Four Cups – God’s Promises

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason Burns and Access Church in Lakeland, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Today I'm excited to kick off a new series of messages for the next five weeks.

The series is called Four Cups.

And the series is based on two different things.

It's based on a book by Pastor Chris Hodges that profoundly impacted my life and really impacted our church.

But it's also based on an experience that I had about five years ago.

About five years ago, I had a dream trip.

It was a bucket list trip of mine to go spend 10 days in Israel with one of my heroes, a pastor or mentor in my life.

And we spent 10 days, and I'm telling you, the Bible comes alive for you when you go to Israel.

I know there's reason for concern to go now, but when some of that tension dies down, I'm begging you to put it on your list to go because the Bible will come alive for you when you see the places.

For example, this is a picture I took.

This is not stock photography.

This is the Sea of Galilee.

This is where Jesus and Peter walked on water.

So many cool miracles in the New Testament happened on the Sea of Galilee, and it was awesome.

So to see the places like where David fought Goliath just blew my mind.

Just to see the city of Jericho where the walls came tumbling down, just amazing.

And then I had a cool experience.

There's a place called the Jordan River where John the Baptist baptized Jesus and got to be baptized there in the Jordan River.

Now, this was an awesome experience and it was a profound moment for me, but but it was it was kind of a mixed moment for me, if I could just be honest.

We had a tour guide who was the person from Israel who took us everywhere.

And he was funny because we would go to places like this, and I would say to him, Oh, it's so amazing.

I got baptized in the same place as Jesus.

And he went, um, no.

It's like in the Bible.

He goes, No, no, it was probably several miles down the road.

And I'm like, why didn't we go there?

Like, what is wrong with you?

And he said, Well, you need to understand, there's just some places that we've chosen to celebrate it, but it wasn't exactly where we think it is.

And I'm like, Well, listen, I paid a lot of money.

Take me to the real spot.

Like, we go places to be like, this is where this moment in scripture happened.

And the tour guide was like, nah, I don't think so.

I'm like, what are you doing?

What are you doing to me?

So we had a lot of those moments, and just every time it just like crushed me a little bit more and more.

Uh, this moment redeemed it.

I got to ride a camel.

His name was Kojak, sent it to Liz.

She just needed to see.

But there were a few moments that on the trip where we experienced moments that we know it was the exact spot.

Like, like there's these stairs over by the western wall, and we know that Jesus himself walked on these exact stairs.

Beautiful.

We we got to go to a place called the Garden of Gethsemane.

One of the last days of our trip there, we spent time retracing the last days of Jesus.

So here's a picture of the Garden of Gethsemane, beautiful and serene.

It is surrounded by noise, but this place was peaceful and quiet.

This was the place where Jesus prayed that prayer.

The tension of the moment was so heavy on him that scripture says he began to sweat drops of blood.

We know that's an actual medical condition where the capillaries in your skull begin to burst under the pressure.

And he prays and he says, God, I don't want this.

Take it from me, if you will.

But if not, not my will, but your will be done.

And we trace the feet of Jesus, the steps of Jesus, from this place to the place where he was arrested, to the place where he was tried, to the place where he was crucified, to the place where his body was buried.

And we got to go to all these places, and then there, at the garden tomb, we got to do something beautiful together.

This place where we believed that Jesus' body was laid, but he didn't stay there, he rose again from the dead, and we had communion.

I love communion.

I want you to think for a moment.

What do you think about when you think of communion?

Depending on your faith journey, you might have a different experience than the person next to you.

In my experience, communion, you take some bread and some wine or some juice, and you take the bread, you break it, you eat it, you take the juice and you drink it, and you remember Jesus' body that was broken and his blood that was spilled for you.

That's communion.

And so we do communion, and we're at this beautiful garden tomb, and I'm like, oh, what could be better than this?

What could be better than doing communion in the place where Jesus rose from the dead?

And the Torah guy leaned over to me and said, doing communion the right way.

It's like, hold up, what?

He goes, This isn't how we as Jews would do it.

In fact, we wouldn't have one cup, we would actually have four cups.

The four cups are four things that are connected to the promises of God in our life.

What I want to do for these next four or five weeks that we have together is I want to spend time looking at each one of those cups because each one is inextricably tied to a promise of God for you and me.

