Kyle Karnes | Servicio | July 26th, 2026

(speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) (audience applauds) (speaks in foreign language) - Thank you. Thank you, Dargo. My name is Kyle Carnes. Jesus Christ has set me free. My identity is in Jesus Christ. (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) - He has delivered me from a long battle of alcoholism. And my name is Kyle. Thank you for having me. (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) - This is my first time to get to preach on a Sunday morning here at this church, and I am honored that it gets to be with you.

(speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) - So you heard read overall last week? Read is my, it's my armano. That's my amigo. (speaks in foreign language) - I love read. (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) - I'm sorry. (speaks in foreign language) - I'm sorry. (speaks in foreign language) But I'm prettier than read, so you're welcome. (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) (laughter) I'm kidding. (speaks in foreign language) But I have the privilege of serving here at this church in our jail ministry, along with celebrate recovery. (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) - If you would have told me that this would be my life some four years ago, I would have said you are local. (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) - At this church, it changed my life. (speaks in foreign language)

- And celebrate recovery radically changed my life, and Jesus Christ radically changed my life through this church. (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) - But more on that in just a minute. (speaks in foreign language) - But the word I have for you today, it actually comes from a message that I shared in this very room a few years ago for our celebrate recovery meeting. (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) - In fact, it was a lesson on step three of the 12 steps of recovery. (speaks in foreign language) - And for those of you who are not familiar with the 12 steps of recovery, you're about to learn just a little bit, so please bear with me. (speaks in foreign language) - But as I was thinking about and praying about what word the Lord wanted me to share with you all this morning, the word that I kept hearing was surrender. (speaks in foreign language) - Surrender is exactly what step three and the 12 steps of recovery is all about. (speaks in foreign language) - And you may be thinking, "Why should I care about this? What does this have to do with me? I'm not in recovery."

(speaks in foreign language) - Well, maybe you should be. (speaks in foreign language) - Or maybe perhaps you should think like somebody who is in recovery. (speaks in foreign language) - Someone who is desperate. (speaks in foreign language) - For the healing power and freedom that we get to find in a fully surrendered life to Jesus Christ. (speaks in foreign language) - So let me ask you this. How many of you in this room have in fact surrendered your life to Jesus Christ? (speaks in foreign language) - Amen. - Amen. - Amen. - If you are new here, maybe you're new and maybe you're on the defense of God. on God's timing that will happen. But for those of you that have, was this a one-time decision or is this something that do you do every single day? Let me ask you this, this is really the heart of what I'm getting to. Is there something in your life that continues to surface, that continues to come up, some kind of hurt or some kind of habit? I think that's why I'm here to help you. I'm going to be a part of the community. I want to be a part of the community, and I want to be a part of the community. I want to be a part of the community, and I want to be a part of the community.

No matter how hard you've tried, this just will not go away. An example of that could be a toxic relationship with someone, it could be struggling with control, it could be alcohol or drugs, this could be pornography, just to name a few examples. The Apostle Paul puts it like this in Romans 7, 18, and 19. For I know that good itself does not dwell on me, that is in my sinful nature, for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry that out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing. Does this relate to anyone? Does anyone resonate with this before? I want to say, I still have a message, I want to share with you this morning. We've been there, I've been there many times. I wanted to share with you this morning three big ideas to live a fully surrendered life and show you that step three is a very powerful way for you to overcome this recurring hurt that you've had in your life. So what is step three? Step three says, we made a decision to turn our lives in our wheels over to the care of God. And what is step three? Step three says, we made a decision to turn our lives in our wheels over to the care of God. And then the scripture that goes with it is out of Romans 12.1, which says, "Therefore we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God." This is our true and proper worship. So if I was going to break down step one, two and three to you in the simplest way to summarize step one, two and three, it would go like this. I can't, he can and now I'm ready to let him. And so this idea of surrendering your life to Jesus, not just the parts that you want everybody to see, but your whole life. This idea cannot be a sort of lukewarm decision. You have to make a choice. And for those of us in recovery, this choice can quite literally mean life or death or going back to prison. - We have to make this choice every single day. (speaking in foreign language) So how do we do it? How do we let go and let God, or like Paul talks about in Romans 12, 1?

