I am super excited. I think we as a church are uniquely positioned for what God is going to do out here in the valley, the West Valley of Phoenix, specifically the Buckeye region. I mean, Buckeye is big. Right, Somebody's pretty big, No one. Okay, There's a lot of land in Buckeye.

I don't know if you knew this, but Buckeye is bigger than Phoenix geographically. Yeah, They, they think a million people are going to be here in 2030. We'll see what happens, but I think we're primed and positioned. We came a little early and so I'm excited to see what God does over the next couple of years. - and I've been praying quite a bit- God gave me a word this last year that I've told a lot of you guys about.

Gave me a word that I was believing him for in 2025. The word is momentum. Our, our posture, at least my posture- is that I'm going to hustle as hard as I can to do all that God has put in front of me And, in the process, at some point I'm believing that God is going to take the momentum built through continued obedience here at the church. He's going to multiply it. He's going to multiply it, I'm believing it.

And it's interesting because when you believe in a certain direction, you take steps in that direction, And so one of the steps we're taking in that direction is this thing that, you know, I didn't just wake up and think: how can I make my life more difficult by dropping eggs out of a helicopter. That's not, It was. It was, I think I. I think maybe God might utilize something as simple and superficial, really, as an Easter egg hunt out here in the West Valley to draw people onto the property such that they look at the excellence with which it's done, the care, that our people have toward kids and toward the adults and parents who come, that they might say, maybe six months down the road- it could be the next day, but maybe six months down the road when all hell breaks loose in their life and they think, "What do I? This church pops into their head and then they're going to show up.

That's what I've seen out here is that a lot of people who RSVP to an event or who you invite they're not ready right now. But your invitation is preparing the soil for God to do something bigger down the road, And so I'm believing that this moment next week, is a moment where a lot of our investment is going to pay off some dividends, if you will. And so my sermon title today. We'll give it to you really quickly. It's called preparing for God to move.

How many of you know God is moving literally right now. Just raise your hand or say amen, Amen, All right, cool, I'm liking this, I like the 9:00. But y'all just said amen louder than they would, So I'm down with that: Preparing for God to move. I am convinced that many of us want God to move. We're even aware that God is probably already moving, yet we're not prepared.

Anyone heard of the parable of the sewer, parable of the soil, parable of the seed? That's the cool thing about parables, right? Is the parable really can? Like, depending on what you're focusing on, it can be a parable of something different, right? The parable of the soil is what I want to talk to you about for a moment.

We could talk about the sewer, we could talk about the seed, but I want to talk to you about the soil. How many different types of soil are there in this scriptural illustration or parable? You're confident, Is it? How many? Is it Four, Four, It's four, It's four, It's okay.

First service, they, like half the room yelled three, And I was like I felt gas lit for a moment. I was like "Hold on, Am I wrong". It's, it's four. There are three bad soils and one good soil. So one of the soils is the hard ground, or the pathway, and the birds ate off that pathway.

They ate the seed off the ground when it was dropped. Then there was rocky soil. Rocky soil-, the seed took root, barely though, and it grew up really quickly, and then it died by the scorching heat and sun, because it didn't have much ground or dirt to grow a larger root. And then the third soil was the thorny soil, And the thorny soil choked that which was growing up from the seed, And then you have the good soil. And as I was prepping this message, thinking about how to prepare for God to move, it clicked to me.

I'm going to be honest, I should have figured this out earlier. I've been a lot of studying, I've done this parable a lot of times, but it never clicked to me that it's not that I don't think it's the thorn's fault, It's not the bird's fault And it's not the sun's fault. I think it's the soil's fault. It's that the soil in the first three wasn't prepared. It was, it just was.

But the good soil, it wasn't just good by default. What makes good soil is proper aation, proper fertilization-, proper, you know, I don't know plowing, That's as far as I can go. I could use the word airate and then move on, But it was, come on. Y'all know that the soil was good, Not because it started out that way, naturally, but because in some way it had been prepared. Even if it wasn't prepared by a human being, it had been prepared through years, maybe hundreds of years, of different things occurring that got that soil to that place where, when the seed fell in, it was ready to receive it and then help it grow.

