Fathers Day 2023
MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION:
If you’re new around here, I’m Virgil Grant, I’m the senior pastor and I was just kidding about being stiff necked, but sometimes I knew that we were winning today in worship when I was standing on the front row and I looked across at Jake and he was singing. I knew that I’ve never seen him sing before, but when we sing in the father’s house and he was getting into it, I’m like, we are winning today and only if we get Chris Clark to sing and we’ll be really winning, but we’re glad that you’re here again. Happy Father’s Day today. We have four speakers who’s going to come and speak to us about how in the season of life that they find themselves as a father, how they can be in prayer for themselves and prayer for their families and I think this is a way to encourage you.
And so we have Jacob McWilliams who’s going to share him and Stacey are expecting any day. I think he said it was at 36 weeks and so that means any day so do not go right now Stacey, wait five more minutes; and then we have Brandon Bunch, then we have John Coton, and then I’m going to share as the dad and grandpa and I think one of the young smart LX staff members we have and go, oh, got two young speakers and two old speakers today is how they said it. John, I don’t know who that was, Jacob or whoever, I don’t know who it was, but not too far from the truth, right? So this morning I’m going to pray for these men and pray for service and then Jake’s going to come. Father, thank you for worship and what it does to our souls, how it changes our perspective, how it connects us back to you because life has a tendency to cause us to drift and to forget what’s most important. And Father, I just pray you be with Jacob with Bunch and John and myself as we share and give your people the ability to listen and to hear the message today and I pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen. Give it up for Jacob. Would you come on Jacob? Yeah.
Jacob McWilliams
Well again, good morning. As Virgil said, my name’s Jacob McWilliams. Let me start off by introducing you to some of my family. All right, here in the middle, this is my wife Stacey and I obviously this was taken at our wedding cue, the wedding dress, but on the left side, this is my sister and my parents and on the right side, that’s my sister-in-law, brother-in-Law, and then my in-laws. So I’ve been coming to this church for the last four years. I’ve met my wife here. I’ve made many, many friends here, but most of the time you can find me standing playing guitar right here on a Sunday morning.
But more importantly than that, it’s not just a guitar playing, but I get to be one of the leaders on the worship team and I get the opportunity to invest and to connect with some of the people that make up this great team. So when I think about my relationship with God and I think about my relationship with my community, I can’t help but think of Jesus talking about the two most important commandments. First one being to love God, and the second one being to love people. Now, I believe that you can’t truly love God if you don’t truly love people and you can’t truly love people if you don’t truly love God; and I feel like this church has shown me that the importance of having community in my life, from my men’s life group to man camp, to the worship team, to my friends here, all these people hold me accountable to the things that I say that I’m going to do and also to my walk with Christ. So as Virgil said, my wife and I were about to start a very exciting season in our life. It was November 1st when we found out that we were going to become parents to a son named Spencer; and at this point, like you said, we’re at 36 weeks and I keep hearing all these things about new moons, full moons and all that stuff and all that lore. So it’s got me kind of freaking out a little bit that he’s going to pop out at any second.
But when I found out that I was going to become a dad, I started self-reflecting. I remember specifically one night when my wife was reading her pregnancy devotional and the devotional talked about how the baby in my wife’s belly isn’t just a baby, but that baby has a soul that has their own path and hopefully a path in a life that goes way beyond my life and within that life, their decisions that they’re going to make that had been based upon their upbringing, their history, and the people that are a part of their life, and hopefully the culmination of all that leads them to choose Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Romans 12:1 says:
“And so dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.”
Romans 12:1
Now, I feel like these next two examples, at least for me, exemplify that. A couple of months ago, I was home in Ohio with my family and we decided to watch church online and we were watching the church that I grew up in and I got to witness my first worship pastor baptized his son, and then about a month ago, myself and some of the people on the worship team, we were down in Atlanta for worship conference and I remember specifically during one of the worship sessions, there was this family that was in front of us and their son was standing on the chair right next to them raising his hands as high as he could during that worship service. Now, I want to believe that the children in these two scenarios didn’t do that because their parents said, you better do this or else, but just like Romans 12:1:
“Let your lives be a living and holy sacrifice.”
Romans 12:1
That’s what their parents were doing and their kids saw that and they knew that it was important in their lives for them to do that. Now, I know for myself that the life that I live, the worship that I live, my devotion to God, my community, my relationship with my wife, all these things are going to impact my child and hopefully for the better.
