The Ten Commandments: Bringing Hope and Freedom for Today Pastor Jeff Potts

Transcription

1 Series: The Ten Commandments June 5, 2016 The Ten Commandments: Bringing Hope and Freedom for Today Pastor Jeff Potts Good morning, everyone! How are you? Good. If this is your first time here or your first time in a long time, I just want to say thank you for coming and worshiping with us this morning. My name is Jeff Potts, and I am the College and Young Adults Pastor here. I oversee Life Groups for college singles and young married couples, so if you fit somewhere in those categories or you're just looking for a community somewhere, I'll just speak for everyone in that we would love to see you jump into a Life Group. We'd love to help you find the community you're looking for. If it's your first time in a while and you're wondering why Pastor Steve isn't up here, well, Pastor Steve is just starting his sabbatical for the summer, so there are going to be some different pastors on staff stepping in to preach, and I just happen to be the first one up. My hope is to lay a foundation for our series this summer. We are going to be looking at the Ten Commandments, so if you have a Bible, your phone, your ipad, or whatever you use in front of you, please turn with me to Exodus, chapter 20. I understand some of you, while you are trying to turn to Exodus, are maybe wondering where Exodus is. It's the second book in the Old Testament, and so for you, and for maybe some of you who haven't turned your pages to Exodus in some time, let me just give you some context and some background to the story. In Exodus 1, we see Israel. Israel is God's nation, the nation God has set apart to be his people. They come under slavery with the nation of Egypt. Egypt turns out to be a pretty terrible ruler. They are oppressing the Israelites. They are killing the Israelite children, trying to manage the population. That's Exodus 1. In Exodus 2, we're introduced to Moses, who is born as a child in the time when they are killing the children. He is saved providentially by the hand of God and ends up being raised by Pharaoh's family. He then escapes Pharaoh's hand later on in life when he kills an Egyptian for doing harm to an Israelite. Twice, Moses has escaped the Egyptians by the hand of God. Canyon Hills Community Church 1

2 Moses runs far away, and then in Exodus 3, God introduces himself to Moses in the form of a burning bush and he calls Moses to go back to Egypt and save his people. In Exodus 4-6, Moses heads back to Egypt and says, "Let my people go," and things get worse for Israel in that time. Egypt oppresses Israel further. They make the work harder. They make the beatings more severe. While Egypt is giving them more oppression and more pain, God is continuing to promise deliverance. In Exodus 7-12, God performs 10 miracles in the form of plagues to show his glory, culminating in Pharaoh finally saying, "That's enough. Get all of you out of here. I don't want to see you any more. You are free to go." In Exodus 13, Israel starts to leave. God takes them toward the Red Sea. In Exodus 14, Pharaoh wakes up, changes his mind, and starts heading after the Israelites. He takes his whole army. He takes his chariots and he goes after to go get those people whom he had just supposedly set free. The Israelites don't know what to do. They're kind of freaking out at this point, and so God performs the ultimate of miracles that they had seen to this point and he parts the Red Sea so the entire nation, over a million people, can walk across on dry land. Not only that, but then he decides to close the sea on Pharaoh, his army, and his chariots. In Exodus 1, we have Israel, God's people, under slavery, and by Exodus 14, we have Israel, God's people, free, all by the hand of God. In Exodus 15-17, the Israelites have a bit of a stroll through the wilderness. They find out it's not such a great place. They don't have water. They don't have food. There are enemies there. Yet God has been faithfully providing for them all the same. God provides for them by bringing bread from heaven and water from a rock. He gives them victory in the wars they faced. So at this point, God has delivered them, provided for them, and protected them. In Exodus 18, Moses gets a quick lesson in leadership development, and then in Exodus 19, Moses leads the Israelites to Mount Sinai, where God will meet the people and speak to them. In Exodus 19, verses 3-6, it says, "The LORD called to [Moses] out of the mountain, saying, 'Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.'" The Lord says to Moses, "I'm calling you to be my holy people." In verses 7-8, the people respond and say, "We will obey God. We will do what he asks us to do," so then God responds back and says, "Okay. I'm coming down to talk to you. I'll be down in three days. Get yourself ready. Get yourself cleaned up. Make sure you're shaven (or not shaven), and don't touch the mountain, because if you touch the mountain, you'll die on the spot. I'll see you soon." Canyon Hills Community Church 2

