Pastors Brian Lother and Robert Smith
Robert: Praise the Lord. Just a reminder, we have communion that's served after service, so you can meet Jim and Brenda Steen after service. If you would like to partake in communion, they will be there to help you with that. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Brian: Well, I just am not used to flying alone and so I just decided Robert's going to help me this morning. I don't know how he compares in comparison to how beautiful Jacque looks, but to Tequaris thinks he looks great.
Robert: Well, I told Jacque last night, I said, "I'm going to do my best to look as beautiful as you are."
Brian: Thanks for being here today, Pastor Robert, with us and thank you for being here today. Welcome all of you who are watching by livestream. I had a message from one of our live stream viewers who never really attends in person. She said Pastor Jeff's message last week was the most incredible message she is ever heard him speak. And she just says the enthusiasm that is coming from home community is really a catchy and exciting. So thank you, Pastor Jeff for that wonderful word last week. I think Pastor Robert has brought a lot of excitement to hope. Amen. Let's just thank God for what he is doing, shall we? Let's just thank the Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus.
I would like to talk today about the cross we sang about the cross today. The cross is obviously the epicenter of our faith, but I would like to kind of go back in time 2000 years to what a cross actually meant 2000 years ago. 2000 years ago, the cross was the equivalent of our electric chair or a hangman's noose or a gaiety or whatever other method of execution that we have come up with. The one difference being, however, that the cross was intended to not only just take a person's life; it was meant to dehumanize that person and to virtually torture them. Sometimes they would live for two or three days hanging on the cross. Ravens and crows would come and pick their eyes out as they were hanging on the cross. The suffering was incredible.
History tells us when Christ was a young boy, maybe about the time he was at the temple age 12, maybe around that time, there was an insurrection; there was always political insurrections in Israel. The way that the Roman government would put down these political uprisings was to do mass executions. Oftentimes, the guys that were responsible for the insurrections would, would hide out, run out into the wilderness. What the Romans would do is they would just gather up those people's families, and the wives and children would be executed and crucified and tortured.
At one time, when Christ was rather young, there was an execution of over 2000 people at one time in the vicinity of Jerusalem. This was always done publicly. Our executions today are always done in a sense privately in a prison, but these were done publicly on the roadside so everybody could see it. It was intended to bring fear into people. When we think of the cross, I just had this thought that there was a lot of things that died at the cross that day, not just Jesus. We'll talk about some of that.
In reflecting upon the cross, we see some incredible trues if we just kind of meditate on it for a moment. One of the incredible truth is this: Jesus didn't just die. He was actually executed. He was executed. He was executed. The Christian faith is unique among the major world religions and that its founder Jesus was executed as a criminal by an established authority, people who were in established governmental authority.
When you look at all the other major world religions, none of these people have been executed by an authority. As a matter of fact, the other major religions of the world, whether they be Buddhism or Hinduism, or even Judaism, the founders, if you would think of maybe Moses, for example, as in a sense of founder of the mosaic or the Hebrew religion and Buddha or other major world religions, their goal was to live and create a plethora of teaching. Jesus, on the other hand, his goal was not to live. His goal was to give his life and to die.
The question, sometimes, I think, we need to ask ourselves is why did Jesus die? That all depends upon your vantage point. It depends on your perspective. If you were from a human perspective, just a natural human perspective— Jesus died because he was viewed as a public enemy. He was viewed as a public enemy by the Roman government, but more importantly, he was viewed as a public enemy because the religious leaders of Israel incited Pilot to carry out that execution.
If you look at some of the scriptures, we see where they came to Pilot and said he is claiming to be God or a king. He is claiming to be a king and we shall have no other king, but Caesar. Can you imagine the religious leader saying that, which they did? Yet, in the conversation that Jesus had with pilot, there was no question that the kingdom that Jesus was talking about was a different kind of kingdom altogether than what Pilot had been used to governing by.
