Basics | Week 1 | Message

I wanna take a moment this morning before we jump into everything to just acknowledge everything that's going on in our world and our nation right now. This past week has been unbelievable.

We saw or we remembered nine eleven, which is one of the most horrific acts of terror that's ever happened on American soil and all the lives that were lost because of it. There have been school shootings, there have been church shootings,

and I think for a lot of us, it's really culminated this past week with the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which has probably been the most public assassination that's happened in American history since JFK.

There's tremendous power in acknowledging when things aren't okay. And I just wanna take a moment for us to acknowledge right now that in our nation, things aren't okay right now. There is so much confusion, there's so much frustration, there's so much division, there's so much darkness that's felt right now.

And this is a moment where I think we just need to come to the feet of Jesus and say, Jesus, would you be the light in the darkness? Because there's so much hurting. We need the voice of God to speak truth over the lies that we're hearing and the brokenness we're feeling.

So before we start the message today, I just wanna take about thirty seconds of prayer. Whatever the Lord is putting on your heart, whether it's for the Kirk family who lost a son, who lost a husband, who lost a dad,

whether it's for the people who have lost their lives in these mass shootings, whether it's for those who lost a loved one in 09:11 or whatever you may be going through this morning, seeing the division on social media, I just want us to pray for what the Lord's putting on your heart.

So please bow your heads with me as we pray.

Father God, we come to you this morning desperate for you. We come to you this morning asking God that you would be light in the darkness we're feeling. That you would be truth in the confusion that we're experiencing God.

I pray that when we come to your word this morning that you would speak clearly and you would give us the the tools to put you back at the center of our lives because you're the only one that can hold us all together. We need a God that is greater. We're desperate for a God that is bigger than everything going on.

And so God, please be with those who are hurting and I pray that you would raise up your church as a light in this darkness. In Jesus name we pray, everybody said, amen. Thank you for praying.

So everyone, we are jumping into a new series today called basics. And the timing is impeccable because today we're gonna be talking about the importance of knowing Jesus personally through public worship. In moments like this, when life seems crazy, public worship

is the thing that we need to hold onto. It is the thing that draws us to who Jesus is. And so that's really what we're gonna be talking about and jumping into this morning.

So I remember, you know, I went to bible college and I learned all about God. What they didn't tell me is to be a pastor here, you apparently have to be a body builder. So

nobody informed me that. Clearly no one informed me. And so, I remember it was about a year ago, my wife and I decided, okay, we're gonna start to try to get healthy, get fit. And so I go to the place to get all the best information. You know it very well, Instagram,

to get to know what to do. That's where a lot of you guys get your theology. I understand that.

And so I'm going to Instagram, and what I found really quickly and really there's a lot of junk out there. There's a lot of people who have no idea what they're talking about, and you should just shouldn't listen to them, but they sound so real. But I finally found this one guy. He uses science.

He's he's very straightforward. He debunks all these health myths and I really like it. His name is Lane Norton. He's got like a million followers. So I'm sure some of you know who he is. Lane Norton. He's he's brilliant, he's amazing, I followed It really helped me. Anyways, about

So last December, my wife and I, we go to the EOS down the street and we're, you know, working out. And so I take my turn and then it's my wife's turn and she puts on more weight as she's working out.

And I look over and I see this guy that kinda looks like Lane Norton, this guy on Instagram. And I'm like, there's no way. I know it's not because he lives in Tampa, Florida. He would never be here. Why and and he's like a health guy. Why would he be an EOS? He it's not him. But it kinda looks like him.

And I'm like and bring my wife over. I'm like, do you see that guy? Doesn't he look like Layne Norton? She's like, I don't know. Leave me alone. I'm like, I think he looks like Layne Norton.

So she's working out and I'm looking on Instagram. I'm looking at the picture. I'm looking at him. And I'm I'm I'm like, it's like if if you kinda squint your eyes and tilt your head, it kinda looks like him. And I'm like, okay. If he's there,

I've gotta say something. I can't if you if I found out he was here and I didn't say anything, would hate myself. And so I decided I'm gonna go just say something to this guy. My wife rolls her eyes and she leaves me alone. So I walk over to him and I said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Has anyone ever told you, you look just like this guy, Lane Norton? He looks at me and he's like, it's actually funny, I get that a lot. I was like, well, I'm sure you do. You know, you look just like him. I'm Hunter. He says, hi, I'm Lane.

