Foundations | Week 5 | Tyshone Roland | Echoes Church

choosing community. Choosing community. Can we bow our heads and pray? Heavenly

father, I thank you for this opportunity to share your word with your people. I thank you for what you did last service, but, God, I ask you to do what only you can do this service. Lord, we thank you, and we love you in the mighty name of Jesus. And everybody said Amen.

Everybody said Amen. Can we give it up for our incredible worship team this morning? Weren't they amazing? I

saw someone on Instagram the other day, and they're like, I hate when people say give it up for the worship team. I'm like, you seem like you have a very bad attitude. So I don't know why. I'm a say give it up for the worship team because they showed up at matter of fact, they showed up at five something this morning. Can you give it up for them one more time?

Last night, I texted my mom as I often do randomly, and I just said, hey. I just wanna thank you

for choosing the church LV that I grew up in when I was a kid. I told her I was gonna be preaching to you guys this morning, and I was telling her that I'm a use her in the introduction of my sermon. And before she sees it on service, my mom loves to watch my sermons, but before she sees it, I wanted to tell her just thank you because I was thinking about this story as I was preparing to preach to you guys this weekend. I remember being eight, nine years old moving from Memphis, Tennessee. My mom was married to my first stepdad.

At the time, my mom is a mother of three children. My older brother at the time was living in Australia.

Me, I'm from a different man, and then my sister was from her current marriage. And unfortunately, there were some things that took place and transpired. So the marriage came to an end, and my mom wanted to find another life for their her children. She wanted to build another chapter. She didn't let what happened to her stop what God was gonna do in her, and I love that for my mom. And I wanna say that for anyone in this room, this sermon is not particularly to single mothers, but I had a few single mothers walk to me after service

during the first service, the real spiritual service. See, while y'all were sleeping, they woke up early and they were attentive and everything. But after service, someone came to me and they just said, hey, that sermon really meant a lot to me because I am a single mother. And and I always

admonish and respect single mothers so much because I remember. I remember my mom moving from Memphis, Tennessee and she moved us to Las Vegas. Don't judge her first because she had some friends in Las Vegas. We weren't gonna work at the strip or anything like that. She wanted to move us to Vegas. And my mom had a list of things that she wanted to accomplish. The first one was my mom wanted to get her high school diploma. The reason she didn't have it is because growing up she was really sick. So sick that they took her out of the school district and my mom wasn't able to graduate. And so she had to get her high school diploma. That was the first thing she did. My mom got her diploma in like less than two months. Y'all, she crazy. She's amazing like that. Then she got a job and her first job was working at Taco Bell to this day. I get Taco Bell PTSD but she was doing what she had to do to work for us and work for her. And then she found another job working for a chiropractor. My mom was working really hard. She finally got her home spot for me and my sister and herself. And I remember the first week there, she came into my room Sunday morning, came in early too. She's like, we're going to churches.

I said, you had an ass at that.

Churches. She was like, yeah, we're going to churches. I gotta find a church for us. So what do mean you gotta find a church? I'll go on Google. You don't have to search. I'll search for you. You can go to this one right down the street. We went to in the span of five, six, seven weeks, we went to probably anywhere between probably nine or 10 different churches. Went to black churches. I went to white churches. I went churches with no buildings. I went to Spanish churches. At one point, I didn't even care. I was like, mom, just choose one so we can be a part of a church. But my mom was so rigorous about this. I remember she would walk in. It was like she would feel something in the air. She would walk into a church. No, this ain't it. And then we would just walk out.

It's like, what's wrong with this church? I really like that man. That's a that's a good looking man. That man can preach. He got a great family. I don't feel it. I don't like it. We would keep trying out churches.

And it's kinda crazy the church I'm gonna tell you about because the church is called the church LV, and they were meeting in a school. Very similar to this. I wasn't in my thirties. I was a kid, and my mom had to drop me off at kids ministry. Now the kids ministry was a cafeteria, but the church,

because they were so amazing, people woke up early that morning, and just like we do here at Echoes, they set up the environment that you didn't feel like you were walking into a school. In fact, you felt like you were walking into

a church, and that church we committed. My mom walked out. She said, this is it. I was like, are you sure you wanna do the finger thing? You wanna figure it out first? Like, are are you sure this is the church? She was like, yeah.

