What To Do With Hidden Sin | Foundations | Josh Leake

All right. Hey, welcome, everybody. It's good to have you here. This weekend, my name is Josh. I'm the lead pastor here at Allison Park Church, and I just want to welcome, first of all, APC family in the room. Guys, it's so good to be with you. Let's welcome God Behind Bars over in Somerset. You guys are family. And, again, if you're new or here visiting, my name is Josh, lead pastor. Glad you're here, and we are getting into the sixth week here of our series called Foundations, where we have been studying the Sermon on the Mount, and we've been looking at Jesus' famous teaching that he ends with, anyone who puts these teachings into practice is like someone who's built their house on a rock, on a solid foundation. So we've been looking at how do we apply those teachings to our lives, but really, also, we want to be the kind of community that looks different from the world because we're radically putting into practice what Jesus talked about. So we're getting into our next passage here today. We're gonna be looking at Matthew 5, 27 in just a second, but before we get there, I'll just give you a little heads up that today's passage and message has a PG-13 content warning to it.

It's sort of like touching a nerve, and so we're just gonna have a great time together here. No, let me lay some things out. So we are gonna just let this passage breathe. Matthew 5, 27 in a second, and it's an intense one. So we're gonna read it together. We're gonna let it breathe, and then we will, after that, talk about two misconceptions. We'll talk about two ways we can respond wrong, and then how we actually put it into practice. Two misconceptions, two wrong responses, and then how we put it into practice. So we got our roadmap here. Let's jump right into the passage. Matthew 5, verse 27. Here's what he says. You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, which is commandment number seven of the 10 commandments. He's referencing that. Verse 28, he says, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out, throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body

than for your whole body to go into hell. There is so much here, right? Just the real cheery passages we're getting into this morning. We got lust, adultery, cutting off your hand, hell. And by the way, this passage was originally lined up to fall on Father's Day. And I was, we'll talk about gouging out your eye on a different day, maybe not on Father's Day. So Jesus is teaching on lust and sex and commitment, and he was doing it in a way that was radical for back then, and I think it's just as radical for today. American culture loves to stand against sexually objectifying people in one breath, but then it encourages and rewards and profits off it in the next. So reducing another human being to their physical body for sexual purposes, that scene is wrong, but then it's quickly repackaged as self-expression or liberation through social media, through entertainment, and through pornography. So this is where we see that Jesus is teaching why it's so amazing. Because love and romance and sex are all wonderful things created by God, but they have very specific boundaries to be healthy and to be protected. So in order to understand what he's saying, remember, I said we're gonna talk about two misconceptions, and then after we'll talk about two wrong responses. Let's get to our first misconception

by rereading verse 27 and 28. So if you'll put up verse 27 and 28 here, let's just reread this. You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. So the original Old Testament commandment was designed by God to protect the marriage covenant, and it was saying don't have sexual relations with anyone outside the marriage covenant. But then Jesus is illuminating the true purpose behind this commandment, what it was really meant to be, what God's original intent was in verse 28. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Okay, verse 28 is so important, it's so good, but it's also been confused a lot. So here's the first misconception that I've seen a bunch. Lust and adultery are the exact same thing. Okay, that's a misconception. It can sound like Jesus is flattening these two things. together, to be the exact same thing. So I've even heard people talk about this idea. Well, this person, if you lust it, I mean, Jesus did say, if you lust, you've already committed adultery, as if Jesus is saying those are the exact same thing, but this actually misunderstands Jesus's intent, and I think it loses the weight of what his point is, because adultery was sexual relations with someone outside the husband and wife's covenant.

