God is Pro-Sex | Pastor Chris Kouba

Grab your Bibles, open them up with me to Song of Solomon, chapter four.

Song of Solomon Chapter Four.

We want to lift up high the name of Jesus today and all that we do and all that we say.

What an incredible morning of worship.

We just got to experience Song of Solomon chapter four.

A number of years ago, I was at a conference and I won uh an Amazon Alexa Echo Dot.

You ever heard of those things?

I think they're not even making them anymore.

They're so old.

Uh, but it was one of those things where it was pretty exciting that I got to win this thing because before it was normal like it is today to basically have some sort of device in most every room that you have that will talk back to you uh and have some sort of interaction with you, Alexa or Siri or whatever it may be.

Uh, it was very, very abnormal at the time.

And so I was excited.

We were excited about getting one of these.

We'd heard about them, but we never really had the chance to interact with them.

And so we were kind of early adopters, if you will.

Winning this was a chance to kind of check it out before everybody knew what it was.

And so we we were so excited about this uh Alexa device that you could talk to that we decided to actually put this little bitty, looks like a hockey puck in our kitchen, and we left it there in our kitchen as a way to interact with it.

Hillary, and I thought maybe we could use this to maybe just check out what the weather is.

We could figure out a way to maybe uh update our grocery list or whatever it may be by just talking to it.

And our kids, as a result, they were young at the time.

Our kids being in the home, being able to be there around this Alexa that was in the kitchen, also realized this thing's pretty cool.

You can talk to it and it talks back to you with actual intelligent uh responses.

And so therefore, they began to ask us stuff like, hey, what's the joke of the day?

Or what is the weather today?

Or uh they would say, you know, play this particular song, and they would play uh a song.

They used to do games with it.

It was a lot of fun.

Uh but then as they as they continued along with this thing in our home, they realized it does way more than just do the joke of the day and the weather.

It actually can do homework.

And so they started asking it fairly normal questions about math homework.

You know, this is my equation.

What is it just to test their answers type deal?

All right.

And so they're doing all of that.

And then one particular morning, though, I very vividly remember this again.

My kids were yielded, I was one of my girls, I don't know which one, but I was in the bathroom, I was getting ready for the day, and my wife was in the kitchen with all of the kids, and one of my daughters was working on an English assignment, and so she decided to do what she's been doing before.

She asked Alexa some questions about her assignments, and she asked the normal questions.

Okay, so what is the plot of the story?

Uh this is what I think is gonna be the adverb in this situation, but just the normal kind of questions that go along with an English assignment.

And then she asked this very specific question What is climax?

And Alexa started answering different than the English assignment that she was asking.

And I'm in the other room, I'm getting ready, and all of a sudden I hear Hillary yelling, Alexa, stop, Alexa, stop, Alexa, stop.

And then I hear her feet pounding into my the bathroom, and she grabs that Alexa, she ripped it out of the wall, she runs into our bathroom, and she's never like this.

She slams this thing down.

This thing's not teaching our kids about sex, I'm throwing it away.

It may not be Amazon Alexa, but somebody's teaching you about sex.

Somebody's teaching your kids about sex.

Somebody's teaching your teenagers about sex.

Somebody's teaching you about sex.

And here's what's crazy.

You don't even have to ask them to.

They're just doing it naturally.

Pornographers exist to teach you about sex.

The internet is designed to teach you whatever you want, whenever you want.

That's it.

The culture and media is designed to teach you.

Your friends to teach you.

That's it.

Your parents or your family origin teaches you.

That's it.

Maybe what they taught you was don't do it and don't talk about it.

What I want to invite you to do today is to allow God to teach you about sex.

Because here's what I want you to say.

See, he has a lot to say about it.

Like he invented it, he created it, and he sees it and thinks that it is a good gift that he wants to give to his people.

And he wrote a lot about dating and relationships and marriage and a whole chapter all about sex.

And he didn't take it out, he kept it in.

Because he wanted us to come to the table of a topic that's got all kinds of baggage attached to it.

And instead, to open up our hearts and see what does God say in his word about this gift.

Let me set the scene for you in Song of Solomon, chapter four.

We've been three chapters so far that's been all about the pursuit.

It's been about attraction, it's been about dating.

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the wedding ceremony, and we learn that a wedding, a marriage is a man and a woman and a covenant relationship before God.

And what we see is that they don't even give us a description about the reception after the wedding.

It just skips straight to the honeymoon.

