How Your Sin Impacts Others | Joshua 7:1-15 | Pastor Joel Holm

Hey, welcome to church tonight, and I am really glad

you're here. I'm watching you during worship and there was

such a spirit of freedom and liberty and joy as

we're worshiped. The Lord wasn't there and your hands are

lifted up, and I thought, God, this is the perfect

setup as we continue our series in Joshua for what

you want to teach us tonight. It's the perfect setup

when there is a liberty and a freedom because tonight,

through a story in the Book of Joshua, God wants

to teach each of us about sin. Now I know

you're going Joel, really please no, No, it's such a

buzzkill sin really, because we have a wrong understanding of

what sin is. We either don't talk about it because

it's awkward and it's condemning and nobody wants to talk

about it, or we only talk about it in a

religious context, which doesn't help anybody walk into liberty. Because

now I just got a perform better for God. And

this Old Testament passage illustrates for us some of the

myths that are there. But we have to start from

a place of honesty in our lives and with the

word of God that says, I got some struggles in

my life. There's some anger that is there, and that

anger is actually hurting me, and I know it's not right.

I don't seem to be able to get rid of it.

And we have to have this kind of honest approach.

And I want to encourage you as we look at

the story and discover some of the biblical truths about sin.

I think when Pastor Heroin was up here, he was

actually prophesying over us when he said, the Lord will

not fail. The Lord will not fail tonight to lead

you into a freedom, into a liberty, into a deliverance

from a struggle or a habit or a difficulty. He

will not fail for you to be able to walk

out of here going wow. But we have to be

honest with scripture, and we have to be honest with

ourselves because one of the things the enemy does to

keep us caught is to use shame as kind of

a covering. So we don't talk to anybody about it.

We don't let anybody know about the struggles we're having

in our heart and words and in our actions. Now

before we look at this story and what God wants

to teach us and how he wants to lead many

of us into this place of freedom and deliverance. Before

we look at it, there's a few foundational truths you

got to understand around what the Bible teaches around sin,

especially when it comes to this story. First of all,

this is a story about a follower of God who disobeys.

So this is really a teaching for those of you

who are followers of God. If you're here and you're

not a follower of God, I'm so grateful you're here

and tonight you can make a decision to follow Christ.

But the Bible really teaches very clearly when you have

not given your life to Christ, you are not control

of this. You are a slave to sin, the Bible says.

So it's not a matter of oh, I gotta do better,

I gotta try better. It's impossible to do that until

you are born again and made in Christ. Then you

can begin to walk into that liberty. This is really

for the follower of God. And then the Bible also

talks that sin is both objective and subjective, meaning there

are certain laws of God for our benefit and for

our blessing. That's for everybody, doesn't matter where you live

in the globe doesn't matter what your age is. Some

of them are reflected in the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt

not steal. It's unconditional. But then the Bible says there

are some conditional acts. So one of the example Paul

gives is meat sacrificed titles in that first century culture.

In the New Testament, they would sacrifice meat to idols.

Was not the Christian religion. But then the meat would

be available from the market at a discounted price, and

Christians would go, are we allowed to buy that? Need

that in our living rooms? And Paul said, well, what's

your conscience tell you? If you have this freedom and

that's okay, then go do it. But if you come

out of one of those false religions and you used

to have that act, and when you see that meet,

you know it just will interfere with your relationship with Chrice,

then don't do it. It's subjective. It is sin for

one not sin for the other. Today you could use

alcohol as an example. For some of us having a beer,

it's gonna really interrupt my relationship with Jesus. Maybe for

some others. Now it's okay, I'm cool. What the Bible

declares as objectively the law of God for us, and

then subjectively and sin in this context for tonight, for

believers who find themselves struggling to find a freedom because

we have this wrong idea. I get saved by grace.

Now I better live by the law. Grace saved me,

but it's now my perfect obedience that I got to

live by. You were saved by grace. You live by grace,

and so there is an obedience that we're called to,

but we only do that when we do it in

partnership with the grace of the Lord and what he

teaches us about walking into this unbelievable freedom. Because God

addresses the struggle and the sin we have in our

life right now. He addresses it not with the law,

but he addresses it with grace. So tonight is not

a visit to the Principal's office, which some of you

are very familiar with from your earlier years. Tonight is

a visit to the father's house. And I hope that

the enemy will protect your mind in your heart so

you will listen to God's word through pastor heron that

he will not fail. As I'm speaking, some of you

right now are thinking about that struggle jealousy, anger lust.

