“Grow Up” | Pastor Chris Hodges

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♪ Oh, when darkness tries to roll over my bones ♪ ♪ And when sorrow tries to steal the joy I hold ♪ ♪ Oh, when brokenness and pain is all I know ♪ ♪ Oh, I won't be shaken, yeah, I won't be shaken ♪ ♪ So we say, my fear doesn't stand a chance when I'm standing in your love ♪ ♪ My fear, it doesn't stand a chance when I'm standing in your love ♪ ♪ My fear doesn't stand a chance when I'm standing in your love ♪ ♪ Standing in your love ♪ ♪ And we sing, oh Jesus, our savior, our healer, oh ♪ ♪ And we sing, sing, you sing no one has a place to hide, yeah ♪ ♪ For I am not a captive to the lies, not afraid, oh, I'm not afraid ♪ ♪ To leave my past behind, oh, I won't be shaken, I won't be shaken ♪ ♪ Cause my fear doesn't stand a chance when I'm standing in your love ♪ ♪ My fear doesn't stand a chance when I'm standing in your love ♪ ♪ My fear doesn't stand a chance when I'm standing in your love, oh, Jesus, oh ♪ Oh, we're standing on His goodness, on His praise, yeah. Oh, come on church, we sing this power. ♪ This power that can break off every chain, don't you know ♪ ♪ That there's power that can empty out a grave, yeah ♪ ♪ There's resurrection power that can save, there's power in your name, yeah ♪ ♪ Oh, let your faith rise up today and say ♪ ♪ There's power that can break off every chain, there's power, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Yeah, there's power, working power, there's resurrection power that can save, there's power in your name, oh, power in your name we sing my fear ♪ ♪ My fear doesn't stand a chance when I'm standing in your love, oh, Jesus, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ My fear doesn't stand a chance when I'm standing in your love, my fear doesn't stand a chance when I'm standing in your love ♪ ♪ We believe, we believe today, my fear God, my fear doesn't stand a chance when I'm standing in your love, my fear doesn't stand a chance when I'm standing in your love, my fear doesn't stand a chance when I'm standing in your love, Jesus ♪ We believe, we believe Jesus Yeah, can we just give Him praise today Oh we turn our eyes on you Jesus, we put our faith and hope in you Jesus Oh, cause Christ alone, He's the cornerstone, and the weak that made strong, and the saviour's love, and through the storm, He is Lord, Lord of all

Come on church, one more time, can we just declare that out in faith today, we say He is Christ alone, He is cornerstone, and the weak that made strong, and the saviour's love, and through every storm, He is Lord, He is Lord of all Yes you are, yes you are, Jesus Come on, aren't you thankful for the love of Jesus in this place today? You know, his love, it covers us. His word says, you know, that's the starting place that we have in worship is that confidence that we have that we have in Christ Jesus. You know, we're not worshiping, we're not worshiping because we're trying to get something from God because he's already given it to us. It's that confidence. We're not worshiping because we want to be forgiven. He's already forgiven us if we're believers in Jesus. And so in this room, we fill this, this place with songs of thankfulness, songs of gratefulness, our testimonies, because we know that Jesus Christ has overcome, amen. And so if we can, just in this place, just in an attitude of worship, can we just give with our mouths, just give thanks to God. You know, sometimes if, if we don't even have any, any words to say, we can just say, thank you. Thank you for today. So Lord, I just thank you, Lord, I thank you for my family, God, I thank you for every good and perfect gift in my life. Lord, I thank you that you're faithful. I thank you that your faithfulness has, has proven itself, that you have proven to be a God with me. So Lord, I praise you. Thank you. Yes, Lord, we thank you in this place. Yes, we thank you, Jesus. Sing that, Christ alone. Christ alone, cornerstone, weak made strong.

In the Savior's love, through the storm. He is Lord, Lord of all. Yes, you're the Lord of all. You're the Lord of all. How we love you, we love you. And I could sing your name for all my life. And still find more to love each time. Jesus be the name ever on my lips. It's sweeter every time that I call alone. There's just something about your name. There's just something about your name. There's just something about your name that makes me cry holy. There is no other name. There is no other name. There is no other name. Jesus, you're worthy. You have been a friend who never left. I won't forget your faithfulness. Jesus be the name ever on my lips. It's sweeter every time that I call alone. There's just something about your name. There's just something about your name. There's just something about your name that makes me cry holy. There is no other name. There is no other name. There is no other name. Jesus, there's something, there's something. There's just something about your name. There's just something about your name. There's just something about your name that makes me cry holy.

There is no other name. There is no other name. There is no other name. Jesus. ♪ Jesus, you are the way, oh my God, yes you are ♪ ♪ Yes you are, so lovely Jesus, oh you are ♪ ♪ Yeah, and Jesus, your name is light in the morning light ♪ ♪ The one the darkness can't deny, the resurrection and the life ♪ ♪ Jesus, Jesus, your name can save, your name can heal, your name can make the storm be still ♪ ♪ You've never failed, you live well, Jesus ♪ ♪ Jesus, the bread of life broken for us, the one feelin' the world in one, the first, the last and still to come ♪ ♪ Jesus, Jesus, you are the way, oh my God, yes you are ♪ ♪ Yeah, and Jesus, you are your name, is the way, oh my God, is the way, your nature is the way ♪ ♪ Oh, the well, the grave, the love, the well, forever reign, the name above all other names, Jesus ♪ ♪ Jesus be the name, Jesus be the name, Jesus be the name, and give us all the glory ♪ ♪ Jesus be the name, Jesus be the name, Jesus be the name, and give us all the glory ♪ ♪ Jesus be the name, Jesus be the name, Jesus be the name, and give us all the glory ♪ ♪ Jesus be the name, Jesus be the name, Jesus be the name, and give us all the glory ♪ ♪ Oh, like it's all Supreme Lord need it. Oh, oh, oh, whoa-oh, oh, oh, oh, Jesus. Oh, oh, oh, oh, whoa-oh, oh, oh, oh, Jesus. Oh, oh, oh, oh, whoa-oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Jesus. Jesus be the name. Jesus be the name. Jesus be the name. His gifts all the glory, oh oh, oh, oh, Jesus be the name. Jesus be the name. Jesus be the name. His gifts all the glory, oh oh, oh, Jesus be the name. Jesus be the name. Jesus be the name. His gifts all the glory, oh oh, oh, Jesus be the name. Jesus be the name. His gifts all the glory, oh oh, oh, Jesus be the name. All the glory, all the glory, is yours, is yours, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus be the name. His gifts all the glory, oh oh, oh, Jesus be the name. Jesus be the name. Jesus be the name. His gifts all the glory. Your cross, my freedom. Your stripes, my healing. All praise, King Jesus. ♪ Jesus, glory to God in heaven ♪ ♪ Your blood still speaking ♪ ♪ Your love still reaching ♪ ♪ All praise King Jesus ♪ Come on, let's sing it out.

