What's Your Distraction || Women of Wonder Pt.3 || Pastor Adam Mesa

Welcome to the Lesse Podcast. Here at Lesse, we seek the loss,

teach the found, and send the disciples. We truly hope you're encouraged by

this week's message. We're continuing a series that we started at the top of

May. What we wanted to do for May and June is tackle on a

series that we're calling wonder of Women and Fathers of Faith. We wanted to

spend May talking about wonder of women, women in the Bible who are truly

wonderful women who've committed to the things of Lord and give us an example of

what it means to follow God, both as a man and a woman.

And then next month, starting next week, we're gonna start our Fathers of

the Faith series, as Pastor Diego will launch it off next week. And

so we want to continue this thought today by jumping in and talking about an

individual in the Bible by the name of Mary. And no it's not the

Mary Mother of Jesus or Mary Magdalene. It's another Mary who had a sister

named Martha and a brother named Lass. That's who we're gonna share about today.

So would you join me If you brought your Bible today, you could

turn to Luke chapter ten. We're gonna start in verse thirty eight today.

So if you brought your Bible, iPhone, iPad, anything like that,

you feel free to open it. You could turn to Luke chapter ten,

or you could simply follow along with what's going to be on the screen.

If you have your portion or you're ready to go, would you join me

in the honor of standing for the reading of God's word as we're going to

read the scriptures today and allow God to speak to us in this moment,

on this Pentecost Sunday, made a spirit of God moved to us today.

So Luke chapter ten, verse thirty eight, here's what it says. Now.

As they went on their way, Jesus entered a village and a woman

named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary,

who sat at the Lord's feet and was listening to his teaching. But

Martha was distracted with much serving, and she went up to him and said,

Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to of

alone? Tell her to help me. But the Lord answered her, Martha,

Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing

is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away

from her. Let's pray this afternoon more Lord, we pray, and we

come to you today, Father God, and we pray. Lord, let

your words speak to us, Father God, in the day of Pentecost,

as the spirit went forth, we pray in this moment, Lord, as

your word goes forth. May the Spirit begin to speak to us and minister

to us. Father God. May we be impacted by the message today,

looking more and more like Jesus in our lives. And may our hearts yearn

for you today, Lord, that you show up in miraculous ways. May

your words speak to us today, and may we radically be transformed as we

stand before you, Lord and Jesus name, Amen, and amen, you

may be seated. Thank you so much. Before we jump in to the

message. And here's some of the truths that we learn within this passage.

It's important first for us to understand some of the context clues that we see

within this scripture. I know many of you guys have read this passage before,

and a lot of times when you read this passage or you've heard a

sermon on this passage, it's always been true, But a lot of times

the emphasis is merely on a pretty simple parallel, which is that Martha was

serving and distracted was serving while Mary was sitting at Jesus's feet, And a

lot of times the message is pretty simple, are you willing to sit at

Jesus's feet? But when we know the cultural implications of what's being talked about

in this passage, that's when we can truly be challenged in our lives the

way that the scripture intels, because there's a lot of cultural context clues in

what we read today that we may blow past in the same way in today's

culture. If I were to tell you that this weekend I had a telgate,

your mind immediately paints a picture, and pretty much all of us can

agree somewhat. We know what a tailgate is. We know it's probably gonna

be in a parking lot. It couldn't include an RV or a truck,

and the bed could be open and we could be cooking something like sausages and

burgers and hot dogs. If I say I had a tellgate, most of

us know what that means. But if you went to someone and you had

a time machine, even a hundred years ago, and told someone you had

a tailgate this weekend. They would have no idea what you were talking about.

They would think, did you have an animal's tail for dinner? They

would think to themselves, what about a gate? There's gates don't have tails.

They wouldn't know what you mean until you start explaining, Oh, where

I come from, we have vehicles where you can pull the tail the back

end of the car and you can cook and do other days. Oh okay,

now I understand the context. Now I can paint a better picture of

what you did this weekend. This is what we read today in this passage.

In a few moments, I want you to check this out. If

you have your Bible, you can follow along, or you could look at

the screen with me. Here's the passage we just read. It says this.

