♪♪♪ Daniel: Hi, everyone. My name's Daniel, and it's so
good to see you at church today. Before we open up
God's Word together, let me just take a minute to
share what all is happening. As a church, we love to help
people discover their God-given purpose and take next steps in
their relationship with God. If you've attended the first two
steps of the Growth Track and are ready to use your gifts and
passions to make a difference here at Highlands, we'd
love for you to join us, tonight, for the final
step of the Growth Track. At step three, you'll be
introduced to the Highlands Dream Team and learn how you
can join the team and identify your next steps as a
member at Highlands. We'll be hosting the Growth
Track in person at your campus tonight at 6 p.m.
local time. Child care and dinner will
be provided while you get the chance to connect with
your campus staff and other team members. If you'd like to
attend step three, tonight, join us at
your campus at 6 p.m. local time or check out the
Highlands app for more info. Students, we are just a few days
away from our Motion Student Conference taking place this
Thursday through Saturday in Legacy Arena at the BJCC
here in downtown Birmingham. Motion Conference is a weekend
filled with powerful worship, dynamic messages, and
intentional discipleship designed for middle
school, high school, and college students. Taking place right before the
start of a new school year, Motion is a catalyst event for
students that sends them into their schools on fire for Jesus
and ready to make a difference. Conference sessions
are led by our team, along with some very special
guests that you don't want to miss. Every year, it's incredible to
hear how students' lives are impacted at Motion, and
we want you to be there. Registration is still open,
and it's not too late for you to join us at Conference. So, check out the website or
connect with the student team after service to
get registered today. We'll see you at Conference. Men of Highlands, our annual
Men's Night is just right around the corner. On August 16th, men across our
church will gather for a low country boil, a night
of worship, and hear a powerful
message from God's Word. Men's Night is a free one-night
event for men of all ages. So, come hungry and leave
equipped to be the man God created you to be. Men's Night will be held at
most of our campuses and is 100% free. It's also a great opportunity
to invite a friend to join. You can reserve
your free spot, today, on the Highlands app, and we
can't see you at Men's Night on August 16th. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Chris Hodges: All right,
welcome to weekend number three of the series that we're calling
simply "The Book of Daniel," as we do a verse by verse study
through the book of Daniel, and I'll tell you more
about that in just a second, but we've already said
hello to all of our campuses, and I want to say a big hi
to everybody who's here at Highlands for the
very first time. You're so welcomed here, but I
want to give a shout out to the men and women in the Alabama
Department of Corrections, who we have the honor of
being in more than 21 of those facilities all across the
great state of Alabama. And, of course, there are people
watching online somewhere around the world. Grants Mill, put your hands
together and say a big hello. God bless you guys. And before we jump
into the message, you may want to follow
along on your device. Actually, if you
downloaded the Highlands app, there's a, at the top--and it's
only live whenever we're in a service. It'll say, "In Service Guide,"
and actually everything that I'm getting ready to show here on
this screen is gonna be on your phone. Also gives you a chance
to fill in the blanks, take your extra notes, and I
highly recommend take some notes and learn and grow, especially
in a verse by verse series. This series is actually a
response to a question that you guys have posed to me and to
the church leadership to talk a little bit about
what's going on in culture, the shift of our culture
toward--away from the nuclear family, away from the
truth of Scripture. Of course, we're seeing all of
the chaos in our world right now, as our culture shifts,
and it's posed a difficulty for a lot of you of how to live
in it, and we're actually studying the book of Daniel as a
playbook of something that has already happened that is similar
that I think is enduring that shows us really how
to live in it today. I'll set it up for
you really quickly. And that is the nation of
Israel continually rejected God. They were warned over and over
and over that if you reject God, that he would remove his hand of
blessing and covering and allow them to be taken as what
the Bible calls exiles or the Babylonian
captivity, and they were. We'll read about it
here in just a second. The whole nation of Israel
became slaves in what is modern-day Iraq
today, for 70 years, because of their
rejection of God. And we get the book of Daniel
that tells these incredible stories how these Hebrew
people lived in this pagan, ungodly culture, and he
never bowed to the temptations, or the compromise, or
anything that went against the Word of God. They never, never
bowed, not one single time, but here's the cool part. They also had
influence into that culture, and to me that's
the big bullseye. That's the target. That's how you know if
you've done it right. Like, you never
compromise your standards. You stand for truth, but you
also live your life in such a grace-filled way that people
want what you have at the same time. And so this is the
