Are You Ready to Get Well?

[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. Let's listen in. [00:00:20] Speaker B: How's everybody doing? Y' all okay? Everybody good? Everybody okay? Want to welcome all those joining us online. Go ahead and tag something, say something. Let us know where you're joining us from. We always like to connect with those that are checking us out through the Internet. We appreciate you guys checking in as Pastor Tim is. Obviously, he's out of town, right? He's gone. He's done on his travels checking out different new places, and always consider it an honor when he asked me to take some time to bring a message. And so I'm honored to do that. Honored that he would ask me to come in and take his spot for a moment. And the video didn't tell you, but my name is James, and I'm one of the associate pastors here. And if you're new or you're just checking us out for the first time, and the accent is throwing you off a little bit. Born and raised in England, but been in Longview for 23 years. So that's just. This is what you get, okay? So you put those two things together, and this is the accent you get, unfortunately. So if you need the transcript later on or something, you need it, you can email the church. We can send you the notes on the message. And of course, on that note, it's been a tough week. I'll be honest with you. It's been a tough week. 250 years. I was talking to a few guys earlier, and I was like, y' all have had a party. You all have had a good time for 250 years. Like, can we. Can you just come home? You know what I'm saying? Like, just don't worry about it. We'll take care of it. Can we sign some type of document today maybe, to work that out? But in all seriousness, I absolutely love being in Longview. I love being in Texas, love being in the States. Like I said, I've been here over 20 years and absolutely love being a part of High Ridge, love being a part of the Longview community, love being a part of everything that I get to do. My role here at the church has many different things that I'm involved with, and it allows me to be involved with the city. With the chamber and all sorts of things in our city. And I just love being a part of it. And I love being a part of it because of you. Right. Like, the people are the city, the people are the community. And if we want our city to get better, if we want things to get better, then we have to get better as people. And I just love you, and I'm grateful. My wife was born and raised here in Longview, born and raised in this church. And we have seven children. We have one on the way. So we have six children right now. We have one on the way. We have five adopted kids. We have two biological kids. And they're all incredible, and they all do great things. And 23 years ago, if you had told me that I would be stood here today telling you I have seven children, I would never have believed you. That was not a part of the plan 23 years ago. You know what I'm saying? But here we are, and I love it, and I'm so grateful for the life that I have. So grateful to be with you today. So today we're going to be talking about and looking at the passage of Scripture. It's in John 5, and it's the first nine verses. John 5, 1, 9. And this will be a familiar story to you if you've read the Bible, if you've been in church any amount of time. If you were in Sunday school years ago, you would have probably heard this story. But as the Lord has been working on my heart the last few weeks, he's kind of making me look at this story a little differently. So we're going to read it, and then we'll get into what I feel like the Lord is wanting to talk to us about today. So this is John 1. Sorry, John 5, verse 1 says, Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem, near the Sheep Gate, a pool which in Aramaic is called Bethesda, and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie. The blind, the lame, the paralyzed one who had been there, who had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him to do you want to get well? Do you want to get well? Verse 7, sir. The invalid replied, I have no one to help me get into the pool. When the water is stirred, while I'm trying to get in, someone else goes ahead of me. Then Jesus said to him, get up, pick up your mat and walk at once. The man was cured. He picked up his mat and walked. So I want to kind of focus today on that question, do you want to get well? And the whole idea, when I was thinking about this, I was just thinking about that story, those certain verses, and I was thinking about 38 years is a long time to be sat in one place, right? I'm 41 years old, so most of my life, 38 years, sat in one place, getting the same results, making the same excuses. And when Jesus shows up and asks the guy this question, do you want to get well? The man doesn't automatically go to, yes. Like, I feel like if Jesus showed up this morning and was healing, was on the table, I think we would all rush to the front, right? We would all be like, absolutely. But he doesn't. This guy goes straight to why it's not possible. He goes straight into, it can't happen. And I think for some of us in the room, maybe most of us in the room, that kind of is a story that kind of rests with us. We kind of understand this story that I've been looking for, this healing, but it hasn't come yet. Like, we want to be healed, but I don't want to have to change to make it happen. Like, healing is on the table, healing is being offered. But today I want us to look at, like, what is my responsibility in that? What do I need to do? Because Jesus is ready to go. He's ready to pull the trigger. He's ready to heal. But sometimes there's a part for us to play. So the whole idea, the big idea when the Lord