Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey, New Life Gillette 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.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: We have spent the last seven weeks leading up today to today saying over and over again that if you're breathing that you're hoping while I breathe. I hope so. If you were able to take that breath deep or not, if there's breath in your lungs, then there is still hope. Amen.
And we're gonna be in Romans chapter 12 today. Romans chapter 12. If you got a Bible, or if you got it on the app or however you've got it, follow along with us. It's gonna be up on the screen. If you don't happen to have if you don't happen to have your Bible, turn to Romans 12. We're going to start in verse one. While you're turning there, I want to say what's up to everybody joining us on Church 307 and to our friends over at the prison who watch along every week, we are so glad that you're part of the family.
Now, Romans chapter 12, starting in verse one. Here's what it says. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will. Let's pray God, your name is greater and higher and above all, and we give you praise and glory for that. We love you.
Would you speak to us this morning, God? We don't need my opinions.
If there's anything in this sermon that's just my opinion, God, would you let us notice it so we can throw it away?
Don't just let us overlook it, let us reject it.
But if there's anything that's consistent with your character and faithful to your word, would you plant it in our hearts, Jesus, that it would grow, that we would become like you?
That's what we want. We love you, Jesus.
Amen.
If you've been at New Life for a little while, you know this is the part of the morning where I usually ask some sort of somewhat ridiculous question or tell some embarrassing story about myself to project all of my problems onto all of you. Because it's cheaper than therapy and it makes me feel better.
I'm just kidding. Go to therapy. It's good for all of us.
But you. And hopefully to make some sort of point about the sermon, too, you know, But I'm not going to do that this morning.
As I was preparing for today, I just felt like I need to just talk to you this morning.
So that's what I'm going to do. If that's okay. Not if it's okay. I have the microphone, so I'm just going to do it.
I just want to talk to you because there's something that we've been leading to for this whole series that everything has been building to, and we've said it in a bunch of different ways, but it's what I want to tell you this morning as we conclude eight weeks of talking about hope and how hope is always here, no matter what, as long as we're alive.
And one thing, I just have one is one thing that's going to be on the screen and then I have a video I'm going to show you later and we're just going to talk about it. But here's the thing. Here's the thing that I believe I have to tell you today.
Your past does not predict who you can become.
Jesus does.
Your past does not predict who you can become.
Jesus does.
Look, I know there are people here who are thinking, cj, you don't know my past.
And you're right, I don't.
I don't know your past. But I do know Jesus, because I know Jesus. I know that whatever is in your past, whatever is in your present, whatever you came in here hoping that nobody asked you about it, does not predict your future.
Whatever you're struggling with right now at this moment does not predict your future.
Jesus does.
And he's the only one who does.
I've been working with people in ministry of one form or another for almost 15 years now. And one of the things I've become in extremely convinced of over those years is that the thing that prevents us from becoming who we're created to be from that thing that we talk about every week almost at New Life, that this is what we're about, is coming as you are and becoming who you're created to be. The thing that prevents transformation, the ceiling on our growth that keeps us from growing anymore. It's not a sin, a struggle, something from our past, something that we're doing, the thing that prevents our growth is that most of us don't actually think we ever will grow.
The thing that prevents Change is that a lot of us just don't actually think that we ever will change.
Now, look, I can imagine what some of you are thinking. You're thinking, CJ, is this going to be some sort of, like, power of positive psychology sermon? Are you just here to tell us that if we just believe happier thoughts about our lives, that our lives will get better? No, that's not what I'm here to tell you.
Psychological concept that's related to this is called self efficacy. It was introduced in the 1970s, I believe, by a psychologist named Albert Arturos. I might have his name wrong. Self efficacy is basically the idea that if you believe you can do something, you're more likely to actually be able to do that thing, which just kind of makes sense if you and I were to both take a class and we had the same amount of knowledge going into it. But I think, oh, man, I'm going to fail this for sure. And you think, oh, I'll probably get an A. You're more likely to get an A than me because you're more likely to try. Right? That's the concept of self efficacy. But that's. I'm not trying to tell you that that's going to lead to transformation, like, real, real change.
