Plugged In | Dream Disciple Series

Man, I'm so thankful you're here this morning. Thanks for coming. If I've not had a chance to meet you, my name is Matt Darby. I am one of the pastors on staff here. I get to pastor the Gilmer Campus, and it's my joy to get to be with you this morning. Pastor Todd is in Gilmer, so we know they're having a terrible day, and I'm just kidding. Pastor is the best preacher I know, and it is my joy to get to serve under him and to serve with him. If you guys don't know, my wife and I and our family have just come off a season of sabbatical. We were on sabbatical for about six weeks, and just out, and man, it was so good. I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful to our church for the opportunity to take that time. I'm thankful to Pastor Todd, Pastor Derek, and our elders who came to me and said, we want you to do this. We think it's important, and I didn't know how much we needed it or how important it was until we went, and we got some time to be refreshed in the Lord, to reconnect as a family. All of those things were unbelievable,

but you know, God did something that I wasn't expecting while we were on sabbatical. While we were away, he reminded me and made me keenly aware of how much I love and need the church. I wasn't expecting that, right? I know I love the church, but he made me aware of how much I love and need the church, and I didn't know how much I loved it and how much I needed it until we were away from it, right? How many of you are great 80s hair metal band fans? Raise your hands, show of hands. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. There you are. The rest of you, square your life up. Get on Spotify and listen to good music, okay? It's a band called Cinderella. They got a great song called Don't Know What You Got Till It's Gone. That's how I felt. While we, you know what I've noticed? The older I get, the more obscure my musical references get. Fewer and fewer people are like, I don't know what he's talking about, right? But we missed you guys so much, and we got to spend a little bit of time in Colorado while we were away, which we loved. We got to hike a little bit, and you know, the air's different up there. It's different.

I mean, we hiked, we got up to about 10,000 feet. You know what's up there? A lot of beautiful scenery. You know what's not up there? Breathable air, right? Even for a guy in peak athletic condition like myself, it just, it was hard, right? Now, when we first got to Colorado, we're going into these stores, and in every store, do you know what they sell? Canned oxygen. It's in every store. If you go in there, there's just displays of oxygen in cans, and at first, we got there, and I'm making fun of it. I'm just looking at this going, this is the dumbest thing. That's like, Gary, come here. These people, these Colorado people buy canned air. It's everywhere. So dumb. So I bought one, and we started. We got on this hike, and I want to tell you something. When we got up to about 10,000 feet, I was hitting that can of air like you wouldn't believe, man. I was going, because when we got into an environment where the oxygen was less, I was keenly aware of how much I needed it, and when we got into an environment where we were away from the body of Christ,

I was keenly aware of how much I love you and need you, and it was just so important, and the reason, what was beginning to stir in me around that, God reminded me, this is the place I draw near to you with my people. I show up, and I speak to you. It's that God draws near to us here. He meets us here. He breathes life into us here. He encourages our hearts here. He strengthens our walk, and deepens our faith. He reveals Himself to us here. Listen, He clarifies our view of Him here, because when we are here, God surrounds us with His people, and then He fills His people with His presence, and there is no substitute in the world like being with the people of God, filled with the presence of God. There's nothing like it. There's nothing like it, and we missed it, and we're so very thankful to be back and a part of it. I do wanna tell you, I haven't preached in eight weeks, so here we go, all right. You guys, we've been walking through a series called Dream Disciple, where we're looking at the five postures of discipleship, the disciple we wanna become here at New Beginnings. We see these postures in the life of Jesus. You know what they are. I'm just gonna walk through them very quickly.

They're eyes up, kingdom focused, right? Knees down, in prayer, spiritually dependent on the Holy Spirit. Bible open, biblically literate, plugged in, relationally connected. That's where we're gonna spend our time. our time today, and then sent out, living on mission. We see all of these in the life of Christ, and we're gonna jump into what it means to be plugged in, relationally invested here at New Beginnings, being relationally connected to the people of God. You see this in the life of Christ. Jesus intentionally lived, connected, plugged in, and sharing his life with other believers. So what does it mean to be plugged in here? What do we mean when we say that phrase? Plugged in for us means being connected to a local body in such a way that you are known. I wanna say that again. Being plugged in means being connected to a local body in such a way that you are known. The body of Christ is no place to be anonymous. And I know for many of you, you come into this room, and it's a large room, and you can find a place to kind of sit, and maybe you're hoping not too many people talk to you, and you're really not interested in people knowing you, but can I tell you something? The body of Christ is no place to remain anonymous. It's a place to be known.

