Good morning. My name is Danielle.
I'm going to lead pastors here at Resurrection Church.
Welcome. If it's your first time joining
us, welcome. We're excited you chose today to
come and join us. We're in John 9 today.
Have you, have you ever had kind of an epiphany, like like just a
moment where all of a sudden you, you saw something with
maybe some incredible clarity, like like maybe things that you
thought about before, but just for some reason in that moment,
you, you kind of came to this shocking realization, almost
like like you came to this point of like, man, how come I've
never seen this this way before? Like, I don't know if you know
what I'm talking about. Like I, I've had a lot of those
moments in my life where all of a sudden I kind of saw something
went. How come I've never seen it this
this way before? About like a year ago.
And I, and I, I've forgotten to share this already a couple
times, but about a year ago, I came to this, this moment in my
life, like a moment of cold clarity where I realized that I
was an alcoholic. And, and I came to that
realization because I just, I, I realized that the definition of
alcoholism is one of the, the signs is that you don't have the
control over it that you think you have.
And I came to the realization of like, I don't think I control
this as much as it controls me at the end.
That moment. I, it's almost like I could see
the cost of holding on to that. I could see what it would cost
in ministry. I could see what it would cost
in my family. I could see what it would cost
in my personal health. Like I could actually, like, I
begin to realize that the freedom that I had in Christ to
enjoy drinks was actually hurting me.
Like all things are permissible, but not all things are
beneficial. Amen.
And so I could I begin to actually look at this and went,
you know, if I become casual about this struggle and I
dismiss it, there are going to be implications for this.
And so here's what I've learned in moments like that in my life.
And, and I think every one of us that is in Christ has moments
like this. And I don't want you to miss
this in moments like that. It's not me becoming smart.
It's not me suddenly having wisdom in moments like that.
That is the Holy Spirit breaking through distractions in my life
to grab hold of my attention. And my only job in that moment
is to respond in obedience. That's my job.
And so here's what I would tell you, Christians in the room.
If you're a Christian, we say that we want to hear from God,
but why would he talk to us when we make a consistent habit of
ignoring the things he says? Come on, I'm just, I'm just
asking like, I really want to hear from God.
He's speaking to you all the time and you made a practice of
ignoring it. I mean, the hard things, not the
easy things. Those I do all the time.
The hard things, the, the, the ones that require me to change
or die to my preference or die to myself.
And, and, and because he speaks through his scripture and I'm
really good at ignoring that when it requires me to change,
why would he speak to me in some other way?
We say we want to hear from God, but then we hear from him and we
start playing this game. Maybe you don't, but I start
playing this game where I decide like, well, maybe, maybe I
should, I should reason with myself whether or not like, I
should obey God, you know, like, well, I don't know if that's a
good idea. I don't know if God has thought
that all the way through. I know you don't.
Maybe you could relate to me. Maybe you know somebody like
this. Not you, but somebody else.
Look where I decide. You know, I'm probably smart
enough and wise enough to weigh whether or not the God of the
universe is right. Seems reasonable and I've got a
lot of excuses personally about why I don't think that that's
such a good idea, Lord. And so here's our big idea in
this sermon. If you leave with nothing else
today to leave with one idea, I want you to remember this one
idea and it's this My role is to respond when God rings.
My job. My role is to respond when God
rings. You're going to see that all
throughout our our scripture today.
We're going to be in John 9. And in fact, we're going to see
multiple examples in John 9 of both sides of this reaction.
So, so the positive side when, when God is supernaturally
communicating, prompting someone and they respond.
And then we're going to see the opposite where God is trying to
get someone's attention and they reject him.
And they're both in our story in John 9 today.
So we're continuing to steam. We we were in John 8 before
this. There's a whole theme about
light and dark in John 8. And we had this example in the
temple of these torches. And so actually we have some of
the same concepts and illustrations, except instead of
a torch, which was a couple weeks ago, we're actually going
to have a blind man as our this is a live illustration in John
nine of a blind man. Join with me to read God's word.
John Chapter 9 verse one says this talking about Jesus.
