Pastor Jeff Leake’s Final Sermon | “Jesus Came for Everyone”

If you're joining us online today, we're so glad you're with us, and especially our guy behind Bars Campus, would you welcome them to the service today? We love you guys so much. All right, so we're gonna get into a brand new series today. Let me start like this. So we have been in this season where we have been kind of comparing biblically the city of Nazareth, the town of Nazareth, and the town of Capernaum. And if you remember, we just came out of this series called House of Healing, and we sort of painted this picture. Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, was the place where he could do zero miracles, right? Because something was wrong with the atmosphere. They didn't really have the atmosphere of faith necessary for there to be something to happen. Capernaum, on the other hand, is where Jesus bases out of on the Sea of Galilee. And in Capernaum, he saw more miracles happen than any other place. So we still believe in God for healing miracles, amen. We're believing we're gonna continue to pray in faith and push down that wall to see God's power at work in Jesus' name. And we could kind of summarize one of the differences between those two places is this. Nazareth saw Jesus based on their experience, right?

He grew up there, they knew him. But Capernaum saw Jesus through eyes of faith, right? They saw who he was and what came in relationship with him, right? And so we wanna see Jesus through eyes of faith. I think there's a second difference between Nazareth and Capernaum, and that's this. Nazareth didn't see what Jesus saw, okay? And we're gonna actually dive into a passage of scripture today that's gonna kick off a study for us. But Nazareth didn't see what Jesus saw or they didn't understand what was in Jesus' heart. And therefore, their heart was closed to some of the things that God wanted to do in them that they were really unaware of. Okay, so what did Jesus see? Let's describe like this. So I actually haven't been to Kennywood Park in years. How many of you have been recently? Wave at me if you've been to Kennywood. Okay, I remember growing up here in Pittsburgh and going to Kennywood. And when I was a little kid having this experience, I don't even know if they have this anymore, but there were certain rides that you couldn't ride unless you were as tall as Kenny the kangaroo. Is this still a thing? Okay, yeah, so you go up to a ride and if you're too small to ride the ride,

they say, I'm sorry, little one, you can't get on maybe next year, right? And I remember one in particular. I think they still have this ancient ride called the kangaroo. It goes around in a circle and you go up this big thing. I don't know why I thought that was the greatest ride ever and I so wanted to ride it. Some of my friends were taller than me and I'm standing in line and I go up to Kenny the kangaroo and I'm standing up on my tiptoes trying to make it to be tall enough and I wasn't tall enough and I remember feeling so left out. I felt like I would never quite grow enough to be included in this experience. Then the next year I was tall enough and it wasn't that big a deal, you know what I mean? But you know what I'm saying? There is this feeling of being left out, right? Being left outside, being unacceptable like you don't measure up. Okay, there was something about the ministry of Jesus where Jesus came into this world. He came to reach everybody but specifically he had a target and a focus on people that often were left out or marginalized or outsiders. And here's what we're gonna do. We are gonna study over the next number of weeks the book of Luke together. And the Luke is one of the four gospels.

Let me give you some background on how the Bible is constructed. We have four books in the New Testament that all tell the life history of Jesus. The first four books, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Okay, let me tell you who these authors are, okay? Remember the Holy Spirit inspires the word of God but it is written through the context of a human person and their story and personality. Matthew had been, before he met Jesus, a tax collector and Jesus had called him to be one of his disciples. So Matthew has a firsthand experience of Jesus' life and ministry and he writes from that perspective. Mark is a younger guy than the others and what we understand is he was kind of like a middle schooler whenever Jesus was doing his thing and he hung around the discipleship group but he gets probably most of his information about the book of Mark from interviewing Simon Peter, okay? That's the fourth book. John is Jesus' best friend, right? He is a disciple, he's one of the top three disciples and he writes from a totally different perspective, John, because he's persuading us to believe Christ is the Son of God. Now Luke, he's the outlier. Luke is not a disciple, he's actually not Jewish. He actually grew up, most scholars believe, in a place in Syria and he was probably Greek

