Sardis in the Suburbs: When Zeal Obscures Grace

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]:
We're going to be ending this section now verses 9 to 12.
[00:00:03] We've been in here for weeks, many weeks actually.
[00:00:06] But now we're going to be finishing off this section.
[00:00:08] And we've been looking at this mini-series titled Getting Real with God and Man.
[00:00:12] And as I've been stressing, I think that is going to be the actual key
[00:00:19] to and if America's gonna experience revival.
[00:00:23] Remember what revival means, folks.
[00:00:26] Revival means that the church wakes up.
[00:00:30] That's what revival means.
[00:00:32] You can't have revival unless you first have been vibed.
[00:00:38] You gotta be vibed, that is given life.
[00:00:40] And then when life begins to wane in the life of the church, the church needs re.
[00:00:48] Revival.
[00:00:49] And when the church is revived, then what happens is believers get serious about God and they also become burdened for the lost.
[00:00:59] You can't separate the two.
[00:01:01] That's why revivals cause the church to be healthy and strong and when revival happens the church cannot be contained within the walls of the church.
[00:01:13] God will take the witness of the church out into the world and then what is the result of revival?
[00:01:19] Awakening.
[00:01:23] Revival will always precede an awakening.
[00:01:26] What's an awakening?
[00:01:28] An awakening is when the lost
[00:01:31] sees the church so attractive in its position and in its gospel message that the world, you read in the book of Acts, when those who encountered Paul or Peter in whatever they were doing, the world said, what must I do to be saved?
[00:01:48] Remember that?
[00:01:48] You've read that.
[00:01:49] What was going on?
[00:01:51] A revived church full of the Holy Spirit becomes so attractive even to a lost world that there'll be those
[00:01:58] within that lost world that see the difference.
[00:02:02] Listen, apathy will not save anyone.
[00:02:05] Apathy will destroy both the church and the lost.
[00:02:08] But a revived church will not only bless the heart of God, but the lost, those that don't know Jesus, will want to know Him.
[00:02:17] And God has called you and I to be that kind of a witness for Him.
[00:02:21] Isn't that amazing?
[00:02:22] I wouldn't have used this personally if I were God.
[00:02:25] I would have used angels maybe.
[00:02:26] They might be more reliable.
[00:02:30] But he's called you and I to do this.
[00:02:33] And so let's read this.
[00:02:34] I'll read verse 9 if you pick it up in verse 10.
[00:02:37] For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]:
For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]:
For it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]:
So then, each of us shall give account of himself to God.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]:
And all God's people said, Amen.
[00:03:10] You may be seated.
[00:03:11] Romans chapter 14, Romans 14, Romans 15, Romans 16.
[00:03:16] A great section of the scripture that is speaking directly to the believer about their walk with God, making it real,
[00:03:25] because everything about Jesus is real.
[00:03:27] And in that, the reality and I think the authentic faith of a true believer cannot be denied.
[00:03:36] When I say things like that, I think of the man Stephen.
[00:03:39] Remember Stephen in the book of Acts?
[00:03:41] Stephen was a man that was full of the Holy Spirit.
[00:03:43] You really don't know much about Stephen, but his great moment of the hall of faith, I would say, of course, is when he was guilty of loving Jesus, guilty of proclaiming Christ,
[00:03:59] And at his arrest and at his stoning, by the way, if you go with us to Jerusalem in the springtime, we're going to go to the spot where we know where Stephen was stoned.
[00:04:12] We don't have to guess.
[00:04:13] We actually know.
[00:04:14] It's also referred to as the grotto.
[00:04:17] It's a place where numerous things took place in the Old Testament.
[00:04:20] There in Jerusalem, it is a key location that we know that both
[00:04:27] The Persian Empire and the invading Babylonian Empire.
[00:04:32] We know Jeremiah was very acquainted with this spot.
[00:04:37] We know that in Israel's history, it was the place, even under Roman occupation, it was the place where the criminal was gathered.
[00:04:47] Watch this.
[00:04:47] They were brought to the base of the place called Golgotha.
[00:04:53] The base, the ground level of a place called Golgotha.
[00:04:57] Ring a bell?
[00:04:59] And there they stoned criminals.
[00:05:02] They stoned them to death right there.
[00:05:06] Right above this cliff that has in its geological structure the look of a skull.
[00:05:15] That's what Golgotha means.
[00:05:17] By the way, Golgotha is where we get the word also Calvary.
[00:05:23] You're in Calvary Chapel right now.
[00:05:25] Golgotha, Calvary, those two words mean the place of the skull.
[00:05:32] So you're in Calvary Chapel.
[00:05:34] You're welcome.
[00:05:37] And it's not a pirate church at the place of the skull.
[00:05:45] But it's all based on the place of sacrifice.
[00:05:49] It's interesting to note that where Stephen was stoned to death for his witness of Christ being full of the Holy Spirit, what did he do?
[00:05:56] He proclaimed the gospel and one of the eyewitnesses to that, and he was actually the man orchestrating the stoning and the killing, he's the man responsible, was a guy by the name of Saul, a Pharisee from Tarsus, a Jew.
[00:06:15] who no doubt, Stephen's stoning to death, Stephen's last words is, I see the Lord standing at the right hand of God the Father.
[00:06:29] And Stephen uttered those words just as Jesus, Father, do not hold this against them, forgive them.
[00:06:36] Isn't that amazing?
[00:06:37] That's big grace, people.
[00:06:39] You can't do that with human power.
[00:06:42] and Paul saw that and I'm convinced that that led to Paul's great conversion on the road to Damascus.
[00:06:50] That had to be haunting him and preparing him all along the way, a great witness.
[00:06:55] And when God moves in the life of a sinner, I love what Jonathan said a moment ago, I'm not perfect, I'm striving to follow Christ.
[00:07:06] Can we not all raise our hands to that?
[00:07:08] That's us too, that's us!
[00:07:12] The Bible tells us, in fact, it's right here in 2 Corinthians 5, verses 16, starting at verse 16, it says, therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh, we read this last week, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him no longer.
[00:07:30] We have a new relationship with him.
[00:07:31] Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.
[00:07:35] And we talked about that.
[00:07:36] The past is gone, and listen, all of us need to keep the past gone.
[00:07:40] The past will come back.
[00:07:42] If you and I are not walking tight with Jesus, the past is always trying to infiltrate our minds again and trying to bring us down either into condemnation or to lure us away in sin.
[00:07:52] And we must fight against the past.
