A Promise Higher Than Shame

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Good morning. If you want to turn in your Bibles with me, we're going to begin in Hebrews chapter 5. Hebrews chapter 5. Hebrews chapter 5 is not about a Lexus car, just in case you're confused. That's okay. We're going to be there. I want to start today by talking about luxury car commercials. If you watch a luxury car commercial, they're actually really funny. In fact, my kids and I have been watching them, and Jed in particular, who read scripture today,

he'll just sit there and make fun of them. And they're pretty absurd when you really start thinking about a luxury car commercial. Because luxury car commercials will tell you something like, some version of technology will improve your life. Okay, technology will improve your life or you will go new places that you never thought possible. Why? Because you're in a luxury car Life will resemble a celebrity Okay, you will have when you drive this car. You will be like Matthew McConaughey

speaking profound things considering life, the whole thing, or, this is my favorite, if you buy a luxury car, your spouse will adore you. And they will forget that bad thing that you did. Now if I went out, if I went out and bought a luxury car, okay, and maybe I even put a bull on it, okay, I go out and I do that and I think I believe in my heart I I take the promise of The luxury car commercial at its word and I think man now that I have this car my life will be improved through technology I will go places. I've never been My life is gonna be more like an A list celebrity or a B list celebrity either one And my spouse is going to adore me all because I bought a luxury car. I would be a fool. That would be supremely foolish to take these commercials at their word. And this is a quick lesson that we learn as children, right? That you should not believe everything

you here. You should always read the fine print. If something sounds too good to be true, probably is. Now this extends even to how we relate to other people. We learn when we are very young, we learn about stranger danger. We learn that we should never trust a skinny chef and And we should never marry anyone who is rude to the waiter. We shouldn't do it. Even in our own future, we think this way. We say that we should not count our before their... That's right. You shouldn't count your chickens before they're hatched. Don't start counting. Don't start depending on things that you don't have in your hands right then. Don't count your chickens before they're hatched. long, before long, as we grow up, as we watch commercial after commercial after commercial after commercial, as we hear all these things as we're inundated with all of this thinking, we can become skeptical. We can position ourselves to

never ever be taken advantage of. To really to suspect anything good as a potential hazard, right? It can really get into our heads. And although it does help us avoid disappointment, it does leave us wanting for something or someone that we can trust. We want promises that we can believe. We look diligently for these kinds of promises, for things that we We can hang our hat on. And we know, we know. I mean, it's funny to think about believing a luxury car commercial ad. Okay, that's silly. But many times, those are the only promises that are in front of us. Those are the only things that we're hearing that are promising anything about a good life, that are promising anything about living in any kind of joy. But what if, what if there were a way to live where you could have sure, dependable promises on your radar, in front of your eyes, where you could rest assured that the things that

you are hoping for would come to pass. You knew they would come to pass. There were promises that you could hang your life on. And the Bible speaks about these kinds of promises from the eternal God to us, for us, about us. They include us. They include our families, our relationships, our careers. They include us. In this series, what I hope to do over the next four weeks after this is to put those sure promises in front of you so that you can write them on your hand.

You can put them on your mirror. You can hang your whole life on them. And then when you do that, it's not like you'll never be disappointed, but that disappointment won't cripple you. And it's not like, it's not like you're never going to be afraid of anything, but you won't ultimately be afraid of things that can hurt you. You net, You have a hope that extends beyond that. Why? It's because your expectations and your striving is aimed in a different

direction. It's aimed toward something. It relies on something that will give you traction. Oftentimes in our lives, we kind of float on and then we look around and realize that we're a little depressed. We're a little disappointed a lot of the time. We're kind of left wanting for a direction, something to, you know, not heaven when I die, but next week, right? Something that we are striving toward that we can kind of touch, feel, see, that we can see that we are making progress on. What I hope to do with scripture, with Hebrews, the end of Hebrews 4, Hebrews 5, 6, and 7, no, 5 and 6, and 7 and 8, sorry, Hebrews 5 through 8, is to talk about this promise that is higher, a higher promise. And we're going to talk about five different ones. It's a promise higher than shame, that's today. A promise that is higher than negligence. A promise that is higher than anxiety, a promise that is higher than slavery, and a promise

