ASKING FOR A FRIEND: PART 3 - Pastor Steve Arterburn

[Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] good morning he opened the prison doors he parted the raging sea he holds the victory [Music] [Music] is [Music] we sing to the god who always [Music] my god [Music] all right come on let's celebrate this morning let the house of the lord sing praise accepted and we won't be quiet is is [Applause] [Music] [Music] come on [Music] one cry [Music] christ be magnified [Music] [Laughter] his name would burst [Music] christ be magnified oh [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] when every creature [Music] is me [Music] [Applause] me [Music] [Music] [Music] i'll stand strong and worship you and if it puts me in the fire i'll rejoice [Music] come on [Music] [Music] [Applause] me [Applause] [Music] is right [Music] so [Music] and i am holding on to faith because i know you'll make a way [Music] [Music] you make [Music] i will speak to my you'll be faithful now [Music] and i'm standing on your word [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign know [Music] you make giants [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] there is just something special that happens when you come together with a group of people and you take the focus off of yourself for just a moment and you turn it on the faithfulness of god and regardless of the week that you've had it may have been really difficult i believe today that god wants to speak to each and every one of you how many in the room and online believe that our god is faithful come on do you believe that today yeah so here's what i know his promise is true that when we draw close to him he draws close to us and today he will be faithful he will speak to you right where you are and i believe that you could be just 40 minutes away from your life changing forever in fact let's just pray to our god right now our faithful god and ask him to continue to bless us in this service so god today i thank you for all these amazing people all over the room and online lord you know right where they are today nobody is joining with us on accident and we believe with all of our heart that you do have a special plan and a purpose for each and every one of us and so today god we invite you to speak holy spirit would you come over every road would you open up heaven over every home that's joining with us online right now would you speak like never before more than some cool worship songs and some lights and a message people need a moment in your presence and so we beg of you holy spirit would you come and would you speak and would you move and today god as you speak to us we're going to say yes we say yes to you right now we hold nothing back and we thank you for what you're going to do in this hour in jesus name we pray amen enemy oh church one more time give god thanks for his faithfulness and for his goodness [Applause] hey well welcome to church today everybody my name is jared i serve as the lead pastor here and i am so grateful uh that you're taking time out of your weekend to be with us and also a big shout out to everybody online but i do want to welcome just for a moment all the guests that are in the room if this was your first time ever hanging out with us inside that worship guide or online right above me there's a tab that says connection card um take a moment and fill out that connection card for us let us know a little bit about who you are uh it's the hassle-free guarantee meaning we're never gonna come knocking on your door we're never going to show up to your house and announce that if you liked today's service we're going to give you an email giving you some clear next steps of how to get connected in the life of our church but more than anything we're so grateful that you are taking time out of your weekend to be with us so how about it church would you welcome all the guests online and in the room yeah welcome today we're glad you're here i say this quite a bit but i really mean it because it pastors sometimes we lie i really mean it this weekend um that you picked the perfect sunday to be here at trinity everybody we have steve arderburn in the house today and i'm going to introduce you to him in just a few moments but i'm convinced that the friendliest people in all of arizona are hanging out with us in the room if you're online you're missing out i'm just telling you they are in the room today so take a moment turn around greet somebody you don't know give him a handshake a high five a fist bump welcome somebody to church today we're glad you're here [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey my name is erica and i'm the associate family pastor here at trinity and we are so glad to have you join us today if this is your first time we would love to hear from you fill out the connection card from the bulletin or in the trinity app if you haven't downloaded the trinity app just search trinity mesa in the app store you can find the sermon notes ways to get connected and so much more today during our 11am service we will be offering step one of the brand new two-step version of the growth track the growth track is designed to help you learn more about the church how to grow in your relationship with god and how you can reach your full potential you can join at any time and can make up any weeks you may have missed we're headed to mexico in october and if you've been wanting to join us on a mission trip now is your time today is the final day to register so head to trinitymesa.church mexico to reserve your spot we are so excited that the new semester of trinity groups is officially starting today if you haven't registered for a group there's still time head out to the lobby following this service or go to trinitymesa.church groups for more information or to register next saturday september 25th from 7 to 11 a.m is our single moms oil change event make sure you sign up in the app or at trinitymesa.church