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The Church of Eleven22
Little Child vs Rich Young Ruler - Impossible to Possible - Matthew S5E9
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Hello, family. How are you? Now we're going to do that again. How are you? Much better, Much better. Well, if you have a Bible, meet me in Matthew, chapter 19. Matthew, chapter 19. We're going to pick up from verse 13. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to pray and then we're going to jump straight in. We're going to get to work. We have quite a bit to get through in a short amount of time. All right, we're going to ask God for his help, that he would reveal himself to us in this time. And so let's pray. Father, we are so thankful for your word. Would it come to us again like fresh bread? Fresh bread to our souls. Would it nourish us and sustain us? Lord, I pray for those who are going to partake for the first time today. Would they taste and see that you are good? And so it is to that end that I ask that you would open up our ears so that we might hear you ever so clearly. Would you open up our minds so that we might comprehend you deeply? And would you open up our hearts so that we might trust and believe there is no other name that saves, and that is the name of Jesus. We love you. We praise you. We ask all of this in your precious name. Amen. Now, if you've been tracking with us through the book of Matthew, you may have picked up that we tend to reference from the Gospel according to Mark quite a bit. Now, you may already know this, but some may not. And that is, there are four gospels in the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The first three are known as the Synoptic Gospels. That's just a fancy way of saying that they are seen together. Same events, same order, and oftentimes even the same words. John, in his account of Jesus life and ministry, well, he takes a different path. These are not four gospels that just repeat one another. No, they are unique recordings of Jesus from four different angles. Mark and Matthew, well, they are the closest of them all, hence us referencing quite a bit from the Gospel of Mark. Now, having said that, you need to know that every writer has a style and every style has a reason. Mark writes like a film director. Fast, urgent, scene after scene. He's writing to a world that loves action, and so he gives it to them. Matthew, in his account of Jesus life and ministry, well, he writes like a lawyer. He is writing to a Jewish audience that thinks in terms of evidence and argument. So Matthew does not rush. He builds a case carefully, deliberately. Every scene placed exactly where it needs to be every encounter chosen to advance the argument. Which means when Matthew places two scenes side by side in chapter 19, he's not being casual. No, no, no, no. He's. He's calling two witnesses to the stand. And so, that being the case, ladies and gentlemen of the con, two people are about to walk into the courtroom. Watch them carefully. One is a group of children with nothing to offer. The other is a rich young man who has kept every commandment from his youth. Jesus will confront them both. Only one will receive the kingdom. By the time we are done, you will understand why, and you will have to decide which one of them looks more like you. And here's what should unsettle you. The ones Jesus receives are the ones with nothing to offer. And the one who walks away empty is the one who came with everything. This is not accidental. This is the whole argument. Matthew is not writing a morality test about greedy, rich people and sweet, innocent children. No, he is doing something far more surgical than that. He is reaching into the chest of every person who has ever tried to be good enough for God. And he is exposing the system underneath it. The invisible scorecard, the quiet arithmetic of earning and losing position, the deep assumption that the most deserving get the most access. While that system may feel reasonable, it might even feel fair. It might feel godly. Jesus is about to dismantle it brick by brick. So let the proceedings begin. Look with me. In verse 13, it says, Then children were brought to him. This is Jesus, that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people. The disciples rebuked the people. We should sit with this before we go any further. The disciples rebuked the people. These are the 12 men who have been with Jesus. They have watched him perform miracle after miracle after miracle for those with no social standing. And now, when parents bring their children forward for prayer, the disciples push back. Why? Well, because in the world they lived in, children had no standing. They were viewed as individuals with no legal rights, no social claim, no negotiating power. A child received everything or received nothing entirely on the basis of the will and the grace of the one who held authority over them. Oh, if you understood what I was saying, I wouldn't have to preach so long. They could not earn access. They could not leverage anything. They just simply came. You see, the disciples had a framework. And let's be honest, it seems logical. You invest in people who can move the mission forward. You give access to those who carry weight. You guard the teacher's time. For those who have Something significant to bring. And yet Jesus is about to dismantle that way of thinking with one sentence. He says, let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven. And he laid his hands on them and went away. Now, I should say Jesus is not looking at these toddlers and saying they are innocent. Far from it. I mean, let's be honest here for a moment. How many innocent toddlers do you know? No one teaches them how to lie. No one teaches