Sermon Transcript:

Appreciate you.

You know you try to do things on the down low, but they don't let you do that. They said they needed a rapper for the youth group.

Brought me back this flash memory, 1979 as a freshman at urban high school walking around with my boom box. Now you young people that have no clue what those are, because you decided that you want to keep your music to yourself. We always wanted to share our music with everybody, right? Older group with me, right?

So this song comes out,

and it says, I thought it was the song Good Times by chic, which it really was, and all of a sudden this guy comes on and says, Now what you hear is not a test. I'm rapping to the beat. And I was like,

What is this stuff coming out of the radio? I didn't like it. I was like, Man, I messed up the song. Something's wrong. And it was these three dudes called the Sugar Hill gang that used to scratch records in New York City, and they would just take beats from current music, and they would start talking over it. And that's that was the birth of rap music. And we thought it was going to die down and go away, and it's still here today, right? 1979

I'm majoring myself. I know

you didn't come here to hear all that. We didn't come here to celebrate any accolades that anybody's done. We came here to celebrate Jesus, and he's the reason that we're here. So I want to talk about the freedom gospel. This morning. We've been going through the book of Galatians calling no other gospel, and so there's no other feeling like freedom, that we have this freedom to do whatever we want, right?

Oh, wait,

then you got married,

and some of those freedoms went away, didn't they?

Freedom is one of those great mysteries in life. You know, we're free, yet we're held by laws. We're bound by them. We're free in some situations, we really aren't. We're free, but we still do things that we don't like, right? Taking your wife somewhere there you didn't want to see a chick flick, and you just got to do it because you want to keep your marriage intact, you know. And they go to football games with us, and they don't want to do that either, but they want to keep their marriage intact. We do things that sometimes we're really not free at all. We just keep doing things. We just finished a season of elections in our country, and we have the freedom to go voice our vote and who we want. Democracy is one of those real freedoms that we have, but only if we exercise our right to vote. But when God created the first humans, Adam and Eve, He gave them this amazing freedom, and he said this, and he allowed them to choose whatever they wanted to do from all of the trees in the garden of Eden. And he said to Adam and Eve, go and have a great life doing whatever you want. Have you read that text? Oh, this is, this is my version of the of Genesis. Go and do whatever you want, whenever you want. Just one thing I ask of you, and he said, Just stay away from that tree right over there. Everything else is yours, but not that tree.

Genesis, 216, and 17, says, And the LORD God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge and of good and evil, for when you eat from it, you will certainly die. You see, with all of that freedom that God had given them, all of that freedom, and he just said, just don't do this one thing, no one is absolutely free in this life. No matter how much you think you can do whatever you want, we're bound by certain things that confine us. So we're only so free. We're still bound by parameters of that freedom. Today, as we begin Chapter Five of Galatians, we're going to learn about that. We're going to see that Christ is the only true freedom that we have. It's the only thing that truly sets us free permanently from the penalty of sin. It's a permanent freedom, and that's what we have. You see, in Christ, we are underneath the true gospel called the Freedom gospel, and that's what sets us free. He is what sets us free. Nothing we do only what he did on the cross. So let's stand and read our text this morning. Galatians five, one through 12.

Galatians five, starting in verse one through verse 12. I'm

going to read from the New International Version you follow along with whatever version you read, and the words will be up on the screen. I hope they scramble them up and stuff. So you have to look at your own Bible.

I know you guys know me by now. I want you to see God's word for yourself, really, because the Holy Spirit speaks to you through his word, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words.

I Paul, tell you that if you're if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be no value to you at all. Again, I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You, who are trying to be justified by the law, have been alienated from Christ. You have fallen away from grace. For if for through the Spirit, we eagerly await by faith, the righteousness for which we hope for in Christ, Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. You were running a good race who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth. That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough. I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view the one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever they may be, we will will have to pay the penalty, brothers and sisters, if I'm still preaching circumcision, why am I being persecuted? In that case, the in the in that case, the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for you agitators, I wish you would go ahead and go all the way and emasculate themselves.

Father, we thank You for Your Word. We receive it this morning in Jesus name, amen, have a seat.

Listen.

When you preach the whole gospel, you even take the text like it says in verse 12. And I read that, and I go, wow, Paul, really?

