Grace Looks Good On You | Nick Bodine

Hey, Central family, so glad you are with us this weekend. And I wanna welcome all of those who are joining us across our Central locations, as well as online. Special shout out if you're watching from a prison facility around the country through our partnership with God Behind Bars and the Pando app, we're grateful for all of you. We know we're right in the middle of our annual backpack drive here at Central. It leads up to this big event that we do called Kickstart. And at this event, kids and students really get to come in and pick out their backpacks. And they get school supplies and hygiene kits and so much more. It's a way to really ensure that they start the school year off right. There are a couple of ways you can get involved. One, you can go out and shop for a backpack and for school supplies for a family, or you can sponsor a child. We estimate for around $40. These resources will go to getting a backpack, getting school supplies, and also helping ongoing efforts to serve families and to serve kids in this season and throughout the year. So it's not too late to jump in. We'd love for you to do that. And our heart is that these students know that they have a church community who is for them, who wants them to succeed,

and that ultimately they feel the love of Jesus. So to find the school supply list for shopping or to sponsor a child, you can scan the QR code here, or you can visit the lobby of your select location. Well, this weekend is the last weekend in our series, Audience of One. And we're gonna continue to explore Jesus' longest teaching known as the Sermon on the Mount. If you missed any of the past messages, I want to encourage you to head over to the Central Church app, Get Caught Up. You can just click the Experience tab along the bottom. You can also find past messages there, as well as the teaching notes each weekend to follow along with the message. So if you want to grab your app now, get those teaching notes ready. Let's open our hearts. Let's open our minds to hear God's word, and let's put our hands together to welcome our speaker. All right. Welcome, everyone. I want to give a shout out to our Central Kingman location that's joining us this weekend, Central Aliante. We are so thankful that you guys are with us. I want to give a shout out to any guests that showed up with us today. Maybe it's your first time. We're so thankful that you're joining us. My name's Nick.

I'm one of the pastors here, and I'm just so excited to be with you this weekend. I'm excited to unpack God's word with you this weekend. And we've been in this incredible summer series. We've been having a lot of fun this summer, and it feels like the summer is just flying by, doesn't it? We just had a big family celebration yesterday. Our second oldest daughter, Quinn, she just turned 16 yesterday, which means I am a week away from potentially having two drivers in the house. She's got to pass a test, but that's scary. Mainly that's scary because I'm a week away from seeing my insurance bill climb faster than my power bill this summer. But it's crazy how fast life is going. It's crazy how fast the summer is flying by. And I was thinking back this week when I was a kid, and did anybody else have one of these in their house when they were a kid? Or maybe like me, you had one of these lazy boys, one of these recliners in your grandparents' house, right? Like this was always known to me. Like when I look at this, this was grandpa's chair. Not this exact chair, but a chair just like it, a recliner just like it. This was grandpa's chair. In fact, both sets of grandparents that I had had a chair just like this reserved for grandpa. And it wasn't just a chair, this was a throne.

Like my grandparents' houses were set up where everything revolved around grandpa's chair. Like his chair was front and center to the TV. He had a little table next to it, and everything you needed in the living room was on grandpa's table. The remote, the newspaper, he had his reading glasses there, he had his coffee, he had his coaster, and everything had its place. You didn't touch anything on grandpa's table next to grandpa's chair. And if grandpa was home, he was always in that chair. It was always occupied. Now I don't remember grandpa ever like making some sort of like big announcement to the family, like creating some law, like hear ye, hear ye. No one shall sit in the chair except, I can't even do an English accent, old English accent, but I don't remember that happening, but everybody just knew like you don't sit in his chair, that's his chair. And there was one day where I was probably like seven years old, and I remember my grandparents weren't home, grandpa wasn't home. I was over at their house, and I remember looking at that chair just thinking, I really wanna sit in that chair. I wonder what he feels like in that chair. Does anybody else have those moments as a kid, like you know you shouldn't do something,

