Speaker 1: Awesome guys.
Speaker 1: Well, I still remember the best summer camp that I ever went to.
Speaker 1: It was between my junior and senior year of high school and we went to Highland Lakes Camp in Austin, texas.
Speaker 1: Anybody ever been to Highland Lakes before Pre-teen camp people?
Speaker 1: Some other people yeah, highland Lakes is amazing, but the thing about this camp is we had been to Highland Lakes before.
Speaker 1: The speaker was Ryan Fontenot and he was a great guy.
Speaker 1: He was a really good speaker.
Speaker 1: He still does camps and things, but he wasn't even the reason why this camp was the best one.
Speaker 1: The reason I remember this camp as one of the best is because it's where I surrendered to a call to ministry on my life.
Speaker 1: I had been kind of wrestling with that and feeling like the Lord might be moving me in that direction for a long time and at this camp God just made it clear and I walked down.
Speaker 1: The speaker did an invitation for people called to ministry, which didn't normally happen.
Speaker 1: So it was definitely the Lord's timing and that's where I surrendered and I came home like all fired up about it, like I was so pumped to get to just share the gospel with everybody and tell everybody guys, I know what I'm going to do with my life.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a youth pastor.
Speaker 1: But you know, probably should have seen it coming.
Speaker 1: Not everybody at my public high school in Dallas thought that like giving your life to be a youth pastor was that cool of an idea.
Speaker 1: And so I really immediately ran into this just real discouragement, because I would just be fired up about this thing that I felt like the Lord called me to do, and then people at school would kind of give me some strange looks like you're going to be a youth pastor, like you know what those guys get paid, like that's what you're going to do with your life and you know you have the grades.
Speaker 1: Like don't you want to do something more?
Speaker 1: Like don't you want to do like a business degree?
Speaker 1: Just have a backup plan just in case that doesn't work out.
Speaker 1: And I really struggled because I thought if God really called me me to this, then why is it so difficult?
Speaker 1: Why do I feel so alone?
Speaker 1: Why did I feel like I was the only one trying to live the way that I was?
Speaker 1: And if I was being honest, this was the question that was in my heart, my mind.
Speaker 1: Why obey, when nobody else does, if nobody else is trying to live this way, if nobody else is trying to follow God, if nobody else is sold out, then why in the world should I be?
Speaker 1: Why am I telling you that story tonight?
Speaker 1: Because while many of you might not feel a call on your life to ministry, some of you might, many of you have come back from a camp or a D-Now or even just a church service one Wednesday or Sunday and you've had a passion to just live all in for Jesus, to just go like move to the mission field that day, like you're fired up.
Speaker 1: But then you get into real life and it gets difficult.
Speaker 1: You feel isolated, you feel alone, you feel like the only one in your school or sometimes even in your family that wants to take it serious.
Speaker 1: And you face the same temptation that I did.
Speaker 1: Why in the world should I obey when nobody else does?
Speaker 1: And thankfully, god's word tonight is going to give us an answer.
Speaker 1: Because if you've been with us these last few weeks we've been in our Eden series, we've been walking through the first 11 chapters of Genesis and as we've done that, we've seen what the Bible has to say about all these things we call like worldview questions, these big questions about the world?
Speaker 1: Who are you?
Speaker 1: What is the world like?
Speaker 1: Who makes the rules?
Speaker 1: Why are we here?
Speaker 1: What's the purpose?
Speaker 1: What's the problem?
Speaker 1: What's the world like?
Speaker 1: Who makes the rules?
Speaker 1: Why are we here?
Speaker 1: What's the purpose?
Speaker 1: What's the problem?
Speaker 1: What's the solution?
Speaker 1: The Bible actually answers all of those, and so much of those answers start in these first 11 chapters.
Speaker 1: And not only that, but how you understand the first 11 chapters of your Bible will shape how you understand the entire rest of it.