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. It

was very common if you read your Bible, Jesus is pretty good friends with

Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Most theologians believe this is the same Mary

and Martha who was the sibling to Lazarus, who later on we see that

Lazarus is the one in the Bible who died and Jesus came late. Mary

and Martha were upset at him that he came late. And then Jesus speaks

to Lazarus and says, Lazarus, come forth, and he raises from the

grave. And so that's the same individual and family. So Jesus knows this

family really well. They host him all the time. Jesus in many ways

was a vagabond. He would travel and only by the generosity of others would

he be housed. And so Jesus would often go to a city in village

and he would trust that house he was teaching the gospel. People would house

him, feed him, clothe him. Along with his disciples. They trusted

God to provide. And so Mary and Martha are those common people in the

town of Bethany who loved loved to host Jesus. Martha loved to have Jesus

at her house. And so what happens is and a woman named Martha welcomed

him into her house. More than likely she was the oldest sister of Mary

and Martha, and she had a sister called Mary, who sat, So

this is important, sat at what the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.

So it's important to note right away, what is Mary doing. She's

sitting at the Lord's feet listening to his teaching. What we don't recognize.

Here's where the cultural thing comes from, and we don't recognize that in Jesus's

day, women did not sit at the feet of a rabbi when they're teaching.

Only men could do that, and it was the job of the man

to receive the rabbi's teaching and then go home and tell his why or tell

their children. Now, there will be times where he may publicly preach and

there could be women and children present, but in a private setting, in

a discipleship setting, women did not sit at the feet of their rabbi.

So right away we know that Mary is a rebellious person against culture. Culture

tells Mary she's not allowed to do this. Mary disregards culture and says,

I am sitting at my Lord's feet all why. In a few moments,

we will see Martha serving doing what culture tells her she ought to be doing.

So Martha ought to be in the kitchen, and that's where she is.

Mary's supposed to be in the kitchen with Martha. But Mary's at the

feet of Jesus's feet at the feet of Jesus with all the other men.

So everyone would have been there and been like, yo, can you believe

this chick? The audacity on this woman? She thinks just because this her

family house, she gets to see that Jesus is being who she thinks she

is. Uh nuh uh. And so then what happens is we see where

Mary's at, and then now we see Martha, and then um, but

Martha was here. Here's Martha. Martha was distracted with much serving, and

she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that

my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.

This is Martha's breaking point. You ever had a breaking point before?

I know, if there's mothers in here, you definitely have had a breaking

point. This is Martha's breaking point. We can actually see that this is

more than likely a pretty common thing between two sisters. So Martha has hit

her mental health moment. She's gone to Jesus and she's lost it. She

said, can't you see that my sister has left me here to do all

the serving the way that culture tells me I must be doing all while my

sister is breaking culture and sitting at your feet. Tell her to get off

her butt and help me. This is what she says. Then it says

this, but the Lord here's Jesus answered. Jesus answered her, Martha,

Martha. If you see the name repeated twice, or a word repeated twice.

In the Greek and Hebrew, there's no such thing as punctuation. They

didn't have commas, periods, exclamation points. So if the writer ever writes

in Greek or Hebrews something twice, it means it's an exclamation point. So

it means Jesus was yelling at that moment to get her attention. So he

would have said, Martha, some, my wife's here sometimes. I got

to do that in the house as ray come in. Okay, bring it

down. I gotta get that attention real quick, Martha. Martha, Jesus

says, And he says, you are anxious and troubled. Wait what I

thought she was serving? Hold on, she's anxious and troubled about what many

things? Huh, But one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good

portion, which will not be taken away from her. Wait. Wait,

wait, I've always heard that Martha was just serving, and that's a good

thing. She should have went back to serving. You know, I've always

been taught that what Martha should have done, what she should have stopped serving,

sit at Jesus's feet, and then, when his message was done,

go back to serving. But but wait, but Jesus says. Originally it

says she was distracted with serving. But when Jesus talks to her, he

doesn't invite her to sit down. He tells her something about herself that no

one else knew. He said that you are distracted with serving. Why because

you are anxious and troubled. And so therefore it means that Martha is distracted

with serving, not because it's the right thing to do, but because distraction

it's her escape from her anxiety and her troubled thoughts, and so busyness becomes

the vehicle for her escape. And so you may sit there and you say,

I don't get it distracted by serving. But you get distracted by working.