How do we start to live a fully, like offer our bodies as a living sacrifice? (speaking in foreign language) - The first thing that we do, the first big idea that I'm gonna give you this morning, is we have to wake up to the fact that we are not in control and we learn to trust God. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) - Have y'all ever thought about all of the random people and things that you put your trust in on a daily basis without even thinking about it? (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) - And if some of you were to go out to eat, maybe after church today, you go to your favorite hamburger restaurant, you are going to be trusting that some random teenager who only knows how to get through life on his phone is going to cook your hamburger all the way through so that you don't get sick. (speaking in foreign language) - (speaking in foreign language) - And then the first slide, please. So my friend Cody and I, this is a picture of me and my friend Cody, we've been to Uganda together twice. (speaking in foreign language) - We trusted some random stranger, and that's a really nice guy,

but we trusted this guy to drive us around on a motorcycle through the crazy streets of Uganda and not kill us for two weeks. (speaking in foreign language) - I could go on and on and on with examples, but yet for whatever reason, we struggle with trusting in the king of the universe, the creator of all things, the creator of you with every aspect of our lives. (speaking in foreign language) - Is there something in your life that you're still holding on to, that you're not ready to give to God yet? (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) - I can testify to you, my friends. God is trustworthy. (speaking in foreign language) - Come on, come on, yeah, come on, let's go. (audience applauding) The most important element or the foundation of what any relationship is built on is built on trust. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) - It is possible for you to have a relationship with somebody that you don't trust, but I promise you that relationship will not be healthy. (speaking in foreign language) - Some of us, we have personalities and I'm one of these who are,

this is an all or nothing. Like if I'm going to, I'm not going to like test the water in the pool, I'm going to jump and dive all the way in. (speaking in foreign language) - And that's great, but most of us, it takes time. We have to learn. (speaking in foreign language) It takes steps, and that's how the 12 steps of recovery works. (speaking in foreign language) - I love this, the psalmist said that your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (speaking in foreign language) - God rarely gives us a floodlight. He gives us a lamp. (speaking in foreign language) - A lamp doesn't show you the whole journey. It just shows you the next step. (speaking in foreign language) - That is how faith works. That is how trust works. That this is not one big, dramatic leap, but one obedient step at a time. (speaking in foreign language) - Abraham in the Old Testament, he did not get the full picture. Abraham got a promise. (speaking in foreign language) And Jesus didn't say,

"I need you to understand everything first." He said, "Follow me." (speaking in foreign language) - See, we wanna see change right now. We wanna see change right now. God wants us to trust him and give it to him on his time. (speaking in foreign language) - Amen. So one, one obedient step for you, it may look like making an amends to a family member that you've been putting off for a long time. (speaking in foreign language) - It may mean confessing something that you've been hiding in the dark and getting it out into the light so you can start to heal. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) - It might mean ending an inappropriate relationship that you've been having with someone that you're not married to. (speaking in foreign language) - It could mean showing up to a recovery meeting. (speaking in foreign language) - It could even mean selling your home. (speaking in foreign language) - Let me explain. (speaking in foreign language) So late last year around Christmas time,

we put our home on the market. (speaking in foreign language) - Because we felt like God was calling us to sell our house and to move. (speaking in foreign language) - My wife and I, we built our beautiful dream home over seven years ago. (speaking in foreign language) - We absolutely loved that home. I loved that home. (speaking in foreign language) - I was proud of that home. But we would go back and forth from, babe, do you trust God or, and then me is being my turn where I would maybe start to doubt and she's telling me, "Cal, do you trust God?" (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) - Like, are you sure we're supposed to do this? (speaking in foreign language) - But eventually, we just, we came together and we said, "No, we are going to trust God in this process." (speaking in foreign language) - So we ended up selling our home and we ended up putting it on the market. (speaking in foreign language) - And we got a good offer in February and we sold it, but we had to be out of our house

