Oh, crossing family, I love you, but more importantly, God loves
you. And I want to welcome all of our
different locations, those of you watching online and those of
you who are part of the Crossing Inside family.
I don't know how many of you watched, but we had over 30 or
3000 people watch our election night coverage and choose to
watch and pray during the election.
And I had the time of my life. And if you are here for the
first time or the first time in a long time, you might be super
excited, don't applaud yet about who's in the White House.
And you might be super sad about who is not going to be in the
White House and this election frustrated you.
But I want to tell you about the most important election, and
that is the election of whether or not you are going to let
Jesus Christ reign over your life.
Our church exists to help people find an intimate personal
relationship with Jesus Christ. And we think that it is the best
thing that could ever happen to you.
And you might be going to Clayton.
You're the pastor. You get paid to say stuff like
that. Well, you don't have to listen
to this idiot. You can pay attention to the
idiots in your row. So at all of our locations, help
me out. If deciding to follow Jesus is
the greatest decision you ever make.
Can I get a whoop whoop with a hand raise?
And if your biggest regret is you didn't do it sooner, can I
get up? Bomp bomp, You get it.
So you don't have to listen to me.
Listen to the people in your row.
We are in a sermon series called Counterfeit Fruit Establishing
an Authentic Walk with Jesus. You see, when you begin an
intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the Bible
tells us that you receive the Holy Spirit.
He comes and dwells in your life and the Holy Spirit does a very
special thing. He produces fruit in the life of
a believer. What is this fruit you might
ask? Well, Galatians chapter 5 tells
us this is the fruit of the Spirit.
The fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and
self-control. How many of you, when you look
at that list of fruit are going, I could probably use a little
bit more of that in my life. If your spouse did not answer
that question appropriately, answer the question for him.
How many of you, your spouse could use more of that fruit in
their life? Yeah.
OK. How many of you have a teenager?
Right. So how does the fruit come about
in the life of a believer? Do we get it through a bunch of
hard work? Do we get it through US trying
to do more? Oh no, no, no.
It happens when we remain, when we abide in Christ.
The word I use for abide is wrinkly.
Just like when you get in. And I had a guy this week at our
church and he's still going to come this week, but I don't know
about next week because men shouldn't take baths.
But when you get in a hot bath or in a hot tub and you stay
there for a really, really long time, you get wrinkly.
You cannot make the wrinkles. You just stay in the water long
enough for the wrinkles to show up.
The same is true in your walk with Jesus.
When we remain, when we abide, we are getting a wrinkly faith.
And how do we abide? How do we get wrinkly?
When we spend time in God's Word, when we spend time in
prayer, when we spend time in biblical community, and when we
are obedient. Knowledge is not the goal,
obedience is. John 15 shows us what happens
when we abide in him. I am the true vine, and my
father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me
that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he
prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
You are already clean because the word I've spoken to you
remain in me, as I also remain in you.
No branch can bear fruit by itself.
It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit
unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the
branches. If you remain in me and I in
you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from Me you can do
nothing. 4 things to look at real quick.
One, God expects fruit out of your life because He has saved
you and His Spirit lives inside of you.
He expects there to be fruit in your life, and when he doesn't
find the fruit, you're cut off. Good branches bear good fruit,
and in order for them to keep bearing more good fruit, He
prunes them and you might be going.
But Clayton, how do I know if I'm being pruned?
You are being pruned when you feel a conviction over sin.
You are being pruned when you are find yourself being prodded
outside of your comfort zone to do a spirit LED activity that
requires spirit power. And the reason for that is, is
we only grow outside of our comfort zone.
We only produce fruit outside of our comfort zone.
The third thing is remaining and abiding is how we produce the
fruit. When we abide in Him, we become
more fruitful. This is not this is not
accomplished through human effort and #4 apart from Jesus
we can do nothing. Husbands, you will never be the
husband you were supposed to be apart from God.
Wives, you will never be the wife that you were created to be
apart from God. Parents, you will never be the
parent that God created you to be apart from God.
Apart from God, you can do nothing.
Sometimes though, it can look like we are producing fruit.
It can look like we are living by the Spirit when in reality,
what is being manufactured in our lives is counterfeit fruit.
In week one, we learned that love does not equal no
boundaries, that there are clear boundaries in Scripture about
how love behaves and what love does.
We also learned that joy does not equal toxic positivity.
