See For Yourself

I love that bridge. It says: never been a day, never been a minute, never been a moment that you weren't in. It Rhymes easy to remember. I love it because so often I feel like I'm alone and the reality, whether you know Jesus or not, the reality is that there's never a single second that you are truly alone. God is always present, he is always there and the beauty of the good news of Jesus is that all we have to do is call on the name of the Lord to seek him where he can be found.

Knock and it says: the door will be opened right now, whatever is going on in your life- and I know there's some complexities as you dive into your walk with God, but wherever you are in your life, you can ask God to reveal himself to you and as you continue to do that, he will will respond. I found that to be true in my life. That doesn't mean there aren't moments where he feels silent, but as you continue to pursue him, he will reveal himself to you. Your search and pursuit will not end void, so I'd encourage you to lean into that today. Let me pray for us as you're seated.

God, we thank you for today. We thank you that we're here. We thank you that you're here. So I pray right now, as we go through your word, that you would Inspire us to live in a way that honors you. We pray these things in Jesus's name and God's people said amen.

Front row said it- and God's people said amen. We get excited here. Someone clapped in the first service at something you wouldn't typically clap at, but then everyone slowly started clapping and it clicked to me. Clapping is contagious. In fact, there are a lot of things in life that are contagious and amens are contagious.

Clapping's contagious. Smiling is contagious, laughing's contagious. Feel free to do any of those you know. If it fits, it creates a cool, fun vibe and culture around here. You know I brought this stool out, but I feel like it's a little too short, but I'll sit here for a second.

You ever, you ever like- knew propositionally what you were going to encounter and then you actually experienced the thing and you really understood. It's like I knew about it, but then I experienced and it feels different. So yesterday- and don't hear me bragging- I got like 17 out of 20 in my age bracket, so I was not, I didn't do well, my time wasn't awesome, but I ran like a Marathon yesterday and so, I thought I knew how that Journey was going to go. And then I start running. Well, before I started running, Buckeye decided to be 34 degrees and so didn't train.

In that. I trained in August last year. Guys, I, if it was 100, I'd been fine, if it was 34, though it's cold. And then I got like you know those throbbing headaches, you know the ones that like feel good for a second, and then all of a sudden, it's like the worst pain imaginable in your brain. I thought I had like a spinal cord issue and for like nine miles it was like just pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, and I felt good for a second.

Then I realized how long Sun Valley Parkway is and boring at the same time. And then I got a text from one of our external donors from like another part of the country, and they were like, hey, we've been supporting you guys for 2 years and, we're g to, we're going to move that. And so then I like really ran fast. I'm like, yeah, I can't raise funds right now, so what I can do is run fast. And then, they told me there was going to be a wall.

Y'all ever heard of the wall? When you're running chat, gbt told me I was going to hit some sort of wall. I didn't know what that meant. It told me I was going to hit a wall at 20 miles, that's, if you train right. I hit it at like 18 miles and, like I don't know how to explain it, other than it felt like my LS were going to give out, and then there's still like eight miles left.

All that to say, I thought I knew what it was going to go like, but the experience, while it's hard for me to explain to you, the experience is radically different. Another way to put it is: we went to a son's game the other day. Because some people were generous and for pastor appreciation, thank you, thank you guys. They got us a son's ticket, cuz I wasn't about to pay for one. You know, like, cuz they're expensive, I'll go to Diamondbacks games all day, like get cheap tickets and get, then move down halfway through the game when people are leaving, and you, you know, I've never actually done that, but I've thought about it.

But anyways, we went to the Suns game and, you know, one of my dreams in life is to. So I'm going to put a camera in front of me and ask me a question that I can then respond to. That's why I'm a preacher is because I can put a camera in front of. I'm just kidding guys. I'm not like that, but anyways, while we were there, they did it to Hannah.

They said: what do you, in one word, describe Booker? And I didn't see this. If I had seen this I'd have probably walked away. But she looks at them and she said: what' you say? She said, to be honest, I don't know anything about Booker, it's.

