The Subtle Drift (Repent) | Cassie Sylvia

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando podcast.

Thank you for joining us.

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You guys can have a seat.

Thank you.

Thank you, Nate.

Thank you, Pastor Keith and Pastor Megan, for trusting me with this platform, inviting me to share the word of God.

I am deeply humbled and honored that the Lord would trust me with this platform.

And um, like Nate said, we're not in a series right now.

We're we're doing a couple of standalone messages.

And last week, Pastor Vinny brought an incredible word on the cost of discipleship.

If you were not here, you weren't able to tune in online, I strongly suggest you go back and watch it.

Please do.

You can do that on our church app or YouTube, but it is an important word, and it looks at what does it mean to truly be a disciple?

And it requires radical devotion, and it requires putting nothing else before the Lord.

And as I sat there listening, I found myself thanking God for the way that He is working in our church.

Because for well over a year, the Lord has put a burden on my heart, for me personally, and then also for the global church, just the church in general, and especially for our house that I call home.

And the reason I was so grateful is because Pastor Vinny's message perfectly teed up what the Lord had burdened me.

And we didn't plan that.

We didn't share notes or compare like we would if we were coordinating a series.

He had a message from the Lord, and I feel I have a message from the Lord.

But the Holy Spirit knew exactly what he was doing.

Because he knows what his church needs, and we are simply being obedient to say what we hear him say.

So last week challenged us that to truly be a disciple, we must be radically surrendered and devoted to the Lord.

And this week, today, I would like to talk to us about how we follow Jesus faithfully until the very end.

Would you pray with me?

Father God, we thank you so much for your word.

We thank you for your truth.

We thank you for your presence in this space.

I ask that you would silence every voice in our mind that does not belong to you.

We ask that you silence the voice of our enemy.

We ask that you silence our own voice.

And that we would only hear your truth, your words, Lord.

Nothing else is a source of life, only you.

So God, I ask that ears would be open and hearts would be receptive to your truth.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Jesus is coming back.

That's the start of my message.

That's the burden on my heart.

It's not speculation, it's a promise.

And it's not to evoke fear, it's just the truth.

He told us he will return.

We don't know the day, we don't know the hour, but that hasn't stopped people for generations from trying to figure out when and predicting and being wrong.

But what I think is funny is that even before Jesus was crucified, even before he died, he was still walking on the earth.

His own disciples were asking, when.

When we look at Matthew chapter 24, and you can turn with me in your Bibles, it will also be on the screen behind me.

Matthew 24 · chapter mention

Jesus is in his final days.

And he's just taught to the masses, and then he pulls back.

And the Bible says in chapter 24 of Matthew, starting in verse 3, as he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, Tell us when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?

And Jesus answered them.

See that no one leads you astray.

And then he goes on to talk about what the signs would look like in the world, what things they could look out for that would say, get ready.

It's gonna be soon.

But today we're not gonna talk about that.

And there's plenty of people talking about it everywhere, and a lot of people trying to stir up fear.

Because we just heard from Nate that God is love.

And he tells us he's coming back because he doesn't want us to be caught off guard.

So the disciples ask Jesus when he will return and what will be the signs.

And Jesus begins his answer with a warning.

See that no one leads you astray.

Other translations say, watch out that you are not deceived.

Why?

He's talking to his disciples.

They're walking with Jesus, they're learning truth from the source.

I believe it's because that followers of Jesus were not immune to being deceived.

We are not immune to being led astray.

Because the kingdom of God has a very real enemy, and it is the kingdom of darkness.

And Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians that Satan, who's in the kingdom of darkness, disguises himself as an angel of light.

And there goes the light.

He knows the word of God scarily better than most of us.

And that is why we have to know it.

As disciples of Jesus, we must know the word of God.

We have to be in Scripture.

We can't afford not to.

We cannot afford not to.

Just to think about them a little bit.

So if we're not in the Word, if we don't know God's truth for ourselves, if we don't know what He says about Himself, what He says about us, what He says about other people, what He says about the world, there is no question we'll be deceived.

We don't even have to wonder.

Because we have a very real enemy who knows the truth.

And he's going to use it to deceive us.

So if Jesus was so concerned about his disciples being deceived just days before he died, and that was what he thought was the most crucial thing to say to them as the first response when they ask, When will you come?

When will you come back?

And we know he's coming back, then we need to understand what deception sounds like, right?

So the best and clearest picture I know to give you this morning is found in Genesis.

