Effective Prayer

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Come on, it's a good weekend to be in church.

Every weekend's a good weekend to be at Life Church.

Thank you for coming today.

You came on a special weekend.

This weekend we have something that we are calling Young Communicators Weekend.

It is three communicators sharing in one dynamic message, so it's gonna be three for 10.

And I am so grateful to be a part of a church that believes in raising up the next generation, and every communicator has to have their first time on the stage.

And I remember when my pastor believed in me I don't know if he did believe in me or not, but he took a risk.

Maybe he wanted the weekend off, I don't know but he took a risk and he believed in me and gave me that chance to begin to exercise the gift that God had placed on my life.

And so today you get to be a participate.

You get to participate in something new that God is doing in their life.

And they have prayed, they have prepared, they have practiced and they're a little nervous.

So here's what I need you to do Let them know they're a part of a family.

Will you do that today?

Let them know that they're welcome, they're a part of a family and so lean in, take notes and when they're preaching, well, let them know, just say amen.

When they're not preaching, well, don't let them know, just say amen.

Anyway, laugh at their jokes.

Just.

I trust that today is honestly gonna be one of your favorite weekends to be in church, because you get to be a part of what God is doing in our church and what God is doing in these young communicators lives.

So the first up today we got Landon, we got Destin and we have Jason.

And Landon is my son, of course, and he's gonna kick us off as we finish out our series in the book of James.

Come on, stand to your feet, let them know they're a part of a family.

Oh, sit down, sit down, sit down.

We're family.

Well, no pressure.

You were just told this was gonna be your favorite service, so we'll see, we'll see.

No, but I'm really honored and excited to be able to bring part of the word this morning.

Been just looking forward to this for the last few weeks and just expect it for what God wants to share to you and through us this morning.

And so we are continuing our series.

We're actually finishing our series on the book of James.

Today it's week eight.

How many of you have loved the series?

So far?

It's been just an incredible series where we've dove into the book of James and if you haven't been here, just so you know the book of James, our tagline is practical faith for practical living, and James is the half brother of Jesus, right the same mother and obviously the different father.

And James is gonna be in your face.

If you've read the book of James, if you've been here, you know that James is in your face.

He doesn't beat around the bush, he says it how he says it and we receive it.

And so I'm excited.

It's gonna be no different today with what we're talking about.

So can we stand for the reading of God's word and jump in to the word.

This morning we're reading James five, 13 through 18.

And it says this.

It says are any of you suffering hardships?

You should pray.

Are any of you happy?

You should sing praises.

Are any of you sick?

You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.

Such a prayer, offered in faith, will heal the sick and the Lord will make you well.

And if you've committed any sins, you'll be forgiven.

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years.

So today we're gonna be talking about oh no, we're not done yet.

Okay, here we go.

Then, when he prayed again, the sky shed down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.

And now we're gonna be talking about effective prayer.

Can I pray for us this morning?

God?

I thank you for your word.

God, I thank you that we get to learn from your word, and your word is alive and speaking to us and so, god, I pray this morning that you would speak to each and every one of us.

God, open our hearts to receive your word this morning.

God, speak through me and Destin and Jason.

God, not our own words, but your words through us this morning.

In your name, we pray, amen, amen.

All right, you may be seated.

So we're talking about effective prayer.

Now, how have any of you done something and it wasn't effective at all?

Like you were not effective.

It's like me.

When I try to sing.

Okay, you know some people they ask why life church has such loud music and it's because I'm standing on the front row singing and we need something to dampen that noise.

I remember one time we did a Zoom call with my parents and me and my wife and we were doing like a worship call during COVID, and if you ever had a Zoom call during COVID, then you know that the audio was not great.

Okay, the audio doesn't really, it's not loud, and we were singing and me and my wife were in Portland at the time and we were to see we were in like this holy moment, part of the song.

You know, we're worshiping and I'm just going for it, right.

And in the middle of that, what I thought was this holy moment where the Lord was moving through my voice and it was beautiful.

My wife just starts dying laughing and I'm like like babe, what are you doing?

Like we're kind of doing something here.

You know we're worshiping and she's like Landon, I can't with you singing that way and I was.

It was bad.

It was bad.

But how many of you know, when you're ineffective at something, it affects more than just you, it affects those around you.

So we don't want to be ineffective in our prayer.

