- 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. - Thank you, thank you, good morning. Well, it's not morning anymore, good noon. Hello everyone. Hey, let's welcome our other locations right now. Come on, give it up for them, give a shout. All of our other locations joining in, the family rooms. We love you guys, church online. Thank you guys, can go ahead and take your seats today. Thank you, Ben. You guys are awesome. Wanna give one more special shout out to a special group that's in the room. This week was the first week of the Leadership College class of 2025. We have many of their beautiful faces down here. Awesome leaders who have given up nine months of their lives to really go all in and pursue the things of God and pursue the call of God in their lives. So we love you guys, we're proud of you. And we are excited for the big things that God's gonna do in you this year. We are closing out the series in the Book of Mark. And anybody, were you guys here last weekend for Pastor Dave's message? Wasn't that awesome? Man, it was so good. He talked about the great exchange that Jesus made for us on the cross. And now we can bring him our ashes and he gives us beauty. We can bring him our morning. He gives us a garment of praise and just this amazing thing that takes place at the cross. Cross is a crucial element to the Christian faith. But we also know that the cross is not the end of the story. We know that three days later, Jesus rose from the grave and he defeated death in hell and he proved for all time that he is God. He has overcome and defeated death and the empty tomb speaks of that and testifies that for all of eternity. So the empty tomb is also essential to Christian faith. And today we are actually not going to be talking about the empty tomb. So come back at Easter. We should talk about that more than just Easter, but we're not gonna do it today. So today we're gonna talk about the events that came after Jesus rose from the grave in the couple of days just following when he rose from the grave. And we're gonna take a look at how those events apply to us in this day and age. And for most of our time, we'll be in Mark chapter 16. But before we jump into Mark, I do want to start with a passage out of the gospel of Matthew. 'Cause this passage will give us a little bit of direction to run with, a little bit of a framework for how the rest of this sermon is gonna play out. And so this passage is a famous one. It's where Jesus speaks through the ages to any and all who would call themselves disciple of Jesus even into our day and age. And he gives us a very clear mission of how to live this life and how to spend our short time here on this earth. The passage is famously referred to as the Great Commission. And if you would, all of our locations, would you just stand to your feet for a moment? And let's read out this passage of scripture. I'd like for all of us to read it together. So get your voice warmed up real quick, clear it out. ♪ Me, me, me, me ♪ Yeah, that was beautiful, wonderful. ♪ Was that Pastor Jude? Why aren't you on the worship team? (congregation laughing) He's like, I tried out, you guys wouldn't take me. Matt, no, I'm sure you have a wonderful voice. We're gonna read this together. Matthew 28, 18, read it with some passion. "Jesus came and told his disciples, "I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth, "therefore go and make disciples of all the nations, "baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son "and the Holy Spirit. "Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands "I have given you, and be sure of this. "I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Thank God for that. It's awesome, you guys can take your seats. It's good to honor the Word of God. So we're gonna draw some application points out of Mark chapter 16 to help us stay on mission with these things that Jesus has commanded us to do. And we're gonna start in Mark 16, verse nine. Says, "Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, "he appeared first to Mary Magdalene "from whom he had cast out seven demons." Now I wanna pause there because I think it's amazing that Jesus chose Mary. Mary was so bound, so broken, so filthy in her sin. Listen, she had seven demons living inside of her. Some of us can't even put up with seven out-of-town relatives at like holiday meals and things. She had seven demons, and yet Jesus said, "I'm gonna choose you to be a target for my mercy "and my grace and my redeeming power." (congregation applauds) And I love that, and he has this personal encounter with her where he sets her free, and then he invites her on a journey with him. She was actually one of many who accompanied Jesus in his days of ministry. There was more than just the 12 disciples. There were many disciples who followed Jesus around in the days of his ministry, and Mary was one of them. But she got to experience the kingdom of God coming to earth firsthand. And that's something that Jesus wants to do for all of us. He wants to give us a personal encounter with him, and then invite us on a faith journey with him where we get to witness his kingdom come on earth in a firsthand way. And I wanna tell you that if you're far away from God, or you wouldn't call yourself a believer here or online, any of our locations, I wanna let you know that Jesus wants to step into your circumstances just the