All right, everybody, Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Welcome to 2020. New beginning, fresh start, second chances in Jesus’ name. And I am so glad that you are here with us. Whatever campus you’re at, Denton, Flower Mound, Lewisville, The Venue, watching or listening online somewhere in the world, come on, let’s give a great big beginning of the year welcome to each other. 

I am so glad that you are here with us at the beginning of a new decade. Wooh. The last time we were together was for our Christmas services and we had amazing Christmas services together. Thank you for inviting and serving and creating an environment for people to experience the hope of Jesus. We had the most amount of people that we have ever had for a Christmas experience and I believe we created an incredible opportunity for people to be encountered with the hope of Jesus and we did it together because we are a movement of hope. And so, I hope you and your family had a great Christmas and New Year’s. I hope you had the chance to rest and relax, maybe reflect a little bit. 

And last weekend, we didn’t gather together as a church. We had a special online-only service. And what we do on the last weekend of every year is we just let everything rest. All of our buildings and locations and serve team members and leaders and staff, we just let it all rest because every single week, hundreds and hundreds of serve team members are prepared to serve you whether you’re here or not. Every single week, there are people ready to open the door for you whether you’re walking in it or not, people to take your kids whether you’re here or not, people to serve you with a cup of coffee whether you want one or not, people who are working on the music, people who are doing the production, people who are investing into our students. 

Every single week throughout the entire year, there are hundreds of serve team members serving us with the love of Jesus. And I pray that we never take that for granted, that we never take for granted what God’s doing in this place and what do we get to be a part of. 

And so, sometimes when you just take a week off and let everything rest, and honestly, it creates a sense of gratitude in your heart of what you’re a part of. And my hope is that you will never take that for granted because entitlement is the birth place of bitterness. When you think you’re entitled to all this, it starts to create a bitterness inside of you. We’re not entitled to this. This is a gift of God that we get to be a part of. 

And so, thank those serve team members. When you see them and you engage with them, maybe an usher put you in a seat you don’t like right now. Well, thank them anyway. So say, “Thank you for helping me get a seat and I’m just glad that I got one today in Jesus’ name.” Come on, you with me on that? That’s part of -- That’s part of why we take the week off and I hope you watched the special online service and if you didn’t get a chance, please go online and watch it. 

It’s about 20 minutes and it just shows you the journey that we went on last year. See, if you were here with us last year, this weekend, last year, we said our theme for the year was to pioneer. It was to take new ground and I know a lot of you, if you were here, it didn’t make sense. You didn’t understand it. And then all of a sudden, a year later, you watch that recap video and you’re like, “Oh my goodness.” In the name of Jesus, we didn’t just talk about pioneering. We pioneered and we took some ground. And I wanted to build your faith and remind you that you are a part of something bigger than yourselves. This is a movement of hope that we get to be a part of in Jesus’ name. And so, here we are. It’s 2020, man. 

It’s 2020. Some of you, 2019 was like the hardest year of your life and you couldn’t wait for it to be over. Some of you, 2019 was like the best year of your life and you loved it. Some of you are just figuring out right now that it’s 2020. But whatever your perspective is on where we are, it’s a new year. We’re going on a new journey together. I hope you will set it in your heart right now to just say, “Regardless of what my life looks like, I’m going to be here. I want to be a part of what God’s doing. I want seek Him first. I want to go on this journey with these people towards discovering everything God has for me and my life.” 

And normally, what we do on this weekend of the year is I cast a bunch of vision to you and usually tell you our theme for the year. But we’re going to do something a little different today. I’ll tell you our theme for the year probably the first or second week of February. We’ve got it. God has been working on that in our hearts, so I can’t wait to share that with you. But what I want to do, as we start a new year and a new decade, is I just want to start this season by talking about Jesus. I know some of you are like, “Isn’t that what we usually talk about?” 

