Freedom | Future Family

What if your home could breathe again? Not perfect, not polished—free. We explore what true freedom looks like when Jesus is the center, moving past cultural definitions and into the lived reality of grace, peace, and a family that stands on solid ground. We start with focus—how attention directs a household—and trace how friction, handled as a united team, builds resilience instead of resentment. From there, we drill into foundation and why keeping Christ at the core prevents slow cracks from becoming structural failures.

Freedom in Christ isn’t vague; it’s the end of condemnation and the beginning of rest. We dig into Romans 8 and John 8, unpacking peace, assurance, and the way perfect love evicts fear. Then we name the leash that quietly yanks us back: unforgiveness. You’ll hear a practical, compassionate path to release people to God’s justice, step out of the judgment seat, and recover your capacity to love without denying real harm. We also confront excuses and patterns that keep families stuck, offering simple, honest steps to change: replace reasons with action, build new habits, and ask for help before the hole gets deeper.

Confession becomes the hinge where everything turns. First to God, who already knows, then to trusted people who will guard your story and carry it with you. We share how confession lightens the load, how identity reframes effort, and why being “born again” means expecting to learn again—walking, talking, and trying with patient consistency. Along the way we point to practices that build a culture of freedom: Scripture as a roadmap, small obediences, life-giving groups, and a mission mindset that pours out what God has poured in.

If you’re tired of roaming the yard only to be yanked by the same leash, press play. Let’s drop the shovel, cut the chains, and choose a freer way to live and love. If this encouraged you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs hope today, and leave a review to help more families find freedom.