And many of us, we walk into our faith and we're not prepared. And so what I want to do is I'm gonna try to be quick through this, Fernando, Pastor Fernando, last week he screwed me up, man. He went like 32 minutes And, to be fair, my max is like 43 or an hour on a bad day. I'm just kidding. It's never been that long, but he went short.

So I'm going to try to go short for you guys today, But I got seven quick ways to prepare for the move of God that I want to give you. It ain't going to be too long. I got them out before time was up last time, All right, So don't stress. But there going to be seven, And so I want to encourage you, if you want to prepare for a move of God in your life and at this church and in other areas that you might encounter, I want to encourage you to either take notes, type it into your phone or just really focus on memorizing what I'm telling you. But seven might be a little too much to memorize.

I'd encourage you to take notes or make a note to go back and watch this sermon and download it, because there are seven ways, And the way that I want to articulate these seven ways is by also talking to you about Jesus's last week here on earth. How many of you know what today is in the grand scheme of Holy Week Sunday? It is Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday is the day where Jesus enters Jerusalem on a colt and the people around him are shouting hosana and they're laying down palm branches, signifying that it's a really cool thing that this king of the Jews, Jesus, is coming in to town. It's Palm Sunday today, and then the rest of the week, Jesus encountered or did things that I'm going to give you guys today, that will operate metaphorically in your own life, if you allow it to for application.

So my first point- cuz I don't want to belabor anything- My first point is: you got to prepare for the initial excitement. If you want a move of God, if you want to be ready for a move of God, rather, you got to prepare for the initial excitement. That's my first point, because it's Palm Sunday and when Jesus went into Jerusalem, there were a bunch of people who were really excited to see Jesus. They had heard about him right Like when you were in Jerusalem or Judea, you'd heard about this miracle worker up in Galilee. Now Jesus had visited throughout his ministry to Jerusalem, as we find out in the book of John, But he had not developed the level of reputation that he had this last time that he was visiting Jerusalem, because Jesus was ready to do the thing that God had ultimately called him to do.

So he comes in on this cult. They got the cult through some weird means that you find out about in the book of Luke and Mark. It's. It's an interesting cult that had never been ridden. They find it.

They kind of it looks like they steal it from a guy, but I guess he lets him at some point. And then Jesus gets on this cult and he goes into town and they treat him like royalty. As he's coming in, They're excited. Now, this is before Jesus called him out later in the week. This is before other things occurred that would make these same people ultimately be okay with him being crucified before their eyes.

Many of us, when we start our faith, we're excited, But it's, it's not just faith, is it? How many of you? When you like hear about something or you're excited about like you're, you start something brand new, you're convinced you need to run a marathon. How many of you are excited on the front end initially and you're not: Okay, I get it, It's a marathon? How many of you last time you started that diet, you were excited to start it?

Nobody excited. How many of you when you started school? No, that's another bad one. How many of you when you first met that future spouse? I was too.

I don't know about the rest of these people. We need to do a marriage series, don't we? I was excited. How many of you when that baby was born Excited, And then you had to change that diaper for the first time. Excitement waned a little bit.

It wanes as it winded. I got to quit. No, it's, this is. This is me too, Hannah, But you're really bad at this right. When, when we get excited about exercising or a diet, what do you do?

You go out and you buy clothes and shoes. That's cool If you work out later. And when you start that diet, the first thing I do- and I've tried to start many of diets- I'm not trying to just get skinny, I'm trying to get, you know, sweated. I'm trying- That sounded dumb. I'm trying to get in shape, right.

And so what do you do? You eat healthier. And if you want to eat healthier, they told you from when you were young you got to go out and buy, not like processed food, You got to buy organic, fresh food, Yep. So I went out and bought all that fresh food: Celery, broccoli, cucumbers, asparagus- Careful with asparagus, You know what I'm saying. You bought all that stuff and then you put it in that drawer that you never look in the refrigerator.

Y'all aren't with me. I don't buy fresh food, okay. And then you intended to eat it because you were initially excited. But then, just like science tells us, there's this thing called a dopamine curve, where you're initially way up here. I'm going to run that marathon, I'm going to go on that diet.

