JUL 13 2025 | Storm Proof: A Study in James S1E5 | Mirror, Mirror – The Danger of Deceptive Discipleship

Sea Change Church · JUL 13 2025 | Storm Proof: James S1E5 - Mirror, Mirror - The Danger of Deceptive Discipleship
James 1:22-25
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

For we thank you for everything that you're doing here at SeaChange Church, and let everyone experience the joy of the Lord. For we thank you and we praise you. For it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. The letter of James, chapter 1, verses 22 through 25. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.

For he looks at himself and goes away, and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. This is the word of the Lord. As your love and wave after way, crushes over me, crushes over me, for you are false.

For you are false. You are not a guest. Champion of heaven. You made a way for all to enter in. Welcome to Sea Change on this incredible Sunday morning. Great to have you with us today. We're in the book of James, James 1, 22 through 25. Open your Bibles if you would. 2,000 years ago, the first, it's probably the first book written in the Bible. James wrote about a man looking in the mirror.

And he said, if you look in the mirror, and the mirror in this scripture means looking in, basically looking into the things of God. He's focusing in this first chapter on the word of God being implanted in you. But the metaphor is that the mirror would be like looking into a mirror. And imagine if that mirror had a reflection, but God was the mirror.

The word of God was the mirror. And as you look at it, it gives you a different picture of yourself. It actually gives you a true picture of yourself. 2,000 years ago, he wrote that. In 1988, someone else wrote a song. It says, I'm looking at the man in the mirror. Maybe you remember it. It was Michael Jackson who wrote it. And I don't know if you remember that.

Now, I'm not sure if man in the mirror has reached Gen Z or the millennials. Because thanks to, it has. It has. I'm seeing it. My daughter, she's Gen Z. She's nodding her head. Because of stranger things. And they have picked up a bunch of our music, which I really, really appreciate. He said this. And it was a song when he wrote it. It went to number one.

Went to number one for a reason. Not because it was, you know, like as the kids say, a banger. You know, it wasn't just an amazing song. But it touched you. And I remember driving through the streets of PB. Even my carnal self back in the day, when I would listen to this song, I remember crying as I listened to it. I mean, I'd listen to it. I was like, Michael, I want to change.

Michael, I do want to change. This is what he put. He put, I'm staring at the man in the mirror. And I'm asking him to change his ways. There's no message that could have been any clearer. If they want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself. And then make a change. I've been a victim of a selfish kind of love. It's time that I realize that there are some with no home, not a nickel alone.

Could it be? Could it be me just pretending that they are not alone? Now, I remember, this is just Michael Jackson in 1980 and how it changed my heart. And I was like, man, I want to make a difference. What I've realized since then is that the scripture says the exact same thing. But it is the Holy Spirit and the kingdom of God that is being expanded, that is calling upon us to make a change.

Today's whole message is a word. I want you to write this word at the top of your notes. Action. James is a book about action. James is a book that says you are an apparatus, I guess could be a word, that God uses to take the things of heaven, to process them through you, the human element, that then goes and releases those things into the world.

There's a story about a man coming to a company to get hired, and the CEO takes him in and takes him outside. And the new hire says, hey, where's my office? And he says, well, we'll get to that in a minute. Takes him around and shows him all the different areas and where they were going to do business and the whole thing. And the guy says, where's my office?

And you can see where this is going. He says, this is your office. This is your office. I don't want you in that building. I want you out there making a difference in the world. The miracles wagon is out in front of the church today. We're really blessed to have that because it is not only a metaphor, it's a reality of the kind of church we want to be.

We don't want to just call you to go out and make a difference in the world. We as a church want to make a difference in the world. And if your small group or a group of friends of yours wants to have the miracle wagon dropped at the location of your choice, that we can bring it there. We will train you how to make the coffees, how to use the machines.

We're going to have a prayer tent next to it if you want. You can take it into the community. You can take it to the Bird Rock Halloween area. I don't care. We don't care where you do it. We ain't going to let you drive it. You ain't going to get behind the wheel. But we will drop it off and let you use it because that's the kind of church we want to be.

