Rhythms.

The Prophetic and Spiritual Gifts

To talk about what is the prophetic and how that can be such a weird, creepy, scary word at times. But essentially, looking at the Old Testament in scripture, we see that God would speak to a specific person, a prophet, and he would give them a word to share to his people. It was always to release life and to call them back to who God created them to be.

Then we see in the New Testament that after Jesus dies on the cross, pays the price for our sins, is raised back to life, he leaves with us his Holy Spirit. And we, through the power of the Holy Spirit, can now hear from God.

So we get to hear God's voice through scripture and we get to hear God's voice through the Holy Spirit. God is still speaking to his people and through his people to release life to us and to call us back to who he created us to be. And so we talked about that Friday night and we took time to just pray and say, "God, is there anything that you have to say to our community?" And God really showed up.

And so I wanted to invite Elena to come up. Elena is on our leadership team here. We can give it up for Elena. And we're also going to invite Cora to come up. So Cora is one of our amazing contributors. And Elena and Cora are just going to share a little bit about a testimony of what God did at retreat.

So on Friday night, we had what Abbie mentioned already. We had a worship and prayer night and we talked a lot about the prophetic and how to practice that. And I shared yesterday, actually, that this word has been like a very scary thing for me. I've felt weirded out. We know that prophecy was a big part of the scriptures, but actually practicing it today, what does that look like?

I think I've just had this conviction like the Lord still speaks to his church and he uses his people to speak to his church. Friday night so many people shared different things that they felt like God was speaking. And Cora was one of those people that came up and shared. And so we've asked her to come up here.

And I just want to honor you, Cora, for coming up here, because I will say speaking is not easy for us. But God has called us to share with his people. And so I thank you for saying yes and being obedient to that because this is a word for the whole church. Would you just introduce yourself?

What do you do here in Madison? Who are you?

I'm Cora. I moved here to work at Epic as a quality manager about a year and a half ago, and I've been coming to New Culture since then.

It's been good. She's also a beautiful part of our community. So shout out to communities too. But what I will say is God gave Cora a vision. And I want you to share what your vision was because I specifically got something out of this vision. God spoke very clearly to me through her vision.

So this was something that's kind of newer for me. I kind of traditionally have struggled to hear or see God in my life. Coming into Friday I actually wasn't supposed to be here. I was supposed to be in Rochester, New York for a work trip and it got canceled. I felt like God told me, "You should still go Friday and see what comes up." And it was cool because during worship, I like to talk, and I kind of felt God be like, "Just shut up and listen, Cora. Let's see where this goes."

When we were in our time of listening, God gave me this vision of walking through a forest fire. Everything at the ground level is sort of burnt up, but there are nine big trees that are kind of charred but still strong and standing there. I was like, "What does this mean? This is kind of weird." So I did a quick Google and looked into what forest fires are. They're used to burn up smaller vegetation and provide nutrients for the whole forest, which I think was kind of cool. I took it as a sign of refinement. And I was like, "What are these nine trees? What does this mean?" And that's where Elena kind of got some stuff from.

So back to last Sunday, we had Contributor Night. That Sunday, right before church, I went up to Abbie and I was like, "Abbie, we were supposed to have all these breakouts, this training session for our teams. Abbie, I feel like we're just supposed to scrap that. I feel like God has given me a word and I need to speak on the spiritual gifts that the scriptures talk about and how that translates to our church body." And so I taught on that on Contributor Night.

What I did teach on was the gifts that it lists in 1 Corinthians 12. And there are nine spiritual gifts that Paul lists out there. And immediately when Cora said she saw these nine trees, I knew exactly what that meant.

And so I think that this is a word for our church. Like this season of refinement is so beautiful, but within that we all each carry these spiritual gifts inside of us. God has gifted each and every person here with very specific and unique giftings that our church body needs. And I shared this a lot this weekend, but if we are all not actively pursuing and nurturing our spiritual gifts, if we're not actively using those each time we gather together, our church is not operating in its fullest.

And so I would encourage you that as you're spending time with God, would you pray about what God has gifted you with? If that's the gift of hospitality, would you come up and talk to me, please? Because there are ways that we can use your giftings. If it's behind the scenes sweeping floors, we can do that. But if you feel like God gives you visions or God speaks to you very clearly about things, we also need your gift.