I'm going to love my spouse till kingdom come. I'm going to love my kids, even if they're difficult. I'm gonna do all. You still love your kids. I get that.

You still love them. But you, there's some some difficult. You're gonna be excited about it at all times, but then, just like any other person, that dopamine curve shifts to a drop and you're not as excited And in your faith, this is true. This might be a word of encouragement to people who thought Satan was just attacking them, which he is. We're not a war against flesh and blood, but against kingdoms, principalities, authorities that we don't presently see.

Yes, Satan is on the prow, trying to see or seeking to steal, kill and destroy, but there's also a dopamine drop in your life And you started out excited about Jesus And the natural state is for your excitement to Wayne. And what God wants us to do in prepping for a move of God is to move from a place where we are constricted by the dopamine curve into a place where we can actually get to our destination. I might say it this way: You got to move from this place of emotion or needing inspiration and motivation to this place of what we call spiritual formation. Think of it like this: How long does it take a baby from conception to birth? Nine months, She got it.

She's not even an adult, guys. I know she's closer to the event, but y'all still should have gotten it. Nine, How many months? Oh gosh, I thought y'all gonna be better than the first service. Nine months It takes.

How it goes, I don't know, But I got a. I got a little summary list of what happens. At first. It starts off with a heart and neural tube. Didn't know this.

I read it. Chad GBT gave it to me. Don't don't go home on this like and look it up and think "Oh, he didn't get the scientific stuff perfectly accurate". So I'm never returning to that church. I'm getting the spiritual stuff right today.

And then it moves to as as they grow. It moves to organs, then their skin, then their hair and eyebrows, and then eventually they get to full term and then they're born and they look like a baby, albeit cone- shaped right at the beginning. It's it smooths out later. It took time And many of us, we experience this new birth in Christ Jesus. This is what Jesus calls it.

We are a new creation in Christ. We are being born again in Christ. Yet we look at it as if we're supposed to snap our fingers and be exactly what God wants us to be and where he wants us to be. But it takes time And if we, like, believe too much about that initial excitement, we think we're going to hold it way longer than we ever will, And when that excitement begins to wayne, as is natural, we're going to fall out. It happens all the time, guys, And- and you know, I want to be optimistic as a pastor- I really do.

I'm trying to break generational curses of negativity and depression in my family history. I want to be positive and optimistic. Yet at some point, when statistics hit you in the face too much, you got to be realistic. And I can tell you, every other week I'll have a conversation with someone who comes to church for the first time or just took a faith decision, and they are on cloud9. Just a few weeks ago someone came in first time to church in a long time, said: "I'm here now.

I'm super excited. We're going to be here every single week". And I want that to be true. But the truth of the m, the reality, is that it's the initial excitement, And if you don't capture something more consistent before it waines, then you won't be in here, Then you won't be stepping forward. And it's not just that Satan's attacking you, though he is.

It's definitely not that God doesn't want to move, because he's already moving. It's because the natural progression of things is initial excitement. These people looked at Jesus and within a week they wanted to crucify him. You don't go that far. You're like, "Jesus is cool, but I don't really need him in my life.

They really didn't think they needed them". But that initial excitement. What we have to do is we have to move from the feels to something more consistent: spiritual formation. Point number two: I went too long on that one. Point number two: you got to prepare for the call out.

Now what happens is Jesus the next day he's going in. After this, after the Palm Sunday, he goes in and on his way in he sees a fig tree- And it's not the season for figs, mind you. But Jesus looks at this fig tree. It didn't bear figs, It was kind of the natural state of things And he curses this fig tree. I bet the disciples are confused.

And then he goes in and he cleanses the temple. He flips over temple tables, He fashions a whip of cords and he starts whipping people who are selling doves and other sacrificial items. He's probably whipping around with the, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He's ticking people off And on the way out of the city that same day they look at the fig tree and the fig tree has withered. What scholars do is they look at this fig tree situation and say this is a metaphor.

