Re-Engage With God | Pastor Jim Combs

Hey, thank you for checking out our video today We know you're gonna enjoy this word from God and make sure to leave a like and share it with somebody Well, I'm so blessed to be with you my name is Pastor Jim and my wife Carol and I are friends of your Pastor and wife and we are thrilled to be here. And so by the way, we've got some pretty amazing kids right here, right? pretty amazing I Had the privilege of kind of watching you guys you guys like love Jesus. That's pretty good Hey, we do me a favor. Can we do something crazy? Can you guys put it in right here? Put it in right here with you. Come on. Put it in put it in. You're amazing I want to just meet you go put your hand right there. Watch it, dude. You'll hurt me Come on, put it in put it in put it in. I know you're middle schoolers chimney Put it in put it in put it in That's awesome. God. There's some amazing young men and women standing right here There's some people that are world changers, there's some boys God that are gonna grow to be men the rock this world There's some girls here. They're gonna grow to be incredible ladies got to transform this entire culture of ours Right before us might be some men and women God that we're gonna look and say wow We knew them we knew them we knew them when they were incredible and God you did something great with them Bless their lives in Jesus name. Amen Hey catch a seat and get comfortable I'm part of a ministry that You guys are teaming up with called TTI. I pastored for some 40 years my our ministry in Michigan and Then a few years ago TTI called me said hey We were wondering if you could we'd be interested in traveling speaking for us And and so that's what we do and pretty much every single week. We're somewhere hanging out We absolutely like it if you got your Bibles or you want to look on your phone We're gonna hang out at Jonah chapter number three today for a little while Jonah chapter number three. Well being from Detroit one of the The most difficult things of my entire life has been being a Detroit Lions fan Up until just recently we've we've just now had something to root for but for years it was torture I mean absolute torture a little boy growing up in Detroit and we were supposed to be Lions fans and they

Stunk man year after year after year. It was it was like I it was brutal punishment You with me and so many years ago when the lines were still bad. I Got a call one day and somebody said hey, listen, I got a couple tickets. You want to go watch the Lions play? Do I well you certainly don't buy tickets you take three ones that's about it And so I called my brother up there's a you know, a big athletic fan to you know sports fan I said you want to go and he said yeah, we'll go so we went down to the stadium you know Sunday afternoon and we sat down and Got our seats there and and I have really always been very intrigued with athletic sports. I love the details of it I love watching the plays. I love things that are going on It kind of it kind of grabs my attention and I really enjoy it but I always have a battle and the battle is is that I struggle between Somewhere about the second quarter. I start struggling with man. I'm hungry, but I don't leave the game I'm hungry, but I don't leave the game And so I don't know where you're at with all this but I said God would you please have my brother go get me something? and No kidding a couple moments later. My brother said hey, I'm gonna do something you want something and I said no, it's okay But honestly, I really did and so I said God nachos we want nachos and and you all believe God's that real I do man I do and so so I said want nachos and and so a few minutes later I don't only goes my brother stood in line next thing You know, he comes walking out and there's dead steps to heading towards my seat and there he's got this big old plate of nachos I'm thinking God you are He slid next to me and sat down I said God was one more question and I'll leave you alone the rest of the game Because it's even worthless to pray for the Lions. But anyway And so I said, would you have my brother offer me some and so my brother being a good godly, dude, man He links over to say hey, would you like some and I but yeah now I'm not as near as good as he is and so Y'all know when you get those nachos the ones on the bottom aren't worth a flip nickel, right? They're just they're no good. So ones on top and there was one on top It was flipped sideways like this and most of the cheese was on top of that one chip

