Good morning. It's good to see you. This morning I bring you greetings on behalf of our pastor, who along with our mission team is in Scotland and they're about five hours ahead of us. So they've already had their worship time, had something to eat, and now they're busy at work doing things there within our partner church over there. We're so excited that he's having this opportunity.

He'll be getting back later in the week with the rest of our group, but he'll probably still be having some jet lag in there. So you'll see me again next Sunday as well. Take your Bibles and turn to Matthew, chapter 23 if you will find. Verse 25 will be there in just a moment. Our pastors had us on a really interesting journey.

You remember back last year he preached through. I did one of them, but preached through the parables of the kingdom that talked about what the kingdom of God was like. Well, he and I were talking in the midst of that and I remember mentioning to him, pastor, have you ever thought in terms about how the kingdom that God is bringing is upside down of the very kingdom that we're living? He said, you know, that's an interesting thought. And we talked about it off and on for weeks and weeks.

And then that germinated in time and Holy Spirit then built within our pastor this direction that we're going in right now about God's upside down kingdom. So I'm going to continue that this morning. Share a different element about what's involved with that, that it is upside down, but it's also inside out. If you'll read with me, along with Matthew 23:25, Jesus is scolding a group of people who made a big show of their faith, but it wasn't really reflective about what's inside.

In verse 25, he says, Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. Can I pause just for a moment and tell you a little bit about that word? It's actually a word that comes out of the realm of pottery and making ceramics and things like that that were a very big deal in Bible because you used it from water and oil and all kinds of very, very fancy, very expensive kinds of things. And what would happen when a potter would create a pot, then sometimes those who were unscrupulous, if there was a hole or a crack, he would manage to cover it up enough to sell it. And that after he sold it, then you get it home and, well, you've had some of those things I have too.

And so this word came from an assurance that this is sincere. That's where that word comes from too. It lacks hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is covering up on the outside something that's wrong on the inside. So that's why Jesus chose this word.

Even here he said, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, for you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self indulgence. Blind Pharisee. First cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside may be clean. Let's pray together. Father, in this, in so many different ways, your son made abundantly clear that real change has to come from the inside out.

And it's not something that we can manufacture, it's something that only you can do. So, Holy Spirit, I ask that you'll anoint your word afresh and in you today that we may be hearing it as if for the very first time, and that you'll be speaking to the depths of who we are and where we're living. Because your Word is fresh and dynamic for each and every day of our lives and speaks much deeper than we would ever assume. Holy Spirit, will you do your wonderful work in our midst again? Today we ask in Christ.

Amen. I've been having an awful lot of conversations recently with friends and acquaintances that really have a deep desire, hope needed to bring about some real change in their lives. They really want to have some change. They know there's some things that's messed up, they know some habits they really want to break and such as that. And so here is their line of thinking.

Here's their line of thinking. I want to get close to God. I want to get close to the church. I want to be accepted. So I'm going to decide to turn over a new leaf.

I'm going to quit some of the things I've been doing. I'm going to change the way I've been thinking, the way I've been acting, and I can make that change. And it's going to make me acceptable to my pastor and to my church, and I'll fit in because all these other people got it together. And I'm the only one walking around here that is just in this hypocrisy. So here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to identify at least one thing that I'm going to change and I'm going to put all my determination in There I'm going to work, make a plan and I'm going to work my plan and I'm going to bring about change. I'm going to be a different person. I'm going to kick those old way of doing things, those old habits and get away from those old hurts that have plagued me for so long. And head ups because I need, I want to change, I'm ready to change. I want to do better, I want to quit those old habits.

And so I identify those things, I make up my mind, here's what I'm going to do, here's the way I'm going to set parameters around me, all the rest of those things and then I got to get out and hang around you. No, the fact of the matter is you do all right if you can just be by yourself. But the difficulties when you're out around with other people. I read a fellow that he woke up and he was praying as he first woke up in the morning. He said, God, I thank you that I hadn't cussed, hadn't drank anything, hadn't told a lie, haven't gossiped.

But now I got to get up and go to work.