I blacked out.

You know, when you meet a celebrity, you always think you're gonna play it cool, like, oh, you come here often. But no, there's no way. You just you're overwhelmed. I don't even know what said. I said something stupid like, thank you so much for everything you've done. You changed my life. I've seen all your content.

I'm sure he's thinking like, it didn't change your life that much. But I was just so overwhelmed, I couldn't even go back to my workout. I had to go lay down in a massage chair and wait for my wife to finish. I was just I couldn't believe I had met this famous person. I was just in awe.

And I know all of us have experienced, whether it's being starstruck or this this sense of wonder and awe in our life, and here's what's crazy.

When you look at evolutionary science and and how we came to being, scientists can't explain why you and I, when we look at a beautiful sunset or when we meet a celebrity or when we see something fascinating, we are just blown away in awe. This sense of wonder and awe and beauty cannot be explained by science.

But we have an explanation for it. Because you and I, we know we've been created by a God and he has wired us to worship him. That's where this sense of wonder and awe comes from. See today, my big idea, if you're taking notes is this, we are wired for worship and God alone is worthy of it. You and I are wired.

Yeah, let's clap for God. He's awesome.

We are wired for worship. You have been created to worship and God alone is worthy of it. No matter where you're at in your walk with Jesus today, this message is something that hits each and every one of us because what we're gonna realize is, yes, we've been wired for worship, but that doesn't mean we give it to God.

That doesn't mean we put it in the right place. See, this is the basics, the foundations of our salvation, of our faith, what it means to live out following Jesus. And the first thing, the most important thing that we wanna talk about in this series is you've gotta start with worship.

Because it's where everything begins in our walk with Jesus. You and I have been wired for worship and God alone is worthy of it. Today we're gonna be in Luke chapter nine verse 28.

Luke chapter nine verse 28. If you have your Bibles, I'd love for you to open them with me. Luke chapter nine verse 28. If you have your phone Bibles, you can even open up along with us. We're in the NLT, New Living Translation this morning.

Luke chapter nine verse 28. This is a passage what we're gonna be looking at that Bible scholars call the transfiguration. What does that mean? No one knows. I'm just kidding, somebody knows. But really what this story is about is in the life of Jesus, it is a moment in time

where Jesus gives us a peek behind the veil of who He is. It is a moment where for a second, He takes off His humanity and shows His unbelievable ultimate glory. We see all of these heroes of the Old Testament, of our Bible, standing before Jesus who reveals Himself as the God who deserves to be worshiped.

Luke nine twenty eight. So as you're turning there, let me give you a little background. This story appears in three out of the four books of the Bible that talk about the life of Jesus. It's in the book of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the one we're in today. And when you look at all of these stories that lead up to this thing called the transfiguration of Jesus, you see a fascinating pattern occur.

Because Jesus, he begins his ministry. So he gets baptized by his cousin, John the Baptist. He goes into the wilderness. He's tempted for forty days in the desert, doesn't eat or drink anything, tempted by the devil. And then he starts his ministry and he starts doing unbelievable miracles.

He's walking around and he finds sick people and he heals them. And here's what's crazy, Jesus says, hey, congratulations, you've been healed. Don't tell anyone I did this.

And I'm like, well, Jesus, isn't the whole point of this whole thing telling people that you did amazing things? But he said, don't tell anyone. And then he moves on.

And he keeps walking and there's people who can't walk, they're lame, they're paralyzed and he touches them and they can start to walk again. And he says, congratulations, you can walk. Don't tell anyone.

And he moves on, he keeps going. And then he starts to find people who are blind and sometimes he spits in the mud and rubs the mud over their eyes so they can see again. Sometimes he tells them to go wash in a pool and they can see again. And he says, congratulations, you can see me. Don't tell anyone I did this.

And he goes on and he finds mute people, people who can't speak, people who can't hear. And he heals their deafness, he heals their muteness, and he says, now that you can see me, now that you can talk, don't say anything to anybody. Okay?

And he keeps going and he finds demon possessed people, and the demons can't help but scream out, you are the Christ, the son of God. We know who you are. And Jesus says, up, up, up, up. Shut your mouth.

