What Does It Really Mean to Believe in Jesus? | Gospel Sunday | Tony Nolan

It is so good to be with you today in the house of the Lord. Today we're gonna continue our Roman series in chapter four. If you got your Bible, go ahead and open it up to Romans chapter four. And today you and I are gonna have the distinct privilege of hearing this chapter of scripture, amazing chapter of scripture taught to us by my friend, Tony Nolan. Tony and I have been friends for almost 30 years. He is a gifted communicator, evangelist, preacher of the gospel. And you're going to love hearing him teach you the word of God. In fact, he's been here once before almost 20 years ago and in the life of the church that day, God just fell in our midst. In fact, on that day, we saw about 350 adults come to faith in Jesus Christ. On that day, it marked us, it marked our church. In fact, his legacy is in our DNA. I want you to put your hands together and welcome my friend, Tony Nolan, to the stage. - Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Amaya. It's a pleasure to be here today. Thank you so much for coming. Welcome to all of you and to those of you

who are gathering at the other campuses. So grateful for you guys. I wanna get started with a little audience participation. All right, you guys ready for it? Okay, cool, I knew you would be. So here's the deal, I want you to do this. I want you to take a moment. I want you to look at the person next to you. Go ahead and look at the person next to you. Look at him right in the face and then I want you to repeat after me. Look at him in the face and then repeat after me. God loves what you're looking at. Go ahead and tell him. (laughing) It did, it happened again. It never failed. There's always a wife who looks at her husband and says, "What's not the love?" Amen. Not the love, yeah. You love, man, you love. And you're loved by God and you know what? The book of Romans validates what you just said to the person next to you. Because the book of Romans is basically the Apostle Paul's explanation, his grand explanation of the gospel, which is basically we are all sinners. We cannot save ourselves.

We can't do enough works to make ourselves right with God. But God so loves us so much that he provided a way for us to be saved and all we have to do is simply believe him to provide it for us. That is a glorious, glorious, glorious story. And that highlights the magnificent love of God. And then today we are in Romans chapter four. And in Romans chapter four, the Apostle Paul highlights what I just told you by dialing in on two characters of the faith. Abraham and King David. And so I want you to see in scripture this magnificent love of God whereby we can't work ourselves to God to be right with God. But God invites us into believing in him and then we're made right with God. Look at this, Abraham chapter four, verse three. Listen to what it says. For what does the scriptures say? Well, we're about to read that. Abraham believed God. Everybody say believed. Yeah, believed Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Here is the patriarch of the faith, Abraham, who can never do enough works to be righteous before God but he was made righteous before God or he was saved. He was declared right with God because he simply believed God.

That's the love of God on display. That God would do it for us. It's absolutely astonishing. And then the Apostle Paul highlights King David. In verse six, he specifically mentions David but the prelude to it lets us know what David believed. It's verse, verse number five. Let's read it. But to him who does not work but believes on him who justified the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. That is glorious news. Here he is that he classifies King David as one who also received salvation simply because he believed on him. Who what justifies the ungodly? How amazing is that? We're ungodly but God is going to love us. This is astonishing. And then in verse 24, we get to hear what's available for us. Look at this, listen to this verse 24. But also for us, that would be us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in him who raised up Jesus. which means all the rest of us sinners, which as you know, Dr. Hamaiah taught us in Romans three, we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but all the rest of us, we too, can be made righteous before God by simply believing in Him who raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

This is amazing, amazing good news, and this is talking about and highlighting the amazing, astonishing, scandalous love of God for the ungodly. When we take in all of the theology, which we just did a jet tour through chapter four, when we take in all the theology of chapter four, it should make us read a very familiar verse of scripture a little bit differently. And the verse of scripture I'm talking about is John chapter three and verse 16. You're familiar with that verse of scripture, it's usually on somebody's shadow on their eyes that some athlete writes it on there, or maybe it's in a sign, in an end zone, at a football game, John three, 16, it's everywhere, the most popular verse ever. But because of Romans four and what God's doing for us, we should read it differently. Matter of fact, here's the way I think that we should read it. Follow along with me as I read from the infallible, inerrant, inspired, authoritative word of God. Listen, this way we should read it. For God, some love the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Now, we don't read that verse like that normally, do we? No, no, no, no. What we do is we race right past that tiny word.

