Welcome to the Valley Baptist Church sermon podcast.
We're so glad you're here, and we hope this message inspires you,
builds your faith, and moves you toward a deep relationship with God.
Today, you'll find great insight into the Bible
and learn how you can apply it straight to your life.
So welcome and enjoy the message.
If you have your Bible, please open it with me to 1 Thessalonians
and the message I'm calling Our Pride and Joy.
Amen.
1 Thessalonians is a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to a young church in Thessalonica.
Just a few months earlier, Paul, Silas, and Timothy had gone to Thessalonica
and shared the gospel within the good news of Jesus,
and many of the God-fearing Greeks believed.
Well, that upset the Jews of the city, and they caused quite a stink.
And so they stirred up the crowd, they went to the city officials,
and they ended up kicking Paul and Silas and Timothy out of the city.
Okay.
Now, several months later, the Apostle Paul finds himself writing a letter to them in order to encourage them in their faith
and to answer a few questions they had about the second coming of the Lord
and about what happens to Christians if they die before the Lord returns.
And I have to tell you, I've come to absolutely love this book.
In seminary, it was the first book that I ever translated directly from the Greek, and
I fell in love back then, but as we study now, my love only grows.
In chapter 2, we see the heart of the Apostle Paul.
I mean, he just bears his heart open.
He exposes it for all of us to see and for all of us to learn from.
He started out chapter 2 by saying, we didn't come to you in vain.
We came to you with the truth.
And he said, I shared with you not only the gospel, but we shared our very own lives.
He said, I was like a nursing mother to you.
I was like an encouraging father to you.
And we came to you. Why?
So you would walk worthy of God.
Now, we pick up the rest of chapter 2 in verse number 13.
He says,
In chapter 1, we saw that Paul thanked God that the Thessalonians had a great work of faith,
a labor of love, an endurance of hope.
He thanked God that they were the real deal.
And here in verse number 13, he jumps back to Thanksgiving again.
He says, I'm also thankful that when we preached to you the good news of Jesus,
you didn't hear it and receive it as the words of mere men.
You received it as the word of God.
So here's our principle. Christians, we welcome the gospel into our lives as the very word of God, because that's what it is.
In fact, that's how the Christian life begins.
It begins by someone hearing the word God speaking
to a person, a person listening,
and then a person receiving by faith.
Now, what exactly did the apostle Paul
and his team originally preach to the Thessalonians?
Well, we find that in Acts chapter 17.
If you read the account, what they preached was the gospel.
And the word gospel simply means good news.
But before anyone can understand the good news of the Bible,
you've got to come to grips with the bad news that's shared.
And the bad news is that we're all in trouble.
without Jesus. Because the Bible teaches that God is holy and He's just and He's always right and He
hates evil. He hates wickedness. He cannot tolerate sin within His presence. Well, that creates quite
a problem for all of us because the Bible also says in Romans chapter 3 verse 23,
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
All of us have sinned.
Romans 6.23 says,
For the wages of that sin is death."
But the gift of God is eternal life
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now, the wages of sin is death part, that's the bad news.
The gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord, that's the good news,
that part, that's the gospel.
That God sent his only begotten son into this world, why?
Because he loves us.
And that Jesus, his son, lived the perfect life
that is required in order to get to heaven.
Then he died a gruesome death upon the cross,
the death that all of us deserve to die because of our sin.
And on the third day he rose.
That's the gospel.
Now the gospel must be received.
And that is that God offers us grace through a great transaction that takes place when we believe.
And here's the transaction.
All of our sin, all of our failures in our life is placed upon Jesus on the cross.
He who knew no sin, the Bible says, became sin for us.
It's placed upon him in his perfect life that he actually lived on the earth.
His righteousness is now placed on us.
to make us right with God, to make us be forgiven.
Now, this part's important.
Only people who receive Jesus as their Savior,
only those who receive and believe what he did upon the cross for their sins
will experience that great transaction.
Only those who believe in Christ are going to experience grace.
and be given eternal life.
