Video summary
Jaycie Stern, the current kids director at Radiant Portage, shared her personal journey of faith and ministry during an "Emerging Voices" presentation. Originally from Fort Collins, Colorado, where she studied psychology and Christian counseling, Jaci moved to Michigan with her husband Parker shortly after their wedding to join the church community. She highlighted the supportive environment created by the pastors at Radiant Portage and other locations, which has allowed young leaders like herself to grow in their gifts and ministry. Her talk centered on the biblical story of the woman at the well from John 4, using it as a framework to explore how encounters with Jesus should lead to profound life transformation rather than just temporary behavioral changes.
Stern illustrated that while an encounter with Christ is powerful, it requires a conscious choice to respond and live out its fruits. She identified three common barriers that prevent people from fully embracing this transformation: fear, apathy, and pride. Fear often keeps individuals comfortable in their sins despite feeling convicted during worship; apathy numbs the heart over time, causing the initial fire of an encounter to fade into indifference; and pride leads people to accept only those aspects of God's call that do not require uncomfortable changes or sacrifices. Using her own experience leading a missions trip to Panama, she recounted how she had to overcome her pride by allowing less experienced team members to take leadership roles, resulting in greater impact than she could have achieved alone.
According to Stern, the natural response to overcoming these barriers involves three key fruits of encounter: revelation, repentance, and response. Revelation refers to a deepened understanding of one's identity in Christ, while repentance is symbolized by the woman at the well leaving her heavy water jar behind, representing the laying down of burdens and old self-concepts. The final fruit, response, involves actively sharing one's testimony with others, just as the Samaritan woman did by inviting her entire town to meet Jesus. Stern emphasized that true transformation happens not merely when one attends church but when they choose to say "yes" to God's invitation to live differently every day, extending that love and truth to coworkers, friends, and family.
The session concluded with Stern leading a prayer for salvation for those who felt led to respond to the gospel message, followed by a second invitation for believers to move beyond Sunday-only faith into a lifestyle of continuous transformation. She encouraged attendees to confront their own areas of fear, apathy, or pride and to step into a new season of obedience and love. For those who responded positively, church leaders offered follow-up prayer and guidance on next steps, while also inviting new believers to join the Tuesday morning prayer meetings downtown. Ultimately, Stern's message was one of hope and invitation, reminding everyone that God's love is the foundation for a life fully transformed by an ongoing encounter with Jesus.
Read the full video transcript
All right, Radiant Portage. Normally, we
would be tuning in to our service uh our
our teaching out of Richland, but today
we have a special honor of hearing from
someone right here in our Portage
location. Um, and every year around this
time, we have uh began a tradition of
something that we call Emerging Voices
Sunday. And it's an opportunity to bring
in some of the leaders that God has
blessed us with, some of the young
leaders who are growing in their gift,
growing in their ministry. And today we
have the honor of hearing from someone
right here. I would love for you to
stand to your feet and help me welcome
Miss Ji Stern to the stage.
Come on.
Miss Jaci and her husband Parker moved
here about a year and a half ago. Uh
Parker of course is our middle school
director and most recently Jaci has
become our kids director. We we thought
it would be a nice combo, right? Inside
job. uh so from kids to middle school
but Miss JC is coming in leading so well
and one of the things I want to
highlight over their life is that they
have quickly become a son and a daughter
of this house they've given their their
time their energy their talents and even
Miss Ji being up here today is an
acknowledgement of the gift of God on
her life and the call of God and so as
we hear from what the Lord has put on
her heart today I want to take a moment
and pray for her would you extend your
hand out and let's pray for Miss Jaci.
Lord, we thank you so much for JC Stern.
We thank you that you have saved her,
redeemed her, and you have al also
filled her with your spirit. You have
empowered her for the work of the
ministry. You've empowered her uh by
your spirit. And we thank you that
you've put a word on her heart. We bless
her today and we ask that she would be
at peace and she would be full of the
the the word of the Lord today as she
speaks. her mouth would speak forward
only that which you have spoken to her.
And we humbly receive from her today.
And it's in Jesus's mighty name we pray.
Amen.
>> Amen. Good morning, Radiant Church. It
is such a gift to be with you all this
morning. As Pastor Becky said, my name
is Jaci Stern and I'm the kids director
here at our Portage location. I actually
stepped into this position back in June.
Um, and one of my first weeks was kids
camp. So, you could imagine the
onboarding process that kids camp was.
