Hit the Brakes

Thanks, Awesome. Why don't we turn that to the Lord? Let's just worship Jesus one more time. We love you, Lord. We love you, Jesus. Pray. God, why don't we lift our hands in the air right now? Let's pray a simple prayer. God, whatever you want to do, whatever you want to say, however you want to change my heart tonight and over the next few days, Lord, I'm open. I'm willing, and I'm ready to receive. Come on, open up your mouth right now. You've sung. You've worshiped. Now, I want you to say, "God, my ears are open to what the spirit would say. Lord, I pray that you would move on all of us here today. Touch us by your spirit in Jesus' name." in Jesus name. I want to give honor to your youth committee and district board and dis I know that anytime you have somebody speak there there's an approval process and and there's a whole bunch of people that that said yes to me coming to be here so I just want to say thank you.

It's great to be with my friend brother [Gilland?] again. brother it's good to see you. It's been a long time. part glad to be partnered with brother Killmon this week. we have the same haircut, which is super cool. And and and I turned 40 this year. And so I leaned over and I said, "These kids showed up and they're going to get yelled at by their dads this week." And but I'm really excited to be here. Some of you haven't laughed yet, but don't worry, you'll be get yelled at by guys old enough to be your dad this week in church. And then you'll pray and you'll go home and it'll be better. And sometimes that's what you need. And so I'm really excited to be here. And also I'm Canadian so I need to say shout out to the American government for letting me in your country.

And it's sometimes you never know right now if and so I'm glad to be here and I'm going to get into a text in a little bit. So why don't you turn to your neighbor and say God wants to talk to you tonight. Turn to somebody else and say God's going to talk to me tonight. Okay, you may be seated. I'm just going to jump right into this thing. Thank you guys. Toyota's conduct was shameful. The attorney general of the United States thundered from behind a podium, the White House as he began to level accusation after accusation against the world's largest automobile company. He said they put profits ahead of people and people have died because Toyota has covered it up. But could this really be the case? Is the world's largest and most respected car manufacturer undercover undertaking a cover up of epic proportions?

See, here's the story. Before any of you were born, it was the year 2009. Okay. Yeah, we're going to go ancient history. I'm from the late 1900s, so bear with me. Okay. In the summer and fall of 2009, hundreds of Lexus and Toyota owners came forward with an alarming allegation. Their cars were suddenly and uncontrollably accelerating. Toyota was forced to issue the largest recall ever in automobile history. 10 million vehicles costing them hundreds of millions of dollars as well as a fine of 1.1 billion that was paid to the US government. Another 1.2 billion to the families of those who had lost their lives or been injured in access accidents over 400 separate lawsuits. Here's how the story began. And the panic set in when an offduty California highway patrolman crashed a rental Lexus ES 350 at high speed, killing himself, his wife, his daughter, and his brother-in-law.

And the 911 that was played over and over again on CNN was a cop yelling into his cell phone, "The accelerator is stuck. There's no break. We can't stop. We can't stop." And following this horrific accident, the claims against the world's largest car company began. Allegations that a design flaw in oversized all-weather rubber mats that Toyota sales to customers had jammed gas pedals and were causing wide open uncontrollable acceleration. And so they recalled millions of vehicles to modify gas pedals, replace aftermarket drivers floor mats. But the question began to trickle out to people that were thinking critically, are the gnarled claws of all-weather rubber mats installed by a guy at a dealership really, you know, diabolically seeking for our destruction? And then somebody asked the question to all of those that have been in an accident. What about just hitting the brakes? Investigative author and writer Malcolm Gladwell set out to discover himself for himself the truth about what took place with all these Lexus and Toyota vehicles.

So he went to a test track along with the engineers from Car and Driver magazine and they climbed into one of the very models that was accused of this unintended acceleration. And they did everything they could to recreate the crash that had happened for so many alleged customers. They took the vehicle up to 60 and then up to 70 and then up to 100. and it did not uncontrollably accelerate at any point. And then they said, "What if we jam on the brakes? What if we hit the gas pedal and then we get up to 100 miles an hour and then we hit the brakes? Maybe something in the engine will overcome the braking system and we will be able to recreate the crash." But every time the car stops. There's no loud noises, no smoke blowing out the back. At which point the engineer, the car expert from Car and Driver magazine turns to the writer Malcolm Gladwell and says, "If you have functioning brakes in your car, brakes win all the time.

