Choose Life!

heaven came down and glory filled my soul amen is that what the lord's going to do today awesome wonderful welcome to north lake baptist church guest we want to thank you for joining us this morning we have gift bags for you just at the door over here please feel welcome to grab one of those on your way out this morning we want to thank you for coming and worship worshiping with us whether you're here with us in person or online thank you so much for worshiping with us this morning uh church family let's open up our bulletins and look at our ministry events for the week wednesday we have normal activities our awana youth and adult bible study this wednesday y'all this past wednesday we had a great turnout i think we had our highest attendance yet for arwana with 35 children so we want to praise the lord for that and you come on out and uh join us this wednesday for bible study we also want to point your attention to united weekend for our middle school and high school students coming up the first weekend in march now with the pandemic we are having to limit our space our attendance and so our first 25 students are going to be able to go to that so be sure to sign up for that just as quick as you can if you've got any questions about that event you can scan the qr code you see there in the bulletin or just give me a call stop me after service i'd be glad to talk to you about that we also have our women's bible study coming up uh starting february 15th in room 112. you can see miss vicki wingler or andrea howell about that and so uh we look forward to introducing our bible studies once again on monday nights uh i believe that does it for our announcements uh psalm 139 reminds us that the lord is ever present the psalmist says there lord you have searched me and known me you know when i sit down and when i stand up you understand my thoughts from far away you observe my travels and my rest you are aware of all my ways will you join me as i pray heavenly father we thank you for this day lord as you know us you observe us you know our thoughts our ways and lord how sad that can be sometimes for we are sinners lord our hearts naturally are turned against you and you have to observe that you see that lord we are so thankful that when we didn't love you you loved us and sent your son jesus to die upon calvary's cross that we might know you that you might change us and set us free from the burden of sin lord we pray today that as heaven comes down that someone might come to know jesus as lord and savior today that our ways may be your ways that our thoughts might be your thoughts it's in jesus name we pray amen let's stand together this morning let's sing about the power that only christ can bring all hell the power [Music] lord [Music] him [Music] and [Music] let every kindred every trip on this tour paul to him all majesty ascribe and crown him lord of all [Music] lord of all [Music] we'll join [Music] amen hopefully that gets you blood pumping this morning amen oh good well we're glad that you were here in the house of lord to worship him and this morning i hope that you'll just take everything you have that you're worried about that you're thinking about set that to the side and that you'll focus on the power that only christ can provide this morning we just sang a hymn all hell the power of jesus name and i hope that you take that to thought this morning because many of us are in many different places in our lives we think about different things we worry about different things we're concerned about different things you can be in an area and even wonder am i worthy of christ's love and i want to assure you today that you are christ as matt talked about earlier in psalm 139 it tells us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and if you think about some of the characteristics of who god is you understand that god is omnipresent now i don't know how all that works i'm looking forward to understanding it one day but i don't know how you can be at every place at every moment in time not just linear today but every moment at every place in time because god's the one who created time god existed before time was even there and when you think about the power of god he's not only all-powerful but he's able to be everywhere at every moment which means when you were formed in the womb he was there when you live out your life and you're at the very end he will still be there our god is an all powerful and mighty god and this morning i want us to sing about the power that our god has [Music] let's see water you turned into wine open the eyes of the blind there's no one like you none like you [Music] into the darkness you shine out of the ashes we rise there's no one like you none like you [Music] our god is greater i got a stronger god you are higher than any other our god is healer awesome in power our god into the darkness you shine out of the ashes we rise there's no one like you none like you our god is greater i got a stronger god you are higher than any other i've got his healer awesome in power i got [Music] [Applause] [Music] i got his healer [Music] and if i got it for us [Music] then who could ever stop us and if our god is with us then what could [Music] oh our god is greater my god is greater i got a stronger god you are higher than any other i got his [Music] is [Music] other god what could stand against our god is greater our god is stronger god you were higher than any other our god is healer awesome in power our god hi god let's sing that again and our god our god is stronger god you are higher than any other our god is healers awesome in power our god amen our god is all-powerful you may be seated all righty good singing this morning so good to see you here today if you have your bulletins uh if you look at the back page we'll look at our prayer list our prayer verse today comes from mark chapter 9 jesus said to this man if you can believe all things are possible to