Speaker 1: And so last week, we talked about Cain and Abel, and we learned about these two types of people throughout history seed of the woman and seed of the serpent, specifically, children of God and children of the devil.
Speaker 1: And we learned that by Jesus's blood, even though we have all made a decision to eat the fruit, to do things our way and therefore become children of the serpent, that through his blood, jesus made us a way to be adopted back into the family of God, to bear the image that we were created to bear, to live in peace, to live with a satisfaction of fulfillment that can only come by relationship with the God who made us.
Speaker 1: And so tonight we're going to be looking at the story of Noah, one that many of us have heard many a times in children's church or even just on TV.
Speaker 1: It's probably one of, if not the most well-known story of Noah and the ark.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 1: Who built the ark?
Speaker 1: Noah, noah, like.
Speaker 1: I've got all the preschool songs burned into my head because I have a daughter who's three and we're going to see in this story that it's a lot more about animals, two by two.
Speaker 1: What we're going to see is that even when following God doesn't make sense, obedience is always worth it, because Jesus is the true ark who carries us safely through the flood.
Speaker 1: That's the sermon in a sentence right there.
Speaker 1: So if you have your Bibles, let's go ahead and flip open to Genesis, chapter six.
Speaker 1: We're going to start in verse five, so this should still be first couple pages of your Bible.
Speaker 1: It will be on the screen.
Speaker 1: If you don't have your Bible with you, I would encourage you guys bring your Bible.
Speaker 1: It's a great thing to have with you.
Speaker 1: Mark it up, highlight, underline, so that you can keep those things and look back on them.
Speaker 1: If you don't have a Bible, let me know.
Speaker 1: We would love to get that for you.
Speaker 1: I'll warn you tonight this is going to be the only text we read.
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to summarize a lot of it because there's like three chapters of stuff that's covered in Noah's story and I don't think any of you want to hear me read for that long.
Speaker 1: That interrupted.
Speaker 1: So Genesis, chapter six, verse five the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Speaker 1: And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart.
Speaker 1: And so the Lord said I will blot out man, whom I have created, from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
Speaker 1: And then we're going to skip to verse 11.
Speaker 1: Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and the earth was filled with violence.
Speaker 1: And God saw the earth and, behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their own or their way on the earth.
Speaker 1: And God said to Noah I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them.
Speaker 1: Behold, I will destroy them with, or I will destroy them with the earth.
Speaker 1: The end, right, real happy, like that's probably not the version that you read in your children's Bible, right, like I'm going to blot out humanity from the face of the earth.
Speaker 1: And you read that and you're probably like hey, this doesn't sound quite like God is normally described, like I thought he was loving and kind and merciful, and now he's like we're cleaning house, we're wiping out everything and he is loving and kind and merciful.
Speaker 1: But you have to understand, to understand what's going on here.
Speaker 1: You have to look back at how we got here.
Speaker 1: All the things we've been talking about so far this fall.
Speaker 1: This starts in Genesis 3.
Speaker 1: This isn't just an isolated story.
Speaker 1: In Genesis 3, adam and Eve choose to eat from the fruit of the knowledge of tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and we've talked about that.
Speaker 1: Wasn't just some like snow white poison apple.
Speaker 1: That was them deciding to choose right and wrong for themselves.
Speaker 1: And by choosing right and wrong for yourself, what you're really saying is I don't care about you, god, I'm going to be God, I'm going to do it my way.
Speaker 1: And that leads to evil and brokenness.
Speaker 1: And you see that because, very next, as humanity multiplies, so does sin.
Speaker 1: Cain kills his brother Abel, and then Cain disobeys God, even though God was merciful to him.
Speaker 1: He builds a city, and then you go down that line of the children of the serpent and you have Lamech, who takes two wives, which was wrong, and then he also abuses them, uses them and then threatens them with a story of how he one time killed a man for just wounding him or striking him.
Speaker 1: And so you get this angry, violent person who then basically says and God's going to forgive me for it because it's his job, and God's going to forgive me for it because it's his job.