I tend to agree with scripture, as I think we all should. Scripture in the book of Jeremiah says that the heart of a human, the heart of man, is deceitful, polluted, corrupt above all things. Who can understand it?
The book of Romans in an earlier chapter tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
We see over and over and over again throughout scripture time and time and time again that our best efforts on our own lead us exactly back to the same place that we started.
I think maybe with some self discipline, some muscle, that we can probably change our habits. Habits are important. We talked about that last week. When dealing with sin, changing our habits are important.
I think most of us can probably do that. Most of us could probably start going to the gym or maybe follow a budget. Most of us, maybe with some self discipline, could exchange a really destructive addiction for a less destructive addiction.
We might quit binge drinking and start popping Zen all the time. We might be able to quit being a drug addict and become a workaholic or something like that. We might be able to exchange addiction, one bad one, one controlling one for one that's less destructive. But most of us can't actually change our hearts. Actually, all of us, we can't actually change our hearts. We might be able to get Better at not blowing up at our kids. We might get better at controlling the anger, keeping it in, but most of us don't have the ability to actually change that thing in our hearts that creates the anger in the first place. We just live repressed and angry without showing it.
Because most of us, we just don't believe that it's possible.
We don't believe God will change us.
We come into church and we hear people singing around us and we think, oh yeah, God changed them, that's cool, but I'm not them.
We've seen every marriage in our family fall apart.
Grandparents had a horrible marriage, parents got divorced, aunt and uncle don't even talk to each other.
So we just think that's what we're destined to. Can't imagine having a good, healthy marriage. We're just waiting for it to end because that's what every marriage we've ever known ends. And eventually it happens enough times. Eventually you go through a divorce or two or you have a couple long term relationships that go up in flames and eventually you just start to assume that that's the future, that's what's going to happen, and you quit believing anything else is possible. I don't know. Mom was an alcoholic, my older sister's an alcoholic, Grandpa was an alcoholic. I mean, I've tried to quit three or four times and fallen off the wagon each time. I guess this is just who I am, you know, thank God he's forgiven me, but this is probably just who I'm going to be.
We just don't think change is possible.
I've always been angry. This is just who I am. I've always been angry, I've always been bitter, I've always. I don't know what to do about it, but it's probably just my personality. It's probably just me. I'm just an angry, angry person and if I can just learn to manage it, it'll be fine. But this is just who I am.
And this becomes the pattern, this becomes the cycle that we believe over and over again. In fact, I want to take it a step further. I bet there are some, especially women here, but maybe men too.
You've been in toxic relationship after toxic relationship with where you're disrespected, you're not taken seriously, you're not honored, your trust is broken, you're not told the truth.
And it happens three or four times and you start to think, wow, it'd be nice to be in like a great relationship where, you know, they treated me with kindness. And love. But it happens enough times that you start to just think, well, this must be what I deserve.
This must just be me.
I can't find a different relationship, so this must be just what I'm going to get. I guess I don't actually deserve the truth. I guess I don't actually deserve respect, kindness, patience.
You keep going back to the same type of person because eventually you believe that that's just what it is.
It's just who I am.
You know, this is why in scripture, Satan, the word Satan in the Hebrew, hasatan, that word, it's not a name, it's a title. It means the accuser or the liar because he lies to us over and over and over again. Jesus says, your past doesn't predict who you can become. Jesus offers us transformation. But Satan says, no, that's who you are. That's who you are. Look how many times you've messed up. Look how many times you've done the same thing. Look how many times you've showed up at church hungover, you're never gonna kick it. Look how many times you've made that mistake.
That's just who you are. Satan tells it and he tells it and he tells it again and again until eventually it just happens so many times that we don't even realize that we believe it's true. But we quit thinking that anything could ever be different.
