Miracle In The Making | Love Gives | Lisa Seaton

Well, good morning City First, you can give God praise. He's so good. Coming off a Thanksgiving weekend, just overflowing with gratitude for God and for our church family. I hope that everybody had a great Thanksgiving quality time with friends and family. Hope you had some good food. How many of you enjoy your leftovers more than your actual Thanksgiving meal? Probably because you're done cooking. Yeah, and we enjoy some good football. Let's go Bears, right? We're doing well. How many of you wait until Thanksgiving is over before you put up your Christmas tree? You do not do it before Thanksgiving, okay? Official Merry Christmas to you. It is crazy that December is upon us and we are only 24 days away from Christmas. And I wanna encourage you to come back next Sunday. Pastor Jeremy's gonna be kicking off a Christmas series here at City First and it's gonna be helpful as we navigate the month of December. So make sure that you come back, it's gonna be great. But today we're concluding our series that we've been calling Miracle in the Making and we've been focusing on biblical generosity. And speaking of generosity, I heard a story about a man that was very stingy with his money.

And just before he passed away, he made his wife promise him that she would bury the $50,000 that he had worked so hard to save with him when he passed. And she was reluctant and he was persistent so she finally agreed. And at the funeral, they were about to close the casket and right before they did, the wife snuck in this little wooden box and her friend came up to her and she's like, you did not just bury that money, did you? And the wife said, of course I did. I am a Christian, I cannot lie. And her friend said, you mean you just buried $50,000? And the wife said, yes, I did. I wrote a check. Right, it's good, it's good to laugh in church. And as we're talking about generosity, it's important that we know that generosity is God's big idea, that he models this for us. John 3, 16, for God so loved that he gave his one and only son for you and for me, the best gift ever given. God demonstrates that for us. And Jesus affirmed this idea of generosity. And in Acts 20, Jesus is quoted as saying, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Can everybody say blessed? It is more blessed to give than to receive. And when you look at the meaning of the word blessed, it actually means happiness. So this verse is saying that you are happiest

when you are generous. And we know that generosity is not just about finances. Generous people, they give high fives, they give hugs, they give of their time, they give of their influence, their talent, they come early, they stay late, they go above and beyond. And generous people, that is how God designed us to function as people who are generous. And even secular studies affirm this, that there's joy in generosity, that you're happiest when you are giving. And so if we are happiest when we're giving, if there is joy in generosity, then why do we often have such a hard time being generous? Like sometimes we can have a hard time even getting a compliment out of our mouth and being generous with our words, with encouragement. Or maybe you're Christmas shopping, and how many of you have the present ratio of one for them, one for you? Or you start shopping for somebody else, then before you know it, you find yourself shopping for yourself. You're like, I know who would like this, it's me. Lucky for me, it's half off. So if I buy them both, it's like I'm not spending any extra money. That's what my husband calls girl math, where you spend more money to save money. But as we talk about generosity today,

we're gonna be looking at a story from the New Testament church who sets an inspiring example for us when it comes to the topic of generosity. And maybe you've been around the past couple of weeks, and you've heard us been talking about our end of year legacy miracle offering happening the 7th and the 14th. And what I want us to know is this legacy miracle offering is not something new. Not only have we done it as a church for many years, but this is not just a city first church idea. In fact, we read about the New Testament church maybe doing one of the very first legacy offerings over 2,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago. And we're still talking about it today because biblical generosity impacts generations. And so before we open up our Bibles, whether you have a paper Bible or one that glows, we're gonna open it up in just a moment. But before we do that, I just wanna take a moment and say a prayer and let God just ready our hearts to do what he wants to do. So God, we're gathered here today because of you in four. Not one of us are here on accident. And God, as we're talking about this topic of generosity, we invite you to have your way in each and every one of our hearts. I pray the Holy Spirit would minister in such a specific way.

