Hey, can we praise God for that story across our whole church? I'll be honest with y'all, I was not ready for that story Thursday night whenever we had our first service of the year.
I had not had time to see it before, and I knew who it was about, but I didn't see the whole story. But man, what an incredible thing. And I will tell you, for those of you that are home folk, this is important. This is an important detail that I didn't know about until this past week, until Thursday night after the video aired, and I had a chance to talk to Kelsey. I want to thank our friend, Kelly, who was involved. Y'all, when we were right in the beginning stages of our deeper initiative, which we're going to be talking about and celebrating and all that kind of stuff, we had a moment where people got to write down some of the biggest prayer requests that they had for the next two years. And it was a financial initiative, a discipleship initiative, but, man, a lot of people were writing things down like we did, with our son being baptized and all that.
And one of those things that was in Kellen's heart that he was writing down was that Dave was going to get saved and baptized, and he did. And so, man, it's just incredible. And so, man, it's just incredible to see what God has done. Hey, welcome back.
Twenty twenty five. We're excited that you're here. We're going to be rolling today. All right. So if you got a copy of scripture, take it out. Turn with me to Philippians chapter two. We're going to be talking a lot about this concept of who Jesus is.
Jesus is Lord. So if you want to turn to Philippians chapter two. The other thing I want to do real quick before we totally get into the sermon, though, is just to celebrate what God did over the weekend.
The historic weekend of Christmas for us. And guys like Dave in that story, they were here. There was a lot of them that were here that are just on the edge of taking that step to see God really change their life. And so we praise God for all these numbers. There was one hundred and sixty five first time guests and eighty baptisms over our Christmas services. So we praise God for that.
I think we got some montage footage here, but man, it's really important that we see that and it's important that we see how this happens. I want you guys to know this. I have said this before, but God seems to bring into our lives and our church that which through faith we have been prepared to receive. Okay, what I mean by that is we say all the time at Mercy Hill, we prepare the jars.
Well, what does that mean? It means that we get ready for what God is going to do. And that's how we put our faith on display. And I told you we were praying to see over five thousand in attendance, which means we needed to see around a thousand volunteers.
Twenty percent is that magic number. Guys, we had nine hundred and fifty nine people step off the sideline onto the front line to serve and in response filling the jars. That was us putting the jars out. God brought over fifty five hundred people in attendance to our church over the Christmas weekend. And so we just can't stop praising him for that. I do think it's important that we understand, too, that at the regional campus, and I know not everybody's there, obviously, but at the regional campus, man, God was bringing so many people. We had not one, not two, but three overflow venues that were operating all the time for like two or three of the services. I looked at some of our people and I was like, it seems like we need a new building or something. You know, we've got people tucked away everywhere. Now, why do I celebrate these numbers like this?
I'm going to tell you why. Because, well, we don't really celebrate numbers. We celebrate the lives that they represent. And when you have that many people here, I'm telling you, there were hundreds of people, you may be one of them, that God has been moving some stuff around in their life, just like Dave in that video, but they haven't totally given their life to Christ yet. And they were here. Maybe they're here even right now.
Maybe I'm talking to you. Here's what the Bible says in Romans 10. How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? We're so excited about the Ridge launch in a couple weeks.
Why? Because it triples our capacity for the regional campus so that we could see more people come in and be able to believe because they hear the preaching of the word and they hear the gospel message. And so, man, it's just an exciting time to be here.
We celebrate what God is doing. Alright, Philippians chapter 2. We're going to be in a brand new mini-series today.
This is very important to kind of understand on the very front end. Actually, what I'm going to do, I'm going to kind of intro the series and then we'll talk about the sermon, okay? But let me intro the series. We're only doing three weeks.
We're going to start another series at the end of January, but we're tacking a little bit on to our series from last year called Let's Be Clear. And it's very important for us to be clear in our culture today because we live in a very confused culture. It's a confusing time. Up is down. Left is right. Things that are morally right are actually demonized and things that should be demonized or at least considered evil are celebrated.
And you guys know this. We could just talk about all the examples of it. I'll never forget last year on National Coming Out Day, I watched a segment on the Today Show as mainstream as you can get. And the segment on the Today Show was about one family who, over the course of the last few years, both of the children in the family had come out as trans and the husband had left the wife because his true self was homosexual. And the entire segment was set up almost as a prayer vigil for the mom to be okay with all this. This is where we live.