Brakes versus engine. It doesn't matter how big the engine is. Brakes win every time." And as Gladwell broke down the data and began to look at every single one of these crashes, he discovered that most of the accidents happened simply because the drivers did not hit the brakes. It's interesting. Billions in fines, respected car companies reputation gone. People in fear. Worse still, people died. Families were ruined. Parents grieved, futures lost. Because in a moment of pressure and panic, drivers did not do the easiest and most simplest thing to prevent a tragedy in a car, and that was to hit the brakes. I'm a pastor and I've been doing, as they said in the bio they read out to you, I've been in youth ministry now for over 20 years. I think I'm in my 21st or 22nd year. But after you've been to a pile of youth camps and watched people throw up and gross out games and drank a happy shake yourself, you start to lose count.

And but here's one thing I do remember. I I do remember the fact campers that I have witnessed the crash of many lives. Each story unique, each soul special, extenduating circumstances different in all. But 21 years on the job in youth ministry, all crashes of all lives that I have encountered could have been avoided if people in moments of pressure, moments of temptation, moments of uncertainty had just hit the brakes. James 1:14 and 15 says, "But every man is tempted when he has drawn away of his own, not somebody else's, not the cultures, not the broader world, his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." It is a terrible mistake. hear me on this opening night to live as if we are beyond failure. To believe that because we've been born in church or we go to a Christian school or we've been coming to camp since we've been a little kid or our family shows up to every service every time the doors are open that we are somehow beyond the sin that we see lying in weight of the world.

It's foolish to think that we can slide into the driver's seat of our soontobe ending teen years and get into and head into college or head into career without the understanding that in this flesh dwells no good thing. In your flesh dwells no good thing. An apostolic understanding of sin dictates that the ability, desire, and potential to fall lies in every single one of us. And if we are drawn away, if we are enticed, it is because of our own lust. Let me remind you what the Bible says, your Bible says about sin, your flesh, the world, and the devil. Romans 6:23. The wages of sin is death. First John f 1 John 2:15, "Do not love this world, nor the things it offers you. For you, when you love the world, you do not have the love of the father in you." James 4:4, "Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmnity with God?

Whoever therefore wants to be the friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." 2 Timothy 2:19, "God's foundation stands firm, bearing this seal. The Lord's know the Lord knows who are his. And let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity." I don't know what you were expecting on this first night, but you need to know these words cannot be taken lightly. The language of our text is serious. You can hear the pleading of the tone of every apostle. The warning is strong. Do not be deceived. Don't buy into the lies. The world is actually not your friend. Sin is I know in the culture it is popular to say that sin is not a big deal. That it's part of the great religious construction. But you hear the word of God, playing with the world, playing with sin, coordinating your soul in conduct with the enemy is not something for you to play with in your heart.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not inferring a spiritual life where you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. I'm not saying that by rulekeeping and boxchecking that you can become a good or moral person. If we are to overcome the world, if we are to overcome sin, if we are to overcome the devil, and if we are to overcome our own flesh, we must be filled with the Holy Ghost. On my own, I am powerless to overcome sin. On my own, I am a slaveh to my own sinful desires. but the moment that I step into the spirituh the moment that I walk in the spirituh there is no sin there is no hell there is no devil that I cannot overcome nothing can stand against an apostolic teenager who is full of the Holy Ghost. There is no temptation that can overwhelm you when you are full of the spirit there is no pull of the world.

There is no lie of the devil that can overcome you when you walk in the spirit. Galatians 6 says, "Walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh." It is a guarantee that if you stay connected to Jesus, if you keep your hand in his, if you let his spirit run and rule your life, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Hell is not more powerful than the Holy Ghost. The world cannot and will not overcome the anointing that God has placed in your life when you receive the spirit. The scripture says, "Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world." It doesn't matter how great the lie may be. You can overcome it in the name of Jesus. But here's sometimes where I think good people get it wrong. The spirit gives us the power to live an overcoming life.