And I thought I better get why the kittens good, you know and so I reached over there's one little corner stick it out and I grabbed that corner and I started heading that thing towards my Mouth and I'm thinking man. This is gonna be amazing. I know my brother's thinking you jerk. You just took all the cheese And so as I was headed towards me the cheese ran down, you know onto my fingers and I didn't realize as hot as what? It was so it kind of burnt my finger. So no actually I just let go of it well it sailed down and landed on the lady right in front of me you know how the seats are just like this and it was wintertime she had one of these big old burly sweaters on and it hit her in the shoulder and she had no idea it was there I'm looking at it I'm looking at my brother I'm looking at it and I'm looking at my brother I said let's go get new seats he said no tell her I said I ain't telling her dude you want to know you tell her I was looking at the big dude sitting next to her thinking I ain't sure I want none of that action but anyway and so finally I was just getting ready to tap her on the shoulder and you know tell her what happened and and I still this day don't know what happened I don't was a touchdown field goal interception I have no idea all I knew was she leaned forward raised her hands up clapped her hands and the nacho cheese slips slid down her shoulder and she slammed it into the seat she still don't know what's there I mean she got cheese all down her seat all down her back I'm look I said let's go home yes he said you got to tell her the truth I said I ain't telling you want to know you tell her dude and finally I tapped her on the shoulder I said ma'am I am so sorry but my brother dropped the nacho cheese chip on his shoulder that day I did not have the courage to tell that lady the truth but today I want to share with you one of the grandest truths I have ever seen in the Word of God a truth that I'm convinced echoes not only through the Word of God but the history of the world I'm convinced that the truth I'm about to share with you is one of the deepest the most simple but yet most profound truth I've ever seen it's found in the book of Jonah chapter number three and verse number one let me give you a little bit of a sort of a story Jonah was a man who checked out on God huh he was a man that God said do this and Jonah did that you never been

there have you don't look at me like that I know who's here he was a guy who said God said hey I want you to do this and did the exact opposite he checked out he got the place where he disengaged I'm not doing it God I'm not I'm not gonna live the life you want me to live I'm not gonna do the things you've asked me to do I'm not gonna be the man you want me to be I'm not gonna be the person that you wanted to me to become I'm not gonna do that anymore and he checked out he ends up finding himself on a ship and then he is in the middle of the sea and then he's in the middle of the belly of a fish somebody asked him one time are you one of those crazy people who believe the Bible's literal yeah I'm one of those crazy guys any other crazy ones in the house we are God said it he meant it huh church I knew I was gonna love it here three days inside the belly of that fish and all of a sudden God spits him up on the shore and and sometimes when you spend three days the belly fish it'll change what you're doing next thing you know he's heading to Nineveh and that's where Jonah chapter 3 verse 1 comes in check it out the Bible says this and the word of the Lord came unto Jonah watch this a second time a second time how many of y'all believe that we ought to be celebrating the second-chance God how many of y'all believe that getting together on this Sunday morning it's worth hanging out just so we can celebrate a God who gives second chances a God who gives us amazing grace that we don't deserve I for one I'm standing here today to tell you we have an incredible God who gives second chances and the Word of God came unto Jonah a second time wow by the way anybody glad he's the God of third chances and fourth chances you ought to be celebrating that too huh church well I want to bring you a message this morning simply entitled re-engage re-engage Jonah disengaged now things that happen in our life and I want to walk with you just a few truths or two the first of all we've all had times in our life when we've disengaged now we can get together and we can worship and we ought to and we can do our duties as believers but there are times in our life we find ourselves not where we used to be not walking the walk we used to walk not talking to talk we used to talk

