we're done, we brought our Bibles yesterday and we don't usually have our Bibles during this dad's son time. But we had our Bibles yesterday and we opened up to first Corinthians chapter six. You don't have to turn there now. But in first Corinthians chapter six, it says some very, very profound things about our bodies. It says your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit that actually you have in you once you've given your heart and your life to Christ, you have the Holy Spirit. God, the Spirit lives in your body. So we're talking about the idea of if your temple, say your bedroom's your temple. If your bedroom's your temple and then someone came in and took a bunch of trash and just threw it in your bedroom, how would you feel about them throwing trash in your bedroom? You say, no, no, no, the trash is going to my bedroom. The trash goes in the trash.

My bedroom's my temple. So think about the temple, our bodies, being where the Holy Spirit lives. You're like, hey, why are you bringing that trash in here? Now, in the context of first Corinthians chapter six, he's talking about your actually sexual immorality, recognizing that whenever you sin sexually, it actions against your own body. And he's trying to teach us here, your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. But another way, you have this treasure in jars of clay. You have something and someone special on the inside of you, live like it. So keep on going with me here, 'cause I got a lot of verses to go through. To show, this is a second Corinthians chapter four, verse number seven, to show that this also passing power is from God and not from us. We're not gonna spend time on that, though I'd love to. Okay, go verse number eight, nine. We are hard pressed, perplexed, persecuted, struck down. Perplexed, persecuted, struck down. Hard pressed, perplexed, persecuted, struck down. Hard pressed, perplexed, persecuted, struck down. Does this sound like maybe you're last week, or does this sound like maybe you're last year? Does this sound like maybe you're life? Some of us, you feel like you're looking at this. You go, this is how I have felt time and time

and time and time again. I felt hard pressed. I felt perplexed. I felt persecuted. I felt struck down over and over and over again. Now what happens is the Apostle Paul, he kind of gives us a little bit of a fast one because when you read that someone is hard pressed, you might think they're going to be crushed. But he says, instead of what you think might happen does not happen because greater is he that's in me than he that's in the world. So even though I'm hard pressed on every side, guess what? I ain't crushed. Because I'm perplexed, you might think I'd be in despair. I ain't. I said that on purpose. Ain't. You might think that because I'm persecuted, that I'm abandoned, you might think because I'm struck down that I'm destroyed, but I'm not destroyed. I've been struck down many times, but I'm still not destroyed. Look, I'm still here right now. Everything that thought it was going to kill me didn't kill me. I'm still here right now, declaring the goodness and the grace of God in the midst of the situation that I am in.

And God has brought me through so many dangers, toils and snares, but I have already come because the grace of almighty God has carried me, struck down, but not destroyed. Pass me that water bottle over fast, please, Charlie. Okay, empty, full. Hard pressed. Hard pressed. (audience laughs) Hard pressed. (audience chattering) Hard pressed. Hard pressed. Same pressure. Same external thing coming against the same bottle. Nothing in it. Hard pressed. Crushed. Hard pressed. Full of the grace of God. Full of the spirit of God. Full of the goodness of God. Reminding myself, where my joy and my strength comes from. You can press me if you want to. I will not be crushed. This is what the Apostle Paul is saying here. He's trying to remind you, sons and daughters of God, that you do not have to rely on your strength. This all happened to show that the also passing power is from God and not from us.

So I can be hard pressed, but I'm not crushed. I can be perplexed. I'm like, God, what in the world is going on right here? Why does this happen? But I don't have to be in despair, and I will not be in despair. I might be persecuted, but I'm not alone. I'm not abandoned. I might be struck down, but I'm not destroyed. Watch me get up time and time and time again, because God is on my side. Thank you, Charlie. Charlie played golf, he can catch. Look, look, struck down, but not destroyed. Let's go, keep on going with me here. Keep on going with me. Watch this, watch this, watch this, watch this, watch this. Okay, go to chapter four, verse number 16, watch this. Therefore, so we're in the same chapter. Any time you see the word, therefore, you want to look by it, therefore. Ha ha, it kind of helps you know that something was said before it that connects with this thought. Read it later, we don't have time to read between verses nine and verse 16, but you can read it later. Therefore, we do not lose heart. We do not lose heart.

