Satanic Lies

The Second sermon in our series: "This Means War"

Scripture: John 8:44

Dr. Nick Floyd

Senior Pastor

Transcript

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Thank you for joining us today. At Crosschurch, we believe people need Jesus. People need each other. People change the world. And people leave legacies. Our desire is for you to understand, accept, and grow in a relationship with Jesus Christ. Thank you for listening. If you would like to know more about Crosschurch, please visit CrossChurch.com.

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We are in a series that we call This Means War. We started this last Sunday, and this is all about spiritual warfare. And I'd say whether you realize that or not, you are in a war for your spiritual life. You have an enemy who is dead set on your destruction. We're talking a lot about him throughout this series, and we'll talk a lot about him this morning as well. But uh, this is a war that you are in. In fact, even the subtitle of this series is the seven battles of spiritual warfare that we all go through. We've talked about satanic temptation. And today uh we're gonna hit on something that I believe is incredibly significant in the life of every follower of Jesus. And here's what it is we're gonna talk about satanic lies today. Okay, satanic lies. Uh, have you ever known a liar? Like just for a second, like picture them in your mind right now. Um, they may be sitting next to you, hopefully not, but picture the person in your mind that is a liar, and you most likely have lost trust in them along the way. You've probably been hurt by them. Uh, you generally do not have good feelings about them. In fact, some of you in your mind right now, you have a dartboard with their face on it, and you are throwing darts right at their eyes. Um, we'll talk about forgiveness another Sunday, but um, this is something every one of us knows, somebody who's like this, who does not tell the truth. You may have even said about this person, they literally cannot tell the truth. And as a result of that, there's brokenness in the relationship, and you do genuinely have bad feelings about them. And even me bringing them up right now is ruining your day. I apologize. We'll move on. All right. Here's what I want you to understand. This is your enemy, Satan himself. He is a liar, he cannot tell the truth, he is never has told the truth, and he will never tell the truth. And in so many ways, the next half hour or so, I'm going to say that again and again and again and again, because the reality is many of us are missing that no longer how long we've been a believer. I'm going to focus primarily on one verse of scripture today, verse 44. But I want you to go all the way back to verse 31 to get the real context of what Jesus is actually saying here. Jesus is in the temple on this day. He's conversing uh back and forth with some Jews. Some of these Jews have uh been initially responsive to him, like it's been a positive reaction to Jesus. And then there are others who are directly opposed to Jesus. And so he's going back and forth with these men and women who are so tied into Judaism that they don't know how to get out. In other words, they've been raised as a Jew, both uh like by nationality, ethnicity, and by religion. And so everybody they know is a Jew, everybody they have, you know, ever been a part of, knowing family-wise, friend-wise, they're all wrapped up in Judaism. Then Jesus arrives on the scene and he says some radically different things than Judaism. In fact, he's like, hey, all that you learned in Judaism, it is all fulfilled in moi. Okay, Jesus didn't say moi, but you know what I'm saying, right? All of it's fulfilled in me. And so put your trust in me. And so people are struggling back and forth with what Jesus is saying. Look at verse 31 of John chapter 8. It says, Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. Here's a great verse, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you what? What's the word? Free. Verse 33. They answered him, We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? So Paul's there. Jesus is saying one thing, they are hearing another thing. They believe Jesus is speaking about actual slavery, and they're like, Hey, we're not slaves. In fact, our family's not been slaves, so how are we going to be free from slavery? Jesus goes deeper in what he means. Verse 34. Says he answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin, underline those words, is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever. So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed. Anybody got that testimony today? In fact, let's read that together again. So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed. What a great passage from Jesus. I know that you are offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my father, and you do what you have heard from, underline these two words, from your father. Now, if you're reading this with your eyes crossing a little bit and you're like, I don't know what what this is saying right here, that that's not abnormal. This is a difficult passage to understand. Uh, let me let me try to simplify it. Jesus is speaking about the condition of every human