We want to be a church in the world, in the community, that takes the things of God and we translate them so that the world can hear it. Go to verse 22. We're going to dive into that. Verse 22 says, Be doers of the word. Circle doers. And not only hearers that are only deceiving, not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. It's interesting. It's saying that this passage, and this is why James gets a bad rap sometimes.

People say it's too much about works. They say, oh, James is saying that you're only saved by works. I don't think James is saying that. I think he can make an argument that he's saying that. I think he's the brother of Jesus, half-brother of Jesus, and someone who knew Jesus intimately. And a book that was put into the Bible, whether Martin Luther wanted it in there or not, he didn't.

Martin Luther did not like this book. It was too late. He was about 1,800 years too late, 1,500 years too late on that one. Oh, only about 1,000 at the time, 1,500. It is a book that says if you have faith, your faith is going to have actions. Your faith needs to be translated to the language of your life. Let me say that again. Your faith needs to be translated to the language of your life.

Scripture says if you're not doing that, you're deceiving yourself. This is about works. This is about doing for God. John Wesley, one of my heroes of faith, was a man in the 1700s who was said to have traveled a million miles through England on horseback. Now, I don't think that would be comfortable, but nonetheless, he would go and he would take the word of God and he would preach it in the fields.

He would go to where the factories are because there was a lot of factory and child labor. And he'd come and during the afternoon when they were eating lunch, he would call the people out and he would preach the word to them. And this was a problem because it was illegal at the time to preach the word of God outside of the church. The church was the holy place.

We hold the word. No one, we can't, we can't, we can't trust the people sitting in the pews, right, with the word of God. And so it can only be spoken. It can only be preached within the church. And John Wesley, in good British form, said that's bunk, because that's what they say in Britain. That's bunk. I don't know if he said it's bunk or not.

But he went all throughout the country. He said, I'm going to preach the word. I'm going to go out and I'm going to bring the word of God to the people in the streets. This is the calling of Jesus Christ. When we sat as a church a year ago and we were looking at the sea change, name change, and all the different, you know, reasonings we wanted to change the name, and we were thinking, okay, but the sub, the tagline matters as well.

What would our tagline be? And I've seen churches that are like, well, no perfect people allowed. Maybe you've heard that tagline. Or you've seen, you know, God in us, us going out. Or, you know, there's different taglines you could use. And where we landed was this. Sea change church, making Jesus known. I'm not saying it's the best tagline in the world, but it's what we are about.

Now, this scripture says, is in your doing, you are becoming perhaps the only book, the only Bible, so to speak, if I can use that metaphor, that non-believers will ever read before they accept Christ. It says in the scripture that you are a living testimony. You are a scroll. You are the person that when they go out, they look at your life and they read your life.

Back to 22, let's read it again because we want to just let this word be implanted in us, as it said a couple scriptures previously in James. But be doers of the word. Not only hearers, only deceiving yourself. John Wesley, as I brought up a moment ago, had this quote. He said, do all the good you can, by all the means you can, as long as you can.

Let me just say that again. Do all the good you can. Do all the good you can. By any means that you can, whether using a miracle wagon or coaching a soccer team, as long as you can. That's a word for the 90-year-olds among us. I see you, Mom. I see you, Donnie, back there, new to the 90-year-old club. Mom, you can welcome him to the 90-year-old club.

I heard a story recently of a woman, doesn't go to this church, and just got baptized, and her testimony was, and I'll just give it up for my mom, that she spoke to my mom, and she says, I decided to get baptized. And 93 years old, she's still cranking the machine. And this is a word as long as you can. If God is, you start feeling like, well, I'm past my time.

I've run out of, I'm not as good as I used to be. God is using you. You are here for a reason, and you are here not for yourself. You are here to make Jesus known. Wherever you can, by whatever means you can, and as long as you can, making Jesus known in the community. It says there in that verse that if you're not a doer of the word, you are deceiving yourself.