which just made you wanna do it even more? So I remember like looking. around making sure the coast was clear and I climbed up into that chair. I sat down, like, ooh, I could do this. I remember probably took both arms to pull this lever up and get the recliner back. Hey, we could preach like this every weekend. Put my feet up, remember grabbing the remote, turning the TV on, putting on his reading glasses, opening up the newspaper like this is the life. Grandpa has it good. And just about the second I started to get comfortable, I hear the garage door open and close. And my heart sinks because in comes walking grandpa. And now I'm caught, it's game over. Grandpa walks into the house, he looks at me. I'm trying to put the newspaper up even higher, hide behind it. He looks at his table, he looks at his chair, he looks back at me, he says, Nick, what are you doing in my chair? And I don't remember what excuse I came up with. I think I told him that I was cleaning it or my bike was stuck behind it or something ridiculous because kids are horrible liars. But I remember jumping up out of that chair so fast because I had been caught sitting in a seat that didn't belong to me. You know, I never tried to sit in grandpa's chair again,

but I've spent my whole adult life still battling the temptation to sit in a chair that doesn't belong to me. And I think we all battle this temptation and it's not grandpa's chair that's the temptation. What the temptation I'm talking about is, is the temptation to sit in God's chair, to sit in a seat that only he should occupy. Like Pastor Judd was talking about, we've been in this series called Audience of One and we've been looking at the truth about this temptation to live our whole lives for everybody else, to live our whole lives for the applause of people or to perform or to prove ourselves or to chase approval. We can spend our whole lives worrying about what everyone else thinks, but Jesus keeps reminding us through the summer series that what God thinks matters so much more than what everybody else thinks. Week one, we talked about not doing good works, not performing good works, just so everybody else can see it, just so people notice us. Week two, Pastor Brandon taught, which Pastor Brandon, that was his first weekend teaching with the central family. Can we give it up really big for him? He did an incredible job. But he taught us that prayer isn't something we perform, that prayer is where we meet our heavenly father

in the quiet place. And today Jesus addresses something I think every single one of us wrestle with more than we even realize. And that is judging people, being judgmental, keeping score, criticizing others, condemning others, making assumptions. I think more often than not, sometimes we find ourselves in a seat deciding who's right and who's wrong and who's in, who's out. And the problem is that we've gotten really, really comfortable sitting in a chair that we're not supposed to sit in. We've gotten really comfortable sitting in a seat that doesn't belong to us, a seat that only belongs to God. If you have your Bible this weekend, we're gonna be in Matthew chapter seven. Go ahead and open up there. We're gonna be in, start in verse one, Matthew seven, verse one. And this is where Jesus is in the sermon, still giving his sermon on the mount. One of the most famous sermons, the sermon of all of history, given by the greatest teacher, the greatest preacher to ever walk this earth, Jesus. And he's been teaching us what life in the kingdom of God looks like, what a transformed heart truly looks like. And look at what he has to tell us today.

We're gonna start in verse one. When we get to the red words, say those out loud with us. It says, do not what? Judge. Do not judge others and you will not be judged for you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be. What? Judged. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged. And why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own? Now, sometimes when people read these verses, they immediately think that Jesus is saying, like never tell someone they're wrong. Like we're not supposed to correct people or hold people accountable. No, this isn't what Jesus is saying here. He's not doing like a don't hold people and don't correct people. Don't hold them accountable. No, Jesus, what he's saying here is we're gonna see in a few minutes that after you've dealt with your own heart, after you've reflected, after you've looked in. at your own life, that's when you'll be able to help somebody else. So this isn't about pretending that sin doesn't exist