So it's super small. It only takes up two of the 26th characters of the English alphabet. It's tiny, but listen, it is colossal in meaning, because God doesn't simply like you. God isn't merely just fond of God. No, no, no, no. God so, so, so loves us. Man, that is a massive deal. That means a lot to me, because I need love, like I need oxygen, and I'm almost certain so do you. But for me, most of my life, I was suffocating from a lack of love. And that's why this is such a big deal to me. My suffocating from a lack of love started at birth. My biological mother was a mentally disturbed homeless person. Perhaps you've seen them scurrying about with a grocery cart they stole full of trash bags that contain all of their belongings? That was my mom. Maybe you've seen them underneath an overpass on a park bench covering up with cardboard, or on a street corner with a little cardboard sign begging for money? That was my mom. But my mom didn't beg for money. Instead, she, she prostituted for it. And as a result of her prostitution, I was conceived. While pregnant with me, she continued in her prostitution and eventually was arrested for it.

And once the authorities detained her, they discovered very quickly that she had a severe mental illness. And so they incarcerated her at the state mental hospital in McLean, Florida. And it was there at the state mental hospital while she was serving out her sentence that she had me. I was born in a mental institution. I was born in a mental institution. Some of y'all looking at me going, that explains everything, amen. Not everything, not a lot, but not everything. But I'm so grateful. I really am so grateful that my mom chose life. But she couldn't keep me because of her condition. And so I was given over to a very corrupt foster system of Florida. And it's there that I suffered unimaginable abuse under the hands of some sick, twisted, perverted predators. These people beat me, broke my body. They would torture me through a gambling game that they played. They would take me as a little baby, and they would take me at the top of a flight of stairs. And they would go to the bottom of the flight of stairs. and that would fall down those stairs. They would drag me back up to the top, I'd fall down them again. They'd drag me back up, I'd fall down them again until I passed out from the head blows, and then they would wager on how long it would take for me to come to. Sick. They sexually molested me and tortured me with burning cigarettes to obey their perversion. Like I said, I was suffocating from a lack of love. I endured that evil for three years in 11 months, and then I got adopted. Bob and Dottie Nolan adopted me, and the transaction to adopt me was only $200. It only cost them $200. I was $200. I'm like a little Walmart special, hey man,

I have to laugh, but it helped me to laugh about it. I'm so grateful that they adopted me, but the reality is I went from one level of hell on earth to a deeper level of it. The neighborhood that they lived in that I grew up in was known for being plagued by poverty, deadly drugs, cold killings. It was a rough place to grow up. My cousin Billy was walking down the street, got shot through the back and it blew out his heart. My other relative Oscar was at the wrong place at the wrong time. It got shot with a double bell, sawed off shotgun, point blank range. We had a motorcycle gang in my neighborhood. Pretty notorious group, they're called The Outlaws. They lived right up the street from me. One day, a rival gang assassinated their leader and used a car bomb to do it. That explosion rocked my world. Have you ever been fearful? Fear has a way of taking its ugly fingers and wrapping them around the jugular of your joy and slowly extracting the life out of your soul. I can remember just being paralyzed with fear. My neighborhood was pretty terrorizing, but my home life was equally frightening. My dad was a raging alcoholic. He turned to alcohol because he was trying to cope with our poverty. He would get wasted just about every day. When he'd get wasted, he'd get in these drunken rages and he would unleash a fury of violence on me. More times than I can't remember, I recall my dad just striking me in my face, beating my bare body with a leather belt until I bled or bruised. But worse than any of the physical blows were the wounds from his words. My dad would scream at me. He'd say, "Boy, he never called me, son. Boy, is this all $200 got me? I wish I would have never bought you." I'm a grown man and I've shared this story three times a day and I can just tell you it still hurts. That crushed me, man. Crushed me. I mean, my dad telling me that he's looking for the receipt to take me back. I'm not even worth 200 bucks while I live. I looked around at my neighborhood and it was like our earth, our planet, like the scorched earth. Why live? So I wrestled with suicide. I didn't care about living. And I began consuming massive amounts of alcohol and narcotics, not just to numb my pain, but to hopefully die while trying. And one failed suicide attempt landed me in a mental ward myself for two weeks and those were horrifically dark days in my life, suffocating from a lack of love and from the fallout of this painful sinful world and the human experience. Those are dark days of my life. But I came to testify that in the midnight of my life, a ray of light from the son of God broke through. Because someone who wasn't just content with going to church, wanted to be the church, stepped into my darkness with the light and the love of the gospel. And he started sharing with me