And I'm gonna be honest, my mom made the best decision that she could have because that was the church that I gave my life to Jesus. It was in that church that I got called to ministry. It was in that church that I began to preach my first sermon. It was in that church that I learned so much. In fact, if you remove that church, I don't know if Tyshawn Roland is standing on this stage today.

My mom understood even though that we already kinda knew the Lord, she knew that my son and my family needs much more than just getting saved. My son needs community. My daughter needs community. Me as a single mother, I need community.

And my mom came part of this church and that church was so good, she met her husband. So anyone that's in this church, are you looking? Hey, look to your left and right. That could be the man you've been praying for. Alright?

It may not look as good as you want them to, but it could be the miracle that you want. Alright? So beggars can't be choosers. Alright? But I remember my mom made that decision to choose that community, and what that community provided for us was a belonging.

I felt like my mom understood what I wanted to talk to you about today, that faith does not end with belief. It moves towards belonging.

It wasn't just enough for Tyshawn to choose Jesus. Tyshawn had to belong in the community. Do you know that God wants you not to just come to a church, but he wants you to belong to a church? He wants you to be a part of community because community is such a powerful thing.

The things that you learn in community, the things that you see, even in the story, this is the book of acts, apostle Peter, he preaches this message and about 3,000 people get saved. To give you an idea of what 3,000 people would look like, if you came to every service of Echoes on a Sunday with all of our children with everything, it's about 3,000 people.

About 3,000 people, which 3,000 people in one year. Can we give it up for what the Lord did? This is crazy.

It's insane. Everywhere I go, want you to know people ask me about echos. They're like, is it true? I was like, is what true? They're like, is the church that big? I was like, it's big? And I was like, it's because pastor Daniel. He's a beautiful buff man. That that church is growing, man. It's a good church.

But I like to tell people why I love coming to Echoes. I don't love coming just because I preach. I actually love coming because of the stories I hear from from the different people that are part of this church and serve at this church. I love church and my mom kinda

she raised me in such a way to prioritize church. Even to this day, wife was telling me this is my last speaking engagement for the year. And next week, my wife was as she was dropping me off at the airport yesterday, she's like, what are we gonna do next week? I was like, we gotta move. We gotta do this. She was like, what are we gonna do for Sunday?

And I'm gonna be honest, as an evangelist, I should say, babe, let's go to church all the services. But I said, I'm tired. I was like, can we just watch online next week? And she said, no, we can't.

I was like, why babe? I'm like, online is a nice thing. She was like, was like, I'm just kinda tired. She's like, do you think he was tired when he went to the cross? I was like, don't do that. Don't don't do that. That's unfair. It's unfair.

But my what my wife was helping me understand is what I'm trying to help us understand this morning is that community is a commitment. It's not a convenience. The bible says that after they got saved, they devoted themselves.

They said we're committed to this. It didn't say that God fell and then everyone went back home and they went back into their own corridors living their own life by themselves. The Bible says that they got saved and they began to commit to community, breaking bread,

hanging out with each other in different homes, which is insane. When my mom put us in that church growing up, I remember this phenomenon called a small group. Never heard of that. I went to a black church before. We didn't do that. We did long services, we didn't do small groups. And I remember they were like, hey, let's sign up for small groups.

And it was so weird to me, and maybe you know exactly what I feel. You ever see someone who you usually see in church on a Sunday, and you see them on a Tuesday, and it just don't feel right? You're like, woah, This is not 09:20AM on a Sunday. What are you doing here? And you kinda realize that that person

can is much more than a person that goes to church. They actually have a story and you can connect with them. I remember the first time I joined the small group at church. I thought it was odd. I thought it was weird. I'm not trying to push small groups. I'm just being honest. I was like, I don't think I wanna go another person's house. I don't know them like that. Not everyone can cook, but everyone thinks they can cook and then that's bad. And I'm a have to fake eating this food. I don't really know, but what I realized is that when I got when I pushed through the nasty food in the weird opening games,

they get weird, and we started to have conversations, I realized that the thing that I need was not just on Sunday from a preacher, but I actually need the community that's found into the room with like minded people.

