Pastor Brian and Jacque Lother
Jacque: We welcome you all today. I'm so grateful that you are here. We always want to welcome our visitors in the room here and online. If this is your first time joining us in worship, we welcome you. You are welcome to come and join us and be a part of all that we are doing together as a community of faith. It feels like we are coming back more to life. We have our rose back again, and you know what? We have Israel back in the house today. Yay! Okay. Those of you who are wondering Israel? Israel, that's you. Israel, that's you? He is our dear Israel. We love you. We love you. It's really good to have Launa and Jim here too. They are kind of known as Israel's mom and dad, but—
Brian: Their claim to fame is the same as ours.
Jacque: We are BJ and Micah’s parents.
Brian: We are BJ’s and Micah’s parents and they are Israel's parents.
Jacque: Anyway. It's so good to have you here. And Angie Drum, she lives in Ohio now and she is here. It's good to see you.
Brian: That's a good commute. That's a good commute.
Jacque: It's so good to be together. It was so fun just hearing all the chatter and buzz before we started. It's a wonderful sound. Two more things I have to say.
Brian: Only two?
Jacque: Only two. Just to take advantage of the chance to be together and enjoy the wonderful outside, the last Sunday of every month, we are going to have a picnic.
Brian: Not December.
Jacque: Oh no, through September so far. We started in May and we will end in September.
Brian: June, July, August, and September. Yup, four.
Jacque: Five of them we will have. This time, we are going to go to the Corcoran Park the next four times close by. So just put that in your calendar and in your mind that the last Sunday of every last Sunday of every month, this summer we will have a chance to have a meal together. It will be fun. One more thing: aren't you grateful for Rachel? Let's be grateful for them. Rachel runs things around here. Well, you do run things, but—
Brian: No, she runs me. She runs me.
Jacque: I have never seen anybody that can get Brian on his schedule like Rachel. I've tried for 47 years and she— Rachel. Okay. Thank you. Anyway, Rachel is an awesome artist too. She keeps creating this beautiful art to represent Hope and all we are and all we are doing. She has made these beautiful postcards we are mailing out to the newcomers in the area. Well, we have some extra ones of this certain one that is just so drawing. It's just beautiful. And so we thought it'd be really good if we could just take some, hang them up in a coffee shop, at the library, in your grocery store. Keep them in your purse, ladies and in your car, guys, and wherever you see a public bulletin board, put the front showing right there. On it, it tells people where we are located, and it also tells people where we are located online to worship with us online. So it can be anywhere in the city. Take them on vacation with you. They could even be anywhere in the country. So please help us keep figuring out ways to spread the word. That's what they look like. There are two of them. How great. Today, if you want to get some of those postcards, just slip out on your way out and Rachel will be in the— are you are going to have them back there or in the office. Both, they are back there and they are in the office. So grab some and help us. Thank you.
Brian: Go to the office and pick some up and thank Rachel for the great job she is doing keeping me in line.
Jacque: There you go. Very good.
Brian: Okay. Anything else?
Jacque: That's it. That's all it says here. I'm done.
Brian: Are you sure? I don't quite believe you, but we'll see. You are looking nice today, babe.
Jacque: Thank you.
Brian: I mean, not that you ever don't look nice, but—
Jacque: That's kind of.
Brian: Specifically, there is a sun shining nice. It's a great day.
Jacque: It's a good day.
Brian: Yeah. It's a great day. I would like to talk today about God's away to belong. Pastor Jeff opened up our eyes a number of years ago about this whole concept about belonging and God has dropped some additional things into my heart about it. One of the things that I mentioned last week was that obviously, there has been a transition here at Hope with a number of things; I listed some of those things last week. I just want to encourage all of you that we had a visitor here last week, actually, from another country. As they walked into the sanctuary, they just felt an overwhelming presence of the Lord here. God dropped into her heart a short, prophetic word for our church before my message last week.
The word that God gave her was that the wilderness has passed and God is building an A-team here. That was before I even mentioned about the fact that God was putting a new team together. I want to clarify that the new team is not an addition to our staff although I'm so grateful for what Pat's doing and what Katie is doing with the Sunday school and of course, Bob and Warren and Rachel and Pastor Jeff and others, Micah. But the team that God is putting together is all of you. It's all of you; you are the team that God is putting together. Those of you who are watching by livestream, you are part of this team that God is assembling. There are some new things that God wants to do. I believe there is a really, really, really good future in front of us. We just have to see it through God's eyes. We have to see it through God's eyes.