or lowering God's standards. These verses, this is about something deeper. This is about remembering that there is only one judge, one and only judge. And when I forget that in my own life, when I forget that God is the only judge, what I find myself doing is slowly drifting back over and trying to sit in a seat that I was never designed to sit in, that I was never designed or created to occupy. So today, I wanna offer that the very first thing that Jesus is telling us is in these verses is that we need to get up out of God's chair. We need to step out of His chair. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't like to think of myself as a very judgmental person. I don't think that this is something we brag about. Is there anybody here that was like, I just, I'm a judgmental person. Yeah, see, a couple of honest people, that's awesome. But on a job application, you don't write like, show up to work on time, hard worker, very judgmental of others, very critical of others. No, it's not something we brag about. It just kind of happens to us over time. It's unexpected. It's those moments where you're driving to work and somebody cuts you off, and the first thing out of your mouth is like,

oh, what an idiot. It's the church version. Probably something worse comes out of your mouth, my mouth. What a dummy. You're at the grocery store. Somebody leaves their cart right in the middle. You're like, who leaves a cart in the middle? Parents raise them to be inconsiderate. Get your cart over. Somebody parents differently than you, votes differently than you, spends money differently than you. Maybe they raise their kids differently than you, worships differently than you. And before we even realize what's happening, we've already made a verdict about the person in our mind. And what's funny about that is most of the time, we don't even know the whole story. We saw one moment and we assume we know the whole person. If I can confess something, I do this way more often. I catch myself doing this more often than I would like to admit, especially like when I'm behind the wheel of a car and I can't see faces. Like I can't see the person. I just see their taillights or their bumper. There have been moments where I've seen someone make a decision and I immediately thought in my mind, like why in the world would they do that?

They're not very intelligent. But then later I'll see a face. I'll hear a story of what they're going through. I'll hear about the diagnosis that they just experienced or about the family situation they're walking through. I'll hear about a loss that they're recently carrying. I'll hear about a part about the story I never knew and almost every single time I beat myself up, I'm thinking, why? Why would I make such a judgment not knowing the whole story? I would have never judged them the way I do if I just, I did, if I just knew the whole story. I think it's amazing how compassion shows up when we start to know the whole person, when we start to know the whole story. That's why Jesus does something in James chapter four that completely rearranged how I even think of Matthew chapter seven. Look at what Jesus says, or look at what it says in James chapter four, verse 11. It says, if you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God's law. But what's our job? Your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you. God alone who gave the law is the what? Judge. Is the judge. Now, all the letters are in capital letters

here in this format. But if you look in your Bible, the word judge is capitalized. Why? Because it's saying God is the one and only heavenly judge. He alone has the power to save or destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor? So there is one and only judge, and it's not you. It's not me. It's definitely not me. There is one and only judge. That means every time that I decide someone's motives or every time I assume I know someone's heart or every time I keep score or every time I decide who's worthy of grace and who isn't worthy of grace, all I'm doing is walking back over and climbing in a seat that I was never supposed to sit in. This was never. mine to sit in. And can I tell you something? Something that I've learned throughout my whole life, sitting in this seat, although it looks comfortable, although it looks cushy, although it reclines, it looks attractive, it looks comfortable, but trying to sit in that seat, trying to be God is exhausting. I think some of us are carrying responsibilities that God never asked you to carry. I think some of us are trying to fix everyone

or manage everyone or correct everyone, control everyone. Maybe you've become the referee in like every family conflict, every work conflict, every friend conflict, where the jury in every disagreement, where the prosecutor in every offense, and you are so tired, why? Because you were never created to carry the weight of being everyone's judge. Only God can do that. And here's the good news. God, He's actually really, really good at being God. Like He's really good at His role. He doesn't need us. He doesn't need your help. He doesn't need my help. He sees what we can't see. He sees every motive. He sees every hurt. He sees every wound, every conversation. He sees every tear. He sees what everyone's walking through, every detail that I'll never know, which means I can trust Him to do what only He can do. I can trust Him to sit in that seat. So this week, I wanna challenge us. Before we make this judgment of other people, what if we just slowed down and asked ourselves three questions? Before we criticized others, before we judged them, what if we asked ourselves these three questions?