And I looked at her and I said: you could have just said awesome, or something like that. Raise your hand if you know anything about Booker, like if you're Sons fan, you could tell me something in two seconds, couldn't you? Allar Allstar, what you got? Amazing, anyone got a stat for me. Okay, first service had stats.

Y y good, it's all good. But it's funny, right? Because, like she knew nothing, and I think a lot of us as Christians- I'm not trying to hit you too hard, but a lot of us as Christians- someone put a camera in front of us. The best we could muster up is. Jesus is awesome, but I think there's so much more to that interaction, right like, as you get to know him at a deeper level.

What like what? Someone? If someone ask me about Jesus, when I first interacted with him I'd say one thing, but now I wouldn't boil it down to one word. I'd say no. We're having a full podcast about this right now because there's such a dynamic interaction that I have with him and, and I think in our country- and I don't I can't speak for other countries, but I've seen it all over our country- there's a level where a lot of people like Jesus and they know a little bit about him.

You might even know some stats about Jesus. You might know some of the things he did, like God is love and Jesus is gracious and salvation, and you might be able to articulate off the bat some things that you heard from parents or from other people. But until you go on the journey, there's just there's more to have an experience in your walk with God and, if you want to know, a pet peeve of mine. Pet peeve of mine is when, I don't know how it's going to go over, so forgive me if it doesn't go over well, but one of my pet peeves is when people refer to celebrities like they're on a first name basis. You know people like that.

If that's you, you're, that's cool, like that's totally fine U. But I remember talking to somebody at some point and, I said, yeah, like Taylor Swift was on our ER to a normal person- here's how they talk about a celebrity. Hey, Taylor Swift went on a super long Arrow tour. None of us knew when it was going to end. Or, Brad Pit was in a movie, or that's how you refer to it.

But there are some people who are like yo, that's just Taylor, you know. Like, you know what I'm talking about, right, those people who talk about them like they're on a firstname basis- and I'm not saying I don't like those, conver, no, I, I, I love those people. But those conversations are pretty frustrating. Sometimes it's a pet peeve of mine because it's like I know you don't know them, right, like the, if you have stats on books, you could tell me all these stats. But then if I said, hey, well, tell me about your last conversation, you'd be like the, the girl in the first service gave me a stat- I didn't even ask her for it- and, and I said: well, tell me about your last conversation.

She said I wish. I said he's good-look, isn't he? He's a goodlooking dude, but that's how like. But isn't that how many of us think about or talk about Jesus? You know about him, but you do you know him like?

Do you? Do you know how he comes, to interact with you in the midst of a difficult season, when you've got no other options and you got nothing else but to lean on him? Do? Do you know what it's like when you have like you, you have no clue what to do in a scenario and you're just like God, I got nothing like. The other day I was, I was laying in bed getting ready to sleep and, I just remember something happened.

I had no words for it and I just I said God, this one's on you, but like, but that's because I've seen him in those moments like he, he shows up. I'm not saying when I say God is on you, Miracle just happens two seconds later, but what I am saying is he shows up in terms of how he can give me a, a, a unique perspective on something, or he can reveal something to me in his word there. There's a difference between knowing about Jesus, thinking he's awesome, and then having walked with Jesus- and In this passage I got to stand up for this, but my ankle just started hurting in between services and so anyways, it's because I'm almost 40 guys- I can't do what I used to do in my 20s. I'm 36, though, so I'm not quite there. If I were 40, I'd have both legs hurt and I'd have to use a stool.

I'm kidding, I'm kidding, sorry, I need to. I need to watch this, cuz the lights are bright. I can't see your faces, and so I'm more bold, but that might be good in the long run. See what happens. We've been in a series called harvest season, and we're calling it harvest season because during this season, we're also praying and fasting and, like I said during welcome, we're forgetting something that we spend a lot of time doing in order to focus on our relationship with Jesus and maybe your hopes, dreams and Ambitions-, you'll see those soon- but the reason we're calling this a harvest season is because it's a spiritual Harvest.