Really happened, but a metaphor, for the cleansing of the temple. That the fig tree should be equated with the temple because it didn't produce it's. It's cursed, right, like that's what a lot of scholars would say. Why do I tell you that? Because I think in any move of God, we have to be prepared for God to call out some things in our lives.

Amen, you got. You got to be prepared. Now, if you're not prepared for God to call something out- so I don't know- if you are not prepared for God to call something out in your life, then there going to be a lot of things that you miss out on in your walk with God. I'm telling you, like when I first started following Jesus, there were some things, And with you there are some things. And if we are hardened in our heart, just like the Pharaoh of Egypt at the time of the Exodus, then we will miss out on the move of God.

I wrote this down. I said: 'Your excitement about the idea of God might actually break when he flips over a few of your tables and curses a few of your trees. Defensiveness and hardness of heart will be your response if you do not prepare, because that's natural. I mean, if I were to walk up to you right now and say, "You better quit doing this". Now, if you know me really well, you might.

You might respond calmly to it. But if you don't know my heart, you're going to be like, you're going to bow up, You're going to be frustrated. You're going to say, "Man, bump that dude, I ain't going to that church again". That's how we respond when your spouse comes up to you. I know it.

My, My wife and I are in the same boat. If I come up to her and say, "Hey, you should do this differently" She's like: "Well, I did this and I did this and I did this". And I do the same thing. I'm not just calling her out, I'm calling me out. Jesus wants to call you out, The Holy Spirit, it.

Part of the role of the Holy Spirit in your life is to convict you of your sin and compel you toward greater obedience and faithfulness to God. He's going to call you out And he calls out the people in the temple, and we know the long story of it: that they do not respond well, And so what happens? They miss out on greater levels of Revelation. But I need you to know, like I won't call you out, nor does God call you out for the purpose of shaming you. Like I'm not saying like, picture what it would take for someone to be in such a headsp space to call you out just to make you feel bad about yourself.

Do you realize how much difficulty it takes for for maybe Jesus back then and for me right now to look at someone who's living a lifestyle that is different than what the Bible would say and to, to, to be bold enough to go talk to him about it? That's stressful. I have to get over myself a lot. My natural posture would be avoiding that type of confrontation. So when someone comes to you in the name of Jesus- not just me, could be a family member, it could be God's word, as you're reading it- and calls you out.

Generally there are some abusers of it, And if we call you out the wrong way, if we do it in such a way that is more harmful than it is helpful, in a way that doesn't draw you to God, then shame on us. But in general, when Jesus calls you out, he's doing it not to shame you but to save you, Not to shame you but to shape you. He, He wants you to grow in knowledge and understanding of who he is. I have, I have this thing that I've been saying and what happens at our church is a thing, becomes an axiom when I say it enough. It just becomes a thing.

For example, we say: if you're on time, you're. A couple of them got it. We say: when it's worth it, it's worth it. All right, A couple of them got it, Those are newer, All right, That one's newer, this one's super, super new. But what I'll say is it's either time to pull them up or push them out, because we recognize a truth: that a call out either produces growth or it produces an exit strategy for that person.

I don't want anyone to ever be pushed out, But I recognize when I go and invite them into the life that God desires for them, The some are going to say no. And when you say no to the life of God that God calls you to, the direction's not up. At that point the direction is out. And when God calls you to stop watching that, to stop doing that, to shift what you look at when you're on the computer, to shift the way that you talk about people when you don't need to talk about them, when God calls you to shift your life, see, this is a pull up moment or it's a push out moment. Jesus understands that and he goes and fashions that whip cords and he's talking to these people.

He knows what's happening. Some will see it, Not all. Some will be pulled up into greater levels of faithfulness, but not all of them. I hate that reality. I hate it.

They say you can't say "Hey, I hate that". I hate that. There is a reality when you call out. Isn't that what? What do we call the ecclesia, right?

The church? What does that mean? Called out ones? If you're not, if you don't ever get called out by God. I wonder if you're ever going to be sanctified.

That's right, And God wants to sanctify you. Yes, Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. Believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. You'll be saved for all of eternity. But there is a sanctification process whereby you were formed spiritually from the inside out, And God wants you to have every part of that, And when he calls you out, let him pull you up.