If we walk and if we yield to the spirit, we will be more than conquerors through him who loved us. The spirit gives us the power to live an overcoming life. But is our responsibility to make use of the spirit's power. We wait for God to liberate us from the struggles and temptations. When God expects us to use the spirit that he has already placed within our hearts, to use the power we have already received to deny the flesh and obey the word. In other words, God will provide the brakes, but you have to hit them. God will provide within your heart the ability and power to overcome the world. But you're the one that's going to use that. You have agency in this. You have choice in this. And right now at a critical stage in your life and in your development, you've got to understand that if you're going to overcome the world, if you're going to overcome this sin that lies beneath the surface of your life, you've got to make a choice.

to yield to the spirit of God. Say, Adam, I mean, do you understand? This is Indiana. We know all these things already. I know. I know. I know that you know a lot of these things already. But as I've sat with youth groups and wept, as I've met with heartbroken moms and dads, as I've stood at the scenes of crashed lives, of young people addicted to pornography and they can't quit, addicted to pills and they can't stop. Young women with their eyes filled with hurt and shame. Young men who can't look me in the face because of their guilt. I watched as mom and dad on either side of the desk held hands with their kid and racked their brains as to how to cope on being in their early 40s and now being a grandparent or how to help their child navigate being a teenage mom or how to help a young adult who's now trapped in a marriage with somebody that they started dating at 17.

They should have never been in relationship. And as we unpack the dilemma and invariably over the course of the conversation, somebody pulls out their own version of an all-weather rubber mat and launches into a tirade of blame. It's that dumb phone. I told him, "Pastor, if only Instagram didn't exist." It was Tik Tok. That's what got him. It was Tik Tok. That's what did her in. Social media is to blame. If he hadn't met that girl, if she if he had not have slid into her DMs and started talking nice to her, if that boy that had no business being around her had not flirted with her, we would not be in this situation. I've watched as parents sat at my desk and they talked about the young faith that once was so strong in the heart of their child is now lying in the ground in a heap completely deconstructed and they pull up their rubber mat, Brother Killmon, and they say, "It was that biology class.

I knew that teacher was no good. I knew that that learning that evolution thing in high school was no good." On and on and on it goes. And I'm not saying external dangers don't exist, but a smartphone did not force you to take that provocative selfie. Okay. This is where we're going to stay a little bit. Okay. Elon Musk when he put porn back on X young man didn't put a gun to your head and force you to doom scroll for hours. Instagram didn't seize control of your thumbs and make you start flicking through inappropriate content. young lady, that Instagram influencer or Tik Tok influencer that you've been watched for hours didn't put a gun to your head and say you've got to abide by these values otherwise will have nothing to do with you. Darwin didn't arise from the dirt encasing his bones and deconstructed a race a lifetime of Sunday school.

You you You did all those things. You did them. You did all those things. You didn't delete the app. When your screen time lets you know that you had problems managing social media in your life. You didn't hit the unfollow button when he slid into your DMs. You didn't turn this over to somebody like a parent or a pastor and say, "This person is trying to pull on my heart and I don't know. I'm lonely and I don't know what to do." You returned the flirtatious advances. You gave them your number and started texting. You kept going back to the website and you never reached out for accountability when your emotions were overwhelmed and your choices felt limited. I know it is popular today to blame every internal problem on an external force, but quit blaming external factors when the real issue is your flesh just stepped on the gas and drove off of a cliff.

As the Toyota Sega continued, it became apparent that you know what, a lot of people crashed, but they didn't have the rubber mats. They didn't live in places that got snow like Canada or Indiana. and they didn't have the and so a new group of accusers came forward with a new and more frightening culprit. They said, "Nah, it can't be Matts. It's far more complicated than this. It's the coding. There's a bug in the software." They came out on on social media and they came out to their news conferences and they said, "Luxury cars are just too complex." Do you know there's a 100 million lines of code in a Lexus? An F35 fighter jet has 7 million lines of code. This means a car is exponentially more complicated. And so the bug will be impossible to find. If there wasn't a bug in this car, they wouldn't have crashed.

What a terrifying proposition. Millions of cars on the road just cursed with bad wiring, cursed with bad code, just waiting to carine off of a cliff. And there was nothing anyone could ever do about it. And so NASA stepped forward and a bunch of astronauts said, "Let's take a look at it because we drive Lexuses and we make a lot of money and and so we we want to we want to know if there's something wrong with our car." And so they they did the National Transportation Safety Board and and NASA got together and they released this after weeks or months of research. They said NASA guys got in the car and got in the code and read it and they found no evidence that a malfunction in electronics caused large accelerations. Again, I've sat in my office. I've sat in coffee shops of young people.