Speaker 1: And so, you see, as time goes on, the evil in the world kept spreading and it just kept getting darker and darker and darker.
Speaker 1: And verse five says that God saw humanity had become completely evil, not just like a little evil, but every thought, every intention, wholeheartedly evil.
Speaker 1: And so it broke his heart and he decided to send the flood as judgment, as an obstacle, as a block to this spread of evil.
Speaker 1: That enough was enough.
Speaker 1: He wasn't going to let it continue to get worse and worse and darker and darker.
Speaker 1: But why a flood?
Speaker 1: Well, in the Bible the flood is actually seen as this kind of reversal of creation, like a de-creation, like God is starting over, because water is a biblical symbol for chaos.
Speaker 1: Right, remember back in Genesis one, when God created the world.
Speaker 1: He separated the waters and he brought forth land and order.
Speaker 1: And so now, in the flood, you have those chaos waters crashing back in over the land and killing all of humanity except for Noah, who is considered righteous.
Speaker 1: But even understanding those things, you might still wonder like that still seems kind of harsh of God, like to kill everybody.
Speaker 1: Well, there's two things that I want to note to maybe help you understand this, and it's from a really good article I found on the Bible Project.
Speaker 1: One is that this was actually an act of God's mercy, that God wasn't just losing his temper but he was taking action to stop the evil that spread in the world.
Speaker 1: Genesis 6, 5 says every intention of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually.
Speaker 1: Can you guys think about a world that is completely evil?
Speaker 1: And we know we live in a broken world?
Speaker 1: Now I mean, we see it right, but can you imagine the events of today being the standard?
Speaker 1: Like that's every day, that's existence, like the worst things you can think about in history, 9-11, the Holocaust, like that is just par for the course, like that's where the world is at at this point.
Speaker 1: And so God in his mercy says I'm not going to let that continue, I am just and I'm going to do something about this as mercy.
Speaker 1: And when you look at it that way, it's not random or cruel, it's God stepping in to stop something horrible from continuing.
Speaker 1: And then, secondly, god sends the flood out of grief, not vengeance.
Speaker 1: So it's not like God's up there angry, he's like, oh, this is going to show them.
Speaker 1: It says that this broke his heart because God designed the earth to be a place of flourishing.
Speaker 1: We talked about that.
Speaker 1: He would dwell in creation with us, who was created to bear his image, to be the place of flourishing.
Speaker 1: We talked about that.
Speaker 1: He would dwell in creation with us, who was created to bear his image, to be the visible representation of an invisible God, like that was his perfect creation.
Speaker 1: That's how he made it.
Speaker 1: And sin came in and broke that.
Speaker 1: Sin caused us to suffer, not God, and he didn't want that to continue.
Speaker 1: And so you can see that even in this judgment, just like Adam and Eve, how God did not kill them.
Speaker 1: He gave them skins right to cover themselves, even like Cain and Abel.
Speaker 1: He doesn't kill Cain, he lets him wander right.
Speaker 1: God has a plan, even in the middle of the flood.
Speaker 1: And this plan goes through a man named Noah, the only one found righteous before God.
Speaker 1: And so we're not gonna read it all for time.
Speaker 1: But God tells Noah hey, judgment is coming, I'm going to bring a flood.
Speaker 1: It's going to wipe out all of the life on the earth because it becomes so corrupt.
Speaker 1: And God gave Noah detailed instructions on what he was supposed to do.
Speaker 1: And he was supposed to build this ark and it was this massive boat.
Speaker 1: He was supposed to cover it with pitch so it would be waterproof, to have three decks.
Speaker 1: Add rooms, bring in animals two by two.
Speaker 1: Gather add rooms.
Speaker 1: Bring in animals two by two.
Speaker 1: Gather food, take your family inside.
Speaker 1: And when you do the translation from, like the unit of measurement that the Bible uses as cubits, none of us know what a cubit is, but it was about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.