It just skips straight to the wedding night.

All right.

And so what God allows us to do is to be able to see what takes place, and he does it in explicit detail to give us an idea of what he says, this gift that he created is actually meant to be done and how it is supposed to happen.

Here's the main thing I want you to take away from this message today, which is this God is pro-sex.

God is pro-sex.

Like we have to start with that because if we don't, then we're gonna begin to question whether he knows what he's talking about.

And if we start with the fact that God is the one who created it and he is all about it, then it allows us to admire the gift that we see presented in Song of Solomon, chapter four.

Let's begin reading in verse one.

It says, Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful.

Your eyes are doves behind your veil.

Before anything else, notice what he calls her, not my bride, not my wife, my love.

In the Hebrew, it's the word raya, meaning companion or friend.

Before he gets physical in any way, he says, Hey, you're my person.

Like you're the one that I want to be with.

You're my friend, you're my companion.

Sex in this passage begins with relationship, not just desire and passion.

He then starts with her eyes, and he works his way down.

Here's why this matters.

Sex starts with the mind.

And for the woman, sex begins with what she thinks and she feels, and in many ways, she thinks and she feels the way that a man has led her to think and to feel.

Look at the end of verse 1.

Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead.

He is releasing her hair.

He's undoing her veil.

Her hair is flowing down.

It's an image of him caressing her face as her hair falls to her shoulders.

Guys, let me give you some advice, okay?

It is not a good thing in 2026 to go up to your girl and tell her that she looks like a flock of goats, okay?

The image breaks down a little bit in the modern day stuff.

What I want you to see though is that he's he's noticing the details.

Like he sees her hair begin to cascade and hit her shoulders, and he loves it.

He's overwhelmed by it.

And here's the cool thing he tells her.

He tells her what he sees.

Look at what it says in verse 2.

Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing, all of which bear twins, and not one among them has lost its young.

This means she did invisaline or had braces when she was younger.

That's what that means.

Her teeth are all there and they're straight.

That's what it's saying.

But here's what Solomon notices her smile.

He sees that smile.

And he's just, he's pursuing her in every way.

Verse 3 your lips are like a scarlet thread, and your mouth is lovely.

Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil.

He is moving in for the kiss, but not yet.

Her lips are red and beautifully shaped.

Her cheeks, she is blushing, beginning to show signs of desire.

She is turned on, and it's totally okay.

It's totally normal.

It's totally natural.

The pomegranate was considered an aphrodisiac in the ancient world, appealing to both sight and to taste.

What's happening is that she is responding to being seen.

Verse 4.

Your neck is like the tower of David, built in rows of stone, on it hang a thousand shields, all of them shields of warriors.

He's at her neck, probably undoing a necklace.

Her necklace may have actually looked like the stone of David's tower, which is likely where this image comes from.

But here's what the image means David's tower was built for war, but it also would have a flag that would be raised, showing it as times of peace, meaning it was kind of upright.

So what he's saying is this is that she's standing tall, she's confident, she's elegant, she's not timid.

Why?

Because she's safe.

She's letting her guard down with this man.

Why?

Because he's earned it.

I want to stop right here and name something that's true in most marriages.

Men give romance to get sex, and women give sex to get romance.

It's a cliche because it's most likely and most of the time is true.

And what Solomon is doing by spending all of these first few verses on her face and her hair and her neck and her necklace before he ever touches her body is reversing the typical pattern that most people do.

He instead is leading with romance.

He's doing it right.

Verse 5, your two breasts are like two fawns.

Twins of a gazelle that graze among the lilies, he is now beginning to undress her.

And the image that he uses tells you everything you need to know about his approach.

If you are hunting and you are coming up on a deer and specifically a fawn, you know that you've got to be so careful because they're animals that can very easily get spooked.

And so, therefore, if you were to come up to them, you've got to be very, very quiet and you've got to be very, very slow, and you've got to be very, very methodical with your actions and with your movements, because then if you don't, then what's going to happen is they're going to run off.

But yet, so often what we typically see is that people come up to the two breasts and they're like, Hey! I'm here.

It's not what he is describing.

He's moving down her body slowly.

He knows that this is a vulnerable moment.

He knows that she is more exposed than she's ever been.

So, what is his approach?

Slow, gentle, and careful.

Verse 6 Until the day breeze and the shadows flee, I will go away to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense.

Let me tell you what that means.

All night long.

All night.

That's what it means.

In the Hebrew, right there, alright.

