What You're Missing By Staying Quiet

Hey, a very special welcome to every single one of you worshiping today. And I believe with all my heart that you are not here by accident, but not only are you here to give glory to our King, but our Father wants to speak to you as well. If your campus pastor's been encouraging you to maybe make room on Sundays, the reason is because we need you to make room on Sundays. I've been telling you for a while that there is a very unique spiritual hunger. And I'm telling you, people are asking spiritual questions and we're seeing just an influx of people searching for hope and help and finding life in Christ. And so at your church, if there's a Saturday, thank you to those of you who are going on Saturdays. The fastest growing services is Saturday. If you can worship there to make room, it'd be amazing. If you have an early service on Sunday, that would work great. If there's an afternoon service on Sunday or an evening service, those kind of ones in the middle, at most of our churches, they are full and we can't fit people. So if you're able to shift to another time, you could actually make room for someone to find hope and life in Christ. And so thank you for considering doing that. And we praise God, Father, for your work in every person. We ask that you speak to us today.

Continue to help us be a church that pleases you, God. We pray this in the name of your son, Jesus. And everybody said, amen. Well, there's something I know about every single one of you, everyone, at every Life.Church location, in every state, those of you around the world online. What I know about every single one of you is that you are bold about something. Every single one of you. Some of you, you're bold about your kids. Because objectively speaking, you do have the most amazing kids in the history of the world. You're bold about your kids. Some of you, you're bold about your favorite team. Embarrassingly bold about your favorite team. So much so you take your shirt off and paint yourself colors and tell yourself, this is the year your team's gonna do it. Some of you are bold about your workout plans because it changed your life. Many of you are bold about your politics because you're right and everybody else is wrong. Some of you, you're just bold about coffee and you know the only way it should be made. We don't have to talk to be bold. We already know how to be bold. Why? Because we're bold about what we value. We speak up about what matters to us.

We defend the things that we love. So today, I'm not gonna ask you if you are bold because you actually are bold. What I'm gonna ask you is like, what are you bold about? And for those of you that are Christians, and what I don't mean is like you were, you're born in the United States of America and you're not Muslim, so you're Christian. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about that your sins have been forgiven. That you've been filled with the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead. That you know that you're an ambassador into this world, that you're called to be light, that you're called to go into all the world and make disciples, preaching the name of Jesus. I'm talking to you. If those of you who would say, yes, I have been changed by Jesus. I know I am His. My name is written in the Lamb's book of life. I'm gonna ask you for those of you that know you're Christians, are you bold about your faith in Jesus? Are you bold? About your faith in Jesus? Because if your life has truly been changed by Jesus, you don't have to be pushed to talk about Him. You actually want to talk about Him. We're in a message series that we're called,

calling A Church That Pleases God. And a church that pleases God is made up of what? If you know, just go ahead and say it. It's made up of what? It's made up of people that are pleasing God. And one of the qualities that we're gonna find that is actually pleasing to God are people that are bold about their faith in Jesus. Jesus even said that if you boldly confess me before people, I'll confess you before my Father in heaven. But if you're ashamed of me, if you're not bold about me, if you don't tell others about me, Jesus said, I'm not gonna confess you before my Father. And when you look at the first century church and the book of Acts, the very first followers of Jesus, what you're gonna see is that boldness isn't a side theme in the book of Acts. Boldness is the defining. mark of the first century church, and one of the marks of a church that pleases God. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you just a very, very brief overview, and then we're gonna dive into some specific verses in the book of Acts. But I'm gonna show you in Acts chapter one, we see this. God promises to send the Holy Spirit in power, unleashing an unshakable boldness to spread the gospel of Jesus. Then in Acts chapter two, the Holy Spirit unites believers into a church

boldly devoted to God's word, to God's people, and to God's mission. Then in Acts chapter four, under threats of severe persecution, the church prays and asks God for boldness, and God fills them with power and releases radical generosity through the body of Christ. Acts chapter five, the believers choose obedience over safety, and the disciples preach Christ boldly in the face of suffering and persecution. Then in Acts 17, Paul boldly preaches Jesus in hostile cultures, reasoning publicly without compromising the gospel. Then the last chapter of the book of Acts, Acts 28, and the very last verse of the last chapter of the book of Acts, you see that even in chains, Paul proclaims the gospel with boldness and without hindrance. From Acts chapter one to Acts 28, the church made up of Spirit-filled believers is marked with a boldness for the bold love of a Savior who died so we could be made new. And it kind of raises the question when you think about it. In spite of all of the opposition those first century Christians faced, all the threat, all the pain they endured, all the persecution,

