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[Music] Thanks for joining us here at Life Church. Where We Are One church, meeting in multiple locations and reaching around the world with the help of Church Online. If you ever have any questions, or you'd like to learn more about us as a church, you can always check us out online simply by going to life.church. Or we'd love for you to stay connected throughout your week and everywhere you go with the all-new and updated Life Church app, with more content than ever before to help you stay even more connected. You can download it wherever you download your apps from.
Coming up today, we continue in our message series that goes hand-in-hand with our Senior Pastor Craig Rochelle's new book, Divine Direction: Seven Decisions That Will Change Your Life. You can pick it up wherever books are sold or at DivineDirectionBook.com. And today we're talking specifically about making decisions. They can be so hard, especially whenever we have so many choices. But today Pastor Craig will help us make even better decisions by seeking wisdom in part two of Divine Direction. [Applause]
It's great to have all of you with us today—all of our Life Churches, our Open Network Churches, Church Online. We are in part two of a four-part message series called Divine Direction. To set this thing up, I need a little help from all of you—all of our churches: Awaso, Oklahoma, Wellington, Florida, ALB, New York. I need all of you to participate. It's no fun without you. Quick question: if you were offered a job doing about the same thing in a city that you like for a $112,000 a year raise, how many of you would say, "I'm in"? Raise your hand and give me a little whoop, whoop, whoop! Lot of you! Fantastic! Congratulations! I hate that you sold out for 12,000, cuz I was prepared to offer you more. You should have held tight! Let's just—just including you all—what if I raise it to 50 grand? How many takers will I have? You're moving to another city for 50 grand? Let me close this baby on: if you could make $100,000 extra a year doing about the same thing in a city you like, how many people say, "I'm on the plane, move me there"? We got hands going up all over the place. That will probably help you understand why I'm going to tell you what I'm going to tell you today. But we received an offer from a church on the beach that gave us an offer that we could not refuse. So I'm only joking. I'm only joking. I'm only joking. But you like—like you—you. I want you just to know this: why can you take it and I can't? Right? Why? Why would it be okay for you, but it wouldn't be okay for me? You couldn't drag me away from here for anything. But I want to just put that seed in your mind. We'll come back to that thought later on in the message.
Let me introduce it to you officially: uh, we launched the book just earlier in the week called Divine Direction: Seven Decisions That Will Change Your Life. We have Life Groups going around this book; uh, they are available still at most Life Churches. They will sell out when they do. You can go to DivineDirectionBook.com; that will send you to Amazon or to Barnes & Nobles or to Mardel—wherever books are sold—if you'd like to get one. Uh, I believe it can make a difference in your life. We are talking about decisions. Let me give you a couple of the key lines from the book, uh, about decisions. One of them that I love is this: that we make our decisions, and our decisions make us who we are. Are we today? We are the result today of the decisions that we made in the past. The decisions that we make today, they will determine the stories that we tell tomorrow. Decisions matter so much.
I've done a lot of research, and I talked a little bit last week why it's becoming more difficult, especially for the emerging generation, to make decisions. We've got a generation that is now considered the most indecisive generation, at least in modern history, and I'm really curious as to why, because I care so much about this generation. We talked last week about one of the reasons. One of the reasons is because of the proliferation of options. In other words, when my mom and dad were growing up, they had three TV stations to choose from. I had maybe nine. This generation has unlimited to choose from. If I wanted to go to lunch during school, there were maybe five restaurants we could drive to. Now you can order anything from anywhere, have it delivered to you with a little app. There's an unlimited number of decisions, uh, options, and so that makes decision-making more difficult.