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Transcript

Freedom Framed By Scripture

Angus MacLeod 0:00

We have been talking about this idea that the future of your family is inside the Word of God. And that's where you can find. If you want to know where your future is or where your family is headed, check out the Word of God. And if you follow that as a roadmap, you'll figure out where your destination is going to be. Today we're going to be talking about freedom in your family or family freedom. But before we get into things, if you would open up your Bibles, your tablets, your phones to John 8. We're going to be starting real quick in verse 34 through 36. Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever, the sun remains forever. So if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed. Lord, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you, God, that you are the author of our freedom. Lord, and that you have purpose for our families, that you have purpose for us as individuals, and that you are calling us to that. Lord, I just pray right now that you would open our hearts, our minds, and our ears to what it is that you would say. Lord, I have my notes, but you've got the message. And so, God, I pray that you would breathe life on it. Lord, that what you would have people hear is exactly what they would hear. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen. So I was thinking about freedom. And in America, we all have different concepts of freedom. And so I was trying to think of something that maybe a shared experience that we all had. So I want to take you back to eight minutes before three o'clock. It's a Friday. It's warm outside, and today is the last day of school. You are eight minutes. You don't have to do another math problem. You can forget that science even exists. Because you are going to be testing the bounds of gravity all summer long. And so you wait, you count down with anticipation, just thinking about all of the things that are gonna happen. And then the bell rings. And everybody just explodes out of the out of the um out of the school, including the teachers. I know because my wife's a teacher. Somebody's gotta lead the charge, you guys. But see, that bell rings, and it seems like all of the rules that you've had to follow all year no longer apply to you. The stuff that they told you inside that building, it's got nothing on you now, baby. You are free. And that's when the musical number starts, and you get together with your friends, and you just start dancing and celebrating, and everybody sings, and it's just it's incredible. I want you to think back to that freedom that you felt. The anticipation, the excitement, all of that that was in store for you. Well, see, just because we graduated, and just because we don't have that anymore, doesn't mean that we can't experience the same freedom. You see, in this series, we've been talking about the future of your family. We've been talking about various things, and so we started off talking about focus. What is it that your family is focused on? Because what you're focused on are the things that you're going to pursue, right? If you look this way in traffic, you're gonna start veering off in traffic, right? So you want to make sure that your focus is set where it needs to be. So where is your attention? That's what we're asking. Next, understanding that in families in life, you're going to experience friction. All of us will experience friction. But what we have to remember is that we are on the same team. That we can't fight the problems in life, we can't face the problems in life if we're too busy fighting each other. And so what we need to do is put the enemy back where the enemy is supposed to belong, so that you, as a family, as a husband and wife, and sons and daughters, and brothers and sisters, you can be united as a front against the enemy, not against each other. We're on the same team, people. And then when we look outside of our direct family, inside of our household, we look inside this family. And we see the same thing. We're all on the same team. So none of us here are the enemy either. And so when we have issues, we need to deal with them because this is our family. We're on the same team. Next, we talked about foundation. It's important that your family is built on a strong foundation. Because if you don't have a strong foundation to operate from, you begin to crumble. You don't put a giant crane that's going to be building other buildings. You don't put that on soft sand, right? Because as it goes to do its job, it sinks. Same thing for us. If we go to do our job and we don't have a firm foundation from which to operate on, we will sink under the weight of this world. So we need to keep Jesus at the center. We need to keep him at the center of our lives. We need to keep him as the center of our foundation. Then we talked about needing to be fierce. A people who are fierce, that we have faith over fear. That we are fierce and not fake, that we're not plastic Christians. That's one of the biggest problems that people have with us as a people group, is that we say one thing and then we act another way. And I'm not necessarily talking about us specifically, but in general. That's the perception. And so we have to be fiercely after the things of God. And we have to do it publicly so people know that we're not afraid. And when we get all of those things, and when we we get those things in line, plus some other things, we end up with a freedom that is just unexplainable. Romans 8, 1 and 2 says this there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. So my question to you today is are you free? So think about that for a minute. Before we get into that, I want to just say to everybody who's here for the first time, welcome to Cornerstone. My name is Pastor Angus. We are so glad to have you joining us today and online. We just want to say welcome. And we want to show you this picture because this picture represents who we are as a people. It wraps us up and encapsulates us really well. It's this picture of us walking with Jesus. And the reason we use this picture is because what we see is that none of these people have arrived. They're all in process. And so what we see is that we are also in that group, that we are walking along Jesus, none of us have arrived, none of us are complete, we are all imperfect people trying to be more like Jesus. And so that's what we do here is we try to be more like Jesus every day. And if you can accomplish that, if you're just a little more like Jesus every day, you've won. It doesn't take much. It's pretty