And I heard a story about a girl named Sally, and you know she grew up in the church and she grew up praying and she was reminiscing on her childhood and she said this she said, see, I grew up in a religious household and I used to pray and ask God for a bicycle.

But then I kind of grew up and I realized it didn't work that way.

So instead I just stole a bicycle and asked God for forgiveness.

So we don't want to be like Sally in our prayer life.

We don't want to pray for something and then try to go make it happen on our own.

We want to be people that pray effective prayers and see God move through our prayers.

How many of you would agree with me on that?

You want to be more effective in your prayer life.

Come on, I know that I say.

I would say that I want to see a greater effectiveness in my prayer life.

And so the first thing that we see James tell us in terms of how we can have a more effective prayer life we just read, and it's this it's that effective prayer begins with righteousness.

Effective prayer begins with righteousness.

James 516 says this confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

You see, that's the effective part.

But James doesn't start with that.

He doesn't start by saying, man, the earnest prayer of a righteous person is going to see great power and wonderful results.

What does he start with?

He says confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

So what is James telling us?

James is saying that if we are stuck under the weight of shame, our prayers will be different, they're not going to be as effective, and if any of you have ever felt the weight of shame, then you know that this is true, because when we're under shame, we don't approach God in the same way.

We don't approach God with the same level of faith.

We're more timid in our approach to God, we're a little bit more nonchalant and like well, yeah, here I'm praying, I'm going through the rituals, but that's not the way that we want our prayer life to be.

We want our prayer life to be effective and faith filled and we want to be excited to approach the throne of God with our prayers.

And so what does that mean?

That we have to start with.

We have to start with righteousness, and it's not.

I don't want you to hear oh well, because I've messed up in my past, because I've done this, I can't see God moving my prayer life.

I can't have the same effective prayer.

No, no, no, that's not what James is saying here.

To be righteous is to be in right relationship with God, and what that looks like is this it looks like saying God, I'm not enough on my own, but I receive and I identify with what Christ did on the cross for me, and I can walk in righteousness because of his righteousness and not my own.

So it's nothing that you did, it's nothing that you can work for, it's just receiving what Christ already did for us.

So I want you to hear that your past does not disqualify you from having an effective prayer life.

Your past does not disqualify you, doesn't put you in a different line for half effective prayers or no, no, no, no.

We're all in the line of we need Jesus and we need his righteousness on our life so that we can walk in an effective prayer life.

And so it starts with righteousness.

You see, james says the earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

And I think sometimes we can read in the Bible and we read about righteous people and we read about Elijah and we can kind of disassociate ourselves with that.

He's like, well, I could never be like Elijah, I could never pray that rain wouldn't fall for years and none would fall.

Like I can't be like that, like I'm not on that level of righteousness.

But James says something that I think is really important for us to see.

He says this Elijah was as human as we are and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years.

You see, he could have just said Elijah prayed that no rain would fall and none fell, but he didn't.

Why?

Because he wants you to understand this, that you are the same as Elijah was.

He's no different, because he's recorded in the Bible.

This is for you, and so my heart this morning is for you to understand this, that James is speaking to you.

Whether you've been praying for 50 years and you've seen miracles happen through your prayers, or maybe today you're gonna pray your first prayer, james is speaking to you.

We're all only righteous because of what Christ did for us on the cross, and so really, I guess what we could say is this is that the earnest prayer of you has great power and produces wonderful results, but it's the you that's identified with what Christ did in your life.

So I don't know if you guys have ever played, you know if you have like that family game that you play every Christmas time.

Our family, we play this game called Mafia, and if you know that game, it can get intense, it can be fun, but basically how the game works is there's the mafia team and there's the civilian team, and the mafia are trying to take out the civilians and civilians are trying to take out the mafia.

Now, what makes this game really fun is that nobody knows what anybody else is.

You're trying to trick everybody into thinking that you're something that you're not.

And I was a mafia, this game, and I was just working the room, right, I'm trying to get everybody to think that I'm not mafia.

I'm like I would never hurt you, you know, like I would never do that.

It's not who I am, you know.

And then literally, they know it was fully me.

But one time we were playing this game and I had everybody convinced that my dad was mafia.

Now my dad was a civilian, but everybody was so convinced that he even began to be convinced.