As he Jesus passed by he saw a blind a man blind from birth.
And his disciples asked him Rabbi which means teacher who
sinned this man or his parents, that he was born blind.
And Jesus answered it was not that this man sinned or his
parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.
We must work the works of him who sent me.
While it is day, night is coming when no one can work.
As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
So continuing from John 8, Jesus is walking somewhere in
Jerusalem and he stops. And more than likely he's kind
of considering staring at this blind man who's just standing
there. And his disciples see this.
And so the conversation starts with their commentary where they
say, who's sinned? Now, the reason they ask this is
that the Jews in the 1st century and, and from before that time,
they believed that disabilities were a result of sin, either the
sin of the person or generational sin.
And so they treated all disabled as such.
Very compassionate society. This man wasn't just blind in
that culture. He was an outcast.
He was invisible. He was kind of written off and
forgotten. And, and, and I mean, we're
being really honest, but we, we do a lot of this today, this
sort of like assignment of blame.
We see someone struggling with an addiction, with mental
health, with a difficult marriage, with financial
trouble. And our first thought is not,
how can I help? It's more of like, I wonder what
they did, but I do want you to see this because I do think it's
easy to miss this part. And that's this.
The man is not calling out to Jesus.
The the blind man is not searching for help.
He didn't, he didn't prompt the conversation at all.
He doesn't ask to be healed, doesn't do anything at all.
He's literally standing there. He's probably in need of money
or food. And then Jesus says this to his
disciples. He says, but it's not that the
man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be
displayed in him. And I read that.
I don't know if you read that the same way, but I read that I
went, wait, hold on. You're telling me that this man
was born blind, has lived decades in blindness as a social
outcast, as a pariah in this community, in loneliness, maybe
in poverty, certainly in shame, and all of that was allowed in
his life so that God in this one moment in John 9 could do a
miracle and everyone would see it?
Doesn't that make you a little uncomfortable?
Like, like, Dang, man, that's a little cruel, isn't it?
Like a little cold? Like, wait, the implication of
that is, are you telling me that, that, that medical
diagnosis that I got that, that, that cancer, that someone just
found out about the death of a loved one, the, the failed
relationship that, that pain that you went through, the
suffering that was allowed to happen in your life was for, for
what? On a whim?
Like I, I've had some, some really difficult moments in my
life, some loss. I've had two like really
significant surgeries, one on my torn Achilles, one on a torn
pectoral. Whereas like long gruelling
recoveries, like just stuck in a cast for 6-8 months and you get
into some really dark places where you start asking some
questions about like, why in the world did this happen to me?
And like there's a moment in this suffering, if you look at
it, where you you begin to go, maybe God is cruel.
But what if, what if it's not cruel?
If, OK, if you're here, you're visiting, maybe maybe
Christianity is something new to you or foreign to you and you're
just kind of checking it out. The story of the Bible is that
life wasn't always this way. Humanity was not always in the
midst of suffering. That actually the way God
designed it originally in the garden, humans weren't
suffering. There was no death and pain for
humanity. But we rebelled against God and
now we live in a world that is cursed by sin and death.
We were not designed for this so so so God did not bring this
evil or this suffering in. We did What?
What if though, as I try to understand suffering and and
pain in my own life, what if? What if God allowed those
moments in my life not to punish me, Not because I sinned, just
like in this story? What what if I was allowed to go
through those things so that I would be prepared to connect
with others when they're hurting?
What if God allowed me to go through those things so that God
could prove his goodness in the midst of my suffering?
Here's one of the maybe the hardest things that that we
learn about about who God is and who we are here.
Here's the thing. The moment, the moment I stopped
making my life about me, I start to see God everywhere.
Let me make it simpler. It's not about me.
Say it with me. It's not about me.
Now, Church, that's either the most terrifying truth you're
going to hear today or the most liberating, because if it's not
about me, then I don't have to carry around the way to the
world. And I can stop assuming that
every difficult circumstance, every pain, every suffering is
pointless unless you know, I agree with it or I can
understand it. In the moment that that starts
to sink in, you are on the path to learning humility.
