[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the message podcast of High Ridge Church, Longview, where our vision is to help you know God, find freedom, discover purpose, and ultimately make a difference. We are so glad that you're here and we pray that this message impacts your life as you apply the spiritual truths from God's word in practical ways.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Let's listen in. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We want to say hello and what's up to all of our friends watching from all around the world. So come on, High Ridge, Longview. Let's welcome in all of our friends watching online.
Good morning and let me just say directly to you, Happy Mother's Day. For those of you who are moms, we want to honor you today. We want to bless you. Happy Mother's Day. I want to say a very special happy Mother's Day to my mother, who is watching today all the way from Mineral Wells, Texas. Hi, Mom. We're going to share some embarrassing stories about our mothers today. And because she's not here, she can't do a thing about. I'm just kidding.
So good to be with you. We also wanted to say thank you for your generosity. You guys are an amazing and a giving church. We want you to know that we could not do ministry in this city the way that we do it without your incredible financial support. You are. You guys are an amazing giving church. Thank you for supporting us and what we're doing. We got a chance this past week to be a blessing to one particular ministry which I want to highlight for just a moment, and that is Young Life. What is happening with Young Life? We love Jolang. We love the amazing team that's doing that. So we've learned that teenagers love two things. The Lord's chicken from Chick Fil A and they love pizza. So we try to alternate back and forth between what we're feeding them. But because of your generosity, we're able to feed a whole bunch of teenagers and share the good news about what Jesus Christ has done in us and through us and what he can do for them as well. Thank you for being a generous church. Your giving is doing incredible things right here in Longview, in our communities and all the way around the world. Thank you for being so incredibly generous. Always want to make sure that we, that we, that we tell you exactly what's happening with your money you're giving to the Lord. You're honoring the Lord by doing that. We want to show you every week people's lives that are affected because of your generosity. And so thank you so much for that. I also Want to say to happy Mother's Day. And if, by the way, when I said that, if that came as a shock to you, at some point you're going to want to get up quietly go to the restroom. We have Mother's Day cards for you, just in case you forgot. We want to make sure that your home is a wonderful place to go home to this afternoon. So, baby, I got you a card. Hey, your tithe money bought that. So you take that card and make sure that you know that High Ridge Church loves you. Pastor Tim loves you. And we're here to help you, just in case you forgot. Not that you ever would, but you're busy. You got a lot of things on your mind and on your heart. So those are for you. So take them if you need them and make sure you sign it and tell them that you love them. And happy Mother's Day. We also recognize that, hey, Mother's Day may be a very painful day for some in this place, for some that want to be mothers, or for those of us that maybe that. That just the word mother might be a painful word for you, might be a triggering thing. We understand.
For those that maybe had a bad mother or were abandoned by your mother, we get it that Mother's Day is not an easy day for you. So please hear me. Thank you for coming to church. I think the Lord wants to encourage you today. I think you're in the right place for God to speak directly to you. So we're going to turn our attention to God's Word. Second Timothy, chapter one is where we're going to spend all of our time today as the Apostle Paul begins to speak to a young pastor who needs a little bit of encouragement. And in that moment, Paul could have talked to him about a host of things, but he instead reminds him of his legacy and the faith that has run in his family.
And so we pick it up right here in chapter one, verse three, Paul writes this about his own family. He says, I thank God whom I serve as my ancestors did. Anybody have people in your family that you look back on your life and you're like, hey, my ancestors. There's some of them that got it right. Anybody have those that you're thankful for? He said, I'm serving God as my ancestors did, and I'm thankful for a faith legacy. I'm thankful for those that came before me, that taught me the good news about what my father could mean in my own personal life. He said, I thank my God whom I serve as my ancestors did, with a Clear conscience. Say those two words. Clear conscience. Say it again. Come on.
He said, I serve God with a clear conscience as I constantly remember you in my prayers. And then he says, the last time I was with you, Timothy, you were not in a good place. And I'm recalling your tears. I'm recalling the last conversation that we had where you were a mess, you were walking through it. Recalling your tears, he says, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. Paul is writing this from, from a prison and not, not a jail like we would think in modern terms of jail, like a hole in the ground.