♪ Your cross, my freedom ♪ ♪ Your stripes, my healing ♪ ♪ All praise King Jesus, glory to God in heaven ♪ ♪ Your blood still speaking ♪ ♪ Your love still reaching ♪ ♪ All praise King Jesus, glory to God forever ♪ ♪ Glory to God forever, glory to God forever ♪ All praise to you Lord, glory to God forever. The highest praise to you Lord, the highest praise. ♪ Glory to God forever, glory to God forever ♪ ♪ Forever ♪ ♪ Your cross, my freedom ♪ ♪ Your stripes, my healing ♪ ♪ All praise King Jesus, glory to God in heaven ♪ ♪ Your blood still speaking ♪ ♪ Your love still reaching ♪ All praise King Jesus, glory to God forever. Your cross, my freedom. Your stripes, my healing. All praise King Jesus, glory to God in heaven. Your blood is still speaking. Your love is still reaching. All praise King Jesus, glory to God forever. All praise King Jesus, glory to God forever. All praise King Jesus, all praise King Jesus, all praise King Jesus, all praise King Jesus, glory to God forever. Yes we praise you Lord. Oh come on, give Him glory in the house. Praise you Jesus.

You can do better than that. Come on, King Jesus, He's worthy of our highest praise today. Oh, we praise you Lord. I'm even glad you came to church today. You know, here's what can happen throughout your week is that your eyes can get more and more on yourself. And the way to find peace and strength and hope and all those things is not getting your eyes more on you, it's getting them more on Jesus. It's Hebrews that said, we fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith. Because what is in front of you may look great, but you need to be reminded your God is greater. Psalm 145, I was reading this morning, it said, His greatness, none can fathom. The greatness of God, none of us can fathom. You know, He's great in what He does. He's great in how He does it. He's great in when He does it. He's great in the method. He's great in every way, but I want to remind somebody today too, that He's greater than. That He's greater than what you're walking through. And I don't know what you came in with today, but I know for some of us behind the smile, maybe some pain. Behind the face we put on to walk in today, maybe some weight.

And I just want to remind you, your God is greater than. He's greater than the sickness. He's greater than the pressure. He's greater than the strain. Come on, He's greater today. He's greater than the press, the weight that you're carrying, the tears that you cried. I just want that to get into your soul. He is greater than. His greatness, none of us can fathom. So if you think you begin to think about His greatness, you haven't even scratched the surface of how great our God is. And not only is He great, but He's personal. He's not great and a far off. He's great and He's close. And the Bible says that when we draw near to Him, He draws near to us. And so if you need His greatness close, just in this time together, just draw near to Him. Take a step towards Him. You know what He does? He said, I draw near to you. Can we pray together? Father, we're so grateful today that we serve a great God. Your word says great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. Thank you that you're great in your ways. You're great in your love.

You're great in your compassion. You're great in mercy and everything that you are, you are great. So we honor your name today above every name. I pray for anyone here today, Lord, that just carrying the weight of life and it looks so many different ways. I pray that right now, just the peace of God, their eyes would get a picture of the greatness of God and that strength would come into their soul, that joy, peace, hope, whatever they're in need of today, we believe that it's available in great supply from our great God. And so we fix our eyes on you. We lift our eyes to the hills from where our strength comes from. It comes from the maker of heaven and of earth. So we give you all the honor today, all of our worship. You alone are worthy, greater you, God, and greatly to be praised. And we pray this in the name of Jesus. Everybody said, amen. Come on, one more time. Can you give a great God, a great praise in house today? I am so glad you're in church today. And can I just tell you how much we love you, Tammy and I love you dearly. Pray for you almost every morning, know that you're covered in prayer and we count it a great honor

and a great privilege to serve you. And I'm just excited for today. I've got a special tree for you. How many of you know, you know how much somebody loves you by the gifts they give you? You know, they give you a great gift. They must love you a lot, but you're gonna know how much I love you today because I have a great gift for you. I'll tell you about that more in a moment. But why don't you meet somebody around you, learn a new name, make a new friend, tell them you're glad to see them in church today. I am glad you're in church today. Ask Him how much He loves you. Pray for you almost every morning. Know that you're covered in prayer and we count it a great honor and a great privilege to serve you today. I thank you for your faith that you and I share, countless words of great grace and a great challenge ahead. Amen. Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Oh God I praying for you, thank you for your Word and your faith and keep praying God.

Amen. Please God send me a wonderful wedding where all my father's house guests can have a nice men's night. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Welcome to church everybody. We're so glad you're here. I want to say hello to all of our locations. Everybody joining us online or on demand later in the week of course. Our prison campuses and gateway gatherings we're just glad that everybody's here. If you're here for the very first time we want to say a special welcome to you and honored to have you. How great was last weekend? How many of you were here for Easter? You made it for Easter? Powerful weekend across the entire life of the church and I got to tell you this, between adults and children we had more than a thousand people indicate they gave their lives to Jesus last weekend. Come on, that's worth celebrating from death to life. And I'd say it's the best Easter since I've been here. And okay, some of you. If you don't know, I've only been here about nine months. So it's my only Easter. And we're just gonna keep going up from there, right?

