When God Feels Silent, Don't Let Go

Listen, we're in a series titled Out of Nowhere. The title of this message is Faith That Won't Let Go. Today we're gonna talk about a woman that just refused to let go. We're gonna contrast her with who we talked about last week, Gazi, who was the servant of Elisha. My hope and my prayer is that this message that you take to heart where we are today, is the Word of God is quick and alive and powerful, and there are thoughts in this message from this woman that we're gonna talk about that can help all of us, that can relate to all of us, and then at the end we'll connect it to where we are today. Gazi was a man who was close to the things of God but far from the heart of God. He lived around miracles, he served under the prophet, he witnessed the power of God firsthand, but his heart was shaped by greed, not by God. So this week we're gonna go back one chapter to 2 Kings chapter 4, and instead of a man with the wrong heart, we meet a woman with the right one. Let us pray. Father, in the powerful name of Jesus, I come to you humbly. And I thank you, Father, for being with us, that if two or three are gathering in your name, there you are in the midst. And we thank you, Father, for the Holy Spirit who's our teacher. Holy Spirit, we ask that you teach us today. Open our eyes of our understanding that we can see more clearly the truth of the Word of God. So Father, I thank you for giving me the words to speak, that with clarity and simplicity I would say what you want me to say. Because I know it's more important what you say to each one than I would ever say. So thank you, Father, for helping and teaching in Jesus' name, amen. This woman, the Bible never gives us her name. It just calls her the Shunammite woman. But what she shows us about faith is one of the most powerful pictures in all of Scripture. Because this is not a story about a woman who trusted God when everything went her way.

This is a story about a woman who would not let go of God when everything fell apart. And that's why we tell this faith that won't let go. Number one, faith recognizes the presence of God. 2 Kings chapter 4, verses 8 and 9, one day Elisha went to the town of Shunamm. A wealthy woman lived there and she urged him to come to her home for a meal. After that, whenever he passed that way, he would stop there for something to eat. She said to her husband, I am sure this man who stops in from time to time is a holy man of God. See, the first thing that you notice about this woman is that she sees what everybody else just walks right past. Elisha's just passing through town. To most people, he is a traveler. Nothing unusual. Nobody pays much attention to him. But she stops and says, something about this man carries the presence of God. And then she does something about it. She says something about it that matters. Because faith is not just believing God exists somewhere out there in the universe. Faith learns to recognize where God is moving right in front of you. And then it responds. A lot of people are waiting for God to show up in dramatic ways. They think if God really is at work, the whole room is going to shake. But God often moves quietly through a person, through an ordinary conversation, through a moment most people completely miss. Think about this, folks. I don't know how many times in my life I've been around people or just in a room or just in a place. And someone will say something and I'll say, man, that's God talking to me. Sometimes I get it and put it in my phone so I don't forget what it said. Sometimes my wife and I have watched movies and something happens in the movie and I kind

of pause and say, wait a minute, I think God's trying to tell me something. And you say, how can God speak to you through that? God can speak anywhere if we have ears to hear. Most people are waiting for, well, God has to speak through this popular guy or that popular person. And if he doesn't speak to them, then I'm not believing it. Then you'll miss God every time. I don't know how many conversations really I've had with people, some born again, some not. And they'll say things and I'm like, man, that's for me. That's for me. That's God. He's going to give me information. And we have to be open to that because it's our responsibility is to know and recognize God's voice when he speaks, not to tell God who he can speak through. And that's why I pray even in this message, because what I say is not as important as what God says to you today, that he may. speak to you in a whole different way because that's what you need. But we have to learn to recognize his voice when he speaks and not get caught up with who he speaks to. Some people say how can God ever speak to a sinner? If God can speak through a donkey. Can I just say what the Bible says it's a called a jackass and I don't cuss. People say I can't believe you said that then you can't believe the Bible. Then he can speak to anyone as long as we have ears to hear what the Spirit of Lord is saying. I can't believe I said that's first time I've ever done that. I usually say just donkey but it's just worth making a point. This woman does not miss it though and that is where the story begins. Not with a miracle. Not with a prayer being answered. Just with the woman who recognized the presence of God and opened her door to it. See faith makes room for God before it sees results. Second Kings chapter 4 verse 10. Let's build a small room for him on the roof and furnish it with a bed, a table, a

