Pastor Alex Himaya's Testimony

Well, good morning, church. Good morning. It's great to be with you today, and I want us to pray. Before I begin sharing with you today, and I was reading this morning in John chapter 15, and in that chapter towards the end, verses 26 and 27, Jesus tells his followers that the Holy Spirit is going to witness to Jesus and about Jesus in people's lives. And then he looks at his disciples and he said, you also should testify to me and about me. And here's the idea that Jesus was communicating, is that when we share our testimony and we witness to Jesus, that somehow in the heavenlies, that the Holy Spirit mixes our testimony with his witness in a person's heart to bear fruit in somebody's lives. It's an amazing thought when you think through that. And I want us to pray along those lines together today. And so if you would just kind of take your hands and hold them open, and would you just bow your heads, and would you just pray, Holy Spirit, witness to Jesus today in my life. Would you witness to and about Jesus today? Would you take the words that are about to be shared and would you use them, Holy Spirit, in my life to minister to me today, and you make the application in my life. In Jesus' name we pray, and together we all say, amen. And amen. And today we have a bunch of guests with us here today, and we're so glad that you have come. In fact, those of you here at Broken Arrow, would you welcome all the other campuses who are watching online today. We're so glad that you've joined us. For those of you who are new here, my name is Alex Hamaya, and I am the pastor here at Battle Creek Church since the beginning of the church, 20-something years ago we planted this church. And when people hear that name Hamaya, they ask, what is that? And the answer is Egyptian.

My dad is full-blooded Egyptian, and my mother is full-blooded hillbilly from a town outside of Fletcher, North Carolina. And in fact, when you take those two cultures, between my mother's culture and my dad's culture, and marry them together, it's a lot like holding my big fat Greek wedding in Mayberry. And there's only one verb you can use, that verb is collide, right? This was a collision of cultures that happened when my mom and dad got married. In fact, I say it this way affectionately sometimes, I have cousins on my dad's side of the family who are Egyptian, who are Arab, like they go, they go big. Like if they're going to Walmart, they put on prom dresses. We didn't come here for no reason, this is a party, we're going big. And I've got cousins on my mother's side of the family that built all of their living room furniture out of PVC pipe. Like didn't even paint it, it's just white, it says schedule 40 down the leg of every single thing in the living room. And my dad's part of my heritage is why I look this way, tall, dark, and handsome, right? And my mom's heritage is why I sound this way, like a redneck from Arkansas. And the truth is, is that our cultures and our natures and our nurtures all affect who we are. The second question people ask when they hear that my dad is Egyptian, is he Muslim? And the answer is no, he was a part of a church called the Coptic Church. And 90% of the people in Egypt are Muslim, and of the 10% that are not Muslim, 90% of those people are Coptic, from the Orthodox Egyptian church. And you probably have not heard about it unless you've studied church history. In fact, it's the oldest strain of Christianity on the planet. Catholics date their lineage to Peter, and they say that Peter was their first pope. The Coptic Church dates its lineage to Mark, when Mark went to Alexandria and started the church there. And if you read the book of Acts, Mark had a jump on Peter, he was way ahead of Peter. And so the Coptics are actually older than even the Catholic Church. And if you don't know Coptic, I want you to think Catholic on steroids, okay?

It's like Shiite Catholic, right? It's like a whole other level of Catholic. Very conservative. They make Catholics look extremely liberal. And that's the people group. Now we didn't have a Coptic Church. in Louisiana when I was being raised. Now, actually, my dad helped start a Coptic church in Louisiana, but we didn't have one. Now we have one in Tulsa, actually. There's one in Bixby, Oklahoma, but we didn't have one in the 70s and 80s when I was growing up, and so we went to the Catholic church kind of. Like most Catholics in the 80s in Louisiana, we went kind of. Like we would go on Ash Wednesday and get that thing on our head so that it communicated we went to church all the time, but we didn't go all of the time. My parents made up for our lack of church attendance by sending us to a Catholic school. Well, I went to, like, similar to Cassia Hall or Bishop Kelly, maybe, except for mine was all boys. And junior year of high school, the girls' school, St. Vincent's Academy was the name of the girls' school. Across town, it was gonna go under financially, so the bishop of our city decided to combine the boys with the girls into one school and make a go of it,