Lust is feeding desire for someone who isn't your spouse. So his point isn't that they're the exact same thing. Here's the real issue, we'll put it up. Lust is the hidden root of adultery in the heart. So this is a parallel to what we studied in our first week. We can pat ourselves on the back for not killing anybody, but feeding anger is sinful, why? Because Jesus says it's the murder root in the heart. And likewise, we can avoid committing adultery and having sexual relations with someone that's not our spouse, but feeding lust is the adultery root in the heart. So again, same parallel concept as our very first message, which was on anger. We have to beware our tendency to excuse inward sin because our outward behavior seems acceptable. So that's what we're talking about here. There are hidden things that are easy to excuse, but they're toxic to your soul. That's our first misconception. Here's our second one. Actually, we'll reread verse 29 and 30 here. He says, if your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out, throw it away, it's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away, it's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Okay, now Jesus doesn't mean this literally. If all churches took this literally, we would all look like pirate conventions because we would have eye patches and hooks and we'd be sinless. No, Jesus' point is he's using figurative language to say, even if you did cut off your hand, that wouldn't remove the sin that he was talking about in the heart. So the figurative language is emphasizing the seriousness of sin, which leads to our next misconception about this part. Here's what it is. Struggling with sin means I'm probably going to hell. Maybe you've felt this guilt before, this sort of anxiety, as maybe you've wrestled with something and you've known it's wrong and you're like, man, I'm really worried. Because what it can sound like is Jesus is condemning anyone who wrestles with temptation and stumbles into sin. Like if I'm wrestling and I stumble, I'm condemned. But this was not directed at those who were grieved and hated their sin. Here was the real issue. Complacency towards sin is costly. Okay, read that issue with me. Complacency towards sin is costly. Okay, complacency. It's a word that means being uncritical of yourself

or your situation or a problem. And along with that is this sort of self-satisfaction or false sense of security as there is a situation or a problem. It's just being unconcerned about that complacency. So it's sort of like shrugging your shoulders towards sin, towards a problem. Pastor Herbert Cooper says it like this. I love how he put this. It's when we begin to tolerate what we should terminate. There are things that you can allow in your heart and mind or things you can do in secret that are easy to excuse, but they're toxic to your soul. Why? Because they steer you away from God. So this is why Jesus uses very intense but figurative language. Is he saying, be very careful. Cut off anything that you might use to excuse sin. Why? Because it's toxic to you and it's gonna lead you away from your father. So now we talked about our two misconceptions. There's two responses to sin that can lead us into a continual place of being stuck or we never get out of it. Two different responses that keep us stuck. Okay, first one is the one we just talked about, which is complacency. By the way, I would encourage you.

I know this is presumptuous to say, you should take notes on this, but let me say, you should take notes on this. Why do I say this? This is something that so many, even if it's not you today, so many people in your life will struggle with hidden sin. And I think well-meaning Christians have mishandled this topic so many times that has produced confusion or guilt or shame. Okay, so we're gonna talk about things I really passionately believe in these two things. I've been praying for this message. These two wrong responses, and we'll talk about the right one. Okay, first wrong response, complacency. So shrugging your shoulders at sin, hidden heart things or actions. We justify, we excuse, we minimize. That's the first wrong response. The second wrong response is condemnation. This one is actually tricky because the heart response where we hate what we're doing is partially right, which can help us stay stuck. We feel crushed, we feel ashamed, we feel isolated by our sin, and we may even try to change. We try to have a new program or a new, on our own in the dark, a new method. We fail and then we feel worse about ourselves.

And both of these things keep us stuck. Complacency, condemnation. Both of them have cycles. So here's the complacency cycle when we shrug our shoulders. We say, it's really not a big deal. I'm not gonna cross any major lines with this. It's just in my heart or it's just a small action. No one sees it. And this is what the Pharisees, the religious leaders were telling themselves. They weren't crossing the line of adultery, but Jesus is saying, you cannot cross that line and yet have sin that's leading you away from God. So the complacency cycle says, it's not a big deal. I'm not gonna go that far. I'll deal with this eventually. And the cycle repeats, complacency. Anyone in the room ever had the mac and cheese burger at Cheesecake Factory? Raise your hand if you have. How's that for a segue? Listen, it's related, I promise. If anybody wanted any sickos out there like me, you've had the mac and cheese burger. At least one, that's great. No one else. Last night it was only one, two. I don't believe you. There's a several more of you in the room. Fried mac and cheese balls on a burger,

