The Way of Being Known | "The Way" Week 5

- So if you have your Bibles, you can turn with me to the book of John. We're gonna be in John 13. I will read a passage that kind of points our boat in the right direction. And then I'm gonna lead you to another passage that will be kind of our foundational passage for today. If you're new to victory, or if you've missed a couple of weeks, it's okay. We've been in a season called The Way and looking at what it means to be a believer. And every week looking very practical, what can I do this week on Tuesday to practice being a follower of Jesus? And what we've been sharing and talking about is what are those things that we can practice? If I say I'm a follower of Jesus, what does that mean? And what does that look like on a Wednesday afternoon at 3 p.m. And so we've been looking at very practical, practicality, practicality, practicality, every week and giving tools to do so. And I pray that it's been a blessing to you. But we've talked about things like the way we work. We've talked about the way we rest. We've talked about all these different things. And today we'll follow suit in the same way. So John chapter 13, verses 34. These are words in red, which means these are the words of Jesus. It says, so now I'm giving you a new commandment.

Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples. It's like if you want to be a follower of the way of Jesus, there actually is a way you can prove it. Not with words, but the way in which you love one another. So it proves that we're disciples in the way that we do life with the people around us. The communities in which God places us in. The people that we're surrounded by at work in our circles at church and all of the elements and the ways that we do life with people actually becomes a living testimony. I want to talk about that today. I want to talk about what does that look like because that's such a vague statement. The way that you love people will show and prove that you're a disciple of the way. And so what I want to do today in some regards is I want to talk about community. I want to talk about what that looks like as a believer. And you may be already rolling your eyes like, ah, I've already heard this sermon, John. This is, I know what you're doing, John. You're trying to get us to join a small group. You're trying to get us to join a circle. And this is strategic. You guys got this all planned out. Listen, my heart today is not bad.

It's not to drive you to just some circle. I want to approach this from a different angle. Do I think you should be in a circle? Yes, but you could actually hide in a circle too. So there's a lot of ways that we're called to do community. I want to focus not on what you do today, but I want to focus on how we do it. It's a fundamental way of how we follow Jesus. And Jesus modeled this, we'll get into a lot of that today, but Jesus didn't just call individuals. He called a community, a community of men, 12, that came together as a core group and he changed the world by it. He didn't send them out one by one. The Bible says he sent them out two by two. Jesus' words where two or three of you are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst. There's something about when God's people get together and have fellowship together and commune together. Paul described the church. He said the church is one body made up of many parts. So if I looked at your body, I would say that's your body, but your body has an elbow and a knee and a leg and an arm has a lot of body parts. This is how Paul describes us, the church, coming together as a community to be one. Over and over again, you cannot escape the gospels without the concept of community. We're instructed to encourage one another. We're instructed to pray together.

We're instructed to serve together. We're instructed to carry one another's burdens. James says we're to confess to each other. That we actually, when we confess, and James five, it says when we confess to one another, that is when we receive healing. So this idea and this concept of community is all through scripture and the church has maybe even us at times has done a poor job of communicating what it means to have community. It's not something that you go find, okay? What I want to present to you today is kind of approaching the same topic, but through the back door in a way that maybe we have never thought of it before in the concept of community. Because I believe that biblical community in following the way doesn't begin when you find more people. You probably have enough people in your life. You're probably thinking I wish I had a few less people that had my cell phone numbers, what I kind of wish. Real community, real biblical community, and more to do with you letting a few people find you. Genuinely finding you. Being known by some people. And so today I wanna talk about something that you may have never thought of in this context or this way, but the title of the message today is the way of being known, the way of being known. The truth is we all wanna be known.