It was an immediate now I need to know
everything. So, it was so sweet and so
fun. I got to meet a few of you guys
there. Um, and for those of you I
haven't met, I would love a chance to
meet you. Especially those of you who
your kids are a part of our kids
ministry. I think it's so important to
be partnering with our parents um as we
are discipling your kids. But thank you
so much for having me this morning.
Before we jump in, I want to give you
guys a little bit of background on my me
myself. Um my husband and I both grew up
in Fort Collins, Colorado. If anybody is
aware of where that is in Fort Collins
or in Colorado, it's very north kind of
by the Wyoming border. but grew up there
and then I went to college at Oral
Roberts University where I studied
psychology and Christian counseling. I
think through that process the Lord
really highlighted my care and my love
for disciplehip um not only in my own
generation but in the generation um
below me as well. My husband and I, we
got married as Pastor Becky said about a
year and a half ago. Uh we actually got
married January 6. It was the best day
of my life for sure. Um, but right after
we got married, we went on our honeymoon
in Maui, Hawaii, which was such a blast.
If anybody's engaged, I can't recommend
Maui enough. Um, we went to Maui and
then Parker and I came back to Colorado
and in less than 24 hours, we had packed
up a U-Haul and we are moving to
Kalamazoo, Michigan to be with you all
here. So, it is a gift and an honor to
be in this house with you. I also want
to take a second to honor the pastors
here at Radiant. Um, not only the
pastors here at Portage, Pastor Aubrey,
Pastor Bucky, Pastor Preston, Pastor
Richard, but also our Central and
Richland pastors. They have created such
a safe space for young people to be
developed like me. Um, they have not
only cared for my ministerial
development, but they've also cared for
Parker and I's personal development as
well. So, I would love to just take a
second to honor them. Let's put our
hands together.
Thank you guys.
If you've been with us for the past few
months, we have been in our encounters
series. And today I get to share with
you the story of the woman at the well.
So would you all turn with me in your
Bibles to John 4? That's where we'll be
camping out today.
And before I read, I want to give us a
little bit of scriptural context because
I fully believe it's important to have
context to the scripture that you're
reading. At the beginning of John 4,
Jesus is leaving Judea to travel to
Galilee. And he's doing this because the
Pharisees have found out that he and the
disciples are making more disciples and
baptizing them. So the Pharisees are
getting upset at this fact.
At this point, Jesus is in Judea. And as
you see, Samaria is right in between
Judea and Galilee. Now, normally, a
Jewish person would be taking the route
that would go through the Jordan Valley
so that they wouldn't have to go through
Samaria, but Jesus, as he does in many
other cases in the in the scripture, he
decides to go through and go and do
something countercultural in Samaria.
Jesus is not only going to walk through
Samaria, which is se which is a 70-mi
trek, but he is going to stop in the
town of Sakar at a well. And this well
is called the well of Jacob. And this is
where we pick up actually in verse 7.
And I'll be reading verses 7 through30.
So let's buckle in together because it's
a good amount of scripture.
Verse 7 says, "A woman from Samaria came
to draw water, and Jesus said to
her,"Give me a drink. For his disciples
had gone away into the city to buy food.
The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is
it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from
me, a Samar a woman from Samaria? For
Jews have no dealings with Samaritans?"
Jesus answered her, "If you knew the
gift of God and who it is that is saying
to you, give me a drink, you would have
asked him, and he would have given you
living water." The woman said to him,
"Sir, you have nothing to draw water
with, and the well is deep. Where do you
get that living water? Are you greater
than our father Jacob? He gave us the
well and drank from it himself, as did
his sons and his livestock."
Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks
of this water will be thirsty again. But
whoever drinks of the water that I will
give him will never be thirsty again.
The water that I will give him will
become in him a spring of water welling
up to eternal life." The woman said to
him, "Sir, give me this water so that I
will not be thirsty or have to come here
to draw water." Jesus said to her, "Go
call your husband and come here." The
woman answered him, "I have no husband."
Jesus said to her, "You are right in
saying, I have no husband, for you have
had five husbands, and the one you now
have is not your husband. What you have
said is true." The woman said to him,
"Sir, I perceive that you are a
prophet." I just want to stop here for a
second. I think it is so funny that
Jesus is like reading her mail right now
and she's like, "You must be a prophet."
