Justification, Sanctification, and Glorification

So today it gets to be my honor today to welcome someone to our pulpit who I have found to become not just a friend, but maybe a mentor.

Herb and Jackie Kenyon have become really what I would tell you is sometimes as you I think as you move along in those pastoral things, you wonder what am I doing next, right?

And for Herb and Jackie, they are like pastors to the pastors.

That is the heart that I see in them.

There's not a week that goes by that I don't seek them out for some kind of advice, some kind of, I just want to know, tell them about my week, right?

And they always are quick with a prayer and they're always quick with a time to talk to me and to hear my heart, right?

And sometimes correct my heart a few times here and there.

And that's amazing.

So what I want to do is I want to welcome Jackie Kenyon up here this morning, Pastor Jackie Kenyon.

And I want to give you a little bit of her bio she sent me last night.

Come on, Jackie, you can come on up.

It's okay.

Jackie said, this is what she wrote me.

I said, Hey, Jackie, you gotta give me a bio.

And this is what she wrote to me.

And I gotta tell you, if this is how somebody described me, other than the wife portion, I'd be awesome with that.

She says, Jackie is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

She is a mother, a wife, a former youth pastor, a lead pastor.

For many of you didn't know this, a lead, our district, our district director, and is now enjoying retirement with her husband of over 30 years in ministry full-time.

Her passion, and I know this because she's poured into my wife and I, is to see individuals grow and learn and enjoy to the fullest life with Jesus.

If that's not a bio, I don't know what is.

So let's again, let's welcome welcome Pastor Jackie.

Okay.

Wait, the lights are a lot different up here.

And I when I talk on Wednesday nights, occasionally I've been able to share and I stood up here and okay, so please don't laugh at me.

But if there is a deer who goes past that window, I'm like the squirrel person.

So I'm like, oh look, there's a deer.

So I'll try not to do that this morning, or the deer will probably just stay down.

This morning, what I want to do is I want to speak on justification, sanctification, and glorification.

How many of you can tell me what all those mean?

Okay.

There are a few, but I remember I've been at I was raised in the church.

My mom was carrying me in the womb when I was in an open Bible church in Youngstown, Ohio.

I had my years of wandering, and God gloriously and wonderfully brought me back into the fold where I needed to be to continue my process of serving him.

But one of the things that I remember, how many of you are in-stay students?

Raise your hands really high.

Okay, because you're gonna see a slide that you better know it.

You should have already memorized it.

But one of the things that I remember is I heard about this word called sanctification.

And I knew that that meant that I needed to be set apart.

Am I feeding back?

Oh, there, it's gone.

And so I was one of those things where it was like, I don't understand what this is.

I can't figure it out.

And as we went through classes, I learned it.

But I was already, I had been serving the Lord for years.

And I thought, this is so important for us as Christians to understand.

It's kind of like a building block of our faith.

So that's what I'm gonna do today.

I'm gonna share about that.

It's my honor and privilege to stand here today.

And thank you, Pastor Aaron.

Thank you, Pastor Kelly, for trusting me to stand here and address the congregation, which Herb and I now see all of you as family.

So let's open in prayer.

Father, I thank you this morning for this opportunity.

And I pray, Lord, that you would simply use me as a vessel.

Lord, that I would just share what is on your heart for all of us to understand as we grow in you.

Lord, that it would not be difficult, but it would be something that we can understand with that childlike faith to move forward in you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

So many of us live our lives justified, but we don't move forward into sanctification.

And in the Bible, we see salvation tenses past, present, and future.

Have you ever heard of that?

Salvation is past, present, future.

Okay.

A lot of times people just think, well, I get saved, that's done.

I'm woo-hoo, I got my ticket to heaven.

But that's not what it's all about.

That's not what it's all about.

There's so much more.

That's our end goal.

So, first of all, we see our past.

Ephesians 2.8 says, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God.

So when you were saved, it is a gift of God.

The present form is 1 Corinthians 1.18.

For the world, word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God.

It is the power.

So we live in the power of God in the present.

Okay, then we see future.

And that is out of 1 Peter 1.5.

And it says, Who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time?

What would the last time be, do you think?

It's when Christ comes back.

Okay, it's that end, it's that end of our life, okay?

And we're gonna talk about that a little bit later on.

But these three tenses correspond to three theological phases of salvation.

Here you go insta students.

Justification.

We have been saved from the penalty of sin.