You get distracted by drinking, get distracted by shopping, You get distracted

by hanging out on weekends. You get distracted by staring at the TV,

you get distracted by looking at your phone. We get distracted why so that

I don't have to deal with my own anxiety and my own troubled thoughts.

So Jesus doesn't praise Martha for serving, He doesn't even focus on her serving.

He focused on what it is that's going on in here. Martha,

you're a busybody. You want to know why you're a busybody is because you

don't know how to sit still and sit at my feet. You don't know

how to break your cultural custom and become a disciple of mine while your sister

is being ridiculed and ostracized. More than likely everyone in this room is probably

gossiping about Mary who's sitting at his feet, And all of a sudden,

Martha's doing everything that she thinks culture is supposed to approve her of. So

therefore she's saying, see, Jesus, I mean I lift my hands during

worship. Hey, Jesus, I come in and I said all the things.

In a lot of times, that's what we do, is we think

just by being in the room like Martha was and being busy, that that's

enough to become a disciple of Jesus, But sitting at his feet in stillness

and silence and letting him minister to your anxiety, that's what I don't think

Martha was ready to do. And so therefore she thought, if I just

host Jesus in my home, if I just come to church on Sunday,

or maybe even I start serving, maybe that'll be enough to be busy where

I don't have to think about my life anymore. Because he says, you

are anxious and troubled about many things. He didn't even have the time to

list the woman at the well. He listed all her husbands and boyfriends.

Martha, He's like, it's many things. It's many, yeah, but

what is it, Jesus? It's many for you, many for you.

Wake up, there's a new mini for you. And how many of us

feel that way? Every day we wake up. There's a new anxiousness,

there's a new anxiety, there's a new troubled thought. We go from one

troubled thought to the next troubled thought. We go to one anxious thing to

another anxious thing. That is where we find ourselves. You know, this

past weekend or this past week, my son Matthias graduated from preschool, so

he's going to go into kindergarten and so it's a big day for him.

He had a little capping gown and all that kind of stuff like that.

And so one of the things that happened was as part of graduating and part

of his next step. We said, hey, let's just spend the weekend

hanging out together. And he had his little suit and he was all dapper.

And then over the weekend, when I had a little time, we

went down to La, down at David Busters in La. We had to

do a couple other things, and so on our way home, I'm late

at nights, about ten o'clock at night, Mathias is still awake. Thomas,

or the youngest, has already fallen asleep, and so Matthias says,

Daddy, I have an idea, because we have like a little playlist where

we just keep adding like his favorite songs from movies and stuff like that in

the playlist, so like Lego movie and Super Mario Brothers all that. So

he goes, Daddy, I got an idea. How about I named the

song and then I'll play it on my iPad and then you play it on

the car. So he was saying, let's sync our songs up and I'll

put my iPad on the loudest and you put the car on the loudest.

So I'm thinking, okay, sounds like it could be a fun game.

I don't know how successful this is gonna be. And so he would go,

okay, super Mario Brothers theme song, one, two, three go.

He would plus play on the iPad. I would press play on my

car. Well, they're all up, they're all connected to the cellular signal,

so we have to have service and all that. So my song would

play, and then his song would play three seconds later, and it would

be the most annoying thing you've ever heard in your life. Have you ever

had two TVs going on in different rooms and it's like the same thing,

maybe as a Super Bowl or something. It's just it's annoying. All you

could think about is how off cheat que it is. And so he would

go a couple of seconds and he say, no, daddy, no,

Daddy, started over, started over. I'm like, okay, so we

started over, one, two, three go. All of a sudden bump,

bump, button, then his bump like okay, it's not in sync

again. Oh my gosh. Ashley. I look over at her because she

had a long day with the boys. I was at work most of the

day. She had the boys the whole day she was tired. I see

her going like this. She's like, because his iPads behind us, my

car's going off two D. I mean, it's just it's pure chaos,

and I'm thinking, no, we're gonna stick to this. This is what

he wants to do this where so I go, Okay, Reddy said go.