them how to throw a tantrum when they don't get their way. No one teaches them to bite other kids there biting 101 class that they attend, despite the fact that they would graduate cum laude. They are not innocent. Cute, sure. Adorable, maybe. Funny? It depends. Innocent, I don't think so. And can I share this with you? Can I just get this off my chest? But let me preface by saying, grandparents, I love you. I do. But you know who perpetuates this narrative that these toddlers are innocent? It's you. I mean, the things that they get away with, it's. It's ridiculous. You are like the witness protection program for these kids. They will throw a tantrum. They will throw plates all over the place. I mean, food is everywhere. It's chaos. And then you'll go, oh, they're just exhausted. I'm like, exhausted. Their entire schedule is just naps and snacks. How are they? I'm exhausted. I want to discipline our little ones. And then my mother will be like, no, no, no, no. Don't you raise your voice at my baby. I'm like, I thought I was your baby. We'll take our kids over to your place for the weekend, come and pick them up. We find that they're in their own room. Egyptian cotton juice boxes everywhere. I mean, you all are buying them gifts. We look at it and we're like, that's my entire salary. I mean, that is everything that I make. What are you doing? Grandparents, we know that you love these kids, and we're thankful for y', all, but we need some of that baby boomer Gen X energy back. You know what I mean? You know what I'm talking about? These kids are not innocent. He's not looking at them and going, innocent. No, no, no, no. Watch this. He's looking at these children and he's seeing their posture. They know they have nothing to offer. They are not negotiating. They are not presenting their credentials. They are simply reaching. And Jesus says that, that right there, that is what the kingdom looks like. When it's received. Not the impressive, not the accomplished, not the ones who have something to show for themselves. It's the ones who come with open hands. A child does not calculate whether they have earned the right to ask. I mean, you've been in a conversation with another adult and a child just comes up and just starts talking. They do not review their resume before coming forward. They simply come trusting that the one that they are approaching will receive them. That is trust. That unguarded, unearned, open handed posture is what Jesus is recognizing. It's that desperation that draws the attention of our Savior. And we've seen this over and over and over again in the book of Matthew. This is what many call the scandal of the new birth or the scandal of grace. It's what we call unmerited favor, something that many of us struggle with. See, we would rather be our own saviors. We would rather live in this delusion that we can pay God back. Why? Because we believe that it gives us control. We would rather do that than receive, because receiving admits that we are helpless. And that is the one thing that pride will not do. You do not climb your way into the kingdom. You are born into it. Jesus said this to Nicodemus in John chapter three, and Nicodemus could not make sense of it. How can a man be born when he is old? The answer is he cannot. And that is the point. But stay with me for a moment, because you must be born again. And this new birth is not something that you produce. It is something done to you by the Spirit of God on the basis of grace and grace alone. Oh, we must understand that these children are not in the arms of Jesus because they deserve to be. They are there because someone brought them and Jesus received them. That is the entire picture of salvation compressed into one moment. We do not arrive, we are carried. We do not achieve entry. We are received. And the one who receives us does so entirely on the basis of who he is, not on the basis of what we have done. You see, it is open hands with nothing to offer. We must be born again, not built up. This is the kingdom of God, and we must understand this before we go any further, that there is no amount of work that you and I can do to gain access into the kingdom. But then Matthew calls his next witness to the stand. Look with me. Verse 16, it says, and behold, behold. Now this is a word that I don't think many of us use in everyday conversation, unless you're big into Shakespeare and 1600 modern English. But Matthew uses this word to signal that something, or in our case, someone significant is coming and who shows up? A man who asks the right question. And behold, a man came up to him saying, teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? What must I do to have eternal life? It's important to know that unlike others that we've seen in the Book of Matthew, his question to Jesus is not a trap. This is not the Pharisees, the religious leaders, testing Jesus. No, this is a young man who genuinely wants to know the answer to the most serious question available to him. The most important question that you and I will ever ask. Not who will I marry, not what career must I pursue, not even what is my purpose. While those are important questions, they pale in comparison to this. What must I do to have eternal life? This young man, he's morally serious. He's desperate for an answer. In fact, in Mark 1017, Mark tells us that this young man knelt when he asked Jesus. And Jesus does not miss him. He doesn't dismiss him, he engages him, but not in the way that the young man expected. Jesus does not answer the question, but rather he goes underneath the question, past the words, down to the framework that that question is standing on. And maybe, maybe you know something about that. Have you ever come to Jesus with a question, but deep down you knew that that was not the real question? You asked about the job, but the real thing was fear. You asked about the relationship, but the real thing was loneliness? You asked, what should I do? But the real thing that you were asking was, am I enough? You brought to him the surface question. And somehow, through a verse, through a conversation, through a. Through a song, maybe even through a sermon, he answered the one underneath, the one that you would never say out loud, this is what he's doing here, verse 17. And he said to him, why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. The young man asked, what good deed must I do? Jesus does not answer the question. He asks his own question. Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. This is not Jesus deflecting. This is Jesus exposing the foundation that that question is built upon. That's because this young man is operating inside what we call a merit framework. The religion that says eternal life is the prize at the end of a sufficient list. Good deeds perform enough, accumulate enough, and then maybe, maybe, maybe you'll hear from the clouds a voice that says, arrived only to find yourself at the wrong destination. Jesus will not enter this framework, but he will interrogate it. There is only one who is good. You see, goodness is not a currency that you earn and spend. Goodness has a source, and that source is standing right in front of this young man. The question was never, what must I do? The question is, and has always been, do you know who I am? Which means the question, what good deed must I do? Is already looking in the wrong direction. But Jesus, despite all of this, he meets this young man where he is. I love that Jesus meets this man where he is. Which tells us that Jesus meets us where we are. Oh, we should let that marinate. He meets us where we are. This means that he does not wait for you to fix your question. He does not wait for you to clean up the framework that you've been living in. He meets you mid sentence, mid mess, mid striving. And that's how many of us have showed up here today. We had plans. Oh, we had plans. Plans to do better. This time, Jesus, this time I'm going to show up on time. This time I'm going to raise my hand. This time I'm going to do better. I'm going to strive harder so that I can enter into your presence. But Jesus says, no, that's not how it works. He says, stop. And he meets you where you are, and then he begins to reroute you. I mean, he met a woman at a well in her shame. He met Zacchaeus up in a tree. He met Peter after the denial on the shore over breakfast. He meets a young man in his wealth and fear. He meets you where you are, and this is grace. Don't miss it. Oh, please don't miss it. This is grace. But here's the thing about grace. How many of you know that sometimes grace doesn't always feel like grace? Can we be honest for a moment? Sometimes grace doesn't feel like grace. You know, it's grace, but it doesn't feel like grace. You see, sometimes grace will come to you like a mirror before it comes to you like rescue. Sometimes grace will come to you like a mirror before it comes to you like rescue. And so Jesus Hands Him 1. A list of commandments. He hands him a mirror. If you would enter life, keep the commandments, he said to him, which ones? And Jesus said, you shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And then I want us to look at this young man's response because it should stop us dead in our tracks. Verse 20. The young man said to him, all these I have kept. What do I still lack? We are told that this man has done everything. He has not cut corners. He has not just kept the easy commandments and ignored the hard ones. No, no. He has built his entire life around obedience to God. And after all of it, after every sacrifice and every discipline and every religious duty performed, he still feels the gap. And I need us to feel this tension. The life he was promised has not arrived. The peace he expected has not come. He has given everything the system has asked from him, and the system has given him nothing in return. This is not just a small crisis, friends. This. This is the collapse of an entire way of living. This is what we mean when we say, religion will leave you empty. Religion will leave you empty. Can you imagine drinking water? Glass after glass after glass, and every time the glass touches your lips, your mouth is still dry, your throat is still parched. The thirst does not go away. In fact, it mocks you because you are consuming something that looks like water, that feels like water, but it does not reach that place inside of you that is dying of thirst. That is because religion is not living water. Hear me, religion. No matter how beautifully packaged, how wonderfully presented, all the promises that it will give to you, religion is not living water. What do I still lack? This is one of the most honest questions in the Gospels. And here it is said by a man who is desperate enough to say it out loud. And so my question to you is, are you are you? See, most of us are not. Because to ask, what do I still lack out loud, we would have to admit that something is missing. And for many of us, we would rather look full than to be found empty. And even with all of that, I love what Jesus does. He does not exploit that desperation. He does not pull back. He moves towards this young man. And what comes next is not a rebuke. And it's not a test. It's a diagnosis. It's a diagnosis spoken by the only doctor who can see all the way down to the human heart, all the way to the bottom. Look with me. Verse 21. Jesus said to him, if you would be perfect, go sell what you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me. Jesus reaches past every commandment the young man has