him who believes and he said lord i believe help my unbelief we start off today with praises we praise the lord for david and jackie joining our church this past week i also want to pray for those in our church family you see mike barker there he's still recovering from the emergency surgery he had last sunday also one of our children elia grant was a children's hospital this past week with a choking incident so she's going to be sent to a neurologist to check out what's going on with her so be in prayer there and also linda true love had shoulder surgery this past week she's recovering from we want to pray for our parents who are expecting children and speaking of that georgia chapman will be having her baby tomorrow so be in prayer for her that she and baby and everything goes well there under extended family and friends the first line you see richard beam he's a former member of our church he had open heart surgery on friday in florida so be in prayer for him as he recovers i pray for our long list under long-term care i want to pray for our missionaries today today i looked at the prayer calendar from the uh from the international mission board and our missionaries in the horn of africa are praising the lord that most of the area they serve in is muslim but they've had a muslim convert come to faith in jesus christ and now he's leading others to faith in jesus christ so that's a that's exciting there so also pray for our families who are grieving the steve hemphill family who is a cousin of joyce tate and also pauline gunn who is friends of jim and rebecca weinheimer and also this morning i want us to especially pray for our nation in light of some things that happened this past week first of all as we pray for our nation we received a prayer request from one of our online viewers from new mexico and she informed us that the new mexico senate will be debating an abortion bill tomorrow that allows mother to abort her baby all the way up to its birth date and removes any conscientious objections from health care workers who may not want to be involved in these procedures so pray for our brothers and sisters in new mexico who are fighting the good fight for life also i want to encourage you to pray and stay informed as president biden's administration begins their term in his first three days in office he has signed 32 executive actions on all issues from our agreements with the united nations to immigration to climate change to the coveted pandemic to racial equality he's proposed two trillion dollars in new spending on covid and there's no estimate on what the other executive orders will cost the executive order that caused the biggest concern for our southern baptist ethics and religious liberty commission was president biden's action on gender and sexuality on tuesday the day before his inauguration president biden nominated dr rachel levine to become the secretary of health and human services dr levine was a man who became a woman in 2011 and will be the first openly transgender cabinet member and then on wednesday inauguration day day one of his presidency he issued an executive order called preventing and combating discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation which takes us back to the final days of the obama administration if you remember when they were proposing that in all of our public schools a boy who feels like a girl could compete in girls sports and also share restrooms and locker rooms with the girls and i assume that goes vice versa as well so yes our southern baptist ethics and religious liberty commission who could never find a kind word to say about the trump administration found president biden's executive order unsettling said they were shocked that president biden would come so far left so fast but if you've been coming on our wednesday night bible studies northlake should not be shocked that a matter of fact i said we need to be praying that they don't do what they say they're going to do and it looks like with 32 executive orders they're well on their way i remember when i was a little boy i used to hear church leaders all the time say you can't legislate morality so now we have the church standing idly by where our government legislates immorality and just think president biden is only halfway through his first official week of a four-year administration so i'm asking you to join me in praying for our nation for our leaders for our children for our children's children that god's kingdom may come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven i fear that america has sown to the wind and we're reaping the whirlwind let's go to the lord in prayer lord i pray that you will do whatever it takes to draw your church to real repentance i pray in the words of the prophet habakkuk from the old testament that you will revive your work in the midst of the years in the midst of our mess lord we pray that you may make yourself known and lord we beg that in wrath you will remember mercy lord help us to remain faithful to you regardless of the changes that may be coming our way soon and very soon i thank you lord for hearing our prayers that we had on our prayer list this morning earlier with all these needs and give us all a special portion of your grace as we face the days ahead before we pray this in jesus name amen [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] sing that chorus with me yes jesus loves me yes jesus loves me yes jesus loves me yes jesus loves me the bible tells me so jesus loves me this i know oh the bible tells me so little ones to be long they are weak but he is strong yes jesus loves me yes jesus loves me yes jesus loves me the bible tells me so [Music] jesus loves me he who died heaven's gates to open wide he will wash away my sin let his little child come in yes jesus loves me yes jesus loves me yes jesus loves me the bible tells me so [Music] jesus take this heart of mine make [Music] i will live for thee yes jesus