What is up, Heights? Hope you guys are doing
good this morning. It is good to be with you.
Welcome to all of you here. Welcome to those
of you online, whether you are watching by yourself
with a group of people, whether you're in Paulding,
Baghdad. I got to visit them a couple weeks ago.
So, so glad to be able to hang out with them
and glad that you guys are joining us today as
well. This summer, I got to go on a trip to the
Dominican Republic, and I got to take a group
of people from Heights with me, specifically
students. And as we were on this trip, man, we
did so many incredible things. I could show you
pictures of so many amazing things that we did
on this trip. We got to pray with people. We
got to serve people. We got to do... camps for
kids and all these amazing things. But one of
the things that we did that's kind of a snapshot
I could show you of this trip is we had this
game going throughout the whole time where if
somebody fell asleep, whether it was on a bus
or a plane or anything, we encouraged our students
to take a snapshot of somebody sleeping. All
right, so this is what we ended up with. It was
pretty awesome. It was like that. For embarrassment's
sake, can you go ahead and just leave that up
there the whole service? I'm just kidding. I'm
just kidding. You can go ahead and take that
down to save them some of that embarrassment.
But man, we took it a little crazy. There was
bounties put on people's heads. They're like,
listen, if you get Pastor Todd sleeping, that's
two bags of Skittles. I had a price on my head.
It got crazy. And I show you that because a snapshot
like that, a simple snapshot, really tells a
bigger story. It tells you a story of the fun
that we had. It tells you a story of some of
the things that happened on that trip. And that's
what a snapshot does. It's a picture. It shows
a picture of a bigger story. And so as we're
in this collection called snapshots, the idea
is this, is that we're looking at the book of
Exodus. And as we look at the book of Exodus,
this snapshot shows us a picture of how great
our God is. It leaves us in this place where
we go, what a God. What a God we serve. And as
we look at a snapshot today, here's the background
of what's going on in the snapshot that we're
going to unpack today. God goes to Moses and
tells Moses, go into Egypt because my people,
the Israelites, are enslaved in Egypt. And I
want you to go to Pharaoh and I want you to say,
let my people go. And so Moses goes to Pharaoh
and he says, hey, you need to let the Israelite
people go. And Pharaoh looks at Moses and goes,
heck no, tech no, not happening, bro. Right?
He's like, not going to happen. Not letting those
people go. And so he goes, all right, so if that's
your response, here's what's going to happen.
These plagues are going to come. Plagues are
going to come. Things like flies, things like
hail, things like boils, things that you don't
want to happen. And they're going to come. And
there's two reasons. One is to show that God's
in charge. He is powerful. He's the one that's
in charge. And two, when you get so annoyed with
these, you're going to let these people go. Now,
listen, if I was Pharaoh, I'd be like, listen.
go, get out of here. I don't want to deal with
this because I know firsthand, because right
now at my house, I have the plague of ants happening
at my house. Like they're literally everywhere.
It doesn't matter how much we clean. It doesn't
matter what we do. We wake up the next day and
there's ants. We're like, what? And listen, I
don't have regular ants at my house. I have like
ninja ants. You know what I'm saying? Like, like
they show up everywhere, like in my bed. I'm
like, how did you get here? Like, it's crazy,
right? I'm like praying to God. Who do I need
to let go? Do I need to let some people go? Like,
what is happening here? Why is this happening?
All right, if I was Pharaoh, I'd be like, get
out of here. But Pharaoh didn't do that. And
so God's continued to send these plagues. And
so the first plague is that he turns all the
water to blood. The second plague is this plague
of frogs. Why frogs? Because the Egyptians in
this time, they worshiped a frog goddess, the
goddess called Hecht. And this frog goddess was
this goddess that had a woman body and a frog
head. And what they would do is they would worship
her and she was supposed to keep the frog population
at bay because they live by the Nile River. And
so frogs would come up, right? And it was supposed
to keep the frog population at bay. I love what
God does here. He's like, oh yeah, you think
that little goddess is gonna keep the population
at bay? Boom, frogs everywhere, right? So they're
getting this, but because the frog is a goddess
that they worship, the frog is sacred in this
Egyptian culture, which means that they cannot
kill the frogs. And so frogs are everywhere.
I mean, they're showing up in their bed. They're
showing up in their kitchen, right? They're at
work. They open the drawer of their desk and
a frog hops out. Like it's everywhere, but they
cannot do anything to take care of it themselves.
