Willow Ridge Sermons | Standalone Sermon

Sunday, April 14th | Lee Butler

"And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all." — Acts 3:16

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Guest

Lee Butler

Mission Strategist & Associate-Director at Lexington Baptist Association

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And thanks for listening.

Those announcements were really good.

I agree.

It's good to be with y'all this morning.

The first thing I probably should do, just as a matter of housekeeping, is to say to you, it is an absolute joy to be standing before you this morning to represent the Lexington Baptist association.

And, Joel, that was a valiant effort, and it is a mouthful.

But I do have to say that there's a little word that I need to make sure that I change.

I'm not the executive director.

I'm the associate director.

Brother Johnny Rumbo is still at the Lexington Baptist association, and he served as the executive director.

So with that, a little bit of a caveat of a difference there, let me just say it is a pleasure to be here and to serve Willow Ridge and truly all the churches of the Lexington association.

And I count it, to be quite frank with you, even more of a joy to know that we can be here this morning and open the word together.

That is the most important thing that we're going to talk about here today.

Being said, I would ask if you would want to, and I pray that you do join me in God's word.

We're going to be in acts chapter three today.

Acts chapter three.

And we will be looking specifically at verses eleven through 16.

Now, as you're making your way there, acts chapter three, verses eleven through 16.

Let me begin by trying to make sure we're all on the same page.

Give us a little context of what we're about to jump in here and discover this morning.

But by the way, by the way, here's the thing about a room like this.

We all love the Lord, right?

We all love the Lord.

Can somebody say yes?

Yes.

Okay.

Now, here's why I do that.

Because what I have to tell you is that I get excited about God's word.

And so sometimes, out of my excitement, I might want to see if you're excited, too.

So, you know, if you're not a person that says amen a lot, that's perfectly fine.

But just work with me here, people, okay?

I need you to work with me here.

And so are you glad to be in God's house today?

Okay, good, good, good.

Now we're getting it.

So back to the context of the passage here.

What we're looking at is a miracle.

We're looking at a straight up miracle that has just happened in the beginning verses of acts, chapter three, where Peter and John are going up to the the temple to worship, as had been the custom.

And on this particular day, there was a lame man who was outside the temple who was asking for alms, who was asking for a little help because he was unable to walk and he was unable to do anything that would help, getting kind of a support for himself.

And so he would sit on the steps and he would ask for some financial contributions from those who would be entering the temple on this particular day.

And perhaps you're familiar with the story.

On this particular day, Peter and John are walking up, and he asked for a little bit of help from them.

And Peter and I love this.

Peter looks at the lame man and he says, look at me.

Look at me.

He says, silver and gold I don't have, but what I do have I want to give to you right now.

In the name of Jesus, rise up and walk.

Now, I don't know how many of you remember that children's song from back several years ago.

And the next part is what always kind of comes alive in my mind.

He went walking and leaping and praising God.

Anybody remember that song?

He went walking and leaping and praising God.

I see that hand, brother.

A few of us remember that.

That always comes back to my mind.

But today, with that being in context, and we need to realize that really what's going on here in chapter three of acts and chapter four of acts is really the next thing after Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit had shown up and thousands were saved and people were speaking in their own native language.

They heard their own native language, I should say.

And it was a miracle in and of itself and what was happening.

But you remember the tail end of chapter two, where scripture describes the early church as a group of people, that the evidence of the anointing of God was on, and that the power of God was on.

And it said they had favor with all the people.

But it also said many signs and wonders.

And so most Bible scholars would point to what happens next in verses eleven through 16 as God's practical, working out validation, if you will, of what was just said in the end of chapter two, which is there were many signs and wonders taking place because chapter three and chapter four.

And really we could make the case for this of all of scripture.

But specifically and very practically, chapter three and chapter four, it is pointing to the power that is in the name of Jesus.

You see, Jesus is gone back to heaven.

He's not there with them physically anymore.

But his name is still powerful.

His name is still the name above every name.

It's the name, the only name given under heaven among men by which we must be saved.

Chapter four, verse twelve, tells us.

And so today, as we get ready to zero in on this verse, I want to just remind us that we may ask the question.

Sometimes we still see God heal the lame, by the way.

Yes.

Do we still see miracles happen?

Yes.

But I would also remind us of this and ask it in form of a question.

Is there a greater miracle that we could ever see this side of heaven than one who is trapped in the darkness of sin to be raised to the nearness of life through salvation in Jesus Christ to come into the light of salvation?