First of all, get out of him. Second of all, don't tell anyone I did this. Okay? Over and over and over and over again, we see Jesus telling people, don't go around telling people what I just did for you. Just show them who you are now and commit yourself to God. Why is Jesus telling people not to talk about Him?

Well, there's two reasons. One, because Jesus, honestly, He couldn't heal everybody. He wanted to make a difference for the people to show who He was, that He was the Son of God, but He was gonna be completely overwhelmed. The second reason was this, Jesus' main purpose here on earth was to die on the cross

for our salvation. And he knew if people knew who he was too soon, too early, he would die too soon and he wouldn't be able to accomplish the purpose God had for him. So he had to conceal who he was. So over and over and over again, he's doing amazing miraculous things and he's saying, Don't tell anybody I did this. Then

the point where it all changes is our story today. Luke nine twenty eight, the transfiguration. You guys there? Yes, all right. Here we go, verse 28.

About eight days later, Jesus took Peter, John and James up to the mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face was transformed and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly two men, Moses and Elijah appeared and began talking with Jesus. Moses and Elijah, they are the representatives

of the entire Old Testament of the Bible. They were the rock stars of the faith. It would be like Taylor Swift and Drake showing up. Sorry. If you're like 55 plus, I totally excluded you. It would be like Ronald Reagan and the Queen of England showing up in front of them. The rock stars. I mean the the best of the best.

And so they're they're standing there, these representatives of all that God has done up to this point. Verse 31, they were glorious to see. And they were speaking about his exodus from the world, which was about to be fulfilled in Jerusalem. Peter and the others had fallen asleep. When they woke up, they saw Jesus' glory

and the two men standing with him. As Moses and Elijah were starting to leave, Peter, not even knowing what he was saying, blurted out, Master, it's wonderful for us to be here. Let us make three shelters as memorials. One for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah. Peter sees this, he's starstruck and he's like, Moses,

I love you. I've seen all your content. I watched all your books. That was awesome when you split the Red Sea. Peter and I are actually pretty similar people. Just we speak before we think. But we're both pastors. Verse 34, But even as he was saying this,

a cloud overshadowed them and terror gripped them as the cloud covered them. Then a voice from the cloud said, this is my son, my chosen one, listen to him.' God, the voice of God is saying to these people

who were major parts of writing our Old Testament saying, now this is the person you've been waiting for, pointing towards, now Jesus is the actual complete fulfillment of all that God has been working for and looking forward to. Verse 36, when the voice finished, Jesus was there alone.

They didn't tell anyone at this time what they had seen. This is a moment when everything shifts from Jesus hiding who he was to now completely and fully revealing the glory of who he is, that he is the God of creation,

that he is the God that has eternally existed, that he is God in the flesh, and now it can no longer be hidden. And what we're gonna see in the text, we're gonna jump forward, is that that requires a response from everyone. When we see, when we hear, when we understand who Jesus is, it requires, it necessitates a response.

So we're gonna jump forward 10 chapters because this is really where the application of God's word takes us this morning. So Luke nineteen thirty six, as he rode along,

the crowd spread out their garments on the road ahead of him. What's happening is Jesus is entering into Jerusalem, it's the final week of his life. He knows he's about to die on the cross for their sins, he's gonna be killed and he enters into Jerusalem as a king riding on a donkey.

And his followers understand what's happening. Verse 37, when he reached the place where the road started down the Mount Of Olives, all of his followers began to shout and sing as they walked along praising God

for all the wonderful miracles they had seen. 38, blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven. What are they doing? They're acknowledging who Jesus has declared himself to be as God and they're worshiping him.

And that upsets some people. Verse 39, But some of the Pharisees, the religious leaders among the crowd said, Teacher, rebuke your followers for saying things like that? And Jesus said, He replied, If they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers. Why? Let's

break this whole passage down. So you have Jesus coming in, revealing who He is. You have a group of people who acknowledge who He is and they're worshiping Him. You have a group of people who come in, they decide not to worship, they're deciding to rebuke those who are worshiping Jesus for who he is. And Jesus says, listen, if they don't worship me, then the rocks are gonna start screaming

my name. I have two points for us this morning that I really want to break this passage down with. The first one is this,

we are wired for worship. We are wired for worship. So I think it's important that start with defining what worship is. Here's my definition. Worship happens when you love something so much, you're willing to sacrifice for it and surrender to it. Worship happens when you're When you love something so much,

you're willing to sacrifice for it and surrender to it. You see, worship starts in this room when we sing. It starts here every single week. Why? Because when we sing, we proclaim the truth of who God is.