why do they continue to risk their lives boldly for the sake of the gospel? And the answer is because boldness isn't what the church does when it feels strong. It's what the church does when it knows Jesus. It's not something that we work up whenever we think, oh my gosh, I've gotta go be bold for him. It's born out of a living relationship with the risen Christ that moves us out of our comfort into a self-sacrificing boldness to help others know who he is and what it means to know him. And so if we're gonna be a church that pleases God, we're gonna be made up of people that are pleasing God. And one of the qualities of people that are pleasing God are those who are bold, sharing a reflection of God's love for us, through us, to help others know the grace and life they can have in Christ. So how do we do that? Like how do we do it individually? Like you when you go to school or you when you go to work or you in your family that may not believe in Jesus. And then how do we do it corporately when we come together as the church to show the love of Jesus in the world? We're gonna look at the book of Acts and we're gonna start in Acts chapter four. And we're gonna look at one of the most powerful stories to give you the context.

There's two guys named Peter and John. And these guys were probably, they weren't the best educated people. They were fishermen that had kind of ordinary jobs and they had prayed and God healed a man that had been crippled from birth. And so they're out there telling everybody, hey, Jesus did this and it's by the power of God. And what they did was they were kind of poking at the religious leaders because they said, it was the same guy that you crucified, Jesus, that God raised from the dead, he's the one who did this. Now, whenever they said that God raised him from the dead, that was considered heresy to the Sadducees. So they were kind of poking at him and they were saying, you killed him, but God raised him. You killed him, but God raised him. And they were so bold saying this before the leaders who had the power to take their lives that the leaders were astonished. And so they arrested the religious leaders, arrested Peter and John, and they were standing before the same council that crucified Jesus. And these ordinary fishermen spoke with so much confidence and so much courage and so much passion and so much boldness that the leaders were stunned. Acts chapter four, verse 13 tells us this. The members of the council were amazed. They're taking it back.

When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, they weren't amazed with their education. They weren't amazed with their oratory. skills, they weren't amazed with the fly look that they had in the brand of shoes they were wearing. They were amazed at the boldness. For they could see that these two guys, Peter and John, were ordinary men with no special training in Scripture. How'd they do this? How are these ordinary guys with no training so bold and so confident? They were amazed by their boldness. When was the last time that someone looked on and was amazed by how bold you were for Jesus? I'll tell you, when I first became a follower of Jesus, they were amazed because I was a punk that got saved. And when I don't even know, is punk a word nowadays? Not really. Back then, it was a word, punk. I was a punk, and I'm saying I was a punk. Like, you would've seen me, you'd go, he's a punk. I was playing college tennis, I was very, very lost. And back then, and they still have it, on rackets, you'd have the label. I'll show you a picture just so you'll see. You'll see the P on there, that stood for Prince. Well, we had to string our own rackets, and we were on a really good team, always ranked top 10 in the nation, NAI, but nevermind that, but anyway, you know, NAI.

And so we were cocky. And what we would do is we would write bad words with markers on our rackets, bad words. Like, when you think of a bad one, yeah, maybe that one. I was a punk. And then I got radically changed by Jesus, and immediately, I went from bad word guy to I put cross on my racket. It felt so bold. I put the little fish Christian symbol. I would write Jesus on there. I went from bad word guy to Jesus guy. And then I would pray before every match, and everybody was so confused. And then I got this award one time, and they said, would you like to say a few words? And I said, yes, I would, and I stepped forward. And in about 60 seconds, I told the whole gospel. I preached from Genesis to Revelation, talked about sin, salvation, sanctification, justification, the resurrection, the soon returning King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and they were amazed. They were amazed. Like, that guy's so bold. They made fun of me. They persecuted me. They were amazed. And so again, I wanna talk to those of you that are followers of Jesus. If you're not a committed follower of Jesus,

