Come on, let’s thank you for his goodness, church.
Well, how many of you are thankful that you know God, you serve him?
Are you thankful today for the goodness of God that has brought you to a house like this, in a place like this, to know people like this?
Anybody thankful for your salvation today?
Come on. Yakamal Belle View Depot at home here in Tacoma. Are you thankful today?
I love that course. Let every tongue proclaim. Let every voice be lifted. I think a lot of times we become too
inhibited and too hesitant and we hold back. And I want to encourage you, if you’re a child of God, lift up your
voice. Praise him, honor him, worship him.
Don’t be afraid and don’t be ashamed and don’t be timid. Just let it out and let the world know and God know that you’re
on God’s side. You are a believer. You are full of faith.
Amen. Bible says, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” That’s what we’ve been doing this morning. And
and we also are not people who do this just at church. We are people who sing.
Sometimes we wake up singing.
Sometimes when we’re having a bad moment, we know the right thing to do is to say, “Thank you, Jesus.” And we say it.
Amen. We honor him with our lives and our words.
I’m so glad you’re in the house today.
And you know, with everything going on in the world, we need to remember our blessings.
And if you woke up in a peaceful city surrounded by your family and friends, and you came here without any incidents
today, you have something to really be thankful for. Amen.
So I shifted gears today and uh I am going to continue next week on the on
the message topic of good pharma and in that series. But
I decided today was a good time to uh talk to you about some of the things
that are going on in the world right now and just give you some perspective.
I’m going to talk today uh this is I call it a Bible study and uh we’re going to pray. I’m going to let you sit down and when you do I just hope that you get
something or have something to write with something you can take notes fast.
I don’t expect you and don’t even try to keep up with me in terms of the verses, but write them down and you can go
through them later. U but I’m going to talk to you today about the Christian faith and the Jewish religion. And I’m
going to talk to you about the history between the two. You know, the eyes of the world are on the Middle East right now on the war between Israel and an evil terrorist group called Hamas.
And some Christians wonder, are are we on somebody’s side? Or do we support Israel? Um why are you getting up in church and praying for Israel?
And so today we’re going to talk about it. And I would just say first of all, uh for
those who may have missed it, Israel is not at war with the Palestinians. They’re at war with Hamas.
and Hamas exist to kill Jewish people and anyone who sides with them.
So today, just so you you get the bearings on this little talk I’m going to give you
is to understand and we’ll elaborate a little bit more, but this is not this is not Israel versus the Palestinian
people. This is Israel versus evil.
And we’ll explain some of that and talk a little bit about it. But say with me today, “My heart’s open.” My heart’s open.
And my mind’s ready. My mind’s ready. Make me better, God. Better God.
As I hear your word today, as I hear your word, I want to honor you. I want to honor you. Your will.
Your will, your plan.
Your plan, your purpose. Your purpose. In Jesus name. In Jesus name. And everybody said, “Amen.” Amen.
You may be seated.
So, we’re going to talk about the historical relationship between the Christian faith and the Jewish religion.
I’m not I’m not a uh I’m not a guy who enjoys nor do I think I’m gifted uh in the area of teaching Bible prophecy.
I’ll leave that to somebody else. Uh, I, as you’ll see today, I don’t try to
teach on suppositions or align or assign certain timelines or incidents or verses of scripture to what’s going to happen in the future.
Uh, honestly, I don’t even I don’t even really enjoy that. I I rather leave some of those things in the hand of God. But
there are some things to be explained that uh even over the last couple weeks I’ve realized that a lot of Christians
don’t have the biblical, you know, they don’t have the biblical uh background to understand some of just
the very basics uh having to do with what’s going on and how we should be
thinking as Christians today. So, let me let me just um let me just go
through again. It may feel a little bit rapid fire. We’ll try to leave uh team if you’ll try to leave some of the headline notes up and scriptures long
enough for everyone to write. I want to be as helpful as I can be for all of you
today and who are seeking and desire perspective from scripture. So the first thing that I would like you to
understand is that Christianity has received from Judaism our our basic understanding of God.