We talk about that He's awesome and He's great and He's powerful and He loves us and He's caring and He's just and He's holy and we declare these things. And you ever wonder why people raise their hands during worship? It's because this is a universal sign of surrender.

Because we're sacrificing for and we're surrendering to. We're choosing to commit to sacrifice our time, to show up in this room, to surrender to what God has for us. But notice I said that that's the beginning of worship. That's where it starts. Worship is not just the singing we do before the message.

Worship is the life that we live when we walk out of this room as well. Worship is when you go and you serve in the kids ministry and hold a little baby

because it's the first time a couple felt comfortable enough to give their baby to someone so they can sit in a room and hear the gospel for the first time. That's worship. Worship means when you get home from work, husbands, you take an extra three minutes to pray to God that he would soften your heart,

give you a clean slate, that you can go in and love your family and lead your family to Jesus. That's worship. Worship

looks like downloading software on your phone so you can't watch pornography anymore because you're sacrificing what you want and you're surrendering to the will of God in your life. Worship looks like saving yourself for marriage because you believe you're surrendering to God's will for your life because you believe it's better. You're surrendering your life to Jesus. Worship

looks like giving a chunk of your money to God first and foremost because you believe, man, I wanna sacrifice and surrender my life to you, God. That's worship.

Worship means choosing to love the people that we disagree with. Worship means we love our enemies. That is what worship is. It is a sacrifice of what we want, a sacrifice of what we think we should have, and a surrender to the will of God in every part of our life. That's what worship is, and it starts here.

It starts here. It starts when we declare who God is through singing, through proclamation in this room together. See, the question is not if we worship. The question is what we worship or who we worship. Because you'll notice my point is we are wired for worship. It is not an option. You are going to worship something,

whether it's God or anything else. I mean, you look at all of human history,

and I mean, I don't know about you, but there are so many gods, you can't even count them. They've got Egyptian gods, they've got Hittite gods, they've got all the false gods in the Old Testament, you've got Greek gods, you've got Roman gods, all these false gods. Why? Because we've been wired for worship.

Human beings have been wired to worship something. And I was one of those kids that was really into Greek mythology. I always thought it was fascinating. You know, I read the Percy Jackson series and I was hooked. I loved Greek mythology just learning because I thought it was so ridiculous. Like these

people would actually pray, they would sacrifice for and surrender to God of the thunderbolts. It's like, what?

These guys are wearing togas and you're actually sacrificing your money, sacrificing you're surrendering to the well you you've got Zeus who's the god of thunderbolts. You've got Poseidon who's the god of the sea. You've got Aphrodite who's the goddess of beauty. You've got

Dionysius who's the god of wine. Like, come on. Somebody made that up. Right?

When we look at that, know, there's like these little statues wearing togas and seems ridiculous. Why would anyone sacrifice and surrender to something like that?

But the truth is, what these gods actually represent is far more than a thunderbolt or the sea or the sky. The God of Zeus, man, he represents power and leadership and authority. The God of Poseidon, he represents control over the uncontrollable. The God of Aphrodite, she represents beauty, vanity, love, sex. Dionysius,

he isn't just the God of wine, he's the God of pleasure, of escaping whatever you're going through. You've got Hades, who's the God of the underworld, he's also the God of wealth. You dig into what these Greek gods actually represent, They're the same things we worship.

They're the same things we sacrifice for and surrender to. I mean, there's a reason you're willing to sacrifice your family to get ahead at work.

You're willing to sacrifice for and surrender to whatever it takes to get a little bit more status, to get a little bit better of an image at work, a little bit better opportunities. There's a reason you're willing to sacrifice your morals for more money.

You're willing to sacrifice for and surrender to whatever it takes to get more money. There's a reason we're willing to sacrifice so much money and so much time to just be a little bit more beautiful so people might want to be around us. Is because we worship the same idols they do.

There's a reason we're willing to compromise our purity just so someone will have sex with us, just so we feel loved. There's a reason we're willing to sacrifice our morals, sacrifice our identity just for a little bit more pleasure, just to feel escape one more time, whether it be porn, whether it be alcohol, whether it be drugs, whatever it is. There's a reason we're willing to sacrifice and it's because it's what we worship.