3 You think we have anticipation for playoff games here. This is an epic event we're looking forward to, and so the nation is getting ready. They get ready for a few days, and then we have verses in chapter 19. "On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. The LORD came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the LORD called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up." The scene is set. Israel is at the foot of the mountain, ready to hear from God. The Lord, Israel's Savior, provider, and protector was about to address his people. That is the context. That is the background of what we are going to be looking at this whole summer and this morning, so if you have your Bibles and you're in Exodus 20, why don't you stand with me for the reading of God's Word? We are going to start in chapter 20, verse 1. "And God spoke all these words, saying, 'I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.'" You guys can have a seat, and let's pray. Canyon Hills Community Church 3

4 Father, we come before you just thankful for all of the opportunity we've had already this morning to worship you and give you glory. God, I pray that you have been pleased with our worship, with our Communion, with our prayer times, with our attitudes, and with our hearts as we've come before you saying you are good and you are God. God, I pray that as we look at your Word, you would be pleased and glorified as we learn about your character and what we're called to do within that. Be with us, Lord. In your name, amen. Some of you might be asking, "Are the Ten Commandments still relevant to us? I mean, they were written a long time ago. I remember it from children's church. I remember learning it. Is that something that actually applies to me today?" I'll just answer that and say the Ten Commandments are absolutely relevant today. They're relevant to us on a big level because they're in God's Word, but they also show us God's holiness. They show us our sin. They show us our need for a Savior. They're relevant to us because they speak to our lives today as God's people, and so I think that over the coming weeks, we are going to see that the Ten Commandments are straightforward, practical, and incredibly relevant to our lives today. Let me be really clear before we jump into this series and even the message this morning. The Ten Commandments are not a list to achieve salvation, because then it would be about you being able to save yourself. The Ten Commandments are not a list to be ignored, because by ignoring God's commands, we say we are better than God. The main idea for this series and the title for this message today is that the Ten Commandments bring hope and freedom for today. They're incredibly helpful. They should be considered in our lives. We should know them because they who us God's unchanging character, which means they're for right now. They show us the work he has done for us, and that brings us hope. They show us what we're called to do in response to the freedom we have in Christ. In the coming weeks, we are going to be looking at the commandments, but this morning I just want to focus on the first two verses in Exodus 20, because I think this sets the foundation for everything we're going to be talking about this summer. There is just amazing significance here. This is the first time Israel had heard God's voice. At this time in the Exodus story, God had only talked to and through Moses, and God is about to lay out his moral law before all of his people. The Ten Commandments were the only laws God spoke to the entire nation, and for whatever reason, in his wisdom and in his sovereignty, he wanted everyone to hear these 10 laws directly from his mouth. "And God spoke all these words, saying, 'I am the LORD your God '" God shows his holiness, power, and eternity in just six words. There's no greeting. There's no opening buffer video. There's no joke. There's no hook, just powerful, life-changing truth. Before God gave any law, he graciously just introduced himself. "I am the LORD " The LORD is Yahweh, the name God gave himself. It means he is Canyon Hills Community Church 4

5 supreme, self-existent, and eternal. He is constantly ultimate and never in need of anything. This brings up the first takeaway for the morning. 1. The Ten Commandments are for today because God doesn't change. God's commands are relevant because God faithfully stays the same. The big theological term here is that God is immutable. He is constant and unchanging. God will always be God. He will never stop being God because he has never been anything else. I love what it says in Psalm 102. It says, "Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end. The children of your servants shall dwell secure; their offspring shall be established before you." Even though everything else is constantly adjusting to time, circumstances, and pressure, God is the same forever. He will never change. Because God is constant, he is a strong and sure foundation on which we can stand. He's always holy. He's always powerful. He's always good. He's always loving. He's always just. He's always righteous. God does not change, and if God does not change, God's standards do not change. His standards for his people will never adjust. Psalm 33:11 says, "The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations." Because his heart and plans stay the same for every generation, his laws stay the same. God will always stand for holiness, no matter the circumstances, time, or culture. We can see that because the Ten Commandments stay relevant throughout the breadth of Scripture. You can see Jesus obeys and teaches the commandments. Jesus' famous Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 is mostly a reference to the commandments we read earlier this morning. In Matthew 5:17-19, Jesus says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Jesus' teaching here is not meant to abolish or supersede the Law, but to redeem its importance and show his obedience and perfection within it. We hold, as Christians, that Jesus lived a perfect life and everything he said was true. If that's the case, then logically, we have to conclude that Jesus perfectly obeyed every commandment. He upheld the moral law. That makes the Ten Commandments relevant. The Ten Commandments remain relevant because the apostles obey and teach the commandments. The rest of the New Testament is all a reference to the commandments as the Canyon Hills Community Church 5

