Welcome to the audio podcast of The Father's House. We hope and pray you are both challenged and encouraged by this time in the word. Come on, let's welcome all the locations right now. Calvary, Canada, East Bay, Roseville, Napa, everybody on the street prison church network, the ladies at Chino prison, everybody outside the room. We love you. Hey, before you're seated, all locations turn to somebody next and tell them the word's gonna hit you right in the heart today, right in the heart. All right, pull up a chair. Thank you, man. Well, hey, I hope you're enjoying this series, the book of Mark, the ministry years of Jesus. And today we're gonna look at an awkward moment in the ministry of Jesus. It even seems out of character for Christ, what we're gonna read in Mark seven. It's a puzzling portion of scripture at first read. And I wanna unpack it today because there's some great application for you. And then I wanna introduce the message by asking you a question. And here it is, will you pass the test? That's the title and the big question today. Will you pass the test? And yes, I said test plural. How many figured out there's a lot more than one in this spiritual journey? It's about the testing of our faith. Now, I didn't do so good in high school. I don't know if it was an IQ issue. I was just bored and uninterested. So when the tests would come around and this lady's over here waving me too. That's why I found the parking lot and I found my tribe there. But anyway, that's a whole story about deliverance. So, you know, I really didn't get up for the exams, but you knew the big mid-semester tests are coming, right? The exams, you need a prep for them. But how about back in the day, when I went to junior high in high school, we had something called the pop quiz. Anybody remember the pop quiz? Is that still a thing? Let me talk to my younger people, is there, no? So the pop quiz is you just come in and you get blindsided by a test. You're just like, "Really? Today?" And I would submit that's the way your spiritual journey works. You're going along, you know there's gonna be some exams, but in any given moment, there's a pop quiz. You're in the middle of a test and here's the problem with the test. You don't know you're in the test so you're just about out of it. If you'd have known at the front end, you'd like buckled up and get my worship game on and okay. Wouldn't it be great, it's the emergency broadcasting system. Remember that you're watching TV? All of a sudden, this obnoxious noise. For the next 60 seconds, wouldn't it be great if there was one of those from heaven just for you? For the next three months, you're being a test. You're entering a test and your destiny depends on your response. Yeah, yes please. But no, life is all about tests that we see coming but they don't see coming. But they serve a purpose in your life. So before we go to Mark, I want to read this verse out of James. Look at this, dear brothers and sisters, when troubles and trials of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. Time out, are you kidding? Are you reading this? How counterintuitive is that? Trial hits your life. You're like woo hoo, opportunity joy, let's go. No. For you know that when your faith is tested, could you read the bowl with me, when your faith is tested? I underline when because it's not if it is in fact when. Your endurance has a chance to grow, so let it grow for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be mature and complete, lacking nothing. Now here's the big idea I want to share today. Faith is always tested and great faith is tested greatly, okay? So we're going to jump into Mark chapter seven. I want to set up these moments that we're going to unpack. Mark 724, then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tyre. He didn't want anyone to know which house he was staying in, but he couldn't keep it a secret. So at this point in Jesus' ministry, historians believe he was about two and a half years in, so about six months left, he would go back to Jerusalem, prepare for the passion week and the cross, but he was full celebrity status. I mean the paparazzi was out, the Pharisee critics were out, the crowds were excessive of 20,000 people. They were actually following Jesus further and further distances away. People would come to see him teach and preach and do miracles and they were traveling long distances. It was kind of like, I don't know, the Swifties in London kind of vibe, right? They're just, let's get to Jesus no matter what. So Jesus says, guys, we need a vacation, man. We need some R and R. So he gets together with the boys, the disciples. He says, we're going to go up to the region of Tyre. We're going to go to Tyre, hang out on the Mediterranean coast and refresh our souls. I love a visual, how about you? I love a good visual. So