Talking the Talk, Walking the Walk

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION: 

 We’re finishing up a sermon series today called Slay the Monster. Right, all three of you got that? Okay. And so but slay the monster. I just take back everything I said about loving you and proud of you. Forget that. Just force it out of your memory. But. But we’re so glad that you’re here. We’re going to finish it up, and we’re going to put a bow on the sermon series. We’ve been looking at God’s principles of money management. Our financial management I have not been trying to get more money out of you now, trying to make you feel guilty, not try to make you feel stupid in the shame of the dumb decisions that you’ve made, even though we’ve all made all kinds of dumb, stupid financial decisions. But it’s been my job to present to you the principles from God’s Word and what I’m going to do. I’m going to summarize all of the principles today in what we would call six faith declarations. And what I mean by that. Well, look, with me at Joshua, chapter one, verse number eight, and we kind of see the faith declarations coming out of this. So God says, keep this book of the law always on your lips. In other words, keep talking about these principles. Keep talking about these declarations. Keep talking. Keep talking. Keep talking. Keep speaking about them. Now, then he says, Meditates on it day and night so that you may be careful. To do what? What does this say? Everything is written in it. Then you’ll be prosperous, and you’ll be successful. And so he says, Keep on keeping on. Keep talking the talk and keep walking the walk. So how do we do that? In the area of finances, six faith declarations. And I would encourage you if you haven’t ever taken your notes, I would encourage you to take notes this time because it summarizes the last five weeks. Faith declaration. Number one is this is that. 

I would trust God and his principles of financial management daily because it all belongs to him. 

Say that with me again. It all belongs to him. In week one, we looked at probably ten different verses that pointed to the fact that God owned everything. Look with me, if you will, at some 24 verse one, and this is what the Psalm said, The Earth is the lord’s and now is the earth. But what does it say? Everything in the world and all who live in it. God owns everything there is. He owns it all. And I read a story this past week about a lady who was traveling for the holiday season. And as she was traveling, she went into one of those little markets, you know, and she bought a little bag of chocolate chip cookies. And because she was going to eat them on the plane and everything. And so she went to the terminal gate, and she set down kind of a table there. And the cookies were lying there. And there’s a guy sitting across from her she had never met before, a complete stranger. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this stranger reaches down and opens her chocolate chip cookies. She’s like, What is going on here? He only opens it. He reaches in, he takes a cookie, he starts eating it, and she goes with an attitude. She got one, and she started eating it. And so this time, Del, he said. He smiled, nodded, reached down, and got another cookie. This made her mad because she was like, He’s eating my cookies. And so she goes, I’m going to double down. She reaches down and gets two cookies to assert her ownership of the cookies again. He just smiles, nods his head, and just kind of, you know, grins. And then this keeps going on until all the cookies are gone. And then, all of a sudden, the gate agent begins to announce the zones. She gets on the plane. She gets to see, puts the purse underneath the seat, and puts her seatbelt on. She reaches into her purse. She opens her purse, and she looks inside the purse. And guess what was inside her purse? Her chocolate chip cookies, rather. It was her cookies. And she wasn’t eating her cookies. She was eating his cookies. And here’s the reality of the whole thing, My friends. Listen to me. We all have a bunch of cookies. But if they ask you the question, whose cookies are them? Really? Who do the cookies really belong to? They actually belong to whom? They all belong to God himself. And folks, today could be a breakthrough day for you if you embrace this first declaration is that I would trust God and his principles of financial management daily. Because why He owns everything, the folks. This principle really comes down to how much do you trust God? How much do you really trust God in every area of your life? 

