I Have Decided To Seek Jesus First | Pastor Adam Peterson

Let me welcome everybody that's joining us online today. Online family, we are grateful for you. There's about 17 people clapping for you right now. They know you're all at the games, so we're praying for you. And then come on, church family, help me welcome all the men and women in the correctional facilities. Come on. We say it every week, but you are our church family, and here's what we have found out, that there are some people within our own church that have family or friends that are behind bars right now that have found our church and have been watching. We get letters from many of you from time to time. We are so grateful for what God is doing and how he is bringing us together. We love you so much. Today, we're making a decision. Come on, somebody. And we're saying, I have decided to seek Jesus first. And this is important, and there's only three amens that I got from seeking Jesus first, so that tells me we got work to do here this morning. But the reality for you and I is there's a lot of things that we can seek in our lives, and there's a lot of things that we can try to put first in our lives. How many of you have ever sought and done after your own plan for your life?

How'd that work out for you? All right. God has a plan for your life, and we're gonna jump into that in just a little bit. But this whole idea of saying, Jesus, we wanna seek you first means this. You're first. You're the most important thing in my life. You're everything. Without you, I'm nothing, and I wanna seek you first, and then trust that you're gonna take care of everything else. We shared this last week. Rise, church, the church you're a part of right now. We exist to lead you to love God with all your heart. Meaning this, if you attend our church, and you get connected here, and you really jump in, I'm not talking about you show up from time to time. Listen, if you just show up here occasionally, we're not gonna be able to help you too much, okay? But if you get connected, and you put some roots down in here, and you get involved in what we're doing, I really do believe this, and I would issue what I would call, Pastor Aaron gave you the three-week challenge. If you're a guest, I'm gonna give you the year challenge. You ready? This is a pretty big one right here.

Give us a year of your life. Give us a year here for 2026. Jump into everything that we're doing, and I just believe with all of my heart that if you would do that, if you would get connected in God's house, get around God's people, dig into God's word, that a year from now, you're gonna love God more than you do right now. It's just the byproduct of what God's gonna do in your life. Hey, and if you get to a year from now, and you don't love God more, then go find another church, you know? Like, we have failed you for whatever reason, but we just really believe that. But at the end of the day for me, and I've seen this in my life, God is so good to me. I've been following him for 25 years. This year will be 25 years of me pursuing Jesus. I've understood this, and I hope that you know, God has a plan for your life. How many of you know God's plan for your life is good? How many of you know God's plan for your life is better than your plan for your life? Yeah, there we go, there we go. Because your plan stinks, man. All right? P.U.

And I could give you multiple verses this morning of God's plan for your life. I really could, but I landed on this one. It's pretty simple. It's straight to the point. Matthew 6, 33. Jesus simply said these words. Seek first the kingdom of God. Jesus came on the scene to establish a different kingdom. A lot of people thought Jesus was gonna come and kind of establish like this earthly kingdom and rule and reign as like this king and over everything, but he's like, no, no, I'm coming to issue in the kingdom of heaven, this kingdom of God loves people and he could change your life, and I'm the savior that's come to give my life for the sins of the world. And Jesus says, and if you wanna follow me, seek first my kingdom, meaning you gotta stop seeking your own kingdom. You gotta stop seeking the kingdoms of the world and you gotta run after him. That is God's plan for your life. He wants you to seek first his kingdom, but then the devil is very real as well, and he's got a plan for your life. You stick around Rise Church long enough, you're gonna hear us quote this verse constantly. It's John 10, 10, again, the words of Jesus. He says this, the enemy, the devil, he's got a plan,

