Relate Community Church
Relate Community Church
Baby Monsters | 1
👶🧟♀️ Baby Monsters?!
Yep. Because huge, terrible deeds come from teeny-tiny seeds.
This new series is about dealing with small things before they grow up and destroy big things.
You in?
📍Sundays // 9 & 11 AM
📍26206 Aldine Westfield in Spring
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All right, everybody, welcome to church one more time. How many of y'all are excited to be here today? Man, I love to hear the sound of joy and the sound of energy in God's house. It's exciting to be here with you. I also want to just take a minute and greet all those who are watching online. I know and I also want to say, if you've been watching online for a couple weeks, I want to say how appreciative we are that you have been patient. I know that the livestream is changing, it's evolving, it's getting better.
Speaker 1:I feel like we had to take a couple steps back so that we could move forward, but thank you, and if it is your first time, then we're glad that you chose to click and be a part of this celebration and our Sunday morning service. If you're here in the room and you had to brave and overcome who knows how many obstacles just to get here sometimes the biggest problem is in our own parking lot or between here and there. I know everything can go wrong on a Sunday morning. Sometimes it's the family, the kids. If it can go wrong, it will go wrong on a Sunday morning. I know that. But we are so thankful that you chose to worship with us and thrilled to be able to look around and see those of you who are a part of the second service. And I will say we have a little bit more room in the first service by a little bit, a few extra chairs, if this is just too many people for you. Some people have said, pastor John, we need to do a third service already because for Easter it spread us out a little bit and I don't think we're ready for that just yet. But if you need a little bit of extra space, you can certainly move on up to the first service. And you just got to wake up earlier. That's the only thing.
Speaker 1:All right, we're going to dive into a new series today. For the next four weeks we're going to be in this series called Baby Monsters, and some of y'all saw that little video and said what is going on here. I'll tell you. We're going there for a reason. The whole idea behind this series is that huge, terrible deeds come from teeny, tiny seeds. Like the biggest problems in life usually don't start as the biggest problems in life. They start as some very small things that we often don't pay attention to. And if we can cut those things off at the pass, then they never have to come to pass those things off at the pass, then they never have to come to pass. If we can get ahead of them and stop them in their infancy, then they'll never get to maturity. They'll never become those big, terrible problems that are life-changing and life-destroying and life-altering. We can just deal with them when they're very small. Deal with them whenever they are a lot easier to manage. All deal with them whenever they are a lot easier to manage.
Speaker 1:Just a quick example Old Testament and New Testament. You see this concept kind of unfolding, even though it looks different. Right, this is a concept that we don't talk about a whole lot. But in the Old Testament, when Moses was that, there was a prophecy that God's people would be rescued from slavery. Pharaoh looked out and said, hey, we've got to stop this before it happens. So we're going to kill all the babies. And I can tell you that this is that series. This is the series where we're not going to talk about killing babies. But sometimes we might get to a point where, ooh, I don't want to talk about that, that's not polite to talk about, that's not fun to talk about. Let's talk about something fun. But this is the moment where I'm telling you we're going there. So tell somebody next to you, he's going there. You just have to decide whether you're willing to go there too.
Speaker 1:In the New Testament, when the prophecies and when the wise men came and told King Herod that they're looking for the Messiah, what did he do? We have to kill all the babies. Why? Because something big was coming. That something big can be something good. We love to talk about that, but when the something big that's coming is very terrible, we don't like to talk about that. But the truth is that if we would address it when it's small and deal with it when it's very small, it's a lot easier to take out a baby monster than it is to take out a full-grown monster. So this week I already had this message prepared and I already had all my notes and all things.
Speaker 1:All of the direction for the next series was set, and this week we were in Illinois for a conference and a few members of our pastoral oversight team were there. So our pastors we're meeting with them, and I had just been with Pastor Doug in California two, three weeks ago whenever we went to pick up the baptistry that they gave us and I hadn't seen him since, obviously just a few weeks. But then whenever I saw him, his hand was all wrapped up and bandaging and I said what did you do? It looked terrible. I noticed he couldn't use it for anything and he started telling me this story. If you've been around for a little while you've heard me talk about him, or if you've heard him talk I don't think he preaches without talking about hunting. And he's from Louisiana and he's a country boy and a country boy will survive.