So Paul says, we came to you.
We came to you sharing and proclaiming the gospel.
And when you listened to it,
you heard it not as the words of mere men,
but the words of God.
Let me ask you, whenever you hear the good news of Jesus, whenever you hear God's word read or God's word proclaimed or whenever you read it for yourself, do you receive it as a message from God to you?
Because that's what it is.
It's a message from Almighty, the creator of the heavens and the earth,
and he's speaking to us through his word.
Now, not everyone receives it as a message from God.
In fact, most people don't.
Look at Hebrews 4, verse 2.
It says,
For indeed, the gospel was preached to us as well as to them.
But the word which they heard did not profit them,
not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.
So what he's saying is not everyone who hears really hears.
Some people, the Bible says, have become dull of hearing.
Now that's not talking about them being physically deaf.
It's talking about them being spiritually deaf.
They hear the word of God, but they don't really hear it.
Occasionally, Kelsey will ask me a question of some kind
while I'm watching an Oklahoma football game.
I try to tell her this is not the best time to ask me a question.
But something simple like, do you care if the girls go to a friend's house this evening or something?
And later I'll be like, where are the girls?
And she's like, don't you remember our conversation that we had?
I said, no, this is the very first time I've heard about it.
She said, no, I asked you.
You said you didn't care.
We had a conversation about it.
And I'm like, I did?
Husbands, guys, we have the ability to do this.
I don't know how, but what is happening there
is I am operating and even responding on autopilot.
hearing her, but not really hearing her. Paul says, I thank God that when you heard the good
news of Jesus, you really heard it. You really listened as if God was giving you a message from
him because he was. Now he uses the word here, welcome, which is a beautiful word. They welcomed
it into their lives with humility. They embraced it.
And that's what all of us must do when we encounter what God has to say to us in his word.
We, in humility, need to respond and embrace it.
The Bible teaches that some people have a heart of stone while other people have a heart of flesh.
Some one of pride and others one of humility.
Now, the word of God, the good news of Jesus, it bounces off the person who has a heart of stone.
It's like it's in one ear, out the other,
but the person with a heart of flesh, they receive it.
They embrace it, it soaks into their life.
If you were to take a pitcher of water
and you were to pour some water over a stone on the ground,
a rock of some kind, that water would splash off the stone.
It would splatter everywhere, probably making a mess.
But if you take that same exact water
and you pour it over a large sponge, oh, now,
The sponge soaks it in.
It's absorbed.
It's taken in.
It's received.
All of us need hearts like the sponge.
When God is pouring into our life that we don't reject it, but we receive all of his love and his blessing.
We receive his truth, the truth of his word.
Why?
Because God's word is powerful.
It is powerful.
Paul says here, the word that you welcomed, he says it effectively works in you who believe.
Energia in Greek.
We get our word energy.
It energizes you spiritually.
You know, one of the great truths of the Bible.
is that it works.
Did you know that?
I mean, God's word really works.
That's why those of us who are Christians,
we can't hardly get enough of it.
Give me some more of that
because it's transforming the inside of me,
not just the outward behavior,
but it's actually affecting my attitude
and my desires and my wants.
It's giving me joy and peace
and all these wonderful blessings
because God does something in us
when we receive it.
See, the Word of God is not just some collection of words on a page.
No, it's alive and it's active.
And as we hear it, the Holy Spirit, who's the author of it, accompanies it.
He accompanies it and he brings it to life in those who believe.
Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12 says,
For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the division of the soul and the spirit, and of joints and marrow,
and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart.
The word of God is so very powerful to transform our lives from the inside out.
Verse number 14, Paul continues, he says,
For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God, which are in Judea in Christ Jesus.
For you also suffer the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans,
who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and persecuted us, and they did not please God,
and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles, that's the non-Jews,
that they may be saved.
So as also to fill up the measure or the cup of their sins,
but wrath has come upon them to the uttermost.
