 Hey, if you brought your Bibles, you can turn to Isaiah chapter 60. And this is a standalone message. So I'm preaching here in Richland. And then we have downtown and Portage, which are all separate messages. So, and those are better, but hey, you're here. So we're all kind of navigating. Hey, what's the Lord kind of putting on our hearts? What do we want to speak on? And that's often when I know I'm gonna do a standalone message. It's often things that are on my heart, kind of in the moment and today is no exception. And so, but before we even jump into the word, I just wanna say thank you again to so many of you who have reached out and called and texted and prayed and even sent cards. Just the response from the announcement that Ken and I are gonna be extending the reach of Radiant Church into Grand Haven, Michigan has been just humbling and super encouraging. So I just wanna thank you all from the bottom of my heart for our Kendra and our families. We're doing really well. We actually close on the house tomorrow. God's been very faithful and kind of preparing the way and all of these are mile markers and little monuments of God's faithfulness. And so every prayer matters and we feel that and we're very grateful for that. And it is bittersweet in many ways, but we're excited because we know that it's the Lord. And when you say yes to the Lord, it's better than saying no. So here we are. Isaiah chapter 60, let's pray. Father, thank you so much for meeting us here for this opportunity to worship, for being able to come together as saints and lift high the name of Jesus. I ask God that as your word is proclaimed, you said that it would not return void, but it would accomplish what you send it out to do God that your word is alive and it's powerful. So Father, Holy Spirit of God, speak to our hearts this morning. We pray in Jesus' name and everyone said amen. Isaiah 60, this should be somewhat familiar. Hopefully, if you've been around radiant because this is literally one of the key and core scriptures of radiant church many, many years ago, right when we started 26 years ago, Johnny Varican, a missionary in Latin America who we still support him and Carla to this day had this scripture and really kind of birthed it and spoke it and prophesied it over radiant church. So I'm gonna read the first five verses. It says, arise and shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you for behold, darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness the people, but the Lord will arise upon you in his glory will be seen upon you. Nation shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes all around and see they all gather together and they come to you your sons from afar and your daughters carried on the hip and then you shall see and be radiant and your heart shall thrill and exalt because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you and the wealth of the nations will come to you. The heading of this is the future glory of Israel. And so this is a prophetic announcement from Isaiah about what's going to happen to God's people and he begins and we love the part that says you're exalt and you'll be radiant and it's an amazing promise, but it begins by saying that darkness is gonna cover the land and deep darkness. And it is a sort of throwback actually to Exodus when the plagues hit Egypt and remember one of them was complete darkness but light was still shining in Goshen. Like that's what Isaiah is referring to here. Like yours gonna rise and shine because God's glory and God's calling and his goodness is upon you and it's going to be a light to the nations and to the Gentiles. But make no mistake Isaiah says darkness is going to cover the land and deep darkness the people. And again as I was praying this week I was just maybe reminded, maybe coming to the realization of that. And I say this, I'll just say this, our nation has lost its mind in many ways. The darkness is covering the land and there is a deep darkness on the people and it's evident in what we're seeing around us. It's evident in what we're navigating in the world around us and what's happening in culture. And so the response sometimes as Christians can be kind of muddled. What do we do? How do we get involved? But how do we take a stance? Do we take a stance? We just kind of bury our head in the sand. Like what do we do when literally culture around us is imploding before our very eyes? And I had tons of statistics and tons of things that are happening that I'm not going to share because well they're depressing. But again, just think about the last like 30 years. I'm almost 49 years old and we are in a time of unprecedented division. At least while I've been alive, I say that knowing that we did have a civil war at one point in our nation's history. So, but at the end of the day, like culturally, politically, economically, socially, racially, we are as divided as a nation as I have ever seen, as I've ever known. And it's culminated in things like mass shootings that take place where a few weeks ago in Nashville, children, nine and 10 years old, you know, of a 10 year old son, lost their lives senselessly, obviously. And then we mourn that to some degree as a nation, but then it becomes something about guns and control and amendments and we just move on from things so unbelievably quickly. And then we have the reality of 2,500 unborn children are killed every day, excuse me, in our nation. Like that currently is taking place. And we have legalized and destigmatized drug use in our nation. We have just a massive