When you invest in your relationship with God, you will see fruit. It might take longer than you expect, but you will see fruit. Seek him where he can be found, and he will be found. God will not relent on his word. His promises are always yes and amen, and so when you live in the way that he calls you to live, he responds the way that he says he will respond.

I found it to be true. He's never lied, he's never relented, he's never forsaken me, and so that's what I found. We've also been in John, chapter 4, because we see a moment when Jesus goes into Samaria with his disciples, he talks to this woman and she goes back to the city and tells other people in that City- we know the city's called sukar- about Jesus and we start to see a spiritual Harvest occur. Now, I walked you through the entire passage last week, but I'm going to be breaking it down over the next this week and two more weeks, and I hope it will be helpful. Let me read the passage for you, then I'll give you our sermon title.

John 4 · chapter mention

It. It's in John. We're going to be first in verse 27-30. Just then, when Jesus was talking to the woman, his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman, but nobody asked: what do you want or why are you talking with her- verse 28. Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people: come see a man who told me everything I ever did.

Could this be the Messiah? Verse 30. They came out of town and made their way toward him. Now let's Jump Ahead to verse 40. So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they urged him to stay with them and he stayed for 2 days and because of his words, many more became believers.

They said to the woman: we no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves and we know that this man really is the savior of the world. My sermon title is: see for yourself. In fact, look at your neighbor long enough to know whether they got hazzed brown eyes, yellow eyes or blue eyes. You have y yellow eyes- a thing I've never seen that on a driver's license- not that I worked at the DMV or anything.

Like I'm, look at what am I talking about? Look at him. Look at him. Say it's time to see for yourself. See because you like you, can get a lot from what I tell you.

Hopefully it depends on the week. You can get a lot from what your parents told you, if they told you the right thing about the Bible. You can get a lot from interaction with other people, but at some point you need to see for yourself, because otherwise it is just you vicariously living your faith based on somebody else's Faith. See you, you can see for yourself. Now I can talk to you as Americans, people who live in this country, most of whom, even if your reading's not as good as somebody else, you can generally understand and comprehend by reading.

That's different than the rest of the world, but you can, and so we have the word of God written on a page right in front of us that we can access on our phone, on our iPads. We can have a Bible to open up and read it, and we got like a million different translations to look at it. We have the word of God in front of us, and so we can see for ourselves, but it's easier sometimes to just let somebody else guide us through the process. Now I'm not saying you don't need help, you totally need help. I need help.

That's what God put the church in place for, so that we could all together move toward him, not like some little cruise ship where we go have fun and play games, but as a transportation vessel to get us from point A to point B in our walk with him. That's what the church is for. It is a vessel for us all to come together and learn from one another and worship. But you as an individual can see God and experience him. In fact, your walk with God will in perpetuity be limited if you are reliant on somebody else and you never see for yourself.

If you, if you don't see for yourself, you're, you're going to struggle when stuff hits the fan. I've seen it. It's like they knew how to talk about it, like they could quote the stats, but then something crazy happened and all of a s sudden they're questioning the Char character of God and you realize it flipped, because it was all stats but no true connection. They hadn't seen for themselves. When I look at the Samaritans, I love the way this passage turns up, because they listen to this woman and then eventually they see for themselves.

But I think this acts as a little template that we can utilize in our own lives. It's always cool when the Bible gives us something so simple. So I want to give you three points. Well, that techically six, but I did like a point. It's not all six, it's not that long, trust me.

It's, it's three points, but then I did like my version, like Taylor's version of the point. I, I don't know. I just wanted to make it more clear. So my first point that I want to give you is this: , from the template that we see in the Samaritans, the first thing that they did is they heard from the woman and they came out of the town. I think that's significant.

We know that Jesus met this woman in the middle of the day. Now we don't know how long this conversation went and how long it would have taken her to walk back after leaving her water jar, but we can safely assume that it's sometime in the afternoon. What significant to me is, if it's earlier in the afternoon, they could have been working and doing stuff, but when they heard this woman, they stopped what they were doing. They could have been getting ready for the evening time, spending time with their families and doing whatever they did in the evening, but they stopped what they were doing. And so my point to you from this pass, or from the recognition that they came out of town, is: stop what you're doing, sometimes, in order to experience and indulge in your relationship with God, it requires you to stop something.