Don't let it be an exit strategy for you. Point number three: prep for questions Immediately after this moment. You can imagine, that the Pharisees and Sadducees are pretty frustrated at Jesus, And so they start asking him questions. Usually, when the chief priests and leaders ask Jesus questions, they do so in order to trip him up. Can't trip Jesus up- I've learned that, and they couldn't either.

But they're asking him these questions, And I thought this was a helpful point, because whenever something so substantial happens in your life that you turn from sin to him, people going to ask about it. It's going to happen. People are going to ask you any range of questions. They're going to ask you from a bad perspective, meaning they're trying to trip you up. They might ask you from a neutral perspective, meaning they're just looking for information.

They might ask you from a good posture, which means they're genuinely trying to seek something from you. However, they ask you questions. Here's what the Bible says. Says it in 1 Peter, chapter 3:1, 15 and 16. But in your hearts, rever Christ as Lord.

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you, to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. And when I read that, there's a lot of you thinking: well, how can I be prepared for what to answer? I'll tell you two things. Number one: this is a very pragmatic, logistical answer that a lot of you are looking for.

It's: revolve your life around Jesus. Spend as much time as humanly possible reverting your thought process back to Jesus. You open the Bible, You spend time in prayer. You spend time with God's people, You start assimilating to his plan for your life. You spend time with Jesus.

And the more time you spend with Jesus, guess what? When someone comes and asks you, you got plenty to talk about. Number two, and here's where. Here's a unique one, because a lot of you are thinking, "Well, how do I be prepared enough for the question that I know my cousin's about to ask me". The Bible also clarifies that when someone asks you a question, there's a level whereby the spirit of God speaks through you and he'll give you what you need to say when you need to say it.

So both very logical, superficial study, learn, grow. And then there's this supernatural thing that can occur. I don't know if you've been in this moment before, but sometimes someone asks me to pray, but I don't know anything about this person And what I do in that moment is I pause and I ask him questions, and then I am the whole time praying to my creator, asking him to give me wisdom and discernment about what to say next. And it is crazy. Sometimes it's just normal and I say basic stuff and they're like: cool, thank you.

Other times they're like that spoke directly to what I'm doing. Here's another way that that works. I love it. I just did a wedding last week. That's why I was gone.

Hey, did y'all enjoy Fernando? Yeah, A couple of y'all. The rest of y'all should clap, just in case you know we don't feel good if he's watching the live stream. I love Fernando. He's a good friend of mine and he's so humble.

I love that dude. We, we want to be as supportive as we can wherever they launch here in Buckeye, but I was gone last week at a wedding. You know how I met this person. I was preaching in Joplin, Missouri, at the main campus of a church that I was, on staff at for a while And I- I was just preaching a sermon and in the middle of that sermon I made some random comment, probably from my ADHD, about having sweet baby rays and putting it on my burger the day before. See, isn't that random?

Y, just random. This person comes up to me the next week, started attending my church, my campus of the church, and he comes up to me and, no, he waited like six months, invited us to dinner and at dinner he's like: "Hey, so you know why we started coming to church When you preached that message. I just had a burger with sweet baby rays on it the day before and I knew God was speaking to me". And I'm sitting here like supernatural work of God through me. I had no clue.

And God works through you the same way. Yeah, So, both superficially, but also supernaturally, Gosh, I got to keep going, I got to keep going. Okay, Point number four: You got to prep for the Revelation of God. Now, chapter 12 of Mark. Jesus does some teaching.

He teaches the parable of the vineyard. He teaches about. Well, this is a moment where they ask him where to pay taxes to Caesar, and, he gives them guidance on that. And then we get to the place at the end of it where he's talking about finances and there's a story of this widow who provides all that she had, and Jesus compares it with even the abundance that the Pharisees are giving. He's teaching and many of the people, under the sound of Jesus's voice, under the inspiration of his word, they don't.