And here's what I know it can change everything for us.

Yesterday I did something honestly really dumb.

I made this decision that I needed to clean out my closet.

Has anyone ever done this?

It is one of the most painful, excruciating moments in your life because you pick up clothes that at one point you spent your hard-earned money on, and I'm just like, why did I buy this?

Like, I never liked this.

I have shirts that have tags on it that I paid money for that I have never worn before.

It makes no sense to me.

I have shirts that have large stains on them, and I haven't thrown them away because I remember the meal I was eating when the stain happened.

Okay.

So I'm going through and it's painful to throw away clothes because we get emotionally attached.

And as I'm going through, I found another mistake in my life that I'd like to show you.

This is an old shirt.

Um I'm not sure that it was ever in style or ever in fashion.

I bought it, it feels like American Eagle circa 1900s, honestly.

It's like brown, but it's got a palm tree on it.

It's hard to see.

And I bought this and wore it one time, and then I washed it, and then it didn't fit anymore.

Now, anybody want to be real for a moment?

Does anybody have a goal shirt?

Come on, this isn't a shirt that fits you, but it might someday.

Anybody have this?

Only a few of us men.

Women don't have these.

Um, just the men, we have these shirts, and we think to ourselves if I can just slim down a little, if I can just drop a few LBs, this will fit, I will look good, I will feel good, and I will wear this shirt.

The problem is, I got this shirt probably 25 years ago.

I have moved four or five times.

Fashion has completely left this in the dust, and it is said we will never circle back to this, but I've moved with it because I thought to myself, someday it'll fit again.

I I wonder if this feels maybe like how some of us might describe our faith.

What fit when we were young doesn't seem to fit anymore.

What used to be cool or good or felt good in our heart is it doesn't really feel the same anymore.

We've had some life experiences since that moment that we prayed in that Sunday school class with that teacher, but but life's just been different and hard, and it just didn't make a lot of sense to us, and so we've carried this from season to season of our life.

And I want to speak to those of you who are here today who think, man, my faith just doesn't really seem to fit the way I expect it to fit.

Yeah, I really believe that in each and every one of us there is this question that all of us are gonna have to come to terms with someday.

And the question is this is it possible that there's more?

Like here's what I believe.

I believe that there is more for every person in this room, every person joining us at church, every person out there, there is more because there has to be.

In fact, we've literally rallied our whole church around this idea that every single person has a next step to take in their relationship with God.

If you've been a Christian for 50 or 60 years, you can take a step closer to God.

If you're here and you're not even a follower of Jesus yet, and you've just got questions, and there's some stuff that you wrestle with that doesn't make sense to you, there's a step that you can take closer to Jesus.

So this whole series is dedicated to helping all of us experience the more that God has for us.

Now, how do we get it?

How do we take hold of the more that God has for us?

And I want to give you a really simple way to understand this.

It's by paying attention to the promises of God.

According to biblical scholars, there's over 7,400 promises of God from the beginning to the end of the Bible.

Look what 2 Peter chapter 1 says.

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

Peter says, He, God, has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may experience two things.

The first is that you may participate in the divine nature, and number two, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

So two things happen when we understand and take hold of the promises of God.

The first thing is that we get to encounter and experience God's best for us.

If I were to just ask a simple question, how many of you would love to live God's best?

It better be 100%.

Because who wouldn't want to walk in the blessing and the provision and all that God has for you?

All of us would.

The second promise connected to the promises of God is we get to escape the corruption of the world around us.

Let me just put it as simply as I can.

How amazing would just the next three to four months be if you weren't bothered by what's happening socially, if you weren't bothered by what's happening politically?

How amazing would the end of this year be if through the nasty election cycle that's coming, the words spoken by the candidates didn't affect you, the vitriol spit out by people on social media didn't affect you?

How amazing would it be if the darkness in the world around you didn't feel like it was closing in on you?

Like you can experience that when you take hold of the promises of God.

Well, what is a promise?

It's really simple.

A promise is an offer with a guaranteed result.

And if any of us struggle with the promises of God, I'll be real with you.

I understand it.

Why?

Well, two reasons.

Number one, because people make promises and people let us down.

Come on, let's be real.

You had someone you loved and trusted let you down.