cool. See, the way we're more like Jesus here at Cornerstone is we love God, we make disciples, and we reach the world. You see, it's more than just the Sunday gathering. We have life groups that meet throughout the week, throughout the city, and this is the way that we really get connected. This is this is the real power in your journey. Sunday morning is great, but sometimes I found when when I first started in church, I found that I left a lot of times with more questions than answers. Because it was challenging me to live life a new way. But I didn't know where to get those answers. And life groups was the place for me because that was that was the place where I could ask other believers, other people who were just like me, who were walking this thing out, how they did it. And as they share, I was able to begin to change and and make adjustments in my life. To now I'm up here being able to speak because of the result of the things that taking advantage and utilizing the life groups that we have here. So we have various life groups. We've got connect groups, that's a way for you to get together. Those are interest-based groups. So if uh we have a group that does shooting and women's groups and things like that, our women met last night. And so I want to encourage you get together, get in connection, have some friends who are there for you. We also have grow groups, those are the ones that are more biblically based and curriculum-based. Those are the ones where you get to really dive in with people and learn about the word. And all of this pouring in, all of this growing, all of it is for nothing if we don't pour out. And so that's what our serve groups are for. The Sunday gathering, the life groups that you you join throughout the week, those are all meant to fill you up so that you can then join one of our serve groups and pour out so you can be filled again. So if you haven't gotten involved in one of our groups, I want to encourage you, decide now to get involved. We we're still at the very beginning of the semester, and there's plenty of room for everyone to join in. So, future family and having a family that's full of freedom. Well, what does freedom mean? When you ask Americans, it can mean so many things, right? It's a very nebulous term. Because you can be free to do something in your house that you're not free to do outside. Certain types of clothing that you can or can't wear inside versus outside, correct? Right? There are things that you can do outside on the street that you can't do in your job. Right? There are things that you do in traffic that you can't do anywhere else. Right? But then there are things that you just can't do. But when you ask if you're free, you almost have to stop and go, well, in what sense? Because that's only in you know, in our American style, because then you start talking about relationship. Are you free in your relationships? Are you free with your emotions? So are you free? So when I asked that question, I'm sure most of you went, of course I am! I'm an American. Of course I'm free. And so as I was thinking about this concept, I thought, America gotta be the most free, right? So I looked it up. And did you know that there's an index that ranks freedom? Uh it's it's called the Human Freedom Index. And it ranks countries based on personal, civil, and economic data. Uh, it covers all kinds of various areas. You can look it up, and uh I will tell you though, that depending on who you look at, it places people differ or places countries differently in the world. But what it does is it accounts for approximately 98.8% of the world's population. And so taking into account 98.8% of the world's population, how free are we when we are ranked amongst them? What do you think? Any guesses? Throw them out there. Who thinks we're number one? No. We're we're actually 15th. Not bad. We're 15th. Well, when you consider that it's out of 165 jurisdictions, so it's 165 uh countries that are uh countries and jurisdictions that's um uh territories and all of that. So out of 165, we're 15th place. Not bad, right? It's pretty good. But again, what does freedom look like as in 15th place? Here in America, I can tell you that the bigger the gun, the more free you feel. Right? A 22, when you shoot a 22, that's cool, it makes you feel free because you know in other countries they're not even allowed to touch those. But then you go to a 9mm, a 45, maybe you pick up a rifle, an AR, whole mark a baby. The bigger the caliber, the more free you are. And and living here, it means I can buy guns and I can carry guns. It also means being in America, I can do or say whatever I want, right? Well, it's what we feel like. We feel that because of that constitution that we can do whatever we want. We can say whatever we want within the strictures of the law. But that constitution limits our freedoms. There's only so much that we can uh that we can do within that. But that constitution doesn't necessarily touch um, it doesn't touch everything. You see, the declaration of independence, in its most simplest form, is simply a paper that declared to the world the freedoms that we were claiming. It was just a paper that said, hey, guess what? This is who we are, and now we're free, like it or not. Now there wasn't there wasn't really anything to back that up. I mean, there there were a bunch of people, there were a bunch of farmers with guns, and praise God that they were able to back it up. But see, that speaks to us as an American and is very specific to one portion of a continent. See, but the Bible, for believers, this is our declaration of independence from the kingdom of darkness. In here, it declares what our freedom looks like. It tells us what we can and can't do, what we should and shouldn't do. It outlines even more in depth than the declaration of independence, our freedoms. And what's sad is many Christians are just as unaware of the freedoms afforded to us in the Bible as we are the freedoms that are afforded to us in our own constitution. See, in Romans 8, 5 and 6 it says this for those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh. But those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the spirit, things of the spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. Continuing on, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. For those who are in the flesh cannot please God. So if you're in the flesh, you're not in freedom. That's kind of that's that's kind of tough. It's kind of strong, but it's true. You see, because there's there's our civil freedoms, but what we're talking today about is the freedom in Christ. What does