Rise Up Session 5 | Pastor Steve

got a question, like, are you ready for more? Have you had enough or like you got more in you? Okay, okay. Go ahead, find your seats, find your seats, find your seats. Man, we are finishing tonight strong. Turn to your neighbor and say strong. We're finishing tonight strong, man. So I know that there's space in your hearts, but I'm so excited for what God's going to do tonight. God's already done so much and yet there's still time on the clock and God is still on the board and things are moving and I'm so honored and excited for what Pastor Steve Mendez is bringing. You stand to your feet and welcome Pastor Steve Mendez. That's right, that's right. We party all night. Zaps at the top rope like macho man. If he hit your mama with an elbow, then I'm sorry, fam. Y'all better know it. Misfits and minor are lions and tigers. In other words, animals, animals, animals. Y'all know, y'all know I had to do it. I had to do it. I had to do it. Man, everybody take a seat, take a seat. Make some noise if you've enjoyed Rise Up 2026, please. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. Let's give honor where honor is due. Y'all give it up for Pastor Tim and that message on the first night. Y'all keep going for Pastor Stephanie and what she brought this morning. For all the energy Pastor Jim Combs brought to the stage. For my man, my best friend, Pastor Adam Simmons and the word that he brought. And just keep it rolling for next worship, for our student worship, for upper room worship, for Tyler's acoustic set, for momentum music and our amazing breakouts by Pastor Tim, Miss Therese and Robin Delicato. Make some noise, man. Come on. It's amazing. And I would be remiss if we didn't cheer for one last group of people. Every single person that had something to do with worship, production, set up, tear down, all the hands in the glove that you don't get to see. This doesn't happen without them. It's amazing. All right, y'all be seated. Don't worry, I'll tell you to stand again in like five seconds. Just sit down. All right, this part's going to be easy because I'm going to give you the answer to the test before I give you the test. Repeat after me. Say rise up. Now say it like you mean it. Say rise up. That's better. So it's the name of this conference, but I don't want it to just be like a cool phrase we said on Friday and Saturday and then come Monday morning all it is is the graphic on the back of your T-shirt. I want it to be something that you digest, something that becomes a part of your heart

because God did not just bring you here to have a conference experience for a couple days. He brought us here because we know that this is a generation that needs to rise up. There are people drowning in hopelessness, drowning in anxiety, drowning in depression. There are young adults drowning in confusion, families being ripped apart. There are people smiling publicly while silently crying. This is a generation that needs people who are ready to rise up. You sit next to them in class. You work with them. They may play on your team. You may follow them online or they follow you online. Some of them may even attend church with you where they look like everything is fine here. They wear life really well, but beneath the surface they are struggling to breathe. And the question that I want to answer in this conference is not will God rescue them because God's heart is to rescue them. That's not the question. The question is will we rise up and be visible enough for them to see where hope can be found. So tonight I brought something with me. my office about 15 minutes ago, and there was, it's a prop that's gonna work in my message, so bear with me. There was a dead cockroach on the floor, okay, laying up, and ha! I'm just kidding. No, I need you to pretend that I brought something with me. I'm gonna pull out of my pocket an invisible, imaginary life raft, and I'm gonna shoot it up on the screen. I'm gonna shoot it up on the screen. There it is. Hopefully this is not the first time you've seen a life raft. But this is exactly what a life raft looks like. It is designed to save people during an emergency. See, when a ship goes down or in my corner of the world, if an airplane or a helicopter goes in the water,

this is the one stable thing in a time full of chaos that can help save somebody's life. But this life raft is only effective if two things happen. The first is that it needs to be fully inflated. See, when it's inflated, it rises to the surface. It does not remain buried under the water. It does not sink with the ship or the aircraft that it went down with. It rises above what is trying to pull it down with everyone else. And the second thing is that life rafts are always extremely bright. They are orange or yellow or red. Why? Because a life raft is not supposed to blend in with the things around it. It is supposed to be seen. Someone who is drowning cannot swim towards something that they cannot find. So it needs to be fully inflated. It needs to be visible. A rescue helicopter cannot find something if it disappears or sinks beneath the water. I have pulled people out of the water and saved their lives because they were in a life raft I could locate. And sadly, there are people who have perished during my search because I couldn't find them because they didn't have one. A life raft can and often is the difference between life and death.