Sanctification, we are being saved from the power of sin, and glorification, we will be saved from the presence of sin.

Justification, which is our I would hope at this point in time that there are a majority of you sitting here that justification is a past salvation.

That means you've already accepted the Lord that you are living your life for Him.

In Romans 5, 1, it says, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is when you become a believer in Christ and it involves recognizing your need for salvation, your need for a savior.

And then you be understand that you need to trust in Jesus' death and resurrection, repenting of sin, and committing to follow him through faith and obedience.

Now, how many of you have ever done the Romans Road?

And I know it's not fail-safe, but it's it's something.

I taught it to my teens all the time because it gave them a way to share Jesus.

But it goes, it starts through verses in Romans, and basically you mark it in your Bible one place and it takes you to the next place, and you can explain, you know, how someone can come to Christ through salvation.

The first one is so we're gonna walk through some of those verses.

And if you want to write these down so you have that yourself and touch base with me later, that's great.

Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

This is that first step of acknowledging that all people, all of us, have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Sin separates humanity from God, and no human effort can restore that relationship.

Only Jesus Christ, who was fully God and fully man, and lived a sinless life, died on the cross to pay the penalty for us and for our sin, and rose from the dead, offering forgiveness and eternal life to all who believe.

We move on to Romans 6 23, if you're in your Bible.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is the part of believing and receiving.

To become a Christ follower, you must believe that Jesus' sacrifice is sufficient for your sins.

If there's someone out here who doesn't know Jesus but would really like to, this is when you have to understand that you are a sinner.

But Christ, He sacrificed.

And that sacrifice is sufficient for your sins.

You need to place your trust in Him alone for salvation.

And this involves understanding that you are worthy of the judgment of sin.

All of us are worthy of that judgment of sin, but Jesus took that punishment upon himself, and by faith you receive him as your savior and commit to following him.

Then we move to Romans 5, 8.

But God shows his love for us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

And Romans 10, 13 says, For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

And this is where we come to repentance and confession.

Repentance means turning away from your sin and aligning your life with God's will.

You must confess Jesus is Lord, acknowledge him publicly and in your heart.

It's essential for salvation.

This step reflects a genuine commitment to live according to God's word.

And we see this in Romans 10, 19 and 20.

If you declare with your mouth, if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, for it is with the heart you believe and are justified, and it is with the mouth that you profess your faith and you are saved.

So do you see the steps that you can take someone through and you can understand yourself?

So justification is the moment of salvation when God declares a sinner righteous through faith in Jesus Christ.

It is instantaneous and it is foundational to our Christian life.

What happens during justification?

We are forgiven of all of our sin.

We are declared righteous before God, not by our works, but by Christ's merit.

And we are reconciled to God and adopted into his family.

Now, also, most of the time after someone gives their life to Christ, they will take another public step.

Can anybody tell me what that is?

Baptism.

I was gonna say we do it here a lot, water baptism, which is awesome.

So those are just some of those steps that we talk about during justification.

It's not okay.

It's not okay that you're good.

It's not okay.

Well, you know, like I said, I just got my help, get my get out of hell card free.

That's what they always say, you know.

That's not what it is.

There's so much more to life than just doing the prayer.

It's just asking Christ.

I mean, that's life-changing.

Don't get me wrong.

I don't want to salvation is the key.

We have to have salvation, but we can't stop there.

And so many people do.

And I've met people over the years.

I we had friends of ours that started attending our church and found out that they had been saved through the military years and years ago.

And they got a Bible and they put it on their coffee table, one of the big punk and Bibles, you know, that weighs like 20 pounds, put it on their coffee table.

We're good.

We're good.

We're going to heaven.

And they lived about 25 years.

And they thought, you know, maybe we should go to church again, just for kicks and giggles.

Let's let's go to church again.

And they got to church and they found out that that wasn't where it stopped.

That was where it started.

That's where the best parts of your life come from.

So justification, you're not just forgiven, you're counted righteous.

Why?

Because of Jesus and his finished work on the cross.

We are declared righteous based on faith in Jesus Christ.

But guess what?

We still sin.

Every one of us.

So let's look at 1 John 1, 7 through 10.

It says, But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

And the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

Justification is the instant, the moment of faith, while sanctification is a lifelong journey.

We do not need to get saved daily or weekly.

We need to repent.

We need to ask forgiveness.

We need to get our hearts back in that place where God can use us.

How many as a kid grew up, and every time they asked if you needed to be saved went to the altar?