kept and puts his finger on the thing underneath all of it. He puts his finger on his wealth. Now, we should be careful here. This is not a universal command to all believers to liquidate their assets. We're not that kind of church. Jesus is not making a policy statement about money. No, he's delivering a verdict on this man's heart. His possessions were not just things that he owned. His possessions were things that owned him. And there is a difference. His identity was built on what he had accumulated. The danger was never the money. It was never the money. It was the narrative. That money told him that he produced everything on his own, that he is all sufficient. And now I know many of you are sitting here and going, well, this isn't for me. You're thinking about your really rich friend who should be here to listen to this message. Because you have no money, but don't check out. Because you do not have to possess something for it to possess you. The question is not what is in your account. The question is what is on the throne of your heart? Because you can be poor in pocket, but rich in idolatry. The rich young man had money. You may not. But if the pursuit has you, the verdict is the same. From the outside, this man's life looked immaculate, morally clean, religiously devoted. The kind of life that turns heads in any church. But Jesus is not inspecting the walls. No, he's looking at what's inside. This man had built his entire life on the unholy trinity. Me, myself, and I. And here's the sad thing. He didn't even know it. Let me tell you. Obedience without surrender is still self reliance dressed in religious clothing. Someone needs to hear that today. Obedience without surrender is still self reliance dressed in religious clothing. And this man wore it well right up until the moment Jesus asked him to take it off. And he didn't. He wouldn't. Look at that. Look at it with me. Matthew 19:22 says, when the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. He went away. He went away. He went away. And then watch this. Jesus let him go. Let me be honest with you, that has messed with me over the years. Because if it was me, I would have gone, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, man, we were so close. Okay, let's chat a little bit. How much can you do? Can you do 60? Can you do. Can you do 50? What can you. What can you do? Let's just get you in. But Jesus doesn't. Jesus lets him go. Jesus is not being harsh. He loves this man. He saw all the way to the bottom of him, and still he offered him the very thing that he'd been searching for his entire life. The problem was the man could not Receive it. Because his hands were too full of something else. Jesus did not chase him. He does not lower the price. He watches him walk away as the door remains open behind him. Please don't miss that door. 11:22. Please. Please don't miss that door. Jesus says in John 10:9. I am the door. Meaning that he is the only way to salvation and eternal life. And so, even though this. This young man walks away, the door still remains open. The door still remains open today. And so I have to ask you this question. Is there something in your hands right now that you will not release? If Jesus asked you, and make no mistake, he is asking you. And then, after all this, Jesus then turns to his disciples and says what the whole encounter has been building toward. And I know many of us were very familiar with these verses. Look with me. 23. And Jesus said to his disciples, truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples are shocked, and they should be. See, in the Old Testament, wealth was a sign of God's favor in your life. Think about Abraham or Solomon. Prosperity meant God was pleased with you. And the disciples would have built their entire theology of blessing on that foundation. But Jesus here says, no, no, no, no, no. That's not how this works. See, the Gospel never promises that the new covenant pays out in cash. A camel through the eye of a needle? That's not just difficult, friends. That's impossible. I mean, no strategy, no technique closes that gap. No discipline, no accumulated righteousness. The image is chosen precisely because it declares loud and clear that there is no human solution whatsoever. And even though we know this, we still try. We still try perpetuating our willful insanity. We'll still get together and try to figure out how can we get this camel through the eye of this needle. We'll put together a subcommittee. And can I tell you what's worse than a subcommittee? A subcommittee. We'll gather people around, like, how can we do this? And what strategy can we do and how? And then there's always that bright spark at the back because I know, what if we give the camel ozempic, and then maybe it'll, like, slither its way. You know what I mean? If it's impossible for the rich man, then it's impossible for you and me. And so whatever you're counting on to get you into the kingdom, if it's Not Jesus, hear me, it'll never ever be enough. The disciples response tells us everything. They were not just somewhat concerned. The text tells us that they were greatly astonished. And this is exactly what Jesus wanted. The disciples land exactly where he wants them. Verse 25. When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished saying, who then can be saved? Who then can be saved? Ah, this is now the right question. If goodness is the currency, then nobody has enough. And Jesus is not raising the bar. He's not raising the bar. That bar has always been there. What Jesus is doing is he's removing, he's dismantling this man made ladder that you and I have created in our attempt to get to God on our own terms. And then Jesus says the sentence that changes everything. Verse 26. But Jesus looked