Paul is writing this at the end of his life. He said, I, I, I remember your tears. I remember the pain that you were experiencing. He says, but man, I wish I could see you. So recalling your tears the last time we spoke, I, I wish I could see you so that I may be filled with joy. And then he encourages them with this. Notice this. I am reminded of your sincere faith. I love that he adds the word sincere to it. The original language would say it's an authentic faith.
It's not a, not a hypocritical faith. It's not one of those faith that just talks about it. He said, no, no, it's not a talk about it faith. It's a be about it faith.
He says, you have a sincere faith. And he says, I'm reminded of that because I'm convinced it first lived in your grandmother and then it lived in your mother. He said, and now I'm persuaded that lives in you.
The title of today's message is A Mother's Faith and a Child's Future.
And so we zoom into the life of a grandmother that taught her daughter what a sincere faith looked like, that taught her daughter what it meant to serve God with a clear conscience.
And that daughter grows up and raises a giant slayer, a giant in the faith in the name of Timothy.
Paul says, I'm convinced that I'm serving God as my ancestors did. You're serving God as your ancestors did. They taught you a sincere faith? Now, not all of us had the, had the, had the privilege of growing up in a Christian household. As a matter of fact, I would venture a guess that there's, there's probably 15, 20% of us that would say that was not my household at all. And there's probably half of us now that now that we live in the, in the buckle of the Bible Belt, there was at least some knowledge of what it means to have a relationship with Jesus, some form of Faith was in your house. Can I just see your hands for a second? If you would say, I was raised in a Christian household. How many of us would say that, wow, thank you, Lord. How many of us would say, that was not the house that I grew up in. Let me just see your hand. We're going to pray for you. And I'm. Hey, I'm glad you're here.
You are starting a faith legacy today. We celebrate you as well and what God is going to do in your family because you believe so. Paul encourages this young pastor by reminding him of the faith legacy that lives in him, by reminding him that there's something inside of you that's stronger than what you think. It was in your grandmother, it was in your mother, and now it's in you.
He goes on to say, because of this reason, he says, fan into flame that gift that God has given you. Come on, rise up. Become the pastor that God has called you to be.
There's three things that I want to focus in on today that I think are important things that God would settle in on each of our hearts today. As I was praying for you, as I was studying God's word, he was highlighting the scripture. And he brings my. My attention to a couple of things that I want to share with you. Here's the first of three things. Number one, a faith legacy begins at home.
A faith legacy begins at home.
Now, we've already discussed that some of us did not grow up in a Christian home.
Here's the good news. Your children can absolutely grow up in a Christian home because of you.
But a faith legacy begins at home. And from the beginning of time, that was God's plan for the family, that fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers would teach the children, the next generation, the one coming after them, on what it meant to have a relationship with the father.
And it wasn't until the 1840s, in the industrial Revolution, that that youth ministry even became a thing. The very first YMCA begins to recognize that there is a big gap in our next generation. They're not learning the things that were taught in the home. And as a response to that Industrial revolution and the fact that moms and dads are both working and there was a whole new set of rules that began to impact the family.
The YMCA was started in the 1840s in London.
Now, we didn't adopt youth ministry really in America until, like, the 1970s. Some of you have been around since the 1900s, but that really wasn't a thing until about the 1970s. For America, we had, you know, some children's pastors, some youth pastors, but that really wasn't much of a thing until the 70s, where we recognized, like, we need to hire people to start teaching our children the things that parents have forgotten to teach the things that we weren't taught.
But God's plan has always been that we are to teach our own children. And I want to challenge you, I want to encourage you, I want to push you today to take seriously the faith legacy that your home has.
Faith legacies begin at home. We're really shaped. We are shaped through our legacies. Now, for better or worse, but the shape of how we run our lives, the shape of our personalities, the shape of our values is really put in place based upon the legacies that were handed to us. Right, wrong, or indifferent, we are shaped through our legacies. Now, my. The legacies that I was handed might be completely different than yours, but I was handed on one side of my family. My. My. My dad's Southern Baptist roots.
And some of those were. Were really good roots. Some of those were not so good roots. We've got some bootleggers that ran in my family, some outlaws, some in laws, some third cousins twice removed, all kinds of crazy stuff. White people be tripping.
And then on my mother's side, the Hispanic side of my family, there's a legacy that was handed to me that I had no clue what it meant to be raised into that world. Until we're at family reunions and they start bringing goats. Like, what's going to happen to the goat? You about to find out.
