Craig Groeschel - You Were Never Meant to Carry Life Alone
Craig Groeschel: Hey, shout out to our YouTube community! I’d love to know where you’re watching from. Just tell us in the comments section! I’m watching from whatever part of the world that you’re in. Today, we’re going to do something different. I’ve been working with about a dozen young communicators in our church, and our team chose four of them to team teach the message today. So I pray that it blesses you in a big way.
Pastor Josh: Well, growing up, family dinner was a big deal at my house. I can still smell my mom’s chicken and rice and everything nice cooking in the oven. I can still see the chocolate pudding sitting on the counter, taunting us. Because how many of you know you can’t have dessert unless you finish your dinner? What I loved about family dinner wasn’t the food; it was what came after we ate. After eating, we would just stay around our dining room table talking for hours. We’d stay around our dining room table playing games like Candyland, which I couldn’t win for some reason, and we would talk about the things that happened at school or the girl that I had a crush on at the time. What I loved about family dinner was that those were the moments that mattered most.
Well, recently I got to go home and visit my family. What was interesting was that this time was a little different, because while I was home, we had family dinner night. After we had eaten, I caught myself not around that small dining room table, but on the couch scrolling. I noticed, glancing up over the edge of my phone, that everyone else was doing the exact same thing. I recognized that though we were together physically, we weren’t actually connecting with one another. I wonder if you have ever experienced something similar.
I wonder if there were times you’ve missed the moments that matter the most. Maybe for you, it’s when you went into a church and were listening to the message, and you took your phone out to take notes, which really we know means to check the score of your favorite team that was playing. Or maybe you’ve sat in a restaurant and looked across the way and seen a family where both kids are playing Bluey on their iPads and the parents are in their own world, disconnected. Or maybe it’s been when you’ve wanted to share something really important with somebody, but instead of fully engaging and listening to you, they were kind of checking their phone. Or if they were really good, they were doing one of these on their smartwatch, hoping you didn’t notice the things that they were looking at.
I wonder if you’ve ever longed for something more. I wonder if you’ve ever wished things were different, where we didn’t miss the moments that mattered the most. I wonder if we didn’t miss going into church and, instead of checking our phones, we got to fully engage with what God is trying to say to us in the moment. I wonder if we didn’t miss the moments where, instead of getting blown up with work emails late, you could just be fully present with your kids, hearing about their day. I wonder if we didn’t miss the moments where we just got to connect with each other and be fully present, face to face.
See, that’s why today we’re going to talk about how, in God-honoring community, it’s not just about being around each other, but it’s about being deeply connected together. See, I love what Paul says in Romans 12, because he gives us both this warning and then also a challenge. This is what he says: Romans 12:2. He says, «Do not,» and for the reader, that’s the warning. That’s where the alarm bells should be going off: Do not conform to the patterns of this world. And then he gives us the challenge-but instead, watch this. Instead, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
See, because what Paul knew is that as humans we have two options: Either we’re going to become more like Jesus or less. Either to be transformed more into who he created you to be or more conformed to what the world looks like. When I think about technology, I actually think it has a significant impact on this-a significant impact on the person that you’re becoming. And when it comes to our relationship with technology, I think what can happen sometimes is that we fall for the trap of just the things that we gain, and we don’t actually recognize the things that we’re giving up.
Like, we don’t recognize that yes, technology can make our life more convenient, comfortable, easy, accessible, efficient, and all of those things. Because now, I don’t even really have to get off my couch, and DoorDash can show up. I barely have to pause my movie before I get a good meal because now I don’t have to navigate the aisles at a grocery store with the shopping cart and awkwardly talk to my neighbor. I could just have someone load it up in the back of my car. Or now I don’t have to call my grandma on her birthday and talk for two hours on the phone. I could just write a happy birthday post on her Facebook wall.
