Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign church. We are thrilled you decided to listen to our teaching on your favorite podcast app. If you made a decision to follow Christ today, would you let us know by visiting yes.newlife Gillette.com Here is this week's teaching.
[00:00:26] Let me say welcome to those of you who are watching on church307.com to the guys over at the prison, to our friends at the jail, and those of you who are here in the room. Let's do a little experiment. Pull out your phone. I know you're not supposed to do this in church, but pull up Instagram or Facebook or whatever teenager app that you have that has pictures of famous people and pull up a famous person's account maybe who's a famous Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Cristiano Ronaldo, Dwayne the Rock Johnson. Pull somebody up and just look at their pictures and just be in awe, right? Just. So much beauty, so much perfection. Is it so impressive or what do you, what do you see what I did this, this week just to see what I would see. I saw some pictures I wish I wouldn't have seen. But what you, what I saw was a bunch of like beautiful people in like perfect settings and perfect sunrise photos and million dollar homes and like all these pictures and the whole time sitting there thinking, and I'm comparing to my own life and I'm just thinking, what a loser. Am I right? And this is kind of, I think, describes a lot of what motivates our world today. We are motivated. Okay, quit looking at them now, you're getting distracted. Put them away.
[00:01:52] This is what motivates our world to do what we do. We dress the way we dress. We wear the makeup we wear. We. I don't wear any makeup. You wear the makeup you wear. You do the things you do to try to look like them. We want to be like them because we see their fame and their power and their wealth and we think, well, if I want to be like them, I've got to look like them. I've got to have what they have. I've got to do the things that they do. Go on the vacations that they go on and, and we're just playing this catch up game and we all end up distracted going after things that we shouldn't even actually go after and would actually make us more miserable if we had them. But because the famous people have them, we want them. And this motivates us as Christians, we say we are different than that. Right? What does it mean to be a Christian? What does that word mean? Christian means Christ follower or Christ one.
[00:02:46] That's who we are wanting to become like. We look at Jesus not on Instagram, but in the Bible and we say, I want to be like that. I want to copy that.
[00:02:57] Well, what does Scripture, how does scripture describe Jesus?
[00:03:02] The prophet Isaiah said this about Jesus. He said there was nothing beautiful or majestic. It's coming up. It's coming. There it is. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance.
[00:03:15] Nothing to attract us to him. How did Jesus live his life? If Jesus would have lived today, he probably would have been famous. He taught some pretty amazing things. He did some amazing things. But he would not be famous because he was really good looking. He would be famous because he was good to people, because he loved people, because he healed people.
[00:03:39] You know, everybody called Jesus a drunk because he hung out with a lot of drunks. He didn't go hang out with the rich, powerful, famous people.
[00:03:48] Everyone called Jesus an outcast because Jesus hung out with a bunch of outcasts. This is just how he lived his life. Isaiah says he was actually despised and rejected. A man of sorrows acquainted with deepest grief. You know how you get acquainted with deepest grief? You hang out with people who have deepest grief.
[00:04:14] I'm going to read a story today from the life of Jesus that happened in the time of Jesus's ministry. And before this story happens, Jesus is out on the road traveling around Israel and he's getting famous at this time. He's saying all kinds of things, it's bringing attention. He's healing people at this time and he's getting famous. And this is usually the time when most people run for office, right? They got famous. You got to go hang out with the rich, powerful, famous people if you're getting famous. But that's not what Jesus did. Instead, Jesus decided to go back to his hometown, where they still saw him as the bratty teenager. And Jesus started preaching to his hometown.