For those of you that have ever been invited to a carne asada, let me just tell you, there's.
You don't want to see the process.
Oh, I love tamales. Do you? You ever seen them be made?
The very first time I watched my grandmother start peeling the face of a pig and putting it in. Yes, that's where it's the face of a pig.
Like, oh, this is the good stuff. Oh, I don't know. I don't eat that.
My children did not know that chickens have bones until they're about 16. Like, what is wrong with this chicken? It has bones in it.
We are shaped through our legacies.
Your legacy is teaching the next generation something.
The question is, is it really valuable to them? Can they use that? See, it's one thing to teach our children how to walk and talk.
As a matter of fact, let me say it this way, we can teach kids how to behave, but most importantly, they need to Be taught how to believe.
How to believe. Let me ask you really quickly. Do your children know your faith story?
Do your grandchildren know where they've come from?
Have you given them more than just good advice? It's one thing to have good advice. It's something quite different to model faith.
And I'm grateful for those in my family that modeled faith. I have uncles that served in ministry for a long time, and I have. I have some uncles that did things that you like. Whoa. That's completely the opposite. The apple fell far from the tree.
Shaped through our legacies.
Modeling faith is something completely different than just giving advice.
I believe that we should never underestimate the power of what God can use in our. In our faith habits over time.
For those of you that have seen, if you've ever traveled down I20 or maybe I30, you'll notice that in the spring in Texas, we have something very, very beautiful on the side of our roads. What is that?
That's what I'm talking about. Blue bonnets. We have tons and tons of blue bonnets. They did not just appear there naturally, but this really started back in the 30s, and it came to its, its peak in the 60s with, with Lady Bird Johnson when she looked at our highways and said, you know what? Texas is beautiful. Let's plant blue bonnets. Did you know it's illegal to pick them? If you moved here from Texas, you start picking our blue bonnets.
I was taught at a very young age, you go directly to jail.
I remember the first time I picked a blue bonnet. I'm like, oh, Jesus, forgive me.
I felt horrible. Anybody ever done that?
Am I the only criminal in this place?
But here's what we know. Faith planted now blossoms for decades later.
Never underestimate the power of your faith story over time. Never underestimate the power of faith seeds planted in your children over, over time, your grandchildren. The legacy that we leave behind. God does incredible things through Lois and Eunice and passes them down to Timothy. History tells us that by the way, Timothy became the pastor for Jesus's mother, Mary. She was going to the church at Ephesus. And people like John the Apostle John. Timothy becomes a young pastor. That's pastoring giants.
What an incredible thing. Paul reminds him, like, get up there and do what God has called you to do. Come on. Don't let anybody look down on you because you're young. You have a faith legacy.
History tells us one thing. The Bible tells us something even more in depth. In Psalm 145, it says, One generation commends your work to another.
That really is the, the heartbeat of what the Lord has asked us to do. To take seriously your faith walk.
That's one thing to tell our children how to make money. It's one thing to teach our children how to watch out for strangers. It's another thing to tell people and to tell your children what it means to believe.
So never underestimate what the Lord can do with that over a period of time.
And I hear some of us that would say, you know, Pastor, I, I, I didn't have that kind of legacy growing up. I wasn't raised in a Christian home. I was, you know, I was. You might have a different story than the person sitting on your row. You might have a lot of trauma based upon the household of which you were raised up in. Let me just remind you of a simple fact. We don't, we don't choose our parents, but we can choose our heavenly Father and we can choose our spiritual family.
And I believe that you're in this place today surrounded by spiritual family for a reason. God led you here for a reason.
God can redeem. Please hear me. God can redeem anything.
God can restore anything.
God does beautiful things with those that are willing to allow him to reshape and restore their faith story. Here's the second key of what I want to share with you. Number two, not only does a faith legacy begin at home, but number two, a faith legacy serves with a clear conscience.
So this is one of the common themes in Paul's writing. He talks about the importance of having a clean conscience before the Lord. He talks about the importance of serving God with a clean and clear conscience. Because serving God, it really sets the stage for our kids to experience some powerful lessons, things that we hope that they would learn, things like humility, things like gratitude.
