Be Careful How You Worship • May 24, 2026 • Andrew Spradlin • Ecclesiastes 5-1-7

Welcome to the Valley Baptist Church sermon podcast.

We're so glad you're here, and we hope this message inspires you,

builds your faith, and moves you toward a deep relationship with God.

Today, you'll find great insight into the Bible

and learn how you can apply it straight to your life.

So welcome and enjoy the message.

If you have a Bible, please open it with me to Ecclesiastes chapter 5.

Ecclesiastes 5 · chapter mention

Throughout Ecclesiastes, Solomon has been describing the emptiness of life without God.

He calls it life under the sun.

But occasionally, Solomon takes us above the sun.

where he acknowledges God.

And our pastor today does just that.

As Solomon describes for us how we should approach God in worship.

And essentially he says, be careful how you worship.

Now, when most of us think about how we worship, we think about music style,

and we think about singing, and how we express ourselves in worship.

And the Bible has a lot to say about that.

We know that we are to express our inward worship outwardly.

And the most dominant expression of worship in the Bible is singing.

We're commanded to sing.

But singing's not the only expression we find in Scripture.

We're also told from time to time to play instruments, to clap our hands, to shout, to raise our hands,

to kneel on occasion, to fall prostrate before the Lord.

And even we have descriptions of people dancing before the Lord.

I don't have much rhythm.

So for me, swaying is about as much, as far as I can go without embarrassing myself.

All right?

But we have these expressions of worship.

All these different kinds.

Now, some of you express yourselves in worship.

And I'm thankful for you, but some of you simply don't.

And for those of you who don't, you need to know that God actually has this desire for your soul to tell your face and your body that it's time to celebrate what God has done, right?

How many of you would go to a football game for your favorite team and everyone's cheering and celebrating and you just be there just...

standing, no movement, nothing coming out of your mouth.

None of us would do that, right?

No, I wouldn't.

Scripture is clear.

As Christians, we ought to express our worship in a way that's appropriate.

But this morning's message is not about that, right?

It's not about how we should be careful in outwardly expressing our worship to God.

It's about how we should be careful to worship in a way that's actually worshiped.

that we worship God in an appropriate manner.

Now, in our culture, we've made worship all about us, right?

When worship is supposed to be all about God,

most people, when they worship, they think about their personal preferences.

Well, my likes and my preferences, the things that make me happy,

the style that I like, that's a very me focus.

And worship's the opposite of a me focus.

It's supposed to be a God focus.

And so whenever you make a me focus, that's become the idolatry of self-worship.

It's a problem.

I ran across this quote from a book called Cat and Dog Theology.

Get ready.

It says, a dog says, you pet me, feed me, shelter me, and love me.

You must be God.

But a cat says, you pet me, feed me, shelter me, and love me.

I must be God.

Well, some of us are like the cat, right?

We're tempted to turn all of God's blessings upon us

into worship of ourselves,

for it will be all about me and my preferences

instead about Him and honoring Him.

Now Solomon says in verse number one, he says,

"'Walk prudently when you go to the house of God.'"

Here's the first thing we see,

worship involves worshiping with our church family.

Together, with the house of God.

Now, we know that worship is much more than coming to church.

We're supposed to worship God all day, every day.

Jesus told the woman who was at the well, the Samaritan woman, he said, it's not about the place of worship.

He said, there's coming a day, and it now is, when true worshipers will worship in spirit and in truth.

The greatest command in the Bible is that you and I would love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

So loving God is at the core of worship.

And yet Jesus said as well, he said, if you love me, then what?

You'll obey me.

You will keep my commitment.

So we know that worship is connected to love.

It's connected to worship or connected to obedience.

It's this lifestyle of praise.

But that does not negate the fact that worship is also a corporate thing.

It's not just private. It's not just an individual thing.

It's a congregational thing.

That has been God's design, His command from the very beginning.