I've sat across kitchen tables with moms and dads and teenagers and young adults. And they didn't take the simplistic route. They didn't grab the rubber mat of a cell phone. They didn't blame Tik Tok or X or YouTube. They didn't go after their favorite high school biology teacher. They said, "Really, pastor, you need to understand the reason why we're in this situation is this is just a really complex problem. The problem is faulty programming. It's the problem is is just there's hundreds of millions of lines of code in this person's life and and we'll never find it. I guess we'll just have to throw our hands up in the air and realize that there are some people who are just so dysfunctional they're going to inevitably crash their life over and over and over again. Pastor, if this was inevitable, of course they're gender questioning.

Do you realize the family they come from? If their parents hadn't got a divorce while in the church, they wouldn't have become so disillusioned with God. It's the complexity of a family breakdown. There was a death in if dad had not lost their job. If they would not have suffered neglect or abuse and they would not have crashed, if there would not have been so many systems of oppression in the society to keep people down. Pastor, don't you understand the complexity of the mental health crisis this generation is in? We're blaming the wiring. And I know I'm on dangerous ground right now, but we're saying that life is just too complex, too difficult for them. That somehow how they thought got so messed up that it was inevitable that their life would crash. James 4:7 has a response. Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

We're going to talk about pain at some point this week. I'm not dismissing the darkness that's in your life. I'm not dismissing the pain you've gone through. I'm not making light of the trauma. I'm not making light of abuse or of divorce or financial hardship or sickness or death or loss. I have suffered many of the things that I have mentioned. I have been disillusioned. I have been bullied. my family did face financial hardship. But James's message was not only to the functional, the healthy or the whole. It was to all people in all circumstances. Resist the devil and he must flee from you. resist the devil and he must flee from you. To every person, can I have more monitor, please? To every person who's walked in carrying pain and burdened. I don't care how messed up you feel. The devil doesn't become more powerful just because you feel more hurt.

You've got to resist him. You by the help of the Holy Ghost, resist him. Even if you're hurt and you're disillusioned and broken or in despair, resist him and he will and he must flee. Listen, I have empathy towards you as a pastor. We pay for counseling. I will sit with you. I will hold your hand. we'll get you peer supports and community supports. we'll pay your bills and get you food so you can focus on healing. But can I tell you the only way you'll overcome sin is by hitting the brakes. The only time you'll overcome pornography is by hitting the brakes. The only way that you will overcome pride is by hitting the brakes. I wasn't going to go here, but but I but I will. Well, you know, one of the things I found fascinating as I studied the story is the amount of people who crossed their heart, hope to die, promised up and down, that they hit the brakes.

But the car's black box revealed evidence to the contrary. Not only did people not touch the brakes, but when they got into a bad situation, they ended up stomping on the gas. They did the opposite of what they wanted. See, in many of these cases, these crashes of Lexus and Toyota vehicles, people were in an unfamiliar place, in an unfamiliar car. They got behind the wheel irrespective of all of the changes that made this driving experience in this car different and unlike any of the other ones they had before. They just assumed they knew what they were doing. But when crisis set in and panic started to rise, they hit the wrong pedal. Somewhere in the chaos, panic disrupted the messages between their brain and their foot. And they hit the wrong pedal in a moment of danger because in a place of safety, they hadn't determined where the break should be.

And that's when I discovered that unintended accelerations are the most common form of car accidents. Isn't that crazy? People get behind the wheel and they think they're hitting the brakes, but they're jumping on the gas. Sometimes young people crash. Maybe you have crashed before you got here. Because when you got into an unfamiliar place, maybe it was a new school. Maybe it was a new grade. Maybe it was a new job. Maybe you went from junior high to senior high. Maybe you started filling out those college applications, but in an unfamiliar place and in a new environment. Maybe you had never had somebody had a crush on you. You know, you've had crush on them, but they haven't. And now you find yourself the object of romantic affection, and you haven't determined where your boundaries in your life should be before you found yourself in a new place and in a new environment.