And I know sometimes we have young, young people in our midst, and they may not understand that, Mom and Dad, you gotta go to home and and explain that to them. My first point is freedom, free from the letter of the law. I'm going to start in verses two through four. I'm going to kind of go backwards and go back to verse one at the end of the at the end of my sermon. So verses two through four, the letter free from the letter of the law. The the letter of the law gives no room for grace. So if you're a letter of the law, this is what it says. It's black and white, and there's no grace. I feel sorry for you,

because God has given you grace. He's given you so much grace when you sin. He still loves you when you do things that are not of God, he still loves you when you do things that are against God, he says, I still love you. There's so much grace. So be careful,

you guys, that are letter of the law, people, it's cut and dry, black and white. And you know what? I say this to my family all the time. There are times when I want the letter of the law to work, when somebody's just being so obnoxious and atrocious, we want to go back and say, Well, what does that say? And let's deal with people that way. When it comes to God's law, there is a way in which we read them. We can read them as the letter of the law no matter what, or we can read them as the spirit of law which leaves room for grace. Amen,

Aren't you grateful? Grateful for grace? I mean, without grace, where would we be? We would still be locked up under the penalty of sin. You know, God is so amazing to us. He gives us hope, right? He gives us hope. And see, we need grace in order to give grace to others. Be graceful to people. You have no idea what's going on in their situation. We like to assume way too much. Amen. We just assume, because we see what they're doing and we go, Well, if they would just have you know, did this or did you don't know what they're going through. Give em grace. Sometimes we tend to forget how graceful Our God is because of how graceful he is, right? We get to walk around and do whatever we want a lot of the times, and we just go, ah, we'll just ask for forgiveness later.

And you know, you know, we do that all the time, right? We ah, he'll forgive me for it. We show it,

because all of a sudden, it bleeds over to how we treat other people. We don't show grace, we just do what we want, and we treat people the same way. See Pastor,

I know you guys tell me this all the time. You just don't know what I'm going through really

what you don't think pastors go through that stuff too. We go through the same thing you do. I can't stand up here week after week and say, I'm I'm free from all of that. Listen, we all go through things, but I must. We must be a people of grace. We have to be a people of grace. That's what's going to win people to Christ, is when they see loving people, loving them, no matter what their circumstances, no matter who they are, no matter what they're going through. We love them through grace. We dish it out by the truckload. We just love them to death. We love the unlovable with our spiritual strength. You see, God treats you that way. He treats me the same way. He loves you even on your ugly days in your spiritual walk, right the days you wake up and you.

Man, I don't even know if I know who Jesus is, right? We have those days you wake up, you don't even believe anymore that you're a Christian because you've done some things that go against who God is. You see, why do we sing? Amazing grace. Amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, that saved an ugly person like me, that saved a sinful person like me and you and everybody in this world are you? You want to hold a grudge against the people that God created? That's not God's way. You see, we just sang this song, and I don't know if you've heard that song by Cece Winans, that's my king, is what she said. If you listen to those lyrics and you go, everything she's talking about, he says, That's my God. That's my king. That's who he is. And I wish that we could all have that outcry is that that's my king. We're talking about. That's my king. In verse two, Paul reminds us of the and the churches of Galatia and the churches in El Paso to stop trying to win God by your approval, by keeping the law, stop trying to do things that are not of God. And he talks about this thing, circumcision. Circumcision was meant to be to set the Jewish people aside. That's what it was. It was a it was who they were. God did. Told them to do that on the eighth day, and it be. It became

a notation of who they were as a people. But listen to me, if you take the word circumcision out, you can put whatever word you want in there that goes by the law. What are you putting in the place of circumcision that says it's part of my salvation?

You see, that's what Paul was saying. Is people that are trying to follow the law are trying to put things in there to say, I'm saved, but I have to have this as well. That is not what our text teaches us. That's not what the gospel teaches us. It's Jesus and Jesus alone. His death on the cross. You can't add anything to it. But what about this? Pastor? I don't care what you say. It's only Jesus and him alone. It's by His grace. You see, it has no value when it comes to salvation. You see, we argue, even in theology, theological circles, about this and that, and when Jesus is coming, and if he's going to come in the middle of the tribulation, at the end of the who cares,

you need to be ready when he comes. It doesn't matter if it's at the beginning, in the middle or the end, you can, you can make a case for all three points. I don't care.