Many of you have walked through difficult betrayals.

People that promised to have your back and they stabbed you in the back.

We've had people that we've committed our lives to for better or worse, for richer or poorer in sickness and in health, and they cut and run as soon as things got hard.

People hurt us, people break their promises, but I need you to understand something about God.

He never breaks his promises.

One of the things I love about the Bible is how honest it is.

And there are moments in scripture where people held on to the promise of God, even when it seemed like God was going to fail and not come through.

But what you discover as you read scripture is when you zoom out, God gives his word and he always keeps his word.

The etymology of the word promise literally means an offer with a guaranteed result in the future.

That the God of tomorrow exists today.

And if he gives his word to you today, he's good for it tomorrow.

I want you to see this.

If we're going to be people who take hold of the promises of God, there's a couple things that I need everyone in this room to do.

The first thing is this: I need you to, number one, I need you to know the promises of God.

This is very important.

I need you to know the promises of God.

In the book of Hebrews, it says this Hebrews chapter 6.

Hebrews 6 · chapter mention

It says, When God wanted to guarantee his promises, he gave his word, a rock solid guarantee.

And I want you to see this.

God can't break his word.

That's an important word.

In theology, we call this the immutability of God.

Immutability means God can't change.

Not that he won't change, it's that God can't change.

Why does this matter?

Well, if God could change, he could get better.

But he's already the best.

Conversely, if God could change, he could also get worse, but he can't change.

He will not change.

He is who he is.

And then the verse goes on, and because his word cannot change, the promise is likewise unchangeable.

So when it comes to the promises of God, here's what you need to understand.

When life doesn't make sense, when life isn't going the way you expected it to go when the bottom fell out, you hold on to the promises of God.

First thing you need to understand about the promises of God is to take hold of them and to live them.

We have to, number one, we have to know the promises of God.

We've got to know God's promises.

Now, how do you know God's promises?

It's really simple.

You spend time in his word.

I read a stat this morning that blew my mind.

It said, 39% of American Christians, only 39% of American Christians read the Bible for themselves at least two times a year.

How can you take hold of the promises of God if you don't know the promises of God?

Like as you read through scripture, there's a promise for every circumstance and every season of your life.

Let me give you examples out of the 7,400 plus of them.

If you're struggling with fear, you need to see David in Psalm 27 says, The Lord is my light and my salvation.

Whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?

If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed by the circumstances of life, 1 John 4, 4 is for you, the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

If you find yourself in a time of financial stress and it feels like so many people are, Philippians 4.19 is a promise for you, and my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.

If you're sick in your body and you need healing, 1 Peter 2.24 says he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness.

And then here's the line: it's by his wounds that you have been healed.

Past tense, it's already been purchased for you.

The healing is yours.

This last one is not a promise of God, but it's one that I hold near to my heart.

If you're like me and you hate running so much, Proverbs 28:1 says, the wicked run.

Proverbs 28:1

That's all you need to know.

That's all you need to know about it, right?

Like, you can't take hold of the promises of God, you ready, if you don't know the promises of God.

So many people take little colloquialisms, things grandma said, and we make them into the promises of God.

People will say things like, Well, God promised to never give me more than I can bear.

That's not in the Bible.

That the Bible actually says that there will be moments when you are under more than you can bear in your own strength, and that's the beauty, is that God steps in in those moments, and you don't have to do it in your own strength, you get to do it in his strength.

There's other promises of God that people hold on to, like, with great power comes great responsibility.

That's Spider-Man.

That's not in the Bible, okay?

Like we gotta know the promises of God.

You gotta know them.

Some years ago, I was doing premarital counseling for this couple, and I said to them, I said, What is your plan for growing in your relationship with God?

And the girl goes, Whatever you teach us.

And I said, How dangerous is that?

Like, you need to know the word of God and don't just take my word for it, but go to your Bible, spend time in the word to know it.

Number two is you can't just know it.

It's number two is I need to understand God's promises.

I need to take hold of them for me.

The the book of Numbers, this is all the way back towards the beginning of the Bible.

Moses says this God is not a man, so he does not lie.

He is not human, so he does not change his mind.

Has he ever spoken and failed to act?

Has he ever promised and not carried it through?

The Bible is full of stories of people who thought those last two lines weren't true.