you get a pass on this question, so no pressure. For those of you that are Christians, and this is not to shame you, it's not to guilt you, it's just to get you to reflect. I would ask you this question. On a scale of one to 10, one being the lowest, 10 being the highest, how bold are you about your faith for Jesus? If you're a Christian, how bold? To make it easier for you, I'm gonna say you're not a one. We're gonna say one is the devil, and 10 is Jesus. You're not the devil, and you're not Jesus, so we'll make it a little bit easier for you. Let's start on the high end. If you're like an eight or a nine, you are not at church by yourself because you brought two or three people with you because you're always inviting people, and you probably shared your faith with multiple people this week. You're praying for lots of people who need Jesus. You may have led someone to Christ yesterday, because why? You're bold in your faith, you're an eight or a nine. You might be in the middle, and that is, you'll bring someone to church with you once every three or four months, and you are praying for somebody right now, and people at work would say, oh yeah, yeah, she's probably a Christian, and your fraternity, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, we know he's a Christian guy,

or maybe you're on the lower end of the scale where you really do believe in Jesus, but the people at work might say, oh my gosh, I've worked with you for seven years, and I didn't know you're a Christian. I'm a Christian too. And it's not that you don't love Jesus, it's just that they don't know about it. You probably haven't brought anyone to church. You probably haven't led anyone to Christ. You probably haven't shared your faith. For you, being a witness is just living a life that's a pretty good life, and you'd be a little bit lower on the scale. Again, not to shame you, but just to think about it, on a scale of one to 10, where would you put yourself? The religious leaders, they said, these guys, they're like a nine. We're shocked by it. And what some of you are gonna think is kind of what I would think too, which is, well, I'm more introverted, and I'm more reserved. I've got people that are loud. You know, you've all got that friend. In fact, if you're an introvert, you're probably married to the annoying, loud person, because that's how it tends to work. And I'm not that person. I'm just not very, I'm not naturally bold.

And what I wanna remind you is that boldness isn't a personality trait. It's the overflow of a real relationship with Jesus. And you can see it in God's Word. The leaders, they're amazed at Peter and John's boldness because they were ordinary people. I'll show you a really cool thing that came from my time in seminary because I studied the original language in seminary. And every time I show you those words, just so you know, I actually worked really hard in school. The word in the Greek translated as ordinary is the word idiotai. And this mean, this word is translated as ordinary. That's exactly what it means. It means ordinary, untrained, with no credentials, no religious status, and outside of the traditional system. They were amazed because these guys were idiotais. In other words, they were very ordinary, nothing special that stood out about them, no training, which is really good news. To say it politely, God uses ordinary people. And if you think more like I do, you're asking yourself, I wonder what English word comes from the word idiotai. And if you ask yourself that, and you think it's the word idiot, you're exactly right. God is using a bunch of ordinary idiots, which is great news for people like me because you don't have to always be the one they expect.

God uses ordinary people. And for those of you in life church Albany, because you're in the Northeast, you don't know this, but in the South, if someone ever says, bless your heart, just so you know, they already know. What that means is you're an idiot, just so you know. If someone says, bless your heart, that means you're an idiot. If I fell off the stage, I got too close, they say, well, bless his heart. That means he's an idiot. For example, the time I did my very first funeral, I was 22 years of age. A lady died that was like 190. She was, it was time for her to go to heaven. Should have been an easy funeral. It was an outdoor funeral. And they said, Craig, would you lead them and have everyone sing amazing grace? And so I said, sure I will. And so they were all there, maybe 20 people. And so I started singing amazing grace. If you don't know, I'm a joyful noise type of guy, not one who leads worship. I started singing amazing grace and no one joined in. My only solo was horrible. In the middle of my solo, a fly outside, I'm singing amazing, and it wasn't amazing, it was bad. A fly flew in, hit my little uvula thing, the little dingly thing back there,

dropped into my throat about there. I've got two choices. Grandma's dead, I'm singing a solo, I hack a loogie, or I take one. What do you think I did? Oh, you know what I did. I took one for team Jesus, right there at the moment, in the middle of my funeral, I digested the fly. Got to the end of the funeral, true story. And I go for the closing part. I put my hand on the casket, I look very pastoral. And you know what they say at the end of funerals, right? You know, they say, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I said it, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And then I thought, what comes after that? What comes after that? I still don't even know. When it comes after that, I don't know. So I thought, everybody's sad, I just swallowed a fly, I'm gonna make this funny. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I sure hope this coffin doesn't rust. I said it. I said it. See, you laughed, I thought it was funny. They didn't, they didn't have a personality. The funeral's over. I'm walking to the car with the funeral home director guy. He's an older guy in a suit.