chair, and a lamp. Then he will have a place to stay whenever he comes by. So what does she do? She builds Elisha a room. Before she ever receives a single blessing. Before God has done anything for her. She reconstructs her home around the presence of God. I want you to hear that. She reconstructs her home around the presence of God. Because I'll come back to that. And what you make room for tells you exactly what you actually value. That's called real faith. Not faith that says God bless me and I will start serving you. Real faith says I know who you are and I'm going to honor you whether I receive anything or not. See there are a lot of people who want God to move in their lives without ever making room for him. They want his guidance but they will not listen. They want his peace but they will not slow down long enough to receive it. They want his presence in their home, their marriage, their decisions. But nothing is arranged around him. So we put so many things before God. Everything seems more important than he does. Marriage, family, sports, entertainment, etc, etc, etc. And a lot of people today they'll come to church on Sunday but they leave God in the car when they get home. They don't bring him into the home. When they go to work say God you just hang out here I'm gonna go work do my thing. They don't bring him into their workplace. They don't bring him into their lives. What's what we're centered around today our lives is sports entertainment and things like that that and marriage and family and those things are important but they're not important than the one that gave them. And we should we should build our lives around the presence of God, around the Word of God, around the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how we should do it but people leave them everywhere. Say God I'm gonna go deal with this you stay outside. Not this woman. This woman had real faith. This woman does not does the opposite. She gives first. She opens her home. She makes room and right here the story reveals something she has been carrying quietly for a very long time. See God sees the pain people carry quietly. God sees your pain. He knows you're hurt. He knows your fears. 2nd Kings chapter 4 verses 11 through 17. One day Elisha

returned to Shunem and he went up to this upper room to rest. He said to his servant Gazi, tell the woman from Shunem I want to speak to her. When she appeared Elisha said to Shunem I want to speak to her. When she appeared Elisha said to Gazi, tell her we appreciate the kind concern you have shown. What can we do for you? Can we put a good word in for you to the king or to the commander of the army? No she replied, my family takes good care of me. Later Elisha asked Gazi, what can we do for her? Gazi replied, she doesn't have a son and her husband is an old man. Now let me stop here for a minute. In the Jewish culture to not have a son would cause you to have social shame everywhere you went. It was considered terrible. It was it was awful and so you got to understand what's happening here. So Gazi, I said she doesn't have a son. That's a big deal in the Jewish culture. Today, people say, I get married, I don't want to have any kids. You know, God commanded us to be fruitful and multiply. It wasn't a suggestion. Usually you don't have to say anything about it. Because people have been being fruitful and multiply for a long time without the command, right? But we're called to have kids. Instead of killing them, we should have a lot more. And that's what's wrong with America. We've killed too many babies. If you killed one, you've killed too many. That's another message. Verse 15, call her back again, Elisha told him. When the woman returned, Elisha said to her, as she stood in the doorway, next year at this time, you will be holding a son in your arms. No, my lord, she cried, oh man of God,

don't deceive me and get my hopes up like that. How many of you have prayed that? Don't get my hopes up. I have. But sure enough, the woman soon became pregnant. And at that time, the following year, she had a son, just as Elijah had said. See, Elijah asked, what can we do for you? She says, I am fine. My family takes care of me. I do not need anything. But Gehazi sees what she is not saying. She has no son. And her husband is old. She has been living with that grief for a long time. And she does not even bring it up when someone asks her directly. She has gotten so used to carrying it that she stopped talking about it. You probably know someone like that. Maybe you are that person right now. You have been smiling and serving and showing up every week. And somewhere underneath that, there is a pain you have not spoken out loud in years. You got so used to carrying it that you learned to function around it. You learned to worship around it. You learned to smile around it. But silence does not mean the pain is gone. See, God sees what you have stopped showing anyone else.