Everybody's just gonna get better and better from glory to glory, from victory to victory, okay. And if you're back from Easter, we're just so glad and honored that you are here. We wanna say welcome home to you. Make this your church home. God's doing wonderful things in the life of the church. And as you saw, men's night's coming up. So all the men in the house, expect to see you, yes, on men's night in just a few weeks. So go ahead and get registered. It's gonna be a powerful night. I'm excited to be there. And I would encourage your dads, maybe about 13 or up, if you have a son, bring your son with you. Nothing more powerful than to see men of God modeling what it looks like to worship Jesus and go after his heart. And also today, water baptisms, everybody. Right after service, water baptisms taking place. Two things. One, if you've never been water baptized and you've accepted Jesus, then this is your next step. Maybe you came last week and you placed your faith in Christ, this is your next step. And we have everything taken care of for you. And so do that. And the second thing is stick around and celebrate with those. It's the biggest decision next to following Jesus.

It's a big next step. And so be a part of celebrating that with them. Well, today we're kicking off a brand new series called Between Sundays. Gonna be talking about it till the next few weeks. And we're talking about how to have a faith that doesn't fade. How does your faith work between the Sundays, Monday through Saturday? How do you just not get inspired on Sunday? And then by Wednesday, you're like, dear God, help me. How do you keep it sustaining? We're gonna be talking about that. And today we're kicking it off. And my pastor is in the house, everybody. How many of you know every pastor needs a pastor? And Pastor Chris Hodges is with us this weekend from Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, Alabama. Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! He's also the chancellor of Highlands College. He's now the founding pastor. I gotta get that right now. He actually transitioned the church to new leadership, but is the founding pastor of Church of the Highlands and leads Highlands College,

which is training up ministry leaders to answer the prayer of Jesus. The fields are widened to harvest. Pray the Lord of harvest for labors. How many of you know we don't have a harvest problem, we have a labor problem? And Highlands College is helping answer the prayer of Jesus in that way. But more than all that, to me, he's my pastor. And about 10 years ago, my dad passed away, who was my pastor my whole life, and just prayer warrior, true intercessor, spent two to three hours every morning in prayer. And when he passed away, I was just praying one day. I said, Lord, I feel the void. No one will ever fill my dad's void, but I need a pastor. I need somebody that's gonna be praying for me. And I know that. And how many of you know can also correct you when you need it? Like, I need that in my life. And so we were at an event together. I met Pastor Chris one time and went up just to say hello. And when I was standing there, he just looked at Tammy and I and he said, I don't know why. He goes, but God's just given me a love for you too. And whatever you need me to be in your life, I'll be that. And since that day for over a decade now,

he's been pastoring us and loving us and coaching us and walking with us. And so the first guest I've ever brought to Gateway, I thought should be my pastor. And so I'm honored to have him this weekend. I'm gonna ask that you would stand to your feet and show him some love on my behalf. Put your hands together and welcome Pastor Chris Hodges. All right, come on, give Jesus all the praise, everybody. Oh, that's not good enough. Come on, give him what he really deserves. Oh, we love you, Lord. That's awesome. All right, give your neighbor a high five. You may be seated, everybody. Good to see you all. Who's glad to be in church today? Anybody? Yeah, me too. I love church. I'm almost 63 years old and I've been in church my entire life. I've literally never missed a Sunday church in my entire life. And don't be too impressed. I grew up Baptist in those first 15 years, really hard, everybody, right? And in fact, my dad was an organist in the Baptist church and my mom sang in the choir. And if you know the Baptist tradition,

it's usually on this side. So which means that we had to sit over here with my grandmother about six rows back and dad played mad. He'd look at us, making sure we were behaving the whole time. And then my preacher, bless his heart, he talked about hell like he was born and raised there. Come on, everybody, right? And I'm just telling you. And then when he said hell, man, you're going to hell. And he pointed at me, you know? So anyway, when I was seven, I walked the aisle and signed the clipboard, y'all know the drill, right? In front of the communion table, the choir singing, just as I am. And I prayed the prayer he told me to pray. And then they vote you in because it's congregational rule. And I'm happy to report it was unanimous. I got in everybody and got baptized that night. And I always say that's the day I met the church, but I didn't meet God. And then later on, somebody invited me to a church like this, and I saw life-giving Christianity. I saw people in love with Jesus, and man, it wrecked me in every way, and got gloriously saved, and in ministry since I was 20,

and I just love God with all my heart. I love the church, and I'm glad to be here with you guys today. I'm with my wife, Tammy. We'll be married next month, 40 years, everybody. Come on, yeah. Woo! I know. And we have five kids, and I do know that's a lot. I always get a reaction. I don't know where the line is, but we cross it. Isn't that right, everybody? And I had a guy once say, he walked up to me after the end of the service and said, man, five kids, you must really like kids. I said, no, sir, I really like my wife. You know, so anyway, got it all wrong there, brother. And so, but now we have 12 grandchildren and one on the way. Any grandparents in the room? Grandparents, grandparents, grandparents? And they always scream and make noises like that. And it's because they're so much happier with grandkids than they were with the kids. And if you have kids and you don't have grandkids, don't kill them. Better ones are coming. Hang in there, everybody. Just let them live just a little longer, okay?

