Upset the Church: Side Chick Jesus

Tim Rivers | July 3, 2022

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Tim Rivers: I'm back y'all and this time for a whole month and I am so excited. I want to say thank you to Pastor Tim. I know you're probably on a beach somewhere drinking a mojito, virgin, obviously and having a good time. We're so thankful that he is getting to rest. I want to say thank you to you, Embassy City, for allowing your pastor to rest. I have a lot of appreciation for a pastor that will rest and for a church that will allow a pastor to rest, so put your hands together for that.

[applause]

In fact, my family and us, we just actually came back from a six-week sabbatical. This is my first time back. I've literally been doing nothing for six weeks and it was awesome. We literally got up and we're like,"What do we do today?" "I don't know. Let's go to the pool, let's go to the beach." What that does mean though, is I haven't preached for a long time, which means I am ready to preach today. Is anybody going to help me preach? Oh, I need about two or three people right now to let me know that you're going to help me preach.

[applause]

As Tim and I were talking about me coming here for the month of July, I said, "Hey, what do you want me to talk about? Is there any topics you want me to cover or anything that--" He said, "No, bro. Just go to the Lord and see what he has to say. If you need anything, don't call me."

[laughter]

"In fact, if anything happens, don't even think about calling me, I'm going to be offline." I began to pray about just what God would want to speak to Embassy City and the family online about in the month of July. As I began to pray, the Lord led me to the Book of Revelation.

[laughter]

You don't want to be that guest speaker that comes in and is like, "Hey, we're going to be talking about eschatology for the month of July." That's a quick way to empty out a building. He didn't let me get past the first three chapters. As I began to just look at the contents that are in Revelation chapter 1, 2 and 3, it quickly became apparent that the Lord wanted me to really zero in on the seven letters that are written to the seven churches in Asia. Now we're going to dissect this for the next few weeks. We're going to look at each one of these letters and what it represents in the greater aspect of the Church.

I also was praying, "God, how do we intertwine this with what you're already doing here at Embassy City?" The Lord was like, "Upset it." I'm like, "What?" I talked to Tim, I said, "Hey man, what do you think about us naming this series, Upset the Church?" He was like, "Let's do it." Any upsetters in the house?

[applause]

Here's the thing. If you've been around Embassy City for any length of time, you know what an upsetter is. An upsetter is somebody whose world has been upset and now they upset the world that they're in. Pastor Tim actually wrote a phenomenal book called Upset the World. You get it on Amazon, check it out. It's on the website. We have an awesome definition on there, but today we're going to start a series called Upset the Church.

Now let me just clarify, the Church is not a building. It's not brick and mortar, it's not a location. The Church is the people. If you are a believer, if you have placed your faith in Christ, you are now a part of the Church. What the Lord begin to speak to me as I was getting into the scripture is, it's not enough for us to be upset once, sometimes God has to re-upset us. This whole series is going to be a re-upsetting of the Church. Buckle up, strap up because we're going to get into the word, all right?

Revelation chapter 2, get your Bibles, Revelation chapter 2, starting at verse number 1, it says, "To the angel of the church in Ephesus write, 'The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostle and are not and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake and you have not grown weary.'"

Man, you read this and you're like, "Wow, we're doing a good job." You ever have your boss call you in and he starts telling you about all the good things you do, "Man, because of you, our sales are skyrocketing"? He usually never compliments you, so you know something else is coming? Is the the compliment sandwich here?

"But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent, yet this you have, you hate the works of the," I will say, "Nicolaitans," because I don't know how to say that, [chuckles] "which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.'" Can somebody say amen.

Congregation: Amen.

Tim: We're going to kick off this series talking about the church of Ephesus. My title for today is Side Check Jesus.

Congregation: Amen.

Tim: Let's pray. Thank you God for having us in your presence. I pray that in the next few moments, you would convict our hearts, that you would stir us toward you. Help us to return to our first love. If we've fallen away, help us to repent and help us to move toward you. I pray in the next few weeks, as we begin to open up your word and learn the truths of your word, that you would give us ears to hear, a heart to receive and a mind to understand. Do what only you can do and we thank you in advance for what you're getting ready to do, in Jesus' name. Somebody say, amen.

Congregation: Amen.