So it must rise to the surface and it must be visible. If it is not inflated, it sinks. If it is not visible, no one finds it. And I believe that that is a picture of what God is calling your generation to be. And it's not because you're the Savior. Like, let me make that clear from the jump. You are not the Savior. We know Jesus is the Savior, amen? We are not the hope of the world. Jesus is the hope of the world, amen? Right, there is nothing that you can do to rescue people through your own talent, your own popularity, your own fill in the blank. But God has called and commissioned you to carry forward the good news. We are called to rise above what is sinking everybody else around us. We are called to live visibly enough that people can see Jesus through us. The world does not need another generation of spiritually deflated and practically invisible Christians. The world needs a generation that is filled with spirit, that is grounded in truth, that is overflowing with faith and unashamed of their love for Jesus. A generation that is ready to rise up. So what we are going to read today is found in Acts 27. I'm gonna set the scene for you.

Paul, the same Paul that you've heard about already at this conference, is being transported as a prisoner to Rome. He's not traveling on a cruise ship. There is no buffet, there is no water slide, there is no karaoke on the deck. This is a wooden ship full of Roman soldiers, sailors, and prisoners. 276 people are on this ship with Paul. And Paul warns them before they ever set sail, like, God spoke to me and this is a dangerous journey, we should not do this. And they were like, yeah, shut up, prisoner. And they set sail anyway. And at first, what we read in scripture in verse 13 is that the winds seemed favorable. There was this gentle wind coming out of the south beginning to blow that was helping them on their journey. Everything appeared to be working as advertised for this ship to get to where it was supposed to be going. And if that isn't exactly how the storms in your life start to, the decision looked harmless. The relationship looked harmless. The compromise looked harmless. The temptation looked manageable. The wind seemed gentle. You start to think like, I can handle this. I can do this. It's not that serious.

Everybody else is doing it and they're fine. But the difference is God already spoke to you before you decided to take the step that was against his word. And if I was the enemy, if I was the enemy and I was trying to take you out, I would make the first leg of that voyage look so easy. I would get you out into deep waters away from land so that you were too far to be saved when the storm finally hit. So shortly after they begin sailing, A violent hurricane force wind sweeps up. The ship was caught in the middle of a violent storm. The sailors could not control the ship. They began throwing all their cargo and their unnecessary equipment overboard to lighten the ship to try to make it float a little better so that they didn't sink, they didn't go under. And it says that for days, the storm blocked out the sun and the stars in the sky. Now, why is that so important? Well, if you are a trained nautical navigator like I am, you know that before the internet, before GPS, before electronics, all you had to navigate by was the sun and the stars. The only way they knew where they were going was by the sun and the stars. And when they lost sight of the sky, they lost their ability to navigate at all. They were in darkness.

They had no direction. They were being driven by a force they could not control that had no good intent for their lives. And doesn't that sound like a picture of the world today? See, we have more information than any generation before us, yet so many people don't know who they are. We have more connections through technology than any generation before us, but we are known as the loneliest generation. We have more entertainment, yet people still feel empty. We have more followers, but we have fewer genuine friendships. We have more ways to express ourselves, but no idea what the truth really is. People are being driven by culture all around you. Some are driven by comparison, some by lust, some by anger, some by addiction, some by their needs for approval. Some are driven by whatever is trending this week, and it's as fleeting as the wind. We are letting all of these things block out the stars and the sun in our life and leaving us with no direction to follow. You see, nighttime wasn't the only issue because the stars, you navigate by those, but in the daytime, the sun rises in the east, sets in the west, and follows the southern hemisphere. And if you can't see the sun, you don't know what way is north, what way is south, what way is east, what way is west,

and you have no direction in your life. Just like if you take your eyes off the son of the father, you lose all the direction in your life too. And this terrible thing starts to happen called drift. And a small drift makes a big difference over distance. So we're gonna pick up in Acts 27, verse 20. It says, the terrible storm raged for many days, blotting out the sun and the stars until at last all hope was gone. Or to put it in the Steve Mendes translation, they gave up and figured it was over. And that might be one of the saddest sentences to read in scripture. It's right up there with Samson when it says, God had left him and he didn't even know it. They gave up all hope. They were still alive, they were living, they were breathing, but they had stopped believing that rescue was possible. And there are people that are living their life every day with that exact same notion in their heart. They wake up, they go to school, they go to work, they laugh, they post on social media, they function, but somewhere inside they have already given up hope. Some have given up hope that their family could ever be restored. Some have given up hope that they'll ever be free from the addiction that's been plaguing them for so long. Some have given up hope of ever feeling valued

