You May Be RIGHT, But That Doesn't Give You The RIGHT | Pastor Dave Kinney

Welcome to United City Church.

We're so, so glad that you are here today.

If you have a Bible, I'm gonna ask you to open it up to Romans chapter 14.

Romans 14 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 14 is where we're going to be.

Romans 14 · chapter mention

I want to take a moment and add my welcome to MJ's earlier, and I want to welcome all of those who are joining us at all of the various correctional facilities.

We are so thankful for you.

We're so grateful that you are a part of this church family, and we are truly honored to bring this service to you.

So, United City, one time, can we welcome all of those who are joining with us?

It's awesome.

It's awesome.

My wife Emily and I, we have had a very long-standing disagreement over a specific subject.

And now I'm gonna talk about it in front of all of you, okay?

This disagreement has lasted the last 15 years.

And I'm very passionate about my side of things, and Emily is equally as passionate about the way she sees this certain topic.

It has not always been easy, but somehow we have managed to build a life together.

I consider myself, I don't want to brag too much, but I consider myself a little bit of an expert on all things dessert, okay?

Uh cakes, cookies, ice cream.

Come on, give me some bluebell.

Cookie two step.

Hey, shout your favorite flavor of ice cream on three.

Ready, one, two, three?

Coffee is disgusting.

Whoever that was, go find Jesus somewhere, you know.

Glad you're here, I guess.

I just feel like I know a lot in the world of dessert.

And and Emily and I's disagreement that's lasted for so long revolves around how to properly bake brownies.

See, I I believe, just like in your spiritual life, that consistency matters.

Okay, so I like my brownies to be dense, little bit of fluff.

All right, just a little bit, exactly like they're shown on the cover of the box, which should be a dead giveaway that I'm right, okay?

Emily, on the other hand, she prefers her brownies to be super kind of mushy, ooey-gooey in the middle with some crisp on the outside.

You gotta be joking me.

First service is the same way.

So, how many of y'all agree with me that I'm right?

All right.

I knew we had some godly people, Sean.

So glad that you're here.

How many of y'all agree with my wife, Emily?

Sin.

Wow, the the depth of sin in the room right now.

Emily and I, we have somehow managed, somehow found a way to love each other, to adore being with each other.

I love my wife more than anything.

We live in the same home.

We have raising kids together actively.

How is it possible that we could do all of that while having this dispute over brownies?

Well, although brownies are a very big deal in my home, obviously, it is ultimately a secondary issue within our relationship.

You remember last week when PC spoke about the first half of chapter 14, he was leading us to understand that there are disagreements within the Roman church.

And all of these things are oversecondary issues, these disputed matters that are ultimately not primary.

For us, uh, it looks a lot like politics and alcohol and different theological issues and whether or not tattoos send you to hell and what your preferences are in worship.

And is this the kind of church that does the whole speaking in tongues, or is that like we take a stance against that?

And now for the Roman people, it was about diet and days.

So what they could and could not eat and drink, and then what days they were supposed to practice specific religious things.

We recorded that all of those things are secondary compared to the primary truths.

And I want to share with you what those primary truths are.

And today is not the day for us to start being a quiet church, all right?

So I'm about to share the truth from God's word.

This is an eternal and absolute truth.

And so I need my church to get behind me a little bit on this one.

That there is only one triune and true God represented in God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that Jesus came to this earth as a living sacrifice, fully God and fully man, that all of humanity is in need of a savior because of our lostness and our sin.

And it's not just that we need a savior, it's that Jesus is that savior.

And his substitutionary death on the cross and his very real resurrection from the dead has overcome the sin that overcame you and I.

And we believe, come on, church, we believe that Jesus is coming back again one day to claim what is rightfully his, his people, his children, his followers.

And we believe that that salvation in and of itself is a work of God's grace, and it is met by our trust and faith in him.

And we can know and have absolute confidence that all of this is true because the Bible tells me so.

Give me an amen, United City.

Let's go.

This book is infallible, it is inerrant, and it is absolute truth.

These are primary issues.

These are primary truths.

Anything else is secondary.

We talked about last week the importance of verse 5, and you and I having our own personal convictions.

Why we believe what we believe.

These convictions being yours, not your parents, not your upbringings, not your demographics, not your friends, these convictions being from God to you.

Here we are in chapter 14, dealing with secondary issues.

And I believe that Paul gives us a template for how we are supposed to deal with disagreement when it comes to these secondary issues.

