Pre-Decide: Part 1 - Take Your Life Back!
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
Well, hey, I'm excited. Happy new year, everybody. I, it's felt like it's been, I don't know, like months almost since I've been able to see you guys. And we've been here, all the different schedules and Christmas flew into New Year's that flew into, I can't believe we're a week into the new year already. Can you guys believe it? This is crazy. 2024 is almost over. So thanks for being here. 2025, no, I'm just kidding. But we are excited today. We're gonna kick off a series here. This is kind of a big, big intro to kind of our focus the next six weeks. And Pastor Andre and I, we have been praying about what this next year looked like. We've been thinking about how can we get off on the best step forward as we can in 2024?
I don't know about you, but I feel like since 2020, life has just kind of been there. You know what I mean? Life has just kind of been flowing. Life is just kind of happening. we're kind of sitting back watching and responding. Maybe some of us were still hoping for some of the things pre-COVID to come back. They're probably not coming back. I'm sorry to tell you. I've held out hope for three years. I don't think it's happening. But this 2024, Andre and I, Pastor Owen, we were praying and we feel like there's something special. We feel like 2024, God is doing something. We know that we serve a God who is always working, always moving, always redeeming, always restoring. And I don't know about you, but I feel like almost God's been a little bit quiet. I don't know if that's how it is in your life. I feel like for me, God's kind of been quiet and he's just been like, I need you to trust me. I need you to wait and I need you to be ready. And I feel like 2024 is the year that God's gonna go now. Now is the time. Now is the time for us to step forward. Now is the time for us in our personal lives to step forward in Jesus. Now is our time for our church to step forward in Jesus. Now is the time for the kingdom of God around the globe to step forward in the name of Jesus. And so Pastor Andrei and I prayed and prayed and prayed, and we came to this conclusion, this idea, and this is where this series came from called Pre-Decide. And we are, after this week, gonna dive into six different ways that we can now make a decision for our future. That we can, in this moment where we are today, January 7, 2023, make a decision of a situation that we may face December 2023. Maybe, sorry, excuse me, December 2024. See, I'm still catching up there.
But we began to think about what is the difference between people who are really fulfilled in life? Those that have great relationships, maybe they're strong financially, they're generous with the people around them, fulfilled in life, they have meaningful relationships and experiences and life and everything going that way, and they love their life. What is the difference between those people and the rest of the world? What's the difference? Those who are maybe struggling relationally, those who are barely trying to hold their marriage together, they're trying everything they can to keep their kids out of trouble, they're struggling financially, they don't know that they can even be generous even in the midst of their situation. There's something more and they can't quite figure it out and there's this feeling of emptiness inside. What is the difference between those who are fulfilled and the rest of the world that's struggling. Well, I can tell you what it's not. It's not what people think. It's not intelligence, it's not talent, it's not even appearance. How do we know that? Because we've seen smart people who are miserable. We've seen talented people who are broke. And we've seen very attractive people who can't hold a relationship to save their life. What do you think the difference is? Those who are really making a difference, Those are fulfilled versus those, the rest of the world. I would say this, it boils down to decisions. It comes down to decisions, incredibly, incredibly, indescribably important decisions. I would put it this way, the quality of your decisions determines the quality of your life. I'm probably not saying anything new to a lot of people in this room. But for some of us, maybe you're thinking, huh, something's starting to percolate here. You make good decisions and your decisions end up making you. You make bad decisions and your decisions end up making you. The problem with the most of us is that we're not good at making decisions, right? We're not good at making decisions. We want to eat right and we try so hard and yet we end up eating the wrong stuff. We want to love those around us and our family and our friends and we end up doing something really, really dumb and we end up hurting other people. We want to be wise with our words but we end up saying things we regret. We want to make good financial decisions with our money. We end up buying things we can't afford. We make bad decisions.