They're not in a hurry.

See, here's what culture tells you get what you want and get out.

Here's what God says.

He instead presents a man who is present, who is lingering, who is giving all of himself to her as long as she wants.

Verse 7, you are altogether beautiful, my love.

There is no flaw in you.

This is a crazy verse if you think about it.

Because if you go back to the first week we talked about it in Song of Solomon chapter 1, verse 6, she actually says, Hey, don't look at me.

Song of Solomon 1:6

Don't look at me.

I'm not I've not been put together, I've not been able to take care of myself, I've been having to work too much.

And so therefore, she feels shame over the way that she looks.

She feels insecure over who she is.

Now, what we find is a woman who's now finding herself being undressed, but she feels safety, she feels security.

And the man looks at her and he says, There is no flaw in you.

Is that true?

Of course it's not true.

All of us have flaws.

Yeah, but what this man is saying is not to me.

Not to me, you don't.

What he's essentially showing is that if you train your mind to only see beauty in one person, then guess what?

That person is beautiful, and there's nothing wrong with them.

They're the best.

And so what we see is that Solomon has all of his attention and all of his focus, every definition and word that he could possibly use for beauty and desire is found in one phrase, her.

That's who he's pursuing.

And I want you to see, it's so important.

Let me speak to this really quickly.

Because the more exposure you have to other people's bodies, the more material you're gonna have to compare to your spouse's body.

And where there's comparison, there's gonna be perceived flaw.

Where there's perceived flaw, there's gonna be lack of affirmation.

Where there's lack of affirmation, there's gonna be insecurity in your spouse.

Meaning this make choices right now that protect your future spouse or your current spouse from ever having to compete with your adoration, meaning no pornography, meaning no fantasy novels, meaning no watching crap on TV or movies that puts somebody else's body out there for you to compare to your spouse's.

But instead, live in such a way where you begin to protect and live in such a way where you begin to define all beauty based upon the person that God has given to you, so that the goal can be the end of verse 7, there is no flaw in you.

It's only possible when you guard your eyes and you train your heart to find every definition of beauty in one person.

Verse 8, come with me from Lebanon, my bride, come with me from Lebanon.

Depart the peak of Amana from the peak of Seneer and Hermon from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards.

You've captivated my heart, my sister, my bride.

You've captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace.

How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride, how much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice.

They haven't even had intercourse yet.

And he's already saying that just a glance of her eyes drives him completely out of his mind.

This is an incredible amount of pleasure flowing out of this passage that shows the emotional connection and the spiritual connection.

That's where the world messes it up.

They view sex as a physical transaction.

And they miss that the way God designed it was for you to have a physical thing that also is joined with an emotional thing, which is also joined with a spiritual thing, and it is pleasure upon pleasure.

God is not holding out on you, but he wants you instead to enjoy the gift the way that it was designed.

And please hear me.

Don't settle for cheap imitations.

Verse 11, your drips, your lips drink nectar.

My bride, honey and milk are under your tongue.

The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon.

What you see is that now and verse 11, they are kissing.

Before France existed, God invented French kissing.

You're welcome, France.

Don't miss though, he spent 10 verses verbally affirming her.

Ten verses being emotionally attentive to her before he ever touched her.

He got there, but he didn't rush it.

Verse 12 A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a spring locked, a fountain sealed.

What he's saying is she was a virgin.

She had kept what is sacred sacred.

This isn't repression, this is reservation.

There's only one person who deserves to enter your garden, and it's the person willing to call you bride.

If someone wants the benefits of the garden without making covenant, they're telling you that what they want is what marriage offers, but they don't want the commitment that marriage requires.

You run away from that.

Don't let anybody tell you, unless you do this, then you're not worthy.

Please hear me, you run away from that.

That is not what God says.

But you instead pursue the holiness and the purity that He tells you is not only best for you, but will be best for your future spouse.

Verse 13, your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates with all its choicest fruits.

Henna with nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon with all trees of frankincense, myrrh, and alloys with all choice spices.

A garden fountain, a well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon.

Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind.

Blow upon my garden, let its spices flow.

It shifts at the end of that verse 16 to her speaking, and she says, Let my beloved come to his garden and eat its choicest fruits.

This is the most erotic verse in all of the Bible.

For three chapters, she's been telling her friends, do not awaken love until it's time.

And now Solomon has made a covenant with her.

He's chosen her publicly, he's spoken to her every insecurity.