It directly combats that spirit of entitlement that we see so prevalent in our world in our society today. We're entitled.
As my parents generation would say, it keeps you from being spoiled brats learning to serve the Lord. Now, we don't serve God because out of some serious sense of, like, guilt, and we don't serve God out of some twisted sense of, I, oh, I did this for you, God, so you owe me this. No, he said, serve God with a clear conscience. What does that look like?
How does it feel to serve God with a clear conscience? So one of the things I've added to my daily ritual, when I wake up in the morning, I ask the Lord to forgive me. When I go to sleep at night, I ask the Lord for forgiveness. I've learned that I don't want my day to start without a clear conscience before the Lord. I don't want my day to end without a clear conscience before the Lord. The worst thing that you can do is to allow sin to sit and to fester over time. He said, no, serve the Lord with a clear conscience. Why? Because it's going to bring you incredible joy. And there's more and more and more scriptures that we can add to this to prove the point. But serving God with a clear conscience results in authentic and contagious joy.
Joy.
Remember the first time I took my children on a missions trip and I took them down to Nicaragua with me. And I've been so honored and so privileged to be on different parts of the planet and see people that have much, much less than us, people that are walking through some horrific situations, things that would just absolutely break your heart. I've been to things like the Navajo reservation, where you would not believe that this still exists in America today.
When you're seeing children without running water, without electricity, without their basic needs being met, like, this is America.
How does this happen? And the first time I took my children, we went down to Nicaragua and I was preaching some. Some huge crusades down there and watching God do incredible things. But I wanted them to experience what it looked like to see people that had a lot less than us.
I remember the first time we were taking the bus from Managua down into the deep jungle, and my children were watching the other kids that were lining the streets and begging for money, begging for food.
I remember my daughter looking at me and said, dad said, yes, sweetie. She says, we're rich, aren't we? Said, yeah, baby, we really, really are.
The Lord has blessed us immensely. We don't have to live like that. And I'm grateful that they could see it with their own eyes what it means to serve the Lord with a clear conscience. It teaches us things like how to have joy in the midst of our circumstances. It combats that entitled spirit. It teaches us gratitude. It teaches us humility, lessons that we're going to need to know.
So how do we keep our conscience clear? I want to just remind you that repentance still matters.
That's something that doesn't exist much in our culture today. It doesn't exist much in our Americanized version of Christianity. But repentance still matters to God. When was the last time that you were on your knees before the Lord said, lord, would you forgive me?
When was the last time you Said I was wrong.
I ask you to forgive me. I'm sorry Lord, Would you help me not to make that mistake again?
Repentance still matters.
So in the first letter that Paul writes to Timothy in chapter one, he tells him this. Cling to your faith in Christ, hold fast to it. It says, cling to it and keep your conscience clear. For some people, he said this, he's speaking of ministers.
He said, some people have deliberately violated that conscience. The voice that God has given every single human being on the face of the planet.
God's given every person a conscience.
They said, you keep violating that conscience, he says, you're gonna shipwreck your faith.
And we've seen this happen time and time again in our own world. People that we thought had a solid walk with the Lord, we begin to violate the voice of that conscience.
We watch their lives become shipwrecked. So he said, keep your conscience clean. How do we do that? I'm gonna give you the same words and advice that my parents gave me many, many years ago as a young, young child. And it stuck with me of my life. And that's these simple words, keep short accounts with God.
The worst thing you can do to sin is to do nothing but learning how to immediately say Lord, ugh, that was wrong. I'm sorry, please forgive me. I'm changing direction. Repentance means to change direction.
Keep short accounts with God. Here's the third and final thing I think is the message that Paul is leaving to Timothy. The message that the Lord will speak to us today. Number three, a faith legacy thrives in sincerity.
Sincerity. He talks about what it means to have a sincere faith.
Now you and I all, we all know people living, you know, in, in the south and deep east Texas as we do, we know everybody has a faith story. Everybody. My grandma used to be this and my grandpa used to be that. And we're believer and we do all. There's a lot of people that talk about it.
It's another thing to see sincere faith where our Christianity is more than cultural Christianity, more than just something that we do as, as a culture.
But a sincere faith is something quite different. The original language would say it's an authentic faith.
To go even deeper into that word that Paul is using to encourage Timothy, it would be your, your faith is not hypocritical, it's not two faced.