First, let's just start with, do I actually know the whole story? Because if we can answer no to that, well, we can just stop right there. Like I don't know the whole situation. I don't know the background. I don't know the whole person. I don't know the story. So I don't need to bring any help to this situation. But second, the second question we can ask ourselves is, is this actually my responsibility? Not everything we have an opinion about is something that God's asked us to carry. It's something that God's asked us to fix. But third, have I prayed about them more than I've talked about them? Have I prayed about that person more than I've criticized that person? Can you imagine if every criticism we had of others just became a prayer for them? Like if every judgment that came into our heart just became an opportunity to trust that person to God. Every time I climb into God's chair, what I'm doing is I'm losing sight of God's heart. That chair, that belongs to Him. And He's far better at being God than I am. So Jesus tells us we gotta get up out of God's chair. But then He says something even harder. He says something even more difficult to come to terms with at times.

He tells us that after we get out of God's chair, now we have to go look in the mirror. The second thing we're gonna see in Matthew 7 is that Jesus says that we need to let God work on us before we try to help others. We gotta let God work on the inside of us. I think one of the hardest things in life is just seeing myself accurately. I think you might have that problem as well. Just seeing ourselves the way that others see us. Have you ever had one of those moments where everybody else noticed something about you, on you, other than you? Like you walk around the whole day with spinach in your teeth, maybe toothpaste on your face, your shirt's inside out, checking yourself, making sure everything's zipped, your hair is sticking straight up. Everybody sees it except for you. I was out to dinner with my wife, Laura, and we were with another couple. And as we're eating dinner, I noticed that in Laura's teeth, she has these beautiful white teeth. And because they're beautiful white teeth, whenever she gets like a piece of pepper stuck, like it just sticks out. And it's always in the same little spot. And so I'm trying not to let the other couple see what's going on and try not to be obvious about it,

but trying to help Laura. So I'm like, hey, babe, you got... She's like, yeah. I'm like, yeah, like do something about it. Like, she does nothing. I'm like, babe, you've... She's like, yeah, yeah, babe. I finally had to stop being discreet. I'm like, you got pepper in your teeth. She's like, Nick, you have queso in your beard. I'm like, I grabbed my phone. Sure enough, just a giant glob of queso right in my beard. Which if you have a beard, ever had a beard, any sort of queso, sauce. runny eggs, all of it ends up in the beard. You shouldn't eat them. But it is amazing that here I am, I'm trying to point out pepper in my wife's teeth while my face is an absolute mess. And that's life, right? It's easy to see what's going on with everybody else, but difficult to see what's going on with me. I think that's exactly why Jesus says what he does in verse three. To pick it back up, he says this. He says, and why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying to your friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye when you can't see past the what?

The log in your own eye. Hypocrite, the Bible, Jesus, he screams hypocrite in this moment. First, get rid of the log in your own eye, and then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye. I love Jesus's sense of humor here because he's intentionally exaggerating. He's, can you imagine walking up to someone with a whole branch just sticking out of your eye and you're like, oh, hey, to your friend, you're like, you got a little sleep in your eye. Let me help you get that sleep out. Let me get the tweezers. And your friend's thinking, yeah, like how are you gonna even be able to see that log's blocking all of our light? Like, I'd love for you to help me, but you're not able to. Jesus is painting a ridiculous picture because he's making a powerful point. It is incredibly easy to spot the specks in someone else's life, but is it much harder to recognize the logs in our own life? But I want you to notice in those verses, Jesus doesn't say that the speck in your friend's eye isn't real. He didn't say just ignore the speck. He doesn't lower God's standard. He's simply just giving us the order. He's saying, first, deal with your own heart.

