When Your Life Is Out Of Order

Amen. All right, welcome everybody. Good to see ya. All right, well, my name is Josh and it's good to meet you. I know there's some people who maybe this is your second week here after Easter. We wanna say a special welcome to you, church family. Will you welcome them? And so grateful, so grateful that you're here. Also so grateful that it was raining and not snowing outside today. Give Him the glory. Hey, I just wanna jump right in today because I had the challenge this week of what I promised to share with you versus what I wanted to share with you. And so I'm gonna try to merge them both together and give you messages these next couple weeks that focus around family and dating and parenting and practical help and how do I live with Jesus as Lord of my life? While also taking a step back and laying some foundational work for what it means to follow Jesus. And so I was thinking about my own life. I've shared my story many times with our church, but I remember coming out of high school and my life really being out of order. And there's moments in our lives where we recognize that our life feels dysfunctional

or out of order and there's different things that happen to us that bring that to pass. Maybe it's that we experience hurt and we begin to build our relationships out of order or we experience disappointment or we step into a new season and the relationships we had in the last season don't carry over into the next season and all of a sudden life just feels a little discombobulated if you will, or a little out of order. Things aren't flowing together the way that they did before. And so I wanna give you a message today entitled when your life is out of order. When your life is out of order. Before I do that, I wanna give you just some updates and actually this will help me speak to how to bring our lives into order. But some updates from last weekend and what God did in our church family. Last week, 626 people made decisions to follow Jesus or to start a relationship with him again. That includes a lot of your children. And I believe that that is just as important as an adult. I was four years old the first time I responded to the message of Jesus and I followed it my whole life. And there were moments when I went through junior high and I accepted Jesus every other day because I felt like a failure. And like I wasn't following him well. Or in college when God kind of righted the ship

of my heart and my life and I became more devoted in following Jesus. But we don't look down on what God is doing even in the littlest among us, the youngest among us. It's pretty incredible. What was also really compelling was over 300 of you indicated that you wanted to take the next step of being water baptized. Which I think is also incredible because it's not just saying yeah, I want Jesus to be Lord of my life. It's saying I wanna act on that decision. And if that was you, I'm saying go get it. Get after it, do it, don't delay. Step in now, like be obedient quickly and you're gonna see God continue his work in your heart and in your life. So I wanna step into that and talk more about those decisions today by really giving you context into how our church views people growing in their faith or what we call discipleship. Everybody say discipleship. How do we view people growing in their faith and how does the Bible actually instruct us that we take those next steps in our faith? And I'm gonna draw out of the book of Exodus where God's people are out of order. They're living in disobedience. That results on them being in slavery. God raises up a deliverer named Moses

who is a foreshadowing of Jesus who wouldn't deliver us from the nation of Egypt but he would deliver us out of a spiritual Egypt. And so what I'm gonna read you out of Exodus is God delivering his people out of a location but it was a foreshadowing of how Jesus would deliver his people out of our own spiritual bondage and slavery. Here's what it says in Exodus six, verse six. Therefore, say to the Israelites, say to my people, I am the Lord. If you're wondering what that means, listen, last week we covered it thoroughly. I am the Lord and I will, everybody say I will, bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. Come on, faith comes by hearing and even you declaring I will gives you faith in your heart of what God's gonna do. I will free you from being slaves to them and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm. How does God change your story? How does he buy your life back and give it a purpose that it's lost? With his own strength, with his own outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment, I will take you as my. Own people, and I will be your God. What is that? That is the fulfillment of what God set out to do, that we went our own way. Adam and Eve sinned, man fell, and God began a mission of restoring us back