We're gonna go all the way back to the beginning, Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

You can turn with me there in your Bible.

It's also gonna be on the screen behind me.

Now we're gonna pick up after God has created heaven and earth, he's made all of creation, he's made Adam, he told them, Hey, you can eat of any tree that is in the garden.

There's only one that you cannot eat from.

And that is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

That's the only rule.

And then he said, It's not good for Adam to be alone, and he makes Eve, and then we pick up in chapter 3, verse 1.

And it reads, Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

And the woman said to the serpent, Well, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit that is in the tree of the midst of the garden, nor shall you touch it lest you die.

But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open, and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

And she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were open, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves loincloths.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

So they have a conversation.

They do what God said they shouldn't, and then they hide from the presence of the Lord.

The serpent's strategy was not obvious to Eve.

It was subtle.

It provoked doubt that God was good.

It invited speculation that he wasn't really telling the whole truth.

He was keeping something from them.

And I think we oftentimes can reduce the fall of humanity down to a single act of deception, or I'm sorry, disobedience.

They ate the fruit that God said not to.

And that's true.

That was a sin.

But there was something that came before that because they decided before taking action to disregard the word of God, to define good and evil for themselves.

So before the fall, God defined good and evil for humanity.

And after the fall, humanity started defining good and evil for itself.

That's why this story matters.

Because underneath every temptation, every attempt to steer us away from God is the same question.

Who gets to decide what is good and what is evil?

Who gets to decide what is right and what is wrong?

Is it God or is it me?

Because deception begins the moment that we start taking God's word as negotiable.

Maybe the Holy Spirit is already bringing things to your mind that have you wondering, am I deceived?

Maybe.

But there's good news.

Jesus really came.

He really is the Son of God.

He really did set aside his divinity and live as a human being a perfect life and die a horrible death for our debt, for our sin, for our shame, and was raised back to life and is seated at the right hand of God so that whoever believes in him and calls on his name will be saved and forgiven.

That is good news, church.

That is good news.

So this message is not to evoke fear.

It is not to evoke shame.

It is in love because it is the word of God.

God is so patient, He is so loving, He is so faithful, and He is so unafraid of our dirt and our sin and our shame.

It doesn't scare him.

We don't have to be ashamed.

We can bring it to him.

And he's coming back.

In 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 9, the word of God says, the Lord is not slow concerning his promise.

2 Peter 3:9

He does not wish that anyone should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

So then what is repentance?

Maybe even just that word, repentance, stirs up a mixture of feelings in this room.

Maybe for some it's a little bit uncomfortable.

It's pretty quiet in here, so I feel like some people might be uncomfortable.

It's okay.

It's okay, I can handle it.

Maybe it feels heavy.

Maybe you have images of driving down the road and seeing some like angry evangelist on a street corner with a sign and a megaphone, just like looking so mad and yelling, repent.

Maybe that's what you're thinking about.

And you're like, it's just shame.

The Lord is not talking about repentance as shame.

It's good news.

Maybe you grew up in church your whole life, and when you hear repentance, you're just like, yeah, yeah, repentance.

I get it.

But you don't actually know what it means.

And you haven't really ever given it much thought.

It's just like a word that we say in church, and it's in the Bible, and Jesus talks about it.

So you're like, yeah.

Or maybe it brings up like incredible joy because you're thinking about the grace of God and you're remembering the day that you repented of your sin and you came to salvation in Jesus.

That's a very wide range of emotions that could be happening in this room right now over a single word.

So let's talk about it.

Because one thing is for sure, Jesus wasn't scared of this word.

In fact, he talked about repentance a lot.

So much that he started his public ministry with it.

We're gonna look together at these words of Jesus in Mark chapter one.

If you guys want to go ahead and turn there in your Bible, you can.

And just a little context as we go into verse 14.

Right before this, Jesus is baptized by his cousin John.

And then the Spirit of God descends on him and sends him out into the wilderness where he is tempted in the wilderness alone for 40 days.

No food, no water.

He is tempted by Satan himself.

None of us in here are likely being tempted by Satan himself.

It's not that you're not great, but you don't have enough influence, likely.

Satan is not omnipresent like God, he can't be everywhere at once.

So most of us are getting tempted by his workers.

He needs to maximize his influence.

So he's attacking Jesus with the word of God.

And then after that, Jesus comes back into society around people, and that's where we pick up in verse 14.

