Noah's Grace

What's going on, Momentum Church, how we doing today? So good to see y'all in the house. Navar, how we doing over there? How y'all doing in Navar? Blackwater, so glad you're here. Actually, I want to take a second and say, Navar, y'all the MVPs, man. I hope y'all are cheering over there. Chelsea, Adam Carter, Adam Simmons, Jimmy, y'all are killing it over there. Can y'all give a round of applause for our Navar team? Thank you, thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. If y'all don't know me, my name is Stephen Mendez and I am the NowGen Pastor here at Momentum Church. Thank you, thank you. From birth all the way through college and young adults. And I am blessed to be here. Let me tell you about another blessing in my life today. I was blessed when I woke up, walked outside, and did not start sweating because it was 70 degrees this morning. Yeah, y'all can clap, that's fine. Yay for fall, yay. And I'll be the first person to say, like I've posted that meme on Facebook where I'm like, I would pick 100 degrees over snow. I moved to Florida for a reason. It's true, I did. But I also have a terminal end of that

and waking up 99 days in a row and sweating before 8 a.m. happened to be my terminal time for that feeling. And I am praising Jesus that I woke up this morning and it was only 70 degrees. And that means a couple things. It means it's fall. Fall is great. It means it's college football season. It means it is pro football season. More important than both of those, it means that it is pumpkin season. And I know that's like a divisive comment. If you don't love pumpkin, you're entitled to your wrong opinion. I won't hold it against you. It is the superior fall drink. It means something else though. It also means, and I didn't know this, this did not exist when I was in high school, but allegedly it means that it is homecoming proposal season. Didn't know that was a thing. The things you learn as a youth pastor. Homecoming proposals. Yeah, we got a couple behind me. It turns out it's like a whole thing. You can't just go to a female or even if it's your girlfriend and say like, hey, there's this dance, you want to go? Yeah, I'd love to. And then you just go. Can't do that anymore.

You got to have costumes and a sign and a plan. And like chivalry is not dead. So that's cool. That's great. I love that. Love that. But didn't know that this was a thing. And let me tell you about how this directly affects my life. First of all, I get to be involved in a lot of those. So that's fun. I love that. But on Wednesdays at my high school youth group or Momentum's high school youth group that I'm blessed enough to be over, where we generally have 100, 110, 115 people. It used to be like here's 50 boys and here's 50 girls and never shall the two meet. It's like the Red Sea and they just kind of stay separate. And that was cool. But now instead of two groups of 50, it's 50 groups of two walking through the front door. Just, hey, we're going to the dance. Two by two by two. And it's awesome now. It's awesome now. But over the next three months, I'm going to have to have 49 counseling sessions about why their forever person didn't work out. So y'all pray for me.

Pray for me. But what it reminds me of, if I'm being completely honest, as two by two by two, these couples walk in the youth group, is Noah's Ark. Right? Y'all didn't see that coming. Noah's Ark. That's what it makes me think of because two by two by two, animals walked onto the ark. And usually when we think of Noah's Ark, it's like the picture that's going to get put up behind me here. It's this kiddy, cartoony, adorable, like the fuzzy lions and the fuzzy tigers living in harmony on a boat. All thanks to this man named Noah. And it is a great kid story. But what I want to do here today is show you how much deeper that story goes as we continue our series, Inconvenient Grace. So yes, it is a kid story. But when I read about Noah's Ark, the two big takeaways that I have are anything but childlike, anything but small. The two big things that speak to me from this story

are a couple words by the name of hope and promise. Y'all say hope. Hope. Y'all say promise. Promise. Amazing. Just like my high schoolers. Hope is defined as a feeling of trust. And promise is a declaration or assurance that one will do a particular thing or that a particular thing will come to pass. So without hesitating, we're going to jump right into scripture. And we're going to start in Genesis 6, verse 9. It says, This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man. The only blameless person. living on earth at the time. He walked in close fellowship with God. Noah was the father of three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. That right there is such a telling statement that Noah was the only blameless person in the entire earth. There wasn't one other person. It's not much scripture, but honestly, I could preach a whole message on hope with just that sentence. You see, Noah had hope. He had hope in God, or to use our definition, he trusted God. He trusted him so much in fact that he was the only person who God saw as blameless. It's a crazy important lesson for us, and it's something that we should all take away. So I'm going to dive a little deeper. Raise your hand.