to fulfilling our God-given purpose. And so he's saying, I will be your God, you will be my people, how it was intended. Then you will know that I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians, or your spiritual slavery. And there's an order here to the I will statements. We read five of them. There's four that give a godly order to how we build our lives in Christ, so that we end up at the fulfillment of the promise, so that we end up at godly order, at the abundant life that Jesus has for us. The first step, the first I will, is what we call knowing God. Knowing God. And when we say know God, we're looking at the first I will statement, which says, I will bring you out. So 626 people last weekend saying, I want brought out of where I am and into what God has for me. I want, that's powerful, because it's even the acknowledgement of I wanna know God. I want out of where I am, under the yoke of slavery, under the yoke of sin. We call that knowing God. 600 people made that decision. The Bible word for that is sanctification, that God saves you and he begins making you like Jesus

in the way that you live. That's the point of scripture, that you would become like Christ. Not just following rules and following commands, but that you would become like Christ. The next I will statement says, so he's already said I will bring you out, and then he says, I will free you. And you would think of a people who have been brought out as already free, but if you know the story, the Israelites go into the wilderness and they still act like slaves. They still desire their slavery. They still desire to be a part of the world that they've already left. And that's what happens to many people who on Easter say, I wanna follow Jesus, and then they go back to the next week and they are free spiritually, because whom the Son has set free is free indeed, but they still live like they're enslaved. Not only does God save us from Egypt, but he also delivers us from Egypt. He gets Egypt out of us. He got us out of Egypt, now he's getting Egypt out of us. He saves you from the world, now he's getting the world out of you. He's sanctifying you, he's refining you,

he's delivering you into the freedom that Christ has for you. You can be out of Egypt and have Egypt still be in you. You can be out of the world and still have the world living in you, but we're not called to be a part of the world if we're in Christ, we're a part of God's kingdom. We're citizens of heaven, we're a part of his family. We call that finding freedom, why? Because how do we do that? We do that as a people. We do that in sharpening one another. We need community in our lives. What I'm saying to you is when you go out into your everyday life, you have circles of people. You sit with the same people at the sporting event, you have the same people over for dinner, like you have community around you. And I'm saying you also need to group up with other people who are like-minded in their faith. Because they're gonna sharpen you, they're gonna call out Egypt in you and call you higher. We need those people who call us into community, and that's how we actually find freedom. The next I will statement is I will redeem you. We love this one. Because redeem means to buy back and restore to its original purpose. To buy back and restore to its original intent. It says I will redeem you.

We call this discovering God's purpose. So you know God, you found freedom, you get Egypt out of you, and then you begin to walk in the purpose that God has for your life. Now listen, we, in the church, we can have people who chronically are saved, they've been delivered, and they haven't discovered their purpose, or their life calling, or what God created them for. They know that God created them, but they live chronically in this life of, I'm saved and I'm free, and I'm trying to get free, and I'm saved and I know I'm free, but I'm not attached to the hope and the purpose that God has for my life. Many churches and followers of Jesus live perpetually in that state. But God has called us not just to be saved or to be free, but to live out the reason he created you, and what he created you for. That's why we call it discovering purpose. This is what we focus on at heart and soul in our church. Why, because when you know what you were created for. for, then you can take the next steps that God has for you to do. And that is the fulfillment of God's promise. Not only that he saved you, but he's given you a hope and a future. That not by your good works are you saved, but you are saved for good works

that God has intended you to do. If you've been living like, I'm saved, and I'm free, and I'm trying to get more freedom, and I'm trying to get more freedom, I am telling you, you will not experience more freedom until you step into what God has called you to do. Until you begin to serve in God's kingdom. That will bring the breakthrough and the next development in your growth that you've been looking for. So it's not about like, please serve the church, serve the church because we need more people. No, it serves you to serve God's house. It serves you to serve God's kingdom. And we call this making a difference. This really is what the Hebrews would say. He says, I will take you and I will be your God. What this is really about is fulfillment. The fulfilling of God's promise and his purpose in your life. So discover what you were made to do in Christ's body and do it, and do it again, and again, and again, and again. Because the blessing of God does not flow through your good intentions. The blessing of God flows through your obedience. Through following Jesus. Okay, so I promised you messages about family, dating, marriage, and parenting. But if you don't understand the order through which God blesses,