Speaker 1:But he had an issue five years ago. He bow hunts and he was pulling an arrow and part of the carbon fiber in the arrow splintered into his hand and he pulled it out. And he was pulling an arrow and part of the carbon fiber in the arrow splintered into his hand and he pulled it out and he could tell there was a little bit left there. But he's like, oh, it'll be all right, like we do. Right, it's fine, it's all right, it's no big deal.
Speaker 1:So five years later, y'all this little splinter of carbon fiber. He said you couldn't even see it. Splinter of carbon fiber. He said you couldn't even see it. It was almost microscopic. Five years later it was still infected. The skin had grown over it, but under the skin now it was something that was becoming very problematic. And so his surgeon tells him that they're going to have to operate and open it up. And so they cut him open. They cut his whole palm open and dissect his palm so they can get in there. And y'all aren't going to like this. But, he said, when they open, he started unwrapping his hand and his whole hand was purple and bruised and cut open with stitches nine stitches, he said. The surgeon told him when they opened it up that it was like the skin had all grown around and even though it started off microscopic, it looked like spaghetti inside there.
Speaker 1:That's what I said. I don't want to hear that. I don't need to know Too much information. I told him please wrap it back up. None of us need to see that. But my immediate thought was because my mindset is already in baby monsters my thought process immediately went to how something so small and seemingly insignificant, when we leave it unchecked, we don't want to deal with it. It's not a big deal, it's not nothing, I'm okay. All of a sudden, it becomes something now that affects everything. I'm okay. All of a sudden, it becomes something now that affects everything. There are things in your life, there are things in my life that do that exact same thing. So I want us to unpack it a little bit.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to start off in Genesis, chapter 4. If you don't know where that's at in your Bible, it's the beginning. It's right at the front. We're going to read the whole chapter, so stick with me. How many of you all know that the Bible is a good thing? God's Word is a good thing. You can't get too much of it, but we're going to read through it. It, but we're going to read through it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this story is the first mention of murder. It's the first situation where brothers not just brothers, but there's only four people living on the planet at the moment. It says now, adam knew Eve, his wife. That doesn't mean that he knew her. They met up and had you know. It means that he slept with his wife and she conceived and bore Cain. Saying I have gotten a man, with the help of the Lord. I'm going to try not to stop throughout this, but I just have to say, if you're in the room and you might be a young lady in the room looking for a man. This is not that this is. It says that she had. I have gotten a man and she's referring to Cain, who is born a small man. And again, she bore his brother, abel. So now here's where we get Cain and Abel brothers Abel. So now here's where we get Cain and Abel brothers. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, he was a shepherd, and Cain a worker of the ground, he was a farmer, so he was growing things in the ground.
Speaker 1:In the course of time, cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn, of his flocks and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel in his offering. In other words, god took Abel's offering and accepted it, but for Cain, in his offering he had no regard. So it wasn't an acceptable offering. Have you ever considered that what you give to God can either be acceptable or unacceptable? So watch what happens with Cain. The first step's already taken. They brought offerings, they've approached the Lord.
Speaker 1:So Cain was very angry and his face fell. And the Lord said to Cain why are you angry and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, it's against you. Sin is against you. It's crouching, it's hiding, it's against you, but you must rule over it.
Speaker 1:And now Cain said to his brother Abel now we go to the next level. We're already through several levels. We go to the next level. Now Cain said to his brother Abel let's go out to the field. And while they were in the field, cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
Speaker 1:And the Lord said to Cain next level where's your brother Abel? I don't know. He replied. So now he's lying. Am I my brother's keeper? Now?
