APR 7 2024 | The Gospel of John S3E1 | Love – Light – Life

Sea Change Church · APR 7 2024 | The Gospel of John – S3 Ep 1: Love - Light - Life
John 3:16-21
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Amen. The Gospel according to John, chapter 3, verses 16 through 21. 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. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but people love darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

This is the Word of the Lord. The Word of the Lord This morning, good to have you after Easter. I hope we had a great Easter, and good to have you back here today. Got a game on at noon. Got to watch South Carolina, Iowa, and we know who Pastor Joshua, with that accent, is going for. So I'm more of an Iowa guy. Anybody going to watch that today? You wouldn't be watching it if you were here.

Oh, you got a couple of you going to make it over? Right on, I'm going to watch that as well. So you can get the short sermon I told the first service. Just playing. Open to John chapter 3 if you would. Good. We're in the series now with John going through the gospel. We have already gone through chapter 1 and chapter 2. We're in chapter 3 now. And probably, you know, probably not arguably, probably the most well-known scripture on earth.

And it's John 3.16. And we're going to dive into that a little bit. But understand the gospel and who Jesus is and what he's trying to say through the gospel. And then who John is. One of the things you're going to find out about John is the gospel of John is different than the other three gospels. Now, there's four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

John is called a non-synoptic gospel. It doesn't have any synchronicity with the other gospels. There's some, but if you look at Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they have a lot of the same stories. It's like they had a group think, you know, and they kind of all got together and decided what they were going to talk about. And they kind of wrote it. There's some critical reasons why.

I won't get into all the boring reasons why people think that. John hits different. When John speaks, he comes from a different place. And one of the things that I think is true for John is what he writes about really is an expression of his identity in Christ. Now, we know from the Easter week that John, and I kind of made fun of him a little bit, he keeps referring to himself as something, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the beloved one of Jesus.

And you often will see with people the identity upon which their self-talk circulates tends to be the expression of their life. And when John writes this gospel, he expresses three themes that are exponentially greater than any of the other books in the New Testament. And those three themes are this. They're the idea of love, that he talks about love more than anyone else in the New Testament.

He talks about life more than anyone else in the New Testament. And he talks about light more than anyone else in the New Testament. So you have three L's there. You can write those on your notes. That love, life, and light. Now, one of the things you're going to see is, in this passage alone, one form or other of those three words are used nine times in this passage.

You have, for God so loved the world, you have eternal life, you have light has come into the world. People love darkness. Instead of light, there's light again. Go down to verse 20. The evil hates the light and will not come into the light. There it is again, verse 21. You have lives. You have light. Over and over again. Nine times you see this theme.

And John is rife with these themes in his scripture. And if you're going to understand John, you have to understand these three words and that they work in a circular fashion amongst each other. So there is love, and love leads to life, and life leads to light, and light leads to love. And it would just go on and on. And they're not compartmentalized, but they're seen as holistic in the way that they work together.

So as we understand the book of John, those are themes. And if those are themes that you like, if you like the idea of love, if you like the idea of life, and you like the idea of light, John's your book. John's your man, because this is what you want to dive into. The word love is used in the book of John 39 times. The next most usage is in 1 John, a book he also wrote, and that's 27 times.

And then after that would be Luke with only 14 times. So when it comes to life, John, in the gospel of John, this gospel here, uses the word life 41 times. The next most usage is in the book of Romans, it's 26 times. If you want to get in touch with love, and you have your eyes open to it when you read the scripture, if you want a book that is going to get you in touch with light and in touch with life, John is your book.

It's my favorite New Testament book. I love the book of John. Other books I like, I love the book of John. And it's amazing for those reasons. Now in the book of John, he shares a gospel. And we're going to, this whole series is a gospel. After Easter, I always do a gospel series. A lot of new people come at Easter. A lot of people came forward to make decisions for Christ during Easter and to be baptized.

We're going to have to be baptized next week. But I always want to do a series on the gospel so we understand the story of what the gospel means and why we speak the gospel. The word gospel, you'll see this in your notes, comes from the Old English Godspell. If you were around in the 1970s, you'll remember a musical called Godspell. I thought it was really bad, but nonetheless, it was a little kitschy.

