It’s Complicated | How to Have Healthy Relationships | Jeremy DeWeerdt

All right, hello, City First, it's good to see you here today. Thank you for coming and being a part. I want to welcome all of our locations. We love you, City First Church family at every location. And today we begin a brand new series on relationships called It's Complicated, It's Complicated. And here's the reason why we named it It's Complicated is because I think all of us would agree that relationships are complicated, right? I mean, this is not just a series just for married people. It's not just for people that are dating, but also on top of it is for any relationship we have in our life. We're going to talk about relationships, whether they be family relationships, it could be best friend relationships, schoolmates, business partners, and obviously we're also going to talk about romantic relationships. In fact, if the stats are correct, 46% of you right now that are listening are not married, 46%. So that's almost one out of every two. So again, this relationship series is not for just all those married people, but rather, like it has been said, it has been said that relationships are the stuff life is made of, which means that if you have life, you also have relationships. Now, maybe they're not the right ones or maybe not as many as you want, but life is made up of relationships. In fact, if we don't have relationships, then it feels like our life is somewhat diminished. We're actually designed for relationship. We're designed by God to have relationship. First and foremost, relationship with him, our creator,

but also we are actually built and designed and wired to have relationship with other people in this life. And most of us know that when it comes to relationships, it's complicated. Some of the greatest joys of your life have been because of relationships. Some of the greatest pain in your life has been because of relationship, right? Relationships can be complicated. Why? Why can they be complicated? Well, it is because of outside of our relationship with God, outside of that relationship, every other relationship in our life is the coming together of two flawed people, right? And when they come together, the flaws and the shortcomings, it kind of gets complicated. I would even say that our relationship with our creator can be complicated, but do not mistakenly think that's his fault. Instead, it is because of our flaws that we come into that relationship and we complicate things because we have limited perspective, misconceptions, we have sin, things get complicated even in our relationship with God. And most of us, most of us, the complication is partially our fault too, right? In fact, to quote our friend Taylor, it's me. Hi, I'm the problem. It's me, right? I think all of us can go into our relationships, whether it be with God or others and say, yeah, it's me. It's me. How do we uncomplicate our relationships? How do we bring health into our relationships? That's what this series is about. I want to encourage you to come every single week this month because we're going to continually build on this idea of how to have a healthy relationship. In fact, today, I'm just setting the table. But today also, I believe, is the most important week because it is building the foundation for healthy relationships.

First of all, we need to understand this about relationships. We need to understand that life is relationships and it requires a lot of work. How many would say relationships require work? Amen, right? Lots of work. In fact, nobody, nobody has healthy relationships by mistake. Nobody just all of a sudden woke up one morning and like, wow, all my relationships are super healthy. That didn't happen. It requires a lot of work. In fact, Theodore Roosevelt said this one time. He said the most important single ingredient in the formula of success, meaning in life, is knowing how to get along with people. In other words, you want to be successful at business. You want to be successful in your marriage. You want to be successful in your neighborhood. You want to be successful in life, your career, or whatever else, in your family. You have to figure out how to get along with people and how to have healthy relationships, especially with those that you give your heart to and those that you do life with. Two things that every person, whether you're 15. or 105 years old in here, every person is gonna deal with your whole life. Two things, number one, relationships, number two, money, and only one of them will make you truly rich. A lot of times we think, oh, money will make us happy. Actually, I would say that money can make you happy for a little bit, but a lot of times, money leaves you feeling empty. There's nothing wrong with money,

but relationships are what really give you fulfillment in life. First and foremost, our relationship with God, secondly, healthy relationships with others. In our neighborhood right now, there are two houses being built, and they were just plots of land forever, and then within the last few months, somebody must have purchased it or whatever, and they decided to build houses. And so most of you in the room probably don't know the process of building a house, including myself. There are some of you that work in the trades, you work in construction, you're builders. But there's a whole process about building a house that most Americans are not aware of. And first, most vitally important when you build a house or a structure is that you have to have a firm, solid foundation. In the Midwest here, you dig a hole so you can have a basement, all right, and you build a foundation. Down in Cape Coral, Florida, you don't dig a hole because you hit the water table and a few alligators along the way. So you don't do that. But here, you dig a hole, and then really, you gotta build this foundation, and everything depends on the foundation

