All right, y'all. We didn't have the video this Sunday, and that's all right.
! It just throws everything off, and we're not going to be able to continue, all right?
now, it's my little 60 seconds of kind of mentally preparing to get up here and face all you people.
I'm kidding, y'all. It's all right. We're messing around. All right. We are going to continue our
series on Colossians today, so we're going to look at that, and so if you don't mind, just grab your
Bible. If you don't have one in front of you, grab a copy from the seat back or look on with someone
else. If you need to use the Bible app on your phone or tablet, that's fine as well, but just let's try
to get every set of eyes looking at the Word of God. Colossians chapter 1. We're going to continue
on where we left off. We covered verses 1 through 20 last Sunday. We're going to pick up in verse 21
today, and we're not going to get very far. We're going to get down to verse 23, all right? So we're
going to have some fun with these three verses, but let's dive in and see what Paul was trying to teach
this church in Colossae about Jesus. Before we get into the text, while some of you are still turning
there, there's a show from Australia that's represented on the screens right now. How many of you have ever
seen this? I think it's on Amazon Prime if you happen to have that. It's called Hunted. Anybody
ever seen this? I think they had a British version as well. I haven't seen that, but the Australian
version was highly entertaining. It's a reality show where regular people try to disappear for 21 days
while a team of elite investigators, professional investigators, tracks them down from a headquarters
using every tool possible, phone data, cameras, drones, bank transactions, everything, internet history,
all that, and they go back to before the 21 days even started. So they are unleashing all the power that
quote-unquote big brother government has and trying to track down these 21, I'm sorry, about, I think it's 10
people. I don't remember exactly how many people it is. However many people are on the screen there.
But they try to disappear for 21 days while this team of pros tries to track them down. It's very
entertaining. They'll go off the grid, they'll ditch their phones, hide in the bush, depend on their
network of people, friends to take them in and hide them out. But sooner or later, the hunters catch up.
Because the reality is, in our world today, it's really hard to disappear. Everything leaves a trace.
Every step, every move, every word is tracked in our society today. And I'm not trying to scare you,
it's just the reality of the digital age in which we live. So it's hard to go off grid,
and this show kind of proves that out. You can delete something from your phone, but it stays in
the cloud. Your internet leaves cookies. Has anybody ever seen this? I didn't put this in the script
today, but has anybody ever seen the humorous video where late at night a guy's doorbell rings
and somebody comes up, she knows what I'm talking about, somebody comes up and he says,
hey sir, I've got your cookies here. And he says, what? He said, no, I've got your cookies here. He's
got a little box of cookies. And he said, I didn't order any cookies. He said, yes, you accepted the
cookies. I said, what are you talking about? He said, well, every time you go on a website, it pops up
and says, do you accept these cookies? And you clicked okay every time. So he said, oh, okay, well, I guess
I'll take your cookies. So he said, I know it meant real cookies. So he hands him a box of cookies.
Then he looks back and says, all right guys, come on up. And truckload after truckload of cookies
pulls up. Awesome. I don't exactly know what cookies are, but I feel like they're tracking me and it
makes me nervous. Anyway, that's the world in which we live, right? Spiritually, Paul says the same
thing about us. We've all got a record. Everything we've thought, said, or done leaves a trace and it
goes on our permanent record. We can hide it. We can deny it. We can say we're reformed from it.
It's water under the bridge, but we cannot erase it. And it can always be held against us.
But there's good news. When Jesus saves us, he doesn't just cover our past. He erases it.
He does the impossible. In the eyes of God, it can't be tracked anymore. It's gone. Sin, hatefulness,
lust, selfishness, deceit, fear, all the fruits of the evil and wickedness that lies inside every one of
us in this room. And there's a lot of fruit in our lives of that kind of stuff, isn't there?
There's a lot of sin that has popped its way into our lives. When we look back from the time you were
a little kid all the way up to now, God wipes the slate, washes it with his blood. Not just what's in
the past, but what's in the future. So when God the Father looks at you, he sees his son's washed
blood, blood washing all your sins clean. That's why the sacrifice happened. We're jumping ahead a
little bit, but that's okay. I want to nail this point down that even though you'll remember what
you've done. Others might remember what you've done or who you are. When God the Father looks at you,
says, nope, that's my perfect child. Because it's not their righteousness that makes them perfect.
It's the righteousness of my son. The Bible word is imputed, not a word that you and I use most days.