heart, including yours and including mine. We are born as uh sinners. We are born, as Jesus says here, as slaves to sin. Now, this is true about your life. This is true about my life. If you've ever wondered, why do I do bad things? This is why. If you ever wondered, I don't understand why I do the things I hate, and yet I still do them. It's because of this right here. You were born with a sin nature. Uh, Jesus specifically gives two words that I told you to underline about the idea of practicing sin. This is not the idea that you do sin like every now and then, but it is the predominant pattern of your life. And here's what I would tell you: before you and I come to faith in Christ, this is our life. We have a practice of sin. It is the predominant pattern of our lives. Uh, this is every one of us. No one had to teach you to sin, no one had to teach you to lie, to cheat, to steal. You're just very naturally good at it on your own and on my own. I'm very naturally good at it. And this is why we need Jesus Christ. Okay, this is like the gospel full picture here. This is why we need God to send his only son to die on the cross for our sin, to not only forgive us, but also to free us from a life of slavery to sin. If that's never happened in your life today, that can happen before you leave this room, even here this morning. Jesus begins to speak about Abraham. And you're like, I don't understand why Jesus and the Jews here are speaking about Abraham. What does Abraham have to do with all this? Okay. Jesus is saying this: you may be the physical descendants of Abraham, but you are not the spiritual descendants of Abraham. In other words, you may be a Jew by birth, but you need a new birth. You must be born again. If you remember, uh, for the entirety of the fall and the spring, we studied the book of Genesis. And if you remember, all the way back in the fall, when we studied and did a series on the life of Abraham, we learn in Genesis chapter 12 that there is this thing called the Abrahamic covenant. And basically, this is a promise from God that through the lineage of Abraham, through the line and seed of you, Abraham, a Savior will come. And this Savior's name is it's Jesus. Okay. And so all the way, Jesus is speaking to them in spiritual language that they're not even grasping here. And Jesus tells them, I speak of what I have heard from my father, which is God. You, however, speak of what you have heard from your father. You say, Well, who are who is their father? And in fact, the Jews even misinterpreted this. The Jews said, Well, if you keep on reading the next few verses, well, Abraham's our father. To which Jesus is like, Nope, he's not. Because if you were spiritual descendants, if you were spiritual children of Abraham, you would not be trying to kill me right now. And then Jesus is about to drop the mic. You ever have a drop the mic moment? He's about to in verse 44. He's going to say something powerful and drop the mic. You ready for this? This is the heartbeat of our message. The remainder of our time, we'll study one verse, verse 44. Jesus says, You are of your father. Who's their father? The devil. And your will is to do your father's desires. He was a what? A murderer from the beginning. He does not stand in the truth, but because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar. Underline this last part, and the father of lies. Now, what is Jesus saying here? Let's clarify something. Jesus is not saying that all Jews have Satan as their father. You know what he's saying? It's actually much broader, and it's actually much worse. All of us who are born into sin, we are born with Satan as our father here. Okay. And he is saying we are born into slavery to sin, slavery to Satan, he is our father. And so here's the real crux of the message. For the remainder of that verse, Jesus details what our enemy is like. Okay? If you think about any sport known to man, uh that coach leading up to that game will watch film on the opponent. They will say, this is what the opponent does in this situation in the game. And this is what they do in this scenario in the game. And they will know their opponent like the back of their hand. Jesus is describing to us our opponent. He is describing to us our enemy. And so, in many ways, for the remainder of church today, we're having a film session. And we are looking at Satan and saying, He does this and he does this and he does this, and I need to be aware of this. And so he gives us five descriptions of Satan. So if you got your journal there, I would grab your Bible, grab your journal, and uh write these down. If you don't have a journal, pull out your phone, take some notes. Here's the five descriptions from Jesus himself about Satan. Number one, he calls him a murderer from the beginning. A murderer from the beginning. You say, well, Nick, what does that actually mean? Well, if you study this passage, there are two primary views from scholars of all types. And uh here's two views of what they believe Jesus is saying here. Okay. View number one is this is that Satan killed Adam and Eve's spiritual life. Uh so if you go back all the way to the beginning of the Bible, Genesis 1 through 3, uh, before sin entered the world, Adam and Eve had perfect fellowship