SPEAKER_00: Good morning, church.
SPEAKER_00: And uh just as Danny was saying to the to the skeptic, um, or someone who's just here and you know you don't you don't maybe come to church often and you're like who is this guy up on stage um trying to tell me tell me about reality itself.
SPEAKER_00: I I don't just believe this stuff is true, I believe it's also the best thing for us.
SPEAKER_00: Like it's good news.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't like I don't want to just beat you over the head with this because it's true, but it's also what's the best for you.
SPEAKER_00: It's good news.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're if you're here, would you would you open your heart?
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm not we're not here just to try and push religion down people's throats.
SPEAKER_00: We believe that God is real and that he is good.
SPEAKER_00: He's not just real and and far off, but he's real and near and good, and he's the best thing to get to know him.
SPEAKER_00: All right, can we read the word of God today?
SPEAKER_00: It's 2 Samuel 7, verses 11 through 16.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.
SPEAKER_00: When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body and I will establish his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
SPEAKER_00: I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.
SPEAKER_00: When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men.
SPEAKER_00: But my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.
SPEAKER_00: And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.
SPEAKER_00: Your throne shall be established forever.
SPEAKER_00: You may be seated.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, my name is Noah.
SPEAKER_00: As Danny was saying, my wife Abby and I serve on the eldership team here at 614, and it's it's such a privilege to be worship to worship with you all this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you guys have been up to this summer, but uh Abby and I and our daughter daughter Asa just got back from Indian Lake where we spent a week um riding the boat and you know just hanging out.
SPEAKER_00: My daughter's about to turn two, so she's kind of in the phase where she's really starting to get excited about things and loves to do specific things.
SPEAKER_00: And her favorite thing this year at the lake was to ride the boats.
SPEAKER_00: This was this is a picture of her uh riding the boat.
SPEAKER_00: She had to have her sunglasses, her life jacket, and by the end of the week, she wanted to stand up at the front and and why ride the waves.
SPEAKER_00: And she's learned how to say cheese, so it's like the cutest thing ever.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the other thing she was really excited about was my mom bought her these Legos that she could like build a house with.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so she constantly wanted someone to come and sit with her, and then she would like build them a house out of these Legos.
SPEAKER_00: She's got little trees and people and blocks.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it was amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Um that's a little bit about me, but today we are starting a new series called The Era of the Kings.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna be going from 1 Samuel through 2nd Kings.
SPEAKER_00: And over these books, uh, we're gonna be studying 42 different kings and one queen that were over the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And these monarchs, they range all the way from very righteous people we can kind of model our lives after, to very despicable, like not good people, and everywhere in between.
SPEAKER_00: But in the end, we're gonna see through this series that no human can live up to the call of God to rule over his people.
SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna point us to the fact that the true king, the promised king, God in flesh, needed to come to be the one to rule and reign with justice and mercy.
SPEAKER_00: So there's this the the concept of reading through the Old Testament is not just to learn about these stories, but to learn about how these stories point us to Jesus, the true King, the one that should burn in our hearts as we read these scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Um, to catch us up a little bit from the last time we were in the Old Testament at the end of Judges, since then we we saw that Israel was at the kind of very bottom.
SPEAKER_00: There was just lawlessness and godlessness everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And then a king arises out of this.
SPEAKER_00: His name is Saul, and he's he's good at first.
SPEAKER_00: He leads Israel, he unites the different tribes, and they have some military victories, but eventually he falls into moral failing, and God removes the anointing from Saul.
SPEAKER_00: And as he's looking for who to anoint king next, he finds the shepherd boy who he describes as a man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_00: The shepherd boy named David, who was the youngest brother out living in the field.
SPEAKER_00: Um, nothing particularly special about him, but God chooses him and anoints him.
SPEAKER_00: And we see that David, once he's anointed, does these incredible things for God.
SPEAKER_00: He slays Goliath, if you've heard that story before.
SPEAKER_00: He he leads the nation of Israel to many victories, and all it through it all, he has this faith that God is who he says he is, and incredible.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna, today we're gonna pick up at kind of the peak of David's power, where he's conquered all of his enemies and he's sitting down to rule and reign as king of Israel, and we're gonna read about the interaction he has with God.
SPEAKER_00: He's he's just brought the Ark of the Covenant as well.
SPEAKER_00: So this is like the peak powers of David that we're gonna read about.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're taking notes, uh my main point today is we do not build a house for God, but he builds a house for us.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna be in 2 Samuel 7 today, if you want to flip there, or you can read on the Sky Bible with me.
SPEAKER_00: Um, when the king lived in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, the king said to Nathan the prophet, See now I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.