We're gonna talk about how we do that. It's a place to relationally connect and invest your life into the life of other believers. It's a place to be invested in by other believers. When we mean plugged in, when we say plugged in, we mean that church is no longer a place I attend. It's a people I belong to. Somebody needs to write that down because that was way more awesome than your face just showed me. Ha ha ha, right? Church is not a place, it's not a building I attend. It's a people I belong to. That's the church. And if you're a guest with us today, I wanna say welcome and thank you for being here. It means the world to us that you would come and worship with us today. But I do wanna ask you, are you looking for a people you can belong to? That's what we're trying to become here at New Beginnings. So it is, it means those things. It means being known, being invested. It means belonging to people, but it also, when we say plugged in, we also mean that when we are plugged into the body, we are gonna participate in the life and mission of the church. Meaning being plugged in does not give you room to be a casual observer of what God is doing.

Rather, you have bought into the life and mission of this place, and you're gonna be a part of it. You're gonna participate in it. So it means to be, and what's our mission? If you know it, feel free to say it with me. We wanna be people connecting people to Jesus, and it's ever-restoring life where we live, work, and play. That's our mission. And to be plugged in means you're gonna look at that and go, I wanna be a part of that. I wanna be a part of connecting people to Jesus. And God has ordained his church to be where his children grow spiritually and pursue his mission together. And when you go back to Acts chapter one and Acts chapter two, by the way, Acts chapter two is where we're gonna be this morning, if you wanna grab your Bible and head that way. When you go to Acts chapter one and two, where you've got the 120 in the upper room, and Jesus told them, you're to stay in Jerusalem until you're clothed with power from on high, and the Holy Spirit's gonna come upon you, and then you'll be my witnesses, but don't leave that room. From that 120 there to Acts two, and the Holy Spirit falls, and they begin to speak in tongues, and Peter preaches the gospel,

and 3,000 people are saved. From that moment, the church has been absolutely essential in the life of the believer. And so we're gonna look at this moment when the church is born. Acts chapter two, we're gonna pick it up in verse 42. One of the things we love to say before we dive into God's word is something we know, and that is that the Bible is true. Let's say that together. The Bible is true. Acts two, verse 42. And they, who's the they? If you go back to verse 41, it's the 3,000 people who just got saved. And those 3,000, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers, and awe came upon every soul in many signs. excuse me, many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all people. And the Lord added to their number day by day,

those who are being saved. There it is, there's the church being born right there. Now, my question that I want us to wrestle with is what caused these 3,000 strangers? Now, a few of them may have known one another, but for the most part, these are gonna be three. What caused 3,000 strangers to suddenly connect to one another like family? Right? These people had very little in common and Luke tells us in Acts, now they have all things in common. Now they're eating together and they're fellowshipping with one another and they're praying together. They're devoted to one another. They're devoted to godly gospel teaching. They're being generous with all they have. They're just giving it away. They're going to temple together. They're being in one another's homes. What happened? What happened? What caused 3,000 strangers to suddenly love that body of new believers and see it as absolutely essential to their life? We're gonna answer that question today and we're gonna answer the question as well, why we should love the church and be devoted to it. I want you to ask yourself this question,

am I devoted to the church? The New Testament standard lays out that we are to be grafted into a body and to love the bride of Christ and be devoted to it. So here's the first reason why we love the church and are devoted to it. You ready? Here it is, very simple, but we gotta take it in because Jesus loved the church. Jesus loved the church. If the point of being a disciple of Jesus is to become more like Jesus, and we agree that's the point, right? A disciple who's not a learner and a follower and a student is not a disciple. So if the point of being a disciple of Christ is to become more like Jesus, that means then that in an ever-increasing way, I'm gonna love what Jesus loved, prioritize what Jesus loved, I'm gonna love what Jesus loved, prioritize what he prioritized and pursue what he pursued. In an ever-increasing way, I'm going to love what Jesus loved. And listen to me, Jesus loves the church. We get a picture of the depth of the love of Christ for the church in Ephesians chapter five. I want you to hold your place in Acts two and flip over very quickly to Ephesians five. This is a moment where Paul

is writing to the church at Ephesus and he's talking a lot about the family and the home and marriage and how the gospel and the Holy Spirit speaks to those things. And he says this in Ephesians chapter five, verse 25. He says, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. You wanna know the first demonstration of the love of Christ for the church? Jesus died for the church. He died for the church. Now, why did he do that? Look at verse 26, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. Listen, we, the church, we needed to be cleansed. We needed to be made pure. We needed to be washed. And Jesus loved the church before she was clean. He loved the church before she was beautiful and lovely. And he loved us when we were covered in sin. And it was his love for this sin-covered church that drove him to the cross, not because we were clean and beautiful, but because we were sinful and dirty and imperfect and messed up. But he loved us anyway. Can I tell you something about the church? We're still imperfect. We still mess up.