being firm and secure. After that, the workers start going to work. They start putting up the sticks, putting up load-bearing walls, putting exterior walls. Before you know it, all of a sudden, the trusses are going up, usually a roof after that or so. Then you start building the interior walls, and before you know it, you have the plumbers coming in, you have the electricians coming in, you have the HVAC heating and cooling people coming in. They're doing it, and then the walls go up, the drywall goes up, they start painting. Then all of a sudden, the floors and the cabinetry and the fixtures, and boom, all of a sudden, you have a house, and it's all in very specific, sequential order how you build a house. But most of us, most Americans, when we go to buy a house, we walk in, and what are we noticing? We're noticing the walls, the layout. We're noticing the ceiling, the fixtures. We're liking the cabinets. We're looking at the kind of floor it is. We're looking at the kind of carpet. We're doing all those things, and we're deciding whether we're gonna buy a house based upon those things. However, all of those things, albeit important in a house, are all cosmetic things.

Those things do not keep the structure standing. In fact, most home buyers are fixated on what they could see, not what they can't see, and the real sturdiness of the house is what you can't see. People are like, oh yeah, I like those cabinets. Oh man, this is kind of a mid-century modern kind of house. I'm digging that. Oh, the floors, that's awesome. But what really holds the structure together is hidden. Do you hear that? It's hidden. No one is geeking out over the load-bearing beam that goes the span of the house that is holding tens of thousands of pounds so that you can have your Joanna Gaines shiplap, okay? No one's like looking at the load-bearing beam and going, oh man, that's awesome, or those trusses. Man, I'll tell you, that's amazing. Those are some really cool trusses. No, no one's noticing that. They're all looking at the superficial, cosmetic parts of the house. But the real quality of a house is in the structure and in its mechanicals. It's what's holding it together and making it run. And it's the same with your relationships. People buy into relationships all the time, especially romantically. They buy into relationships all the time, and they're looking at the surface items.

And what they're doing is they are risking housing their heart in an unstable structure because all they're looking at is the shiplap. They're just looking at the exterior. They're looking at what they can see. But deep down on the inside, the stability of every relationship in your life is hidden. It is the stuff that you don't see right away. You could almost call it the bones of the house. It is the bones of the relationship. It needs to be built strong from the inside out. It needs to have a strength, and it needs to have quality in the hidden parts. And I'm gonna give you right now what I think is the load-bearing beam of every relationship. in your life, or it needs to be, if it's gonna be healthy, and that is this. Jesus has to be, must be, the center of our key relationships. That is the load-bearing beam. Because when the weight comes, and the stress comes, and the financial pressure comes, or the disappointment comes, or the curveball that life throws you comes, when all those things come, there's gonna be a weight and a heaviness that comes on that relationship that wants to tear it apart, but there needs to be Jesus in the middle. He should be there as that load-bearing beam,

you could say. The reason I say key relationships, I don't, when I wrote my first draft of this message, I put, you know, that Jesus should be at the center of your relationships, and I started thinking about it, and I'm like, well, yes and no. So I inserted the word key. And here's the reason why I said the key relationships, because we have different type of relationships. A key relationship would be one like your spouse, or the person you're dating right now, or your best friend, or your family, those people that are up close to you, the ones that you give your heart to. We say this all the time, it's not a part of my notes, but you know, you can't go without a relationship series without saying it, show me your friends, and I'll show you your future, right? Well, let me tweak that a little bit. Show me your key relationships, and I'll show you your future. So outside of those key relationships, there are other relationships. You have coworkers, the person who's housed three cubicles down from you in the office, the person that's five lockers down from you at school, the individual that you go to work with on the job site every day. These are like other relationships,