Though outwardly something's happening, we're wasting away, outwardly we're wasting away. Come on, 40 year olds, you know what I'm talking about. Come on, 50 somethings, outwardly, woo, wasting away. Shoot, remember what 30 year olds, you know this too. Remember when you were 20, you could eat whatever you wanted to, and now you're 30, you're like, whoa, what happened? Your body changed, you didn't even know it got you. Boom, got you. Outwardly, we're sagging. Outwardly, wasting away. Outwardly, I got some aches. Outwardly, I got some pains. Outwardly, I might have some wrinkles. Outwardly, I might be limping along. Outwardly, it might look like life is taking me. Outwardly, it looks like I'm struggling a little bit, but just so you know, what you see on the outside is not all that's happening to me. 'Cause inwardly, if you got a picture of what was happening inwardly, I'm being renewed day by day. Every single day, I've got new life flowing through my veins every day. Every day when I wake up, his mercies are new every single morning. Every day when I wake up, and God gives me grace to get another breath in my lungs, it's another opportunity to give him glory, honor,

and place outside, I might look like I'm wasting away, but if you could get a picture of what was happening inwardly, you would see me going from strength to strength, from faith to faith, from hope to hope, from life to life, not because. outwardly I'm wasting away. But inwardly, I'm being renewed day by day. Keep on going with me. Verse 17, "Look, for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory, an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. For our light and momentary troubles." He's like, "I've got troubles. I'm not going to say to you, I don't have any troubles. I've got troubles. I've got troubles with my friends and troubles with my family and troubles in my body. I got a lot of troubles. But if there's a scale, there's a scale. And on one side is my troubles. And on the other side is the eternal glory. In our minds, we always think our troubles outweigh the eternal glory. But the Apostle Paul is saying, "You don't understand it right. Your troubles, no matter what they are, I don't get put whatever name on it you want to put on it. The trouble that you are in, the difficulties that you are in, the things that you and I might be navigating, those troubles never outweigh the eternal glory of God." With a always tip in the eternal glory's favor. So now, I'm looking at this and I read light and momentary. And I'm like, huh, what would he consider light? What would he consider maybe even momentary? And then my brain went to, oh my goodness, we're in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. 2 Corinthians chapter 11, there's a few chapters later, he lists out some of his troubles. Let's go look at him. What he describes as light and momentary, okay? Let's look at these, okay? 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse number 23. You all still with me? Come on, we're just walking through the Bible here, okay? 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 23. Are they servants of Christ? I'm out of my mind to talk like this. You got to pick it up later, read it later this week. You can see we're kind of jumping into the middle of a thought. He's in, I am more. He says, I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. I thought maybe he would stop right there. He does it. Five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one. Three times I was beating with rods. I don't know about y'all, the first time I'm probably done. Your boy had it three times. Three times I was beating with rods. Once I was pelted with stones,

three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea, verse number 26. I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers. I've been in danger from bandits. I've been in danger from my fellow Jews. I've been in danger from Gentiles. I've been in danger in the city. I've been in danger in the country, in danger at sea, and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled, and I've often gone without sleep. I have known hunger and thirst, and I've often gone without food. I have been cold and naked. This is just the stuff that's happening to him on the outside. Now I was going to share some of the emotional things that he's navigating. The teenagers, I need you to hear this because the world will try to tell you if you're following God, you won't have any problems, but that's not Bible. The Bible here is teaching us that there are some light and what he calls light and momentary trials, and these are the things that he calls light and momentary. So now verse number 28, look, besides everything else, I got emotional things, spiritual things, mental things going on. I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches who was weak, and I do not feel weak, who was led in the sin, and I do not inwardly burn. This is what he describes as light and momentary. I don't know about you, if I got car troubles, I'm like the devil's attacking me. Devil, get all my car in the out in what I call heavy and forever and does take me out. This past week, my beautiful wife and I were in London, actually, for a few days together and we went there to speak at a conference and it was, oh, Nika crushed it, by the way, I was so proud. I was like, you go, girl, you go, you go. I spoke to, and nobody cared, which is fine, which is fine, no, she just, I was so, so proud of her. I was like, it was beautiful how God used her. After we got done, though at one of the sessions, we're leaving and a guy stops me, he goes, hey, we've got some friends that go to your church and I'm like, oh, who goes? And then they tell me, their names are like, oh, my goodness, we love that family. This family used to be a part of our Dallas campus, but they're going to be, well, there's kind of still a part of it till we launch Fort Worth, but they just moved to Fort Worth, so they're going to be helping us get the Fort Worth campus off the ground.