and it was called Loyola College Preparatory. And that's where I went to school. We were all grateful, by the way, that the nuns couldn't figure out how to manage the money, because we got to meet girls in the 11th grade, which is a late start if you think through this. But when I was in junior high, we kind of quit going to the Episcopal church, at least my mother did, and she started, I mean, the Catholic church, and she started taking us to the Episcopal church. I don't know the rhyme or reason, quite honestly. I never thought to ask her, but I was excited about it, because I thought the Episcopal priest was cooler than the Catholic priest, and he would take his collar off when he would lead the youth ministry, and he could play the guitar, and he would take the youth group to professional sport games or events in a Honda, like there were six of us in the youth group in this Episcopal church, and it was very convenient that it was three boys and three girls in this youth group, and one of the boys was my brother. I could whip him, and the other boy was ugly. And so I was kind of the alpha male of the youth group, and Karen Gunther was the prettiest little junior high girl in Bossier City, Louisiana, and she became my girlfriend in the Episcopal youth group, and I was very excited about Episcopalians.

And when we broke up, I didn't want anything to do with Episcopalians really the rest of my life, and about that time, a buddy invited me to his youth group at a Baptist church. Never been to a Baptist church, didn't know anything about Baptist church, but we showed up, and maybe one of the reasons that I was not intimidated to go was because there had been a fire in the sanctuary of the Baptist church, and so consequently, while they were renovating it, the youth ministry was meeting at the movie theater at the mall. And so I didn't feel intimidated by that because I'd been there so many times. I was like, yeah, I'll go to the movie theater, and we went on a Wednesday night, and we walked in, and there were like 200 teenagers. I told you, the Episcopal youth group was six. 200 is a big difference, and of the 200, 170 of them were girls. And of the 170, 150 of them were beautiful. And I can remember thinking, Jesus must be Baptist. Like, they got some connection here with Jesus because this has gotta be what heaven is gonna look like one day. And so we were late, so we had to sit on the front row because all the back seats were taken. So we made our way to the front row, and the youth pastor, BJ, steps forward

to give his announcements before the message that night, and one of the announcements he's made is, hey, this summer, this was the springtime, he said, this summer, in a few months, we're gonna go to youth camp. Now, the Coptics didn't do that, the Catholics didn't do that, and the Episcopalians didn't do that. I had no idea what he was talking about, youth camp. Like, I think he's talking to the kids that flunked out, like, you're going to camp. Like, you should've studied, right? You know, and like, you're joining a chain gang or something, like, you should've camped. I had no idea what he was talking about. And he goes on to describe it and says, there's gonna be girls there, there's gonna be guys there, there's gonna be live music, there's gonna be competition, and things that I was interested in, some of those things were true. And so I looked down my row and I said, are you going? And she said, yes. And I said, are you going? And she said, yes. I said, are you going? And she said, yes. I said, I'll go. Very first Wednesday night, with a bunch of strangers, invited me to camp, I said, I'll go. I went home and told my parents,

a group of people we've never met, know nothing about, wanna put us on buses, take us to another state to this youth camp for a week, and they were like, I think you should go. And I think they wanted a break from the A-D-D-D-D kid, by the way. And so we got on the bus, we went to Texas, to San Marcos. Now, some of you have been there because there's an outlet mall there now, and that day it wasn't all that cool. And there's a college there called San Marcos Baptist Academy. Since then which it's so strange to me that the Baptist decided to get into military defense and military education It's frightening. Actually, I feel like David Koresh graduated from there And so this college campus is not very attractive at all. It's cinder blocks the whole thing you walk into every dorm room There's a drain in the middle of the floor And I can read what is that for like if the dorm gets dirty you just power wash it and there's moisture in the air Unbelievable humidity and then there were two metal bunk beds with these plastic Mattresses on the bunk bed. How many remember what I'm talking about? Like they put diseases in them at the factory and and then schools would use them for 50 years It's just nasty these plastic mattresses and by the way, nobody told this kid to bring linens So I'm laying on that plastic mattress at night with a damp towel from the swimming pool as a cover, right? Like it was a horrible experience. And so you had these two beds with these plastic mattresses You had a broom and a metal dustpan. That was the extent of the dorm In fact, we hadn't been there five minutes and I'm this ADD kid is looking around going dear God What are we gonna do here for five days? Like tumbleweeds are rolling across this campus like and by the way if you're from Texas and God brought you to, Oklahoma you just need to praise him and Thank him for getting you out of that godforsaken state and bringing you to the promised land just you should be saved like five Times if he brought you out of there, and so I'm looking around going what are we gonna do here?