In other words, when we feel like because we're in a
relationship with Jesus, we have to have an endless supply of
rainbows in our pockets. That is not true authentic
faith. The Bible calls God a God of all
comfort, which means that you and I will experience seasons
where we need to be comforted. We want to have an authentic, a
real, a genuine walk with Jesus, not a fake one.
The big take away in week 1 was that in an effort to live the
Christian life, you might be wearing yourself out trying to
do something that God never commanded you to do.
And if God never commanded you to do it, then He will not
empower you to carry it out. Last week we learned that peace
does not equal staying comfortable and patience does
not equal complacency. There is to be a movement in our
walk with Jesus. And if you've been following
Jesus for a long time but you haven't moved, you're not
following Him because God is always on the move trying to
bring His lost children home. The big take away is if you are
not sensing the power of the Holy Spirit in your life, it
might be because you are not doing anything that requires His
power. Parents, let me just play with
you for a little bit. If you're yelling and screaming
at your kids, that is not something that the Holy Spirit
empowers you to do. But when you decide to have
patience with your kids, be long-suffering with your kids,
have high standards for your kids, that is a Holy Spirit
empowered moment. And so if you are not doing
anything that requires his power, you might be going.
I don't feel him anymore and he's going.
Yeah, because you're not doing the thing that requires me.
Enemy love pretty hard. How many of you got an A+ an
enemy love? No, you liar.
That's a lie. OK, Nobody gets an A plus.
How do we do? How do we do enemy love through
the power of the Holy Spirit. Today we're going to look at two
more fruits of the Spirit, kindness and goodness, and the
devastating impact of their counterfeits.
I've told you guys this before that when I was growing up, my
parents were navigating some intense financial hardships.
We lived in a vet clinic in three rooms and I bathed in like
the elevated dog bath and I slept on the floor underneath
the business desk. And my mom one day in an effort
to keep costs low, she went to ALDI and bought fruity loopies
or whatever they call them. And I'm First off, let me pause
for a second when I use illustrations about things in my
life, This is you are not obligated to bring me those
things. I got I got Cologne this week.
Sometimes people bring me fruity pebbles.
Hear me, I'm not I love it. God bless you for it.
But I'm wait, I don't need it. So I don't want a bunch of Fruit
Loops at my house at the end of this sermon.
That's not the take away. There's a better one.
So I love Fruit Loops. And my mom went to ALDI, and
instead of buying Fruit Loops from Hyvee, she went to ALDI and
bought the fruity Loopies. Yeah, I grew up with a really
bad mom. Oh, you're going?
No, but wait till you hear what she did.
Did my mom sit us down as a family?
And, you know, Clayton, things are a little tight right now.
We're now a fruity, loopy family.
I know we used to be a Fruit Loops family, but now we're
fruity, loopy people. No, she didn't.
Did she say, hey, guys, I know you want this stuff.
We just can't afford it right now?
No, my mom is an evil, conniving person, and she's watching right
now at our Keokuk campus. And you didn't think that when
you did that, that you'd have to experience this?
She went to a Fruit Loops box that she had saved, you know.
You know, she took the fruity, loopy stuff out of the fruity
loopy box and put the plastic inside the Fruit Loops box and
then boxed it back up and just waited for her innocent,
wonderful, favorite child to be hungry.
And I sat down at the table and I poured myself a bowl of Froot
Loops and my mom waited in the distance seeing if I would
notice. And I took one bite and I knew
that something was way, way off and my mom was hoping that she
would slip something by me. The packaging was the same, but
the inside was a counterfeit. And that is what can happen very
easily with these two fruits of the Spirit.
We can have all of the right packaging, but not the right
ingredients. And the reason we don't have the
right ingredients is because we're using the wrong recipe.
Let's get into it. Kindness is not people pleasing.
If you find yourself being a decent, honorable, reliable
person, people are going to see you as kind.
They have such a kind disposition.
However, when you do these activities in an effort to
please people, your motives are all wrong and sometimes we are
doing things that should be directing people's attention
towards God. But when we are people pleasing,
we are self worshipping. And when you are self
worshipping, we are no longer trying to point people to Jesus,
we are pointing them to ourselves.
Our kindness is not actual kindness.
Our kindness is manipulation. I want people to see how good I
am. I don't want to step into this
conversation because they might perceive me poorly.
