Welcome to Harvest Chapel PA podcast.
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We're so glad you've joined us.
Each week, you'll hear powerful messages, testimonies and conversations designed to
help you grow in your faith and encounter Jesus in a fresh way.
Let's dive into today's episode.
So good, how's everyone doing this morning?
Doing good?
Before we jump into the message, I actually wanna do something that's on my
heart.
Yesterday, as we were just going about our day, I just started to pray into today's
service being the first service of the new year.
Just saw a few things in my spirit that I just wanna do.
If you're 60 and over, I'd like you to stand up real quick.
If you are 60 and over.
And if you're unable to stand, this word is for you as well.
But I really feel like as we enter into this new year, I felt like the Lord really
wanted me to encourage this generation and He was just speaking over you that He
isn't finished with you yet.
That there's still plans that have not been fulfilled yet.
There's promises that have been spoken but haven't come to fruition yet.
And I just really feel like the Lord wanted to encourage you specifically,
individually and corporately, to keep dreaming, keep believing, keep trusting.
If you're just walking in, if you're 60 and over, this word is for you,
this moment is for you.
I feel like one of the most powerful things you can do is find a younger person
and one, begin to pray for them, begin to pray with them and begin to pour
your life into that individual.
And you may be standing right now and go, I'm not really in a place right now where
I feel like I have anything to give.
The Lord is extending an invitation to you this morning and He's saying the rest of
your life can be the most fulfilled years of your life.
An invitation to intimacy, an invitation to knowing Him differently, hearing His
voice more clearly, seeing Him in different ways but I would encourage you
to begin to pray.
Ask God, would you show me someone to reach out to, to pray for?
Maybe they're 20 years younger than you, maybe they're 30 years younger than you.
Maybe it's one of these teenagers that just went up to the loft service but He's
not finished with you yet.
He's doing something within you.
So I wanna pray over you but if you are near one of these seasoned saints,
I'd like you to just place a hand on their shoulder and I wanna pray for them.
You can pray out loud, you can get excited about this but God we just thank you for
everyone represented, everyone that's watching from home that's in that
category.
God we thank you that you are not finished with them.
God we thank you that there are plans that you have for them.
God we thank you that there's promises that have not been fulfilled yet.
God and I thank you that you are a God that keeps your word.
So Lord I speak health, God I speak energy, God I speak transformation,
God would you blow into their lives right now God and do what only you can do.
Would you breathe that breath of life into their bones, God?
Don't give up, don't give up.
If you have breath in your lungs, God has a plan.
God has purpose and God I ask right now that you would begin to highlight younger
individuals to them God, to pray for, to champion, to encourage, to uplift God,
to challenge in love.
Would you allow the wisdom that they carry be passed on to the generation behind
them?
God let it be generational blessing, God let it be generation blessing
generation.
Have your way with them God, have your way with their lives, Lord.
Let them finish well.
I believe all of them have a desire to hear well done my good and faithful
servant.
Now if we can flip the script and if the ones that are standing could maybe pray
for the one that's praying for them.
I believe that's a beautiful exchange, a beautiful generational exchange of
blessing.
Thank you Jesus for just what you're doing not only in this room but in this time.
It's such an honor to be born for such a time as this.
And as a representation of the younger generation God we honor the generations
that are before us.
God and we welcome encouragement, we welcome love, we welcome love and
correction at times that needs to happen.
Lord I just say have your way, have your way in Jesus name, amen.
Can we just celebrate him real quick because he's a generational God.
He's so for us not against us.
I'm excited, I'm excited for this first Sunday of 2026.
I don't know about you but Uriah is wearing the right colors today.
I had to.
His mama may have some conflicting opinions but daddy picked out his outfit
today and I bought that jersey a few days ago.
So I'm excited about it.
Just gonna have some fun.
We can learn how to love each other, right?
We can learn how to celebrate whoever wins.
We all win in the end.
No, we're not gonna make today about that but it is fun, it's fun.
You can have fun.
I just sometimes we can get a little obsessed, we get a little consumed by
sports.
I think it's fun to participate and just have fun.
I really wish kickoff wasn't at 8.30.
What are we thinking guys?
Holy smokes, Uriah's gonna be passed out like the world.
But it's just fun and I'm just excited to step into things that I really feel like
the Lord has for us and I even feel like what we just did is a part of it because I
truly do believe that older generation pouring into the generations that are
coming behind them is so powerful and so needed.
And we need that older generation to feel like you have something to impart to us.
So there has to be this honor, this honor that goes both ways.
But I'm just excited and I just feel like, man, if you just find one person to pour
into and you could pour into them from afar for a season.
You could just intentionally pray for them.
Like you just pick out somebody in the congregation and say, I'm gonna pray for
that young person.
I'm just gonna believe that God blesses them, blesses their family.
And you watch what the Lord can do because maybe you don't have the energy to do this
or this or this, but you have the energy to pray.
You have the energy to intercede.
God has something for us.
Even on a day like today where we're starting a 21 day fast, there's a lot of
us that are like, well, I didn't know we were doing that so I'm not prepared to do
that.
All of us can participate in this fast in some way.
They say it takes about 21, 22 days to develop a habit.
So how beautiful would it be if you just began to develop some spiritual habits
this year and begin to read your Bible in the morning and at night and maybe even
jump on your app throughout the day and you're just feasting on scripture
throughout the day, man.
If you do that for 21 days, what happens is on day 22, you find yourself reaching
for this without even trying because there's been something that's been
developed within you.
And all of us, we have so much more time than what we realize.
And I know a lot of us were busy and we have busy schedules, but I promise you,
you can't afford to not spend time with God.
And if you're looking at this new year and you want new outcomes, we have to do
things different.
We can't do life and do the same things that we've done in 2025 and think 2026 is
gonna be any different.
We have to go into this new year with joyful expectation of God.
What can I do different this year?
How can I spend more time with you this year than I spent with you last year?
How can I pray more?
How can I worship more?
How can I not just come to you when I need things, but how can we have this real
intimate relationship?
When I think of an intimate relationship, you've heard me say this many times,
but I think of intimacy into me, you see.
It's having that kind of relationship with God where we're not trying to hide
anything from him because one, we can't.
We can't hide anything from him.
He knows every thought that goes through our mind.
He knows the things we wish would have happened when they didn't happen.