See, for the Thessalonians, they were suffering,
and they were suffering at the hands of their own fellow countrymen, the Thessalonians.
And Paul says, you're just like those who are in Jerusalem and those Judean churches,
because they also suffered at the hands of their own countrymen.
the Jews. And then he says the Jews who killed Jesus and the prophets and have forbid us to
share the good news of Jesus with the Gentiles. You see, Jews didn't want Gentiles to be saved.
I think that's actually one of the reasons they hardened their heart to the good news of the
gospel, because they didn't want it for everyone else. They want it for themselves. Now,
Some have accused the Apostle Paul of being anti-Semitic here.
We've got to remember that Paul is a Jew.
In other places, he said, I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews.
I'm like the poster child of being a Jew.
He loved deeply his fellow Jews.
He wanted them to come to faith in Jesus.
So Paul's not being a racist towards his own race.
He's just trying to be historical here.
It's what happened.
We know that Jesus was killed at the hands of the Jews,
and then the Judean church was persecuted at the hands of the Jews.
Now, we know that the Romans certainly were also responsible,
and ultimately all of us were, as it's our sin that nailed Jesus to the cross.
But Paul says you're experiencing what the Jerusalem churches experienced,
and I think he means this as encouragement.
He says, you're just like them.
You must be doing something right.
Look at 2 Timothy 3, verse 12.
He says, yes, in all who desire to live godly in Christ, Jesus will suffer persecution.
Here's our principle.
Christians should expect persecution.
Now, persecution takes on many different forms.
For most of church history, all throughout the world,
the persecution of Christians has often been violent.
And there are many pockets in the world today
that it is violent even now.
But in the United States, we have been blessed
with the freedom of religion.
And for the most part, we've escaped
violent persecution, but we face other forms from time to time, most often in the form of ridicule.
It's interesting to me that
how upset some people get when you just try to live a good, wholesome life, a holy, pure life.
You know, if you don't cuss, if you don't drink, if you don't sleep around, if you don't tell dirty jokes,
if you don't want to listen to dirty jokes, people around you can sometimes start feeling uncomfortable.
They might even lash out at you.
Growing up, I was a pretty vocal Christian in my school, especially when I got to middle school.
In sixth grade, I had a Sunday school teacher here by the name of Tom Fain.
And Tom was just a blue-collar guy who was a cowboy at Tahoe Ranch, but he loved Jesus.
And he told me and my friends, he taught us how to tell people about Jesus, the gospel.
And then he took us down just the road here to Fruitvale North Park, and he would let us out.
And he'd say, okay, go tell them about Jesus.
And we went.
We didn't know any better.
We just told people about Jesus.
And so I learned through that experience to share my faith.
And so I shared with many of my classmates in middle school.
And it didn't take long before some kids, you know, started poking fun at me.
I remember on the bus, some guys saying some very inappropriate things to the girls and
saying that I said that about those girls.
When I hadn't said that, they didn't believe I said it, but it's still very embarrassing
for a middle school boy.
And eventually it picked up, and a few of them tried to start a fight with me and push me,
and without provoking one time just slapped me hard across the back of the head.
And I never retaliated, although I was very tempted because I was already an accomplished wrestler.
I had no doubt I could take them, but I chose not to.
Matthew 5, verse 11 says,
Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you
and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake.
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.
For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
You know, there's a real joy and blessing
that is actually, actually connected
to being persecuted for Jesus.
And I'm not saying it's fun, it's not fun.
I remember times as a kid getting very angry
and fighting all kinds of emotions.
Maybe it would be easier if I just adjusted a few things
in my life so I could better fit in with this crowd
that's kind of making life hard on me.
But then I remembered what Jesus said
did for me and how he suffered ridicule for me and much more than ridicule,
how he was nailed to the cross and murdered for me.
And then the Holy Spirit, I believe, put a smile on my face in the midst of that situation
as I remembered how I was counted worthy to suffer for Jesus.
It is very hard to explain to someone who has never experienced it,
but there is a true joy connected to suffering for Christ.