God, we don't wanna just sing songs that you're Lord of all. We really want you to be Lord of all the areas of our life, including finances. So God, I pray that you would work and that you would move and you would help me to get out of the way so that you can have your way. And God, I thank you that your favorite team, the Ohio State Buckeyes, beat Michigan yesterday. Amen. Y'all, I'm from Ohio. My husband, Adam, is a Michigan fan. And so we always say we are a house united 364 days a year. Not when I play each other. But we're gonna be opening up to 2 Corinthians chapter eight. And before we read a couple of these verses, I want you to know some of the context about what you're reading so you can fully understand what's going on here. So we're reading a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote. And the Apostle Paul had a gift of church planning. So he went around and he planted churches all over what is now known as Greece and Turkey. And so meanwhile, he's got these churches going, but there's a church in Jerusalem that's undergoing a lot of persecution, a lot of suffering, there's a famine happening. And because Paul is a church leader,

he decides we're gonna bring relief to the people who need it in Jesus' name. And so Paul organizes maybe the very first ever legacy offering, similar to what we do, where everything that comes in 100% is gonna go back out to bring relief, to advance the gospel, to support missionaries, to create spaces and places where people can encounter God. And as he writes to the Corinth church about this, he highlights the Macedonian churches. And he says, these guys blew me away with their generosity, not just what they gave, but how they gave it, that their hearts were in it. And so in 2 Corinthians chapter eight, it says this. And now brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord's people, and they exceeded our expectations. They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God, also to us. So when Paul describes the Macedonian believers, he points out three postures that unlocked miraculous generosity.

And these postures can shape our legacy as well. So he points out that this church, the Macedonian church, the people who make it up, had surrendered hearts, they were united in a great purpose greater than themselves, and they had eyes that were fixed on eternity. And so in the little bit of time that we have this morning, we're gonna break down these three things and see how it applies to us. So let's start with the first one, that they had hearts that were surrendered. Verse five says the first thing they did is they gave themselves to the Lord. And this is important because the heart is where generosity begins. See, generosity in Scripture is never transactional, it's always relational. It's meant to be an overflow of what God has done for you, what God is doing in you, and then he wants to work through you. And that's why Paul uses the words like grace. They were graced to give. They didn't have to give, they wanted to give. And that's the heart of City First. We're not about religion, we're about relationship. We're not about obligation, we're about opportunity. We're not about pressure, we're about understanding. It's a privilege to give back because our heart is in it. And we have to know in the Bible, Jesus talks more about money,

he talks more about money than almost every other topic except for the topic of the kingdom of God. Half of the parables that Jesus teaches in the New Testament are about money. In the books of Luke, Matthew, and Mark, one out of six verses are about finances. There are 600 verses in the Bible on the topic of love. There are 600 verses combined on the topic of heaven and hell but there are over 2,300 verses when it comes to the topic of finances. So money is mentioned more than heaven, hell. or love. We have to ask ourselves, why is money mentioned more than all of these other really important things? It's mentioned more because God knows money is one of the strongest rivals for our hearts. Even Jesus says in Matthew 6, you cannot serve both God and money. You cannot have two masters. He doesn't say God and something else. He says, no, God and money. These are the two tensions that we would look to for who would be Lord over our life. Now it's not bad to have money, but money can't have you. And so we have to know that God is after our hearts. He's not after your money, he's after our hearts, but we know that our hearts and money are connected, right?

Like if you bought something during the Black Friday sale that lasted two weeks and you got a shipping notification and it said your package is shipped, now you're checking it. You're like, okay, now my package is in Iowa and then it's gonna make its way here. And why is your time and your attention going to it? Because your money is there and your money and your attention and your heart all go together. The Bible, the only time that God says in the entire Bible to test him is in the area of finances. That's the only time that he says, test me in this. Not because God needs your money, he owns it all, but because God wants your heart to be anchored in him and not in your bank account. God wants your heart to be anchored in him and not in anything else. And when God says, test me, it's actually a two-way test. He's saying, test me. See if you can trust me. See if you can out give me. See if there's anyone more trustworthy than me. But then he's also saying, if I give to you, can I trust you to be a good steward of what I've entrusted to you? See, God does not want you to find your value

