Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Love Song, Part 4: Reconcilable Differences

Episode Date: November 15, 2014

God knew what He was doing when He created love and sex. In fact, He wrote the book on it. You’ll be amazed at what God had in mind when He wrote the ultimate Love Song. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Babe. Yeah. What are we going to do about Christmas? I don't know. I mean, my parents will them would come to their house. My parents want us to go to their house. Can we just not do either one?

No, we can't do neither. We have to spend Christmas with our families. We have to make a decision. Well, what are we going to do? I don't know. It is great to have all of you with us at all of our life churches and our network churches

and all over the world at church online. We are in week number four of a five-part message series going through the book of Song of Solomon. And today we're going to talk about a very important subject. If you missed where we were, week number one, we watched as we look at godly qualities to attract in relationship. Week number two, we talked about pursuing through the seasons. Week number three, we looked at the honeymoon, and it was a hot honeymoon. Next week is the final week. I'm going to call it love in action.

It will be the most practical and I believe the most helpful week to prepare your marriage or future marriage to go the distance. Today, we're actually going to watch these two lovebirds go into the ring and get into a fight. In fact, I don't care who you are, how great your romance is at some point in your relationship, you will get into a fight. I'm very blessed, and Amy is in this service, that we have a marriage that really, is beyond anything I ever expected my marriage to be. And my kids would tell you that we don't fight a whole lot.

But I can guarantee you that there's one place almost every single time that we will get it going is if we're traveling to some place and we don't know how to get there. It's almost guaranteed conflict. And there are so many inner working reasons for me. It's like a core value to be on time. Okay, if I'm 20 minutes early, I feel late. Amy is more creative about deadlines. And so at the beginning of our trip, if we're not leaving when I want to leave already,

I'm wound up. Then I've always believed that as a driver, I should navigate. Amy believes that the person in the passenger seat is the navigator. So therefore, she's got to tell directions. but I like turn by turn this many miles, turn at this specific exit. She's comfortable looking at the sun and the moon and going slightly northwest by feel. Every now and then she will actually break out a real map, and then she'll tell me about this far you're going to turn on exit number 43.

Well, this far could be 792 miles. And I'll often forget that and then pass the exit, and she'll say, why didn't you turn? I'm like, you're supposed to help me. She's like, no, I'm the navigator. You're the driver. I tell you to turn and use your responsibility to do it at the right time.

And the fight is on. Now, all I want to do is just talk to Siri and have Siri take me there. But evidently, whenever I talk to Siri, she thinks I'm trying to get something out of another woman and it doesn't go very well. And so every now and then, I'll like fake, like a tire is low,

on air. And I'll get out of the car and be like, oh, let me see this. Like, Siri, take me to this address. Then I'll put my little earbed up my shirt, just one over the left ear and hide it because she's over there and I'll listen to Siri. But if I get out of the car and forget to take my ear out of the seatbelt and it gets caught and hung up in my ear, she'd be like, you were listening to Siri, weren't you? You like Siri's directions better than mine. And the fight is on from there. I don't know about you, but we can get in the most dramatic fight sometimes about the silliest little things. And I want to talk today about how do we learn to reconcile our differences, how do we fight fear? The bottom line is all couples are going to fight.

Healthy couples, though, will fight clean. Unhealthy couples will fight dirty. Healthy couples will work toward resolution. Unhealthy couples fight for victory. I want to win. The problem is if one of us wins, then actually both of us lose. We have to both learn to win together. So we're going to look this week as our two lovebirds,

Solomon and the Shulamite woman who cannot keep their hands off of each other because they are so in love, actually get in a little tis. Okay? We're going to start in verse two in chapter five. And the woman says this. She says, I slept, but my heart was awake. Listen, my beloved is knocking. So it's maybe 11 o'clock at night.

It may be two in the morning. I'm not sure what time it is, but she's restless because he's not home. She's kind of sleeping, but she's not all the way sleeping. Her heart is awake. He knocked on the door and says, open to me, my sister, my darling, my love, my flawless one. Anytime it is after 11 o'clock at night, and a man says, my darling, my dove, my flawless one,

what is on his mind? Right? Honestly, after 11 p.m., there's only one thing ever on a man's mind. Okay. Come to think about it, just about all the time. There's only one thing on a man's mind. And so he's coming in, and he wants a little bit of romance. and he says to her, my head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night.

