DID GOD REALLY SAY? | Shaun Nepstad

My wife and I, when we are praying about the word for the year, which is make ready, we want to help you prepare to become all that God has called you to become.

But before you can get ready, you have to be made ready.

Get ready is in a moment, and being made ready is preparation before the moment.

So you can go back and re-watch the sermon on YouTube and catch up to speed.

But get that word in your heart and really ask the Lord, Lord, how can I be getting ready or get being made ready for what you have for me for this year?

And then we also start talking about some of the lack of Bible knowledge around the globe, and how so many people they don't even really know some of the greatest Bible stories in the scriptures.

So we're gonna have a lot of fun over the next few months.

We're gonna look at a lot of Bible characters in the scriptures so you can go back and learn what God did in their life, what they do right, what they do wrong, and how can we learn from that?

Amen, everybody.

So today, get your Bibles open.

I told you, bring your Bibles, bring a highlight or a pen, something, because we're gonna mark up our Bibles and help us remember a lot of what we're learning.

But we're going way back to the beginning, everybody, to the book of Genesis.

Anybody know who we're talking about?

Adam and Eve.

Here we go.

The Bible says this, the very first verse in the entire Bible.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Now, when I was a kid, I was probably about 12 years old, and a pastor came through our church and he said, Somebody yell out the first four words of the Bible.

And I, as as loud as I could, I was like, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

He was like, I asked for four, that was ten.

I was like, He tricked me.

But his point was, in the beginning, God.

Before there was ever anything else in the world, there was God.

You wanna you wanna have a brain freeze?

Think about this: God never had a beginning.

The Bible says this in Colossians, for in him, Jesus, all things were created, things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers, rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him.

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

So before there was anything, there was first God.

Then there's the story of creation.

The earth was formless and empty.

Darkness covered the deep waters, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

We're in Genesis 1.

Then God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

God saw that the light was good.

Then he separated the light from the darkness.

By the way, everything God created, he would say, This is good.

God called the light day and the darkness night, and evening passed, and morning came and marked the first day.

So on the first day, this is what he created.

Then God said, Let there be space between the waters to separate the waters from the heavens and the waters from the earth.

And that's what happened.

God made this space to separate the waters from the earth from the waters from the heavens.

God called that space sky.

And evening passed and morning came, and that marked the second day.

I'm just giving this to you so you can go back through and read in your own time that God is creating things specifically in an order.

So He did that, he has a first day, second day, third day, fourth day, fifth day.

Then we're gonna jump all the way to the sixth day.

Then God said, Let us make human beings in our image to be like us.

They will reign over the fish in the sea, and the birds and the sky and the livestock and the wild animals on the earth and the small animals that scurry along the ground.

So God created human beings.

Read this out loud, everybody, in his own image.

In the image of God, he created them, male and female.

So then the Lord formed the man from the dust of the ground.

He breathed the breath of life into the nostrils, and the man became a living person.

The Lord God made all kinds of trees.

Say trees.

Just as interesting, because we're talking about creation of man and woman, and then he throws trees in there.

We'll come back to it.

But he created trees that grew out of the ground.

Trees that were pleasing for the eye, good for food.

And in the middle of the garden were the tree of life.

Say tree of life?

And then the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Okay, there's two different trees among all the trees, and we're gonna break that down in a minute.

The Lord God said, It is not good for man to be alone, and I say amen to that.

I will make a helper suitable for him.

So the Lord God caused the man to fall asleep to a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed the space up with fleck.

Which, by the way, that's why men still to this day love ribs, because we feel like we're missing one.

I just thought of that.

That was a great.

There's a lot going on up here.

You'd be so proud for the stuff I don't tell you.

And I withhold.

Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man and brought her to the that's still funny to me.

And the man said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called, whoa! Me.

For she was taken out of man.

That's why man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife.

And they become one flesh.

The two become one.

This is what we're gonna help you with in our marriage conference.

Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.

I want you to understand that so many people have an appreciation of the Bible, but have forgotten so much of the Bible characters and what they journeyed through.

Now, if you grew up in church, you probably are familiar with Adam and Eve, even if you didn't grow up in church.

You probably have heard this.