way that you are, that you don't feel like you need to get cleaned up and perfect and get all your ducks in a row. Don't feel that pressure. Jesus wants to meet you right where you're at. However dark, however broken you feel like things may be, he has the power to reach in and to take you out of that place. He wants to heal you and restore you and give you a purpose for your life. Show you love and kindness and empower you and partner with you so that you can go and tell other people about what he's done in your life and he can do it in theirs as well. And maybe you're sitting here thinking, I don't know, I'm pretty far gone. I'm hopeless, I'm ashamed, I'm guilty, I'm addicted. I'm too broken to be repaired. I wanna tell you that there is no power of darkness, too great or too strong to keep the mighty hand of God from reaching into your situation, pulling you out, giving you a hope and a future in him, remember Jesus, or excuse me, not Jesus, Mary had seven demons, but he said I'm gonna use you to be a picture of my grace and my redemptive power and if you can do it for Mary, he can do it for you as well. Let me say with confidence and boldness, you might still not believe me. What he did for Mary, he can do for you as well. I've seen it in plenty of people, I've seen it in my own life, didn't have seven demons, but he sure did break through into the darkness of my life and he gave me his light and his joy, he can do that for you as well. And at the end of our time today, we're gonna give you an opportunity to invite Jesus into your circumstances and I hope you take him up on that so you can see firsthand personally that he can change your life, he can give you hope and a future and a purpose. So Jesus shows up, resurrected, appears to Mary, she's astonished, scared, excited, ecstatic and she runs and she tells the other disciples that she's seen him raised from the grave. Says she went and told those who had been with him as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. After these things, he appeared in another form to two of them as they were walking into the country and they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them. Afterward, he appeared to the 11 themselves as they were reclining at table and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. What can we learn from the disciples in this situation? We have to learn to choose to let the good reports of others stir your faith. Choose to let the good reports of others stir your faith. Now, at first, when you hear about Jesus showing up to a room full of his grieving disciples and rebuking them, you might think, Jesus, ease up on them a little bit, okay? Like, they're sad, they're grieving. You did die after all and they miss you. So you wanna just cut your boys a little bit of slack, like, just ease up on them a little bit. But Jesus knew he had to address something that was deeper than their grief. There was a state of their heart that needed to be addressed. The disciples were self-absorbed. And for a long time, I didn't understand what that term really meant. I always thought it meant selfish or arrogant. That's not what self-absorbed means. Self-absorbed means that you are so preoccupied with yourself, so inward gazing about your situation. In this case, maybe you are so preoccupied with your grief, your questions, your sorrow, your pain that you don't have eyes to see or ears to hear anything else. And the spiritual ramification of prolonged self-absorption is a hardened heart. And we find that when a hardened heart is met with someone else's good report, it responds with unbelief. And so maybe you start to see the glass as half empty and not half full. And maybe you start to question how genuine that person is who's raising their hand to give their life to Jesus. Maybe you start to wonder if that person who's been set free from their addiction is gonna relapse again soon. Or if that person who's been healed of their sickness is gonna find out that their diagnosis came back. And these are ugly nasty thoughts, but that's the reality of living with a hard heart. That is the norm when you are living with this state of rejecting the good news of other people and that calcification and that hard heart. And I understand that it's difficult to celebrate, it's difficult to hear what God has done in other people's lives, the good things that he's done for them, when you feel like God hasn't answered your prayer the way that you wanted him to, or in the timing that you wanted him to answer it. I know this from firsthand experience. Many of you know, my wife and I, our oldest daughter, has a long list of special needs. She's got brain damage, blindness, epilepsy, wheelchair bound, immobile, non-verbal. There's a lot of stuff happening there. And for over a decade, I've been praying for her healing. And for over a decade, it's been medication after medication and heartbreak after heartbreak and disappointment after disappointment and sleepless nights and hospital stays and she's having seizures and there's nothing that I can do about it and I feel so weak and powerless and helpless and I can't help her. And then I come into church and I start to hear about all the wonderful things that God's doing in the lives of his people. And someone in the baptism tank talks about how Jesus supernaturally and radically changed their entire life and someone else talks