not living the life that we used to live not praying like we used to pray not reading our Bible like we used to read our bodies not having that passion inside of us blowing up out of our souls hmm something happens to us We tend to disengage. My first thought is this, sometimes we just gotta get honest with ourselves. I pastored in the Detroit area for 30 years and God blessed our ministry, I don't sure why. We ended up having a number of locations and I would preach literally ten times every weekend, seven times on Sunday and three times on Saturday, it was a crazy life. Sunday mornings were especially nuts, five times man, one location to the next and we'd go from here to there and one Sunday I was running my run and doing our thing and between one of the gatherings at one of the locations I had to go to the bathroom, I don't know how else you say that, but anyway, so I went to the bathroom, went to the bathroom and I went to the sink and I was washing my hands. There was a little boy that was in there at the same time I was in there and he was standing at the sink, the other sink, and he was washing his hands. I didn't know who the little kid was, all I know is I remember he looks at me and he says this, Hey, I bet you wouldn't be washing your hands if I wasn't in here. Sometimes it's tough to get honest with yourself, ain't it? But I will say this to you, it's very difficult for believers often to get honest with themselves about their journey. But if we don't get honest with ourselves about our journey, our journey will never be what it was meant to be. If we don't get real about who we are, a real God can never really do the real work he wants to do. Until we come to an honest place in our life and we say, man, I walked so much better with him. I used to be so much closer to him. What happened to me? Well, Jonah, and all of us have a lot in common. He disengaged, he disengaged. The second thought I'd like you to consider for a few minutes this morning is this. There's a reason we disengage and sometimes you need to look at them. May I give you a bit of a history lesson? God said, Jonah, I want you to go to Nineveh. Nineveh was an Assyrian city run by the Assyrian people. History tells us the Assyrians were some of the cruelest people in the history of the world.

Their armies would march into villages and they were brutal. They were brutal to the place where it was almost sickening that you couldn't even... How could anybody reach a place where they do things that despicable and that deplorable? It was common for them to come to a village and if they were going to take what they wanted and flex their power, they would take the babies of the village and they would stick them on the end of their spears. They would march through town to make sure that everybody knew they were in charge. Don't mess with them. It was sort of their way of making a statement. History tells us that when they would see a pregnant woman, a woman with child, they would literally cut open her womb. They were brutal. They were horrific. It was almost as if they had no conscience. They probably didn't. But can you imagine Jonah just a boy and his mama just gave birth to his little sister? Can you imagine that the Assyrians would come into their village and his mama would be holding that newborn little sister of his that they were all so proud of and excited to watch her grow up? One of the Assyrian soldiers would grab and stick her on the end of a spear. Or maybe when Jonah was a boy, his mama was going to have a baby. The Assyrians showed up and it's just a boy he watched as they cut open her womb. Can I ask you a question? You think that would make you hate? You think that would give you some reservations about taking the love of God to people like that? You think you might say, wait a minute here, God. Send somebody else. I'm not going. Those Assyrians were brutal people and I hate them. Something inside caused Jonah to disengage. And history tells us it might have been something like that. We've all got reasons. We've had things that have happened to us that caused us to disengage. Things that go on in our life and they come in all shapes and sizes and sometimes they're past pain. May I say to you, let go of your pain or your pain will never let go of you. It will never let go of you.

For many years, I led the largest prison ministry in the Midwest, preaching in prisons and sharing the love of God with inmates. It's a special place in my heart there. One day I'll have an opportunity to share with you some of our life story. There's a buddy of mine, he's now gone to heaven, his name is Bill Glass. Bill Glass was a former NFL football player. He played defensive end, a huge man. First time I ever saw him, I remember looking up at him thinking, your head is so big. I mean, I wonder how it's, you know, stayed up there. I really did. I never forget, we're sitting there, we're getting ready, he and I are going to speak at a conference. And we're sitting there in a speaker's room, and we're just having a conversation about different things. And now he looks over me and his eyes got real weird looking. And he says, you remind me of a quarterback. I said, easy, dude, easy. So we began to talk about ministry. And he's, he had a huge prison ministry in the south. I mean, just huge southern United States and just knocking it dead for the kingdom reaching some people doing incredibly just his size and being a former NFL player. He was just, you know, had an automatic kind of, you know, place with the with the inmates. And so we began to swap stories. And he told me a story of how he was in Florida. And he'd gone to a prison. And you speak in there and they were doing some things. And I was, again, we're talking stories back and forth. And he said, there was an inmate there that I heard about that I wanted to meet. I said, Bill, said, Yeah, he's the lifer. He said he was on death row. And he said, I wanted to meet him. He was one of those guys, Bill told me he said he was caged up. He was in his cell 23 hours a day. He was allowed out one hour, they put him in a little tiny cage area outside and he'd walk around. And an hour later, he put him back in there and stay there for 23 more hours. They said he was one of the most brutal criminals they'd ever had. So they could have nothing with him. It seemed to be going nowhere. It was just awful. Bill told me said I wanted to meet him. I said, What? He said, Yeah, I wanted to meet him. I said, You're nuts. He said, Yeah, I know it. So they asked, he asked the warden if they could see him. They agreed. They brought the guy out shackled hand and foot. It brought him into there. Bill's sitting across on the table there from him. The guy sat down. The guy said, I heard you wanted to meet me. He said, Yeah. And he said, immediately, Bill said, I noticed he didn't have any shirt on. The guard apologized that we can't make him keep his shirt on. He will not. It's a rule, but he won't do it. He's not leaving. He takes it. He will not keep his shirt on. Bill noticed immediately why that was. He had a tattoo