Can I tell you of a story of a time I made a really bad decision? You know, you guys don't wanna hear it. Okay, all right, here we go. I'm being real vulnerable today. Yours me multiple times. There was a moment, Lauren and I had just been married. My wife and I were still in college. And we had come off of, school had started and we're having a Thanksgiving break. And we found out that the one state over, we were in Indiana, over in Illinois, we were gonna be gathering together with Lauren's uncle and their family for Thanksgiving. And we found out everybody was coming. Family from West Coast was flying out, family from Ohio was driving over. It was just gonna be chaos in this house with like three different brothers and cousins upon cousins and friends. It was gonna be fantabulous. It was gonna be a wonderful time. We were super excited. So we drive over there and one of Lauren's older cousins, 'cause her dad is the youngest of three brothers, older cousins who had kids, they brought some four wheelers with them to Thanksgiving. And I'd only ridden on them a couple of times and I was excited. I was like, this is gonna be sweet. And Lauren's uncle's house was awesome because it opened up to like just cornfield and just absolutely nothing. It had already been harvested, so everything's just down to the ground. So we had, there was like cornfield, and then cornfield, and cornfield, and cornfield, we had just acres to just get on these things, and just fly. So much fun. Well, a couple of days of riding a four-wheeler, you start getting a little bolder, you get a little more gutsy on these things. And we find this spot where there's this big rut that went down and then there was a lump and we thought, we're gonna get some air. We're gonna do it. And so we're out there fooling around, we're all, we kind of slow up to it and we kind of feel, okay, yeah, I feel it. And we're doing circles and Lauren's brother, Shay, he goes first and voila, yeah, this was awesome. It was amazing. He got air, he looked like he was going to the X Games the next day, like he was all in. He looked fantastic. And then Chris is up and he's like, all right, here we go, baby. This is time. Now, mind you, I was told when I was younger, you have one boy by himself, he has a full brain. You put two boys together, they now have a half brain combined. You put three boys, four boys, five boys, and that brain IQ drastically drops exponentially to where they don't have any brain left. That was us in the middle of a cornfield in Illinois. We had no brain left, but we thought we were the king. And so here goes Chris, hits it, punches it, I'm flying. The fast I'd driven on this thing in three days and I thought, this is it, I got it. Somebody better be recording, this is just gonna be glorious. I hit the jump, I'm flying through the air, life is grand. I'm like, yeah, here we go. You forget how hard it is with gravity coming back down from being in the air on a piece of equipment that weighs a few hundred pounds, plus the weight of yourself. Yeah, I hit the ground. I did not brace myself on the handlebars. My face goes smack dab into the front of that. In the air, I forget to get my feet down. I go Superman with my legs out behind me. I land, my whole body smacks on top of this four wheeler and my brother thought I died. My brother thought, there goes Chris. It was a good run there in the middle of a cornfield in Illinois. There is no video, unfortunately. But here's the other kicker. In the middle of this, since we had just been married, we had just come off a small supplemental insurance and I'd been working at Starbucks, but hadn't been there long enough to have insurance kick in. And it was a one week window where neither of us had medical insurance. And the first thing Lauren said to me on that first day I went on that four wheeler is, "Don't be stupid." And there I was. Somehow by the grace of God, I did not break anything. They were amazed. I had these fat bruises across my thigh from the rack on the back of the four wheeler. Somehow I didn't break a nose, Bust a nose, bleed a nose, get black eyes or anything. I probably had a concussion. My head in the inside was just like jello. I felt fine. I never threw up, which is the number one indicator of a concussion. But let's just say that was the last time I've been on a four wheeler. And in that moment, in the middle of a cornfield in Illinois, central Illinois, I realized I don't make good decisions.
