Summer in the Psalms - Week 11, Pastor John Mozingo

Welcome to Family Church's Sermon of the Week.

We're so glad you're here.

Each week we share a message from God's Word to encourage your heart, strengthen your faith, and help you grow in your walk with Jesus.

We hope this time blesses you and draws you closer to the heart of God.

Alright, kids, you started school this week.

Alright?

Did you have a good week?

Good first week?

Give me a nod if you had a good first week.

Okay?

High school, middle school, okay, good.

Now let me ask you this: raise your hand if you made a new friend this week.

All right, very good.

Hands going up everywhere, mostly middle schoolers, okay, making new friends.

I I heard one time that when it comes to evangelism, about being bold enough to tell somebody about the gospel, the number one demographic of all demographics is middle school kids.

Share the gospel more than that group shares the gospel more than any other adults.

And it's because they don't know, they don't know how to be afraid of that yet.

Okay?

And that's why that's why it was all middle schoolers that raise their hands.

Yeah, I met new friends because I'm not afraid of people yet.

You know, I will be in a couple years, but right now I'm good.

You know, but you guys met friends, and that's one of the most important decisions that you will ever make, are the friends that you hang out with.

Because the friends you're hanging out with right now will in part determine what the next four years are like, the next five years.

The friends you hang out with, if they become lifelong friends, they will determine what the rest of your life might be like.

So finding friends is important.

I've told y'all before about uh my my friend in elementary school, Tommy Small.

Okay, Tommy Small and I met the first day of kindergarten.

Last time I saw him was the last day of sixth grade because he moved away.

We were thick as thieves.

And sometimes we were literally thieves in elementary school.

Tommy was not a good ex good uh uh influence on me, and I was not always a good influence on Tommy.

You know, and and you've heard me tell some of the stories.

Literally, we were thieves.

We stole books from the Scholastic Book Fair.

You know, you have the book fair every year.

We stole the books.

We didn't bother paying for them.

We got caught, we got in trouble.

We uh uh we we stole the safety patrol belts and walked around the hall like you know, if if the teachers hadn't caught us, we probably would have been like, you know, the the the grade school mafia or something shaking kids down for their lunch money or whatever.

You know, we used to the the the uh animal shelter on West Ox Road in Fairfax on weekends when it was closed, we used to break in and go in and play with the dogs.

You know, so so Tommy and I were were were not good for each other.

We were not good for each other.

Seventh grade, I started going to a Christian school in Fairfax.

Um, and and my my best friend there, and we knew each other before that because we went to church together, but my best friend starting in seventh grade, uh all the way until now is a guy named Barry White.

Barry White, not not the Motown singer, but the pastor of Park Valley Church.

We've known each other that long.

We were best friends through middle school and high school, best man in each other's weddings, still best friends.

And uh um uh, you know, we we started influencing each other to do the right thing.

You know, so Tommy and I would spend our time going to church three times a week.

And we sang in the church choir.

We were leaders in our youth group.

So we started influencing each other to do the right thing, and that had a whole lot to do with the fact that both of us both of us are pastors now.

Neither of us had pastor on our radar when we graduated high school or college.

You know, I used to say, I will never be a pastor.

Okay?

But because of the friendships that we developed, that influenced the trajectory of the rest of our life.

And so the friends that you choose now will influence the trajectory of the rest of your life.

And that goes for adults too.

Adults, the people that you hang out with shape who you become.

They shape who you become.

And and uh King David had a lot to say about friendship in Psalm 101.

We're gonna look at today, and and what it means to be influenced by the right people.

And the cool thing is that he says these things, and then we get to look at his relationship with his best friend.

We get we we see the stories of David and his best friend Jonathan.

Jonathan was the son of King Saul.

King Saul was the first king of Israel, okay, started off as a good king, mighty warrior, then he disobeyed God, God took his hand a blessing off of him, and Saul became a bad king.

Saul started going crazy off the rails.

Okay, and then David, uh when when that happened, uh Samuel anointed David to be the next king of Israel, and then David just happened to be there when Goliath was out there, and David said, I'll take on Goliath.

You know the story.

Saul noticed that.

After that, Saul invited David into his palace to be to be the court musician.