We are wired for worship. The only question is where are you gonna place it?

And I get it. It's easy to do. It's not like you're just actively making the choice, it slips into your life. Like I'm sure there are so many of you right now and it's like, Hunter, I can't afford to not put my career first.

With the house I've bought and the life I live, I can't afford not to sacrifice my family, not to sacrifice all of these things. And my question is,

do you really want the life that costs all of that? Would you rather have a life that you might have a little less, but it's free, it's burdenless?

Jonesy, Hunter, somebody finally likes me and I haven't been liked in a long time. There hasn't been someone who's wanted me in a long time. And yeah, they don't follow Jesus, but how am I supposed to give that up? Do you really want a love that's not rooted in the unconditional love of Jesus?

You realize Jesus wants to offer you a love that is condition less and he has a body of Christ who wants to surround you so you don't feel alone?

Yeah, Johnsy, my life is so miserable. I'll do anything to escape because life is just so hard. You realize Jesus wants to give you a life that you don't have to escape from.

See, Jesus wants to give you more. Jesus wants to give you better. And the gods that you worship that is not the God of the universe is never gonna be able to hold your life together. It is always gonna fall apart. Because the truth is our worship determines our way.

Our worship determines our way. What you worship will determine who you become.

What you worship will determine who you become. If you worship money, you will always be someone who needs a little bit more, who needs a little bit bigger of a house, who needs a little bit nicer of a car, who needs a little bit better of a team for your kids to play on.

If you worship status, are always gonna hold your kids to an unbelievable standard and they're gonna resent you. If you always worship wanting to be liked, you are just going to give up your morals. What you worship determines who you become. And Jesus is inviting us to worship himself

and in the process be transformed into someone who becomes more like Jesus. You see, we are wired for worship. And the question is, what are you worshiping?

My second point

is God alone is worthy of it. We are wired for worship, but God alone is worthy of it. So I've been here at Rock Point for about five and a half years. And over my course of time here, I've had a bunch of different jobs here. One of the jobs is I oversaw this thing we do at Rock Point called after school hangout.

If you've ever been here from Monday through Friday, from about 02:19 to four, you will know that we have about 400 students that come over every single day from Castillo High School and absolutely take over our campus. It is awesome.

So, for a season of time, I oversaw the after school hangout. I was pastoring those students. I poured into them. I got to develop relationships with these students who would never darken the doors of a church unless there was a coffee shop.

And so I would hang out with them, I'd play games with them, I'd get to know them. I got to know a lot of students. And I remember there was these two seventh grade girls that I got to know over the course of doing that job. And over time I was pouring into them. They'd never gone to church, they've never been to church.

And so after Christmas break, they come back and they see me and they run up to me and they said, Josie, we have to tell you something. I said, what is it? What's going on? And they said, okay, during Christmas break we were having a sleepover and we decided to sneak out. But we thought we were gonna get caught.

And so we got down on our knees

and we prayed to you, John Z.

And it worked.

And I said to them, peace be with you.

I did not. What I actually said to them is, don't ever ever do that again. Okay? Because you don't need Jesus. You don't need me. You need Jesus. Alright? And the truth is, guys, we don't need more money, we need Jesus. We don't need more control, we need Jesus. We don't need our political party to win, we need Jesus.

We don't need more security, we need Jesus. We don't need another partner, we need Jesus. We've got to cling to Jesus. It's the only thing that we need because He's the only one worthy of worship. He's the God of the universe.

He's the only one that can hold our life together when it feels like it's falling apart. He's the only light that can shine in the darkness of our world. We need Jesus.

I had this whole awesome story planned about how, just how great our God is, and I had this whole thing where if the earth was a single cell, it would take two and a half trips to the moon to show you the width of the galaxy. And then Chris Hilken came two weeks ago and did so much better than I would have.

