Acts 5:12-16 | The Ministry of an Effective Church

I'm good at making a joyful noise and so are many of you. And I want to encourage you if you want to be a part of it, just come up, talk to me. You can talk to anyone that's up here on the worship team. You guys might know them. If you want to, you can talk to my wife. You can wave her hand. And we can get you plugged in as well. All right. Shameless little plug. We practice on Tuesdays starting this year for once our Wednesday night ministries get going. So, all right, we are looking at Acts chapter 5. We're looking at the ministry of an effective church. Last week, we saw something really truly devastating in a church. I don't know about you, but I like hearing pastors stories because they have all sorts of different experiences. I had a buddy of mine from back in Virginia. It was his first time preaching and he was very excited about it. It was at a pretty large church out in the country. Outside of Richmond, where I'm from, and all of a sudden, this woman starts getting violently sick there in the in the

Church. Projectile vomiting. Okay? And he didn't know what to do in that circumstance. Pastor was gone. And he doesn't know what to do. And after she goes running out of the sanctuary, he says, "I didn't know that my preaching was that bad." now imagine for a moment that you're in church and someone just dies. Not just one person but a couple die. Can you imagine the rumors that would get started in that community tied to that church? What people would be saying about it? Don't go to that church. People die. Which is true, right? But it's not because of the church itself. Luke tells us that as a result of Ananas and Sapphire and their sin, great fear seizes the not just the church, but everyone. Now, there's a lot of things that can kill a church's growth, and all of them are because of humans. You might think that godly fear would be on that list somewhere, but it's not. I want you to watch what happens next because what happened to Ananas and Safhra, something changes. On one hand, people are afraid to just casually come in and be a part of the in crowd. But then on the other hand, more people are added to the Lord more than ever. And so we kind of wonder, how can those two things be true? And that's kind of the point of the passage today. And it raises a question every one of us has probably wondered even if we've never said it out loud. Is that does taking God's holiness seriously as a church help it or hurt it? Does a church that takes sin seriously drive people away or does it actually bring about the kind of conversion that God is looking for?

We're going to talk about that today. And so, if you would stand with me in honor of God's word as we read Acts 5:es 12-6, we're going to look at four characteristics of effective ministry this morning. The passage begins Acts 5:es 12-16. Now this is after Ananas and Safhivra have been buried and the word of all of that goes out to Jerusalem. Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles and they were all together in Solomon's portico. None of the rest dared join them but the people held them in high esteem. And now more than ever believers were added to the Lord. Multitudes of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cotss and mats, that as Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on some of them. The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed. Oh Lord, help us give us understanding of your word. First Baptist Church of Camon does not exist for itself, nor do we belong to any person that's here. We do not exist for our comfort. We do not exist for any other purpose than for your glory and the benefit of people that are around here. Lord, we actually exist for those that don't belong to this place. We belong to you and we exist to be your ambassadors and your witnesses, God. And that's what we are because you have called us each one of us that have trusted in you. You have called us to be those things God. Not firstly to seek our own desires or to seek our own kingdom or anything like

That Lord but to live for your glory. And I ask Father and I plead and I pray that you would work in our hearts today. Help us to see your hand at work in our own lives and start start right here with me. Give me as much of you as I can handle. And I pray that for each and every brother and sister that's here and if there's anyone here that hears my voice and they do not know you, I pray that today would be the day that they turn away from their sins and they trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray and ask, Father, that you would work mightily. Help us to move in the direction that you want us to go. Thank you for how you have worked over these many years and how you are pushing us to be conformed more and more into your image. Thank you for the growing pains. Thank you for the hard seasons. We just ask that your spirit would just fall fresh on us today. We ask these things in Jesus precious name. Amen. Well, our passage begins by telling us that there were many signs and wonders healings, demons being delivered from people, the blind being able to see. Of course, we looked at the man sitting at the beautiful gate and him his ankles being restored and him leaping and praising God in the temple and so there were all these different signs and all these different wonders being done by the hands of the apostles. It's not new. It's a continuation of Jesus's ministry and we talked about that in chapters two and chapters three and chapter 4 and that this is a ministry that was unique to the apostles. We see that. But it's evidence of God's continued work through them, validating the message that they were preaching. It's the same in Christ's own ministry. Why did Christ work the miracles? It's not just simply that he was God. That is true. But it