Self-deception. Man, that's scary. Have you thought about it, being a person, if you're being deceived, it's one thing to be deceived by Satan. It's one thing to be deceived by somebody who's trying to take advantage of you on a robocall, you know, when you get it, and I just want to, bless you, give me your checking account numbers. It's another thing to deceive yourself.

Because you are most acceptable to self-deception. Who else are you going to believe more than you? You're going to believe you. And it says here that if you're only a hearer of the word, you're not a doer of the word, that you are deceiving yourself. What does that mean? It means that your life might look like this. Man, talking to your friend, church was good today.

Did you like, oh, it was amazing. Oh, that word was good. Did you get the new download on Spotify from that worship band that we like? We were listening to some circuit riders or Bethel. Woo, man, they can worship. I worship. I went on a retreat last weekend with the ladies. We had such a great retreat time. And then we did this. And you're just, you're constantly talking about stuff that's going on in the church.

And you're spending time with God. That's awesome. But there's no activity that changes the world for Jesus. You are not a testimony to anybody else but yourself. You're just a sponge taking it all in. But you're never the part of the sponge that matters sometimes when you're trying to release some of that water onto a substance that needs to be cleaned.

See, we are sponges to be filled up that we might go out making Jesus known by doing. This isn't a word of rebuke, although the scripture does rebuke and it convicts. I'll let it do that. But where are you making a difference? Where are you making Jesus known? It says if you're not doing that, then we, you know what we are? We're just deceiving ourselves.

Self-deception. Self-deception. Where are those places where you are changing the word? Hearing without doing is self-deception. It's not discipleship. God has called us to be disciples. And Jesus, if you ever notice Jesus, as you read, he had moments of inactivity. He had times. He'd disappear. He'd go to the mountain. You need to go to the mountain.

You need to have rest. You need to have good rhythm in your life. But he was also, the majority of the things he's doing, he's always making the Father known. He's always stepping in to caring for people. He's there when they call out and other people don't hear them. He's letting the children come unto him when they're like, hey, children, stay away.

He's always engaged with people. People were Jesus' business. The church is in the business of people. Of caring for people. Of loving people. Of making Jesus known to people. And Jesus says when you do these things, when you listen to my word and then you take my word, you put them through the machine that is your life and go out into the world.

You take that product. Because the product of your life should be the advancement of the kingdom. It says that you're building your life upon the rock. Matthew 7. Let's go to Matthew 7 quickly. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them, circle does them, that's real Jamesy right there, will be like a wise man who built his house on a rock.

And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who builds his house on the sand. This is interesting because when you do the word, when you do the things of God, you actually step into them, it solidifies your life. It actually makes your life eternal. Think of it this way. Everything you do in Jesus' name will be remembered in heaven.

Everything you do for him will be remembered in heaven. Everything that you do that is for yourself or for vain glory or for other reasons other than the kingdom will be forgotten. There's a scary scripture. I don't remember the name. I don't remember the verse text. It's easy to find on Google. You can do it after the service. It says, some people will make it to heaven barely.

All the works that they did will be burned up because none of those works basically is what it's saying. We're about God. And it basically says that they will get to heaven, but when they get there, they'll smell like smoke because they barely escaped. That's a crazy verse. Look it up. You can Google it. You'll find it. You'll find it. It's in there.

We don't want to be those people. What are you building your life upon? Everything you do every day builds your life. And what it says here, it's a promise of God, and the promises of God are true, that if you do the things of God, if you get into the word, if you hear the word, the scripture earlier in this, I think it was in verse 18 of James 1.

I think it was 18, we were looking at it in the college study this week. It says that it needs to be implanted within you. It needs to be implanted within you. When you do those things, your life is being solidified. You actually make your life eternal. When you go out and do a beach cleanup in the name of Jesus, your life is touching eternity.

It will be remembered in heaven. Anything that you did in Jesus' name will be remembered. You make your life eternal, and that's how you live in eternity now in the moment. Let's go to verse 23 and 24. We're going to look at this idea of a person in the mirror. For if anyone is a hearer of the word, if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like the man who looks intently at his natural face in the mirror.