And the scriptures talk about how the church talks about it in a metaphor as a body. And if each part of the body is not working, the body is not operating at its fullest. Same with the church. If we are not each fully engaged in the giftings that God has given us, our church is not operating in its fullest. And I believe that God has given me and our church this dream to see our church operating at its fullest to build the kingdom of God.

And so would you pray about that? Cora, I thank you for operating in these new giftings that you feel. It is very new for us, right? It's sort of a scary thought to be like, "Oh my gosh, like prophecy or visions or dreams." It doesn't have to be scary. God wants to speak to you and we need to hear from God.

So please, if you would just pray about that. And Cora, thank you for sharing. Because I believe that our church got something out of it and we're challenged by that.

In April of this year, and many of you know, I purchased my first home. It took a long time to get there. I'm still kind of shocked that it happened, to be honest.

But if you've ever been house hunting or anything like that, maybe you're better at it than I was because I went into it. I was like, I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know what to be looking for. I don't know what this looks like. And then I don't know if you ever get in one of those situations where you're like, you feel like I'm supposed to know. So I'm just going to like pretend I'm going to fake it.

My realtor was amazing. I recommended her to other people in this church. She was so good. But we'd like show up at the house. And before we go in, I'd like see her like looking down at things. And I would just like get down and be like, yeah, yeah. I'm like, I don't know. I have no idea what I'm looking for, but I'm like crouching, you know.

But what I realized is that she was so intentional to look for different things. I was just showing up. I was like, well, does the house look good? If it looks good, then yeah, I'll put it off. Or like, let's do this.

But she was looking for all sorts of things that I would have never thought about. When we would approach the outside of the house she would get down low and she would look to see was there any slopes, any slants. Was there any place that water was piling up? We would get down and if there was a basement she would go down to the basement. What would she look for? Any cracks, any leaks, anywhere that something water could be getting in.

She was looking at the foundation. She was looking to see were there any cracks? Were there any places that water was going to come and build up? Why? Because we know that one of the most important things to a house, to a structure, is what? It's the foundation.

Today we're going to be talking about the reality that if we want to be people that are deeply formed, that we need a firm foundation.

The Foundation

If you turn with me in Matthew chapter 7, verse 24 says:

Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house. Yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell down with a great crash.

Matthew 7:24-27

Foundation is what holds it all together. A firm foundation is what gives us the ability to build the things that God has called us and created us to build. I want to start today by encouraging you that if you're here today, and maybe you feel like you keep finding yourself in a place where it's like, I'm building and things are going good and I feel like I'm doing the right things, and then all of a sudden a storm comes. Something hits me in life, and there I am, I'm knocked down again.

If you feel like you've been in this cycle of brokenness, this cycle of isolation, in this cycle of depression and anxiety, can I encourage you today that could it be that there's a crack in the foundation? Could it be that there's something in the foundation? I don't say this to then all of a sudden create this disappointment of, oh no, what if there's something wrong with the foundation, the things that I've built my life upon, but to encourage you that today is a new day and that you can choose today to build your life on Jesus Christ, who is our firm foundation. Every single day we can choose who we will be and who we will become.

The name of our church is New Culture. And about once a year, maybe twice a year, I like to share about our name, New Culture, and some of the things that we have set up to build our foundation on Jesus Christ. Our so what for today, every single week we have what is the main idea? What is the thing we feel like God is trying to tell us? And it's this. Create the culture of Christ. That is why we exist as a church.

For some of you, you've been around and maybe you've heard these things before. And for maybe some of you, you're new around here and you're like, oh, I've never actually heard the meaning of this or what this means. My hope is that if you have been here before, don't check out. I'm going to say it again and again so hopefully you can teach this better than I can someday.

Our so what is we are here to create the culture of Christ. Culture is all about customs, patterns, beliefs, practices. Like we read about where Jesus says, if you put these things into practice, put them into practice, you are wise, right? Practices that have been passed down for generations to come. That's culture. We all are here and influenced by the culture around us, right? You're probably wearing the things you're wearing today because you at one point saw somebody else or somebody told you that looks good, that feels good, that's good, right?

We are influenced by culture. We understand that. But here's the thing. We can choose the type of culture we want to create. We can choose the type of things that we want to pass down for generations to come. So now what? What do we do with this or how do we do this?