with God, unbroken communion with God. And then Satan comes in the form of a serpent. Anybody else hates snakes? He comes in the form of a serpent. He lies to Adam and Eve, and he causes them to doubt the word of God. And uh as a result, they eat of the fruit, sin enters the world, and as a result of sin entering the world, death also enters into the world. View number two is this Satan provoked Cain to kill Abel. Satan provoked Cain to kill Abel. If you're familiar with the Bible, you'll know this. If you're not, let me help you out. This was the very first murder in the Bible, and therefore the very first murder in the history of the world. Cain got angry at his brother Abel. God had accepted Abel's sacrifice, not Cain's. And so Cain killed his brother. So you're like, okay, Nick, so you're giving us two views. Which view is the correct view? You want an honest answer from the preacher today? Not exactly sure. Not exactly sure. But here's what I tell you. I think both of them are true. So, so y'all ready for some like group participation this morning? Y'all ready? That was that was a weak sauce. Let me let's do it again. Hey, y'all ready for some group participation this morning? Oh man, thanks for your enthusiasm. I appreciate that. Always helps me go better. All right, and faster, by the way. All right. Was Satan behind the deception of Adam and Eve? Yes or no? Okay, yes, you're right. Uh, was Satan behind Cain killing Abel? Yes or no? You see what I'm saying? Like, regardless of which view Jesus has in mind as he's saying this, which we won't know 100% until we get to heaven? Both of these are theologically true, that behind either of them was an enemy who was a murderer from the beginning. I heard a sermon one time from a pastor who he said it essentially like this He said, Whenever you see the exact opposite of God, you know Satan is at work. So he said, like whenever you're scrolling your social media on your phone or you're watching the news at night and you just hear horrible stories like chaos and division, lying, cheating, stealing, anything like that, he says, you know, Satan is at work. I would encourage you to watch the news with spiritual lenses. Okay. Uh to put this in the context of what Jesus is saying here, whenever you see murder of any kind, Satan is behind it. Uh, the dictionary would define murder like this it's an unjustifiable killing of a person. This is uh taking the life of a person made in the image of God. So again, whether you're scrolling the news, whatever, and you you see the story of a brutal murder and it shakes you like, oh my gosh, it's just so horrible. Here's what you need to understand Satan is always behind murder, okay, of any kind. Now, that's the first description. The next four all have to do with truth and lies. You got that? Truth and lies. Here's the second way Jesus describes him: Satan does not stand in truth. That's number two. He does not stand in truth. This part of the passage carries the idea of having nothing to do with truth. In fact, his disposition is not in truth, but in lies. He cannot live in truth, he cannot remain in truth, he has no relationship to truth. And so you ever have you ever have bad thoughts? Anybody besides me? You ever have bad thoughts or wrong thoughts that you know are not of the Lord? And uh, and you're like, man, I just don't know, I don't know exactly what to do with those. At least here's one thing to think about Satan has no relationship with the truth. So you can always bank if he is speaking, he is lying. It is directly opposed to his character to do anything in light and in truth. Jesus goes a step further in saying a similar thing, just in a little bit of a different way. Number three, there is no truth in him. There is no truth in him. This carries the idea that truth does not exist with Satan. Think with me for a moment about things that are uh mutually exclusive. In other words, things that cannot be true at the same time. So let's take like the lights that you see here today. The lights can be on or they can be off. Uh, you could be inside or outside. You could uh you either win the game or lose the game. Doesn't matter if it's T-bowl and they're not keeping score. The dads in the stands know which team won, which team lost. Amen, dads? Uh you you are dead or alive. Make sense? You're an Alabama fan or a follower of Jesus. It's see that that's good. Any Alabama fans in the room today? Oh man. Yeah, your your closest exit is right over. I'm just kidding. We're glad that you know Jesus is for all people. All people, right? Here's what the Bible is saying. Here's what Jesus is saying to us. Satan and truth do not coexist. In fact, they cannot coexist. He moves on to a fourth thing. I'll spend the rest of our time on the fourth and on the fifth description because I think they're the most powerful. Number four, Satan is a liar. He is a liar. If you uh if you think back to the person at the beginning of the message that told you, hey, have you ever known a liar? Like, think about that person again. And let's do something fun. Like, let's say uh I brought that person and you up on stage today, and I let the liar say some things to you. Uh your natural inclination would be to listen to him or her with a