in 30 days. (speaking in foreign language) - And we didn't even have another home to move into yet. (speaking in foreign language) - So my wife, my kids are two dogs, well, one dog, and we all moved in to our friend's house. Some very dear friends. (speaking in foreign language) - And I'm happy to say that even after living with him for more than six weeks, we're still very good friends. (speaking in foreign language) - Amen. (speaking in foreign language) But meanwhile, I was hoping for that there was a home right over here in Metal Lakes, right by the church that we thought we were gonna buy. (speaking in foreign language) I already had dreamed about buying a golf cart and riding it to work and back and putting the Dallas Cowboys colors on this golf cart. (speaking in foreign language) Well, it didn't work out. That home didn't go through. And long story short, I was angry, I was frustrated, I was heartbroken. (speaking in foreign language) So, we had to go back to the drawing board and start looking at other houses. And my wife, she found a home in Richland Hills,

not too far from here and scheduled an appointment for us to go look at it one Sunday afternoon after church. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) I was not interested in seeing this home one bit, but I agreed to go look and so we agreed to go look at it. (speaking in foreign language) But after seeing it, I started changing my tune a little bit. This home was perfect. It had a big backyard with a really pretty pool. It had a little area that they used for an office that we could turn into our salon suite, which she and I do still do here, just so y'all know. (speaking in foreign language) So, we put an offer in on this home and they accepted it. Praise God, amen. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) But here's the point, here's the cool, but here's the God part in this story. (speaking in foreign language) So, we went to go do a walkthrough with the inspector before we bought the house and the inspector was gonna give us, was gonna show us the home through a walkthrough. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) And the homeowners of this house, they were there in the home. They weren't supposed to be there, but they were there. And the woman actually overheard my conversation with the inspector when he was asking me

what I did for a living. (speaking in foreign language) So, the woman that lived there, the homeowner, she got all excited and she came around the corner where I was and she said, wait, did you just say that you worked at a church as a minister for a recovery program? (speaking in foreign language) I said, yes, ma'am, I do. And she said, she was all excited to tell me, I have been in recovery for over 10 years from drugs and alcohol and she shared that with me. And she said, yeah. (speaking in foreign language) (audience applauding) It gets better. She said that they've had testimonies and people come over to have meetings at this home where people would share their testimonies. And I told her, I said, ma'am, today is my four year sobriety anniversary date. Can I have a hug? And she hugged me and we bought, I'm crying, my wife is crying. The inspector guy that we just met is crying. (audience laughing) (speaking in foreign language) (audience laughing) - Sounds much better in Spanish, I like that. But by the time we left this home,

we're all standing in a circle, me and the former homeowners, the inspector guy we just met, and my wife and I are all praying in this kitchen. But all we left. (speaking in foreign language) Only God can orchestrate something like that. But it took us trusting Him. (speaking in foreign language) (audience applauding) (applause) So that brings us to number two, the second big idea to live a fully surrendered life. (speaking in foreign language) Is that we now learn to stop relying on our own understanding. (speaking in foreign language) You see, relying on my own understanding is what landed me in recovery in the first place. (speaking in foreign language) How many of you know the Proverbs? Proverbs three verses five and six. (speaking in foreign language) You all hear this? (speaking in foreign language) It says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. He says, in all your ways, submit to him and he will make your path straight. (speaking in foreign language)

But this is a lot easier to read. It is a lot easier said than done, isn't it? (speaking in foreign language) See, if I wrote this proverb, it would sound something like this. (speaking in foreign language) I'm gonna say, trust in the Lord with all your heart, but if you're struggling with the all part, don't worry because he knows your heart. (speaking in foreign language) And he understands you. (speaking in foreign language) Therefore, he will understand you if you're not quite ready to submit yet. (speaking in foreign language) But that's not how it goes. That's not what it says. (speaking in foreign language) See, early on in my recovery, I used to think that if I could just get my wife to understand me better, then my problems would start to get better. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) Then she would understand why I drink so much or why my destructive behavior, my impulses. And then I would be justified in it because she would understand me. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language)