Speaker 1: So this ark is roughly the length of one and a half football fields, like four stories tall, kind of like a medium apartment building.
Speaker 1: And it said that it has the storage space of about 450 semi-trailers.
Speaker 1: So it's massive and there's other resources.
Speaker 1: If you guys are really interested in that, ken Ham does a ton of stuff Write his name down, google it.
Speaker 1: I'm not an art expert, but it's big, right.
Speaker 1: And so think about how insane that must have sounded to Noah to be told that by God.
Speaker 1: Right, like you feel like if God tells you to go share the gospel with one of your friends, you're like man, god, that's a big deal.
Speaker 1: But like God tells you to go build a Royal Caribbean cruise ship in your backyard and you live in Nebraska Like that's the equivalent of what he's asking Noah to do here.
Speaker 1: He didn't live anywhere near an ocean.
Speaker 1: He was being told to build a floating zoo the size of a football field.
Speaker 1: Like, can you imagine?
Speaker 1: Like how people would have treated him Like.
Speaker 1: Think about how you get treated at school if you wear your socks the wrong way.
Speaker 1: Right, if you're the one building a ship in your backyard, things are probably going to be a little rough there.
Speaker 1: But look at what chapter 7, verse 5, says about Noah.
Speaker 1: And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him.
Speaker 1: Noah obeyed God, regardless of what the people around him thought, regardless of what they had to say, regardless of how they treated him, because Noah believed the same truth that the Bible is trying to get us to see here in this text, and that's this Listen, and if I've lost, you come back for this.
Speaker 1: Our obedience cannot be based on whether it makes sense to us or how we think things are gonna turn out.
Speaker 1: Let me rephrase that Our obedience is not based on what we think makes sense or how we think it's gonna turn out well.
Speaker 1: Rather, our obedience is about being faithful to God and trusting him, even when the outcome isn't clear.
Speaker 1: I remember one time Christine and I were driving to Houston, and if you have driven to Houston from San Antonio before, you know that there is about nothing between San Antonio and Houston except a Buc-ee's and that's it.
Speaker 1: Lots of construction.
Speaker 1: And so we're driving and we had just gotten late into sleep by blasting VeggieTales, because she was little and that was all that would calm her down, for whatever reason, which, by the way, I'm pretty sure that's how they torture people at the CIA, like they just blare VeggieTales as loud as you can.
Speaker 1: And so we got her to sleep and all of a sudden, waze, because I'm a Waze guy.
Speaker 1: Does anybody use Waze, right, anybody who drives.
Speaker 1: Does anybody use Google Maps Anybody?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to pray for you psychos afterwards, because Google Maps is just that's not the play, like at least Apple Maps, maybe Just kidding.
Speaker 1: But so I was Waze in and we were driving there and it told me to exit the highway.
Speaker 1: Just completely randomly I was like, okay, cool, we'll exit.
Speaker 1: And then I thought about it.
Speaker 1: I was like you know what?
Speaker 1: I don't see anything on this highway.
Speaker 1: Layton just got to sleep.
Speaker 1: If we slow down, if we pull out, like I'm not going to exit, right, that's not going to work.
Speaker 1: Like this app doesn't know what it's talking about.
Speaker 1: And so I just keep driving on the interstate and when you know, at about three miles, traffic is completely stopped.
Speaker 1: And the worst part of this is it was on a stretch of highway where there was like no service road, like no service road.
Speaker 1: So I couldn't even like even I wanted to in our little Ford Edge, like I couldn't even pull off and get onto the service road.
Speaker 1: Like we were stuck like S-T-U-C-K stuck, like we weren't going anywhere.
Speaker 1: And so we got to sit in traffic for like 45 minutes while our daughter screamed and then we blared VeggieTales again and went insane right, and so that day I learned my lesson, and it was that I was going to trust Waze.
Speaker 1: I was not going to disagree with my GPS app anymore because it had proven be trustworthy.
Speaker 1: If it told me to do something that didn't make sense, I was going to do it Within reason.
