8/9/2026 Sunday morning service

Romans week 11 

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SPEAKER_03 13:54

We don't want you to give if you don't feel like you need to help me pass an offering plate. And I'm going to say a blessing upon the um offering before they come around. Heavenly Father, God, we come before you this morning. We thank you, God, for your sovereignty. We thank you, God, for your mercy and for your grace and for your blessings and provision, God. And as we come to this part of our service where uh we worship you in tithes and offerings, I ask God that you would bless the gift and the giver, bless those that give and father those that don't. God, we ask that you uh help their finances to go further, God, that you help maybe their cars to run longer, their washers and dryers not to pray. God, in whatever way you see it, I ask your blessings upon them. And God help us as we take this offering that we can use it uh for more opportunities like yesterday, God, uh, to reach out to this community with the love of Jesus. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. So as you can see, we're a little short on things this morning. Our media players are not here. Our backup media person is not here. Uh singers are not here. So we're doing what we can with what we have. With that said, I want to extend the opportunity one more time. If you would like to get involved in the praise team or in the media or in any of the instrumentation, please come and let us know so that we can have more people for times like our today or when we are very short on our people. Um I know that the media and the singers, they're together and they're in Ohio. Um they went up to uh get a house ready for sale uh that they've had for several years. So be in prayer for them and be in prayer for the church as a whole, that some of these volunteers to help in some of these areas might step forward. So today um we are continuing our sermon series on the book of Romans. And if we've gone through Romans, we've talked about many things in the book of Romans. We've come today to where we're gonna be looking at chapters nine, ten, and eleven all today, because they kind of go along with each other. Um I don't know. Brian, are you gonna try to do scriptures or not? Okay. Brian's gonna try to do scriptures, but like I said, he's like the third in line on the media, so he's gonna try to keep up. Um if you have your Bibles, open your Bibles. If you don't, uh sometimes what I do, I I don't like Bible apps, I'll just be honest with you. I was told that that's how viruses come in to your phones a lot of times because people target those. But you can always use Google and just put in the the book and verse where I'm at. And we're in Romans starting in Romans 9 today. Um, Romans, as you know, is one of the greatest letters that Paul wrote. Uh and uh it's not just a good history lesson, but it teaches us not only that we're saved, but how we're saved, what happens in that process of salvation. And we've talked about many things, but Paul lays it out things to this entire letter in Romans chapter 1, verse 16, and it says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek or to the Gentile, which is everyone that is not Jewish. Um Paul continues after that statement for the next 15 chapters, and it kind of all flows out of that one verse that I just read. So um last week we finished up eighth, chapter eight, and we talked about adoption, if you will remember, how how we all have our biological kids and we love our biological kids. But a parent who chooses a child that child has something to be uh proud of because that shows that you were chosen, not just because biologically you landed in that family, and when you compare that to scripture and to your salvation, God chooses you. So that ought to make you feel really special. And then he adopts you or grabbed you into his family. And so uh once you're in the family and you're adopted, you're a child of that person. Uh they don't call you, well, this is my adopted kid. They say this is my child. And that's what we are to God. We are his children if we have accepted salvation and been grafted into that vine. So we talked about how God doesn't just forgive us and then just leave us out there to fend for ourselves and to try to find our way around. He brings us inside, he puts his name on us, and he calls us his sons and his daughter. And I said something last week that I want to remind you of. We are not forced into God's family. He is a gentleman, and he is not going to force us to do anything that we don't want to do. It is a free choice that all of us are allowed to make or not to make. Allowed to make or not to make. Romans 3.22 confirms this when it says we are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. You hear that? It's free for everyone, no matter who we are. So, right after that beautiful chapter, okay, guys, the kids are learning the books of the Bible. All right. Don't think that, right? He said it sounds like it. Don't think that they are being abused or screaming for help, okay? It kind of goes, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. And then for the course it goes, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And when they get to the yeah part, that's what you hear, okay? So that's what they're doing down there. But yeah, don't think that anything's happened. So uh right