Now notice in verse number 1 it says,

Walk prudently when you go to the house of God.

The assumption is you are going to the house of God.

Now, for the Israelites in the Old Testament, at first they went to the tabernacle.

That was the place of worship.

In Solomon's day, they went to the temple.

And then in Jesus' day, they went to the synagogue.

Now, in our day as Christians, we go to the church.

Now, you may be saying, but pastor, the church isn't a building.

You're right. That's good theology.

But the church is a gathering of people.

That's what the word ekklesia translated church means.

The called out ones. Literally the gathered ones.

And guess what?

When people gather together, they do so in a location.

Now, listen.

I praise God for our broadcast ministry where thousands of people are able to join us online and by television.

There are so many people that are physically unable to be with us here today.

And so we praise God that you have a way to connect with us, even if it's through just a screen.

But many of you have told me through the years, while we love that you have online ministry, it's just not the same as being in person.

You know what? It's not. It really isn't.

Jesus said it this way. He said,

"'Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst.'"

Now, as a Christian, I know Jesus is always with me, right?

I have the presence of Jesus with me, whether I'm alone in my closet, wherever I am, Jesus is with me.

So why does Jesus say here, "'When two or three are gathered, I'm there'"?

What he's doing, I think, is he's letting us know there is something unique about the presence of God when Christians are gathered together in his name.

Now, God is omnipresent.

That's a fancy way of saying God is present everywhere.

He's everywhere.

The psalmist said, where can I go and escape from your presence?

And the answer is nowhere.

But while God is everywhere at once, He also manifests His presence uniquely, in a special way, in certain places at certain times.

In the Old Testament, God manifested His presence in the temple, and even more so in the Holy of Holies within the temple.

And as Christians, each one of us has been called the temple of the Holy Spirit.

So we have the presence of God residing within us.

But when we meet together, we gather together in his name.

There's another level of experiencing God's manifested presence that we cannot experience when we're alone.

So Solomon says, he says, walk prudently when you go to the house of God.

Now, the word prudently means carefully.

Literally, it means watch your steps.

It's the picture of someone who's looking down at their feet as they walk, careful not to trip.

If you were to go to Israel, you're going to make your way into Jerusalem.

Unfortunately, you wouldn't be able to see the temple because it was destroyed in A.D. 70, but you would see the Temple Mount.

And archaeologists have uncovered the steps going up to the Temple Mount that you can actually walk on today.

Now, those steps are a little different than our steps.

If some of you came up the balcony stairs, all those steps are the same size, 10, 12 inches or so.

The Temple Mount steps are different sizes.

Some of them are several small steps and then a big step and then some small steps.

Now, why did they do that?

They designed it that way so a person would be forced to walk prudently to the house of God.

That a person couldn't just casually go to worship.

They're on autopilot just going to worship.

No, you had to walk carefully to meet God.

Now, the word walk in the Bible is a metaphor for how we live.

So Solomon is saying, as you approach God in worship, be careful how you approach him.

Now, here's another principle.

Worship involves preparing to encounter God.

Walking prudently to the house of God means you're preparing to get there.

Why does one Christian come to church and they always seem to encounter God, they leave transformed,

while another person sits through church and sort of yawns through the whole service, they leave untouched?

Well, there could be a number of factors at play, but I'm guessing the one came in expecting to encounter God and the other one didn't.

Another way of saying that is the one person prepared their heart to meet God and the other person didn't.

Now, this is important in our alone time with God.

Each and every day we have this alone time.

God says, be still and know that I'm a God.

So we have this alone time.

If you start that time by just opening the Bible and start reading, you're going to get something out of that.

But not as much as if first you quiet your mind.

and your spirit.

You ask God to soften your heart,

and you ask God to really speak to you through His Word.

The person who does that is going to hear God speak to them personally

through His Word.

And the difference is that person is carefully approaching God,

and the other one is approaching God a little bit apathetically.

Now, it's the same way, I believe, when we come to church.