microphone. Your first thought is, why did the preacher give the liar the mic? Your second thought is I don't believe you. Um you're full of it. You doubt what that person would say. Is that not right? You got that person in your mind? If they are speaking to you, you're like, I don't, I don't believe you. Like been there, done that, not doing it again. Do not miss what I believe is the most important part of the message right here, right now. Okay? This is uh is a big deal in your Christian world. See, here's the problem spiritually. Many of us do not live with that same discernment that when the enemy is speaking lies into our hearts and into our minds, we just receive it. We just take it. We are prone to believe what he has said, to not doubt it, and we just we just embrace it. And so, like, like think about think about thoughts that come into your mind, and you're like, man, is that is that of God or is that of Satan? This is why Paul says you've got to take captive the thoughts in your mind, and you are literally doing what what what Jesus is is beginning the conversation on. Paul like comes in and says, Yes, this this is what this means practically. Satan is a liar, and so you've got to listen to the thoughts that are coming in your mind, and you've got to discern, is this of Satan? Is this of the Lord? And those that are of Satan, you take captive those thoughts and you're like, hey, you're not in my life. You throw them out. It's an everyday process, it's a moment-by-moment process. He said, When if you're a preacher, it's easy for you. Okay, you're just a pastor, you don't understand real life. Can I be honest with you? You ready for some real honesty? This is hard for me every single day of my life. It's a war every single day of my life to have the right thoughts and to take captive the wrong thoughts and to throw them out. It's it's a battle every single day. This means war in my own life, every single day to obey Jesus. And so if you're if you're like, well, man, I my life feels like your life. Here's what I think. That's good news. It means you're living the Christian life, it means you're aware that you're in a battle. On the flip side of that, if you're like, dude, I don't feel this at all. Like I got I got nothing internally going on, and I don't feel a war, I don't feel in a battle. I got bad news for you on two different fronts. This is your life. You're one of two people. Either you are lost, and there there is no there is no fight against temptation, there is no fight against the lies of Satan, because you are still of your father, the devil, and you need to be saved today. So that's that's first like bad thing. Second bad thing is maybe you're a Christian, but man, you have lived in sin so long that it's like scar tissue has gotten over your heart. So God speaks and you don't sense it. God speaks and you don't listen to it. God speaks to you and you're like, What are we having for lunch today? I mean, it's like 11:44 right now. You get what I'm saying today? And so, like, like part of why God has given me this message today is to wake you up as a believer, to say, hey, you're in a battle, whether you realize it or not. And if you don't realize it, you're losing the battle right now. So wake up, listen to what's in your mind. You see, the problem in our mind is that you're the only one living in your mind. What you think is normal is not always normal. You know what I'm saying? Like, this is why you need godly friends in your life, it's why you need pastors in your life, it's why you need church in your life to hear the word of God. Because what's what's in your mind and what has been in your mind for your entire life is normal. And you think, well, it's a normal thing for me to think this way. This is a normal thought pattern. How would I think anything different? Why would I think anything different? There's nothing wrong with my mind. And it's not until you come face to face with the word of God, and Jesus is like, Hello, you've got a liar speaking to you. That you're like, wait, what? And you begin to understand that he is a liar. There is no truth in him. When I was doing my doctoral studies, uh, I did it at a university in Virginia, and so I'd I'd have like uh I'd have work on the front end of the class and on the back end of the class, and then I'd have to fly up for like a one-week seminar, okay? And uh, and so I'd I'd go through the class and everything. And then outside of that, there was a syllabus, and part of the syllabus was you had to read a thousand pages outside of the assigned reading, and they gave you a long list of books that you could choose from, or you could send in suggestions to the teacher's assistant, and he would approve them or not approve them to count towards the thousand pages. So I took this guy for two classes and it was a lot of reading. Chris, you probably took the same classes and same professors there. And so So um so I remember Meredith and I uh were still young married people when I was going through my doctoral work and uh had two young kids at the time and uh and somebody had given Meredith a book called Lies Women Believe by Nancy Lee Damas Wolgemouth. Okay. And uh and I don't I don't know why, but I thought I'll read that book. I