Dream Big | Ron Sylvia | Week 1

[Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] good morning everybody so great to see you welcome to church at the springs let's stand up as we get ready to worship let's put our hands together this morning [Music] let praise be a weapon that silences the enemy let praise be a weapon that conquers all anxiety let it rise see your name in the dark and it changes everything we sing with all we are and we claim your victory so let it rise [Music] we cannot survive where do we praise you the god of breakthroughs on our side forever [Music] that [Music] let faith be the song that calms the storm inside of me so let it rise [Music] we cannot survive when we praise you the god of breakthroughs on our side forever this is what living looks like this is what freedom feels like this is what heaven sounds like we praise you we praise you this is what living looks like this is what freedom feels like this is what heaven sounds like we praise you we praise you this is what living looks like this is what freedom feels like this is what heaven sounds like we praise you we praise you this is what living looks like this is what freedom feels like this is you cannot survive [Music] [Music] die yes [Music] and nothing i want that your love doesn't offer nothing i've done that your grace won't come it's not over till you say so you are faithful god you're faithful [Music] is [Music] you never make a promise [Music] [Music] where i started [Music] [Music] is [Music] you don't care [Music] and we worship you in this place we thank you for always you you won't your love won't give up on me you don't keep is me give up hallelujah [Music] [Music] just one word you calm the storm that surrounds me just one word the darkness has to retrieve just one touch i feel the presence of him just one touch my eyes were praise [Music] [Music] you hear what's broken inside [Music] who brings the name [Music] is there's [Music] i will believe for greater things there's no power like the power of jesus lift people rise let all the greed there's no power like the power of jesus i will believe for greater things there's no power like the power of jesus let feed the rise let all the greed there's no power like the power of jesus is is is [Music] [Music] thank you lord amen it's been so great to worship with you guys you may be seated good morning springs how's everybody is this thing on good man so much happening right now i mean a lot of new stuff going on i know if you probably saw the lobby some new setups new furniture new look just to kind of build this next season this is an exciting season as we kick off dream big today but one thing i'm really excited about that i want to introduce you to somebody that i've been waiting for about a month to introduce you to to you you too and that is uh dave and jen smith are joining our staff and our team here at the springs and dave is our new executive pastor and some of you you've seen him around and i'm excited because he brings such a strategic mind and leadership behind the scenes and execution of plans to a whole new level for us dave they come to us from chicago dave was exec one of the executive pastors at willow creek community church in chicago and uh so with with that uh not just that leadership he was there for 11 years he he's been in ministry 28 years uh has a lot of experience there but what i love the most is his heart for the local church and for people growing in their faith and uh and i i want you to have a chance to meet them and officially made the move got the trucks loaded everything up and are on the ground here almost completely they got to get into a house yet but everybody how many of you have ever moved before all right then you know where they are right now and so this is home from chicago to ocala and when they hit the stage right here in a minute i want you to give them a huge springs welcome to ocala to the springs and this faith family all right dave and jen come on out [Applause] nice to see you guys man i'm so glad you're here i can't believe you're really here right you're here here that is the nicest welcome i've ever seen coming into yeah really yeah we're going to do even better as we go along right no and this this whole journey getting to know you guys and i can't wait to really for you guys get into your house and get settled in and i know we're still in flux in a lot of ways but um but i i want to ask uh jen uh because you're okay let's be honest you're the one that did all the packing most of it most of it okay give credit where credit is due and but you guys are here you got everything moving down with you soon and uh but tell us a little bit about i mean this is dave and jen but there's a whole tribe behind you right there are a lot of people okay yeah so tell us a little bit about your family yeah yeah so we have six kids all together and yes it's crazy and when we found out we were surprised pregnant with twins at the end it was through us for a major loop so our oldest is 23 and he's married and then our second oldest i'm not going to do all their ages um because i'm not going to remember them um but we have um five boys and one girl and our oldest two are married and we also have a grandbaby so our grandbaby's like not a baby anymore he's a little over one so um they're in north carolina and then we have two in college and one is living here down here with us and one is up in iowa and then we have our twins who are 11 and they're in fifth grade here um and that is our family which you know is a lot of people um and it all started back in um when we met in high school so we met in high school as juniors and we've been married for 27 years and yeah and that's a lot of hard work isn't it a lot of hard work to get to to that right um yeah so that's that's a little bit you guys were high school sweethearts in where this is really important all