Jacque: And God named the team. He called it an A-team.
Brian: The A-team. Who is that guy that wears all the gold? Mr. T, that's right. I'm probably not going to start wearing a lot of gold. There is an A-team that God really wants to put together. That has nothing negative in any way, shape or form about what we've had in the past. This is just about what God is doing. What God always does is he always takes a circumstance and improves it. He always takes something great and makes it greater. And so he takes something bad and makes it good. He takes something good and makes it greater. We've had wonderful people at hope through the years. Some of them have gone to their eternal reward, like we mentioned last week. Others have been sent out to other places around the world. I think of Norbert, Leslie Bond, and others like that at other parts of the country. Obviously, Kelly, Catalina are starting influence church and there are people that are going to go with them to start their church. We want them to be a blessing. We want that to be successful.
We, of course, go through changes when those kinds of things happen here. But we have to understand that God is a God of abundance, not a God of lack. When Jacque got the word for this year, the word of abundance for us, we have to hold on to that. We have to hold on to that when people are moving or people are starting another church. We have to hold on to that word and fan the flames through prayer and belief and excitement over it.
Jacque: If you just take some time and look up every word that has abundance in the Bible, you get blown away. And yet I just get so excited. It's the best way to really center my thoughts on the truth of that word, abundance.
Brian: How many know that when you let the Bible sit on the shelf and your prayer life lacks, it's real easy to become discouraged. It's real easy to become discouraged. There is a discipline to this thing called walking with Jesus. A part of the discipline is staying in prayer with the Lord every day, sometimes many times a day, and of course, letting his word wash over our minds because this world wants to pollute our minds. Doesn't it? This world wants to rob us of our dreams. This world wants to steal from us the things that God wants to put in our hearts, but when you read the word of God, you will not come away discouraged. You will come away from reading the word of God with a skip in your step and a hope in your heart. This is what we need to do for what God has for us.
I do believe there is a great future in front of us. One of my prayers is that I will become more and more like Jesus. I want our church to become more and more and more like Jesus. A lot of times when we think of being like Jesus, we think of casting out demons and raising the dead and doing miracles. I certainly want that aspect of Jesus to be a part of Hope Community Church, because there are people who are oppressed that need to be free. There are people who are sick that need to be healed like our little boy, friend to up in Canada, Chancen. We pray for him. He is in a grave situation, still the parents and some of the doctors have been positive about some things, but there is a neurologist up there that's not very hopeful at all about his future.
I wrote to the people communicating with me, and I just said when it's no longer possible with man, that's when God can step in and do a miracle. I just pray that God will get all the glory and this little boy will someday declare the goodness of God and show pictures of his crushed skull and everything else about what God did for him. We believe in healing. We believe in all of that, but there is another side of Jesus that, that we sometimes ignore. We like the power side of Jesus. We like the conquering the devil side of Jesus, of course, but there is a compassion side of Jesus. There is an acceptance of the unlovely and the marginalized side of Jesus that goes beyond what we can really comprehend. I believe that God has been leading all of us on a journey these past numbers of years, and especially the past 18 months.
It's easy to say, isn't it that we are not always sure where we are going. We are not always sure where we are going with God. I know that if I go with him, I'll be safe, but I don't know. He doesn't always just tell me all the details about what he is doing. And I’ve got a bone to pick with God about that. I don't like that, but that's how my faith grows. That's how my faith grows. I don't even know what it's going to look like when we get there, and sometimes I don't know if we'll ever get there other than there because this journey is continuous. But one thing I've become very sure of is that we are discovering that belonging is very important to God. It's very important to God.
Pastor Jeff really helped us begin to see that a number of years ago and we are learning more and more of what it really means to actually be a community. When you go through heartache with people, when you go through losses with people, when you go through difficulties with people and you come together as a people, that's when we really become a community, isn't it? Through the years, my experience has been that the vast majority of churches have their own, I'll call it this, their own tests of fellowship. They have their own tests of fellowship. Maybe all of us at one time or another maybe bought into this system of thought, but the more I think about that whole system of thought, I don't believe it's the way Jesus thinks.