See, sometimes in the things that we gain, we don’t recognize what we’re giving up. Because what technology was created for you to do was to make your life more convenient. That’s what it was designed for. But you were designed to become a person of love. And love is not formed in comfort; love is formed in community. And that’s why you need community. That’s why you need people encouraging you, challenging you, spurring you on, and keeping you accountable. You were made for godly community. And so, we’re going to talk about a few things that come with God-honoring community. If you look up here, here are the three things that come in God-honoring community:
Number one, you can come just as you are.
The second thing: no one stands alone.
And then lastly, in God-honoring community, everything changes.
And so, to talk about the first one today-how you can come just as you are-help me welcome to the stage my friend and pastor of Life Church Oklahoma City, Blake Smith.
Blake Smith: Thank you, Pastor Josh! Man, I’m excited to be here! Y’all ready to go today? Y’all ready to grow? My name is Blake, like Pastor Josh said, and I get to be the youth pastor of our Life Church Oklahoma City location. Shout out to my Life Church Oklahoma City team! And today, I want to start with a question. Have you ever thought to yourself, or maybe the thought’s gone through your mind, «Do I really belong here?»
Like maybe as a kid, like you’re in fourth or fifth grade, you have your little lunch pail, and you walk up to a full table, and there’s one seat left. You wonder to yourself, «Can I sit there? Do I belong in this seat?» Or maybe every single week you walk into a meeting and Lacy and Sue have their hair perfect and they always have the right answers at the right time. They have the nice things to say, and they just have it all together. «Do I really belong here?» Or maybe today you showed up to church for the first time in a very long time, and you were getting dressed in front of the mirror. You showed up to church, and you saw the greeters, and they were not wearing the same exact outfit you were wearing. «Do I really belong here?»
What I know about God-honoring community is that you can come just as you are. It’s in the book of Luke, chapter 19. It reminds me of a wee little man named Zacchaeus. I don’t know why I’m going wee little man because he’s probably the same height as me. It’s all right; the stage makes me look a little bit taller. The wee little man named Zacchaeus. You may know him; if you grew up in church, you know the little song. Y’all, let’s do it together. Would y’all sing with me?
We’ll pick up here: «Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he.» I didn’t grow up going to church, y’all. I only memorized that part for you guys! Zacchaeus, if you know anything about him, you knew that he was a tax collector. And tax collectors at this time were viewed as one of the lowest of the lows; they were thieves. They would steal from people. They would take above and beyond what they were supposed to take. You could imagine the things that people said about Zacchaeus as he walked through the town. Like as he would be walking by, the things that would be whispered about him, the things that they would shout to his face, «You’re a thief! You’re a liar!»
If you put yourself in Zacchaeus’s shoes with me for a second, you probably felt ashamed. He probably felt disappointed. He was isolated. He was alone. He had nobody around him. And it reminds me of when I was a 16-year-old kid. I found myself in one of the lowest points of my life. I would do anything I possibly could to win the approval of others. I would do the things I could do to make friends and do other things just to be liked by anyone I possibly could. I found myself in one of the darkest places I could ever find myself, addicted to drugs, alcohol, and pornography. In the middle of it all, I had two friends pass away within just a couple of weeks of each other.
When I say it was rock bottom, I was at rock bottom, ashamed and disgusted with the man that I was becoming. It was in the middle of that season that a guy named Blake invited my family to Life Church, and I walked through the doors for the first time, just absolutely broken. What if they knew the things that I did? What if they saw the things that I had done? What if they knew just the things that I was thinking about myself in this moment? But it was when I walked through those doors that I met Trace and Blake, who didn’t just see me for the mess that I was, but they saw the future that I had in Jesus. I walked through the doors, and I didn’t have to worry about the things that I was carrying, knowing that Trace and Blake would help me take step after step in my faith.