He understands when we're frustrated.
He knows when we're happy.
He knows when we're joyful.
He knows when we're interceding for something and praying for something and
we're not seeing the outcome that we would like.
He understands that.
And he's closer to you than you realize and he's with you.
And I want you just to go into this new year and it's a big if.
One of my biggest words that I like to circle and highlight in my Bible is if.
If you seek me, you'll find me.
Those of us that seek him the next 21 days in a fast, guess what?
We're gonna find him.
Those of us that knock, guess what?
He's gonna answer the door.
But for those of us that maybe knock for a few days and we don't hear the things we
wanna hear or we pray for things for a couple days and maybe things don't change,
then we just, we give up sometimes.
And I believe that God is challenging us corporately and individually to go a
little deeper.
Sometimes we can get comfortable in the shallow end.
Sometimes we can get comfortable doing the things we've just always done.
But what happens when God calls you to go a little deeper?
What does it look like when God says, I know you're comfortable with this.
I know you know how to do this and do that but I want you to grow in this way this
year.
And it looks completely different than anything you're used to.
And you know it, if you're at a pool and you're standing, you're at standing level
and all of a sudden you go a little further, well, if you don't know how to
swim when your toes stop reaching the floor, you're gonna get a little nervous.
But I feel like the Lord is calling us to a deeper place corporately and
individually and saying, won't you just trust me?
Won't you trust me to go a little deeper?
What happens when we go so deep that we just get consumed by Him and we're all in,
we're fully in?
There's no part of us that isn't in Him.
I want that, not just for me and my family, but oh, He's awake, what's up,
buddy?
Yes, sir, snack time.
What happens when you just get to a point in your relationship with God where you're
like, I'm truly, you get to a point where you realize you can't afford to hold
anything back.
You can't afford to hold back your finances, you can't afford to hold back
your marriage, you can't afford to hold back your career.
There's no part of your life that God doesn't wanna be all about.
We can't just incorporate Him into certain aspects of our life and then wonder why
we're not getting all in results.
We want all in results, but we have part-time prayer habits.
We want the benefits of a fast, but do we wanna participate in the fast?
And I'm here to tell you, no one in this room has the power to come out of this
fast more holy than you are this moment.
Why?
Because holiness isn't defined by our works, it's defined by His works.
So we're not going into this fast being like, I'm gonna be a level five Christian
if I can successfully do this fast for 21 days.
No, you already have full access to the Father right now.
You don't have to give up this or give up this to get more access, but what does
happen when we choose to fast and we choose to push away distractions,
our ears open to the point where we can just hear clearer.
We can see Him in things that maybe we couldn't see Him in before it.
It silences distraction and it welcomes us into this place of intimacy that is
enjoyable and I want us to get to a point where we get excited to fast and we don't
just fast the first few weeks in the new year, we actually do it throughout the
year because God's just calling us, He's drawing us and He's like,
you know what?
Why don't you just spend some time with me over this lunch period?
And maybe we had plans and maybe we thought we were gonna go here and do this,
but God just, He just woos us and He's like, you know what?
I just wanna spend time with you for 30 minutes, would you just give me this 30
minutes?
And all of a sudden, because of our obedience, we start to dine with Him,
we start to realize God just wants to spend time with me, He's jealous for your
time, He wants your time, like I can't imagine the Lord seeing our busy schedules
and us dropping the kids off at this and doing this and meeting this person,
meeting that person and then He sees nowhere on our calendar time that's just
carved out for Him.
And sometimes we think the thought, well, that just seems religious Pastor
Matt, if I have to literally pencil it in, well, if we don't, it doesn't happen
because we're busy, we have things going on, we have things that we think we're
doing and then our day changes because then this happens and we can get,
we don't have to get religious with it, maybe you thought you were gonna spend
time with God at lunch and then something happens, but guess what?
You're still spending time with God because you're one with Him, you're one
with Him.
But we believe this lie and I think it's very powerful for everyone in this room to
have a secret place, a war room, but you know that you are the secret
place?
You are X marks the spot, you are where the spirit of the Lord dwells.
You are a living, breathing tabernacle that hosts the very presence of God if
you've surrendered your life to Him, if you've given Him your life and I go
back to that saying, that's a big if because unfortunately I do think there's a
lot of people throughout the nation and the nations that are occupying a seat in a
building, but Christ isn't occupying a seat in their heart.
And I love you enough to challenge you in that way, but we have to go into this new
year saying, you know what, like I can't afford to play games anymore, like I wanna
be all in, it's 99.9% of your heart just simply isn't cutting it.
That little piece that you're holding back from Him is the one thing He wants you to
surrender.
It's the one thing that He says, if you would just give that to me,
oh my goodness, you have no idea.
And God is a God that likes to give His kids good gifts, but it's not even about
God giving more good gifts to you, He already gave you the greatest gift
which was His Son.
His Son to come here and do what only He could do, and then it doesn't even stop
there when we put our faith and our trust in the Lord and faith enters our heart and
we believe in Him and we surrender our life and you pray a prayer that's not this
religious exactly repeat after me prayer because that's not biblical, but when you
fully surrender your life to Him, I believe that in that moment,
supernaturally, you are filled with the same presence that raised Christ from the
dead.
That is the greatest gift you'll ever receive.
That gift is better than anything that God could do for you on this side of eternity.
It's what allows you to live this life full of Him.
I want people to be like, Pastor Matt, you're just full of it.
You're right, I am, I'm full of it, I'm full of Him.
I'm full of love, I'm full of joy, I'm full of hope, no matter what's
happening in our country, no matter what's happening in the nations.
I mean, I'm full of it, I'm full of Him.
I'm completely dead to myself and alive in Him and that's the same invitation that
you have.
And I think sometimes it's just so important to enter a new year with
excitement.
I know that some of us went through some really heavy things in 2025 and some of
you are like, I'm so thankful that that year is over and I have a new fresh
beginning and I'm excited for you.
I just wanna challenge some of those habits and I don't want those habits to
trickle their way into 2026 and then six months into the new year, we're like,
man, I can't wait for 2027.
We can't just live a life like that.
We have to be so fulfilled in Him that no matter what's happening within,
around us, no matter what's happening within our family, what our children are
deciding to do, it doesn't have the ability to dictate how hopeful I am,
how loved I feel.