You just don't have enough time in the day to do every single thing and then still put Jesus at the center. There need to be Cuts made. Now, hear me, I'm not telling you to quit every single thing. You can't. I can't stop being a parent like I got to be a parent.

But what's significant is, whatever they were doing, they made the choice to listen to this woman and follow her out to the well so they could hear this man who told her everything that she had done. And what's cool is they didn't know everything. There are a lot of people who will come to me and I can really only give you my experiences- and I can. I can hear from other people, but it's not my experience, so it does feel authentic. So I can give you my experiences- and a lot of people will come to me and they'll say: I'll do this if I understand it better.

I'll do this when the Lord reveals this specific thing to me. I had a friend- he's the one who actually led me to Jesus when I was younger- and he came up to me 6 years later and he said: you know, I decided to stop this pursuit of Jesus. I said. I said why? He said, well, because there was something I was hoping for that it didn't happen, and I think a lot of us.

We put this litmus test on whether we're going to follow Jesus or not, based on whether he does a very specific thing. The Samaritans didn't do that. They heard this woman talk to them. They didn't know much about him at all. I don't know what they had heard about him, but I would imagine, based on what we know of history, there weren't a bunch of people from Galilee walking through Samaria telling them about Jesus who's doing ministry in Galilee.

They probably knew nothing. They only heard this woman's word and, to be frank, This Woman's word probably wasn't very valid in that day. You can just read earlier in John, chapter 4 to know that she probably wasn't someone most people in town would have listened to. So, with limited information from a pretty limited Source, they decided to take the risk, stop what they were doing and head outside of town. That's what I'm inviting you to do.

John 4 · chapter mention

That's what Jesus invites us to do. In fact, when people start following Jesus, here's what I'll often tell them. I'll say the call and journey of following Jesus is to follow him. He's a caveat, whatever that might mean, because I don't know what's going to happen. I just don't.

I can't predict the future, but I know that when you follow Jesus, whatever that means, that's going to set you up for a life where the random stuff doesn't throw you off. I love that. The Samaritans- I don't think they were dumb. I think there was something happening in that City, a harvest that Jesus knew about, which is why he went there, such that when they heard her limited word, with her limited witness or testimony, they come out stopping work, stopping family time, stopping Sports, stopping whatever they were doing, in order to go see if she might be legitimately telling them the truth. It was an, if it was a risk.

I love that. I think that's exciting and I think if we can kind of have that mentality when it comes to pursuing Jesus, it'll be more fun. Just I, I think it'd be. I got really hick there for a second. Yeah, she's shaking her head.

She's like that sounded like you were from Arkansas. I apologize for that. I'm working on it, but you might need to stop something. It's. I'm just going to tell you boldly: it's worth it.

It's worth it. Jesus is not only like the creator of the universe, but he's the savior of the world. It's worth it to pause something for a minute in order to go experience something about him. It's totally worth it, and I think you guys all have that mentality. You guys showed up here today and, and I think your thought was: hopefully, God will reveal something to me.

You guys show up here if, if it's your first time, I did I tell youall what to do. If it's your first time, I think I did. I'm- pastors are terrible at welcomes. They shouldn't have us do it ever, but I did it today. Anyways, if it is your first time, you might have come here, you, you maybe you heard something good, maybe you heard something bad about the church and you were like: I just go try it out.

I love that mentality. I think that's great. I think you coming here opens you up to hear the word of God, maybe in a fresh way, and then, when you leave here, you might have experienced something about Jes Jesus that changes your life. I love that mentality and I'm glad that you're here, I think we need to continue having that mentality- I have two too- like I've been in this, I think, over 15 years. At this point, I'm just not good at math, but I became a Christian when I was 15 years old and it was like I don't even know what this is and I jumped into it, started to experience more.