It is and yet even in a Jesus-focused church, it’s amazing how easy it is to lose sight of Jesus. so, all I want us to do for this season is just start by talking about Jesus, that he is more than enough. He’s more than enough for the year. He’s more than enough for the decade. He’s more than enough for your family, your finances, your future, all of it. He’s more than enough. And so, what if we just start this season by turning the affection and the focus and the attention of our heart to just Jesus? Like what if we let Jesus be our vision for 2020? What if instead of trying to lose a few pounds or hit those goals or get rid of some bad habits or start some new habits that we try every year in 21 days into the year, we’re already like off the wagon on that deal. What if instead of all that, what if we just let Jesus be our vision and watch what he can do on the midst of our lives? 

See, check out this first verse, I love this, he says, “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.” He says, “I’m afraid that you’ll be deceived and led astray and stop believing that Jesus is more than enough.” He says, “I’m afraid that you’re going to forget how important Jesus is and how simple and pure it really is when we make Jesus the main thing when we believe he is more than enough, how he changes everything.” He says, “I’m afraid that you’ll be deceived and led astray to think Jesus is not enough.” That he’s not enough for your life right now in this season, in your past, in your present, in your future. And that verse screams to me, because I never want us to be deceived or led astray from the simplicity of the life of Jesus. He’s more than enough.

You see, one day, Jesus and the disciples were walking along and Jesus looked at the disciples, kind of asked them a question out of nowhere and he said, “Hey, guys, who did the people say that I am?” In other words, “What do the people think about me?” In other words, “Hey guys, do the people think I’m relevant?” And the disciples all got real quiet and they hesitated and they weren’t sure who was going to talk first, and they all pulled back a little bit and there was just a moment of pause. And then they started speaking up and they said, “Well, Jesus, some people think you’re like Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets.” In other words, “Jesus, some people think you’re a good man. Some people think you’re a religious guy. Some people think you’re a good teacher. Some people even think that you’re a part of their life but Jesus, the people, kind of, think you’re irrelevant. That you’re irrelevant to where their life is.”

He says, “Okay, but what about you? Who do you say that I am? Who am I to you?” Quiet. They looked at each other and then Peter steps forward and he says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” In other words he says, “Jesus, you are our everything. You are not just a part of life, you are life itself and you are the most relevant thing in this universe.” And Jesus looks at them, and he says, “Blessed are you for understanding that I am the most relevant thing in the universe. And I tell you that story because as we sit on the edge of a new year and a new decade, Jesus is really walking into our lives and he’s asking us those same questions today. He’s saying, “Hey, who do the people in your life say that he is?”

What does your spouse, or your kids, or your parents, or your friends, or your neighbors, or your coworkers, like, who do they say Jesus is? I would bet most of the people in your life, they would say that Jesus is a good teacher, a religious figure, a nice guy, maybe the guy that, kind of, ruins the party a little bit with some of his expectations and commandments, or he’s the guy that you go to when you’re desperate, or he’s the guy that yeah, yeah, if you pray that prayer when you die, you kind of, got the next life figured out. Like, like if we’re honest, we know most people in our life would say, Jesus maybe is a part of their life but he’s irrelevant to their life. And then Jesus would look at you and he would say, “Okay, but what about you? Who do you say that I am?”

Who is Jesus to you like this very moment today? Is he a teacher, a leader, a religious guy, somebody you prayed a prayer to somewhere in the past? Is he a part of your life or is he life itself? Is Jesus irrelevant or is he relevant to you? And what’s so interesting is regardless of what our answer is, he still is the most relevant thing in the universe. Because relevancy is not determined by feelings, it’s determined by truth. There’s a whole lot of things in life we’re told are irrelevant and a whole lot of things we’re told are relevant but it doesn’t make something irrelevant or relevant based on a perception, a feeling, or opinion. What makes something relevant is truth. 

