Walk

Wow. I have to tell you, I am very thankful and there’s lots of reasons for that. Somebody, one of the first people to write me just said they can’t, they just can’t help themselves. They’re just, this is their favorite time of the year. And it really is, how do you, you know, how does commercialism take over thankfulness?

You know, it tries, but true’s thankfulness is just a satisfaction in your heart and an appreciation. And this morning we woke up to three closed doors down the hall, which is this, which is really the reason I’m smiling biggest because each one had an occupant in those rooms and that meant our kids were all with us and it was really fun. Just got one of them here, the young man. So anyway, so, and she is a duck fan and they pulled out a squeaker the other day, didn’t they? Wow.

So this morning, as we do each week, we get into God’s word and let’s get, let’s get right into it. I want to do so by telling you about somebody, I want to describe this person for just a few moments to you this morning. He’s a man, married over 20 years and he is a good provider. Steady job and virtually every need that his wife and several children had, he seemed to meet those needs. He seemed to make it his ambition and purpose to meet those needs.

I mentioned several children and if you were to look at this man from the outside, not only he but his kids look like quality kids, you’re kind of thinking right now, the great American family, you know, they’ve got it, they’ve got it going. And let me tell you a couple more things. He’s got a good reputation in almost every audience that matters, his neighborhood, his occupation at the work, at the job and even in his church, a strong reputation. He is a regular church attender, even involved, involved in leadership often on over the years. So what I’ve just described to you is a picture of virtue.

Oh, I forgot to mention, he has a pornography problem. Does that change anybody’s view of the man I’m describing to you? Let’s just take it in. For a sec. Let me ask you a question or two.

Let’s go to his wife for a moment. If you were to give her counsel, once this news came out and keep in mind, she knows all the accolades that I’ve just described about this man. She knows them well, she’s heard them for a long time. But she’s just now learned of the dark side. That I’ve described to you.

It’s been true, in fact, she’s learned for a lot of years in his life. Just came out, but it’s been there for a while. Would you say to her, you know, that is terrible, that’s awful, deep sigh, everything that goes with that. But keep in mind, he’s mostly good. Would you say something like, you know, this list is long of all those attributes.

This is not good. No one’s gonna question that or challenge that. Or would you counsel her just the opposite? Would you take more of the position that says, I do not care how long this list of virtues is. This is big.

This dark problem that’s now in the open. It’s not just a blowout. This is the equivalent of a car going off a cliff. Now, it’s a pretty heavy note to start on, isn’t it? For the record to help us all collectively breathe, I am not describing anyone I know.

It’s true. I don’t play that game in the pulp it never had. But I wanna be also candid in saying, in some other ways, I’m describing lots and lots of people that I’ve met. When a person comes to Jesus Christ, and you’ve heard how I finished this sentence if you’ve been part of GracePoint for any length of time, but if you’re new, this will be an important sort of summary of the Bible. Jesus, that is, you’ve had your sins forgiven.

A new life has begun. 2 Corinthians 5, 17 says, if any man or woman is in Christ, they are a new creation. Old things have passed away, behold, everything’s new. That’s a decided fact and a settled fact as far as the gospel is concerned. And from that day forward, that person I’m describing, that has come to Jesus and had his sins forgiven and declared righteous.

He begins or she begins what the Bible describes as a walk with Jesus. It’s a day by day, hand in hand, close if God has his way, walk with that person into the future. And the way that that person walks, the way they walk is always in play. Not just on Sundays, but always in play when we’re talking about a healthy person, a healthy Christian. Okay, unfortunately, the daily walk piece that I just described has become in some circles today optional for many believers.

They would say, yeah, it’s important, Jesus is a big deal to me, by the mere practice of their day to day walk, it’s clear it’s not true. They’re not meaning that in the same way you and I might mean that. And I think that’s a problem that God wants to address because we’re talking in this series about healthy. And today we’re talking about a walk, a walk that’s healthy. If you haven’t pulled it out, most of you have already, there’s an outline.

It’s a blank page. So I encourage you to do that this morning. If you were to identify a theme that is a standout theme in the Bible that rose to the level of truly bothersome behavior, if you were to ask Jesus, what bugs you the most when you see it? If you could get the words out, he would say hypocrisy. Would you write that word down?

Because that’s the word that’s got to die in our lives. If the walk of our lives is to be healthy. Did you hear that? Church, it’s got to go hypocrisy. And Jesus called it out without holding backwards.