And I realized this that if I'm going to really be all the things that God asked me to be, I'm gonna have to commit myself to community. Even as a person that's an evangelist, I'll tell you because my wife is making me. Next week,

we're going to church. Why? Because it's not it's not something we do out of convenience, it's something we're committed to. And I'll tell you what the enemy would love. He would love for you to love church, but not love community.

He and if we're not careful, this is something I am so guilty of. Growing up, I love the preaching of God's word. I really really do. I love the preaching of God word. I remember this story, didn't get a chance to share it last service, but it's really funny to me. I me and my wife, we got married years ago. We just celebrated seven years and when we came back from our honeymoon, had the weekend off. I was working at a church and had a weekend off. So my wife, she's one of those people that she makes plans even though I didn't ask her to. Was like, I don't know why you're trying to fill up the whole day with things. Let's just relax. And she was like, can do this on Saturday. We can do this on Sunday. And I was like, on Sunday, can we go

can we go to someone's church? And she looked at me and she was like, you mean to tell me you work at a church and you wanna go to another church? I was like, yeah. Because I really love this preacher. This preacher y'all, he could preach. When I say he could preach, he was one of them. Like, he's one of those. And so I was so excited. I was so excited that I called one of my other friends. I was like, what you doing this Sunday? He said, we got a weekend off. I said, not anymore. You coming to church? He's like, no. We're not going to that church. I was like, no. We're gonna go to this church with so and so because he's preaching. And I remember we woke up really early. We jumped in my car. We all drove there. I didn't even talk to any of the volunteers to be honest. I was so rude. I was so because I wanted to get seat, you know, in these churches you gotta get a good seat. So I walked past everyone and it was a pew. I don't like pews. Pews give me p d PTSD,

but it's all good. So I sat in the second second row in the pew, and I remember the preacher who I thought was gonna get up, he didn't get up. And I started realizing, hey, where's the where's the preacher at?

And this guy gets up, and I'm a tell you what the preacher look like. I won't say his name, but the preacher that I was expecting is a big black man of God, huge.

And what came out is a small little white man. He was great. He could preach. He was phenomenal. Don't get me wrong. Like he was amazing. I ain't trying to judge him.

But it's not what I wanted to the point that my friends, I didn't know this, they were filming me because they found out that the preacher was gonna be there before I did. So they had the camera on me and this was my face when he came out. So I thought he was just doing announcements. I was like this.

The whole time I was judging the sermon, I was so annoyed. I was so upset. And I walked out and I remember walking to my car and I'll never forget this moment, and I had this feeling the Holy Spirit says young Tyshawn would be so disappointed in you. I was like, well, I don't care because he's young.

And I knew exactly what he was saying because when I was younger, it was never about who was preaching on the stage. It was never just about the communicator holding the mic. It was about the congregants in the room. It was never just about church

and what I could get from it. It was actually about community and what I could give to it. You gotta know that if you're going to choose community,

it's going to be something that you're gonna have to prioritize. It can't be something we do out of comfort, has to be something we do out of commitment. I'm committed to going to church. I'm committed to sacrificing. When I opened up the verses, talked about how in the book of Acts,

the church starts. Right? We're all meeting together. But by the time I read another verse in Hebrews, the time between Acts and Hebrews, about thirty to forty years. And the thirty to forty years, something must have switched because the preacher in Hebrews

in chapter 10 is saying, don't forsake the assembling of getting together. And I'm like, why would he be saying that in Hebrews when it seems like in the book of Acts, they couldn't get enough of each other? What happened between Acts and Hebrews?

Persecution. It wasn't convenient to say you were a Christian.

Now you say you're a Christian, you don't get a whole people to get behind you and find you. You can just post something online to find your people. Hey, I believe in Jesus. You're gonna find a group of people. But in this era, in this time in Hebrews, if you chose Jesus, sometimes it meant choosing your own death.