In other words, he did not drive up in his pickup truck. He's coming in from the outside air. It's late in the evening or almost early in the morning, and he's coming in and saying, My dove, my flawless one, I'm home. Knocky, knocky, knocky, open the door, ye lovey one. Now, let us review from previous weeks in case. you missed her attitude toward him. If you remember in week number one, she said,

strengthen me with raisins. What are raisins? That's an aphrodisiac. This is like amazing to hear a woman say that. And then she said, his left arm is under my head and his right arm embraces me. What a tender and a romantic position they're in. Week number two, she says, until the day breaks and the shableness. Shadows flee, turn my beloved, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the ragged hills.

Translated, I want you all night long. This is the word of God. Praise be to God. Listen, if you guys aren't going to get into this message any better than this, I'm going to have to do it all by myself because this is so much fun, okay? And then week number three, I'm just going to say it with a straight face and there will be no Last week, she said, blow on my garden. Look, I'm not laughing. I don't know what you're laughing about.

I don't even know what that means. She said, let my beloved come into his garden and taste its choice fruits. She called him her stag. She said, my beloved is mine, and I am his. He's coming in. He's expecting some romance. And in verse three, what do you think she says? She says, I've taken off my robe.

Must I put it on again? I've washed my feet. Must I soil them again? In the Hebrew, this means I have a headache. Go away. That's what it means. Do you see what's happening here? He's coming in, and he wants a little something, something, okay?

And she's not in the mood. She's tired. She was waiting up, and now she's too worn out. I'll be real honest with you, and you may not believe this, but this happens at my house all the time. All the time. I mean, almost like clockwork. Amy comes in, and she wants a little, you know, and I'm tired.

I mean, I've been working hard. You have no idea how hard it is to be a pastor. I mean, it's draining. And, you know, all the time. I mean, like way more than, you know, is it normal? And I always tell her, like, look, no, please, please, not tonight. Just remember, I am a person with a heart, and I have a soul. I'm not just a body.

And then I beg her and plead with her. Can we please just cuddle tonight? I just want to hold each other. But no, you know how women are. Are we having fun yet? Are we going to fight? Are we smiling? Are we smiling?

I see a smile and an eye roll. I'm not sure where I stand. I'm not sure where I stand. This isn't a Bible. Can you believe this? He's coming on like, hey, Romeo's here. And she's like, I'm not Juliet tonight. Sorry.

Now, what I want to do just briefly is I want to show you the two big root causes of conflict. The two big root causes of conflict. And as I talk about these two, I want you to work to identify maybe what's the biggest problem in your own life. If you're not yet married, this can kind of help prepare you to let the Holy Spirit work on this area to prepare you for other relationships or your future marriage. And if you are married in your life group this week, this is a great thing to unpack and to talk about openly and honestly. The root causes of conflict. The first thing is simply unmet expectations. Unmet expectations. We see it in some degree or another in every single

relationship. So what happens here? She is experiencing. expecting him to come home probably earlier. He's not home. She's kind of awake. She can't sleep. And she's looking at their watch. Like, where is he? Where is he?

Where is he? Where is he? He has not even texted me. He is in so much trouble. He's dead when he comes in. Okay. He comes home and he's remembering her from before. I want you all night long.

He's looking for his twin fawns. Okay? He's wondering, is the petting zoo open? And no, it's closed. There's nothing going on. Come on, guys. Don't be looking at me like that, okay? Listen to me, this was in the

Bible. If it wasn't in the Bible, it would be unfair, but it's in the Bible, so we're just going to go there. And so he wants something, and she's not, and so there's some unmet expectations. And in marriage, you can see it in any number of different ways. You know, you're two weeks into marriage, and she's thinking, Dad fixed everything, and Dad took the trash out, and Dad pays the bills, and he didn't know how to fix squat, and he doesn't want to take the trash out, and he's looking at me to pay the bills. Uh-oh, attention. Okay? Or he's going, well, Mom cooked all the time and you're like going, you know, going take out again, I thought we were going to do this, you know, how are we supposed to work through it? Or she thought there'd be like Bible studies.

