Kingdom Come: Are you ready?

``You see, we as sinful people, we mess up all the time and when we mess up and we do things that are offensive to god, that puts us and god on opposite ends of the spectrum and and we're not on good terms. Yet, god loved us enough that he wanted to be on good terms and so he sent his son who lived the perfect sinless life and he used him as a sacrifice for you and for me because the reality is you and I deserve to die on the cross yet god loved us enough that he said, no, my son's gonna do it for you. He's gonna do it in your place. He's gonna pay for it so that you can be free and so it was his body that was broken and it was his blood that was shed so that we might be forgiven so that we might have a good relationship with god [00:33:40] (48 seconds)  #ForgivenByGrace

That prophet Isaiah seven hundred years before six, seven hundred years before had said this, and now this is god's plan. So, you have a promise and a plan that god is finally fulfilling what he promised that he would do and so understand that that our god, while the world seems that it is chaotic and doing kind of whatever it is and out of control, our god is not like that at all. He is incredibly purposeful in what he does and he has a plan to bring all of creation to an end one day and and part of that plan involves you and me being involved in the building of his kingdom and that's good news for you and me because we have a a purpose that we get to contribute to the kingdom of god. [00:11:48] (46 seconds)  #GodsPromisePlan

Or maybe spiritually, you just feel like you're in the wilderness. You're in a dry place where you're not really hearing from god. It's a lonely season or maybe some of you, you're just caught in sin and you're running out there in the wilderness and not sure what to do and the wilderness is a great place because it's a place of preparation and god is looking at you and he is forming you and he's working in your life and so this is a great time. If you're in the wilderness of life, that you would pay attention very closely to what the lord is doing or what the lord is saying because it could be that he's preparing you for something great when you get out of the wilderness. [00:16:33] (39 seconds)  #WildernessAsPreparation

But I think there's one other thing that I want to point out today and I mentioned this a little bit earlier. We've gotta live a life filled with expectation that god is actually going to show up and I think sometimes we we get lulled to sleep and think maybe our prayers aren't effective or god's not listening or man, my preparation doesn't really matter. You know, it doesn't really matter if I'm ready or not. God's sovereign and he's gonna do what he wants but I just want you to understand that when you expect god to show up in your devotional life or when you expect god to show up when you come to worship him and gather as believers or when you expect god to show up in your day to day life, in your work, your place of work, all of a sudden, he starts showing up everywhere and and so we just need to create that little shift in our mind, in our heart that says, man, I am expecting god to move and I am expecting god to show up because when John went out to prepare the people for Jesus coming, I'm sorry. When John went out to prepare the people for Jesus and and what he was going to do, they were ready. [00:30:08] (70 seconds)  #ExpectGodToShowUp

But I think also we need to prepare our hearts like when we come to church. Like, we don't need to just wake up and roll over at 09:45 and sprint to church. Like, this needs to be something where, man, we're playing worship music in the house beforehand and we're all focused on what god says to us and maybe we spend a a little time and we have a family devotion before we get in the car and go to church or maybe we circle up and we grab hands as a family. And before you walk out the door, you just say, lord, we come to you as a family and we can't wait to worship you and learn about you today and hear your word and we just wanna stop and say that we love you and we surrender and we wanna ask that you would change our hearts and and make us more like your son, Jesus today and then you walk out the door and and man, I'm telling you, when you're prepared to meet with god, it kinda changes everything in your life and all of a sudden, you'll see him showing up everywhere [00:24:25] (50 seconds)  #PrepareForWorship

this next week, are we ready for what Jesus wants to do in our community, in our families, in our life, and even even in our world? Are you ready? Because here's the deal. As as your pastor, I'm always, you know, kind of cognizant of the, the high holidays like Easter and like Christmas. And as we're ten weeks out from Easter, I believe the holy spirit of god is working in our hearts and in our community and he wants to see his kingdom built. In fact, that's what we've talked about the last three weeks as we've started off this new year. We wanna see god move in really incredible ways and so, are you ready? [00:01:00] (43 seconds)  #ReadyForGodsMove

Well, some of it could be unconfessed sin. Like you've got this sin issue going on in your life and maybe nobody else knows about it or maybe it's just kind of become a habit and man, we gotta deal with that stuff and we've gotta clear that out. We need to confess that to the lord in prayer and ask him for help to overcome that. Others of us and and I think maybe this is a huge one. It is for me, is busyness. Like, we're just busy all the time. We've got this thing going on. We've got that thing going on. We've got work going on and we've got this social commitment over here and we're doing this over here and we're following the kids over here to their activity. We we have so much going on that it crowds out our time for Jesus and we just need to say, you know what? I'm going to call a time out in life and I'm just going to do less so that I can focus my priorities on the lord [00:26:18] (51 seconds)  #ConfessAndSimplify

I'm gonna do a workout competition next week and over the last couple of weeks, my team and I, we've been preparing. We've been doing the workouts that have been that we're going to do during the competition. We've been practicing, making sure our bodies are fueled and ready. We prepare for these huge things in life. Think about a move. Like if you're gonna move across the country, there's a lot of details that go into that. Whether you're gonna rent a U Haul or hire a moving company and you've gotta deal with your current place of residence and your future place of residence and then, that doesn't even mention all the packing that has to happen and then all of the unpacking. We prepare for these things. We don't just show up. We get things in order. We make room for what's coming. We prepare for the things that matter. [00:02:50] (49 seconds)  #PrepareForWhatMatters