Again, our son Spencer, who’s in my wife’s belly right now, he’s not just a baby, but he’s a baby with a soul. It’s a baby that God loves adoringly; and I know that the decisions I make in my life, they will influence his decisions and what I choose to prioritize, he will see that. My spiritual life and whether or not I’m pushing forward in that or lacking in that, he’ll see that and that will affect him. Now here in this church, we like to talk about the next generation a lot. We like to talk about who they are and what they are like. But I think a lot of the times us in different generations, we like to separate ourselves from them and say, well, why are they doing that? Why are they acting like that? But I challenge you to look at your life and see how the type of person you are impacts those around you, the current generation and the ones that are born and not born at this point, because I know that when we choose God and we choose community to be a part of our life, we are always going to win. Now, I’m not going to downplay the fact that we don’t have trials in our life, but it’s how we choose to react to those trials. Do we seek God or do we not seek God. That the little ones around us are going to see that and respond to that. Thank you for your time. Good luck, son.
Brandon Bunch
Well, good morning, East Side. My name is Brandon and I’m the high school student pastor here. I said this in the first service. I didn’t realize it until Jake started speaking, but I started coming here four and a half years ago, Jake four. And when we started we had no wives and no babies, and now we do, so we work fast. So it’s pretty awesome to be here, but this is my family. This is my beautiful wife, Rachel, and my very beautiful daughter Jesse and I don’t know if it’s a spiritual gift, but if smiling was a spiritual gift, my daughter got blessed with it and I’m lucky to be your dad and to be able to help create some of those smiles in her life and I just want to share with you really quick, what I love about my church and what I love most is the relationships.
I believe Eastside highly values and makes it a priority that your relationship with God and your relationship with other people are a priority in our life and now I believe the friends that I’ve made here are friends for a lifetime and whether it’s Sunday morning worship, it’s life group, it’s serving, I believe Eastside makes it a priority that we have a good relationship with our father in heaven and other people around us and I just want to say I’m beyond grateful to be a part of this church; and so, this morning I want to share with the parents in the room, but more specifically the fathers of how God has been teaching me and what he’s been teaching me over the past six to seven months; and now I believe any parent could say God’s going to teach you a lot when you become a parent, but I want to kind of zoom in specifically what God has been saying to me and if I could break it down, what I want you to take away from this morning and what I want to share with you, it’s three things.
The first thing is, is that Jesse belongs to God and not to me. I would even say more than that, that all children belong to God and not to us. The second thing is, is that God can protect Jesse way better than I ever could, and I need to give up control and trust in him, and then the last thing is I cannot do this without a village. And so, this morning I just want to unpack for you how God has been using life to teach me these truths as I’ve become a father. And now, Jesse raised, she was born November 1st, 2022 and as all parents say, I did not know what to expect. There were two things that I was sure of when Jesse was born. First, thank God I’m not a woman. I just watched my wife freaked me out, she’s amazing moms, you’re amazing.
I couldn’t do it. And then, the second thing I was sure of is I had never experienced love like I had before. And now, it wasn’t moments after I met Jesse that all this worry started to stir up in me and my first response as a parent was to take control, to take control of the situation, and I don’t know if any parents, whether you’re new or your veterans can relate to what I’m about to say, but the moment she was born, I started to think of every situation and every outcome that could potentially happen to my daughter and trying to find ways of how I could protect her. Any other parent ever worry like that to that extent? Only a couple of you. I guess I’m the only control freak in here. That’s okay, but I had all this worry and there was this moment that God started to settle my soul.
It was a couple weeks after I had gotten home and I had a moment with my daughter in our room and I was just holding Jesse. God gave me a glimpse through his eyes and this is what he made clear to me is that Jesse is protected under God and I wasn’t actually Jesse’s protector and that I had to give up control and I needed to trust God in that moment, and I would love to say, even though I knew this was true, I didn’t fully believe it because I was not ready to give up control over my daughter. And now I want to share with you a couple of events that would happen to Jesse Ray later on, but I want to make it clear before I go on. I don’t believe that God created this heartbreak and this heartache and mind in my wife’s life, but I do believe that God uses heartache to help grow us and shape us and teach us and to trust in him.
