I'm moving my slides. Okay? Alright. So here's a question for you. Have you ever been in a situation where you just didn't know how you were going to get past this problem?

Whatever it was, sometimes those situations can be financial. Sometimes they can be health problems. Sometimes they can be relationship problems. Sometimes work issues. Sometimes, you know, just all at once.

It seems like they all come on you at once. And almost every single one of us can say, yeah, we've been in that situation. We've been in a situation where we wondered how how are we gonna move forward from here. What are we gonna do? How does this I can't find a solution.

You know, that's the way we're built as human beings is we try to find our solution. We search for it. If we aren't new to a problem, the very first thing we try to do is we try in our own strength and our own knowledge to solve the problem, to get past whatever it is that's going on. We try to do that. Probably many of us have been in situations that were dire, a place where we just didn't know what was going to happen.

I've been in situations where, you know, most of the time, through my own fault, I got in a situation where there was a whole lot more months left than there was money. How am I going to get to the end of the month when there's no money left? I still have to pay the bills. I still have to buy food. I still have to eat the you know, the still have to put gas in the car.

There's all these things that have to happen, and and there's just nothing there. How am I gonna get to the end of that? I've had people that I know that have come, and they've we've talked, and they said, you know, we had this disaster happen. All these things occurred in our life, and all of a sudden, everything we had saved is gone, and we still can't make ends meet. What what are we gonna do?

How are we gonna get to the next step? There are those that say, I've tried everything to resolve an issue with my spouse. We've been to counseling. We've done everything. We've tried all that there is, and we just don't see how we can get to the next step, how we can get past this.

All of these things are huge in our life, and all of these things most every person in this room has probably been in a place where when you looked around in the situation you were in, all you could see around you was darkness, and it felt like the room was closing in on you. It's just closing in. How do we handle this? How do we move past it? We don't know.

We don't understand. So for you, how did that get resolved? What happened? For some, maybe you had friends or family and you called them up and said, hey. Here's the situation.

Can you loan me some money to get through to the next month? And maybe they were able to help you out. Maybe, the friends and family said, I don't have any money, but you know what? I got a lot of extra food. I'm gonna bring the food over to you, and that way, make sure you have something to eat for the next couple weeks till you get the paycheck.

Maybe, you know, you need me to take the children while the 2 of you try to talk and work things out and figure out what exactly going on. I can do that. Maybe you just need somebody outside of your normal circle to talk to for a little bit, and so you talk to somebody. Maybe you talk to a counselor. Maybe you had somebody that helped you through, a doctor that helped you with a situation that was happening.

Maybe that all those things happened. Maybe you got through all of that by calling upon other humans. Other humans are good, and and other humans help, and they do a lot of things, but they can't resolve everything. Sometimes there are issues that go beyond that. The friends that I was telling you, I talked to them and they said, you know, I don't know what we're gonna do.

Literally, we're we have this bill. They told us if it's not paid by this day, the next day, they're gonna turn off our power, and we've we don't have any way to do it. We don't know what we're gonna do. Hours later after praying, I get a phone call. Hey, pastor.

We don't understand exactly what happened. Did you tell anybody specifically about what was going on with us? I didn't. Well, I went out and opened the mailbox, and there was a letter that didn't come from the post office. There was no stamp on it.

I opened it up, and I pulled it out, and there was a check for the exact amount of the bill that I owe. How would anybody know? It wasn't it was a cashier's check, so there was nothing I I couldn't tell where it came from or who gave it to us or any of that. It was just there, and it was the exact amount. How would anybody know?

I said, were you praying about it? Yeah. We were praying about it. I said, well, God answered your prayer. God answered your prayer.

He took care of it. I had issues where I couldn't figure out what I'm gonna do. All of a sudden, I go out the mailbox, open it up, and of all things, I had a, insurance, refund. I wasn't expecting enough money to cover what I needed. There all these things that go on that you can't say there was a human being that did that.

It was a miracle. How did that happen? Where did it come from? But we get to that problem and we all go, I don't know. What are we gonna do?

Some people have miraculous stories of how they got through it. Others have friends and family that got them through it, but almost every one of us have been in those situations. So I wanna share with you today the passage of scripture that I shared with the children. Today, it won't be on the screen for you, so I'm gonna ask you to get your Bible and turn to 2nd Kings, 4 1 through 7. 2nd Kings chapter 4, and we're gonna read verses 1 through 7.

Alright. It says, now a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, and the creditor has come to take my 2 children to be his slaves. Elisha said to her, what shall I do for you? Tell me. What do you have in the house?

She said, your maidservant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil. Then he said, go borrow vessels at large for yourself from all your neighbors, even empty vessels. Do not get a few. In other words, get a lot. And you shall go in and shut the door behind you and your sons and pour out into all these vessels, and you shall set aside what is full.

So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons. They were bringing the vessels to her as she poured. When the vessels were full, she said to her son, bring me another vessel. And he said to her, there is not one vessel more. And the oil stopped.

Then she came out and told the man of god, and he said, go, sell the oil, pay your debt, and you and your sons can live on the rest. Now the thing I want us to see here is this woman was in a dire situation. In that day, if husband passed away, the no money to pay the debts, they could come in and either you could sell yourself into slavery, or they could come and take your children into slavery, Whatever it was to pay your debts. The debts had to be paid. Now God was telling them don't be so harsh on people, but, you know, society.

Right? So this woman who had lost her husband, they they're going to take them into slavery because they want their money. What are we gonna do? Well, in that day, she went to talk to the prophet because that's how they communicated with God, and the prophet gave the woman a directive. Get a bunch of vessels, get all these vessels, anything that can hold the oil, and bring them into your house.

Don't get just a few, get a lot. Get as many as you can get. Borrow them all from your neighbors. Bring them in. Get all that you can, and bring them into your house.

Now he didn't say, hey. I understand you're in a in a bad situation. Let me get out my wallet, and I'll just take care of your debt. He didn't say, well, let me go talk to the the creditors and see if I can get them to forgive your debt. He didn't say, let's start a GoFundMe page and see if we can get enough money to pay your debt.

He didn't do any of those things. He didn't resolve her situation immediately. He gave her a directive for her to follow in order for her situation to be resolved. You see, it wasn't just an easy fix. She needed to have faith.

He needed to show her that she needed to have faith, so he gave her a directive and said, go and do this. Go and do this. The reality is when he said that, for you and I, I'm I'm like the children. I'm I'm looking at this ball. I'm going, there's only this much.

Now look, Elisha, I know this oil is expensive, but there's only this much. How is that gonna provide for our needs? How is what am I gonna do with all these vessels? There's only this much. That's my human side thinking.

But we don't see where she ever argued. He gave her a directive. He didn't give her money. He didn't go talk to her creditors. He didn't do anything to just make her problems go away, but he told her to do something very strange.

We, as human beings, we just love to have a quick resolution to anything that happens. Oh, I got a problem. Let's get it fixed. Something quick, something easy, something that's gonna make it go away. No problem.

Boom. I I have a problem. I can't pay a bill. Boom. Somebody give me some money.

It's good. Took care of it. Thank you. You know, whatever it is, we wanna make it easy. But Elisha didn't make it easy.

He said, listen. This is something you've gotta do. You've gotta work through this, and you gotta trust god in it. And so here, go and get these vessels, and then pour them and fill them up. And we'll figure out what to do at that point.

Well, she wasn't necessarily probably understanding that he was saying trust God at this point. She was just doing what he told her. Okay. That's what you're saying. I will go and do that.

I will go and do that. I'm not sure why, but you told me, so I'm gonna go and do that. God tells us things sometimes, and we wonder why would God have us do it that way. Why would that be the situate? That just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

Why would we do it that way? I just don't wanna do it because it doesn't make sense. We read about a blind man that was told to go and wash in the river, and he said, this river's dirty. Why would I wash in this river and be healed? Actually, it was a I think it was a leper.

Why would I wash in this river and be healed when I could wash in a clean river? God gave him a simple directive. Just go wash. You'll be healed. But instead of doing it, he won't argue about it.

God tells us so many times, trust me. Give everything over to me, and I will take care of it. My way is easy. Give it to me. But we wanna hold on to it and say, no.

No. I got it. Just give me what I need. Give me what I'm asking for. God said, let me do it my way.

Go get vessels, fill them up with oil. Start pouring the oil. She didn't really understand that he was telling her to trust God, but she trusted him. She trusted Elijah as a prophet of God. She trusted that he was in communication with God, and so, therefore, she decided to do exactly what he told her.

Can you imagine her astonishment as the oil just kept flowing? As the oil just kept on pouring out. Now look. I know there's only this much in here. And I pour it out.

And all of a sudden, it fills something this big. I'm going, how is that possible? And it just keeps flowing, and it keeps going, and it keeps going. And then it's almost like, well, let's just see how far it'll go. Let's fill as many as we can and just keep on going and going and and amazing.

How is that possible? How did God do that? She's just pouring. What Elijah told her to do, she just continued to do it, and, obviously, she was overwhelmed at what was happening. But she didn't stop.

She didn't go. You know, this is crazy. This can't be. I got 10 things full of oil right now. That's enough.

That's plenty. No. She just kept going. Well, if I'm I've gone this far, I might as well keep going and finish what I've been told to do. I might as well keep on going.

I don't know what I'm gonna do with all this, but I'll just keep going. We have a tendency to even when we see God do something amazing in our life, we have a tendency to cut it off and go, wow. That was awesome. Thanks. But But what if God wanted to do more?

What if there were more blessings that God wanted to pour out upon you? What if there was something else, but we stopped it because we said, oh, that's all I need. How do you know? We don't know what we need. We think we know what we need, but we don't know.