And then I come out here to Buckeye, having lived in the South a huge portion of my life, and then I'm like, oh, this is new, this is different, God, what are you doing? And then I'm consistently trying to move things aside so that I can put Jesus at the center. Let me jump into Point number two. The second thing they did was they urged him to stay. The text tells us in verse 40.

So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed for two days. Gosh, how cool would it be to get two days with Jesus. That would been cool, like, even if you don't think he rose from the grave- which I think you should- I think it's awesome, I think it's legit and like something we see in history that changed the entire world, and progression of history. But even if you didn't believe it, it'd be cool to hang out with Jesus for two days, that'd be. That'd be so dope I.

I'm jealous of the Samaritans, but they didn't really know what he was about fully. They go out to the well in the middle of the day. They had paused what they're doing with the hopes and the risk that maybe it would produce something. They hear a little bit from them and they're like they got a little taste and they knew that they needed more. And one thing I've never, never, understood- I was talking to you about this last night, Hannah.

One thing I've never understood is how you can taste a little bit of the grace of God in Jesus and then be like that was cool. All right, now I'm back about my business. I don't I, I don't get it. I'm not saying I don't struggle with putting Jesus first- of course I struggle with that. But like Wholesale in the church in America, like I see it a lot, where it's like, yeah, I want a little Jesus in my life, seems to add a little bit of value, that's cool.

And I'm like, if you, if you've seen a little bit of Jesus, how can you not want more? If you've tasted and seen that the Lord is good, how can you not keep going back to the well, how can you not keep going back to the vine, how can you not keep going and getting more like? It just does not make sense to me. When Jesus calls us, like, the invit is to give up your life and follow him. And many of us have gotten to the point where we said, yep, I will, I like that.

But then, in the way that we live our life, we're like: okay, cool, I've trusted in Jesus and I want to be so clear and I'll probably say this every week. The Bible gives us a prescription for how to follow Jesus and be saved. Paul tells us this. He says, he says I say this every week, I, I forgot it. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and you will be saved.

That's what he says. That's a clear prescription and I don't think you need to do anything beyond that. Simply receive the free gift of God in Christ Jesus, trusting that God raised him from the dead three days after he was crucified. That's it. Receive that, believe that and you're saved and you're in heaven with God for all of eternity.

That's what I believe. But if you get that, how can you stop? I, I was there at the Suns game and I didn't know I'd never grew up in a place where we had a good basketball team or NBA teams. I didn't get into B basketball. I like baseball, I like football.

Basketball was something that was new for me here and I couldn't afford son's tickets so I was like not into it until someone bought me a ticket. But as soon as I got there and I was like I've heard a Booker, we'll read more about it. And then I started reading more about all the other players and I start looking at all their stats and I'm like, dude, this is fun and this is just basketball. But if you've experienced the grace of God that he would forgive you of your sin by dying on the cross when he didn't deserve it, that God would robe himself in flesh so that he could show you that he understands the pain and difficulty that you go through, if you have experienced that God, how can you stop at your get out of hell? Freeart, I wouldn't.

In fact, after salvation, there's a process that the New Testament really spends more time talking about. We call this sanctification. This is the process whereby God takes you from hostile to Holy, and when you trust in Jesus, it starts that process. And while I'm excited about spending eternity with God in heaven, I get to live in the growth and development of Holiness that he provides now. I get it now, and there are a lot of people in this world who are content living in pain until they die.

As long as they get to spend eternity in heaven with Jesus, and that's I'm not doubting that, I'm saying there's more. Look at your neighbor, the other neighbor, and say, hey, remember, nobody, nobody, they don't like this, they don't like this. I hope you like it. Just just tell them: hey, there's more, there's more, there's more. And- and you can see it for yourself- you don't have to rely on me to act like there's more and say that there's more and say, well, he says there's more, so I guess there's more.

No, you look, you'll find, you'll experience and you'll see. They urged him to stay. My version of that is: do what you can to get time with Jesus. Now, when I say get time with Jesus, there's a long list of ways that you can spend time with Jesus. There's opening God's word and reading it, but stay with that right, stay with that for a minute.