So Judaism has taught us covenant relationship with
with God. Judaism has taught us about assembling together as the people of
God. Uh it has taught us worship. It has taught us the future belief that Yahweh
of the Old Testament will be the king over all the earth. Those are those are just a few quick things that would we
would have derived as Christians in our belief system uh from the from the
Jewish nation or Judaism. the the religion, the Hebrew Bible of the Jewish faith is the same as our Old Testament.
It’s compiled differently, but and the books are in a different order, but it is the same. And I want to
give you a few just scripture references. Galatians 3 says that the law was our school master
to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. So what that’s
teaching us is that referring to the law is teaching Old Testament is our school master that brought us to
Christ. So contrary to what a lot of people assume, God did not replace the Jews with Christians.
And neither did he do away with the law as a way of knowing him and his will for man.
So we don’t just like rip the Old Testament and throw it away and use the New Testament and expect to know God’s
nature and who God is, right?
We learn that out of what we call our Old Testament.
So be cautious whenever Christians say things like, “Well, that’s under the law.” As a way of saying, “God doesn’t
expect that from us anymore.” I think the most common place that I hear this is when it comes to tithing, right?
People say, “Well, that’s under the law.” And I always like I’m always like, “Well, so is thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Is that what you say about those things?
I’m going let that I’m going to let that just sit here for a minute.
Cuz there are people who don’t want to put God first in their finances and that’s their little escape hatch is well
that’s under the law. Actuality tithing was practiced before the law and was endorsed by Jesus in the New Testament.
So that’s just an example though of how there are things that exist in the Old Testament that we are still honoring and
respecting the what what we’ve learned about God’s will and what God wants and
God’s plan for our life. Our heroes of the Old Testament are the same as the
Jewish faith. Abraham, father Abraham had many sons. That’s an old song like flashback. Anybody know
that? But Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon, those are all like those are
all heroes. If you were to meet somebody who is Jewish today in the Jewish faith, you would have all of this in common
with them is my point. The Christians New Testament was written by Jewish believers in Christ.
I’m just trying to help you understand our history and how it’s woven together.
people like Matthew, Mark, Luke,
Peter, Simon Peter, James, John, the Apostle Paul, the founders of the church were all Jewish believers in Christ.
Do do you see the the family dynamic?
Yeah. and the history that we have together.
The New Testament church leaders preach the gospel as inclusive.
And this is something that we should all be grateful for was the very brave, courageous
Jewish men and women who when the gospel came to them, they were bold enough to
go against the beliefs of of their family and other people to
proclaim that there is no favoritism with God based on ethnicity.
and social status. Come on now.
Right or gender. They proclaimed equality among all people.
This is this is Judaism. This is Jewish believers. And it wasn’t easy for them
to do this because a lot there was a lot of biases in in their world. You didn’t even like
interact or engage or sit down at a table with people who were not of your ethnic background.
But these newly converted, saved Jewish Christians had such courage.
And Acts chapter 2 verse 38-39, Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized.” Like they brought this
message of the gospel. They said, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus for for the the remission of your sins.
You’re going to be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And then verse 39, it says, “For this message is not just for you.
This is for all people.” And it’s for your children. Like as many as the Lord our God will call. Like what
what is he saying? He’s saying like, “Let’s get rid of our division. Let’s get rid of our strife
that is based on our ethnicity and our background.
So I want like for anyone who thinks well you know the you know Jewish people
hate the Palestinians or D there’s a lot of water under that bridge. We say those kind of things about you know about here
we make accusations. Well, white people hate black people and black people hate white people and Indian people hate
Asian. You know, we say all of these things because we see it sometimes in individuals.
But as a whole, I just want you to understand the proclamation of getting rid of racial barriers
started way back in the very beginning with the early church of Jewish
believers in Christ. And they gave up their lives. They died as martyrs
under this umbrella, under this proclamation, under this cause. They started fellowshipping with people
across, you know, across different sex and different backgrounds and ethnicities that they started eating
with. They broke all of the protocol of the ethnic dynamic of keeping to yourself.