Was to prove that his message was a true message. It's why he asked the Pharisees, "What is easier to say? Your sins are forgiven or rise up and walk? But so that you would know that the Son of Man has authority in heaven and on earth to forgive sins, I say, rise up and walk. That's why Jesus did these things. And the Apostles signs and wonders, they're doing the same here. They are authenticating their witness. And if you're following along, remind yourself of Acts 18. You talking to the disciples there gathered in the upper room will receive or actually no this is on this temple mount, excuse me. But you will receive not the temple mount the mount you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. What's amazing here is that for the first several chapters that we've been covering is that it's all been about Jerusalem. And here is where it starts to turn because now you're seeing people being brought in from the little villages surrounding Jerusalem and the message of the Gospel going to them as well. A fulfillment of what Christ said would happen. And this is the kind of work that was being done by the apostles. And it was done among the people. It was out in the open for people to see in the general public where anyone could come and see what God was up to. And here's a detail that's worth catching is that happens in Solomon's portico. The same place where the lame man was holding on, clutching on to Peter as Peter began to preach the good news of the Gospel back in chapter three. Now, I want you to notice here if you're looking at your copy of God's word in Acts chapter 5, it says, "And they were all together." Okay? Does anybody have a different translation where it might say something different

Than all together? Does anybody have a different translation? Maybe a New King James or a New American Standard or something like that. All one in chord. That's that's a good translation. That's a good translation there. It's it's the Greek word homothyodon which means altogether. It means to be of unified in purpose to be likeminded to not be out of accord with one another out of agreement but in one accord in full agreement. It's more than just being in the same location. Means having the same spirit, the same thought, the same purpose. So this shows us the first characteristic of effective ministry is marked by unity in power. Luke, he keeps pointing to unity because unity is the soil that power grows out of. Ananas and Sapphire nearly destroyed the unity that the early church received. The early church, they enjoyed being together and enjoyed being like-minded. But God preserved it by the power of the Holy Spirit. And what do we mean by unity? It's more than just simply doctrinal agreement. It's way more than that. As a reformed confessional guy, I have a lot of doctrinal agreement with many other like-minded individuals, right? We agree doctrinally. So many times my philosophy of ministry is very different, right? I want to go out there and reach the lost and all that kind of stuff. It's interesting, right? How there's so much philosophical agreement. What you have here is unity where the Holy Spirit is reigning in the hearts and minds and lives of people philosophically, doctrinally, everyone is on the same page. You know, imagine for a moment that we got everyone to agree on every little bit of theology like in this room, okay? Like we don't disagree about the end times or we

Don't disagree about how someone becomes a Christian and we don't disagree about what whatever whatever your flavor of doctrine is. Okay, everyone is in all agreement. Okay, imagine that. That is not unity of the spirit. That's not it. Unity of the spirit means that we are joined by something greater than just a doctrinal confession. We are joined together by the Holy Spirit of God. What can separate that? Really the only thing is us getting out of line with God. That's the only thing that can divide us at that point. Real togetherness like what we see in Acts five is not agreeing about even our organizational structure. Or how we do missions or whether we homeschool or public school or private school. Those are not ultimate things. We have to find our unity in ultimate things. What is the ultimate thing? The ultimate thing is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's what his word has clearly said. That is where we find doctrinal agreement. That is where we find true and lasting unity is in thus saith the Lord. Amen. Going to be reckless here. Intentionally reckless, I guess. >> But we can't find our identity in being Baptists. That's right. >> Some of you just heard Cody says that he wants to leave the Baptist convention. >> It's not what I said. >> I don't believe that only Baptists are going to be in heaven. >> And neither do you if you're honest with yourself. So please understand what I'm saying. We have to be unified by the Holy Spirit of God. We have to find our common unity in Jesus. Not in our preferences, not in our desires,

Not on whether or not I wear a tie today or not, or whether we sing enough hymns, or whether we sing enough hill song. We won't sing hill song. I love you. Whoever said that, I love And I'm And I want to be careful here because I'm not saying that unity is what causes God to work. I'm I'm not saying that either. It's not like if we work hard enough at unity, everything's good. Because unity is not the ultimate thing either. The ultimate thing is Jesus and his glory and his honor and what he's said in the word. And what Luke shows us is a spiritfilled church that is together because it's united in Christ. And the power of God is being displayed by the apostles in the midst of that church and working powerfully. And it's something that happens because God is present. That's what unity, that's when unity actually occurs is because we're unified in him. It's when we get disunified with him that unity among ourselves gets broken. And that's true in our home. Man, how many times have you sinned against your wife and it impacts everything that you do? And the way to reconcile that is to come before the Lord and you say, "God, I messed up again and I need your forgiveness and I need you to help me and go and ask for forgiveness." And it's there that the peace of God falls into our hearts and into our lives. Wasn't the ultimate cause of the disunityity that the church was threatened with Ananas and Sapphire. Wasn't the ultimate cause of that being out of step with the Lord? Isn't the cause of the sins that we have experienced with each other the cause of us falling out of step with God? We fall out of step with the Lord so much sooner than we fall out of

