Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Well, we started a new series last week, which I'm really excited about. Cuz normally during the summer we sort of maybe have just a range of like one week studies because we know people are away and so on, but this summer we've done something different and we've decided to go. We've probably one of the most strategic themes that we've ever really felt that we've brought to the church. That's not just gonna be for this summer season, but it sort of lays a foundation for the years that are ahead. And we're encouraging those who go away to catch up and to watch back online to make sure that nothing is missed. So if you missed last week, hopefully I will be able to, um, give you enough of a recap in a moment. So you can feel like at least you are flowing with it, but I really would encourage you to go and watch last week's introduction to this theme as well.
Speaker 0 00:00:50 But the theme is equipping the saints. And if I was the enemy of the church, I'd tell you what I'd be really chilled about. I'd be really chilled about a church that has a similar setup to a football stadium, where there's a small number of people playing out the game. And then there are thousands of people watching and cheering. I think I'd be pretty chilled about a church that lived in that sort of way. But the reality is that throughout history, the church has often felt like it's become that where there are some super spiritual Christians that sort of take to the stages or they take to the leadership roles or they become the people who lead life groups. They're the people who run the alpha courses. They're the people who lead the youth ministries or the children's ministries. And we, the rest of us, we cheer them and we celebrate and we say, well done everybody.
Speaker 0 00:01:46 Hopefully our cheers will help you be encouraged by what you're doing, but I tell you there's a problem with that picture. And the problem is you and I are never called to the stands. Yeah, we're called to the pitch, right? We're called to be on the front line of what God's got for us. And this theme of equipping the saints is really an expose. If you like of what it is that God is desiring you and I to know who we are to know what God's grace us to do, to be a part of his purposes on the earth. Let me tell you in response to that, this is not a recruitment drive to get involved in the ministries of the church. This is an understanding that God has a purpose for your life. And he has dreams for you. He has gifted you with things that you have an opportunity to do it or not.
Speaker 0 00:02:45 Yeah. And you will be missed if you don't rise up to this. Yes, this morning, I, I was ready to come to church and I had planned to put on a pair of brown shoes. We have four locations in our home where shoes get stored. And so I went to the place where I knew this pair of brown shoes was, and I picked up one shoe and I put it on and I did the lace and I went in this basket to get the other shoe and I couldn't find it near the other one. So I pulled all the shoes out of the basket and it wasn't anywhere in there. I thought, why would I just put one shoe in there? So I go to the next location for the next shoe. And I pull all the shoes out of that basket. And the second shoe wasn't in that basket.
Speaker 0 00:03:31 And I'm sort of hobbling around the hole now with one shoe on and one shoe up going to the third location, which is on another floor. And I open up this basket and I look and I pull all the shoes out and it's not in there. So I go to the fourth location and I look and I pull the shoes out and it wasn't in there. This second shoe was in my son's bedroom, under his bed. I haven't seen him to tell him that yet. And it was too late. By the time I found it, I'd already put another pair of shoes on, but you know, it doesn't matter how good one person functions where we need each other. And if you have felt that you are not someone that God can use and want to encourage you get up from under the bed, rise up and God has need of you.
Speaker 0 00:04:22 God has a purpose for you. Yeah. And this theme is not to make leadership exclusive. It's to share out leadership to the whole church and to say you're all in. Yeah, we're all called. In fact, it's as serious as this. If we do not rise up with this, then the kingdom of God will not advance in Exeter and the Southwest. Yes. Like God has designed that's right, because the church will be limping around with one shoe. In fact, it's more serious than that. And the analogy I used last week is that if I said major organs, if I said there were five major organs in your body, let's say the brain, the lungs, the heart, the liver, the kidney. And I said to you, could you live without one of those? I give you the answer now for those who were here last week, you know the answer you can't live without a single one of those and the Bible.
Speaker 0 00:05:19 In fact, let me give that Mike here. So I think this one is dropping out a little bit. Thank you. In Ephesians. Let's put the scripture on the screen. Ooh. As you can see our projector up there keeps being moved a little bit. So no, you haven't got a wonky seat and that doesn't quite fit, but Ephesians four, let me just read it. I think you can see it. And he himself, as Jesus gave some to be apostles some, to be prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ until we all reach unity in the faith. And in the knowledge of God's son growing and maturing with a stature measured by Christ's fullness that God has given to his church. I believe almost like five major organs. And if we try to live with our, one of these, the a P the apostolic, the prophetic, the evangelistic, the shepherd, and the teacher, if we try to live without one of them, the body cuz the, the church is described as the body of Christ of which Christ is the head.