How many times did you go to bed every night asking the Lord to save you?

You know, I mean that's just yeah.

I remember in my rebellious years, I would come home and I would say the very same thing.

Lord, I'm sorry for what I did, even though it's been 15 weekends in a row.

But am I right?

Okay.

We live in a fallen world and we get caught up in that.

And if we don't stay close to Jesus, man, that's where you're gonna go.

Okay, bottom line.

So we're gonna move on to sanctification because this is my favorite part, because that's where we all live right now.

We are all living in sanctification, which is present salvation.

First Thessalonians 4, 3 says, For this is the will of God, your sanctification.

Sanctification is the process of becoming more like Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit.

It's ongoing.

Justification occurs instantly at the moment of faith.

While sanctification is a lifelong journey, you'll be on this journey until the day you're not.

You're gone, you're in heaven.

Sanctification is practical experience.

It's our separation unto God.

It's progressive, it's experimental because it's transformation.

It occurs in everything that we do.

And the word of God is the biggest thing that we can use to continue to transform.

So, what happens through sanctification?

First of all, we're set apart for his purpose.

We grow in holiness and obedience.

We're continually being cleansed and renewed.

I like that.

We're continually being cleansed and renewed.

That doesn't mean that we need to sit in the sin.

And it doesn't need mean that we need to sit soaking sour as we get older either.

We need to keep moving forward, keep moving forward.

God always has something for us.

We are continually being cleansed and renewed.

And then the last one, we are becoming more like Jesus through the Spirit's power.

In 2 Corinthians 3 18, it says, But we all are being transformed in the image from glory to glory.

So the differences we're going to see justification, sanctification.

First, we see instant and complete.

Is that back there?

Yeah.

Instant and complete to ongoing and progressive.

We are declared righteous to being made righteous.

Legal standing to daily living.

Once and for all and a continual process.

So 2 Peter 3 18 says, But grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Now I have five little steps that and when I say five, I'm uh I'm not usually a long speaker, so we'll see how I go.

But we'll have the steps on there just so you can see where we're at.

But number one is faith and grace.

These are ongoing steps in the process of sanctification.

Although we know justification is access through faith, while sanctification requires ongoing faith and obedience, we need grace.

Both justification and sanctification are rooted in God's grace, not in human effort.

There is nothing that we can do to be justified other than accept.

And there's really nothing we can do to be sanctified except to obey and to trust and to walk in his grace.

This is not about us, it's about losing ourselves to let God take control.

In John 3 30, he says, I must decrease so that he can increase.

We want others to see Jesus in us, so we have to decrease.

And I love the word grace.

What do you know for the acronym?

What does it stand for?

G is God's R Riches, A at C, Christ, E expense.

God's riches at Christ's expense.

And that's a really easy way, again, if you're talking to someone about salvation, is to use that.

Jesus already paid the price.

There's nothing we can do.

Our efforts are in vain.

It is Christ in us.

And then we see too, it is a continual transformation through the Holy Spirit.

Second Thessalonians 2 13.

But we ought always give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by God, because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.

Again, this is a transformation of character.

It's a transformation of behavior.

And sometimes we don't like that.

Am I right?

I know sometimes I don't like that.

You know, I get an attitude or I'm doing something, and then I feel like God's given me a check in my spirit.

And I'm like, why?

As my son always talks about my glass that I threw against the brick window, a wall.

I used to have a really, really bad temper.

And I don't know what, I don't know what happened.

I know we were at the parsonage in Iowa Falls.

I was not senior pastor.

Matt was a teenager.

Jackie was little.

And I had he had this Coke glass that I had bought him, and he thought it was like the original Coke glass, right?

Harry, I'm telling stories on myself.

I'm getting ahead of you, bud.

So and that glass was out there, and I don't know what happened.

All I know is it ticked me off.

And I grabbed a hold of that glass and I flung it.

And it hit the side of the parsonage, which was brick, and just and he was like, under our feet he comes up and goes, Mom, that was my glass that you got me.

But it's we we're always having to go through behavior changes.

We're having to transform our God's having to transform our lives because we aren't always on our best behavior.

Okay, so we've got to, we've got to allow him to do a work in our life.

It's really funny because I really don't have a temper anymore.

Actually, I really I'm way mild.

But it's really funny because I'm sorry, Matthias can raise that in me occasionally.

Um, but it's one of those things where, you know, we have to allow God to do his finished work in us.

