July 17, 2022 / Defining Moments / A Moment of Acceptance

Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast. Have you ever looked back in time and considered

how certain defining moments have shaped your life in future? Today, John Metter, lead

pastor of Cross City Church, looks at the importance of defining moments and how we

can recognize what God is saying through them. So glad to see you this morning. And as we

continue on in our service, keep in mind that we have a number of students that are at student

camp this week. Several busloads of students and student sponsors and leaders or staff

are in Gloria de New Mexico. Anybody ever been to Gloria de New Mexico? Please raise

your hand. Several of you have. It is less than 80 degrees as a high every day. The lows

are about 55. We hope to bring all the students back. We hope they will all come back at the

end of that great week of cool weather. But also be praying for some very important moments

in their lives where they come to grips with the opportunity to have a relationship with

Jesus Christ. Salvation, other steps of discipleship, all those will be available to them this week

as they are prayed for, preached to, they worship together. It is always a great time.

If you have your Bibles this morning, would you please take them and turn to Ephesians

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1 today, beginning in verse 3 all the way through verse 8. Ephesians chapter

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

1, the title of the message is a moment of acceptance. Now this is our defining moment

series, and we continue on with several aspects of what that means to have a defining moment

with God. You know, we have all kinds of experiences in our life, thousands of experiences, but

only a few defining moments that change life from the moment we have that experience. Believe

it or not, God wants to have defining moments with you. He wants you to have experiences

where you think about Him differently, where you think about your life differently, where

you think about the future differently. And my encouragement is that you learn to have

these moments with God, and often those moments are initiated by a passage of Scripture, the

movement of the Holy Spirit, and the conviction that God is wanting to teach you something.

That will be my prayer today. Let's stand together as we read the Word of God beginning

in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3. Paul writes this, he says, blessed be the God and Father

Ephesians 1:3

of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly

places in Christ. By the way, if you ever see me write a letter or you see one of my

communications, it always ends with 10,000 blessings, comments John Mitter, that's where

this comes from. Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, verse 4.

Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless

before Him, in love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself,

according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which

He freely bestowed on us in the beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood,

the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished

on us. What a passage of Scripture. It speaks so loudly of God's perspective of you as

a Father of Jesus Christ. Father, today I pray that you would allow this text to come

alive in our minds and heart in the same way it was in the life of Paul and those who read

it 2,000 years ago. Father, help us to take it personally, to be intimately acquainted

with what all these words mean and what it means to be loved by you eternally. We ask

this in Jesus' name we pray. All God's people said, Amen. Please be seated if you would.

I love the book of Ephesians, but it's a unique letter. This epistle is not written to solve

problems that are happening in a particular church. But Paul wrote the letter of Ephesians

to be read to the church at Ephesus, but also to be read by all of the churches in the New

Testament era. Not to solve a problem, but to answer the most important question a believer

can have. Now that important question is, as followers of Jesus, do you know who you

are? You and I need to know who we are in Christ, our identity, who we are, and how

God sees us. There was a man I read about years ago who told of a man who stepped onto

the platform at an American Legion convention with thousands and thousands of people at

that convention. He picked up a microphone and looking over the crowd he asked this question,

can anyone tell me who I am? Now that's the story, backside of the story was told. He

had lost his memory. He had no record of his past, no record of identity. He didn't know

who he was with. He couldn't remember who he was, so his desperate plea was, can anybody

tell me who I am? I love that story, which has a good ending by the way, because we all

have that question inside of our hearts and minds. Can anybody tell me who I really am?

We all want to know the answer to this. We all want to know who we are in the eyes of

God. We also want to know this who are we in the eyes of others around us. It's an

incredible question, and I think it's an important question because the pursuit of

acceptance and the pursuit of affirmation is almost universal. Everyone needs to know

that they're accepted. So they ask questions like who am I? Who are my people? Am I accepted?

Am I loved? Can you affirm me in any way? So we call these identity questions, and they're

tied into our self-awareness and our self-concept of who we are. At the bottom line we want

everyone to accept who we are and respect who we are no matter how weird it may seem.