Tim: Give it up for the worship team. Wow, wow.

[applause]

It's one of those worship services where I'm like, "Do I switch to a handheld?" That's a preacher's joke right there. Anyone ever get distracted? Speaking of distracted, anyone ever get distracted, you're easily distracted? Let me see your hand. If you're online, just put it in the chat, "Yes, I get easily distracted. I'm getting better." When Janese and I first started dating, she'd be like, "Hello," because there's squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. Then does anyone have kids, small children? That gets heightened. Distractions are a guarantee when you have small kids.

There'd be times where Janese and I are having a full-blown adult conversation. I'm driving, maybe she's at home and we're talking about, we're downloading the day or we're talking about date night or whatever and in the middle of our conversation, I hear Janese be like, "Hey boy, stop playing with your poop?"

[laughter]

That's a real-life scenario too.

[laughter]

That actually happened. We all deal with distractions. I want to give you some statistics about distractions. There's some research done and they found that US companies spend $588 billion per year in lost productivity because of distractions. An average worker wastes 60 hours every month due to workplace distractions. A third of employees are distracted at work for a total of up to 3 hours a day, 56 interruptions a day for the average employee. 60% or less of work time is actually spent productively. Interruptions cause employees to take 27% more time to complete a task, commit up to twice as many errors and experience twice the anxiety.

If you're a manager or a business owner in here, I know what you're thinking, "I'm about to upgrade my camera system right now. No more WiFi for no employees." The reality is, we all deal with distractions and distractions will frustrate your purpose. Since we're talking about distractions, I want to give you a personal story about a time that Janese and I were caught in a distraction.

Janese is my beautiful wife, we're going to celebrate 10 years this December. Come on now. All right.

[applause]

We got married 2012, December 8th. Our dream for our wedding was to have a wonderful honeymoon. We decided we're going to go to the Maldives for our honeymoon, go big or go home type of thing. After the wedding, the next day we got on the plane, we started making our way to the Maldives. It's a 30-hour flight, it's crazy. We're starting to get to where the Maldives are. Folks, it is exactly as you read and hear about. It is crystal clear water, white sand, palm trees, coconut trees. This is an actual picture right now of us flying over the island that we're heading to. It is absolutely phenomenal. The whole time, we didn't mind the trip because we were distracted by love.

[laughter]

I'm a two-day-old husband with my two-day-old wife and we are having the time of our lives. We land on the island. It's the whole island experience, where they come up and give you one of those flowery wreath and they bring you one of those fruity drinks. They've got little napkins over their arms and, "Can I show you to your room?" It was phenomenal. We actually even stayed in one of those water bungalows. The kind of like you go out on a pier, this is an actual picture. Look how young we were. Oh goodness. Just in love. We stayed in one of those water bungalows and we did everything on the island.

Man, we sat in the sun, we swam, we snorkeled, we windsurfed. We ate good food. We drank coconut water from an actual coconut that cost $12.

[laughter]

So we only had one and we shared it, but we were having the time of our lives. Janese and I, we're also adventurers and so after being on the island for a few days, we were like, "You know what? Let's do something a little different." We've done the whole water, the snorkeling and blah, blah, blah. Why don't we rent a pedal boat and go to the adjacent island?" We decided to rent this thing. This is an actual picture of the boat right before we leave. We decided to rent this and that island on the background there, we're like, "Hey, let's go back there. It's going to be fun." This is the middle of the day, we get in. Remember, we are distracted by love.

We get in and we start pedaling our way to this island. Janese is taking pictures and we're laughing and giggling. By this time we're like five-day-old couple and nothing could go wrong. As we're pedaling toward the island, I start to notice that we are pedaling the same but we are no longer heading toward the island, we're drifting toward the open ocean. Now, one thing about the island that we're on, there's one island. It took 45 minutes on a speedboat to get to that island and there's nothing else around it. We're making our way toward the open ocean and I'm starting to get a little nervous, but I also have pride because I'm a five-day-old husband and I'm not going to freak my wife out. I'm like, "Let's just pedal a little harder."

Janese and I start pedalling a little harder trying to get to this island, but the more we pedal, the more we're drifting away. It was at this very moment that I knew we was about to die y'all.