They don't listen, They have hardened hearts. But what I've learned is that when God wants to move, he always discloses himself. The thing we have to do is reposition ourselves to hear what he is already disclosing. Amen, And I hope that makes sense to you, because when you look back at the Old Testament, you see plenty of examples where God preceded his work with disclosure. In Revelation, Noah, plenty, of, plenty of disclosure there.

Right, Noah had plenty of time to build that big boat. People had plenty of time to look at Noah's big boat and think, hm, maybe something's going to happen. Maybe we should repent, Moses. Moses saw the burning bush way before he ended up going to the land of Egypt and delivering the people of Israel from Egypt. God disclosed it to Moses And Moses continued to disclose it to Aaron, who then became the mouthpiece for the deliverance.

God disclosed himself. You see it, through the prophets and the holy Scriptures, Jesus was spoken of way before he showed up. That's right. Jesus spoke about how things would be And his disciples had Jesus's words when they were walking through the early church. And we have heard from the early church- Paul, Peter, John, James- of how we ought to live.

God has disclosed himself to us. Now Paul would go so far as to say "Thus we are without excuse". But I want to tell you beyond that, as someone who wants to follow Jesus today, that he's already disclosing himself. The question is: are you going to tune your heart to the frequency of Jesus? That's what Paul says in Ephesians.

I believe it is. He says: "Open the eyes of my heart". You got to tune to the right frequency. Think of an AM FM radio. You got a lot of static.

So you got to continue to retune, reposition such that you hear God. That's why your prayer life might suck. I'm being honest, A lot of us we're in bed, Heavenly Father, thank you for this day, That's it. How many of y'all fall asleep? You don't have to raise your hand on that one.

I've done it before. But if I reposition myself, if, if I pull out my, if I pull out my computer and I start typing- because I can do that without thinking about it- I've spent years and years trying to reposition my heart and my physical posture so that I can understand more about the character of God. And if you want to see the work of God, you got to prepare for the Revelation that will come. If you look for it, Point number five, you got to prepare for sacrifice. Now, in Mark, chapter 13, .

 Jesus is not talking about his sacrifice. He is talking to his disciples about the things that are to come. He talks about how families will be divided. He talks about there will be rumors of wars. He shares how they will be hated, They will be persecuted, And then he talks about his return.

Jesus not only discloses himself to the disciples, but he paints them a very vivid picture, not about how easy their life is going to be, but about how much sacrifice is required when you follow Jesus. He tells them straight up: why are we surprised when something bad happens in our life? He actually literally, like, literally- says"Do not be surprised when this happens to you, because if they did it to me, they're going to do it to you". Jesus is so clear that a life following God will be filled with sacrifice. The beauty is when you revolve your life around Jesus, that sacrifice has a point and it has an end in eternity.

I mean, you're sacrificing no matter what, aren't you? But when you put Jesus at the center, that sacrifice has value. I wrote this down and I thought it was helpful. You might write this down. It might be something for you to remember.

I put this. I said: "Revival and resurrection require something: Death sacrifice" A lot of. I want revival. What are you willing to sacrifice? I want resurrection, life.

Look what Jesus did. He died on the cross. You don't get resurrection without death. That's right. Some of us need to kill the old way of life.

We need to push off some of the things that are entangling us in order to move forward, boldly proclaiming who Christ Jesus is, to ourselves, to our family members and to the rest of this valley. We have got to be willing to sacrifice. That's one question I have is: what are you willing to lay down so that you might pick up your cross and follow him? What are you willing to do? Always feels like Oprah when people clap, but I want you to keep doing it.

I love it. I love that engagement. Colossians 1:29, . Paul's like pondering through the worth of Christ, And what he says is: we proclaim him so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose, He says: for this purpose, I labor, striving according to his power, which works mightily in me.

What that means, to me at least, is that Paul understands the toll of following Jesus. It is filled with sacrifice, But when you sacrifice yourself on the altar of Jesus's will for the world, he fills you with his power. Amen, And I'm learning. I want to have a spiritfilled life that is full of power. Many of us, we struggle with the sacrifice.

End of things. And let's look at next week, for example. Friday, a lot of people are coming in to serve. Saturday is a big event with about 120 people who have signed up to serve. And then we've got Sunday, which hopefully a lot of those 120 people show back up, because what it's looking like right now is right before this service.

