Victory Weekend | Full Service

Sorry. I just had to do it, I guess. Hey, my name's Hunter Jones. I'm one of the pastors here at Rock Point Church. It's such a privilege to get to be with you here this morning.

I know a lot of us have been off, and and we've had some time off, and the kids have been home, and doesn't that just make you excited to go back to work? You know? My wife is so excited that I'm here right now. Seriously. I it may be hard to to believe, but I can be

difficult to be around for long periods of time. I know you guys would never think that, but like sometimes I even need to like, I'm just like, I just need to take a nap because I cannot hear myself think anymore. I am done. So I remember this one time, my wife, so she's consistently

late to things. Anybody in here like that? Like, she just Yeah, thank you for being honest. I appreciate it. Just It doesn't matter, like, what's going on. She she is usually running late, and I love her. I think God just made her that way. I don't know what's going on. But

so we both work here at the church, and so my wife one day, she was like, hey, I wanna get to the church early. Tomorrow, I wanna make sure we're we have some time to get things set. And I said, sweetie, that is not gonna happen.

I just like to win, you know? I just like to be right and I like to win and I just say things I shouldn't and so she's like, no, I wanna be there early tomorrow. I said, listen, I will do whatever you want me to to be early, but I'm telling you, it is not gonna happen.

And so she was determined that she was going to be early tomorrow, so we needed to leave the house at 08:00. Out of the driveway, 08:00. I said, I will be in the car five minutes before we need to go. I will be sitting there, I will be out of your way, whatever you need, I'm gonna be in there,

and if we leave a second after 08:00, I'm gonna tell you I told you so, and I was right. Just because that's I'm horrible that way.

So we wake up the next morning. I mean, she gets up three hours early. She is making breakfast. She's doing her hair. She's doing her makeup. She's determined to leave on time. I wake up my normal time. I get ready. I grab my bag. I go sit in the car five 07:55.

I'm sitting in the driver's seat, and I am just praying that she's late. I was hoping. And so 07:50, she said, that's awful. It is. 07:56 comes, 07:57, 07:58, 07:59, 08:00 comes and goes, and my heart is dancing. Yes.

So 08:03, she finally comes out to the car, she gets in, she throws her bags in, she sits down in the car and it is silent. And I'm just smiling to myself. We pull out of the drivers or the driveway and we start going and I'm just like, I just, I want her to know that I won. And so I said, hey sweetie,

could you grab my phone right there? And she grabs it and I said, yeah, what time does that say on the top? For some reason, I don't remember. We had a horrible day that day, but I just like to win, you know? Like, I just you ever get a victory and then it immediately feels like you lost?

You know what I'm talking about? Like that happens to me all the time. Like I win, I do what it takes to win, and then it's like this is so much worse. And honestly, I think so often we can actually tricked into that into our own lives because we actually have a really hard time defining what real and true victory

is. It looks like when you work and work and work and you save and you finally get that enough money to buy the house that's in the nice neighborhood where the kids can go to the nice school and where all the nice parks are. And you finally get in, it's got all the bedrooms, and you get there, and then the mortgage comes, and you're like, oh my gosh.

This was supposed to be a victory, and this is horrible. We can barely make ends meet.

Or like when you when you work really, really hard to get the promotion, you you show up early and you stay late and you you sacrifice time with your family, and you really wanna make sure you get the promotion, and finally you get the promotion, and it's like, good grief, this is so much more stressful.

This is so much more weight. This was supposed to be a victory, but why does it feel like a failure? Why does it feel like defeat in my life? This weekend, we are having a victory weekend at Rock Point. We are celebrating all that God has done in and through this church, and what God has done in our community.

But what we're gonna look at today is specifically what is real and true victory. Excuse me, you're gonna have to bear with me today, I've got a little bit of a cough. I think it's a case of the Mondays coming on early. Too bad I'm off on Mondays. So what does real, true, and genuine

victory look like in our lives as defined by God? See, I think a lot of times we think it looks like accumulation. It's like I'm gonna accumulate that title, I'm gonna accumulate the nice car, the house, the perfect family, the nice clothes, and we start to accumulate and we think that's victory,

but every time we feel like we hit victory on the other side of that, it feels like defeat. But what God declares is victory is actually true and genuine accomplishment. When we accomplish something that's greater than ourself.

