God is For Us

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music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music I see Him walking with His redeeming blood He loves me and I'll do Him and all my love is to Him He must lead to victory beneath the cleansing flood What I've heard about His healing of His cleansing power revealing

How He made the lame to walk again and caused the blind to see And then I cried, dear Jesus, God, reveal my broken spirit And somehow Jesus came and brought to me the victory Oh, victory in Jesus, my Savior forever He saw me and bought me with His redeeming blood He loves me and I'll do Him and all my love is to Him He must lead to victory beneath the cleansing flood I've heard about a legend, He is built for me in glory And I've heard about the streams of gold beyond the crystal sea About the angels singing the old redemption story And it's a sweet day, I'll sing a famous song of victory Oh, victory in Jesus, my Savior forever He saw me and bought me with His redeeming blood He loves me and I'll do Him and all my love is to Him He must lead to victory beneath the cleansing flood Oh, victory in Jesus, my Savior forever He saw me and bought me with His redeeming blood He loves me and I'll do Him and all my love is to Him He must lead to victory beneath the cleansing flood He loves me and I'll do Him and all my love is to Him He must lead to victory beneath the cleansing flood He loves me and I'll do Him and all my love is to Him He loves me and I'll do Him and all my love is to Him What can wash away my sin? What can make me whole again? Nothing but the precious blood of Jesus For my pardon this I seek For my cleansing this my plea Nothing but the precious blood of Jesus Oh, precious is the flow

That washes white as snow No other fount I know Only the blood of Jesus No, through Him I'll overcome By this I'll reach my home No other fount I know Nothing but the blood of Jesus Nothing can for sin atone Nothing good that I have done Nothing but the precious blood of Jesus This is all my hope and peace This is all my righteousness ♪ Nothing but the precious blood of Jesus, Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh, precious is the flow that washes white as snow ♪ ♪ No other fountain in the world ♪ ♪ Won't need the blood of Jesus, no ♪ ♪ Through Him I'll overcome ♪ ♪ By this I'll reach my home ♪ ♪ No other fountain I know ♪ ♪ Nothing but the blood of Jesus, Lamb of God ♪ ♪ Who hung upon a tree, His blood has set us free ♪ ♪ Who righteous one, the shelter for the poor ♪ ♪ Heaven's open door, we sing, glory, glory, hallelujah ♪ ♪ This blood, it will never lose its power ♪ ♪ No, it will never lose its power ♪ ♪ Oh, precious is the flow that washes white as snow ♪ ♪ No other fountain I know, won't need the blood of Jesus, no ♪ ♪ Through Him I'll overcome, by this I'll reach my home ♪ ♪ This I'll reach my home, no other fountain I know ♪ ♪ Nothing but the blood of Jesus, no other fountain I know ♪

♪ Nothing but the blood of Jesus, no other fountain I know ♪ ♪ What can wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ What can wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ All the saints and angels, bow before your throne ♪ ♪ All the elders cast their crowns before the Lamb of God ♪ ♪ And sing, you're worthy of it all, you're worthy of it all ♪ ♪ You're worthy of it all, you're worthy of it all ♪ ♪ For from you are all things, and to you are all things, you deserve the glory ♪ ♪ You're worthy of it all, you're worthy of it all, you're worthy of it all ♪ Sing it with us. ♪ All the saints and angels, bow before your throne ♪ ♪ All the elders cast their crowns before the Lamb of God ♪ ♪ And sing, you're worthy of it all, you're worthy of it all ♪ ♪ For from you are all things, and to you are all things, you deserve the glory ♪ ♪ You're worthy of it all, you're worthy of it all, you're worthy of it all ♪ ♪ For from you are all things, and to you are all things, you deserve the glory ♪ ♪ And glory ♪ ♪ Oh, give you glory to the Lord ♪ ♪ We welcome you, Holy Spirit ♪ ♪ Oh, give you glory to the Lord ♪ Sing this out, benefited. ♪ Day and night, night and day let incense arise ♪ ♪ Day and night, night and day let incense arise ♪ ♪ Day and night, night and day let incense arise ♪ ♪ Day and night, night and day let incense arise ♪ ♪ Oh and day and night, night and day let incense arise ♪ ♪ Day and night, night and day let incense arise ♪ ♪ Day and night, night and day let incense arise ♪ ♪ Day and night, night and day ♪ ♪ You're worthy of it all, you're worthy of it all ♪