This is where we live, where we work, where we play. You know, the funny thing that we see in our culture now is how backwards we are on the issue of life. Entire political platforms that are built on the idea of the culture of death being celebrated in the name of compassion. You know, if you go to the Pregnancy Network Gala, which many of us do, I feel like when I've gone in the past, I've gone almost every year, I feel like a third of the crowd is from Mercy Hill.
It's awesome. And what happens at the Pregnancy Gala is there'll be a video that's a life video. It's a video of a woman who is probably in a really tough situation but ends up getting hooked up with some mentors, chooses life for her child, and then we end up all getting a chance to celebrate. There are entire political platforms who put out the ad that is the exact same video except it's in reverse.
And at the end, the woman has an abortion and that's what everybody's supposed to stand up and cheer for. This is the culture that we live in. Think about our college students right now. The only absolute truth that exists on the college campus is that there is no such thing as absolute truth, which I don't know how all the PhDs in the world can't understand how self-defeating that is right on the surface of it. But in some kind of way they can't.
And this is how our college students live, work, and play right there on the campus. Guys, my point is this, I could go on and on, but we live in a very confusing time. Now what is the answer to confusion and chaos? It's clarity.
And that's what we want to bring in this series. Proverbs 25-25 is a great passage. Here's what it says, Like cold water to a thirsty soul is good news from a far country. But listen, like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked. See, this is what I want you guys to hear and then we're going to get into the sermon just for today.
This is setting up the whole series. The reality is maybe in our culture there was a time where you could be a so-called uncontroversial Christian. That is not our time. The most basic tenets of clarity in our faith are now very much in controversy in our culture. And the temptation of our day is to take the truth from the scripture and to bend it to meet the cultural demands in order that we could just put our head down and get along. And the reality is this. Man, you put your head down, you catch less flack, but you also have almost no impact in a culture that needs salt and light more than maybe ever before. And this is what I want to say to us today. We can't take debate as other mainline denominations.
There are mainline denomination churches, liberal denomination churches. Here's what they've decided. Thirty years ago, they decided this. Well, if we're going to stay relevant, we need to bend our message to fit the culture. And they did only to find out when you bend your message to fit the culture, you have nothing to say.
You lose all saltiness. You are no longer light in the darkness. It is hard to be the only person in your office that doesn't go along with all the cultural things. It's hard to be the only person at the high school that doesn't go along with all the demands that our culture makes on us to bend the knee and to throw the Bible out the window. But when we do that, we lose our impact. And it's not what God has intended for his church.
We don't get to choose the time that we do ministry. Y'all, we are doing ministry now because this is the time that God has appointed for us. And so we want to stand strong on the word. And that's what this series is about. Today I want to talk about Jesus is Lord and there is no other. That's the big idea for today. This might be the most controversial thing about Christianity newsflash.
That's not something that is brand new. Our brothers and sisters 2,000 years ago in the Roman Empire, they also felt this because any time that you're living in a pluralistic kind of syncretized culture, it's very hard because Christianity does not allow room for Jesus to be lined up next to a bunch of other gods. And that's what the Bible tells us. That Jesus is Lord and there is no other.
It doesn't matter if this puts us outside of the mainstream. And I know that some of us don't like this sermon even from the jump. But I'm going to tell you, we've got to keep preaching this message because it is the greatest news that the world could ever receive. Y'all, Jesus has called the Lord hundreds of times in the New Testament. The very first Christian sermon in Acts chapter 2, guess what the theme of it is? The Lordship of Jesus. Jesus reigns over all. In our culture, He can be a great prophet, a great teacher, even a Savior.
But don't dare call Him the only Lord. That's exactly what the Bible does. And so what we want to do in line with this series is we just want to shoot it straight. And I know people think, man, this is the way that you chase a lot of young people off from your churches when you shoot them straight like this. And I'm telling you, it's the exact opposite.
People that are born out of this relativism that we have been in for years and years and years, when someone finally says to them, whether you like this or not, this is what the Bible says is truth with a capital T, truth. It's actually attractive. And so we need to just shoot it as straight as we can. All right. Here's what the Bible says. Philippians 2 nine only deal with a couple of verses this morning. Therefore, God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now, here's what we're going to do.
It's only three verses. We're going to stitch this thing together. Here's the big idea. Jesus is Lord.
There is no other. But we're going to kind of build this thing out as we go. We're going to stitch this truth together. We're going to see how unified these three verses are.
Here's what it says. Therefore, God has highly exalted Him and bestowed upon Him a name that is above every name. Now, there's two things in that verse about Jesus.