right so this is so new jersey but i need to mention south jersey because we're philly fans um yeah so south jersey is where we both grew up and met and then we moved on to ohio and then illinois and now florida so that's a little bit about we are so glad you guys are here good uh man and uh i want to give give you a chance to get to know them and you're going to see them around so but when you see their family and that was that was a big shot on the screen of a lot of people that's a big tribe so but man we can't wait uh to get to know everybody and so dave i did my question for you okay what is your deepest darkest sin no i'm kidding man we said we're gonna do that we're not gonna do that yeah that but what i mean why the springs i mean i know this about you i know uh i've talked to so many people about you in the journey getting to know you and you talk to a lot of churches you had a lot of options what why the springs why did god lead you here yeah i mean i think first and foremost we just wanted to remain surrendered to god's leading and it became evident that this is where god was moving us but i think the thing that really captured us was your heartbeat your heartbeat springs for multiplication there's something within your dna that has a passion and urgency just to see exponential growth with not only like more and better disciples but also campuses throughout the ocala region and then even i think more importantly church planters and church plants throughout our country and i think even coming here we saw some things that really excited us too there's a growing diversity here among this church that's being celebrated right now uh guys i want you to know this we sensed it coming in you create a space where anyone no matter where they've been what they have done they can freely explore who jesus is and what this christian faith is all about and i think that's amazing and i think the thing that you ought to hear springs too that's really important is there's a staff here that we've come to know and continually getting to know they love their work but more importantly they love jesus and so for me ron it's an absolute privilege not only to serve the team but i think most importantly to serve you to make sure you're best supported uh as we continue just to follow your leadership and to follow your pastoring of us into the future and that i'm really grateful for and thank you man i am so glad you guys are here gonna be a fun journey right so all right well give it up for dave and jan when you see him floating around but the best place uh if you want to get to meet dave next sunday we have connect he's going to be hanging with us at connect and i'll talk more about that in just a second but right now give them a big springs welcome thank you guys love you guys man and when i say connect if you're new to the springs next week is the time and the place from four to six next sunday here in ocala at this campus we're going to have an opportunity to step in find out more about the springs why we do what we do who we are where we're going and get to meet all of our staff and uh you'll get a chance to meet dave in that time but if you see them out in the halls man give them a a a warm welcome i would say give them a hug but yeah probably not the best thing right now right is uh just give them a warm welcome and tell them we're so glad they're here god is going to do great things god is continuing to build an incredible team here so but connect next to give you just a taste of what it looks like connect i like to describe it this way connect is a party with new friends watch your screen [Music] so connect is next week from four to six okay before i go any further my name is jacob i'm one of the pastors here on staff nice to meet you now that we're connected uh connect is the best place for you to get to know the heartbeat of church of the springs why we do what we do week in and week out we're going to get together from 4 to 6 p.m right here in in at this campus and we're gonna just hang out around tables uh and you're gonna be able to get to know our staff our our values uh our mission what we believe and where we are going together as a church and what part you can play in this we're going to have food and child care so you can sign up on this connect card just write connect anywhere on the connect card real big just write connect so that way we know we have enough people to take care of your kids and be able to feed you we're gonna have barbecue and listen if you come just for the barbecue just know it's the only reason i come too so it's okay all right so so come and and just get to know our our families and our staff and get to know church at the springs and what part you can play as we continue to make an impact for god not only here in ocala but in the villages in marion oaks and across florida and the united states and the world with our church plants we are starting this series dream big today and and i know that so many of us have been living through a season where you may feel paralyzed or crippled by the thought of even dreaming at all that many of us if we're being truthful that we've just been living in what feels like hills and valleys but this valley seems never-ending and it seems like we are stuck in a season that we are just in a rut and can't get out of and we're about to sing a song and and the song has a line in it that says uh i've watched my dreams get broken in you i hope again in god i hope again and we have been living through that and what do we do when we are faced with our broken dreams that is what we are going to talk about today and that is what we are going to sing about right now so you can stay seated as we sing together [Music] i've seen the brighter days [Music] no matter what i [Music] is [Music] he is [Music] no matter what i know i'm safe inside yeah you're the god foreign [Music] i [Music] who sees