There were over 3,000 registrants for this event on Saturday. Yeah, I don't know how many of them are actually going to come, but I also know people come that didn't RSVP, So we'll see what happens. It's not going to. It's not going to be a little amount of people based on what I'm seeing. That to prep for that, it's going to take someone sacrifice.

Yeah, Now we have eternity with God because of the sacrifice on the cross by Jesus. He traded places with us And now all he asks is that we would give our lives to him, donating ourselves to the proclamation of the good news of Jesus to the rest of the world. That's all he asks: Our bodies as a living sacrifice. And the beauty of Friday through Sunday of next week is it's not going to be as bad as it was for him. That's right, Amen, That's right.

Ain't going to be no flogging for you next week. Not going to be any crucifixions. I hope there won't. There won't, if there are, something went really wrong. It's going to be hard, It's going to take energy, exertion, Like there's a lot of mental things that we got, like you're going to have to shift some of your thought processes and culture in order to get there and really donate yourself, to the proclamation of the good news of Jesus to the people who show up.

That's what we want them to see. It's Friday evening setting up. It's Saturday morning: getting there early, staying there and helping tear down a little bit. It's it's sunrise service the next morning. I'll be here, probably at 4:00 am.

It's going to be great. I'm looking forward to it like crazy. Why? Because I've seen that over the years, no matter the sacrifice, it's totally worth it when it's worth it. And so I want to invite- I didn't do this in the first service.

I want to invite everyone in here to do two things. One: I want to sacri. I want you to invite you to sacrifice in two ways. One: if you haven't signed up to serve yet, they're going to throw up the thing behind me to volunteer. It's going to have a QR code.

You can sign up to serve. It's going to be an amazing time for you. You're going to meet great, biblically minded people. It's going to be fun. It's not even going to feel like a sacrifice, .

The second thing I want to invite you to do is consider sitting in the first service next week, 9:00. Yeah, So, based on RSVPs, 46% of people said that they're going to come to church the next day. Now, granted, I don't RSVPs never work out 100% unless God bust open floodgates. I'm preparing for the best, and the worst, You. I'm preparing for both, but most of them say they're coming to the second service, which means we're going to need to provide space.

One of our axioms is: we make room, Spa room- that I like that too, But space orbit, space orbit. We make space for people, and so we want to make space for people. So, if you would consider coming to the 9:00, there's two sacrifices. I wasn't planning on saying that, but I figured I would. It's great, All right.

Point number six: Prep for a culture shift. Speaking of culture shift, I've been talking to a lot of people when it comes to Easter. I, I, I started going to church when I was 15 and I started in ministry when I was like 19 or 20. So I've been in the church for a long time. So suffice it to say, my Easter like traditions were here at church, right, But I've run into a lot of people.

They got their whole Easter tradition. I'm still learning about them because I didn't- I didn't get to do them. I'm learning about Easter traditions and how you get up and, I don't know, you all have different Easter traditions, families over, and I called someone this week cuz I found out that they might have an Easter tradition and, they were so gracious and I was. I was trying. It felt like a call out at first, but then they were so good that it felt like a pull up.

You know what I'm saying. But I was calling and I said: "Hey, you're, you're like, so crucial to this specific part of Sunday services. Would it be possible for you to maybe adjust your typical Easter tradition in order, to provide like opportunities for people to really connect at a deeper level here". And they immediately were like: "Yeah, I'll move it around". I'm so like, I'm so proud of that type of response.

I didn't call you all up, so don't get all. It's not a call out. But at the same time, God calls us to change our culture, right? So in Mark, chapter 14, what happens is you have, Mary of Bethany, she like drops a bunch of expensive oil on Jesus's feet. Judas is even frustrated about it.

And Jesus actually says: "This woman will be remembered for what she did, because she recognized what was necessary in this season". Right, That's paraphrasing what was happening in Scripture, but Jesus says she's going to be remembered. Why? Because you're always going to have the poor with you, is what he says. But you will only have me for a short time, He.