Maybe you had a little children's Bible, maybe a Sunday school with a little flannel board.

Come on, remember those?

And you basically had this picture of Adam and Eve naked behind the bushes, and you giggled, and then and then Eve ate a fruit, she wasn't supposed to eat, and then that's when it all went south.

And most people say it was an apple.

She ate the apple.

How many have ever heard that?

Okay, the Bible doesn't say it's an apple, it just says it's a fruit.

And here's and I feel like apples get a bad rep.

It's not fair to put all that the fall of mankind on an apple.

And I love apple, I love apple pie, I love apple turnovers, I love apple dumplings.

Like I love apple juice.

Why do we blame the apple so much, everybody?

The apple probably it might not even been there.

And we're blaming the fall of man on an apple.

I believe God blessed the apple.

Come on, everybody.

Well, I'm joking about that part, but I am making a point.

It's not about the fruit, it was about disobedience to the word of God.

That's what we're talking about.

With all of this, there was the story of creation, and then we have the story of two trees.

And really, the two trees aren't about agriculture, it's about two different approaches to God.

I'm gonna read this to you back in Genesis chapter 2, verse 16.

Genesis 2:16

Go there with me in their Bible.

And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden.

Like, look around.

All this is yours, it's all yours.

But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it, you will certainly die.

Okay, pause for a second.

Is God clear here?

It's like it's not confusing.

Let's go on.

Chapter 3, verse 1 now.

The serpent, this is where the devil enters in, takes the form of a serpent.

The serpent was more crafted than any of the other wild animals the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, Did God really say?

You must not eat from any of the tree, uh, the tree in the garden.

And and the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, so she does remember, you must not eat from the fruit from the tree that's in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.

You're not gonna die, the devil said.

Like it's not that serious.

The serpent said to the woman, For God knows that when you eat from eat from it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

And when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and she ate it, and then she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it, and then in that moment the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

This is a very sad day.

But I want to let you know something.

Adam and Eve were not ignorant, they didn't lack good teaching, they couldn't claim they weren't being fed, they just began to listen to the wrong voice.

Isn't it interesting how you could be so connected, start listening to the wrong voice, and then all of a sudden lose direction?

You can be connected and then misdirected.

Okay, write this down, everybody.

Adam and Eve had access, not wisdom.

They had access to God, they had access to all the blessings of God, the best teaching in the whole wide world.

They walk with God, talk with God.

They had all that, they just lack wisdom.

They they they they talk with God, the Bible says, even in the cool of the day, and God would just every day, I think it was exploration, like look at this mountain.

Come on, look at this waterfall.

Oh my god, look at this.

You get this is all yours.

Have dominion over the earth.

But access is not the same as wisdom.

Wisdom isn't just knowing what God said, wisdom is understanding why obedience matters when other voices speak louder.

Oh my gosh.

So Adam and Eve had the manual, they just ignored the warning label.

And and many people they come to church for information.

And they feel like they're growing because they receive and consume information.

May I gently remind you, information doesn't save you.

It is in the right interpretation of that information saves you, the right acceptance and application of that information can save you.

And that's why James, the half brother of Jesus, says, be doers of the word, not hearers only, because if you hear and don't do, then you deceive yourself.

So the devil comes in and he just plants a seed of doubt.

Notice he didn't tell Eve to stop listening to God, he just convinced her to listen to him differently, to not trust him entirely.

And the first question in the Bible didn't come from God, it came from the devil.

And this is what it was.

Did God really say that?

Like, are you are you you're telling me right now?

How many can testify that the devil's tactics have not changed?

Even to this day, there will be something, a voice in your head uh of uh of questioning the word of God.

Like, did God really say that?

Where does that say that in the Bible?

And at first, it didn't even come across as rebellion, it just came across as a slight misdirection.

And and what happens is it's like it's like a GPS.

The GPS still works, it just took you down the wrong road.

The most dangerous lies don't deny God, they distort him.

When we look at God, when we look at the word of God, some of the most dangerous lies don't come from an actual denying of his existence.

They just begin to distort his character, his nature, what he said, who he is.

So Adam and Eve, they didn't lose direction because they lacked freedom.