me i know [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you know those two words dream big what i know is that every one of you at some point in your life has had a big dream [Music] i mean this guy did and this is actually a a picture of a person that lived a dream he became known as lawn chair larry we've talked about him in the past that it was in 1982 if you haven't heard the story it's crazy he he had this dream of attaching helium balloons to a lawn chair and actually taking flight and so in 1982 he did that uh larry walters i mean he he took uh like 43 weather balloons and filled them with helium and attached them to a lawn chair in his backyard and tied it off to the bumper of his jeep and this is an actual picture of larry before he took off and on the ground was his girlfriend and a a friend and he packed and planned for the trip and that the i mean he actually he took the essentials you know he he got a pellet gun so he could shoot out some balloons in case the altitude was too high and in order to come down he had a cb radio to keep contact with his girlfriend and his friend on the ground he had a few sandwiches and and some beer of course right like i mean this was the ultimate you know i i'm just going to take a take a flight and so his girlfriend and friend cut the first rope that he was tethered to and it jerked so high then so fast up that it broke and snapped the second one and he took off and he said it was like going 16 000 feet in an elevator he shot up so fast that he lost his glasses on the way up so he was literally flying blind and he he flew to 16 000 feet but he didn't know the flight path he was giving it his best shot but he he drifted into the flight path of lax airport okay yeah a little busy and this is how uh the the tower heard that he was up there there was two pilots that spotted him out their window and one of them radioed in and said this is twa flight 231 i'm level at 16 000 feet we have a man attached to balloons in a lawn chair it's like what you know and so i mean that that from that point he realized he was getting too high and so he started shooting down you know some of the balloons to lower the altitude and he he shot out like five or seven balloons and he it leveled him off and he started drifting down slowly but he was drifting down and he looked down and he saw all these power lines in long beach when he was coming down and he thought this is not the way i wanted it to end and and what he didn't realize is they had shut up all the power in long beach because they saw him and knew what was happening and and so he comes down and he said he came down into a neighborhood and there was a guy sitting by his pool reading the newspaper and he literally came in a lot he looks up and sees this guy in a lawn chair skimming across his roof and gets hung up in the power lines and and he they took him down and uh he was arrested he was fined i think he i think ultimately 400 bucks or something and and then he traveled the talk show circuit you know telling his story and uh hoping that he would be able to sell the rights to his story and make some money and he never really did but he said this one thing in one of the interviews he said it was something i had to do i had this dream for 20 years and if i hadn't done it i think i would have ended up in the funny farm have you ever had a dream that you said if i don't do it i if i don't do this it's burning in me it's so i have to do this that's where he was at now granted he maybe should have ended up in the funny farm but you know that that i mean that that was crazy that was dangerous that wasn't but but what i know about every single one of you is that god has a big dream and it's yours it's for you the way god created you and wired you but the sad reality is most of those dreams got buried a long time ago i mean we we shelved them because we didn't see them coming true we didn't see any way that it would ever happen in my prayers for each of you that over the next five weeks we would awaken some of those again and but i also want to state the obvious and and the reality is that not many people feel like dreaming big right now i mean because our dreams have been broken and shattered over the last two years we've we've had this unprecedented pain and loss not just locally but nationally and globally everything that was normal left us in 2020 and i get that but it doesn't change the fact that god still has a dream for your life something he wants to do in you through you with you and but what do you do with the broken dreams i want to i want to look at today the story of a guy in the old testament named joseph because he knew broken dreams he knew the pain of isolation and betrayal and injustice he he knew because in in just a day he lost everything that was normal to him and his life was forever changed and his whole story is told in genesis 37 to 50 and it'll be in the notes but uh you could track along on the bible app but oftentimes though we think about broken dreams when we think broken dreams we think dead dreams they're not the same thing there's a difference between the two the uh and here's the first takeaway if you're gonna jot down some notes uh broken dreams are detours not dead ends there there's a difference there's there they're detours i mean dead ends are paralyzing because dead ends are like i don't know where to go i'm stuck but it but a detour is is more it's about rerouting and delays and inconveniences and they they often lead to frustration because hey why is this taking so long and why am i why am i taking a different route you know if you've ever used the maps app on your phone i you get this right because there are times like teddy and i were coming back from the airport not too long ago and i put the maps app up on our car and we're driving and all of a sudden it added an hour to our time and i'm like why did it