And his finished work is gonna go every single day of our life.

We need to allow the Holy Spirit to have his way in this lifelong process.

Just let him do his work.

Don't fight it.

The more you fight it, the longer it's gonna take you.

And you know what?

I look at it this way: the years that I wasted, I wasn't seeing people grow or come to Jesus.

I don't want to waste any more years.

I want to keep heading forward.

Okay.

Number three, spending time in the word.

John 17, 17 says, Sanctify them in the truth.

Your word is truth.

You cannot grow if you do not spend time in the word.

Now, I have a little gal that was across the street from us.

Her name was Skylar.

She was about three, four.

Her mom and I were really good friends, and she would always come across and spend time with us.

And her mom came over one day and said, Jackie, I don't know what to do.

She is writing in every book that she has.

I've been paying for library books the last couple of weeks because we take them back and they've got they're marked up like crazy from her writing in them.

And I'm like, I'm sorry, Becky.

I said, I'll, you know, I'll keep an eye on her and you know, that kind of stuff if I see her with, you know, if she's over here and has a book or whatever.

She goes, Well, I just don't want to ruin, you know, Jackie's books or anything.

That's our daughter.

And I'm like, okay, you know what?

No big deal.

So, anyhow, next couple weeks later, I'm in church and she comes over and can I sit with you?

And of course, I was, you know, on the left side of the chair's front row.

And she comes, you know, sits down next to me, and Herb gets up to speak, and he starts speaking.

And I got my Bible sitting there, you know, and she's I had given her a pencil and she had a notepad and she's doodling on the notepad.

And I opened my Bible to the scripture and he said something, and I wrote it in the margin, and then I underlined the verse, and we kept going.

And I went, I know where she learned to write in all her library books.

She sits a lot of times with me at church, right?

I said that because I hope you remember that because it's kind of funny.

But in truth, get your Bibles out, get a marker, get a pen, get stickies, do something to allow yourself to see the places in the Word where your life is beginning to change.

There's a verse that's going to hit you.

Mark it, write it down, make a notation about it.

Everybody last I take notes every Sunday, every single Sunday, every Wednesday.

I take notes.

If not, I get bored.

Okay.

That's just me.

I have to have something to do.

So if I take notes, then it stays here.

If I don't, it's not there.

I'm one of those that I have to take notes.

But make sure that you take your Bibles and you start marking in them because they are living to you.

Those are things that you're going to look back on.

And I know that I've shared this verse here with you before, but the Lord, when Matt was born, we almost lost him.

And the Lord gave me a verse.

And I remember we had our uh a gal that was at our church, and she came in and she said, She almost lost her daughter to carbon monoxide poisoning.

And she said, Do me a favor, when I leave, she goes, get out your Bible and ask the Lord for a verse.

So I did.

And Herb had gone home, and I'm sitting there by myself, and he's in the, you know, NICU.

I'm not allowed to be with him.

And I opened my Bible, and the verse went to Psalms 41, 2, and it said, The Lord will protect him and keep him alive, and he will be called blessed upon the earth.

And I took my little sailboat boy thing that I had, you know, my announcements, and I flipped it over to the blank side and I wrote it out.

And I handed it to the nurse and I said, Would you please put this on as isolate and don't let anybody take it off?

Make a long story short, he came home a few days later.

He was even transferred to a children's hospital, but ended up coming home a few days later.

Obviously, he's a strapping young man now.

But then years later, we came home from watching and waving to the bus that was taking him to leave for Iraq.

And I remember saying, Lord, this is a year.

I don't know if I can hang on for a year.

I need another verse.

I need a verse.

I need something.

And I remember him saying, I didn't give it to you for just his birth.

I gave it to you for his life.

And that year I didn't, I honestly did not fret more.

Did I miss him?

Yes.

Did I worry about Christy?

Yes.

Because she was holding the home together, you know.

But it was one of those things where I knew that God had a purpose and a plan.

So do that for your life.

Do that for your life.

I did the same thing for our daughter.

When we were waiting to see if we would be able to adopt her and we were waiting for court, I remember saying, you know, to the Lord, we've had her since she was born.

Don't take her from us now.

You know, I really would like to have her, you know, grow up in our family.

And he gave me the verse of Psalms 45, 6.

I always get this one confused.

And it says, God is in the midst of her and she will not be moved.

And that's not picking out and choosing.

That's, you know, because a lot of people will do this, you know, oh, that's my verse for, oh no, I don't like that one.