[00:07:55] The Apostle Paul later on tells us that we are to reckon the old man dead.
[00:08:00] I love, that's the old King James, reckon the old man dead.
[00:08:04] And that's not talking about your dad, it's talking about you.
[00:08:09] When the old Jack has a thought about the stuff I used to do, the Bible tells me, number one, I need to preach this to myself.
[00:08:18] I am now alive in Christ and the old Jack is dead.
[00:08:22] And I bring that temptation or that thought under the captivity of Christ and I don't need to live like that anymore.
[00:08:29] Here's the fun part about it, folks, is that if you have that argument going on in your life,
[00:08:35] It's proof that you're a believer in Christ, that you're a follower in Christ.
[00:08:38] And that's good news.
[00:08:39] If you've got that battle, welcome to the war.
[00:08:41] It's what God wants.
[00:08:44] It's because God's at work in you.
[00:08:46] And then also, Hebrews chapter 13, starting at verse 20, it says, Now may the God of peace, who bought or brought up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, the great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood, listen to this, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
[00:09:04] Wow!
[00:09:05] Make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to Him be glory forever and ever.
[00:09:17] Amen.
[00:09:19] Great instruction.
[00:09:20] So church, here's where we left off last time.
[00:09:23] Mark it down.
[00:09:24] It was our fourth argument under this point that getting real with God and man requires us to know who we are.
[00:09:30] And we're down to that final installment.
[00:09:32] And it means that we must together love first.
[00:09:36] And he starts out when he tells us in verse seven, for none of us lives to himself and no one dies to himself.
[00:09:44] For if we believe, or excuse me, if we live, we live to the Lord.
[00:09:49] And if we die, we die to the Lord.
[00:09:51] Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.
[00:09:54] He's speaking to the fact that the believer, if we're living or if we die, we are the Lord's.
[00:09:59] Isn't that amazing?
[00:10:00] When we hear the word die, for the believer, we must be clear on this.
[00:10:04] When we die as believers, we don't die.
[00:10:07] Jesus said, if you believe in me, though you die, you're not dead.
[00:10:11] That kind of freaks some of us out.
[00:10:14] You say, wait a minute, he's laying right there.
[00:10:15] The guy's dead.
[00:10:16] No, the guy is gone.
[00:10:19] The Bible tells us to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord.
[00:10:23] And Jesus is the Lord over the living, that's all of us here right now, and those who died in faith.
[00:10:33] Imagine, as you sit here this morning, those who have died in faith are standing before him in eternity, based on the blood of the everlasting covenant.
[00:10:43] And based on that fact that, as Paul has been teaching us, who are we to judge another man's servant?
[00:10:48] And who are we to say this or that about the celebration of any particular day that you might hold sacred to God versus someone else holding some other day?
[00:10:57] We're not to judge people on that.
[00:10:59] The bottom line was, whatever you do, if you eat or if you do not eat, if you drink or do not drink, if you pick this day or that day,
[00:11:09] Bottom line, do it unto the Lord, give God the glory, honor His name.
[00:11:13] And I love the grace that's involved in that.
[00:11:17] Grace to be victorious in Christ.
[00:11:22] What a great liberating truth.
[00:11:24] And the fact is that I am not, I cannot live my life to myself.
[00:11:29] Watch this everybody.
[00:11:31] We don't, listen, we're not far from Hollywood.
[00:11:34] It's all about self.
[00:11:37] Everything is about stardom.
[00:11:39] Everything is about the idol-worshiping of the performer, so to speak, right?
[00:11:48] And if that's such a great thing, why are not those people fulfilled and content and happy?
[00:11:53] Instead with, so to speak, owning the world, they're drugged out, they're drunked out.
[00:12:04] They often end their lives in suicide.
[00:12:07] The Bible makes it very clear right here that for you and I to love one another and even love our enemies is the fact that you and I must realize that none of us live to ourself and we do not die to ourself.
[00:12:23] You're not an island, no matter what Paul Simon says.
[00:12:27] You're not an island.
[00:12:28] No, I'm just gonna live my life to myself.
[00:12:31] You can't do that.
[00:12:33] Listen, there's a big craze going on in our new world
[00:12:37] I was speaking to an expert on this last night in Arizona and this stuff of AI and now a shocking poll.
[00:12:47] I don't know who did the poll.
[00:12:48] You can Google it later.
[00:12:50] But there's a poll that's out and young people today are choosing.
[00:12:54] They want to have a synthetic relationship with AI friends rather than actual humans.
[00:13:00] And their argument is this.
[00:13:02] It's too complex to have a relationship with another human.
[00:13:05] Too much drama.
[00:13:07] And you can literally go and you can engineer through AI.
[00:13:10] You can make your friends.
[00:13:14] You can create your friends.
[00:13:15] Listen, this is freakish.
[00:13:17] This is sick and it goes in a thousand different directions.
[00:13:20] But listen, today with AI, your kids are creating friends in their own image.
[00:13:29] And it's not a joke.
[00:13:30] You can't tell that these things are not real on the screen.
[00:13:35] They look exactly real.
[00:13:37] And by the way, sad to say it, but it's not just friends that you communicate with.
[00:13:41] They actually carry on conversations and dialogues.
[00:13:43] I don't know if you've seen this stuff going on, but you can ask AI all kinds of stuff.
[00:13:47] And if you ask in a rude manner, tone of voice.
[00:13:51] I don't know about you, but you can say a nice word with a wrong tone.
[00:13:55] Didn't sound good.
[00:13:56] Did you know AI knows this?
[00:13:58] It has tone.
[00:14:01] It's very convincing.
[00:14:03] Problem is it's not real.
[00:14:04] It's not real, or is it the new real?
[00:14:07] whereby I think demonic powers are going to seize upon such things.
[00:14:12] Hey, why pray when you can ask AI for the answer?
[00:14:18] Hey, what should I do about this or that?
[00:14:21] Think about that.
[00:14:22] The discipline of prayer is hard, but you're going to get your answer from God.
[00:14:26] People don't want to deal with that.
[00:14:29] No, I want an answer in the next 3.5 seconds.
[00:14:34] And it's been said today that kids don't even know how to learn now.
[00:14:37] All they know is how to search for the answer.
[00:14:42] But you can now create a world around you that's synthetic and it's not even real and people are choosing that.
[00:14:50] but there's no love it's fake it's false oh but it's convenient look you're in church right now and i know i'm going to get mail on this i always do if you ever since covet have gotten into the habit of not getting together with believers because it's what it's what it's convenient it's convenient to stay home and we do church in our jammies you're not doing church you may be listening to a bible study
[00:15:17] But you're not doing church.