And this passage breaks down like this. We're going to see some stuff about Jesus, and then we're going to see how we should respond to it. The two things about Jesus are He has been elevated to the highest position, and He has a name that is above every name. I'm going to talk about that in a minute, but it's the name Lord, okay? And these two things have come to Him for some reason.
Now, why did they come to Him? Well, look at with me again at verse 9. Therefore, God has highly exalted Him. Therefore, God has highly exalted Him. Bible study 101 would tell you guys, you've heard me say this before, okay? When you see the word therefore in the Bible, you have to ask the question, what is it there for, okay? It is therefore. He says, therefore, God has highly exalted Him. Well, what does that mean? Therefore, what? Well, if you go back, and I don't have time to do this, but I'm just going to kind of tell you what it says.
You can go back and read it. If you go back into the previous couple of verses, here's what you find out. Jesus has been highly exalted and given this name that is above every other name because of what He was willing to do in the gospel. In becoming a man, which we celebrated a couple weeks ago at Christmas, the Incarnation. In becoming a man and walking in our shoes and never sinning and going to the cross for us, even though that wasn't what He deserved. It's what we deserve, right? And then in His resurrection and ascension.
That's what the therefore is there for. See, Jesus has won this position of exaltation. Jesus has won this position that is titled with a name. And He has won those things by being willing to come to live as a man, to die on a cross, to be resurrected. And He's come to submit to the will of God the Father for us. There's something in the gospel that shows that God is saying that what He was willing to do is sort of the trigger point to give us this abundant life. And it's to give Him this position of exaltation.
Look what it says. He has been highly exalted. You know, one way to translate highly exalted, He's super exalted. It's the highest level. He's at the highest place you can be. You know, that's good news for us because that person at the high level, it ends up sort of trickling down.
The culture trickles all the way down. You know, you think about someone who's put in a new position of a principal or a CEO or something like that, right? I want you to think about, you know, some of you guys, I don't have a dog in this fight because I'm an SEC fan, but some of y'all UNC fans or state fans or Duke fans, whatever. But Belichick coming to UNC, that's kind of a big deal for North Carolina, I mean, just for the whole state, right? To have a name like that come in and he's coming in at UNC. Why do they want to put someone like that at the very top? Belichick doesn't come in to be the assistant to the offensive line coach.
You don't do that, right? When he comes, he is put at the highest place. And at the highest place, he affects all the change and that's what we see in Christ. That he is put in the, he is super exalted. He is put in the highest place.
Why? Why was he put there? Why was he given this name? You could say it like this, Jesus was honored by God because he was humiliated by man. He came to die and in his resurrection, God puts him in the highest place of the most authority.
You got to understand today what the Bible is saying and I know this doesn't sit well with everybody, but I'm going to shoot you super straight. What it's saying is, in this age that we live in right now, after Jesus is on the cross and resurrected and before he returns, Jesus is not only the medium for our worship, he is the object of it. He is at the highest place. He is the one who at his name, everybody's knee will bow and everybody's tongue confess. Now what is that name?
Let's talk about that for a moment. Philippians 2, 9, here's what it says, And bestowed upon him the name that is above every name. Now I want to skip to verse 11 so you can see what that name is.
And every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. So in the first place, there's two things on this passage in terms of Jesus. The first one is he is super exalted. He is at the highest place. He's in the highest chair.
That kind of idea. Remember he's at the right hand of the Father. He is administering. He is Lord.
That's what it says next. He is the Lord. He has been given this position and this name. And the name is Lord. The name is his character.
The name means so much. I know in our day and age, a lot of times, we're just naming kids because of what we think sounds cool. A lot of Christian families, they name their kids after Bible characters. You can actually tell a lot about a Christian family's walk with the Lord when you look at their kids' names. So it's like the kid's name is Esther. His name is John Mark. His name is Paul. Then you meet their other kid. His name is Willie.
It's like, well, they were going through a spiritually dry time at that time. But the names are kind of like, maybe you have a family name. They represent something. We have some Bible names in our family. We also have family names that we've named our kids and all that.
So some of the names are representative things. But this is a title that he is given. This is the name Lord, the name above all names. This is the name that is given so that he is the top dog so that everybody understands he's the one that is in charge, the object of worship, the one that we bow to. It's all wrapped up, super exalted, and given the name Lord. Now, one of the things I feel like I need to say about this, because I know we have people at our campuses as well, I know we have people that are not believers.