When I took two steps forward, they would cheer me on and encourage me, but when I took one step back, they were there to help carry me and lead me to my next step. So much so that Trace and Blake were there when I raised my hand and gave my life to Jesus. It doesn’t just stop there with godly community. You come as you are, but you don’t stay that way. They were in the pool with me when I went public with my faith through baptism. They led me to my next step, and they saw a calling on my life long before I could ever see it myself. So I stand on this stage here today, not because I’m good, but because He is good. I stand on this stage not because I’m good, but because His people will surround you if you just show up as you are. He uses broken people to do incredible things.
Jesus Himself met Zacchaeus in that tree. He didn’t meet him at church; He didn’t meet him with all the religious leaders. He met him up in that tree. Out of all the people that Jesus could have spent time with, who could have shared a meal with, Jesus chose Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus didn’t have to clean up his mess; He said, «Hey, I’m coming over to your house.»
Could you imagine the Son of God coming over to your house? Like, we’ve got to put the Life Church worship on, we’ve got to make sure the dishes are done, the laundry is clean, and the kids are behaving. No, Zacchaeus didn’t have time for that. Jesus met him in his mess. In Luke 19:8, it says this: When Jesus showed up and was sitting with Zacchaeus, it says, «But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, 'Look, Lord, here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I’ve cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.' Jesus said to him», and don’t miss this: «'Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a son of Abraham, for the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.'»
So here’s what I came here to tell you today: if you are in the middle of a mess, like you don’t know how your life group would respond if they knew the way your kids behave, like you don’t know how your life group would respond if they knew what was going on in your marriage, if they only knew the way that you even think of yourself, that you would never belong.
I want to remind you of a beautiful truth: in a God-honoring community, you come just as you are. It’s not about behavior modification; it’s about heart transformation. Today, don’t let a lie get in the way of what God has for you on the other side of a God-honoring community. Come as you are. Today, I want to invite one of my friends, one of my pastors from our Life Church Northwest Oklahoma City campus. Will you all help me welcome Pastor Luke Reynolds to the stage?
Luke Reynolds: Well, what is going on, Life Church? How are we doing today? My name is Luke, and I get to be the youth pastor at Life Church Northwest Oklahoma City. I just have one question for you as we get started: What would change about your life if you truly believed that you didn’t have to do it alone? What would change? For some of you, your head immediately jumps to the day that you walked down the aisle, ready to kiss singleness goodbye. For others of you, maybe you’re starting a new season of life and you crave this sense of belonging. Some of you, if you were being honest with yourself, know that when things get difficult, you tend to isolate; you tend to withdraw, maybe even from the people who care about you the most. Maybe others of you are here today, trying to heal from a wound that feels impossible to heal. I’m here to tell you that in a God-honoring community, no one stands alone.
It was in 2020 that my wife and I moved away from home, about a couple of hours away. In fact, here’s a picture of our family. That’s my wife in the middle; she is as beautiful as ever. Our oldest, Halen, is three now, and our youngest, Hunter, will turn one here shortly. Now, something you need to know: before we moved-or when we moved-it was before kids were in the picture. We were a young married couple moving to a new city far away from home, leaving everything familiar to us: our community, our families, our rhythms, and routines. For about a year and a half, we struggled to find community. Even as pastors at a church, we struggled to find community to the point that we actually began to lose hope that it was even available for us. I wonder if any of you are here in that spot today.
It reminded us of a powerful truth: God never intended for us to stand alone. In fact, He never intended for you and me to live lives of loneliness and isolation. Yet here we are today, in a world that struggles with that so much: digitally connected yet more isolated than ever before. It wasn’t until about two years in that we decided to do something different. We felt like God was calling us to start a life group in our home, and that’s what we did. We invited young married couples into our house for dinner week after week, and we called it «Double Dates at the Reynolds House.» As cheesy as that sounds, it was so much fun. What actually happened in that season was that God brought us the people He intended for us to do life with all along.
In that season, we learned that godly community takes intentionality, prayer, time, and seeking God. But when those people came into our lives, man, everything changed. We experienced what God had intended for us all along: genuine connection with other people and with Him. We experienced what it meant to carry one another’s burdens.