You know, we're all right if we're all by ourselves and it's just us and we haven't got in the middle of things. It's when the pressure is turned on that then automatic reflex, we go back to that old way of thinking, old way of responding, and before we know it, we're neck deep in that old life all over again. It's an inevitable frustration. The fact of the matter is nothing seems to work, at least in the long haul. I mean, we can do some cosmetic changes here and there, but we really can't make any real lasting, deep difference on our own in our lives.

Now I've been involved in recovery ministry for a long time personally and involved in others recovery as well. Celebrate. Recovery has meant an awful lot to me over the years because of things that I have had to enter into recovery for difficulties I've had in my own life and habits and hurts that I had to get beyond and try to find a balance in my life. But most recovery systems have a phrase, you probably have heard this before, they have a phrase that they use and that they teach you. And it's basically this.

He said, you need to learn to fake it till you make it. Fake it till you make it. You probably heard that many, many recovery systems use that. Now let me share with you, there's an element of truth to that. If you're gonna learn any good practice.

If you're going to learn how to, how to hit a tennis ball, right? Or if you're going to learn how to memorize scripture, whatever it is. There are things that you can do that will help you. You establish memory muscles, muscle memory. You establish a way of doing things.

And you can do some things to make some changes in how you respond. What we can't do is change at a very deep and molecular level. We can change a certain practice, but there's a point of that phrase that doesn't make it. Fake it till you make it. Most of the time you fake it and you never make it.

That's the reality. Because it's our own work. There appears to be a way to change the outside, but I'm here to tell you none of that has ever changed the inside. On me. It's a fundamental fallacy built into this.

Fake it till you make it. And it's this. It means I have the power fundamentally to change something deep inside myself that will change my behavior on the outside. That's a fallacy because when you fake it till you make it, mostly you just fake it. Does that sound familiar?

Has anybody else in this room been down a road I've been on? Am I up here all by myself? I know y' all all got it together. I've been looking at y' all for a long time. You don't have any habits or hang ups or you don't have any, you know, all that kind of stuff.

No, I know better. So let's ask this question. How do I bring about real change? I mean, I know I need it. My wife's told me I need it.

You know, I know I need it. You know, how do I do that? Well, the world has an answer for that. And the world's answer is simply this. You can do this yourself.

You can pick yourself up by your own bootstraps. Now will you pause just a minute and think with me about that phrase? Can you imagine you're bending over and you're going to grab your shoelaces and you're going to pick yourself up off the ground? Yeah, you, you laugh about that. I do too.

Because we know that's not possible. The very saying itself is a self defeating statement. We can't pick ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We can't make deep and fundamental changes within ourselves. But we're destined to try.

You know, we think we can, you know, read this book or go to this conference or follow this line of Thinking or whatever, and then all these changes will happen and we're just going to be so much better. We decide we're going to make our plan and we're going to build it. It's just a matter of determination, just a matter of mind over matter. It's just common sense right now, ladies, let me tell you something. Us guys like this, this is our way of living right here, you know.

You know, if we deal with these things that are on the outside, we don't have to think about that junk on the inside. We don't have to deal with those things like emotions and motivations for the. You know, that's a. It's a good place. You know, I got some amens out of the ladies.

I don't know if you guys heard any of that or not.

The fact of the matter is we rarely have I ever seen in all of my years of ministry any genuine change from that. The fact of the matter is there's something wrong with the world's plan. It doesn't work. And Jesus knew that. He knew when he created us that we would be determined to do things our own way.

We would be determined that if there's any changes to be made, I can take care of that. God just, you know, leave me alone. Give me a little nudge every now and then, but help, a little blessing every now and then, but I can handle this.

But God knew as he created us that that was the impossibility that there would be no deep, abiding, fundamental change that we could bring about ourselves. That we were helpless and needed him. And that's what drove him to point this out to the religious leaders of the day who were saying, look at us, we got it all together. And Jesus just exposed them and saying, you ain't got it together, you ain't even close. Look at what he says.

Again, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. For you clean the outside of the cup and plate, but inside you're full of greed and selfishness, you blind Pharisee. First clean the inside of the cup and plate, and the outside will be clean. He goes on, further, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. For you're like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones and all kinds of uncleanness.

So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you're filled with. With hypocrisy and lawlessness. Now what is he talking about? The Tombs of the prophets and the tombs of the great heroes of the faith. Rather than being put into a cave, they were actually put in like a mausoleum.

