Worship Service

We are continuing a we're at the very beginning of a sermon series on Matthew chapter 11 verses 28 through 30 the words of Jesus and so let's begin this morning by hearing the words of Jesus. Then Jesus said come to me all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens and I will give you rest take my yoke upon you let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy to bear and the burden I give you is light. About in these words Jesus reveals the heart of God because all of throughout scripture from Genesis to Revelation is God's appeal and plea to us to come to him from the moment in the garden when Adam and Eve sinned and they hide God comes in the garden and says, where are you come out come to me to the Celebration at the end of scripture in Revelation 21 where God says now everything is the way it should be the city is here. My people are here. I will be their God and you will be my people. It's the theme throughout scripture. And so Jesus is revealing the character and the Heart of God when he extends this invitation even in his own teaching we see again and again in his teaching for example of the story of The Prodigal Son which might better be titled the story of a loving father because it's all about God Jesus says himself. This story is about God waiting on the porch for that person to come to him to return to him and is the Sun. Approaches the father leaves from the porch runs to the sun pounces on and welcomes him home until Jesus reveals God's heart in this evitation. He also reveals the heart of God in his whole life is teaching his death is Barrel his resurrection in providing for our cleansing so that we can say yes to the invitation to come to God yes to come into His presence. She has to be with him as opposed to feeling like well, I can't come I'm not good enough. I'm not I'm not cleaning up. I'm not holy enough Jesus not only reveals God's heart in issuing the invitation. He Reveals His heart on the cross itself when he provides for our cleansing cleansing us from sin cleansing us from shame and the shoulds that we kind of place on our self if we try to live life apart from the good news of the Gospel itself. Then we end up carrying that burden of sin. I'm not good enough. I did this thing wrong. I've got this one sin preacher that I just keep doing over and over. I can't seem to win the Battle Force in my life and I've never been able to get rid of sink completely. There's this one that just hangs with me week after week month after month year after year. And so I just can't I can't respond to Jesus call to come to him because I'm a sinner week. We missed the very gospel itself that Jesus not only issues the invitation but he provides for us to say yes. Through his death on the cross providing cleansing for our sin. And when we let that sin go unaddressed go unconfessed when we don't depend upon God for that forgiveness. Then we can carry a shame with us that says not only did I do something bad but I am bad. My very self is bad. My very identity is bad and we can hang onto shame in such a way that we let it burn us and weigh us down in Jesus is not only providing for our sense, but also providing for our shame and sometimes when we try to provide for ourselves without that life, that's all about shoulds I should do this. I should do that. You know, I should cook more often at home for my family. I should lose 10 lb I should have more money in my retirement. I should have stopped and helped that person on the road that had a broken down car. I should have said something nicer to that other person. I should have gone to church more last year. I should have given more money. I should have you see how we can just get upset with this mentality of shoulds and then we live in a world of constant comparison where things like Facebook show us everyone else's highlight reel and so we compared the reality of our own knowledge of our self and our struggles and Imperfections with what is the Highlight Reel of everyone else when I put why don't we take more awesome vacations? Why don't we do more of these great things and we just put these burdens on our self and that is a subtle way of saying I'm going to earn my own way. That's a subtle way of not hearing the gospel not accepting the gospel not accepting Jesus invitation to say look, We all have yolks on us. There's no one who walks through this life yolk free. There's no one who walks through this life without any burden without any sense of what I did wrong or right or am I super sponsor abilities are or what? My expectations are, but he sang to us come to me. If you're burdened and and weary and weighed down come to me and take my yoke my yoke is not like the Yoke you have on yourself. It is light. It is not a burden it is yoke of accepting the Forgiveness that I've provided for you so that you're no longer constantly worried about what I sent I did this wrong. It's it's it's it's the Yoke of accepting my cleansing and my forgiveness in my rest so that your shame is put away because of the blood of Christ is the yolk of accepting my way of life of trusting God so that your shoulders aren't way down instead. They're lighter and you're able to beat my people the way I designed you to be so when Jesus gives this invitation, it's this huge moment that capture so much of all of scripture where he's revealing the heart of God to say come to me. It extends the everyone no one is excluded. Come to me and I will give you rest. And he's provided for that rest of his own life death and Resurrection. The invitation is countercultural though because it's so hard for us to accept this invitation because it's an invitation to slow down and that's not what our culture tells us to do. Our culture arranges things in such a way and we gladly step into that yoke where we're constantly busy and pressured and moving at a high Pace. I'm reading a wonderful book called Gump set stay by Ellen Von on this Ferry passes and it's shaping much of what you're going to hear and it challenges us to be counter-cultural to hear Jesus invitation and to accept it. It's counter-cultural in the sense that we're invited to reach out to undo isolation. Sometimes we can have busy Lives full of people and acquaintances and friendships and relationships and still be isolated from intimacy and genuine connection with Brothers and Sisters in Christ genuine connection with God himself do what Christ has provided on the cross and so this invitation to slow down. And respond to Jesus invitation is counterculture on that fence and last is counterculture because it's designed for us. It's invitation for us to depend upon God what I said a few minutes ago about this in comparing yourself to others are constantly saying I should do this and I should do that. Jesus says look, let go of all of those shoulds And depend on me, but listen Jesus. I've been raised here in North America. I've been right it's all about self-sufficiency. It's all about pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. It's all about getting the job done. Again, Paul says in Romans all have sinned and fallen short. And so the analogy that makes sense to me at the idea that hey I can swim the ocean. I can jump from here to England and some of us may be working harder than others and we might get a few more feet out of the water as we tried that attempt but none of us are going to make it. The reality is we cannot be self-sufficient in terms of our lives and live them the way God designed us to live them. We get easily tangled up and send and burdens and get way down and we desperately need to say yes to the good news where Jesus says depend on me Trust on me, except my work on the cross accept my forgiveness for your sins. Except what I have provided. What is the challenge? What keeps you stationary in light of Jesus invitation? Despite what we've heard and despite the reality that good news. I think many of us set still in light of his invitation when he says come to me. But he says let go of all those things that are weighing you down. But those like all those anxieties that give you nightmares and ulcers and cause you to go to the doctors say, how can I get all these wrinkles out of my face? I'm I'm stressed out when he says to us come to me come to meet many of us remain stationary.