He looks at me and says, first funeral? I say, yes, sir. And he said, bless your heart. That's what it means. And in the Greek, the word of God said they were amazed because they were just ordinary idiots. They're looking on, they're going, where did the boldness come from? How'd these guys get so bold? And the last part of the verse shows us the religious leaders were amazed by their boldness. And Scripture says they were astonished. And they took note that, why were these guys bold? They took note that these men had been with Jesus. You see, boldness isn't a personality trait. It's reflection, it's a reflection of time with Jesus. And if you find yourself on the lower end of the scale, maybe like you're a two or a three and you realize you're not that bold, chances are, not in everyone's case, but in many cases, it's a reflection of how much time you're spending with Jesus. Because there's a couple of cycles that tend to happen, and I'll show you both of them. The first one is whenever you spend more time with Jesus, you're in his word and you're praying. And worship isn't just what you do on Sunday. but it's a part of your life. Your life is worship, and you're being directed by the Spirit of God.

Whenever you spend more time with Jesus, your boldness increases because you feel a sense of spiritual urgency, and you wanna make a difference. And when your boldness increases, what happens is your spiritual impact intensifies because you're serving in church, and you're seeing God use you in the lives of people, and you're praying for people at work, and then someone asks a question, and you actually share your faith with them, and your boldness, your spiritual impact intensifies, and so then your spiritual hunger grows because you're making a difference, and you spent time with Jesus, and now you want more time with Jesus, and the cycle goes, and you continue to grow in boldness. When you spend time with Jesus, your passion grows, and your impact grows, and therefore your hunger grows, and you spend more time with Jesus, and your boldness continues to make a difference. And then sometimes you actually get distracted, and instead of more time with Jesus, you spend less time with Jesus because life gets busy, doesn't it, sometimes? And you skip your Bible time one day, and then you skip it another day, and your prayer life kind of falters, and you don't make it to church because of the game,

and the next week you don't make it to church because it's too hot, and the next week you don't make it to church because it's too cold, and you're not serving anywhere, and you haven't really shared your faith, and because you spent less time with Jesus, you're just not as bold because it's not front of mind. You've got your mind on other things. You're paying the bills, you're trying to keep your yard, you're trying to keep your kids going and get them everywhere, and when your boldness decreases, your spiritual impact diminishes. I mean, you're not serving in church, and you're not serving in the community, and you haven't shared your faith in the community, and when your spiritual impact diminishes, then you just drift from Jesus. It's not that you don't love him. It's just you haven't spent a lot of time with him. You just got busy, you got distracted, and when you drift from Jesus, your boldness decreases, and you find yourself in a negative cycle. The key is time in his presence. It's like, it's not that we're reading his word to make ourselves like smarter so we can win the Bible drill when they say, can you find the book of Obadiah?

You know, no, it's more like, it's like, I actually need him. I need him to renew his mind. I need his word to direct my steps. I need to be convicted by the Spirit so I walk away with sin. I need him to build my faith so that I'm walking by faith and not by sight, and when I'm spending time with him, I'm just bolder, and when I'm bolder, I'm making a bigger difference. When I'm making a bigger difference, my spiritual hunger grows, and I get bolder and bolder, and then you're becoming a fully devoted follower of Christ. So in our story, these guys had been with Jesus. They heard him teach. They saw the miracles. Therefore, they were bold. The guy you crucified, God raised from the dead, he's the one who has all power. He is the only way to God, and they're preaching faithfully, and the religious leaders got angry and said, hey, you can't do that, you can't do that. If you preach like that anymore, we'll arrest you, we'll beat you. We may even kill you. They threatened their lives. So if your life is threatened for your faith in Jesus,