Let me ask you,

Do you have a Sunday morning routine that prepares your heart for worship?

Or are you rushing around like you do every other morning, multitasking,

trying to squeeze as much as you possibly can into your morning?

And then because you're scrambling around

with so much on your mind, maybe you end up late.

And if you end up late here,

you're gonna park off a long ways, right?

And what happens if you're late

and you have to park way out there?

Well, you're stressed out because you're already late.

Now you gotta drop off the kids

and you come in late to the service.

You're still trying to catch your breath.

By the time I start preaching

and it takes you 10 minutes to start hearing from God,

if you ever do, it's a problem.

You've not properly prepared to encounter God today.

You've not expected it properly.

So here's my advice.

My advice is get up early.

I know I'm talking to an 11 o'clock crowd, so maybe you're sleeping a little bit, but make it to life.

Get up early.

That would be my advice.

I would not pick up your phone.

Leave your phone down.

I know that's like cardinal sin for some of you.

Don't turn on the TV.

Kids, don't start playing a video game.

Prepare your heart to meet God.

Little guy wants to know why.

Prepare your heart to know God.

I love that.

Right?

So you're ready, you're expecting it.

Maybe you arrive early enough

from your out of your own good heart and will,

you do park outside a long ways off,

leaving some good spots for guests.

You can do that if you want.

And then you walk prudently to the house of God.

You walk carefully asking God to meet you,

asking God to speak to you today,

preparing your heart for worship.

Now, here's another principle.

Worship involves having a healthy fear of God.

I don't think we talk about that enough these days.

I think we see that in this word prudently, but it also comes from the totality of our passage today that you're going to see as we walk through these seven verses together.

Solomon is saying in this passage, be careful how you approach God and be careful how you speak to God.

And he ends verse 7 by saying, fear God.

Very, very important that we have a healthy respect for God, a healthy fear of God.

Now, I say healthy, not a terrifying fear.

We're shaking our boots.

We're terrified and afraid that God's going to zap us anytime we do something wrong.

That's a misunderstanding of the relationship that God offers us through Jesus.

Now, if you're not a Christian, you have every reason to have a terrifying fear of God.

Because your life hangs on by a thread.

And without Jesus, you're headed towards a Christless eternity.

You're headed towards God's judgment.

That should be a terrifying thing.

But that's not the relationship that Christians are offered through Jesus Christ.

For us, God is our Father, and He loves us like a son or a daughter.

Hebrews chapter 4, verse number 16 says,

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

"...let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

As Christians, we can approach God boldly.

Why?

Well, not based on our own goodness or our own righteousness,

but based on the righteousness of Jesus.

But why?

Well, we come boldly, and we should.

Because we come by grace, we dare not come irreverently, right?

Flippantly, casually, you know, apathetically.

As we come to worship, we must always remember who we're approaching.

We're approaching Almighty God, the maker of the heavens and the earth,

the one who flung the stars in space, carved out the oceans,

shoved up the mountains, his majesty and power, demand fear and respect.

Now, here is why that's so important.

It is not until you properly learn to fear God that you will properly understand and experience His love.

Did you know that?

You can't really understand love and grace until you recognize God is holy and just.

Now you're able to experience it at a whole other level.

Verse number 1 again says,

"...walk prudently when you go to the house of God and draw near to hear."

rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know what that they do is evil.

Here's what we learn. Worship involves not just talking to God, it involves hearing from God,

right? Solomon says, walk prudently when you come to the house of God. Why? Because God's

about to speak to you. He's about to speak to you. So draw near, he says, to hear.

Now, when we think of worship, oftentimes we think about giving to God.

And it's true.

We give to God our praise when we worship.

We give ourselves.

But worship does not start with giving to God.

It starts with receiving from God.

See, worship is a responsive act.

He initiates.

We love Him because He first loved us.

When we hear from God, when we encounter Him for who He really is, that's when worship begins.