SPEAKER_00: And Nathan said to the king, Go do all that is in your heart, and the Lord is with you.
SPEAKER_00: So we see in these scriptures, David kind of looks around at his successes and all the things he's done, and he says, Man, I think I can do God a favor.
SPEAKER_00: God is still living in the tabernacle at this point, which is a tent that the Israelites made for God's presence to travel with them as they were in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: And it at this point it's like hundreds of years old, so it's probably a little bit stinky, a little bit worn down, maybe he's got some mold on it in places.
SPEAKER_00: And David says, Man, I could build something way nicer for God than this tent.
SPEAKER_00: And you see, other kings at the time, they after having some success, would have built temples to whatever God they worshiped as a way to earn favor in the God's eyes.
SPEAKER_00: So David's kind of acting like the other kings of his time.
SPEAKER_00: And he even asks the prophet Nathan if this is a good idea, and the prophet says, Oh yeah, go for it, which is a warning for us if we're gonna be operating in the prophetic that our own good thinking is not necessarily what the Lord is saying, as we're gonna see.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so this uh the if we could pull back up that picture of Asa building with blocks.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, this is just fun.
SPEAKER_00: Like she's building a little Lego house for me.
SPEAKER_00: We're enjoying time together, right?
SPEAKER_00: But imagine if if my daughter was like, no, dad, I don't want to build you a house out of Legos, I want to build you like a real house, something that you could build live in.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, we she's one year old.
SPEAKER_00: Like, she can't do that.
SPEAKER_00: There's there's a there's a disconnect, she's misunderstanding her relationship with me.
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm her father.
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't build a house for me.
SPEAKER_00: And in the same way, God is just that much higher than David.
SPEAKER_00: So David's having a similar misunderstanding.
SPEAKER_00: In Isaiah 66, verse 1, it says, Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool.
SPEAKER_00: What is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest?
SPEAKER_00: We understand that it would be ridiculous for my little daughter to build a house that I could live in, but it's even more ridiculous that we think we could build a house for God.
SPEAKER_00: So David has this misunderstanding of who God is.
SPEAKER_00: He's the creator of heaven and earth.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that we could build for him that would be good enough.
SPEAKER_00: Eugene Peterson puts it this way.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I think David was just about to cross over a line from being full of God to full of himself.
SPEAKER_00: David, riding the crest of fame, having decisively defeated the opposition, united God's people, and captured the allegiance of all Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He was heading towards success, and he'd begun to think he could do God a favor.
SPEAKER_00: But if David continues to develop along these lines, he will be ruined as a representative of God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: If any one of us develops an identity in which God and God's grace is less important to who we are than our own action and importance, our ability to represent God's kingdom is utterly ruined.
SPEAKER_00: So it's clear in this passage that David has a misunderstanding about his relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: But my question this morning is how often do we fall into that same misunderstanding?
SPEAKER_00: And so here's some questions for us to consider if you want to write them down as you're taking notes.
SPEAKER_00: First, do we ever look at our abilities and our possessions and think that we have it all together and could do God a favor?
SPEAKER_00: Second, do we ever try and do something for God so he looks at us favorably?
SPEAKER_00: So now we're gonna see how God corrects David's misunderstanding, and he's gonna do it with two principles, and those same principles apply to us today for when we misunderstand how God relates to us.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna see the first one in verses four through seven.
SPEAKER_00: It says, But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, Go and tell my servant David, thus says the Lord, Would you build me a house to dwell in?
SPEAKER_00: I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling, in all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Did I not, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, Why have you not built me a house of cedar?
SPEAKER_00: So here we see God makes a simple point.
SPEAKER_00: I never asked you to build me a house.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you coming and do and saying you're gonna build me a house?
SPEAKER_00: I didn't ask for this.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's not that God is against like a permanent place where his people can worship him, because David's son Solomon is gonna build a temple that God blesses.
SPEAKER_00: He's just against David building him a house.
SPEAKER_00: And the the principle that this reveals is what I'm gonna call the incarnational principle.
SPEAKER_00: You see, God would rather be near his people in a tent than distant from his people in a temple.
SPEAKER_00: This is God's constant want is to be as close to his people as possible.
SPEAKER_00: So if his people are wandering in the wilderness, they don't have an established home, he's gonna want to be in a tent near them, with them, like them.
SPEAKER_00: But when King Solomon comes and establishes this great kingdom and with all of these riches, God is gonna want a temple, an established place where the people can come once they've established themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And to understand what it means to be incarnational, can we can we bring that picture back up of me and Asa?
SPEAKER_00: So imagine what this picture would kind of look like if I was standing up, right?