We hadn't been there 15 minutes and I stole every metal dustpan out of every boys dorm room. I Had zero plans. I just bored a Couple hundred dustpans under my bed at two o'clock in the morning I came up with a plan and I stepped out in that cinder block hallway with five of those metal dustpans in each hand and I threw them as hard as I Could throw them. It sounded like a train hit the building I shut my door and Waited while four or five stories of boys came down to the first floor because they thought a tornado Had hit the building. I opened my door stepped into the hallway pretended to be awakened shut my door laughed and went to bed and This is what the ADD kid did for entertainment every single night at youth camp Now the third or fourth night BJ caught me the youth pastor. He caught me and he called me to his dorm room He's sitting on the mattress Which is not as gross as it sounds because he had a sheet and I'm sitting on the igloo cooler and we are knee-to-knee Eyeball to eyeball elbow to elbow and I got my first real religious lecture And if he began the religious lecture with this I'm sending you home COD I Said what do you mean COD? Like I think it's one of the diseases from the mattresses He said no COD stands for cash on delivery. I said, what do you mean? He said in an hour at three o'clock in the morning. I'm gonna put you on a trailways bus It's gonna take 22 hours 23 hours to get to Louisiana because it's gonna stop in every godforsaken town in the state of Texas And it's gonna arrive at two o'clock tomorrow morning in Shreveport Your parents will pick you up at the bus station and will pay for the bus ticket Now there's a phrase that my dad would use with me and my brother That I haven't told you about and it went like this. I will kill you And the reason you laugh at that is because you're American right like I will kill you in an American household means You know, give me your cell phone for a week, right? And the Middle East I will kill you needs no translation whatsoever

It means I will kill you like my dad sovereignly believes that he brought me into this world He sovereignly has the right to take me out of this world one time in junior high I forgot to squeegee the shower when I got out of the shower He took the shower head to work with him for a week and told my mother to never make me breakfast again And so I believed at one point I'm swimming on a camel across the ocean to the motherland because I misbehaved and I I'm that's the only thing going through my mind while BJ goes on and talks and talks and talks is I will kill you and I learned to speak Christian ease quickly. I Learned the game of religion quickly. I looked at him and I said BJ if you send me home My dad will kill me and if he kills me my blood will be on your hands I think I was speaking his language right and he said well if you behave and I said look I'll clean the toilets You just can't if you send me home. You put me on that bus. I'm getting off in one of those towns I'm not going home because my dad will kill me and I said by the way Can you explain to me why on earth you would threaten to send me home for throwing dustpans? Nobody was injured in the throwing of these dustpans It was just good humor and and and he said let me tell you why I would send you home and I didn't Speak Christianese, I needed a thesaurus to understand what he was saying. But here's what he said. He said, Alex, the reason this is such a big deal is because every day the man of God, he's talking about the camp pastor, stands up to share the word of God, meaning the Bible. That the creation of God, these 1,500 teenagers who had come from five or six states to this camp, might become the children of God. In other words, they may be converted to Christianity. And he said, that's not happening because you wake up all the boys at 2 a.m. and they don't go back to sleep,