spoke to me about this message, was around the idea that people just don't want to change. We just don't want to change. We like the way we are. We like the way things are going. We don't like change. We like to control. Change is scary. Change is unknown. I don't know what it's going to look like. We want to be healed, but we don't want to be transformed. We want the healing, but we don't want to walk it out. So that's my idea. That's the idea that I want us to look at today and think about and kind of check our hearts on, where am I at in this? Because I guarantee you, if we went around the room, we've all got some type of healing that we're looking for, whether that be medical or physical or a relationship that might be broken or something you don't quite understand and you're Wrestling with the Lord on, you're just like, I need this be fixed. This piece of me is broken and I want it to be whole. I think we can all say that we have that life is hard, it's tough, and we come across things. But I think for most of us, we want the miracle. But do we want the transformation that comes with it? Do we want to pay the price? Do we want to count the cost of that healing? So I've got three ideas that I want to share with you. I have, I'm a traditional preacher. I have a three point sermon for you today. And I just want us to kind of look at this story and think about what is the Lord asking me in this? What am I needing to be received? What am I looking at? So I've got three ideas that I want to share with you. The first idea is we want healing without transformation. The whole the guy, when Jesus asked the guy, do you want to be? Well, the guy goes straight to, it's someone else's responsibility, right? He says, there's no one to take me down there. And when someone does get me down there, there's already, you know, he's making excuses. He puts the responsibility of his transformation onto somebody else. He's been waiting around, he's been sitting around for 38 years looking for a miracle that cost him absolutely nothing. And I think that's the version that most of us are seeking or praying for today, is God, just fix it. Well, you're like, you're the fixer God. You're the creator of the universe. You can just snap your fingers and I can be whole and I can be all new and just fix it or stop it, Stop what's happening. Make it go away, take it away from me, but do all that. But don't ask me to get involved. Don't ask me to do anything. You do what you got to do and I'll just keep on living the life that I want to live and the things I want to do don't involve me in the process. We want the healing without the transformation. I think most of us, most people, me included, I'm up here preaching to me. We get comfortable in the struggle. We're more comfortable in the struggle than we are in the work of living out freedom, right? The struggle is hard and it's uncomfortable at times, but like, it's something. It's just easy though, because it's there, right? It's just something that's always been there. And we come with the attitude of man. This is Just who I am. Anybody say that this is who I am, the way the Lord made me. I've always been this way. I'll always be this way. Like, we just make excuses so we stay in the uncomfortable, we stay in the struggle because that struggle is familiar. It's something we just like. It's a burden, but it's something we've just carried our whole lives. And so we're just going to keep carrying it. I know I should deal with it, but I'm just going to keep moving forward. And we get stuck. And the reason is because change is scary. Who likes change? Like, don't anyone put your hand up because you're lying to me. Like, no one likes change because change is unknown and it's scary. And it's. What's going to happen? Is it going to work out? What if XYZ and this does this? And all the things we go through our minds and we think, worst case scenario, and we just think, man, no, I'm comfortable right here. Even though it's hard and it's a struggle, I'm comfortable though it's familiar. And the enemy knows that. The enemy knows that you get comfortable and he'll keep replaying it over and over. Opportunities will come in. He'll plant ideas in your head to keep you where you're at, to keep you stuck. Comfortable in your struggle is still stuck. You might be comfortable, you might be okay with it, but you're not getting anywhere. I don't think any of us in the room have scratched the surface on the potential that God has put in each of our lives. We get stuck and we get comfortable and we just fly through life and we look up and years have gone by and we're still carrying the same things that man, I wanted healing from this God, why don't you do something about it? Second idea that I have around this is Jesus question exposes what we really want. We've said it before and we'll say it a million times. When Jesus is asking a question, he's never asking it because he needs to know the answer, right? Never does he enter a conversation with or enter an interaction with somebody wondering what's happening or what's going on. The question is for us, it's for you, and it's for me. It's a God. Let me take an honest look at myself. Let me look inward and think about what is it that is going on here? Is there something in me that needs to change? There's something I need to do. And that was the Question that Jesus asked the guy, he said, do you want to get well? He's not asking, do you want relief? Do you want some temporary relief? Do you want just a little bit of a break? He's really asking, are you willing to be transformed? Are you willing to go all in with all the pieces, not just receive the healing, but walk out the transformation? And I think the man, when he answers it, when he