And what happens is everybody goes to bed at night and the mafia wake up.

Well, when the mafia started waking up, my dad started waking up and we're like what are you doing?

You're a civilian and you're waking up with a mafia.

But this is what the enemy will do with us sometimes.

He'll just try to convince us that we're something that we're not, so that we don't actually walk out in the faith that God has called us to walk in.

You see, if the enemy can't get you to be unrighteous, he'll just convince you that you aren't righteous, so your prayer life will look different.

So today, I want us to uncover our eyes and I want us to realize no, no, no, I can walk in righteousness because of what Christ did on the cross for me, and I can see an effectiveness in my prayer life.

We can't let the enemy steal our faith for what God wants to do through our prayers, amen.

So an effective prayer life begins with righteousness.

That's what I got for you guys.

And next we got Destin Spar coming on up bringing the next part of the word.

There we go, sit down, thank you, thank you.

Thank you.

There we go, how we doing in life, church, we doing good, come on.

Well, that was powerful, wasn't that good?

Landon killed it.

I love, or we're learning that effective prayer starts when we remember that we're the righteousness of God found in Christ.

That's beautiful, I love it, and I was just thinking about this as we're prepping for this, and thinking about prayer is really just one of the greatest gifts God's given us.

It is such an amazing gift, something that I'm so grateful for, and the thing about this gift is that, if we want it to be effective, it starts with the fact that we have to use it.

We have to use this gift Like.

Imagine this.

Imagine someone gifted me with a brand new Tesla which, by the way, I am receiving free Teslas at this time, so if anyone has any laying around, you can come talk to me after service.

But imagine someone giving me a brand new Tesla, right?

Instead of having to walk around, I now have this effective way to transport myself.

What if I just put this brand new gift away in a garage and I just looked at it every day and never used it, but kept walking everywhere, right?

Or maybe I drove it and I drove it ineffectively.

I only drove in reverse, or I tried to drive from the other seat.

It doesn't make sense.

It's ineffective, right?

This is the same with prayer.

Often we either don't use this gift God's given us or we don't use it effectively, and I believe after today, you're going to know how to use this gift and use it effectively.

So the first thing we need to understand is that effective prayer is prayer that is prayed.

It's prayer that's prayed.

Here's the truth.

There is a prayer inside of you that God wants you to pray and he wants to answer through your prayer.

Use this gift.

It's powerful and, just like Landon said, no one in here is disqualified from using this gift effectively.

It's for all of us.

This is what James says in verse 15.

He says such a prayer, offered in faith, will heal the sick and the Lord will make you well and if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.

What is James saying?

He's saying effective prayer is faith filled prayer.

It's prayer that's full of faith.

And let me just address this scripture for a moment Is that we don't know everything about the prayer of faith that he's talking about.

There is a mystery to it and how God heals some and doesn't heal others.

But what James is saying and what we do know, is that effective?

If we want to pray effective prayer, we must have faith.

When we pray, we must be filled with faith, meaning this we believe that God hears us and wants to answer your prayer, because he does.

We have faith in God and his character, in his goodness and his ability to answer our prayers, because he is a good God and he can answer our prayers.

This is what Jesus says in Mark 11 when he's talking to the disciples.

The scripture says Jesus said to them have faith in God.

I tell you the truth.

You can say to this mountain you may be lifted up and thrown into the sea and it will happen, but you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart.

I tell you you can pray for anything and if you believe that you've received it, it will be yours.

Man, let's be people who choose to pray with faith.

Can we live church?

I'm so grateful I'm part of a church that is full of faith.

When they pray that does believe God answers.

Because when we do pray with faith, we're going to see greater things than mountains being thrown into the seas.

We're going to see lives change.

We're going to see schools change.

We're going to see our families restored.

And I feel like it's important to note that what Jesus is not saying here is that if we just have enough faith, it means we'll get anything we ask for.

Like, if I just have enough faith for that Tesla, it's just going to flow it out of the sky, right?

That wouldn't be a great prayer.

That would be a prayer that actually is coming out of my soul, because it's all about benefiting myself.

It has the wrong motives, right?

And Pastor Bob preached an amazing word on James 4 last week, and James actually had something to say about this.

He said you do not have what you want because you don't ask God for it.

And even when you ask, you don't get it because your motives are all wrong and you want only what will give you pleasure.