Another thing I want to raise that's fascinating to me is that the emerging generation, especially, especially during the time when their identity is being formed, is shaped by what people are calling the illusion of perfection. The illusion of perfection. For example, when I grew up, I knew about my imperfect life, my imperfect family, my imperfect friends, their imperfect families. But today, because of social media, we often do what we said before: that we get a glimpse into other people's highlight reels, compare them to our behind-the-scenes, and our only reasonable conclusion is, "My life sucks," right? We see what looks to be perfect: this is their perfect body on Instagram, this is their perfect relationship with the friend in our life group that we love, but we hate; this is their perfect vacation, the third one this year, and we can't even afford to go to Grandma's house. And then they show their perfect meal, which we compare to our Instagram fail, and we wonder what is wrong with us. The illusion of perfection. Take that and add to it what we call the perfect will of God. If you're a Christian, we don't want to miss the perfect will of God. For example, you want to marry the perfect husband one day, which is kind of a really funny thought when you think about it, because if there's only one perfect person for you, and anyone marries the wrong one, then the whole system's messed up. Think about that. Some of you go, "Well, I was the one who married the wrong one. It's all my fault." Sorry, just work with me. Okay? I don't want to make an imperfect decision. And so the fear of making an imperfect decision leads many people to make no decision. And no decision is—is a really bad decision. And that's why we're talking about decision-making. Divine Direction: how do we know what God wants us to do? Because let's be honest, many of you have real decisions to make: Where do I go to school next year? What do I major in? Should I take this job in this city? Should I keep dating this person? Should I—should I get married now? Should we have another kid? Should we continue to rent or should we buy? I don't know what to do, God. If you just show me what to do. If you just show me what to do, God. If you show me what to do, then I will do it. God, just show me what to do.
I want to just say to you something that's very exciting, and that is this: if you seek God, God will hear your prayer. God will show you exactly what to do. There will never be a doubt in your mind, and you will never face any obstacles. And everything I just said in the last 25 seconds is not true. Not true at all. Not true at all. In fact, what I want to do is show you from the life of the Apostle Paul just how unsure he was of what was to come. So often, Jesus followers live under this illusion: if I follow Jesus, he's going to show me clearly into the future, and I'll know exactly what he wants me to do, and I'll never feel unsure. And I want to show you just here in God's word how unsure the Apostle Paul—if anybody would have known, it would have been Paul—how unsure he was about the future. 1 Corinthians 16, starting in verse 6, he doesn't say, "I'm certain," but what does he say? He says, "Perhaps I'll stay with you"—for how long? He says, "I'll stay with you for a while or even spend the winter so that you can help me on my journey." Where? Say it with me: wherever I go. I don't know where I'm going to go. For I do not want to see you now and only making a passing visit, but—not I know—but I—what I—I hope to spend some time with you if—what if the Lord permits. But I will stay on in Ephesus until Pentecost because a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who cheer me on. No—what did he say? There are many who oppose me. What does Paul say? Perhaps I'll stay for a little while or maybe longer if the Lord permits. Wherever I go, I'm not sure, and it's not going to be easy because there are those who oppose me. If for a moment you think it's not really, really clear what am I doing wrong, you may not be doing anything wrong. God just isn't our magic crystal ball into the future. He doesn't guide us far out; often guides us step by step. And I want to talk about how we have wisdom to discern the next step in the will of God. In fact, this is what many of you will want, and this is what I've asked before. Last week we talked about this; we talked about who before do, why before what. If we're becoming the right who, we'll better be able to do the right do. If we live with the right why, we better discern the right what. Who before do, why before what. Today, a key thought is this: God, just show me what to do. Show me what to do. Show me what to do. We want God to show us what to do, but God often says, "I won't show you what to do, I will give you wisdom to decide." Don't miss this: God, show me what to do. God often says, "I won't show you what to do, but I will give you wisdom to decide." Solomon, when he was anointed as the next king, he was to make a traditional sacrifice—one bull. Instead of one bull, Solomon sacrificed 1,000 burnt offerings as an extravagant act of sacrificial worship to God that moved the heart of God. And God said to Solomon, "If I give you anything you