just so you know, here's Tyre, they were going to that city. Tyre and Sidon were known as Syrophoenician region. It was a pagan Canaanite region, all right? That the Israelites, the Jewish people did not travel to that region. Now you can see the Sea of Galilee and down below here, just below the map would be Jerusalem. Jesus did about 70, 75% of his ministry, right around the villages of the Sea of Galilee and he would travel out from there. It would be about a two day walk. It's around 40 miles from the Sea of Galilee to Tyre. In antiquity, the average day travel was right around 20 miles. So he says, hey, we're going to walk for two days and we're going to head up to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And the reason was this, Jesus knew intuitively, and I love this about Jesus. Something about Mediterranean weather and water. Sitting next to the ocean in a lawn chair, having a good meal, ah, doesn't it refresh? That's my Jesus right there. That's Jesus on vacation. If there was air travel, I think he'd go to Maui. So he tells the boys, we're going to go away for some R&R and maybe find a bit of anonymity and hang out where nobody knows me. And so we head up to this region, but the disciples are like, no, wait, time out. Are you kidding me? Tyre and Sidon, those people are pagans. They were of Canaanite origin, which was a long-standing feud between them and the Jewish people. They were hated and despised. That was the last place the disciples thought Jesus would go for vacation. The first century Jewish historian Josephus, he wrote this. "The people of Tyre and Sidon are our bitterest enemies." Jesus once said that on the day of judgment, even Tyre and Sidon would have repented if they'd seen the mighty works you've seen, meaning that even the most wicked and godless people that you know. Jesus used the people of this region to say, even the worst of the worst. So they're going up to vacation with the people that they hate, the worst of the worst, and why is that? Because as we've talked in the last few weeks, Jesus was always led by the Holy Spirit and he said, I don't do anything except I see the Father doing it. So Jesus would spend time in prayer in the mornings, a solitary place, he'd get his marching orders. So there's something more to the vacation on the coast than just lawn chairs and good food. There is a surprise. So we're going to read the narrative now out of Mark seven. So he gets there, he's in this home. "Right away a woman who had heard about him came and fell at his feet. Her little girl was possessed by an evil spirit and she begged him to cast out the demon from her daughter. Since she was a Gentile born in Syrian Phoenicia, Jesus told her, first I should feed the children my own family, the Jews. It isn't right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs." She replied, well, that's true, Lord, but even the dogs under the table are allowed to eat the scraps from the children's plates. That's a heavy conversation. Then he told her, for such a reply, you may go, the demon has left your daughter. Now, let's back up just a bit to this out of character moment for Jesus. He says, it's not right. I want you to envision they're sitting at a table, all the disciples lined up. There's food on the table. This Canaanite pagan woman comes in, probably weeping, falls at her knees, begging for mercy for her demon-possessed daughter. And Jesus says, it's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. What was happening in this moment was Jesus just having a rough day? Was he exhausted emotionally and mentally and physically and having a less than Jesus quality moment? Was he reverting back to rabbinic knowledge of women in Canaanite Gentiles? What was going on? I would submit that Jesus was setting up a test, but not just one. There was a test for the disciples, but there was also a test for the lady seeking healing. Now, when he says to the dogs, we shouldn't take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs, there is a Greek nuance that someone point out that he said little dogs, that's what the word means. So whether it was puppies or dogs, there's no way around the fact that this was a racial slur. The Jewish people referred to Gentiles as dogs. So this is a harsh moment and in the middle of it, we see the work of the Holy Spirit. If you take a moment and really, just let the Holy Spirit breathe on this, Jesus was up to something beyond the rude or apparently rude statement. So the woman comes in and in Matthew, there's some more detail given to this. And I love Matthew's account. Look at this in verse 23. So here's the woman, she's kneeling down, she's balling, she's broken, she's asking for her daughter, but Jesus gave her no reply, not even a word. So we have awkward silence. We've got the woman crying, we've got the disciples