And so, come January of this year, Jesse Ray ended up in UK’s children’s hospital with RSV and this was nothing short, the most scariest moment in my entire life. Watching my firstborn daughter be hooked up to oxygen and an IV plugged in her hand absolutely freaked me out. The amount of helplessness that I felt in the moment when all I could do as her father was pray was extremely overwhelming; and through this time of heartache and helplessness, my wife found the energy and the courage to remind me and say that remember that Jesse belongs to God and no matter what happens, God is still worthy. And at the end of that week, by the grace and the mercy of God, Jesse Ray was cleared to come home and this was her last day in the hospital right here before we got to go home and I would love to say at the end of this week, all was good and this was the end of our journey.
But our journey unfortunately continued. We made it home and a month later we end up back in the doctor to find out that Jesse has covid and then weeks after that, it was one stomach virus after another, and then it was a multitude of ear infections until this past May, we had to have surgery for Jesse, for her to have ear tubes and I even say more than that, that God is still teaching me because this morning my baby girl is at home sick with a fever and couldn’t be here on Father’s Day. And so, when I think about all this, I think about my biggest frustration and I believe that my biggest frustration at the time I thought was Jesse getting sick, but it was actually the fact that when she was getting sick, there was nothing I could do other than pray and trusting God and that all this was in his hands.
Now, there was a moment in the room with Jesse when I was holding her that night and God revealed to me that he was her protector and I wasn’t. That God gave me this verse, and at the time I didn’t know what it was for, but later it would become a prayer in my life and this is the verse that he gave me. Psalms 91:1 says this:
“The one who lives under the protection of the most high dwells in the shadow of the Almighty.”
Psalms 91:1
What God was saying to me more specifically that this would become a prayer for my life but also for my heart. And so, whether you’re a new dad in the room, maybe you just had your first baby girl or baby boy or maybe they’re two now and they’re running wild and driving you crazy. I would say up to this point you’ve experienced some things that have caused worry in your heart and your first instinct as a father or as a parent is to take control.
I want to encourage you with two things this morning. The first thing is, is just to pray, to give up control. I promise you God is a way better protector over your child than you are and that you can trust that he will be faithful and he knows what’s best, and the second thing I want to encourage you is to get a village. Had it not been for my wife and my life group, had it not been for the encouragement, the visits they gave us, the gift cards they gave us, the texts, the calls, just the prayers, I would not have made it through the difficult season and still would not be making it through this difficult season as I navigate fatherhood; and so get a village and pray to give up your control. Thank you.
John Congleton
Well, good morning my Eastside family and like I said, happy Father’s Day to all you dads and all you soon to be dads out there. My name is John Congleton and I want to introduce you to my family, my wife Kat here we’re going on 28 years of marriage. My oldest son, Jordan, thank you. He’s 23 and he teaches second graders out in St. Louis, Missouri and my daughter Madison is 20. She just finished up her Disney College program working for the mouse down in Florida. My youngest son Jayden is 17 and he’s going on his senior year in Madison Central. My family and I have been attending East Side since 2006, and I serve on your elder team and I also work in life group ministry and the baptism team, and there’s so many things about Eastside that I absolutely love, but the number one thing is the Eastside choo-choo train,
and not just the choo-choo train, but the fact of the faithfulness and fortitude that it takes for this church to pull off big events. We do some big stuff here and talking to people around the nation and other friends, they think we’re crazy to even try to do this folks, but we don’t run from the opportunity. We seize the opportunity to go out and reach the people of central Kentucky, and I’m so proud to be a part of that with you guys. Now you’ve heard Jacob talk about his unborn child, you’ve heard Bunch talk about having an infant and my wife and I have a couple of kids that have moved on and one’s still at home. So I’m supposed to talk to you guys about how much we’re in despair and the sadness we’re dealing with and what the next chapter is of our life.
Uhuh. No, we’re fine, we’re good. We’re doing okay. I mean, we absolutely love our kids and we love for them to come and visit and just, so we built a house last year and the new home, my kids were saying, dad, these rooms are so much smaller than the ones of the house we grew up in. And I said, yes, that’s why we call them guest rooms, so we are praying for our kids and ourselves in this time of transition and ask for that for you guys as well. So I’d like to tell you a little bit about how we got to this point, so like most men, I found my wife at Walmart and I checked out and the old Walmarts used to have a sidewalk out there, and I went outside and there was this cute little blonde girl and I just had to go talk to her.