Then you'll actually be able to help somebody else. And I think that's so important because Jesus isn't calling us to be passive people. What he's calling us to do is to be reflective and to be humble. I think a lot of us, myself included, we can be really good at identifying what everybody else needs to work on. I can tell you what everyone else shouldn't have said or should have said. I can tell you what they should have posted or shouldn't have posted. I can tell you how every conversation could have been handled better, how they could have parented differently or how they could have responded better. And all the while, God's trying to get my attention saying, Nick, you're still a mess and you're ignoring that. Can we talk about you for just a minute? I've discovered the Holy Spirit is far more interested in changing me than he is in proving me right to everyone else. And I wonder how many of our prayers have started with, God, would you please change them? God, like, would you please change my boss? Would you please change my coworker? God, would you use your changing power and change my spouse or my teenager or my parents or my neighbor? Would you change my friend?

Would you change that person that hurt me? But what if this week we prayed a different prayer? What if this week we started with the prayer, God, before you change them, would you change me? Would you examine me? Would you search my heart? Would you reveal anything in me, God, that doesn't look like you, that doesn't look like Jesus? God, would you show me the places where pride has set in, where unforgiveness has settled in, where bitterness has taken root? God, where have I been more interested in winning an argument than I have loving the other person? You see, we need to learn to drop and put down criticism and pick up conviction, because criticism finds fault, but conviction finds surrender. Criticism, it points the finger, where conviction, it looks in the mirror. Criticism, it demands change from others, where conviction welcomes change within me. You see, criticism, it makes me the judge. Criticism puts me in that seat, where conviction reminds me that Jesus is the judge, that I'm just a follower, I'm a disciple. The people growing closest to Jesus, they spend a lot less time evaluating everybody else and far more time inviting Jesus to examine them, to evaluate them. So here's my challenge for you this week. Before you send that text or criticize that person,

before you confront somebody, Before you point out that speck in their eye or that piece of pepper in their teeth, what if you just pause for just a second? Pause and ask yourself the question, God, what are you trying to teach me right now? Not what are you trying to teach them, not what are you trying to reveal to them, what are you trying to reveal in me? Because I'll say it again, the most relationally healthiest people I know, the most spiritually healthiest people I know, the most emotionally healthiest people I know, they spend far more time inviting God to examine their own hearts than they do examining everybody else's. And here's the best part, is that once we've gotten up out of God's seat, out of his chair, of the judgment throne, and once we've invited God to work on our own heart, that's when Jesus says that we're ready to help others. That's when Jesus says that we're ready to walk alongside of others, not with condemnation, but to walk along them with grace, help with grace, which is the third thing that Jesus is teaching us this weekend that I wanna offer you, give away the grace that you've been given. We need to learn to give away

that same grace that we've received. Remember, I was saying earlier, Jesus never said in those verses to ignore the speck in your friend's eye. He's not trying to tell us don't correct people or don't help people. Look at those verses one more time. It says this, it says, first get rid of the log in your own eye, and then, then, keyword, then you will see well enough to what? To deal with the speck in your friend's eye. So first deal with your own heart, and then you'll actually be able to see and help someone else. You'll have new eyes, you'll have a new vision. You'll see how he sees things, which raises a really important question though, because how do we actually help someone? Sometimes I convince myself that helping is just that, it's helping, but all I'm really trying to do is just prove a point or prove myself right. Sometimes I call it accountability, but all I really want is just to be correct in the situation. But real accountability isn't about standing over someone, trying to prove some point. No, real accountability is coming alongside someone. It's not condemnation, it's about restoration of the person. The goal isn't to shame them,