looking around the table and Jesus doesn't even glance at her. He does not say a word, it's awkward. Nobody says anything. So Jesus actually extends the moment and makes it even a little more uncomfortable when he says, we shouldn't take this bread and feed it to the dogs. What was he doing? This was a test for his disciples. You see, they've been walking with Jesus for two and a half years. This is post, I must go through Samaria to sit at a well with a woman with a bad reputation. This is post, let the little children come unto me for such are the kingdom of God. They didn't let the little children get close to the rabbi. This was post allowing a leper to run up to him in public, an unclean man and receive healing. This is post the woman caught in adultery when Jesus said, neither do I accuse you, go and send no more. This is post Jesus telling them that the kingdom would be comprised of those who come from the east to the west. He was speaking of Gentiles and those who were not of Jewish descent. So they already saw his MO. They knew how he operated, yet in this moment he reverts back to rabbinical verbiage and posture regarding a Canaanite woman. And then he waits for them to respond. And how did they respond? Jesus send her away. She's bothering us. Really? After all you've seen, after all he's poured into you, that's your response. Send her away. She's bothering us. They failed the test. They just flat failed the test. Now, there would be other tests that they would pass and then they would fail again. They would deny him on the night of his betrayal. How many glad that Jesus, the Holy Spirit, a merciful God, when you fail a test, it's not over. It's anybody else tanked a couple tests besides me, right? And don't forget this. When you fail a test and someone's involved in it personally, they take a snapshot of that moment. And it's unfortunate, but they will remember you in that failure. God doesn't do that. He sees you in the video of your life. He sees all the days of your life and he knows you're gonna get back up. He knows that that failure does not define who you are as a son and as a daughter. Guys, listen, I've failed some tests and as I was meditating and praying over this, failure in ministry just kept coming to my mind. Conversations I wish I'd handled differently. People I wish I would have shepherd better and things that I could give you some illustrations, but I'll not do that for time's sake. But I realize this, it's the grace and mercy of God that in our failure and missing a test like these guys did, the Lord still says, okay, I'm gonna give you another chance down the road. But let me ask you the what if? What if one of the disciples, when she runs up to the table after finding her way to Jesus and she's on her knees, broken, what if one of the disciples would have said, hey, ma'am, could I get you a cup of water? Seems like you've been walking for a little while. Maybe another disciple, maybe Andrew goes, hey, you know, you can have my chair. We got plenty of food on this table right now. Maybe one of the other disciples jumps up and says, hey, Jesus, I think we should go with her to pray for her daughter. What would Jesus have done? Ding, ding, ding, ding, we have a winner. You ace the test, this was the test all along. And here's the test we have as Christ followers. When those that you would ask Jesus to send away come to the table of your life, will you pull out a chair? Or will you ask Jesus to get rid of them? Four applications from this story. Here's the first one. Recognize the people in your life that you would ask Jesus to send away. Let's just get real here here at church. It's a good place for truth. We all have people or lists of people in our life that we default to. Jesus, could you get rid of them? Let me just read a few. Is it a particular person for you? Is it a relative? Is it a political party? Say law. Is it an ethnicity? Is it successful people, homeless people, good looking people, rainbow people, religious church attending people? I guarantee you we all have a list where there's some body or some group that when they come up, our first response is not, oh yeah, you're welcome here, but Jesus, could you get rid of them? Now, maturing as a Christ follower is coming to a place where our hearts are so filled with compassion. And I'm not there yet, but I'd like to be. That no matter the outcast, no matter the history, no matter the feud, no matter the awkwardness, my response is to say, they came to Jesus. My job, the least I can do is I'm gonna pull out a chair. Are you with me? We've gotta recognize it. Because listen, we all suffer at some level with something that's happened in our life, and it's this, we've all suffered some rejection in some way. No matter how successful you are, good looking reputation, finances, we've all suffered