And I think some of us are there as well. We are not good decision makers. We've all done something we regret, right? You've made a dumb decision. Well, here on these next few weeks, as we walk through this series, we're gonna talk about the power of our decisions. And to answer this really good, big question of why do we struggle to make good decisions? I'm gonna give you a really long intro today, and then we're gonna look at some of God's word in this next coming weeks to really deep dive in, why we struggle to make good decisions. But I see three reasons. If you're writing notes, you can write these down this morning. Here are the three reasons I see why we don't make good decisions. The number one is we are overwhelmed with choices. We are overwhelmed with choices. Studies say that we make upwards of 35,000 decisions a day. 35,000. From the moment we wake up, we think about what we're gonna eat, what we're gonna wear, what our day looks like, what our appointments are. We pick up our phone, those decisions explode with, do I comment, do I scroll, do I open this app, do I look at my email, do I follow them on social media, do I comment to that really dumb post that someone just said on my Facebook page? Do I reply back, do I call this person, do I do that? Then we go to work, I have to have all these decisions at work, we do this at work, we do this, we do that. Maybe you go to school, you're sitting in school and you're making decisions about classes and papers and books, maybe you're just a stay-at-home parent and you're living at home and you're thinking about everything that you have to do that day. Maybe you got stuff to do in the house, maybe you got errands to run, maybe you have to cook dinner, maybe you have to do this, you have to do that. And we get to the point where we go over and over and over and over again and we literally get to a point where our decision-making muscle is literally exhausted. Or in our house, we would say we are poop-a-ded. There is actually a technical term for this, not poopated, but a cognitive scientist have created this term called decision fatigue. And that as the amount of decisions increase in our life and in our day, the quality of those decisions decrease because you're making decision, multiple decisions, every single moment of every single day. That's why maybe during the day you're at work or you're out or whatever, you can make some really hard decisions and you make them very wisely. Maybe you're at work and you have some intense decisions that you have to make and you just kill it. You knock it out of the park and you make exactly the right decision in the right moment at the right time and then you get home and what happens? You plop down on the couch, you turn on Netflix and you start eating ice cream. Because you are literally exhausted. That's why when you strive, maybe at the beginning of the year to go, "Hey, this is the year financially I'm gonna lock things in. I'm gonna set up my budget. I'm gonna pay off debt. I'm gonna stop using the credit card. And I'm gonna start saving money and investing for my future and doing everything you're supposed to do." And you stick with it. You're week after week after week. And all of a sudden you just make a really stupid impulse buy. and you're like, how could I do this? You're exhausted from trying to stay right there and you're overwhelmed with the choices in your life. You try everything that you can to make good decisions, but as the quantity of them increases, the quality of them starts to decrease.
Second thing I see is that we are afraid of making the wrong choice. We are afraid of making the wrong choice. I think this is extra true for us Christians who follow Jesus because we don't want to miss God's will. We sit there and we think about, well, if I take this job, then is that God's will? Or if I go to this school, is this God's will? Or if I take this person, is this God's will? Or if I decide to move to this place, is this God's will? And you get to this place where you're just so afraid and you get so worked up that you don't even make a decision whatsoever. This is a real challenge. I wanna tell you today, someone wiser than myself once told me that indecision is the enemy of progress. That even no decision is actually a decision. That choosing not to act is in itself a choice than a decision in acting. We struggle to make good decisions. We're overwhelmed with how many decisions and choices we have to make. We're afraid of making the wrong choices.
And I think it really drills down to this one right here is that we let emotions overrule logic. We let our emotions come to this point where they overrule logic. This one is really, really interesting. On some of our decisions, we spend way too much time analyzing. You might spend more time analyzing all of the series that you can binge watch than you would just choosing a series and binge watching it because there's so many options out there. And you might look at everything and we'll over analyze a lot of decisions that really don't matter, right? I'll tell you, I'm a researcher down to my heart. I will spend, Andre's over here laughing. I will spend way too many hours researching something before I make a decision. Usually this is associated with like a purchase of something. Maybe it's appliance. I could tell you way too much information about appliances before we bought our washer and dryer last year. It was actually ridiculous. I could tell you when I went to buy a