[00:15:19] Church is where you have to fight over seats and dive in for the parking spot, be nice to let people out of the parking spot.
[00:15:28] Church is having to bump into people.
[00:15:30] Church is having to deal with stuff.
[00:15:33] We want it, oh no, we want a synthetic world and you'll never be able to love other people in a synthetic world.
[00:15:43] Maybe I see it differently, or maybe more vividly, or maybe I've thought about this a long time, but my God did not send an angel to reveal who He is.
[00:15:52] He came Himself.
[00:15:55] He didn't even lean on an angel.
[00:15:59] He came in human skin to reveal Himself to you.
[00:16:03] Real love.
[00:16:05] that can be experienced.
[00:16:06] And the scripture says, if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.
[00:16:10] Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.
[00:16:13] We are to be his example.
[00:16:15] 1 Corinthians 3, verse 13 says, then each one's work will become clear, for the day will declare it.
[00:16:23] because listen, it will be revealed by fire.
[00:16:26] This is the judgment of Christ, the judgment of God, and the fire will test each one's work of what sort it is.
[00:16:33] If anyone's work which he has built on endures, I'll come back to this in a moment, he will receive a reward.
[00:16:39] If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so through fire.
[00:16:47] Listen, talking about loving one another, you and I could perform miracles, that doesn't matter, you hear me?
[00:16:53] Listen up.
[00:16:54] People are gonna... Jesus said it over and over again.
[00:16:57] The disciples, the apostles said it.
[00:16:59] In the last days, there's gonna be times of great deception done by miracles.
[00:17:07] So that's not the defining point.
[00:17:09] The defining point is true love.
[00:17:13] Actual love that God puts within your heart to minister to other people because let's be honest, miracles are fantastic if they're done by God.
[00:17:23] You say, what do you mean if they're done by God?
[00:17:25] Because the Bible makes it clear that when Pharaoh encountered Moses, Moses
[00:17:30] Remember the serpent?
[00:17:31] Pharaoh's magicians had their staff, their rods, and they turned them, Satan turned them, into snakes.
[00:17:41] And then Moses, it's so awesome, Moses all by himself, he's standing there, old man.
[00:17:47] You gotta see all these young punks, they got their, you know, they're the counselors, they're the priests of all these various Egyptian gods.
[00:17:55] And they put down their staffs, they're snakes.
[00:17:58] And you just gotta see Moses standing all alone.
[00:18:01] It's just like, yeah.
[00:18:04] I bet everybody else is going, snake!
[00:18:07] That's amazing!
[00:18:10] And Moses throws down his staff and his staff turns into a snake and eats up all the other snakes.
[00:18:18] It's just like.
[00:18:23] Listen, miracles are tied to a message.
[00:18:29] and there'll be miracles being performed in the last days by religious people who are not preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[00:18:36] They will deny the fact that Jesus died on the cross for their sins and rose again from the dead.
[00:18:42] They'll be inspired and empowered by satanic influences and you gotta watch out for that.
[00:18:48] We live in that kind of an age.
[00:18:50] But the Bible tells us that we as believers, whatever we do, 1 Corinthians 13 tells us it's gotta be done by love.
[00:18:57] If you have all the gifts of the Holy Spirit and you operate them, the bottom line is they're junk without them being operated by the love of God.
[00:19:06] Think of that for a moment.
[00:19:09] The simplicity of God, and yet it's impossible for us to obtain without His miraculous touch upon our lives.
[00:19:19] And so we move on in this.
[00:19:20] We continue on in verse nine.
[00:19:22] It says, to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
[00:19:32] This is the Jesus of the Bible.
[00:19:36] People often argue, how is it that you worship God and you say Jesus is God?
[00:19:41] Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one God, manifested in three persons.
[00:19:45] Explain that.
[00:19:46] I really can't.
[00:19:48] and don't talk to me about ice and vapor and the egg and the shell and the yolk and the...
[00:19:55] It's beyond us.
[00:19:58] But that very truth is found in the very first verse of the Bible.
[00:20:02] In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and that word is Elohim.
[00:20:06] Singular, El, Elohim, singular, one God in multiple.
[00:20:18] And the Bible tells us that Christ was the architect, builder, if you want to put it that way, in Colossians and in the book of Hebrews as well.
[00:20:30] But doesn't the Bible tell us that it was the Spirit of God that hovered over the waters at creation?
[00:20:37] Just in the very first book of the Bible, the Trinity is there.
[00:20:41] But Jesus Christ died and rose again.
[00:20:43] That is the message.
[00:20:46] Whatever religious pursuit you may be flirting with, if you don't know Christ Jesus, you don't have what we have.
[00:20:53] What do you have?
[00:20:55] We have a risen Savior.
[00:20:58] His resurrection proves everything the Bible says, and on top of it, the Bible said in advance that this is what He would accomplish for us, that He would, in fact, be resurrected from the dead.
[00:21:12] Matthew chapter 3 verse 2 says repent this is the gospel repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand jesus said that repent change your mind we all get weird or we i mean we shouldn't but people get all nervous about the word repent repent or what they get all uppity about it oh just stop it's an old english word it means turn around isn't that great
[00:21:37] You could say it this way.
[00:21:39] You're going in one direction, do a 180 degree turn.
[00:21:43] You're going that way, stop.
[00:21:45] When you hear this message, the kingdom of God's at hand.
[00:21:49] Salvation is available to you.
[00:21:50] God wants to forgive you of your sins.
[00:21:52] The next question should be from you.
[00:21:54] What do I do?
[00:21:55] Repent.
[00:21:57] What does that mean?
[00:21:58] Turn around.
[00:22:01] Stop thinking about Jesus the way that you have been and think differently.
[00:22:07] Stop running from Him.
[00:22:08] Run to Him.
[00:22:10] And please, please, think about it.
[00:22:12] Oh, I can't run to Him.
[00:22:14] I'm such a sinner.
[00:22:15] No, you don't understand.
[00:22:16] If you are such a sinner, you're the one that can bring Him greater glory.
[00:22:23] God loves sinners.
[00:22:26] But don't stay that way.
[00:22:29] God loves us enough.
[00:22:30] Listen, people will say, I love you just the way you are.
[00:22:34] Well, of course, okay, that's nice.
[00:22:36] God loves us just the way we are, but God loves us so much he won't leave us the way we are.