Me, me, me. Our kindness should direct
everybody's attention to God. We are to live our lives in
service to Him. Our goal as Jesus followers is
to please Him. And if you are constantly trying
to please people, you will make yourself into an image that you
believe other people want you to be.
And when you try to please God, you will mold yourself into an
image of who God wanted you to be.
In other words, when you are a people pleaser, you will never
become who God created and commanded you to be.
Paul points this out in Galatians chapter one, verse 10.
You don't have to take my words from it.
I'm taking it from the Bible. This is what he says.
Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of
God? Or am I still trying to please
people? Check out this last line.
If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant
of Christ. Here's what he's saying.
When you become a Christian, you no longer live.
Christ lives in you. That means that you belong to
him, and you and I are to serve him and His mission.
And when you are a people pleaser, you are serving
yourself. Being a follower of Jesus will
at times put you at odds with the world and the people in this
world. And what you may be called to do
as a Christian may be perceived as unkind by the world, but God
is the one who gets to determine what is and is not kind.
And more importantly, God gets to be the author of the motives
and fuel those motives. Associated deeply with the idea
of kindness is the word usefulness, that our kindness is
supposed to have a useful air about it.
The way it was presented in the scriptures was a kind house, was
an orderly and well kept house. A kind meal was both healthy and
tasty. It was useful.
A meal that is good for you, that doesn't taste good is not
kind. Can I get an Amen right?
A meal that is tasty but not good for you?
Can I get a McDonald's right? A kind yard was a yard that had
lush green grass and it was mowed and weed eaten and edged.
It was a taken care of property. So when a kind person is a
person who is doing something for a useful purpose, the useful
purpose of your kindness is to point people to Jesus.
And your kindness is not kindness.
If it points people to you, you might be go.
If your kindness is in the direction of you, it is not
kindness. Look at the usefulness of
kindness in Romans chapter 2, verse four.
You're going to love this. Or do you show contempt for the
riches of his kindness? This is God forbearance and
patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to
lead you to repentance. Kindness is useful.
It moves people in repentance towards God so they can be
forgiven of their sins, receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and
eternity in heaven placed in their hearts.
It is designed to lead people to repentance.
It is not intended to point people to you so they worship at
the glory of you. I know this was a tough one.
Let's make it tougher. Let's look at goodness.
Goodness is not self righteousness.
This too is a version of self worship.
Self righteousness shows up when we are doing good things for our
own glory, for how people will see you.
Oh, there goes Clayton. He's just so good.
You should go to the church where Clayton's at because he's
such a good guy. You should see how Clayton picks
up trash when he's walking places.
Oh my goodness. More people should pick up trash
the way Clayton picks up trash because Clayton's a trash pick
and fool. Look at Clayton helping that old
lady across the street. He's such a good guy.
Oh my goodness. He helps all the old ladies
across the street. And he saw this lady who was
getting ready to go off a curb at Keynes, and when she was
getting ready to go off the curb, he swept right in with his
strong right arm. I'll get you to your car, old
lady. He is such a good guy.
And you know what? When we do those things, you
know how it makes us feel all kinds of good inside.
I am a good boy. But kindness, kind actions with
the wrong motives is all kinds of wrong because it points
people to us. And the goal of our lives is
never to point people to us. It is to point people to him.
And if you start doing all these good things to be seen by other
people as a good person, self righteousness starts to show up.
We start to believe our own press.
And because we do these things and other people don't, we start
seeing ourselves as better than other people, right?
And then you start viewing yourself in a pretty unhealthy
way. No one can compare to you when
you put your highlight reel against their low points in
life. And you start thinking that
you're a pretty good person and everybody else isn't.
Isn't that where your marriage problems show up?
You're a pretty good husband. Your wife thinks of being a
wife. You're a fantastic mother.
Your kids are just rotten. You start looking at other
people differently because you start thinking that you are
really, really good and everybody else is really, really
bad. But you know who our measuring
stick has always supposed to be? Our measuring stick has never
been the failings of other people and the Because if I were
to look at myself and compare myself to some of you, I would
look pretty stinking awesome. And if some of you were to
compare yourself to me, you would look fantastic.
But our measuring stick was never supposed to be others.
Our measuring stick was supposed to be Jesus.
Now for those of you who are here for the first time or the
first time in a long time, you may have heard people talk about
hypocrites. Here's what a hypocrite is.
A hypocrite is a Fruit Loops box with a fruity loopy center.