Speaker 1:This is where the story usually lives. This is where we usually talk, this is what we usually focus. Right here the Lord said what have you done? Listen? Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you're under a curse. Another level Now you're under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. And when you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be restless, wander on the earth. Cain said to the Lord my punishment is more than I can bear. Like this. I've gone too far, but the punishment for this is too much. Today you are driving me from the land and I will be hidden from your presence. Two different things. I'll be a restless wanderer on the earth. Whoever finds me will kill me. But the Lord said to him not so. Anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over. And then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. So Cain went out from the Lord's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
Speaker 1:So there, as is true for many of the stories in Genesis and early on, there is so much to unpack. I love Genesis because the relevance to like every little thing is so relevant to us. And how powerful is that? That such an old, like the earliest stories of the world, can still be relevant to us today? This is when we look at the Bible and think well, it's just an old book. We gotta look a little bit deeper to see how powerful it is to us.
Speaker 1:This is a story, a passage, that ends in one of the most graphic, painful, terrible situations life-ending, life-altering. But that's not where the story starts. In fact, the story starts like we are today, with two brothers going to church. It starts with Cain and Abel bringing an offering to the Lord, just having church, but then it ends at the end of this snowballing event where it gets worse and it gets worse and it gets worse and then Abel ends up dead and then Cain ends up cursed and then cast out from God's presence.
Speaker 1:I would tell you this morning that I don't think this is a story about brotherly love or about sibling rivalry or, like I said, am I my brother's keeper? This is the story that usually is hey, treat people better. You need to treat your brothers and sisters better. This is not. I don't want us to look at that this morning. I want us to look at, really, this idea that your worship life affects all of your life.
Speaker 1:Like how you approach God, that's the baby monster. Like how you approach God, that's the baby monster. Like when I approach God wrong, it can turn into something so much. It's just like this thing Well, I just went to church, I just brought my offering, I just did my thing. Well, we had to do that whole baby dedication thing. Well, we had to do it. I had to go to small group this week, but you know I only have to go a few more times to get my quota and I could miss a few. Like when it becomes I said this earlier in the day that our attitude and our feelings about worship affect our worship. It's not just about the thing that we do. So how do we approach God and how did this terrible deed in Cain's life start, with the teeny, tiny seeds it started with? And I'll give you a few points today. If you're taking notes, pull them out. We are a note-taking church Number one. Today. The baby monster is religious obligation, like I gotta make an offering to God and then I can go do the things that I need to do. I got to go check a box, if you will.
Speaker 1:We can actually prove this and see the real intent behind it, because this event is mentioned not only in the Old Testament, it's also mentioned in the New Testament, in Hebrews, chapter 11,. If you're not familiar with that chapter in the Bible, it's the hall of fame of faith. Go read it this week. Read the whole thing, but at the very beginning it lists Abel and references our story. So we're going to just read the one verse Hebrews 11, verse 4.
Speaker 1:It says by faith, abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. What does that mean? That's inferring that Cain brought an offering but he didn't have faith to do it. He brought it without faith and you may or may not know this, but without faith it's impossible to please God and we know that without faith, if something's done not in faith, that's a sin. It says. By faith he was commended as righteous and when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith, abel still speaks, even though he's dead. So the intention, the faith that was brought with the offering, I think was more important than the offering. How you bring yourself to church, it matters more than what you bring to church. It matters what's coming out of your heart and it matters your approach to God really. Your emotion as you approach God really matters. And that little thing turns into murder later in the story. As I was preparing for this, I was remembering intentions and how we approach each other and Angela y'all probably know this Angela and I have a date night that's set, usually on Friday.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we do it on Saturday sometimes, but we always try to not neglect our time together. Why? Because it shows a lot of things. It shows I'm committed to you. I'm not going to plan any other things. If I was to tell her, hey, I'd love to do a date night, but it's the only time I can play golf, what does that say? That to do a date night but it's the only time I can play golf, what does that say? That's showing her here's your value on my list of priorities. You're down here under golf.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I can convince her to come play golf with me if I let her drive, but during a date night I'm so focused and I want her to see what is in my heart. Right? So we have some unspoken rules. If there's an emergency or if the phone rings, you know, I can't not check it, or she might check her phone. But we have this little joke that goes on between us. If one of us just happens to pull out our phone and we're checking something, if I pull out my phone during date night, she will tell me oh, I didn't realize it was phone time. I said, okay, it's not phone time. I put my phone away. But y'all, I don't even like to put my phone on the table, because then I just I'll just reach over and pick it up. I'll just like my attention gets taken away, and so it reminds me of how the efforts that we bring in our pursuit of God, in our faith, really matter.