Now God is about to, in this story, take this, this blindness
that this man has been born into and lived through, and he's
going to turn it into something more powerful and more beautiful
than you would actually imagine. Look at verse 6.
It says this. Having said these things, Jesus
spit on the ground, yes, that's weird and made mud with the
saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes
with the mud and said to him, go wash in the pool of Siloam,
which means scent. So he went and washed and came
back seeing. OK, just catch a couple things
here. Again, the blind man is standing
there and has not asked for help.
And I just want you to put your yourself in the in the, in the
shoes of this guy, right? He's standing there, Jesus spits
on the ground, makes some mud and sticks it in the guy's eyes.
We can all admit that's weird, right?
Please don't do that to me. Guy didn't ask for help.
Guy didn't ask for healing. Guy is not seeking Jesus.
And then second thing, Jesus doesn't say, OK, you're healed.
Then he's like, oh, you got mud in your eye, better go wash it
off. And tells him to go all the way
across town. It's about 1/2 mile.
He's blind and they don't have Uber.
Better go wash it off across town.
That's what he's telling him in the Bible.
If you, if you study like all the miracles that Jesus does,
all the times he heals someone, there's a bunch of times where
he literally looks at someone and goes you're healed and
they're healed or he touches someone and they're healed.
But he doesn't do that here. I mean, he doesn't need to make
mud with his spit. He doesn't even need to touch
the man. He doesn't need to send the man
to a pool. Like none of those things are
necessary. He heals people all the time
with all those things. Why did he do all of that weird
stuff? OK, I want you to see a couple
things, OK? One, I do want you to realize
like, and I think it's really important implication to
understand that, that that the man is not not only not
searching for Jesus, he doesn't realize that Jesus is the
answer. And listen, there's a lot of
stories in the Bible where where the person comes to Jesus to be
healed. We see that over and over again.
But what I want you to see here is Jesus seeks this man out to
heal him. There are some of you sitting in
the room today or, or watching this online and Jesus is seeking
you out right now to save you. And you don't know that he's the
answer and you're not seeking him and you don't care about
him. And, and maybe you actually like
think that all this faith stuff is ignorant or stupid.
And I'm telling you that even in your blindness, Jesus is seeking
to save you. And the second thing I want you
to understand is that Jesus always takes the initiative to
save us. Some of us think that in this
moment where we realize that the God is speaking to us, there was
something that we did. But I need you to understand
that God was always at power and at work before you ever realized
anything. My role is to respond when God
rings. Now, the whole mud thing is it's
a little gross. I mean, you just imagine you're
standing there blind, destitute, probably hungry, and this guy
walks up and they're kind of the disciples are kind of like, oh,
look at this Sinner guy who sinned, right?
And Jesus is like, cool, I'll take care of it.
And then smashes his spit mud in your eyes.
Really, bro? And then he's like, now go
across town and wash it out. But but here, here's what I do
want you to see. And you're going to see in the
text here both those things, the making of mud pies and the
washing were considered work by Judaic law, and it was the
Sabbath. So Jesus not only breaks Judaic
law, he makes the man break Judaic law so that he can set up
the next interaction. That's how we know how
intentional this was and you'll see it in just a minute.
The third thing, I want you to see this.
Jesus could have healed him. Even at the point he put mud on
his eyes, He could have healed him.
He could have taken the mud off. He could have seen.
He didn't. He required the man to respond
in faith until that man walked all the way across town, 600
meters through Jerusalem, blind and washed off that mud.
He was still blind. And I want you to catch that
because often times, often times man, God is doing something
powerful in your life, but he requires you to respond in
obedience before you're going to really see it fully.
In fact, often times you're not even going to you recognize that
God is at work in your life in power until you do that.
You're not going to receive the, the blessing or even understand
the move of God in your life until you respond in obedience.
Often there's an act of obedience that is necessary to
fully realize God's Providence. You couldn't start it.
You didn't want it. You didn't know what was going
on. Jesus was doing it.