Well, our mission here is create the culture of Christ and we believe that that happens through three things. Being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus, so then we can go and we can do what Jesus did. What did Jesus do when he was here on earth? His entire life, every conversation, every moment was a display of his love for people. He healed the sick, right? He raised the dead to life. In scripture, the same word often in the New Testament for saved is the same word as healed. So when Jesus is saying he's healing a woman with the issue of blood, he's saving her. When he's saving people, he's healing them. He's restoring them.

What would it look like for us to be people that we have spent so much time with Jesus that because of the time we've spent with him, all of a sudden we're becoming like him and we're living life like him so that the people that we encounter, the people around us, when they encounter us, they're encountering the presence of Jesus and they're leaving healed, restored, broken no more. That is the life that we are invited into when we say yes to following Jesus.

One of the things that you found on your seat today is one of the things that we have in place at our church. And it's called a rule of life. Now this is always the scary part. We talk about this a lot. So I always feel like I have to explain, right? A rule of life can sound so scary because you're like, this church has rules. What is that?

Well, the word rule comes from the Latin word trellis. We can all understand a trellis, right? A trellis is something that when you plant seeds, it holds it up to make sure that it grows in the right direction. So a rule of life essentially are these spiritual rhythms or practices that we're saying, what did we see Jesus do when he was here on earth? And this is it. These are the things that we saw Jesus do. Jesus prayed. He spent time with the Father. Jesus practiced the Sabbath. He rested. He wasn't just going all the time and doing.

If you look at some of the things that we say, he was devoted to community. Jesus contributed. Jesus didn't just come and keep to himself, right? He came and he served the people around him. He was generous in that. These are the practices that we see Jesus doing and this comes from this idea of the passage that we've been studying the past couple weeks of John 15, where it says:

I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you can ask whatever you wish for and it will be done. This is to my father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

John 15:5-8

We want to bear the fruit of Jesus, his goodness, his kindness, his compassion, his love. And this rule of life is something that helps us to do this.

I want to talk about the word remain. The word remain coming from the word meno, if you're taking notes today. This word abide and remain that is used here. Sometimes we think of it and we think, okay, be with Jesus, remain with Jesus. Like that's how we produce fruit and that's how we represent him. But this word has a lot of different meanings. Some of the things that it represents in scripture is yes, to abide and to remain, but also to commit to, to tolerate, to endure, to wait, to accept, to suffer, to submit, to be faithful to.

Now that's a lot in one word that it can represent. Here's why I want to talk about this again today. It's because so often in scriptures we read things as a single individual. But the reality is, is that we were never called and we were not created to live these isolated individual lives. But we were created to be a community that is interdependent on one another as the body of Christ.

And in the Old Testament, you often see that things were addressed, that God would speak on behalf of a person to a people, to a family. And we see too in the New Testament that that word you, it's never really just meaning like a single individual, but more times than not, and in this passage would be an example of that, that it's plural, that it's talking to you all. We all need to remain together.

That's why as a church we have these set practices to say okay we don't want to just be people that just show up on Sundays we say hi and then we walk out and we never talk to each other again. But we want to be people that are radically committed to being with Jesus and becoming like him and doing what he did. So we're going to need some strategy and some things in place that are going to help us do that so that we can when we say we want to be people that pray for renewal in our city. We want to see that renewal. And I know I can't do it by myself and you can't do it by yourself. We need each other to do this.

To be a deeply formed church, we are going to have to be present with our community. We're going to have to commit to relationship to our community, to tolerate our community. Endure with your community. Wait. Accept. Accept your community. People that maybe are even a little bit different than you sometimes or don't say things the way that you would want to say them. Suffer with your community. Submit to your community. Be faithful to your community.

If we are a family, if we are a part of something that goes beyond ourself, what does it look like for us to abide, remain, stay, commit to one another in that type of way? This is the way that I believe that Jesus created us or that God created us to live. And Jesus wants us to live deeply formed.

So the three things I want to focus on real quickly today is that if we are to be a deeply formed church, that we are going to abide together, that we are going to abide and we are going to do these things together. That we're going to be people that says we want to be present with Jesus together. We want to be faithful to endure together, to submit to these practices together so that we can be formed in the likeness of Jesus.

I'm going to read through some of these practices of why do we have them. Well, the first one is we have our daily practices. On here, we have our daily practices to say start the day in scripture and prayer, take breaks throughout the day and end the day in examine and gratitude. Now, why are these things?