Some psychologists say that the core of every human being, that we only need two things. We wanna be needed and we wanna be known. We wanna be needed, we want someone to need us. And if we weren't there, we wouldn't have purpose. We want to be needed and we wanna be known. We want somebody to know our name. Come on, sing it with me. ♪ Sometimes you wanna go ♪ (laughing) You just dated yourself. If you know that song, you just dated yourself. I mean, if any of our campuses, if I called you out from this stage and I said, "Bobby's," hey, my friend, Bobby over there, everyone can get Bobby a hand, Bobby would never admit it, but Bobby on the inside is going, y'all see that, Pastor John just saw me, but his John just recognized me. He knows me, you know. There's something about being known that we all want. We all crave. The problem is, is we also like to control how we're known. (laughing) We like to curate the content. I wanna be known, but I want you to know the best version of me. I don't want you to see the worst of me. I want to be known. I want you to know the competent version of John,

not the version that gets words wrong constantly and Michelle's constantly correcting me on the wrong word that came out of my mouth. Like that's not the competent John. I want you to know the funny John. I want you to know the spiritual John. And we can easily begin to curate who we are and how we're known. And we all do it, it's no giant surprise. You see this, it's the text that we're gonna go to. Let me just go ahead and read it. So we see it at creation. Really, creation is the first relationship in the Bible. We focus so much on Adam and Eve being about marriage and it is, it's a beautiful picture of that. But really, it's the first genuine community. It's the first relationship between God and mankind, right? And remember a couple weeks ago, we talked about Tove, the Hebrew word Tove and God would look at creation every day and say, "That's good, it's Tove." And then when he finished all of creation, he looked at everything he had created and he said, "That's Tove Mioed." It was like, it's not just good, it's very good. Couple of very short verses later, God says, so creation is like, "That's good, that's good, that's good, that's good, that's good." He stops and he goes, "This is real good. Everything's good." And then about 18 verses later,

God says, "That's not good, it's not good." Do you know what he was talking about? He said, "It's not good for man to be alone." It's not a good thing. So he creates Eve, Eve comes along and now they're in communion, they're in community. And then one of the, one every man's favorite verse in the whole Bible, whether willing to admit it or not, is in Genesis chapter two, I'm gonna read it for you. And all the men are listening already 'cause they're like, "I already know what this verse is, I'm super excited about it." Verse 25, this is now the man and the wife were both naked. (congregation laughing) And every guy's like, "Baby, you hear that?" Just saying, John said it, you know? And then it says, listen to this, "But they felt no shame, they felt no shame." And obviously it's contextualized, but it's also applicable in so many other areas that listen, now think about it from this perspective, nothing was hidden, nothing was covered up, nothing was curated. They knew each other fully, nothing was hidden, nothing was curated, nothing was, let me get to see and know the real you, everything was completely unveiled, so to speak. And then that's how we were intended to live life. Not naked, calm down, I'm not saying that.

I'm saying emotionally, physically, mentally, we were designed to live, unveiled, uncovered, to know the real you, you to know the real me and me to know the real you, nothing concealed, nothing hidden. And then just a couple, it only lasted a couple of verses, and then in chapter three verse seven it says, and they hid themselves because they were ashamed. So before they were naked unashamed, and then all of a sudden now I have to conceal, I have to hide. And the Bible says they created fig leaves to cover what used to be revealed. And the truth is we don't walk around with fig leaves anymore, but we do carry around our own fig leaves, and we do hide behind things. We hide behind accomplishments and money and humor and busyness and competence and appearance and all of the things that you and I and all of us, we all do this. That's the good thing about sermons like this is I'm not coming after anybody because I'm coming after all of us. We all have a tendency to hide behind the fig leaves of what we think we want to present to people. And the truth is we can hide, it's easy to hide, it's easy to hide in a big church, it's easy to hide in a small church. It's easy to hide in a circle. You could be in a small group with five people and hide the real you. I could be in a pulpit and hide the real me. We see that happen, don't we? So the truth is what we have to learn to do, if we want to really be followers of the way, we have to learn how to become known, known. Now it's easy to preach, but how do we do that? That's really, really hard to do. And there's a couple of disclaimers along the way, but I want to talk to you about three things that keep us from doing this. Three things that will keep you from becoming fully known, which I believe is one of the main designs of God and living in community and living and becoming a father of the way. So all three of them are in this text and Genesis chapter two, all the way back to the very first relationship, the very first community that was ever established. And we see sin come in and destroy what the Lord intended on how we're supposed to live our lives. The first one we talked about, we touched on, let's touch on it real quick again. Number one, the first thing that will keep you from it is shame. And this is what shame says, "I must hide the real me. They won't accept me unless I put fig leaves on first and cover those parts that I don't want anybody to see." And that's what happened in Genesis two, chapter 25. It says, "Now the man and the