Oh, this is the one I'm supposed to have, you know.

No, these were verses where I had specifically, there's other verses I had.

There was one I had for Herb's health, and I remember saying, God, I don't know what to do.

And he gave me a verse in the early morning hours when I was in my in my prayer time.

Use your Bible, that's what it's for.

There's the Bible app.

If you don't like to read, there's the Bible app and it'll read to you.

There's some pretty cool voices on there, but focus.

If you do nothing else, start out your day on the Bible app with one verse.

Pastor Aaron's talked about this several times before.

The soap thing you talked about, you know, soap scripture, observation, application, and prayer.

You can just do one sentence in each.

If that's all you're starting out with, it's something it's going to change your life.

Take index cards, put them on your mirror, you can memorize them.

Because Romans 12, 2 is powerful.

It says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

And the way your mind is renewed is by getting into the truth of the word.

And if you want to read your Bible and you've never read the Bible before, don't get mad at me, but don't start in Genesis.

Because you know what?

I can guarantee you, you won't finish reading through the Bible.

Go to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

John, preferably first, then go back to Matthew.

Go to Romans because it's about the church.

And another thing I'm going to encourage you to do is if you have kids and you don't know anything about this Christian faith, this is still pretty new to you.

Get a kid's Bible out.

Because guess what?

You'll learn all the Old Testament stories that you couldn't bear to read through in the Old Testament, in the regular Bible.

Eventually you'll go to it as you grow.

Okay.

Four, the family of God.

That's us right here.

Hebrews 10, 24 to 25.

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as it is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day approaching.

We need community.

It is valuable.

It's a vital role in encouraging one another and supporting others in their journey because each one of us are going to have down times.

Be here as often as you can, spend time together as much as you can.

Bible to Bible studies, activities, small groups, plug small groups, the 27th.

You don't want to miss it.

Lasting friendships, text, encourage one another, have coffee together.

It is so important.

Number five, trials and learning to stand in the faith.

James 1, 2 through 4 says, Count it all joy, my brothers, when you're trying when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

Justification and sanctification are interconnected.

True faith results in a desire for holiness.

And in holiness we look and we act different and we're able to stand.

John 17, 15 through 19 says, I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.

They are not of the world.

Just as I am not of the world, sanctify them in your truth.

Your word is truth.

And as you sent me into the world, of course, we know this is talking about Jesus, so I have sent them into the world.

And for their sake I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth.

That's Jesus asking the Father to care for us.

You will have problems.

Guaranteed.

Guaranteed.

Never tell someone, give your life to Jesus and everything is going to be great.

Because I can guarantee you it is not going to be great.

It will be great where God wants it to be because He'll be teaching you things through the hard stuff.

But it's not going to be what the world is.

It's not going to be the free Cadillacs and the free houses.

I believe that God has more things that He's concerned about than those.

And it's not that I can pray that way and God will give me anything, because I don't believe that that's how He answers either.

But it's trials will come and I will feel feel defeated at times.

But you know what?

Some of those times will help me to reach out to someone else because I can't do it on my own.

And sometimes then I'll be the one that can reach out to someone else because I already ran through it.

Your trials have a purpose.

Bad things will happen because we live in a fallen world.

But we have the God of the universe that reaches out to us.

There are times where we have what's called a dark night of the soul.

I think a lot of people refer to it that way.

And some of it could be depression, it could be all different kinds of things, but most of the time it's when you're just, you just don't feel that God is there anymore.

But remember, He always is.

He's omnipresent, He's with you all the time.

You are never, we are never alone, ever.

So how do we fight that good fight?

And how do we persevere and grow and depend more on Jesus?

Philippians 2 tells us, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you.

You're not earning your salvation, you're living out your salvation.

And like Pastor Kelly said this morning, we need to be in awe of God.

Have a time that you spend with just you and God.

And allow him to show you who he really is.

Allow him to speak to you.

Learn to hear his voice.

Our last one here is glorification, which is future salvation.

Philippians 3, 20 and 21 says, Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a savior from there.

The Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enabled him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they may be like his glorious body.

Glorification, the final stage.

It occurs when we as believers are fully free of sin's presence.

Fully free.

100%.

And we are resurrected and given a new body and a new name.

Woohoo! Fully free.

Fully free.

We are glorified when number one, at death.

At death.

The soul enters into the presence of the Lord.