want, what do you want?" If you think for a moment that generosity doesn't move the heart of God, you are kidding yourself. God says, "I'll give you anything." And Solomon didn't say, "Give me wealth, give me power, give me fame, give me the death of my enemies." Solomon said, "You give me anything, help me to make good decisions, help me to be a faithful king, give me wisdom to discern what is right and wrong as a king." And you know what God said to him? God said, "Because you didn't ask for all those other things, not only am I going to give you wisdom, but I'm going to give you those other things as well." And that's one reason why Solomon said this about wisdom: he said in Proverbs 4:7, "Getting wisdom is the"—say it with me, all of our churches—"he said, 'Getting wisdom is the wisest thing you can do.' And whatever else you do, develop good judgment." In case you missed it the first time: get wisdom and good judgment. Help me out. Some of you—you said this—you said this: "If only I knew back then what I know now, life would be so much different." Why? What are you saying? You're saying, "I've gotten wisdom along the way." Above anything else, seek wisdom. Wisdom is more valuable than gold. God, tell me what to do. And God often says, "I'll give you wisdom to decide." Don't miss this: God, just show me what to do. God says, "I'll give you wisdom to decide." How do we discern God's Divine Direction? How do we get direction to do what he wants us to do? Let me give you three very simple, very practical, and three very biblical thoughts. The first one is this: walk. We're going to learn to walk. And this is what Proverbs 13:20 tells us: we are to walk with the wise. And when we walk with the wise, what do we become? We become wise. Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools does—a companion of fools suffers harm. When you walk with the wise, you become like them. If you hang out with a bunch of fools, you become like them. Think about it: when I look back at my life, almost every time I got in trouble, I didn't get in trouble alone. I got in trouble when I was hanging out with trouble. It's kind of like anytime you see three men in the front of a pickup truck, nothing ever good comes out of three men and a pickup truck. One of them is the one that's going to say, "Hey, hold my beer, watch this," you know? Maybe you are that dude. Nothing good comes out of three men in the front seat of a pickup truck. A companion of fools suffers harm. Walk with the wise and grow wise.
I bumped into a guy, uh, recently at the gym, and we had a brief conversation, but it was very meaningful to me. He had recently become a follower of Jesus at church and was telling me about it. And he said, "Oh, man, I just want to—I want to honor God," and he said, "But I'm trying to stop doing drugs," and he was really open and transparent, which I loved about it. And the more he talked, the more I recognized, "I think I have an idea what the problem is." I said, "So let me get this straight: you really want to follow Jesus, and you don't—you don't want to do drugs?" I said, "So of your closest friends, how many of them are following Jesus and not doing drugs?" He said, "Well, none of them. All of them are on drugs, and none of them are following Jesus." And I recognize this is a very, very, very big problem. Sometimes if you want to change your life, you need to change your friends. You show me your friends, I'll show you where you're going. And we need to recognize—you may want to jot this down—it's almost impossible to live the right life when you have the wrong friends. Listen to me: your mama was right. Yes, she's annoying; yes, she's up in your business; but yes, she was right. It's almost impossible to live the right life when you have the wrong friends. And that's why scripture says we walk with the wise. We walk with the wise, and we become wise. Notice scripture doesn't say you like interview them one time and you try to do everything they said. Say no. What you do is you do life with them. You do life together. And that's one of the reasons why we talk about it all the time: the power of being connected with other Jesus followers in a community that we call a Life Group. And—and my heart goes out because so many people say, "Well, I'm too busy," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you go through life without any real spiritual victory, and you wonder why. You wonder—I mean, do you really think that you can be just drawn by the consistent pull of this world and the demonic forces of temptation without grounded spiritual relationships and really be victorious? Of course not. We need each other. We're better together. In fact, as parents, that's why I tell every parent: you really should have your—your teenagers in—if you think for a moment bringing your kids to church a couple times a month, you know, and just, you know, that's going to help them be grounded Jesus followers—man, all week long they're bombarded with messages of this temporary world. That's why we need them together with other kids moving toward Jesus, with—with trained and passionate volunteers pouring into their lives. Walk with the wise and become wise. A companion of fools suffers harm.