Chapter 14, starting in verse 13, says this Therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or a hindrance in the way of a brother.

I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.

For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love.

By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died.

So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil, for the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.

So let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

Do not for the sake of food destroy the work of God.

Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats.

It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.

The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God.

Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves.

But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith, for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

Paul is writing to the church at Rome, which has both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.

Now the Jewish Christians, they are clinging to Old Testament laws in what they believe, they follow these laws, and it helps them act rightly before God.

And meanwhile, the Gentile Christians, they're looking at the Jewish Christians, saying, no, that's not what Jesus taught.

Jesus taught that if you are in Christ, then you are a new creation.

And the Old Testament stuff does no longer apply.

See, oftentimes when this passage is taught, we're led to believe that the weaker Christian, right?

We talked about this last week, that the weaker Christians are the ones who eat and drink specific foods.

And that they're weak to their sin, that they are weak to the things of this world.

But Romans chapter 14 and Paul actually tell us that that's backwards.

Romans 14 · chapter mention

And that actually the weak Christians are the legalistic ones that are stuck in tradition rather than allowing faithful liberties to exist.

Have y'all ever heard of Christians like that?

Y'all ever heard of a church like that?

That takes an issue that's not necessarily biblical, but they kind of make it a stake in the ground thing for them.

Whether you vote for this person or that person, well, if you if you vote for that person, you're not gonna fit here.

If it is something about how you dress, I heard a story one time about this young girl who went to a church and and it was a very country church, about 30 or 40 people, and she walked in and she was wearing a very low-cut shirt.

It was inappropriate.

And so the pastor at the end of the service came up to her and said, Hey, I want you to pray and ask God about what you're wearing and ask him what you should wear next week.

And so the following week she comes back again and she's wearing the exact same outfit that she wore the week before.

And so the pastor came up to her and said, Did you not do what I said?

And the girl said, I went home and I asked God, I prayed.

I asked God, what should I wear to this church?

And God said, I don't know, I haven't been there in years.

That's a pretty good one.

Ouch! Ouch! What Bible translation you use?

Oh, do you are you a preacher who preaches from an iPad?

Because, uh, you know, there's that whole thing.

Is it do you are you a are you a New King James version?

Are you an ESV?

Are you an extra-spiritual version?

Are you, you know, what you got going on under that leather bound over there?

What worship do you like?

What kind of church is this?

How's the worship?

All right?

Is this the kind of church that does the whole speaking in tongues thing?

Are we, no, I don't know about that.

These secondary issues that churches and people, Christians, make major deals out of that are ultimately secondary things.

They're very real though, aren't they?

These are very real things that people have very, very strong opinions about.

And the great thing about Romans chapter 14 is it actually gives us the answer for how we're supposed to handle these disagreements.

Romans 14 · chapter mention

Not just in a church, but in the church.

How we relate to one another about these things.

So, what should we do when we disagree with another believer?

Three things ultimately.

I think the first one is this accept them.

We are to accept them.

It's a very simple answer, but it's a whole lot more difficult to actually put it into practice than it is to just think it.

See, everybody knows what it's like to be accepted, and everyone knows what it's like to be rejected.

My wife and I we started dating when we were teenagers, and you know, I was a I was a really holy teenager, and uh I was really excited about our dates, and when I would plan dates, it would mostly just be praying together, you know, maybe opening up the scriptures with one another, reading through those, doing some sermon stuff, you know, some worship, that sort of thing.

One time I Emily convinced me, I can't believe I'm telling you this, she convinced me to go to dinner in a movie.

I know, right?

And and we get to the movie, and about halfway through, I'm sorry, babe, throwing you under the bus here.

She uh she reached over and she tried to hold my hand.

Obviously, don't hold on.

Obviously, I jerked it away and was like, whoa, whoa, hey, for the sake of purity, alright?

A couple weeks later, though, we went on a date and I was bringing her home back to her parents' house, and I walk her to the front door, and I'm a gentleman, and I get up there and I close my head, close my head, close my eyes, and I bow my head, and I'm ready to enter into a season of prayer, okay?

Next thing I know, I open up my eyes and she tries to kiss me right on the mouth.

And so again, I backed up and I was like, hey, let's leave some room for the Holy Spirit in this relationship, okay?

So if you don't know what it's like to be rejected, you could talk to Emily.

I've heard it's not very fun, all right?

Now, obviously, none of that's true because she's been out of my league since before day one, all right?

Verse 14.