and we meet Luke in Acts chapter 16 when he joins Paul's traveling ministry team and then as he gets to know Paul, he becomes curious about the gospel, about the Jesus' life story and so, you know, he was trained as a. but he uses his educational skills to research his gospel, the book of Luke, like a journalist would. Like he went back and he interviewed a lot of the people firsthand and he got input from them on what was going on in that situation. Now, just like in any society at any time, there are people that are insiders and people who are outsiders. You know what I mean? Like, okay, so the insiders to the gospel story are primarily the Jewish people who grew up in Israel. And these folks had been living under Roman tyranny and oppression for years. Everybody, foreign powers were constantly conquering them and dominating them. So they were religiously suspicious of people who were non-Jews. And then they were personally wounded and traumatized by people who were non-Jews. And so when somebody showed up in their environment, now choosing to follow Christ, and they didn't come from the right background, they kind of held them a little bit at a distance. And so Luke now, as he's interviewing people

to find out about the stories of Jesus, is bumping into this feeling like I'm not tall enough to ride the ride, right? Like I don't quite measure up because I'm not from the right background and I don't have the right heritage and I come from a different place. And so Luke gives us a vantage point on Jesus' life that's completely different from the other gospels. In fact, we see this in Luke chapter four when Jesus launches his ministry. This is where we're gonna start to read Luke chapter four. Okay, here's what it goes on to say. Luke chapter four, verse 14. Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit and news about him spread through the whole countryside and he was teaching in their synagogues and everyone praised him. Okay, he's just beginning his ministry now. He comes back from Galilee, he comes back to his hometown in Nazareth and everybody's praising him. And it gets to be now this moment. He came to Nazareth where he'd been brought up and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue. Okay, it was Jesus' practice and habit every week to go to synagogue with his family. And there was a custom that you could, as one of the men in the village, read from the scripture as you were in synagogue.

And so it was Jesus' turn to do the scripture reading. And you would get to pick what you were gonna read from the Old Testament. And so he stood up to read, it says. And he picks actually a passage out of Isaiah chapter 61. Let me explain as we read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written, the Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor. Now, he is reading a prophecy about what the Messiah would come to do when he shows up in the world. And so he's reading now this beautiful verse. He sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind and to set the oppressed free and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. This is what we've been praying for. This is what we've been waiting for. And he's reading this verse now. Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue was fastened on him. And he began by saying this. Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. And if it was in our day, we would say, and then he dropped the mic, okay?

Like he said, basically, can I just say plainly? He said, that verse was about the coming of the Messiah. I just read it to you, and now I'm here. Okay, pretty bold statement to say, I am now the fulfillment of what our people have been praying for for 1,000 years, the coming of the Messiah. Here I am in your midst, in your hometown. You know me. I grew up here, right? Okay, pretty radical. Wow, what a way to start your ministry, Jesus. Verse 22, all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. And they were like, isn't this great? He's one of us. The Messiah grew up here. We know this guy. Isn't he Joseph's son? We know where he was raised. And so he now begins to enjoy this moment there with the people he was raised with as he's announced his Messiahship before them. Now, at the end of this reading that we're gonna do today, there's a pretty amazing thing that happens because they get really angry with him and they try to kill Jesus, okay? Doesn't feel like it here, does it? But the end of this comes to this climactic moment.

But at very first few steps into his ministry, he almost dies. Eventually, he gets crucified. This is three years prior to that. But when I used to read this passage, Luke chapter four, I thought the reason why they wanted to crucify him was because he told everybody, I'm the Messiah. But as you can see, put verse 22 back up on the screen, they actually were happy about that. If the story had ended here, they would be like, the Messiah came from Nazareth. Isn't this amazing? We receive you and this news that you are the fulfillment of this prophecy but at the end of this passage, we're gonna discover that these people like a mob grab him and carry him to the top of the hill in Nazareth to throw him off the cliff and Stone him now stoning here was the process of stoning typically they would throw you from a high place If you weren't dead, they throw stones on you to kill you. I Know isn't that pleasant and I have been to this place in Nazareth multiple times And so I thought I'd give you a little glimpse if we can show the video here We are this is not a real like it's not a hill. Okay. This is kind of a mountainside and This is called Mount Precipice, which is the top of Nazareth, which is the scene They would have carried Jesus to the top of this hill With the intent of throwing him down and then throwing stones on top of him By the way continue to play that that little valley you see beyond there That's called the Valley of Jezreel or better known in the book of Revelation Where the Battle of Armageddon takes place So actually did you think about Jesus backyard technically? He would get up on that hill. He could see where that whole region of Armageddon. That's pretty curious I don't know if there's anything to that just interesting. All right, so let's go back to our text now So, why do they want to kill him what's what's going on in this situation verse 23 then Jesus