If you know what peer pressure is, not just my high schoolers, adults are bullies too. So everybody raise your hand. Yeah, we all know what peer pressure is. Peer pressure is a real thing, right? It's when people that you consider friends or at least peers or near peers that kind of push you into doing something you may not have done without their influence. First of all, I want to stand on the stage and tell you that's not always a bad thing. There are a lot of experiences, a lot of adventures, a lot of things that I have done that I probably wouldn't have done if someone didn't come alongside me and say like, come on man, get outside your comfort zone a little bit. A wise man once told me nobody grows inside of their comfort zone and I'm blessed to have people that routinely take me outside of mine to do things I would not have done if they didn't exist. So peer pressure is not always bad. Some of my darkest valleys were lifted to mountaintops because people cared enough to come alongside me and say, Hey, we're going to leave the house today. We're going to go do something. We're going to go see some people. So thank God for friends and peers that are willing to do that. But what peer pressure comes down to is the peers that you keep and see when it comes to your morals and your faith, do not be swayed by what people have to say who are not part of helping that journey in the first place. It doesn't matter if it's one person, it doesn't matter if it's the majority. Majority just by the fact of being the most numbers does not make them any more correct. We look at Noah. He was one man, single person. It doesn't get much more in the minority than that. Yet he was the only blameless man and was held as righteous as the world swirled around him and people worshiped false idols and fell into wickedness and sinned and laughed at Noah. He stood tall in his faith.

He was in the minority, but he wouldn't be swayed by peer pressure. He spent 40 years building a boat without seeing a single drop of rain. I want you to think about that for a second. He had so much hope in God's word that for 40 years he built a boat without ever seeing a drop of rain like it was spoken over him. You want to talk about inconvenient hope. That sounds like inconvenient hope to me against all perceived pressures and odds. Noah stood tall on his belief and trust in God. And as we'll see, as the story continues, he never loses that hope. So back to the scripture, Genesis six, we're going to pick up in verse 14. It says, build a large boat. This is God talking to Noah from Cypress wood and waterproof it with tar inside and out. Then construct decks and stalls throughout its interior. Make the boat 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. Leave an 18 inch opening below the roof all the way around the boat. Put the door on the side and build three decks inside the boat, a lower, a middle and an upper. Look, I am about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes. Everything on earth will die, but I will confirm my covenant with you. So enter the boat, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring a pair of every kind of animal, a male and a female into the boat with you to keep them alive during the flood. Now, when this story is brought up, there's a lot of schools of thoughts and it's kind of a spectrum. There are people that are like, Nope, that's literal. That boat happened. The arc was made. There are people that say, I don't know, man, it may be like some fashion of that, but maybe it's embellished. It's kind of a tall tale. There's people that'll go, that's just an allegory. It's complete legend supposed to just drive a point across. Well,

welcome to pastor Steve airlines. Please fasten your seatbelt, uh, put your tray tables up your seat in the upright position and maintain until I tell you otherwise, because I'm about to make the greatest case for how literal this arc really was. You see in a past life I was an engineer and I like math and I love numbers. And you know why? Because unlike people, numbers don't lie. That'll preach. So, here's what we're going to do. We're going to talk a little science, we're going to talk a little analytics, and no, this is not the heart of the message, but if I can get you to buy into the fact that this is completely not only possible, but probable, I feel like I'll have you for the rest of it. Deal? Deal. Okay. So, when it comes to classifying things on planet Earth, there is a classification structure that goes kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, species being the most restrictive. You look at certain things, like the genus of Canis, that's a dog, canine. Many genus can come together to create different species, therefore, we do not need every species on Earth in order to repopulate all the species on Earth. Are you tracking? Yes. Beautiful. Master.