And what Paul talks about in Galatians 6:2 when he says this is to carry each other’s burdens. And it is in this that you will fulfill the law of Christ. You see, he uses the word «baros» when talking about burdens. It’s the Greek word for that and it means an unbearable weight that is too heavy for one person to carry. If you put a barbell on this stage and told me to pick up a barbell loaded with 900 lbs, there is no way that I could do that by myself. No way at all. You invite Pastor Craig up here, and maybe we could do it. You invite him and my friends, then yes, you better believe that we are getting that barbell off the ground. And it’s just like when we try to carry something heavy that we weren’t supposed to carry alone.
And so we walked through the good times together, the bad times together. And I’ll never forget when we walked through a really heartbreaking season with our friends Cam and Emily as they struggled through the heartbreak of infertility, an unbearable weight. And we got to pray with them. We got to sit with them and walk through that season with them. And I will never forget the moment that my wife Anna sat next to me on the couch in our living room, and with our entire life group there, she opened up about how difficult day -to- day life was when battling chronic illness in her body. You see, Anna’s been struggling with this for about eight years now, desperate for healing. And it was in that moment in that living room that our community gathered around us. They walked with us. They prayed for us. And that burden started to become a little bit lighter because of the God-honoring community in our life.
And some of you need that in your life today. You need it right now. But what I also know to be true is that there are still so many of us that are stuck, lonely, isolated, scrolling on our phones, and distracted. But there is so much more that God has for you. There’s so much more that he has for all of us in God-honoring community. And some of you, today is a day to take one step closer to that and to say, «I’m ready to bring people into my life.» Others of you, it may be starting something. And God is calling you to step into that, to bring people into your environment, your home, to create a space for genuine connection because we were all hardwired for that. We need that in our lives because in God-honoring community, no one stands alone. Now that we know this, I need you to help me welcome to the stage Pastor Stephen Groeschel.
Stephen Groeschel: Well, hello Life Church. Like Luke said, my name is Stephen. I get to be our youth pastor at our Edmund Life Church location. And one thing that I’ve learned as a pastor is that one day, one person, in one moment with God can change everything. And that leads us to the third truth that we’re going to talk about today: in a God-honoring community, everything changes.
I want to tell you a story about Madison. She’s in the room today, and she allowed us to share this story. It was on September 9th of 2021; it was Madison’s 13th birthday. For most people on their 13th birthday, they would be celebrating, but Madison was really struggling. At age 13, she had already struggled with hurt, betrayal, and abuse in her life. So much so that Madison decided to take her own life. Thankfully, this attempt was not successful, but that didn’t stop the thoughts that she had day after day, week after week, month after month-not feeling loved, not feeling cared about, not feeling worthy.
If we fast forward four years later, on September 9th of 2025, it is Madison’s 17th birthday, and she decided that she was going to try to take her life again. But this time, Madison felt this nudge to go on just one more day. That next day, it was a Wednesday, and on this Wednesday, Madison felt this prompting to go to our youth ministry, Switch. Little did Madison know that that night was the Bash, our night that’s all about suicide prevention, encouraging our students to choose to stay here. God was speaking to Madison during this message, and at the end of the night, we told any students who were struggling — with suicidal ideation, who needed healing and prayer-they could come up to the front to receive that healing and prayer.
We invited students up to the front; Madison didn’t come. So our God came to her because He knows that one day, one person, in one moment with Him can change everything. The Holy Spirit prompted Corbth, one of our leaders, to go all the way across the room to lay hands on Madison and pray over her. Tears started streaming down her face, and she began to share everything that she was going through. That led to a two-hour conversation. When Corbth told Madison that she was loved, that God has a plan for her, that God was holding her even in that moment, September 9th of every year was a hard day for Madison.