For he looks at himself, and he goes away, and at once forgets what he was like. This idea of the mirror being the word, the mirror being a reflection of God, and when you look into it, it gives you the true reflection of yourself. God's word reveals, this quote here, God's word will convict, and God's word will call. But it only transforms when we respond.

Now, remember, James was talking about not being a reactionary last week. Don't be a person of anger where you react quickly. He said slowly, you know, hear, think through it. He was saying those things. With this, what he's saying is when you look into the mirror, God is going to reveal to you things he wants you to know. He's going to reveal to you moments that he wants you to act upon.

The scripture speaks about works that God preordained in eternity that are going to be in front of you for you to do. Good works for you to step into. He's going to reveal what those things are. By the end of the service today, God is going to reveal to some of you what he's calling you into. There's been something that's been on your heart. I've been wanting to do that, but you just haven't pulled the trigger.

You've got to fast 12 more weeks, and, you know, you've got to make sure you get the proper word. And God's like, no, now's the moment. I'm calling you. I'm revealing it to you. Now is the kairos. That's a Greek word for a moment when God is on something. Now is the moment I want you to step into. In the chronos, that means the Greek word for the time, like a time on your watch.

But what we want to do is live in the intersection between God's chronos time, the time of your life, and when God moves time. And when God is moving upon time, we want to see that revealed through scripture and step into it. Where is he calling you? How long has it been since you've experienced God say, hey, let's do this together. Not go do this.

I don't see him say that a lot. Go do this. When God calls, he goes with you. He says, I want to go with you. I'm calling you to this. And maybe there's something. You're like, I just don't have the ability to do that right now or whatever it is. But he's calling you into it, and you know it. He wants to do it with you. It reveals, it convicts, and it calls.

But it only transforms when we respond. When was the last time he responded? A lot of us, we're not hearers of the word because we're not in the word, and we don't hear it. So we can't do it. If you're not hearing it, you can't do it. You see, there's a connection here, both in James and with what Jesus said in Matthew 7. It says you hear it. Don't just be hearers.

Well, some of us haven't heard it. We haven't heard it for months because we're listening to all this other noise. There is so much noise in the world, right? Noise, noise, noise. If the devil can just get Christians thinking about everything but Jesus, but the word of God, get them thinking about all these other things, but that, then he can get them to react as opposed to be people who respond to hearing.

We need to hear. It reveals, it convicts, it calls, but it only transforms when we respond, and it'll solidify your life. Do you feel like you're on shaky ground? Feel like you never have any root? Feel like you're always tossed at sea? Remember, this is how James starts this. A person double-minded, tossed at sea? What it's saying here, and Jesus says in Matthew 7, that if you do the word, you just start doing the things you see.

So you happen to read in your daily scripture about forgiveness? Work on forgiveness that day. Whatever shows up, just do it. Just start doing those things. It says that you will be tethered at that point. We don't want to live untethered lives. You want to live a life that is tethered to the scripture. I shared this a couple months ago. The William Booth started the Salvation Army.

Somebody is in England, I think at the time. They said, oh, that Bible of yours, that's a crutch. That Bible's a crutch. He says, don't insult me. It's a wheelchair. It's not a crutch. I need it more than a crutch. I thought, that guy's so good. I wish I could say cool stuff like that. But the Bible, the Bible, the word of God. After first service, I said, Lily, that was a great set.

I said, the Holy Spirit showed up on that set. She goes, well, I was reading my Bible, yes. I started reading my Bible again, so that's been helping. Not that you weren't reading it, but that kind of insinuated that, right? She said, I actually just had the word in me, so I just did what I saw the word do last night at my scripture time. I thought, that's it.

That's it. You got to get close. You got to be tethered. How tethered are you to this book? This book right here. Holy Bible. We love this book. We love God of the Bible more than we love the Bible of God. Some people become Bible worshipers. We're not a Bible worshiper, right? The translation you have is the most important thing, whatever. No, this is the tool that we love because it points us.