Like, listen to this, look at what Jesus says about himself, he says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” He says, “I am life.” He doesn’t say I am a part of life. He says, “I am life itself.” If he is life, I would just submit to you that that makes him the most relevant thing in the universe. Or how about this next verse, it says, “You have been from everlasting to everlasting, the one and only true God.” If he is everlasting to everlasting, that means he was before everything and he’ll be around long after everything. He is the creator, the sustainer, and the redeemer of all things, the one and only true God which makes him the most relevant thing in the universe, regardless of what our answer is to who we say that he is. 

See, here’s the journey that we’re all on. We’re all on this journey of God being outside of our lives, to Jesus being a part of our lives, to Jesus becoming the center of our life. We’re all on this journey of Jesus being irrelevant to our lives to becoming relevant in our lives and the problem with what a lot of us do, if we’re honest, is we compartmentalize Jesus. We compartmentalize Jesus in spirituality, in our spiritual life into this one little compartment in our life, kind of, like, like compartments in an ice cube tray. If you think of an ice cube tray, it has all those little compartments, we put Jesus in one of those. And some of you, you’re sitting here, if you were born after like 1990, an ice cube tray was a piece of plastic. 

With various compartments. You fill it up with water on an angle, it runs down and you put it in the freezer, it freezes and then you have ice cubes. Education of the day, okay? Here’s what we do, we compartmentalize our life. We’ve got a compartment for our finances and one for our family and one for our job and then there’s one for Jesus and then there’s one for our dreams and our desires and our destinies and our friends and our hobbies and our house, we compartmentalize everything and the moment you compartmentalize Jesus, you’ve instantly just made him irrelevant to your own life. 

And here’s what I want you to understand: Jesus is not a compartment of your life, he’s the entire ice tray. He is not a compartment, he is not one piece of the ice cube tray, he is the entire tray. If he is the resurrection and the life, then he is life and he holds everything else together. In fact, if he is life, then any area of your life that you don’t include him is already dying. I want you to think about this because you have to be confronted with this truth. He says, “I am the resurrection and the life,” so you either have to decide is Jesus lying or is he telling the truth? Because if he is life itself, then anywhere you remove him from an area of your life, that area is already dying. If I remove him from my finances, my finances are going in the wrong direction regardless of what it says in my bank account. 

If I remove him from my family, my family is going in the wrong direction. If I remove him from my future, from school, from my heart, from my relationships, if he is life, if I remove him or compartmentalize him and separate him from everything else, then those things are dying and there’s no hope of a resurrection. Why? Because he’s the resurrection and the life. Are you with me on this? He is not a compartment of the tray, he holds the whole thing together and if you still don’t get the ice cube tray, he is not an app on your phone, he’s the entire phone. Let me say it like that. He is not an app you open up one hour a week, he’s your entire phone, he makes all the other apps work. Millennials, we got it, right? 

Okay, now we got it. You’re like, “Oh my -- that’s the best thing you’ve ever said in church. I got it.” Okay, come on. What does it mean for something to be relevant, what it means is it’s worthy of your attention, your affection, your focus and you allow it to influence you. And we make decisions every day of what’s relevant and what’s irrelevant. And you have to look at it and you have to start thinking, well, how do you know if you think something’s relevant? Well, just look at how you engage it, like just track with me on this for a second. For example, if you don’t have any pets, pet stores are irrelevant to you. Like I don’t have any pets. I could care less about the pet stores. I don’t know where they are in town, I don’t care if they all close down, I don’t have a pet. 

Some of you are like, “I don’t know that I can go to this church anymore.” Yeah, okay, I know. Why is it irrelevant to me? Because I don’t have a pet. So pets are irrelevant to me, so a pet store is irrelevant to me, I don’t even know where it is. How about the Cowboys? If you don’t like the Cowboys -- no, hang on. Hang on. Whoa. If you don’t like the Cowboys, you don’t care who the new coach will be. You’re not reading the articles, you’re not engaging in the conversation, that conversation is irrelevant to you, why? Because the Cowboys are irrelevant to you if you don’t like them. How about classical music? If you don’t like classical music, if it’s irrelevant to you, you’re not downloading it, you don’t know who’s winning Grammys, people are selling millions of albums that you’ve never even heard of and you don’t care why because classical music is irrelevant to you. How about this? The millions of people you don’t follow on social media. 