We're going to do Beth Moore for two hours a day. Great studies that'll help us to grow spiritually. And he's confused and dazed and doesn't know what to do. He thought there might be more intimacy and more romance and she thought there'd be more talking and suddenly there's unmet expectations and boom, tension starts to arise. Now, I can tell you in our marriage, we really, we had like three years of really not having any significant issues. And then we had our first child,

and things got complicated. And I think one of the things that really was a shock and disappointed to Amy was, like, if there's a baby within seven miles, she can sense it. It's like this weird, like, we're like, baby, baby, baby. And she's like, if it's your baby and your first one,

You don't want anyone to hold it. She'll tackle you and say, I'm holding that baby. She's like, baby freakazoid, you know. And so when we had our first daughter, Katie, I was excited and everything, but I just kind of looked and like, yeah, as a kid. And I loved her, but there wasn't much to do with her. You know, like spray her down, put some powder on her, and look at her. You know, it was weird, but I hate to say this, but I didn't really engage until, like,

she could roll a ball back to me. You know, I go, dad, dad, dad, dad, and do the, you know, the Frankenstein walk toward me, you know. And at that point, like, I was all in. But before it, I was kind of like, yeah, I mean, it's so bad that, like, half of our staff is pregnant. You know, they drink the water. Boop, they're popping out pregnant.

And, you know, all these girls, they bring their baby in. And my assistant's like, smile and look at the kid, you know, like, say something complimenter because I always forget. I'm like, I got to get back to work. Oh, yeah, that's a baby. And I had to tell myself to do that because I just don't care. Well, anyway, this was, you can only imagine how baby mama and, I don't care, guy, get together. And Amy's like, is our marriage okay?

You know, are we going to make it? And it was really surprising to her. So I don't know how it will hit you, but it could be at a much deeper level. You're married seven years in, and you're going, this isn't what I thought marriage was going to be. You're married 15 years in. and you can barely get along. And you're hanging on thinking, maybe we need to just stay together for the sake of the kids.

And one day you wake up and you're little more than roommates, sharing the bills in the same room, but yet you're very, very distant from each other. And you realize you are not the husband or you are not the wife that I thought you were going to be, and you have unmet expectations. The second big root cause that you'll find is just self-centeredness,

self-sidness okay solomon comes in he's like me tors in you jane love swing on the vine together you know he wants some action she's like i'm tired i've taken my robe off okay both of them are only thinking about their own needs neither one of them are thinking about the other person i want this and i want something different and therefore we have a problem self-siderness this happen in any way in the relationship. You know, she wants to talk and it's really important to her. She wants to share her feelings and connect. And he's like, I just want to veg. I just want to sit there and watch TV because for a guy, it's never about what else is on at the moment. It's all about what else might be on. So he just flips through the channels nonstop. And it devastates her

and he just wants to veg. Or perhaps, you know, one person wants a little physical intimacy and the other person just doesn't. And so there's tension that boils up in the marriage. Or, you know, she buys something. You know, she gets another purse. And he's thinking, you know, I couldn't understand when you bought your second one. Who needs two purses? Now you got seven. And she's like, well, every time there's something new, you upgrade your technology. You know, you upgraded it 50 seconds ago. And now you got another, the 17th version, and there's fights about money. You spent what? And you did this, and it's selfishness. This is what I want. You never do what I want. You're always thinking about yourself. Selfishness.

seeps into the relationship and suddenly we have a problem. We're self-centered. Now, I want to just pause for a moment. If you're dating somebody right now and you're fighting all the time, it's not a good sign. It's just not a good sign. I see quite often what will happen is like, you know, we're fighting, we're fighting, we don't get along.

And if you fight some and you work toward a resolution, that's really, really good. But if it is constantly fighting, here's what a lot of people will think. they'll think, well, maybe if we get married, things will be better. McFly, okay, that's like all you're doing is fighting with your spouse and saying, maybe if we have a kid, things will get better. One person laughed on the front row. God bless you for your help, because, I mean, this is a real problem.

We're broke. Let's charge a vacation to the Bahamas and talk about our finances, okay? This is not a good thing. If you're always fighting in your dating relationship, let this be a warning signal. This should really be the smooth time when you're growing together. And so often I think people make a mistake. Let's get married and then it's going to get easier. Bless God, Jesus can set you free if that's what you think.

Okay. Here's what I want you to do. Think for a minute about what perhaps is the biggest root cause of tension in your relationships. Do you find this unmet expectations? You're wanting them to be something that they're not, and therefore you're bitter or you're upset or you're irritable. Or is it quite honestly that you're just very, very self-centered? And in your life groups or in your time when you discuss the message, because I really hope you just don't hear the message, but you're doers of it, that you put it into action, that you apply it. You talk very openly and say, here's the issue for me, and then let the Holy Spirit bring you to a better place.