beauty of the book. So, we started in chapter 6. There are 12 chapters. We started in chapter 6, because
I think it has the main idea of the entire book. So, I wanted to set up
the whole book that way, but it also fed
into our Serve Day. And so now we're going back, and
we're doing them a little bit more in order now, and today
we're going to look at chapter 2. Last week, I
talked about chapter 1, but let's go back to chapter
1 and just set it up really quickly. It says, "In the third year of
the reign of King Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king
of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim
king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the
articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the
temple of his god in Babylonia." In other words, he had hijacked
what was known as church. You could say it that way,
and that's happening right now. They're carrying off the holy
things and making them unholy. And by the way, they do
them--treasure of the house of his god. And then the king
ordered Ashpenaz, who was the chief
court official, to bring into the king's
service--so most of them work out in the fields and do that
kind of labor--but let's bring a few into the house,
to the king's temple. Some of the Israelites, who
were from the royal families or nobility--in other
words, they had money, and they had education,
and let's not waste it out in the fields. Let's bring it in and help us,
directly under us--young men without any
physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for
every kind of learning, well-informed,
quick to understand, qualified to serve
in the king's palace. And here's the key
part--we talked about it last week--they'll teach them--or let
me say it this way--they will indoctrinate them into
the culture of the day. So, new words, new language,
the language and literature--and that's happening right now. There's a, by many, there is an
effort to indoctrinate our young people in our schools and
different places into a language and literature that goes
directly against the Word of God, and we've gotta
stand up in Jesus's name. Amen, everybody?
I really believe that. A smattering of applause. Anybody believe
that out there today? All right, okay. I know it's because
you're so busy taking notes. That's why you just couldn't. "I couldn't clap, because I was
writing everything you-- down, Pastor,"
okay. The king assigned them a daily
amount of food and wine from the king's table, and they were
to be trained for three years. So, in other words, he would
have to ask them to compromise their Hebrew kosher dietary
laws to eat unkosher food, which would be a
compromise of their beliefs. "And they would do
that for three years, and then they would
enter the king's service. And among those who were
chosen were some from Judah." And there's four main characters
of the book of Daniel, so they list them
here: Daniel, of course, Hanaiah, Mischael, and
Azariah--better known by man by their Babylonian
names: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And so we talked about
last week the shifts, the marks of a shifting culture. Today, we're going to
read an interesting story, but I just want to
read you the story. I literally want to go
through the whole chapter 2 very quickly, tell you what happened,
and then I'm going to take from it three timeless truths that
I believe are for us today. So, chapter 2 starts like
this: "In the second year of his reign,
Nebuchadnezzar had dreams, and his mind was troubled
and he could not sleep." Now, I want you to notice right
off the bat that the condition of the entire chapter is,
is that the leadership now, following their own way,
they end up in a troubled and distressed state. And I just want
you to hear that, because I want you
to prepare for it. I think this poses for the
church a great opportunity when the things of the
world do not work, and they end up troubled, that
we can step into that space. So, the king went to his own
people first--the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers,
the astrologers--to tell them what he dreamed. And when they came in
and stood before the king, he said, "I have a dream. I've had a dream
that troubles me, and I want to
know what it means." And not only did he want
to know what it means. He required them to tell him
what the dream was too. So, they had to--he wouldn't
even tell them what the dream was, because they could've
made up an interpretation, if he'd have told them. "No, you've gotta tell
me what the dream was, and you've gotta interpret it." And they said, "What the
king asks is too difficult, and no one can
reveal it to the king, except the gods, and they
don't live among humans." And by the way, this is
the sentiment of the world. You're asking for
something there is no solution, because there is no God. But how many of you
know there is a God. Amen, everybody? There is, all right. So, I love the
dynamics of the story. So, basically, the king
ordered their execution, because they wouldn't do it, and
this Arioch guy gets involved. He was the commander
of the king's guard, and he was going out to put to
death all these who couldn't tell King Nebuchadnezzar
what the dream was, and Daniel seized the
opportunity to step into that space of confusion and
what would be death, and Daniel spoke to him,
and I love the language here. With wisdom--in other
words he had solutions, and then he did it
in a tactful way. He wasn't offensive. And, church, can I tell you this
is the mandate of Scripture for how we live in our culture. And it says that--Daniel says,
"Just give me time to go pray to God and figure this thing out." And so they did.