Is there a greater miracle?

I ask that question because that is an eternal deal right there.

It's great for the lame to be able to get up and walk on this side of heaven, but is it not greater to know that there's eternal life in heaven for those who have been saved?

So this morning I would ask for the particular passage that we're zeroing in here.

If you are able, would you stand with me and honor the reading of God's word?

If we read from acts, chapter three, verses eleven through 16?

If you're able, would you do that?

I will be reading from the new american standard Version, 1995.

Now that it's been a recent addition, I need to make note of that.

Verse eleven.

While he was clinging to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them at the so called portico of Solomon, full of amazement.

Now he being the man who was just healed.

Verse twelve.

But when Peter saw this, he replied to the people, men of Israel, why are you amazed at this?

Or why do you gaze at us if by our own power or piety we had made him walk?

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus, the one whom you delivered and disowned in the presence of Pilate when he had decided to release him.

But you disown the holy and righteous one and ask for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses and on the basis of faith in his name.

It is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know.

And faith which cometh through him has given him his perfect health.

In the presence of you all, let's pray together.

Most precious heavenly Father, we thank you for this day.

We thank you that you've enabled us to come together to worship as the body of Christ in God that you have made available to us through the perfect and precious sacrifice of your son, our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.

The opportunity to know forgiveness of our sin, to know salvation, to have the hope of eternity in heaven, and Father, in those things.

We not only rejoice, but we greatly anticipate that day when we will be as much in your presence if we will ever be.

God, we are abiding in you this morning as we worship.

We are following the leading of the Holy Spirit, God, as he works in our hearts and lives.

And God, I pray that every person here that names the name of Jesus has a deep desire to be transformed more into his likeness as a result of their being here today.

And still yet, God, for the one that may be here this morning, the one that may be watching online, that has yet to profess faith in Christ Jesus, Lord, I pray that you would just reveal the need that we've all had, the need to be forgiven of our sin and to be ushered into a right relationship with our creator, our heavenly Father and God, that they would make that decision today.

And father, we pray that as we continue to look at your word, that you would just reveal in our own hearts.

Lord, the personal application as well as the general application that we're going to look and see and discover in your word today.

In the name of Jesus, we ask all these things.

Amen.

May be seated.

So again, I look at the passage, and I have so many thoughts, and I find myself again and again and again and again going back to the story as I remember hearing it in my childhood.

I remember vacation Bible school classes about this particular story.

I remember growing up and seeing all sorts of things in the church tradition that I was a part of.

I remember a time when God allowed Lisa and myself.

Lisa's my wife, by the way.

Beautiful lady right over here, who take care of me and who dressed me today, by the way.

I was told that this was similar to Beau's uniform.

Now, see, he told me some people were going to laugh at that.

So those of you who laughed, you have to tell everybody else you didn't understand that, because I'm not sure that I understand.

But anyway, so I don't have b**** like he has.

So I did the best that I could.

What I had to work with.

Anyway, so where was I?

You want me to find it real quick, aren't you?

I want me to find it real quick, too.

So in thinking back about that particular mission trip to Mexico.

There were a bunch of teenagers that had corralled a local, and this was a border place.

This was Nuevo Laredo, and they had corout a local.

And by the time we made our way over, when we had seen this guy before, he was walking around different places.

And we got over to the crowd, and we noticed that there was a lump right here that he was showing them that he had and was asking for prayer for that lump to be taken away.

Now, we were understanding through some broken translation and some stuff going on there, trying to figure out exactly what the lump was.

And to this day, I could not tell you exactly what it was.

And I watched these teenagers, full of faith, begin to lay hands on this man and begin to pray and begin to pray for God to heal him and to remove whatever that lump was.

We referred to it as a tumor.

I don't know that it was cancer.

I don't know it was cancerous, but that's how the reference was going.

And I'm just gonna tell you, standing on this platform in God's house with the good Lord as my witness, as we would say, we stood there and watched that lump visibly go down.

So you might be saying this morning, how can you stand there and say to us that God still works miracles?

That's one reason.

It's not the only one, but it's one reason.

But you know what?

I can also tell you that the greater concern walking around from that moment, or walking away from that moment was, did this man come to faith in Christ?

Did he make a decision to follow Jesus?

That's the story that I think about that coincides with the story here today.

You see, my concern is that if we're not careful, that even coming in gatherings like this, that we can begin to put trust in things that haven't earned our trust, things that aren't worthy of our trust.