in your valuables or your worth in your net worth. He wants you to know that you are valuable because you are his, that you are loved, not because of what you have, but because of what Jesus has done for you. That is where we get our worth and our value and our purpose and our meaning. And when we remember that, we remember, God, I can trust you. And when we trust God first, that's when we get to experience God's blessing and his joy and his peace. You know, when you read about the stress of finances, it's one of the number one leading causes for divorce. When you read about finances, it's one of the number one stressors that people carry that they worry about, they have anxiety about. Do you know that God does not want that for you? Just as I want my children to be blessed and full of joy and peace and know that I've got them, I want them to know that God wants you to know that he's got you and he loves you. And he doesn't want that stress and that anxiety for you. But in order to experience all the blessing that God has for you, the peace that God has for you, we have to do things God's way in all areas of our lives, including in our finances. And what I find is that when our heart is out of alignment with God, our finances are usually out of alignment

with doing things God's ways. Because where you spend your money, where you put your money, points to what you prioritize. And if you wanna know what's important to you, check your calendar, check your bank account, because those two things reveal what we prioritize the most. And so God wants to be number one in your life and number one in my life, because then we get to experience every good blessing that he has for us. Let's go ahead and check out this testimony from my friends, Jeff and Danny. So I'll say I'm Jeff Wieberg and you're saying I'm Danny. Okay, and then I'll go. Yeah, sure. All right, my name is Jeff Wieberg. And I'm Danny Wieberg. Together, we have been married a little over eight years. This was always my home church growing up. I attended the school here. And together, once we started dating and we got married, we made this our home church for the last 10 plus years now. After we got married, we were in the suburb area and he was working corporate America and I was commuting to work. It was pretty easy to give at that point. We knew what we made and we tried to do that 10%. And the challenge for us when it came to tithing

and giving is when we switched careers. I switched careers and went from corporate America to being a financial advisor and there's no salary and you're in your 20s and 30s. And there's no salary and you're just wondering, hey, what should we do, God, with our giving? For us, that season of life when income wasn't guaranteed and when we had to move home. Make hard choices, live with parents, and do all those things you don't want to do. Do we keep giving, or now that things are kind of challenging and I'm starting something new, do we just wait for a while? We decided as a couple, as a married couple, before we started our family, that we were going to put God first. The big thing for us was really thinking everything we have is from God. It might not have been our timeline, it was God's timeline. And through our consistency, we saw our dreams continue to play out. I just always love the phrase, you're blessed to be a blessing. Especially at a church like this, you see all the things that when you give and what it goes to, there's all the time on stage, you're saying, hey, because the church gave this, we were able to do this. So I think that's part of it too, is seeing that our gifts are going to something a lot greater than ourselves. Because of our show, because of our design,

because of our lives. Because someday we're going to do something that has so much more to go than there at this point that God gave us. So incredible, love that family. It all belongs to God. Every day, remind yourself, this all belongs to God. You know, this summer we spent some time at a local pool here in the community and our boys, every time we would go to the pool, would want to buy a hundred snacks. So we had to like set some ground rules. We're like, okay, you can buy one thing at the snack shack when we go to the pool. And so we did that all summer and they knew where the debit card was at. And the last time we were going to the pool for the summer, remember summer when it was sunny and warm outside. Just go back there for a moment. Okay, now come back to Christmas time. And the last time that we were there before the pool closed down, we told them you can get more than one snack. You can get a couple snacks. It's like our last summer, hurrah. And so we get to the pool and they each have like 10 friends that happen to be there. And so they're all playing and having a great time. And every time I look over,

all these kids are like eating ice cream. Then 10 minutes later, they're having pretzels. Then 10 minutes later, they're having slushies and smoothies and I was like, wow, they're really living up the snack life and then we're getting ready to leave and we're with our two boys and random kids are like, yo, Nash, thanks for the ice cream, bro. Those other kids like, hey, thank you for the pretzel, Ryder, thanks for the Skittles. And all of a sudden I'm like, wait a second, do we pay for all these kids to have all these snacks all day? And I check our bank app and I was like, yes, we certainly did pay for all these snacks. I just didn't know it. And our kids had so much joy in their generosity to all of their friends and even strangers because they were not giving away their money. They were giving away money that was not theirs. And after we talked to them about that, I was just reflecting on what if we all had that mindset that everything that we have isn't really ours anyways. For them, they think this plastic debit card that their parents have apparently has unlimited money, which we know is not true. But when we remember that we serve the God of the universe and everything is his, he is unlimited in his resources. I'm limited, he's not. And that's the God that we serve and everything we have is his, we are just entrusted with it.

