The Unlikely Conversion | Grace Is Better Than You Think | Josh Leake

pastor here and we are getting into our final week of the series that we've been in called Divine Partnership. Before we jump in though let's welcome God behind bars over and Summer said love you guys so much. Thanks for being here. So this is the final week and I want to kick off this message by telling you the tale of Boney Marv. You might ask who is Boney Marv. I'm so glad you asked. I can't wait to tell you. So when my daughter Annie who is now five when she turned two we ran into something that really freaked her out. So it was October when she was two a few years ago and in October people start putting up Halloween decorations as a lot of people are doing now and there was one of our neighbors across the street that put up a 12-foot skeleton that was just always looking in our front window. You could always see it so understandably two-year old Annie was very freaked out by this skeleton. So Ali and I my wife decided to try to figure out a way that we could make this thing not as scary because this thing was gonna be here and our neighbor ended up leaving this thing year around. So it was just always there. We were like we got to figure out a way to make this not scary. So we were like skeleton everybody is a skeleton. They're there in your body. Skeletons don't have to be scary and so we told Annie this skeleton is actually nice. He's your friend and his name is we hadn't come up with his name yet though so I said bow or I said Marv because I like that name. Ali said Boney and thus Boney Marv was born in that moment. What we didn't anticipate was that Boney Marv became Annie's favorite thing on the planet. She fell in love with Boney Marv so every night before she would go to bed she would go to the window and say good night Boney Marv like it was just her favorite and now this that became like her it was bigger than Christmas because like Christmas was fun when she was young but like Halloween Boney Marv is everywhere. Oh my gosh it's Boney Marv everywhere we would go. She would freak out. One day she went to the doctor. My wife Allison took her there. She wasn't feeling well. So she went to the doctor and at the end of the visit the doctor said you get to pick out a sticker. So she gave her two options. One option was Disney Princesses. The other was a monster truck with fire coming out the

back but it had a cartoon skull on it. That was a Boney Marv monster truck so she picked out. Oh my gosh it's Boney Marv. She came home not with a Disney Princess sticker with a Boney Marv monster truck sticker. Let me show you a picture of Annie in her Boney Marv pajamas. Boney Marv jammies. She lived in her Boney Marv jammies. She loved these things and we ended up getting Boney Marv jammies as a whole family so we would all dress up as Boney Marv you know go into bed. It's crazy though how things that we once hate can be something we love. Something that we are afraid of. There can be a 180 moment where now we love that thing. We're gonna look at a moment exactly like that. A 180 turnaround moment exactly like this in Acts chapter 9. So Acts chapter 9 and we're gonna start in verse 3 in just a second if you want to turn there in your Bibles on your phone and we'll put it on screen in a second but let me just set up what this moment is. So over this series we've been talking about the birth of the church. We've been talking about when Jesus ascended into heaven the apostles gave birth to the church through the power of the Holy Spirit and then the movement expanded rapidly. Constantly new people are getting saved getting added to their numbers and this causes a lot of people to be very unhappy especially the Jewish religious leaders because they were jealous of the attention that all of these new Christians were getting and also many of them thought this is morally wrong. They're blaspheming God and our way of life and traditions that we've had all up to this point there's one Pharisee religious leader in particular named Saul. Saul is who we're gonna look at today. Now Saul is on his way to an area called Damascus and he's on his way to arrest Christians followers of Jesus to have them imprisoned and that's we'll pick up in Acts chapter 9 verse 3 here's what it says. As he near Damascus on his journey suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard of voice say to him, "Saul, Saul why do you persecute me? Who are you Lord?" Saul asked. "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting," he replied. "Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do." To pause for a second the other men around heard the sound. There were other guys traveling with Saul.

They heard the sound but they didn't see anything. So when Saul they help him to his feet he's blind. He can't see for three days they take him into the city of Damascus. He doesn't eat or drink anything he can't see for all of what he was doing, we know he was praying, but you gotta think about the weight of what he was grappling with. His whole life got turned upside down in a minute. He's blind for three days, not eating or drinking, he's praying, and then at the same time, God was preparing another man in the same city. So Acts chapter nine verse 10 says this, in Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, Ananias. Yes, Lord, he answered. The Lord told him, go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias, you, come and place his hands on him to restore his sight. Lord Ananias answered, I've heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name. Kale, Ananias' objections in this moment make so much sense because Ananias would have known the people that Paul was having arrested or even some of them, he was leading them to be put to death. So Ananias' objections to say, are you sure about this? This guy?