This is what we’re talking about. And I just wonder how much trust do you have with him in your finances? Now, this is the principle. This is what we’re talking about. So here’s the deal. Most of you that are here today, you would say, well, if I were to ask you the question, are you your Christian, you know, is your name written in the book of heaven? Like 90% of you would probably raise your hand. And what’s amazing to me, Chip, here’s the amazing thing is, is that there are people here today who trust God 100% with their internal security. They believe that on the day of judgment, on the day that they die, they believe with all of their heart. Curtis, what’s going to happen is when they leave this world, the next thing they’re going to see is the face of God. We believe that God can secure my eternity. We trust God with my eternity. Forever and ever and ever. But when it comes to finances, we really cannot trust God. And I just wonder. I can think out loud with you for a second. And, like, I don’t have the answers to all of these questions that I have. But here’s the thought that I have is a. I’m genuinely surprised by how many Christians. Have never trusted God with their finances. They’ve never given the first gift. But never offered the first love offering. Never stepped into generosity. They’ve never stepped into cultivating a heart of generosity. And I wonder how should they? Can you have enough faith to trust God with your eternity? But you can’t trust them with your finances. Can I just be honest with you? As a cross-follower, I feel super, super sorry. Sorry for anybody who claims to follow Jesus and yet live their lives in such a crippling way. They can’t trust God with their finances. I mean, just think about that. Is it? I can trust God with my finances because I’m crippled by the faith that I can’t trust God? And you can be set free this morning because why? Declaration number one is it all belongs to God. But declaration number two is own time. Declaration two is that. 

I will assign every dollar a monthly budget. 

Now, folks, can I just be honest with you? The thought of opening an Excel sheet does not motivate me whatsoever. Opening a notebook and counting every dollar that I ever will spend does not excite me. But for some of you, that is what you need in your life. Why do you need a budget? Is because you need to know where your money is going. You need to tell people. You tell your money where the money’s going rather than waking up and going. Well, what happened to all of your paycheck this week? Whatever happened to your paycheck this month? And what happens is, is that most of you. You need a plan so that you can get back on track is a tool to help you. Now, it’s not for everyone but for most of us. It’s something that we need. And here’s the thing. A budget is just a tool. And if you work the plan, the plan will do what will actually work. Now, here’s the reality. Some of you, you’re on a morbid budget plan. You know what your budget plan is? Your budget plan is waiting for somebody to die and leave you some money. And you’re just hoping that you outlive them or you outlive them so that you can get the money. And if not, you’re not going to worry about it anyway. Listen to me, friends. A budget is something that helps you. It’s a tool. And it’s a lifesaver. It’s a family saver. It’s a marriage saver. Look what it says here in the Book of Proverbs. It says this is good planning, and hard work leads to prosperity. If for some of you, you have to do some hard work in order to get to prosperity. Declaration number three is that. 

I will eliminate all debt from my life and live debt free. 

Now, obviously, my friends, this is a long-term view. And January, the New Year, I’m going to do a sermon series. The sermon series is titled You in five Years. Folks. Do you realize what you can accomplish in five years? You can accomplish a degree. You can master another language. There are a lot of things that you can do in five years. And I believe for most of us, if we’ve got down to due diligence, is that we could get out of consumer debt, we could get rid of a car payment, we could get rid of credit card payments, and all that we would have left is your house payment and work towards that. And wouldn’t that be a wonderful concept? But folks, you can do that if you practice the principles in God’s word. Now, look what it says in Proverbs 22:7. It says this The rich rule over the poor. Because why? Because usually, the poor is the borrower. And what is this person doing? It’s a slave. To what? To the lender, folks. You want to be full of stress. You want to be full of pain. You want to be full of just anxiousness. Here’s the thing. Just continue to go into debt. In debt, continue to pay the minimum on credit cards, and you’re going to continue to be the mayor of Crazy Town. Do you understand? What I’m talking about is, folks, you have to get out of debt. You have to stop the insanity. And the way that you do that is to make the determination that you’re going to live debt free. But number four, very quickly, declaration. Number four. 

I will save and invest and build wealth slowly through consistent, wise decisions. 