When I became a Jesus follower in college, I recognized I needed to change my friends. In fact, I made a very conscious goal: I—there were three things I wanted to be good at—brand-new Jesus follower. I wanted to stay close to God my whole life. I wanted to be one day a godly husband and father. And quite honestly, I wanted to be financially free because I grew up in a home where we just didn't have opportunities, and I didn't want that to be in bondage. So I looked at who I was walking with. Let me tell you who I was walking with: I was walking with the wild; I was walking with the broken; and I was walking with the broke. And so I decided, "I need to walk with some different people to learn some different things." And so financially—I mean, none of my friends knew anything—there was a professor named Dr. Al Schuler. He was an adjunct professor who was independently wealthy, taught an investing class. I took his class, made friends with him, and started asking him advice: "Tell me what to do." "Well, live beneath your means." What does that mean? Well, tell me what that means and I'll do it. And—and I took his advice, and I was 19 years of age, and an older fraternity brother came and said, "Hey, would you like to buy this house?" Like, "I can't buy a house; I'm 19." He said, "I'll carry the note; you can put some renters in it, and it might work for you." Well, and I took it to Dr. Al. I said, "Should I buy this house?" And he said, "If you don't buy it, I'll buy it. If you can find 10 more like it, buy those." And so I bought the house. He—and I couldn't find 10 more, but I did find three more. And by the time I graduated from college, I had four rent-producing properties. I could have never, ever done that on my own. What did I have? I had someone very wise holding my hand, analyzing the deals, walking me—that helped us make a living in the early days. Now it fuels our giving. 30 years later, our life is different because years ago—walk with the wise.
I wanted to get to be a good husband and dad one day, so there was a couple named Rich and Anna Doer. They were the—they were—they had the strongest Christian marriage of anyone that I knew. They had this little place, and so I bought a place right next door to them, and I became a Christian stalker. I stalked their marriage. That's what I did. And they were kind enough—I had dinner with them almost every night. I was that guy. I was the third-wheel guy, stirring up their spaghetti, you know, having dinner with them, asking them questions. And when I heard about Amy—she went to another school—and someone said, "You should ask this girl out; she's weird for God," like—you know—Rich and Anna said, "That's a great idea; you need someone weird." And so they encouraged me to call her. They were over my shoulder when I called her for the very first time. And—and they—they—they helped us become who we are today. Then there was Braun Brown. I was a new believer, and—and Braun was the only like really godly guy I knew. I said, "Braun, teach me scripture." And then when I started dating Amy, I didn't know the rules. I said, "Braun, she's pretty; what can I do with her? What are the rules?" I didn't know. He said, "Well, what's your goal?" I said, "I don't know, man. I used to be real clear about that, but now I'm not. I don't know, like, you know." And he said, "Well, let's talk about it." And he said, "I think the goal is probably purity." I'm like, "Yeah, yeah." And he said, "What does scripture say?" And he took me to this verse: "It must not be even a hint of sexual impurity." I'm like, "Okay, okay. Oh, I see where this is going." It's like, this is impure, and this is imp—so I said, "We can't do much, can we?" He said, "Not if you want purity." So we moved our wedding date up three times. God is my witness. And if we have a good marriage today, and if I am anything that resembles a decent husband, and we're not in financial bondage, let me tell you why: it's not cuz I was walking with the wild, walking with the broken, or walking with the broke. It's because we walked with the wise. Listen: if you want to make better decisions, hang with wiser people. Let me say it again: if you want to make better decisions, hang out with wiser people. Show me who you're running with; I will show you who you're becoming. It's almost impossible to live the right life with the wrong friends. And there's somebody here—I'm going to stay here for a moment because you need this—it's time. No more thinking about it. We're getting in a Life Group. I'm connecting in a community. I need Jesus followers speaking into my life. I want to walk toward Jesus with other people passionate about serving him. You want to be wise? Hang out with the wise. Seek them out. A companion of fools suffers harm. Walk—walk with the wise.