But look it up on YouTube. It's kind of fun to watch. It means good news or glad tidings. The term is a translation of the Greek word euangelion, where we also get the word evangelical. In the context of the Bible, it refers to the good news of Jesus Christ coming, his teaching, his death, resurrection, the salvation offered to humanity. I would say that the word evangelical, lately, especially for people that are not in the church, has been used more pejoratively.

It's been used negatively. I'll take that if it's for me. It's used more pejoratively. When you see, oh, those are evangelical Christians. They are hunting down the lost, right? Now, granted, there was a season during the Spanish Inquisition where we did do that, and that wasn't great, okay? Hunt them down, make them confess. If they don't, we'll boil you in oil or something like that.

Those aren't what we do anymore. And as we look at evangelism, it's really not about finding people to get them saved. That's not what evangelism is. If you look at the Greek word and what John is actually doing, it's actually just telling a story of really good news. Now, this is what the musical Godspell really did get right. They were really good at creating this super happy, and if you go watch Godspell on YouTube, some of those things, they're running around dancing in fountains.

It's just like they found gold, they found diamonds. That's closer to what the good news of Christ is. And if you go to John here, John starts with a good news of a story of love. He doesn't start with, for God knew that we were such miserable losers that he had to send his son because you were gonna go to hell if he didn't, and so he did it to save us from hell.

That isn't where the gospel starts, and that's not really that great a news. Once again, like I said last week, it turns Jesus into a cosmic lifeguard. Jesus didn't die on the cross to save you from hell. Jesus died on the cross because he loves you and he wants to be with you and he wants a closer relationship with you. This is incredible news, and so when you, somewhere to ask you, are you an evangelical Christian?

The answer is yes, right? Why? Because I'm gonna chase people down and tell them about hell? No, because I'm gonna tell them about how good God is, of how amazing Jesus is, and you're just overflowing with this incredible news, this good news gospel. So I would say that don't let the world's words be turned against what the gospel is actually saying and what we see John doing here.

I wrote, the job of the Christian is not to convert people. It's true. The mission of the Christian is to share God's love in a way that brings life and light into the world, and so we see that. The job of the believer is to just share the good news in a way that brings life and light. Now, if you were to look at this passage, and you're gonna break down this passage, one of the fun things we did in seminary is we'd take a passage and we'd look at the words and we would do like, you know, then diagrams and pull things apart and life and how did life attach to light and love.

If you were to do this with this passage, the starting point is love. And once love is entered into the world as a verb, write verb on the top of your notes because it's not in your notes. I think the word noun might be. I do add things. But once love is introduced into the world as a verb, for God so loved that he did what? That he gave. It leads to eternal, but who shall ever believe in him will have what life.

If Einstein were making a quotient or a formula for this, instead of E equals MC squared, it would say, God's act of love, L equals L equals L, which is love brings life, eternal life, and life brings light. And then it would be in a circular fashion for eternity, it would go around and around and around. This is the gospel of Jesus and this is the gospel that John is speaking about.

And so our job is to do that. The point that I really want to make today, and there's going to be a couple sub-addendums that I think are going to be very practical for you to help change your life on Thursday, is this, is love is in action. The story of the gospel of God in the world is one of love in action. I had you write verb on the top of this for a reason.

Go back to verse 16. For God so loved the world that he went to a coffee shop and sat and thought about how much he loved you and just sat there and mulled on it in this existential way and just vibed on the feelings of love for you and was amazing and never really did anything practical to change your life in action. That's not what the scripture says, right?

That's modern love until you don't love someone anymore. You don't feel it anymore and then we stop doing it. No. For God so loved the world that he did something about it, an action that he gave his only son. He did an action verb. Now, there's a difference as we'll see in a moment between worldly love and biblical love. Biblical love can exist without a feeling.