The test determines whether or not you will be accepted into the fellowship. How many of you know that? There are all sorts of groups and entities and even churches that have tests of fellowship. Many of these tests are rules in themselves. They are not necessarily bad. Maybe even some of them might be good or beneficial. We'll talk about some of them for a moment. I was awake in the middle of the night, last night, and I was thinking about the church that I was raised in the denomination that I was raised in. I think it's fair to say that virtually, if not most of you, if not all of you, most of you here today would not have passed their test of fellowship. You would not. You would not have passed their test to fellowship. Their tests of fellowship was based on a lot of rules, a lot of “thou shalt nots.” There were way more they will show nots than there were thou shalt.
I was talking to a person recently and he said to me, "Pastor Brian, do you preach against?" And then the list of the items. Dou you preach against this I said to the person I actually preach for Jesus. I don't preach against anything. I preach for Jesus because as we preach for Jesus and as we get to know Jesus, and as we have a relationship with Jesus, he takes care of all the stuff that we are not supposed to do in his time, in his way and in such a way that we don't feel kicked in the groin by God. Should that be bleeped out? I don't know.
Jacque: I think you meant gut.
Brian: No, I meant that. I'm sorry. We are a family here. Okay. God doesn't do that. When God convicts us of something, we are doing something that we should do, something that we need to no longer do in our lives, we don't feel as though we've just gone through the ringer. We feel empowered. We feel held, in a sense.
Jacque: And protected.
Brian: And protected.
Jacque: Because he is doing that for our good, for our protection.
Brian: Yeah. This isn't part of my sermon, but I was talking to Deb and Shanna and Don earlier. I think it's good so I'm going to share it this morning. You know you see these people that say repent for the end is near. The whole concept of that is judgment's coming. So you better get right with God, but that's not the message of Jesus. The message of Jesus is repent for the kingdom of God is near, and if we want to embrace and experience all the blessings of the kingdom of God, we need to do some serious repenting at times in our lives. But that repentance isn't just for sinners. It's for all of us. It’s for all of us; it's a change of direction in our lives. I don't want to repent just so that I don't get judged. I want to repent so that I can experience the fullness of God in my life, the blessings of God in my life, all of the oneness that God has for me in my life. If I'm not in alignment or oneness with God is because there is something in my life I should repent of.
That's what Jesus said: repent for the kingdom of God is here. The kingdom of heaven is right here right now. it's here. I don't want to lose out on any of that. Making up a lot of rules and regulations don't help me become more in love with Jesus. It just doesn't do that. I love people that are committed to church attendance. I love people who are committed to giving. Certainly, it makes my job easier when people show up and they are willing to part with their finances and honor God that way. I mean, it does. It makes my job easier. And yet God doesn't say if you don't, you are to hell. That's not God's message. I think we should all be involved in service and serving. Jesus said it's more blessed to give than to receive. We need people in service, not just a service, but the service that we need here.
I also think that it's important to have, in a sense, correct doctrine, but how many times have we disagreed over what correct doctrine is? There are like 35,000 Protestant denominations or groups. Do you know why? Because they couldn't agree on doctrine. And you know why? Because they quit talking about Jesus. They quit talking about Jesus. We've made walking with God about abstaining from things. Don't go here; don't do that and what have you. Every church is probably has their own list of thou shalt nots and so forth. Often, a lot of these lists are thought to be about biblical discipleship. We went through the whole discipleship movement in the seventies, and I saw a lot of people's lives ruined by wrong discipleship. We did.
And so often we make these things, the test as to whether or not we will receive someone into our fellowship. When viewing some of these rules or tests through the eyes or lens of the New Testament, I think these standards, they just don't; they don't exist there. They don't exist there. The whole aspect of Jesus regarding belonging is something that I think it can really touch our hearts if we can really grasp this. So I want to read some things that Jesus said. The first thing that caught my attention we find it in Matthew chapter 22. Jesus was actually being challenged by had been challenged by the Sadducees. He answered their question and then the Pharisees decided to take them on. A Pharisee came to him and asked him this question about what was the greatest command. And so Jesus actually quotes an Old Testament verse here. Let’s read it.
Jacque: Matthew 22: 34-44 in the NIV. Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?
Brian: Now here he was; here is a man whose whole concept of serving God had to do with commands, rules, and regulations. What command is the greatest? What rule is the greatest? So Jesus answers by saying this,
Jacque: Jesus replied, love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, this is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself, all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.