You don’t follow them, why? Because what they have to say is irrelevant to you. You don’t want to see their family Christmas picture, you don’t want to see what they ate for breakfast, you don’t want to listen to their nonsense thoughts, right? Why? That’s irrelevant to you. Okay. Jesus. If we don’t engage the scriptures, we don’t engage with the people of God and we’re not a part of the mission of God and we don’t prioritize the gathering of the people of God and we’re not desperate to listen to the voice of God, that’s actually telling us is that Jesus is irrelevant to us. Your behaviors reveal your beliefs. You can say Jesus is relevant all day long but if you put him in a compartment or if you made him a single app on the back, on the fourth screen, flipping through of your phone, your behaviors are telling you what you actually believe on whether or not you think Jesus is really relevant to your life. And what I’m trying to encourage you with is just simply this: stop letting irrelevant things tell you what is or isn’t relevant and let the one who is relevant show you His relevancy this year. 

Cone on, God doesn’t want to be outside your life, He doesn’t want to be a part of your life, He is life itself and He wants to hold everything else in your life together and bless it and make it fruitful and flourish in Jesus’ name. And so sometimes, what we have to do is we have to go all the way back to the beginning. Like if you go all the way back to when this whole thing started when we call ourselves followers of Jesus, like where did that come from and what did that mean. Here it is, it’s just that from that time on, Jesus began to preach. Beginning of his ministry, he’s 30 years old and he had one message. We think Jesus had all these different messages, he had one. From that time on, he began to preach one message: repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent. Such a good word, repent. It means change your mind, it means stop thinking in agreement with the world and start thinking in agreement with God. 

It means stop going your way and start going God’s way. Change your mind, change your direction and it’ll change your life. Repent. Re means to go back, pent, think penthouse. Top floor view. In other words, go back and get God’s perspective on life. Repent. Repent, why? Because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. What does that mean? It says change your thinking and stop looking from the world to heaven and start looking from heaven to the world. Hope is here, grace has come, love is alive, so change your mind about what is and isn’t relevant. That’s what Jesus’ message was. And as he was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. As Jesus was walking along, he saw, he saw Peter and Andrew. He saw them. 

He didn’t see them, he saw them. He didn’t see who they were, he saw who they could be. He saw their purpose and their destiny, he saw the divine creation within them, he saw that they were made in the image and likeness of God, he saw their dreams and their desires and their hopes, he saw the shame and the fear and the brokenness and the pain inside them, he saw all of the things that no one else, not even that they saw about themselves, he saw them for who they were right where they were with a destiny upon their life. He saw them, he saw them. And they were casting a net into the lake for they were fishermen and he sees them and he says, “Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Just come follow me.” Interrupts their life with grace. If you were here with -- for Christmas, that’s what we talked about. He interrupted their life with grace and gave them an invitation of grace, he said, “Come follow me.” 

Notice what he doesn’t say. He doesn’t say, ”Come learn about me,” he doesn’t say, “Identify with me.” He didn’t say, “Talk about me,” he didn’t say, “Hey, show up to my weekly gathering wherever it is in town,” he didn’t give them a little bumper sticker to put on the back of their boat with the little fish on it, he didn’t give them a cool t-shirt to wear, no, he said, “Come follow me. Follow me. Come with me. Let’s have a relationship. Let me take you to places that you’ve never been and show you things that that you don’t know. Come be a disciple. Learn from me and become like me in the process. Come follow me and I will make you. I will make your life.” And it says at once, they left their nets and they followed him. They had a choice to make. Peter is standing there with his boat and here is Jesus inviting him to come follow him and Peter’s holding onto his boat and he’s got to decide. He’s got to decide what’s more relevant: his boat or Jesus. 

