Good morning. My name is Daniel.
I'm the lead pastor here a welcome to Res church.
We are going to start a a Christmas series today.
You know, our culture loves redemption stories.
We, we, we've kind of built the culture, in fact, of, of media
and story culture around this idea of people that have lost it
all, sometimes through choices of their own, sometimes because
of things that are done against them or to them.
And then they, they come back and they rise above it all back
in to do something great again. The, the Robert Downey juniors
who make it all the way to the bottom and then kind of come
back and rebound. Or there's a guy named Luis
Zamperini, who's an Olympic runner, but you know, he
survived torture in a World War 2 prisoner camp, came back, had
to overcome alcoholism and PTSD. But these types of stories
resonate with us for some reason.
It's, it's almost as if there's something deep down inside of us
that longs to see that happen, to see people redeemed and to
come back. If you're new to the Christian
faith, or if, if maybe you're a skeptic and you wouldn't even
call yourself a Christian just yet and you're just hanging out
here today or you're, you're watching.
First of all, welcome. And, and 2nd is one thing you
should know about the Bible is it, it's, it's actually one
giant story of redemption, one huge redemption story.
And you and I are absolutely the underdogs, but we are not the
heroes in this story. And in this one big story, there
are dozens, maybe hundreds of, of smaller redemptive stories
that all contribute to the big one.
They all kind of connect together.
And so we're going to start our Christmas series today in the
book of Ruth, the book of Ruth, We're calling this Christmas
roots. And the reason we're teaching
the Christmas story from the book of Ruth, it's kind of
interesting. You see, Ruth did not occur
around the Christmas time at all.
It took place about 1100 years or so before Jesus was ever
born. And you're going, that's quite
the prequel. You're right, we are going way
back. And so over the course of the
next four or five weeks, we're going to take a look at this
little town called Bethlehem where Jesus is later born.
God will eventually send his Son Christ, Jesus Christ as the
great, great, great, great, great, great grandson of the
family in this story. In fact, it will be 28
generations later in the same exact town.
Jesus will come. And so we're going to have the
ultimate Christmas prequel. Now here's why I want to start
here, why I want to preach Christmas to you from the book
of Ruth, something that happened over a millennia earlier,
because I want you to see that nothing that God did was
accidental. Nothing about the Christmas
story was accidental. All of this was planned.
God does not make mistakes. We make mistakes.
God fixes those mistakes. We did not catch God off guard.
And so not only did he plan to send his Son, He planned for so
long that over 1000 years earlier he was already planning
this. He is already laying a way in a
foundation for Jesus here in Bethlehem.
So I want you to see how good God is, how intentional he is in
our redemption. So today, if you if you leave
today with only one thing, if you only remember a single thing
about today's sermon, I want you to remember this.
God beckons the broken to bless them.
God beckons the broken to bless him.
God is the God of the broken hearted.
We're going to start today in Ruth chapter one, verse 1.
So if you have your texts, go ahead and turn there and join me
in reading God's word. Ruth 11 Here we go.
In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the
land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn or travel
and live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two
sons. The name of the man was
Elimelech, the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two
sons were Meilan and Chilion. They were a path rights from
Bethlehem and Judah. They went into the country of
Moab and remained there. Now in the days the judges ruled
the land. That was around 1500 BC to about
1050 BC or so. For about 400 years judges ruled
the the nation of Israel and then after that the people
demanded that they get a king so they could be like every other
country. It didn't work out real well.
And this man, Elimelech, who lives in Bethlehem, is in a very
established family. We know that because he was
called in a path, right? And that the town of Bethlehem
back in the day before was called, that was called a path,
right? And so or Epreath.
And that means that his family had been in this city for a
long, long, long time. But there's a famine in the
land. It's not producing.
And so Elimelech and his wife Naomi and, and, and their two
sons leave and go to Moab. Now, it doesn't seem like a lot
of information in this story, but it's actually kind of packed
with information that you should understand in context.
This is a really big deal for a couple reasons.