Well, first of all, a rule of life, it's set to be rhythms and practices that help you create space to be with Jesus. It's to help you create space to be with him. Now, these practices do not save us. These practices do not get us an A plus. It's not like a grading system, but they are things that we set in place to help us create space to hear from God. I love that even as we're sharing about what happened this weekend, it's because we set out time to say we're going to silence everything else so that we can hear from God.

This is not supposed to be something that's strict or rigid, but something that creates space for us to be with God. We want to be people where we're not just walking around saying like, we want to know Jesus. If we want to know him, if we want to know God's voice, you know that we can open our Bibles every single day and hear from God through scripture. He's speaking to us, but are we listening? These practices help us listen and pay attention to learn his voice.

When it comes to the things that we want to do more weekly or monthly, we have more resources for this on our website. If you've never established a set of practices or a rhythm of life, go to our website under resources. There's a whole workbook to guide you through it.

Why do we Sabbath? Why do we believe in the Sabbath? And even as a church, sometimes we won't have church on a Sunday to have a Sabbath Sunday. It's because in Genesis, if you read in Genesis and the creation story, on the sixth day, man was created. But on the seventh day, what happened? Rest. It's the first day that humans were alive. What did they do? Rest. We were created to delight with Jesus, to enjoy his presence, to not just be these human doings, but human beings that get to be with Jesus.

So we want to prioritize rest. When we're resting, we're forming ourselves into people that say it doesn't rely on us. It's not just about what we can do, but it all, everything is God and relies on him. Fasting, where we spend time to starve our flesh, to fill our spirit. We go hungry so we can grow in our hunger for the Lord. We do this to practice and to remind our flesh that it's the Lord who truly satisfies and nothing else.

Why do we gather here on Sundays? Why is this something that we're saying we want to be people that are committed to gathering as the body of Christ? It's because when we come here, each and every one of you here today, you bring something unique to the table where we can come and we can empower one another. We can encourage one another. And we recognize that this is not church. Coming together right here is not church. We are the church. And we together can gather on Sundays to worship and to be encouraged to continue to go and represent Jesus and to be the church every single day of the week.

We want to be people that are devoted to community. That's why we have our weekly community groups that meet to continue to demonstrate this and to contribute to the community. The word contribute means to add value. Each and every one of us has value to contribute and to add to this community. And finally to seek renewal for our city. This one comes from Jeremiah 29:7 where it says:

Seek the peace and the prosperity of the city to which you have been carried into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.

Jeremiah 29:7

I love this city. I love the people that are here. I love the things that God is doing. I love that there are so many other people here that love this city, but may it be said of us in this church that we are seeking renewal, the peace. That word peace means shalom. Shalom means wholeness, completeness. We want the people in this city to feel that, to that wholeness, that completeness. We want to see God's kingdom come.

And to do that, we have an invitation to be committed to seeking that and praying for that every single day together as a community. So rule of life, if we let it, it can be legalistic and rigid, but we won't let it be that.

Formation Happens Through Habits

But it's the next steps to think about are in your life. You have rhythms. You have things that you do. Although there's a lot of different people that have different theories about how are we formed, what's human growth and development, right? Nature versus nurture, all those different things. Some of the things that people can agree on is that we are formed by habits, right?

We are formed by the people around us. Those are two huge contributing things. And then the third is that we are formed by the stories we tell ourselves. So those are three things that most people, no matter what you're studying, no matter what theory you're listening to, you can kind of agree upon.

Elena, who is up here, her daughter, Anora, who is in the back, always trying to out talk me as I'm preaching. But the other day when they were watching football, all of a sudden out of the blue, she starts going, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. And she's going on and on and on. And Nathan and Elena are like laughing. They're like, where did she learn? Like, what did this come from? But if you've been around Elena, I said, that's you. Like you say that, you do that, right?

Like what happens? Because her mother is saying that and she's around her mother and she's hearing that all of a sudden, she's just going to start speaking it out. The people that we surround ourselves with, the things that we hear, it eventually comes out of us. So if you're here today and you're like, I don't know that I like who I am sometimes. I don't know if I'm happy. I'm feeling that brokenness and I'm not sure if I like who I'm becoming.