He would sing and play the harp to ease Saul's mind.

Okay?

That's when he met Jonathan.

He met Jonathan when he was in uh Saul's court.

And and uh so we're gonna look at Psalm 101 and we're gonna we're gonna look at their relationship and uh we're gonna see what it talks about about both choosing friends wisely and what it what it means to be a good friend.

You know, and it's not just limited to friendships.

This goes for any relationships, business partnerships, dating relationships, that's an important one.

Even even like spiritual influences in your life, how do they measure up to what the Word of God says?

And so this this is like two sermons in one.

So what there's two two sermon titles at the top, and there's a checkbox next to them.

So you can check the one that applies to you.

Either I need to be better at making friends or I need to be a better friend.

I need to be better at choosing friends or I need to be a better friend.

So you choose whichever one fits you the most, and and we're gonna look at look at this.

And whether you're looking at looking for friends or trying to be the right friends, it all starts with commitments that you make to God.

Your commitment to God is where it starts.

All right.

Look with me in verse 1 of Psalm 101.

I will sing of your love and justice, Lord.

I will praise you with songs, I will be careful to live a blameless life.

When you come to help me, uh when will you come to help me?

I will lead a life of integrity in my own home.

I will refuse to look at anything vile and vulgar.

I hate all who deal crookedly, I will have nothing to do with them, I will reject perverse ideas and stay away from evil.

If you're going to choose a friend or you're going to be a good friend, you want to you you need to make these certain commitments before you can actually accomplish that, before you can be a good friend to someone else.

You need to make these commitments to God.

If you're looking for friends, you need to make these commitments to God.

And here's the two commitments.

First in verse 1 it says, I will sing, I will praise you.

So the first commitment that you need to make is a life that worships God.

A life that worships God.

And you can ex- you can't expect to be a good friend, to find a good friend if you're not being a good friend.

If you're not being a good friend, if you don't have these commitments to God, you're you're gonna attract people that are the opposite of a good friend also.

So if you become a if you become uh a good friend by making these commitments to God, you're gonna attract people that will make good friends.

You know, so you have to worship God.

And notice that it says, I'm I want to sing of your love and your justice.

We're really good about singing about his love.

Really good about that.

I could sing of your love forever.

You know, we'll sing that all day.

And, you know, when we sang today, it says there was another in the waters holding back the seas.

That's awesome.

We'll sing about that all day.

But sometimes God doesn't hold back the seas.

God lets the seas go because you need a lesson.

You need to learn the lesson.

But nobody sings, God, why didn't you hold back the seas?

You know, nobody sings about that.

We don't sing that on Sunday morning.

But you have to be, you have to have a life that worships God, whether He is doing, He is, He is uh being that loving God, and He's always being a loving God, but whether you're feeling that or whether you're feeling the justice and the punishment of God in your life, you have to be willing to worship God no matter what.

And your life needs to reflect worship.

Okay?

So that's the first commitment.

Second commitment is to a life that reflects God's presence in your life.

And David listed four things that that will demonstrate God's presence.

First thing he says, I will be careful to live a blameless life.

When will you come to help me?

Okay?

You you need to commit to a life of purity.

You need to commit to a life of purity.

And a life of purity doesn't mean that you are completely without sin.

That's that's impossible.

You're always going to sin.

But it does mean that you are characterized by other people by a life that follows Christ, not by a life of sinfulness.

You're characterized by a life that follows Christ.

If the people around you know you more, know you more from your sinful choices than they do your relationship with God, that's kind of a problem.

You know?

If if when people talk about you, they they use words like wild child or life of the party or old curmudgeon or something like that, you're known for the things that we're not supposed to be doing.

Okay?

You should be known for the things that demonstrate God's presence in your life.

Next, it says, uh I will lead a life of integrity in my own home.

A life of integrity.

If you lead one life in public and another life in private, you lead one life at the office or a church and another life in your home, that's a life of duplicity, not integrity.

And if you lead a life of duplicity, James says, you can't be trusted.

You can't be trusted.

Look at James 1.8.

This is out of the King James Version.

A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.

Then it says, I will refuse to look at anything vile and vulgar.

Okay?

