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 chapter 4 in a message
I'm calling God's Will for Your Life.
Now I think every Christian has a deep desire to know God's will for their life.
Should I go to this or that school?
Should I marry this or that person?
Should I get this job or that job?
And so I'm going to go through this and I'm going to go through this and I'm going to
I think it's important to seek God and His will in all the decisions of life that we face.
Because as we ask God for help, He gives it to us.
He gives us supernatural wisdom from above, wisdom from His Word.
And I believe that His Spirit will bring clarity to our minds to understand His leading.
But admittedly, sometimes the clarity he brings
isn't as clear as we hoped for.
Well, this morning, I wanna share with you
not about some of the more trivial decisions of life
that we make, but I wanna share from you,
or with you rather,
with how you can know with crystal clear clarity what God's will is for your life, all right?
Now, in chapter 4, the very first word, this word finally, we have a transition point in the letter
where Paul gets very, very practical. We read in verse number 1, he says,
Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more,
just as you received from us, that you ought to walk and to please God.
Now, in the book of Philippians, the Apostle Paul, he said, I just want to know him.
He's speaking of Jesus. I want to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering.
Now, Paul already knew Jesus. And so what he's really saying is, I just want to know him more.
Right.
Really, that's the nature of the Christian life is to progressively know Jesus more.
And Paul tells the Thessalonians here, he said, regarding your walk, regarding the way you live, your lifestyle,
I want to encourage you to abound more and more in the way that you please God.
Did you know that life is simplified a great deal when we come to grips with our purpose in life?
See, our purpose is to please God.
We were created for God's good pleasure.
In other words, He wanted us, so He made us.
He didn't want to spend eternity without a relationship with us, so He made us because He desired that.
So Paul says here, I want to encourage you to live your life in such a way that you please God more and more progressively in your life.
Verse number two, he says, for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
For this is the will of God, your sanctification.
I want to pause right there.
Because Paul said, you want to know what God's will is?
I'll tell you exactly what God's will is for your life, your sanctification.
Now, the word sanctification simply means to be made holy.
And the word holy means set apart, set apart with a purpose.
a divine purpose.
Now in the Old Testament, God commanded the Israelites
to sanctify certain vessels that were used in worship
in the tabernacle, pots and bowls and basins
and things of that nature.
God said those things,
were only to be used exclusively for Him.
For instance, they were not to take one of those vessels from the tabernacle
and go down to the spring or the creek and get some water with it.
Why?
Because the vessel had been set apart, sanctified,
totally and completely dedicated to service of God.
So when the Bible says here that we, you and I, are to be sanctified,
that means that our lives are to be set apart totally and completely,
dedicated for the service of God.
Now, God is holy, isn't He?
And that means He Himself is set apart, distinct from the rest of creation.
He's perfect in every way imaginable.
And because God is holy, nothing unholy can remain in His presence for long.
That's a problem for you and I as human beings because we're not holy.
We are sinners.
God says the soul that sins shall die, for the wages of sin is death.
That's physical death, but also spiritual death, to be separated from a relationship with God.
But here's the good news of the Bible.
God loves us.
He loves us so much that He didn't want to remain separated from Him forever.
So He sent His Son, Jesus, why?
To make us holy.
That's why.
So we could relationally be in His holy presence.
Yes, He certainly came to save us and rescue us.
He came to redeem us.
He came to forgive us.
He came to make us right with God.
All of those things.
But He came, if you boil it down, in a way He came to make us holy, didn't He?
And most of the time, when we think about our salvation,
we tend to think about that initial moment of salvation that the Bible calls justification.
And one of the ways to think about justification and the meaning of it is it's just as if you never sinned.
When we're justified by God, by our faith in Jesus, we're forgiven in that moment.
We're clothed in the righteous robe of Jesus so that when God looks upon our life,
he doesn't see the filth of our sin anymore.
He sees Jesus just as if we had never sinned.
And at that moment of faith, we're justified.
We're declared in that moment to be holy.
positionally in Christ.
Now, justification is about our way to God,
but sanctification, as we're talking about here,
is about our walk with God.