on his chest, a giant tattoo from his belt all the way up to his chin. It was a tattoo of a hand with a middle finger sticking up. And Bill, being who he was, very kind of a bold, crazy guy, he looks at him. He said, Hey, dude, what's up with the what's up with the tattoo? The guy said this. Life gave me a middle finger and I'm giving life a middle finger back. And Bill said to him this. He said, Listen, if you could get out of prison for 15 minutes, just 15 minutes and do anything you wanted to do, what would you do? The guy said, That's easy. If I could get out of prison for 15 minutes and do anything I wanted to do, I'd take these two hands and I'd kill my father. Do you realize that guy never let go of his pain and now his pain has choked the life out of him? Do you realize that he never let go of his pain and he allowed his pain to drag him into places he never dreamed he'd go? His pain has been allowed now to hurt people that you can't even, you know, comprehend. May I make a give you a little bit of advice today. This world will hurt you. You'll be in pain. It's going to disappoint you. You're going to have things happen to you. But please do me a favor. Don't make the mistake. You realize we have a responsibility to stay engaged with the real God, a real God who wants to engage with you. I've learned this about my journey. The greatest days of my life when I'm more seriously engaged with my Jesus. The greatest days of my life is when I've committed my life wholeheartedly, all I am and all I have and everything about me to an amazing journey with an incredible God. But I also know this, the worst moments of my life is when I disengaged. The moments when I thought, wait a minute here, nobody's noticing, but I am disengaged. I'm not the man I used to be. I'm not walking the way I used to walk. I'm not doing the things I used to do. I find myself praying less. I find myself reading less. I find myself disengaged from a real passionate journey with God. May I say to you, we have a responsibility to wake up every day with a desire, a heart to engage with the real God. So sometimes it's good to get honest with ourselves and sometimes it's important to realize there are things that have caused us to disengage. You know for me, in my journey with God, I've thought of a few things that have helped me, just helped me in my journey. One, it's just simply waking up and being responsible. I don't know if you've noticed, but we live in a pretty irresponsible culture. You can't really talk responsibility to people. People don't want to hear about being responsible, but isn't there some bit of responsibility that believers ought to have