add an hour i know how long it takes to get back from the airport what is that and you know and and then i realized it's it's taking us off of 75 and it's rerouting us down the side road and i'm like i've never gone that way before why would i do that you know and it gives that because it gives you that option alternate route and you have to choose you have to choose between keeping the original or taking the alternate but even the alternate was 15 minutes longer than it should have taken so i'm like why are they doing this and we all get to that moment that you're sitting there and you're coming on the spot where it's telling you to take a different route but you know the way you go is straight and you're trying to decide do i trust the app or do i trust what i know right we've all been there and i've learned to trust the app because if i hadn't trusted the app i might still be on 75 because what i didn't know is there was a major wreck down 75 and it was bumper to bumper a parking lot for an hour and see the app knew that and that's when you realize you know what god knows what's down the road i don't and sometimes detours are for your good sometimes detours keep you from a painful place sometimes they lead you into it sometimes you know they seem unfair and and yet god gave joseph a dream and that's what you see in genesis 37 i mean the beginning of it and many of you you know the story but he had to take him on some detours before that dream came and i want to look at three detours and think tell me if you can relate to any of these and where you are and where you're living the first detour detour number one was the pit it was a pit it was a well it was a 15-foot hole in the ground that that became a detour in joseph's life and the lesson that he learned in that was humility i mean it's this uh because let me give you a little bit of backstory about joseph joseph we know joseph if you know joseph in the old testament you're like oh yeah joseph joseph was the guy that god used in big ways i mean he took him to a place that man he became second in command and he shaved all of egypt and god used him yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that but let me tell you the back story let me tell you who he was when we first meet him he's he's a 17 year old uh in genesis 37 he's a 17 year old who's he's a spoiled kid he's got entitlement issues he's he didn't have respect for authority he was a matter of fact he was his father's favorite and everybody knew it and he was treated that way and his dad made a special robe for him and said this is just for you and he might as well put across the back dad's favorite because joseph wore that robe and so that that's that's who he is when we meet him and god gave him a dream and the dream he here's the mistake about the dream he told his older brothers the dream was that you know that basically everyone would bow down to him that was his dream that they had and he started telling everybody about it and he told his brothers and it didn't go well and and so they they the scripture goes on and says this in genesis you guys got it genesis 37 there we go he said and they hated him all the more because of his dreams but that's not all if it just put a period there we go okay well they were just they didn't like his dreams and you know okay but it wasn't just the dreams and the way he talked about them the you know there's a little arrogance with joseph there's a little you know oh yeah yeah you guys are going to bow down yeah i like the way this but you know this is my dream right and so he he bragged about them there was there is a pride in him about them but then they made a plan and this is what happens next it says uh when when joseph's brother saw him coming they recognized him from the distance do you know why he was wearing that stupid robe he's like here comes the roadboy you know i mean he's coming from a distance they recognize him and then says as he approached they made plans to kill him here comes the dreamer they said come on let's kill them and throw them into one of these cisterns and that that was the plan it's like we're going to kill them i mean little dysfunction in the family yeah i mean that that was he they threw him into the the pit and the scripture says that they grabbed him and they tore up the robe from his back and they threw him in the pit and it might have sounded like if you just read in the text well ah you know he's he was just uh yeah they it was just something big brothers do you know they just mess with the little brothers it wasn't that at all actually the word that was used for tor on the robe tore the robe from him was actually the word that was used for skinning an animal this was an assault this was traumatic this was painful and they put them in the well and when they dumped them it was the same word that's used for dumping a dead body in a grave i mean they had this intention this was and so and you know you got to know his brothers were basically sociopaths and i'll show you that in the next verse uh the next verse says then okay they just threw the brother in the well he's screaming they just assaulted him just as they were sitting down to eat and then they had lunch it's like what yeah they just threw them in a well and then they decided to have lunch and it says and then they looked up and they saw a caravan of camels in the distance coming toward them and so they're these guys came and they said hey here's the idea let's sell them and sell them and they'll take them into egypt and he's gone and we'll tell dad that he was killed by an animal and it'll it breaks their father's heart but that was the plan and that's what they did see every pit that you and i face is going to be about betrayal and abandonment and loneliness like does anybody care this isn't fair and see joseph was given a dream but where he got it wrong at 17 was he thought the