but I wouldn't say they're key relationships. You're not necessarily letting them into your inner circle, and not everybody in your world is a follower of Jesus. So to say that every relationship should have Jesus at the center is probably a little impossible because you have friendships and relationships with people that are far from faith, and they don't have Jesus at the center, and now you should be walking Jesus into that relationship. So I guess backing up the truck a little bit, I'm saying every key relationship, I mean, especially romantic relationship, especially best friend relationships, these are relationships that you are allowing on the inside, close to you. You're being vulnerable to a certain degree with each and every one of them, that you are sharing life and doing life together. These people, these relationships needs Jesus at the center. And the Bible says this in 2 Corinthians 6, verse 14. Paul is writing, and he says, "'Don't become partners with those who reject God.'" How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That's not a partnership, that's war. Is light best friends with dark? What he's getting at there is this, is that those key relationships, I'm talking the ones that you choose who you're dating,

who you're marrying, you choose who your best friend is, those kind of relationships, they need Jesus at the middle because they're the ones that really shape your life. Paul is saying, listen, what does light have in partnership with darkness? It becomes a war at that point, why? Because if Jesus is most important to you, then that Jesus should be most important to that other person that you let in close to you. Otherwise, it's not really firing on all cylinders, you could say. Now, you might be a follower of Jesus here today, and you might be thinking to yourself, yeah, but that girl at work who doesn't know Jesus, she's hot though. And I'd say to that, yeah, and so might be your eternity if you don't watch out. So here's the thing, be careful, okay? Show me your friends, show your future, all right? Now, but seriously, here's the thing, you cannot become partners with those that reject Jesus. It's just, it doesn't work, your relationship doesn't have that thriving health that God wants you to have. In other words, it'd be easy to just look at the paint and the shiplap, but the house of that relationship is built on a shaky foundation. And for any key relationship to have real health, our belief is Jesus must be the glue that holds it together.

Jesus has to be that glue, because something's gonna hold that relationship together. And in my opinion, it should be Jesus. In fact, it says in Colossians 1, verse 17, says, he, meaning God, is before all things, and in him, all things hold together. That last point there, in him, capital H, in God, in Jesus, all things hold together. things hold together. When your marriage is in Christ, when your best friendships are in Christ, when your business partner and you are in Christ, when your dating relationships are in Christ, he holds it together. So what's gonna hold your marriage together? Jesus is. What's gonna hold your dating relationship together? Jesus should. What's gonna hold your family, your best friendships together? He does. Jesus holds it all together. And I will tell you that is good because the storms of life come, challenges come, disappointments come, sometimes betrayal and hurt and pain and trouble, all of this comes. I remember when Jen and I got married in 1995, we're coming up on 30 years this summer.

And I'll tell you that when we were in 1995 getting married, we were in love and goose bumps and butterflies and all the things. And by the way, we still have those from time to time. So don't think that's just something in the past. But it's just amazing that we had no idea the challenges. We had no idea the challenges that lay before us. Not only challenges in our own kind of relationship, but the challenges of this life, putting pressure and weight on our relationship, we had no clue. And we needed Jesus to hold it together and we still do. In fact, I will tell you the greatest testimony of 30 years, and I would consider us to have a healthy relationship and a vibrant marriage, it is solely because Jesus is at the center. It is because he is the glue that holds it together. Because Jeremy's flawed and oh my gosh, is Jen flawed. But no, Jen, I'm just kidding, I kid. You're like, well, that proves you're flawed. I know, I know, it's a joke. We're both flawed, we're both flawed. And you know what? It's because of Jesus, just continually putting him back in the middle. Jesus holds things together, even when it feels like things are falling apart. Even when things are falling apart. You know, there are many things that you and I can do to strengthen our relationships.