But it's been transferred. It's been stamped onto ours. God's righteousness on our lives
blows my mind. How could God see his son's, Jesus's righteousness when he looks at my life?
That's what Jesus did for us. So he doesn't just press a button and clear our history.
He writes a whole new story. He rewrites our story. So that's what we're talking about today
when we dive into the rest of Colossians, or the next few verses of Colossians 1.
Is this thing going to work? Here we go. All right, if you'll take me to the, here we go.
Christ over all. That's our series through Colossians. That's kind of the theme of this entire letter
that Paul wrote to this church in Colossae so long ago from his house arrest. He was a prisoner of Rome
and he wrote this to this church as an edification or an uplifting encouragement to them, a reminder
to keep Christ at the center of it all, ruling over it all. Last Sunday, we looked at the first 20
verses of Colossians. We highlighted verse 17. He holds it all together, right? Who's in control,
church? Y'all didn't sound very convincing. Who's in control? Yes, he is. That's right. He is in
control. Who's holding it all together? Your relationships. Who's holding it together?
Your health. Who's holding it together? Say, man, he's not doing a very good job. He's doing it
exactly according to his will. And there's a reason behind it all. And we can trust, even when things
aren't perfect on this earth, we can trust he's got it all together. It hasn't surprised him. It hasn't
gotten out of his control. So we looked at Christ over the cosmos last Sunday. That should say week
two and I forgot to change it. That's all right. So in today, we're going to look at Christ over us.
Last Sunday, we kind of went broad with it. Christ over the ordered, created universe,
the cosmos. Yes, we believe God rules over everything. He created it. He rules over it.
He's restoring it. He's bringing order back to it. But he also rules over you and me,
Christ over us. So let's look at Colossians chapter one and verse 21. Once you were alienated from God,
alienated. That's a big word, isn't it? Relationship broken. That's what that means.
Considered you an illegal alien. That's a talking point in the news today, isn't it? What we're doing
about illegal immigrants or aliens. That's the language that God used here with us. He said,
you were the illegal immigrants. You were the illegal aliens. You were living in my world against
my laws. You had gotten here illegally, so to speak, and you were not in accordance with my laws.
I had every right to wipe you out. But instead, I made a different choice.
I sacrificed my son to restore the relationship, to make you legal. So once you were alienated from God
and you were enemies with God in your minds because of your evil behavior, you weren't all warm and fuzzy
about God. He was the other side. You couldn't meet his expectations. You couldn't obey his laws.
You were enemies. That's the reality of it. We like to look back. And I love what Gus said in his
baptism testimony last Sunday. He said, I never remember a time when I didn't believe in Jesus
because my parents taught me this. My dad would tuck me in every night and pray and read scriptures
with me. And that's wonderful. We do the same thing with our children. But until they come to that moment
of saving faith in Christ for themselves, not just because their parents taught it to them,
then the relationship between them and God is still broken.
And they're actually enemies. We were all enemies with God until we accepted Jesus' payment.
Then the payment that he made on the cross was then applied to us. See, I can go and I can take all
your bills and I can pay them. But until you accept it, it does no good for you because you can go down
and you can pay the same bills if you'd like. That'd be silly. But so often we try to do that with Jesus.
He went and paid our sin debt. But so many people say, nope, I don't believe it. I'm going to go pay it
myself. I'm going to die and suffer the penalty for all my law breaking for all time because I refuse
to accept the payment that Jesus already made. So we were actually enemies with God until that faith
in us was born. But now, verse 22, since you have placed your faith in Christ, now he has reconciled you,
relationship restored by Christ's physical body through his death to present you wholly in God's sight
without blemish and free from accusation. You can't be accused by anybody now because Jesus made things
right between you and God. Now there's no more accusation. The devil can't shake his fist at you
and say, yeah, but remember what you did. Remember what you said. Remember what you thought. Remember
what you wanted. That's who you really are. Anybody, the devil ever done that to them? Am I the only one?
Yeah, Sonia, you and me. Yep, right there. It's so true. You know what he is? A deceiver.
Remember, he's lying to you. He's trying to get you to believe that that's who you really are.
God's telling you, no, no, no, no. That's who you were. Now under my blood, with my new birth,
I've literally given birth to a new person in you. I'm creating this new person. God is making you
different. So don't believe the devil's lies. Remember all the time? Remember last week?
Remember last night? That's who you really are. Jesus is saying, no, no, no. I'm remolding you.