by another person. Some have given up hope that God could ever forgive them for the things that they've done. Some have given up hope that life could ever be different than it is right now. And right in this moment is when Paul does something powerful. In verse 21 it says, no one had eaten for a long time. And finally Paul called the crew together and said, men, you should have listened to me in the first place and not left Crete. You would have avoided all this damage and loss. See, in the middle of the storm, Paul stood up. While everyone else was panicking, Paul stood up. While everyone else had lost hope, Paul stood up. While everyone else was being tossed left and right by the waves, Paul stood up. And Paul stood up knowing he could not stop the wind, he could not steer the ship, he could not still the storm, but he could stand and he could speak and he could point people back towards God. That is what it means to rise up. See, rising up does not mean that you will never experience the storm. I wish that was true. I wish it was that easy, but that's not truth and I'm not here to lie to you. It means the storm does not get to silence your faith. Rising up means that you can't control everything. around you, but I know a guy who can. Rising up means not that you'll never

have fear, you'll never be afraid, but that fear does not get the final word in your circumstance. But in order to rise up in the storm, number one, you need to be fully inflated. A life raft cannot rise without air inside of it. It may look like a life raft, it may have the manufacturer's marking on it, it may be packed up and bundled and just so neatly put like it's supposed to where it's supposed to be, but until it is filled it cannot accomplish the purpose for which it was created. And there are people who look Christian on the outside, but are spiritually empty on the inside. They may know all the songs, they may know when to raise their hands, they may own a Bible, they may wear Christian clothing, they may have a verse on their bio on their Instagram, dot dot dot, if you took the verse away would their Instagram really look that Christian? I don't know, maybe that's some conviction for somebody. But I'm here to tell you, appearance cannot substitute your spiritual life. You cannot rise above the pull of the world when there is nothing filling you. You cannot pour hope into others while you are spiritually empty. You cannot live on last year's encounter with God. You cannot survive on your pastor's faith or your parents' faith. You cannot survive on your leader's prayer life. You cannot survive on what God did last year at the Rise Up Conference. You need to know and have a relationship with him for yourself. Paul was able to stand up in the storm because he had been with God. Verse 23 continues, for last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood beside me. See, before anything else Paul knew who he belonged to. He said, to the God whom I belong. Before Paul talked about what God was going to do or what God had shared with him, he established first and foremost that is the God that I belong to. And immediately put himself in a place of servitude and humility. Your ability to stand in the storm starts with knowing whose you are. There are times, and I know this to be true in my life and I would assume it's true in yours, when you can't do anything but fall to your knees and be like, God, I don't know if I could do this another day, man. God, I pray to you, I do what you tell me, and God, all I feel is more weight and more weight and it is crushing me and I am falling and I am falling and I am falling and it is heavy

and I don't know how to breathe anymore and I don't know the next step to take and the depression is taking me out and the anxiety is taking me out and God, I am getting tumbled under the waters and I don't even know which way is up. But God, if you are who you say you are and if I belong to you, then I give it all to you. God, I don't understand how, I don't understand why, I don't understand how I'm gonna take my next step, but God, the truth is I don't know how I could take any step if I'm not holding your hand. So God, whether it's good, whether it's bad, whether it's indifferent, I need to live in a place where I know who I belong to before I worry about anything else in the storm and then God will tell me how to handle the storm. This is for all of you. You are not what people call you. You are not what your past says about you. You are not your worst mistake. You are not a number on the scale. You are not a grade on a paper. You are not your follower count. You are not what the person in your last broken relationship says you are. You are not the addiction that you've been fighting your entire life. You are not the opinion of somebody who walked away from you when they were supposed to love you more than anyone else. When you have given your life to Jesus, you belong to God. You've been bought with a price. You have been adopted into a family. You have been forgiven. You have been made new and you've been filled with the Holy Spirit. Paul's confidence did not, could not, should not come from his circumstance. His confidence came from his identity. The ship was unstable, but his identity was settled. The weather was unpredictable, but God was still faithful. Everyone else in that ship was so confused, but Paul knew who he belonged to so he didn't have a worry in the world. See, some of you keep getting spiritually deflated because you're trying to let the world tell you who you are. You're intelligent. It's tempting to inflate your soul with relationships, with attention, with accomplishments, with popularity, with sports, with your appearance, with other people's approval,

