Advent: The Promise of Hope (Isaiah 7)

Let's get some praise this morning.

Well, good morning, real life church.

Go ahead and find one or two people and just look at myself.

Hey, that sweater is ugly.

He may be seated.

You may be seated.

Alright.

Whoop.

Alright.

Well, if you do look around and you see a bunch of ugly sweaters, or maybe it's just a pretty Christmas sweater, I would like to direct your attention really quick to Miss Brittany Todd with the lovely wreath of a sweater.

Yeah, yeah, there's a bunch of them running around.

So be sure pick on them.

It's gonna be a blast.

If you were with us last week, this is all Pastor Brandon's fault that we are wearing Christmas sweaters.

Somebody one person's excited about that.

That's awesome.

I love it.

So be sure, give him a hard time, and we're gonna have a great time.

Well, if this is my first time actually getting to meet you, I'm so glad and honored that you're here.

My name is Chris Durham, and I serve as the administrative pastor.

And can we also do one more thing?

Can we celebrate the three baptisms there in first service there?

That was awesome.

Absolutely.

Well, we are gonna be back in a time of Advent this morning.

So if you would, if you have your Bible, go ahead and turn with me to Isaiah chapter seven, and we're actually gonna go through a scripture that we're probably familiar with.

If even if you haven't been around church, you've probably at least heard it.

And so if you were with us last week, Pastor Brandon talked about the promises of Advent, and he went through a couple of different.

So if you missed that service, be sure go back.

It is on our social medias, it's on uh YouTube and everywhere else that you can find them, because we're going to build on that and continue talking about the promises of God.

And so again, Isaiah chapter seven, and we're gonna be starting in verse 10.

God's word says, Later, the Lord sent this message to King Ahaz, ask the Lord your God for a sign of confirmation, Ahaz.

Make it as difficult as you want, as high as heaven, or as deep as the place of the dead.

But the king refused, No, he said, I will not test the Lord like that.

Then Isaiah said, Listen well, you royal family of David.

Isn't it enough to exhaust human patience?

Must you exhaust the patience of my God as well?

All right then, the Lord himself will give you a sign.

Look, the virgin will conceive a child, she will give birth to a son, and will call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us.

By the time this child is old enough to choose what is right and reject what is wrong, he will be eating yogurt and honey.

For before the child is that old, the lands of the two kings you fear so much will both be deserted.

Then the Lord will bring things on you, your nation and your family, unlike anything since Israel broke away from Judah.

He will bring the king of Assyria upon you.

In that day the Lord will whistle for the army of southern Egypt and for the army of Assyria.

They will swarm around you like flies and bees.

They will come in vast hordes and settle in the fertile areas and also in the desolate valleys, caves, and thorny places.

In that day, the Lord will hire a razor from beyond the Euphrates River, the king of Assyria, and use it to shave off everything, your land, your crops, and your people.

In that day, a farmer will be fortunate to have a cow and two sheep or goats left.

Nevertheless, there will be enough milk for everyone because of so few people will be left in the land.

They will eat their fill of yogurt and honey.

In that day, the lush vineyards, now worth thousands of pieces of silver, will become patches and briars and thorns.

The entire land will become a vast expanse of briars and thorns, a hunting ground overrun by wildlife.

No one will go to the fertile hillsides where the gardens once grew, for briars and thorns will cover them.

Cattle, sheep, and goats will graze there.

Let's pray.

Our Father God, thank you.

Thank you again so much for bringing us to this place at this very specific time for a very specific reason.

Now, Lord, as we we dig into your word, we ask that that your voice be heard.

Lord, dampen mine and use me as a vessel to further your kingdom, Lord.

Help us, lead us, guide us, and direct us.

We trust you in this, in your holy name.

Amen and amen.

Well, this is a very uh happy passage, don't you think?

You know, we get this, it's a couple of people chuckled.

Hey, we're we're waking up.

It's okay, loosen up, we're gonna have some fun.

All right.

It's it's not that that happy.

But when I first heard this growing up, we hear that a child is going to be born of a virgin.

It's and then it stops, right?

But if we actually look at the word of God, context matters.