Where it says, Now, after John, his cousin who baptized him, was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, The time is fulfilled and the kingdom is at hand.

Repent and believe the gospel.

He was tempted by Satan, who we just talked about.

Satan's strategy is to use truth to get us to believe a lie.

And then he comes back, and the first words he starts saying is the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the gospel.

Don't believe a lie, believe the gospel.

It's hard for me to ignore that connection, and that's what I want to talk about today.

The word repent in Hebrew is what's used in the Old Testament, and that word means to return, to turn back.

And then in the New Testament, it's a different word, and it's Greek, and it means to change your mind, change the way you think.

Both of those things are important.

Repentance is returning to God, turning back to Him, and it is also changing the way we think.

If you'd asked me, I probably would have told you I was a Christian going to this camp.

I was not.

I just believed in my head that Jesus was God, but it didn't really mean much more than that.

But at camp, I sang the songs, I sat under the teaching, I read the Bible, I did the memory verses so I could like rack up points for my cabin.

So into it, I was like, this is awesome.

But still, it was all up here, and I was just having fun, and people were nice, and this is cool.

And then the last night before we go home, I'm sitting in worship, standing in worship at the back of the room.

I could still see it.

And we're singing worship, just an acoustic guitar and a bunch of kids, and I experienced the presence of the Lord.

I experienced God myself, and I felt an overwhelming love.

It wasn't words, it was just his presence.

And it was the first time that I realized, oh, he loves me.

Like, not just everyone, he like he loves me, Cassie, a 12-year-old, exactly where I am.

And that wrecked me in the best way.

And that night when I couldn't sleep in my camp cabin, my cabin leader, Bethany, shout out Bethany, led me to the Lord, and she led me through repentance.

And I chose to follow Jesus the rest of my days, and I meant it a whole lot.

It was beautiful, and I I can still smell that camp cabin.

But I didn't think too much about the word repentance for like the next 20 years.

Now, repentance also involves our hearts being grieved by the things that grieve God.

I thought about that.

So it's not that I wasn't confessing sin.

I was.

And it wasn't that God wasn't forgiving me.

He was, absolutely.

His sacrifice is sufficient.

But A lot of times when I heard repentance taught in churches over that next 20 years, it was illustrated something like this.

And you've probably seen it if you have been in church for any amount of time.

It usually started with a pastor on one side of the stage and saying, like, I was going this way in my sin, in my shame, in my own ways, doing what I wanted away from God.

And then I repented and I turned around 180 degrees and I walked back toward the Lord.

Anybody seen that illustration or heard that definition of repentance?

Okay.

It is 100% accurate.

That is a true statement.

And it also made it very easy for me to sit in the seat that you're sitting in, watch that illustration, hear those words, and nod along as the pastor talked to other people.

He was talking to the unbeliever.

He was talking to the prodigal son, the one who's actively disobeying the Lord, but says they love the Lord, the one who's living in unrepentant sin over and over, just like they know it.

And I'm praying, like, yes, Lord, let them repent.

Totally ignoring that that could be me.

So what helped me grasp the idea of repentance in a deeper way is what I want to share with you this morning.

And again, that illustration that I just showed you is accurate.

I am not saying that it is inaccurate, it's the truth.

And there's a little extra layer there that has more to do with the changing your mind part.

So that kind of hits on the return, but the changing your mind.

I grasped this by understanding the deception in Genesis.

How were they deceived?

What was the lie that they believed?

Well, they believed they could define good and evil.

They could decide.

They could choose what is good and what is not.

So if the original deception is getting humanity to believe they have the authority to define good and evil for themselves, then repentance and changing our minds is returning that authority back to God.

It is returning the right to define good and evil for our lives to God.

He says what's right and wrong.

God decides what is good and what is evil, not me.

Not my feelings, not my preferences, not my culture, not my tradition.

Him only.

So if deception leads us into an agreement with a lie, then repentance is coming out of agreement with that lie and returning to agreement with God's truth.

This is the understanding of repentance that led me to ask God 20 years into walking with him.

Have I believed a lie?

God, is there somewhere that I believed a lie?

Was I deceived?

Because Eve was walking with you, face to face.

She was living in your presence and she got trapped.

Have I?

And he opened my eyes to a deeper level of the enemy's strategy.

And it looks a lot more like a subtle drift.

It's not obvious.

So when I asked him if I believed a lie, the Holy Spirit immediately brought to mind a collection of memories, like video clips all jumping together one after another.