Fellowship with one another. And what is the answer? The answer is not just faking peace until it gets better. The Lord, he has told us that takes repentance and apologizing to make the relationship right. And what's interesting is that it says none of the rest dared to join them. Don't join them. You could die. Now that's not a hyperbolic statement. It's what happened. That word dared. No one dared. It's the Greek word atma which means to act rashly. To act rashly. To I it shouldn't say to put away presumption but to be presumptuous. It's a typo on my part. It's like what Charles Spurgeon says, it is in proportion that a church is holy is the proportion that its testimony for Christ is going to be powerful. The world needs to see authentic Christianity. And authentic Christianity is holy Christianity. In our culture, we have redefined that to say authentic Christianity means my mess. And yeah, authentic Christianity is messy, but that's not where it ends. Authentic Christianity is holy Christianity. That means that we are one united in heart in our pursuit of God. Right? Just my heart, completely devoted to him. Let me pursue Jesus. Nothing less. That's all that I want. And if we're all pulling in the same direction, man, God, he does some amazing things. It's a holy Christianity. And that's what gives your testimony weight. I want you to think about the song Amazing Grace, right? It's a great song. How many of y'all love that hymn? Amazing Grace. It's a great hymn. Great hymn. Love the hymn. Can you imagine Amazing Grace without the benefits that's listed? Like Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. I once was lost.

I was blind. It feels incomplete, doesn't it? And that's because it is incomplete. What makes amazing grace isn't just that there was a wretch that was lost. It's that the wretch was found. It's not just the blindness. It's that now I can see. And so it is with the Christian that comes to Christ, we it When we look at justification, the doctrine of justification, it is not just that God removes our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. It's not just that he has taken out the darkness out of our lives and out of our minds. It's that he has granted to us his righteousness as well. He has given to us his light and his life. That's the benefits of grace that we receive the moment that we're saved. If we've never been changed, if we've never been transformed, then we've never actually received grace. We've never actually received forgiveness. You may have gotten halfway there and you may have understood the removal of some of the things. You may have become aware, but what about the conversion of the heart? What about the dead becoming alive? What about the lost becoming found? Do you know that grace changes things completely? Look at look at Acts chapter 5 verse 13. None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. The second characteristic of effective ministries that produces holiness, not casualness. What do you think that the greatest need in the church is? Okay. I did something. I wasn't expecting to do this, but a few weeks ago, I'm I'm on this SBC Facebook page because I'm an old millennial and that's

Where I spend my time is on Facebook. And I asked this question and said, 'If you could immediately make one change in your church that you knew would be positive, what would it be? And I got 240 some odd comments on this page. You know, it was it was a lot. I felt I felt viral there for a moment. I'm still riding that high. Joking. >> I know. Here are a few of the comments, right? Not many of these will surprise you. Some surprise me, but not many. All right. First one, more hymns. Actually, only hymns. Sunday night hymn sings, more evangelism, teach people fourart harmonies. These are the one thing that people would change in a church that they knew would be positive. >> Okay. A different senior pastor. Eliminate committees. >> A church bus ministry. Better attitudes. Sell the building and meet in homes. Turn the AC down. Turn the AC up. Remove the Calvinists. Some are some were pretty good though. Some people said, "Start with changing me." Right. It's good place. Good place. Help me live out the word, help me make disciples. Some of those things, what's interesting is that all of them are about us. Every single one of them is about us. I mean, what if we just got rid of all of our preferences? You know, we talked about the Borg in Sunday school today. Star Trek. Any Treky fans out there? I'm a Treky fan. All right. Board. There's uncultured, right? Joking. I'm joking. But if we were to boil it down to our greatest need, our greatest need is God. It's our greatest need above everything else is to get a view of who God is and what God has done. And if we get a view of who God is, let me tell you, it changes our hearts. It changes our lives. It changes our outlooks. It impacts everything