The second thing, if you're taking notes, is this: walk, and then ask. We're going to walk with the wise, and we're going to ask for wisdom. In fact, if you want a promise for a prayer that God will always answer, you ask him for wisdom, and he will always say yes. Scripture says this: James 1:5, "If any of you lacks wisdom, what should you do? You should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault. It will be given to you when you ask." When you ask God for wisdom, he says yes. God knows far more than you do. Ask him. It's kind of like when you're a parent, you just want your kids to know, "Hey, I've got good intentions, and I've got wisdom for you." For example, I still think I know more than my teenagers. It's funny: when they're little, what are you? You're their hero, and you know everything. When they're older, what are you? You're stupid, and you don't know anything. You don't get it. Then one day they get a little older, and you may know something. Then one day they turn into you, and they don't know how it happened, and you just laugh. Am I right? You just laugh. So I still think I have more life experience. I've got two grown daughters that are now married, and Amy and I have a goal, and that is to be low-maintenance parents to our grown children. Low-maintenance parents. In other words, we're not going to stick our nose where our nose isn't invited. We're going to be low-maintenance parents. Someone here needs to hear this: you—you're a high-maintenance parent. You're getting on people's nerves, and you got a kid right now who's saying—"Keep—keep saying it, Craig; keep saying it"—and they're not going to look at you, but they're thinking it right now. I'm just saying—low-maintenance parents. And so here's our deal: is we're not going to give advice unless they ask. And the moment they ask, the windows of wisdom will open up, and we will pour it unto them because we've just lived a—a lot longer and seen a lot more. And anytime one of my children asks, I will always give wisdom. Anytime you ask God, he always gives it. Well, how does he give it? Listen: you can get his wisdom every single day by opening up your—your Bible app and seeking him through his word every day. He gives you wisdom. He'll give you wisdom through that new Life Group you're in, when you're walking with the wise, through other people who will pour into your life godly advice. He'll give you wisdom through circumstances. When you do this and you fall into a hole, you say, "Next time I'm going to avoid that hole." You got wisdom. Here's the deal: to get wisdom from God, you have to spend time with God. To get wisdom from God, you have to spend time with God. That's why we seek him first every single day. God, align my heart, take my mind, help me to see what you want me to see, hear what you want me to hear, say what you want me to say. God, give me a heart that's moved by the things that move your heart. Direct my hands, direct my feet. May I please you today. If you want wisdom from God, you have to spend time with God. Ask him, and he'll give it to you.
I want to share with you, um, my most recent favorite verse. Sometimes you get a verse that just—just grabs you. This verse just grabs me, and I hope it grabs some of you. This is what the Lord says: the Lord says, "I will guide you." I love this—the imagery—"I'll guide you." Jesus is the Good—
Shepherd, who guides the Sheep. I tell myself he guides. I follow. He says, "I will guide you along the best pathway for your life because he loves you so much. I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you."
God, tell me what to do. "I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm going to give you wisdom to decide." Tell me what to do. I'm going to give you wisdom to decide. I'm going to guide you. I'm going to advise you. I'm going to watch over you. I'm going to share with you, um, an intimate video from from my family that years ago we took when I taught uh Steven—we call him Buie—my fifth child how to ride a bicycle. I taught all six of my kids to ride a bike, and the imagery in this to me moves me so emotionally because watch as an Earthly father guides, advises, and watches over a child, and imagine how much more your heavenly Father will guide, advise, and watch over you.
"Ready? Ride! Book! Yeah, put your helmet on. Are you scared? No. What if you fall? I know you'll catch me."
[Applause]
"Good! Oh no, no, Dad, I'm in the stickle batch! Dad, why did even God made stickers?"
"I don't know why God made stickers; it's a good question. Good [Music] question. Now we got it. I'll guide you. I'll advise you. I'll watch over you, and I'll celebrate with you, and that's what our heavenly Father does for us."