Again, whether they're romantic or just friendships. There are many things that we should do. Like for one, we need to work hard at it. We talked about that. It requires hard work. We're gonna get into that in this series, what that really means, all right? Also, we should honor the other person. We should honor one another. Honor is important for a healthy relationship. We should serve one another, okay? It isn't all about just me. It's not about the other person. We should serve one another. We should love one another. These are all super important things. But the one thing, if you say the one thing, which is why I'm talking about today, and don't mistakenly think this is just elementary, this is foundational. The one thing that will transform relationships like none other is to have Christ-centered relationships. But before you can have a Christ-centered relationship, you need to have a Christ-centered life. You have to have a Christ-centered life. Jesus will come in the middle of your relationship, but it starts with Jesus being in the middle of the two people that are in that relationship. It starts with individually saying, you need to be at the center of my life,

like that song that we just sang. You have to be in the center. Now, I think it's possible, I think it's possible for a Christ follower to not have Jesus at the center of his or her life from time to time. And here's the reason why. Even though you're a follower of Jesus, sometimes you drift, sometimes you compromise, sometimes you try to put other things in the middle. There are other things vying for the throne of your heart, you could say. Things like fear or insecurity or selfishness or pride or materialism or whatever else. There's always things trying to kick Jesus off the throne. And sometimes Jesus can be on the periphery. And we can maybe even look at him as kind of a 911 God. It's like when things go wrong, it's like, oh God, I'm back in church. Hi, how are you? I need your help. It's like a 911 moment. But you're designed for more than a 911 relationship with your Savior. In fact, Romans says this. It says, love from the center of who you are. In other words, from the very core of who you are, love from that place, all right? And make sure Jesus is there. Don't fake it.

Run for dear life from evil. Hold on. for dear life to good. Our lives are always centered around something or someone. In fact, we were created not only to have relationship, but here's another thing, we were actually created to worship. We all worship something. That's why I always laugh when people that claim to be atheists are like, oh yeah, I don't worship anything. I'm like, yeah, you do. You're worshiping something. We all worship something. We all look to something as our source. We all look to something as truth and a standard. So therefore, whatever is at the center gets our attention. And whatever gets our attention, we tend to worship. So who is at the center of our life, informs and directs our life. Whatever is at the center, okay? Who is at the center? What is at the center? Informs and directs our life. Now I'll tell you what our culture does. Our culture says, me is at the center. Me. It's all about me. What makes me happy? How much can I get?

My truth, me, me, me. And most people in our culture walk into relationships or friendships with me at the center. In fact, they look through the selfish lens in a relationship of this. What's best for me? And the relationship is fixated on what is best for me. You get two people together who are thinking, what's best for me? And then they're trying to have a relationship where you come together and you try to make the other person's life win. Well, it doesn't work when we're me-centered because each person is only thinking about themself. Then Jesus comes along and he goes, I'm gonna give you a new metric. I'm gonna give you a new code when it comes to relationships. It isn't about me. Instead, Jesus says this, and I'm gonna give you two verses here that inform the way that we're supposed to live in our relationships the Jesus way. First is found in John 15. This is a quote of Jesus. He says, my command is this, love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. In other words, Jesus is going,

you are to try to make the other person's life win more than you're making your own life win. Now, the minute I say that, you're kind of like, oh, and I know there's nuances to that, okay? I'm not saying you get taken advantage of, although sometimes you do get taken advantage of. Was Jesus ever taken advantage of? Yes. Will you? Probably. Okay, so here's the thing. Sometimes you extend your heart and efforts and you try to make another person's life win and in the process, they don't reciprocate and that's hurtful. And that's real. We're gonna talk a little bit about that next week, all right? We're gonna talk a little bit about that next week. But Jesus is saying, not necessarily we have to like physically lay our life down, although he did. And sometimes people have, but what he's saying is, lay down the life that says, I'm at the center. Lay that down and love the other person. And then he defines love, it's later on in the Bible, it's in the letter to the Corinthians, says this about love. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy.