You see, Elimelech in this established family in this town
of, of Bethlehem is an Israelite.
That just means he's one of God's people.
God has taken a people. He said, I'm going to call you
my own people. I'm going to take you out of
slavery, out of Egypt. I'm going to lead you to a
promised land. They're living in this promise
of, of, of God as God's people. He has set them apart from all
other nations. He has told them, hey, wherever
I am is protection is provision is satisfaction.
Now, even though we don't get a lot of detail, we know that he
left Bethlehem and he goes to Moab.
We don't know if if Naomi, his wife, was for this move or
against this move. Maybe there were other factors.
Let me tell you what's not happening in the story.
Pretty much a guarantee. God is not telling him to move
to Moab. In fact, God has said the
opposite. God has said I'm I'm setting the
Israelites, you as my people. I'm setting you apart from every
other nation, and wherever I am, you should go.
And he's Lee, and he leaves. And if you were going to leave
Israel, if you're going to leave Bethlehem, of all the places you
could travel, the last place that an Israelite would go is
Moab. Because the land of Moab, not
only do they not follow the God of the Bible, they looked down
on and frequently mistreated Israelites.
They worshipped idols particularly.
One of the false gods that they worshipped in Moab was a God,
Chimosh, who who part of worship to him was was human sacrifice
and child sacrifice. He was called the savage God of
War. And so there had been so much
enmity between these two nations that God had actually said to
exclude the Moabites from the community of Israel.
Don't allow them to mix into your nation.
Don't allow them to be part of the people of God.
In fact, he said don't allow them to participate until the
10th generation. Like you're done messed up a a
Ron. That's the problem.
And so if you're going to go anywhere, Elimelech bro, don't
go to Moab. So he goes to Moab.
Why would he do that? Because let me tell you what's
not happening. God's not telling him to go.
I can almost guarantee you his family that is established there
in Bethlehem is not telling him to go.
He doesn't have wise counsel telling him to go.
Why would he go? Well, here's what happened.
He looks at his circumstances. There's a famine.
It's not going well. He looks at his idiot.
Things are tough, and he decides to run to the very place that
God has forbidden. So, so, so circumstances are
difficult. He rejects God's promise, he
rejects God's commands, and he runs to what the world can offer
him. What a loser.
Wow, Can you believe that guy? Glad I never do that.
I mean this week much look around at the difficult
circumstances, a bad economy or a tough job market, maybe a
relationship status that doesn't feel very good.
Maybe a little bit lonely, maybe kind of copping my emotions of
the difficulty or the grief or wounds of a particular season.
And then reject all that God is doing and has said and will say
and and and and and being to buy into the promises of a world
that is far from God. Yeah.
You've never done right.
None of you guys. No, no, not us.
Elimelech, this guy. OK.
I've done this a lot. I've done this.
You've done this. You got caught up in the in the
moment of the situation in your life and you're looking around,
you're going. I don't know if God's really
going to come through. And so I'm going to run after
blank and it was like 3 weeks ago.
I'm looking at my life and I'm looking at my bills and I'm God.
I don't know if we can we can pay these bills and I you know,
and it so so things thoughts that that are not of God begin
to flash through my mind, right? Maybe I need to go get a job
that pays better than this man. Is it really fair that my wife
had to go back to work? Am I really being a good dad or
a good husband if I can't actually provide for them?
You ever let Satan get a couple thoughts into your mind, right?
Get a little foothold in there. Don't take very long.
It's a dangerous moment. You see over and over and over
again in the Bible, God asks people the same, the same
question that I'm sure Elimelech was answering with his life.
And you and I have to answer this.
Here's what he asks. Hey, will you believe in my
promises and my character even when you can't see it in the
moment? Will you still have faith?
Will you trust my promises? My goodness, my character Alumni
clearly did not. I have this conversation with
people all the time when they're making bad decisions.
They tell me they're about to do something really unwise.
Oh, I'm just going to up my whole family.
I'm going to move to Kentucky bro.
They don't actually make the fried chicken there.