display of what self-governance and what self flesh dominant leading is looking like in our culture. And in my opinion, it's culminating in many ways in an attack and I'll just say it on what I believe is children, ultimately. That's what's happening here. I mean, we have taken this stance somehow as a nation that you can just be any gender you want and you can just pick any feeling you want and you can identify any way you want. And listen, I'm gonna stand up here and say I was a child of the 80s. I remember Culture Club. I remember Boy George. I remember all kinds of instances of that, but now we have children and we are saying, oh, you're three years old, you can decide this for yourself. Oh, I'm not even gonna really tell you if you're a boy or a girl. We're gonna let you decide. And they're just past the law. And I'm not, this isn't a political message. I'm just, I want us to get a framework. Past the law in the state of Washington, which is part of the United States of America, saying that now the government can legally remove your children from your home if you don't acquiesce to whatever demands they have regarding their transitions or their gender or whatever it is. That's where we're going as a nation. And again, some of you might be mad at me even for bringing it up. Some of you may be like, this isn't appropriate or I'm in full, so I don't know what it is, but this is probably the last time I'm gonna speak on staff. So if you're mad at me, whatever. It's all good, so. Maybe I won't come back on a holiday. Hopefully I will. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. But I mean, again, I just wanna paint a picture of things that we would have never dreamed of happening 30, 40 years ago are now being championed and celebrated in our culture. Darkness is covering, and I'm gonna say it. It's demonic in nature. It is a demonic attempt to destroy children. Like Pharaoh wanted to do to Moses and Herod wanted to do to Jesus. That's what we're doing as a culture. But in the same vein and then the same breath, Christians are being presented as the unloving ones. As the dogmatic, fear-mongering haters, if you will. And so we're in this crazy just array of, I don't know what it is in our nation as Christians where it's like, okay, what do we do? How do we respond? What is our go-to in these situations? And I feel like more than anything, I wanna just try to help myself, try to help our church, try to be a voice of what I feel like scripturally. God wants to say to us as we respond to what's happening in culture around us. So how do we arise and shine? How do we allow the glory of the Lord to be upon us and to be light to the world around us when darkness is covering the land and deep darkness to people? So that's what the message is about. I called it faithfully different. I wasn't gonna call it God wants you to be weird, but I was like, I don't know, that may not be. But think of the word weird. It's different, it's not what everyone else is doing. I believe 100% God wants us to be weird. We're gonna have to be weird as Christians if we're gonna faithfully follow Jesus because of what's happening around us. And I thought of this actually in Pastor Lee's office as I was praying and I wrote it down because I was like, I'm not gonna remember that and it sounded killer in the moment. So if it's not that great now, just roll with it, it's gonna get better. But here's the question. The question is not, how do we create a culture where it's more normal to be a Christian? The question is, how can I best be faithful to God's calling to follow him and a world where it will never again be normal to be a Christian? That's the question that I wanna ask. Now, how do we make a culture where it's easy and we can all be comfortable and we can be Christian and it's normal? That is never going to happen. That's not the question I wanna ask. The question is, how do we faithfully fulfill God's call to follow him in a culture and world where it is increasingly harder to be a Christian? Where it is increasingly less normal to be a Bible believing fundamentally Bible believing Christian? So that's the question I wanna help answer today. And first response I wanna look at is the Jesus response. How many of you wanna be like Jesus? No one in Portage, whatever. No, I'm just kidding, I know we all do. They're not even watching, it's fine. Chick-fil-A's closed, I'm not even gonna tell them. The Jesus response, hopefully, would be the response we wanna have as Christians. And so in John chapter one, we have this beautiful, beautiful depiction and description of Jesus coming into the world. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. And the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. And in verses, I think 14, do we have that? Yeah, so look at verse 14, so it's beautiful and I don't have time to read it all. But it says this in verse 14, and the word God, Jesus became flesh. This is Emmanuel, this is what happened. And he dwelt among us and we've seen his glory. Glory is the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth. I want you to underline that, highlight that. I've taught on that before, but in your Bible, this is describing Jesus. He's full of grace and truth, and then it goes on. And it says, John the Baptist bore witness about him and said, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me. And from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace, where the law was given through Moses, but there's those two words, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. John