He you know, he takes this moment He says surely you're gonna quote this proverb to me physician Hill yourself and you're gonna tell me do here in your hometown What you've heard that what we've heard you've done in Capernaum. Remember, this is what we've been contrasting. There's something going on in Capernaum There's nothing going on here You're gonna say if you're really the Messiah show it by Doing some things that we can be impressed by by seeing the miracles that you will performed truly I tell you he continued no prophet is accepted in his own hometown. I assure you now Here's where it gets really intense. I Assure you there are many widows in Israel in Elijah's time When the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was severe famine in the land Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon he said When there was this crisis in Israel and God wanted to do a miracle of provision to supply for Elijah He didn't send Elijah to an Israelite. He sent him to a widow. Who's a Sidonian a non Jew in order to take care of him and Then he says in the next verse verse 27 and there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elijah Elijah the prophet yet Not one of them was cleansed But only Naaman the Syrian. Okay, let's pause for a moment when Luke was researching his gospel and he was interviewing someone who was here in the synagogue on this particular day and Luke grew up in Syria and He had always been sort of feeling like he wasn't tall enough to ride the ride and Then somebody says oh, yeah, I was there that day in Jesus when he said that you know He's Naaman the Syrian was healed. I'm sure Luke thought like this Syrian that's where I come from like Jesus Jesus talked about my people at this moment Wow I'm sure he includes this detail because that's where he was from and it says and all the people were In the synagogue were furious when they heard this Well, what were they mad at because Jesus had said I have come to reach not just Jewish people But I'm gonna reach Sidonians and Syrians as well In fact, these folks received some degree of favor because of their faith and I'm gonna go after them too And they were so angry all of a sudden now. They just can't contain themselves verse 29

They got up and drove him out of the town and took him to the bra of the hill on Which the town was built the one you just saw right there in order to throw him off the cliff Probably some of you don't even know this isn't the Bible right here this story and And so he says but he but somehow God hid hid him from their sight He walked right through the crowd and went down on his way and they didn't succeed in killing him at this moment All right. Let's ask the question. What were the people of Nazareth so mad about? Why were they so angry at this moment? Well has something to do with the fact that they didn't see what Jesus saw and that they didn't understand the heart of God And the reason why Jesus had come in the first place. And here's what I'll give you as the Proposition for this the mission of Jesus was to reach and redeem the unacceptable He came for everybody He came for the people that weren't tall enough right that didn't measure up that didn't measure up That didn't come for the right for people like Luke who grew up in Syria who didn't come from the right background Jesus came for everybody And because Nazareth missed the heart of God, not just that they didn't see Jesus through eyes of faith, but they missed the heart of God, they also then missed what God was trying to do. They had the Messiah right in their own midst. Jesus was there growing up amongst them. They were gonna celebrate the fact that he was their Messiah but because they didn't understand his mission, they missed everything about who he was and what he was trying to do in the world. Let me just say, it is possible to be a churchgoer, to call yourself a Christian, to be in the flow of the right denomination with all the right stuff and still miss who Jesus really is and still miss what Jesus is really trying to do. And if you don't understand the heart of God,

you'll often miss the blessing of God because God is trying to move amongst those that get what he's trying to accomplish on earth. Can I get an amen from somebody? Yeah, okay, let me just now talk about how this applies to us in our moment. We live in a very polarized world and there's a lot of struggle in our culture right now because the world is divided into these two categories. Are you ready for them? Us and them. And everybody has a different us and them. And actually, there is a term that we use to describe the process here and it's this term called othering. This is where you look at somebody and you say, you are different from my in-group. And because you're not the same as us and you have a different point of view as us and you come from a different place than us, we no longer feel like you, right? You kind of get this idea, there is this connection, this belief that comes from othering, which is this idea that we think, well, we're normal, central, and fully human, and you're sort of different, abnormal, and a little less than. And when we start to treat each other based upon this mindset, not only do you get a culture war