freedom in Christ mean? Because we know what freedom as an American means. What does freedom in Christ mean? It means peace. It means that we have peace because there is a grace that is afforded to us. We can have peace because we know that with all of the things that we've done wrong and the punishment that we deserve, the Lord already paid for that. How many of you broke something when you were growing up? Okay, so it was only me. Um so when you break something, especially if it's your parents, man, you get what how do you feel? You get nervous, you get anxious, you get scared, and you try and hide it. Why? Because you know there is punishment coming. Guys, we've we've messed up so much more than breaking a lamp throughout our lives. We've done so many things that are so much bigger than breaking a lamp, and so the weight of that, knowing that we will eventually have to pay for that, can be a crushing weight. But knowing when mom and dad come home and they see the broken lamp, they go, Oh, you know what? We were planning on getting rid of that anyway, it's not a problem. See, what Jesus does is he comes in, he goes, You know that sin that you had in your life? You've already paid for it. So now let's work on it. And there's a peace there. Romans 6 14 says, For your sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law, but under grace. What law are you living under? Are you living under grace? Or do you still have yourself under the law of punishment? See, the next thing that freedom in Christ brings is forgiveness. It brings forgiveness in in not only do you receive forgiveness, but you learn how to forgive. And forgiveness is one of those things that as soon as you really truly understand it, that is the key to freedom. It will set you free in ways that you had no idea that you were bound in. And we're gonna talk a little bit more of forgiveness here in just a little bit. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. See, when you've been forgiven, you can forgive. The other thing that we have is an assurance. The freedom in Christ is an assurance. An assurance is a it's a statement or an indication that inspires confidence. It's a guarantee, it's a pledge. When you've allowed the Lord to come in and save you from your sin and become Lord of your life, you have an assurance of what your eternity is going to look like. You have an assurance that you are not going to have to pay the penalty that you were supposed to. And you have freedom from fear. When I typed this out, as I was just thinking about how God brings freedom from fear, I also thought, Lord, I know that I know you. And I've known you for a number of years. There are still places that I have fear. And if I still have places that I have fear, I know my brothers and sisters have fear too. And so, God, I want to be free, I want my brothers and sisters to be free, but if we're fearful, because fear it's legitimate, and we legitimately experience it, and this is what he said to me. Fear comes when there's a place in your life that you haven't let me minister to. In your life that you haven't let me minister to. The reason you're afraid is because in your mind, in your current power, you don't see a way. You don't see. All you see is the giant. But see, you haven't looked at the giant through the Lord's eyes and seen how small he is. You see, if you're fearful, if there's a place that you're afraid, invite the Lord to come and be there. When you're a little kid and you're scared of that monster that's in the closet, you don't just stay there and bet. You cry out for mom and dad. Because they'll come and they'll deal with that. But then we grow up, we move out, and for some reason we feel like we're the ones who have to deal with the monsters. We still have a dad who's just waiting for you to call and say, Dad, this thing is really getting me. And he'll come, he'll roll those sleeves up and he'll deal with it. But we don't allow him to. But perfect love casts out all fear. For fear has to do with punishment. Fear has to do with punishment. And whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. How free are you? Just wanted to check in and see how free are you feeling. See, because as a Christian, and it happens every once in a while, too. As a Christian, you're free, but sometimes you're bound. And I was trying to think of the perfect way to illustrate it, and this I think is exactly what it looks like as a Christian sometimes. We are free to wander about the yard. Next slide, guys. Until that. You're free to go anywhere in the yard, but as soon as you get to the end of that leash, you get yanked back. What's the leash? It's unforgiveness. What is it that keeps you bound? Unforgiveness. That's one of the things. You see, we receive forgiveness from the Lord, and that frees us. But then we harbor unforgiveness. This is one of those things that, guys, when when you get it, it makes a huge difference in your life. You see, you have to understand that forgiveness is not about them. It's about you. When you forgive somebody, you are releasing yourself from the prison. You having unforgiveness puts you in the judgment seat. When somebody has done something wrong, they've legitimately wronged you. They legitimately should serve some form of justice. And when you hold unforgiveness, what you do is you place yourself in the judgment seat and you say, I'm going to pass judgment on you by not talking to you, by badmouthing you, by this, by that. And that is how you carry out the sentence. But see, when you learn that forgiveness is not about you, what you do is you put the Lord, who is a good judge, on the seat. And you can still feel the same way about that situation because it hasn't changed. But what you do know is that that God is a just God. And He will make sure that whatever came against you is answered for. But here's the thing: if that person comes to Christ, they get forgiven. And that might kind of twist you up because it's like, but they did something to me. They need to face judgment. I can guarantee you you've been that person to somebody else. Where somebody else is going, but they need judgment. See, when we put the Lord in the place of the judgment seat, we can then be free to love that person and know that I love you because I know that God loves you and He's going to deal with this however he's going to deal with it, and it's going to be right. And by not having to carry out somebody else's sentence, by not having to punish somebody else, you become free. Unforgiveness will keep you bound. Another thing that keeps us bound are excuses. Everybody's got them. Man, excuses drive