Speaker 1:This week I did something I've never done before and I thought let's write a prayer and I can write a prayer. I usually just say a prayer, but how many of you guys use ChatGPT? You have used or use. Some of you think it's the devil. That's okay, too right? I decided we're going to check this out and so I asked ChatGPT to write a prayer and I made it really simple. Make it less than 30 second prayer, make it simple. But I also want it to be a powerful prayer and I want it to be sophisticated, and I just threw in there. I also want it to rhyme, just threw in there. I also want it to rhyme.
Speaker 1:I hit enter and then three seconds later, boom, prayer popped out and I'm going to read it to you. Here we go. O sovereign Lord, whose mercies gleam, bestow your grace a sacred stream. May blessings fall like gentle rain and lift our hearts above all pain. This is pretty good, actually, With wisdom wrapped in heaven's art. Let favor flourish in each heart. By grace adorned our spirits. Rise your boundless love our greatest prize. Amen. Guys, that's, a robot wrote that prayer. A machine wrote the prayer and it's better than I could write and it did it in three seconds.
Speaker 1:The question is, is that worship? Because if the feelings matter, if my heart and if faith has to be added to it for it to be real and authentic and genuine before the Lord, then that's not worship at all. And my prayer and I could just say God, I need you. The way God sees that, is 10 times, a thousand times, more powerful than anything. We can come up just because we're checking boxes and oh, I've spent so much time and effort, like there is something to be said about creativity and your investment and your interest in something, but don't just do a thing because you're supposed to.
Speaker 1:For Cain and Abel, their timing was probably more telling than anything. In verse 4, it says Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. It's like the condition of what he brought was very meaningful. When we look at what Cain brought, it says in the course of time, cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruits of the grain, not the first fruits. So when Abel brings his offering, he says, oh, this is the first one I'm bringing it to God. It's the fattest one I'm bringing it to God. But in fact, the Hebrew meaning of the term in the course of time actually means at the end of the season. At the end of the season, he probably laid everything out and he was intentional and I got to have this and this is my seed for next year and this is what I'm going to do with this and this is how we're going to proceed, and he's got plans and intentions and thought process and also this is what's left, so it goes to God. What are your intentions about what you bring to the Lord? If you're just trying to make it all fit, it's all in the schedule and this is the way it's got to work and I got to check these 10 boxes and this is.
Speaker 1:I think we should be far less focused on the logistics of our faith. The Bible says that God does not look at the outward appearance of a man, but he looks at the heart. Where is your heart at this morning and how are you approaching God? And I hope to God that we can align ourselves with his purpose and approach him the way that he wants to be approached and not out of religious obligation, because inevitably, religious obligation evolves and turns into something much bigger.
Speaker 1:In our second point today, for Cain, it turns from religious obligation into jealous frustration. He looks at what Abel has and says why can't I have that? Why have you blessed him and not me? And how often do we look at other people and say why are they blessed? They're not doing half the stuff that I'm doing. I go to small group, I give in the offering, I've been going to church. I haven't missed a church service in 12 Sundays.
Speaker 1:First off, if you're looking at people on social media I've said this a thousand times you're looking at their highlight reel. You're not looking at reality. So stop comparing yourself to things that you don't understand. You've got a few details. I do the same thing. I look at other pastors online and see how are they doing this.
Speaker 1:We struggled for six and a half years to get a building and I see a guy who, in the first six months, has a building. I say God, what are you doing? This is not fair. Angela and I have a statement. We say to each other all the time, especially when she has something that I want. She said favor ain't fair Favor ain't fair. You get the front row parking at the grocery store favor ain't fair. The Lord blessed us.