and his plan, he only wants, this is all he wants to do, not a big deal, right? No, no, no, it is, he wants to kill you. He wants to steal from you, and he wants to destroy you. He doesn't want anything good in your life. He wants to come along and rip everything from you. He wants to destroy relationships in your life. He wants to steal your hope, your peace, your joy. He wants to kill you, he hates God, and because he hates God, he hates God's creation. He hates us as God's children. Jesus came along in these verses right afterwards, and he said, but I've come to give you life, but you only get that life by seeking his kingdom. You're not gonna get life by seeking the world. You're not gonna get life by seeking your own thing. You get the life of Jesus Christ by seeking after the kingdom of God. Now the enemy will use this, this plan, but he'll use a strategy of discouragement to get you in this place. He'll use a strategy of really, honestly, what I would call distraction. And that's what I kinda wanna talk into and lean into a little bit today. How many of you, you're in church, so come on, let's be honest in here. If you're lying, you're frying, if you're lying, like God'll get you, okay? I'm just teasing, you know what I'm saying.

How many of you would say, over the holidays, you overate? Just hand in the air, okay? And if you didn't overeat, you're doing it wrong. Okay, that's all I'm gonna say. And when I say holidays, here's what I mean. October, November, and December. Like, you gotta bring October into the holidays, okay? October, November, December, overate. Come on, show of hands one more time, where my people at? Yeah, let's go. So, growing up, never was a big sweets person. I was always the kid that's like, I don't want cake, I want more fried chicken. I don't want more sweets, give me another slice of pizza or something. But my mama, shout out mama, wherever you are right now, she made a carrot cake. Shout out to the person that made carrot cake, by the way. Like, who thought, let's put some carrots in a cake. I think it happened by accident. They knocked them in, they were like, man, there's no going back now, okay? Makes me feel good about myself, though, when I'm eating. I'm like, it's got vegetables in it. But my mama made a carrot cake, and I don't know if it's because of my mom or whatever, but like, man, this carrot cake is the greatest thing in my life, okay?

She made it all throughout my childhood. I got to a point where I thought, over the holidays, I've never made my mom's carrot cake. I wanna give it a shot, okay? I could've called her and asked her to make it for me, but I'm a grown man, okay? It's time that I start learning to make my own carrot cake. And what I realized early on in the process was, this cake is terribly unhealthy. I knew the icing was gonna be loaded with sugar. I had no clue how much sugar you were gonna put into the cake part, okay? But I made that bad boy, and it came out flawless. I mean, just like, it was perfect. Like, my mama would've been proud of me. The problem was, my wife kinda likes carrot cake. One of my kids kinda likes carrot cake. The other ones don't. So I now have this whole cake to myself. And your man was eatin' a slice for lunch, eatin' a slice for first dinner, and then eatin' a slice before bed. It was bad. And then I got on the scale, and the scale was like, you've been eatin' a lot of carrot cake. You need to chill, bro. I wonder if over the holiday season, some of us overate in other areas. Here's what I mean. Some of you maybe overate in watching TV,

and the world we live in today, you got options, right? Netflix, Hulu, Prime, HBO Max, Apple TV, like, on and on and on, right? Social media, you got options. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, like, multiple options. Some of you, I think, maybe, with all the things going on in our world, you've overeaten on the news, just the intake that you're watching. Let's be real, some of us overate on football just this week, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, today, tomorrow. We overeat on all of these things that are, honestly, let's call it what it is, it's of the world. What, there's a couple videos on my Reels that are preachers. Yeah, that doesn't count. What I'm saying is, if we're not careful, we're gonna overeat on all the wrong things that will not fill us with life. So what we wanna talk about today is, if we're gonna seek His kingdom first, we've gotta nourish ourselves with the right stuff that's gonna fill us with life. If you're with me, say amen. All right, Jesus said these words towards the end of His life, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Here's what that means. If you're a follower of Jesus in here today,

come on, praise God. If you're not a follower of Jesus and you showed up at our church today or you're watching online, praise God. I'm so glad you're here. We created our church for you. I hope you hear how much God loves you today and He wants a relationship with you. I hope you understand that. And it would be the prayer of my heart that you would surrender your life to Him today to say yes to a relationship with Him. But if you are a follower of Jesus, here's what that means. It means you have the Holy Spirit of God living on the inside of you right now. And that should've got a bigger response. That should've got, no, no, no, it's too late now. That's called pity response, it's too late. All right, doesn't count. That should have been like, what? That should have been like, yes! Here's what it means. It means God lives in you. I gave you a second chance and you still didn't get it. God, now this is crazy because we can't see him. We don't know where, but it's like the very presence of God is with us always. Isn't that good? That's good, okay.