[00:05:03] If you ever go on one of our trips with us to Israel, we do these trips periodically. And one of the places that we will inevitably visit when we go to Israel is Capernaum, Jesus's hometown. And Capernaum is really cool. For a long time, historians used the stories of Capernaum as proof that the Bible is not historical. Because they said there was no such place as Capernaum until archaeologists discovered, oh, actually it was just underground. They dug up the city of Capernaum and this is it. Now, when the Bible talks about a city, you can't picture the big metropolises that we have in our world today. A City back then was more like a large neighborhood in, in our terms today. And this would was Capernaum. You can kind of see how it extends back here. And each one of these are houses. All their houses were connected to each other. In fact, some houses had doors between two houses that, that joined the houses together. So this would have been one of those houses right here. It would have been the size of a medium sized apartment. Today is the size of this house that Jesus would have been in in the story. So a lot of people think this was the exact house that Jesus was in when this story happens. But it was probably a house like that. They think it was probably this one because of some of the other events that happened right around this story. This is Peter's mother in law's house. You remember the story of Jesus healing Peter's mother in law. Actually I took this picture and I'm, I'm standing in the synagogue, the front steps of a synagogue when I took this picture. And this was a synagogue where Jesus taught many of the most famous things that Jesus taught. And that synagogue is still there today. Uh, it's a really cool place, a kind of awe inspiring place to go. So this might have been the exact house or maybe just a house that would have been like it. But it kind of helps you see where this event happened. So the story goes like this. I'm going to read out of the Bible because it's kind of long and it's hard to read off the screen. But the story goes like this. Luke or Mark, chapter 2.
[00:07:08] When Jesus returned to Capernaum several, several days later, the news spread quickly that he was back home. Spread quickly. Famous guy comes back home to see the hometown. Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room even outside the door.
[00:07:28] While he was preaching God's word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the crowd. So they dug a hole through the roof above his head.
[00:07:40] Then they lowered the man on his mat right down in front of Jesus.
[00:07:45] Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, my child, your sins are forgiven. But some of the teachers of religious law who were standing there thought to themselves, what is he saying? This is blasphemy. Only God can forgive sins.
[00:08:03] Jesus knew immediately what they were thinking. So he asked them, why do you question this in your hearts? Is it easier to say to the paralyzed man, your sins are forgiven? Or stand up, pick up your mat and walk?
[00:08:18] So I will Pray, prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins. Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, stand up, pick up your mat and go home.
[00:08:31] And the man jumped up, grabbed his mat and walked out through the stunned onlookers.
[00:08:40] They were all amazed and praised. God exclaiming We've never seen anything like this before. Remember, these people know Jesus from his childhood. These people know this paralyzed man from his childhood. They know that he's been paralyzed his whole life. Can you imagine? You just expect that every time you see this man, he's paralyzed and now all of a sudden he hops up and he's walking.
[00:09:07] I think this story can serve as a good metaphor of our community today, our churches today. And so I want to go back through the story and talk about the different types of people that you encounter as you read this story. And I think you will find these same types of people in our church today and in our community today.
[00:09:28] The first type of person in the story is kind of the main character of the story. He, he's the paralyzed man who laid on the mat. So we will give him a name to make it easier to talk about him. We will call him Matt. That's his name in this story. So the first type of person in the story, Matt, is a person in need.
[00:09:51] In this story, Matt was in need. He could not do it alone. He needed help from his friends.
[00:09:59] I'm guessing that there is somebody here today who is in need.
[00:10:05] Somebody here is here because he hit rock bottom.
[00:10:10] Somebody is here because she's at the end of a rope.
[00:10:14] Maybe you're a single parent.
[00:10:17] Maybe you have an addiction that's just taken control of your life.
[00:10:22] Maybe you're buried under too much debt. Maybe you got fired, Maybe somebody you love died.
[00:10:33] Somebody here is in need.
[00:10:36] Well, here's the good news.
[00:10:38] You're in the right place.
[00:10:41] The church is a great place to come when you're in need.
[00:10:46] The church is a great place to come to meet with Jesus when you're in need. Because the church exists for people in need.
[00:10:57] Because ultimately we are all mats.
[00:11:01] We are all utterly incapable of saving ourselves, of healing ourselves. We're just not strong enough.
[00:11:10] We need help. And this is why Jesus says it is so dangerous for people to get rich or dangerous for people to get popular or because power and comfort and notoriety in this world have a way of luring us into a false sense of security. And we start thinking that we're self sufficient, we start forgetting that we need other people. We Start forgetting that we need Jesus to heal us of much deeper issues than just the surface level issues that represent.
[00:11:41] And some of us, when we get powerful or when we get rich or when we get fed famous, what inevitably happens is we start judging people who are less than us.
[00:11:52] We start judging people who are lower than us. And our pride puffs up and causes us to remove ourselves because we believe that we are better than we are.
[00:12:04] This is why Jesus says it's harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Because your wealth can actually come between you and your recognition that you need to be forgiven of your sins, that your pride can keep you from humbling yourself and doing the things, doing the ministry that God has called you to do.