And so my big idea today, if you're taking notes, the main thing I wanna say that we're gonna see in God's word is this, walking with Jesus is walking in victory. Walking with Jesus is walking in victory.

See, we're gonna be in Romans chapter 16, and what we're gonna do is we're actually gonna start at the last verse we're gonna be reading, Romans chapter 16 verse 20. And it is this unbelievable,

amazing victory claim that the Apostle Paul is writing to people like you and I. To a church, to people who don't feel like they're winning, to people who are struggling in their life, to feel like people who are they're barely holding it together. He's writing to them a claim of victory.

And at the end, we have that victory claim, and everything leading up to that in the chapter that we're gonna read is actually building to that. So we're gonna start at the end, and we're gonna go back to the beginning. So if you have your Bibles, please open up to chapter 16 of the book of Romans,

starting in verse 20, and I'm gonna pray for us as we flip there in our Bibles. Father God, thank you so much for the opportunity to get to be here this morning, the beginning of the year, and hear your word,

hear your wisdom. God I pray that you would speak clearly to us this morning, that you would open our ears to hear what you have to say, that you'd open our hearts to accept what you're saying. I pray God that we walk out of this room

not just accumulating more information but being transformed because we chose to do something with what you said. I pray that you help my voice, you open your word to our hearts. In Jesus name we pray, everyone said? Romans chapter 16, Paul is writing a letter to a church. So the first 15 chapters,

he is writing some of the most dense theology in all of scripture, and then we get to the end. And it's it's the end of the letter, chapter 16, and he's writing a letter to his friends. He's writing to these people that he knows, he cares about, he's lived life with. And in verse 20, this is what he says. The God of peace

will soon crush Satan under your feet. Why would he say that? That the God of peace, God, will soon crush Satan is imminently crushing Satan under you, the church's feet. Under your feet, you are crushing

the enemy. This is one of the greatest victory claims that we see in all of scripture and Paul is saying to people who are tired, who are feeling persecuted, who are feeling like they're being defeated, who are feeling like they're losing, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

What is he saying? He's saying you are walking out the victory in Jesus. You see, when he's writing this, we're in book number 45 of the Bible. Okay, so the Bible is 66 books altogether. Romans is book number 45. He's actually referring to a book all the way back at the beginning, book number one.

You see in book number one it begins God creating this perfect world, the book of Genesis. We see a perfect world created and God speaking it into existence. In page number two, he creates the absolute beautiful pinnacle of his creation. Adam and Eve, man and woman, made in the image of God, pictures of the love of God,

and they're walking around on earth. And what God says, he puts them in paradise, the Garden of Eden, and he says, you guys can eat anything, all of your cares are taken care of, you can eat of any tree except one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because if you eat of it, you will die.

And so we have 66 books, page three of book one everything falls apart. Everything falls apart. Into this picture of perfect victory, defeat enters on page three. Because Satan, the enemy, enters into the scene in the form of a serpent,

in the form of a snake. And he steps in and he talks to Adam and Eve and he's saying, you know, God's been really not telling the truth, you should actually try the fruit. And so they eat the fruit and everything

falls apart. Into the world enters death and sickness and brokenness and marriage issues and issues with family and issues with kids and issues with work. Defeat enters into the picture. Shame and brokenness. And what Adam and Eve do is they hide, and they hide from the God that they know they just disobeyed.

And what God does in the midst of their shame, in the midst of their brokenness, he steps into their defeat looking for them and he gives a promise immediately of victory. Can I show you? Genesis chapter three verse 14,

he's talking to the serpent. He finds Adam and Eve, he's talking to the serpent and this is what happens. He says, then the Lord said to the serpent, sorry,

because you have done this, you are cursed more than all the animals domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly groveling in the dust as long as you live, and I will cause hostility between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. Here it is. He, a descendant of the woman, will strike your head

and you will strike his heel. Theologians look at this verse and they say this is probably the first verse in the entire Bible that points to Jesus. This is the first mention that we have of something that points to Jesus on page three of our book of 66 books. Thousands of years beforehand.