It all belongs to him. He's the owner, we're just the managers of what he's given to us. And I wanna manage well what God has entrusted to me. And we can so easily drift into this mindset of selfishness. We all do it, I do too, where we think this is mine, I worked hard for that, this belongs to me, I deserve that, I earned that. But what if we reframe this mindset? Because the actual truth is what you think you own is actually just on loan. It's on loan to you. And when something is on loan, it means you don't have it forever, it's for a certain amount of time. And so for the time that we're on this earth, we have to understand everything that we have is on loan to us from heaven. The breath in our lungs, on loan to us from heaven. The gifts that you have to be able to earn the paycheck that you do, on loan to you from heaven. The finances that you have, on loan to you from heaven. The car that you drive, the house that you live in, it's all on loan to you. And when you have this mindset, it's easier to be generous in response to all the generosity that you received. have the mindset of I'm the master of my own life, that's a lot of pressure that you put on yourself. Because if you're the master of your own life,

then that means, okay, well then I'm responsible for every bill, I'm responsible for my home, I'm responsible for the future, I'm responsible for the hard times, I'm responsible for the unforeseen times. But when you remember God is the master and I'm just the manager, it takes a little bit of responsibility off of you and puts it back on God. Now God cares about how we manage what he's entrusted to us. Many parables in the Bible talk about being a good steward of what's been entrusted to you because how well you do with what you have will determine what else God will entrust to you. But when we say, God, you are the source and I'm the steward, you are the master and I'm the manager, then if you're driving your car and you get in a fender bender, no longer are you like, what am I gonna do? You're like, God, what are you gonna do? Because this is your car anyway. And when your kid needs braces, you're not panicked going, well, how are we gonna pay? God, this is your kid. So what are you gonna do? You're unlimited in your resources. I am trusting in you because it all belongs to you anyways. But while I'm on this earth, I wanna steward well what you have entrusted to me.

And we need to know God wants us to see him as our source and our security and the one that we put our trust in. So often we try to put our trust in so many different things, maybe because it's visible. We wanna put our trust in our job, but you know what? Your job could come and it could go. We wanna put our trust in our health, but your health could come and it could go. We wanna put our trust in our security and that relationship, but that relationship could come and it could go. We wanna put our trust in our finances, but it says this in Proverbs chapter 23. It says, your money can be gone in a flash as if it had grown wings and flown away like an eagle. Now, you know the government put an eagle on every single dollar bill. They're like, watch that baby fly away, right? Like it comes and it goes, but God is our source and he is unchanging and he is unlimited and he is steadfast and he is worthy of our trust because he remains the same from generation to generation. And I don't know about you, but when I put my trust in God, I can look back and see all the times that he has seen me through, he has blessed me, he has provided for me, and if he did it for me then, he can do it again,

because that's a faithful God that I serve. The next thing that we see the Macedonian church come together with is they were united in purpose. They all came together for a purpose greater than themselves. I love that Jeff even said that. We get to be a part of something that's greater than ourselves. When you have a heart that is surrendered, living a life of purpose begins to become an overflow. Second Corinthians in the message translation says, the heart regulates the hands, meaning that when your heart is in it, you can't help but to give, you can't help but to contribute, you can't help but to be a part. And a couple of weeks ago, I think it was just two weeks ago, I was invited into a room of third graders through one of the ministries here at City First Church. They reached out and they're like, Lisa, will you give a salvation message to third graders? Now I get to talk to a lot of adults, young adults, even youth sometimes, but I don't often teach to third graders. Man, they had some of the wildest questions I have ever heard, but I was so excited to be able to be in there. And I even looked up on YouTube, what's an object lesson that helps illustrate