[00:12:29] So the second type of person in the story today are people who care.
[00:12:36] Just so you know, you. You are surrounded by people who care.
[00:12:42] Now, some of these people who care are also hurting. So sometimes it's difficult for them to help you as much as they want to help you. And there's just kind of this difficult thing where we got to help each other. We got to pitch in and lift each other up when each other fall down.
[00:12:56] But there are some people in here today who've lived a life well, who've built some extra strength, who are strong enough to pick you up when you fall down.
[00:13:08] They have matured, they've been sanctified. They've grown to the point that when you are weak, they can be strong for you.
[00:13:16] This is spiritual maturity.
[00:13:19] These are people who are not just here for what they can get out of church. They are here because they recognize that they've been called on purpose, for a purpose.
[00:13:29] In this story, you see four people, four friends who care, who saw that Matt was in need and decided that they were going to do something about it. We're going to give these four characters in the story some names, too. We'll call them just random names off the top of my head. Grant, Mitch, C.J. and Tracy are these four characters in this story.
[00:13:53] So they lived in Jesus's hometown, and they had probably been hearing stories about Jesus out healing people. And so they started to think about what this could mean.
[00:14:06] One of them said, hey, maybe Mitch said, hey, I heard Jesus healed a blind man.
[00:14:13] And Grant says, actually, I heard he raised somebody from the dead.
[00:14:18] And CJ leans over to Matt and says, hey, Matt, do you think Jesus could heal you?
[00:14:26] And so they jumped to action.
[00:14:29] They decided that they were going to do something about the problem that they saw, they saw a person in need and they recognized that maybe I've been called to help this person in need.
[00:14:39] And they started, they got to work.
[00:14:42] The problem is when they decided to go do what they knew God would want them to do. For Matt, they encountered an obstacle.
[00:14:51] The obstacle came in the form of the third type of person we read about in this story, and those are the consumers.
[00:14:59] Far too many churches are packed full of consumers now. To consumers, we say, come as you are, we want you here. We love you. We are happy you are here. We just hope you don't stay that way.
[00:15:15] Jesus was in a house full of consumers. So many consumers that the four friends could not get mad. To Jesus, consumers are the people who come to church just to get filled, just to receive.
[00:15:31] They sit in the rows and they listen and they learn and they. They like the feeling that the music gives to them and they like the. The way the church gives to them and how people are there to help them when they are in need.
[00:15:46] But what did Mitch and Grant and C.J. and Tracy do?
[00:15:51] They decided not to just get distracted by the consumers, not to give up. They climbed up on a roof to make sure that they could do whatever they needed to do to get Matt to Jesus. Let's go back to the picture of the house.
[00:16:08] So when Jesus was alive, this house would have had a roof on it. You can see these stones around the outside of the house. There were also a wall of stones in the middle of the house. And that is because they would have put beams across all of these stones to create a structure that they could build on top of. And they would actually use straw and clay and they would actually grow grass up on top of the roof. They didn't have backyards back then. All their houses were connected. And so they would actually hang out on the roofs. Once their roof got solid enough to create kind of a second floor. And so the people in the house were consuming what Jesus was teaching. Notice that when you're consuming, your back is turned to the people in need. And it's not intentional. You're not trying to be. These people were not at Jesus's house or at Jesus's teaching and trying to turn their back on the people in their need. They just kind of had forgotten that they were out there.
[00:17:11] They had just kind of gotten so intensely focused on what they were learning and what they were receiving that they kind of forgot that maybe there are some people that are standing outside the door who need to hear what is being spoken inside. The doors, they didn't need to, but their consuming was keeping Matt from being healed.
[00:17:32] But the poor guys who cared started to brainstorm.
[00:17:37] Now, I wasn't there, and the Bible doesn't fill in the blanks for us, but I assume the brainstorming went something like this.
[00:17:44] I assume.
[00:17:46] C.J. said, I got an idea.
[00:17:50] Let's yell fire.
[00:17:55] And then everybody will run out of the house and we'll grab Jesus and make Jesus heal Matt.
[00:18:00] Mitch said, that's a terrible idea. Everybody will know there's not a fire. The house is built out of stone and clay. That doesn't catch on fire. That won't work. But he says, I got a better idea. What if we dig a hole in the wall behind where Jesus is preaching and then we can get Matt to Jesus?