I'm going to marry a non Christian, I'm going to divorce
my spouse. I'm going to take a job that's
going to kill my marriage. I'm going to be gone all the
time, whatever they some dumped And listen, I'm going and I
always ask them the same series of questions.
Always I go, hey, OK, who's been praying with you about this?
Crickets. Oh, well, you know, I've been
praying about it. Great.
Who else? Well, what have you read in
Scripture recently that leads you to this decision?
Usually a blank stare or here's a question.
Hey, what is your close accountability?
People that love God and love you say about this.
I haven't really told anyone. Why do you, what do you think
God is trying to do as he leads you into this decision?
You ever ask someone who's about to go get a divorce that they're
just like? Here, let me tell you the real
reason that questions like that don't have good answers.
OK, I can tell you this from my own personal life, because the,
the, the actual real motivation behind a lot of these decisions
when we begin to run from God is that we're actually rejecting
the sovereignty of God. And what I mean by that is this
God has said that he will provide.
God has said that he will protect.
God has said that he will lead. And the moment I don't see it,
I'm like, Nope, going to Moab. I'll just come up with
justifications along the way as to why it's probably OK.
Well, there was a famine. Did you let God know that there
was a famine? Like he probably can't handle
that. Well, I just didn't feel like
it. This is why I need the Bible in
my life. This is why I need close
accountability of people that love God and love me in my life.
This is why not only do I need to pray about circumstances and
things, I need people around me to pray about them too.
To remain faithful in the midst of difficulty.
So our story starts with a moral failure.
Limeluk, a weak man making a fearful decision to reject God.
Man, that is my story all too often too.
Now it gets worse before it gets better.
Elimelech can hit Naomi and their sons are there for some
time. In fact, the sons marry and
Elimelech dies, and then both sons die, leaving these two
Moabite wives as widows, leaving Naomi the mother as a widow in a
foreign land. By the way, that again,
rejecting God's commands, nobody was supposed to marry Moabite
into the Moabite a nation at all.
So that was strictly forbidden. They both marry Moabite wives
completely, absolutely against God's will.
They all die. You now have 3 widows as the
main characters of our story. Merry Christmas.
Welcome to Rest Church. What a joyful, encouraging
story. Pastor, thank you.
Feel so good. Let's pray.
Oh, now understand though, because we'll get to there's
some beautiful redemptive things in here, but understand the
context of three widows in that time.
There's no Social Security, there's no safety net.
They've moved away from family. Naomi doesn't have any family in
Moab. There's there's no one to care
for them. This is a patriarchal culture.
These ladies cannot survive. They can't protect themselves.
They can't just go get a job. They can't provide.
The situation is dark and bleak and looks hopeless.
And here's what Naomi finds out. She says, hey, I hear there's
food back in Bethlehem. The famine's over.
I'm going home. I'm going home.
And we don't know if she was against leaving originally or
not. Maybe maybe the the choice to
leave was a mistake that she actively participated in.
Maybe she was the one nudging Illinois elect to go.
I don't know, maybe not. Maybe it was something that was
done to her. And some of you here can relate.
You see, some of the disaster of my past in my life was a result
of my own poor decisions. Amen.
And sometimes it was things that were done to me that I had no
control over. It can be a blend of both.
But most of us can relate to at least some of the feelings that
she's feeling far from home in a situation she doesn't want to be
in. We don't know if it's because of
others decisions or hers. Most often in my life because of
mine, following my own emotion, my own logic.
And it feels pretty hopeless. So she heads home and, and as we
look at her choice to go home, you might say, you might say, if
you're really reading this story, you might say, what
choice did she really have? She's out of options at this
point. Is that even a choice when
there's nothing else to choose? If you've run out of every
option other than turning back to God, is it really a choice?