God was at work. But you are required to take a
step forward in obedience in order to realize the power of
God working in your life with a blessing of God in your life.
And it's listen, as long as you stand there with mud on your
eyes doing nothing, debating over whether or not obedience to
God is worth it, you won't receive it.
You won't experience it. And I want to encourage you.
Some of us, some of us in here, are going through a really,
really tough season in our life right now.
Amen. And yet God is at work trying to
convict you or encourage you or move you or prompt you or
motivate you. And man, some of us are standing
right now with our hands in our pocket and mud on our eyes,
wondering whether or not God's going to move.
In my life right now, God is at work and has been at work for
some time, convicting me and moving me towards some some
tough decisions in ministry, some some discernment stuff
about where He's leading our church and where He's leading
me, and some stuff that I frankly been trying to ignore
for a while. But I see His hand even in the
really hard stuff, and I'm trying to be obedient so that I
can see where He's leading me. And what you and I have to do in
these moments is we have to take the hard step of obedience.
It was not easy for that blind man to stumble his way all the
way through Jerusalem to get to that pool, but he did it anyway.
And for some of you, there are some hard steps ahead in
obedience to Christ. But if you want to receive what
God has for you, if you, if you want to see what he's doing in
her life, if you want to put your arms around a move of God
in your life, you're going to need to respond.
The result of this story in John 9 is supernatural science has no
recorded cases of someone being born blind and receiving their
sight 20-30 years later. And, and the result of this, if
you read the story, is noticed by the whole community.
And so people start to celebrate this until a couple days later,
the Pharisees who are like the religious rulers of the day,
they hear about this and they get all up in arms in verse 14,
because now it was a Sabbath day that Jesus made the mud and open
the eyes. Uh oh, you done messed up.
A a Ron, you did a miracle on the Sabbath.
How dare you? I can just see the head bobbing
right now, right? A miracle of supernatural
healing, and the Pharisees hear about it, and they're ticked off
that a rule got broken on the Sabbath.
Think about this, God does this miracle to get the attention of
the people, not only to to see that he's at work, but to see
that Jesus is offering salvation and they're stuck on religious
rules, missing God at work. God wants them to see Jesus and
all they can see is it couldn't be God because like these men
broke a rule, therefore they couldn't have earned this
miracle. That's what they're thinking,
but they couldn't have earned this miracle.
Listen like it's easy to look at them and look down our nose and
go so dumb. But but but you and I do that.
We look at a Co worker, a relative, a neighbor, another
church that gets blessed where God's doing something miraculous
and instead of giving glory to God and letting it build up our
faith, we start to question we're like that person.
No, but they do they do they really deserve that?
Can it, can it be real for if it's them, if it's so and so
like the, the act, the very miracle that was intended to
help them see Jesus has led to them just judging others in self
righteousness. And, and So what happens in our
text is that the, the, the, the Pharisees, they interview him
and they don't like the answers. So they call his parents and
they don't like their answers. So they call him back for like a
second interrogation and they're just, they're pressing on him.
And here's the crazy thing in the story.
He was blind when he left to go to the pool.
So he's never even seen Jesus. He's never seen Jesus, but
they're asking him all these questions about Jesus and he
keeps going. He's like, you knew I was blind,
right? Like they're pressing him.
And so he's just kind of making up answers.
Like sometimes we do that too. People ask us hard theological
questions. We're like.
And so he's like, what? I think he's a prophet.
And then in verse 25, he's kind of confused and they're still
asking him all these tough questions and he answers this.
This is one of the best answers in all of scripture.
In verse 25, they're they're on him and he goes, whether he's a
Sinner, I do not know. One thing I know though, I was
blind and now I see. One thing I do know, I was blind
and now I see you realize I was the inspiration for probably the
most well known hymn in the history of the world, right from
John 9. Amazing Grace.
How sweet the sound that saved a Wretch like me.
I once was lost but now I'm found.
Was blind. But now I see that's my story,
that's what happened to me. You don't have to know anything
more to have a testimony worth sharing.
Listen, studying and preparing to share your faith is
wonderful. You should do that.