And we don't. Take that step. It look if if there is a 10,000 steps between us and God he'll take all of those steps except the last one. And then invite us to come to him. And what we have to do is to say yes to that invitation and come down and take that step. But what keeps us stationary what keeps us kind of Frozen one thing. I think it might be his fear that the good news is too good to be true. Sometimes we don't want to say that out loud. We don't want to admit that in church. We don't want to stay while I'm a Christian of a pastor of a Sunday school teacher, but sometimes I think really In there that there's got to be a catch. It can't be that true. Canada can't be that simple can't be that good. There has to be something I have to do. I have to somehow earn it. I have to be good enough. I have to be smart enough. I have to be tall enough. I have to be heavy enough. I have to be light enough. I don't know whatever it is. We getting her head. I've got a different color hair. I've got to have a different degree. We all these little things they sold qualifiers that we get in our head. We somehow think there's got to be some sort of exception to the rule. It's interesting. There's a passage in Mark where a man who had a skin disease. This is leprosy came to Jesus on his knees and begged to Jesus. He said if you are willing to make me clean you can do it. Any interesting what he says if you are willing. Do you see that fear that we sometimes have in our own Hearts just played right there in his heart.

You might not be willing. Might be a chance at you. Look at me and say everybody else, but not you. Maybe you look at me the way everybody else does. Cuz I have to announce unclean unclean everywhere I go I have to say unclean unclean because I've got leprosy and some people want to keep their distance from me and say no I don't want to be near that person and maybe we live that kind of life or we fear that if everyone if everyone knew everything about us if they knew our sins our struggles are thoughts that they would say unclean. I don't want to be I don't want you at my dinner table. I don't want anything to do with you do we fear that if everything was known that maybe Maybe the good news really isn't. True. Maybe it's too good to be true. Maybe it's true for others but not true for a somehow. We're the exception and I think In this passage is revealed that fear and look at how Jesus responds in the next verse. Jesus was filled with deep concerns. He reached out his hand and touched the man. I am willing to do it. He said be clean. It's interesting the original Greek that word deep concern there in in different manners if there's different words in there and it's one of the passages were Scholars debate, which which manuscript is the best one to use Heather conflicted because in some of the manuscript the word there communicates anger translations, you might even have one of those that says Jesus was indignant. He's like, why would he be angry, you know at this request that others have the word that really can be translated compassion. So most of your translation say he was filled with compassion. I found a translation that kind of split the difference. He had this deep concern, you know, he's he's like, he's conflicted and I think what it speak to when when some versions have the word Korean and the original Witnesses and those are recording the story. I think this speaks to them saying there was this mixture. I didn't know how to Peg what Jesus was in that moment. He was hard for me to say that he was just purely filled with nothing but compassion and said you're healed. There was a sense that when that when he said if you're willing to heal me and Jesus looked at him when he came and begged on his knees and said if you're willing you can help me through the part of Jesus I Surrender on his face for a moment. I didn't know what to make of that. Where do I use that? I think you see it in other passages throughout scripture where Jesus has his anger come when he's angry at extended self. He's angry that this world is corrupt. He's angry at the world that God created not to have leprosy in it has leprosy and he's ever in the world that he created not to have adultery in it as adultery in it. And so he's got this passion passion in his guts when this man says if you're willing to help me and part of me wants that we made if I'm willing, of course, I'm willing. I'm headed to the Cross scripture will later talk about Jesus standing his face towards Jerusalem knowing what awaits him. He sets his face towards Jerusalem knowing it leads to that moment in the garden when he says father. Is there any other way I mean, I'm going to be separated from you. I'm going to drink the cup that is the sin of the world and yet he stays steadfast and goes to the cross. And so yes, he said to the man. Yes. Yes. I am willing. I'm willing and he touches him and amazing put Jesus could have healed him first because the man is unclear and the way we think is he's unclean and if you touch him it will make you unclean. So that's why he has torn out everywhere. He goes unclean unclean because if he gets next to somebody else baby become unclean human thinking without God in this world the unclean this kind of dominates everything else and we had this sort of fear.

You've got kids. Don't contaminate your household. What if they willed inappropriate influence over your children? That's all we circle the wagons and we say I will keep my distance from those who are unclean and we call that Holiness and one of Satan's greatest victories in the church is to get us to misunderstand what Holiness is to think that somehow hit means separating myself from others having no connection. That's did you seek slip that way in the Gospels. Daisy model of Holiness that would say I'll have nothing to do with you. No never did he model that kind of Holiness T-Model what we saw it right here. So instead of killing the man and then touching him notice he touches him. grabs his hand the unclean man of the leper the one that a lot of preachers have said no. No, that's not the way you do it. You keep your distance from that uncleanness. And Jesus just John Wayne's it right in and says I'll do it and grabs his hand. I guess what happens? Eastfield East Clans Jesus filled with deep compassion deep concern he reached out his hand and touched the man. I am willing to do it. He said be clean right away. The disease left him. He was killed.