Can I preach to you as a pastor for a moment that your boundaries are your breaks and you need to know as a young person in a critical moment, in a critical season of transition, you need to know where your boundaries are. You need to know where your boundaries and your standards are before you get in trouble. Boundaries are the decisions you've already made on the issues before you face them in pressure. So, you already make up your mind. When I get a job, I'm not working on Sunday. When I go to college, I'm going to a college near a church. Or better yet, I'm going to stay at home so that I can still be with mom and dad. when I'm on when I have a date, when I've got a girlfriend or a boyfriend, we're not going to do this. there is going to be no Netflix and chill in my life.

we are going to have the boundaries in place so that you do not find yourself in the darkness of unfamiliar territory and you don't know how to stop. You need to have boundaries on your life. When you go to a new school, when you move into a new neighborhood, when you move from elementary to middle school or middle school to high school or high school to college, you need to know where your standards are. You need to know what your ethics are. You need to know the difference between right and wrong. You've got to make a commitment in your soul. These are the things that I'm never ever going to do. Otherwise, you can find yourself in the middle of a spiritual crisis. accelerating the crash because in a moment of panic, in a moment of loneliness at college, when you're far away from home and you haven't made a covenant with yourself that I'm only going to date somebody who's another apostolic and before I get into the relationship, I'm going to bring my parents and my pastor into the conversation because sometimes my emotions are going to be too high that I'm not going to be able to make wise decisions for myself.

And so, right now, I make up my mind. I'm going to bring other voices into my life on key decisions like work and romance and education so that I do not find myself at the end of the high school year accepting a college application on a whim and moving an hour away from the nearest apostolic church. You you got to know where your brakes are. Here's another break that sometimes we we don't hit or's another piece of unintended acceleration that we bring into our life. Not only do we not know where our boundaries are, but sometimes we like to blame other people for our problems. We claim moral superiority over our church and over our pastor for not being there for us. I pastored somebody that left the church in a huff, found themselves in the middle of a same-sex relationship, and the reason, the lynch pin, they said for it all is people didn't call me or didn't reach out to me the way that I wanted them to.

If you find yourself in the middle of blaming other people for the state of your mind, your emotions, or your spiritual direction, mean you're telling me that your success going to heaven is going to be based on the actions of someone else, whether or not they reach out to you or respond to you within your exact specifications. You think that's what you should base your eternity on? The Apostle Paul writes in Philippians, "My beloved, as you have already obeyed, not is in my presence only, but now much more in my absence. Work out your own salvation." Your own salvation with fear and with trembling. What is What am I preaching here on this opening night of camp? I'm saying, "Do not be in love with the world. No matter how complex life gets, no m how much an escape seems like, it's the only option for you and the only way to relieve the pressure.

If you are filled with the Holy Ghost, you've got the power to stop. I'm reaching for a young person today that's been entertaining carnality and worldliness in your life. Hit the brakes. I'm reaching for somebody that is getting into a romantic relationship they've got no business in. I need you to hit the brakes. I'm reaching for people that are allowing their faith to deconstruct because of the voices of strangers on social media. I'm begging with you. Hit the brakes. Don't mess with sin. Piano player, if you could come, we're going to vibe this close. We're just going to follow the Holy Ghost right now. Don't mess with sin. Sin is so cruel, so despicable and so vile. Its consequence is so crushing and so horrendous and so catastrophic that it took every last drop of blood and the brutalized body of Jesus Christ to satisfy its judgment break its curse and redeem us from its slavery so based on the cost of what sin did to Jesus.

I beg you tonight on this opening night, hit the brakes. Yes. as you make some changes. There may be some scars. There may be some wounds. There may be some baggage. You may have to delete some numbers off of your phone. You may have to get off of social media altogether. You may have to shut down the account and feel left out. You may have to go through a season of loneliness in your life. But can I tell you that if you're headed in the wrong direction, it is better to walk in the wilderness with God like David did than to walk with the world and be surrounded by people. Listen, I know it may take time to heal. I know it may be jarring when you go into your pastor's office or you call your parents on the phone and you say, "I've got a problem with porn." Or, "I've got a problem with drinking.

I've got a problem with this thing in my life. I have been living a double life in high school." While repentance can be jarring as you break off relationships and you learn new habits, this is not the pain of a crash. But it's the jarring. It's the jarring of a shift direction that brings healing and a restored purpose. Listen to the voice of Ezekiel. Therefore, I will judge you, oh house of Israel, everyone according to his ways, says the Lord. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, so that your iniquity will not be your ruin. This was not my plan, bro. God shifted my thoughts on the plane. I had a completely different message prepared. But God said before we could talk about calling, before we could talk about breaking through, before we could talk about purpose, you got to tell some people the world brings ruin.