And here's here's what happens. Because even if you're a non
Christian you do this too. You look at Christians and you
make up your determination about God, and on some level that's a
very fair statement to make. I just want you to know you
don't do that in about any other area of your life.
Here's what you don't do. You don't go to a gas station
and have a bad interaction with another person who's getting gas
and go, I'm never getting gas again.
No, I've talked about this before.
When I go to the gas station, I'm at the gas station because
I, like everybody else, need gas.
Just because other people eat Fruit Loops and some of the
people who eat Fruit Loops are trash.
I haven't sworn off Fruit Loops. I eat Fruit Loops for the same
reason that everybody else eats Fruit Loops.
I'm hungry. And if you are looking at other
people and you're evaluating everything about the goodness of
our God, about the behavior of other people, you will never
find out that the sort. We were never trying to get you
to worship us. We were trying to get you to
worship the one that we worship. And if you want to use us as
your permission slip for how you behave, that's a really bad move
because when you die and you come to the judgment seat,
you're coming to the judgment seat no matter what.
And I'll tell you what you don't get to do when you're at the
judgment seat. You don't get to point your
finger at me or jacked up Joe who lives in your neighborhood.
You have to stand there on either your own righteousness or
the righteousness of Christ. Look what it says in Romans
chapter 3. Tough truth for all of us,
Christian and non Christian. There is no one righteous, not
even one. There is no one who understands.
There is no one who seeks God, all who have turned away and
together become worthless. There is no one who does good,
not even one. And there's some of you right
now who you're going. You know what?
My life is pretty stinking good. I mean, when I look at it, it's
pretty fantastic. And I would tell you there are
nooks and crannies in your life that are dirtier than you can
possibly imagine. I have a pet peeve.
I like a clean vehicle. It's just kind of how I'm
hardwired. And I wish everybody, my family
also liked having a clean car. And here's what I do when I
clean my car, I wipe it down and I get the leather stuff out and
wipe it and vacuum it out. And I buy the expensive floor
mat so that way none of the stuff gets where it's not
supposed to go. I try to do a pretty easy job,
but when I clean up my car, I'm like, man, my car is pretty
clean. And then after I've cleaned out
the whole inside, there's this spot in every car that just, Oh
my goodness, it's the sill right where the, the and I'll have a
rag and I'll have cleaned my whole car and that rag looks
pretty stinking good. And if I look at the sill, the
sill looks pretty stinking decent.
But when I squirt some stuff on there and then I give it a wipe,
that thing becomes unusable. It becomes darker than you could
possibly imagine. Even when I wash it, the dirt
doesn't come out of it and it forever becomes the rag that you
use to wipe down the sill of all four of the your car doors.
And that is what's happening in your life.
Some of you are cleaning out the seats, and you're wiping off the
dasher. Maybe you're a person who just,
you know, gets all of the cups out of the floorboard of your
car. And you're going, man, my car's
pretty clean. But if you were to wipe in some
of the areas that you have never wiped, you'd find out a rough
truth about how dirty your car actually is.
And right now, if you were comparing your goodness to the
goodness of other people, all you're doing is getting all the
Starbucks cups out of your floorboard.
And if you're comparing yourself to some other people around you,
you might be wiping down the seats and wiping off the
steering wheel. But when you stand before a holy
and righteous God and nothing, nothing is hidden from His
sight, it will not take long before every part of you that
you think is righteous will become nothing more than a dirty
cleaning rag. And you can wash it as many
times as you want, and it will never become clean.
Because there is nothing that we can do to earn our salvation and
to right our heavenly wrongs, except for turn all of who we
are, the good, the bad and the ugly, over to the One who can
make us new. Watch what happens if you and I
spend way too much time trying to please people and too much
time trying to prove how good we are.
We will miss out on pleasing God, or worse yet, believe that
we don't need Him. So how do you and I do good?
How do you and I become kind? Look what it says in Philippians
chapter 2, verses 3 and 4. Do nothing out of selfish
ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others
above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of
you to the interests of others. What we end up doing if we want
to live in humility, if we want to be the kind of good and kind
that God requires, what we do is we put the mission of God and
other people ahead of ourselves. We are not hear me, please hear
me, please hear me, please hear me.
We are not thinking less of ourselves.
That is sometimes like that. That is one of the worst
Christian attributes, that somehow when we come to faith in
Christ, we have to devalue what Christ has redeemed.