And I was surprised by what they were.

It was me meticulously planning out our week as a mom of three and a wife of 14 years.

I work full-time, my husband works full-time, our kids are in school.

It's a lot going on.

So the images are just me planning, making sure meals are planned, clothes are picked out, routines for the kids are neatly written on the whiteboard so everyone knows exactly what to do, because then everything will be perfect.

And the screen time rules were clearly laid out, no one was confused.

So if there's a disagreement, we can just be like, here are the rules.

None of those things were a sin.

None of the images that I saw that God brought to mind were obvious sin at all.

But at the same time that I was seeing that, the Holy Spirit was revealing to me what the lie underneath all of that doing was.

Certainly in a less of a rush than we are.

And he's been around a long time, a lot longer than we have.

And subtle deceptions, they compound over time.

They grow.

They get established.

And our hearts are deceitfully wicked.

That's not me calling you out.

That's the word of God telling us our hearts are deceitfully wicked.

So we have to gird them.

And it is possible to fall away from God.

And that is not me trying to scare you.

I'm not saying you lose your salvation.

He is sufficient.

But it is possible for us to actively choose to walk in sin and fall away if we are not on guard.

If we do not know the truth, we have to know what he says.

So when those images came to my mind, God showed me that what I actually believed was that if I just look at the week ahead, if I just think through all the granular details, if I make a clear plan and then a backup plan to the plan in case that one fails, and I communicate said plan to everyone involved, no one's confused, then I can manage my stress.

Maybe I won't be so tired.

I could be a kinder and more patient wife and mother.

Maybe I won't resent my job for the time it takes away from my family.

And man, maybe I just won't feel like I'm failing all the time.

And there were several lies that I had bought into in that very quick collection of memories that he gave me.

The first one sounded at first like planning is wise.

Pretty hard to argue.

Planning is wise.

But that became, it's my responsibility to control the outcomes.

It's a little different.

And if left unchecked and I keep living like that, then pride would harden my heart towards God.

The second lie started out like I'm the only wife he has.

I'm the only mom they have.

It's absolutely true.

I am.

However, that became it's my responsibility to meet every one of their needs.

All of them.

That's on me.

And if left unchecked, then bitterness would harden my heart because that is a weight I cannot bear.

And the third one is that I need better time management strategy.

Probably true.

But that became I'll be able to rest if I could just get everything done that needs to be done more efficiently.

It's not true.

My rest is found at Jesus.

And if left unchecked, then unbelief would harden my heart.

Because it's saying his rest isn't sufficient.

And that I have to earn it.

The initial deceptions were very subtle.

The words at face value, true.

Easy to adopt into my thinking, easy to call good, and the longer I entertained them and rehearsed them in my mind, the more they influenced the way I lived.

And the more I drifted from the source of life.

Then it all became up to me.

I was trying to achieve peace, but Jesus is the prince of peace.

Jesus is the prince of peace.

I cannot achieve it.

I was trying to hold everything together.

I thought.

If we listen, he points it out to us.

He doesn't leave us there.

So what do we do when we become aware that we believe something about God or our worlds or other people that doesn't line up with God's truth or his character?

We repent immediately, right away, the moment that we realize it.

Not once we've had time to argue our case a little bit.

Well, God, you see, like, it's just no.

Not after we blame and shame ourselves enough because we feel so bad that we think we deserve punishment.

Jesus already died for our punishment.

We don't need to do that.

He does not want us to do that.

He was sufficient.

And we don't repent only after we feel comfortable with the truth.

And when we said, I surrender to you, you're Lord of my life, then we gave him authority to define good and evil.

So we can't take back for ourselves the authority to define good and evil.

We have to submit it to him.

And he's so gracious to reveal when we get deceived, so that we can turn back.

So the goal is real-time repentance.

The moment we become aware, we repent.

And this brings life, not only everlasting when we commit ourselves to him at the moment of salvation, but life to the fullest here, now, because we are continually living lives of repentance as believers.

We're always going to stray from the truth.

We're not perfect.

Which is why he has given us a means to turn back.

So sometimes we are really far off, and repentance feels like that really dramatic 180-degree turn.

And if that's you, God is good and you can repent today, and he receives you and you are forgiven.

But other times, I would say, especially if you call yourself a follower of Jesus, it might not feel like that.

It might feel more like a two-degree pivot off course.

You're walking towards God, but like something distracts you.