♪ For from you are all things, and to you are all things ♪ ♪ You deserve the glory, you deserve the glory, you deserve the glory ♪ ♪ You're worthy of it all, you're worthy of it all ♪ ♪ For from you are all things, and to you are all things ♪ ♪ You deserve the glory, you deserve the glory, you deserve the glory ♪ ♪ You're worthy of it all, you're worthy of it all ♪ ♪ For from you are all things, and to you are all things ♪ ♪ You deserve the glory, you deserve the glory, you deserve the glory ♪ Sing once more. ♪ You're worthy of it all, you're worthy of it all ♪ ♪ For from you are all things, and to you are all things ♪ ♪ You deserve the glory, you deserve the glory, you deserve the glory ♪ Thank you. I notice that many Christians today, I'm talking about Christians, believers, followers of Jesus Christ. Many believers, Christians today are living in fear. They have fear in their lives. Psychologists say that there is such thing as a phobia. A phobia is when you have intense fear about something. Psychologists say that there are over 356 different kinds of phobias. So you may have heard of acrophobia. Acrophobia is the fear of heights. You don't want to be somewhere high. You don't want to be near the edge of something high. There's a fear of heights. Some may have heard of, or some may have the fear of claustrophobia. Claustrophobia is the fear of enclosed spaces.

And so there's a phobia of enclosed spaces. Some have what's called arachnophobia. There was a movie that came out many years ago called Arachnophobia. This is the fear of spiders. I have this fear in my family. I will hear a high pitch scream sometimes. And they go running and they say, spider. And I'm like, where? I can't see it. It's like this big little spider. Anyone have that fear? How about this one, peladophobia? Anyone know what that one is? Put the picture on the screen, peladophobia. This is not the fear of Pastor Jeff. This is the fear of going bald. Our pastor does not have that fear. He is courageous in it. He's not afraid. How about this one, caulrophobia. I hate to see the picture because I have this fear. I'll be honest, I have this fear. Put the picture up. Fear of clowns. Am I the only one? They are so creepy. I just don't like clowns. I do not like clowns. I never liked clowns.

But then I saw the movie It, and I really didn't like clowns. They are terrible, creepy. Get that picture off of there. Please. Thank you. There's two basic kinds of fears. There are internal fears. And there are external fears. Okay, internal fears and external fears. Many people today have what we would call external fears. I think we have a lot of external fears when it comes to our nation. We are concerned. We are worried about many things in our nation. We get worried about the politics in our nation. The division in our nation. We are concerned if the wrong candidate gets into office. We are concerned about trends that we see. The nation that we are raising our children and grandchildren in. And so we have fears about our nation. We love our nation. We love that we get to live here and have the privileges here. But we are concerned. We have fear about our nation. And then there's a fear of the world. And things happening in the world. We look at Israel and we're afraid for things happening in that part of the world. And Iran and what they're going to do next. And China and Russia. There's all these kinds of fears about things happening in the world. Because we see so much chaos.

And we see so much sin in the world. So much brokenness in the world. There's fear about all these things in the world. And we ask, what are we going to do? Are we going to hide? Are we going to stick our head in the sand and just hide? And just hope things go away? Or are we going to live life? Today I want to talk more about internal fears than external fears. Because we all have internal fears. And those are uncertainties within ourselves. So we ask questions of ourselves like, does my life really matter? Do I have purpose in my life? Do people really like me? Do people really like who I am? Do people like being around me, having relationship with me? Will my life really count? I want my life to count. Will my life really count? See, God wants to set us free from all of our fears. They say that there are, I don't know if this is accurate, I've never read this, but I've heard, I've read, that there are 365 fear nots in the Bible. Which if that's true, that's great. Because there's one fear not for every single day of the year. What is God telling us? Don't fear. But if we're honest, we all fear. We all have things that we're afraid of. And we either deny it, you know, pretend like we're not really afraid,

pretend like we're not really focused on it. We either deny it. Or sometimes we try to control it. When you see people that have trouble with trying to control things, it's because there's a fear involved. One of my favorite prayers that I love praying is the serenity prayer. And I love the entire prayer. It's a great prayer, the entire prayer, the serenity prayer. But I love the first part of the serenity prayer. It says, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. It's to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. There's certain things I can control, and there's certain things I can't control. But I know what it says in the Bible. The Bible says, fear not. I love the book of Romans, because Romans is kind of, it's the theology book of the Bible. It's kind of the sum it all up. Like we have the Old Testament, 39 books of the Old Testament that talk about the history and the law and the prophecy. And then we get to the Gospels, and the Gospels talk about the fulfilling of the promise, the prophecy through God's son, Jesus. And then we get to the history of the church and the book of Acts. And then we get to Romans, and Paul sums it all up.

