Life Altering Love

My name's John Elmore, recovering alcoholic. I went to my first AA meeting, Alcoholics Anonymous, about this time 20 years ago. And I go to this meeting, I don't know what it was, like unmarked building. You know, people don't even use their last names in there. They introduce themselves like, hi, I'm Charlie P. So you're like, it's anonymous, that's what it is, by nature. Well, my first meeting, I get done and this guy walks up to me, Charlie, and he said, hey, if you're gonna do this, you're gonna need some help. I was like, oh, great, amazing. This guy just like enters into my life, that's gonna be helpful. He's like, and I got you something. It's this book. And he hands this to me, the AA Big Book. There was a problem with this big book. So I'm in Alcoholics Anonymous, emphasis on anonymous. I look at this thing and I'm like, wait, are you kidding me? Like it says Alcoholics Anonymous in this like glowing gold leaf, debossed. I'm like, get home, like how am I gonna like hide this from my room, are you kidding me? This is anything but anonymous. I could like signal a plane if I was stranded on an island. Like what couldn't you put a fake title on there, like, you know, advanced information for medical doctors

who are also really good looking. Like that would have been a good covert book that I could like read in a coffee shop. Instead it's like, it's anything but anonymous. I didn't know much about it. I continue in this and the first step, you know, I didn't know, it's like secret society. Well, the first step is admit that you're powerless over your addiction. I'm like, check, like I don't need any help with that one. I'm powerless. Second step is that God's all powerful. Like, okay, makes sense. Step three, so surrender your life and will to him. Like trust him with everything. It was amazing, like that's when I became born again. I like got on my knees, hit step three. I'm like, Jesus, I've squandered everything you've given me. Whatever I've left is yours. Then I hit steps four and five. It's a little tricky. There may be some regen people in the room. Yeah, it's hard. Steps four and five, it's hard, but it's good. Both can be true. So step four, if you don't know, is to create a moral fearless inventory of your life. You know, like write down all your mistakes, all your sins, all your regrets, all the harms you've done to others,

all the angers and resentments and unforgiveness and sexual sin, like everything. Put it all down a sheet. I'm like, for like the last year? He's like, no, for your life. Like, are you kidding me? So I've got pages and pages written down of all the sin that God would bring to mind. Then step five is to sit and share that with another individual. In my case, my sponsor from AA. I'll never forget this, never. So 20 years ago, I drive to his house, Charlie P. He's now at home with the Lord, Charlie Parker. And I can say his last name now, brother in Christ, I guess. I didn't ask his permission, but he's at home in heaven, so it's okay. So anyway, I'm sitting there at his kitchen table and I'm reading him my, I mean, every sin I've ever committed. It's like a really humbling thing. And he's just listening. And I'm looking across from him and I get done as far as he was concerned. And he said, is that everything? And his eyes just like staring into mine. And I felt like it was all over my face because it was not everything. Because I had written in code, initials and years and acrostics

at the bottom of the sheet of paper. I was like, hey, there's some stuff like I've done that I'm taking to the grave. When in reality, it was those things that were taking me to the grave, those things that were killing me. So he's like, is that everything? I'm like staring at him, hesitating. I'd written in code because I was like, look, if there's any condemnation, any judgment, any like, you did what? Like, there's no way I'm gonna tell him the deep, dark and ugly at the bottom of the sheets of paper. But if I'm met with love, there's a chance I might share it. And he said, is that everything? I was like, no, there's more. And I shared the worst of the worst, things that I thought I would never utter to another human being. And he looked at me and said, I love you. God loves you. That was it. I had just shared with him every evil thing I had ever done. And I was met with, I love you, God loves you, and a great big hug, and he prayed for me. Y'all, I got back in my car to leave his house that night, sunroof open, I was blaring explosions in the sky, if you know, you know. And like screaming at the top of my lungs