[laughter]

I'm sitting there, I'm a five-day-old husband and I'm like, "Listen, God. I waited a long time for this moment and this moment shall not pass." I'm looking at Janese and obviously, Janese is still having a good time because she snapped this picture and this is the look of a guy that thinks, "How do I explain this to her dad if I survive." Someone's got to live to tell the story.

[laughter]

No, I'm just kidding. I'm pedaling and Janese starts to realize and I'm like, "Yo, we've got to put the canopy down." We put the canopy down and we started pedaling for our lives y'all. Janese was crying, I'm on the verge of crying. Obviously, I'm sweating and we're trying to make our way back to where we came from. Do you see those piers? We went underneath those piers and we're calling out for help. Somebody finally shows up, throws us a little lifeline and then check this out. I didn't tell the earliers of this. They threw us a line and I grabbed the line. I'm like, "Finally, we are saved." This guy gets a phone call. He answers the phone and he throws the rope down and leaves. Now we're sitting there freaking out and screaming and finally they save us and we live to tell the tale. Somebody praise God that we survived. Oh, God. Thank you.

[applause]

All of this happened because we were distracted by love and the reality is that most of us deal with distractions. In fact, let's define the word distraction. The word distraction is a compound word. Dis means apart and tract means to draw. When we talk about distractions, it literally means to pull apart or to draw away from. When we read the book of Revelation, what we find out is that the church in Ephesus was dealing with distractions that were pulling them away from their first love.

Here's the thing about distractions, they're not all inherently wrong, but if they're not dealt with they will pull you away from the place that God wants you to be. If we're not careful, the church today can be so distracted by everything that's going around, that we start treating Jesus like a side chick. Let's talk about the characteristics of a side chick.

[laughter]

Some of you girls are like, "Let's talk about it. I've been telling Henry." A side chick is somebody that you only call when you need something. A side chick is somebody that you make all the commitments to in private, but deny them in public. A side chick is someone that you only call when you want to get intimate, but you don't want to do anything to keep them legit. You all are uncomfortable already? The reality is if we're not careful, the church, people within the church can start treating Jesus like a side chick, friends with benefits. Only someone that I need when I need Him. I ain't going to talk to Him for weeks on end, but if something goes wrong in my life, I'm going to be on that hotline bling. Side chick, Jesus.

I want to talk about distractions because distractions cause distance. Nobody ever commits adultery or cheats on a spouse overnight. It's little things that lead to it. It's a phone call here or there. It's inappropriate text message. It's a wink. It's a second look. It's a touch. It's a hug that lasted too long and the distractions start creating distance until all of a sudden, the main person becomes the side chick. We've got to look at the scripture and see, all right, John, let's unpack this a little more because John is the one that wrote Revelation, he also wrote the Gospel of John. He also wrote 1st, 2nd and 3rd John.

I want to take us to 1st John chapter 2, but before we get into the scripture, I want to give you a little bit of context because John, at this point is writing through the church at Ephesus in 1st John chapter 2. Now, the church started in Jerusalem, Acts chapter 2, you can read about it. It's the inception of the church. It starts, great revival is happening. Then the church begins to face persecution in Jerusalem. When it faces persecution, all of a sudden Christians are beginning to flee persecution in Jerusalem and they end up in different areas of the world and one of those areas is Ephesus.

Ephesus then is a place that is highly idolatrous, a lot of mysticism, narcissism is preached there, but the church is also seeing great revival. In fact, Ephesus apparently, was one of the largest churches in the New Testament. Some say around 25,000 to 50,000 members were at the church of Ephesus. The church is growing, good things are happening, but while that is happening, take note when you are experiencing great revival, Satan takes notice. Satan then begins to notice that revival is happening in Ephesus, so he begins to pressure the church by things of the world and this is where we find John beginning to address the church of Ephesus.

1st John 2:15, this is what he says, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but it is from the world and the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever." Here, John is writing to the church at Ephesus, which he addresses in Revelation chapter 2, our key scripture.

He says to them, "Hey, guys. I know that God is doing great things in your life and I know that you have great love for Christ and I know that you are experiencing some amazing revivals, but beware because when you start to step into what God has for you and you get closer to Christ, Satan is crouching around the corner and he's going to try to make you slip." John then says everything that is in the world, every sin, can be categorized in three things.