But you should never miss an opportunity to tell people how
Jesus changed you. This guy isn't qualified.
He was an outcast of society, but when God moved, he responded
in faith. And now not only does he have
his sight restored, God is beginning to save his soul.
In verses 30 through 33, he defends Jesus passionately, and
he's still never seen Jesus with his own eyes.
And he finishes his defense with this line.
If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.
Oh, boy's preaching so, so, so, so God has now filled this man.
He's, he's given him the words in the moment.
He's standing in front of the most powerful religious rulers
of their time who hold in balance, casting him out of the
the temple, meaning they decide whether he gets excluded from
all of this community or not. And he's standing there in that
moment in front of all of them, emboldened because the Holy
Spirit has given him these words and he is pressing back against
persecution of Christ. Christian, listen to me.
You have the spirit of the living God inside of you.
You are a minister of the gospel.
You are a royal priesthood, A chosen nation.
You are an evangelist. You are a walking testimony of
the goodness and power of God. And he only left you here on
earth and didn't immediately take you to heaven when you were
saved so that you could spread the good news to a dark and
fallen world. Somebody say Amen, you are
called and, and, and think about who he picked in this story.
He picks up a man who's been born in the blindness and lived
as a social outcast his whole life, and then prepares him
through that suffering not only to receive the gospel, but to
become the story of the power of God.
Because God equips those he calls.
If you know God, it's because he saved you, not that you and I
did anything. And the fact of the Bible is
that he often chooses those who have nothing to brag about.
Amen. In first Corinthians one, the
Bible says it this way. God chose what is weak in the
world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and
despised in the world. Dirtbag like me, if for one
second you feel unworthy of the love that Jesus has given you,
of the calling that He has put on your life, just remember
this. He chose you before the
foundations of the world, and He loves choosing the worst of us
to display His power and His glory to the world through us.
So don't you hang your head, don't you shy away from the
call, or run from the mission, or miss the position that He has
put you in. You step into obedience to tell
them about your Jesus. And you don't have to know
anything more than that. We sing this song all the time.
Sing this with me. He makes a way where there ain't
no way. Rises up from an empty grave.
Ain't no Sinner that he can't save.
Let me tell you about my Jesus. His love is strong and His grace
is free. And the good news is, I know
that He can do for you what he's done for me.
Let me tell you about my Jesus and let my Jesus change your
life. That's all you got to know.
That's all you have to know. If you will pay attention to the
Holy Spirit in your life, you're going to find opportunity after
opportunity to share Christ with others.
Don't miss these opportunities. God is at work and He will
prompt you when when you recognize God is at work, that
is an invitation to join him in his work.
My role is to respond when God rings.
Verse 35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out.
Now that doesn't mean that they were just they cast him out
meaning like, oh, we're done with you.
That means he got cast out of community for standing up for
Christ and having found him. He said, do you believe in the
Son of man? That is the the title Jesus used
for himself a bunch in the in the New Testament.
And the blind man answered, and who is he, Sir, that I'm able he
still hasn't seen Jesus that I might believe in him.
And Jesus said to him, you have seen him and it is he who is
speaking to you. And he said, Lord, I believe,
and he worshipped him. Don't, don't miss the, the, the
progression of faith. It's the first time the man has
even seen Jesus with his own eyes.
He, he was not seeking Jesus when this story started.
And then he's like, well, maybe he's a prophet.
And then part way through the story, he goes, I don't know if
he's a Sinner or if he isn't a Sinner.
And then he gets the conviction continues to build and he's
like, listen, he must be from God.
And we end the story with I believe and he is worshipping
Jesus. And that all happened not
because he did anything to start it, but because he responded to
Christ and he could have missed it.
Like I'll just think about what he could have missed in that
moment with mud on his face, all the excuses he could have come
up with. Like, I don't know who this dude
is. In fact, if this guy is from
God, that's the God that allowed me to be born in the blindness.
So he could have sat there in bitterness.
He could have thought about, man, do you know how hard it's
going to get to go all the way across down to that pool?