Justification takes place in a moment.
Sanctification is a process.
It's this journey that we're on.
It's a journey that involves the process
of becoming more holy.
The process of becoming more like Jesus.
So here's the first thing that we see.
God's will is for you and I to become more like Jesus.
Right?
We're to be sanctified and holy.
And Jesus is really the standard of holiness, isn't he?
So we're to become more like him in the way that we think,
in the way that we love one another, in the way that we behave.
You see, in a sense, the Christian ethic is to become who you already are.
You're holy, not by what you've done.
You're holy by what Jesus has done.
Now become holy in the way you live.
Live out who Jesus has already made you to be in Christ.
Romans chapter 12, verse number 2 says,
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed, how?
By the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
So what's God's perfect will for your life?
Well, it's that you would be transformed by the renewing of your mind into Christlikeness.
Now, this word transformed in Romans chapter 12 is the Greek word metamorpho.
We get our English word metamorphosis from it,
which is the process by which a cute little caterpillar is transformed into a butterfly.
Now, when God makes that little caterpillar, that caterpillar has all the makings of a butterfly, doesn't it?
I mean, the caterpillar is made of the right stuff.
It's made of the right essence.
Now it just needs to go through that process of transformation to become a butterfly.
And it's the same with you and I.
When we come to faith in Jesus, God makes us a new creation in Christ.
The Bible says, behold, all things have passed away and all things have become new.
And so in that moment, spiritually speaking, we're made of all the right stuff.
But now we've got to go through the process of transformation, and that's what sanctification is.
Now, the third step is glorification.
Someday in glory in heaven, we will be perfected.
But now we're in this process of being transformed into Christlikeness.
Now, in that process, it's not that we are simply passive recipients of it.
No, no, no.
We're active participants of it.
God says, be holy. Why? For I am holy. He commands us to be holy, which means that we play an
important part in the process. And here's the part we play. We just keep saying yes to God.
And we just keep saying yes to God's will. You see, when we first gave our lives to Jesus, we were
given a new nature in Christ. We were given a new identity in Christ, but the problem is we don't
lose our old nature. Instead, our old nature kind of sticks around, doesn't it? Now, we're no longer
slaves to that old nature. We've been freed from it, but it still lingers around. There's this
constant battle between our old nature of sin and our new nature in Christ. I heard about a guy who
had two fighting dogs, and someone asked him one time, he said, which dog's going to win the fight?
And he said, whichever one I feed.
And it's the same with you and I.
If we're feeding our old nature, it's going to win most of the battles.
But if we start feeding our new nature in Christ, our old nature doesn't stand a chance
because God is committed to doing something great in our life.
He who has begun a good work in us is committed to complete it.
So what's God's will for your life?
Well, he wants you to make him happy.
He wants you to please him.
You were made for him.
And guess what?
Whatever pleases him is going to ultimately please you as well.
And we please him by becoming more like Jesus.
Verse number three, he continues, where he says, for this is the will of God, your sanctification.
Then he spells it out.
That you should abstain.
from sexual immorality, that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel.
I believe that's talking about his own body in sanctification and in honor,
not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God,
that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this manner
because the Lord is the avenger of all.
As we also forewarned you and testified, for God did not call us to uncleanness.
but in holiness.
Therefore, he who rejects this does not reject man,
but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.
Here's our principle.
God's will is for all of us as Christians
to live within the confines of God's design concerning sex.
Yes.
Now, we live in a sex-crazed culture, much like the Thessalonians did.
I mean, they lived in the Greco-Roman world that was absolutely obsessed with sex.
In fact, they connected sex to their worship.
In chapter 1, Paul commended these new believers for turning from idol worship to the true and living God.
Well, we know that a lot of the idol worship of that day involved temple prostitution, sex acts of worship.
So they literally were coming out of a sex-crazed religion.
Now, I think our world has also turned sex into a religion.
Oh, we're a little more sophisticated than they were.
We're a little more secular than they were.
We might not call it worship, but that's what's happening.