loves me yes jesus loves me yes jesus loves me the bible tells me [Music] for you are fearfully and wonderfully made if you ever had any doubt does jesus love me he absolutely loves you you may look at your life today and you may go well my life is not worth a whole lot i have news for you jesus still loves you well if jesus knew what i had done if jesus knew where i had been if jesus knew what i had thought well remember he's omnipresent so he knows he's there he's omniscient so he knows and he's omnipotent so he's all-powerful he knows it all but he still loves you you are valued to jesus christ your life may not feel valued and in your life you may feel not like you're not worth much but to jesus christ you're worth dying for to jesus christ your sins are worth dying so you could be forgiven wiped clean you just need to accept his free gift of salvation accept what he's done for you and then feel the worth feel the love of christ and share that love with others you may feel unworthy you may feel like you're not worth much but remember christ died for you because he loved you and he found you worthy [Music] my worth is not in what i own not in the strength of flesh and bone but in the costly wounds of love at the cross my worth is not in skill or name and win or lose in pride or shame but in the blood of christ that flowed at the cross [Music] i rejoice in my redeemer [Music] [Music] as summer flowers we fit and die fame youth and beauty hurry by but life eternal calls to us [Music] i will not boast in wealth or mine or human wisdom spleen light but i will boast in knowing christ and i rejoice in my redeemer greatest treasure while spring of my soul i will trust in him my soul is [Music] so two wonders here that i confess my worth and my unworthy my value fixed my ransom pay at the cross and i rejoice in my redeemer greatest treasure wellspring of my soul and i will trust in him no other my soul is satisfied in him alone i rejoice in my redeemer greatest treasure while spring of my soul i will trust in him my soul is satisfied in [Music] my soul his satisfied in him alone thank you derek and amy for uh sharing the beginning of our service today it's going to be about the sanctity of human life and how much the lord loved us and how he gave us life and even when we make mistakes he brought about redemption so we could still have a second opportunity in order to get a hold of this life that is found in him if you have your bibles please open to genesis 2 it's in the front and we're going to finish in the back we're going to go from genesis to revelation today so buckle your seat belts today we're going to see how the bible exhorts us to choose life to choose the life that the lord allowed us to be created into and to be a part of today is sanctity of human life sunday at least in some churches some people i think observed it last week but we're observing it today it's observed by christians around the world it's a relatively new holy day it began in the 1970s not that people began disregarding life in the 70s there's always been killing but the difference is i think in the past most people understood that when you kill when you take a human life it's a bad thing it's a wrong thing and when you respect and preserve human life then it's a good thing it's a right thing for some reason it all began to change in our country following world war ii there was a born into our country a spoiled generation called baby boomers i guess i can call them that because i am one of them they became teenagers in the 60s and 70s they rebelled against authority against their parents against anybody over 30 years old of course now they're all over 30 years old but nevertheless they rebelled against the establishment against the government against the vietnam war it was known as the youth rebellion at the same time there was something else going on in the country called a sexual revolution they threw out traditional marriage and protested make love not war and they sung songs like all you need is love and if you can't be with the one you love love the one you're with and at the middle of all that going on there was also a women's liberation movement that was happening at the same time where they threw out traditional modesty and motherhood in order to be more like men and have the fun of climbing the corporate ladder and of course women need a man like a fish needs a bicycle they said back then and of course the problem with all that love and liberation is there was lots of babies and also lots of liberated women who didn't want to be mothers and so the solution came in january the 22nd 1973 with the support u.s supreme court decision called roe v wade that legalized abortion it became legal to snuff out an innocent human life while they were still in the womb now we have sanctity of life sunday it relates to all of human life but still usually it's associated with the abortion issue because abortion signals signal the need for us to be reminded that god expects us to have a reverence a respect for his precious gift of life abortion started a bitter controversy in america and it's still being argued about here 50 years later it's still a major theme in presidential campaigns like we just went through it's still a litmus test for appointment of judges that's how they try to figure out whether you're conservative or liberal is where you stand on life it's interesting to listen to the labels on either side of this issue those who are against abortion or call pro-life and those who are for abortion are called pro-choice what is so interesting is how those two labels kind of capture mankind's choices throughout history hopefully how many of you found genesis chapter two it's there in the beginning genesis chapter 2 verse 8 the lord god planted a garden eastward in eden and there he put the man who he had formed and out of the ground the lord god made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food the tree of life