But the imperfections of the church are never a reason to stop loving the church. So I'll say that again. And I wanna say it again, here's why. Because church hurts us. is a real thing. And some of you are in a seat this morning and you feel the sting of that because you've been hurt by the church before. It's real. And it'll put a scar on us and sometimes we don't know what to do. Just hear me say this. The imperfections of the church are never a reason to stop loving the church or to lower your devotion. You wanna know why? Jesus loved the church when we were at our most imperfect. Our most imperfect. He loved us. He loved us, he loved us. All right. Look at verse 27. Why did he love us this way? Why does he want us purified and washed and cleansed and sanctified? Verse 27, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.

Do you see how Jesus sees us in that verse? I'm reading that verse because I want every believer to deeply feel in your heart how Christ sees his church. We struggle at times to love the church be the way we should because it's hard for us to see ourselves the way our groom, the way Christ sees us. You know what I know to be true? This is 100% true what I'm about to say. And I bet every husband in this room will agree with me. If my wife, Carrie, would you just wave at the room? They would love this. Just wave, she's right here. We're gonna stay here till you wave. There you are, good. If my wife saw herself the way I see her, she would never have another day where she doubted the beautiful treasure she is. It would never hit her radar ever again to doubt her beauty and the treasure that she, I can't even look at you while I say that. She would just wake up every day and deeply feel and rest in the beautiful woman and treasure that she is. Church, listen to me. That doesn't even compare to how Jesus sees us. We're his treasure. We're the beautiful bride of Christ. And it is a good thing for us to see that and love being that.

We love the church because Jesus loved the church and died for the church. So here's the point. Jesus sees us. He sees his bride, not through the lens of our faults, but through the lens of his grace. He sees us through the lens of love and beauty, not disdain or disgust. He cherishes the church. And this is, which means we gotta love the thing that he loves and cherish the thing that he cherishes. And it's why it is so disturbing. There's this growing narrative in our culture and among Western believers that says, I love Jesus, but I don't like the church. Oh, I'm devoted to Jesus, but I don't like the church. Is that a biblical faith? No. Husbands, let me ask you a question. Do you have a friend that you get to have a close relationship with you that comes to you and goes, hey, Matt, I love you, but I don't care for your wife. Man, you gotta bounce, baby. We're a packets deal. She doesn't have a friend that hates my guts, as far as I know. Far as I know, right? Because we're together. And to receive me and to be with me and to have the privilege of friendship with me

and for me to have the privilege of friendship with you, I have to love your family, I have to love your wife. Listen, you can't say I'm devoted to Christ and spurn his bride. We love the church because Jesus loved the church. We don't love the church because the church is perfect. It's not. We don't love the church because they do things the way we want. Sometimes that won't happen. We love the church because Jesus loved the church and died. Okay, here's the next thing I want you to see. Why do we have to be devoted to this, plugged in to this body? Here's why. Here's the next point. It's only a two-point sermon, right? Here's the next point. Because the church is given for our sanctification, not just our satisfaction. This is a tough one for us. Here's why it's a tough one. Because we have typically built our lives and allow things into our lives based on how they satisfy us or not. Think about your life and ask yourself this question. What do I actually invite into my life that makes me uncomfortable? Not much. I drive by a gym every single day and I go,

nope, not today. Nope, mm-mm. They could be giving away memberships to that place and I'd be like, no, dog, McDonald's is right beside you. There's no chance I'm gonna join your cult, right? What do you actually invite into your life that makes you uncomfortable? If we were to ever take hold of this, if we were to ever take hold of this idea that the church is given to us by God for our sanctification, not just our satisfaction, take it, wrestle it into our heart that this place doesn't exist just to make me happy. God's given it to be a part of making me holy. If we take hold of that, it changes everything. Here's why it changes everything. Because if I am able to see the church as a significant part of God's plan to make me more like Jesus than when the sin issues in my life get called out, I run in and not out. When areas of disobedience in my life have to be dealt with, when sin issues are called out from the stage, my flesh wants to bail. So what keeps me anchored and in love with the church and devoted knowing that God has given it for my sanctification long before it's here for my satisfaction? Look at verse 42 of Acts chapter two. Here's what it says.