that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose again. I did that and the kids were so into it at the end. I asked them all, nobody looking around, but if you wanna make a decision to follow Jesus, if you've never made this decision before, you can go ahead and raise your hand. And there were four kids that day that made a decision to follow Jesus, which is incredible. And one of the boys who made that decision, his name is Connor, and I asked his mom if I could share this, and she said, please do. But Connor was so excited about the decision that he made to follow Jesus, that Jesus loved him so much that he gave his life for him. He couldn't get over it. So he got home that day and he found a Bible on one of the shelves in their house, and he goes outside and he starts going door to door to door in his neighborhood, ringing the doorbell and saying, I have to tell you what Jesus did for me and that he can do it for you too. Come on, Connor. He was so full of passion that it overflowed into purpose. And then the next day he's like, mom, I gotta get water baptized. because after they made that decision, we gave them New Beginnings books. And so this past Sunday, Adam Water baptized Connor. There's this photo, so incredible. But I just love that he was so full of purpose,

so full of passion that he could not help but to give and to contribute. And in the Macedonian church, we see that Paul casts the vision. He's like, hey guys, there's some people who need relief. There's some other believers who need some help. And the Macedonian church responds despite their circumstances. And I think Paul makes sure to let us know they were facing trials. They were even facing poverty. They were facing persecution, and yet they gave even despite what was happening in the economy or despite their instincts. They were so focused on wanting to be a part of God's solution. And I think that Paul lets us know this because if we're waiting for an ideal time to give, that ideal time will never come. Circumstances will never be perfect. And it's not about what you have, but it's about what you do with what you have, what you do with what God has given you. And the Bible says that not only did they give, but they gave beyond their ability. What does that mean that they gave beyond their ability? Well, relate this to us when it comes to the end of your legacy offering, as you're praying, God, what do you want me to give?

You're gonna have two numbers that come to mind. One is gonna feel smaller and within your ability. This feels comfortable. One is gonna require faith. Choose the one that requires faith. That's what the Macedonian church did. And the next chapter in chapter nine, this is what Paul says, and this is important for us too. It says, each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give. Don't give reluctantly. Don't give under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. We never want anyone to feel pressured to give. We want it to be an overflow of that purpose like Connor had, where we can't wait to give. And imagine if we all do our part, the impact that we could make when we cheerfully give. Last week, Pastor Jeremy shared just a little bit of the vision for 2026, that we would be able to, as a church, open up a God Behind Bars location in Wisconsin, because we believe freedom is for everybody. That as a church, we would be able to upgrade the facilities here, get a new HVAC system. We need that so that more kids like Connor can hear about Jesus and be water baptized. That we, as a church, wanna give 20% more in local and global missions, feeding more people, helping the gospel to be spread, providing more backpacks, more food, more Christmas presents

in local schools in Jesus' name. And all of this vision will be about $2 million, which might seem like a lot of money to us, but it's not a lot of money to God. And when we all do our part, I believe just how Paul said that the Macedonian church didn't just meet the expectations, they exceeded them, that we can exceed the expectations that Pastor Jeremy and Jen had. They're gonna go, wow, this church is so generous, not because they had to, because they wanted to, because they wanna be a part of something bigger than themselves, that's our prayer. And the third thing that we see for the Macedonian church is they had eyes that were fixed on eternity. It says this, that we read before, let's read it one more time in 2 Corinthians. It says they urgently, can everybody say urgently? They urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in the service to the Lord's people. I love that, for the privilege of sharing. I hope you get the heart here. We don't ever want anyone to feel pressured to give, but we want it to be a privilege because of what God has done for us. We can't help but to pass it on to other people. And the Macedonian church, because they were a New Testament church, this took place about 20, 25 years after Jesus had walked the earth.