Now, according to the Bible, this is not really according to American Christianity of what we normally see,
but according to the Bible, persecution is not the exception, it's the rule.
Did you know that?
Sometimes in an attempt to plead with people to come to Jesus,
we can be guilty of over-romanticizing the Christian life,
and we talk about all the blessings of peace and joy and these wonderful things,
but we don't talk very much about the cost sometimes.
And there's a cost to following Jesus.
That's why Jesus said, take up your cross and follow me.
Die to yourself and follow me.
One of the costs to following Jesus is persecution.
So don't you believe the lie, please don't believe it,
that if you give your life to Jesus,
oh, all your wildest dreams are gonna come true,
you're gonna be happy and everything's wonderful,
you're gonna be healthy and wealthy,
that's not New Testament Christianity.
Jesus said, if they hated me, they're also gonna hate you.
Now, Jesus also said in John 16, verse 33,
he said, in the world, you will have tribulation.
but be of good cheer.
I have overcome the world.
This world is full of pain and trouble and evil.
When the world out there tries to, you know,
throw all of that trouble and dishes all that trouble onto us as Christians
and we're targeted in that way,
Paul is saying in verse 16 of our chapter here, he said,
what they're actually doing as they do that,
they're filling up the cup.
of their sin more and more.
And he's saying as they fill up that cup of their sin,
because God is just and he punishes sin,
as their cup of sin fills up,
the cup of God's wrath fills up to match their level of sin.
And did you know that's what happens in all of our lives?
That no sin goes unpunished.
Every one of our sins has to be punished.
God is just, he's perfect.
But here's the gospel.
That for those of us who believe that Jesus comes along and he drinks the cup of our sin
and he drinks the cup of God's wrath and we are forgiven.
Why?
Because he loves us.
God wants us to experience not his judgment, but his grace.
Here's the problem.
Most people reject God's grace.
I mean, he pursues them with his love, and they reject.
They're angry.
They're upset.
They're full of sin.
They're the hardest hearted.
No, no, no.
Metaphorically speaking, they spit in the face of God who died on the cross for their sins.
When a person rejects grace, the only thing left is wrath.
Verse number 17, he continues, he says,
But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short time in presence, not in heart,
endeavored more eagerly to see your face with great desire.
Therefore, we wanted to come to you, even I, Paul, time and again, but Satan hindered us.
We see throughout this letter that Paul had a special bond,
a special affection for the Thessalonians.
And he says here, we were taken away from you.
Now that word taken away is an intense word.
It was a word that was used in the first century of a child being taken
and ripped from his parents to become an orphan.
So Paul is under intense grief, I would even say, of their separation.
He's expressing that to them.
Now, why is he under such grief?
Well, it's because Christians, we all have a deep need for connection with other Christians.
Now, some people kind of, they're just all by themselves as a Christian.
That is not a good place to be.
That's not going to be a happy place to be, I can tell you.
Paul says, I desperately wanted to come back to you a time and time again, but Satan actually hindered us.
Now, we don't know contextually or historically what had happened for Satan to have hindered.
Maybe they got sick.
There's a whole host of possibilities.
We just don't know.
The word hindered means to place an obstacle.
You're going down a road and there's an obstacle in the road.
Satan had placed an obstacle so they could not get back.
You know, sometimes the Lord hinders us from going a particular direction,
and sometimes Satan does.
I mean, earlier we saw a few weeks ago in the book of Acts
that the Holy Spirit forbid Paul and his team to go to Asia at that time.
Well, now Satan is not allowing them to go.
In the moment, it's sometimes difficult to discern which is which,
but Paul knows.
He says, Satan has hindered us.
This deep connection and this bond and this affection that's pouring out of Paul,
it's a bond that all of us need.
Paul says, we're not with you physically, but we are with you in heart, in spirit.
Did you know that it's important for all of us as Christians to experience a deep connection and bond with other Christians?