And they were carefully tended to. And they, we would say painting it, they would whitewash it, and they would virtually worship there. And Jesus was saying, look, you know, that looks all right and pretty on the outside, but he ever cracked one of them things open, they stink inside. It's just rot, okay? That's what's inside.

And he said, that's what it is with you. You're making it appear to everybody that you've got it together and you're all righteous and all the rest of this stuff, but inside of you, you're just as stinking rotten as that corpse is in there. Any wonder he didn't win a lot of friends, Pharisees. But he knew something, and he was trying to tell them, you just can't do this by yourself. Jesus saw their motivation behind something is as important as the act itself.

Listen to him. In chapter five of Matthew, you've heard it said to those of old, you shall not commit murder. And whoever murders is liable of judgment. But I say you two, everyone who is angry with his brother is already liable for judgment. What is he saying?

He's saying that murder is not going to happen unless it is precipitated and motivated by some deep abiding anger or fear or some other motivation. You don't get the action apart from the motivation. Let me give you a little example. I want you to do this now, okay? Think about some habitual sin or some attitude, some action that you have you wish you didn't have for a moment, okay?

You don't have to confess it. I'm not asking anybody to come forward and tell me what you got on your mind, but identify something. You got it.

Can you think of any sin, any action that you take that isn't first coming from the mind? You have got to give at least mental assent and agreement to do this thing before you're ever going to do it. Because if your mind is made up, it's okay, you're going to do it. But if your mind is made up that it's not okay, then you find yourself in a situation like Paul was in. He said, man, the good that I want to do, I don't do, and the bad that I don't want to do, I do it anyway.

What a wretched man I am. Anybody else in this camp, I know, I walked down that road, too. I mean, the Bible is truth, folks. It's wide open, you know, there's nothing hidden. We're laid bare here.

Jesus went on further. He said, you've heard it said of old, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her. His heart. Now, he's not giving you permission because you've already done that to do the other.

Okay, Just so some of you run out here thinking, no, I didn't say that. But what he said is the motivation. If you haven't already contemplated this in your heart and mind, you're never going to do it with your body. But what you give permission to in your brain will eventually work its way out in your actions. Cause it's not outside in folks, it's inside out.

Jesus knew that just changing the outward behavior without a change of heart results in just hypocrisy. The fact is, you can fake it, but you can't make it. Not without him. In the sixth chapter of Matthew, he went a little further. He said, beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.

Cause then that's all the reward that you're going to have. So when you go to give to the needy, don't sound a trumpet before you. The hypocrites do that. And they're going to be praised by others. And that's all the reward they're going to receive.

But when you want to give to the poor, you do it in secret where your Father knows. And he can bless you openly. When you pray, don't do like the hypocrites and stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners that they may be seen by others. They've got all the results. They're reward they're going to get.

When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father, who is in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret. He then will reward you. You see the motivation behind in all this. He said, and when you fast, not if you fast, but when you fast. Some of us need to practice that every now and then.

When you fast. He said, don't look gloomy like the hypocrites do who disfigure their faces in their fasting to be seen by others. I tell you, that's all the reward they're going to get. When you fast, anoint your head, wash your face. Cause then your fasting's not to be seen by others.

It's just between you and your Father. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. See, Jesus made it clear that you can't make lasting changes on the outside until first you've changed what's on the inside. And you are not able to do that. You can't do that on your own.

So let's go to the Bible answer. What's the biblical answer? You can't change yourself, at least not at a basic, deep level. You have to be changed. Not change yourself, but be changed.

See, that implies somebody else is doing the changing. A force other than you is making this possible and making it happen. In Jesus upside down kingdom, you can't change yourself. You can only be changed, and then only if you submit yourself to it. Paul made this clear in 2 Corinthians 3:18.

He said, but we are all being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory by the Holy Spirit of the Lord. Holy Spirit is the one who does the transformation. Now, I want you to turn with me in the Old Testament to the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel, and find chapter 11. I know there's some wild things going on in Ezekiel.

We're not going to go into any of those right there with all the wheels and the wheels and all those kind of things. I'll let Kevin handle that with you later. Okay? But no, in chapter 11, God is speaking through Ezekiel. And this is where my heart opened.