don't know if it was like a young husband not knowing what to do with a young wife, because listen, we are all there. Some of us are older husbands with older wives, and we still don't know what to do, right? Um, but I I don't know if it sounded better than the other books on the list, but I just said hey, I emailed the guy and said, Hey, can I read this? And he said, sure. So I read the book, Lies Woman Believe. This was 15 years ago, probably. And uh I tell you what, it's a fascinating book. Uh Nancy Lee Damas is a brilliant woman of God. Her husband, who just passed away, he actually wrote a companion book to this for men called Lies Men Believe. And uh, and so I I would encourage you, either one of these would be a great follow-up as a summary, as a follow-up to this series and even this message. And so I'm gonna give you some of the lies that they cover. They cover many more than what I'm gonna cover here, but just I'm just gonna wet your appetite and see if if the shoe fits in any of these, I'm gonna encourage you to wear it. Here's some lies women believe, according to Nancy Lee. God is not really good. You there? Eve got there. How about the second one? God is holding out on me. Kind of Eve as well, right? You need of anything out here, but this one tree, don't touch that. Um, number three, I I need approval from others to have worth. So if you say nice things about me, if you love me, if you show me value, then I'll have value. And if you don't, I don't have value. That's a lie. These next two are uh for you married ladies, my husband is responsible for my happiness. I would tell you whether it's husband or wife, I would even tell you this in dating, those of you who are younger in age. Whenever you try to place a person in the position that God can only be in your life, it always goes south. So just FYI. Uh this is an interesting one. If my husband were different, I'd be happy. Ladies, don't amen that one. Okay. Some of you're amening it in your heart. Amen, Nick, preach it. Or maybe you you you read it wrong, and you're like, if I had a different husband, I'd be happy, but that's a that's a different sermon altogether as well. How about this last one? My feelings determine truth. Nick, I feel some things and I feel them deeply. I got strong opinions. It's a lie. My feelings determine truth. This, by the way, that's that's men or women right there. Uh he then gets to the men in uh his book. Robert Wolgamath says this. I think the first one is the biggest one. I can manage my life without God. How many of you men sitting in this room today are fulfilling that lie right there from the enemy? I'm managing my life without God. Uh how about a second one related to career? My value comes from success or performance. How about this one related to your sin struggles? No one will know. It's not that big of a deal. It's just a little it's not hurting anybody. No one will know. More career job type stuff. My job defines who I am. If that's good, then I'm good. If it's not, I'm not. Another one, leadership means control. And then I uh I can compartmentalize my life. I think that last one is a huge one that men do. I can compartmentalize my life. Somebody wrote a marriage book years ago, and I'll butcher the title, it was something like this men are waffles and women are spaghetti. And I even use this illustration with a premarital counseling situation recently. Of men, we are like waffles, which I could eat a waffle right now. It's time for lunch. That'd be a little embarrassing, like dripping syrup. Maybe someday, not now. All right. But you think about a waffle and it's got the different squares, and you can compartmentalize the syrup. I'm gonna put syrup in the first square, and then in the third square, and then in the fifth square, and you have like a like a chess board in front of you by the end of it. Men live that way. Um, some of this can be helpful, some of this can be detrimental. Like men, you can have a bad day at the office, everything going wrong in your career, and um and then you can go out to dinner with your wife and kids and be like, well, I'm gonna have a great dinner. I'm just gonna leave that at the office. Women, on the other hand, uh, according to this book, not according to me, it's somebody else. So they're more like spaghetti, where it's just it's like all together. So if it's a bad day at the office or a bad day with the kids for the woman, it's gonna be a bad night at dinner as well. All right, because it's just all linked up there together and just shows you again, just the difference between men and women. But if you're here today as a man and you are compartmentalizing your life, that's a very slippery slope to be on. If if you are like, well, I'm gonna be one day, one person today, and when I get to the office tomorrow, I'll be somebody entirely different. And then, you know, Friday when I go out the business trip, be somebody different. But then I'll come back on Sunday and I'll be another person. And you just got like squares of your life, and that's very, very, very detrimental to your life in more ways than you know. Okay. So hope you'll pick up one of those books. Hope that's helpful. Here's here's the fifth one, and we'll be done. Jesus calls Satan the father