describes Jesus fully God, fully man as full of two things, grace and truth. That is how Jesus responded to culture. That is how Jesus responded to the world around him. That was Jesus' response to any antagonistic Pharisees, whatever it was, Jesus responded in grace and in truth. And that is the call, I believe, of Christians today is what does that mean? How does that look? How do we do that? And so here's what happens though too often is we slide into kind of swinging the pendulum too far to like one side or the other, even as Christians. So again, I'm just gonna say it. Much of what I talked about in the beginning, there are churches, denominations and Christians who are embracing some of these things and maybe even all of these things. And Timothy, Paul warned Timothy, like, hey, there's gonna come a day where people don't wanna hear sound doctrine and they're gonna have itching ears and they're gonna wanna hear what is popular, what appeals to their flesh, to their carnal nature. Like, be prepared for this. Like, this is gonna happen. So when I talk about this response, sometimes it can be like, well, at least we have the church who's always in the right and then we have everybody. Like, it's becoming very murky and very clouded between what the church believes and what the world believes. But I'm gonna talk as the church of Jesus Christ and what we should believe and how we should follow Jesus. So if we're not careful, we can swing the pendulum from grace and truth to like all truth. And in the church world, that kind of can look like maybe this old school kind of legalistic, ritualistic, rule-following gospel. I don't know if you grew up in a church like that. I actually did. Doesn't mean that they don't love Jesus. It just means it can often sometimes be kind of harsh, be kind of disconnected, be not very maybe super loving. And there's a truth component, but it's kind of in your face and it's kind of like, this is what you do, do, do, do. And there's not a real relational component to truth. So like the truth guy is gonna say, well, the Bible says it, that settles it, you know, kind of a, you know, and I believe it, that's how it goes. God said it, I believe it, that settles it. How many of you know that's true, right? But how many of you know that's not like, maybe super helpful if you're talking to your neighbor, you know, or something like that, or someone at work. You know, I got this, you know, thing going on. Well, the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it. And then they fall on their knees and they lead them in a sinner's prayer. It's an amazing, like, that's not usually how it goes because you can present truth in ways that it isn't full of grace. You don't have grace and truth, you know, and it's usually, again, I don't know why when I talk like a truth person, it's like the grandpa from Christmas vacation, this is how it comes out, the blessing, okay. But he said, you know, the truth guy comes over for dinner on Thanksgiving and he's like, America's going to hell in a handbag, you know, and it's always, and it's the Democrats' fault. And it's young people's fault. No one wants to work, you know. And it's a preacher's fault. They won't even talk the truth. And it's just this like super harsh rulekeeping. I've said this before, but we kind of grew up like with tons of rules and that's how I saw God is through what we didn't do. Like in my house, we didn't do much of anything on Sundays except go to church. So all your chores had to be done already. All your yard work had to be done. I know, like we had a neighbor, I've told you this, who mowed his lawn on Sunday. Not only he mowed his lawn, he mowed it with no shirt on. And we would just eat Sunday dinner after church and just look out the window and be like, you don't even love Jesus, you sweaty Philistine. Like what is, look at us. We're truth people. We keep the rules, we keep the regulations and that can be like truth without grace it can just be mean, but grace without any truth is meaningless. And that's the other side of the pendulum that we swing to. And honestly, that's what we're seeing more and more in our culture today, I believe is just anything goes. God is a God of love. So he wants this, that, this, there's no real absolute truth. My truth might not be your truth. My expression might not be yours. There's generally no repentance. No, like, hey, this is what God has said or this is what his word reveals. So now I'm going to align my life with that. No, it's like, no, well, that might have been for them or that might have been for that time and love is love and God is love and everybody's fine and there's no real judgment and hell's not real. Like all of these things are seeping into this grace, overcooked oatmeal definition of the gospel. That's just this mushy thing of no justice and no repentance and no lordship in our lives. And that really is guys, what is called the progressive gospel and it is gaining massive traction. It's gaining massive appeal. Well, why is that? Because it doesn't matter who you are. If you're a Christian or not, there's something in your flesh that's drawn to being able to kind of do what you want and being able to do what you feel. It's been all the way back to the garden. What did God tell Eve? If you eat that tree, you're gonna literally die. And she's like, well, am I really gonna, you know, that looks good. It's appealing. It looks good. And so from the very beginning with a relationship that they had with God where they walked with him and talked with