Just a wonderful, wonderful family, love them so much, so hospitable, so kind, so generous, all the things. So we, he and I get to talking a little bit and I'm asking, where are you from and what's your story? Because I'm from India, go, oh man, I've been to India. I went there for two months when I was in college, I said, I even know a little Telugu, day when the key, Mahima Kalagunu Gaka, that's a little Telugu flex for you. It means, like, to God be the glory. He's like, oh my gosh, are you serious, this is wild, no way. And we, I find out he's from Hyderabad, he says, I'm from Hyderabad, I go, oh, that's where I went, I went to Hyderabad. He goes, you went to Hyderabad, he goes, when you go to Hyderabad, I go, oh man, this is forever ago. I mean, this is a summer of '94, I went to, I went to Hyderabad, he goes, wait, who'd you go with? Someone with Oral Roberts University, that was a school, I was a part of and I was on summer missions trip, one of the places we went to, so I was there for two months, he goes, you were with Oral Roberts University, the summer of '94, in Hyderabad? They came to my dad's church. I was there when you were there, he goes, I was six and I was like, that's rude, okay? So, that's where he crossed the line, okay? That's when I felt like you're getting disrespectful, okay? No, I said, that's crazy, are you serious? And come to find out, this is him right here, this is him, we took a picture together. This time that I had in India for two months, it was huge in my life. It was actually on this missions trip that God spoke to me about Onika and me asking her out. I still have that journal and I still have those words and matter of fact, God was speaking to me like, hey, this girl kept coming to my mind. I thought it was the devil, I remember going, God, forgive me.

Get the devil out of my brain, this is too much, I'm too saved at this point in time, right? I'm like, get the devil out of here, the Lord's like, fool, this is your wife, it's not the devil, it's me. So I didn't even write Onika's name in the journal, I put that girl, because I don't want somebody to read my journal and know who I was talking about, I put that girl keeps coming to my brain. That's where I got the nudge from the Lord, ask her out. It was over there in India that I actually saw a little girl by the name of Grace. She was so, so beautiful and I really felt like I was supposed to adopt one day and whenever we adopted, we were supposed to name our child Grace. So Grace's son, he was our first adopted child, then L is actually L Grace. It goes back to India, it was there in India that I was able to preach at these crusades and feel like God's presence on me in such a powerful way, I'm 18 years old and I'm feeling like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I won't get into all the details, but I'm asking him, hey, how's it going? How's your family? I remember his dad, I mean all of it, his dad is still going, the church is still moving forward and he is actually now leading one of the campuses of the church that's in Dubai. So he flies each week to Dubai to lead that church and he started telling me someone's like leading a church in Dubai. There's a lot of rules, a lot of things that I couldn't believe that he had to navigate. One of them is if he's sitting at a coffee shop and he begins to share. be deported like that. You don't have that freedom to share about Jesus like that. Somebody can ask you, then you can share your faith, but you can initiate that. They'll kick you out. I won't go down through all the details, but he began to tell me, can you please be praying for the church in India? Because the persecution used to happen primarily in the rural areas. But now it's making its way into the city. It says one of our pastors, of our locations, the authorities showed up, desecrated the building, and began to beat the pastor to death, yelling at him things like, "You accepted the white man's religion." And began