God's Word. And he shares with me some of the very verses that you guys have been studying that Dr. Biah has been breaking down for you. He shared Romans 3, 23. And I didn't like it. He said, "We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." I mean, he went off on me. He said, "Tony, this Bible is filled with commandments. You must do this and you never do it." And then the Because you do those all the time. And he didn't get any argument from me. I'm like, yeah, I mean, I'm a sinner. I got a rap sheet that's proving you're right. I'm a sinner, but so what? Big deal, so I'm sinned. And then he shared Romans 6, 23, which says the wages of sin is death. He broke that down. He said, Tony, do you realize that you hold in your hand a spiritual ticket? And one day you're going to face the judge with that spiritual ticket. And because of your sin, you're punishment to spend eternity separated from God, burning in flames in the lake of fire. And he read it to me from the Word of God, burning in hell forever. And you know what? He didn't get an argument from me about that either. I knew I was no good and I should suffer hell for it. My dad convinced me of that. But then he shared the rest of Romans 6, 23. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It says the wages of sin is death, but the back end of it, oh, it's so good.

He said the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, what did you say? Did you say Jesus is a gift? And I said, Jesus, like he's the Christmas baby, right? And the wise God, they brought him gifts, like, so he's a gift? He said, oh yeah, Tony, Jesus is a gift. He is God come to earth and he lived a sinless life. And then he went on a cross and they butchered him on that cross, he died on that cross because the wages of sin is death, Tony. And Jesus, because he loved you so much, he died your death for everything that you've ever done wrong. And I'm sitting here listening to this going, this is audation, what are you kidding me? And then he said, Jesus died, they buried him, but three days later, he rose from the dead, proving he was, in fact, who he said he was. He's the God of the universe. And then this individual shared John 3 16 with me, but he made it personal. He said, for God, so loved Tony Nolan, that he gave it the only begotten son, that if Tony Nolan believes in him, Tony doesn't have to perish, but Tony can have everlasting life. And February 24th, 1989, I repented of my sin,

I placed my faith and trust in Jesus and what he did on the cross for me and the God of the universe set this center free. Amen, set me free. The love of God changed me. You know what happened on that night? I became a new creature in Christ, but let me tell you what else happened. I got adopted again. I was adopted once by a dad who said he wished he would have never bought me for $200. But now I've been adopted by a Heavenly Father who repeatedly lets me know he has never regretted purchasing me with the priceless blood of his son. I am loved by God, amen. (congregation applauding) I love my God. That's amazing. Listen, and so are you. And so are you and so are you. That's the grand story of what we're reading. God loves us. And you know what? The love of God, man, it's set my life on a whole different trajectory. I mean, first thing that happened is miraculously he delivered me from all the drugs and alcohol. That was a miracle. And do you know what the next miracle was? I started going to church and liking it.

That was amazing miracle to me. I bought a Bible. I sat on the front row. The preacher would preach Dr. Harold Hudson and he was like Dr. Humbaya. I mean, preaching the Word. And he would challenge us. Don't live for the short-lived, insignificant, trivial pleasures of this world. Pick up your cross, follow Jesus. Live for something bigger than all of us. Live for the glory of God and the kingdom of God. And I went, man, I went in hot pursuit after that. And in that hot pursuit came a call to full-time ministry, which kind of blew my mind. I thought, but God, aren't you funny? I'm called the ministry. This is wild. And I got called into ministry and then in that hot pursuit also came a major gift from God. And that is a Proverb 31 wife, amen. My sweet sugar burger right down there on the front row. Amen, my baby. My lovely wife. I love her. And for 34 years, we've crisscrossed this country, magnifying and exalting the name of the Lord together. Helping other people who are suffocating from a lack of love get resuscitated by the oxygen of the gospel. And we've preached all over the place,

