My Deliverance | Shane Willard

[Music] oh it's good to be here with my victory family my friends tony and kath and the team this is awesome if you type let's follow an actual bible philippians chapter one we're going to get there in just a second i get to open the bible today and i think that's great i take it very seriously and so anytime you open scripture you want to ask at least two questions one what happened and two and more importantly what's happening in me right now because of what happened so we're gonna hopefully jesus will get bigger for us today the cross will work better the resurrection will be central and scriptures will get bigger not smaller i'd like to take a second and invite you back tonight i'm going to be doing a special message on the book of revelation tonight frankly i don't know how it's to say this i've been embarrassed by some of the stuff i've seen christians post online about that amazing book and so i i had three options one judge them ineffective to criticize them also ineffective three do something really dumb and argue online in front of everybody that's really stupid so i decided to do something a bit more compelling and just take it on and so if you're interested i promise you it'll be entertaining it'll be interesting it'll make it come alive it'll mean more than you think so come on back tonight for the service tonight if you can make it to the eleven and there's empty seats um come on then we're gonna have we're gonna have three um completely different thoughts throughout the day all right so to get this started let me tell you two quick history stories and i'm not telling you history stories for the sake of it this is going to come back to the scripture history story number one 20 years after jesus there was a mysterious messianic figure in jerusalem simply known as the egyptian and what he did is he started a secret resistance movement to the roman occupation in jerusalem by hiring 4 000 secret assassins called the sycari literally the dagger people or the throat cutters right if you've ever seen the movie sicario that's where that idea comes from and so what they would do is they would fit in during the day and then at night they would come out dressed in all black and they would cut the throats of high-ranking government officials or corrupt high priests who are empowering the roman occupation of jerusalem and so what they do is they cut their throat the next morning when the sun came up the body was there with the egyptian symbol and since there was no such thing as csi jerusalem it would just be like hey look the egyptian has killed another guy this guy was wreaking havoc on the roman occupation that is story number one story number two is there's a guy named paul and paul had a radical encounter with jesus christ and began to take the gospel to to the known world in europe and so and he ran into some problems he ran into the issue that if you force jewish law onto gentile people they don't like that that much right in in other words you can't tell 30-year-old men in corinth they have to be circumcised to join the church it's counterproductive to what you're trying to do right and so paul says well i don't want an entire country missing out on the love of christ over circumcision so he started saying things like i know the bible says to circumcise but you know what you're in corinth let's let you be on that i know leviticus says don't eat bacon but you love it so much don't worry about it now this had good effects in europe it had drastically bad effects in jerusalem because the people trying to lead the jesus movement in jerusalem they get word that paul is telling everybody everywhere that moses doesn't matter the law doesn't matter the temple doesn't matter none of this stuff matters here's what they do is they they they call him they sent call him like on the phone they send word to him and they say come back we are demanding that you sit in front of us and give an account for your preaching well paul knows there's going to be conflicts here's what he does he stops in a place called corinth because they have money and he takes a love offering for the church in jerusalem because when you know there's a conflict coming what better way to grease the wheels than bring a bit of cash with you right and so they say you could read about this in acts 21 they say paul we celebrate that anyone is saying yes to jesus but here's the thing bro the people here are upset because they're hearing that you're teaching everybody everywhere that we don't matter anymore and we're trying to lead the jesus movement here so can you help us out and paul says sure what would you like me to do they say well here's what we think we think if you'll be willing to go through a temple cleansing that'll give evidence to everybody that's upset that you actually don't think we don't matter and he goes deal i'll do that so he goes through a seven day temple cleansing well this is not enough for the zealous jews what they do is after seven days of cleansing rover they kidnap him out of the temple with a mob intending to beat him to death they drag him out of the temple intending to beat him to death now what happens when a mob of people are beating one guy to death who do you call the police so that's what they did some people went and ran and told the roman soldiers that there is a riot starting so they go down and they find a mob beating one man to death and it says when the roman soldier showed up they stopped beating paul as you do