Do I have to listen to people that maybe weren t educated in the way I was educated?

Transcription

1 Craig: Thanks for joining us here at LifeChurch where we are one church meeting in multiple locations and reaching around the world through Church Online. If you d like to learn more about us, you can always visit us online by going to life.church. Today our senior pastor Craig Groeschel begins an all new message series that teaches us how being a neighbor is more than just a simple smile and a wave. Today we ll learn that caring for each other can be done despite our racial differences in part one of how to neighbor. Hi, at all of LifeChurches today could you join me in giving praise to God and celebrating that we get to be a part of saying over fifteen hundred people made new by Christ in baptism this weekend. We celebrate that, we worship God that for every single one of you that are being baptized this weekend, it s overwhelming to me, even to start to comprehend what that means. Every single one of you, you have a story that matters to God, that matters to us. We love you, God loves you, congratulations to everyone whose being baptized this weekend. As we show love to our neighbors we are starting a brand new message series, it s actually called how to neighbor. What we are going to do is we are going to look at four of the most important and big issues in the world today and talk about how do we neighbor those that may need help or may be different than us. Today I want to start with one that is a big subject and very important. I believe that the church is called to be a part of the solution. The topic I want to talk to you about today is the idea of racism. As we talk about racism, I just want to start by acknowledging that I have a very limited perspective. It s with a pure heart that I m going to do my best to talk about a very important issue that I believe as Jesus followers we need to lead the way in showing love to everyone. I m going to open up with a text, actually an encounter that Jesus had with a guy, Jesus tells a story that speaks to how to neighbor and it actually deals with racism as well. If you have your Bibles, you want to follow along, we are going to in Luke Chapter ten. There is an interesting encounter that Jesus has with an expert in law. This guy comes up to Jesus and asks a question. The expert in the law says, What must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus does what Jesus often does. He answers a question with a question. He asked the guy, What is written in the law? The guy responds, It says, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus says, That s exactly right. You ve nailed it on the head. Now, go and live it. Go and do that. The guy says, I m supposed to love God and love my neighbor? Then he asks a very pointed, very specific, very clarifying question. The guy in verse twenty nine wanted to justify himself. He knows he is supposed to love his neighbor, he asks Jesus, what question? Ask it out loud with me. He says, Who is my neighbor? I m supposed to love people but who exactly do I have to love? If I m supposed to love my neighbor, I need to know, who is my neighbor. In other words, Jesus, do I have to love people that listen to the wrong kind of music? Because I listen to the right kind of music. Do I have to listen to people that maybe weren t educated in the way I was educated?

2 Because you know I m pretty important because I have an education and not everybody does. Do I have to love them too? Do I have to love people who have weird hair and tattoos and ear piercings, nose piercings, maybe even booby piercing? Did we just go there in church? Yes, we did. We are going to get real today. Are you with me, can we do that? I don t know, it just happened. You can t take it back, it just happened. Do we have to love those people? Do we have to love them if they have a different accent than we do? If they speak a different language than we do? Jesus, do I have to love someone who has a different color skin? I know I m supposed to love neighbor but I need to know, who does that include, who is my neighbor? What s interesting is Jesus doesn t answer the question about who to neighbor. What he does is he shows us how to neighbor. Jesus is going to assume everybody is your neighbor, and he shows us specifically how to neighbor and he tells a story. He says, There was a guy, and there was a Jewish guy who was going along to Jericho and a band of robbers come and beat the tard out of this guy. Just beat the daylights out of him. Leave him bleeding off in a ditch. Perhaps this Jewish victim is going to die if he doesn t get medical attention. Two guys actually walked by and they both happened to be Jewish as well. One of them is a priest and he sees his Jewish brother over there in the ditch bleeding. What does the priest do? The priest walks on by. You could probably understand perhaps why because if he got near a dead guy or touched a guy that was unclean, the priest would be ceremony unclean, therefore he couldn t go to the temple that day. He could possibly justify why it would cost him too much to help this poor guy. Then a Levite goes by, another Jewish sees the Jewish wounded man and Levite does the same thing and pretends like he doesn t see him and walks on by. Then, Jesus says three words. When he said three words, it would have been jawdroppingly shocking to his audience. What three words did he say? If your look in your notes he said what? Say with me, he said, But a Samaritan. One more time, not a Jewish man but what? A Samaritan as he traveled came to where the man was. When he saw him, what did he do? The Samaritan took pity on this poor victim and he went to him, bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. Why was this so shocking? Jesus said, But a Samaritan man went to help the Jewish victim. The reason this was shocking is because the Jews hated the Samaritans, the Samaritans hated the Jews and this was a seven hundred year hate fest. Why? Seven hundred years prior, whenever the Jews were exiled, some of them were left behind and they actually intermarried with someone from a different race. They married people who worshipped pagan gods. When they reproduced they had children that were from mixed races and one race worshipped pagan gods. The Jewish people hated the offspring who were known as Samaritans. The Samaritans were hated by the Jewish people, they just did what we naturally do, we hate right on back. Because if you hate me, I hate you back and that s what happened. Seven hundred years, they hated each other. This Samaritan guy who would have been HowToNeighbor_1_Message Page 2 of 12