Paul's writing of these new believers, knowing very well that they had come to faith in Christ,
but there was more than likely still some nasty, filthy sexual temptations
that were still lurking around in their lives.
And it's the same for you and I in our culture.
Maybe you're a new believer today,
and we've got hundreds of new believers in our church.
We praise God, but maybe your past was littered with sexual sin.
Maybe you've been called out of that.
And if you come to Christ, you have been called out of that.
But for many people, sexual sin becomes like a drug.
In fact, some researchers tell us that pornography can become as addicting as heroin to people.
And so sexual sin in Paul's day, and certainly in our day as well,
is one of the great battlegrounds for spiritual warfare in our world.
It's being fought in the church.
It's being fought in our world.
And Paul says, without stuttering here, this is God's will for you, that you abstain from sexual immorality.
Now, let's notice for a moment what Paul does not say.
Paul does not say to abstain from sex.
You see, God created sex.
It was His idea.
He made it up.
And He gave it to us as a gift from Him.
And it is to be enjoyed within the confines of its design.
And that is between one man and one woman who are married.
Sexual immorality, by definition, is engaging in sex outside of its design,
which always leads to pain and certainly to heartache.
Imagine with me for a moment if you've got this fire in a fireplace.
It's something we don't experience much of in California.
No burn days for most of the year, it seems.
But I don't know about you.
I love a good fireplace on a cold winter day.
It's soothing.
It's warm.
I can snuggle up next to it for hours, right?
But let's imagine...
that the fire in the fireplace jumped out of the fireplace
and it caught fire on the curtain and it climbed the curtain
and it caught the wall on fire.
Now something wonderful had become destructive, right?
Well, you can still be warmed by it, but you'll also be burned.
good things within their design can become very bad things
outside of their design.
As you walked onto our campus or on our campus
at Olive Drive, you saw some beautiful grass
and lawns and landscaping,
and you saw all that beautiful grass.
Our team does a wonderful job taking care of it.
But if you take that beautiful grass
and you take some of the clippings
and you spread them all over our worship center,
Suddenly something beautiful out there becomes very ugly in here.
Or you take some of the carpet and you cut some of the carpet up, you throw it out on the lawn.
Something beautiful in here becomes very ugly out there.
Why?
Because good and beautiful things belong within their design.
Why?
And that is certainly the case with our sexual lives.
God blesses the sexual union of a husband and a wife.
But whenever the fire of a sex jumps outside of a marriage, people always get burned.
It hurts. It causes all kinds of problems.
Now, I think an appropriate question for us to entertain for just a moment,
because we live in such a promiscuous culture, is what kind of acts...
are included in this term sexual immorality.
Well, God spells that out pretty clearly throughout His Word.
The Bible says that we're not to commit fornication, which is sex prior to being married.
The Bible says that we're not to commit adultery, which is sex after we're married with someone who's not our spouse.
The Bible says that we're not to commit homosexual acts, which is sex with a person of the same gender.
The Bible says that we're not to view pornography, which is porneneia in the Greek.
Jesus said you're not to even look upon a woman with lust or you've committed adultery in your heart.
The Bible has all kinds of things to say about very specific acts that are prohibited.
Incest, bestiality, rape, we go on and on.
Now, here's the thing about sexual immorality of all natures.
Everyone gets hurt.
It certainly hurts yourself.
We know that from 1 Corinthians 6, verse 18.
Flee sexual immorality.
Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
So sexual sin in your life hurts you.
Every time.
But not just you.
It also hurts others, doesn't it?
We saw in verse number 6 that we read a moment ago that sexual sin is taking advantage of and defrauding your brother or sister.
Now, how could that be?
Well, it's because when you have sex with someone that's not your spouse, you're taking something that doesn't belong to you.
You're taking something that God has not given to you.
It's reserved for that person and their spouse or their future spouse.
And if you have sex with them, you're stealing that intimacy from them and their spouse and their future spouse.
So sexual sin is certainly, it hurts you.
It hurts those around you in your life.
But ultimately, it's a sin against God, isn't it?
