The Point of Church | Pastor Micah Berteau | Overflow Month

Hey, it's good to see you Feel the love but I'm grateful to be back in the house with all of you If you've taken a few weeks off with me, well, we came back at the same time Welcome to see you you and uh here in July made it the last Sunday in July. We've had a great time Thank you for letting me always always spend time with my family It's what we do. Well, if you're wondering what we do the last few weeks I get away I have four boys under 10 years old. If you're new here, you'll hear lots of stories about them if you choose to stick around It's pretty fantastic. And so that day it's been an amazing time we had a great time with them and then last week, you know, you we me and Lindsey got to get away as well and You always come back refreshed fired up. And so I'm ready to go. I'm Missed you. I love this house. I believe there's nobody like there's no place like this place How many just love coming to this place and you just feel the goodness of God you feel the presence of God Come on, that doesn't happen everywhere where it's a full immersion of the presence of God I am grateful and I came back with a word for you today. So are you ready? Are you ready? Oh, come on If I came all the way back you can you can you can come with a little bit of shout You didn't get Baptist on me this month. Did you you didn't go? You know We love we love you if you are Baptist as well, but we go we gonna turn you into a clapping Baptist So, you know I'm saying revelation to Be like, where is he gonna go? He came back after a few weeks. I'm going to revelation revelation 2 1 through 5 It's actually a letter and I was reading it this week and God really spoke to me that this is the word To release this Sunday. It's a letter that God released to the Church at Ephesus Paul was leading it at the time and this is an unreal moment Where a great church gets a letter from God almost a correction if you will So as we go today, you're gonna hear me interchange the word church a lot with you in your life Because what I want you to understand about the church right from the get-go Is that the church is not just the walls that we are surrounded by He didn't die for brick and mortars. Jesus died for hearts and souls

And so for us to understand that when I talk about the church, I mean two things the community we're building The second thing I mean is the life that you're leading So it goes both ways. So this building we can call that's where I go to church This is where we go to what gather praise God pull down heaven pray for each other And then Monday through Saturday is what you living out the call of God on your life To not just say I attend church. No, I ain't no Bible Bell Christian. I Am becoming the church and so you're gonna hear me interchange that today. So here's the letter As we read this letter to the church, you could also say this is to the institution of a church But it's also to the people. So let us receive this write this letter to the angel of the church at Ephesus This is the message from the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand The one who walks among the seven gold lampstands immediately that we understand who's giving this letter. It's God himself I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance I know you don't tolerate evil people you have examined claims of those who say they are apostles But are not you have discovered they are liars. So doing a lot of good things you have patiently suffered for me without quitting Look at verse 4, but I have this one complaint against you Listen, I did not know that God had a complaint too Because I think sometimes we just let him know our complaints, but have you ever stopped long enough? to realize that God might have some complaints and The word complaints might hit you a negative. Just think of it like this He might want to give you some convictions For you to stop doing and stop allowing and maybe stop walking in certain directions So he says hey, I got I got some things too. I got some things on my mind for you You don't love me or each other as you did at first Look how far you have fallen turn back to me and do the works you did at first Look how far you've fallen is connected to a statement that the thing that you're doing wrong is that you forgot to love Jesus And I think that gets common because we get busy we get we love our schedule. We love our responsibilities. We love our job We love the money that we make from our job. We love the possessions that we have we look But we forgot

To love the main thing The one that gave you breath, the one that gave you life, the one that gave you the family that's taken up your schedule time, the one that's given you the job, that's given you purpose and hope and life. And no, it's God. It's all from him. And I think we forgot that these are just things. He's my first love. And I love him because he first loved me. And so now there's this reality. You fall in, but it says this last statement, it says, but turn back to me. I love the grace of God because if it was, you know, maybe in a different, maybe God could have got spicy and said, you know what? I'm done with you. You've upset me. This church is a mess. My people are a mess. Get out of here. I'm gonna wipe it out. Let's rebuild it. Instead, he says, turn to me, which means this. It's never too late for the grace of God to grip you and to turn you around. Come on, there is no time to wait any longer to say, I'm gonna try this my way. May the grace of God grip you today,