And then you start walking just ever so slightly away.

It's close.

I can still see it.

I'm still going to church.

I'm still reading my Bible.

I'm still serving.

I'm loving my family.

But somewhere I stepped off course.

And over time, long enough, I'm going to end up in a completely different destination than the one God intended.

And that is why this message matters.

That is why this burden is on my heart.

Because the Lord does not wish that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

That all should come to repentance so that they would know the fullness of the life that God has for them here and now and forever.

We don't know when he's coming back, but we know he's coming back.

And the time we have to choose him is only the time we're here.

And we are not guaranteed tomorrow.

So this matters, church.

Regardless of how we define the severity of our misalignment with God's truth, all deviation from his word is missing the mark.

And that is quite literally the definition of sin: missing the mark.

We all sin, we've all fallen short of his glory.

I am preaching to myself just much as I am preaching to you.

But in Acts 3, 19 through 20, there's awesome news.

It says, repent therefore and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, wiped clean, erased.

And that times of refreshing would come from the presence of the Lord.

That's good news.

There is something on the other side.

We get forgiven, but yes, but we get refreshed.

We get renewed by the presence of the Lord Himself.

The Lord is speaking to all of his children.

Those who know him and call him Lord, and those who haven't come home yet.

He wants everyone to come home.

He wants you to choose him.

And I want to give you an opportunity to respond.

Because a message like this, I understand, can feel heavy.

But it is with the utmost love that I even have the courage to stand on this stage and say it to you.

Because the room is so quiet, you could hear it pin drop.

Like, this is not a feel.

I understand for some this might not be feeling like a feel-good message, but it is because warnings are in love.

When you love someone and you know that there's a possibility that they could step into danger, you warn them.

I'm a mom.

When my five-year-old climbs up on the stairs while I'm cooking on the little step, like I'm pretty responsive.

Hey, watch out.

Because I don't want him to stick his hand on the stove and get burned because I know what would happen.

It would be so painful.

And in the moment, he's like, Mom, why are you yelling at me?

I'm like, baby, I'm not mad at you.

I don't want you to get hurt.

I love you.

So I'm warning you.

So we're gonna take a moment now in this room to respond to what God is doing.

And maybe as this message has gone on, the Holy Spirit is already bringing things up in your mind, you already know areas of your life that He is saying, come back to me.

But if you don't, you can ask Him.

That's what I did.

And if you have never thought about repentance like this, or you have never you haven't repented since the first day you gave your life to Jesus, then we're gonna get really practical for a minute and we're gonna put a guide on the screen behind me that kind of walks you through what a prayer of repentance could sound like.

This is not a formula, it is not say these words and check the box.

It is simply to remove ambiguity.

If you're like, my heart wants to do that, but I don't know what it looks like, that's what this is for.

So if you don't know what the thing is, ask the Holy Spirit.

He is faithful to tell us.

Holy Spirit, search me and know me.

Have I believed a lie?

What do I need to repent of?

And then we have to stop hiding it.

We can't keep it tucked away.

We have to confess it.

So, Father, I confess, fill in the blank.

Whatever it is.

I confess that I consume a lot more TV and music that fills my mind with things of this world than I do of your word.

And you're telling me now that it's not pleasing to you because it's not purifying my heart.

So I bring it into the light.

I refuse to hide it, I'm not gonna excuse it, I'm not gonna justify it.

I just confess it, Lord, before you.

And I was wrong.

I'm gonna agree with God about it.

I was wrong, your word is truth, and I submit to you.

Again, any variation of these words, this is just to give you an outline of what it could look like biblically.

And then you need to receive his forgiveness.

This is crucial, church, because if we just sit at, I was wrong, you were right, that's where we can get trapped in shame, and the enemy loves that too.

Loves it.

Because then you beat yourself up and you don't walk in the forgiveness that Jesus already paid for.

And he's like jackpot.

That's a deception, too.

So do not sit in sin and shame.

You do not have to beg God for his forgiveness.

You already are forgiven.

If you walk with him and you have already surrendered your life, you do not have to beg for the forgiveness.

Just thank him for it.

Thank you for forgiving me, Lord.

Thank you for cleansing me.

Your blood is sufficient.

I receive your forgiveness and I leave my shame at the cross.

And then you need to replace the lie with the truth.

This is the part that was usually missing for me.

What's the lie under there?

And what is your Truth.

Reject the lie and choose to agree with the truth.