after that beautiful chapter on adoption, Paul does something unexpected and he pivots. And and chapters nine, ten, and eleven kind of go off in a different direction that he wants to address. Uh they uh carried the promises. God chose them. People carried the promises, the covenants, the law, the prophets, and yet when the Messiah that they had been waiting for shows up right in front of them, face to face, person to person, they didn't recognize him and they rejected him. All right? They didn't recognize him, and this great fault to his core. So this is how he opens up in chapter nine. He says at the beginning. You can hear the music now. Hear the listen. I love it. Guys, kids are learning the books. That's wonderful. I speak or I am telling the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my countrymen, my kinsmen according to the flesh. So what's happening here is when the people, the Jewish people, they were looking for their king, their Messiah, but they thought that he was going to come in human form as this strapping, muscular, handsome, good-looking leader that was going to come and free them from all of their oppressors. And what happens is Jesus showed up. You see, Jesus came to save our souls. And they were looking for someone to physically save them. So they didn't recognize that Jesus was there. They didn't think that Jesus was the Messiah. They completely overlooked him. So what Paul is saying here is, I can't believe that they don't see it. I can't believe that they don't see that Jesus is the Messiah. And it's grieving him. He was in agony over the souls of his family. So out of that agony, Paul begins to talk about God's sovereignty, God's election, God's choosing Jacob over Esau, which is a story that if you go back and read, you'll see it. God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart. That was also a story. So, church, this is where things start getting a little complicated. Some people read over chapter 9 and they walk away believing something that is absolutely not true. They believe that before the world was ever created, that God looked through time and picked a small handful of people to save, and that the rest of the people aren't saved. That's what a lot of people believe. He picked a small percentage and that everybody else simply is going to hell. And they got that from reading this chapter nine. But there's nothing, absolutely nothing about that that is true. Because that means that we don't have a choice, we don't have a say, and we don't have a chance if we weren't selected as one of those few. Okay? So I want to tell you as plainly as I know how that is not the God of the Bible. That's not. That is not the God who wept over Jerusalem. That's not the God who stood at the door and knocked. That's not the God that said, whoever and everyone and all, over and over again throughout the Bible. Okay? So today we're going to dig into Romans 9 through 11 and we're going to discover what Paul was actually saying and what he wasn't saying. Because this really matters. It matters how we see God, and it matters how we see ourselves. It matters whether we walk out of here this morning wondering if we were picked or not. And I guarantee you guys, he didn't pick. All right? So the family was grafted in by choice. We're going to start with the word that trips everybody up, and that word is election. Election, okay? Paul uses this language of God, choosing. Choosing Jacob over Esau, choosing Israel as his nation. And people will read that and they think, see, God picks favorites and he leaves the rest out. That's not the truth. Here's what Paul was actually saying. God's choosing in Romans 9 is not about handpicking who he wanted to go to heaven. It's about God choosing a nation for which the Messiah would come through. He chose Israel. He didn't choose Israel, and if you are not a Jewish person, then you're not going to heaven. He chose Israel as the line that Jesus would come through. So can you see the difference when it says God's chosen people? It doesn't mean he chose them exclusively, they're going to heaven, and you don't stand a chance. No, he chose them as the line that the Messiah would come through. And that's it. That's the choosing that nine is talking about, the nation of Israel to carry out a very specific purpose. Now, here's the beautiful part. Even within that chosen nation, some of the most important names in that whole story are not people who were even Jewish people. Alright? They weren't people that were Jewish people. Let's look at the genealogy of Jesus. We're going to Matthew chapter 1. And we're going to look at verses 1 through 6. The genealogy of Jesus in Matthew chapter 1, verses 1 through 6. And Brian's pulling it up for us. And y'all, I have the scripture on the wall. Y'all think I'm just stopping and staring at it. No, it's up there. That's where I can see it. Well, I'm just uh Matthew 1, 1 through 6. That's how I know when it's behind me, so you guys can see it too. There we go. Alright, so this is the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah, the father of Perez and Zarah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the king, the father of King David. Now, when we go to reading these names in the Bible, and it says this person begat this person, that can be some of the most boring reading. And you say, why does God put that in there? What could he actually want