Hey, guess what, I've been here. When you get to the very bottom
of the hole you've been digging, the first step is to put down
the shovel and ask God for help. You see, the thing I don't want
you to miss and I don't want you to forget is that God beckons
the broken to bless them. He often allows us to run out
there and get broken of our own accord, of our own bad choices,
so that he can welcome us home. So in our story, Naomi decides
I'm going to go home. And so she goes to her daughter,
daughters in law, and she tells them both one's name, Ruth, one
is name Orpa. She says, I'm going home.
Y'all should go back to your families.
At least you could have a chance.
You have a support structure. You could get remarried.
There's a future for you. There's none for me.
I'm going home. So Orpa goes back to her
parents, but Ruth chooses something different.
I'm going to show you that in verse 14.
Let's pick it up. Our story says they lifted up
their voices and their wept their grieving and Orpa kissed
her mother-in-law. But Ruth clung to her and she
said, See your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to
her gods return after your sister-in-law.
But Ruth said, do not urge me to leave you or to return from
following you, for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I
will lodge. Your people shall be my people
and your God, my God. Where you die I will die, and
there I will be buried. May the God, may the Lord do so
to me, and more also if anything but death parts me from you.
And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she
said no more. This is actually, this is a 5
chapter book. This is the turning point of the
whole story right here in chapter 1.
Because the the story starts with a person rejecting God and
choosing what he thinks is going to be easier and better.
But in this moment, we see the contrast from Naomi.
Naomi has no more options, but Ruth has options.
See, Ruth can go back to her family.
She could go back to her parents who live in Moab.
She didn't have to go to back to Bethlehem.
She goes to Bethlehem. She can have a culture change.
She's going to be a foreigner. She's going to be looked down
upon. She's got no system or support
there. She doesn't understand the
faith. She doesn't understand the
customs. And yet Ruth chooses God because
of Naomi. What a choice.
I don't want you to miss God at
work in the darkest of circumstances.
This, this story starts out so hopeless and yet right here you
see God at work. What would cause Ruth to choose
God? Let's read a little bit more.
You'll see a few more things pick up at verse 19.
So the two of them, Ruth and Naomi, went on until it came to
Bethlehem. It's a long trip.
We'll talk about that in a minute.
And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred
because of them. And the women said, is this
Naomi? So they remember her.
And she said to them, do not call me Naomi, call me Mara, for
the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.
I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty.
Why call me Naomi when the Lord has testified against me and the
Almighty has brought calamity upon me?
Drama queen. Wow.
So Naomi returned and Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law
with her, who returned from the country of Moab and they came to
Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.
That's kind of an interesting little note in our chapter like
that. Timing is going to be
interested. Why?
Because the word Bethlehem, the name of the town, the word
Bethlehem actually means House of bread.
And they're going to come back seeking bread, seeking
sustenance, seeking some sort of provision.
And it's going to be about about 1000 to 1100 years later in this
town called the House of bread that they're coming back to
while they're seeking bread, that God's going to send the
bread of life. His name is Jesus, the bread
that actually satisfies. But look at, look at, look at
Naomi. I want you to see how distorted
her pers. We talk about how trauma
oftentimes distorts the way we see the world.
Look at this. She said to them, do not call me
Naomi, call me Mara, which means bitter, for the Almighty has
dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full.
That's not true and the Lord has brought me back empty.
Why call me Naomi when the Lord has testified against me and the
Almighty has brought calamity upon me?
Wait, God brought calamity upon her?
Really. Because I'm pretty sure it was
Elimelech and maybe Naomi that chose to leave.
God didn't tell him. Go to my worst enemy and live
there. Go to the place they worship
false gods and live there. Go marry your sons to Moabite
women that I commanded you not to do.
No, no, none of that was God's choice.
They chose that. Oh, if it isn't the consequences
of my own choices. It was a limo that rejected God,
rejected his commands, rejected his faith, rejected his family,
abandoned his family, rejected his faith.
God would be certainly within his right to punish this
rebellion with death. The fact that he spared Naomi's
life at all is a gift. But she's caught up in grief,
caught up in those wounds, caught up in the emotions, and
she, she, she can't see it. We can we get to read the story
and go how do you not see how much God is doing for you?