vehicle, I would research everything about it. Even when I would go to Amazon and search for something simple to buy, I'm over analyzing it. I'm sitting there, I'm looking at reviews. I don't wanna see your product photos because those are never really the actual product when I receive it. I wanna see real people reviews. I wanna see real people photos. I wanna see real people videos. I wanna see real people's comments. I wanna see people who not only just got the item and said, "This is great. "I wanna know six months down the road "is this thing still working?" I wanna know if I'm gonna spend my hard earned money on something I want to know every single detail about. I'll tell you, I bought thousands upon thousands upon thousands of things, researching them to death and they're just sitting in my closet. Used them three or four times, especially if it's like a tool for like a project to fix something. I'm like, I'm getting a specialty tool. And then I use it once. Where is it? It's in my garage, in my toolbox, just sitting there. But I did the research on it. I caught myself yesterday, you're gonna laugh, searching right angle adapters for drills. drills and I watched a 20 minute video on YouTube of a guy destroy eight different right-angle adapter drills did the research for you go with Milwaukee that's all I'm saying okay go with Milwaukee sorry if you're DeWalt fan out there go with Milwaukee it survived everything and guy even took lug none off of a car with a right-angle adapter you never need it but it's there ready to go if you do okay that's my problem I research things to death because I let my emotions of wanting to make sure I get the most money with my bang in my buck and all that I could have had the project done and moved on and I'm still sitting there on forums and research and YouTube and looking at all these things it's absolutely ridiculous but the worst part about it is I'll do all of that research for a tool and then the next day I'll have a really big decision I'll That's what we're doing right there. I let the big decisions be influenced by my emotions in the moment. And it overrules the logic. Have a moment with our kid and they're yelling their head off. They're frustrated. They're angry. And everything inside of me says, "Just be calm and talk to them." But what do my emotions say? "Just get louder than they are "so they can finally hear me." Doesn't work like that. Just if you wanna know. We faced ourselves in a place of temptation and we say, "This is not good. "This is dangerous. "I don't wanna do this. "I shouldn't go down that path. and our emotions said, let's party, it's time to go, right? We let our emotions overrule our logic and we get caught in these places. Someone else wiser than me once told me this, says, do not make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions. There was one piece of advice that I would encourage you to walk through with your life, the rest of your life that you have left here on earth. Don't make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions. Don't make decisions that is gonna impact your life for years to come based on an emotion you feel in a moment, no matter how hard it is. Don't do it.
But why do our emotions, Like why do our decisions matter so much? See the quality of our decisions determines the quality of our life. We make our decisions and our decisions make us. One of the best things, or sorry, one of the best ways that we can live, we're thinking new year, right? We're thinking fresh start, new year, You're thinking about all the goals you're gonna make, all the things you wanna change, everything you wanna do this next year in 2020. We were thinking about that. One of the best ways to live a forward facing, people loving, God glorifying the life is to decide now what you will do later. This is the power of pre-deciding. This is the power of pre-deciding and where we're headed with this series, I want us to decide ahead of time what we are going to do in the future. I love what it says in Proverbs, it says, whatever you do, whatever you do, commit to the Lord, whatever you do, and he, being God, will establish your plans. What does this look like? This looks like no matter what you are doing, commit it to the Lord. If you're mowing the lawn, you commit that lawn to the Lord. If you're out running errands, you commit those errands to the Lord. If you are at work, you commit your time, you are clocked in at your job to the Lord. When you are out driving around, you commit that time driving around to the Lord. If you are married, You commit your marriage to the Lord. If you find yourselves parenting, you commit your parenting time and your kids to the Lord and everything that you do, you commit everything to the Lord. And what does scripture tells us? That when we follow the leading of the Lord, he being God will establish those plans. When we seek first his kingdom, Jesus tells us, we seek first God's kingdom, his righteousness will be added to us. Everything will be added to you. Now this doesn't mean we just commit to the Lord whatever we wanna do, right? There's a little caveat in there I want you guys to hold on to. We don't just say, "Hi, I commit to the Lord to make a million dollars in owing all the Bitcoin in the world. And He will establish your plans. It doesn't work like that. But when we commit to the Lord the calling He's placed on our lives and the path that He's called us to walk, He will establish those plans in our life.