There’s a scripture in Acts 10 where Peter began to speak and it says, “I now
realize how true it is that God doesn’t show favoritism but accepts every nation, the one who fears him and does
what is right.” He got this revelation and he literally got it. You can read it there in Acts chapter 10. He was on the
rooftop praying and and the Lord, he was actually kind of hiding out running for his life, but
the Lord came, you know, to him and there was, the Bible says there was a sheet that was let down in in this
vision that he saw. And there were and and and the voice of God said, “Rise up and eat.” And his Jewish background was,
“No, those are unclean animals. We don’t eat. We don’t partake of unclean.” And he responded that way. And then the
voice of heaven says, “Anything that I clean, you don’t call it unclean.” Glor.
And anything that that I purify, don’t you call it common.
And he related to that from his Jewish background.
Okay? And he brought it into, oh, this was not about food. This was about people,
gentile people. And God is telling me to knock it off. He’s telling me to stop this idea that one people group is
better than another people group or one people group is more superior than another people group. And I I don’t call
it unclean anymore. And that’s the way they treat it like Gentiles. They’re unclean people. They’re not holy like we are. But these trailblazers
of courage were hearing from heaven and they were leading the way. And so he’s proclaiming that, you know, that people
from every nation are coming into the body and the people of Christ. There’s another one in Galatians 3:28.
I specifically really like this. It says, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free,
nor is there male or female, for you’re all one in Christ.” Somebody shout, “There is neither.” There is neither.
Say it again. There is neither.
There is neither. Say it again. There is neither. There is neither. We need to be baptized with this truth.
We hold on so tight to our own ethnicities that I’m I’m bothered. I’m
frightened. I’m concerned that we’re so afraid of losing our ethnic background
that we literally hold on. And sometimes without not realizing it, we hold on to
a separatism and a segregation and continuing to allow walls to be
between us rather than us all becoming one people who have the same God and serve the same God.
And the enemy loves that because we keep we stay at war.
We keep bringing up those sort of issues.
But the scripture, I just hope we could all just really persevere toward this that there is
neither. Like there is neither. And it says Jew or Gentile. That was the message. See, anything anyone not a Jew is classified a gentile.
So the the revelation was in the to the Jewish faith is this whole thing of us thinking we’re somehow superior has to
end and the doors have to fly open to everyone from every tribe from every
nation that we are all have open doors into heaven and serve one God.
It’s very dangerous uh in terms of God’s favor on your life and God’s desire to
support you whenever you hold on to a cultural allegiance over a kingdom allegiance.
Our allegiance is kingdom.
And when you have a kingdom allegiance, a kingdom allegiance is what I’m describing to you. It’s to follow. You
may not, it may take you time to get, you know, away from things like we’ve talked about the things have happened to all of us. We’ve heard and been
indoctrinated about those bad people and these bad people do this and those people are all like that. And in fact,
that’s what anti-semitism is happening, you know, in our world today that many people have grown up in homes hating
Jewish people and they’re they just have been indoctrinated to hate them. They’re they’re bad. They’re evil. They’re scum.
there and and and they don’t really even know why. They just took on an indoctrination. No Jewish person’s ever hurt them. No Jew, but they there’s
there’s hundreds of thousands of people who have, you know, the Holocaust is one of the worst events ever in our history
that should cause all of us great grief to this day that people would die by the millions. I think 6 million people just
because they had a certain bloodline running through their vein. That is evil.
I said that is evil. That’s dark. That is not God.
So, we have to be kingdom. Even if we’re working through ideology, even if you’re like, I don’t know. You don’t know what
they did to me. I grew up around, you know, this this uh person of different ethnicity and here’s how they behaved and here’s what they’re like and I had
these kids in my neighborhood and and they beat me up four or five times and I just hate them. I just hate them all.
Like you can stay there or you can say God help me to come along in the kingdom
way of thinking because there is neither is what the gospel is all about.
The people of Israel have a special place in God’s heart.