You don't tell anybody about it, and you keep it hidden.

And God loves you and he's accepted you, and you're

still his child, but it is hindering that abundant life

you get to walk into because the enemy's goal is

to remove the glory of God from us. And sin,

not its existence, but how we deal with it is

what hinders that. So open your Bibles of Joshua chapter seven.

We're gonna look at the story and we're gonna discover

the myths that come behind sin, that if we buy

into them, cause us to make bad choices, and how

we can walk in a freedom. Verse one of chapter seven.

But the Israelites were unfaithful. So Joshua's leading the Israelites,

as you know through this series, and they're settling into

the Promised Land. And now it talks about the Israelites

as they're settling, and it says they were unfaithful and

regarded to the devoted things. Aiken, son of Karmai, the

son of Zimri, and the son of Zarah of the

tribe of Judah took some of them. So the angers

Lord's anger burned against Israel. Basically, they're said, do not

do not take other stuff and ache and steals, and

God gets really angry at the stealing. Look at verse two.

Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to I, which is

near beth ave In to the east of Bethlen told

them go up and spy out the regions. The men

went up and spied out Eye, and when they returned

to Joshua, they said, not all the army will have

to go up against Eye. Send two or three thousand

men to take it, and do not worry the whole army,

for only a few people lived there. So about three

thousand went up, and they were routed by the men

of I, who killed about thirty six of them. They

chased the Israelites from the city gate as far as

the stone quarries and struck them down on the slopes.

At this the hearts of the people melted in fear

and became like water. Do not think your sin does

not affect other people. Do not think your bad choices

doesn't have an implication for your family and those around you.

Verse six. Then Joshua tore his close and fell face

down to the ground before the ark of the Lord,

remaining there till evening and the elders of his did

the same, and sprinkled dust on their heads. And Joshua said, alas,

saveign Lord, Why did you ever bring us this people

across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of

the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been

content to stay on the other side of Jordan. Pardon

your servant, Lord, What can I say now that Israel

has been routed by its enemies. The Canaanites and the

other people of the country will hear about this, and

they will surround us, and they'll wipe out our name

from the earth. What then will you do for your

own great name? Verse ten, The Lord said to Joshua,

stand up, what are you doing? Down on your face?

Israel has sinned. They have violated my covenant, which I

commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the

devoted things. They have stolen, they have lied, they have

put them with their own possessions. That is why Israelites

cannot stand against our enemies. They turn their backs and run,

because they have been made liable to destruction. I will

not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among

you is devoted to destruction. Go Verse thirteen. Consecrate the people,

make them holy, set them apart, let them experience my glory.

Tell them. Consecrate yourself in preparation for tomorrow. For this

is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. There

are devoted things among you, Israel. You cannot stand against

your enemies until you remove them in the morning, present

yourself tribe by tribe, and tribe the Lord chooses shall

come forward, clan by clan, and the clan the Lord

chooses shall come forward, family by family, and the family

the Lord chooses shall come forward. Man by man. God

will find you out. You cannot hide. He just loves

you way too much. Verse fifteen. Whoever is caught with

the devoted things shall be destroyed by fire, along with

all that belongs to him. He has violated the covenant

of Lord, and he has done an outrageous thing in Israel.

Now listen to me. This was before Christ and the

covenant we have. But it's a story that illustrates what

goes on in our lives that causes us to make

bad choices. And if you will open your heart and mind,

you will discover that maybe you have bought into a myth.

And tonight tonight there is freedom for you. Let me pray, Lord,

we thank you for your word, and we stand before you.

Now we know we are saved by grace. We know

we live by grace. I pray Lord that you would

protect each of us from the enemy, who even now

would want to shoot fiery darts. We open up our

lives to you, Holy Spirit, teach us and show us

with an expectation that you will lead us into freedom.