And it's not always like, you know, big life altering struggles. It's not always addiction and divorce and things like that. Sometimes it's smaller things. Sometimes it's just, you know what, I've been lonely my whole life.
You know, I'm just not a very outgoing person. Maybe I never will have friends.
Maybe I will just be kind of lonely. That's okay. I guess I can manage or. Man, all the good stuff always happens to them.
My friends are always successful. My friends always have purpose. My friends always, you know, they seem happy about life. I guess I'm just the one who's left in the wake. I guess I'm just the one that's gonna miss out.
We go through life without a sense of purpose. And it happens long enough that we just convince ourselves we're going to be the ones that have to wake up every day and just go through the slog of life without any meaning. And we get used to it. We quit thinking anything could be different. And guess what happens? Nothing ever becomes different. Because we don't even pray for things to be different anymore. We don't hope, we don't do anything that would make things different because eventually we just start to believe that nothing ever will change. And I think that's the. That's the ceiling. That's the thing standing in between us and transformation is we quit asking God for it, we quit hoping for it, we quit believing for it. Because over and over and over again, we've just come to believe. We've seen it happen so many times, we don't think it'll ever be different.
And then it's never different, you know, the book of Romans, it can be largely divided into two parts.
The first half, a little more than a half. Chapters 1 through 11 tells us what we're supposed to believe.
The church words here are theology and orthodoxy. It tells us what we think about God, what we think about ourselves, what we think about the world. So chapters one through eleven tell us what we're supposed to believe and how we're supposed to think. And then chapter 12, verse 3, and then on to the end of the book all the way until Paul the author starts saying goodbye to people and starts, you know, just saying hi to his friends. The rest of the book, after 12 verses 1 and 2, is how we're supposed to behave. The church word here is orthopraxy, right? Practice. What were we supposed to do if we believe those things? And Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2, operates like the hinge that the book of Romans swings on, where it swings from what you're supposed to believe to now how you're supposed to behave. Romans, chapter 12, verse 1 and 2, make this transition for us. They help us see how we're supposed to take what we believe and then apply it to. To how we behave. And the first thing that's important is that Paul says, therefore, present your body as a living sacrifice. The word therefore is important if you want a free Bible study tip. Anytime you see the word therefore in the Bible, you ask what the therefore is. Therefore.
Because the word therefore means because the word therefore means because of everything that just happened. So when you see the word therefore, it means what's happening next is because of what just happened. What I'm about to say next is because of what so Paul says, therefore present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. Why? Well, because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
But also because God showed his love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Because Romans chapter 5 and chapter 6 says that where sin did abound, grace did even more abound. Why do we present our bodies to Him. Because where there was a lot of sin, there was even more grace given to us in the midst of that sin. Why do we present our bodies? Because Romans 8:1 says, Therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So if you're in Christ, there is no condemnation for your past, there is no condemnation for your present, there is no condemnation at all, because you are in Christ. So therefore present your bodies to Him. Why do we present our bodies to him? Because Romans 8:28 that says God works together all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. So God, in the miraculous transformative work of his will and his mercy, he takes everything that we did and that was done to us and that was done in the world that was evil and bad, and he transforms it such that it will be used for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Why do we present our bodies to him as a living sacrifice? Because.
Because all things work together for good. Because he has proven his love for us in this. Because his grace did abound. Because even though I keep doing the things that I do not want to do, His Spirit empowers me to live an actual transformed life. Because of that, I present my.
Therefore, because of what I believe, I present my body to Him.
It affects how I behave.
I present my body as a living sacrifice. Now, I don't mean to point out the obvious here, but if I present something, I present it yours.
If I offer something. If I offer something to you, then I don't take it back.
See, that's the catch in this verse, as he says, present your bodies as a living sacrifice. There's something that was true of every sacrifice in Scripture, all of the ones in the Old Testament.