So, but I have, of my five children, one of those lives in Dallas. My son, David, and my daughter-in-law, Isabel, and she's the one expecting our 13th grandchild. Y'all say hello to my son and daughter-in-law. God bless you, I love you, sir. All my heart. And then finally, I wanna jump into God's Word, but man, can I tell you how much I love Pastor Daniel and Tammy? I mean, I am crazy about this couple. Come on, show your love to your pastors, everybody. I think you're the best ever. I really do mean that. And I've known them for a long time, and guys, you are very blessed to have them as your pastors. Can I hear a good amen, everybody? Yes, yes, yes, yes. All right, I get to kick off your brand new series. We're talking about how to have a faith that, of course, we can do it in a room like this with worship like this. My goodness, wasn't worship great today, everybody? I mean, it's this good, you guys, when you go to heaven, you're going to come back home on Sundays. But anyway, it's good, it's really good. But what do you do between the two? And how do we even step out in our faith? And how do we understand it? And so one of the things that I love to do,

and it's really how I see myself as a minister, I really don't, I've never had a desire to preach. Like, I don't wanna just preach and just, you know, give somebody a sermon on a Sunday. I really like the shepherding side of the role. I like the fact that, I always tell our church, I'm kind of your tour guide, your spiritual tour guide. And my job isn't really just to impress you with sermons, it's to set a pattern or a course for you. You know, I lead on hillsides where you can feed, and so that's the role I really enjoy. And to do that, then my job is just to make things extremely clear. In fact, I have a theory, and that is, is that people don't step forward in their faith because they don't want to. I don't think they do it because they don't know what they're supposed to do next. And so one of the things I like to do is just make all of that extremely clear. What are the steps? What's the spiritual journey look like? And I'll be your tour guide here today to help you along the way. And that's especially important if you're gonna understand, you know, what our faith looks like between Sundays as well. So I hope to do that today. And before we get started, I have something a little funny, because I just, I love humor.

You guys can tell, right? I'm a Cajun from South Louisiana, everybody, okay? I say that as a disclaimer so you'll lower your expectations, okay, everybody? You might not learn anything, but we are gonna have a good time. Come on, everybody, right? And so it's not theologically correct, it's just funny, okay, and it goes like this. On the first day, God created the dog, and he said, sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. And for this, I'm gonna give you a lifespan of 20 years. And the dog said, 20 years, that's a long time to be barking. How about I just live 10 years, and I'll give you back the other 10? And God agreed. On the second day, God created the monkey. He said, I want you to sit around, do monkey tricks, entertain the grandchildren, you know, entertain the people, make people laugh. And for this, I'm gonna give you a lifespan of 20 years. And the monkey said, that's too long to be doing monkey tricks. I'll do like the dog did, live 10 years, I'll give you back the other 10, and God agreed. On the third day, God created the cow, and he said, you're gonna go out in the field with the farmer all day long,

you're gonna suffer under the sun, you're gonna have calves, you're gonna produce milk. And for this, I'm gonna give you a lifespan of 60 years. And the cow said, that's way too long to live a hard life like that. Let's just make it 20 years, and I'll give you back 40, and God agreed. And then finally, on the next day, God created man, and he said, eat, sleep, play, enjoy yourself. And for this, I'm gonna give you a lifespan of 20 years. And the man said, what, only 20 years? How about you give me my 20, give me the 40 the cow gave you back, give me the 10 the monkey gave you back, give me the 10 the dog gave you back, and let's make it 80 years, and God agreed. And so that is why, for the first 20 years, we eat, sleep, play, and enjoy. enjoy ourselves. For the next 40 years, we slave under the sun to support our family. For the next 10 years, we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren. And for the last 10 years, we sit on the front porch and bark at everybody who goes by. You have just had everything explained to you, all you need to know. All right. All right, so let's pray together.

No, I'm just kidding. There's more. I want you to open your Bibles or whatever you have, your devices, or look on the screen to Ephesians chapter four. I think this gives us a perfect little foundation for what our faith between Sundays looks like. And it gives us a goal that I want to put in your heart today. And I'll help you, hopefully give you some steps to see it clearly. And it says this in verse 11. So Christ himself gave what we call today the fivefold ministry, the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. So these are the people who do vocational ministry, so to speak. And they have a purpose not to be ministers, notice with me, but to equip the people, that's you, the congregants, the church for works of service, so that, notice the goal, that the body of Christ is built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the son of God. And notice this kind of this marker, this touchdown line, so to speak. And that is to become mature, which is what I think is our goal today

in this growth series, in this series where we're looking at our faith between Sundays so that we can attain to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ, which suggests then that you haven't received all that God has to offer. Just want you to have that in your heart. And if you'll do this, notice the next line, if you'll grow, if you'll start attaining all that God has for you, then you will no longer be a baby Christian. You're no longer an infant and tossed around back and forth by the waves. Now, the waves are never gonna stop, but you don't have to be tossed. And if you're kind of tired of being tossed, the secret is it's just to grow up a little bit. It's to become more mature. It's to keep growing in your faith. And if you don't grow in your faith, then when trials come, it does kick you around pretty good. And by the way, you can tell if you need this message, if life does that to you a lot. It does it a little bit for all of us, but there's a point where our faith should be so strong in God that when trials and tribulations come, it's not just throwing us around, blown here and there by every wind of teaching,

it goes on to say, and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, say the next three words out loud. We will grow. And that's what I think we ought to be doing between Sundays. I think we need a growth plan. I think we need something that says, here's where I am in my faith, and I can't get to here yet, but I'm gonna get to here. I'm gonna continually be transformed. One verse in 2 Corinthians says that we are transformed into his likeness with an ever increasing glory. The King James says from glory to glory. In other words, it's incremental. And the happiest people are the people that are actually growing in that kind of a way. So we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ. From him, the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament. What does it do? It grows. That's what's our plan. And build itself in love as each part does its work. And so what I wanna do today is I wanna show you

kind of a basic growth plan. Now, I wanna apologize right off the bat. This is incredibly simple. It's intentionally simple. I'm a simple guy. I take complicated things, and I make them easy for everybody to understand. I got one of the greatest compliments in my life one Sunday I was shaking hands at the door, and this lady says, I just love this church. And I said, well, please tell me why. And she goes, Pastor, you put the cookies on the bottom shelf so everybody can have one. And I just love that. So I'm gonna make this real simple because I would wanna submit to you today that what we should be doing between Sundays is growing. We should just be making sure we're taking steps and we're not staying stagnant. And I promise you this, the Word promises you this, that if you'll do that, life's not gonna throw you around so much. You're not gonna be tossed around. You're actually gonna become mature. And I would even say you're gonna enjoy your faith a lot because there's nothing like growing. If you're not growing, you're actually already kind of dying a little bit, right? And so everything in God's universe constantly grows. And I wanna help you with that.