What if God wanted to pour out more blessings? Why would we stop him? If the woman stopped pouring after 10 vessels and said, this is plenty to pay my debt. Well, her debt could have been paid with that. But now what are they gonna do?

She couldn't get a job, her own property. She couldn't make a a living because she was a woman. In that day, that wasn't allowed. We're not told how old her sons were, but they must not have been grown men yet. Now what was going to happen?

They would have been in in a bad situation again, but god said just keep pouring. When she poured it all out, not only did they have enough to take care of all the debt, they had enough to live on after that. So God gave them what they needed and poured more out on top of it because they were obedient in what God said to do. They were obedient in what God said to do. She didn't stop doing what she was called to do.

She just kept doing it. So how's all that possible? People tend to act too proud. Like I said, here's the thing. We're so proud, we only need this.

That's all I need. So once I get this, stop, god. That's good. I don't need anymore. God may have more.

Why stop him? Maybe God's gonna show you that he's gonna give you more in order for you to bless somebody else. Maybe he's gonna take care of you in ways you never expected. Why are we so proud that we think we have to do it on our own, or even if God gives us a blessing, we only want this much blessing. Why are we so proud that we have to do that?

Sometimes people just want somebody to give them something. So instead of being having to work for it, just give it to me. Just give it to me. You know, I'm I I don't have any money, and I'm hungry, and, you know, I need some help. Yeah.

I'm I'm strong, and, you know, I got plenty of energy, and and I know how to use a lawnmower or a weed eater. I know how to do all that. So, look, you come and cut my grass and do what needs to be done, and then I'm gonna give you some money so you can go get some food. Don't do that. I just want you to give me the money.

I don't wanna have to go work for it. Just give me the money. I don't I don't wanna have to worry about following what you want me to do, god. I just want you to bless me. You just don't just bless me.

I know I haven't been in church in a while. I know I had opened my bible. Hadn't even prayed to you in a while, but just bless me right now because I need it. Just give it to me. Just because.

Sometimes people are in situation where you have to just give, but I'm talking about when you're in a situation where you could do something. Instead of doing that, you just want it to be given. You don't even wanna be bothered. God's people are the same way. We could do something.

We could spend time together with God. We could further our education with God. We could get our relationship closer with God. We could do all of that, but instead, we just want somebody to just give us what we need when we get in trouble and then go away. I don't want you to tell me what to do the rest of the time, God.

Just right now, give me what I need, then get out of the way because I know everything else. We're we're proud. Sometimes we're just lazy. Sometimes, we just don't wanna trust. Sometimes, we turn to everything else but God.

Sometimes we turn to everything else but God. We've done everything. We've tried getting a loan. We've tried, borrowing money from friends. We've tried, getting out and doing fixing something ourselves.

We've tried whatever it is. We've tried everything else but turning to God. Now I'm not talking about lost people here. I'm talking about believers. People who know Jesus as lord and savior.

Sometimes we will do everything else before we turn to god and say, help. God, I'm in a bad place. I need your help. We'll do everything else, and then I know you've all heard this. Well, I guess there's nothing else left to do but pray.

Well, it should have been the first thing. Pray. You're in a situation. Pray. Wow.

I don't wanna be selfish. God commands us to pray. He commands us to talk to him. He wants us to be with him. He wants us to have that relationship.

Well, I I wanna try everything out. Why? Because you know why? Because if God provides it, it comes with strings attached. You know, God pours that blessing out, then he expects me to go to church.

You know, he expects me to talk to him, pray, and do things. God, so I don't wanna take it from God. Reality is we should be doing all that before then anyway. God, help me. Are we gonna pray?

We're gonna really give it to God? Are we gonna really live for God? We call ourselves a Christian. We say we're our believers, that we've accepted Jesus Christ into our heart and made him lord, meaning master, and yet he's the last one that we wanna turn to. The last option.

I have no other option. I finally have to turn to God. He wants to be first in everything in your life. 1st, when you wake up in the morning, praise God. When you're given that meal, praise god.

When your car cranks, praise god. Everything you do, praise god. He wants to be first. And if something goes wrong, call on god first. He says, I'll never leave you or forsake you.

Never. I'll never leave you or forsake you, so call on me first. Give everything to him. The reality is people have an overall lack of faith. So what can we do about it?

How do we change this in our life? Well, it starts with humility. It starts with humility. This woman in this passage had to humble herself. She was in a bad place.

It wasn't her fault, but she had to humble herself and go talk to Elijah because she had no other option. And when she realized that she needed to be humble and go before Elijah, She humbled herself. You see, that's part of the reason why we don't turn to god first, is we don't humble ourselves. Pile it all up on me. I can do it.

I can carry it. I can do everything. No. Humble yourself. God says, be humble.

Understand that apart from me, you can do nothing. That's what the scripture says. Apart from me, you can do nothing, but you could do all things through Christ who strengthens you. So humble yourself first and realize that you are not god, that you are not Jesus, that you are not in charge, that Jesus is the lord of your life. Humble yourself before him.

The woman had to humble herself in order to ask for help in the first place. So the question today is, why is humility so hard? Why is that so hard? It seems to be one of the hardest things that we do. Humble yourself.

Man, I gotta go ask for help. Let let me try something else. Let me let me try something let me try one more thing before I ask anybody to help. We do it in everything. We do it in, say we're working on something.

Right? We decided, I can do that. Then we get halfway through it and go, man, what did I get into? Well, I don't know how to fix this. I'm gonna have to ask somebody to help me.

Wait. Let me try this. Oh, I got shocked. Why did I get shocked? I didn't ask for help.

I didn't know what happened. Instead of getting shocked, instead of getting hurt, instead of going through all those things, what if I just asked for help in the first place? Why do I have this idea that to ask for help is a bad thing? Because the world says so. The world says you need to be proud.

You don't need to ask for help. You need to know how to do it yourself. You need to be strong. Don't be humble. You gotta pour that out.

I talked to people before about being a believer in Christ. They said, you see, I just don't think I can do that because Christians are such weak people. What do you mean they're weak? Well, you know, they have to humble themselves and all of that, and I just I just don't think I can do that. Man, Christians are the strongest people in the world because they gain their strength from God.

They take away the things that of the world, and they give it to God. The reality is humility is not a bad thing. It's a good thing for you to realize you're not God. That's what it all boils down to, understanding you're not God, and God is the one you turn to. He's supposed to be first in your life.

The woman had to humble herself before anything else could be done. When you're in those dire situations, the first thing you gotta do is humble yourself. Humble yourself and speak to God. Next thing it takes is faith. It takes humility, but it also takes faith.

So if you humble yourself but you don't have faith that God can do it, then how are you gonna make that next step? You gotta have faith. Once she humbled herself, she had to have faith. Elisha said, gather up all the pots and do this. She didn't really know why she had that faith, but, okay, I'll go do that.

I will do what you said. In her situation, perhaps she had more faith than Elisha because she had not been able to have that 1 on 1 relationship like we have today because that was before Jesus came. Right? But now we have that 1 on 1 relationship. And so when we know this is what we're supposed to do, even if we don't understand why, have faith.

She had the faith that I'm gonna go do what he said, and it's gonna be taken care of. Faith that God would take care of her somehow. She didn't really know how. She didn't understand. I only have this little bit of oil.

What's that gonna do? But he said do this, so somehow it's gonna get taken care of. I don't know how, but I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna follow in that faith. That's the reality for us is we've got to have the faith.

People say, well, how can you have faith in something you've never seen? Well, I may never have seen God face to face, but I've seen what God has done in my life. You know, the argument is always this. Well, how can you believe in something you can't see? Do you see the wind?

Yeah. You do. You're the only one. How did you see the wind? What do you mean?

I see it rustling through the trees all the yeah. But you didn't see the wind. You saw the trees moving. Well, that's true. But I know it's there because the trees are moving.

I could feel it blowing across my face, so I know the wind is there. I can't see God, but I feel him moving in my life. I see the things he's changing around me. I know what's going on, so I can have faith in God because he's present in my life. But you gotta have that faith.

You gotta have the faith. Trust him. Trust him. There's something else you need. What?

Charity. Charity? Wait a minute. We were talking about I had a problem, and and and I've talked to God. And now I've had to be humble, and now I've had to have faith, but now I have to have charity.

What what do you I don't understand. How do I need charity? Well, because charity is something that every one of us need in our life. Some people think of charity as this, somebody giving them stuff. That's charity.

That's that's the only way they think of it. Well, I don't want charity. I don't want that because I don't want people to just give me something. I want it, you know, I I can do it myself. I don't want charity.

But there's another definition of charity. It's another form of charity. It's helping people to help themselves. Elijah gave charity to the widow by helping her help herself by saying, trust God. Go get the pots.

Fill the pots. This is what God said. Help her help herself. Offer to let them mow the grass and give them some money. That's charity because you didn't just give them the money, you helped them help themselves.

You see, charity is something that we don't do enough of. Give them the tools and the means to improve their situation. We need that in our lives to help other people. When people come to you and you just give them money, is that charity? Well, yeah, it's charity.

But can you do it differently? Can you give them more than just the money? Can you help them to help themselves? Can you give them the tools to do things better? Can you do that?

We need that in our lives. We need all forms of that. Sometimes you just gotta help them out with the money in the situation. Sometimes you gotta do more than that. Sometimes you need just money.

Sometimes you need more than that in your life. And in this situation, Elisha gave them what they needed, and he said, go get all these pots and do this, and then I'm going to help you once that's done. So we've gotta have that charity in our life. Now this you may think this is the same word, just different, but it's a little different. The next word is the other thing is, we have to be giving.