They lost direction because they trusted a new voice that wasn't tested.

So this new voice comes up.

They were talking to God every day.

And then this other voice comes in, and they're just like, Yeah, I'm gonna listen to you now.

I'm gonna I'm gonna make life decisions based on a new voice that I have not known.

Write this down.

Direction requires exclusion.

Direction requires exclusion.

God gave Adam and Eve so much.

Can we all agree with that?

Gave them all hey, looking around, all the trees, you this is all yours.

All the world, the animals, you have dominion, you have all of this.

Isn't it interesting though, how the devil will get you to be consumed about stuff you don't have and forget all that you already do have?

God gave him all this and then said, I got one boundary for you, one tree.

Look at everybody.

Direction always includes a no.

Direction always includes a no.

And that's what we forget.

We're like, God, I want direction.

Give me direction.

We've been praying for direction in 2026, haven't we?

Well, if you're asking God for direction, just remember direction will always include a no to something.

And when Adam and Eve reached for the fruit, when Eve reached for the fruit, she wasn't just reaching for knowledge, she was turning around and rejecting the limits that God had put on her.

And limitations God puts are never to harm us, it's always to protect us.

So direction is not choosing every road.

Direction is choosing one road and then refusing all others.

We want direction, but we want to include every road.

And that's not how direction works.

So many people have listened to the devil's lies, and the devil comes in even today and will say things implant seeds of doubt in your mind, like, did the God did the Bible really say?

Did God really say that?

Is that what he really meant?

And then the world will scream at us.

You know, all religions are the same, all religions lead to God, all roads lead to God.

Please, for the love of God, do not believe the lie of culture.

Jesus was so clear, he said, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life, not a way, not a truth.

He is the way, the truth, the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him.

People will read a verse that is this clear and say, He didn't mean that.

We've got to realize that a yes to God is a no to something else.

Are you with me?

So Eve was deceived, and then she takes the fruit and gives it to Adam.

Watch this.

Not because, and he ate it, not because he was deceived, but because he was passive.

Deception and passivity led to the rebellion and the downfall of Adam and Eve.

And they elevated a voice above God's trusted voice, and this is the devil's plan.

John 10, 10, the thief.

The devil comes to steal and to kill and to destroy.

Thank God we have another part of the verse that Jesus came to give us abundant life.

But we need to also remember and be alert that the devil's job, he's trying to steal and to kill and to destroy.

Like you think of a football team.

Any football game, there's always going to be somebody trying to run interference and cause an interception.

Every time God speaks, you just need to know the devil's trying to run interference and intercept that word.

It goes back to the parable of the four soils in Mark chapter 4.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

Jesus tells a story.

He's like, hey, there was a farmer and he threw soil out and it landed on different soils.

Some good soil, some rocky soil, some shallow soil, some some thorny soil, and and and where the soil was soft, it received the seed and it produced a great harvest.

But on these other soils, there was the cares of this life, the pleasures of the world, all these other things were choking out the word so that that seed did not produce in that soil.

And the point of the entire passage is that the power is in the seed, but the potential is in the soil.

At our house, we have this water that has been flooding one section of our grass.

And so I call a lawn maintenance guy and I say, You got to come over here, man.

Can you fix my sprinkler?

We have a broken sprinkler.

There's something wrong with that.

He comes over and he says, There's nothing wrong with the sprinkler.

All the water that's running off onto the concrete and being wasted, that's not a result of a broken sprinkler.

We have to aerate the grass, cause all these holes in the grass so that the grass and the soil can absorb it properly.

Here I am thinking we have a source problem, and all the while we have a soil problem.

Can I tell you?

There's nothing wrong with the source of God's word.

We have to fix the soil of our heart to be able to receive everything that God has said.

There's nothing wrong with the source.

So, Adam and Eve, they eat the forbidden fruit, and then they fall.

That's when sin entered the world, and they try to hide from God, which is so silly.

They try to hide from God, and God comes and he asks this question where are you?

Now, pause for a second.

How many know?

Anytime God ever asks a question, it's not because he doesn't know the answer.

He's inviting ownership.

It's almost like he's saying, Do you know where you are?