SPEAKER_00: If I was just standing up trying to play with Asa.
SPEAKER_00: She would really, it would be harder for her to interact with me because I would be distant.
SPEAKER_00: But now imagine if I was back in that other room trying to play with her.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be almost impossible, right?
SPEAKER_00: For me to relate to her, I have to sit down, get on her level, and be with her.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what God is constantly trying to do.
SPEAKER_00: We're doing our little things with Legos, right?
SPEAKER_00: And he gets down, he kneels down to be with us, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's not a distant God, he is near.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what David is misunderstanding.
SPEAKER_00: He thinks that God wants some grand place for him to be, but he actually just wants to be near his people.
SPEAKER_00: So it's it with Asa, like when she grows up, I'm not gonna be sitting on the ground to relate to her.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna stand up, I'm gonna sit at a table with her.
SPEAKER_00: But for now, I have to incarnate myself to be like her, to relate to her.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna see the second principle that God lays out in verses 8 through 16.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Now therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel, and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you, and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more, and violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly.
SPEAKER_00: From the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel, and I will give you rest from all your enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.
SPEAKER_00: When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish his throne of his kingdom forever, and I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.
SPEAKER_00: When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you, and your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.
SPEAKER_00: Your throne shall be established forever.
SPEAKER_00: So as we're reading these scriptures, just to give a picture of this guy, David, to the outsider, he was a very impressive man, right?
SPEAKER_00: If you if if David were alive today, he would be a celebrity.
SPEAKER_00: We would all think he's super cool.
SPEAKER_00: He he was born as a shepherd boy and raised up to be the king of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He slayed a giant with a rock and then took the giant's sword and cut off its head.
SPEAKER_00: Like he's a crazy cool guy.
SPEAKER_00: And he he defeats all these armies, right?
SPEAKER_00: But but God comes to him and reminds him of the second principle, the grace principle.
SPEAKER_00: You see, it might seem like David went from being a shepherd to being the king on his own, but in reality, God found him in the pasture and brought him to the throne.
SPEAKER_00: God was the one who defeated the enemies before David.
SPEAKER_00: David just had faith that God could do it.
SPEAKER_00: It was God who slayed the giant, Goliath, with David's hand.
SPEAKER_00: And so this the most impressive thing about David wasn't his strength or his abilities.
SPEAKER_00: It was that he had faith that God could do it.
SPEAKER_00: Always.
SPEAKER_00: He trusted that God who is who God says he is.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we see that David nearly crosses this line from being full of God to full of himself, as Eugene Peterson says, we don't see God's grace leave him.
SPEAKER_00: As God reminds him of all that he's done before, he then promises all he's going to continue to do.
SPEAKER_00: God promises to David that he will make his name great.
SPEAKER_00: He promises to establish Israel in a land where they'll be safe from evil.
SPEAKER_00: And he promises that he will build David a house.
SPEAKER_00: Not a building like David meant, but a family, the house of David, a family that's going to continue on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: That one of his sons will build a temple and establish a throne that will last forever.
SPEAKER_00: And here's where we get my main point that we do not build a house for God, but he builds a house for us.
SPEAKER_00: God makes it clear that we do not do for him, but we receive from him.
SPEAKER_00: And so a couple questions for us to consider.
SPEAKER_00: What is the testimony of what God has done in your life?
SPEAKER_00: And have you tried to claim some of it as your own accomplishments?
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, do you believe that God's grace is for you forever?
SPEAKER_00: Even when it seems like you don't deserve it.
SPEAKER_00: If they want, you don't have to.
SPEAKER_00: So now God has kind of rebuked David, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's reminded him of these two principles, the incarnational principle, the grace principle.
SPEAKER_00: And now David has a chance to either continue in his ways, to continue being like, okay, whatever, God, I still want to build you a temple.
SPEAKER_00: I still want to do this thing for you.
SPEAKER_00: Or he can repent and do something else.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to see what David chooses.
SPEAKER_00: In verses 18 through 19, it says this Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house that you have brought me thus far?
SPEAKER_00: And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God.
SPEAKER_00: You have spoken also of your servant's house for a great while to come, and this is instruction for mankind, O Lord God.
SPEAKER_00: So we see that David chooses repentance rather than being stubborn.
SPEAKER_00: He immediately goes from thinking he can do God a favor to worshiping and praising God for all that he's done in his life.
SPEAKER_00: And this is this is the proper response for us as well when we think, when we have realized that we've been doing a lot for God and not receiving from him.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's we go from doing to worship, to praising him for all that he's done.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing he does, we see in verse 28 through 29, he says, And now, O Lord God, you are God, and your words are true, and you have promised this good thing to your servant.