that is higher than judgment. We're going to talk about how this promise combats shame, negligence, anxiety, slavery, and judgment. How we live in God's promise and how that promise is higher than those other things that seek to really tear us apart, tear us down. today is a promise higher than shame. Let's talk about shame for just a second. Shame is a really a feeling of inadequacy or of lesser value and you probably know this but it's helpful to understand. You can actually physiologically feel shame. When you experience shame your heart races, you get dry mouth, your blood pressure increases, you have profuse sweating, you tunnel vision and you have a compulsion to run and hide. These are physiological things that are happening to you when shame is upon you. You and I experience shame to varying degrees on a daily basis. You and I experience shame

to varying degrees on a daily basis. Just like we shouldn't trust a skinny chef, We should not trust anybody that says I never feel shame It's it's not true we all do Sometimes we take that shame and we move it to somebody else. It's called blame Sometimes we take it and we just wear it and we talk about how terrible we are we have a low opinion of ourselves That's self-loathing and sometimes we just pretend like it's not there We say well shame is this coat this this social construct, you know put upon us by the patriarchy and it's just not real It doesn't have any bearing upon us. However, all these attempts to get rid of shame fail. Shame is there. We cannot actually escape shame. We are also not going to move past shame as a society. There's no way we're going to evolve past dealing with shame. We all are going to deal with shame because, the reason we can't do that is because people will always have standards.

People will always have standards. And if you don't believe me, there's a common kind of anecdote that should help us. Even when we don't want standards, we have standards. Even when we say things like, well, we shouldn't have standards, that's still having a standard. So it's really in vogue to say that everybody has their truth. You should not impose your truth claim on other people. Everybody has their truth. You should not impose your truth claim on other However, that statement actually contradicts itself because making the claim that everybody has their truth is actually a truth claim that you're imposing on other people. You can't escape standards the same way that you can't escape language. If you'd say, hey, we're going to start a new place, but we're not going to have a language. Well, good luck with that. But you're going to have language of some kind.

There's no way to escape it. In the same way, there's no way to escape standards. And that really shows us our problem, our related problem, is that standards always, always, always bring shame. Standards always bring shame. We never meet our own standards all the time. We never meet other people's standards all the time. And when we fail those standards, we feel shame. Even when we try to lower our standards, our conscience tells us it's too low, And we feel shame. I want to help you understand that we all feel shame. It is ubiquitous. Kids, parents, old, young, every nation, every tribe, every tongue, we are all feeling shame. We all deal with standards. And so if we're gonna talk about, if we're gonna really understand looking at a promise higher than shame, a promise that overrides shame, that we need to understand, need to see how God establishes that promise and that actually the promise

that God establishes actually cuts shame off at the knees. It actually kills the root of shame. It doesn't just stop shame, it doesn't just help us cope with shame, it destroys shame. And it makes us makes a way for us to live a life that is free from the shackles of shame. And to do all this we need to start in a very strange place and we're gonna do so in Hebrews chapter 5 verse 1. We're actually gonna start there. We're gonna look at the earlier verses in Hebrews chapter 4 later but we're gonna start in Hebrews 5:1 today. And we're gonna start in a strange place. We're gonna start talking about priests. So bear with me we need to see priests here first then we'll kind of get to shame. Priests in the Old Testament. The first four verses here give us kind of a rundown. We'll take a couple at a time. Hebrews chapter 5 verse 1, for every high priest chosen from among

men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. So broad brush, priests represent people before God. Their job is to make sacrifices to cover sin and shame. Priests ask God to forgive people and they act so it's much like a bridge, right? So priests kind of they kind of bridge God and people and they they they make sacrifices. What else? Verses 2 and 3. These priests can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward since he himself is beset with weakness." So priests are weak. Because of this, he is obligated to offer sins for his offer, excuse me, because of this he's obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people. So priests are weak and they have sin and shame themselves. Now this is good and this is bad. It's good because they can sympathize. A priest, whenever

he's making sacrifices for sin, he understands all of the problem. He feels the shame. He's weak. He's sinned too. And so that's good, but it's also bad because that priest is still culpable, that priest still must make sacrifices for themselves. And in fact, the priest becomes this picture of the fact that the whole thing is a loop. It keeps going. It never stops. Even the guy making the sacrifice to eradicate the sin, right? Even the guy that is saying, God forgive these people, he is contributing to the system for which he has to continue to make sacrifices. So the Old Testament priests, priesthood, the high priest here, it's a loop. Last thing about priests, verse 4, and no one takes this honor for himself but only when called by God just as Aaron was. So Aaron, the brother of Moses was the first priest and the point he's making is the priests are appointed.