crisscrossed this country and we, which means I got open doors to preach and little tiny churches on the back side of nowhere. And these rural areas and glorious times we have will be in some of those small churches coming up in the next couple of months or to major packed out arenas in some of our names. music groups heard my story and they're like, "Dude, you've got passion, man, come mentor us, pour into our souls like Cassin Crowns and Third Day and Mercy Me, Lauren Daggle, Francesca Badastelli, LaCray, the KB, and Skillet, all these bands. And so we've criss-crossed the country, just going and pouring into their lives and then preaching the gospel of Jesus in the middle of the concerts, we've seen thousands of people get saved. And as a matter of fact, the leaders of those events that I've preached on, they've given me plaques commemorating what God is up to, kind of like the 12 stones in the river of Jordan. And on one of these tours, I went and preached on a tour, just 46 cities in this one. We saw 92,000 people except Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior to the glory of God. That's a God thing. That's amazing to me. And then I had a friend of mine named Ken Chingleton that asked me to come and preach that event that he did, and I preached the gospel in one setting. We said, we saw 1,570 people get saved, repent, and believe in Jesus and get saved to the glory of God. Listen, listen. Hear me. That's not about me. You all know me. Now you've heard my story. I am a goober from Cincinnati.

My homeless prostitute is. I have nothing to do with this. I said, listen, God has not left this planet on its own. He is actively involved now, and he is winning people, inviting the ungodly to believe and repent and be saved, and come alive to him. And he is vastly moving in a powerful way. And when I think about all of these numbers, what I really do is I dial it on the fact, those are individuals. Those are individuals. They're people with a face, a name, a personality, a soul, and because they believed when they stepped off into eternity, they're going to be with Jesus. And by the way, listen, everybody will spend forever, somewhere. Everybody comes for all of us, and so because they believed in Jesus, their eternity will be with Jesus, and his invitation, and his doing, because of what he did for them. It's glorious. And some of those people, they're already with them. I could literally share hundreds of stories over three decades, but I'm just thinking of two people. Then I got rid of them, a Barry Benton, Barry Benton. I was preaching in Tumes County, Georgia, and as I'm preaching at this event, that's much like today with a big gospel emphasis and people inviting people. I shared the gospel, and 100 people at this place responded to the gospel. The last guy to walk out and come forward was Barry, and Barry's a man's man. He's a famous hunting guide from South Georgia, and he walked out of his seat and he came forward, and he had these camouflage overalls on, he had camouflage boots, he had these camouflage gloves, a camouflage band, a camouflage hat. I almost didn't see the guy, he had so much camouflage on. But he walked out of me, he repented, he believed, he connected with Jesus, and I'll never forget he was like, right about here. And he was weeping, he's a grown, solid, strong man, but he's weeping, you know what?

Overwhelmed that the God of the universe would extend to him, he knows everything he ever did wrong, but that God would extend to him grace, and mercy, and forgiveness. It was beautiful. I remember when he was leaving to go talk with counselors, because like this church, the counselors are ready to help you leverage a moment like that for everything God has for you. And so he was leaving, and when he did he looked at me and he goes, and I went, yeah. Thirteen days later, while he was sleeping, two boys broke into his home and murdered him in his sleep. We don't get the script this thing called death. The Bible says it's appointed on the man once to die after that judgment. We don't know when it's coming. Most people never see it coming. The only thing you can do is be ready for it, and very, very believed, authentically believed. So Barry, as tragic as it is, Barry, Barry's with Jesus. I was preaching at the sun dome in Tampa and shared the gospel to a capacity crowd, and God showed up so powerfully that night it was thick. We could hardly breathe. 2,000 people accepted Jesus Christ as a Lord and Savior. It was an amazing moment. It was a glorious moment. one of those two thousand was I'll never forget the story how Ashley was because the stories that we got afterwards, that she repented, she believed, she prayed to receive Christ that night, she accepted him. And then she was looking back at her friends and saying, hey, why don't you do what I did? I know what you've been doing online.