Now the simple explanation of that is obvious.

It's I won't look at anything I shouldn't be looking at.

TV, phone, or the people you're looking at, or the way you're looking at those people.

That's the obvious.

You shouldn't be doing that.

Your eyes should be averted from that kind of thing.

All right?

But the the less obvious is is because the the literal translation of this is that uh you're gonna you're gonna you're you're gonna avoid worthless.

Okay?

The the literal translation is I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless.

Anything that's worthless.

So instead of being consumed by what that which is worthless, I'm gonna commit my life to a life of purpose instead of worthlessness.

I'm gonna commit to a life of purpose.

Then it says, I hate all who deal crookedly, I will have nothing to do with them, I will reject perverse ideas and stay away from evil.

Okay, if you're gonna be a good friend, or if you're gonna find good friends, you need to live a life of separation.

A life of separation.

You need to live a life that is separated from people who are characterized by sinful.

That doesn't mean you can't be around them, they can't be friends, but you can't be with them so much that they're influencing you or that you're characterized by the poor choices they make.

Somebody understands.

That's also amen would have been would have been fine if your phone says amen.

All right.

So you live a life of separation.

So that the the easy thing to understand is that you're separated from sin.

Your actions show that you are separated from the way the world thinks.

The harder pill to swallow is where it says that you you will uh reject all perverse ideas, and a perverse idea is anything that doesn't agree with the word of God.

You're gonna reject that, and you're gonna be known for uh uh the commitments you've made to following the word of God.

And and I think we had a great example of this in the news this week.

You know, there's the the the you you you've I'm sure you've heard the headlines, young woman suffering postpartum depression took the life of her three children.

Okay, and I'm not gonna pretend to know what she's going through, I'm not gonna pretend to know what it means to have postpartum depression.

I know it's a real thing and it affects people differently.

But there is a cry among the people of this country saying, oh, just just just let it slide.

You know, she was she was suffering, she was hurting.

Okay?

And that's the way people feel, and they're letting their feelings guide the way this should be handled.

But our feelings of compassion towards someone never should never supersede our commitment to the law of God.

Okay?

They should never supersede our commitment to the law of God.

So there's there's two perverse ways of thinking here, okay?

Two ways of thinking that are contrary to the word of God.

First is the obvious, you know, it it it is wrong, according to the Bible, to think that it's excusable to take someone's life that way and under those circumstances.

That's that's what the Bible would teach us.

But there's another perverse way of thinking, and that's that that because she did that as Christians, we should have zero compassion on her.

We should just want her to get what's coming to her.

That's a wrong way of thinking, too.

It's okay to have compassion on someone who did something like that.

And really, as Christians, we should have compassion on that person.

Not that we're excusing what she did, but we can have compassion and still stand on what the Word of God says.

Jesus did exactly that.

Okay, when he was hanging on the cross, when he was up there and he looked down and he saw the Roman soldier that put nails through his hands and feet, and he looks over here and there's Roman soldiers that are that are gambling for his clothes.

And he looks over here and he sees the Roman soldier standing there with a spear, and he knows in a few minutes that spear is going to be shoved up through his side and into his heart.

He looks at those guys and he says, and he has compassion, and he says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

As believers, we can have compassion on people that do horrible things.

But that doesn't change what God's word says about it.

Those Roman soldiers, Jesus had compassion on them, but they still had to stand before God for their actions.

So the point is that we are going to reject the way the world thinks, and we're going to we're going to adopt into our thinking what the Bible teaches, even when it's not popular, even when the rest of the culture is saying, Oh, oh, we should think this way.

This is okay.

And that's a commitment that we need to make.

So you make those commitments, and really what that means is that you want you're willing to become the friend that you would like to have.

You become the friend that you would like to have.

I want, I want to, I want this kind of friend in my life.

I'm willing to be that kind of friend.

And and if you are the opposite of what you want, if you are opposite in what you want as a friend, you're just going to attract the opposite.

You're going to attract people that do not make good friends.

If you if you make these commitments and you live as someone who is the friend that you would want, you're going to attract that kind of person.

And then in the next few verses, David gets really specific uh uh about what what he wants, what what he values in a friend and in acquaintances.

