AUG 9 2015 | James 4:8

Sea Change Church · "James 4:8" · Ryan Pfeiffer · August 9, 2015
James 4:8
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

And we have these false conceptions about knowing God. Like there's super spiritual people that God wants to know and everybody else, you know, you're relegated. Okay, but listen to this scripture. We've been meditating on this scripture that comes from James chapter 4 verse 8. And this morning we're going to look at how Mark chapter 2 that Bryce read illustrates this verse and brings it to life.

It says, if you draw near to God, he will draw near to you. When you look at this incredible simple statement, it communicates a profound idea, a promise really, that you're as close to God as you want to be. Okay, now I may want to get to know this beautiful woman, but just because I want to know her is no guarantee that I'm going to ever get to know her.

But that's not true with God. If you want to know God, if you want to be in a closer relationship with him, if you've known God your whole life, but you want to get closer to him and know more about him, know sides of his character that, you know, only other people know about. Like, does God really heal people or does God really speak to us today?

There are these aspects of God that we see other people experience, what we feel like, you know what, that's just, I've never experienced that. I don't know if God would allow me to know him in that way. The scriptures are very clear. You are as close to God as you want to be. And last week in particular, we've been, we started to look at, so how do I get closer to God?

If this is really true, if I'm as close to God as I want to be, there's nothing on God's end keeping me from knowing him more. And it's all a matter of me wanting to get closer to him. How do I begin to take my steps closer to God? And so last week we, we learned from looking at a passage is that the closer we get to God, we have to let him get bigger.

So if we want to get closer to God, you've got to let God get bigger in your life. This week, we're going to look at how, if we want to get closer to God, we need to allow God to use other people to draw us near to him. Okay? We can only get so close to God on our own. And that's what this passage in Mark that Bryce read illustrates. And we're just going to dive into that.

Without the, if you think back to this passage, think about this moment. It's just four, five, who knows how many friends carrying this guy who's paralyzed to get to Jesus so he can get physically healed. On the one hand, I want you to think about this. Without the help of those four friends, this man who's paralyzed would have had no hope in drawing near to Jesus.

Physically impossible. And it illustrates a point for us. As much as this guy who's paralyzed would have loved to get to know Jesus, there would have been this immediate barrier in his physical capacity. And it's through those friends that he gets to know Jesus and has an encounter with Jesus. But on the other hand, there's an essential side to our relationship with God that, you know, we do develop alone.

There is a side to our relationship with God that is personal. You know, we pray sometimes on our own. We obey God. There's areas in our personal life that we trust God with. There is a personal side. But there's also this dimension of knowing God that absolutely requires the help of people around us. There is a limit to how far we can draw near to God by ourself.

Okay? I want you guys to look at this verse. Ecclesiastes 4.12 says this. A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back to back and conquer. Listen to this. Three are even better. For a triple braided cord is not easily broken. Yeah? So what does this mean? There is greater spiritual strength in our life when we pursue God in the company of friends.

What does this passage in Mark of this man who's paralyzed being carried to Jesus have to teach us about drawing near to God? And I want to make two points. Number one, it shows us we have a role in helping other people draw near to God. And that has a direct impact on our experience, our life experience with God. Number two, it shows us we need the help of others.

Number one, it's in helping other people draw near to God that we experience God in fresh and new ways. And number two, we need other people's help to get closer to God. And we have to accept these two fundamental points. All right? Let me pray for us. God, as we come here this morning, there is a part in all of us, just by virtue of living in this country, and maybe by virtue of the fact that we all have some sin in our life, in our character, in our nature, that just makes us want to do things on our own.

There's something in us, Lord, that just, we don't want to admit that we need help. We don't want to admit the areas where we don't have what it takes. And we don't, all of us, depending on the particular area, don't want to admit we need help. We prefer to do it on our own. We prefer to hide those areas of weakness in our life. And God, you want to open our hearts up to you.

You want to show us that we were created to know you intimately and personally. And you've put people in our life to help us get closer to you. Help us to open our hearts and to see who those people are in our life. In Jesus' name, amen. Now, let's talk about this first idea, okay? This first idea about that we have a role in helping others draw near to God, like these friends.

Let's go look at verse 5. If you have your Bibles, look at verse 5, or it's going to be up here. This first idea of helping others, verse 5, When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, Son, your sins are forgiven. So let me ask this question. Whose faith did Jesus see? Think for a minute. He saw their faith. Whose faith? Okay? He saw the friends.