turn you around and make you realize it's not too late to give God your yes today. So build the church, build the church, build the church. And here's Matthew 16, 18, just to couple that with the scripture I just read. This is when Jesus was talking. He says, and on this, I tell you, Peter, on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Here's what I'm gonna be preaching about today. The point of church. Come on, point to your neighbor, point, point. The point of church. Because your life and the community that we live in and the community that we're building in the family has a point to it. It's got a point to it. In which direction is your life pointing? In which direction is our church pointing? God, would you be with us over the next few moments? Ah, thank you for this house. Ah, thank you for your spirit in this house. We feel your life. We feel your resurrection power. God, do a new work. We give you all honor and praise in Jesus' name. Everybody said, amen. Amen. All right, so over the last few weeks, I'll catch you up a little bit.

You know, I'm bored and our elders are so gracious. They always allow us to get away during July. So here's what we do in July. We go on a vacation with our children for a week and we get to get them away because my family is our first church and they need to know that dad is not just a pastor. They need to know dad is dad. And so that's really important. They know that this church is our calling. Beckham came with me this morning to the 8.30 service and he saw a suit jacket that's in my office. He put it on. He said, call me Pastor Beckham. I was dying. And he's like in his football uniform and pray for him. He actually plays, I don't know, flag football is now in the Junior Olympics and his team qualified for Junior Olympics. So in four days, he's playing in the Junior Olympics. And so he knows that this church is our calling. They know that. So what we like to do is we like to just unplug mom and dad. Hey, boys, we're here. We love you. We're here for you. So this is what we do in July. We got some recommendations to go to Costa Rica. We've never been to Costa Rica. So we went to Costa Rica, lots of monkeys.

It was fun. It was good. A lot of monkeys. But as you know, when you take a vacation with your kids, come on, where are my parents at? It's not a vacation. It's called a trip. Cause they be tripping, you know what I'm saying? It's a trip. Like, let's just be real for a second. Cause it's work. Like someone texted me on like day four of this trip. They're like, oh, I pray, we're praying. You're so refreshed, Pastor. I said, refreshed? I've almost lost two kids by my own doing. But what we do. So then the next week, what we do is we, okay, we get done. Costa Rica was amazing. Okay, moving on. So then last week, what me and Lindsay do is we get away. We've been married for 13 years. We understand that healthy marriages are built overnight. You have to work and you have to tend it. You have to steward it. So we get away. Now, when we get away with no kids, like we just get away to do nothing. Some of y'all like go to Disney.

We call those people freaks. I just want to walk 20,000 steps every day. I want to lay by the beach and do nothing. So that's me and Lindsay's love language when we get away. So we get away. Last week we go to Mexico. It was an amazing time. We went to this resort. We've been to the resort before. And so here we are. We're at this resort and we're having a great time. We're having a great time. Can I catch you up on everything that we did last week? Okay, we did nothing. And then it was the last day, but we, every day though, we had been laying out on the same chairs by the pool Every day. There is an unspoken rule that if you are in that chair for at least two days in a row, that chair is yours. Y'all feel that way about your church chairs. I know some of y'all be sitting in the same spot because when I be preaching up here 48 times a year when I preach, I know exactly who, I was like, yep, they still right there. Yep, they right over there. And you love your chair. Your imprint is on that chair. So we had our two, you know, and they're kind of connected. And so we had our two, we laid in it. We loved it.

It was a great spot by the pool. You could kind of see the ocean behind it. We're like, this is great. We'd read books, the whole thing. The last day, Lindsay goes out in the morning. She has her book. She puts her book, you know, to save the chairs. We don't just expect it. We're not crazy. We save them. And then we go to breakfast. Two hours later, Lindsay walks out. I'm a little bit behind. So she walks out to the pool. And so she comes back and she is flustered. And I said, you okay? What's going on? She's like, Micah, you will not believe it. It's like, what? What's going on? There is someone in our chairs. Say, okay, okay, okay. Go through this. Did you put the book? I'll put the book down. Are you sure you put it in those chairs? Did you not, maybe you put it in somewhere? No, it was in those chairs. I said, did you ask him? No, I can't do that.