Paul says, relating to eating the meat that's already been offered and sacrificed up to idols.

This is what Paul says.

I know that nothing in and of itself is unclean.

But if another believer believes that, then it's unclean to him or her, and we should accept them as they are.

See, we shouldn't base our acceptance of other people on whether or not they believe the exact same thing as we believe on these secondary issues.

Go all the way back to chapter 14, verse 1.

It says this, and for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, accept him.

It's our biblical, God-given responsibility to accept other believers, regardless of what they think of these secondary issues.

But I want to make this very, very clear.

Just because you accept the person doesn't mean that you have to adopt their conviction.

That is not what the Bible is saying here.

Remember, convictions are personal from God to you.

I can't give you one of my convictions.

God gave it to me.

So if someone has a conviction that is different from your conviction, instead of looking down your nose at them or saying, man, that's super weird, you should realize something, that there is a really good chance that God has spoken to that person.

They have heard it, and now they are walking in obedience.

That is worthy of our respect.

We are called to accept them.

And you might be thinking, I've never rejected any of these people.

And I would just tell you there's a difference between not rejecting them and accepting them.

If you accepted them, regardless of their background, regardless of their past, regardless of their political views, or their thoughts on this kind of education, or regardless of their opinions on that theological issue.

We don't just accept people because it's the right thing to do either.

We accept people because that's the example of Jesus Christ.

Romans chapter 5, verse 8, but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

While we were unacceptable to heaven, Christ came and died for us.

Romans 2, 11 says, For God chose no partiality.

And if God chose no partiality, why would I ever show partiality?

How could we ever reject someone that God has fully accepted?

You want to know if you've been rejecting of another believer?

Ask yourself this question.

Have you allowed any kind of secondary issue, any kind of secondary issue, to cause damage or keep you from a relationship with somebody?

Ever.

And please don't miss this.

Jesus himself was rejected.

And who was he rejected by?

He was rejected by the religious people of the time.

The people that thought they knew, the people that thought they had it all figured out, the people that thought that their way was right.

See, when you're not accepting of other believers, even though they think differently than you, you're living a life that says, Oh, yeah, God, I can accept the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I can accept your Lordship over my life, but I can't accept the other person you died for.

That is not what we are called to live.

Or response is to accept them, but it really goes further than that.

Second takeaway that we have here is we don't judge them.

We don't judge them.

One of the major lessons of Romans chapter 14 is that if you are a Christian, then you have Christian liberties.

Romans 14 · chapter mention

You have Christian freedoms.

Look back all the way to verse 3.

It says, Let no one who eats despise the one who abstains.

And let no one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.

This is showing us you can fall on either side of this secondary issue, whether you eat, whether you abstain.

And you can fall on either side and still not be in sin.

There are freedoms, there are liberties in our faith.

God isn't interested in creating a bunch of Christian robots that go around doing, believing, and thinking the exact same thing about the exact same topics and all of their beliefs lining up perfectly.

No, if he wanted it like that, he would have done it like that.

But go back to the theme verse for this entire series.

What does it say?

Do not be conformed.

God isn't interested in seeing how well you can play someone else's part.

But instead, be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

Just be vulnerable for a second.

If your mind isn't being changed, that's a red flag.

It's not a badge of honor.

Honestly, for me, there are things in the culture and in sin and with people that, if I'm being honest with you, used to just make me mad.

My response would be anger.

And now, not because of me, because my flesh is not that good.

But because God has done a work in my life.

And instead of responding in anger, now I'm burdened for them.

God has done a work in my life.

And if your mind, your beliefs, your thoughts, your actions aren't being changed, it's not a good thing.

God promises He will sanctify you.

He will sanctify you.

What this is saying here is that although you have your convictions on secondary issues, that doesn't mean that everyone else is gonna agree with you on all of them.

And guess what?

That does not make them wrong.

And it doesn't make you right.

Now, this obviously isn't speaking the things that the Bible talks directly about.

Let's take the issue for alcohol, okay?

Uh PC threw me under the bus last week and said I was gonna handle all these issues.

Well, here we go.

All right.

Take the issue of alcohol.

The Bible is very, very clear.

Drunkenness is a sin.

It is wrong.

As a Christian, you don't get to choose if you have a conviction about drunkenness.

It is very clear in Scripture, drunkenness is wrong.

We are called to remain sober-minded.

However, alcohol itself.

You may have one believer who has a conviction that says, you know what, I should not be in the presence of alcohol in any way, shape, or form ever.

