← Church of the Highlands - Sunday Messages - Audio
Church of the Highlands - Sunday Messages - Audio
How to Share My Faith
00:37:10
Part 5 of Lets Talk About it
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A
Sam. All right, what's up, Church of the Highlands? Every location, all of our correctional facilities. I am typically on the other side of the camera. I'm always at campuses. But I am honored to be here at Grants Mill. And so I want to encourage every campus, every correctional facility, and right here at Grants Mill, let's all give each other a hand, a big hand, and welcome, everybody, to church today. It's gonna be an awesome day. My name is Lane Shrans. If you're. You don't know who I am. I've had the amazing privilege to being at Highlands. My wife and I are celebrating our 25th year at Highlands. We were here at the very beginning, a part of the launch team. And I get to serve Pastor Mark as one of our elders of our church. And then I also get to lead Highlands College Leadership Institute, which is the part of Highlands College, which is for you, for professional working adults. And so I'm honored to get to finish up this series. Let's talk about it. And I'm so thankful and honored that Pastor Mark would ask me to speak today as we close out the series. Which, by the way, next week he's gonna be here. He's gonna start a brand new series. And I was thrilled. Like, yeah, I'm happy to do it. I'm excited to do it. What's my topic? What are we gonna talk about? And it didn't land so well with me. Cause I was like, oh, oh, that's a tough one. I don't know that I've really, ever really mastered this one. And it is one of the things that you listed. At Easter, our entire church went on the app and gave message topics that you would like to learn about. And this one is how to share your faith. And I was like, man, could we get something that maybe I feel like I'm really, really, really good at? And so this is an area that I've worked on my whole life as a believer, just trying to grow in this area and trying to get better at sharing my faith. I don't know about you. At every location, maybe you feel the same way. Maybe that's an area that you might feel undue pressure or, man, I'm not too comfortable doing that. Or I get nervous. I don't know when's the right time to say something? What's the right time to say all the different questions. Those are very, very real. And although I was hesitant at first, here's what happened and why I'm so excited to share God's word with you. Today is that the Holy Spirit immediately began to speak to me. And even though I don't think I've got it all figured out, I don't think I'm the best at it. The Holy Spirit said, let me teach. Let's go to God's word. And the more I began to study and prepare and pray, the more excited I got about teaching on this. And it encouraged me and strengthened me, just preparing. So today is as much for me as it is for you, every one of you. I promise you that. But I also have a promise. I have a guarantee. If you've been uncomfortable sharing your faith before, lacked confidence sharing your faith before, Today is your day. If you'll lean in as I lean in, I know that every one of us are gonna have a new level of confidence, and we're gonna grow in this area of our lives. And also, if you're here today and you'd say, lane, I don't even know if I have faith. I'm questioning whether I have faith or not. You are at the perfect service because as we uncover the scriptures about Jesus, I believe that today is the day that you're gonna put your faith in him. And so I want to start in Mark, chapter five. We don't have time to read the whole story, but in the first 18 or first 17 verses, Jesus comes across a demon possessed man. I mean, this guy's in bad shape. I mean, he's been in chains. Nobody can help him. It's been a terrible life up until this point. And Jesus cast not the but the many demons out of him. The demons replied to Jesus before they were cast out and said, we are legion, we are many. And God, Jesus miraculously delivers this man and changes his complete life completely in an instant. I mean, it was a miracle that happened in this moment. And so this guy has the exact response that I think all of us have had, because I think every one of you, Jesus has done something in your life or you wouldn't be in a service. Has Jesus done a miracle in your life? Anybody, at any location? Okay. And so his response, we pick it up in verse 18 as Jesus was getting in the boat. Jesus gonna move on. The man who had been demon possessed begged to go with him. Of course he did. I would too. And Jesus did not let him. What a bummer. Go home to your own people and tell them. Everybody say, tell how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you. So the man went away and began to tell in the decapolis how Much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed. Jesus, after doing a miracle, told him to go share his faith. So I submit to you, that's what Jesus is telling every one of us at every location we are to go if we believe in Jesus, if we have faith in Him. He is saying, go tell. Sharing our faith is a part of being a believer. All believers. Second Corinthians, chapter 5, starting in verse 17, when we give our life to Christ, all the old is gone and the new has come. And then the next verse says, he has given us the ministry and the message and we become his ambassadors. I mean, that's what happens when you put your faith in Jesus. And that is, that is our assignment, to share our faith. Now let me share with you my assignment and the burden that I feel or