I know what you're doing in the bathrooms at schools. Come, listen, it feels like a massive weight has been lifted off my soul. That was her story. Little did she know she only had two more hours to live on this planet. That's why I marked me. Her and her friends were leaving the concert that night to go to Sonic and they were in a caravan. Just going to go eat like you guys are going to go eat after this. Just going to go eat. And when they pulled out onto the interstate, a massive semi-truck did not see Ashley's car and he ran right over him. And their friends, her friends, had to watch her take her last breath. Tragic. Again, we don't get the script this thing called death, but it comes for all of us. The only thing we can do is be prepared for it. And as tragic as it is, Ashley believed. So Ashley's with Jesus. She believed. Have you believed? I mean, really, have you authentically believed in Jesus? 'Cause their story should compel us to do the inventory. We don't know when death is coming. It's going to come for all of us, but we can be prepared for it.

And we need to believe, authentically believe. You might not think that believing is important, but Satan does. The Bible calls him the God of this age, a little G. And he's got a mission, 2 Corinthians 4, 4. He's the God of this age and he blinds minds least they believe he's after your belief. He's after every human's belief. And what did Jesus say about Satan? In John 10, 10, he called him a thief. He's a thug. He's out to still kill the story. And in 36 years of ministry, the Bible says do not be ignorant of the schemes of the devil, I figured out one of his schemes. Here it is. He's after your belief, here's what he wants to do. He wants you to have a belief about Jesus instead of a belief in Jesus. Oh, he wants you to believe, but he doesn't. But he wants you to have a belief about Jesus versus a belief in Jesus. Why? Because if you have a belief about Jesus, you'll go your whole life thinking you're fine. And then you'll end up before God on judgment day and you won't make it. The Bible gives us an insight to this scheming of the devil in the fallout that happens at judgment day. Actually, it comes from Jesus.

Jesus is preaching the greatest sermon ever. It's a sermon on the mountain. He's closing that sermon out. And when he does, he gives humanity an insight, a peek into the future of judgment day. And listen to what he says in Matthew chapter seven verses 21 through 23. Follow along with me as I read this from the word of God. Listen to this, Jesus is speaking and he says this. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven. But he who does the will of my father in heaven. You know what that means? You don't get in, you don't get in the heaven your way. It's God's way or no way. And then what's this? Many will say to me in that day, judgment day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? Cast out demons in your name and done many wonders in your name. Man, that's a spiritually the resume. You would think that Jesus would be like, oh man, I've been waiting for you. Come on in. But look what he says. And then I will declare to them, I never knew you depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. And just like that, we see the devil's work succeeding. They had a belief about Jesus, but not a belief in Jesus.

So they didn't make it. The wisest thing we could ever do is to make sure that doesn't happen to us. Those are the scariest verses in the Bible to me. And as I crisscross this country, a lot of people will tap me, they'll go, hey, you've mentored all these people whose songs ignite my faith. But I want to know, I mean, how do I know? How do I know if I've just believed about Jesus or I believed in Jesus? 'Cause I don't want that to happen to me. I don't know what he does. How can I make sure? 'Cause the devil is attacking and I don't want him to win in my life. So how can I know? That's a great question and worth putting our minds and hearts on. And I think a story. How many of you here by a show of hands and at the other campuses have ever heard of the waterfall called Niagara Falls? Raise your hands. Oh yeah, yeah, you know about Niagara Falls, yeah. It's that great icon of tourism just north of Toonawanda, New York, right? It's a massive waterfall dumping 1,590,000 gallons of water over the edge per second. That's raising water. Well, back in 1859 a man by the name of John Frescio Scraville, otherwise known as the Great Blondeady, this man stretched a tightrope 330 feet of crock Niagara Falls and 130 feet above it.