It doesn't change when it's good times or bad times.
And really it's the bad times that we see sincere faith. It's easy for us to be Great believers, when things are going your way, when God is doing all the things that you think God should do for you. But what about the times when it's not happening? What about times when the marriage isn't working? What about times when the job looks a little funny?
What about times when you can't make ends meet?
What about times when you're arguing and fussing and fighting?
That's when we see if our faith is sincere or not. If we truly believe that our Father is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. If we truly believe that my God will supply all of your needs according to his riches and glory, if we truly believe that he is the Alpha, the Omega, the beginning. And then if we truly believe that Jesus is Lord, that he can do the things that His Word says he can do, that's the moment where we see whether or not our faith is sincere.
Paul writes this to Timothy, says the goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.
I wanted to make sure that I included this. I want to show you this. Faith must be sincere or it very quickly becomes something else.
It becomes legalism, it becomes rules, it becomes nothing. But just do what I say because this is how I said it.
Let me just remind you, you have a human nature and our human nature. If we don't understand why, we will rebel.
If I don't understand what we're doing, if I don't understand the point of why this matters, I will push against those boundaries. I am a strong willed child. Some of you were raised as strong willed children. And I don't understand what it means to just say I submit. Yes, whatever you say to do, I'll do it. I am not that guy.
But I've had to learn that a relationship with the Lord, a sincere faith is something much more than rules.
The Christianity that many of us have, have, have been taught is just, well, what it means to be a Christian. I just don't smoke cigarettes. That's what that means.
I just don't drink beer around any, anybody else that might tell on me like that. That's the extent of your relationship with, with Jesus? Yeah.
Just no snuff before midnight. Like what is that?
That's not a thing.
But this becomes about appearance.
No, he says your, your faith needs to be sincere or else it becomes something else. And as Paul is speaking to Timothy, he's speaking to a, to a young pastor that's pastoring he in the city of Ephesus. And Ephesus is known for its people that just talk and talk and talk and talk. All this philosophy, all of this talk about genealogies and heritage and this and this idea and that idea. And Paul's like, stop being about that. Just pastor your people. Do with love, do with a sincere faith, do with a clear conscience before the Lord and you're going to be fine. Don't get sucked into all that culture stuff that's going on where people are trying to debate everything. No, no, no. He said, have a faith that's sincere. And those words are still important to us today. You either have a faith that's full of sincerity and, and not hot air.
Don't just talk about it.
Don't just give your children rules.
Show them what it means to serve God with a clear conscience, to have a faith legacy in our home. Show them what it means to talk to the Lord. Show them what it means to worship.
One of the things we're going to challenge the men of our church with at Beast feast is to worship God for real.
Let your wife see you worship.
Let your children hear you pray.
It is not your wife's job to be the spiritual leader of your home.
But I want to challenge you and push you to take your legacy seriously.
Your faith story matters.
You cannot just give your children the rules.
Here's what we know. Rules without relationship equals rebellion. 100 times out of 100, we will rebel. Why? Because you've just given me rules. And I don't understand what that or why it's important.
So Paul is speaking to Timothy about the faith, the sincere faith that lives in his grandmother, that lives in his mother, that he's convinced lives in him. He says, now stand up, be strong. Remember the legacy of some faithful mothers that taught you what it means to become the person that God has called you to be.
He said they have a sincere faith, an authenticity faith. Let me just ask you that question that perhaps you need to be honest with yourself. Is my faith authentic? Is it sincere?
Or is it just something that I do on Sunday mornings because it's what I've always done?
What does it look like on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday? What does it look like in the way that you treat people or the way that you raise your children, the way that you honor the Lord on your job.
That shows us if our faith is really sincere or not. And it should be something that it encourages us, it challenges us, it pushes us to take this seriously, and it reminds us that the most important thing is not perfection. I don't have to be perfect I have to be authentic, I have to be sincere.
I have to be real.
Those teach our children and our grandchildren lessons that they're going to need for the rest of their life.
That's what happens when the heat is on.
What happens when life doesn't go your way. Those are the things that matter. That's a faith legacy.