Tell me what to do. I'll give you wisdom to decide. "You still got a pedal, you got a steer. I'll guide you. I'll advise you. I'll watch over you."
"No, no, no, watch out for the sticker patch! Listen to me, someone needs to hear this. You are so freaked out about the sticker patch. You are—what if I get in the sticker patch? You think for a minute I'm going to let my son go in the sticker patch? Think I know exactly where it is, and he's not going in a sticker patch."
Your Father loves you way, way more than any earthly father loves an earthly child.
Tell me what to do. I give you wisdom to decide. Walk with the wise. Ask me. I'll guide you, advise you, watch over you. Need to make a decision. What do we do? Three things: Number one, walk; number two, ask; and number three, decide. Make a decision. Make a decision. Make a decision. Anybody like the Karate Kid? Anybody like the Karate Kid? You like the first one, second one? Yeah, you, you went for $112,000. I'd have given you more, too, right? First one, rules. Mr. Miyagi talks to Daniel-san. I won't try the accent, but he says this: "Daniel-san, must talk, walk on road, walk on right side safe, walk on left side safe, walk in middle, get squished like grape." Can I say that to some of you? Daniel-san, no decision, squish like grape. So afraid of an imperfect decision, you make no decision. No decision is often much worse than an imperfect decision. He'll guide you. Decide.
Well, how do I know? I mean, I want to know, is this God opening a door, or is this the devil opening an elevator shaft? I step through the door, I'm going to break my neck. Is this God's will, or is this, you know, is this like my will? I don't know. Decide. Get—tell me what to do, God. I'll give you wisdom to decide.
This is what's so amazing about God: is God gave you the freedom to decide. He could have made you a robot, but then you do exactly what he wanted you to do; then you wouldn't have the freedom to choose to love and worship him, and he wanted to be loved and worshipped. So God gave you freedom to choose. He gave you his word. If there is no moral imperative, then he gives you freedom to decide. If there is moral imperative, do this. What do you do? You do this. If he says, "Don't do this," you don't do that. If he gives you freedom, you just say, "God, I sought you, I asked for advice," and you make a decision. It and and I don't mean to sound unspiritual, but it always doesn't have to be like, and Heaven opened up and a light shone down and God direct. Sometimes you just make a decision. Paul did this. The Apostle Paul, one time he was trying to make a decision, and this is what he didn't say: He didn't say, "And the Lord spoke unto me and said, 'Thou shalt goest this wayth.'" God always speaks in King James. I hope you know that's not what happened. This is what Paul said: One time he's trying to make a decision, 1 Thessalonians 3:1, he says, "So when we could stand it no longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves in Athens." We just thought it best. I'm not sure. God didn't say. We prayed, we walked with the wise, and we made a decision. We thought it best. We thought it best. I don't hate to unspiritualize what I do here at the church sometimes, but a lot of times God directs me; other times I just make a decision. I prayed, I walked, I thought it best. We just—we just made it. We just made a decision.
Well, what if we make a mistake? What if we make a mistake? Well, guess what you get when you make a mistake? Wisdom. You get wisdom. You make a mistake, you get wisdom. You may also get an extra bill in the mail, an extra semester in school, or even an extra kid, but you get wisdom, and wisdom makes you better.