when the police shows up you're like hey i don't know how he we found him like this right now the police don't know what to do so they go well we'll arrest the guy that has been beaten up which makes no sense it says that he could not walk from the severity of the beating they had to carry him which is a whole nother thing then it says they also bound them with two chains which leads to this question why do you bind a guy who can't walk they must have had some information it's like wait a minute what are they doing here and and you you get let into this in acts 21. so paul finally gets his ability to speak and watch what happens if you could bring that first slide up for me as paul was about to be brought into the barracks that's the police station he said to the tribune may i say something to you and he said do you know greek now watch what the tribune says to paul are you not the egyptian then who recently stirred up a revolt and led four thousand men of assassins out into the wilderness are you not that guy are you because how do you get someone out of your hair here's what they did the jews could not get paul out of their hair so here's what they did they tipped off the romans that he was the mysterious egyptian guy that they've been looking for right and who else did they do that to jesus they couldn't get jesus out of their hair so they get rome to do the dirty work paul essentially says well hold on before you do what you're going to do which is a fake trial and crucify me i'm a roman citizen you don't get to do that to me bro right i get a real trial in front of a real dude and he ends up in front of a governor named felix and felix says i do not find any reason to charge this man does that language sound familiar but as a favor to the jews in jerusalem he kept him in prison for two years now that's a long time one sentence that's a long time felix gets replaced by a guy named festus highly unfortunate name festus says what is this paul then uses his ability as a roman citizen to appeal to the highest court in rome so the book of acts ends with paul on death row in rome and that's where he starts writing letters he starts writing letters back to these churches that he started knowing these will be his last words because he is absolutely going to die he's being tortured on a daily basis under the under the authority of a guy named nero who was known for his cruelty and he's writing a letter back to these people and one of the letters he wrote is a book called philippians and he's thanking these people for sending epaphroditus to feed him because back then they didn't feed their prisoners and if you understand the context here he's in prison because people he was trying to help turn them in with a false accusation of being the egyptian like if you ever had somebody who tried to help turn on you but that's paul that's that's what's going on here and he's saying one of some of the most inspiring stuff you can imagine given that like if god started it he'll complete it what might look like your destruction will actually be your salvation keep your head on things that are true praiseworthy justin of good report keep your head on that kind of stuff right like this guy is inspiring and in the middle of this he says something that i want us to focus on for the rest of this session this morning and hopefully start to put some language around what faith looks like in uncertainty watch what he says here next slide yes and i will rejoice for i know that through your prayers and the help of the spirit of jesus this will turn out for my deliverance as it is my eager expectation and hope that i will not be ashamed but that in full courage now as always christ will be honored in my body whether by life or by death for to me to live is christ and to die is gain this will turn out for my deliverance here's the problem it didn't paul died he was tortured over and over and over again and then he died so if paul is being prophetic here like i have enough faith to get out of this he missed it and this is very confronting to a certain theology right and that theology that says it's subtly intimate if you just had enough faith your children wouldn't be sick if you just had enough faith they wouldn't have had that issue if you just had enough faith she wouldn't have left you if you just had enough faith you could have prayed your husband to be different if you just had enough faith that client wouldn't have left your business if you just had enough faith bad things wouldn't happen to you now there's a problem with that look that theology the bible is written in greek and hebrew that theology is based in latin the latin word is bulamus krapimus [Applause] that great if you need the translation in english you can see pastor tony later can't i can't think of the exact translation i know the latinus bulimis crappiness the idea is is that if you just had enough faith you could get out of everything but that's just not true did jesus not have faith peter james john philip paul no this will turn out for my deliverance the question is is what did he mean by that now if you lost me in any of that i made a quick summary bullet point for you here we go next slide so paul's in prison in romans seen as the enemy of the state due to one false accusation that he was the egyptian and one true one he won't come off that jesus is lord not caesar and if he doesn't come off that he's going to die but the philippians were the only church to reach out and send someone to feed and research paul