Speaker 0 00:06:51 If we try to live without one of these, the church is disabled, maybe even dead. And we looked last week. How the church for generations as often, certainly within our tradition in the UK, has functioned on just two of these gifts of the shepherd and the teacher. And now they're fantastic gifts, but it was a fantastic shoe I wore this morning, but it needs two. And the church needs five. The body needs all its major organs functioning. So today we are gonna start now unpacking and introduction to each of these five major organs of the scriptures of the body of Christ. And we gonna look at apostle. Now I could probably run for weeks and weeks on looking at apostles, APO a apostolic grace, um, how it functions. And we are just gonna take one week for each of these. So we are gonna do nothing more than an introduction, but I hope that in this introduction today that we are gonna quell a few very damaging rumors that have existed for generations in the church and that we are going to bring alive within the body and understanding of the apostolic and what it means for us today.
Speaker 0 00:08:35 See, I, when I was studying theology of Bible college, I wrote a, a theological paper and the subject title was this, what are the qualifications of an apostle? And do they exist today? Well, I don't know where that paper was. I didn't particularly get a good mark for it if I'm honest, but I remember the conclusion that I came to and I'll share that in a moment, but I find myself some 25 years later disagreeing with the conclusions that I came to 25 years ago. And I'm gonna take you through some of this process and journey. Now we know that there are several apostles, numerous apostles mentioned in the new Testament. We understand the 12 disciples are sometimes termed as apostles. We understand the author of much of the new Testament. The apostle Paul was designated as an apostle and through particularly the biography of Paul, as we get it in the new Testament, his travels, his life, we see that there were many outstanding things that Paul did.
Speaker 0 00:09:48 And most of us read on at Paul. And we think, I don't think I could do that. I don't think I could accomplish that. I don't think I could handle the situation quite like balded. And as a result, we sort of extrapolate that Paul, as an apostle must be the benchmark of what it takes to be apostolic. And I, what I see much that inspires in the life of Paul and what a hero he is in the scriptures. I do also see that maybe assuming to be an apostle means we have to be exact like Paul is a bit of an assumption. We know that Paul went on pioneer journeys, missionary journeys around the globe. He was beaten. He was shipwrecked. He was imprisoned. We know that he moved in the gifts of the spirit. We know he was a great teacher, an author, and many of the teachings that he gave thousands of years ago still stand and give us instruction, divine instruction from the holy spirit to the church today, what a man he was, but his life didn't particularly look like our lives do today.
Speaker 0 00:11:01 And as I wrote this theological paper, I concluded that Paul, as the benchmark means that while apostles could be alive today, they probably are not because what a benchmark he has raised. And I was basing that on the example of Paul. Well, I need to tell you I've changed my perspective on that. Not only do I think apostles are alive today, I believe there are many of them in this church. I believe there are many of them in the kingdom. There are many of them, God has given some to be apostles. And so let's look maybe at what this word apostle means. Let's try to get some insights, not from our cultural understanding or our interpretation, but let's try and get some insights as to what this means. What's the origins of the word apostle? Well, during the times of the ancient Greeks, which you probably go back around 400 years BC, and at that time, the, the ancient Greeks had this word apostles and it painted a really clear picture.
Speaker 0 00:12:13 It wasn't a word that was used in Christian circles. It wasn't a word that was used in the Jewish environment. It was a word that was used by the Greeks. And it was a word that suggested this. It was a Naval term for an Admiral who had a fleet of ships that traveled with him. And this fleet of ships had a specialized crew who accompanied an assist in the Admiral. And the Apostol would be sent out to see on a mission to locate territories where civilization was non-existent. And once an uncivilized region was discovered and identified the Admiral along with his specialized crew and all their cargo and all their belongings would disembark there, settle down and work as a team to establish a new community. Then they would begin the process of transforming this new settlement, this new land into a replica of life, as they believed that it should be.
Speaker 0 00:13:23 And the word apostles represented that sense of pioneering, of going into uncharted territory and taking in a breakthrough and expanding a culture. It's a breakthrough word. In fact, it was such a, an understanding of its breakthrough and its ability to, to translate over borders and boundaries. That the word Apostol also included a sort of an image and an impression of what you and I were today, call a passport, that it was something that would open up access to new territories to other places. Now, apostles is a Greek word. Much of the new Testament was written in Greek, which was the predominant language of the new Testament world. But the old Testament was written in largely Hebrew. And so we can't find this Greek word in the old Testament, but if we look, we can see that there is a similar understanding of what we see in the new Testament.