I'm gonna give you three things, very, very simple of what we do. And the first is, the first step in your growth is just to get to know Jesus. Just get to know Him. And what I mean by that is that if you don't know Him already, we're gonna introduce you to Him today. You say, well, Chris, I've been in church my whole life. I know all about Jesus. I didn't say that. I didn't say no about Him. I said, get to know Him. In fact, the prayer that the apostle prayed for the churches that he planted, basically what an apostle is, is a church planter. And so Paul just planted churches. He'd raised up leadership. He would. you know, go and do it again in another city, but then he would write letters to these churches to give them doctrine and instruction, right? And so a lot of our New Testament are simply these letters that were written to the churches. And he started a church in Ephesus, I've actually been to Ephesus, and he started a church there. And if you read Ephesians, actually twice in this sixth chapter book, Paul prays. He gives us the prayer he was praying for the church,

and I want you to see that. And he said in Ephesians chapter one, verse 17, I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation. It's basically a fancy Bible way to say, I just wish the lights would come on for you in this area, so that you'd realize, listen to me, Gateway, that you would realize how important it is that you may know him better. And if you don't know him, know him. And if you know him, know him better. And he used a word that didn't shock you because you don't know the word, but in the Greek language, the original language of the New Testament, he uses the word ginosko. And that would have been a word that would have never been mentioned in the Old Testament because you couldn't have this kind of relationship with the God. Ginosko literally means be intimately close with God. In fact, one place the word ginosko is used says, a man knew his wife and they had children. And it's not a sexual term, it's an intimate term. And the point being, as Paul says, it's not enough for you just to be a religious person. It's not enough for you to even be a believer. You can ginosko him, you can know him. You can be close to him.

And so what I would tell you is that if you want a faith that doesn't fade, if you want to stop the kicking around, let life just throw you around a lot, the first step in your spiritual journey is your closeness with God. Now, this is the part of my testimony that literally wrecked me. I kind of told you a little bit of it at the beginning of the message, but I grew up in church and it was all formalities. There was no, it was so, it was all religion. I knew how to do everything the right way. I knew all the old people with candy in their pockets. Come on, everybody, right? I knew the whole drill. And, but I did not know God at all. And I showed up at a church like this. In fact, I got invited by a friend to a church like this. And I'm highly encouraging you to try that. Like you really need to invite people to church because people have never been hungrier for God in the past 55 years in America as they are right now. Can we put our hands together and thank God? There it is, the first drops of revival falling in America. I'm telling you it is. So he invites me and check it out. I don't even remember the sermon. I don't remember the songs. I remember the people.

I saw these people just in love with God. And I had no idea that you could actually have a relationship with God that kind of a way. And so I was under conviction and they gave the altar call, you know, to come forward. And I was responding in my heart, but I didn't want to go forward because I'd been in church my whole life. I knew what they were going to do next. They were going to bring me to a little room and I ain't going to a little room, that ain't happening. That's not happening. And so I went home and I'm still under conviction and I'm trying to figure out how a person gets to heaven. And so I decided I'm not listening to my church or this new church I attended. I was going to find out for myself. Thank God the Baptist did teach me the Bible. And I opened up my Bible. I had a red letter edition of the Bible. That's where the words of Jesus are in red. And I just read the red. I skipped all the black. I just went straight to the red. And you only get three pages in where Jesus says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, is going to enter the kingdom of heaven. I thought, well, that's a problem. Cause that's what they told me to say. And now he's saying, no, you're not necessarily in.

And it goes on to say, but only those who do the will of my father who is in heaven and many on that day. So we're going to show up at judgment day one day, my friends, and there's tons of people walking up with confidence. Based on a religious action that they had toward God, but not a closeness with God. Many on that day, Jesus said, will say, Lord, Lord. He says, he says, and they'll say, I prophesied in your name. I cast the devils in your name. I did miracles in your name. And Jesus says, I will tell them plainly. I never knew. And he uses that word, gnosco. That God was never looking for your religion. He was always looking for relationship. You want my first step for you. If you, if you want a faith that doesn't fade, if you want to know what to do between Sundays, he says, you need that closeness with God. It's important for you to have that closeness with God. And this is one of the things I love sharing with people. In fact, I share my faith all the time. Cause I think it, I think it's actually fun to do this because people are actually incredibly hungry. If you'll go about it the right way, Tammy and I were recently speaking at a conference at our home church in Baton Rouge, Bethany with Pastor Larry Stockstill and the crew.

And so I did this conference and we just drove down 45 minutes to the New Orleans airport to take the Southwest direct flight to Birmingham. Otherwise you'd have to go through Atlanta or Dallas or something like that. And so it was very, very quick. And when we got on, you know, Southwest, I'm not a huge fan because of the randomness. I'm a control freak and I can't stand, like pick a seat, any seat. No, like, I want a boarding pass, you know, like, and I want to control who sits next to me. So anyway, so I was sizing up the waiting area and noticing that it wasn't really full. I thought, all right, this is not gonna be a packed flight. So I told Tammy, you get the window, I'm gonna get the aisle and we're gonna put our bag in the middle seat, our knee in the middle seat, everything we can. You know, so that when people are boarding, they'll just go on behind us. And all of a sudden you could hear this giggling, screaming, laughing in the jetway. Woo-hoo, woo-hoo, woo-hoo, woo-hoo. And I thought, oh, and my prayer life starts to improve. Father God, if you love me, God, please. Heavenly Father, you know. And she rounds the corner and high-fives the flight attendant and then looks down the fuselage of the plane and says, hey everybody, I'm here. And I thought, oh God, please.