He's taken all night with her, he's made her feel seen and safe and desired.

And she speaks, and she's not pressured, she's not performing, she's not doing this because he finally wore her down.

Instead, she's inviting freely and fully from a position of complete security.

This right here is the design.

This is what God created, and this is what God wants.

Chapter 5, verse 1.

He responds, I came to my garden, my sister, my bride.

I gathered my myrrh with my spice, I ate my honeycomb with my honey.

I drank my wine with my milk.

What he's essentially saying is this, it was awesome.

It was awesome.

If you notice in my Bible, what it shows is that I see it says others.

At the top, it's showing a change in speaker.

At the end of chapter verse 1 in chapter 5, it says, Eat, friends, drink and be drunk with love.

Who's speaking?

The most natural reading is that this is God who is speaking.

It's the only time in the book of Song of Solomon that he speaks out loud directly.

And what he's saying is not everything is allowed, and I guess it is okay.

He says, Eat, drink, and be drunk with love.

He's saying this isn't just reluctant permission, this is enthusiastic, divine celebration.

We just saying, for from you are all things, and to you all are things, to you deserve the glory.

That includes your sex life.

What it's saying is not only can God see what it is that you're doing, but when you do it the way that he designed and gifted you with the gift to use, then guess what?

He celebrates it.

Like he is for it in every single way.

He says, enjoy it the way that it was meant to be.

Here's what I want you to walk away with today.

I got a couple of points of application.

Three points of application.

Three things about the gift of sex.

Number one, enjoy the gift.

Enjoy the gift.

I don't know how long we've been going so far.

We've spent a number of times, though, looking at the real thing.

And I want that picture to stay with you.

Whenever they train FBI agents on how to pick up counterfeit money, they don't teach them about looking by looking at counterfeit money.

They teach them to become experts at the real thing.

So that they know what it looks like, they know what it feels like, they know by just the touch of it whether it's real or not.

Why?

Because they know so much of what's real, they can immediately spot something that's counterfeit.

Our culture, though, when it comes to sex, tells you try all of the counterfeits to see if any of those work.

And eventually what you're gonna realize is that God's way is the only way.

So my plea to you today is this take a vision of the real thing and never settle for anything less.

And the way that you do that is through married people, married couples.

Let me be very direct.

God made sex and he made it for you.

Not to be endured, not to be rationed, to be enjoyed.

This means guys initiate sex with your wife.

This means wives initiate sex with your husband.

You should both be actively pursuing each other.

Some of you guys are like, this is the best church I've ever been to in my entire life.

First Corinthians chapter 7, verse 3 says, This the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband.

1 Corinthians 7:3

That's very, very clear what it's saying.

Skip to verse 5.

It says, Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

The word desire there is an interesting word.

It's a strong word.

Withholding isn't neutral in God's design.

He's saying, Don't do it unless you got a good reason.

But instead, pursue each other in the marriage bed, meaning this one of God's strategies to protect your marriage is a lot of good, godly, married sex.

Make sure that your spouse is so satisfied at home that looking somewhere else never even crosses their mind.

Allow them to eat off the menu that you have so often they have no desire to go to a different menu.

How do you do that?

That means you got to communicate.

You got to talk to each other about what makes you feel seen and safe and desired.

Not a complaint session, but a tending session.

Dave Harvey is a leader in our church.

He leads a life group.

He has been a longtime member as well as a deacon.

And he tells the story about his dad.

His dad would routinely come home from work, and he had a signal that he would give to his wife, Dave's mom, in order to basically say that, hey, I want tonight to be a good night.

All right.

And so his signal was that he would come home and he would get some Hershey kisses, and he would put a Hershey kiss on his wife's pillow.

And so that was the signal that it was going to be go time later that evening.

And so Dave is hearing this and he's like, this is a little bit weird because I'm kind of hearing about my parents, whatever else.

And he said, and then it kind of hit me, I also have vivid memories growing up of Hershey kisses.

Oh gosh.

He said, I cannot tell you how many times I was playing in the house and I walked by my parents' bedroom and I saw a Hershey kiss on my mom's pillow.

And I slipped in there and I grabbed it and I sniped it, thinking that I just scored a free piece of candy.

Because now I realize my dad, after a long day of work and everything else, goes in, turns the lights off, thinking it's go time.

Mom, his mom's dead asleep.

Why?

Because she didn't get the signal.

Which just proves sex lives are ruined by children, right?

Here's my advice.

If you're given a signal, let's make sure that the signal actually connects, okay?