Maybe let's put it this way. When we are faced with a certain situation and a moment of time, I have pre-decided to take this action. That's basically what we're talking about here. That we have, when faced in a certain situation, whatever that looked like, What should I buy? What should I eat? What should I reach out to? How do I respond? How do I yell, not yell? I have pre-decided to take this action ahead of time with the Lord's help by the truth of God's word in any given situation. So you find yourself at the store. You find that item you want to buy, and it is 10% off. Lord's will. (congregation laughing) We pre-decide that we will wait three days before we make a purchase after we think about it and see it, okay? Or you're in a situation like this. You get worried about life, it's coming at us fast. We don't know where it's at, the economy around the globe, inflation, interest rates, what's gonna happen, employment. There's so much that can come at us and worry us. Instead of getting anxious and stressed out and giving ourselves ulcers and acid reflux and destroying our health and running off to somebody else who just helps us spin in this pit of misery, we say, in that moment, when I'm faced with worry and anxiety that I see in my life, I have pre-decided to go to God in prayer and go to his word and to study and put it in my heart and to trust in God that he is good and that he has the plans for my life. Find yourself in traffic. Somebody cuts you off. When faced in that moment, I have pre-decided that I will pray for that person to go to heaven instead of telling them to go to H-E Double Hockey Stick and telling them they're number one and giving them the California salute. All right? See, you guys know. But this is what I'm talking about. That we are going to pre-decide how we are going to respond in the moment that's gonna happen in the future.
When I look at scripture, I love this. We see this all over scripture. Couple of quick examples for you. First would be in Genesis 22. God tells Abraham, "Hey, I want you to sacrifice your son Isaac." You think, how in the world could he do that? That is the most idiotic thing that Abraham could ever do. But even before, long before Abraham even was blessed with Isaac by the grace of God. He determined and pre-decided that God is a trustworthy God and he is a loving God and that I will put my full trust into him that no matter what he asks me to do, I will obey and I will honor God. And God provides a way, right? You guys know that story. He doesn't sacrifice his son. God provides an animal to be sacrificed to glory Him. But God had his back, right? We just finished a study last year in Ruth. There's an incredible story of a daughter-in-law and a mother-in-law with Naomi that has family die all around them. And Naomi has this daughter, Ruth, and says, "Just go back to your family. "We're only in-laws. "It's not that big of a deal. "Just go back to your family." And Ruth says, "No. "I make a pact with you where you go, I will go, "that your people will be my people "and your God will be my God. "And because of it, Ruth finds herself "in the lineage unto Jesus." We commit and make a plan. Daniel, you could talk about almost any story in the book of Daniel on this, and we're gonna talk about that more. But this is the guy who is the king of pre-decision. Daniel at the beginning of the book finds himself being captured into slavery and shipped off to an unknown world that the superpower in that area was taking over the entire globe. And they are captured because they are the elite of the elite and they're brought in and they're brainwashed and they're told how to think and they're educated and they get to this point where they're told, you're gonna come into the king's presence and this is the food that you are going to eat. But Daniel knows as a follower of God, of Hebrew descent being a Jew, that he knows that that food is not honoring to God. And so even before he finds himself in the king's dining room, he pre decides, he commits and says, "I will not defile myself with the king's food, but I will honor God even with what I eat." Daniel 1a, he says, "But Daniel resolved," he pre decided, "not to defile himself with the royal food and wine. Why is this important? This was important because Daniel knew what he valued and he valued honoring God.
So then my question for you, what do you value? What is the most important thing in your life? What do you wanna be known for? What do you want people around you to say about you? What on the day or the after you pass away from this earth and people are gathered, hopefully to celebrate your life, what do you want people to say about you? This person lived like this. This person loved like Jesus. This person was unbelievably generous like I've never seen in my life. What do you want to be known for? What do you want to be characterized by? What do you value? Some say you might value integrity. I really hope you do. Some people say you value faithfulness. You want to be faithful to God, faithful to your friend, faithful to your spouse. Some of you value purity. In the world that we live, a filth and lust, you wanna say, I wanna honor God with a life of purity. You say, I value generosity. God so loved that he gave, I wanna be a giver. I wanna be like God. I want to give a way in ways that doesn't make sense to people around me and only makes sense to God because God gave everything for us, amen?