about how they were on death's doorstep and they had stage four cancer but then it miraculously disappeared. And when I hear these stories every single time, I have a choice to make. I have a choice. I can either choose to celebrate what God has done in this person's life and to agree with it and to let it stir my faith that if he did a miracle for them, he can do a miracle for me. (audience applauds) Or I can choose to focus on my own lack what I don't have and they do. I can choose to sit in my grief without any direction. I can choose to be bitter and cynical and let that harden my heart. Every time that we hear the good report of someone else, we have that option. We have that choice to make. I wish I could tell you that every single time I've been presented with that choice, I've chosen wisely. It's not true, not every time. And so I know that choosing to continually reject the good reports of others and live okay with having a hardened heart, it leads you to a place of bitterness, a place of stinginess, a place where there's not enough for anyone else, so you have to keep it through yourself, a place of ingratitude, a place of narrow-minded, small living, and that's not God's heart for you. That's not his will from you, for you. He wants you to live in a place of abundance. He wants you to live in a place of generosity and openness and breakthrough in those areas. And so we have to deal with unbelief. That's why Jesus showed up and he had to wake up his disciples 'cause there was still work to be done. See, unbelief will sabotage the mission and we have a mission to accomplish. So we need to deal with it. Says in Mark 1615, then he told them, go into all the world and preach the good news to everyone. I just love how straightforward and action-packed the book of Mark is. He's like, I rebuke you for your unbelief. Go preach to everybody. Like, okay, Jesus, great. So that's your next point, by the way. Preach the good news. Preach the good news. We are disciples of Jesus. And so this command is upon our lives as well. Sometimes easier said than done, I understand that. The moment that anyone becomes a disciple of Jesus, there is a mandate on our life to preach the good news. We've been commanded to preach the good news and to make disciples. That means that guess what? You are a preacher. Some of you are like, no, I am not. Yes, you are. According to Jesus, you are. You have been commanded and equipped. He will equip you to preach the good news. And for you, maybe that's just over a cup of coffee with a coworker. For you, maybe that's talking to a relative whose life is in shambles. For you, maybe it's just, it comes up naturally in conversation as the people in your life realize that, wow, you really do genuinely love me and care about me. Why is that? And then you get to start telling them about the hope that you have in Jesus. You may not be a theologian. You may not be a public speaker, but you don't need a stage. You don't need a soap box. You don't need a crowd. All you need is one person in your life who needs the love of God. And he will be faithful to bring those people into your life. Now let's talk about delivery for a moment. 'Cause this is where a lot of us, we get the concept of it, but in execution, it's like, you want me to do what? I'm going out and like, hey, believe in Jesus. Yeah, but let's talk about how to do that. It does require some tact and some self-awareness, right? Those are good things to have in every area of life, not just preaching the gospel. Big fan of tact and self-awareness, I think. I assume I have self-awareness, but that could be a dangerous assumption in itself. So yeah, have some self-awareness, but also don't shy away from the more fantastical and mystical things about being a Christian, because we need boldness. Boldness is required in all of this. And just to free you up, boldness doesn't mean loud volume and unrelenting intensity. Like, I'm gonna tell you about Jesus, whether you like it or not. Like that's not what boldness is. Boldness is just being straightforward and unashamed about the things that you believe. Just being bold. And boldness is required. I grew up encountering a lot of weird Christians. Anybody ever run into a weird Christian? Don't make eye contact with anyone in the room right now. I know, you're like, I'm looking at a weird Christian on stage right now. No, I would experience these people growing up in church and going to Christian school, going into the Christian bookstore with my family. And that was, I don't mean that everybody in the Christian bookstore was like this. It was just a joke for the people who've been around for a while. But I would grow up and I would run into these people and I would think, man, you're really bold about your faith, but you're super intense and you're really weird and you make me feel really uncomfortable. And I have to imagine that everyone else probably feels the same about you. I just started thinking, I thought Jesus was someone that people liked to be around. I don't really like being around you. Maybe this is just therapy for me and this service. But again, that's not so much them being Christians, as it is, tact and self-awareness. The point I'm trying to make is that I had so many of those bad experiences that growing up, I never wanted to be that weird Christian. I never wanted to repel unchurched people. I think most