Brian: Jesus was saying that virtually everything written by the prophets and everything written in the law can be summed up into one word: love. Now that takes it out of the realm of religion and puts it into the realm of relationship with God. It's really interesting here later, as Jesus is about to ascend into heaven and, and go through the process of the crucifixion and so forth and resurrection and ascension, he says to his disciples that I actually have a new commandment that I give to you. Do you know what that commandment was?
Jacque: Loved one another.
Brian: Not only love one another, but to love one another how?
Jacque: As I have loved you.
Brian: As I have loved you.
Jacque: We are to love the same way that God loves. That's what he says. Now, I don't know about you, but that kind of feels overwhelming to me at times. That's why we need him. That's why we need to have a relationship with Christ. Jesus is taking everything out of this doctrinal religious realm of rules, regulations, do this, you can't do that, you can't walk any more than this distance on the Sabbath, you can't pick up a stick on the Sabbath, you can't carry a mat on the Sabbath. Of course, Jesus got into all sorts of trouble by doing what on the Sabbath healing. In other words, God doesn't do anything on the Sabbath. They forgot that the scripture says that the Sabbath was made for man; man wasn't made for the Sabbath. I heard a great line and I can't remember what it was the other day, but that we are not greater than the sun in the sense of the importance to the earth. The sun has more importance to this earth than I do.
Jacque: You are talking about the S.U.N.
Brian: Yes, the sun that heats our world. The sun has more importance to this world than I do now. I actually am more important to God than the sun. That's really cool. But as far as the world goes, this world can do without me. Don't all of you nod your heads, please?
Jacque: I can't do with you.
Brian: Thank you, babe.
Jacque: It's perfect time.
Brian: The world can do without me, but this world can't do without the sun. Now here is what's interesting. Our sun shines on everybody. It doesn't discriminate on who the sun shines on. It doesn't matter your skin color. It doesn't matter what you believe. It doesn't matter how you look. It doesn't matter what your upbringing was. It doesn't matter your education or lack thereof. The sun shines on everybody. That is a concept we need to really understand in terms of God's love for the world. The son of God shines his love on everybody, on everybody.
Jacque: Can I say something?
Brian: Absolutely.
Jacque: Back to loving like Jesus, the more that I remember, what his love has done for me, the more than I remember what he is forgiven me of. The more than I remember in humility, it's so much easier to give that same kind of love unto others.
Brian: Yes. There is a really cool verse that applies to all of this in 1 Corinthians chapter 7. I just want you to read the first half of this verse. It's 1 Corinthians 7 verse 23.
Jacque: You were bought at a price.
Brian: You were bought with a price. We’ve all heard that haven't we? You were bought with a price. When you go buy something, who does it belong to you? If you go buy something, it belongs to you. We were bought with the price. We belong to God. We belong to God. And the scripture doesn't say you could be bought if you just shape up your life. It doesn't say you could be bought if you behave yourself or if you think like this, or if you clean up your act. Paul actually says it this way in Romans 5, verse 68. Let's read that. Christ arrived in our lives just at the perfect time.
Jacque: I like how the Message Bible says it. Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't and doesn't wait for us to get ready.
Brian: There is no getting ready in our part for God to buy us, to purchase us.
Jacque: He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything, to get ourselves ready.
Brian: He prepared himself. He went through all the preparation to purchase us and to buy us when we were either way too weak to do anything about it, or even rebellious to do anything about it.
Jacque: Even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway.
Brian: Because we were all in darkness.
Jacque: We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice, but God put his love on the line for us by offering his son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.
Brian: Let's put a kind of in our language now. Jesus bought us when we were on the junky. On the backside of the junkyard— If you go to some junk yards, you'll find guys that love to restore old cars. And I saw this guy once he had just the body of like a 34 Ford or something back then, and all it was just the body. It was all rusty and no windows, no nothing or whatever. He has got us on the back of the trailer and he is trailering at home. He has got the biggest smile on his face. Not because of what this vehicle looks like at the present time, but what it's going to look like when he is done with it. That's Jesus. That's Jesus. And then he'll say, then this guy says, “Look, what I just bought. Look what I just bought.” You know what Jesus just said? Hey, I just bought a 51 Lother. Look what I just bought, and wait until you see what it's going to look like when I'm done with it.