2 Corinthians 5.8 said, Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

Or it's at the return of Christ.

Living believers will be transformed and caught up with Him.

First Thessalonians, I love this verse.

I can it's like you can almost feel it.

First Thessalonians 4, 16 and 17.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of a trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

And so we will always be with the Lord.

What we have to look forward to.

Amazing.

First John 3:2 said, Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is.

1 John 3:2

This is the completion of our salvation, the day when faith becomes sight and we are fully conformed into the image of Christ.

Walking out these three phases of salvation isn't just theological, it's deeply practical.

And here's how you can live out your salvation each and every day.

Trust in God alone for that justification, that point of salvation, that past.

Pursue daily holiness through the word of God and the Spirit's power.

Fix your hope on the coming glory in eternity and walk it out daily.

Philippians 3 14 said, I press on toward the goal for the price of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Let's walk faithfully, knowing that God is working in us, through us, and for us until we finally see Him in glory.

Some of you may have never taken that first step.

Some of you may have never asked the Lord to be the Lord and Savior of your life.

You may have never repented and confessed of your sin.

And I'm just gonna stop for a moment and just say a simple prayer.

And if you're a little uncomfortable with where you're sitting or whatever, you can you can whisper it softly, but I encourage you to just pray that prayer with me if you would.

So could we just bow our heads and pray?

Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner.

And I know that I am in desperate need of a savior.

I ask that you would forgive me of my sins, that you would nail them to the cross.

I thank you that you took them for me.

I confess you today as Lord, and I ask that you would follow and guide and live within me as I learn how to be your servant a child of the most high God.

Thank you, Jesus, for your love.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Kelly, do you have anything before you close before I close?

This week is full, check your calendars.

This week is full, check your calendars because I have something I want you to do for me.

Now I'm gonna be those of you who may have said that prayer for the first time, if you would touch base with Pastor Kelly, you could touch base with me, you could touch base with Pastor Aaron.

Just because it would be nice to have a little bit of information as to how to move forward.

Does that make sense?

Okay.

But what I'm gonna ask you to do, are we able, does it look like we're able to go there?

We're gonna try.

Okay.

What I want us to do is this is just my own thing, okay?

This has nothing to, I mean, it has something to do with it.

As we grow, how many of you know that kids are really loud?

Okay, how many of you love your kids though?

Okay, how many of you know that teens teens are really rowdy?

Okay, I actually wish I had all of them up here to be honest.

I had I wish I had all the teens and all the kids up here, that'd be awesome.

How many of you know that as we start to get older, we don't have fun like we did when we were kids?

How many of us know that when we get even older, sometimes we get a little grumpy?

And sometimes we don't like it when the kids make noise.

We don't like it when the teens are doing something, we don't like it when worship is this way or that way.

And please forgive me if I offend anybody, I'm not meaning to do that.

But we need to understand that when we walk out of this building, and I'm sharing this because I was a district director for a while, so I'm gonna cover you pastors in this one, let me tell you, because it's important.

Don't dare go to a restaurant and have your pastors for lunch.

Do you hear me?

When you leave, if we are growing and if we are being perfected in the faith, we are going to be uplifting.

Okay, if you have an issue, have a private conversation specifically with them if something's going on.

But what I want us to do is I think it's awesome when you go to a restaurant and someone is there with a group after church and they are just laughing and cutting it up, and people look over.

I don't know how many times they're like, What in the heck is going on here?

Our daughter had gone with a bunch of people to Pizza Ranch after service one Sunday.

And Herb and I were going to meet them later.

Actually, we said, You guys go, we won't even meet you.

And she had this gentleman come over from another church in town, and he comes over and he said, Is that your husband?

And she's like, No, I'm not even out of high school yet.

No, she was just in our first year of college.

She goes, No.

And he goes, So are you guys together?

And he said, No.

She goes, No, that we're just friends.

And he said, What about all the rest of the kids at your table?

And she said, No, we're just all friends.

He goes, Where did you come from?

Yeah, exactly.

She said, No, we we just came from church.

Well, where do you go to church at?

He couldn't believe that these young people were out having fun and enjoying themselves, and they actually just came from church.

When we walk out this door and we go into our homes, we go to restaurants, we go to wherever it is, we need to have Jesus seen in us.

Okay, if we're having a bad day and we want to talk, snack, stay at home.

But when we're out, we want to make sure that people see Jesus, that they see life in us.

My buzzword is joy.

If we can't live with joy, forget it.