Look, we got a couple things from this passage of Remembered in her heart and her mind. Jesus wants to heal you he wants to give you rest. He wants to forgive your sins. He wants to do that. Do not let the adversary convince you otherwise all of scripture reveals God's heart Express in the life of Jesus and it Reveals His desire. To give us forgiveness to give us healing to give us rest. If you did not have that desire. Don't you think at any moment he would have said, you know, what father in the garden nevermind? Not drinking this cup. If you decided he didn't want to do it more than keep his own life. He could have said to those guards who were spitting on him who are hitting him by throwing things to get you now, he could have stood up and turn around him in 15 ft tall just like that. It said I'll tell you who it mean. They could have all your other had a mess to clean up right there in that moment because of that. They didn't do that. We're told that he kept his mouth quiet like a sheep led to slaughter. Eaton braced his own sacrifice for the sake of you. And I and so we cannot be deceived into thinking that Jesus somehow does not want to kill us or forgive us or provide us rest. He does. Secondly Jesus clean this trumps your uncleanness. Do you understand that truth? That's why when the man said if you'll Heal me Jesus didn't have to clean it first and then touching Jesus just touched him because when the battle comes between God's holiness God's clean this and send he's demonstrated that his Holiness his cleanliness is clean. This wins it trumps. And so this I didn't somehow we got to get ourselves right before we go into God's presence is like that the Emissary has put in our mind and put in our teaching the way we get clean is to go into the presence of a holy God who makes us clean because of his holiness. The myth the idea that somehow we stay away is if we can clean ourselves as if we can battle sense and when this life Hebrews 4:16 says because of what Christ has done let us approach God's throne with boldness. How many times have you seen Christians teach or preacher act in such a way that they felt like they can approach God's throne with boldness. Because of the work of Christ me a sinner broken struggling in perfect. I don't have to grovel into God's presence and say maybe my groveling will somehow make amends for my sin. I go into God's presence because of Christ with this boldness knowing that the truth is Christ has provided for my forgiveness. Think about the truth of that that's what happened on the cross. That's what we celebrate at Communion each week. So don't let the adversary fool you into thinking we're the good news is just too good to be true. It's changed history and changed lives and led men and women to change the world slavery ended in Europe because of William Wilberforce and a heart Changed by God that looked at the horrible sin of slavery and gave his whole life toward ending it. That's part of what happens when we believe the truth that God has provided it changes Us in such a way that we become part of his change. Fastest question again, what keeps you stationary in light of Jesus invitation. I think there's a second thing that keeps us kind of Frozen one is we think maybe it's too good to be true. We don't we're not sure Jesus really wants to help us and that's a lie from the adversary that we've got to reject and know that he wants to help us a know that his clean this trumps any seminar life any unclean this we have the second. I sometimes I think we get Frozen and become a stationary lot of his invitation because we worry about what others will think anybody relate to that? You might have in your heart. You may have had it this morning. You may have had it 6 months ago 6 weeks ago. You may have had a 30 years ago a moment when you said Jesus is calling me and I need to respond. but you didn't you said Frozen your seat cuz you thought while my dad think or my mom think I'm supposed to be a Christian already if I get up and rededicate my life there goes that we've been doing all these years.

So you just kind of stayed frozen in that moment. Maybe you're worried. Maybe never but maybe or maybe a defiant against God. And you thought I'm not going to do that. Cuz everyone who turned maybe to find against God will say, well finally he broke you. worried about what other people will think I think sometimes when we have an altar call, we have a prayer time. I think a lot of us don't go get prayed for because we're afraid some I think well, what's wrong with Laura? She's gone for like 4 weeks in a row for prayer of my life. I got everything worked out. I'm just fine and dandy. We slip into that myth of self-sufficiency that myth of somehow. Let me take on this burden. And so we walk a life that is not the Christian life cuz we carry this burden of making sure we do enough to feel good about ourselves or feel right or a very deep down our actual sins and struggles.