Why would I do that? There will always be excuses and
reasons not to respond to the call of Christ in your life.
And oftentimes, oftentimes the greatest of those is our own
self-sufficiency, like our own desire to trust in our own
wisdom, our own intellect, and it causes us to miss Jesus.
In fact, we actually have a need to be low.
Oftentimes, especially as you read these stories in the Bible.
It is only those that are low that are even able to see Jesus
at work in their lives. Charles Spurgeon said it this
way. It is not our littleness that
hinders Christ, but our bigness. It is not our weakness that
hinders Christ, it is our strength.
It is not our darkness that hinders Christ, it is our
supposed light that holds back His hand.
We think too much of ourselves and we miss Christ in the
process. His story finishes up last three
verses, 39 through 41. And essentially here's what
Jesus is going to say. He's going to tell people that
he came into this world so that those who did not see would be
able to see. And the Pharisees are going to
hear this and they're going to go, wait a minute, are you
saying we're blind? And then Jesus in verse 41 is
going to respond to them. And I'm going to paraphrase it,
but he says this. He says essentially how you
respond when Jesus shows up will become your judgement.
That's what verse 41 really means.
And the Bible will reinforce this concept over and over again
that that that it is going to be some point in your life where
you're going to be confronted with the truth of Christ.
And in that moment, your response will become your
judgement. Let me take it even further than
just that. I would tell you this.
If you're a Christian, that actually is going to happen over
and over and over again. If you've given your life to
Christ, you're going to be confronted with Jesus calling
you into acts of obedience. And in those moments where you
have to decide whether or not to obey or to argue, whether or not
to obey or to have an excuse, whether or not to obey or to
delay, there's going to be a moment when we stand before
Christ. And we're going to answer for
all of those interactions too. Because it's a daily thing,
Christian. Sometimes it's an hourly thing.
It's not one time in your life you responded to Jesus.
Do you want to hear from God? Do you want to, do you want to
see him move miraculously in your life?
You want to experience love and satisfaction and contentment in
your life? Do you want to be healed of an
addiction or an overwhelming temptation?
Do you want to experience real joy in your life?
Then I would ask you this, what is God calling you to do right
now? And go do it with no delay.
We get caught up in the middle of it all the time.
God's prompting us, calling us, convicting us, encouraging us,
and we're like, let me pray about it.
That is the Christian version of I don't want to think about that
right now. Let me give 5, just 5 little
practical things in that moment. I just want you to consider
these things. These are like life application.
OK? Here's #1 when we have known sin
in our life that we won't deal with, we stop growing.
See, some of us right now in the room or online know exactly what
we're supposed to be doing. And we've been wrestling with it
for I don't even know how long. And let me just tell you this,
Repent, confess it to somebody and get accountability in your
life. You've been hiding for way too
long and you've been wondering why God's silent.
He's not. You're just good at ignoring
him. Get accountability.
Get into a group, find a person, tell your spouse.
Come up front during prayer time.
Make it happen #2 the longer we refuse to repent, the harder it
gets to hear the Holy Spirit. God's not silent.
We have dull ears. Listen, it's super hard to hear
from God when you're doing this. When God is calling you to
something and you can make a habit out of refusing.
I'm not sure how you think you're going to hear or be
sensitive to the Holy Spirit. You're practicing being
insensitive to the Holy Spirit. I've gotten really good at being
insensitive to the Holy Spirit and then being mad at God for
not talking #3 If you know what to do and refuse to do it, the
Bible calls that sin. Let me say that again.
If you know what to do and refuse to do it, the Bible calls
that sin. Man, some of y'all in here, you
know you have a call in your life like God has been working
in your life and moving in your life and he's been calling you
into something, into a ministry to serve, to give, to change
something to take hold of something to.
I mean, you know that and you've been wrestling over it.
And I'm just telling you stop running.
Find someone else to tell about it.
Make a plan on how to actually do it.
Listen, the whole point of gathering together to encourage
one another is to stir one another up.
So stop internalizing that and talk to somebody about it and
go, I need help to do the thing that's calling me to do.