So we're going to recap, we're going to summarize verse 4. The priesthood is an appointed bridge, right? So let's just stay here for a second. God in heaven is saying to people, I want to have a right relationship with you, I want to communicate with you, I want to be with you, and so to do that I'm going to appoint a bridge so that that can happen. I, God in heaven, are going to facilitate that relationship by appointing priests and making that happen. So priests are a gift from God. Okay, the priesthood is also a loop. People keep sinning including priests. Shame endures. Sacrifices are eternally necessary. It's a loop. Okay, now we are ready because we understand a little. We've got a primer on priests. Now we need to look at Jesus. Makes a transition in verses five and six. Jesus is high priest. So also Jesus did not exalt himself to be made a high priest but was appointed

by him who said to him, You are my son. Today I have gotten you as he says. Also in another place, you are priests forever after the order of Melchizedek." We don't need to understand Melchizedek today. We're actually going to be talking about him in a few weeks, but today we just need to understand that Jesus is appointed like a priest. And here in quote Psalm 110, Jesus did not take the honor he was appointed. Okay, let's keep going. Verses 7 and 8. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. So Jesus, like priests, and we need to see this, here's like the big divide here, right? Jesus, like priests, suffered but there is a key difference. Jesus did not suffer because he was weak.

Rather, Jesus suffered because he was displaying his obedience to the Father. In other words, Jesus does not experience personal shame because of his actions. He doesn't deal with that. Even though there's a standard, Jesus totally needs that standard. But why is he still suffering if he's meeting the standard? He's suffering because he's displaying his obedience to the Father. You cannot see obedience, much less perfect obedience, unless you have an opportunity to display it. For example, if someone would come up to me and say, I'm the fastest man in the world, I don't think it would be a big stretch for me to say, okay, show me. I would pick somebody fast that I know and say, okay, run a race against them. And if they start offering excuses like, well, I just ate a heavy meal, well, then I wouldn't believe them, okay? They're not the fastest man in the world. They're lying.

They're gonna skip the occasion. So I'm 6'4", I used to be 6'5", once upon a time, and I could never dunk a basketball. But the joke among my friends was that that Drew could dunk, but he's just not feeling it right now. Like he could dunk if he wanted to, but he just doesn't want to right now. I Just never felt like dunking. I think maybe I could but You need to have opportunity to show You need to to display it in some capacity all of us suffer We all suffer because we are weak because we don't meet standards and we experience shame We actually experience shame appropriately, right the shame we feel when we don't meet a standard is actually appropriate shame Okay, we should feel shame because we're not meeting that standard. So we experience all that, we suffer all that because we are weak, because we are disobedient, but not Jesus. For Jesus, his suffering was the occasion for

him to display his complete dependence upon his complete obedience to the Father. And this change, this difference between Old Testament, New Testament priest has a profound effect. And we see this play out in verses nine and 10. Hebrews five, nine and 10 says, and being made perfect, he, being Jesus, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God, a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Okay, we don't need to get too caught here in the whole being made perfect part, as if Jesus were not perfect before or some such, the pastor in Hebrews, the author, has already established that Jesus is sinless in Hebrews chapters one, two, and three. So if you need a primer on that, read the first three chapters. But here, he's saying that he's finishing, really finishing the thought from verse eight. And what he's saying is that the eternal Son,

the eternal Son, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus, put on flesh. That is, Jesus put on every limitation of humanity, every single one, and in that he still displayed complete and utter obedience to and dependence upon the Father. That's what happened. So Jesus then persevered through fears, doubt. Jesus persevered through psychological trauma. Jesus suffered through loneliness, abandonment, deep emotional and mental fatigue. Jesus experienced all of that pain of every type, every kind that you can imagine. He experienced it. He experienced every limitation upon humanity, every temptation. You and I go through that gauntlet. We go through that onslaught of humanity and we come out knowing our weaknesses. We come out understanding how imperfect we are. We come out with scars and memories and trauma. That's what we do. And we're both perpetrating that sin. And we're

being victims of that sin. In both of those instances, however, we run the gauntlet of humanity and we come out broken, lesser, hurt, sinners. And more than that, we come out like we've been given too many promises. We come out suspicious. We come out wary. We come out skeptical of anybody that says something good is going to happen to you. I swear to you, if I would walk out of here and somebody would just come out to And they would hold my hand, they would say, something good is going to happen to you. I would not believe them at all. I would actually think they were trying to get money from me. That's exactly what I would believe. Whether that makes me a terrible person or not, I don't know. I'm a terrible person anyway, that's just another way I'm a terrible person. But man, I am suspicious, I am wary, I've heard the story too many times. And it's because I'm human.