Zechariah 2:8 says, “When you touch Israel, you touch the apple of God’s eye.”
Genesis 12 says that God adds a blessing to those nations and people who bless Israel and a curse on those who curse Israel. Yes.
I I believe that if you just went back historically at the blessings in the United States of America
that a lot of that blessing is because the United States has stood in support of Israel.
That’s good. And I think the longer we’ve gone with anti-semitism and a lot of government leaders who have been
opposed to and we’ve invaded by different indoctrination, we get further and further away from this. And so the
things that are happening in our nation and the corruption that’s happening in our nation, I I don’t know what’s going to happen in the United States, but one
of the things that we’re told in scripture is that when you bless Israel, that the Lord blesses you.
And if you curse Israel, that you’re cursed.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Psalms 122 and 6 says, “They shall prosper that love thee.” So,
Israel has a a special place in God’s heart and always will have.
When he sent his son into the world, he sent him into Israel.
And what a lot of people I I’ve mentioned Peter, I’ve mentioned James, I just to
get things clear and for you to think about it, Jesus was Jewish.
So there’s always, you know, he had to be assigned to some group of people. He came through a birth canal of a woman
as the son of God. And that was where God chose. Now you might say why? Well,
because historically they have been Yahweh people who serve
the same God that we serve.
Jesus was not yet in the earth. But if you wonder, well, why why Israel? Well, because again they
are they are Old Testament people, believers in God, the Ten Commandments, Father Abraham.
So God chose them because of their endeavoring to please God and they worshiped him.
Okay. So most people have heard the term Judeo-Christian values but don’t know really what it means. And I want to go
over a few things that is just a reference to the teaching Judeo-Christian values is a reference and teaching to the beliefs that are common to both Judaism and Christianity.
I want to I want to share a quote from Margaret Thatcher. Uh she said that the truths of Judeo-Christian tradition are
infinitely precious not only because they are true but also because they provide the moral impulse which alone
can lead to that peace for which we all long. What a powerful statement.
And again, if you were just to look in historically the moral compass of
the United States and in nations like Israel and other places, where did it come from? It came from the
Judeo-Christian values that were taught in families and in homes and that we heard all of our lives.
This is a statement that you could twist or, you know, I I’m I’m going to
allow you to do whatever you want to do with it. I’m just going to say it.
And that is when it comes to society, values are more important than theology.
When it comes to society, values are more important than theology. I want you to think about this because a lot of a lot of us sometimes we get all wrapped
up in my theology versus your theology and we divide and we you know and we’re both Christ believers but I I grew up in
the Baptist church and you grew up in the Pentecostal church and you grew up in that Catholic church and we all believe in Christ but we argue and fuss
and debate and divide a lot of times in what’s called theology. And what I want to say when it
comes to society, when it comes to living together and having communities and towns and cities,
Judeo-Christian values are more important than theology. Do I think theology matters? Absolutely.
Do I think Jesus is the son of God and he’s the doorway to salvation? Absolutely.
Do I believe that there’s not salvation in the other, but in him? Absolutely.
But what I’m telling to you is when it comes to getting along, interacting, and functioning well, healthy in a family,
in a community, in a society, Judeo Christian values are the foundation that you can build on and count on. And
there’s never been a time for Christians to reconnect with our Christian. If there’s ever been a time, it’s now to reconnect with our values.
If there’s ever been a time to talk about our values and teach our values and impart them to our children, it’s now.
The world is upside down cray cray, unstable, misguided, lost its way,
saying stupid things and things that are false and not true and pedalling all kinds of crazy information. And it’s
obvious when you look at the condition of the world that all of that doesn’t work.
It lead it leads down a road of of destruction and self-destruction and damnation. It doesn’t foster
relationships in our homes and our families that are healthy. And so, so if there’s anything that we should stand
for and champion right now, it’s our Judeo Christian values.
Yes. And I’m just going to give you seven.
You have to write fast. But these are examples of the beliefs that I think it helps to understand and know that are
part of the shared belief system of Israel, the Jewish faith and Christianity. All right. Number one is there is one God.