At the time of Noah, there was 8,000 genus and 35,000 species of land-dwelling animals. So, we can infer somewhere in the middle, due to the fact that some genus can procreate to create species, but some species need to be with their own species to procreate, and some, when they procreate, create sterile animals that we probably couldn't just say 8,000, but we probably didn't need 35,000. In fact, it's probably somewhere in the middle, so we're going to agree and say probably 20,000 animals is a fair estimate of what would have had to be on this arc. Fair? Fair. Cool. Now, in God's word, it says there was a male and a female, so that 20,000 quickly becomes 40,000. Now, as we continue with the scripture, it also says bring seven of some things because y'all like to eat. Now, if Noah and his family like to eat like Pastor Steve likes to eat, we're going to take that 40,000 and instantly make it 60,000, because your boy's eating. So, 60,000 animals are going to be on this arc. Tracking? Beautiful. Now, if you took every single animal that was alive at this time and you averaged their size,

because we can use the law of averages, math doesn't lie, what we come up with is an animal slightly smaller than a sheep. So, for argument's sake, we'll just say a sheep. We know what it looks like. We know how big it is. We know its average size. We'll say a sheep. 60,000 sheep. So, now we know what has to fit on the boat. Let's figure out if it will. Based on the dimensions in the Bible, when we multiply everything out, what we come up with is 100,000 square foot of floor space and 1.5 million cubic feet of volume. What does that translate into? 522 common rail cars. Pastor Steve, why are you talking about rail cars? Well, because I happen to spend some time in Scotland and I know that when they move sheep throughout the countryside, they do it on a railroad. I also know that because of that, they know about how many sheep can fit in a rail car and that number is 240. 240 sheep can fit in a rail car and 522 rail cars can fit in the ark. So, basic multiplication tells us 240 sheep times 522 rail cars gives us 125,280 sheep that can fit on the ark. To tie a bow on this math equation,

we only needed to fit 60,000. So, don't come at me, come at math when I tell you not only is it possible, it is probable and once again, this is science catching up to the Bible and not the Bible trying to prove science. Thank you, Jesus. Let's go. Let's go. Now, that's not where my math stopped because Pastor Steve needed to know if buoyancy would work out and if this thing would capsize. I'm not gonna bore you with all those equations and the way that I worked those out, but it would float. It would not capsize and as an ocean engineer, this may be the only chance I've ever gotten to use my degree and maybe the only chance I ever get to use my degree because see, I graduated college and joined the military and decided to fly airplanes for a living and then went from flying airplanes to a very common, closely related work of ministry and somewhere in between those two, I lost my need for engineering. So, yes, I jumped on the chance to use this. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Moving on. Enough of that aside, I just felt like if I could get you to buy into the realistic expectation that this was possible, you might listen a little closer. You might lean in a little harder

and now that you've done all that mental math and your brain might be a little fried, I got a question for you. When I started, I said that this story evoked two words out of my heart. The first was hope. We talked about hope. Somewhere out there, do y'all remember the second word? Say it. Promise. Promise. Y'all are better than my high schoolers. Hope and promise. Hope and promise. You know, they're so closely related because Noah stepped out on faith because he had hope in God's promise. You see, God flooded the earth and Noah would spend over 12 months believing in a promise, believing the waters would recede, believing dry land would come and for 12 months saw nothing but water. 12 and a half months of seeing nothing but water. Sounds like a pretty inconvenient promise to me. Now again, I can hear some of the cynics for this part of the story too. and no, I'm not gonna give you another math equation, but I am gonna give you some homework. If you struggle with the fact that the whole world may have been flooded, which I did struggle with,

and I do like facts and I do like data, go look into how the atmosphere of a planet might change if there is a global flood. See how that affects the average size of an animal and why animals are much smaller present day than they used to be. Go look into the oldest tree on planet Earth and justify to me why it's only 5,000 years old and what might've happened about 5,000 years ago that wiped out all vegetation. Again, I don't need to get into that. That is your walk, that is your data to find out. But I encourage you, when you have a question, don't sit on it, look into it. It'll draw your faith deeper. Doubt is not a bad thing as long as it sparks change in your heart. So go look it up, go look into it. So we have hope, we have promise. Not only did God make a definitive promise where he said, I will flood the Earth and the waters will recede, and Noah got to see that play out, but he made an open-ended, enduring promise that still exists today. So we're gonna go back to scripture, Genesis 9, verse 12 to 17, and it reads, then God said, I am giving you a sign of my covenant with you and with all living creatures for all generations to come.