King David, after he committed adultery with Bathsheba,
he prays eventually, he says,
against you and you only have I sinned.
Paul says here, he said,
if you reject this that I'm saying to you,
you're not rejecting me.
You're rejecting God.
Now,
What if the fire of sexual immorality has already jumped out of the fireplace in your life?
What if it's climbing the curtains?
What if the walls, maybe the living rooms are, maybe your whole house is burning down?
What do you do?
Here's exactly what you do.
You call on God to come rescue you and put out the fire.
That's what you do.
If your house are on fire, throwing some cups of cold water is not going to do a whole lot.
What you need to do is call the fire department.
And if your life is on fire with sexual sin, you need to call upon God to come rescue you,
to deliver you, to bring healing into your life.
Now, I want to give for a moment four quick points about how you can abstain from sexual immorality in your life as a Christian.
The number one thing is this.
You've got to make a decision.
You've got to decide to abstain from sexual sin.
It's an act of volition.
You've got to make a decision.
It's called repentance.
Repentance is when we turn from our sin and we decide our life is not going to be about that.
We are turning instead and we're going to follow Christ.
You're never going to be delivered from sexual sin if you don't think it's possible.
And I'm telling you right now, it's possible.
Because God says we're no longer slaves of sin.
He's set us free.
So here's what we all need to do.
We need to make one big decision that we are committed to sexual purity at all costs.
At all costs.
That's the starting place.
Now, the second thing is this, is that we need to flee sexual temptation.
We've got to run from it.
That's what the Bible says.
Flee it.
Run from it.
Now, I would say there's two great examples in the Old Testament of godly men, men of God who were tempted sexually.
A man named Joseph in the book of Genesis and King David.
Well, with Joseph, Potiphar's wife pursued him and grabbed a hold of him, seducing him.
And the Bible says that Joseph ran from her.
He literally physically ran from the sexual temptation.
But that's not what King David did.
When King David saw Bathsheba, the Bible says, was a beautiful woman.
He saw her bathing on the rooftop.
He looked at her.
He lusted for her.
He called for her.
And he slept with her.
I would argue, though, that David never should have seen Bathsheba.
He was not fleeing sexual temptation.
He was supposed to be leading Israel in war, out in battle, but he abdicated his responsibilities,
and he had way too much time on his hand.
He was bored, which is always an invitation to sexual immorality.
See, some temptations we fight against.
Other temptations we run from.
which I personally think means that that involves some archaic practices in our life.
Things such as if you're not married, don't be alone with your boyfriend or girlfriend
someplace where you could become intimate with them.
That's probably not fleeing sexual immorality in your life.
If you're married, don't ever flirt with someone who's not your spouse.
That's going to open the door to temptations that ought not be there.
Personally, I'm never going to share a meal, lunch or dinner with someone of the opposite sex.
I don't want any kind of appearance of evil for one, certainly being a pastor,
but I don't want any sort of relational temptation in my life.
Now, if you're human, I would also say don't have an unprotected electronic device in your home, right?
That's all of us, right?
We're all human.
I personally believe every computer, every iPad,
every smartphone should have some sort of filter,
some sort of accountability program on it.
Every smart TV out there should have passwords
that passwords to certain channels to add apps.
Now in a family situation, that might be,
it might be unwise or it might be a little awkward
for one person to just have that password alone.
So in our family, personally, we share that password.
Two digits for Kelsey, two digits for me.
Now you say, Pastor, that's crazy.
That's radical.
You bet it's radical.
You bet it is.
Jesus said, if your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off.
If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.
Sounds pretty radical to me.
We've got, as believers who've been called to be holy,
we've got to make radical steps to protect ourselves from sin.
So if you're a drunk, don't go hang out at the bar.
And if you're human, run from sexual temptation.
Now another tip is this.
Don't just run away from sexual sin.
Run towards God.
That's the key, right?
So many people battle sexual temptation in your life
with sheer willpower.
I'm just not gonna do it.
Well, that's probably not gonna last long.
Whenever you have a strong compulsion or a strong desire,
the best way to overcome that desire
is to replace it with a far greater desire.