dripping with cheese sauce. It's like the most unhealthy looking thing you've ever seen. But in college, I loved this burger. It was the best. I remember one time I went out with friends in college. I got it, I didn't finish it. I took it back to the apartment, like half of it left. A couple of my friends, we lived in this apartment together in college. And we were all going out immediately after we got back to the apartment to go hang out. And so I set it down by my bed, and I said, I'll put this away in a little bit. I'll remember to do that. I did not remember to do that. So I went to bed, I woke up the next morning, and we were leaving for three weeks to travel around. So I left for three weeks with that burger. I wish I could see a time lapse of that burger with horror music over three weeks, just turning into an abomination. And the smell, when we entered back into that apartment for the first time, it was just the most rancid thing you've ever smelled in your life. Okay, the point is, when we shrug our shoulders at something, we can get into this place of complacency, but it rots. It turns into something that destroys us. Okay, complacency. Again, complacency, condemnation is the other one.

Condemnation cycle says, I can't believe I did this. Man, I'm such an awful person. I've gotta stop thinking this way. I've gotta stop acting this way. And then I pray about it. I'll tell myself, no, I swear off thinking like this or acting like this. Maybe I even cry out to God, and I determine I'm gonna do better. And my willpower will last for a period of time, but then I hit a weak point. I get tempted, my willpower runs out, and then I fall back into it. I hate myself even more. And then the cycle starts all over again. Both of these responses keep us stuck. Complacency shrugs our shoulders, says it's not really a big deal. Condemnation says this is way too big a deal, and I'm horrible for dealing with it, and no one can know. Both responses to hidden sin keep the problem in the dark. One of Jesus's disciples, whose name was John, he wrote a letter to a bunch of churches and Christians addressing these two responses. I love this passage that we're about to read, because he calls out both of these wrong responses to hidden sin. Okay, 1 John 1, verse eight is where we're gonna read, and he addresses complacency, condemnation. Chapter one, verse eight, he says,

if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. What's he confronting? Complacency. If we're shrugging our shoulders saying it's not a big deal, we are deceiving ourselves, the truth is not in us. And then he goes to the other side. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins and purify us. from all unrighteousness, confronting condemnation. Meaning, if you fall into sin, don't bury it. Don't get stuck. What do you do? You confess it, and every time he's faithful to forgive and to purify. And then he goes right back in verse 10. Look at this. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar, and his word is not in us. Again, confronting complacency. Confronting shrugging your shoulders. And then he explains the heart of the whole thing. Right at the beginning of the next chapter. First John chapter two, verse one. He says, my dear children. Other translations say, my little children. So it's like a father tenderly addressing kids. Fatherly advice. He says, I write this to you so that you will not sin. Why is he saying that?

He's saying, as if you're my kids. Listen, God's forgiveness is not a license to shrug your shoulders at sin. But look at this next verse. This is so good. But if anybody does sin. Because what he's expecting is, we're all fallen, imperfect humans who at some point are gonna be tempted and are gonna stumble into something. What's, when we have the temptation to feel condemned, what's his advice? If anybody does sin, look at this. We have an advocate. Everybody say advocate. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. When the guilt comes, don't bury yourself in shame and isolation because you have an advocate. This word advocate is incredible. So the Greek word here is pericle, the original word. And it meant someone who acts on your behalf. Like a mediator, a defense attorney who comes alongside you. So when you bring Jesus your sin, you are not abandoned. This is what it means for Jesus to be your advocate. Everybody wants the evil in the world to be judged. When we look out, see news headlines, we see the horrible things happening. We see murder and division and abuse.