That God had promised, but he wouldn't come through, and he always does.

But here's what I want you to understand.

Every promise in the Bible has a premise.

Let me explain it to you like this.

There are no premises on God's part.

God's love and his promises are unconditional.

If God gives his word, he will come through.

But there is a premise for us.

What are the premises?

Number one, that we that we reach these promises by faith.

That we take hold of the promises of God by having faith and trust in God.

The second premise is that we stay right with God.

God's promises are for his family.

We stay right with God and we act in faith, and God will always come through on his promises.

All of that today was set up for where we're going to go over the next four weeks.

Over the next four weeks, I want to take you back all the way to the Old Testament, to the book of Exodus, the second book in the Bible.

And in Exodus, we're gonna read four of God's promises.

And these aren't just any four promises, these are what I would call God's core promises.

All the promises circle around these four things, and here's what I want you to understand.

We literally believe these so much that as a church, we've built our whole church around these four promises of God.

You can find these four promises of God at the beginning of the Bible, the middle of the Bible, you can find them in the four gospels, you can find Jesus talking about these things, you can find these in the book of Acts, all the way till the end, the book of Revelation, you can find these four central promises of God.

You need to understand what's happening when God gives these promises.

God tells these to a man named Moses, and he says, Moses, these words are for the people of Israel.

They were in captivity, held as slaves in the nation of Egypt.

Pharaoh was their ruler, Pharaoh was their leader, and whatever he said they had to do.

I'll tease that out more next week.

But to these people who for generation after generation after generation had been held in slavery and captivity, these are the words God says.

And here's what I want you to understand before I read them.

These are what scholars call perpetual promises.

What that means is they're promises for those people, and they're promises for you and me today.

Exodus chapter 6, verse 6.

Exodus 6:6

These are what Jewish people would call the four I wills.

God says, Therefore, say to the Israelites, I am the Lord.

Quick history lesson.

Anytime you see the word Lord in the Old Testament, all capitals, this was them transliterating a word that they felt was so strong and so beautiful and so powerful for God that they wouldn't even say it.

It was the word that we translate, Yahweh.

Now we say it like that, but literally the way you would have actually spelt it is Y-H, W, or V H.

Yo, he Ba He.

This word for God was so beautiful that they believed that it was tied even to your breath that when you breathe, it was connected to your breath.

That was the picture of God that they had.

He said, Say to the Israelites, I am the Lord, the God so intimately close to you.

And here's the first of the four I wills.

And I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

Yoke is a word we don't use very often.

Yoke, here's a picture of one.

A yoke was this tool, this instrument put on oxen or on horses to cause them to work harder together.

It was like a punishment almost.

It almost is like an extra weight that they would carry.

And God says, I'm going to bring you out.

And then it's like it's like God feels redundant because the next line says, I'm going to bring you out, and then the second I will is, and I will free you.

God's like, I'm going to bring you out, and then I'm going to free you.

How does that make sense?

I'll free you from being slaves to them.

And number three, I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.

And then number four, I will take you as my own people, and I will be your plural, your God.

Then I want you to see what he says.

He says, then.

Like when you've taken a hold of these first four promises of God, then you will know that I am the Lord your God who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

It's like you'll never really encounter and experience God as who he actually is until you've taken a hold of these four promises of God.

Now I want you to get this.

It's such a big deal that as a church, we've literally oriented everything we do around these four principles.

The first I will is God says to the people of Israel, I will bring you out.

And every one of the I wills is connected to a promise from God.

And it's this God promises us salvation.

I want you to understand this.

God is in the people saving business.

God's desire is that no matter how far you feel from Him, He wants to save you, to get you out of the slavery that you might feel to sin and shame and guilt and condemnation.

Titus chapter 3 is this beautiful verse.

Titus 3 · chapter mention

It really is one of the most beautiful pictures of what this salvation looks like.

He says, at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures.

We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.

That's what sin will do to you.

He says, but when the kindness and love of God, our Savior, appeared, He saved us.

Not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy.

He saved us through the washing of rebirth and the renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior.

He goes on to say, so that having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs, having the hope of eternal life.

This is a trustworthy saying, and I want you to stress all these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good.

These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.

Here's what he says.

At one point in our lives we were trapped, enslaved to our sin.