It doesn't need a feeling for it to exist. Worldly love doesn't seem more and more modern that it can. I fell out of love with the person. I no longer feel love. It has to, what I'm seeing, is it has to have the component. It has to have a binary and it doesn't always have to have doing positive things for the person as an action. Love is just this thing that is for you and that you can feast on love and until you don't enjoy it anymore, until you decide you don't want to be a part of it anymore, until you don't feel those, you know, ooey, gooey, infatuated feelings, you no longer need to act upon it.

That's not biblical love. The definition of biblical love has to have action but it doesn't have to have feelings. And that is a major difference as we look at what the love of God is. Go to verse 16 and 17. I'm going to read through this again. For God so loved the world that he gave, Circle gave, his one and only son, that's the most precious thing to him, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but what, have life.

There's that life. When we love in action, it leads to life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him. We'll look at that in just a second. C.S. Lewis leans into this idea of loves. C.S. Lewis did write a book on loves which is amazing but he says, love is not an affection or feeling but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be attained.

For the world, love is a noun. Today I added this into the notes. I went and got a definition so I did what pastors do a lot, definition of this word. Okay, so I did it and this is what it came up with love. This is, and it said noun. Once again, love is not as much of a noun in the Bible as it is an action verb. For the world though, if you look at love, it's a noun and it says, it's a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties, maybe a maternal love for a child.

It's attraction based on sexual desire, affection, tenderness felt by lovers. Do you see why we have a crisis of committed relationship in the world? One, because it's all about you. Two, it's all about what you feel. Biblical love, while it will produce feelings because God made us feeling people. I don't want to throw out the feelings with the bathwater.

God made us a feeling people and he wants us to experience feelings of love. The problem is and the difference between the impetus of the foundation of love doesn't, with God, start with the feeling. It starts with the fact that love is an action and love is oftentimes felt after the action is committed. See, what we do in modern relationships is as soon as we stop feeling it, we stop acting upon it.

And sometimes we never even act upon it for any other reason besides ourselves anyways. We kind of just do everything for ourselves. And when this happens, we stop acting in ways towards another. My wife and I were talking about the feelings, we were talking about it yesterday, we were taking a walk and we were talking about the feelings of infatuation you had in high school.

And we all remember that, right? Like when you're in high school and there's somebody there, she was telling me there was, you know, there's this one kid when she was, you know, like 13 or whatever and we were talking about, man, how strong was that feeling? You remember that and that feeling just consumes you. You're like, ah! What I think the modern world says, what TikTok says, what all these other things said is once you have that feeling, then you can kind of act in regard to that feeling.

The scripture is different, especially if you look at Jesus because there's a scripture that says, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. If you think about the way in which God, when he sent his son, so think about when Jesus lands here and the state that we're in. I don't know why God would want to have any positive feelings for us at all. When he meets us, we had committed so many atrocities against him primarily, but against each other.

By the time Jesus showed up on the scene, the human sacrifice, I mean, all these different things that had happened, you know, the Old Testament said that certain people were spit out of the land because of the way that they had, the things that they had done, just human atrocities over and over again. There is no reason why God should have had any feelings of love for us.

But while we were yet sinners, Christ acted. That's the gospel. How does this play into our relationships? Let me just put this on your table for this week, right? How does this play into your relationship with your neighbors? You see, love is not something you are called to feel before you do. Love your neighbors, it also says love your enemies. How many of you, according to that call, just have these incredible feelings of love towards your enemies?

I don't. What I have found, though, is when I start acting in love towards my neighbors. So, let's say you have this neighbor, they really bug you, the wind has blown over their trash can and trash is all over the ground. You have a decision there, right? You can sit there and go, should have stabilized that trash can. But what if they looked over and they know you don't like each other, you have enmity, and they see you picking up their trash, they'll probably sue you thinking you're going through their trash for some reason.

But you do something loving towards that person. What I have found is when you begin to, for God so gave, no matter that the positional place that we were in didn't deserve or beget that kind of love or action on his part, the feelings happen. Because as the gospel says, you're going to see this E equals MC squared or L equals L equals L. We're just taking L's in the gospel again.

It'll go in around and around. That is what happens over and over again. My wife and I were in marital counseling this week. And we just go on a regular basis in order to, you know, just keep our marriage healthy and strong and if we have an issue, we'll just go sort it out. So we do that. We go with Corrine. She's on our website. If you're looking for somebody to do some great counseling, she's amazing.