Now, friends, most of us want to save money. Most of us, we hope to save money. But the reality is that most of us don’t save money. The reality is most of us don’t have $1,000 in emergency funds. There’s something that breaks around the house. We have to go borrow the money, put the purchase on a credit card, or whatever. Because why? We never get around to saving money. But notice what it says in the book of Proverbs full of wisdom. It says this in Proverbs 13. Whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow. Now, listen to me, young people. I’m going to give you a principle. It’s called little by little. It’s called compound interest. Now, most of the people that’s in the room that’s here today, we probably have quite a few people. That’s the age of 25. And if you’re 25, here’s what I’m going to challenge you to do, is to put $10 a day into savings. That’s roughly $300 a month. And if you put $300 a month into savings, which is equivalent to your Starbucks run every single day, remember I told you not to do that. I’m drinking tea. So, you know, I’m not buying my coffee. I got tea right here for this morning. And here’s the thing. It’s for less than your Frappuccino budget at Starbucks. If you put $10 a day into savings, you’re 25 today, and you get to 65. You know how much money you have in the bank? You have over $1.1 million because of what that of compound interest. Yes, I see. Folks, you gain wealth. Not in one fell swoop, but you do it little by little. And folks, what we’re talking about here is a word that we don’t like to talk about, and it’s the word repentance. Would you say the word repentance with me? Repentance. Say it again. Repentance. And what is repentance? We think repentance is a bad word. We don’t think that we should talk about sin. We don’t think that we should talk about wrongdoings and people messing up. Yeah, we should. Because the bible says that we’ve all fallen short. We’ve all missed the glory of God. That’s every single one of us. And repentance is. It is that we’re walking in one direction. We’re talking about finances. We’re walking in this way financially. And we’re not practicing God’s principles. We’re not practicing the 101018; remember that principle? 10%. The Guard. 10%. The savings live off 80. We’re not practicing that. We’ve not cultivated a heart of generosity. We’re living from paycheck to paycheck. Remember, 76% of our families live from paycheck to paycheck. We don’t have any savings. We are not cultivating a heart of generosity. We are living off 110%. We’re spending 100% of our paycheck, putting 10% on our credit cards. And we’re walking in this way, and we are walking against God’s principles. And what repentance is, is to wake up and to hear the Word of God being taught and being preached. And you go, You know what? I’m not going to embrace the principles that I’ve been embracing, but I’m going to repent. And repentance is a 180-degree turn. And you said you know what, I’m going to start walking with God. I’m going to start practicing the ten, 1080 principle. I’m going to start cultivating a heart of generosity a little at a time. A little each week, a little each month. I’m going to do the debt snowball. I’m going to do the emergency fund. I’m going to do all of that. And folks, repentance means that you’re just turning away from your own demise, and you’re going to follow God’s word. And here’s the reality. You have a choice in the financial arena of your life. Who is going to be the authority of your finances? Is it going to be you, or is it going to be God? And you have a choice. And that’s what repentance is. Declaration Number five. 

I will always honor God first. 

Now, why am I going to always honor God first? Because God owns it. Oh, no, Nancy. Question Mark, do you agree? There’s only five things that you can do with money. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about this, but there are only five things we think that we can do a lot with money; in reality, there are only five things that you can do with money. Number one is that you can spend it. Number two, you can pay the debt. Number three, you can pay taxes. Number four, you can save. Or, number five, you can give it away either to God or to other people. Those are the only five things that you can do with money. Now, I’ve thought long and hard about this. Maybe you can talk about another category. I cannot. These are the five things that you do with money. Now, here’s the reality. Would you not agree with me that in our day and age, this is the order of priority of how we spend the money that we have? Would you not agree with me? We spend it. We pay debt, we pay taxes, we save, and we give it to God. I mean, those are the order, right? That’s how we do it. That’s how we do it. I mean, it’s just the way that we spend our paycheck. And if we were to put some pronouns to that, to the side, it’s me, me, we, me, me. Then God. Right. Like this was the Olympics. This would be like gold. Silver. Bronze. Uh, thanks for showing up, buddy. And this is like the Jamaican bobsled team. Thanks for trying or something like that. But, I mean, it’s kind of. It’s kind of the order that we put them in, right? It’s like. But here’s the thing. This is the order in that we spend our money. God is last. But notice what we do. We put God last, we’ll talk about that, and just we put God last. But when it comes to our finances. When it comes to a promotion, the work when it comes to getting a salary raise or an early raise when it comes to wanting a new job when it comes to getting a bonus at work. Let me ask you a question. What’s the first thing that we do? We begin to cry out to God, right? Hey, God. Hey, it’s me down here. I got. You know, I hate my job. You know, I have no passion. It’s just a paycheck. But, God, if I could get this other job, you know what? I would be super, super happy. And I’d be more fruitful. I’d be more faithful. God, if you just give me this new job I got, I need this bonus. I got. I’m going to financial stress. But here’s what I need. I need you to get me out of this predicament that I’m in. And just so that, you know, God, if you get me out of this predicament that I’m in, you’re still going to be last in my life. No, I’m not trying to cause guilt or shame. But here’s the deal, right, is that nobody ever says that God’s last. I mean, like, none of you would say, Hey, preacher, you’re wrong. God’s worst in my life. But we have to come with being honest with ourselves, with being truthful with ourselves. We don’t say it, but the way that we live our lives, we actually. Our saying it. Wouldn’t you agree with me? I mean, it’s unintentional, but it is to be truthful. For many of us, this is what we’re saying is that God, you’re the last of my life. And I just wonder, what does God think? About, I don’t know, the bible doesn’t say, but what is not? Think about when you prayed the prayer for God to help you financially, for God to help you with a new job, to give you a bonus. To give you whatever you’re asking for. And you got him last. I just wonder, what does God think about that? What’s his response? I really don’t know. I just wonder what his response would be. Well, here’s what the order should be, my friends. The order should be given to God first. Why? Because the first fruits. We’ll talk about the second. The second principle is to save ten. Ten, then 80. And what’s the percentage of the 80? You pay your taxes. You pay your debt. And then what you have left, you live off of. This is the order. Why is this the order? Look what it says in Proverbs chapter three, verse nine Honor the Lord with your wealth. How do they honor the lord with their wealth? In the old days is that they raised crops, and that was the financial currency of that day and age was trading food back and forth. And here’s the thing is the first fruits of their crops for you and are the way they are currencies called the dollar, the American dollar. So what do we do with the first fruit of our paychecks? 