do you get bolder or do you get more timid? These guys, they prayed, and they should, because their lives were in danger. And what's crazy is to see what they prayed for. If my life was in danger, I'm probably gonna pray, protect me, God. You know, most Christians pray, bless me, God. Keep me safe on my dangerous four-mile drive to work today. But when their lives were threatened, let me show you what these disciples prayed. Oh now, oh Lord, hear their threats, and give us your servant's great boldness in preaching your word. Oh Lord, hear their threats, and give us great boldness in preaching your word. Lord, hear their threats, and give us great boldness. Because a church that pleases God doesn't ask God to make life easier. We ask God to make us bolder. Yeah. Look at their whole prayer, and I wanna show you God's answer. Their whole prayer is this, and now, oh Lord, hear their threats, and give us your servant's great boldness in preaching the word. Stretch out your hand with healing power. May miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy servant, Jesus. And after this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,

and they preached the word of God with boldness. Lord, hear their threats, and make us bold. Wonder what would happen in your life if every day, as part of your time with Jesus, when you open up the Word. and he talked to him, if he said, make me bold, help me be bold at work, help me be bold at the gym, help me be bold in front of my family. What do you think God would do if daily you asked him to make you bold? The guys kept preaching, even though their lives were in danger and miracles happened and people were saved and everything went well, perfectly, no problems because they were doing the work of God, right? No, why? Because boldness triggers spiritual opposition. It's spiritual opposition. You step out in faith, the enemy pushes back. Scripture says this, the religious leaders arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. If you're paying careful attention, this is the second time they've been in prison this week. Most people today, if that happened, they'd be like, I can't take it anymore, I'm leaving the church, Christianity is too hard, God's not with me. I mean, that's kind of the way we are. I prayed and it got hard, where's God? If you're bold in your faith, get ready to be persecuted.

Get ready for opposition. If you're bold for your faith in school, get ready for them to make fun of you. If you stand up for Jesus online, get ready to be berated and mocked and scoffed at and cussed at. If you stand up for your faith boldly with integrity at work, you may get looked over for a promotion. Why? Because boldness triggers opposition. I say it this way. Don't worry if you're criticized or persecuted for your boldness. Worry if you're not. Because when you're truly living for Jesus, the forces of darkness push back. That boldness triggers spiritual opposition. That's the bad news. But the good news is that God honors bold faith. Watch what happens. They stand bold, they continue to pray. The religious leaders arrested the apostles and put them in a public jail. Luke, he's the doctor, he's writing this. And Luke says, "'But during the night, an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out.'" Would you pause there? And I want you to look at just this verse for a moment.

Luke barely makes a deal out of the angel. I'm gonna read it again. "'But during the night, an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out.'" There's not even an exclamation point. There's not like a, oh my gosh, the angel was like nine feet tall, shining in white with a bronze sword. Hashtag amazing. There was nothing like that. It's not like they were in trouble, they prayed, and an angel of the Lord showed up and got them out. Matter of fact. No like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. Almost like they were expecting God to do something. Why? Because when you walk in bold obedience to God, you aren't shocked by the miraculous power of God. You're just walking by faith, believing by faith that God's gonna show up and do something, and he does. And then in verse 20, the angel tells them this. The angel says, "'Go stand in the temple courts and tell the people about this new life.' And at daybreak, they enter the temple courts, as they've been told, and begin to teach the people.'" Now, what did the angel tell them to do? "'Go do what got you arrested twice before and may get you beaten, which inspires me to be bold in my faith.

And I have been bolder than you can imagine, and I've been timid.'" Amy and I took one of my sons, Stephen, and his wife, Ashton, to this little camp ranch thing where you had an archery and horseback riding. I'll show you this video of Stephen doing archery. Can you zoom in on this? Make a zoom in, because he's never shot before. This is him doing it. Zoom in, quick, quick, quick. This is him. Boom, look at that. Boom, look at that. That's just amazing. That's a pastor you wanna learn from right there, is a pastor who can shoot like that. Anyway, that had nothing to do with anything, but I was just proud. I'm just a dad of a pastor who did that. Pastor to students, if your kids aren't in switch, men are missing out. Oh, they're missing out on the power of God working through our students. You wanna see passion? Look at our students. You wanna see boldness? Look at our students. So we were there at this place, and the people that worked at the camp lived there. And so to this day, I can tell you five names