at them and said, with man this is impossible. But with God all things are possible. This is the gospel. In that one line we find the gospel. The goodness of the, of the gospel. Maybe think about it this way, that a drowning person cannot save themselves. Trying harder does not close the gap between them and dry land. They don't need advice on better technique. They don't need you screaming out to them, just, just raise your hand, breathe like. They don't need that from you. They need someone from outside the water to reach in and pull them out. That is the gospel. See this is the human condition before God. And that is that we are not the solution. Friends, I hate to say this to you and yet at the same time I love to say this to you. We are the problem. You and I are the problem. Jesus did not come to help us do better. He came to do what we could never do for ourselves. The good news is not that the bar is lower. The good news is that Jesus already cleared it. And he did so for you. Now I know I'm not a shouting person, but if I was, these would be some shouting words. This is the beauty of the gospel. This is why we gather, this is why we preach from God's word. This is why we speak to one another. God's word and God's promises is to remind ourselves that he has come to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. Then Peter said in reply, and I love Peter because Peter loves to say the things that all of us want to say but are too afraid. You know what I mean? So Peter said in reply, see we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have? What do we get? Jesus? I mean he just watched a man who should have gotten in on merit walk away from Jesus because the price was too high. And so now he needs to know if the price he paid was worth it. Jesus, we trust and believe. So what do we get? Verse 28. Jesus said to them, truly I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on 12 Thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters, or father or mother or children or lands for My name's sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. Remember how we started Matthew? Writing like a lawyer, Every word chosen, every detail deliberate, nothing included by accident. Matthew, he's been building his case for 19 chapters now. And right here at this moment, when Peter asks, what do we get? Matthew then reaches for a word that he will never use again. And so we should pay attention. He uses the word palanganisia. Palangonisia. It's not an Italian dish, it's a Greek word. When translated to English, it is the new world. What do you get? You get the new world. Total renewal, new heavens, new earth. The restoration of everything the prophets of the Old Testament were reaching toward. And Matthew saves this word for this exact moment, with all intentionality, by the power of the Holy Spirit and for all the Bible nerds in the room. And it should be all of us. You probably want to know that the only other place that this word appears in the entire New Testament is in Titus, chapter three, verse five, where Paul the Apostle Paul uses it when he talks about the renewal, the renewal the Spirit does inside of you at salvation. Whereas Matthew, he uses it for the renewal that God does at all creation. Hear me, friends. It's both and it's both. And it's personal renewal, cosmic renewal. It's the same word, the same God, the same direction, that every time someone crosses the line of faith, every time someone surrenders their life to Jesus as Lord and Savior, we praise him for that renewal. Every testimony that we hear, we praise him for that renewing work. This should never get old. But also what it does is it tells us that God is renewing the world. I'm a comic superhero fan. I love the comics. I love the movies. If you're into them, then you would know that at the end of this year, there's another Avengers moving coming. Anyone else excited? Praise God, I'm a little concerned that you're more excited about that. But anyway, let's leave it alone. And what they do is every now and then in the lead up to this movie. They'll drop some teasers, some good ones. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, they dropped a full trailer. And there I was watching it in all its glory. And as it gets to the end, there's this one particular scene that got me really excited. In fact, I screamed, let's go. I got excited about the trailer because it's pointing me to the movie. Every renewal that happens here should excite us, not because of what God is doing here, but because it's pointing us to the cosmic renewal. The new world is not God's apology for how hard this one was. It is what he was building toward all along. You are not sacrificing your future to follow Jesus. You are finally securing it. What eye has not seen and ear has not heard, God has already prepared, and it has your name on it. Peter would later write to believers who had lost everything and remind them of what was waiting for them on the other side of physical death. He would tell them that there is inheritance waiting for you. And this inheritance is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you. Not earned, but kept, kept, kept by a father who does not lose things, who does not forget things, and who does not break promises. You know, a farmer. A farmer, when he scatters seed, he doesn't do so just to get rid of it. No, he plants it with intention. He plants it on purpose, expecting a harvest. And the moment it goes into the ground, it looks like loss. The shell breaks. Everything visible disappears. But that is not death. That is transformation. The seed is not being destroyed. No, no, no. The seed is becoming something that the ground cannot contain. And so every home left, Every security surrendered, every comfort