I pray this in the name of Christ. Amen. Amen,

you may be seated. So here's the deal. Sin myths

that come upon the follower of God, as illustrated by

this story. Here's the first one. I begin to think

to myself, well, sin makes my life better, even if

for a little while, Even if it's just for a

little while, there will be some improvement. Ache and stole

stuff because the stuff was valuable, because he saw the

stuff as a way of somehow benefiting him. But what

is really going on in our lives when we make

choices contrary to God's design? We are trying to address

things that are deeper in our soul than our soul needs.

But we're addressing them in the wrong way. There are

longings we have there are needs we have, There are

desires we have, and those are good, they're placed there

by God. But when we are trying to address those longing,

those those needs, I really want my security, I'll steal

stuff then I'll have the money to be able to

be secure. The longing for security isn't bad. When you

choose to behave in a way or to make life

choices that think what you address that inner soul needs,

what happens is you actually begin to move backwards, and

there is this myth that says, this sin these choices,

they'll actually they'll somehow make my life better probably thirteen six.

Put this this way, living a life of integrity protects

and benefits individuals, while wickedness and sinful behavior lead to destruction.

Let's use Aikin's example of Lyne two ways in which

we are tempted at times to lie. One is your taxes.

Why your taxes, because you can kind of get away

with it because it's not big line, it's small line.

You know, little numbers here, a little deduction here, small line.

And if you're honest, when you try to kind of

massage your taxes a little bit in your mind, what

you're thinking is how will I benefit financially from this?

You are making a choice to make life decisions that

come out of a genuine need of wanting to be secure,

but contrary to God's design. Here's the second way that

we lie. We lie about our profile. You ever had

this happen, or you're talking to somebody and you kind

of self promote, you put a little more shine on it.

That may be accurate. Why do we do that? Why

when we're talking about our lives to somebody do we

find ourselves at times wanting to kind of self promote

because we have this identity, but we don't actually trust

our identity in God, so we begin to self promote.

We don't actually trust God as our provider, so we

massage the taxes. And one of this the implications of

this great myth is really when you're doing that, there

is an absence of faith. And when you let God

bring you to a place of freedom, what will happen

is faith will rise up in you and all of

a sudden, now I have this trust in God in

who I am, I don't need to promote myself to

you because I don't really think. I don't care what

you think about me. I know who has accepted me.

When I have a faith in God as my provider,

I don't need to massage the numbers because I really

belong to him. But here's the deal with this myth.

If you buy into it, it will get worse because

it doesn't actually answer the need of your soul. And

if you're here tonight and you go, Joel, there are

just times when I feel like if I can control

and manipulate a situation somehow, it's gonna make my life better.

Rather than I'm just trusting the Lord, I'm giving it

all to him. There is a freedom and a faith

when you get to a place where you go, I

don't have to manipulate or control. I can trust him

because if you are manipulating and control, you are fodder

for the enemy. Go just make this choice here, Just

make this choice here. God wants to instill in you

a freedom to trust him at such a level that

the enemy can never manipul ulate you, to get you

to control or manipulate scenarios in your life in such

a great way. But if you don't, it will get worse.

And some of you understand this, But tonight there's freedom.

Here's the secondment. That comes out of this story. We

think somehow sin can be hidden. That's why we stay

quiet about it. Now here's the deal. We hide sin

for a reason, mainly because of shame. Christians. We don't

like to make bad choices. We know it doesn't glorify God.

And when we make a bad choice, when we yell

at our spouses, when we get really angry with our

children in a way that is not correct, when we

make a bad choice in life, when there is an

enormous amount of jealousy that might be there, whatever that

may be, we are just overwhelmed with this kind of

sense of guilt. We're not like celebrating this. The Bible

says the world they don't have that guilt because they're

not born again. But we have the spirit of God

in us, so we have this sense of, oh, there's

this guilt. So what we do is we hide. We

hide so that we don't deal with the shame of

being exposed with some of our choices. And I know

this may be hard to hear, but you know exactly

what I'm talking about. But here's what the Bible teaches.

If you want to land in the Word of truth,

as long as you stay hidden, you will never be delivered.

It is when you go from darkness to light that

freedom can come to you. When you take things out

of the shadows and you bring them into light, then

there is a liberty because as a Christian we don't

like living in that kind of bondage. Here's what happens.

You sin and you know what's wrong, and you make

this prayer to the Lord and you go, no, Lord,

I'm gonna do better, and you try harder to do better.

