Well, hey, everyone. Welcome to Valley Creek. We are one church that meets in multiple campuses, and we carry the hope of Jesus to thousands of locations. And I'm so glad that you're with us today. My name is Justin. I get to serve as our Denton Campus Pastor. It's great gathering with everybody, and we want you to know that hope is here, everyone is welcome, and Jesus changes everything. If it's your first time with us, we love having you. You picked a great place to be because we're having a fantastic summer at Valley Creek. We're right in the middle of our series, 60 Days of Unfamiliar Promises. And it's been great just every week having our faith built in the goodness of God. As we just go deep into one of His promises, and get revelation and insight from us, it's been awesome. Hey, something that we say around here is that we want to do this a long time together. And so there's some rhythms built into our culture where we do two things, we celebrate and we rest. Two times a year, we do that. At the middle of the year and at the end of the year, we take intentional time to celebrate, to pay attention, and call attention to the goodness of God. And then we take a week to rest. We allow our church family to rest, and our staff, and our leaders and our serve teams just so they can get ready for all that God has in store for the rest of the year. This helps us just stay focused on His goodness. It helps our hearts stay healthy, and stay refreshed and stay full of faith. And so today is one of those days. See, normally at every campus, you'd have a worship team that's getting ready to lead you into the presence of God. But today, we've got worship leaders from all our campuses together and we're going to be streaming it from Flower Mound to all of our other campuses. We're going to be celebrating together. We're going to be flowing in and out of worship. We're going to declare Scripture. We're going to pray. We're gonna receive communion together. And in unity, at the same time, we'll be singing the same songs, praying the same prayers, having the same encounters, and celebrating God together across all of Valley Creek as one church. I love it. Now, before we do that, let's have a little bit of summer fun. Church isn't a building; it's a family. And so we're going to take the next couple of minutes to just engage with the family around us. A couple of minutes to talk, maybe talk to somebody you don't know, somebody you haven't seen in a while, maybe share what you hope to do this summer, what you've already done this summer. So we're gonna put two minutes up on the clock, two minutes to talk to each other, and then we're gonna worship. Here we go.

Lord, You are high and lifted up in this place. Nothing matters but You, Jesus. No name is higher than Yours. And we just fall before You and say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. We love You. Across all our campuses, why don't you go ahead and take your seat? I don’t know about you, but as we've been pondering and meditating on the promises of God that He has for us, it has really filled my heart. I'm sure it's filled yours, too. And it's given me this desire to say, Jesus, You've done so much for us. What can we possibly do to say thank You? And do you know that today, we have an opportunity to answer one of Jesus' prayers? Did you all know that Jesus prayed a prayer, a very specific prayer, for you and for me? It's in the Gospel of John in the 17th chapter. Jesus is talking to the Father and He's talking about us, the people that will come, the people have yet to see and hear the good news, that's us. And do you know what He prays? He asked the Father, His prayer is that we would be in unity, that we would be in unity. And it really doesn't surprise me because if you talk to any parent, do you know what the cry of their heart is? That their kids would not be fussing and fighting, but that their kids would be in unity. And so right now, may we be very conscious. May we be very aware at every one of our Valley Creek campus locations that we are a family. We are the children of God and we are in unity today in our worship. And I want to invite you to stay in unity and let's take a step together. See, as we're about to go into a week of rest and thinking of these promises, I think there's a great invitation for us to take a step together in believing the promises. You see, we can't really receive it until we truly believe it. And so I'm curious, where do you have an invitation to go deeper in your belief of God's promises that they're for you and for me? See, there's a handful of beliefs that I have today that are from Scripture. And I want to take a look at them very quickly together. And as we look through them, here's what I want to encourage you. Just ask the Lord, Lord, do I believe that? How deeply do I believe that? And just see where that invitation for you to go deeper in your belief so that you can truly receive His promises. 

Let's take a look at a few Scriptures together. Here's the first one. You belong to God. It says in John 1:12, "Yet to all who did receive Him, Jesus, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God." If you have placed your faith in Jesus, you have a birthright. And that birthright is to believe that you are who God says you are. And that is that you're a child of God. Do you believe that? Let's look at the next one. You are forgiven. "All the prophets testify about Him, Jesus, that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name." He has forgiven you. He has let it go. Have you? Do you know? Do you believe that you are, in Jesus' name, you're forgiven? Let's look at the next one. You are righteous. "For God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him, Jesus, we might become the righteousness of God." It's not because of what we do, it's because of Jesus and what He did. Because of His sacrifice, because of His finished work, you and I are in right standing with our Father. Do you believe that? Let's look at the next one. You have a purpose. "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." It's really hard to believe God's promises. It's hard to believe the goodness of God if you feel purposeless. Somebody needs to hear this. I don't know which campus, I don't know where you are, but you need to know if He has breath in your lungs, there is a purpose for you to walk out and to accomplish because it's a good work that He's created for you to do. Do you believe that? Last one. You, my friend, are loved. Jesus said, "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now, remain in my love." The love that the Father has for Jesus, that's the love that Jesus has for us, and all He asks us to do is remain in it. Do you believe so that you can receive? See, I think a good parent wants their kids to be in unity. And you know what else a good parent appreciates? When their children speak the family values over one another so they're not the one doing it. Well, that's what we're going to do together in just a moment. We're going to give you at every campus, an opportunity to speak and declare who God says you are to the person around you because we're a family and that's what we do. So we made it really easy for you. I'm going to show you how it's done. I'm going to get one of my besties of all time, Haley. Come here, sweet Haley girl. We have this declaration right up here. And in a moment, you're going to be invited to stand and just find one or two people around you. And it's going to go something like this. You're going to step up to them. And if they let you, you're going to put your hand on their shoulder. And you're simply going to say, "Hey, Haley, you belong to God. In Jesus' name, you've been forgiven of your sins. Nothing in your past or future is stronger than the forgiveness, which sets you free. You're in right standing with God. That means God isn't mad at you or disappointed in you. He delights in you just as you are. He believes in you and has designed good things for you to do. God loves you with the same love He has for Jesus not because of what you do but because of who you are." And then you're going to ask them, can you receive that by faith today in Jesus' name? And if you're the one being declared over, you get to say, "Yes, I received that." Atta girl. So let's be a family. Let's be a family in unity. And let's declare who God says we are so that we can believe and receive His promises and have the most restful week ahead of us. So here we go, Valley Creek, all campuses. And for those of you that are online, I'm gonna stay right here and pray for you. So I'm gonna invite you to put in that chat, "Yes, I receive it." But on all of our campuses, I want you right now, stand up, find a person or two and declare this boldly with confidence. Come on, they need to know who they are in Jesus' name. Let’s say it over now together.