but everything the world uses to fill you will eventually leak. Approval leaks. Popularity leaks. Relationships change. Success fades. Feelings fluctuate. People will applaud you one day and then curse you the next day. You need something in your life that a storm cannot remove. You need the presence of God. You need the word of God. You need the spirit of God. And you need a genuine relationship with Jesus. Ephesians 5.18 says, be filled with the spirit. That is not a one-time emotional experience. It is a daily surrender. Every day, you should be on your knees saying, God, fill me again. God, fill my mind with truth. God, fill my heart with compassion. Fill my mouth with words that bring life and not death. God, fill my decisions with wisdom. Fill me until there is less of me and more of you. The scary truth is that you get to decide what fills you. But what fills you will eventually control you. You fill yourself with anger, your anger will control you. You fill yourself with lust, your lust will control you. You fill yourself with insecurity,

your insecurity will control you. Fill in the blank. Pride, pride will control you. Fear, fear will control you. But when you are filled with the spirit of God, you can rise above the forces pulling other people under the surface. It doesn't mean you become perfect. Nobody's perfect. It means you're being sustained by something greater than you could ever be. A life raft does not rise because it is strong enough to fight the ocean. It rises because of what's inside of it. And you will not rise because you are naturally strong enough to fight temptations and endure trials and be there through every storm. No, you rise because you have the same spirit inside of you that rose Jesus from the dead. That's why you rise. So here's the hard question to ask yourself. What's deflating you? For some of you, it's some sort of hidden sin. I've lived through that season. Every time God begins to fill you, you return to something that punctures your faith and lets the air out. You have one life at church and another life living in your cell phone.

You worship publicly and you compromise privately. You keep asking God to fill you, but you refuse to stop puncturing all the places he's trying. For some of you, it could be comparison that is deflating you. God tries to remind you who you are, but all you can see is who everyone else is. You compare your body, your personality, your gifts, your family, your relationship status, your progress, and comparison slowly drains confidence in what God has placed inside of you. For some of you, it's an offense that is deflating you. Someone hurt you. Someone disappointed you. Maybe somebody in the church let you down and it pushed you away from Jesus. And instead of taking that wound to the cross, you allowed bitterness to become a hole in your soul where the air is leaking out. For some of you, it's inconsistency and it's that simple. You wanna be full of God, but you only give him whatever's left over. You feed your body daily. You charge your phone daily, but you expect to sustain a spiritual week with one hour of getting fed on a Sunday. And you wonder why you're starving. You cannot remain spiritually full

while continually disconnecting from the source that is filling you. Jesus said in John 15, I am the vine, you are the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Branches do not produce fruit by trying harder. They produce fruit by staying connected to the vine. And a connected Christian becomes a filled Christian and a filled Christian can rise up. Which leads to number two. You must rise above what is pulling others under. See, a fully inflated life raft rises to the surface, but it's in the same ocean as everybody else. It just responds to the water differently. It still feels the waves. It still gets hit by the storm. It still push left and right as the sea moves, but it never goes beneath the surface. It rises to the top. And as Christians, we live in the same world as everybody else. We experience pain. We experience disappointment. We experience temptation and grief and loss and rejection. We experience anxiety and we expect storms to come our way. Following Jesus doesn't remove us from the ocean, it just changes what happens when the ocean tries to pull us under. Paul was on the same ship as everybody else in this story.

He felt the same wind, the same waves. I'm sure he felt some of the same fear, but he responded differently because he had received a word from God. As we continue in verse 25, Paul says, so take courage, for I believe God. I will be just, it will be just as he said. And it's not a long sentence, but you get a lot more out of understanding what Paul didn't say. He didn't say, I have faith in the ship. The ship was gonna break apart. He doesn't say, I have faith in the sailors. The sailors were terrified and confused and running like chickens with their heads cut off. He didn't say, I have faith in the weather because the weather was violent. He had no control over it. He said, I have faith in God. I have faith in God. I believe God. See, some of you are losing hope because you attached your faith to something that was never strong enough to hold it in the first place. You place your faith in a relationship or in a person or in your own ability. You've placed your faith in everything going according to your plan, the way you planned it. And what you wanted,