Pilot was, historically speaking, on spring ice, on thin ice. There were some other problems that had happened and so he wanted to make sure that he kept a rule in Israel and no insurrections happened. So he bowed real easily to the religious pressure of the Pharisees and, and so forth. It was the growing popularity of Jesus at this time with the common every-day Jewish person that motivated the religious leaders to orchestrate his execution. I really like the— again, if you haven't watched any of the series, the Chosen, please do. This is an incredible series that I believe will really encourage you to a deeper place of faith and a love for Christ. One of the things that this series shows really well is how that common every-day man became a follower of Jesus, and they began to question the religious leaders of that time. At the end of the day, one of the things that can truly be said about the execution of Jesus is that it was religion that executed Jesus. It was religion that executed Jesus. I would like to start with a portion of scripture: John chapter 11, verses 47 and 48. This scripture really talks about kind of the setting of what was the underpinnings of all the antagonism towards Jesus. Let's read it, Pastor Robert.
Robert: This is the gospel of John chapter 11 verses 47 through 48, and this is from the NIV version. Then the chief priest and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. What are we accomplishing, they asked. Here is the man performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.
Brian: It was this growing fame of Jesus, this growing acclaim of Jesus among the Jews that was really the reason behind the, dare I call it, secret arrest and swift private trial of Jesus. Most of these kinds of trials would take place when it was against the religious leaders or some kind of religious violation. That always took place in the temple. But where did Jesus' trial take place? At Herod's house in a private residence because that's where Peter was when they had followed him after the arrest. It was at rather Caiaphas' house, a high priest house. We see that the religious leaders got together. They called this meeting and their main concern was the signs that Jesus was doing and the wonders that he was performing and that he was creating a following that was taking people away from the establishment.
Robert: You could see the real motivation right there.
Brian: Yeah, you can see the real motivation. They were trying to preserve their vocation. That's what they were trying to do. As we can see throughout scripture, even going back as far as the book of Jeremiah and other Old Testament writings that God's goal ultimately was to actually not have that system in place. He was going to replace it with a new covenant as we now know it to be. That new covenant—Actually, I'm going to share more of this because this is kind of a two-part series. There is just too much for me to get done in one sermon so I'm going to share some more in it next week.
If you read the books of Haggai and Zechariah and Malachi, those three prophetic books are what many people call post exile books. They were written in a sense after the return of the remnant, back into Israel, and yet in all the writings of those three books, especially the book of Malachi, the prophets seemed to declare that even though there was a return, there really wasn't the return of God in the way that they were hoping, and that something was missing. There was something still in future to look forward to.
Robert: It was Jesus.
Brian: Yes, it was Jesus, the coming of the Messiah. We see that this growing acclaim and growing fame of Jesus was the reason behind the secret arrest and the trial of Jesus. But if you look beneath the surface of the events and the methods used in the crucifixion, we really do see that it was religion that killed Jesus. It was religion that killed Jesus. Get this. It is very important for us to understand this. Religion partnered with politics more often than not when that happens. When religion and politics get in bed together, violence is their love child. More often than not, violence is their loved child. You see it in the Muslim faith. We've seen it even in the Christian faith if we can call it that, if you go back and look at the crusades. There were multiple deaths that came out of that.
In some respect, there is always this idea that my religion is right, and therefore I'm going to conquer the rest of the world. I do believe that Christianity is right. I'm not just hoping Christianity is right. I have an assurance in my heart that following Jesus is right. But Jesus said that the way that we follow him will determine the kind of response that we have with people. He said, "A new commandment I give to you that you love one another", not that you just force a conversion experience upon people. I want to look at this topic of the cross from the whole perspective of Jesus, because it's his view that actually really matters. Let's look at John chapter 12, verse 24
Robert: Verily, truly I tell you unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains only a single seed, but if it dies, it produces many seeds.