What’s more relevant: fishing or Jesus? And I’m sure with a whole lot of trepidation, Peter let go of that boat, took one step away from the safety of the shore, started following Jesus and with every step, he saw more of Jesus and became even more free of the brokenness in his own life and along the way, he learned how to live as a beloved son of God. The reason Jesus invites them to follow him is he’s saying, “Come, let me show you how to live free as a beloved son or daughter,” and what Jesus is really saying is he’s saying, “Come on, let me show you this,” and you have to ask yourself this question like what would make grown men leave their fishing business? Because Jesus offered them hope, he offered them forgiveness, he offered them freedom and purpose, what he offered them was more relevant than what they currently had. 

Okay, so I tell you all that because as we sit here on the edge of a new year, here it is, Jesus. He’s still preaching the same message that he started preaching all those years ago, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent.” It’s such a good new year to repent. To what? Change your thinking, change your mind, stop going your way and by grace, through faith, start going God’s way. Stop looking at heaven through the world, start looking at your world through heaven and change your mind about what is and isn’t relevant because hope is here, grace has come and love is alive and he sees you. Like right now in this room where you’re sitting, he sees you. He sees the dreams, the desires, the destinies, the calling, he sees the pain and the shame and the brokenness. He sees the anguish and the torment, he sees the things that you can’t even see about yourself that no one in your entire life has ever seen or called out in you. 

He sees all of it. And the more he sees you, the more he wants you and the more he loves you and the more he calls you and he says, “Come follow me. Not identify with me, not learn about me, not sit around and talk about me, not come to church once, so come, come on, come and follow me and I will make you,” and let’s be honest, he’s a whole lot better at making than we are at following. And like Peter, we get a choice, we’re holding on to something that’s irrelevant and he’s inviting us to follow him, the only one who is relevant and we’re terrified if we’re honest and we have a choice, are we going to let go so that we can receive all that he offers. We all have to decide. Is he an app on our phone or is he the phone itself? Is he a compartment in our tray or is he the tray itself? 

See, every one of us in this room, we’re one of three spots, we’ve either yet to follow Jesus, we started following Jesus and drifted away or we’re currently following Jesus like right here, right now. And we’re all on the journey and whichever one you are in that moment, in that reality, that’s okay. Today, this is what he’s saying to all of us, because he says this over and over again. See, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, “Follow me.” What does that actually mean? We say we’re followers of Jesus, we’re called to follow him but then if we’re honest and we look at our lives, what happens -- and even in this conversation, I know some of you are like, “This doesn’t feel like a happy new year’s message.” 

It’s actually a really happy new year’s message because I’m not trying to make you feel good, I’m trying to help you live free. And we look at this and we start realizing if we’re honest, we’re like, “I don’t know that I follow Jesus. I got him in my life but he’s not really my life.” So I’ve been thinking about following -- going to the next thing and here’s just what I think, following is moving forward even when we don’t understand it and it’s obeying even when we don’t feel like it. Can we delete that slide? 

Because this is why we don’t like it, we got to move forward when we don’t understand it, we got to obey even when we don’t feel like it and let’s be honest, most of what Jesus is going to ask us to do is to move forward when we don’t understand it and obey when we don’t feel like it. So then, we’re left with relevant or irrelevant. Sometimes, the level of discomfort that comes in the process is what makes us choose what’s relevant or irrelevant. So here’s the question, who decides how you live your life? Who decides how you use your money? 

Who decides what kind of decisions you make, who decides what you do with your time, what attitudes and perspectives you have on life, who you submit and surrender to, who decides all that stuff? Because at the end of the day, here’s the reality, you’re either following Jesus or you’re leading yourself. There’s not an in between. I’m either following him and it doesn’t mean I always get it right but it means my heart is even when I get it wrong, I’m quick to repent and say, “All right, Jesus, I got that one wrong but your grace has given me the courage to move forward,” or I’m leading myself. I’m saying, “Why would I let Jesus say anything about my finances? That’s in this compartment, he’s in this compartment.” They’re irrelevant of each other until you understand that he is life itself and if he is not a part of that conversation, it’s already dying. Come on, are you with me on this? Have you ever followed somebody in a car? You’re going to go somewhere and you don’t know where it is and they jump in their car, you jump in theirs and they say, “I know where it is, follow me.” 