I don't know if this is such a good idea, but God responds in verse 15, the Lord said to Ananias, go, this man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name. And now we see the meeting moment in verse 17. Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road as he were coming here has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And then the miracle happens immediately, something like scales fell from Saul's eyes and he could see again. He got up and was baptized and after taking some food, he regained his strength. This guy, Saul, who has this miracle happen, takes the name Paul and he goes on to be one of the most influential church planners, missionaries, theologians in the early church. So on one hand, the 180 degree turn here, we can celebrate it. This is the skeleton to Bonimar's moment, taking something horrible, turning it into something good. We're celebrating, wow, this is awesome. And it happened through the obedience of a man named Ananias obeying through fear. We can celebrate and say, that's awesome that Ananias was willing to take that step of obedience. And let me just say this to you too.

God's invitation to partnership so often is on the other side of our feelings of fear. If we wanna see God move, we have no idea what God will unleash on the other side of obedience through fear. So on one hand, we can celebrate the 180 miracle that happened through Ananias's obedience and what Paul would go on to do. But on the other hand, God's forgiveness to Saul can actually feel pretty offensive because you may know what Saul goes on to do like we're saying. But if we just pause thinking about that for a moment and we just think about right now how this felt, where this monster of a human being is being forgiven. Paul's imprisoning and even leading some innocent people to their death and he's just being forgiven. It feels like waving a hand away and all the horrible stuff that had been done. We don't have a problem with people that we perceive as good being forgiven. Pretty much no one in the world has a problem with that idea because if you've been behaving well and then you make a mistake, the idea of being forgiven is sure, okay, no problem. It's a much harder thing for us and for our culture when we think about the concept of forgiving a horrible person, forgiving a terrible human because it feels like letting them off the hook for all the things they've done.

Saul, after jailing and persecuting innocent people, receiving forgiveness can almost seem wrong to us. But here's where we get into a beautiful mix of something really wonderful and also really frustrating. God doesn't judge based on what humans think is fair. This is great news and it's bad news. Here's why it's bad news. We really want God to think like us. if God judged more like how I think He should or he operated more like how I think He should. Growing up in the Leak household, there were words that you could say that were dangerous and those words were, that's not fair. Anybody else grow up in a house where the words, that's not fair, you don't say that in the house. Not fair, you want to talk about not fair? The reason it was dangerous in the Leak household, one of the reasons is my mom had a not fair song and dance that she would do to taunt you. Oh, not fair, and then she would sing and do the not fair dance. So I'm gonna invite my mom out to do that dance. I'm just kidding, wouldn't that be great though? If she came out and did that, maybe someday, I don't know. We'll get her to do it. As a kid, we're pretty obsessed with fairness. We have a really good idea of what is fair and not fair is kids. Who got more, who got less? Who got away with something, who didn't?

The funny thing is though, if we're honest with ourselves, we don't ever really fully grow out of that habit. We think we have a pretty good idea of what we deserve and what others deserve. We think we're pretty good at judging those things. But again, God doesn't judge based on what humans think is fair, and that's good news because our feelings, our standards, our views are constantly changing. Now, we don't like to think of ourselves this way. We prefer to think of ourselves as being impartial, not biased, not influenced by feelings or people we know, but the truth is, we are very bad at being unbiased and impartial. There's an old saying I was just reading in a book that says this, "We want people to judge us by our intentions, "but we judge other people by their actions." So the idea is when I make a mistake, I want you to empathize and to understand why I made that mistake. But if you made a mistake, I tend to just judge you, not by what you meant to do, but why you actually did, what you actually did. So if I had a bad week and I'm miserable and I have a bad attitude and in anger, I say something mean, I want you to understand, it was a hard week, it was stressful for me. But if you do the same thing, I just see, wow, you have an anger problem. You really need to get control of that.