Speaker 0 00:14:28 The Hebrew word is Shelley at, and it's one of the first uses that we find of this word. Shelly ATCH is found in Genesis in the story where Eliza, the Syrian slave was commissioned by Abraham to go and find a wife for his son, Isaac. And we see that he was appointed as Abraham's representative, and he made an oath of loyalty to Abraham, an oath of faithfulness to him and to the mission that he was being sent on. He was on a mission and he went with the ability to negotiate entirely on Abraham's behalf with all the representation and the power of his kingdom. It was like Abraham himself was going on this mission. He was sent forth from Abraham to represent him.
Speaker 0 00:15:30 And it is this Apostol this Shelly at this word, apostle that represents a sense of authoritative commission. Now there has been much hesitation to use this word in churches today because there is a sense that there is a hierarchy of the graces and the gifts. And that apostle is the highest in the hierarchy. If you played tr top trumps, when you were a kid, it's like, if you've got the apostle card, every score on there is higher than the others. And that's not true. In fact, while much of the new Testament is clearly written by Paul, while there is a sense of prominence about Paul, he wasn't the only one that was causing this new church to rise up across the nations of the earth. Paul had an apostolic grace on his life, but there were many who had prophetic graces on their life. There were many who had evangelistic graces on their life. There were many who had shepherd graces on their life. And there were many who had she, a teacher graces on their life and they were all required. The church wouldn't have advanced. If it was just Paul with his apostolic call, wearing his one shoe, trying to make this happen, it needed all of them.
Speaker 0 00:17:11 And so it's a little bit like not just is this like the top trumps of understanding, but it's almost like it's the, in the Lord of the rings, you know, that it's one ring to rule them all. You know, the app, the apostle is the one gift to rule over all the other gifts. And it's not true that there is a significance of the apostolic, but it's significant when it's set alongside the prophetic, the evangelistic, the shepherd, and the teacher together, God has called a body to be filled with these graces so that the body of Christ can be mature so that that we can grow like Christ. And so the nations of the earth can see the glory of the Lord represented through his people. It's not how loud the crowds cheer in the stand. It's how significant the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers rise up in their grace calling.
Speaker 0 00:18:06 That's when the glory of God is revealed. It's not in our impressive buildings. It's not when we redecorate the toilets, it's not when we have the best kids work, it's not when the worship band are on fire. It's not when we do a great welcome on the way in those things do not reveal the glory of God. They reveal something of a good experience, but they do not reveal Christ. What reveals Christ is when the body represents the head. And we do that by rising up in our graces and our calling while much of the conversation around the apostolic has been concentrated on roles or titles tools.
Speaker 0 00:18:50 I'm not gonna fix and concentrate on those aspects of this. In fact, I'm gonna change the language of an apostle, and I'm gonna use the language of apostolic grace, because there is no way that we can wear a badge that says apostle and feel any sense of pride or ownership in that it's all grace, God distributes gifts by his grace. He pours out his strategies and his wisdom by his grace. So I believe that there's an apostolic grace. That's on many people's lives, and that's what we're gonna focus on. Apostolic. Grace is authoritative. It's intentional. It's commissioned to entrepreneurial and strategically minded people to break up new territory, to go into new ground, to establish new things for God. That's what the apostolic does. And if it's not present in a church, you end up with a church community that gets older and older and is cared for beautifully and wonderfully.
Speaker 0 00:20:04 And it gets to the, a stage in its church life, where you look around and you think, wow, we have not seen any new life for a long time. Without the apostolic churches do not take risks. Cuz pastors don't like risks. We like care and holding things together and keeping it all tidy shepherds. Don't really like the Apostol very much because it disturbs things. They certainly don't like the prophetic <laugh>. Cause you know, we've had the prophetic visit in here various times and it's messed things up a little bit, isn't it? But we need them. Yes. And we need the apostolic because we're not meant to settle women to be on adventure together. And too many Christians are getting bored. It's sitting in the stands, cheering the team on the pitch and thinking, do you know what? I'm losing my voice with all this cheering?
Speaker 0 00:20:59 Surely there must be more than this. And there is yes, there is. Get your boots on. Come on, work out where you should be in the team, come on and be on adventure. And the apostolic in a church, it's always pushing the boundaries. It's always just saying, come on. There could be more here and, and it can be quite disconcerted. Some of you might be a bit disconcerted by every time we do something that feels new, that we keep pushing it a little bit further. Some of you took a gulp. I've gotta admit I did. When we announced we were gonna plan a hundred churches in the next 10 years, but that's the apostolic grace. It says we're not gonna settle. We're not trying to build big meetings. Do you know if we were, we wouldn't be planting new Naber in a few months time.