It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It's not self-seeking. It is not easily angered or triggered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves. Now, I read that and there aren't a lot of people going, amen! You know why? It's because as we read that, you're putting that through the filter of your current relationships and you're thinking, do I do that? And if you're like me, you're like, wow, I have a long ways to go. I don't know about you, but as I read the Jesus way of loving, not like the cultural way, love, love, love, let's love each other. Let's put it on, you know, on walls. Love, love, love, love, love. Okay, no, that's love. That is not a cultural kind of love. That's not the love that our culture embraces. They embrace a lovey-dovey, I love people who love me back. This kind of love is a love that's self-sacrificing,

a love that makes you dig deep, a love that makes you literally abandon. and then me-ism, and I'll tell you, it is hard, and it's something we work on for the rest of our lives. As I, yeah, you can give that a round of applause if you want. Some of you are like, I wanna clap. Yes. No, no, the Jesus kind of love is a love of your enemies. It's a love that's self-sacrificing. It's a love that trusts. It's a love that has hope. It's a love that is all in. I mean, it's all those things. And as I read that, don't you feel the room? It just, you're like, oh man, I got a long ways to go. And I will tell you as your pastor, I do too. I have a long ways to go. Jen would be like, amen. It's a whole different metric. It's a whole different measuring stick that Jesus gives us. And Jesus says, listen, if you love and put the other person first, lay down your life and make that other person's life win. If you do that, and if you try to live the kind of love like I define there in the Bible, Jesus says, I'm gonna be a glue that holds that relationship together. When the storms of life come, you're not gonna break apart or bust apart

when everything starts pushing against that relationship. Or he would say, or you can do it your way and you be the glue. And let's just see how that works out for you. You see, who or what is at the center determines everything. There's a question mark I have for you today. Who's at the center of your relationships? Who's at the center? I mean, you gotta think about that. Is it me? Is it the other person? Is it Jesus? Is it something else? Is it the pursuit of things? Is it money? Like, who or what is at the center? See, if you, if you put me at the center, well then all of a sudden, that is gonna inform some things. It's gonna inform like exactly like the values and the belief systems that you have. If you are at the center, then your actions and your influence are sourced from me. Your actions will be determined by me, all right? And then the fruit of that are things like, well, there's selfishness and there's fear, there's pride and there's boasting, lust, getting, discontentment, insecurity, greed. That's the fruit of a life or a relationship that has me at the center.

But if Jesus is at the center, now Jesus is at the center. Well, now all of a sudden he's informing the values and the belief systems that you should have, which then determines the actions and the influence that you have. Well, now all of a sudden, if Jesus is at the center and you're going, I'm gonna lay my life down for my spouse. I'm gonna lay my life down for my best friend. I'm gonna lay my life down for my best friend and my business associate or whoever it is, okay? And I'm going to try to love them in the way that Christ defines love. Well, now all of a sudden the fruit of things like love and forgiveness and faith, safety, that's a big one. Don't we want safe relationships? Some of us are in unsafe relationships right now. And my heart goes out to you because you're kind of like, if I say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing, somebody's gonna get triggered. I'm gonna be made to pay. And I mean, there's all the, you know what? Again, with Jesus at the center and people are living according to his values, his beliefs, his actions, and his influence, then it's safe and there's trust and there's grace and there's security and there's joy and all of those things. See, who is at the center of the relationships you have,

the key relationships you have, determines everything. It determines the fruit of that relationship. Some of us, we have me at the center or one of the two people is me at the center and it's creating all kinds of complication. Now, when Jesus is at the center and all of a sudden there's two people, now all of a sudden it's multiplied. You got more love, you got more safety, you got more trust, more grace, more faith, more kindness. So here is the thing that we wanna end with today because I know you're asking this question deep down in the inside. I can see it in your eyes as I'm talking. You're thinking to yourself, okay, well, how do I get Jesus into the center of the relationship? How do I do that? And again, it's very elementary. Today is kind of an elementary day, but don't mistakenly think elementary doesn't mean it's unimportant. important. In fact, it is the elementary things. There's nothing real good-looking about a well-built foundation. It's cement, it's rebar. Most people don't paint their foundations. Most people don't decorate their foundations. See, they decorate the studs and the drywall. The foundation itself is kind of ugly. It's not real appealing, but it holds everything up. Today, this simple teaching is the foundation. It is the load-bearing beams in your relationship. Jesus has to be at the center. I'm going to tell you how, and it's going to seem too simple, but it's something that we constantly have to try to make happen and make a reality in our life. The first one is this. We first need to declare that He's in charge and you are not.