I'm here to tell you that ships break. People fail. Plans change. Circumstances shift. But God always remains. Paul's faith allowed him to rise above the panic around him. And God is calling you to be different than the atmosphere around you as well. When everybody else is gossiping, rise above it. When everybody else is tearing someone down, rise up and say something. When everybody else is cheating, rise up and be different. When everyone else is compromising, rise up and don't. When everyone else is driven by lust, rise up and turn away. When everyone else is controlled by anger, rise up and learn a better coping mechanism and bring it to the cross. When everybody else is surrendering to their hopelessness, rise up and be different. But I have to caution you too. See, a life raft does not rise up to brag to others about being above the water. It rises so that drowning people have somewhere to go. God did not rescue you so you could become arrogant towards those still struggling to swim. God rescued you so that you could become available to help them get out of the water. You are not supposed to look down at drowning people and say, look at them, they should have made better choices in their lives.

You're supposed to say, hey, Jesus pulled me out too, come here, I know what it's like. I know what it's like to fight for your life. The church is not supposed to be a cruise ship full of people, comfortable passengers, criticizing those people who are still in the water. The church is supposed to be a rescue vessel. We have a mission, we have been sent, we carry good news, but in order for people to hear it, number three, you must be visible. A life raft is bright, it's designed to stand out, why? Because visibility is part of the mission. Matthew 5.14 says you are the light of the world. Matthew 5.14 does not say you are the light inside of this church building. It says you are the light of the world, and then Jesus says nobody puts a lamp under a basket or a bowl. Is a hidden light still a light? Yes, but is it fulfilling its purpose? Absolutely not, and there are too many Christians whose faith is real, but it's completely hidden. They love Jesus at church, but nobody at school knows. They worship a youth group, but they blend into every conversation they're in outside of it. They post Bible verses occasionally, but their everyday behavior looks anything but. They believe in Jesus privately, but they are terrified to represent him publicly. So listen to me carefully.

Being visible, bless you, this is my wife, I had to. Being visible does not mean being obnoxious either. It does not mean shouting at people from a street corner. It does not mean acting self-righteous around people who don't know Jesus. It does not mean turning every conversation into an argument because you have to prove that you're right. It does not mean posting things online just to provoke people. See, Jesus was full of two things. It was grace and truth, grace and truth. And our visibility should look like Jesus. People should see Jesus in the way that you speak. They should see Jesus in the way that you treat people that nobody treat well. In the way that you respond when somebody insults you. They should see Jesus in the way that you handle pressure. In the way that you date. In the way that you win and in the way that you lose. In the way that you work. In the way that you own it when you're wrong. In the way you refuse to join in when somebody is getting beat down and others are piling on top of it. And in the way that you bring hope into a hopeless place. There are also moments when the way that you live just isn't enough and you need to open your mouth. Being a passive Christian is not enough. There are going to be moments when you need to open your mouth.

Paul did not just simply stand up in the boat quietly full of joy and wait for people to notice his positive attitude. He spoke, he told them what God had said. He warned them, he prayed, he gave thanks to God in front of everybody. There comes a time when living differently must be accompanied by explaining why. First Peter 3.15 tells us to be prepared to give an answer concerning the hope that we have. People need to hear the name of Jesus. Your kindness matters, hear me, your kindness matters. But your kindness alone does not point to the cross. Your character matters. But your character alone does not explain forgiveness. Your love matters, but there comes a moment when you must explain where that love comes from. We cannot only say, look at my life. Eventually we must say, let me tell you about Jesus. There is a world looking for rescue, but they cannot swim towards a faith that we continually hide. Point four, your visibility must come from transformation and not performance. See, there's this danger when you talk about becoming a visible Christian. Because what you could hear and walk out the door thinking is I need to appear more Christian. That's not what I'm saying. God is not calling you to perform Christianity