[00:22:41] He changes us by His power.
[00:22:43] And all that requires of us is to repent, that is turn around, realizing, knowing that the direction I'm going is the wrong way.
[00:22:50] You know that inside.
[00:22:51] Every human knows that inside.
[00:22:53] They're convicted by the Holy Spirit.
[00:22:55] Believer or not, Jesus said so, that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin.
[00:23:02] Why does He do that?
[00:23:02] To be mean?
[00:23:03] No, to get you to change your course and to come to Him.
[00:23:11] The scripture goes on.
[00:23:12] Mark 1.15.
[00:23:15] The time is fulfilled.
[00:23:16] The kingdom of God is at hand.
[00:23:17] Repent and believe in the gospel.
[00:23:21] The gospel that Christ died for you and he rose again from the dead and by putting your faith in him, he issues to you the free gift of eternal life.
[00:23:32] And you may be here today or you're watching right now and you're thinking, yeah, I don't know, I doubt it.
[00:23:39] You know what?
[00:23:40] You're just going to stay in that condition unless you taste and see that the Lord is good, folks.
[00:23:46] Can you imagine this?
[00:23:47] You've become so accustomed to living in some form of mitigating your shame.
[00:23:53] You think maybe no one's gonna find out about it, or you've covered all your tracks, and maybe you have, but down deep inside, you know there's this nagging presence that God knows.
[00:24:08] Do you know what he wants to do?
[00:24:09] He wants to go to the heart of the matter, he wants to go to the core of it all, and he wants to touch you right there and expose you.
[00:24:19] Not expose you to the world, expose you to yourself.
[00:24:22] He already knows everything about you.
[00:24:25] But what we do as humans, look, we learned this from Adam and Eve, mom and dad, they taught us this.
[00:24:31] Hide, sow fig leaves, do whatever it takes, cover it up.
[00:24:37] And you can see Jesus come along and just pull one little thread.
[00:24:42] Hey, what is that?
[00:24:43] He pulls on the thread and the whole garden falls off of you.
[00:24:50] And you're exposed.
[00:24:51] And you say, Jack, that's terrifying.
[00:24:53] It is terrifying, but that's not all.
[00:24:57] You're exposed before Him who is mighty to save.
[00:25:02] And he says to you, you are now naked and open before me.
[00:25:06] I know everything about you, before you were ever born, and I've seen it all.
[00:25:13] And I'm speaking to you and I'm asking you, you come to me, you bring me your shame, your guilt, your sin, I'll take it away from you.
[00:25:23] If you've never experienced Christ, you are still living under a cloud of shame and you need not live like that anymore.
[00:25:30] Let Jesus take it away.
[00:25:32] Let him remove it.
[00:25:35] One of the great, beautiful, liberating strengths about being a follower of Jesus Christ is the stuff that in my memory, my mind, I'm embarrassed of and I'm ashamed of.
[00:25:48] And some of those things, nobody knew about them.
[00:25:55] And then Jesus knocks on your heart and it's like, oh my goodness.
[00:26:00] And instead of him saying, sit down while I beat you up, he says, stand up and I'll make you whole.
[00:26:09] He does this.
[00:26:10] Let him do that to you.
[00:26:14] That being the case, verse 10 tells us, but why do you judge your brothers?
[00:26:19] See how ridiculous this is?
[00:26:20] You and I have no authority to judge our brothers.
[00:26:24] Or why do you show contempt for your brother?
[00:26:26] The word contempt here, look at this word on the screen, it's so powerful.
[00:26:30] The word contempt is to see as contemptible, to esteem to be less in value than what?
[00:26:36] Than me.
[00:26:37] I see you less valuable than me.
[00:26:40] As being below you or to be rejected, unworthy of a man-made or a man-made clique, where this is our group, this is us, and we would never maybe say it, because we're Christians, but we happen to be this group of people.
[00:26:56] Maybe it's the clothes we wear.
[00:26:58] Maybe we are the group that has these... Well, we're this clique, this group.
[00:27:04] Now, we've never called it a clique, but if you're not this kind of a person, why would we have you go out to breakfast with us after church?
[00:27:13] You see that?
[00:27:15] They just don't fit.
[00:27:16] They don't look like us, or they don't wear clothes like us, or they don't have the money that we have, or they don't have the cars that we drive, or they don't have... Are you hearing what I'm saying?
[00:27:25] Every one of us as parents would say to our kids, clicks are terrible.
[00:27:31] And the moment you find yourself feeling uncomfortable in a group of people that what, may not be what, your skin color, your financial status, that's unheard of in the church of God.
[00:27:46] Jesus will have nothing to do with it.
[00:27:49] I mean, you remember that.
[00:27:51] You guys are pretty quiet right now.
[00:27:53] I'm feeling it.
[00:27:56] But we've all got that.
[00:27:56] Do we hang out with the people that just are like us?
[00:28:01] Birds of a feather?
[00:28:04] That's a sad saying.
[00:28:06] It's true.
[00:28:08] Isn't it great?
[00:28:09] You know, politicians talk about crossing the aisle.
[00:28:12] You need to reach over across the aisle.
[00:28:14] Come to an agreement.
[00:28:16] You know what Jesus does?
[00:28:17] Jesus walks around through the whole thing.
[00:28:19] He just walks.
[00:28:22] I love the fact that nothing hinders him.
[00:28:27] And I love the fact that this church, you know, by the end of today, if we could somehow get a photo of all that is of this church.
[00:28:37] So this is one service, second service, third service, and then all the men will come at fourth, really fourth service today.
[00:28:45] And you see all of the ages, difference.
[00:28:53] Educated, not so much others.
[00:28:57] Successful, some struggling.
[00:29:01] And from every nation of the world, if you think about it, I love this church.
[00:29:08] I want to be careful.
[00:29:09] I don't mean the building.
[00:29:10] I could care less about the building.
[00:29:13] I love you who are this church.
[00:29:16] You guys are awesome.
[00:29:20] And I get to see you in action.
[00:29:21] And it's incredible.
[00:29:25] Why?
[00:29:25] That's the power of the gospel.
[00:29:27] brings us together and we dare not enter into that word judge or judgment meaning condemnation.
[00:29:34] We have no authority to condemn our brother or sister, but we are commanded to love them.
[00:29:40] And verse 10 says, we shall watch, look at this.
[00:29:44] It goes on, we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
[00:29:48] We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Messiah.
[00:29:54] So I need all of your attention because it's not in my notes, but I'm going to run through this quickly.