That is the God of Hagar out in the wilderness. That is the God of Hannah in her grief. The Bible says she was bitter of soul. That means crushed and deeply, a deeply afflicted spirit. And then she had social shame the same way for not having a son. That is the God of Naomi sitting in her bitterness. God sees the pain people have stopped talking about. And out of nowhere, he speaks right into it. He tells her this time next year, you'll be holding a son. And her response is one of the most honest lines in all of the Bible. Don't deceive me and get my hopes up like that. Think about it. I don't know how many times I've said, God, I'm not gonna expect anything anymore because I'm tired of being disappointed. I'm tired of things not working out. Anybody else been like that? Or is it just me? But we can't give up hope. God is the God of hope. And I know we don't wanna be hurt or disappointed, but we, man, we have to move forward. We have to cling to God. We have to move forward to him our whole life, no matter what we face. And her response was, I love this. Don't deceive me and get my hopes up like that. That's not called unbelief.

That is a wounded hope. See, there's a difference. Unbelief says God cannot do it. Wounded hope says I've waited so long, I'm afraid to believe it could actually happen. And God answers even that. He gives her a son. And it looks like a perfect ending, but the story's not over. Persistent faith clings to God when everything collapses. 2 Kings chapter four, verses 18 through 21. One day when her child was older, he went out to help his father who was working with the harvesters. Suddenly he cried out, my head hurts, my head hurts. His father said to one of the servants, carry him home to his mother. So the servant took him home and his mother held him on her lap. But around noontime, he died. She carried him up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, then shut the door and left him there. The child dies. She says, don't deceive me, Lord. I've been crushed for so long. Now God gives her a son. And then he dies. Can you imagine the heartache, the pain of that? Something you've been believing for quietly is just a quiet pain.

Then it happens and the child dies. The very thing God gave her is now gone. And this is the part of the story that most people never tell in church. because this is where it gets hard, this is where it stops being comfortable, and one of the deepest questions anybody can wrestle with is this, what do you do when you trusted God and then everything fell apart? Because we think in our culture, because we've been misinformed, we've been taught improperly, preachers just trying to say a bunch of fun stuff to make you emotionally high, we have been kind of taught that if you do the right things, if you say the right things, if you give the right things, then you'll never have a problem in your life. And if you do, then something's wrong with you. You know, years ago, and I heard this when I first got saved too, and it just bugged me when they said it, but now I'm gonna speak to it, I think this is a demonic saying, right from the pit of hell. And I've never said it, I just don't believe in it, but people are serving God, something goes wrong, and then someone will come up and say, if you had more faith, that wouldn't have happened.

Let me tell you something, that's the worst thing you can say to anybody. Because who do you think you are to know why things are happening in someone's life? It's just awful. It's terrible. And it grieves me every time I hear it. I've had people walk up to me broken and say, this person said to me, if I had more faith, this wouldn't happen. I said, that's a lie, that's not true. You can have all the faith in the world, and you're still gonna have problems in this world. No one's immune to it because we have an enemy. He comes to steal, kill, and destroy. We live in a fallen world. You can be doing all the right things, saying all the right things, believing all the right things, doing what God wants you to do, and you're still gonna have issues and problems and some pain in your life. It has nothing to do with your faith. You can have great faith, but here's really the definition of faith. Do you keep believing when things go wrong? Because if you can't keep believing when you don't get what you want, if you can't keep believing when things go awry, when you can't keep believing when your heart is broken,

then you really don't have any faith in God. That's the test, not when everything's going well. I know people say, I believe God, he's so great, and the next thing you know, this went wrong, so God doesn't love me, I'm out. Real faith stands the test of time through the good times and the hard times. Most people can trust God when the story is moving in the direction they want, but what about when the miracle turns into heartbreak? You know what that is like, a lot of us do. You finally get breakthrough in your finances, and then the bottom dropped out. You finally get a breakthrough in your marriage. You finally see your marriage start to heal, and then something broke it wide open again. You believe God for restoration of a child, a dream, and then it was gone, and here's what she does. She takes his body upstairs, she lays him on the prophet's bed, and she goes to find Elisha. She does not sit down and give up. She goes to find the man of God, 2 Kings chapter four, verses 24 through 30. So she saddled the donkey and said to the servant, hurry, don't slow down unless I tell you to. And as she approached the man of God at Mount Carmel, Elisha saw her in the distance and said to Gezi, look, the woman from Shunem is coming. They still don't give her a name. So we just assume her name was Shunem.