Just like the cow is sacred in India, the frog
in ancient Egypt was sacred. They couldn't do
anything about it. And so Pharaoh goes, we gotta
do something. We gotta take care of this. The
only thing that can happen here because we can't
do it and we've tried everything on our own is
this. Exodus chapter eight, verse eight. Pharaoh
summoned Moses and Aaron and said, pray to the
Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people.
And I will let your people go to offer sacrifices
to the Lord. He's going, listen, I need you to
pray to God and take care of this. What Pharaoh
is doing here is Pharaoh acknowledges where true
power comes from. He acknowledges the true source
of power. Listen, if you're taking notes today,
write this down. We must acknowledge where true
power comes from. We must acknowledge where true
power comes from. comes from. When I was in high
school, I got my very first job. I was about
15 years old and I worked with my friend's dad's
company. He owned a flooring company. And so
my friend and I would go in and we were the demo
guys. We would rip out the old carpet. We would
scrape the glue off the floor so that the guys
who actually knew what they were doing could
come in and install new flooring and they could
do that. And so we would be in a room just scraping
floors for hours with this little like four inch
blade and we'd just be scraping the glue off
this floor. The problem for me though was this,
my friend, he was a sweater. Anyone in here know
someone who's just a sweater? You know what I'm
saying? They're just like, takes like nothing.
Some of you are in church right now, just sweating,
right? People are looking at you, you're like,
I'm praising Jesus extra hard, okay? I saw my
friend. He'd be in there. We'd be working, and
my friend's dad would walk in, and he'd look
at both of us, and he's like, wow, Todd, you
should work as hard as Matt. And I'm like, Matt
should sweat like a normal person. That's what
should happen. But we'd be in there. We'd just
be scraping these floors all day long. We'd be
working on it, and then usually towards the end
of the day, this guy would come in, and he had
this big machine literally called the Terminator.
And the Terminator had like a four -foot blade
at the front, and it would push down, and in
10 minutes, it would just scrape the entire floor.
And I'm like, why am I here? Why am I doing this?
The true source of power came in, and I'm like,
what the heck? And I listen, I think that's you
and I in our lives a lot of times. In our lives,
we're like Pharaoh. We're gonna try everything,
but we have to get to a place where we acknowledge,
listen, there's a true source of power. Instead
of turning to the true source of power, we try
to do things on our own, and I need you to know
this. You can't. do it on your own. I don't know
what it is in your life, but you can't do it
on your own. Let's play a little Mythbusters
church edition. You ready? Because I know you've
heard this from a pastor before. I know you've
heard this in a video before. I know you've heard
this somewhere where somebody said with conviction,
God will not give you more than you can handle.
And everyone says, amen. And that is false. Myth
busted. Boom. That's a myth. That's not in the
Bible anywhere. God will not give you more than
you can handle. Yes, he will. Yes, he will. You
know why he will? Because he wants you to trust
him. Because if he gave you just what you can
handle, then you wouldn't need him. It's not
in the Bible. In the Bible, it says he won't
tempt you beyond what you are able to bear, but
it never says he won't give you more than you
can handle. He will always give you more than
you can handle so that you rely on him. You can't
do it on your own. But some of you, you're going
through it. I don't know what it is, but some
of you are going through it in your life right
now. It's difficult. It's hard. And you're asking
the question of why. Now, why am I going through
this? And I can't answer why you're going through
what you're going through, but I can tell you
this. God does not change you with a magic wand.
God changes you through circumstances. And so
whatever it is you're going through, I know that
God is trying to teach you something in your
life. It's not even about that circumstance.
It's about you. When I look back on my life,
the things that I've gone through, when I've
lost a job and going, I don't know how I'm going
to support my family. I don't know how I'm going
to get through this. I don't know how I'm going
to do this. What God is trying to teach me is
God was trying to teach me the importance of
humility. When my baseball career came to an
end and I'm going, God, this isn't what I want.
This isn't the plan that I had. God was trying
to teach me that my identity was not in what
I did. It was in him. When I packed up my whole
family and moved to a place that I didn't know
anybody, I didn't know a single person, I'm going,
this is difficult, this is hard. God is going,
yeah, but I'm trying to teach you to trust me.
I don't know what it is that you are going through,
but what if what you're going through is an opportunity
for you to rely on him in whatever it is you're
going through? To acknowledge where true power
comes from. Get to a place like Pharaoh and go,
listen, I'm gonna acknowledge him and I'm gonna
acknowledge where true power comes from. And
here's what I've noticed. That acknowledging
him and his power is directly related to the
amount that you pray. Because what prayer is,
is prayer saying, God, I can't do it. I need
you. It's inviting his power into your life because
you don't have the power. Like, I can't do it
on my own, so I'm going to invite God in. That's
what prayer is. That's exactly what prayer is.