[00:29:59] Technically, there are two judgments.
[00:30:02] Watch my hands because I'm Portuguese and I cannot speak with my mouth properly.
[00:30:08] It's the hands.
[00:30:09] Watch the hands.
[00:30:11] There's the judgment seat of Christ.
[00:30:14] In the Bible, it's known as the Bema, B-E-M-A, the Bema seat of Christ.
[00:30:20] Christ is the judge.
[00:30:22] Watch.
[00:30:23] And who he judges are his people.
[00:30:27] This is the judgment he's speaking about right here, that Paul is speaking of.
[00:30:30] The judgment seat of Jesus Christ.
[00:30:34] I'm gonna be sarcastic now.
[00:30:36] You've got to know Jesus Christ and he's got to know you to appear at that judgment.
[00:30:41] You say, wait a minute.
[00:30:42] I thought he died for my sins at the cross.
[00:30:44] I thought I passed from judgment to life.
[00:30:47] You did.
[00:30:47] Well, then what are you talking about judgment?
[00:30:50] I thought I escaped all that.
[00:30:52] We're talking about the judgment seat of Christ where you and I will appear
[00:30:58] and we will be before him and we will answer to him regarding our faithfulness to what he has asked us to do.
[00:31:07] He's the master, we are the slave, right?
[00:31:11] And he, in this life, in the here and now, he has given us and he has opened up doors of opportunity for us to advance Christ.
[00:31:23] And God has his people, as I said, everywhere.
[00:31:27] God has his people even in office in Sacramento.
[00:31:35] How do we know?
[00:31:36] We talk to them a lot.
[00:31:40] We know things.
[00:31:45] You know, talk about being a remnant, right?
[00:31:46] We should be encouraged about the word remnant.
[00:31:50] You know, there's, and I mean a handful, maybe half a handful of believers elected to office up in Sacramento who love the Lord Jesus
[00:31:58] And none of you guys know this or not, but you guys have a lot of missionary investments going on in the world.
[00:32:06] But did you know that one of your missionaries is the chaplain of the state capital, Frank Erb?
[00:32:17] You know what he does?
[00:32:18] He goes to the offices of all these elected officials.
[00:32:25] He'll go to the governor's office.
[00:32:26] I think he does.
[00:32:27] He's supposed to, anyway.
[00:32:29] I don't know if Newsom will answer the door or not, but you know what he does?
[00:32:32] He goes in there and he says things like this.
[00:32:35] I'm the chaplain of the Capitol.
[00:32:38] Do you need any prayer?
[00:32:39] How is your family?
[00:32:42] He loves on them.
[00:32:43] I'm glad he's got that calling.
[00:32:45] I don't have that calling.
[00:32:46] That's tough.
[00:32:46] That would be tough up there.
[00:32:50] But God's people are everywhere.
[00:32:54] And he's sharing Christ and he's inviting people to know Jesus.
[00:32:58] But you and I are missionaries to the world around us.
[00:33:03] He's faithful.
[00:33:04] I forget how long he's been doing it.
[00:33:05] Maybe a couple decades.
[00:33:08] You and I are gonna be standing before Jesus Christ and we're not gonna be judged on our sins.
[00:33:14] Isn't this good news?
[00:33:15] You should like, okay, now you're talking.
[00:33:18] You and I are gonna be judged for our faithfulness.
[00:33:22] Have we been faithful?
[00:33:23] No.
[00:33:24] This is gonna sting though.
[00:33:26] As a believer, I should ask you, what is it that you're being faithful to do that he's asked you to do?
[00:33:36] It implies you know what you're supposed to be doing for him.
[00:33:42] Don't be a Christian and if I or someone were to ask you, so if we're all gonna stand before the judgment seat of Christ and be faithful to what he's called us to do,
[00:33:52] What did he call you to do?
[00:33:56] You see, you're not saved by what you do, but because you are saved, God says, I can use you.
[00:34:03] I use all my kids.
[00:34:09] I meet with people who are being faithful in their cancer treatment.
[00:34:17] I'm convinced now, by the way, that this is a huge area of missionary work.
[00:34:24] I talk to people all the time, Pastor pray for me, I got cancer, I've been going through treatment at UCLA, and I came to the realization, I gotta get right with God.
[00:34:35] I mean, I love God, but I wasn't walking with God.
[00:34:37] And now I'm just telling everybody, you know why they're doing this?
[00:34:40] They'll tell you why, you might be here today.
[00:34:41] They got a death sentence.
[00:34:46] They could be dying.
[00:34:47] The doctors are telling them it's stage four.
[00:34:49] It doesn't look good.
[00:34:51] What do they do?
[00:34:52] They realize they have a come to Jesus moment.
[00:34:56] And they realize, wow, well, here we go.
[00:35:00] The oncologist is getting witnessed to.
[00:35:03] The nurses are getting witnessed to.
[00:35:05] The technicians are getting witnessed to.
[00:35:08] They're singing songs.
[00:35:09] They put on praise albums in their hospital bed.
[00:35:13] And what are they gonna do?
[00:35:16] Well, I don't wanna, you know, it's loud.
[00:35:18] Turn it up!
[00:35:19] What are they gonna do?
[00:35:20] What are they gonna do?
[00:35:22] For crying out loud, according to them, you're dying.
[00:35:23] Maybe you are dying, but the thing is this.
[00:35:27] You've woken up to the realization eternity's real.
[00:35:29] This life is fleeting.
[00:35:30] Jesus is alive.
[00:35:32] He's on the throne.
[00:35:32] He forgives sins.
[00:35:34] I'm gonna let it rip.
[00:35:35] I'm gonna announce to the world.
[00:35:36] In your moment when God gives you the opportunity to share Christ,
[00:35:43] Be faithful to that call.
[00:35:46] And by the way, push it.
[00:35:47] Push the envelope.
[00:35:48] What do you mean by that?
[00:35:50] If you're not sure if you should glorify Jesus in that moment, do it anyway.
[00:35:55] I'd rather get an applause from God in heaven for goofing it up rather than sitting it out.
[00:36:03] There is no such thing as spectator Christianity.
[00:36:06] Doesn't exist.
[00:36:09] So ask yourself over and over again, what am I being faithful to?
[00:36:15] And you and I will give an answer to Christ on the day of judgment.
[00:36:19] That's for the believers.
[00:36:20] And then there's the great white throne judgment found in Revelation chapter 20 verse 11.
[00:36:25] You do not want to be there.