Now, Madison holds on to a new day-so much so that she got it tattooed on her arm: September 10th of 2025, the day that Madison gave her life to Jesus. One day, one person, one moment with God can change everything. Madison’s life is changed, and we see this exact same life transformation when we look at the life of the Apostle Paul. So much so, in 2 Corinthians 5:17, he says, «Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here.» This wasn’t Paul just trying to sound clever, coming up with a fun quote or trying to seem wise; this was deeply personal to Paul because he knows that years ago he was persecuting, imprisoning, and killing Christians until his life was changed by the love of Jesus.
So where are you at today? Because the same God that changed Paul’s life, the same God that changed Madison’s life, is here for you today. Maybe right now you’re struggling with an addiction, a secret sin in your life that you keep turning back to again and again. Maybe you don’t feel loved. Maybe you don’t feel worthy. Maybe you wake up every single morning, put on a fake smile, acting like everything’s okay when you know that’s not the truth. Or maybe, like Madison, it’s even gotten to the point where you’re having some of those same suicidal thoughts. I want you to know that God loves you and that the truth is what we’ve been talking about today: that in a God-honoring community, you can come as you are. In a God-honoring community, no one stands alone. And in a God-honoring community, everything changes. Madison’s life was changed in the church.
Now she’s getting discipled in her small group in the church. Madison is coming to church every single week, making new godly friends in the church. And just this past weekend, Madison got baptized in God’s church. Make attending church a priority. Not just coming sometimes, not waiting until you have everything together before you can step through the doors, not waiting until your life gets less busy.'Cause let’s face it, that’s probably not going to happen. But come back to God’s church week after week after week, no matter what else is going on in your life. And when you do, just watch what God does in your life. Just watch what God does in your heart. Because in a God-honoring community, everything changes. Will you pray with me?
God, thank you so much for every person that’s watching this right now. I pray that you would help them feel the freedom to come as they are. You would help them take bold steps to not do life on their own but do it together. And we would stand firm and we would stand united as your church.
Right now, as we stay in an attitude of prayer, there are some of you that today need to take a significant step toward God-honoring community. Our pastor has been talking about it week after week after week-getting in community, joining a life group, being in God’s church-and you need to take that step. So all across our campuses and online, if you’d be bold enough today to say that you are going to commit to taking a significant step toward a God-honoring community, could you raise your hand right now? Raise your hand high! I know there are some more of you right now who need to take that step. Commit to take a significant step toward a God-honoring community.
God, I pray for every single person who’s taking that step in front of others and in front of you, committing to making your people, to making community a priority in their life. Give them the strength to take that step and to do it well.
As we stay in an attitude of prayer, it was on September 10th of 2025 when Madison’s life was changed forever. And for some of you watching this right now, today is the day that your life will be changed forever. Today is the day that you need to give your life to Jesus, because every single one of us, we’re sinners. We’ve done bad things, and sin separates us from God. But God loves you so much that he sent down his Son, Jesus, who was fully God and fully man, lived a perfect life, then was crucified on a cross. But God raised him from the dead on the third day, defeating hell, death, and sin. So that anyone-and this includes you, no matter what you’ve done, no matter where you’ve been-this includes you.
If you need a Savior, if you need forgiveness, if you have sin and guilt and shame in your life that you can’t seem to break, you need Jesus today. Right now, no holding back. You need to surrender it all to Jesus, turning from your sin and giving it all to him. So right now, in front of everyone around you, if you’re saying, «Jesus, I’m giving you my life, I’m surrendering it all to you,» I need you to be bold and lift your hands high right now, all across this room and online. Lift your hands saying, «Jesus, I give you my life.» If you’re online, type in the chat, «Jesus, I’m surrendering my life to you.» As hands are going up all over the place, if you made that decision, I want you to pray this prayer. Repeat this after me, but we’re all going to pray it together. Say:
Dear God, I love you. I’m a sinner. I need a Savior. I need Jesus. I believe in Jesus, that he died and rose again for my sins. Fill me with your Spirit as I choose to follow you and serve you and love you for the rest of my life. In Jesus' name, Amen.