him, there was still this idea that, oh, maybe I wanna do what I want. I'm gonna give you the four truths of kind of the progressive gospel. This is what's happening in our world around us if you're not aware of it. Number one, truth is this, that your feelings are the ultimate guide. That's what's true in the kind of cultural religion. Follow your heart. How many of you have ever heard that? Follow your heart. You've never heard rock set? Listen to your heart when it's calling to you? Listen to your heart. There's nothing else you can do. You guys know her, right? You guys all sing along. Stop lying. I don't know where you're going. I don't know why. But listen to your heart. Why? Because it's the ultimate guide for where you wanna go in your life, right? That's what we hear. Listen to your heart. I'm gonna read you a quote, and I'm not mad at Beyonce. I just found this when I Googled it. They're a bunch of them. But if you Google, follow your heart. Listen to this. I don't have to prove anything to anyone. I only have to follow my heart and concentrate on what I wanna say to the world. I run my world. Like again, that doesn't sound bad. Listen to your heart. Feelings are the ultimate guide. How you feel is the rudder of your life. And I'm gonna tell you, none of that is scriptural. Nothing. Jeremiah 17.9 says your heart is deceitfully wicked and sick. That's what the Bible says about our heart, about our feelings. First on 3.20 says God is greater than our feelings. And he knows all things. So that's number one. Number two is happiness is the ultimate goal. So I wanna do what makes me happy. And I believe God wants me to do what makes me happy. So I follow my feelings and then I do whatever makes me happy. And if, you know, living my whole life to save baby iguanas makes me happy, then that's what I'm gonna do. Or if having multiple sexual partners makes me happy, that's what I'm gonna, like happiness is the goal, whatever it is. And however that looks like for you, because only you can really determine what's gonna make you happy. So your feelings guide you and then you pursue happiness. And then the third is this judgment is the ultimate sin. Judgment, like, oh my gosh, like you follow your feelings and you pursue happiness however you want. But don't ever look at anyone else's journey and say they're not doing it right. Like, no, no, no, we can do whatever we want. And they can do however they want. And that's their truth. And this is what's right for them. And that's literally what's happening in our culture around us right now. I'm gonna just give you one crazy example. There is a homeless and drug epidemic in many places, but in Seattle, Washington in particular. And the government's solution to this. Again, you would think that if you put a task force on helping the homeless, you might try to like establish some ways to really maybe give them tools to do, you know, whatever it might look like. But the answer is no, we're just gonna give them free needles and we're gonna give them free access and we're going to empower them to do what they are because far be it from us to say, this probably isn't how you wanna live. This probably isn't the best for you. And again, that's just an example where it's just like we're not gonna judge anyone. And that is again, not biblical. There is a right, there is a wrong. The last one is this, is God is the ultimate guest. So feelings the ultimate guide, happiness, ultimate goal, judgment, ultimate sin. God is the ultimate guest. Is there a higher power probably? But amazingly and ironically, in many of these environments, Jesus believes a lot of the same things we believe. He's for the same things we're for. He's against much of what we're against. And what we have is not Jesus on the throne, we have ourself on the throne. And we just say, well, Jesus kind of agrees with me and I agree with Jesus and this is my journey. So that's what's happening in many churches and certainly in culture today. So I wanna just take the rest of the time we have. And I wanna say, so what do we do? How do we navigate these waters as Christ followers when all of this is happening around us? How do we balance grace and truth in our lives personally but also in the way we interact with the world? And I'm gonna give you five things. It's not an exhaustive list and you can write them down or not, but this is what I have been praying through all week. What is our response? The first one is this is to pray. Sounds simple, but prayer is the most powerful force we have in the universe to create change and to connect ourselves to God. Prayer, prayer is the currency of the kingdom of God. And prayerlessness is an indicator that we trust ourselves, that we're either think we're in charge or prayerlessness just thinks God's gonna do it anyways. He's sovereign and he's just gonna and that isn't what we see in scripture. Prayer changes things, it changes situations, it changes circumstances. Second Chronicles 7, 14, I think we all know it, but the key verse, the key word in the verse is if, two letters, God says if my people who are called by my name, what do they have to do? Humble themselves, pray, seek my face, turn from their wicked ways. If we do that, what happens? Then I hear from heaven and I will forgive them and I will heal their land. How many of you think the land needs healing today? Most of us, that's what we do is we pray and we pray humbly and we intercede. We don't pray like the tax collector in the Pharisee. You guys remember that prayer? When they're both there and the Pharisee