me crazy. You can also call excuses reasons or justifications. You can use whatever synonym you want, but at the end of the day, excuses cause us to be bound. What do our excuses look like? Well, I'm just doing this right now because I know I'm not supposed to. And as soon as I get through this season, then I'll stop. Or maybe, well, I do it this way because, well, that's it, that's all I've ever known. It's how my parents did it. They showed me they were pretty good people, so that's that's why I do it. Or, well, I I I don't because I'm afraid of how they'll react. We have all kinds of excuses, and those excuses stop us from moving forward. And it here's the thing about excuses. I I work with students uh building set pieces, and um, and so many of this generation have never even touched a drill, so they don't know how to use it. And so one of the things about screwing in a screw with a drill is you have to use force, you gotta push hard. And if you don't, the bit will go brr against it and the screw goes nowhere. And so what you hear me is you hear a brrrr and I go, push harder. Because you have to stop and you have to push harder, and the students go, I am pushing harder, that's kind of an excuse, right? Because the wood doesn't care if you think you're pushing hard enough. Right? I could tell the I could tell the wood, I am pushing hard enough wood, and it doesn't change. Same thing with our excuses. We tell God, I would move forward, God, but I okay. Push harder. Try harder. And get rid of those excuses. Continued sin is another thing that keeps us bound. You see, just because we come and we we lay our we lay everything at the feet of Jesus and we receive him as Lord and Savior, that does that does not mean that everything from before goes away. You have been making a bed for how many years? And and you can't expect to accept Jesus and have a new bed. Right? And so I I don't want to promise you something that Jesus isn't, but I also want you to understand that just because you've been forgiven doesn't mean the sin goes away, but he will help you as you get it out of your life and as it goes away. Forgiveness does not mean that temptation goes away. And so we can be free, we can have accepted Jesus, but we can still have those things in our life. Like for me, it was my mouth. It was alcohol. And I've shared these things before, but those things that as a Christian, I still had them in my life, and it took some time to work them out. But as you begin to cut those things, as you begin to cut that leash, take that leash of language off where you don't have to worry about it anymore, you're free to speak. Man, it's so it's so nice to know that I can I can walk and I can speak in front of a group of just about anybody, little kids to seniors, and know that I'm not gonna have a slip. I couldn't always say that. One of the biggest things that keeps us bound up is our perspective. Our perspective will keep you bound. Because sometimes you you see the freedom, you see what's on the horizon, and you just go, nope, that's too big, that's too scary for me. I'm good. And you limit yourself. But the other thing that limits us is how we think God sees us. I'm a dad. And I love my kids. The only negative thoughts I have about them are really like they put this away in the wrong spot again. They left trash on the floor. Okay, those are those are the things, but I never think about my kids as them being a disappointment to me. I never think of my kids as failures. I don't think of my kids as ugly or stupid or worthless. But how many of those words identify with how you feel? Because those are things that we've allowed to be spoken over us, those are things that we speak over us. And then we try and walk in freedom and we go, I can't walk because my God doesn't even love me. So messed up. Our perspective on who we are through God's eyes is so important. Because when you see you through his eyes, man, there is nothing more empowering. One of my favorite things to do as a pastor is come and pray at the altar with people. Because it's a way for you to know that you're not alone. That somebody is there sharing their struggle with you. And I'll tell you, I'm not sharing anybody's prayer specifically, but I have also included myself in this prayer. When I pray for men, especially, a lot of times, men, fathers, husbands, they say, What can I pray for you? I just God want me to make, I want God to make me a better man, to make me a better husband, to make me better, and and and all of these things that I'm currently not, that breaks my heart because what it what the Lord showed me is that what He put into each and every one of us is already there. The answer to your prayer to be a better father, it's already in you. He put everything in you that you need to be the perfect husband, the perfect wife, the best daughter and son. The problem is, is that's in there, we just don't access it. We don't open the box and use the tools. And so because we don't, we think that those things aren't there, and so we think that we're broken. We think that we're less than. The reality is, is you are a great father, you are a great mother, you are a wonderful son and daughter. Now act like it. Don't be, don't get down on yourself. So when when we go into the altar, we're gonna have a time that if that's you, ask the Lord what he thinks of you. And just listen. Because he doesn't speak negativity, he speaks the positive things. Sometimes those positive things come with a challenge, but it's all positive. You see, all of these things that keep us bound, it's it's like we're digging a hole. And we're free, but it seems like no matter what we do, we're just getting deeper and deeper. And as a Christian, you're like, but I'm free, and how am I still in this hole? You gotta put the shovel down. It's the first step. You have to put the shovel down. Stop making your situation worse by continuing to do the things that made your situation so bad to begin with. Put the shovel down. Begin to walk in freedom. Allow the Lord to speak over you. The Lord saved you from your sin. He paid the price so that you don't have to. So stop trying to earn it. One of the best ways to walk in freedom is through confession. Confession, there's there's scripture throughout the word. James 5, 16 says this. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Confession. Carrying the weight of your sin is so heavy. So the first step is confessing it to the Lord. And when you do that, you begin to have this freedom because the reality is, is he knows it already. How many of you have lied to your parents only to discover that they knew you were lying the whole time? Yeah. It's kind of like that. We go up and say, no, I didn't do it. As our face turns red and we're shaking like a leaf, and you know, and the broken shards are still stuck to our hands. We do that and we go, I didn't do it, God. But see, when your parents find out, the consequence is so much more than when you just go, hey, I broke it. I'm sorry. There's a lot more grace in that. Confessing it to the Lord, calling it out to the Lord, that brings freedom. That brings peace. But I want to encourage you too that confession to others, to your brothers and sisters, I'm not saying go and share all your stuff with everybody all over the place. Okay? Confession is something that it handled incorrectly can be dangerous. Because you don't want people sharing your stuff. But there is healing in sharing your burden with others, with your brother and sister, with your husband, with your wife. Confess. Because what it does is confession is like laying down that sin or burden, and it's it that then frees your hands to pick up your healing and a new way of life. See, this is one of the reasons I'm so open with you guys about all my failings. This is why I confess to you so much, is because when you confess, the people you confess to are usually the ones you ask for help. And so that's why you want to be careful with who you confess to. But see, find people that you know. They're not gonna judge you because we all have things that need to be confessed. We all have things in there. None of us are alone in that. And when we share those things with others, we find out that we aren't alone. Guys, I can't tell you how many times I have felt like I've been the only human on this planet to ever mess up in this specific way. And that there is no coming back from it. And if I don't love myself, how could my family love me? And if I don't love me, how could my God love me? I've felt those things before. It's very real. Take the time, confess it to the Lord. But confess it to those who can help you. You know, this week I had to confess something to my wife. We are our lives have been getting really busy. And and I've just, because of my role, man, I've been kind of just out on the perimeter, I feel like, because of our schedule. So I had to confess that to my wife. I was like, hey, just so you know, this is kind of how I'm feeling. Guys, that was so hard. It was so hard to tell my wife that I how I was feeling. But carrying how I was feeling for the weeks before was so much heavier. And when I confessed and I said, you know what, this is how I'm feeling, she was able to speak to it, and now we can move forward, and she can help me with that. See, we are born into freedom. When you're born into freedom, when you're born again, I'm gonna ask the worship team if you would come. When you're born again, you kind of have to start over. Think about it. If you're born again, you have to relearn how to walk and talk. Allow yourself that if you're a new believer, know that you're gonna stumble, you're gonna mess up, you're gonna make mistakes just like kids do. But that's okay. Because he's not calling us to perfection, he's calling us to be his kids, he's calling us to walk in freedom. So I know that all of us are doing life, we're all walking a certain journey and a certain path. So I've got a question for you. How's that working? How is the way you're doing life right now, how is that working for you? See, I'm not promising that when you come to Jesus, that everything magically gets better and that it all changes. But what we offer when you come to Christ, and this image of the cross is a reminder. That this is a different way of life. And so, what I'm offering is a different way of life that if you decide that years from now this is not for me, you can come back to this moment and pick up all the old things. But if not, twenty years from now, you can look back on this moment and say, this was when my life changed. And so we have a question for you. Have you embraced Jesus? If you haven't, it says in Romans 10, 9 and 10 that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. And if you're here today and you recognize that you've been doing that path a certain way, and now you'd like to try and walk that path with Jesus, I'm gonna ask with all heads bowed and all eyes closed that if that's you, if you're ready to start a new journey, just pop your hand up really quick so I can see, and then you can put it back down once I see you, and we will pray. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. So I'm going to ask if you would all pray this prayer with me. Lord, thank you for loving me. Thank you for sending Jesus. I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I believe he rose again. Forgive me of my sins. I surrender my life to you. In Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Well, friends, if that's you, congratulations. Today is your spiritual birthday. As we go into this time of the altar, this altar is for everybody. Because everybody is in the process of freedom. You either need it or you want or you have it. When you're free, you get excited about being free. But when you're bound, you have to cry out as well. You see, in Exodus 2, 23 and 25, it says, During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God, and God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham and Isaac and with Jacob, and God saw the people of Israel, and God knew. God comes in and brings freedom when we get loud. Come and get your freedom. Come and thank him for your freedom. This altar is open to you.

Annie MacLeod 47:57

We are not kidding. That food is delicious. I don't just say it because I am married to him. It is delicious. And so next Sunday, and then two Sundays after that, we have another meal, and they keep changing it up, so you never know what's going to be. So please come. And I love what Josiah said is that right here from home, we can be a part of that global mission. It could be as simple as a meal or pray. As we go into world missions, oh goodness, pray. Pray your heart is ready to be able to speak and be able to give what it is that God's calling you to give to those who are going out into the mission field.

Angus MacLeod 48:36

Amen. Before we go, I want to pray this blessing over us. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Lord, I pray this prayer, this blessing over your church, your people. Lord, that you would bless us as we go forward and that we would make a difference in your kingdom. We pray this in the mighty name that is Jesus Christ. Amen. We love you very much at Cornerstone. Have a great week.