More and more like You, Jesus. That's the cry of our heart. That's the cry of our church, to be more and more like You. Would you go ahead and take your seat? And across all of our campuses, our team's going to get up and they're going to pass out communion. You see, communion represents the answer to that heart cry, Jesus. Making a way for us to become more and more like Him. Jesus, removing any and every barrier so that we could be included in Him, become just like Him. Communion is an opportunity for us to just be reminded of that over and over that Jesus made a way. He is the narrow gate to an ever-widening life becoming more and more like Him. And communion is for anybody that's actually placed their faith in Jesus, believing He is who He says He is, and He did what He said He came to do for us. And so if you're not ready for that, if you don't want to take that step, you can let that pass by, but maybe today is the day that you're like, "I want that. I want to believe that. I want to receive that. I want to take hold of that." And you might be wondering, what does communion have to do with-- on a day focused on celebration? For many of us, communion, we think of it as it's typically something that's more somber, and it's more reflective, and intimate. There's nothing wrong with that, but there is also a very joyful celebratory side to communion. See, communion represents where celebration and rest collide, where they intersect. And it represents the greatest victory that the world will ever know. It represents Jesus' broken body and His shed blood. It represents Jesus being our sacrifice as the lamb, but then roaring back to life as the conquering lion. It represents heaven invading earth. It represents the veil being torn in two and the spirit being unleashed. It represents sin being defeated. It represents all our mistakes being wiped out. It represents a million-dollar debt of sin being canceled and a trillion-dollar credit of righteousness being put on all of our accounts. It represents us not having to settle for living like the world, but having a kingdom life right at our fingertips because the kingdom is at hand because of Jesus. It represents victory, victory over everything, victory over any mistake you have ever made. It represents a whole new life. Jesus did not come to make bad people good, He came to make dead people alive, lost people found, broken people whole, orphans into sons and daughters.

It's the greatest thing you've got to celebrate, is holding communion, because of what Jesus has done, but it also represents rest, being able to rest in the finished work of Jesus. No more striving, no more performing, no more earning, resting in all that He has done. And it means celebrating the answers to all of the questions that are deep in our hearts. Am I seen? Yes. Am I wanted? Yes. Am I valued? Yes. Am I known? Yes. We get to celebrate all those and we get to rest in those answers. But then the deepest, most important answer or question in our hearts, am I loved? Communion gives a resounding yes to that. You are loved. You are loved by a good father who loved you so much that He sent His one and only son for you. He held nothing back. You are loved with a radical, unconditional, perfect love, and then you get to rest in the realities of the answer to that, that I am loved. So communion represents our celebration and our rest. Jesus tells us that on the night that He was betrayed that He took the bread, and He broke it and He gave thanks. He was grateful to be broken so that we could be made whole. And He tells us, as often as you do this, to remember Him. That's the one thing you think about when you receive communion, you remember Jesus, who He is, what He's done, everything that you now have because of Him. And so let's take our bread and let's receive this together remembering Jesus. Then it says that He took the cup, and He said, "This represents my blood being poured out for you. And I'm gonna write a new deal with it. I'm gonna write a love letter with it, a new covenant, no longer will you be judged by what you have done, you will be judged by what I've done and I've done it perfectly, it is finished. Rest in it." So He says, "As often as you do this, to remember Me." So can we receive this together remembering the finished work of Jesus? So Jesus, thank You. Thank You that we get to celebrate a victorious life in You and Your perfect love.

That was great, church. The people of God, the Word of God, the presence of God, getting to worship, getting to pray, getting to declare Scriptures, receive communion, gathering as a family. That is great church. Man, it was so good to celebrate the goodness of God together. Hey, I want to remind everybody, we don't have gatherings at our physical campuses next Sunday, but we'd love to see you all back on Sunday, the 14th. We'll gather back together again and hey, if you want to give, we believe giving is one of the ways that we tell God He's good, that every good and perfect gift comes from Him. So you can give tithes or offerings at any of the boxes on the way out or online. Man, there's a lot of great stuff that happens around here so make sure you scan that QR code before you head out because you don't want to miss out. There's lots of fun. Like today, right after, when we walk out of here, man, there's all kinds of games to play, there's some great stuff in the Café, there's free cookies out there. Everybody likes free cookies. Even if you don't like cookies, you like free cookies. But enjoy celebrating, hanging out with the family today. Hey, before we go, let's declare these truths together. That God is good. Jesus has forgiven me. I am loved and everything is possible. Have a great week of rest. Love you guys.