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Northview Church in Kodak, TN exists to point people to the love of Jesus Christ and help people fall in love with Jesus and love others.
Good morning. If you'll remain standing just for our scripture reading. This morning, the scripture reading comes out of Matthew chapter seven verses 21 to 23 and this is part of the sermon on the mount. It's the ending as Jesus is speaking and this comes from the New Living Translation. It says, not everyone who calls out to me, lord, lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.
Joey:Only those who actually do the will of my father in heaven will enter. On judgement day, many will say to me, lord, lord, we prophesied in your name and cast demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name but I will reply, I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God's laws. May God bless the reading of his word.
Pastor Greg:As you sit down this morning, would you just get along with God for a minute? Bow your head and just ask him, Lord, what do you want me to know today? What do you want me to do today? And father, help me respond to respond to you however you lead. Father in heaven, as we open up your word, would you pierce our hearts with the truth?
Pastor Greg:Help us to see you more today. Help us to understand you more today, and god give us the ability and the courage to respond to you today. Would you move this morning, lord? In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.
Pastor Greg:So, we've been for the last couple of months, we've been building towards this idea and honestly, it's an idea that I didn't even realize on the surface that we were working towards but god was working through this towards this moment. I do believe where god has us today and I'm going to be honest with you upfront. Today's sermon, today's message, it's a difficult message. It's one that lands kind of heavy for many people and it should be something that we pay closely attention, close attention to. It's a thread that we have been working on even back to to our last couple of sermon series and and today, James in the at the end of chapter two, James is going to blow the door open to what we've been talking about.
Pastor Greg:So, I need you if you can to lock in this morning and to really pay attention because this maybe the most important thing that you hear this year or for a long time. It is the most important topic we have ever broached as a church. If I was to stop right now, we were to take a poll in this room and I was to ask you, are you saved? Do you know Jesus? I would guess that almost everyone and maybe every single one of you would raise your hands and say, yes.
Pastor Greg:I am saved. I do know Jesus and this message is not to tell you that you're wrong. That's not the point of what we're going to talk about today but James, he does ask a follow-up question to that that is very difficult and that's where we need to start digging in this morning. So, we're gonna be in James chapter two. The scripture will be on the screen.
Pastor Greg:If you wanna follow along, James two, we're in the NLT version and there are hard copies of the Bible spread around the room under the chairs if you'd like to follow along that way as well. We're gonna start in verse 14 and here's what James had to say. What good is it dear brothers and sisters? If you say you have faith but don't show it by your actions. Can that kind of faith save anyone?
Pastor Greg:Now, as you look at that verse, I want you to pay attention to a word there and it's not the word faith. It's the word say. If you say, you have faith. James doesn't ask what good is it if someone has faith. He asked what good is it if you say you have faith?
Pastor Greg:Because the point he's driving towards is this, profession is not the same as possession. Professing that you believe in Jesus is not the same as possessing a relationship with Jesus. It's two totally different things. That word say, the original language in the Greek, it means to claim, to declare, to speak, and James as he lays this out for us is is making a surgical distinction between what it looks like to proclaim or to profess Jesus and to actually have or possess a relationship with Jesus. They are not the same thing and James is being very clear about that.
Pastor Greg:He's not talking to people who are struggling in their faith. He's talking about people who say they believe in Jesus and they just kind of wear it like a name tag. And he continues here in verse 15. Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing and you say goodbye and have a good day. Stay warm.
Pastor Greg:Eat well. But then you don't give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? Verse 17. So you see, faith by itself isn't enough.
Pastor Greg:Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. James, as he begins hammering home this idea, he gives us a very simple illustration. Suppose that you see a friend, someone that you know who is in need. They need food or they need clothing. Suppose you have been in that situation.
Pastor Greg:We all have, haven't we? Known someone who just needs a little help, needs someone to come alongside them and maybe it's just a small gesture and James is saying, if your response to them is, you will be in my prayers. I hope god does something for you and you walk away. James says, what good is that faith? Is that showing love to the to the least of these?
Pastor Greg:Is that showing love to those who need help? What good is that he says? And what he's saying is that faith by itself, if it does nothing is a dead faith. Words without action. Feelings with no follow through.
Pastor Greg:You might even be very sincere about praying for that person or wishing them well but sincerity doesn't feed anyone. Sincerity doesn't meet a need. Sincerity doesn't change anything. And and most of us, when we hear that, we can point fingers. We think of someone else.
Pastor Greg:This person who talks a good game but they disappear when it counts. But James, he's not describing the person down the road. He's describing believers. He's describing the church. He's describing this room.