Because in the midst of defeat, God promised victory, that the enemy is going to be crushed under the heel of a descendant of the man. And we see that fulfillment if we go all the way from book one to book forty, forty one, 42, and 43

called Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in our Bibles, and these are the stories of a man named Jesus. We just celebrated his birthday a couple days ago.

It's where God became flesh. He lived the perfect life. He died on the cross. He gave his life up for you and I, took on our sin. And when Jesus died on the cross, his last word was one word in the Greek, three words in English, Tetelestai, it is finished.

And when he died on the cross, the fulfillment of that promise all the way back in book one finally came to fruition, that the serpent's head was crushed and Jesus defeated the enemy. So now, we're in book 45,

the book of Romans. And this man named Paul, he's a follower of Jesus, he's writing to a church like you and I who's feeling defeated, who's feeling frustrated, and he's saying, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. Why would he say that? Because what he's saying is when we walk with Jesus,

when we are with Jesus, we get to walk out the victory that Jesus has given us. See, in our lives, we get to live out the victory that Jesus has won for us. We walk out the victory because when we walk in the footsteps of Jesus, our feet crush the serpent along with him.

And so how do we do that? How do we actually live lives that are full of genuine and real victory? Well, that's what we are actually gonna see in the rest of the chapter. So we're gonna go all the way back to verse one of 16 and read through, and we're gonna see what real and genuine victory looks like when we walk it out.

So we're gonna read the first 16

verses. So here we go. I commend you to our sister Phoebe,

who is a deacon in the church of Sintra. Welcome her in the Lord as one who is worthy of honor among God's people. Help her in whatever she needs, for she has been helpful to many and especially to me. Give my greetings to Priscilla and Aquila, my coworkers in the ministry of Christ Jesus. In fact, they once risked their lives for me. I am thankful to them, and so are all the Gentile churches.

Also, give my greetings to the church that meets in their home. Give my dear friend Apintus. Greet my dear friend Apintus. He was the first person from the province of Asia to become a follower of Christ. Give my greetings to Mary, who has worked so hard for your benefit.

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews, who were in prison with me. They were highly respected among the apostles and became followers of Christ before I did. Greet Ampiletus, my dear friend in the Lord. Greet Urbanus, our coworker in Christ, and greet my dear friend Stacus.

Greet Apelles, a good man with whom Christ approves, and give my greetings to the believers from the household of Aristobulus. Greet Herodian, my fellow Jew. Greet the Lord's people from the household of Narcissus. Give my greetings to Tryphina and Tryphosa,

the Lord's workers, and to dear Persis, who worked so hard for the Lord. Greet Rufus, whom the Lord picked out to be his very own, and also his dear mother, who's been a mother to me. Give my greetings to Asynticus,

Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermes, and the brother and sisters who meet with them. Give my greetings to Philogus, Junia, Nereus, Nereus, yeah, and his sister, and to Olympus, and all the believers who must meet with them. Greet each other with a sacred kiss. All the churches of Christ send you their greetings.

Read that like 40 times trying to get it right. It's a lot of names in there. What do you notice when you read that? One, I'm like, Paul, you're writing the bible, don't you think you should be a little bit more general? This is like, we have no idea who these people are.

But what I think is cool is he's he's talking about people he knows, people he's lived life with, people he's worked alongside. You know what he doesn't say? He doesn't say, man, greet my friend Phoebe who fed 5,000 people through a cracker she found on the ground. Greet

Priscilla and Aquila, who literally healed people who were lame and blind. He didn't say that. What is he mentioning? He's mentioning these people in the Bible. The Apostle Paul is pointing to these people and he's saying, man, they were faithful. They showed up when I need them when I was in prison. He's my dear coworker

following Jesus. Greet my friends. You see, you can tell a lot of what's important by what someone celebrates, what someone claims is victory, what the Apostle Paul is celebrating in these people is really important to victory in our own life.

The first thing I want to share with you is how to walk with Jesus in victory. The first thing we need to do that I see and hear is we have to walk

with purpose. We have to walk with purpose. See, in our life we all have gifts and abilities and talents and resources, but what we choose to do with them and how we choose to use them matters. One of the cool wins that I wanted to share with you guys this weekend is we actually have the privilege of

loving on Castile High School right across the street. It's right across the street, I worked with them for quite a few years, and every single year, a couple times a year, we buy dinner for those teachers. I guess lunch, because we eat it in the middle of the day. Could be dinner, guess, early.