It wasn't, but isn't that interesting? God doesn't even give her a name, but he uses her to help us even today. Run out to meet her and ask her, is everything all right with you, your husband, and your child? Yes, the woman told Gezi, everything is fine, but when she came to the man of God at the mountain, she fell to the ground before him and caught hold of his feet. Gezi began to push away, but the man of God said, leave her alone, she is deeply troubled, but the Lord has not told me what it is. Then she said, did I ask you for a son, my Lord? Think about what she's doing, going through. He has no idea, the Lord hasn't told him. Did I ask you for a son, my Lord? And didn't I say, don't deceive me and get my hopes up? Then Elisha said to Gezi, get ready to travel. Take my staff and go. Don't talk to anyone along the way. Go quickly and lay the staff on the child's face. But the boy's mother said, as surely as the Lord lives, and we talked about that last week, and you yourself live, I won't go home unless you go with me. So Elisha returned with her. Think about that. she is confused, she cannot figure out what God is doing, but she will not stop moving toward him.

I will not go home unless you go with me. That is called persistent faith. Not faith that has all the answers. Not faith that feels strong. Not faith that has been given an explanation. Over the years I've questioned and I've had people ask me, why is this happening? And I have to say, I don't know. I'm not God. When I first got saved, the movement I got saved in, they had all the answers. You couldn't, if you went to your preacher, he had an answer for you, whether it was wrong or right, they tried to answer everything. But sometimes we just don't know. I don't know why this is going on, but you need to keep moving forward toward God. You don't need to back up, you need to keep moving forward. So what happens in our lives, when we center our lives around marriage and family, here's what I've heard over and over again. I'm having problems in my marriage, so I'm gonna quit serving. You're running from God, not running to him. That's why your marriage continues to fail and will fail. Well, I gotta spend more time with my wife or my husband. No, you don't. You need to spend more time with God, with your wife and husband. My kids are going through a tough time, so I can't serve.

Your kids are not your God. But today, our kids are our gods. We do everything for them. They can't fail, they can't get in trouble, they can't nothing, because my kid would never lie. You know how many times I've heard that? It's just sickening to me, like what? Everybody lies. Same N or O me. It's true. Everybody doesn't tell the whole truth sometimes. Honey, this happened, and you don't tell the rest. Why? Because you don't want to mess with it. How many of y'all can say amen? Come on, guys, help me out, yeah. You know. But my kids, who are kids, will never lie. That is not true. I remember lying when I got caught and they saw me. I didn't do that. I watched you. Sometimes there are no answers. Faith that refuses to stop moving toward God when everything inside you wants to shut down. Here's the difference between what she is doing and what a lot of us do when things collapse. When life gets hard, most people start pulling back from God. They stop praying like they used to.

They stop showing up, they go quiet. Not because they stop believing in God. Not because, but because they are hurting and they do not know how to approach Him in the middle of that pain. Can I say this? God knows it all. Just be honest with Him. God, I'm hurting. God, I don't like this. God, I don't know what to do with this. God, this is scaring me. God, I'm concerned about this. God, my heart is broken over this. He already knows it. Why do we try to talk to Him in certain ways? You know, when I first got saved, they talked a lot about confession. And if I was to say, God, I'm hurting, they said, that's a bad confession. And I just remember, I was ready to quit and say, I can't do this. This is too crazy. But then you know what I did? I read the Bible. Isn't that amazing? And when you read the Bible, you start dispelling some of these things people are saying like, that's not true. I can go to God with anything.