We have to be giving. Why? God multiplies what people give him. God multiplies what people give him. What did the widow give?

The loyal. Did God multiply it? We don't even know how many times over. So much so that she could sell the oil, pay off all her debts, and still have money to live on. She gave that, and God multiplied it.

And he multiplied, and he multiplied, and he multiplied it, and he multiplied it. But you know what else he multiplies? He multiplies tithes and offerings. He multiplies the tithes and offerings that you give. You know, some people will say when you talk to them about giving, well, you know, I just don't have it to give right now because I have all these bills, and I have everything, and I just don't have the money to give.

Well, what if you give first and see what God does with it? Because God multiplies what you give to him. What if you give first and see what god does? I can give you testimony that there was many time in my life where I looked at and I said, on paper, I have all these bills, which I incurred on my own, by the way, more than I needed. I have all these bills, and I only have this much money coming in, and that only leaves, you know, 50¢ left over at the end of the month.

I I just don't have any money to give God. Finally, I realized, god wants me to give to him first, and he'll take care of everything else. So I started giving. I started giving. I started with a tithe.

I started giving 10%. Okay, god. I'm giving you I'm a write this check first. I'm giving it to you. I give you that tithe.

There's no way, based on my math, that if I give away 10% of my monthly income, that at the end of the month, I got enough money to pay all my bills. But somehow, at the end of the month, I had all the money to pay all the bills. Didn't still didn't have a 50¢ left over, but I had all the money to pay the bills and I tithed on it. I keep doing that. I keep doing that.

I still try to give the very first thing I do is try to give my tithe. God will multiply what you give him. As a church, when we give to God, he multiplies it. Whether it be in financial giving, whether it be in giving in service, whether it be in giving in love, whatever it is that we give, God will multiply. The widow didn't know how this was gonna happen, but God multiplied it and gave her not only enough, but an abundance to take care of her son and herself and her sons for however long.

When we give, God multiplies it. He will give us more. He will give us an abundance to reach other people, to grow, but we've gotta be willing to do it upfront. We've gotta do that. God uses all the gifts to further his kingdom as well as helping people.

When he took that oil and he multiplied it, not only was that a miracle that the widow saw, it was a miracle that her sons saw. It was a miracle that Elisha saw. And you know that the neighbors knew there was no way she had that much oil, and if she borrowed all of the vessels, they saw it. God furthered his kingdom because people trusted him more after the miracle that they saw. When we give and when we do and we serve and and everything is extended, people see it, and God furthers his kingdom.

When we have the the people that can go out and knock on doors and tell someone about Jesus, you know what happens? People get saved. We have people show up and we go, we do that. Maybe we only have 3 the first time. But what if the next time we have 3 more that go, you know what?

I can't do much, but I'm gonna do what I can. And they show up, and now we double the territory that we covered. There's double the chance that more people would come to know Jesus. What if we increased our tithe? What if instead of giving 10%, what if we say, you know what?

God has blessed me. He's really poured it out upon me. I'm gonna give as it's been given to me, and I'm gonna give 15%. I don't know how I'm gonna do that, but I know that I need to. I'm gonna do that.

I'm gonna give. I I haven't been giving, but you know what? I'm gonna give. What if suddenly people that haven't been giving started giving? People that gave gave more?

Suddenly, we're not looking at red ink at the end of the month. We're looking at positives, and now we're going, hey, we can further God's kingdom. We can we can do this and do that with things we can do. How incredible is that? That God can multiply what we give to him.

He multiplied everything that the widow had. He gave her more than she could even imagine, and he will multiply all the gifts that we give to his kingdom. We have those that sing. We have those that bake. We have those that make phone calls.

We have those that are prayer warriors. We have those that are leaders and teachers. We have those that can go out and knock on doors. We have people to do things. What if we give all those talents to God and let him multiply it?

How amazing would that be? Instead of saying, hey. We'd like for everybody to sit in the middle when you come in on Sunday morning. We could be saying, hey. Make sure y'all move over so we got enough room for everybody.

But the whole thing is we have to understand in all of this, God. God has a role. God's role in every bit of it. God provides even when it seems your whole world is crashing down. God provides.

Does he give you exactly what you asked for? Not always. Your world's crashing down and and you just say, you know what, God? Let me win the lottery so I'll be okay. Probably not.

Your world's crashing down and you're asking for whatever, but instead, friends and neighbors and loved ones show up to help you, and they get you out of the situation. Maybe somebody calls you and says, you know what? I'm praying for you. And you can feel that strength that god's given you through that. Maybe there's other ways that it happens, but god provides even when it seems your whole world is crashing down.

He provided not only enough oil to pay off the debts, but enough for him to live on. Now here's what I want you to understand today. It's the gift that keeps giving. Jesus is the gift that God gave us. It's the gift that keeps giving.

He gives in every way imaginable. Number 1 is love. God wants to pour out those blessings upon us. God delights in pouring blessings out upon us. He keeps giving and giving and giving and giving.

He pours out his blessings on his people when they turn to him, and he continues to give even when they don't understand how. But are you accepting what he's giving? Are you trying to limit it? Are you trying to do it on your own? Are you actually following God and paying attention to what he can do?

So the question today is, do you need to turn to him? Do you need to turn to him? Maybe you're here today, and you know what? You've been here. Maybe you're a guest here today.

Maybe you've been coming here for years, but there's one step that you've missed. You've never actually given your life to Christ. You show up on Sunday, and you sing, oh, how I love Jesus. You wear your clothes. You go to Sunday school.

You carry your bible, but you don't know him. You've never given your life to him. You've never surrendered to him. If you don't surrender to him, then when these things come, you're on your own. You're trying to figure it out.

No wonder he's not answering. You've never given your life to him. You've never given your life to him. Do you need him today? Understand he is the gift that keeps giving.

It is not one time. You come down the aisle, and and we talk, and and you pray, and you accept Jesus into your heart. And then later, you follow a believer's baptism, and and that's not it. It doesn't end there. It just begins.

God continues to pour out blessing after blessing when you follow him. But you gotta keep on following him. It's not a one time deal and then turn away and go back to doing whatever you want. You gotta follow God. He's now the one that's in charge in your life.

Understand this, when you think there is absolutely nothing left, he pours out more blessing. Sometimes we think about it like this, and we go, you know, in all my life, God has given me so much. God has poured all this out on me. He's done all these things, and now I'm in this situation. You know, I think I've probably exceeded my limit.

I've probably gotten everything that I was supposed to get. There's probably nothing left. There's probably nothing left for me to get, so you know what? I'm just gonna stop asking. Well, what you're doing when you do that is you limit God.

You say, God, you've helped me all you can. I understand. Thank you. But, you know, I know you can't do anything more. Why do you think that?

God has infinite blessings. God is greater than anything. He can pour out everything even when you think there's nothing left. Why do we limit what god can do? Why do we limit trusting god?

Why do we limit seeking the gift that keeps giving? Why do we do that? God never said, this much, that's all you get. God said, trust me. He said, apart from me, you can do nothing.

God wants to pour out blessings upon you. He wants to give you that love. He said, if you call on me with your mouth, you confess with your mouth Jesus is lord, and believe that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. And by saved, that means receive salvation. And through that salvation, he wants to give you that salvation and that sanctification all of your whole life.

It doesn't stop. Oh, he knows you're a human being and you're gonna run into problems. He knows you're a human being and you're gonna do things wrongly. But he says, hey. Keep trying.

Keep turning to me. I'll keep lifting you up. I'll keep on lifting you up. I wonder sometimes if you had a little child and they they ran outside and they fell and scraped their knee, they came in, you cleaned it up, put a Band Aid on it. The next day, they ran outside and they fell down, they scraped their knee and they came back.

You cleaned it up and put it back. How many times are you gonna do that before you say, I'm not doing this again? You just keep doing it. Right? They need your help.

You're gonna keep putting that band aid on. You're gonna keep taking care of them, and that's how we are for God. We're his children. Whatever we get into, God just keeps on taking care of us, but he wants us to acknowledge that we need him. He is the gift that keeps giving, but we need to put him first in order to receive those gifts, in order to understand that we need them, in order to ask for them in the first place, in order to be used by him that not only will he pour out the blessings upon us to take care of our needs, he will probably pour out enough blessings that we can use it to take care of somebody else.

Maybe not financially. Maybe it's maybe it's love. Maybe it's, the ability to do something. Maybe it's food that we can give. Maybe it's a a ride somewhere.

Whatever it is, but God gives us that we can give as well. Are you willing to trust him a 100% every day? The widow turned to Elijah. She said, I don't know what to do. Elijah said, go do this, and then bring them back to me.

And then he told her how God was gonna bless it. God says, go do this. I don't need you to ask a lot of questions. I don't need you to really try to figure it out. You just do this, and I'll show you how.

I'm gonna do it in your life today. Will you trust him? Will you put him first? Do you know him? Have you ever given your life to him?

In just a moment, we'll have a time invitation. As we do, I'm gonna ask you if you've never given your life to Jesus and you want to come talk to me about it today, I'll be here. Perhaps you know Jesus, but you know what? You have not been trusting him, putting him first. You have been limiting him in every way, and you just wanna come to the altar today and ask him to forgive you for that and to pledge to put him first every day.

The altar will be open. Whatever it is, you come as the lord puts it on your heart.

That is most definitely true. We owe everything to him. Everything. In this life, there's absolutely nothing we can do to find salvation except Jesus Christ. We can't work our way to heaven.