It's a mirror, and when I look in that mirror, I see who I truly am because I see the face of God, the face of Jesus, reveal back to me, me and him and him and me. This book, how committed to this book are you? Is this book your life? And then once it's your life, you're hearing it. Some people love proximity to the Bible. Proximity to the word of God is not productivity in the word of God.

You see, there's a difference between proximity. I hear it. I got the app. I got all the memorization. And then going out and taking this into the world where you become the living testimony. You are God's scripture to the world. It says that in this book. This book will tell you that. You are the only Bible some people will ever read. And so what James is saying, what Jesus is saying is this word needs to be translated.

You are the Google translator. I don't know if anybody's gotten a pizza from a Ukrainian guy recently or anybody like that. Has anybody done this thing? You get there and it happened here. We ordered a bunch of pizza. Guy shows up. We could not speak to each other. He was from some Slavic nation. He might have been Russian. I don't know what he was.

But we're trying to negotiate the price of the pizza and pay. I don't know how we're doing it. And he goes, speaks into his phone, shows it to me, hands it. I speak. And we're like, hey, high five. I paid for the pizza. The guy's out of there. That's you. That's you to the world. This book is that translator. That book, when you go step out in love, when you make a change in the world, when you take the miracles van out and go give some coffees, when you do whatever you want, whatever you do at work or whatever it is, you are translating the word of God.

You're becoming a doer of the word of God. And it solidifies you and makes you eternal. You're eternal anyways because of Jesus. But it makes these works eternal. It builds your life on a rock. Let me ask you again. Are you on quicksand? I was just walking in England. You know there's quicksand in England? I didn't know that. We went on this thing. I was walking.

It said, stay on the path. There's quicksand. I was like, I don't want to do. I've seen the YouTube videos. I want nothing to do with it. You're going to build on that? Are you going to build on a rock? The word of God to take those things and to go out. It's interesting. It says that you forget who you are. You forget who you are. You forget your identity.

Basically, you walk away. And this is crazy. You become an imposter of yourself. You're living for yourself. So you see people on the street. You're living for yourself. But when you live for yourself, you're not truly who you are. You're only who we are. You're only your true identity when you live with Christ in you. When you're just living for yourself, for money, for fame, for your kids, whatever, for your own glory, whatever reasons.

For a bigger house. I don't know. Put your stuff, whatever your thing is in there. You become an imposter of yourself. The people see you. You look like you. You sound like you. You do you things. But you're not truly you. And not only are you deceiving yourself. This makes sense. Because when you start deceiving yourself, pretty soon you're not even who you are anymore.

Have you ever woke up, woken up, and thought to yourself and looked in the mirror or afterward and thought, I don't even recognize who I am anymore. I've told this story multiple times. But I was in PB. I was living at the Oakwood apartment. And I was doing drugs every single day. Every day. Remember I woke up. I'd smoke marijuana right in the morning.

It was right by my bed. It's like the worst thing ever, right? Smoked dope first thing in the morning. And I remember waking up one day crying and thinking to myself, I don't remember who I am anymore. All of a sudden I realized I had no clue and I'd forgotten who I was. This is what the scripture is saying. That you are an imposter of yourself.

That you are no longer who you should be. I guess a question is, do you feel like you are who you are? Are you living a life that really isn't you? The scripture says it'll fix that for you. If you just become a hearer of the word and a doer of the word, it is impossible not to become yourself. You see, the word of God is an identity builder. We have a generation who doesn't know who they are.

So they're like, oh, then I'm this. No, second thought, I'm this. No, second thought, I mean, it's a moving scale, right? You see it. The further we get away from the word of God as a nation, the further we get away from the word of God, the further we get away from God, the less we're going to know who we are. Scripture says that. So don't be surprised when you have a whole generation of people walking around with no understanding of their identity and that their identity is based on whatever they're feeling at the moment, but not tethered to an eternal God who created them, who knows them.

