How To Live The Jesus Life

and the "We" is greater than me series. There's a phrase that we've been using all along, and it's this, "In an isolated world, together is better than alone." Say that with me. "In an isolated world, together is better than alone." We've been looking at the book of Ephesians, a letter that Paul wrote to a church in Ephesus, and don't think of church like a big building. Think of church as in all over the city meeting in homes. Think in terms of what Paul was saying to that church, or he wanted to encourage them. He started off by talking about people with Jesus, life is better. That becomes a "we" of its own. With Jesus, he's done it all for us. He died on the cross, rose from the dead. He has all power. But then beyond that, we, we have the opportunity to be connected to the "we" of the body of Christ that we need each other, and how he breaks down the walls of hostility for us. And when he does that, we can all together thank God and say, "But God," he meant. Where would we be except for God stepped into our stories? And then last week, we looked at Ephesians chapter 4 and the first few verses. We looked at how there are different callings that we have in the body of Christ. There's the chapter 4 verse 11 calling, which is the pastors of Angelus Apostles, prophets. Teachers, pastors.

And all of them are set up like the coaches of the Vikings to help the players on the field in their calling. And you're either a 411, a called person. You're a 412, called person. And today we're going to transition into making that practical. Once you have your calling, it's the "we" with me and God. It's the "we" with me and the church. What do I do on a practical level? So today and next week, we're going to look kind of really practically in chapter 4. And the title of today's message is this, "How to Live the Jesus Life." Turn to the person next to you and say, "You can live the Jesus life." All right, we're going to walk back into this living room set, if you will, as if this is the setting that Paul is writing a letter to the connection to relationships and living room. And many people have been doing that over the city, over the last five weeks, jumped into a "we" greater than me connect group. And you can still jump in if you haven't already. There's these guides that are available in the lobby or at the doors. As you go out, you can also pull out the Immanuel MN app, where you also have the message notes every Sunday. We also have the links for the connect group guide, where you can go through questions, watch a video that's already been prepared. You can do it with your family. You can do it any other place, but I encourage you to continue.

Turn it into a conversation. It's not just you learning about God. It's also what he's doing. Okay, today, if you would pull your Bibles out, Ephesians chapter four, starting with verse 17, it says this, "With the Lord's authority, I say this, live no longer as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused. Their minds are full of darkness. They wander far from the life God gives, because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him. They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity." It says right at the top here, go back up to the top. It says, "With the Lord's authority, Paul is writing as an apostle. He has spiritual authority, and from the church, he was laid hands on him, and praying and commissioned him in in the book of Acts. And now he's speaking to the church as an apostle. So he says this with authority, "Live no longer." Say that with me, "Live no longer." And when he's saying this, he says, "Don't go back to the way things were. Don't go back to your previous life." He talks about here specifically, as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused. Now, we've already been in this letter,

learning how there are both Jews and Gentiles walking away from their previous life into one church, one body. Now, this is the body of Christ, but they live in a Gentile context. And so what he's saying is, listen, you need to not go back to your old life. We have a choice of how we're going to live. Are we going to live in a new way? Are we going to live in the old way? And Paul says, "Don't go back to how you used to live." Now, in modern times, there's nostalgia attached to previous decades and eras. I grew up, I was in an 80s child. That's when I graduated in the previous millennium in a land far, far away. where people have taken their photos and uploaded them, and then it turns it into, as if today, you were in retro mode of view of the '80s or '90s. So what I did is I went ahead and I put a photo of Jodi and I in, and this is what it came out as. (audience laughing) - Me on mate here. Now this, Jodi did not know about this, so first time she saw this is today. It's not real, it's not true, but it's as if we were, wearing the old clothes, wearing the old things, going back to the old hairstyles. When I was in high school, I actually did have a mullet

hair than when I didn't permit, though. There were many people that did, and yeah, that was the era. So I want you to imagine with me that Paul is essentially saying, listen, don't live like that anymore. Don't, in your modern era, don't go back to how you used to be. Don't live in the previous era of thinking, don't go back. And he says there in the text that people thought a certain way, and when they go back with their thoughts, eventually their heart begins to be hardened. If you think about old things long enough, it's like an affair of the mind. If you think it about it long enough, eventually your heart will be impacted by it. Nobody falls out of love. They think themselves out of love. Nobody falls away from God. We think ourselves out of following God. So Paul is saying, don't go back to the old ways of thinking. He wants us to continue, and of course, have light, not the darkness. Let's go to verse number 20, and it says, I'll go ahead and, but that isn't what you learned about Christ. Since you have heard about Jesus, and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature,