Number one, he calls it the desires of the flesh or like I like to say, the distractions of the flesh. This is anything that pulls at your actual physical being. This could be food, this could be alcohol, this could be sex, it could be drugs. It could be anything that is appealing to your flesh, that is drawing you away from Chris is of the world. The second category is the desires of the eyes. This is anything that's pulling at your vision. What are you looking at? Where are you spending time seeing. This could be pornography, it could be possessions of somebody else, it could be covetousness, it could be lust.

I've counselled guys that are like, "Well, I didn't do anything with her. I was just looking." Well, can I remind you that Jesus said if a man looks upon a woman and lust after her, he's already committed adultery in his heart. What is pulling at your vision? The third is the pride of life and this is anything that's pulling at your need for significance. What is affirming you? Is it a job? Is it a career? Is it money? Is it possessions? Is it accolades? Is it attaboys? Is it slaps on the back? What is pulling at your significance? That's the pride of life.

John says everything that's in the world, every sin that's ever been committed, any construct that is not of God comes in these three categories. The scripture, obviously, has continuity throughout it. If you read something, it has an example or cross-reference throughout the Bible. As I began to study Revelation and 1st John and I'm looking at what John is saying, I'm thinking to myself, if John is saying that everything in the world can be categorized in these three things, then I've got to find an example in scripture.

The Lord took me all the way to Genesis chapter 3. Now, let's go through the beginning. Adam and Eva were created in this image and likeness of God. They're placed in the garden and they're in the garden. They begin to do the will of God. Now remember, they have a solid relationship with God. God says, "I want you to be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, subdue it and have dominion." He puts them in the garden, then he says, "Hey, listen, I'm also going to give you everything you need. There's going to be fruits and vegetables. There's going to be herbs and all of this is for your sustenance. All I need to do is have a relationship with you.

They're in this solid relationship with God and they're doing the work of God. But then one day Sister Eve is just hanging out by this tree called the tree of knowledge, good and evil, which is the tree, the only tree that God said, don't eat it thereof. Eve's just hanging out, looking at the fruits and Satan in the form of the serpent slithers his way. He's like, "Hey girl." He is like, "What's the up?" I just feel like they had that type of communication. He says like, "Yo, have you had some of this fruit?" He is like, "No, Satan, God said if you touch it, you're going to die." I'm sorry. [chuckles]

Satan goes, "No, if you eat of this fruit, you will be as God yourself doing good and evil and God knows that. That's why he was trying to hold you back. If you eat of this fruit, you will be as Gods yourself." Eve's like, "For real?" Satan was like, "Yeah, try it."

We always read this story and we hear about Eve eating the fruit, but check this out. Let's go to Genesis 3:6. This precedes her eating the fruit, watch this. "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, desire of the flesh and that it was a delight to the eyes, desire of the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, the pride of life." Man, this hit me a little different when I read it. She took off his fruit and ate and she also gave to her husband who was with her and he ate and in that moment because they were distracted, sin enters into the world. The relationship that they had with God was severed.

Now, because of distraction, there's distance. Now, Eve and Adam are kicked out of the garden and the relationship that they had with their first love, now is bruised. It's torn. It's hanging on by a string. Why? Because they were distracted, but check us out. The only reason why Eve ate of the fruit is because she was hungry. When you're not eating from the source, you get hungry for stuff that don't belong to you.

[applause]

Because at some point, Eve stopped eating from the tree that God provided, she started looking at the grass that was on the other side of the fence going, "Hey, you know what? I know God said don't eat it because that's going to kill you, but, man, that looks delicious." Why? Have you ever been grocery shopping, hungry? Don't do it. You know what I'm saying? You'll start getting stuff that you ain't supposed to have, that ain't good for you. I'm telling you, when I'm hungry, I'm the worst person in the grocery store. I don't even look at prices. I'm like, "Yes, I'll have cinnamon toast crunch. Go ahead and give me these cookies." This is what happened to Eve. She was at the wrong place at the wrong time because she was hungry.

People don't commit adultery overnight. What ends up happening is they're dissatisfied with what they're getting and when they get hungry, they start looking at other opportunities. These are the distractions. Now here's the thing about Satan, Satan has no new tricks. He's been using the same tricks of distractions literally, for thousands of years. He got Eve with it, then he got everybody else because everyone falling into sin, he's gotten them by tempting them with these three desires. For Sampson, it was Delilah. For Saul, it was power. For David, it was Bathsheba, on and on.