And so we were there and at the end, she goes, hey, I want you guys to try something. Can you guys, I just want you to do something. Every day, give each other something you're grateful about. Can you do that? Just one grateful thing that you're, and we're like, yeah, yeah, we can do that. And so I was there and I'm thinking it up and so we got ready and got started and Carrie shared her thing and then I got to mine.

I said, I don't just have one. I have two. I got this one and this one. And she goes, let's just stick to one. Let's just stick to one today. And I was like, okay, I know, we'll just stick to one. It was funny because a little bit later in the day as we continued to live this life, we took a walk, we did these things. She came to me later at night and she goes, hey, I got a second one.

And I was like, sick. I actually got to see this in action that the more we loved one another, the more, she made me a honeydew list this week and she's just like, do the list and I, so she sent it to me and I was grinding on that list, cleaning the car, scrubbing or whatever, just little things like that or little acts of love or kindness. It tends to build like that.

When we talk about Christian love, when we talk about godly love, it's not based upon how you're feeling. You do not need to love, feel the feelings of love towards the person, whether it be your husband, your children, your neighbor, in order to live in godly love and it actually says that it is the back end, the back fill of those loving actions is actually what creates that relationship and we see that.

I would say when that happens, our love then begins to come to fruition and when you think about love, in the scripture and I said this at the beginning, Jesus died on the cross for relationship, that Jesus wants a relationship. It's not transactional but it is a back and forth relationship that is permeable. Imagine a semi-permeable membrane where God's love actually goes between heaven and earth.

We experience that as he gives himself to us but then he wants us to give ourselves back to him. You see, love finds his expression when two people are in that dance of giving towards one another. I want to say with that said, love can still be love even if it's not reciprocal. We see here that it says that this is the verdict though. God gave his love, did all these things but they loved the darkness and they didn't want it so you can still give love.

We have to be careful we're not that character from in Mice and Men. I remember in Freshmen, they're still reading that so I know my daughter just read it and I read it when I was a freshman in Mice and Men. You got the guy, I forgot his name but he's got that little mouse, right? He just loves that mouse, right? He loves that mouse so much he's just squeezing that mouse and loving it and pretty soon that mouse doesn't exist anymore, right?

There is a balance of doing what is right to love somebody and sometimes backing off is the right thing to do so I just wanted to give that caveat but with this idea of love and action and relationship where the two parties work together, when that is happening in a marriage, when that is happening in a relationship where both people are committed to loving acts towards one another regardless of the feeling, that is when you have a relationship that is, I would say, kinetic that will change the world and we see that.

Now, secular philosophers agree with this. I began to look at love and I began to look at the idea of love and one of the things you'll see as you look at the idea of love, it is this existential thought, it's like in the ether out there, right? If you were to ask somebody, what is love, right? What is love? Baby, don't hurt me. Sorry, I just came to my mind as I was sitting there.

I just got to throw in some 80s and 90s songs on a regular basis. What is love? What actually is it? Now, the scripture here says that it's acts of giving of self, it's self-sacrificing but as I read through different philosophers, Aristotle, Jean-Paul, Sartre, this is what they said and I thought it was interesting because it actually backed up the biblical narrative.

Now, I will say that the modern narrative, the Instagram, the things that I'm reading online, it's all about you and you getting your bag and that basically is you get what's yours, you get what you need, you live for yourself and then we'll figure out who's alongside of us after that's all done. That's what I'm seeing in the modern idea of love and what I'm also seeing is despising anything that comes before us and so we have a chronological snobbery that thinks that anything that has come before us that has been said before us is bad and everything this generation thinks is new is good, right?

I went back to Aristotle, I went back to Jean-Paul Sartre and they said this, the existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and Simon de Beauvoir said, love is an ongoing project, this is a summary of what they say, that involves both parties in a dynamic, provocative relationship, it's an ongoing project. I love that because what you're seeing is that in a love relationship, both parties are working together to bring fruition to that.