They didn't kill the guys, yet. And during the night, the
mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. And when Daniel got
not only the dream, but the
interpretation of the dream, he prays to God. He's excited. And I want you to see, in the
midst of all the despair and chaos, the hope that
was in this guy's heart, because I'm getting
ready to teach it to us. I feel like today, the goal of
today's message is to show you the disparity of the world,
the craziness of culture, the chaos of our society, and
even the desperation we have in our own situations and see that
God is still right here in the middle of it. I want you to leave
here today with some hope, because he said, "Praise be
to the name of God forever and ever. He gives wisdom and power. He changes times and seasons." Remember that verse. "He deposes kings, and
then he raises up others." Notice how much God is actually
actively involved in ways that they could not see. "He gives wisdom to the wise,
knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep
and hidden things. He knows what lies
in the darkness, and the light dwells with him." So, he sees the darkness, but he
also realized he raised up the people of God to step
into that space and be the light in
the middle of it. So, he says, "I thank
you and praise you, God of my ancestors;
because, God, you let me have solutions. In the middle of all
this disorder of culture, you gave me wisdom and power. You made known to
me--what we asked of you, you have made known to me
the dream of the king." And so he actually sees it. He actually goes and gets an
audience before Nebuchadnezzar. In verse 26, the
king asked Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar, "Are you able to
tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?" And Daniel said, "Sure can. No wise man, magician, no one
else can explain it to the king, but there is a God in heaven." Listen, I want you
to see this line. Everybody stare at it, because
I really believe the role of the church in the middle of
a chaotic culture is not just to call out the wrong,
but to let them know, "There is a God in heaven who
can reveal mysteries to your chaos and your disorder." Come on, somebody.
Amen? This is very, very important. Yeah, come on, clap,
praise God for that. I'm very serious about this. In fact, I'm getting ready to
show you how God can do that, not just with the
church, but in your life, as you interact with
the people around you. And then Daniel actually--I
won't read you the verses--but he actually saw this
statue--had a head of gold, it had chest and arms of silver,
it had a bronze belly and thigh, it had iron legs, and then it
said at the end of it was this rock that smashed it
all, and this rock grew up, a rock that could not be moved. And we're going to study this
more in the last installment of the series, because the last 6
chapters of the book of Daniel are prophecy. What Daniel actually saw was
the future from that moment, 483 years to the time of Jesus. So, we're about that amount of
time before Jesus would come, and he literally saw the
different empires that would happen--the head of gold
being the Babylonian empire; the chest of silver,
the Medo-Persian empire; the brass belly,
the Greek empire. He even describes in
detail Alexander the Great, later in Scripture. The iron legs was
the Roman empire, and then finally this rock,
a rock that would never end. In fact, he says it would be
a kingdom that will never be destroyed; and, of
course, that is Jesus Christ. And 2,000 years
later--come on, everybody, he is the kingdom that
cannot be destroyed. I said we serve a God
with a kingdom that cannot be destroyed. I want you to hear that. And I say these things
in faith to you today, because I think people
are getting discouraged. Any Christian, "I don't
know what's going to happen to America." Well, God bless
America is my hope. I hope he keeps using America,
but he doesn't need America. He'll do it through--he'll pick
another nation if he has to. God is still in
control, everybody, and he has a kingdom
that is never going to end. And, of course, Nebuchadnezzar
was blown away by his revelation. And I'm gonna teach you more
about those futuristic events that happen, because Daniel
also saw the tribulation. He saw the end of time, and
we'll study that as we look at the 70 sevens, he called it. Stay tuned, everybody.