You don't need to think less of like less of yourself.
You need to think of yourself less like where you didn't even
enter into your brain. You were thinking about God and
his mission. You were thinking about Jesus
and his sacrifice. You were thinking of the needs
of others. You weren't even thinking about
you because you no longer live, but Christ lives in you.
It is time for people all across this region to experience people
who have a godly ambition instead of a selfish one.
It's time for them to run into people who are out to please God
instead of trying to please them.
And when you and I do these things, when we step into these
areas, God shows up. You see God in his or Jesus in
his goodness. He went into the temple and he
cleansed the temple, kicked everybody out.
And Jesus was known for being the perfect nature of goodness.
He was also incredibly kind. He stepped into a situation that
was not good and he made it good.
And that is a useful and kind thing to do in his goodness.
He would have hard conversations with people.
He would correct people, He would rebuke people.
He would do a good thing in a kind way.
If Jesus was trying to people please, he would have not had
hard conversations. He would have not stepped into
difficult moments. He would have gloried in the
fact that all the glory was for him.
And Jesus came to give all the glory to His heavenly Father,
and He did it for the good of the people around him.
Tough question. How many of you don't raise your
hands? Please don't raise your hands.
You have been doing good things for your own glory instead of
God's. I wonder how many of us have
avoided doing the good thing that God called us to do because
it was going to cost us too much.
How come we keep showing up in an equation that we were never
supposed to be in? And when we are not the good
that we are supposed to be and calling people to the good that
God calls them to, we are not being kind or useful to their
spiritual development on their pathway to find the one that we
have found. Our lack of godly goodness keeps
us from doing the good that He has in store for us to do.
Our lack of kindness keeps us from being useful to the
advancement of the Kingdom. In other words, our ambition
should be to point people to Jesus, not to make ourselves
look better, but to show them how much better Jesus is.
And when we abide in him, we will end up doing what Jesus
says His followers are supposed to do.
You all know this verse. It's from one of his most famous
sermons, Matthew chapter 5, verse 16.
Look what it says in the same way.
Let your light shine before others that they may see your
good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Not you, God is. God has like this much cares to
give about how good you come across, how much glory you get.
Here's what God wants. He wants you to do good things
and give God all the glory so people are drawn to Him, not
you. How many of you died on the
cross for anybody's sins? I think none of you.
So how much glory do you think you should get?
I would say close to 0, maybe a little less.
Do you know who deserves all the glory He does?
We want God to get all of the glory.
Furthermore, when you and I abide in Him and we go about
doing the good that He calls us to do, First Corinthians Chapter
9 verse 8 promises that He will bless you abundantly so that at
all or in all things at all times, you and I will have
everything we need to abound in every good work.
What He's saying is when you and I start practicing goodness and
kindness, we can step into every single situation, being
empowered not by our flesh, but by His Spirit.
We will have abundantly more than we could possibly need to
accomplish any task at any time so that God would get the glory.
And for too long, some of us, myself included, have been
guilty of doing things that have the appearance of godliness and
none of the substance. We are simply fruity loopies in
a fruit loop box. And when the world takes just
one bite, they know. And I think they deserve better.
And I think he does too. So let's do something about it.
We're moving to a time of decision.
To those of you who are in this room and to those of you who are
watching online, you might be thinking, man, I would love to
start this relationship with Jesus, but you're like, I just
don't measure up. And I just want you to know you
are 100% accurate. Coming to faith in Jesus is not
about you being good. It's about you finding your
goodness in him. God in his goodness and His
kindness sent Jesus to step in and settle the debt that you
owed that you could never pay. If you're sitting there going, I
don't deserve the goodness and kindness of God.
You are 100% right. You don't deserve it.
In fact, the Bible tells us that this is a really cool picture of
God because I don't know what kind of picture of God other
people have painted for you, but this is a really good picture
about God speaking about himself.
This is what he says that in Romans chapter 5, verse 8, while
we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Do you know when we forgive people, we forgive people.
Uh oh, this is going to drive me nuts, boys.
You know when we forgive people after they say I'm sorry?
Do you know when we're nice to people after they start being,
we do everything after. And isn't that why you have
marital problems? You're going to start being a
good husband after your wife starts being a Good Wife after
everything is after. I'm going to let my kids have
something nice after they start behaving after.
This is why God is so much better than us.