The point is is, are you saved now? So that if it is the middle or if it is the end or it is the beginning, you're ready to receive he's ready to receive you into his kingdom. Stop trying to add stuff to your salvation. That's what Paul's trying to say. You don't have to satisfy the law unless you're a law follower, see, but when we follow Jesus, wow, that changes the whole dynamic. In verse three, Paul clarifies it even further, and he says, If you think following the law is one part, one part of law is going to win you brownie points with God. Think again. It's not

there are no points in heaven.

We have a saying Jimmy Evans,

pastor that does a lot of marriage conferences and stuff. And I remember he we were taking a class, and we were teaching some of his stuff, and one of the things he always said the brownie points run out at midnight, and midnight. You hear me, guys, but I just bought her flowers last month. Hey, that night, those flowers came home. I don't care if you brought them home that morning, at midnight, the brownie points ran out. Tomorrow, she's going to say, what flowers? What about today? And with God, there are no brownie points. They run out. He just says, if it's not about Jesus, it doesn't matter. All the other stuff is important, but it doesn't trump who Jesus is. It Jesus is number one, and everything has to be about him. So you, if you plan on following the law, then go ahead and follow it all the way. Don't just do some parts of it. Do all of it, if you think that's what they're going to get you with. See James 210 says this. He explained this so well. James is Jesus's brother, and he says this, For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking it all, all of it.

So if you want to keep the law. When you break the law, you've already broke all of the law. And

he's going, man, but it was only the one thing, it was only the lying, it was only the stealing, it was only the cheating. But if I get that part right now, he said, If you do one thing wrong, then all of the law doesn't matter. That's how hard it is to follow the law. Thank God He sent Jesus, right? Wow. He's just like, I'm going to take care of this. I'm going to send my son down there, and he's going to die for all the sins of the world. And you can just come to relationship with him, and we don't. The law is important, but not more important than Jesus verse four of our text. I'm

going to read this out loud again. You who are trying to be justified.

By the law, have been alienated from Christ. You've fallen away from grace. A

lot of people try to take that verse and say, that means you can lose your salvation. Right? That is not what that words, that verse teaches, and I'm going to prove it to you here in a minute. This is one of those warning verses when you remove Jesus from the equation, you remove grace from the situation. You hear me church. If you take Jesus away from whatever you're going through, then you just remove grace as well. That's what this verse is talking about. You operate out of your own abilities and not God's abilities or God's opportunities. You cannot justify

your lifestyle.

There is no justification for your lifestyle.

You see, we have to live for Christ, and it has to be in us through everything we do, and that's hard, because the world challenges us in our faith. Amen. He does it does. You cannot come with excuses to say, I just keep on sinning

because of this. No, you keep sinning because you like it.

There's no other way around that picture. You keep doing the same things over and over because you enjoy it and you like it. Amen. Let's admit that so we can get our heart set right with God, right? So we can just say, I'm doing that because I like it.

So what can I do about it? I got to give that over to Jesus so that he can take it away from me. You see, when we choose the law, we're choosing to go by the letter of the law. So how do we live by the Spirit of the Law? How do we live like that, and not the letter of law? Can we fall from grace? Can our eternity be in jeopardy? Because it sounds like that's what Paul is saying. How do we know? I'm going to play a clip right now and I want and this is going to explain how to have security in your faith.

Go y'all have that video?

No,

we can just move on if you don't.

Okay.

Man, it was a good one too.

Listen, if you want that video, text me. If you got my number, text me and I'll send you the I'll send you the link to it. But it talks about the security of the believer. Listen in John 1010, or in John chapter 10, Jesus said,

If you've placed your faith in Christ, he says, I place you in the palm of my hand. And he says, Nobody can snatch you from the palm of my hand. And then he says, Guess what, since you're inside of there, this is, this is Jesus. We're in his palm. And he says, me and the Father are one.

He said, Me and My Father are one. And he says, and I put my faith in my father, and I put, he puts me in his hand. And he says, nobody can take you from my father's hand. So not only are you inside of his palm? You're inside of God's palm. You're double secure with your salvation. You cannot lose your salvation if you've had a true conversion. See, that's the problem. Is a lot of people think they're saved, but they're not, because they haven't fully surrendered, they haven't fully given everything of their life over to God. That's what that clip was going to just teach us in a in a brief synopsis. And I just want you to know that you can have security in your belief today, you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt, 100% that you have a permanent relationship with Jesus the Christ by giving your all to him.