the goal is to help people become more like Jesus, to love them how he loves them. And if you're wondering what that looks like in real life, Jesus gives us the perfect example in John chapter eight. There's a story in John chapter eight where Jesus is teaching to this crowd of people. And I love reading about any time that Jesus teaches because crowds just form around Jesus. People want to hear what he has to say. They hang on every word that Jesus is saying. And so he's teaching and this crowd of people start to gather around him and all of a sudden everything comes to a stop. And these religious leaders, they burst onto the scene and they're dragging a woman who was caught in adultery right into the middle of the crowd, right into the middle of the circle. And what's interesting is that they don't bring the man, they just bring the woman. And when they get to the center of the crowd, they just throw this woman at Jesus's feet. I can only imagine how she's feeling in this moment. I mean, a whole crowd of people, she's on the ground, her sin, her mistakes are being aired out for everyone, they're being talked about. You can imagine the whispers from the onlookers, the judgment from everyone there, she's down on the ground, she feels so ashamed, she feels so humiliated. And then these religious leaders,

they look at Jesus and say, the law of Moses, it tells us, it says that she should be stoned. But what do you say, Jesus? They're trying to trap him. But can you imagine this moment? Can you imagine everyone there just reaching down on the ground and grabbing a stone? Like they're ready, they're prepared. The fear that this woman must have felt as a whole crowd of people reached down and picked up one of these, just ready to throw it. Can you imagine a whole crowd of people, everybody ready to stone you to death for a mistake that you just made? Can you imagine the fear that she must have had? And this crowd, these onlookers, they're just waiting. They think they're doing what's right. They think they're doing what. it's religiously called for them to do. They're waiting for Jesus to give them command, for him to give them permission. They're just waiting to throw a stone of judgment, to just give the word. But Jesus kneels down. He writes something in the dirt. We don't know what he wrote in the dirt. The Bible doesn't tell us, John doesn't tell us what Jesus wrote in the dirt, but it does tell us what Jesus said in this moment. He stands back up.

Jesus looks at the crowd, and in verse seven, he says this. He says, let the one who has what? Never. Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone. Can you imagine the silence that must have come over that crowd? As every single person there started evaluating their own life, started examining their own heart, started thinking about their own mistakes, their own sin, and every individual there just started dropping their stone. The Bible tells us that one by one by one, every stone hit the ground. And as every stone hit the ground, each individual turned and walked away in silence until it was just Jesus and this woman. Church, don't miss this. The only person left standing there was the only person who actually had the right to throw a stone, that lived a perfect life, that never made a mistake, that never sinned. The only person standing there was the only one who had the actual right, and he didn't even have a rock in his hand. The only one qualified to judge chose grace. Jesus looks at her and looks at what he says in the next verse. It says this, it says, where are your accusers, Jesus asked the woman. Didn't even one of them condemn you?

No, Lord, she said. And Jesus said, neither do I. Go and sin no more. Praise Jesus for those words right there. Neither do I, go and sin no more. That's the love of our Savior. And did you notice the order? Jesus says grace first and then truth. Neither do I condemn you, now go and sin no more. Jesus didn't ignore her sin. He didn't excuse it. Jesus didn't pretend that her sin wasn't serious. He just simply refused to let condemnation and death have the final word. He restored before he redirected. In that moment, Jesus loved before he corrected. He offered her grace and then he invited her into a new life. And isn't that exactly what he's done for each one of us? I mean, really think about that. We're not just the crowd ready to hold stones of judgment. We've also been that woman on our face in that dirt because every single one of us have sinned. Every single one of us have fallen short. We've all deserved condemnation. We've all deserved death. And yet Jesus looked at us not with a stone in his hand, but with grace in his heart. Church, we need to learn to drop the stone. We've all walked in here today holding something.

I believe a lot of us, we've walked in here holding hurt. A lot of us walked in here holding bitterness. A lot of us walked in here holding disappointment. Maybe some of us are holding offenses or holding onto something someone said about you years ago. Maybe some of us are holding onto a mistake that somebody's made, a mistake that we've made. We're holding onto guilt, we're holding onto shame. Believe a whole lot of us, we're holding onto a lot of pain. And what that pain has done over the years is it's turned into a stone, a stone of judgment, a stone of condemnation, a stone of keeping score, of refusing to forgive, of always remembering what we did, of always replaying the offense in our head, of always carrying the weight of our guilt and our shame. And the beautiful part of this whole story is that everybody there that day with this woman was holding onto something. Those religious leaders, they were holding onto judgment. The woman was holding onto guilt and shame, but Jesus was holding onto grace. He wasn't holding a stone. And the closer we get to the heart of Jesus, the harder it should become to hold onto one of these. So we've got to drop it. Today is time to put it down. We're not meant to carry it. Jesus never asked us to carry it.

