Pre-Decide: Part 2

Pre-Decide: Part 2 - I AM READY

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

If I haven't met you, I am Pastor Lauren, and we are on week two of our Pre-decide series. So we started this new series last week where we're talking about making a pre-decision for how we are going to head into 2024. And I don't know about you, but I don't know anyone who like plans to be 40 pounds overweight, or plans to file bankruptcy, or plans to, I don't know, bring chaos to their family. But I think there's some of us that don't have a plan not to. So we're gonna talk about that today. We're gonna talk about having a plan not to do these things. 'Cause you don't ever have a plan to wreck your life, but we wanna make sure we have a plan not to wreck our lives. Last week, we talked about the power of decision and pre-deciding and how the quality of your decisions determines the quality of your life. When you make decisions, which we do, we make thousands of decisions every day, those add up to a life. And so if you're not a great decision maker, that's gonna have a big impact on your life. When we harness the power of pre-deciding and making good decisions, it builds up and creates a good life. Pastor Chris had this kind of formula for us that when we are faced with, fill in the blank situation, we are pre deciding to take this action. When faced with this temptation, when faced with this obstacle, I have pre decided to do XYZ. And that's gonna be specific to each of us. we'll all have individual situations and fill in those blanks differently. But it's kind of this formula for us to pre-decide. So over the next few weeks, it's a six week series, and we're gonna talk about different aspects of this. We're gonna talk about being ready. I am ready. I am consistent. I am devoted. I am generous, I am faithful, I am a finisher. So, Fast Chris challenged us last week to be here. If you're online, what's up, hello, welcome. So glad you're here, but if you can be here in person, make that a priority. Be here every Sunday, because this is going to set us up for 2024, and maybe for longer. I believe that, I believe it's going to bring an impact beyond this year. But if you can be here, be here. Because as we go through this, we're gonna see that our decisions are not based on what feels good in the moment, but who we want to be for the rest of our lives. We should be making decisions just on momentary satisfaction or what feels good to us. This is the lesson I'm trying to teach my children right now. It is easier said than done. But when our values are clear, the decisions we make will be easier. Not always easy, but easier. When we are honed in on our values and we know exactly who we are, whose we are, and what those values are, if they are in alignment with scripture, it's gonna make the decisions so much easier.

Who has given into temptation before? Let's just be honest. Yep, mm-hmm, okay. Who has regretted it? Yeah, yeah, me too, mm-hmm. We've all been there. Why do you think that is though? Why do you think we knew we weren't supposed to do it, but we did it anyway. So why do you think we gave into that? Because we weren't ready. I'll just, spoiler alert. It was because we weren't ready. We weren't prepared. One of our main passages today is 1 Corinthians 16, 13. Paul is writing to the church in Corinth and he says, "Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong, be on your guard." You gotta be ready. Matthew 26, 41 says, "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." I think a lot of the time we have good intentions. Like I said, we don't plan to wreck our lives, but we're human. We make mistakes, we're weak. So we need to watch and pray. So that's where we're gonna pre-decide to be ready. We're gonna have our guard up. We're gonna be watching. We're gonna be praying. I got two main reasons why this is super important. All right? The first one, The devil is coming for you. Sound like a fire and brimstone preacher here. The devil's coming for you. But I think in our modern Western Christianity, we have significantly downplayed the spiritual realm. We kind of just go about our lives forgetting that there are angels. There is an enemy who is evil, who has schemes that his main mission is to steal and kill and destroy. That is his goal. He wants us to be distracted. He wants us to not be in relationship with God. He wants us to be living in sin. That is his goal. Again, Paul, but in 2 Corinthians this time, he says, "I wrote to you so that Satan "The man will not outsmart us, for we are familiar with his evil schemes." We're not unaware. We know he's out there, but I think sometimes we forget it. We let our guard down. But he's studying you. He knows you. He knows where you're weak. He knows where you're vulnerable. He knows what's tempting and what's not for you. He knows where you struggle. He is the father of lies, and he is going to lie to you and convince you that what you think is best or what your flesh wants is what is best. Paul, again, we're just BFFs with Paul today. Paul talks about the armor of God in Ephesians. He's writing to the church in Ephesus and he talks about armoring up. He uses the image of Roman soldiers armor to compare it to how we can protect ourselves spiritually.