And so she comes down and she greets all the aisle seat people. First row, first row, second row, second row, third row, third row. And she's getting closer and closer and closer and she gets where we are and she goes, I'm gonna sit right there in the middle. I go, no, and I picked up and I moved over to the middle and she plopped down, turns to me and says, so what do you do for a living? And when you get asked that as a pastor, you have to decide if you're gonna lie or not. You really do, right, you know? And so, and I said, well, I'm a pastor. And she says, duh, we're all passengers. I said, no, that's truly happened. I said, no, like the pastor of a church. And she said, oh, well, I don't like Christians. Well, I knew the kind she'd been raised around, remember I told you that, so I decided to play along. And I said, yeah, girl, me too. That's why I started my own church. And she goes, what do you mean? And I said, and listen to this. I said, Christianity has a branding problem. There are several versions out there and one of them, even according to Jesus, won't get you in. That God wants to, listen, he's not looking for your religion.

He's not looking for your Sunday best and you're putting on, he wants to know you relationally, everybody. If you want to know what your first step, yeah, come on, everybody, right? By the way, when we got off the plane, she was going on to Nashville and I said, she goes, Chris, I have to have more. And I said, well, Tanya, her name was Tanya, I said, if you'll watch this Sunday, when we say hello to our campuses, we have 26 campuses at Highlands. I said, I'll give you a shout out. She says, you won't. I said, well, yes, I will. And so Sunday came around and I shouted her out and I changed my whole message to talk to Tanya, really, knowing she was, hopefully, knowing she was watching. And sure enough, I got an email on Monday from my assistant said, this lady named Tanya, did you meet somebody on a Southwest flight? I said, yeah. And it said, dear passenger, Chris. Ha ha. And she said, I let, watch this, I let Christians and church keep me from God. She goes, then I realized for the first time, it's not about religion, it's about relationship. And her salutation was, I'm ready to surrender. And she left her cell phone number

and Tanya gave her life to Jesus. Over the phone, everybody, come on. Isn't that fun? All right. All right. And that's your first step, too. Surrender. If you're still in control of your life, and you're not getting the best version of what God has to offer you. We surrender my whole life to his will and his way. That's what, you want a step, that's your step. That's why if you've not been water baptized since you became a believer, I'm not talking about your christening or your dedication as a child. Those are beautiful and it doesn't undo that. But if you've never been water baptized, it's the first thing Jesus asks us to do. That's what surrender means. Yeah, but my hair's gonna get wet. I gotta go to lunch today. Jesus died on a cross, for heaven's sakes. Your hair can be a little wet. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Are y'all out there?

Surrender, surrender. That's why I call it his will, his way. Even if you don't agree with it, it's his will, his way. That's what surrender means. And then spending time with God every day. I'm gonna spend time with God. And I'm here to remind somebody who you already love Jesus, but that closeness has been waning. And you started to neglect your time with God every day. And he's not mad at you, but he is waiting for you. And he would love to have even 15 minutes tomorrow morning for you to spend time with him and read his word and have a little worship and have some prayer and have some closeness with you. You wanna know what to do between Sundays? Get back to that. I've written a book that's coming out on Tuesday. I'm not promoting the book. In fact, over this past summer, I got off for some time to write my principles that I wanted to leave my grandkids. And I started writing this into my family. I don't know, I got my 60s and all that stuff kind of came to my mind. I wanted to just leave some things. I'm not dying, but I wrote it like as if I was. I was writing it all down. Man, I think I ought to give these to everybody, you know? And I got to about chapter 17. There's 31 little essays, little principles in it.

And I got to chapter 17, and I don't even know why I did this. I was summarizing the chapter in the final paragraph, and I saw myself writing out, Dear Grandkids. And I wrote this endearing letter to explain that principle, but in letter form. And I knew I hit on something. So I ran downstairs, and I said, Tammy, read this chapter, and then read this letter. And I came back three minutes later, and she was crying. I was like, yes, that'll work. And so I went back and put a letter at the end of every one of the principles, and it's called Legacy Letters. Timeless principles I've learned, lived, and leave behind. And the very first one is the big rocks principle, that all's well that begins well. If you start your day with God every day, if you'll start your, I'm not telling you it's gonna be perfect. I'm just gonna tell you it's gonna be anchored. It's gonna be stronger. You're gonna have a closeness with God that He so desires in all of Gateway. Say it again. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. So we wanna get to know Him. Second thing is, is we need to become like Him. We're becoming like Jesus. If you wanna step between Sundays, it's time for all of us to say, I'm not gonna settle. And for a lot of us, you've settled with your sin, your addictions, your habits, you're going to heaven. It's just not the best version of you while you're here on planet Earth. And God wants us to be transformed into us like this. The whole essence of the gospel is that we constantly change. We call it theologically regeneration. It's the process of, I'm not where I need to be, but I'm not where I used to be either. God's working in me. He's working some things out of me. It's our issues. And everybody's got issues. And if you don't think you have an issue, well, guess what? That's your issue, okay? Like, because we have stuff going on inside of all of us. Myself included. Now, we know that if you have an issue, and you do, that if we confess, 1 John 1, 9 says, if we confess that sin to God, he's faithful and just and will forgive us of that sin and purify us from all unrighteousness.