looks over and his prayer is God I thank you, then I'm not like this tax collector. You imagine praying like this is amazing. I'm not an adulterer. I'm not a sinner. I'm not a terrible person like him. No, no, no, here's my list of things I tithe. I obey the Sabbath. I do all of these things. And if we're, it sounds kind of comical, but in our hearts we can be like, God, those people are a mess. These people are jacked up. This is all, that's not how we pray. We pray like Abraham pray for Sodom and Gomorrah. God, help the righteous rise up. We pray for laborers to be raised up in our land. We pray for people of courage, people of strength. God, we pray for godly leaders. God, we pray for, and we stand in the gap for a nation and a culture that is becoming increasingly anti-God, anti-church, anti-Christian. Number one thing you can do is pray. Get in the prayer room. 8 a.m., noon and 6 30, we pray apostolic prayers from Paul. We pray for our nation. We pray for people. We pray for the church. It sounds simple, but it is, and that's the offense sometimes. It's cause anyone can do it. Sometimes we think, oh, I gotta have this plan. I gotta have this strategy. I gotta have this super thought out. I think, no, just pray, pray. And if you pray consistently, guess what? You'll get better at it. Some of you are like, I don't know how to pray. Well, that may be true. But if you do it more, how many of you have a piano in your home, anyone? How many of you know that a four-year-old can play the piano, right? And it doesn't sound amazing, but it is actually playing the piano, right? But then you can have a pastor, Caleb Culver, and then you're like, wow, that's how you play the piano. That sounds way better. And then I'm somewhere in between, chopsticks and you know, things like that, I can, but that's what prayer does, guys, is when we pray, when we press into God, when we lift up the nation, when we lift up people, when we intercede, God hears. Number one, without question, this prayer. Number two, be anchored to the truth. This is the truth. Be anchored to, what did Jesus say time and time again? And John eight, he looked at his disciples and said, if you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. It isn't just this blanket statement, everybody's gonna know the truth, and everybody's gonna be set free. No, there's a prefix. There's a condition. If you abide in my word, John 15, if you abide in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. This has to be the true north, the north star of our lives because we are drifting away from the truth of what God has revealed in his word. And it's this weird, like, like you don't even know what's happening. Have you ever been fishing? I went once, I got seasick and I had to quit, but we started going far away from where we started. And I didn't even realize it was happening, partly because I was very sick, but still you just drift. And suddenly like, whoa, we're nowhere near where we started. And I'm telling you, church, that is happening with God's word. What did Jesus say in John 17, 17, sanctify them by your truth. Well, what's that? Your word is truth. This is the Hebrew 619 anchor to our souls. The hope of who Jesus is is the anchor. It ties us to truth. And I said this in a Facebook post. The reason I start my day with prayer and with reading God's word isn't because I want to be legalistic or check a box or be dutiful. It's because I want to be anchored to truth because I'm being bombarded by culture and craziness. And in my flesh, I want to lash out. In my flesh, I want to be discouraged. In my flesh, I want to be like, what in the heck is happening? But I go back to what God has said. I anchor myself to the truth of God's word. And if you don't know the truth, you can't be set free from fear and from anxiety and from the division and the hate that wanna indoctrinate every single person in our country. If you don't know the truth, what do we tell our children? Stranger, danger. If you don't know God, if you're not intimate with God, you'll never trust God and you'll never be bold about who God is and what he said. And at best we'll be like, well, it's in there somewhere. I read it. Jesus wept. Or we have a couple of key scriptures we might know. No, no, no, no. Anchor yourself to the truth. Spend time in God's word. It's alive. It's powerful. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. It's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of your heart. And Galatians 6 says, when you sow to the spirit, you will of the spirit reap everlasting life. Sometimes when you read your Bible, most times you might not get incredible revelation or angels speaking to you, but you're sowing to your spirit. You're reading truth, you're taking it in. The statistics about Christians who read their Bibles four times a week are insane when it comes to how much more victory they have in their life. So you anchor yourselves to truth. Number three, sorry, gotta go fast. Number three is be courageous. Be courageous, be bold. Well, how do I be bold? I'm not a loud person. How do you be bold? I'm kind of more introvert. It's great. Do I know how you be bold? It's not a personality type. You do one and you do two. You pray and you spend time in God's word and you will become bold in your faith. That's the formula. Stay connected to the vine and you will bear much fruit. Stay connected to God and you will have Holy Spirit boldness. The same disciples who shrunk back in fear, the same Peter who denied Jesus just a few chapters earlier and Acts chapter