Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 Bye. Wonderful. Well, so good to see you this morning. A big welcome as we've already expressed and we are starting week four, I believe, of our series on the Be Attitudes. The Be Attitudes are some of those early parts of the Sermon on the Mount which Jesus really announced, not just some interesting things or some nice teaching. He introduced a revolution to the world and that revolution has changed history. The world has been different as a result and it continues to be so. If this was a hoax, it's the most clever elaborate hoax because it has changed the world. But I believe and many millions of people around the world have discovered for themselves that the words of Jesus are absolutely revolutionary, not just for the history of the world, but for the life of their heart. And today we're gonna continue to look at these be attitudes.
Speaker 1 00:01:05 And I pray that as we look at not one be attitude, but two, be attitudes today in the next few minutes, that you will be deeply impacted by the spirit of God speaking them into your life. They say in preaching classes today that due to the attention spans of um, modern society, that every sermon should suggest have one point these days provides focus. And I've got two attitudes. So what I'm gonna do today is I'm gonna do two sermons, both of one point each and there will be a small little segue prayer in the middle just to help with that. But let's look at these be attitudes together. Just as a reminder from previous weeks, when you read the word blessed, you could also read the words happy. So these are about that deep seated happiness that we can it know when we follow the ways of Christ.
Speaker 1 00:02:06 We're looking at Matthews gospel chapter five, verses three onwards. It says, blessed or happy are the pouring spirit for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. You remember, that's not just the loss of loved ones or the loss of jobs. That's a deep seated mourning for our sinful state. Blessed are the humble we looked at that last week for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. That's the first sermon we're gonna look at this morning for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful sermon number two today for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God. And blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness. For the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
Speaker 1 00:03:13 Let's go back to the one that we are looking at today, verse six, which is blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Hunger and thirst is probably something that the majority of us in this room have never truly experienced. I don't mean those times when our stomachs rumble. It's always that awkward moment, isn't it? When the leader of the service says, let's all be still bands stop playing. Let's all stand in silence. And you know that's a cue for your stomach to start rumbling. And you think, oh, I hope no one heard that. Not only did they hear it, they felt it. It was that significant. But that's not hunger. Most of us have only ever experienced that sense of mild sense of hunger or like we really feel like we fancy something or we need something. But really the body can go a long time without food.
Speaker 1 00:04:14 We've never truly, most of us experienced hunger like that. Maybe we've had cravings or we fancy things. Anybody fancy anything healthy? Anybody sit here fancier a bit of salad right now? No. Because we were wondering whether the welcome bags rather than chocolate bags, we could put a little bit of iceberg in there or something. You know, maybe not or an apple or a banana. But it's always the unhealthy stuff we really fancy. But most of us, that's as far as the limit goes. As we we fancy eating something, we like eating something, we enjoy something. Very few of us have experienced that cry of desperation. But there are people in this world there are literally experiencing that. There are people in nations where the ecosystem of that world or the selfishness of the world at large, um, means that though there's enough food in the world to feed everybody, that there are some eating overindulgent.
Speaker 1 00:05:16 There are some not eating at all and they're experiencing genuine hunger. And there are people dying from malnutrition in our world today. Just one meal could save them from death. Just one drop of water could help nourish them. But there are other forms of hunger desperation that we see when I see some politicians standing up and speaking in derogatory terms about refugees that are coming into our country. And right at the very center of our faith is a, is a hospitality for those who are displaced, those who are struggling. In fact, Jesus and his family were refugees once they had to leave Bethlehem and Israel and go to Egypt to, to escape from the threats of Herod. Right At the very epicenter of our faith is hospitality. And as a nation that once declared ourselves as Christian, I'm not sure we make that declaration any longer, but often the language is used around refugees is just awful.
Speaker 1 00:06:17 And if you are here, I know we've got people in our church that you are, you've traveled, you've risked your life because of necessity to travel to another nation. And we wanna say welcome to you. We love you here. We're so grateful to God. And we know you didn't travel here because you fancy it. You travel because you were desperate for freedom. You're desperate for life. You're desperate to survive and we welcome you. God welcomes you. And we see people getting on these flimsy dinghies crossing dangerous waters and they're not doing that because they fancy a cheap day out in England. They're doing that because they're desperate, because they're hungry for freedom. Come on, come on here.
