Living Called | Pastor Nelson Bowen

We just thank you so much for you being so good. We thank you for your mercy and your grace. Most of all, we thank you for sending your son, Jesus. At that name, every name, come on, at that name, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. So God, we just take this moment to say that rocks won't have to cry out for us. And we thank you, God, with everything that's within us. We love you, God. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Hey, Samaj, let me get, Samaj, let me get like 63, 64 on this back, please. Anyone else hot up here? Was it just me? Yeah. Great. Thank God we can pay the Smeco bill, right? Make it 64. I'm so grateful to be in the house of God this morning. Is anyone else just grateful to be in the house of God? It is the wonderful privilege I have to pastor, I think, the greatest church on this side of heaven, Engage Church. You guys are so near and dear to me, more than you will ever know. As we're celebrating 10 years in September, I just think about all that God has done. And as we draw closer, I just get more and more grateful, more and more humbled. While we're standing to our feet, we got two special guests in the house. We've got Commissioner Patterson in the building. Thank you so much. And then we also have President Sweat. Are you running for president? She's running for president, and we're thankful that you're here, and man, what an awesome

opportunity and privilege it is to have people who, I think, doing a phenomenal job running the county to be here with us. One more time, can we just thank them for their service and thank them for what they're doing? And while you're standing, as you're getting ready to be seated, you should look at your neighbor and say, did you bring your money this week? Because I warned you already that when you sit next to me, I'm going to start charging. And so, did you bring your money, did you bring your money this week? Come on, you can be seated. Say, you look good today. You look good. You look good. Man, I'm excited. You know, we're not in a sermon series this month. We're just preaching from my devotion. I'm just leaning in a little bit. If you're new here, we're a church that really does series preaching, and so we'll take every single month and introduce a new topic, and we'll stay on it anywhere between four to five weeks or so, most of the time four. But when June comes, I kind of just like to take some freedom and just kind of just speak to you in real time with the Lord is speaking with me. And I think it's just one of those moments and opportunities where you just kind of get something that's fresh off the press. This is super fresh, say super fresh, like this is just right off the oven. So it might not be as together as I normally am, however, I think that's the beauty of Scripture is that we, like, so when I say real time, say real time. Yeah, this is real time because I'm dealing with something and I kind of want to maybe just talk about it out loud. Is that okay? And we'll just kind of see where we land.

I love the ability to do that. I want to talk about the tension, say the tension, of living cold. Can we talk about that today? The tension, say the tension, of living cold. So I've got charts and I've got all that, but we'll just kind of flow, we'll just kind of see what happens. But before I do that, y'all do know what next week is? Oh, let me find out, y'all know what next week is. Come on. I'm making sure that, man, when you walk in here next week, you're going to feel the most honored, the most appreciated. It's going to be, it's going to be, someone say Liddy. Say Liddy. No, it's going to be Liddy here next week. And so you got to come. And then they gave me permission. to do this. I'm asking the men to come, just dress well. It's called a classic Sunday. So put something on, man, like, get dressed. And I'm giving some money to the best dressed man. You hear what I'm saying? So just come in. Now, it's going to be hot, but I'm just saying, like, I'm going to throw some linen out next week. You know, like, just, just, just, just, just, you got me, man? Man, you got me? And then we're going to celebrate and honor, and we're going to treat you guys well. Excited about it? All right, so good. So I want to talk about this idea of the tension of living cold. You ever been in one of those conversations where people are talking and you really don't know what's going on, but you got to act like? Like, you kind of just shaking your head, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you just waiting for a pivot at any given moment and hoping that they don't ask you, what's, what's your thought on that? You know, that's when you be like, I mean, whatever you think. I mean, I think what you think. I think there's, like, for me, the word, there's a word in the church that we say often that I don't think many people really knows what it means, and it's the word call or calling. Like, you'll hear people say, I got a call