And people slowly started to drift away from community. Why? Because what this means. And I don't wanna lose my life, but you gotta understand this. Prioritizing God's house is always gonna come to a cost. And the cost, I don't believe today is going to be your life, but I do think it could be some time.

Throughout this week when you need to spend time, there's a cost. It's a cost of time. You wanna give that video game time? You wanna give that phone conversation time? You wanna give that movie time? You wanna give that TV show time? You have to give God time, and you have to give God's people time.

And you give God's people time by staying committed to church, and this is why church is so amazing because churches is gonna help grow you. Do you know that God grows people by using people? That's how God's gonna grow you.

That your growth is not tied into anything else except you getting connected to another person. Anytime that I recognize that God is about to change something in my life, someone walks into my life because God

grows people by adding to people. I was selling this to the service, last service that I remember the church I grew up, the church LV, every year we would end the year with this vision banquet.

People would dress up and it'll be this really cool thing and I really loved it. I don't know what it was about the vision banquet, It was just the idea of little Tyshawn in a tuxedo or something. I just love how it made me feel, but here was the issue. I didn't know how to tie a tie.

I know how to do it. And I brought it to my mom. I said, mom, can you can you tie this tie? And she looked at me and reminded me, I am a woman. I was like, you're right. You're right. And so I looked up YouTube, try to do it, couldn't do it. We had to hurry up and get to the church. We got to the church. I went immediately in the bathroom and I'm looking at the mirror and I'm just doing my best. They said, this and do this. And I'm like, why is this so short and that so long? And I was getting so frustrated. What was more annoying is that all these men were walking in the bathroom with their judgmental eyes just looking at me just like, oh, he don't know what he's doing. And every time one walked out, I had this wish in my mind. Can you just help me? I wasn't gonna say it because I don't wanna look stupid, but I just need them to help me. And I remember this one guy walked in. His name is Eric Willis. Eric Willis walked in, and he looked at what I was doing. He was like, don't know if he's tying tie or hanging himself. Don't know what he's doing. He went to the restroom,

then he stood right next to me, and I'm like sweating at this point. I'm looking at how you doing? You doing good? I'm just trying, you know, to figure this out. And he washes his hands, and he goes, and he puts his hand on the door. And he looks over at me, and in my mind, I'm like, if you don't help me, you got no soul, man. You need help.

And he looks over and he's like, can I help you? I said, absolutely. And I just gave it to him. I remember he was like, no, let me give it back to you. I want you to follow me. And that day he taught me how to tie a tie.

Now I'm not just saying when God grows you, he's gonna give you skills on how to tie a tie, but I'm a tell you why Eric Willis became very value

very valuable in my life. And I want someone to really hear me and hear me clearly because I wanna be honest. Eric Willis became a person in my life that called me out and called me up.

He he helped grow me. You know how he grew me? By sharing stories and calling things out of me. He would talk to me about finances. I didn't want him to, but he did. He would talk to me about pornography. I didn't want him to, but he did. He would talk to me about certain things that I never wanted,

but the power of community, you're gonna get lessons you need when you're in the rooms that you should be in. And what happened, not just Eric Willis, but other men like Stan Hicks, other pastors on staff, What they help do is that they help grow me.

I want you to know that you can grow in this church, and this is how you can grow, by listening to the stories of those around you. Ask people around you, what are you going through? Tell me your story. Tell me tell me what God has done in your life.

Because you know when you really start following the Lord, you start realizing all the things he's done for you. Like I can I can start crying almost on a instant if I just start thinking about how good God has been to me, how faithful he's been to me? And not just me, look how faithful God has been to you. Look at your family. Look at where you're at. Sure. You're not where you wanna be, but you're much further than you should be. God is so faithful.

And when I think about his faithfulness, you know what it makes me wanna do as I get more devoted to him? I wanna get more devoted to his people. Because you can't separate

God from his people, Just like you can't separate a man from his wife. I remember being younger and a preacher was saying this. He said this one time, he said, if you do not like if my wife don't like you, we can't be friends. And I remember thinking, oh man, that guy seems weak.