This is where I thought, oh, the light bulb came on. Ezekiel, chapter 11. Find verse 19 for me.

And God says this, and I will give them one heart, and a new spirit will I put within them. See the work come to the inside. Within them I will remove the heart of stone. If they're flesh, give them a heart of flesh, and then they will walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them, and they'll be my people, and I will be their God. What's he saying?

First, let me do a work on the inside. And then out of all of this work we're doing on the inside, then these outside things are just going to happen. They're going to flow naturally because that's the way God made us. Made us absolutely incapable of doing life on our own successfully. Only with living life through him do we find success in our lives.

These changes occur inwardly and then are reflected outwardly. Our effort is not supposed to be on. Not gonna cuss, not gonna cuss. Not gonna cuss. Not gonna cuss.

Dad. Bernadette just cussed, you know? And where did I do it? Right here. So you might not ever hear me.

That don't mean I ain't been Done. There. You see what I'm saying? Can I be transparent with you? All right, you can stranglehold some things on the outside.

Here's where our problem is. Here's where work needs to be going on. Now go back to the New Testament with me. Find the gospel of John 3 over in the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.

And find verse 15.

Wonderful, wonderful verse.

Jesus knew this. And so in the Gospel of John, chapter 15, find verse 4.

He's setting up an illustration that he wants us to understand. He starts in verse one saying, I am the vine and my father is the vine dresser. He's the one who cares for me. He's the one who enables this. Well, the vine is deeply rooted in the soil and all of the nutrients and everything that's necessary for growth flows up through the vine.

So Jesus says, look here in verse four, he said, abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit. For without me you can do nothing.

What is he saying?

If years ago, when I was first saved, if you were to ask me to read this passage and ask me, what is the responsibility, branch, what is it the branch is supposed to do? I would have said this. I would have said, the responsibility of the branch is to bear fruit. And I've been bearing rotten fruit, but now I want to bear godly fruit. So that's my responsibility.

That's my concentration. I am looking out there. I don't have the profanity. I want to have holy talk. I don't want to have the lust.

I want to have a pure heart. I. More of that, more of that, more of that, more of that.

That's not what Jesus, the son of God, said. The one who made me, the one who created us the way we are. He said, no, the responsibility of the branch is to abide in the vine, to live in this vital life giving union with Jesus Christ. To live in that love relationship that you submit to, that you surrender to, that. You say, God, you and you alone can make the changes that are necessary.

In my life, I want to focus on you and your loveliness and your godliness. I want to focus on you and your strength and your life and your ability. And you know what happens when you're concentrating on Jesus? The fruit plops. It comes.

It comes naturally. Cause that's the way your DNA works. Let me tell you something about your DNA. Not going to get too scientific on you though, you know, I'm a geek in that area. I love that when you and I are born naturally, our spiritual DNA is resistance to God.

We don't want to have anything to do with him. We want to call our own shots. I make my own rules, I follow my own way. I'm my own boss. That's the natural lost DNA of mankind.

But then something really amazing happens when you come to faith in Jesus Christ. When you surrender your life to him and he becomes your Lord and your Savior. Such an amazing thing happened that the only phrase that the Son of God could come up with was the phrase it's born again.

You're not that same person. You have been born again. And when you're born again, you have a brand new spiritual DNA. And that spiritual DNA begins to long after those things that nourish and builds and changes within your life. There's a gnawing and a hunger with you.

Let me tell you. Let's talk to some of you right now. If you've been living a life with more failure than you have success, you already are a believer in Jesus Christ. Maybe, but. But you just continue to be failing over and over and over again.

Let me tell you something.

Concentrate on your relationship with Jesus. Grow that love relationship with him and surrender to him. Submit to him. And then he has some phenomenal changes in store for you. The proof is in the results.

The proof is in the results. You see this in Romans 12:1 2. You may be familiar with that. If you want to turn there, you can, but you can see this same first and last. Here Paul writes, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Now that's something I can do. That's on the outside. I can say, lord, I want to present my life to you as a living sacrifice. I want to specifically sacrifice my lying tongue. I want to sacrifice my hurt and my anger from my abuse and neglect.