dream was about himself it it wasn't the dream was about others you see that everybody can have a dream about yourself we can all have great dreams we you know about our own success or our own you know financial achievements or about our reputation about but that's never going to be god's big dream for your life because a dream is god's invitation to do something big for someone else and joseph had this pride that it was about him and god said no this isn't about you this is so much bigger than you and i mean so much bigger than and you know and so god had this had to shift gears into the humility that had to come and you know what okay it's not about me i god's got bigger plans but he gets sold into slavery he's taken to egypt and then he hits the other pit second pit the prison he gets thrown into prison he gets unjustly accused and thrown into prison and and the lesson there was compassion it's like okay now it's time to grow a heart because you know when you first meet him he was pretty low on the compassion scale i mean he may have been narcissistic you know when god breaks your heart he also opens your heart for other people and that's what took place in the prison you know in the in every detour scripture says the lord was with joseph and and that in every world that joseph got thrown into he was elevated and promoted and trusted quickly and there's two other prisoners that were thrown in pharaoh's cupbearer and a baker and he uh and and joseph you know he was given charge over all the prisoners and he saw these two guys and he saw something in them and let me kind of show you the compassion moment he said when joseph saw them the next morning the two prisoners he noticed that they were both that they both looked upset why do you look so worried today he asked them you know they had to be going why do i look so worried i'm in prison you know i mean isn't that the obvious you know what but why did joseph even notice or care that they were upset that's that compassion he joseph in genesis 37 he never would have carried but you know something takes place in the uh and he he he interpreted both both of their dreams and said you guys are going to get out in three days and and and then he said these words uh in in genesis 40 and please remember me and do me a favor mention me to pharaoh so he might let me out of this place you know what he was saying was guys don't forget me i feel like i'm forgotten i feel like i've been left alone don't forget me and it's just and and you know we've all been there right we've been in those places where we're like god i don't even know if you know what i'm going through i'm going through this alone but but he developed a heart and a heart of compassion in the midst of the prison you know what you know you know when you develop compassion when your heart breaks when you've come to the end of yourself when you you feel like it's a dead end but god says no this is the detour but i'm going to use that you know for for me i mean think about it this way your greatest pain in life will be your greatest ministry and we don't want to talk about that we don't want to live that way but you know what that's what happens i i call compassion it's the journey from sympathy to empathy sympathy says i'm really sorry for what you're going through but i have no idea what it is empathy says i'm so sorry i've been there let me sit down with you let me walk with you through this i feel empathy is a feeling and emotion sympathy is cognitive it's an intellectual thing when your heart gets involved then you start ministry and i i mean for me think about what it is your greatest pain and and heartbreak and for me it was the being diagnosed with a brain tumor i mean that that brain tumor has marked me it is like what i i'll never forget the journey and all of the moments and the fear and the uncertainty and i never forget that i felt so happy i was i was at the bottom i didn't know if i was going to make it and i i was in a meeting not too long ago at first baptist church in orlando and uh last year or so and the pastor david youth who's a friend he had just found out he had a brain tumor and i was sitting in a meeting and he was sharing that journey and his executive pastor uh looked at him and said david did you know that ron had a brain tumor and david just stopped and he looked over at me and our eyes just locked and he went no can we talk and for me nothing else we did that day mattered because we stepped up we sat down and we talked i knew i knew every emotion he was feeling i felt it again i want to tell you that's what god wants to do through you with your pain that is part of the healing process too that you're going to help walk with people through that's what corinthians second corinthians 1 4 says he comforts us in all of our troubles so that we can comfort others and and god did that he started working in joseph's heart that that time that that pit that uh the prison but then the third one the third one was the palace uh this is the next detour and the lesson there is boldness the uh you know the the palace he then two years he's waiting for those guys those guys forgot about him in prison for two years and then they brought him and they said oh i said the pharaoh oh pharaoh had a dream and they're like oh wait a second oh there is a guy that we met two years ago in prison that interprets dreams it's a pharaoh called for him and he brought him out and uh and you know and you're thinking this whole journey took 13 years to get him to the palace why 13 years he was 30 years old now because god had to take him on a journey from a 17 year old arrogant kid to second in command in egypt and it took time and in verse 15 and 16 you see pharah it said the pharaoh said to joseph i had a dream last night no one here can tell me what it means but i have heard that when you hear about a dream you can interpret it he said