Ephesians 6:10-11 says, "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power, put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes." Again, we know they're coming. It is not a matter of if the devil is scheming or if he's going to come after us. He is coming, so we might as well be prepared. Growing up every day, my mom would have us kids put on the armor of God. We'd go from head to toe. And so I do it with my kids in our family Bible time in the morning. We go helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, our feet ready to spread the gospel of peace, the shield of faith and the sword of the spirit every morning. Because it's a reminder, one, that we have the power from Holy Spirit to be ready for battle. We are given his power. If you are a follower of Jesus, you have the power to combat the evil schemes. And also it's a reminder to be on our guard, to be ready, to armor up, to be prepared. So number one, the devil is coming for you. Number two, you are not as strong as you think. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but same here, I'm not as strong as I think. We think we got this. I'm not gonna fall into that sin again. I'm not gonna be fooled by the enemy. It's fine, I got this. Well, it's funny 'cause God knew we'd think like this and he wrote, so if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall. If you think you are standing firm, be careful. Now there are times we are gonna be able to resist temptation. We are going to be able to stand firm, but it's only by his power and his strength. Let's not get cocky. Let's not get overly confident unless it's in him. Studies are actually showing that we are overconfident, that we overestimate our ability to resist temptation. restraint bias, meaning you think you can resist or restrain yourself more than you actually can.

This is not great news for us at the beginning of the year when we're all setting resolutions, I'm sorry. But there is hope, I promise. It's kinda like when maybe you're at the office and it's someone's birthday, which it seems like there's always someone's birthday, and someone brings in a cake and you're like, "No, I'm not gonna have the cake." And you sing happy birthday and you celebrate, and that's fine, but you say no thank you to the cake. and then someone comes by your desk and they're like, "Oh hey, did you get some cake?" Oh no, no, no, I'm good, thanks. And then you walk by the break room and they're like, "Dang it, there's still cake left." Nope, nope, I'm not gonna have cake. By the end of the day, you've had two pieces and you're like, "How did this happen? "I wasn't gonna have any." You thought you were stronger than you were. And why is that? Why do we think we're stronger than we are? It's because we have a limited capacity. for decision making. We overestimate because it takes energy to resist temptation. It takes energy to make decisions. So when you're making these positive decisions over and over and over again, your energies are being depleted. Your emotional energy, your mental energy, your spiritual energy, you're just getting depleted. And eventually the part of your brain that controls good decision making and willpower wears out and is just tired. And so we give in. And I use the cake example, but it's gonna look different for all of us. Maybe you fight the temptation all day long to not take your anger out on your coworkers and you come home and you take it out on the dog. Or you yell at the kids. Maybe you're spending all of your energy fighting the sweets and those temptations, you go home and you end up binging on whatever snacky thing you can find in the back of the pantry. Our self-control and our willpower are limited resources. So if we pre-decide, the more we pre-decide, how we are going to respond in those situations, the easier it will be. So the double is coming for you and you're not as strong as you think. Those are the two main reasons we need to be ready. So practically speaking, what does this look like? Okay, we know why we should be ready, but how? How do we get ready? Other than the armor of God we talked about. Well, we're going to do a few things. We're gonna move the line, we're gonna magnify the cost, and we're gonna plan the escape. Move the line, magnify the cost, plan your escape 'cause we have an enemy and he's coming and we're gonna be ready for him. So move the line, what does this look like? We got some tape here, all right? A little illustration for us today. Okay, so here's our line. All right, this side of the line is sin. This is where we don't wanna be, right? We fight it, we fight it, we fight it. We don't wanna be here. We know we're not supposed to be here. This side of the line is where we're supposed to be. Following the Bible, following God's will. We're not falling into sin. We're doing good. But what do we do? What do most of us do, right? How close can I get to the line? Can I touch it? We wanna get as close to the line as we can without going over, I'm not sinning. It's like the little sibling that's like, I'm not touching her, I'm not touching her, I'm not touching her. How close can we get to the line? You know, when Chris and I were dating, you know, we love Jesus, but we're also hormonal teenagers, so it's like, how close can we get to the physical line without crossing any barriers? Any boundaries we shouldn't cross, right? If you survived '80s and '90s purity culture, you understand what I'm talking about, right? Okay, yeah. How close can I get to the line? Maybe, again, the eating well analogy. Maybe you're like, I'm just gonna have the salad, but you go to Cheesecake Factory. Nothing wrong with Cheesecake Factory. I love me some cheesecake, but I'm just saying.