and so they sleep through all of the services. Now, when you think through this for a moment, this is a heavy load to put on a 15-year-old boy's shoulders. That you threw dustpans, all the boys going to hell. That's a heavy load, right? I mean, like, I felt like I needed to get in a confessional booth and confess immediately, which I did that all the time in the Catholic church. Like, and it was fun to me, actually, to get in a booth with a man wearing a dress to lie about your sin. I did it all the time. I made stuff up all the time. Father, forgive me for I've sinned. He said, what is your sin? I said, did you read about the bank robbery? I did it. Like, I just thought this was entertaining. And so I'm like, BJ, you can't send me home. He says, okay, the next day, while all the boys are getting ready for that night's activities, I had sat down with one of the camp chaperones that morning in a 50-style cafe. And I thought I was being interrogated because I was the kid that was sending all the boys to hell. I thought it was because he's in trouble, like put him with the senior adults. And so Mr. Leroy Faith, who was one of the chaperones, senior adult who would go to youth camp every year,

sat me down. And, which is a great name, by the way, for a youth camp chaperone, Mr. Faith. And Mr. Faith took a card and he started asking me some questions. I thought interrogation, okay, but it wasn't. I learned later it was a highly relational idea. The youth pastor had given every adult a list of 10 students' names and on the back, 10 icebreaker questions. And the assignment was sit down with these kids, one-on-one, and use these questions to get to know them. It's a highly relational idea, but I thought it's because I was in trouble. So I'm trying to think, say something religious, and just get this old guy off your back. And while I'm racking my brain as to what I could say religiously, at the table next to us, a girl who was a year younger than me, who lived around the corner from me, something was different about her life. And I knew it. I knew something was different. I had no idea what it was. I thought maybe she's a vegetarian. There was something different about her life, but I wasn't sure what it was. But she's being asked the same question. And she answered the most exciting thing

that's ever happened to me, which is an easy question for a 15-year-old to answer. She says, the most exciting thing that ever happened to me is when my friend that we prayed for and prayed for and prayed for got saved. Not a fat clue what she's talking about. But because I heard that out of my peripheral hearing, which all hearing is peripheral because your ears are on the side of your head, I heard that, and I looked at Mr. Faith, and I said, Mr. Faith, the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me is when I got saved. Now, either he had the gift of discernment, or I cussed in the answer. Because he went. He said, you're saved? I said, well, sure. And he said, well, tell me about when you got saved. And I said, I gotta go. And I gotta leave. It's a true story. Like, I'm exiting the building. And he said, well, I understand you have to go. Here's what I want you to do. Write me a five-page essay telling me about when you got saved. Now, teenagers today would like, they would flip you off if you assigned that to them. But I thought I had to do it. We're at David Koresh's alma mater.

And COD is on the table. I think I have to do this assignment. And so I went to the bookstore and bought this fat-ruled paper and Crayolas. I'm manipulating margins 30 years before Bill Gates taught us how to do that. I still remember the first sentence because it took me 45 minutes to write it. I'm meditating to a pile of dust pans. What does it mean to be saved? Saved from what? What are they going to do to us that we need to be saved from? What kind of a cult have I traveled with? I can't figure this thing out. And I still remember the first sentence. Mr. Faith, the concept of forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever. Page two. And on and on and on and on and on for a boy who's been on this ball of dirt a mere 15 years is incomprehensible, mind-blowing, and unknowable. It was five pages of sheer nonsense in run-on sentence form. And while I'm writing this, all the boys are getting ready for that night's activities. The night's activity is called Date Night. Now let me just tell you what that is because I don't want any of you to.

Think that we take teenagers to camp that we do things this stupid. This is the worst youth ministry idea I've ever heard in my whole life. First idea and still to this day worst idea. They took these 1500 kids from multiple states and multiple churches. They gave every boy a three by five index card with a girl's name and her dorm room. And you got dressed up in a jacket and slacks and the girls put dresses on. Like this, they thought God was nocturnal back then. He comes to the night service so you have to dress up. He's not coming in the morning so you can wear shorts. And so at night you got dressed up and then you went and met this girl at her dorm room for the very first time and then escorted her as your blind date to the worship service. And after the worship service you took her to the cafe to buy her a fruit cup or a banana split depending on her carb tolerance and then took her back to the dorm and said goodnight. This is a heart attack waiting to happen for junior high kids. And so I delivered my essay to Mr. Faith, went to the girl's dorm, knocked on the door, and this is the recovering Catholic in me, I feel like I have to just confess everything all the time. I knocked on the door, she opened the door and I thought, I won.