to accomplish? Things like this. He wants you to know the genealogy, so you know how all of these people of the Bible interconnect with each other. Alright? So in that, in Matthew 1.6, I mentioned three women. I'm going to go over those three women. They were named right in the middle of the Messiah's family tree. And all three of these women were outsiders who chose to belong to the people of God, the chosen people, the Israelites. They were not Israelites, they chose to be part of the family. So Tamar, in Genesis chapter 38, we see Tamar's story. And it's not a pretty one. She wasn't born into this family. She was a foreign woman with a story full of dysfunction, betrayal, and heartbreak. But every by every earthly standard, she should have been a footnote that nobody remembered. But God did not discard her. He grafted her right into the family line. She went from being a total outsider to becoming the matriarch or the mother of the entire tribe of Judah. The entire tribe of Judah. The tribe that the Messiah himself would eventually come from. So Tamar was grafted in. She was not originally part of the chosen Israelites. She was grafted in and became the matriarch of the tribe that the Messiah himself came from. So let's talk about Rahab. And a lot of you might know who Rahab is. Her story comes from Joshua chapters 1 and 2. She was a Canaanite woman and she was living in Jericho. I don't know if you remember the story of Jericho. Kids have songs about it. They marched around Jericho seven times and the walls fell down. But she was a Canaanite woman living in Jericho, and this was a city that faced God's judgment. When the spies came to her from God's people, she chose to believe in God. And she chose to help God's people. And because of that choice, she and her whole household were spared when the rest of the city fell. And they killed everybody, but they let Rahab and her family go free. She wasn't spared because of the bloodline. She didn't have the right bloodline. She wasn't an Israelite. She was spared because she believed and she acted on it. And get this, she's not just mentioned in a genealogy footnote. She's listed in Hebrews 11 in the great hall of faith, right alongside Abraham, Moses, and King David. That's how important Hagar became or Rahab became. She's the Canaanite. She stood shoulder to shoulder with those giants of the faith, and that ought to tell you about how God ultimately feels about outsiders of his chosen people. So then we've got Ruth. All right. Ruth, the scripture describes her plainly as a foreigner, an outsider, a woman with nothing to her name. She didn't have to follow Naomi back to Bethlehem. She could have stayed in Moab. That's what she was, was a Moabite. She could have stayed there with her own people, her own gods, her own comfortable life. But she chose freely and willingly to follow the God of Israel. And God took that choice and used it to make her the great-grandmother of King David. So King David, a hero of the faith, his great-grandmother was not an Israelite. She was a Moabite that chose to follow God. So you see the pattern here? Even though God talks about his chosen people, the Israelites, that doesn't mean that God handpicked who's going to heaven. He just chose the line that the Messiah would be in. And here's three examples of women that were not Israelites that chose and God willingly accepted them. And that's the picture that Paul's trying to paint in Romans 11. Romans 11, 17 through 21 says, if some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this. You will say then branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in. Granted, but they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand firm. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Now let me tell you what that's saying here. He's talking to the Israelite people, and he's saying, Guys, I've got these other people that are not part of the Israelites that I want to graft into the family. So don't you be arrogant because you're already in the bloodline, because I can cut you off. I can cut you from the tree and use that to graft these other people who are not Israelites into the tree. So be careful. So that tells you that just because you're Jewish, that doesn't mean you're going to heaven. So therefore, you must not be chosen, even though the Israelites were chosen, the chosen people. So I've showed you both ways. Israelites cannot make it to heaven, Gentiles can make it to heaven. That is proof right there that God does not handpick who goes to heaven ahead of time. Alright? So the broke off branch, it wasn't some secret decree from before the time began. It was simply unbelief. If you do not believe in God, you will not make it to heaven. It's just as simple as that. Simple faith. If you don't believe, you won't make it. So when the grafted wild branches are put in, it wasn't luck or fate. It was a choice. They chose to be grafted in. Paul addresses this directly in Romans 9, 6, where he says, Well then, has God failed to fulfill his promise to Israel? No. For not all who are born into the nation of Israel are truly members of God's people. Not all of them are truly members. In other words, just having the right name, the right bloodline, the right religious pedigree, that doesn't save you. You don't automatically get in. And here's the key phrase that I want you to write down if you're taking notes or just