If you've heard me speak before, you've you've heard me say over and over again, the word of God cannot mean for us what it did not mean for the original recipients.

So that means we need to put some context on to this passage here.

And so I want to build up a little bit of what's happening at this time in Israel and Judah.

So at this time, you know, we sometimes think of Israel as this one big nation.

Well, that's not always been the case.

You know, back at the original promise that God gave in Genesis chapter 3.15 of that there will be a Messiah coming at some point in time, it's actually 3.15 that that sin enters into the world, and so everything's fractured.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

And then God comes on and says, Hey, but there's hope.

And then Abraham, who is old in age, he's not supposed to have children.

God comes to Abraham and he says, Hey, you're also going to have a child, and that child is going to be the descendant of many, many nations.

The stars in the sky won't even be able to compare to the amount of people that will descend from you.

And then Isaac comes along from Abraham, and then from Isaac we have Jacob, and Jacob gets the blessing.

And if you missed that story, go read Genesis, because the way Jacob gets the blessing is a little bit underhanded from his brother.

And then you get Jacob, that that's where we actually get the tribe of Israel.

Jacob has 12 sons, and they are known as the tribe of Israel.

And then from from there, we we keep trekking along all the way to King David.

Who here has heard of David and Goliath?

A few of us, right?

David and Goliath, it's that David, that King David.

And so while David's uh he's doing all the things that he's being an awesome king and all those types of things, he has so many problems.

He's like a man's man.

So if you ever want to study what a man is, go look at David, the flaws and the good parts.

It's both and.

But then there's there's this promise that God gives David.

David then gets the promise from God saying, hey, the Messiah is actually going to come from you.

It's no longer just this kind of figment.

It's actually, hey, the Messiah is going to come from your lineage.

And then from there, we actually get to see King Solomon.

Solomon is supposedly one of the wisest people to ever walk the earth.

That's King David's son.

And so King Solomon now takes the reign, and we have this very unified Israel through that time, the full nation of Israel.

And so what happens though is King Solomon, he dies.

And when he dies, one of his sons, Rehoboam, comes in and he takes the throne.

Well, what happens is once Solomon dies, we we have the nation of Israel all gathered together.

And Rehboam, who's young, he's very young at this point in time.

And so he's starting to get counsel, and then the nation of Israel is coming to him saying, Hey, we we would prefer actually to have less taxes coming.

It's it's been really harsh, it's been hard all this time.

And so, hey, can can you lessen that a little bit for us?

Can you make it a little bit easier?

And so Rehoboam, a very, very wise choice here.

He he actually gathers the counsel of advisors first from King Solomon.

Very smart.

These men are old.

They've been around, they've led, they know what to do.

So Rehaboam then gets the wise counsel to hey, if you actually appease these people, they'll follow you.

So this is what you should do.

You should appease, you should maybe lessen that a little bit.

And then Rehaboam in his really young wisdom, he decides that's not good for him.

And so then he goes and finds another council of advisors who are young men.

God's word actually says that these men grew up with Rehoboam.

So they don't know anything, right?

And so they tell him, hey, no, actually, what you should do is make it harsh.

You should make it harder.

You should tell them, hey, my father ruled with whips, I'm gonna rule with Scorpion tells.

We're gonna increase taxes.

That's what you should do.

And Rehboam, he's he's young.

He's like, yeah, that's that's exactly what we're gonna do.

We're gonna rule with an iron fist.

So that's what happens.

Rehoboam then goes and makes all these rules.

What happens is this right here.

We all of a sudden have a break in the kingdom of Israel.

So no longer are we unified in the kingdom of Israel.

Rather, we have the northern kingdom, which takes the name of kingdom of Israel, and then we have the southern, which is kingdom of Judah.

So in Judah, we have Jerusalem, Hebron, Hakish, and Beersheba.

These are all places we've heard of.

But in the northern side, there's Samaria.

Yes, that Samaria that you've heard of all through the New Testament.

You have Jericho, Jurash, Betel, uh, Shekem, and Jaffa.

So all these places are now split.

There's no longer unity.

And then we get all the way where we are to what we're talking about today, which would be about 735 BC.

So 735 years before Christ comes to the earth.

And so now what's happening is there is actually a war happening between the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah.