Because if you've ever learned anything about me and my wife's personalities, we're stark opposite. Lindsay is passive, very joyful, very sweet, very nice. And if she does get like spicy, it'd be like passive aggressive, maybe. I'm aggressive aggressive. I wish sometimes I had more of a feeler. I just walk into situations. It just maybe just the makeup of who I am and my dad and everything like that. So here we go. She's like, I was like, okay, let me go talk to them. Do not talk to them. It's fine. But I'm like, you're clearly flustered and upset. Yes, I am. Because they shouldn't have done it. Well, let me go talk to them. Do not talk to them. So I just walked out. I said, I'm gonna go talk to them. So I get out to them. So they're enjoying, you know, they're just laying there. So I walk up, I didn't get the whole story, but I looked down and right next to them are another set of chairs that are empty. And the book, Lindsay's book is right there. I was like, oh, that's what,

I didn't know where the book went. I was like, it went right next to, okay, this is starting to make sense. And I looked at the book. Now I get up to the chairs, they're looking at me. And I'm looking at the book. And I kind of look at them and I said, is, and before I even like said anything, they said, yeah, that's not our book. I said, oh, I know. Thank you for setting me up. So I know that's not your book. I said, it's actually our book. What I need to know is how it got over here. Books don't just move, you know, it's crazy. Like they don't, they don't just get up and walk. Did you, no, did, did you move? And I asked them, I was like, did y'all, did y'all happen to move the book from there to here? I just, I just need to know. Did you move the book? I just want some honesty out of humanity. Maybe I believe too much. No, no, no. They said this, it's not our book. And I said, that's, we already settled that. It's my book. You missed the question. I said, no, no, no.

I know it's, it's our book. It's our book. Don't worry about that. Did you move the book? That's all I want to know. No, no, no. We did not move the book. And they were, and you could tell like the accent was, you know, I'm like, okay, maybe they're from somewhere else. I don't know. But that was the clear, you know, language barrier. And I'm like, so you didn't move the book. No, we didn't move the book. Got it. Game on. So I went back to Lindsay, who's hiding behind the curtain. And they're watching me walk back to where I'm walking to. And I was like, she's like, what'd you say? What'd you, what? Why do women always ask this? What did you do? I didn't do anything. I'm trying to help you get your chairs back. All that to say is, we said, hey, it's okay. It's okay. We could just move on. Or Lindsay, we're not pastors here. It's so bad.

Oh, Jesus. Look, we just gonna be real. I'm gonna be real. We're real people. We're just real people. And I said. We could we could go to the chairs to have your book on it and annoy them until they leave So that's exactly what we did We went up to the chairs She brought a speaker out and we didn't know what country they're from But we wanted them to know where we were from. So we blasted country music On volume 10. Hope you like Morgan Wallet, you know, like I don't know what we're listening to But she was just blasting some country music and we were just enjoying our time because we weren't not a lot about to let these other people impact our experience Mm-hmm. I know they wouldn't be honest I know because even the the servers and the people in the helpers at the resort so they know us they walked over and they Said oh, mr. Mr. Berto. You're over here now And we've looked right at him. Yeah How'd that happen Yeah, you guys are usually over there. Yeah And so it only took your boy two hours to get rid of them by noon they were out We got our chairs back. So here's the thing though Here's the thing at the whole that story because there actually is a good lesson, too I wanted you to know obviously your pastors got away and had a good time The second thing we're I'm probably more aggressive than I need prayer third thing Is do you think after that when I was studying Revelation in this church to Ephesus? I was like, do you think I really went to Yelp? We love this resort We've gone a few times, you know, like and we one-star Yelp to review this resort Because look what the people did. I can't believe do you think that me and Lindsay went back to our room? We're flying out