Speaker 0 00:21:52 Cause some of you'll go there and it'll be a big gap here. But this is about the kingdom of God. This is not about building services. This is not about creating stadiums full of people, cheering a small number on the pitch. This is about everybody getting their shoes on, everybody finding their place. And there are people here. I guarantee it. There are people here with an apostolic grace on your life. Yes. And you need to be released. Yes. And you need to understand that God has a role for you. And sometimes you've got very frustrated with the pastoral nature of church and you just think for goodness sake for goodness sake, just get on with it. <laugh> rebuke you. If the sound engineer, if you disagree with me, please do not silence me. That'd be doing a great job, Bernie. Thank you. Maybe we should have a third Micah hand just in case I
Speaker 0 00:22:52 Do. You know that we are all called to follow the leader of the Lord wherever he takes us, not just the apostolic. We're all called to follow on adventure. We're all called to step out of our comfort zones. We're all called to carry kingdom authority in our lives, but there will be some in particular for whom the primary grace on their life is apostolic. It's their, it's what they live and they breathe. And for those people, it is particularly important that this grace is recognized, understood within the context of the call on their lives. This does not mean that if you have an apostolic grace on your life, that you have to give up your career, sell your business and come and work for the church. That's not what this is because the frontline of the church is not here. The front lines out there.
Speaker 0 00:23:43 Yes. And there are people that you, you meet and there are circumstances you'll go into. If you can orientate the apostolic grace on your life. On behalf of the kingdom of God, we look at that in a moment out there in the world. That's where the glory of God is being revealed. That's where God wants to deposit his presence in our communities. You know, that's the place where the gifts of the spirit. I get people saying to me, what, you know, how do we operate in the gifts of the spirit? In, in rediscover, I say, you've got seven days a week. You've got 24 hours a day for goodness sake, lay your hands on the sick and see them recover for goodness sake, have prophetic words, have words and knowledge for your work colleagues. Why do you wanna do it just in this environment, get out there and do it where the spirit of God is at work. He's ahead of you. The church is the instrument of God to break up where that fleet that finds the new territory and goes in with breakthrough and says, yes, Jesus can do this. We're not going to plant a congregation in Abbo. We are, we are going to see a community thriving with the abundance of God. And there's a breakthrough we've sent the ships in and there are people that have sped out the land and they've said, God can do this. And we trust him. But it isn't just about planting churches. It's about adventures.
Speaker 0 00:25:07 And I wanna just for these next few moments, as we in this introduction, we'll soon come to a land on this, but there are gifts and graces that people have in their lives that are used for purposes. Other than the kingdom. I remember. Do you remember that song? I don't remember. I remember my grandparents playing to me. Um, why does the devil have all the good music?
Speaker 2 00:25:32 <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:25:34 Why does the devil have all the good music who sang that? Was he cliff Larry Norman. And you know, it's a good question. It doesn't, and there's lots of good Christian music around, but I believe there are people in this world that have had a grace and a gift put on their life.
Speaker 0 00:26:03 That even though they don't know Christ, it's originated from God, but they've chose to use it for something other than bringing glory to Christ. When we come to Christ, he doesn't strip us of our gifts and suddenly give us new things that he then redeems the things that he puts on our life. Amen. So we've got artists like ed Sheeren fill in massive stadiums with an incredible gift and capacity. And right now, I don't know. I don't know where he is at with faith. I don't know what's going on in his heart. So I'm not gonna make any judgements on that. But I know that if there was a sense of him encountering Jesus and he said, okay, I now wanna deploy this grace, this gift that's on my life that I realize this. Not, not just come through hard practice and hard work, but there's something of a favor and a grace on my life. I'm now gonna orientate it for expansion of the kingdom. Amen. See, that's what happens is a grace and a gift on all of our lives.
Speaker 0 00:26:56 Some of the most talented musicians, artists, actors, business, people, they have a gift. That's come from God, but its purpose. Maybe to serve other agendas of this world rather than to serve the one who gave him the gift in the first place. Those other agendas can include fame, fortune security, reputation, pride. But when someone gives their life to Jesus, it's not just, oh, thank you for forgiving my sin. It's now I'm gonna reorientate every grace and gift. That's on my life for the glory of God. That's what given your life to Christ means. It's no longer I who live. It's no longer my agenda. It's no longer the agendas of this world, but I'm gonna give everything of my life to lift him up. I praise and I worship is not coming in singing for 25 minutes on a Sunday and lifting our hands and dancing to the lively songs.