And Pharaoh got to a place where Pharaoh was
like, I've tried everything. The Bible says that
he invited his magicians to come in and try to
fix the frog problem. And guess what they did?
They made more frogs. They made it worse. Not
only could they not fix it, they made it worse.
And he's going, listen, I got to acknowledge
that you need to pray to your God. Pray to your
God to fix this. Prayer is acknowledging that
you're not in charge. If you're taking notes,
write this down. Take your problems to prayer.
Take your problems to prayer. Right, we try to
solve them. Take your problems to prayer. And
I think there's a couple barriers in the way
of us praying when it comes to prayer. The first
barrier that I think is in the way with us is
that we think we have to pray flowery prayers.
All right, we think we have to pray the old King
James prayers. You know what I'm talking about?
Dear Heavenly Father God. Right, you're like,
what is this, medieval times? Is like a horse
gonna ride in right now? All right, we're like,
dear Heavenly Father God, we thank thee on bended
knee. because of ye. I don't have any more rhymes
for you, but man. Because we try to flower up
these prayers to God, a lot of times they stay
in a religious box where we go, okay, we bust
those out when we need them, and they never make
their way into our everyday life. Prayer needs
to make its way into your everyday life. I think
another barrier for the reasons that we don't
pray is that we don't like the solution to be
in someone else's hands. We would rather, when
it comes to prayer, we like to be problem solvers
instead of prayer warriors. I got this. Have
you ever seen a mismatched couple before where
you see them together and you're like, I don't
know how those people go together. That's me
and my wife. Because you look at me and you're
like, man, that guy is really good looking. I'm
just kidding. That's not why. That's not why.
That's not why at all. Don't laugh at that. That
just encourages me. Come on, don't do that. Here's
the deal. My wife is so much smarter than me,
and it's apparent to everyone. Everyone's like,
dude, wow, why did she choose you, right? She's
the voice of reason in my life. Husbands, you
know what I'm talking about? Your wife's the
voice of reason. And the voice of reason speaks.
And here's where it plays out in my life is I'll
go, okay, yes, I prayed for this, but now I've
got to figure out how to solve this. And she
goes, well, didn't you pray? Haven't you put
it in God's hands? And I don't like that because
I like action. Because prayer, I go, okay, well,
what's my action plan? What do I need to do now?
If I just pray, then it's just in God's hands
and I don't have anything for me to do. It's
not the action that I want. And I think that's
what we do a lot of times. So usually what we
do is we try everything else. We've tried everything
else. And then we turn to prayer. And when all
else fails, at least we can pray. Listen, what
if prayer was our first response instead of our
last resort? What if us as a church came in and
our first response to whatever it is in our life
isn't to try to solve it ourself, but to say,
hey, listen, I'm going to put it in God's hands.
What if prayer was our first response instead
of our last resort, but we don't like to do that?
Because when you're sick, you know what you do?
You start Googling your symptoms. And you're
like, oh, baby, I think I'm dying. I got a headache.
It's probably a brain tumor. You self -diagnose.
Always you want to tell yourself the worst case
scenario, then you stress out about it instead
of praying about it. Or when you have a relational
issue and you go, man, I know I have to have
this tough conversation. You know what you do?
You get in arguments in your head with that person.
You ever been in a shower argument before? Right,
you're in there and you're like washing and you're
like, oh, and they said this and I said that.
And I said this and I won. You didn't win anything,
you're crazy. You're arguing with yourself in
the shower. You know the conversation's coming
so you stress out about it instead of praying
about it. You have a situation come in your life
and what do you do? You gotta ask chat GPT, right?
Chat GPT, what's wrong? How do I fix it? Instead
of praying about it. I would have prayer in our
life became something constant, not just when
we were in trouble. What if it was a conversation
that we had? Here's what I know about prayer.
Prayer is the foundation for what happens next
in your life. Are you building a foundation?
Prayer is the foundation for what happens next
in your life. What if we as Heights Church, aka
you, because the church is not a building, it
is a people, what if we as a church built a culture
of prayer? A culture of prayer where prayer was
woven into our daily rhythms. It was just something
that we did. It was a part of our day, not just
before our meals, but it was a part of our day.