And then up here you have Assyria.

So Assyria and Israel, they're in cahoots, right?

They're they're together.

They're going to go against the kingdom of Judah to fight against this King Ahaz that we hear about.

If you go back and you want to see a little bit more about this, you can go to 2 Chronicles 28 or 2 Kings 16, and you can have a little bit more detail about who King Ahaz is.

But I'm going to give you a quick synopsis.

Here's King Ahaz.

That's not an actual image, by the way.

That's a beauty of AI right there.

We see four amazing things that King Ahaz is known as known for.

We have child sacrifice, his own children, mind you, not everybody else's, but his own children, he actually puts them in the fire.

Literally.

Idolatry.

He goes and he makes metal different figures of Baal.

We have corruption of the temple.

He completely destroys the temple, temple, shreds it out, and he puts him in different places, and there's no longer a temple of God.

And then he trusts in himself rather than God.

That's a solid king right there.

Right?

Sarcasm.

Okay, hey, we're loosening up.

It's okay.

King Ahaz is not known to be a good guy.

But here's what's awesome.

If you go back in in Isaiah chapter 7, that brings us back to where we are right now.

Isaiah 7 · chapter mention

So instead of just throwing the kingdom away, because remember, this is the same people that God gave the promise to David that the Messiah is going to come from you.

I'm going to take you out of all your burden, all your heartache, and we're going to move forward and it's going to be amazing.

This is the same people.

It's a pretty corrupt guy.

Now, before we go too far and we start really unpacking this passage, I want us to be very careful to not do what is called chronological snobbery.

C.S.

Lewis is one of my favorite theologians.

And in one of his books, Surprised by Joy, which I highly commend to you, I highly recommend it.

You can actually scan this QR code.

It'll take you straight to the Amazon portion.

I don't get any royalties in institution of C.S.

Lewis.

If you'd like to give some royalties, that's a great time for that.

But I highly commend Surprise by Joy because he talks about this idea of when he became a follower of Christ, he had another writer, which most of us would know, he had another writer walk alongside of him because C.S.

Lewis was an atheist before he became a theologian.

And so all this time, C.S.

Lewis, he's wrestling with the Lord and he thinks back and he's he's looking kind of just what did the Old Testament say?

What did all these people do?

And he has this thought, basically saying, Well, those idiots, what were they thinking?

That's what chronological snobbery is.

So we have to be very careful not to do the same thing.

Looking back at King Ahaz, through child, children, his own children in the fire, he was an idolater.

He he destroyed the temple of God and he made himself greater than God.

So here's what I want to do really quick.

It's gonna be a very happy sermon today, okay?

Welcome to Advent.

You want to come to a happy one come on the 23rd.

It's gonna be awesome on Eve.

This morning, though, this is our world.

This is Bowling Green, Kentucky.

All of these, uh these kind of six, yeah, six different uh percentages statistics are from Bowling Green, Kentucky of 2024.

In Bowling Green, Kentucky, we have an alcoholism rate of 17.2%.

This is from City Dashboard.

This is a secular group, this is not a Christian group.

So this means out of all the people, this was part of the census that they did a while back, and then they took some of those and they actually did some research on them.

Out of all of Bowling Green, Kentucky, 17.2% of Bowling Green, Kentucky would admit to alcoholism.

That's not all the other people that refuse to admit.

That's the first step, is a mission.

Smoking, 14%.

Obesity rate in bowling green is 33%.

Teen birth rate is 14.7%.

Opioid ODs of last year, 1900 people died of opioid overdose.

Type 2 diabetes, which is actually diet-related diabetes, 11.6%.

If we look at this right here, this is actually all different kinds of things that we use to numb our pain, to distract us from all the things.

This is us taking control.

That's bowling green, Kentucky.

That's the world we live in.

If we take some national numbers, the CDC, the centers of disease control, cannabis use over uh the past 2024, 19% of the population has used cannabis.

Three out of ten of those were from medical use.

So if you want to make that argument with me that it's all for medical, you're not right.

This could be hitting home.

It's okay.

The Lord's good.

GutMaker Institute, this is another research for firm.

At the first six months of 2025, there were 500, 18,940 abortions in the U.S.