paul's awaiting a trial that would bring an execution he does in fact die next slide keep going paul lived in a day where the world believed caesar is lord they thought caesar was god in flesh and they ruled that way with military might here was their evangelism strategy we show up to your village with an army and you convert or you die incredibly effective christians were the social justice juggernauts going that is not okay if god was actually a man he wouldn't be oppressing raping and pillaging 99 of the world to enrich the one he'd be lifting the lowly to the level of the elite right that's two different things now paul is a rabbi which means he'd memorized all the scriptures up to that time this will turn out for my deliverance is a direct quote from a jewish poem that made it into the bible called job it's the story about a guy who had a lot lost a lot and got a lot back right and in the middle of all that there's these experts that show up who have an idea as to why suffering happens and it always is you must have done something to deserve it right job at its most elemental level is a resistance to transactional theology the idea that you can tell where god stands with someone based on the circumstances they're in that is just nonsense it's just nonsense but job's friends are convinced here's job in five seconds job it's something you did no it's not job it's something you did no it's not job it's something you did no it's not and finally job arcs is back up and he says it isn't something i did whether i live or die that's in god's pay grade not mine but if god kills me fine i'll trust him all the way there but i'll tell him to his face it wasn't what i did right you must have had your thing but i i i wasn't something i did watch this from job 13. this is though he slay me i'll hope in him yet i'll argue my ways to his face this will be my deliverance that the godless shall not come before him so in jewish consciousness the phrase this will turn out for my deliverance is not i have enough faith to get out of something rather i'll keep my hands clean and my heart pure in the middle of that something whatever god is doing in the middle of this i'll hope in him but it won't be something i did this will turn out for my deliverance faith and uncertainty is not the confidence to get out of everything rather it's a countenance it's a disposition it's head up shoulder's back hands clean heart pure tastes sweet in the middle of it you also see it in another scripture with a guy named david caricature of the story a guy brings cheese to his brothers on the front lines there's a giant philistine warrior david says bring it and he kills the philistine warrior he gets very popular with the people gets very unpopular with the king becomes an enemy of the king ends up having to run from the king everywhere and what we find in that story is that david when it comes to hand-to-hand combat is a bad man he's a bad man bear bring it on lion some huh huh giant philistine warriors come get you some of that he's a bad man he's liam neeson from taken he's that he's jack bauer on speed right we find that he's a bad dude when it comes to hand in combat but we also find that when it comes to hiding he's terrible at it it says that he went to a cave to hide and 400 people already knew where he was going and met him there which leads to this observation as good as you are fighting bro when it comes to hiding mate frankly you suck right and so he has this encounter with an ally of saul and he gets scared this is the encounter of david and akish the king of geth watch what it says and the servants of achish said to him is not this david the king of the land did they not sing to one another of him and dances saul struck down his thousands but david tens of thousands and david took these words to heart and was much afraid of aches the king of death so he changed his behavior if you're a note taker that's the key word he changed his behavior before them pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks in the doors of the gate and let spit run down his beard it's an incredible survival technique if you want him to leave you alone pretend you're insane start scratching at the door let's spit froth at the mouth people will leave you alone it's a brilliant thing now what's interesting here is the hebrew that has translated changed his behavior let me show it to you next slide the hebrew word is tamal which everywhere else is translated taste flavor it's a metaphor if if i it could be literal like you're that tastes good or it could be a metaphor like if i did something that wasn't necessarily wrong but it was inappropriate for the context you might say shane that wasn't wrong that was just in poor taste exactly this so in in in the in the english there it says he changed his behavior that's that's not a bad translation because the context is the metaphor is he's behaving in a way that's not uh it's not conducive to how a king should act right but the literal hebrew there says he lost his taste or he changed his taste he changed his flavor now he ends up running to a cave where he finds that 400 people already knew he was going to be there and now he's stressed because he's running from people and everybody knows where he is and he's not just stressed he's distressed now what do you do when the most powerful man in the region is after you and all of his allies what do you do with that level of stress what do you do well evidently you write a poem that's what you do because