Did you know that when you buy something that belongs to you? We belong to him. We belong to him. We belong to him. He purchased us and he is still restoring us. We belong to him long before we ever looked good to him. He bought us long before we ever looked good to him. He took us from this junkyard and trailered us home. He saw what this soul rusty could really look like and be part of. He did all of that before we were pure, before we were clean, before we were polished or perfected. But when it got us, he began that process. Make no mistake about it; he did all of the purifying and all of the cleaning and all of the polishing and all of the perfecting after he bought it. Not before, not before.
You know what? We weren't pristine when he bought us and neither are other people who are going to become part of this fellowship. Neither are people who you are going to come in contact with, and those of you who are watching by livestream. The only difference between you and someone who doesn't know the Lord is you've just walked with Jesus for a while. But he has bought us all with his blood. We are not going to read this portion of scripture today, but if you look at 2 Corinthians chapter five, beginning at verse 14, it's a beautiful description. I would encourage you to read it in either the Living Bible or the New Living translation, or even the Message Bible because it comes even more alive in those translations about just what God did for us while we were still sinners.
When we see someone come into this fellowship, the only test that needs to be understood is that they were bought with a price. They were bought with a price. If we can begin to love in the way that Jesus loves, then what will happen is what Pastor Jeff really introduced to us many years ago. That is, we give somebody a place to belong. When they know that they belong here, they will start to hear the word of God, and over time they will begin to believe. When a person begins to believe, then they will begin to behave.
I'm not saying that there isn't a better way for people to live. There are probably better ways for me to live and for you to live, but that better way, shouldn't be a test of fellowship or not in our fellowship, in our family or our church community. I would guess as our world gets darker and darker and darker, we will have more and more and more people with more and more darkness in them when they come here. We can't let that darkness be a disqualifier of whether or not they will be accepted into this family of believers. They have been purchased with a price, the blood of Jesus. They belong to God. If they belong to God, they should be able to belong here.
When we love them, when we pour God's grace on them, I believe that they will want to keep coming back. As they keep coming back, they will hear more and more and more of God's truth of God's word. Don't you know that the word of God changes us? It's a living word, isn't it? It's just a bunch of dead old stories. It's an alive Rhema word. It's a something that causes our spirits to leap within us and come alive. As we give the word of God to people, and as they read the word of God, wow, guess what happens? The same thing that's happened to you and me over the years that we become more and more transformed into the image of Christ.
Jacque: I was thinking that I've changed a lot since I started coming here.
Brian: Yeah. So have I. Let's finish by reading a portion of scripture from Philippians: Philippians, chapter 3, verses 1 through 11.
Jacque: From the Message: and that's about it, friends be glad in God.
Brian: Just lets me stop there for a second. Be glad in God. There is a lot to be sad about in this world. There is a lot to be angry with in this world, and if you focus on those things, you will become sad and angry. If you want to be glad, what do you focus on? God. How many want to be glad? I do. All of you watching on livestream, do you want to be glad? Focus on God. Focus on the good things of God, all the things that God has done for us. So be glad in God.
Jacque: I don't mind repeating what I have written in earlier letters and I hope you don't mind hearing it again. Better, safe than sorry, so here goes: steer clear of the barking dogs. Those religious busy bodies, all bark and no bite. All they are interested in is an appearance. Knife happy circumciser I call them. The real believers are the ones. The spirit of God leads to work away at this ministry, filling the air with Christ's praise as they do it.
Brian: I was just picturing again what Pastor Jeff talked about earlier about the missionaries and babies that have died and they just hold the babies and then start worshiping. Wouldn't our problems be solved better? Wouldn't our emotional trauma be solved better if we just allowed ourselves to worship in the middle of all of that and let his presence come? Because doesn't his presence come when we worship in a greater way?
Pam: We couldn't carry this off by our own efforts. And we know it, even though we can list what many might think are impressive credentials.
Brian: And Paul had impressive credentials. He was the lead guy. He was the lead dog under the high priest. He was the lead dog and he lists some of these credentials here.
Jacque: You know my pedigree, a legitimate birth circumcised on the eighth day, an Israelite from the elite Tribe of Benjamin, a strict and devout adherent to God's law, a fiery defender of the purity of my religion, even to the point of persecuting the church, a meticulous observer of everything set down in God's law book.
Brian: He was meticulously following even all the laws in the Old Testament and he was lost because he had no love for God, nor did he love his neighbor, nor did he love as Jesus commanded him to love like he loved. That's why it's really important to understand that religion is man's attempt to connect with God and the cross and the love of God was God's attempt to connect with men. Amen. Let's go on.