the order through which God flows, through which he works in your life, then you'll miss it and you'll respond to even the concept I'm gonna give today in like legalism. Or as one rule that you can follow, rather than I am embracing the full Christian life that Christ has for me. Does that make sense? And so I wanna lay this foundation for you because when you build your life out of order, listen, you can be sincere in building your life and still build wrong. Do you know that? You can be sincere. I'm not saying that you're careless in how you're building. I'm not saying that you're not committed to building a godly life. I'm not saying that you wanna fail. You can be sincere in building your life and still be building out of order. And when you build out of order, you put a weight on a foundation that was never meant to carry the weight that you've now put on it. Does that make sense? And so the Bible actually teaches us about this. I preached about this this summer. The order in which you build determines the strength of what you build.

What does this look like in Scripture? Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. What is that predicated on? Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice. It's not enough to come to church and hear God's words. It's not enough to sit down and read your Bible and look at God's words. You have to put them into practice. It's about obedience. And when we do that, we build on a firm foundation. The rain comes, the streams rise, the winds blow, and beat against that house. Life is gonna beat against the house that you're building. It happens to all of us. Yet it does not fall because it has its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish person who built their house on the sand. There'll be two different types of people who hear even this message today. Those who go out and do something about it and build a firm foundation for their lives and those who hear it and maybe are inspired or reject it and build their houses on the sand. The rain comes, the streams rise, the winds blow,

and beat against that house, and it falls with a great crash. That is the decision. Will we build according to God's order or will we build according to our own order? The Bible is really giving some symbolism here. Jesus is saying, there are chaos waters in this life. It happened at creation. And God says to the chaos waters, you can't come any further than this. He gives them a boundary. There are chaos waters at the flood that destroy people who build their lives their own way. It's symbolic of those who say, I know what God says, but I wanna do what I think. And God allows us to be turned over to the result of our own decisions. Romans 1 talks about this. Because they didn't find the knowledge of God to be desirable, he turned them over to the depravity of their minds. Well, is that unjust of God? No, we've talked about this. That is God allowing your will to be done the way that you want your will to be done. If you're not willing to say, God, let your will be done in my life. God hands people over to the destructive evil that they've unleashed on the earth by rejecting him or living lives that are out of order.

This is where not doing these words. of mine, as the Bible says, takes us. It takes us into disorder, into the chaos waters of life. And Jesus is saying, don't build your life where the chaos waters of evil and trial and ultimately death will bring you and wash away everything that you've done. Build your house on the rock. That is the house that will stand. And the order you build that house determines its strength. So lay a firm foundation. I have to get to all of this if I'm gonna equip you in other areas of your life. Otherwise, I'm gonna give you a marriage message and you're gonna try to, okay, what did the pastor say to do? How do I? No, there's a foundation. Because I can never give you the full instruction that this book has for you unless you eat this book yourself unless you put it into practice in your own life. Like when a foundation for a house is laid, I don't know if you've seen this happen before, they pour the foundation and there's like two thoughts. That house is way smaller according to the foundation than it looked like on the drawing. And the second thought is the foundation goes in quickly and then nothing happens for like a week. Why? Because that foundation is curing, it is solidifying,

it is hardening so that everything else that you build on top of it can stand. And I'm saying let's build a foundation. Let's let God's work cure and solidify in our hearts so that when we try to build godly lives and godly marriages and godly careers and all these things, it can actually stand. It would be crazy to pull up building plans for you to look at a builder and say, that is the house I want. But I would like the roof to be on the bottom and the foundation to be on the top. And that might sound silly, but many of us build our lives that way. And if you put that heavy foundation on the top and you put that teetering roof on the bottom, it will collapse on top of itself. And I'm gonna talk to you straightforward today because I live every week of the year trying to help people who have built upside down lives and the house has collapsed. And they're going, I want God to fix it, I want God to fix it. We would never build a house like this upside down. And yet there's many things in our lives that we do actually build upside down. With the roof as the foundation. So what does it look like? What does it look like to build on a sure foundation?