that fixes things right now the question is what did he write in that poem and the good news is we still have a record of this poem because it got it got included in the scriptures later here's the poem david wrote after he acted to be insane here's what he wrote next slide i will bless the lord at all times his praise shall continually be in my mouth my soul makes its boast in the lord let the humble hear and be glad oh magnify the lord with me let us exalt his name together i sought the lord and he answered me and delivered me from my fears in other words he didn't get me out of the situation but his presence in the middle of it removes some of the sting of it he removes some of the fear of it right faith is not the confidence to get out of everything faith is being so aware of the presence of god in the thing that it's a it's a removal of the sting of it right keep going those who look to him are radiant and their faces shall not be ashamed this poor man cried the lord heard him and saved him out of his trouble the angel of the lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them oh taste and see that the lord is good tamal in other words you could easily translate that let your behavior always reveal to the world that god is good this will turn out for my deliverance what does that mean it means hands clean heart pure taste sweet this will turn out for my deliverance so let's put some more language around this so that we're not just saying a platitude i hate platitudes platitudes is when you say something that's obviously true but when you're pushed you have no language right on how to apply that so let's put some more language around this next slide so he's not saying that he'll get out of prison he doesn't he's not saying that his suffering is going to end it doesn't he's not saying that he'll avoid death he doesn't he is saying that no matter how this turns out my heart hands and taste will be clean and and if you read it if you read it understanding the context what does he say this will turn out for my deliverance that is my eager expectation that i'll make it through the whole thing without being ashamed that christ will be honored in my body whether by life or by death for to me to live is christ and to die well that'd be better this is a guy resigned to his fate i'm not going to deny christ to save my life so let's talk about what he is saying next slide so he is saying that no matter how difficult this gets i won't enter in the way of thinking that i'll regret i'm not gonna i'm not gonna look back on this moment in my life and go what was i thinking sometimes when people go through bad things their compass spins it's not that they're bad people it's just the compass gets disoriented yeah that's one thing that have like divorce when people go psychologists have studied this what what they what they've noticed is that the nine months once somebody goes to a divorce the first nine months they they've interviewed people five years later about their behavior in that first nine months and they've actually this is so creative they've actually called it crazy time what they found is is that people five years after disaster look back at how they acted in the disaster and go what was i i drugged my whole family in front of a lawyer over 500 what what was i arguing about 500 what was i thinking paul's like no matter what happens here i'm not going to look back on this and regret something i'm not going to be ashamed or no matter how this turns out i'll keep my waist clean before god no matter how big the stress gets i'll stay focused on god and keep my life straight no matter what his praise will continually be in my mouth now this sounds inspiring doesn't it somebody on death row because of a false accusation for people he's trying to help and he still has this attitude this is inspiring i mean think about the people who inspire you the most they're not the people who don't go through anything it's not inspiring like if i brought somebody and say hey quick come up here tell everybody your testimony you just told me this is gonna be amazing guy comes up he says hello everybody my name's bill let me tell you about my life my life's awesome my marriage awesome my children awesome my business booming and you know what folks when i think about my past i gotta be honest with you i pretty much nailed that too we don't want to know that guy we'd be sort of happy for him maybe that's not inspiring the people who inspire us the most are the people who go through great trouble and their hands are clean they're hard of hearing the taste or sweet it's almost like when you it's almost like when you find out what they went through you're like really when oh just the last few months we man your countenance i have never known that this will turn out for my deliverance now if this is so inspiring how do we miss this like what what makes us miss my deliverance let me be clear when i say my deliverance i don't mean getting out of it i mean hands clean heart pure taste sweet in the middle of it i think we miss it three ways next slide one we generalize the particular when we generalize the particular um it it it robs us of clean hands pure heart sweet taste generalization in particular is when we take something that happened to us and we make it true of everybody so in my case i'm a speaker on stages if i get 10 000 emails 9995 of them or thank you you encourage me you help me understand this whatever five people think i'm a jerk right and they'll write it and