So you start following them and really, all you do is focus on them and you kind of got to go where they go. They may get off the highway and you’re like, “Why are we getting off the highway?” They may go down the street you don’t like, that scares you. You may take a detour that feels like the long way but they know where they’re going and you don’t, so you have to just follow, you have to move forward if you don’t understand, you have to obey, “I’m turning right even thought I don’t feel like it.” Okay. We learn how to do that with Jesus. And we grow in this. This isn’t like you’ve got it figured out on day one, this is the journey that we’re all on. Even just think physically, think of like a toddler following an adult on a path. A toddler following an adult down a path, every parent in this room knows what a disaster that is. 

Why, because the toddler won’t do it. The toddler has to be dragged along, they want to sit down and cry, they want to go backwards, they see a frog, they run to the side, it’s whatever it is, right? They don’t really follow really easy. Okay, well -- but then they grow up and they become a teenager and a teenager can follow an adult down a path a little bit easier but there’s still a lot of, “Are we there yet?” and, “Why do we have to go this way?” and then, “Why are we doing this anyways?” and, “How long will it take?” and they’re probably a little distracted because they’re cruising through their apps, trying to figure out which one they want to use, right? Sorry, teenagers. 

But then you grow into an adult and an adult can follow an adult down a path with almost nothing being said. That’s the journey we’re on. We all start with this inability to actually follow but the grace of God matures and grows us until we get to this place and we start moving forward when we don’t understand and we start obeying even though we don’t feel like it because we actually start believing he is not just a part of our life but he is life itself, the most relevant thing in our world. Are you with me on that? 

Jesus, more than enough. And where we get to sometimes is we get to this place and we forget, Jesus isn’t inviting you to follow him so you can do something for him, he’s inviting you to follow so he can do everything for you. He’s not inviting you to follow so you can do something for him, he’s inviting you to follow so he can show you he has already done everything for you. And if you don’t follow, hear me, that’s okay. Come on, man, when have you ever been in church and you’ve been told, “It’s okay not to follow.” It’s okay, God’s not mad at you, He’s not going to get you, He’s not going to have it out for you later, He’s not going to set up a trap to take you out, no, no, no, but you won’t experience the fullness of life that He has for you. 

And so the question is simply this, is are you following Jesus into life or are you forcing your way through life? If Jesus is life itself, are you following him into life, are you inviting him to move from being a compartment to becoming the whole reality of your life, are you following him and letting him bring life to your finances and your family and your future and your past and your present and your hobbies, are you letting him literally be the resurrection and the life of your world or are you forcing your way through life? Are you forcing your way trying to do it on your own, deciding that you’re leading yourself? Because that’s irrelevant. That’s irrelevant. That’s something that was said by some guy 2,000 years ago, why do I care about that or that’s irrelevant to my life. I don’t need to hear God or that’s irrelevant, I don’t need to be at that gathering or that’s irrelevant, I don’t need to submit and surrender to that command because I feel like this, it’s one or the other. 

And if you’ve been forcing your way through life for a long time, I would bet you’re tired, because it’s exhausting to force your way through life. And the question we have to ask is then why don’t we follow? Well, because if we’re honest, at the end of the day we don’t really believe he’s a good shepherd, we don’t think he’s more than enough to shepherd us into green pastures. But look at this. John, chapter 10, Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know my voice or my sheep know me. My sheep listen to my voice and I know them and they follow me.” He says, “I am a good shepherd. And because I’m good, you can follow me and I will speak to you and show you the way and when you start to believe I’m a good shepherd and you follow me, you’ll actually get to know me.” 