We can't buy our way to heaven. We can't be good enough to get to heaven. There's nothing we as individuals can do in our own strength and our own power to spend an eternity in heaven except through Jesus Christ. And so, you know, this week, we were looking at the the snow, and, honestly, you already know I was pretty excited about the whole event. I enjoy the cooler temperatures.

The snow was so beautiful. I was amazed at how much snow we got. I couldn't believe that that much snow was falling, and it was just continuing to come down. The temperatures did get too cold even for me, but, you know, I was really enjoying all of the beauty and everything that was there. It was so beautiful.

And even if it wasn't anything else, if you didn't like going out in it, you didn't wanna play in it, you didn't wanna do anything, you could look out at it, and it was absolutely beautiful. It was amazing to me to look out at my yard. And as I was talking about, my yard is it's got some ups and downs in some places that don't look so good and some that no grass will grow and other places everything was dead. But, you know, in just a matter of an hour or so, all of that was gone. It was covered with snow.

And the deeper the snow got, the more smooth the yard got. And so as I looked out to this beautiful yard with this beautiful white snow, the front, the back, everything was just gorgeous. And I looked at all of that, and while I was looking at all that snow, the verse came to me about being made whiter than snow. And so incredible to think about all of that that was happening in all of the snow and looking at it. And I said, well, you know what?

I think that God is trying to tell me I gotta preach on whiter than snow. And, so we you know, I spent some time praying and and looking at everything. And, I looked as the snow fell, and the snow covered everything. It covered the ground. It covered, the the deck, the cars.

It covered everything. I looked out while that snow was falling, and all I could think about was that that's just how God cleansed me. You know, I was I was a sinner full of sin, but I gave my life to him and all of that just came down and covered me up. And no longer does God see that ugly, nasty sin in my life. No longer does he see the person that I once was.

Now what he sees is he sees me exactly how he wanted me to be, cleansed and pure and all of those things that he has done. And so the snow, it covered everything. I want you to understand this. It did not skip anything. There wasn't anything that wasn't protected from it that wasn't covered.

It it it felt look. You know, they say, if a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear? It? If it snows in the forest, it gets covered. Everything is covered.

There's snow everywhere. In fact, yesterday afternoon, there were still places there was snow that hadn't yet melted. It covered everything. It didn't leave anything uncovered. And so when I think about that, that as that snow came down and it covered everything, it was so pretty, it was so, you know, enveloping, and it did all of that.

It reminded me of how God cleanses all our sins, all our shortcomings, everything about us that is not holy at all, God covers it through the blood of Jesus Christ. He gave us that opportunity for it all to be covered, everything. Probably you I know I and probably you sometimes walk into, talk to someone and they say, well, you know, I would like to ask Jesus into my life, but I just got too much baggage. It's just too I've done too many things. Listen, I'm however old and from a very young age, I have done nothing but live my life badly.

I've done things that I I I wouldn't even tell anybody because they were so bad. And I've got all of this that I'm carrying in my life, and I'm trying to be a better person, but I know there's no way that God can forgive all that. There's no way. Just like that snow covered every square inch of my yard, Jesus blood can cover every single sin in your life. Everything you've ever done, ever will do, it can all be covered.

There is nothing that does not get covered because it's too bad. There's nothing that is done that is too bad that God can't cover. We see in scripture where God forgive people who committed murder. We see in scripture where God forgave people who committed adultery. We see in scripture where God forgave people who were thieves.

We look at all of this, and God can forgive every single bit of that. Just like that snow came down and covered everything, Jesus' blood covers every area of your life. Covers everything. There's nothing that cannot be covered. God covers it all.

Look with me to Psalm 517. Actually, I think it's let's see. Yeah. 517, and it says this. It says, purify me with hyssop and I shall be clean.

Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Purify me with hyssop, I shall be clean, but wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. That's an amazing thought to me, to think about what God can do. To think about the things that he can do and how we can be covered. This whole passage, by the way, was after Nathan, the prophet Nathan, had pointed out David's sin to him.

David sinned, but, you know, he tried to put that behind him. He tried to just act as if it never happened. He did a lot to cover it up, by the way, and I'm talking about the sin with Bathsheba. He did a lot to try to cover that sin up. And, you know, that's what we do too.

We sin, and something happens in our life, and the first thing we do is we try to cover it up. Push it under the rug, you know, pretend it's not there. You know, that lump is there every day. We can see it, but we act as if it's not. I I didn't see that.

That sin's not there. We try to cover it so nobody else can see it. We try to cover it so we don't feel bad about it. We try not to think about it. Do you know that people won't walk into a church because they know they have sin in their life, and they're trying to forget about it?

And they know if they walk in, God's gonna reveal it to them. That's true. He will. God revealed David's sin to him through Nathan. Nathan told him a story about, someone stealing the one lamb that a person had, and David was so angry, and then Nathan said, that that man is you.

And he pointed this sin out to David, and David was heartbroken. David finally admitted and and looked and and and head on faced the sin that he had in his life. And so this whole passage is after Nathan had pointed out David's sin to him. David I mean, he was totally heartbroken from that, and we see the conversation that he is having with God. That's what that psalm is.

It's the conversation that David is having with God after this sin has been pointed out in his life. So David is heartbroken, and he's facing this, and he's praying, and he's asking God, cleanse me. Cleanse me. Wash me whiter than snow. Make me clean completely, because he knew that the sin that was in his life was something he could not do anything about, only God could.

He was truly broken, and we see this conversation. David is asking God, purify me with hyssop, which was used during purification rituals of that day. Right? They took this hyssop and they used it and they covered the person with it, and that was supposed to, purify them. And so during all these rituals and the things that they did, they used it as a purification ritual.

Here's the thing, if man is doing it, it's not gonna last. David said, purify me with that, but he went even further and said, wash me. God, you wash me. You cleanse me. You take care of all of that because he knew that if God washed him, then he would be whiter than snow.

He said, I I'm I'm heartbroken. All of this that I've done, and and I've I've tried to cover it up. I've tried to live as if it didn't happen, but you sent Nathan to tell me that you still knew that it happened, and you still see that sin, that it's still there. I've never repented of that sin. I've never given it to you.

God, now I'm heartbroken. I'm asking you, please forgive me. Wash it. Get rid of it. He said, cleanse me and make me whiter than snow.

I found that interesting. Why whiter than snow? Snow is pretty white. If you walked out this week and looked at the snow, like I said, it's blinding. That sun started coming down on, Wednesday with all that snow on the ground, it was very bright.

Why whiter than snow? Because he wanted it whiter, more cleansed than anything that could ever be seen on earth. He wanted it to be a supernatural cleansing that god would cleanse him and make him so clean. He would wash him and make him so clean that he would even be whiter than snow. He would be greater than anything that could happen in this world because it was god.

Take it all away. Get everything out of my life, and make me whiter than snow. Not just white as snow, but whiter than snow. Cleanse everything. You see, God can do that.

Too many times we limit God. We think, well, God can't he can't do everything. Yes, he can. He can't cleanse all those things that happened. Yes, he can.

God can forgive, he can cleanse, he can take away every thing in your life that is holding you back. He said, make me whiter than snow. The snow is so white it was blinding, but David said, make me even whiter than that. Cleanse me completely with everything. Here's something I want us to think about.

We have sin that happens in our life. As a believer, if you know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, he says, we are to confess our sins. Many times, we try to hide it. Just like David. I sinned, but I'm the only one that knows it.

Nobody else knows it. I'm just gonna put it out of my mind. I'm not gonna worry about it. I'll leave it there. Well, when you leave it there and it's unconfessed, it stays.

It is not gone, it's still there. God can forgive you and he has forgiven you, but he wants you to say, forgive me of this. He wants you to acknowledge, I sinned against you, god. And as I have, I I'm asking you to forgive it. And it's that sin that's unrepentant in your life that limits you and causes you problems, and it causes heartache and pain and everything in your life when you could be washed whiter than snow if you give it to god.

David saw that. He gave it to god. He said, make me whiter than snow, cleanse everything. Sometimes, even when we think we got something clean, there are germs hiding underneath. Right?

Oh, I I got it. That's beautiful. It's very clean. You can take a cup, put some hot water in it, rinse everything out. It looks beautiful.

I put it under a microscope. You didn't put any soap in there, you just put water. Put it under a microscope, guess what? You're gonna see all those germs still hanging around in there. They didn't get clean.

It looked clean. It looks beautiful. But still, there are all those germs hanging out in there because you only put hot water. You didn't use any soap. You only did part of it.

You didn't finish it. Many times when we do that, all this is hiding underneath. It looks clean on the outside, but it's not really clean on the inside. There are things there that never got cleansed. David said, cleanse everything, even the sin hiding underneath.

Cleanse all of it. Cleanse everything. God, I don't want to just take a bath, and I'm clean, but I'm only clean on the outside. I'm not clean on the inside, because I've never confessed that sin to you. I've never given it to you.

I've never asked you to take it away and wash me. I've never done all of that. He's clean on the outside, but he's not clean on the inside. Jesus used to, with the Pharisees, they did all this ritual hand washing and cleaning and everything he did. He called them hypocrites.

He said, you wash everything, but it's not what goes in the body that defiles it. It's what comes out the body that defiles it. You do all this external cleansing, but you didn't do anything about cleansing your heart on the inside. Listen, as believers, we walk around with that in our life. If we're not cleansed on the inside, then what comes out is not clean.

We can look beautiful, we can put on the best clothes, have our hair fixed just perfectly, we can look great on the outside, our lives to onlookers can be wonderful. But you know, if you have that sin in your life that you have not repented. Only God can make us clean. Only God can do it. You know, just like you had to have soap to get the glass clean, you gotta have God to get your sin cleansed.