rejection. We know what it feels to not have a place at a table. And I was flashing back to junior high, and I don't remember much of it, but what I do is painful. It wasn't a good experience for me. In fact, Tony Campolo, a great author, he said this, the Roman Catholic theology of purgatory come to find out it's true. There is a place you go to suffer between heaven and hell before you die, and it's called junior high school. (audience laughs) I think it's theologically accurate. So I went to Joseph Lane, junior high in Roseburg, Oregon, and up back in the day, and in Oregon, junior high was seventh, eighth, ninth grade. High school was 10, 11, 12. But in the ninth grade, if you are part of the 4H club class, do we have any 4H people? Three of us, and we're proud and loud. I love you. We rode the horses, we roped the goats, we did the deal. Now, I went to 4H to study ornamental horticulture, to learn how to grow plants. Yes, my motives were twisted, but that's another deliverance. (audience laughs) So what they would do for the ninth grade, true story. What they would do for the ninth graders is they would put us in a van at junior high, just before lunch, and they would drive us over to the high school. We'd eat lunch in the big cafeteria with the big kids, then we went to our ornamental horticulture class to learn how to grow some shrubs. And so, I get there, it's the first day. I walk into the cafeteria, it's massive. It seems like there's thousands of grown up people, and I kind of grew up late, so I'm just this little guy, a little ninth grader sneaking around. And I walk in, and in this cafeteria at Roseburg High, they had all these vending machines. We didn't have that at the junior high, and this was a big deal back in the day. You could get all kind of snacks. You just go over there and drop your quarters in. Wow, that's cutting edge. But I was over with the commoners in the cafeteria line. Does anybody remember the cafeteria line? I remember the little brown trays with all the little dividers and the drink holder, you know? You go down the line behind the sneeze guard and the ladies with the hair nets, they're slopping the gruel on your plate, right? A little cream corn, little mystery meat, you know? (audience laughing) So I get to the end of the line like this, and I turn around, and there they are. This multitude of people, and I don't belong there, and I realize, and there was names for every people group, the socies, the jocks, the cheerleaders, the nerds, and the names changed, but the people groups remained the same. And I realized this, there was no table for me. And I remember standing there in a panic, looking around, thinking, and there was no one going, "Hey Dave, come here, you can sit by us, come on. "Hey, little junior high kid, come here." None, zip, just this cacophony of noise, and I panicked, I froze, and I remember wondering out of the cafeteria, and just going sitting, and don't feel sorry for me, I'm just sharing this to connect with you. (audience laughing) I've recovered, mostly. I remember going, sitting outside by myself. You know, one of the greatest joys in life is when you realize you're accepted. When you have community, when someone's waiting for you at the table, when somebody pulls out a chair for you, and they say, "Hey, come here, we've been waiting for." That's a great joy in life. But there's no pain quite like being rejected and outcast. That's what this woman was. No, this is a side detail, but even to this day, this is getting very transparent. I'll be in green rooms and conferences and meetings with people. I'm like, "Wow, I get to hang with them." And sometimes I look around a room and I still got that tray in my hand. Isn't that crazy? Well, God wants to take that tray out of your hand in mine and let you know that there's a place at the table, no matter what you've been through. There is no rejection in Christ. He said, "Those who come to me, I will in no wise, "that means no way, no way, no way cast out." When you come to Christ, you are accepted. But here's what we have to do. The second point is this. You got to intentionally make a place for the outsider. I want to ask you to do that. How do you do that, Dave? Well, there's a lot of ways. Could be a phone call, a dinner invitation, inviting somebody, a small group, sending a letter. There's a thousand ways to pull out a table and they would be specific to you and the outsiders in your life, but let me just submit this one. Start praying for them. Pray for that group where your initial gut response is Jesus, send them away. Make them now a focus of your intercession and you'll notice that your heart will begin to enlarge and you will prepare yourself to pull out a table. Amen? A chair, excuse me. Let's go now, last two points to the woman. So the disciples failed the