goes straight to excuses, and he goes straight to the idea of, well, there's no one to take me down to the pool that reveals the heart that he has there, that he's never even considered that getting well might require something of him. Have we ever considered that a piece of our healing might be required? There might be a requirement on me? There was a season of my life when a relationship was kind of out of whack and it wasn't healthy and I was trying to fix it, and I was asking the Lord, hey, hey, I need you to heal this relationship. It's not good. I want it to get better. It was good, and now I want it to get better. Something happened, and I'm just like, lord, just do a work, right? Heal the hearts of the person. You know, I'm fine. Leave me alone. But, like, talk to them. Make them send me a text so I know it's good and we can get back into relationship and communicate. You know, I miss them, whatever it might be, and I'm praying about it, and I'm asking God, like, heal this situation, Lord. So I met. So I had a friend I met with, and I was explaining the situation to him. And thankfully, I have good friends in my life that don't just accept the words that come out of my mouth as truth, right? And he questioned me and was like, well, what are. I understand you're praying about it, and that's great. Good job. But what are you doing about it? What are you actively doing to change the situation? Because there's a role for me to play. So I took a moment and thought about it, didn't really need to take a moment, because the answer was, I'm doing absolutely nothing. I'm praying, I'm asking the Lord, I'm treating the Lord like a vending machine, where I go in and I put my money in and I hit F7 and healing drops down and I grab healing out and I walk off. That's how we treat the Lord sometimes. Give me what I need so I can get on with what I got to do. So I said, well, I'm not doing anything. So it got me to think, and what am I doing to invest into that relationship? What am I doing to change what my role is? What's my place in this? I didn't even think about it. I was like, lord, you got to get them. You know, I think we come in with the attitude, right? Get them. Get that. You know, once you talk to them, they'll reach out to me and we'll be back in and it'll be good to go. Maybe you're here today and that's your story. You got a broken relationship somewhere and you're just telling the Lord, get them, heal it. Maybe today is the day that you have to ask the question, what are you willing to do? [00:15:58] Speaker A: Do? [00:16:00] Speaker B: Before God can do what only he can do, we must be honest about what we're willing to do. God's ready to go. His finger's on the trigger. He's ready to pull it. He's ready to pull the healing, the trigger. And he's, but what am I? What are you willing to do? There's a role for all of us. And the question isn't whether God is able. The question is, am I willing? Are you willing? God is able. We know that God is able to do abundantly, more than we can think or imagine. He can do anything he wants to do. But most of the time there's a part that we have to play. Am I willing to play that part? God already knows what he's willing to do. The question is, are you willing to do? What are you willing to do? My third idea around this point three is if God heals you, you must desire transformation to walk in it. Don't cheapen a healing by not doing something with it. Jesus heals him, but also in the same breath. He says, get up, take your mat and go. He brought healing, and then he gave a command. He said, he, here's your healing. Now go do something with it. The miracle and the responsibility arrive together. They come hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. You don't get to say, yes, Lord, give me the healing, and then do nothing with it. That's dishonoring to a work that the Lord might do in your life. Healing is what God does. Transformation is what we choose. And we have to choose it every single day. Every day we have to wake up and say, I've been healed. Now I'm going to walk like I believe it. For the longest time, my attitude toward life was based around this idea that I had to perform to be accepted. Anyone relate to that? At All. Yes, I know we're all that way. But I had to perform to be accepted. I had to perform to be loved and to be cared about and to be wanted. And if I was in a room just like this, or if I was up here just like I am today, I have to perform a certain way for acceptance. And that plagued my life from a young kid all the way. I still deal with it occasionally today, But a few years ago, I was in a conversation with somebody and this idea came out, like they could tell the way I was speaking and the way I was answering some questions, that I had this idea that I had to perform to get my way in. If I've got to perform to get into the room or I'm a fraud or I shouldn't be where I am, because if they find out what I've done, where I've been, or all those things, like, this thing's going to blow up, you know? So if I can be loyal, if I can be faithful, if I can serve, if I can do what I say I'm going to do, if I can be the guy that gets things done. If you ask James to do something, he's going to do it. Like, you've got to just keep working. It's just a work, work, work, work. And that was my whole life. I just performed to get to where I wanted to be or where I felt like I needed to be. Then I sat with somebody and they obviously, again, I have friends in my life that don't baby me and shoot straight. And I appreciated it. And in an instant, my wife Hannah was in the room. And in an instant, obviously, most of you that know me, I'm a crier. So I got burst into tears because that's what I do, and I'm not ashamed