and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception, and instead let the spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes, put on your new nature, created to be like God, truly righteous and holy. Go back up to the top of verse number 20, if you would. That isn't what you learned. That's the old, okay, says? And since you've heard about Jesus, that's the new, learned about the truth that comes from him. This is what he says. Throw off your old sinful nature. Now, the language that he's using here is actually the language of clothing. He does us in a couple of his letters. But if you were to go back to the close you wore, he's saying this, your habits are to keep going and wearing the same thing. In spiritual terms, you used to live a certain way. You used to have these behaviors and attitudes, and you keep going back. So now he says, don't do that. Don't go back to the closet, and put on that anger you used to have. Don't go back and have the language you used to have. Don't go back and be the kind of person or the thinking that you used to have. Instead, he says this, take it out of the closet and throw it away. In other words, don't put it back in the closet

as an option to go back to. Go and throw it away, ever say throw it away. And so he says, throw it off all your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, now, ever say it instead. Instead, let the spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes, put on your new nature. Now, what he's saying is instead, do something different. Now, it's one thing to get rid of it. It's another thing to let the spirit come in in a new way with new thoughts, new attitudes. And so he essentially is saying, go and put something different on. Put on the new nature. You've gotten rid of the old, you've thrown it away, but put on the new. There's more than just taking it off to following Jesus and getting rid of your old life. It's also about putting on the new. And he's saying, put on your new nature created to be like God. And so we have the opportunity to put on something brand new. Let's go on to the next verse, verse 25. So stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbors the truth for we are all parts of the same body. and putting on. And so he says, so stop telling lies. In other words, take it off. Don't do that anymore. Throw it away. But he also says, let us tell our neighbors the truth. That's putting on

a different activity. It's not just abstaining from sin or don't do bad things. Some people think that Christianity is all these rules of what you can't do. You can't do that. You can't do that. You can't do that. No, he's saying, no, yeah, there are things you don't do, but there's things you do instead. And he begins to talk about telling the truth. If you used to not tell the truth, then tell the truth now. And it says, for we are all parts of the same body, reminder that when you lie, it hurts the body. But when you tell the truth, it helps the body. So don't do things that hurt the body. This is essentially Paul's sake. He says, and there are more wardrobe changes. We're going to see the verse 26. It says, and don't sin by letting anger control you. Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry. For anger gives a foothold to the devil. Now he begins to deal with anger. Anger is something that you can control. And it's saying, don't let sin control you. Now there are many different grades of anger. There's the visible explosive anger, and there's the silent internal deadly anger. Both anglers are at play here. And he's saying, don't let anger control you. It did before. Now it can't anymore. You've got to put a stop to it. And he says, essentially, deal with it today. Don't let the sun go down on the anger. In other words, put a timer on it. If anger arises, don't let it carry over and build up into something much, much worse. Have you ever had a day where at the beginning of the day you started off good, but then something bad happened. Somebody says something crossed to you. Or there was something that happened where you were like really ticked off. Or you were driving down the road. Somebody cut you off. And then they put the middle finger up to you as if it was your fault. Am I the only one that's ever happened? Something like this. And then it builds into something else. By the time you go home, if you haven't dealt with your anger, it gets bigger and worse later on in the day. So Paul is saying, you can control this. Some of you are like, well, I can't control it. This is just the way I am. And is that true? Because when you're like explosive, angry, saying certain things, if I walked into the room, would you change? If you can control it based on who is in the room, then you can control it. And Paul is saying, don't let it. Stop it. And then he says, and there's a warning in this, for anger gives a foothold to who. Once you think of a door that's cracked open, that you want to shut, but there's a foot in the bottom of the door. You can't shut that door. Some of us are wanting to stop the attack from the enemy that's getting into our marriages, into our families, and other spaces in our brains. And we're wondering why we can't shut the door. It's because we