So they had an urgency about them because they were used to seeing other people, other believers in their church family. They would be persecuted for their faith. They would lose their life for their faith. And so the Macedonian church had an urgency because they knew today isn't guaranteed. Tomorrow isn't guaranteed. The things of this world will come and go, but we wanna do the eternal work. And so often we think that acquiring more things or acquiring more money will give us satisfaction and purpose. And yes, we need money to live, right? Like you can't live without it. Money is a tool to be used for things like shelter, transportation, necessities, food, but the world a lot of times will use people and love money. But as Christ followers, we're to love people. and use money. And what are we meant to use it for? We're meant to use it for eternal purposes, to introduce people to Jesus, to teach them to follow him so that heaven will be more full one day. And it says in Matthew 6, verses 19 and 20, do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven

where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. You know, every time that I read this verse, I'm reminded of the picture of an estate sale. Adam and I live in a neighborhood with a lot of elderly people and we love our neighbors so much. They're so good to us. Even our neighbor Sally has offered to store our kids' Christmas presents in her garage this year because last year our kids were like, we found some presents in your closet. Not this year, kids. They're gonna be in Sally's garage keeping those safe for us. Just nobody tell them where they're at. This is just our secret. So we have amazing neighbors, but because many of them are elderly, we have had a lot of our neighbors be promoted to heaven and pass from this life to the next. And it's always sad when that happens, but we know that they're with Jesus in heaven now, but it's the strangest thing that after they pass, many times there'll be an estate sale. And so we'll be in our house and from our window, we can see hundreds of people coming in to our friend's house and leaving with their stuff. Every time that happens, it just happened the other week. I'm just reminded that this earth is not our home

and that the treasures are not the things of this earth. And it's not bad to have nice things, right? Our kids are gonna have a great Christmas because Sally's gonna make sure that happens and they're gonna enjoy it. But this is not what it's all about. It's not just the here and the now. And if you notice in the passage that we read, it says, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. So when you give and when you live with eternity in mind, not only are you making a difference in people's lives, but it says that you're storing up treasures for yourself. When you give back to God through City First Church, you're not storing up treasures for City First, you're storing up treasures for yourself. So what treasures are we talking about? Well, it says this in Luke chapter 16, verse nine, it says, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourself so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Now, this verse is not saying that you can buy friends, but it's saying that you should use it to gain friends. So when all this earthly stuff is gone, you'll be welcomed into eternal dwellings. What does that mean? It means that the treasure is people. And that one day when you get to heaven, you're gonna be welcomed by a welcoming committee of people who are cheering you in to heaven for all of eternity. Who are those people?

It's the people that you chose to impact while you're here on this earth. Imagine getting to heaven and there's people there and they're clapping you in. And some of them you know, and some of them you don't, and they might say, hey, I wanna say thank you. Thank you for what? For when you served. You made a way for me to come to church and for my kids to come to church because you served in kids ministry. Or maybe somebody says, thank you, you say, for what? And they say, when you gave them that offering, I was one of those people that were impacted in the mountains in Ecuador that didn't have the gospel until you were part of sending City First missionaries to me. Imagine all of these people who are cheering you in because you used your worldly possessions to have heaven's influence. I don't know about you, but when I get to heaven, I wanna have a whole welcome party because I wanna do everything I can while I'm on this earth to not get sucked into a here and now mindset, but to have eternity in my heart and in my mind and part of my efforts. You can give God praise for that. It's what it's all about. We live in a world where it's like, we're so obsessed with comfort.