He sums up the theology, the study of God, who God is of the entire Bible. And one of the most important things in Romans is salvation, and how you can have salvation. Romans tells us that we all have sin in our life, and we all fall short of the glory of God. And because of the sin in our life, and because we fall short of a holy God, we're all deserving of death. But God sent his son, Jesus, who lived a perfect life and became a perfect sacrifice for us. And so if we believe and confess and receive him as Lord, we receive salvation. So the most important part about Romans, if you talk about theology, is that there is salvation available through God's son, Jesus. And I've been, the last several weeks, last couple of weeks, this is the third week, I've been looking at Romans chapter eight. And I said a couple of weeks ago that Romans chapter eight is really kind of the Mount Everest of the Bible. You go through all the Bible and then you get to Romans eight, and it's kind of like a pinnacle. And in the first week, I talked about having freedom in our faith.

And that very important verse, Romans 8, 1, that says, therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And then last week, I talked about our eternal hope, how even though we have problems in this life, in this current life, we have an eternal hope. Our hope is in heaven. And so today, I wanna look at the last part of Romans chapter eight. And as I've been preparing and praying over you, I've been praying that this would just encourage your soul. They would just encourage your soul to know how much God is for you. So if you have your Bibles, turn to Romans chapter eight. You go all the way down to verse 31. Romans chapter eight, verse 31. I believe that this piece of scripture is gonna be so hopeful and helpful to you. And I think it's appropriate for reading this piece of scripture. If you're able, would you stand for the reading of God's word? If you don't have your Bible, that's okay. It'd be on the screen. Verse 31 says this. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? Who will bring charges against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is he who died, but rather was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who is also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation or trouble or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword, just as it is written, for your sake, we are killed all day long. We were regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen. You may be seated. I wanna say some truths about this. passage. And the first truth I want to say is this, it's very simple. God is for us. I want you to know that God is for us. God is for you. Many people fear, they have a fear in their life, that they are not doing enough. And because they're afraid they're not doing enough, they always have this feeling of being

anxious. They're always anxious. You know, if only I did more and the stuff I do, if only I did it better. I want you to always remember the love that you have for your children. If you are a parent, you know that love that you have for your children, how much you love your children, how much you would do anything for your children because they came from you and you love them so much. God loves you in that same way. He's the Heavenly Father that loves his children. God is for you. God loves you. This first verse that we read today, Romans 8 31, says this, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? I've got to tell you something, every time I hear that verse, I think of my girlfriend my sophomore year of college. Her name was Caitlin, I won't say her last name but her name was Caitlin. And I was madly in love as a sophomore in college and she wrote me one time a card, like a love letter card, and in that card she had this verse, Romans 8 31. And it sounds really good, but the reason she wrote that verse is because, you know, if God is for us, who could be against us? Because everyone in her life was against us. Do you understand? Everyone in her life, like her cousin who was her roommate, and all of her family and friends were against her being with me. They thought she could do a lot better than me. And so I think she was using this verse just to kind of encourage herself that if God is for us, who can be against us? Have you ever felt like people were against you? Have you ever felt like maybe you feel like family members were against you? Or maybe people at school or people at work are against you, they don't have your best interest, they're coming against you? Or maybe even people at church are against you? You feel like all sorts of certain people are against you, but God is for you. See, so many people are building their life on accomplishments and they see Christianity as a checklist. And it's just a matter of doing all these things. Don't do these things, but do these things and then you check off the list. And then when you fall short and you're not able to check something off, there's all kinds of spiritual guilt. That's what being religious does. It causes all kinds of spiritual guilt because we're never doing enough. Not reading the Bible enough, not praying enough, not going to church enough, not able to check off those boxes, so always feeling guilt.