to a man named Jesus who died on the cross and went to the grave and rose again for us? Shouldn't we be a bit responsible in our lives and say, wait a minute, he did so much for me and asked for so little, I should stay engaged. But you can't really talk responsibility to people these days. A number of years ago I ran across a story, I don't know, I believe everybody in America ought to know this man's story, but I don't believe many people do. It's a story about a boy named Calvin Graham. Calvin Graham was 11 years old on December the 7th, 1941. You say, what? Yeah, that's a very special day in the history of America. That was the day that the Japanese launched some 260 planes off of some carriers outside of Hawaii and attacked Pearl Harbor. They snuck in in the early morning, just at the cover of dawn, and they bombed the American's naval fleet. The Arizona was sunk, the Oklahoma was capsized, and some nearly 3,000 were killed that day. It was the largest attack of that time ever on U.S. soil. A brutal attack. Word came back to the United States that the United States had been attacked, been bombed. I don't even think that we even realized the brutality of what took place that day. But in a little town in Texas there was an 11-year-old boy by the name of Calvin Graham who heard about it on the radio. It ticked him off. It ticked him off so much so he said, nobody can do that to my country. And he began to shave. Not because he needed to shave, because he wanted to create stubble on his face at 11 years old. He started working on speaking in a lower voice. So he started to figure out, how can I talk in a lower voice? And so he started lower voice. Not because his voice had changed, but because he wanted to appear to be older. He shaved, worked on his voice, shaved and worked on his voice. He turned 12 years old and he went down and enlisted in the United States military. Filled all the paperwork, got in the military, went through the medical testing, passed all that, came to the dental portion. The dentist looked at his teeth and looked at him and said, you've got baby teeth. You're not old enough to join. And Calvin Graham at 12 years old looked at him and said this, I just watched a 15-year-old that you passed as old enough. And if you don't let me through here, I'm going to turn you in. The guy signed the paperwork. And Calvin Graham became the youngest person to ever enlist in World War II at the age of 12. At the age of 12, he went into the Navy and became part of a gunner crew on a ship. The USS Dakota. They would usually take smaller sized men and they put them in these gunner things because of the situation they had to sit in. And he was sent to a place called Guadalcanal.

Later on, you get a moment, go online and look at the Battle of Guadalcanal. It was brutal. It was brutal. The Dakota amazingly shot down a number of dozens of Japanese airplanes. They fought and fought and fought until there were bombs so many times that dozens and dozens and dozens of their crew members were killed. There were bodies laying across the deck of the Dakota. But there was a 12-year-old boy that was going from person to person. And when he found somebody that was bleeding out, he would pull their belt, a belt off of a dead guy, and he'd wrap it on like a tourniquet. He went from person to person to person, saving people's lives. When it was all said and done, the USS Dakota was lipped to New York Harbor. It got there. The news reports were incredible. They did a film of what took place. And when that film was placed out, somehow, Calvin Graham's mother, who didn't even know he was gone. See, his home was in such disrepair. It was such a dysfunctional mess. dance and his aunt thought he was someplace else called the military and said wait a minute here you've made a huge mistake you allowed my little boy to join the Navy they kicked him out they took away all of his medals that he'd received for what he'd done that day including the Purple Heart said you get no honors you'll get no awards you'll have no benefits from being in the military because we'll have nothing to do and they court-martialed him and kicked him out of the military it wasn't until 30-something years later that a president by the name of Jimmy Carter heard about the story you know what he did he said we made a huge mistake they gave him all back his military honors they gave me every one of his medals back except for the Purple Heart later on another president and someone else gave him his Purple Heart back and they honored Calvin Graham for being one incredible young boy and a young man that did something great that he believed in you know what I say if that kid can stand up for his country this world is not my home one day I'm going to a better country and I can be responsible for mine and I can become the man the person I'm supposed to become listen I know we all have lots of

reasons for disengaging but it's time that somebody had enough guts to look somebody in the face and say wait a minute shouldn't we be responsible to an amazing God who loved us in an amazing way and one day will take us to heaven I'm giving you a call today to be responsible as a believer it's time to re-engage it's time to re-engage I could spend all day somehow trying to convince you of it but until there's a movement of God in your heart now I'm about to tell you something about me I don't tell a lot of people I love the movies Top Gun I do they are incredible when Top Gun Maverick came out I watch it over and my wife is here to witness what I'm telling you I say to her just about every day hey you want to watch a movie I got how about Top Gun Maverick I cry in it I do she says why do you cry in that movie I don't know but I love Top Gun I just love it I watch the first one then I watch the second one then I watch the second one then I watch the first one I'm saying this is incredible in case you don't watch about it let me take you to a scene Maverick is in a tough place his partner Goose has been killed in an accident Maverick said place called Top Gun the training of the best of the best yeah one of the training sessions he flies through some jet wash loses control they try so hard to get out of this Goose is leaving he catches the canopy and it kills him the scene of Maverick holding him in the ocean it's a brutal moment Maverick is found not guilty of any mistakes and somehow managed to earn enough points to graduate but doesn't know if he can ever fly again you with me church this is good graduation comes he graduates and immediately at graduation he and Iceman and some others are sent to a situation yeah they're on a carrier Russian Meigs are up there there's two of them they launch two fighters Iceman and another one they go to check it out make sure it's all good come to find out there weren't two fighters there were six six it's a crazy moment they radio back so there aren't two up here there are six up here and I mean they begin to engage the dogfight begins Maverick is standing you know ready to go just in case it got bad they said launch Maverick launch Maverick Maverick launches it's