We both press it at the same time, and boom a symphony.

We're matched. His iPads in sync, my iPads in sync. All of

a sudden, it's got a cool rhythm. We can hear it behind us

on his iPad, we can hear it in the car. We listened to

the whole song without restarting it. Why because now it was in harmony and

now it was sync up to each other. I wonder how many of us

deal with anxiety and troubled thoughts because you and I are out of sync with

Jesus. I wonder. I wonder if that anxiety, this thing right here

that we feel, is because we are out of tune with Jesus. Mary

understood what it meant to be in tune with Jesus. It meant against all

cultural inclinations. It's my job to sit at the feet of Jesus and ingest

everything he has to teach me. But Martha knew if I just stayed distracted

and in the room, then I don't have to be responsible for the things

that Jesus teaches. And so if I'm just near him enough, that ought

to be good enough, right, that ought to be good enough to go

to heaven, that ought to be good enough to have a relationship with God.

I just gotta do all the things that they do and say all the

things that they do. So I mean, I gotta go to church sometimes

sometimes I got to maybe make a sign of a cross. Maybe sometimes I

gotta pray. Maybe I gotta get like a little cross bumper sticker in my

car. Oh, I know this, I'll change my Instagram bio. I'll

put Jeremiah eleven in the caption. But Matthew chapter seven, Jesus gives an

inclination of what it would look like for people who are in the room but

unwilling to submit to the feet of the Savior. And so it says in

Matthew seven twenty one, not everyone who says to me, Lord Lord will

enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But the one who does the will of my

Father, who's in heaven on that day, many will say to me,

Lord Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in

your name? And do many mighty works in your name? And then will

I declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you

workers of lawlessness. What Jesus is saying is he's saying there will be people

who will say. What I'm trying to do is I just want the label

of Christian so that it'll ease my conscience and give me a distraction to the

things that I actually really have to face. And what I really have to

face is my anxiousness and my troubled thoughts. What I really have to face

is my sin. And so what happens is is we have a case with

Martha. I'll write this right now. We have a case with Martha.

What she wanted to do was what Martha wanted to do is Martha wanted to

figure out this thing called life, this game of life, that's what we

try to find ourselves in. That's like us. So for her, she's

hosting Jesus. He's in town. She's getting food, she's getting water,

she's setting out all the blankets, the rugs, the mat she's doing life.

She's trying to figure out how to do life. That's what she wants

to do, and that's where we find ourselves. I'm just trying to do

life. That's why I go to work. I got a nine to five.

That's why I'm working on this thing. That's why we got kids in

sports. That's why we're doing this and we're doing that. Why because we're

staying busy with life and we're hoping that life just progresses more and more.

But how many of you guys know, for those that have lived life,

it goes from one anxious thought to the next anxious thought. So at first,

when you're a young man and a young woman, you're just trying to

figure out what job will I do? Then you find the job, and

the next thing you know, you have to figure out, can I even

retire with this job? I'm gonna get old one day? What will I

do? At first, you have kids and you think to yourself, I'm

just trying to figure out how to parent. And then all of a sudden,

they're teenagers and they just start getting hormones and start doing whatever they want

and start yelling at you, and you're going, what is this thing that

I raised, and it goes from that and then they go, oh,

yeah, you're supposed to help my college and pay for my college. And

you're thinking to yourself, we have one hundred dollars in the bank account your

spouse. On your wedding day, you thought this is gonna be the gray

this day of my life. And then you're far Hello, you're seven,

Hello, You're going No one told me marriage was gonna be I guess.

So it goes from one anxious thought to one anxious thought, one troubled thing

to another troubled thing. And so what Martha's trying to do is trying to

do like many of us, I'm just trying to figure out this game called

life. But then there's Mary, and what she's trying to do is she

wants to live. There's a difference to trying to do life to living.