So we buy lunch for those teachers, and we get to meet with them, talk with them, share about our lives, and if you don't know, being a teacher is a thankless job. I mean, it's hard, students are hard, there's a lot of grading, there's a lot of paperwork, parents can be hard, it's just a hard job.

So we just want to take a moment to say thank you to these teachers. And so I remember last year I was sitting with one of the teachers, she's been a teacher for years and years, and it just meant so much to her that we were carrying on them. And she talked about their Christmas break.

She was sitting with her family, she's been a teacher her whole career, and her brother-in-law, he was like a very successful businessman. He'd like made thousands of dollars, really, really successful, done a lot, like really someone to envy. And he looked at her and he said, man, I am so jealous of your life.

She was really caught off guard, she's like, what do you have to be jealous of me? And he said, you have the privilege of looking at your life and realizing that you actually did something that made a difference. And I wish I had that. I wish I had that. You see, I think that is a picture

of what victory, the victory that Paul's getting at. Walking with purpose. Because when we take our resources and when we take our life and we offer it to something that's bigger than us, something that matters, something beyond us, we actually begin to get to walk in real and true victory.

You guys know like the Hollywood stars in Hollywood? Like, you know, they I always thought like you just get so famous one day they call you up and it's like, hey, we're gonna put you on a star. You realize you have to pay for that? That is way more lame than I thought. It's like, you call

them up, it's like, hey, can I pay to get my name on a star? I think I'm famous enough. It's like, what are you doing? Why does that matter? Because I and I think that's what we do in our life. We try to accumulate and get all the nice things and get the right thing and we say hey look I I won. I'm victorious.

Look I accumulated all these things. Look at my life. Can I have a star?

When I think the victory that Jesus calls us to walking with purpose looks a lot more like a war memorial. Because what's a war memorial? It's when people give their lives to something greater than themselves. Men and women sacrifice parts of their lives or even their lives to protect something that matters,

and they're recognized by other people to say, man, look at that. That's victory. That's amazing. And that's where true, real victory is found, when we are faithful, when we walk in purpose, when we take our gifts and abilities and we offer it to something greater than ourselves, and God looks at us and he says, Well done,

you were faithful. You kept showing up. You gave your resources and your talents that I gave you, you gave them right back to me, and I am so proud of you. Well done. So what does that look like in our life? What does it look like to be faithful, to walk with purpose when we're walking with Jesus?

At Rock Point, we say it looks like giving your time and your talent and your treasure and your testimony. Your time and your talent looks

a lot like serving, giving your gifts. I mean, I don't think you realize this. A lot of times we don't see the giftedness we have. You guys are awesome. You make this community run. You're phenomenal. You go to your job and you're a professional. You make things happen.

And we have professionals that come to church. I don't know if you know, most of the landscaping, most of the handiwork done around here is done by people who just volunteer it for us. They're like, hey, I can weld. Like can I do it for free for you guys? And we're like, yes. That's awesome. We need that.

Because what they do is they take something that God has given them, their experience is something they've sharpened and they come to the Lord and they say, can I just give back to you to be part of something greater than myself? And that's how you begin walking in purpose.

See, maybe you love people. You should be an usher or a greeter with us. Maybe you guys, you love kids and you love being around kids. Maybe you need to serve in our kids' ministry so that you can help a family feel comfortable to sit in here and hear the gospel for the first time. Right? Like that is a picture of what it means

to walk in purpose. And it's not hard, it's not crazy, it's not difficult, it just is intentional.

What does it look like for you to take your time and your talent in serving, your treasure, the money that God has given you, and rather than using that money to accumulate something else, to actually give it so that you can see life change happen, and when you see life change happen, say, man, I got to be a part of that. I invested in that.

In your testimony, the story that God has placed on your life and your story of how you came to know Jesus, you live your life in a way that points other people to Jesus. What would it look like in 2026 if you began to walk in purpose? Man, it'd look a lot like victory.

Where in your life do you need to begin to walk in purpose?