Speaker 1 00:07:04 And we read, blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. There have been past generations in this country that have been hungry to see the world rid of Nazi philosophy and they've given their lives in millions in order to defeat a philosophy that wants to cruelly enslave our world. There are many people that have discovered that hunger creates often a life or death situation. But we can so easily mistake fancy in food by saying I'm hungry. That's right. Yeah. And so even this morning you might be thinking, well it's been three hours since I had breakfast. I feel hungry soon as this service finishes I'm gonna have some food cuz I'm hungry. You're not hungry. You may desire and fancy food but you're not hungry. And I believe this goes very much to the heart of one of the challenges we have about church today, about you and I, about our decide, uh, decisions to follow Jesus and the way that we do.
Speaker 1 00:08:23 And that is we fancy Jesus but we are not hungry for him. We fancy the presence of God but we are not hungry for the presence of God. We fancy the idea of breaking through in prayer but we're not hungry to pray. Come on. There's not a desperation that captivates our heart in the same way that those refugees have or those malnourished kids have in desiring after something that's gonna change their life. And we so easily water this down. The church isn't hungry. We just fancy a bit more of Jesus. Blessed are those who fancy righteousness. No. Blessed are those who desire it. No. Blessed are those that hunger. And first
Speaker 1 00:09:15 The reality is to the level of our hunger will be the level of how the Lord meets us. If you've just been fancy in a bit of God and that's how you've related to him, like you're standing in front of a vending machine and we say, God, I'm gonna get a pan in my pocket today. What can I have as a bit of a snack out your presence? That's not the relationship that God's looking for. He invites us deep. He invites us well. He invites us to find sustenance in our life that no one else can give. But it requires us to hunger and to thirst. Yes, hunger for righteousness.
Speaker 1 00:10:10 Not just hunger for the Lord or hunger for blessing or hunger for experience. I've seen people throughout my walk with Jesus and I've done this sometimes as well where you travel lots of miles to go to a conference because you are hungry for something of God. But really we are hungry for blessing. We are hungry for experience. But the Lord wants us to be hungry for him, hungry for righteousness. What is righteousness? Righteousness is a desire to live free from sin and a desire to live holy. That word holy means I am holy. His I am separate. Anything that I encounter that distracts me from being completely devoted to him, I make a decision to push it out of the way because I am his and his alone.
Speaker 1 00:11:21 A few months ago I, Anita and a group of others from this church and other churches, we sat on the very mountain where Jesus spoke. These be attitudes. Here we are. It was an amazing experience to be there. This is the area, pretty confident that this was the area overlooking all the beautiful scenery. That this is where Jesus stood up with these words along with his 12 disciples, along with a crowd of numerous people, probably a large crowd to preach this revolution. There would've been enemies in that crowd, people that were against him. I love that today. There are millions of people who visit this site and they've decided that there's a fountain there that they've created and they thought it would be a good place on that fountain to put one of the pie Tus. It says that anybody who thirsts come and drink believe in me as scripture says and rivers of living water will flow from within.
Speaker 1 00:12:26 It's a great scripture, great promise. And just to the side here, there's a little silences water not for drink. There's the most ironic set of two signs that you could see genuinely right there on the mountain where the Mount olives are preached. Jesus doesn't say, Hey, there's water that way you'll never thirst again. But by the way, do not drink. Jesus says drink of me. And it wasn't just the words of Jesus, this was foretold by the prophets. Let's look at Isaiah 55, verse one and two. It says, come everyone who is thirsty come to the water and you without any silver, you come by and eat. Come buy a wine and milk without silver and without cost. You remember the previous be attitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Those who have nothing in their pockets, those who have no resources of themselves to obtain what God has got. Blessed. Are you happy? Are you without anything in your pockets? Come and buy without silver. Come to me without any resource. In fact, the emptier you are the more you will know that this is a supernatural exchange that's going on right now. Why do you spend silver on what is not food and your wages on what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good and you will enjoy the choices of foods once we have tasted heaven's glory. Nothing else is quite the same.