other people in the church who come to church for decades and brothers and sisters Christ never get to know that they've got struggles that are just destroying their marriage or their parenting or the relationship was gone, but they just get frozen. I can't I'm going to Sunday school teacher for 25 years. I cannot go forward and cry over my sins. I cannot go forward and confess what I need to confess. And so we stay frozen because we're worried about what other people think look at this passage. In the scriptures a woman in the crowd had suffered for 12 years with constant bleeding marker chords and Mark 5. She had suffered a great deal for many doctors and head over the years. She had spent everything she had to pay them but she had not but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. She had heard about Jesus so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe for she thought to herself if I can just touch his robe. I will be healed so she had this faith that you know, I seen Jesus I believe in what he's doing if I could just touch his robe. You'll this must have been something eyewitness accounts and those who got to know her as someone who chose to follow Christ in relation to this healing when they said her tell us more about this or maybe they heard this when when Jesus said tell me your story later In this passage and she kind of says what here's what I was thinking, you know, I've been trying for years and I'm still not healed but I heard about Jesus and I believe and I thought if I can just touch His Garment all be healed, but there's also this element Like the leper that she'd be considered unclean because of her disease. And so there's there's this element of saying I just want to get healed and then be on my way. Okay, Jesus just fix this problem in my life. And then let me slip back into the crowd. Okay, I don't want it to be a big public event. I don't want to announce everybody. Hello. My name is Robbie and I'll come forward to confess my deep struggles with sand number and we don't want that sort of thing. I've come to confess to God. So I'll enjoy his forgiveness a new in my life. No. No, I just want to get what I need and then slip away. Sometimes Christians are plague that sometimes churches are played that folks. Just want to look at his want to come in your short sermon take communion and go home. I don't want to get involved beyond that. I don't want to make a big production out of it. And I think this woman wanted to be healed and believed in Jesus, but she didn't want it to go beyond that. So she thought if I can just touch his robe. I will be killed immediately the bleeding stopped and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition. So she knew it worked. Is Jesus I believe in him? I'm taking a step of faith. I touched the robe.

So she knows she's healed and then what she doesn't want to happen. She just want to say hello and slip out of the crowd cuz there's all kinds of people around him. Jesus realize that once that healing power had gone out from him. So he turned around in the crowd and asked who touch my robe of the woman had to say

Why why does he know you know, you know what the disciples say? That is I will say when Jesus responds. They say it's supposed him. Look at the crowd pressing around you. How can you ask you touch me before thinking? Oh good. That's what they said even know. It was me because there were like Fifty of us touching it but Jesus knows what's going on. He knows that healing has occurred. But he kept on looking around to see who it done it. So here she is.

I need to get some new sandals. I don't want him to know I contact whatsoever. He keeps looking around see who has done it. Then the frightened woman trembling at the realization of what happened to her came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done and so she's knows he knows he knows. I know it. I know it. I know I'm Healed. I knew the woman that touched him that I was healed and guess what he knows it do. He knows that I'm Healed. Do you think when you ask Jesus for forgiveness and you know that he forgives you that he knows he forgave you.

You think when you asked Jesus to to get you out of a predicament if I ever been in a bind and suddenly your prayer life, just shoot sending you. No 5th gear. Oh, no, this is all going to go up to your Lord. Please. Don't let this go wrong the way it seems like it's get rid of fall apart, please. If you can just turn this a little bit to the left and then I can just don't let it go wrong and then it doesn't go wrong.

You think he knows that he did that for you? Is it going answers your prayers you ever thought about that? I said Thank you and move on. The woman knows she was healed in Jesus knows that he provided her healing. He said to her after she told him the story. I've been sick of spending money. I thought if I could touch you around that ideal. She tells him and then he said to her daughter your faith has made you well, go and peace your suffering is over. He wanted to heal her just like the man with Leprosy the reals to heal her happy feel her a firm that but there's more to it. Jesus also invites us to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. He wanted this to be a public moment. He didn't let her get away with saying I just want healing and then I just want to slip back into the shadows and not be recognized again. He wanted her to tell her story. He wanted others to hear hear her story and he wanted others to know that she placed her faith in him and that she was healed. He wanted her to be part of something bigger than herself. At least sometimes so play kind of a reclusive faith in North America. We Let Jesus do many many good things for us, but we don't want to share it.