Obviously, we're still in 25, so we don't have real-to-date numbers, but if we kept pace, we're talking over a million babies were murdered before they were able to walk the earth.

Addictionhelp.com talks about pornography use.

67% of men and 41% of women have viewed pornography in the last 30 days alone.

It's a broken world.

I know we're we're getting heavy.

What what a what a thing to do before Christmas.

Families.

This is back to Bowling Green.

Families in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

31.2% of households with children under 18 years old are single parents.

That could be single mothers, that's predominantly who it is.

Uh, and then there's single fathers.

I think single fathers was about 8.1%, if I remember correctly.

According to the CDC, approximately 40% of all births were to unmarried women.

Guys, we're we're where God designed a husband and a wife to have a mother and a father in the home.

That is what God's design was because a child needs both in order to flourish well.

Now, I do want to say there are a thousand different reasons that these numbers could exist.

But the primary one essentially comes down to somebody fell out of love.

Or essentially they jumped in the sack before they got married.

You got Pastor Chris today, I'm pretty blunt, all right?

That's what it is.

But can also tell you, where there is lacking, God's grace abounds.

Where there is lacking, God's grace abounds.

So if if this is you and I can look around this room and I know a lot of different people's stories in this room, this hits home to people.

I'm not here to condemn you.

I'm just here to tell you that, hey, the Lord can make things whole.

Because that's what we get to see today.

We get to see a promise of hope.

In this passage, in Isaiah chapter 7, starting in verse 10, we see a time that we can actually see a promise of hope.

Isaiah 7 · chapter mention

So let's dig in.

What is that promise of hope?

Starting in in verse 10.

Later, the Lord sent the message to King Ahaz, ask the Lord your God for a sign of confirmation, Ahaz.

Make it as difficult as you want, as high as heaven, or as deep as the place of the dead.

But the king refused.

No, he said, I will not test the Lord like that.

So the first thing we actually get to see in our promises of hope is that a promise is offered, right?

Ahaz, who is a terrible king, he has no reason to be anybody who's receiving promises from God, except for the fact that he is leading the nation that God promised many, many moons before this.

So God then offers him a promise.

And I and I love this.

Ahaz, he says, No, I will not test the Lord like that.

No, I will not test the Lord like that.

Now, I I would put it like I think there's a little bit of righteous indignation here, right?

Saying, I'm not, I'm, I'm too holy to actually test the Lord.

Bro, the Lord just told you to test, to confirm, look for that confirmation.

There are very few times in the Bible that we actually see the Lord do this right here.

There's one in Malachi when it talks about giving, and then there's this one.

These are the only two that off the top of my head I can think of.

It's like the Lord comes to you through Isaiah and tells you ask for confirmation.

Make it as big as you want.

And Ahaz says, No.

Now, can can I be honest?

I'm gonna do a little conjecture.

So, Bible's over there for a moment, and I'm I'm standing over here.

This is not a thus saith the Lord comment, okay?

But I would say Ahaz is trying to make it look a little better than what he is.

He's saying, No, because I don't want to test the Lord like that.

Can I tell you confession?

It's good for the soul, bad for the reputation.

I do the same thing.

There are often times in my life where God is saying, Hey Chris, take a step of faith.

Go do this in my name.

It's not a physical voice.

It's not how that works for me.

Maybe it does for you.

That's not how how God speaks to me.

Mostly it's through his word.

But instead of saying, yes, Lord, and going, I actually take a very similar heart posture.

It's like, no, I don't want to test you, Lord.

Maybe I'm the only one guilty of that.

But but God offers Ahaz.

He says, Hey, look for a confirmation.

In other terms, test me.

I want to show you that I am great.

What's God trying to show you his greatness today?

What are you working through?

Maybe it was one of those statistics that you're kind of wrestling with.

And around here, everybody has a private battle that nobody else knows about, right?

A hundred percent of human beings will fall into that category.

And if you don't think you do, uh, you can write down pride for that one because you You probably just aren't seeing it.

So we we all have that private battle, but are we willing to let God step into that and take care of it for us?

That's the question today.

That promise of hope, it was offered to Ahaz, it's offered to you and I.

And then we get to see the promise is given.