It's because I'm a sinner. And it's because I'm going to interpret that in a lot of sinful ways. Jesus went through all of that and more and worse. And he wasn't that way. It didn't scar him. Jesus came out victorious over that. He's victorious over shame. So what does he do with this victory? He take that victory and dangle it over us and say like, hey, look, I get it. Let's see you do it. I ran the course in five minutes.

You got to now beat five minutes, right? Jesus has the high score. Now I got to beat Jesus high score. However, uh, that is not what happened. Uh, Jesus by appointment and achievement took all of his victory, all of his spoils everything that he earned, everything, and he gives it freely with no charge to all who obey him. Let me say it again, because that's a really big deal. Jesus takes all that victory. He runs the gauntlet of humanity. He suffers all of that. He comes out on the other side victorious, champion up, and he gives all of that. When he could just have a parade for himself and deserve it, he He doesn't do that, He gives all that victory to us, to people that do not deserve it, to losers. But to all who obey Him, He gives that victory. And it says that Jesus, by doing this in verse 9, it says that He became the source of eternal salvation.

other words Jesus changed forever how people relate to God Jesus changed how people relate to God and this really helpful to understand whenever we're talking about the the priests now because in the old system that bill for sin kept coming due okay so so you know you got a Netflix subscription you got an Amazon Prime subscription that bills coming every month if you're surprised every month that you're getting charged too much by Netflix Then that's on you That's a bill that's coming do every time right that's the old system. It's a bill come do it's a loop

That bill kept coming we kept owing in The new system our sin debt everything that we owed was completely wiped away. The loop is gone shame not needed debt paid in the old system in the old system you had human priests they were appointed they were weak and those human priests made our they made our payments by proxy they represented us they they came to God as as our kind of our exemplars our surrogates our proxies and they made sacrifices. That's the old system. In the new system, it is Jesus himself that comes to make sacrifices. Jesus is appointed, but he's not weak. Jesus is appointed and he's perfect. And Jesus then makes our payment in full. And so in Jesus, just like in the Old Testament sacrificial system, in Jesus our Heavenly Father is saying to us, I want to have right relationship with you. I want to be able to talk to you. I want to have this.

I want to, I want to listen to you. I want to communion with you. I want to, I want to know what's going on. I want you to be able to talk to me and me to talk to you. So how does that, that was achieved in the old system with priests killing animals in the new system. Cause Jesus has changed how people relate to God in the new system. It is all accomplished in Jesus.

And I know I will make a joke or two about goat sacrifices, right? I get it, I'll do that joke way too often that we're, you know, the secret thing that we do in private is that we're gonna make goat sacrifices at the Lord's Supper service or something crazy. We don't do that because we don't have to. One sacrifice was made for all of us. And this is what Christianity is. It is Jesus establishing a new promise. Anyone who follows him is free from their sin debt, both for the past and for the future. Anybody that follows Jesus is free from their sin debt. And this has massive implications on shame. And to see how, what we need to do is we need to focus on the verses that are right before Hebrews 5:1. There's three verses. There were verses that were read. It's Hebrews chapter four, verses 14, 15 and 16. I want to take each one of those and I want to help you understand now, now that we've got priests on the brain and the new way it all works out.

I want you to understand what Jesus did. Hebrews 4:14. Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast to our confession. Okay, Jesus established a promise, so now we can stay true. And at first glance, don't misread this. At first glance, here's what it looks like. It looks like, let us hold fast to our confession. It could sound like, don't let go of the promise even whenever outside pressure gets to you.

So we get like, hold fast to our promise, You know, like, no matter what's, you know, no matter what's like trying to, trying to knock you off of the promise, you know, somebody's trying to call you away from Christianity, somebody's trying to tell you you're stupid for following Jesus. That's kind of the thing that we imagine, or at least I imagine, whenever it says, let us hold fast to our confession. Like, like there's outside pressure to conform coming at you. Okay. And it's saying, look, hang on. That outside pressure is coming. And although outside pressure is real, that's a real thing. When I read the next couple of verses, I believe that this verse is saying something a little different. That it's not discussing outside pressure, it's discussing inside pressure. That it's saying, let us hold fast to our confession. And I believe this means, don't let go of your confession even when inside you feel disqualified.