He's the only one. You can't buy it at Walmart. God is the only one that can cleanse it. He is the only one that can make us clean, because he cleanses the inner most parts of our heart. Those things that we even hide deeply from our self.

There are times when we hide things in our life so deeply, that we literally walk around not remembering something because we've hidden it away so far. But something's still not right. Something's still not not perfect. You know, it's kinda it'll rock in your shoe, and it kind of moves over out of the way, and you don't feel that rock. Right?

So for right now, that rock is still there. You never got it out, but it's not hurting. So you kinda got it away, and it doesn't bother you. But it's still there, and one day that rock rolls back under your hill and you step down and about fall on the ground because it hurts so much. That sin that you think you've tucked away and hidden away and it's never gonna bother you again, it's still there waiting for the moment when it's gonna cripple you.

Waiting for the moment when it's gonna destroy whatever's going on in your life. Waiting for the moment when it's gonna destroy your witness as you try to talk to somebody else. Waiting for something. That sin is still there. You can try to bury it.

You can try to hide it, but it's still there. It's not gone. And if it's not gone, it's still going to be a problem, because you're hiding it. But wait a minute, preacher. I thought that when you asked Jesus into your heart, he forgave you of all your sins, present and future.

He did. It's not that he can't forgive you of that sin, it's that you're holding on to it in your life because you haven't confessed it. You're the one that's holding you on to it. You're the one that's causing the problems in your life. You're the one that hasn't gotten rid of it because you're holding on.

You're holding on. He's offered to cleanse it. He said he will cleanse it, but you're holding on to it. You've never gotten rid of it. Well, listen.

It starts with confession. It starts with confession. Oh, hold on now. I don't like this confession thing. I I don't I don't wanna do this confession thing, because, you know, confessing that that bringing that forward and and hashing it again, all that.

I don't I don't like that. Well, it starts with confession. I want you to look with me to the verses 1 through 4 of that same passage. Verses 1 through 4 of that same passage. It says this, be gracious to me, oh god, according to your lovingkindness, according to the greatness of your compassion, blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified when you speak and blameless when you judge. In order to confess, you've gotta have that broken heart. You've gotta get to that place and understand that you have sinned against 1, against God.

That's who you've really sinned against. Oh, you may have hurt somebody's feelings. You may have done something, against someone. You may have something against somebody else, but the true sin is against God because God's already given us the directives. God's already shown us how we're supposed to live.

So that sin is really against God, and we're holding on to the sin. If we hold on to the sin in our life, then we're the ones that are suffering. One of the hardest things for someone to understand. If someone has done something to you, and you say, I will never forgive them for that, the person you're hurting is you. It's not them.

A lot of times, they don't even know they did anything. You're holding something against them. They don't know why you're mad. You're absolutely holding on to it until you repent of that, and you go to them, and you tell them what they've done, and forgive them for what they've done to you, then you can't move on. You're locked into that.

It's gonna keep dragging you down. When you have that sin in your life that you keep tucking away and you haven't gotten rid of it, it's gonna keep holding you down just as surely as if you're wearing weights. If you're walking around and everything's cool, all of a sudden you put 20 pound weights on both feet, it's much harder to walk. You got a choice, take them off or keep walking. You decide, I'm just gonna pretend they're not there.

Keep walking. Keep trudging along. Suddenly, finally, you take them off. Man, how much lighter it is. How much easier it is to walk.

How much different it is. The sin in your life is just as heavy and weighing you down as those weights on you. You have to confess. That's the first thing. Well, you mean I gotta stand up in front of the church and tell everybody what I did?

Well, if God tells you that I'm talking about confessing it to God. Well, doesn't he already know? Mhmm. But he wants you to take the responsibility for it. And if you don't confess it to him, you can't start the responsibility.

It starts with a confession. You have to take the responsibility and say, okay. I did it. I can't blame it on this person or that person. I can't blame it on my circumstances.

I can't blame it on all these other things, but I did it, God. I sinned. I have this sin in my life. I did it. You gotta start with that confession.

In order to confess, your heart's gotta be broken. What do you mean my heart's gotta be broken? Until that happens, you're not ready to confess. Until you realize what you've done and the sin that you've committed against God, and the fact that it has broken your heart because you have done what you did against God, you're not ready to confess. Otherwise, you might try to do it superficially.

You need that broken heart. Your heart needs to be broken just like god's heart is broken when he sees the sin in your life. God, I've sinned. I've let you down. I've sinned against you.

That broken heart causes the confession to come forth. You've got to examine yourself. You see, that's where we as believers in Christ in the 21st century in the United States of America, fail miserably. We don't examine our own life. We like to point out everybody else's stuff, but we don't do our own.

We don't look at ourself. I'm okay. But let me tell you about you. Scripture says, take a look at your own eye first. We don't like to examine ourself on a daily.

We don't like to check and see, did I make a good decision? And sometimes even when we know that something we did was wrong, we just try to play it off. Well, you know, everybody makes mistakes. It's okay. No.

That's something you need to confess. Look at your walk with God. Are you walking with him? If he was standing beside you as you walk, are you thinking he would be satisfied with how you're living your life? Have you even checked that out?

Have you even thought about it? Many people today do not even consider that I need to check myself out. Do you know the number one cause for heart attacks for both men and women in the United States of America? Failure to go see a doctor. Undiagnosed problems.

They don't go get it checked out. Well, I'm okay. They don't check their self out. Well, I hadn't had any chest pains. Well, if you're having chest pains as you're getting late and getting checked out, You're having problems, that's not that you need to go before then.

Have a physical examination. Have the doctor check everything. See what's going on because you can't see it inside your own body. Go see the doctor before that. If you're walking in in in Christ, and and you're not having a physical examination, a heart examination by God on a daily basis, then there are things there that you have either, a, pushed down to try to forget, or, b, for some reason you've not recognized.

You need to be checking yourself daily. That's the only way we can stay in the good walk with God is daily, take up our cross and follow him. Daily, deny ourselves. Daily, ask him to look in our lives. It starts with confession.

David confessed before God that he is a sinner. For some, this could be the first time that you confess and that Jesus comes into your life. So when I say you have to confess, first of all, when you confess, is it the first time you've ever confessed? Is it the first time you've ever asked God to forgive you of your sin and come into your life? Have you ever done that?

If you've never done that, you can't just simply go and confess your sin now. You've got to confess that you don't know him, that he's not in your life. You gotta ask him to come into your life. To come in and take control. If you have asked him to come into your life and you know that you are saved, that you've given your life to Christ, and you know that he has given you salvation, then it's a time of reflection and understanding that all y'all know my word, all.

It's completely inclusive. No exclusions. All sin needs to be confessed. You mean when the clerk gave me back 50¢ more than I was supposed to get back, I and I didn't give it back to her, I gotta confess that? Stealing.

Well, is it really stealing? Yeah. If you're trying to, justify what you did, it's probably already the fact that you've already sinned. When you start trying to justify why you did something that you know already you shouldn't have done, yeah, it's sin. So you mean when when, you know, I I I took that pen from work because my kid needed one for school, that's a problem.

Yeah. That's stealing. All these things have to be confessed to God. Confess them. Get them out of your life.

I thought about this. What if every time you sinned, there was a rock in your house? Every time you sinned, there's a big rock that just shows up in your house. If you don't confess that the rock stays, then there's another sin and another rock and another sin. Pretty soon you want those rocks out of the house.

Right? You wanna throw them out. You wanna get them out of the way. You don't want them in the house. You don't want them in the way.

Well, if every time you sin, what if a weight shows up on your feet, and you don't confess it? The weights keep getting heavier and heavier and heavier. If you're not confessing that sin and cleansing, getting that cleansing from God, then you are being weighed down on a daily basis. Many of us just live with that. Well, it's just my cross to bear.

No. It's not. Jesus said give it to him. It's not yours. He said, give it to him.

Think about this. Why are we confessing it? Because all sin is against god. Just let that sink in a second. All sin is against God.

The creator, the one who gave you life, the one who gave you salvation, the one who gave you everything, all sin is against him. All of it. In order to confess, you must have a broken heart. You must have remorse for what you've done. You must have that that point that you can do nothing else but confess.

The point that is so heavy that it's driving you to your knees. When a a lost person never sees they're a sinner, they can't be remorseful. They can't have remorse for the sin in their life if they never realized they're a sinner. For a lost person, the confession they have is that I'm lost. That's the confession they have upfront.

I'm lost. And at that point, then God reveals the sin. They have to come and have that heart that's broken for the things that they know they're missing. If God removes the veil from their eyes, then they can see. It takes God doing that.

For a saved person, we have to look deep in our hearts and see what it is that we've been lying about. What do you mean lying? You've been lying to yourself. You've been lying to God. You've been lying to everybody, because there's sin that hasn't been acknowledged.

When our sin is acknowledged and our heart is broken, it causes us to confess it. When we confess it, God cleanses it. God has the power to cleanse even the hardest stains. Even the hardest stains. You ever had a a pot that something burned in?

Man, you scrub with everything you can think of trying to get that stuff out. And sometimes it just seems like you're never gonna get that stain out. Sometimes, it's sin is the same way in our lives. It's a hard stain because it's been there a long time. The longer it sits, the harder it is to clean.

The longer that sin stays in your heart, the harder it is to confess, the harder it is to clean. But God has the power to cleanse even the hardest stains. And for him, it's easy. He can cleanse it like that. But we leave it sit, continuing to fester, continuing to get that way.