God, show me what to do. I'll give you wisdom to decide. Back to our opening illustration: I was in college, became a follower of Jesus. I was a business major at the time. I immediately wanted to be a pastor. It was just like, I got—I became a Jesus follower; I want to be a pastor. I never thought to change my major. So when I graduated, I had a business degree, and no pastor would hire me. So I took a job with Honeywell, uh, selling security systems, and this was back when they were becoming really popular, and there was almost no competition. In other words, it was easy to sell, and I was pretty good at it. In 10 months, back in 1990 and 1991, I made over $60,000 in 10 months. My pastor, one day I was serving in church, called me in and said, "Would you like to pray about considering coming on staff and being a pastor?" Said, "Absolutely, yes," and he said, "But I can only pay you $12,000 a year." Okay, like, benefits, no help with seminary, no anything else. No $1,000 a month, upwards of 70,000 a year. $112,000 a year. When you say you'll go somewhere for money, pause for a moment and recognize that should not be the only determining factor. You may move somewhere else for a lot more money, and your kids may struggle when they're thriving spiritually here. You may be under really solid in biblical community here and growing and thriving, and somewhere else you may not be. That can be a determining factor, and God may want to bless you with more, but don't let that be the only determining factor. $70,000, $122,000. What do I do? What do I do? So I ask people, what should I do? And my wild friend said, "Don't be an idiot, stay in business, stay in sales, make the money." I asked uh, Rich and Anad do, and they said, "That's a pretty big decision, but we see a lot of possible calling on your life; maybe you should consider doing ministry." I asked Brené Brown; he said, "Hey, this is easy, man. You know you want to serve Jesus; don't let money stop you." I asked my pastor; his perspective was really interesting. "Pastor, what do you think I should do?" My pastor looked at me and said, "I think you should stay in sales." He did. He said, "Because if you can do anything else outside of full-time ministry and please Jesus, you should do it. We need more Jesus followers in the business world, and you should do it. But if you feel like you would be disobeying God, then you shouldn't let anything from keeping you from obeying him."
What do you do, God? What do I do? What do I do? God will give you wisdom to decide. And so we made a choice, and over two decades later, here we are. Over two decades later, here we are. Now that's a way oversimplification. We made a decision, then we made another decision, and then we made a hard decision, and then one time it was really clear God was directing us, and another time it wasn't really clear, and so we just did what we thought was best, and another time what we thought was best—oh, we made a mistake, and we got wisdom. Then we made a bigger mistake and got more wisdom. Then we took three steps forward, then we take two steps back, and day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, we sought God and we made decisions—little decisions faithfully over time. Walk with the wise. Hang out with Jesus followers. Ask God for wisdom first, every day. God, we seek you, show us, guide us, step by step, step by step, step by step, step by step. A successful spiritual life is not based on a few big decisions but countless small and faithful decisions.
God, what do you want me to do? Often time God says, "I'll give you wisdom to decide." He will direct you step by step, and what does he do? He guides you. You may make a misstep, and he pulls you back. He advises you, and he watches over you, because that's how good he is.
God, show me what to do. God may say, "I'll give you wisdom to decide." All of our churches reflecting in prayer. God, we ask today that you would speak to us and give us your heart of wisdom. All of our churches, those who are Jesus followers and say, "Yes, I want more wisdom from God to please him in all I do," lift your hands right now. Lift them up. Lift them up. Lift them up. Congratulations, you are now in a life group. You are surrounded by wise. You are seeking God every single day because he will give it to you. He's ready to give it to you. And God, we ask that as we surround ourselves with people pursuing you with great wisdom that we would become wise like those we walk with. God, we thank you that according to your word you will give it generously, liberally to all who ask. Give us wisdom as we seek you to make decisions God that would please you. Now, Father, I ask that there would be those who would ask and make the wisest decision they ever make to call on you. All of our churches, there are those of you—you recognize you're doing life outside of God's power. You recognize you have sinned against a holy God. Last week we talked about God's will. What is God's will? God's will is for you to be holy. That's his will. When you look at your life as I look at mine, I am not holy. I mess up. I sin all the time, and so do you. Here's the good news: The good news is God did something for us that we could never do for ourselves because of his love for you; he sent Jesus, who was without sin, perfect in every way, died on the cross and rose again. Why? Because he paid the price for our sins so that anyone, and this includes you, who calls on him would be saved, forgiven, and made new. All of our churches, there are those of you—it's time for you to make the wisest decision you could ever make to call on Jesus. When you do, he will forgive your sins; he will make you brand new. You're not a better version of you; you're a new version of you. The old is gone, and the new has come. All of our churches, those who say, "Yes, I need his grace, yes, I need his power, I turn from my sins, I turn toward him," I say, "Jesus, take my whole life." That's your prayer. Lift your hands high now, all over the place, and say, "Yes." Right back over here. God bless you. Here and here. Praise God for you. Others of you, right back over here, fist in the air. Back to this side, say, "Yes." Here in the middle section. God bless you guys. Others today who say, "Yes, Jesus, I surrender; I give my life completely to you." Church online, you click right below me. Everybody pray together. Nobody prays alone. We are the family of God. Pray.