I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the Earth. When I send clouds over the Earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds, and I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures. Never again will the floodwaters destroy all life. When I see the rainbow in the clouds, I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on Earth. Then God said to Noah, yes, this rainbow is the sign of the covenant I am confirming with all the creatures on Earth. Now, if you happen to write that scripture down, Genesis 9, 12 to 17, on your free time, I would love if you went back and took a tally of all the definitive statements and words, all the alls, everys, eternals, and see that this was not a terminal promise. This was a promise forever. This was a promise meant to endure. This was not a promise with a period at the end. So God made a promise in the form of a rainbow, and I wanted to share a picture of my favorite picture of a rainbow behind me right now. See, this rainbow right here is super special. This rainbow right here is a pictographic of every single cross-reference that exists in the Bible. Genesis is on that end.

Revelation is on that end. And over 63,000 times we see cross-references in the Bible, and it creates that image behind me. And if ever there was an analytical argument to speak to an analytical's heart about the validity of the Bible, tell me how over 40 authors and 66 books over thousands of years from multiple locations in multiple languages, by coincidence, could cross-reference 63,000 things. It is divinely inspired. It is divinely breathed. It is unlike anything else that exists in this world today. And what that graphic is is a picture of 63,000 times prophecies were fulfilled. 63,000 times God kept a promise. 63,000 times God did exactly what he said he was gonna do. When we see a rainbow in the sky, it isn't just a beautiful end to a storm. It's a reminder that God promised to never flood the earth again. He promised to prosper us, to love us, or to put it into words that may or may not represent the title of this entire series. It represents God's grace and not giving us what we so rightly deserved. Here's a crazy concept that maybe you've thought about and just haven't been able to put words to. And I honestly hadn't been able to either. And while I was preparing for this message

and reading the Bible, the Holy Spirit took a two-by-four, smacked me in the back of the head, said, write this down, and if you don't say it, I'm gonna smack you again. Grace comes at the intersection of hope and promise. And in this case, inconvenient grace came at the intersection of inconvenient hope on God's inconvenient promise. It's our hope and the promise that God has given us that creates an avenue for us to have faith so that we may be saved by God's grace. You see, I intentionally and specifically started the scripture at Genesis 6, verse nine, when in reality, The main scripture for my entire message is Genesis six, verse eight. But I wanted to bury the lead so that I could take you back to scripture to bring you to the future that God has for you. Or to say it another way, I want to take you guys back to the future. Because where we're going, we don't need boats. Because he'll never flood the earth again. That was a, all right. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You know, I said it in the first gathering and I was like, it didn't land. Don't say in the second one. And God was like, no, just be better. And it didn't.

No, it's all right. That's okay. So Genesis six, right? We're going to read verse five to verse eight. It says, then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart. So the Lord said, I will destroy man who I've created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air. For I am sorry that I have made them. And then he drops verse eight. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Mind you, we do not assume that Noah was a spotless lamb. Noah was not the Messiah. Noah was not perfect. Noah came after Adam. So we know Noah was a failed human, that he sinned, that he made mistakes. He had transgressions. He had problems, may have had a vice. Noah was very much human. But we are told in God's word that he was righteous and the only blameless man living on earth. So how is that possible? How can somebody who we know is flawed,

we know is broken, we know is a sinner, be the only person living on the planet earth that God says, that one's righteous, that one is blameless. So after a lot of Bible study and prayer and time with the Holy Spirit, there was only one thing that came to mind that made sense to me. And that's that Noah knew to bring his guilt to God and to seek forgiveness. By faith, he offered a proper sacrifice and it was a foreshadowing to the sacrifice that Christ would make on the cross. So by grace, through his faith in God, he was forgiven and declared righteous because he could never do it on his own and neither can we. The rest of the world had the same opportunity, but rejected it. He was set apart and because of that, he received grace. John 14, six might be one of the best known verses in the Bible right after John 3, 16. John 14, six says, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and nobody gets to the father except through him. We all know that. But what I want to reiterate today is that statement didn't come into effect the day it was spoken. That always has been the truth and always will be the truth. There is no way to the father except through the son. And here we see a case where Noah existed thousands of years before Jesus Christ in human form would ever walk the earth.