of the people we interacted with. I could tell you I don't wanna do it in case they don't wanna think I'm gossiping about them, but we prayed over our meals, and we talked a little bit about God, but we never went all the way to share our faith. We got home, and Amy came in. Great trip, and she walked in looking kind of sad, and my mind's racing. What did I not do? What did I forget? Was I not paying attention? Did I not repeat back what she just said? And I said, what's going on? She said, oh, nothing. I had to pull it out of her. And she went and she went and named the people. She goes, so and so and so and so and so and so and so. So we never shared our faith directly with them, and I thought, you're exactly right. Stephen would have, my son, but he was following my lead. I almost did, I almost did, I almost did, but I just didn't want to push them. The trip was so much fun, I didn't wanna make it uncomfortable, I didn't wanna make it awkward for them, so I actually just chose my comfort over really caring for them. Because you can believe in Jesus privately and still not share his love boldly.

And it raises the piercing question that I have to ask myself. Is your faith strong enough to believe in Jesus, but too timid to be bold for him? If it is, if you find yourself going, yeah, I'm actually on the lower end of that scale of one to 10, what do you do? Well, you spend time with Jesus. You get in his word, you get in his presence, and you make worship a part of your life, and you let his spirit lead you and convict you and speak to you, and then when you do, you just naturally become bold. Boldness isn't a personality trait, it's a reflection of time with Jesus. And so what kind of a church pleases God? A church that pleases God is made up of people that are pleasing God. And people who are bold for Jesus are pleasing to God. And so if we're gonna be a bold church, we're not gonna pray for comfort and protection, we're gonna pray for boldness. Because a comfortable church may feel good, but a bold church makes a difference in this world. And so what are we gonna do? We're gonna spend time with Jesus. I'm gonna tell you right now, I'm not gonna be in an environment like that again with people that I care about and not share my faith. I'm gonna spend enough time with Jesus

till the fire is hot and the love is deep, and if we genuinely believe what we say we believe, we are not gonna be timid. For our God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a power of love and a sound mind. So what we're gonna do today is we're gonna do something just a little bit different. Normally I'd say close your eyes and pray, but you could actually pray with your eyes open. Jesus said watch and pray, which is a good model if you're ever praying and driving at the same time. So we're gonna watch and pray. God, we ask that you'd make us bold. Would you just say it, God, make me bold? If you're a Christian today, I'm just speaking to Christians, and you would say, yeah, Craig, I've been like you sometimes. I wasn't as bold as I know I could be, should be, and I wanna be bold. Let's just call it what it is right in front of everybody. Say, God, I need you to help me be bolder. Raise up your hands just all over the place, and praise God for boldness online. Just type in the comments section, God help me. Leave your hands up just for fun. Let's make it awkward. Let's make it awkward. Let's leave them out for just a second. I'm gonna pray for you with your hand lifted up. God, as we lift our hands up to you,

this is a sign of worship, of who you are, and what your son has done for us, and because of who Jesus is and what he's done. We repent of our timidity. We repent of our fear. God, I repent of my comfort. Make us bold. Individually, make us bold. Corporately, make us bold so that we can show the love of Jesus in a dark world. When the world grows darker, guess what? The light shines brighter. Church, be the light, be the light, be the light, be the light, be the light, be the light. Don't come to church alone. Don't not pray for somebody. Spend time with Jesus till it overflows. If you agree, say in Jesus' name, say amen. Amen. We're still praying. We're watching and praying. There are those of you that you don't really know where you stand with God. I said earlier, if you know that you're a child of God, that you know if your life was over, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt, you would spend eternity with God in heaven. There are those of you, I could ask you that on a scale of one to 10, how sure are you? How sure are you you would spend eternity with heaven?