on my life. I'm just answering the call. And you're like, who's calling? Like, your phone won't work? I mean, how does it, like, oftentimes we get this word thrown out, and I think sometimes we have to wrestle with, like, what does it mean? If I ask, like, what does calling mean? I think half the room will be like, I mean, many are called, few are chosen. What does that mean? How do I get in the few? Am I the few or many? I think, like, we can wrestle with some of these things. In my own personal life, God is making me aware of a calling that I'm wrestling with. He's placing, I can almost feel it, and if you've been at our church for, like, the last three months, you can probably sense it. There's this mantle that I'm wrestling with, like, I mean, don't just place it all, like, I mean, God, is that the direction we really got to go? I like the faith side of stuff. I like just being the faith guy. So, I'm wrestling with something, and I just thought that maybe we can talk about the tension of what it means to live called together today. Is that okay? I want to read four verses, and there are these four verses I've kind of been looking at over the last month or so. But Genesis chapter 12, verse number one, it says, now the Lord said to Abraham, go from your country, and your kindred, and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be what? Verse three, and I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, that's why you don't have to fight your own battles. I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So, Abraham… What's that word? So, Abraham went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him, and Abraham was how old? You mean God can give you a call at 75? You mean God can interrupt your life at 75? You mean to tell me you're not too old for God to still do something in your life? So, he was 70 years old when he departed Haran. Okay. I believe one of the greatest tensions in our life of faith, when God calls us, is this. God rarely calls the version of you that everybody knows. He calls the version of you that everybody knows. you that only He can see. So, God interrupts Abram's, at this time, normal life with the

divine command and a massive promise. Go from your land to a land that I'm going to show you and then I'm going to make you a great nation. If we put this in context, can we put it in context? I ask you a question, can we put this in context? At this current moment, Abram is 75 years old. He has no children, he lives in a pagan culture, he's recognized as the son of Terah, he's a member of a wealthy family, and he's childless. Say, current facts. But when God called Abram, he doesn't speak to the person that everyone sees or even the one that he thinks he is. God then begins to speak to the father of nations, a covenant carrier, a world shaper, a faith pioneer. The problem though is that Abram is 75 years old and here's the deal, he's having to become one thing, yet God is asking, I mean, all his life he's been one thing and God is asking him to be something else. What do you do, Gurdjieff, when God challenges all that you know? The tension here is that the old me is recognized but the new me is required. Oh, here we go. The tension is that the old me is recognized but this year, we're on a journey. What are we going to do? We're going to become what? Unrecognizable. The old me is recognized but the new me is required. Can I tell you that the greatest threat to your calling is not the devil? The greatest threat to your calling is the attachment to the outdated version

of yourself. I said the greatest threat to your calling, the greatest threat to the potential, the greatest threat to what God wants to do in your life is not the devil. It's your attachment to the outdated version of yourself. Your greatest enemy of your future is the attachment to your former identity. Oh, we're going to have some fun in a couple of seconds. Why? Why, PB? Why, PB? Gee, they're not ready for this. This is me and you talking. We're on a golf course because I feel like they're not going to really... You ever listen to a song and you got to listen to it 50 times to get... That there was like 30 double entendres and all this stuff. So, I got to take my time. But here's why. The reason why that's the tension is because the old you has evidence and the new you has a prophecy. You're not hearing what I'm saying. You're not hearing what I'm saying. You're not hearing what I'm saying. The old you has evidence. So, it's like, okay, you're telling me not to be that, but that has got me... You're not hearing what I'm saying. So, but the new me doesn't have evidence. It just has a prophecy. And you're telling me to leave evidence and go after prophecy. You're not hearing what I'm saying.