The reality is this there should be things happening in your bedroom that if your kids ever walked in on you, they'd be scarred for life, okay?

It's a gift.

It's a gift that's to be enjoyed.

It's a gift that should be pursued.

The second thing I want you to see today that's so important protect the gift.

Protect the gift.

I want you to think about sex like it's a fire.

Whenever you have a fire, there's a couple of different things that you can do with it.

I want you to picture a fireplace.

I'm not talking about one, you just kind of push a button and things turn on.

I'm talking about one where you gotta put logs in there and you gotta get it ready, and then ultimately what you gotta do is you gotta light a match.

When you light that match, you can throw it in that fireplace, you know what's gonna do.

It's gonna light up.

And it's gonna fill that fireplace with a beautiful picture, it's gonna fill that fireplace with beautiful warmth.

It's gonna be a very incredible thing that's designed to do some great things.

But if you're gonna take that same exact match and hit that spark and you just throw it in the middle of your living room, let's say you've got a rug and you're living on the floor, you can have some major damage going on.

And what changed wasn't the action, what changed was the location.

The location matters.

You can't just decide you get to make all the rules with God's thing that he gave to you.

He gave this to you as a gift, but he wants you to enjoy it in the confines of the protection that he built around it so that it can be fully enjoyed in every way.

And when you take that outside of it, here's what happens: not only can it cause great damage to you, it can cause great damage to the other person, and it can cause great damage to everybody around you.

You throw a fire in the middle of a living room, you got a big problem.

You put a fire in a fireplace, it's the most beautiful thing ever.

Folks, what I want to encourage you to do, married couples, no casual sex, no sex outside of your relationship.

Do everything you gotta do to start guarding your eyes so that you never even have anything to compare it to other than your spouse.

Get out of that pornography and get out of those fantasy novels.

Those things are not designed to help you in your sex life.

Are you kidding me?

That's not how God designed it.

Instead, you find your satisfaction in one pursuit of one person.

What does this look like if you're not married?

This means that you need to guard yourself in such a way where you can give the gift and enjoy it in the confines with which God has designed it to be.

Meaning this: don't sit there and say, Well, how close can I get to the line without passing it?

Please hear me.

You're gonna pass it.

Instead, say, How can I pursue the holiness that God gives me?

Because I'm gonna protect the good gift that God has given me.

Please hear me if you find somebody else.

This is why it's so important that you're finding you're running hard after the Lord and you're looking and finding somebody else hard after the Lord because what's gonna happen is if you're running hard after the Lord and all of a sudden somebody else is not, you're gonna have two different ideas about this specific topic.

And what always happens is when people cross lines sexually, they end up finding themselves emotionally attached in ways that the relationship was never ever able to bear.

So, what I'm advising and I'm pleading with you to do is to protect the gift.

Here's a prayer that I want to encourage you to pray.

If you're married, pray this prayer.

God, give me eyes to see beauty in my spouse alone.

Maybe for some of you, you've already screwed this up.

You've looked at stuff, you've gone outside the marriage, whatever it may be.

Pray this prayer right now.

God, from this point forward, I want to ask that you give me eyes to see beauty in my spouse alone.

If you're single, pray this prayer.

God, give me eyes to protect my future spouse from having to compete for my adoration.

God, give me eyes to protect my future spouse from having to compete for my adoration.

Here's a third thing I want to mention to you.

Enjoy the gift, protect the gift.

And number three, redeem the gift.

Redeem the gift.

I know who I'm talking to.

I'm talking to a room full of people.

This particular topic most likely brings a level of guilt or a level of shame.

Because you didn't reject it.

Maybe you made choices along the way.

That you highly regret.

Maybe you find yourself at a place where you were abused, and somebody took something from you before you ever even had the opportunity to give it to somebody else.

Some of you willingly gave it away, thinking it was a means to joy, only to realize.

It's led to heartache, confusion, despair.

Some of you are in the throes of pornography, and you're not gonna call it addicted.

That's exactly what you are.

Some of you have made decisions in the past, and because of that, you're walking into your marriage, and it's just a mess.

And you don't feel like you have any idea how to untangle the knot that has been created.

I think to all of you, I would say this.

Romans chapter 8, verse 1 says this there is therefore now no, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1

God can redeem you.

God can restore you.

The book of Joel says that God can restore the years the locusts have eaten.

It doesn't mean there's not going to be consequences, it doesn't mean there's not going to be things that you're gonna have to work through.