We we both both believe that. Christians believe this and Jewish religion
believes this. And the the that God is referred to in the Hebrew Bible, which we know of the Old Testament, is also
the God who so loved the world that he gave his only son.
Same God. One God. Everybody shout, “One God.” God. Come on, say it again. One God. One God.
See, Jesus didn’t come to Earth on his own mission. I know you love Jesus. I know you’re thankful for Jesus. I am,
too. But this is not like well Jesus only nothing else matters and shut off all other information. Jesus didn’t come
on his own mission. He came representing his father.
He came representing the one who wrote the ten commandments.
And you know Jesus didn’t come saying hey don’t pay attention to my dad. He’s oldfashioned.
He’s grumpy.
He’s got a lot of rules. He didn’t proclaim that.
No, he said, “I came to glorify my father. I and my father are one.”
Number two, God created the world and everything in it. Again, this is a shared belief.
We are not the result of an explosion of gases.
I’ve been talking about good pharma. In the beginning, God created the world. He created seedbearing plant and he gave man dominion over the earth. We both
believe that. The Jewish faith, the Christian faith. Number three, humans, human beings are created in the image of God.
We we both believe that.
So when you see the news and you hear Israel responding like they’re responding and so forth, understand that
the root belief system believes that all human beings are created in the image of God.
Therefore, human life is precious.
Ethnicity and race has no bearing on a person’s significance. Amen.
Number four, a shared belief is that the nuclear family is the foundation of society.
Men, women, and their children. This is a shared belief. Yeah.
I hope I hope it’s helping you today when you hear Christians that are praying specifically for Israel and have an allegiance to Israel to understand
some of these things I’m saying as a as a belief system that we share today.
like we we both believe in the covenant God and that we are to teach our children his ways from generation to generation.
Number five, without God there are no moral truths, only opinions.
Moral truths are the same for all people. This is a shared likeness between the Jewish religion or Israel and the Christian believer.
God loves all people, but he hates evil. Right? And he calls us to do the same.
You might wonder why why would they rise up right now against Tamas? And there’s a lot of people who misunderstand love
and haven’t thought it through in terms of loving people and haven’t really bought into God’s way. You know, the
Bible in Psalm 97 and 10 says, “Let those who love the Lord hate evil.”
o, a lot of people see God only as loving, and they don’t realize God hates evil.
He hates evil.
And I know today I’ve been told, well, your your post on social media is not loving.
You can’t say those kind of things and be what if someone is offended?
See, see any parent who loves their children will teach them right and wrong.
They will teach them where to go and where not to go.
You don’t love your children if you just let them run around out in the front yard and over the street and and when your when your when your little, you
know, 5-year-old says, you know, I can fly. You don’t take him to the roof.
That’s not love. And in our society, that’s it. Like, if they say they’re this, then just support them in that. If
a girl says she’s a boy, you should support that. That’s not loving to not support. No, no, no, no, no. That quit using the word love out of place. That’s not love.
Love speaks the truth. I said love speaks the truth.
I said love speaks the truth.
So God’s love and God’s law are not opposed to one another. Please hear me. So good.
They are complimentary to one another. Amen.
It’s not love or law. Love or law. It’s both. That’s a dumb dichotomy.
If a parent can love and lay down the law for their child in their behavior and to say this will hurt you and this
is not, God can do the same thing and has done the same thing. He doesn’t tell us how
to live our lives because he he doesn’t love us. He tells us how to live our lives because he does love us.
He wants the best for us.
And I’m going to talk a little bit about this next one, number six, next week. I I’ve got it in my message next week. But number six is that we are all a product
of original sin. This is a huge one for today. Again, this would be Jewish belief, Christian belief. We both would
agree that we are all a product of original sin. Man is not basically good.
We are born with a sin nature, right? And we can learn to do good.
But we have to hear God-given rules. Our parents have to parent us. boundaries to keep us from going the wrong direction.
Yeah. Staying in sync with true north.