they won't sign their name their nameless faceless plonker sitting behind a computer screen with no vested interest in what i'm doing at all and they call me a jerk and and you know human human nature is what do you focus on the 995 of them or do you focus on the five people you focus on them you're like what can i say different they don't understand what what did i do wrong no one's listening to me that's generalizing the particular or maybe you invite someone to church like would you like to come to church with me no no i hate church church hurts people right you're like church hurts people the the church down the road um just adopted a whole village in india and put a hospital and a school and ha and they feed 1500 people a week how does oh no no i went to church once and this lady on the third row she started a rumor about me and it hurt you know oh right so one lady at one moment at one time hurt you you see people when they go through things they generalize a woman who um who was really betrayed by her husband and then and the next day you know you're talking to her she's like all men cheat all all men all of us come on now no no you had an experience that was particular to you but you can't universalize that there's some good men there's some good women there's some crazy women not that's like but that's like that's like saying all women be crazy no they're not there's some there's some really really good ones there's some crazy ones there's some that there's some really really good men there's some dogs too right but but you can't you can't generalize the particular take it what it is the second thing we do is we freeze the present to freeze the present is the idea that this pain we're in will never leave us it's never going to go that's just not true see western people see time as a line going forward the ancient people saw time as a cycle going around that line so if you're in a winter season that's okay spring's coming and then summer and then fall and winter spring summer and fall that sometimes we all have winter seasons in our life but you don't you don't freeze the present and stay in winter spring comes death brings resurrection when when the leaves fall off trees something is going to spring forth with life but it's just in us to freeze the present like heck if we get a bad enough cold we're thinking i'll never breathe again four days later four days into it we're like my days of breathing are over i don't know it's just in us or heartbreak you know like like you you remember you remember your first breakup right yes you do of course you do you remember the i remember the first girl that broke up with me of course i do and it was mutual and don't you think anything less of that right we got together and together decided it wasn't working right but the thing is she seemed fine i was really broke up about it you know and i thought oh no oh god i hurt so bad i'll never find anybody oh i was 14 right and what do you do when you want to re-attract somebody you know just act desperate pout things like this my dad picked me up from school you know and i get in the car and dad's like hey it's the matter of you if you ever parented a teenager you know what i said what i say nothing my dad was like nothing really then tell your face that because i can't see in your heart but i can see your face and if your face is any indication of what's going on your heart then there's a problem so if there's really not a problem that means your face is broken so fix your flipping face about an hour later dad's had enough you know dad says hey you gotta tell me or not it's like dad she broke up with me it was mutual i hurt so bad my dad looked at me and said boy are you crying over a girl it's like yeah dad hurts way down here my dad said i'll be right back he come back with the smallest potted plant like i could easily hold it like this little green sprig i've always been a pretty good communicator i could see where this is going don't despise new beginnings fresh starts second chances new life bursting out of the ground nope not my dad my dad was like here's the lesson if you're gonna cry over a girl at least cry in the plant so your tears will do something god you're embarrassing and you know he was right three weeks later new girl forget her right right you don't freeze the present because when we generalize the particular and freeze the present we lose the plot there's no other way to go and there's a more profound way to live hands clean heart pure taste sweet the question is how next slide so paul says through your prayers and the provision of the spirit of jesus christ now that's a weird statement he's being tortured by nero right you would think he would say when you're going through something god gives you a special provision of grace to get through it that's what you would expect but he doesn't he says through your prayers and that see sometimes we absolve ourself from our responsibility in someone else's deliverance because we can't solve the problem and here's what it looks like if i engage your problem without being to solve the problem i'll be seen as someone who lacks faith because faith is getting you out of everything this comes from the theology that says oh you're suffering bring your suffering to me let me get my prayer life in this and we're going to get you right yeah well okay but until you realize you've you've engaged something that there is no fix for and it's in that moment that maybe we need to absolve ourselves from the pressure