of us can honestly say, if you are a believer, you don't want to be the reason that someone says, nah, I'm good, I don't want Jesus, I don't want church, I had a bad experience with that guy. Like, we don't want to be that person. And I understand that. But sometimes we just got to get past that, you know? Sometimes we just need to get over ourselves and get to the point where we understand that Christianity gets a little uncomfortable for people sometimes. And that's okay. You know, in my attempts to not be weird, I found that I would often swing the pendulum way too far in the other direction. And the way that I would communicate to people about Jesus came out as very watered down. And it would sound something like this. Hey man, like, you know, no pressure or anything, but like if you want to come to church with me, you can. And like, the music's good and like, you'll be encouraged and stuff. It's like, okay. Those are good things and those are true things. And yeah, invite people in your life to church and we will be faithful to preach the gospel and they will hear the gospel here. But listen, people can experience good music and encouragement plenty of different places. They don't need church for that. What we are offering is much more, so much more than just good music and some encouragement. What we are offering is the very power of the risen Christ who is alive and well in his church today. (congregation applauding) And Jesus never said, bring in from all the world and make disciples. He said, go out into all the world and make disciples and that requires boldness on our part. And I think a lot of times we shy away from being bold outside of the four walls of the church because again, we don't want Christianity to look weird to people. But I got news for you guys. It's kind of weird. Like, there was one time where Jesus, he ran into a guy who couldn't hear and he couldn't speak, so you know what Jesus did? He put his fingers in the guy's ears and then he spit on the ground and then he put a finger on the guy's tongue and that's how he healed him. That's pretty weird. Like, we can be honest, that's pretty weird. Another time he runs into a guy who can't see and so he gets a bunch of mud and rubs it all over the guy's face and that's how he heals him. Kind of offensive, kind of weird, but you know what? It worked. And so what I'm trying to say is Christianity is not always going to come across as rational. The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved, it is the very power of God. And so Jesus is not always going to make sense to the logical mind, but that's okay. Christianity is weird and the sooner that we can embrace that, the sooner we can stop trying to help Jesus out by dressing him up in a way that we feel is appealing to a modern audience. He doesn't need that. He can stand for himself. He's done plenty fine for the last couple thousand years. (audience applauding) The Holy Spirit will move on our boldness. So just boldly tell people about what God's done in your life. And it can be very simple. I was lost, now I'm found. I was blind, now I see. I was a teenager who was depressed and numb and broken and confused and contemplating suicide. And the Lord Jesus broke through my clouds of darkness and he took me out of that and he set me in his light. He gave me a joy in my heart and a song to sing and a church family. He gave me purpose and vision for life. That's my testimony. And if he did it for me, he can do it for you. And it's that simple. And then if they don't want to hear about it, remember, tact and self-awareness. Don't beat them down with a conversation that they don't want to have. Just say, that's all right, Jesus loves you. So do I, I'll be praying for you. Bam, that's simple. And then you have to actually pray for them. Don't forget to actually pray for them because that's, that's where it all comes together, isn't it? Because we're not just sharing words with people. We are sharing an encounter with the Holy Spirit. Let's not forget that we're not the ones who reveal Jesus to people. We're not the ones who convict people of their sin and convince them of the reality of eternity. That's what the Holy Spirit does. And so the pressure's off of us to feel like we have to carry out this mission lone wolf, solo on our own. In fact, if you'll forgive the punny word play, I believe that you could truly call the great commission a co-mission where the Holy Spirit partners with his people to go into all the earth to be his kingdom come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. He wants to partner with us in this process. Jesus continues on to say, "These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe. "They will cast out demons in my name "and they will speak in new languages. "They will be able to handle snakes with safety "and if they drink anything poisonous, it won't hurt them. "They will be able to place their hands on the sick "and they will be healed." Now let me just address something real quick. A lot of people have done a lot of weird stuff with this passage of scripture over the years. They've twisted it, they've taken it out of context. They've used it to justify weird cult activity. That's not what Jesus is talking about. He's not saying if you work up enough faith, then you can handle deadly snakes and drink poison. You're gonna be all good if you have enough faith