It's that a sacrifice, for it to be acceptable, holy and pleasing to God, it had to be without blemish, without fault. Couldn't have anything wrong with it.
See, that's the thing.
I know my blemishes, my faults better than anyone.
Better than you do, better than anybody does. I know mine. You know yours better than anybody else does. You know what you think when you look in the mirror that you won't say out loud to anybody else? You know the thing that you regret most, that you hope no one ever asks you about?
You know the times you promised you'd never do it again, and then you did it again and again and again? We know our faults more than anybody else could ever know our faults. I heard a pastor say One time. Most people don't need to be convinced that they're sinners. They need to be convinced that they're lovable.
Because we know our faults.
Most of us don't wake up in the morning saying, I am perfect.
Most of us wake up in the morning saying, I hope nobody finds out if you've got a secret. You hope nobody finds out. I want you to know you're normal.
Most of us do.
It's the human condition. All the way Back to Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve realized they were naked and then they hid.
So why do we present our bodies as a living sacrifice? See, this is what we do. This is what we do. We say, hey, God, God, look, I want you to have me. This is me. I want you to have me. But I know you can't actually use me because I'm too messed up.
Hey, God, look, God, look. You can have my whole life. You can have my whole life. But I've never been able to change that, so why even try?
Hey, God, God, I want to surrender my life to you. Whatever. Your will be done, God, your will be done. As long as it's not that they wouldn't take me seriously if I ever tried that, instead of, I offer myself to you.
So why do we present our bodies as a living sacrifice?
Why can I present myself to the Lord?
If an offering has to be unblemished, it's because there is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ. It's because God proved his love for us in this. That while we were still sinners. The Greek word there is in the present tense. While we were still sinning, while I was still doing the thing that he had to forgive me for. He. He offered forgiveness while I was still sinning. There's this crazy concept that God knows everything. God knows everything. He knew it before it would happen. He knew everything. So he knew everything that would ever happen in your life, everything you would do, everything that would happen to you. He knew your biggest regret before he died, and he still died for you. And in his death, he took the full weight and measure of sin upon himself. Do you understand that? He took the full. He took everything sin, pain, death could deal out upon himself. And it was crucified on the cross. Then your sin and your shame and your guilt went into the grave with him. And guess who came out? Jesus did. Your guilt stayed there. He took the full weight and measure of sin upon himself so that we could be reconciled to God. What that means is we call it propitiation. That God put His life instead of our life so that he takes our guilt and we take his righteousness. He takes our death and we take his life. What that means is when God looks at you, he does not see. Listen to me. He does not see your sin. He sees the righteousness of His Son. When he looks at you, he does not see your faults. He sees the blood of his Son that washed you clean. He does not see your past. He sees your present covered in Jesus and who you can become through the power of the Holy Spirit in you. That's what he sees. Your past does not predict who you can become. Why? Because Christ paid the price and your past has been cleansed. You are now empowered to become something different. God doesn't see your sin anymore. He sees you loved, made perfect in him.
He doesn't see it. So we go to God and we're like, hey, hey, hey, you know all my faults. And he says, not anymore.
Book of Psalms says, I cast your sin as far as the east is from the west, so point in each direction as far as you can go.
When God looks at you, he sees Jesus.
He sees the sacrifice of Christ.
So when I go, God, you couldn't ever use that. He goes, what?
What couldn't I use?
I took care of it.
When I say, God, you couldn't call me to ministry? God says, oh, I can call anybody I want to ministry because you offered your life to me.
When? When God says, I want you to be a leader. And I say, no, I'm not leadership material. He says, I made your material.
I know what material you are.
When we say, man, I'm never gonna have a healthy marriage, God says, look, I invented marriage. Quit believing them. Start believing me.
Then he goes on, don't be conformed to the pattern of this world.
Don't keep believing what they believe.