So the Lord then says, fine, if you're not going to ask for it, I'm going to show you.

Here you go.

You ready for this?

It says in verse 13, then Isaiah said, Listen well, you royal family of David.

I don't think that's an endearing term right here.

After Ahaz just kind of declined and denied him.

I don't think that's it, that's an endearing firm, uh, endearing term.

I think it's then Isaiah said, Listen well, you royal family of David.

Isn't it enough to exhaust human patience?

Must you also exhaust my God as well?

And I can just like imagine Isaiah.

All right then.

The Lord himself will give you the sign.

Look, the virgin will conceive a child.

She will give birth to a son and will call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us.

By the time the child is old enough to choose what is right and reject what is wrong, he will be eating yogurt and honey.

For before the child is that old, the lands of the two kings you fear so much will be deserted.

I love this.

Now, King Ahaz, this is in 735 BC.

So if you do some math, it takes 735 years, give or take, maybe 731, depending on how many years, what timeline you're looking at.

But it takes that long for a promise to be fulfilled.

For me, I'm a little guilty of God.

You made that promise like two hours ago.

Where are we at?

Maybe it's been a year, maybe it's been two years.

We don't work on God's time.

Right?

It's so easy for us to see that that inner inside of us, that humanity in us of we serve an infinite God, and but as finite beings, we're thinking, hey, we're gonna get all the way to here, and this is gonna be it, and everything's gonna be great.

Can I tell you?

I I thought once I got married that that was gonna be it.

Guys, I I have an amazing bride.

Her name's Katie.

She's normally sitting up here, I'm not sure where she's at.

Um, but but she she's an amazing, amazing woman.

But can I tell you that wasn't it?

And then I thought, okay, well, maybe if we have kids, that's gonna be it.

And the somebody chuckled who has kids.

I don't know who it was.

They have kids.

So we have five kids.

I love all five of them.

But dear Lord in heaven.

That's that's that's not it.

Maybe it's the job for me.

It was being a pastor.

I'm gonna become a pastor, and guys, I love you.

But have you ever dealt with people?

Like, that ain't it.

PB's like, oh goodness, I can't believe I had Chris talk on on the Christmas the Sunday before Christmas.

It's not it.

There's only one it, and that's the promise that God has already given, and then he fulfills.

If you want to hear more about that fulfillment, come back on uh the Eve Eve on the 23rd, because we're gonna have an amazing time here.

We're gonna worship Jesus Christ and His coming, we're gonna celebrate it, we're gonna receive communion together, we're gonna have a time of just candlelit service.

It's gonna be awesome.

So you want to hear that fulfillment, come then.

But it's been given.

That's what we get to be a part of, and it doesn't matter what we do.

But the last thing we see here is that the choice is ours.

Ahaz, in his infinite wisdom, says, No, thank you to the Lord.

And here's what happened.

If you read the rest of this chapter, it's the destruction of Judah.

Because of a decision he made, destruction comes because it wasn't aligning with the Lord.

Seven hundred years in order for this promise to come to fruition.

Now, if we really look back and we start trekking back to King Solomon and then Rehoboam coming over, he takes another wise counsel of young men.

Guess what happens?

Destruction happens.

There's a sermon inside of that that I don't have time for, but essentially, young and uh young men and women, find old men and women.

Old men and women, find young men and women so you can help lead them in the path of life.

It's a whole nother thing over there.

We have hope because we have a promise, but the choice is ours.

Denial has consequences, but so does acceptance.

Around our family, we we have a couple of just kind of phrases that we use inside of our family.

And you've probably heard me say a couple of them, but but if you do stupid things, stupid things get stupid consequences, right?

Good things, good choices get good consequences.

Everything has a consequence in life.

But we have the choice.

We can choose a stupid choice and get stupid consequences, we can choose a good choice and get good consequences.

Here, denial has consequences.

Can I tell you one reason why I love Baptism Sunday is because whenever we we get to have a meeting with the people being baptized before uh they actually go through it and make sure they understand what they're doing.

And and sometimes that actually ends up in that meeting, that's the moment they give their life to Christ.

And to get to be a part of that is is awesome because it's like this light comes on.