of lies. The father of lies. If you've been a Christian for a while or been around the Bible, uh you've heard Satan be described as this. But if I were to pull you up in here and give you a microphone and say, hey, describe to the congregation today what it means that Satan is the father of lies. Probably most of us in the room would struggle to really understand and describe and define what that actually means. Here's what it means: it means that Satan is the originator of lies and he started deception. Think about that on your resume. The originator of lies and the starter of deception. A couple months ago, Meredith and I went to England with our first seminary class as it's like the final capstone trip of their uh experience. And we did a Christian heritage tour through London and we went to Oxford and did the C. S. Lewis stuff. And then we ended up in Cambridge, and you get to walk around all the different colleges of Cambridge. So there's a bunch of colleges under the umbrella of Cambridge University. And um you get to this famous spot that even there's debate on if this is really real or if it's kind of like legend. But Isaac Newton, remember that guy from from uh school days? It's like at this tree, Isaac Newton Newton was sitting under this tree and an apple fell. And he thought to himself, why did the apple fall down instead of fall up? And from that came the whole idea of gravity. Okay. So so from that moment, he is he is known as the father of classical physics. Okay, all this remember physics class and gravity, all that stuff. If you go like throughout history, you can think of other people like this. Uh, you ever heard of Socrates, the father of Western philosophy? How about Karl Marx, the father of Marxism? If you go more like church history, Christian history, you've got Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, awesome thing. Uh you've got William Carey, the father of the modern missions movement, one of the first missionaries that was sent out. And so you've got all these people throughout history who've been the father of something, the originator of something, the starter of something. And then Jesus says, and here's the main originator and starter of the worst thing you can imagine. This is Satan, the father of lies. So I want to wrap up like this. You may be sitting there and you're asking a question in your mind, and it's a legitimate question you should be asking. So, Nick, how do I know if I'm believing a lie from Satan? Because again, when you're just in your own mind, you sometimes don't know how to discern what's truth, what's lie, what's from God, what's from Satan. So, how do I know if I'm believing a lie from Satan? I'm gonna give you a longer statement. You can take a picture of it on the screen, or we'll leave it up there long enough for you to uh write it down. Here's what it is You know you're believing a lie when you have believed something that is contrary to scripture, which has then produced in you the opposite of the fruit of the spirit. I'll go back through that slowly. You know you're believing a lie when you have believed something that is contrary to scripture. That's the first aspect, which has then produced in you the opposite of the fruit of the spirit. So again, aspect number one, you have believed something that is unbiblical. You have believed something contrary to the word of God. So what is that in your life right now? Second aspect, which that belief has then caused a negative effect in my life. It's produced in me harmful things, it's produced the opposite of the fruit of the spirit. If you're newer to the Bible, you say, well, Nick, what is the fruit of the spirit? The fruit of the spirit is uh Galatians 5. When you come to faith in Christ, God the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of you. It's called the indwelling nature of the Holy Spirit. And when you are walking in obedience to Jesus, when you are yielding your life to Jesus, here's what you'll find: you are filled with the Holy Spirit, like stirs up the Holy Spirit's movement in your life. And and what is the result of that? What is the overflow of your life in those moments? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Anyone want to be that kind of person? Anyone want to be squeezed in life and that stuff comes out? On the flip side of that, what is the fruit of believing a lie? Think about the opposite. Fear. Worry, impatience, unkindness, badness, if that's a word, opposite of goodness, harshness, no self-control. So here's two questions I want you to answer. Okay? Question number one is this What lies am I believing? If you know them right now as you're taking notes, I want you to write it down on the paper. I am believing that God has forgotten me. I am believing that God does not see where my kids are at right now. I am believing a lie that you fill in the blank. Do you resonate with any of the lies that I mentioned from those two books? Or maybe there's something we've not even talked about, but God has just like pricked your heart and said, This is the lie that you're believing right now in your life. Second question is this what fruit is this producing in my life? What fruit is this producing? Uh I'm no rapper. Can you tell? Um can I give