We make exceptions for ourselves that we are unwilling to make for other people all the time. So our judgment changes all the time, depending on how we feel, depending on whether we like someone or not, whether we agree with them, how we're feeling that day or that week. So we get a very different angle of how God's judgment and forgiveness works when we look at Jesus in agony on the cross. We see a very different angle there because he's mocked and tortured by his enemies. Suffering and complete agony, nails driven through hands and feet. While he's in that pain, enemies are mocking him, taunting him. And then as that's happening, he says, father forgive them for they know not what they do. So Jesus didn't die to extend forgiveness to those who prove they deserve it. Jesus died for his enemies. That's a very different angle on forgiveness than what we prefer or how we work. The good news is God's grace is unfair, but in the best way. Grace is what turned this monster Saul into a church planner, into a missionary. You actually can't understand partnership what this series is about without understanding grace. You can understand religion because religion says

you gotta prove it, you gotta earn it. Be sincere, be devoted, be a good person. Religion says prove it. Grace says there's nothing you can do to prove it. If you think you can prove it, it's not grace anymore. That's what makes it grace. And I think sometimes we are so familiar with the concept of grace or with the phrase the grace of God. It's sort of a religious buzzword or phrase that gets thrown around a lot. We sing songs about it, we hear messages about it. Sometimes we get so familiar with it that we forget how incredible grace really is. Grace is central. It's the backbone to understand everything. And if you really wanna know God and be a part of what he's doing, you've gotta understand grace is the fuel for everything. I actually think even those who have experienced God's grace deeply in the room, really have only barely scratched the surface of how good God's grace really is. This is the main idea for the message and it's what we see in Saul's life. Grace is always better than you think. Would you say this with me, everybody together? Grace is always better than you think. And then you understand a little more, but it gets better, and it gets better, and it gets better, and it gets better. It's like looking up at the night sky and seeing stars.

So you may have heard me talk about this before. I never liked the woods. I was a beach guy. I hated the idea of camping or going out into the woods, but my wife loved it. So she dragged me out, and now I've learned to appreciate it. One of the things that I really appreciate is when you get away from light pollution, the sky at night is incredible. You can see and be overwhelmed by the stars in the night sky. It's not that they are all of a sudden appearing, it's just that we didn't see them. We didn't notice them. We weren't able to see them based on where we were at before. Then you can actually take a telescope and use that to see thousands of new stars that you wouldn't have noticed with the naked eye. Then you can use a piece of technology, the Hubble telescope. Look at images taken from that, and you can see so much more. And again, everything you're seeing, even with the Hubble telescope, you are seeing the tiniest, sliver percentage fraction of what's actually out there. Think about that just for a second. It kind of boggles the mind of where we are right now on a space rock spinning through space and a seemingly infinite stars, planets, galaxies. This is what we're talking about with the grace of God. Sometimes we see a night sky, "Wow, we're overwhelmed by it," but then we go back into light pollution. And we get used to what we think the grace of God is or means. But my prayer is in this message that it hits you like a ton of bricks, just a deeper understanding of the grace of God. Because we can flatten Saul's life and flatten this moment into he had a 180 moment, there was a miracle, and then he went on to do good things. That's true, but we miss the layers and dimensions of grace that are displayed in Saul's life in this moment. So again, my prayer is for some of you who have lost sight of God's grace that you're going to see it again, just like the night sky, he wants to open your eyes to this again, not to see how you need to perform, but to see what God is already offering you. Some of you, though, have never really understood grace at all, because acceptance and approval from God was always based on being a good person in how you were raised. The thing is, that actually violates the whole concept of what grace is. The Bible teaches, "If you could earn it by your works and by being a good person, it seizes to be grace." The whole point of grace is there's nothing we can do to earn it, and if we're going to learn to partner with God, if we're going to learn to know God, again, it's fueled by a deeper understanding of grace. So Saul's life shows us three different expressions, dimensions of grace. Here's the first one, number one is forgiveness. It's the first dimension. Grace offers us forgiveness for what we call sin. Personally, we find it really difficult to forgive somebody if we're not convinced that they're actually going to change. Some of you are walking through situations like that this morning. People who have injured you, wounded you, stabbed you in the back, and offering forgiveness internally or offering it externally to them. It is really tough when you're not sure whether or not they're going to do the same thing again. And because of that instinct, it can be hard to actually grasp the forgiveness that comes from the grace of God that we can't prove that we should earn it.