Don't keep living in the same cycle, because what does the world do? The world becomes what everyone else says they're gonna be. The world keeps repeating the same cycle. The world has generational curses where alcoholism is passed down and down and down and down, and divorce is passed down and down and down through the generations. And abuse and absenteeism and all of these things and recklessness and laziness is just passed down, and we keep repeating the cycle. Don't be conformed to that. Don't believe what they say, but be transformed. How?
By the renewing of your mind.
By the renewing of your mind. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. In other words, quit believing the lies of the accuser and start believing the truth of the Creator.
Quit believing the lies of the accuser. Start believing the one who created you. Because when I say God, I'm not worthy, he says, I made you worthy. My son was worthy, and you are in my son.
When I say I'm too broken, he says, I restore what is broken.
Quit believing the past.
The past does not predict who you can become. Jesus does.
And until we believe that change, actual change, is actually possible, until we start taking Jesus more seriously than we take our past or our sin or the world, we will not experience transformation. And some of us are taking our sin and our past more seriously than we take Jesus because we keep saying, God, you couldn't use me. You couldn't change my sin.
God, God, look, you really couldn't change me, Which means I put more weight on my sin than I do on his son.
Start believing what he says about us.
Look, I know I could say this 25 different ways. In fact, that's what I've been doing for the last 14 minutes.
24 minutes. 24 minutes. Actually, my math is not great.
Just finding as many different ways as I can to say the same thing. Your past doesn't predict who you can become.
Some of us are just not going to hear it because I say it. Because you're always going to think, well, you don't know me, so maybe hearing somebody else's story will help.
Watch this video.
[00:24:15] Speaker C: Tell me a little bit about what your life was like before you met Jesus.
[00:24:19] Speaker D: Yeah, I didn't grow up in a house that went to church or didn't really know about Jesus.
[00:24:24] Speaker E: I grew up in a Christian home. But then once I got out of high school, you know, I kind of went off the deep end.
[00:24:31] Speaker D: I found myself to be pregnant at some point. 16.
I felt like my life was over. I really felt like that was my rock bottom.
[00:24:39] Speaker E: My ex wife walked into the house that we were living at the time and said, I'm done. This is it. And I fell to my knees and was was crying and I was crying out to the Lord and I was like, God, if you can help me, like, whatever, whatever it takes, like, helped me. It was a really, really hard time for me.
[00:25:05] Speaker C: So when did Jesus interrupt your story?
[00:25:10] Speaker D: I was dragged to youth group and had an encounter with Jesus and he just showed me that he still had good plans for me and my baby and he had a future and a hope for me.
[00:25:24] Speaker E: It's a Sunday morning and I get a call, like a random call on my phone. And it's this guy. And he said, are you coming to church this morning? And I said, no, I'm not coming to church this morning. And I was hungover.
And he said.
He said, okay, that's fine. Well, we have a Bible study on Tuesday night. It's a men's Bible study. Are you willing to come to men's Bible study? And I said, yeah, all right, I'll come to your Bible study. And there were two other guys that were going through divorces at that same exact time.
And. And through that, we started building relationship with each other, we cried with each other, we shared victories with each other. And God really started to turn my life around at that point in time.
[00:26:06] Speaker C: So what's now looking back on where your life has gone?
What has Jesus changed about the story?
[00:26:14] Speaker D: Yeah, he just has really redeemed my story so much that I get to lead an organization that helps women that are walking through unplanned pregnancies.
[00:26:24] Speaker E: If you'd have told me you're going to be a pastor, you know, in 13 or 14 years or however long it's been you're going to be a pastor, I'd be like, dude, you're out of your mind.
[00:26:33] Speaker C: Wow, what a transformation going from, in your words, not sober hearing the marriage is over, to now a pastor with an awesome family and four kids.
Complete transformation.
[00:26:48] Speaker E: Absolutely
[00:26:49] Speaker C: awesome.
[00:26:50] Speaker D: There is still hope and that Jesus loves them too and really gets get to be a part of that redeeming story just through everyday life, because he really changes everything.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: Your past does not predict who you can become.