Um and and you're and and David wrote David probably wrote this psalm early in his uh rule as as king of Israel.

Probably wrote it very early.

And if that's the case, then then David, you know, just recently came into the throne, recently lost his friend Jonathan, who was Jonathan who was killed in battle before David took the throne.

And so if it's early in his in his reign, he is looking for people that are going to work with him and serve him.

And just just like you know, when a president gets elected, he's got three, three, four months to choose his cabinet and choose choose the different people that are going to help him.

So David's in a position where he's looking for that.

So being around the right people is very important to David.

So here's five things that I want to look at that that we should either look for in a friendship or we should be willing to be as a friend to other people.

And remember, this applies not just to friendship, but business associates, dating, uh, spiritual influences, all these things are important.

So here's what to look for in friendship.

Psalm 101, verse 5 says, I will not tolerate people who slander their neighbors.

Psalms 101:5

Okay?

Good good friends are people who speak well of others.

Good friends are people who speak well of others.

If you hook your wagon to someone who never says anything good about anyone, then they're not going to say good anything good about you when you're not around.

If they gossip to you, they will gossip about you.

And if all they're doing is gossiping and talking about other people, it's easy to get sucked into that.

Have you ever walked away from a conversation going, oh, I shouldn't have said that?

It is so easy to get sucked into those conversations.

And you're more likely to become like that person than you are to change that person.

So, so uh having people in your life that speak well of others or speaking well of others uh is is something that's important.

And so when King Saul started off, started going off the rails, um he sent men uh and his son Jonathan to assassinate David.

He got jealous of David because David was becoming famous because not only was he the giant killer, he started leading uh uh uh uh men into battle and was very successful.

And so the people were were very fond of David more than Saul, and Saul got jealous.

So he sent his men and his son to go and assassinate David.

And Jonathan could have said, Okay, well, I have to, you're the king.

If I don't, I'm gonna be in trouble.

Or he could have just taken the passive approach and said, Well, I'm just not gonna be involved in this, but he didn't do that.

He went and he found David before those men could.

He went and found David, and he said, and it says this in 1 Samuel 19, 4 and 5.

It says the next morning Jonathan spoke with his father about David, saying many good things about him.

The king must not sin against his servant, Jonathan said.

He's never done any harm to you.

He has always helped you in the way he could.

Have you forgotten about the time he risked his life to kill the Philistine giant and how the Lord brought a great victory to all Israel as a result?

You were certainly happy about it then.

Why should you murder an innocent man like David?

There is no reason at all.

So Jonathan, instead of just doing nothing, Jonathan went to Saul and spoke highly of David.

He talked about David's reputation, said, Why would you want to do this?

Why would you want to do this?

The second half of that verse says this.

It says, I will not endure conceit and pride.

David prioritized being surrounded by people who prioritize others over self.

David wanted to surround himself with humble people, not people who thought that it was all about them.

He surrounded himself by humble people.

And he didn't he didn't choose humble people just to lift himself up.

He chose humble people because humble people can be trusted.

He wasn't trying to be the most important person in the room and he wasn't choosing someone who thought they were the most important person in the room.

Because if you're hanging out with someone who's the most important person in the room, then it's hard to it's hard to make God the most important person in the room if you're around that kind of person all the time.

If their opinion is the only opinion that matters, if their problems are the only problems that matter, if they want, if they all they if what they want to do is what everyone has to do, that's that's a clue that maybe this isn't the right person to hang out with.

You know, maybe the influence they're going to have on me is not worth the time I'm gonna spend on them.

And and you know, what the way most people react to things like that is just out of humility, they kind of go along with that person.

You know, and you're so put you're so busy putting that person on a pedestal that it's hard to put God on the throne in your life.

Or if you're if you're a person that is that is the one that's always demanding attention, it's gotta be my way.

You have to think the way I think.

You're not doing your friends any favors.

You're not doing your friends any favors, and they're not gonna be your friends for long.

You wanna be a good friend?

Be a humble person.

Look at uh 1 Samuel 18, 1 through 4.

It says, and as soon as uh he had finished speaking to Saul, did I just read that?

No.

The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul, and Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father's house.

Took David and kept him there.