Okay, let's do this. Let's go back to verse three. I want to show you something that's just crazy. Look at verse three again in your nose. Here's what she says. She says, I've taken off my robe. He's like, hello, hello. I've taken off my robe.

Must I put it on again? I've washed my feet. Must I soil them again? Then one verse later. Verse four. For no explainable reason, she then says, my beloved thrust his hand through the latch opening,

my heart began to power. pound for him. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Verse three, she wants him to go away and die. Verse four, his hand is coming in the door. He's trying to unlock the door,

and suddenly her heart is pounding for him. Verse three, she doesn't want anything to do with him. Verse four, she's excited to see him. This confuses me. I went and looked in probably nine different biblical commentaries searching for an answer. I called two kind of scholar pastors that are like infinitely smarter than I am and asked them what's happening here. I searched the internet for hours, looking for some sort of explanation. I took time and devoted this to prayer. Holy Spirit, give me

divine insight into your word. This is in your word. It's in there for a reason. Nothing. I couldn't figure it out. So finally, I thought, I'm just call some women in. I went out into the hallway, found some women on staff. I said, come in, sit down my table. I want to show you this. Verse three, she's not interested. Verse four, her heart's pounding form. Help me understand this. And the women looked at me like I was the stupidest creature on planet Earth. I said, what is it? And they said, duh, she changed her mind. Yeah. That's what happened? She changed her mind. No reason. Like, stupid? She didn't want it that she did. What's wrong with that? Nothing at all.

Glad it's working that way and not the other way, right? You know, I do want you. No, no, I don't. That's not good. So anyway, she changes her mind, okay? Yeah! Should have seen that. Verse five, this is what she says. I arose to open for my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrr. My fingers with flowing myr on the handles of the bolt.

So what happens? He comes in, he puts his hand through the door, and he puts liquid mur on the bolt. So what he does is he's not forcing himself on her. But he actually puts liquid mure, this romantic fragrance on the door, and then he walks away as to not offend her. She says this, verse six, I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had left. He was gone. My heart sank at his departure. I looked for him, but did not find him. I called for him, but he did not answer. So he wants romance. She doesn't. She changes her mind. He leaves something nice. He leaves and now she's upset, okay, and there's something going on.

So if you read forward, it's a really disturbing portion of scripture which you're going to read. And you can read it in detail. I'll just summarize what happens. She goes out looking for him. She can't find him. And for whatever reason, the watchmen see her, and maybe they think she's a threat, maybe they're not sure who she is or she's out after hours or whatever, but they humiliate her. They hurt her physically and emotionally because of this.

Now, what I want you to see here is that some very small and insignificant issue in their marriage led to something very, very big and very damaging. And you can see this happen all the time. It's a, I want to be on time and you're running late. It's a, I bought something and didn't tell you, and now there's mistrust in the marriage. It's the fact that I did something wrong and didn't apologize for it, and now there's tension. It's the I was inconsiderate and didn't call you to let you know I was running late. and something very, very small, if left unchecked, can become something very, very big.

We tend to think when we're fighting that our spouse is the enemy. Our spouse is never the enemy, you see. We do not battle against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities of this dark world. And while he may think she's the enemy or she may think he's the enemy, when she is out and unguarded, suddenly a real enemy comes in and hurts her and eventually could hurt the relationship. Our spouse is not our enemy. We need to be on the same side of the table,

not fighting for victory, but fighting for resolution. And if we leave something small unchecked, it can grow into something very devastating over a period of time. So, they're in a fight. What I want to do for the rest of the message is to get very, very practical. Because to me, I just don't want knowledge,

but I want application of the Bible. How can we apply its principles to our lives? so that we can become more like Christ. And I want to give you three quick thoughts about how to resolve conflict. And as I go over these, I want to just tell you right now, these are very, very simple. But if applied to your marriage,

it can be transformative in how you relate to one another and grow toward Christ and become successful in honoring him. How do we resolve conflict? Three promises to make. The first one is this. I will respond, react. I will respond by the spirit instead of reacting in the flesh. Rather than just going to bouncing back, I'm going to let the spirit lead me in a response rather than reacting according to

how I feel, which is really what Solomon appears to do. He could have gotten mad, but he puts a little bit of love oil on the doorknob and says, here's an act of love. Romans 12, 21, Paul said this, do not be overcome by evil, but what do we do? Let's all say it aloud. We're going to overcome evil with good. We're going to do something good in return. Why is it that in our marriage, when we think we're being attacked, oftentimes to defend ourselves, we criticize the other person.