Now granted, love can be rejected, we see this in this scripture but the world is changed, marriages are changed, relationship with your children are changed, communities are changed when people understand that it's not about me, it's not about my feelings, it's about giving the best that I can give for the other person. That will create the feelings, that will bring life and that will bring love and we can walk into that thing.

Aristotle said something somewhat similar. Aristotle, in the notion of philia, which is friendship or love, explored his work in its Nicomation ethics, suggests that true love involves goodwill, mutual respect and a shared life. Why is that so gospel-centric, even though it's Aristotle? Because we have a tendency to make the gospel about saving us from hell and then God telling us what we should do and shouldn't do.

That's not a shared relationship. That's oftentimes a pejorative, top-down, headmaster ritual where he has, you know, God has the splintered ruler and he's just walking around waiting for you to make a mistake. Harry shared on Good Friday and I love it, the verse that says, all of God's wrath was poured out on Christ and because of that, there's no more wrath left for you.

That when you are in Christ, there is no more wrath left for you. You don't need to think, do I need to jump a little higher? Do I need to please God a little more? I'm bad. No, and what Aristotle said and what Sartre said was that it's this project or it's a relationship relationship and this is where you still, where the gospel starts bringing life to people.

What I think Satan would love people to do and what I think people that are enemies of the church, outside of the church, want to paint Jesus as a cosmic lifeguard, just trying to keep you from doing the things you probably want to do as opposed to presenting the gospel as the good news of a dynamic relationship with God, an actual relationship. Jesus doesn't want to walk around and just tell you what to do.

The thing is that the relationship, the scripture says, that the relationship becomes so in tune and so ingrained in the scripture that you no longer even need a law. Now, God made laws, right? It says that when you begin to be in such relationship with Jesus, that you want what he wants, you love him so much, you no longer need any rules. Why? Because you don't need rules when you've already decided to do something.

Does that make sense? And so the scripture says that these people, when you live according to the spirit, the law is no longer of use to you. You have no law. You don't need the rule book anymore. I give a great story. My brother loves to, we love to drive. My brother always likes to drive one mile below the speed limit. One mile. It's probably one mile below the speed limit constantly.

And the analogy I use, because I'm like a 10 mile over the speed limit guy, I need the law, right? I need the law to tell me to slow down. My brother never needs a sign, okay? Because he will always drive so cautiously that he's never gonna break any law, which is awesome. The law no longer matters to him. This is what it says in this relationship with Jesus.

That things become so ingrained in this relationship that you can live above the pejorative rules of God. You don't even need the 10 commandments anymore. Why? Because you don't need a law to tell you to do something you're already in agreement with. This is the gospel. It is a gospel of freedom. And until we get to that place, we're no longer free. You see, the gospel sets us free and there's nothing there, like Harry said, of anything that would hold us back from knowing him.

I wanna give one verse. In Ephesians 2, I don't know if I made it into your notes, 1 through 3. If it's not in your notes, this is something I think we should see because death becomes undone in this way. And when Jesus shows up on the scene, this is what he arrived to with his love. It says, as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. In which you used to live, you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

All of us also lived among them at one time. We gratified the cravings of our fleshly desires following its desires and its thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. The scripture goes on to say that that's how Christ found us. And there's not a lot of reasons why Christ should have amazing feelings towards us at this point. But still, Romans 5a says, while you, while me, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

It also says that it is his kindness that leads us to repentance, not his wrath. It is his kindness. This is a different story and this is good news. And this is Eugelion. This is the gospel. This is the God's spell that we tell because we understand we are so inculcated, we are so encapsulated by the love of God that it begins to pour out as we begin. We cannot stop from telling people.

Why? Because it's such good news, not because I'm trying to convert you from losing your soul, which the Bible also says is a possibility. Jesus says it's possible. He says that you will lose. He says certain people can gain the entire world, but they're going to lose their soul. Jesus says it's possible that you have your soul now there to follow me, but you can lose your soul.

That is part of the gospel and we need to get to that. We'll get to that next week as we look at it. So two practical takeaways and then we're landing the plane. One is this. The gospel demands a response. What is your response been? Has your relationship with God been, God, give to me or don't be mad at me or me, me, me or are we giving back? Are we actually doing things to love God back?