Okay. Any other ideas? He saw the friends. That's good. Let's focus on those friends for a minute. Okay? Let's talk about this faith that Jesus saw in them. That in the end had an immediate, direct, positive impact on this other person. It took faith to climb on a roof and dig through it instead of giving up at the door. I want you to imagine from this passage.

This passage paints this vivid picture of Jesus' earthly ministry. Far from being afraid or intimidated or repelled by Jesus as a radiant and captivating religious figure, people were drawn to him. I think for, in our world today, the assumption is that the more spiritual you are, the more off-putting you might be. The more judgmental or critical or whatever.

But that wasn't the case with Jesus. There was a magnetism about him that attracted people to his character, to his person. And people are surrounding this house. I mean, there's just like no way to get in the front door. It's jam-packed. It's like showing up late to your favorite restaurant or to a concert, you know, or to Disneyland. You ever been to a place where it's jam-packed and you're a little bit overwhelmed?

How am I going to get in there? And his friends have got this guy and they're carrying him and they see this huge crowd. And they're just like, oh, what are we going to do? Right? And think about all the things that could have gone through their mind. Well, I guess we just, maybe we'll come back tomorrow. Oh, let's try, let's maybe camp out and come back later today.

But someone in that group got this idea. I got an idea. Right? How about, you ready for this, guys? This is crazy. Let's climb on that roof and dig through the roof. There's an idea, right? That's an out-of-the-box idea. Listen, when we allow the Holy Spirit to use us in helping other people, we experience God coming closer to us. Pay attention to this for a second here, okay?

Watch this very closely. Would these men have been as motivated to get to Jesus if they had not been for their friend's need? Do you think that they would have been as motivated to climb up on that roof in front of hundreds of people, dig through a stranger's roof to get to Jesus if it wasn't for their friend laying at their feet paralyzed? Probably not.

Would their faith have gone to that next level to really believe, you know what? If we climb on that roof carrying our friend, Jesus is going to heal our friend. Would they have had that kind of faith to not leave, to not check out, to not wait outside in the crowd, but to dig through the roof if it wasn't for their friend's need? What would it do to your faith to see someone you've known paralyzed all your life, all of a sudden walking right in front of you?

What would that do to you? Here's the point. The point is this. When we are focused on helping other people draw near to God, we experience facets of God's character in ways we would have never otherwise experienced. The first place we draw our attention to is the paralyzed guy in his experience with Jesus. But we forget that these friends, in their effort to draw their friend to Jesus, have an encounter with Jesus that was extraordinary, that was life-changing.

What did it do to them to drop their friend through that roof and to see Jesus lay his hand on that guy and to see their friend jump up? Can you imagine the joy? I just recently was praying for a friend who, I was praying for him for about two years. Went to his house regularly when his cancer was at its worst, and I watched my friend die. He was about my age, young children, an incredible man of God.

I remember preaching this passage during that time when I was praying for him, and when I just drew him to mine, I thought, what would it do just to see my friend stand up healed to that brain tumor? It would have just rocked my world. Now, I trust God with the timing of my friend's death, but it would have changed me, right? It would have blown my mind.

When we allow God to use us to help other people, we experience sides of God we wouldn't otherwise experience. I want to illustrate it. For example, let me give you a little example. My daughter. My daughter and I love to go for walks, and she asked me to go for a walk one morning. I told her I can't go because I've strained my Achilles tendon.

I've actually had this Achilles tendon strain for 15 years. And it's never been the same. And if I go run for a couple miles, it would kind of flare up again. And it had flared up, and it was hurting. And I said, I just can't go for a walk with you, sweetie. My tendons hurt really bad, and it was hurt so bad that I could hardly walk. I was kind of, I had a limp.

It got so bad. And so she started to pray for me. She's like, well, I'm going to pray for you because I want to go for walks with you. I'm like, okay, girl, go for it. So here's my little girl. She's seven years old, and she lays her little hands on my tendon and prays for my tendon. And then she prays for it. She says, Jesus, I want to go for a walk with my dad.

Would you please heal his tendon? And then she looks at me, and she says, how does it feel? And I go, oh, it still hurts. She prays for it again. How does it feel? Yeah, it still hurts. Okay. Well, I'm going to keep praying for your tendon, Papa. So day one, day two, day three comes. She prays for my tendon. I don't feel anything. Nothing happens. No, baby, I still feel it.