But this is where understanding grace and forgiveness starts, it's like a gap between us and God, like a, there's a chasm, a cliff that you could jump over, there's a thousand foot drop. And the way we usually understand grace and forgiveness is if you've been a good person, the gap isn't that big. So you can receive God's forgiveness, but the way you receive it is by leaping over that chasm, that gap, which is your sin. If you haven't been that bad, you don't have to do that much. You can leap over. I'm going to be devoted. I'm going to show that I'm going to be a good person and I can leap over and receive God's forgiveness. If you haven't lived as good, the gap is going to be bigger. So you need to be a better person, you need to be more sincere, you need to be more devoted so that you can prove it. Okay, the problem is, is this fundamentally understands the issue, which is that all of us are soul. All of us have a 10-mile life. Because even things that we view as small sin are a 10-while-mind chasm, 10-while-mile-wide. Well, that's a hard thing to say. Say that 10 times fast. 10-mile-wide chasm between us and a perfect God. Because God is what we call holy. This means there's no evil, no selfishness. He's perfect, loving, kind, patient. So even a small sin is a 10-mile-wide chasm between us and God. And us trying to prove it, to earn it, to be sincere, devoted, to be a good person, that's like jumping five inches forward into a 10-mile-wide gap. So how do we receive forgiveness? If we all have that, there's only one way. We come to the grace of God. And here's what Psalm 103 says about it. "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." What does that mean? When you come to the cross of Jesus Christ,

you put your faith, you repent, you put your faith in Jesus. The grace offered through the cross of Jesus Christ makes it as if you never sinned. You receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which means the slate is completely clean. So what's the bridge in that chasm, 10 miles wide? What's the bridge to get from here to God? It's only one thing. It's the cross of Jesus Christ. There's only one way to be forgiven. How are you forgiven? It's not through earning it. You can't prove it, you can't deserve it. It's by faith in the cross of Jesus Christ and through grace we receive forgiveness. To earn someone else's forgiveness in our culture, you have to show that you deserve it. You have to show you're worthy of it. But to receive this grace, God's grace, you need to admit that you need it. This is where so many people get tripped up, is just coming to God and saying, "I don't deserve it. "I can't earn it, but I need it." What people so often tend to do is close their fist around life and say, "I'm gonna prove it." They tighten their control. I'm gonna do more, I'm gonna be a better person, more sincere, more devoted.

What Jesus is actually looking for and the way we receive His grace is through open-handed surrender. We say, "God, I don't have anything to offer, "but I need help. "My life is unmanageable. "I can't do it on my own. "But you can." When we do that and we put our faith in Jesus Christ, His grace bridges the gap between us and God. And so listen, what you have to get really good at preaching to yourself is, "I am only forgiven by grace." I'm only forgiven by grace. This is what Ephesians chapter two says. So when you wake up in the morning and you feel tempted to perform so that you can prove that you've earned it, you have to preach, "I'm only forgiven by grace." When the enemy comes to condemn you and lies to you and says, "You're not good enough. "You'll never be forgiven." How could God accept somebody like you? No matter what you feel, you put your foot down and you say, "I know what the word of God says. "I am only forgiven by grace." It's the cross of Jesus Christ. And then how do we change after that? What is it? It's not proving it.

We open ourselves to Him and we say, "God, change me." And His grace changes us through forgiveness. So grace offers unfair forgiveness to us. It's beautifully unfair in our favor. But remember the main idea of the message, grace is so much better than we think. So it offers us forgiveness, but it gets better. That's not where it stops. When Ananias entered the house where Saul was, the first thing out of his mouth was brother. The very first word, brother Saul, the grace of God didn't just forgive Saul. It welcomed him into God's family. That's the second dimension of grace is family. So God bringing us across the gap of sin to himself so that we know in this life we can know him, but also when we one day breathe our last breath enter into the next life, we are guaranteed to be in the presence of God. The best news in the world that we are forgiven. But it gets better because you're not just forgiven. You are adopted as a son or a daughter of the creator of the universe. Again, so often we feel they need to prove this. I need to prove that I'm a son. I need to prove that I'm a daughter. I take it seriously. I work really hard. I show that I'm super devoted, super sincere. I take this so seriously.