When you clearly determine your values, your decisions then become easier. They don't become easy, they become easy-er. So again, let's go back to this. When faced with certain situation, I have pre-decided based on what God has called me, how to live my life, what the Bible tells me, what scripture tells me, what Christian disciplines I practice in my life, I have pre-decided to blank. How does this play out? Well, this plays out in ways that our decisions determine our direction and our direction determines our destiny. That as we make these decisions, it changes our direction and then our direction then is our destiny. Unwise decisions tend to lead to negative places. Good decisions tend to lead us to good places. God honoring, God loving places in life. When you look at your life, think about your life for a moment, where you are right now, January 7th, 2024, you look at your life. Is your life moving in the direction of your decisions? And do you like the direction your decisions are taking you? Simple question, layers upon layers of reflection. If your life is moving the directions of your citizens, do you like the direction the decisions are taking you? We have to be honest with ourselves to pre-decide what we're going to do. Because if we find ourselves just in the moment going, "Ah, I'm gonna make this decision." We're back to that emotions, right? There is something so powerful, incredibly simple about this, that when we pre-decide what we're going to do when placed in a situation, the studies have shown that it is just exponentially more likely, we still mess up, right? We're still earthly people, we're still struggling, we're still trying to figure things out. But you are setting yourself up for success to make the right decision in the moment, in the time, in the space, even before you're actually placed in that situation.
Can I be honest with you? When I've thought about this, I've prayed about this, I've really asked God, what do you wanna do in my life this year? God opened my eyes to six things that I really don't wanna talk about in front of you guys. But I think that's how we learn and we grow, right? So when I say things, I think like negative qualities in my own life. I'm a pastor, I'm not perfect, okay? That's where I'm in. Just because I'm up here talking doesn't mean I got it all figured out. It means I'm working just alongside of you as much as we're just trying to figure out life. But it's six things. Real talk here, I'm inconsistent. I'm inconsistent. I want to be consistent and I start doing the right thing, but sometimes I get tired and I end up doing the wrong thing. I'm just, I'm inconsistent. Second thing, I'm often unprepared. You may think, oh, he gets up there, he looks good, He's got his iPad. He's ready to go with all that stuff. No, no, no, no, no, no. The reality is that we have a spiritual enemy and his name is Satan. And Satan is attacking and I often have my guard down and I am unprepared when he attacks. Third thing, I'm also unintentional at times. Instead of being proactive and prayerful and intentional about my decisions, Sometimes I'm just hands off, I'm laissez-faire. I let life come at me rather than coming at life for the glory of God. I hate to say it out loud, but by nature I'm selfish. I am. I don't know what to say, but that's who I am. When there's a photo of eight people, I ain't looking at seven, if you know what I mean. I'm looking at myself, I'm thinking, how do I look? How's this gonna affect me? How's this gonna impact me? What am I gonna get out of this? What's it gonna cost me? By nature, I'm selfish. Another problem is I'm shortsighted. I will often do what feel good in the moment and not think about long-term consequences. And I don't know about you, but I think for most of us, when things get tough, we tend to quit. We make up the greatest excuses in our mind. "Oh, that just didn't work out." And we walk away. So over these next six weeks, I wanna try to compel you, to convince you, to beg you, to be a part of this series week in and week out. That together we're gonna make six predetermined resolutions about who we are. And when you know who you are, you know what to do. And when your values are clear, your decisions are easier.