Well, the good news is that you can change. The good news is, is that you don't have to be that way anymore. When it says one of the ways that we're formed is by the stories we tell ourselves, I wonder sometimes if some of us get so stuck because we tell ourselves a story that this is all there ever really is, that I can't really change, that I can't really grow, that I'm just always going to be this way.

Can I tell you that when Jesus was here on earth and he called his disciples, that as they spent time being with him, they became like him. They were changed. They were saved. They were healed. They were restored. They no longer were talking the way they talked, acting the way they acted. They were changed.

I share that with you today to encourage you. Could the very thing that's keeping you from being in this place of the life you're living and the life you feel like you were made to be, simply being, starting to believe that you can change through the power of Jesus? Starting to believe that as you spend time with him, that you will be formed into his likeness, who you were created to be.

I'm going to invite the worship team to come up as we get ready to close today. In John 15, we've been talking about this passage a lot, and that one of the things that it says is:

I'm the vine, my father's the gardener, he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. Well, every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

John 15:2

There is this level of like consequence for when we are not living and walking and being fully obedient to what God has asked us to. There is this consequence there. But here's the good news in that, is that if you keep reading, after John 15 comes John 16, where Jesus is still teaching his disciples, and he's saying:

I'm going away but I will send someone that is coming after me. Unless I go away the counselor will not come to you. Other translation says the helper. But if I go I will send him to you. And when he comes he will convict the world of their guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.

John 16:7-8

Jesus is talking here about the Holy Spirit that's going to come after him. The Holy Spirit who did come on the day of Pentecost and fill all the people. The Holy Spirit that's with us today to convict and to draw us back into relationship with him.

But here's what I love about this, is that not only when we look and we're like, man, what does it look like for us to be people that we're not building our lives on the things of this world, but we're building our lives on Jesus Christ, our firm foundation. What does that look like for us to do it? It can feel really hard sometimes. It can feel like almost impossible, but the good news is, is that we're not alone. Is that not only that we have each other, but we have the Holy Spirit with us to equip us, and to empower us to be all that God created us to be.

But as we were reading in Matthew chapter 7 I couldn't help but notice as I was reading this passage it says everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice. Hears these words of mine. Now if you look in your Bible some different Bibles will have in red are all the letters when the letters are read, it means Jesus is speaking.

So I started to flip back through my Bible here and be like, what were the last things that Jesus said? Well, this passage I read to you, our entire church name came from that passage. Of how do we not be people that just like hear the word of God, but we do it. We practice it. We know we're not going to be perfect. We know that it's not just going to come together, snap of fingers, but we practice it. How do we do that? Well, we know that it takes time. We know that though we want to start somewhere. We want to not be hearers, but we want to be doers.

But then I started to think, okay, what was Jesus saying? Well, that passage comes at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, a time where Jesus got up in front of all these people, and he started to talk about the things that mattered most to him in those moments. So if you look in Matthew chapter 5 through 7 it's the Sermon on the Mount and right before he's saying build your house upon the rock put it into practice he's talking about the gate being narrow. He's talking about asking and seeking and knocking. It's the stuff we talked about last week of seeking first the kingdom of heaven of not being people who worry. Giving to the needy. The Lord's prayer is right there. Fasting. Being the salt and the light. And then the beatitudes.

So when Jesus is saying, Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. So then when the rain comes and the storm comes and the things of life try to tear it all down you will stand firm and strong because you have put these things into practice. You have built your house upon the rock.

What does it look like for us to be people that build our lives upon Jesus Christ our firm foundation? What does that look like today? Are we doing these things? Be with Jesus. My invitation for you today is to begin to think about what does it look like for you to be with Jesus? What do you need to remove to create space? Is there any crack in your foundation that you need him to come and heal and restore?

Become like Jesus. As we spend time just being with him we are changed and formation starts to happen. What does that look like for you to lean into community and to become like Jesus so that you can do what he did? If today you're in a place and you're like I don't like who I'm becoming. Can I encourage you to start to think about your foundation? Can I encourage you to think about what stories are you believing? Do you believe that you can change? Do you believe that you don't have to leave this place the same?

Think about what are your habits? What are you daily practicing? What are the things that you're doing and what are they doing to you? Who are you surrounding yourself with? We become the things that we surround ourselves with. The things that we behold. Jesus is calling us and inviting us to follow him. To be formed into his likeness. To bear his fruit. To abide together. To submit together. To multiply together. All for his glory and his kingdom come. This is the life that we were made for. To partner with Jesus in seeing his kingdom come.