Listen, I'm not talking about the guy that recently did it in 2012, no, oh, Nikki there? No, I'm not talking about the guy that did it in 2012, no, no, no, I'm talking about the guy that did it in 1859. It's all been crazy for a long time. In 1859, you can look at it on the website later, the Great Blondeady stretched a tightrope across Niagara Falls and then he took a wheelbarrow and he placed it. You know what a wheelbarrow is? One bucket, one wheel, two handles. He invited everybody to come out and watch him do it. And you know how we humans are, man. We show up with popcorn. We're like, go ahead. Crazy. We'll watch it. Well, here he goes. He goes up on that tightrope and he walked across Niagara Falls pushing a wheelbarrow and he made it all the way over to the other side and people are going nuts. You are amazing. He picked up the wheelbarrow, put it back on the tightrope and he walks across Niagara Falls again, pushing that wheelbarrow and he made it and everybody, they're going nuts. They're like, you've got skills, woohoo, this is amazing. He grabbed that wheelbarrow, put it back on that tightrope and he was about to do it again for the third time. They saw him do it twice. And he looked at it, that enormous cut, he said, hey guys, do you believe that I can do it again? Do you believe I can do it again? And they saw him do it twice. So they all started yelling, yes, we believe, yes, we believe they're roaring it, yes, we believe, yes, we believe that they finally got quiet when they finally got quiet and

he said, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. The person who really believes, getting the wheelbarrow. And just like that, we learned the difference between believing about someone and believing in someone. Oh, they declared, yes, we believe, when they said, yes, we believe, they were declaring they had a belief about the Great Blondini. Oh, he's the guy that can push a wheelbarrow over a tightrope, over Niagara Falls, yes, we believe, they had a belief about him. But what would it look like to have a belief in the Great Blondini? They'd have to get out of the crowd, climb up the ladder, crawl in a wheelbarrow, sit real still, and put their faith and trust in the Great Blondini and his ability to carry them over to the other side. What an incredible physical story to help us grasp a spiritual concept. Physically, all someone needed to do, get the wheelbarrow. So what's the spiritual equivalent for us? Jesus said in Luke 13 verse 3 and Luke 13 verse 5, I tell you, unless you repent, you're going to perish. Twice. I tell you, unless you repent, you're going to perish. You're right about now, you might go, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, didn't we read earlier that all you've got to do is believe and you won't perish forever last in life? Exactly. But you've got to authentically believe. Repentance is the moment when your belief about Jesus turns into a belief in Jesus because you surrender your life to him as Lord. Those people standing before Jesus, Lord, Lord, haven't we done this? Lord, Lord. They possessed him as Lord, but they didn't listen. They professed him as Lord, but they didn't possess him as Lord. You've got to surrender your life to him.

Fail you to do so, we don't make it. True authentic belief, when that happens, he will safely carry you over to the other side. Glory and Ashley, their stories, we don't know when death is going to happen. We don't get descriptive. What can we do? Be ready for it. Would you in this moment join me in a holy, sacred, reverent moment, and as quietly as you can here and at the other campuses, would you reverently stand to your feet as quietly as you possibly can? I want you to listen to a set of scriptures that you'll also be learning in Romans later. Romans 10, non-intent. Listen to what it says. If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart, see the difference? We didn't just start reading that because now you understand, "Oh, a heart believe is a repentant belief." Believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. That belief makes it. For with the heart, one believes in the righteousness, genuine authentic belief, repentant belief, surrendering belief, and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation. I can lead you here and at the other campuses, I can lead you in a time of confessing with your mouth the Lord Jesus. God is moving on your heart like He did the very first service, the second service, and now this service that we would get in the will bear with Jesus fully surrender. And when we do because of the love of God, He won't say depart from me. He'll say, "Come on in, but you've got to authentically believe." Could I invite everyone here at the other campuses? Would you just bow your head and close your eyes with me in this moment? All over this room, want to get in the will bear with Christianity, want to be made right with God, confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, believe in your heart, repent, believe. And right there where you're at, I can lead you in a prayer.