to just take his life. Thankfully, me, my dad, and others, we intervened right there and stopped that beating from happening and thankfully, God turned some things around in a beautiful and a powerful way, but that pastor almost lost his life. He's telling me that in a number of Muslim countries, God is actually showing up in people's dreams and they keep seeing a man in a white robe. Not one time, not two times, multiple times. She says, "If I'm ever talking to someone who might be Muslim, I'll ask him, have you had a dream of a man in a white robe?" If they have, that's my open door to be able to share with them the gospel of Jesus Christ. So God is finding people, even in their dreams. I say all that to say, they're in the midst of all that persecution, still showing up, still serving, still worshiping, still loving God, not throwing in the towel. I'm at another pastor over there. He's pastoring in Kiev. Kiev, if you don't know, is in Ukraine. There's a war going on between Russia and Ukraine right now where this pastor was meeting in Kiev. All the buildings around him have been bombed, not figuratively. Literally, the church has to now meet in a bunker. They are in a bunker and people are showing up Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, lifting their hands in worship to the risen Savior. Listen, no shame or shade for any of us, but let's just do a little compare and contrast if it's raining. Just rain, not a downpour. Matter of fact, I looked on the weather app. It looks like it's going to rain. Some of us are like, "You know what? It's online for me today." No shade to those who are online right now. I loved you. My point is, our threshold of pain and trouble is so low. And we think, "Man, I'm just fighting through it." And yes, there are some things that are real. Do not get me wrong. But there are followers of Jesus that have really gone all in today in the midst of persecution and pain. Look at this. Go back to me to chapter 4. Second Corinthians chapter 4 verse 18. Go back there. I know you in chapter 11. Go back to chapter 4. Look at this. So we, we fix our eyes. We fix our eyes. Not. Not. On what is seen. But on what is unseen. We fix our eyes. Not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. What I tend to do, and I'm just like most of us, is we tend to fix our eyes on what is seen. And we forget about what is unseen. And it's the opposite of what the Bible is telling us to do. No wonder, anxiety and fear in our faith is taking such a beating. It's because we're not even doing the thing that Scripture has taught us to do. So we're taking our eyes and we're fixing it on the struggle. We're taking our eyes and we're

fixing it on the problem. We're taking our eyes and we're fixing it on our spouse who's not doing what we want our spouse to do. We're taking our eyes and we're fixing it on our kids' behavior. We're taking our eyes and we're fixing them on our bank account. We're taking our eyes and we're fixing them on a future that we feel like is up in the air. And no wonder, we're like, "God, where are you? What's going on?" But if you could pause for a moment and fix your faith, not on what is seen, but get your eyes. change your focus, it'll change your faith, it'll strengthen you, it'll empower you because what is, look he says what is seen is temporary, what's unseen, balcony you with me, balcony you with me, what's unseen is eternal, God is working some things in your life right now, you have no idea that he's working and if you look at what you see, you'll be tricked into thinking God is doing nothing, I don't think it's an accident that Jesus walked on the earth during a period of agriculture and you, if you never planted anything, you put something in the ground and it looks like nothing is happening but the seed is working underneath the ground and I need you to know there's something happening in the unseen underneath the ground that is beginning to create something that will grow out of that ground and bring life and hope and strength and this is what God is working on the inside of you right now but the devil will try to tell you that because what is seen does not match your dream that for some reason, God has forgotten you, he has not forgotten you, he is working on some things in a way that you don't know that he's working but if you'll keep your eyes fixed on Jesus the author and the perfecter of your faith for the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its same and sat down at the right hand of God almighty, you have no idea what God is working right now behind the scenes, you have no idea, you have no idea see you have no idea and what scene is trying to lie to you, for some of us the scene is our singleness, we see our singleness and try to tell you there's something wrong with you, there's nothing wrong with you, you're not forgotten by God, a marriage that's like struggling, oh it's gonna be like this forever, no, God is able to turn the darkest, most broken marriages around, I have seen him do it, time and time and time again, mental health is going crazy, I'm gonna be like this forever, what I do know is that the grace of God will carry you in the times when you think it's absolutely impossible, I've seen it so many times family, okay, we gotta get out of here I know, but can I just, I want to read this

last chunk of scripture, it's gonna read it, then I'm gonna focus in on just the last verse because it's such a good verse, so I don't, I don't wanna, I don't wanna end without you seeing this, okay, 2 Corinthians chapter 1, I'm just gonna read it, 2 Corinthians chapter 1, look at that they're all connected, chapter 1 and chapter 4 and chapter 11, all of it, this letter, this story, speaking of the goodness and the faithfulness and the kindness of God, I want you to see how many times the word comfort shows up, I want you to see this, 2 Corinthians chapter 1 beginning in verse number 3, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of not some comfort, come on all comfort, who comforts us, here it is again, in all our troubles, verse number 4, so that we can comfort, there it is again, those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God, keep on going for just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, who also are comfort abounds through Christ, are comfort abounds through Christ, if we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation, if we are comforted, it's for your comfort, but I mean how many times can the guy say this, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer, in our hope for you as firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort, verse number 8, we do not want you to be uninformed brothers and sisters about the troubles we experience in the province of Asia, we are under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure it, so that we despair of life itself, we thought it was going to kill us, indeed we felt we had received the sentence of death, have you ever been here, but this happened that we might not rely on our might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the debt I thought we're going to die and then I realized that God was trying to get me to trust him and that's why I felt that pressure that's why I felt that pain that's why I felt that trouble God was trying to help me remember that I was supposed to rely on him and not rely on my family and not rely on myself and not rely on the school that I went to but I was supposed to rely on him as a matter of fact not only do I need to rely on him I'm reminded that me fearing death he's actually bigger than the thing that I fear the most because he raises the debt and then this our last verse oh I don't have time to do my comfort zone