We're never coming back Why because two people sat? Where we're supposed to sit They upset us. They did something we don't like and here's that's funny. We wouldn't do that We would never really do that because we have Understanding perspective a little bit of grace. We realize it was the people in the humans that did that however When it comes to the church, isn't it funny? How all it takes is getting one little thing one person one conversation one side-eye One comment. I'm never going back there one star one hurt We have more grace for restaurants and resorts than we do the house of God If God called you here don't let people remove you from here You Mixed and muddied the water with what someone else did and what God's trying to do You have to learn to separate. I am NOT judging My experience in life off of what they did Listen people are gonna come in and out of your life people gonna hurt you things are gonna happen in life That's a part of the human experience But at the end of the day, you're still in control of who you become you're still in control of how you worship You're still in control of going after God because it wasn't God that hurt you It was actually God that healed you. It was actually that God that's for you and not against you. So do not let others Steal that blessing that has your name on it Steal that miracle that has your name on it. That's why I love the church It's imperfectly beautiful. It's messy It's a struggle at times It's this it's that's the other but we come together and we believe in a greater good and we believe in a great God

And here's what I love and I'm gonna tell you the framework of the church in every couple years I need to remind us the framework of the church because this will help us understand. Why do we even do this? We gather here's a framework God saves God adds God glorified Here's what happens. We have one job to do And we make it sound like the house. I got we we just go You have one job show up Did you know that there's a statistic that says 50% of every service 50% of the people that come on a Sunday on? Almost didn't make it to church that day 50% that's alarming Because the enemy hates The gathering that's why the Bible says do not neglect The gathering why because you can walk in limping, but walk out running In every sense of the statement that I said you can walk in broken and walk out healed And this is why when you gather you realize I'm not coming because I'm I'm here to be strong. I'm here to get God. And when I show up, I might show up weak and frail and messy and hurting, but then God messes up the whole room. He shows up. His presence is here. And God saves, God adds, God gets glory all because we said, yes, God, I'm going to put my schedule aside. You're not just an afterthought. You're the only thought. Guys, what are our kids going to think if church is an afterthought? If church is optional for us, it's going to be obsolete for our children. They're not going to know it. They're not going to value it because they never saw mom and dad value it. Friends, we got to lean into it. I feel like we're leaning too far into the ugliness. Yes. Any human institution has ugliness to it. Just ask Taco Bell. Listen, you ate the lettuce and you're going to be back in three weeks, but you can't come back to the house of God because of what happened a decade ago. You better help me preach. I don't care. Taco Bell can't do nothing for you but make you sick, but the God who can heal every wound in your life only gets one shot. You better keep coming back to the grace of God, for he's going to turn you

around, pick you up, and get you on the right path. Come on, somebody. Thank God he didn't give up on you. Thank God when I was running away he called my name. He took me off of that path. He got me out of that addiction. He got me out of the miry clay. He shaped my life. He gave me a family. He gave me a future. He gave me a hope. Some of y'all need a memory that reminds you of who you were going to be until God stepped in. We wouldn't have so many pretentious Christians if we would just remember we didn't save ourselves. We didn't do this. It's not by our own power and our own might. There is no elitism in the house of God. It's just God and broken people. It's a bunch of sheep that need a shepherd. May we continue that. What that does is it allows us to pursue and run after God if we would just gather. I get it. The gathering comes with a lot. We gather. That statement comes with people. It also comes with, hey, you need to lean in. You need to serve. You need to give. You need to go. You need to walk in your calling. That's all a part of that we gather. We need to be discipled. Absolutely. But we don't need to put our hands on the controls of our life. We need to just let God start to maneuver everything inside of us and say, you know what, God, if you want that out of me, I agree. If you don't want that in me, you have my yes. Who is this really for? Both the gathering on the Sunday, because I'm not just only talking about a gathering on a Sunday because the gathering is amazing. We need to gather. But did you also gather on Monday with your God? Did you rally up with him on Tuesday? Did you fight back against the impure spirits that are trying to get your mind and your heart and your soul again on Wednesday? Did you push back that temptation to run back to every addiction that you've ever had in your life because the enemy is going to try to remind you of who you were on a daily basis to try to get you stuck on some things other than God? Did you push that? Because you can't just go to church. You got to become it. You got to become it. You got to have your own prayer life. You got to learn to lift your own hands. And this is why our foundation has to shift. Your foundation is not found in a worship team because we're going to lead you into worship. But on Monday, you have to lead you into worship. I can preach you into hope, but on Monday, you're going to have to live with the hope you just found. And so this is what it says in Ephesians 2, 19 through 21, just to let you know that this is a big front door that God is inviting people in. So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers or foreigners. Gentiles were distant. Gentiles were sinners. Gentiles were not on the in crowd. It says, hey, you're no longer a stranger. Stop acting like one. You're no longer