Speaker 1:I love what God says to Cain, and it's not to put guilt and shame on him If you can see behind God's intentions when he asks him this question. He asks Cain why are you angry? Why is your face so dark with rage? And then he tells him something true, tries to give him truth here. It can be bright with joy if you'll do what you should Like. You want favor, but you don't want to do what it takes to get God's favor. You want to be under God's umbrella, but you don't want to do what it takes to get God's favor. You want to be under God's umbrella, but you don't want to do what it takes to live under God's umbrella. You want the blessing, but you don't want the burden. You want the purse, but you don't want the price. You don't want to pay the price. We want to live the Christian life, but we don't want to serve Christ as Lord. There is no Christian walk. You don't have a relationship with God without Jesus.
Speaker 1:And inevitably what happens whenever we start this competition game is that we start resenting other people, other godly people, other Christian people, because you know they're doing stuff they shouldn't be doing. You know that they're not living the way that they should. And so we start throwing rocks and this resentment starts to build in us, we start to get jaded and cynical and jealous and inevitably turns into number three. Now the ugly face of sin starts to really show itself, with wicked action. Started off small, started off like no big deal it's not a big deal. I brought a bad offering, I'll try to do better Whatever. But then it turns in to jealous, frustration and now wicked action. And he invites his brother out to the field and tricks him and then it says that he kills his brother.
Speaker 1:The Jewish tradition is that Cain took rocks and threw them at his brother until he died. Now I don't know. There's a lot of things that we could say here and unpack and think about that. Maybe Cain had never seen someone die before although I have to assume he had seen animals die but maybe he didn't know what it took to kill a person. Maybe he didn't know, but certainly his anger and his rage and his jealousy crossed the line and he allowed a baby monster to grow up.
Speaker 1:But God says in verse 7, but if you do what is right like even if you do what is right, sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you, but you must rule over it. The Living Bible says that same verse, verse 7, like this watch out, sin is waiting to attack you, longing to destroy you, but you can conquer it. And if this reminds me of anything, it reminds me of those of you who are cat people. This is how cats are. Cats are crouching and cats will attack you, and cats are evil.
Speaker 1:But think about a lion in the grass it's crouching and waiting to pounce on its prey. It makes itself very, very small. In fact, you might only just see if I'm the prey. I might, might see just a little movement out of the corner of my eye and the moment I think, oh, it's no big deal, the most dangerous thing in my life. It seems so small. I don't even know how big it is. Yet the real danger has not even been revealed yet, because sin presents itself as just a little movement. It is not a big deal, but then, when it's pouncing on you and becomes full grown, it sneaks up on you.
Speaker 1:I think one of the most deceptive things about sin is that it will tell you it's no big deal. It presents itself when I was growing up. I grew up with things like gremlins and old movies in the 80s with these cute little demons, cute little monsters, but they're not cute. They're not cute, but that's how they present themselves. They present themselves as something oh, that's so cute, I need that. That's so fun. And then the moment you realize that this is not cute, it's too late. It should be. The concept of sin pouncing on us should be so powerful to us that it makes us cringe. It should make every hair on your head stand up. It should make the hair on the back of your neck. It should give you goosebumps to think that the devil is out to get me and I'm not paying attention. I'm just playing games out here with cute things, things. And that snowballed in Cain's life into murder and a curse and being cast out. And God forbid. The same thing happens to us In 2005,.
Speaker 1:A man named Marius Els had from the time it was a baby, a hippo, a baby hippo. His name was Humphrey. Everybody say aw, but when you see this picture, if you're not an idiot, you know there's a problem. In 2005, humphrey killed his owner, marius, angela and I watched a documentary not too long ago called Chimp Crazy. I wouldn't suggest you watch it, but I will tell you. A baby chimp is cute, right, but they don't stay babies, just like cats, they grow up. In the documentary, one of the chimps uh, the, the lady that owned them, her husband was telling the story about how the chimp had killed someone. But while he's telling the story, he said years ago that the guy asked him what happened to your face because his nose had been detached. He said oh, you know, just got out of hand one day and the chimp as it was like a teenage chimp, not even full grown the chimp ripped his nose off. I know you're saying too much, I don't need to know that, but that's how it works.