and a divided world, which we have, but here's the real danger that I wanna kind of lay out for you. And that's this, we also are in danger of squeezing out the work of God in our midst. I'll just say that again so you let that sink in. If we divide the world into us and them and we determine unacceptables, we begin to squeeze out the work of God in us because we miss God's heart and why Jesus is here in the first place and what he's really trying to accomplish. You see, if we're gonna be a Capernaum church and not a Nazareth church, we have to do more than just have faith for the miraculous. We have to have a love for the unacceptable. Does that sink into you? Are you with me there? I know, I want you to feel this. And as we study through the book of Luke, we're gonna actually discover this, but the mission of Jesus is to reach and redeem those who are unacceptable. And so now let me just make some real quick applications and we'll prepare ourselves for the rest of the series together. Okay, here's the very first principle. This will not be real complicated, what I'm gonna say, but I think these are things that are obviously true throughout scripture.

Number one, Jesus came to rescue everybody. Can I get an amen from somebody? Okay, Luke, Luke, let me just say again, the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit. So we believe it's authoritative for our life. We believe it's not just men making up stuff. We believe the Holy Spirit breathes his word through individuals who wrote it down for us. But when they write it down, they write it down through their personality and perspective. So they bring their history and experience to the table. It's really interesting that in the book of Luke, we get this idea Jesus came to rescue everybody. And you can see this because Luke includes details about the gospel that none of the other writers revealed to us. Number one, Luke tells us about the thief on the cross. You know that guy that's hanging next to Jesus who says, today when you die, would you? Why? Because the thief wasn't tall enough to ride the ride. He was unacceptable. He shouldn't be able to get saved at that last moment. Come on. Luke gives us the detail that when Jesus was too tired and he was carrying his cross and he fell and stumbled and he couldn't, that there was this guy, Simon, from Cyrene, not a Jewish guy, came from a Greek island that picked up the cross and carried it to the top of the hill.

Why does Luke tell us this? Well, you see, Luke is writing from the perspective of someone who was an outsider. Luke gives us the story of this demon-possessed guy who was filled with a legion of demons that Jesus specifically went outside of Jewish territory to be able to reach. Luke tells us the story of the prodigal son. That story isn't in all of the Gospels, but it's in the Luke Gospel. Why? Because Luke felt like he was the unacceptable outsider. Luke tells the story. The story of the good Samaritan, right? The guy that helped the one, he shouldn't have, they couldn't even bring themselves to say it was the Samaritan, right? They just said, I guess it was the guy who helped him, right? These are stories that Luke embeds for us, and by the way, this will be our series. We're gonna study these stories as we journey through the book of Luke and we head towards the Good Friday and Easter season to get acquainted, not just with the story of Jesus, but listen, with the heart of Jesus, which I think Luke gives us this unique perspective with. Okay, Jesus came to rescue everybody. Let's put that back on the screen, and would you just say it out loud with me? Jesus came to rescue everyone.

Okay, here's the second one. Number two, the gospel is designed to redeem everyone. No matter, listen, it doesn't matter your background, your ethnicity, your generation, what language you speak. It doesn't matter your political affiliation. It doesn't matter your worldview. Jesus came to redeem everybody, right? Okay, now, here's the process. This is really important. Jesus, he has this all-inclusive invitation that comes with the gospel. What's the gospel? It's the good news that God loved us so much that he sent his Son into the world to rescue us from our sin and restore us to our God, right? This is the gospel. Now, the gospel has this inclusiveness to it. First, this is number one, inclusive. All of us are condemned already, it says. John chapter three, verse 18 says, "'Whoever believes in me,' Jesus speaking, "'is not condemned, but whoever does not believe "'stands condemned already.'" All of us, Romans says, have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All of us are damaged. All of us are broken. All of us are away from God. It doesn't matter where you grew up or how often you've been in church.

