Read-along
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Well, good morning, Echoes Church. Welcome to our first ever worship weekend. If you could just take a seat for just a second, I got a couple of thoughts I want to share with us before we jump back into some more singing.
Again, if you're brand new, you're just joining us, my name is Daniel. I'm the lead pastor here. And if you've been looking for a church, again, I'm a little bit biased, but I think you found the best church in the history of the world here at Echoes, and we're we're honored to have you here.
Again, if you're new, just text the word new to 31707.
It just lets our team follow-up with you and kinda help you get plugged in here at the church. And, again, you'll notice that we don't have a moment during service where we pass offering plates. 99% of all of the giving takes place online, and thank you so much for all of you who participate here financially. Everything we do here is only because of your generosity. Again, all the ways you can give are up on the screen behind me. There's also an offering box on your way out of service, but I just have a few moments with us between singing. We just we really believe that God, a couple months ago, when we put this date on the calendar, obviously none of us knew what was gonna unfold in our country, but I think God knew what was coming. And so I think this weekend is here for a reason.
And I don't know if you've been feeling anything like what I've been feeling, but there's just something that's happening in our country right now. I feel like we've just seen the face of evil in ways that honestly, don't think we've ever seen before, at least I've never seen in my lifetime.
Watching that poor girl get get murdered on a train, the school shootings, 09:11, and then to top it all off to watch a Christian guy stand up in front of a a community of people to talk about beliefs that he he agreed with, that he knew the crowd disagreed with, and for him to get murdered, it's just it's horrendous. And obviously, now, it's Charlie Kirk's memorial service, and all this stuff is happening in our nation. And it just is like, what do we do?
How do we respond? I think that's honestly the thing that we've been wrestling with. And so I just, again, as I've been thinking about you, praying for you, I feel like there's two things I wanna remind all of us that you and I as the followers of Jesus, as his representation
on this earth, there's two things I wanna remind us that we need to do in how we respond in moments like this. K? Second Chronicles
chapter verse 14. This is a message to the church. Notice who it's entitled to. Notice who it's written to. Says then if my people who are called by my name, again, just for the next thirty seconds, if you're not a follower of Jesus, you can tune out. This doesn't apply to you, but for those of you who are here,
who have put your faith in Jesus, here's what you are supposed to do. It says, if you and I will humble ourselves and pray and seek God's face, and here it is, in turn from our wicked ways that God will hear from heaven, and he will forgive our sin, and he will restore our land. I just wanna remind us this morning.
I wanna remind us this morning that here is what precedes revival. See, think what's happening is I think the enemy knows. I think the enemy knows that we are about to encounter probably the greatest spiritual awakening of the last few hundred years. And I believe that God has been stirring,
that the kindling for revival has been here for years, and I think it's starting to happen, but the enemy knows that it's coming. So he's trying to do everything he can to tear it apart. And what's amazing is if you go back throughout all of our country's history,
and you see the great spiritual awakenings that have happened over the last few hundred years, there's always one event that precedes revival in the nation. You know what it is? It's repentance
in the church. See, we think that this is what the nation needs, That the nation the nation needs to repent. Bad people out there need to repent. And again, eventually it will get there. But you know how it starts?
It starts with you and I. It starts with us gathering this morning going, God, there's things in our heart that if we're honest, we're not proud of. There's division, there's hatred, there's anger.
Remember Jesus said to have anger in your heart is is the same thing as committing murder. That you and I have things in our heart that we need to allow God to deal with. And as we repent, the promise of heaven is that revival will follow it.
And I just wanna remind all of us this morning, when you're sitting here with an uncertainty going, what do we do? We start with repentance. Repentance is the first thing we need to do to seek God's face and turn from our wicked ways and beg him to heal our land. And secondly,
right after repentance, we gotta make a decision with fear all around, uncertainty all around us, we gotta make a decision that it's time to fight. The second thing we gotta do is we gotta fight. And some of you got way too excited when I said it's time to fight. You're like, I've been waiting for somebody to give me permission to fight. Right?
I just wanna remind you what fighting looks like for us who are in Christ. Paul tells us second Corinthians chapter 10 verse four, the weapons that we fight with, they're not weapons of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
See, we gotta remember our fight is not with Republicans or Democrats. It's not with progressives or conservatives. It's not with men or women. Our fight is with a spiritual enemy. We don't wage war with social media. We wage war with songs in church. We might not have a physical weapon, but we've been given worship.
And I know sometimes it feels like, oh, we're just we're just singing songs, but if we could I'm telling you this morning, if we could peel back the layer between the physical world and the the spiritual realm that is all around us, worship is warfare when you begin to understand it. We've been given weapons
to wage war with. We've been given the ability to fight the darkness on the earth today, but it's not on social media. It's not with policies. Though as Christians, do we have a responsibility to be engaged? Yes and amen. But we will not usher usher in revival in our land through policies.
You know, Jesus only talked about policy and government one time. He's like taxes? Yeah. Pay them. But you're not gonna change the world there. Here's how we change the world. Run after God with all that you have. Give him every single part of your heart and watch what God can do with the life surrendered to him.
If you and I repent, if we seek his face, he promises that he will unleash revival on our land. That's our prayer this morning. Our prayer is God.
God, would you search our hearts? I'm telling you the greatest revenge on whatever side of this thing you land, the greatest revenge that we can do to the enemy is to bring revival.
This is what our nation needs to turn back to God. I'm gonna ask you if you would just just stand with me. I wanna pray for us, and we're gonna we're gonna keep singing and believing
that in the spiritual realm right now, we are going to battle. So, father, God, right now, we lay our lives bare before you, Holy Spirit. God, would you show us this morning the places of our heart that we've kept hidden from you? God, the day is coming. I think the moment is at hand for the people of God to make a decision
if we're gonna just continue to sit on the sidelines and play church, or if we're gonna step in and engage in the fight.
Father, right now, God, we have to make a decision. Every single one of us, are we willing to literally die for this thing? Because that was that was always the ask. That God, if we're willing to lose our life, then we will actually find it. And Father, I thank you for spiritual awakening that's happening in our country. Father, I thank you for the revival that is starting in the house of God. And father, right now, all the questions, all the uncertainties that we don't we don't know and we can't solve. Father, we trust you with them.
And God, ask that you would begin to heal our land. In the name of Jesus, we rebuke the enemy in our schools. We rebuke what the enemy is trying to do in our country. We rebuke the enemy in our homes, in our marriages, and in our families. This land belongs to Jesus. Our hearts belong to Jesus. Father, show us.
Show us where we need to turn back to you. God show us where we've settled into just plain church. Father receive our worship this morning. In Jesus name all God's people said, amen.