Pastor Jeff has encouraged me, he tells me to don't preach, do better sermons. Do better sermons like do this, do that, do this, and then you leave going, man, I'm not doing enough. And I feel terrible. So constantly hammering what we do. Here's the truth. Don't focus on what you've done. Focus on what's already been done for you. God has sent his son Jesus on our behalf. John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved. For God so loved this group of people. For God so loved this type of people that does X, Y, and Z. God so loved this type of people that lived in this part of the world. Or God loved this type of people that voted this way or did this certain thing. No, no, no, no, no. For God so loved the world. God so loved everyone. God so loved you and me that He gave His Son. God is for you. Second truth is that God will give to you. God wants to give to you. So sometimes we have this fear of not having enough. And if I have this fear of not having enough, I have the question, am I going to run short? Am I going to come up short? And we have what's called a scarcity mentality. Like I don't have enough, and so I'm afraid that I'm going to run short. I don't have enough money, so I'm going to come up short. Or there's not enough time. There's not enough time in the day to get everything done, so I'm going to come up short. Or I don't have enough energy to do what needs to be done, so I'm going to come up short. But you have to remind yourself that God will give to you because He Himself is more than enough. Verse 32 said, He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? You see, that is enough. He gives you forgiveness.

He gives you life. And so we have to, when we start having that scarcity mentality, when we start being concerned that we don't have enough, we have to remember the cross. Constantly remember the cross. Constantly remember, remind yourself of what's been done for you on the cross. John Stott said this, he said, the cross of Jesus is the continuing guarantee of the unfailing generosity of God. He's so generous. And we have a hard time seeing it. We have a hard time depending on it. Why don't we trust God more? So much of the Christian life has to do with trusting God. Why don't we trust God more? Says in James chapter 1 verse 5, but if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all of us generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. And I also like what it says in Philippians chapter 4 verse 19. It says, and my God will supply all of your needs, not some of your needs, all of your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Now notice though, it says needs, not greeds. It says he'll meet our needs. Like my mom used to say, we'd be in a store, and you know how kids are in a store, it's torturous bringing children into a store, especially when they're younger. And when we would start asking for something, my mom always had this great line, classic line, classic mom line, do you want it or do you need it? He supplies all of our needs. God meets our needs. Let me ask you something today. Hasn't God blessed your life? Hasn't God just been so good and faithful? Hasn't he just met for all the needs that you have?

Hasn't he just supplied for everything that you need? Do you know how you know what someone, you can predict what someone is going to do? You can predict someone's actions. Do you know how you can predict someone's actions, like what someone's going to do? Their track record. You look at their track record, and that usually can predict what someone is going to do next, what they've done in the past, because history tends to repeat itself. So what someone's done in the past, their track record, they're going to do it again. Same thing is true with God. He's been faithful in the past. He's faithful right now, and we know he'll be faithful in the future to meet all of our needs. Hasn't God been so faithful to us? God will give to you. And then the third principle is that God will forgive you. God will forgive you. And I know it sounds trite, maybe even trivial, but I think there's some people here today that have a tough one with this one. They have a tough time with this one. That God will forgive you. Because there's some that are sitting here today, under the sound of my voice, they're saying, you don't know what I did. You don't know the sin that I've committed. You don't know the way that I've lived my life, where no one has been, when people aren't around, you don't know what I've done. That sin is too big. There's no way that God can forgive me.

That sin is too big. And oftentimes people feel condemnation. They feel condemned for what they've done. Couple weeks ago, I talked about my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Rader, putting my name on the board because I had done something wrong. And she taught me the lesson of the difference between conviction and condemnation. Conviction is when you commit a sin, either sin of omission or commission, there's a sin in your life, and you feel conviction from the Holy Spirit. Pricks your heart when you're doing wrong. And then there's repentance, there's a turning away, and then there's change. But it starts with conviction. Conviction is a good thing. Condemnation is different. Condemnation says, you didn't just do that sin, you are that sin. And that sin begins to become your identity. God will bring conviction through his Holy Spirit, and then he will forgive you. Verse 34 said, who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is he who died. Yes, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. And then another piece of scripture, 1 John chapter one, verse nine,

says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so there's this process, and it starts with confessing your sins. So we all sin, we all have sin in our lives, and so we all sin. So it starts with confessing our sins. And this is not a once and forever time. We confess our sins every day, sometimes multiple times a day we confess our sins. It's a huge part of our prayer life. It's a huge part of our ongoing discussion with God is our confessing our sins, coming clean with him. And so we confess our sins, and then we repent. And repent is a great word. Repent has been given a bad name in our culture, but repent is a great word for us as Christians. Repent, it starts with your mind. It's Romans 12 too. You're transformed by the renewing of your mind. It's metanoia, to change your mind. So even changing your mind about that sin, and then completely turning around and doing everything you can to make things right. That's what it means to repent. And then you trust God, and you accept his forgiveness, and you walk and live in his forgiveness. And sometimes this is hard.