You get as close to the line. Maybe you know there's certain websites you shouldn't look at, or certain social media accounts you shouldn't be looking at. But you just scroll anyways, alone, maybe at night, when no one's watching. I'm not looking at those, but you're still scrolling. You're still getting really close. You're setting yourself up for failure. We shouldn't ask how close to the line we can get. We should ask how far away from the line can I stay? How far away from the line of sin can I stay? What barriers can I have in place to protect me? We don't do this with like really big things, right? Like when you're flying, you really hope your pilot is not like, I wonder how much fuel, Like how little fuel I can use to get there without killing us, right? Or like, how close can I get to that 2,000 foot tower without like nicking it? You really hope your pilot's not doing that. Or like my kids, you know, they like to ride bikes or do scooters or whatever outside. I don't tell them, okay guys, there's a car coming, you wait until it gets as close as possible and then you get out of the way. We're not playing Frogger here, like this isn't chicken, right? We're trying to keep them safe. You see a car coming, you hold tail and you get out of there. You stay far away, you go up in the yard, you go up on the porch, you get as far away, you set barriers. You move the line. I am putting distance between me and that temptation. Again, it looks different for all of us. Maybe it's spending, he got the spiritual gift of add to cart. So maybe that looks like you giving your Amazon password to your best friend and you cannot check out until you get your password back. Maybe it's scrolling social media and you gotta set some limits on there. Some timers, the app kicks you out or you got an accountability partner that checks in with you. Those websites, man, you can lock those down. You can set up accountability. Stepping on some toes today, I'm sure, but stick with me here. I'm just the messenger, I promise. We're creating barriers between you and this sin. And you might be like, "Lauren, this feels so restrictive. There's rules. I don't like rules." I don't either. Don't put me in a box. Don't give me restrictions. But I promise you these boundaries that the Lord gives us in His word, they're good. And there is so much freedom within the boundaries. There's so much freedom in here. The boundary lines, sorry, David, thought it was Paul again.

David says in Psalms, "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Surely I have a delightful inheritance." God's got a delightful inheritance for us. But if we're trying to live outside of his boundaries, we don't get to have that. We don't get to partake in that delightful inheritance. The boundaries may look restrictive. At times they may feel restrictive or inconvenient, but they are good. It is pleasant and delightful and there's so much freedom to be had there. When we are living within these pre-decided boundaries, we expend less energy 'cause we're not making the decision over and over and over again. And we already know exactly what we're gonna do. We're ready, we're prepared. So we're gonna move the line.

Number two, we're gonna magnify the cost. This is where you take whatever situation maybe you struggle with and you play it out, you magnify the cost, take it all the way. Maybe let's do health. You deal with gluttony and you overeat and you don't get it in check and you don't take it to God and you keep overeating and then it becomes an issue. Maybe there's strain on your relationships with your spouse or your kids or your family and then maybe you start having health issues and you start seeing your doctor more than you're at work. You get really, really sick. Maybe it's something like infidelity. No one's going to know. It's not going to hurt anybody. It's just between me and this other person. No. It could wreck your marriage. It could destroy your relationship with your kids. It could compromise your integrity, your job. So many repercussions. Take it out, work it out so you see what could happen. When you walk it all the way out, it puts it in perspective so that you are more inclined to fight that sin. Numbers 32, 23 says, "You will be sitting against the Lord "and you may be sure that your sin will find you out." and come out one way or the other. So magnify the cost.

Number three, plan your escape. We are not just sitting ducks. We don't have to just be waiting with nothing to prepare for. We can be ready with a plan. There's a story in Genesis, you might be familiar with it. the story of Joseph and his brother sold him into slavery. And he ended up going to Egypt and being sold to a man, his name was Potiphar, he was a very powerful man. And he was raised up to like the manager of his household. He was like very important in this man's household. Well, Genesis 39 says, "Joseph was a very handsome and well-built young man and Potiphar's wife soon began to look at him lustfully. "Come and sleep with me," she demanded. So apparently Joseph was a strapping young man that caught the eye of Potiphar's wife, and she was tempting him. But he knew that that was not okay. Now it would have been easy for him, you know, they were all alone, he had some sort of level of power in this house, no one would need to find out. He was young and single, why not? But he knew that that was not what was right. You know, something else I think we do that maybe we don't realize we do, is we justify our disobedience because of our disappointment. Maybe we blame God for the situation that we're in. We're like, well, he put me here, so I'm just gonna live it up. I'm just gonna do what I'm gonna do. My job doesn't pay me enough, so I'm just gonna put it on the credit card. My spouse isn't giving me what I need, so I'm gonna find what I need. It's God's fault, he put me here. And we blame him. But we can't use our disappointments to justify our disobedience. Joseph said, "No, yes, I was sold into slavery. "I'm not in my home country. "I don't know, or I am not near my family. "I don't know how they're doing. "I'm all alone here in this foreign land." He could have blamed God. He could have said, "Forget it. "Why should I keep following you? "Why should I keep doing things the way you want me to?" But he had a plan of escape. It goes on to say, or sorry, day after day, she hit on him. And so one day she grabbed his coat and said, "Come to bed with me." And he said, but he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. He knew that if he stuck around, he might not be able to continue to fight the temptation 'cause the devil likes to wear us down. He's gonna keep coming at us and we're gonna maybe get that decision fatigue. But if we have a plan, it's gonna be a lot easier. And he had a plan. If she grabs my coat, I am out of here. Better to have a good name than a good coat. He knew what he was going to do. Back to 1 Corinthians, it says, "And God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted," not if, when, "When you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it." The key to that though is the first part, it says, and God is faithful. He's the one who's going to give us the way out. He's the one who's gonna give us the strength because of his faithfulness. He's not trying to set us up for failure. He's not trying to see us steeped in sin and struggling. He is faithful. He is good. He is going to provide a way out.