Would you turn to Matthew 23 for just a moment on our way to Luke’s gospel in just a second? Is approaching the final week of his three-year ministry just before going to the cross. That’s the setting here, okay? So Jesus is in the final, call it the fourth quarter, call it the bottom of the eighth, whatever it is for you, he’s nearing the end of his purpose and mission for coming, okay? And Jesus is addressing a crush of people in chapter 23.

And he says to the crowd and to his disciples. And then he goes in, my Bible has the rest of this chapter, 100% of it in red ink. That means Jesus seeing this crowd feeling their breath, if you will, that close. He makes note of his disciples and he sees mostly nameless people, a vast crowd pressing in on him. And then he leans in.

And in chapter 23, he says seven things which amount to dressing down, not once or twice or three times, but seven times. The practice of hypocrisy. Seven times introduced by the words whoa, whoa. And it’s not Jesus going whoa, cool ride dude. That’s not it.

It’s Jesus going whoa, what’s up with this? Dude, where is this coming from? How can this be okay with you? It’s rampant in you. If you were a student of the scriptures, before I read any of this, and what I mean by that is you, let’s take it more personally.

You’re a student of the savior of Jesus, right? You watch him. You’re interested in anything anybody says about Jesus. That’s why your Bible is more worn in this first four gospels, right? Mark Luke, John, ’cause they’re all about Jesus.

And if you came to this chapter, or I asked you your opinion of this chapter because you are a student of the savior, your answer would be, oh yeah man, Jesus is in rare form here. Jesus is hot. He is really upset. The things that would grab you is that this is blunt stuff. He is incredibly incense.

He’s infuriated by it. What I’m trying to get you to understand is Jesus didn’t go whoa to you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, and then drawn on with no meaning. He lit it up. You would have seen him. You would have felt it.

You certainly would have heard it. And that’s what this chapter is about. He’s so much like that. His most severe words of rebuke and condemnation are aimed at this deceptive practice. Look at verse two.

The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. I could go really deep into that, but let me just say, these teachers, these Pharisees, they are people of power. Okay? People take notes on what they said. He says of these people, so you must be careful to do everything they tell you.

He’s not disputing what they’re teaching. Did you notice that? He’s not saying, hey, it’s junk, it’s garbage. No, it’s actually setting a very high bar, but look what he says next. You must be careful to do everything they tell you.

What they do, and he tells us why, because they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads, and put them on other people’s shoulders in the form of heavy duty sermons, but they themselves aren’t even willing to lift a finger to move them. This is bad stuff. And he uses the word again and again, look at verse 13, down, woe to you teachers of the law, Pharisees, you hypocrites. Verse 15, woe to you, and he repeats it, teaches the law, Pharisees, you hypocrites.

So he uses this word hypocrisy to describe, if you’re writing in a writing mood, write this down, describing the contrast between what you profess and what you practice. Your creed is what you are all about. Mine is, live for an audience of one. Did you know that? That’s my creed.

And it’s kept me sane over 38 years of ministry, ’cause the constant that ever present temptation is to live for an audience of today, 225 people. And that’s crippling. That will get me nowhere, it will, actually, I’ll tell you where it will take me, bondage, enslavement. I gotta make you happy. Now don’t get me wrong.

I love you, people. You get that grace point, if you’re new here, I love this church. And I love the people that fill it. But I live for an audience of one. That’s my creed.

So you can imagine the contrast in my own life. I’m illustrating right now. If, in fact, I say I live for an audience of one, hey, y’all, that’s a good idea. But every day of the week, I’m practicing, oh, what are they thinking me? And I’m not living for an audience of one.

Can you imagine how soft the gospel would get how I would gut it of all sorts of offensive things? I got a great chapter for you to read. Jeremiah 26, please read it this week. I’ve just been eaten up by that. You’re gonna go, wow, that consumed you.

You know why? Jeremiah was told, hey, Jeremiah, I don’t know if God called him that, but anyway, hey, Jeremiah, here’s what I want you to do. And don’t miss a word. Don’t hold back. Don’t soften.

Don’t tweak. Give them 100% of what I have to say. Now you know why I admire Jeremiah. Jair bear. I mean, it’s incredible stuff.

And I wanna be that guy. And I aim to be that guy. So Jesus is saying, wait, when you profess, live for an audience of one, but you don’t practice it. That’s hypocrisy. That’s a bad thing.