Think logically with me for a minute. What other relationship anywhere in the world ever gets better with criticism? Think about it. If your boss criticizes you all day long, do you come home and say, oh, I feel so much closer to my boss? I just love and honor my boss. I want to do anything for her. I love her so much. No, it distances and harms the relationship.

If your best friend criticizes you all day long, he or she will not be your best friend for long. And yet in marriage, we tend to think criticizing one another is actually going to help make things better. It does not. It makes it worse. What are we to do? We are never told to try to change our spouse. Men, we're told to love our wives and not be harsh with them, to be considerate with them, to treat them with respect, and as heirs with the gracious gift of life. We are told them to love them, to cherish them.

Ladies, you are told to respect your husbands. We are to submit to one another in love. We are not to try to change our spouses, but let God change us. All we do for our spouse is to pray. let God do a work on us and we pray for our spouse. We let God do a work for us and we pray for our spouse. And what is so powerful is this. Your prayer may or may not change them, but your prayer always changes you. We are not going to react in the flesh, but we are going to respond by the spirit. The second thing is we will focus on the good and not the bad. We'll focus on the good

and not the bad. Paul said Philippians 4-8, whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. I love what Ruth Graham said about Billy Graham, who traveled maybe as much as seven months out of the year. And a reporter said, doesn't that make you sick that your husband's always on the road? And she could have easily said, yes, it's so hard, he's never here. But you know what she said? She said five months with Billy. is better than 12 months with any other man on earth. That's focusing on the good. That's looking at the blessings.

In fact, this is what the Shulamite woman did. If you read on, she starts to think about him, and she describes all the features of her husband that she likes, that she adores, that she admires. She starts to think about all of the good qualities. Here's the problem. Listen, no matter who you're with, they will not live up to 100% of your expectations.

never, ever, ever, ever. It is impossible. No human can meet all those needs. Only God can meet every need. So if you're wanting 100% and they only give you 80, there's 20% missing. And here's what so many idiot, stupid people do. They see the 20% in someone else. So they trade the 80 in their spouse for the 20 in someone else,

only to be incredibly dissatisfied because they had no idea how good they already had it. Don't walk away from your spouse. Look for the good. There was enough good for you to marry him 20 years ago or 15 years ago or three years ago. And if you see the good, you'll fall in love even more. Look for the good. Look for the good. Look for the good.

I will focus on the good and not the bad. Do not trade the 80% for the 20% only to find yourself hurting even more. I will respond by the spirit, not react in the flesh. I'll focus on the good and not the bad, and then I will talk and not walk. I'll talk and not walk. If Solomon did something right, it was not forcing his way in. If he did something wrong, it was leaving when there was still an issue going on. Paul said this in Ephesians 4, 26, and 27, in your anger, do not sin, do not let the sun go down while you're still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. Don't give the devil a place. That word foothole can be translated as gist room.

Don't let the devil in your house. Don't let them in your relationship. Don't go to bed, angry. What happens when you get angry in its bedtime, you don't have to teach this. You just assume the position in bed is back to back. It's like, supernaturally, you know. You don't have to teach you. You face one way, your spouse faces the other.

There are unwritten rules. No part of your body is allowed to touch. If her foot drifts over into enemy territory and your toes touch, you can't get back. You're not getting any toe tonight. You want some toe. You play with your own toe. You're on touch with my toe. Get any toe. Get your own toe. And you just do this. And then there's always a huffer and there's always a silent one. I'm the huffer. Okay. We're back to back. I'm like, you know, time goes by and I'm still awake. I'm still upset.

Blah, blah, blah. Okay. Amy, she just stops breathing for 30 minutes at a time. You don't know. She's there. She's like she's dead. She won't give me the satisfaction. No, she's alive. Okay. Now, we had a mentor that said, do not ever go to bed angry. Do not ever go to bed angry. And I think one of the strengths of why our relationship is where it is today is because we will not go to bed with unresolved conflict. Now, there's one time we didn't sleep for four days. I'm kind of joking, but not so much, okay? But I'm going to talk this through, and I'm not going to walk. I'm not going to walk. I'm not going to walk. where divorce is not even, that's a word that will not be used in our household. We're in a covenant and this is something that is lasting and binding.