We have a say here at our church that to live stands for this living

in view of eternity. So what Mary's learning with Jesus is in order for

me to live, I have to live in view of eternity. And what

Jesus is trying to get us to understand is I gave my life so that

you can live and if all you're pursuing is your life. Jesus gave his

life so that you could live, but all you're focused on is living your

life. And so we ask ourselves, why am I continually anxious? Why

am I continually troubled? Because you're distracted, That's why. And that's why

Martha was distracted with serving, not necessarily because she was happy to host.

It was because if I get distracted with serving, it means I don't have

to deal with living in view of eternity. Because if I live in view

of eternity. You want to know what you're not allowed to take with you

in eternity. Anxiety and troubled thoughts. You can't take this. You can't

take troubled thoughts into eternity with you. You can't take your anxiousness to eternity.

You can't take your fool one k into eternity with you. You can't

take your house with you into eternity. And guess what. The only way

you could take your kids into eternity with you is if you teach them how

to live. And so, at one point, at one point where we

stop trying to just do life and we start really equating and saying every choice

I should make should be the one that lives in view of eternity. At

what point can I find myself no longer like Martha, which is distracted with

serving so that I don't have to face my anxiety and my troubled thoughts.

But here Mary is on top of the ostracization, on top of the cultural

norm. She's rejecting those things. She's not only doing that, but she

is receiving the message that Jesus is teaching. How do I know that?

Well, the scripture tells us if you're taking notes. The first point that

we just visited right now was Mary teaches us what it means to have a

calling over culture. Because I'll tell you this, to be a Christian in

America today, you're gonna have to choose Jesus Is calling over your life over

culture. That's what it takes to be a Christian today. And Mary was

willing to go against the cultural grain to trust Jesus. And what happened is

she chose the voice of Jesus, the calling over the culture. And then

the next thing that she teaches us is she teaches us what it means to

pursue Jesus's presence over possessions, his presence over our possessions. Most theologians believe

the multiple stories about Mary a Martha are the same marya Martha throughout the story.

And so in this passage we just read, it says he walked into

a village. Then later on in John chapter twelve, it teaches of another

Mary and Martha at Bethany, which most theologians believe it's exactly the same Mary

and Martha we just learned about right now. So in this story that we

just read, we see Martha distracted with serving as a way to escape from

her anxiety and troubled thoughts. We see Mary rejecting cultural norms to worship Jesus.

And then now we have another circumstance where we find Mary and Martha in

the story once again. And now this is in John chapter twelve. I

want you to look at this and check this out. Here's what it says,

six days before passover. So this is Holy week. So Jesus is

days away from being committed by Judas and rejected by Judas and thrown under the

bus by Judas. And so then he's going to be arrested, tried,

crucified, and eventually three days later resurrect This is that week, and so

this is the last week of Jesus's life. Whose house is he gonna visit?

Right outside of Jerusalem? I wonder maybe it's good friends he spent a

lot of time with. So six days before the passover, Jesus therefore came

to bethany where Lazarus was. Lazarus had just resurrected him from the grave as

well. So they're hosting a dinner for Jesus as a thank you. So

it says whom Jesus had raised from the dead, so they gave a dinner

for him and Martha. What does she do? Dang, Martha, did

Jesus talk to you about this already? Why would John chapter twelve put this

is ain't even the same book we read from Luke. Now we're in John,

and where do we find Martha? Once again? Serving Martha was happening.

But Mary can't be in this story. And if Mary is in this

story, then she's gonna be in the kitchen with Martha too. Gotta be

right, maybe, And Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table.

And then Mary therefore took a pound. Okay, Okay, okay, so

Mary's here, is she in the kitchen? She therefore took a pound of

expensive ointment made from pier nord. She took a pound, which was a

year's worth of salary, A pound of perfume. Oh okay, she's probably

gonna prep the dinner table and spray just like us we take for breeze.

And that's why she took a pound. She took a year's worth of perfume.

Because she's trying to set the smell of the house. Because she's she's

got to be back in the kitchen like culture tells her she has to be

in this story. She's she's got to be back in that place. Right,

took a pan made from pear nord and anointed the feet of Jesus and

wiped his feet with her hair. Okay, wait, so now she does

a burial ritual on him. That's what you did when people died, You

anointed their body with oil. Mary, are you crazy? Since we last

met you, did you lose your mind or something? You walk in.