So after a couple minutes, she shared with me that she drove that Ford Ranger pickup truck, four wheel drive with the bigger tires at the end of the parking lot. So I was very interested then. And when she told me it was a four speed with a overdrive, I knew I had to have her so to my look she was and still is crazy about me, so that’s how we got together and a year and a half later we were married and we spent the first couple of years of marriage, just everything great. We’d done some testing and I had a doctor tell me, said, John, without some form of surgery, you’re never going to be able to father children. So I was pretty taken back. Wow, what that done to my ego and the drive home, I was thinking about wonder where I’m going to tell my wife because we had been praying for a family for some time and God was already out in front of me because soon as I got there she said, let’s adopt.
She had been getting on the old a AOL dial up and getting on websites and looking and she found this website and set up a meeting and we went and met this lady and she poured out her heart about how her and her husband adopted this little boy from Guatemala; and I’ll be honest with you guys, I didn’t even know where Guatemala was, but when she talked about that and the expense, I was pretty much floored, and I’m like, I really don’t know how we’re going to accomplish this, and then she was coming around with a question about why do you want to adopt? And I thought, I think of something really cool to say and stuff, and my wife simply said the sweetest thing that I’ve ever heard. She said, I just want to be a mommy. And I said, we’re going to have to pray about this and we’ll see.
And you know how you pray about things and how God speaks to you and you’re really not even looking for it. Like when we ran some errands and we bought some bananas and they had that little Chiquita label at the bottom, it says the country where they came from and it was Guatemala. And then we got a shirt and she went to throw it in the laundry and it said, made in Guatemala, and then the next morning when I’m counting the money to put in the drawer at work, there’s a little funny coin in there and one of the guys that worked with me, he lived in Costa Rica for six years, he said, that’s a quetzal. So said, what’s a quetzal? He said, that’s the money in Guatemala. So I called my wife and I said, “Hey, we’re going to die from Guatemala.” Don’t know how we’re asking for God to do some miracles in our life.
And he did. He granted everything that we needed and a few months after that, we flew down to Guatemala and received the most beautiful little baby boy I’d ever seen. Not only that, God blessed us two more times to be able to do that. Now I had this plan that we were praying about, but God’s plan was so much better than what I was even thinking. A few years after that we’re into fatherhood and in my men’s life group we’re studying the biblical umbrella of the family. So in that study I came away with some things and pointers that I needed to really focus on to make sure that I was going to be the dad that my kids needed me to be. So number one, I came away with that I have to be, my number one relationship is with Jesus Christ first and foremost above everything else.
My kids need to see that in my life. They need to see me in church in worship. They need to see me doing life group. They need to see that example of me praying and reading scripture and being that spiritual leader in my family. Number two, I need to love their mother. That lady is going to be the mom to my children. I need to adore her and cherish her and be the man that she needs me to be. I need my sons to see what it’s like to be a good husband to their mother, and I need my daughter to understand what it’s like for a man to love a woman in a marriage. And the third thing is I need to love and support my children in their positive endeavors. I don’t need to judge them negatively. If they do something good, we’re going to celebrate it.
Everybody’s goal setting is a little bit different, but whatever they do good, we’re going to cherish it and we’re going to celebrate it. Now folks, I had some guys talk to me about the word adoption and what that means. God used it. It’s not to be taken for granted. In Ephesians 1:5:
“God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ…”
Ephesians 1:5
Now, when I adopted my kids, I found out from attorneys and from the law that it’s forever. This file right here has my wife and I’s name in here about 12 different times. There can be no misunderstanding about what we’re trying to accomplish here, that this is forever, and I will share with you that by the law, I can never place my adoptive child up for adoption because it is forever. Isn’t that cool of how Jesus used that word adoption? That’s what he wants for us. He wants to adopt us into his family and be there forever. Thank you for listening to me today.
Virgil Grant
So we know that there’s a wider range of emotions today from not maybe knowing who your father is, not maybe being in a strained relationship with your father, maybe your father is deceased, a lot of different emotions, but what we’ve tried to do today is to help you to understand, as Jacob was saying, is that wherever you’re at in life, you can be a living sacrifice. You can make yourself available to God and will we do that? It actually inspires other people. And then Bunch was reminding us all today is that the greatest illusion that we have is that we are in control. And the reality is, is everything can change in a snap of a finger and that we really are not in control of anything. And then John reminded us that God’s plans are always bigger than our plans. And today, as I close out, I just want to share with you, I prayed two prayers.