But remember, you can't be a son or a daughter through proving anything. How are you a son or a daughter? that you are welcomed into the family, not by anything you offer, just because he's chosen to offer it to you by faith. Jesus illustrates this so well through one of his most famous parables. He talks about a father and two sons. And in this example, one of the sons goes to the father and says, "I'd like all of my inheritance now." So he gets all of his money, he goes off to a nearby city, spends all of his money on wild living. Eventually the money runs out and it says a famine hits the area. So there's barely any food and he's out of money. So he goes nearby to work as a servant, as a slave, just to survive, just to get food, but there's not enough food even at that point. So he considers eating food that's for pigs, literally just to survive. I wanna read you Jesus' story, his parable, picking up right here. I'm not gonna put it on the screens 'cause I just want you to listen and take it in. Here's what it says about the son. When the son came to his senses, he said, "How many of my father's hired servants "have food to spare, and yet here I am starving to death."

I'll set out and go back to my father and say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven "and against you. "I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. "Make me like one of your hired servants." And so the son got up and went to his father. I love this, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him, and he ran to his son and he threw his arms around him and kissed him. And the son said to him, "Father, I've sinned against heaven "and against you. "I'm no longer worthy to be called your son." But the father said to his servants, "Quick, bring the best robe and put it on him. "Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. "Bring the fat and calf and kill it. "Let's have a feast and celebrate "for this son of mine was dead and is alive again. "He was lost and is found." Grace is understanding when you've messed up, you don't prove anything. There is a father that runs towards you and throws your arms around him. That breaks our mind because we think, "But I don't deserve it." And Jesus is like, that's the point. You can't earn it because there is a father who when you come back to him and say, "Jesus, I need you," he throws his arms around you,

says the angels in heaven celebrate. The idea here is you are more than just a servant whose life was spared. The first dimension of grace is yes, we were spared by the forgiveness and grace through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, but it gets better. You're not just a servant who's tolerated. Through grace, you are a son or daughter of the king. How do you get there? How do you become a son or daughter of the king? By grace, you can't earn it, you can't prove it. There's nothing you can do to deserve it. You surrender and say, "Jesus, I need help. "Jesus, I need you to forgive me. "Jesus, I put my faith in you and you're welcomed in." So grace forgives us. Grace freely welcomes us in as a son or a daughter, but it gets better. It's the main idea of the message. Grace is so much better than we think. It forgives us, it welcomes us into the family, but it gets better because God raised up Saul, the monster, into a church planter. He travels around the world as a missionary planting churches, preaching the gospel as an influential figure for Christianity. God's grace took Saul from forgiven and then to a son. And then finally, the third dimension of grace into his calling. This is why we're in the divine partnership series

that we've been in. God's grace keeps getting better and better and better. Yes, you're forgiven. Yes, you're welcomed into a family, but he gives you a purpose. He gives you an assignment. He gives you a calling. Later in his life, Paul is thrown in prison for preaching about Jesus. And he's shipped off to Rome to stand trial before Caesar. While he's in prison, in Rome, he writes a letter to one of the churches that he helped plant. He had traveled all around and planted a bunch of churches. One of the churches he planted was in an area called Ephesus. So he writes a letter in the New Testament called Ephesians. His letter to this church, just wanna read for you one verse, Ephesians chapter four, verse one. This is Paul writing to his spiritual sons and daughters, this church in Ephesus. of the calling you have received. As a prisoner for the Lord, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you've received. Think about this, Paul is a prisoner to Rome. He's physically in chains, but he writes, you think I'm a prisoner of Rome? No, no, no, I'm a prisoner to Jesus. This might look like a bad situation.