You are loved, I want you to go into this new year not questioning whether you're
loved or not.
You are loved by love Himself.
It doesn't get much better than that but you have to experience that love.
It's a love that's greater than just something we talk about, something we
preach about, something that we go to a Wednesday night to learn about.
You've gotta learn it on a Tuesday morning when you don't feel like waking up.
You go, you know what?
Nothing in me feels like getting up but God I thank you that you choose to love
me.
You choose to love me in this state.
Like God doesn't love you more when you're fasting.
He doesn't love you more when you give an extravagant gift.
He just loves you and it's His love that it propels us to want to do things like
fasting.
It's His love and acceptance for us that makes us wanna do things like give,
not only financially but our time and help the body of Christ and be the hands and
feet of Jesus.
You guys with me this morning?
I don't know about you but I'm just excited.
I'm excited for what God has in store for us but individually we have to respond to
this call and you guys know that the verse that we're gonna be screaming from a
rooftop this whole year and probably into next year and years to come but it's
Matthew chapter 16 verse 24.
If any man, I love that.
If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross
and follow me.
If you weren't able to be with us last week, I shared the fact that whenever
we're going into a new year, Pastor Anne and I, we spend time together.
We usually like to go somewhere where we just try to spend some time together and
just ask the Lord, press in a little bit and say, God, what are you speaking not
only for us but for the church that you've asked us to lead and we truly heard the
Lord speaking over our congregation, follow me.
And I know that that sounds so elementary but I'm telling you, if we don't get that,
we don't get anything.
This is where it begins.
It's the individual response to your savior that wants you to follow him so
that you can become like him.
I think Jesus Christ himself modeled what discipleship truly looks like.
It's going to people that are broken, that are not perfect, that don't have it
all together, that have issues in their marriage, that aren't perfect with their
finances and he goes, follow me.
Follow me.
If you follow me and you watch how I walk, you watch how I talk, you study,
what does it look like to be one with the father, eventually you'll become what you
behold.
And before we can follow our favorite preachers and our favorite podcasters and
this and that, we individually have to be following Christ.
If I'm not following Christ fully and wholeheartedly as your pastor,
you can't follow me.
For your children to get this, parents, you have to be following him.
Your voice is a louder voice to them in your home than mine.
They're only with me.
They're only at Harvest Chapel, a very small portion of their life.
But if they see mom and dad following Christ Monday through Sunday, it's gonna
give them something.
It's gonna show them this is what it looks like to follow Christ.
This is what it looks like when you have a financial hardship and you don't know how
this bill's gonna get paid.
We all get together, we all hold hands and we just thank God.
We say, God, thank you that you are our provider.
Lord, we don't know how this bill's gonna get paid, but Lord, we trust you and we're
gonna choose as a family to not allow this need, this lack that we're experiencing
even though we lack nothing in you because we lack nothing in Christ Jesus.
God, we thank you that this is an opportunity for us to grow in trust with
you.
And Lord, we don't know how you're gonna work this out, but God, we know that you
work all things together for our good.
So Lord, we thank you that the testimony's coming.
And Lord, we're not gonna be depressed.
We're not gonna be fearful for the next two weeks until the blessing comes.
We're gonna choose to trust you.
Your kids are looking at you like, man, this is weird.
This isn't how my friend's parents deal with things.
We gotta look different.
We gotta stand out.
We gotta burn bright.
We hear it all the time.
Well, Pastor Matt, this world's getting just darker and darker.
Well, it's an invitation to burn brighter and brighter.
It should be so obvious who Christians are in South Central Pennsylvania.
It should be so obvious, like dark, light, good, bad, heaven, hell.
This is very elementary.
But we should be so hopeful.
We should be so encouraged, so filled with peace.
Not because we're perfect, because the Prince of Peace chose to dwell in me,
chose to make his home in me.
Not because I'm doing anything perfect, but because that's his plan.
Jesus was never plan B.
He was always plan A.
If you're doing a Bible plan right now, we're probably, right now, I'm doing the
Bible recap, just a little shameless plug.
I mean, it's a good plan.
Today's Job.
But I would encourage you not even to believe the lie that, man, Job,
this is gonna be a doozy.
No, when you're praying and you're reading scripture, ask God to show you Christ.
Ask God to, Holy Spirit, I don't wanna just read this scripture apart from you.
I wanna read it with you, God.
And would you show me where Christ is?
Would you show me where redemption is?
Would you show me?
Even when you're reading the genealogies, I mean, I'll just quickly pass over the
names, because we're all doing it.
We're like, son of, cellulites and parasites and,
God, would you show me what you're trying to teach me because I believe every word,
every name, it's intentional.
And I believe we can press in and ask God for his blueprints, and that revelations
would be revealed to us.
Like, this is exciting.
But it all starts with surrender.
It all starts with surrender.
It's the posture of those who follow Christ.
It's a heart posture of surrender.
We have to go from an invitation to, it's our posture.
These can't just be verses that we read and we get excited about it, and then we
go about our day, and our day looks like the same as yesterday.
Like, you gotta be an intentional speaker.
You have to be an intentional believer.
Like, you have to choose what you're going to believe.
You actually choose what you allow come out of your mouth.
And if you wanna know where you are with the Lord, just listen to the things that
are coming out of your mouth, because it's out of the abundance of the heart,
the mouth speaks.
So maybe just take a little self-evaluation over these last couple of
weeks and be like, man, how positive am I?
Am I a positive person?
Don't be nudging your spouse right now and being like, this is for you.
I'm so glad you're with me this first Sunday of the year.
If you want them to come back next week, don't nudge.
But we have to be intentional with what we allow ourselves to dwell on, what we allow
ourselves to think about, what we choose to believe.
Like, you have to believe that God has a plan for your family.
God has a plan for your children's children's children.
You gotta believe that.
You gotta pray from that place.
You gotta pray from a hopeful place.
We're not praying for hope.
We're praying from hope.
We're not praying for peace.
We're praying from peace.
God, I thank you that you are the peace that passes all understanding.
I know the situation might seem hectic and I don't know left from right and up to
down, but God, I trust that you have a plan.
And God, I'm gonna love you through it.
I'm not even just gonna love you through this.
I'm gonna worship you through this.
Oh my goodness.
Like, I say this all the time, but probably the biggest thing that I took
from my time out in Redding, California, I was out there for five years.