Here's what the Bible says. Here's some principles. Seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. What does that tell us? Whatever you're building, put Christ first. Whatever you're building, that's the firm foundation. Here's another one. God has made everything beautiful in its time. What does a firm foundation look like? It takes time. We don't have a microwave faith. The Bible says you will be oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord. I've had oak trees in my yard. I know how long they take to grow and how long it takes for that to be developed in us. So God makes your life beautiful, he makes his work beautiful, but it's in his time. The Bible says don't grow weary in doing good for at a proper time you will reap the harvest. Here's one more. Everything should be done in a fitting and an orderly way. There is an order to how we believe in the spirit of God and that God breathes on things and he brings life to them. We also believe in structure and that we structure our lives so the spirit can move. It's not that structure removes the moving of the spirit or that more spirit means less structure. God is both coming together to fill the house

that you're building, doing it in a fitting and an orderly way. This is what it means to build God's way because God is not just concerned about what you build in your life, he's concerned with how you build it. It's very easy to think, well, as long as I get to the end that God wants, does the means really matter? And God cares both about the means and the end. So can't I just live however I want through life but as long as I accept Jesus before I die, I die, I'll be okay? God cares about the means and the end. Can't I conduct this relationship however I want and just get it right when we get married or when we have kids, we'll be serious about our faith? God cares about the end and he cares about the means. And so I wanna give you an illustration today that somebody else used and I couldn't figure out a way to say it better so I'm gonna say it like they said it. And Janae and I gave you this a couple weeks ago and I wanna really spell it out for you, lay it out for you so you can apply it to your own life. And here's the concept. I believe that there is a godly covenantal order to lasting love in human relationships. That there is a godly covenantal order to God's design for lasting love in human relationships.

And when God lays out this order, he's not being restrictive. He's being lovingly instructive. And this is the way to build something that lasts. Do you wanna build something that lasts? The endurance to build something that is long-term is more difficult than the microwave building something that only lasts for the short-term. And here's the order that God wants us to build our relationships with. This story, it's a picture, it's symbolism of how God tells us to build our relationships. Here's what it says. The Watchman in Song of Songs 3. The Watchman found me as they made their rounds in the city. Have you seen the one my heart loves? This is a core human question. I'm searching for God because I was created to love and have affection towards him. And for many people, they're searching for another person that they can give their love and affection to. Not all, some people are called to be single their whole lives, and we honor that. But some are called to find the one that their heart loves. Scarcely had I passed them when I found the one my heart loves. I held him and would not let him go till I had brought him to my mother's house, to the room of the one who conceived me. Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles

and by the does of the field. Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires. And so we get this principle, this picture in scripture. And it teaches us in dating how you build a strong relationship, and in marriage how you strengthen the relationship you're already in. And it talks to us about how to build it. And even if you're single, there's principles here that you can apply in your life to prepare yourself or to live faithfully to God apart from marriage. And so the first step to building a relationship that lasts is building it with a godly order, with a firm foundation. And this starts by building the spiritual part of a relationship. What does the author say in Song of Songs? They said the watchmen of the city were around. What are watchmen? They're authorities. And really this question of spirituality is whose authority are you under? And if you say I'm under God's authority and a person you're dating says I'm under some other authority or no authority, you're building on a poor foundation. And so really it's asking the question of what does it mean to build on the right authority? If you're looking at somebody to date or you're wanting to strengthen your marriage, you're asking the question

are we built on the same authority? If we're following Christ, we're members of God's kingdom, that means that we're citizens of heaven. If I could give you a picture, that means that we live in the same city as one another. I'm not talking about Bismarck or Garrison or Dickinson, I'm talking about we are the people of God. And so when you're looking for somebody to date or you're trying to strengthen your marriage, you say are we even a part of the same city? Are we even living in the same location? What are the questions? Does this person love Jesus? Do they value the things of God? Do they value the word of God? Do they come under the same authority that I come under? And if that person that you're thinking about dating checks those boxes, then you begin to introduce them into your social circle. You begin to introduce them, the author in Song of Songs said, I brought them to my mother's house. If you're young, especially your parents should have a voice into whether this is the right person. Your friend group should have a voice into whether this is a good person for you. The people that you found freedom with should speak in and say, yeah, this is a good fit. This is the right kind of person. They should have eyes on this relationship.