Okay, okay, okay. This is why calling can feel so uncomfortable because you're living between two versions of yourself. The one that... Oh, my gosh. The one that you are trying to be detached from and the one that God is calling you into. The tension is I'm wrestling between history and prophecy. I told you, I'm just trying to work something out in my own mind. Is that okay? God interrupts Abram's life with certainty, not possibility. Can I help you, friends? If God is going to interrupt your life, it's not for a possibility. If God is going to interrupt your life, it is not for a possibility. You can be certain that if he's interrupted you and giving you something, you can take that to the bank. Abram, he's living in the region of Ur, you with me? It's a wealthy, advanced city, but it's devoted to moon worship. So, it's idolatrous place. And in this time, you have to understand that your family was your identity. Your family was your security, your family was your inheritance and your legacy. So leaving this land meant that he was going to be losing economic covering. He was going to be losing family covering. He was going to be losing an identity that he has known since he was 75. He's a man at 75. You already know that if you make it to 75 as a man, that what you see is what you going to get. And so God is challenging everything that this man knows. Can I give you my first point? You cannot become who God called you to be while remaining who you've always been.

When God said go, he wasn't just asking Abraham to move. He was asking him to disconnect from everything that has defined who he is. He lists three things in particular. He says, he says, I want you to leave your land, which is your environment. I want you to leave your relatives, which is your relationships. And I want you to leave your father's house, which is your identity. I'm going to say it again. He says, I want you to leave your land. That's your environment. I want you to leave your relatives. That's your relationships. Then I want you to leave your father's house. That's your identity system. So when God is speaking to Abraham, he's not just talking geographical anymore. He's rebuilding him completely. This phrase in the Hebrew grade, it's going to blow your mind. This phrase in the Hebrew, when he says go, this phrase does not translate departure. It actually translates discovery. Oh my gosh. I'm not asking you to depart. I'm asking you to discover who it is that I created from the foundations of this world that's apart from your environment, that's in part from relationships, that's apart from what your family has said you're going to be. This isn't about believing, this is about discovering. Okay, throw this chart up, throw this chart up. I'm having a good time so far. Level, land, land, land. God's addressing the environment. Why does it matter? Because your environment shapes your perspective.

So he's saying, I need you to come out from these comfort zones and these routines because they're shaping what you think. They're shaping what you think is possible. See, some of y'all have been talking to the wrong people for too long. You've been in the wrong place for too long. They're going to get you out of these relationships. Why? Because relationships reinforce patterns. Oh, y'all not ready for me. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay, okay. It's just circles. It's your influence. I need you to get away from that. Your father's house, that's your identity. Because the house that you grow up in will try to define who they think you are. I said define who they think you are. They start labeling you, putting upbringing. Well, you know how he is. He's just a little stand-up. What? Are you with me? I guess the way I would say it is this. Separation is not punishment. Sometimes it's preparation. God will remove you from what feeds your insecurity, from what reinforces your limitations, from what normalizes your dysfunction. Because when God calls you higher, what he's also saying is that you need a new capacity. What makes this difficult, I need you to, are you listening? No, I'm telling you because I've been working on this like for weeks because

I'm trying to put into language what I feel and hopefully me wrestling with this tension is helping you. Because when God calls you to leave, what makes it difficult is that he's not calling you to leave a place. He's calling you to leave validation. He's calling you to leave familiar rhythms and versions of yourself that other people understand. Listen to me, for a promise that he whispered. It's not certainty. It's not... Well, it is certain, but it's like, you can't see it. You just gotta know that you heard it. And when you know that you heard it, but what you hear don't match what you see, because what you see has been created by old versions of yourself. Now you gotta wrestle with what has not yet come out of you, but it's still, okay, okay, okay, okay, calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down. Because I'm leaving this stuff for a dream that he showed you. What I'm trying to help you understand is that living called sometimes means that you're gonna be isolated before you're amplified. That you're gonna, like, nobody gonna get it. People aren't gonna understand it. The very person you laid down with that night might not even understand what's happening inside of you, but it's like, you gotta be willing to know, I heard this whisper.