Sometimes we give up with whatever it is that we're trying to cleanse, and we just throw it out because, you know, it's not worth it. It's gotten to the point where we can't clean it. It won't come clean. We've tried everything but gasoline, and we can't get it clean. Right?

So we just toss it. Get rid of it. Can I tell you something? God will never throw you out. He will never give up on you.

He will never just stop because that stain is too old and too hard to clean. He will never give up. God is willing. He stands ready to forgive. We just have to confess it to him.

We have to bring it to him, and he can cleanse even the hardest thing. Man will give up, but God will not. Man will give up, but God will not. He can cleanse beyond man's ability, and he can make you whiter than even snow. He can do that.

But this cleansing process, it's a process. What do you mean? You just said he could cleanse it like that. He can, but it's a process. 1st, your heart needs to be broken for that sin.

It needs to be broken. It takes us looking deeply and honestly in our self in order for us to see that sin and to acknowledge that sin. Next, we have to confess it. We have to confess it. It has to be done.

If you don't confess it, then why would God wanna cleanse it for you? It has to be confessed. Our heart should be broken for it. God's heart is broken every time we sin. Our heart should be broken every time we sin.

We need to confess it. Get it out. Here it is. God, take it out. And then when we confess it, God is faithful to cleanse it.

He is faithful to cleanse that sin and get it out of your heart. You confess that sin against God to God himself. Romans 10:9 says, if you confess with your mouth Jesus is lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. It takes a confession for you to be saved. If you know Jesus as lord and savior, you've done that already, then it takes a confession to keep you cleansed.

To keep all of that out, it takes that confession. But we also not only when we confess it, we have to forgive I mean, we have to receive the forgiveness. We have to receive it. The number one reason that people walk around with the sin still in their life, is they don't believe that when God gives them that forgiveness that they can even accept it. I'm not worthy to receive that.

I know God can cleanse me, but I'm not worthy. Look what I did. I'm not worthy to receive the forgiveness that God offers. We put our self in that position and say, I know that you can cleanse me, but I'm not worthy of that, and I don't want to accept it. I don't want to accept it.

Well, what we're doing is we're putting our self above god. We're saying we know better than you, god. We know better than you that we shouldn't be forgiven even though you said we can be. Even though you're giving us the opportunity, we're trying to say we know better than you. No.

We don't. It's a process. God has given us that cleansing. All we have to do is accept it. And listen, when you accept it, it's gone.

All of that sin is cleansed. You'll never see it. It's just like that ground under the snow. I couldn't see that ground under the snow unless I got out there and started digging down in it to try to find it. God said, no.

Don't I've covered it. Leave it alone. Don't don't mess with it. I've covered it up. I've taken care of it.

I've covered it with the blood of Christ. It's gone. It's gone. He said he cast it as far as the east is from the west. It's gone.

This process that God gives us is something we need to do on a daily basis. We need to look into ourselves. We need to examine our walk on a daily basis. We need to be the ones that are ready to confess when we find those things in our life. But if you don't know him, if you've never given your life to him, then my question for you today is this, are you ready to be cleansed wider than snow?

Are you ready for that? Are you ready to have all that weight lifted off of you? Are you ready to walk as a brand new creation? The old you being gone, the new you being a new creation in Christ. Are you ready for that?

Is there things in your life that God has shown you that you need to confess and get rid of? Then do it today. For those of you who know him, listen. How effective can you be telling someone about how wonderful the forgiveness of Christ is if you are not willing to accept it yourself? If you're not willing to accept it yourself, how can you really tell them how wonderful it is?

Be like those paid actors on TV that tells you how wonderful this product is. They've never tried it in their life. You know it's fake, and the person you're talking to and telling them how great god's forgiveness is, they're not gonna believe you because they can see in your life that you're not being you're not accepting that same forgiveness that you're trying to tell them about. It makes us ineffective. We look around this world today, and there are so many people that need to know about the forgiveness of Christ, yet we haven't received it because we haven't just accepted it.

And how can we tell them? This past Saturday, we had a time of visitation. Had brother Tim come and teach us a little bit about how to witness to somebody. It was supposed to have been last weekend, and then it was supposed to rain, and we changed it to this weekend. And we were very low in number.

I'm not saying that to try to hurt people's feelings. What I'm saying is, people need to know about Jesus. And if we don't have that close walk in our own life, it makes it very difficult for us to have a desire to go out and tell other people. So I want to encourage you today. It's time for a spiritual examination.

Just like you go to the doctor for a physical examination, it's time for a spiritual examination in your own life. Are you whiter than snow today? Or are you holding on to those stains that God's trying to cleanse? Have you confessed any of them? Are you ready to let all that weight go that God might use you to reach others?

You know, the only way that our nation will ever be a Christian nation again is if God's people will release all of that sin. I love passage that says, if my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and sin that we hold on to, the sin that we haven't confessed, the sin that we haven't accepted the forgiveness for, is what's holding God's people back today. Examine yourself this week. Are there things you need to confess? Are there things you need to do?

Is there someone you need to go to and forgive? Whatever it is, don't wait. You'd be amazed at how much lighter your walk will be, if you just give all that to God. We don't know when our time will end on this earth. It could be tonight.

It could be a 100 years from now. We don't know. We don't know what God will do. We don't know when he's coming back. We don't know how many breaths we've been given.

Why hold on to something that you could seek forgiveness for today? And be washed whiter than snow.

That whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. Notice that it says, whosoever. That means there are no restrictions. It doesn't matter where you come from, who you look like, or what's going on in your life, how bad you've been, how much money you've got. None of those things matter.

God so loved all of us, the world, that He gave His only Son, that you might have eternal life. Thank you so much. I appreciate all of our praise team this morning, and Miss Sharon, Miss Vicky is out sick, and so thank you guys for, doing such a fantastic job. You know, I love worshiping God in so many ways. You understand that when we say, well, we're gonna have a worship time and then preaching, it's all worship.

It's all worship. You see, we worship God through song. We worship God through giving. We worship God through hearing of his word. We worship God through reading his word.

We worship God through praying, and we worship God through living our lives. It's all worship. The problem is sometimes that last part, the living of our lives, we find ourselves not living it in worship, but instead living it selfishly, or living it in some way that's not necessarily pleasing to God. So here we are in a brand new year, 2025. It's we're almost halfway through the month.

It's rushing by already. It's incredible. And God was placing something on me, and so the the the sermon title today is Lord or Not. There we go. I wasn't on.

So we as believers often say, he is Lord of all. Right? Do I hear you guys say that? Do you say it sometime? Let's say it together.

He is lord of all. He's lord of all. We say that a lot of times. He is lord of all. Jesus is lord.

As I explained to the children, that means master. That means king. You can look at it any of those ways. He is lord of all. We know that scripture tells us Jesus is lord of all.

It says he is lord of lord and kings of kings. We know that scripture tells us that. So we understand in our mind, Jesus is lord of all. He is lord. Now the question today is this.

In your life, is he really? Is he really lord of all? Is he really lord at all? Is he the one that is lord in your life? The reality is too many times we say with our mouth, Jesus is lord.

But is he really? Is he lord, or is he not? Here's the thing. He can't be lord sometimes and other times not. If he's lord of all, he's lord at all times.

Is he lord or is he not? The definition of lord is someone having power, authority, or influence, master or ruler. There's a word in there that most of us do not like, master. Well, come on now, preacher. That word master, I mean, you know, we equate that with slaves, and and we don't want a a master over us.

We don't we're not we're not slaves to anyone. Well, the scripture tells us that we are bondservants if we call Jesus Lord, and that bondservant means slave. It means that we are a slave to him, but we are a slave because we choose to be, not because he forces us to be. You see the difference when we look at is he master or is he not master is do you choose him as master? You see, when we put that connotation in our mind and we say, well, we don't like that word master.

Those masters were ones who the people under them had no choice. They were forced into that servanthood. They were forced into that. Jesus will never force you. God never forces us to serve him.

He gives us a choice. He says, if you confess with your mouth. The point is, is he lord? Have you chosen to serve him? If he's lord, understand that means master.

That means he's over everything. He's over you on Sunday just like he's over you on Friday night. He's over you on Monday just like he's over you on Wednesday night. The reality is if he is lord by that definition, master or ruler, then he is over everything. So is he lord of all, or is he not lord at all?

We love to live in gray areas all the time. It's a gray area. It's not a gray area. Is he lord? Is he not?

England has a king. King Charles. Right? England has a king. First time they had a king in a long time.

Had a queen for a long, long time. Now they have a king. England has a king, so, of course, he's in charge. Right? He's the king.

Well, here's the reality. He is king in name only. The royal family has been in existence in the country for centuries. They have kings, they have queens, they have princes, princesses, duchess, dukes, all the different stuff that they have. Right?

They have all these things. They've been there for all of this time. But one thing every single one of those titles has in common in that country is they have no real authority. They have no authority. The king cannot make a declaration of war.

The king cannot make laws. The king cannot even enforce the laws. The king is nothing but a figurehead. The king over the king of England, basically, he is there in name only. And the country pays them to be king.

Ain't that amazing? Country pays him to be king. He's king with no authority. Too many people try to make Jesus lord with no authority in their life. Oh, they say he's lord.

Oh, yes. We we say he's lord. We call Jesus lord, but we don't actually give him the authority that he has. We call Jesus lord without allowing him to be lord. Oh, yes.

Jesus is lord of my life. Is he lord of everything? What do you mean is he lord of everything? Well, is there anything you put above god? What if, let's just say, everybody knows I love football.

Right? What if God put in my heart, you know what? You need to leave football completely alone. You just need to forget about football. Don't do anything, have anything at all to do with football.