You're never gonna be good enough on your own to be able to be in a place where you are redeemed. Only Jesus can save our soul. Can I get an amen, right? All right, so we're all in the same condition. We all need something beyond ourselves to be redeemed. And here's condition or pathway that is kind of a condition for us. Matthew, or John chapter 14, six. Jesus, again, says, "'I'm the way, the truth, and the life. "'No one comes to the Father except through me.'" Here's a common invitation for everybody. If you wanna be right with God, he's inviting us all. Come on, come on. Right now, come on. Here's the pathway, come on. If you wanna get right with the Father, here it is. You come through faith in me. You believe in me, I'll take your hand. I'm the way, the truth, and the life. I'll lead you to the Father, come on. Everybody's invited. I don't care, Luke, that you came from Syria, right? I don't care, Simon, that you came from Cyrene. I don't care, thief, that you're dying on the cross for your own reasons, right? I'm calling you, come on, come on, come on. Come, everybody, right? There's a common path. Everybody's invited to the path.

Here's number three, third thing, and that's this. There is a common demand. Now, here's where I think the gospel is at odds with how the culture sometimes treats this idea that everybody's included. Oh, no, I'm gonna talk real directly to you now. Are you ready? Okay, is that okay? Do I have your permission? I'm gonna do it anyway, but let's go ahead. Okay, here's the deal. People have sort of invented a chameleon Jesus who changes his colors and beliefs depending upon whatever you think, and Jesus is gonna show up in your world, and basically, it's this, whatever you think, Jesus will agree with you, and he'll be your personal, private Jesus. No, no, it's not like that. Sometimes we get the idea that he includes everybody into the idea that he is going to adjust to you and follow you in your life, but let's just get this straight now. Jesus is God in the flesh, okay? He's the one that redeems me from my brokenness and my sin. I actually have to leave myself behind to follow him and receive life in his name, so Jesus doesn't follow me. I follow him. He doesn't adjust to my worldview.

I adjust to his, so everybody's included and invited, but I have to lay my life down in order to receive the life that he offers to me, and again, that sounds sort of like narrow. It is, because Jesus said, the wide path leads to destruction, but the narrow path leads to life, but everybody's invited. Look, if you'll come to receive Jesus for who he really is, he will offer to you a transformation that will not just change your life for today, but for all of eternity. Okay, so here's what Jesus said. Listen to his own words, Matthew chapter 16. Whoever wants to, excuse me, verse 24. Let's start there. Then Jesus said to his disciples, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. So everybody's invited, but you have to be willing to accept the demands he brings. Whoever wants to save their life, live life on their terms, pursue their own agenda, and ask for God to just deal with it, will end up losing it. It's a hollow way of living, but whoever loses their life, for me, will find it. Like, a huge high demand

that Jesus makes upon us, and an enormous high promise that He gives to us. Lay it all down, find life. Your sins are forgiven. You're restored to God. You get a new identity. You get adopted into His family. You get the promise of eternal life. You get the Holy Spirit who begins to live on the inside of you. You get a life of purpose every day you get up, and you know you're a part of His plan. You begin to partner with God. Like, the gospel brings with it so much transformation. It is the greatest thing you can ever do. Jesus tells the story about the guy who went and saw a pearl in the middle of a field, and he said, that's worth so much, I'm gonna sell everything I have just to get that pearl. That's the idea. Life in Christ is so valuable that it's worth selling everything else just so I can get a hold of it, because when I have that, I have everything that I need, right? So first, Jesus came to rescue everybody. Two, the gospel is to redeem everybody. Here's the last point, and that is this.

I'm gonna choose to live to reach everybody, right? My life is now gonna have that same mindset of Jesus that with God, there is no one too short to ride the ride. Like, everybody's invited in. I don't care where you are coming from. That I'm gonna say, all right, God, use me to be an extension of your love and grace to reach a world that's out there that so desperately needs the gospel. Now, why is this so critical for us at this particular moment? Well, number one, we are studying the word of God, the description of the life of Jesus, as we get ready to journey towards the moment where we celebrate his death, burial, and resurrection. I think that's just healthy. Second thing is, we live in a polarized world right now that if we're not careful, will create such a polarization in our spirit that we start to see life through the lens of us and them. And I'll just say, if we get into that space where we're starting to other people, all of a sudden, the work that God is trying to do in us will get squeezed out. And look, we need more than just faith for the power of God to move. We need a heart that is shaped and molded by the way that Jesus wants to accomplish things through us in the world. So I just think, I don't feel like this series