What are you talking about? You can't be friends if my wife don't like you. So we're gonna be friends. Then I got married.

And a few days ago, was talking to a guy that's like a best friend, little brother to me and he's single, he's 28. If anyone is looking for a man of God, honestly, I'll take applications. I promise you he's good. He's he got good credit. I'm just trying to help him out. He really needs to get married y'all. He he we're at that place in the friendship where I was like, I need you to understand my life. I need you to get married.

And he asked me something the other day. He's like, hey, is marriage really that serious? I was like, it's very serious. I was like, why? Why are you asking? He said, if my if your wife didn't like me I said, let me just stop you right there brother.

If my wife didn't like you, you would we wouldn't be on the phone right now. I was like, because if my wife don't like you and you don't like my wife, we cannot be friends. Why? Because me and my wife are one tooth.

To say you love Tyshawn Roland, but you do not care about Victoria Roland. I don't know if you really care about me because so many things about me are only what they are because of who she is. Like my wife is phenomenal and I can't separate what I do and who I am for who she is and what she does. Just like that analogy, that's the church.

You can love Jesus, and I'm gonna say this to someone who's in this room and maybe you're like, you know what? I can get through this by myself. You cannot. You cannot. No. All I need is Jesus and I'm good. Mm-mm. Even Jesus was surrounded by disciples. Even the apostles were committed to one another.

You need other people. Why do we need other people? Because this life is hard. Like, I'm not trying to I'm a man. I'm I'm gonna do what I'm called to do. At the end of the day, I'm not gonna cry about it being hard, but it is hard.

We go through so many things in this life, don't we? Whether it's things with our children, whether it's things with our sanity, whether it's things with our insecurity,

whether it's stuff with our shame. And what we would like to believe is that I can do this by myself. Let me tell you this, you can't do it by yourself. You need help. You need people. You need community. And oftentimes, if we're not careful, we'll just eject

ourselves out of the community part of God, and we'll just commune with God himself. But the best parts, my best times with the Lord is usually when I'm with his people because a devotion to God usually leads to devotion to his people. I have a question. Are you devoted to people? Do you care about people?

When you come to church, are you just coming to hear for them from the communicator? Are you coming to connect with other people in the congregations? Some of us, especially in today's age in society, like I said, I'm I'm guilty for this where we care so much about the communicator.

Let me tell you what's just as great if not greater than the communicator, the community in that church. The people in that church. And the people in the seats are gonna be the people that are gonna help you walk into all the things that God has for you. We can't do this thing alone. You can't do marriage alone.

You can't do business alone. You definitely can't do children alone. I thought having a child was easy than I had when I said Lord help me. This daughter's crazy. She won't stop crying. I need help.

I need help trying to figure out how to do this. I need help trying to figure out how to stay patient. I need help. God, I know what the scripture says, but can you give me somebody? And and so many people are out there praying for help and the solution to your soul is not just salvation from God, it's a community to with his people.

You gotta be committed. As you're thinking about 2026, I know if you're like me, I'm one of those people that I'm already starting my New Year's resolutions because I'm a weirdo like that, and I'm thinking about all the things that I'm doing. It's something even personally that I'm challenged by is I want in 2026

my church relationships to be better. I don't just wanna get fit, I do. I would love to look like pastor Daniel. I just want, you know, I would love to learn Spanish. I would love to be better at piano. I would love there's a lot of things I wanna learn.

But a priority to me for next year and a priority that I want to be for you next year is be committed to church. How can we make your relationship with church and take it to the next level? How how can we sustain the very thing that God's doing? My last point is this, I wanna write it the way, say it the way I wrote it.

What we cannot sustain alone, we can sustain together. What we cannot sustain alone, we can sustain together. I'm a read these verses to you. Ecclesiastes

chapter four verse nine, two people are better off than one for they can help each other succeed. If one falls,

the other person can reach out to help. But if someone who falls but someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Keep that verse right there before we go to the next chapter next verse. Someone who falls by themselves is in real trouble. Listen, you're not in trouble if you fall. You're in trouble if you fall alone.