The second thing I see when I read this list of Paul naming all of these people he knows, to find victory, if we wanna walk with Jesus in victory, the first thing we need to do is walk in purpose, the second thing is we have to walk with others.

I love Paul, he's writing a letter, so he's far away, to these people that he just knows. He knows their names. He's life with them. He's laughed with them. He's cried with them. He's eaten with them. He's talked with them. He's walked with them. He's mourned with them.

He's done it all. He knows these people. He knows their lives. He's like, I sat in prison with those people. Like he cares about these people. The Apostle Paul is one of the most amazing people we see in scripture. I mean, he's planted churches and churches and churches, and he's written

most of the books we see in our New Testament. He's a phenomenal man, but he said, man, these people are my friends and I needed them when I was following Jesus. You see, Christianity is not an individual sport. I think a lot of times we take our American individualism and we transplant it into our faith.

And that just doesn't work because Christianity is a team sport. You even see it in the victory claim we see at the end. In Romans sixteen twenty, so the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. Now Bible translators,

I'm gonna give you a little insight, all right? Bible translators, they have to take the ancient Greek and translate it into proper English. The problem is, with this specifically,

the proper English doesn't quite hit it. It doesn't quite communicate what the Apostle Paul was trying to say. So I'm gonna, I grew up in, or I was born in Georgia. I have a lot of family in South Carolina, and they actually have a really, really perfect word to translate this. So I'm gonna share it with you. I'm gonna tweak the translation if that's all right.

So a tweak translation would be this, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under all y'all's feet. All y'all. You see, your can be either singular or plural, but most of the time when you see it in the Bible, it's actually plural. It's not saying you, it's saying all y'all.

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under all y'all's feet. You see, because Christianity is a team sport, it's something that we have to do not alone, but with others. We have to live a life following Jesus in a biblical community, because the God of peace is crushing the enemy because of all y'all.

Not just you specifically, or hey, you in the back, under your feet, or you around the corner, it's all y'all's feet. I love There's an African proverb. It's not like a proverb you find in the Bible, but it's like a wise saying from Africa. And it goes, If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far,

go together. You ever had like a really great spiritual experience, and maybe you raised your hand and accepted Jesus, and you were like, I'm gonna change everything. I'm gonna read the whole Bible. I'm gonna pray eight times a day, and everything is gonna be different, that lasts for like three minutes.

You know what I'm talking about? Like you have that crazy And then you try to go alone as fast as you can after Jesus, and it just fizzles out, because if you wanna go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, and that's the goal.

We want to go far in our walk with Jesus. We want to follow Jesus for the rest of our life. If we're going to do that, we have to go together. We have to have people alongside us. We have to be living life. Just like the Apostle Paul said, we have to walk alongside

other people, because in the low moments when we want to give up, we have people who care about us who can carry us through. In the high moments, celebratory moments, we have moments that we can share with the people we care about. The only way we are going to go far in walking with Jesus is if we walk with others.

Because Christianity is not an individual sport, it is a team sport. So do you know people's names when you come in this church? Do you know the people

you're living life with? Do you share not only your name, but life with people in this church? And it's okay if you don't. I realize there's a lot of new people here, or maybe you haven't been connected in a while, you're still shopping for a church, but I wanna encourage you, and we have so many opportunities

to get connected here at Rock Point, to just learn people's names. Next week, next Saturday, we actually have an event called Newcomers Dinner, and it is a dinner designed for free for you guys just to sit around a table and get to know people's names,

and find some people you might wanna connect with. We also have this really, really cool ministry called Find Your Circle. It's where, yeah, woo.

It's where we create life groups, which are what we call biblical community groups of people that live life together. I've been in the same life group for about four years, and it has been phenomenal to walk alongside other believers and grow alongside them. I encourage you, would you sign up for something so if you don't know people's names, you get to know them?

Because it will make your walk with Jesus so much deeper, so much greater, and you will go the distance in your walk with Jesus. Are you walking with others? And if so, or if not, what's stopping you?

So we're gonna continue reading the chapter. We're in verse 17.