When you profess that you know me, as these scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites did, but it don’t show in you. You’re looking at hypocrisy. The word means putting on a mask. Jesus coined the word, borrowing it from Greek actors who were called hypocrites. Look at 25, for example.

Well to you teachers of the law of Pharisees, you hypocrites, you clean the outside of the cups, cup and dish, but inside you’re full of greed and self-indulgence. See if you don’t see a pattern in two words that repeat and repeat and repeat. Blind Pharisees first clean the inside of the cup and the dish, and the outside will also be clean. Well to you teachers of the law of Pharisees, you hypocrites, verse 27. Right wash tunes which look beautiful on the outside, you get in the words, but on the inside you’re full of bones of the dead and everything unclean.

In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside you’re full of hypocrisy and wickedness. And it goes on and on like that. Outside, inside. This hypocrite business. That would put on a mask, we would, I think Les Mis used to say, masquerade, there was a song in the musical.

We wear a mask and it’s over the face to conceal the actor. And that’s in fact what they are, a pretender. Here’s this word that we use today, more than actor or pretender. Let’s just give it the harsh sound that it deserves, phony. They’re phony.

That’s what Jesus is calling out here. Hypocrisy happens when there’s a disconnect between profession and practice. Walk. The day to day. I put it in words that I remember, and you might remember them too, so get ready to write.

Clean talk, dirty walk. Sound good? It’s not good. You got a clean talk? But the walk’s not there, dirty walk.

Titus 1 16 says they professed to know God talking about the Cretans that lived in a little island in the western Mediterranean. And it was said of those people, you wouldn’t want to have claimed that you live in Crete, because it was known of many of them. Some thought all of them. Cretans are always, they’re liars. Chapter 1 verse 16 of Titus, he comes to this point.

They profess to know God. Words. Talk. But by their deeds, they deny him. That’s a problem.

And then he tells you how big a problem. Being detestable and worthless for any good thing. That’s the Bible, people. When there’s a disconnect that I’m describing here in my life. That’s phony.

And it’s detestable. And this is not good. It’s worthless. So the walk is a big deal. Dallas Willard, what a great name.

Philosopher, a godly Jesus follower from University of Southern Cal wrote this. So everybody starts this walk. Let’s go back there. Mark chapter 1 tells about it. Peter and Andrew and James and John, the brothers, and they dropped what they were doing and decided to follow Jesus.

And they began this walk with Jesus. I remember being in the lobby of this church. It’s about 15 years ago now. And kind of I knew the guy’s name. He was a college student.

And he was roommates with a guy that we have grown to love over the years, Brad Butcher. And he walks up to me, we didn’t really know each other except maybe a first name. He goes, “Hey, Pastor Steve, how’s your walk?” And I went, “Excuse me?” He goes, “No, no, bro, how’s your walk?”

And he wanted to hug me. I’m like, “I don’t know you that well.” And he kept with it. And I’m like, “Seriously? Who are you?”

And the next week, that conversation faded even though I thought to myself, right, that’s kind of nerve. You’re laying it out. How’s your walk? I’m like, “Dude, you’re not my parent, okay?” Then I thought the Lord’s saying, “Yeah, right, you’re the pastor, Steve.”

So the next week, sure enough, his name was Reed, actually. And he comes up and he goes, “Hey, hey, Pastor Steve, how’s your walk?” I’m like, knock it off, you little snot. You know, quit it. But you know what?

He was right. Reed was right. So turn to the person next to you and just say, “Hey, how’s your walk?” Go for it right now. One, two, three.

All right. So let me ask you, how’s your walk? How’s your walk? I want you to turn from Matthew, mark the next gospel, then Luke, the third gospel. Did you go to Luke chapter six?

I want you to see, he calls you, Jesus does, into a relationship with him. And when he does, he calls you into a relationship with certain expectations that will, if he has his way, as I like to say, he will, they will show in the day to day, okay? These expectations, how you’re to live. So as we read these words, I want you to listen to the function that Jesus makes. It’s here at the end of chapter six, verse 46.

Why do you call me Lord, Lord? And do not do what I say. This is Jesus’ words. As for everyone who comes to me, and here’s my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. They are like a man building a house who dug down deep and he laid a foundation on rock and flood came, the torrent struck that house, but could not shake it because it was well built.

But the one who hears my words and does not put them into the daily walk. That’s what practice means here. It’s like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. And the same conditions hit that house, by the way. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed.