Why? Because as your emotion in this relationship increases, logic tends to decrease. And there's too many young people who think they're in love and they've not invited outside voices in to say this is wise or this is unwise. If it's the right thing spiritually and it's the right thing socially and it's like God's hand is on it, then it becomes personal. Let's go to coffee. Let's get lunch together. Let's build a personal relationship. Let me just talk to every young adult in the room. If you're following Jesus and your friends are following Jesus and they're getting to this point where they like go on a date, you need to chill out. I'm serious. Because young adults get together and they go, did you hear so-and-so? on a date with so and so and do you think they're even a good match and we should have an opinion. Do you think they're gonna get married and then you're going to them saying how serious is it? Are you gonna get married? And they went on one date. And you're putting pressure on them to make it emotional and physical

when they're just trying to figure out if it's personally right. And so let's let people date. Without judgment, without gossip, without speaking into it. Let's let, and if people go on two dates and they realize you know what, we're not clicking on these levels, it's okay to say you're a good person, I'm a good person, but I don't think we're meant to make it emotional and physical. That's okay, it's okay. You don't have to get it right on the first try. Let's date in a godly way. If the personal's clicking, then you start to say you know what, let's let this get emotional. I'm gonna allow myself to fall in love. I found the one that my heart loves. I'm gonna build an emotional bond with this person. Now if you're a Christ follower, this is when you start talking about marriage. Before the physical. You start talking about marriage here because physical sex designed by God. Remember, you might say Pastor Josh, you're being super old school right now. I'm just trying to be biblical. The Bible says that sex is a covenant made between two people in marriage.

And it is, just wait, just wait, just wait. Don't yell at me to preach, honestly, no, I'm serious, because I don't want you putting condemnation on people who have this upside down. I'm gonna help them. And if you're here today and that's you, there's no condemnation. I wanna help you today to build it in the right way. And so maybe the pressure of society though is to build this the opposite way. Society says, swipe right. Society says, don't go to bed alone at night. You're lonely, just go meet the physical. In fact, studies show that this is what we're tempted to do. This is what culture tells us to do. One study from the Institute of Family Studies says for many young adults, the single life has become synonymous with hookups and sexual experimentation. The problem with these patterns is that proper partner selection is often difficult for sexually involved couples who experience strong physical rewards with each other. And these rewards can cause them to ignore or minimize deeper incompatibilities in the relationship. The human brain and body do not just experience pleasure during sex, they also experience strong sensations of attachment and bonding. Simply put, we are hardwired to connect.

Every early sex creates a sort of counterfeit intimacy that makes two people think they are closer to each other than they really actually are. This can cause people to fall in love, fall in love, and even marry someone who is not a good choice for them in the long run. So what happens is people get physical right away because the physical is enticing. The physical makes you feel wanted. And then, you know what? No strings attached never has no strings attached. There are always strings attached because sex is not two people doing a physical act. Sex is deeply emotional. It's actually deeply spiritual. And so all of a sudden, people are doing the physical and they catch feelings. And then they go, well, all of a sudden, I'm emotionally invested. And so I guess this person that I've been messing around with and sharing a bed with, I guess I should probably take them on a date. I should probably get to know them. We should probably spend some time together. And then the personal comes and then you go, well, we're still together after doing that. I guess I should probably let them meet my friends and family. And then the friends and family, no matter what they say, you're already invested on all these levels.