test. There would be another one, okay? But let's look at this lady now. Unnamed, Canaanite woman. And I want to read this because again, Matthew gives us some detail. She's standing in this moment of judgment, this moment of rejection. It was silent, but I'm sure it was deafening. And in Matthew it says this, she came to him pleading, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, master son of David." She uses this term that was exclusive to the Jewish understanding of whom Messiah would be. And she calls him son of David. Now, which tells me something about this woman. She'd been digging into the Torah. She'd traveled to some synagogues. She'd studied the scrolls of Isaiah and Zechariah and Amos. She knew that when Messiah came, that he would set the oppressed free. The captives, their chains would be broken off. She knew that his title, because he was from the lineage of David, was he would be the son of David. So there's a key here I don't want you to miss, tucked into this story. And it's this, she had mega faith, Jesus said. Great, or mega is your faith. How does she get that faith? I have right here, these are some mustard seeds. And you've seen mustard seeds, right? Here you go, bro. Harvest come in your way, man. Phil, here, plant some mustard seeds for the glory of God. They're so small, they couldn't see him. They didn't even know if I threw him out him. (congregation laughing) These are the tiniest little seeds. And Jesus said, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you could say to a mountain, be removed and thrown into the seed. Then a mustard seed, although it's the smallest of seeds, it becomes the mightiest of plants in a garden and ends up being a tree that the birds of the air can find shelter in. Mustard trees in their region would grow to be about 15 feet tall. First as a plant and then a 15 foot tall tree. And Jesus said, all you need is a mustard seed. So how do we get faith for a miracle? How did this Canaanite woman that heard about Jesus have faith and run up to the table? Well, her confession gives evidence that she'd been hiding the word in her heart. She called him son of David, a Canaanite woman from Tyre and Sidon would have never known that. So somewhere in her life, she was taking the seed of the word and just tucking it away. Tucking the word away. Hiding the word in your heart that you might not sin against Him. Your words that lamp in my feet and a light into my path. You'll never forsake the righteous. Oh, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. I'm gonna have a whole pocket full of mustard seed. Yes, you should be jealous. What happens when you tuck the seed of the word in your heart? Then you water it with time, the presence of God, which is the water. You tear the weeds, the bitterness and anger and envy out by the work of the Holy Spirit and you become the good soil. And then in the moment when you need a miracle, you're gonna find something. Faith comes, everybody say, faith comes. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. An accurate way to say this. Faith comes by hearing what God is saying and it's revealed through what God has said. So when I get what God has said in my heart, I'm telling you, I don't sit around my desk in my office going, I need to memorize scripture so I can quote it while I preach to impress the visitors. I don't even sit around memorizing scripture. I just read it over and over again. I read it out loud. Sometimes in the morning, I'll be in Psalms. If it's Psalm 119, I'll say God, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. Oh God, my King and my Redeemer. I'll just tuck that seed in my heart. You keep putting the seed in. You keep watering the seed and when the moment comes, you're not gonna stand there in rejection. Something will rise up in you where you approach the table and you say, Jesus, son of David, have mercy. And Jesus said, oh, woman, great, mega is your faith. It's a tuck the word of God. That's the third point. Deliberately plant seeds of faith in your heart, dig into the word. And one more thing before we move to the last point, I'll call up the band in a moment. It's gonna take some time. You gotta plant the seed, you gotta water the seed. Don't worry about the harvest. Don't worry about you producing fruit. You cannot strain fruit out of your life. Can't force fruit. Just stay planted, stay watered. So reverting back this kind of a school theme for me today. But maybe it was third grade. Your teacher, you all put some soil on one seed in a Dixie cup, remember? And you took it home, put a little water on it. You set it at the kitchen counter. There was always a little window by the kitchen counter over the sink. It stared out to the little fence in the backyard, whatever your experience was. And you set the little cup there and you tell, Mom, Mom, I