We love doing that. You'll find that the people in
the church love helping you do the thing that God's calling you
to do #4 when God calls you to do something, stop making
excuses. It's for your benefit.
The greatest enemy to American Christianity is comfort.
Y'all we way too comfortable. You can have courage or you can
have comfort, but you can't have both.
You got to choose. And I'm just going to tell you
this, y'all jump in the water is fine #5 If you have no idea if
God is calling you, create time and space for him to speak and
then ask him. We live in the noisiest time in
human history. We have the shortest attention
spans in human history. Turn off your TV, turn off your
phone, open your Bible and ask him.
It's a revolutionary concept. This song that came out a couple
weeks ago from Josiah Queen. I, I love the chorus.
It goes like this. We got dust on our bibles, brand
new iPhones. No wonder why we feel this way.
We walk with our eyes closed blind leading blind folks and
I'm done with those idols and dusty bibles.
There are two groups of people sitting in this room or or or
watching today. The 1st is a group.
First group of of you is those who do not know Christ as your
Lord and personal Savior. You don't actually know him.
You know of him, you know about him, your grandma knows him, but
you don't know him. You've never made a decision to
respond to the call of God in your life.
And I just want you to consider what the Bible is saying here in
John nine, that that your judgement is actually based on
how you respond. The Bible says at some point in
your life you're going to hear the call from the God, you're
going to, you're going to be confronted with the gospel.
Guess what? Today is that day.
How will you respond? The Bible says that we are all
born in sin apart from relationship with God, and that
nothing we can do on our own will repair that relationship.
So God sent his only Son to live a perfect life that we could
never live, to die the death that we deserved, to die, and to
rise again three days later in victory.
And it through him we could have a restored relationship to the
Father. But you ought to lay down your
life to call him Lord of it. And for some of you, you've
known Jesus, but man, you have been wrestling with an act of
obedience in your life and you've not wanted to give that
over to the Lord. It is the same surrender now
that started this whole salvation process.
You have to lay your life down. Yes, even that thing you're
holding on to. So I want to give both of the
groups in this room an opportunity to respond to this
today. If you don't know Jesus, this is
your opportunity. The Bible says that you must
place your faith in him. In Romans 10/9 to 10.
It says this because if you confess with your mouth that
Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised
him from the dead, you will be saved.
Because with the heart 1 believes and is justified, and
with the mouth 1 confesses and is saved.
So I want to give you the opportunity to respond.
Would you please all bow your heads and close your eyes for
just a moment? We're wrapping up, but if you're
willing to ask Him for forgiveness and salvation with
every eye closed, with every head bowed, just quietly or or
silently repeat this prayer after me.
Jesus, I know I'm a Sinner and I can't save myself.
I want you to save me, so I surrender everything to you and
I receive your promise of forgiveness, of adoption, and of
eternal life. Be my Lord, Please Jesus, if you
prayed that prayer for the very first time right now, would you
be brave and raise your hand for me to see?
Thank you. You put your hands down in Jesus
name, Amen real quick. Whether you raised your hand or
not, if you just responded to the call of God in your life for
the very first time, welcome to the family.
In just a moment as we respond to this message, there are
tables in the back and say I raised my hand.
You just gave your life to Jesus.
We want to, we want to meet you. I want you to go back there in a
minute. We have a gift for you.
We want to talk to you and pray with you.
For those of you that already know the Lord and you've been
wrestling with that thing that God is calling you into, I want
to encourage you that you will never regret responding to
Christ. Imagine that blind man missing
out not only on sight, but on being saved because he failed to
respond. For many of us, there's healing,
there's contentment, there's satisfaction, there's
transformation. Waiting for us today to respond
to Christ's conviction and prompting in our lives.
So don't put it off. Our job is to respond when God
rings. A per team is going to be up
here. We would love to pray with you
about anything. We love praying for you.
It's not weird to get prayed for.
It's weird to go to church and not get prayed for.
Just saying, will you stand? We're going to sing you move as
the Lord leads you. We love you.