I won date night, like first place, I won. She's the prettiest girl at the whole camp. I won this thing, like first place. You say it's not a competition. I would just be honest with you and say I don't even know what you mean when you say it's not a competition. Like I race people on 169 not even coming here. And so I said, I read her name and she said no, hang on. And she went and got her roommate. And I lost. And you say you can't say that, you're a pastor. I'm telling you what I was thinking at 15. And by the way, you still think that way so quit acting so spiritual. So I took a girl that I'm not interested in to the worship service and sat next to her. This is the sixth worship service of this camp and for the very first time I'm sitting next to a girl I'm not interested in. So for the very first time I actually paid attention. And I looked up to the front of the room and thought, there's a stage up there. When did they have time to build that stage? And there's a man on it and I kid you not, this man steps up to the front of the stage and says, young people, the title of my sermon tonight is what does it mean to be saved? I had asked that question 50 times to a pile of dustpans. I listened to every word that man said that night.

God was setting me up with that whole essay, with the whole question of what does it mean to be saved. Quite honestly, I think he made her ugly so I wouldn't be interested in her. In fact, I think after that night she became beautiful like Cinderella, like God was just setting me up in that night. And so I paid attention to every word he said. And three quarters of the way through the message this girl, who is clearly sensitive to the Holy Spirit, looks at me and says, Alex, you're obviously moved by what he's saying. And I said, is it the tears, Copernicus? Like, I mean, what gave that away? And she said, you need to respond to the invitation. This is honest to God verbatim conversation. I said, I didn't get one. And she said, what do you mean? I said, I didn't get an invitation. And she said, no, this is not something that is put in an envelope and slid under your dorm room door. This is a response time. I said, I don't follow. She said, we're gonna stand in a moment and we're all gonna sing, and these men are gonna come in that door and they're gonna stand across the front of the room. And you're gonna take one of them by the hand and pray about your sin.

And I said, in front of everybody? She said, yeah. I said, like, we do it like in a telephone booth. And she said, we do it in front of everybody. I said, that's really strange. And she said, that's just how we do it and you need to respond. And she said, would you like for me to go with you? I said, heavens no. I don't want anybody here to think you're with me. I said, here's some money for your banana split, right? Because if we're praying about sin, I'm gonna be here all night. All these boys going to hell because of me. And she said to me, one piece of advice. You don't have to hurry. They're gonna sing it like 500 times. And so she said, just pray about your sin. I said, okay. And so I started down the aisle. I took one of these men by the hand. And he said, young man, why are you coming? I said, she told me to. And he said, no, why are you coming? And I said, if what this man is saying is true, that Jesus Christ wants a personal relationship with me, I'm in. And he said, okay, I want you to say a prayer. And so I bowed my head and I started praying silently. Extreme introvert.

That may be hard for you to comprehend, but I'm an extreme introvert, actually. And I started praying and he interrupted me. I gave him grace because I thought, he can't hear me. I'm praying. silently, and maybe I'm a slow prayer. And so I gave him grace, and he said, no, no, I want you to pray out loud. I said, I prefer not. And he said, no, no, just give it a shot. And I knew one prayer, and so I started in. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. And somewhere between the middle and the end of the prayer, he interrupted me in the only prayer I knew for a second time. And I thought, how rude. And here's what he said, he said, I want you to pray in a personal way. I said, what do you mean? He said, in the way that you're talking to me personally, I want you to pray and talk to God personally. I said, I have no idea how to do that. He said, just give it a shot. And I prayed something like, dear God, I've always believed in you. I don't have a moment of my life remembering not believing in God. I've always believed in Jesus. I always believed that he was born of a virgin. I've always believed he lived a sinless life.