But think about it. God has not only spared Naomi's
life, but God just converted her daughter-in-law Ruth to the
faith. From what she's only seen the
testimony of rebellious cowards, and for some reason God has
drawn Ruth and saved her soul because of Naomi.
I think about this. The first point you have
influence. God will use you to reach people
even when you're being stupid. Naomi's not doing anything
amazing. There's no phenomenal testimony
of God and said yet somehow God has used Naomi and Elimelech to
save a Moabite woman and bring her to faith.
God uses Naomi, a depressed, embittered widow to convert, by
the way, the great, great, great great grandmother of Jesus.
Now why would he do that? Why would God say the Moabites
are excluded? Don't don't participate with the
don't even have any association with the Moabites.
And then take a Moabite and make that the grandma of Jesus so
that you and I 3000 years later, you'd realize that no matter how
rebellious and how dumb and how emotional how disastrous your
past is, God will still use you for his glory to save people.
So you can have a horrible past and God's like come home, come
home church. I've watched God use me in times
of my life where I was running from God and I was rebellious to
God and and he's saving people through my life and I'm looking
at them going, I don't even want anything to do with God.
How in the world is this working?
And the answer is because he's God and he does what he wants to
do. You can do that when you're God.
And I just want to remind you, regardless of the past,
regardless of what you're coming from or through that you have a
voice, you have a story, you have influence.
You know, we're, we're headed into the Christmas season.
It is statistically the season that the the month or so in
which people are most probable to say yes to your invite to go
to church, to talk about Jesus, to hear the gospel.
We printed up a couple 1000 or so of these cards for you and we
left them out in the lobby so you could grab some and begin
inviting people to come with you.
Because you have influence and you may not realize what a
single invite might do. In the same way that no one
would have expected a Moabite widow to change the course of
history. So don't miss an opportunity
this season to just ask to invite someone to come with you.
Second thing, when you are angry at God, you'll miss how much
he's actually doing for you. Here's Naomi saying, oh, God's,
God's reached out his hand against me and he's testified
against me and he and he's treated me poorly.
You know, Naomi and Ruth, two widowed women by themselves,
just made a 75 mile journey on foot between two enemy nations.
Going from a 4500 foot elevation in Moab all the way down through
a valley back up 3700 feet takes 10 days.
And if you had a caravan with guards it would be dangerous.
What do you think two single women are going to do?
How do you think that's supposed to go?
Somehow they make it all the way.
They're unaccosted. You think it's because they
looked pretty tough? Like you could listen.
You could you could tattoo a teardrop next to your eye.
It ain't going to matter. It could be like, only God's
going to judge me, man. You going to get enslaved?
You're lucky you're not dead. How did they get all the way
back to Bethlehem without being hurt?
If only there could be an answer.
Could be the sovereignty and protection of God.
A couple years ago I drove my daughter back from Orlando and I
picked her up in this little rental van, 2 wheel drive and
we're driving back and we get stuck in a Blizzard.
It's January by the way. It snows in Florida.
Did you know that? It was super weird.
I was like, I don't know how crocodiles deal with anyways, so
I'm driving and all I'm doing because I've packed this, this
rental van with all the stuff and I'm driving that you can't
see and I'm, you know, I can't see anything.
I'm just complaining the whole way.
I make it all the way back. And it was only after I got back
that I, I realized we counted something like 17 overturned big
rigs on the road out of DFW because the snow was so fierce.
Things were running off the road and flipping everywhere.
And we made it fine. And so in the in the moment when
I'm full of emotion, all I had was complaint.
But when it's done and I look back ago, you know, that
probably took an army of angels to get us here safely get rid of
this. How easily this could have been
a very different story if God had not been protecting these
two ladies as they, you know, 1 does not simply walk into
Mordor. They didn't even have a ring and
they were little hobbits. But somehow they make this whole
trip and they're fine and they don't even she didn't even
realize in the moment, right? She didn't even thankful at all.
She doesn't see it. But what about you?