Jesus does.
Your past doesn't predict who you were, is not who you will be. Who you are, does not have to be who you become.
Jesus changes everything.
This is what it means to offer yourself to him.
God, what you say goes.
God, your way is better.
God, I trust what you say about me, not what I say about me.
Now, I'm not trying to be like a prophet or something. This morning I didn't, like, have a dream about how this service was going to go or something like that. I just.
Once again, over 15 years of working with people, I've pretty convinced that in a church this size, a new life, in a service that's this full, that there are people here who, you know that God is asking you to become something, that he has something for you to become. And you've been holding, holding out.
That could be anything. It could be a lot of things. There could be people here that, you know, God's called you to be a pastor, to work in ministry or a missionary, or work in a non profit to give your life and your career to furthering the gospel so that more people experience transformation. Maybe you've had a bunch of reasons why you shouldn't do that, why you're disqualified and God's saying, nope, it's time to accept it. Maybe God's calling you to be a leader. Maybe God's calling you to break the generational cycle of your family. For you to be the one that that doesn't leave. For you to be the one that's compassionate and gentle. For you to be the one who throws out the bottles and pours everything out. For you to be the one that really brings, that really experiences the transformation so that what's happened for generations doesn't happen for any more generations. Maybe that's you. Maybe there's something that you don't even know what God's asking you to become, but you're just ready. You're just saying, you know what? I haven't believed much is possible, but I'm ready to believe something is possible. So here's how we're going to end. Today I'm going to ask you to make a pretty big declaration. I'm gonna go through and I'm gonna describe different things that I think maybe God is asking some of us to allow him to work in our lives. Different things that he might be asking us to become.
And then I'm gonna ask you to stand up.
I'm gonna describe it and then I'm gonna say, if that's you, stand up. And I want you to do it. I want you in the floor, in the balcony, I want you to stand up. If that's you, I want you to make a public declaration that you're past the does not define you, that Jesus defines you, that your past doesn't predict who you can become. That Jesus does. I know that's awkward, I know it's uncomfortable, but. But sometimes we have to stand up and be counted for something. Sometimes we have to stand up and make it known that change is actually possible. So I'm going to ask you to stand up. Two or three of these things might apply to you. So if you're already standing and another one applies, throw up your hand. Throw up two hands, turn in circles. I don't know, you'll figure it out. Do something. But to say, that's me too. So here's how we're gonna respond. First, there are people here today. I believe it. There were in the service before this. There are probably people Here today that God has called you to work in ministry. God's called you to be a pastor. He's called you to be a missionary. He's called you to be a youth pastor, a kid's pastor, something like that. You don't know what it. You might not have any idea what it looks like or how to do it, but you know God's calling you to. I want you to know that Gillette does not have enough churches. We got 35,000 people in Gillette. We do not have enough churches to reach them all. We need more churches, which means we need more pastors. We need more churches in America. We need more missionaries. Did you know there are still languages that don't have the gospel? There are still people groups that no one is there preaching to them, sharing the gospel with them. We need more missionaries who will go anywhere. We need more people to work in women's resource centers and to fight for adoption and all kinds of things. We need more people to say, my career, my work will be for the kingdom. If you today believe that you are called to work in ministry for your job, stand up right now.
Yeah.
Praise the Lord.
Keep standing. Stay up. Keep standing. Keep standing. Don't sit down.
If you believe that you are called to ministry and you've never taken a step to pursue that, there's gonna be a QR code on the screen behind me. I want you to take out your phone and I want you to fill out this prayer form. Somebody on our staff is going to. Is going to follow up with you. Someone on our staff. The QR code will be there. There it is. Someone on our staff is going to follow up with you to help you figure out how to take those steps and pursue God's calling in ministry. So scan that QR code. We'll put it up again at the end of the service. If you don't get it right now, there are others of you here today that God's called you to be a leader. Maybe not in ministry, but you know, God's called you to lead your family to something. He's called you to leave your. Lead your community to something. He's called you to lead the church. He's called you to lead within the church in a volunteer role. He's called you to lead at your company. Maybe you're looking at the mental health issues in Wyoming and you're saying, don't. I won't tolerate it. I'm doing something about it. Maybe you're looking at broken families and you're saying, if somebody has to fix it. I will. If you're a leader, stand up. God's called you to be a leader. Some of you are already standing. Stand up.