I believe he died on a cross. Every classroom I'd ever been in my whole life had a crucifix above the chalkboard. I've always believed all of this. And if what this man is saying is true, that Jesus, you want a personal relationship with me, awesome, amen. And you say, that's not the prayer. It's pretty close. And by the way, I'm not banking my eternity on a prayer that I don't find anywhere in Scripture. Well, I didn't understand Scripture. I didn't know any Scriptures. I didn't know John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believeth on him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. I didn't know that. And I was a whosoever on that day. Some of you today are whosoevers. And you're gonna trust Christ. I didn't know those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved in Romans. I didn't know that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. I knew no Scripture. But in that moment, I prayed that prayer and Jesus entered my life. You say, what are you banking it on?

He walks with me and he talks with me. It is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. My life was flipped upside down in that moment. And let me just tell you how big God is. Not just an unattractive date and what does it mean to be saved and a preacher who preached on it and all of those moments, but my little brother who's 13 months to the day, younger than me, our whole lives, people thought we were twins. He's very handsome, actually. And our whole lives. He went with another Baptist church to another camp in a place called Roach, Missouri. You can't make this stuff up. I'm in San Marcos, he's in Roach, Missouri. Both Roach places. And in that camp, he gave his life to Christ on the very same night that I gave my life to Christ. And God is bringing this equation together. We came home to Louisiana and said we need to go to youth group together and we picked the church that I went to camp with because there were more girls. It was a very spiritual decision. And a year later, we're going to camp in Florida and BJ says to me, hey, I want you to share one night what God's been teaching you in your Bible reading and in your prayer time.

I was terrified that he actually was gonna call on me. At that point, I'd spoken one time publicly, ninth grade speech class. I wrote a great speech. And I stood up in my polyester Catholic suit and tie to give this speech. And a porcupine moved into my throat. And I could not get a word around her. And I did the only thing I knew to do in that moment, I just started crying, which was a bad idea. At that point, there were no girls there. Remember I told you ninth grade? At 11th grade, the girls came. I cried giving a speech in front of 15 or 20 ninth grade boys. That's a bad idea. I paid for that for years, actually. And so now, BJ, on the third night of camp, says, Alice, come share. I'm sitting like right where you are with the hat on right there. Second seat in second row. And what I had done in free time is I had gone through my Bible and marked a few verses. I learned how to use a concordance, found a few verses, put a little slip of paper in it. And here's what I thought. If I go up there and I get that nervous again, I won't be so nervous that I forget how to read. And so I'll just open to one of these tabs,

I'll read a verse and say, this is the word of God, thanks be to God, and I'll sit down. That was my plan. I thought, this is a good plan, actually. And he called me up, and I started up, and I turned my Bible down like this, and the papers fell out. It took me all week to find, no way I'm finding those on the spot. By the way, I use paperclips from that day forward, right? And so I stood up there, and the porcupine came back. And this time, she's giving birth in my throat, which is a weird picture, but there's a whole litter of them in my throat now. And I cannot get a word to go past them. And I just started crying again. And as loud as I've ever heard the Holy Spirit, he just said to me, just be honest. Just be honest. And which has become the M.O. of the ministry the Lord has given me ever since. And through the honesty and through the tears, here's what I got out. I love my dad. He's a moral man, he's a religious man, he's a phenomenal dad, but he does not have a personal relationship with Christ in the way that I have a personal relationship with Christ. And I'm worried that if he were to die, he would end up separated from God for all eternity

in a real place called hell. And that's what I got out through the tears. And that youth ministry said, we're gonna pray for your dad every day until he comes to know Christ. Now make this long, long, long story just long. We drove through the night, got home Saturday morning, went home, slept all day long, got up long enough to eat dinner with my parents, went back to bed and slept all night long. Got up the next morning to go to church and to our youth group, and my dad was sitting at the kitchen table and he said, boys, sit down. We sat down at that kitchen table, and I'm paraphrasing, but what he said is, whatever's different about you all's lives, I want it in my life. And as a 16-year-old boy, I led my daddy to Jesus at the breakfast table. And a few months later, I got to leave my mom to Christ. And a few months after that, I led my six-year-old little sister to Christ. And by the way, all the dysfunction did not exit our household, Jesus just got in the middle of it with us. And he changed our lives, and he changed the trajectory of our lives. And I intended to get past 16 in my testimony. I'm 54 years old. There's a lot I could tell you