Speaker 0 00:27:45 That's not our praise and worship. Our praise and worship is saying everything. I am everything I have. I give you glory with it. And the church is this community of God's people that scattered in the world, carrying these graces on their life and saying, I'm gonna use this for God. Now you may have been an innovator before coming to Christ or an entrepreneur. You may have been a strategist or a pioneer or a creative person, but now when you come to Christ, there's a commission that comes upon your life and on the graces on your life, it may not involve you changing your career, but it does involve you changing your motivation to a kingdom centric purpose. We see that moment when Jesus called Peter, he said, you will no longer be a fisherman, but you will be a Fisher of men. He was still gonna catch people.
Speaker 0 00:28:40 There was a grace on his life to catch. There was a grace on his life to bring in, to draw in. And we see on the day of Pentecost, Peter stands up and he's no, he's not there with his fishing rod catching carp. He's there on the stage, reeling in thousands of people into the kingdom. You see God orient, reorientate, the graces and the gift on our lives for you. There's maybe grace and gift on your life that you're still using to catch fish. And God says, I want you to be fishermen. Yeah. Not, not fishermen. I want you to bees of men. There's a reorientation that comes, God wants his church to be alive with the apostolic grace, without it, the church will be sick and unwell and we need to be confident. And we need to be clear that the apostolic needs to arise in the body of Christ.
Speaker 0 00:29:38 I'm gonna put on the screen a number of expressions that, and all authors done. A lot of stuff around. AEST called Alan hush. He's an Australian who lives in the states and he has written a number of expressions that he has seen the apostolic often manifest through missional leaders, movement, stylist, church planters, innovators, pioneers, custodians of culture and DNA entrepreneurs, architects, and designers, whether that's architects and designers in the natural. And I love architects. I love that. They see a bit of wasteland and they say, no, <laugh>, it's not a wasteland. Look at what could happen. I love that. But there's also architects and designers in the kingdom as well of people who are seeing organizationally structurally ways that they can architect and design things, cross cultural missionaries, founders, networkers, culture centers, and creators, missional trainers, research, and development, people, consultants, ambassadors, quality controllers. And these are just some of a number of ways that an apostolic grace can manifest itself in both working life.
Speaker 0 00:30:44 And in our sense of being a part of what God's doing in the church. And I don't believe the Greek mindset of the sacred and the secular, which says, okay, my day job is my secular thing. And my Sunday or my evening is my spiritual thing. I believe the grace that on our life is looking to manifest itself for the kingdom purposes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And I believe in this room, some of you've been entrepreneurial and you've not understood. You've just thought, well, I just see things different. It's an apostolic grace on your life probably. And God wants you to make sure that you're not using that to catch fish, but to catch men that it's kingdom aligned. It's kingdom contextualized. If you're in one of those roles or something similar, but you don't have an apostolic grace on your life, you will probably be both frustrated. And to be honest, frustrate in to be around. But if you have a prof, an Apostol grace on your life, and you're not involved in one of those or similar areas, then you'll probably be both frustrated and frustrated in what you are doing.
Speaker 0 00:32:00 God gives us the grace and the commission, but it's our stewardship, which pursues the careers, the opportunities and the activities to express or frustrate them. If you have a primary apostolic grace on your life, then I urge you to do a few things. First of all, recognize it. It's important that you recognize that on your life because it's all too easy to just not understand who God's made you to be, not understand the gifts and the graces he's put on your life. I mentioned last week, we've gone through this, this with all of our team, and we understand one another so much better because we've got scenarios where we understand the grace mixes on people's lives. And it really helps you in your relationships with each other, recognize it. Secondly, pursue an understanding of how this grace can be best served and stewarded. Thirdly, orientated, objective as an expression of God's kingdom and commission and fourthly honor and exchange all the other graces thes graces in other people's lives. Now let me just close with this maybe band. You can come and join me on the stage for one final song. We are, will you hear this really clearly? We are absolutely committed as a church
Speaker 0 00:33:30 To not allowing anyone, to hide their grace and to bury their talents and to sit in the stands and to cheer others on. We're not content top around on one shoe. We're not content to lie in bed with some body disability when God has called the body of Christ to thrive.