That that's not what you use oil for, though. Right, But Jesus knew it was preparation for his burial. And then he instates communion, which, to them, might as well have been a Passover supper, But he says: "This is a new covenant which I give to you: My body that was broken, the blood that's shed". He says: 'd do this in remembrance of me'. Jesus says: 'I want to change your culture.

I want to change how you operate, Change what you do. I want us, as a church, to have this posture where we choose kingdom over what we're comfortable with, Where we choose kingdom over our own cash, where we choose kingdom over clout. And I'm so proud of the people in our church who have done these things. I'm I'm reading some of this stuff, cuz you know I'm not great at memorizing ADHD. That's me.

I'm proud of people who have changed their family plans to help us with Easter, Who have changed their Sunday plans in general to serve Christ Jesus here at the church in other capacities. Who have changed their daily habits to apprehend Christ, Change their budget to build their life on Christ, Changed friend groups to look more like Christ. They've changed the center of their life so that they can revolve everything around Jesus. Jesus wants a culture shift for you. Point number seven.

And then finally, Jesus, before he's crucified, he, he goes to the garden of Gethsemane with his disciples. He leaves them sitting there and he tells them to watch and pray. Then he goes off by himself and he prays with much, I think, like distress is what the text would tell us. This is where Jesus drops, or sweat, has sweat, drops of blood, and he is praying, praying, praying. John 17 gives us a little more clarity on what this prayer looked like.

That he was praying about the connection between himself and the father And he was praying for all of his disciples and what they would do in the world. That's what his prayer was about. And he comes back and he sees the disciples. You know what they had done. They- they fell asleep.

And Jesus says again: "Watch and pray that you might not fall, fall into temptation". He says: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak". I wrote here. I said: "They fell asleep at the will". Y'all didn't like that either.

Okay, we're working. We're working. But Jesus was able to align his will to the fathers. But the disciples, because of lack of preparation, fell asleep. They weren't ready for what God was going to do.

And guess what happened? They dispersed. But God wants us to come together in unity so that the Gospel may be proclaimed in this community. So what needs to happen for you in private, in order to see the move of God when he does it? Three things I wrote here very quickly: Fast and pray, be alert and trust that God is present.

Because when we trust that God is present, we're much more likely to approach him. And here's our big idea: Don't stumble into a move of God, Prepare for it. It's at this point, in the Garden of Gethsemane, that Jesus was handed over to the Jewish leaders for questioning. Then, shortly, he was delivered to the Romans for flogging. They brought him before the chief priests again, and soon he was condemned to death by crucifixion.

He carried his cross through the old city of Jerusalem, got the help of a man from Sirene named Simon, He walked up a hill and he died on the cross, An undeserved death, one that was meant for us. We deserve the death because we had been severed from God by our own sin, And then he died on the cross. His sacrifice paves the way for the work of God in our lives, And I'm believing that, for many of you in this room, your soil, metaphorically speaking, has been prepared by God for this moment where you might receive the seed of faith that comes from the recognition that Jesus Christ is Lord. The Bible says that anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. One thing I say- a lot comes straight from Scripture- is: if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved, And so what I want to do right now is invite you to bow your heads, close your eyes.

I'm talking directly to the people, in whom the soil has been prepared by God to take this step of faith, of salvation, of eternity with God, And so I want to pray a prayer out loud, together, for the benefit of those people that God is speaking to. You might say it like this: God, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Jesus Christ, I believe he died on the cross and rose from the grave. Father, forgive me of my sin. Father, forgive me of my s, Make me a new creation.

Make me a new creation And I will follow you for the rest of my life. It is in Jesus name that we pray Amen. Heads bowed, eyes closed. I want to give those of you who just prayed that prayer for the first time, believing that God rose Jesus from the grave, to let us know about it. So just, really quickly, no counting today, just really quickly shoot up your hand so that I'll know about it, be able to make contact with you after service.

If that was you, you trusted in Jesus, just lift up your hand, Amen, Amen- And I'm taking a moment cuz I'm feeling like there's a lot of prepared soil in this place. Just shoot that hand up real quickly. I see you. I see you, Amen.