We can trust in processes, we can trust in people.

We can trust in programs.

We can trust in a lot of different things that seem to flow and be useful and be profitable for the sake of the kingdom.

But the question is, are we trusting in the name of Jesus?

Are we trusting in him alone?

The challenge is that we need to proclaim that there is no other name, no other name by which we are saved.

There's no other name that is attached to power that the name of Jesus does.

We have salvation in him and that power.

And we stand in that same power.

So today we're going to look at three reminders found in this passage about why the name of Jesus is so very, very important.

First of all, the first reminder is, no other name is miraculous.

No other name is miraculous.

On occasion, I am blessed to have opportunities like God's given today, to be able to open his word and to try to share some truths that he's shown to me, that I feel like he's impressed on my heart that we want to talk about together.

And oftentimes someone may come up after the service and show appreciation, as you know.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for sharing what you shared and going back to the earliest times that I ever had the privilege of doing that.

I remember struggling with that and the reason why I struggle with that, because I know that, number one, this is God's word.

It's not my word.

Number two, on my best day, the best thing for me to do is to try to make sure I stay out of the way of God's word and what he wants to accomplish through it.

And that's my prayer even as I stand here this morning.

So I can in some way understand how easy it might would have been for Peter and John standing that day, having been used by God to bring forth in terms of a focal point, bring forth not by their own power, Peter said it, but in terms of them being an instrument of God's revealing his power.

How tempting it could have been for them to say, well, you know, we did hang out with Jesus a while.

Well, you know, Jesus himself kind of taught us how to have faith like this.

It could have done a lot of different things, but I absolutely love that.

Peter looked around and said, why are you.

Why are you looking at us like we did something?

By the way, y'all, I don't know if you picked up on it yet, but I was raised in the country, so if you.

If you hear a word that you don't recognize, write it down and see me after the service.

I'll see if I can translate it for you.

Anyway, I know this about man.

I know this about me.

We can have a tendency to, when something's going good, take credit, and when something's going bad, try to push the blame off somewhere else.

And maybe the blame doesn't belong with us, but maybe the credit doesn't belong with us.

And in the same manner, we just have to acknowledge that we are capable of taking our thoughts and our actions and.

And we can, if we're not careful, begin to look at man and look at circumstances and look at all these different things and what we ought to remember, what we have to what we must remember is we cannot trust in the abilities of man and overlook the power of God.

Specifically for our text today, the power in the name of Jesus.

When we pray, we say in Jesus name, and then we put out a word of let's say we're in agreement.

Amen.

Right?

Y'all with me?

If you're with me, in agreement, let's say amen.

There we go.

I told you I was dependent on you.

It's really important.

God is still a miracle working God.

And if and when and however he chooses to work in us and through us, we need to follow the example of Peter here and take that opportunity to point back to the power in the name of Jesus, because that opportunity has given us a platform that we might be able to do that and say, this is because of what God has accomplished in Christ Jesus.

And there is still power in his name.

Only the name of Jesus is miraculous.

Second reminder.

And I want to pick up here, looking through some of these verses again.

I know we've already read them, but I want to just kind of dig into this a little bit.

No other name is faultless.

If you would like to flip back over to Matthew 27, verses eleven through 26, I want to cover those very quickly for us.

Matthew 20 711 26.

Jesus before Pilate.

Now, Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor questioned him, saying, are you the king of the Jews?

And Jesus said to him, it is as you say.

And while he was being accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer.

But when Pilate said to him, do you hear how many things they testify against you?

And he, Jesus did not answer him with regard even to a single charge.

So the governor would quiet amazed.

Now, at the feast, the governor was accustomed to release for the people any prisoner whom they wanted.

And at that time, they were holding a notorious prisoner called Barabbas.

So when the people gathered together, Pilate said to them, who do you want me to release for you, Barabbas or Jesus, who is called to Christ?

For he knew that because of the envy they had handed him over.

Verse 19, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, and his wife sent him a message saying, have nothing to do with that righteous man.

For last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of him.

But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and put jesus to death.

The governor said to them, which of the two do you want me to release to you?

And they said, Barabbas and Pilate said to them, then, what shall I do with this Jesus who is called to Christ?

And they all said, crucify him.

And he said, why?

What evil has he done?

But he kept shouting, all the more, crucify him.

When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather a riot was starting, he took water and he washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, I am innocent of this man's blood.