Don't even need to watch it ever again. You need to take that time that you were watching football. You need to spend it in studying God's word or praying or going out and reaching people. If God put that in my heart and said, you just need to leave football alone. Now the question is, will I accept that?

Will I allow it? Will I say, okay, God, or now I'm gonna start bargaining. Right? Wait a minute, God. You know, I I mean, I can go out after the game.

Right? I can go out before the game. I can read my bible later on. I can do what god's no. This is what I want.

Am I gonna allow that to happen? Am I gonna make him lord? Because if I'm not gonna make him lord and obey that, then is he lord at all? Does he have any authority in my life for you? Maybe there's something in your life.

Maybe it's, I don't know, golf. Maybe it's work. Maybe it's family. Maybe it's money. Whatever it is.

And god says, that is not got a place in your life. I want you to put it aside and fill it with me. Will you do that? Or will you say, I I can't? Because if we say, I I can't do that, then is he lord at all?

Because if he's supposed to be lord, master, king of everything, he rules your life. If he's ruling your life and you refuse to follow that, is he lord at all? Is he lord at all? We say Jesus is lord, but then we try to limit what he is lord of. We wanna limit it.

I tell people this. When you confess with your mouth Jesus as lord, this is the throne of your life. And you say, god, I want you to be lord of my life. Here's the throne. You take it.

You sit on the throne, god. You give me direction. You tell me everything that I am to do, and I will be a loyal subject, and I will follow what you ask me to do. God says, I want you to go and be a missionary. You say, hang on.

Hang on. Get up. Move over. Wait. No.

Let me sit back down here. No. I can't do that. That's not me. I can't do that, lord.

You just pushed him out of the center of your life. You just pushed him away and said, no. You're not going to be my lord because you want me to do something that I don't wanna do. Understand that when Jesus called the disciples, he told them to leave what they were doing and follow him and follow him completely. He said, you follow me, I'll take care of the rest.

If you have called Jesus lord in your life, he said, you follow me. I'll take care of the rest. The royal family is a pretty figurehead for England. Oh, they dress up nice. They have all these crowns and robes and gowns and all the amazing things, and they have all the pomp and circumstance, and the horses, and the carriages, and, man, they have everything.

Oh, it looks beautiful. It looks beautiful when you're looking at it on the outside. Sometimes, that's what we want to do with God. The actual running of the country is done by parliament. The king's not part of parliament.

The king has no vote. King has no say so. The king, while having the title, is actually king of nothing. Does Jesus' title of lord act the same way in your life? Does he have the title lord, but he's actually lord of nothing?

We call him that. Do we like to parade Jesus around and say, Jesus is my lord. And then after people look at us, we push him back in the closet and say, but not today. We just make decisions without him. I came to know Jesus Christ 10 years of age.

10 years of age, and I look at my life, and I look back at the things that I did. And I was just sharing with someone the other day the importance of asking God his plans for your life. I made decisions about what I was gonna do as an adult in life, how I was gonna make a living, all the choices that I made. I made every one of those decisions, and not once during all of that time did I ever pause and say, god, what is it that you want me to do in this life? I said, this is what I'm doing.

God bless it. I made the decision. Now you bless the decision I made. If he's lord, that's not the way we do things. It wasn't until I was 38, 39 years old, I was getting ready to retire from the military, and I was looking at what am I gonna do after military life.

Oh, I had some plans, and I was already starting to pursue those plans. And one day, a pastor preaching a sermon said, are you on God's agenda? I don't know. I never asked God what his agenda was. Maybe I should do that.

And I began to pray about it, and god started calling me into ministry. Of course, you've heard the story. I said, no. No. That can't be me.

You've gotta be wrong about this. I fought it for a long time. But here's what I think about. If I called Jesus Lord at 10 years old, if I listened to him and asked him what he wanted from me in my life at 18 years old, would he have said, I want you in ministry at 18 years old? Perhaps, I should have been serving him in ministry, in vocational ministry for 20 years before I started.

What difference could that have made in not only my life, but also the lives of many people that I came in touch with? Does Jesus' title of lord act like a figurehead and not as an actual lord in your life? Look at me to Romans chapter 10 verse 9 and 10. Romans chapter 10 verse 9 and 10. Many of you are very familiar.

I've quoted the first part of this verse 2 or 3 times already this morning. Romans 109 and 10 says this, if you confess with your mouth Jesus as lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart, a person believes resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth, he confesses resulting in salvation. If you confess Jesus as lord. Have you ever done that?

If you confess Jesus as lord, reality is that you are given the choice to accept the call of god in your life to confess that he is lord, meaning you have given him the kingship of your life voluntarily. You gave it to him and believe that god raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. Have you voluntarily given him the kingship of your life, and are you allowing him to stay on the throne or are you pushing him out of the way? Understand what this means if you confess. You proclaim that Jesus will be your lord, your master, your king, your number 1 in your life.

You make a public proclamation of that. Right? Because we say that if you confess Jesus as lord, then you need to confess him before men so he will confess you before his father. So we have people come forward and they say, I proclaim Jesus. I accepted him into my life today as lord, and it's a public profession.

Then we have baptism, which is another public profession that the old you has died, and the new you has risen to walk under the lordship of Jesus Christ. But do we accept that, or is it simply words? Here's the simply words. You give him your life in exchange for salvation. Understand that.

You surrender your life to him just as surely as if you could pull the actual life out of your body and hand it to god and give it to him, and then he puts it back. You give him your life in exchange for salvation, a life that doesn't end, a life that goes on forever and all eternity. It says if you confess with your mouth Jesus as lord and believe that god raised him from the dead, you shall have eternal life. You give him your life, and in exchange, you receive salvation. But do you really give him all of your life?

Do you really give him all of your life? So When you're in the privacy of your home, when you're away from church, when you're in a place where you're not even gonna see the people that you go to church with, Maybe you're away from even your family. Is he still lord? Is he still the one that you're seeking to find out what you're to do every day? Do you get up each day and recommit that to him, god your lord?

Bible says, take up your cross daily. Daily. Deny yourself and take up your cross daily. Every day, it's a brand new surrender. It's a brand new surrender to him, because we tend to have short term memory.

Oh, yesterday, I gave my life to Christ, but that was yesterday. Today, I got these other things. Daily, we're supposed to give our life to him. Now listen. I'm not standing before you today as a person who has always followed the right path, and I've always given my life to god every single day, and always allowed him to be lord in my life.

But I'm a man that stands before you today just as you looking at me probably realize I need to work on that. I need to work on that. Every day, we need to give him our life. The phrase, either you're lord or you're not. I heard someone say, a new believer that had a lot of things in their life that they were trying to do.

And they were saying, god, what do I do? What what do I need to do? Show me the directions I need to do. And god said, that video game system that you love so much, you need to do away with that. He said, oh, come on.

Not that, god. He's looking at it, and he's going, not that, but that's I love doing that. He said, okay. Either you're lord or you're not. And he packed up the box, and he sent it to the palm shop.

Got rid of it. He said, I gotta get rid of it. That's what God has told me. Is there something in your life that God has shown you that needs to go, but yet we keep holding on to it because it's one of our favorite things. Is there something in your life that god has shown you you need to do, but you keep putting it off because of every excuse in the world?

Perhaps there's someone that god has said, you need to talk to them. You said, yeah. I can't do that. Is he lord or is he not? In the military, if they gave you an order and said, go do this, and you said, I ain't doing that, there's punishment involved in that.

You don't refuse an order. This is an order. You go do it. But somehow when god gives us a directive, we think it's debatable. We wanna say, ah, man, you know, send somebody else.

I'm I probably wouldn't be good at that. And Moses did the same thing. Right? He said, no. I can't do that.

I can't talk. I can't do the one be the one that speaks and does all of that, and he kept arguing with God. By the way, Moses did eventually speak to the people. Aaron wasn't continually always the one that spoke. Eventually, Moses did, but he gave Aaron to speak for him until he got him broke in.

The reality is, it's a process that we all have to learn. We have to give it to God every day. Do we really give it to him? Do we understand? We gave him our life.

Are we really going to give him all of our life? Is he lord or is he not? It means every single area of your life belongs to him. It belongs to him. When you're in the military, they tell you this.

They say, you know what? You're now government property. That doesn't sound good. I went to basic training, and they said, you gotta get a haircut. I had pretty short hair, you know, about like I have now.

No. No. You need a haircut. They sat me down that chair, and they didn't leave me any hair. I had to I could feel it, but I couldn't grab it.

There was nothing there. It was gone. Man, that's horrible. Of course, everybody, they shaved all their heads like that. We all walked out rubbing our heads.

Immediately got in trouble because we're supposed to have our hat on. That night, one of the men decided, you know what? If they took that much, I'm gonna take it all. So he got a razor out, and he shaved his head all the way down to bald. Nothing but skin.

Next day, falls out in formation. Do physical training and we don't wear a hat then. Drill sergeant came up and said, what did you do? He said, well, I just went ahead and shaved all the hair off my head. He said, did I tell you to do that?

Did anybody give you a direction to do that? That is destruction of government property, and you can be subject to article 15 because nobody told you to do that. Wow. What if that's what god did? Did I tell you to do that?

You're in trouble. I'm gonna punish you now because you didn't do what I told you to do, or you did something I didn't tell you to do. What if god did that? He doesn't. But what if he did?

Think about it like this. If if we can commit to a organization, a government organization, a military, and follow every rule they tell us that we have follow and do everything that they say we have to do? Why can't we do that with God? Why are we not willing to do it with the one that is above all? Why do we have to do it our way?