got to deal with our anger. Shut the door. Keep the devil out. And the way you do it is by dealing with your anger. And this is what he's saying, for anger gives a foothold to the devil. Now let's go on to verse number 28. And it says, if, everybody say, if, if you're a thief quit stealing. Now this is this phrase here, if you're a thief quit stealing. There's quite possibly people in the church that have stolen. They took something that they shouldn't have had. He says, if you were a thief quit stealing. In other words, take that code off and throw it away and never put it on again. Then he says, instead, everybody said, instead. So instead you see him saying what you put on, instead use your hands for good hard work and then give generously to others in need. What he's saying is two things here. Physically, if your hands were used to steal, start using your hands for something good. it's about doing something good, using the hands that stole for good. And then he takes it even deeper because really the heart of stealing is greed. And he says, "And then give generously to others in need." And when our actions are provoked or the root of our actions is greed, the antidote to that is to be generous. So instead of taking, it's giving. Some of us in our lives, we have taken from everyone around us. There's an ulterior motive in that. And Paul would say to us, and the admonition of Scripture is, "Don't be a taker, be a giver." Turn to the person next to you and say, "Don't be a taker, be a giver." Now he takes this into another dimension in the very next verse. Look at verse number 29.

In verse 29, it says, "Don't use foul or abusive language. "Let everything you say be good and helpful "so that your words will be an encouragement "to those who what?" Now this is 429, baby. It is 429. We got into this spot, it's in my text. I preached this about twice a year, but it's right in the context of putting off and putting on. See right here, he's saying, "Get rid of the corrosive, abusive language." Don't use it. You might, in the world around you might, that might be the language of the people around you. That might be what's on your TikTok reel. That might be what people are doing in group chats, but you can't do this. In fact, he says let everything you say be good and helpful. In other words, the other side of it, take the code off, put the code on of good and helpful. If I'm gonna talk, I'm gonna talk in a way that benefits those who listen. I'm gonna benefit the people around me. In fact, I think that's the language of the NIV version that it may benefit those who listen. So when you're talking, here's the test. You're like, how do I know if I'm doing good enough? The test is, does it encourage the people

who hear your words? Does it encourage the people who hear their words? We can write that down in your phone or wherever else. If you're gonna evaluate your own language, is it really benefiting the people around me? This is something you could use every day. It's kinda homework for you. Now here's the deal. We need to be aware that our talk isn't just heard by only the people we're talking to. Talking to on the phone or talking to in the kitchen or talking to at work. There are often other people around us, and much like secondhand smoke, the people around us are also hearing even if we're not talking directly to them. Think about, I've got on this set up here, a small little table. And it's got blocks on it. Make set up for toddlers. And these chairs are also set up for toddlers. If I were to sit on it, it would no longer be a chair. It'd be smashed. But on this, this table are activities of little ears. And parents and others you need to hear this. While they're sitting here playing and you're three or four or 10 feet away, whatever you're saying they're hearing. You may not even intentionally be hurting them, but that's why we need to be aware of everything we say,

everywhere we go. We don't want these little ears to get the secondhand smoke. We want to guard them and protect them. And by the way, when we talk about other people, it becomes the pattern for these little ears when they open their mouth someday. And whatever they hear, they're probably going to say, Pastor Daniel's our founding pastor used to say, you can have kids and you can have secrets, but you can't have them both. (audience laughing) They're going to see her. How many of you have ever had one of your kids say something you wish they hadn't said, but it came out of your mouth? That's how it works. And so he's addressing how we talk and the benefit of the people around us. So the challenge that I want to give you today and this week specifically, maybe for your whole life, is to really think about 4.29 as in every part of it. we've got it on t-shirts now, is that it's always 429. No matter what time of day it is, it's always 429. It's always time to benefit those who listen, to encourage the people around us. Church, what time is it? If you walk up to somebody after church, you say, "Excuse me, what time it is." And you can say, "It's 429." That means it's time to encourage us, and others around us. And then if we want to check each other in the body of Christ, we can pause and say, "Excuse me, I don't think that's very 429-ish." And that's our way of saying, "Let's be encouraging. If it's not good or beneficial for those who