So I want to ask you this morning, maybe you're struggling with that. Are you secure in your eternity? Do you know for sure if Jesus were to come back today, like people say, Well, if you died tonight, listen, you're going to die one day. I always like to say, whenever you die, do you know what's going to happen to you? You will have an eternity somewhere. It'll either be heaven or it'll be hell. We don't like to use that word. We don't like to talk about that word, but it's you know, that Jesus talked about hell more than he did heaven in the Bible. Sometimes we like to skim over that and go Now we're not going to talk about that because it's very offensive. How could a loving God send me to hell? He doesn't send you to hell. Your sins. Send you to hell. He says, I have a way out for you. Do you accept it or not? It's only by Christ that you can do that, if you haven't done that today, today's the day. Today's the day that you can say, I want Jesus for sure this time. I want him to be my Lord and my Savior, and I want it to be a permanent relationship.

My second point is this, free from the flesh verses seven through 12,

our flesh is deceiving, isn't it?

We believe it's okay how to live however we want to, and it deceives us. In verse seven, Paul says, we've all been here here before. One day we're all about Jesus, and the next day, we're all about ourselves, right? Everything's when we leave here and it's like, oh, man, pastor, he did a good job. He preached a good sermon. Well, guess what? As soon as you walk out the door, the sermon is over. You have.

Start living that sermon. You have to start living that, applying it to your life. Because, guess what, I have to start working on the next sermon for next week. I don't care how good the last one was, the next one's coming up. It's that way with a pastor. So I want, I want you to live your life differently. One day you can't be all about Jesus, and the next day, about yourselves. He says, we lose our way. And look at verse seven. He says, You were running a good race. So he knows that we've been on the path. We've been doing the right thing. And he says you were and he says, You remember when God was number one in your life? You remember that day when you got saved? And you go, man, I'm all about God. What happened? Someone else or something else took its place, took God's place. And I say this all the time, your spouse is not God, your kids are not God. Your twitter account is not God, your Facebook account is not God, your Tiktok account is not God. So stop treating it like it is. Do

you hear me church?

I mean, we can't go anywhere without this thing now. It just will kill us, you know? I just think the newborns just need to come with this thing surgically implanted into their hand, because that's just who we are now, right? We got to have kindergarteners running around with phones in their hands now, because that's who we are. And how many likes did we get? And how many people did this, and how many people did that? Listen, I do social media. I do but it's not my life.

It's not my life. God is my life. Jesus is my life. He has to be number one

if you've been off the beaten path. If you've been off the path of Jesus, I want to challenge you this morning. Like Paul said, you used to run. You were in the race. Get back on the path. Get back in the race. Get back in the game. We need you. The body of Christ. Needs everybody that claims Jesus as our Lord and Savior to be part of the race. You see, we want you to play your piece of the puzzle. We want you to complete the puzzle. The flesh is strong. I know that we follow it a lot. In order to have the freedom gospel, we gotta be learned. We gotta learn how to be free from the flesh. We have to Paul has a solution in verse seven. All we have to do is go back and find out who or what is leading us astray.

It's either a person or a thing that's leading you astray. You see, if you have someone in your life pushing you away from God, that's who it is. That's the person that's leading you astray. They they're the ones that have cut you off and they're leading you away from the truth. It could be your friends, or, worse than that, it could be your own family keeping you from God. They may be connected to religion more they are than God.

Alright, we're stepping on toes now, right?

Listen, there's a lot of connection to religion, but not a lot of connection to Jesus. We want church more than we want Jesus.

If you don't have Jesus, you don't have church. He died for the church.

It could be somebody close to you that's leading you away from God. They may be connected to different things than you are. That's what Paul is trying to teach us through Galatians. We need to have a relationship with Jesus, not a religion with Jesus. We cannot put Jesus in a box. He has broken through that box and outside the box since the day he went to the cross. Verse eight, anyone or anything that's a hindrance in your faith,

they don't have your best interest at hand. They just don't. Can I be honest with you, we always say we're like family.