3 hated by the Jewish guy did one simple act. What did he do? Instead of walking this way, he walked across the street. He took pity on another human being and even though he was from a different race, this guy showed love to a man that was in need. Dr. Martin Luther King said this in probably his four most famous speech. He said, this, The first question the priest and the Levite asked was, If I stopped to help this man, what will happen to me? Then he said, The good Samaritan reversed the question and said, If I do no stop and help this man, what will happen to him? This in so many ways is the heart of the gospel, is loving God and loving others. Even if they are different from us and some might argue especially if they are different from us. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said, Love the lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. Dennis Leary says this about racism, I thought this was really important. He said, Racism isn t born folks, it s taught. It s not born, it s not inherited. There is no racist gene. It s not born, it s taught. He says, I have a two year old son, you know what he hates? Naps. If you got a two year old, you know that. A two year old doesn t hate somebody else because of the color of their skin. This is something that s taught, it s not something that is inherited. Why is it that people become racist over time? I see three reasons. One is, we are maybe a victim of hatred. Someone mistreats us because of the color of our skin. Someone mistreats someone that we love because of the color of their skin, and so we feel like, We can t trust them. Therefore, I don t like them and they don t like me. Second thing, is taught. Our family, we don t hang around those people. They have been to whatever, we don t trust them and they are all like this. It s taught and handed down from generation to generation. The third thing is just ignorance. It s a lack of prospective, it s a lack of exposure. They are different and so I must not like them. No matter what the reason, we have to recognize this. If you are taking notes and this is so important is that racism is not a skin issue, racism is a sin issue. Let me say it again. This is so important. We need to recognize that racism is not a skin issue Someone is going to help me preach this, so that I can feel it, what is it? It is a sin issue. In fact, James 2:9 says, this, If you favor some people over others, what are you doing? You are committing a scene. He said, you are guilty of breaking the law. I like you because you look like me. My kids can play with your kids because they look like my kids. We were educated in the same place; we look on the same way. we are kind of in the same economic sphere. We are all, but you are different. You say, you were raised on the other side of the street. You don t listen to the same music; you have a different color skin. Any time we act like that, it is not a skin issue, it is a sin issue. We have to call it what it is, it is not right before God and it should not be right before us. That raises the big question, as Jesus followers, how are we called to love our neighbors, how are we called to love those who may look a little bit different than us? I want to raise three very important issues today. With God s help we will get this right HowToNeighbor_1_Message Page 3 of 12