I keep everything pretty simple, is the first prayer that I prayed for my son Jacob and my daughter Rachel, was for their salvation, and they did that at different points in their lives and now we have two granddaughters, Rose and I, Ruby Rose and Jesse Ray and our prayers now is for them to receive Christ. And then, after our kids receive Christ, then our prayer that we prayed, that I prayed for our kids was based on John chapter 16 and from John chapter 16, the Bible says, “But when he and talking about the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own. He will speak only what he hears and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me. Jesus says, because it is for me that he will receive what he will make known to you.
All that belongs to the Father is mine, says Jesus. This is why I said that the Spirit will receive for me what he will make known to you.” Now from that passage, here’s what you need to understand, that the Holy Spirit is not an it. The Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity. There’s God the Father, there’s God the Son, and there, God the Spirit and the Holy Spirit is never called to draw attention to himself. He’s called to point you back to Jesus, back to his ways, his methods, and the principles that he didn’t want you to live by. And so, when I read that early on when my kids just had received Christ, I knew that I needed to pray that my children would understand and know and develop a relationship with the Holy Spirit. Because here’s what I know is that the Holy Spirit, once you become a Christian, lives inside of you, and I don’t know if you know this or not, but once you become a Christ follower, once you’re born again, then Jesus sends the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit lives within you.
Now, what’s the purpose of the Holy Spirit living within you is to point you back to Jesus, but also to remind you that you belong to God. Look what it says in Ephesians chapter one:
“You also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation when you believed, when you placed your faith in Jesus, you were marked in him with a seal.”
Ephesians 1:13
And what is the seal? The promise? Holy Spirit, when Jesus ascended back to the Father, the Holy Spirit was given. Notice this who is a deposit inside of you guaranteeing you that you will be redeemed on the day of redemption, on the day that Jesus comes back or the day that you pass from this earth, you will be with God in heaven forever because of this earnest down payment; and I knew that my kids had the Holy Spirit living within them. I would never be with them all the time. They were at different places going to school. Rose and I, we were at our jobs doing different things and now we have different households, but I knew that the Holy Spirit would always be with them. And my prayer for them after they became a Christian, that they would feel the nudge and the promptings of the Holy Spirit in their life because he would guide them into truth.
Now, here’s the reality. I believe the Holy Spirit is speaking to all of us. I believe the Holy Spirit is working in your heart, in your life. If you’re a Christ follower in ways that you may not even recognize. For some of you this morning, I don’t need to explain to you what the Holy Spirit is saying to you because you already know what the Holy Spirit is saying to you, but you’ve been hesitant to follow the Holy Spirit.
To follow his promptings and his nudges. Can I tell you something? If you even say yes to the Holy Spirit, then you know what you’re saying. It’s no, because, if you don’t say yes, then you’re actually saying no, and some of you this morning, you know what you need to do. Some of you, you’re here this morning and the thing that you need to do is to ask for forgiveness. You need to go to that person that you’ve offended, that you’ve had a strained relationship with. It could be your father, it could be your child, it could be your spouse, it could be your neighbor or coworker. But the Holy Spirit is nudging you to do something about the relationship. It’s broken. For others of you this morning, the Holy Spirit is nudging you about your job, is that, you’re working way too much and when you’re not working and you’re at home, you’re dog tired, you don’t have any energy, or you’re preoccupied with a job that you left earlier that afternoon. For some of you this morning, Holy Spirit is prompting you to remember that Jesus is your first priority and you’re just letting your time that you spend with Jesus drift further and further apart. You’re not taking time to talk to him. You’re not reading your Bible, you’re not praying to him and asking him to help you in all things. You’re not asking him to give you wisdom. Others of you,
is that you’ve just allowed worship not to be a priority, and here’s what I understand after 34 years of being a pastor is when somebody is sporadic in worship, it’s always the fruit, the indicator that something else is going on deeper in their life, because what happens is, when something else begins to draw for attention or begins to wreck havoc in her hearts and lives, usually the first thing that happens that actually leaves is that of worship attendance. And so this morning, I’m just going to ask everyone to bow their head and I just want to pray for the Christians in the room this morning and the Holy Spirit is speaking to you and I’ve just given you some maybe potential things the Holy Spirit is saying to you. I don’t know, maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s with your generosity, maybe it’s with Life Group, I don’t know. But God’s speaking to you. Holy Spirit is nudging you. And just know that if you haven’t said yes, then you’re saying no. And so what I want to ask you to do this morning, would you just ask God to give you the power to say yes