Some of you say five, six, seven. I'm gonna tell you right now, if you don't know, I'm talking to you. Because Scripture says our spirit will bear witness. How do we know if we're right with God? Well, Scripture tells us that on our own, we're not, meaning we've all sinned. And you know that feeling when you feel guilty and ashamed of what you did, like I shouldn't have said that, I shouldn't have done that, and you think, well, I'm probably not good enough for God, so I better try hard. That's where we all start. That's humanism, that's not Christianity. Christianity is God doing for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. God became flesh in the person of Jesus, for God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son, Jesus, that whosoever believes in him wouldn't perish, but have eternal life. Scripture says that we are dead in our sins, and the only way we're made right with God is to repent, to turn away from our sins, to put our faith in Jesus. We're not saved by our own good works, we're saved by our faith in Jesus. Now, here's what Jesus said, and this is where it gets a little tricky. He said this, he said,

he said, if you'll confess me before people, I'll confess you before my Father in heaven. But Jesus said this, he said, if you don't, I won't. Like, if you're ashamed of me, maybe you don't really know me. So today, instead of preaching it up, Just gonna preach it out. Just say, if you don't know where you stand with Jesus and you wanna be right with Him, we're stepping away from our sins and we're gonna give our lives to Jesus. Not a prayer to save me, a prayer of devotion to Him, a prayer of He is everything. Like I wanna know Him, I wanna serve Him, I want my life to reflect Him. I need His grace, I need His forgiveness. My life is no longer my own, I give it to Him. When you call on Him, He hears your prayers, He forgives your sins, He makes you brand new. In front of everybody that's looking, who cares? I need Him. Who cares what they think I want is forgiveness? Who cares what anybody says? I'm stepping away from my sin, I'm giving my life to Jesus before God and everybody else. If you're surrendering your life to Jesus today, lift up your hands and say, that's me. I'm giving my life to Him. Up there, God bless you guys, right here, over there. Others of you that say yes, right back over there

and over there, lift it all, praise God for you. Praise God today. Others of you say yes, right back over there. All right here, praise God and up there. Ah, yes, ah. Come on, church, give God glory. Praise God for your boldness, your boldness. You're not ashamed of Him. Online, type in the comment section, I'm surrendering my life to Christ. Just type it, I'm surrendering. Just type it boldly online so everybody can see. Pastor Sam, hey, this is your campus. Would you come up today? And in front of some really bold people who don't care what anybody thinks, who wanna say I belong to Jesus, would you lead us in prayer? Come on, all those of you who made that decision, just repeat this prayer, but you're not gonna pray alone. Let's all pray together. Say, Heavenly Father, Almighty God, I give you my life. I surrender my heart. Today, I boldly declare Jesus as my Lord and my Savior. I am forgiven of all my sins. Fill me with your spirit so I can boldly share your love with others. Thank you for new life. Now you have mine.

In Jesus' name I pray. Can somebody get a little loud? Can somebody celebrate this goodness? Come on. Hey, it's Pastor Craig and Amy Groeschel with Life.Church. And if you just made the decision to give your life to Christ, this is the most important and life-changing decision that you'll ever make. And all of heaven is celebrating right now because of your decision, and we're celebrating with you too. That's right. And we want you to know that God sees you. He's with you and He loves you. He has a purpose for your life. And incarceration, it doesn't define you. It doesn't confine you because you are free in Christ. You are new in Him. Chains have been broken today. And so as a follower of Jesus, God wants us to be on this journey together. And I want you to know you don't have to do this alone. And that's why we, as your church family, we're here for you and we want to help you grow in your faith and find your next steps. So first of all, just keep joining us for church every single week and worshiping through the Pando app. We're so thankful that you're here. When we draw close to God, He draws near to us.

And so I would also encourage you, read God's word if it's available to you. And as you do, just start to pray and invite God into every single aspect of your life. And then if you feel led, you might even share your decision with somebody else. There might be a family member or a friend. And they're going to want to hear your story and your spiritual journey. We'd love to hear it as well. And you can send us a letter if you'd like to. The address is on your screen and our team will write back to you and help you grow in your faith with Jesus. And so we'd love to mail you some content about who Jesus is and help you grow in your relationship with Him now that you've chosen to follow Jesus. That's right. And God's plan for your life, it's greater than anything that you could ever imagine. In fact, Ephesians 3.20 says, God is able to do abundantly more than we could ask or imagine. Trust Him with your whole life. You will see Him work in ways you have never thought possible. Congratulations on this decision. We are your family and you're part of the family of God.