a foreigner. You're welcome here. You are citizens along with all of God's holy people. You are members of God's family. Together, we are his house built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. I love this part. My favorite part. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. We are carefully joined together in him becoming a holy temple of the Lord. The cornerstone, the foundation is Christ Jesus himself. Jesus is the foundation of the church, not our preferences. Not how we want things to go not I need less smoke and less haze. It's volume is too loud We just try to get you used to heaven baby. That's all we try to do. It's gonna be loud and smoky But at the end of the day that that's not I'm not I'm not trying to find the email till I can make sure that they Know what I'm upset about No, no, I'm here with the scales are ripped off of my eyes. The veil is but I see Clearly now and let me just tell you you're gonna agree a great a great church Relationship between the church and you you're gonna agree on Probably around 75 to 80 percent. That means that's that's probably the top tier This is a good statistic for some of you to know. It's gonna be very rare. You find one place. That's a hundred percent and Maybe you should reconsider because you're probably not being challenged There's gonna be a 75 to 80 percent and then there's gonna be 20% that you're like I can give or take that But you do that at every restaurant. That's just the human experience So I want to eliminate this thought that you're gonna find the perfect place But what you do need to find you need to find an authentic real place That's gonna go after the heart of God with no apologies you need a place that actually is going to open the door to the Holy Spirit moving and Breathing on a place like it does here and say, you know, that's where I want to be And maybe you you want maybe a little bit softer teacher. There's plenty of them around here I just believe in the full Word of God front to back cover to cover I don't even preach the maps if I have to Just to let you know how good your God is and how you have to live your life accordingly He's drawing you in friends, but he needs to be your foundation. I Am NOT your foundation people are making full there's full-time jobs right now on criticizing and breaking down the church Full-time there's journalists out there like it's crazy to me that they are living in Sears What's problem many of you follow those sites and you keep up on them?

And I'm not even saying that pastors are and can be immoral but you're also reading about probably a Minority and then you come in here and you're looking at me sideways and I'm like I just got back from Mexico I'm just a little more tan than I was before. I don't know what I did It's breaking up the beautiful Relationship that I should just be able to teach the Word of God and you go out there and live that Word of God That that's it. Let's not make this weird. Let's And so at the end of the day, I mean we fight for that here And and we grew from dozens to thousands, but we're gonna keep fighting for that here for that honesty Now I want you to know that the foundation will never change I don't care how big of a building we eventually end up getting it'll never change You're always gonna see us go after the Holy Spirit. You're always gonna hear me preach Jesus You're always gonna hear me go after God in the way that we go after God You're always gonna see this worship team probably running laps on the stage. I don't know why they do they just run laps It's amazing. Why because there's an energy there's a passion for what's real We don't have much time left to play the game of church But I've learned a lot from church and I'm gonna close with with a few pictures if that's okay My mom's gonna enjoy this my mom's here. I Grew up in the church mom. My parents were pastors I feel like everything that I'm doing who grew up in church who grew up in church you go Okay, and so we probably need more counseling than anybody else Here's why we grew up with Christians a lot of them I'll say like this. I met some of the best people I've ever met in the church I've had some of the nastiest people I've ever met in the church But it did not deter me From the meaning if Christ could give his life for the church. I'm pretty sure I could give my time to the church And so I had to commit so over the years and my mom my dad amazing pastors built a huge ministry So I got to grow up in a big context Which is means this a lot of people a lot of people in years was fun I always tell pastors like how do you know like how do you grow?