like it's a play on Broadway. He is calling you to become transformed by Christ. There is a difference between shining and performing. Performing says, hey, look at me. Shining says, hey, look at Jesus. Performance wants attention, shining gives direction. See, the moon does not create its own light, it only reflects the sun. And in the same way we do not produce our own spiritual light, we just reflect Jesus. The closer we walk with him, the brighter that light becomes visible for others through us. When you have genuinely encountered Jesus, something should become visible in your life. Your speech should change. Your priorities should change. Your relationships should change. Your response to sin should change. Your compassion should start to grow. Your hunger for God should start to grow. You are not instantly perfect overnight like a life switch, but you are no longer comfortable remaining the same as you were yesterday. See, some people want the visibility, but they don't want the filling. They want the platform, but they don't want the prayer life. They want the microphone without the maturity to speak into it. They want influence without integrity, and they want to be seen as spiritual

without doing the hidden work that it takes to really follow Jesus. Public rescue requires private preparation. We bring it back to the life raft. Its condition matters. Before it is ever used, it is inspected time and time and time again. The integrity of that raft matters. The preparation of that raft matters. Whether it is serviceable matters. The date on it matters. There is a million things that happen behind the scenes in private to make sure that in public when that thing needs to save someone's life, it is ready to go. Who you are when nobody is watching matters. What you watch, what you listen to, what you fill your life with, it matters. Your hidden habits matter, your secret messages matter, your thought life matters. See, Acts 27 didn't create Paul's faith while he was in the ship. All it did was reveal the preparation he'd been doing in private for a really long time. When storms come, you do not suddenly become an entirely different person. Pressure just reveals the foundation you've already built. The storm revealed fear in some people in that boat. It revealed selfishness in some people in that boat. But in Paul, all it revealed was his faith.

What would pressure reveal in you right now? And it matters because point five tonight, our last point, your rising could save more people than you realize. As we continue in Acts 27, we'll go to verse 24. It says, God in his goodness has granted safety to everyone sailing with you. Again, there were 276 people on that ship. Paul's obedience was definitely affecting more than just himself. Your decision to rise up could impact your entire friend group. Your decision to rise up could impact your entire family. Your decision to rise up could impact your entire school or team or fill in the blank of any circle that you exist in. Your decision to rise up could impact people you'll never actually meet. And you won't know on this side of heaven how far the ripples of your life went. We often think of faith as a private decision and accepting Jesus is personal. But nobody else can surrender your life for you, comma, but people need to see the change in you. Your faith affects people around you. When one person becomes serious about Jesus, it changes the atmosphere of everywhere that they walk. If one student gets on fire for Jesus, it changes everybody they come in contact with at school. When one young adult chooses purity,

the others around them start to see that that's a viable option and it's actually possible. When one student invites a friend, an entire family might end up coming to Christ. Paul could have remained silent in that boat. He was a prisoner. There was no reason for him to step up and say anything. Nobody listened to him earlier when he said, hey, God's telling me we should not set sail from Crete. He could say like, I warned them, this is their problem now. But Paul did not allow rejection to eliminate his compassion. That's important in your life too. See, they ignored Paul's warning, but Paul still helped them survive the consequences. That looks like Jesus. Jesus doesn't say you made your mess so drown in it. He enters the storm. He extends grace and he offers forgiveness. Jesus saves people who have ignored him. He saves people who have rejected him. He saves people who have mocked him, who have ran from him. The cross is nothing but Jesus stepping into a storm that we created and saying, hey, I'll take this one for you. And when that grace has rescued you, when Jesus's grace has rescued you, you should become the kind of person who carries that grace forward for others. Do not become so offended by other people's rejection that you stop caring about their rescue. They may mock you today and call you tomorrow.

They may ignore your invitation today and need your prayers next month. They may laugh at you while you speak about Jesus today, but remember every word you said when they're falling from the top of the tree and hitting every branch on the way down. So keep shining, keep loving, keep praying, keep inviting, keep standing, keep speaking, because your visibility may become someone else's survival. As we fast forward the story, the ship eventually crashes. Scripture says that the nose gets stuck and the back end is beat up by the waves and it breaks and it falls apart and everyone enters the water. But it also says that every single one of them got to land safely. And don't miss that. The ship broke, but God's promise did not. Sometimes we. Assume that if God is with us, our ship will never sink. That relationship will never end. That plan will never change. That door will never close. That dream of mine will never be delayed. That person will never disappoint me. But sometimes God saves you even when the ship sinks. Sometimes the thing that you trusted falls apart. And in your despair, you discover that you were actually just in God's hand the whole time. Some of these people, it says, reach shore by swimming,