I see you, but do you know?

And then he asks another question, who told you?

What other voice have you been listening to in your life?

They're hiding, they're trying to cover themselves with organic clothing and all of this because they're just embarrassed.

Here's what what what what a loss of direction always produces.

It produces misplaced blame.

Two things.

Write this down.

It produces victimization and shame.

Every time that there's a loss of direction, there's a misplaced blame of victimization and shame.

Get this.

So God said, you know, where are you?

What have where who'd you been listening to?

And and Adam.

Adam.

Adam blamed everybody in the whole world.

Which at that time was just God and Eve.

But he blamed everybody in the whole world.

He said this, literally, he said, It's this woman that you gave me.

And Eve was like, that's messed up, man.

She turns around and she's like, Well, it was a serpent.

In other words, the devil made me do it.

Nobody took responsibility.

When direction is lost, responsibility is always the first casualty.

It's like a driver who misses a turn and then just wants to argue instead of turning around.

Like whose fault was it that we missed the turn?

Just turn around.

So victimization and shame comes in.

They try to hide from God.

Here's why.

They were living out of the wrong tree.

They ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

It was the wrong approach to who God was, and I'll explain that in just a second.

But how many are grateful that with the right tree, the tree of life, here's what God wants to do: He wants to restore innocence and freedom.

So we have actually some of you who've been through our freedom small groups, you know some of this teaching is from that.

And I want to just plug this because small groups are about to start in February.

Every single person, if you would do yourself a favor to get in a small group, number one, to build relationships with people going the same way.

That's priority number one.

But there's a lot of you who want to join a freedom small group, and there's gonna be a lot of those who go through this and go deeper, and then there's a conference that you can only go to if you've been through the small group, because it kind of prepares your heart to receive there.

But it's gonna start here in just a couple weeks, and I don't want anybody to miss out on this.

Okay, listen, let's go back to our text.

At that moment when they when they ate the fruit, sin entered the world, and because of sin, sin led to death.

Sin always leads to death.

Romans 3 says, For the wages of sin is Death.

It's a death spiritually, it's a death relationally, it's always leading to death.

And all of this, all this took place because of their inability to just follow God.

By the way, let me also say this because some people are like, well, why'd God allow that?

God gave us something called free will.

It is the ability to choose.

He didn't want robots.

Just like you wouldn't want your loved ones to love you because they have to.

You want them to love you because they want to.

Like parenting.

The goal of parenting is not just quiet external obedience.

And as I say that, I realize some of your parents are like, speak for yourself.

I could sure go for some quiet external obedience.

No, but you you get what I'm saying.

The goal is not just for them to behave externally.

Come on, everybody, we want their heart.

God wants our heart.

And God wants us to obey Him.

That comes through relationship with Him.

So the wrong approach to God brings death.

They were climbing up the wrong tree.

They were saying, I want to be like God.

That was the temptation.

It wasn't sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

The temptation was, if you eat this, you'll be like God.

So they were trying to approach God in the wrong manner, and that led to their downfall.

That is the tree of knowledge of good and evil versus the tree of life, which is not human wisdom, it's God's word and God's wisdom.

And if you want to live out of the tree of life, I'm telling you, it comes through relationship and obedience to God's word.

Now let's go deeper, all right?

This is where an attack began to occur on mankind.

Let me explain this.

Look at me, everybody.

Identity was the first gift to mankind.

You follow me?

Like Adam and Eve, before they ever did anything, they were already someone.

Before they did anything, look, look, look, here's from the scriptures, they were created in the image of God.

They were called very good, they were given purpose before performance, they were named and blessed before responsibility.

They didn't have to earn value, they didn't have to discover who they were because God defined them first.

God did not say, go find yourself.

God looked at them and said, I made you in my image.

By the way, this is why every life is valuable from the womb.

Because God has fashioned and formed us and knit us together in the womb.

We are all created in the image of God.

Like a manufacturer defines the product before it ever leaves the factory.

You don't ask the product what it thinks it is.

You ask the maker.

And by the way, if you're looking and wondering, like, man, I can't find purpose in life.

I just don't find meaning.

Come through our growth track.

It starts the first Sunday of every single month.