I got to sit under Bill Johnson and Chris Fowlton, all those guys, and I honor those
guys, but they're not God.
We also have to understand that.
The champions of the faith, the people that you love, the people that you honor,
they still cannot replace God in your life.
Jesus still has to be the loudest voice in your life.
I'll never forget the day that Jesus was like, follow me back to Pennsylvania.
And everything in me was like, really?
Really?
Like, I did not think that that was God's plan.
And it was the first time in my life that God's voice was the only voice leading my
decisions.
Because I had people in my life that loved me, people in my life that wanted the best
for me come to me and say, man, I don't know if you're making the right
choice.
I mean, look what God has done for you.
You're youth pasturing, you're serving at Bethel Church, you're leading 70 Bethel
students a week in outreach.
Like, it seems like you're on a really fast track to really level up and do this.
And I'm like, but my life's not my own.
My life is at my own.
And if God is asking me to go home, it's time to go home.
Because I certainly didn't move across the country to just stay and not do anything
with it.
I remember our teachers brought us into a room at our third year and say,
hey guys, this is a deployment school.
You have to leave.
You have to leave.
Some of you through favor and through what God is asking you to do, you'll join us in
what we're doing.
And a lot of my friends are leading a lot of aspects of Bethel Church.
And my old roommate, him and his wife, Steven Ruth Moore, they're leading BSSM
online, and people that I lived with.
I look and Haley Braun is one of the biggest prophetic voices of Bethel,
and she was only a year ahead of me.
And I see all of that and God says, that's great for all of them, but your
life is mine and I'm calling you home.
And everything that I spent time building with him and enjoying seeing God move and
seeing kids come to Christ and having after school clubs in every local school
of my city and just really seeing God really move.
He's like, none of that was yours.
It was always mine.
You were simply called to be a steward.
But if I wasn't surrendered, I probably would have stayed.
It was comfortable.
I knew what I was doing.
I knew that A plus B equals this.
And if I do this and that, and I got too comfortable.
And God was saying, yeah, I want you to rely on my comfort.
I'm gonna actually put you in some situations that you're gonna wanna run,
but it's my plan for you, son.
It's my plan for you.
And then I left thinking the only thing I would leave ministry school with was a
wife and that didn't happen.
Hello Lord, hundreds of ladies that love Jesus, not one, seriously.
But I didn't know that my wife was here in Pennsylvania the whole time.
Who would eventually give me the son that I was destined to have.
That he knew the day he would be born.
He knew the moment we would conceive.
He knew all of that.
Even if our journey looked a little difficult, God knew the plan.
I say all the time, I had to move to Reading and be out there for five years to
become the man that Anna deserved.
Cause I was a wreck.
I was a mess.
I was lost.
But thank God I'm found.
Bound in depression, bound in anxiety, bound in comparison, bound in fear.
I can truly stand here today and say, I've been set free from all of those
things.
Those things might try to knock on the door of my heart, but I now no longer own
my life.
And I have a landlord that answers the door and say, you gotta go.
Fear your trespassing, you gotta go.
But that only happens through surrender.
And this story is not just my story.
This could be your story.
No matter how young or old you are in this room.
You're never too old to surrender your life fully to God.
I think it's beautiful when people come to us and they're in their sixties and their
seventies and there's tears running down their face and they're like, I just gave
my life to Christ for the first time.
Like I thought I'd been walking with the Lord, but after the message you just
preached, conviction has hit my heart and I realized that I haven't been walking
with the Lord all these years.
I've just been going through the motions and someone well in their sixties just
gave their life to Christ and then God uses them for a portion of their life and
then they go and they inherit the reward of Christ.
That's beautiful.
That's one of the greatest things God can do.
We get excited about people jumping out of wheelchairs and I'm for that, but we need
to rejoice when one comes to the Lord.
When one person's eyes are open, when one person's ears open to the truth
of the gospel, we have to celebrate that.
We're talking about what does it look like to follow him?
We're talking about what does it look like to pick up your cross and follow him?
The thing is you can't carry the one thing you're called to carry if you're carrying
everything you're not called to carry.
If your hands are full of depression, anxiety, self-hatred, doubt, you can't
carry the cross that you're called to carry and deny yourself.
You can't, your hands are already full.
He's like, would you please lay that stuff down at my feet?
Son, daughter, would you please trust me with your marriage?
Would you please trust me with your finances?
Would you please trust me with your job, your career?
I know what I'm doing, but we try to pick up those things and we try to be our own
God in our own way.
I feel like, man, this is such a beautiful time to just evaluate, man, what am I
carrying?
What's in my hand?
You're carrying something.
It's either the cross you're called to carry or things you're not called to.
And God is like, son, I love you enough to just lay that down.
You've been worried about that too much.
You've been stressing out about that too much, daughter.
I love you, I have a plan for you.
That's not for you to carry.
Cast all your anxiety from me because I care for you.
It doesn't say some anxiety.
It says everything, every bit of it.
Amen?
We're gonna continue to talk about direction.
But it's not enough to just follow Christ.
We also have to be releasing Christ.
And we get to release Christ because we're following Christ and he's the one that
empowers us to do the things and do the stuff and we're nothing without him.
But when we're following him and when we're seeing what he can do and when you
know that God has done something in your life, it's really easy to come alongside
somebody that's going through a hard time and tell them, look, I've been here.
Some of you, you don't think you have a testimony.
That's enough.
Look, I've been here and I've gotten through it.
Some of the marriages in the room that have overcome things that you should have,
by the world standards, given up and thrown in the towel.
The greatest thing you can do is reveal your testimony to somebody that's having a
hard time right now.
And say, I know this seems like you're consumed by this is never gonna get better
and we're never gonna be the couple that we're called to be.
You have someone come up to you and say, hey, hey, hey, hey, I've been here.
And let me tell you, God's got a plan.
God's not gonna waste any of this pain.
He's not gonna waste any of these tears.
And then you put yourself in their life and you know you actually check in on them
a couple times a week.
Go figure.
We do something we never do and we actually call.
That's like a thing of the past.
I'll be honest with you.
I'm more comfortable texting somebody than having a conversation with somebody.
But sometimes God will prompt your heart and say, you know what, just call them.
God will say, you know what, just go to church.
But I haven't been there so long.
Just go.