There are voices online that will tell you that this is legalism and this is not this is not a voice you should hear. But you hear this bald, short fat guy from Canada that sin will bring ruin into your life. It cannot be managed. It must be repented of iniquity cannot be handled with kid gloves. It must be nailed to a cross of Christ. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed and get yourself a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die? Listen to the voice of Jesus. Listen to the voice of our God. Why should you die, oh house of Israel? For I have no I have no pleasure. And the death of one who dies, says the Lord God. Therefore, turn and live. God calls out to the nation of Israel the same thing he calls out over us on this first night of camp.

That grace is possible to the one who will repent. Earlier, God says, "If you turn to me, I will remember your transgressions and your sins no more. If you have been headed in the wrong direction for the love of God, stop and turn to Jesus. Because as you are stopping, as you are turning, you are headed into a God of mercy. Why? Why? Why would you head into a destructive direction when in an apostolic altar you've got a merciful Jesus who has already borne your sins extending mercy waiting to change you waiting to rescue you waiting to deliver you tonight when you turn God won't remind you of your failures he won't rub your nose in shame he will purge his own memory of your mistakes The God who knows all things will make a choice to know nothing about the failures and the sin.

I have no pleasure. The one who dies. People think that when they head in the wrong direction that it is God who seeks to crush their life. No. God is the one who seeks to bring mercy and grace to your life. It's the enemy of your soul that seeks for your destruction. You do not serve a God who calls you to holiness because he wants to hurt or judge or bring pain. The devil lies the people. He says, "When you're caught in the wrong direction, you better head as far away as possible from Jesus. You better run from your church. You better run from an altar. You better run from your pastor. They just want to hurt you. So you better bury it and try to fix it on your own. I rebuke that deception in this room in the name of Jesus. Tonight when you come to this altar, you're not running into condemnation.

You're running into mercy. God, as wise and as just and as holy and as pure as he is, ultimately loves you. as heart breaks with the thought of anyone suffering, perishing, losing out with him, walking away from anointing and purpose as a result of their own actions. What's he saying in Ezekiel? He says, "Turn and live." He doesn't say, "Turn or else." He says, "Turn and live." He adds with the promise of life. He says, "Turn." Then he says in verse 25, "I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh. And I will give you a heart of flesh. Hear me. All you've got to do is hit the brakes." God's not saying you're going to fix this by yourself.

I don't know if I'm reaching for the whole crowd or just a handful who came in on spiritual life support. God's not waiting for you to fix this. He's waiting for you to hit the brakes and turn to him. And if you'll turn to him, he's the one. He's the one that can break the addiction. He's the one that can stop the self harm. He's the one that can eradicate the anxious and depressive thoughts that drive compulsive behaviors. He's the one that can change your loves and affections. He's the one that can renew your joy and your hope and your peace. God doesn't require you to fix yourself. He says, "Turn to me. I'll change your heart. Turn to me. I'll change your soul. Turn to me. All you have to do is hit the brakes." He said he would just stand with me all over this room.

He said, "I I'll do the work to transform you. You don't have to change your own heart." He'll change it for you. You don't have to transform your own spirit. You just got to turn to God. The Holy Ghost is here to forgive you, to burn some desires out of your mind, to deliver you from thought patterns and addictions and ways of living and ways of talking that keep you in slavery. God is here by the power of his spirit to remake your mind. And this altar call, not the ones where we jump and shout, not the ones where we run around the church. And I hope we get to do that before we go. But I'm telling you, the moments of change and transformation that came in my life were not in the shouts of breakthrough, but when I buried my face in the carpet and I exposed my soul to God and I said, "Lord, I'm in over my head." And Jesus, I don't know what I'm going to do if you don't find me and you don't help me and you don't change me.

And so I turn from my sin. I turn from my flesh. I surrender it to your cross. So the call of the Holy Ghost on this very first night of camp is a call for you to bring your heart to an altar. For you to take every weward way, every rebellious direction Give it to Jesus. Some of you are like, "I don't watch porn. I I don't I don't dabble in drugs." But yes, your anger and your bitterness consumes your mind. You allow people that have hurt you in their youth group to begin to unravel and disillusion you from the idea of church. Some of you in this room have have lifted having money and having a career above what you know God is calling you to do. And I hope that you have a fabulous career and I hope that you make lots of money.