See, revelation, that's God's Word.

When He reveals Himself to us, revelation always precedes worship.

It always does.

That's why it's so very important to me

that the songs that we sing are rich in lyrics,

that they present the truth of who God is

and what God has done for us.

Why?

Because that prompts my heart to worship, right?

And I know it prompts others to really, really worship.

Now, most of the time when we think

about our worship service and the worship,

we think about singing.

And certainly that is a big part of it.

But did you know that the preaching of God's word is also worship?

In worship, it's not just us communicating to God, it's Him communicating to us.

Now, when we sing songs, God's our audience, right?

I hope when you sing and you worship, you're not singing for the person next to you.

You are singing for the Lord.

It's an audience of one.

We are singing to worship Him.

But there's another sense in which we are the audience.

God is speaking to us.

He's moving in our minds, in our hearts.

And as he touches us, we return worship.

So Solomon says, he says, draw near to hear.

But then he says, rather than give a sacrifice of fools.

Why would some sacrifices, their offerings, gifts to God, why would some of them be the sacrifice of fools?

Well, it's because some people, in their effort of worship, are just going through the motions.

So here's our principle.

Worship involves being genuine.

God is not concerned with your tradition.

He's not concerned with ritual and religion.

God desires faith from us, love and obedience.

So if you come to church every week on autopilot, you're just checked out.

You're just going through the motions.

You're just checking the box that week that you came to worship.

That's not worship.

I don't care if you sing and raise your hands in worship.

You give the biggest offering our church has ever seen.

If your heart's not in it, it's a sacrifice of fools.

Proverbs 15, verse 8 says,

Proverbs 15:8

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.

You can't just give so many sacrifices to appease God.

No, you've got to receive God's sacrifice, His Son Jesus.

Derek Kidner, in his commentary on Ecclesiastes,

he said that much of our worship is like verbally doodling.

You ever been in a meeting or kids in class

and you're just kind of doodling?

You're not really paying careful attention

on what you're doing.

You're just kind of doodling

as you're trying to pay attention to something else.

Just like a doodler, sometimes we don't pay attention to what we're supposed to be doing,

that all of our attention goes to the Lord.

We're just kind of going through the motions, and God takes notice when we do that.

Now, here's another thing that we see.

Worship, it involves being slow to speak.

We need to hear from God and we need to be slow to speak.

Look at verse number two.

It says,

Do not be rash with your mouth and let not your heart utter anything hastily before God, quickly before God.

For God is in heaven and you on earth.

Therefore, let your words be few, for a dream comes through much activity.

I think what he's saying is when you dream a lot at night, normally it's a result of being really busy during the day.

And he says, and a fool's voice is known by his many words.

The Bible has a lot to say about a person who speaks before they think.

Ever been that person?

Unfortunately, I've been that person.

that it just comes out before we really think about what we're saying. It's not good.

Now, in chapter 3 and chapter 4, Solomon was wrestling with some of the injustices of life,

some of those who are oppressed, and perhaps that person is still on his mind,

this person who's been on the receiving end of some unfairness in life.

So I think maybe Solomon is warning that person, when you have all these emotions and you come into the house of God, be slow to speak.

Maybe he's also saying, watch your tone.

Your mom or dad ever tell you that?

You better watch your tone, right?

We need to watch our tone with God.

Now, a couple weeks ago, I talked about how it's important as believers that we come to God honestly,

that we're emotionally honest with God.

He wants to hear from us in our time of need.

I talked about how Hannah, she came to the Lord in prayer, in anguish, in weeping, in tears.

Now, I also spoke about how...

People of faith in Scripture ask God the question, why?

They're suffering and they want to know why.

And so it's okay to ask God why.

But here's what's not okay.

It's not okay to put God on the defense stand with accusations.

The tone, the heart, the posture of our heart, it matters.

When we ask God why, it should be out of a sense of faith and a desire of understanding.