Just go.
This building is not for perfect people.
This church isn't pastored by a perfect pastor.
We need to humble ourselves and say, you know what, the body of Christ is such
a gift.
Where you can link arms with people and say, you know what, I'm just like I
challenged the older ones earlier to have somebody that you would pray for.
What happens if you really do that and then two weeks, three weeks into that,
you're like, you know what, you don't know who I am, but I've been praying for you.
And can we get lunch sometime and all of a sudden you establish this relationship
that you never would have had if you didn't follow him.
But you never are gonna be able to do those things if you're not following him
first.
You can walk behind Jesus physically and still resist him internally.
Let's say that one more time.
You can walk behind Jesus physically and still resist him internally.
You can be near him outwardly but guarded inwardly.
Because God wants, he wants every part of your life, not just when things are going
great and grand and wonderful.
He wants everything that's going on in your life every part of your life.
He wants the questions, he wants the concerns, he wants the times that you
don't know how this is gonna work and you don't know how this is gonna work and he
wants you to trust him with your full heart.
Today's not just about a new theme for 2026, it's about the heart posture
required to live out that theme.
You guys okay?
We got people working, we're good.
We're gonna believe that God's moving over here and God can move over here and move
here at the same time.
We've been believing for breakthrough, we're gonna continue to believe for
breakthrough that word was for Mike this morning.
My man has breath in his lungs.
I believe there's prayers that need to be prayed through his life lived and they're
gonna be prayed and we're gonna continue to stand with him.
But right now in this moment, God is speaking to your heart, he's knocking loud
and he's like, would you listen?
Because faith comes by hearing the word of God.
Those of you in this room that are listening intently, your faith is
increasing because you're simply listening to the word being preached.
The posture is surrender.
I wanna talk about what surrender is and what surrender isn't, okay?
Surrender is not weakness.
Surrender is not giving up, it's not losing your identity, it's not becoming
passive or silent.
I believe biblical surrender is trust placed fully in God.
Trust placed fully of God.
Authority yielded willingly.
Control released intentionally.
You know what I wanna remove from the language of believers?
I just couldn't control myself.
Come on.
Because biblically, that does not make sense.
Because you have what, the spirit of self-control.
So in a moment where your flesh is trying to resurrect and make itself known,
you have to intentionally say, this isn't who I am anymore.
God, you've given me the self-control.
I have the ability to overcome this.
I'm not always gonna have to struggle with this.
If you've dealt with something in your life and you've overcome that thing,
stop declaring that that's who you are.
Now, if you lay alcoholism down at the altar, this morning, I want you to put
yourself in someone's life to help keep you accountable.
Now, listen to me.
Your greatest source of accountability will always be the Lord, the Holy Spirit.
But I do think it's powerful to place people in your life and you're vulnerable.
And maybe you come up to a prayer line and say, you know what, when Pastor Matt said
that, my heart got convicted because I have been tapping into the bottle a little
bit and it hasn't gotten crazy but I know it's happened enough to where,
if I give this an inch, it'll take a mile.
And then you're vulnerable with one of these ones that you receive prayer from.
You say, hey brother, I know you don't know me well but thank you so much for
that prayer.
Would you, next time you see me, would you ask me how I'm doing with it?
Would you ask me like, hey, when's the last time you drank?
And then if we do that, we're vulnerable and we ask for accountability and then
accountability happens, we can't get offended that someone is actually finally
doing what you've asked them to do.
Because it's really, I want to use the word funny but it's convenient when people
are held accountable and then all of a sudden it's time to find a new church.
When God places people in your life that love you, that are called to challenge
you, that are called to go get breakfast with you, look into your eyes and say,
hey, how's your marriage?
Last week it wasn't so hot, how is it this week?
And we have these kinds of conversations.
It's powerful, it's vulnerable.
It requires trust, it requires surrender, it requires humility.
So we're clear with what surrender is not and what it is.
Trust plays fully in God, I love that.
That's what true surrender is.
Romans six, verse 13, present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and
your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
We have to understand that surrender is not accidental.
You're not just gonna accidentally surrender.
Whoops, I don't know what happened today, I just accidentally surrendered my life to
Jesus.
It's intentional, it's you choosing, it's you choosing, you have willpower and
you choose to do the right thing.
It's presented, present yourselves to God.
And here's the truth, you will never truly follow Jesus beyond the level you are
willing to surrender.
You've got to surrender.
Parents, I wish you could surrender your child's life to God for them, but you
can't.
No one forced you to surrender your life to Jesus.
No one's forcing you to surrender your marriage to Jesus.
But it's up to you and the Lord, it's up to you to say, hey, we gotta
figure this thing out and the next couple of months might not be easy, but guess
what, we're gonna get through it.
And you know what happens?
We go through something in our life that is this big and the devil tries to make
you think it's this big.
It's a moment of your life.
Maybe you are going through a hard time right now, but I promise you, your story
isn't over.
Your story's still being written and if you're surrendered, the pen is in his
hand, not yours.
Some of you need to surrender the pen because we get comfortable trying to write
our own story.
What's chapter two, what's chapter three, what's chapter four?
I don't know, author, what is it?
And we surrender our life to the author and then he begins to pen things that we
can't even dream of.
So good, like things that are so much better than what you could even make
happen in your own strength.
I want you to dream dreams that freak you out.
I want you to dream dreams that are impossible for you to pull off,
impossible.
Where you dream and it freaks you out, it scares you to the point where you're
like, God, the only way that's gonna happen is if you intervene.
And he's like, man, now we're getting somewhere.
Because when it happens, you only have him to celebrate.
It's not, well, I just really had a good investment plan and I want you to have a
good investment plan because I think to be a blessing, you need to be blessed.
You need to be a good steward.
For us to eradicate homelessness, guess what?
It's gonna cost the money.
For us to make sure that there's no homeless on our streets, it's gonna
require us coming up with a solution that's gonna require funding, that's gonna
require buildings, it's gonna require staff and people.
And unfortunately, we can't just do those things for free.
I really wish we could send missionaries to the nations for free, but guess what?
Plane tickets cost money.
Food costs money.
Doing backpack giveaways costs money.
God wants us to be good stewards so he can use us.
And we can look back and go, wow, look what happened through good
stewardship.
God is multiplying things.
Surrender is always personal before it's public.