Speaker 1 00:14:23 There's a, a relatively small group of uss meet on Monday evenings in our prayer room downstairs. I know the logistics of it are difficult for many of you to get here on a Monday straight after work. But I tell you what, that room is full of people who have tasted heaven. Yeah. And there is something of the glory of God that ministers to us and meets us to a point when the most difficult thing about that gathering is closing it. That's how you know the genuine God is present when as it says in the scripture, if your presence doesn't go with us, we don't wanna leave this place. That's when you know a genuine move of God is happening. There's a university in the states right now that have been for the last few days, 24 hours, just hundreds, thousands of students just gathering to worship and to pray.
Speaker 1 00:15:21 And it's going on around the clock. It's a service that's had no ending and it just keeps going. Just worshiping, worshiping, worshiping. People are using the revival word. I don't know if it's revival, but it certainly was a place where revival happened many years ago. But it's a place where there's a hunger growing for the Lord. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be filled. Yeah. I don't believe you and I can cause a revival to happen, but I also don't believe that it's without participation by us. Yeah. One of the best things you and I can do is to get hungry for more of God. That's right. Blessed others who hunger and thirst. But if I was the enemy of your soul, and I'm not by the way, thank you. Just to kiss you wondering if I was, I'd have a number of strategies that may be open to me. I might think about bringing some chaos into your life. Might think about making things difficult at work for you. I might think about falling out with some people, giving a bit of offense to your heart or these strategies. They're all well used and well deployed. You've probably tasted of them, you've probably experienced them and you've probably been defeated by some of them and some of them you've overcome. Well done.
Speaker 1 00:16:44 But there's a simpler option. And let me tell you what this simple option is. It's one word distraction. I could distract you and by simply distracting you, I could keep you from your purposes. I could keep you from being hungry for more of the Lord. Cuz if you're hungry and thirst after the Lord, you will be filled. So stop you being hungry. How do I stop you being hungry? Well, I give you enough things and entertainment and little bits of snack that just keep you free from a rumbling stomach. This thing here, I wonder if there's a generation rising up, you know, in past moves of God, there have been people that have said no to alcohol. No. We wanna live totally devoted for God. I wonder if a day is coming, we say no to phones. Whether there's a, a new sort of nazare group rising up that say no more phones because this is the distraction, isn't it? Yeah. For me it is. Come on, you're gonna make me do a confession in front of you now and pretend I'm the only one in the room who gets distracted by these things. Okay. This is a heart of confession who has been distracted by one of these things in the last 50 minutes.
Speaker 2 00:18:19 <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:18:20 I saw a few of you just putting your phones down at that point.
Speaker 2 00:18:24 <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:18:26 And Graham Bason just picked it back up again. These things, you know, I I love, I love doing sort of the the you version reading plans, but they're all on our phones. Yeah. And if you're not careful, you're, you know, you're reading through, um, they're all of a thirsty, come to me and then a little pin comes up. Oh, that's interesting. Someone's just had conflicts or breakfast and decided to post it on Facebook. Oh, wonderful. Oh
Speaker 2 00:18:56 No,
Speaker 1 00:18:56 I'm so glad I know that now.
Speaker 3 00:18:58 Oh
Speaker 1 00:19:00 Gosh. There are, there's a myriad of distractions that come in since the beginning of the year. I I I I try to not scroll scrolling longer. So if it's not on my front page and I switch my social media on, I don't see it. Think about how do you survive without knowing the people had conflicts. Mark
Speaker 3 00:19:18 <laugh> tough life.
Speaker 1 00:19:22 Well I guess I'll just have to find a way to deal with that. There's so many distractions and all the enemy has to do you see what some of you most fear, solitude. Being alone, having nothing to do is the very thing that you and I need to help us realize that we're hungry. We live in a world today where if you went to a cafe on your own and ordered a coffee and sat down at the table and you just sat there with your cup looking around, we don't do that today. Cause we're get embarrassed. We pull this out because we've, we've been distracted church, we've been distracted and as a result our spirits are dull. Yes. We've been muted. And I believe that the Lord is longing to break out upon our nation and he will do it through a people who crave and hunger and thirst after him. It's promised he will do that. Yeah. How much of a day is taken by distractions? And distractions are not always bad things, you know, although I do know that the tech firms in social media spend millions of pounds and many resources of staff to work out how they can absorb your attention. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:21:04 For sure.