is a prophetic series for our culture. Can I just say that? First of all, it's a prophetic series for my own heart. Like a lot of things, when I preach, guys, I preach to me first. But I actually think our world so desperately needs Jesus, not just Jesus who will save us from our sin, but Jesus is the most revolutionary leader to ever live. If we would just live the way Jesus lived and love the way Jesus would love, we could change the world for good. I'm gonna just tell you, the world needs Jesus right now more than ever before. Our culture needs Jesus more than ever before. I don't want just to come up with my own mindset of how I think the world needs to change. I wanna get aligned with who Jesus is and what he's trying to do in the world. And I think if we can do that, God's gonna do something amazing within our hearts and within our fellowship. Are we good? Yeah, okay. I know I'm preaching passionately at you. So we're gonna close now. We're gonna get ready to shift into communion. We're gonna pose a couple of questions to you. First question is this. As we go, get ready to take the elements, right? The bread and the cup.

I want you to think, who am I othering in my spirit? Who have I put into the them category? And how can I, as I get ready for communion, repent for that and get my heart aligned with how God sees the people I might not necessarily look at as the same as me, okay? First question. Second is, am I really aligned with the heart of Jesus? And maybe you can't even answer that right away. Maybe that's just something we need to pose before the Lord. God, am I aligned with your heart? Do I see people through your eyes? Am I walking with the kind of love that you have for me? And then the final question is, have I met the demand of Jesus and have I surrendered my life to him for his purpose? All right, let's do this together. Tilt your face toward heaven. And we're all gonna get ready now for this moment. Team, you can get ready to distribute the elements of communion. For me, I'm gonna pray this again. I'm gonna pray that I'm gonna make my mind up and make my choice to say, Jesus, I wanna follow you, okay? I want you to come into my life. I'm gonna surrender to you. So this is what we're gonna do. We often call the salvation prayer, but this is not just for those praying this for the first time.

Let's just get re-centered. Everybody in the room get ready to take communion. We're gonna do this. If today you're away from God and you wanna choose to become a follower of Jesus, this is your moment. We're all gonna pray this together. If you're a regular church attender and you call yourself a Christian and you really wanna be aligned with him, let's pray this together, okay? Let's all get centered on him today. So let's pray out loud now. Say, Jesus, I thank you that you love me with a crazy radical love. Even when I was a sinner, you came running after me. I thank you for that. And I ask you now to enter my life and take control of my soul. I wanna follow you. I wanna be like you. I wanna have your heart. And so I choose to center on you today. Forgive my sin. Melt the hardness of my heart. Give me a fresh love for people and help me to live in your resurrection power. I pray that today in Jesus' name, amen, amen. That's beautiful. All right, we're gonna distribute the communion elements.

The team's gonna come down, take that cup and just hold on to it. We'll pray together in just a moment. Now, this is a celebration for those who are Christ followers, all right? So if you're not a Jesus follower, if you're not willing to surrender your life to him, like we talked about, you can just let the tray pass you and you can sing and pray with us as we go throughout the rest of this service, but let's worship together as we get ready for communion today. ♪ Oh Oh Oh ♪ ♪ There is no one like the Lord, our God ♪ ♪ You've been faithful every day of my life ♪ ♪ Oh I could search the world and never find ♪ ♪ Another like you, another like you ♪ ♪ There is no one like the Lord, our God ♪ ♪ You've been faithful every day of my life ♪ ♪ Oh I could search the world and never find ♪ ♪ Another like you, another like you ♪ ♪ Oh worthy is the Lamb, worthy is the King ♪ ♪ And worthy is the one who reigns forever ♪ ♪ Seated on the throne, high above it all ♪ ♪ And everyone will know you're like no other ♪ ♪ Worthy is the Lamb, worthy is the King ♪ ♪ And worthy is the one who reigns forever ♪ ♪ Seated on the throne, high above it all ♪ ♪ And everyone will know you're like no other ♪ ♪ There is no one like the Lord, our God ♪