of solving everything and give people the gift of our presence and hope in the middle of it that you won't go through this by yourself that there's a hope i can let you you look low on hope i'ma let you borrow my hope right like this is a this is the direct opposite of well i'll just remember you in my prayers what no keep that remember me in your prayers i mean i mean i'm running low on hope you look like you have a lot of hope can i borrow some of your hope that's what i've done so paul says through your prayers and the provisional spirit of jesus now that's my best effort in explaining what happened let's ask the question what's happening in me right now because of what happened next slide so what's this teach us about togetherness identifying with someone else's pain not having to solve everything but rather being present with them in it it's it's it's the idea that i have a vested interest in your deliverance what do i mean by that i have a vested interest in making sure you keep your hands clean your heart pure your taste sweet and if it's nothing but barring my hopes you could do that years ago 1996 i got to meet a man named richard wormbrand i'd like to tell you his story um if you're over 50 you're like oh yeah richard wormbrand if you're under 50 you might be going richard wornbrain who's richard wormbrand was the father of the church in romania he was tortured by the communist military for standing up for religious freedom in romania i've had the incredible privilege of being able to speak at the big church in tamiya shawara that is there because of him when i met richard wormbrand he was very old he was in a wheelchair um his feet were propped up in that wheelchair his feet were size 22. i remember i remember being just taken aback by just the sheer size of his feet even though they were meant to be size 10 the reason is is part of the torture was they would strap his feet down and they would take bamboo sticks and beat the bottoms of his feet trying to get him to deny christ they would regularly strip his wife naked and throw her in ice water and then stand her shivering getting him to try to get him to deny jesus she's telling him please don't deny jesus he's not going to deny jesus and they were tortured over and over and over and over and over again for the cause of christ in romania i won a drawing and got to sit with him with 12 people and and i'll never forget two things that we talked about one is we asked him how did you treat the torturers i'll never forget this i'll be 95 wanting to be like this guy he said oh that's easy he said here's what we did when they were done torturing us my wife and i both would say this god loves you we love you god forgives you we forgive you go home tonight knowing there's nothing between you and god we love you god loves you we forgive you god forgives you go home tonight knowing there's nothing between you and god which is a whole lot better than i'm gonna call down fire from heaven and destroy you now you know he said what would happen is is sometimes the soldiers would get so moved by that level of grace that they'd ask us can you help us connect to that spirit that allows you to be that kind and they would in our words they would get saved right and he says we used to love that because they were on the torture rotation and so when someone has given their life to christ and they were the torture for the day they would beat the wall and we'd scream it was a big thing he said but but we would get out of the beatings that day you know and i thought oh my goodness and the second thing we asked is how'd you get through it and he said something that's very similar what paul said he said when you're going through something like that you get an extra provision of the grace of the spirit of jesus to get through it you just do he but then he said but that's not it and i said i'm thinking what he goes part of your torture is they tell you that they've already caught everybody you're standing up for and there's no reason for you to do it you're by yourself he said but what would happen is is the soldiers who'd given their life to christ they would at great risk to their own life they would smuggle in notes from the outside and they would say they would they would say listen um you're in there we're out here but you are not alone richard keep going what you're doing matters keep going we are with you you can borrow our hope and he said knowing that there was people there who couldn't solve it but they were in it with me allowed me to keep things right through your prayers and the provision and spirit of jesus this will turn out for my deliverance next slide so what does this teach us about identifying with the grace of christ like once we've experienced grace we can never let people suffer alone the reason is is because god isn't just putting you back together he's putting the whole world back together and we get to be a part of it how do we do that hands clean heart pure taste sweet how do we show the world what faith looks like in uncertainty it's not by pronouncing we have enough confidence to pronounce the end to covet that's not it it's no look at our countenance in the middle of it hands clean heart pure taste sweet this will turn out for my deliverance now great sermons are not meant to be agreed with nor disagreed with they're meant to be wrestled with for application what do we do with this next slide so what has happened to us that we need to resolve will turn out for our deliverance let's stop and