And another believer who says, you know what, I can be around it a little bit, and every now and then I can have a drink to the glory of God.

And guess what?

As much as that just made you cringe, it is not our job to judge.

God defined what was righteous and full versus what was sinful.

Okay?

So that's what we are called to do.

But this thing, it presses down on us.

When we're gravitating toward judgment, there's this thing that it presses down on us and it impresses upon our hearts that our ways, our beliefs, our thoughts, that we are always right.

That we know the best way.

And really that we need to have everyone else live up to our standard of holiness because that's where we exist.

Well, guess what?

There's only room for one eternal judge, and you and I are not him.

But one day we will stand before him, and guess what?

Spoiler alert, we're all going to learn that we're wrong about a whole lot of stuff.

All of us.

None of us have it all together.

We are all wrong.

All of us.

But this thing that impresses upon us that our way is right and that our way is best, and that we know it actually has a name.

It's called pride.

It's called pride, and there's a reason that Jesus speaks more against pride than any other issue in his time on ministry on earth.

There's a reason that the New Testament talks more and warns more about the dangers of pride than any other sin.

And it's because pride lives in the blind spot of our lives.

And yet is the primary driver toward our own destruction.

It lives in the blind spot of our lives.

We can't always see it.

We don't always recognize it.

We're not always looking for it.

And yet it is the primary driver of our own destruction.

I've been following Jesus for a while.

And again, just a vulnerable moment for me.

What I know for me is that if I'm if I'm not actively disagreeing with myself as much or more than I disagree with other people, pride has me right where it wants me.

Right where it wants me.

I mean, Jesus Himself speaks about pride and the reality that pride, every single time, 10 out of 10, will always lead you toward judgment.

Pride in our hearts will always manifest itself by judging other people.

Matthew chapter 7, Jesus says, Judge not that you not be judged.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

For with the judgment that you pronounce, with the judgment that you give, you will be judged.

And with the measure you see it, it will be measured to That is a humbling verse.

That should bring us all to our knees a little bit.

Not only are we supposed to accept them, not only are we supposed to refuse the temptation to judge them when we're dealing with disagreeing with other believers, but there's one other thing that accepting and not judging, they kind of collaborate and lead us to this last thing, and I'll just be honest with you.

You're not gonna like it.

It's not a fun one.

I don't like it.

Accept them.

Don't judge them.

Defer to them.

Defer to them.

Verse 15, it's so interesting to me.

Paul just shared his beliefs and his convictions on the secondary issue of eating meat that's been offered up to idols.

And this is what he says.

I know that it's not unclean.

And I know that there's nothing wrong for me in eating.

But I understand that if it's unclean or unholy to someone else, then that makes it unclean.

Look what he says next.

And then he says, uh, if someone else is grieved by certain freedoms or liberties that you have, and their conviction is different than yours.

You have the freedom in Christ, the liberty in Christ to do this thing, but their conviction directly opposes your freedom, and you still operate in your freedom, you're wrong.

That is what it's saying.

If it trips them up, you're sinning.

And none of us like hearing that.

That is like the least fun sermon to ever preach.

No wonder PC's out of town, alright?

It's not a fun one to communicate to you, but it's just true.

The problem is we all want this, uh they have this idea of our rights.

Dave, I don't I don't bend on my rights.

I don't compromise my rights.

I don't break my rights.

I I I fight for my rights.

I have the right to, therefore I will.

I should have the right to, therefore I will.

But guess what?

That is what everything in the world, everything in our culture would say, yes, go down that road.

But in a kingdom culture, just because you have the right doesn't make it right.

We are called by God to defer to other believers for mutual upbuilding.

We we can become so focused on our own spiritual growth, which by the way is incredibly important and should be the priority of your life, but we forget the responsibility that we have to help other people grow spiritually.

Just because you have the right doesn't make it right.

And you know what happens?

When a Christian refuses to defer, refuses to live a life of deference, they get distracted every time.

They get distracted by their own agenda, they get distracted by their own ideals, their own preferences, their own on and on and on and on.

And then that becomes the soapbox of their faith.

And please, please hear me.

Satan celebrates nothing more than a distracted Christian.

He celebrates nothing more than a distracted church.

Go all the way back to the book of Genesis.

Adam and Eve had their purpose from God.

Here is your job, and what did Satan do?

He crept in and distracted them.

No matter what secondary issue, disagreement that comes up from now until the rest of your life on earth, I promise you what the bigger issue is, is that earthly rights are more valued than eternal responsibilities.