But Noah still had hope and faith in the promises God laid before him that would manifest one day in the name of Jesus Christ. And because of that, he received grace. But even so, the story of Noah would not be complete without telling you exactly what he did the day he got off the ark. Genesis 8, 18 to 20 says it in long form, I'm gonna say it in summary, but Noah built an altar to the Lord and then offered burnt offerings on that altar. This act of Noah shows what came first in his heart. It was the grace of God, the hope of God. He was thankful to God. He knew his provision came from God and he knew the only reason there was air on his lungs was because of God. The sacrifices he offered symbolizes the sacrifices that Jesus would one day make for the world and even for Noah. In a physical sense, it would have been easy for Noah to pat himself on the back and say, I got me here. Yeah, God told me to, but I built the boat. I got the animals. I got the goods. I stocked it. I got everybody in. I sailed it for a year. Good job, Noah.

But he didn't. He knew that without God, there would have been no salvation for him. There would have been no vision. There would have been no word. There would have been no protection. There would have been no grace. So he honored and praised God because he knew he found grace in the eyes of the Lord. So what about us, right? We not only have hope in God, like the Old Testament, but we have hope in the name of Jesus Christ too. He not only loves us. But he was a vessel for our grace, so that even though we will break our promises, we will be imperfect, his promise stays forever, because in our imperfection, his perfection shines. In our failures, his grace gets to beam. In our weakness, his strength only grows. And when we fall short again and again and come to the end of ourselves, where there is less of us, there is always more of him. Hope and promise is the takeaway from Noah's experience. His eternal hope and God's unwavering promise. Noah chasing after God every day and God honoring the promises that he made to Noah. And because of such, we all get to benefit and get reminded that God always keeps his promises. Now we come to the application portion of this message. Oftentimes, we are holding on to hope of God's promise.

Oftentimes, we're in a very similar situation to Noah. The difference is that the hope and the promise that we keep aren't producing tangible results, and that's hard. Not seeing the change that we pray for. You know, Noah held onto his hope and God's promise that the waters would recede, and for 12 months he didn't see it, but it came. The flood ended, and he got to see that come to fruition. Noah received God's promise that he would never flood the earth again, and for Noah's entire lifetime and all of our lifetimes, we've never seen the earth be flooded again. We've seen it. God has kept that promise. But sometimes when we swear that we have heard God clearly, we have heard the hope that he's put in our heart, and we have believed the promise, but it just isn't happening, it's a tough season. Whether it's prayers for a sickness to depart, maybe for a relationship to be rekindled, or maybe even for the birth of a child, we hope and believe a promise, and it just doesn't come. You know, the term rainbow baby didn't come from nowhere. For two years, my wife and I struggled. We had small flashes of success followed by large seasons of grief, but we believe that God put a promise in our life, and we held onto that hope with everything, regardless of what happened. And sometimes I'm telling you this,

that was all we had to hold onto. It's not easy in the valley, but if you believe and have hope in the promise God has given you, it's amazing what you can pull yourself through. It is amazing what you can get through. We had hope and trust in a promise, and it just wasn't happening. There is a philosopher and theologian by the name of Jim Wallace, and he coined the following sentence. Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, and then watching the evidence change. If I could leave you with one sentence to take home, it would be that hope cannot be a terminal condition. Hope has to endure. We hold onto our hope and our trust in God's promise eternally, because we need to understand that just because we want or see something for ourselves does not mean that that is the plan that God has written into your life. We can never even begin to understand the big picture that God has written for us. And it's not just for us, it's for the entire earth. You see, Mel and I, it's my wife, were blessed with a child about five weeks ago, after two years of struggle. God did answer my prayer. He did fulfill his promise that he put in my heart.