Pastor Greg:He's describing every church, every group of believers. He's describing my faith and yours. And the hard thing that he's gonna drive towards is this, demons believe. Disciples surrender. Sit with that for a moment.
Pastor Greg:Demons believe and disciples surrender. Here's the honest question underneath all of it. When you came to faith in Christ to proclaim Jesus as your savior, what did you want from Jesus? When you responded to that call, whether it was a long time ago or recently, what did you want from Jesus? What do you really want out of it?
Pastor Greg:Because if we're being real, many of us, if we're being honest, actually, most of us, we want the benefits with no cost. We want the peace. We want security. We want assurance that at the end of this life, everything is going to be okay. The surrender, not so much.
Pastor Greg:Sacrifice, not so much. For for us here, we we kind of have this other layer that's on top of all of it. Most of us, we grew up in East Tennessee or in small communities. I know some of you aren't from around here but most of you you grew up in in smaller communities and in Kodak or a community like this one, there's this layer that sits on top of it. Church, that's just what a good family does.
Pastor Greg:Show up on Sunday mornings. Be plugged into the church. It's just what is expected. It's where your family goes. It's where every family went.
Pastor Greg:If someone was to ask you, ask anyone, what church do you belong to? There was always an answer. Even if you just went once or twice a year. There was still the church. Now, that pressure, it's starting to fade.
Pastor Greg:It's not the same as it was in the last generation, maybe for your parents' generation, and some of you actually point to that as proof of your faith. You are sitting in the room when nobody expects it anymore, when nobody forces you to be here, that must show something that shouldn't it. It proves your faith is real. And I'm not saying that doesn't mean anything. It does.
Pastor Greg:It is important for us to show up, to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. Showing up though and surrendering, they are not the same thing. Showing up without surrender is not a faith that honors God. Somewhere along the way, a lot of us, we made a trade without realizing we were doing it. The desire for the benefits, they quietly kind of replace the willingness to actually surrender ourselves to the Lord's leading.
Pastor Greg:And what does that result in? What does that actually look like? You end up with a faith that looks legitimate on the outside, but it costs you nothing. And James is saying, is that real faith? That's what he's diagnosing here and he's not being gentle about it.
Pastor Greg:James hasn't been gentle about anything, has he? We've been in this study now. This is what week four or five of this. He hadn't been gentle yet and he's not backing off with this today. So, let me be kind of direct here because it gets really personal.
Pastor Greg:Some of you, you believe the Bible. You read scripture and you say, yeah, that's true. Unless it's inconvenient. Unless it's a passage you don't really like. You'll claim truth in scripture and belief in scripture if it comforts you but we quietly set it aside when it costs you.
Pastor Greg:You've decided that certain things that god in the Bible calls sin, they don't apply to you. It's for a old cultural context that's not really relevant today. And honestly, we've made some really good arguments about that. We make it sound good. And here's what James would say to that.
Pastor Greg:You are not wrestling with the God of the Bible and you're not wrestling with his word. You are taking scripture and twisting it and editing it into something that brings you comfort and not glorifies God. It's customized religion. We stamp Jesus's name on it, but it's not the Jesus of the Bible. There's another group.
Pastor Greg:It it it's though you've been in church for years, maybe decades. Maybe some of you, you have been in church since you were in the womb, literally your whole life and now you serve. You show up. You know all the right language. When we sang this morning, you knew every word to the songs without looking on the screen.
Pastor Greg:You're respected in the church and outside the church. People look at you and they see that in you but the people who live with you, they see a different version. The people in your house, in your family, they see the version of you when the church clothes come off and they tell a completely different story. The way you speak to them the patience that you don't have with them. The love that never really gets shared with them.
Pastor Greg:Somehow, in the middle of all that, this disconnect between you and what faith should look like, there's never been any conviction to it. We just make excuses. James diagnoses it through this text and he gives as I was studying this week, scholars come to this this conclusion. He doesn't define it this way by these words but they all are in agreement that he's really giving three kinds of faith for this framework. And it's important for you to really dig in and pay attention because you need to know that this one applies to me before you leave today.
Pastor Greg:Which one does it fit for you? In verse 17, he says, so you see faith by itself is isn't enough unless it produces good deeds. It is dead and useless. Now, someone may argue, some people have faith, others have good deeds, but I say, how can you show me your faith if you don't have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.