It's like all of a sudden, because in that moment, when we accept Jesus Christ as our King, the Holy Spirit enters into us.

That's what happens.

It's not a process, a practice process of sanctification, which means the process of becoming more and more like Christ.

That's a process.

Everybody's slower.

I feel like I'm on the slower end, some people a little faster, but I feel like I'm over here a little bit.

But but the moment we receive Christ, the Holy Spirit's inside of us.

So here's what that means: we don't have to be the way we were.

That's the beauty of it.

And guess what?

It has nothing to do with you or me, but the choice is ours.

Both sides.

If if you are here today and you are not a believer in Jesus Christ, can I tell you I'm so glad you're here because there's nowhere better for you to be?

So glad you're here.

And it's not because anything I'm gonna do or say, but maybe the Holy Spirit will just wrestle with you and eventually you'll submit because there is a choice to be had.

You can either enter into eternity with in heaven with Jesus Christ, or you can enter into eternity in hell, which is separation from Christ.

That's all a crux, a one decision, whether you decide to give your life as Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, or not.

Now, for Christians, which is a mass majority of people here, right?

We have a choice too.

We can either choose to walk in freedom or we can choose to continue to walk in bondage.

Now, because the Holy Spirit is inside of us, we have the opportunity to walk in freedom.

But if we decide, hey, my way is still better, then you're gonna be stuck in bondage.

But there's there's a process with that.

So really the question is, what now?

Great, we have this great promise, we know it's been given, and we know that there's a consequence, good or bad.

What do we do with this now?

If we look at how to walk in this first, we must trust God and who he says he is.

We don't get to choose who God is, we don't get to choose what the his word says.

We must have proper interpretation of God's word to truly understand God.

What's happened, we we hear all throughout the Bible of false teachers and false idols and all those different things.

Guys, you know how we get to those false teachers?

It's because we get away from the word of God and we get in our own desires and we try to put our own desires and our own humanity on God rather than looking at a being that is much, much greater than us who has saved us.

We must look at God for who he is.

We must trust his word over our own desire.

And can I tell you that is hard?

Especially if you have kids.

I have five kids, and our exact middle child's name is Noah.

Right now, Noah is such a sweet child if you see him on the surface.

But what you don't know is him at home.

He is a little terror sometimes.

And it's this idea of, you know, there's uh somebody that says, maybe Martin Luther, PB told me a while back, and he was saying, you know, you're gonna find everything you need in your kids.

So all the sanctification you need is gonna come from your kids.

Noah's that for me, because he's me made over.

And so Noah, all the time, he'll he'll be just this sweet kid one second, and the next thing you know, one of the kids are crying over there.

Like, you look over, what what just happened?

Well, Noah just hit me.

Like, dude, you were just sitting right here.

He's like, Noah didn't.

Like, what are you talking about?

You you need to look at yourself before God, look at your kids.

That's us.

We do the same thing.

We we try to to really fix ourselves, but the thing is, God tells us in his word that we cannot fix ourselves.

He's the one that does that.

We have to submit to him, but he's the one that fixes us.

So if you're waiting for that perfect moment to give your life to Christ, if you're waiting for that perfect moment to be made whole, to have that fulfillment that can only come from Christ, can I tell you that perfect moment's never gonna come because you're not good enough to clean yourself up just as I'm not.

Rather, when we submit to God, he cleans us up.

There's a I think it's a Chinese proverb.

They say the the best time to plant a tree was 25 years ago.

The second best time is today.

So maybe you didn't plant that tree 25 years ago.

But you know what you can do?

You can plant it today, and then 25 years from now, you're gonna look like a different person.

I guarantee you, six months from now, you're gonna look like a different person.

We must trust who God says he is.

The next thing is we must surrender that sin to him.

And I do use the word sin very, very clearly here.

Uh, you guys probably know me by now.

I'm a pretty blunt individual.

I'm not talking about struggling with sin.

We ain't struggling with sin, we're just sinning.

For me, one of my one of my biggest parts of my testimony, most of you probably know this at this point, but I had a big addiction to pornography.

Man, I wasn't struggling with that, I was just straight sinning.

And it wasn't until I fully surrendered that to the Lord that that got I got to walk in freedom out of that closer to God.