It's like a very obvious, "Yeah, let's
put a word to that." So, just thought
that's funny. And then we pick up in
verse 20. It says, "Our fathers
worshiped on this mountain, but you say
that in Jerusalem is the place where
people ought to worship." Jesus said to
her,"Woman, believe me, the hour is
coming when neither on this mountain nor
in Jerusalem will you worship the
Father. You worship what you do not
know. We worship what we know, for
salvation is from the Jews. But the hour
is coming and is now here when the true
worshippers will worship the father in
spirit and truth. For the father is
seeking such people to worship him. God
is spirit and those who worship him must
worship in spirit and truth. The woman
said to him, I know that Messiah is
coming, he who is called Christ, and
when he comes, he will tell us all these
things. Jesus said to her, "I who speak
to you am he."
Just then his disciples came back. They
marveled that he was talking with a
woman, but no one said, "What do you
seek?" Or, "Why are you talking to her?"
So the woman left her water jar and went
away into town and said to the people,
"Come see a man who told me all that I
ever did. Can this be the Christ?" They
went out of the town and were coming to
him.
This morning, I believe the Lord is
inviting us to ask ourselves a question.
What might change if we allowed our
encounters with Jesus to fully transform
the way we live?
Now, this question might feel difficult
to understand or even to swallow when I
ask this. Some of us might have
immediately felt shame.
Maybe you felt condemnation.
Or maybe maybe some of you are thinking
to yourselves, "Oh, yeah, of course. I
I've I've done all these things. I I now
come to church. I actually I definitely
my life has changed."
And I want to assure you that there's
definitely first fruits in the change
that you come to church, that you have
stopped doing all of the sinful things
that you've done. But I also want to
invite us to go one layer deeper than
that. I want it not just to be what
behaviors you have stopped because of
your encounter with Jesus,
but what behaviors have you added
because of your encounter with the
living God.
Back in high school, I did a few
extracurriculars in sports and one of
those being CrossFit. Does anybody in
this room know what CrossFit is? Show of
hands. Okay, it's less than last
service, believe it or not. Um, so
CrossFit is actually a crazy way to work
out. They call it a sport. It basically
combines Olympic lifting, hit workouts,
anything you can imagine, gymnastics,
sometimes they throw a triathlon or two
in there. They American Ninja Warrior
obstacle courses. And actually, CrossFit
is a place or a sport where there's
something called the CrossFit Games. And
the CrossFit Games happens once a year.
And it's where people from all over the
world who compete in CrossFit come
together um to see who can be named the
fittest on Earth is literally the title
for it. The fittest on earth. So, a few
of these years actually, my brother
competed in the CrossFit Games. And so,
me and my family got to go and watch him
compete. One was in Madison, Wisconsin,
and one was somewhere in California. I
can't remember. I think I have a
picture, too, of it to prove that it did
happen, that I'm not just making this
story up to you. But during the same
time that my brother and the rest of my
family is super into CrossFit, I have
this hero in the CrossFit world. and her
name is Lauren Fischer. She was named
one of the fittest women on earth. And
whenever I watched her videos or watched
her compete, I was just in awe of the
way that she carried herself, how she
trained, how she ate. She was just like
elite workout human being, elite human
being. And while we were at the CrossFit
Games one of these years, I actually got
to meet Lauren Fischer. I think I was
like middle school or right before
middle school at this time. And my world
was absolutely rocked in that moment. I
was like, "What is happening? This woman
is my height, but she's like two times
the size of me. She is ripped. It's
insane." And in that moment, I got to
talk with her for a little bit and take
a picture. But after that moment, I
decided that I was going to live like
Lauren Fischer. So, I would wake up like
6:00 a.m. I would train for an hour or
two. I would go to school. I would go to
basketball or soccer practice and then
I'd go back to the gym and I'd train
again. I cannot recommend that pattern
of living. Probably not very healthy.
Definitely not a good thing. But I was
so in awe of who she is and what she had
become that I was like, I want to do
anything to be like her.
Now I think in the same way that when I
encountered Lauren Fiser I changed my
behaviors.
I think the same thing happens when we
encounter Christ. A natural response of
encountering Jesus is that we should be
transformed in his presence.
Now, there's many examples of encounters
with Jesus communicated through this
scripture, including the story of the
woman at the well. And in these stories,
there's great transformation and even
life change for them. But what would
have happened if they decided to not
live in the fruit of their encounter
with Christ?