It's time to trust the one and only judge to start living like someone. who has already received grace in their life. Because living for an audience of one means coming to the realization that I deserve that stone, but Jesus met me with grace. And people who have been changed by grace should become people who give grace away. So today, Jesus is inviting us to do three things, to get up out of God's seat, to get up out of that seat of judgment, to look in the mirror and reflect and let God work on the inside of us. And then when we understand the grace that we've been given, we'll be able to give that same grace away to others. I was saying earlier, I never sat back down in grandpa's chair, and not just because I was afraid of him, and I'm making my grandpa seem really mean. He wasn't a mean guy, he was a great guy, but this was his chair. And even after he passed away when I was just 11 years old, I still never got back in this chair because I had finally understood this chair, this isn't for me. I don't fit in this chair. This wasn't created for me. This isn't a chair that I should sit in. And neither is God's chair. And that's really good news

because he's a much better judge. He's much better at being God than I am, than you are. And the best news of all is the one who sits in the judge's chair, he chose to go to a cross and not pick up a stone. He took the judgment we deserved so that we could receive the grace that we could never earn. That's the gospel. That's what it looks like to live for an audience of one. And maybe you're here today, maybe you've never personally received that grace. You don't even know what that grace feels like, the gift of that radical grace that Jesus has to offer because you've never named him your Lord and Savior. Maybe you never named him the leader and forgiver of your life and experienced all the freedom that comes with that grace, the freedom from your past, the freedom from your guilt, the freedom from the shame. And if that's you, I wanna lead you through a prayer where you can do that today. You can name Jesus your Lord and Savior. So if I could have everybody bow their heads and close their eyes. If you wanna make him the leader and forgiver of your life, whether you're sitting in your living room, you're sitting at one of our locations, you're inside a prison facility right now, you're here in this room. If you wanna name Jesus your Lord and Savior,

just pray, God, I know that I'm a sinner, but I know you sent Jesus to forgive me of that sin. I believe he died on the cross, but I also believe that he rose from the grave, giving me the opportunity, God, to spend all of eternity with you. Forgive me of my sins. I name Jesus my personal Lord and Savior. And if that's you today, with every head bowed and every eye closed, here's what I'm gonna ask you to do. I'm just gonna ask you to slip your hand up in the air. This is just a moment between you and God, just recognizing that you're giving him your life, you're giving him your future. You're gonna start living for his purpose. You're receiving that radical grace in your own life. You're dropping the shame, you're dropping the guilt. Thank you for every hand. For every hand we can't see online, every hand inside a prison facility, every hand reaching out to God right now. God, I just pray over every single one of these individuals. Show up in a powerful way. Show them your love, show them your grace, show them your power in their life. God, for all of us, let us put down the stone of judgment. Let us get out of your seat. We trust you to do what only you can do. We know we didn't deserve your grace,

but we got it anyway, we got your love, we got the grace. Now let us extend that same grace to others. Let us love people how you love people, God. And as we do, we're gonna give you all the credit and all the glory. We're gonna live our lives for you. We pray all this in Jesus' name, amen. Hey, can we give it up for anyone who made a decision to follow Jesus today? If that's you, we're gonna ask you to go put in your web browser, central.family. There, you're gonna hit a quick link that says, I've decided to follow Jesus, and we're gonna send you some free resources that help you walk in your new faith. Well, at this time, I'm gonna throw it over to all of our different location pastors.