so cool he gets there Iceman says Maverick get here Maverick get here Maverick says I'm putting it in supersonic oh god I'd like to put it in supersonic once he arrives there in just seconds and I'm telling you the dogfight begins and Maverick gets caught and some jet wash. Remember? It does the exact same thing when his friend Goose dies and he's trying to get control of it, trying to get control of it, and he's feeling the exact same emotions, the same pain, the same difficulty, and he somehow manages to get a hold of it and he gets it back under control, but he disengages. Remember, he flies off to the side, he disengages. Iceman goes, I knew it, I knew it! Man, we're in trouble! Maverick! Maverick! And all of a sudden from the back seat of that plane, if you ever have a moment, check this scene out, the back seat of the plane, his new partner begins to yell, re-engage Maverick! Re-engage Maverick! Re-engage Maverick! Maverick, you gotta re-engage! You gotta re-engage! You're needed down there, Maverick! You gotta get after it, Maverick! You gotta go, Maverick! And something all of a sudden grabs a hold of him and it's one of the greatest Hollywood dogfights of the history of the world, because he re-engaged. Listen to me. Do you realize that God began to cry from heaven? Jonah, re-engage! Re-engage! I know you checked out, but guess what? I need you in the work. I need you, Jonah, re-engage! It wasn't just Jonah he said that to. Think about it. Think about it. Adam and Eve, you messed up! You took what you shouldn't have taken, but you know what God said? Re-engage! Re-engage, Adam! Re-engage, Eve! David, you're a follow-up, man! You've done some things you shouldn't have done, but I'm crazy about you! Re-engage, David! Re-engage! You're still a man after my own heart! Peter, you denied me three times, but may I say this to you? Re-engage, Peter! Re-engage! And may I declare to you, the heavens are crying out to you this very moment. Re-engage! Re-engage! Re-engage! Get back in the fight! Get back in the battle! Get back in it! Become the man, the person, the boy, the girl that God called you to do! Re-engage! Re-engage! It's time to re-engage! Just as much as God needed Peter to get back in the fight, he needs you to get back in the fight. Just as much as God needed David to get back in the fight, he needs you to get

back in the fight. Just as much as God needed Jonah to get back in it, the Word of the Lord came unto you a second time, too. Re-engage! Re-engage! Re-engage! You can pretend you've not disengaged, but only you know what's going on in you. It's the worst place for a believer to ever walk, disengaged. I'm going to ask you to think about something for just a second as I wrap up. Can we, like, get honest? I always wonder why we can't get honest in church. What's the place we ought to get honest more than any place else? You don't need to impress me, and I'm not going to try to impress you. How many of y'all would say, right now I find myself disengaged. I'm not walking the walk that I need to walk. I'm not walking the walk I used to walk. I'm not talking the talk that I was talking. I'm not living like I was living. There's something different about my journey, and Jim, to be honest with you, I'm here today and I find myself a bit disengaged. Disengaged. I come to church, but I'm disengaged. Can we get honest a minute? Anybody like that? I find myself disengaged. Come on, slip your hand up, will you? Hold them up, will you? Dozens of hands. Look at it, they're going up all over this building, all over this room. I've been there. It's a horrific place to live. The toil inside of your soul. May you hear the cries from heaven. Re-engage. Re-engage. You don't know what I've done. Re-engage. You don't know where I've been. Re-engage. You don't know what's going on. Re-engage. There's a call. Crying from heaven. Re-engage. I'm going to ask you to stand, if you will, all over this building, every person. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to get a little crazy. I love crazy. Can you tell? I love crazy. I want to pray over those of you that want to re-engage. You mean business? Let's re-engage. Let's get together and let's re-engage. You say, man, I just raised my hand because God spoke to my soul. Then let's talk to God about it. You say I should raise my hand. Well then, listen, we can still do this thing. Won't you do me a favor? You say, I want to pray over you. I want to pray over you. You say, I need to re-engage. Come on, will you? Let's pray together. Make your way to the aisles. If one of you come, that's great. Just come and let's stand. I need to re-engage. I need to re-engage. Come on. Come on. You're still coming. Kind of make your way. Folks are still getting here. You got to make room. The aisles are filling up. Slide to the side, will you? Let's fill this whole front up. Re-engage. Re-engage. Re-engage. Come on, keep coming. Make your way. Slide a little bit. Get in here. Come on, everybody. Don't you love it when the aisles are filled?