was also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil then look on to verse 15. then the lord god took the man and put him in the garden of eden to tend it and keep it and the lord god commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden you may freely eat but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die god loved this special man the crown of his creation that he had put in this garden here he loved him he created his own image and designed this man see we think men was designed to die no he was designed to live forever but god wanted him to have the opportunity to love him in return so god said let's give him a choice to see if he will trust obey and love me and so he changed the settings in the human brain he went in there and turned us off of robot mode into free will allowed us to have the opportunity to see if we would love god in return in the way that god had loved us so god put man in the garden and he gave him two choices two trees a tree of life where he could eat and live forever but then there was a tree of the knowledge of good and evil where he could eat and die forever and the god of all creation who designed us and made us and knows us better than we know ourselves and he knows what we need to live joyfully abundantly and eternally he warned adam against choosing the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because he said it means death in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die god said choose life choose life see god was is and always will be pro-life what did adam and eve decide pro-life or pro-choice well eve said i've got an inquiring mind i want to make up my own mind about things i want to decide what's good and evil for myself i want to do it my way so she chose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and of course adam being the good husband couldn't say no and so he joined and remember pro-choice means what pro-death the day that adam and eve ate they began dying they died theologically there was a relationship that became broken between god and man they died socially the relationship between the man and the woman became a frustrating blame game adam said the woman made me do it the woman said well the serpent made me do it they both said the devil made me do it ultimately he said well god made me this way i couldn't do any other also the relationship between a man and his children became disappointing when we get onto genesis chapter 4 you'll find out that the boys were killing each other they also died environmentally relationship between man and the earth was cursed the bible says after this he also died physically adam's body died at less than a thousand years remember what the bible says in second peter 3 8 for a day with the lord is a thousand years and a thousand years as a day in that first 1000 year day adam sinned and adam died if you'll notice he never made it to be a thousand years old i always tell you don't skip over the baguettes remember the baguettes no one lived to be over a thousand years old how old was the oldest guy able to live methuselah how how long did he get to live 969 years notice he never made a thousand but you know what man living to be 900 years was way too long sin multiplied the longer he lived the more wicked he became so after the flood god shortened human life span to around 200 years still it was too long by the time we get to king david writing psalm 90 do you remember the life span was only about three score and 10 70 years and if by reason of strength you make it four score which is 80 years then that's about the max of it and what's the average life span in the united states of america today 78 still there after adam god continued to urge men to choose life still men would rather have choice always chose selfishly and wickedly in genesis chapter 6 verse 5 the lord said that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and every intent of the thoughts of the heart were on evil continually and the lord was sorry that he made man and he destroyed the earth with a great flood and after the flood god did a global reset with noah and again god pleaded choose life genesis 9 6 whoever sheds man's blood by man his blood shall be shed for in the image of god he made man and as for you live be fruitful and multiply paraphrase that said quit choosing death choose my way choose life but they didn't listen several generations later god began working the life of a man called abraham he chose life and several generations later abraham's children though made some poor choices and they became slaves to the egyptians and here they were down in egypt enduring sin sorrow and death and we have the exodus god spoke through moses to summarize god's rules for living known as the ten commandments and the lord said look i'm taking you out of bondage i'm taking you to the promised land so you're gonna get a new start and this time why don't you choose life you know the other way is not working out for you why don't you choose life so he ended up giving them some rules here's how it worked he said look avoid the false gods of pagan culture the customs the art the music of the world every seventh day take a break from your work and come and worship me study my words sing my songs honor and obey your godly parents and the other authorities in your life don't kill each other find yourself a spouse and be faithful loving loyal to them as long as you both shall live don't take things that belong to somebody else tell the truth be content with what things you have don't be jealous don't be envious of what somebody else has got in conclusion god told moses to say deuteronomy 30 19 in deuteronomy 30 19 it says i have set before you this day life and death blessing and cursing therefore choose life that both you and your descendants may live that you may love the lord your god and obey his voice for he is your life do you hear it again choose life choose life choose life for whatever