And today there's a lot of weird ideas of who we are. And by the way, if you try to

find out who you are without your creator answering the question, then you're going

to be in a weird place and you're going to identify in a very, very strange way. That's

what's happening in our world today. If you leave the creator out of the question, expect

a strange answer. But the bottom line is we should be able to know who we are, especially

in the eyes of God. The reason this is important to me is because as a young man I struggled

with my own self-identity. Now my own struggle was far more basic than some of the things

that we hear about today where everybody wants the right to be whatever they choose and they

want you to be okay with that, whatever it is they choose to be. I just simply struggled

with being accepted. I struggled with my own self-identity. I felt like I never measured

up partly because I'd grown up with a hearing impairment, but partly because I had been

rejected by people that I thought really mattered. So my story is I used athletics to try to

get even. I used athletics to be as good as other people. In fact, my quest in athletics

was never about excellence. It was never about going to the next level. It was always about

the competition of saying I'm at least as good as you are and probably better on the

athletic field. And I'm going to make that very clear if I could. But the reason I did

that is because I never felt like I measured up. And I never felt like I was at home in

my own self and had a chip on my shoulder. No matter how successful I was, a chip on

my shoulder and it was obvious to others. I consistently compared myself with other

people. How I looked, how I presented myself, how athletic or not athletic I was, how well

I did in class or in school, whatever my job was going to be at the end of it all. And

of course my problem was that I approached identity from my own perspective instead of

the perspective I should have. I didn't realize that my true identity was really found through

the eyes of God who created me with a purpose and with significance. And I was missing that

part of my life as I was 18, 19 years of age. The God factor is so incredibly important

and that's what Ephesians 1 talks about. The God factor of who you really are, why

you were created to be here and how God sees you. And this text today can answer that question

for every person in this room. Now ultimately in seeking God during those years I had to

come to grips with three important truths. Let me give you those truths real quick. The

first one is that God is who he says he is. God is always representing himself well and

in the book, in the Bible that we're reading today, the book of Ephesians especially, he

is self-identifying himself, self-revealing himself. God himself through the power of

the Holy Spirit, letting the scriptures be written by these inspired men is saying, this

is who I am and this is how you can identify that I'm at work in your life. God is who

he says he is. The second truth is God can do what he says he can do. Whatever promise

he makes for you, he can fulfill that. But the third one really plays into what we're

talking about today. I am who God says I am. I'm not who somebody else says I am. I am

who God says I am. I'm not who I think I am. I am who God says I am. And this text reveals

some incredible truths for that understanding. So looking back at your text, I'm going to

bring three things to the surface here. First of all, the scripture here in Ephesians chapter

one says, you are chosen. You are chosen. If you look at verse four, where we begin our

journey here today, it says, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.

I love that line. I share it all the time. I find it creeping into my conversations when

I'm talking to people that are struggling with some aspect of their lives. God chose

you from before the foundation of the world. That was a long time ago. You know, we all

want to be chosen, don't we? We all want to be someone's choice. We want to be on the

team. We want to be in the group. We want to be chosen for the job. We want someone

to choose us for a significant friendship or relationship. We want to be chosen for

the award or the reward that recognizes our talent or whatever it may be. But according

to this, God wants you to know that he made a decision in eternity past to choose you

and to love you and to make you part of his world. Now think about what that means. That

means that before we existed, before we could choose to acknowledge God, before we could

love God, before we could serve God, before we could even read about God, he chose us.

That means long before we would have any merit at all, long before we had any worthiness

in our lives, God chose us from before the foundation of the world. Now that's fascinating

to me. I think it's amazing that the God of the universe would know me and love me and

choose me long before I came into existence. But that's what the scripture teaches. And

as you walk through the scripture, you'll find these little glimpses of this truth all

the way from Genesis to Revelation. Let me bring some of those back to your memory. I'm

sure you've heard of them before and read them. What about where the Bible talks about

you before you were actually born, where it says you were fearfully and wonderfully made?

Or where it talks about the fact that God weaves us in our inward part while we're

still in the womb? Or when Jesus said that God's eye is on the sparrow and the song of

course is he also watches me. Or where Jesus says he knows the number of hair on your head.

I mean all kinds of references in the Bible that says that God knows you, that God sees

you, that God is aware of you, that God loves you, and in this passage that God chose you

to be part of his life. The psalmist David had these same kind of thoughts back thousands

of years ago as he must have looked up into the heavens at night while he was washing

the sheet before he became king and considered the stars and the solar system and everything

he could see from planet earth that you and I can see with our own eyes. And he wrote

these words. He said, would I consider your heavens the work of your fingers, the moon

and the stars which you have ordained? What is man that you take thought of him and the

son of man that you care for him? David was incredulous. Why would you look at me, God,

when you're the creator of all this? Why is it that you would have your attention on me?