wife were both naked and they felt no shame." Sin comes in. Let me read it for you. I like verse seven. It starts in verse six. It says, "So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it too." Verse seven, listen to this, at that moment their eyes were opened and they suddenly felt shame. It came all, it came all of a sudden. I think it's interesting that it doesn't say they suddenly saw it, they suddenly experienced it, they suddenly felt it. Like it was a feeling and a feeling, not a reality. Nothing had changed. They were the same naked people they were before. Nothing had changed. But something made them feel shame. And so as a result, they covered, they changed, they covered up in those ways. And our culture is really good at this. Our culture is really good. How do you greet people? How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. How's your marriage? Oh, it's great. It's amazing. I have the greatest marriage ever. Didn't you see my social media page? We posted like three pictures last night of us smiling. Our marriage is awesome. We're living our best life over here. How are you? Oh, I'm blessed and highly favored, you know. Fig leaves, fig leaves, fig leaves, while behind we're hurting, we're struggling. So what's the practice? What's the practice? We got to incorporate some daily practices to help us overcome this. And listen, we're going to get into some disclaimers. It doesn't mean that you just dump all your business to everyone you know. And the clerk at the grocery store is like, how are you? And you start crying, like, my marriage is falling apart. I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm not saying those things, okay. But we're going to identify people in our lives that are trustworthy. And we're going to start removing some fig leaves. Okay, so how do we do this? What's a practice? How can I practice that this week? All right, this is going to blow your mind, y'all. This is crazy. All right. But this week, number one, practice. We're going to practice telling the truth. Again, disclaimer, don't go out in the lobby and somebody says, how are you doing today? And you're just like, well, my dog died and my marriage is falling apart. I don't have any money. Like, we're going to be careful about who we share with. I'm not saying you share everything to everyone. But there are people in your life that you want, that you respect. What you're doing is you're inviting someone to take one step closer into knowing the real you, into knowing what's really going on. I'm not blabbing my business to the world, but I'm putting hooks in the water to see if anybody wants to bite and to say that the Lord might lead anyone in my direction that would want to speak into my life and encourage me and honor