[00:36:27] That's for unbelievers.
[00:36:30] And they're judged for all the evil that they've done in their lives.
[00:36:33] They're judged for their sins.
[00:36:36] The Bible tells us that they are then cast into hell and hell they will suffer equal to the magnitude of their sins.
[00:36:45] So imagine, for example, Adolf Hitler.
[00:36:50] Think about the sins of whatever.
[00:36:52] That's why Jesus said, you must be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven.
[00:36:58] But I just, this is not, you know, look at the verse 10, it says, for we shall all stand.
[00:37:06] This is not a coincidence that we just played that clip of Jonathan Isaac standing
[00:37:12] Don't you have a new book?
[00:37:14] What's the name of your new book?
[00:37:17] Why I Stand.
[00:37:19] You don't have a second book coming out?
[00:37:21] Why I Stand.
[00:37:25] So he writes a book telling you about why he stood.
[00:37:28] The Bible here tells us we all should stand.
[00:37:34] Stand.
[00:37:35] What's that word stand?
[00:37:36] It means this.
[00:37:38] To be placed, look, to be placed beside, I like that, beside.
[00:37:43] I like to look at it this way, to be placed beside Jesus.
[00:37:46] To present, or to present yourself, to make a presentation, to stand in the presence of God, to come before.
[00:37:54] Imagine walking into the court, as it were, and standing.
[00:37:59] We will stand before Jesus.
[00:38:00] The world, when it's judged for its sins, they won't have a leg to stand on.
[00:38:08] They won't be able to stand.
[00:38:10] The Bible tells us Christ is able to make us stand.
[00:38:14] And on top of it, the Bible says that Christ is our advocate.
[00:38:18] You need an attorney?
[00:38:20] Boy, do I ever.
[00:38:21] Jesus, on that day, when you and I are judged for our faithfulness, Christ will be our attorney.
[00:38:28] He's gonna represent our case before God the Father.
[00:38:32] Our Christ will do that.
[00:38:33] The Messiah will do that.
[00:38:35] The world, on the other hand,
[00:38:37] has no hope.
[00:38:38] There's no advocate.
[00:38:39] You stand naked and alone before Almighty God.
[00:38:42] There's no mediator for you and you face the judgment.
[00:38:47] And here's the tragedy of it all.
[00:38:50] God came and revealed himself in the world to the world as his word proclaimed he would and as his word proclaimed he did so that you wouldn't have to go to that great white throne judgment referred to in scripture.
[00:39:06] Why would you go there?
[00:39:10] It's just amazing to me.
[00:39:12] No, no.
[00:39:15] He's not only gonna stand for us as believers, He's gonna make us available, or I should say, enable us to stand.
[00:39:22] Verse 11 says, For it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee should bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
[00:39:30] That's just an absolute blanket fact.
[00:39:32] He is sovereign, we're not.
[00:39:34] All believers and all non-believers are gonna bow their knee to Him.
[00:39:40] Are you guys still awake?
[00:39:40] Are you with me?
[00:39:42] Here's the fine print, or here's the key to all of this.
[00:39:47] Bow your knee while you're alive here on earth to him.
[00:39:52] Because you will bow your knee.
[00:39:55] Who's the famous atheist, the brilliant man, neurologist, he's a physicist, neurologist, I think it's Sam... Sam... Sam Harris!
[00:40:09] An unbelieving Jew, Sam Harris.
[00:40:11] He says he's a Jew, but God does not exist.
[00:40:15] That's the first indicator of idiocy, is you're Jewish, but God doesn't exist.
[00:40:26] He's brilliant, and he's like one of the great leaders of the new atheist movement.
[00:40:33] And the new atheist movement, they just retitle it.
[00:40:36] It's the same argument of the old atheists.
[00:40:39] They don't prove anything.
[00:40:40] They just get all mad and they argue about God the way that, I don't approve of the way God's running the country or God's running the world.
[00:40:48] So I thought you didn't believe in God.
[00:40:54] Richard Dawkins at Oxford University said that God is a megalomaniac, a maniacal, paranoid,
[00:41:03] And he's going off describing his view of the God of the Bible.
[00:41:07] And then Dr. John Lennox, the professor of mathematics at Oxford University said to him, he looks at him and says, what are you doing?
[00:41:19] Why are you upset with somebody who doesn't exist?
[00:41:23] Isn't that great?
[00:41:25] What are you getting all uptight about?
[00:41:26] His veins start popping out.
[00:41:28] He's maniacal!
[00:41:29] He's cruel!
[00:41:30] And it's like, what?
[00:41:32] How can you be upset when you don't believe in him?
[00:41:34] Isn't that a great argument?
[00:41:37] Ask your friends who don't believe in God.
[00:41:39] Why not?
[00:41:42] Well, because this and the universe and that and babies born sick and all this stuff.
[00:41:49] That's not refuting the existence of God.
[00:41:53] That's you saying, I don't like the way things are going.
[00:41:56] Technically, I'd like to play with them this way.
[00:42:00] You're an atheist, but you're upset the way things are going.
[00:42:02] We agree on this.
[00:42:03] This world stinks, man.
[00:42:05] There's a lot of pain and sorrow and it's grievous and it's ugly.
[00:42:08] We agree.
[00:42:10] But the funny thing is, I'm at peace with God on this because I've read his Bible.
[00:42:14] He said he didn't want this to happen, but this is what we've done to ourselves by disobedience.
[00:42:19] You, on the other hand, you're about ready to have a heart attack about somebody you don't even believe exists.
[00:42:25] Your whole logic is short circuiting.
[00:42:28] You're not even thinking straight.
[00:42:34] Just because you don't believe in God doesn't mean this stuff in the Bible is not going to happen.
[00:42:43] I have to tell you this.
[00:42:44] I taught this yesterday in Arizona at a conference.
[00:42:49] I was talking about deception and this one word that Jesus used for deception is a word that is the root to some words that you and I know.
[00:43:02] The word ignoramus is from the Greek.
[00:43:07] Ignoramus.
[00:43:07] Do you know what an ignoramus is?
[00:43:08] Have you ever heard the word?
[00:43:09] Nobody even uses the word anymore.
[00:43:12] You're not supposed to say that word, I guess.
[00:43:15] Ignoramus is the same meaning to the word agnostic, agnos, an agnostic.
[00:43:25] What is an agnostic?
[00:43:26] An agnostic says, well, there may possibly be a God out there, but I don't want to find out.