It says, these 3,000, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. So they're devoted to godly teaching. They're devoted to the fellowship. They're devoted to the breaking of bread. That's communion. And they're devoted to the prayers. Now, listen, it's easy to read that and go, yeah, I'm devoted. But understand, these are brand new believers. Do you realize what they're having to let go of? What they're having to let go of, the new rhythms they're having to learn, the new priorities, everything has changed and everything they thought they knew about God and pleasing him and a life that pleased God, they're having to let go because they're embracing this gospel, this transformation. They are learning. And what you see is a devotion to spiritual maturation. They're devoted to growing together, to becoming more and more like, and you're like, Darby, dude, I'm here every week. I'm devoted. What about when your issue gets called out? Do you lean in? What about when we're talking about tithing, just the biblical standard of tithing? What do you do?

Do you justify the position you have of not being faithful to tithe? Do you make excuses? Why is it so quiet in here right now? Right? What about when Pastor Todd is talking about you coming to the prayer for the hundredth time? By the way, it's the most important thing we do as a church. There's nothing we do more important than what we do on Wednesday nights at 6.30. You have to hear me say that. And at some point, if you call this place home, you have to believe it. There's nothing more important than what we do in this room at 6.30 on Wednesday nights. But what about when he's talking about that, but you've justified the calendar that you've set and the events that you've brought into your home, and you've got this, and you guys do this on a Wednesday night as a family, and you've got all the reasons why this doesn't matter to you or you don't need it. When we see the church as given to us by God to make us more like Jesus, then when the things that are in our life that are making us less like Jesus get dealt with, we get excited to rid our life of them and we run into the body and not away from it. Are you with me? Yeah. So we asked the question earlier, what changed in these people's lives that made them go from strangers to devoted to one another, to being plugged in together? The answer is very simple.

It's the gospel and the Holy Spirit, right? They heard the gospel. They received Jesus Christ. Now something has changed. They're becoming new. They're a new creation. They've got these new desires. They've got these new priorities. And listen to me, when you are made into a new creation with new desires and new priorities, do you know what that demands? A new community of people who also have those priorities. This is what the gospel does. It changes everything. I want to give you a statement. It's this. The gospel so fundamentally transforms the life of a sinner that the sinner cannot help but be integrated and supernaturally connected to other sinners that have experienced the same transformation. You're like, that's super wordy. Well, I haven't preached in eight weeks, so leave me alone, all right? The gospel so fundamentally transforms the life of a sinner that the sinner cannot help but to be integrated and supernaturally connected to other sinners that have experienced the same transformation. Listen, the radical nature of the grace of God is so unique and so powerful that I am immediately connected to any other person who has received that same radical grace. We find tons of things to connect with people. Connecting with people, by the way, kind of comes easy to me. It doesn't come easy to Carrie. She works really hard. It just comes...

I like connecting with people, right? I like being around people and it kind of comes a little easy to me, and I enjoy it. But we find the craziest things to connect over, right? Pastor Derek, when he first came on staff last year, he would drive over to the Gilmer campus. He'd be hanging out with the Gilmer team and working there for the day, and I walked by. He was sitting at a desk working, and he had his AirPods in, and so I walked up to make sure he wasn't being too productive. I've just interrupted him. I was like, hey, what are you doing? He takes his AirPods out, thoroughly annoyed that I've interrupted him, and he was listening to music. I'm like, great. What are you listening to? And he was listening to a choral composer by the name of Eric Whitaker. Who knows that name? Eric Whitaker. Have you ever heard that name? Two of you. Seriously? Oh my gosh. Okay. Obviously, there's no choral music nerds, but what happened in that moment was he found out I like Eric Whitaker too, and we listened to a lot of the same music. He and I spent about 20 minutes totally nerding out over choral music, which is this tiny little niche slice of the music world that obviously three people enjoy. But when Pastor Derek and I realized we both like this guy, and Pastor Ben's listening to this conversation about music he cares nothing about, and he's literally looking at us like, I think I'm going to quit my job rather than work with you nerds, right? But we totally connected.