my responsibility as we study the Scriptures in this let's talk about it series on this topic. And we're going to pull this from Ephesians, chapter 4, starting in verse 11. This is the Apostle Paul writing to the church at Ephesus. Now, these are the gifts Christ gave to the church. The apostles, the prophets, the evangelists and the pastors. That's what I'm doing today. And the teachers and I'm teaching today. Their responsibility is to equip God's people. So that's all of us to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity. Everybody say unity in our faith and knowledge of God's Son, that we will become mature in the Lord. That's the goal today. And here's here, I want you to get this word right here. Measuring up. Everybody say measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. That's what we're gonna try to do today. Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won't be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching on Instagram or TikTok. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies. So clever they sound like the truth. I can't. I can't believe sometimes that a 90 second clip will get me to go. Hmm, I wonder if I really do believe it. There's so much coming, coming at us. But we need to mature through that. We need to measure up through that. Instead, we will speak the truth. Everybody say truth in love, growing in every way, more and more like Christ. That's the goal. More and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He, Jesus makes the whole body fit together. Perfect. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow. So we all have a special work to do in the kingdom so that the whole body healthy and growing and full of love. What a beautiful picture. And so we need to become more and more like Jesus. Measuring up today's topic to share our faith. And so I'm going to walk us on this journey of being more like Jesus. If we can be more and more like Jesus, then we can measure up to share our faith at a greater level with more confidence. And. And so what was Jesus like? And as I was studying and asking this question and asking God to help direct where we would go today, it took me back to the beginning of Church of the highlands. There were 34 of us on the original launch team. And before there was a Church of the Highlands, Pastor Chris asked that launch team, what should Church of the Highlands look like? And they're very smart people and very strong believers. And they had a great answer. I wonder if you could guess what the answer was. Should look like Jesus. If you were thinking that, great job. So did the launch team and Jesus. Pastor Chris was like, what did Jesus look like? And they're like, I don't know if he had dark brown hair or black hair. Like, no, no, not what did he physically look like, but what were his attributes? Pastor Chris had a whiteboard and began to write down the attributes the different people were throwing as thoughts. I think he's like this, I think he's like that. And it was over 50 attributes of Jesus. There's probably a million that you could write down. And Pastor Chris is like, let's settle on five. Let's pick what we think would be the strongest five or the best five for our church to be like. And so that original launch team came up with five attributes of Jesus that the Holy Spirit dropped in my heart that, hey, if we. If we can lean into these five attributes, we will be able to measure up, to share our faith. And so that's what we're going to do today. And the first attribute was Jesus was authentic. Jesus was authentic. He was who he said he was. He was not trying to be someone that he was not. Of course, we know he was a carpenter, but he was fully man, but he was fully God. And he was never trying to be what others thought he should be. He was very, very authentic. And Jesus warned the religious. Okay, let's even say that, like, the. The people of faith, he. He warned them. Like I would say, the scriptures can warn us today in Matthew chapter 23, verses 27 and 28. Woe to you teachers of the law, you Pharisees, you, you religious people, you people of faith, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, the outside you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside, you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. And Jesus was calling out that they were different on the outside than they were on the inside. And we know that he was authentic. Jesus didn't have a special uniform. He didn't change how he looked depending on the group of people that he was with. He didn't. He didn't change how he talked depending on if he was in front of thousands or in front of 12 or just one. Like he was authentic everywhere he went. And can set that example for us that we can be exactly who God created us to be. We can embrace who we are. John, chapter one, verse 14. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the Father full of grace. And there's that word again. Truth. And so, so, so what can I do? Measure up to be yourself. Measure up to be yourself. And sometimes I've got. I gotta struggle with, like, I can't. I can't measure up to be pastor Mark. I can't, can't measure up to be pastor. I gotta measure up to be myself and be who God created me to me. And I ask this question of everyone at every location. Where do you struggle? What arena of your life do you struggle to be yourself? Maybe it's at work that you kind of have to put on the show. Maybe it's at church that you feel like you have to put on the show. Maybe it's with your family or maybe it's with your buddies, but where I think we all struggle in some area where we struggle to be ourselves in one of those areas. But we've gotta just be honest about who we are, our strengths and our weaknesses. I grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Shout out to my mom and dad, who are watching online. And When I was 2 years old, my dad bought a tow truck and started a towing business. And so I grew up in the towing business and was a part of that business until I was 29 when I moved here to help start Church of the Highlands in 2001. Now I'm 54. You don't have to do the math. Everybody but from time to time, I get insecure about that because most of my life I was in the towing business. And here I am speaking at Church of the Highlands, of all places. And if the enemy can say, hey, you need to be somebody else, can't be who you really are. If they knew who you really are, they wouldn't be listening. They wouldn't be taking notes in their app. They wouldn't be saying, Amen. It's like, no, wait a minute. I've gotta embrace that for some reason, God has me here today. I don't understand it. I promise I don't understand it. I don't get it. It can confuse me, but I've gotta measure up to be myself. And every one of us have a unique purpose. You're designed and uniquely made, and you have a purpose. There was a study done that 80% of Christians in Americ have no idea what their purpose is. You don't know your uniqueness when it comes to God and the things of God. And if that's you, we are the church for you. We help with that every single month. Next week is step one of the growth track. And that exists so that you can find your unique purpose, so you can figure out, okay, okay, here's my purpose now I'm gonna embrace who God has created me to be. I can be authentic. And then sharing faith is easiest when I am myself. Sharing faith is easiest when I am myself. The next attribute, Jesus was relevant. Jesus was relevant. He understood the times. He was not of the world, but he understood the pressure of it. He told stories to connect with people. We see In Luke chapter 10, the parable of the Good Samaritan. There was a man beaten and left for dead. And it was the people of faith that walked by. A priest and a Levi just walked by, didn't help the man. And it was a Good Samaritan that would not. It was not socially acceptable for the Good Samaritan to interact with that person. And yet they were the ones that stopped and helped. And so Jesus told stories that they could understand the conversation that he had in John chapter four with the woman at the well addressing her specific circumstances. So even though this is 2000 years ago and he is all knowing and omniscient and omnipresent, he was relevant to her in that moment. And so we can do the same and so we can measure up to be more understanding. Jesus understood the people that he was interacting with. And I need to do a better job at this. That tow truck driver in me probably has something to do with my personality and that I wanna fix it. So I am not good at understanding. I'm good at coming up with a solution and telling you what I think you should do. I warn you ahead of time, don't ask me for counseling. You can get a half sentence in. And I'm like, okay, here's what you need to do. And I, unfortunately, have to work this out of my marriage as well. Rachel, we just celebrated 30 years a week and a half ago. And so praise God. And I still have to be like, don't answer. Don't answer. You need to ask questions, and you need to listen. You need to. You need to ask questions, and you need to listen because I'm not a good listener. But I need to measure up to be more understanding so I can be relevant to her and relevant to the people I'm around. Ask questions. Listen first, grow in our empathy. I'm preaching to myself, everybody. Put yourself. Put Lane in their shoes. Listen. Actively ask questions and listen. This is a leadership hack for you for small groups. If you've been intimidated to lead a small group, I can tell you how to be the best small group leader ever. And it's actually super easy. Ask questions and listen, and you'll be the best small group that there ever was. It's that easy. And those small groups we're gonna start this next week, I pray that every one of you at every location will get in just six weeks this summer, get into a small group and actively listen. This was when our girls. Our girls are now married, but when they were entering their teenage years, I felt like the holy spirit was like, you need to take each of them on a daddy daughter date night. On a date night once a month through their teenage years. And so the first Monday night of the month was my oldest, Ashlyn's. And then the second Monday night of the month, Ashlyn is in our Gadsden campus today. I love you, baby. And then Devin, our youngest. She's actually in Peru with the Grandview student missions trip right now. But she had the second Monday night of the month. And so I did. All through their teenage years I went. And the hardest part of taking my girls out and spending time with them was listening. Was listening. But I know now God was teaching me. He was teaching me. And all of us can measure up to be more understanding. So sharing my faith is easiest when I listen to understand the next attribute. Jesus. This one's fun to talk about. Was enjoyable. Think about that for a second. The creator of the universe, our savior, who suffered and died for us was enjoyable. The best example of this in scripture, in my opinion, is that he was a kid magnet. All of you might have pictured someone, you know, that is a kid magnet. They're just more fun