got a seed in here. And it's gonna make a plant. And then you jumped up the next morning, you sprinted into the kitchen. Looking for what? The plant. No plant. You did this day after day after day and you thought, this doesn't work. Because you're in the third grade. Sure enough though, a couple weeks down the road, three weeks down the road, you walk into the kitchen and so it is with the seed of the word in your life. You are never wasting time when you're in this building hearing the preaching and the teaching of God's word. You are never wasting time when you get up in the morning and open up the book of Psalms and begin to pray. You are never wasting time in a biblical studies small group or going to our biblical studies class. What are you doing? You're setting yourself up for mega faith. You're setting yourself up for the miracle you need in your life. The final point today is this. Do not interpret delay or God's silence as denial or defeat. Press in. Now at Luke 18, you guys know what it says. Jesus taught a parable showing them that men should always pray and never give up. And there was this widow who had a crime committed against her and she went to an unjust judge and she kept coming back and back, you know the parable. But he said this, how much more? Did you say that with me? How much more? How much more will your heavenly father quickly respond to your request as sons and daughters? And so we have to interpret the silence of God for what it is. Let me ask you a personal question. How do you interpret the delays and the apparent disinterest of God in your life? How do you interpret that? It's very important. Maybe you interpret as well, you know God's kind of busy. You run in the universe, I get it. He doesn't have time for me. It seems to be a fairly small problem in the scope of all that's going on or you know God's got bigger fish to fry like you know with the election and all coming. He's got to be just overwhelmed or maybe you say this, you know I probably send a bit too much. I've probably been missing an action a little too long. I'm not on the get your prayers answered list. There's a lot of ways that we filter and interpret the delays of God, the apparent disinterest of God. And I want to bring some clarity from this woman who got her prayer answered for you in this. Delay is not denial. The silence of God is not rejection. It's a test. (audience cheers) You're in a test. Will you jump up the deafening silence of rejection at the table and sprint out of the building? Say he didn't answer my prayer. Where are those will say, I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to ask and keep asking. I'm going to stay at the feet of Jesus 'cause I know who he is. I know what his word says and I know he will answer my prayer in due season. So I'm going to keep praying. I'm going to keep pressing. I'm going to keep running after God until. Come on, somebody say until. (audience cheers) We need some people that will wait until. They will pray until. They will give until. They will fast until because at the other side of until, God will not be mocked. Do not be deceived. If you so to the spirit, you will of the spirit, reap life. We got to get some. I'm going to wait on God. I will renew my strength. I'm not going anywhere. Let me have the band come up. Let me just say that as I'm preparing messages to speak to you, I usually preach it myself thoroughly before I get on this stage. The word convicts and convinces me before I get a chance to share it. And I realize that I have promises in my heart. I have things that I'm carrying that God has spoken to me that I just thought because of my age or longevity and ministry or whatever that maybe those are off the menu. And the Holy Spirit nudged me and says, what about you? Are you so prescient? Are you still believing? How are you interpreting this delay? How are you interpreting the apparent disinterest of God? And I'm repentant of that. If God can fulfill Caleb's promise when he's 80, if God can use Abraham at 100 years old to be the father of many nations and the list is long, let me just tell you, do not let age, seniority in the body of Christ, your resume pass failures. Whatever you've been through, do not let that disqualify you from being those of mega faith. Stand and say, I'm gonna believe. I'm gonna believe until he's a faithful God. He always keeps his promises. Not one word that he's spoken will fall to the ground. So in conclusion, he was testing your faith, not denying her request. But there are two essential ingredients that I see in her life and in many of the people that Jesus ministered to. If you consider this centurion, we studied him a few weeks ago and his young servant that he loved was dying and he ran to Jesus. Jesus was amazed in his faith. We talked about Jairus who had the sick