Okay. But verse 47, this
is the last verse, and I want you to see this,
because I say this again, I'm trying to get you to
walk out of this building, regardless of what's going on in
your personal life or in culture that disturbs you, that you
need to know there is a God in heaven, and he is
the God of gods. And Nebuchadnezzar says,
"You're serving the real one. Surely, your God is the God
of gods and the Lord of kings, and a revealer of mysteries,
for you are able to reveal this mystery to me." Now, I'm going to
show you three things, and I have one single goal, and
that is not to--I'm not going to ignore the fact that
it's bleak in many ways, what's happening in
our school systems, what's happening in crime,
what's happening in our world, the all out division that's
taking place in politics, where almost
nothing ever gets done. I see it too. I understand that there's never
been a nation that's gotten to this point and really
survived beyond it. I realize that there have
been empires that have risen and fallen. In fact, when you go
back to the Egyptians, the Greeks, the
Persians, the Romans, the British empire, they all
rose and fell within about 240 years--we're 247 years old--and
none of them were conquered by external enemies. They all rotted from within. I see it, too. And it's easy, kind of even as a
Christian to tuck your tail and get all discouraged,
and, "Oh me, oh my." Well, I've got some
encouragement for you, today, and the first thing
that I see from this story, that while the
chaos was going on, and God's telling 483 years
of future--and by the way, he doesn't see just
483 years of future. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He's the beginning and the end. And you need to
know that, everybody. You need to know that. You need to know that God wants
us to know that he is at work, and he is in control. And what separates people of
faith from everybody else who's going through the same thing,
and that is that we walk in the assurance, even in
the middle of the trial, that our God is at work. And I don't know if that speaks
to your current situation, where you got your tail tucked,
and you're all discouraged, and you don't see
an end to this, and "I've got this
problem at home, I've got this
problem with the job. And, oh my goodness." Can I give you a verse that
I'm standing on in the middle of everything that I
face in my life, and in this church, and in
our culture and society, that I know my Redeemer lives. And I might not see it
now, but in the end, he will stand on the earth. It's the belief that it's bad
in the middle of the story, but we read the last
chapter, and we win. Now, I want to
tell you something. You've gotta know this, if
you're gonna live a successful life, and that is that
God is an intentional God. And whenever he does something,
he's doing that intentionally. And whenever he
doesn't do something, he's not doing
something intentionally. So, whenever God does
something, he's doing something; and when he's not
doing anything, he's doing something. Okay. And believers know that,
that there's this moment in the middle. I did a message one time
called, "God in the Middle." He's the Alpha and the Omega,
but what about in the middle of this thing? And some of you are
right in the middle of it, and you've lost hope,
and you've lost your joy, and you're getting anxious. But you need to know we will
endure culture better when we have the confidence of
knowing that he's got the whole world--come on some Baptists. Where y'all at?
Help me out. Don't leave a
brother hanging up here, right? He's got it, he's got it. Look at me, look at my eyes. He's got it. "I don't like it."
Yeah, but he's got it. He's at work, and
people of faith know that. That's--how do we
endure culture? Knowing he's got the
whole world in his hands. And that doesn't
just mean, "Well, I'm just gonna
relax and do nothing." No, I'm still
fighting the good fight. I'm not--I'm gonna
do everything I can. I'm not trying to
get you down to, well, I don't
worry about it then. No, y'all mind you, still trying
to do something about things, and I'm for that. But he's got it. Here's the second thing, and
that is that God wants us to speak life into the
confusion of the world. So, I don't think I've ever
charged you with this before, but I'm going to
charge the church, I'm gonna try to energize you
and build you up to let you know that if you'll allow God, he
will fill you with the Holy Spirit and give you
wisdom to situations, that of your friends
and your people at work, that they don't know what to do,
but you're able to speak life into it, pray with them,
and see that thing turn. Did you know that that was
the role of the local church? Not the pastors, not the
preachers--us--to go into the confusion of the world, to
be like Joseph when there's a famine and have the wisdom to
store up grain for 7 years, to be like Daniel all throughout
the stories--we're gonna read another one in chapter 5, where
they were in complete distress, and they said, "Oh, there's
a man who knows what to do." And wouldn't it be great that
when people goes through life's situation, they say,
"Oh, I know somebody. We ought to call them. They'll pray.
This thing will turn. They'll have an answer.
They'll give a solution." And I'm trying to let you know,
"I don't know if I can do that, Pastor." Yes, you can, because you're not
doing it by your own ability. You're doing it full
of the Holy Spirit. Come on, somebody. Come on, give God praise
if you really believe it. Did you know, did you know, did
you know that the Holy Spirit's not there for fun? He's there for function. People treat the Holy Spirit
like it's heavenly goosebumps. No, the Holy Spirit is there
to give you wisdom about things that you have no idea about. He is called--the Holy Spirit
is called the Spirit of wisdom. In fact, in the chaos
of the early church, they were 6 chapters in,
and they're already fighting. And the Bible says
in Acts chapter 6, verse 3, "Brothers and sisters,
choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of
the Holy Spirit and wisdom." I'm gonna tell you,
God will show up. They'll get it worked out. Listen to me, write this in
your notes you note takers. They put order into confusion. Order. I'll never forget in the
second year of our church, back when the office of the
church--we didn't have an office here for almost 2 years. I always said the office of
the church was the cell phone on my hip. Remember when we used to
clip them to our hips, everybody, you know? Like, I was walking around. "Church of the Highlands.