What if prayer was our first response instead
of our last resort? What if prayer became so
much of what we do in our lives that when we
see one another, we just celebrate all the amazing
things that God has done? What if when we see
each other, we're like, oh my gosh, I can't tell
you what God has done in my life. It's so amazing.
I've been waiting all week to tell you that I
have a celebration because God answered this
prayer. And then the person you're telling it
to is like, oh my gosh, you're not going to believe
what God did in my life because we are people
of prayer. What if we lived into a culture of
prayer? Pharaoh asks Moses to pray. He says,
hey, can you pray to remove these frogs? Can
you get rid of these frogs? Because I acknowledge
where the true source of power is and so all
of the frogs die. God says, I'm gonna answer
your prayer. He takes care of all of it. And
then in verse 15, it says this, Exodus 8, 15.
But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he
hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses
and Aaron just as the Lord had said. And isn't
this fascinating? Isn't this fascinating that
he saw God move and then he walked away. He saw
real true power on display because he couldn't
take care of the frog. So he prayed and God actually
did what he couldn't do. And he saw firsthand
the power of God. And then he walked away. Like,
how can you witness that and not believe, not
live into it? How can you witness it and then
turn away from it? I don't understand that. Because
seeing is believing. Seeing is believing. If
you came up to me right now and you asked me
a question about crew neck sweatshirts, I would
say, hey, listen, I know a guy. I know a guy.
Because I've seen. In fact, that's all I've seen.
Some of you still don't know who I'm talking
about. You need to come to church more. I'm just
saying. Be like, I've seen. So I know. All right,
if you've seen it, you believe it. And you go,
okay, listen, I've seen this. I believe it. I
think of Peter in the New Testament. Peter, a
guy who walked with Jesus. Not only did he walk
with Jesus, he walked to Jesus on water. A guy
who was with Jesus when he healed people, when
he raised people from the dead, when he healed
blind people, when he saw somebody who could
not walk, pick up their mat and walk away because
of the power of Jesus. And he witnessed all of
that. And then when it counted, when it mattered,
Peter denies Jesus. He denies him. I don't even
know who he is. And I think it's easy for us
to look at these characters in the Bible and
to judge them and go, how in the world, when
you saw the power of God firsthand, could you
walk away from it? But I think the truth is that
all of us have done the exact same thing. You
and I do the exact same thing because we've seen
the miracle that is God changing our life. And
yet we go right back to our old ways. You've
walked through it. You know who you were before
Jesus. You know how much he's changed your life.
You've witnessed the same amount of miracles
that they've witnessed, but you go back to your
old ways. Why do we go back to this? Why do we
do that? Write this down. It happens when we
acknowledge God's power without submitting to
his authority. When we acknowledge God's power
without submitting to his authority. I feel like,
yeah, I show up to church because I acknowledge
his power. That's why you're here today. That's
why you're sitting here. Because God's in charge.
I acknowledge his power. That's why I'm sitting
here today. But my life doesn't look any different.
Yeah, I'm a Christian. Of course I follow Jesus.
I show up. I show up to church. I would tell
people I'm a Christian, but you don't live any
different than anyone else. Because you acknowledge
his power without living and submitting to his
authority. And I think we don't like that. That
makes us feel something inside because we don't
like two of those words. We don't like authority.
And we don't like submitting. And when you put
them together, it's an atomic bomb of nope. I
ain't doing that. Not happening. Submitting to
authority? That's not me. I don't want any of
that. And so we live in a state where we don't
submit to God's power because we go, okay, yeah,
yeah, I recognize it, but I don't want to submit
to his authority. But here's how it works. We're
able to submit to his authority, not because
God is a dictator, but because we have a relationship
with God. We're able to submit to his authority
through a relationship. Because when you love
someone, you want to submit to them. It is not
something that is forced upon you. But when you
are in a loving relationship, you want to submit.
And because of a relationship, because we have
a loving God, we are able to have a relationship
where we can submit to his authority. So how
do we allow him to be the Lord of everything?
How do you allow him to be the Lord of everything,
not just the one thing in your life? How do you
not fall back into your old life? I want to give
you three practical steps as to what that looks
like in your life. Number one is this. Deal with
your undealt with sin. Deal with your undealt
with sin. Moses prays and goes, hey, would you
take care of these frogs? God kills all of the
frogs. And so now the Egyptians have to deal
with these bodies of these frogs. They couldn't
kill them, but they can clean them up. And so
they're shoveling them, right? They're carrying
them. They have all these, like anyone want frog
legs? And everyone's like, we got them too, right?