And its destruction was complete. So what did you hear? What was the assumption? It’s back in verse 46 and the rest explains it. Obedience, is it not?

Obedience, he expects our obedience. It’s essential, it’s not optional. Someone has said, you haven’t really learned a commandment until you’ve obeyed it. Jesus said, why do you call me Lord and don’t do, obey what I say? That’s what he’s saying here.

It is in play every day. That’s why it’s a daily walk with him. See how it all ties together? This has been on my mind. Listen to this.

Jesus never wants, I’m quoting now, never wants commandment. Has landed something that we aren’t capable of doing and expected to do with his help. He doesn’t do that to people. He doesn’t throw out a shotgun of ideas, cool, conduct, shaping ideas and hope that a few of them land. You can take the ones that work for you and leave the rest.

Not even there, nowhere in the Bible. That’s optional Christianity. Someone has said, nothing clarifies doctrine like doing. So what’s that mean? What’s that mean if he says to us, gives us by way of command, things that he expects us to do and we decide not to do them?

It’s a problem with our walk. It’s a disconnect if it becomes sort of gain size and traction. Let me break that down in practical ways. So I was thinking through the Bible and the things that God gives us to do and with his help, we can do them. There’s not an exception that I know of in the Bible.

So it means things like this. When God says to husbands, that’s how I kind of filter things. When he says to this husband, love your wife. That is not in me. In most cases, when it feels good when she’s worthy of it, which she is all the time.

But anyway, get the idea here. Don’t just do it when it’s convenient for you. It is not a suggestion. Know the other side, by the way, that’s in Colossians chapter three, verse 19. Back up the bus to verse 18.

What does it say to wives? Wives be submissive. I can’t tell you how how allergic our culture is to that word today. You could say for good reason because there’s a lot of guys that aren’t worthy of that. That does not change what God said.

And that’s not a man beaten up on women right now. I’m just telling you what God said. And God says wives be submissive to your husbands and that is not negotiable. If you’re one right now that’s in a destructive, abusive relationship, you need to reach out for help. And I would be happily the one to help you find resources to support you in the most extraordinary situation.

So I’m not, this is not cavalier Pollyanna junk. This is truth and God says so. It gets bigger than that. I mean, when the Bible tells you and me, tells our kids today abstain from sexual immorality. First Corinthians chapter six, verse 18.

First Thessalonians chapter four. Second Timothy verse 22, Hebrews 13. I mean, the Bible has the theme that God expects us to remain sexually pure. We can do it. We can pull that off and we must.

And we’ve got to tell them. One of my kids is reading a book that’s, the title alone is indicting. It says, “Things Jesus says about sexual immorality.” and the church forgot about. Not this church.

Not this pastor. It’s not that I’m beating people up. One of the most restored sinners in our church is people that have compromised sexually. So I told you at the beginning about a man that I wasn’t describing. I’m telling you about the habit that I have on a regular basis.

I am in bad shape. I got caught. I don’t just go, oh, you don’t belong at grace point. Are you kidding me? God’s got the best work in store if you let him.

And there’s support here for that. So talk to me. By the way, can I just say this as an advertisement in the men and women’s restrooms of our church. There’s little cards that you can pick up. And it’s for men only, for women only.

And it’s for practical help in sexual purity. And especially if you’re struggling, fumbling, failing, pick up one of those cards. Talk to me. I will refer you to some really excellent resource people that will walk with you. They’re gonna make fun of you.

They’re gonna hold the same book close at hand and say, God expects this of us and therefore we can do it. Amen, we can do it people. We can do it. Here’s one more. When the Bible tells us to forgive or we won’t be forgiven, that’s in the Sermon on the Mount.

That’s Jesus’ words. The assumption is that there is no. There is no exception. You’re going pastor. I’ve got a story to tell you.

I think you might reconsider. I’m happy to hear your story. But I’ve heard some doozers. I’ve been through some doozers. And forgiveness is the only path.

A.W. Tozer expressed great concern about the practice of some in the church today. Where obedience has become as he puts it, optional. Brace yourself.

A notable heresy has come into being throughout evangelical Christian circles. The widely accepted concept that we humans can choose to accept Christ only because we need him as our savior. And that we have a right to postpone our obedience to him as Lord as long as we want to. Still quoting. Nonsense.

Salvation apart from obedience is absolutely unknown in the sacred scriptures. Say that last sentence again. Salvation apart from obedience is you won’t find it in the Bible. Now please don’t misunderstand. Please listen carefully.