It's not an accusation of wrongdoing.

It's not an accusation of wrongdoing.

Some people get angry with God and they give God this verbal lashing.

Listen, that's not okay.

That could be dangerous for you to do.

Don't treat God flippantly like that.

Anytime a person is angry like that and doing that, they're not encountering God.

Because when you encounter God, the result will not be anger.

It will be worship.

In Scripture, whenever people...

came into the direct presence of God,

the reaction was an overwhelming sense of awe and fear and silence.

Did you know that?

They would fall down before the Lord in worship,

speechless in His presence.

Solomon says in verse number two, he says, for God is in heaven and we are on earth.

That's a statement about the greatness and the majesty of God.

It's a reminder of who we are compared to who he is.

Here's what we learn. Worship involves awe and wonder, doesn't it?

Now, I want to balance this.

Because worship also involves intimacy with God, doesn't it?

We praise God for that.

Because of Jesus, we're now friends of God.

But be careful that you don't reduce God to merely friend status.

God is a lot of things.

And not one of those things should be the sole representation of who He is.

God is loving, yes.

God is also holy.

To see God is only as a friend, as a loose side of all of who He is and all of His glory.

God's not our homeboy. He's Almighty God.

Let's treat him with some respect.

And so as we worship, it's important that we hold on to all of these truths about God,

the eminence of God, right, that he's near to us.

He's here with us.

He's close.

He's with us right now.

He offers an intimate relationship with you and I.

But at the same time, he's also transcendent, isn't he?

He's otherworldly.

See, there's a sense in which we're like God because we've been made in His image.

God is personal.

We are personal.

He can think.

We can think.

He creates.

We create.

He has emotion.

We have emotion.

Those are attributes that we can all relate to.

Why?

Because He gave us those attributes when He created us in His image.

But God is more than all of that.

He's also omnipresent.

That means he's everywhere at once.

He's omniscient.

That means he knows everything.

He's omnipotent.

He has unlimited power.

Guys, I can't even scratch the middle of my back without saying, Kelsey, can you help me here?

Right?

Why?

I'm limited.

In so many ways, we are limited creatures,

fully dependent on God or for others.

God is unlimited.

He's infinite.

And that means that we worship him with a sense of awe

and wonder that we do our best,

based on God's word, to stretch our minds, right?

To fully comprehend and grasp the immeasurable love of God,

the power of God, the eternality of God,

that God is infinite.

We take our minds as far as we possibly can go,

and then we bow.

in worship, in awe, in wonder, in the depths of our heart as we express to Him this worship.

Jesus, I think, gave us a great model for how we are to worship when He told us how to pray. He

said, here's how you pray, our Father who art in heaven. That's it. That's worship.

Our Father, that's intimacy, right?

Our Father, who art in heaven, that's awe and wonder.

He says in verse number four.

He says,

Here's what we learned, the last thing.

Worship involves keeping our commitments to God.

When we make a commitment to the Lord,

God takes it very serious.

Sometimes in the middle of a crisis,

we start bargaining with God.

God, if you get me out of this,

I'll never miss church again.

If you get me out of this,

I'll serve you the rest of my days.

Do we keep it, that promise?

Sometimes it's not in a crisis.

Maybe it's a matter of conviction.

So we make these commitments to the Lord, like, you know, I'm going to start serving.

I'm going to start giving.

I'm even going to start tithing.

And then we break those commitments.

We're so quick to make these commitments in the moment,

and then when the moment passes, we forget about them.

Solomon says, you may forget about it, God doesn't.

You may not think that's really that big of a deal.

It's a very big deal to God.

Solomon says you may even make an excuse.

You may tell the messenger of God that's probably a priest in the temple.

You may say, hey, it was a mistake.

And maybe it was.

Maybe you should have kept your big mouth shut, but you opened it and made some vow to the Lord.

You made a commitment.

You make that commitment, God's going to hold you to it.