Speaker 1: If you've ever seen the Office right Dwight Jim, like into the lake, anybody know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Like three of you Great Adults get that.
Speaker 1: That's actually probably a good thing.
Speaker 1: Don't tell your parents that your youth pastor told you to watch the Office.
Speaker 1: So, as silly and imperfect as that example is, that's what I want, or what I think God wants for our obedience to look like, and God's probably not asking you to build an ark.
Speaker 1: If you think he is again, come find me after service.
Speaker 1: I'd love to visit with you about that, but there is a lot of things that I'm sure God is asking you to do that don't make sense to the world around us.
Speaker 1: Use your money to bless others instead of yourself.
Speaker 1: Sleep with one person within marriage for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: Be faithful to them even when it's hard.
Speaker 1: Don't get drunk or high.
Speaker 1: Forgive those who hurt you, even if they don't ask for it.
Speaker 1: Tell the truth, even when a lie would be easier.
Speaker 1: See, none of those things make sense from the world's perspective.
Speaker 1: Yet God calls us to live that way, and we're not called to calculate what's popular or easy, we're just called to be faithful.
Speaker 1: And so ask yourself this, everybody.
Speaker 1: Just think about this question.
Speaker 1: When was the last time you did something that wouldn't make sense if God wasn't real?
Speaker 1: One of my favorite pastors asked this question in a sermon a while back when was the last time you did something that would make no sense if God wasn't real?
Speaker 1: Think about it.
Speaker 1: Because a lot of religious stuff, but sometimes it's well, because it gets my parents off my back, or because it's fun, right, like you can come here right and show up on a Wednesday night and, theoretically, even if God weren't real, he is, but even if he wasn't, like there could be benefits.
Speaker 1: You have fun, you play games, right, you get out of your homework for a night.
Speaker 1: But when was the last time you did something that would have absolutely no point if there was not a God in heaven who sees?
Speaker 1: And if you struggle to come up with an answer, then it might be worth asking yourself are you making your choices based on faithfulness to God or just what seems to work out best for you and what you want?
Speaker 1: And that's a question we all have to wrestle with.
Speaker 1: I know I wrestle with that and that answer is probably a mixed bag for every single one of us.
Speaker 1: But if you find hey, that's me Like I've been kind of putting up this mask of Christianity and calling it a day, but if I'm honest, I'm just doing stuff that works for me Scripture calls us to confess that.
Speaker 1: Find somebody in your life that you trust and tell them and repent, turn around, whatever that is that you need to lay at the feet of Jesus, give to him and experience the freedom that's on the other side of it.
Speaker 1: James says that God is faithful and just If we confess our sins to him, we'd be forgiven, and if we confess our sins to one another and pray for one another, we'll be healed.
Speaker 1: And so, again, align your life with his word, because what we're going to see in the end of this passage, this text tonight, is that God is faithful and he is worthy of our trust.
Speaker 1: Because again I'm summarizing here God did exactly what he said he would do In Noah's 600th year, the springs of the deep break open.
Speaker 1: Rain poured down for 40 days and 40 nights and Noah and his family and all the animals get in the ark, god closes the door behind them, and then these waters rise until even the mountains are covered, like everything was gone and humanity's violence and sin had brought judgment on the earth.
Speaker 1: And nothing escaped it.
Speaker 1: But Noah and his family and everybody who were in the ark were kept safe as these waters would rage on and on and on.
Speaker 1: And chapter eight, verse one, says but God remembered Noah and all the beasts and the livestock that were with him in the ark.
Speaker 1: And so, long story short, that verse is actually one of the most important of this entire thing.
Speaker 1: We have a slide up here, spencer, if you don't mind throwing it up, because the whole story of Noah is organized in this structure that I'm not going to go into great detail, but it's called a chiasmus and it's basically like an X and what it means is that this story builds to the middle, it has a climax and then it kind of off-ramps and what's in the middle is the main point of the story, and then what leads up and trails off mirrors each other.