Come on, keep going. Make your way. Slide this way a little bit. Folks are still coming. People that raised their hand are coming now. That's awesome. Here's what we're going to do. Look at me. If you only knew how valuable you are to God, if you only knew how important you are to His work, if you realized it, the journey He has for you is magnificent. It's magnificent. There's nothing you'll come up against that's too big for Him. He's incredible. I so much wish there was a season in my life somebody would have looked me in the eye and said, re-engage, Jim. Re-engage. Because you'll find yourself in places you never dreamed you'd get. If you don't, it's re-engagement day. It's re-engagement day. You walk out of here different than you came in. You with me? You go home and your wife's got a different husband, different dad, a different mom. Your neighbor's got a different neighbor. Let's re-engage. Let's get focused on who we're supposed to be. Huh? Do this, will you? Reach over and put your hand on somebody's shoulder that's up here. This will connect us all. You with me? This will connect us all the way back there. God, there's some amazing people standing here. There's some men and some women, God, that you have some incredible journeys to take them on. I pray, Father, that we would re-engage and as heaven cried out to Jonah, as heaven cried out to David and Peter, may it cry out to these that are here right now that we would re-engage to such a degree that we make up our mind, God, that we're getting back in this fight. We're getting back in this battle. We're going to become that person we were meant to become. God, help them. Help them. Help them in an incredible way. Thank you for what you're going to do with their lives. I cannot wait to hear the stories. All these stories, God, to give you all

the glories. God bless. Please, in Jesus' name, amen. Thanks, guys. You can go back to your seats, will you? Re-engagement day, what do y'all think? That's it. Hey, would you do me a favor and be seated for just a minute? These guys are finding their seats. They're up here hugging about re-engagement. I love it. It's supposed to be that way. I want to tell you one story real quick, and I got to get you out of here, I know. By the way, I'll give you the warning. You're stuck with me next week, too, and so I look forward to being here. I'm always a little leery about telling people that because then they might not show up, but I'm going to share a lot about my own personal story next week, and so I look forward to being with you. But let me tell you a story about a little girl. She was starting kindergarten. Big, big, big day for her. Sunday night, she was laying out her clothes, and she was going to go do kindergarten. She was the firstborn. She said, Mommy, I'm so excited about tomorrow. I'm going to walk to school with my friends. Mommy looked at her and said, You're going to do what? She said, You ain't walking to school. I'm taking you. She said, Mommy, I'm a big girl now. I can walk to school with my friends. No, no, you're not a big girl. You know how we are with our firstborns. If it had been our fourth or fifthborn, we'd let her walk. Been there. Don't you hate it when people tell you the truth? So the little girl looked at her mommy. She said, Tell you what I'll do, Mommy. I'll make you a deal. I'll let you take me every day this year, but when I get in first grade, you let me walk with my friends. Mama said, Okay, you got a deal. Well, Mama never thought first grade would get around. You know, it's gonna be a year. Boy, time flies, huh? Clock ticked fast. Calendar went. Next thing you know, it was next year. First grade. Little girl's got her clothes laid out. She's pumped about the next day. Mommy, I'm so excited. I'm gonna get to walk with my friends. She wakes up, get dressed. I'm so what's doing? She's getting ready to go walk