You're not in trouble if it's going wrong. You're in trouble if you're going wrong, and you got nobody except you. That's how you know you're in trouble. The the writer, Solomon, is writing this, and he's like, listen, two is better than one. But

then he gets to another verse. He said, likewise, two people laying close together can keep each other warm, but how can one be warm alone? They can't. A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but a person, but two, stand back to back and conquer. Three are even better for a triple braided cord

is not easily broken. Let me say what what I believe that is. I believe a triple braided cord, what that represents in my sermon today is you and your spouse, you guys are one, you're one, and another trusted person in the church. You have a good friend and a good relationship with church.

I'm not gonna say life is not gonna beat you up in May, but you'll be able to get up and you'll be able to get through it. And God wants me to encourage someone today that he will sustain you. God will sustain you. I was working at this church in 2021,

and I was the next gen pastor, and I was just really annoyed. I don't know what was going on with me this particular weekend, but I was annoyed about a lot of stuff the night before. Kinda gave a Hail Mary prayer to the Lord. And God was starting to do a lot of stuff in my life, and I noticed it.

And before I went to bed, I said, God, I just pray that this last. I don't wanna be one of those guys that people say, oh, he was here, and he's gone. I wanna I wanna last.

And so the next morning, I go to church, deal with that prayer on my mind, and we were concluding the second service. And in my head, I was like, okay. I'm a go get this chicken and waffles at this place because it's delightful. After that, I'm a call the homies. We're get on the lobby, load up. We're have some fun. It's gonna be a whole party.

And I remember as service was concluding, I felt the Holy Spirit bring up my prayer from the night before. And I felt like God was like, Tyshawn, I wanna

I wanna show you how I'm gonna sustain you. So, okay. Cool. I want you to go outside and start talking to people. I'm like, oh, God. Lord Jesus. I don't feel like talking to people. It's so crazy that I'm a preacher because if you know me personally, you'll be like, it's insane this boy preaches because privately, I'm to myself. I'm just I just keep I'm a very quiet person, but my my calling has forced me to do things that wouldn't be normally normal for me. But I walked outside and I start shaking hands with different people, and I'm kinda like counting down like, alright. I miss you. I was good. I just and then another lady walks up to me. I'll never forget this late at this moment because she said, I was thinking about you last night.

I said, okay. What were you thinking about? She said, the Lord put me on your put you on my heart, and he wanted me to tell you that you will last.

She said, I don't know about what goes on in your family. I'm a I'm one of 12 different children on my mom and dad's side. I got a lot of siblings. I got a lot of brokenness in my family over here.

And so sometimes I'm afraid that my future will be more controlled by where I come from than where God is calling me to, and I just get really nervous. Am I gonna be like where I come from? Someone in the church, it was not the preacher on stage.

It was not someone doing what I do. Hey, you right there in the green and, yeah, God's gonna change you. No. It wasn't that. It was just me talking to people, unassuming that someone stopped and said, God, put you on my heart and

I wanna pray for you. She prayed for me right there, and I never forgot that moment because it showed me something. God doesn't just wanna use the person on the stage, he wants to use the people in the seats. And I believe that there are some people in this room that are in dire need of encouragement today,

and you're hoping that maybe I'm gonna say something that supers encourage you. If it haven't, I'm gonna let you know that our time has come to a close people. We're about to we're about to end. So if you can get none out of my bad. Alright. I'll see you next year. But

if you really wanna see God do something incredible in your life today, raise your hand if you wanna experience a miracle today. Raise your hand. K. Put your hand down. I'm gonna show you how to experience a miracle. This miracle comes at a cost. Here's the miracle. Here's the here's the application.

Don't just go grab your kids or go to your car and leave. Slow down. Look around and ask two people just to, hey, Can you tell me your story? Just tell me what you've gone through, and you will be surprised to hear that the person next to you went through a divorce too.