And I thought no one will ever believe that I came up with that before I heard him. And I was really upset. If you wanna hear a phenomenal sermon, go on YouTube and watch the sermon two weeks ago. It was amazing. But But I did wanna tell you this story of just how awesome our God is. So 1995,

there was something called the Hubble Deep Field Study. The director over the Hubble telescope, his name was Robert Williams. And he, because he was the director, he got to decide where to point the telescope. Now this telescope, it took $1,500,000,000

to get up into space. Then they found out it was fuzzy. The lens was fuzzy. So it took another 1,500,000,000 to go and fix the lens. So you've got this $3,000,000,000 telescope and then you got one guy who, because he's the director, he gets to decide where to point it. And he said, okay,

I've been thinking a lot about where to point this telescope. I have ten days. So I wanna take the Hubble telescope and there's this area in space, the nothingness of space, the vastness of space that I've been looking at. And there's this tiny little area where there's absolutely nothing.

I wanna take this $3,000,000,000 telescope and point it at nothing. And all the people around him are like, why would we ever do that? And this is actually kind of the space. So you see in the middle, that is the plainest, darkest area in the universe.

The guy said, well, I'm the director, I wanna do it. And so they did it. 1995, December 18 through the twenty eighth, they pointed this telescope at nothing for ten days. And everyone was like, this is a waste of time.

They come back after Christmas break, they're sitting around the monitor, the images are loading and finally they see this image and they're blown away because this is what they see in the nothingness of space.

You see all those little glowing dots? Yeah, that's what they see. All these little glowing dots are galaxies that are billions, billions of miles wide. You see, this absolutely broke and destroyed our understanding of the vastness of the universe because astronomy had no idea how big, how unbelievable

our universe is. And I'm telling you, we serve the God that created that. I

wanna read you this verse out of Colossians, one fifteen through 17. It says, Christ, Jesus, is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation.

For through Him, God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see, such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, authorities, and the of the unseen world. Everything was created through Him and for Him. He existed before anything else, and He holds all of creation

together. See, Jesus was there at creation, and His voice spoke creation into existence. And He holds all things together. In a moment when He opened His mouth, you had protons, electrons and neutrons formed and they came together and they started to form these unbelievable

elements with different electrons and then they came together and started to form these

incredibly complex organisms called cells. At the center of cells, you have these strands of what's called DNA with books and books and books of information inside each single strand. And then you look at that and you look at that's the same God in the same moment who created every galaxy, every nebula,

everything that we see, everything we walk on, everything we build with, that is Jesus. He is the only one who can hold our world together. That's who Jesus is. Jesus is so much bigger than we ever can ask, think or imagine. He is greater than our wildest dreams. Why would the rocks cry out

if we didn't worship Him? Because they remember His voice when He spoke them into existence at creation. See, Jesus is the God that is worthy of our worship. And when it feels like the world is falling apart, when we place our worship in the hands of Jesus, He alone will hold us together

when everything else is falling apart.

See, everybody has a place where their worship tends to go that is not Jesus. What mine is, I tend to place my worship in my status, in my career.

About a year ago, I really started to go after and spend all of my extra time. I wanna get better, I wanna get more opportunities, I wanna try harder, I wanna just keep going. And my family, my wife started to suffer because I started spending more time with my job than with my wife.

And we'd been trying to get pregnant and we got pregnant with this little girl. She is now five months old. She is absolutely gorgeous. I hope you get to meet her. Yeah.

But I had just been working and working and working and my wife was walking through pregnancy and I remember coming home from work one day and we're sitting on the couch together and my wife said, something is wrong.

And so we call her doctor and he said, hey, you need to come into the hospital right now and check into labor and delivery. We get to the hospital and we find out my wife is twenty six weeks and five days pregnant that her water had broken. We were terrified, terrified.

They ambulance her up to St. Joseph's Hospital in Downtown Phoenix and they were able, thank God, to stop delivery, to keep her pregnant. And they told her, they looked at my wife and they said, you're gonna be here for however long it takes until you give birth to this baby.

You're gonna be here on bed rest for potentially ten weeks.

And that should have been my wake up call. That should have been the moment where I was like, I'm gonna take a break. I'm gonna value my family, but it just wasn't.

And so three days out of the week, I would sleep on a cot next to my pregnant wife who's getting monitored consistently each day. And then the other four days, I was trying to go to work and act like everything was normal and everything was fine and spin all the plates and hold my whole world together while inside I'm falling apart.

We haven't had a baby shower, we don't have a stroller, we don't have a crib, we don't have anything. And so we're trying to get the house ready. I'm trying to get the house ready all by myself.