And that Holy Spirit in you, it cries out, he cries out for the things of God. It's a beautiful thing. The spirit wants more of God, but the flesh, the flesh is weak. If you're like, what's the flesh? Here's what the flesh is. It's your physical body that craves the things of this world. It's your life before Jesus that desired all the sinful things that the world has to offer. That's your flesh. So there's this tension that's going on. There's this wrestling match, this tug of war where the spirit of God on the inside of you goes, yes, God, you're what I want. Yes, God, I wanna open up your word and I wanna read it. Yes, God, I wanna be in your house and I wanna be around God's people. Yes, I wanna lift my voice in worship to you. The Holy Spirit of God, I hope that you feel that from time to time. That's a good sign that you belong to him, right? That Holy Spirit of God just craves the things of God, but then your flesh is like, yeah, but that looks good over there. And it craves the things of this world and our flesh is weak. And if we're not careful, we don't nourish ourselves with the things of God, we'll start to fill ourselves

with the things of this world because our flesh is just gonna slowly drift right back. That's why, you heard us talk about it last week, you heard us talk about it a little bit, just kind of sprinkling it in. That's why starting tomorrow, we're entering into a season and we're calling 21 days of prayer and fasting. We do this every January at the start of the year. And if you're brand new to our church, you weren't here last week, because last week I kind of gave you like a heads up, this is where we're going. If this is your first time here, this is where we're going. You're in for a doozy, you're gonna love it. Welcome to Rise Church, starting tomorrow, no eating. So glad you're here. Let me break it down for you, give you a little bit of an explanation. How many of you know from time to time, you need a spiritual jumpstart in your life? How many of you wanna confess from time to time, your faith gets a little stale? Okay, why? It's because we stop feeding ourselves with the things of God. And so what we're doing is saying intentionally, we're not just stumbling upon this, we are deciding to do this. Starting tomorrow for the next 21 days, we are gonna seek you God in a way

that we have not in a while. And we're gonna do that by saying no to some of the things in our life. Now, when the Bible talks about prayer, that's our relationship with God, calling out to him, relying on him. I'll unpack that a little bit more later. But fasting, spiritual fasting, here's the working definition that I have for it, is voluntarily, like nobody's forcing you to do this. Okay, I have decided. I've decided to abstain from food for a set period of time, 21 days, why? For spiritual reasons. So we're not fasting to try to go, God, let me get your attention. God already, like, God loves you. He lives on the inside of you, believer. We're fasting so that we put our attention onto God. And it's always food-related. You wanna offend somebody, talk about the food they're eating, right? So I'm not up here right now telling you what you can and what you cannot eat. What I'm telling you is this. If you wanna take your faith a little more serious, and you wanna experience a deeper depth in your relationship with God and to call out to him more, fasting is a beautiful thing that the Bible tells us that we can enter into.

And so this is the idea right here of fasting. I can go through life without eating today. You can. You know if you didn't eat anything today, you would make it. You're not gonna starve to death. The idea of fasting is, I can't go through life without God today. And I hope that's a prayer that you pray in your life. I hope you wake up in the morning and go, God, I need you today. If I don't have you today, I'm gonna screw this whole thing up. God, if I don't have you today, I'm not gonna have the hope that I need. I'm not gonna have the joy that I need. I'm not gonna be able to live on purpose to make an impact on other people's lives today. God, I need you. And so what we're saying is, I don't need this. I need you. And I'm okay saying no to this. so that I can say yes to more of you. If you're with me, say yeah. If you're offended, say me. Okay, nobody's offended, let's go, all right. So here's what I wrote down. Take a picture of this, write this down. Do whatever you want.