with my friends. Mom said, Wait a minute. I think I'm gonna drive you. Little girl gave me that look. She said, Mommy. we made a deal well well no we made a deal i said okay mom noticed it was going to be a little rainy and she said you better put on your raincoat so she does she puts on a raincoat puts on her little boots she's all ready to go and she's so excited she walks out the end of the sidewalk or driveway and there's her friends walking by and they begin to have you know paddle around all of a sudden start to rain little girl's thinking oh no mom's going oh you got to be kidding me and then there began to be a little bit of thunder and lightning flashing around and i thought oh no oh no oh no she runs to the car she backs out of the driveway and she starts driving down the road and says she's trying to get closer it's pouring down rain and she's noticing the little girl's having a big old time she's just running and jumping in the mud puddles and splashing on her friend and she'd run to the next one and she's jumping the mud puddle and she's having a big old time and then there was a flash in the sky well when the flash in the sky took place the little girl kind of looked up the sky and did this i thought what's that about another lightning flash and all of a sudden little girl goes looks up in the sky and does this mom pulls up next to her and said hey are you okay oh she said mommy i'm having a big time almost schooled my friends so what in the world you doing when it lightning she said oh that's just god taking my picture because it's crazy about me we don't want you to leave momentum church without you knowing how crazy about god is about you he sent his son to die for you he's crazy about you and you may just be here and you're not sure you'd go to heaven if you died you may not know jesus as your savior

you say can you know that stuff oh yeah john says you may know you have eternal life i'll prove it to you how many of this building know that you know that you know 100 if you had to die today you'd go to heaven give me a soft amen they don't know that because they're they've been baptized or they've been good or bad they know that because see it isn't about them being good it's about jesus being great and you may be here today and you don't know that so here's what we're gonna do we're gonna embarrass nobody that's not what we do here i'm just gonna ask you to bow your heads for just a second and you might say i'm not sure if i had to die if i go to heaven pastor jim don't embarrass me but will you remember me i'm not sure just pray for me if you're like that you say i'm not sure i'd go to if i die i go to heaven today i'm not positive about that if you're like that maybe slip your hand up anybody like that at all just take a minute god bless you anybody else you just slip your god bless you man that's incredible that's incredible two amazing men young men that's don't get better than that anybody else say yeah i did that that's that's incredible pray for me would you i'm not sure if i had to die i'd go to heaven you can put your hands down right where you're sitting you can get sure right where you're sitting you can make sure of it it's a simple simple thing don't you let religion take it away from you don't you let some con man can you know convince you you got to be this you got to be that it ain't about who you are it's about who jesus is and right where you're at you can ask him to be your savior and nobody can ever take this moment from you it's as simple as the prayer i'm about to pray with you and if you want to join me you're welcome to the rest of this room help me will you dear jesus

come into my life and be my savior i believe you died for me and rose again please forgive me of my sins and thank you for being my savior and taking me to heaven when i died in jesus name if you just prayed that prayer and you really meant business and you weren't sure about it you just became a child of god and nobody can take it away from you you see i just did that i raised my hand a moment ago i wasn't sure i should have and i just trusted jesus my savior and pastor jim it's incredible all we want to do is celebrate it with you nobody must hurt you at all we just want to celebrate you see i just did that did you do that you just said jesus congratulations bud that's awesome you just do that awesome congratulations that's incredible that's what you're showing up for isn't it you betcha thanks momentum church i'll catch you next week for turning it over well that was a great word that we just heard so make sure to leave a comment on the video of what you got from it give us a like and subscribe to the youtube page that way you can stay up to date with everything that's going on at momentum church and you can also click on that give now button down below if you want to support the mission thank you so much for stopping by and we'll see you in the next one