This is what we're gonna cover in these next six weeks. You guys can throw it up on the screen. We're gonna start here on the left next week. And the reality is, we're gonna say, "I'm ready." When the devil's attacking, we're not gonna be unprepared. We're gonna be on our guard. We're gonna be on our watch. We're going to pray and we're gonna be ready. Somebody say ready ready When we live in a world where it's so easy to be inconsistent When one day on one day off two days off three days off one day half on one day off With the help of God we are going to be consistent. Somebody say consistent. Where we often know people in our lives and even ourselves sometimes stray away from God. We lose our passion. The devil tempts us and we take him for granted not to be students of his word, not to be glorifying God. We end up living the lives that we want to live ourselves and we become not devoted to God. We're gonna learn about how we be devoted to God. What are you? Devoted. In a world that tends to be selfish, where we're gonna be God honoring, we're not gonna choose, we're going to choose ahead of time that everything we have belongs to God. That I am going to be generous with whatever I have, whether it's a lot or it's a little, that doesn't stop my generous. Somebody say, what are we? Generous. in a world where we are going to decide ahead of time when unfaithfulness around us seems to be the norm, right? That we followers of Jesus are not the norm. That we are different because God has called us to be different, but we are faithful. What are we? Faithful. And finally, the words that Jesus said on the cross when it was all said and done, it was complete. The world was redeemed. He took on all of our sins. He said the word telestai and he said, it is finished. We honor God with excellence. We don't back down. We don't back off. We don't walk away. We are finishers. What are we? Finishers. I want you to declare this aloud with us. We're gonna say this again. We say that I am what? Ready. I am consistent, I am devoted, I am generous, I am faithful and I am a finisher. This is who we are. And it's not because we say this is who we are, but this is who we are because this is who God says that we are. Scripture tells us the old thing is gone, the old thing is in the past, God is doing something new, God is doing something fresh, God has something special for your life in this next year in 2024. And it starts with us, pre-deciding what we are gonna do in these moments to choosing to say yes to God, yes to Jesus, yes to His truth, yes to His word, yes to gathering together to worship Jesus, yes to being here, yes to loving one another, yes to seeing our community saturated with the glory of God through making disciples and everyday stuff of life.
This is 2024 for you. But the question is for us, will we pre-decide for 2024? I want to invite our worship team out. We got a song we want to close out with today, but I want to invite you these next six weeks to step in, to press into the goodness of God, to let his word go deep in us, to burn inside of us who he is and what he wants for our lives. It's gonna be different for all of us, but we're all gonna be journeying together. We're all gonna be working this together. We're all gonna be figuring this thing out. We're all gonna be giving grace to each other. We're all gonna be loving one another. We're all gonna be encouraging to one another, not putting anybody down because they're falling behind 'cause they're hitting through some hard stuff. And some of us are just gonna charge forward because by the grace of God, he's already grown some stuff inside of us. But some of us, we're gonna struggle through this. And that's in that time, in that moment for us to come along in the southern state. It's all right, let's go. We're not giving up. We're not backing down. We're not slowing up. We're still gonna keep pressing forward. Why? is real, guys. And I'm tired of feeling just kind of sitting around just going, "Okay, God, whenever you kind of make things happen," God's like, "I need action from you, man." God's like, "I want you to step up. I want you to push forward. I don't want you to care what the world around you says, 'cause it don't matter." All that matters is what God says. All that matters is what God is telling us we need to do. We're not We're not giving up, we're stepping forward. We live in a time and a space right now where it ain't cool to be a Christian. We're living in a world where people look at this building and coming in as part of God. What a bunch of bozos in that room. But the reality is we know God's truth, right? We know God's true. We know his peace. We know his love. We know his grace. We know his mercy. We know everything that he bestows upon us, who he tells us who we are. And we sit back and go, cool, thanks God. We wake up Sunday morning and go, "Hmm, not today." You know that one of the greatest decisions that you can make in this is to be here committed 52 weeks a year. 52 hours, that's one hour a week on Sunday. This ain't the end of the week, it's the beginning of the week, guys. This is where we come, this is where we refill, this is where we get encouraged, this is where we get built up, this is where we get armored, This is where we are strengthened to walk out that door for the next six days to come back in here ragged and beat up and tired and worn out. And the God go, I'm gonna refill you back up. This ain't something that just is at the end of the week. This is so crazy. If you did one thing this next year, you say, God, I am committing to be at church every single Sunday. Even when I wake up and I don't feel like it, even when I've had a week that has gone to H-E Double Hockey Stick, even when I can't even think about Monday, oh my gosh, the tidal wave that's coming for me, even when I can't even seem to have the energy to just even roll over and put my feet on the ground on Sunday morning, get your butt here. It will change your life. And this isn't for Pastor Andre and myself to be like, woo-hoo, we had a full house today. How amazing are we as pastors? No, when we make that commitment, when we say to God, you are my top priority, that I will give you my first time of my every single week, every single Sunday, I will be here. God honors that and it's gonna blow your mind. You guys have no idea. And Andre and I during the week pray and we mourn when we miss people on Sundays 'cause we know a lot of you are going through life and it's hitting you hard. And we just think, how can we get them here on Sunday? How can we just get them in this room that they would feel loved and encouraged and cared for because the world out there is just sucking all that out of them. And we know you're running on empty. We want you to be here to know that you are seen, you are loved, you are cared for, and that Jesus has a calling and a passion for your life like you've never known or experienced ever before. And it takes a moment now saying, I'm going to be there. I don't care what it costs me. I don't care what happens. I'm gonna miss out on a couple of hours of sleep. I don't care if I'm gonna roll in and my clothes are gonna be wrinkled and I didn't get to brush my hair perfectly. We don't care about that. We want to see you in this place to be built up, to be loved, to be encouraged and to be sent out because you know you're hitting it out there. And so this is what we want to start 2024 with. I wasn't even going, this is my notes.