Pastor Greg:The the first type of faith that James lists is a dead faith. That is belief, but no action. That is an understanding with right information, but no life change. It's not that you deny Jesus. It's that he's really irrelevant to your life except on Sunday mornings.
Pastor Greg:Do you have a dead faith? Do you have a faith that others would look at and say, yeah, they believe in Jesus but there's no evidence outside of the church that you really follow Jesus. James says, that is a dead faith. He says, what good is that? If it's not coming out of you, do you really believe in the Jesus of the Bible?
Pastor Greg:In two nineteen, he says this, you say you have faith for you believe that there is one God good for you. Even the demons believe this and they tremble in terror. You see, James, he's contrasting this. He says, even the demons believe and not just casually. He says, they believe and they tremble in terror.
Pastor Greg:They believe in this Jesus. They know exactly who he he is. They know the Bible better than we do. They know scripture. They have correct theology.
Pastor Greg:They know exactly who Jesus is. As a matter of fact, when you read through the gospels, every time Jesus encounters a demon, they know who he is. They recognize him immediately. Never once does a demon look at Jesus and say, well, who are you? Every single time we see it accounted for in scripture, they look at him and say, I know who you are.
Pastor Greg:You are Jesus. And they tremble. They knew. They believed. And they were still demons.
Pastor Greg:You see, he he talks about a dead faith, but there's also a demonic faith where we have this correct theology. We'll even show emotion towards Jesus. But it's not little life change, it's no life change. You do all the right things to say. Someone looks at you and they say, yeah, that person, that person's a follower of Jesus, but you're not.
Pastor Greg:You believe. You know what to say, but it hasn't changed. As Joey read that passage this morning before I came up from Matthew seven, not everyone who calls out to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. That's what he's talking about. Many people, they're going to point to, this is what I did for you.
Pastor Greg:I served in this ministry. I served in this church and Jesus is going to say, I didn't know you. It wasn't about me when you did those things. It's about you. I didn't know you.
Pastor Greg:Away from me. That is one of the scariest passages in scripture for me as your pastor. Because I know without a doubt that there are people that sit in here every single Sunday, but that they fall into that category. If I dwelled on that enough, I don't know that I could sleep at night because it's terrifying for me. There was a man who followed Jesus closely Three years, he was there.
Pastor Greg:He heard every sermon. He saw every miracle. He was in the boat when the storm got calmed. He knew Jesus. He was there when Lazarus walked out of the tomb.
Pastor Greg:He wasn't just there when miracles were performed. He probably did them himself casting out demons. He even preached the gospel. And then him and Jesus and the others were sitting at the last supper and he looks across the table and he says, one of you will betray me. And this man responds with a question and the word that he uses in that question to address Jesus, it tells us everything that we need to know about whether he was really a follower of Jesus and had truly surrendered.
Pastor Greg:You see, what we see in this is that truth again, demons believe, disciples surrender and the difference between those two things, belief and surrender, it's everything for us as followers of Christ. That man was Judas. And here's what we need to see today. Every other disciple, when Jesus said that he said that they would respond, is it me Lord? Couldn't be me, could it?
Pastor Greg:It's not me, lord. Is it me, lord? They respond with that title lord as if they're talking to the one that has authority over their life. Lord, as if they're talking to the one who they are surrendered to. Out of the twelve, eleven said, is it me, Lord?
Pastor Greg:Judas sits across the same table looking at the same Jesus who they've all followed. He says, is it me, Rabbi? Teacher? A man worthy of respect? A man worthy of learning from?
Pastor Greg:But not a man worthy of surrendering to. One word 11 men on one side and Judas on the other And that distance, that single word is the difference between knowing Jesus and knowing about Jesus. Most of you are here just about every Sunday or fairly regularly and you know a lot about Jesus. Do you really know Jesus? Do you really know him?
Pastor Greg:What does it actually look like? What's the difference? What does surrender look like versus just knowing Jesus? Because we can't hear that term surrender and think, well, it means I've got to be perfect. It means I've gotta have all my junk together.
Pastor Greg:I've gotta have it all figured out. What does it look like with someone who's in the real mess of life? James tells us. He tells us about Abraham, the man who was called the father of the faith, the man who god chose to bless the entire world through. But here's what we don't talk about enough.
Pastor Greg:Yes, Abraham was a great guy. He was also a mess. He had a ton of stuff messed up. This is a guy who was so messed up that protect that he wanted to protect himself and he pimped his wife out twice, not once, twice to protect himself. And he's the picture James gives us.
Pastor Greg:Verse 21. Do you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete. And so, it happened just as the scriptures say.