And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own soul.

Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that he was wearing and gave uh gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword, and his bow and his belt.

Okay?

Now that's a gesture that looks like Jonathan was saying, Okay, we're we're equals.

Okay?

I know you were raised a shepherd, I was raised in the king's house, but we are equals.

But it was more than that.

It was more than that.

When Jonathan took off his coat and gave it to David, he was saying, You are part of my family.

You are now part of the royal family.

Okay, that's a pretty awesome honor.

When he took off the armor and gave it to him and gave him his sword and his bow, he was saying, You are the next king of Israel.

Jonathan was in line to be the next king of Israel.

Somehow Jonathan knew, either saw God's hand in all this, or he knew that Samuel had anointed him.

When Jonathan gave him his armor and his sword and his bow, he was saying, You are the next king of Israel, and I'm going to be there for you.

Jonathan humbled himself before David.

Jonathan humbled himself before David.

If you want God to use you, you need to be humble, and you need people in your life that are humble.

Now look at the next verse, 101 verse 6.

I will search for faithful people to be my companions.

The word faithful in that verse comes from a Hebrew word that means to support or uphold, the same way a column supports a roof or an entryway.

So when David is saying, I will surround myself by faithful people, he's saying, I will surround myself with people that will support me spiritually.

Support me spiritually.

You need friends that are going to encourage you to be like Jesus, not discourage you.

You need friends in your life that are going to help you become more like Christ, not friends that are going to give you every reason in the world to not be like Christ.

All right?

Jonathan did that for David.

Probably a year or two after all that happened.

Saul was now in full-blown rage against David, and he has his whole army hunting David down.

A whole army after one man.

And Jonathan goes out ahead of the army and he finds David.

And look what he says, look what happens.

He says Jonathan, 1 Samuel 28, 16, 17.

Jonathan went to find David and encouraged him to stay strong in his faith in God.

Don't be afraid, Jonathan reassured him.

I will be next to you as my father Saul is well aware.

So you don't need to be afraid.

He said, David, my dad's out of his mind, but you're going to be king.

You're going to fill God's purpose in your life, and I'm going to be right there with you the whole way.

Make friends or be the friend who is that kind of spiritual support.

Then the rest of verse 6 says, Only those who are above reproach will be allowed to serve me.

David said, I'm going to surround myself with people who have a good reputation.

They're above reproach.

They have a good reputation.

1 Corinthians 15, 33 says, Do not be deceived.

Bad company corrupts good morals.

Tommy Small was not a good influence on me.

Tommy Small is bad company.

I was bad company for Tommy Small because we fed off each other.

Bad company corrupts good morals.

And good friends make you want to be like Jesus.

And if you ask, where do I meet those friends?

You know, I would love to have friends like that.

Where do I meet them?

Look around you.

Look around you.

You know, if you've been here a while and you haven't made friends, I'm just going to make a guess that you're not serving and you're not in a small group of Bible study.

I'm just going to go out on the limb and say that.

You know, and if you if you want to if you want to make good friends, start here at Family Church.

You know, and just get involved here at Family Church.

You will make great friends.

I promise you.

You know?

And if we made it any easier, it would look like speed dating.

Okay?

That's how easy it is to make friends at family church.

So get involved and get to know people, and you're going to make friends that are going to be there for you.

They're going to make you want to be like Jesus.

They're going to be there to support you.

When you're struggling, whether it's your health or your finances or relationships or whatever, you're going to have people there that are praying for you.

You're going to have people there that are meeting your needs because you're a part of this church.

So if you're still looking for friends, step up and serve.

Get involved in a Bible study, and I promise you, you're going to make those friends.

Finally, good friends are people who speak the truth.

Look at verse 7.

I will not allow deceivers to serve in my house, and liars will not stay in my presence.

Obviously, you don't want to be around people that are liars because you can't trust them.

You know?

If they lie to other people, they're going to lie to you.

They're going to deceive you.

And you want people that you can trust, and you want to be a person that you can trust, and you do that by being a person who speaks the truth.

And you also need people in your life that are honest enough to speak the truth about you.

You know?

I think, you know, ladies, I kind of think you got this down better than men do.