So my father-in-law, he comes over to help me try to get the nursery ready. We pull off the trim on the bottom of what would have been her nursery, and we see green vegetation across the bottom. We're thinking, you gotta be kidding me. We bring in a remediation company, they say, there is mold all over this house.

They have to blow out half the walls in my bedroom. They blow blow out a quarter of the walls in my daughter's nursery. And overnight, the nest egg we had to save up for a house is just gone with medical bills and the remediation company.

Not only that, all the stuff in those two rooms had to been placed in the living room. It looked like a bomb went off, and I'm sleeping on a couch because they're doing remediation from toxic mold in my room.

Then I wake up to my wife's nurse calling me and she says, Hey, you need to come here right now. Your wife is gonna have an emergency C section. So I grab a couple of things. I get in the car. I drive as fast as I can up to St. Joseph's about an hour long and I'm just praying. I get there.

As I'm driving there, the nurse is literally pulling my daughter off of to the side of my wife so she's not squeezing on her umbilical cord so they can just save time for me to get there. I walk in the door. I kiss my wife. They roll her into surgery. I scrub up. I go into surgery, and they pull this little baby out of my wife. And

she's premature, five pounds, nine ounces, and she is struggling to breathe. So they have to roll her over to NICU. So I leave my wife. She's getting stitched up. I walk with her over to the NICU, and they attach every cord oxygen tube, all these wires sticking out of this little five pound, nine ounce premature baby. And

I'm holding this little girl in my arms.

Just my world is falling apart. I don't have a home to take this little girl back to. I don't have a nursery set up. I don't have anything. I don't have any money saved up anymore.

Everything falls apart for me. As as the alarms are going off in the NICU and the babies are crying and the nurses are walking around and I'm holding this little baby, I hear the voice of God speak over my life.

And God says, Hunter, when are you going to let me hold you like you're holding her? Because the truth is I'm about as capable of holding the world together as this little girl. And in that moment, I just let it all go.

With tears streaming down my face, I finally decided to take my worship off of my career and my image and my ability to hold everything together and place it on the only one who could hold me together. I'm holding this little baby girl and I'm singing, How Great Is Our God? How Great Is Our God?

See, it took that for me to come back to place the worship and the only one who could hold my life together.

Don't let it get that far where it takes something like that for you to place your worship back in the hands of the God who loves you.

You see, when we worship God each and every single week and we come into this room, what we do, we're placing ourselves back in the only God, in the hands of the God, our loving Father, who wants to hold us together.

So what are you worshiping right now? We're about to go into a time of worship, and I want us to just proclaim who God is. But before we do that, I truly believe there are some of us in the room that came to church this morning seeking a God who could hold our world together when everything's falling apart.

I think there are some of you in the room that need to put your faith in Jesus as your Lord and your savior for the very first time. So I'm gonna ask that everybody close your eyes and bow your head. And if you, for the first time,

want to say yes to Jesus and proclaim him as the leader of your life and the hero of your life, would you just raise your hand as an act of surrender? Raise it all the way up. Yep, I see your hands. I wanna pray with you. I see your hands. Raise your hand all the way up as an act of surrender.

We're gonna pray this prayer. Repeat after me. It's not magic words. It's just a heart of surrender. But God,

I don't want to hold my life anymore. I don't wanna hold it all together. God, I surrender my life to you. I want you to be my Lord and my savior from this moment forward, and I want to place my worship in you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Can we give it up for everybody who said yes to Jesus for the first time?

Now will you put your worship back in that one who will hold you together? We're gonna stand, and we're gonna worship the God who deserves it all.

We'll see how great, how great

is our God.

How great is our God, church. Amen? When we live a life that it starts with worship, with sacrifice and surrender, He will use us to be a light in the darkness. Don't let worship stop here, but live a life of sacrifice and surrender to the one who can hold it all together.

If you don't wanna stop worshiping, I wanna encourage you, hey, this weekend or this Thursday, we have a worship night where we're inviting the entire valley in this room to worship the God who alone deserves to be worshiped.

I would love it if you invited your friends, invited your family, because man, it's gonna be an unbelievable moment. If you need prayer for anything going on in your life or something that you're walking through or with, we have people over to your left in a prayer room who are waiting and wanting to pray with you.

Other than that, we love you. Have a great week. See you