that have happened in the last 30 years, including him calling me into ministry and calling me to start this church in Tulsa. I wish I had time to do all that today. I don't. But I believe the application can be made by the Holy Spirit in your life today. Would you bow your heads at all of our campuses and close your eyes and open your hearts? And would you again just ask the Holy Spirit to testify to Jesus in your heart and in your life today? And with heads bowed and eyes closed and hearts open, I just wanna ask you this question. If you're here today and you know for sure that Jesus is your Lord and your Savior, that he walks with you and he talks with you, that if you were to die tomorrow, you know you're going to heaven, that if Jesus were to come back next week, you know he's coming for you. You got that settled in your heart and in your life. Would you just raise your hand at all of our campuses if that's you today? Just lift your hand high. Thank you, thank you. You can put them down. Thousands of hands just went up at our church. And do you know what that means? It means a man who died 2,000 years ago is still saving lives today.

How can he do that? Well, he didn't stay dead. He beat death, he beat hell, and he beat the grave. And he's changing lives today. And if you're here and you couldn't raise your hand, I wanna thank you for being honest. And I just wanna say to you, we're actually thrilled that you're here today. This whole day was built for you, actually, and we've been praying for you. And so if that's you, you'd say, Pastor Alex, I don't know that Jesus is my Lord and my Savior. I don't know that he's my forgiver. I don't know that if I die today, I'm going to heaven. I don't know that if Jesus comes back next week, he's coming for me. I don't know. Would you pray for me? If that's you across all of our campuses this morning, you say, I don't know. Would you raise your hand so that I can see it or so that your campus pastor can see it? Just raise it high, okay? Okay, okay, okay. I see several hands here at Broken Arrow. Anybody else, just raise your hand, okay? At South Tulsa, if that's you, would you just raise your hand right now? At South Tulsa, just raise your hand.

In Jenks, would you raise your hand, please? In Owasso, would you raise your hand? Midtown, would you just raise your hand up? At the chapel here, Broken Arrow, raise your hand. Anybody else here in this room at BA, just raise your hand high, okay, okay, okay, okay. Thank you, thank you. Lots and lots of hands. Last time I'm gonna ask, you say, if you're about to pray, include me in this prayer. Just raise your hand at every campus. I don't know, Alex, just raise it up high, okay, okay. Thank you, thank you. And as I promised, I'll be back in a minute. Want to pray for you and I'm asking believers all around you to pray for you, too Lord, would you meet every man and every woman and every boy and every girl? personally at their seat this morning and in their heart and May you win the victory and the battle in every one of their hearts today and may today be the day of salvation May it spring up out of the ground and in these rooms today into lives And may you save people I can't save anybody this church can't save anybody but Jesus not only can you you want to save? people and so I pray that you would in this moment and If you're here today, and you want to trust Jesus you want to give your life to Jesus Christ Bow your knee to him confess with your mouth Jesus I Want to lead you in a prayer And you might say I just told you I don't know him. I don't know how to pray I'll pray it one phrase at a time to help you so that you can repeat it after me out loud But I don't want you to pray it after me in a rote fashion. I want you to pray it to a God in heaven And if you want to trust Christ and give your life to Jesus today