Man, faithful prayers aren't the ones that are about myself.

They're prayers that pray the word and the will of God over every situation in my life.

They're prayers that say, god, your will is greater than my own.

I let go of my own motives and I pray your will.

They're prayers that say God, you can do things better than me, and even if not having control is scary, I put this in your hand and I believe your word and your will for my life.

Roman states that faith comes by hearing and by hearing the word of God.

So how do we pray faith filled prayers?

We get in the word of God, we get in the Bible, and the beautiful thing about it is, when you read the word of God, you're not just gonna be filled with faith, you're actually gonna learn God's will and begin to declare it over whatever you're facing.

You're like we get to declare it.

Whatever you're praying for, god's will is good and his word is good and we can trust it and we can pray for his will to happen.

And what I'm not saying is that we be people who pray blanket prayers.

I remember as a kid when I prayed, I would just pray God, save every single person in the world forever, amen.

Like we don't wanna be people who pray, that I feel like what the Lord wants us to do is get specific with your prayer, like there's a lot of different things that are represented in this room of what we're believing for what we need to do is get in the word of God, get a word from him and begin to declare it over what we're believing for.

Some of you are believing for healing.

Some of you are believing for diseases or cancers to be healed.

What we need to do is get in the word and say God, I know your will is to heal me.

I ask that your will be done.

Some of you are praying for freedom from something, whether it be addiction or something else.

Get in the word of God and say God, your word says where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

I ask for freedom in my life.

Many of us in this room are praying for protocols.

We're praying that family members would come back to the Lord.

Let's get in the word of God and say God, your word says you hope that none would perish, but all would come to repentance and we're gonna see people come back to the Lord.

I mean to impart some faith into you right now.

I want you to know that I was that protocol In high school.

I was the one wrapped up in drug addiction.

I was the one who was hurt, confused and ultimately depressed, and I didn't had no purpose in my life.

But I had two parents who were praying specific prayers of God's will and word over my life and they had faith God would answer and he did, and I share that because he's gonna do that same thing in your life, in your family and what you're believing for.

So, to pray effective prayers, we need to use this gift of prayer and we need to pray with faith, believing God will answer.

And lastly, out of James 1st 16, it says confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

What is he saying?

He's saying effective prayer is fervent prayer.

That translation says fervent.

The translation landed in red at the beginning says the earnest prayer produces results and I looked up these words and I love the definitions of them.

Fervent is displaying passionate intensity and feeling zealous in intention, purpose or effort.

Or earnest is sincerity in depth of feeling.

I love how it describes earnest people.

It says they are serious and sincere in what they say or do because they think that their actions or beliefs are important.

That's powerful.

We got football season starting next Sunday, which is always a great time because it means we go watch the Seahawks lose a bunch more.

Come on.

Amen, it's a good word, but we got so you know, we got football season come out.

Maybe you watch basketball a different sport, if you ever watch sports.

Sometimes you come across players who are gifted but not passionate about the game they play Naturally talented, they're really good at it, but they don't really put in much effort because they don't really care about the game and they don't see much results.

Then you see some of the greats in sports and they're gifted and they're passionate, they care about the game, they put in effort, they know what they do matters and that they can produce a wonderful result.

Why am I saying that Is because fervent prayer is gonna begin with the realization that your prayer matters and can be effective, that it begins with the realization that you're not actually on the sideline, you're on the court and God wants to use you to produce wonderful results.

He wants to use your prayer to produce great things.

And when we realize this and this gift God's given us, we're gonna shift our prayer from what was faithless, heartless prayer saying well, god, if you wanna move, to fervent, faith-filled prayer, knowing God hears us, knowing God will listen to us.

So what is James teaching us?

He's teaching us that we need a passion in our prayer if it comes from our heart.

We need to pray with intention and purpose and effort.

And it's important to note that this fervency that we pray with it's not something we muster up with our flesh.

It's not about being loud, aggressive or angry when we pray.

It really comes when the Holy Spirit inside of you moves your heart for what moves God's, and then you realize the same power that rose Jesus from the grave now lives in your prayers and you have authority in the name of Jesus.

Who wants to pray like that?

Come on.

And when you pray these kind of effective prayers, when you see God answering your prayers cause we're gonna leave this place and you're going to you're gonna see God answer prayers.