So we're all going to fight, but how we fight will determine the strength of our marriage. I will not react, but I will respond. I will focus on the good and not the bad. I will talk and not walk. And so here's what happens to Solomon and this woman. He shows back up, they make up, they forgive each other. He's got a great line here. You can read it.

He says, he says, turn your eyes away from me. They overpower me. I love it when Amy says that. Your eyes over, I mean, I look at your eye like, you're just too much for me. You overpower me. And here's what happens. We watch their relationship go from good to not so good to way better, to way better, to weigh better.

I love in chapter 6, verse 11, when he says this, I went down to the grove of the nut trees to look at the what, to look at the new growth in the valley. I went down to find the new growth. Some of you may be in a place right now where things aren't so good. They were good for a while. They're not so good.

But with the help of the Holy Spirit, and through the power of Christ, there can always be new growth. fresh growth because in Christ he makes all things new. So honestly, listen to me. I don't care how bad it is right now or how bad it gets one day. If there are two people seeking Christ, two seeking the one, by his power, he can give you something better than you could ever ask, think, or imagine.

We will always seek the one with our two and trust him to live. lead us to the marriage he wants us to have. Father, I pray that you would speak to us today, that we would be changed in your presence, that your Holy Spirit would do a healing work in relationships today. As you pray, I don't care if you're married or single, those of you who'd recognize, I could have some unmet expectations, I could have some self-sendous, I recognize that I can't change anybody else, but I can bring myself before God and ask him to have his perfect way. If you see any selfishness in your relationships and I see it all over mine. What I want to do is say, God, help me to die to myself today. Help me to die to myself. I don't want it to be about me.

I want to be characterized by a spirit of servanthood, blessing others. And all of our churches, if you recognize, you know what, it can be about me. I can be easily offended. I can keep record of wrong. I can, I can be easily angered. I don't want it to be about me, God, in your presence. Help it to be less about me and more about you. Help me to die to myself. Would you lift every hands right now? I hope that's everybody today. I really do. Father, I pray that at this moment that your Holy Spirit would speak to us just where we are, knowing God that all of us are sinful and have characteristics and qualities that can be rough on the edges. As iron sharpens iron, God, I pray that you would sharpen us, conform us to the image of your son, have your perfect way in us.

God, forgive us for our selfishness, our rebellion against you. I pray, God, that it would be less about us and more about your son, Jesus. And in that spirit, God, you would give us a love, that we would overcome evil with good, no matter what someone else is doing toward us. We would respond by the power of your spirit. And God, that you would heal relationships. God, for those, even now that are considering divorce, I pray that you do something I could never do. You speak to their hearts, God.

give them hope give them grace give them forgiveness we thank you God that Christ can make all things new as you keep praying today at all of our churches there are some of you right now

if there's tension somewhere you could say there's a little bit of tension or a little bit of distance between you and God maybe even a lot you may feel like God let you down somewhere God should have done something he didn't do and you may have a grudge against God you may have walked in and say

I'm not even a God follower I'm not a God person and there's distance between me and God, but something's happening right now. You're feeling drawn toward God. Let me just tell you clearly what that is. That is His Holy Spirit, because he loves you, and he desires for you to depart from yourself to confess your need for him, to call on him. And when you do, let me tell you what he does. He loved you so much.

He sent his son, Jesus, who was without sin, perfect in every way, to die on a cross, be raised again from the dead so that anyone who is in Christ, no matter what you've done, no matter how dark your life is right now, no matter how bad you've messed up when you call on him, he will make you new, forgive every sin. They'll be separated as far from you as the east is from the west, and that is why many of you are here today, and you know it.

It's time to be reconciled back to God through his son, Jesus, and that is why you're here today. And all of our churches you say, yes, that's me. By faith, I give my life to Christ. Lift your hands high right now and say, yes, I surrender to him. Right back over here, right up here by me, right back over here in this section, And others of you, right back over here, over here on this side, God bless you, sweetheart,

over here. Others of you say, yes, I surrender. I need his grace. Lift up your hands and say, I surrender my life completely to Christ. Lift up your hands and say, yes, I trust him. Church online, you click right below me. We're going to pray with those around us. Pray aloud, Heavenly Father.

Today, by faith, I give you my life. It is no longer my own. I surrender to Jesus to save me. from my sins to make me new. Holy Spirit fill me so I could follow God. My life is not my own. Today I give it to you. In Jesus' name I pray.

Would you worship big, thank God. Welcome those born into God's family today.