He already knows anyway. Why would I be trying to hide it? Like, God, I'm doing great, even though you're broken. Why can't we say, God, I'm broken, I need help, I need strength, I need something. I need some peace in my life. You gotta be honest with yourself and honest with God. Yeah, confession is huge. Yeah, it's a big deal. But not when you've been open and honest. How do you get healed unless you let God know and you believe for healing? They pull back from God. They stop praying. They stop showing up. They go quiet. She does not do that. She clings harder. She falls at his feet and holds on. She's like, Elisha's like, dang, she got my feet. And she says, I'm not going home unless you come with me. What's he gonna do? She's got his feet. And he's thinking, dang, I'm gonna have this woman at my feet forever or I'm gonna go with her. But he knew. She was in pain. She was hurt. Hurting.

She said, why did you deceive me? Did I ask you for this? You just created more pain in my life. Can anybody relate to this? This is a story we should all be able to relate to because we live in this world. And not everybody has the perfect life. I've known people that said, I've never had much of a problem, and then when they have a problem, they just freak some out. Why does it freak them out? Because they don't know how to handle it. They don't know how to deal with it. They think that I did something wrong or God doesn't love me, which is so far from the truth. God loved this woman, but her son still dies. Because real faith does not trust God only when it can see what he is doing. Real faith trusts his character even when it cannot figure out his plan. See, proximity to God is not the same as knowing God. 2 Kings 4 31, Gehazi hurried on ahead and laid the staff on the child's face, but nothing happened. There was no sign of life. He returned to meet Elisha and told him

that the child is still dead. Gehazi takes the staff. He gets there first. He does exactly what he's told and nothing happens because Gehazi had access to the things of God, but his heart was not connected to the heart of God. He carried the staff, but he did not carry the spirit with him. He had a symbol without the substance, and that is a warning worth paying attention to. You can spend years around church, around ministry, around anointed people, and still be completely disconnected from the heart of God. A lot of people know how to perform the right things. They know how to say the right words. They know how to show up in the right places, but on the inside, nothing has really changed. The power of God was never in the staff. It was in the God behind the staff. The Shunammite woman understood that. She was not interested in the symbol. She wanted the man himself. She said, I will not go home unless you come with me. She wanted the presence of God, not just the things associated with the presence of God. There is a big difference between those two things,

and Gehazi is the picture of one, and she is the picture of the other. See, God is the God of life. 2 Kings chapter four, verses 32 through 37. When Elisha arrived, the child was indeed dead. Lying there on the prophet's bed, he went in alone and shut the door behind him and prayed to the Lord. Then he lay down on the child's body, placing his mouth on the child's mouth, his eyes on the child's eyes, and his hands on the child's hands. And as he stretched out on him, the child's body began to grow warm again. Elisha got up, walked back and forth across the room once, and then stretched himself out again on the child. This time the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes. Then Elisha summoned Gehazi, call the child's mother, he said. And when she came in, Elisha said, here, take your son. She fell at his feet and bowed before him, overwhelmed with gratitude. Then she took her son in her arms and carried him downstairs. Can you imagine? Elisha prays, the child breathes again. Life returns. God restores what looked like a permanent loss. And this moment does not just close the story. It points us forward to something greater.

Because this entire story is a shadow pointing toward a son who would come. Most people don't even know that. Think about it. This boy raised temporarily, he would still face death one day, but Jesus stepped into death and defeated it permanently. This is the type and shadow of someone giving their son, someone dying, a boy dying and being raised from the dead. Jesus, God gave his son. He died, but he rose again, and he rose for eternity. He has no ending day. And so this Shunammite woman wouldn't have known this, that all through the Old Testament, there's types and shadows of the Messiah to come. Jesus stepped into death and defeated it permanently, not temporary fix, a permanent victory. The same God who restored this boy's life is the God who raised Jesus from the grave. And because Jesus rose, death does not get the final word over anyone who belongs to him. This is not just a doctrine to believe. This is the ground you stand on when you are sitting in the hardest moment of your life and you cannot see a way through it. The God of this story is still the same God today. He still sees the pain you stopped telling people about. He still shows up in the ordinary places. He still restores what you thought was permanently gone, and he still responds to faith that refuses to quit.