through that neighborhood. I'm sure somebody thought they got killed. Like I'm just like yelling, because the weight of the world fell off of me as I saw God's tangible love in the eyes. of Charlie Parker, like that I could be loved and like fully known, fully loved, forgiven, that I could say all of the evil and wickedness and be met with, I love you, God loves you. I experienced this like tangible, experiential love of God in that moment and it changed me. Like it changed me, the love of God that I experienced that night. And I begin there because it was life-altering love. It's like I didn't just like wake up one day and decide to be a better person. I experienced life-altering love in that moment through the person of Jesus Christ who died for my sins, all the sins that were listed on that inventory. And I begin there today to tell you like I couldn't have given to others what I had not first received from God. We can't give love unless we first receive love. You can't give what you haven't received. And you can't give love until you grasp the love of God. But once you grasp the love of God, you can give it to others. Once you receive the love of God, you can give it to others. You can reflect it to others. Changes everything, this life-altering love. And right now if you've been with us the last couple of weeks, we're in a sermon series called For the Love of God. As we are looking at the love of God and expressing it to God and others, like that's where Nate began with this whole sermon series. He's like all of the Bible, Jesus says in Matthew 22 is summed up in this, all the law and prophets, love God, love others. It's really simple. Yet really challenging. Love God, love others. JP last week did an incredible job of unpacking if those are the simple instructions, what keeps us from doing that? And it's like the love of pleasures, positions, and possessions apart from God. That those things would become false gods to us and crowd out the ability to be able to give love back to God and others. But there's another thing that keeps us from being able to give the love of God, and that is that we don't first grasp the love of God. We don't fully grasp or understand the gravity of the love of God. And therefore, how could we ever reflect it back to him in worship or communicate it to others? It's foundational. Like apart from the very beginning and outset and premise, paramount is knowing, receiving, believing the love of God. And from that thing,

then we're able to love God and lovers, to reflect back to everyone else the very love of God that we have found in the person of Jesus Christ. So we're going to begin with this foundational love that we find in God, and to do so, we're going to be in 1 John 4, verses 7-10. So 1 John 4, you can turn there in your Bibles or you'll see it on the screen, because without the love of God, there's no way we could ever give it. Dear friends, let us love one another. There's the command again that Nate shared, let us love one another for love comes from God. He is the source. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. It's like inextricably intertwined, like to know God is to love. You've been changed by him. It's life-altering love. But like why, if that's the case, if we already like have come to know God, we believe in God, we've received the love of God, why does John have to even give us the instructions as inspired by the Spirit, dear friends or beloved, love one another? Like wouldn't that just be involuntary? If God is love and we know God and we've been born again by placing our faith in Jesus, then that should be just this reflexive response. Like yeah, of course. Like you don't have to tell me John, of course. But we don't because that love comes from outside of us. God is the source. He's the one who gives us the ability. The Holy Spirit has the fruit of love. I don't have the fruit of love. You don't have the fruit of love. It doesn't come from somewhere within you. So the first point is the command, the command to love one another and the capability to love is from God. But the command and the capability to love is from God. Think about it. If I was at a Baylor basketball game with my family and I said to my oldest son, Hill, hey, go get mama water. That's a command. Go get mama water. But he has no ability as an almost 12-year-old boy to go get mama water unless I'm like, in here, take my card. He'd be like, dad, I want to, but I can't. But I give him the command and the capability and then he can follow through, so it is with all of us. I was sitting in my backyard thinking about this message and this reality that like, God is love, he commands us to love, and yet we can't without him. It's the command and the capability.

And I thought about my neighbor, Beau Graham, who planted an oak in our backyard prior to us arriving there, and I grabbed this like, giant acorn that's in the backyard and I thought, oh, this is us. This is us and this is this reality. Like, there's no amount of time that this will ever turn into what it is supposed to be apart from outside forces working upon it. There's no, I can't like, shout to it like, become an oak tree! And it'd do anything, even though it has the command to become an oak tree. I couldn't set it on top of a book that's like, you know, how to become an oak in just 90 short years. And it's not a knowledge problem. This has to be changed from outside of itself. It was ordained for this, that's what acorn, that's what the purposes are, but apart from it going into the ground, receiving water, receiving sunlight, pulling the carbon out of the carbon dioxide from the air, breaking it apart in order to make the tree, separating the hydrogen and the oxygen from the H2O in order to become what it is. It has no ability, it needs all that external force in order to make it become what it is supposed to be so it is with us. We have the command like, love others. And yet, I can't muster that up, you can't.