Yeah.
Praise the Lord.
There are others of us here today that God's calling you. God's calling you to break the cycle of generations in your family, that you're going to be the one who's not addicted. You're going to be the one where you fight for the marriage. You're going to be the parent who's learning how to parent, who's not leaving. If that's you, stand up. Lift up your hand. Do something. Stand up and say, the cycle breaks here. The cycle breaks today. Praise the Lord.
Now, if you don't know what God's calling you to become, but you're ready, maybe God's calling you to surrender a sin or to experience some sort of transformation, and you're not sure what it is, but you're ready to be in. Just stand up. Just stand up. Praise the Lord. Stand up.
Yeah.
All right, now, everybody. Everybody in the room. Everybody in the room, stand up together.
You might be here today, and when you walked in, you didn't believe in Jesus.
When you walked in, you thought you were too broken, too messed up, too far. You didn't fit in with church people, whatever. You didn't think this whole thing was for you.
But you're ready to accept the forgiveness and mercy of Jesus that was accomplished for you in his death and resurrection. Maybe today you came in not even believing in God, but you experienced something in worship or sometime or in the smiles of a greeter or something that told you this is real and it matters, and you're ready to surrender your life to Jesus. Today is the day to do that. We believe that no one gives their life to Jesus alone here. We like to do everything together. So I'm going to lead us in a prayer, and everybody in the room is going to repeat it out loud.
Because we're all gonna declare the hope we have in Jesus together. But if you're here today, you are saved. By putting your faith in Jesus, you are saved. Your sins are forgiven because you believe in the death and resurrection of Christ that has accomplished your forgiveness. But for a lot of us, it helps to have someone walk us through a prayer to give us a moment where we can look back and say, that's the day everything changed.
So everyone's gonna pray together. But if you're ready to surrender your life to Jesus for the first time, then I want you to declare this to the Lord, let's pray. Jesus, I have sinned.
I need forgiveness.
You died to forgive my sins and rose again to give me new life.
I offer my life to you as a living sacrifice.
Thank you, Jesus.
Amen.
If you just prayed that prayer and you meant it from your heart for the first time, then your eternity has changed. Everything has changed. Transformation. Hope is yours. And no one can take it away. Scripture says that there are neither heights nor depths, nor angels, nor demons, nor anything above the earth or below the earth that can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.
Your hope is now forever, and nothing can take it away. Now, here's the last thing I'm gonna ask you to do.
We're gonna sing a song.
If you prayed that prayer, there's a card on the seat around you that says, I've decided to follow Jesus. Look, the card doesn't save you. You will go to heaven without filling out the card. The card helps us make sure you have everything you need. The card means we can follow up with you and help you find mentors, find community, find resources to help you understand this life altering decision that you've made to trust God. So what I'm gonna ask you to do is to fill out that card and then while we're singing, to bring that card up and place it on the stage and then to pick up either one of these stickers or these flags. These flags say while I breathe, I hope on them because we want to give you something to mark the day that you received a hope that no one can take away. And when you walk up here, here's what's going to happen. The room is going to erupt like you scored the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. Because there's nothing more important important than eternity's changing. The whole reason we exist as a church is so people can come as they are to Jesus and become who they're created to be. So there's nothing we celebrate like people coming to Jesus. So as we worship, fill out that card and bring it up. And when you see somebody walk up here, you had better cheer. Because there's nothing on earth more important than what's happening when someone gives their life to Christ. Amen.