In my own life, as I battled sexual temptation,
as a young man, I battled it with willpower.
And that had me losing way too many battles.
It was not until I realized that God and God alone was the only one who could deliver me from the sexual temptation
that I started consistently winning the battle.
Which brings me to our last point I'm going to make about sexual immorality.
And that is this, that we must fight it by being filled with the Holy Spirit.
Paul reminds us in verse number eight that God has given us his Holy Spirit.
The Bible says that we, our bodies, are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
That means our bodies, our flesh and bones, are the residing, the dwelling place of the Spirit of Almighty God.
That should be a motivating factor.
Now, I want to say a quick word because I think sometimes this is confused among Christians.
To be filled with the Holy Spirit doesn't mean that you have the Holy Spirit.
You could have the Holy Spirit as a believer while not being filled with the Spirit.
Being filled with the Spirit means that we're completely yielded to the Spirit's work.
We're controlled.
We're being empowered by the Spirit in that moment and season of our life.
It's like a sailboat that's out at sea and the wind's blowing,
so it has all the power it could possibly need,
and yet the sailboat is still.
It's not moving.
It's not going anywhere.
Why?
Well, because it hasn't raised its sails.
It hasn't allowed the wind to fill its cells and to empower it to move.
And as Christians, we've got to put down the oars of our own strength and willpower
and these mighty waves of the ocean of life that we're going through.
We're not going to get anywhere with those oars.
We've got to raise the sails of our will and allow the Holy Spirit to empower us
with the wind of His Spirit to live for Him.
Now, verse number 9, we're going to have to move more quickly.
He transitions from talking about abstaining from sexual sin, and he moves on to love.
He says,
But concerning brotherly love, you have no need that I should write to you.
For you yourselves are taught by God to love one another, and indeed you do.
So toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia."
But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more.
Here's our principle.
God's will for all of us is for our love to increase more and more for one another.
Chapter 3, Paul described our need to grow more and more in our faith.
And then the beginning of chapter 4, he says, I want you to abound more and more in your sanctification.
And now he says, I want you to increase more and more in your love.
Now, based on what Paul said, obviously the Thessalonians had been given by God
this supernatural love for one another, which, by the way,
isn't that kind of basic Christianity?
God is love, that we love one another.
Jesus said you're going to know them by their love for one another.
He said, you got that going on for you.
That's wonderful.
But he encouraged them, let that love keep growing.
Let it keep abounding more and more.
I thank God that our church family is,
that we have a loving church. Amen? Nearly every week, I'm privileged as a pastor to see certain
things, certain acts of love on display, one for another in our church. I hear stories from you.
About how at a time of deep need, a time of deep grief, of great struggle,
that someone in your life group, someone in our church family came alongside and just walked with you through that time.
They loved you through that time.
And so I want to echo what Paul says here.
He said, you know, may our love just keep growing more and more and more as a church.
Verse number 11.
He says that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands as we commanded you,
that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, that's non-Christians, and that you may lack nothing.
Here's our last principle.
God's will is for us to work hard and mind our own business.
We could just get that down.
I think we'd save ourselves a whole lot of problems.
Be much more unified as a people, wouldn't we?
Many of the Thessalonians expected Jesus to return in their lifetime.
That's one of the reasons the Apostle Paul is writing them about the return of Christ.
We'll get to that towards the end of chapter 4 here.
So apparently some of them thought that since Jesus is coming back any day,
I don't really need to go to work.
And so some of them quit their jobs, or maybe when persecution hit, they didn't look for new work.
We don't know exactly how it happened, but they were taking advantage of and mooching off of others in the church who were working.
So Paul says, no, no, no, you need to work with your own hands.
You need to provide for yourself.
Don't be reliant.
You should lack nothing.
You need to provide for yourself.
You see, God created us to work and be productive.
God says six days you shall work and the seventh you shall rest.
Now, in Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians that we have in our Bible,
he strengthened the language he was using about this because some people still hadn't got a job.
So he said, if a man will not work, neither shall he eat.
That's strong language, isn't it?