SPEAKER_00: Now therefore may it please you to bless the house of your servant, so that it may continue forever before you.
SPEAKER_00: For you, O Lord God, have spoken, and with your blessing shall the house of your servant be blessed forever.
SPEAKER_00: So we see, after this rebuke from God, David goes from saying, God, I'm gonna build you a house, to calling on God's promise that he's gonna build a house, right?
SPEAKER_00: He goes from doing to praying to receiving.
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's what I'm gonna invite us to do ultimately today.
SPEAKER_00: Is God has given us so many promises of what he's going to do.
SPEAKER_00: And we just forget about them so often and think that we just need to do enough to get to get this favor and this blessings from God.
SPEAKER_00: And David doesn't miss it.
SPEAKER_00: He he immediately hears the promise of God and then calls on it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's my hope for us today.
SPEAKER_00: David sees that, he says, You have promised this good thing to your servant.
SPEAKER_00: Now, therefore, may it please you to bless the house of your servant.
SPEAKER_00: Can we have that level of confidence that when God says it, he means it, and we can call upon him to be faithful to his promises.
SPEAKER_00: You see, God is building his house.
SPEAKER_00: And in the Old Testament, his house was a temple, it was a kingdom of Israel, but now his house is the church.
SPEAKER_00: God is building his church, and it's it's our job to call upon him to build his church, not because he needs us, he's not dependent on us.
SPEAKER_00: us to build his church, but it brings our heart in alignment that we are not the ones building the church.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one building the church.
SPEAKER_00: And we just get to enjoy it.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes what how how incredible is it that the God of the universe would choose us sometimes to take part in building his church.
SPEAKER_00: He could do it with anything.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He could just write it in the sky that he is God and come and worship me.
SPEAKER_00: And the church would be built.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes he chooses to use you to be the the voice to proclaim the gospel to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: He could use anything but he chose you.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we're we're calling on these promises the the biggest promise of this entire passage is that there will be an offspring from David that will rule forever.
SPEAKER_00: That his kingdom would be established forever.
SPEAKER_00: And so the question that's clear is who is this offspring that will rule forever?
SPEAKER_00: In one sense it's David's son Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: He comes after David and he he builds this beautiful temple for God in in 1 Kings 6 through 8.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like the richest guy ever.
SPEAKER_00: Like bronze and silver become worthless in the kingdom of Israel because there's so much gold.
SPEAKER_00: It's incredible but ultimately we see Solomon fall short and it reveals that he cannot be the one to fulfill this promise to establish a throne that will last forever.
SPEAKER_00: And so in the greater and more true sense this offspring is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Samuel was written before the exile of Jesus and there's another account of this story in in Chronicles which was written after the exile and it brings a little bit of a different perspective on who this offspring is.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to read it it says he is the one who will build a house for me and I will establish his throne forever.
SPEAKER_00: I will be his father and he will be my son.
SPEAKER_00: I will never take away my love from him as I took it away from your predecessor.
SPEAKER_00: I will set him over my house in my kingdom forever.
SPEAKER_00: His throne will be established forever this is a promise written to the Israelites who are in exile that God is still faithful, that there is still a king to come that will establish God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And we see this promise fulfilled in Luke 1 verses 29 through 33 an angel comes to Mary and proclaims that this promise is being fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: It says Mary was greatly troubled at his words being the angel and wondered what kind of greeting this might be but the angel said to her Do not be afraid Mary you have found favor with God.
SPEAKER_00: You will conceive and give birth to a son and you are to call him Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He will be great and he will be called the Son of the Most High.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever.
SPEAKER_00: His kingdom will never end.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the one who reigns on David's throne forever the promise fulfilled but David didn't build a temple out of bricks and stone like Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: He built the temple out of his body through his death and resurrection becomes the place where God and man can come together and commune.
SPEAKER_00: You see Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the incarnational principle.
SPEAKER_00: He became low.
SPEAKER_00: He came out of heaven to become an infant to be near to us to be close to us to be known by us and he's the ultimate fulfillment of the grace principle because he does all the work he defeats sin he defeats death and he comes to you and asks would you receive from me?
SPEAKER_00: Would you call upon my promise to save you if you would just ask for it he is the king that was promised for thousands of years to come and set his people free and to rule and reign forever.