Cease to that yourself.

And all the people said, his blood shall be on us and our children.

And then he released Barabbas for them.

But after having jesus scourged, he handed them over to be crucified.

That is a very familiar this time of year, great in the eyes of man.

Mistake that took place.

Pilate thinking that I'm giving them a softball here, I'm giving them a no brainer.

I'm basically saying to them, okay, do you want a murderer released to you, or do you want this guy that they caught praying in the park after hours?

Which one do you want?

Any sane person would have said, well, the last guy we want to turn loose is a murderer.

But they were so inundated with envy.

They were so inundated with, jesus was not doing what they wanted him to do.

He was not producing what they expected him to produce.

And rather than do even what would have seemed to, I would dare say, anyone, to be the most sensible thing in turning loose of the prisoner that was least likely to damage the community.

They were so enraged, they said, crucify Jesus.

Jesus was and always has been without fault.

Man, by contrast, always deals with fault.

And by fault, I mean mistakes.

I mean mistakes.

I can promise you, you can write a sentence and you can say, Lee Butler makes mistakes.

And I can give you a two, three page, maybe longer list of people who will verify that for you.

And maybe you could do the same.

I don't know.

But what I do know is no one.

Well, let's just do this.

Let's just flip through scripture to that passage where Jesus made a mistake.

It's not there.

The name of Jesus is faultless.

But now I wonder, when we think about going back to this credit thing and who gets credit for the goodness and God's faithfulness in our life?

Do we allow other people to give us that credit?

Because if we're allowing other people to give us that credit, perhaps we're making a mistake.

Think about what Peter did in these verses that follow in verse 13 and following.

He makes a connection with the people by saying, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Okay, now he's got everybody's attention because that was a typical introduction that would for the men of Israel, for the people of Israel, for those of that heritage, when they hear that phrase that's drawing them back to a place that they all agreed on, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Okay, you got my attention.

But then watch what he does.

The God of our fathers has glorified his servant Jesus.

Okay, hold up.

They may not have all agreed on that, but he doesn't stop there and try to reconcile that in the moment.

What he does is he keeps on moving like he did in his first sermon.

This is Peter's second sermon.

So here he is in his second sermon.

He's kind of going back to a place he was at.

In the first sermon, he said, the one whom you delivered and you disowned in the presence of Pilate.

When Pilate had decided to release him.

You remember, no brainer.

You want the murderer or you want Jesus?

He said, you disowned him.

You disowned the holy and righteous one.

You disowned the one that goes on to say, who is the author of life.

You decided you would take his life in the eyes of man and our quote, unquote, common sense.

Again I say to us, huge mistake.

But I am so thankful that we serve a God who is able, abundantly able, to do more we could ever ask or think.

And because of that, he took a situation that may have seemed so desperate, so ridiculous in many regards to us, and he pulls out of it salvation.

Perhaps you remember the story of Joseph was betrayed by his brothers, taken to a point in place where he was given position, he was given wisdom, and he was given the opportunity to literally save a generation that would have died, perhaps otherwise because of the famine.

And when the brothers came before him to ask for the grain, and again, he was in a position to do whatever he would have wanted to do with those brothers.

And they found out who he was and they were like, oh, no.

He said, it's okay.

It's okay.

What Satan meant for evil, that is that evil that you did to me, God took it and he used it for good.

Perhaps we're all aware of romans 828.

God works all things together for the good of those who love him, who've been called according to his purpose.

We see the essence of these principles at work in this moment.

Where Jesus was betrayed, where he was handed over with the so called mistake of men, was going to end the life of the author.

Of life.

But I'm so glad that God wasn't done.

I'm so glad that that was not the end of the story.

That was the beginning of our redemption.

That was the beginning of the process that was going to lead Christ to Calvary's cross, where he would hang on that cross, have the penalty for the burden of our sin placed upon him while he was there.

Somebody asked me one time, how is it that.

That Jesus paid the penalty for all the sin, past, present, and future?

Because God exists outside of our timeline, okay?

He has always been.

He will always be.

And so there's nothing that God doesn't know.

Let me remind you that this morning.

There's nothing that God doesn't know.

He sees your situation.

He sees your need.

He sees everything about you, knows everything that's going on in your heart, in your mind, in your world.

And he sees that for all people from way before we ever got here.

If Jesus doesn't come back to way after, we will leave and places that penalty on Christ.