The psalmist says we swear to our own hurt.

That means we're bound by our word because we're Christ followers.

We should be people of our word.

Our word should be our bonds.

No.

With our building campaign that we had, we went to great lengths to let our church family know that the pledges that we were making that we were going to give were not vows.

Instead, they were a way for you to plan your own finances and giving, and for us as a church family to plan to see what we could build.

They were Lord-willing commitments, which leaves room for God to change plans as He leads.

But I think for some people throughout the year, certainly when we've had these campaigns, they viewed it as a vow to the Lord.

Karen Watson was a member of our church who moved to Iraq to be a missionary in 2003.

The war was just breaking out in Iraq.

It was the most dangerous place in the world, and she went right, as a single woman, to the most dangerous place in the world to share Christ with people.

And a year later, she was gunned down, and she was murdered for her faith in Christ.

She died as a martyr.

When she was in our church, before God called her as a missionary and called her to leave Bakersfield,

she had made a commitment to the Lord to tithe and to give above and beyond to build our kids' building that now all of us enjoy.

Even though God changed her plans and called her to go and she quit her job,

she moved across the world, every month our church received by mail her tithe

and her offering to build that Kildge building that she never saw.

Those checks continued from Iraq until the day she was murdered.

Here's my point.

If you feel like you've made a commitment to the Lord, it's very important that you keep it.

It's a serious thing.

That's why we should actually, he says, be slow to make these commitments before God.

Now, that does not mean that we should never make commitments.

Sometimes people say, well, I'm never going to make a commitment to the Lord then.

No, it says when you make a vow.

Okay?

It doesn't say if you make a vow.

God's assumption, you're going to make some commitments to me.

And we do, don't we?

We make vows when we get married.

We make vows when we stand before our congregation and dedicate our babies to the Lord.

Now, we don't call it a vow.

We call it a dedication, which is a commitment of dedication.

We make all kinds of vows.

Vows to spend more time with God in prayer.

Vows to start serving.

Vows to stop drinking.

Vows to stop viewing pornography.

All kinds of vows.

Sometimes we break those vows and think that God does not care.

Do not fool yourself.

God cares.

It's very clear that He cares.

Now, as we begin wrapping up, here's the problem with all of that.

We're going to break some commitments to God, and we have broken commitments to God, haven't we?

We say, God, I'm going to do this, and we didn't do it.

God, I'm not going to do that, and we did it.

It's called sin.

The Bible says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Do you know, though, the best place for you to be right after you sin?

It's the presence of God.

As a Christian, the most important spiritual move that you'll ever make is what you're going to do right after you sin.

What are you going to do?

Are you going to brush it off like it's no big deal?

Are you going to try to hide from God?

Are you going to try to cover it up?

Are you going to try to run from God?

Or are you going to own it, confess it, turn from it, and worship the Lord?

So easy to allow one sin to turn into many sins.

Dad, allow one sin to turn into a lifestyle of sin.

You get drunk on a Saturday night,

and you think, well, I can't go to church Sunday morning.

I was just drunk last night.

I'd be a hypocrite.

I don't want to be a hypocrite in the church.

That would be like someone saying, man, I'm so sick.

I can't go to the doctor.

I got to get all better before I go to the doctor.

That doesn't make sense.

It's the sick who need a physician.

It is those who are sinners who need the grace of God.

So that means if you get drunk on a Saturday night, the best place for you to be is right here in church with us.

You see, we serve a God of grace.

If it were not for the grace of God, none of us would be worshiping God.

None of us.

And that's a problem because God created us to worship him.

And you may wonder, why am I here?

Why is all of this here?

Have you ever had those deeper thoughts where you try to dig through the layers of just existing?

And why do we exist?

I'll tell you exactly why you exist.

You exist for God.

He made you because he wants you.

We are all.

Worshippers, by nature, we've got this deep longing to worship. Why? It's embedded in our DNA.