Let's think for example of Moses. Moses
comes to this burning bush where the
Lord is manifesting himself in a bush
that is not being consumed by fire but
is on fire. And he asks Moses to take
off his slippers and shoes and to come
into the circle and this holy place.
And Christ calls him in that moment to
be a conduit of the spirit to call out
the people who were in slavery in in
Egypt. This was the Israelite people.
Now in this moment, Moses does say for a
second. He says, "Lord, I am not good at
speaking." It is often thought that
Moses probably had a stuttering problem.
But actually, Moses decides in that
moment to say yes to Jesus despite that.
But what if Moses had said no and he had
actually turned away from the Lord and
he'd actually gone back to what he was
doing at his camp and continued in the
way he was living.
Let's think about Paul the story of the
road to Damascus where he encounters the
living God through a light. He
encounters the word spoken to him
and Saul in that moment actually says,
"What would you have me do next, Lord?"
But what if he had never asked the Lord
that? Let's think about the whole New
Testament, like over half of the
scriptures.
What about the disciples?
They encountered Jesus and they lived
with him for many years.
Think about the whole book of Acts. What
about specifically Acts two and Peter?
What about Peter, the man who had denied
Christ three times? And in Acts two, we
actually see the next thing he does is
he preaches a sermon not only to the
rest of the disciples, but he preaches a
sermon to all of Jerusalem. And 3,000
people that day come to the Lord.
What if he had lived in the shame and
regret of his decision to deny Christ
and not done that?
This all boils down to the reality that
an encounter with Jesus presents an
invitation.
An encounter does not automatically
produce transformation.
There is still a response required.
Taking action on your encounter with
Jesus isn't something reserved just for
the people in the Bible. It's for you
here and now.
In these moments of encounter, each of
these people were confronted with a
choice to follow Jesus and be
transformed by him fully or to hold back
from the fullness of what Christ had for
them.
I believe that there might be three
things that today we experience that
might hold us back from living in the
fruit of our encounter with Christ.
But in opposition to that, I also
believe that there's three things that
can naturally occur if we choose to say
yes in that moment of encounter with
Jesus.
I think a first thing that might hold us
back is fear.
I think that one night we can come to a
service, we can come to a Wednesday
night, we can come to a Sunday morning
and we can encounter the living God
through worship, through the teaching,
and we can be at an altar and we can sob
and we say, "Lord, you've encountered
me. I'm transformed. This is wild. So
cool." And then the next day, we go to
our coworker who we've been living in
sin with. or at school, we go to our
friend who we've been gossiping with and
that person tries to stir that up again
in you and and in that moment you have a
choice. But I think I think sometimes we
choose to live in the fear of what
somebody else might think of us and we
just decide to become comfortable.
We say, "Oh, it's okay that I'm
gossiping. Oh, it's okay if I do a
little bit of substance use. Like,
that's it'll be fine. and I'll just ask
God for forgiveness later.
But I actually think that's not the
promise that God has for us.
I think of the woman at the well. I
think of her story and how easy it would
have been for her to be afraid.
This woman has had five husbands.
Now, we don't know her story fully, but
maybe some of them she lost to sickness.
She lost to death. But maybe some of
them she was unfaithful to as well.
And she's living in a town where people
can will criticize her and call her
something. And she's she's cast out of
what normal society would be. And I
think of her moment with Jesus and how
Jesus calls it out in her. And he says,
"Yes, you've had five husbands."
But in that moment, she's not defensive.
She's not afraid. She acknowledges it
and after that that transformation
actually leads her to run back to a
village to tell them about her encounter
with God.
I think the second thing that might hold
us back is apathy.
And I actually think this might be the
scariest one to me.
And I think it's because we might not
even realize it's happening.
Maybe you haven't consciously decided
that you don't care what Jesus wants or
you don't want to live in your encounter
with Christ. But maybe life has simply
made you numb.
Maybe you've been hurt.
Maybe you've filled every space possible
with noise, a schedule, a hangout,
anything to fill the void.
And in those moments, I think those
Wednesday nights encount Wednesday
Wednesday night encounters
actually become distant.
You have that encounter and the day
after you're like, "Wow, I'm on fire for
God." And then the next day you forget
about it a little bit. And so you do
something that maybe you're not supposed
to, but then you're like, "No, I
encountered God. I'm transformed." But
then week after week, that encounter
grows dim
and you forget about it.