How is that possible? That verse reminds me of some images that came out recently from

the NASA's Webb telescope. And for me it displays the unfathomable greatness and the sovereignty

of God. I'm reminded of a passage in the Old Testament that says he counts the number

of the stars and he gives names to all of them. And all of that's so amazing to me.

But when you see images of this Webb telescope, you see some incredibly graphic images of

the stars and the solar system and the universe. Let's look at about two or three of those

today. The first one is a picture of separate galaxies that are interacting hundreds and

thousands of light years away. And the camera has caught those images and it's amazing

to consider that all those things are happening out there and that God spoke all of those

into existence. The second image of the Covina Nebula where stars are supposedly born. And

you see this huge cloud of stars and all kinds of matter floating out there. And you're

reminded that the God of the universe spoke these things into existence in eternity fast.

Or that third image is a cloud of gas around a dying star. Again, all thousands and thousands

of light years away. It's almost ungraspable in the mind, isn't it, that God has created

that and spoke that into existence. But parallel with that thought, the greatness of a mighty

God is the idea that he would look at us and choose us and know you and choose you of his

own free will because he loved you, because he wanted you. God created the universe with

a word. That's powerful. That's how powerful he is and always has been. And yet this creative

God knows us, loves us, and chooses us. You know what it's like to be chosen. What about

what it's like to be chosen by God? He says, no, this God loves you. And I know this. I

know there are times when all of us feel unloved and unworthy and that's just a fact of life.

But in spite of all that, God steadfastly declares and demonstrates that we are in fact

loved by him and chosen by him. And you let that frame your self-identity because in every

other way that you view yourself, this way is foundational to a healthy perspective of

who you are. Let it form the foundation. You are chosen by God, the scripture says.

Now there are three words I want you to repeat today, except because it matters. I am chosen.

Would you say that today? I am chosen. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ today, you need

to be aware of all that that means, that you are chosen. Now Ephesians brings up another

idea that's important for us to have, to frame our self-identity. You are adopted. You are

adopted. As the verse continues on, it says in verse five, he predestined us to adoption

as sons through Jesus Christ in himself according to the kind intention of his will. Now this

is a huge thing. The idea of being adopted by God is a massive part of our identity as

followers of Christ. And again, it's a decision and a declaration made by God on your behalf

to help you know how he includes you in his fear and his life. God is our father and we're

his sons and daughters, right? One of my favorite books is the book of Romans chapter eight,

verse 15 and 16 are two verses that are just explosive when it comes to this idea of adoption.

Paul is writing to believers and saying, this is how you theologically need to understand

yourself. This is how you can frame your own existence in the presence of a mighty God.

And he words it like this in verse 15 and 16. For you have not received the spirit of

slavery leading to fear again. That is when you come to Christ and you're given the Holy

Spirit of God, that's not a spirit of slavery leading to fear, but you've received a spirit

of adoption as sons by which we cry out, Abba, father. Now Abba is the most intimate word

in that language for daddy, an intimate word for father. He goes on and says, the spirit

himself testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God. Now I've got friends

over the years that when they talk about God, they just refer to him as father. They'll

say something like, I was praying and father led me to this passage of scripture, or I

was fearful and father helped me be less fearful and full of confidence instead. And I always

kind of push back on that. I always thought that's a little bit too casual for me. I'd

rather say the heavenly father or the father or God the father. To me that just seems like

it's a little bit more proper, but the scripture says this, that God is not looking to be seen

as a proper God, but as a real father to you. It's okay to call him father because he is

your father. He has adopted you into his family. Call him father. It's intended to be intimate.