But at some point in your life, you've got to come to an altar and you've got to surrender your ways and your future to God because God knows the way that you should take. There is a way that seems right to a man. But the end thereof is the is destruction. And what God is looking for from a generation is for people to come to the altar. He says, "I'll change your heart. All chain music team, you can come. I'll change your desires. But first, you've got to turn. First, you've got to turn. That's it. All over this room. We're going to pray in one moment, but I'm going to call something out that I feel as a generation, we are consumed with feeling okay. We're obsessed with feeling okay. No one make me feel bad. No one make it feel awkward. No one make it feel uncomfortable.

Let's hasten as quickly as we can to the part where we shout and we jump. We clap our hands and we sing the fast song and then we can have a late night and have a great time. But can I tell you that transformation happens in the awkward? That true change happens when you become uncomfortable in the presence of God and when God holds a mirror up to your soul and says, "This is your attitude. These are the words that are coming out of your mouth to your parents, to your teachers, to your family. This is your internet history. This is the doom scrolling habits you have. You created your own algorithm. The algorithm didn't send you that. You created your own algorithm based on the things they watched your eyes through your camera on your phone. Tik Tok did. And they watched your pupils dilate.

And they saw the things that caused your pupils to dilate indicating that dopamine is hitting your brain. And they said, "That's what we need to get into their phone so that they could stay on the app and stay connected for the ad revenue. You built your own algorithm." And I know that's awkward and uncomfortable to hear, but God has sent me all the way from another country to hold a mirror up today and say, "If you want change, transformation, anointing, breakthrough, power, and purpose, and calling, you've got to hit the brakes first. You got to hit the brakes." So, I wonder if all over this room, if you want to kneel, kneel. I don't want you looking around at a single person. In fact, let's do this. Sometimes in camps, we get in little huddles and pray for one another. We've got ministry team that'll help you.

We'll pray with one another in a second. But God's not wanting you to go, "Jesus touched my friend." You know they got problems when he's wanting you to talk about your own heart. We're going to make it awkward in here for a moment because we're all going to close our eyes and we're going to talk to God right out loud in English. The Holy Ghost is going to come. We'll pray in tongues and the spirit will bring transformation to our hearts. But you need to hear your own voice. Say, "Jesus, I repent. Jesus, I turn. Jesus, I surrender my attitude. I surrender my actions. I surrender my behaviors. In fact, could we do that all over this room? Ministry team, pastors and elders and camp staff that are here, I want you to be led of the Holy Ghost as you pray with people. I want you to get ready to vacate this platform right now and begin to lay hands and pray.

But everyone in this room, if you're a camper, I want you to close your eyes. In fact, some of you may need to kneel. You need to have a posture of humility and repentance where you say, "God, come on." That's it. Right. Write in your own words. We're all going to get filled with the Holy Ghost in a moment, but in your own words, somebody needs to hear themselves say, "God, my screen time has been eight hours a day, and I have been piping my soul full of stuff that's carnal." Jesus. Jesus. I have been allowing jealousy and gossip and division to pour from my spirit in my church because I can't stand it, God, if other girls are prettier than me or more popular than me or get more attention than me. So God, I got to tear other people down so I can lift myself up.

God, I repent of that. God, I have a secret addiction that I need you to forgive me of and give me the power to overcome. That's it. Call it out. I need you to name it and I need you to label it. God, here is my attitude. God, here are my behaviors. God, here is my heart. God, here is my soul. Come on, let's say. Lift your voice. Lift your voice. Down on my knees again. Surrendering more. Surrendering more. Come on. That's it. That's it. Allow your heart to break in the presence of the Lord. Lord, you draw me. Listen, allow the goodness of God to lead you to repentance. He's here to bring change and transformation. God, I surrender my soul. I surrender my words. Surrender. I surrender my behaviors. I surrender my actions. I surrender my attitudes. That's it. Hallelujah. Come on, let's say.

Lift your voice. Lift your voice. My soul is mercy and grace. A hunger and thirst. Hunger and thirst. Come on. That's it. That's it. Call out to God. Call out to God. Call out to God. That's why I know you hear my cry. Hallelujah. Desperate for you. Oh, I surrender. Sing it out. I surrender. Come on, that's it. Call out. Call out. Call out. I surrender. I want to know you more. I want to know. That's it. That's it. Reach out. Reach out. Reach out. Reach out. I surrender. I surrender. I want to know you, Lord. I want to know you, Lord. I surrender. I surrender. I want to I want to know. I want surrender. I surrender. I surrender. I want I want to know you. I want to know you, Lord. I surrender. I surrender. I want to know you, Lord. I want to know you, Lord.