Can I help you?" "Can I speak to the pastor?" "Speaking. Yeah, who's right here?" And so, I'll never
forget this one person said, "Do you do counseling?" I said, "Well, sure. Be happy to counsel you." I said, "What's going on?" She talked--the mom
talked about her son, who was addicted to drugs. And I said, "Well, do
you go to another church?" Because as a matter of
respect, I always want to, if I can, turn them back to
their local church if they're already involved in one. I said, "Well, do you
go to a local church?" And she said--I'm just
gonna tell you what she said. She says, "Yeah, I
brought him to them, and they said he's
predestined to be addicted." And she goes, "I just
don't believe that." I said, "You come on over here." And the poor lady
came in sobbing. When a mom's got her
little son--come on, somebody--that is
going through something, man, what she won't do. And I said--and we prayed and
got him involved in--we have some small groups that deal with
addiction and some programs. In less than a year, he
was completely off drugs. I'm happy to tell you,
21 years later, he's still free. Come on, somebody. Come on, order in
all the confusion. We will end that culture better
when we are full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom,
and that's not restricted to a pastor or a minister or
somebody on our church staff. Listen to me. God can do that in you. And here's the last one, and
that is that God wants us to embrace the times and seasons. And what I mean by that is
don't curse the darkness. Bring the light.
And it's an attitude. For a lot of people, you're not
seeing the opportunity in the middle of the disorder. And so gets you a--you're
in a bad mood about it. And if you don't see
things the right way, you won't respond the right way. But if you see things as an
opportunity--even as bad as it is--if you see it
as an opportunity, you then know, "Well,
I was made for this. I was made." God--listen to me--God
intentionally put every one of us into the seasons
that we're living in. He looked across time. He says, "I'm gonna put old
Chris Hodges right over there in a pandemic." God sees, and he placed us
knowing--and he has confidence in us today, but you have
to see it the right way. I love what Jesus said, as he
was contemplating the cross. Jesus, because he was fully God,
but still fully human. And he's
contemplating the cross, and the Bible--this is
Jesus talking--he says, "My soul is troubled." Now, that was his emotions,
not the spirit part of him. He's thinking, "I'm getting
ready to have to have nails in my hands. I'm getting ready to
be beat to a pulp." And he's actually
having this moment. In fact, in one
place, he prayed, "Lord, is there any way we
can figure out a way to pay for sins, other than this? Is there any way this--"
He called it this cup. "Can this cup pass from me?" And then watch this line. Somebody needs to hear this. "So what shall I say
when my soul is troubled?" Look in my eyes. I'm getting ready to
help you a little bit. For some of you, your real
problem isn't your problem. It's the narrative you're
telling yourself about your problem. It's self-talk. Some of you are endlessly
in self-talk right now. Psychologists
call it ruminating, and it's where you're--I'm
not denying you're distressed. I'm just denying how you're
actually exacerbating it and making it actually worse. And I know,
because I've done this. I've had nights, Sunday
nights--have the most amazing Sunday ever. Sit on the couch and have
negative thoughts come in my mind. "Why'd you say that? Why did you?" Just, I critique myself. The next thing you
know I'm, you know, just all in self-talk. It's a dangerous place. And Jesus said, "What am I gonna
say to myself when my soul is troubled?" Now watch what he says. He changes the narrative. He's going to the cross,
and his self-talk was, "It was for this very
reason I came to the earth. I was made for this. I was made for this moment." And he encouraged himself.