But because you're doing it out all of your volition

in the darkness, what happens is you just sin harder,

you fall more. Then you make another promise to God, No, no,

this time, I'll really do better, and then you fall

again because you're just doing it out of your own strength,

staying in the darkness. Many Christians make promises to God

for how they're gonna walk in honor and obedience to him,

but they're doing it in the darkness, and it's a

cycle that just gets worse and worse because you've bought

into this myth. Oh, it can be hidden and I

can get myself out of it so that nobody will

have to know about it, and then I'll walk in

this freedom. But you know, after weeks, sometimes after years,

you don't get out of it, and you don't walk

in that abundant life. Ecclesias He's twelve fourteen puts it

this way, for God will bring every deed into judgment,

including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

You can't even hide in from yourself. See Achin, he

tried to conceal it. I'm gonna hide this, Okay. I

know I did something wrong, but I'm gonna hide it.

Somehow I'll work this out, But for right now, I'm

gonna hide it. And there is a myth that the

enemy whispers to us. You can just hide it and

work it out on your own, but it will not happen.

One of the most pronounced that way that this happens

in many people is through lust. It just drives people

in some ways where you go. It's there's so much

shame attached to it in the church and in the

Christian religion that you just better stay quiet. But you

know what that is. It is an expression that is wrong,

but it comes from a heart that is desiring intimacy.

It comes from a heart that desires love and acceptance.

But rather than working and saying, I gotta find that

freedom in Jesus. I'll find other ways to tap into

what is a need in my soul, and eventually it

comes out. And I'm not here to say that as

a warning you better fess up now because it's gonna

be worth No. No, I'm here to say that as

a biblical directive. There is this promise. The Lord will

not fail to bring you into freedom, no matter what

the struggle is going on in your life. But you

have to take this step of faith and say, I'm

gonna bring it into like I'm not gonna tell the

world about it, but I'm not gonna hide it anymore.

I will not believe the myth that it can be hidden.

And all of a sudden, I begin to walk in

this amazing liberty. And some of you know this liberty.

You've experienced it, and you're transformed and you're walking in

this abundant life. But it only happened when you stopped

buying into the myth that it can be hidden. Here's

the third myth. Sin doesn't count if it's justified. Here's

the story of Aichen. Aichen and Israel have been unbelievably

persecuted by evil nations. They've been treated so wrong, so badly,

So finally, now when they conquer Achan's gone, I could

take this. It's the least I could get for everything

that's happened to my family, everything that's happened to my nation.

And he buys into this myth that doing things my

way is justified because of all of what's happened and

everything that's gone wrong. We do not think of our

sin as actually hurting God that in his role as father,

if you're a dad and you have kids, and your

kids go against your directive, against your heart, against your will,

you know more than making you mad breaks your heart.

And this is the picture of our heavenly father. Achin

think into his mind, listen, after all the persecution of

these other nations, after everything they did wrong, I deserve

at least this, This is justified. Phesians four to thirty

puts it this way. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit

of God with whom you re sealed for the day

of redemption. Let me give you an example of sin

that we think is justified unforgiveness. Some of you are

here and you have been really hurt by people, and

I am genuinely sorry for that, people who have betrayed you,

people who have spoken against you. Maybe it cost you

a promotion, maybe it costs you a role in the family,

but you have genuinely been hurt. And when that happens,

there is a pain in our heart, and that pain

can turn into this unforgiveness, and we harbor that unforgiveness,

and that unforgiveness turns into bitterness, and if we don't

deal with it, it begins to decay us from the inside out.

And your heart becomes kind of withered up, and it's

impossible to love. And even when somebody then tries to

love you, you've had such a bad experience here and you

haven't walked in the freedom of what that pain caused

that it's hard to even love other people, and you

become very shielded, very protected. Nobody is gonna hurt me again,

Nobody is gonna do that to me again, And you

put discovering over your heart. And the choice that you

have made is Wow, after what they did to me,

it's okay. And God doesn't say forgive, He doesn't say

love your enemy simply out of some random moral law.