Maybe a time in your life you've experienced that,
maybe in a life group or some sort of ministry out there,
and if you've ever experienced it and then had that removed from your life,
it's like part of you has been taken away.
It's like part of you now is missing.
You see, our fellowship is like a red hot coal in the middle of a hot fire.
But if you take...
You take some tongs and you grab that hot coal and you remove it and you put it off to the side.
It will not be long until that hot coal grows cold and dim.
You put it back in the hot fire, it's going to light up again with heat, isn't it?
And we're the same way.
We need one another in order to be on fire for Jesus, to stay on fire for him.
That's why our church, we emphasize life groups so much.
I mean, sometimes it's like we're a broken record because we are.
It's because we know how much we need one another.
It's important to remain connected to other believers in fellowship.
You see, God created us as highly relational beings, highly relational.
First and foremost, he created us for a vertical relationship with him,
but he also created us for a horizontal relationship with others.
And we experience that horizontal relationship with others best
when we're in close proximity with them.
Social media is a cheap replacement for human, face-to-face human interaction, isn't it?
Our culture is learning that in a painful way.
Paul Harvey, years ago on his radio program, shared a study that showed that babies who
were touched throughout the day grew 10% faster than babies who weren't touched throughout
the day.
He shared that study with his wife that babies grow 10% faster if they're touched,
and she said, never touch me again.
We need one another, don't we?
We need to be close.
Ecclesiastes chapter 4 verse number 9 says,
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor.
For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up.
Years ago, when I was just a little kid, there were these commercials on TV about a device called LifeCall.
It was sort of an emergency contact program for people who needed medical help.
I did not remember what the commercials were about.
I had to look it up this week, but that's what they were about.
What I do remember about the commercials is that an elderly person would fall down,
and then they would yell out, help, I've fallen and I can't get up.
And as kids, we had a good time with that.
I mean, we thought that was hilarious.
We quoted that line all, help, I've fallen and I can't get up.
But now, now that I'm a pastor, I hear way too many stories about elderly people who actually do fall when they're all alone.
Sometimes they'll remain on the ground for hours and hours with a broken arm or broken leg or a broken hip.
They fall.
It's a serious thing.
Something terrible about a person falling down
with no one around to help them up.
And here's the deal, life is full of falls.
We're all going to fall.
And I'm not talking just physical falls.
There are all kinds of falls.
There are sinful falls.
There are marital falls.
There are financial falls.
There are emotional falls.
There are all kinds of falls.
We're going to fall.
And you know, whenever you fall,
it's very important that you have people close enough within your life
who love you and care for you and can reach out their hand
and they can help you back up on your feet.
And that's what the church is for.
That's what our life groups are for.
That's what spiritual connection is for.
Verse number 19, we wrap up.
Paul says,
For what is our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing?
Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?
For you are our glory and joy.
Now as Christians, it's dangerous for us to have pride and joy in anything other than Jesus.
It's dangerous for us to talk about having glory in anything other than God,
because to God and God alone belong all glory and honor.
With that said, Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit, says here,
you are our glory and joy.
You're our pride and joy is what he's expressing.
Here's our principle.
Christians experience incredible pride and joy in those that they impact with the gospel,
those that they lead to faith in Jesus.
Paul started this chapter off by saying, our coming to you was not in vain,
and now he ends it by saying, you're actually our crown of rejoicing.
See, Paul was like a proud father.
He's beaming with godly pride.
He's full of godly joy.
See?
When he thinks about these people in Thessalonica that God used him of all people.
Later he says, chief of sinners.
He does elsewhere in the New Testament.
And God would use me to save you.
You're my joy and my glory.
You're my crown of rejoicing.
You see, there is no greater joy in all the world outside of faith in Jesus
than leading someone else to faith in Jesus.
Did you know that?
If you've experienced it, you know it.
I mean, faith in Jesus, that's number one joy.
Number two, leading someone else to faith in Jesus.
Nothing, in my opinion, takes a backseat to that.
One day during COVID, we were meeting as a church family over on Olive Drive campus outside under those beautiful trees.