Most people would look at this and say, "Oh, that's horrible, unjustly thrown in prison." But I know this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. This is part of God's assignment for my life. And so as I'm, by grace, walking out my assignment as I'm in chains, but I'm actually serving Jesus, I now urge you, my spiritual sons and daughters, is what Paul is saying to live out the calling that you have received. This is what grace gives us. A purpose and a calling. We were never designed to be a religious club. We come together and we're forgiven, so we behave well, and we hear good worship, hear good music and we leave, and we come back and do this club. God has given us an assignment. This is what we started the whole series with. When Jesus ascended into heaven, the first message we talked about this idea, God's not looking for religious activity. He's looking for partnership because He's given you a calling. What I'm praying over us as Alison Park Church, as we wrap up this series, is that we understand the dimensions of God's grace, but especially understand the only way to step into the calling that God has for your life is by grace. It's not by the skills that you have, it's not by your past or your qualifications. The only way to step into the calling God has is by submitting to Him, saying God, whatever you want,

and then by grace, God will launch you into your calling. Grace is so much better than we think it is. There are dimensions to discover to it every single day, and even then we're only scratching the surface of how good grace really is. So I wanna ask you before we close today, what is the dimension of grace that we talked about that God is highlighting for you? I pray that every single one of us gets to the divine partnership level where we understand you have an assignment, but some of you just need to be reminded today, you are not forgiven by your performance. Even those of us who have been following Jesus are really long time. Drift back into, I have to do the right religious activities, fasting, praying, reading the Bible, and then God will approve of me. No, no, no, preach to yourself. I'm only forgiven by grace. God may want to highlight that for you. Some of you have been really struggling with the idea that God is a heavenly Father who wants to embrace you. It feels like a foreign concept. I haven't been doing that well. I haven't been as devoted as I should be. I don't feel it, but God wants to remind you that His embrace, His love for you as a son or a daughter is not based on your performance or how you feel. It's the best news in the world.

His loving embrace for you is based on His decision to offer you grace that you don't deserve. Some of you need to be reminded though that God does have a calling for your life. God has not called you to sit on the sidelines. God's not called you to attend church services. God's not called you just to live a life of trying to be a good person. God has an assignment for you. How do you get there? This isn't guilt to say, figure it out. It's saying God wants to help you by grace, figure out what He's placed you to do. Dimensions of grace. It keeps getting better and better and better. And some of you, your very first step is you need to put your faith in Jesus Christ. There's a difference between believing that Jesus is real and believing in a God. There's a difference between that and putting your faith in the person of Jesus Christ as your savior and as your king. The Bible says there will actually be people who end up separated from God in hell and they believed that there was a God. They even believed that Jesus was God, but they never put their faith in Jesus and said, "I need you to forgive me and I need you to be my king." If that's you and you've never taken that first step, maybe you've been living apart from God

like the prodigal son we just talked about and you need to come back to your father. I want to live for something more. I want to know the embrace of my father. If that's you and you want to make that decision, either for the first time or come back to him, I want to make, I want to give you the opportunity to do that. Everybody in the room, close your eyes, bow your heads with me. This is why Jesus came. God himself saw the chasm that separated humanity from himself. And he couldn't bear to see his creation separated from him. So God came to the earth as Jesus Christ lived a sinless life and then took our place on a cross. You should have been up there. I should have been up there on that cross as our punishment, but God took our place, absorbed the cost and the penalty of our sin so that you and I have an opportunity to receive forgiveness by grace. The Bible says, if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved, meaning it's not proving it. It's not cleaning up your life. It's not doing all these things to deserve it. You come and you put your faith in Jesus Christ. You do what the Bible says. You repent and you say, Lord, I'm turning from my way of doing life and I'm giving my life to you. Forgive me, lead me. And from that moment on, you're regenerated into a new person. You're forgiven. You become family. God wants to give you a purpose. If you're in the room, you've never made that decision, or maybe like that son,

you've been living apart from God and God's calling you back. If you're in one of those two categories, when I count to three, I want you to raise your hand. Okay. I do this because when you're making a decision about your eternity, about Jesus Christ who bled on and died on a cross for you, it's important not to just think it, but to act on it. So if that's you, be bold now. Ready? One, two, three, say, yeah, that's me. Today I want to give my life to Jesus. That's beautiful. Any others in the room, you would say, today, I want to live for more than myself. I need to be forgiven. I want to experience the embrace of my father. Awesome. You can put your hands down. Everybody in the room together. Now let's pray a prayer of commitment. Everybody nice and loud. Repeat after me. Say, dear Jesus, thank you for dying on that cross. Thank you for bleeding. Thank you for the agony you went through so that I can be forgiven. So Lord, I ask for forgiveness. I know I can never earn it, but I ask for it by grace. Forgive me, draw me close to you and now be the leader of my life. I surrender to you in Jesus name. Everybody said amen, amen.