It's intended to be personal. For you to have that kind of interaction with our heavenly

father is incredibly important. Now most of us know the impact of a father in our lives

in an earthly sense. There are many people in this room today that have earthly fathers

that are very grateful for, very proud of, and they've been given a good name, good

upbringing, good relationships, and often today, on the other hand, many do not have

that kind of relationship with their father. Some know their fathers. Some don't know

their fathers. Some are proud of their fathers. Some are embarrassed by their fathers. But

the reality is that our fathers have an incredible influence in our lives, whether they are present

or absent, whether they're good or not so good. I'll never forget a young man I grew

up with that I can even remember at the age of 12 and 13 recognizing him struggling because

of the embarrassment of his own father's behavior. In that small town, everyone knew about it,

and my friend was perpetually ashamed. And he struggled to overcome that. I didn't know

all the dynamics of that, but I knew it wasn't good, and that influence was harmful to him.

But no matter what our earthly father is, no matter if he was great and awesome or not

so great and not so awesome or anywhere on that timeline, there's something that God

the Father has given you that overrides all that, and that is that He wants to be your

father. And if you had a great father, awesome. And if you didn't, who's able to overcome

that in your life? Because He will be your adoptive father and give you everything that

no earthly father can give you, and that is Himself.

You know, the idea of adoption in the Roman world with a pretty strong and legal approach

to receiving children that were not your own. I want to read something to you about that.

Roman adoption meant to declare that someone who is not one's child is to be treated and

cared for as one's child, including the rights of inheritance. As a matter of fact,

in the Roman world, if you were adopted into a family, you could never be disowned. You

could never be cast out again. Imagine that. A family could cast out their biological children

by Roman law, but they could never cast out adoptive children. Now that's a pretty impressive

picture that God would use the idea of adoption to help us know something about our relationship

with Him. Now in Roman adoption, five things changed

when you were adopted. First of all, your family changed. All of a sudden you were in

a brand new family. Secondly, your name changed. You took on the name of the adoptive father.

Then your home changed. That's number three. Your responsibilities, how you were to live

life automatically changed. You would probably be in a new line of work if you were adopted

into a Roman family. And then lastly, your inheritance changed. Everything a biological

child would have received, as an adoptive child, you would receive immediately. And

you would never be disowned. That's the idea God paints for us in the

book of Romans of our relationship with Him. You have His family. You have His name. You

have His home. You have His responsibilities of the heavenly Father. And you have the inheritance

of the heavenly Father. But even more, you have His security. You have His identity.

He claims you. You have been claimed by God through Jesus Christ. Can you say amen to

that? I can say amen to that. So here's the second line I want you to say. I am adopted.

I am adopted. I am chosen. I am adopted. And then there's a third line that's in this

text and it may be the most important. You are accepted. You are accepted. Verse 7. In

Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according

to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. I call this probably the greatest part

of our identity because it's where God actually takes action on our behalf. I mean He declares

these other things. He declares that He chooses us. He declares that He adopts us. But in

this particular piece where He declares His acceptance of us, He pays a price for that.

And that price is called the redemption, the forgiveness of our sin. And that price was

steep. He sent His own Son Jesus to die on the cross to pay for our sins. And that speaks

volumes. And He did that so that we could be for Himself, for God. By the way, when

you read the Bible you have to acknowledge God is a Redeemer. God is a rescuer, isn't

He? All the way through Scripture He's rescuing us. And I think sometimes many of us see God

not so much as a rescuer. He's less noble than that we think. Less loving, less caring,

less willing. He's on a throne with a deep, booming voice and He makes hard commands for

us. And He's frowning and He's closed and He's angry, maybe demanding. But when we

do that and think about God that way, we miss His self-revelation. We miss what He says

about Himself. And what He says about Himself is that He's a loving, rescuing God. And

He says He cares about us so much that He chooses us, He adopts us, and ultimately rescues

us and accepts us. That's the character of God. That's the nature of the God that we

love, that we know, that we follow. I'm a big fan of rescue movies. I don't like movies

that are all dialogue. Let me tell you, when they're all dialogue, it doesn't take long

before I somehow lose consciousness. I'm just not sure what happens. But when there's

a rescue operation going on, I am in that movie. I am in that movie. And I don't think

anything takes the cake better than the Taken movie years ago. You remember the guy's daughter

was kidnapped in Europe, and he had a special set of skills, and he tracked down the kidnapper,

and he destroyed whole nations and kingdoms to get to his daughter. You remember that

movie? At the end of that movie, he rescues his daughter, and what does he do? He hugs

her and he holds her tight because he's brought her back to where she needs to be in safety

and security. When you read the Bible, you find God is a rescuer that way, and in many

greater ways as well. And God rescues people with imperfect rescuers as well as one perfect

rescuer. You go back through the Old Testament, you'll see all of these imperfect rescuers

like Noah and Abraham and Joseph and Moses and Saul and David and Gideon. These are imperfect

men that God uses to rescue his people, and God uses them time and time again. And then