daughter, her daughter ended up dying. He ran to Jesus, the woman who pressed through the crowd with the issue of blood. Go on and on, the leper who came right into the public square and fell at Jesus' feet. Here's what I see. For those who receive miracles, there's a combination of desperation and faith. And they are not mutually exclusive. You can be desperate and still have great faith. See, desperation, if we'll allow it, pushes us into uncomfortable situations. In fact, desperation by its very definition means this, to be pushed to a place of extreme behavior. Push to a place of what this woman did was extreme behavior. Mary broke, breaking open that alabaster jar and anointing Jesus' feet and washing his feet with her hair. Extreme behavior, find any miracle. You'll find somebody had a situation that couldn't fix. Somebody had a problem that needed an only God answer. And in that desperation, there's a variety of options. You could ignore it, you could medicate your way through it, you could run from God, you could get bitter, you could quit church and say it didn't work. There's a lot of responses that people have. The accurate response is this. I'm going to allow my desperation to push me closer to the only one who can solve my problem. That's what this woman did. So what does that look like for you? For you, maybe extreme behavior would be, as we stand in just a moment, you get up and walk to the altar for the first time and ask someone to pray for you. Maybe that's extreme for you. Maybe today lifting your hand and say, "Jesus, I want to surrender my life." Maybe that's extreme. Maybe going on a three day fast for that son or daughter is in bondage would be extreme behavior. Maybe giving radically and generously in the middle of a financial crisis, extreme behavior. The Holy Spirit will lead you into what that is. And I just pleaded with you. I would ask you today, do not let your desperation drive you from the only one who can solve your problem. Let it drive him toward you in Jesus' name, amen? Let's bow our heads, campus pastors, you can go into a ministry time. Father, I thank you for the power of your word. I thank you for this woman who would not be denied. I thank you Lord that even the scraps will change our life. So Lord, I ask today for everyone in this gathering and on the stream that are facing an only God conundrum, a box canyon reality, something that looks bigger than they can fix. I pray that they would not turn away, but their desperation would cause them to come close. I just pray that over you today. With our heads bowed, if there's anybody in this gathering, you see a pastor Dave, I'm hearing the Holy Spirit speaking to me, but I gotta tell you, I'm away from God today. I've got sin in my life, I got distance in my life, I know I need a savior, I need to either recommit or fully surrender for the first time. Heads bowed, a moment, a holy moment, but if that's you, and you say today's my day, I need to come home, fully surrender my life and say, "Jesus, be Lord of my life." Would you look up at me right now and just wave at me? Don't be shy, just lift your hands, say, "Today is my day, I'm coming home." Come on, if that's you anywhere in the room, just lift it up and wave up here, God bless you. If there's anybody else, just lift up that hand, say, "Jesus, I'm coming right here, sir." Over here, bro, right here, man, thank you. Respond to him, this is between you and him. I'm acknowledging and agreeing with this commitment. And we're gonna pray, and we're gonna pray two different ways. I'm gonna pray a prayer as we do, a moment of saying, "Jesus, be Lord of my life." It's a powerful moment. And then as we stand to our feet, the band's gonna worship, and I'm gonna ask you today, if you usually just bolt straight to your car, but you got something going on, don't do that. Come forward, find some, one of our leaders, our pastors, our small group leaders, and say, "Hey, today I'm bringing my desperation," and receive prayer. Now we're gonna pray a declaration with those who lifted their hand, and those are really on this journey of coming full circle back to Jesus. I'd like everybody in the room to repeat after me, and say, "Dear Lord Jesus, today is my day, I'm coming home." I thank you for this invitation. I feel your love and compassion. I feel you drawing me, and I respond with a yes. I say yes to your love. I say yes to your forgiveness. Jesus, be Lord of my life. Cleanse my sin and make me your own. And I'll be your disciple until I see you face to face. In Jesus' name, amen. Come on, let's stand to our feet, give the Lord a surprise. If you need prayer, come this way, we love you guys, have a great weekend. For more information on our church, log on to our website at TFH.org, or check out the TFH app. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