Jesus is living, He's sitting in your home, and you break an oil

that's worth a year's worth of salary. You rub it on his feet and

then you wipe it with your hair. Have you lost your mind? Jesus

is live. Even the disciples at this point didn't know Jesus was going to

die. The disciples Peter still hasn't even cut the soldier's ear off in order

to try to start a battle against Rome. But here's Mary, she's preparing

Jesus for death. What And it says the house was filled with fragrance of

the perfume. And then Jesus got one of his disciples. But Judas is

scary at one of his disciples, who was about to betray him, said

why was this ointment not sold and given to the poor? Oh? Judas,

you care about the poor? Right? He said this? Oh,

not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief.

You ever hear criticisms from outside people about why you're a Christian and why you're

doing this and why you're doing that? That was Judas. He was that

guy. But did he care about the issues they were raising. No,

he didn't care about the poor. He was a thief. In having charge

of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put in

it. He used to steal from Jesus's money bag, Jesus said, leave

her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial.

For the poor you will always have with you, but you do not

always have me. Here's what Mary understood. Mary understood in order for her

to live, Jesus had to die. No one else at that point had

come to that revelation except for Mary, who obediently sat at Jesus's feet and

listened to his words. So is his disciples. Would hear Jesus say,

on this day, my body will die in three days later. I raise

it up there going oh, he's speaking in allegory, and Mary's going,

oh, he's serious, he's gonna do it. When he would say things

like I must give up my life so that you can have your life,

and I must carry my cross, They're going, man, he crazy.

He's in these cross sill illustrations. And Mary's like, no, no,

he's going why Because she wasn't distracted. She wasn't distracted when Jesus spoke.

She listened. Corey ten Boon, a great author and writer. She said,

this concerning our faith, the measure of a life, after all,

is not the duration, but it's donation. I think to myself. Jesus

only lived to thirty three years old, but he donated everything to us,

and so then in my own life, whether the Lord grants me ninety years,

one hundred years, eighty years, seventy years, it is not an

amount of time. The question for your life is what have you donated in

your life? What of your life have you donated? Because you can spend

your whole life busy, busy, busy, busy, and you could get

to the end of your life and say, actually, I feel like I've

not used my time. Wisely, you only get to live this life once.

We get an eternal life, but the life that we know it today,

you only can do it once. And for me, I'd rather do

it at the feet of the Savior that teaches me to live in view of

eternity. Then rather live this life and try to play the game of life

to try to make as much money as possible, have as many rich as

as possible houses as possible, or just to barely scrape by. That's not

the life I'm interested in living. The life I'm interested in living is the

one where I can give Jesus all of my burdens and all of my troubles

and all of my anxieties, and he will exchange my sorrow for joy.

And so today we can be like Martha, find ourselves distracted, find ourselves

anxious, find ourselves with troubled thoughts, or we can do what Jesus teaches

us to do, which is to give him your cares, give him your

shame, give him your burdens, give them your worries, and he will

exchange your sorrow for joy. And he will give you a yoke in a

burden that's easy and light, one that's full of peace, not of worry,

one that's full of joy, not of anxiousness. And so if you're

here today, this isn't a salvation appeal right now. We'll do that in

moments. But if you're in here today, whether you're in the courtyard or

in this place, and you're struggling with that anxiousness, you find yourself distracted

and trying to be distracted because you don't want to deal with your troubled thoughts.

You don't want to deal with your anxiety. But you're saying today,

I want to give that up. I don't want to live like Martha,

and then find myself at the end of Jesus's story of redemption and then find

myself back to distracted and serving. What I want to do is I want

to find myself safe in the Savior's arms. And So if you're here today

and you're struggling with the anxiety, you're struggling with troubled thoughts, and you're

distracted, and you're saying, God, I want to give it to you

today. I just want to encourage you in this moment to be bold to

raise your hand up in the air because I want to pray for you.

So keep your hand up raised so that I would pray for you. This

hand's going up all over. We're gonna trust the Lord in this moment.