oil change so we can have parts available for your car go ahead and grab your sermon notes for our series asking for a friend so welcome back to week three of our series asking for a friend uh more on that in just a moment but um again i want to look into the camera and give a big shout out to everybody who's joining with us online um maybe you're joining with us on youtube facebook or online campus however whatever um brought you to this moment we're so thankful that you are with us today um and if you're new around here pastor erica just mentioned this but do me a favor and download that app everything trinity church is right there at your fingertips today if you're not a note taker you need to take some notes today the digital version is right there on the app or obviously they're inside your worship guide that you were handed when you walked in the room a few minutes ago just a couple highlights that are that are happening just my version of the news quickly our single mom's oil change is this saturday i was told that we have a record number of single moms that we're gonna be serving this saturday i'm super pumped about that um and just so you know there's still time for you to share that out let them know what's happening this is a free event we don't do any weird church things i promise this is our way to love on some single moms in our community so if you have a co-worker a neighbor somebody in your kid's school that you know can take advantage of this we want to help meet that very very practical practical need and also one more thing trinity groups they just started um i was told that we have over 50 well over 55 i think 58 groups this semester that is a record for trinity church and i'm so thankful for our group leaders and today begins the semester we're getting some golf claps i appreciate that over here um but you need to get into a group i'm telling you i'm telling you i'm telling you go to the wall online through the app all of that is right there and today this is my last big announcement before we get on to the service today after the 11 o'clock service everybody it is baptism sunday are you pumped about that we have several people that are declaring their faith in jesus today going public with their faith that's what baptism is it's the outward expression of the inward commitment and if you've given your life to jesus your very clear next step is to declare publicly what jesus has done on the inside and after the 11 o'clock we're going to celebrate baptisms and i tell you that because some of you you can be baptized today you've given your life to jesus and you haven't signed up but you know you need to do that there's just something inside of you that's the holy spirit by the way telling you i need to take this step as soon as this service is over you can go right to the lobby our baptism booth is there we'll answer all the questions that you have you may have come here dry but you will leave here wet today can be your day to be water baptized so i would encourage you 9 30 crowd go get your brunch and come back together after the 11 o'clock service and let's celebrate together on what god is doing in the hearts and the lives of our people okay if you haven't already get those sermon notes out asking for a friend if you're brand new around here we're in a series that we do every year it's way back on easter we asked you a question if you could hear a message on anything what would you want to hear and we got tons of responses and last week or two weeks ago we started this series by answering the question that you asked how do we raise kids in today's difficult culture and then last week we answered the question how do we deal with difficult people and one of the questions that you asked that kept on coming up was like hey how do i stop allowing people or my past to control my life i think that's a normal thing that many people are asking in fact it is the normal thing that you're asking because that's why we're doing it in this series and as soon as i saw that question i knew right then and there i needed to invite a friend of mine steve arderburn to come and preach this this sermon let me give you a little bit of information about steve arbor steve and i had the privilege of serving together at a church in indianapolis and every time i was able to be around steve and to learn from steve and to hear steve preach and to be in our staff meetings i always walked away a better pastor a better leader a better husband a better dad he just has that type of influence when you're when you're around him steve has written close to 100 books 100 books over 8 million of his books or 8 million copies of his books are in print right right now books like every man's battle every young man's battle i read that book when i was a freshman in college and that book changed my life every young man's battle healing is a choice um on and on i could go the seven minute marriage solution on and on i could i could go also um steve hosts um and is the president of new life part of new life live is a national radio show um the number one christian radio show in america um over two million people listen to this radio show weekly kind of a big deal and he's not busy enough he's also the general editor of several study bibles like every man's bible and there's just starting to his wife is involved with the every woman's bible and on top of that he's a great husband he's a great dad and he is a phenomenal communicator and today i know that you are going to be blessed by this message how many of you when you walked in you got this book wave it at me wave it out me wave it at me wave it at me everybody got a book online i'm so sorry i'm kidding i'm kidding i just really wanted to do that um if you really want this book and you really want this book it's free everybody got this free today on the connection card just write free book give us your information and we will send you a free copy of the book how to