[00:43:34] That's the word to be an agnostic.
[00:43:36] The word ignoramus means, I believe there's things to know, but I refuse not to know them.
[00:43:45] That's why the Bible, Jesus said, they were willfully ignorant.
[00:43:50] They chose not to know.
[00:43:51] And you and I experienced this in life.
[00:43:57] You have family and friends, they know you're a Christian and they don't want you to say a word about it.
[00:44:04] Come to Thanksgiving, but don't talk about God.
[00:44:07] We're gonna invite you guys over for Christmas.
[00:44:08] Don't bring a Bible.
[00:44:12] Why are you ignorant, Amos?
[00:44:13] Right?
[00:44:15] Why, what's the matter?
[00:44:16] What's happening here?
[00:44:19] And it's strange because, listen, if they only knew the love of God, I'm convinced of this.
[00:44:24] The church has done a lot of damage to the unbelievers because we've put a bad witness out there.
[00:44:29] But it's our, listen, it's our calling to love on them in such a way to speak to them and say, listen, this is the God of the Bible.
[00:44:37] This is what Christmas is about.
[00:44:39] This is what Thanksgiving is about.
[00:44:41] This is what life is about.
[00:44:43] And let them see the alternative to the world in which they live in.
[00:44:49] that they can live in a world of meaning.
[00:44:51] But the Bible tells us Isaiah 45 verse 23, Old Testament, I have sworn by myself the word has gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return that to me every knee shall bow and every tongue shall take an oath or make confession.
[00:45:10] What an incredible, awesome statement.
[00:45:11] Philippians, we read this last week.
[00:45:13] Philippians 2, verses 10 and 11.
[00:45:15] That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, of those in heaven and those of earth and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
[00:45:26] See the consistency here?
[00:45:28] You bow your knee and confess to God.
[00:45:32] In the God of the Old Testament, the book of Isaiah, Paul the Apostle knew that, the Holy Spirit knew that, and so in Philippians, the answer is, it's Jesus Christ that you're gonna be bowing to.
[00:45:44] He's God revealed to us.
[00:45:46] If you wanna know what God is like, take a look at Jesus in the Bible.
[00:45:50] Acts chapter four, verse 11.
[00:45:53] This is the stone which the builders rejected, which has become the chief cornerstone.
[00:45:58] Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
[00:46:07] Jesus, Jesus.
[00:46:09] Verse 12 and we'll end with this.
[00:46:12] So then each of us shall give an account of himself to God.
[00:46:17] And that word account means, it's that Greek word logos.
[00:46:23] The word, the reason, the answer.
[00:46:25] Each of us will give the answer.
[00:46:26] The word, the reason.
[00:46:29] To the question asked.
[00:46:32] It means to the question asked.
[00:46:33] It means very specific.
[00:46:35] And we'll end with this.
[00:46:37] That doesn't mean you leave yet.
[00:46:38] People love, when I say that, they start leaving.
[00:46:43] I'm not gonna say this is the end anymore.
[00:46:45] I'm just gonna keep going.
[00:46:53] If we're to give an account, and we shall give an account.
[00:46:59] That confession, the Bible's very clear about.
[00:47:03] And we have a precursor to what is to be the future
[00:47:10] When it happened with Peter, and I can tell you again another plug for Israel, there's some sites in Israel that we think this was the area, archaeologists will tell us.
[00:47:21] There's some places that the archaeologists will tell us this is what it was an area like this area, wasn't here but it was like this.
[00:47:29] And then there's the area where we get so excited because the archaeologists will tell us this is the exact spot.
[00:47:36] And in Matthew chapter 16, we go to the exact spot.
[00:47:39] It's still there today.
[00:47:39] It's still standing after 2,600 years.
[00:47:44] Here it is.
[00:47:45] Jesus has taken the disciples up to Caesarea Philippi to take a break.
[00:47:53] They've been ministering very hard, 24-7, non-stop ministry.
[00:47:57] And Jesus announces to them, let's come away.
[00:48:00] It's time to shut down.
[00:48:02] Catch our breath.
[00:48:03] So he takes them to Caesarea Philippi, which you would want to live there.
[00:48:08] It's absolutely stunningly gorgeous.
[00:48:11] It's the headwaters, by the way, of the Jordan River comes out of the ground at that point right there.
[00:48:17] But there's a lot of ancient temples that are there.
[00:48:22] And so he takes them to a place.
[00:48:24] I don't know if you'd want to take a vacation like he took them on, but he took them to this place that the Jews would avoid that region.
[00:48:31] It was totally pagan.
[00:48:33] And Jesus takes them on a field trip.
[00:48:35] to this spot, Caesarea Philippi.
[00:48:38] And they got the temple of Diana there, the temple of Zeus is there, they got the temple of the nymphs that are there, they got all these Bacchus is there, so when you're worshiping God in this section, Bacchus, you're drinking all the intoxicating drink, and then you have sex with their prostitutes, male or female, didn't matter.
[00:48:56] It's what you picked.
[00:48:57] And then you went over here to Athena.
[00:48:59] They were all there.
[00:49:00] And then you went to the nymphs, and you can figure out what that was all about.
[00:49:04] And this was all there.
[00:49:09] And when you appear before that temple, you say, Great is Diana!
[00:49:14] Or Great is Athena!
[00:49:16] And Jesus takes his disciples on a field trip to that.
[00:49:22] You see the background in your head?
[00:49:24] Look at verse 15.
[00:49:27] said to them, but who do you say that I am?
[00:49:32] Do you like that?
[00:49:32] Do you see that?
[00:49:35] All these gods' names are being shouted out.
[00:49:38] Jesus turns to them and says, well, who do you say I am?
[00:49:42] Wow.
[00:49:44] And Simon Peter, God bless Peter, he's always great to step up.
[00:49:48] He said, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.
[00:49:51] And Jesus answered and said to him, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah,
[00:49:55] For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father who is in heaven.
[00:49:59] And I also say to you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
[00:50:08] When Peter said, you are the Christ, you are the Son of God, Jesus said, Peter, that fact, that truth that you just proclaimed is what my church will be built on.
[00:50:21] And the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
[00:50:29] What a declaration.
[00:50:31] I wanna ask you today, who do you say he is?
[00:50:34] Who is he?
[00:50:35] Listen, don't do group think right now.
[00:50:39] While I'm at church, I'll say Jesus.
[00:50:41] No, do you say Jesus on Wednesday morning?
[00:50:45] Do you still say it's Jesus on Thursday afternoon?