And we see all these things. We want God to do something about that. We want God to be the judge. But God judging evil means he has to judge all evil, which includes the evil in us. So when we bring our sin to Jesus, he represents us as an advocate when facing God's judgment of evil. And because our advocate stands in for us, we get a clean slate. Why do we get a clean slate? Verse two, the next verse here. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world. Atoning sacrifice means you are given the verdict, not guilty, because of Jesus's sacrifice on the cross. So John confronts both responses, complacency and condemnation. What's the answer? The answer is to bring our sin to Jesus and into the light. So here's the main idea of the message. Hidden sin shapes our soul more than we realize. Confession brings us to greater freedom than we can imagine. Why? Confession brings us to Jesus, brings you to your advocate. I remember growing up here, my dad was the lead pastor for 35 years. Some of you that have been around

maybe all 35 of those years, you've heard him teach from the stage or maybe in things like Breakthrough Weekend, and you've heard him say, the power of hidden sin is in its secrecy. I remember hearing him teach that all the time growing up. So the idea is when we keep it in the dark, that's what gives the hidden sin its power. So confessing means we see and agree with the truth about our sin. We shake out of complacency and we see what it is and what we're doing and what it's doing to us. And then we bring it into the light. We bring it to Jesus as we trust him to lead. So it all starts with and depends on a relationship with Jesus, our advocate. So we say, Jesus, I messed up. Lord, I know this is wrong. I need forgiveness. I need help. We admit our problem is out of control, right? Or as the 12 steps would say, we admit that our lives have become unmanageable. We recognize we need help. We stop trying to hide it and keep it in the dark. We say, Jesus, this is out of control. I need your help. I need you to save me. And then we surrender to his leadership. This is always the starting point.

It's about knowing him, depending on him. trusting him, following him. This is what it's all about. Here's the really hard part though. Surrendering to Jesus's leadership means that we do what he leads us to do no matter how hard it is. So this is what Jesus said would be the mark of all of his disciples is if you wanna follow me, you have to take up your cross and follow me. Why is he saying that? If you follow Jesus, it's not gonna be easy. Obeying what Jesus asks you to do sometimes is extremely hard. Sometimes it's extremely painful, but it is always the best thing and the right thing. So trusting Jesus's leadership, coming into the light means we do what he leads us to do. And listen, here's the truth. Jesus never leads you to stay in the dark. That's worth writing down. Jesus will never lead you to stay in the dark and to hide from everybody because sometimes we just wanna keep it between us and God. God, if you would just take this, if you'd remove this. But when you bring it to Jesus as your advocate, he forgives you and he purifies you, but he will never lead you to keep it hidden. Anytime that you have been adjusted to the dark and you come into the light in real life,

it stings your eyes. You know what I'm talking about. If you've ever had somebody turn on the lights when you're falling asleep, it's horrible, it's obnoxious. We respond like vampires when they turn on the lights. You know what I mean? Because it stings when you've been adjusted to the dark. So coming into the light after you've been adjusted to the dark is painful. That doesn't make it bad. It's just the adjustment of coming into the light. And the longer you've been in the dark, the more painful the adjustment will be. Coming into the light isn't easy, it isn't painless, but it is the only way to truly live. The devil whispers in your ear, and he says, you can hide this. Take it to your grave. Nobody needs to know. You can solve this on your own. This is the devil's voice that convinces us this. But James 5.16 says this, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed because the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Confess your sins to each other so that you may be healed. And now we're right back to Jesus' teaching from the beginning about how to handle hidden sin. What does he say?