me in those ways. And so how's your marriage? It's okay. You know, we're struggling with our kids. We're struggling with our finances, whatever that looks like, but we have to learn to tell the truth. This passage, I mentioned it earlier in James chapter 5 verse 16. James 5, 16, it says, confess your sins to one another and pray for each other. And then it says so that you may be healed. And a lot of times we, when we read that, we're like, I'm not confessing my sins to anybody. But what if your sin wasn't this crazy thing that is on the tip of your tongue? Like, I can't say that. That's like, I can't, I can't say that. What if confessing your sins to you looks like confessing the sin of not relying on the Lord, confessing the sin of maybe not pouring into your kids the way that you should have. Maybe it's not these grandiose massive sins that we want to just harbor. What if confessing my sins looks like, you know, how are you, John? I've been better. I don't know that I've been the husband that I need to be in, in its head effects on my marriage, and I'm trying to figure that out. Do you know what I just did? I just confessed to you. And the Bible says, the Bible says right there, confess your sins one to another and pray for one another. So if I say that to you and you say, is it okay if I just pray for you and Michelle right now? Sure. Yeah, pray. That formula in James 5 over 16 says confess your sins and pray for each other so that you may be healed. So part of this is just taking the fig leaves off. Students at school, if there's students in here, maybe, maybe you find that friend at school that you're willing to come alongside and say, you know, I'm just hurting. I'm struggling. There's some stuff happening in my house that I don't know how to process them. Would you be praying for me? Whatever that looks like every single one of us have a way that we can just be honest and tell the truth. Tell the truth. So this week, what are we going to do? We're going to practice identifying somebody that we can be honest with. What a concept. We're going to, we're going to, we're going to lean in and we're going to say, you know what, I'm not fine. And I'm not going to let shame keep me from being honest. I'm not going to let shame keep that fig leaf in front of me. I'm going to remove the fig leaf. I'm going to stop hiding behind this facade of this pretend perfect life and step out boldly and stop posting fake junk on social media about what I wish my life looked like. Sorry, got real. And step up to somebody that I trust and say, you know what, everything's not great in my life. I got to be honest with somebody. All right. There's three of them. If that wouldn't get you, just hold on. I'm coming for you. All right. And I'm going to be very honest with you and tell you the one that I struggle with, all right, the most. So I want to be vulnerable

every week in an attempt and in a hope that in turn will let you be honest and vulnerable with yourself too. So shame is at your kryptonite. All right, number, let's talk about number two. Number two, pride. The prideful person says, I don't need anyone's help. I'll just handle it myself. I'll just handle it myself. And this is a different kind of hiding. It's a totally different kind of hiding. Adam and Eve hid behind their fig leaves out of shame. I like to think of Jacob, but Jacob was this guy who stole his brother's birthright, Esau, went on to get tons, mass tons of wealth through, through herds. And the Bible says that it's in Genesis 13. You should go read it later tonight. And the Bible says that he was going to be reintroduced to Esau. He had betrayed his brother and he thought for sure his brother was going to kill him. And he was scared of that. But he was too prideful to just go and be honest with his brother. And so the Bible says that he sent his herds out in front of him. That is symbolic in the Old Testament of wealth, of wealth. So it'd be like if you betrayed your brother and you're going to meet him again, like you sent your Lamborghini out in front of you. And you gave him a Lamborghini the day before you met with him. And the Bible literally says that Jacob said, "Perhaps I can appease Esau." He literally says that. So what Jacob struggled with wasn't necessarily shame as much as it was pride. He allowed pride to be the fig leaf for him. For those of us that struggle with pride, you would never call it. And can I just raise my hand and tell you that if all three of them, this is the one that I would struggle with the most. Okay? Let me tell you why. Usually, it's because this person is the fixer. When something's broke, they call you. When something needs to be paid for, they call you. When someone needs counseling, they call you. When someone needs advice, they call you. So what happens over time is you get so used to fixing everyone else's problems that what happens is a little seed of pride enters in that says when you need help, you don't know who to call because you're the fixer. You're the one that fixes your family's situations and your kids and your spouse and your parents call and everybody else calls and all your friends call and you become the fixer. And before you know it, you don't have any meaningful community and no one really knows who you are because you've never you've never let yourself become fully known because you're too busy fixing everybody else's problems. And this is a this is very very prevalent in men. Just call it what it is, fellas. It happens in women too, but a lot of times men think they're the fixer and sometimes we are, we feel like this pressure to be the provider. And so we're trying to be tough and we're trying to be the man of the house and and so many times what happens is a man