make a mental note up. It is not chosen for us, it is chosen by us. Does that make sense? God did not choose for us ahead of time who will go to heaven. That's chosen by us. Alright? Because we all have free will. So here's what I want to take you. We're going on a little history field trip, okay? It will help you to understand. I know Key uh Tristan likes history. He told us last week that he likes history, and some of y'all raised your hands too. So I'm going on a little history lesson here. For the first 300 years after Jesus walked out of the tomb, the early church fathers, the gl, you know, they were close to the apostles, all right? And the apostles had walked with Jesus, and they had even sat under the apostles' teaching, they fiercely defended the idea that human beings have free will. Because human beings do have free will. So for the first 300 years, they were defending that. You have free will, it's not chosen for you, you make the choice. It was completely understood in those times, but you've got to remember, Jesus had just walked out of the tomb 300 years, and that, you know, you still got people that remember him because people lived a long time, okay? You still got people that still remember him. But as we get further and further from Jesus walking out of the tomb, that's when everything starts getting watered down and meanings start getting put in there. So about 400 years after Jesus, uh, and some of you all might recognize this name, the theologian named Augustine. There was a theologian named Augustine, and he came along. Now, Augustine was fighting against a heresy of his day that taught that humans weren't really sinful by nature, and they could perfect themselves and become perfect by their willpower. Right? How many in here ever wake up with the thought, I am going to sin today? That's not what we set out to do, but that's what we do, isn't it? That's what we do. So, so here's the thing. They were saying that if you had enough willpower, you'd just stop. That's not true, guys. We still live in a fleshly body. We are not born ultimately good. We are born sinners. I've said this before. Little kids, they will cry when nothing's wrong with them. They're lying to you just to get picked up, just to get cuddled. They do that. Temper tantrums. Oh my goodness. Kids will throw temper tantrums over nothing. Uh they're deceitful. And some people are going, I can't believe you'd call my child deceitful. I'm sorry, guys. We are born into sin. That's how we are. I see a lot of heads in here nodding with me this morning. You understand what I'm saying. It's only as we start believing in Jesus, as we start learning a moral code, as we start learning values, that we start making decisions to do the right thing. And we will never achieve perfect. We will never achieve perfect. But that was some theology that started back around Augustine's time. So he was fighting, saying, no, that's not right. We cannot achieve perfection. You guys are trying to start something that is completely false. So he was fighting a real problem. But then about 900 years after Augustine, comes a reformer named John Calvin. Have y'all ever heard of Calvinism? Okay? So here comes John Calvin. And Calvin took Augustine's writings on the sovereignty and built an entire theological system on top of that. A system that said before the world was even created, God arbitrarily chose some people for heaven, called them the elect, and just as arbitrarily condemned everybody else or the reprobate to hell. And there was nothing anybody could do to change their assigned outcome. That's Calvinism. All right? Completely false. Completely false. So I want to say all this with love and respect, but plenty of wonderful people, sincere people, Bible-loving people agreed with him. Agreed with him. Why? Because the devil roams around like a lion. He's seeking whom he may devour. And if you don't keep your guard up, he can make you start believing anything. He can make you start believing. That's why you need to stay prayed up and read up and among your fellow family Christians so that we can do this together. So, in order to build that system, you have to walk right past verse after verse that says the exact opposite. He says God chose beforehand. The Bible is full of verse after verse after verse that said that didn't happen. I'm going to give you some of them. Romans chapter 10, verses 12 and 13. Romans 10, verses 12 and 13. This says Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord who gives generously to all who call on him, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Now that's a little different than what Calvinism taught, isn't it? Calvinism taught you're born into where you're going. But the Bible plainly says everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Romans 5, 18. Romans 5.18. This tells us. Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, we're talking about Adam and Eve, so also one righteous act we're talking. Talking about Jesus dying on a cross resulted in justification and life for all people. All people. Now let's go to John 3, 16 and 17. A lot of you have heard this verse your entire life. Some of you can quote it without skipping a word. John 3, 16 and 17. This tells us. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. That's proof right there, guys. He didn't come to condemn anybody. He came to save the world. And then 2 Peter 3 and 9. 