Why aren't you the influencers in your family as believers in Christ? Why aren't you the ones telling them about Christ? Why aren't you the ones standing up for Jesus? Why isn't it you that says I want to be the change agent in my relationships with my family? You see, we have the light of the world inside of us. Jesus said that I'm the light of the world. And he said, When you have a relationship with me, now, you become the light of the world as well. So everything we do revolves around Christ. You see, they're trying to influence you. So why not influence them?

We're the ones that are called to have greater influence over them. We have the power. Verse nine, Paul gives us this cool illustration, a small amount of corruption. He talks about yeast.

Did anybody have yeast grows during Thanksgiving?

Yeah, those were the best. Maybe you let them rise, because the yeast gets in the dough. And I don't know if you've ever known this, but they sell yeast in these little, tiny packets, and they have their guys, like these little bulletas, you know, these little round things, and you throw em in the dough, and you mix it, and you knead it, and then that dough rises. And Paul, Paul says, when, when people that are not of God are influencing your life, it's like yeast. It doesn't seem like much, but the process through it may.

It becomes like dough. And he says, it changes us, amen, because that dough doesn't stay flat. It's unless you poke it, pop it through. But listen, that's what sin is in our life. It's like the yeast. It marinates in it, it produces alcohol, and it makes this wonderful smell. It's called fermentation. That's what causes the rising, and that's what the influencers do in your life when we let our flesh dominate our life. That's what happens in verse 10,

as we free ourselves from the I call it the flesh intruder to be truly, truly free. Paul says this verse verse 10, I'm confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. See, Paul has faith in us. He has faith in the churches that he planted. I have faith in you. Some of you have come to Christ since I've been here since September. I have faith that you are on the right path. But sometimes we just take a wrong turn and we gotta get back on the path. And he says, the only the one who's throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty. You don't have to ever worry about if God's going to take revenge for you. He's got your back. You don't have to worry about it. He's got it. I know that you believe that. I've seen it. I've taught the truth. He says that I know the power in Christ possesses in you, in your life. You don't have to worry about it. God has your back. Verse 11, Paul lets the churches of on a little secret. He says, I can't be preaching the law.

I can't be preaching the law can save you, because if I was doing that, I'd get ridiculed. Is basically what he says. He says, I preach Jesus and Jesus alone, that's who he preaches. Paul goes on to say, in verse 11, if I was still preaching that you can earn your way to heaven make God happy,

the cross has no purpose for our preaching. We would have no reason to be here talking about Jesus if we were just talking about a set of rules. The truth is, if not for the cross, no one would even have a chance to come to God. Amen, there would be no opportunity to come to God. You see, it's impossible without Jesus to come to God. There are so many people trying different religions and different things and different rituals to get a nearness and a closeness to God, and when all they have to do is ask Jesus confess them to be the Lord of their life, and they can become close to God. And that's the path that he's trying to teach us about. Verse 12 is one of the toughest verses that a pastor can preach. It's very hard to look at and read, and it talks about something very, very awful. And he comes from left field, and he says, If you're going to follow the law to earn your salvation, and you're going to include circumcision, he

said, Get it over with. And just get it. Just do it in one fell swoop. If that's what you think is going to save you, just go ahead and emasculate yourself.

And you know he's not asking you to do that. What he's saying is, even if circumcision, even if that emasculation, could do it, it still wouldn't save you.

And so that's how we have to take that verse. It allows us to realize that nothing outside of Jesus is going to make a difference in our lives. So stop trying to add anything to Christ. Just accept Christ and Christ alone.

Elevation. Worship has a song called Give me faith in it. Some of the words say this, give me faith to trust what you say that you're good and your love is great. I'm broken inside. I give You my life because I may be weak, but your spirit is strong in me. My flesh may fail, but my God, you'll never fail. Amen. Are you free today? Are you still trying to do something to be saved. If you have something to do, try this today, receive it and believe it. And that is actually what you do to have a relationship with God. You receive it and you believe what He did on the cross.

My last verse is free at last imma, go back to verse one. Now it's for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then that you do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty. I am free at last. As one of the claims that Martin Luther King said during his speech and as he marched,

Paul said those exact words in verse one of Galatians chapter five. It's freedom that Christ is for freedom that Christ has set us free. So Martin Luther King didn't coin those Paul did way back in the in the Galatians sermon that we're learning about, he said those exact words. It's freedom that Christ has set us free. If you take anything away from today's sermon,

this is it, in Jesus, you're free.