I'm training you in a new way. My spirit is in you and I'm molding you and changing you and training
you to become like me. That's the new you. So he says in verse 22, now he's reconciled you
through his death to present you holy in his sight, free from accusation without blemish. And if you
continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel,
this is the gospel that you have heard and has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven,
and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. So Paul's saying, this is what I've sold out to.
It's preaching this message. Paul was one of those people that just had to give it 110%,
whatever he was doing. Probably if he was, you know, playing fantasy football back then,
he would have been winning the championship every year because he'd just go all in.
Fantasy football is on my mind because I'm losing and the guys in this church are beating me right now
and it's driving me nuts. Y'all just lucky Paul ain't playing in our league, man.
Paul was just all in on whatever he did. So when he was before Christ, he was all in killing Christians.
He was all in as the strong arm of the government. He was their hatchet man. He was going out
trying to destroy this illegal religion. Then Jesus got a hold of him. And I'm sure in the darkness
of night, Satan would come back to him and say, there's no way you could change. There's no way
this is real. This isn't the real you. You know who you are. You're a wicked, evil, hateful man.
Paul's saying, God has made me new. And if he's made me new, he can make all of you new. And so he went
all in with this new identity. He's saying, this is what I'm about. I am a servant to this news,
this good news. We call it the gospel. So this is where we leave off.
Jesus redeems your past, reconciles your present, and reframes your future. That's the whole big idea
of this talk today. For the next few minutes, I want to show you from God's word how Jesus can redeem
your past like he did for Paul, like he did for me, like he has for so many in this room, how he can
reconcile you to your present and how he can reframe how you see your future. So let's look at it.
Number one, your past is who you were. Look back at verse 21. Once you were alienated from God
and you were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, sin doesn't just show up on your
record. It breaks the relationship. Sin doesn't just show up on your record. It breaks the relationship.
You can have a record with the government, right?
By the way, most of us have some sort of record. That's how they do background checks. When you go
and get fingerprinted for something and where you get background checks, there's some kind of record
and they'll see, is there any criminal history or activity on that record? Maybe some of you have
some, maybe some of you don't. Regardless, having a record with God is different than having a record
with the government. You might get arrested for, you know, I don't know, disturbing the peace or
something when you're in high school and you go out and do something dumb. And that stays on your record,
right? But that doesn't mean that the relationship between you and the government is broken for all
time. With God's laws, it's different. God expects perfection. He expects you to never break one
law of his. Good luck with that. I can't. I can't do it. Neither can you. We're all imperfect.
Why does he have such unrealistic expectations? Because that's who he is. He's perfect. He's saying,
if you want to be like me, if you want to have a relationship with me, if you want to live in my
world, perfection is the standard. Well, he knew we couldn't reach that. But that's the reality of who
we were. The relationship was broken. There was no path forward. And some of us, we've got to get
back to that in our minds. We've got to remember. Some of you, it's been too long and you've deceived
yourself into thinking, well, I wasn't really all that bad. I've always kind of been a good guy.
always kind of been a good girl. Yeah, nobody's perfect, but I've always been pretty good.
And when we start that kind of thinking, it undermines what Jesus actually did for us.
And it actually lessens how great and how good God is. Because you start to see yourself
as better than you are. The reality is everyone in this room, even the people we would look around
and say, oh man, he's such a good guy. Man, she is such a wonderful, sweet, kind lady. The truth is,
even those people are just as bad as any of the rest of us. It's true. Because we've all had a
relationship broken with God. None of us had any hope. We were all enemies, illegal aliens in God's eyes.
The same sacrifice had to happen for their sin as it did for yours. So never believe this idea
that anybody's better than you or that you're better than anybody else.
God sees us all as equally guilty and equally condemned in his eyes.
Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 1 down through verse 3 teaches us the same concept. You were dead
in transgressions and sins. You were following the ways of this world, not following the ways of God.
You were following everything that was counter to God. So sin doesn't just show up on your record. It
breaks your relationship. And your sins didn't make you bad. They made you broken. Do you understand
the difference there? Say, well, he's a bad person. Now, we're all bad. Why? Because bad is the opposite
of good. Only God is good. But that wasn't the problem. The problem was we were broken.
Sin. Sin breaks. Sin is bad. But what does it cause? It makes us broken. God made it perfect.
God made it whole. Sin broke it. Sin ruined it. And it's been doing it in all of our lives ever since.
Why are all the bad things happening in the world today? Why did that death happen in your family?