for it. What he's speaking to there with the snakes in poison is supernatural protection. He's saying when you're on mission, if God is not done with that mission, his protection, his hand, his power will be upon you and no devices of the enemy or darkness will be able to prevail against you. He's talking about supernatural protection there. He's not saying pick up snakes and go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and dance around. That's not what he's saying. In fact, in the book of Acts, we see this play out, the Apostle Paul, he's on the Isle of Malta and the snake jumps out and attaches itself to his arm. It's this deadly poisonous snake and he just shakes it off into the fire. Everybody's like, he's gonna die and then he didn't die. And they were like, he's a God. And he's like, no, I'm not, but I can introduce you to him. And that's exactly how this plays out, okay? But this is also more than just about protection. It's Jesus telling us that supernatural events and miracles should be expected anywhere that believers preach the gospel. He's saying that miracles should be the norm where the people of God are going out and preaching the gospel. Oftentimes, I think that as believers, we usually don't have a problem hoping for and even believing for miracles, but sometimes we get our priorities a little mixed up. Sometimes we emphasize the miracles over the gospel preaching part. Sometimes we chase after miracles, but we kind of neglect the commission itself. See, the miracles are the power of God on display, but the gospel is the love of God on display. And the mission is not about the power of God, the mission is about the love of God for God so loved the world, right? So the miracles and the supernatural power, they confirm and they testify to the supernatural love of God for a lost and broken world. Now, that doesn't just mean that miracles only take place in the context of preaching the gospel. Miracles are about relationship. Miracles are about God displaying his love in action for the people that he loves. But we can't deny that in the New Testament, the overwhelming majority of miracles take place in the context of the gospel being preached and lived out and acted out, okay? But it's not on us to perform miracles 'cause I don't know about you, but I can't work miracles. Like, I can't make those happen by myself. I need God's help. That's the whole point. We need his help. He is co-missioning with us. It continues on to say, so then the Lord Jesus after he had spoken to them was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere. Look at this, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs. Just a little note there. The verse before that says that Jesus went to heaven, sat down at the right hand of God and that next verse says the Lord worked with them. That's talking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was poured out on all believers in the day of Pentecost. He works with us. The Holy Spirit worked miracles with the disciples in the early church to preach the gospel just as the Holy Spirit wants to work miracles with you in your life and the people around you as you preach the gospel and you reach out to people about the hope that you have in Jesus. The Holy Spirit has chosen you to be the hands and feet of Jesus to the people in your life. He's chosen you to be the plan A to reach your family and your friends and your neighbors and the people at the grocery store and the people at the gym and the people on the street. He's chosen you to point them to a Savior that they have who can heal them of every affliction, whether it be spirit, soul, body or mind. He's chosen you to be that mouthpiece for him, to be that person. He's chosen you to be a carrier of his presence and a channel for his power. But if you don't speak to the people in your life about Jesus, who will? Who will? He has given you influence. He's divinely orchestrated on a daily basis that someone who is filled with his spirit and the message of grace would run into somebody who needs that. He's put you in the paths of these people so that you can share with them what you have. Evangelism is not a unique calling. It's not a personality type. It's not a special gift mix that only some people get and others don't. Believe me, I wish it was. It's uncomfortable for me. I get it. But that's not the case. Evangelism is a command. Jesus has commanded all disciples, including you and me, to go and preach the gospel. And if we don't do that, we're living in disobedience or being bad stewards of the things that he's given us. I know that this can be an uncomfortable topic. I know anytime you start throwing around the word command, things can start to get a little heavy. So I'm gonna invite the band to come up to help soften things a little bit. Band, you guys can come on up, help me out here. No, really, if I'm being completely honest with you guys, I really don't like messages like this. Whether I'm preaching them or listening to them, I really don't. It's uncomfortable for me. It's really, I'm not evangelism guy. I'm the guy who plays the guitar and sings. I'm not the guy who goes out and goes on crusades and does street evangelism. That's not me, that's not my personality. You don't want me to be that guy. I'm too awkward to be that guy. But, let me tell you about something that the Holy Spirit has taught me in this process. And