The Bible teaches emphatically that salvation is a free gift. Romans 3 verse 28. It’s about the final word you could ever find on. It’s really cool. We maintain that a man, a woman, a child is justified, declared righteous by God, by faith and apart from the works of the law.

There’s the gospel. Is that cool? It should sound cool to you. And you should get past the blasé day that we’re trying not to celebrate because that’s gospel. That’s God saying, you know something?

I did all the work for you. You can be justified. You can be declared righteous. Put in a right relationship with me, God says, by your faith in me. And not by trying to keep the letters of the law.

You will fail. How many have ever failed trying to keep the letters of the law? I got two hands up on that one. So I need Jesus and so do you. Good works don’t result in something.

Salvation. Good works are the result of salvation. So when Jesus back at verse 46 asks this question incredulously, he can’t believe it. That’s the tone of his words. Why?

What do you call me? What do you mean? What is this? Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I say? Do you hear that?

How can this be in his voice? So if that’s true of you, two questions and we’ll finish. What’s your explanation? You call him Lord. But on Tuesday last week, you didn’t do what he said, his words.

You didn’t do what I say. What’s our explanation? What’s my explanation when that happens? I could tell you stories yesterday. I’m just like, look, oh, God is texting in the most flagrant way.

He’s like this. And you know what? That didn’t bug me as much as the fact that it slowed me down, getting to the gym. I wanted to work out. Then I started thinking un-Jesus thoughts.

Like, you know what? I doubt if I bumped him in my truck, he’s a bump in my truck, that’ll hurt. I doubt if he would even know. So maybe I’ll do it. And I got in the club and I saw him.

Then I realized that he had twice as many weights on his bars than I did. And I behaved. It’s in all of us people. So when this disconnect is there, I say he’s my Lord. I mean, I’m a preacher.

I stand in front of you on Sunday. You get paid to be good. I mean, come on. Right? And then I’m not good yesterday.

What’s up? What gives? For me. I know that’s for me. All right.

The rest of this message is about straightening your walk, okay? And it’s not another sermon. It’s just a footnote part to all of this. Here’s what I want you to identify very quickly. If Jesus were to walk in here today or better yet, go with you from here to lunch.

It’s just you too. What area of your life would you be nervously hoping that he doesn’t ask you about? ‘Cause it’s likely that that part of your life needs straightening. Could be the movies you’re watching, the media you’re consuming. It could be something totally different than that.

Your sexual behavior, your potty mouth. I don’t know. I just, well, I’m just throwing out ideas. I don’t know. But you’re nervously hoping that doesn’t come up, but you kind of have this sense it will because he is.

Is Jesus and he knows everything, right? So to leave it in your life, off limits to him is to remain unhealthy in your walk. That’s what this series is about, healthy walk. Okay. I love you, Alberta.

I love you. Yes, I do. (audience applauding) So, okay. Here’s the deal. I want you to turn one other place, Psalm 139, because I want to tell you about somebody that’s on your short list of cool people in the Bible.

I know it is. I know he is. His name’s King David. Find your way to Psalm 139. Esther, Job, Psalm, near the end.

He wrote, by the way, 73 Psalms or songs. And this is just one of the 73. That’s almost half of every Psalm written was from the human pin of David. And so, I think this is why what you’re about to just see quickly. David was someone who found himself in a bad spot.

He was facing a deep disconnect in his life. This great guy, a God guy, the axe calls him a man after God’s own heart. That guy has this huge disconnect in his life. He committed two of the big 10, adultery and murder. That’s a big rap.

That’s not good. And I think Psalm 139, though it’s not written about the events that took place in our Bibles that recorded in 2 Samuel chapter 12. Okay, you can read that later today and go, whoa, he really did. He’d go off the rails. Okay, but here we are in David’s relationship of God.

His understanding of who God is that helped him, I think, earn the man after God’s own heart because when he messed up, these insights tell us why he straightened up. You have searched me, O Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar. You’re going out and my lying down. You’re familiar with all my ways.

Before words on my tongue, you know, Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in behind and before you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. What’s he saying here? God, you’re all knowing.

You know 100% of me, not just the part I revealed to you, all of it. You’re all knowing, which means what I did with Bathsheba and what I did to her husband, Uriah, back in 2 Samuel 12, was a bad thing and you knew all about it. He’s not done. He goes on to talk about where is God in all of this? Where can I go from your spirit, verse seven?