Every person throughout the Bible that has ever fallen was distracted by one of these three things until he meets Jesus. Oh, I love the Bible because God never leaves us hopeless. In fact, the scripture says, with every temptation, God makes a way of escape.

Congregation: Amen.

Tim: Satan sees Jesus and Jesus is about to start his ministry. He is about 30 years old, he has is just been baptized. The heavens opened up, the father calls from heaven, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him." Jesus walks away from this affirmation on the father and he's led straight away by the Holy Spirit, into the wilderness. He goes into the wilderness, the scripture says he goes to be tempted of by the devil. Jesus is fasting 40 days and 40 nights. At the end of those 40 days, hungry, tired, probably worn out, sleepy, sleep deprived, he's wandering through the wilderness, that's when Satan shows up.

Can I tell you that Satan always shows up when you're tired and hungry? Stay filled up. Oh, that's another message right there.

[applause]

Oh, noted. Satan comes to Jesus, he goes, "Hey, what's up, Jesus. I know you are hungry. As you, aren't you? I know you are hungry. You've been starving yourself for 40 days. Here's the thing, Jesus, hey, listen, you're the son of God, right? Why don't you turn these stones into bread and eat?" Lust of the flesh. Jesus says, "No. Man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Satan's like, "All right, you got me."

Hey, but I've got another one that I've used for thousand years in this work. "Jesus, come up here, let me show you something." He shows him all the kingdoms of the earth. Now, remember Satan is the principality air, he's been given that authority by God. It's called ——. He's sitting there and he's like, "I'm going to give you all of this. All you got to do, Jesus, is bow down and worship me." Jesus is like, "No, thanks because here's the thing, you shall only worship the Lord your God." Satan's like, "Man, he got me again. It just works, I always use this trick.

Satan says, "I've got one more trick on my sleeve." He takes Jesus to a high cliff and he says, "Jesus, if you truly are the son of God," remember when Satan begins to tempt you, he's always going to question your identity first. "If you truly are who you say you are," now remember this is after the baptism of Jesus. This is after the father has literally confirmed and affirmed who Jesus was in front of everybody. Miraculously, "If you truly are the son of God, cast yourself from this cliff and let the angels gather you up and prove to us who you are." Jesus says, "No, because I know who I am."

Jesus conquered the distractions of the world by three things. I want to show you these three things that are going to keep you away from being distracted and pulled away from your first love. Number one is the word of God. Can I tell you church, the only way that we fall into sin and into temptation and we deviate from God is to get away from the word of God. God wants us as a church to get back to the word, to read the word, to listen to the word and most importantly, to have a relationship with the living word. Get back in the word.

When you don't know what to do, open up the Bible. When you're tempted, open up the Bible. It's hard to get in trouble when you're reading the Bible. When you're tempted with sin to do certain things, open up the word, eat the book. If you're empty and you're starving, eat the word of God. The number one thing, the number one way that Jesus overcame the lust of the flesh is he got into the word. Can I tell you, when you feel like you've got to eat something, that's not the word of God. Get to the word of God, reignite that relationship that you have with Christ. Get back to your first love.

Here's the second thing, is worship. As a pastor, I can always tell when someone is struggling because they may come to church, but they're worship subsides because Satan's in their ear, "You better not raise your hand. You know what you did last night. You know how talked to them. You know what you was looking at." Can I tell you, that worship is not really about God. God knows who He is. We sing this song, God is holy, God is righteous. I know that, fam. God knows who he is. He knows where he's sitting, but worship reorients your thinking about where God is.

Congregation: Yes.

Tim: Because when you worship, you put God back in his place in your mind. Worship reorients your relationship with God because no matter what I go through, God is still God. I can be sick in my body, he's still a healer. I can be in trouble, he's still a lawyer. I can go through all kinds of stuff, but God is still God and when I worship, I worship him because of who he is and not because of what he's done. Sometimes I do worship him because of what he's done, but it doesn't matter what he's done, he still is who he says he is.