It's going to be confusing. At first, first time I opened it, I was like this is strange, I don't understand a bit of this. But as I continued reading it and asking God to reveal himself to me, he started to reveal himself to me and yes, you get tons of Amazing Life principles from the Bible. It really is a good roadmap for how to live your life. But even deeper, there's understanding of Salvation, there's understanding of how to connect with God, there's understanding about his plan for the world that you can glean from and it is so lifegiving and beneficial so you can open God's word.

You can start spending time in prayer and I know it's so confusing, like when I ask my kids I'm like pray, and they're like I don't know how to pray and I'm trying to teach them how to pray. It's a scary thing to do, but when you talk to God and utilize his word to help you develop a language to talk to God, that is lifegiving as well. When you spend time with God's people consistently, you learn from them, like they asked to get time with him. How do you expect to love Jesus deeper and deeper every day if you don't get time. It might not be two days at first for you.

I would encourage you to think about it in terms of, like different parts of your year. Maybe you need 15 minutes a day to just get time with Jesus. Maybe you need a weekend every quarter, just just to say I'm not going to plan anything else. I'm going to get some time with Jesus. Maybe once a year you need to go on vacation with your family and the end of that vacation you say we're going to get time with Jesus.

Why? Because he saved me from my sin, he forgave me and invited me into a life that would give me peace that surpasses all understanding. So what am I going to do? I'm going to try to experience that peace that surpasses understanding, and the way he says to do it is to get more time with him. I don't know why.

The Samaritans understood that. Maybe they were just bored, but they said: can you hang with us? He goes back to town and he stays with them. I don't know whose house he stayed in, I don't know if he slept in a tent or something like that, but he stayed there for two days. Can you imagine the wisdom they got from two days?

But in order to get that two days, they had to take some PTO. In order to get that two days, they had to say: well, I guess, if this is important to me, I'm going to push this aside and I'll get to that later. The praying and fasting is our Like. This Is Us choosing to put something else aside in order to experience a deeper connection with God. And I'll give you my third point.

But let me read verse 41 first. Says this: and because of his words, many more became Believers. My third point is: they listened to his words. My version, just listen to what he says. I think we, I think there's an epidemic these days where if it doesn't feel right, or if it's not something that's comfortable to us, then we think we should avoid it or we don't have to listen to it.

But what I would encourage is: if his word says it, you should probably listen to it, it, it, it. It's way higher than me. I've learned in my life that it doesn't take a lot of faith to listen to the words of God. That I agree with. It does take Faith to listen to the words of God that get me all like tossing and turning at night, the ones that make me feel like I don't like that, I don't feel good about that.

I can't tell you how many conversations I have with people, like maybe there was an inspiring word in the message and they're like, ah, that was super inspiring. And then the next week there was something that didn't feel good. And sometimes, you know, I'll screw up the way that I say something. Sometimes it came straight from the word of God and they're like I don't feel that and I'm like the beauty of our faith and trusting Jesus is whatever. Whatever he calls me to do, I'm going to do.

And sometimes my calling to trust in Christ daily is not comfortable. Again, it would be so fun if I agreed with every single thing immediately on reading it, but sometimes I'm reading it and I didn't get like you know, just it didn't feel good. Sometimes I'm I'm feeling convicted: oh shoot, I need to change my speech. Like there's a verse that Paul. Paul says: , he says, what does he say?

Don't let any UNH wholesome word come out of your mouth, but in everything, speak in order to edify. That's kind of a paraphrase. But he says: do everything and speak everything in order to edify others. I'm like sometimes I just want to vent, Paul, chill out, bro, some I'm just talking to my mom or I'm just talking to my wife about how frustrated I am about all these other people. Huh, not a big deal.

But the Scriptures say: don't let any any unho. Some word come out of your mouth, and that's not just talking to people who drop F bombs, it's talking to people who gossiping all the time. It's talking to people who complain all the time, always Debbie downers- and if your name's Debbie, I'm not trying to offend you, it's just a phrase. You know what I'm saying like it's talking to all of us and it's it's more than that. Jesus is like the best if you, if you like it, the worst if you don't like it.