take your life back so church we are blessed to have steve arderburn in the room with us so would you please um for the first time give him an incredible welcome steve arderburn a little over the top there jared so uh man i've never been introduced like that so let's just lower our expectations a little bit great music wow what a great uh praise and worship music you do here and i'm so glad that that you guys landed jared he could have gone to a lot of places rarely do you find a great [Applause] a lot a lot of great communicators but not very good leaders but he's a great leader and a great communicator and i did listen to the message on difficult people last week i did notice that he used me a couple of times in there and but i was disguised but i'm not bitter but we did you know jared i just knew great things were going to happen with him and so i'm glad they're happening right here and so let me just show you where here is here we are and this is our galaxy this is the milky way and uh the milky way is about 100 000 light years wide and every uh well light can travel six trillion miles in a year so it's like a hundred thousand times six trillion in here in our little galaxy by the way there are trillions of galaxies in our universe but in our galaxy we have uh somewhere between 100 000 and i mean 100 billion and 400 billion stars and over 100 billion planets all right here and like i say we're just one of trillions of galaxies the known universe the observable universe is 46.5 billion light years wide that's what we can see now that's 46 46.5 billion times 6 trillion miles wide in other words really big i mean big and here's what's so interesting and fascinating is that scientists and researchers have sent probes we've got all of these things listening and we've sent spacecraft with coated little things on it and not one place in all of this or all of that nowhere does life exist and certainly not intelligent life that we have found nowhere but our let's just show a picture our beautiful planet blue green brown white and all sorts of colors we're here and if you live here you're one of the 20 of the people in the world who live in a free country wow so given the fact that life is a universal anomaly you would think every time there's a conception and life is created we ought to be shouting yeah it happened again oh my goodness it happened again can't believe in the whole universe it's only happening right here and what do we do with it we let somebody else take control of it or some thing and so i just want to start by asking you does anything or anybody own you that's preventing you from being the decider in your own life the the developer of good things in your life and the defender of your value that's what a life taken back looks like with all of this happening surely surely we can find a path back to where we are living the life that god has called us to live because there are a lot of people that would like to throw us off of the life that we're living look at this verse here it says this evil people and imposters will flourish they will deceive others and will themselves be deceived but you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught you know they are true for you know you can trust who taught you and that was paul his letter to timothy and so you you know i know that you can trust what's being taught here you can believe in it you've hey haven't you seen doing the opposite of what's being taught and haven't you seen the consequences and the results of it and the destruction that can come from it and isn't it exciting when we think about all the problems in the world that we we think that it's the result of somebody else if if they could just change then we would be better i remember uh there was something my wife was doing and i i just i just wanted to ask her you know maybe she could not do that and work on a little bit and so i just waited at the right time i said honey um listen anything you want me to do i i will do it anything you want me to work on i'm going to work on that she's good great and i said there is one thing uh that i'd like you to work on and remember i'll work on anything the right time right place you know i'm humble all that and and uh she said okay and then i started so and she goes no there's something i'd like you to work on okay absolutely what is it she said i'd like you to work on not needing me to work on anything okay so i learned there that you know you need to stick to your side of the street and it just no matter what no matter the time just yeah just just stick with you and you'll have enough enough to do but i do believe i do believe that there are all sorts of reasons that we get caught up in somebody else and doing what they're doing and we prevent ourselves from doing what we can do to take our lives back look at this first point here it says that living in and out of a false self is living a reactive life we mess up and rather than just you know come forward with that and tell people admit we have messed up what do we do we we fake it we create this duplicity and we live this way to some people and we live that way to other people and it doesn't work very well i love this nathaniel hawthorne wrote the scarlet letter he said this no man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true we think we are so smart we are genius as we think but as it says in romans 1 22 thinking themselves wise or claiming to be wise they instead become utter fools isn't that what you have done i've done that all the time and so we are invited rather than live that way anymore we are invited to take our lives back and do something better but what we do is look at this second point we develop unhealthy reactions to shame and pain and to fear you know rather than just be open with each other and and share that together in community we just try to cover it up oh my goodness um my wife was pregnant with our first son and um you know it was it