I think about the woman at the well in
this situation, too. How she had been
living in the same pattern of sin for so
long with the man that she was with. She
could have easily looked at Jesus after
this moment. And she could have gone
right back to that man and said, "I
don't care. I'm doing whatever I want.
Jesus isn't worth it to me."
I think the third thing that might hold
us back actually is pride.
And that one I'm going to let sink in
for a second.
Not because I think pride is the worst
possible thing, but I think it's
something that every single one of us
experience. Me included.
I think pride is the hardest to swallow
because it's what we struggle with the
most in our moments of encounter with
God.
Pride says Jesus can transform me as
long as he doesn't ask me to do anything
that's uncomfortable.
I'm going to repeat that again. Pride
says Jesus can transform me as long as
he doesn't ask me to do anything that's
uncomfortable.
Pride lets me come into a room.
lets me sing a song, listen to a sermon,
check a box, and leave everything I had
in this room.
I think that we become so comfortable
with those moments that we start
actually thinking more about self and we
we don't even realize we're doing it,
but we're we're thinking about
ourselves. were thinking about on a
Sunday morning, you walk into church and
you're like, "Okay, what's God going to
do for me?"
Maybe you actually are coming into a
worship moment and you are like, I I
don't know what's going to happen. I'm
here for the Lord,
but actually the Lord is asking you
maybe to take a step further and to open
your hands and worship. Maybe he's
asking you to sing,
but the fear of what somebody else might
think and the pride of your own identity
and the way that you think you look to
others is holding you back from your
worship to God.
When I read in Revelation, I see elders
falling down at the feet of Jesus with
their crowns, laying them at his feet
and saying, "Holy and worthy are you,
Lord.
And I think we're confronted with the
question, what am I protecting that I
believe is too dignified to lay down at
the feet of Jesus.
I think of the story of the woman at the
well.
I think about how in this moment some of
the people who are the most hurt are the
ones who actually carry maybe the most
pride. I think that's a part of my
story.
But I think she also could have come to
her encounter with Jesus with her jug of
water and she could have been like,"I
don't need you. I'm doing okay.
Actually, I don't really want to change
how I'm living. I don't really want to
go tell others about this. So, I'm just
I'm just going to do what I'm doing."
In college, I got to lead a group of
students that were my same age on a trip
to Panama City, Panama. And it was a
missions trip. And the whole goal of
this trip was to share the gospel with
kids through the means of basketball.
Now, I had played basketball in high
school, and so I was so excited to be
leading this trip when I found out about
it. But ORU Missions actually does this
thing where you sign up for a missions
trip, but you get assigned where you're
going. So, you don't get a choice about
where you're going. You just get to say
yes to God and see what he does.
And so in that night that people are
coming in to figure out where am I going
to go on this trip, I had a group of 11
people that found out they were going to
Panama on my team with me and my
co-leader.
And as we get into group time, because
we'd have group time basically every
week before the trip, we'd go on the
trip. We went into group time and come
to find out
basically none of them had played
basketball before and basically none of
them well I'm not even basically none of
them spoke Spanish. None of them were
bilingual and we were going to Panama
where the main language that is spoken
is Spanish.
And so I start having a moment as a
leader where I'm like what is going to
happen God? What are you going to do?
And I started to kind of feel this pride
in my heart of like, okay, I've played
basketball before. I know a little bit
of Spanish. I think I'll be able to lead
and it's going to be fine and it's going
to be great.
But I felt heavy conviction from the
Lord where he asked me to just lay all
of that at his feet and to allow him to
work through others in my group. And so
there's this one in particular person
that was very much not athletic and very
much did not learn Spanish before our
trip. And I was like, I don't know if I
want to put them in leadership. This
feels tough. But I felt from the Lord to
give him a space to lead. And so I gave
him space to lead. And actually, he was
one of the most impactful people on our
trip, both to our contacts and to the
kids that he was ministering to. He
connected with them in a way that none
of the rest of us could.
And it has me thinking, what would have
happened if I had let my pride come in
between these kids and these contacts
and the Lord and their experience with
God?
Now, I think that there's reality to
pride and it's it's tough to swallow and
tough to understand, but I think I want
all of us to just be sitting and
meditating and thinking because I think
pride is not just for a few of us, but
it's for all of us to be thinking about
in this moment.