Not in any way, not to love God or to love others. It's got to come from outside of us and here in the Scriptures, we are told God is love. Dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from God. He's the source, we've got to stay tethered and connected to the source who is God if we are going to live this life of love. You think about this, the Apostle Paul writing to the Ephesian church. He had church planted there and he could have prayed anything for them. I'm sure he prayed a lot of different prayers but he could have had a recorded prayer that said like, and I pray you become a city on a hill. I pray that you push back the forces of darkness. I pray that you would live pure and holy lives unto the glory of God. He could have prayed a lot of different things. He prays one thing that is found in Ephesians chapter three and it's really relevant to what we're talking about today. Listen to the singular focus. He's like, okay, of all the things that I could pray for you Ephesians, here's what I'm gonna pray. And I pray that you, think about the acorn, being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide, how long, how high and deep is the love of Christ.

And to know this love that surpasses knowledge, like it's beyond understanding that people would be able to look and be like, how are you who you are? Like what's happened to you? You've changed. This is beyond knowledge that God would show his love in Christ for us and then we could live this out that he would give us the capability that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. That's what Paul, like singular prayer for them. He's like, man, it's this, that you'd know God's love. It's beyond understanding that you would grasp the power of that love and be changed by it. The command and the capability to love is from God. Charlie would later call me after some of those AA meetings and be like, hey, where'd you go, man? Like you're not coming to meetings anymore. You're gonna relapse. And I was like, oh, Charlie, I'm going to meetings. He's like, you are? Which chapter? I was like, oh, different meetings. I'm going to church meetings. I'm in a men's Bible study. I'm getting discipled at lunch by this guy where I work. Worship nights, Sundays. I'm a part of a small group now because I needed the source.

AA will help you get sober. God will give you salvation and change you, make you born again. And so I want you to consider like the acorn, like what are the environments that you're in? Like you're not, you're just gonna stay the same apart from those outside things working upon you. And so where is it that you're going to get? fed the love of God in order that you might become up an oak of righteousness, as Isaiah 61 says. Like time with the Lord in the morning, John 17, 17, sanctify them by truth, your word is truth. That you would be with other believers in life group and region and the net, sisterhood, all the different ways that we can stay connected to God's people. Where Hebrews says, encourage one another daily so that you won't be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Listen to worship music instead of music that like just feeds your mind trash, that glorifies God and resets your focus. To not just attend church, but to be like, you know what, I'm gonna be shepherded here. I'm not gonna be a lone ranger of Christianity anymore. I'm gonna put down roots, I'm gonna be cared for here, shepherded here, I'm gonna join a life group. What are those external things that are gonna grow and feed you the love of God so that you can change because they will change you. And speaking of change, this is Sanctity of Life Sunday.

All over the world, Christians are celebrating Sanctity of Life Sunday because from conception, from womb to the tomb, all people are made in the image of God and have value, dignity and worth by their creator. And so we as a church and as believers celebrate and support all life. And so Harris Creek has various partnerships throughout the community. Care Net Pregnancy Center is one of those so that women who have an unplanned pregnancy have a place to go to care for the yet born. That they can be supported throughout. Council for Life who advocates and communicates on behalf of the yet born. Children in the womb and these vulnerable women who are faced with a decision. Or Together for Good who comes along families in vulnerable places. Or Isaiah 117 House when children are taken from an unsafe home and brought into the foster system that they have a place to go rather than sleeping at the floor of a CPS agent. But to be loved for. This is all because of the love of God. Like humanists, secularists, atheists, they aren't doing these things. It's Christians. Like the abolition of slavery, that was started and carried out by Christians.

Now the abolition of abortion and the advocacy for life and against euthanasia and for all peoples. It's happening by Christians, why? Not just because we like read somewhere, like it's because God has changed us and then we live to have change for others that they too would experience the love of God. Because God is love. So how do we know this? Like how do we know like, okay, God is love. Well, he's gonna tell us. So let's continue on in 1 John 4, 9. This, this is how God showed his love among us. He showed us. JP said last week, if I love something, I'm gonna feel it and I'm gonna show it. Here it is, God feeling the love then showing the love. He sent his one and only son, the eternally begotten son into the world that the purpose we might live through him. Ephesians, well, Romans 5, 8, it says, but God demonstrates his love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He didn't say clean up your act, get better, improve upon yourself, then I'll welcome you into the fold like every other false religion, but rather God sees us dead in our sin while we were still sinners and sends Jesus on a rescue mission, a redemption, a ransom to purchase for himself