He has your best interest in mind. He said, if

you're gonna walk in abundant life, if you're gonna walk

this unbelievable freedom, if you are going to walk in

a grace where every morning you wake up with this

amazing gratitude of the grace you have, you are going

to have to forgive people because you become this channel

of grace. And the more you forgive people, the more

grace comes to you. But when that channel shuts down

and you don't have grace coming out of you, it

will dry up that well inside of you and you

won't have any grace. So he says, listen, do not

buy into the myth that says because you have been

radically hurt, you're okay in doing this, because you are

not only hurting yourself, you're actually hurting how God can

work through you and how his kingdom can come down.

And there are some of you who are here and

I get it, I understand it, but there is a

freedom it's hard for you to even vision. You mean,

I could love that person that right now I just despise. Yes,

not because of a religious obedience, but because of a

supernatural work of Christ in your life that liberates you

and has grace flow through you. Here's the fourth myths

that this story teaches. Sin only affects me. Aiken. He

knew he was at risk in what he was doing,

but he's thinking to himself, I'm the only one really

at risk. But when God gives directives to Joshua goes,

it's the whole nation, and then it's a tribe, and

then it's a clan, and then it's a family, and

then it's an individual. And he's showing this picture of

you put a pebble in a pond, and there's a

ripple effect that goes on. And the myth that sin

really only affects me. It affects you, and then it

affects your family, and then it affects your community and

your church and the nation, and ultimately, in some ways

it even affects the fabric of this world. When we

don't walk. Now, we will always at some degrees, you know,

have a rough moment here or there. I'll give you

an honest story. I used to really struggle with anger

early on. It was sin. It was because I just

felt like I was always getting robbed of my rightful position,

and so I would lash out at times verbally with

my wife in the first year of our marriage, and

it was wrong, and it was horrible, and it was

disrespecting and dishonoring. And then I found liberty in God's

word and I brought it in delight. My wife and

I went to a pass and I said, listen, I

need to confess something here, and I need a prayer

for this, that God would liberate me, because I knew

it wasn't just me that was being affected. I wasn't

just affecting my wife. If I didn't deal with it, it

would have affected our children, It would end up affecting

our small group, our church community. Frisquincians five six and

seven puts it this way. Don't you know that a

little yeast levin's the whole batch of dough, get rid

of the old yeast, so that you may be a new,

unleavened batch as you really are, as you really are.

So there may be a moment, now thirty eight years

in a marriage, when my wife and I have an

intense discussion. But it's not the anger of the first year.

It's not that sin. It's just an intense discussion, and

we may need to apologize to each other after our

discuss intense discussion. But that kept me in bondage, that

kept me from receiving the freedom of the Lord. That

restricted me, and that was affecting other people. And this

is what takes place. Let me give you an example

of what can happen, because a lot of this is

in the relational bakdown. Somebody hurts you, right, so they

hurt you, and you're here and you go, oh, I've

been hurt. So you gotta one up them. You gotta

one up them. So if they say something about you,

you're gonna say something about them that's a little bit

more intense that it hurts them. Now they gotta one

up you. Now you gotta one up them. Now you've

got all of a sudden, Now neighborhoods are fighting with

each other, all of a sudden. Now ethnic groups are

battling each other, Nations are at war. And you can

trace it back to we gotta one up each other.

We gotta one up each other. And in the Kingdom

of God, they said, no, there's a different way by

which we live, contrary to society, contrary to this world,

and we will walk in a peace of God that

will allow me to be an instrument of His grace

and his justice in a way that brings redemption. But

the idea that where you're at right now, and maybe

the bondage you're in or the struggle you in only

affects you, so you can deal with it on your own.

It's just a lie and it will continue to have

that ripple effect. And I tell you this not in

any way of judgment condemnation, but in a message of hope.

You are called to have a ripple effect. But your

ripple effect is to be joy and peace and faith

and love and grace and goodness. That's the ripple effect

we're called to. In my first year of marriage, that

was not me. I was not walking in what Ephesians

calls as you really are. When you are choosing to sin,

you just forgot who you are. You've just forgotten your identity.

And the answer isn't to grit your teeth and say, wow,

Joel's right, I gotta buck up, I gotta do better.

The answer, is we're going to discover in just a minute,

is to let Jesus do a work supernaturally in your

life that repositions you. Conquering sin is not hard if

you do it. According to the Bible conquering sin, there's

a grace to it if you do it by your

own pattern. In that cycle, it seems impossible, and we

buy into that myth. No, it's not hard, there's a

grace to it. Here is the fifth, the fifth myth,

sin is not that big of a deal to God.