He says, cut off the excuses and the avenues that cause you to sin. Why does he say that? So that you be a good person and you keep your sin down so that you can get into heaven? No, that's not the point. The point is it's killing you. The excuses that we allow and the avenues that we tolerate, they poison us and they kill us. So he says, cut it off. And for so many of us in the room, confessing our hidden sin would feel like cutting off our own hand. It feels that heavy or that intense. I fully understand that. I've had conversations with dozens and dozens of people and I know the weight of that shame, the weight of that fear of coming into the light. Some of us would legitimately contemplate amputating our own hand before confessing to other people what we're dealing with because we feel it that heavy. A good friend of mine said this, I've never seen anyone get free from hidden sin without regularly confessing it to trusted people. Why? Because God uses the light to heal hidden sin. When you bring it to Jesus, he forgives you and he purifies you, but then you have to trust his leadership

and he will always lead you into the light. It's not easy, but it's the best possible way to live. When you come to your advocate, listen, this is so important. When you come to your advocate, your defense, Jesus Christ, who stands to represent you, when you come to your advocate, there's not only forgiveness, there's freedom. The things that have been ruling you, that have been eating you alive, that have been weighing you down, the Holy Spirit leads you into the light and you find freedom greater than you could ever imagine. Again, I've talked to countless people who've told me their story of living in hidden sin for years, sometimes for decades, and then eventually how they found freedom through confession and through Jesus. And the story always has the same common beats to it, which is something small or accidental turned into something big and they would. Pray, God, please remove this sin from my life. I'll do anything, just take this away. But everybody would say, the common thread in the stories was, they would say, I realized what I actually meant was, God, make this problem disappear so that I don't have to go through the pain of surrendering it.

Because surrendering it and coming into the light and confessing is painful. It's hard. I've seen countless stories of people going through the pain though, coming into the light of confessing. And I've seen decades of addiction come to an end. I've seen marriages restored. I've seen people find real joy and freedom because your advocate, he wants to forgive you, but not just that, he wants to set you free. You don't have to live bound by the things that the enemy is whispering, this will always be a part of you. Now, when we do this, it's not usually instant. Sometimes it can take years of living in the light. If you have been adjusted to the dark for 30 years and then expect a one-time prayer to fix everything, that's not usually how it works. But the point is, when you come to your advocate and you walk in the light, there is freedom. It's a guarantee, it's a promise. So along Jesus' teaching here on lust, one example of hidden sin that has become a primary way for the enemy to attack is pornography. It's become rampant in our culture. If I can invite the worship team, yeah, you're already there, look at that. You beat me to the punch, that's great. One of the primary ways that the enemy attacks our culture,

attacks churches, believers, today is pornography. It's sexually explicit content that is sought out or used to stir up sexual desire. Many people encounter this for the first time unexpectedly. Many become trapped in returning regularly to its addictive nature. And there's some stats that I was looking at. There's a great company called Covenant Eyes that has a bunch of books and materials and resources that they're fighting against this. There's some different stats that they posted about pornography use. So I'm just gonna read these for you real quick because I think it paints a good picture of the problem today. Here are the stats. 61% of the general population report viewing pornography. 75% of Christian men watch pornography. 40% of Christian women consume pornography. 12 years old is the average age of first exposure. Why do I talk about this? This is not to heap guilt and shame onto what is a sensitive and heavy problem. My point is this is an epidemic today that was not the same problem that it was 30 years ago because the rise of the smartphone has made it accessible. It's everywhere. It's anonymous. It's easy to conceal. But Jesus would say it doesn't even have to be

the problem of pornography, anything that we use to feed sin or to feed lust, to feed heart patterns that are sinful, that becomes a trap for us. So what do you do now? Just talked about these heavy, heavy, heavy topics. What do you do now? Here's what we do. Admit the problem, confess to Jesus, surrender to his direction. And Jesus, your advocate, will forgive and he will lead you into freedom and the light every time. A lot of times, well-meaning Christians will preach the gospel of behavior change. It sounds a lot like the gospel of Jesus Christ, but it's different. Doesn't have the same power. It's empty. Why is that? The gospel of behavior change talks intensely about hidden sin, about the effects of sin. And they want to motivate you into changing your bad behavior. Even well-meaning Christians will talk about this. Maybe you have sat under this kind of teaching before where they say, you have to stop doing this. This is so bad. And that's true. There's truth in that. But the intent is to put pressure to motivate you to change.