You're never gonna wanna stop.

When you see God using you and moving through, you don't wanna stop.

And I just wanted to read this scripture as encouragement to you guys, in Luke 11.

It says Jesus is talking.

He says, and so I tell you keep on asking and you will receive what you ask for.

Keep on seeking and you will find.

Keep on knocking and the door will be opened.

For everyone who asks receives, everyone who seeks finds, and everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

Man, we can have faith on that scripture that maybe some of us haven't seen the door opened yet.

But I'm here to tell you don't stop knocking.

Don't stop knocking.

God opens the door to the one who keeps knocking.

If you're believing for healing, please don't stop knocking.

God's gonna answer that prayer.

If you're believing for your family member to come back to the Lord, keep asking God.

He wants to answer prayers in and through you.

So effective prayers are utilizing the gift of prayer.

They're face filled and they're fervent.

Let's welcome up Jason to wrap us up.

And that's a lot of wisdom on effective prayer right there.

So our subtitle of our series of the book of James is practical faith for practical living.

So let's look at three ways that we can make our prayers more effective.

All right, you ready?

I know, if my prayer life is effective, my life will be effective, and we all want our lives to be effective.

So the first way that we can make our prayers more effective adds scripture.

Adds scripture, if we want our prayers to be effective.

Add the word of God.

The word is full of declarations and promises that we can actually make our own in prayer.

I want to give us a few examples of adding scripture.

A quick side note if you're gonna give examples, always use Jesus first.

Then you never lose.

And so we'll start with Jesus.

In Matthew four, it tells us that Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit and he fasted for 40 days.

That means 40 days with no food whatsoever.

So it's safe to say that Jesus was starving.

And so we enter the story here, and this is what Matthew says.

The tempter came to him and said if you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.

And Jesus answered.

It is written man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Jesus is showing us right here.

Add scripture to your prayers.

When the devil comes at us, that is how we combat him.

It is written.

So we take that nugget and we implement it right into our prayer life.

And so maybe you have a son or daughter that you're believing, you want to pray effective prayers for them to overcome some type of bondage in their life.

So we might pray like this, god, I know you see my son is struggling with this stronghold.

But in your word, john 8.36, it says that if the sun sets you free, you are free indeed.

So, god, my child will not struggle with this their whole life.

God, you can make it as if they never had an addiction in the first place, that no one will be able to tell that that ever happened in their life, because you pulled Shadrach, meshach and Abednego right out of a fiery furnace, heated seven times hotter, and they came out unsinged and didn't even smell like smoke.

So, god, will you please transform their mind so they never struggle with addiction, they never have attempting or a craving again, because your word says do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

God, my son, will serve you all the days of his life.

You see what that does in us.

When we start praying effective prayers, faith rises up in us and we believe in it.

And we believe God for amazing things.

And so we add scriptures to our prayers.

But we also pray in community.

We pray in a community.

Now, james 5.16 tells us this.

Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Why is it important to pray in community?

Well, besides the obvious fact that it's hard to pray for each other if there's no one else in the room, it's important because there's power in praying together.

This is what Matthew 18 says, 19 and 20.

Again, truly, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven, for where two or three gather in my name, there I am with them.

Come on.

That's powerful.

There's power in praying together.

We also learn how to pray effectively by praying together.

I remember I learned the first point add scripture from a man in our church.

His name's Steve Wood and I got around, steve, and we're praying and I'm like woo, this dude is going somewhere in prayer.

About every third word he's quoting scripture.

And I realized there's a different authority on him when he prays.

We're not just blessing our food, but we're going somewhere in prayer.

All of a sudden I realized like this is what Ephesians six means when it says take up the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

And we went somewhere and we were battling for people and battling for our kids and battling for things in the church, and it was powerful.

I learned the value of declaring scripture over situations by praying in community.

So I have great news for you this Tuesday night at 6 pm we will be right here for our pursuit night, and if you've never been to pursuit night, it's our monthly gathering where we pray in community.

We gather as a church, we come together and pray in unity, community.

And when we start to pray together, it's amazing how powerful and effective our prayers get.

I've noticed at times that my prayers just don't get answered if I'm praying alone, but all of a sudden I step in community.

I get some people to come alongside me and we start battling together and things start to shift and move, and so make it a priority to come to pursuit night this Tuesday night, and, man, we're gonna see God do things through our effective prayers.