He didn't despise the cross. He turned it into the joy,
Romans--Hebrews 12 says, the joy set before him, that
he could pay for your sins and mine. Here's the final statement. We will embrace our role in
culture better when we realize that I was made for this. I was made for this. I thought I'd close by giving
you my interpretation of the seasons we live in. Since the whole book of
Daniel--the 2nd chapter--I'm sorry--of the book of Daniel was
really about times and seasons and predicting the future,
I'm just gonna give you what I believe is my take on it. I think we're in
three seasons right now. I think the first season is
what I'm calling the season of hostility, and this
is not new to us. This is promised by your Savior,
the one you said you would make your Lord--said, "By the way,
they're gonna hate you because of me. You're gonna have some haters,
and they're going to hate you, and they're going
to despise you, and they're going
to reject you." In fact, you look
throughout church history, the church endured great
persecution of which we really not even come close. Paul, though, had this amazing
attitude in the middle of it. Even when he was imprisoned for
the gospel--never been there. I tell myself,
"Chris, stop your whining. When's the last time
you've been flogged, brother." You know what I'm saying? Just--and Paul was
flogged, imprisoned, and he just like, "I'm okay." Why? Because he had
the hope of heaven. Right in the middle of it,
even the hostility, there's a solution, and
it's the eternal perspective. In fact, they said, "Paul,
if you don't stop preaching, we'll cut your head off." He goes, "Would you? 'Cause I can't figure out
whether to live is Christ or to die is gain, and you
would settle that dilemma. Cut it off, cut if off." What do you do with
a person like that? Well, you can't
threaten me with heaven. And that's why Jesus said in his
end time dissertation of Luke 21--you want to read Jesus's
dissertation of what the end times look like? Brother is going
to betray brother. You're going to hate--like,
earthquakes, famines. "When you see these
things take place, stand up and lift up your heads;
your redemption draws nigh." I call it living
above the clouds. If you've ever flown out of the
airport and it's raining at the airport, and your bags
are on the conveyor belt, and they stop, and rain is
getting them all wet--it's the most depressing
thing I ever--oh, my goodness. Move it, move it, please. And then the captain comes on. "We're liable to
experience some turbulence. It's rough weather out there. Gonna be some bumps. Tighten it up." And you take off and--and you
go through the cloud layer. You are now free to
move about the cabin. Why? Same space geographically,
but one's below the clouds in the noise, in the
chatter, in the godlessness. One is above the clouds. Come on, somebody. Where are you gonna live? I'm gonna live above the clouds. Second is we are in
a season of harvest. I don't have time to
read the whole verse. It's in your--it's on your app. But Jesus said there's
gonna be all this bad stuff; but at the same time,
with all the bad stuff, the gospel is going to be
preached at a high level. So, the bad is
going to get worse, but the gospel is
going to advance, and it's happening. We got this from the Center for
the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon Conwell Seminary,
which our missions teams--our mission team works with. And just in the last 23 years,
the number of Christians has almost grown by a billion. In 2000, it was 1.8
billion Christians. In 2023, 2.5 billion. I know we look around, "I
don't see that around here." Yeah, because America is
only one of 17 nations that the gospel is not growing
fast in the population. The gospel exploding--Africa
alone has grown nearly double in 23 years, 718
million Christians. And Asia, same thing. nearly double in
a 23-year period. Bibles in 23 years, has gone
from 54 million a year printed to 95 million every year
we're putting out there. That's right. And we're a part of every bit of
that with our missions giving. I mean, just last
Sunday, just last Sunday, last weekend,
Saturday and Sunday, 975 people, documented names
and addresses from Serve Day and Sunday, 975 people gave their
life to Jesus right here in this house come on,
give God some praise. It's a season of harvest. I know it's hard, but
it's a season of harvest. We can endure a little bit of
the hard to keep that season of harvest going. We're gonna have 12,000
students gather to worship the name of Jesus. And finally, it's also
a season of holiness, meaning, you'd better decide. This is not a time to
be a gray Christian, lukewarm Christian. You'd better pick. I'm gonna tell you
you're gonna be forced to. And honestly, Jesus--look in my
eyes--is coming back for a bride that is without spot, who
love and await his appearing, just like the bride
you would want to marry. He's looking for
someone who said, "I've decided I'm
gonna follow Jesus." Holiness doesn't mean perfect. It means I'm separated to you. I am with the Lord. Let's bow for prayer. I think we can make
that decision right now. There are some of
you in this room, who you're even a little
on the fence. I don't know if I'm in. I don't know if I'm out. One day I am, one day I'm not. You've been
lukewarm in your faith, and it's time for you to
be set apart and holy. Let Jesus cleanse
you of your sins. It's time for you to
choose, "I'm gonna follow Jesus. I'm not ashamed of the gospel." If that's you right there, pray
this prayer with me at every campus. Campus pastors, come join me. Say this to heaven: "I
have decided to follow Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for saving me. Thank you, Jesus, for
paying for my sin what I did. Forgive me for living
my life without you. Today, I repent,
and I turn my life, my whole life to you, because I
believe you're the Son of God, and I believe you
died and rose again, and today," come on say it,
whisper it to heaven right now, "today I put my faith in you. In your name I pray,
amen and amen." Come on, give God a praise, everybody who just
prayed that prayer.