Like they have to take them. And so they go and
they pile them up in the corner. We just got
to get it out of the site, clean them up, make
sure nobody sees them. And we pile these frogs
up in the corner. And so they pile up the dead
body of all these frogs in the corner and they
get them over there. And this is what it says
in verse 14. It says, they were piled into heaps
and the land reeked of them. The land reeked
of them. They spent a ton of time, a ton of energy,
a ton of effort hiding them and pushing them
to the side and dealing with the remains so that
nobody would see them and everything would look
good. But the problem was, is that they still
stunk. And that's what you and I do with our
sin, is we spend a lot of time, energy, and effort
trying to hide it, trying to push it to the corner,
trying to deal with the remains and go, okay,
if no one sees it, then it's good. But the problem
is, is that you stink. Is that your sin stinks.
And here's what it says. It doesn't just say
it stayed in that pile and sunk. It says the
entire land reeked of it and your sin will not
just stink up one area of your life, it'll stink
up everything. When you have undealt with sin
in your life that you just wanna hide and you
just wanna push to the side, what it's doing
is it's stinking up every area of your life.
And when you have this in your life, we need
to get to a place where we can bring it to the
light because here's what I know, is that footholds
that are kept in the darkness turn into strongholds.
And when that little sin is just a little foothold
in your life, when you keep it hidden in the
darkness, it will turn into a stronghold in your
life. It will have control of you if you do not
bring it to the light. Jesus said, I am the light.
In me, there is no darkness. And so we have to
acknowledge it. We have to acknowledge that sin
in our life. We have to quit hiding it. We have
to bring it to Jesus. Some of you are like, I
don't know. That's just not me. I don't really
have any of that. 1 John 1, 8 and 9. If we claim
to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the
truth is not in us. You have sin, you do. Another
translation says, if you claim to not have sin,
you're a liar. Thank you for that. Appreciate
that, John. Verse nine says, though, if we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive
us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
If you confess your sins, if you bring them to
Jesus, You know what that is? That's dealing
with your undealt with sin. That's dealing with
your brokenness. That's dealing with the thing
that you've pushed to the side and said, okay,
as long as nobody sees it, then it's not a problem,
but really it's stinking up your whole life.
If you're going to submit to his authority, you
have to deal with your undealt with sin. Number
two is this. If you're gonna submit to his authority,
then you have to pursue God's purpose. Pursue
God's purpose. See, a lot of times you say, God,
I wanna follow you, but this is my life. God,
I'm all for you. I wanna follow you here, but
don't touch my life. This is mine. I get to plan
this. I get to do this. I get to take care of
this. All right, but submitting to his authority
means allowing the Holy Spirit to direct you,
not you telling God what you're gonna do. Because
a lot of times we're going, yeah, I'm gonna follow
you as long as you go exactly where I want you
to go. I'm gonna follow you as long as you act
according to my. plans. But we must submit to
God's authority by pursuing God's purpose in
our life. And God has a purpose for your life.
God has a purpose for your life. Every single
one of you are here on purpose for a purpose.
When I was 17 years old, I heard clearly that
God was calling me into ministry to be a pastor.
Clearly enough, he said, I want you to be a pastor.
And I said, absolutely not. That is not what
I want. That is not the direction I have for
my life. That is not the plan I have for my life.
My plan is to play professional baseball. That's
all I want to do. That's all I want to do with
my life. I just want to play baseball. And so
I went going, okay, God, you might want something
from me, but I got my own plan, God. And once
you catch up to my plan, then we're going to
be in a good place. And I had the opportunity
to go to college and play baseball through college.
And so when I went to college to play baseball,
I went to a college that I was able to choose
my major in Christian studies because I needed
a good backup plan. God, here's where I'm going,
but I'll just keep a backup plan of what you
want for my life. I'll just keep that right there.
And God had to peel it away. God had to peel
away for me to understand that his calling, if
I'm gonna submit to his authority, if I'm not
just gonna acknowledge his power, but I'm gonna
submit to his authority, it means my life needed
to submit to his authority. And I needed to make
my life about God's purpose, not about my purpose.
And I had to get to a place where I... I had
calls continuing to come in from professional
organizations that I had to say, no, I'm done.