And the marriage you're looking at is not the first marriage, it's the second one. And the children that you're looking at are so perfect, that's a blended family. And she had to figure it out, and she eventually got it together. And all you gotta do is talk to a person. You'll realize that the guy that you're talking to next to you, tell me your story. Well, my story is this. I I struggle so much with pornography, or I struggled so much with this drug, or I struggle so much with this alcohol, and then I came to a church or I experienced this in the service, and God oh, God did that for you, not knowing that within me, I'm going through the same thing. You mean to tell me that God can sustain me with the church? That's exactly how God can sustain you.

To do a relationship with God without the church is one of the hardest things to do in this life. So I wanna encourage everyone under the sound of my voice, In 2026, in this next season, make church something you're committed to.

If you're a single mayor, single mother or a single father in this room, hear me and hear me clearly.

If the only thing you do right is bring your child to church every weekend, I'm a living testament. I'm a man of one wife. I got a great daughter. I got a good ministry. I don't have a dad that taught me how to do this. I didn't have a guy that taught me how to do x y z, but I did have a good church that was there for me, that walked with me, that discipled me, that corrected me. And because of that community, I get to now stand in front of people in 2025

and say, God is faithful and God is good, but stay committed to the church.

Don't get so busy that you forget. I'm gonna end this story really quick, but I'll tell this story because it really blessed people. I'm a say it really fast. Last year, I don't watch any sports at all. No sports. I'm not every man in this room looked at me with disrespect. I told you I didn't I didn't raise with

up with a father, bro. Don't judge me. I was raised by a woman. We watched a lot of Lifetime movies and Grey's Anatomy where I'm from. Alright?

My my daughter's middle name is Gray. Like, that's how committed I am to the cause. Like, I just want you to know I ain't playing games out here. Alright? Beautiful day to save lives. Okay. Last year,

I had this moment where I went to this conference and I don't know sports. I had no idea who I was talking to. It was a professional, someone who like

won Super Bowl rings, all this stuff. I had no idea. Thought this dude was a pastor. I was so unaware, which looking back at the conversation, there were so many signs, but I just didn't see it.

And as we were talking, he was like, tell me your story. I told him my story. Said, tell me your story. And he was like, my parents raised me to prioritize the word of God in the church. I was like, oh, that's awesome. And he said, even though I didn't give any attention to what I'm doing today, growing up I never played this sport, God still used it and I still prioritize God. I thought it was a very weird sentence to end a conversation with. I said, that's odd. Well, nice to meet you. Not knowing that about twenty five minutes later, he was gonna stand up and he was a very famous football player who got up and told every man in the room, if you're looking at my life, I want you to know this did not happen because I prioritize sports. This happened because my mom and my dad prioritized the house of God and prioritized the word of God. And so even if you're in this room and you're saying, Sundays,

I can't because of sports. Listen, your son may not become the next MJ.

May not happen, but what I can tell you is that if you give them the right habits and train them well in the house of God, they will live a long, blessed, and prosperous life. Prioritize the house of God. Prioritize Prioritize our the crew and watch what the Lord does. Can you bow your heads and close your eyes? Heavenly Father, I thank you for what you did this morning.

God, over every person that's listening, I pray that you would encourage them to take their commitment to church and their commitment to community to the next level. God, I also ask for anyone in this room that if you're here and you do not know Jesus, if you do not know the Lord, and you've not put your faith in Jesus Christ, I wanna encourage you today to put your faith in Jesus. When I count to three, I want you to lift your hands quickly. This is just for us to acknowledge you. We're gonna say a prayer, and we're gonna celebrate the decision you made. So if you're in this room

and you don't know Jesus, when I count to three, it would be such an honor to pray with you. One, you know who you are. Two, three, just lift your hands. Lift your hands. Lift your hands. Lift your hands. Lift your hands. Okay. I see a hand. I see a hand. See a hand. Okay. Can we repeat this prayer for those that are coming to Christ for the first time? Can everyone say Jesus?

Jesus. Come into my life. Be Be my my Lord. And be my savior. I put my faith, my trust in you. Can we give it up for everything that God did today?