They are his handiwork. And he re-identifies them as they are in touch with him. That's how the scripture works. And so as we look at this imposter syndrome and moving out of there, there's two practical takeaways today. Here's the first practical takeaway. Open your ears to what God is saying. I want to encourage you, are you listening to the word of God?

Open your ears to what God is saying. It's only through hearing the word that we can be revealed to, we can be convicted by. Reboot that. Carrie and I, we had an anniversary yesterday, and one of the things we do with our anniversary is we get together this week, and we're going to spend this week giving ourselves an anniversary week. 28 years, it was a long time.

We need a week to recover after 28 years. One of the things we do every year is we look at our values. We remind ourselves who we are. What are we about? What do we care about? What are we doing? Let's reframe, look at our values. How do we live according to that? One of the ways we do that is words. The word of God. And so that's something in the past we've found verses and scriptures that we use.

And then the final thing is, the takeaway is this. Don't just stare into the mirror. Step in that. Step into mission. Where are you doing the mission of God? Where are you seeing the mission of God in your life? There was a man in the 1960s named Mike Iaconelli. Mike Iaconelli one day was looking in the mirror as a college student, and he realized after reading this text that he was not who he wanted to be.

And he said, I'm going to make a difference. He realized he didn't recognize that person in the mirror anymore. Even though he was doing all the God stuff, he was in church, he wanted to make a difference. And he wanted to make a difference in the lives of youth. And so he wrote a paper, I think it was an 18-year-old, maybe a senior in high school or a freshman in college, and submitted it to the local, this is the 1960s, the local Rotary Club, about how to change ministering to young people in America.

Now this is during the hippie movement, during Woodstock. And he wrote this paper on churches are falling behind, we're not reaching people. Mike went on to found a magazine called the Wittenberg Door, and then it was written to the young generation about Christianity. He called himself a messy Christian. And then founding a thing called Youth Specialties.

Youth Specialties became probably, well, became the largest organization raising up young people to become pastors, raising up youth ministers, people in youth throughout the world. There was over 15,000 to 20,000 people coming to the conferences throughout the late 80s and all through the 90s. It was like Comic-Con. Now Comic-Con's going to be here next week.

One of my daughters is going, which is awesome. It was like Comic-Con size for youth pastors. It influenced me more than any organization that has been part of my life. I've been part of young life. I've been part of a whole bunch of things. But this organization trained me. It raised up pastors. It was such a force of good. And it all started because one day Mike looked in the mirror and said, I want to make a difference.

You know what's interesting? Mike was one of my heroes, a guy I looked up to forever. He passed away. I was going to have an interview to work for him in 2004. He was flying into San Diego to meet me to work for Youth Specialties. And he died three days before our interview, which was interesting. And it just ended up not happening. I was going through some of our books here at the church of all of our old newspaper clippings.

And it said, Mike Iaconelli, member of First Baptist La Jolla Church, wins rotary contest with paper on how, speech on how to change youth in America. I didn't know it. Mike went to our church. He grew up here. Well, he grew up up north, but he came down here during his college time. And that happened at our church. Those are the weird things. Like sometimes I just look around.

I'm like, that's, I'm not going to say I'm going to go make a major decision for the church because of that. But there's something, there's something in it. There's an anointing that God brought somebody out of this congregation to create what I think was the most impactful youth movement in regard to training youth leaders and stuff. I think in the history of the world that I've seen came from these pews.

The next one might come from you. Just wrote a speech. Just looked in the mirror and wrote a speech. From these pews changed the world. I'm going to ask the worship band to come up. Let's stand if we would. We're going to close with a response song. I'm asking Lily and the team. Let's stand if we would. And as the team comes up, I want to put this time of worship just as a reflection before you.

For you to look into that mirror and say, hey, is now a moment? Is now a moment in my life where God is talking to me, he's calling me, he's speaking to me? Is now this moment? Because I do know that moments pass. And God has windows of opportunity. And this might be your moment. This might be your moment. Lily. Lily. Sing Jesus, Jesus. Jesus. Jesus, Jesus.