Brian: This is a parable, a story that Jesus is telling. When he said this, he was really talking about his death here. It can be applied in a larger principle as well, but this was a little bit hidden. I think when people were to hear this first teaching, they wouldn't necessarily understand that he was talking about his death, but he very clearly says unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed, but if it dies, it produces many seeds. He really was talking about his death. He was saying as we look back on it, we have more clarity, but as time moved forward with Jesus, he began to talk more clearly. We see this in the next portion of scripture Mark chapter 12, verses 7 and 8 and verse 12.
Robert: But the tenants said to one another, this is the year; come let's kill him and the inheritance will be ours. So they took him and killed him and threw him out of the venue. Verse 12: Then the chief priest, the teachers of the law and the elders looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them, but they were afraid of the crowd, so they left him and went away.
Brian: Jesus tells this parable, and a lot of times he told parables so that only people with real hearts could understand it. But in this particular parable, even the Pharisees and the religious leaders understood that Jesus was talking about them. That's why in verse 12, it says the teachers of the law and the elders look for a way to arrest him because they knew that he had spoken this parable against him, but they were afraid of the crowd. So many people were following Jesus. Why? Because of the signs and wonders and the love and the grace and the mercy that he had shown to them. So then we come to kind of a really in-your-face statement that can't be misunderstood. We find that in mark chapter 10, verse 45
Robert: For even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Brian: These are other words of Jesus, and he points out very clearly he didn't come to be served. He came to serve and he came to give his life, a ransom for many, to give his life. This was the focal point of why Jesus came. Other religious leaders saw their lives and their teachings as the most important thing that they had to offer the world. But Jesus, he saw that his sacrificial death was the central reason for him coming to earth, the central reason. So the vantage point or the perspective of Jesus regarding his death is actually very, very revealing. We see another revelation of that in John chapter 10, verses 17 and 18. Let's read that.
Robert: The reason my father loves me is that I laid down my life only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my father.
Brian: It really was the plan all along. We see that it wasn't just Jesus' plan. It was the plan of the father. You might even say that Jesus and our heavenly father conspired together in this plan. They came up with the plan. Now, can you imagine talking to your father and your father says, "I have a really great idea. You are going to go die." No wonder sometimes the world has trouble understanding the message of the gospel.
Robert: It's a stumbling block.
Brian: It's a stumbling block absolutely. We see, again, more clearly, this concept of this, shall we say, conspiracy theory where Jesus and his father conspired together that Jesus would come and then die so that— and we'll talk about some of the reasons in a little bit. We see, after the resurrection, Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost, this incredible sermon where 3000 people are brought into the kingdom. Part of that message we find in Acts chapter 2 verses 23 and 24. Let's read that.
Robert: This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge.
Brian: Excuse me for interrupting, Pastor Robert. This man who he is talking about, he is talking about Jesus. He is talking about Jesus, and he says, this man, Jesus was handed over to you, how? Read it again.
Robert: This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge and you with the help of wicked men, those not having the law, for example, the Gentiles, put him to death by nailing him to the cross, but God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.
Brian: Sometimes I wonder if Peter had a little bit of twinge of anxiousness when he stood in front of that large crowd, and he said, "This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan, and you guys with the help of wicked, i.e. Gentiles men put him to death." Most people don't like being faced with their own failures. Most people don't like being faced with their own failures, especially publicly. But Peter had the right perspective already when he said this man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan. The word foreknowledge here simply means the pre-planning of God. It was God's plan all along that Jesus was going to die. That's what he came for. This was no surprise to God, God wasn't looking down from heaven in horror as to what was happening. He wasn't ringing his hands and saying, what am I going to do now? This was part of God's plan.
The cross was a plan of rescue and victory, even though it appeared to look like utter defeat, didn't it? Remember the two disciples on the road to Emmaus where Jesus is walking with them after the resurrection. And they said those incredible words, "We had thought." We had thought he was the one, but at that moment, what were they thinking? That he wasn't the one. That he wasn't the one, because death was the end of it all. Death was the end of it all. We had thought he was the one, but now I don't even know what we are going to believe in anymore. They forgot that unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground.