Years ago, I was with a gentleman. who was on our board here. He's kind of a cantankerous guy. He's still a friend. And I was at his house, and we were dealing with this dome and the air conditioning, and the air conditioning people quit showing up when we needed them to, so we fired them. When we went to close on the loan, they put a lien on our place, and it was for $7,000, even though we could prove we got another air conditioning company and finished the project. We could've fought it, and I was fighting it because I was right. I was right. This is wrong. They're lying. They're thieves. And I'm at his house. We're on the phone with an attorney, and he's talking, and we're talking to him about this whole thing. And then abruptly he says, hey, can I call you back? I need to talk to him. So he's facing away from me. I'm sitting behind him, and he turns his chair around. He says, can I just say something to you? I said, yeah, and he goes, anything? I just want to say something to you.

I said, sure. This was the Lord talking to me. He said, you're right in the right and wrong. You're right in that, but you're stupid in business. I'm looking at him shocked like, what? He said, you're so stupid in business. That was the word of the Lord. Sometimes I think God says, you're just dumb. But that's what he said to me, and it shocked me. And I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, you're right in principle. This is wrong what they did, but you're gonna spend $15,000 to not pay seven. And he said to me, I'll never forget it. He said, that is not good stewardship of the Lord's money. And so he said, I asked him, what should I do? He said, pay the stinking $7,000. To this day, every time I say it, I cringe in here. Because we were right. We were wrong. But he was right. And sometimes God has to speak to us in an abrupt way that we understand it. And I understood this. You are stupid in business. Do you know I've never forgot that lesson? Do you know every time I get in situations with business and I start to get emotional, I back up and say, oh no, oh no, I can't be stupid in business. People say, I can't believe God talked to you that way.

He talked to me through that guy that way. Or that's the way he interpreted it. I mean, probably the Lord said, yeah, he's not being very smart. He interpreted it, he's stupid. But you have to have ears to hear. Did I heed to it? Yes. Do I like it? No. To this day, I don't like it. And it was 20, almost, what, 23 years ago. It still bothers me when I think about it. But then I say, hey, I wasn't stupid in business. I wanna close with something the text does not say, but the text absolutely shows. This woman never gets an explanation. God never tells her why her son got sick. He never explains why he allowed something like that to happen after he had given her the child in the first place. She never gets an answer to the why. What she gets is the presence of God in the middle of it. And what changed everything for her was not that she never stopped, what changed everything for her, she never stopped pursuing the presence of God. When everything collapsed, she ran toward God, not away from him. When she was confused, she held on harder, not looser. And when she was in the worst pain of her life,

she still said, I am not going home without you. I want you to hear this. The woman who made room for God before she ever received anything from him is the same woman who refused to let go of God after the miracle turned into a complete crisis. Her faith was not built on what God gave her. Her faith was built on who God is. And a lot of people's faith are built on what God can do for you. If God doesn't do this to me, I'm out. If God, you don't do that, I'm out. If God, you don't take care of this thing, I'm out. God, if you don't cause this other stuff to happen, I'm out. That's the way most people approach God. That's why Jesus said, broad is the way to destruction and many thereof find it, to hell. And narrows the path to eternal life. And very few find that path. Think about it. How many times have we wanted to give up on God or we did give up on God because it didn't go our way? Her faith was built on who God is. And that is the only kind of faith that survives the hardest seasons in our life. So let me ask you a direct question before you leave today. Is your faith built on what God has done for you lately or is it built on who he is regardless of what you are walking through right now? Because if your faith only holds up

when life is cooperating, it will not hold when things fall apart. But if your faith is anchored in the character of God, it will hold. When you are confused, it will hold. When you are grieving, it will hold. When you are sitting in the hardest moment of your life and nothing feels right, it will hold. Some of you walked in there today carrying something you have not talked about in a long time. You have learned to function around it. You have learned to smile and serve and keep showing up. But I want you to hear this, God sees it. And he's always seen it. And he is not asking you to have the answers before you come to him. He's asking you to do what she did. Just keep moving toward him. Hold on. Do not go home without him. Don't leave him in the church seat today. Take him outside with you. Get in your car, drive home, and let him get out of the car and come in with you. Because that is faith that won't let go. Father, in Jesus' name, I thank you for your word today. I thank you for the story of the Shunammite woman, what she did, what she believed, how she believed you. And Father, what we need to understand is these people in the Old Testament