This is a beautiful mix of Mercy Hill. If you're coming to a place to try to figure it all out, this is your place. Because there is a bunch of people every single week that are not Christians yet. They're trying to figure things out.
And that's a good place for you to try to figure things out as well. But here's what I want you to hear today. Whether you believe that Jesus is Lord or not, I promise you this, you ought to want it to be true. Because what the Bible teaches, and I don't have time to go through the whole thing, but what the Bible teaches is that Jesus Christ as Lord one day will reign over a kingdom that is filled with peace and justice. That one day He is going to wipe every tear from every eye.
All things that are sad are going to come untrue. There is a kingdom out there that is really what God intended. The best picture of it is Eden. I mean, you think about God's people and God's place that He prepared for them under God's reign every day, every breath. I mean, it's hard to even imagine. I mean, it's something that we long for in the Christian faith. And you may not believe it's true.
You should want it to be true. And our hearts ache, and we know that this is not it. Y'all, we were gone for two weeks, and what happens? Man, we have one of the most devastating, tragic losses in our community. When an officer is gunned down in a food lion, you know that we need a different Lord. Of a kingdom that one day, in its fullness, will not have things like that happen. You know, I think about how, you know, we're gone for two weeks, and what happens?
Terrorist attack in New Orleans. And I'm looking at this, and I'm like, okay, Jesus is the Lord, and He is Lord. There is no other. He is Lord all time and forever, but His kingdom has not fully come. And when His kingdom fully comes, those things don't happen. Our hearts long and ache and burn, even if we don't realize it, even if we don't have all the theology.
And that might be where you are. We long for that world. You know why every single language on the face of the earth has a subjunctive mood? Because innate to being a human, we understand things aren't as they ought to be. Where did we get that idea?
We get that idea all the way from the beginning. Jesus will bring it to fruition one day. He is the Lord. Let's move on here, verse 10. So that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Now, this is interesting in verse 11, because when it says every tongue confess, and I will tell you, a lot of people believe Philippians 2 is a hymn. A lot of people believe it's taken from silent songs that the early church might sing. No way to totally verify that or whatever. Some of this could be poetic, like when he says, Every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
Well, how do you get under the earth? The idea is not that. The idea is whether you're alive, dead, wherever you are.
Every single thing. That's what he's trying to get across. Or what he says in verse 11, And every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. Now, if you've been around church for a long time, where have you heard other language where you use the word tongue instead of the word language?
Right? At the very end of the book. There is a direct line between Philippians 2 and Revelation 5 and 7. What he is saying is there will be a remnant of people from all tribes, tongues and nations. I think that will one day bow their knee and confess. Listen, this is this is complex and they will love it.
There are those are called God's people and they will be made up of every tribe, tongue and nation. But here's where the thing gets a little hairy. OK, in terms of our culture, he's not just saying only the ones that love it will bow. What this passage is saying is that every knee will bow. Every knee bow, every tongue confess. Everybody.
This is what the Bible is saying. Everybody will bow. Some will love it. Some look forward to that day more than anything in their life.
You know, I think about myself. One of the things that I can't wait for about heaven is that our struggle with sin is over. Man, we will live in fullness. I want to bow in greater.
Some of you, I'm looking at you right now. I know your stories. You you cannot wait for that day to bow low. Confess. I'd want to bow as low as I can. All my allegiance to the king, all my allegiance to King Jesus. There's others. When you think about bowing, there's a rebellion that comes up.
There's a stiff neck. Man, even if you made me do that, I wouldn't want to do it. You know, there's this weird thing about heaven and hell in our culture, where we kind of have this idea that God is going to cast a bunch of people to hell that are screaming out to him, but I love you, and I want to serve you, and I can't wait to live every day under your sight, under your rules, and I want to live as your creature, and I love you. And we have this picture that they're the ones that are getting cast into hell. Listen, people right now, you say, well, who in the world could want to choose hell? I see people choosing hell every single day in this life. Hell is rebellion. Hell is God will not be my God, and I will not live under his reign and rule. The Bible is saying this. Everybody will bow. Some will love it.
And I wonder about you. You know, it's a hard truth from the scripture today. Hey, let's be clear. Okay, this is that sermon series that we're going to do.
May have to do it every single year, but we just kind of shoot it straight. Here's what the Bible is saying. Jesus is either Lord of all, or he is not Lord at all. You can't just say, well, he's the Lord for those people who want him to be. When the Bible is saying, no, no, no, he is the Lord, and every tongue will confess, and every knee will bow. And I just think about this from where we are right now as a culture. Y'all, we live in such a coexist bumper sticker theology culture, right?