maybe it'll help you a little bit. We have to keep in mind that the whole point of the gospel is the grace of God covering over our failures and working something beautiful and powerful in and through us in spite of our shortcomings, in spite of our failures. God is powerful in your weakness. Don't underestimate his ability to do something great, to do something miraculous, to do something amazing and life changing in the midst of your shortcoming. That's the point of the gospel. That's what he does best. It's never been about what we can do. It's about us being obedient and partnering with him and seeing his glory show up in our lives. I can still remember, by far, the worst message I've ever preached in my life. And there have been some bad ones. I'll tell you something. About 10 years ago, I had first started preaching with some sense of frequency. I had just kind of gotten started. If I'm being honest, never really wanted to be a preacher, but I was being obedient to my leaders and I was being obedient to what I felt like the call of God was on my life. Super uncomfortable for me. But I got up this one day, it was a youth service. My wife actually reminded me of this charming little detail after the first service. Apparently I had told her, I don't need any notes. I don't need notes for this service. Thank you for that reminder. So I get up there and guys, I am absolutely laying an egg on stage for this youth service. I'm just tripping over my own words multiple times. I just straight up lock up, freeze up in front of everybody. Like if you've ever seen that video of that raccoon who gets caught in the porch light and just stands up and goes, (audience laughs) that was me at a youth service. I just like, my wife was on the front row and I would just get this pleading look in my eyes like, help me. She's like, you didn't bring any notes up. What do you want me to do for you? I don't have cue cards here. And so I'm just like, absolutely losing it, getting nauseous, breaking into a cold sweat in front of a room filled with unimpressed teenagers. I've had literal nightmares, like actual nightmares about this scenario and I was living it out, okay? It was the kind of thing where I just felt like, man, I am butchering the Bible. No one's gonna love Jesus. No one's gonna believe in the Bible. No one's gonna wanna be a Christian anywhere ever for the rest of eternity because I'm doing so bad in this moment. I was just so embarrassed. I wanted to just walk out of the room and just keep walking until I fell off the face of the planet if I'm being honest with myself. But either out of a sense of obedience or more likely out of a sense of stubbornness. At the end of the message, I gave people an opportunity to invite Jesus into their lives and they did. Like they actually like multiple hands went up, like I wanna give my life to Jesus. And I was like, really? Are you sure? Did you hear what I just like, how I messed all that up? But you really wanna do that. It astounded me, it blew me away. But it taught me something. It taught me that you don't need a perfect and smooth delivery. You don't need to wait for the perfect time and the perfect place. All you need is obedience and boldness and the Holy Spirit will move in and through that. And you know, maybe this is just a personal revelation that I've had, take it if you need to. But I've realized that it's actually quite narcissistic for me to think that someone else's salvation hinges on my ability to communicate something to them. (congregation applauding) The heavenly Father loves his lost sons and daughters far too much to give me that much power and responsibility. He's gonna work and move through me. All I need to do is be obedient and be bold and the Holy Spirit will make up the difference. And it's the same for you. It's the same for you. Just be obedient, be bold, share about what God's done in your life. Share the hope that you have with other people. Get past yourself a little bit and say, Jesus did it for me, He can do it for you as well. There are people in your life who need what you have and you are the person that God has chosen to reach those people and to pull them out of darkness into His light. So come on, let's partner with the Holy Spirit and do this today. Other locations your campus pastor's gonna take you into a ministry time. Here in this room, I wanna pray three different prayers, okay? So if we haven't prayed three prayers, don't leave yet. You guys can close your eyes and bow your heads. First prayer I wanna pray is for all the believers in the room. If this message has been resonating with you, if it's been convicting you, I wanna encourage you to not shy away from that conviction or that discomfort but to allow the Holy Spirit to draw you and do a deeper place of obedience, deeper place of faith, and a deeper place of recognizing and loving the people that He's placed in your path. So you respond however you feel you need to if you wanna lift your hands you can but I wanna pray this over all of us. Lord Jesus, we repent. If we have avoided the great commission or if we've neglected it or if we've gotten too busy for it or if we've made too many excuses or if we've just flat out disobeyed, we repent of those things and we welcome you Holy Spirit. To come and address in us whatever needs to be addressed, come and change and fix, add, remove, whatever you