6 fruit of Christian living, not to gain salvation, but in response to our salvation. We're going to throw a diagram up on the screen and you're going to see some different ways it shows the commandments and how Jesus taught on those. You'll see in the first column it shows all of the commandments, 1-10, in Exodus 20. Then in the next column, you'll see Jesus and how Jesus either perfectly obeys or teaches on those commandments. Then in the next column over, you'll see the apostles either directly obeying or directly teaching on those commandments. We're not going to cover all this today, but this is meant to show you that God has not adjusted his standard. God's commandments are for today because God does not shift and his standards don't change, and so the Ten Commandments are incredibly relevant to you and me this morning. Now if that's what we ended with today, if I said, "Hey, let's pray. Go read the commandments a couple hundred times. Come back to us next week and we'll hang out," we would be in big trouble. Unfortunately, this is how a lot of people treat the Ten Commandments. "Just read them, know them, and do them, and then you're fine." Yet this is a dangerous series this summer because this is a list of rules. I like rules. I really do. I'm a former athlete (definitely former), but I played baseball in college and we would have workout plans, practice plans, study halls, and all of these rules I'd have to follow, and I loved every bit of it. I was like, "Yes, give me those boxes and I will check off those boxes and I will do it with my best serve. Show me where I'm weak and I will make it a strength. Give me the goal. Give me the game plan and let me go to work." For me, I liked rules, and I still like rules, because I like to accomplish them and say, "Hey, the box is checked. Am I good enough now?" I really like rules. Some of you hate rules. If we're just being honest, as soon as you see any kind of structure or authority, you feel the need to run or just stand in defiance against it. You're weird. I like rules, but for you, there's like a tangible discomfort when being corrected because the thought that comes to mind is, "Who are you to tell me what to do?" This is a dangerous list. This is a dangerous series because this is a list of rules. On one side, there are people like me, the rule-followers, who want to become good enough, and then on the other side there are the people who rebel because they don't trust the one who is giving the rules. If we just stopped and said God's commandments are relevant to today, we would be in super-big trouble, but this is why verse 2 comes before verse 3. "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." 2. The Ten Commandments bring us hope because God changes us first. God's command launched from the foundation of his saving grace, but before God gave the people a single command, he graciously saved them. His commandments are after his conversion. God revealed himself. He saved people from bondage, and then he redeemed them to be in relationship with him. This answers the question, "Who are you to tell me what to do?" "I am God, your Redeemer." Canyon Hills Community Church 6