♪ You've been faithful every day of my life ♪ ♪ Oh I could search the world and never find ♪ ♪ Another like you, another like you ♪ All right, let's just take a moment right now and let's just thank the Lord together. So Jesus, I thank you that you came after me, a sinner, broken. Thank you, Jesus, that when I didn't deserve it, you didn't give up on me. Thank you, Jesus, that you saved me. Oh, I'm so thankful for your grace in my life. Jesus, I thank you that you have been so faithful to me over these years when I have been faithless or I have fallen down or I have let you down. Lord, you have always been there. You have come after me. You've shown mercy to me. You've shown grace to me. Oh, Jesus, I thank you for your goodness in my life today. And I just celebrate your grace in my life. Your grace in my life. Have your way in me, Jesus. In your own way, just would you thank him. Do you remember what he's done for you today? Come on, just. Reflect that back to him. Be specific with him about something he's done for you that is specific that just demonstrates his goodness and his grace Yeah, we worship you Jesus You've been so good to us today. God. Yeah Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Oh We worship you Jesus

Thank you Lord sing it again Caleb. Let's just reach out. There is no one sing now There is no one like the Lord Tell him that today Every day of my life I could search the world and never find another like you All right, let's take the bread now and Often we take the bread. We were remembering that Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross for us and And that out of that comes healing for us like to our soul to our Emotions and to our bodies and to our minds and I want you to think about an area in your life right now where you? Need God to do a work in you. Okay. What do you need him to do in your life today? Just begin to ask him for that right now Jesus You said by your stripes were healed We know that's physical but we know it's about so much more some of us need to get free from a habit today Some of us need to get free from a hurt in the past that we've been carrying some of us need To be free of a memory that we've been walking in some of us need a healing in our bodies Lord So we just pray right now as we get ready to take the bread We pray for your supernatural grace and power to be released into our systems or just give us a jolt of your anointing Bring the Holy Spirit into our midst God Lord touch our bodies touch our persons now by the power of the Holy Spirit In Jesus name we pray. Let's take this together in faith in his name All right now let's pray this way so Lord we pray that you'd begin to soften and heal our hearts We live in a middle of a war zone, there's so much toxicity and tension all around us We can get caught up in it all and before long our hearts become filled with resentment and fear and anxiety and Frustration and so Lord we just as we lift the cup to you now We ask that you would soften our hearts Lord I pray for Allison Park Church now that you would make this place a house of healing This place a house of healing not just physically but help us heal our Culture our city our region. We want to be a place Where the heart of Jesus functions and flows

Lord, we're where people come in and find That there's love and grace here. Just like we've received it Lord make this place an extension of Jesus to the world Lord we pray Lord heal our land. Yes heal our nation. Yes But Lord even just the spaces we live in the people we work with the people we see online The people we interact with God we want to be a house of healing We thought we want to be a house of healing for that for that Brokenness in our world and so in the name of Jesus now we cry out God that you'd make us a house of healing Lord that you begin to soften our hearts and reshape us into your image and cause us to see with the eyes you see and To feel the things that you feel. Oh Lord to speak the words You want us to speak not just to be reactionary to the world around us, but Lord as we take these communion elements We're asking for a larger miracle. We pray father Make us be people that run into the breach that begin to see healing flow through our lives And so we just you did this for us Jesus now We want to join you and what you're trying to do for this broken world have your way in us. We pray in In Jesus name, let's take the cup together Yeah, sing it again Caleb I Sing it one more time You've been faithful ♪ Every day of my life ♪ ♪ I can search the world and never find ♪ ♪ Another like you, another like you ♪ All right, can we have our leaders come to the front? We're here to pray for you today. If you need a touch in your body, you need to pray for something specific, we're here to pray for you just like we've been doing. We're gonna pray blessing over you in just a moment. At the end, right, we're gonna send you out,

I think we have hot pretzels and cheese so you can hang out a little bit together, find out information about life groups if you wanna get connected in this upcoming season. And as we prayed earlier, if you prayed with me and you said, today I'm gonna give my life to Christ, or I'm coming back to God, and you were serious about that moment right there, I'm gonna be back in the back with Caleb, we're gonna be at that table, and I'm gonna go right there, okay? So before you do anything, if you come for prayer, great, but then you come right back to that table. I would love to meet you and encourage you as you make your decisions to follow Jesus. God, I pray now that you would bless us as we go out from this place with the awareness of your heart for people. God, break our hearts the way your heart is broken for this world. Help us to see with eyes of faith. And Lord, cause us to walk in your favor and your grace, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Let's sing again together. If you need prayer, we're here to pray with you today. If you need prayer, we're here to pray with you today.