We know that. But notice with me, it only takes care of what happened. It doesn't ensure that it'll never happen again. James 5, 16 says it a different way though. Therefore, confess your sins not to God, but to each other and pray for each other. You don't get forgiven here. Here, you get healed. Notice with it, you go to God for forgiveness, but you've got to go to God's people for healing. Like, if you really want things to change on the inside of you, I'm encouraging you. Here's a couple of steps. Get into a community of godly friends. Thank God for the big room. I love it. I love it because Dallas needs Jesus. We need to keep making seats available because people are hungry for God. But we're also a church that gets really, really small and intimate. Why? Because you matter. We got to get close enough to somebody where we have the confidence in our relationship with that person where you say, guess what? And you take the mask off. And you say, can I tell you something I'm going through? And some of you are just the thought of that

is making you nervous right now because you think they're gonna go, oh my goodness. Watch this. And they're not. C.S. Lewis said that friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, what? You too? I thought I was the only one. And I'm encouraging you. I'm encouraging you. Don't just show up in these seats. You have found a great church, my friends, but it's not enough for you to show up on a Sunday. We need to be at men's night and we need to show up in the small groups and we need to get close to a few people, not a lot, and take the mask off and get some healing taking place in our lives, everybody. It's gonna change you forever. There's a better version of you out there that God wants to work on. And then once you start settling those yesterdays, what's gonna happen is you're gonna start seeing more of tomorrow, what God wants to do in you. I call it discovering and developing your spiritual gifts. Like there's a role or a piece that you play in God's design, grand design, and you can discover it and then develop it. And this is where you really, really, really are living now. Discover and develop God's design.

If you wanna have faith that works, that never fades, you wanna know between Sundays, get close to God, everybody. Get to know Him better. And then start letting Him work in you so that you're becoming more like Him so that number three, you can do what Jesus did. And this is the ultimate touchdown line. If you wanna know what faith really looks like, it's not just being a believer and it's not even just letting God work in our lives and change us, it's so that we can go on mission and do what Jesus did and let our lives impact the lives of this city and the people around us and the world. See, well, that's Pastor Daniel's job. He's the minister around here. That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says in 1 Peter, you are a chosen people. You are the priesthood. I'm a priest? Yes, you're a priest. You're God's special possession called to declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into this marvelous light. You can actually go on mission. Ephesians 2.10 says it this way. You are God's workmanship. One translation says you're his masterpiece created in Christ Jesus, not just to exist, to do good works,

which God already prepared in advance for you to do. There's an assignment on you. I'm 63 years old and just handed our church to the next generation after 25 years of leading Highlands so I could step into this calling of being this chancellor of this ministry leadership school and I'm having the time of my life and I'm giddy about it, everybody. Why? Because I have an assignment. I wake up every day living my faith out, doing what Jesus did. Are y'all listening to me, everybody? And you can do the exact same thing. Let me put it into three simple words of how do you do that. First is give, and I'm not talking about your money. I'm not even talking about the money you give to the church. I'm talking about give whatever you have. This is whatever you have. If you could just live what I call an open-handed life, one of my principles in the book is I call it the open-handed principle, the generosity principle that I'm gonna live my life. If I have it and you need it, here it is, that I'm gonna go on assignment. When you go out to eat today, you're on assignment to bless those that serve you. I mean, I don't do this as much as actually I need to, but I was with the family once at our favorite restaurant in Birmingham, P.F. Chang's.

They call it Chang's, everybody, all right? And y'all know it's family style and they're ordering like crazy. I'm a math person and I'm doing the math and I'm thinking, dear Jesus, here it goes. All right, so they're ordering. They're eating like crazy. And our server was not doing a good job. I think she had too many tables. They looked understaffed. She was just kind of frantic and usually I'm that impatient, bad customer, honestly. And for whatever reason, I don't even know why I said this. She walked up and I've never said this in my life. I can't believe I said it. I said, we're not in a hurry. Think of us last. Just go ahead and take care of the other tables. And she walked away. I thought, who are you? What did you? So she came back around and she was more attentive and kind of casually filling up all the glasses and checking on us. And I don't even know why I said this. I've probably done this three times in my whole life. I should, I actually should do it more. I said, is there anything I could pray with you about? And she looked at me like, you're not supposed to ask me that.

And I said, I'm a pastor and a tear popped out. And she says, just pray you have no idea. Well, I actually do have an idea. I can imagine what she might be going through. Well, I'm in now y'all, I'm all in. And so when we left, she brought the final bill and please don't think too much of me. I usually get it wrong. I felt like I was supposed to leave her, we call in Alabama, a honking tip. For you more sophisticated Dallas people, that's a very generous gratuity. Okay, so that's what that is, right? But I left her the amount of the bill, so much so that'll look like a mistake. So she came back, she goes, oh, Mr. Hodges, I think you made a mistake. I said, no, that's for you. And she goes, I don't understand. Why would you do that? And I said this, I said, cause I'm on assignment today by the heavenly father to let you know you're loved and appreciated. This is for you. And she said, again, for the second time, you have no idea. And I really did have an idea how much more that meant to her. It meant a lot. It was a lot of money, but it wasn't on a scale.

It probably meant a whole lot more for her. And I remember walking out the restaurant that day and I hope to think it was like a godly pride. So I was thinking, Lord, that's all I had to do today was just be on assignment to do what you do, to listen to your voice and to bless people by being generous with them. And I was just, I was thinking there are 4 billion females on the planet and you care for that one right there. And you just needed one of your young, strong, sons of the most high to tell you to be generous to her. And I was like, who else, Lord, shall I touch for your glory today? You know what I'm saying? And it probably was too carnal, but I remember just feeling the sense of this is what my life's supposed to be about. Are y'all with me, church? Go, you wanna know what to do between Sundays? Do what Jesus did. That's it. And serve. Don't sit, serve. Serve. Put me in, coach, I wanna play. I wanna, I don't live for myself. I don't go to church for myself. Gonna worship one, I'm gonna serve one. And finally, I'm gonna share Christ.