you can I give you a rhyme? It's not a great rhyme, it's a bad rhyme, but it's a rhyme. Okay? Here's what it is. If you don't like the fruit, look at the root. Okay? If you don't like the fruit of your life, look at the root. So if you're like, man, Nick, I man, I just I just don't like the person I've become. I don't like what's coming out of me right now. I'm getting squeezed in life, and man, I'm so I'm so harsh with my family, and I've got no self-control in this area of my life. And if you're like, I I don't want to be this type of person, look at the root. I would guarantee you, almost every time, if you look at the root, it's because you have believed a lie. You believed a lie. So so how do you need to respond to the Lord today? You know, we bit we build time into the service as a response time to the Lord. We open up the altars, we have our staff up here to pray for you. Um here's why we do that within the service. We could say, all right, you guys go obey the Lord. Amen. But man, as soon as you get to the lobby, it's it's like a free-for-all, right? You think, well, I gotta go to the bathroom, I need some coffee. Where are we going for lunch? Oh, hey, you see some friend over here. And and like what God just did in your heart right there is almost immediately just wiped away. So, so we end the service every week with, hey, we're gonna respond to the Lord together. Now, for some of you, response means nothing about what's gonna happen in this room. Obedience to Jesus means something this week at your office, this week with your family, this week with a friendship. Okay? Others of you, you have things going on in your life that just need to be laid before the Lord. And that's why we open up the altar. It was just a time to just lay some things before the Lord. So maybe you're here and you're you're like, Nick, without a shadow of a doubt, I am believing a lie. I know it, it's harming me. I need to get right with the Lord. I'm just gonna invite you to come to the altar. Just say, Lord, I don't want to be where I am. I'm asking you to help me get out of it. Maybe you're here today and you know, that's gone to such an extent there's brokenness in your life. Maybe it's a relationship that's, you know, been uh hurt, or maybe a career has suffered, and you need God to just step in and heal some broken things. I'm just gonna ask you to come. Maybe you're here today, and that whole idea of thoughts that come in your mind, you know, like easily, I need God to renew my mind. I need to learn to take hold of certain things and to throw them out. I'm just gonna ask you to come. Uh, no doubt there's many of you in this room who are just confused. And you're like, I don't know if this is of God or or of the enemy. And I need somebody to just talk through this with me. That's why we're here. Our staff's gonna line up in just a second. You come to one of them and we'll we'll uh we'll talk with you, we'll pray with you, we'll consult with you, whatever you want, okay? Maybe you're here today and you've believed the biggest lie of them all that you can live your life without God. You've thought to yourself, you know, this is not that big of a deal, sin's not really a problem. I want to encourage you. Um, today is the day to get right with God. Some of you, for the very first time, you've realized your need for Christ. And uh here's the great thing God will forgive you of any sin that you've ever committed. You say, Nick, you have no idea what I've done. You're right. I just know what he did. And because of what he did, doesn't matter what you've done, you can be forgiven of your sin. I want us to bow our head and close our eyes all over this room. Our staff's gonna make their way to the front right now. Our worship team's gonna come up on stage. We're gonna sing just part of a final song, not even a full song. And I want to encourage you in this moment, if God's speaking to you, respond. Whatever that looks like. If you need prayer from one of our staff, you want to talk with one of our staff, you come on. If uh if you're at a point where you know you need to receive Christ, you come on to one of our staff. All you gotta say is this I need I need to meet Jesus. And they'll walk through that with you. We have two of our pastors by the stairs as well. If you're in the balcony area, if you're here today and you just need to get on your knees before the Lord, you just need to do business with God, you need to lay some things at the altar, you need to got you need to ask God to do some things that only He can do. I'm just gonna encourage you, this is the time. Before you leave this place and get busy with life, let's respond in obedience to the Lord. Lord, it is our desire that you would move in our lives in a special way right now. Lord, we just say yes, put our yes on the table, whatever that looks like. And it's in the name of Jesus that we pray.

unknown 38:43

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

If you have questions about what you have heard or would like more information about your relationship with Jesus, please email us at info at crosschurch.com or visit our website at crosschurch.com. At Crosschurch, our mission is to reach Northwest Arkansas, America, and the world for Jesus Christ.