I want to give all that to you. I want to turn away from that. I've dealt with it for long. It soured my life long enough. I want what you want for my life.

I can do that. I can surrender my life. And then look what he says. And don't be conformed, pressed into the mold of this world, but rather be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That you may then prove what is the good and acceptable real of God transformed Hey, you know a Greek word?

You may not know you know a Greek word, but you know a Greek word most of you probably do. And it comes from the radical change that we see in nature with a little squiggly worm we call a caterpillar being transformed into a butterfly. That word in Greek is pronounced metamorphae. You and I would pronounce it metamorphosis. How many of you know that word?

Metamorphosis? Let me see your hand. Yeah, yeah. You know you made it through the same biology class I did by the skin of your teeth. Metamorphosis means absolute transformation and change from the depths.

I mean, here is when that caterpillar is a pupa and it's born and it first comes out of its little cocoon, you know what it does? It eats the cocoon and then it eats everything he can get his hands on, okay? Eats and eats and eats. That's all that he does. He just eats and eats and eats.

Eats, leaves, eats everything. Finally, he gets to a nice old plump self, and then something inside his DNA does something really weird. He says, time to stop eating and create this little cocoon, this chrysalis, and hang there and wait for the transition to happen. And over a period of time, that chrysalis hardens on the outside, then it breaks on the outside. And what comes out doesn't look like anything.

What went in there from a landlocked creature to an airborne beauty, okay? Because in the DNA of that caterpillar is transformation. In your spiritual DNA that God gave you when he saved you is a plan for your transformation, for you to be in Christ and be like Christ. That's what he wants out of you. That's what he wants to accomplish in your life.

He wants to deal with those habits and deal with those hurts and deal with those hangups and lay them to rest to where you can be the creature he has really created you to be. But in your DNA, there is a hardwired way to make that happen. And it's not trying to do it yourself. It's not faking it till you make it.

It's surrendering yourself to who you are now that you're in Jesus Christ and learning to live and work out of who you are, not who you used to be.

When I came to Jesus Christ as a teenager, I was one hot mess. I was filled with hurt, rage, habits that I don't even talk about and think about.

But when I came to faith in Christ, I was adopted into a church family that were fantastic. I mean, These people had it together. I mean, they knew their Bible. I would recognize one on a shelf if I saw it. You know, they had all these scripture and some of them had been born into church and had grown up in it.

And you know, I was a stranger in paradise. But I looked around and I said, look, if they can do it, I can do it. If they can get their act together, I can get my act together. If they can clean up their lives, I can get my life cleaned up. And so I started just like some of y' all are doing right now and saying, I am not going to be the person that I used to be.

I'm going to be a new person. I'm going to get my stuff together. I'm going to quit all this bad stuff. I'm going to forgive all these people. I'm going to and I'm going to be right.

I'm going to make my pastor proud of me. I'm going to be comfortable among these folks here to where I can look like them and act like them.

Can I tell you how delusioned I was to found out they were just as screwed up as I was?

But then here's something I didn't know.

They were living out transformation. They were being changed from who they were to who God wanted them to be. And they were in the process. And I was seeing difference as they went. But I thought that's something that you just did yourself and didn't realize.

It's something that only God can do from the inside out. That's the difference, my friends. See, God took this rage and anger within me that wanted nothing but to hit and to hurt. And I was good at it.

And he turned it into real care and concern for the very people that had abandoned and hurt me until I had opportunity to even share Christ with many of them and see them saved. He took this profane, profanity ridden language of mine and turned it into a voice that could sing praises unto God and preach his holy word.

To not be a finished product, but to be somebody that's already down the line, maybe further than some of you in the process of what God is doing. He continues to work in our lives. There'll come a day and it be when we die, that cocoon of our life is cracked open. And then the glorified, completed process will be there to go free and fly. But in the meantime, in the meantime, here's what God wants to do.

He wants a partnership with you. Listen to me carefully. He wants a partnership with you. Write this Verse down. It may be in your notes.

It should be Philippians 2, 12, 13.

Philippians 2, 12, 13. Therefore, my beloved, you have always obeyed. So now, not only in my presence, but also in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work his good pleasure. Now, that's a sermon all by itself. But I'm going to give it to you real, real quick.