My offering. All my ambitions. My hopes. My dreams. And here's my life, Lord. A sacrifice. Oh, just to bless you. I just want to move your heart. It's all I want to do. I just want to stand in awe. And pour my love on you. No matter how much the cost. I freely give it all to you. All to you. Sing, is it a fragrance? Is it a fragrance? Then I'll pour my oil out.

Is it life laid down? Then here I give my vows. Is it a song I sing? Then here's every melody. Just tell me what moves you. Or tell me what moves you. One more time. Is it a fragrance? Then I'll pour my oil out. Is it life laid down? Then here I give my vows. Is it a song I sing? Then here's every melody. Just tell me what moves you. Tell me what moves you.

I just want to move your heart. It's all I want to do. I just want to stand in awe. And pour my love on you. No matter how much the cost. I freely give it all to you. All to you. The prayer team come forward. If you need prayer, we'll have you come forward afterwards. Lord gave me just a picture. He gives me pictures. I just get like thoughts. That's how he speaks to me.

He speaks to people different ways. And during the first service, I saw this picture in my head. It was just like the sidewalk out in front of a bunch of houses. And they were your houses. And it was Jesus just coming up to the sidewalk and then calling you out. And just saying, hey, come with me. Let's go have fun together. Let's go have adventure.

It reminded me when I was a kid, my friends would pull up on their bikes and they would just call. We'd run out there and we'd just take off. And we'd just go terrorize the streets, you know, for hours. And I feel like Jesus just wants to do that with you, not terrorize. But he's just there and he's calling you out. And he doesn't need you to do it.

He doesn't need you. He can do it without you. But he loves you. He wants to do ministry because he loves you. He wants to solidify your life. We want to do this together. Is that what you want? I want more of Jesus. I want to make a difference. I want to be a living testimony. He's calling us out. He's calling you right now. And now's a moment where you can say, yes, that's me.

I want more of you. And so we're going to have the prayer team forward. If you want prayer afterwards, but I want to bless you right now. So if you extend your hands, I want to give you this blessing. I want the prayer team come forward here in the front. If you need prayer afterwards. If you've never made a decision to follow Jesus, come forward.

We want to pray for you. Lord, bless your people. Just like that miracle wagon out there, God, we just want to be a walking, the miracle of our life, Lord God. And pour it out to others. Thank you for people like Donnie, 90 years old today. He's still just blessing people through Spanish translation. Thank you for Jack over in China, making differences back and forth.

Dom on his hockey team, Lord God. Friendly walking the neighborhood here, just waving to people, smiling to people. Todd as he goes to his appointments, Lord. My mom as she talks to everybody that comes her way. God, we just bless him. And Brandon, Lord, just bless Brandon as he's out working, Lord Jesus. Claude, he's in town. We just bless you. I bless these people.

Make a difference, Lord Jesus. We want your blessing. Right now, just invite his blessing. He does a better job of blessing you than I am. Just say, God, I want your blessing. I want to do this. Now's the moment. I'm going to step out. I'm going to make a difference. I'm going to bring my Bible to work. Someone needs prayer, I'm going to ask if I can pray for them.

It might be awkward. I'm going to do it. I'm going to give someone money for gas when I wouldn't normally do it. Make me an instrument of your peace. An instrument of your peace. Just pray that in your heart. That prayer of Francis of Assisi. Make me an instrument of your peace. And make this church known for making Jesus known. We might become less.

You might become more. That Jesus made known to the sea change community of people. God, we're doing this together. Together. If you want to make a decision to follow Jesus, just say, Jesus, I want to follow you today. I'm going to follow you. I don't understand it all. I'm going to follow you. I believe in you. I can feel it. I believe in you. So we bless you now.

We send you out to be an instrument of his peace. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. We love you. If you need prayer, please come forward. We want to pray for you on this moment. Bless you guys. We'll see you next week. Amen. Amen.