was amazing we went down to babies r us and we got this chest for the baby's room and it was too heavy for me and so we drove up the back and and this guy brought it out from shipping i think his name might have been thor or something like they was just this big old guy and uh so we go to lift it into the back there and uh thor doesn't see that my hand's still under the chest and this finger especially he just slams it right down on that finger and he sees that he's done that and he asked me a question does that hurt and of course i said absolutely not thor went back in to the store and i start dancing around this finger ah and i you know here came my wife and i mentioned something stupid like pain worse than childbirth and that's not the dumbest thing i've ever said and uh and i just thought isn't that the story of my life pain i hide it i don't share it i try to cover it up and maybe that's you too shame pain fear man when we're in community we can share those kinds of things we can be open we don't need we don't need to hide it look at this hosea pain has come to the people like the pain of childbirth but they're like a child who resists being born the moment of birth has arrived and they stay in the womb pain is an invitation to grow pain childbirth pain is the beginning of a whole new life outside the womb and any pain that we experience is an invitation for us to adapt to change to make some new insights real in our lives if we'll simply do it but so often we resist and there are things that take up too much real estate in our brain too much turmoil in our heart because we refuse to be open and honest about them you can't take your life back unless you see what is there and then you have to share that with other people and then you have to be willing to do something about it and so we have to ask what is it that's owning me controlling me what is it that i let take over this gift of life that god has given me why don't i courageously do what i need to do rather than invalidate the choice with an intellectual discussion in my head of why that choice isn't available to me you ever do that you think you're so smart just like me i just think i'm so well what a genius and then and then my child or wife or someone else points out hey here's a detail that you might have missed in what you're doing it's hard to see it you know there's so many different ways that we take life into our own hands look at this third point reactive living it's taking matters into our own hands living according to our own vows and our own declaration so you get hurt and you make a vow i will never be controlled by a man or a woman i will never get myself in that situation again i will never open up to anybody because look what they did with the information and you make these vows now is that is that what god wants us to do that's not living according to god that's not responding to god's word that's me protecting myself and you can become so protective that you get addicted to sameness predictability and protecting yourself and that's no way to live or you make a conclusion all men are all women are or every time you do i mean it's just your conclusion about folks and it may not be true every time so we have to give up these vows and these declarations and then start to respond to what god wants for us not what we think we need for ourselves and it you know it's hard work to change but we can do it hosea 10 12 says this plant the good seeds of righteousness and you'll harvest a crop of love here it is plow up the hard ground of your hearts for now is the time to seek the lord that he may come and shower righteousness upon you you know the bible says that we can be renewed or we can transform our lives by renewing our minds or changing the way we think it's another way of saying plowing up the hard ground people say wow you could be transformed by just changing the way you think and yet it's one of the hardest things in the world to change the way that we think to admit that okay maybe haven't been so bright after all but it takes a dismal dismal failure sometimes before we'll wake up to it look at paul's prescription it's pretty amazing to me it says this therefore i a prisoner for serving the lord beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling for you have been called by god always be humble and gentle every person here if you believe this to be true has a calling from god you might think yeah well i might have had that but i blew it i messed it up doesn't matter the calling is still there you need to get back with it what did god intend you to be the last bible project i just turned it in it's the one year bible for men and i was asked to write a hundred word devotional for every day i wrote 37 200 words on the one year bible for men in february i open up to that day's reading and you get an old testament a new testament passage a psalm and a proverb coincidentally in the old testament god chose the high priest aaron to be the high priest and what's he doing he's worshiping a golden cat if you've ever had a hire that didn't work out for you god knows how you feel it didn't go too well well there i could turn over to the new testament on that day and here is peter saying i never met the man denying that jesus ever existed the rock peter he's going to spread the gospel he's going to start the church the bride of christ saying he never met the man now i would say that is about as bad as it gets in blowing your calling especially when you're one of the people that spent all this time with jesus or god picked you directly oh my goodness so was it over did jesus say okay peter well you know here's what i had planned for you and now you've blown it so get out of here no he restored peter he wants to restore you the same way imagine if everybody here did what peter did and accepted the forgiveness and accepted the restoration and got back to the calling that god had on their life and over there in the old