And This is why, hear me, This is why you should never point
people to you. You should keep pointing them to
God because we are an after people and God is a wild God.
While you were still sinning is when he sent Jesus on your
behalf. We can't comprehend love like
that. When you were at your worst, God
was at his best on your behalf. He didn't wait until you said
the right things, sang the right song, prayed the right prayer,
worshipped at the right song, attended to church.
He pre decided in advance that he loved you, would make a path
for you, send his Son Jesus to die on the cross for you while
you were at your worst. How good is our God?
How kind is our God? And the most unkind and ungood
thing that you could do is say no to him to the offer of
salvation that He is pre purchased on your behalf.
And if you're here today, I'm sorry if I'm coming across too
strong. I just believe it too much.
You saw the testimony of the other people in the room.
It's the greatest decision we ever made, and our biggest
regret is we didn't do it sooner.
And I want you to have that story.
I want you to have that testimony.
I want you to find what we have found in him.
And you might be going with Clayton.
I'm pretty sure that after I find Jesus, I'm going to screw
up. You know what I'll tell you?
Welcome to the club. But I can tell you, every time
I've failed, he has always caught me.
I have never outpaced His grace. I have never outran His mercy.
I've never found myself in a spot where His love wasn't
already waiting on me. When are you going to have that
story? If you're watching the line, I'm
encourage you to type something in the chat or click on that
link that just showed up. Or somebody will take you to a
private spot online where you can just talk to them.
And you don't have to air what's going on in your life in front
of everybody, but with somebody who cares for you and wants to
pray with you and talk with you. If you're in this room, Oh my
goodness, we're so glad you're here and you've never started a
relationship with Jesus. I'm going to encourage you to
take a walk that is long overdue.
In just a few moments, the people around you are going to
stand and sing, and some of them are going to come to the steps
and pray. And I want to encourage you to
walk right over there underneath that screen next to the
baptistry, and somebody would talk to you about how to start a
relationship with Jesus Christ. You might be going.
I don't have all my questions answered, so I'm not ready to
start them. Great.
Are you at a spot where you'll at least start asking the
questions to the rest of you in the room?
To those of you who would qualify yourself as a Jesus
follower, it is time for us to be the good, kind people that
God created us to be. Is there an area of your life
where kindness has been lacking? Is there an area of your life
where you have not been doing the good that God has called you
to do? I'm going to ask you to do
something that you may not want to do, but that will be good for
you. Repent.
Own it. Get down on your knees and say,
God, this is an area in my life where I have been unkind and I
have not been good. Repent for being a people
pleaser instead of being a God pleaser and saying God after all
you've done for me, why do I keep making an idol out of me
and an idol out of other people I know I'm supposed to worship
you. Help me use your spirit God to
redirect me. Is there a conversation you need
to have with a spouse, a kid, a Co worker where you own the fact
that you haven't been the good you're supposed to be or kind in
the way you're supposed to be kind?
Can I give you a cool verse In Matthew Chapter 11, verse 30,
Jesus is talking to his followers and he says when you
follow me, he invites the weary to come to him and he says for
my yoke is kind. It is kind to the shoulders.
It is a kindness that you can put on and you can carry a heavy
load and it won't hurt the soul shoulders because it is useful.
God is calling you to a useful, productive life in Him.
And if you can't see the fruit, it's probably because there's
something wrong with us. So let's fix it and you might be
going. I see people come to the steps
every week and pray, and I bet that's kind of embarrassing and
humbling to walk all the way up to the steps.
And you know why you might not come to the steps?
Because you're thinking that other people will see you.
And I want you to know they're not supposed to be thinking
about you. And you know what?
You're not supposed to be thinking about them.
You know what? Yours.
This is the math in your head. I want to do something to get
right with God right now, and whether you come to the steps or
you pull a Tim Tebow in your seat or you find some spot
around the room, don't waste this moment to get right with
Him. Would you stand with me?
It is impossible to get over how good and kind and patient and
long-suffering you have been with us, and by Your grace and
mercy, you have given us another chance to chase after you and
follow after you and repent in all the ways that we haven't.
God, I am begging your Holy Spirit to reign in this church,
not just at this location, but at all of our locations.
And not just at our locations, but at every church where Jesus,
people gather, gather. Your Spirit would move us and
change us and empower us to do things that only you can do in
ways that only you can do it. In your name I pray.
Amen.