[00:18:18] Tracy says, nah, that won't work. The wall is holding up the roof. And I know enough about structural engineering to know that's just going to cause a big problem.
[00:18:29] So Grant says, okay, what if we. What if we get up on the roof and we dig a hole in the roof and get Matt down to Jesus?
[00:18:42] They're like, I think that could work. So they climb up on the roof and they start digging. I don't know what that looked like. I don't know if they needed shovels, if they were able to do it with their hands. But eventually they get a hole in the roof large enough that they can lower Matt through the roof. And they must have grabbed some ropes that. That they tied to the mat so that they could lower Matt down. And this is me filling in the blanks. I don't know if this has happened. This happened, but it probably happened. So they're lowering Matt through the hole, and they get Matt to about 6 foot off the ground. And then they run out of rope.
[00:19:17] And so they're all holding onto the rope. They're like, now what do we do?
[00:19:22] And Mitch says, well, he's already crippled, so they let him go, and boom, he lands on the ground. No, that probably didn't happen. But they lower Matt down to Jesus so that Jesus could heal him.
[00:19:45] And then the story tells us this. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, Jesus is about to compliment these men, which is kind of weird to me because they. This is breaking and entering.
[00:20:03] It's at least vandalism, right?
[00:20:07] Jesus is about to compliment them.
[00:20:10] Why? Because of their faith. I love that it says that Jesus saw their faith.
[00:20:16] Because sometimes when we think about faith, we think about an emotion.
[00:20:21] We think about a feeling that we have, like I feel faith in Jesus. That's not how Jesus talks about faith. Jesus talks about faith as something that you can see.
[00:20:35] How do you know if somebody has faith?
[00:20:38] You look at their actions. Because our actions always follow our beliefs.
[00:20:44] That's just true about how we live our lives.
[00:20:47] If I believe the stock market is going to crash, my actions would take my stocks out of the stock market. I wish didn't happen.
[00:20:59] My actions will follow my beliefs.
[00:21:03] I look at my church and I think, we got a lot of incredibly faithful people. We've got a lot of people who have a lot of faith in our church. How do you know if somebody has a lot of faith if they are faithful? This is what the word faithful means. You're full of faith so much that you show up when you're supposed to show up.
[00:21:23] Remember what Jesus, brother James said? He said, how can you show me your faith if you don't have good deeds, if you're not faithful?
[00:21:33] I will show you my faith by my good deeds.
[00:21:38] I see your faith in the way you bring your friends with you to church.
[00:21:43] I see your faith in the way you serve down in new life kids. I see your faithfulness in the way you give your finances, in the way you tithe, in the way you love people who are hard to love. In the way you worship even when you don't feel like worshiping.
[00:22:02] That's your faith showing up in your actions.
[00:22:07] So what about you?
[00:22:09] Does your faith show up in your actions?
[00:22:13] My son Titus is really impulsive. He's humble. He's really humble. He's quick to apologize, but he's really impulsive.
[00:22:25] He just wants fun all the time. He wants social all the time. No work, just all play.
[00:22:32] So usually his disobedience shows up in him not doing the work that I asked him to do. And so when I correct my son, he's quick to say, oh, dad, I'm so sorry. I'll do better next time. Dad, I'm so sorry. I'll do better next time. But eventually you say, hold up.
[00:22:50] I'm tired of you saying you'll do better next time. I'm ready for you to actually do better next time.
[00:22:58] If you love me, you'll obey my commands, says Jesus. And dad, no more. Just, I don't want any more talk about how much faith you have. I want to see it.
[00:23:14] I want there to be evidence in the way you live your life.
[00:23:19] No more all talk, no action. Let's do what Jesus calls us to do. Let's be the people he wants Us to be.
[00:23:28] So the verse says this. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, my child, your sins are forgiven.
[00:23:42] What has Matt done to earn forgiveness?
[00:23:47] What has Matt done to earn forgiveness?
[00:23:52] He had good friends. That's a big good step. Get in a life group.
[00:23:58] Matt did nothing to earn forgiveness.
[00:24:01] He put his faith in somebody else to give him forgiveness. Actually, he put his faith in Jesus to heal his body.
[00:24:09] And Jesus said, that's good enough.