But you know what? Maybe it's getting better. I think it could be getting better. I can't remember. It's like the next day I went for a walk, and I just noticed I don't feel anything at all anymore. And I started trotting. I started jogging. And then I think the next day I went for a run. It's been, I think, what, two weeks? Maybe three? I couldn't run for more than two and a half miles without excruciating pain.

I'd be up iced at all. I was just like done, right? I just went for a five and a half mile run a few days ago. I ran from my place in Sunilus down to Cardiff. And I don't feel a thing. I looked at my daughter, and I go, sweetie, I think my tendon after 15 years of pain is completely healed. So I went into her room one night and sat on her bed when she was getting ready to go to bed.

And I said, what does that tell you about God? That when you prayed for my leg, it got healed. And she looked at me, and she said, that God hears my prayers. So my daughter at seven experienced a sight of God that she wouldn't have experienced if it wasn't for my need. My hurt leg of 15 years gave my daughter an opportunity to discover a God who heals, who hears her prayers, who loves her.

The needs in people's lives around us are God's invitation to us to experience his compassion, his power, his presence in ways we haven't experienced. It also means that God wants to reveal himself through us. And when we let God reveal himself through us, we get this like front row seat to God. Now, I want to just, before I move on, do you find yourself at this point in your spiritual life, in your walk with Jesus, bored?

Kind of like predictable. I wake up every morning, I read my Bible, I have my quiet time, it's good. And I go on with my day. I wake up the next day, I have my quiet time. Go to work, raise my kids, go to school, go to class. And it's another day. We get into these places with God where it's just the same old thing. And don't get me wrong. Walking with God is not always like mountaintop, mountaintop, mountaintop.

I'm not trying to communicate that it's this chaotic, dramatic thing all the time. But we get into these ruts where we stop experiencing greater depths of his glory, his kindness, his power, his love, his wisdom. Because, why? We're not allowing God to stretch us by connecting us to the needs around us so he can reveal himself to us through the needs of people around us.

We create a life that's insular. It's predictable. It's comfortable. It's safe. But for us to let God reveal himself through other people's pain means you need to get around other people's pain. It means you need to get around other people's cancers and tumors and homelessness and depression. It means you need to get yourself in places where people are broken or get around the brokenness of the people next to you so that God can put on display his character.

But maybe for some of us, we just keep it safe, you know. I don't have time for that messy stuff. I don't want to go out there and experience. I don't want to go hang out with that person or that person because I don't know what's going to happen. But wouldn't we do? And it's not always a physical journey. Sometimes it's opening up a conversation with someone that we know into a sensitive area that has been off limits.

It's saying, you know what, hey, tell me about that experience that you had or how did that make you feel? Or, you know, you know, I've kind of talked about this experience with this or that that hurt you. Tell me more about that. You have a friend in your life who's going through depression and you're willing to ask, hey, how's it going today?

And every day they tell you, I'm depressed. It doesn't throw you off. It doesn't scare you off. You're willing to just, okay, can I pray with you? You can take it one day at a time. And when we do that, God reveals himself through us to other people. And we get this front row with God. We get to see God do it. It's like right there, man. You're right there watching LeBron James just slam dunk it.

You know what I mean? You just watch. Think of your favorite athlete. You're like right there in the front row watching God because you put yourself around the needs of other people. Number two, the second lesson in drawing near to God is it shows us we need the help of other people. This passage shows us that in drawing near to God, there's only so far you're going to get alone.

And here is a painful reality for us as independent, self-reliant Americans, right? I don't want any. I mean, it's kind of a stereotypical joke that men don't even like to ask for directions, right? I don't even want to stop and ask for directions, much less ask for spiritual guidance. Are you kidding me right now? And it's hard to let other people into our needs, okay?

Let's go back to verse 5. Look at verse 5 again. It says this, when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, son, your sins are forgiven. Whose faith did Jesus see? He saw the friends, but he also saw this man's faith. It's both. Let me talk about why it took faith for this man to be healed. It took faith for this paralyzed guy to let himself get carried up.

You're saying, well, Ronnie, he was paralyzed. There's not much he could do about it. You know, they could just take him. However, you've got to think about the fact that most likely this guy was not like screaming and yelling at his friends. There was something in him that had to be willing to say, you know what? I am willing to be carried up, paralyzed on a roof in front of all these hundreds of people and lowered.