Speaker 0 00:34:05 And so we want to help everyone to recognize the graces that are on their life. And there's a simple test that we have partnered with. That's been done by many thousands of people across the world and simply to access this. And I made a mistake last week, I gave the wrong price. It's actually 10 pound, um, for an opportunity to do a test yourself and you go to rediscover church.com/a pest. And when you go to that URL, you can make a payment. And then in the next few days, a code will be sent to you. And that code will give you access to do a test. And that test is not the Bible. It's not absolutely sort of solid and set in stone that this is what your grace is, but we have found it to be really helpful to identify in the graces in our lives.
Speaker 0 00:35:00 And we wanna encourage everyone to do this. You say I'm not into church leadership. Yes you are. You just don't know it yet. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not. I'm a background person who said anything about being a background or a foreground person. That's not the issue. The issue is not prominence. The issue is significance and you are significant whether or not you're prominent. And so all of you church, would you do this? You think, well, you know, I just, I just held behind the scenes. It is not important. Yes it is. We do not want to hop around on one shoe. The Lord has need of you. You might think yourself as a donkey, but the Lord has need of you. Come on, God has called you for an upgrade. Now beyond being fishermen to bees of men, come on, there's a nation to win here.
Speaker 0 00:35:44 There are lives to touch. There are broken people to be restored. There is a greatest need that this nation has faced for years rising up and the church. If all we do is sing songs on Sunday and run a little food bank at the back, we are going to miss the opportunity to let the glory of God shine in the nation. The church needs to mature and strengthen. And in order to do that, we've gotta stew the graces on our life. Stop saying, oh, I wish I could play an instrument and join the band. Forget that, find out what God has placed within you and steward it. So we want to help you recognize that, take the test. Would you, when you take that test, we'll get a record as well as you will, of what it's come out at. And this is what we will do with it. We will be inviting people in the months ahead to gather according to their primary grace mix. And we'll be gathering all of those with an apostolic grace together. And we'll be helping those to explore how they live their lives. 24 7, allowing that grace to rise up within them. We'll be egging each other on and sharpening like Flint sharpens Flint. We'll be gathering all the prophetic graces together. We'll be gathering all the evangelistic graces and the shepherding graces and the teaching graces together. And we'll be inputting and inspiring and instructing and helping us to discover how that can look.
Speaker 0 00:37:10 Thirdly, we want to help orientate those graces on your life for a kingdom call, not a worldly call. Your calling is not of this world. You are on a mission to be fishers of men, not fishermen. And finally, it's our hope that in identifying the graces on one another, that even though we will gather people in their specific grace mixes, it's our hope and our prayer that we will not have a scenario where the apostolic graces only ever talk to others with apostolic grace. We're not after five cliques here. We're after a body of Christ, that's working perfectly and harmony together to inspire each other, to help each other, to see the kingdom of God, come in our day. Let's stand together. Just close your eyes. A moment when you and ask you one question before I invite anybody here who doesn't know Jesus to respond, but this one question is to everyone. And that is out of everything that has been said today. Is there one thing that stands out? If it is, there's a danger that that will float away like a balloon. By the time you get back to your car or your home,
Speaker 0 00:38:42 And I'm gonna encourage you now just to hold onto that one thing and pull it close, might be, you want to write ears, a note on your phone, but consolidate in your thinking. That's I may not remember everything, but that's the one thing I'm gonna hold onto from today for today. And as you hold that one thing, is there an act of obedience or a response you need to give to it as you hold it in your hand, what does it ask of you? How can you obey? How can you bring around change to live out that one thing just while you reflect on that, if anyone's here today or online and doesn't know Jesus as your Lord and savior, you can not by earning your way through attending church regularly, but by simply laying your life down and saying, God, I've messed up and I need your help. And you will see Jesus who gave his life on the cross and was resurrected from the dead. He offers you his resurrection life, but it involves you humbling yourself. It involves you repenting, which is a, an old word that means turning around from the things and the ways that you've lived and saying, I'm now gonna walk towards God, not away from him.
Speaker 0 00:40:03 If you would like to give your life to Jesus today, let me pray. A simple prayer and invite you to pray this prayer in your heart or your mind after me. And it goes like this. Jesus, I thank you. That you've always loved me. And when you gave your life on the cross for me, you had me in mind and I know that I've been fairly indifferent. I've failed, I've messed up and I've gone away from you. Please forgive me. And I invite you now to come into my life and to live your life through me. And I want to follow you with all of my heart. Fill me with your love. Fill me with your spirit that I might follow you all the days of my life in Jesus name.