released for the name of Jesus, none of it is gone. It's all in the ground. And hear me, the ground belongs to God. And it belongs to a God who is in the business of raising the dead. We have nothing to fear, nothing to be concerned about. The harvest is coming. So trust the one who said, with God all things are possible. And then Jesus closes with a line that reorders everything in verse 30 says, but many who are first will be last and the last first. But many who are first will be lost. The last first. And I know we know this verse, but we should never try to domesticate it. Oh, and we try. We try. We've printed it on T shirts, we've popularized it with hashtags. We've even tried to shrink it down all the way so that it fits on a nice coffee mug. But this, this was never a participation trophy. This is a declaration. It is a declaration that says that the currency of this world does not spend in the kingdom. No accolades, no achievements, no social status, no religious resume. Nothing. Only the finished work of Jesus. I mean, the children who had nothing, they received. The rich young man who had everything while he went away with nothing. The disciples who left their nets, well, we're told they'll sit on thrones. And then Matthew rests his case. The kingdom does not reward accumulation. It honors surrender. The first will be last, and the last will be first. See, what the world calls success, Jesus calls it empty. What the world calls sacrifice, Jesus calls inheritance. And so let me end with where I started. Two figures. One Jesus. Completely different outcomes. The difference was never their record. It was never their effort. It was one thing. What were they holding when they came to Jesus? Jesus is asking you the same question. He asked the young man, not what have you done, but what are you holding on to that you are trusting more than me. He looked at that young man and loved him. Before the requirement, before the failure, before the walking away, that love did not leave when that mantit. Hear me. That love did not leave when that man did. He walked away, but the love remained. Which tells us that that love didn't leave when the marriage ended. That love did not leave when the child left. That love did not leave when the depression started. That love did not leave when the isolation and loneliness began. That love is in this room right now. He sees what's in your hands, and he's not waiting for you to sort it out before he receives you. He invites you. He invites you. And so, as an instrument in his hands, I am only going to do that very thing. That if you know that you have not received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, I want you to hear this invitation because that love invites you. Maybe you have been around church for a while. You know the songs, you know the verses. But deep down, you know that you have not surrendered your life to Jesus as Lord and Savior. Today is that day. Today is that day. It is the most important moment of your life. Not a prayer to recite, but a life to surrender. And so I'm going to ask you to come just like the children came. Come with nothing but receive everything. And so if that's you, I'm going to ask you to raise up your hand right now where you are, raise it up high. Don't be concerned about what's happening beside you, in front of you and behind you. Now is not the time to pretend and perform. Jesus knows. But today you're saying, I want to surrender it all and I want to receive abundant life. And so raise up your hand high and keep it there and let me pray. Father God, I pray for every single person who has their hand raised. God, would you meet them where they are? Jesus, would they know of your love, of your grace, of your mercy? And with their hand raised, would they know that that signals Jesus, save me. I cannot save myself. I'm in desperate need of a savior. So, God, would you do this work that only you can do? Would you pull people out of the darkness into your marvelous light? Would you move them from being an orphan to being a child of the kingdom? For your glory and for your joy, in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Now maybe you're here and you're like, I've crossed that line of faith. I've surrendered my life to Jesus. I've been walking with him for a while. I have tasted and I've seen. But right now, in this season of my life, the cost of following him, it's bearing on me, it's heavy. I feel the weight of it, the sacrifices and the decisions that I have to make. Well, this is for you. I'm going to invite you to come. To come knowing that what you are experiencing, what you are suffering, that that is not a period in your story, but that is just a comma. Because God is still writing. He's not done with you yet. What you committed to Jesus is not lost. In fact, it is safer in his hands than it'll ever be in yours, whatever it is. So I want you to come. Come to the altar, meet with God. Your seed is in the ground. The Father holds your inheritance, and he holds it as one who never forgets, who never fails, and who never breaks promises. And what is impossible for you has already been made possible in Him. See, we close our time by responding in three ways. We sing, we bring and we pray. We sing to the king who is on his throne. We sing in worship and in adoration. We sing also to our hearts to command them to keep their eyes fixed on Jesus. We bring. We bring our first and best. Because God gave his first and best in Jesus. Our giving is just a response to what he has already given us. And then we pray. We pray to the One who holds all things, who knows all things, who loves us more than we could ever imagine. And so come. Come and lay your burdens and be reminded of the richness of his grace. Let's respond.