4 and we ll love our neighbors as ourselves. The first thing if we are taking notes and this is more difficult than it sounds, we have to get this right, number one, we need with God s help to be honest, to be transparent, to be sincere, and number one, recognize our prejudices. We need to recognize our prejudices. This is really difficult to do because prejudices are so difficult to see in the mirror because we often feel justified in how we might feel against someone else. Even if our prejudice mindset or our racist attitude isn t intentional is still real and is still sinful. It could be totally accidental. I ll tell you a story that Pastor Danny Duran tells. He s one of our pastors. In fact, Pastor Danny and his team just launched the 25th LifeChurch location. Show some love for Overland Park Kansas meeting. Today we love you guys. Here is a picture of pastor Danny with his kids. Pastor Danny was mowing his yard, in his new house, in his new city and somebody came up and said, Hi man, how much do you charge to yards? When Pastor Danny tells this story he kind of laughs and chuckles and didn t take tremendous offense to it. What do we see? That s accidental racism all day long at its best but someone who didn t mean to, but based on the color of the skin made a judgement. I ll just be real honest, let s called it what it is, no one s ever stopped me and asked me how much I charge to mow yards? Could be because I don t mow my own yard but that s beside the point. I did for years and no one ever asked me, Hi White guy. How much do you charge to mow the yard? We have to call it what it is, we see it in our own hearts. This is wrong, is prejudice, is judgmental, is racist, call it what it is. It s rude. What does the word prejudice mean? This is in your notes? It means prejudging. It s a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. I bet most of you if you had the courage to be really honest, you would admit that you were raised most likely with some type of prejudice, why? Because we are sinful people and we are predisposed to making wrong judgments about people. I was raised in a household that kind of talked about rich people were kind of greedy, rich people were this and that. That s what a lot of my friends and that s what I grew up being taught to wrongly believe. Maybe you grew up thinking, Heavy people are really lazy. The younger generation they simply won t work. All mega church pastors are slimy greedy crooks. Why do you guys laugh at that, have you heard that? All of them are the same way. That s what a lot of people say. Old people they are useless; they can t teach you anything. White guys can t jump. I don t know what it is. You grew up thinking certain things about certain people. We have to have the courage to acknowledge it, to admit it, to say, May be I m prejudiced about such and such. If you ve ever said, I m not racist but. There is nothing good that comes after a but in that sense, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. I m not racist but. You are racist and you have to call it that, at some degree, some level. We have to acknowledge it. This is challenging to admit but I was a part of plentiful of people that all made judgement based on the color of someone s skin. It was recently after the tragedy of 9-11, just days afterwards. I was on a flight going somewhere. If you remember, the airline industry was in shambles, security was lightly so a nightmare and such. I boarded this plane, I HowToNeighbor_1_Message Page 4 of 12

5 was halfway back. A few rows in front of me there was a guy that looked very middle eastern that boarded the plane. Everybody around me started kind of whispering, the guy sitting next to me got me to keep an eye on this guy. To make things even worse, he started sweating and then he made a phone call and talked to someone in a language that was not our language. Then the guy de-boarded the plane before we ever pushed off and then he reboarded the plane. He was sweating, and I m telling you, I don t know anybody in the plane that wasn t making some kind of plan to defend, attack whatever. The guy deboarded the plane, the door shut, he never got back on. What a lot of people will say, That s understandable because of the environment. Call it what you want, there was a plane full of people that made a judgement, based on the color of a guy s skin, because I m here to tell you. If he had been Asian-American, African-American Caucasian American, everybody would have thought the dude s sick, he s scared, he s got diarrhea and he has a plug in his bottom, something is going wrong there. Nobody would have been afraid and everybody was making a judgement based on the color of someone s skin. It takes courage, it takes honestly, it takes integrity to recognize truthfully any prejudices, any racism, to admit it before God and to repent of this. We are going to talk about it in our life group this week. We are going to be open, transparent and we are going to find healing. Number one, we are going to acknowledge any prejudices. Second thing is, we are going to seek to understand others. Like I said at the beginning of this message, I have a very limited perspective and I have to know that. I don t understand how others have been abused, mistreated, unfairly rejected on and on. It helps me to enter into dialogue with those who ve experienced things far different than I have. That s what I did in preparation for this. I talked to a lot of people and I learned so much that I didn t know. I just gathered a few of our staff members to ask them to help maybe you understand some things that maybe some of you don t yet fully understand. Thank you guys for spending some time to help all of us understand as we are talking about racism. We all come from different backgrounds that have different perspectives. What are some of the experiences that you guys have had? Craig: Alan George and I, we tend to get confused for each other a lot. Alan George is the Church Online pastor and people come up to me all the time and say, Pastor Alan, I watch you online all the time. When there is a math question in the room everyone is like, Alan can you? I have no clue man. I like Mexican food. Hi Sam, how do we season this food? But you know. HowToNeighbor_1_Message Page 5 of 12