let's cancel the white noise of the week for a second and let's name it underneath your breath call it what it is i'm waiting on a medical test and i'm worried my 26 year old is off the rails i've done all i could do to save the marriage and it still looks like they're leaving the client still appears to be leaving the business i've done all i can do for that client sally in accounting annoys me to death whatever the case may be let's call it what it is this is something that is beyond our control but we will resolve will turn out for our deliverance hands clean heart pure taste sweet in the middle of it can we can we resolve to have clean hands pure heart and great taste is there any place we're tempted to lose the plot right now just throw it all in just lose the plot maybe we need to repent from that next slide is there any place we froze in the present or generalize the particular maybe the most obvious application for today is do you need prayer and i don't mean in the hey we'll remember i mean no no before you leave today you need to be brave enough to walk up to somebody you trust and say i'm running a little low on hope you look like you have a lot of hope can i borrow some of your hope can i can i know that you're in this with me i'm not putting pressure on you to solve it i just need some hope ask them if you could borrow their hope they'll let you and if they won't steal it it'll be all right next slide this will turn out for my deliverance where do we need to say that until we feel it [Music] so i want us to i want to lead us through a spiritual exercise it's just called confession not in the saying your sins to somebody but in an agreement and i want you to take a second in your spirit and i want you to name the thing name it it's the it's the kid it's the marriage it's the medicine it's the problem it's sally and accounting it's whatever the case may be and i want us to say what we're going to say it three times once for our head once for our heart and once for our gut and hopefully something will happen in us i'm going to believe that hope will flow in an atmosphere in this room the phrase goes like this this will turn out for my deliverance with some go crows gusto let's say that together ready go this will turn out for my deliverance let's try that again one more time for our head now this will turn out for my deliverance one time for our heart this will turn out for my deliverance and one more time for our gut this will turn out for my deliverance lord i pray for all of us that we would have clean hands pure hearts sweet taste clean hands pure hearts sweet taste may the world see what faith looks like in uncertainty by looking at our countenance if you're here today and you've never said yes to jesus let me explain what that is it's simply choosing to trust jesus's version of your life story instead of the one you've been writing on your own it's all it is it's saying hey i trust that jesus has a better version of my life than the one i'm creating for myself and i'm going to choose to trust that version of my life story and whatever that looks like we'll walk through whatever process that is but ultimately i'm going to choose to trust that god's version for my life is better than than the one i've been writing myself and if you're here today and and this message began to speak into your heart and you're like you know what i need to trust that one i need to trust that person if you'd like to trust jesus today no one's looking around we're dealing with our own stuff but i'd like to pray for you if you would just slip your hand up in the air i'd love to pray for you i'd love to to i see you over there that's so brave to be the first person to raise your hand i see you over there yeah i see you in the middle yep yep anybody else says you know what today is my day i'm gonna trust jesus's version of my life story instead of the one i've been writing on my own anybody else very quickly yep over there on the left great yep and in the middle yep today's by day jesus is gonna be the lord of my life and what that means is is i'm trusting his version of my life story instead of what i've been writing on my own anybody else would join those four or five yep over there on the right yep anybody else very quick right so i'd like to say a prayer for you five and it's never the words of any prayer that do anything it's the response in your heart which you've already made but all i'm trying to do is put language around what you just did so i'm gonna pray a prayer out loud you just pray it inside in your heart and um and it'll say something like this lord jesus today i'm choosing to put my trust in your version of my life instead of the one i've been writing on my own i trust that your way is better i trust that your love is better i i thank you for forgiving me would you empower me to live the life that you envisioned for me amen now would you look this way thank you so much let me be part of your morning i hope jesus got bigger the cross worked better the resurrection is central scriptures got bigger not smaller i bless you to be people who are courageous enough to act upon what you heard may your hands be clean your heart be pure your taste be sweet for this will turn out for my deliverance grace and peace everybody god [Music] you

Channel: LIFE Adelaide

Views: 483

Rating: 4.6923075 out of 5

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Id: SAE5bJFFkxE

Length: 39min 43sec (2383 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 31 2020