Pastor Greg:Abraham believed God and God counted him as righteous because of his faith. He was even called the friend of God. So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone. God made him a promise. You will have a son.
Pastor Greg:You will be the father of a nation. You will be blessing a blessing to the whole world through you. And how did Abraham respond? He believed it. I believe you, Lord.
Pastor Greg:I believe everything you're telling me. He believed it. Right up until it got hard. Right up until the timeline, it stopped making sense to him. Right up until Sarah was getting so old and still barren that he didn't see any way that this was going to pass as true.
Pastor Greg:So, Abraham, he stops acting like god was, who he says he is, and he takes the matter into his own hands. He goes to Hagar and he bore a son with Hagar named Ishmael, his own solution to the promise god had given him and it cost him. It cost the world more than anybody ever imagined. How does God respond in that? Get away from me.
Pastor Greg:You turned your back on me. You took it all into your own hands. You're a failure. That's not how God responded. He didn't walk away from Abraham because it was never about Abraham's perfection.
Pastor Greg:It was about the direction of his life. Am I growing? Am I moving more towards Jesus? Am I walking with my god trying to glorify my god? In Genesis chapter two, God puts him to the test.
Pastor Greg:Chapter 22, I'm sorry. Takes him to the hardest place possible. Sacrifice your son. That same son that was promised. The one everything depended on.
Pastor Greg:That blessing to the world depended on this son and Abraham gets up early one morning and he goes. He doesn't argue with God. He doesn't negotiate. He can't be can't be this son. That's the one.
Pastor Greg:He doesn't try to find a loophole. Scripture says he got up early. Like he couldn't wait to go and obey god, to be obedient to god. When his son Isaac asks, where's the sacrifice? What was Abraham's response?
Pastor Greg:God will provide. He didn't say, I hope god provides. He didn't say maybe god's going to take care of this. He'll figure something out. He said, god will provide.
Pastor Greg:He acted as if God was exactly who he said he was, even when it made no sense, even when it may cost him everything. That's not dead faith. That's not a demonic faith. That is a growing dynamic faith of someone who has surrendered, of someone who in that surrender is still a mess, Still struggling to figure it all out. And as they struggle, still growing.
Pastor Greg:Closer to Jesus. And in that process, their life is totally changing. That's the faith that saves. Now, know some of you, you've been around a long time. And you're sitting with this tension, this theological problem right in front of you because everything that we teach here and everything that I believe the Bible teaches is built on the foundation of this.
Pastor Greg:We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Full stop. Period. That's what we stand on. That's what we will always stand on.
Pastor Greg:So, how in the world does that fit with what James is saying? Is James contradicting everything Paul taught? Not in the least. Not even close. Let's let's look at look into it.
Pastor Greg:Ephesians chapter two verse eight. God saved you by his. Everybody read that word with me. Grace. That was kinda weak.
Pastor Greg:God saved you by his God saved you by his grace when you believed. Not by what you did. God saved you by his grace when you believed and you can't take credit for this. It is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done.
Pastor Greg:So none of us can boast about it. Well, now I'm confused. James says, if you don't do good things and your faith is dead, Paul says, it's not about your good things. Nobody can boast about it. How how is that possible?
Pastor Greg:Well, that's because Paul's not done. Verse 10, for we are god's masterpiece. That's an important word to hang on to. You are god's masterpiece. Do you really believe that?
Pastor Greg:You are God's masterpiece. As a matter of fact, we do this in the first service. We're going do it again. Look at the person next to you. Tell them you are God's masterpiece.
Pastor Greg:Now, some of you got left out because nobody's sitting on that side, so look the other way. Tell that person you are God's masterpiece. You are God's masterpiece. What does that mean? He created us anew in Christ Jesus.
Pastor Greg:That's if you're a follower of Christ, truly surrender to Christ. He created us anew. Why? So we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. He created us anew so that we can do what?
Pastor Greg:Good deeds. The good works. You are not saved by good works. There is nothing you can do to earn salvation from God. Nothing.
Pastor Greg:But you were saved to good works. You were saved for a reason. God planned for you to do good things before you ever took your first breath. It's not the price of admission but it is the evidence that you got a ticket. It's the fruit that we talk about so often.
Pastor Greg:Does your life show any fruit of a follower of Jesus Christ? And James says, if it doesn't, it's a dead faith. James and and Paul, they're not fighting over this. They are complimenting each other, finishing each other's thoughts kind of. Paul says, you were saved by grace through faith not by works.