I heard this whisper. Problem, though, is that public elevation without private maturity will lead to a collapse. The comfort in it is that if God is the one that called you, he's the one that will fulfill you. He fulfills the call. I think sometimes we can read this too fast. I've just kind of been focusing on this a little bit, and I had to read it a little slower. Verse number two, because I missed the most important phrase in all of this. He says, after you leave, he says, and I will make of you. Mika, I, I will make of you. This word or this phrase, I will make, it's actually one Hebrew word, asah, A-S-A-H, asah. Say asah. It means to form, fashion, accomplish, or bring into existence. Whoo. It means to form, to fashion, to accomplish, or to bring into existence. God is saying, I am the one that's going to build and accomplish, hear me, what you cannot. Because you got to understand, okay, we got to understand what he's talking about. He says, I will make you a great nation. He's speaking to the thing that Abram could not do by himself. At 75 years old, you don't think he's tried to have children.

At 75 years old, Mary, you don't think he's tried to have a legacy. You don't think he's tried to become a father. And so what God is saying is, I know that this is something that you thought wasn't possible because in your own strength, I have to tell you that it's not. In your own grind, in your own hustle, in your own grit, had to let you know that that's not possible. I am the one who is going to do this. I'm the one that's going to do this through you. I don't care if you don't hear nothing else today. What I need you to understand is that it's not grit, hustle, and grind that is the main ingredient to your success. It's required. They are ingredients. What'd I just say? They are ingredients. It's not the main ingredient. Okay, what do you mean by that? Okay, go bake a cake. You can have the flour. You can have the icing. You can have milk. But if you ain't got the egg, it ain't going to be no cake. Because the cake, I mean, the egg to the cake is what? The main ingredients. As it relates to your success,

you can have the hustle, you can have the grind, you can have the grit, and you can have the dream. Those are ingredients. But the main ingredient is obedience. And if your hustle, grind, and grit is out of obedience, then the I will make will come on top. Do you not hear what I'm saying? I said, if the hustle, the grind, and the grit is out of obedience, then the Asah of God comes on your life. And he's the one that begins to make things happen that you didn't even think was possible. He's the one that begins to work through you in ways like, I tried this by myself, it didn't work. But the moment I heard from God, the moment I got obedient at what he told me to, the things that was. Stress me now come easy just the blessings of God make it rich and add if no sorrow i'm telling you that obedience is the Okay I'm, just trying to work something out on my own I'm just learning how God works The tension of calling is that God doesn't consult your current condition when he calls you Oh, here we go The tension of calling is that he does not consult your current condition Your current condition Before he declares your future identity Let me let me let me show you this look at this chart look at this chart The reality is that there was an empty womb So there's no evidence yet he declares here comes the nation

God speaks to him beyond biology He don't got no land lady b he ain't got no land Nothing God's talking to some of y'all about stuff and you ain't got no money Aren't you glad that God don't look at your bank account before he gives you a dream that he says no I just need you to trust me. I need you to go after me I need you to go after me. I need you to know that the one who said it owns it all He said no i'll show you God leads before provision No land no history, but he says you're gonna be great I'm just trying to show you what i'm seeing because because if God waited for you to be qualified He would never speak to you Because you don't get ready and then get called you're not hearing what i'm saying No, God interrupts your life randomly while you're driving to work While you're standing in the shower while you're going up the stairs and he whispers something to your heart That aren't you gonna be the one to break this generational curse? Aren't you gonna be the one to break this generational curse? Aren't you gonna be the one that's gonna change your family tree? He he does it randomly. It's not even like you planned it. He just says I will make you But pb what if i'm not enough What if what if what if I what if I can't do it? Can I help you out? You're not enough Yeah And you can't do it The encouragement is that God is enough And that God is the one who's going to do it are you hear what i'm saying Where we get caught up is that we let our current reality our current conditions our current circumstances To define how we respond And so what happens is you delay obedience And you dilute your faith