I think you have people in your life that can be honest with you in an encouraging way and speak the truth in love.

Guys, we need men in our life that will speak the truth in love, but probably a little more bluntly.

You know, things like that's a really bad idea.

You shouldn't do that.

You shouldn't say that to your wife ever again.

You know, we need men in our life that are going to be honest with us and say those things.

You know, I'm I'm blessed to have been in a small group with guys for uh probably going on five years now.

And uh um we meet, I said last week we meet Thursdays at 7 a.m.

at Vita Nova Coffee Shop.

You're all invited, uh men are invited to join us.

Okay, but but we we have conversations that sometimes sound like, yeah, that's a bad idea.

Yeah, don't do that.

You know?

And we're there for each other.

It's awesome.

That's and that's what God intended.

And and here's how important this is to God that you choose the right people, that you hang around the right people, that you go into business with the right people.

Here's how important it is.

Psalm 101, verse 8.

Psalms 101:8

David says, My daily task will be to ferret out the wicked and free the city of the Lord, uh, free the city of the Lord from their grip.

That's my daily task.

Now, David was building a kingdom.

You know, David was building a kingdom.

So he had a he had a big responsibility to make sure the people that were serving with him were people of integrity that could be trusted and had the best interest of the nation in mind and that were willing to follow God.

Okay?

That's so so he had to ferret out those people.

And when I say that, I'm not suggesting that anyone in here become the self-appointed morality police.

But all of you have a kingdom of some kind that you need to be diligent and vigilant at ferreting out people that can hurt your kingdom.

Your personal life is part of your kingdom.

You have you're responsible for your personal life.

And if the people in your life are causing you to be less like Jesus than more like Jesus, you have a responsibility to do something about that.

Parents, your kingdom is your home, and you have a responsibility to ferret out people that will harm your home.

And that includes the kids that your your kids hang out with.

That's important.

And you get to you, you know, when they're little, you get to choose who their friends are.

You make the phone calls, you you set up the play dates, you get to choose who their friends are.

Once they're off to school or a little older, you don't always get to do that.

But you can choose who they spend more time with, and you should.

Because there are some kids and some families that are not good influences on your children.

Even when they get into high school, the older they get, the harder it gets.

But even when they're in high school, you should be involved in choosing their friends.

And kids, let me tell you something.

If your parents come to you and say, I don't want you hanging out with that kid, you're not allowed to go to his house, you're not allowed to invite him over.

And it's hard, but you go with what your parents said because God will honor you for being obedient, but your parents know a lot more than you.

They know a lot more about the situation, and they have your best interest in mind.

And they're gonna worry less about what that other family thinks than they are about your character and how you grow up to be a person of character.

Okay?

In sixth grade, close to the end of sixth grade, sitting downstairs in the basement watching TV, my dad comes down, he tells me, You can't go to Tommy's house anymore.

He can't come over here.

You you can't hang out with him anymore.

And I was devastated.

You know, I I didn't have a whole lot of friends, probably because of Tommy, but you know, I was devastated that I couldn't hang out with this kid.

This is sixth grade that was in kindergarten, first day of kindergarten we met, and now I can't hang out with him.

I was devastated.

I didn't get it.

I thought my dad was being unreasonable.

I later found out that what Tommy was into, if I had if I had followed Tommy, even just being there, I would have gotten in a lot of trouble.

A whole lot of trouble, you know.

And if Tommy hadn't moved when he did, I might be like leading a prison ministry now instead of pastoring a church.

That's how bad things were.

So, kids, when your parents say, You can't hang out with that person, you need to trust them.

You need to trust them.

You know, and all this, really, none of this means anything until you meet your best friend.

And the scripture says that there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.

His name's Jesus.

And none of this means anything until you have a relationship with him.

He knows you better than anyone else in this room.

He knows you better than you know yourself.

And he wants to be your best friend.

And he he did everything he needed to do.

He humbled himself, he humbled himself all the way to the cross.

He took your punishment for your sin on the cross.

So you don't have to do anything to accept that friendship.

You don't you don't have to you don't have to give, you don't have to be generous, you don't have to, you don't have to check boxes or do certain rituals or anything.

And it has nothing to do with any of that.