need to in our hearts so that we can live in obedience to you. Gotta pray that you would break our hearts for what breaks yours. I pray that the heart of the Father would begin to envelop each of us, that we'd be able to see your children the way that you see them, that we'd be able to see people through the eyes of mercy and love that we wouldn't feel, we wouldn't feel inconvenienced. When you ask us to talk to somebody about Jesus, that we would feel the compassion that flowed in Jesus so strongly, that compassion that oftentimes preempted miracles and signs of wonders, we pray that that same compassion would be within us for your lost sons and daughters. It helps us to have boldness in this. Next group of people I wanna pray for, if you're hearing you're away from Jesus and you wanna experience in your life what he did in Mary's life, you wanna experience that freedom, that healing, that grace, that forgiveness for your sins, that redemptive power. I wanna tell you today that what I've been talking about, it's not just stories from history, it's not fairy tales. God actually became man and he walked the planet, and he endured pain and grief and sorrow. He took upon himself our sorrow and our sin. He died on the cross for us and by his shed blood, we were made right with God and our sin is no longer held against us in his sight. And not only that, three days later he rose from the grave so that the grip of death could be broken off of our lives and we can live in eternity with him. One day Jesus will come back in the same way he came through the clouds and you will see him face to face and on that day you will either go into eternity with him or eternity away from him and I plead, I beg you, I pray that you would choose to go into eternity with him. He has a plan for your life, he has a call on your life, he wants to show you his love and kindness. And so today if you want to invite Jesus into your life and experience that freedom, that friendship, that grace, very simply with no one else looking around just so that I can agree with you. Would you just lift your hand if you say, "I want to give my life to Jesus." Thank you, I see you, I see you, I see you, I see you, I see you, I see you, I see you, I see you, I see you. I see you, God sees you, God loves you. There's hands going up all over the room. God loves you, God loves you so much. God loves you, God loves you. I see you, God bless you. All these people up here, amazing that you're making this decision, we're proud of you guys. I see your hand, I see your hand, I see you up there. Thank you, God loves you so much. If I didn't see you, that's okay, family rooms, if you lifted your hand online, if you lifted your hand, that's all right, Jesus saw you. So what we're gonna do right now is I want to pray a prayer, and if we could, everybody in the room, just repeat this after me, say, "Dear Jesus, "thank you for loving me, in spite of my sin. "Thank you for dying on my behalf, "so that I could be made right with you. "Thank you for raising again, "so I can live forever with you. "Today, I repent, and I turn from my old life, "and by your grace, I will follow you. "Come and be the Lord of my life from this day "until I see you face to face. "In Jesus' name, amen, amen. "Can we celebrate with those people "who made that decision? "We're so proud of you, so proud of you, "so thrilled, it's the best decision "you will ever make in your life. "And if you did make that decision, "grab one of these cards and take it out "to the connect area we would love to connect with you. "We would love to help get you started "on your first couple of steps of your faith journey. "One more prayer, I want to pray, "so you guys can all stand to your feet "before we pray this prayer. "Go ahead and stand up. "I want to pray one last prayer, "straight out of the book of Acts. "This is a prayer that the early church prayed "in the midst of revival. "Many people were getting saved, "gospel was being preached in power, "some many people were coming back to the Lord, "and signs and wonders and miracles were being performed. "And it was just an amazing time. "And I believe that that was not just "for the days of the early church, "but that is for us. "Now, in this day and age, for our church, "for our campuses, for your life, for your family, "for your workplace, for your campus, for your friends, "Jesus wants to do miracles in and through you, "so we're gonna pray this prayer about boldness. "And if you want this in your life, "we just lift your hands, "pray it out with me with some passion, "it's gonna come up on the screens. "Come on, here we go. "Give us your servants. "Great boldness in preaching your word. "Stretch out your hand with healing power. "May miraculous signs and wonders be done "through the name of your holy servant, Jesus. "Amen, amen, amen." (audience applauding) He said that these signs will follow those who believe. There's a lot of believers in the room. The gospel has just been preached, so if you need a miracle in your life, we're gonna have pastors and leaders down front of the altars. Come receive prayer. We're gonna believe with you for a miracle. Otherwise, thank you guys so much. God bless you, you're dismissed. Have a great day. - For more information on our church, log on to our website at TFH.org, or check out the TFH app. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]