stuff look at this verse of content he has delivered us look at this has delivered us from such a deadly peril and watch this will deliver us again and watch this on him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us he has delivered us will deliver us again and will continue to deliver us has anyone experienced the goodness of God in your past has anyone seen God carry you has anyone been picked up out of a pit has anyone experienced God pull you up when you thought you were gonna die has anyone else known the grace of God in a moment that you thought this is the end of me and then God did what God always does is he delivers and now the pain that I'm in right now he will deliver me from this and then matter of fact he will continue to do the thing this is what God does all right all right all right have a seat have a seat have a seat I'm done I'm done I'm done we got we got petting zoo I know I know about the petting zoo we're gonna do it we're gonna do the petting zoo we got it we got it I just say I had to make sure we fixed our faith and make sure we fix our faith gotta make sure we fix our faith and your faith is not in your faith your faith is in the finished work of Jesus Christ it's in Jesus our eyes are fixed on Jesus I got my eyes so much on me and stuff around me oh my goodness God help me fix my faith if I can gaze in the majesty and the beauty and the power of he of who he is it adjusts things in my heart and in my life bow your heads if you in mind family by heads if you in mind maybe you need some of this comfort today the good news is the comforter is here holy spirit holy spirit would you comfort it's what you do it's what you do those have been crying tears and maybe feeling all the fears all the difficulties all the trouble around them swirling around them in the name of Jesus comforter be so real right now be so real be so real Jesus become more real to us of the very breath that we breathe we ask that you forgive us for keeping our eyes on ourselves get our eyes off of ourselves Jesus and we want to get our eyes back on you this happened that we might rely on God and not on ourselves because you have the ability to even raise the dead to our hope and our trust is in you let the very spirit of God fill us a fresh and a new God I thank you that you're covering this church

family every man and woman under the sound of my voice is comforted is called is set apart is anointed belongs to you so God as we surrender our hearts to you today capture us open our eyes to who you are we may live our lives for your glory and not for ourselves as your heads are bowed just for a moment maybe under the sound of my voice and you've never given your heart and your life to Christ never made them first you never made them number one never made in the boss of the ruler of your life and you're saying I don't want to go my own way anymore I want to go his way I don't want to be first I want Jesus Christ to be first I'm not asking if you have a Bible I'm not asking if you were baptized as a kid I'm not asking if you were confirmed I'm not asking if your family raised you in church I'm not asking any of those things I'm asking are you a follower of Jesus have you turned have you repented have you turned from going your own way a change of heart a change of mind a change of direction if you haven't this is your moment or maybe there's a time you're following Jesus but you slipped away today you're saying I don't want to go my own way I want to go his way I'm the count of three if that's you you want to give your heart and your life to Christ for the first time I read indicate your life to serving him I just want you to throw your hand in the air and say yes that's me I want to give my heart and Just lift your hand up, you're saying, yup, that's me. That's me, this is beautiful. This is beautiful friends here online. You're saying, yup, that's me. That's me. Don't let somebody sitting next to you, intimidate you from responding to the God who made you. You're saying, yup, that's me. Jesus, you can have my heart. I don't even know all that that means, but I know I want you to have my heart. I want you to have my life.

And I say, I'm gonna do me a favor, put your hand over your heart right now if you would not mind. I want you to repeat this prayer out loud after me. Say, dear Jesus, I asked you to forgive me of all my sins. I admit, I made mistakes. And today, I give you my heart, I give you my life. Give me the power to live for you in Jesus name, amen. Amen. See you back. [BLANK_AUDIO]