For those that know my story, know that my dad's a pastor. And my, my dad, my mom raised us to, to be a church family. We were a, a church planting family. And so we did, we planted four churches before even turned like 15 years old. And so it was nothing for us to just go into a town that we'd never been to before and start a church. That's what we did.
And we would raise up the church and get it ready to turn over to other people and go to the next city and start a church. And that's just the way that we live. We grew up starting churches, which means a couple things. Like, number one, you're gonna be real lonely and you better learn how to talk to people real fast.
We would go to the malls, we'd go to restaurants, we'd go and sit down in places, just meet people, talk to them about Jesus. Ask them, where do they go to church?
Ask them, are you a believer? Do you have a church family? Could I invite you to church? And there was a, It's a strange time because most children weren't taught that I was given a faith legacy. This is what we do now. We were raised without television. We were raised without radio. We didn't have secular music, all those things. We didn't have entertainment. We didn't have cell phones.
But I remember every night my dad would get his guitar, my mom would sing, my dad would play, and we would run around in circles as that became our entertainment for the night.
Until one particular night when I was five years old, while the rest of my brothers and sisters are running around in circles listening to them play, I started paying attention to what they were singing.
Because it wasn't just a song, it was worship.
As they began to sing, I began to hear the words of what they were singing. Something began to click in my little heart and it began to make sense to me.
It was no longer just rules, not just what we did. Now I understood why.
I remember my dad would play, my mom would sing, she would sing this old song. Some of you may remember it. Into my heart Come into my heart Come into my heart Lord Jesus Come in today Come in to stay Come into my heart Lord Jesus.
And I stopped.
I said, I want that.
I want that.
And that was the night that my parents led me to Christ.
The night that something began to change inside of my heart. I understood why. It's a faith legacy now. Until that moment, it had just been entertainment.
To that moment, it was just noise, something to do until it clicked.
And that moment with the Lord where I asked him into my heart was the moment that sustained me through things like a drug addiction later on in my life.
Things like that sustained me through a failed marriage.
Things like that sustained me when we lost one child and then a second child.
Things like that sustained me with job loss, with the wins and the losses of life because I'd asked Christ into my heart and a legacy was passed down from them to me, the same legacy I give my children that encouraged Timothy 2000 years ago and it encourages Timothy today.
Don't underestimate your faith story.
Don't underestimate what you're doing.
And for those of you that are not mothers, but might be a spiritual mother to some, those of you that have had the honor of maybe adopting children that someone else abandoned, for those of you that have wanted your whole life to become a mother, and God hasn't given you that gift yet, let me just remind you, that doesn't mean you're sitting on the sidelines. It doesn't mean you're a second class citizen.
Your faith story matters.
And I'll speak the words of Proverbs 31 over you as well. It says her children rise and call her blessed.
That word rise doesn't mean that they just, they get up in the morning. For some of us, like that's a successful day. If my kids just get up out of bed. No, it says they, they rise. That word means they're established.
That's the measuring stick of success.
Are they established?
Says they. Call her blessed. Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting. But a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
So to all the moms and the grandmothers, to all of those who are spiritual mothers or stepmoms, to those who want to be mothers, let me just remind you that your unseen prayers, your tears, your teaching moments, your patience, they're shaping a generation. Don't quit. We need you.
Your sincere faith is more powerful than you can imagine.
I want to finish up right there today as we close our Bibles. And I want to just invite you to bow your head with me.
Just ask the Holy Spirit, what, What are you Saying to me, what are you saying to me, Lord?
With heads bowed, let's just put ourself in a position to receive from the Lord what he might be wanting to encourage you with today. I think if I've done my job correctly, the Lord wants to speak to you. He wants to encourage you. He wants to tell you, don't give up, keep going.
Don't lose heart, don't lose courage.
Keep planting seeds of faith everywhere you go. It matters.
Let me pray for you, Father.
For every single person within the sound of my voice. I pray that you would speak life over them, speak courage into their situations. For those that are struggling today, I pray that today would be a day where they'd walk out lighter, they'd walk out full of hope, walk out encouraged and blessed, strengthened. Knowing that they've started a legacy that pays off in the future.
Knowing that they've spent time with you.
And when we spend time with you, everything changes.
Our great redeemer, our great hope, our life giver, our encourager, our friend.