And then eventually, literally, this is what happens. People come to me or they come to somebody in the church and they go, well, we've done all that. Is there a pastor that would marry us? We should probably make this spiritual somehow. And I'm telling you, more people come and say this and I look back at them and I say, hey, I marry people to help facilitate the blessing of God on their relationship. If you build this way, you are not asking for the blessing of God to flow in your relationship. And so if I stand with you and you're living this way, I am just a facilitator. I am a prop. And I don't wanna be a prop as your pastor. I wanna help you build a relationship God's way because the long-term satisfaction of a godly relationship that bears fruit in your life and in your kids is better than the short-term satisfaction that comes from a physical relationship. Now listen, I know there's people in this room that you've built. And here's what I want you to know, you've built on a foundation that is not firm. Do you notice this is a lot more wobbly than if you build on the right foundation? But there are many of you who are saying, Pastor Josh, I know I've built this way, but I want God in my life. I want a spiritual foundation.

And I want you to know, I'm proud of you. I'm glad that you're at a point where you're saying, you know what, I might have built my life, and it's not just your physical relationships or your, it's not just dating. It's the foundation in our finances. It's the foundation in how we love people and treat people. It's the foundation of an ethical, moral life. It's all of these things. But I know that there's people that are here today, and you're saying, Pastor Josh, I've not included the spiritual, and now I need to. And I don't want my relationship to fall apart because now we live together, or now kids are involved, or we've been dating seven years, or whatever it is. And I don't want it to fall over. And I want to validate that God can redeem any story, that God can take it, and he can make it right. If you submit your life to him, if you submit these things to him. And so I'm gonna give you a very practical action step today because I believe people are gonna hear this and say, I don't want to change my life. It's too inconvenient. I don't want to have to pay two rents. I don't want to move out. But there's also people who are saying, I will do whatever it takes to honor the Lord at this point in my life, and I want to get it right. Listen, this might sound old school,

but every week I sit with people who have built the wrong way, and the foundation has crushed the house they're building. The way culture tells you to build, we know the fruit of that. People do this, and then they get married, and half of them get divorced. That's the way. But God has called us to a different way where our marriage can not only stay together, but continue to bear fruit. And so let me give you an action step. If you believe you need to grow in this area of the spiritual part of your relationship, here's your action step. Now through the end of the message, you can use the tap on the seat back in front of you, and it's gonna open up a form to a marriage conversation. Our staff has started to clear their schedules, they've made time to talk to couples who have built this, and said the spiritual part is not the foundation of our relationship. So if you're here and you're saying we're living like we're married, but obedience to Christ right now means actually committing to the covenant of marriage, or we need to fix something, then you can use that tap on the seat back in front of you, anytime throughout the end of this message, or you can go out to the table,

and our team will help you to take that next step. So here's what I'm saying, I'm gonna be real practical. If that's where you're at, you need to discern whether your relationship needs to be renovated together, which God can do. Or if that relationship needs to be redirected into separate paths. So if you're here and it needs redirected, if you're not both following Jesus, you don't share the same spiritual foundation, you are what the Bible calls unequally yoked. And Paul instructs believers who are already married, who are unequally yoked, to stay in your marriage and be faithful, if possible, because the sanctifying work of Christ in you can have a sanctifying effect on your spouse. And you living a godly life and following Jesus can influence your whole family. Now there's exceptions that I always gotta say that I'm not saying if you've been abused, if they're chronically cheating on you, things like that. But I'm saying if they're just not following Jesus like you are, you can have a sanctifying effect on your spouse. We talk to a lot of people like that, we're praying for you, we're believing that God is gonna change family trees in our church. Maybe you're here today, and there may be other reasons, even if you're both aiming to follow Jesus, that if you honestly reflect, you know this isn't the person

that you intend to spend your life with, maybe you've been together a long time and you've just never taken that step, you know you're not gonna get married, then my encouragement to you is don't string somebody else along, don't stay just because it's fun right now, don't stay just because you've been there a long time, but redirect and rebuild your life, even if it means separate paths. Now listen, there's some who maybe you need to renovate the house. Last week was easy. Check a box, I wanna believe in Jesus. This week is count the cost, take up your cross and follow Jesus, obey him, step in. And I'm telling you, there is a spiritual family that wants to support you and help you to follow Jesus in your relationship. The prerequisite of building the right way is that both people have surrendered their lives to Jesus, that they're building on the same foundation. Maybe you're here and you're saying, Pastor Josh, there's a real chance we could get married in the future, but it's not a sure thing. My challenge to you is to build and uphold a godly boundary in your relationship. Move out if you gotta move out. Stop sleeping together.