Accepting God's forgiveness is hard for us sometimes. You know, we may be able to forgive someone else, really work at it, and be able to forgive someone else, but receiving forgiveness from God is sometimes really hard. It's just like sometimes it's really hard to receive a gift, to accept a gift from someone else. Like someone has given you a gift, and it's like, oh, I just feel so awkward taking this. I remember when my last church, I was just feeling a call to, I was preaching, but I was doing a lot of counseling, and I was wanting to learn more about pastoral counseling, why people do what they do, just human behavior, and how to shepherd the people better. And I just wanted to learn more about it. I didn't have any plans with it. I didn't have any goals with it. I just wanted to learn more. And I found out that Liberty University had a program online in pastoral counseling. And I looked at the courses, and I looked at the books, and I thought, wow, this is me, this is me. I would just love to take these classes. I would learn so much, and it would help me as a pastor, and I would just love to do this. And I showed the program to Rochelle, and said, what do you think? Don't you think I would love this? And she agreed, and I said, there's one problem. You have to pay for the courses.

How are we gonna do that? And our church could not afford it. So how are we gonna do this? And I had this. A really good friend, Paul, and his wife, Mary, and they said, I told him my interest in taking these courses. And he's just a really good, supportive, encouraging friend. And he said, we're gonna help you. We're gonna pay for those classes for you. So you tell me when you register for the class and we'll send a check to the church. But we're gonna take care of it. No, no, no, you don't have to do that. You don't have to do that. I was just telling you my passion. I didn't mean you had to pay for the courses. You really don't have to do that. I can't accept it. There's no way. I cannot accept this gift. I cannot do this. And I kept resisting and kept telling him no. Finally, he took me aside and he said, listen, it would be a blessing to us to bless you. And then you use those skills that you learn and that will bless other people. Just say thank you. That's hard. Thank you.

And receive the gift. Some of you just have to receive the forgiveness of God and just say, thank you. I receive it. And now I will be a blessing to others and I will be able to forgive others. God paid the bill for you. Through his son, Jesus. He paid the bill that none of us could pay for. He did it for us. Doesn't matter what you've done, big or small. Doesn't matter what you've done. God will forgive you. Finally, final truth from this text. God will not leave you. God will not leave you. You know, many people, because of a fallen world and broken people and the sin in the world, many people have a fear of being rejected. Because many people have experienced rejection. I'd say every one of us in some way has been rejected. Maybe you were rejected by a boss. Maybe you were let go at a position. Maybe unexpectedly you were let go in your job. You were fired from your job. And so you know what it means to be rejected. Maybe a friend, someone that you love dearly, someone that you were close to, rejected you and is not your friend anymore. Maybe a parent, someone that was supposed to love you

and take care of you and nurture you and be that example for you and provide for you. Maybe a parent rejected you. There's so many people that don't have relationship with their father or their mother because they've been abandoned. So they have that deep, deep hurt of that rejection. Or maybe it was a spouse. Maybe your marriage ended and it wasn't what you desired, but that spouse walked out on you or maybe had an unfaithful relationship. And you know the sting of that rejection. You know the pain of that rejection. And there's long lasting effects. It causes long feelings of doubt. You begin to question, maybe it's my fault. You know, maybe I should be different. Maybe there's something about me. I wanna tell you today that you are perfectly unique. You are God's perfect design. He is your creator and he created you just the way you are for a purpose, for a reason. And you've been listening to the voices of people in a fallen world for too long telling you what you can and can't do. Instead of listening to your creator, your heavenly father who loves you and created you perfectly. I've shared this story before, but I wanna share it again just because I love it so much.

It's from a children's book by author Max Likado called You Are Special. And it's a great book, I highly recommend it, especially to read to your children, for them to see how unique each one of them is. It's a story about these wooden creatures called Wemmicks. And they live in this land where there's all these wooden creatures. And one of these Wemmicks, his name is Punchinello. And Punchinello doesn't feel very good about himself because he goes around town and he's always picking up stickers. So people put stickers on each other. They're either star stickers if they've done something good. So, they receive kind of like a compliment or a praise, they'll get a star sticker. And then if they've messed up, if they've done something wrong, they receive a circle sticker. And so, they just go around town getting stickers all day long on their wooden bodies, these wimmicks. And so, Punchinello has all kinds of stickers. He has a few stars, but mostly he has circle stickers all over him because he messes up a lot. But one day, as he's going through town, there's this one wooden creature that comes along and she is beautiful. The most beautiful person that, wooden creature that Punchinello has ever seen. And what's so beautiful about her, her name is Lucille. And what's so beautiful about Lucille is she has no stickers on her. There's no stickers. And she just stands out as this beautiful creation because there's no stickers on her. And Punchinello is just mesmerized by her.