The first Sunday, you get a chance to join the church and hear the vision of the church.

The second week is really fun.

This is where we have a spiritual gifts assessment to help you find purpose, how God created you.

Everybody should get in a small group, and then some people who are adhere and agree with our statement of faith and want to run with us, they'll get on our dream team and start building and making the biggest difference possible right here in the Bay Area and around the globe.

So don't put that off.

But we're if you're lacking that, I'll just let you know, as a church, we're here to help you find that.

So two trees that were not just about obedience, it was about an identity source.

The tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

The tree of life, this is where identity flows from God.

This is where I am who God says I am, and it's a life rooted in total and complete dependence on God.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil is identity defined by self.

This is I decide who I am, and a life rooted in self-dependence.

Okay, listen to me very closely.

Every identity crisis is really a source crisis.

Who's your source?

Who are you living from?

Because God was telling them, let me define you.

The devil was saying, define yourself.

The serpent's first words, go back to him.

He said, Did God really say?

Did God really mean that?

When he asked that question, this is not a theological question.

This was an identity assault.

He was coming against who God created and intended for them to be.

And if God's word can be questioned, then God's authority can be questioned.

And if God's authority can be questioned, then God's goodness can be questioned.

And if God's goodness can be questioned, then his definition of who you are can be questioned.

The enemy didn't start out by denying who God was, he started out by questioning what God said.

Did God really even say?

Notice.

Eve knew what he said.

That girl took good notes.

She said, he did say.

Yep, he sure did.

But didn't stop there.

Then she added to it.

That's where the problem occurred.

She had correct information.

But doubt creates distortion.

Which then leads to confusion.

We are living in what seems to be the most confused generation in the history of the world because we have so distorted the word of God.

And the devil's been doing the same thing since day one.

His tactics have not changed, and they don't even need to because it's still working on us.

Like if somebody can convince you your birth certificate's not real, they can convince you to live like someone you're not.

So if they can convince you that you came from a monkey, then they can convince you to live like an animal.

The devil said, you'll be like God.

Which is so tragic because the Bible was clear.

They were already made in the image of God.

Like, the lie wasn't you'll become something new.

The lie was God's holding out on you.

You're missing something, you're not complete.

The devil, I'm just saying this because the devil is always trying to get you to chase stuff that you already have.

You already have identity, you already have love.

It's found in God.

Don't let the devil think that you don't have that stuff.

But ultimately, the tree of knowledge of good and evil was just the wrong approach to God.

Literally, it was if you do this, you'll be like God.

That was the big temptation.

You'll be like God.

Something's missing inside of you.

So watch this.

They didn't lose identity because they ate the fruit, they forgot their identity before they ever took a bite.

Today's culture?

Same lie, new language.

We still have that Eden lie, don't we?

But that voice of the devil whispers in our ear, you're not enough.

The devil begins to whisper, you're nobody, you're incomplete.

Define yourself.

Truth is personal, identity is fluid.

Look inward and not to God.

But culture, asking culture to define who we are would be like looking at a mirror and asking the mirror to define who we are.

The mirror can only reflect, it can never create.

That's why there's such an attack on the creation story.

Because if people, if they come to a place where they acknowledge there's a God, then they have to acknowledge intelligent design.

And if there's intelligent design, then we ought to live for that God and submit to that God, and culture's not ready to do that.

So sin entered the world through Adam and Eve and the rebellion to God.

And that's where we were for a long time.

But is there anybody grateful today God did not leave us there?

The very moment that sin entered the world, God turned around and set redemption into motion where our identity can now be restored in Jesus Christ.

Oh, I'm this is about to get good.

Go to the New Testament, Romans chapter 5, verse 12.

Romans 5:12

The Bible says, Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, Adam, and death through sin, and this way death came to all people because all sinned.

Therefore, as through the through one man's offense, judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so now one man's righteous act, Jesus, who's known as the second Adam, he now gives a free gift that comes to all men, resulting in justification of our life.

Verse 19, for as by one man's disobedience, Adam, many were made sinners, so also by one man's obedience, Jesus, many will be made righteous.

First Corinthians 15, look at this.