than the rest of us. And so I've got to do a better job being enjoyable. In Mark, chapter 10, verse 14 and 16, he said to them, Jesus said, let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly, I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child, will never enter it. And I love this. And he took the children in his arms and he placed his hands on them and he blessed them. Children were drawn to Jesus. Cause you know, a child is not getting in your arms if they're afraid of you. Like, they're not gonna go there. He had this nature about him, and we can do the same. So measure up to be more fun. And I'm talking to Lane again. Measure up to be more fun. Find the good in a situation. Think about the I get to instead of the I have to. And laugh as much as possible. Lane, you've gotta smile more. I'm always working on this. Cause I'm high people, but I'm high task. If you give me a task to do, I forget that people exist. And I have to pastor my face. I have resting Grinch face. If I'm not paying attention, I will walk past you and you will think, I hate you. Because I gotta remember, like, hey, Lane, smile more. Like, you gotta work on this. Cultivate joy and warmth in your relationships in those environments. Be somebody that people wanna be around. And I'm learning this. I am a new grandpa. My name is Champ, and this is Daisy Lane, my little angel that I love so much. She is the greatest part of my life right now. And Daisy Lane Rachel is constantly coaching me. And it's the same thing over and over again. You need to be more fun. You need to be more fun. I need to act a little crazier. And so even last night, they were over. They live in Gadsden, but they were over last night. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna be fun. I have mechanics gloves. They're like doctor gloves, but they're, like, way thicker. And I pulled it over my head, and this took a while, and I finally got it past my nose, and I was able to blow it up with my nose. So I had the glove blown up, and she was laughing, and I'm like, I'm being fun right now. I'm being fun. I'm, like, looking at Rachel like, is this good? Am I doing good? I'm not gonna show you a picture of that. It's too embarrassing. And you probably shouldn't try that at home anyways. But Daisy Lane is helping me remember that I gotta measure up to be more fun. The joy of the Lord is our strength. And I love that we get all of our kids together for Summer Blast, which is just coming up soon. But what I wanna highlight is all of our amazing dream team that serve at Summer Blast at every location. Every single one of them are kid magnets. I wanna be like them when I grow up. Could we honor our Highlands kids dream team at every location? They're gonna be leading thousands of kids at Summer Blast and having fun and bringing the joy of the Lord. Charles Spurgeon said this. The greatest joy of a Christian is to give joy to Christ. And what would give Christ joy? It's when we share our faith. We know that all of heaven rejoices when one is saved. And we can bring that kind of joy into heaven. So sharing my faith is easiest when I have the joy of the Lord. It's just going to come more natural when I have his joy. The next attribute Jesus was accepting. Thank you, Jesus, for accepting me so many years ago for who I was, where I was, what I was. Aren't you grateful for Jesus, everybody? He was so accepting. In Luke 7, we see that he accepts and shows grace and accepts a very sinful woman who. Who broke an alabaster jar of perfume over his feet and wiped it with her hair. And the people of faith, the religious leaders, are like, oh, if he really was God, he would know what she's done, and he would not allow her to do that. And then Jesus replied, in that situation, Starting in verse 41 of chapter 7, two people owed money to a certain money lender. One owed him 500 denarii and the other 50. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave their debts. Now which of them will love him more? And Simon the religious leader, said, I suppose the one who had the greater debt forgiven. And Jesus replied, you have judged correctly. In John chapter 8, the woman caught in adultery. We see the acceptance and the compassion that Jesus has in that story. John 6:37. Jesus says, Whoever comes to me, I will never drive away. So that's what I want to do. I want to be. I want to measure up, to be more unconditional. I need this Everybody. I need this. I need. I need to. I need to be more unconditional that I don't have strings attached to relationships or interactions or I don't need something from someone for me to accept them or what can they do for me? Like, no, Lane, like, let's accept everyone for who they are. Just like. Just like you were accepted. Practice that unconditional love. Treat people with dignity and respect, regardless of their background, regardless of their lifestyle, regardless of what they've done or where they are in that current moment or circumstance. And then I've got to take it another step, just for me. And that's even with my family. And I know from time to time I can more easily be unconditional with people at Church of the Highlands than I can with my own family. I start to keep score, start to be like, okay, I don't know if this is a balanced, like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I gotta measure up to be more unconditional. And what a great opportunity we have to be unconditional with Serve Day. So if you're new to our church, all of our small groups, and everyone in our church coming up in July, we're gonna serve our communities. And this is a perfect opportunity for us to put this into practice and, and just take care of people. Sharing my faith is easiest when I accept others as they are so much easier. The next and final attribute, and this one is awesome. Jesus was powerful. He was powerful. Of course, in John 11, he raised Lazarus from the dead. Then there was a storm. He's sleeping in the boat. The disciples are freaking out like they're going to die. And then Jesus got up in Matthew 8 and he rebuked the winds and the waves and it was completely calm. The disciples, okay, this guy really is God. And just think about this. And their revelation in that moment is the same revelation. We need to remind ourselves we have relationship with the Creator of the universe. Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. That is the Holy Spirit of the living. God that is in us is greater than the enemy of our soul, the devil. I mean, just think about that relationship and who he is. The same Holy Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in me, dwells in us. So I can measure up to be more faith filled. I have to do this because if I'm not careful, I will measure up to be more realistic. Well, this is the reality. No, no, no, no. Let's be more faith filled. In my early years of Church of the Highlands, as we would Pray for people. Like, we offer prayer at every campus every Sunday, after every service. And someone would come with a request. And if it was tragic or, I mean, just there's no hope, I would get so intimidated to pray for them. And Pastor Chris coached me up. He's like, hey, if the miracle happens, are you going to take the credit? I'm like, no, no, no, no. He said, well, then don't take the blame if it doesn't happen. Oh, that helped me. Okay, I can have faith in this moment. I'm not going to be realistic. I'm gonna have faith in this moment because it's not on me. That prayer, we talk about it all the time, is our first response, not our last resort. We pray that the Father would draw those to Himself. John 6:44. Pray that the seed would fall on good soil. The parable in Matthew 13, pray for divine appointments with people where we can be more faith filled. And I'm gonna be very honest and vulnerable. I messed that up. On. I was traveling. I went to a coffee kiosk. There's one lady working in the kiosk. There's nobody else around. She was having a bad day. I could tell. I bought my coffee. And as I'm paying for it, I'm like, you need to ask her if you can pray for her. And I didn't do it. And I wish I could be here and be the spiritual hero and say I did it. And I know that those are the moments I gotta be more faith filled. Don't worry about what she thinks and listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and step out and say something. And so I want to share a beautiful testimony of a young man in our church named Dylan who literally lives out all five of these things. And I had no idea that this video had already been shot when I heard from the Holy Spirit about these five things. You gotta see how Dylan walked this out in his life. Check it out.
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How long have you known Tucker? We went to preschool together, so I've known him since I was like three or four.
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We grew apart because of school.
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I went to football one day and walked into the facility and I just see this kid with blonde hair coming at me. I'm like, this is Tucker. I'm like, what are you doing here? And he was just like. I transferred and I was just like, no, shot that one day. Some of the talks we had, I'm like, yeah, me and him are gonna be like best friends.
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He, like, invited me to go play pickleball with him with some of the guys, just to get to know him.
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I beat him every time.
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And after we went to go to the gas station, just get an energy
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drink, he was just talking about what he's kind of been going through moving here. He was saying the same stuff I was saying before I got saved. I was like, well, motion nights, you know, coming up Wednesday, Would you want to come? Because I've had a moment like that, and I want somebody else to experience this.
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I was like, what's the harm in doing it? I mean. So I just went and gave it a shot. I remember walking in there, and I was like, this is insane. I didn't know where to go. I was just kind of stuck there at the door. But just how welcoming it was. It was unbelievable, that motion night. Something about the presence. I closed my eyes then I felt like nobody was around me. I just felt like it was me, the music and the lord. My hands just went up and I was just like, what am I doing? I literally had no control over it. I felt free. It was just unbelievable.
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When you invite somebody to church and they're like, raise your hand if you feel like God's touched your life today. You're always looking at your friend. So I was looking and I saw sneak his hand up. I was like, oh, yeah. I was just pumped.
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I just felt peace. I have a lot of anxiety, and for the first time ever, I just remember not having a worry in my mind. Caleb, I think, was the one talking that day. He was talking about how he was giving out a special prize.