We don't want to share publicly. We don't want to wear this to our friends. We don't want to invite people to church at somebody else's job. If I invite somebody to church then they're going to say why you go and then I'm going to have to give him an answer that might involve giving a testimony and I might have to tell what Jesus has done for me in. I just I just want to get I just want to touch the robe and just go on about my life the way I've got it orchestrated, you know, but Jesus says not only come to me but he says look coming to me part of being a Christian part of accepting my gifts my healing my restoration. My forgiveness is accepting my identity is lord. It's becoming part of the Kingdom. It's becoming part of what God is doing when he heals people because Jesus invites us to see that are healing our rest. Our forgiveness is designed to be part of the world's feeling and rest and forgiveness. You understand that he doesn't want to Simply. Give me what I pray for and then let me go on my life privately. He wants me to make it public. He wants me to share with others. He wants me to be honest about my struggles and my sins to confess them scripture says even confess to one another you realize if you're confessing to a brother and sister in Christ, you're building up their faith because what you're doing is you're confessing your sins in your struggles and then you're celebrating God's provision and forgiveness of those sins and struggles if you meet with somebody regularly and you pray together and you pray for one another and you confess your sins one another over a lifetime what you see is God answering your prayers both further concerns and yours until you're building up Faith. That's why it's one of the one another commands in the New Testament and when we kind of edit or delete certain one another's cuz they just don't suit our own culture of privacy and isolation were robbing ourself of that offer when Jesus says come to me and I'll give you rest. Deeper rest than you can ever manufacture on your own then you can ever figure out if you come to me. If you take my yoke and my teaching and understand how to walk it'll be a deeper lighter rest. I read this first last week Revelation. 3:20. Jesus says look, I stand at the door and knock if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and I will share a meal and we will share a meal together as friends and I pointed out that we often think of that verse as averse to non-christians to the unsaved but in actuality, it's a verse to Christians. Jesus is speaking to Christians. And so evidently Christians can can be Christians and still have Jesus.

Knocking on the door of their heart saying you know what? I'd like to have a meal with you like friends. I'd like for you to come to me. And sit down. And stay awhile and US Fellowship. Because I love you and I want to teach you how to walk in this life in such a way that there's there's not this yoke of Burden weighing you down to the ground. I want you to understand how the cross changes everything. I want you to understand how to live that out in your life. I want you to recognize the adversaries lies and know when to reject those and I want you to hold on to the truth the truth about your identity as forgiving and restored when you look at the larger context of this passage, here's what's going on in verse 17 speaking to the church. Jesus says you say I am rich I have everything I want. I don't need a thing. I told they're self-sufficient. They they figured it out. Look, we're good church. We're here every time the doors are open. We do all kinds of good things. We're alright. Jesus says, you don't realize it. Did you don't realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. this church that was following Jesus. This is what you guys have made the mistake of thinking. You've got it all figured out on your own you're financially stable you're able to have your services and attend them you're doing all the right things checking off all the boxes. And you say hey, we've got this right but the truth is in your own personal life too many of you live with this burden this constant burning of thing. I'm not sure version of saying I'm not sure I'm forgiven. I'm not sure I'm cleanse. I got to work hard enough. I got it before hard enough. I got to outdo somebody else or keep my distance from those who are unclean so that I can keep my clean as we get this false. I did that Jesus saves Us by Grace, but after we get saved everything else is on us the grace somehow gets removed