Speaker 1:At what point does it go too far? And we continue to allow it to live in the house with us and say, oh, no, no, no, no, no. We crossed the line. It was my fault. It was my fault. I let it here. He was just doing what chimps do. Sin was it was just this cute little thing that I did, and it was never to. It was never really that bad. I just let it get too far. No hold on a second.
Speaker 1:The nature of sin is to destroy you, and sin needs to be smashed and cast out. When it's very small and not thought oh, it's so cute, it's not that big of a deal, it's not going to hurt anybody yes, it is. If you're not victor over it, you'll become victim to it. James 1.14 says instead this is the Passion. Translation says instead it is each person's own desire and thoughts that drag them into evil and lure them away into darkness. It's our own desires, it's the things that we think it's good, it's great, it makes me feel good. And then watch what happens Evil desires give birth to evil actions and when sin is fully mature, it can murder you. Right sin will take you further than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay and cost you more than you want to pay.
Speaker 1:Don't get it twisted and don't get it wrong that the nature of sin is not cute, it's not sweet, it's not okay. It's not just this little thing, I'll be all right, I'm a country boy. It's out to kill you and you just let it in your house. You just put it in your house, you just put it in your pocket, you just saved it on your phone. You continue to go back and text it every few weeks. You keep engaging with sin and it's like a roulette wheel that's going to kill you and I'm not going to be the one that stands up and says well, you know, I wanted to tell him, but I didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings. I'm not going to be the one that stands up and says well, you know, I wanted to tell them, but I was just, I didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings. I'm here to tell you that sin will kill you, sin will destroy your life and it will take everything away from you if you don't take it out of your life. Okay, I don't want to leave it. I don't want to leave the story here on life destroyed, because that's not where the story is left with Cain and Abel. In fact, we see something amazing happen at the end of the story and it gets too little focus, and that is we're going to end on number four, and that is that it can end with gracious provision.
Speaker 1:In the middle of all the devastation and the curse and all the bad things that were happening to Cain, watch what God does. God continues to reach out. God continues to extend an offer of grace and I want to take care of you. And how does he do that? How does whenever we're in great turmoil and we sit down with a therapist? How does a therapist help pull us out of that? They ask questions hey, tell me about this. They don't just lecture you. We don't see God come down with a hammer or a lightning bolt to Cain and say, hey, I've been looking for you. You killed your brother, you're dead meat. He doesn't say that. He says, hey, where have you been? Why are you so angry? Where's your brother? Why are you so angry? Where's your brother?
Speaker 1:God always offers hope and salvation, even when we are feeling the weight of sin and shame and guilt. The truth is you have a choice. No matter what cards you've been dealt, no matter what life you've lived, the experience that you've carried, no matter what's been done to you and caused you, you might say, well, I've only done these things because all this other stuff happened to me and I didn't ask for that. It's what was done to me. I'm the victim here. That may be true, but even in the middle of all that, god's not here to. God's not chasing you down so that he can beat you or smash you or make you confess your guilt. God is offering grace and yet we have this innate desire to push off guilt and to shirk our responsibility and say no, what me? What are you looking at me for? Am I my brother's keeper? We do what Cain does and we run and we don't want to confess and we don't want to admit to anything Because we don't know what it is. God is not trying to deal punishment to you. He's trying to save you.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you one last short, short story, and that is when I was a kid. My mom had so many rules for us. That is when I was a kid, my mom had so many rules for us. I was looking back, I say it, all the time that I had a drug problem when I was a kid because my mom drug us to church. We were had no choice. We had a very strict what we could watch, what we could. We couldn't listen to any of the good music, we couldn't watch any of the good movies and we couldn't say any of the good words. We just had all these limitations.