We often think surrender shows up in just the big moments, but scripture shows us it
starts in the hidden ones.
Stick with me.
Think about Mary in Luke chapter one, verse 38.
We read, behold, the maidservant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your
word.
Before there was ever a miracle, what was there?
Surrender.
There was a willingness to surrender.
There was a willingness to be obedient to what the Lord was saying.
God is gonna ask you to do things without the plan.
I don't know, anyone else in the room that God's asked you to do some crazy big stuff
and you're like, I don't know how this is gonna work, but God, I'm gonna give you my
yes.
Let's go.
And you have to actually take a step into the unknown.
One of my greatest phrases I like to say is I love to learn how to rest in the
mystery of the unknown.
Lord, I wanna trust you so fully when there's no plan, when there's no details,
when you have no idea what it's gonna look like and will you be obedient?
When you don't know what's around the corner.
Mary didn't have all the answers, did she?
She had the posture.
I believe that seasoned believers, if you're a seasoned believer in the room,
I believe that you would know that this is true, that God often reveals direction
after surrender, not before it.
He wants your yes, He wants your obedience and then He'll usually give you the plan.
And sometimes the plan is a year, maybe it's two years.
Maybe it's more than that.
I'm an all-in kinda guy.
I'm like ready to go.
Like God says this town, okay, I want it.
I want this town.
I want the keys to this town.
I wanna know the mayor better than I do now.
I wanna know what are the top five issues of the region within 30 miles of our
church and I wanna know how to eradicate it.
How many children need adopted in our region?
I want us to start dreaming big.
Big dream is there's no children that need to be adopted in the 30 mile radius of our
church.
Do you believe it's possible?
Because I don't think it should be the government that step in and handle those
types of things.
I think it should be the church.
And when you have people picketing things and they have big signs that say adoption
is the answer and then the interviewer is like hey, so how many kids have you
adopted?
No, none.
And then they go to the next person, none.
And all five people, I'm not saying what they're doing is wrong, but I'm saying we
have to put some action to things.
That's why a few years ago, I mean gosh, how old is Joy?
Joy is how old?
Shout out.
Two now?
There she is.
Hey, Whitney.
The Roar Balls had a desire in their heart to adopt and us as a church, we gathered
around them and not just through prayer, but through finances and we helped make it
a reality.
Now Joy is being discipled in our children's ministry.
And before you know it, she'll be old enough to be a part of the worship team.
Releasing the joy of who she truly is.
I just want you to dream big.
I want you to believe that all things are possible for those that believe.
I love that our share table, it's just growing by itself.
I mean, someone showed up last week with bags of canned goods.
Didn't ask for it.
And then we have to figure out what we're gonna do with this, where are we gonna
store it?
I think it's a good problem to have.
Where are we gonna store this stuff?
How are we gonna figure out who needs this stuff in our community?
And then all of a sudden, someone reaches out and oh, I know somebody that needs
this.
And then all of a sudden, now we're being the hands and feet of Jesus through
surrender.
You guys good?
You excited?
I'm sweating, so I'm excited.
I believe that new believers, maybe you're new to your faith, maybe you haven't fully
given your life to Jesus yet.
You need to know that you don't clean yourself up to surrender.
You surrender so God can do the work?
You surrender so that God can fix what only he can fix.
You can't fix yourself.
You can maybe try to fix yourself and make you a little better.
And when you're my age and we would go down the golden mile, which they're still
doing it.
They're still parking at Sheetz with their cool fancy cars.
Now it's kinda trucks.
It's like lifted trucks.
But when I was a teenager, it was the Honda Civics and the Mitsubishi Eclipses
and Fast and the Furious just came out and everyone's loving life.
I don't even know why I said that, but hey, it was a good memory to think
about.
Go down memory lane.
I remember driving Anna down that strip and I said, this is what God's called me
to lay my life down for.
Wish it was more.
Sorry.
Glad there's a Chick-fil-A now.
We're going from glory to glory.
But God wants you to dream with him.
God wants you to know, I have plans not only for you, but for this region.
Surrender is the dividing line, I believe, between crowds and disciples.
Surrender is the dividing line between crowds and surrender.
There were always crowds around Jesus, but not everyone followed him closely.
Look at John chapter six, verse 66.
Don't love that.
But watch this.
From that time, many of his disciples went back and walked with him.
No more.
That's not an encouraging verse to preach, is it?
But it's true.
It's true.
Why?
Because Jesus touched what they weren't willing to surrender.
You guys ready?
Buckle up, buttercup.
Because it's not just sin.
It's control.
It's expectations.
It's preferences.
It's what you're choosing to get your identity from.
Pastor Matt, I was born that way.
Be reborn.
Get reborn.
Some people were prone to want to steal that they got enjoyment from stealing.
Well, be reborn and now you're no longer a thief.
That's not who you are.
It's not your identity.
We can't be, pastor, I'm going there because we gotta go there.
We can't be ashamed of where we stand with sex and gender and the fact that marriage
is between one man and one woman.
Created.
Created man from God and created woman from God.
That doesn't mean us as a church don't radically love because we didn't see Jesus
walking the streets of Jerusalem with picket signs that said you're gonna burn
and go to hell.
No, he's getting low and he's saying, who condemns you?
Honey, I don't condemn you either.
I can obviously see what you're doing.
I can see the lifestyle you're choosing to live.
But look into my eyes, go and sin no more.
But his acceptance in her didn't propel her to continue living that lifestyle.
His acceptance, the goodness of God led her to repentance.
So when people come to our church that are living those lifestyles, are they welcome
here?
Absolutely, but we're not condoning the lifestyle.
We're condoning Christ.
And I believe as soon as they have an encounter with the living God and they
have an encounter with the goodness of God, that will lead them to repentance.
You okay?
This is the gospel.
There's no other option.
If they try to rewrite it, it's not the gospel.
Get a Bible now that has all the same words that are in it now, because I can't
promise you 10 years from now that certain things won't be in Bibles that are being
printed.
Because culture will always try to control things, but we should be dictating culture
as the church, as the body of Christ.
You guys okay?
I'm not gonna go into the whole story, but when I said that about Jesus,
he'll poke at the one thing that he knows you need to surrender.
Think about the rich young ruler.
Jesus didn't ask him for everything in that moment, but what he did ask him for,
he wasn't willing to lay down.