And it pushes us towards using our willpower to fix the problem in the dark. But this is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. Here's the good news of Jesus Christ. You were helplessly separated from God because of sin. You and I. And God himself saw you and he saw me, unable to climb out from the pit, lost in darkness. And God himself came down. As a human, Jesus Christ, he lived a perfect life, and then he gave his life as the atoning sacrifice for your sin, which means when you repent, when you confess, you come into the light, when you turn your life to Jesus, your legal status before God is changed. What's the verdict? Not guilty. When you come to Jesus Christ, you are changed to a child of the living God. How do you do that? It's not through cleaning yourself up. This is what the gospel of behavior change tells you. Stop being bad. Clean up your life. This is not what Jesus says. What does Jesus say? He says, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and weak. You put your faith in Jesus, and he changes your legal status to say, not guilty, and you are made a new creation in Jesus Christ. The difference of the good news of Jesus Christ is profound. So if you're dealing with hidden sin, thoughts, or actions, the solution is not more motivation to change. Feel worse. Self-help programs. What's the solution if you're dealing with hidden sin? You feel buried beneath it. The Holy Spirit's convicting you of it. You haven't been able to get out of it. What's the solution? Come to the cross. Come to your advocate. And when you do, listen, you are forgiven, period.

This is what it means to come to your Savior, Jesus Christ. You don't change yourself. You don't clean yourself up. You come to him by grace, through faith, and you are given freedom, and you are given forgiveness. You receive this gift as something God gives you. It talks about this idea in the Bible so many times. When you give your life to Jesus, you're not just forgiven, and then you try to behave. You are given a new spirit. The Bible says the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives within you. What does that mean? The way forward is not, I gotta try to clean myself up so God approves of me. No. Come to the cross. I'm struggling. Come to the cross. Come back to Jesus. Trust his leadership. If you feel stuck, if you feel hopeless, if you feel alone, maybe you've been struggling for decades, the solution, come to the cross. He will lead you into forgiveness. He'll lead you into the light. He'll lead you into freedom. Romans 8 says when you get this spirit, you no longer live according to the flesh. You start to live according to the spirit that God's placed within you. The flesh tells you run and hide. You will never be able to deal with the consequences of this if this comes out. The devil whispers to your flesh and says, you could not bear anybody knowing about this. You'll never escape this. You'll never be free from this. The spirit, when you come to the cross and the Holy Spirit speaks to you, he says, run into the light. There is freedom, forgiveness, hope in the light. Not only that, but we are a community of spiritual mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters who will stand beside you as you begin to walk in freedom.

Jesus has hope and freedom and forgiveness, but you got to come to the cross. You got to trust his leadership as he leads you into the light. Why? Jesus will never lead you to stay hidden in the dark. I've been praying for this weekend for a long time. And there's many of you that have been struggling, suffering in the dark, maybe for years, maybe for decades. And there are things that have been poisoning you. They've been controlling you. They've been eating you up. What I've been praying is as you trust Jesus, as you come back to the cross, you will find freedom for the first time. Not through complacency, shrugging, not through feeling worse about yourself, through the power of the spirit as you come into the light. So the next step that the Holy Spirit is going to lead so many in this room to is bringing it into the light to a trusted person. Again, I know for so many of you, even the thought of that feels like the heaviest thing in the world. At the end of the message, after we worship for a minute together, I'm going to talk about some resources that we have available. As you begin to pray, as you trust Jesus and he leads you into the light, I'll talk about some resources because we have been praying and preparing as your pastors for this moment so that we can help you. make it as easy as possible. Okay, but before we do that, would you just bow your heads, close your eyes all across this room. The first and the most important step is coming to Jesus. If you've never admitted your need for him, you've never asked him to be your savior, never asked him to forgive you,