And then lastly, we have to abide and obey.

We need to walk this out.

So in the same way that when we surrender our life to Christ, we then need to live a life that demonstrates we follow Him.

When we repent for the ways we've fallen into lies or deception or made agreements with things that do not line up with His word, we have to actually walk out a life that demonstrates we actually believe that.

It didn't mean anything.

And this is not at all because works or actions save us.

They do not.

The Word of God says that.

We are saved by grace through our faith in Jesus alone.

But it also says that faith without works is dead.

So faith produces works.

It's the evidence that we actually mean what we say.

And repentance is the same way.

You don't have to earn your repentance, but you do need to walk it out.

And we do that by abiding in his word.

We can't walk out truth if we don't know what truth is.

We'll just fall right back in.

It's real easy.

And then I find it helpful at the end to just ask him if there's anything he wants me to do.

Not because you have to do something, but because sometimes there is something he wants you to do.

Maybe you've been harboring unforgiveness and he wants you to actively go to the person and tell them you forgive them.

Maybe there's something you need to surrender.

Maybe you've been living and like, God understands, I'm in a low place.

Like it's just, I just do it every once in a while to like take the edge off because like it helps my anxiety.

And the Lord's saying, you need to give it up.

Because I want you to be more like me.

Because that's what I call good.

God calls good being conformed into his image, being made to look like him.

And it doesn't always feel good.

He uses really uncomfortable circumstances to do it.

He uses suffering to do it.

But this is why the Word of God says that he works all things together, no matter how horrible it was, for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purposes.

So if you're following after him, then you can guarantee, you can take it to the bank that if it is hard and you continue to lean into the Lord, he's going to use it to make you look more like him, and that is what he says is good.

That is a blessing.

That is what we want.

We want to look more like him and less like us.

So I'm going to give you time right now to do that.

We're going to be quiet.

As you can see, the band is not up here.

So we're just going to bow our heads and give you an opportunity as Christ followers to seek the Lord and ask if there is anything he wants you to repent for, and then repentance.

We thank you for your forgiveness.

We receive your truth.

And we ask that you would help us walk in obedience to it.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

The last opportunity for response is for those of you in the room who may have never given your life to Jesus.

And if that is you, or if after listening to this message you are feeling like, well, I prayed a prayer, but I'm not really sure, then this is for you too.

Today is the day of salvation.

Jesus says, repent and believe the gospel.

And Paul says in Romans, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved.

It's really simple.

But confessing Jesus is Lord is not reciting words, it's declaring that to be true for you.

He's Lord of my life.

He gets authority.

He's in charge.

And believe God raised him from the dead is not belief up here.

It's not intellectual.

It's our heart, mind, soul, excuse me, and strength.

It's all of us.

It's full submission, trust, allegiance, reliance.

You get it all, Lord.

So if that's you this morning, we want to pray for you and with you.

If you would bow your heads, you can repeat after me just inside your mind.

And church, in your mind, you can agree with me alongside.

It is not the words that I'm saying that save you, but it is the heart.

Father God, thank you for saving me.

Thank you for dying for my sin.

The way I've been living is not lined up with your truth.

I was wrong, and you are right, God.

Thank you for loving me and being so patient.

I accept your forgiveness.

The blood of Jesus is sufficient for my sins.

Thank you that you do not shame me, you do not condemn me.

I choose to surrender my life to you and follow you all the days of my life.

It's in Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

If you just prayed that prayer, welcome home.

And church, this is something that the Bible says we celebrate.

There is joy in heaven among the angels when even one sinner repents.

So thank you, God.

Thank you that you have been so patient.

Thank you for bringing us home.

Church, Jesus is coming back.

It's a promise.

The day is coming.

We don't know when, but we know the signs.

And right now we're in the waiting.

So while we wait, let us live a life of repentance and remain faithful to Jesus to the very end.

Let us be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish and fully at peace.

Not because of anything we've done, but because his sacrifice and who he is wipes us clean and gives us peace.

Father God, thank you for today.

Thank you for the seeds of truth that have been planted in this house.

I pray that you would water them and make them grow, Lord.

And that we would go out and testify of your goodness and your love and your mercy, and that many would come to know you.

We pray that your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And it's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you for joining us to learn more about Celebration Orlando, a church devoted to reaching the lost, equipping the found, and helping the hurting.

Follow us on social media using the handle at celebrationorl or visit our website, celebrationorl.org.