Speaker 1: So in Genesis 6.10, the beginning of the story.
Speaker 1: Noah and his sons are introduced.
Speaker 1: Then the earth is filled with violence.
Speaker 1: God commands Noah to build the ark.
Speaker 1: God commands Noah to enter the ark.
Speaker 1: The flood begins, then the waters triumph and the mountains are covered, and then in chapter 8, verse 1, god remembers Noah.
Speaker 1: And then, if you look on the back end, right after that, it says the waters recede and you can see the mountains, which connects to the waters triumphing, covering the mountain, and then you see the flood ends, which connects to the flood beginning, and then you see God commanding Noah to leave the ark, which connects to God commanding Noah to enter the ark.
Speaker 1: Then Noah builds an altar, noah builds the ark, and you see the pattern here.
Speaker 1: And yes, that's a pattern.
Speaker 1: That's cool.
Speaker 1: The point that I want you to see is that the emphasis of this story, the point of Noah's story, is not about how God got angry and wiped everything out.
Speaker 1: It's that even in the middle of his judgment against sin, god remembers his people and even in the midst of justice and judgment and punishment against sin and evil which we all want God to punish evil but even in the middle of that, he is still merciful and loving, you can go ahead and take that down.
Speaker 1: And so afterward, god dries up the water and Noah sends out a bird and they find a branch and they ultimately make land on a mountain and they all exit the ark.
Speaker 1: And God.
Speaker 1: Well, noah gives an offering to the Lord and God receives it and promises that he's never going to curse the ground or wipe out all life, even though humans are still bent towards evil.
Speaker 1: And God renews his blessing be fruitful and multiply.
Speaker 1: And you kind of see a reiteration of God in Genesis one and two, where he creates the world, like it's almost a replay of that, which seems like this happy ending.
Speaker 1: Right, god puts a rainbow in the sky, it's so pretty and like it's a sign of his covenant, except the very next verse, the very next section Noah gets drunk, his son humiliates him and the cycle just starts over.
Speaker 1: And so it looked like, yeah, god wiped out evil, he recreated the world.
Speaker 1: Everything's good now.
Speaker 1: God wiped out evil, he recreated the world, everything's good now.
Speaker 1: It's like the very next paragraph, the cycle just starts back up, which would be really, really disappointing.
Speaker 1: Right, it's just a huge bummer.
Speaker 1: Except the point of the story of Noah was not to fix the problem permanently, but it was to point to something in the future.
Speaker 1: Someone in the future Because way back in Genesis 5, when Noah was born, his father said this out of the ground that the Lord had cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.
Speaker 1: And what he's saying about Noah is maybe this will be the seed of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent.
Speaker 1: Remember that promise.
Speaker 1: Genesis 3, maybe this is the one, and we know that Noah wasn't that one necessarily.
Speaker 1: But there's one scholar named Andy Patton who puts it this way that Noah gives us a picture of the leader that we've been waiting for, the man, the righteous man in the middle of a broken world, who goes through the waters of judgment and comes out into new creation where God brings peace.
Speaker 1: But Noah was only a shadow.
Speaker 1: In fact, the gospel writers point back to show that Jesus is the greater and the true Noah.
Speaker 1: In Luke 12, jesus is saying that he has a baptism to undergo and how distressed I am until it is accomplished, which is confusing because by Luke, chapter 12, jesus has already been baptized.
Speaker 1: So what baptism is he talking about?
Speaker 1: Well, as the story goes on.
Speaker 1: You see that Jesus's death on the cross was his ultimate baptism, where he would plunge into the waters of judgment.
Speaker 1: Except, this flood has a different ending, because in Genesis, the flood swept away the wicked, while the one righteous man was spared.
Speaker 1: But at the cross, the wicked were spared while the one righteous one was swallowed up in death.
Speaker 1: Noah survived by taking shelter in the ark, but in his life, death and resurrection, jesus became the ark, not just for his family, but for anybody who would place their faith in him and believe.