against that's a lie of the adversary were saved by grace and we walk by grace. So continually Jesus is standing at the door knocking it saying. Hey, let's Fellowship together. Let's Fellowship together. And that verse is preceded by this announcement. Look you guys think you've got it all worked out but you you misunderstood you're wearing the wrong clothes. You're trying to have the wrong security. So I advise you he says in the next first to buy gold from me gold that has been purified by fire. He's not talking about literal gold. I've got there have got a bank account. I don't need to pray about the future. I've got such a big bank account. If something huge surprise me, I can handle it. I've got life insurance out the Wazoo. I mean I got so much can happen. Everything's good. I got I got I got it all taken care of cuz I've got job security. I mean, I'm the CEO in the company's doing great. Nobody's going to fire me. I've got it all taken care of. I've got a you can go help people who really need you in Jesus. Look your neck and your wretched, you know, you not get it. Do you? You need to quit buying that kind of gold the gold and security of this world of this lifetime and you need to buy the true gold the true treasure from me. He continues then you'll be rich and also buy white garments for me. So you will not be shamed by your nakedness and ointment for your eyes. So you will be able to see because what Jesus offers us is this true righteousness this true forgiveness that cleanses us this true rest. I don't need rest. You just look I got I can take 3 weeks every year at the beach and just sleep and drink coffee. I've got it all figured out. He says you're just You're not getting it are you it's a deeper kind of rest that you desperately need that you need for your soul that you need for your life. So then he continues I correct in discipline everyone. I love so be diligent and turn from your indifference. I hear both parts of that verse. I know the second part is saying repent. Turn from your indifference. Look what the first part is thing. If your heart is pricked, if you're thinking I need to to to trust more in Jesus, I need to learn how to take this rest to take his yoke that doesn't feel burdened that activity and your heart is a sign of Jesus love for you. He disciplines those he loves it's because he loves us and he cares for us that he brings versus to her mind and to our heart and challenges us to turn in a different direction to repent. It's not repentance for our Salvation. He's provided for our forgiveness on the cross. He's not saying hey you better do this or you're not going to get saved and there's nothing I can do about it. I mean look, I forgave you when you first got saved, but but if you do something later, I can't cover that send it only covered up his chronologically coming up to that point. So if you got saved in 1978 and March, you're all cleanse from that but anything after that you got her somehow we get this phone. So I do that were sobbing it when Jesus is correcting us. When he's reproving us, he's he's saying look you're missing out your you're putting Burns back on yourself that you don't have to put I'm trying to get you to walk this Rich free join us for giving life. You're missing out now just a little Astrid. It is possible that you could reject the work of God in your life so long and so hard that salvation becomes an issue. I don't want to miss her about what I'm saying here, but what was Jesus saying? It's like this when you because I love you and that discipline is a call to enjoy everything that he's provided for us. We don't have to say that while I was bad yesterday. So I'm unsafe but then I got to church and I took communion confess my sins. So now I'm saved again. It's a man. I hope I don't have a car accident anything till I get to church on Sunday and confess my sins to take me to get to know I'm saved again that's sort of ridiculous is not what scripture teaches either our Salvation is secure. Is This Love relationship like a marriage covenant But Jesus says yeah, but I want you to enjoy the mirror don't want you to know all the benefits of forgiveness and security and so he corrects us and reproves us and Rex us and says you're trusting in your riches. You're trusting in your own words for salvation. And those are paper-thin there a joke. They won't work. I'm telling you turn to me. Trust in my goal that I can provide trust in what I did on the cross trust in the righteousness. I give to you. Turn from your indifference. I'm