and other reach shore by holding on to broken pieces of the ship as it went down. In verse 44, it says, in this way, every person reached safety. Maybe some of you came here swimming, barely keeping your head above water, fighting for air, barely treading water. And maybe some of you came here like the other people, holding on to broken pieces of something you swore was gonna sustain you. Holding on to a broken family, or a broken heart, or a broken relationship, or a broken dream, or a broken sense of identity. But broken pieces can still carry you to safety when they're placed in the right hands. You may feel broken, but not a single person here is beyond rescue. You may feel like your life has fallen apart, but God is not finished with you yet. You may have lost the ship, but none of us have lost the Savior. And perhaps the very thing God brings you through will become the part of your testimony that helps somebody else survive their storm. The scars that you have from your trials become signs for other people. Your story can become a signal fire that draws them back to the cross. Your healing can become evidence that there is still hope, regardless of the circumstance,

regardless of the story, regardless of the outcome, there is always still hope in the name of Jesus. But before I put out a call for you to become a life raft for others, the first question I have to ask is, have you been rescued yourself? Because you cannot give away hope that you have never received. The gospel is not that good people rise while bad people sink. The gospel is that we were all sinking. Sin separated us from God, and there was nothing we could do under our own power or our own work to close that gap and find our way back to him on our own. We needed someone to come rescue us. Jesus left heaven and entered our storm, lived a life we could not, and took a punishment he should not, because we deserved it. On the cross, he carried our sin, our shame, our rebellion, and our guilt. And he was placed in a grave. But then three days later, he rose again. The resurrection is an announcement that sin did not win, that death was defeated, that hell did not win, that the storm did not win. Jesus rose, and because he rose, you can rise too.

You can rise out of your shame. You can rise out of your past. You can rise out of your spiritual deflation, not through your own strength, but through the strength of Jesus's finished work on the cross, through surrendering your life to him and only him, because he is the way, the truth, and the life, and nobody gets to the father except through him. So tonight, Jesus is here, reaching into the water. You don't have to clean yourself up for him to grab you. You don't have to become good enough for him to grab you. You don't have to pretend you're not drowning for him to pull you out. You simply have to admit, I need rescue. Some of you have attended church for years, but never truly surrendered your life to Jesus. You may know about him, but do you know him? You may have been swimming next to the life raft for a really long time, but have you ever climbed inside? Tonight can be the night that changes everything for you. So with every head bowed and every eye closed, I wanna ask the most important question first. Are you confident that you have surrendered your life to Jesus? Are you confident that you have surrendered your life to Jesus? I'm not asking if you attend church. Are you confident that you have surrendered your life I'm not asking if your family believes.

to Jesus? I'm not even asking if you've been baptized or if you serve. I'm asking you, if you didn't wake up tomorrow, are you 100% sure that you would end up in heaven? Have you personally trusted Jesus as Savior and surrendered to him as Lord? And maybe tonight some of you would say, you know what, Pastor Steve? I've been drowning for a really long time. I've tried to save myself. I've lived my own way. But tonight I'm finally ready to admit that I need Jesus. And if that's you, I wanna pray with you. And we're both praying together. Just repeat after me. Say, dear Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner and I so desperately need a Savior. I have been drowning for too long. I've tried to save myself. I've tried to do it my own way. But tonight I am sure that I need you. I believe that you died for my sins and my salvation. I believe your blood was shed on the cross. And I believe you rose again. So as best as I can, I place my trust in you. I give you my life. I receive your life. Now teach me how to live. In Jesus' name, amen.

Look up here. If that is you tonight, whether you've raised your hand before and you were unsure, whether you've never raised your hand a moment in your life, but tonight is the certainty in your heart that you are crossing a line of faith and beginning a relationship with Jesus. When I count to three, I want you to put your hand up. And it's not because raising your hand saves you, but it's because there is something about a physical act and a spiritual act being tied together because things shift in the spiritual before they do in the physical. And if you raise your hand and you say, you know what? I do need rescue. I do need surrender. You are sending a signal fire up to heaven. And we know that we have a new brother or sister in Christ to celebrate here today. So on the count of three, do not let fear take over. Do not let shame take over. Have a moment of boldness to say, Pastor Steve, that's me tonight. I need rescue. I need a savior. I need to be different. I need somebody to pull me out of the water because I am fighting every day to catch my breath and I can't do it anymore. So we're not gonna stretch this out anymore.