Pastor Greg:James says that same grace, that same faith, it was never meant to stay still. You are not saved by good works but you are saved to do good works. You are saved to be on mission. You are saved to be living out the faith that you say that you believe and it's not a contradiction. It's the gospel.
Pastor Greg:It's the evidence of life change. The difference between James and Paul is the difference between Judas and Abraham. Judas had theology. He knew it all. He heard it all.
Pastor Greg:He preached it. He was there. Close. Had proximity. But he never surrendered.
Pastor Greg:Abraham, he was a mess. Failed over and over again. Took matters into his own hands made decisions he could never take back did some things that we would look at someone today and say, you're not very smart but he kept surrendering He kept coming back and acting like God is who he says he is. The scripture says, God counted it to him as righteousness. Not because of what he did, but because of the God he kept coming back to because he surrendered to that God.
Pastor Greg:Demons believe. Disciples surrender. It's not the same thing. You can believe every word of the book. You can know the doctrine.
Pastor Greg:You can show up every Sunday. You can serve on a ministry team and still be on the wrong side of the line. The question is never whether you believe. The demons did that. The question is, do you surrender?
Pastor Greg:We can't get past that without some of you probably sitting there thinking, I've screwed it all up. There's nothing else I can do. There's no way God still loves me. You heard about Judas and it probably scares you. Don't let this steal your assurance of salvation.
Pastor Greg:Scripture says that we can know and if you have genuinely surrendered your life to Christ, even if you're a season right now, in a season where you're drifting, if you have genuinely surrendered to him as lord and not just teacher, not just a good man, not just something I do on Sunday mornings, and not just a ticket out of hell. If you genuinely surrender to him as lord, then nothing, nothing, and nobody can snatch you out of his hands. Including you including your failures, including your sin. Nothing can snatch you out of his hands. Eternal security is real.
Pastor Greg:The grip that god has on your life, it does not loosen. Didn't loosen for Abraham. But we also need to sit with the reality of this, the eternal security. It's not a guarantee that the person who didn't surrender is safe. Just because they prayed a prayer when they were 10 or 11 years old at youth camp, the demons believed.
Pastor Greg:Security belongs to the surrendered, not to the ones who just believe. Surrender is not just a moment. It's not just a time you can point back to and say, ten years ago, twenty years ago, I surrendered to the Lord. Surrender is every day. The direction you're going towards, imperfectly, messing it up every single day just like Abraham did.
Pastor Greg:Being inconsistent with it at times, even drifting away for bits here and there, but still moving, still desiring God. You know what God called Abraham after all of the failures that he had? Friend. He didn't look at him and say, you're a perfect man. He didn't look at him and say, you got everything right.
Pastor Greg:He looked at him and said, you keep surrendering. You're my friend. He kept act acting as if god was who he said he was even when it was difficult. That's dynamic faith, that growing faith But James, he didn't stop at that picture. I mean, Abraham, Abraham is the the patriarch of the faith.
Pastor Greg:How do you live up to that standard? Well, how about his next one? Verse 25, Rahab the prostitute is another example. She was shown to be right with God by her actions when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road. Just as the body is dead without breath, so also is faith dead without good works.
Pastor Greg:So, yeah, you got the the patriarch of the faith and then you got a prostitute on the other end of it And James says, they're both saved. They both have assurance of their salvation. He puts them right next to each other. Rahab, no religious background, no family legacy to live up to, no track record of righteousness. She's a prostitute.
Pastor Greg:She'd have been the one we disqualified when she walked through the door. And James says, she's been justified by her faith And that faith, that faith she had in the God that she believed was real even though it wasn't part of her own her own family's faith. That faith rescued her and it bled out in good works. The door is not closed based on where you've been and what you've done. It's only closed to those who refuse to part church.
Pastor Greg:To
Joey:to a part the
Pastor Greg:Or at least I don't know about them right now. Marriages that are barely holding on by a thread. Habits, addictions that you just can't shake. Relationships that are broken, and you sit here wondering what's the point of it all. Is any of it real?
Pastor Greg:Does any of it matter? Does faith matter? Yes. But not the kind of faith that just believes. Not the kind of faith that leaves you exactly where it found you.
Pastor Greg:It's the kind of faith that surrenders. The kind of faith that transforms. The kind that says, god, I don't understand it. I can't see how this is gonna play out, but I'm gonna act like you are who you say you are. What do you want from me, lord?
Pastor Greg:It's the faith that changes everything not at once. Over years, over a lifetime of coming back and surrendering after you've messed it all up and it changes everything. And the difference is belief versus surrender. The demons believe, Disciples surrender. And the question you have to answer today, not for me but for you, For what God already knows.