[00:24:11] That's faith of a mustard seed. I can take that amount of faith.
[00:24:16] Your sins are forgiven.
[00:24:20] But there's a difference between Jesus or between them asking Jesus to heal his body and them asking Jesus to forgive his sins. Notice the difference between what they asked for and what Jesus did. Jesus did not do what they asked for. Initially, I think this is a principle we principle we can live by in will help you in difficult times. It's this. God gives us what we need before he gives us what we want.
[00:24:48] He knows better than you do what you need.
[00:24:53] We think that our greatest needs are physical.
[00:24:56] Pay attention to your prayer requests.
[00:24:59] How many of them are physical and how many of them are spiritual?
[00:25:04] Jesus knows that your greatest needs are always spiritual needs.
[00:25:10] We are all in this world to grow closer to God. And God is not going to give us anything that comes between us and Him. If we ask him for things that he knows will eventually build our pride to the point that we will think we don't need him anymore, then there is no way he hates us enough to give us what we're asking us for.
[00:25:31] He will never give you something you ask for. If. If giving you that will lead you away from Him.
[00:25:38] So sometimes when we ask him for something and he says no, we should say thank you. I don't understand, but thank you. Because I trust you.
[00:25:49] Because I trust that you will give me what I need before you give me what I want.
[00:25:57] Thank you, Jesus.
[00:25:59] Because we don't want to become the fourth type of person in this story. The fourth type of person in this story are critical people.
[00:26:10] You know, we invite people to come as they are.
[00:26:15] If you are a person in need, if you don't look like you belong in church, if you are out doing something you should have done, not have done last night, we say come as you are.
[00:26:30] But inevitably, when people come as they are, when people might look a little bit out of place, inevitably people will judge those people who come as they are. And that is because all of us fall short.
[00:26:43] That is because we're all broken. We try to fight against that temptation. We try Everything we can to make sure that none of us fall into the temptation of judging people who come as they are. But people do this.
[00:26:55] You know, last summer, many of you were around when we used to on Sunday mornings, have protesters out here in front of the door who would hold up signs and shout things about how there are too many sinners in our church.
[00:27:12] Yep.
[00:27:16] Yes, there are.
[00:27:18] And we want a lot more.
[00:27:22] We want to do everything we possibly can. We will do everything short of sin to get as many sinners through the doors as we possibly can. That's the whole objective. This is not a country club. This is a hospital.
[00:27:35] We want the sick people. That's the whole purpose. That's why we're here. That's why God gives us the things that he gives us. That's why God sanctifies us and he heals us so that we can heal other people. This is the whole point. Yes, come as you are. And this is what Jesus is doing in this house today, on this day. Come as you are.
[00:27:58] These same judgmental, angry, Pharisee type people were around in Jesus day too. This is how they come into the story.
[00:28:09] But some of the teachers of religious law, those preachers, terrible people, these teachers of religious law were sitting there, thought to themselves, what is Jesus saying?
[00:28:24] This is blasphemy. Only God can forgive sins.
[00:28:29] We are a come as you are church led by come as you are people.
[00:28:35] So if you are tempted to judge someone else because. Because they are too sinful, we run from that temptation because we do not want to be a Pharisee who's trying to come between Jesus healing somebody and forgiving somebody's sin. We do not want to be the people who criticize Jesus for forgiving people. This is not us.
[00:28:56] But then we also say this.
[00:28:58] But if you are a critical person, you too are welcome to come as you are.
[00:29:05] If you are a Pharisee, if this is the temptation that grabs you, even you are welcome to come as you are. Because you look at the story and you recognize that Jesus has the Pharisees in the house with him. He has not rejected them. He did not remove them from the house before he started teaching. Even they are welcome to come as they are.
[00:29:25] So which person are you in the story?
[00:29:28] In the story so far, we've seen people in need. We've seen people who care. We've seen consumers, we've seen critical people.
[00:29:39] If you're in need, church is the best place for you to be.
[00:29:44] Because why? There are always some people here who care.
[00:29:52] But don't fall into the trap of becoming one of the second two people.
[00:29:56] If you've been coming to church for. For a year by yourself, that should be a warning that you are becoming a consumer.
[00:30:07] It's time to bring somebody with you.
[00:30:10] It's time to recognize you're not just here for yourself.