two is preaching with boldness to the Sanhedrin. Why? Because the Holy Spirit filled him and he understood the closeness and the relationship that he had with the Lord. I have Joshua 1 9 tattooed on my arm when I first went into ministry 20 some years ago. I came from a background and you guys know this drugs and alcohol and all kinds of just things that define me and weighed on me and insecurities and Nate Rushe and he may not even remember this. Spoke this verse over me and I don't know what I ever heard it before. Have I not commanded you? Only be strong and very courageous. Do not be afraid nor be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. He spoke that over me hours from remember it was a rama word that literally define my life and my ministry in that moment that is the call of God is that as Christians we just be bold and courageous. What's the verse before that Joshua 1 8 this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth but you shall meditate in it day and night and do according to all that's written in it then you will make your way successful. Then you will have the boldness and strength of God the two go together, be courageous. Doesn't mean be confrontational but it doesn't mean we also don't just bow our heads in the sand and let culture run over us or say you're you know open mindedness is the new catch word. I wanna encourage you be narrow minded when it comes to God. It's okay to be narrow minded in my opinion why? Because Jesus said the path to life is narrow and not a ton of people find it. The road to destruction is broad and the gates huge and lots of people are on it. Now narrow minded meaning that I'm gonna believe what God says and I don't care what culture says I don't care what other people think I'm not living for them I'm not going to answer to them I'm living for an audience of one so I'm narrow minded in the sense that when God says something is good then it's good when he says it's not good it's not good and that's how I live my life that takes courage to do that to be narrow minded and to not be open minded because if you're narrow minded there's infinite other things that you have to then exclude. So it's okay be courageous, be focused keep the word of God in the presence of God paramount in your life let the Holy Spirit lead you. If the very first thing you do in the morning is turn on CNN or Fox News you're doing it wrong. If you're going to social media to get your news or your outlook for the day or your life you're doing it wrong if you're responding to someone on social media before you're on your knees praying we're doing it wrong like they're courageous means God you're the focus, you're the center fourth thing is this remember who the real enemy is I preached on this many times Ephesians 6-10 be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might for we don't wrestle verse 12 says against flesh and blood people are not our enemy but against principalities and powers and spiritual forces of wickedness and heavenly places those are what we're warring against and so it is very easy especially in our social media world to attack people, to attack organizations to attack groups and I'm not saying we embrace them but I'm saying ultimately at the core what we're wrestling against is demonic spirits is forces of evil people who wanna destroy our children destroy our families the thief comes only to steal to kill and destroy but I've come that you might have life and have it more abundantly that's what we have in Jesus so we don't attack people guys I've said this before but people are not who we're fighting against or who we're fighting for and you have to literally make that shift in your heart because I can get as frustrated as the next person at some politicians, at things that are happening at decisions that are being made but at the end of the day I check your heart and just say God I pray open their eyes they're blinded, open their eyes, open their eyes let the spirit of God move in that situation whatever it is and Ephesians 4 15, write this down says this, speaking the truth in love that all might come to the fullness of God in Christ in the kingdom guys you can speak the truth and you can still be wrong because you're not speaking it in love and I would just challenge us when we speak truth is it in love is it with the right motivation is it with the right heart is it submitted to God because it's so easy to get wrapped up into this we're there and they're there and we're against that and it will take you away and it will rob you of your peace remember who the enemy is speak the truth, don't back down but do it in love so we pray we anchor ourselves to truth we're courageous people remember who the real enemy is and the last thing is this keep the end in mind keep the end in mind spoiler alert Jesus wins how many of you have watched a movie like an action movie for the second time or third time and you're in this like super intense scene and you're like, oh and then you're like, oh wait, I know how this ends time crews can't die there'll be no Mission Impossible 37 or what, you know like you remind yourself I know how this ends that's right you're not gonna fall off he's not gonna, you know, get trampled he's not gonna, because I've seen the end and I'm here to tell you that the church of Jesus Christ will never die no matter how grim it may look in America no matter how dark the land may be or deep darkness over the people the church of Jesus Christ will never be vanquished and throughout history, throughout history Christians have