A prayer doesn't save anybody Jesus saves, but prayer is the language of the soul of the God. So right there where you're standing, I can lead you in this prayer. You can repeat it after me here at this campus, at the other campuses, just repeat it after me out loud in a whisper of the solace of your mind, and God will save. Here's the prayer, get in the will bear, I'll repeat it after me. Dear God, I know I'm a sinner, and I'm sorry Jesus. I believe that you're the sinless Son of God. You died my death from my sins. You were buried, and you rose again, I believe. And today, I'm in the will barrel. You're my Lord, I'm going to do what you tell me to do from this moment on with your heads bowed and your eyes closed and nobody looked around all over this room. I want to talk to every one of you here and at the other campuses who just prayed that prayer, I want you to listen to me carefully. The devil who's out to still kill and destroy, he is going to go overtime on you in this moment right now. Don't you listen to the devil? You listen to Jesus. The devil doesn't want you to do what I'm about to invite you to do. Don't listen to him. Listen to Jesus. If you prayed that prayer, listen to the words of Jesus, whom you said is your Lord. You're going to do what he said to do. Listen to what he said, Matthew chapter 10 verses 32 and 33. He says, "If you confess me before men, I will confess you before my Father in heaven. But if you deny me before men, I will deny you." Doesn't that sound serious? It is. It is serious.

What does it mean? It basically means this, sir, ma'am, young person, if you prayed that prayer, if you prayed that prayer, here at this campus and the other, if you prayed that prayer and if you really meant it, if you really meant it, you mentioned it. If you meant it, you mentioned it, confess me, I'll confess you, deny me, I'll deny you. If you meant it, you mentioned it. I believe you meant every word of what you said, sir. I believe you meant it, ma'am, young person, I believe you meant it. Then listen to me. Here's your opportunity to mention it. You're in the wheelbarrow. He's your Lord. You got to do what he said to do. Confessing before men. So if you prayed that prayer, here at this campus and at the other campus, if you prayed that prayer and if you really meant it, I'm going to invite you to do something bold. On the count of three, if you prayed that prayer, on the count of three, I'm going to ask you to lift up your head and look up here at me or if you're at the other campus, lift your head and look up at your campus pastor on the count of three, if you prayed that, you really meant it. Here it is. One, two, three. Look up here at me. I'll see a bunch of faces. I'll see a bunch of faces. Every one of you, just like in the first service and in the second service, better looking at me. God loves you. And now you're saying, I'm all in, Jesus. I meant every word of what I said.

Whatever you do at this moment, do not emotionally withdraw and do not let the devil get the victory. Remember what Jesus said. He's your Lord. Did you hear the two words? Confess me. Watch this before men. Before men. You know what that means? He wants you to publicly declare what you said in private prayer. Right now, this has been private, me and you. Jesus says, tell the world. So here's your moment. You prayed. You looked up here at me, and I applaud you for what you're doing. people in the very back of this room that are ready to pray with you and help you leverage this moment for everything God has for you in this moment just like they did the first service in the second service so if you prayed that prayer and you really meant it for the glory of God it's time to confessing before men do not be listen do not be ashamed of him don't stand before him on judgment day and hear him say depart from me no you meant it for the glory of God on the count of three I want you to leave your seat I want you to walk to the very back of this room say in the God I meant every word of what I said for the glory of God one two three step out and go now just step out and go God bless you step out and go did you mean it when you prayed God bless you God bless you did you mean it God bless you hallelujah there you go man glory to God did you mean it praise God there you go God bless you yeah there's time I know it's like I don't want to be called out well you're not being called out you're being called in to the love of God the nails card hands of Jesus look at so many people are doing it it's so beautiful God is so good in every service we have seen God move and it's not about me coming in at all y'all have been faithful over the years to have this kind of posture before God and God is favoring your heart to invite to work to serve Jesus and God is doing great things for

his glory listen if you still need to go there's time they're waiting for you in the back I'm gonna pray father God thank you I started on my knees God and I bow my knees now and I say God thank you for this glorious day where you God have favored your people their sacrifices in giving every week the praying that they do the work that they do the way in which they followed their godly leader dr. hamaya lord and chasing hard after you thank you God for favoring and blessing this day for your glory God we praise you for what you've done and Jesus name we pray amen would you guys give it up for all that God has done on these campuses hallelujah [LAUGHTER]