Why do bad things happen? Because sin breaks. Sin ruins. This world is experiencing century after
century of sin and brokenness. And it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse. We keep seeing
the results of it. And they show up and say, how do these things happen? Because sin breaks things.
And that's the problem. That's why we need a healer. That's why we need somebody to fix it. Because we
can't. So this is who we were. Our sins didn't just make us bad. They made us broken. But God doesn't
leave us there. He doesn't leave us there. Let's go to number two. Your present is who you are now.
Now I'm talking to everybody in the room that has placed their faith in Jesus Christ.
And I don't begin to think that everybody in this room has done that. You may consider yourself a good
person. You may believe in God. You're here in church this morning. That's great. That's a feather in
your cap. But a feather in your cap doesn't do anything for your eternal destiny with God.
You got to do it his way. You got to follow his commands. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. You got to find your truth in him. He alone can give you life. And you've got to follow
his way. What does that mean? His way says, if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord,
and you will believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved from your sins.
You've got to turn to him. Say, I'll place my faith in Jesus. So if you have done that in this room,
then I'm talking to you right now. And Paul's talking to you. This, the people in Colossae that had done
that. If you have not done that in this room, please come talk to me afterwards. I'm not going
to try to beat you over the head with the Bible. I'm not going to try to take up all your time.
I just want to show you what God's message to you, God's invitation to you to become a child of God.
So who we are now, verse 22. Now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death.
What does this word reconciled mean? It means being brought back together. You were cut off.
Now you're connected. You were cut off from God. Now you're connected to God. You have a connection.
You ever meet somebody and it just feels like you have a connection with them?
That's what you can have with God now. That's what you can have with the almighty,
the creator of the universe, the one who designed you. The relationship can be restored. You can have
a connection with God again. And so that's what he's saying. Now you are reconciled. You were guilty.
Now you're covered in grace. You've gone from guilty to grace covered. How amazing is that?
I was guilty. It wasn't that I was wrongfully accused. Oh no, we were rightfully accused.
We did all those things we were accused of. We did all those things other people have accused us of,
usually. And even if we didn't, there's more we've done that they didn't know about.
So my mom always said, any moms always say that to their kids? Well, I didn't do what you think I did.
Yeah, but you did a bunch of stuff I didn't know about. So just consider this correction for those
things, right? That's how I was raised. You didn't achieve reconciliation. You received it.
Okay. Ephesians chapter two and verse 13. It condemned us just a minute ago in Ephesians. And
now it says, now you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
When Jesus made that sacrifice, man, you Christians are always talking about blood. What is the deal
with this thing? You and blood, right? You got to trace it all the way back. It's sacrifice. Sin brings
death. Sin brings loss. Sin breaks. That was always the picture with death and sacrifices.
And then Jesus said, I'm the last one who has to bleed. I'm the last one who has to die. My death,
my sacrifice, the blood that I shed, that is enough now to cover all your sins. Y'all, I'm convinced.
And I'm not alone. Billy Graham. Anybody ever heard the name Billy Graham in here? Yeah,
I figured. All right. I'm in good company. Here we go. If you say something and you say,
Billy Graham said it too, it helps your cause a lot, right? Billy Graham believed that 90% of the
people who sit in American churches today don't have a real relationship with Jesus. Look it up.
Google it. I'm not making it up. Now, was he crazy? I don't think he was crazy.
So I'm convinced there are people in our churches and churches like ours today
who think they've got God figured out, but they don't have a real understanding
of who they were, what he did for them,
and what it means to have a real relationship with Jesus.
It's more transactional for them. It's a transaction. Well, I repented of my sins.
God gives me forgiveness, and now we're good. That's not how it works. God's there to make a new you.
The old you couldn't work. It had to go away. God has to make a new you. If he's not making a new you,
then you've got to look back, put yourself under the magnifying glass and say, am I really saved?
Am I really a child of God?
Because he's not changing me.
That doesn't mean he's going to change every little part of you at all the times that you want him to change it.
Well, God, give me more self-discipline.
God, make me a healthier person. God, make me a less angry person.
Well, some of that takes time.
But if you're not seeing fruit of the Spirit, then you've got to look back and say,
have I really put my faith in Jesus? Or is this a transaction between me and God?
So, Ephesians 2.13, you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
You've been far away, and he's brought you to be family.
That's why we call it the family of God.
Old Christian songwriter Bill Gaither wrote a song,
I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God.
I've been washed in his fountain, cleansed by his blood.