testament god didn't say okay aaron a little lightning bolt and his ashes no he didn't do that you know what he did he made an example of aaron restoring him and he remained the high priest showing all of us any of us that we can get back to the calling that god has for us see that's really taking your life back when you're in the life that god has called you to now let's say god called you to be a missionary but you're running a mcdonald's now or something like that okay then go to mexico and be a missionary when your vacation comes up or something like that you can still work that calling into whatever you're doing you can do that i'm so so god has a calling you might feel like that you've gone too far but you have not now here again look at ephesians 4 1. be patient with each other making allowance for each other's faults because of your love make every effort to keep yourselves united in spirit binding yourselves together with peace now that's everybody here everybody in community but especially husbands and wives need to do that it's it's love it's acceptance it's forgiveness it's grace and it's mercy now shortly after my wife and i ate some wedding cake everything changed for us in fact i encourage people get married but do not eat the wedding cake there's something in there that absolutely changes the person 100 percent there are some things that i missed and my wife was born with a birth defect very sad very tragic uh she has no clock in her head it's just the time it doesn't exist she'll say to me what time is it i'll say honey what time do you think it is uh nine honey it's midnight uh you've missed the whole three hours they didn't even know they hadn't but that's that's the time now i also was born with a birth defect i have no compass inside my head i don't know north south east or west i know left and i know right and i know u-turn one of the most frequent phrases i hear in my car is recalculating route i can't even follow that so everywhere we go she knows most likely we will get lost before we get there so i'm pacing and she's taking her time getting ready and i'm down there thinking come on you know we're going to get lost get out here let's get with it and she's up there thinking oh well we're going to get lost and be late anyway it doesn't matter how fast i go which is different and so you think i'm going to try to infuse a clock into her or her infused uh some kind of compass in here that no we have to make allowances for each other we have to accept each other one of the great quotes out of the big book of of a a bill w wrote this acceptance is the answer to all my problems today now i have tried to figure out if that isn't the answer to all my problems today it is absolutely true accepting my reality accepting my responsibility accepting someone else acceptance really is the answer to all my problems today and if i don't accept it then i can never do anything about it i mean here's another thing if i was a superhero i would have a cape with a dot on it because i would be bullet point man i want to know the headline i want to know the bottom line i want to know the bullet points i just want to know what's on the line i don't care devil's in the details for me my wife's a little different when she communicates there's an introductory phase kind of an adagio kind of a bringing it up your crescendo there's a maximum like a climactic moment in the piece that she's producing here in front of me and i must respond to this and know and then there's the diminuendo and finally we're down here to the conclusion of that particular piece of communication well i was born with a terminal case of attention deficit disorder so i said to my therapist i go to see a therapist every week and some people say you should go twice but i just go once a week [Music] nine a.m in the morning old charlie and i will be together but i said to charlie charlie this is so hard oh my goodness i said you know i'm about here and i'm done he said well you have to focus you have to change you have to stay with her all right what do i do he says well you know people have different sized pores on their face why don't you look at her face and look at the poor differences and stay with her and so i'm going well i just look at me and all the way through the piece and she said honey you you seem so so with me i said you have no idea honey i am there with you and i after doing that i didn't need to do that anymore i was with her and i discovered that it's delight that's in the details when you really try to attune with another person but you have to be willing to make the change here's something that will absolutely reduce the amount of sexual intimacy in a marriage well this is the way you married me and this is the way i'm going to be no woman has ever heard anybody say that and thought oh my gosh i have to be with this man no it does not work humble yourself you know ephesians uh 5 21 is a verse that often gets missed but it says submit yourselves one to another out of reverence for the lord so so submitting yourself to each other is very different than one person submitting to the other by the way the verses that follow that there are about 40 words on a woman's need to submit to a man but after that there are about a hundred words to the man on how to die to himself for the woman let me tell you something if you find a man who's willing to die to himself submit to that man and sir if you find a woman would willing to submit to you die to that woman see that's mutuality that's what there's no dictator doormat and a lot of people don't like the bible because all they hear about is the submission thing it isn't what the bible communicates when you get the whole picture it's mutual submission to each other and doesn't that make so much more sense all right now number four there are events and interactions that trigger us back into the shame and pain and fear from a different time and a different person if we could