It has everything to do with the fact that Jesus paid the price for you.

All you have to do is accept it.

When he hung on the cross, he he died in your place because the Bible says that the punishment for sin is death.

So for you to go to heaven, somebody had to die.

And instead of you dying, Jesus said, I'll do that for you.

And that's why that's why those soldiers put nails in his hands and feet and a spear on his side and hung him on that cross for for six hours until he until he passed.

He did that for you, so that you can have eternal life.

And if you've never accepted him as your savior, it's very simple.

It's very simple.

Because you don't have to do anything.

He did it all, it's just a matter of saying, hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna put my faith in Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.

I'm gonna trust in him for my salvation.

I'm gonna trust in what he did so that I can have eternal life.

And you can pray that to him any way that that you you feel uh comfortable doing that, or or if you're struggling, putting words, uh taking what's going on in your heart and mind and putting that into words, you can just pray something like this.

It's not about repeating the prayer, it's about it's about really making a commitment.

So just for a minute, with heads bowed and eyes closed, if you want to accept Jesus as your Savior, just pray something like this and say, Dear God, thank you for sending Jesus to pay the penalty for my sin, to shed his blood on the cross so that I can have forgiveness of my sin and that I can have eternal life in heaven.

And so today I turn my back on the world and I turn towards Jesus.

And I choose to follow him.

I trust in his death, burial, and resurrection for my salvation.

I trust in his shed blood for the forgiveness of my sins, so I confess my sin to you today, and I accept that free gift of salvation.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

If you just prayed that, if you just prayed that, the Bible says, the Bible says your life is different from here out.

Bible says that that you have crossed from death unto life, that you have a home in heaven, that nobody can change that.

So if you walk out of here today, the Bible says you can know for sure that you have eternal life.

So if you prayed to receive Christ, you know for sure that no matter what happens today, when you walk out of here, if the worst happens, you'll meet Jesus face to face because He paid the price for your sin.

So if you're here today, still with heads bowed and eyes closed, if you're here today and you just prayed that, I would love it if you would lift your hand, let me know that you prayed to receive Christ.

Let me know that you did that.

Awesome.

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

God, thank you for for this one person that that raised their hand to receive Jesus today.

God, I uh I thank you that that that uh she chose to be here.

Somebody invited her, and she chose to be here.

And because someone invited her, today she's accepted Christ.

And one day she's gonna stand before him in heaven and he's gonna say, Well done, thou good and faithful servant.

Lord, because somebody invited this lady to church.

What an awesome, awesome thing.

So Lord, I pray that you would just bless her, help her to understand uh the decision that she's made, help her to understand your word.

Lord, surround her with women from this church that will help her and encourage her and and and and uh just support her along the way as she grows every day to be more like Jesus.

So with heads bowed and eyes closed, if you're here today and you're like, you know what, I I I don't have a lot of friends, or I have really terrible friends, or I need to be a better friend.

If that's you today, lift your hand, let me pray for you.

I want to pray for you that that that just you're you're uh you'll be surrounded by people that that lift you up and you will be the kind of person that makes others be like Jesus.

God, thank you for those that raise their hand, Lord.

I pray that you would uh just encourage them today, Lord.

Help them to know that that, Lord, if they don't have friends, they can make friends.

You know, you you've you've created a place where friendship is almost inevitable, and it's called your church.

Help them to understand that that they can make awesome friends here, Lord.

Help them to know what to look for in friends and not settle for the first person that says, come with us.

Help them to look for the right kind of friends.

Lord, people here that are that just need to be friendly, Lord, I pray that you would just uh bless them, help them to be the right kind of friends, help them to make the commitments that it takes to be like Jesus so that they can be a good friend.

And Lord, we just we put all that in your hands.

And and God, we're just so grateful for uh for your presence here this morning, so grateful for Family Church.

And Lord, we just pray that you would continue to bless us, continue to grow this church.

And we ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks for listening to Family Church's Sermon of the Week.

We pray this message encouraged you and helped you grow in your faith.

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You can learn more about Family Church at myfamilychurch.com.

If you are in the area, join us on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m.

We can meet at Patriot High School 10504 Kittle Run Drive.