6 Female: Female: Craig: Female: But I know. I look like Charles Barkley to everybody. That happens to me a lot. Actually, mistaken identity is something I ve dealt with before. I used to be in retail banking. I actually called somebody and I was talking to them. They actually came into the branch looking for Jeremy. When they got there and I said I m Jeremy, they were shocked, they are like, You didn t sound like that on, you sounded like, they caught themselves, Before you didn t sound black. Almost makes you feel like you have to fight harder than everybody else and work harder than anybody else and study than anybody else, just to get an equal opportunity. Being a larger of stature black man and being a former athlete, you are dressed a certain way when you are outside of the professional realm. I can tell you that there is been plenty of times where I ve gone into a store and I ve been browsing looking around and I find myself being trailed. For some reason, I was like, May be they are just trying to get great at customer service. I get followed when I go into the store, and then my husband is white. When he walks in behind me then they kind of, We don t need to follow her, she is fine. I get that and I m a tiny little person. Just different compliments, like if someone says, You are beautiful, you are intelligent. Something like that, but then the thing that also gets added to it is for a black girl. I always, I remember the first time that I heard that and how that made me feel. To think like, I may be rising just this one section but as far as other standards of beauty, no, you don t have that. I know some of you would have experienced challenges as a kid growing up. Who has a story to that that was hard for you? We came to America when I was five years old. The name calling from other kids was pretty challenging. We didn t quite understand why we were being called names like wet back or bina. They made no sense to us, those names made no sense but something inside us just, I just knew that s hurtful. I was playing with some friends and they had commented on it and we were like, But she has dark skin. Then I m looking, What do you mean? What s wrong with my skin? That just created something that stuck with me for a really long time that I had to bring to the Lord and say, I need healing of this because I feel like I m less than because of that. Absolutely, I remember growing up in a predominantly white area of town and being on the playground and I had a group of kids that wouldn t play with me and I couldn t figure out what the problem was and then as I was walking by I overheard them say, Men, my dad told me we shouldn t play with niggas, and I was like wow. HowToNeighbor_1_Message Page 6 of 12

7 First of all, the first time that I was reminded that I was black and I had never been called that word before. Craig: Hopefully that will bring a little understanding to some people who might not naturally understand because I never faced that as a kid. In the second grade I had someone turn away from me because of the color of my skin and that gives me context. Something else that s interesting I ll just share kind of almost off the record but afterwards we sat down and had lunch together and we were talking and they told me stories that were much more severe than the ones that they talked about on video. I said, How come you didn t share those stories? They all said some version of, We want to be more a part of the solution than we want to be a part of the problem and we didn t want to make people look back. That was interesting to me that they actually held back because they didn t want to make people look bad and I applauded them as we as a church want to be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem. What do we do as Jesus followers? The first thing we re going to do is we re going to recognize any prejudices in our own life. Second thing we re going to do is seek to understand those who might be different from us and the third thing for taking notes is this, we re going to love those who are different from us. Love those different from you, love them deeply from the heart. This is what God calls us to do. To love those who are different from us. In fact, to me one of the most moving stories of love that crossed the road happened in 1996, the year we started our church when a group of Ku Klux Klan members held a rally in Michigan and the police knew there could be tension and so they actually put up a barrier between the KKK members and those who were protesting the hate. There was a guy who infiltrated the protestor side, he was wearing a confederate flag t- shirt had white supremacist tattoos on his arm and a good of people recognized him. Someone pointed out to him and said, Kill the Nazi, kill the Nazi. Suddenly everybody ran, started beating this guy senseless. Well there was an eighteen year old girl named Keisha Thomas an African-American girl who ran and threw her body over this other man to protect him from the blows. In fact, here s the famous picture of this. What in the world would cause a young girl to put herself at physical risk to protect a man who most likely would want to harm her if he had the opportunity? Who does that? Let me tell you who does, a committed follower of Jesus does. Interviews later on she said that her faith, she s a committed Catholic Christian, said her faith played a big role in this and then she said and I quote, she said, I knew what it was like to be hurt. The many times that it happened I wished someone would have stood up for me. What did she do? What did this brave young girl do? You know what she did? She HowToNeighbor_1_Message Page 7 of 12