Give it up for those that made that decision. Beautiful. So proud of you. And if you made that decision, we have an area called the Salvation Center right back behind these double doors in this area. One of our pastors is back there. His name is Corbin. He's waving his hand right now. And we have resources back there to help you take some next steps. As you follow Jesus, he'll be back there. I'm going to go back there as well during this song. And then after service, I'll be back there as well. We would love to meet you, shake your hand, tell you we're proud of you. Help you take some next steps. But everybody in the room, let's stand to our feet as we get ready to close the service. Here's how I want us to close. I've asked the team to lead us in this song called living hope that just paints such a good picture of the grace of God. The first words of the song talk about the gap. It's how great the chasm that lay between us. We're remembering that the only thing that bridged the gap was the grace, the cross of Jesus Christ. So let's sing this. Would you just close your eyes with me? Put your hands out in front of you as a way of now just offering yourself to God. Lord, we don't have anything to bring to you, accept ourselves. We worship you in Jesus name. Let's sing this together and then I'll be able to close us in just a minute. How great the chasm that lay between us.

How high the mountain high could not climb in desperation. I turn to heaven and spoke your name into the night. And through the darkness, your loving kindness tore through the shadows of my soul. The work is finished, the end is written. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Who could imagine so great a verse? The God of ages stepped down from glory, to wear my sin, and bear my shame. The cross has spoken, I am forgiven. The King of Kings calls me his home. Beautiful Savior, I'm yours forever. Jesus Christ, my living home. Come on, let's sing this now. Hallelujah! Praise the one who sent me free. Hallelujah! King has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ, my living home. Hallelujah! Praise the one who sent me free. Hallelujah! King has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ, my living home. Then came the morning, that sealed the promise. Your buried body began to breathe. Out of the silence, the roaring lion declared the grave, has no claim on me. Come on, let's sing that again. Then came the morning. Then came the morning, that sealed the promise. Your buried body began to breathe. Out of the silence, the roaring lion declared the grave, has no claim on me. Jesus, yours is the victory. Yours is the victory, oh. Hallelujah! Praise the one who sent me free. Hallelujah! You have lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ, my living home. Hallelujah! Praise the one who sent me free. Hallelujah! Then have lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ, my living home.

Jesus Christ, my living home. God, you are my living home. Yeah, join me now. Let's just thank you. Thank you, Jesus. Come on and just thank Him for His grace together. And take a minute and just say something out loud. Jesus, thank you for your grace. Thank you that I'm forgiven. It's important to just practice this for a minute with the Bible calls confession. It's opening your mouth. It's all throughout the Bible, not just thinking something, but there's power when you speak it. Doesn't have to be loud, but saying, Jesus, I am so grateful that I'm forgiven by your grace. Jesus, I'm so grateful that you call me a son or a daughter. So just all across the room, take that step with me and just say something out loud. Jesus, I'm grateful. I could never say thank you enough. I could never do enough to earn anything. It's by your grace that I have hope, that I've got breath in my lungs, that I've got a future. It's only by your grace. Thank you, Jesus. I pray that your heart and your eyes would be opened to the dimensions of God's goodness and His grace like never before. I pray as you trust in Him, as you surrender to Him, that you just begin to see the eyes of your heart will be enlightened to the love, to the goodness of who God is and the riches of His grace. I pray that God would bless you, that He would protect you, that His favor would rest upon you and your family. In Jesus' name, everybody said, Amen, Amen. Awesome. Guys, thank you so much for being here this weekend. We're celebrating baptism out in the concourse. People who are saying, I'm dying to my old life and I'm coming to new life in Jesus Christ. We would love if you'd celebrate with us. Thanks again for being here. Have a great week.