The reality for all of us is we have to learn to submit. We don't like that word either, especially Americans. We don't like that word submit or surrender. We want to be in charge. Every once in a while, one of the leaders would put a junior person in charge and go, okay.

You're in charge now. No training. No telling anything. Just you're in charge. And you know what happened every single time?

They messed it up. You know why they messed it up? Because they didn't know what they were doing. But they wanted to be the one in charge, so they got put in charge. God will never mess it up.

Everything he does, he knows exactly what he's doing and why he is doing it. It might not make exact sense to you, but he knows what he's doing. Do you ask god daily what he wants? The majority of us probably don't. We ask god at some point, what do you want?

We went in that direction, and we didn't ask anymore. Daily, we need to be asking, god, what do you want from me today? Maybe there's a new person in your life, and he wants you to talk to them. Maybe there's a habit in your life that you need to break. Maybe there's something that you need to start.

Whatever it is. What do you want today? Are there things in your life that he wants you to give up? That's hard, isn't it? Are there things in your life that he wants you to give up?

Man said he prayed to god, what do you want me to do that I might be a better servant to you, god? God said, you play too much golf. You need to cut that out. This man played golf 2, 3 times a week. He said, nope.

Put the golf aside. That was hard. But he said what he found when he did it was God filled that time that he used to go play golf with opportunities to share Jesus to those that don't know. God gave him opportunities to do things that he never would have had the opportunity if he spent all that time playing golf. God taught him things that he probably never would have listened to if he was busy with that what was going on in his life.

Are there things in your life that you have resisted giving up? Are there things that God said, get it out of your life, and you've resisted and said, no. I I don't wanna I wanna keep doing that. Or are there things that he wants in your life, but you have resisted? God said, go.

I want you to be a minister. I want you to be a vocational minister. I said, that can't be me. I resisted. I fought.

Eventually, as he does, god won. I look back at my life now and and I don't know how I would have ever survived had I not done what he told me to do. If we call him lord, but do not surrender everything, he isn't really lord. That's pretty simple fact. If we call him lord, but we do not surrender everything, he isn't really lord.

We're still lord. We just let him hold the role like the king of England. We let him walk around being the one that's pretty and everybody understands, yes, he's lord, but he's not. The biggest problem is we convince ourselves it's okay to only surrender part of our life. It's fine.

No problem. You know, I gave God the big parts. I do most of everything that God puts on my heart. I ask him about a lot of things, but, you know, I don't want to bother him with the little stuff. I don't wanna bother him with questions about the day to day, the mundane.

I don't wanna bother him with that. Listen, if he knows how many hairs are on your head or lack thereof, he wants to know every detail. He wants you to keep him involved in everything. He doesn't ever want you to do it on your own. In fact, scripture says, apart from me, you can do nothing.

He wants to be part of all of it. It's not okay to only surrender part of your life. What if he only partly gave you salvation? Okay. Your right arm and your right leg are saved, but rest of you still in question.

I'll give you salvation, but only for a 100 years. After that, you're on your own. Yes. You can you can be in heaven, but it's on a trial basis. I can cancel your subscription at any time.

What if he only gave us part of salvation? Because we only gave him part of lordship. We don't like it going the other way. We think it's fine. We convince ourselves it's alright when we're doing it to him.

But if he did it to us, how would a partial salvation even work? Here's the reality. It can't. There's no way that a partial salvation could ever work. Neither can a partial surrender.

A partial surrender doesn't work either. We convince ourselves it's okay, but it doesn't work. Have you spent time seeking what god wants from you? Remember, I've shared with you before, the average Christian, on a daily basis, spends less than 5 minutes a day in prayer, and that includes asking blessings over their food. The average Christian the average Christian does not spend time asking God what he wants.

The average Christian tells God what I'm gonna do and ask God to bless it. Have you spent time seeking what God wants for you? Well, listen, preacher. I'm, you know, 8 plus years old, and and I've I've lived my whole life. And so, you know, I've done the things before, but I I don't really have left things left to do.

How do you know? Have you asked God? At a 100 years old, God told Abraham, you're gonna be a brand new daddy. He wasn't done with him yet. If you're still breathing here today, he's not done with you yet.

Have you asked God daily, what does he want from you? If you're a young person here, have you asked God, what does he want? Are you looking at your future and making decisions? Are you asking God, what does he want? You said he's lord.

Let him be lord. Ask him what he wants. Let him tell you his plan for you. Follow what he has. Surrender.

Submit to everything that he wants for you. Perhaps there are things in your life that are preventing full surrender. Maybe there's something in your life that is preventing full surrender. You know, oftentimes when a person comes and they give their life to the Lord, there are things that have happened in their life, and and nobody's ever taught them to let it all go. And they're still holding on to that, and they're going, I can't serve God because of this thing in my life.

They if they found out that I used to do that, there's no way they would want me to do that. There's no way I could I could do this because of those things I've done. No. When you gave your life to God and you said, I want you to be lord, when he became your lord, he took everything that was not good in your life, every sin that you'd ever committed, and he cast it as far as the east is from the west. And if he took it all out, then there's nothing to prevent you from full surrender, except you.

You're the only one. You're the only one that can do that. There's nothing in your life that's doing that. God took it away. These are the things that you have to start with.

The first question is, have you ever truly asked Jesus to be your lord? Did you ever truly ask him? Anybody here ever go to Vacation Bible School? A few of us, right, went to Vacation Bible School. You know it's amazing.

When you have Vacation Bible School, almost every year when you have Vacation Bible School, you'll have several children that make a profession of faith. It's an amazing thing. I love Vacation Bible School. Here's the problem. A lot of times when you have Vacation Bible School, you have children that are coming that have never been in a church before.

And they see Johnny go up, and they think, well, that's what I'm supposed to do, so they run up too. And they heard what Johnny said, and they say the same thing, and we say, hallelujah. You just gave your life to the Lord. They don't have any idea what they just did. They don't have any idea.

They said some words. They don't know what it means. They weren't convicted to come forward. They followed little Johnny. But some take that profession and baptism that follows and say, I'm saved.

And they live their life saying, I'm saved. But they've never given their life to God. So the first question is, have you actually ever truly asked Jesus to be your lord? Have you truly given yourself to him at some point? Have you ever done that?

You know, I always think it would be great if I could just look out, and there would be, like, you know, a halo over everybody that gave their life to Christ, and not over the ones that didn't. And I can focus on the people that I know do not know Jesus, but I can't see that. The only thing God sees it all. You know, if you ask yourself that, was it a true salvation? It's an amazing thing.

I have a friend who was going to seminary, going to be a pastor. He came home from seminary 1 weekend, and there was a a service going on, a guest pastor preaching, and that pastor preached on the wheat and the tares. They look so much alike that it's very hard to tell the difference. But when you throw them up in the air, the wheat falls down and the tares blow away. At the end of the service, when a pastor opened up invitation time, he jumped up.

His wife said, where are you going? He said, leave me alone. I gotta go get saved. He ran up to the front, and he said, I'm a tear. I've been a tear my whole life.

I've been living like I thought I was supposed to live. I look like a Christian because I go to church. I sing the songs. I read my bible. I even go into seminary.

But I've never truly accepted Jesus as my savior right that moment he got saved. I said, well, what's the next step? He said, well, I gotta go back to seminary class on Monday and explain to the class that that I was lost, But now I'm saved. I said, do you think you're still supposed to be in seminary? He said, I have no doubt.

He said, that's the thing that pushed me to the point to know that he's my savior and I want to serve him forever. First question is, have you ever asked Jesus, truly asked Jesus to be your lord? Have you accepted him fully, completely, ever? If so, then it's time to let him be lord of all. Today, as we think about this question, is he lord or is he not?

You're the only one that can answer that. When you take a deep examination, has he given himself have you given yourself to him, or are you just walking the walk, talking the talk, but not really doing it? You're just pretending. Or have you given your life to him? And if you have, then the next question is, are you allowing him to be lord or are you still trying to be lord?

We look around the world today, and there are lost people everywhere. We look around the churches, and we say, why are the churches not full? Why are there so many people that are walking away from Christianity? Why are there so many people that despise Christianity? Why are there so many people that don't understand they need Jesus in their life?

Well, one of the biggest reasons is that there are not enough people treating him as lord and following what he wants us to do. Churches should be full every Sunday, and they're not. People should understand that the number one thing they need in life is salvation because of the sin in their life, but they don't. If nobody tells them, how will they know? Nobody shares the gospel, how will they be saved?

They're not gonna get it through the Internet. They're not gonna get it on the television. They're not gonna get it through going to the nightclubs and all of the things they're doing in life. How will they know? Are you allowing God to be lord of your life or not?

If you've called him lord, you've confessed with your mouth and said, I want you to be lord, and you look in yourself today and you say, I'm not letting him do that, then I'm gonna ask you to recommit today. I'm gonna ask you to confess again. I want you to be lord. Help me to surrender all to you. If you don't know him, you've never come to know him, you maybe you've been at church, you've done the things that Christians do, but you've never accepted Jesus, then I'm gonna ask you today, don't wait anymore.

Accept him into your life and then follow him as lord of your life. He always knows exactly what's the right thing for you, And he is the only one that can provide the salvation that you so desperately need. I'm gonna have a time invitation in just a moment. As we do, I'm gonna ask you to come forward. If you need to come and and ask Jesus into your heart, come today and I'll tell you exactly what to do.

Maybe you wanna come to the altar and you wanna recommit to him. You wanna surrender again. It's open. Whatever you need to do, I ask you to submit to whatever god puts on your heart this morning.