2 Peter 3 and 9. All right, the Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand, slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. So, guys, if you were handpicked before you were even born, these scriptures would not exist. Jesus wants everyone to come to him. He delays the the cut God delays the coming, the second coming, just so people who aren't saved still have time that they can get saved before the rapture happens. This is not the vocabulary of a God running an exclusive club. We all can get into this club. So here's the question. Why do so many God uh good Bible-believing people still land on a confirmation of predestination? Now, I've thought about this, and at the root of it, the answer is arrogance. Plain and simple, arrogant. Hang with me, because I'm not calling anyone a bad person. I'm talking about a mindset that has haunted mankind since the garden. A deep desire to figure God out completely. If you will remember Adam and Eve, that old serpent came in, the devil, and said, Surely God didn't say, Don't eat of that tree. What he's really meaning is if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then you'll know just as much as him. So that's why he don't want you to eat of that tree. Go ahead and eat of that tree, and you'll be just as smart as God is. So they ate of the tree. They ate of the tree. And what happened afterwards was while all of us have fallen into a sinful nature, that one sin that entered the world. And sometimes you say, well, if it would have been me, I wouldn't have done it. Yes, you would have. Because how many times have you sinned in your life? I think it's more than any of us can count for every single one of us. So what happened was they were arrogant. They wanted to know everything, they wanted to be as smart as God. So that's why they went ahead and did that. But, church, the entire argument rests on a hidden assumption that our human logic is powerful enough to understand an infinite God. Do you think that the God that created this entire universe, that created every cell in our body, that created every living and unliving thing, do you think that we could ever understand that level of intelligence? That level of being? Guys, we cannot understand God. We are not going to understand God. And the arrogance of people who try to say that he handpicks people ahead of time, they're trying to say that they understand God. How can you understand him? He is far above our understanding. The Bible tells us that we don't think like he does. We can't even imagine with our earthly brains what heaven is going to be like. It's trying to fit the whole ocean inside of a mason jar, would be us trying to put all of God's knowledge inside of us. It just couldn't happen. It's not going to happen. If God really is all-powerful and all-knowing, like we all agree that He is, then He absolutely has the ability to grant us a genuine, non-coerced free will. God, He's big enough to know everything. He's big enough to give us freedom. So those two things aren't in competition with each other. You have God, you have freedom. That's how it is. So Paul, he comes to this exact same conclusion. Romans 11, 33 through 36. Romans 11, 33 through 36. All right. Oh, how great are God's riches and wisdom and knowledge? How impossible it is for us to understand his decision and his ways. For who can know the Lord's thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice? And who has given him so much that he needs to pay it back? For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever. Amen. Paul came to that same conclusion. We can't understand him. Who can give him advice? Nobody. We're human. That's not defeat, that's worship. When you come to the point that you realize I can't be as good as God, what happened to Satan, Lucifer, when he tried to be as good as God? He was banished to hell. That's the devil, guys. That's the devil. You cannot be as smart, as all-knowing, as powerful as God is. So let me bring it down to something we can all relate to. I'm going to talk about marriage for just a second. In some cultures throughout history, marriages are prearranged. Marriages are prearranged. I'm so glad that in America, marriages are not prearranged. Right? So when marriages are prearranged, the groom has no say whatsoever. The bride has no say whatsoever. They meet each other sometimes the day it happens and they're married. Tell me that's love. There's not love in that. It's a choice that was predestined. It was a choice that was chosen for them that they had no control over. Now, compare that to a marriage built on courtship. How about compare that to somebody pursues you, they ask you out? You could say no. I don't want to go out with you. She could have said no. Right? But but that's not how America usually works. And a lot of other places. You you get courted, you pursue each other, the the you fall in love, and then comes the marriage. Then comes the marriage. He's not interested in an arranged marriage where you had no say and you're just going through the motions. Now think about God. God pursues you. God pursues you. He set his own son to die for you. That's how much you mean to him. Jesus laid his life down and proved his love, and now he is waiting patiently for you to make your choice. He's not going to force himself on you. He doesn't want an arranged marriage. God doesn't want an arranged relationship with you because how much love is truly in it if you're made to do it. So God gives us free will. Free will has caused bad things to happen for many, many years. People say, well, why did a bad thing happen to such a good person? Because there's sin in the world and God gives us free choice. There's sin in the world, and God gives us free choice. So we're going to turn the page from Romans 9 into Romans 10. This is where Paul lays out with crystal clarity. So Romans 10, 9 through 13. Romans 10, 9 through 13. This is how we do it, guys. 