is is wasting away on the inside. But on the outside, we have to keep everything together. Okay, and it got quiet because I'm knocking on your doors. So the challenge with that is nobody ever really gets to know us. There's this passage in Galatians 6 that says share your share each other's burdens and in this way obey the law of Christ. So say it's not a suggestion. You're to share. Now me suffering from this pride thing and me being the fixer, my twisted mind when I read that verse is to share each other's burdens. You know what I'll read when I read that? Share everyone else's burdens. Take on everyone else's burdens. But that's not what it says. It says share. Share means I help you with your burdens and you help me with mine. But if I never tell you what my burdens are, how could you ever help me? And so the prideful person ends up doing life in a way that we fix everyone else's but no one ever gets to know the real us. In Mark 2, there's the story of the paralytic man and we all know this story. His four buddies pick him up. They pick up his mat and they take him to Jesus and they put him up on the roof and they tear a hole through the roof. You heard about that in Sunday school maybe one day and most sermons that I've ever heard are all about the four dudes that carried him. You need to find friends that will carry you and who in your life is carrying you to Jesus and those are all applicable. Those are all good sermons. But no one ever preaches about how humble this paralytic man had to be to let four dudes carry him. I'd be willing to let four of your closest friends pick you up and carry you somewhere, carry you through a season of your life when you couldn't pay your own bills and your friend had to pay your bills for you. That's humbling. It's seemingly embarrassing but really it's where the greatest bonds in life are really fused together is when we share each other's burdens and pride will come in and keep us from doing these things. And so here's the practice to overcome at prideful people preaching this one to myself, hitting myself in the head off the back wall. Here's the practice. It's crazy. It's crazier than the first one. The first practice was to tell the truth. For us prideful people you know what we have to do. We have to practice asking for help. It's crazy. Mind-blowing. And what does that look like, John? How do I ask for help? Well, listen, I'm not telling you to go from zero to a thousand. Maybe for you, it's just simply telling somebody close to you, "Hey, would you pray with me? Would you pray for me?" I've got some hard things going on in my life and I don't want to bore you with all of them and I'm not going to tell, I don't really feel comfortable to tell you everything, but would you just pray for me? Would you go to coffee with me? It might be humbling yourself enough to say,

"You know, I'm going to tell you something that I've never told anybody." And explaining. I feel like I have to keep everything together and everything, but this one area in my life, I don't know how to carry it and I don't know how to fix it. And I'm just looking, you man to man, I'm looking at you, woman to woman, I'm asking you to, "Would you please pray for me? Would you come alongside me?" And what you're doing is you're inviting somebody to know you, to know the real you, not the fig leaf you, not the protection. we have to figure out a way to get beyond the barrier of our fig life lives, fig leaf lives, and move into an intimacy that God really designed for us. The last one is not least, it's not the least, but it is the last. If shame doesn't keep you from fellowship and if pride isn't your MO number three, it'll be fear. Fear says that I have to protect myself from blank, from whatever that is, from some past experience. Fear tells me that if I don't step up and keep this from happening again, then it will happen again. Adam confesses this to the Lord. The Lord comes to him in Genesis 3.9 and says, "Where are you?" He says, "Where are you?" And Adam says, "I heard you in the garden and I was afraid." So fear is what sent him into hiding. And this is what happens to us too. A previous experience, something that happened that drives me into hiding. And so some of you aren't hiding because you're prideful, you're not hiding because you're ashamed. You're hiding because you've been hurt. Hiding because you've been hurt. You're like, "John, no, no, no. This sermon is hugwash. It's not real. I've tried that. I tried to let people know me better. I actually, John, I invited people into the most intimate parts of my life and they betrayed me. They abused me. They abused my vulnerability. I told that person the most intimate details of my life and she went and told everybody. And I will never let that happen again. I will never let that happen again out of fear. And so what we do, just to be blunt, is we build walls. We build walls and walls provide protection. And you don't build the wall because you're anti-social. You actually love people and you would love to be known by more people. But out of fear of pain, you build a wall. Not because you're anti-social. You built the wall because the wall worked. It works. And it does keep people from betraying you. And no one's betrayed you in years because you won't let anybody get close enough to betray you. And that's great. Walls serve their purpose. The problem with walls is they don't just keep things out. They don't just keep pain out. They keep intimacy out. And they keep community out. And they keep friendship out. And they keep out the ability to share one another's burdens