and you disqualify Something that God is trying to do So, how do we answer How do we how do we how do we begin to show up for this I only got two points Here's my second one. It's gonna take me to the rest of this. You have to tell the current and the old you Yeah You gotta tell the current and the old you Peace Most people are stuck in the identity gap Look at this chart. I worked hard this week The old you is familiar The new you is unfamiliar The old you is proven The new you is developing The old you is comfortable the new you is stretching the old you is recognized by people The new you is only recognized by God the old you is supported by history. The new you is supported by promise recognition feels good There's comfort in being known Even if Even if what people know about you is smaller than what God has in mind You find comfortability in the that at least I'm known for this. At least it's predictable. At least it's familiar. Here's the buzzword. Here's the buzzword. At least it's safe. See, the old Abram was known in Haran. He had clout in Haran. He was the man in Haran. The future Abraham had never fathered a nation before. See, you know how to fit in. Your problem is standing on stages is unfamiliar. You know how to take direction and execute. It's leading a team that scares you. You've been silent about your story and what a story it is. It's writing it and allowing God to use it that terrifies you. See, imagine if Abram kept introducing himself as the old man who don't got children.

Technically, it's true, but it's no longer accurate according to what God has called him to be. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Where many of us struggle is we have wrapped our identity around our old condition instead of our new calling? So, we say things like, well, I've always struggled with this. I've never been good with money. I'm just shy. I'm not a leader. The problem is that these statements, they describe your past. Not a lie, but they describe your past. The problem is they contradict your future. And what I've discovered about calling, Lady B, they're not ready for this, is that God will almost always change identity before he changes circumstance. What do you mean? Because Abram becomes Abraham before Isaac arrives. Jacob becomes Israel before a nation is born. Simon becomes Peter before Pentecost. The name changes first, or the identity changes first, then the evidence flows later. This will be a good moment for you to turn to your neighbor and say, allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is, fill in the blank, my name is the one who's broke the generational curses from my family. My name is, peace walks before me. My name is, I have everything that I have ever needed. My name is, I am the largest landowner in Charles County. My name is, what is your new name? What is God speaking to you? You have to reintroduce yourself. What's your new name? Commissioners, I don't know if y'all know, I'm going to go get me 100 acres and I'm going to go build the legacy grounds and we're going to change this entire. But here's the tension. Here's the tension. People are going to try to relate to you based on who you were. So family members and spouses going to bring up old mistakes and friends going to remember old limitations and critics will remember old failures. You're changing is going to make people uncomfortable and you got to be okay with people not liking you anymore. You got to be okay with people saying that you're different. You got to be okay saying that, man, I don't understand what's going to happen. And all your response has to be is, I'm being obedient. One of the things I love about Abram's story is that we get to see the entire journey. That Abram didn't become Abraham overnight. What's incredible is that God looked at Abraham and said, I just want you to start walking. I heard that, I'm walking, I'm walking. Yeah, I heard that.

God asks Abraham to just start walking because transformation happens one act of obedience at a time. Every step that Abraham took towards Canaan, he was leaving his old self behind. The issue, G, is that many people want to have one foot in Haran and be facing towards Canaan. And the tension you feel is your split, because you're still trying to hold on. If y'all think I'm going to do a split, y'all have lost your everlasting mind. It's about as far as I can split. My calf, like, if you don't pick this leg up. But how many decisions you going to be split on? And how many relationships you going to be split on? And how many decisions are you going to? No, no, no, you got to get to the point where you're saying, listen, I'm walking towards what God is calling me to do. OK, can I give you the phases of this? I'm not going to finish. We'll pick up maybe. But here's the phases of calling, baby. I've been able, I should get paid for this. Can I get paid for that? I mean, I should get, are y'all going to Taft today? You know how y'all going to Summertime, y'all, whatever. OK, look at these phases. Here's the first phase, G. You get a calling. And what you feel is excited. Oh, God's going to do something.