We will connect over anything. We'll connect over a sports team. We'll connect over our hobbies, but there is no connection like those who've experienced the radical life transforming grace of God and been filled with his Holy Spirit. There's something connecting there that's unlike anything else in this world. We need each other that way. The saving grace of God produces a dynamic community where those who have shared in the gospel of Christ together also share in the everyday stuff of life together. That's what began to happen to these believers. It says in verse 44 that all who believed were together and they had all things in common. They had little in common before. Now the gospel has changed everything. They have all things in common and they're plugged in together. You know what this means? Pastor Todd say this last year and I've never forgotten it. He says, here's what this means. It means that you have more in common with a believer on the other side of the world that you've never met than you do with a lost person that lives in your house. It took me a minute to get my brain around before I realized that's 100% true. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you have more in common with another believer in Jesus Christ on the other side of the world that you've never met than you do with a lost person living under your own roof. Why? Because there's a radical transforming grace that you've experienced that eternally and intrinsically binds you to anyone else that has experienced that grace.

So what changed? The gospel. Here's the other thing that changed. Now you have 3,000 believers who have the indwelling Holy Spirit living inside them. And guess what the Holy Spirit is doing? He's waking up new godly desires that they didn't have before, priorities they didn't have, longings, dreams, passions. Suddenly there's this desire to be together. They have this desire to hear God's Word taught. They have this miraculous desire to give away all they had. Why? Because the Holy Spirit awakens us to godliness and creates in us a desire to be with other people who've been awakened to godliness. The Spirit ignites this flame of passion for God in our hearts and we wanna be around other people who are longing for God like that. The Spirit moves us to exalt Christ and to live God-centered lives and to saturate our life with His Word and to live clean before Him. And if you're gonna live that kind of life, a Word-saturated, Christ-exalting, pure life before God, you are gonna move in direct opposition to this world, which is why Jesus said in Matthew chapter six or Matthew chapter seven, the way to life is narrow and hard

and there's only a few people on it, but church, listen, those few people need each other. We need each other, because it is hard. Sanctification is hard. Becoming more like Jesus is hard. Purity is hard and my flesh doesn't wanna do it and my willpower's not enough to accomplish it. Jesus said it's a narrow gate and it's a hard way and there's only a few people on it. That means I need you to be with me on the narrow gate and the hard way and you need me to be with you and the church is given for our sanctification, not just our satisfaction. All right, so we love the church because Jesus loved the church. We love and are devoted to the church because God gave it to us to make us more like His Son to sanctify us. What does this look like at New Beginnings? What does it look like to be plugged in? To be plugged in. We use that phrase, all right, tell me, what does that look like? All right, so I wanna give you three things. You've seen these before. I'm gonna put a diagram up on the screen. This is not new to most of you.

What does it mean to be plugged in? It begins with the top corner that we gather weekly. What does that mean? Every week, we gather in this room what we're doing right now and we worship. We lift our praises to God. We make much of Jesus. We hear His word taught. We celebrate the life of Christ. We get up under the banner of the gospel and we lift our praises to Jesus because there's nothing like the people of God singing the praises of God to the glory of God. Nothing like it. When I sit right here this morning and I hear your voices singing the praises to Jesus, it does something in me. So we gather weekly. That's where it begins. But then we go to connection time. We gather weekly, but we do it with connection time. Well, what is connection time? What is this? Well, if you look at verse 46 of Acts 2, it says, and day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes. Well, 3,000 people aren't getting into one house. So do you know what that means? It means they got into small groups. They got into small groups.

They got into small groups. They got into homes for encouragement. They got into these small groups for prayer, to share their needs, to meet each other's needs. They got into small groups for spiritual growth. Listen, we wanna provide that kind of environment. Here's how we do it. Life group. We do it through life groups. This is where you can get out of this room where it's easy to be anonymous and get into a room where people will know you and you can give your life away to others and they're gonna give their life away. You know what life group has been for Carrie and I through the years? This is the best way I know how to describe it. Life group has been our first phone call people. You know what I mean when I say that? When everything goes wrong in your life, who do you pick up and call? It's our life group people. Some of them have moved on. They're not even around anymore. Guess what? They're still our first phone call people. Why? Because there's an intrinsic bond that was formed as we shared life together. It's our first phone call people. Do you have that? I want you to have it right here. As a matter of fact, you need it. If you're not in a life group, you're forfeiting one of the greatest blessings that this church has to offer you, and you need today to connect with Craig Conner and Pastor Daniel. You need to find them. Don't leave this place until you go, if being plugged in means I got to get out of this anonymous room so I can be known, tell me how to do that.