just admit this that many times if we haven't resolved something from our past you you might think you're talking to your husband but your dad's head is on his shoulders and that's who you're really dealing with or you may think you're talking to your wife but you have put your mommy's head on her shoulder and satan uses everything if you have a great background your parents were wonderful let's say you're a man and your mom was fantastic you have to get over that because your wife will never ever meet the same kind of stuff that your your mom did because she birthed you and your wife did not and so you have to get over her being such a great mom so that you can just accept your wife as she is and the same thing if a woman had a daddy who just doted over he cannot measure up to daddy by the same token if daddy was a abandoned or rejected or whatever was mean the husband cannot compensate for all that stuff but you'll expect him to and the same with the man and the woman so you see we've got to resolve these things people say well let's don't go digging up our past wait a second i agree but if your past is destroying your relationship today that's not the past is it that's the present and we have to deal with whatever is getting into our present and i'm telling you well i've got to move on here let me just say this that we've got a lot of work to do let's go over to psalm 34 4 and it says this i'm skipping a verse i prayed to the lord and he answered me he freed me from all my fears those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy no shadow of shame will darken their faces if you want to get on with your life if you want to take your life back then of course you have to surrender your life to the lord he will do it if you will surrender it and there's a lot of different ways that we act out or act in great story the prodigal son he acted out took the money live with prostitutes all that stuff but the elder brother was acting in he looked better than him but no different because he wasn't following he wasn't a godly man he was angry that this little brother who had taken half of everything now gets to come back and one day take half of everything else again so you can look good but god sees and knows everything that is there now point number six is simply this some react by acting out some react by acting in i think that's five now let's go to six next one is and thank you uh whoever's doing the slides i told you it's gonna be tough all right um let's go to the next slide after that we'll just skip that because uh i have too much to say the reactive life is a com compilation of survival strategies that can be changed but not without pain so all of us have done these things we've we've we've kind of fallen into these ruts and we're surviving and we're missing the thriving that god wants us to do and so we have to be willing to say i am going to do some work i'm going to get in a group or i'm going to see a counselor or i'm going to talk to somebody and open up about this because i want to take my life back you can't do it in secrecy you can't get rid of these survival strategies in isolation you know james 5 16 says to confess your sins one to another so anybody saying all i need is my bible and god is not reading the bible that they say that is all that they need now i'm going to go way down here to number seven and that point is going to be this the reactive life is defined by the choices we make to survive and life that's no longer reactive that's what we call the response of life is a result of the choices that we make to heal now choice everybody has a choice and even choosing not to choose is a choice and it's here's the thing you're not ever going to solve something with passivity there's no book the power of passivity you're just not going to see that there and waiting on the lord can be used as an excuse to be passive or i'm just waiting for god to move here well you know what you might be doing rather than doing what you need to do you might use that as an excuse and what you're really doing is just wishing that it would be better you know hope has a foundation wishing or having false hope isn't what god calls us to now the responsive life well the responsive life is a life that is is taken back you're responding to what god wants for you you're you're responding to other people that god wants you to minister to you are responding with love and compassion and you have peace look at this verse today i have given you the choice between blessings and curses now i call on heaven and earth to witness the choice that you make oh that you would choose life so that you and your descendants might live you see you can be alive but you can choose death living as a dead person versus choosing the life that god has called you to in all of the universe this is where life happens and every one of us hit the jackpot we won the lottery we live here and this planet is the only place that things live why would you waste one more day of life you can be imprisoned by your own thoughts and worries or some dependency or addiction some habit i think i've had them all i think i've been through them all and it's at that point of humble serenity and surrender and peace that i don't have to do this anymore that's where we begin to live the life that god has called us to live now there are a lot of things you can choose to do you could switch to geico and reduce your insurance cost by 15 that's not a bad thing you could finally order my pillow and maybe sleep better at night there's a book on amazon how to fake being a real person you could get that if you don't like take your life back or you could just decide you know what i think i've been messing around and i think life can be better for me and all it takes is this one one thing it's not being aware you have a problem it's not wanting things to be different it's willing to do whatever it takes to have the life that god has called me to have what