They want all the growth metrics and how do you I said, I don't know if you want more people more More people more problem It gets it gets harder it gets messier there's more opinions There's more I said you got to be so firm if God grows your ministry, by the way I was like you don't grow it God does but if God grows your ministry You have to be so firm in your foundation. And so through the years, where did I learn that? Well, let me take you through a little journey. The first picture mom. You'll enjoy this is a picture Of me and my family from the from the beginning why are we dressed up like that because we're probably going to church Every day what day of the week is it it doesn't matter we're going If it's Thursday, we have a service. There's some revival service going on, I'm pretty sure. So this is, and I have two older sisters, mom and dad, and this is when, you know, a little bit younger. Maybe I should just do the mustache like him too. That's pretty, it's a power stash. And so, and I have two older sisters as well. You can see in this next picture, we're at a church function. And it's not a real church function until you have a Hawaiian shirt. You know what I'm saying? I'm rocking that Hawaiian shirt. That's me, my two older sisters. I love this picture, it has so many things. So Kelly is about 10 years older than me. My other sister, Christy, is about five years older than me. So I'm a little kid, but where are we at? I mean, you can tell by the white styrofoam cup

because church, we can't afford nothing. We at church. But look what Kelly's doing. Christy, hold your chin up. We're pastor's kids. Everybody wants us to smile. I'm over here like, I don't even know where I'm at. Let's just take the picture, let's go. And then, and here's what happened. And you know, mom, you'll remember this. I think y'all put me up, you know, on a platform and behind a pulpit when I was little. I probably couldn't even say my ABCs, but you gave me a Bible. You put Muppets on there and had me preaching probably before I could even say many words. So this is what I grew up in. This is what I know. And you can even see it in the back, Hosanna First Assembly. Like every, like plates. And so it allowed me over the years, saw the good, bad, the ugly. I had to grapple with some things. I'd wrestle with some things, right? And so there is this reality of like, well, you could have, absolutely, I could have run. Actually, I spent probably about five years trying to figure out my calling. I mean, my parents saw it from day one, I didn't.

But it was in a church service like this one, where God gripped me and spoke to me. He said, you're right where you need to be. I'm working on your heart. So I love the church. All the way to the point to where I said, you know what, I'm gonna stop running. I'm gonna go into full-time ministry. And eight years ago, I did something. I told God I would never do, plant a church. And this was opening day in an elementary school in downtown Fort Worth. And it snowed, which I didn't know it snowed in Texas. When I was like, what is this stuff, what is going on out? And 400 people showed up with about 25 salvations. And so you get to this point where you're like, okay. In an elementary school, it doesn't mean I don't have my scars and my wounds and my troubles and my pains. It doesn't mean that, no, it means God held my hand through it all. What I wanna tell you today is don't give up too soon. Don't stop now, because I know you're in the middle of a season, but God has a reason for this season and a reason for this moment. He's gripping your hand right now and he's walking you through. And he just like the letter to the church at Ephesus. He said, hey, I'm gonna stop running. I've got no excuses.