This is the cross hairs. People are fine with Jesus. They're fine with all that. They're not fine with the Bible's claim that Jesus is the only way, that he is the Lord of all.
That may be where you are today. But listen, here's what I want to tell you. Man, the coexist bumper sticker world that we live in, where people on the college campus, hey, all faiths are the same, and they can just kind of blend all together. Y'all, it is a lie, and it is that thin.
You know why? Because the major world religions all contradict each other in ways that are totally irreconcilable. Now, either they're all wrong, or maybe one of them is right. But it can't be that multiple of them are right. I don't know how many times I've been in a Muslim country where someone is trying to tell me that it was not Jesus on the cross, it was Judas, because that's what they believe.
And it's like, wait a minute, wait, wait. Okay, if Jesus was never on the cross, then Christianity is wrong. But if Jesus was on the cross, then Islam is wrong. But it can't be that both of them are right. Now, they could both be wrong. Okay, I get that, but they can't both be right.
It's that thin. The problem with the coexist bumper sticker theology world is that what people act like is it's a humble way to approach religion and actually is the most arrogant thing in the world. And here's why. Because at least the major religions of the world look at each other and they say, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're right. At least they claim that one of them is right. What does the coexist bumper sticker theology world do? It lumps all the major world religions together and says, no, they're all wrong, and I'm right.
I can't imagine anything more arrogant than that. See, what we don't like is exclusivity, but what we don't realize is that any religious faith claim, no matter if it's coexist bumper sticker world or one of the world's major religions, they are all exclusive truth claims. Any religious claim is going to at some point be exclusive.
What we've got to figure out is which one is the most inclusive of the exclusive. And what the gospel says is that not everybody will, but anybody can come into the faith if they would submit, bow, confess Jesus as the Lord of their life. Do you guys remember the story in 1 Kings chapter 18? This is funny about Elijah and the prophets of Baal. I don't know if some of you guys remember this story.
Some of you are so new, you're like, man, I don't know that story. But real quick, there was a prophet who decided, hey, there's too much of this. We're all going to kind of worship our own way and everything is going to be together. And we're going to syncretize all the religions and all that because this prophet understood that God doesn't do that, that he has said this is the way it is. And so he gets all of the prophets of Baal to go up on this mountain with him.
And here's what he says. Hey, we're going to call down fire from heaven. And either the fire is going to fall for Yahweh or the fire is going to fall for Baal. And you guys do all you want to do. I'm going to do what we're going to do and we'll see which fire falls.
Now, here's what I want to tell you right on the outset of this because this is the point that I'm trying to make. Now, maybe Elijah and the prophets of Baal are both wrong and no fire falls. But what you were not going to see that day is two fires fall as if Baal is God and God is God. That's what you're not going to see. And that's what they didn't see.
What happened? The prophets of Baal cut themselves, they danced, they did all this, nothing happened. And the prophet Elijah prayed and what happened? Man, the Bible says that the fire fell that day. We can't live in this two-fire mentality world.
It's that thin. And so this is what we've got to do today. We've got to figure out if we can make the decision to say, well, either the Bible is true or the Bible is false, but not live in this morally ambiguous kind of milk toast sort of idea that they're all kind of the same. Look at verse 11. And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
This is a great way for us to sort of start wrapping things up here. You know why? Because what the Bible is saying, it reminds us this is not our world. We didn't create it.
I don't know about you, but one day I just sort of woke up here and I'm in a world I didn't create. And what the Bible is saying is if you understand and believe that this is the story of the world, then God has created this whole world for His glory, for His fame, for His renown, and for whatever reason, even purposes that we may not even understand. Maybe it's in the deep things, Deuteronomy 29, 29, that belong to the Lord. He has decided that max glory comes from in this age in which we live, Jesus Christ not just being a medium but Him being the object of our worship and Him being the Lord. And so that's what He said. Look, that we would all bow to Christ.
Why? To the glory of God the Father. Here's what I want to call you to do this weekend, y'all. I know this is a heavy sermon. I know there's a hard way to kind of start the year, but I think it's so important. What better question could we ask the first week of the year than who is the Lord of your life? What better question could we ask?
So here's the application point this weekend. Worship Jesus as the Lord. And I want to call you today, some of you, if you've been a believer, you're like, man, I know that, but many of us, that 18-inch kind of drop, the head to the heart, this is where things don't match up. It's like I know that that is true, that Jesus is Lord, but there are glaring areas of my life that are out of whack.