Where can I flee from your presence? So I go up to the heavens, oh, you’re there. If I make my bed in the depths, there, too. If I rise in the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there, your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. Hey, it’s dark.

Surely the darkness will hide me and the light becomes night around me. Even darkness will not be dark to you. The night will shine like the day for darkness is as light to you. What’s he saying here? He starts with saying, you know everything and then he says, you’re everywhere.

You’re all present. I can’t hide from you. You know what I did to Bathsheba and to her husband? And everywhere I tried to hide. Hoping you’ll pass by.

You’re there. I’m sunk. Until he says next, God, you’ve got this ability to help me. You created my innermost being, verse 13. You knit me together and my mother’s womb isn’t that beautiful.

I praise you because I’m fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know full well. My frame is not hidden from you as made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts? Like Psalm 40, he says it there as well. You think about me all the time. How vast is the sum of them? Where I’d count of them, count them, they would outnumber the grains of the sand.

When I wake, I’m still with you. God knows it all and sees it all. He sees us in a condition where things are in disorder. The walk is not well. Somewhere in here, people we come to the wonderful words that wrap up this section, verse 23.

So search me, oh God. And know my heart. When’s the last time you did that? Test me and know my anxious thoughts. Try me.

Pray open the closed closet doors of my life. See if there’s anything that’s out of alignment. That’s what verse 24 says. As you say anything that’s offensive in me. As you search me, God, you’re the one that knows.

But as you search those nooks and crannies of my life, the halls, the closets, the closed doors of my life. If you find anything that’s offensive in me, verse 24 is life. Then lead me out of it. Lead me from that place of captivity, that place of of concealment, that place of brokenness, that place of disconnect in my walk. And put me on a straight path with you so that I won’t just say Lord, Lord, I’ll obey you.

It’ll show every day. Let’s bow together, shall we? Oh God. Church, as your eyes are closed and your head’s bowed. I want to remind you of a reality to be very clear about something right now.

The devil isn’t going to stand by and let you straighten out your walk and restore you to spiritual health if he has anything to do with it. He does not want that for you. So everything I said is beautiful gospel. It’s hope. To the core.

But it’s also why the fight is very real right now for you. For me. And it’s real every day. Because the devil wants to do in you and me what he did in the third chapter of the Bible to Eve and Adam. He’s the minimizer, you know.

He’s the one that says, puts in our heads that the commands of God aren’t that big a deal. And the consequences of not doing them are not a big deal. That’s minimizing. He wants you to minimize and dismiss the disorder of that closet in your life. Don’t let him.

To leave sin in the closet or corner of your life is to allow the disconnect to continue and it will ruin. Your relationship with Jesus. We want to walk healthy, Lord. We want to be people that are tired and unwilling to wear the mask to be a phony. We want to be people that are sincere.

And Lord, there’s fear in the way of most of us. Will you really treat me like you treated David? When I come out with it. I think the answer is yes, he will. He requires you to pray to him.

And say to him with sincerity in your heart, Lord, my life. In this area, my life is a mess. I can’t make it better on my own. And today I’m done faking it. Need to fix it.

Listen to me now if I’m describing you. Today is the day of freedom for you. Say no to fear. Say yes to freedom. There’s some area in your life that’s needing to change up today.

I want to invite you to do something big and bold. I want you to stand to your feet with me right now. Would you do that? Many of you are doing that. Thank you.

If you know somebody that’s like this and you’re committing to praying for them to no longer conceal, to get over the disconnect, I want you to stand up as well right now. I want you to stand for somebody that needs the truth that we’ve heard here today. And then if you’re here today and you’re one that finds ways to resist next steps with Jesus because of fear. You’re saying I want to change that up. I want to trust him to heal me, to cleanse me, to make me whole.

I want you to stand right now with us too. And as we’re standing before you, God, we say to you, we love you. We said back when we accepted your invitation to walk with you. But that walk’s been bumpy and choppy at times. Lost our way at times.

The ones we’re standing for, some of us, have lost their way. They’re still lost. I pray that today you would make a move in each one of our hearts to be wholly discontent with disconnect and to pray for the same and the lives of others we love. And to the rest of church today, would you stand with the rest of us now? And we’re going to sing a final song, “Who Shall I Fear?”

Ushers are going to come and gather our morning prayer requests and offering. Would you prepare that as well? And let’s respond to him.

Transcript machine-generated from the sermon audio, so it may contain errors. 6,184 words.