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I was, like, looking backstage, just seeing his reaction. Nathan was just staring at him, just laughing.
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I was like, what's going on?
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Caleb was like, yeah, I got this guy. He's gonna get a free motion conference ticket. Tucker Shores, get up here.
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So Dylan was behind this. I was just like, I don't know what I'm getting myself into.
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At motion conference, I saw him praying a lot, just having moments. God's changing his life.
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He just opened my eyes, Freeing me of just worry. He's real. He is a real God. Me moving here, meeting Dylan, that's not a coincidence at all. He really has a plan.
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He's changed my life in so many ways, Changed the people around me. It's just crazy how God used me. That gives me the confidence to just talk to whoever about it. It doesn't matter if they're upcoming, freshman or person that graduated two years ago.
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Plant the seed. That's all Dylan had to do. He never forced me going. He was really trying to get to know me before anything.
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You can just show what God has done for you just in your everyday life and people will notice. God's to work from there. Just that little conversation me and Tucker had, it changed his life fully. It could have been anybody, but he chose me. It just shows God's power and just show what God can do with anyone.
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Come on, let's celebrate. Dylan, come on. God's doing something in the next generation. What a beautiful picture of all of these things, celebrating that Dylan was authentic, relevant, enjoyable, accepting and powerful. All of that in there and we can do the same. And whatever it is, maybe it's Motion conference for our students at every location we have. We're set up in every foyer because Motion conference is coming. But it's not just for our students. It's for all of us, all of us to step up. But it can still be. You'd be like, laina, okay, I get it. But I still feel a little bit of pressure. I still feel. I still feel the weight. And I want to take all of the pressure off with this right here. And we saw it in that video. Sharing my faith is easiest when I know the power is in the seed, not the sower. It's not on us. We have a role to play and we're going to pray and we're going to share our faith, but it's not on us. So I'm taking the pressure off right here at the end of this message. Sharing my faith is on me. The rest is on him. Thank you, Jesus. Would you bow your heads and close your eyes at every location? God, I pray for all of us, wherever we're watching this message online or at a campus or in a correctional facility, that every one of us, God, would measure up to share our faith with a new level of confidence, stepping out in every moment, every opportunity to represent you to the people around us, the people we come in contact with, the people that we're close to, and the people that we barely interact with. God, that we would be your people who share our faith. And we thank you, God, that the pressure is not on us. The responsibility to share is all, and you do the rest. And we are so grateful for that. In Jesus name, if you would keep your heads bowed and your eyes closed at every location. This is a very powerful moment. And as I said at the beginning of this message, some of you are here today without faith or maybe a little bit of faith, and you know it's time to put all of your faith in Jesus. You've heard what he's like. And you've leaned in and you'd say, lane, I want to be right with God today. Maybe you call yourself a Christian. Maybe you even go through some of the Christian motions and maybe even have been attending church or reading your Bible or throwing up a prayer now and then. But you realize today that you have not put your faith in Jesus or that relationship with Jesus existed once, long ago in your life, and yet it's faded away off in the distance and you've neglected it. And you'd say, lane, I want to come back into relationship with Jesus. So I'm going to ask our campus pastors to join me on their stages at every location, and they're going to lead you in a simple prayer in just a moment. I'm going to ask you to raise your hand if you're ready to put your faith in Jesus. If you'd say, lane, I want to be right with God today. I want to come back into that relationship or I want to start it for the first time. I'm ready to go. If that is you, no one is looking around at all. This is between you and God. Would you slip your hand up right now at every location? Slip it up and say, God, that's me. I see several hands going up. I'm not going to see every hand, but it's not for me to see it. It's your faith moving toward God. Anyone else, just say, God, that's me. Just slip it up. Slip it right back down. Anyone else? I'm ready. I'm going to lead you in a simple prayer. You can pray it silently, you can whisper it. I encourage you to mean it with all of your heart. You can repeat these words after me, but it is just the beginning of your faith journey whether you lifted your hand or not. You can pray it right now. You can pray this. Say, lord Jesus, I surrender my life to you. I accept what you did on the cross when you died and paid for my sins. Thank you for loving me that much. Thank you for unconditional acceptance and grace, and thank you that we can have relationship that I am committed to for the rest of my life. I put my faith in you, Jesus, and all God's people said amen and amen. Come on, let's celebrate change lives and celebrate God's word.