SPEAKER_00: And so my encouragement for today if you're the person here and who is skeptical that that God is real skeptical that God is good I want you to see him as the king who was promised not to lord over you and to to force you to do things but to save you to set you free to establish you in a place where evil would have no reign to to bring you near to him because he is love itself he is the promised king who is establishing the kingdom where there are no tears there is no pain there is no crying there is no suffering isn't that good news isn't that something you would want to believe in if it was true isn't that a kingdom you would want to be a part of and if you're here today and you maybe at some point in your life you have submitted to that king you have submitted to being a part of this kingdom I I pray that you would come back to the simplicity of receiving from your father receiving from the king.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's been times where you feel like you were like David you're at the pinnacle of your power man look at all these great things I've been doing and you think you might be able to do God a favor.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't need any favors from you.
SPEAKER_00: He owns everything sometimes he might choose to use you to do something but he doesn't need anything from you.
SPEAKER_00: He just wants your heart he wants you to submit yourself to him and receive from him like a child.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to grow up in the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: You get to be a kid forever reliant on your father for your every need today just like David he cut he starts this story misunderstanding God and misunderstanding his place in the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: God corrects him and he has a different response let it be so today that we would respond differently based on the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Not from me not from Danny not from 614 but from the Lord God who's revealed his word ultimately we need to go from a lot from trying to do for God to relying on him.
SPEAKER_00: And so I have two more questions for us to consider where in your life are you trying to do something to please God and secondly what are promises that God has given us in scripture that have you you have neglected to call upon here's some examples and I I want you to ask yourself am I experiencing these promises in my life?
SPEAKER_00: Romans 828 says this and we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.
SPEAKER_00: James 1 2 through 3 count it all joy my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness Matthew 11 Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden I will give you rest.
SPEAKER_00: Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.
SPEAKER_00: John ten The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy I came that they may have life and have it abundantly John fourteen If you love me you will keep my commandments and I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's my question Are you experiencing a life where you feel like all things are being worked together for your good?
SPEAKER_00: Are you counting it a joy to go through trials?
SPEAKER_00: Are you at rest with God?
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel like you have life abundantly?
SPEAKER_00: And have you been walking with his spirit that he promised you if yes to all of that we need to talk because I want some more of what you got.
SPEAKER_00: But if no let's repent let's call on his promises and say Lord I want what you say is available in your word I don't want to just do this religion thing to build you a temple and so that maybe you'll do look upon me favorably.
SPEAKER_00: I believe you've done all the work for me and I'm calling on your promises.
SPEAKER_00: I want this you said it and I want it because he is life itself he's he's a good father who wants to give his children good things.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I want us to do.
SPEAKER_00: And I feel a specific call about this John 14 verse.
SPEAKER_00: It says if you love me you will keep my commandments and I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever.
SPEAKER_00: This other helper is the Holy Spirit the ultimate cure for someone who's been doing for God is to live a life with the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so as the as the band leads us in worship I'm going to ask the ministry team to come forward.
SPEAKER_00: And my prayer this morning is just simply that you would respond in some way to the truth of God.
SPEAKER_00: Any way that you have been doing for God would you say sorry repent of it and come and receive from him one way of coming to receive is to come to one of our wonderful ministry team members who want to pray for you and help you hear from God.
SPEAKER_00: One way is to just come forward get out of your seats away from the distractions and just sit with him sit at his throne sit before his throne and just ask God I want you I want to receive from you I have nothing to offer but I just want to receive from you and if if if neither of those two things you're you're comfortable doing would you just do it in at your seat sit before your father say sorry and just pray these promises these beautiful promises who doesn't want a life that is work together for their good who doesn't want life to the full this is what is available in the kingdom when we submit to the king so I'm going to pray for us and just wherever you are regardless of who else is around you just you and your father how is he asking you to respond today?
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to pray and then we're going to worship together.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus I just pray for radical obedience today that as your word has gone forth that we would choose repentance rather than stubbornness that we would cease from doing for you and begin to receive from you.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than thinking that we can do something to earn your favor we have received everything we need if you're here today and and maybe you came in as that skeptic the one who wasn't quite so sure if if God was real or if God was the one you wanted to submit your life to I want to give you an opportunity to respond to receive from him if that's you would you just would you just raise your hand so I know who I can pray with to respond to the king this morning for the first time not asking you to join this church I'm asking you to respond and receive from your father we had one person raise their hands to pray all of this together just repeat after me this isn't these you know these aren't magic words right this is just to start a conversation between you and the Lord and I would love if you would come and and talk to someone on our ministry team that we would give you some next steps in in walking with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Which if you would just repeat after me Lord Jesus I believe that you are the Son of God and I submit my life to you I pray that you would come and wash me of my sins and I promise to live my life for you forever amen amen for everyone else I want to give you an opportunity to respond to the King to respond and call upon his promises this isn't something you do one time.
SPEAKER_00: It's something we do daily in our walk with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So can we worship together church?