Thank you Lord, for meeting us here today and now with heads bowed and eyes closed. Perhaps you're here today to just pay respects to your mom. Maybe you're here today just because somebody invited you or your mom invited you. Let me just tell you, you're here for a reason and God led you here for a reason. It's not some mistake. It's not just happenstance or chance that you're here.
God led you here for this moment. If you are far away from God and you need to come home, this is for you.
If you've never had a relationship with Jesus, this is for you.
Maybe, like me, you were raised in church, but you've gotten hurt. You've been away from the Lord. You need to come home. My friend, this is for you.
If you want a relationship with Jesus, if you want to renew your relationship with Jesus, I want to invite you to pray with me right now, right where you are.
I want to lead you in the same prayer that my parents led me in as a five year old boy.
So would you pray with me? You can do it out loud, you can do it with a whisper, it doesn't matter. Pray with me.
Take a step towards Jesus.
The prayer goes like this. Just say, jesus, I believe that you're the Son of God.
I believe that you came and died.
And I believe you rose from the grave so that I could have life and forgiveness for my sins.
I invite you in.
Be the Lord of my life.
Forgive me, save me.
I give my life to you right now, in Jesus name, with heads bowed and eyes closed. If you prayed that prayer and you meant it, if you prayed that prayer and you took a step towards the Lord. Can I just see your hands all across this place? Would you lift them up nice and high and proud? That was me. Pastor. Yes, I see you, young man. Good. Yes, ma' am. I see you.
Good. Good for you.
For those of you that prayed that prayer, I want you to know that there's a phone number that's going to appear behind me on the screen, and I want to invite you to text me, text the words I prayed to that number. If you do that, I'm going to send you the link to some things that will help you understand what just happened inside of your heart and what to do next. Today's a new day for you. It's a fresh start.
Don't quit, keep walking.
High Rish family, go ahead and look up at me if you would. Then let's stand to our feet together.
We already have seven people responding to the gospel today. I think that's a pretty big deal. I don't know about you, that's a pretty big deal.
I'm going to invite our elders and their wives forward to be available to pray for you. I also want to remind you of a couple things. Number one, if you like this message today, if you feel like some people need to hear this message, would you do us a huge favor? Would you share this message on your social media platform? The message is live, it's up right now, and it's a huge deal when you do that. You can make a difference today by sharing the message and the hope of what Jesus has done right here with your social media world. I want to encourage you do that. It's a big deal when you do that. We have people responding to the gospel every single week that will never set foot in Longview, Texas, from all over the world because people like you are sharing this message. People are getting saved and it's a big deal. It matters also. Hey, groups registration that opens today, so you are service number two of three. Lots of groups are going to be completely full by the end of today. Please don't wait. We want you in a group, so make sure that the early bird will get the worm and you will. You will get a spot in a group. If you register right now, some of those will fill up really, really quickly. So please don't wait. And then also, men, our night is rapidly approaching. We celebrated the ladies and ladies, we got a gift for you on your way out. Everybody loves chocolate. That's for you. Men, that's not for you.
Isn't that kind of church?
But men, we do get our night and our night is Beast Feast that is coming. There's still some spots available for you as we finish up this last week before Beast Fe, I want you here. Fathers, please bring your sons. Fathers, please bring your grandsons. They are going to want to be a part of what God is doing and speaking to men. We're going to see a lot of guys get serious about their relationship with the Lord. We're going to see some guys get saved. So, ladies, I tell you, every single year, bring your husband, bring your boyfriend, bring them both. We're going to get you saved.
It's going to be awesome. Also want to remind you, hey, we do have some Mother's Day cards in the bathroom. Those are for you.
You're welcome. And then for everybody else, let me pray for you and bless you as you go. Father, would you bless my friends with an incredible week following after you hearing your heart walking in your courage all week long in Jesus name and all of us said together. Amen. God bless you as you go. Have an awesome week.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: Thank you so much for listening in today. Our prayer is that you are encouraged and strengthened by the message. If you haven't done so yet, be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave us a review wherever you're listening. If you want to be a part of our online community, connect with us through Facebook or Instagram with the handle hyridgelv. Or you can check out our
[email protected] lastly, if this ministry has impacted your life and you'd like to support its work, visit highridgelv.com give we appreciate your support and we're believing with you today for God's best in your life. Have an incredible week and we will see you next time.