listen, don't say it." And don't type it. And don't share it. And don't put it into other contexts. It should benefit those who listen. Can I get any men to that? All right, let's go on to verse number 30, and it says this, "And do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, He has identified you as His own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption." Now those two things that we just talked through, it's amazing to me that when it comes to all of the things, how we talk, what we do with our hands, Paul then says there's a direct relationship with what we do in those spaces with our relationship to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit drew you in and you gave your life to Christ, but the Holy Spirit is a part of our everyday life. Paul knows this, but it was the promise of Jesus to his disciples that there would be a counselor, there would be an advocate that would walk with you every single day. I don't know how I could make it through my Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Friday, Saturdays without the Holy Spirit. It's not just on Sunday morning that we need relationship with the Spirit. And so he says, listen, make sure that you're taken off the things that hurt your relationship to Holy Spirit, your sensitivity to Holy Spirit. And by the way, it's not only historic in what the Holy Spirit did in your life, it's also about your future. He's the one that will secure you all the way to the return of Christ. So we need to be in that place where we stay connected to the Holy Spirit. Let's go on verse number 31. And this is stuff to throw off again. Get rid of all bitterness and rage, anger and harsh words, slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Get rid of those things. Those are all things. And by the way, all of those things we might deal with at different parts of our life. Get rid of bitterness. Don't hold on to it. Bitterness is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. It's never going to happen. You got to deal with your own heart and it builds up and it can build into rage and that anger and those harsh words and slander is talking about people behind their back and bringing them down. That's not something that we do in the body of Christ. Throw those off because they're equated to evil behavior. And then verse 32 says instead. Everybody said instead. This is that code change. Throw that other stuff off and put on be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. So there's a difference. Don't just throw off rage and throw off anger and throw off harsh harsh words. Instead, be kind. Learn to do that. Some of us were trained or mentored in harshness. That's how we were trained. But Paul would say that's the old neon version of you. That's the 80s.

What I want you to do is learn a different way of learning kindness. God is kind to us. It is kindness that leads to repentance, Paul says in another letter. We need to learn to be kind. If you don't know how to be kind, you need to find a kindest mentor. Do you know people in your life who are kind? Learn from those people. Let that be a part of your story. Tenderhearted, forgiving one another. I love that forgiving. What's at the end the last three letters of the word forgiving? ING. That's not forgave. That's not just forgiving the present. Forgiving is an ongoing And if we do, good things will happen. So we're instead of all the bad stuff, we're gonna go the route of the good stuff. And by the way, you can't just get mad at yourself for all the bad things that have happened. Some of you are right now, like you read texts like this and you're like, oh shoot, I was not kind yesterday. And now the Holy Spirit can convict you, but don't stay there, mad at yourself. Some of us have pity parties about our own bad behavior. And it's nothing more than narcissism. No, get over that, stop it. Turn the person next to you and say, stop it. And do something different. Turn it over and say, Lord, I want the kindness of God in my life. I want that coming out of my mouth. I want that gentleness, that tender hardness, being the thing that comes out of me. Now, Paul is speaking throughout the whole letter. In fact, our subtitle for this series We Greater Than Me is a vision for life from Ephesians. So what does life look like for us together?

And then coming out of chapter four, he turns us in the direction of the big picture, if you will. What's really going on, and how do we do this? Some of you're like, my past is too dark, but you got Jesus and he's all light. So you wanna turn your attention to say, yes, you can through Jesus. You can do this through Jesus, starting with chapter five, verse one. He says this, imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children, live a life filled with love. Following the example of Christ, he loved us and offered himself a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God. He uses the words imitate God. Some versions say be imitators of God. If we are going to experience the life of God, it starts with our model being Jesus. And Jesus did this in everything, and we are now called to imitate. And the language of imitation is not just think about him. It's the physical example, a metaphor, if you will, of a dad who is walking this way, and the little kids behind him are trying to step where he stepped. I did this with my dad, and I remember, I can still remember when I was a little kid, going down the sidewalk, and my dad, his legs were way longer than mine.