If you actually want God's blessing, do it God's. and make the godly decision together to build something that is lasting. Maybe you're here today and you say, Pastor Josh, we're in it for the long haul, we know we wanna get married, it's gonna happen, it just hasn't happened yet. There's a lot of people I talk to, they're under conviction because they know they haven't built their relationship the right way, and they're going, but we're gonna get married, we just gotta, the wedding isn't for 18 months or seven months or whatever it is, and we wanna have the ceremony. And I'm saying, don't live in sin and put off doing the right thing for a ceremony. We don't date for a ceremony, we date for a marriage, we date for a healthy future that God has for us. And so there's some of you that are here today that honestly the best step for you would be to make it official and do it fast. Even if it means that you have a little ceremony with your family in a pastor's office to say we want this right before the Lord, that you would take that step. You can still have the celebration a year from now and celebrate your union, but make it right before God today. Today is the day, now is the time. And our pastors have planned for five, 10, 15, 50 people,

50 couples who would maybe make that decision to make the relationship right. And the forum you fill out on the tap is just a next step to a conversation for you to make this area of your life right. If you wanna plan the big wedding celebration you've been dreaming of a year from now, you can do it, but you can get married and honor God in what's most important to you, why? So the blessing of God can begin to flow where the blessing of God has not been flowing. So God can begin to assist and come alongside because you've said I've taken up my cross, I've followed Jesus, and you're really, you can open up your hands at the end of every church service and say come Holy Spirit, but if you don't posture your heart and in your life that welcomes Holy Spirit, you're praying in vain. And so posture your heart and your life and say I want every area of my life to be surrendered to the Lord Jesus. It's so counter-cultural, but I don't care because the culture doesn't work. This is the way of God's kingdom. His promise is I will bring you out. His promise is I will free you. His promise is I will redeem your story. His promise is I will fulfill my purpose in your life, amen? It starts with the decision to follow Jesus. Listen, there's kind of been a lot of moving around,

a lot of noise, a lot of chaos in this service, but right now I just want you to pause. I want you to take a moment and just want you to ask him, Lord, how and what do you wanna fulfill in my life? And if there's anything that I've built backwards, show me. Come on, close your eyes, just ask him. The Spirit of God can speak to you, not just through me, not just through another person, but he can prompt your heart. It's called conviction. He says in order to live a more righteous life, here's where you need to repent. God, I pray that you would help us, not because you're mad, but because you prompt us to righteousness. If there's an area of our life that isn't lining up with your plan and your purpose for us, we ask that you would show us right now. But we also acknowledge that it's not enough to just hear your commands, but it's what we do with it that counts. And so whether it's coming to a decision to follow Jesus today, whether it is taking up our cross and following him and being a part of his life, taking up our cross and following him by being baptized or making a change in our lifestyle, Lord, we wanna respond to you right now. We wanna be your people who are free,

who are delivered, who are redeemed, and who are living in the fulfilled purpose that you have for our lives and our relationship with you. Holy Spirit, I ask right now that you would do a convicting and a revealing work that I can't speak enough words into, but that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened, that the hope to which you've called people would be revealed, that out of a genuine love for you and desire to have an intimate relationship with you, we would lay aside every hurdle that has hindered us. I ask that you would give people right now the courage, the boldness to follow you in obedience to whatever you're calling them to do. Lord, we set aside a fear of men. What will people think? What will people say? Will I be condemned? Will the pastors think less of me? We put all of that aside because we only fear God. And what you say. We have a healthy respect and reverence for you. So God, we don't respond for people right now, we respond for you. I pray for people who maybe wanna make this decision, but the person that they're dating or married to is not in the same camp. Lord, I pray for wisdom, and I pray for a sanctifying work in entire households. Lord, we invite you to come and work

in an area of our life where maybe you haven't been invited before. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.