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. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified. And it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame. For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. You will be. It's not predestined, guys. You will be saved. He didn't say a select few, the right bloodline, the right religion, the right denomination. He says anyone who calls on the Lord and believes in him will be saved. So the olive tree I was talking about earlier, and being grafted in to God's family, let's go back to chapter 11, verses 23 and 24. 11, 23, and 24 in Romans. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in. For God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that's wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree? Now, that that covers one more thing. A lot of people, and even earlier in the book of Romans, it says, if you've tasted of God's salvation and fall away, then there is no more sacrifice for you. And people have taken that to think that that means that once you taste of salvation, if you blackslid, then you've already accepted the blood of Jesus, so there's no other blood that can cover you. This is disputing that. This is disputing that because it's saying if you were already part of that tree and your branch was cut off, you can be grafted back in again. You can be grafted back in again. I've had people say, boy, I used to follow Jesus, but I fell away and I started sinning. He'll never accept me back again now. Yes, he will. You can be grafted right back into that tree. You can be, what do you do? You believe in him and start serving him again, and he will accept you back into that tree. Grafted in again. Wandering church members, he wants you to come home. He wants you back. Don't stay away because you think you cannot get saved, that you cannot truly be grafted back into that branch. If you left, if you walked away, if life got hard or sin got comfortable for you, which it sometimes does, church got boring, so you just stayed away, you drifted. The root's still there, guys. You can still get grafted back in. And God's able to graft you the moment that you turn back to Him. Romans 11, 33 and 36. Romans 11, 33 through 36. This tells us. Oh, how great are God's riches and wisdom and knowledge, how impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways. For all who can know God, for who can know the Lord's thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice and who has given him so much that he needs to pay it back? For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. We read that earlier. I wanted to read it again right now. We can't understand. No confusion, no fear. We should have none of that. Romans 10, 9 says, If you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And I want you to hear that this morning. So I'm going straight to the end. I've still got some pages here, but I want to go to the end. I'm going to ask one of two things this morning. Well, one of three things. First of all, if you have never ever accepted the Lord Jesus into your heart, accepted salvation, I'm going to ask you to come and stand over here on this side. If you have accepted Jesus in your heart before, but you're one of those that got comfortable with sin and you want to rededicate to him and be grafted back in this morning, then I want you to come to this side. And when I asked everybody to stand up, that's when I want your decisions made, and we're not going to prolong it. We're not going to prolong it. And remember what I said. If you've never accepted him on this side, you have accepted him, but you fell away, and now you're not saved. Now you aren't you're not following God anymore. You come to this side. If you will, stand with me. And I'm going to give you just a couple seconds to make that decision. Normally, people play and sing here, but we don't have people to play and sing this morning. So if you will, I'm going to say a prayer. And when the prayer's over, I want you to move. If this is you, I want you to move. Heavenly Father, today we come before you and we ask you, Lord, in the name of Jesus, to remove any doubt and any fear and any anxiety that anybody might have about stepping out for you this morning. The Bible says, if you're ashamed of me, then I will be ashamed of you. Help us, God, to be unashamed people. We're not ashamed of the gospel. We're not ashamed of the name of Jesus Christ. Help our chains to come off and help us to make decisions this morning. In the name of Jesus I pray, Amen. If that's you, I want you to move to the front this morning. All right. So our hearts are clear. If you prayed that prayer this morning, but you didn't want to come forward, seeing me after church because that's important. That's important. You can go ahead and have a seat. And I'm also expecting a rush of people to volunteer