It would go something like this. I would say, you don't know what I've been through. You don't know the trauma that I have faced. You don't know the pain and the suffering that I have seen. You don't understand some of the evil things that people have done to me, me, me, I, I. (speaking in foreign language) See, this was my own understanding. (speaking in foreign language) But underneath all of that anger and rage was actually fear. (speaking in foreign language) See, I was scared to death. I was scared of a few things. (speaking in foreign language) I was scared of being fully known. (speaking in foreign language) And I was scared that maybe, just maybe, the mess that my life had become I was mostly responsible for. (speaking in foreign language) Please don't hear me wrong. A lot of us do experience traumas and hurts and things that are no fault of our own. (speaking in foreign language) In these traumatic events, they can start to fuel addictions and things. And that's what it did for me. (speaking in foreign language) But my own understanding would ask why God?

(speaking in foreign language) Why would you allow God? Why would you allow 10 year old boy? And then that sort of thought process would consume me and then I would start to live in this victimhood thinking. And then I would try to start to justify my behavior. But then in recovery, you start to learn the character of God. And you truly understand grace. This is the first time that I saw grace at a level I've never seen before. And that helps you submit all of your ways to him. You learn that we have a saying in recovery that says, "Hurt people hurt people." And those people that hurt people, they were hurt by the generation before them, and most likely, somebody the generation before them, and so on and so on. And you can trace this all the way back to the beginning. And you understand that it was God's intention for any of us to ever experience these traumas and these hurts. It was never his idea for us to ever experience these horrible things. Every hurt, every trauma, every injustice in the world that you can think of, all you can all trace back to the beginning. And Genesis 3 went in the fall of men. But since then, the Bible is a collection that's full of letters and stories and poems and historical events all pointing to a Messiah. And this Messiah would one day come here, he would bring his kingdom here, and he would rescue his people from sin and death, and he would set captives free. The Bible is full of God using broken and flawed people. To rescue his people from destruction. And by the way, he is still doing that today, and he will do that with each and every single one of you if you allow him to do that. Amen. And like Brother Reed shared last week, when you have been touched by the grace of Jesus Christ, when your life has been transformed by Jesus Christ, now you start to see people the way God sees them and you carry them to Jesus. And so to get to this place, we've learned that there is a God. I'm not him. He's in control, not me.

I trust him to run the universe and I start to see and understand the world the way he sees it. (speaks in foreign language) I think that we are going to be doing a better job. There's nothing profound about this one, but it is very important. We repent. I want to tell you a little bit about this, because it's important to us. We repent. Those are the Pentimos. In the Gospel of Mark, very early on in Jesus' ministry, in chapter 1 verse 15, he says, "The time has come," he said, "the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe the good news." So what does this word repent mean for people in recovery like me? I used to think that it meant just stop doing certain things. But true repentance actually means that you turn away from evil and you turn towards God. It's not just with our behavior, but with our minds and what we think about. It's important to you to be part of the world, to be part of the world, to be part of the past. And let me tell you, for people with messed up recovery brains like me, this whole thing is a journey and it's a process. But the good news is that God created our brains. He created us in such a way that we can actually rewire our brains. The scientific term for this is called neuroplasticity. And without getting too nerdy or on the science of how all of this of our thoughts work, allow me to explain just briefly. So our thoughts can actually physiologically manifest themselves into neurons in our brains, and those neurons can actually be passed down to the next generation, to the next generation, to four generations. This process is called epigenetics. And I don't know about you, but the thought of my thoughts being passed down to my kids and further scares me to death.

The Bible, it talks about this, if you wanted to read about it in the book of Exodus, chapter 20, verse 5, about the sin being passed down to four generations, it may in fact be talking about something like that. But the point that I'm trying to make is that in large part, the thoughts that your life, as you experience it right now, is a direct result of mostly what you think about. So repentance, it begins with we understand that we need to change our thoughts. We need to change our behavior, but it doesn't just stop there. We now have to start replacing these toxic thought patterns with life-giving ones. This means now watching what we consume on TV, the music that we listen to, reading Scripture, things that are now going to give us life. You have the Holy Spirit living inside of you. That is your helper. Listen to him." We hear this sometimes, but it doesn't seem to ring a bell whenever you say something like the same power that lives in Jesus Christ that raised Him from the dead, lives in each and every one of you. Do you believe that? "If he's been trying to get your attention about something, but you've been ignoring him, then the consequences of that is the same perpetual cycle that I've been talking about up here." And then you'll start to notice that power, that power that we feel that raised Jesus from the dead, it starts to fade. The more you ignore Him, the more it starts to fade away. But when you are obedient, and when you do truly repent your thoughts and your behavior, you are now in an agreement with God. And He will give you everything that you need to now live a new life. In this new life that you receive as a result of trusting God, of changing your thinking and your understanding, and repenting, not just once, but repenting over and over again. This process, it can now start to look like the fruit of this can now look like a transformed marriage.