That's what we get to be a part of.

So, so maybe yours is is negative self-talk.

Can I tell you the Holy Spirit wants to heal that?

Maybe it's gluttony.

Holy Spirit wants to heal that.

Greed, Holy Spirit wants to heal that.

Maybe it's a a very clear uh sin.

And God wants to heal that.

But we have to be ready to submit it and be willing to surrender it.

We must surrender our sin to Him.

We must lay it down.

So everybody who walked in today, you probably got a worship guide.

Or if you didn't get a worship guide, I guarantee you have a cell phone.

This is the only time I'm gonna allow you.

Please pull that cell phone out, pull it or pull that piece of paper that's inside that worship guide.

And what I want you to do, I want you to write down that one sin that you know that you're struggling with.

And if something came to your mind, that's it, that's probably the Holy Spirit speaking to you.

And if you do that and you really look at it, you really, you really self-reflect on it, like, are you willing to give that up?

And maybe you've said, yes, I'm willing to give it up, but I have no idea how to do that.

Can I tell you here in just a few minutes, we're gonna have a time of back in worship and song.

And our prayer team, it will be back at the back corner there.

We'll see a big blue, I think it's blue, um, uh thing behind the tree or with the tree.

Sign.

There we go.

The the prayer sign.

And we're gonna have the prayer team over there.

And they can help walk with you through that.

They can pray and pray for you.

They're not gonna get weird, we're not gonna break out in tongues, we're not gonna be dancing around, nothing crazy, but but we're gonna pray with you.

We're gonna walk through that together.

That's a great opportunity if you have no idea how to do that.

Another option is find somebody inside this church that you trust and you can walk through accountability.

Guys, can I tell you that's hard?

So hard.

But when we start getting in the fight together and and and we have a brother or sister, and they they want to surrender that sin, and when we walk with them, man, it's awesome.

It's hard.

But it's awesome.

So we we we trust God in who he says he is.

That's another way of saying know God, know who God is.

We surrender our sin to him so then we can grow and walk in freedom.

And then lastly, we tell others our story.

You realize I know of at least two of those three people that got baptized that they walked in baptism because of somebody else's story.

God uses our stories.

And when we submit to him and we say, okay, Lord, I'm willing to tell that story.

I'm willing to live that out and show others, we get to be a part of people coming into the kingdom of God.

That's an awesome opportunity that we have.

So tell your story.

It doesn't have to be anything crazy.

You don't have to be a theologian.

That was one of the biggest things for me is as I was starting to walk with people and I wanted to see people come to Christ.

I really wanted to see it, but I didn't know enough.

I was afraid that they're gonna pin me down because I don't know this answer or this answer or this answer.

Can I tell you the best answer in that case is I don't know.

But we're gonna find out together.

And then you learn together, and you start walking through because here's the reality: everything always backs up the Bible, right?

If you really look objectively at life, things will align up with the Bible, so you can have confidence in that.

Can I tell you that was hard for me?

Or maybe it's just you're super relational, use that to your advantage, have relationships with everybody.

Anybody who has these little uh wreath things on, like those are extroverts in life.

They're probably very relational people.

Use that, connect with people, tell your story.

Introverts, find that one person you can share your story with.

Tell your story because God wants to use it.

We know who God is and we trust who he says he is.

We surrender all of our sin to him and we grow in freedom, and then we tell others our story and we share Christ with them.

I have one more stat I really want to share with you guys because to me this is this can be very encouraging.

Inside of Bowling Green, Kentucky, 49.7% of people would say they affiliate or they would halfway connect to Christianity.

49.7%.

That is under 50% to put a real number on this.

37,879 people would affiliate with Christianity.

Now, this is not active followers, they're just saying, yeah, I believe.

Active followers, I would venture to guess you could probably put half.

That maybe that's a skeptic in me.

But but here's here's the really cool thing.

That means approximately 38,000 people are not yet saved.

Guys, here in Bowling Green, Kentucky, this is this is not a foreign land, this is not anywhere but our backyard.

These are the people we work with, these are the people we drive next to.

Hopefully, you don't get road rage.

And if you have an RLC sticker on the back, make sure you don't do anything questionable.