We want you to be loved and cared for and seen as God sees you. And so I want us to pray right now. Jesus, thank you for who you are. Thank you for your outpouring of your love through Jesus on the cross that came over us that has given us a new name of Christian, a disciple of Jesus, has given us a new life, has given us a new calling, has given us a new perspective on life. And you would say, Jesus, thank you. that it doesn't matter what the world says we are, doesn't matter if the world thinks we're a failure, doesn't matter what anybody else around us says, but what matters is what you say who we are and that we are a child of God. And that even though we face a real enemy, there ain't nothing that's gonna stop it. There ain't nothing that's gonna be able to overcome that. There ain't nothing that's gonna keep us from your grace and your mercy and your presence when we finish our life here on earth, that when we wake up from that moment of death, we will see you in heaven and you will say, you are my child, you are my son, you are my daughter, welcome to eternity, you are loved. And for the first time in our lives, we will experience love like we have never even thought or imagined before. And so Jesus, when I think about this next year, I think about 2024, I want to encourage us over these next six weeks to make a commitment. Just starting with six, don't think about 52. Just think about six to be able to go, I am going to be there every single Sunday for the next six weeks, barring I get sicker than a dog, that I will be in that place to be encouraged, to be lifted up, to be cared for, to be held up in those weakest moments that these next weeks, we will find out how we pre-decide for 2024 to be our best year ever. I wasn't gonna do this, but I wanna do this right now. If you would say right now, you go, "Pastor, six weeks, I'm in." Raise your hand right now. And don't just say it because you're emotion and you're in the church and you're in this space, but you're just saying like, "Everything that I can right now, six weeks, I'm all in. I'm here, I see you, praise you, amen, let's go. I'm excited, God's got something special for us." As we keep praying, I don't wanna let this moment go. 'Cause I feel like we need to take a moment to share the good news. I've been talking about this Jesus thing all morning. And maybe you would say in this moment, pastor, I don't fully know this Jesus thing. I don't fully understand this love that you're talking about. I don't fully understand everything that you're saying that I have value and I have a calling and I have this purpose on my life. I don't fully understand it. If you would say that today, I want to intentionally say yes to Jesus. I want to step forward to asking him to make these plans for my life. Would you just look up at me right now and say yes? Yeah, look, just nod. You don't say anything, just nod. Say, yeah, that's me right now. I'm doing this. It's really simple. Nothing crazy or strange or weird. It's just simple prayer. And right now, like, this is the good news, guys. This is why we're here. I want to lead us, and I don't want anybody to pray alone, okay? So if you made this commitment before, you're saying yes to this commitment right now, I want you to pray this out loud with me right now, following law and heavenly Father, you can all pray. Forgive my sins. Jesus save me. I trust you. Fill me with your spirit so I can pre-decide to follow you, to show your love in all that I do. Thank you for my new life. I give you all of mine. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen, amen. Let's celebrate God today, amen? Come on, let's celebrate God. You guys are making some of the best decisions that you can for this next year, and I am so excited. I'm so excited what God is going to do in and through your life, in your family's lives, in our church's lives, and in God's life, in His kingdom, amen!