[00:50:50] Listen, I'm gonna ask you right now to bow your head in prayer as we wrap this up.
[00:50:55] Please, no one move.
[00:50:56] This is a holy moment.
[00:50:58] As people contemplate, maybe think for the first time about changing their mind.
[00:51:04] Christians, please be praying right now.
[00:51:06] Let's bow our heads and pray.
[00:51:08] Father God, we come before you, Lord God, and we pray right now in Jesus' name, the lovely name of Jesus.
[00:51:16] In fact, the lovely name of the biblical Jesus, all of the cults have one thing in common, they all use the name Jesus.
[00:51:26] and they redefine who you are.
[00:51:28] Lord, we're not gonna do that.
[00:51:30] We have come to you.
[00:51:32] We believe your word.
[00:51:37] We trust you, Lord.
[00:51:42] And Father God, I pray that this day, right now, that you might, by the Holy Spirit, be working and tugging the strings and pulling, Lord, on the cords of a
[00:51:55] of a man's heart here or a woman's heart or a young boy or a young girl who's hearing you speak in the heart the way that you do.
[00:52:08] Oh, that nasty old heart that we try to polish and put shine on it and make it look so great, but we know down deep inside there's a lot of dark spots.
[00:52:21] We fancy ourselves up, so to speak, that others may not detect it.
[00:52:27] And you're telling us this morning that you see it all.
[00:52:31] And instead of telling us, go away from me, you say to us, come to me.
[00:52:39] I have loved you with an everlasting love.
[00:52:41] Therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn you.
[00:52:45] Give me your sins.
[00:52:47] I will give you my righteousness.
[00:52:51] You've always tried to reform yourself from the outside in, and look at you now.
[00:52:59] No, open the door of your heart, let me in, and I will resurrect you from the inside out.
[00:53:08] Well, heads are bowed and eyes are closed this morning.
[00:53:12] If you're saying yes to Jesus Christ, if you understand the Gospel,
[00:53:16] Will you slip your hand up wherever you're at?
[00:53:18] Because listen, the Lord is saying to you today, who do you say that I am?
[00:53:22] Can you say that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God?
[00:53:26] Can you say today, I want Jesus to give me a new life?
[00:53:28] Do you not want a new life?
[00:53:32] If you want a new life, please, nobody looking around, it's a private moment.
[00:53:36] Raise your hand high.
[00:53:40] Are you sure?
[00:53:41] Which way is that hand going?
[00:53:44] Up or down?
[00:53:46] Listen, put your hands down.
[00:53:48] There's too many hands.
[00:53:50] Sorry, but there's too many hands up.
[00:53:52] I'm not sure if you're understanding what I'm saying.
[00:53:58] Jesus is saying, come and give me your sins.
[00:54:02] I'll give you my righteousness.
[00:54:03] It's called repentance.
[00:54:06] And you're gonna walk with me.
[00:54:07] I'm gonna be your shepherd.
[00:54:09] I'm gonna be the lover of your soul.
[00:54:11] I'm gonna be your best friend.
[00:54:12] I'm gonna be your God.
[00:54:14] I'm gonna be your atonement.
[00:54:16] I'm gonna walk you all the way through into eternity before my Father.
[00:54:20] I'm gonna escort you into heaven.
[00:54:24] But you have to understand something, that you're a sinner and you need saving.
[00:54:27] And to do that, you have to give up on your self-reformation project.
[00:54:34] I want you to come to me and I want you to have me be your master and you'll be my slave.
[00:54:40] My name is Jesus Christ and I'm your Lord and your creator and I want you with me in heaven but your sins have separated you from me.
[00:54:49] I just want to know, do you want to get rid of your sins?
[00:54:52] Look, I'm not going to ask you to raise your hands again because there's too many hands went up.
[00:54:56] I'm going to ask you, as we sing this song, I'm going to ask you to get up out of your seat and come forward.
[00:55:01] I'm going to ask everybody to remain seated.
[00:55:04] I'm not kidding.
[00:55:05] You can get your car later.
[00:55:08] This is a serious moment.
[00:55:11] I don't want you to be almost a Christian.
[00:55:14] There's no such thing.
[00:55:16] If God is speaking to your heart, do not care what the next person seated next to you thinks.
[00:55:23] It's irrelevant.
[00:55:26] This is an eternal decision.
[00:55:27] It's real.
[00:55:28] It's authentic.
[00:55:31] And if God is prodding and poking and drawing and pulling on your heart, you need to come.
[00:55:37] Maybe today you're hearing the gospel clear for the first time.
[00:55:39] You need to come.
[00:55:40] Maybe today you've wandered far from God and you're rededicating your life to Christ.
[00:55:44] Who knows?
[00:55:45] Maybe today you're actually giving your life to Christ and everything previously was not real.
[00:55:50] It doesn't matter.
[00:55:51] I'm not the judge.
[00:55:54] But Jesus said, if you acknowledge me before people, I will acknowledge you before my Father in heaven.
[00:56:00] If you are ashamed of me before people, then I must also be ashamed of you.
[00:56:05] As we play this song, don't look around for anyone else.
[00:56:10] Make your own decision.
[00:56:12] Come and stand at the base of the stage, and I'm gonna pray over all of you who come, or the one of you who comes.
[00:56:20] Come.
[00:56:25] I'm gonna ask everyone to stand we're gonna pray this together and remember it's this has to be your prayer you have to mean it and I know it's tough sometimes I mean when I pray this prayer I didn't know if I meant it enough because I'm weird that way I can look I can I can tell you this if I were to say to you
[00:56:48] The prayer that we were about to pray, don't you dare pray it.
[00:56:52] If you would hear that, you'd say, well, I want to pray it.
[00:56:56] If you want to pray it, it's because God has touched your heart.
[00:56:59] Think of it.
[00:57:00] It'd be like me saying to you, take your Bible and go burn it now.
[00:57:03] I'd say, I can't do that.
[00:57:04] What, people do it all the time.
[00:57:07] Well, I can't do that.
[00:57:08] Why?
[00:57:08] Because you know better now.
[00:57:12] So let's pray.
[00:57:12] Heavenly Father, we come before you
[00:57:17] In Jesus' name, we obey your word that declares all those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
[00:57:35] I repent of my life, my sin.
[00:57:39] I ask you to forgive me and to write my name in the Lamb's Book of Life.
[00:57:48] because today I declare Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
[00:57:57] In his name I pray and all God's people said amen.
[00:58:01] God bless you.