Speaker 1:And one day, my friends at school I was very young one day my friends at school were. They were saying what we called cuss words, some of those good words. My mom called them bad words and I decided you know what? My mom's not going to know what I say at school. And so I said some of those words. And then when I left school that day and came home, all of a sudden, something inside I knew, she knew I was like so suspicious of my mom and I knew, god knew, and I thought I was panicking. I was like suspicious of everything she did and it was so overwhelming to me as a little kid. I look back now knowing that it's just because I had such a pure heart Must have been, I don't know. I just wasn't good at it yet, I wasn't good at sin yet that I confessed it all to my mom. I had to tell her I said those bad words and I'll never say them again. But in an instant, instantly, I felt all the suspicion, all of the weight and the I just I let go of it. I was better now. The punishment didn't matter, there wasn't any punishment. But even if there would have been punishment, I felt a lot better because I told her what was going on.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I think that if you'll just fess up to God, because watch Cain would not open his heart to the Lord and be honest and be genuine with his worship to begin with. And now, when God's trying to come to him, watch what God's offering him. God's asking him questions when have you been? Why are you so upset? God's not asking those questions because he needs to know the answer. He already knows the answer. What he's doing is he's offering and extending this communication. God wants to know us. God wants to communicate. He wants us to be authentic and open and honest with him in our worship, in our communication, from our heart, that this is who I am, god and if I'll just, he says, if we will confess our sins to him. He's not chasing after you to crush you and to make you live up to all the guilty things you've done. He's chasing after us so that we can confess and we can fess up and let it off of our heart and instantly let the weight be lifted. So I want us to close today your sins were paid for on the cross. God's not trying to make you pay for your sins. He wants to give you grace and he wants to give you mercy. You just have to decide that.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be that person that doesn't allow baby monsters to live in here or around me or in here, because the way you approach God can turn into something so ugly and affect everything else in your life. I want us to pray. Today, we're going to say a couple of different prayers. I want us to pray for just a moment. If there's anything in me, god, that you don't like or that is dangerous to me in the future, or that's hiding and crouching and waiting to hurt me, god, show it to me so that I can deal with it. And then we're just going to hand it off to him. We're going to give it to God, surrender it to God, and then we're going to pray for anyone in the room that you want to surrender your whole life and start a relationship with God. Today we're going to say a confession of faith in our prayer to begin that relationship.
Speaker 1:So first let's just pray that God would reveal a prayer, prayer that God would reveal any of those baby monsters, those little splinters, the sin in our lives. Lord, we ask you that you would just show us what we need to know, what we need to see in our lives, that our hearts might be pure before you. God, show us and we just submit all of those things to you. Lord, show us and we just submit all of those things to you. Lord, help us to be holy and blameless because of your righteousness, because of the price you paid on Calvary. We love you and we trust you. Let us have the courage to take on those things, even the things we kind of like, and push them out of our lives and crush them while they're small enough to deal with, before they destroy us. Thank you, Jesus.
Speaker 1:Now, before we move from this moment, I just want to give everybody an opportunity. If you've never surrendered your life to Jesus, this is that moment. Last week, 44 people said I'm going to follow Jesus, but I also believe there's some people in the room today that maybe you need to make that decision. I won't ask you to raise your hands. The only reason we know the number is because last week we checked a box on a piece of paper. Today it's between you and God. It's between you, your heart and God's heart. I won't call you up or embarrass you, but I would love for you to everybody.
Speaker 1:Would you just repeat this prayer with me as we make this confession of faith. Would you say these words, dear Heavenly Father today I choose to follow you. I choose Jesus to be my Lord and my Savior. So forgive me of my sin, forgive me for walking the wrong way, for doing things my way, and from this moment forward I'm going to follow you. So breathe life into me, make me whole and I'll follow you in Jesus' name. Amen, amen.
Speaker 1:Let's put our hands together for everybody who said that prayer. Would you stand up on your feet and we're going to dismiss. I am so glad that you guys were with us today. I'm looking forward to what happens over the next few weeks and months as we go into summertime. It's almost time again for small groups to kick off in just a few short weeks and we're excited for like an amazing summer. I'm excited to see you next week. If you'd like to pray with someone before you leave, I'm going to invite the prayer team to join me at the front. We're going to stay in worship for just a moment, but you are free to go. I dismiss you in the name of Jesus. God bless you guys.