after church, right? Um, so I want to uh talk about yesterday for just a second. Yesterday we had just kids, 118. That doesn't count parents or adults that came that that I didn't count any of those. Okay. So we were way, I bet we hit 250 yesterday. Easy. Easy. Um, of course, it's hard to count and get a good count when people are running in and out like that. If you came and helped out yesterday, will you stand up just a second? I want everybody. There we go. I want you to look at the people that came out and helped yesterday. Is this not awesome? All right. You can be seated. And Jeremy, I had a gift for you this morning. Guys, this is servanthood, but it's upstairs in the attic, so we weren't going to try that this morning. I will give it to you next week. Jeremy came yesterday and volunteered to be our cook. And he has never ever grilled before. He said, I don't know what I'm doing. But he was slinging them hot dogs like he had done it all his life. And guys, he made a good hot dog. He made a good hot dog. So, so Jeremy will get his gift next week. I just wanted to give it to you this morning, but I'll save it for next week. You'll appreciate it, okay? I just thought that was neat. But that's the heart of a servant. I've never done that before, but I'm willing to give it a try to expand God's kingdom. I I thought Julie was gonna die on us. We looked over at her once, and her face was like red like a crayon. And she had sweat dripping, and and then Amber found out that she is a cotton candy machine. Okay, she found out she is a cotton candy machine. And I think I saw Sierra over there making snow cones, and I mean everybody was just chipping in, and Christina was helping with the hot dogs from what I saw. And y'all might have done other things, but I was busy too because I was registering. Popcorn, okay, she did popcorn. Uh Susan, Susan and John. Every time I needed something, I was going, John! And he'd come running and he'd go do it. Uh, we had it uh, you had the youth tent going, and she was for being a photographer yesterday, and then Edward he found out that he can run a foam machine and a unicorn sprinkler, right? Right? So we had people, Micah, he was my trash man. He had the most important job. He tried to clean up the parking lot with a broom. So we, I mean, we were all we were all in there yesterday. Poor charity downstairs, y'all. She went until I thought that she was just gonna drop. That's just how charity is. She doesn't know when to stop. Um we had a great day yesterday, and I thank you guys. It was awesome. It was awesome. So um, that just goes to show you, though, we always need help and we always need volunteers. And we really appreciate you guys. Don't think that we don't. It doesn't work unless we all chip in and do it together. We all chip in and do it together. And Jonathan, his job yesterday was trying to catch Carly. Right? That little girl, what is she, 18 months? She's faster than Usain Bolt. Is that she can move. All right, and I saw him running after her all day yesterday. But we did. We had a fun day. Um, tonight at 6 o'clock is youth. Um, come on out for youth. If you have any youth that you think would enjoy being with the youth, come tonight. They're doing a wonderful job. They're having fun, they're growing. Uh starting next week at 6 o'clock, we're also going to start having kids on Sunday night. And I think that's going to be a great thing. Um, then on uh Tuesday nights is usually outreach. We're not doing it this week because charity has to fly out of state. So no Tuesday night outreach. Wednesday night, I'm gonna try to do the kids. I'm trusting that some ladies will show up to help me. And then, of course, the uh Ruby Carson and Allison will be running with the youth as normal. Uh Friday night, celebrate recovery. And then Saturday, Operation Lifeline, Saturday. If you can be here at 8 o'clock, we've got to get things set up. Uh, charity's not going to be here, she's gonna be out of state, so she put Mark in charge of the food. Um, and then of course I do the registrations. So Mark's back there going, she put me in charge of the food? Surprise. Surprise. So we need volunteers for Saturday. So if you want to volunteer for Saturday, please be here at about 8 o'clock, okay? And then we're back to Sunday. Now, here's what I'm going to do. We've had a lot of new people start coming to the church. And some of you have been coming to the church for a while, but you've never gone through next steps. What next steps is, is uh it's supposed to be a four-week course, but I try to do it every once in a while on a Sunday and get it all done at one time. And what it does is it tells you about the church of God, it tells you what we believe, uh, and at the end of it, it has a membership page where if you want to become a member of the church, you can sign that page and you become a member. Um, and I'm going to be doing that next Sunday right after church. We'll do it up here in the sanctuary. What I ask that you do is if you want to go through that, bring you a lunch. We'll have lunch first, and then we'll dive right into that and try to get it done in, say, three hours. All right? And a lot of you have already been through it. But if you'd like to join the church, stay after Sunday church next week, and we will go through that course and get your membership signed, okay? All right. Brian, will you dismiss us this morning?