He says you've heard it said: don't murder. But I tell you, if you Harbor hatred in your heart against your brother, you've already murdered them in your heart, whatever. That doesn't feel good, because I don't like some of these people and I'm content not liking some of these people. But he says I got to forgive my neighbor seven times, 70 times. I don't want to forgive my neighbor.

You know what they did to me. Lord, back off, bro, I don't talk to God like that. But you know, that's kind of how we kind of live. It's when I don't agree with it that sometimes I just need to trust it. The Samaritans listen to his words, the way that Jesus taught.

Often he would say really cool and inspiring things and then he'd say something that like dove in and people would leave at that time. But what we see in the Samaritans is, it says, and because of his words, many more became Believers. It wasn't because of the Samaritan woman woman's words it wasn't because of their parents' words. It was because they had experienced his words, Jesus being full of grace and truth as he spoke to them. It pierced through to their souls and they believed because of what they heard.

Paul tells us. He says faith comes by hearing, and hearing not by the words of my buds, but by the words of God. And so here's my encouragement. I might do a series. I don't know what I'm going to call it yet, but tentatively I think I'm calling it like authoritative, because I think in our world we struggle to believe that God's word can be authoritative over our lives, but we've seen over 2,000 years of it existing, that it stands the test of time.

It is authoritative if we allow it to be, and it can guide you in the paths of righteousness and Holiness. So I'd encourage you, listen to what he says and when you disagree with it, listen anyways and see what happens, like the- if you know, you know- series. It was a fun one, but also kind of stressful, because we did five weeks talking about giving and you know, some people loved it, other people didn't love it and it was an interesting thing because the PE- some of the people who didn't love it, would, would come to me and they talk to me about it and I'm just like I see all throughout Scripture what Jesus says about generosity. I'm just trying to articulate God's word and I might not do it perfect at all times, but I'm just trying to articulate what he has communicated to me, that I live now and I've seen the blessing of and, but it doesn't feel good like it doesn't feel good to me all the time. I told everyone that and in every other area are times where where Jesus is calling me to live a life that is like abrasive to every part of my being and I don't always say yes to it.

And when I don't say yes to it, I see the result of my own way and it never produced anything valuable for me. But when I trust him, even when it hurts, I see the blessing and his Blessing far out Wass anything that levels of disagreement or discomfort that I have. And there some of you in here, you're like brand new to church. This is your first time showing up and I'm leaning into this text. I'm like: listen to this word that you've never read before.

Get time with Jesus that you've never experienced before and stop what you're doing in order to go experience him. I'd encourage you, test it out, see what might happen if you go meet with Jesus and open his word for a moment. I already showed you- on the screen- the QR code for praying and fasting. I know we've already done seven days, but the next 14 could still produce something of value in your life and U. They might put it on behind me, but even if they don't, you can talk with somebody and we'll get you signed up for it, because I think it will be valuable to you.

But to the person in this room who has never confessed with their mouth that Jesus is Lord or believed in their heart that God raised him from the dead. I want to give you that opportunity right now to trust in him and decide to follow him. So if everybody would bow their heads and close their eyes, and the way we do that here is we. We pray the prayer together out loud, for the benefit of those who are praying it out loud for the first time and trusting in Jesus.

So if everybody would repeat after me: , we'll pray that prayer. Repeat after me: say God, I believe God, I believe that Jesus is the son of God, that Jesus is son of God. I believe he died on the cross. I believe he died on the cross and Rose from the grave. And Rose from the grave, forgive me of my sin, for me, of make me a new creation.

Make me a new creation and I will follow you and I follow you, whatever that means for the rest of my life. The rest of heads bowed, eyes closed. I just want to get a look on who prayed that prayer for the first time just now. So, at the count of three, if you just shoot your hand up, we're going to celebrate you, but I just want to know so I can help you take your next step toward God. So if that was.

You shoot up your hand on one, two, three. Come on, amen, amen, amen. I see it. Hey, can we celebr right real quick those who just trusted.