So could it be that we often feel really distant and disconnected from God because we’re not actually following? It’s not that he’s not inviting, it’s oftentimes that we’re just like, “That’s just not really relevant right now. That’s just not really worth my attention or my focus or allowing it to influence me.” Why? Because something else has captured my attention. But look, as you walk into this new year, go to the next verse, look at it, “The Lord is your good shepherd. You shall not be in want, He makes you lie down in green pastures, He leads you beside quiet waters. Even though you will walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you don’t have to fear evil because he is with you.” Hear me. In 2020, you’re going to go through some green pastures, you’re probably going to walk through some dark valleys and you’re going to spend a whole lot of time in the space in between. 

So don’t forget about it when you’re in the green pastures, don’t lose sight of Him when you’re in the dark valley and don’t marginalize him when you’re in the space in between. Come on. He is the most relevant thing in the pasture, He is the most relevant thing in the valley and He is the most relevant thing in the space in between, He is relevant whether we decide to allow Him to be relevant in our lives or not. It doesn’t change Him, it changes us. 

Are you with me on that? Listen, I get it. It’s like, “Oh bro, follow me. Couldn’t you have started the year with a three-point message to make me feel good?” Listen, I’m going to be really honest with you. It’s so much easier for me to give you messages that just make you feel good. Here’s a three-week series on starting the new year with a fresh start. Point number one, this; point number two, that; point number three, yay. And you’ll feel good for about three weeks. But you won’t be free. I’m not trying to make you feel good, I’m trying to help you be free. And we all have to be reminded to follow Jesus. He says it over and over again, “Follow me. Follow me. Follow me. Follow me.” And we start. He starts outside of our life, he becomes a part of our life. He moves into the center of our life and as we live life, it’s amazing how he drifts back over here to be an outside of the center and in those moments, his grace, it’s calling to us again and saying, “It’s okay. Come on, follow me. Repent, change your mind, change your direction. Come on. That thing is not more relevant than I am, pull me back into the center and let me make the whole thing work.” Come on, Matthew chapter four. Repent, change your mind about what is and isn’t relevant because he sees you right now. At the beginning of a new year, he’s inviting you to come follow him, he’s interrupting your life with grace. He’s inviting you by grace. And he’s empowering you to take that first step through grace. And if you will follow, he will make you and you get the choice of what is relevant in your life. But it doesn’t determine what is relevant in the universe. 

Last verse for you. Matthew chapter 6, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you.” Come on, he says, “Follow me. Follow me and I will bring life to every other thing in your world.” The world says, everything else is more relevant than Jesus. Jesus says, “If you let me be the most relevant thing in your life, I will bring life to every other area of your world.” 

So what if -- what if 2020, our vision was to follow Jesus. Not to lose a few pounds, not to make a few bucks, not to knock a couple of bad habits, not to pick up some new adventures, what if it was just following Jesus? What if it was literally like, “Jesus, I want you to be more than enough for me. And I need your grace.”

And I get it, some of you are sitting here, you’re like, “Like really, man?” Like I know. I know. Hear me. Because some of us is like we’re sitting here and like, honestly? Jesus is not more relevant to me right now than all this other stuff. That’s okay. Hear me. That’s okay. Tell him. Hey, Jesus, I got to be honest with you, man, my fishing boat is more relevant than you are right now. Tell him that. You’re like, duh. In any other relationship in your life, that would implode on you. In this relationship in your, it’s the only way to move forward. 

Jesus, you’re not really all that relevant to me right now. I got you in this little compartment on the end. Would you help me, though? Would you maybe give me some grace to change my thinking? Would you help maybe take one step or two or even just expand the compartment that you’re in so it’s not the one on the end, but maybe it gets moved into two or three? Tell him. Here’s what I want to invite you to do -- go to the last slide -- is what if you just got this. It’s on the website. You can just grab this image. What if you just put this on your phone? For just this month as we go through this. What if every day, you just look at it and either said it or prayed it out loud, “Jesus, you are more than enough.” Jesus, you are more than enough for my marriage. Jesus, you are more than enough for how I feel at school. Jesus, you are more than enough for my future. Jesus, you are more than enough for this decision. 