Like even all of the Black Friday sales and Cyber Monday, it's like, buy these shoes, these slippers, these blankets, this everything's about cozy and comfort and here. And now when it's almost like we can be lulled to sleep from the fact that there is a whole nother life waiting for us on the other side of eternity, we don't think about having that much anymore. The new church always thought about heaven because it was something, in the New Testament, because it was something that they were facing. But it's good for us to think about beyond here and now. And whenever you give, and whenever you invite, and whenever you serve, and whenever you use your influence for kingdom purposes, you're sending treasures for yourself ahead of you. They'll be waiting for you for when the day you end up in heaven one day. And the Bible says that when we get to heaven, there'll be two times we stand before Jesus. One, where he says if he knows us or not. The second time, because we will have to give an account of how we stewarded what God has entrusted to us. Romans 14 says that every one of us will give an account to God one day. And around this time of year, when we're prepping for the legacy offering, you know, as a pastor, I love this offering because I see the impact that it makes every day of the year in people's lives near and far. As a parent, as a person, I live in the same tension

that you do that, man, this is already an expensive time of year. But every year, Adam and I determine to give more this year than we did the previous year. And every time when we say, God, we're making you a priority, it reminds me that the things that I buy in this earth will end up in goodwill one day. But when we prioritize God, those are the things that last for all of eternity. And the welcoming committee in heaven is getting larger and larger and larger. So let me go ahead and pray for us this morning. Heavenly Father, I thank you for each and every one of my friends. God, I pray that we would be inspired today by the early church, that we would have hearts that are surrendered. And for the heart that's wrestling with where to place their trust, I pray they would choose you, because you won't let them down. God, for the one that's maybe been living just day to day, living for themselves, and today, I pray that there be an awakening in them, that their life is meant to be lived on purpose and for a purpose greater than themselves. God, if we've been stuck in our comfort, consumed with just being comfortable, God, I pray that you would shake us up today and wake us up and that we would remember that heaven is real

and that we want to get there one day with a whole slew of people that were impacted by our life on this earth. Father, we trust you. And we ask that you would have your way in our lives. And with every head bowed and every eye closed, we talked a lot about eternity and the gift of Jesus. And maybe today you want to be like Connor and make the decision to follow Jesus, that you believe that he died for your sins, rose again, can forgive you and give you a new start. If you want to make that decision today with no one looking around, would you go ahead and lift up your hand and say, today I want to choose to follow Jesus? See hands going up in the room, also online, all locations. Incredible. You can go ahead and put your hands down. If everybody would repeat this prayer so that no one's saying it alone. Heavenly Father, I thank you for your son, Jesus, that he died for me, forgives my sins, and gives me a fresh start. Today I choose to follow you. And in your name, everybody said amen. Church, can we give everybody a hand? Well, what an amazing message from Pastor Lisa. And I really quickly want to just talk to those individuals who made that decision to make Jesus the leader and forgiver of their lives. That is the best decision that you could ever make. And Dakota and I just want to say congratulations.

We are so excited for you. Heaven is rejoicing. And we as a church, we want to equip you with a free resource. It's called our New Beginnings Resource. Really helps answer the question of what now? Now that I've prayed that prayer, what does this relationship with Jesus look like? What is it all about? And so we highly encourage you to download that free resource. Make sure you also tell someone, because we want to celebrate with you. Tell someone. Maybe it's your friend or your family member or someone in the chat. Tell someone that you made that decision because we want to cheer on with you for that decision. That is the best decision you could ever make. That's right. Another great resource that we have is called GrowthTrack. You may have heard about it, but GrowthTrack is designed to help you discover your God-given gifts and purpose, and really how to utilize those to grow closer to him, but also to grow the kingdom of heaven. And so if you want more information on GrowthTrack, the nice part about it is online, you can do it at your own pace, and no matter what your schedule looks like,

you can fit it into it. And so if you want to do that, you can do it on the app, sign up, or you can go to cityfirst.church forward slash GrowthTrack and sign up there. Yes, and we want to encourage you to download the City First app. Yes. Because if you have prayer you want to practice praying over others, if you want to lift up the needs of our congregation, I highly encourage you to download the City First app, a great resource to, again, grow our prayer, our ability to pray to God and just have conversations with Him. And then also share this message with someone. If you found it inspiring or encouraging, send a link to a friend to say, hey, thinking of you, I was encouraged by this message. I hope it encourages you. That's right. Another thing that you can do is just keep coming back to church. We would love to see you back here next week. We're starting a new series called For All People. All right. And so make sure to tune in and we really hope that you have an amazing week and we'll see you next time. See ya.