Surrender reveals who truly is Lord.
Oh, just, you know, go sell all your possessions.
Go sell it all and follow me.
And he started to think about all of his possessions and not the things that he
owned, but the things that owned him.
And at this moment, watch what Jesus didn't do.
He didn't chase him down.
Because surrender can't be forced.
Following Jesus can't be forced, because if it is, it's not a choice.
And God has given us the beautiful gift of free will.
He will honor your choice.
I'm sure it broke his heart for him to look at that individual and go,
wow, they're walking away from me.
And they would rather have the things that this world can give them than what I can
only give them.
And what I can give you, this world can't give you.
I can give you eternal life, which I believe is knowing God here and now.
It's not just about death.
I'm thankful for that.
I'm thankful that when I take my last breath here, I'll take my first breath in
eternity with the Lord.
I don't know what that looks like.
Our human minds can't even comprehend eternity on that side of heaven,
we can't.
But I wanna have eternal life and I wanna know God today and tomorrow and the next
day and the next day until I take the last breath that I'll take on this side of
eternity.
But until there's no breath in these lungs, I'm gonna believe on earth as it is
in heaven.
I'm gonna believe no sickness in South Central Pennsylvania, even when there's
some of our worship team currently not here because they're sick.
But that sickness doesn't define them.
The truth of the gospel defines them.
They're a healed whole person having a sick experience.
But we have a sick experience and then we like to call it our identity.
And we like to be known by it.
We take tests that tell us why we're anxious.
I know we laugh, but there's people that do it.
Trust me, oh, this is who I am.
And then they try to get their family to come close and say, no, no, no,
for you to love me, you need to love me and accept me like this because this is
who I truly am.
That's not who you truly are.
I've lived that life for too long.
I've experienced that for too long.
I took the medication for too long.
It's an illusion, it's a lie from the pit of hell.
By his stripes, you could be healed from that today.
Today, the first Sunday of 2026, you can choose to surrender anxiety to
him.
You can choose to surrender fear to him.
You can choose to surrender your marriage to him and say, hey, there's no way we're
gonna figure this out on our own.
We might as well just surrender it to the Lord and let him do what only he could do
because we can't fix this.
If you've been here for any number of time long enough, I can't believe we're already
into the fourth year of Anna and I being the lead pastors of this church.
That's crazy.
Time has gone by very quick.
And guys, we're not promised tomorrow.
We're not.
I'm truly one of those guys that I'm gonna be bringing heaven to earth and if those
clouds split and those trumpets roar, I'm gonna be excited, but until that day,
my hope is not found in that moment.
My hope is found in Jesus Christ.
My hope has been found in him hanging on the cross declaring it is finished.
That's where my hope comes from.
Not from the clouds splitting and me getting out of this big, bad, evil world.
God so loved the world that he sent his only son that whosoever believes in him
will not perish but have eternal life.
There's a lot of people here that don't know him.
That if those clouds split and those trumpets roar, there'd be a lot of people
not with him and that has to break our hearts.
It's not just for the Todd Whites of the world to be the evangelists.
You're an evangelist to your family.
You're an evangelist to your coworkers.
You're an evangelist to the people at the gas pumps.
And if you're following him, they'll know you're following him because you'll look
different.
This is a challenge.
This is an invitation to step into intimacy with God like never before.
You'll hear this all the time from me.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Lean not on your own understandings but in all you do, trust in him and he will show
you, seek his will and he will show you which path to take.
Why is that so powerful?
Because you can't lean and surrender at the same time.
You can't lean on your own understanding and surrender at the same time.
Because the things that God is calling you to, the things that God is calling your
family to, the things that God is calling your marriage to, won't make sense.
But when you trust in him and you lean not on your own understandings and all you do,
everything, not just the big stuff, but in all you do, you'll seek his will.
He promises that he shows us which path to take.
Couple more examples because it's important.
Think about Abraham on the mountain in Genesis 22.
Verse 22, I'm sorry, chapter 22, verse 12.
Now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son.
God wasn't after Isaac.
God was after Abraham's trust.
Is he fully surrendered to me?
Some of us are praying for provision but God is asking for surrender.
Some of us are asking for clarity but God is asking for obedience.
He's like, you want clarity?
Be obedient and I'll make things clear.
I can see clearly now.
The shame is gone.
You can see clearly when shame is no longer in your life.
When guilt is no longer your master.
When condemnation is no longer your master.
You can truly see clearly.
You see differently.
You see people that hurt you differently.
Because you see the fact that they're only hurting me because they're hurt.
So I'm gonna choose to pray for them.
I'm gonna choose to love them.
If I see them in the grocery store, I'm gonna choose to try to embrace them
even if it freaks them out.
Don't you know what happened between us?
Dude, what are you two talking about?
Because truth is if you forgave that person, which some of us say we do,
we would look at that person as if they never hurt you and they never did the
thing.
So your true honest response could be like, what are you talking about?
I don't remember, Caleb.
Like, what do you mean?
Like, what do you mean?
Like, what happened between us?
This is Joe.
This is not true.
But if something happened between Caleb and I and not even Caleb coming to me and
repenting and doing what he could do, but you can choose not to do that.
I can choose to have my own conversation with God, choose to forgive Caleb with
God, and then I run into him in the streets or I run into him in the store and
I can be excited to see him because I look at him as if he never did it.
But some of us are like, yikes, aisle six.
Whoop, I'm going to aisle eight.
Yikes.
Or you see that person's car in the parking lot and you're like, well,
the Lord must be saying giant today when you're at Walmart.
Because maybe the Lord just happened to know that your paths were gonna cross.
Maybe you just happened to get milk and bread that day and he knew that so and so
happened to have to get milk and bread that day and he'd force you to confront
something that's been controlling you, that's been your puppeteer.
I don't want to be controlled by anything other than Christ.
No offense, no hurt, no pain, no bitterness.
And we're such an early part of the year that you can choose to deal with all of
those things right here and right now.
And this year could truly be the best year of your life.
I say that and some of you are like, we'll see.
If that's your response, that's where your faith is.
I want to trust that God could do so many incredible things throughout this year.
Things that freak me out, things that are exciting, things that are scary.
But I know that I can do all things through Christ and his strength,
amen?
Man, we see the surrender in Christ, Luke chapter 22, verse 42.