I don’t feel it, I don’t believe it, I don’t even know that I think it’s true. But I’m going to choose to by faith speak it out and say, “Jesus, I want you to become relevant in my life, so would you be more than enough in the areas that I need?” And watch how He begins to shift things in your life. My prayer for all of us is that we would live free and flourish in life. But it only comes from the one who calls, “Hey, I see you. I see you. Come follow me. Hope is here. Grace has come. And love is alive.” “Let’s go to a new place together.” So you close your eyes with me. Let me just ask you, what do you think the Holy Spirit is saying to you today? Beginning of a new year, a new decade, a new season. Here’s my sense, I think the Holy Spirit is calling to all of us and lifting up the name of Jesus and saying, “Hey, hey, we haven’t always got it right. We’ve made some mistakes, we’ve kind of drifted off the path. That’s okay.” He’s saying, “Hey, my grace is still calling to you right now saying, ‘Come on and follow me. Come on and let me be the most relevant thing in your life. Come on and let me be resurrection and life in every area that you will invite and include in. I am not just here to be a part of your life. I am here to give you life.’” 

And so here’s what I want to invite you to do in just a moment, I’m just going to invite you, if you’re saying, you know what, I want to follow Jesus this year. In a moment, I want to invite you to just stand up as a sign of faith. I’m going to invite you in a moment to stand up as a sign of like Peter and Andrew having to let go of that boat and move forward to say, “Jesus, I choose today,” to say, “I want you to be more relevant than the things in my life.” And so if that’s you, I just want to -- if you’re saying, “2020, I don’t know. But I want to follow Jesus.” 

By faith, nobody’s looking around, nobody’s looking at you. Don’t stand up if you don’t want to. That’s okay. It’s just a moment for those of us that are like, “I need this. I need to be called to follow Jesus.” I just want to invite you. Just stand up right now, whatever campus, whatever room you’re in, if that’s you. You don’t have to stand up. Stay down, nobody’s looking at you. 

We’re not going to embarrass for anything. It’s literally a sign of faith and saying, “Jesus, the things in my life, they’re no longer as relevant as you are. And so I choose to follow you into a new place.” So Lord, I pray for every person that is literally taking the step away from the safety of the shore on this adventure of following you. I pray that you would give us the courage and the strength to move forward, the courage to even just stand up and say, “I’m going to follow Jesus. I want to follow Jesus. I want Him to be the center of my life, not just a part of my life.” And so Lord, would you come and would you make us -- would you make us and shape us and form us into who you’ve created and called us to be as we follow you on this journey. 

And so everybody else, if you would just stand up with us, whatever campus you’re at, whatever room you’re in, I just want to pray over all of us here at the end of this -- or the beginning of this new year. And so Lord, we just pray a blessing of every person in this room that this new year and this new decade would be filled with life. 

That your grace would flow into all of our lives, forgiving, healing, empowering, drawing, transforming that God, you would come and bring us hope. That you would come and bring us freedom, that we would seek you first and know your voice and follow you to places we’ve never been before. That for all of us, Lord, that Jesus, would you be more than enough? 

In fact, would you just even -- we even say that out loudly for a second? Can we just say, Jesus, you are more than enough to start this new decade? Ready? Hang on. Ready? We’ll all say it together. Ready? Let’s just say -- and you don’t have to say it, but man, maybe it’s just a little step of faith towards Jesus. Ready? Jesus, you are more than enough. Say it again. Jesus, you are more than enough. Come on, you can feel it stirring in your spirit, can’t you?

One more time. Let’s say it. Come on, like say it. Jesus, you are more than enough. We declare that, Lord, over our lives, over our families, over our homes and our futures. You are more than enough. May that become true for every single one of us. Jesus, we love you and we follow you into this new decade together. You are more than enough. In your name, we pray. Amen.