We give it to God. Because why? Because we’re to honor the lord with their wealth. Now, look at this next verse from Psalm chapter 116. Now notice what someone says I have free. You have freed me from my chains. Has anybody been set free from addiction, from pain, from heartache, from trials, troubles, and tribulation? Anybody out there is just me. Is anybody else out there? Yeah. We’ve been set free. We’ve been set free by the birth of Jesus Christ. Amen. We’ve been set free. Now, notice what the summer says. Because I’ve been set free by the blood of Jesus Christ. Because I’ve been set free. I will sacrifice. A what? What does it say? I think offering. I will sacrifice on behalf of being set free. Understanding the power of the body of Jesus Christ. I’m going to give the lord a think offering. And I don’t know if you’ve thought about this, but this is the week of Thanksgiving. And what do you have to be thankful for? I don’t know what you have to be thankful for. Let me tell you what I’m thankful for. I’m thankful that God loves Virgil Grant. I’m grateful that God’s kindness and goodness rose in my life because I don’t know if you know this or not, but I’m a sinner. I’m not just any old sinner. I’m a flagrant sinner. You know what I’m saying is that I lie. Is it that I stretch the truth. You know, I lust after things I shouldn’t be lusting for. Is it? Folks, listen to me. Is it that I complain and I grumble when I shouldn’t be because I’m one of the luckiest people on the planet. I have been given a wonderful job that I love. I never feel like I’ve worked a day in my life is that folks listen to me. Is that. There are all kinds of sin in my life, but I’m not worthy of the goodness, the gentleness, the grace, the kindness of God whatsoever. But God, look down the hallways of eternity and the blotting of this world. And he saw Virgil when he saw how jacked up and messed up and what all the other things that’s wrong with me. He saw that. He goes, You know what? I’m going to love Virgil, regardless of how messed up he is. I’m going to love him enough that I’m going to send my only begotten son, Jesus Christ, to the earth to live, to be born. That’s why we celebrate Christmas because of the birth of Jesus. He’s going to live, and he’s going to die. And three days later, he’s going to rise from the grave. And he’s going to win victory over death, the grave sin. And satan. And folks here’s what the scripture says. The scripture says this is he paid for my sins. He was wounded for my transgressions. He was bruised from my iniquities. And by his strides, I am healed. Folks, listen to me because of the blood of Jesus Christ. I have so much to be thankful for. I should be so moved by the goodness, the gentleness, and the grace of God that this year, as we have six weeks left in this year, and I look back over 2022. God has blessed me in such a miracle, miraculous way that I should give him a thank offering. And the question is, what should you do? How should you show gratitude to God? That’s the issue. To honor God first. With their first fruits of the last declaration. Declaration number six. 

I will leave a legacy. 