that to joseph now if you're joseph at that point you're going well yes i can i mean you're standing in front of the the leader of the known world and you oh yeah let me help you right that's what you're saying not what joseph said he started out with it's beyond my power to do this oh man joseph i wouldn't have lived with that you know this is a guy that could kill you on the spot and they then he replied but god can tell you what it means and set you at ease like god can do this now you might not sense the boldness in that but let me tell you the boldness of that pharaoh thought he was god he just told the guy who thought he was god that his god could help him and pharaoh just listened and responded and leaned in and i mean that there was this boldness you know why there was a boldness because the lord was with joseph for 13 years joseph wasn't it wasn't focused on god why why why he was focused on god he he was focused you know and what he learned is that it's better to know god than know why and that's the journey it's like okay god i want to know you he he went on that that that journey from knowing about god things about god to knowing god and when you when you take that journey nothing is impossible you live with peace and contentment and you're and and this is where he walked and now he had this boldness that came it was his confidence it wasn't like arrogance it wasn't preachy it was just hey i know god he can help you the way he helped me and god wants to use that in your life but then it's you know and then the results of that in verse 41 where pharaoh said to joseph i hereby put you in charge of the entire land of egypt you're over the and joseph's going what where did that come from but you know we'll look at the rest of the story next week but what i also know about joseph's dreams you start putting those all together jose's dreams weren't broken they were shattered they they were they were shattered into a million pieces and i think so many of us we we get there you know and because for you and me we can fix broken things but when something gets shattered you and i we throw it away and here's the takeaway on that one shattered dreams can't be fixed alone that you you you and i we can't fix them alone and what's heavy on my heart is i know that so many of you are living in the midst of a shattered dream right now you know how i know that these pages every week you write prayer requests and you put them on the connect card and this is my list from last week i prayed over and there's 105 requests on this from last week and over 50 of them are about health issues and covet and death i feel your pain and i know you feel like your dreams are shattered right now i'm so sorry and oftentimes we look at our lives and we say you know when storms come into and storms come into all of our lives but really if a storm comes we can weather it for the most part but when a category 5 hits the shores of your life it rearranges your life forever it'll never be the same someone's gone something's gone you gotta pick up pieces and what do you do you need people to walk into your shattered world with you and i want you to listen to one story from derek and amber arnold they're part of our family here at the springs and they had a category five wash up on the shore of their lives i want you to hear their story i'm amber arnold and i'm derek arnold we've been married nine to wonderful for many years as a married couple and uh having two kids already that i had brought to the marriage we knew that individually our christianity was important to us but we knew together we wanted to kind of create a foundation for our marriage after some invitations and some volunteering and serving we were asked to lead a small group let's just go in it and open our hearts and if god wants to work through us and make this happen then it's going to happen and so here we are i think we've been going for three years i don't know if i would have ever understood until i actually experienced it myself it's changed our family in a way that i can't explain and then 2020 hit um he got furloughed at the beginning of the year so that was a little scary but otherwise i mean we were okay um well we were i think in april we found out we were expecting and uh and uh it was a surprise and so we uh we were excited and uh we were celebrating with our friends and uh our friends and is our small group that's who when i say friends that's those are the guys and girls and brad said to me one night that i'm not feeling anything and we were about 34 weeks i went to the doctor and they couldn't find anything no movements no heartbeat and looking into it that they said that she was she was gone our little girl wasn't gonna make it and uh [Music] at that point you you know you figure you know like hey what's going on you know you're just kind of a loss and um so we let the small group know i don't know how we did but um we let them know and as soon as it happened they were there it's like they put their lives on pubs for us you ask yourself and you know i look at my wife and uh obviously i heard but i watch her hurt and they're there the girls are there to pick her up and the guys are there just to just to be there just to pat me on the back and you you ask god like how can my broken heart be part of your plan i truly feel that god orchestrated all of this he set us up to have these people in our minds these people so that when we went through this we weren't alone you saw christ's love through their response that they were going to travel in that valley with us and they were going to wait there with us until we were ready to come back out you know we talk about how it's important for our kids you know riley and carter my teenagers and our youngest penelope see that the church or jesus isn't just in a building it's it's an everyday relationship it's everyday thing it's where you are it's