So why then if death was such a terrible thing, particularly the death on a cross, why did the followers of Jesus begin to view the cross as the single most significant event in history? I don't know very many people who have been actually executed. When John Wilkes Booth was executed for the conspiracy to kill the president, I don't think people thought of his execution as the single most wonderful event in John Wilkes booth life, or when the people who were accused of kidnapping the Lindbergh baby and they were executed. People don't think of their execution as the single most incredible event in that person's life, yet with Jesus, the single most incredible thing that we remember about him is his sacrifice on the cross.
Again, putting it into context, his death wasn't what he willingly did in the temple as a true sacrifice. His death was—when I say that, I mean like a lamb that had been sacrificed for the sins of mankind. His execution was a torturous, incredible suffering done by the hands of an empowered authority.
Robert: It was meant to be humiliating.
Brian: That's right. It was absolutely meant to be a humiliation, not only to Jesus, but to his followers. And so what we see, and again, I'm trying to paint a picture of a criminal's execution here and the contrast with how the followers of Jesus, just shortly after the resurrection, what they began to say. We see Paul, for example, in first Corinthians 1:18, he summarized this event this way.
Robert: For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
Brian: So the Christians who believed in Jesus had a whole different perspective on the execution of Jesus, the death of Jesus than did the general common person who didn't believe in Jesus. As a matter of fact, the disciples discovered that when they went out with this message about Jesus being crucified and resurrected, they were looked upon as though they were nut cakes. That's why Paul says the message of the cross is foolishness, but it's foolishness to those who don't understand, to those people who are perishing, but to us who are being saved by it, it is the power of God. The cross is what gives us the power to live in overcome in life: the cross of Jesus. Paul says it again, just a few verses later in verse 23 this way,
Robert: We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.
Brian: The cross was a stumbling block to the Jewish people partly because their Messiah was going to be a political deliverer. We kind of lose sight of the fact that there were insurrections after insurrections. One of the followers of Jesus, one of the disciples of Jesus was called Simon, the zealot. Yeah, Simon, the zealot. Zealots were kind of like modern day Green Berets, I guess, is what I would call it. They were this attack force. They weren't a large group of people, but they would go in and cause havoc and get in and get out real quickly. They were very well-trained. They were in really good shape. They knew how to use weapons. They knew right where to stab somebody to kill him and all this our stuff. I think it's safe to say that if Simon was labeled a zealot, he probably had been involved in some of that kind of (1:00:00) stuff. Isn't it incredible that Jesus said, "Hey, I want you to follow me." Isn't it incredible that to someone who was used to robbing and stealing from his own people like Matthew as a tax collector? He said, "I want you to be a follower of mine." Someone who had no faith at all, but has a propensity to doubt, and just think the worst, I want you to follow me. When Jesus asked us to follow him, how much does that have to do with our qualifications or our past history? Yeah. Aren't you glad, Pastor Robert, that our past history really doesn't really matter to God?
Robert: Praise the Lord for that.
Brian: Yeah, but our future history is what God sees us. I love this story, again, of Gideon. Gideon, he really was a scary cat to put it in our kind of 21st century terms or 20th century terms. He was hiding from the Medianites and trying to eke out and make a loaf of bread, and the angel of the Lord, which is a way to say Jesus in the Old Testament, shows up in this little shack of a place that he is trying to make a loaf of bread. And he says, "Hail though, mighty man of valor." I could just see Gideon. He is looking around. There is somebody else in here with me? He wasn't a mighty man of valor. He didn't see himself as leading anybody against the Midianites and this military champion. He was scared to death, but God saw what he could be with the spirit of God in him. Jesus called these men, whether it was Matthew or Simon, the zealot and said, "This is what I can do with you when in my spirit is in you."