because we have these walls up. And disclaimer, another disclaimer, biblical vulnerability does not mean we let everybody in. And we let everybody have access to us. That is not wise. We all know that person too. That just blabs everything to everybody. That's not wise. Not wise. But we do have to lean in and let the Holy Spirit lead and guide us to certain people that we could trust that could speak into our lives. And we let them in. We let them in little by little. I'm not saying swing the doors wide open, but would you just crack the wall just enough to let somebody come in and get to know you better? Jesus modeled this, y'all. Jesus modeled this. But the Bible says that everywhere Jesus went, there were thousands of people. He had to feed the 5,000. He had to feed the 4,000. Everywhere he went, there were masses of people. He wouldn't stand up on the platform. Let me tell you guys my darkest pain. He ministered to them. He loved them. And then he had, in Luke 10, it says that he sent them out two by two. And it says there were 72 of them. So 72 people that he was personally kind of discipling on some broad level. And then he had his 12, his 12 disciples. These were the men that he really poured himself into. And they got to know him intimately. They laughed together. They cried together. But check this out. Jesus didn't just have the 12. He had three men. Three men that he let come in close and intimately into his life. Peter, James, and John, he let them come in close. He took them to Joris' daughter's resurrection. He only took them three. Didn't take anybody else. He took them to the Mount of Transfiguration, just them three. He took those three to Gethsemane, the darkest day of his life. He let them in to feel that. Let me read that one for you. It's really, really good. He shows the intimacy here. Mark 14, verse 32, it says, "They went to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and Jesus said, sit here, will I go and pray?" And he took, listen, he took Peter, James, and John. Not everyone. Not everyone. And he became deep. Now listen to these words, and he told them, my soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. And he just begs him, would you please just stay here? Just stay here and keep watch with me. He didn't do that to the masses. He didn't do that to the 72. He didn't do that to the 12. He did it with three people.

He says, I want you to know me more intimately than anyone else in my life. So much so that this is the same occurrence when the Bible says that Jesus sweat drops of blood. He let three men see this. Jesus modeled this for us. You know what Jesus, Jesus, the Son of God, the faultless lamb never had sinned, still had community. Still let men get into his life. If there was anybody that's ever walked the place of the earth that could have said, I don't need anybody's help, I can do this all by myself. Jesus himself brought people in close while he grieved. He let them in, he refused to build walls. He let them in, and guess what? Jesus was betrayed too. Jesus was betrayed too. And when you let people in close, guess what, you're gonna get betrayed too. Jesus picked 12 people. I don't have that many fingers. Jesus picked 12 people, y'all, 12 people, and one of them betrayed him. You're gonna pick bad friends too. Someone's gonna betray you. And Jesus modeled this in such beautiful ways for us. So Jesus is willing to say, I'm overwhelmed. Stay with me. Then who in your life do you have that you could tear down a wall

and just let somebody in close to say, would you just stay with me? Would you just be with me? They didn't try to fix it, they couldn't fix it. There's nothing they could do to fix the situation. But Jesus let them come in close, which by the way, comically, Jesus knew what they were about to do. He invites them in close. He shares his most intimate moment with them. I'm grieving, I'm deeply distressed. He goes away to pray for a few minutes. He comes back and what are they doing? Sleeping. He goes to the cross. What does Peter do, denies him three times? He'd let Peter come in close to him and got betrayed. Jesus has lived the life we live, y'all. And he models the way for us. And we're followers of the way, so we do what Jesus did. So the third practice is this. If you struggle with fear of letting people in, here's your practice, okay? It's very simple, every practice is simple. We're gonna practice trusting people again. We're gonna practice trusting people again. Not everybody, not everybody, but we're gonna find one person. We're allowed the Holy Spirit to lead us to one person that we can not swing the doors wide open.