Now, Paul did not say if a man cannot work.
He says if a man will not work.
I believe we have an obligation of love and caring for people who are not able to work.
But those who are able to work and choose volitionally not to work according to God,
those people aren't supposed to eat.
In other words, we're not to enable their sin.
Now, some of the Thessalonians...
weren't working, and because of that, they had way too much time on their hands,
and so they became idle talkers, busybodies. They were nosy. They were gossipers.
Paul says, don't do that. Instead, get to work. There's things to be done. We can be productive.
Mind your own business and lead a quiet life. Now, that quiet life, that refers to a peaceful life.
Now, I want to take a moment to say a quick word about social media here because I think it applies in terms of application.
My dad used to say that some people never have an unspoken thought.
Well, I have found that some people never have an unposted experience.
And hear me out here, the problem isn't just in the posting, as vain as sometimes that seems.
The problem is also in the consuming, isn't it?
Studies actually show us that some people scroll social media for hours every day.
And I can tell you, for one, those people aren't working very hard.
I don't know how a person has enough time.
There's too much to do.
And two...
They're not minding their own business.
They're living their life in someone else's life,
someone else's world.
It's kind of an imaginary world all these people are posting.
And that's actually led to deep emotional problems
within individuals and within our society.
Studies now show the more time on social media,
the more likely a person is to be depressed.
You know, most of the time, if you're consuming a lot of social media, it's in excess.
You're either going to become jealous of those people and envious of what their lives are,
or you're going to become judgmental.
And both are going to be very bad for you.
So Paul says, stop that.
Mind your own business.
Get to work doing something productive.
Why?
The outside world is watching us.
And you know what the outside world, those who aren't Christians, need to see?
They need to see some caterpillars turning into butterflies.
They need to see people being transformed by the grace of God and living their life for Christ alone.
A few weeks ago, a man in our church who's only been a Christian for about a year now,
stood right here and shared his testimony in our Wednesday night service.
He shared about how alcohol was such a big part of his life for so long.
He was sort of an alcoholic, but now through Jesus he's sober.
He shared about all the junk that used to be in his home, but now his home is filled
with the Spirit of God.
He shared about how he had just gotten back from a mission trip to Columbia.
He's been a Christian for a year.
Someone asked him, how did you grow so fast?
And he said, it's amazing how fast you can grow when you just say yes to everything.
It's profound.
It's real simple, isn't it?
Let me ask you.
Are you willing to say yes to everything God tells you?
Are you committed to pleasing Him?
Are you committed to His will, to say yes to Him,
to say yes to sexual purity, yes to loving people more,
yes to working hard, yes to not being so nosy?
The moment as a Christian you say no
is the moment you stop growing.
Your Christian life, it stalls out.
And some people's Christian lives have been stalled out for months, for years, some for decades.
You want to know what's wrong?
You go back to when you told God no.
It's a miserable place to be, a stalled out Christian not growing.
The natural thing is to grow.
The natural thing is to progress and become more like Jesus.
Let's bow together in an attitude of prayer both here and at Olive Drive.
This is a holy moment in the life of our church.
This is a moment when we're going to invite you to respond to God's Word.
Whatever God is speaking, maybe you sense.
For the first time, that you're separated from God.
Oh, you've known about God, you've believed in God, but it's dawning on you,
wow, I don't really know Him.
You see, our sin separates us from God.
That's spiritual death.
And God sent His Son, Jesus, to bring spiritual life.
That means to reconnect the Spirit of God to our spirit.
And He's doing a work in us once we believe that someday we'll be completed.
I want to invite you to give your life to Christ today.
You know, we talked today some about our desire to please God.
through our sexual purity, through loving one another,
through these different aspects of doing His will.
But did you know what?
The starting place for pleasing God is faith, isn't it?
The book of Hebrews says that without faith, it's impossible to please Him.
You don't stand a chance without faith.
So I want to invite you to please God today.
Put a big old smile on his face.
The Bible says that when one sinner comes to faith and repentance, there's rejoicing.
There's a party in heaven.