It seems strange to some that the public execution of a Jewish peasant and Jesus was really thought of as a Jewish peasant, he wasn't wealthy. Nazareth was a very insignificant town. Can anything good come from Nazareth? That was kind of customary. I mean, let's face it. There are people that just where you live gives you status versus if you live in a different place, your status is lower. That's true. I grew up in a little town in Northern Minnesota; Crosby was a poor iron mining town. The mines had closed down and I moved down here to the cities in ninth grade. Let me tell you the contrast that happened to me in ninth grade.
The town I lived in had about 1500 people, and the school I entered into had 3000 people when I was in high school. The school I went to was twice as large as the town I grew up in. Don't you think I kind of stood out a little bit? Of course I did. There were people who found out that I was from this tiny little town and they looked down on me because of where my upbringing was. They were from the big city and I was from this little town. Jesus was from this little town in Nazareth, and he was just thought of as a Jewish peasant. Many people today have this idea that it's so strange that a public execution of a Jewish peasant 2000 years ago should have any bearing whatsoever on our spiritual lives today. There are people who think like that, aren't there?
Robert: But for the wisdom of God.
Brian: That's right. But God's wisdom is above and far beyond our wisdom, isn't it? Yet the cross of Jesus Christ has become a symbol of faith for countless people around the world, your faith and my faith as well. But wouldn't you agree that it's a strange symbol of faith. It really is a strange symbol of faith. When you think about what the cross really was, for it really was a symbol of agonizing capital punishment. We, Christians, actually use that as a rallying cry for our faith. We wear it around our necks. We put it up on the walls of our home. I bet you if you can came to our house, we have at least 20 of them hanging on the walls of our house. When we designed this building, I, I said to the architects, "I want a lot of crosses in our building."
A lot of people don't actually see them all, but even like in this window here, or this window over here, if you see it, that's a shape of a cross. We have them all throughout the building. They are not an in your face kind of demonstration, but we have them all over the place because the cross is a symbol of the good news. How is it possible that the early Christians could actually think of the crucifixion as good news? Anybody that hears about an execution today, it's not good news. It's not good news. Even when an international criminal, a ruthless dictator is executed for crimes against humanity, even like after the Nurnberg trials, you didn't see dancing in the streets and celebrating of these deaths of these executions, yet the early Christians looked at the cross and said that's good news. That's good news, which is what the of word gospel means. The word gospel means good news.
How did the first generation of Christians take such a horrific event and turn it into such a good news message? It was because they understood why Jesus died. When they began to understand why he died, that's when it started to become good news. I want just cover two things really shortly here, briefly. The first thing that the cross did, the first thing that the early church, the early believers understood was that the cross, the death of Jesus happened to show us God's love. Let's read about that in John chapter 15, Robert.
Robert: Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.
Brian: Here is what Jesus did. He treated everybody as though they were his friends. He wasn't selective. It's a challenge for me to be like Jesus in this area. There are some people I just don't like very much. I'll just confess that. None of them are here today, I'll say. The challenge is to treat everybody as though they are your friend. That's a challenge, but Jesus treated all us like we were his friends even when we were his enemies. Let's read that one in Romans 5:8.
Robert: But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Brian: So why we were still sinners while we were, in essence, his enemies, while we were estranged, while we had abandoned God, shall we say, while we had turned our back and walked away, while we had done our own thing, as the prophet, Isaiah said, "All we like sheep have gone astray." Everyone turn to his own way. Everybody is just doing their own thing, completely disregarding God. While we were all in that place, Jesus died for us. Jesus died for us. That's why Paul in Romans 5:8 says that God demonstrated, visibly demonstrated his love for you and me by this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Christ died for us. Going back to John 15:13: greater love has no man than this to lay down one's life for his friends.
I wonder if it's even a greater love than greater love to lay down your life for an enemy. I wonder if it's possible to have a greater love than no greater love. Jesus died for us while we were still his enemies. This was understood by the first century church, they began to see it in a clear way. The other thing that the New Testament church or the early followers of Jesus began to understand was this: Jesus died to save us from our sin. We see this in first Corinthians 15:3. Let's read that.