About who we are. And you think about all the adjectives that people use to describe a church. How do you describe First Baptist Church of Camden? Honestly, give me feedback. How do you describe First Baptist Church of Camden? On a lease, I'm scared. Awesome. Okay. All right. All right. Yeah. >> My home. What else? >> Growing. >> Warm. >> Cold. Cold. Anybody cold? Friendly. Friendly. Okay, I heard that. >> Where the Bible is taught. >> Where the Bible's taught. Yeah. You know, I'm talking about holiness this morning. And yeah, I bet if we were to talk about most churches, that would be an adjective very low on anyone's list, about description of the church, holy. Why is that such a low priority among the people of God? >> Let me tell you what I don't mean by holy. Don't mean that we're always serious and cold, that we're like the frozen chosen or anything like that. I don't mean pretending to be a church that has no sinner sitting in the pews because there's a sinner in this pulpit right here. There's no church that exists where where sin is not at least somewhat present. Holiness doesn't mean perfect. It means that we are conforming ourselves to the image of Christ and he's the one that does the work. It means that we take sin seriously and we take repentance seriously, take grace seriously and the Gospel seriously because we take Jesus seriously. And what's happening in the early church here is it's not an unhealthy dread either. There is a wrong kind of fear, right? A fear that permeated the American church for many years

Focused on behavior and you know this is what's going to happen if you don't stop listening to that rock and roll music let me tell you right it's called legalism and it's leads to death pictures God just waiting to strike the claw ready to fall that's not what fell on the early church the early church had a right view, a right view of God, a right view of the Gospel, holiness and the fear of the Lord. It goes with it. And that's something that's so missing from churches today, from Christians today. Even in my own life, tragically neglected. When we come to church, we don't come to church to expecting to meet with God. We come to church expecting to meet with brothers and sisters or to hear Biblical teaching or to worship with Biblical songs. Those are good and right things to have expectations. But what about expectation to meet God Almighty? Psalm 111:10 says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever. The fear of God is not the enemy of Christian joy. It's the foundation of Christian joy, or one of the foundations of it, I should say. When we understand who God is, we understand the wonder of his grace toward a wretch like me. >> Let's look at verse 14. And more than ever, believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of men and women. It's a strange strategy for church growth, isn't it? We think about, you know, where the American church and even the church in the world has been and how big churches got and how quick we were to credit, you know, pastors and programs and ministries and programs. They can gather crowds. You can get hundreds of people together in this room for all sorts of different things. But you know what these groups and these strategies, you know what

They can't produce? They cannot produce heart change. What good is it to attend a church your entire life and still be lost and go to hell? It's a wasted life. Doesn't matter how big the church is. Doesn't matter how big the budget is. We exist to see God glorified. We exist to draw people into the kingdom of God with our evangelism in a holy life. That's our entire purpose boiled down into a nutshell is to reach the lost with the Gospel. Not to build budgets, not to improve buildings, not to have whatever your interest is be represented in the church budget. Methods do not produce new birth. Only Jesus does that. And we see this happening in the early church. Real growth alongside holy fear of the Lord. The fear didn't slow it down. It actually accelerated the growth. And how counter is that to the way that we usually think about church growth? A few weeks ago, months ago now, probably, my wife and I, we were listening to John MacArthur one Sunday. And I miss John MacArthur so much sometimes. And he was talking about how his church walked through COVID. He was in California and going through all of that and they didn't meet for a couple of weeks as they were trying to figure out is this actually a plague? And then it became clear that it wasn't. And so they just opened up their doors and it was regular fellowship and just kind of business as usual for them without fear of sickness, without fear of people, without fear of legis you know, law enforcement coming in and shutting them down. They said, "We're not going to fear that. We're going to fear the Lord." and people were coming in, lost people, people that whose churches weren't

Meeting and they started seeing how God was working because they didn't have a fear of COVID and the things around them, but they had a fear of God and God alone. And people they asked him, "But don't the lost feel uncomfortable? Don't don't the lost feel uncomfortable coming?" and he said it's absolutely bizarre to want to make unsaved people feel comfortable in a church. Now don't hear him wrong. We don't unintentionally make people comfort uncomfortable. We have nice chairs for people to sit in. They're very comfortable for church chairs. We have an AC going and that's a blessing right right now. We are very thankful for the air conditioning that's working. So, it's not uncomfortable for the sake of being uncomfortable. Don't treat visitors poorly. We don't act weird for the sake of being weird. We love people where they're at. We welcome people. We serve people. But we also don't try to make the Gospel of Christ more palatable. See, it's the conviction of the Holy Spirit that draws people to see their need for Christ or offends them to where they reject the Gospel. And that's between them and God, not us. Jesus is not a product that we need to be marketing. The Gospel is not something that we need to soften. The Gospel is not something that we need to put in this pretty little package and say, "Will you please?" The Gospel is offensive because sin is offensive. And the grace of God is amazing precisely because we're really and truly guilty. The third characteristic of effective ministry is that it still draws genuine converts. When a church is serious about God, he empowers our ministry. He causes growth by bringing strong believers to the church and he brings new birth at his