I mean, think about how vulnerable you are. You're like, he's like paralyzed, paralyzed, paralyzed, right? I mean, no arms, no legs. I mean, they're lifting him up on the roof. I mean, they slip, they lose him. He'd just fall. He can't break his fall. He'd just fall on his face. I remember one time I was being carried out of my car in a stretcher by an ambulance, and I was kind of half conscious.

And then they almost, they tipped the stretcher over. I almost fell right off that whole thing. You're vulnerable, but not only are you vulnerable, you're invulnerable in front of hundreds of people on a roof. Now they're digging through the roof, and they're lowering you, you, in front of everybody. Everyone's looking at you, paralyzed, lowered from the roof.

I mean, can you just imagine how embarrassed you could be? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's hard enough when the prayer team is up here to come up for prayer in front of everybody. You got to be kidding me, Jesus. But when we let other people help us, it's a step of faith towards God. Think about that. When you allow God to use other people to help you, it's a step of faith towards God.

It's hard to let others see our need for help. It is an affront and an offense to your ego, your pride, your independence to let other people know your need, know your weaknesses, and help you. And it's so hardwired into us. There are two things that this man experiences when he's brought to Jesus. If you look at verse 5 and verse 11, you will see that he is forgiven of his sin.

And secondly, he is healed physically. What do these two types of healings show us about allowing God to minister to our needs through other people? First, our greatest need is spiritual healing. Everyone in this room, myself, the most of all, needs spiritual healing in our life. When you preach, you're not exempt from the need of spiritual healing.

Most likely, I probably need more. So I can talk about it in-depthly with you. Okay? Number two, there is not only a need for spiritual healing, but there's also a need for physical healing. This man's physical paralysis sort of represents our spiritual paralysis. It's our spiritual need in getting to know God. But his physical need also represents the fact that we have physical needs in our life.

We have physical needs in our health. We have physical needs in our relationships with people. We have needs with circumstances in our life. We have needs of all shapes and sizes, types and sorts. Every one of us has needs. Let me ask you a question. Where do you need help from God in your life right now? What have I told you right now? Whatever your need is, whatever you need help with, whatever it is.

This morning, God's going to help you with it. I was trained to do this kind of prayer ministry. It's called the Healing Room Ministries. I don't know if you've ever been to it. But one of the things that they teach us to ask people is a very simple question. What would... Oh, no, no, no. I'm sorry. Yeah. We write on a piece of paper, what's one thing you want God to do for you?

And they write it on a piece of paper. Now, they take that piece of paper and they fold it up. And I'm in a room with two of the people praying. I don't know this person. I get this piece of paper. It's folded up. I don't know what's written on it. But it's the one thing they want help with. And when they come in the room, the three of us listen to God and pray for them without looking at the paper.

First, right, to discern is to show them, hey, God is speaking to us and showing you what he wants to do in your life. And we didn't even look at this thing. And then we use it as a confirmation, right? But for the whole thing to work, they have to really answer a simple question. What do you want God to do for you? What is one thing you want God to do for your life right now?

You can pick one thing. I want you to take a moment. I want you to draw it to mind. If you have a pen, I want you to write it down. Right now, I want this to be something that's real for you. And as you're thinking, I'm going to pray for you. Lord, we're not just here to hear a message. We don't need to hear from me, God. One word from you is worth a thousand for me.

One second of your voice is worth 30 minutes of me talking. And God, I want to pray right now that you would enable everyone in this room to hear you speaking to them, to encounter you this morning. Lord, what is one area in our life that we need your help in? Our emotional life, our spiritual life, our relational life, our physical health? Some issue at school with our friends?

Some conflict with our parents? Something with our coach? What's one place in our life where we can just, it just comes right away, right to our mind? God, we need your help here. We need God for our physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational needs. And God meets those needs through the people that he puts around us. And allowing other people to minister to us is allowing God to reach into our life.

It says in James chapter 4. Look at this chapter right here. And if you're relatively new to the Bible, I want to use this scripture so that, you know, I'm not just speaking out of, you know, me and my own wisdom. This is not my wisdom. This is not something I just thought of. This would be so cool. I'm not some guru, right? This is just coming from the word of God.

And I want you to see for yourself what scriptures has to say about this. In James chapter 4, verse 14, it says this. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. Pay attention. This is going to get really crazy. Verse 15. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.

The Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Now, here we go. Verse 16. Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. As evangelical Christians, that should bother you. Why would I go to another person? I could go right to Jesus.