It can look like reconciliation with your kids. It can look like a redeemed husband and father, like I already mentioned, it can look like a new purpose in life and a new vocation to now serve the Lord. But I have spent enough time talking about me and this sermon. So I wanted to honor my friend who is here today, and my friend Wilbur, he's actually here today. And I can't think of anybody who lives this out each and every single day more than this man does right here. You see Wilbur, he spent the last 17, yeah, we'll get to that in just a second. But real quickly, I'll just share Wilbur, he actually spent 17 years in prison. Yeah, Wilbur, he was a drug addict. He was an embraces gang. This man was, he was full of anger, he was full of hate. But when he made the decision to surrender his life to Jesus Christ in prison, something in Wilbur started to change and that this was only the beginning for him. Wilbur still had a long ways to go, but God, but God, but for the grace of God, nobody is too far gone. If you have Jesus on your side I can assure you, I can assure you, though, that Wilbur, this wasn't a one-time decision for him to surrender his life to Jesus. It took him desperately putting his trust in God and unchanging his thinking and his understanding and repenting. And now the fruit of that was he got his ordained minister in prison. And that is our family now after he has been. Wilbur has now been clean for over 12 years. [Applause] Wilbur, Wilbur, come on, let's see how far we have been. We have been working on this for a couple of years. We have been working on this for a couple of years. We have been working on this for a couple of years. I am very happy to be here. I am very happy to be here. I am very happy to be here. Wilbur, it took him... God told... and the bank had come up and started and all that kind of thing.

I am sorry I am landing the plane here now. But God told Wilbur while he was in prison that he was going to go back in there and minister to people in jail as a free man. And they told him that he was going to preach and bring the word of God in there to those brothers in there. Wilbur had some doubt, but he trusted God. [Applause] [Applause] I stand up. Wilbur, stand up, man. Stand up, man. Come on, man. [Applause] I love this man dearly and I am honored to get to serve with him in prison ministry now for over three years. [Applause] God is good. [Applause] Let me wrap this up with a love description out of 2 Corinthians 5-17. [Applause] He said, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." [Applause] The old has passed away and behold, the new has come. [Applause] Amen. Amen. And I want to invite the prayer team that you could take your places or however you guys do that. [Applause] But my invitation for you is that there is anybody in here that is still holding on to something. If there is still something that the Holy Spirit is stirring within you right now that you're still holding on to. [Applause] Would you come up here and invite you to surrender that to Jesus? He is trustworthy and he will set you free if you trust him with everything. [Applause] Let me pray for us as we close out when I would invite you to come and receive prayer. [Applause] So Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you so much for setting us free.

[Applause] Lord, thank you for calling me out of the darkness and into your glorious light, Lord. [Applause] Lord, I'm praying that we would learn how to trust you more. I pray that we would learn how to surrender to you every single day. [Applause] I don't want just part of you, Lord. I want all of you, Lord. [Applause] and show us how to do that. We trust you, Lord, with this. - (speaking in foreign language) - Lord, I pray for this church. I pray for this, for the hills and español. Will it continue to multiply more and more followers of Jesus? - (speaking in foreign language) - I pray that this church would not just be halfway in, that not just be lukewarm, but these people would be set on fire for Jesus. (speaking in foreign language) - Lord Jesus, thank you for your grace and your mercy, and I pray all this in your name, Jesus. (speaking in foreign language) Amen, amen, amen, thank you.