God, I want to do this because I love you. I want to reach out to other people because I love you. I want to love other people. It demands a response. If you are in a pejorative relationship with God where you're constantly feeling like you've done something wrong, he's mad at you or just constantly asking for forgiveness, your whole relationship is based on that.

It's not a relationship. A relationship is understanding there's no wrath left for you. It is under his blood that you are saved and now we can do actions of God whether it be a prayer time, read the scripture, go serve the poor because we love him. It is proactive and that also happens in our relationships. And then the final thing is eternal life starts today.

There is a sense that eternal life starts when you die. We're all just going to get there and we're going to jump over this chasm and we're going to be in eternal life and I live forever. That's not how the biblical timeline works. In this passage, it says if you do these things, you will have eternal life. It's future tense. It's also present tense. Don't wait to die to live eternal life.

Eternal life is available now. How blue the sky is, how amazing God's creation of people are, there are things you can experience now. The moment we are saved, you have eternal life. But we live in death because sometimes we just love the darkness. And even Christians can love the darkness. Christ is calling you out of this. He's calling us into life to begin to wake up and to come alive.

I had a friend here who got a diagnosis and he had cancer and he had lymphoma and then afterwards he was healed and it's gone. And he said, you know what, I really missed what I had going on with God when I was going to chemo. He said, I had these months where it was like I was in such communion and now I'm healed and I just can't find my way back. I'm not saying you have to have that.

But that kind of life I think is available and he's finding his way back but he says it's a lot harder because there's a lot of darkness in the world. I want to challenge you, live eternally today. Wake up and say, I am an eternal creature of God, a child of God and I'm going to live in that today proactively because that is the gospel. That is the good news.

That is the God spell. That is the Eugelian that God calls us into to change the world. Amen? Pastor Joe is going to lead us in communion. Let's go. Thanks, Brother Adam. Bringing the good word about God's love. If the helpers to distribute the elements can come up. I'll do a little bit of an administrative before I get into it. If you're on this side, you'll walk up, you'll take the bread, you'll take the juice, go back to your seat, do work with the Lord and then I'll read the words of our Lord Jesus and we'll take together.

All right? One thing I love about communion is it's visible. You know, it's like a visible demonstration of the gospel. Jesus' broken body and his shed blood and you also take it into you. So Jesus says, you know, you must drink my blood and eat my flesh and he's using a metaphor but it's so powerful and it also causes us to remember that we need a Savior. We needed him to die and be broken for us in our place.

If you believe, if you believe and accepted him as your Lord and Savior, this is your meal. I'm going to read his words and then we'll come up. The Lord Jesus, on the night of his arrest, he took bread and after giving thanks to God, he broke it and he gave it to his disciples saying, take and eat. This is my body and it's given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way, he took the cup saying, this cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood shed for you for their forgiveness of sins and whenever you drink it, do this in remembrance of me. Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the saving death of the risen Lord until he comes. Church, come and let us remember our Savior. Amen. to the start, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, the first one, �� ��s, ��j, , Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. that we may show forth your gifts to all the world. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ and all God's people said. It's my favorite part. Let us all stand together and recite the Lord's Prayer.

Then Pastor Adam will come and give a blessing after that. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. And lead us not in temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen. Amen. Extend your hands if you would. I want to bless and pray for two things. One, that you can begin to live eternal life today and experience the love of God. So, Lord Jesus, I want to bless your people, God. And God, I pray, Jesus, for those that have been lost in love, so to speak, can find your incredible love once again, God, and begin to enter back into that relationship.

Push off the ideas of an angry, capricious God to know you are reaching out. You want to embrace them and enjoy them. And there's no wrath left for them because you poured it out upon your son. God, that eternal life would flow into their lives, into their hearts, into their minds. God, would you bless them, Lord Jesus, and begin to let them walk and understand that good news of the gospel.

So we bless you and we send you out of here as an army of God's consolation, love, light, and life. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. If you need prayer, come forward. We'd love to pray for you. God bless, guys. Bye-bye. S of the other, the house, the same. And, I do.