But what it does mean is this is that that doesn't have to be what defines you.

You see, the culture says this who you sleep with is who you are.

God says who you sleep with is one of a thousand things that I get say over and I get grace over.

And so today, if you're here and you have found yourself not doing what we just described, can I just ask that today be a day of confession and forgiveness and restoration?

Cody, when he just baptized upstairs at the very end, he said this phrase buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk in a new life.

God can give you a new life today.

Now, some of you may be thinking, yeah, but but not me.

You don't know what I've done, you don't know the mistakes that I've made.

You don't know the thoughts that are in my head.

Guess I would just invite you to hear about a story of a guy who had a dad.

And he went to his dad and he's like, Dad, I don't really want to live here anymore.

I don't like your rules.

In fact, I just wish that you were dead.

Can I just have all the inheritance that I'm gonna get?

And I'm gonna go do my own thing.

His dad was like, Okay, I'll let you do it.

The story goes that this guy he goes and he runs off and he begins to make the choices that he wants to make, do it whenever he wants to do it with whoever he wants to do it with.

And it says that he came to the end of himself because it didn't work out.

News flash, it never does.

And he thought to himself, you know, I guess my only option is to maybe go back and see if my dad will let me back home.

And so as he heads back, most likely what he was thinking through was what is his apology speech was gonna be, what his plea was gonna look like to see if his dad would let him in.

But here's what the Bible tells us is that this dad, every single day, woke up and thought, today could be the day my boy comes home.

Today could be the day my boy comes home.

So much so that he was sitting on the porch and he looked out and he just simply saw the sight of his son way in the distance.

And it says that he ran to go meet his son.

And he goes and he embraces him.

And before he even had the opportunity to give his apology speech, he tells him, Go kill the fattened calf.

We're throwing a party.

My son, who is dead, is now alive, he's back home, and he welcomed him with open arms.

I don't know your sexual past, but I do know this.

It does not have to be your sexual identity and your identity in all things in life.

God is a God of redemption, and all he wants for you to do today is to see the beauty of what he created and just turn around, head his direction, and he will come running to meet you.

Would you do that today?

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me all across this room?

We're about to move into a time we call here at United City a time of invitation, a response.

What I'm gonna ask you to do is to please stay with me to the end of the service.

Don't be leaving for any reason.

It's the most important moment of our service right here.

The most important question isn't what your sexual identity is, what your past is.

The only question that matters is: are you a child of God?

Do you know him?

Does he know you?

The Bible says that all of us are sinners, all of us have fallen short of God's standard, all of us have messed it up.

But God sent his one and only Son, Jesus, to die a death on a cross.

He rose from the dead, and he now invites you to not become defined by who you sleep with, who you like, what you do in the bedroom, but as a son, we're starting.

If you've never received the gift that Jesus so freely gives, offers to you, today could be the day.

You don't have to have it all figured out, you don't have to know what it's all gonna look like.

All you gotta do is turn from the where you've been going and turn towards him, and he will come running.

He wants to meet you today.

So, in just a moment, if that's you, would you just come forward?

Our team's gonna be in front, they're gonna be at the bottom of the steps.

That's gonna be your cue.

Just step out from where you are and just say, I want to come home.

Let us walk you through what that looks like.

Others of you need to come and join United City Church.

We want to preach the whole council of God.

We want to make sure we speak what the Bible speaks.

Today, you want to be a part of a church like that?

Would you lead the way?

Maybe others need to be baptized to give your public next step.

Would you come and let us talk to you about that?

If you have got questions, let us talk with you about those questions.

Some of you need prayer today.

Prayer for your marriage, prayer for your own heart, prayer for your soul.

We don't want you to feel guilt, shame, we want you to feel freedom, hope.

Come and let us pray for you.

Maybe you have a need today.

Something that's pressing and weighing on your heart.

You come and let us pray with you.

Father, in Jesus' name, I pray that you'd move in these final moments.

Thank you.

Every service, you brought hope, you brought healing, you brought salvation.

We ask, Father, in these final moments that you would do it yet again.

It's in the powerful name of Jesus that I pray.

Amen.

Man, what an amazing time that we had today.

Hey, if you know of someone that needs to hear this message, we'd love for you to share that on socials.

We'd love for you to actually go and check out our socials so you can stay up to date on everything happening in the life of United City.

And if you need to take the next step, we'd love to help you do that as well.

Love you guys so much, and we'll see you next week.