In this story, one of the things you discover is

Joshua who is tormented, and you going, Joshua, really, he's

told some idols, big deal. What's the big deal? They

s told some idols. Joshua is actually tormented. And there's

this myth that says, you know, God is this god

of love, it's not that big of a deal to him.

It is because God is a god of love that

it's a really big deal to him, because he loves

you so much, because he cares about you so much,

because he is so interested and so desirous for you

to walk in full liberty and full joy and full faith,

for you to walk in that kind of holiness that

radiates his glory, because that's his deal for you. He

is so so passionate about you. It's a big deal.

You know. How you measure the impact of sin on God?

Look at the cross, that's how important this is to him.

I am so grateful that God, in his character and

his nature, didn't say, you know, Joel, I'm tired of you,

because sometimes I'm than to do that with some people

in my life when they sin against me. It's like

I'm tired of you. I gave you four chances. You're

out of here. And God says, Joel, I will go

to the cross. I will die and resurrect because you

are that important to me. And that's how I care

about the sin that is there. Isaiah fifty nine to

two says this, your sins have separated you from your God.

They have hidden his face from you so that he

will not hear you. There's a sin that's hard at

times to measure, but we know it in our heart,

and it's the sin of pride when we find ourselves

positioning ourselves for that status, whatever it may be. And

pride is really the absence of glory, the absence of

God's power and his praise and his presence. Because I

am choosing to do it another way where I position

myself and sometimes you know how that manifests itself. We

live with two identities in here. On Wednesday night, or

Sunday morning, or in our small group, we live with

this wonderful Christian identity and it's legit, but out there

tomorrow morning, in our workplace, we keep our faith kind

of hidden. We don't tell anybody about it because we

don't want it to kind of mess up with our profile,

gets really awkward, gets really willed. And what happens is

you end up having dual identities. Who I am as

a Christian inside and who I am a Christian out there,

and it will rip your soul in half. And God says,

I don't want that for you. I want you to

have this abundant, beautiful life. So know that this really

matters to me because of my care for you, and

I am here to have you live and walk in

a liberty and a freedom that's there. It's like Jesus

has given this invitation say I want you to be free.

You know what the church should be like? The church

should be like an AA meeting, you know AA meetings.

My name is Joelome, I've been an alcoholic. I'm clean

for seven years. My name is Joel Holman. I'm a liar.

My name is Joel Holm and I'm a thief. My

name is Joel Holme. We should be like an AA mean,

we're just confessing ourselves to each other. We're going, oh,

there's freedom in that. There's liberty in that, because listen,

we are all Amazon Prime specials, we are all Blue

Light specials from Kmart. It's because of His grace that

we have this. And the Bible gives us a clear

instruction if you trust God at his word, if you're

here tonight and there is a struggle and you know

there's a struggle, and on your own you haven't been

able to conquer that and you've kind of keeped it hidden,

the Bible gives us really clear instruction. In First John,

chapter one, verse nine, it says, if we confess our sins,

he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins

and will purify us. That word literally means he will

make you in a place of freedom and rightness, and

you can walk in her liberty. And sometimes there's this

immediate drop up. I don't have those thoughts anymore. I

don't have that action. Wow, that person I hated, now

I have a love for them. God did a supernatural

work in me, and there's a grace behind finding the

liberty and sin, and then you have to kind of

walk that out. But it starts here to go from

darkness to like Now, that doesn't mean you tell the

world about your struggles, but it does mean you go,

I can't do this on my own out of performance

to God. There's a cruel a very thin line between

what's called sin and temptation. And sometimes we think of

temptation as sin, but temptation is when we are being

challenge to kind of cross over in debt. And there

are some of you here and you're actually not sinning,

but you're being tempted. You're being tempted to act in

a way towards an individual who has searched you. You're

being tempted to do something that you know isn't in

line with God's best plan for your life. And the

way you deal with temptation and the way you deal

with sin is you tell somebody Jesus did this. He

was tempted all by himself, but he let the world know.

I'm gonna let the world know. Here's how I'm tempted.