reason we love to choose death i don't know what it is about that so what did the people decide pro-life or pro-choice well pro-choice because once they got into the promised land they found out the land was full of opportunity full of all kinds of options didn't make sense to ignore all the opportunities in front of them and only worship one god one day one way one set of rules when there were so many new ideas so many new things so many new ways to explore this new land that god had given them so they broke every one of the ten commandments and then some one in particular broke the heart of god one of the canaanite rituals in that promised land that they went to that they chose not to get rid of all those people so they learned the ways of the people there was this idol god in canaan named molek and he was worshiped with child sacrifices turns out molech was turned into a statue of a great king a great man and so he had his arms outstretched like this and then the belly and underneath his arms was a grill filled with charcoal flaming charcoal just as hot as it could be and part of the rituals is they had a lot of drumming and so they would play the drums as you got ready to sacrifice your child and the reason the drums were so loud is so you couldn't hear the screams of the baby whenever the baby was thrown into the arms of molech and offered to him there molech promised to bless you if you would sacrifice your child and i guess it kind of seemed to work because if you're a poor family and you can't make ends meet and you sacrifice a child well that's one less mouth to feed so i guess it seems like you're a little more prosperous but god couldn't believe that a man and a woman would kill the fruit of their own body he writes about it in jeremiah chapter 32 and verse 35. he says and they built the high places of baal which were in the valley of the son of henon to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to molech which i did not command them nor did it even come to my mind that i should do these things that's what you call anthropomorphism sure god knew god knows everything but what he's saying is y'all have outdone yourself when i was giving you the ten commandments it never dawned on me to write a commandment say don't kill your children broke the heart of god to think that we would go that far so the lord allowed the nation of israel to be destroyed by the babylonians because remember pro-choice means pro-death god ever had every right anywhere along those ways to destroy the entirety of humanity even when he destroyed the earth with a flood he didn't have to save noah but noah found grace in the eyes of the lord and god could destroy everything and been righteous in doing it and he could say look i offered you my way i offered you life but you chose your own way you chose death so be it follow your own course instead god continued to love us like we talked about and sung about just a few moments ago god continued to love us in spite of our sin and to hold out hope for us then you're in the last days and god's love came to us in the form of his son jesus christ jesus came preaching and teaching and healing and doing good he came offering life for he is the way the truth the life he is the resurrection and the life he is the bread of life he is the water of life he is the abundant life he is the eternal life you get the idea of jesus christ is life instead of choosing life we had jesus arrested and god the father used pontius pilate to force us to the age-old question will we be pro-life or will we be pro-choice so pilate brings out two prisoners one on his left and one on his right and says will you have jesus this preacher who comes preaching life or will you have barabbas who was arrested for murder whom do you want me to release to you remember how that story goes give us barabbas we want barabbas well what about jesus what we'll do with your preacher of life let him be crucified so they crucified jesus but in acts chapter 2 verse 24 it says god raised him up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that death could be held by him why because jesus is life and it's impossible that death could hold him therefore jesus is alive and still offers us two basic choices and that is pro-life or pro-choice you're going to choose pro-life to choose jesus to believe trust and obey him allow him to give you eternal life or are you going to be pro-choice it's my life it's my choices i have a right to make up my own mind any way that i want to i can decide what is right i can decide what is wrong with me all the way back to eve you know we deal with these two choices every day throughout our lives when we grow up from our childhood we get old enough to start dating god says look date only a believer find a fellow believer who's got the same set of faith that you do and y'all in love and encourage one another in the faith and i will bless you but we say no i'd rather do it my own way instead of doing it god's way i'd rather do it the hollywood way and i'd rather fall in love with somebody that looks like somebody out of a movie god's way is so tame and so lame i think i'd rather choose my own bait how much fun is that with a divorce rate that we have in our country today while all that's going on we're also tempted to get involved in drinking and drugs at the time and god's word tells us hey turn away from that stay away just say no but we say but lord it's my life it's my choice one little drink ain't gonna hurt anything i wanna be cool i wanna fit in my friends i'm not a kid anymore i can do this i can handle this not along about the same time we get tempted with sex god says true love waits don't you hold on save this special intimate love for marriage but we say why wait i love her she loves me we plan to get married one of these days everything's gonna work out all right and so you just do it and then she ends up getting pregnant and then you consider abortion and god