a gift this life and the gift of restoration that is available to absolutely every one of us let me pray for you god i thank you i thank you for every person in this auditorium or online i thank you you have created them you have given them life and a life and you call them to something greater than themselves and i pray today they would make that decision that they've been knowing they need to make humble themselves surrender to you and start to open up about the struggle i pray this lord in your name in the name of your son our savior jesus christ amen amen hey would you keep your heads bowed and your eyes closed for just a few few minutes longer because some of you today um you're here and everything that pastor steve just mentioned you're like yep that's me yep that's me and you know god's speaking to you today and for so long you've been going your own way or you've been keeping god at a distance but today you know you need to give them your heart and your life you need to respond to the grace and the forgiveness of jesus so your life can be restored god knows everything about you and he loves you anyway in fact he loved you so much that he sent his son jesus to die on the cross for all of your mistakes for all of your mess-ups for all of your sin the bible says when we respond to his love when we stop going our own way that's where life is found so some of you today you know you need to respond i'm not going to embarrass you i'm not going to point you out i'm not going to make it come down front but i do want to pray for you and today all over the room and online you would say pastor that's me today i need to give my life fully to god that's your first step i need to give my life fully to god so right where you are just pray this prayer you know who you are mean it with everything that you have put in your own words but pray this prayer just say today god i am sorry i'm sorry for going my own way i'm sorry for keeping you at a distance but today as simply as i know how i give my life to you say come live inside of me change me make me the person you long for me to be now holy spirit i thank you for every person who's praying that prayer in this room and online lord thank you for saving people today thank you for loving us in our worst moment and thank you for the hope that we have in jesus and i pray that the people of god that will apply the word of god and will live the life that you're calling us to live in jesus name we pray amen and amen come on church celebrate with me those who just said yes to jesus all over the room online so great hey if you just prayed that prayer with me take a moment and fill out the connection card that's inside your worship guide online it's the same just check the box today i'm giving my life to jesus i'm recommitting my life to christ wherever you are on the journey we want to celebrate that with you and it is the same hassle-free guarantee we're just going to give you some clear next steps of how to get connected and how to take those steps with jesus and talking about next step we have a thing here called the growth track the growth track is a two-step process today is step one and so right after the service is over go to the lobby our growth track room our team will greet you answer all the questions that you have and today you can take your next step here at trinity church and i'm really grateful for that and the next step also is baptism maybe some of you in the room you just gave your life to jesus and you want to know what's the next step the bible says believe and be baptized and declare publicly what jesus is doing in your heart so if that's you either on the connection card check the box baptism our baptism booth is out in the lobby we'd love to help you take a next step today hey everybody wasn't that an incredible message by pastor steve artiburn can we just thank god for him thank you we're we're sitting on the front row and he goes hey um i would love to help any way that you need me like i could do this multiple times i'm like well let's see how the first week goes and i think it went pretty great so we're going to start seeing um steve artem quite a bit around here in the future and i'm really grateful for his love and his friendship and his love for all of you really grateful for him hey you received this book when you walked in um pastor steve will be down from right over here um he told me if you want him to sign your book you want to greet him he'll be around for as long as it takes after the service he'd love to personally meet you but some of you who just like monopolized time i'm going to be right beside him and i'm going to move you along okay i'm just i'm just letting i'm letting i'm letting you i'm letting you know and before we send you out um hey we're time it's time to worship god through the giving of our tithes and offerings aren't you excited to do that today yeah we serve and give first god so we're going to be a gift first people so however you give and the boxes in the back of the room online in the app um however you give thank you for your amazing and your continued generosity i'm going to ask you to stand your feet all over the room i want to pray a blessing over you today and if you need prayer for any reason our prayer team will be down front as well we'd love to pray with you we love to pray for you let's pray together god thank you again for what you've done here today for this incredible and practical message and i pray god that we will have the most amazing sunday afternoon we've ever had and the cardinals will go 2-0 in jesus name amen church i love you keep coming back we'll see you next weekend god bless you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] 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Channel: Trinity Church Mesa

Views: 45

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: A-79nAHqwoI

Length: 85min 11sec (5111 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021