I always love that illustration. True north because no one wants to get on an airplane today and fly anywhere.
If the pilot is just like, “Ah, we’re going without the flight system today.” You don’t want that.
No, no, no. You want to know. Yeah, you want to know that that they are surrendered to the truth in the flight
system. The GPS system is set on true north. True north is true north is true north is true north.
And so original sin is what we all deal with. But truth comes and the Bible says it sets us free
to live the best possible life. Whenever we salute truth and we honor truth and we embrace truth, but we are all originally sinners.
You might take a picture of your baby with a smile and a laugh, but that same baby screams and cries and fusses and
poo poos in their diaper and wants their way. And when you start to take something from them, they’re mine. like they’re selfish like
and left to ourselves we become very pitiful but thank God for teaching and learning and the difference in right and wrong.
Number seven last one is that the world functions according to a divine order and people benefit to the extent that we
live in alignment with that order. So this would again be what we share in common with the Jewish faith as
Christians. The good news is that a lot of even messianic Jews today have accepted Christ
not just as a great prophet or teacher which all of them basically would say he is and they adhere to his teaching but
as their Lord and Savior and according to scripture more and more of that will be happening and is happening. So
there’s a lot of lot of drawing together. God is bringing bringing old and new testament together in beautiful
and wonderful ways. But to go back to this, I want to just show you one of my favorite scriptures. Joshua 1:8 Old
Testament says, “Keep the book of the law always on your lips. Meditate on it day and night so that why? So that you can be careful to do everything written
in it.” Yeah. and then you’ll find your way prosperous.
You’ll be prosperous and you’ll be successful.
So he’s basically saying, “Keep keep it close to you. Keep my wisdom next to you. Hear my words. Put it into your
heart. Walk that path of respect and honor and obedience. And as you do,
I become the demanding mean God in your life.” No. No. As you do, you make your way prosperous.
You make your way successful. How many of you know that’s what God wants from all of us and for all of us? Come on.
How many of you know God’s goodness is very real? His desire, his desire to
bless us. That’s the that’s the heart of God. He doesn’t want us to He doesn’t want us to have a a bad life, a hard
life. He doesn’t want us to live encumbered by all kinds of, you know, rules and things that would drag us
down. No, no, no, no, no. He’s a good God. He’s given us his will. He’s given us his ways. And then he’s also given us
this salvation thing to go along with it. Which means when you fail, you have an advocate whose name is Jesus. Right.
And when you fall short, he takes up the gap.
Like when you don’t measure up, I always like the illustration in baseball, you know, that there’s no baseball player in
the professional leagues that bats a thousand. That means he gets a hit every time. The very best baseball players in the world are going to bat 300, maybe.
That means they get a they get a hit every three times for 10 tries.
And and what I want you to know is that God knows you’re not perfect. He knows I’m not perfect. He knows that when we
measure up against the law, we just not going to be able to do it all, get it all, have it all. We’re going to
stumble. Which is why Jesus came. He came to to make up the difference
between batting 300 and batting a thousand. and he became our advocate before God so that without shame we can
still serve him, honor him. But that doesn’t mean that doesn’t mean that we still don’t get up and try to get a hit every time.
Amen. Man, I’m preaching good today.
Okay, we’re going to wrap it up. I I just uh I hope this helps you today to
understand again I’ll just repeat some simplistic dynamics here and that is that we stand with Israel.
We pray for Israel. We pray for the innocent.
Both the Jewish and the Palestinian.
We pray for mercy, protection over all of them on both sides of that.
But make no doubt about it, we also stand against evil.
And the face of evil.
And I hope every believer, if you’re not there yet, will come to terms and accept this
understanding that you don’t only have an obligation to
pray for your family. But I would just say for every man in the room,
he has an obligation to protect his family.
I would say that for every godly government established on godly principles.
The government has a responsibility to its people given by God. This is God stuff. I can
show you. You can look it up if you’re open in your heart. A lot of things people are well political. That’s a political. That’s a Can I just tell you
protected guarded borders, for example, is not a political argument.