Maybe you need to come and give your life to Jesus today and be forgiven.
Be restored.
Have his spirit come live in your life and begin that transformation process that he's so good at.
I want to invite you in just a moment.
I'm going to pray, and there's going to be pastors and other leaders
lined across the front of both of our worship services.
We're just going to ask you to come as you are.
You're going to walk down one of these aisles, walk down one of these staircases,
and just to come as you are.
It's not that you clean up your life and say, man, I need to get some things together,
then give my life to Jesus as one of those steps.
No, no, no. It is the step.
It's the first step.
You come as you are, warts and all, failures and all, pain and all, guilt and all.
You come as you are.
And God will meet you where you're at.
And by His grace, you can experience His love and forgiveness.
As soon as I pray and we stand to our feet to sing, you just come forward as God leads.
Maybe your life somewhere along the way, even as a Christian, has gotten off track.
Remember, our lives are designed to be lived within God's design.
That's how life works.
Take a train, for example.
You've got a train that runs on its tracks that it was designed to run on.
It can fly.
It can pull a lot of cargo because it's on its tracks.
But the moment that train thinks, man, that path over there looks pretty good,
that looks more freeing to be over in that country.
It decides to go over there.
It jumps the tracks.
And the moment it jumps the tracks is not the moment of freedom.
It's the moment of bondage.
It's the moment of destruction.
Some of you, you've jumped the tracks.
And you've stalled out or worse, you've crashed.
You've crashed.
The good news is God is great at coming and picking up the pieces and bringing healing and forgiveness.
But, man, you've got to come to him.
You've got to make a decision that you're not going to live jumping off the tracks.
You're going to live within God's design because that's where freedom is.
That's where joy and peace and life really is.
It's within how God designed us.
So I want to invite you to make a decision.
To rededicate your life to the Lord if you need to, just to make one big decision.
God, I'm going to do it your way.
I'm going to walk with you.
I'm going to, what you say for me to do, I'm going to do it.
That's going to simplify a lot.
You're not going to have to make all these little decisions in life.
You make one big decision that whatever God desires of your life, you're going to do.
It simplifies life.
And there's peace in that.
Maybe you want to come and rededicate your life to the Lord.
You want to come and receive prayer.
Maybe you want to come to these steps and pour out your heart to the Lord.
Pray for your family.
Pray for your friends.
Pray for a loved one.
However God leads in just a moment, please come.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you so much for your love.
You love us so well.
We don't deserve it.
Thank you, Lord, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, that we love you because you first loved us.
Thank you for the freedom there is in Jesus.
Lord, I want to pray for anyone listening who is a Christian who feels like they're in bondage to sin.
Lord, would you help them by your Spirit?
Would you help them know that is a lie?
That the prison cell that they have been living their life in,
that you've opened the door to that prison cell when they gave their life to you,
and now they've just got to walk out.
Would you help them, Lord, walk out of that prison cell?
To freedom?
Lord, I pray that you would make our church holy, for you are holy.
And I pray, Lord, that we wouldn't be focused, when we talk about holiness,
we wouldn't be focused on a whole bunch of rules, added rules to the Bible.
Lord, you give us some rules.
There's a lot of thou shall nots in your word, Lord, because you love us and you're protecting us.
We thank you for that.
But, Lord...
I pray that we would understand a holiness at a much deeper level than man-made rules.
That we would actually become holy by your grace.
Help those who are struggling.
Bring them deliverance, Lord, we ask.
Help us live in sexual purity.
Help us be a church who is like Job, who makes a covenant with our eyes that we will not look upon a woman with lust.
Help us be committed to that.
Lord, what the growth that we would just take off with spiritual depth if everyone did that.
Lord, I pray for those that are in the midst of their spiritual life and home being on fire with sexual sin and it's destroying everything.
Would you give them the courage it's going to take to ask you to come help and to put that fire out?
The faith it's going to take.
Lord, please make us more like your son.
Make us more loving.
Help us mind our own business and be productive in your kingdom.
We give this time to you.
Please draw people to yourself.
We ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
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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.