There's different fasts, but we're calling everybody to this. We're saying, man, let's do this together. This isn't just you doing it in isolation. We're coming together as a church. So there's a partial fast that some of you could participate in. This is you cutting out certain types of foods or cutting out certain meals. So some of you, you might wanna cut out desserts like me, like no more carrot cake, all right. I'm gonna cut out sweets. For some of you, maybe you're cutting out fast food in general. One, you're eating it way too much, it's not healthy for you, you're spending too much money, and maybe you're addicted to it. So you're gonna cut that out potentially as the spirit of God leads you. Some of you are like, I don't eat fast food ever. Well, then you don't need to fast from that. For some of you, you just need to pray through God. What is it? Is it something very specific? Somebody was like, I'm cutting out cauliflower. Like, I just like brussels sprouts, like something you enjoy, okay. And then maybe for some of you, like you're gonna cut out a certain meal of the day.

Maybe breakfast is your favorite meal. Instead of eating breakfast, you're gonna sit down with God. Maybe instead of eating lunch, you're gonna sit down with God. And that hunger pain that you feel on the inside of you, like, oh, man, I really could use a sandwich right now. Well, you know what, God? I don't need that. What I need is you. And as you feel hungry for food, you're gonna nourish yourself on God. Doesn't mean you're not gonna, doesn't mean God's all of a sudden gonna go, and now you're not hungry anymore. No, you're still gonna be hungry. But we're gonna say, I don't need it. What I need is you. For others of you, maybe the Holy Spirit's gonna really speak to your heart something where you're gonna cut out all food for a whole day or more. You know you can go a whole day without eating food. Now, some of you, you need to keep your blood sugar regulated, so don't hear what I'm not saying. Talk to your doctor or whatnot. But for real, for some of you, the Holy Spirit might be like, yeah, this is what I'm leading you to do.

Now, don't be legalistic about it. Don't be like, that just means like, oh, 21 days, I'm never eating anything. If the Holy Spirit's leading you to do that, then he'll sustain you and give you the power to do it. I've never been led by the Holy Spirit to not eat for 21 days, okay? Praise the Lord, right? So it's always food-related, but I've heard other pastors preach this, and I know this is so true for my life. They call it a soul fast, and this is just cutting out different forms of entertainment. So this is cutting out the social medias. This is cutting out the TVs. This is cutting out the news outlets. This is cutting out the things that are stealing your time. This is you going, I don't need to scroll what I need is you, God. See, if we're not careful, and I'm gonna preach this in the coming weeks, so I don't wanna get ahead of myself, the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is just, and God's like, no, no, seek me first. Let's get things in proper order, right? Seek me first, and so what I would encourage you is this, delete those apps. Don't just delete, like delete multiple apps off of your phone, because the tendency is

any spare moment you have, and if I'm not preaching to you, and I know we got an older generation in here, you didn't, like you weren't born with a phone in your hand and everything, and you're like, I don't struggle with that at all. Like if that's not a thing for you, then it's not a thing for you. But for some of our younger people, and I don't throw myself into your category, but I'm there with you, any free moment I have, like I find myself reaching for my phone, pumping gas at a gas station. I used to just pump gas, right? Now, because I got a phone, I'm like, well, I'm gonna pump, and I'm gonna read an article. I wrote this on my whiteboard in my office. 2026 goal, be bored. I don't always have to have a device in my hand. But what happens is we get so addicted to that, and so some of you, it's deleting the app off of your phone, and here's what you're gonna notice. You're gonna reach, and you're gonna go to that app, and it's not gonna be there, and you're gonna go, oh, yeah, that's right, I'm fasting, and you're gonna put your phone down, and then you're gonna do that about 50 more times in a day because you're so addicted to it. How do you know that? Because I've done it.