Speaker 1: And so, while the flood was a solution for sin, it wasn't the ultimate solution.
Speaker 1: The flood was violent, but it wasn't God being cruel, it was God foreshadowing the day that he himself would step into violence, take it on his own body that he would die on a cross, suffocated, naked on the side of the road, shameful at the hands of evil men.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because through that sacrifice, salvation and peace would be made available to all.
Speaker 1: And I don't know about you, but on a day like today, that is a message that I need to hear, because we look around at the world today, that we live in on the news in social media, and this is a broken, dark, painful place to be sometimes and God doesn't stand off in the distance, ignoring it, not paying attention to it, just pretending it's all good and happy and you should just try harder.
Speaker 1: No, he stepped out of heaven, put on flesh, and stepped into the middle of all our suffering, all of our hurt and all of our pain to make a way for us to be delivered from it.
Speaker 1: That, while even things on this earth might be hard this earth is not our home that we have something to look forward to, and that's eternity with the God who made us.
Speaker 1: That the heavens and the earth will be remade, will be made new, every tear will be wiped from every eye and things will be as they should be.
Speaker 1: That is what we look forward to, and I want you to know that that salvation is available tonight, because Jesus is the true ark.
Speaker 1: And as we close, you might have walked in here tonight feeling like your entire life up to this point has been a flood and that you're drowning.
Speaker 1: Maybe your life at home is hard, your parents are fighting, getting a divorce, and you feel like you are drowning in the waters of uncertainty about the future.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you have no friends at school.
Speaker 1: You hate how you look, you hate how you talk and you're drowning in the waters of anxiety and depression.
Speaker 1: Or maybe for you tonight, you're stuck in the chains of addiction.
Speaker 1: You've tried to quit a million times but you've never changed and you're drowning in the waters of shame and guilt.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is for you, that doesn't have to be your story, because there's one who went before you, who bore your shame, who bore your guilt, who took it on the cross to make a way for you to be free.
Speaker 1: Romans 10, 9 says if you declare with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Speaker 1: And 2 Corinthians 5, 17 says therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.
Speaker 1: The old has gone, the new is here.
Speaker 1: Do you get that If you place your faith in Jesus?
Speaker 1: The old has gone, the new is here.
Speaker 1: Do you get that If you place your faith in Jesus?
Speaker 1: The old you is dead and gone.
Speaker 1: The one who hates the way that they look that doesn't like how they think, the one who hurts themselves, the one who hurts others, the one who runs to distraction and dopamine and substance to try and find some sort of fulfillment.
Speaker 1: That person is dead and gone.
Speaker 1: There's a new creation in Christ and none of that person has anything to say about who you are.
Speaker 1: Now you are free, you are an adopted child of the King and you are deeply and fully known and fully loved.
Speaker 1: Think about that.
Speaker 1: That God knows everything you've ever thought, everything you've ever said, everything you've ever done, and he loves you.
Speaker 1: Some of us are afraid that if somebody sees what we looked like two years ago, that nobody would love us.
Speaker 1: But Jesus knows every single thing and he loved you enough not only to die for you on the cross, but to actually set his eyes on you as he was enduring the cross.
Speaker 1: That you're what got him, through the reconciliation of you to himself, his love.
Speaker 1: That's the God I want to follow.
Speaker 1: And so, if that's you tonight, you say, man, I'm drowning, I'm in a flood, I don't know what to do with myself.
Speaker 1: I just want to give you an opportunity to respond here in a moment.
Speaker 1: Everybody, head bowed, eyes closed.
Speaker 1: Leaders, if you'd stay looking around, if that's, you say I'm drowning in a flood, I have never made a decision to make Jesus Christ my Lord.
Speaker 1: I've never placed my faith in him.
Speaker 1: I might've grown up in church, I might've said some things, I might've even prayed a prayer walking out, but, if I'm honest, I have never made the decision to bow the knee and surrender my whole life to him and follow him with everything that I have.