You and I get to work out what God's working in. We get to work out what God's working in. There is this symbiotic relationship we have with Holy Spirit that he's churning away on the inside as we're submitting ourselves to Him. And then that process works itself out into the outer world, where the outward world can say, whoa, you're not the same, dude.

Every now and then, I'll still encounter some family members or some old friends I had that knew the old me. They said, yeah, I heard you made a preacher. How did you do that? I didn't. The last thing I wanted to do, But it's something that God worked in me.

I wanted to serve the Lord. I wanted to do something for him. I felt he had his hand on my life to serve him, and I wanted to do that. But this scared the bejeebers out of me. I said, lord, I'll tell you how dedicated I am, Lord.

I'll even be a youth minister, you know.

And I tried that, and I tried counseling and I tried music and all these different things that I could try to see. Everything that, you know, what was out there, that I had a little bit of decency and good in and such, I preached, and I've always shared my faith without any kind of fear. But one day in November, the Lord said, son, everything that you've practiced, everything that you've put your hands in, that you're seeing, hey, I like that. I like this, I like that. I like that.

It's all wrapped up in being a pastor.

For over half a century, I've thought him, I thanked him for that and the relationship that I've grown with people and helping people to see. God loves you too much to leave you where you are. He wants to take you to become the person he wants you to be. So this morning, I'm talking to three different people here. One person I'm talking to knows they want to have change in their life, but they have no idea where to start.

You start the same place I started, and everybody else in this room who's already Done. This starts. You start by surrendering your life to Jesus Christ. You see, Jesus died on the cross to take my sins and yours upon himself, that we no longer have to worry about all of the punishment that we're really due. And then he rose again three days later to give you Zoe Iones eternal life.

Literally, that means the life of God. You and I get to receive the life of God. We get to live out the life of God. Let me give you a sentence. I didn't give it to you earlier, but I give it to you now.

It's in your notes. It's been a nice sermon that I've preached with my life from when I was here as your pastor the first time and even since I've come back. Jesus came to do something for you so that he could do something to you, so that he could do something through you. He came to do something for you to die and take your sins upon himself and to rise again to give you his very life so he could do something to you. He could transform you into the image of the Son of God himself.

And then to do something through you, to live his supernatural life through your yielded body.

Paul put it this way. He said, I am crucified with Christ.

Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives through me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the power of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. If you've never surrendered to the God who loves you so much, in the next few moments, I'm gonna ask you to do that.

Then I wanna talk to some of you've already done that. But you've been living life in your own power. Are you tired yet? Are you frustrated? Have you thrown in the towel once or twice or maybe a dozen times?

I know, been there, done that, got the T shirt.

You're going about it all wrong. You don't focus on the fruits you want to change. You focus on the relationship you want to change. And then the fruit takes care of itself. Will you do that?

180 Today you say, God, I'm tired of just depending on my own self. I want to depend totally on you and then some. Like me, you've done this and you're in the process. And God has been taking you from glory to glory. You're not there yet either, but you can bear testimony to the rest of those.

I was just talking about how the process is worth it. It's time to do business with God. We value heads, Lord, for those who have never surrendered themselves to you right now. Will you encourage them just to pray along with me and say, dear God, I fought this battle and lost and lost and lost. But right now I want to surrender my life to you.

I dare to believe that you died to take my sins upon yourself and you rose again that I might have eternal life come into my heart, cleanse me, forgive me, and you do the changes. I'll work with you. I'm gonna. I promise I'll work with you, but I can't do this by myself. Only with you, Father.

Anybody that's prayed that prayer, I hope they'll share with me that they did that today or come to the altar and just celebrate this new relationship they have. Others are believers, and maybe they've been believers a long time, but they've been trying to do the Christian life on their own power, and they found themselves absolutely frustrated. But they've heard the promise today that you want to do miraculous work through them. Will you encourage them to come to the altar and just say, lord, I give up doing it myself, but I want to partner with you, but you've got to do it. I can't do this.

I surrender to you. And somebody want to just come and praise you and celebrate you, Lord, for what you've done in their lives. Just love you out loud. Whatever you want us to do, we just want to be obedient to you and say yes to you right now.

So as we stand and as we worship, our answer is yes, in Christ's name, Amen.