7 This answers the question, "Am I good enough now?" "You are good enough now because I have saved you to be my people." Like God saved the Israelites and changed their identity, God saves us and changes our identity through Jesus. Our salvation is not dependent on our ability to work out a list of rules or requirements but to have our identity in Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5, it says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." We are reliant on Christ. We need him. We need his perfect life to be our champion, his death to be our sacrifice, and his resurrection to be our salvation. God doesn't save us for our ability, family, or money but because of our identity in Jesus. The promise in 2 Corinthians 5 is that if we are in Christ, we're new. We don't have to be defined by our past sins or our past suffering because we're now defined by our Savior. Romans 8:1 says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." If condemnation means justice, judgment, and sentencing, then no condemnation means clearance, freedom, and innocence. We can stand before a holy and righteous God with innocence because we're in Christ. I mean, as Christians, we've changed from guilty to innocent and from orphans to adopted children of God. It's not like God just says all of a sudden, "Okay, you're good enough now. We're just going to put you on morally neutral ground and then you kind of figure it out yourself and we'll see you at eternity." He doesn't do that. He says, "No, I see your sin, but I'm going to take the righteousness my Son has and I'm going to put it on you so when I look at you I view you as perfect, I view you as needing nothing else, I view you as sufficient, I view you as worthy of reward, all because I see Christ. That's the gospel. God saves sinners. God pursues sinners. God saves sinners. God redeems sinners to be his people. Now, instead of the commandments being a means to save ourselves, they become a means to celebrate the salvation we have in God. That takes us to our last point for the morning. 3. The Ten Commandments call us to change because we're free. God doesn't give us his law so we can gain our freedom. God gives us his laws because we are already free by his grace. Now you might be asking, "Well, if that's the case, why are the commandments needed now? If I'm new in Jesus and the old me is gone, why do I have to kind of subscribe myself or fall under these rules?" I would say, "Yes, every commandment does start with the foundation of God's saving grace, but every commandment also calls us to holiness, which does mean change. God's commandments graciously call us to change to the people he has made us to be. Because of God's grace and Christ's work, positionally, we have freedom. Positionally, God says, "I've saved you by my grace, and that is set. That is done. It's over. You are free." Yet practically, we still need change from our sins. Canyon Hills Community Church 7

8 We're saved and God views us as perfect, but can we just be honest for a second? How much baggage did we carry into our relationship with God? How much baggage do we still carry around with our relationship with God? Positionally, I am his. I am in Christ. Yet practically, there are just so many areas in my heart and in my actions that need to change still. It's amazing. I know you look at verses 3-17 and you kind of look at them as a list, but if you look at verses 1-2 and then look at them, it's amazing. It's a picture of the whole gospel because God saves sinners, declares them righteous, declares them his, and then says, "Now let's go make you righteous." There is more freedom available for us today as we obey God's commands. Not freedom as like a gaining of our salvation or a gaining acceptance from God, but freedom from the consequence of sin. Freedom to have a deeper relationship with God. In the commandments, you will probably notice or remember a lot of "Do not " or, "You shall not " or "Thou shalt not " but if you look at the positive side, God's commandments call us to a life radically devoted to him. He calls us to worship him alone with nothing else. He calls us to worship him with our words, time, rest, work, family, value of life, marriages, purity, honesty, and contentment. God is calling us to a life radically devoted to a relationship with him. He's saying, "I want to be the lens through which you see everything and for the way you do anything, that I would be that standard for you, that I would be the Lord of that, that I would be the Savior of that for you." These laws are actually a call to amazing, intimate relationship with God, and these laws are a call to a life of increased freedom. I mean, if we look at this, we also see that it's a call to change, because we've all fallen short of every commandment. If you just look at it honestly, we've fallen short, but we're going to look at each commandment going through the summer, and we are just going to see some specific areas where we just say, "Yup, okay. I have to change that one, and that one, and that one." That's actually a beautiful thing, because we have the freedom to change. God has called us to change because we are his people. Christians are called to change. I don't want to look like Jeff. I want to look like Jesus. I'm called to look like Jesus more tomorrow than I am today, so if that's the case, I have to change still. I have to grow still. I have to deepen my relationship with God still. We all have to do that, and so every week we are going to look at areas where we just honestly need to adjust, where we're falling short, where we're sinning, where we need change. Is there something that needs change in your life today? Before I get to that, let me tell you what change is not. 1. Change is not thinking differently without action. That's hypocrisy. That's saying, "Okay, I just have to have a different mindset, but I'm still going to do the things I do. My mind is totally on Christ while my actions are just doing whatever I want." That's hypocrisy. Canyon Hills Community Church 8