But if I told you there weren't 100 points where I was ready to throw in the towel, I'd be lying to you. I could have thrown in the towel, I could have given up hope. But then I think that there was 40 years where Noah could have done the same thing. 40 years where he could have put down the hammer and said, what am I building this boat for, man? I haven't seen any rain, I haven't even seen a cloud. 365 days he could have said, what are we doing on this boat? The waters aren't receding, the land's not coming. They could have given up hope, and so could I. But I remember that God always keeps his promises. You see, I'm a big fan of the following sentence, and you could say it a bunch of different ways, but I believe the way you phrase things and the way that you speak give your words power. So you better keep a positive mindset. And I believe that we do not have a God of no. I believe we have a God of yes, not yet, or hold on, I got something better for you. — You see, those prayers that instantly get answered are great, no matter how big or small they are. I've got a staff member, his name's Brian Case. He probably walks closer to God than almost anybody I've ever met. And we had these high school camp shirts and he said,

and we do a whitewater rafting trip with high school camp when you kind of get over it, and when they got wet, they revealed this logo you'll know that things aren't always true. that said Rise Up and Build and they were super cool. There was a guy who was just given a platinum Well, I gifted him one, because I love him. ammed football trained and bowled. He was like, man, I want to see this thing. I was trying to do my best Brian Case impression. Let's go, Jesus. So we're sitting in the office, and I'm like, hey, man, yeah, I could dump a bucket of water on you. And he's like, nah, it's going to rain. I'm going to pray for it. I saw this man get on his knees and pray and I saw it start to rain outside and I was like, what is happening right now? And he walked outside and his shirt got wet and he made a reel with it. He's like, let's go, Jesus. He put it on Facebook. Those prayers are cool. Those prayers are awesome, because you see it real time. The yeses are easy. When you pray and the answer is an immediate yes, you're like, awesome, thanks, God. But it's the not yets, it's the seasons of waiting, or even worse, the I have something betters,

where we don't even know if our prayers have been answered because they're not getting answered in the small box that we tried to put God in. Who are we to do that? That's when it gets tough. Not receiving the answer you want because God has something even better for you than you intended can be a tough season, but do not lose faith and do not lose hope. I go back to all these stories in the Bible. Imagine if the Israelites only circled Jericho for six days and they stopped and said, what are we doing here? We've silently walked around this place for six days and nothing has happened, but God's promise was that on the seventh day, the walls would fall. What if Naaman, a man who had leprosy in the Bible, who was told to dip himself in the Jordan ribbon seven times to be healed, only did it six, and stood up out of the water and said, what am I doing here? I'm just dunking my head under the same old water, expecting a different result. There's a definition of insanity, you know? But God gave him a promise and he had hope in it, and seven times he did it and he was cured of leprosy. It can be inconvenient, sure, but it's always worth it. Inconvenient grace is always worth it. You know, inconvenience is a funny word sometimes

because when I think of inconvenience, I reflect on myself and I think how inconvenient it can be to be a Christian sometimes. How inconvenient it might be to share the gospel with a stranger, how inconvenient it might be to evangelize, how inconvenient it may be to stand on the word of God in a world that doesn't embrace it. It's inconvenient, but when I compare my largest inconveniences to the sacrifice that Jesus made for me, it pales in comparison, and I no longer feel like it's an inconvenience. See, when I was separated from God with no way to get back to him because of my sin and my choices, my shortfalls, my shortcomings, there was someone who loved me enough to give everything so that I had a way to get back to the Father. You know, I recently had a conversation with one of my young adults over lunch, and he phrased something in a way I had never heard it, and I got to speak something that I had never thought before, and honestly, it wasn't me, but the Holy Spirit speaking through me. All credit goes to him. But the question was, if God knows everything that will, has, and is going to happen, and knew that right after Jesus died, he would return and rise again 40 days later, was it really such a big deal or a sacrifice to give him?

If I'm giving him and I know he's coming right back, what's the sacrifice? Is that really the love of the Father? And in my mind, the Holy Spirit dropped such a knowledge bomb, and I want to share it with you guys in return. If you are a Christian sitting here today, and if you're not, that's okay, and I'm so blessed that you're here listening anyway, but if you are a Christian who has put your faith in the name of Jesus, and truly believe that heaven is a place with no pain, no suffering, where only joy can exist, you truly believe that all Jesus followers will one day be reunited in heaven together for eternity, which means our time on earth is a drop in the bucket, and eternity in paradise is our end state, if you truly believe all of that, would it break your heart to see a family member become terminally ill? Would it break your heart to see someone pass away tragically? If you knew in your heart of hearts that they were in a better place, and they were no longer suffering, and you would see them one day for eternity, would it still mourn your grieving heart to bury a child? The love of the Father is not contingent on knowing that one day everything will be better. We put our faith in that, we stand on that, we believe that,