You're not in charge of your life after you give your life to Jesus. Do you know that? You're a follower. Not follower leader. You're a follower of Jesus. You don't lead Jesus. He leads you. You know what? We get to go to heaven someday. We don't have our sins counted against us. Jesus died on a cross to pay the penalty for our sin, and you know what in turn we do? We follow and submit our lives to Him. We say, we're no longer in charge. You want to be in charge and go to hell, or do you want to be submitted and go to heaven? You see what I mean? Really, if you think about it, we have a really good part of the bargain here. That our sins are forgiven, though we don't deserve it. And Jesus says, now I want you to follow me. I want you to do life my way. And that's a lifelong process. That doesn't happen overnight. That will take you the rest of your life as you continually try to live more and more like Jesus wants you to live. But we got to decide who's in charge. Who's in charge of your marriage? You in charge of your marriage? No, you're not in charge of your marriage. Jesus is in charge of your marriage. Who's in charge of your best friends? Not you. Jesus is. Who's in charge of your family? Jesus is. You see, He's in charge. And then number two, we got to submit to His word and not our will. Jesus had to do this. In the garden, He prays a very famous prayer. He says, not my will, as He's talking to the Father, not my will, but Thy will be done. So even Jesus had to surrender His will. And we have to do that all the time in our relationships and even in our relationship with God. We submit to God's word, what He says. It says in James 1, 22, it says, but don't listen to, or just listen to God's word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you're only fooling yourself. So don't just listen, do it. I mean, those of you who have kids, you know that you will look at them and you'll tell them, this is what I want you to do. And then they don't do it, right? They heard you, but they don't do it. They have this thing called selective hearing. And yet we do that with God all the time. We hear Him, but we don't want to do it. And here the Bible even says, don't just listen, do it. Number three, you want to put Jesus at the center, use God's word as your North star, as your true North, as your guide in how you are to live. In other words, culture is going to tell you a certain way of living and maybe even friends are going to tell you or people are going to tell you or whatever else. But at the end of the day, the word of God is your true North. It is your guide. The Bible says that the word of the Lord is a lamp unto your path, to your feet. In other words, it's like carrying a lamp and it gives you

a circumference of light to be able to stay on the path and to keep walking one step after the other. Use God's word. Matthew chapter six, verse 33. Some of you know, the version is seek first the kingdom of God. This is a different version. This is the contemporary English version. It says, but more than anything else, put God's work first and do what he wants. Do what he wants. And then the other things will be yours as well. In other words, you want happiness, you want joy, you want fulfillment, you want all those things. Those things will be added unto you as you do what God wants you to do. And then lastly, invite Jesus into the middle often. And what I mean by that is put him in the center often. It's more than a one-time prayer. It's more than just today's message. Yes. Pray a message or pray, pray today's. God be in the center, but you're probably gonna have to pray it again tomorrow because something else is gonna be fending or fighting for that space. So I wanna encourage you, those of you that are married, I wanna encourage you to pray together. I know some of you are like, oh, it's so awkward. Well, you don't have to be eloquent and you don't have to use old English. I don't know where in America we got this idea that somehow we have to use these and thous and herewiths and all those kinds of things like that when we pray. No, you pray to God like you talk to your friend, okay? Pray together. Something happens when a husband and a wife pray together. Something happens when best friends pray together. Something happens when business partners pray together. Talk about Jesus often. You know, the passion of our hearts comes out of our mouths. Some of us, we love football,

so we're talking about the upcoming Super Bowl. You know, some of us love sports, some of us love fishing, some of us love snowmobiling, some of us love shopping, some of us love building things, whatever it is, okay? We talk about it, it just comes out. Well, if Jesus is the passion of your heart, then it should just come out of your mouth, right? So talk about that with your spouse. Talk about that with your best friends. Make it not awkward, and at first it might be awkward, but just talk about these things that are the most important things. Go to church often. That's how you can continue to put Jesus back in the center. It's a reminder every week. It's like, oh yeah, I gotta do that. And so come together as a family, as friends. Sit together as best friends. Sit together as individuals, you know, in your family or spouses or whatever. Just sit together and be like, we are learning about God and we're gonna put Jesus at the center every single week by going to church. What's holding you together right now? Some of you are like going, well, it's kind of like a lot of duct tape and Bondo is holding my car together right now, you know? It's like, man, our marriage is barely holding together. Our friendships are barely holding together. Our business relationships are, okay.