They will do a cartwheel to show you how to do that, especially Pastor Daniel. He would love to do that, right? So we gather weekly. We have connection time in small group. Put that diagram up for me one more time. And the tip of the spear is the corporate prayer rhythm. This is the way you are plugged in. It says that in verse 42, they were devoted to teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. They were devoted to the prayers, praying together as a new testament church. This was a regular rhythm for the New Testament church. And I want you to notice something for us. It's the tip of the spear. It's the most important thing we do. It's the most important thing we do. And I am asking you to find your corporate prayer rhythm. And you're going, I can't be here every Wednesday night. All right. Okay. When can you be here? But probably more important than the question of when can you be here is this question, what needs to change in my life so I can get there? If this is the most important thing that my church does, and I'm plugged in, I want to be plugged in, then what needs to change? Because I will invite a million things into my life, but I want to be devoted to the thing that matters most. And I'm asking you, on behalf of your pastors and elders, to take ownership of that triangle. I want you to own it. I'm gonna show up in worship. I'm gonna find my life group, and I'm gonna come and pray every Wednesday night that I can. Take owner. And listen, if you're only doing one of those things and neglecting the other two, we are not gonna be a spiritually balanced church, and you are not gonna spiritually thrive here. Because to be plugged in means I'm gonna be grafted into the life and mission of this place. We pray specifically for things on Wednesdays. As a matter of fact, this Wednesday night, we are going to pray on both campuses for teachers, educators, and administrators, and students. So if you are in education, you need to be here Wednesday night. If you're a teacher or an administrator, or you work in a school, a local school district, anywhere around, come be here Wednesday night. We are gonna pray specific. We're gonna lay hands on you and pray for you. That's what we do on Wednesday night. We need the church. We need to love the church and be devoted to it. We need to

know that when things look at their worst, we need the body of Christ. When it's darkness all around, when your faith is weak, when you're thinking you want to give up, when you've hit rock bottom, when the devil has unleashed hell into your life, when you're fighting temptation like never before, when you failed and relapsed and you don't want to start over, when you need to be reminded that your obedience is not wasted, when you need to be reminded that faithfulness is doing something, and that every moment you fight for your purity is worth it, when you need those things, you need the body. You need the body. So let's ask this question. If Luke were writing Acts chapter 2 about new beginnings and about you, would he be able to say you're devoted to one another? Or what would he say you're devoted to? I want to tell you this. Belonging to the church begins with belonging to Jesus. That's where it starts. And there are hundreds of testimonies across new beginnings of people who have attended church all their life but never given Jesus their heart and made him the Lord of their life. And that may be your story this morning. I've been in church for years but I don't know that I can point to a moment... where Jesus changed my life. Boy, do I have a head full of knowledge about the Bible and about Jesus, but I don't think anything's ever really changed. If you've never been changed, you've never met Christ and you need to do that today. So in a minute we're gonna stand and there's gonna be some encouragers across the front and you just need to have the courage to leave your step, first step to leave your seat and go, that's me. I'm tired of coming to church and worshiping a Jesus that I'm not sure I know. It begins with belonging to Him.

Are you looking for a place to belong? It might be that this morning, you've been coming to New Beginnings and attending and you need to take that next step of obedient toward covenant membership. You know what I want? If that's true of you this morning, you know what I want you to do? I want you to come grab one of these encouragers and just go, that's me. We've been coming, we've been coming, but we know this is where God wants us and we're not gonna hesitate. We're gonna take that next step and get plugged in and they'll take it from there. For some of us, it's time to stop dating. It's time to get married. All right, so I'm gonna pray and we're gonna stand and whatever the Holy Spirit is, if you have a burden this morning, by the way, that you just need prayed over, these people are gonna love to pray for you. So let's stand. Lord Jesus, we ask that you would speak to the hearts of your people now, that you would call us toward whatever pleases you. For every burden that's in the room, God, help us have the courage to come and be prayed for, to lay it down. For those of us who need to step in and be plugged in

and be devoted to this place, God, give us the courage to step out and do that. And for those of us who need to make you the Lord of our life and give you all of us and surrender today all that we are to all that you are, help us do that now in Jesus' name, amen. As we worship you come.