It’s a responsibility for every nation to protect its people from evil.
So that we can live a free life, that we can live in the freedom that God’s given us. And so if you’re in the military, I honor you today.
I respect you today. I thank God for you today.
At all of our locations, those who serve and have served.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
If you are in law enforcement today and you’re protecting our streets from evil, thank you. Thank you.
Why don’t we all stand at every location if you would? If everyone would stand with me. I was we were on a family photo shoot this past week and
at the photo shoot I had a little thought because I watched our grandsons flow with such a sense of belonging in
our family and it really blessed me. And I these two little guys uh have grown up every year um
having to do photo shoots with us so that our church family and others around, you know, the the world that
know us have a chance to get an update from our family. And so they’ve grown up with this and
they’ve fussed and they’ve not wanted to and they’ve kicked and when they were younger and screamed and they didn’t want to put that shirt on and they didn’t want to smile in the picture.
Just normal young kids. And I now one is seven and one is 13. And I I just
watched them like they just know what to do now.
And I I sensed a real pride also. I didn’t say anything to them, but I just sensed a pride of belonging to our family.
It wasn’t like why do we have to do this? How come we have to do this?
They’ve come to an awareness of this is our family and this is what we do. And I remember
my daughter when she was a teenager, she was like, “Why do I have to go to youth group? Why why do I have to be a preachers’s kid?” you know,
she had all kinds of and thankfully she grew out of that and embraced our calling and who we are and our family
and there’s a downside to everything, right?
But there’s an upside. And I just watched these little guys in there this week and they’re like, they came ready.
They’re like go to the camera, they smile, they’re there, they’re doing what they do. They’re glad when it’s over cuz we promised them treats afterwards. But
hey, got to help yourself however you can, right? It just But but my point is
that every human being can benefit from taking their identity with God’s people.
And you might be here today at one of our locations and you’ve not yet really figured out that you belong to God’s family.
And maybe you’ve still resisted in little ways or big ways or whatever it might be. And today is the day of salvation.
Today the the door is wide open for you.
And I want to invite you today to a new life. Trusting God. And I want to invite you today if God’s brought you and
you’ve had maybe qualms or issues with the church or you’ve maybe been away from church for a while and you’ve got
you’ve been hurt or you’ve had issues that are rational or reasonable. I’m just going to ask you today to set it aside and come be part of the family.
We’re not perfect. We have our flaws.
But God has chosen you. God has called you. Yahweh, Jehovah God,
who is Jesus, has come to the world because he loves you. He wants to save you from your sin
and he wants to make you a part of his eternal family.
And if that’s you today and you say, “Pastor Kevin, I I really want to be included in God’s family and I
don’t want to fuss, run around about what I have to do this, I have to do that. I I just want to be a part. I want to grow up a little bit, mature,
and just be part and accept God’s love for my life for what it is and who he is.” is. And if that’s you and eyes closed, heads bowed
and eyes closed at all locations. I’m going to give you a chance to boldly raise your hand up in the air. Just whatever loca I see hands going up in the room right here. Hands are going up.
I see it on the high levels, the middle levels. I see hands going up around the room from left to right. People are raising your hand. Keep your hand up
high. I’m believing that’s happening at our other locations as well. I’m going to lead you in a prayer, prayer of new beginnings. And I’m going to ask
everyone to join us. Let’s pray this out loud, but especially you. Those of you who have your hand up in the air, this is your moment. This is your time.
And I’m going to invite you to repeat after me. Are you ready? Just say this out loud. Say, “Lord Jesus, welcome to my world.
Come into my heart. And into my life. And forgive me of all my sin.
And make me a new person. Make me a new person. I receive you now.
I receive you. as the leader as the leader as the Lord as the Lord of my life of my life and I boldly declare
I boldly declare I’ll never be the same again I belong I belong in the family of God
I am part of God’s family of and I thank you for that
in Jesus name and I want want to be the first to welcome all of you who prayed that prayer the new beginning come Come
on, church family. Let’s welcome. Come on, let’s welcome people today.