And now I make one more appeal, dear brothers and sisters. Watch out for people who cause divisions and upset people's faith by teaching things contrary to what you've been taught. Stay away from them. Such people are not serving Christ our Lord, and they are serving their own personal interests. By smooth talk and glowing words, they deceive innocent people. But everyone knows

that you are obedient to the Lord. This makes me very happy. I want you to be wise in doing right and stay innocent of any wrong. I wanna read that again. I want you to be wise in doing right and stay innocent of any wrong. Then we get to our victory claim. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. You see, the final thing I think we need when we're, if we wanna walk in victory, if we wanna crush the head of the enemy, we need to walk in purpose and we need to walk with others, but the last thing is we need to walk in obedience.

We have to walk in obedience. And I know that doesn't sound like really exciting or really cool or like But it's so simple, but it's so vital. Because when we look back at the Bible, we see these amazing things happen, these miracles happen. God is doing phenomenal

things, And and we want the life transformation. We want the phenomenal things to happen in our life. But the crazy thing is when you look through scripture, God never asks people to do the miraculous. Never.

Like, and and I think it's because sometimes we tell the story wrong. You know, we've all heard like Moses went and he split the Red Sea, but that's actually not true. What did God ask Moses to do? He asked Moses to bring the people of Israel to the edge of the water, and he asked Moses to hold up his staff.

And when Moses' obedience met God's power, the miraculous happened. And they walked through on dry ground. Because God didn't ask Moses to do the miraculous, he asked Moses to be obedient. And God brought his power. That's why I love the story of the feeding of the 5,000.

If you haven't read it, you need to. So Jesus, he's standing on a hillside and thousands of people are out on the hillside listening to him teach. And they're not near a town, everybody's hungry, they're so hungry they can't even listen, and nobody knows where to get enough food for these people.

And what Jesus doesn't do is he doesn't ask, hey, can someone just find the food? He says, hey, does anybody have any food with them? And this little boy comes up and he offers up his lunch. He's got five pieces of bread and two little fish, and he says, hey Jesus, here you go.

And Jesus takes this small obedient sacrifice, and when his obedient sacrifice meets the power of Jesus, 5,000 people get fed with leftovers. You see, in our life we want the miraculous to happen, but the truth is God is asking us for our simple obedience.

He's not asking us to transform ourselves. He's not asking us to change our hearts. He's saying, would you just show up? Would you just offer your obedience and let God's power meet you? And life change will happen. See,

some of us, we just We need to start 2026 just saying, God, I'm just gonna take the first five minutes of my day when I'm eating breakfast or I'm drinking my coffee, and I'm just gonna open my bible and start reading. And it's not like it's my shot of espresso in the morning, it gets me through the day, it may not always be encouraging, I may be confused when I sit down, but I'm just gonna take my five minutes, and if I just offer my five minutes, would you just bless my obedience of showing up?

Would you multiply that somehow into life change?

Some of us, we need to just take the first five minutes of our commute to work, just rather than listening to two songs, take five minutes and we pray for our family, we pray over ourselves, and we pray for our heart, and we pray for our coworkers, and we pray for our friends, and we pray for those who are sick, we pray for our biblical community.

We just say, God, I'm just trying to show up and I'm just trying to connect with you, would you just take this five minutes and would you bless it and would you multiply it so I can have life change? So I can experience real victory in my life. Some of us for 2026,

we just need to commit to showing up to service every single week.

Saying, God, I want to commit to showing up. It's gonna be a priority for me and my family. We're gonna change things around, and every single week I'm gonna show up to church. And I'm gonna take seventy minutes out of my entire week, and I'm gonna offer it to you, and I'm just gonna ask, would you just take the small sacrifice of an hour

and ten minutes every single week, and would you bless it? Would you transform my life? Because God's power will meet us in obedience. Where in your life, church, do we need to start stepping, walking in obedience? Because when we walk with purpose and we walk with others and we walk in obedience, we begin to walk in victory.