Now they're way shorter than mine. But back then, I was a little kid. And I remember his step was a big giant step for me. And I had to step, and I wanted to step. If he stepped there, I wanted to step there. And I did this with my sons, and we go for walks, and they started doing the same thing. Here's what I want you to know, that when we imitate God, who is our father, it says they're in the text. He's the one that has brought us into his family. When we imitate him, we're trying to discover how he does our life by following him in our life. So Lord, how would you do family right now? How would you do work right now? How would you do this, and you imitate him? Here's the cool thing. The more you follow Jesus, the more you follow him, you're growing too to become like him. At the start, his steps are giant steps. But the more you grow, the quicker you follow him. Because your legs grow too. And this is what Paul is saying to the church. If you follow this way, you're gonna find and discover that life is different, and you're gonna be filled with the love that he has as you follow the example of Christ. And of course, what was the example of Christ? He loved us by dying on the cross, offered himself as a sacrifice for us. And his sacrifice was a pleasing aroma to God.

Now, here's what's neat, if Jesus' sacrifice was a pleasing aroma to God, what will our imitation, as we follow Jesus, our sacrifice looked like to God? Our lives become worship to God, a pleasing aroma. We love our lives, and we love our lives. We love to lift our voices, but what's even more exciting is your Tuesday. When you're fighting the devil and things don't seem good and easy and you pray and you say, "Father, I want to follow you," and you imitate Christ, you follow the ways of Jesus, and when you fall down you get back up again 'cause you're still following Jesus. When you do that, an aroma goes up to heaven and it's called worship to him and it's pleasing to your Father. Your everyday moments matter in your relationship with the Father. Come on, somebody. It matters to him. We can become a pleasing aroma to God. Now let's look at verse number three. It says, "Let there be no," everybody see that word? - No. - Okay. "Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you, such sins have no place among God's people."

We'll stop here for a second. It says, "Let there," this is that option that you have. Again, just like with anger, just like with stealing, just like with what you're saying with your mouth. You have an option. He says, "Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you." What is sexual immorality? What is he talking about? Well, Paul is speaking to the church in Ephesus where there's all kinds of standards regarding sexuality, identity, and other things. Like they're doing whatever they wanna do. They have religious sects that they have orgies in the temples. They're doing things. So everything seems to be okay to society, but the Bible has very clear language around what sexual immorality is. I wanna give you an assignment 'cause I don't wanna make the whole message about this, but you're like, "Well, what is sexual immorality? "Do a study in your Bible about that." You know why the world around us can trick us with clever little quotes from the Bible that sound true, but that don't have the full context 'cause people don't really know the full Bible. But if you look into the scripture,

sexuality was meant to be something pure and holy. God gave it. It's a good thing. God gave it for relationships. Human relationship between a husband and a wife within the context of a marriage. And when it's there, even there, there are boundaries to that. What we do and don't do with our bodies, who we allow in and what we don't allow in. And the scripture says, "You can't do that." And so Paul is saying to the church, "Hey, listen, with sexual immorality, "don't bring that into your life. "It will hurt the church and it will hurt your relationships. "Don't bring the impurity in or greed among you." Now notice the greed is the same level as sexual immorality here. Some of us, like you can point the fingers of, 'cause we're not doing the things everybody else is doing, but we might have greed in our hearts. So Paul is saying, "Don't bring those things in. "Don't do that." And then he says, "I've seen stories." This kind of becomes other kind of fruit of, bad things to take off of your closet and throw it off. Obscene stories, foolish talk, and course jokes. These are not for you, nor are they for you to share on your TikTok or in your group chat.

'Cause what it does is actually destroys the integrity of the we. Between you and God and you and the rest of the church. Don't let those go, instead, everybody said instead, instead put on, let there be thankfulness to God. Now I want you to see right here out of all the lists of don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. All the stuff up in here, there's only one thing listed to put on, and what is it? Thankfulness to God. What is that? When you are in a place where you get your life in right balance, right perspective, you recognize you're a sinner saved by grace, that he sent his Holy Spirit to help you live this life, that you got a future and a hope with Jesus, that every good and perfect gift comes from the Father above, you got it good. Then you can't complain and be angry and be thankful at the same time. It's impossible. So if you're dealing with anger, if you're dealing with frustration, if you're dealing with temptation, go to thankfulness. 'Cause it takes your brain and your heart back to a different place. You enter his gates with thanksgiving in his courts with praise. It's an instant move. You're like, I don't know how to get out of this. I've lived this other way for so long.