That's a problem.

And we as Christians, we should understand that our eternal responsibilities are much more important than our earthly rights and our earthly freedoms.

I mean, didn't God say, hey, once you were a slave to sin, but now you have freedom in Christ.

But we know where our freedom lies, and it is with Jesus.

And our eternal responsibility is to give Him glory, make Him known.

And the reality is if Christians focus more time on the things that they know to do, on the things that the Bible speaks clearly about: sharing your faith, pursuing righteousness, rejecting sin, putting others before yourself, being humble and advancing the kingdom of God, if we put more time focused on those, we would have so much less time to focus on the things, the secondary things that have zero eternal weight whatsoever.

I believe that Romans chapter 14, as well as uh the book of Colossians and Philippians and Ephesians and any other letter that deals with uh dealing with disagreement in the church, Paul would be right here.

Romans 14 · chapter mention

And he would say, When you disagree on any secondary issue, extend the same grace that was extended to you.

If I could wrap all of the scriptures, everything in the Bible that says dealing with disagreement, that's what it would be.

Extend the same grace that was extended to you.

The problem is that we all have opinions.

You don't have to ask anyone to have an opinion, they'll tell you.

And don't we love it when we can extend our opinion?

I mean, we give it away all the time.

Here's my thoughts on this, here's what I believe about this, here's why this is wrong, here's how I would change this.

I mean, if you want to live in a world that is nothing but people's opinions on display, welcome to social media.

But this is what we gravitate toward.

My opinion, my thought, my belief.

This is where I this is what I'm extending to the world.

We also know though, we're supposed to have this.

We're supposed to have conviction.

And PC talked about it last week.

Conviction is personal, isn't it?

It is God speaking directly to my life.

I can't give you my convictions because God gave them to me, and we're supposed to cling to these and hold on to these.

But what we get stuck doing is so often having conviction and extending to the world nothing but our opinion.

It doesn't matter if we're educated on the topic or not, we will give them our opinion.

Guess what?

God didn't call you to share the gospel all over the world of your opinion.

I promise you, we're not gonna get to the pearly gates, and he's gonna be like, hey, so what were your thoughts on?

He's not interested.

We are not called to share the gospel of our own opinion.

I believe that Romans chapter 14 says, we are called to extend the grace of God, and this is where we are.

Romans 14 · chapter mention

My hands are full, I can't give away what I don't have.

And could it be that the word of God is saying, you know what?

It's time to lay that down and pick this up.

That way I have something worthy to extend to the world.

That I, my life can be a convictional life that is all about extending the grace of God all over the world.

And by the way, this isn't just a good idea, this is God's idea.

Philippians chapter 2 says that Jesus dwelt with God, that Jesus is God, and Jesus left his throne in heaven and came down to earth, humbled himself to the point of man so that you and I could have eternal life.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

He got to earth, he lived the life you and I never could have lived.

Perfect, flawless, sinless.

And then he went to the cross on our behalf.

See, we owed a debt, and Jesus stepped in and paid our debt for us.

He took the punishment for yours and my sin.

Anything that separated us from a perfect God, Jesus bridged the gap.

See, the life, the person of Jesus Christ is the extension of God's grace to all of mankind.

Jesus set his throne in heaven aside in order to extend the grace of God to your heart.

Have you received it?

Have you received the grace of God?

Have you received the grace of God through the person of Jesus Christ?

I'm not asking.

Have you grown up in church?

It's not what I'm asking.

I'm not asking.

Have you read the Bible?

Have you prayed?

I'm not asking how many events you've been to or church functions you've been to.

I'm not asking how moral you are.

I am asking, have you experienced the grace of God through the person of Jesus Christ?

Has he entered your life and made all things new?

Has he changed your purpose?

Has he adapted your beliefs?

Has he bent you and broken you into who he wants you to be, not who you want to be?

If not, he is extending his grace to you.

Would you receive it?

The Bible is very, very clear.

There is one way to get to heaven.

One.

There is one way to get to heaven.

And it is through Jesus.

And placing your faith in Jesus alone for your salvation.

Bible says that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord.

And if you believe in your heart that He was raised from the dead by God, conquering sin, conquering death, then you can be saved.

And you can go to heaven when you die.

I'm gonna ask everyone to bow your head and close your eyes right where you are.

Today, if you're here and you say, Dave, you know, I really I've never given my life to Jesus.