God sends his own son, the perfect rescuer, the one who knew no sin, knew no fault, who

had no bad motivations, who came just to redeem our soul. So here's this meat carpenter who

turned into a fierce battler for ourselves. Colossians 1 is a passage of Scripture that

talks about it that way. It says, for he rescued us from the domain of darkness. I mean, that's

got a great ring to it, doesn't it? That he transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved

Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin. What does that text say? It says that

Jesus is the rescuer. He rescued us from the domain, from the kingdom of darkness. That's

what he did on the cross. This was not about Jesus being martyred or put to death because

people hated him. It was about him going through a rescue operation at the cost of his own

life so that we could be redeemed. So Jesus is our deliverer. He's our rescuer. He's

our forgiver. And having done all that, he removed the barrier between ourselves and

him. He destroyed the enmity between us and we are completely forgiven even from the worst

of our sins. I thought of you in here probably think you've had some pretty bad seasons

of sin and that's kind of difficult for God to overcome. But let me assure you, it is

not difficult for the Jesus who died on the cross to pay for your sins like he paid for

everybody else's. Remember what Paul used to say about himself? He was the chief of

sinners, the worst of sinners. I used to read that and I thought, that's just false modesty.

But the more I read about Paul, the more I realized, man, he was one bad dude. He was

a religious terrorist that put people to death who followed Jesus. I mean, he may have been

the worst of all sinners. I don't know, but the bottom line on it is that God loved even

him and rescued even him and forgave even him. And if God can forgive Paul, he can forgive

you. If he could rescue that man, he can rescue you. So here's Jesus, our rescuer who has

paid the price and he wants you to know that he can forgive you and accept you as his own.

That's why Jesus talked so much about all these great parables that have to do with

lost things found. Luke 15, the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son, the prodigal

son. A few days ago, my wife and I were shopping somewhere and I saw a lady walking my way

and she had this very dark colored t-shirt with very bright font on it, a bright statement.

And it caught my eye and here's what it said. It said, he left the 99 to go after the one.

And at the bottom of the shirt, it says, I am the one. That lady understands things.

She understands that there is a God who is a rescuer who comes after us, who's able to

forgive us, who's able to leave everything else in order to come after us. And that's

the God we serve and that's who we are. We're the one. We're the one he came after. We're

the one he loved enough to choose us before the foundation of the world to adopt us and

then to accept us as his own. We are the one. That's what that parable is for, for you

to know that you're the one and for you to know that he came after you.

No matter how far from God you may be today, he's coming after you and he's done everything

necessary for that to happen. No matter how bad your past is, he's going to rescue you.

No matter how complicated your situation is, no matter how awful the devil whispers to

you that you are, he's able to rescue and forgive. No matter how weak your self-image

or how horrible you feel about yourself, he loves you and accepts you and wants you.

My counsel to you is let yourself be caught. Let yourself be rescued. Let him come to your

aid. That's why he died on the cross so that that would take place. Quit running and let

God love you. You know when I read these passages I realize

how life-changing they really are. He comes after us. He finds us. He forgives us. And

you know what's left? What's left when all that takes place, when all that forgiveness

takes place is love and favor. That's what our passage says here, that he lavishes his

grace on us. Man, that's quite a relationship to be in, to be lavished with the love and

the grace of God because he has saved us. And that grace and that favor and acceptance,

it's amazing. It's the same word, that word grace. It's the same word used in God's actions

towards Virgin Mary. He favored her. He gave grace to her. He gave that to us in love no

matter what. Acceptance is our future as children of God because of all that God has done. It's

not based on our performance. It's based on his choosing us, his adopting us, his accepting

us. Years ago I read this statement I'm about

to share with you and it struck me as a very real struggle that we sometimes have in our

hearts and minds. It's an unknown author. I don't know who wrote it. It says, let me

see the real you, dark and light, wretched and glorious, depravity and holiness, the

ugly and the beautiful. I'd find you to be wonderful. That's grace. This doesn't mean

that we don't want to change our lives because in reality we want to change our lives all

the more to pattern after the one who rescued us. But it simply means we don't come to

him having changed our lives ourselves. We come to him because he's loved us first.