been persecuted they've been martyred been fed the lions, sawn in two the word of God has been mocked it's been ridiculed it's been marginalized it's been minimized but God said in Matthew 16 it's upon this rock of who I am that I'm building the church and the gates of hell will not prevail the gates of hell will never prevail against the church we know what happens in the end and so that's what we anchor our hope to and that, listen to me is why we crown Jesus King we give him our lives we say Jesus, we sing it all the time Jesus your Lord, all hail King Jesus do you know what that means? that we surrender our lives to him because he is king he is in control he is God and we are not and there is a surrender and a submission that has to happen every single day of our lives to King Jesus he was born a king 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem and a stable and it was no pomp and no circumstance but I'm gonna tell you you read the end so that's the beginning you read the end in Revelation 19 and John says, and I saw a white horse with a rider on it whose name is truth and whose name is faithful and his robe is dipped in blood and there's a two-edged sword in his mouth and on his robe and on his thigh is a name King of kings and Lord of lords listen, we all love the meek, mild, loving, forgiving, humble Jesus and all of those attributes are true but it's also true that he's a king but he is King Jesus and he is coming again and we're living in what is called the age of grace where his sacrifice on the cross makes a way for us to only have to do this believe in the Lord Jesus Christ confess with your mouth that you believe in that he is Lord give your life to him and you'll be saved and you never have to worry there's no fear of what happens in the afterlife but the day is coming we may have mockers now we may have scoffers we may have those who ridicule Jesus but the day is coming church when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father that's what we remember is that Jesus has the final word not politicians, not culture not Hollywood influencers they don't have the final word Jesus Christ, King Jesus has the final word and he says that I'm gonna make all things new that I'm gonna redeem that I'm going to take what was broken and I'm gonna take what was lost and I'm going to bring it to a place of fruitfulness in the kingdom that's the promise we have we remember the end Jesus said I am the beginning and the end the first and the last the alpha and the omega I hold the keys to death and to Hades Jesus is in control you guys stand up with me I wanna just pray for you I'm not up here because I do this perfectly my wife will attest to that but I do believe that scripture calls us to arise and shine why? not because we have an agenda not because we have a better system not because the glory of the Lord is upon us like that's the beauty of being a Christian is the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead the same power is alive inside of you if you're a Christian that's our strength that's our anchor that's our hope I want you to just bow your heads close your eyes for a moment again praying before service and just feeling like there are those in this room who have not made Jesus king of their lives doesn't even mean you don't necessarily love God I'm not saying you're this rank center with no hope but I'm saying this there are areas of our lives that we have held on to kingship and lordship there are areas of our lives that we have said no maybe I know better no maybe I have the solution and I just sense it is the goodness of God that leads us to repent from that God is not angry God is not waiting to strike us down He is saying if you will trust me if you will surrender to me I will lead you in paths of abundance I will lead you into all truth that's what the Holy Spirit does and so I'm being dead serious if there are lies that you have believed in your heart maybe about others groups maybe about yourself maybe about God this is just a moment where we just realign our hearts and our lives under the reign of King Jesus and I wanna pray for you I wanna give you an opportunity if you've never made Jesus king lord of your life or you say there are areas I know I need to surrender to King Jesus I want you to raise your hand boldly just right now raise it up high and I'm just gonna pray for us thank you thank you raise it up today is the day of salvation thank you young man thank you awesome keep your hand up Father right now in the name of Jesus we thank you for the opportunity we have to gather as saints as sons and daughters of the living God and to worship and proclaim the lordship and kingship of our savior Jesus Christ and we honor you we honor you in this place we give you our lives I pray for every hand that was lifted I pray for every heart in this room and every ear that's listening that God we would give more of ourselves God to you where the spirit of the Lord there is freedom there is freedom freedom from fear freedom from anxiety freedom from worst case scenarios and what ifs God freedom in knowing that our God reigns and our God rules and our God is faithful and good and kind and I pray right now that you reveal that and that God we would realign our hearts wherever it is God reveal it Holy spirit lovingly reveal where we need to resurrender to you and we do it and we leave this place God soul and light and carriers of the glory of God ready prepared and equipped to reach a lost and dying world with the love of Jesus thank you in Jesus name Amen.