If you're the son of God, prove yourself. I am

tempted to have to prove my identity if the Son

of God was tempted, surely we are tempted. And then

some of us step over into this sin. And this

story teaches us there are these myths that we buy into,

and we have this wrong approach towards sin. Either just

don't talk about it because it's awkward, or make it

a religious thing where you have to perform. And Jesus

has just come to me. I'm gonna ever ask everybody

to stand their feet, and I'm gonna ask that there'll

be no moving around for this one moment. We come

together to learn the Word, but we come together to

have an encounter with the Lord. We're gonna give you

a chance as we close the service to respond to

God's word. I'm gonna ask Pastor Kenny and some of

the spiritual leaders to come, and they're gonna kind of

line at this altar. Here. These are really really good people,

these are really spiritual people. There's no condemnation up here.

You don't have to come up here and tell them everything.

But you need to talk to somebody if you're facing

some temptation or there is a struggle that has really

challenged you and it is stopping you from walking in

the liberty of Jesus Christ. I'm going to ask the Lord,

by the spirit of God, to give you the courage

to carve out just a few minutes and come to

one of these spiritually wonderful people and just say, could

you pray for me? Because this is my struggle. We

ask people to pray for our healing. We ask people

to pray for our needs. The Bible says, listen, talk

to somebody about your struggle, and in bringing it to light,

there will be an immediate supernatural work of Christ. And

I pray none of us would leave prematurely tonight, staying

hidden and battling something and never walking in that abundant life.

But in this moment from an Old Testament story, we go,

today's my time, this is my moment. Pastor Heron said

that the Lord will not fail you if you will

come forward and talk to somebody and let them pray

with you. So I'm going to pray over us, and

I'm gonna ask that the God would give you the

courage to do this. Jesus, I thank you for each

person who is here. I thank you that grace is here,

that liberty is here, that faith is here. I think

of that worship time we had, Lord God, that was

all you. I think a Pastor Heron's word, you will

not feel us. I pray Lord you would pierce our

hearts and minds with that. For each person who is here,

who is being tempted, they have a struggle of some

kind that they have not been able to overcome. Let

there be a freedom, an anticipation that you are here

to meet them, to deliver them, to purify them, to

walk them into righteousness. I pray this in the name

of Jesus. Right now, I'm just gonna ask you, wherever

you're standing, would you just come forward, Just have the

courage to come forward and say, would you pray for me?

Don't hesitate yet, just keep coming good for you. Just

come on up and just grab a hold of somebody

and have them pray with you. Have them believe God

with you. Don't hesitate. Come out, don't be embarrassed by this.

This is your moment with Christ. Come forward, Wait patiently.

There is liberty, there is freedom. The Lord will not

fail you. I'm gonna ask Pastor Heron to come up,

and as ministry is happening out the altar, He's going

to allow some of you if you need to get going,

but Pastor Heron, would you come up and closes.

Praise God? Can we give it up with your all

one more time? Is there?

Pray?

We don't want to leave this space without sharing the

greatest news ever told.

And there's a perfect Father.

Who loves you, who wants to be a relationship with you.

But you man.

But humanity sinned, falling short of the glory of God.

But God made a way through his son Jesus Christive

Romans five verse they said God demonstrated his love towards

us in that while we.

Were yet sinners, he died for us.

So if you want to receive Jesus Christ as your

Lord and savior, it's one way.

It's through Jesus Christ. He is the way truth in life.

Romans Verse ten nine and ten says this, if you

confess with your mouth that Jesus Lord turn from your sin,

you will be saved.

So, as they're praying.

And you're listening, if you felt conviction in your heart,

you felt a tug that you want to receive Jesus

Christ as your Lord and savior. We're going to say

this simple prayer, and if you need additional prayers, you.

Can line up here if you want to bow your

heads repeat after me.

And it's not the words that save you, but it's

the heart posture between you and God. Amen, Lord Jesus,

I recognize that I need you. I confess my sins

and believe you died and rose again. Come into my life, life,

transfer our heart, leave me in your ways in Jesus's name,

we pray. Amen and Amen. If you made that decision,

we do have a resource for you to download. If

you want to pull your phone out, go to your

web browser www dot grow dot faith.

Fill that information out.

You receive a free resource which is your next step

in your journey of faith.

Amen.

You guys are dismissed. If you need additional prayers or prayers,

who will be up here.

We'll see you guys on Sunday, God blessed or Saturday