Whatever you've got, I don't have.

And I understand that, you know, Jesus was a good man and he did some good stuff, but you know, I don't have a personal relationship with him.

Today, receive the grace that he has extended to you.

And if that's you today, and you you'd say, Dave, I want to give my life to Christ today.

Would you just look up at me?

I'm gonna scan the room really, really quickly.

Amen.

That's awesome.

Yep, I see you.

Are you looking at me back here?

Right there?

Anyone else on this side?

I see you back there.

It's awesome.

I see you, man.

That's great.

What about right in the middle?

I'm gonna go quick here.

Right there?

You believe that today?

Jesus died for your sins?

It's awesome.

Thanks for your boldness.

Anyone else?

I see you.

That's great.

Praise the Lord.

This side right here.

Yeah, I see you.

That's awesome.

You mean that today?

You wanna give your life to Christ?

I'm proud of you, girl.

That's awesome.

By this far side right over here.

Just catch my eyes.

Anyone over here say, Today I want to give my life to Christ.

I'll see you back there.

That's awesome.

If that is you today, and you say, you know, today is the day of salvation for me.

I want to give my life to Jesus, and I want to know that I go to will go to heaven when I die.

I want you to, in the quietness of your own heart, I want you to pray this.

Say, Jesus, I give you my life the best way that I know how.

I believe that you died for me.

I believe that you rose from the dead.

And I believe that you are the only way to heaven.

Come into my life and change me.

For everyone who just prayed that prayer and you actually mean it in your heart, in just a minute, we're gonna stand and we're gonna sing for a little bit longer, and and we have a prayer team up here right now.

And I would just encourage you to walk forward whenever we start singing.

You can come now, you can come in a few minutes, whatever you want.

And this isn't you walking forward doesn't get you into heaven.

We've just been where you are, and we want to help.

We want to help answer any questions that you may have.

We do, we've just been there before.

And we want to pray with you and we want to celebrate with you.

So I know that's a bold thing, but over the next minute, I want you to just pray boldly.

All right, God, would you just give me the boldness to do what you're asking me to do?

And for everyone else in the room, if you're a believer in Jesus and you'd hear this message and you'd say, you know what?

I've put a little too much focus on my own opinions.

And I've been extending my own opinions, and now I need to extend the grace of God to those around me.

I just gotta change my priorities.

If you'd say, I need to shift my priorities a little bit.

Would you just raise your hand?

I want to pray for you in just a minute.

And if you would just say, Amen, that's awesome.

I see you guys.

If you just say, you know what, I need to shift my priorities back to Christ.

Less of my opinion, more of his grace.

It's awesome.

I'm gonna pray.

When I say amen, we're gonna start singing, and I'm gonna ask that if you have made a decision to follow Jesus, that you would come down front and let us pray with you.

God, we love you so much.

Thank you for doing the work for us that we could never do on our own.

God, thank you for uh extending your grace to us through the person of Jesus Christ.

God, thank you for meeting my sin and meeting my opinions, God, with your own grace.

I pray today for all of those who just raise their hands, God, would you uh come into their life?

Would you pivot their motives?

God, would you give them a fresh perspective?

Would you help them understand that you are working in their life for your glory, not for theirs?

God, would you align their priorities with that of heaven?

And I pray that you would use their lives as a living sacrifice to make much of you and much less of them.

God, would you give us boldness?

Would you give us courage?

God, I pray in the name of Jesus that you would do what only you could do in this moment, and it is through him that I pray.

Amen.

What an incredible message.

Hey, if you made a decision today to give your life to Jesus, we'd love to know about it.

We'd love to celebrate with you.

We'd even love to pray with you.

And so, if you made that decision, will you text next to 55498?

And someone from our team would love to follow up with you.

In the meantime, I would love to pray with you even right now as God continues to do things in your heart moving.

And so, Jesus, we love you so much.

We say thank you for the truth of your word.

Thank you for still showing up in people's lives and still doing only what you can do.

Jesus, I pray that you continually heal hearts and heal lives.

Uh, bring peace to minds.

And Jesus, once again, just do whatever you can do continually praying.

United City fans, this has been an incredible service.

It's been so fun worshiping with you.

Hey, to stay in the know on everything going on in the life of our church, we'd love for you to follow us on Instagram and on Facebook to stay up to date on everything happening.

And we'd love to see you either in person or online right back here next week.

Services are at nine thirty and eleven.

We hope you have a fantastic week, and we'll see you soon.