8 walked across the street to protect another human being who very likely would have wished her harm. That s how you neighbor, that s how you show the love of Jesus. In fact, now she s got more of a national platform which is well deserved and so she speaks out on racial reconciliation and I was very interested in what she said. She was talking about how you don t have to do like big things to show love to people and I quote Keisha when she said this, she said, The biggest thing you can do is just be kind to another human being. It can come down to eye contact or a smile. It doesn t have to be a huge monumental act. What is it? It s just showing love. It s showing decency, honor, respect, consideration, treating another human being like another human being. It s showing the love of Jesus. In fact, please write this down, this is so important. What is racism? Racism isn t just the presence of hatred it s also the absence of love. It s not just the presence of hatred, I hate you, it s also the absence of showing I accept you. I embrace you. You re my brother, you re my sister I love you. It s not just the presence of hatred, it s the absence of love, the absence of touch, the absence of embrace, the absence of saying you re welcome, we are one together and showing love. How is the world going to know that we re follower of Jesus anyway? Do you know what the Bible says? Let me tell you what it doesn t say. It doesn t say they ll knew we are followers of Jesus by our perfect theology. Doesn t say that. Doesn t say they ll knew we re followers of Jesus by our church attendance. Guess what, I m a member of such and such church, I ve been a member since 1972, doesn t say that. Doesn t say they ll know we re followers of Jesus if we ve been baptized which is important or if we give money or on and on and on. The word of God says they ll know that we re followers of Jesus if we what? If we love one another. If we love one another. Not loving those that look like us and were born where we were born and at the same color of our skin, but if we love our neighbor. Who is our neighbor? Your neighbor is the next person you come in contact with. Well, how do you love them? You love them as you ve been loved. How did Jesus love me? Let me tell you what, while I was sinning Jesus died for me. Scripture teaches us that that while we were still sinning Christ died for us. He didn t die for us because we were good he died for us because God is good. He loved me when I didn t deserve it because I ve been freely loved in that way what do I do? I reflect that type of love to others and that s what I hope you ll understand. It doesn t matter the color of your skin, where you come from, what your background is, you are welcome here in the family of God. There was one race that is the human race and I pray you feel more than just my heart but you feel God s heart. You are welcomed and you are loved. You are loved. Racism isn t just the presence of hate, it s the absence of love. What do we do? We do what Keisha did, we walk across the street. We do what the Samaritan did for the Jewish man, we walk across the street and extend an arm of love. That s how we debar. I love HowToNeighbor_1_Message Page 8 of 12