at your home it's you know and out in the public at work it's with your friends and the way they've responded and the way our group interacts with our kids and us with them but you can't do it alone you know i think that's the big thing that i've learned is you know if i look back now to the things that we've been through and it had just been derek and i i don't know that we'd be in the position that we are right now [Music] they put their lives on pause for us they were gonna sit with us in that valley until we were ready to come out know where that hits here because when you've had that happen in your life you know the power of friends listen every one of us are gonna have a category five and you need friends you need people in your life that will sit down with you that will put their lives on pause and you don't find them in the storm you find them now before the storm that's the church man the church is not a building you go to it's relationships it's life and you gotta you gotta step into that and this is a season to try it this is the season to begin with our groups and our dream big and pulling together with friends see you've got to know this yes the lord's going to be with you in that he'll never leave you he's going to move closer because his heart breaks you know why because his heart broke when his own son was nailed to a cross we have a savior who got he gets our pain he knows our loneliness our betrayal our heartbreak or loss he knows it all and he said i'm going to be with you but for some of you you've never stepped into that relationship that foundation of our faith that jesus died for our sins and all of our past but he didn't just die he rose to life three days later and he said now follow me because i want to lead you out of where you are into life a god that's the relationship that's the foundation of all relationships and for some of you you could begin that today right where you sit let's go to the father in prayer if you bow your heads and close your eyes if that's your desire you can pray right now and ask jesus to be the leader of your life you tell them just pray this prayer not out loud but between you and god you say dear father thank you for loving me and thank you for sending jesus to die for me and today jesus i choose to follow you i ask you to be the leader the savior of my life thank you for forgiveness from my past and and hope for my future god let me step into the dreams that you have for me that i might see with eyes of faith i trust you and i love you and i ask it in jesus name amen thanks praise god amen listen if you prayed that prayer with pastor ron today to give your life to jesus christ i just want to take a moment to congratulate you and as a church we'd be honored to pray for you and help you take some next steps to help you grow that faith and if if you haven't already filled out this connect card go ahead and do that now and if you prayed that prayer a moment ago and you're serious about starting a relationship with god what you can do is mark that second box now from the top that says today i committed my life to christ now we'll reach out to you and make sure that you're you've got those next steps all solidified and ready to go as you begin that journey following jesus on your way out today there will be some ushers at the exit doors that will collect those connect cards uh if you forget and leave it at your seat that's no problem we'll collect it and take care of it from there as well i want to take just a moment as we get ready to close today to thank those of you who are regular givers at the springs i don't think you realize the extent um of your giving just just how far it's able to go you know the story that we heard uh during ron's conclusion today is just one of thousands of stories at the springs of life change um many of which are ultimately made possible uh because of your giving so thank you for for that and uh we're gonna have in the in the coming weeks uh some new opportunities uh to give to some new stuff that we've never really done before and so i'm excited for that i encourage you to come back the next few weeks grab the invite cards on your seat and bring someone with you but if you're uh you're interested in jumping in and giving joining kind of the community of generous givers here at the springs you can go to the springs.net giving again that's the springs.net giving there are a number of different ways listed there that you can jump in and contribute here at the springs well listen ron talked today about the importance of being in groups you've probably seen us talk a lot about that on social media i would encourage you to think about who you can collaborate with be that family friends maybe neighbors or co-workers informed just kind of a small group doesn't have to be many people but to go through this dream big study they'll really help you get the most out of this series on your way out today you can grab a study guide we've got a booth set up there in the middle of the lobby at all three campuses so make sure that you do that they'll give you simple instructions of what to do from there lastly we recognize today that some of the stuff that ron talked about these broken dreams may have sort of brought some stuff to the surface for you that's difficult and if you need prayer for anything at all we're gonna do something a little bit different on the way out today we're actually gonna have a prayer team come up front and if you'd like to receive prayer for anything or just someone to talk to you're welcome to stick around come up and spend some time with them so listen we love you guys so much look forward to seeing you next week god bless [Music] your freedom is now [Music]

Channel: Church at The Springs

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Id: F41D1eXJQTM

Length: 77min 0sec (4620 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021