Now, just as we covered three things
that might be holding us back, I think
there's three things that are fruits of
encounter when we choose to actually say
yes to Jesus after our encounters. I
think the first fruit is revelation.
I think this revelation is a revelation
of identity of self and of Christ.
In John 4:25 and 26, we see it say, "The
woman said to him,"I know that Messiah
is coming. He who is called Christ, and
when he comes, he will tell us these
things." And in 26, it says, "Jesus said
to her, I who speak to you am he."
One of my favorite quotes by a man named
David Benner says, "Christian
spirituality involves a transformation
of the self that occurs only when God
and self are both deeply known."
I'm going to read it one more time.
Christian spirituality involves a
transformation of the self that occurs
only when God and self are both deeply
known.
I think in this moment that not only is
God saying, "I'm the Messiah." and
revealing himself to her, but I think
she's actually getting a revelation of
who she is in Christ, too.
And we see this in this next point. This
next point is repentance.
This is the space where the woman at the
well leaves her jug at the feet of
Jesus.
And we see this in John 4:28 where it
says, "So the woman left her water jar
and went away into the town and said to
the people, "Come see a man who told me
all that I ever did." Can this be
Christ?
I want to paint a picture for what this
water jar would have looked like um that
she was carrying in those times. This
water jar would have weighed 20 to 25
pounds and this woman would have had to
carry it on her shoulder or her head.
Now, we don't fully know the distance
that she would have had to walk. But if
she lived in the town of Sakar, it would
have been at least half a mile.
And if she lived in the town of Samaria,
it would have been 6 to 30 miles that
she would have had to walk every day.
Every day, she was carrying the weight
of this water and the weight of the
choices that she made. And not only was
she carrying it in the normal time, in
the early morning that when people would
have normally gotten water,
but she's carrying it in the middle of
the day in the heat.
And she's doing this so she doesn't have
to run into anybody else.
We actually see in this moment the first
thing that this woman does after her
encounter with Jesus is she leaves this
water jar at his feet. She leaves it at
the well.
I think that's an invitation for us.
I think we're asked to leave our
burdens, to leave the things that we're
believing about our identity at his
feet.
It's an beautiful invitation from a God
who loves you and sees you.
Now, I think the third thing that's a
natural response and a natural thing
that will happen is actually response.
This is going out to tell others about
Jesus.
In John 4:29, it says, "Come see a man
who told me all that I ever did." Can
this be the Christ?
And she's saying this to the people in
Samaria,
the same people who would have been
ridiculing her, the same people who
would have called her things,
the same people who were giving her an
identity of shame. She goes back and she
says, "Come, come see the Messiah. I
know who he is. Come experience him for
yourself."
And we actually see later on in this
same chapter that it says not only did
they know Christ by the testimony of her
encounter, but they came to know Christ
because of their own encounter with him.
That's an invitation for us
to lead others into encounter with
Christ based on the testimony of our own
encounter.
Is there one of these spots that you
feel like you might have stopped?
I think the one that I often stop at or
get comfortable with is the third one,
the response.
I often get comfortable in leaving my
burdens and I'm like, "Oh yeah, like I
can repent to God and then everything's
fine."
But sometimes I miss that third step
where I testify of my encounter with
Jesus to others.
And so in this moment, I want to take a
second to testify of my encounter with
Jesus.
I grew up in a Christian household, but
around middle school, high school, I
started falling away from the Lord. I
started choosing drugs. I started
choosing overuse of alcohol. I started
sleeping around.
I started doing all of the things that I
knew I wasn't supposed to do. And my
heart wasn't in a bad space.
My heart wasn't that I wanted to
intentionally defy Christ.
My heart was just broken.
I was trying to fill a hole with
anything I could find.
But then the Lord met me.
My junior year of high school, I got
invited to a youth group three different
times. And it was like a few days after
me and this person that I had been with
for a few years broke up. And I was
like, "Oh, sure. I guess I'll go."
But during that service, through the
worship, through the preaching of the
word, the Lord gave me a new identity.
The preaching of the word was actually a
sermon called Uno reverse
where he talked about how Jesus uses
people in the Bible at their lowest
moments and calls them into repentance
and then into action for his kingdom.
And I thought to myself in that moment,
if these people in the Bible can be
given new identity, I think I can too.
I think I can too.
And so I said, "Lord, if if this is
real, if this is you, everything is at
your feet.
This is yours. My life is yours."