Not my will, but your will be done.
Jesus himself surrendered.
His comfort, his reputation, his rights, and ultimately his life.
Hebrews 5, 8 says, though he was a son, yet he learned obedience by the things
which he suffered.
If surrender was central to the life of Jesus, it cannot be optional for those of
us that follow Christ.
Not optional, it's part of the package.
Surrender is not a one-time decision.
And I know we're talking about a lot of different things right now, and I'm gonna
try my best to land this play in the best that I can.
But I ask you to just open up your hearts in this moment to just believe that the
Lord has good plans for you.
That the Lord is for you, He's not against you, but what does daily surrender look
like?
Because this isn't about just surrender in a moment.
This isn't just about surrendering on the first Sunday in 2026.
This is choosing obedience when your emotions don't agree.
This is about letting go of offenses.
Offenses are only holding you back from being who you're truly called to be in
Christ.
We have to yield our plans to God.
I love that Pastor Don says this a lot, where he's like, man, I had a lot of plans
that I tried to give God over the years.
And sometimes he used those plans, and sometimes he had better plans,
and sometimes he had suggestions, and sometimes before we even bring our,
not sometimes, all the time, every time we have a plan, we better be going to God
first and saying, God, what is your plan?
What is your plan for my family?
God, what is your plan for my marriage?
God, what is your plan for my son, for my daughter?
And then we get that plan from the Lord, and then he can bless it, and then he can
give us strategies, and he can give us ways to make those plans a reality.
But it starts with surrender.
It starts with us surrendering what makes us feel comfortable.
Trust me, with me having a little one-year-old, there's things in the
natural that I would be honest to say, I happen to like things a certain way.
I like blankets to be folded and in certain baskets.
I like to go to bed, and there's no dishes in the sink.
I'm learning as a new dad sometimes, that just isn't how it works.
And I have to surrender those feelings and those emotions to the Lord and say,
you know what, this really doesn't matter.
You know what matters?
Me loving my wife well.
Me loving my son well.
And I can't love my wife and my son if I don't love my savior first and foremost.
You guys okay?
This is such a beautiful imitation.
To even the start of our fast because it is an invitation to surrender.
So I just want us to just quietly, right where you're at, just kind of stand
up because I want to pray over you and give you a moment to respond.
Because I truly believe, church, I truly believe over all of us,
God is speaking, Jesus is speaking, follow me.
But today I go back to that question that we hit earlier.
What are you still holding onto?
And only you can answer that question.
What are you holding onto?
Is it control?
Is it, it just has to be your way or no way?
What is it?
Lay that down at his feet.
Surrender is not losing, it's trusting.
It's death, it's not death, it's freedom.
Some of us in this room, I truly believe this in my heart of hearts that we need to
surrender for the first time.
I believe there's individuals here that you don't know why you're here.
You don't know why you chose to come to church today.
And the Lord is inviting you to surrender, to trust for the first time.
And some of us just need to have a restart.
Some of us just need to acknowledge the fact that maybe we made some decisions in
2025 that we shouldn't have made.
But guess what?
We don't have to repeat that in 2026.
So I just want to ask us to bow our heads in this moment.
I don't like to get religious and do that, but I do feel a grace on it right now
because I believe that God is individually speaking to your hearts this morning.
So God, I thank you for everyone in this room.
God, I thank you for everyone watching.
And Lord, I thank you for knocking on hearts this morning.
God, and I thank you for the promise that if we seek, we will find you.
If we knock, the door will be answered, God.
If there's anyone here that has never given their life to Jesus, in this moment
between you and the Lord, you can surrender your whole life to him in a
moment.
And if that's you,
I'm gonna invite you to, if that's you, I'm not gonna do anything, I'm not gonna
ask you to come up.
I'm just gonna say if that's you and you've surrendered your life to him in a
different way than maybe you have before, in this moment, I want you just to slip
your hand up real quick.
Just slip your hand up real quick.
I'm surrendering my life to the Lord.
I see a few hands going up.
And maybe it's not for the first time, but maybe you just need to rededicate your
life to him.
I see hands.
It's just beautiful.
All of heaven right now is celebrating.
Can we celebrate just for a moment, church?
Can we celebrate heaven's celebration?
Because I believe right now in this moment, people are becoming new.
Old things are passing away and new things are coming.
So God, I thank you for every individual that just made that decision for the first
time.
I saw some hands that I know it wasn't for the first time, but God, I thank you for
rededication.
I thank you for rededication.
So Lord, I ask that you would bless them.
You would be with them.
You would open up their ears to hear and their eyes to see like never before.
God, you would do what only you could do in their lives.
And whoever's in this room that needs to dream again, you need to dream again.
It's time to dream with the Lord again.
That's the last thing I'm gonna pray for before we get dismissed.
If you are having a hard time dreaming with God for whatever reason, I don't need
to even know the reason, but you're just having a hard time dreaming about God
doing things in you and I want you to slip your hand up real quick.
Have a hard time dreaming with God.
Put them high.
God, I thank you for dreamers, Lord.
I thank you for dreamers.
God, I thank you for sons and daughters that can tap into your dreams for their
lives.
And God, I ask right now that they would learn how to dream again, that if there's
any hurts from the past, those hurts would be healed in Jesus' name, in Jesus' name.
That we would refuse to bring any offenses, any bitterness, any hurts into
this new year, God.
And we thank you for making all things new, God.
And I ask that you would come to each of these individuals and you would allow them
to dream with you like never before.
Not what if this happens or what if that happens, but confident dreams,
hope rising in their hearts right now, in Jesus' name.
Can we all just shout amen?
Amen.
I love you guys so much.
You're dismissed.
I wanna honor the children's ministry.
But if there's anyone in here that physically has something going on in your
life and you need a physical healing, I want you to slip your hand real quick,
real up high.
Physical healing, you want prayer.
I see a few hands.
If you're here and you're around these individuals with their hands up,
please let's pray for them before they leave.
But guys, thank you so much for being with us the first Sunday of 2026.
I have joyful expectations of good things to come.
Bless you guys so much.
Thanks for listening to the Harvest Chapel PA podcast.
We hope this message encouraged you and drew you closer to Jesus.
To stay connected, visit us at harvestchapelpa.com or follow us on social
media at Harvest Chapel PA.
We can't wait to be with you again next week.