[applause]

Here's the third thing, is faith. You overcome distractions and you move back into a relationship with Christ through the word, through worship and faith. In the church world, we like to overcomplicate faith. We're like, "Man, you just psych yourself up and think about it hard enough and speak in tongues for three hours and have all-night prayer meetings, then maybe God will move." Faith is simply believing that God tells the truth. That's all that faith is.

Faith is, "All right God, you said it. I believe it. If you said I'm going to make it through, no matter what my situation looks like, I'm going to make it through. If you said that they're going to be saved, I ain't even tripping because I know they'll be saved." Faith says, "If you said I'm going to be healed no matter how much my body hurts right now, I'm going to be healed. If you said that the righteous will never be forsaken, then no matter what my circumstance looks like right now, my faith says that I will not be forsaken." Can I tell you that your faith will make a way of escape?

Congregation: Yes.

Tim: This is what John is talking to. He's talking to us at the church, he says, for some of y'all, y'all been treating Jesus like a side chick. You've deviated from a relationship with Christ because of distractions in your world. Now, you spend more time watching sports than you do in prayer. Ouch. Or you are a gamer, but you don't tell nobody you are a Christian. What John begins to write in the book of Revelation is he says, "Listen, emphasis. I need y'all to come back to your first love. You've grown some distance, but I'm calling you back to your first love."

In this first message of this series, when I feel the Lord is speaking to us is, "Hey, listen, there's no condemnation," because all of us at some point, start getting distracted. It doesn't matter if you've been saved for 30 years, at some point you're going to deal with distractions. There are moments in our lives and they're usually legit moments that cause some distance. Maybe it's, "Man, I thought that God was going to come through for me on this one. I just feel like he let me down."

Imagine the church of Ephesus, you are doing the will of God. You are working for Christ. You ain't out bumping and grinding in the clubs. You're not worshiping idols, you're literally doing God's will, but you've got pressure. You've got persecution. You've got to pack up your family, you've got to run. You've got to go hide, essentially. In those moments, the church of Emphasis is going, "Man, you know what, this is a little too much. I understand standing up for your faith, but man, this is causing me some serious heartache and pain." Next thing you know, distance, distractions, because I can tell you this no one becomes a Christian, no one that I've ever met becomes a Christian intending to create distance between them and God. It just happens.

What God called me to preach for this month is it's time to get upset again. It's time for God to rock your world again. It's time for God to remind you again about how good he is. Remember what that relationship was when you first said, yes, Jesus. Remember how on fire you were, how you couldn't wait to go to work and tell somebody about Jesus? Hey man, I was hooked on this for a long time, but Jesus got a hold of my life and he changed me. God wants us to get back to that place, where we're so on fire for God that it's obvious we ain't got no side chick and Jesus ain't one of them either. He's the main thing.

Close your eyes, bow your heads. I want to ask this question. In full transparency, how many in this place would admit, man, I've been dealing with some distractions in my life? Come on just lift your hands. If you're online, just put it in the chat, it's okay. Here's the thing, that's most of us. Right now, we're dealing with uncertainty in our world. Man, pastors are falling left and right. There's deconstruction going on. Our faith is being challenged and we don't know what's happening politically. There's so many opinions in the housing market and finances and that there's a lot of uncertainty and in these moments, there's opportunity for distance and distractions, but I feel like God is calling us as a church to come back to our first love. To reorient our thinking, to reorient our spirit and our worship back to him.

Father, right now we stand in your presence and we hear the words that John wrote so many years ago. Lord, we make a commitment that we will reignite the relationship. By the word, by worship and through faith God we're coming back. Lord, I'm not going to treat you anymore like I do some side piece. I'm not just going to come to you when I need something, but Lord, I want a genuine relationship with you. I want to get back to the place where I'm walking with you daily, where I'm praying without ceasing, where I'm telling people about you because I am excited about you. Whatever distractions that are in my life, Father, I pray that you would just make a way of escape and that I would see the way and I would take the way out.

Lord, as we get ready to just unpack these letters in the next few weeks, I pray that you would give us a renewed fervor, a renewed fire. That you will reorient us toward you. We're so thankful for what you're getting ready to do. We praise your name. We bless your name in Jesus name and everybody shout amen.

Congregation: Amen.

Tim: One more time, put your hands together and give Jesus some praise in the building.