It's coded into us. We are designed for this purpose. It is where the greatest satisfaction

we find is when we worship. The problem is when we sin, we start worshiping other things.

Our worship goes from God, and it goes to lesser things.

And guess what?

They bring lesser fulfillment.

They do not bring lasting satisfaction like the eternal God does.

We start worshiping the creation rather than the creator.

We start worshiping God's gifts instead of God.

We start worshiping ourselves instead of Him.

But if you will come to the Lord in faith,

with remorse over your sin, with repentance,

and you cry out to Him for mercy and love and forgiveness,

and you trust Jesus as your Savior,

God will forgive you, and He'll heal you and restore you.

And the other thing He'll allow is the greatest privilege in all the world,

and that is to worship God with a clean heart.

To come before Almighty God, who we approach cautiously

because there's a sense of fear and awe and wonder

that we can approach Him, and there's nearness,

and there's intimacy, and there's love,

and there's comfort, a blanket of love and grace.

Why?

Because Jesus died for our sins,

and He rose again to life

so that we could have that kind of life.

That's the message of the Bible, that we have the privilege of worshiping Almighty God with a clean heart.

Now let's bow together in an attitude of prayer, both here and at Olive Drive.

The Christian comes boldly to the throne of grace, and maybe that's what you need to do as a Christian.

You need to come before the throne of grace.

There's been sin dominating your life, and you need to just pour it out to the Lord and come clean with Him.

I want to encourage you to do that right now.

But if you're listening in and you are not a Christian, you have not been a believer,

but God's knocking on the door of your heart right now.

He's opening your eyes.

He's seeking you.

He's pursuing you.

If that's the case, you need to carefully and prudently approach Him.

And what I mean by that is that you carefully and respectfully acknowledge your sin.

That you acknowledge who He is and all of who He is and how you don't deserve His presence.

You just acknowledge the facts.

And then you place your trust in Jesus and you ask God for forgiveness.

And here's what I know about God.

God loves forgiving people.

He loves it.

It's His specialty.

It's His specialty.

The Bible says he does not desire that any should perish, but all should come to faith and repentance.

So that means I know he has his deep love to forgive people.

He stands not desiring to condemn.

He stands with arms open wide, ready to embrace you in love and by grace.

You've got to come to him on his terms.

And that's through Jesus.

In just a moment, we're going to stand after I pray, both here and at Olive Drive.

We're going to have some pastors and other leaders here at the front of our worship services.

We're just going to ask you as we stand, as we start singing,

you just come and walk down one of these aisles.

You walk down one of these staircases and you take one of these leaders by the hand and you say,

I want to give my life to Jesus.

I want to trust Him.

I want to be forgiven.

I want to be made clean before God's presence.

These folks will know exactly how to help you.

Maybe you say, well, I want to be baptized like others today.

I want to join this church family.

I want to just, maybe you just don't need to talk to anyone,

but you want to use these steps as an altar.

That is a meeting place between you and God.

However God leads, please come in just a moment.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you, thank you, thank you

for revealing yourself to us.

Lord, in our sin,

We are not deserving of that.

You are not obligated to do that.

But you choose to reveal yourself in a way

that you're knowable through your son, Jesus.

In a way that we get to encounter you by faith

and by your spirit.

Lord, would you do a work through your word

Would you speak to people who have come to hear from you?

Would you open their eyes

that maybe are closed tightly in blindness?

Would you soften their heart

that has been hardened over time and through sin?

And Lord, would you just do a great work?

We love you, we give this time to you.

We pray, Lord, that you would give people the courage

it's gonna take to step out and come

and to give their life to you.

We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

reach out to us by texting PODCAST to 88988.

That's PODCAST to 88988 or connect with us on one of our social media platforms.

You can also visit our website, valleybaptist.org, to find even more great resources.

No matter where you are in your journey, know that we love you, we're praying for you,

and we can't wait to see what God will do in your life.