9 2. Change is not acting differently without heart change. That's morality. One of my biggest fears and one of the biggest fears we've been praying through this series is that we would not create a more moral people, a people at Canyon Hills who are really good at checking the boxes, scrubbing their faces and making sure they look good, all while there are serious issues going on in their hearts. God is not looking for a moral people. God is looking for his people. He's looking for hearts that are transformed and conformed to the image of his Son. He doesn't want obedience. He wants worship. God does not want a moral people. He wants a holy people, people who are holy after him. 3. Change is not following rules to achieve salvation. That's legalism. That's every other religion in the world other than Christianity. Every other religion in the world says, "I can climb the mountain. I can get to the top myself, and then I'll just have to be really careful that I don't fall off." Christianity is God recognizing, "You have no ability to get to the top of the mountain, so I'm going to send my Son down and he'll grab you and he'll bring you to the top to a place where you'll never fall." Looking at this list and saying, "Oh, I need to change," is not just thinking differently in hypocrisy. It is not just acting differently in morality. It is not following rules to achieve salvation in legalism. Change is complete, and change happens with repentance. Repentance is a turning. If I'm going south on I-5 (I'm kind of directionally challenged, so this happens) and I realize I need to go north, what do I have to do? I have to get off the off-ramp, go on the overpass, get on the on-ramp, and immediately start going north. That's repentance. We realize we are walking from God, that we are running from God, that everything we are doing is for ourselves and not God. We see that. We stop. We pivot and we go back to the Lord. It's a complete thing and it takes place in your mind, your heart, and your actions. In the counseling office, we say repentance is like a tree with roots, a trunk, branches, and fruit. We say there are three C's to the tree of repentance. One is contemplation, the second is confession, and the third is change. Let me break that down really quickly for you. First, contemplation is realizing the effect of your sin. This is the root of the tree. This is the part people don't see. This is the part that's under the surface. This is the part that's individual. It's between you and God. It requires deep thought and consideration. It asks the questions, "How did my sin affect my relationship with God? Has my sin done damage with the people God has put in front of me?" It's putting yourself in the shoes of the person you sinned against. It's understanding that Jesus had to die for this particular sin. You think and you consider and there just becomes a hatred to the sin and what you've done, and just an unworthiness, a humility, and a need to do something about it. That's just the roots, just kind of going deeper and wider, getting healthy, and taking up Canyon Hills Community Church 9

10 the nutrients. Then out of the roots of contemplation comes confession, and correct confession will only come from the roots of good contemplation. Secondly, confession is owning your sin. It's taking 100 percent of it. "Yes, I completely did that sin. I completely did " Fill in the blank. As you're considering your sin and as you're hating your sin more and more, you start to say, "I have to do something about it. I have to make it right. I have to go to God and just own it and come to him in honest confession." Confession is not, "I'm sorry you feel that way" or "I'm sorry you saw me do that" (I got caught) or "I'm sorry you made me do this." It's not throwing flowers or chocolates at the problem or saying, "I'm tired." It's a complete honest admission without excuses or justification. Contemplation is the roots, confession is the trunk, and then the fruit and the branches come up in our change. This is the fruit of the tree. This all stems from the health of the roots. From the genuineness of the trunk comes this fruit that everyone sees, acknowledges, and notices. "Wow, Jeff! You're looking a lot different today. You're acting different. I've really noticed some change in your life." Well, that has all come from this deep process of repentance. You think about a big apple tree, and you go and pluck and enjoy the fruit. It tastes good and ripe and it's great, but you don't consider the branches that that fruit grew out of. You don't consider the trunk that grew those branches. You don't consider the roots that are beneath the surface, that are continuing to grow, widen, and strengthen the foundation of the tree. Yet this is what people see. People see the fruit. Thirdly, change is worship in place of sin. Putting on worship, putting off sin. God calls us to worship him alone. We'll talk about that a lot more next week, but God calls us to worship him alone. Anything other than the worship of God is sinful. I'm not talking about singing, but with our thoughts, actions, and words. God calls us to change, a total turning from sin. It's a putting off of the old self and putting on the new self, so rather than Jeff being known as a liar, Jeff becomes known as a truth-teller. Rather than Tom being a selfish thief, Tom becomes a generous worker. Rather than Susie having a habit of words that hurt people, Susie starts using words that build up. Instead of a lifestyle of anger, bitterness, and gossip, that person turns into kind, tender, and forgiving. The three C's of repentance are contemplation, realizing the effect of your sin; confession, owning that sin; and then changing, worshiping in place of that sin. Every commandment calls us to that kind of radical change. The type of change God is looking for is complete. It's total change in our minds, in our hearts, and with our hands, and so we are going to look at a list this summer and see areas where we need to make some change. So what needs to change in your life today? Is there sin in your life? Has your opinion of God been too small? Have you tried to be your own savior? Have you rebelled against God's Canyon Hills Community Church 10