We're gonna put a crack in our wall and let somebody in. We're gonna let somebody get to know me better. I'm gonna trust again, even though you've been betrayed, even though you've been thrown to the dirt, even though the person that should have treated you well didn't, I'm gonna step beyond it. And I'm gonna learn to trust again because of the importance of community in our lives. So what would it look like if a community, if a church, if a community all did this? Like what would that look like? Well, Acts 2 shows us, let me just read you this in closing, Acts 2, 42. It says the believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship. That fellowship is the Greek Requinonia, by the way, which is a whole in-depth teaching that I don't have time to teach. It's about sharing, it's about doing community together. It's fellowship and to sharing in meals and to prayer, verse 43. A deep sense of awe came over all of them. And the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders and all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and their possessions and shared the money with all those in need. They worshiped together in the temple each day, met in the homes for the Lord's Supper and shared meals with great joy and generosity,

all while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day, the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved. It's a picture of what it looks like to be in communion, to be in communion, yeah. So let's just recap, all right? Let's get super practical. Three things we're gonna try. First, you need to identify which one of those you're more likely to deal with and then the other ones. Is it shame? Is it shame? Is it pride? Is it fear? Is it shame? Is it pride? Is it fear? I know what mine is. So I know what my practice has to be. So if it's shame, what you gotta practice is you gotta practice telling the truth. I'm gonna tell the truth. and with the right person, I'm gonna pull this fig league back and say, this is the real me. This is what I actually am. This is who I actually am. Would you pray with me? Would you walk with me?

Would you do life with me? Would you love the real me, not to pretend me? If it's pride, for all my pride brothers and sisters in the room, we're gonna, we're gonna practice asking for help. We're gonna ask for help, will you help me? Could I ask you to pray with me? Could I ask you to pray for me? Whatever that looks like, just find one way that you can ask for help. Number three, if you struggle with fear, we're gonna practice trusting people again. We're gonna invite one, just one. Listen, I am not asking you to become an extrovert. Calm down. All the introverts in the room. Just breathe the sigh of relief. I'm not asking you to become an extrovert. I am not asking you to go find 10 new friends this week. I'm not saying any of those things. I am asking you to invite one trustworthy person, one trustworthy person, into a deeper relationship with you. And you do it through an invitation, an invitation. We bear heads to close your eyes with me for just a moment. If you're here today and you don't have a relationship with Jesus, I don't want us to leave without addressing that. We can sit here all day long and talk about what it looks like to be a follower of the way. But if we don't tell somebody how to become a follower in the first place, then there's no path.

There's no journey. We gotta begin the journey by accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior. And so if you're here or any of our campuses, in just a moment, I'm gonna count to three. And when I do, I wanna ask you to raise your hand and here's what you're doing. You're responding and saying, I need Jesus. Let's just make it real simple. What you're saying is I've tried this on my own and I can't do it by myself anymore and I need Jesus. And my question to you is not if you're religious, I'm not asking you if you went to church when you were five, I'm not asking you if you've ever been baptized, I'm not asking you if you grew up in church or if you're parents or Christians, none of that matters. It's your life. Are you in a personal relationship with Jesus? And if you can't honestly answer that question with a strong and confident yes, then let's fix that. Because following Jesus is very difficult. We have to deny ourselves and pick up our cross every day. But giving your life to Jesus is the easiest thing you'll ever do because he's already paid the price. He died on a cross for your sin. He was resurrected on the third day for your victory and the work on the cross is a finished work, finished. And you need the work of the cross in the same way that I need the work of the cross. So on the count of three at every single campus,

I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand on the count of three and don't hesitate, all right? Ready, one, two, three, shoot your hand out all over the room, yeah. - We're so grateful that you joined us today. At Victory, we pray big prayers to a big God and we expect big results. If you would like to receive prayer, you can submit a prayer request by visiting victory.church/pray. If this message or any of our messages have impacted your life and you would like to partner with us through giving, you can do so at victory.church/give. Thank you again for joining us. At Victory Church, we live life to the full. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]