Pleasure through the proclamation of the Gospel. The Gospel is not admit, believe, confess. That's how we respond to the Gospel. The Gospel is the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And whether or not you're going to trust in what he did on the cross for you, admitting to God, believing in him, confessing your sins, that's just how you respond to the Gospel. You have to believe the Gospel for yourself. And when a church is focused in on itself, it's not the glory and the fear of the Lord that's driving things anymore. Becomes about cultural preferences. It becomes about comfort. It becomes about ear tickling. Awtoer, he said that the church that can't worship must be entertained. It's why so many churches lean on entertainment. They look holy. It looks like activity is happening and there's plenty of activity. It doesn't mean that the presence of God is there. It might draw a crowd. That doesn't mean that it brings life. Only the Gospel of Jesus Christ does that. Listen to what Paul writes in 2 Corinthians. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. The same thing the aroma of Christ how we live our personal holiness because of our positional standing when we trust in Jesus Christ he radically changes us and we are the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing to one a fragrance from death to death to the other a fragrance from life to life and who is sufficient for these things who is it's not pastor It's not elders. It's not you. It's Jesus who is sufficient. The only barrier to the Gospel is Jesus.

That's it. He's the cornerstone. He's the hurdle that you have to get past. Christ rightly represented with a holy fear and a love for the Lord paired with the clear Gospel message produces disciples. And even two supernatural deaths in a church did not slow that down because God was the one that was doing the work. And so effective ministry, it's marked by unity and power, holiness, not casualness. It draws genuine converts. And lastly, it meets real need through Christ's power, not human techniques. It meets real tangible needs. People through Peter had people thought that Peter had power. They even thought that a shadow had power. And in the first century people they viewed the shadow being an extension of oneself. And yet look what happens is that even though the people didn't believe things perfectly, right? Because we don't believe that there's power in the shadow. Maybe there is. I don't know. But what God does is he still meets them in their needs. It's why everyone that was there, it says, you know, those afflicted with unclean spirits, they were all healed. It's God's word. And don't rush past this because because Luke is not wasting ink. He uses this term fallon. That's episato, which means to overshadow. And he uses this three times. Three times in the word of God. And each time it's very, very important. And the first time is when Mary at the conception the immaculate conception when he says that the Holy Spirit will overshadow you. So he uses this word there but he also uses it at the mount of transfiguration when je when the cloud comes onto the mountain and they hear this is my son with whom I am well pleased.

Listen to him. And here when Peter's shadow overshadows the sick, that word, it reaches even further back. If you look at the Greek Septuagent in Exodus 40, here's where it says, "Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses, the one who saw God face to face, was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. The shikina glory overshadowed them. Do you see what this means? It means that at Sinai, God's presence was so holy, so overwhelming that even Moses, the mediator, could not go in. The glory that filled the tabernacle kept people out. And this is exactly the fear that we saw here in verse 13 of our passage that no one dared to join them. That same holiness, that same trembling that was happening. And watch what happens when that same overshadowing presence in Acts chapter 5 happens. It doesn't wait behind a veil. It doesn't drive people out. It goes out to them. It gets up and it walks the streets. Excuse me. It goes to the sick that are lying on their cs and their mats. Look at Isaiah 51:16. This is the fulfillment. I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth and saying to Zion, "You are my people. God's own shadow, once reserved for a tent in the wilderness, is now resting on his people as they carry the Gospel into the world world. It's the whole story of the new covenant coming together in one image that we are called to go forth and make disciples. God's presence is not fenced off to a single building. We carry the Holy