Ooh. And what he's doing is he's revealing destiny. But then you go to the next phase of separation. And what you feel is loss. And this is breaking old attachments. And then you go to this next phase of transition, which is what you feel is uncertainty, because he's forming a new identity. Can I tell you that most people don't make it past transition? Because that's a lot to go through, like loss and uncertainty at the same time. Like I'm losing friends. And I'm uncertain about if I'm ever going to be friends. Am I going to get another friend? Was it me? They're like, what did I do? I don't understand. Like how they just, like most of us. And so what we do is, because we feel the loss and we feel the transition, and we left this stuff just because before a promise, we try to go back to what's safe. We try to go back to what's comfortable. And the reality is, most of you, you can be honest with yourself. You went back to an environment where you went back to an environment, and you know you don't fit in. You know it don't feel good. You know you're like, this is not even me. Like I don't even like this.

But you're too uncomfortable to trust God and the unknown. And so the tension is not staying where I don't belong, but while still trying to trust where he's calling me to go. And so when I'm in transition, here's what I'm trying to show you, because this is the act. This is where I'm at right now. Obedience. And obedience feels like this. You know how hard it is to stretch, especially if you ain't did it in a while? And some of y'all, the pain that you feel is that you ain't been stretched in a long time. You've been so comfortable, and God is telling you to go after something bigger. Go after something greater. I need you to trust me with this. And you're like, man, this hurts. This hurts. And here's what's going to happen. Can I help you out? Some of you guys are talking to people in your own life. And the problem with trying to get confirmation about where you're supposed to go from people who are not where you're supposed to be is that they can't see what God is doing in you and through you. And if you take their advice from people who are standing in a place that have not been where God is trying to show you, you will handicap and limit your own self. What I'm telling you is that if God is the one who said it.

All right, I'm over time. I ain't even finished. I can't. I got one more sermon. But I'm going to tell you this. God is not asking you to pretend to be someone you're not. Can I help you out? Because I'm going to tell you what happened. Can I just tell it to you the way God told it to me? Because I'm wrestling with this new thing that God is doing in me. I'm really wrestling. Because it's not what I envisioned. It's not what I pictured. It's not what I just, I just, I was going to be the faith guy, man. I'm still the faith guy. But I just saw it kind of like, I say, God, I'm struggling with because I feel like I'm pretending to be someone I'm not. I'm not. But he said, no, I want you to stop pretending to be who you've been. He said, no, I need you to stop pretending who you've been. You know what I've told you, you know what I've shown, you know what I've called. Can I give you permission today? You don't have to appease anybody. You ain't got to fit in with anybody. You don't got to hold on to your old stuff. No, no. God is calling you to be.

Would you just lean into that and just trust that if he said it, he said, I will make you. Amen. Was this good? I'm gonna give you all this next chart. Just take a picture of it. Take it home. Study. It's really good. I did some handlebars. I want you to just to see because it's what you guys kind of naturally do and what I've naturally done and I'm getting out of it. Make sense? Let's take a picture. If it don't make sense, you'll go home and you'll look at it. All right, let's pray. God, thank you so much for your faithfulness and your goodness. Oh, you are so good, God. I thank you that there's a calling on our life. The tension in it sucks sometimes. We can trust and if you're calling us, you'll make us. So we lean into obedience today. We choose to trust that you are who you say you are and you're going to do what you said you will do. So we love you. We appreciate you. You're so good. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. So good.

Hey, I want to pray for one more person. All eyes closed, heads bowed. I want to pray for the person this morning who wants to give your life to Jesus. Here's the reality, man. God loves you so much. That he sends his one and only son to die for you. His name is Jesus. There's this debate that's been going on for a long time. The debate is just, is heaven real? Is hell real? I don't know. I'll sell it for you. Both of them are real. Here's the thing that we got to debunk is that God doesn't send you to neither one. You actually get to decide where you go. You decide to spend eternity with Jesus when you say, with God, when you say, hey man, I need your son Jesus to come into my life. I'm a sinner and I'm in need of a Savior. I've tried this on my own and it hasn't worked. Maybe for some of you in your life, you've tried so many things and feel like you always come up short. You always feel empty. You've amassed a bunch of stuff and yet you're like, man, I still don't know what it is. I just have this fulfillment that I still don't feel. Simply because Jesus is the only one that would ever fulfill you in life. Maybe you're heavy, you're burdened and you're like, man, I just got this unbearable weight that I seem to carry all the time and I don't know how to