38,000 people that we can be a part of and see them come to Christ.

And guys, that's a God-sized vision.

We cannot do that on our own, but can I tell you the Holy Spirit can?

But He wants to use us.

This is the opportunity we have.

So the question then then kind of sits where are you at?

Are you actively walking with Christ?

Are you kind of that lukewarm, kind of in between?

Are you not at all on boat with him?

Can I tell you, every single person in here, there's an opportunity today.

Whether that's an opportunity to walk with Christ as your Lord and Savior for the very first time, we're gonna celebrate that.

And if you are that person inside that worship guide, you'll see that connect card.

And at the bottom of that connect card on the back side of the prayer request, you will see just a step-by-step of what you can pray to walk into salvation with the living King.

But can I challenge you?

If that's you, don't do that by yourself.

It's awesome, it's amazing, and it's not any less valid if you do it by yourself.

But what's awesome is when we get to celebrate together.

And so you can go back to the prayer table if you you'd like to make that decision, or if you have questions on that, the prayer team will be back there.

Maybe you're kind of that in-between, that lukewarm Christian.

You you believe in Jesus Christ, but you really haven't surrendered that lordship to Christ.

Maybe that's your step today.

Can I tell you, if you are that person, be ready.

Because it's hard.

Because the enemy knows once you truly give your life to Christ, there's nothing that he can do to break you apart.

But he's gonna get to work on you, he's gonna throw every temptation in your way, so know how you're tempted and be able to see those things before.

Because they're coming.

Anyone who says being a Christian is easy, they are a lion.

It's hard.

It's one of the hardest things to do, but can I tell you it's also one of the most joyful things to do?

Because we can have faith in what Christ says and that he has overcome.

He's already died on the cross to conquer, uh to pay for our sins, he's already risen from the grave to conquer death and sin, and he is now reigning in heaven.

That's the God inside of us.

That's what we get to be a part of.

So if you're that lukewarm, you're ready to submit today to the Lord, man, we're gonna celebrate you.

You can you can come to the altar if you'd like here in just a moment while we're singing, and you can pray.

Uh, it's not technically an altar, we use it as an altar.

It's an opportunity.

You can go back to the prayer team uh and they can pray with you and walk you through that.

Or maybe you need to grab the person next to you and just say, hey, we pray for me.

There's nobody better to do that than if you're with your spouse.

That's a great person to do that with.

You can tell them uh that I'm struggling, and we'll talk later about what that is, but but can you just pray for me?

Can you can you pray for strength and courage and just the opportunity for the Lord to heal me?

Now, if you pull your wife into it, you pull your husband into it, better be ready.

Hard conversations are coming.

We have pastors here who can help.

That's what a church does.

Church is a body of people, not a place.

We're the church and we're in this together.

Or maybe you're that third person, maybe you are on fire for the Lord.

You're sharing your testimony with everybody, you're walking in freedom left and right, you're going through different things and And the Lord's just got you.

Can I tell you?

We want to celebrate that.

That's awesome.

Now find the person next to you that's struggling so you can help walk with them because here's what's going to happen.

Eventually, you're going to hit a brick wall, and you need that person to walk with you.

We're one church.

And we have the promise of hope that God gave all the way back at the beginning of time.

So here in just a moment, we're going to close in a time of worship.

The song's not a long song.

But a dream of mine would be to see people actually responding to the word of God.

Nothing I'm saying or doing, but actually responding.

We have a prayer team.

We have the altar here.

Or maybe you just need to worship the Lord in song.

Let's pray.

Our Father, God, thank you.

Thank you so much for bringing us to this very specific time at a very specific place for the reasons that you have set forth.

Lord, we worship you.

We glorify you.

God, thank you for coming to this earth.

Thank you for saving us.

Now, Lord, as you're still moving, you're still working in people's lives.

Lord, we trust that your will is greater than ours.

I can't wait to celebrate those who are walking in freedom and walking closer to you.

Now, God, as our as we entered back into a time of song, may our voices rise.

May they be glorifying to you, God.

Lord, we give you all things and all glory in this place.

In your holy name.

Amen.

If you will, all across the room, let's go ahead and stand and let's worship together.