Let's pray that Jesus becomes the glue that holds it together, but he has to be in the middle. Let me pray for you. I pray, Father, I pray right now for my friends that whatever relationship is hot on their heart right now and heavy in their mind, whether it be a romantic relationship or a best friend relationship or whatever it is that's weighing heavy on them, Lord, I pray that you would be in the center. And I realize that's a journey and I realize that it takes time but yet it's driven by a decision. So may they decide today. We're gonna put Jesus in the middle of this. And I pray that you would begin to become the glue that holds it together when the winds of life kick in and the weight of life weighs down. Be the one that is that load bearing beam in our relationship, a firm foundation, the glue that holds it all together. Lord, as we travel through the next few weeks in this relationship series, may our relationships get stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger. But it all starts with you being in the middle. With every head bowed and every eye closed, real quickly for the next 30 seconds, but very important. If you say, man, Jesus, you talked about him being the center of my life.

He's not the center of my life. I need to make him the center of my life. If that's you today and you say, I wanna make Jesus the center of my life, I wanna become a follower of Jesus. You're not joining City First Church or anything like that. You're just saying, I want forgiveness for all I've done wrong and I wanna put Jesus in the middle of my life. He must be the leader of my life. If that's you, just go ahead and raise your hand and I'm gonna pray for you real quickly. Yeah, hands are up everywhere. Hands are up everywhere. I guarantee you at every location. Let me pray for you. Lord, I pray right now for every person that raised their hand. I pray that God, you would be the center of their life. In fact, let's all of us together, whether you raise your hand or not, let's say this prayer real quickly, all right? Jesus, be the center of my life. Forgive me of all my sin. Come into my heart. Give me a new life. I believe you died for me. I believe you love me. Thank you, in Jesus' name. And everybody said, amen, amen.

All right, come on, let's give God a huge round of applause. If you made that decision to follow Jesus, we wanna say congratulations because that is the best decision that you could ever make. It's the most life-changing prayer that you could ever pray. And what a great day. A way to start the day is to begin that relationship with Jesus. So just a few practical things. First thing is, you gotta tell somebody about that decision you're making. And then the second thing is, we wanna point you to the New Beginnings resource. It's entirely free. You can scan the QR code that's on the screen or check out the City First app. Just explains a little bit further about that decision that you're making today. That's right, and if you just made that decision to make Jesus a leader and forgiver of your life, or you've had a relationship with Jesus for a day or a decade, we wanna invite you to jump into Growth Track. Growth Track is just a four-week class. It's designed to help you discover your divine design and your divine gifts. It's actually a really fun class. You get to learn about your personality and just all these fun things. Your leadership style.

Your leadership style. So you can jump into that today. If you wanna jump in online, you can do that by scanning the QR code or hopping on the City First app, but we also offer it in person too. And so we just encourage you to jump into that. It's, again, it's only four classes. It is fantastic. It's short, but it's so effective. That's right, you know, and around here, we believe in the power of prayer. So if you are going through something and you would like prayer, we would love, it would be our honor to pray for you. So you could drop that in the chat and a host would love to take a moment and pray for you, or you can jump on the City First app at any point and you can actually request prayer on there and it goes to a team, hundreds of pastors and prayer team members to be praying for. So we'd love to pray for you throughout the week as your prayer requests raise up or show themselves in your life, we can jump on and we'd love to take a moment to pray for you. Well, great. Hey, next Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday. We're gonna have lots of free family fun

at our in-person locations. And we invite you to invite a friend, invite your family members to join us next week. We're gonna continue our It's Complicated series. It's gonna be fantastic. Hey guys, we're praying for you. We're praying this is a great week and we'll see you at First Wednesday. Have a good one.