I'll do it for this fast. I already know the apps the Lord's telling me to delete. I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna reach for my phone, and it's not gonna be there, and I'm gonna go, oh, yeah, golly, I'm so addicted to this. God, I don't need it, though. What I need is you. So make it food-related, yes, yes. Biblical fasting is always food-related, okay? And if you're still angry at me for telling you that, it's not my idea, it was God. Listen, there is. Nothing in me that's excited about fasting for 21 days. There's nothing in me that's like, oh yeah, no carrot cake, no scrolling, no turning, I'm gonna turn the TV off. Like, I'm not like, yeah! But I know after these 21 days, my spirit's gonna be fed. I know after these 21 days, man, my love for God's gonna grow. I'm gonna hear God louder. Here's the good news, guys. God is always speaking to us through his word, through his Holy Spirit. We just don't slow down long enough to listen. So here's how I wrote it down. You ready for this? This is what God put on my heart. For the next 21 days,

we are going to starve our flesh and feed our spirit. All those things that your flesh craves, we're gonna starve it. We're not gonna give it a single bit of food. Like my dog that just sits at the table waiting for me to drop something or give her. Like, no, I'm starving it. I'm gonna feed my spirit. Because I'm gonna seek him for, I'm gonna put God back on the rightful place of the throne of my life that he deserves. I'm gonna give him my attention. Colossians 2 would say it like this. Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. Meaning, you have to be intentional about it. How many of you set an alarm clock to wake up in the morning? How many of you didn't set your alarm clock, you just sleep, woo, right through the day? Yeah, some of y'all got a mental alarm clock? Praise God for people like you. If I don't set an alarm clock, I'm gonna get the best night of sleep I ever had, but I'm gonna be late for every meeting that I had. I set that alarm clock so it wakes me up. You need to set your mind on the things of God. You need to wake up. Stop putting it on all the earthly things. I am preaching to myself just like I'm preaching to you. Here's what this verse is kinda saying.

If I don't set my mind on Jesus, I am only naturally going to set it on something else, something of this world that's not gonna feed me spiritually. Well, why is this so important? Here's why it's important. We are in a spiritual battle. Let me remind you one more time, you ready? The devil is out to steal, kill, and destroy. You know what we're doing? He's attacking us? Here's what we're doing. That's how we're fighting. To fight a spiritual battle, you have to use spiritual weapons. Well, this just feels a little extreme. 21 days, we're gonna not eat some food, we're gonna delete apps, we're gonna, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the battle that we're in is pretty extreme. And we need to wake up, church. We need to wake up to what God has for us. Say amen if you're ready to seek him first. Pastor Jonathan, join me up on the stage. Here's what prayer means, we're closing, landing the plane. Prayer is a complete reliance and need for God. How many of you know you need God for every area of your life? God, I'm completely need, so 21 days, maybe there's been some areas that we have not invited God into.

For 21 days, we're gonna go, God, if I don't have you in this, I'm cooked. God, if I don't have you in this, I'm not gonna make it. God, if I don't have you in this, my hope's gonna be gone, my joy's gonna be gone, my peace is gonna be gone. God, I need you, I am completely relying on you. Jesus said these words, Matthew 21. It is written, meaning he's quoting the Bible. He's quoting the Old Testament. And they would have remembered that. You guys remember, he was saying, it's written. Y'all remember when Isaiah said this, that my house will be called a house of prayer? But you are making it into a den of robbers. He was in the temple, he was in the house of the church at the time, the building. And there were some people that were operating and doing things in a way that they shouldn't be. And that's when Jesus started flipping over the tables. And he looked at him and he goes, no, no, no, you're doing this wrong. This is a house of prayer. The mandate God put on our heart last year was that Rise Church needed to become a house of prayer. Because if I'm honest, we weren't. And so at the start of last year, we said every Wednesday night, from 6.30 to 7.30, we're gonna gather with as many people as show up. And we're just gonna seek the Lord in prayer. And we're gonna learn to pray.