All right, our prayers become effective when we add scripture, when we pray in community and when we keep record, keep record.

There's a lot of things in my life that I've wanted to forget, but my prayers are not one of them, and so we look at this in James.

We'll go back to James again.

Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years.

Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.

What is James doing right here?

He's recording the effective prayers of Elijah so we can see even now, today we're drawing down from a prayer of Elijah back then and our faith is risen.

So that's why we keep record of prayers.

So here's what you're doing when you're writing down those prayers, you are declaring in faith God, this is what I'm believing you for, and then, along the way, when those prayers we haven't seen answered yet, we can go back to those prayers and say, god, I'm still believing you for this.

I'm still believing you.

I'm gonna keep asking fervently you're gonna do this.

I know you're gonna do this, god.

And I remember the night God set me free from addiction.

I remember praying, crying out for mercy and asking Him God, heal my marriage, restore my family, erase all the terrible things I've done.

I need your mercy, god.

I remember a month later, walking out of that courtroom here in downtown Walla Walla and the only thing separating from me and my wife Esther from divorce was a parenting plan.

I had to go back to those prayers, say tears running down my face God, heal my marriage, restore my family, erase all the terrible things I've done.

I need your mercy, god.

And on the flip side of that coin, when we see God answer the prayers we've written down, our faith goes up out of the roof and we can celebrate with what God's done.

And I remember, I remember.

I remember, on the front lawn of that faith-based recovery program, seven months later, my God, my wife, looking me in the eyes and saying I dropped the divorce.

And I went back to those prayers and I thanked God for his mercy and I thanked him for full restoration and his goodness for providing a way out.

I said, god, thank you for restoring my family and thank you for healing my marriage.

Church, writing down your prayers is a powerful way to do battle and thank God for all he's done in our lives.

God wants us to pray effectively Right now.

I want us to take the time to five seconds and just the Holy Spirit wants to talk to us.

He wants to talk to us about what, in this message, is highlighted to us and how our prayers can be more effective.

So can we bow our heads and close our eyes, holy Spirit, we ask you this morning.

Please, lord, speak to us.

Show us in this word how you're wanting us to pray more effective.

What are the things we can do?

What are the scriptures we can add to our prayers?

Highlight verses to us.

God, make our time in the word this week.

Come alive as we see the ways you've given us in the word to battle and believe you in prayer.

I thank you for speaking to us today, holy Spirit.

And with every eye still bowed and every eye closed, every head still bowed, god, we there's another group of people in the room that have never prayed their first prayer of faith to give you to make Jesus Lord of their lives.

So if that's you here today and you're saying I want to start that walk with Jesus and I want to say that prayer to make Jesus Lord of my life and surrender this morning, if that's you, I'm not going to call you forward, but I do want to know between you, me and heaven, who's making that declaration today, who's asking for salvation?

So if that's you, just look up at me and catch eyes with me and wave your hand.

I see you.

Thank you, lord, I see you, god.

We thank you this morning for your goodness in our lives and we thank you that we can pray a prayer of faith and put our trust in you this morning that you will save us, that you can change our eternity, god, and we say be the sacrifice for every sin I've ever committed and every sin I will commit, god.

We repent and we turn from our old ways and we say we will follow you all the rest of our days.

We thank you, jesus, for being Lord and Savior in our lives.

In Jesus mighty name, everyone said amen, amen.

Come on, let's stand to our feet, church, and let's celebrate with those who gave their lives to the Lord.

this morning, come on, let's celebrate.

Let's celebrate.

Thank you, god, for your goodness.

Hey, and tell them that y'all did a great job.

Will you tell them right now?

We hope that today's message encouraged you.

At Life Church, we believe that wherever you are in a relationship with God, there's always a next step to take, and we're here to help you find yours.

If you made the decision to follow Jesus today, or you're simply looking to get more involved in this community, we invite you to check out our next steps page.

You'll find all the information you need by clicking the link in the description.

If this message impacted you in any way, we encourage you to do two things.

First, share this video with a friend.

It's a wonderful way to share the love of Jesus with someone that you care about.

Second, we'd love to hear your story.

Click the link in the description to share your testimony with us so we can celebrate all God is doing in your life.

We're excited to be on this journey of following Jesus with you and hope you have a great week.