by the very blood of Jesus Christ, his son. That's why Jesus came. Like he came for you because of love. God so moved by love for you individually. Like hear me, it's not just that this is theologically true. It's true for you. If you can hear me, it's true for you. No matter what you've done, like I have my horrific list of all my sins. God loved me, sent his son to die for all of my sins and what he did for me, he did for you. And not just that, but that it says at the end of the verse that we might live through him. The very reason for our existence, like it's not found in material possessions or positions or pleasures as we talked about last week, but rather we were made for God, by God, unto God. Like all this, it's like, what is the purpose and meaning of life? I remember being 30 years old and being like, this is ridiculous, am I just gonna like work like this, drink like this for the next 40 years? Like what a waste, I feel like a dog chasing my tail. God saved me and awakened me, like oh my goodness. All of life is to know him and make him known. And you're gonna do that in the classroom or your stay-at-home mom or in the business or in the law firm, whatever. You're gonna have different expressions but you're gonna always like know him and make him known,

which is the second point. The proof and purpose of God's love is in Jesus. The proof and purpose of God's love is in Jesus, that we would be born again and then live for him. Not just like, all right, you saved me from hell, thanks God, and I'll see you in heaven. But rather that he would save us from hell and then we would live a life of justification, being made right with God, and then set our course on a life of sanctification, being shaped into the image of Christ by the Holy Spirit to proclaim him to others who are in our same situation, dying, dead, and apart from the love of God. The proof and the purpose of God's love is in Jesus. There was a preacher from Glasgow, Scotland 10 years ago, he was in Scotland. He had been called by Moody Church in Chicago, Illinois to come and preach revival. He spent three months doing so. He went back to Scotland. He was a widower, his wife had passed and he was raising his daughter, Anna, six years old. They called and said, would you come back and minister to the people there at Moody Church? And so he responded to that call. They boarded a ship to cross the Atlantic, the ship fatefully named the Titanic. Prior to the ship sinking, it was Sunday on the Titanic, he led a church service. It's just like he couldn't help.

He's like, I'm not on vacation. Like, I'm gonna tell people about the love of God. It's what marked his life. But on that night, when those icebergs ripped through the five containers that were supposed to keep the ship afloat, and the alarms go off and people are clamoring for the lifeboats, of which there was only enough for one third of the passengers because it was said to be unsinkable. It was women and children first, everyone crying, women and children first. He takes Anna, gives her to one of the stewards of the lifeboats, kisses her and says, I will see you again. Even though he had a right to be on the lifeboat because he was her sole guardian. He could have said, her mother's passed, I'm her only guardian, and he could have gotten on the boat, but instead set her there and stepped back off knowing there's not gonna be enough room. Then got on his knees and gathered others around him and led a prayer meeting on the deck of the Titanic, other surviving passengers would tell. As others were crying, women and children first, John Harper with presence and clarity of mind was shouting, women, children and the unsaved first. He's like, it's women and children because men are gonna lay down their lives like let's get the vulnerable children and the women on board and then to be like,

and others are going to die and go to hell eternally. And the unsaved, what a guy. In the midst of this, to have this singular focus like people are going to die, meet their creator apart from their savior and be eternally separated in hell. So women, children and the unsaved. He then died in those waters. But four years after the sinking of the Titanic, there were Christians gathered in Canada. They were sharing their testimonies. This is how I've come to know Jesus. This is how my life is different because of Jesus. They were sharing the proof and the purpose of God's love found in Jesus. It was this gathering, this gospel gathering and a man spoke up named Aquila Webb. Aquila Webb's testimony of the proof and purpose of God's love in Jesus said this. I am a survivor of the Titanic. When I was drifting alone on a plank that awful night, the tide brought Mr. John Harper also on a piece of wreck near me. Man, he said, are you saved? No, I said, I'm not. He replied from Acts 16, 31, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. The waves bore him away, but strange to say the waves brought him back a little while later. And he said again. Are you saved now?

No, I said. I can honestly say that I am not. John Harper took off his life jacket, put it on a quill a web, and said, you need this more than me. And said again, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. And shortly after he went down. And there alone in the night with two miles of water under me, I believed I am John Harper's last convert. John Harper lived with the proof of God's love in Jesus and a purpose of God's love in Jesus. Knowing I am at safe with the Lord and I can never perish because I've been given eternal life and my purpose now is to tell others in church. You are, we are a quill a web. Drowning in our sea of sin, dead in our sea of sin, in those icy waters of death with sin and Satan. And here came Jesus on a rescue mission for us and took off his robes of righteousness and gave them to us that we might live, not be made better, be made new. And like a quill a web, not just to be saved from the sinking of sin, but then to tell others to testify, I was saved. Now I'm Jesus's convert. And I'm here to tell you, you can be saved too.