of it. I burst into tears and just felt this overwhelming, like this release. You ever felt that release of peace from the Lord. So I just. I felt. So in that moment, I felt like I got instant healing. I know who I am. I know whose I am. I'm supposed to be in the room because God wants me in the room. I'm supposed to be on that platform because God wanted me on that. Whatever. I was just. I had all the answers. I was like, I'm a child of God. Let's go. But who knows when you find a little bit of breakthrough at times? Monday morning rolls around, right? MAN 1 Days are the worst. No, you find breakthrough. You find the healing you feel like, yeah, all right, let's go. I am ready to Take on anything. I'm a child of God, called with purpose on my life. But then we've got to go to the office on Monday morning, where the people are the people. And all these ideas, these thoughts start running back into my mind, right? We've all been there. We find breakthrough one day, but then we feel like we're right back in it the next. So I'm in the office or whatever it was. I don't remember the specifics, but all these thoughts and ideas start coming back, and you shouldn't be where you are. You shouldn't get to do what you get to do. My role here at the church is involved a lot with the city, like, with the chamber and with the city of Longview and all the things that we love being a part of. And there's, like, some important people occasionally in the rooms I'm in, and I'm just, like, over in the corner. James, don't say a word. You know, like, they are going to eat you alive in this building. But I found healing yesterday. What am I doing? I think we do that. We find healing, and then we walk right back into the problem that we thought we got over yesterday. We've got to desire the freedom. We've got to desire the transformation, the walking out of the transformation, the walking out of the change. We've got to desire that as much as we want the healing. Like, we celebrate the breakthrough, but then we forget to walk in that freedom the next morning, and we start all over again. We celebrate. And then the next hard thing that comes up, we're just back to where we started, like it never happened. That is my biggest fear in life, other than not being in the exact center of the will of God, is going back to my old thought life and my old patterns. Like, I gotta make a choice every morning. Every single morning when I wake up, I'm choosing that I've been healed and I'm walking in it today. So what does that look like? What's it going to require of me to walk in that freedom? I found the healing. The Lord's brought the healing. I'm good to go now. What does that look like? Three ideas. Another three ideas. This is my sub. Three bullet points. The first one is desire. We must want to desire change more than we want the comfort of staying the same. We like comfort, right? We like. We love comfort. Y' all are on comfy seats right now. We could have had you on the floor. Go back to old school school school assemblies for me. Growing up, we were on the we had no seats. We like com. Even in the struggle, we lack comfort. And we don't just want to have the idea of, I just want to feel better. We've got to have the idea on the mentality that I want to be different. Better is great. Better is a day or two, maybe a week at max. But different, different will change the world. Different will change your world and the people around you. We've got a desire to walk it out. The next thing, the second requirement of walking in freedom, walking in transformation, is accountability. I can't even say that word out loud without getting accountability and vulnerability. Like the two unspoken words in church, right? Like, we don't like ew, accountability. Someone in my business, someone knowing what I've done or where I am or what's going on, some of the things I've been a part like, no, thank you. But the guy that the pool was healed, he was told to pick up his mat and walk. And he picked up his mat and he walked into the crowd, picked up his mat and he walked into community. He didn't pick up his mat and run home and isolate. Healing done in secret will remain fragile. If you hold on to the healing you've been given. And I understand it could have been years of torment, of uncomfortable, of discomfort, of pain, and you finally got it. So, like, naturally, yes, we want to hold onto it. But if you run home and hold onto your healing, you run home and you go into a little closet and you stay isolated with it, that's where it will stay. It'll be small and fragile and at times you won't even think it's real. You think it didn't happen. If God did a miracle in your life, you better tell somebody about it. You better get loud and proud. I know you all get loud and proud. So get loud and proud about what God is up to in your life. Because life is hard and life's going to come and life's going to hit again. And yes, you found healing and yes, you're walking in transformation. But life doesn't stop. That freight train of life is still headed your way, right? Can anyone agree with that? Life is still coming. Whether you found healing and you're walking in it, life is still coming. So at times that same thing you were healed from is going to show up again, or something fresh and new is going to show up and that's going to get your attention. And our mentality and our fear will be to run, run, run home, get in the closet, get into my prayer closet, and just Spend time on my own and hold on to what's happened to me. But you need accountability. You need people in your corner to say, hey, we found healing over here. Why are we going this way when healing is this way? We've already walked in freedom. Jesus has already healed that. We need