Now I'm a joint, Jesus isn't the only heir anymore.
Now I'm a joint heir with Jesus as we travel along this earth.
I'm part of the family, the family of God.
So you were far away, and now you're family.
Think back to those records we talked about at the beginning.
Those digital records.
As fast and far as those people try to run,
the hunters back at headquarters,
all they had to do was hit a few computer buttons,
and they could figure out where they were.
Well, it looks like he has a cousin in this part of Australia,
and it looks like we saw him on a closed circuit camera,
and they were hopping a bus for this area,
so we're pretty sure he's going to go visit this cousin,
try to stay there, so they'd show up at that house.
Boom, there they are.
There's a record everywhere.
Jesus doesn't just clear your history.
Jesus rewrites a whole new story.
Jesus recreates a whole new you.
That's how it had to be.
You or I were too flawed.
We were too broken.
We were born into the wrong family.
We were born into the family of sin.
God had to rebirth us.
That's why it's called a new birth.
That's why the Pharisees showed up to Jesus saying,
you're talking about being born again.
What does this mean?
Are we supposed to crawl back into our mom's wombs?
Jesus said, no, that's not it.
Don't do that.
That's not what it's about.
It's about spiritually rebirthing you,
and that's why when Satan comes to you and says,
I know who you really are,
say, no, no, no, that was the old me.
God killed it.
That one died on the cross with Jesus.
God's rebirthing me.
He made me a new person,
and now I'm growing up with Jesus,
and he's teaching me how to live.
He's teaching me how to talk like him.
He's teaching me how to walk like him.
He's teaching me how to act like him.
This is a whole process, Satan.
You wouldn't get it.
That's how we can respond,
because now we're family with God.
He brought us in.
So,
Jesus' blood pays it in full.
It's like Satan could print out
all of the sins that we've ever done,
and he could bring it to God's courtroom,
and he could say,
I remember the day when Delbert did this.
And Delbert says,
yep, I did it.
And God gets out his big old heavenly stamp
and said,
no problem.
Jesus paid that in full.
Carson Murphy
punched that guy that day.
We're all like,
Carson, what were you thinking, man?
Jesus said, paid in full.
Carson didn't punch anybody that I'm aware of.
I just wanted to pick on him for a minute,
because his face was looking at me.
Don't make eye contact.
I'm calling you next.
Whatever it is,
you fill in the blank with whatever really happened in your life.
Jesus paid it in full.
And you don't have to owe him anything.
Except your life.
But why wouldn't you give it to him?
Why wouldn't you give him control?
Why wouldn't you say,
God,
I know you prove that you love me.
You have my best interests at heart.
You're shaping me into a new person.
Show me how to do this.
Show me how to live this life.
And that's your future.
Your future is who you are becoming.
Verse 23,
if you continue in your faith,
established and firm.
That's what God's making us now.
Establishing us.
Giving us firm ground on which to walk.
Continuing in this faith that he birthed in you.
Salvation is not a one-time transaction.
It is a lifetime transformation.
God's relationship with you is not transactional.
You don't go to the God store
and trade your sin for his forgiveness.
That's not how it works.
God's transforming you into a new person.
So if he's not transforming you,
are you really a child of God?
That's what we have to ask ourselves.
And that's where James teaches us,
look, I'll show you my faith
with the works that God's doing in my life.
Nothing that I can do can earn God's forgiveness.
But once I've been forgiven,
transformation starts to happen.
And then the works show up.
Because God's spirit will not sit silently your whole life.
God's spirit will not just go sit in a corner
and be content to just watch you
live the rest of your life for yourself.
That's not how it works.
God's spirit will be active.
He wants to take over.
He wants to transform you,
turn you into a whole new person.
So when we listen to that voice
and we allow him to guide us,
then he transforms us into something else.
Philippians chapter one and verse six puts it this way.
He who began a good work in you
will carry it on to completion
until the day of Jesus Christ.
When the day of Jesus Christ,
when that comes back,
when Jesus comes back,
we get to go home to heaven.
It's wonderful.
We get to live forever.
Get our forever started with the father.
It'll be awesome.
But until then,
God's got a good work going in your life and in mine.
And he says,
I'm going to carry it on to completion.
I'm not going to do a halfway job.
I'm going to complete the work in you.
He didn't start your story to stop halfway through.
Second Corinthians puts it this way.
We all are being transformed into his image
with ever increasing glory,
which comes from the Lord.
We all are being transformed into his image
with ever increasing glory,
which comes from the Lord.