whispers in your soul and says look look it's not my will that you got involved in pre-marital sex you know that but surely surely you're not going to add murder to the sin of adultery surely you're not going to kill your child but we have in the 48 years since 1973 in the united states of america we've aborted 61 million 628 thousand 584 babies in america alone that does not include the world and now we've got something called chemical abortion that's been approved in our country and take a couple of pills and abort in the privacy of your own home so we no longer have accurate numbers except for the occasional hemorrhage that sends mother to the emergency room but unlike molech where we can hear the drums playing down in the valley all this happens in the privacy of a clinic somewhere in a hospital babies may be hidden from us we may not hear their cries but the bible says in genesis chapter 4 verse 10 their blood cries out we may not hear it but god who created them he hears the blood when it cries out and god's justice requires that that blood debt has got to be paid but since god doesn't immediately judge us for our sins and hit us with thunderbolts we think everything's okay and so we continue on with our life we move into career choices and god says look you were born for a special purpose i got a special purpose for you being born into this world so i want you to trust me and follow me and go in the direction i want you to but we say no thanks i'd rather make my own decision i'd rather make a lot of money and have new cars in the chalet in the mountains and condo at the beach and enjoy all the players of the world thank you god and then before you know it it's time for family oh yeah we want family so it's time to have a baby and god says well love each other and pray for my blessing and i'll give you the baby when you need it and what you need but we say god we have the human genome project now scientists are telling us that soon we'll be able to design our own perfect babies sex will be only for recreation babies will come from test tubes thanks to the designer dna we can choose gender and height and weight and hair color and eye color in intelligence and health condition and athletic ability think about what i just said if hitler had only been born 80 years later he could have made his master race that's what he wanted to do and that's what we're on the cusp of doing even even today i mean the the vaccines that are fixing to come out uh are using genetics in order to make these things happen we're right on the cusp of being able to play god all by ourself all this is going on in our lives and then before you know it you know what happens you get old anybody want to talk about that today you've had a full life you get the aarp card in the mail get your first social security check your health starts failing i ain't even got my first social security check and already i tell you what turning 60 has been a bear we've your health starts to fail you begin to feel old and feeble but god's still good you know god says even an old age still honor your father and your mother show respect for your elders but your children begin to say that's so old-fashioned we got more choices than that now we got senior living assisted living nursing homes visiting nurses but then the children get down start putting a pencil to that my soul you know it takes five ten thousand dollars a month for these places that ends up being what sixty to a hundred twenty thousand dollars a year your mom and dad live very long there ain't gonna be much inheritance for me so maybe we need some other options oh yeah we got options there's something called euthanasia how many of those that sound like a wonderful word youth euthanasia basically you just give mom and dad a shot kind of put them out of their misery and don't say you won't do that i mean you do that for your dog how many of you love your dogs and when that dog gets old and you just can't take the fact that they're suffering so you just go to the vet and give them a shot well you love mom and dad too don't you mom and dad don't want to live without a good quality of life do they you probably think i'm joking but according to world infi dot com human euthanasia is legal in netherlands belgium colombia luxembourg and canada assisted suicide is legal in switzerland germany japan and the united states of washington oregon colorado vermont montana washington dc and california and with the rising costs of health care social security and pension soon all states will be saying that wonderful word euthanasia because we can't afford to pay all these benefits to these old baby boomers because we've aborted 60 million taxpayers since 1973. according to the bible there's been about six thousand years of human history and all that time god has been pro-life and he urges us to choose his way to choose life but to do that means that you have to give up doing things your own way making your own choices and that's hard for baby boomers like me and for the generations younger than me that's had more choices than i have my daddy's generation didn't have many choices he was kind of born between a rock and a hard place he endured the great depression in world war ii only choices he had when he was growing up was take it or leave it but my generation we've had 31 flavors of ice cream and donuts we've had 300 channels on our tv we've had dozens of pizza topics we toppings and we've had hundreds of car styles we've got thousands of clothing styles we've got big box stores and amazon.com with a huge assortment of everything we've got colleges with dozens of majors we've got hundreds of career paths we've got hundreds of religions and denominations and belief systems we've been offered so much we have so many choices that's why it's so hard for my generation to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow jesus and that's the difference there that's what it means to choose life