Robert: For what I received, I passed on to you as a first importance that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures.
Brian: Yeah, according to the scriptures. The scriptures talked about here were, actually, the Old Testament; it's not the New Testament. The Old Testament is referring to this futuristic death and the death that was going to be, and happened to the Messiah, the son of God, was to deal with our sin issue. So Jesus died to do something about our sins. Jesus died to do something about our sins.
I really believe it is a mystery. There are some things that are easier to understand than others. There are some things that are easier to understand how it works than others in the scriptures, but this aspect of Jesus dying for our sins is a real mystery. But somehow, and I don't claim to know how it happens, I just know it does happen. You don't need to know how it happens either. You just need to know that it does. And there is where faith comes in. That's where faith comes in. But somehow through the death of Jesus, he absorbs all of our sins into himself. If you can kind of imagine it as pounding something on the cross with a nail, and as that nail penetrates into the cross, what it is nailing also penetrates into the cross. You could kind of think of it that way. Jesus absorbs all of our sins. He takes them away. The scriptures also say that he became our sin. He became our sin. So let's look at it in second Corinthians 5:21.
Robert: God made him, who had no sin, to be sin for us. So that in him, we might become the righteousness of God
Brian: That God made him who had no sin to be sin for us. I don't know how God did that. Maybe some other theologians might know how. I don't know how he did it. I just know that he did. I don't know the intricacies behind how it all works. I just know it does, and that God made him, Jesus, who had no sin to become sin for us, so that our sins could be taken away, and that we might become also the righteousness of God. It wasn't just to take away the sin, but it was to replace the sin with something of greater significance, and that is his righteousness in us. We, as the human race, the human species, we really poured out all our hatred, all our judgment, all of our racism, all of our fear, our lust, our sexism, our greed, all of our prejudice, our dishonesty, our selfishness, and the list could go on. We poured it all onto Jesus, all onto Jesus.
He didn't retaliate. He didn't pick up the spear and throw it back at us. He didn't retaliate nor did he deflect those things back on us, but rather he took them willingly. He took all of that willingly. Our unfaithfulness, our anger, our hatred, our selfishness: He took that upon himself. In return, he says, "Now become friends with me; become for friends with me," because he is already a friend to us. He doesn't become a friend to us if we decide to become a friend to him. He is already a friend to us. He says, "I will take all of your anger, all of your hurt, all of your prejudice, all of your pride. I will take all of your lust. I will take all of your addictive behaviors. I will take it all to me and I will absorb it into me and I will let it go from you, and I will give you my righteousness."
How do we really become friends with God? We do it by being in Christ. We don't do it by doing some external good deeds. I'm not saying that when we come into Christ that we don't do good deeds, because God does change our lives, doesn't he? We are new creatures in Christ. Old things do pass away. But the fact of the matter is when we are in Christ, we understand that God put the wrong on him, so you and I could become right with God, so we could become right with God. The only thing we actually have to do is we have to receive it. He doesn't force it on us. We have Stephen. We have to say yes, we don't have to understand how he does it. We don't have to understand. All I know is that I've been guilty and full of shame and guilt ridden, and I fall on my knees and I ask God, please forgive me. When I get up, the shame and guilt are gone. I don't know how God does it. I just know he does, and it's all because of the cross. He conquered all of those things.
Today, I just say to all of us again, let's receive it. Let's receive his friendship. Let's see the gift that God has for us today. Let's pray. Jesus, we are grateful for your friendship. We ask for your presence to come into our hearts, into our minds. We thank you for the cross. We thank you that you did something about the sin issue. You took our sins upon yourself. We thank you that you have shown us just how much you love us by willing to come and die for us, and that you didn't want us to stay in a place of bondage. You didn't want us to stay in a place of continually being abused, continually being victimized. You came to bring us freedom to set us free. You did that in Christ Jesus. You did that through the cross. We thank you for that, Lord Jesus. Pastor Jeff, why don't you come?