And as evangelical Christians, we have this value. I go right to Jesus. I don't need to go to anybody else. I have Jesus. Amen. And we do. Think about what this is saying. Do you want to be healed? Do you want forgiveness for your sin? James does not say, then stop and just go in your room, quietly shut the door and pray for forgiveness. And you will have that forgiveness.

You will be healed. James doesn't say that. Sure, Jesus says in Matthew, go in the room, shut the door and pray and your father will hear your prayers. I'm not negating the value of personal private prayer. And it is important. But there's this both and. You've got to go to one another. Why? Why connect this forgiveness of sin that we see Jesus dealing with this man, this paralyzed guy?

Why? I mean, the Pharisees are like, what, Jesus, you cannot forgive sin. And they're like blown away by the blasphemy of the moment. Right. And yet later in scripture, you know, the scriptures teach us that we should go to one another for the forgiveness of our sin. It's not that Bev is actually the one forgiving me for my sin, but I'm experiencing Jesus through Bev.

Jesus, who earned the right for my forgiveness, is ministering to me through Bev. It's not Bev. Bev is just this conduit through which just the love of God is being poured into my life. And that's the way it works. Some of us, listen, if you hear nothing, I say you've got to hear this. Some of us are not experiencing profound experiences of God's forgiveness in our life.

Power in our life. Love in our life from God because we're going in our room. We're praying. We're on our knees. Oh, God, I want to know you more. And then when God puts someone in our life to minister to us, we clam up. We shut up. We close up. And we're like, oh, I don't need you. I got God. Oh, I don't need you to pray for me. Don't worry about it.

I got Jesus. God reaches us through these other people. But there is one thing before I close. Okay, listen to this. Why is it so important to let other people pray for you? I want you to hit this scripture here. Look at this. There is a bit of a caveat. It says here that the key to prayers being answered is faith. And now this is where other people really come in.

Ready? The key is faith. So if you don't have faith, it affects your confidence and your ability to come before God with an expectation that God's going to move on your life. Faith is the key that unlocks the experience of God's forgiveness. It doesn't earn his forgiveness. He already did that for you 2,000 years ago. But you have not necessarily experienced and felt in your heart the floodgates of God's love and forgiveness filling you.

And that's a very different story. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Why not? Because you lack faith. Here's the thing. When we're down and out, when we're hurt, when we're sick, when we are coming fresh off some sin that we told ourselves we would never do, when we are in a moment of weakness like that, where is our faith level? Is it at the higher end or the lower end of our life?

Is it on a rise or on a fall? How faith-filled do you feel when you are wracked with pain from sickness or wracked with guilt from some mistake or some sin that you've committed? Where's your faith level? Here or here? Some people are like, oh, I'm always here. Come on now. Don't be a liar. Don't be a liar. That's a sin. We're down here. So picture...

Now, think about this moment and how sick and twisted it is. You need faith for me to move in your life. But when you need me the most, your faith is at its lowest. So I guess you're pretty much toast. Up a creek without a paddle. Right? Do you get what I'm saying? Do you see the conundrum? When you need God the most, you are the least likely to have the faith needed to open your heart to God and receive what he has for you.

That's the problem. But here's the solution. I am down. I've been looking for a house. My family's getting evicted. We got nine days to get out of this house and we can't find anything anywhere. And I'm like, where are we going to go, God? My faith is at a low. But my friend who came over to pray with my wife, she's not in my boat. Her faith is not here.

Her faith has come fresh off some recent victory with God. Her faith is here. And she goes, hey, how you doing, Ryan? I go, I'm doing fine. Just praying for a house. I'm like, how's that going? Ah, been looking for a couple weeks. Stress, not seeing anything. Show up. Nothing is working out. We got nine days before we have to be out of this house and I have nowhere to go.

And she looks at me and she says, it doesn't look like you're really trusting your father to take care of you in this. And she's gentle, but she just calls me out. I'm like, you want to know what I said? The mighty preacher man of God. I said, amen, sister, pray for me. No. You want to know what I said to her? This is a very dear friend. I looked at her and I said, that's easy for you to say.

You don't have a family that's about to be evicted with nowhere to go. And she's like, whoa. And she just kind of took a step back. She looked at me. It was almost like she's like, oh, is that what we're dealing with? All right. She kind of pulled back, regrouped and said, and how is your plan working for you? She said this to me. So I'm like, she got me and said, do you want to sit and talk about it?