I'm done because my plan is not bigger than God's
plan. And I was able to say that not because
I'm better than anyone else, but because God
worked on my heart to say, listen, if you're
going to submit to my authority, if you're going
to submit to my authority, it means setting down
your agenda in order to follow my plan. We have
to pursue God's purpose. It's about making him
famous, not you. And when I say famous, I don't
mean like literally being famous. I mean, are
you the main character of your story? Because
a lot of us, we want to be the main character
of our story. But submitting your life to God's
purpose is not about making you the main character.
It's about making him the main character. If
you're going to submit to his authority, you
need to pursue God's purpose. And last is this,
is we need to be fueled by the power of the Spirit.
It's not on your power. It's on the power of
the spirit. So what does that look like? It looks
like acknowledging his power. God, I can't do
this on my own. I'm acknowledging your power.
It's trusting his power through prayer. Living
into a culture of prayer by trusting his power
and going, God, instead of me trying to fix this,
I'm gonna let you fix this because you have power
and I don't. It's submitting to his authority
in your life. Because I think a lot of us will
pray for God to guide us, but then when he gives
us an opportunity to step into where he's guiding
us, we say no. Submitting to his authority in
your life is saying, God, I'm willing to do what
you've called me to do. I'm willing to go where
you've called me to go. I'm willing to let go
of what I want in order to pursue what you want.
And I think some of you today walked in and you
came in here today and you go, but, Todd, you
don't know how much of a mess I am. You don't
know how broken I am. You don't know how messed
up I am. You don't know what I did. You don't
know what I've done. You don't know where I'm
at. And you feel a whole lot more like Peter,
who maybe you've encountered God, or maybe you've
said yes to Jesus, but now you've walked away
and you've turned your back on him. And when
it mattered most, you denied him. And maybe that's
you today, where you're going, that's where I
showed up today. And man, I love this account.
This is one of my favorite accounts in the Bible.
And here's why. Because it gives me hope. Peter
gives me hope. Because I can't stand up here
and tell you how much of an idiot I really am.
And we had this view of pastors where you look
at us and you're like, oh, pastors got it together.
Listen, I'm such a mess. Pastor John is such
a mess. Pastor Ben, Pastor Bob, we are a mess.
But we're able to stand here and we're able to
tell you the truth of the gospel because of someone
like Peter. Where Peter, a mess, who denied Jesus,
who did everything he could to walk away from
him, the resurrected Jesus, after he rose from
conquering sin and conquering death and he rose
from the grave, the resurrected Jesus went to
Peter. And he didn't look at him and go, well,
you've done too much. You denied me. You walked
away. You saw my power and you turned your back.
No, no. He opened his arms and he welcomed him.
And he said, Peter, come on back home. Not only
am I welcoming you back, but I'm inviting you
to be on my team. Just go feed my sheep. Go be
a part of the mission. Go be a part of the calling
because I know that you know it's not about you.
It's about me and my arms are open wide welcoming
you back. And I think there's some of you in
here today that you need to come back to Jesus.
That you've acknowledged his power in your life,
but you have not submitted to his authority.
You have not said, listen, I'm done trying to
do this on my own and I'm willing to step in
to what you've called me to, Jesus. Jesus' arms
are open wide and he's saying, come on back.
Come on back. He's saying, listen, there's power
that is bigger than you and we need to submit.
to that power. We need to deal with the undealt
with sin in our life that is stinking up our
life. We need to pursue God's purpose. We need
to be fueled by the power of the Spirit. But
it all starts by coming to Jesus. And for some
of you today, that's what needs to happen. You
need to come to your Savior, whose arms are open
wide, who are saying, come to the altar, come
to me. I'm welcoming you here because I loved
you, because I died for you, because I want to
work in and through you. And I'm inviting you
to be a part of my team. Let's pray. God, thank
you so much for who you are, Lord. Thank you
so much for what you've done for us, God. Thank
you so much, God, that in our brokenness, when
we turn our back on you, God, You still love
us. Lord, I pray for those of us in here today,
God, that have acknowledged your power, but have
yet to submit to your authority. I pray that
we would be different because of you, that we
would submit to your authority, God, that we
would deal with the undealt with sin in our life,
God, that we would pursue your purpose for our
life and make it not about us. God, that we would
be fueled by your spirit, that we would be a
people of prayer. God, I pray for anyone in here
today that needs to take that step to come back
to you. Lord, I thank you that you are waiting
with opened arms, that you are welcoming back,
that you are loving. I pray today that we would
step into that love, that we would embrace that
love, that we would praise you for who you are.
We love you, Jesus. We thank you, God. We praise
you and we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.