Walk in victory that doesn't have defeat on the other side, but real, true, genuine, deep victory. You see, we've been a church that is committed to these three things, walking in purpose, and walking with others, and walking in obedience. And it's not like crazy, it's not super

It doesn't feel super amazing when you're doing it, but we believe that these three things are really what God calls us to if we're going to step upon the head of the enemy. If we're gonna walk in victory

with Jesus. I think some of us though, we can't walk in purpose and we can't walk in obedience and we can't walk in others until we have first walked to the cross. I think some in this room, you first need to experience victory through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Some of you have never accepted Jesus as your Lord

and your Savior, because when Jesus died on that cross, he defeated sin once and for all. He crushed the head of the enemy. He took your sin and my sin and he paid the price. And he gave up his life, and three days later he resurrected from the grave, proving that he's God and proving that what he did on the cross

mattered. And scripture says, if any of us declare that Jesus is our Lord, that means we say Jesus from this point on, I want you to be the person in charge of my life, making my decisions. And our savior, the person who rescued us, then from that moment on, we will be given a new life,

a new creation. We will be then walking in victory as we walk with Jesus, walking in his grace. And so some of you, I want you to be able to begin walking in victory in 2026. So would you just close your eyes, everybody in the room, and bow your heads.

And if that's you, if you wanna accept the victory of Jesus for the first time, would you just raise your hand up so I can pray with you? Yeah. I see your hands. They're going up. Yeah. Just stick them up there because I really want to pray for you. I want to pray with you.

So we're just gonna pray a prayer. There's nothing magic about these words, but I just want you to repeat them in your heart after me. It's a heart of surrender. So what you're gonna say is, Jesus, I believe what you did on the cross for me is real. I believe you're God. I believe you rose from the grave.

I want you to be from this moment on my Lord and my Savior. In Jesus' name we pray, everybody said amen. Hey, can we give it up for everyone who said yes to Jesus? Amen. Welcome to victory. Can I say that? Guys, we have been a church that is committed

to trampling upon the head of the enemy as we walk with Jesus, as we walk in purpose, as we walk with others, as we walk in obedience. And so I just wanna share the victory

that God has accomplished through all y'all. So what we're gonna do, we're just gonna stand up and I'm gonna read the victory that God has accomplished in and through this church. So here's just some of the victories. In 2025, we have lost two church plants. That's amazing. Last year at Easter services,

we shared the gospel with 14,026 people. Amen? Couple weeks ago at Christmas services, we shared the gospel of Jesus with 14,957 people. And we sent out Echoes Church at the beginning of the year. We sent out 1,500 people, and Echoes had 5,250 people at their church service. They saw 213

people say yes to Jesus at their Christmas services. Last year, we saw 1,028 people in a biblical community in groups changing their lives. Last year in 2025, there were 6,028 people that said yes to Jesus for the first time. In the last five years at Rock Point, there have been 17,611

people who said yes to Jesus for the first time. That is victory. Last year, there were 1,269 people who publicly proclaimed their faith in baptism. The last nine, they were after the last Christmas service, and pastor Bill just jumped in the water and baptized them. In the past five years, there have been 3,909

people who publicly proclaimed their faith in baptism. Church, that happened. The God of peace is crushing the enemy through all y'all. If you believe in 2025, you didn't accomplish anything, but you were a part of this church, I'm here to tell you you're wrong because God did victory.

He crushed the head of the enemy through you, through your faithfulness, through your service, through your offering. Guys, God is doing amazing things. And what could the end of 2026 look like when we walk in purpose, when we walk in obedience, when we walk with others?

Your life may radically look different because you choose to walk with Jesus and walk in victory. Guys, we're gonna praise the God that brings victory over the head of the be midst

in

celebrate. We can worship him. We can praise. So that's what we're gonna do. Come

I see there's some freedom. Hell, that's another one. I am free. Yes, I am free. Oh, I am free. Hell, that's another one. I am free. Oh, I am free. Yes, I am free. Yes, I

I am. Help us another

you. Give it up for everyone who said yes to Jesus today? I believe you just made the best decision of your life. Welcome to the family. Next or not next weekend. In a couple weekends, we have baptisms, and that is your next step. Go to rockpoint.io, sign up to get baptized, man. We wanna celebrate you.

Like Jonesy said, God is on the move and he's using ordinary people like you and me when we choose to show up to church.

When we choose to get baptized, when we choose to do life with other people, and I encourage you to do that this year, and we will see the goodness of God on the other side of our obedience. Amen? Hey.

We have a prayer room right in the back. If you need prayer, if you wanna talk to someone, we've got people in there ready to chat with you. Other than that, hang out, grab a coffee, chat with the family, and we'll see you next weekend.