Now, I want you to lift your voice to God and say, "God, I've turned." Now, will you put your spirit in my soul, aresh and a new, God, will your Holy Spirit, God, I've turned. Now, will you do the work, God, I've turned. Now, will you bring the change? That's lift your voice. Lift your voice and let the spirit begin to renew your thoughts and minds. Let the spirit begin to renew your emotions in your heart. Let the spirit of God begin to make you new. Like a rush sheep with Jesus breathe with it. Lord have your way. Lord have your way in me. Like a mighty storm. Search within my soul. Lord, have your way. Lord, have your way in me. Like a rushing wind. Like a ring. Jesus, breathe with me. Lord, have your way. Lord, have your way. Lord, have your way.

Lord, have your way. And like a mighty sword, like a mighty stir within my soul within my Lord have in your mercy. Jesus breathe with me. Lord have you wait for me. Michael stir within my soul. Lord have your way. Lord have you meat? Heat. Heat. Sing. I surrender. I surrender. I want to know you more. I want to know you. I surrender. I want to know. I surrender. I want to know you. I want you. I surrender. I want to know you, Lord. I want to know you, Lord. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. I surrender. I want to know you, Lord. If you're in deep prayer, just ignore me and keep praying. And I had every intention of just letting this thing ring out, but the Holy Ghost kept gripping me. Talked to Brother [Gilland?] and Brother Killmon. I feel like I want to take this altar call a little bit deeper.

I want to tell you something. I feel in this room that I feel a lot of places I preach. There is a numbing. There is a numbing of the American mind, an American soul that is happening because we have not learned how to put boundaries on the digital voices that stream images and videos endlessly into our souls. And here's what I felt. You may think I'm weird, but that's okay. I have felt the Lord moving all throughout this altar call, rushing up against people, wanting to change, bring transformation to their heart. But you logged six to eight hours on this thing before you got here today. And a callous is developing over your heart and soul. You're just inundated with so much noise. It's It's like static. The still small voice of God is trying to break through in this altar call for some people that really need to pray and touch God.

But a callous has developed over your soul simply because you're inundated continually so many different voices. a distracted mind, distracted heart that has trouble hearing and feeling God. Some of you have struggled to pray for longer than 15 or 20 seconds in this altar because your whole mind and brain is being rewired by shorts, reels, and there are some things that you can only get from God. some change that can only happen when you tar in his presence. There are only some things that can happen in your soul when you make a conscious choice to keep your eyes closed and to fight through the internal noise and press through and touch God. So, I want to give you that opportunity because I want to let you know that from tonight, God wants to do so much in this camp and in your heart. God wants to bring so much healing and change and transformation and calling and deliverance in your life, but he needs to break through the noise first.

So, I wonder if all over this room And I know I'm pressing you hard on night one. I I'm I'm I know this. But if we could close our eyes and if you could not look, talk, or think about anyone else around you and you could just pray a very simple prayer, it says, "God, I need you. God, there's too much pressure. God, there's too many distractions. God, there's too many temptations for me, God, to go through another service where I just go through the motions, God, where I don't fully and truly encounter you. So God, I'm praying one last time, just for a few more moments before God, we do late night, before we have tribe wars, before we before we have any other fun. God, I need to break through the numbness that's building up in my heart, through all of the noise that I'm surrounded.

Cuz God, I need you. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to ask you right now to close your eyes and lift your voice and begin to fight through the distractions that are in this room. Begin to fight through the internal pressure that says, "It's been enough. It's been 30 seconds. It's been 40 seconds. Here's the commitment I'm gonna make to you. I'm going to say I I want I'm just going to pray for you and then I'm going to put this mic down and I'm going to go to my chair and I'm going to pray for me because I've got my own noise that's trying to scream into my life. I need to hear the voice of God before I go back to my hotel room tonight. This isn't just for campers. It's for everybody. God, will you break through? God, will you break through?

God will so by the power of the name of Jesus and by the authority of the word of God. Holy Ghost break through right now in this room. Holy Ghost break through the numbness. Break through the calluses. Break through the indifference. Break through the apathy that is building up in our souls right now in the name of Jesus that's in canvas. Seek him. Seek him. Seek him.