Because there's a lot of us, let's be real, you don't know how to pray. Or your definition of prayer is bad. Or if I put a microphone in your hand right now and said, pray out loud, you would. We're gonna learn to pray bold prayers of faith. We're gonna learn to intercede for one another. We're gonna learn to just gather as the people of God and become a house of prayer. To be a house of prayer, we have to be a people of prayer. And I would be honest and say, because I know this in my life, and I know you would probably say it too, we have neglected the power of prayer often. But we're gonna seek him first. And by seeking him first, our prayer life is gonna grow back to strong, vibrant thing with the Lord. Amen? He said, my house is a house of prayer. And then Paul says this in 1 Corinthians, do you not know that your bodies, they're temples of the Holy Spirit? This is Paul saying, did you not know that your body is the house where the Spirit of God lives? So if his house should be a house of prayer, what should your house be? A house of prayer. Can we be honest? Ready, ready? Let this convict you as much as it can.

Some of us are allowing things in our own lives right now that were never intended to be there. For the next 21 days, we're gonna let the Lord just dig it all out. Just get rid of all of it. We're gonna seek him first. We're gonna starve the flesh so we can feed our spirit. We're gonna do it together. If you're in, say yeah. Yeah. Now, you live in a home, some of you, where you're gonna fast one thing, somebody else is gonna fast, or you're gonna agree to fast together, and then your husband's gonna come home from a long day at work and go, I'm not doing this fast anymore, give me some fried chicken. And in that moment, don't judge him, love him, and encourage him. And you stick to your fast. If you get off, get right back on. 21 days, guys. I promise you, you might not be happy now. I'm not happy now that we're about to do this. But in 21 days, I know, I know how good it's gonna be. And then we're gonna come to revival night on January 31st at the end of those 21 days. And it is going to be powerful because there's gonna be some hungry people

who have been starving their flesh and feeding their spirit. And we're not gonna have to go, all right, guys, we need you to sing. You're gonna be like, let's go! It's gonna be, don't bring your friends from other churches. This is a rise church thing. Don't show up here if you're just gonna be casual. Don't register if you're not committed. Like, this is gonna be a powerful night, and we want you here. If you can be here, sign up, because it's about to be full. And we just believe the Lord has something great in store. And I'm so excited. Can I pray over you? Thank you, Father, for these amazing people that are in this room. I think about Jesus when he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights in the desert, and then the devil came along and tempted him. And because he had been fasting and seeking you, he was actually able to fight off the temptations. I think over the next 21 days, there's some people that are gonna get some victory over some temptations that have been taking them out. But because they're fighting differently, they're gonna overcome those temptations. And then Jesus went and he changed the world. God, would you do that in us? As we seek you, work so mightily in us

that we make a greater impact in the world around us. We pray this in Jesus' name. And all God's people said amen. Hey, I'm gonna invite our prayer team to come stand here at the front. And here's what I wanna say to you. At some point today, I want you to sit down with a journal, a piece of paper, something, and I want you to start writing down, here's what I'm gonna fast from. Write it down, this is why, you ready? To see it and remember it. Now here's the really good news, you ready? Because I know how God works. This is why I have the easiest job in the world. As I'm preaching to you, the Holy Spirit's already telling you what you need to fast from. That's why you don't need to come find me and go, so what do I need to fast from? Holy Spirit's already telling you. Delete this app, delete that app, stop eating this, stop eating that, delete this, stop talking to them. Like, he's doing it. Some of y'all need to fast from some people. Let's go, praise the Lord. Well, come on, let's do it together and let's get expectant for what God is gonna do in our hearts, amen? Rise, church, we love you so much.

If you need prayer or you wanna give your life to Jesus today, you come find one of these people. You are dismissed.