But because of God's love and his mercy, he said, I will save you.

First thing God wants to do is he wants to save us, he wants to give us salvation.

The second I will that he promises, he says, I will free you.

Now this is weird, isn't it?

God's like, I'm gonna get you out of slavery and then I'm gonna free you.

Like, how does this how does this make sense?

It feels redundant.

Like God's like, I'm gonna save you, then I'm gonna save you one more time.

And here's what you need to understand.

God was talking to the people of Israel, and he says, I'm gonna get you out of Pharaoh's oppressive hand of slavery, and then when I get you out of there, there's gonna be a time when if you're not careful, you will still feel enslaved in your heart.

I'm gonna get you out of Egypt, but I wanna get the Egypt all up out of you.

Like I'm gonna get you out of Egypt, I'm gonna get you out of that problem, then I'm gonna save you.

Now, here's where a lot of Christians get all tripped up.

They think that I've got to do this backwards.

I gotta get rid of all of my issues, and then I can come to God and God can save me.

That's not how God works.

God says, you just come to me and I'll save you, and then I'll help to work you through the issues that have enslaved your heart.

He says, I will free you, and the promise of God is that he promises us deliverance.

The problem is this word is a weird word for us.

The word deliverance for us, we have this picture of like an exorcism and a priest with a cross.

We just have this weird picture of what this is.

He's like, I want to get you free from your issues.

I want you to find freedom from the things that hold you back.

You just come to me and I'll save you.

But after I've saved you, then I want to help you work through the issues that hold you back.

And if you're like, I feel guilty about that, like that doesn't make sense to me.

In the book of Romans, Paul, who wrote like half of the New Testament, here's what he says: Romans 7, 25 through 8, verse 2.

So then, I myself, in my mind, am a slave to God's law.

Like my mind is all for God and the things of God, but in the sinful nature, I am a slave to the law of sin.

He's like, my mind wants to do everything right, but like my body and my heart don't always act the way that my mind wants it to work.

Can we be real for a moment?

Have you ever experienced that?

Have you ever said to God, God, if you'll just help me through this situation, I promise that I'll never do this again.

And then comes Monday and you do it again, and come Tuesday and you feel it again and again and again.

Paul's saying, I identify with that because I've been there, and then he says this, therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

It's not till I came to Jesus and brought my issues to Jesus that I was able to get free from my issues.

One of the things we want for you as a church is we want God to save you and we want him to change you, and the way we work out our issues is a really important thing that we do here because we don't want you entrapped and enslaved to sin.

We want you to find freedom.

The third promise, the third I will of God is I will redeem you.

Now we don't use the word redeem very often, but when we do, it's like a coupon, like I'm gonna give you something and you'll give me a dollar off.

That's that's not what this word redeem means.

This word redeem says that God's promise to you is that He's going to restore your heart to the way it was before the offense or the sin or the hurt or the pain happened.

God's like, you have a purpose for your life, and to take hold of that purpose, I've got to set your heart free from the things that have enslaved it, and I want to return it to the way it was before that happened.

In the book of Ephesians, Paul, who we just read, he says this it's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for.

It's not in your job, it's not in your success, it's not in who you vote for, it's not in who you're married to.

It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we're living for.

He says, long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us.

He had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and in every one.

God has a plan for you.

And here's what I know.

Statistically, 80 plus percent of Christians won't ever get to this step.

We'll find ourselves just so in the habit, in the cycles of sin over and over and over.

But God's like, I'm gonna save you, then I'm gonna free you so that I can restore your heart to the way it was intended to be.

And here's the purpose.

When that happens, you make your way to the fourth I will, and this is my goal as your pastor.

Listen, there's lots of great churches, there's lots of great programs, there's lots of great things to help you get closer to God.

This is what I believe God's goal for you is.

God says the fourth I will is I will take you as my own people.

All the first three promises are for you, the individual.

The last promise you is you plural.

God's like, I'm gonna take all of you, all my believers, all who follow me, and I'm gonna take you as my own, not person, but people.

Can I tell you this?

God's final promise to you is fulfillment.

God wants you to live a life that makes a difference and that it's felt for generations to come.

One of the great tragedies of our culture, in my opinion, is everything's about you.

You do you.