I can say a bunch of other stuff, but let me, let me, let me make that clear to you. Morning, this morning, in Jesus, you're free.

You have no other way to escape the penalty of your sin. You see not many.

Things going to give you freedom today, when you turn 18, you have access to freedoms that you didn't have before. Below at the age of 18, you turn 21 you gain other accesses for Some so called privileges, right? We turn 30, you lose the freedom to eat anything you want and not gain weight, right?

When you turn 55 the AARP is after you, because they think, they think that you're a

senior citizen now,

but now you go try to do your C I'm over 55 will be 16 January, but you try to use your senior citizen discount at the store, and they've raised the rate now, no, you got to be 60. You gotta be 65 I said, Well, AARP says, I'm a senior citizen.

I got that freedom. But you know, what they really want is your cash. They want you to send you. They want you to send in an annual premium to get those freedom. So you're not really free the freedoms we have. Don't really free us as freedoms, do they? They don't really sound like it. They say, you know, you're this and you're that, and you get to be an adult, you get to all you do is get more bills and all you do is get more stuff. You know, there's not really freedom in that, but when we say yes to Jesus, that's when we can become truly free. That's the only freedom that we have. You see, the gospel is what it is, and sin really doesn't have a hold on us anymore. When we say yes to Christ, look at verse one. Stand firm. Stand firm. Don't let yourself be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. A yoke is that thing that goes around the donkey's neck or the oxen neck, and that they're able to guide it while they're plowing the fields. That's what sin does to us. That's why he usually said, listen, get the yoke and take it off and come to Christ. Today, Jesus paid it all therefore you're free. You no longer have the curse of sin to commit your life to you. Have the the life of Jesus to commit your life to you. Are free. People free indeed. What does that mean? Pastor, I'm

glad you asked that question. Thanks for asking that question this morning.

If I'm free,

then what do I do with this newfound freedom?

What am I supposed to do?

I don't know how to live my life. I got this, yes, I've come to Christ. I've asked him to be the Lord of my life. But how do I live my life now look at what verses five and six say,

for through the Spirit, we eagerly await, by faith, the righteousness for which we hope for in Christ, Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Start loving people. God loved you so much that He sent His Son to die on a cross that you could have eternal life. He did not come to this earth to condemn you, but to give you freedom in Christ, start loving people. Our freedom gives us hope. That's what it gives us the hope that we have to be declared righteous in the sight of God. And one day,

one day, as we stand before a holy God, we'll hear those famous words in Matthew 25 verse 23

His master replied, Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful in the few things. I will put you in charge of many things come and share in your master's happiness. Could you imagine hearing those words on that day before you stand before a holy God, and he says, Well done, good and faithful servant. Are you going to hear those words in your life when you stand before Jesus? The Christ Paul reminds us in verse six, no matter how much we do for God, if we don't have Jesus, there's no value.

The only thing that counts is faith, expressed in love towards others. Your faith is valuable to God. It is valuable to God.

You love others because of what he's done for you. You cherish that perspective.

So I want to ask you, do you have the assurance of salvation this morning? Are you sure, beyond the shadow of doubt that if you were to stand before a holy God, you'd be able to hear those words, well done, good and faithful servant. And he says, Come and share in this happiness of God. That's what happiness looks like. Amen, let's pray,

Father. We, thank you for this morning. We, thank you for all that you've done. We, thank you God that we can come here this morning to hear a message of hope and God, we thank You for Your Word. We don't have to create and invent things. We get to read straight from what your Scripture teaches us through the power of the Holy Spirit. We learn, we accept, we reason with you, and then we come to a point where we have to decide what's it going to be for me. And so Father, this morning, God, as we see.

Here to today, I pray that you would move in there and this congregation's life, in their hearts, in their spirits, in their souls, in their minds, that they would come to know you as their personal Lord and Savior, father. We, thank you for loving us. We, thank you for all that you do for us. But more than anything else, Lord. We, thank You that You've set us free in Christ, in Christ's name, I pray Amen. Listen church. We're going to sing this song, if you need a relationship with Jesus this morning, would you come and pray?

Would you come and pray? If you need to be reconnected with Christ, would you come and pray? If you would just want to grow nearer to more, more to Christ, or more to God. Just come and pray and ask the God of this universe and say, God, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I know you do. Would you come and show me that way? So would you stand and let's sing?