Spirit with us wherever we go. He is with you, Christian. He abides with you. He empowers your ministry. What is it that you're not trusting him with? Where have you gotten in the way of what he wants to do? You need to confess that. You need to repent to that. You need to say, "God, I'm yours. I want to walk with you every step of the way. You see what Peter's doing? He's not running a healing campaign. He doesn't have a strategy or a committee or a roll out plan or anything like that. He's just walking to the temple just living his life doing the normal thing that he always does. And that should terrify you and it should free you. It should terrify you because it means that the fix is not a better program. Never has been, never will be. Like, we can get a great website, which praise the Lord, it's it's we've got a great website thanks to him. We can have strong sermons. We can put a coffee bar out. We can change logos. We can do all that type of stuff, right? None of those things changes lives. Only God's presence does that. But you know what? If it means that there's no programs and stuff that we can do and no five-step plan, that also frees us because it means that we don't have to have some type of platform or follow some type of fancy strategy in order to see God work. What it does mean is that we just follow the Lord. We just walk with him. We abide with him. He takes care of all the rest of it. And we just let God be God. Doesn't mean that we stop working. Just means that we stop pretending that our work is what produces the results. >> We pray, we serve, we disciple, we evangelize, we visit, we do all those different things, but God's the one that takes care of the results. >> You got people that carry out the sick

To the streets and put them on CS and mats. The sick could not get where they wanted to go. And so someone else got them there. That's the whole method that this text gives us is just people that are willing to carry mats. What does carrying a mat look like today? You ever thought about that? It means helping people be able to hear the Gospel and experience Christ. Maybe it's a neighbor that has never heard about the Gospel. America is not becoming more evangelized. It's becoming less. And >> and that's on us as Christians. Not just on pastors. On us as Christians. Might be a co-orker that you've prayed for, but you've never invited into your home or out to lunch to have a conversation. Maybe it's someone even in your own house, a daughter, a son, maybe even a parent. You can't save them. You can't regenerate their heart heart. You can't do that. But you can pray and you can share. And that when we when we trust in the Lord and we walk with him and he empowers our ministry, he's the one that does all the work. All that we're called to do is abide in him and live faithfully before him. That's effective ministry. Not a perfect church, not a performing church, not a clever church, not anything like that. Just abiding in Christ, walking in step with the spirit. I want to be a church that does that. Head, heart, hand, head. God, he wants you to know that his church has never grown because it made holiness optional. It has never lost people because it made holiness real. The holiness, the conversions, the healing, all of this comes from one source. It comes from God working through his people. Nothing else produces it and nothing else ever will.

A holy church is the only kind of church that has anything to offer to a world that is lost and dying apart from Christ heart. This is what God wants you to believe. God wants you to believe that his presence is enough for you. Enough to make holiness safe to pursue because Jesus is made that way. We abide in Christ and he shows us the path to take. And God, he wants you to walk close enough with Christ to have something worth bringing to someone else. See who needs the Gospel. Bring them to Jesus. Tell them about what he's done and trust him to do what only he can do. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord, I do ask that you would move in our hearts and in our lives today. Help us, God, to understand exactly how we are to abide in you. If there's anyone here that maybe they don't know you or maybe they've been walking in rebellion and they need to get things right, Lord, I pray that right now that they would just talk with you and come to you and say, "God, deal with my heart. God, I don't know what's going on. I know that something's not right in me. But Lord, I know that you can sort it all out. And so, God, I just surrender to you. Help me, God, to do that. I pray, Father, that you would just move in marriages and in church relationships, and even in our own community, God, we just want to see you work, God. We just want more of you, God. As much as we can handle, as much as we can take, Lord, please give it to us, God. Help us, Father. As we sing about surrendering to you, let those be songs of reflection and words on our hearts, God, that we do surrender all to you. Jesus precious name we pray. Amen. Let's all stand and let's sing together. Toesus I surrender all to him. I freely give.

I will ever love and trust him in his presence daily. >> I surrender all. >> I surrender all. All to be my blessed surrender all to Jesus I surrenderly at his feet I bow worldly. My pleasures all forsen. Take me Jesus. Take me now. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to thee. My blessed Savior I surrender all. >> All to Jesus I surrender. Lord I give myself to thee. Fill me with thy love and power. Let thy blessings fall on me. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all. >> I surrender all. I surrender all. All to thee my blessed Savior I surrender all

To thee my blessed Savior I surrender all And so Lord, that is our prayer this morning that you would help us to surrender everything to you. Help us, God, to walk out of here knowing that we're yours. That you're working in our lives. And we may not crush it every day. But Lord, there's grace available by trusting in you and walking with you. Help us to abide in that grace that you so freely have provided for us. I ask Lord that you would help us to have good conversations with friends and family this week, pointing them to the eternal hope and life that we have through your son Jesus. Thank you for living a perfect sinless life, for dying on the cross for our sins and rising again on that third day, God. Lord, we know that you full atonement that you made for us. Thank you for it all and we ask that you would help us to walk in that freedom each and every day. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Go in peace. Thank you.