Speaker 1 00:21:05 It's their strategy. They need to keep you returning to them in order to justify their existence and to justify their advertising rates. And please don't hear me. This is not me ranting against social media, but this is me saying I don't want to miss hunger for the Lord because I'm distracted. Yeah. And I don't want someone sitting in Silicon Valley to determine my spiritual wellbeing. I want Jesus to be the one that sets the temperature of my life. Not the creator of Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or TikTok or Snap Dragon Snapchat, whatever it is.
Speaker 2 00:21:52 <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:21:59 Your distractions can be good things or bad things. Friendships, sometimes, you know, thank God for friendships and we need rich deepening friendships. The church has to become the family of God. We're called to be the family of God. Married, single, young, old male female. We're called to be family and there's a need for relationships in our lives. But sometimes we forsake time with the Lord for time with others.
Speaker 4 00:22:37 Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:22:39 And what we do is we snack on our hunger and we never really allow our hunger to grow for the Lord. Sometimes even good things are laughter, laughter's great medicine. Laughter's a great thing in our life, but sometimes our desire to be nourished with entertainment that makes us laugh can be a snack that keeps us from hunger entertainment. It doesn't matter what the distraction is, what matters is what they're distracting us from. John's gospel, chapter four, verse 14 says this, but whoever drinks from the water that I give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water that I will give him will become a, well a well of water springing up in him for eternal life. Speaking a few chapters later in John's gospel, gospel chapter seven says this, on the last and the most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and he cried out, is anyone thirsty? Nah. What did he say? Sorry I missed it. I was talking to my mate. Is anyone thirsty? Yeah, I, I think I fancy a bit of what he's talking about just when I finish this Netflix series. Is anyone thirsty? If so, let him come to me and drink.
Speaker 1 00:24:27 The one who believes in me, as the scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within them who wants streams of living water. Yeah. Flowing within them. Blessed those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. But they will be filled. Yeah. Not may. They will be filled as we finish sermon one we've tried throughout this series to finish off with a prayer, let's look at this prayer together. I'm gonna invite us to pray this and the next, the attitude we're looking at is gonna be a bit shorter. Let's read this. I thank you for your living water. I thank you that you promised to satisfy my thirst and hunger. But I am so easily distracted. Holy Spirit, give me insight into the things that distract me. Grant me wisdom and courage to address them. Help me truly hunger after you revive me, I pray, oh man wasn't planning on doing this, but could I have this piano live? Let's stand together a moment. Is it live after? I'm just gonna change this cuz I noticed that my previous piano players put it on transpose and I know it's not hunger and thirst. We're gonna have when we hit the chorus, it's gonna be pain. It's gonna sound like a room of cats squealing as 30
Speaker 1 00:28:14 Father calls our hearts to crave after you. I pray yes to thirst after you. Yes. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Please take your seats. Sermon number two this morning, blessed other merciful today will be shown mercy. We are all in need of mercy here this morning. Mercy is compassion or forgiveness that's given by someone who has the power to punish or hurt us. I love those of us reading through the Bible in a year. This morning we were introduced to Moses receiving the instructions for the arc of the covenant. This elaborate box that was created in such a very specific way, contained within it had the 10 commandments on the tablets. But across the top of his box, there's what's called the mercy seat. Yeah. Not the judgment seat, the mercy seat. God is a God of mercy. There is the law. Yes. We break the law. Yes we are sinners. Yes. But mercy triumphs over judgment.
Speaker 5 00:29:29 Yes.
Speaker 1 00:29:29 God is a God of mercy and his people are called to be people of mercy as well.
Speaker 1 00:29:37 It doesn't say blessed are your acts of mercy or blessed are your activities of mercy. It says, blessed are the merciful, the people whose disposition is to flow mercy through their lives. I love Psalm 23 where it says these words, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me and I will dwell forever throughout all of my days in the house and in the presence of the Lord. I'm so glad He doesn't say, surely anger and judgment will follow me all the days of my life. Yeah. Surely disappointment and shame will follow me all the days of life. It says, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. What an incredible promise that is. I dunno if you've ever had anybody follow you. I found a funny video the other day I thought I'd show you.