You who has has run from God, has rebelled against God, angry
that you didn't get your way? How much of God's goodness and
kindness are you completely ignoring in your life right now?
You get so caught up in our feelings and in our emotions.
You may miss the providential and sovereign hand of God all
around you. You don't see it right now.
But listen, from my experience, what was what's going to happen
is in the months or years after, as you begin to realize, you're
going to look in the rearview mirror of your car, except this
will be the rearview mirror of your life.
And you're going to look back and go.
And God was so good to me. God was so gracious to me in
that moment. Not only did He not punish me
for what I deserved, for what I earned, not only did He not
punish me, but He lavished His grace and mercy upon me.
Where are you blaming God for something instead of realizing
the grace and mercy that He is extending you?
Here's the Third Point from our, our first chapter, this story,
you can always come home. You know, there's a lot of us
here that we have wayward kids that are off doing whatever
they're doing. And, and the I think you'd love
to be able to really communicate is to look them in the eyes so
you can always come home. Jesus would tell us of a similar
story about 1000 years after this story about a son who
demands his inheritance while his dad is still alive, which is
incredibly offensive, and then abandons his family and runs
away to squander everything in a foreign country with rich
living, only to fall into poverty, starvation, and finally
decides I'm going to go home. And as he's walking back with
his head hung in shame, his father sees him from a a long
way off because he's there waiting, watching, hoping.
And he runs them and he puts his arms around him and he welcomes
him home. Naomi goes home.
This is the message of Christmas.
Christmas didn't start with trees and ornaments and hot
cocoa. It started with broken people
who'd gotten themselves into a mess that they couldn't fix.
Every generation since Adam and Eve were the first humans.
Every generation has been born under the curse of sin because
of that first rebellion against God, and every generation,
including yours and mine, has rebelled against God.
The Bible says that you and I were born into sin, born into
rebellion, born spiritually dead and out of options, just like
Naomi sitting in Moab. No other choices.
But God in his graciousness sent Jesus, his only Son, to save the
world. Christmas is about God reaching
into broken humanity to offer us a chance to come home, come
home. The great irony is that God
gives us the greatest gift ever given, His Son, the Savior of
the world. And yet, how many people reject
Christ in this world? How many people reject His
Lordship over their lives? He came to save us, and we still
choose our own control and our own preference over the King of
Kings and the Lord of Lords. So many of the things that have
happened in my life, it was not God's hand against me, it was
not God treating me bitterly. It was a God allowing me to
suffer the consequences of my own choices and my own decisions
so that I would see how good He is compared to this world.
How about you? Where do you need to come home
from today? Where have you been chasing your
own logic, your own reason, your own emotion, your own feelings
and as a result running from what God has for you?
Where is Christ calling you to come home?
Have you been allowing doubt and fear about the your
circumstances and, and your future to consume your thought
life and, and, and your choices instead of resting in what God
has promised, living in a way that dependent on God?
Have you been prioritizing the things of this world?
This is exactly what Elimelech did.
Prioritizing your job or, or, or money or success or
relationships or comfort and, and you will realize at some
point you are worshipping idols. Have you fallen in love with
this world, the things that it offers, and now find yourself
dissatisfied with it all? Have you sat in the pain or the
hurt of what someone did to you and allowed that to change your
perspective of God and others and yourself?
You see, oftentimes God will let us get to the point where we're
ready to throw our hands up in frustration and scream at God.
And that's a wonderful place because you're at a point where
you might actually listen to what he's saying.
And he's saying, come home. He's been waiting.
God beckons the broken to bless them.
He's calling Naomi home. For the Christian who who finds
themselves where I found myself plenty of times.
There's a formula in in scripture.
Every time we come back to God after we've run from him.
It's very simple. It's not easy, but it's very
simple. Confess in prayer and and to
someone else. Confess what we've done where
we've rebelled against God. Confess.
Maybe that's in accountability. Maybe that's in a group that
you're in. Maybe that's with a close
brother or sister in Christ. Maybe you don't have anybody and
our per team will be up here in a little bit and you can come up
and just just I need to confess. I've been running from God.