Jeff: We've just heard the greatest news that has ever been broadcast in all of history. If you are hearing it for the first time or the thousandth time, if you've been arguing, resisting, running, or in some way, finding a way to not respond in the affirmative, now is your opportunity to say yes. I just want you to close your eyes, put your hand on your heart. If you are watching by livestream, it could be you; you might be here. If you've been running from God, what you just heard is that Jesus gave up his life. He suffered a death of humiliation and torture and was then raised from the dead just so that he could change your life.
So say this with me: Jesus Messiah, Messiah, I give up. I'm going to stop arguing, stop arguing and running, running and resisting and I ask you to show me your. Fill me with your love and changed my life. And in just one moment, everything changes and everything that Pastor Brian said becomes a reality. Many of us are here today because we've experienced that moment when the guilt was washed and the world looked different because Jesus did a miracle.
If you've just prayed that prayer for the first time, or if you've prayed again because you needed to, please let us know that. You can go to our website, and there is a little button up in the right-hand corner, contact us. You can send a message to Pastor Brian and Jacque. You can let us know what God is doing in your life. We would love to hear from you. We would love to know. We actually have a series of videos we would send anybody who wants them called "Why you matter to God". It's four short videos with Brian and Jacque just teaching the very heart and core of God's heart and why Jesus went to the cross, so that you can hear it and take it for yourself.
Before we close, we want to take time to trust Jesus for the miracle that different people need. If you are at home or you are here and you need miracle, just put your hand up before the Lord. We want to pray for Jim's brother, Jerry. We want to pray for Jacque this morning. We want to continue to pray for Linda Campbell and many others who really do need a touch from God. You might be one of them, so just put your hand up. Let's trust Jesus for exactly what we need. He is aware and he is able and he loves us. He has the power and the good will.
So Lord, you see every hand that's raised in our living rooms and in this church building, and we just present our needs to you. We lift up Jerry to you and Jacque to you, Linda to you, and we trust you. We don't just ask you, but we thank you for your intervention in our lives for the release of your power and your healing. Thank you, Jesus, that when you suffered that humiliating death, not only did you do it to forgive our sins, but to heal all of our diseases; we received that too right now. We receive it. We receive it. We receive it for us and for those we love. Thank you, Lord. Just linger for a minute. We just let it come and touch us. When he is surrounding us with his love and his presence, there is no need to hurry away. Thank you, Lord. Just begin to thank him. Thank you, Lord. Thank you. I just want to thank you. I just thank you. Bless your name.
If you experience a touch from the Lord, we want to hear about that too, so let us know please. We have every expectation that when we bring our needs to the Lord, he is going to respond because that's who he is. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Pastor Brian.
Brian: Pastor Jeff, stay here. Pastor Robert, why don't you come up as well? We just want to bless you before we leave today and just remind you, Jim and Brenda will be serving communion this morning after the service. God touch your heart. Just go kind of seal it with, they can communion today. Pastor Jeff, I never ever get tired of praying that prayer that we prayed because even though I've been saved for a long time, when I prayed that prayer, it reminds me of when I first prayed that prayer, but it also is a reminder that the scriptures teach us that I was saved and I am saved and I am being saved.
Every day that we are able to pray that prayer that we pray together, it might have been the first time some of you have ever prayed it. It might have been the thousandth time that you prayed it, like me, but it always is good to come before Jesus and to just say, forgive me. Forgive me of my transgressions and to remember the great love that Jesus has for us because he gave his life and he took away our sin. Hallelujah. Let's raise our hands together, shall we?
Now may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace and may you revel in the love of God knowing that your sins are as far removed as the east is from the west. This we pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. Have a wonderful, wonderful day. Thank you for being here today.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 10-3-21. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.