I'll begin by telling you the story of my own search for acceptance and it really all

ended that one night and just a few moments of time in a parking lot at the college I

went to while I was seated in my car struggling with this idea of self-acceptance. At the

same time I was reading through the Bible I was learning some of the verses that I shared

with you today and the concepts of God's love for us. I'd already given my life to

Christ. I was a believer and I'd even surrendered my life in a number of times that I would

call significant but that self-concept was never really there. The problem with me was

I never took all these verses and principles I'm sharing with you today personal. I always

said, yeah, that's probably true. There are probably some that God has chosen. There are

probably some that God has adopted. Probably some that God has accepted but I'm not sure

that's true about me. I know too much about me and I knew I didn't deserve that. I've

never taken them personal. They were all just general. He didn't love me that way, did

he? He didn't accept me that way, did he? Me. At the same time I was way too aware of

whether I was accepted by people and I wanted to pursue that. I wanted them to like me.

I wanted them to respect me. I wasn't as concerned about having the acceptance of God.

It seemed like people's acceptance was more tangible to me at the moment. I think that's

why people seek the acceptance of others. But in that moment I was miserable. In that

moment I'd gotten some acceptance from people. I had some achievements in my life and I should

have been feeling better about life based on my own self-awareness but I was not. In

fact, the more I achieved the more I felt empty. It wasn't doing it for me. I remember

in that car that night having a defining moment. There wasn't a time when God spoke to me

audibly but it was crystal clear what He was saying to me. He said, John, you're so worried

about others accepting you but I've accepted you and is that not enough? Is that not enough?

That was for the last words that I could remember penetrating my mind in that few moments in

that car. Everything just kind of went silent. I was probably in that car another 20 or 30

minutes just seated by myself just thinking is that not enough? At the end of that few

moments of time I said it has to be enough. I mean if God the universe accepts me and

loves me and has adopted me and has chosen me, if that won't do it nothing will. I said,

God, that is enough. I accepted it as fact and it changed the way I thought about my

life. Interestingly, I didn't care about what other people thought about me anymore

and a weird thing happened. All of a sudden they started accepting me and they started

respecting me and maybe it was because I looked like I just didn't really care, didn't matter

anymore. Maybe it looked like I was a little bit more confident in God because I was. I

knew who I was and I knew whose I was. I belong to Him. That's what Ephesians chapter 1 says

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

about you and says to you. I knew from that day onward I am accepted. I want you to say

those three words. I am accepted. But pastor what if I don't feel those words? By affirming

the truth you are going to have to deal with the truth. By affirming the truth you are

going to have to deal with the fact that God has chosen you, has adopted you, has accepted

you. I'll say this, from that moment on I felt like I was complete in my relationship

with God. Not finished, not fully mature, a lot of maturing is still happening but totally

accepted and knowing who I was in Christ. He will complete you the same way through

Jesus Christ. If we understand this, if we take Him at His word, if we stand on this

with confidence and boldness we'll have a sense of who we are and who we are. Remember

those three principles again. God is who He says He is. God can do what He says He can

do and I am who God says I am and so are you. I want you to bow your head today and as you

do think about those phrases. You are chosen, you are adopted, you are accepted in Christ.

At the conclusion of my prayer the decision stations are open. We would love to talk to

you about those incredible truths that God gives us but more than anything else I want

you to take it personal today. I want you to apply it to your life. I want you to have

a moment that is defining for you in your relationship with God. We would love to help

you with that. At the end of the service I will be in the guest reception room. We would

love to invite you there if you are a guest to talk more about a relationship with Christ

and with Cross City Church. Would you stand with me as we pray? Father today I am so thankful

for all of these declarations of Ephesians 1. Thankful that they are real. Thankful that

they are personal. Lord today my prayer would be that every person in this room would walk

away with a sense of foundation about how they should view themselves from your perspective.

That each person would feel loved. That each person would know that they have been adopted

through Christ. That each person would know they have been chosen from before the foundation

of the world Lord. Lord you are so good, so loving, so incredibly powerful and yet you

reached to us. Thank you Father. In Jesus name, amen.