Speaker 1: And you say I want that peace, I want that healing, I want that stuff you're talking about, garrett.
Speaker 1: Well, right now I'll just give you an opportunity to raise your hand here in a second to say I want that, just our leaders, because we want to help counsel you through that.
Speaker 1: But if that's you, I'm going to count to three and I just want you to slip your hand up.
Speaker 1: This is between you and God.
Speaker 1: Nobody's looking around, certainly nobody's judging you.
Speaker 1: We're going to throw a party, so real quick.
Speaker 1: If that's you, you say I've been drowning in the waters of whatever and I need salvation tonight for the very first time.
Speaker 1: Count to three.
Speaker 1: I just want you to raise your hand high and proud.
Speaker 1: One, two, three.
Speaker 1: Raise them up.
Speaker 1: I see you.
Speaker 1: I see you Leaders.
Speaker 1: If you look around, praise God.
Speaker 1: Praise God.
Speaker 1: If you see one of your students, if you just make a note.
Speaker 1: We're not going to make you all stand up.
Speaker 1: We're not going to make you walk up here, keep your hands up.
Speaker 1: Anybody else.
Speaker 1: Take this moment before the Lord.
Speaker 1: I see you.
Speaker 1: I see you, see you here?
Speaker 1: Awesome, you can put them down.
Speaker 1: And so what I'm going to do here in a moment is I'm just going to lead you guys through a prayer, and there's nothing fancy about the order that I say these words in it's posture of the heart.
Speaker 1: It's the fact that as you say them, you mean them, and so, just in your mind, if you want to, under your breath, however, that works for you.
Speaker 1: I just want you to pray this prayer with me, if you'd like to make that decision.
Speaker 1: Jesus, I come before you today and I know that I'm a sinner, I know that I've fallen short and I know that I deserve death, but, jesus, I believe that you took death on my behalf.
Speaker 1: I believe that you lived a perfect life, that you died for my sins and that you rose again and that you sit at the right hand of God.
Speaker 1: And Jesus, I want to make you king of my life.
Speaker 1: I want to follow you for the rest of it.
Speaker 1: Lord, I love you.
Speaker 1: I praise you In Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: And praise you in Jesus name, amen.
Speaker 1: And if you just prayed that prayer with me for the very first time.
Speaker 1: You are saved, praise the Lord.
Speaker 1: And so we did this two nights ago and I want you to commit to me this I want you to find a leader.
Speaker 1: Find me, I'll be up here at the stage afterwards and just have that conversation.
Speaker 1: You don't have to go through it alone.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't go through it alone.
Speaker 1: You should have people to celebrate that with you, to walk alongside you, to help you with next steps, the next step of baptism, to publicly proclaim and look, we're not going to push you through anything.
Speaker 1: We're not going to pressure you.
Speaker 1: In fact, if you're not ready, I don't want you to make that decision, but I'd love to walk through that with you.
Speaker 1: And so please tell a leader come find me.
Speaker 1: I'll be up here.
Speaker 1: Some leaders will be around here.
Speaker 1: I don't see.
Speaker 1: Is Andrea in here right now?
Speaker 1: I don't see her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's out here.
Speaker 1: Find her.
Speaker 1: Girls.
Speaker 1: If you would rather talk to a lady, please just find someone, all right.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to pray for us and then we're going to do small groups, all right, father, God, we thank you so much for tonight and the opportunity to get to worship.
Speaker 1: You get to God.
Speaker 1: Just learn, under your word, lord, and we thank you, jesus, that you are the true and better, noah, that you are the ark, and I pray tonight, god, lord, I thank you that there's people who made that decision to step into the ark tonight, father, to be saved, we give you all the glory because we completely understand that salvation is a work of you and you alone, and we praise you for that, god, and I pray that you would give them the boldness to have those conversations about those next steps.
Speaker 1: Father, we love you, we praise you.