those voices in our heads. We need those voices in our lives to say, hey, come on, we got this. We found the healing. That's not who we are anymore. The third requirement is we've got to do the daily work. This isn't a one time one stop shop. It's not a all right, Lord, you healed me. Now the rainbows and the unicorns come out and my life just floats along like I want it to, right? No, I gotta wake up every day and say, I'm healed and I'm walking in it. It's a daily, daily walk. It's a daily fight to not sit back down and sit on that mat. Every day, every day is a new day and new things are coming your way. Good things, ugly things, bad things. You've got to wake up every day and choose the freedom that you've been given. Choose to say, I've been healed. I don't have to live this way. I don't have to do the things that I'm doing. Because transformation, living in transformation is the proof of the healing. And your life is proof. Your life is a story. You are the loudest testimony that some people will read or hear or see or listen to. People can go their whole lives without picking this thing up. Don't recommend, but people do. They could go their whole lives without reading it or being in a place like this. But the people you work with, the people you go to school with, your families, they see you every day. So if you're claiming that you've been healed, if you're claiming that the Lord has done a work in your life, then live like it. Prove to the world that you've been healed. And for me, and for my performance driven mentality, I had to be reminded that I was healed. I had to be reminded of, that's not who you are anymore, James. So second Corinthians 10:5. We demolish arguments and every pretension that's set up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. The old voices will continue to speak, but what you do with them is what matters. The old voice of oh, James, you shouldn't be in the room. You shouldn't even be on this platform right now. Nope, I make that obedient to Christ. I replace that with what God says about me, that he has purpose and vision and destiny on my life and on your life. I'm exactly in every room that God wants me to be in. I'm on every platform that the Lord wants me to be on. Everywhere I am, at all times, I believe, is where God has destined me to be. So I am able to be in the room. Whatever your thing is, that's my thing. My thing is that whatever your thing is, you got to combat the thoughts, the ideas that run around. Like I was saying it to a friend earlier, our minds are the most incredible place in the world, but also the worst place in the world. We are our own worst critic or enemy. The voices in our head telling us things that are not true. Freedom isn't just given. It's walked in one day at a time. And it's okay. It's okay to slip, it's okay to fall. It's okay to stumble every once in a while. But the next day we wake up and we. I found freedom. The Lord has healed me. I'm walking in that every single day. God isn't the problem. He's been ready to heal you. He's ready to go. He was here when you walked in this morning. He'll be here. He'll be there when you get home later today, whatever your day may. Look, he's ready to heal. He's ready to move. He's ready for a move of God. We're all ready for a move of God. He's ready to go. God isn't the problem. And he's asking us the same question he asked the guy at the pool. And the question is not, can I heal you? We've established that. I think we all have stories in our own lives of the proof that, yes, God can and does heal. So the question isn't, can I heal you? The question is, are you ready to get well? Are you ready to pay the price? Are you ready to walk in the steps that he's calling you to walk in? Because in a way, the healing is the instant. It's the steps afterwards, it's the acting like you were healed. So are you ready to get well, not just to feel better every once in a while? I think we just need a little. We want a little relief. I just need to feel a little better today. Give me something to feel better. Well, I don't know. Let me feel better. God isn't wanting you just to feel better. He wants you to change right There's a big difference. Ready to be accountable, ready to be vulnerable with those around you and ready to do the work every single day that freedom costs. Freedom is not free to us. It's going to cost us. Ultimately, the Lord died on the cross for free for you and me and for my sins. But the daily living in freedom and walking it out, it's going to cost you something. The Freedom curriculum we do here at the church is like a 10 week curriculum and it's absolutely incredible. And we, every time you go through it, the Lord reveals a little something else that you need to work on, right? Because we're all, this is sanctification. We're all a work in progress. I'm not stood up here in front of you like the finished piece. This is not it. If you're looking for the finished piece, don't look at me. But it's a daily thing. So we go through this curriculum and it's 10 weeks. And I think some of us, we go through it and we love it and we're all in and we do the homework and we watch the videos and we engage in the discussions and the conversations for 10 weeks. And then we got like 42 of the weeks of the year and we're like, well, I did freedom for 10 weeks. I'm good, right? I found freedom. I even went to the conference at the end of it, like I found it, I got it. It's a daily work. It's every day, it's waking up, saying, yes, Lord, whatever it is that you're asking me to do today, I'm walking fully into and going in half hearted is still going to be struggle. Oh, just heal this little piece or heal this little piece, but don't touch that because that's mine. Don't