Heavenly Father, I surrender to you every bit of my life, asking you to save me, forgive me, change me, make me new, fill me with your spirit so I could follow you. You are my guide; I will follow. Thank you for new life. I give you mine, every bit. I devote my life completely to you, in Jesus' name I pray.
All of our churches, would you worship really big? Would you worship really loud? Don't take it for granted. God is bringing people into his family. Celebrate new life in Christ. It's our honor as a church to play even a small part in all that God is doing in and through your life, and we would love to continue with you on that journey to find out what your next steps could be in your relationship with Christ. All you have to do is go to life.church.
Next, you know, one of my favorite points that Pastor Craig made is walking with the wise. Walking with wise people and surrounding ourselves with Christ followers is a great way to making better decisions, and there may be no better place for you to surround yourself with wise people than in life groups. You know, I had a chance to sit down with several of our campus pastors and talk to them about why life groups are such a pivotal point to our spiritual walk. Check it [Music] [Applause] out. Thanks, guys, for taking some time. We're talking life groups, and as Craig often says, life change happens in the context of a building a lot, but ongoing life change happens not in rows but in circles. And I'm curious to know from your perspective, why are life groups such a critical part to our spiritual development?
"God has designed us to be in a relationship with him, right? But not just any relationship with him; it's a shared relationship to where we're meeting with other people, um, we're sharing the highs, the lows, the ups and the downs. For me, I think we read all of these incredible things in scripture about how to grow closer to God and grow closer to others. It, it's so difficult though to live out if you're not living it out with people. You've got to be inside of relationships, living this out, growing intentionally closer to Christ with people. I don't think there's any other way to transfer uh what we read into our hearts where it really becomes Truth. For me, when I was walking through some really, really difficult stuff in my life, I found that safe place with a life group, and I was able to be vulnerable and share what I was walking through, and even though the people in that group couldn't relate to what I was walking through, they were able to encourage me and support me and point me to Jesus."
"Sure. So finding community through friendships, applying and living out our faith, and then also being there for each other in difficult times, those are all really great things. If that's something that we want though, why is it difficult for someone to join a life group?"
"I think sometimes people might be intimidated. They really might not be sure of what they're walking into or what type of people they're getting ready to hang out with. I think sometimes people can recognize that there are different types of groups. You can have a photography group or a group that loves to serve the community together. There is that intimidation factor of like, am I going to walk in and have dumb questions or not know what to say or not know the right Bible verse, and and that keeps them from stepping out and meeting people and finding that community that they need. I think people can make it too hard sometimes. Um, I've got a friend of mine uh who comes to our life group on Wednesday nights, and if you asked Adam um what do you do on Wednesday nights, he wouldn't say I go to a life group or I go to a Bible study or anything. He's like, 'Man, I hang out with my friend Doug, his wife, and there's a bunch of other people there,' uh, and it's really cool to see um how he's been changed by this, and it's just a matter of—man, some people make it too hard."
"I think that's so good because so many people might be in a life group without even realizing it. They're with a group of people they hang out with all the time; all lacking is some spiritual intentionality."
"Well, thank you guys so much. Life groups are such a critical part to our church; it actually is the heartbeat of our church in so many ways because that's really like you said, where we get to live out what we are—and that's fully devoted followers of [Music] Christ. You know, like I said, it's our mission and our passion here to walk alongside of each other and do everything we can to live out our mission of leading people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. You see, it's that statement that drives everything we do here as a church because we truly believe whoever finds God finds life. See you next time. [Applause]"