11 authority? Have you ever considered the effect of that sin? Have you ever confessed that sin? Do you need some help in changing from that sin? Well, there is hope, and the hope is that we are called to change, because we are called to change because God views us as his children. He loves us. He saved us by the work of his Son. Our change brings freedom from sin and a deeper relationship with him, but God says, "I've already saved you. I've called you mine." We're not trying to change to climb the mountain. God says, "I've already gotten you and I've already placed you in a spot where you'll never lose it again." The Ten Commandments bring us hope and freedom for today because they point to a holy God who loves us, offers us relationships and saves us to be his people. That's the gospel. I love this quote by Loraine Boettner. He says, "The Gospel is the good news about the great salvation purchased by Jesus Christ, by which He reconciled sinful men to a holy God." A holy God shows us grace by punishing his Son so he could have relationship with us without ever compromising his holiness. The amazing gift of the gospel is that Jesus came to live a perfect life so he could die for our sins. We just sang about that earlier. We said, Let's go to a time of prayer. The Lamb of God, in my place Your blood poured out, my sins erased It was my death you died I am raised to life Hallelujah, the Lamb of God There is no greater love There is no greater love The Savior lifted up There is no greater love Father, I thank you for your Word. I'm thankful that your Word is here and that we can read it. I'm thankful that we can understand it. I'm thankful that it is powerful, that it is your Word. I'm thankful that we can know it, that it shows us your character. It shows us how you have done the work for us so we could be in relationship with you. I'm thankful that it shows us the areas where we need to change in our hearts and in our lives because we fall short of what your standard is. God, I thank you that you are patient with us and that you patiently call us to change all the time. As we're just kind of in a time of prayer, I just want to ask this question to you just as an individual. I think it's worth it to ask the question again What needs change in your life today, this morning? For some of you, you actually realize you don't have a relationship with God. Your thought of God was that he was just a rule-setter, someone distant, cold, and not loving, and now you've actually been introduced to who God really is, and now you're thinking about your sin and what he has called us to and how that affects your relationship with him. Canyon Hills Community Church 11

12 So the contemplation for you is just realizing the damage your sin has done because your sin has put you against a holy God. The confession you can give is just saying, "God, I am a sinner, but I want to live for you. I want to surrender my heart for you." Then the change would be that you start worshiping God instead of yourself or whatever's on the throne of your heart. For others of you, it has just been a long time since you came to church or it has been a long time since you've come to church in honesty, and you've just realized your opinion of God is way too small and you don't trust him because you think he'll hurt you and you don't think he's good enough or you think you're already good enough. If you are here and you see areas of your life where you are god and God is not and you need to change, let's just do business with God right now. Let's just go to him. He's gracious. He loves us. He's willing to hear us when we come to him in confession. Let's take some time with God. Father, I come before you again, just so thankful for your work and your promises you have in your Word. God, I'm thankful that there are people here, there are just hundreds of prayers that are going out, hundreds of prayers of confession, hundreds of prayers of repentance, which means we have hundreds of prayers of worship that are just going right now to you, and you hear every one of them. God, I'm also thankful that there are people here right now who are rededicating their lives to you, so angels are rejoicing in heaven because one of the lost sheep has come home. God, I'm thankful that there are people who are making commitments to you for the first time in their heart. God, I pray they would see and realize that you are not a God who brings them close to push them away, but you are a God who brings them close to hold them even tighter. God, I pray for the people who think they're already good enough, who think they're fine, who think this series, this gospel, and these rules don't apply to them. God, I pray you would convict them of their sin. God, I also pray that over the week they would come to realize you are a holy God, you never change, but you offer a relationship with them. I ask all these things in your name, Lord. Amen. If you are here and you did pray for the first time and said, "You know what? I want to have a relationship with God," or you want to rededicate your life with God, we have some people who are going to be up here in the front who would love to pray with you and just cheer you on, give you a Bible, and whatever they can do to kind of help you along as you kind of understand what that means. Or, if you have something going on, if you just found out you're sick or your mom is sick or something like that and you need some prayer for some practical things, we would love to pray with you and care for you. Thank you guys so much. We will see you next week. I hope you guys have a great one. Enjoy the weather. Canyon Hills Community Church 12