So we gotta pre-decide that when the devil attacks in whatever area is specific to us, we have an escape plan. No one plans to fail, but few plan not to. So be honest about it with yourself. Be honest where you're vulnerable, where there's weak spots and cracks in your armor that the devil could get into, 'cause those flaming arrows are coming. figure out what those barriers need to be. Where's the other line you need to draw? And what barriers can you put in place between you and the temptation? Kind of a silly illustration, but I think it proves or illustrates the point. Last year, I had been doing some research on gluten and the effects of wheat and on our bodies and such. and I thought, you know, I should try gluten-free. I should try that diet. Should see how it does, how it impacts my body. But for those that don't know, I was pregnant for most of 2023, and so changing your diet drastically when you're pregnant is not easy or fun, so I didn't. But I tried, I will say that, I tried. There were some times I'm like, you know what, I'm just gonna lessen the amount of gluten I'm eating, just to kinda see how I feel. Doesn't really work that way. Or, my favorite, is I would say, okay, I'm gonna try gluten-free. I'm gonna see how it goes. But I make our own sourdough, and sourdough's like, it processes all the gluten, and so like, or most of it. So like, I'm just gonna have just the sourdough. I make it at home, it's fine. Like, I'm just gonna have the sourdough. That's it, that's the only gluten I'm gonna have, okay? But then what happens? You say, okay, I'm gonna have the sourdough. But then I go to an event, and I'm like, oh, there's dessert there. Okay, I'm just gonna have one dessert, since I already have the sourdough anyways, it's fine, but then I'm gonna get back to it. But then Friday night rolls around and it's family pizza night, and the place we're getting pizza doesn't have gluten-free crust. Well, of course I'm gonna have the pizza. I already have the sourdough and the dessert, so I'll just go gluten-free tomorrow, it's fine. Do you know what happens when you're on a gluten-free diet and you keep making decisions to eat gluten? You're not on a gluten-free diet anymore. You're just not. It didn't work. I needed accountability. I needed to say, I'm not doing the sourdough. I'm not having the desserts at the event. I'm gonna find gluten-free pizza crust. I'm gonna have it in my house ready to go.

I had to set up those lines. I had to draw my line over here because I was trying real hard to be here and I kept stepping over. There's a pastor that shared, he wanted to just be clear and above reproach and that he was married and he was faithful and he didn't want any temptations to cause him to stumble. So he had his technology was locked down, password protected. He didn't travel alone, he didn't stay in hotels alone. You know, he always had like some sort of companion to go with. He said it was to the point that it was inconvenient and annoying. One time he went on a search engine to book a hot air balloon ride for his teenage son. He couldn't do it because his search engine was locked down to the point he couldn't Google the word hot. It was a little inconvenient, right? But it was worth it to him. He didn't want anything to be in his way. He's like, I wanna be as far away from that line as I can. The inconvenience is worth it to do it God's way. Why resist temptation over and over again in the future when you have the power to eliminate it today? Now we can't eliminate it altogether. We can't plan for every scenario we're going to face, but we sure can make it easier on ourselves. We can limit it. we can reduce the likelihood that we'll give in. The devil is going to attack and you're not as strong as you think you are. We are not as strong as we think we are without the power of the Holy Spirit. When your values are clear, your decisions are easier. Be clear on those values. Know what the word of God says. If you don't know, get in the word. Check out the Psalms, check out the Proverbs, check out the Gospels where Jesus is literally walking the earth and teaching his disciples how to live. When we're tired and we're overwhelmed or we're discouraged or we're just going through a really hard season, our barriers are down, our guards are down and it's so much easier for the devil to attack. So be aware of that. Know that that is the case. Be on your guard. And when we're on our guard and we're ready, the decisions won't be based on the emotions in the moment, but on the values that God has given us. Amen. Say be ready. I am ready.

All right, pray with me. Jesus, thank you for your word. Thank you that you have given us these boundary lines in pleasant places, God, that you have given us so much freedom within these boundary lines to live and worship and play and love and you are so good to us. You give us these things for our good and for your glory. God, may we make a plan. May we have a plan of escape. May we set up roadblocks and move our lines so that we aren't tempted to fall into sin. Help us to be ready. Help us to armor up. 'Cause we know there is a real enemy out there who wants to come for our souls, God. Remind us that we have your power within us to fight those battles. We can't do it on our own. We weren't created to do it on our own, but we can do it with you. The power that you have given us, that you have put in us, that raised Jesus from the dead, lives in us. May we be ready. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Pre-Decide: Part 1

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!