If that's you on the count of three, raise your hand and everybody else, we are going to cheer. Here we go. One, two, three. Amen. I am so proud of you two. I'm so proud of the way I've seen God work in your life and in your heart over the last couple weeks, not just the last couple days. God is creating a story in both of you. He is creating a story in both of you. But now I wanna speak to every Christian in the room. You've been rescued, you're in the life raft. But perhaps you have been spiritually deflated recently. The air has been leaking out of your walk. You might still be a life raft, but man, you're really playing with falling under the water sometimes. You've been blending in a little too much, been hiding a little too much, allowing fear to silence you when you know it shouldn't. You love Jesus, but you're just not living that visibly. There are people around all of you who are drowning that just need to know where to swim to. And God is calling each one of you to rise up and be that beacon of hope, not someday, not when you're older, not when you understand the entire Bible, not when the fear starts to go away, now.

Paul stood up in the middle of a storm on a ship that was breaking apart. You don't need to wait until life feels comfortable. You don't need to wait until all your friends agree with you. This is your moment. Ephesians 5.14 says, wake up sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. So wake up, rise up, shine now, that's the call. Wake up from your spiritual sleep, rise up above the things that are trying to pull you under the water, shine so clearly that people can see Jesus through you no matter where you are or when you're there or what setting or what group of friends, be a light so bright it's undeniable that that person follows Jesus. I'm not asking for a generation that merely attends church, I'm asking for a generation that is ready to become the church, a generation that prays and worships and serves and speaks truth and walks in purity and loves the rejected that other people have turned their back on but you say that is still a son or a child created in the image of God so I love them because he loved me first, that's what I want. So it's time to stop puncturing the life raft, it's time to stop letting the air out with your compromise and your sin and your decisions and hiding your faith. Some of you need to start praying for your friends by name, some of you need to start inviting your friends to church, tomorrow's a great day to start. Some of you need to start sharing your testimony publicly, some of you need to go forgive somebody that you've been holding off for a really long time because it feels uncomfortable or maybe you think they should forgive you first. Take the step of humility. Some of you need to delete the app, delete the contact, delete the website, whatever you need to do to take the hard step to separate yourself from that sin and some of you need to stop waiting for someone else to lead when God is calling you. The world does not need you to be famous, it needs you to be faithful. We don't need more celebrity Christians on TikTok. We need consistent Christians in schools and on sports teams and in neighborhoods and in

their churches and in their youth groups, that's what we need. Your friends do not need you to answer every theological question they might have. Your friends need you to know Jesus and to love them enough to tell them about him. So in a moment I'm going to ask all of you to be bold. If you are in a place where you are ready to say, God, fill me, God, remove anything deflating me, God, I want to rise above what's been pulling me under, God, make my faith visible, God, use me to reach someone, God, make me part of the rescue mission, God, here I am, send me. If you're in that place, if you are ready to claim that boldly and publicly, then when I count to three, I want every student and young adult and leader who feels that in their heart to stand up boldly in their place, to stand up where they're sitting and say, I'm ready to rise up, I'm ready to accept the call, I'm ready to be the change in my family and my friend group and my community. There are lives that will be eternally changed because of your obedience to get out of your own way and let Jesus work through you. So are you ready to rise up? And if that's you, when I say three, get to your feet. Here we go. One, two, three. Who's ready? Who's ready? Who's ready? Who's ready? Do not let this be an emotional response to a powerful message. If you are ready to stand up before Almighty God and say, here I am, send me, get ready to be sent. If you're ready to stand up and say, God, I'm ready to grow my patience and deal with people, get ready to have your patience tested. If you're ready to say, God, wherever it is, the four corners of the earth, God, I'll reach people in Ethiopia and Russia and he says, go to your next door neighbor, go to your

next door neighbor. But when you stand up in faith and obedience and say, here I am, God, send me, get ready to move your feet because he's gonna. And the whole world could be different because of what happens right here if you hold fast to this promise before a powerful and Almighty God. And here's your first step. Bring someone to church with you tomorrow. Pack this place out and say, see Pastor Steve, God called me, he sent me, I'm rising up. I'm so visible. I brought five friends with me a day later. That's how you can rise up. Make the change today. Don't wait till tomorrow. I love you guys. That is my time. I'm going to turn it over. We're going to worship.