This is the proof and purpose of God's love in Jesus. And church, hear me say this. You can have an opportunity this week, today, in the 254 area code. You're gonna be at lunch somewhere. You're gonna be with your neighbor. You're gonna be in the classroom or the conference room. And you will have an opportunity to fulfill the purpose of God's love to those around you. Will you step into it? A quill a web lived because John Harper fulfilled God's purpose in his life in that moment. You imagine this army, this army of Christians, we're about to go out into the 254, all with different works prepared in advance by God. That's the gospel in Ephesians two. He says, you've been saved not by works, but by grace through faith, so that no one may boast. But then it goes on to say that we're God's workmanship for good works prepared in advance. You weren't saved by good works, but you are saved for good works. And he's gonna send you out these doors very shortly. And you're gonna meet someone in need. He's gonna create providential opportunities, divine appointments, and they're not gonna feel divine. It's gonna feel inconvenient. It's gonna feel like a trouble or an issue, but he's gonna have you there on purpose for a reason to express and convey and show the love of God

in the face of Jesus to whoever you're with. Will you respond in faith? Will you fulfill your purpose of God's love in Jesus? And I think the reason why we don't, and the reason why we may want, is because our love for God grows cold. Mine does. I don't just wake up in this daily default setting of like, God, I love you more and more and more more than yesterday. The inverse is true. I'm like, man, I think I love you less. I look back 20 years ago when my heart was just ablaze when I was first awakened to the reality of God that Jesus saved me and made me new. I'm like, what happened to me? When did this become commonplace? When did I start yawning about this? When did I start living for myself more than for God and others? Like, what has become of me? Because our love grows cold, and God gives us an answer for that. In 1 John 4, 10, he says, this is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. God, having commanded us, beloved, the beginning of the passage, beloved, love one another, gives us the command, and he doesn't say, and do better, try harder,

get up and grind a little earlier with all that love business. Instead, he invites us, reflect back on Jesus. I sent him as an atoning sacrifice for your sins. And the more you look at him. the more you will be changed by my love. This is not some act of volition that you could muster up, but rather that when we look to God's love, when we consider God's love, we'll be changed by his love, and we will show his love. It'll be an involuntary reflex when, if, we look upon Christ. And so I wanna give you the third and final point, which is gonna sound a little counterintuitive, but it's this. Remember your sin to rekindle your love. Remember your sin to rekindle your love. And you might argue with me in your head, like, wait, Ben, Romans 8, 1, there's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Why are you asking me to look back at all the bad things that I've done? That doesn't sound, that sounds like, rub my nose in it, twist the knife. Why would you ask me to do that? Scripture does. You know why? Because you can't help but look at your sin to see that it was laid upon the cross of Jesus Christ.

Colossians 2 says all your sin, all of it, has been nailed to the cross. And Jesus has disarmed the enemy. And so to look at your sin and all you've been forgiven of through Jesus's life, death, and resurrection, you look at that sin, you see your Savior, and it changes you and grows your love when you see his love. This is why, and you're probably gonna get sick of it, but I'm never gonna stop talking about my alcoholism. Like, man, why do you, why always? Because it's what God did for me. I can't help it. I didn't decide to be a better person at the age of 30. I was a train wreck, dying alcoholic at the age of 30, and Jesus invaded my life and changed me. And the more I talk about it, the more it grows my love for God, and I remember, my love doesn't grow cold, it's rekindled as I remember like, man, that's who you were. You were a dog of a man. God changed you. So I look back in order to look up and be like, man, who is this God? He doesn't make you better, he makes you new. Scripture tells us the story of Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a terror of a man. It says he was an archtelionus. Arch means ruler.

He was a ruler of the tax collectors. Not just the tax collector, he was the O-G-M-L-M, like in a bad way. Like he was a tax collector who had tax collectors below him, like mob boss. And it was stealing, his wages were made by taking extra taxes from his people, giving some to Rome, keeping some for himself. Well, it says not only was he a tax collector, it says, and he was rich. The original readers would have read that and been like, man, he took more than he had to. He was rich. Our poverty meant his richness. He was a hated man in a God-forsaken town. And Jesus rolls into Jericho, and of all the people that you think, well, who's Jesus gonna seek out? Maybe, you know, somebody who's a ruler, a person of influence, he's gonna reach the whole town. Who's he gonna seek out? He seeks out Zacchaeus and he says, I must have dinner with you tonight. And he goes to Zacchaeus' house, the people are grumbling, they're like, man, he goes to eat with sinners. But Jesus goes straight for Zacchaeus. And then Zacchaeus says, here, Lord, see, I give whoever I've defrauded, I give forehold, I give my possessions.