It's all self-help, you get better, it's all live your truth.

And all of that is the antithesis of the way of God.

The way of God is all about others, it's about taking the focus off of you.

So, one of our goals as a church is to help every believer feel fulfilled.

How do you do this?

When you discover why God made you, you receive his gift of salvation, he's freed you from your issues, and then you understand your unique purpose, your redemptive purpose, and it is to serve other people.

I'll say it to you like this as your pastor.

Every single person in this world ekes out an existence, but you don't have to live that way.

While most people go to bed and at the end of the day say, Well, that's another day.

You can go to bed every night and say, No, that's how you live a life.

That's how you live a life that makes a difference.

That's how you live a life on purpose.

Look at Jesus' words in John chapter 10.

John 10 · chapter mention

He said, The thief of your soul, Satan himself, comes only to do three things to steal and kill and destroy.

He wants to steal your hope, kill your dreams, and destroy your destiny.

And Jesus says, Okay, but look, I have come that they might have life and have it to the full.

Full meaning you're making a difference with your life, and generations will feel it because God has changed you.

Now, I said this earlier and I want to say it again.

We believe this so much as a church that we have literally oriented our whole church around four things.

We we only do four things as a church.

Some churches are like we have 100 ministries, and that's cool.

We got four.

Like we do four things.

And the goal of those four things, I'll talk about this over the next month.

But the goal of these four things is found in what we just talked about.

It's in the four cups and the four promises of God.

We want every person we encounter to know God, to know him a little better.

My goal as your pastor is every Sunday you come, you leave, having known and experienced God just a little bit more.

We want you to find freedom from your issues.

Everybody's got a yesterday.

Everybody's got things they wish they could undo, but here's what I know: God wants you to not be stuck or to trip over your past.

He wants you to find freedom so that you can discover why he made you, for your heart to return back to the way it was intended to be, so that you can make a difference with your life.

This has always been God's plan.

From the beginning of the Bible to the book of Revelation at the end, it's always been his plan.

And as a church and as your pastor, my goal is to help you drink from all four cups.

My goal for you is that God will save you, that he'll set you free, that he'll restore your heart so that you can walk in fulfillment and your life can make a difference.

I asked the question to start, and I want to ask it again.

Is there more to your relationship with God?

And the answer is a resounding yes.

I'm gonna ask you to join me over the next month, and let's go slowly through these four cups and let's discover why God made you and how he made you, how he restores your heart, how you find freedom from your yesterdays, ultimately so that we can get everyone in this place across the finish line of making a difference for others.

Will you bow your head and close your eyes all across this place in North Lakeland?

I'm gonna ask you to join me as well.

Here's what I want you to do.

I want you to ask yourself this question have you taken the first step?

You see, I believe that this picture that we talked about today is the beginning of a spiritual journey that God wants to take you on.

But you'll never take the second, third, or fourth step until you take the first step.

Maybe you came today because a friend invited you and a friend brought you, but you don't really know why you're here.

God knows why you're here.

If you came today and you don't know if you're right with God, maybe that means you've never started a relationship with God.

Maybe you feel like you did when you were little, but you just feel like you've walked away from it.

I want to give you a moment to start the first step.

I want to invite you to drink from the first cup, the cup of salvation.

If this is you and you say, Jason, I don't know if I'm right with God, but today I want to.

I want to make things right, whether you're here or in North Lakeland or anywhere you're joining us today.

If this is you, and you say, Jason, I want to start or restart a relationship with God, would you raise your hand right now?

If this is for you, thanks.

Thanks.

Wow, thanks.

Thanks.

Thanks.

This moment's just for you, but if this is you, would you pray this with me?

Say, Jesus, today I give you my life.

I invite you to save me.

Jesus, I believe your word is true, that there's nothing I can do in my own strength to save myself.

But the reason you came was to live your life and to give your life for me.

Jesus, I believe when you died on the cross and then rose again, you paid the price for my sins.

And because you rose again, I believe you have power to forgive.

So would you do that in me?

Jesus, from this day I make the decision to follow you.

I love you, I give you my life for the rest of my life.

And it's in your name we pray, Jesus.

Amen.

Church, family, everywhere.

Would you look up at me?

We just had a lot of people pray to make that decision.

Come on, somebody.