And he goes to Lucille and he says, he gets the courage up and he says, Lucille, I don't understand. Why don't you have stickers on you? And Lucille says, I'll tell you why I don't have stickers. Because every single day, I go to the woodcarver, Eli. And Eli tells me what he created me to be. And when I go to see Eli, the woodcarver, all my stickers just fall off. And she said, you know what, Punchinello, Eli wants to see you. Eli's been waiting for you to come. You should go see him. He would love to see you. You're his creation. And so Punchinello goes and he sees Eli, the woodcarver. And Eli is so excited, Punchinello, I've been waiting to see you. You are my beautiful creation. I created you just the way I wanted you. And when Punchinello comes right next to Eli, all the stickers just fall off. And Eli just grabs him in his arms and tells him how special and how loved he is. And at the end of this conversation, Eli says, come and see me every day, Punchinello. I want to have relationship with you. Please come and see me every single day. God wants to have relationship with you. He wants to tell you what kind of creation you are, the way that he created you so uniquely, his perfect design. He wants you to spend time with him every single day, to be in close relationship with him. You are God's perfect design. Verses 38 and 39, it says, I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other creative thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ

Jesus our Lord. Last week, I talked about the difficulties of life. And maybe you're going through some sort of difficulty in life. Maybe you received a bad report from the doctor. Maybe you're in a relationship that is, that is struggling. Maybe you have some financial struggles. You're not even sure how to, how you're going to pay the bills. You're going through some sort of struggle. God is for you. He promises to never leave you. Hebrews 13 verses 5 and 6, it says, make sure that your character is free from the love of money. Being content with what you have, for he himself has said, I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you, so that we confidently say, the Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What will mere man do to me? So maybe you've been rejected. Maybe you've been disappointed, but God is for you and God will not leave you. You've heard the story, I've shared it before, of G. Campbell Morgan. G. Campbell Morgan was a great preacher about a generation ago. And he was seeking to become a minister in the Methodist church. He was one out of 150 students that were seeking to receive their doctorate and then become a minister in the Methodist church. to this church. The problem is they only accepted a handful of men. And so to pass, to be accepted, you had to preach in front of a crowd of 1,000. And then there were three judges that stood out in front as you preached. And he was so nervous.

And he got up to preach, and he knew he just totally flubbed it. He knew that it was not good. Terrible sermon. And he didn't get it. And he felt so discouraged. He wrote his dad a letter, but the letter just had one word. He wrote to his dad in big letters. He said, rejected. Rejected. The dad got that letter, and he wrote back to his son. He said, rejected on earth, rejected on earth, but accepted in heaven. G. Campbell Morgan later wrote 23,000 sermons. Great preacher of his generation. He wrote over 70 books that were well-read by Christians everywhere, and predominantly by students in seminary. See, rejection is a part of life. And there will be times because we live in a fallen world that you will be rejected on earth, but then you will be accepted in heaven. So let me ask you, are you going to let fear set the tone in your life? Or are you going to live a life of faith? God is for you. God wants to give you, give to you. God wants to forgive you,

and God will not leave you. Now we come to the most important question of all. Have you turned from sin and selfishness and given your heart and life to Jesus? Listen, if not, today is the day for you. Just pray this simple prayer from your heart. Lord Jesus, I need you. I know that I'm a sinner and I can't save myself, but I believe, Jesus, that you are God in the flesh. I believe you died on the cross for my sins and rose again from the dead. And right now, I ask you to forgive me and save me, come into my life, change me, make me the person you want me to be. I surrender my life to you, and I promise to follow you all the days I have left. Now, if you pray that kind of prayer and mean it, the Lord will come in, and your life will never be the same. Listen, I would love to hear from you, so please contact me and share with me what's going on so we can pray for you. And if you are ever in the Texarkana area, we would love for you to visit us live and in person at FBC Texarkana. Listen, you really are important to God, and you're important to us, and we're here for you.