And my life was changed that night. I
was changed because of an encounter in
the presence of God. And not just
because of an encounter that I went to,
because I had done this in the past. Not
just because of an encounter that I had
showed up to. And I've been like, "That
was really cool. God met me. New
identity. don't think I'm supposed to be
doing all these things that I'm doing,
but it was because I actually chose to
say yes that day. I chose to respond.
Now, I want to bring us back to the
original question.
What might change if I allowed my
encounters with Jesus to fully transform
the way that I live?
I'd love for you all to stand with me.
And I think there's a few different
kinds of people in this room.
I think there's some of us here actually
who have never had an encounter with
Jesus where we've decided to give our
lives fully over to him.
And there is no shame and there's no
condemnation in that. Especially if
you've showed up to other services and
you've just not made that decision.
That's okay. But I want to give you an
invitation again today.
There is a God who sent his son to die
on a cross.
And the whole point of him doing that
was love.
That's it.
It's that simple.
So, I'd love for everybody to close your
eyes. And if you feel like the Lord is
maybe stirring something inside of you,
I'd invite you to raise your hand on the
count of three.
1 2 3.
Thank you for raising your hand.
So beautiful. So beautiful.
What a time as the body of Christ it is
to get to welcome others into the
family.
I just want to pray with you those who
have raised your hand the salvation
prayer. So if you'd repeat after me
would be wonderful. Lord, thank you so
much for who you are.
Thank you that you've sent your son to
die on a cross.
Lord, thank you for the love that you've
shown me through the sacrifice of Jesus.
I believe that he died on a cross to
save my sins
and that because of that I am now
reconciled to Christ.
Lord, I love you. I give my whole life
to you.
It's in your name we pray. Amen.
I just want to take a moment as the body
of Christ to celebrate those who said
yes to Jesus.
This is such a big deal.
Thank you.
Now, for those of you who said yes to
the Lord for the first time or the first
time in a long time, I want to invite
you actually after this next uh moment
that I walk into to come up and be
prayed for by one of our prayer partners
or by our pastors or leaders. They'll
give you a Bible and they'll also just
give you next steps after this encounter
that you've had with Christ.
Now, I think there's a second invitation
that I want to lead us in.
I think there's many of us in this room,
as we saw, that believe in God
and that show up to church on Sundays.
But I think there's some of us, that's
where we stop.
That our faith is only for a Sunday
morning and it's not for the rest of the
week.
And I want to invite you in this moment,
in this moment to just put your hands in
front of you. If you feel like you're
being convicted of maybe the pride, the
fear, the apathy, and you want to step
in to a new season with the Lord where
you say yes.
So if everybody close your eyes and put
your hands in front of you, I'll pray
for us. Lord, thank you for this moment.
Thank you for the way that you're
speaking and moving in this congregation
and in our hearts. Lord, I just pray
over each person with their hands in
front of them. Father, would you bring
them into new a new season of yes with
you, Lord? That it wouldn't be just
something that they are experiencing on
this Sunday morning, but it'd be
something that tomorrow they actually go
share with a coworker,
Lord. that tomorrow they would live into
the transformation that is offered
through the blood of Christ.
I pray over each person in this room
that maybe has felt shame or
condemnation through this message. I
pray instead, Lord, that you would show
them and invite them that it's actually
just love. It's out of love that they
get to do this,
that they have an opportunity to share
your love with others.
Father, we love you. We trust you. It's
in your name we pray. Amen.
>> Amen. Amen. Yes. Thank you so much, Miss
JC. Thank you for your vulnerability and
the testimony of what God has done in
your life. I hope that was encouraging
for you. And I want to remind you, even
if you're a parent in the room, you have
kids in our kids ministry to connect
with Miss JC. Um we've got our prayer
partners that have come up forward. If
you raised your hand for that salvation
moment, I would ask for you to step out
and come forward. These prayer partners,
even uh my wife and I, Miss JC and
Parker up here, we'd love to pray with
you, help you walk out your relationship
with the Lord. I want to remind you that
every Tuesday at 7:00 a.m. downtown at
our prayer uh room, we have uh our
Portage prayer meeting uh that's led by
Mr. Dawn and some of our other leaders
here in Portage. We'd love for you to
come and join us for that. And that's at
7:00 a.m. downtown on Tuesdays. Uh, also
we'll see you back here next Sunday. So,
please go be blessed this day and we'll
see you next week.