Speaker 1 00:30:52 Imagine if this little fella was following you when you came to church this morning. I think that's really cool. I'd love to have a dog that knows how to start the skateboard off the swerve around the crowds. What a clever dog. I, I'm pretty sure it is not a special effect because of some of the people's reactions, can't see their faces. But I think that would cause a bit of interest. What, what's the little fella doing with you? Oh, he's following me. He's following me. That is so cool. If got a skateboarding dog in, please let me know. I think that's a wonderful venture. In fact, talking about dogs a few months ago, sadly we lost one of our dogs in an accident. And, um, we were just, we were so gutted. We loved our little dog, our little chihuahua. And, um, after probably a day, um, Nita thought we needed to get another, another dog.
Speaker 1 00:31:45 So, um, it was a bit longer, two days then. Um, and um, we, we got this lovely little toy poodle. She a beautiful little thing, um, that we sort of got her from a farm where, um, she ha I don't think she'd ever really know much affection. Um, I I think she was sort of like a moneymaking machine for the breeders. But, um, I, I think she, uh, was desperate for attention and love to be embraced, to be welcomed. And she's found that with us. And she, she's a lovely little thing, little scarlet. Everybody say hello, Scarlet. Scarlet. It's only a screen, don't worry. But scarlet, she's been with us a few months now and she's just a lovely dog. In fact, um, she follow us everywhere. If you get up by the living room, go in the kitchen, she's behind you. Um, when you come in from work, she's waiting there. If you've not taken her with you, she just follows. And, uh, she's lovely. And, and I, I just, you know, imagine if in fact if she wasn't already given the name by the previous owner, Scarlet, I might have been quite interested in Corner Mercy
Speaker 2 00:32:52 <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:32:53 Because she follows me and our other dog. We could have caught changed them to goodness, couldn't we? <laugh>? Come on. Goodness. Mercy, come on. Follow me. <laugh>, some of us have got dogs following us called anger and judgment. Those sort of dogs. You've got a sh away. You've got to say No. No, you're not with me. Yeah, you've gotta cave them up. Yeah. The scripture says take every thought captive and bring into obedience in Christ. But I wonder if you had two dogs, goodness and mercy, wonder what it'd be like. I wonder what difference it would make on your life and on your day. Will you'd have a choice? Do I embrace them and welcome them or do I shoo them away? And goodness and mercy, they're great to have you. F follow you everywhere. Take them to work. I do sometimes downstairs, if you've got a pastoral appointment with me in my office and you hear a bark, you know that I brought the dogs into work that day. And you know, goodness and mercy wants to go with you into your workplace. Goodness and mercy wants to be with you in your conversations. Not just lovely conversations like you have today at co with coffee after the service. But some of those conversations you'll have this week that will be difficult, challenging conversations. Hey, good goodness and mercy,
Speaker 1 00:34:30 They listen, but they also want to influence cuz they're following you. Yes. See, the heart of following Jesus is that Jesus is goodness and mercy. And he says, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. Now you can silence him, but you can't stop him following. Embrace him. Don't push mercy away. Let it follow you everywhere. Yeah. But secondly, when we take little scarla for a walk, if her name was mercy, often we find other people say, oh, hello, watch your dog's name what says mercy. Would you like, would you like to meet Mercy
Speaker 2 00:35:13 <laugh>?
Speaker 1 00:35:18 One of the things that I believe God is wanting for us as the people of God is to introduce everybody we meet to mercy. Can I introduce mercy to you? Who is mercy? Well, Jesus is mercy and he has so filled life. Would you like a cuddle? Not with me with mercy.
Speaker 2 00:35:42 <laugh>,
Speaker 1 00:35:45 Don't use that as your evangelistic liner, right? No. To be very careful, you're on thin ice
Speaker 1 00:35:54 Church. It's time to trade anger and judgment for goodness and mercy. Proverbs 1117 says, A kind man or a merciful man benefits himself, but a cruel person brings ruin on himself. You do know that if cruelty is following you around or judgment is following you around, you do know it will destroy you. You do know it will harm you. You do know it'll become toxic in your spirit. You've gotta get rid of him. Let goodness and mercy follow you. Matthew 1833. It says, shouldn't you also have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? Another verse in Luke's gospel, chapter six, verse 36 says, be merciful, just as your father also is merciful. Mercy is not something you receive when you walk to the front of the church. Although I hope you receive mercy whenever you're prayed with. But mercy follows you. Mercy fills you. Mercy changes you. Mercy liberates you. Mercy impacts your relationships with everyone around you. One final story to close Francis of Assisi is a well known historic figure known for his devotion to Christ. But he wasn't always that person, Francis of Assisi. It was a point in his life where he was debating whether he goes full on to follow Jesus. He was fancy in Jesus, but not hungry and thirsty for him, or he was also trying to build business and glory and possessions in this world. And he had this tension.