[00:30:15] You were brought here so that you could be healed and then heal others.
[00:30:20] And then you come as you are, and then you become the person that you were created to be.
[00:30:26] Because here's the promise. There's a fifth type of person, and those are the people who can be changed.
[00:30:35] And that's everyone in the story, and that's everyone in this room, and that's everybody watching online, and that's everybody you interact with. In our community, you are surrounded by people who have been changed by the grace of Jesus. We all have a past. We've all done things we shouldn't have done and been places we shouldn't have been and had pains and been hurt by other people. We've all lived messy lives. People are messy. That's just the reality of the world we live in. But Jesus loves us unconditionally. You are loved unconditionally by a perfect heavenly Father who accomplished everything necessary for you to be adopted into his family, to be given a new life.
[00:31:21] So when other people doubt God's love for you, when other people criticize or judge, we run from the temptation and we say, you are never too far gone to be made new.
[00:31:36] You can have a new life in Jesus Christ. Today the apostle Paul says, anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.
[00:31:52] We're good.
[00:31:54] You're good.
[00:31:56] Come as you are.
[00:31:58] Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. Come as you are and become the person that God created you to be.
[00:32:06] So here's the big ask.
[00:32:09] Will you say yes to Jesus?
[00:32:12] Will you come as you are? Will you let him give you a new life? Will you let us lower you through the roof to him so that he can do in your life what only he can do in your life? Jesus wants to forgive you for everything that you've ever done.
[00:32:28] He wants to give you a new life. The verse goes on to say, the old life is gone. A new life has become. This is how you become the person that you were created to be.
[00:32:39] This series is called Grave Robbers or Grave Robber. Sometimes we have this temptation of walking around in life and putting on all the filters and makeup to pretend like we're alive when we're actually dead, because we don't recognize that maybe we're alive physically, but we are dead spiritually. We are dead in our sins. Maybe our beating hearts make fool us into thinking that we are alive. Jesus wants to rescue you from your grave, to give you a new life. So say yes to Jesus.
[00:33:11] If you're here today and you've not said yes yet to Jesus, you've not given him your life. If you're not becoming the person that you were created to be, would you grab the card in front of you that says next steps and to begin to take a next step toward becoming the person that you were created to be? On that card is a box that you can check that says, I ready to begin my new life in Christ. Would you check that box?
[00:33:35] Today's the date. Don't put it off. If you're watching online, you can do the same thing by going to nextsteps church307.com and check the boxes that says you're ready to begin your new life in Christ. Don't put it off, because here's the reality. Jesus was in Capernaum that day, but then he moved on.
[00:33:52] Then he went back on the missionary journeys. What if the four friends would not have gotten Matt to Jesus that day?
[00:34:00] Story would have been a lot different.
[00:34:03] Would Jesus have ever been healed? I mean, would Matt have ever been healed?
[00:34:08] You don't. Tomorrow is not promised.
[00:34:11] All we know of is today. Don't let this service without allowing Jesus to forgive you of your sin. Let this service end without you letting Jesus forgive you of our sins. Say yes to him today.
[00:34:24] And then I want to say this. You got this card when you came in today.
[00:34:29] If you want to be one of the four friends.
[00:34:34] Invite somebody to Easter.
[00:34:36] Bring them here so that Jesus can forgive them of their sins.
[00:34:40] Bring them so that they can hear that Jesus loves them unconditionally. Tell them to come as they are. Come sit with me. Be a bringer.
[00:34:49] Start digging holes in roofs, building relationships so you can bring somebody with you to Easter. We have some awesome services planned. I'm really excited and we are going to give an invitation that we are hoping will get people across that line to saying yes to Jesus. So don't just let this card. You might need to write the church's name on it.
[00:35:11] Grant, make sure you say, come to my church. New life.
[00:35:20] Bring somebody with you to Easter service. I believe God's going to do really big things.
[00:35:25] God, I thank you that you didn't spend all your time with the rich, powerful people, but instead you decided that you would heal people.
[00:35:35] God I pray that you would make us more like you, that you would be the ideal that we reach for in the way that we help those in need.
[00:35:45] God, for anybody here today who is struggling to make the step across the line to put their faith in you, to say yes to you, God, I pray that you would give them the courage to fill out that card right now and say yes to you. We love you and we thank you. In Jesus name, amen.