Jacque: The very credentials these people are waving around— the religious people— as something special, I'm tearing up and throwing out with the trash, along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. All the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my master, first-hand. Everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant: dog Dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him.
Brian: Yes, so I can be embraced by him. Thank you, Lord.
Jacque: I didn't want some petty inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ God's righteousness.
Brian: Don't you just love that? Why would I want to have that old, weak, failing righteousness when I can get a robust righteousness by embracing Christ, living with Christ?
Jacque: I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead I wanted to do.
Brian: Paul had a desire to get in on the resurrection of the dead, and he knew his rule-keeping wasn't going to do that. It was only going to bring death. And so it was only going to be in a relationship with Christ. So Christ bought us. When he bought us, we belonged. When he bought us, we belonged. We had a place to belong with him. And when we belonged with him, he began to, over time, put his truth in us. When his truth became more and more planted in our hearts, you know what ended up happening? Our lives began to be transformed. We became more like him. This is God's pattern. This is God's pattern that he gives somebody a place to belong long, and then the transformation begins. I want Hope Community Church to follow that pattern.
I want to Hope Community Church to be a place where people can belong, and as they belong, God's grace will begin to change their lives. We belonged to God, the moment he bought us and we should love and embrace all who belong to him. I don't think that's a hard concept to understand, because in reality, love can change the hardest heart candidate. Love can change the hardest heart if that love is genuine, if that love is others serving. Rules and law has never changed the heart of a person. More rules, more punishment, more squeezing has never changed the heart of a person. It has, at times, changed exterior behavior, and of course, as a country and as a state and a nation, that's the only method, that's the only thing we have to offer to restrict behavior. That's going to be harmful to the general population. So that's how that has to work. That's how it has to work because the state doesn't have anything to offer somebody that will change their heart. But God, it has something that can change our hearts and that's the love of Christ that we actually belonged to him.
God even says through the prophet, Jeremiah, "I'm going to write a new law on their hearts. I'm going to give them new hearts." The old laws weren't working even started to say that through Jeremiah, which was 500/ 600 years before Christ came and whatever belongs to God should belong here as well. Whatever belongs to God should belong here as well. So let's remember, we've all been bought with a price and we were bought not when we were on the showroom floor of the car dealership, we were bought when we were on the backside of the junkyard with all of our wheels falling off the windows, knocked out, the rust taking over, the engine seized up, nothing working. That's when we were purchased. That's when we were bought with the price of the blood of Christ and he trailered us home with a huge smile on his face and just said, "Look what I just bought. Look what I just bought. This is our God; this is our Christ. This is who we have to offer to those people who have been bought. They just don't know it yet. They just don't know it yet. Because his blood wasn't just for a handful of selective people. It was for the whole world. His death was for the whole world. They just don't know it yet.
We have this incredible opportunity to take this incredible message that we have a place to belong, where God knows our name and that he has a smile on his face. Not because of how we are behaving right now, but because of what he knows we can become with his spirit in us. Wow. What a great gift that we have to give to people. Isn't it? What a great gift that we have to give to people. Let's pray.
Father, I thank you for this opportunity to tell somebody who's at the end of their rope and they've just crashed and crashed and burned and they are on the backside of the junkyard and they feel insignificant. They feel as though they don't matter. They might be angry because they are in a lot of pain. They might be disillusioned because what they looked for at one time or another, maybe even in a church, wasn't offered to them. But Jesus, you offer us an opportunity to belong. And I pray today that we would fill this church with people because they want to belong to you and that they will belong to you. And that we will give them a place to be welcomed as they enter into this process and belonging to you. Age is only a discriminatory thing in this world, but it's not to you,
Whether young, older or anything in between, you smile upon what belongs to you. And we pray in your name, father, the wonderful name of Jesus, that you would encourage your hearts with this wonderful message that we all matter to you, God. We all matter to you. This, we pray Jesus in your name for your sake. Let's raise our hands together. Let me bless you. If you are watching at home, just raise your hands and receive a blessing from the Lord.
And now may the Lord bless you. And may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his face to smile upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turned his face towards you and give you his peace. May you realize how much you matter to God because he has purchased you with his blood. This we pray in the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. Have a wonderful day. Be encouraged in God. Be encouraged in whom you belong to and be an encouragement to others who need a place to belong. God bless you. Have a wonderful day.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 6-13-21. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.