Across all of our campuses, would you pray with me and say dear God? I know I'm a sinner But today I ask you to forgive me for all of my sin Jesus come into my life To be my Lord You call the shots in my life Come in as my Savior my forgiver in The best way that I know how I Turn my back on my sin, and I trust you alone Jesus For salvation I receive you Jesus Thank you For saving me that you were not ashamed or embarrassed of me But you died on that cross Naked in my place Help me in this moment to not be ashamed of you Now before we say amen you just prayed that prayer and you meant it with all of your heart You just gave your life to Jesus Christ Would you just raise your hand at every single campus and say pastor I prayed that I meant it with all of my heart Just raise it high so that I can see you so that other campus pastors can see you just lift it up lots of hands Here at BA at the chapel raise your hand at Jenks at South Tulsa at Midtown Just raise your hand you prayed that and you meant it with all of your heart Just just raise your hand and if your hand just went up Here's what I want you to do the rest of you You keep your heads bowed and eyes closed, but but if your hand just went up to say I meant that I want you to look up at me or look up at your campus pastor right now Okay, and you may need to wave your hand again so that they can find you but right here ma'am You meant that right here, sir. You meant that right here and three of you right here together

You meant that anybody else over here right here ma'am. You meant that okay? I see a couple of ladies side-by-side back here a young man behind you. Yes, sir You meant that anybody in the middle ma'am right here? Anybody else here in this middle anybody to my right to your left? Just raise your hand so that I can find you. Okay right here right here Anybody else right back here. I see you in the back row. I see this couple right here. Thank you. I see the very back Congratulations, I Would love to address just you for a moment and so these lights are really bright in my eyes But but if you just prayed that prayer and you meant it with all of your heart Would you just stand up where you are? Nobody else needs to look but if you prayed that prayer just stand up That's right, ma'am. Just stand up. Just stand up if you prayed it just stand up right where you are And the rest of you you don't need to look okay We're not embarrassing anybody in this room right now But but you can celebrate the Bible says the angels in heaven are throwing a party right now And to you I say Congratulations and to you I say this is the wisest decision you could ever make and I'm so excited for you Okay, and here's what I want you to do before you leave today I would love for somebody just to know your name at our church okay, and Just to say a one-minute prayer with you to see if you have any questions If you don't have a Bible they want to give you a Bible and they just want to encourage you Okay, and so don't sit back down if you will stand stand up. Here's what I want you to do If you're standing if you stood up, I want you to grab your friend that brought you I want you to grab the person with you grab your Bible grab your purse grab whatever all your stuff and I want you to Make your way out of these rows to these aisles to this pastor right here Okay, just come bring somebody with you bring your stuff with you but right outside that door is a room and I just want somebody to pray with you and See if you have any questions and just encourage you and again Let's just celebrate as these men and women and boys and girls are coming today Okay, we celebrate with the angels in heaven.

Congratulations. Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations. They're coming from the back corner and they're making their way. Anybody else just stand and come and go with them if you would at this moment. We celebrate the goodness of God today. Come on, come on, come on, come on. Come on, just make your way up here. They're still coming, church, they're still coming. Let's give them time, we're not rushing them. Anybody else? You prayed that prayer and you meant it. Just stand and come with these who are coming. They're still coming from my left. They're still coming down this center aisle. Anybody else? You need to stand and come with them. They're just standing, come with them. Congratulations. Still coming, church, they're still coming. You don't need to look, but they're still coming and we're rejoicing in what God is doing in this place. And let me just say this to you. Some of you, you prayed that prayer. Some of you even stood up and then sat back down. That's okay. And if for one reason or another you didn't respond, would you please let us know, okay? In that seat pocket in front of you is a card.

And before you leave, just fill it out. And one of the boxes says, I pray to receive Christ. Drop it in the bucket on your way out the door. And our staff team will call you and just check on you this week. But we just wanna say to you, congratulations. And I just wanna remind you that our testimony mixed with the testimony of the Holy Spirit does God-sized things in people's lives. And so I pray you'll go share your story. And I pray you'll go share your testimony this week with people as you encounter them and meet them. Father, thank you for the blood of Jesus applied to our lives, forgiving us for sin. We're so grateful. Thank you for this church that you continually, year in and year out, use to lead men and women and boys and girls to this kind of a decision. We're not over that. And we're so excited to continue to be a part of it. In Jesus' name we pray. And together we all say amen. Would you thank the Lord for using us today? Come on, Jeff.