ask me about that because that one is a little, that's a little iffy. Don't know about that. Don't know how that's going to play out. So I'll leave that one to me. That's still going to be struggle every day. You'll still be carrying those things. The miracle is available, but the transformation is required. And he's not asking you to do it alone. Later on in the passage of scripture we didn't read, Jesus finds the man again and continues to encourage him, hey, you are healed. Walk in that. Don't sin, don't get caught up in other things. Don't go, don't be healed of one thing and then go get caught up in like he's around people. The Lord found Him and whether you find healing in certain things, he'll find you again. He's not asking you to walk it alone. He's saying he's going to be there the whole way. Don't just receive the miracle, walk in the transformation. It'd be easy for us to all just put our hands up today and say, yeah, Lord, give me a miracle, give me freedom, give me. Take the struggle away, take the pain away, take the uncomfortability, uncomfortability, uncomfortableness away. That's my English, Texan, terrible words. Just take it away. Just do like. But he's asking us to do the work and that's what I need you to hear today. Yes, the healing is available, but it's going to require something of us. So the question is, and the question has always been, are you ready to get well as we close? You want to put your Bibles away, put your notes away, whatever it is that you have out and just close your eyes and let's just spend a moment with the Lord and ask the Holy Spirit, what are you saying to me in this? What is it that you are trying to identify? What is the thing that I need healing from? What is the piece of me or pieces of me that are broken that you are so desperate to heal? Lord, I'm just getting in the way. He's asking each of us today, are you ready to get well? So Lord, we come before you this morning with our brokenness, with our hurts, with our pain, Looking for healing. And Lord, we're committing to you today to say yes, we want to be healed. Yes, we want to do the work. Yes, we understand the price it's going to cost us. Yes, we're drawing a line in the sand, saying, I'm not going back there anymore. We're saying thank you for the healing. We're committing to the process of what that looks like moving forward. Father, reveal those pieces of our hearts and we submit them to you. We are open handed before you this morning asking you to do a work in us. We're asking you to freely speak into our hearts, speak to our minds. We give you free reign in this place and with eyes closed and no one looking around, maybe you're hearing this and you understand an idea of what healing looks like. You understand an idea that God can heal you of things, but you don't know who God is. You don't really know. Maybe you came in here broken, maybe you came in here with some things that you're struggling with and you're just. I just, I just need to know Jesus, and that's the best, best place you can be. That's the perfect start. So we're going to give the opportunity this morning to say yes to the Lord, to say yes to Jesus. Whether you've done it before or this is your first time being here, first time being in church, first time saying yes to the Lord. Whether you're in the room or whether you're with us online, we want you to have an opportunity to say yes to the Lord. So I'm going to pray. I'm giving you the opportunity to repeat it back after me if that's what you choose to do. I'm going to encourage the whole room to repeat after me so no one feels awkward or. Or point it out. We never want you to feel that way. Let's pray together. Pray with me. Dear Jesus, I've made mistakes and I've tried to do life my way, and it's not worked out. Father, I'm choosing you today to be lord of my life and to direct my steps. I commit my life to you today with no one looking around and eyes closed. If that was you and you prayed that, there's a number on the screen behind me. If you would just look up and text that number or scan that code or if you're doing, doing it online, there's a number coming up. And we just don't want anything from you. We want to send you some information about what you just did and the decision you just made. It's the best place that you can be is to start a relationship with Jesus. And that's a big deal for everyone else in the room. Go ahead and stand to your feet. Thank you for listening to me today. I appreciate you honoring me and humoring me for the things I have to say. Like I said, I'm so grateful to be a part of this place. It's just fun to be around everybody. I love these people. I love this place. I'm going to invite the elders forward to be available for prayer. So elders and their wives are going to be here to pray with you if you need something, if you're asking the Lord for something, if you're looking for some healing, maybe, whether it was related to today or it's something unrelated, they want to pray for you. That is their joy to do that. So please come on down. When we close out, we want you to be prayed for. For everybody else, let me pray and we will be dismissed. Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for another day in your house. We are so grateful for the privilege it is to come to meet with you and with each other. Father and I just pray a blessing over each person in this room that they will have an incredible week seeking your face and doing all the things that you're calling us to do. Father, we thank you for today. In Jesus name and everybody said Amen. Amen. Love you guys. We'll see you next week. [00:42:11] 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, don't 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.