A Choice About Our Foundation

I'm going to close by talking about that foundation though again. So there's two types of foundations that are listed. The rock and the sand. Rock is firm and solid. What is sand? It's broken up pieces of rock and stone and glass. See, I believe that there's some of us here today that we have been building our lives on pieces. Broken pieces of truth, of hope, of security. But in the end, it's not the real thing. It's just a piece of it.

And so maybe you're able to build a little bit. Maybe you're able to get a little strong. And even from the outside looking in, it's like, that's a pretty good house. That's looking really good. But the second that a storm comes, all of a sudden it falls apart and that house is washed away and you keep wondering why.

Well, could it be that you are building your life on sand? On just pieces? But not the whole thing? The complete thing? And today there's an invitation to say we can come and we can build our lives on Jesus Christ who is our firm foundation so that we can stand strong. That we can be all who created us to be. No matter what comes up against us.

So I want to invite you to stand today and we're just going to have a few minutes of just ministry time. And as I was praying today, I just really felt like there was just two areas that I wanted to invite people to just pray. And that first one is that if you feel like, as you begin to ask God to show you that maybe you've built your life on pieces of truth. Maybe you're in that time where you're like, it's like almost real, but not quite. Maybe you've been picking and choosing pieces of the Bible or pieces of following Jesus' teaching that you want to submit to based on what's comfortable for you.

I believe that the Lord's asking us to say, will you step out of that comfort? Will you start to invite me to come and to heal that? And that's that next one is that for some of us, maybe there's just cracks in that foundation and we need to be healed. We need to be restored. I say this with hope today that once we become aware of those things, then we can take it down. We can get rid of them and we can rebuild our lives on Jesus.

I love in Romans 6:4 where it says:

We are therefore buried with him through baptism and death, him being Jesus, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father. Here's the thing, when we choose to follow Jesus, we are choosing to die to our flesh and to die to everything else. But it doesn't stop with death. We then are choosing to be raised back to walk with him in new life. Life to the fullest. Life that you were made to live.

Romans 6:4

So I want to invite you today that as we go into this time, to pray and to say, God, is there any thing that I need to repent from? Is there any ways that I've been building my life on just pieces of the truth and not the real thing? And how can I turn back to you, Jesus?

See, repentance isn't a bad thing. It's not a scary thing. It's a beautiful thing when God shows us things in our lives. Ways that we're not living for him. That we're turning in one direction, and we need to turn back to him. Would you ask the Lord to come and raise those things back to life? To heal. To restore. To make you new.

And the last thing is this, is that in Matthew chapter 7, right before it's talking about the wise and foolish builders, it says:

Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it, but small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Matthew 7:13-14

The way of following Jesus. It does cost us something. It can be hard. But the life that we experience with Jesus. The new life. The life we were created for. Is worth it. And as I read this passage today I think that there's two ways that we can receive that. One we can think of, oh my goodness, following Jesus, like it's more than just showing up to church every now and then right? It's more than being a good person. It's more than doing these things. Like being a follower of Jesus and experiencing life to the full. Like it might cost me something. It's narrow. It can be scary.

But here's what I want you to hear in this. There is a gate. There is a way. Jesus came and died on the cross to pay the price of our sins to make way for us to experience life, eternal life with him. That is good news today. And he is worthy of us continuing to lay our lives down so that we can continue to usher in his kingdom and experience his presence to the full.

So I'm going to pray for us and I want to invite you today that if you're here and if you would like to receive prayer, myself and Jane we're going to be in the back. If you just want someone to partner with you in prayer. Whether you're like yeah I'm realizing my foundation I don't think it's good right now and I need someone to pray with me. Or if you are here and you're like I don't even really know what it means to follow Jesus and you want someone to pray with you. We'd love to pray for you.

And then we're going to wrap up in just a few minutes. So Holy Spirit we just invite you into this place. God would you come? When you speak to us would you reveal to us the things that maybe in ways that we have not been building our lives on you and just pieces and half truths? And God would you come? Would you heal those things? Would you restore those things? Would you have your way in this place?

We welcome you God and we thank you that you have created a way and you continue to make way for us to come and experience your wholeness. Your freedom. Your presence. So Holy Spirit we just welcome you here. Would you come? Would you move? Would you speak? In your name we pray.