never surrendered to him as your king, this is always the first step. There may have been some religious things that you've heard that have confused you, maybe even how you've been raised that says, believe that there's a God, believe that Jesus exists and then behave. This is not what Jesus says. What do you do to build your life on the foundation? Surrender to your savior and to your king. And there's many of you in this room who I believe you have been putting this off. You've been living on your own terms. You've been trying to behave, trying to be a good person. But what is Jesus calling you to do? He says, come to me, put your faith in me, surrender in me, surrender to me. So if you're in the room and you've never made that decision, maybe you are feeling convicted now by the Holy Spirit because at one point you were living for Jesus, but you're not now. Listen, no matter where you've been, Jesus wants you to run into his arms, not by cleaning yourself up, not by behaving, by running to your father and saying, Jesus, I need you. By grace, through faith. This is how we're saved.

If you're in the room and you feel that conviction deep down on the inside, you're saying, I don't wanna live for myself anymore. I don't wanna build on a temporary foundation. I've been stuck in the dark. I've been stuck miserable, anxious, depressed. I know Jesus is calling me to live for him. Listen, if that's you, when I count to three, what I want you to do is raise your hand and then we're gonna pray a prayer all together. Why do I ask you to raise your hand? When you think about God himself who came down as Jesus and bled and died for you on a cross so that you could have hope in this life and when you die, it's important for it not to just be a thought response, but to be an action. This is the most important decision you'll ever make because it's not just about this life, it's about your eternity. And your heavenly father is rooting for you. Jesus, your savior is rooting for you if you run to him. So if that's you, listen, be bold in this room now. Okay, don't worry about anybody else. Be bold and say, Jesus, I need you. Okay, ready? One, two, three. Raise up your hand and say, that's me. Awesome. Yeah, and just stretch it up to say,

Jesus, I need you to be my savior. I need you to forgive me. I need you to be my king. That's beautiful. You can put your hands down. All together across this room, let's pray a prayer now of dedication. Every person, nice and loud. Say, dear Jesus, thank you for dying for me. Thank you for suffering on that cross. It should have been me on that cross, but you took my place. So Lord, forgive me. I need you to heal me. I need you to cleanse me. Be my advocate. Be my king. Be the leader of my life. I surrender to you. In Jesus' name, everybody said together this morning, amen, amen. Come on, give it up for those that made that decision. Amazing. Okay, let's all stand to our feet. We're gonna take just a few minutes here. Last thing we do before we rush out. I know we got a lot of things to do today. Stick with me, because this part's important. Okay, listen. If you made that decision for the first time

or you came back to Jesus, we want to help you take next steps. It's not a one-time thing where you say, I put my faith in Jesus and it's over, right? We want to help you learn what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. It's the best thing you could ever do. One of our pastors is back right in this area. His name is Pastor Sean. We have an area back there called our Salvation Center. As we're worshiping, slip out there. I'm gonna go back there too right now. I would love to meet you. I'd love to shake your hand. I'd love to pray for you. We have some resources to give you some next steps. Okay, so as they're singing this song, Living Hope, just leave your seat and go back to that. There's tables right outside those double doors. I want to meet you. Pastor Sean wants to meet you. We're gonna sing this song though. They're gonna sing this song through Living Hope. This song's perfect. Okay, here's what we're doing in this song. We're coming back to the cross of Jesus Christ. What's the solution as we leave this message? This is not a behave yourself message. This is a message to say, come to your savior and trust his leadership.