We're gonna give this moment to God, consecrate ourselves, allow the Holy Spirit

to move. I don't know what that looks like for you. That may

be a doctor's report, that may be some type of a job that you've

been needing or looking for, some type of move of God you've been looking

and needing for. That may be in your marriage, that may be with

your children or grandchildren, that may be in your finances. But whatever the

anxiety is, whatever that worry is, just want you to lift your hand

up. We're gonna pray, and we're gonna give it to the Lord right

now. So God, I pray as our hands are raised, Father God,

may this be a symbol of surrender. Lord, this is no longer

in our hands or our care. We recognize Lord that Jesus you have paved

the way to peace and joy. Jesus you gave your life so that we

can live ours. So Lord, right now, I pray, Father God,

that every burden, every chain, every worry, every anxiety right now

is being diminished and destroyed in Jesus name. I believe Lord that whatever the

enemy is throwing at them, Father God, may they gird up right now

to trust in the Lord and lean not on our own understanding. Father God,

may you continue to speak to us in your spirit. Pour out right

now, Father God, I pray for everybody's minds. Lord, May you

give them peace. Father God, I pray for the broken hearts right now,

May you give it life. Right now, Lord, I pray Lord

that we are more than conquers through Jesus Christ, that Jesus bore our shame,

he bore our iniquity, and he bore our grief. Lord, I

believe Lord, that we are free in Christ and free indeed, and Jesus

Christ is the author and finisher of our faith, and he's the healer that

we look for today. We believe the Spirit of God right now is lifting

burdens, lifting shame, and lifting anxiety off of us. Right now,

Lord, I believe for a rest like no other. Tonight, Father God,

I pray Lord for a peace like no other tonight, Father God.

And may we continually continually trust your work. Lord. May we put our

hope not in the game of life, but in the one who lives today,

named Jesus. We live because you live, God, And so God,

we pray for freedom and healing right now in Jesus name. Amen,

and a man, can we thank God for what the Lord may have done

right now? Has the weeks come? If the Lord does anything in your

life, would you please let someone on our team or one of our pastors

know. We would love to know a testimony of what God's doing in your

life today before we leave. Right now, in a matter of moments,

we got plenty of time. If you just give me two more minutes right

now, I want to make an invitation of faith. If you're here today,

right now, we just prayed for a deliverance. But more than all,

the greatest deliverance of all that happens is the one where God delivers us

from a future pain, from a future eternity that's separated from God. And

so God gives us an opportunity today to say yes to Jesus, which offers

us a relationship with Him and an eternity in the presence of Jesus. The

Bible says that if we receive Jesus as our Lord and savior, the one

who died on the cross for our sins, and if we believe in our

heart that he resurrected, the Bible says, we will be saved. One

day you and I will stand before God. Heaven is opportunity and a choice

for all of us that we can receive Jesus, repent of our sins and

say yes to the Cross. God does not send people to hell. People

choose hell. If you can't choose Jesus on earth, why would you want

to choose him in heaven. If you don't want Jesus's presence on earth,

why would you want his presence in heaven? And so a rejection of Jesus

is a rejection of heaven. But an acceptance of Jesus and a repentance of

self is an acceptance of heaven. And it makes us, as Romans eight

says, it makes us airs of Christ. And so if you're here today

and you've never given your life to Jesus Christ, and you're willing and ready

to receive that goodness and mercy, we're gonna say this prayer out loud,

and by no means the prayer is not the thing that saves you. What

we're doing is we're affirming the work of the Spirit right now in your life.

And so, family, would you all join me, whether you're in

the courtyard or in this place, and join me in saying this, Dear

Lord Jesus, in this moment, I say yes to you. I believe

in my heart that you died on the cross and you rose three days later.

In this moment, I confess of my sins and I choose to follow

you for the rest of my days in Jesus name. Amen. Amen,

Can we praise God in that moment? We really hope you enjoyed the message.

And if you said yes to Jesus, we just want to say congratulations

and give you a free devotional to help you walk out your faith. Click

the link of the description or head over to grow dot Faith to download your

devotional. Oh and be sure to subscribe and share this podcast with your friends.

Thanks for listening to ALS podcasts and I hope you tune in again