And my dad had just preached a very powerful message.
And we stood up to our feet and we sing a song like we're going to do here in just a moment.
And we sang and we asked people to respond to the message.
And so I'm standing up there towards the front,
ready to receive people and talk with them
and pray with them.
And a middle-aged man walked up to me that day.
And he said, you may not remember me,
but years ago when you were just a little kid,
I was hanging out at Fruitvale Norris Park
making some trouble.
And you walked up to me and you told me about Jesus.
And I prayed that day to receive Jesus as my Savior.
And I just want to say thank you.
I'll tell you right now.
That man is my glory and joy.
And by God's grace, there are others that I've been privileged to in my life that also
are my glory and my joy.
And as much joy as it brings me today, imagine the joy that it will someday bring me when
that man and others are in the presence of the Lord at his coming with me when he returns.
That's what Paul says.
He says, hear my joy and glory when Jesus comes back.
When Jesus returns and he's coming back, will that be a moment of great joy for you?
Or will it be a terrifying one and an embarrassing one?
Your life answers that question.
I heard about a guy who flunked out of college and he was nervous about that.
So he wrote his mom and he said, well, I flunked out. I'm coming back home.
Prepare dad. And she just wrote back. She said,
dad, prepare, prepare yourself.
Jesus is coming again.
That's one of the main themes of 1 Thessalonians.
In fact, Paul mentions it in all five chapters.
Jesus is coming back.
And the only question that remains related to that is, are you prepared?
Are you prepared for his coming?
Are you ready?
And if you're not ready, how do you get ready?
Well, you get ready by receiving the good news of Jesus,
not as the words of men, but as they are in truth,
the very words of God.
And then you don't just let them go in one ear
and out the other, but you actually receive it
and you welcome it into the depths of who you are
and you allow it to transform you from the inside out.
That's how you're ready.
This whole world is going to come to an end very, very soon.
And when you think about it, there's only two things on earth that are going to remain forever.
The Word of God and the souls of people.
That's it. Everything else is going to burn up.
God's Word and the souls of men and women, boys and girls.
So let me ask you, what are you valuing in life?
What is your life centered around?
What consumes your thoughts?
What consumes your time?
What consumes your energy?
Where do all your resources go?
What are your priorities?
What are you valuing the most in life?
John Wesley said, I now value all things
only by the price they shall gain in eternity.
What he's basically saying is, I now value all things only by the cost they're going to have in heaven someday.
You know, most things that we value most here in life are very, very cheap in heaven.
Gold.
The streets are going to be made of gold.
The dirt's gold.
Jewels, diamonds.
That's just building materials for the walls.
People?
Ah, that's the true prize of heaven, the eternal souls of people.
I thought about my dad a lot this week as I prepared this message.
I thought about all the people, many of whom are in heaven with him,
many of us who are still here on the earth.
about how when Jesus returns,
we will be his crown of rejoicing,
his glory and joy.
Who's your crown of rejoicing?
When the Lord returns,
is there anyone that's your crown of rejoicing?
Is there anyone you can point to and say,
man, that person is my glory and my joy.
God used me to impact their life
so that they now know God.
Is there anyone you can point to?
If not, it's time to get to work.
And here's the thing.
This is not about a guilt trip.
You got to tell more people, but we get to tell people about Jesus.
That's the whole point.
You're our glory and joy.
This is like the most fun thing to do is to see God use your life to impact others.
There's nothing greater.
That's the greatest high you can get.
I just want to invite you, if you're a believer,
please invest not in that which is temporary,
not in that which is cheap in heaven,
but that which is valuable.
People.
Let's bow together in an attitude of prayer, if you will,
both here and at Olive Drive.
This is a holy moment in the life of our church.
You may be listening today,
and you have the thought of...
investing in other people, other people be my glory and my joy.
My mind can't even go there yet because I'm a mess.
I'm broken.
I'm hurt.
My life is full of a lot of junk.
My heart, my motives, my attitude, my actions, it's full of a lot of junk.