Now there are two ways that we can leave a legacy. The first way I want to talk about. It is by teaching these principles to your children and to your grandchildren. And people ask me all the time, how does it feel to be a grandparent? Well, I’ll tell you more when they are able to talk. I’m not very good with kids. You can’t talk, you know, like I don’t like they start crying. I don’t know what to do. But I’ll tell you more in a couple of months. Okay. Ruby Rose is going to start talking in a couple weeks, probably, and hopefully, by the Christmas season, start talking in full sentences. And so I’ll tell you more. Okay. But we leave a legacy by telling your children and our grandchildren these principles, living them out. Given testimony to the fact of God’s faithfulness. Can I be honest with you? The greatest legacy that my parents have left for me and my siblings and for our children, and now for their great-grandchildren, is the fact that they showed us the way to Jesus. It’s the most important legacy. See, friends, you can leave your family with millions of dollars, but if you don’t leave them with Jesus, you haven’t left him with anything. And because we teach these principles unapologetically out of scripture, we don’t back down from this is that we have cultivated a heart of generosity here that you understand, right. That these are we have a heart of generosity. And let me just show you the generosity of our church. Let me just show you here’s some pictures from Friedman’s Starving Children event that we had the 1st of November. And some of you participated, some of you didn’t because you a ton or whatever. No guilt, no shame. But let me just give you the impact of what happened. We packed 864 boxes of food. Right. Thats nothing. 186,000 plus meals. Nothing. Right. But listen to this. We gave those boxes and fed 511 kids a meal a day for a year. Now, that’s what I’m talking about. We touch 511 lives, a little bitty church in Richmond, Kentucky, impacting lives around the world because of your generosity with 587 volunteers. And this last packing event, we went over packing our 1 million meals with feed My Starving children. Now, folks, I’m not real smart with math, but I know that every meal costs $0.25 a meal. This last part of your bill cause he’s are $50,000. Where did that money come from? It came from your generosity. It costs $50,000 to pack the 186,000 meals. And it came from your generosity. And we’re leaving a legacy because of our generosity in this community. Can I tell you what I believe? I believe that if Eastside closes the door tomorrow, this community would miss us like crazy. They’d go where’s Eastside? We need Eastside you know why they need us is because of our generosity, because of our love for the community, because of the way that we care for the community. Let me just show you this. Yesterday, we did a food drive for God’s outreach Foodbank. Watch the video from that. 

Look to screen

Speaker 1: Yeah, what about that? So we didn’t have the food drive on the radar anthony said, Hey, can you help us with this? We’re running short on food. We go, Absolutely. And here’s the impact. We had over 13,000 pounds of food donated yesterday. 13,800 pounds of food. Now, Anthony, a guy at outreach Foodbank. He says when he processes out per pound, the average price per pound in America. This is his number, not ours. Is that $2.25 a pound? You take 13, eight times 2.25. This is the number you get is $31,000. There’s the impact that we made on our community yesterday with the food drive. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, last fall, we talked about end-of-the-year giving, talking about, I think, offering. And how are you going to honor God because of his goodness at the end of 2021 and into the year? Giving went towards our special needs ministry. And we went all in this year on that. We spent $30,000 on sensory items for the classrooms. And here’s some pictures of that. And I was talking debris. Turner, who’s the leader in that for the staff leader. And she says that we’re right now currently averaging 10 to 12 students every weekend in IBA. What about that? 10 to 12. Yeah. And since we open up Peabody’s in October is that we’ve already had five new families come and check out each side because of Ibori’s. And there’s going to be more for that. And so, friends, we are leaving a legacy in Madison County. We’re leaving a legacy in central Kentucky. Why? Because of our generosity. But let me just give you one other way that you can leave a legacy. I want you to look with me at Luke, chapter 12, verse 20. Let me tell you the story here. This is a story of a farmer. And he’s not just any farmer. He’s an entrepreneurial farmer. He has big dreams for his farm. He has big dreams for his future. He works hard. He’s very successful. He’s accumulated a lot of wealth. But here’s the thing about this is that one day he dies, and the reality is we’re all going to die. And look what it says in Luke chapter 12, verse 20. It says this God said to him, You fool. Now, folks, let me just clarify for you is God doesn’t call him a fool for being successful, for being wealthy, for being a hard worker. That’s not why God calls him before God calls him a fool because he never gave any thought to God in his life. He never gave any consideration for his eternity. Notice what it says, You fool, this very not your life will be demanded from you. And he died. Folks, the reality is every one of us is going to die. The death rate is still at 100% here in the world today. Every single one of us we’re going to die. You know what happens when we die? Here’s what’s going to happen. Then who? Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? Then you get what you prepared for yourself. And here’s the question What have you prepared for yourself? What are you? What have you prepared for your next adventure after death? Is it going to be internally in heaven, or is it going to be an eternity in hell? And here’s the reality. The greatest legacy that you can give your family is helping your family come to know Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. And I believe that the greatest legacy that we can offer as a church is not our financial giving or financial blessings, but it’s preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ every weekend and offering people the opportunity to be born again, to enter into eternal life, to have their name written in the Book of Heaven, to have their sins forgiven. To have a fresh start. To get rid of all of their shame and guilt. And this morning, if you’re here and you’ve never been born again, then you need to be born again. Let me just say so. The born again is not our term. In fact, it’s Jesus’s term. Look what he says in John. Chapter three, verse three. I’m telling you the truth. No one, not no one, no single person can see the kingdom of God without being born again. And folks, if you want to have eternal life in heaven, with God, with your name written in the Book of Heaven, with your sins forgiven, you have to be born again. And the question becomes. 