9 what Paul said Galatian 3:28, there was so much racial tension as it revolves around who s a Christian in the early first century days. Paul said this, he said, There s neither Jew nor Gentile, don t give me that Jew nor Gentile stuff, neither slave nor free, there s neither male nor female for you re all what? He said, You re all one in Christ Jesus. You re all one in Christ Jesus. We need to embrace that God loves Asian-American and African-Americans and Latin-Americans and Native-American and even Americans that have cats that s how good God s love is. God loves Cubans and Hondurans and Nigerians and Jamaicans and Koreans and Malaysians and Canadians, Iranians and Croatians. Listen when we get to heaven we re all going to be represented there. Would you recognize this when John had a vision of heaven? Here s what he said in Revelations 7, 9 and 10, this is powerful. He saw heaven and said, There before me was a great multitude that no one could count. Where were they from? They were from every nation and every tribe and every people and every language standing before the throne and before the lamb and they cried out in a loud voice. Salvation belongs to our God. Who does it belong to? Salvation belongs to our God. Who does it belong to? Somebody help me, salvation belongs to our God. Not to my God but to our God. Holding hands with people from different tribes, different nations, different languages say that s how good our God is. If we can spend eternity in heaven together certainly we can have a meal together. That s how to neighbor that s how we love one another. Heaven will be full and we might as well show the love of God on earth all day long. Racism is not a skin issue, it s a sin issue. It s unacceptable to God, it s unacceptable to us, it will not be tolerated in church. The only thing that we do, the only debt we have is the debt to love because God has loved us and therefore we will love one another. Let me close it out with Romans chapter 10. Look at verse 13, verse 12 is in your notes but look at verse 13 first. I ve taught this verse; I ve said this verse probably more than any other verse in the Bible, probably more so. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved and I said it over and over again. Doesn t matter where you come from, doesn t matter what your background is, doesn t matter what you believed in the past, doesn t matter what you ve done. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But I want to show you what comes exactly before that verse because right before it there s an issue of race. This is what it says, for there s no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is the Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. Now read it in that context. Doesn t matter the color of your skin, doesn t matter where you were born. Listen, last time I checked you didn t have control of where you were born or what color your skin was, you didn t pick that. Doesn t matter where you come from, doesn t matter the color of your skin, doesn t matter what you ve done, doesn t matter how bad you ve been, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. HowToNeighbor_1_Message Page 9 of 12

10 Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Salvation belongs to our God. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Jesus didn t say who to neighbor, he only showed us how to neighbor. Assuming that the next person you see is going to be your neighbor. Racism is not a skin issue it is a sin issue. It is unacceptable to God and it is unacceptable to us. It s not just the presence of hatred it s the absence of love and therefore as Jesus followers what are we called to do? Love the Lord our God with all of our heart, all of our mind, all of our soul and all of our strength and because he loved us when we didn t deserve it what do we do? We love our neighbor as our self and I believe that every single one of us can be a small part of the solution because we ve been so changed by the love of God the only thing we can do is love one another. Father may this be true of our church. We ask that your Holy Spirit would do a healing work in all of our hearts that we truly could represent the grace and the love and the power of Jesus as you call us to love one another. All of our churches today as we re reflecting, I want to just ask one very pointed question and then we re going to talk about something, it s even more eternal in mind. The first question is this and think about it for a moment. I wonder how many of you want to be more part of the solution and never part of the problem saying, As I ve been loved by God I want to show His love to everyone all the time. I want to be a good neighbor; I want to show that type of love. All of the church if you say yes no matter what our, maybe believing in the past no matter maybe how I was even hurt I want to be on God s side showing His love. A part of the solution and never a part of the problem. Would you lift up your hands right now all over the place? God I thank you for churches full of people, who want to get this right. God we take a moment and just even examine even our own hearts and God we repent of any prejudice, any racism that may be in our heart. Maybe we learned and heard about it and is deeply, maybe we re a victim of it and so therefore it s easier to justify no matter what God we ask you to cleanse us. God forgive us. Father I pray especially for those who ve been hurt, wronged, overlooked, rejected, abused, mistreated. God I pray that as they ve experienced your grace that somehow you would give them the grace even to forgive others. For those of us God who ve wronged people or even just judged in our hearts, God would you forgive us? Would you change us? God there s no Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free. God we recognize under Jesus we are all one. Help us to show that type of love. Give us opportunities God to understand one another and to passionately show the love of Jesus as you have so loved us God help us as Jesus followers to love one another. Now as we keep praying today nobody looking around, something amazing is about to happen because the love of God is here and it s very real and God is drawing some of you toward himself even now. HowToNeighbor_1_Message Page 10 of 12