Don't let go of your confession even though inside you're going to feel shame. When you experience a deep enough level of shame, sometimes you just want to let go of it all. You just want to walk away from Christianity and just say, I'm just going to quit trying. I never am good enough. I can't meet the standard, keep experiencing shame, I keep going in the same spiral, I keep going on the same loop. I'm in a loop over and over again. I always fail my own standards. Oh yes, and what 14 is saying is, because Jesus is your high priest, you're not in that loop anymore. You don't need to feel shame. Let us hold fast to our confession. Because Jesus has established the promise, let me say it this way, because Jesus has established the promise and it really had nothing to do with you, you receive all of it, but you don't get to like take any credit, right? Because Jesus has established the promise,

We can stay true even when we haven't stayed true. Let me say it again, because I believe that we need to hear this this morning. Because of Jesus's finished work that we didn't have any, nothing, no credit, no nothing, we just received it, we just get it. We can still hang on even when we shouldn't hang on, because we don't deserve it. Even when we feel like, man, all that sin I've committed, all that sin I committed yesterday, five minutes ago, all that shame that I'm feeling, you can stay true even when you haven't stayed true. And you and I, if we look in the mirror and we start to assess our track record of staying true to Jesus, I mean, we've got some black marks, right? I mean, not even little ones. We have forsaken our covenant to Jesus. We have not followed Him perfectly or even close. I mean, that's putting it mildly. And we see this. There's a reason I believe that that's what this is saying because of the next couple of verses.

Let's look at verse 15. It says, It says, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. Let's just stop right there. It's saying, look, It's not like we have some, Jesus is just holding some standard and kind of like peering down at us from on high and saying, no, no, you don't measure up. No, you don't measure up either. No, you don't measure up either. That's not what's going on. It says we don't have that kind of high priest. We don't have a high priest whose best time is five minutes and everybody else who can't meet five minutes, he just kind of looks down upon. We don't have that kind of high priest who's unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. This cuts off shame at the knees because our salvation doesn't depend on our performance. It is not measured by our strength. We do not need to fear that

our weaknesses, our shortcomings, or even the sin that we just committed three seconds ago will somehow cancel our place with Jesus. We need to understand that. More than just understanding. We need to feel it. We need to feel it. Because five seconds after you sin and you realize that you're repentant and you're like upset about it, you don't feel like you're close to Jesus. You don't feel holy. You don't feel spiritual. You feel the exact opposite of those things. And we don't need to fear that somehow, because we've done a sin, where we've committed this big sin in our head, like whatever we have kind of stacked up, because we've committed that sin. We are somehow now, okay that was it. It's as if Jesus were like waiting for our sin tower to get high enough and like Like when we reach the certain level, it's like, okay, done, you're cut off. That's not what Jesus does.

That's not what Jesus does. Jesus sympathizes with our weakness. Jesus understands what it is to be human, how difficult it is, all the temptations that we face. He has faced them and he has not succumbed to them. Because we are not saved by maintaining a standard, then we are free to come to Jesus. And we are very free. In fact, we are encouraged to say things like, Jesus, look at what a mess I've made of my life. Jesus, look at what I've done and my relationship. I'm so sorry I did this. I was tempted to not look dumb in front of people, but I gave into that. I was tempted to mask my insecurity, but I gave into that. I made a complete mess of things. And now all I have, Jesus, All I had to give you are these broken pieces. That's it. I just have broken pieces. It's not even worth giving to you, but you tell me to come, and you tell me to give it to you, so here it is.

Do whatever you're gonna do with that. I don't know what you could do with that. It's just broken pieces. That whole scenario is not just sort of casually mentioned in scripture. That scenario is called spiritual growth. That scenario where we come to Jesus and we are repentant, where we understand that we have messed up, that is the normal Christian life. That is the warp and woof of someone who is imperfect and a sinner full-time, you know, doing it just finding new ways to sin and a God who is perfect. That is the relationship that you and I are in. We are severely outclassed. The reasons that we don't say these words, reason we don't play out that scenario is it can go right back to shame because we imagine that Jesus is eye rolling us whenever we go to him and we say I got these broken pieces and we imagine Jesus just going again you're bringing me this again Drew how many times we talked about this

how many times we worked through this okay you did it again you did it five minutes ago you're doing it again that's what we imagine that's not a good father if your father did that to you I'm I'm sorry. That was him being an imperfect father. As I'm sure I've done that, that was me being an imperfect, that was me being a sinner. Where my kids would come to me and say, I've done this and I'm sorry. And my response is an eye roll and a snark of disbelief. Again, that's not what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying the opposite of that. That's what we see in Hebrews, Jesus is our great sympathetic high priest and he says I know how hard that is I went through it myself I know it's tempting to try to control how people see you I know that it's tempting to maintain your own image Drew why don't you give that burden to me that's what Jesus says look look I get it I get I