So the glory of your life
is not anything that you or I could accomplish.
The glory of your life is God's glory.
All the praise,
all the glory,
all the good things
that people pat you on the back for,
that all points back to Jesus.
Every exploit we read about in the Bible,
in the Bible,
all those wonderful stories
that we read about in the Old Testament,
all the wonderful things
that we read about in the New Testament,
it all points back to Jesus.
It all glorifies God.
Sometimes through sin,
sometimes through brokenness,
through being apart from God,
it brings it back to God and says,
God is so much better.
God can heal this.
God can redeem it.
God can transform it.
So faith is not a moment.
It's momentum.
This is an onward progress.
It's transformation.
It's not a transactional moment
where you said,
yep,
I got saved back then.
You are being saved.
That started an eternal process in you.
Guess what?
You keep sinning,
don't you?
I don't believe I'm the only one.
I think we all keep sinning.
So God keeps cleansing us.
It's an ongoing salvation.
Once for all time,
he died.
But his spirit's work
continues to work in us
until the day of Christ Jesus.
So there's momentum there.
Sometimes the momentum slows
when we stop listening
to the Holy Spirit.
And then it picks up the pace again.
When God's work in us
ramps up
and we see
seasons of fruitfulness
and transformation.
1 Thessalonians,
the last scripture we'll read today,
says this,
the one who calls you
is faithful
and he will what?
The one who calls you
is faithful
and he will what?
Have y'all ever heard
a black church before?
Anybody ever been
to a black church?
Yeah, we got a few.
All right, good.
I need y'all to kind of
be my loud voices here, okay?
The ones who've been there,
you've seen it.
They do it a little different here.
All right,
there's a thing
that they'll say often
in a black church
and it's this.
I'll say,
won't he do it?
And y'all say,
yes, he will.
Yeah, they knew.
They knew.
Won't he do it?
What is he gonna do?
Now, you can't take that
to say,
man, I need $100,000.
Won't he do it?
Yes, he will.
No, he may not.
But the one who calls you
is faithful
and he will complete
the work
that he started in you.
So to that,
we can say,
won't he do it?
Yes, he will.
That's what it's about.
God doing it in us.
The one who started your story
is the one
who's gonna finish it.
So,
Jesus.
Let's do it one more time.
Won't he do it?
Yes, he will.
All right, good.
Just gonna make sure
we're all on the same page there.
Jesus redeems your past,
reconciles your present,
and reframes your future.
You're not gonna be
the one doing it.
He's gonna be the one
doing it through you.
You're not the one
who has to make sense
of all the present.
He's gonna do it for you.
You leave it in his hands.
You're not the one
who has to go back
and try to make your past
better than it was.
He's redeemed it all.
He's not acting
like it didn't happen.
He's using it all
to show you
just how bad you were
and just how different
he can make you.
Just how new
of a creation
he can make you.
Won't he do it?
Yes, he will.
Let's pray.
God, you're over us.
You're over all,
but we're gonna zoom in
and we're gonna say
you're over us.
You're over me.
You're over every man,
woman, and child
sitting in this room.
And when you rule over us,
shame does not define us.
Sin cannot control us.
And failure can never finish us.
There is nothing on this earth
that is greater than you,
nothing on this earth
that is more powerful than you,
and nothing that can steal us
out of your hand.
You're holding it all together,
and that means us.
God, allow us to leave
our past,
our present,
and our future
fully in your control.
Submit to it.
Say, God,
not my will,
but yours be done.
put to death the old me.
With your death on the cross,
I embrace the new life
that you are making in me.
With our heads bowed
and our eyes closed
for just another moment or two,
I want to invite you
into a moment of prayer.
whatever this looks like
in your life,
whatever this looks like
in your life,
maybe many of you
have been walking with God
for many years,
and you just need a reminder
of what God's done for you
and what he wants to do
in the days you have left.
But maybe there's somebody
in the room who says,
today for the first time,
I need to place my faith
in Jesus for real.
Say, God,
I want you to save me.
I want to enter into
this kind of relationship
with you.
I understand
that I'm not good enough
and I need you.
And if that's you,
would you slip your hand up now
and I'd love to pray for you.
Thank you.
I always want to invite
the congregation
to respond to Jesus
and we all need to respond to him
however he sees fit
in this moment.
So I'm just going to let you
for a moment longer
pray,
have some quiet time
with God
while June plays
on the organ.
God, have your way
in our hearts.