And Jesus says, today salvation has come to this house. Now, he didn't say salvation has come to this house because of what Zacchaeus did. Salvation had come to this house, and then the fruit of that, the repentance, was evidence of the regeneration. He'd been changed on the inside, and his life just like showed it, and Jesus is like, aha, salvation has come here. He was changed. Jesus came for sinners. He said elsewhere, like the healthy don't need a doctor, but the sick do. But the reality is, all are sin sick, and Jesus has come for you. No matter what you've done, no matter what's in your past, no matter what's in your present, like today, know that Jesus has come for you. And if you trusted in him, remember who you were before, remember who you are apart from him. Remember your sin to rekindle your love. Paul does this. He's writing to his protege, Timothy. Later on, after years and years and years of ministry, and he says, even though I was once a blasphemer, persecutor, and violent man, the mercy and grace of the Lord Jesus was shown to me. And then later would say, even though I am the chief of sinners. It's like, Paul, chief of sinners?

You're a church planner, you're a pastor. Like, I mean, maybe you were, but he's like, no, I know what's within me. He was remembering his sin to rekindle his love, and he's like, now to the king. Immortal, eternal, it's not self-deprecation, it's Christ exaltation to remember your sin that will rekindle your love for Christ in all he has done. And so there's this thing called the Heidelberg Confession. It's a Heidelberg catechism, it's 500 years old, it was used to teach and disciple new believers and children and I want you to listen to some of the theology that we've talked through today. It's a question and answer and I'm gonna read it to you and then we're gonna have a chance to respond and you can stand and say it in just a moment. But it's put in this question answer format and the question is, what is your only, only comfort in life and death? I mean, think about how you might respond to that but here's what it says. Answer, that I am not my own, but belong, body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation

because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly, willing and ready from now on to live for him. And a summarization of that, it's like I've been bought by Jesus and I live for Jesus. He is my proof of God's love and now he is my purpose in my life for God's love. You remember Zacchaeus, you know, that story ends in the Scriptures. It just ends, Jesus leaves Jericho and we see Zacchaeus paying people back. But in the fourth century, Christian historians recorded a little bit more about Zacchaeus. It says that Zacchaeus, the publican, the tax collector, began to travel with Peter, the apostle Peter, after the resurrection of Christ. He became his sidekick, traveled with him, listened to his teachings. And it says that Zacchaeus, the publican, the tax collector, became Zacchaeus, the pastor. It says that Peter anointed him and positioned him as the first bishop of Caesarea. And he became a pastor of a whole region because that man who hated and was hated was changed by the love of Christ and it changed his reality. He went from being hated to now loving God and loving others, not from any source that could be found in himself, not from a self-improvement program,

but from Christ who changes all. Church, I wanna invite you to stand and if the prayer team would come forward. You're gonna see on the screen the Heidelberg Confession Catechism. Go ahead, stand up. And if you believe this, today can be the day of salvation. Today can be the day that you place your faith in Jesus or are reminded of his great love for you. Today can be the day that you're like, Jesus, you get it all. Like you gave your life for me, I give my life to you. That's what this is that you're about to read and you can respond to it now in faith. I'm going to ask the question and we'll say it together. Church, Harris Creek, what is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own but belong, body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Say this with faith, because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

Praise God. God. God. God. God. God. God. God. God. God. God. God. born again, forgiven of their sins, God. God. or you have something that you're like, God. God. man, I can't walk out these doors until I confess this. God. God. God. God. You're invited, as we begin in song, God. God. to come forward, be prayed for. God. Maybe you're going through a hard time. Maybe something stirred within you.

Do not walk out these doors. Do not deny the day of salvation. Harden your heart when you hear His voice. Come forward. You're gonna be met with love just as I was with Charlie. You're gonna hear the words, I love you, God loves you. And for the rest, we're gonna respond in prayer, through song, and worship, and adoration, because He first loved us through Jesus. Amen.