Have you been born again? 

It’s a great question that you have to answer. It’s the only question that matters. To be honest with you, you get every other question right. And you can fail this question, and you fill out the entire exam. This is the only question that matters on the exam. If you’ve never been born again, I want to share with you how to be born again. And how is a person born again? We say, first of all, you have to admit that you’re a sinner. To admit that you’ve blown it. To admit that you don’t have a perfect life. To admit that you’re a liar, a cheat, a thief, that you’re all of those things, that you’ve blown it just like I have. And some of you said, well, you know, that’s pretty strong language. It’s the truth. We’ve all fallen short. And this is the same problem that we have is a disease. It is such a bad disease that nobody on earth can deal with their disease. There’s not a priest, and there’s not a pastor. There’s a set of parents. There are no grandparents, there’s no pill, there’s no program. There’s nothing that can deal with the sin issue. And so you’re saying, well, if there’s no nothing that can deal with the sin issue, then why should I admit that I’m a sinner? Because here’s the reason why. Because we believe the letter B is that we believe that God sent Jesus to take care of the sin issue. See, most of us we think that we need. A second chance. No, we need a second birth. And the second birth happens when we admit that we’re a sinner and we believe that Jesus Came and did for us what we could not do for ourselves. And he lived the life that we couldn’t live. He died the death that we should have died. But the letter c is that he confessed that we confess our sins to Jesus, that we confess that we’re a sinner. We confess that he is the way to heaven, and we confess that we’ve fallen short. And what I want to do this morning, I’m going to ask you about your head. You don’t have to close your eyes. Just bow your head. And this morning, I believe that there are some people that are here who need to be born again, who needs to step out of Darkness and step into the light. This morning, during the first service, we had two people who made that decision. If you’re here this morning, I want to include you in this born-again prayer because how you seal the deal with God is that you seal the deal with God by praying a prayer. It’s called Born Again Prayer. And I’m not going to ask you to stand. I’m not going to ask you to text your name to me. I’m not going to ask you to come down front, not going to ask you to meet me in the atrium or anything like that. But here’s what I want to ask you. If you want to be included in this born-again prayer, I’m going to ask you to do me a favor in a second. I’m going to ask you to raise your hand and keep him up. That’s how I know that two people at least pray, pray the prayer this morning. I’m just going to ask you to just hold your hand up. In a moment, I’m going to go around the room, count the hands, and then together, out loud, we’re going to pray the born-again prayer. And so this morning, if you’ve never been born again and you want to be included in this prayer, I just want to ask you to just raise your hand up real high. And I’m going to look around the room and just count the hands. Do we have anyone? With their hands in the air. Can’t really see with the lights is an anyone. There’s one. Thank you. Anyone else. So let’s pray this prayer together. 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 faced 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 turned from us. 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 this one person to the Kingdom of God. And this morning, just as we’re rejoicing with you, we just want you to know that the angels in heaven are rejoicing. Because now there’s another name written in the Book of Heaven. And so this morning, I want to invite you to stand. And we’re just going to give thanks to God for his goodness, his kindness, his gentleness. So as you sing with us, as we continue and worship.