Pastor Greg:Which side are you on? Which are you? Dead faith? Demon faith, or dynamic growing saving faith. You don't have it all figured out.
Pastor Greg:You messed up today and you're gonna mess up tomorrow. And he's gonna look at you and say, you are righteous because of your faith and that has played out because of your deeds. So you're not saved by what you do, that is the evidence of what God has already done in you. Have you changed at all? If you've not, are you really saved?
Pastor Greg:It's only a question you can answer with the Lord. I can't answer it for you. And I have a feeling he's already answered it for you this morning. So here's how we're gonna close. I want everyone to stand.
Pastor Greg:The band can go ahead and make their way back up. And as you stand, I want you to bow your heads. Don't look around. Some of you, you've heard the gospel for years. You know it.
Pastor Greg:You could tell someone else about the gospel. But if you're really honest and you have to be really honest with yourself in this moment, you didn't surrender to it. You never have. He's more of a teacher for you. Rabbi.
Pastor Greg:But he's never been lord for you. Maybe you even prayed a prayer somewhere along the way. Maybe you were pressured into it but nothing ever changed for you Maybe you've been in church your whole life but you look back on it and say, what difference did it make? There's no fruit. And James would say that's a dead faith.
Pastor Greg:Or maybe it's a demonic faith where you've got it all right, you believe, but you refuse to call him lord. That can change for you today. The door is not closed on you because the same grace that saved Abraham despite all the dumb things that he did is the same grace that is available to you right now in this moment. And it requires that you believe Jesus is who he says he is. But then it requires you make him your lord.
Pastor Greg:And lord means surrender. Lord means he has full control. Lord means I'm going to live my life in a way that aligns with his principles not in a way that gratifies my own. It requires surrender. You don't bring a cleaned up life.
Pastor Greg:You don't bring a promise that you're gonna figure it all out. You come and say, I believe you god. I know you are who you say you are. I'm giving you my life. Will you be my lord?
Pastor Greg:It's not just belief. If you are today ready to move from just believing to surrendering, here's what I want you to do. Nobody looking around. Would you raise your hand? Raise it high.
Pastor Greg:I see you. I see you. Keep it up. I see you. Any others?
Pastor Greg:Now, here's the next step. This is where it gets more difficult. It's a response. If you raise your hands and you want to know what it really looks like to follow Jesus, would you step out right now and come to the front? Nobody looking.
Pastor Greg:Would you move? Craig and Tina, would you mind coming up? Christy, would you come up? If you all would take these and just have conversation with them. Take them to the back if you need.
Pastor Greg:Find somewhere out there. Just have a talk. See what God's doing in their lives. There's another group. You know Jesus.
Pastor Greg:You are saved. But if you're honest, you've drifted. You've been living like he's just an option for you. You are surrendered but not completely. And lately, there's not been any fruit.
Pastor Greg:No compassion no outward examples of love It's become about you recently And for you today, this isn't about salvation. It's about alignment. You don't need to get saved again. You're already saved. You can't be snatched out of his hand but you need to change and you need to repent.
Pastor Greg:You need to surrender again. It's not a rededication. It's a realignment. And if that's you, step out right now. Come to the altar.
Pastor Greg:Get on your knees and repent. Don't wait. If he's calling you out, come. Get on your knees. Repent.
Pastor Greg:As we close, we're gonna sing a song and as we sing this morning, if he's still drawing you out, if he's still bringing you to himself, let him give you the courage to respond. Do whatever he leads you to do this morning. He's already begun to move. Would you step out how he leads? Father in heaven, as we close this morning, as we worship you this morning, as we sing your praises, god, I pray that you'll still continue to move.
Pastor Greg:Lord, we we praise you for what you are already doing in the lives of people that have been in this room today. Maybe those who are joining us online but god, you're not done yet. So, I pray that those who you're still drawing, that you, they would have courage and the power of the spirit that you would draw them out, that they would respond to you whether it's coming up and just getting on their knees before you, whether it's responding, saying, want to make you my lord. Whatever it is, it's not too late, god. Would you keep moving?
Pastor Greg:And may you get the glory in all of it. You are good. You are worthy. In Jesus name. Would you be obedient to his call this morning?
Pastor Greg:However he leads, would you respond? The altar's open. I'll be up here if you someone to pray with, need someone to talk to, move however he leads you. Don't just sit there with your hands in your pockets. Respond to Jesus this morning.