11 Let s be honest many of you if we sat down just you and me, sat down maybe across from coffee and I ask you spiritual questions, where do you stand with God. Some of you right now you d be unsure. You might say things like well I try to be a good person. I go to church when I can and I m not as bad as so and so. I m trying to do better blah, blah, blah and yet you re still unsure, why? Because if that s your answer you are basing your answer on your performance and you know deep down your performance is inadequate, why? Because it is and so is mine. The reality is every single one of us, you me and every person here has sinned and falls incredibly short of God s standards and this is why God is so amazing and so good because God loved us so much that he did something for us that we couldn t do for our self. God became one of us in the person of Jesus. He left heaven and came to earth, He essentially walked across the street, why? To show us how much He loved us. Jesus hang out with those that others rejected, Jesus hang out with those who were raised on the wrong side of the street. Jesus hang out with those that religion despised and he loved them where they were but He didn t leave them where they were, why? Because Jesus was without sin and He became sin for us on the cross. He died on the third day he rose again. Now what is the truth? The truth is everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Doesn t matter if you re Jew or Gentile, black or white. If you re red skin, dark skin, yellow skin, brown skin, if you don t have skin, anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Doesn t matter what you ve done, doesn t matter how bad you ve been, doesn t matter where you ve come from when you put your faith in Jesus that is enough. All of our church there re those of you, you recognize you need His forgiveness and you need His grave and all the church as you recognize this is me, I need to call on him, you do that now. Say Jesus take my life; I give it to you. That s your prayer, lift your hands high right now. All of our church say yes that s my prayer. Right back over here God bless you, way back over here as well, praise God for you. Others of you way back here towards the back, right back over here on this side, yes Jesus I surrender. Others of you say yes I need His grace; I need His mercy. Church Online you click right below me and we are going to pray passionately together as we the family of God welcome new people into God s family. Pray heavenly Father, forgive me of all my sins, make me new. I believe Jesus died for me and rose again so I can live for you. Fill me with your spirit so I can serve you always. Help me to love you and my neighbor as you ve loved me, in Jesus name I pray. LifeChurch worship big, worship loud, welcome those born into God s family today. Thanks again for tuning and joining us here at LifeChurch. If you d like to see if there s a LifeChurch location in your area all you have to do is go to life/locations. Plus, if you d like to learn more about how you can make a difference in your community LifeChurch HowToNeighbor_1_Message Page 11 of 12

12 has developed an all new reading plan on YouVersion Bible lab. To start all you have to do is search have the neighbor inside the app and you can start reading that plan today. You know here at LifeChurch we re called to not simply go to church but rather to be the church and be a part of all that God is doing around the world. Bree Karate from LifeChurch Albany is doing just that and she has an amazing story that tells us why. Bree: I love the fact that we are trying to as a church make people followers of Christ but I didn t realize what being a fully devoted follower of Christ looked like until I attended LifeChurch and saw that lived out. Once you can wrap your mind around the fact that the God of the universe wants to have a relationship with me and just knows every detail of my life. People just need to hear that they are good enough and that they are worthy and they are valued and until you know any better you don t think that there s anything greater for you. I like to just be that middle person who does tell somebody you are worthy and you don t have to stay right where you are at. God love you where you at but just like I said He has so many more things in store for you. I mean I like to think about what life would be like without such a powerful tool and I m so glad that God has called me to be a part of such an awesome church. We love hearing the incredible life change stories of how God is working in and through your life. In fact, if you have a personal life change story we would love to hear about it. All you have to do is send us an to stories@life.church. We have a reason for everything we do and it s lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ and we do it all because we believe whoever finds God truly finds life. HowToNeighbor_1_Message Page 12 of 12