And so your mind is not even towards making an impact on other people's lives.
You just, you need help yourself right now.
And we were all there.
I was there at one point in my life.
I'm still there from time to time, and I've got to keep coming back to the Lord.
But maybe you're there, and you've never met Jesus.
You've heard about him.
Maybe even in your mind you sort of believed in him,
but it was more like the belief in words of men than belief in the words of God.
There's a difference.
James said even the demons believe and yet they tremble.
What's the difference?
They're not receiving the message with humility.
I want to invite you to get to know God today.
The Bible says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son,
that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.
God loves you.
Oh, how he loves you so very much.
And he's offering you his love.
He's offering you forgiveness and grace.
But you've got to receive it.
If you push it away, you're going to lose it.
with the hardness of your heart,
if you let it bounce off of you today,
sin has to be paid for.
Either you're gonna pay for it someday in eternity,
or you're gonna let Jesus pay for it.
I wanna invite you to let Jesus pay for it
because it's the best thing possible
that you could do in your life.
He will bring a change in you that you cannot even imagine.
If you've never given your heart and life to Jesus, in just a moment, I'm going to pray.
And when I do, we're going to stand at both campuses.
And there's going to be pastors and other leaders and prayer partners at the front.
We're just going to invite you to come as you are.
Walk down one of these aisles.
Walk down one of these staircases.
And say, I want to give my life to Jesus.
These folks know exactly how to help you.
They're not going to embarrass you.
They're not going to ask you a question that you can't answer.
They're just going to help you.
They're going to help take your hand and place it in the hand of Jesus.
So you just come as you are.
That's the only way we can come.
Some people think, I've got to clean up my life first.
I don't want to be a hypocrite.
No, no, no.
You come as you are and let God meet you as you are.
That's why it's called grace.
Maybe you want to come and say, I want to be baptized like others today.
Or I'd like to join this.
Church family, we'd love to visit with you about that,
let you know what that means, what that doesn't mean.
Maybe you just wanna come to these steps.
You don't need to talk with a pastor.
You need to talk with your master today.
The one who loves you more than anyone,
the one that bought you with the blood of Christ.
You need to do some business with him
because maybe you haven't been letting your light shine
Or maybe you have been letting it shine, but there are some people that have loved darkness more than light in your life.
And you want to keep shining brightly.
And you need some courage to do that.
Why don't you just ask God?
He'll give you boldness and He'll give you courage to be a witness even in the face of fear or ridicule.
I promise you He'll give you courage if you ask Him.
However God leads us, respond in faith.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you so much for your incredible love.
That while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
That we love you because you first loved us.
You pursue us in your love.
Thank you for speaking to us through your word.
I pray, Lord.
for people to receive it as a message from you, your word.
Would you open eyes that have been tightly closed shut?
Would you soften hearts that have been hearts of stone?
Maybe they over time have been hardened by sin.
by other people's sin, by pain, grief, suffering, substance abuse.
Your heart has been hard, Lord, but would you please, by your Spirit,
would you touch their heart of stone and just melt it today?
Lord, would you give people the courage that it's going to take to step out in faith,
to walk down one of these aisles, one of these staircases.
Give them the courage it's going to take, Lord.
Help them believe.
Make it easy on them, Lord, to believe.
Lord, we love you so much.
There's so much that we have that we're undeserving of,
and we just want to say thank you.
And I just also want to pray for those
that don't yet have those wonderful blessings.
Lord, would you change that today?
May you touch their heart, we ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Thanks for listening today.
We hope you enjoyed this message.
And if you did, we would be so grateful
if you left us a review.
Also, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast
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If you feel the Lord calling you
to take the next step in faith
through salvation, service, or giving, don't wait.
reach out to us by texting podcast to 88988.
That's podcast to 88988 or connect with us
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You can also visit our website, valleybaptist.org
to find even more great resources.
No matter where you are in your journey,
know that we love you, we're praying for you
and we can't wait to see what God will do in your life.