get rid of it. Jesus, he was talking to a group of people and he made it simple. He says, all that are heavy laden come to me and I'll give you rest. For my yoke is easy, my burden is light. Really, what I'm saying is, what you need is Jesus. Maybe in this moment, your heart's racing and you're like, yo, what is this? It's simply Jesus. He's knocking on the door of your heart. Here's the thing, he's asking, will you allow me to live with you? It's pretty simple and he doesn't come by intrusion. He doesn't come by an invasion. He just comes by an invitation. An invitation is just Jesus, would you come into my life? And maybe the reason why you're sitting in this room today is because God is just that good, that he knew that you needed to hear this invitation. Because what we all have in common, no matter our different backgrounds, our different struggles, beliefs, all of that, here's one thing we all have in common. At some point, we're all going to take our last breath. And when we do, my job is passed. I only really got one job is to make sure that when you do, you spend it with Jesus. And if you're uncertain about that, like, I don't know if I will go to heaven or hell. This is your opportunity now to create certainty. To say, man, I want to live with Jesus today. If I was to die, I want to live with Jesus. And so I'm going to give you that invitation for Jesus to come invade your heart. Here's what's going to happen.

I'm not saying that everything's going to change overnight. What I am saying is that you will. You'll get a peace that surpasses all understanding. You get a joy that the world can't give and the world can't take away. And so I want to give you that opportunity today, not by doing anything spooky or scary. I just want you to raise your hand on the count of three and say, that's me, Pastor. I want to give my life to Jesus today. It's me. I want to give it to him. So if that's you, with no one looking around, all eyes closed and heads bowed, on the count of three, I want you to really make this moment between me and you, and do it with boldness, do it with courage, and say, that's me, man. I want to give my life to Jesus. On the count of three, one, that God loves you. Two, your life will never be the same. Three, if that's you, raise your hand. There we go. Come on, look at all in the back, all in the back, all in the back, all in the back. One over there. Oh, all in the back. Come on, let's celebrate. Come on, let's say this together. Say, God, today, I give you my life. I believe in my heart, and confess with my mouth, that Jesus Christ is Lord. Come on, let's celebrate. Man, if you said that prayer for the first time, let me be one of the first to tell you, man, just welcome to the family. They're putting a QR code on the screen. You can take a picture of that. There's salvation class happening. And also, if you go to Life Center, we would love for you to stop by the Next Steps tent or the table back there. Let's get your information, give you a gift, and just tell you, man, welcome to the family. Did we enjoy that today? So awesome, man. Hey, I'm so grateful and honored to be your pastor. As you all know, in July, I take the month of July off, but that doesn't mean that you should. That you still come and that you still show up. Lady B, I'm going to say this for the next three weeks because I'm going to get three different groups over the next three weeks. But here's what Holy Spirit told me. If you stop coming because I stop coming, you've made me an idol. It's actually idolatrous worship. And so you have to come, not because you're coming for me, but because this is the place that God has told you to come to. This is the place where God

has told you to be. And so please still come. I want to enjoy my rest. I want to enjoy my break. And that happens when they're not calling me, saying no one's showing up, no one's giving, no one's doing it. You got to hurry up back. So please just come and show. And we're going to make sure you have a great time. We're actually calling it the Summer at the Park. And I've got some great friends coming with me. Can we throw that up there, please? The Summer at the Park. I've got, man, Breland Bowman, Pastor Terrence Wilson, and Pastor Vernon Gordon. We'll be here over the month of July. It's going to be fun. I love you guys, and I'll see you next week. ♪♪♪