Understand how heavy that is. I know that's hard I get it Why don't you just give me the keys to that? Because I can handle it much better In fact, I can use it to create something beautiful All you're gonna do with those keys is wreck it again and again and again. Don't do it Give me the keys Let me run Give that burden to me. The last verse in 4.16 expands on this. Hebrews 4:16 says, let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. When do we need to receive mercy and find grace? When we've blown it. This is why I believe whenever 14 is talking well, let's hold fast to our confession. I look at two verses later and I'm saying, I'm listening to this and I'm saying, the Lord God in heaven is saying, I'm gonna have times when I don't feel confident enough to approach the throne of grace,

which is ironic, because it's the throne of grace, but I feel like I need to deserve to approach the throne of grace. So what he's saying is, look, I get it, I get it. You haven't been faithful to your commitment to Jesus. Yes, I understand that. even in the midst of that approach with confidence. We need confidence when we've sunk to a new low in our sin. When we've hit bottom, when we feel like we are disqualified in the harshest sense of that term. Not like you don't get to bowl this time, but like disqualify, like fired, exiled. removed, excommunicated. We need confidence in that scenario the most. And this is why we can all fast our confession. This is why we need to remember that Jesus is sympathetic. And this is why our encouragement is to approach the King of Kings, the eternal God, the creator of the universe, the one that we should not approach at all we have no business being in that throne room but but in

Hebrews and in all the scripture we see that it's it's not just that we kind of get to kind of creep in sort of scary like I wonder what he's gonna do it's that we get to just go in with confidence why why do we have that confidence especially, especially after we sin, especially after we sin big. We're not confident in our ability to fix things. We're not confident in our, you know, hey, we've been here before. We're not called to go into the throne room of grace and say, God, listen, I messed up, but have I got a deal for you?

It's gonna be so great. I'm gonna build this whole thing back. No, I've got it all in my head. No, I know you okay. I you want the keys. I'm gonna keep the keys God. I've got this all figured out. It's gonna be so beautiful so good and God in all of his majesty In and he I mean all of his majesty then deserve like we don't deserve to be listened to in that moment It's not no we don't deserve anything We're we're we're we're stepping on to to grace at that point in confidence. And what we need to understand is that we approach the throne of grace to receive grace, because we don't deserve it. We don't deserve to be there. We need mercy. We need grace. We're going to move into our time invitation. And I want you to, just as we kind of move through this time,

I want to encourage you to pray. I want to encourage you to pray through a few things in particular. And so I'm just going to lead us in a guided prayer and then we're going to sing. And I want that prayer to continue. If there's a decision that you need to make during that time of invitation, if you want to join our church, You can come on up. If you wanna be baptized, you can come on up. If you just wanna receive prayer, you wanna give your life to Jesus for the very first time, come on up and we'll pray together. It'll be great. You'll be received.

My encouragement though during this time, let's approach the throne of grace with confidence. Let's pray. Jesus, gracious and merciful to us. You are tender. You are sympathetic. Right now, as we pray, I want you to consider something that you are hanging onto, something that you feel disqualifies you. I want you to identify that right now. You can ask the Lord to help you identify that. What disqualifies you? Is it a big sin? Is it a pattern of sin? What disqualifies you? I want you to pray something different. I want you to pray this prayer. I want you to pray, Lord, help me take that next step. We're not gonna solve the disqualification issue in a half second here. But if the Lord has pricked your heart and said, listen, you're dealing with some disqualification, there's some steps you need to take in response to it. Let's pray right now. Jesus, show me what that next step is.

And now let's pray for courage. Ask the Lord for courage to take that step. Jesus, we love you. We thank you for this opportunity. As we sing, as we wrestle, you would help us to take that next step with you. Amen. Let's stand as we sing. Oh soul are you weary in trouble? A light in the darkness you see? There's light for a look at the Savior. Life more abundant and free And turn your eyes upon Jesus Look for in his wonderful faith And the things of earth will grow strangely He did in the light of His glory and grace Through death into life everlasting He passed and we followed Him there Over us and no more hath dominion For more than conquerors we are, And turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of his glory and grace. His word shall not fail you, He promised Believe Him and all will be

Then go to a world that is dying It's perfect salvation to tell And turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of his glory and grace. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim In the light of His glory and grace Main standing for just a minute, let me pray over us. Jesus, help us to conquer shame. Help us to know that you have settled that debt.