Secondly, repent. Turn away from whatever you've
been chasing. Turn toward God.
This is what Naomi does. She turns away from Moab.
She turns toward Bethlehem. Turn away from what you've been
chasing, turn toward God. And 3rd recommit to pursuing
Christ and his community. Just ask for help.
Join a group, jump in the team, begin to pursue God with others.
Last week we had an opportunity to pray together, and I had
person after person after person come up and go.
I thought that was going to be boring.
No, it's powerful. You need other people.
We don't like to admit we need other people, but we need other
people. It's a very simple formula.
Confess, repent, pursue. It's not easy to do.
You know why it's not easy to do?
Because to to do that, we actually have to admit that
we're wrong. We have to admit that we need
others. We have to admit that God was
right. And oh, does our pride not like
that? Let me just encourage you as a
lifelong failure to pride, repentance, confession.
It is worth it. Maybe the most liberating thing
in life is to confess and cry out to God.
Come home, Christian, come home. Maybe you're not a Christian.
Maybe you're not Naomi in the story today.
Maybe you're Ruth. Maybe you spent your entire life
worshipping other gods, other things, and for some
inexplicable reason you have found yourself here today or or
watching online and you're not even sure why.
Let me explain why the God of Naomi, the God of Ruth, the God
of Daniel, the God of the Bible, desires to be your God.
Jesus Christ is calling you home.
No matter your background, no matter your past, your
decisions, your pain, you can have relationship with the God
of this universe. He is calling you.
That's why you're even paying attention right now.
You didn't choose this. God has been wooing you to come
home. The one who created you, who
knit you together in your mother's womb, who knows the
number of hairs on your head. He's calling you to come home.
And I'll just tell you personally, from experience,
Jesus is worth it. He is so worth it.
Jesus who did not consider himself when he went to the
cross to die for us. He is good, He is wise, He is
powerful, He is God, He is King, and He is the only one that can
actually sit on the throne of my heart and create life and
future. So maybe that's you today.
You've never let God be the Lord of your life.
No one else can decide that for you.
No one else can give control of your heart over to God.
Only you can do that. No one else can declare Christ's
king for you. Only you can do that.
Will you do that today? Will you come home?
If you want to surrender your life to Christ today, I want to
give you an opportunity to do that before we finish our
service. Will you bow with me for just a
brief moment as we pray? If you're willing to ask God for
forgiveness and salvation with every eye closed, every head
bowed, I just want you to quietly or or silently repeat
this prayer after me. If you're a Christian who feels
like you've been running from God, I want you to use this as
an opportunity to confess and repent.
Turn toward God. All right.
You want to give your life to Christ.
Repeat after me. Jesus, I know I'm a Sinner and I
can't save myself. I want you to save me.
I surrender everything to you. Be my Lord.
Please, Jesus, you said that prayer for the very first time.
You've given your life to Christ.
Would you be brave and raise your hand for me to see?
Awesome. Thank you.
Put chance now in Jesus name,
Amen. Real quick, Real quick.
If you just ask God to save you, welcome to the family.
The Bible says that when a single person turns to God,
gives a life to the Lord that all of heaven celebrates and
they are partying right now. In just a minute, when you
stand, we're going to sing a song.
In just a minute, we're going to close just a second In the back
there are tables. It says I raised my hand if, if,
if today or recently you've given your life to Christ and
you haven't told anybody. I want you to make your way back
there as we respond to this service and tell somebody we
we'd love to celebrate with you. We have a gift for you.
We're excited. I'm going to talk about what
this journey looks like, but maybe, maybe today what you
needed was confession and you don't know where you're going to
turn for that. Well, our prayer team is about
to be up here. We love praying with you,
praying for you. Amen.
If you just want to come and get prayed for, prayed over.
If you need somebody to confess with, we'd love to do that with
you too. You move as the Lord leads you.
We love you. Merry Christmas.