didn't even have the Holy Spirit living in them. They just had to believe. Trust, we have the Holy Spirit within us, God. And some of us have the hard time ever trusting you, ever believing in you, ever holding on. And when things go awry in our life, we need to keep moving forward, not back up. Help us, Lord. Comfort the hearts and minds in here that this story really hits home. Be with them. Help them resolve whatever it is that pain is. Give them comfort, for you're the God of comfort. Give them peace where there's no peace. Help us, Lord, in our grief, in our hard seasons. And Father, even help us when the good seasons. Because more people leave over success, leave you, God, over success than failure. Thank you for never leaving us nor forsaking us, never abandoning us or rejecting us. Thank you, Father, in Jesus' name. If you're here with every head bowed and you say, preacher, would you pray with me? I walk with God, but I've walked away. Preacher, would you pray with me? I've never truly asked Jesus to be Lord in my life. I believe in Him. I believe in the Bible. But I've never given Him permission to lead and guide my life.

Today, I'm willing to. Because there is no salvation outside of Lordship. People say to me all the time, I'm saved, I'm saved, I'm saved. Then I ask them, is Jesus Lord of your life? And they don't know what to say. Because you cannot have salvation without Lordship. That's why people say all the time, I prayed that prayer so many times and nothing happened. Because they don't want God. They want what God can give them. They just don't want to go to hell. They want their sins forgiven. But they don't want a leader. But today, we make Him our leader. We make Him Lord of our life. And either He's Lord of all or He's not Lord at all. So right now, with every head bowed, and you say, preacher, would you include me in your prayer? I'm in one of those two spiritual conditions. And I want to come home. And I want to ask Jesus to be Lord of my life and give Him permission to my life. I choose Him today. If that's you, right where you're seated, and you say, preacher, include me in your prayer, are you ready? Without any hesitation, I'm gonna ask you to do one simple thing. One of the reasons I ask you to do this,

so I know if I'm praying for anybody, but the most important reason is, what I'm gonna ask you to do is, you have the ability to say, God, I don't care what anybody else knows, thinks, I just want you in my life. If that's you, right where you're seated, are you ready? In Jesus' name, would you just lift your hand and say, preacher, include me in your prayer? Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you, God bless you, God bless you. God bless you, God bless you over there. God bless you over here. Thank you, God bless you, God bless you. God cares, God bless you over here, thank you. God bless you up there, thank you. I'm just looking around, God bless you. I see the hand, God bless you, God bless you, guys. God bless you, God bless you. I'm just looking around. I'm gonna look across the top one more time. God bless you, I see your hand. It's time, guys. The season is right. I look across, God bless you over here. I'm looking across the top one last time. Anybody else? Thank you, sir. Thank you, thank you over here.

Thank you right here on the bottom. Anybody else on the bottom section just say, God, how hard is it to humble yourself and say I want you in my life? Anybody else before we close? Father, in the powerful name of Jesus, thank you, God bless you. You see all the hands. in this room, all the hands this whole weekend so far. And God, you love these people. You want them in your family. Regardless of what's gone on in their life, you can change their life if they're willing to change. So thank you for forgiving us. Thank you for helping us. Thank you for blessing each one in Jesus' name. If you lifted your hand, I want you to pray this prayer with all your heart. It's right out of the book of Romans. It's right out of the Bible. The Bible says we believe in our heart and confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus. And I'm gonna lead you in a prayer. I'm gonna ask you to pray it loud enough for your ears to hear your voice. I'm gonna ask everybody in here that's right with God, would you, in support of them, would you pray with us? And let me say this. If you didn't, lift your hand. Allow me to still introduce you to the Lord Jesus

so your life can be right. Would you pray with me, church? Would you pray, God? I choose to believe in your son, Jesus. And I believe you raised him from the dead to give me a new life. And I believe that in my heart, according to your word. And now I willingly confess with my mouth, Jesus, be Lord of my life. Thank you for saving me. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you, Father, for giving me the chance, the opportunity to make you Lord of my life. In Jesus' name, everybody said amen, amen. Let's thank the Lord.