And so whenever he died, when Jesus died on that cross, he died with that weight on him.

But again, praise God, that wasn't the end of the story.

He's placed in the tomb.

And we just celebrated a couple weeks ago.

He came out of the tomb and listen, every Sunday's resurrection Sunday, if you're worshiping Jesus, then he comes out of that tomb.

And so now he's victorious over sin.

He's victorious over death.

And the Bible says that he has become our first.

He is showing us the way, knowing that one day what?

Whether Jesus comes back and takes us home or whether we physically come to a place where we die.

And then apostle Paul said to be asking from the Bible to be present with the Lord.

Whichever happens, we have our way into the eternal presence of our heavenly Father because of what Jesus accomplished.

And this was a part of it.

The betrayal of man was a part of it, as unbelievable as that sounds.

And I mentioned this verse a minute ago.

Acts, chapter four, verse twelve.

Jesus becomes the only name that's been given under heaven among men by which we must be saved.

So Jesus name is miraculous, Jesus name is faultless, and thirdly, Jesus name is worthy of our faith.

I don't know how many of you have ever been around someone who like to.

Let me see if this communicates name drop.

Anybody know what I'm talking about?

Show of hands?

Anybody?

Name drop.

So let me demonstrate that so I can stand here before you today, and I can honestly say I need you to hear this now.

Because you may doubt me in just a minute.

I need you to honestly hear me that I can honestly say this.

I can tell you about a time, it's been a few years ago.

I can tell you about a time whenever I was hanging out backstage and about to date myself, here I was hanging out backstage, colonial life with Toby Mack, Matthew west, the news boys.

Y'all know those people.

That's the truth.

See how I just kind of dropped some names and I kind of gave you a scenario?

But if you knew the exact scenario, what it was, was they used to invite youth pastors backstage to have time of prayer before they had winter jam.

I'm telling you.

And so I went back, and I was just standing there doing nothing, saying nothing.

We were getting instructions, and they were telling us a little bit about how they were going to do the invitation later on so that we could be prepared for what they were doing and not be scrambling, trying to figure out what we could do to help.

And Matthew west gets up on the little makeshift platform they had in the back, and he says a couple of words.

And I looked over to my right and I see the new boys over here.

And then Matthew west goes to get down, and he says, in just a minute, I'm gonna have my brother come up and pray.

Well, I was trying to figure out who it was gonna be, you know, and there's this little short guy over here standing next to me, and he said, toby, come up and pray.

God, I was standing next to you, got up and prayed us out, and I'm going, man, he's short.

That's all I could think about.

Man, he's short.

Now, see, that's the reality.

But if I had just said, hey, I was backstage with these guys, and I leave your imagination wide open to do with that.

What you.

Oh, well, you know, we had brother Leah on Sunday, and, man, he knows people.

He know, I mean, you could do whatever you wanted to with that, but I know the reality.

Now, here's why I'm bringing this up.

I also know the reality of my relationship with Christ.

And I can say his name.

I can tell you some things I've heard other people say about him.

But the question for me at the end of the day is, do I have a relationship with him?

Do I know him?

Have I placed my faith in him?

There's no other name worthy of our faith.

Look at verse 16 with me again.

We're almost home here.

And on the basis of faith in his name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know, and the faith which comes through him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all.

That brings up an interesting question, because the word that's used for faith here in verse 16 is the same word that's used over in Ephesians, chapter two.

It is by grace we are saved through faith, and this not of ourself, it is a gift of God, lest any man should boast.

Same word.

So some have raised the question, well, was Peter trying to say that it was this man's faith unto salvation that made him well?

Or was this man's faith to be healed that led him ultimately to salvation?

And there's a really simple answer to that question.

I would say to you, what happened happened when he believed.

What happened happened when he put his faith in the name of Jesus.

You might say, wait a minute, now, tell me again why Jesus name has anything to do with it.

And listen, let me just pause right here for a second, please.

If you are hearing me say, just stamp Jesus name on something and it makes it all okay.

That is not what I'm saying.

What I am pointing to is the truth of the reality that there is power in the name of Jesus, and that even when he was not physically present with the disciples, with the apostles, as they had grown accustomed to him being, and when he was not there for people to watch the miracle be performed through him physically, his name still evoked the power.

It still gave credence.

It still let people know that Jesus wasn't just gone out of sight, out of mind.

Matter of fact, some Bible scholars say, you know, the early, the first century church made it their business to make sure that the glory of Jesus name would never fade.