He said, Hey, you're doing a lot of things well. Now I wanna tell you that you're probably doing a lot of things well. But nothing else matters when the main thing falls apart. You forgot to love me. He said, also your lack of love for me is showing in how you're treating other people. You lost your first love. The one that saved you, healed you, made you. Some of our sermons can even, you know, I can go down different roads, but I wanna make sure that I always land right here. But this sermon is specifically landing right here at the core of our souls saying, Hey, are you awakened to what God's doing? Are you truly in love with him? The one that loves you more than you could ever imagine. The one that saved you from everything that was about to hurt you and kill you. Do you realize he is not your fifth love? He should be your first. He's not somebody that you should be asking to bless your plans. He's the one that you're asking, God, what's your plans for my life? God, let me change my thinking. Instead of trying to talk myself out of being involved or out of the church, God, what are you doing in my life so I can build the thing you're asking me to build? Be a part of witnessing to people everywhere that I go.

Be the light of Jesus in a dark world. I'm tired of complaining about how dark it is. Turn a light on, man. You got it in you. Do you love him? Like for real to where you could neglect and forsake everything else. Do you love them? Are you commit like to your core? Watch it shift some things in your life when you put Christ back as the cornerstone He is your only foundation So the point of your life and the point of church Should always be pointing Could you imagine if there was a Yelp review just of our names? Because you know, I know there's church read and you can go you could you imagine if you had your personal life had a Yelp? Where people could review you? Wonder what kind of reviews? That'd be wild. That'd be crazy. But here's what what happened people never see what God sees, right? So you would get misunderstood and you would get hurt by the whole thing. And so we don't want that But here's the reality There'd be some people that are impacted because they see how much you love your Savior. They say you know what they're successful But they don't love their success more than their God You know what man they have a great family, but they don't love their family more than they love the God that gave him that family Man, they love but you know what they They're after God's heart. May that be said of us Come on. Amen. Can you stand to your feet? I want to pray for you. I want to pray for you Jesus we thank you we praise you God we place you as first and foremost priority again God do a Fresh work in our life. Would you breathe on us once again, Holy Spirit? God if you

Have been shoved to the back in this last season if we place everything else at the forefront God crash all of our plans Destroy all of our idols For God we want to place nothing in front of you In this moment and in this place God you're our first love Be The adoration of our life be the focus of our family That when we wake up every single day We won't just go to you when we need something We'll go to you because you are the something that we need You're everything we need You're the oxygen to our soul you're the eternity that is secured in our life God you are the reason for living We're sorry for making it about everything else Strip away the anxieties and the worries that lie to us that tell us that life should be about something else No, God, it's about you And you alone So God we put you back on the throne of our heart We thank you for your grace and God just like you ended the letter at the Ephesus you said turn I Thank you that it's never too late to turn God because you have a bunch of people in here that are ready to turn God, but we're not just turning anywhere. We're turning back to you And if you're in this room and you need to make a full turn and give your life to Jesus Christ When I get to three and you know who you are, I want you to lift your hands What you did last night last week last month last year Pales in comparison to the grace that God wants to give you right now So when you say yes to him You're gonna get a strength and a power like you've never received before because the grace of God's gonna come upon your life When I get to three, would you lift your hands if you need to give your life to Jesus Christ ready one? Come on, no hesitation

You know who you are to you ready to be the light and have the foundation of Jesus Be your forefront and three lift your hands right now That's you lift your hands if that's you if you want to pray this salvation prayer Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus Come on, you need to make him your first love again Come on, you need to put a priority again the center focus of your life. Let's pray this a Jesus Be the center of my life Be the focus of my life all other idols Strip them from my life God you get everything My heart my mind my soul my future. It's all yours Thank you for loving me in every season and right now I Give you my grant my love Because you've given me your grace and today I declare you're my first love more than anything else. Jesus over everything in Jesus name. Come on, amen. Put your hands together and give God praise. I feel the sweet presence of God in you. Come on, amen. Well, if you need prayer, please don't run out of here. Come down here. We want to stand with you. We want to pray with you, but I believe that you're going to walk out of here. Challenged and changed to live the life God has called you to live.

Before you run out of here, can we read this together? I believe what God has spoken over my life. His word will not return void. This year will reveal his faithfulness. This year will produce fruit. This year will be filled with miracles. In his timing and by his power, it's going to happen. God's going to do it. Come on, we love you. I'll see you next Sunday and the best is yet to come.