So as we sing this song together, we're just gonna surrender to him. Before we do that, just would you put your hands out in front of me? We do this in this church all the time as a way of representing to Jesus, physical surrender. Put your hands out in front of you like you're giving him yourself. And now let's just pray together. Jesus we offer ourselves to you Lord we want you to lead us as we prepare to leave this service and go about our weeks Before we do that Lord We want to put what you're saying into practice by putting our faith in you and by coming to you coming to the cross We surrender to you in Jesus name. Amen. Let's sing together and I'll be out to close us in a minute I Could not In desperation I turned to And spoke your name 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 home My living home What heart could fathom such boundless grace Steps down from glory To wear my The cross has spoken The king of kings

I'm yours My Jesus Christ Hallelujah Hallelujah Praise the one who set me free Hallelujah Death has lost its grip on me You have broken every chain There's salvation in your name Jesus Christ, my living hope My living hope 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, can we sing that again? Oh yeah 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 Hallelujah Praise the one who set me free Hallelujah Death has lost its grip on me You have broken every chain There's salvation in your name Jesus Christ, my living hope Hallelujah Praise the one who set me free ♪ Hallelujah, death had crossed its grip on me ♪ ♪ You are walking every chain ♪ ♪ There's salvation in Your name ♪ ♪ Jesus Christ, my living hope ♪ ♪ Jesus Christ, my living hope ♪ ♪ Oh God, You are my living hope ♪ Before we close, turn your face to God. Now just thank Him for that. Come on, all across this room. Those of you who you've been at APC a long time, come on, lead the way now. Let's fill this room just for a second with gratitude. Jesus, we thank You. We are alive, not because of anything we've done. We are alive because of the cross and because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So Lord, we remind our soul, our hope is not in anything in this world. It's in the person of Jesus Christ. We surrender to You.

We worship You. Lord, our lives are for You. Just tell them that now. Jesus, I trust You. I surrender to You. Every part of me. Lord, I'm Your disciple, I'm Your follower. I'm Your servant. I wanna follow You, whatever the cost. My life is Yours, yeah. In Jesus' name, everybody said, amen, amen. Okay, just stay put for 60 seconds because here's what I wanna do. Before we leave, in a second we'll go out. We have cookies in the concourse. We'll hang out, have a good time. But I just wanna talk you through a couple of resources here that we have available. This is really important. So if you guys would just bring it down for a minute so I can just talk this through, okay. As you begin to confess to God, like I talk about, trust His leadership. He is gonna lead you into the light and we wanna make it as easy as possible to step into the light. Especially for those of you that have really heavy things that maybe you'll confess for the first time. So first of all, again, many of you just need to talk to a trusted person.

Especially if you have stuff that you're not exactly sure how to bring into the light. Maybe it's complicated. We have a team of pastors. We've trained that's ready to listen, to pray, to love you, point you in the right direction. If you're a female, we'll connect you with one of our female pastors. If you're a male, we'll connect you with one of our male pastors. We have a page where you can sign up for that, to talk with one of our pastors. And if you go to our website, it's the very top of our website. If you have the Allison Park app, it's on the front page of the app. You can tap the chair. There's so many ways to get to this. But on that page is a place where you can sign up to talk with a pastor. So that may be your first step. But then we also have things on this webpage, other resources that are specifically for lust or dealing with pornography. So we have a 21 day detox program that you can go and check out. There's a book that's specifically addressing some of this stuff that's really good. There's a place on that page where you can explore counseling.

But here's our goal. We have been praying for this weekend because we want you to know as your church, we are ready to walk beside you. As Jesus leads you into the light, as you come to him as your advocate, we're here for you. Okay, so just please know that that's there. And before we leave now, would you just stretch forth your hand? Let me pray a prayer of blessing over you before we go. I just pray that every day this week, you would be reminded that you are not walking alone as you put your faith in Jesus. He is your advocate. He is beside you, cheering you on, empowering you, leading you. So I pray that this week you will learn to trust even more. Maybe even those of you who've been following Jesus a long time, there'd be a greater level of trust and dependence. I pray that God's face would shine upon you, that his favor and grace would rest upon you and your family. In Jesus' name, everybody said together, amen, amen. Awesome. Guys, thanks for being here. Have a great weekend. Enjoy the cookies in the concourse. ♪♪♪