And this is an amazing thing to me so many times with believers and so many times with myself.

And we say that we trust in Jesus for our eternal salvation.

Eternity is a long time, folks.

A lot can happen between now and whenever we go home.

And we struggle so much to figure out whether or not we're going to trust God to do what's going on right now.

And so I would say to you, it's a fair question to say, am I trusting him for my eternity?

But am I not trusting him in the moment?

Because if he can accomplish something that's eternal, something that I can't earn, something that I can't deserve, something that's through faith in him alone.

If he can heal a lame man, if he can heal a blind man, surely he can help me out with my health situation, my financial situation, my family situation, and truly can remind us all he can.

That's not the question.

The question is, have we come to the realization that if he chooses to do it differently than what we would like to see done, are we okay with that?

That's the question.

No other name is worthy of our faith.

Those who look into our life can see that we have needs.

The people that knew this lame man knew that there was an obvious need for him to be able to walk.

But there was a need, an even greater need that he had, and that was to know Christ.

These people that were so many of the same ones that had shouted crucified, they had a dilemma.

To believe that the miracle had happened in Jesus name would mean they would have to admit that Jesus is indeed the son of God, that he was everything that he said that he was.

He was the person that he always claimed to be.

And what would that mean for them?

What would it mean?

Would have to change in their life.

You see, placing your faith in Jesus may very well reveal a need to examine things about your life and how other people see God at work in your life.

Is your life being lived as an example that points other people to Jesus that brings glory to his name?

Colossians, chapter three.

I'm wrapping with this.

The first 17 verses encourages us to continue being transformed into the likeness of Christ.

I'm going to bookend this for you.

Verse one begins by telling us to keep seeking things above where Christ is seated with God.

Verse 17 concludes at the end of a lot of material.

I want to encourage you to go back and read that.

A lot of material that we should pursue by the power of the Holy Spirit wraps up in verse 17, reminding us to do all things, whether in word or deed.

Don't miss this phrase.

In the name of Jesus.

And so I hear that and I start thinking, so therefore, can I sin in the name of Jesus?

No, I can't.

Can I doubt in the name of Jesus?

No.

Can I treat others badly in the name of Jesus?

I don't think so.

Can I ignore God's word in the name of Jesus?

And obviously that is not an exhaustive list.

That's just getting started.

Some of the central ideas that somehow, far too often, we can become complacent and participate in some of these things, but we can't do it in the name of Jesus.

For the name of Jesus is miraculous.

It's faultless.

It is worthy of our faith, absolutely worthy of our faith.

And so this passage reminds us of the incredible power of faith, the transformative nature of God's grace, and the importance of sharing this message of redemption with others.

As believers, that's our calling.

As brothers and sisters, we need to encourage one another to this.

I love that verse.

Eleven uses a word that while he was clinging to Peter and John, it reminds me, and I pray it will remind you, that there's a point in time where we chose to trust in Christ Jesus, to place our faith in him, to ask him to forgive us of our sin.

But, oh, brothers and sisters, please don't see that as a moment in time that happened and then you moved on from.

It's been said this way, don't ever get over your salvation.

Don't ever get over your salvation.

But as you continue to walk and be transformed into the likeness of Christ, allow the Holy Spirit to guide you and remind you in whose name in which you live.

As a family, we have a little adage that we share oftentimes.

Never forget who you are and never forget whose you are.

May that be our life before holy and righteous God.

Would you pray with me?

Father, I thank you for the opportunity to hear from you, from your word this morning.

God, I pray the Holy Spirit continues to work in each and every heart and life, even now, as we take this time to pause before we conclude our service.

God, I pray for every believer that they would be called back to a place of faith, realizing the power of the name of Jesus and all that's available in him and God, all that you've called us to do in his name.

And still, Father, I pray for the one that's yet to make a decision, to trust in Christ Jesus as our lord and savior.

For Lord, as we've already said, we all have that need.

And God, I just ask in Jesus name, truly that you would reveal in hearts and lives the response that you're calling them to, Father, that they might be found pursuing you with a heart that desires to experience your love, your mercy, your grace, at an even deeper level than ever have before.

May you transform lives from darkness to light of salvation.

We're gonna give you all the praise, the honor and the glory in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

Thanks again for listening, and be sure to check back next week for another episode.

In the meantime, you can visit us@willowridgechurch.org or by searching for Willow Ridge Church on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.