I've worn these other clothes, these other attitudes, these other habits. The best place to start is to start with being thankful. Can I get an amen to that? That is the best place to start. And then he says, you can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. Now I'm not going to take this text, this part of the text, as saying, hey, you're bad, you're not going to heaven because you send in this way. I believe that we can confess our sins and be forgiven of our sins. I actually think when he's talking about those people will not inherit the kingdom is we want the benefits of God's kingdom in our families, in our marriages, in our relationships, in our careers, in our companies. We want God's kingdom. And the thing that shorts it out, that severs God's kingdom flow into your Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday is all those things. So he's saying, if you keep putting on those old clothes, don't expect kingdom benefits. No, do the other thing, put on the kingdom of God. Put on the things that God is calling you to have. And then it says there in verse number seven, don't be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins. For the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him. Don't participate in the things these people do. For once you were past tense, full of darkness. But now, present tense, you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light. For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. This is what produces what is good and right and true. There are going to be people who excuse sin around you. Don't listen to them.

That only brings more darkness in. And that's who you used to be. But now, take on the kingdom of light. You were in darkness, but now you're in light. Live in the light. And finally, verse number ten, it says carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness. Instead, expose them. It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light signs on them. For the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said, awake, oh, sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will give you light. Come on, it says, be careful. Determine what pleases God. Don't join in worthless deeds of evil. Instead, everybody said instead. Expose the evil. And I'm not saying point the fingers at everybody else, but you better be having the light sign in your own life. If you're battling some kind of addiction or battling something else, let the light in. Expose it. Name it. Declare it. Don't hide it. Don't conceal it. Don't leave it in the dark. Some compartment of your heart or your mind. Be with it. Bring it into the light. And when you do, you're going to have his light sign, not your own. And when his light signs, it dispels the darkness.

I want you to stand together with me today in each of our locations. If we are living the Jesus life, if we're following and imitating him, we have so much opportunity ahead of us right now. I don't want you to hear a discouraging finger pointing message out of Ephesians today because that's not what it is. It's actually saying, hey, listen, if your name is in the Lamb's Book of Life, if you are saved and you've followed Christ, hallelujah. You can do this because he's giving you everything you need. If you're doing things you know you ought not to do. Don't just stop it. Do stop it. But also pick up something positive instead of it. Replace it with something different. If your heart has been to take and you've not been sensitive to the needs of the people around you, and all you do is complain, stop complaining. and building people up. And it's always 429. It's always our time, our opportunity to build people up. This world does not need another critic out of the church. They need people that build them up, encourage them, lift them up and have the love of Christ the insider. And we will be lights in a dark, dark world. When we follow what the word of God says, can I get an amen to that church? We will be, in a moment, we're going to sing together and we're going to raise a hallelujah to the Lord. But before we do that, I want to give an opportunity for anyone here today that in your life, your eternity, in your heart, you've not surrendered to Jesus. You've not given your life to Christ. There's only one way to the Father and it's through Jesus, his Son.

You can try to make your own way by sheer willpower and you will fail. That's why you need to humble yourself before God. Say, Lord, I need a savior. I'm a sinner, I need a savior. And if you're here today, you're away from God, I want to lead you in a prayer where you can be right with God and let the light in and he'll make you a new creation. Where the old is gone, the old clothes go and the new comes and he gives you a new life. And perhaps you've never done that. I'd love to pray to you. Maybe you're here today and you did do that years ago, but you've wandered so far away. You need to turn, return and follow Jesus and surrender to him today. Would you close your eyes all across the room? Today, if you're in church today, you're under the sound of my voice. You're away from God. I want you to know, I want you to know the freedom, the love of Christ. But the only way to get that is by turning and following in. If you're here, I want to pray with you. If that's you, just put your hand up. Say, "Pasternate, that's me." I need to come to Christ or I need to come back to Him. Anybody here? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

I'm gonna lead you in a prayer. You just pray this prayer out loud. You mean it from your own heart and God actually hears your voice and you will be saved. The Bible says there's many that call on the name of the Lord, they'll be saved. So just repeat this prayer after me, but mean it from your heart and everybody else who can join right in. Say, "Jesus, thank you for loving me so much, but you came to the earth, you died on the cross for my sin, and then you rose from the dead. And I know that you're alive. Today, I surrender to you. I choose to turn and follow you for the rest of my life in Jesus' name. Amen, amen, amen. Somebody give the Lord some praise in the house.