I'm telling you, the world's hungry. share your faith with other people. They're so hungry for Him. And I'm gonna close this way. All right, my job was to make sure you understood that, that you're between Sunday, you should get to know Jesus, become more like Jesus, so that you can do what Jesus did. And when you're saying it, and from a standpoint like this, I was saying it as nicely as I can, because I want you to take the steps. But that's not how I was feeling on the inside. So let me tell you this quick story. Every day when I leave the office, I go down the busy street in Alabama, which is a six lane, busy, busy, busy highway called Highway 280. And at some point after about four miles, I get in this double lane, left turn lane, to get off that highway and to go into where my neighborhood is. And I know this light, because I met this light every single day of my life. And I know how many people can get through one light cycle, if everybody will go. You know what I'm saying? Like you gotta go, for heaven's sakes. So I pull up to it and I'm right on the edge of it.

I know it. I know if everybody cooperates, I'm gonna make it through one. And I noticed, I could tell with the rear view mirror and the side mirror, it looked like a young girl, I saw long hair and I saw the thumbs just go. And she took the occasion, that was a red light to do stuff. You know, I was like, she's gonna, it's gonna turn green. She's not gonna see it. Well, I'm a honker. Okay, I'm a proud. Oh, my wife, Tammy hates that. Even when she drives, I reach over, like she slaps my hand. She slaps my hand and says, stop, they probably go to our church. I'm like, good. I'm their pastor. They learned something. You know? She hates it. And she's always telling me, stop, stop. That's not, that's not the way you're supposed to do it. Well, she's not in the car with me, but she's in the car with me. Come on, man, where y'all at, right? And so I, and I'm thinking it's going to turn green.

She's not going to see it. And then Tammy's voice, don't honk, don't honk. So when it turned green, I just went, beep, beep. That's cause that's the Christian approved version of honking. You can do that. It's in the Bible somewhere. I know it is. It's like, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And, and, and she went, and we missed the light. Okay. We missed the light. When I just share this message with you, you, you got the beep, beep version because that's what guest speakers have to do. Can't be, I can't be too direct with you. How rude is that? I want it in my heart. I was hearing this in my head while I was talking. Come on, go, go, but that's too rude. So I'm not going to tell you what I was thinking, but I'll tell you what it was in case you were wondering what it was, but I'm not gonna tell you. Like seriously, he went to the lengths of dying, slaughtered, literally, and, and loves you so much. He so loves you that he did that. And we don't have 15 minutes every morning. He loves you. He wants to know you that badly,

but that's way too strong. And so I won't say that. And really, you're going to stay another year addicted, wounded, broken, not the best version of yours. Seriously? You're just going to, here I am, I'm just going to settle. Why would you do that? But that's too strong. So I won't say that either. And really, you don't want to live on mission. You don't want to have that sense of, I know what my life's all about. I'm going to be the hands and feet of Jesus everywhere I go. And I'm going to make a difference in this world. Really? But I will tell you this, the light's green. And if you want to go, you can, and it'll change your life forever. And all of Gateway said a good, amen. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's bow for prayer. Thank you. You're very kind. Thank you. Let's bow our heads for prayer just for a moment. If you're here today and you're not close to Jesus, maybe you're a Christian and you've walked away. Maybe you just know you're not fully surrendered to him.

Before I leave the stage, I'm just going to pray for you right there where you're seated. I'm not going to have you stand up. Not going to call you to the front. But if you say, I need Jesus, I'm ready to surrender like Tonya did. I'm ready to surrender. I'm ready to give him my all. He gave his all. I want to give him my all. No one's looking around. It's just you and me. And heaven is watching right now. You say, I'm ready to make that decision today for the first time or again. Put your hand up as high as you can. Put it right back down. Good, good, good, good, good. All over this room. Thank you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. Anybody else? We're at the top. Very, very top. God bless you. Very, very top this way. God bless you. Thank you.

So awesome. If you just lifted your hand or if you didn't, you want to pray this prayer, here it is. Say, Jesus, forgive me for living my life. my way. Today I surrender everything. You gave your all, I give my all. Be the Lord of my life. Now say this, I believe you really are the Son of God. You rose from the dead and today I commit my life to you. In your name I pray. Amen. How about a hand clap for everybody who just prayed that prayer. God bless you church. Pastor Chris, thank you so, so much. It's been wonderful having you here this weekend with us. What a powerful message. Amen? Wow. What a great message. I love hearing him speak. If you raised your hand today and you made a commitment to the Lord, we definitely want to pray with you. Or if you just want to pray with someone, if you're walking through a season in life and you want prayer, we would love to meet you right here. So our prayer team is going to move down to the front and once they do, we would love for you to join us down here. Would you stand up right now? What an incredible weekend. Amen? God is doing incredible things in our life. He's so good, so faithful. So our prayer team is going to make their way forward and then our worship team is going to go back into a few choruses as they do. Once again, if you raise your hand or if you want prayer, we invite you to come forward for prayer. Amen. I will build my life upon your love. It is of a foundation. I will put my trust in you alone. And I will not be shaken and holy. There is no one like you. There is none beside you. Open up my eyes in wonder. Show me who you are and fill me with your heart and lead me in your love to those around me. Our prayer team will stay here and just be available to you. If you want to come forward, please continue to move forward and come for prayer. What a great weekend to be at Gateway Church. Amen? Great weekend. So I just want to remind you, Men's Night is coming up April 4th. And I love the way Pastor Daniel said it. Some of you dads, make sure you bring your sons, 13 and older. It's going to be an incredible night. And then as well, if you want to get baptized, we have everything for you. If you didn't bring the essentials for baptism, we've got that back in the lobby. You can go to the table. It's across from

the cafe and it has blue and white balloons. So please, if you want to get baptized today, it's a better day than today. God bless you. Thank you for joining us at Gateway. We'll see you next weekend. Have a great week. We've heard a good performance. Take the place of all this praise. For God in our first love along the way. Where we've let our good intentions distract us from your heart. Forgive us. Forgive us.