So you see, just as death came into the world through one man, and that's Adam, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man, Jesus.

Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given a new life.

Come on, clap your hands if you're grateful for what Jesus Christ came to do.

Come on, he did not just come to forgive sin, he came to restore our identity.

And where Adam hid from God, Jesus turns around and he runs to sinners.

Where Adam raised and lifted pride above obedience, Jesus Christ humbled himself.

And where Adam failed at a tree, come on, everybody, Jesus Christ redeemed us on a tree, paid for the price of sin, now reaches back to restore our relationship with him again.

Him paying for the price of sin not only covered sin, it reclaimed our identity so that now in Jesus Christ we are adopted as sons and daughters of God.

We can carry his name, we can have relationship restored.

We have the promise of heaven, we have hope and healing.

We can be brought close and we are secure in Jesus' name.

Somebody ought to clap your hands and praise God today.

We are not left in our stead.

And God is still calling your name.

He's still calling for you through all of eternity and through the earth.

He's asking, where are you?

Not to shame you, but to restore you.

Not to condemn you, but to bring you back to him, where we can all say, I am not what I feel.

I am not what culture says I am.

I am who God says I am.

And in Christ Jesus, you are his, you are loved, you are called, you are purposed, you are graced to walk in relationship with Almighty God, to follow him, to follow his word, and to enjoy his presence forever.

If you believe that, come on, clap your hands and thank God for the redemptive story.

Adam and Eve teach us as the band comes that Adam and Eve teach us if we're not careful, we can walk with God and still wander.

If we're not careful, we can hear God and then still follow another voice.

So this year, look at me, everybody.

Stay close.

Honor God's voice above every other voice.

Amen, everybody.

Your heads out and your eyes closed.

It's a lot.

It's gonna be a big challenge to try to fit a lot of these Bible characters' lives in one sermon, but we'll give it our best.

But I know God's speaking to a lot of hearts.

You're gonna go back now and reread that story this week and see what else God highlights to you.

But none of us can blame Adam and Eve.

We all probably would have done the exact same thing.

And we have.

And there was separation because of sin.

And that's why we need Jesus.

So today, watching online or in this room, it would be my honor to lead you in a commitment prayer that you could pray to give your life to Jesus.

You don't have to go fix yourself before you come to God.

We couldn't fix ourselves.

That's why Jesus came.

To pay for sin, to restore our identity in Him.

And there are a lot of voices right now in the world that people are highlighting and elevating.

Let's come back and be people, men and women of the Word.

If you're here and you say, Sean, my life isn't right with God, but I want it to be.

I need it to be.

I want to lead you in this commitment prayer.

You can pray right where you're seated.

I'm not gonna have you stand and come to the front right now.

But if this is your heart and you say, Sean, I need God.

I'm ready to follow Him.

I need Him to forgive me, cleanse me, wash me.

It starts with that question: Where are you?

You have to first identify where we are before we know the steps and where God wants to take us.

So if we feel lost, if we feel empty, if we feel broken, if we're filled with sin, the Lord acknowledges that, but does not leave us in that.

He wants to redeem us, bring us back, and raise us to a new life that He's promised.

So if that's you, you want to give your life to Christ, or you were once close to God, but you've drifted, you've strayed, and you're not as close as you used to be.

And you want to come back to Him on the count of three.

I want you just to lift your hand up and say, Count me in that prayer when you pray it.

I'm giving my life to Jesus Christ to be my Lord and Savior today.

Come on, be bold.

One, two, three, lift your hand up and just leave it up.

Lift it high, lift it high.

Yes.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Every yes is a hand.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Great, great.

All right, I'll give you the words to pray, but you make these words your own.

Kind of like a pastor does at a wedding ceremony with the husband and the and the wife to be.

They take those words, but then they make them their own to each other.

I'll give you the words.

You make them your own to God, alright?

Just say, Heavenly Father, thank you for loving me first.

Today I give you my life.

Forgive me from my sins.

Wash me clean.

Be my Lord and Savior.

I repent and turn to you.

From this day forward, I want to elevate your voice above every other voice.

Let me walk in relationship with you in obedience to your word.

And restore my identity to be in Christ.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.