I correct in this when everyone I love so be diligent and turn from your indifference and then he says look. Here's what's going on in this moment to hear everything. I just said you're going down the wrong path. You're buying into the wrong righteousness turn in the right direction because look I stand at the door and I not if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we will share a meal together as friends. That's his invitation. I'm going to buy the worship team to come forward that's his invitation. Not only the folks who have never heard Christ message and never responded. It's the same invitation. I stand at the door and knock turn to me and we will have Fellowship together, but it's his continual invitation to you and I to those who already know Christ who walked with him for years. He keeps saying to us. I stand at the door and knock come to me. If you're weary if your burden come to me and learn from me. Even just affirming what we're going to firm here in just a moment at Communion. Celebrating and affirming. Our forgiveness in Christ is a way to let go of some of those burdens that we sometimes pick back up. Jesus said the church whenever you gather together do this in remembrance of me of what I did. Take the bread take the wine. And remember what I provided during the song that we're going to sing in just a moment. It'll be an extended time of prayer. Shelby Folks in the back and the front for you to come and pray with if you've got concerns if you want to celebrate something God has done in your life. If you got a friend that you want to bring before somebody in prayer if you've got your own need to take advantage of this opportunity to let us here for you and pray for you during this time. I'll be in the back. Also if you need prayer, I'd love to pray with you or for you. If you've got a decision to make I'd love to talk to you about that decision answer any questions you have for all I was in Erin's going to give us maybe some instructions to leave a little bit of what this next song is going to look like it's a time for us to come to Jesus and and when we make ourselves open to him when we move toward him, it's time to invite him to come come right to that moment and celebrate who he is his character his forgiveness to confirm our faith. I know you want to help me. I know you want to forgive me. I know I'm Healed. I know I'm forgiven to celebrate that in the celebrate Christ.