They're not in line with that. Okay, if that's where you are today, then today is a great day for us to confess those things and pray that God would heal those things in us and pray that God would just give us an opportunity to get our heart in line with what we know to be true. My hope today is that our altars here and on our campuses would just be flooded with people who on the first weekend of the year just simply come forward and say, God, this year I want to come more under your Lordship. You are the Lord, but I want my heart to be in line with that, and I want my actions to be in line with that. My dad tells a story of when he was saved and he was a believer, but God really changed his life when an old preacher at a camp looked at him and said, do you know how to spell Lord? You spell Lord, B-O-S-S. And that's where I think we can have a moment today together where we say, God, you're the boss, and I trust you. You're my Father. You're my Lord. You're the boss.
I trust you. I want to come more under your Lordship, and I pray that many of us will have that as a prayer request today. And the last thing I want to say is this, y'all. Some of us, man, some of us are going to be part of that. This is just a tough truth. Some of us, the Bible says, are going to be part of that multitude that bow our knee, confess, but we don't love it.
And maybe we're thinking today, but I want to be one who loves it. I want to want it. What do I need to do? This is what you need to do.
You need to go back and put yourself in the position to be won over by Christ. Say, what does that mean? Put myself in the position. Okay.
You know this? Listen. Jesus won his position of Lord and super exalted in the same way that he wins your heart. Same way. The way he won those titles, he wins your heart. You say, well, how does he win my heart? You see his great love for you. Humans are not built to muster love.
They respond to love. And if you can see that Jesus saw all of your failures, all of the problems, all of the sin on the front end and still said, I love you enough to go to the cross for you anyway. And I want you and I want to bring you into my family and I want to spend eternity with you. If you can get some of that and let the Spirit of God begin to work that, you might go from one who can't stand the thought of bowing your knee to loving it, to desiring it, to wanting it.
I know, guys, listen, for some of you all, and I don't mean to stereotype, but the reality is a lot of dudes in here, that thought of bowing the knee to somebody, that thought of confessing to somebody else, the Lord of your life is hard for you. But here's the thing. I'm going to tell you, I bet you most of us, because in my life generally, I mean, I get that. I mean, we're born from a culture that is altogether born in rebellion. Think Revolutionary War. I mean, we generally have gotten along for a few hundred years here by not bowing to anybody, which is fine. OK, but what I'm saying is, when you think about people in your life, guys, there probably are some men in your life that you're like, well, I follow him.
I mean, just think about it. Has there been a coach? Has there been a captain on the force? Has there been a boss that you ever had? Maybe it's your father.
Maybe it's your grandfather. Guys, has there been somebody in your life? I mean, a lot of us have somebody in our life, whether it was a coach or something, where you're like, man, I'd go to war with that dude. I'd follow him.
Here's the thing. When I think about Jesus, and I think about the one person that I want desperately to bow all of my life to, it's because I can see how committed he was to me. There's nothing that I'm going to do in bowing to him that he has not already done for me. He came and gave his life so that I would have life, not be destined for hell for all eternity, have a purpose, have a future, have a way to raise my family, have a word that I interact with every day. He has blessed me, and he came and did that for me. It makes me want to follow him. And I pray for some of you guys in here.
Maybe it would make you want to bow your knee to him. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to go into a time of worship here in just a moment. And as we do that, I'm really praying, hey, bring your family down. Jesus, I want to come more into your Lordship.
But for some of you, that question today is more about taking that first step. Man, become a Christian. Talk to somebody who brought you. Come talk to me or your campus pastors outside. Man, don't leave here without this thing being buttoned up about who is your Lord. Let's pray. Father, we come to you right now. And Lord, we just ask that you would give us just such a sweet time together as a church here as we center our life, as we realign, as we call you Lord.
Jesus, you have won these titles in the way that you won us. And Father, I pray that we would act in line with having been won over today. In Christ's name, Amen.
Hey, in all of our campuses, we can stand now. I want to give you guys one quick word before we come down and pray and sing. Hey, I want you all to text questions that you have for this series into 87217. We're going to try to do something kind of unique here. Every Wednesday, we're going to release a Q&A. So just, hey man, whatever, anything in the sermon, you got questions about it, you want to do a gotcha question, you do whatever you want. And we'll have the opportunity for you guys to text that in whenever. Hey, come forward, let's pray, let's worship.
Whisper: medium.en / 2025-01-05 16:11:38 / 2025-01-05 16:27:40 / 16