And I said, okay. That's a big choice there, people. That was a big choice. I sat down with her. She said, you're not trusting God. You've lost your father. He knows what he has for you. I'm like, it's nine days. I've been looking and praying. I've been praying. You ever said that to somebody? I have been praying. I don't need your prayers. I've been doing it myself.

And nobody wants this to work out better than me. But it's humbling when somebody else has got to get in there and do business, isn't it? It's humbling. Preacher Ryan, lacking some faith. She looks at me and she says, you need to take three days and stop looking for a house. And you just need to get right with your father. Get your eyes on him. Take your eyes off this storm.

Get your eyes on him. Worship him. Praise him. Spend time in prayer. And just get reconnected to his love for you. I'm like, that will put me at, do the math, six days. You are out of your mind. I'm fighting and resisting her. And finally, by the end, I'm like, okay, you know what? I can't argue with you. I'm lacking faith. I don't have faith right now.

You're right. And I'm going to make a long story short. I took that time. And on the second night, the crisis reached a peak. I was having a panic attack, laying in bed. I was like sweating, couldn't sleep. I went downstairs to the office downstairs, and I got on my face and started crying out to God. I just started pouring out my tears to God. God, I just feel like you've abandoned me and my family and my kids see my lack of faith, and I'm so ashamed of that.

And I just had this incredible breakthrough with God. I just lay in there in prayer for a few hours alone. And I heard this thought come to my mind. It was not my thought. And it just this gentle thought came in. Have I ever let you down? Have I ever let you down? I just started bawling, you know, the snot, the whole nine yards, you know. Oh, no, God.

It's just one sentence. Have I ever let you down? One sentence from God wrecked me. I said, no, God, you've never let me down. And I had this breakthrough of faith. God, you're going to come through for me? I don't know how. I don't know what you're going to do. I took the third day off from looking. And before I could even start that third morning, or after the third morning, so the three days are up, we get an email from our real estate agent saying, hey, one of my clients has this house.

It's like literally like two minutes from your house. They need to rent it. Would you guys want this house? It's the right size. And I asked her, and she said she would adjust the rent to the rent that you've been paying currently. If you guys want it, it's all yours. Isn't the Lord good? He is that good. Now, here's the point. The point in this story is that guy, Ryan, he's this, look at how faith-filled he is.

You walk out of this morning going, well, that's because he's a preacher. He has experiences like that. No, it's because I admitted I need help. I admitted I lacked faith, and I let God minister to me through somebody else. And I do believe there's a relationship between the reconnection between me and my father and the blessing that he wanted to give on that fourth day.

It wasn't an earning. I'm not earning the blessing or the gift. But I'm positioning my, picture it like this. When you are not trusting God, you are turning your back on God. You're afraid of God. You're afraid that God doesn't have your back, so you turn your back on him, and you're focused on your solutions. But when you have faith, you're turning around and facing him and positioning yourself to receive what he has for you.

God can have a blessing for you right here in his hand, but you have your back to him the entire time. Can he give you a gift that you cannot see or receive with your hands? You cannot. And God has a blessing for you. You're not earning it with your faith, but your faith is giving you the eyes to see it and to turn and receive it from him. And it takes you letting God use other people in your life to minister to you in your time of need.

I want to invite the worship team to come on up here. And as the worship team comes on up, I want to give you a chance to really think right now about what you're going to do with this message this morning. We don't come here to hear this stuff, be entertained, and walk away. It's not even enough that you agree with it. It doesn't matter how much you agree with what I just said or with the word of God.

What matters is what you're going to do with it. Are you going to trust it? And are you going to respond to it? That's what matters. And I want to give you a chance to do that, to trust what God is saying to you this morning and to respond. Number one, is there an area in your life where you need help spiritually? Maybe for some of us, there's some sin in our life we need fresh freedom from.

It's the guilt, the shame of it. You need forgiveness. You need a fresh touch of God's forgiveness. Maybe for some of us, you've never experienced God's forgiveness in your life. And this morning, you want to accept Jesus as having the right to forgive you of all your sin. That's what makes him savior. When he died on the cross, rose from the dead, he earned the right to forgive you of all your sin.

And if you've never done that, maybe this morning, you want to let God do that in your life. For others of us, there is a place in our life that God has put someone who has need around us with. And God wants to use us. He wants to give us a front row to his miracles by using us in someone else's life. And there's someone in our life that God has put in our life because he wants us to love them, pray for them, minister to them, so that we can be a part of seeing God in a fresh way.

And this morning, you need to own that and step into it and let God use 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. 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. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.