and follow the prompting, the nudge of the Holy Spirit right now? Would you do that? Would you say yes to God? Now just with your head bow, Lord, I just want to pray for the Christians, the Holy Spirit is nudging them to say yes to whatever it is. I don’t even know what it is, but Lord, I pray that you give them the power to do that right now and that they would say yes and act upon it in the name of Jesus. Amen. Now, I want to talk to one last group this morning, and that’s the people in the room who have not made peace with God. Jesus says that you cannot really have peace with God unless you’re born again. And it says in John chapter three, verse three, it says this, that:
“No one could see the kingdom of God…”
John 3:3
No one can see heaven. No one can really see God without being born again. And here’s the question that I have for you. Have you been born again? Have you made peace with God?And the way that you made peace with God according to Jesus is that you’re born again, and the great news is that can happen right now at this very moment. It can happen right here in this room. And you go, well, what does it mean to be born again? Well, if every one of us, we were born physically and as you were born physically, then you also have to be born spiritually from the inside out and that can happen right now; and I just want you to know something is the only way that that can happen is through Jesus, your denomination, your church, your religion, your mosque, your cathedral, your temple. None of that can help you. None of that can save you. There’s only one name given under heaven and earth by which a person can be saved and that is the name of Jesus Christ.
He’s the only one that can save you. He’s the only one that can forgive you. He’s the only one that can write your name in heaven. He’s the only one that can give you a fresh start and you go, well, I like to have a fresh start. I like to have Jesus in my heart. I like to have forgiveness of my sins. How do I do that? Well, and we serve around here. It’s as simple as A, B, C; and each one of those letters represents something very important.
The letter “A” represents admitting.
Admitting that you have a sin problem. I have a sin problem. You have a sin problem. There’s something that’s broken inside of us that cannot be fixed, and you know this. You know that there’s something inside of you that cannot be fixed. You’ve tried programs, you’ve tried pills, you’ve tried prescriptions, you’ve tried talking to a priest, you’ve tried talking to your pastor, you’ve tried to talk to your parents. None of us can fix that for you. None of that can. The only person who can fix what’s broken inside of you is Jesus and that is the reason why:
The letter “B” is for believing.
Is that we believe that Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves, and then:
The letter “C” is to confess.
Jesus as our Lord and Savior. And so this morning, let me just ask everyone to bow their head, and if you’re here this morning and you’ve never made peace with God, you’ve never been born again, you’ve never asked him to forgive you of your sins, you’ve never asked him for a fresh start or to write your name in the book of Heaven, you can do that right now; and this morning in the first service, we had one person who received Christ. And how do we know that is because in a moment, if you want to be included in the Born Again prayer, I’m going to ask you to do me a favor. I’m going to ask you to raise your hand just in a moment. That’s how I know that in the first service, that one person received Christ as their savior.
So I’m not going to ask you to stand, I’m not going to ask you to text me or come down front. I’m just going to ask you to raise your hand. No one’s looking around, and I just want you to hold your hands up in a moment and I’m going to go around the room and count, and then after I count the hands that are lifted, then collectively we’re going to say the born again prayer. This is how you kind of seal the deal with Jesus. So if you’re here this morning and you’re ready to make peace with God, ready for a fresh start, ready for your sins to be forgiven, will you just raise your hand up in the air, just hold it up for me. If you don’t care, let me just look around the room. Anyone in the riser is back there. Anyone down in the middle? Got one over here? Anyone else? There’s another one back there. Two, three.
Three people praise the Lord. So would everybody look to the screens and let’s collectively read this out loud together, and this is the Born Again Prayer. Dear Lord Jesus, I believe you’re the son of God. I believe that on the cross, you took my sin, my shame, my guilt, and you died for it. You face hell for me so I wouldn’t have to go. You rose from the dead to give me a place in heaven, a purpose on earth, and a relationship with your Father. Today, Lord Jesus, I turn for my sin to be born again. God is my Father. Jesus is my Savior. The Holy Spirit is my helper, and heaven is now my home. In Jesus’ name, amen. Let’s welcome these three individuals enter the Kingdom. Yes.