it means i'm willing to turn my back on all these other wonderful choices out there and everybody else is enjoying and follow jesus on the straight and narrow way into the kingdom of heaven the gospel of jesus christ means that god in his grace has given us one more opportunity to forfeit our own choices and choose the tree of life i told you it was going to finish in revelation revelation chapter 22. look at there i went from genesis to revelation it's not even 12 o'clock yet revelation chapter 22 and verse 1 and he showed me a pure river of water of life clear as crystal proceeding from the throne of god and of the lamb in the middle of its street and on either side of the river was what the tree of life there it is it wasn't eaten now it's in heaven which bore 12 fruits each tree yielding its fruit every month the trees the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations verse 14 blessed are those who do his commandments they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter through the gates and to the city in verse 17 and the spirit and the bride say come and let him who hears say come and let him who thirsts come whoever desires let him take the water of life freely so as you can see the lord finishes his word just as he started it one last plea for us to choose life won't you choose life and that's our invitation as we close today too as well pray for our nation that we would reject this culture of death that we've got going around and choose life pray for our teenagers we're in our congregation today in our church family today they've got all kind of choices out there pray and encourage them to choose life pray for our parents who are raising children that they don't give up teaching their children to choose life and also today if you've never been saved i encourage you to choose life choose jesus for he is the way the truth the life he's the only way to the father he's the only way to heaven he's the only way to everlasting life won't you choose him won't you choose life let's go to the lord in prayer lord we thank you for your precious promise that you came that we might have life and have it more abundantly and have it eternally lord help us in all the decisions that we have to make in life and as we've already seen in this short message we have a lot of decisions that we make on a daily basis lord help us to choose life and we pray today here lord that for someone here that's never trusted christ as their savior that today will be the day that they choose you because you are our source of life lord move among us now by the power of your holy spirit we'll pray this in jesus name amen now is our time of invitation our altar is open for you to come and pray if you've never trusted jesus christ your savior i'll be standing out front and i would love to talk with you about that maybe you've been saved and never made a profession of faith and been baptized i can talk to you about that as well um also maybe today you're already saved and baptized and you're sure of that but you want to move your membership and come here and find your place of service at north lake baptist church we invite you to do that during this holy time as well and maybe today you just had something come upon your heart as you worship before the lord today and you've got a burden and you just need to come and pray you can come and kneel and pray and know that we got praying people in the building that will be praying for you that the lord will answer your prayer so let's listen to the voice of the holy spirit during this holy time as we stand together and sing our hymn of invitation won't you come [Music] just as i am without one plea but that thy blood was shed for me and that [Music] is come just as i am and waiting of one dark blood to thee whose blood can cleanse each other [Music] without of god i come i come just as i am poured blind side rich is healing of [Music] of god i come i come just as i am [Music] of god i [Music] just ask you to bow your head and close your eyes we've had folks up here making decisions today and it's not too late to make one the lord is speaking to your heart do it while it's still called today we all assume we've got it tomorrow but you don't know that you do the lord's speaking to your heart seek him while he may be found call upon him while he is near again it's not too late to respond to the invitation of the lord musicians continue to play ask y'all to come up here and stand with me this is a joyce and david buffalo they've been visiting us for several weeks now and uh they feel like the lord is leading them to come here and join us and find their place of service here they're both saved and sure of it so all you who rejoice in their decision say amen sound like everybody [Applause] we're going to ask them to stand up here with me uh again we're still kind of under our got to keep our six foot distancing and all that business so we'll encourage you to remind that as you go out but i'll be up front if you're questioning on your heart you still don't have a peace with the lord about things i'm going to be here for a while so don't walk out of here with not knowing the lord as your personal savior or try to find peace with him so we again we thank you for being here today and for your attention for your prayers and we'll ask brother tim if he will to come dismiss us in prayer let us pray father we thank you for choosing life father we thank you for your blessings upon each and every one of us father we pray for the blessing of life in our country and in the world father you know best your rules are there to make us be happier and live longer with your grace and mercy that you've given us through your son jesus help us that we might choose life in our lives and we ask in jesus name amen you

Channel: Northlake Baptist Church

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Length: 64min 28sec (3868 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 24 2021