but the love of the Father is walking through the valley, and doing whatever it takes to get to the mountaintop, and never wavering, even though the pain may be unbearable. You see, God sacrificed his only son for us. Regardless of his knowledge of how the story ended, he had to sit and watch every detail play out. He had to watch as his very human son was captured, tortured, humiliated, stripped naked, walked through the streets like a common criminal. He had to watch as his son was nailed to a cross and lifted up to a cheering crowd. He watched as they mocked him and put a crown of thorns on his head. He watched him as he cried out for his father, and he watched him take his last breath after a spear was plunged into his side. The heart of the father watched all of that transpire and never for a second hesitated because he knew the entire time that you were worth it. Jesus' blood on the cross and his resurrection created a way for you to get back to the father and all he wanted was a loving relationship with you. So if you are here and you don't have a relationship with God, you don't have a relationship with Jesus, you have not called on him as your Lord and Savior, I wanna give you that opportunity because I'm tired of my inconveniences getting in the way of me spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. God has given me a platform, a microphone, an ability to speak,

and if I don't use that for the glory of God, then what am I doing with my life? I can do a lot of good things while I'm here, but the greatest thing I can do is show y'all that there is a loving God who wants nothing more than a relationship with you. That's right. When we as man decided to sin and separate ourselves from the father, he came after you and loved you enough to create a way for you to get back to him. The name of Jesus Christ created a bridge over our sin for us to get back to the father and all that you have to do is believe that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior. So I wanna go into a moment of prayer. It's called a sinner's prayer. We'll all say it together, but I want you to understand that these are not magical words. There is no power just in these words alone, but as you speak them, if a change happens in your heart and you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I wanna welcome you to the best day of your life. So if everybody could close their eyes and bow their head with me, we're gonna pray this together and we're gonna pray it out loud, and I wanna remind you,

you're not praying to me or through me because I'm just a man with a microphone, but we are all praying together, and at the end of this prayer, I'm gonna ask for a moment of boldness for anybody that may have prayed this for the first time, and I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand. So repeat after me. Say, dear God, I know that I'm a sinner. There's nothing I can do to save myself. I know without you, there's no way for me to get to heaven. I believe you died for my sins and my salvation. I believe you were resurrected and rose again. As best as I can, I transfer my trust to you. I know I'm a sinner and I need a Savior. I give you my life. I receive your life. Now teach me how to live. In Jesus' name, amen. Now look at me. Again, those words have no power

if your heart's not behind them, but if you prayed that for the first time and in your heart you have reconciled that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, I don't wanna welcome you to a finish line. I wanna welcome you to a starting point. This isn't where you have all the answers. This isn't you're a Bible scholar now that you can quote Scripture offhand. This isn't you don't have any more questions or doubts. In fact, if you make this choice, you might have more questions and doubts than you ever had in your entire life, but what this is is taking your first step on a journey through life where you're no longer alone and never will be. You're walking with Jesus and we wanna celebrate that. So I'm gonna count to three and if you chose Jesus for the first time, I want you to stick your hand up and I don't mean here and I don't mean here. I mean put that thing in the air and it's not for anybody in this room. In fact, the only reason we want you to raise your hand is because we have some amazing people on our host team that wanna give you some resources to help you on this walk because the first couple steps may be the hardest, but we are gonna celebrate you. We're gonna clap and we're gonna cheer

because the second your name got put in the Lamb's Book of Life was the greatest day, the greatest decision, the greatest choice you could have ever made. So when I say three, please don't hesitate and let the enemy talk you out of it. If you've reconciled in your heart that Jesus is your Lord and Savior, shoot that hand up in the air. One, two, three. Clap church and celebrate, celebrate, celebrate, celebrate. Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! It has been an absolute pleasure to be up here for you all. I love you guys so much. I love you, Navarre. I love you, Blackwater. At this point, we're going to turn it over to our local campuses.