Speaker 1 00:38:16 There's nothing wrong with the good things of this world with money and resources. There's nothing wrong with that. But Jesus said, you can't serve both. You can serve Jesus and let that serve you. Yeah. But if you serve that Jesus will also be the person that you want, want to serve you as well. Yeah. One has to be the Lord. Yeah. And Francis of Assisi was in this place one day. He was out riding his horse and his thoughts were going over all of this tension that he was living with and suddenly without him really taking in his environment, you know some of those journeys, you travel and you think, I've just traveled two hours and I can't remember the journey. Like what happened there. He was in one of those places, but suddenly it all changed because his horse swayed sharply to the side.
Speaker 1 00:39:12 And he sort of brought him from his thoughts and what's going on. He pulled the horse and he strained the horse up. And then he noticed why the horse had suddenly jerked because there in front of him in this road was a man who clearly was suffering from leprosy. His entire skin was lepers. And he sat there in sack cloth with his saws, gray looking, hardly looking like there was any life left in him. His eyes looking vacant and seeing right through Francis as he approached him. He was the most desperate scene. This man didn't know love, didn't know acceptance. He was an outcast from society. Francis stopped the horse and he got off and he walked towards this leper lion on the road. And he reaches down, he takes his hand and he kisses this man's hand.
Speaker 1 00:40:25 Francis said at that moment, a wave of emotion struck him. An understanding of Jesus taking our lives, the mess and the sin and the barrenness and the pain and the brokenness taking our hand and kissing a guilty world in love. Yes. And as that encounter with the mercy of the Lord ministered through Francis Sisi's life, it changed him. It was catalytic to him deciding that he was gonna live his life entirely for Jesus. He from that moment, as inspired generations of believers, he knew that his journey would continually put him in situations where he didn't have the natural resources to be able to attend to the need, even the natural emotional responses he needed. Jesus. And as we conclude, there's gonna be another prayer on the screen, and I'm gonna ask us to join together in this final prayer. And then I'm gonna do one more thing before we close. Because in this room or online, there may be people that don't know Jesus. You've never experienced him kissing you, loving you, accepting you. And you think, how could he ever do that? Yeah, we know. How could he ever love any of us? But he does. And you can experience his kisses of love today. But let's read this prayer together before we get there.
Speaker 1 00:42:14 Holy Spirit, I thank you that your goodness and mercy is pursuing me. I invite you to follow me into every relationship and situation. I pray I'll be filled and overflowing with your mercy so it will touch the lives of everyone around me. Oh man, would you just pray,
Speaker 1 00:42:41 Anyone here this morning, in this room or online that's never experienced the kisses of God's mercy, you don't have anything in your pockets that will earn his love, but he loves you. And it's not just an emotional response. He gave the life of Jesus to die on the cross. That was the evidence. He doesn't send cards. He sent his son to die to pay the price for all the mess and the mistakes of your life. And if you'd like to receive him, receive his love today, make a decision to follow him, then I'm gonna ask all of us to pray a prayer out loud, repeated line by line after me. And as you pray this prayer, Jesus will hear it and he'll come and he'll kiss you with his love and he'll change you. He'll set you free. He'll feel you will give you water where you'll never thirst again. And the prayer goes like this. Jesus, I thank you that you gave your life for me. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 00:43:54 So
Speaker 1 00:43:54 Sorry for leaving you outta my life,
Speaker 2 00:43:57 Outta my.
Speaker 1 00:43:59 But today I recognize I need you,
Speaker 2 00:44:02 Recognize me,
Speaker 1 00:44:04 And I ask you to forgive me, to fill me, set me free. I thank you that you accept me.
Speaker 2 00:44:16 Thank you me.
Speaker 1 00:44:19 Fill me with your love
Speaker 2 00:44:20 With
Speaker 1 00:44:21 Fill me with your Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name.
Speaker 2 00:44:25 Jesus.
Speaker 1 00:44:27 Oh man.
