As the Ten Commandments draw to a close, they conclude in a unique way: with a commandment addressing our internal thoughts and motivations...
Transcription (automatically-generated):
In our study through the Book of Exodus, we have been camped out of the Ten Commandments in Chapter 20 for the last couple of months. And today we're going to wrap things up with the 10th and final commandment in Exodus 20:17. The Lord gives Israel and us this command: "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's." "Covet" is not really a word that we use in our everyday vocabulary.
The dictionary explains it as feeling or showing a very strong desire for something that you do not have, and especially for something that belongs to someone else. This 10th commandment refers specifically to the act of coveting something that belongs to someone else, something that belongs to your neighbor, as the Lord puts it. And the first thing I want us to notice about this commandment is that it specifically addresses an internal desire. Did you notice that this commandment is not about an action?
It goes upstream to the condition of the heart that leads to sinful actions, specifically breaking the other nine commandments. And that's fascinating because you can't regulate a person's internal thoughts and motives. You can't pass laws to enforce this commandment because we can't see and do each other's hearts. So, what does that mean? What do we take from that? I think it's evidence that the Ten Commandments are first and foremost, not about our accountability to each other. They are about our accountability to God.
The one who can perceive our internal thoughts and motives. So make a note of this. It's the first fill in on your outline. The internal nature of the 10th commandment reveals our ultimate accountability to God. The internal nature of the Tenth Commandment reveals that ultimately the Ten Commandments are about our accountability to God. You know, some historians will say stuff like, oh, you know, the Ten Commandments were really just moral laws based on pre-existing laws from other cultures in the Middle East, like the Code of Hammurabi written down to form the framework of a new Hebrew society.
In other words, they're just borrowed ideas from other ancient Near Eastern cultures put together into some sort of moral code so that Hebrew society could have a foundation. But this tenth commandment doesn't fit that description because unlike all of those other ancient moral codes, this 10th commandment deals not with an action, but with intent. The internal emotions, motivations and thoughts of a person.
When Jesus came to the Earth as a man, he taught that from God's perspective, all of the Ten Commandments applied not only to our actions, but also to our intentions. And this 10th commandment was clearly intended to tip us off to that reality all the way back in the ancient days of Exodus, Chapter 20.
And so those who claim that the Ten Commandments were borrowed from other cultures or were just civil laws ascribed to an invented deity, have a conundrum with this tenth commandment because it can not be externally observed or regulated. It may lead to external actions, but internal covetousness cannot in and of itself be observed. The Ten Commandments are simply unlike anything that existed in the ancient Near Eastern world or has ever existed anywhere since.
Materialism is to covetousness as gas is to a fire. Advertising is a multi-billion-dollar industry that makes money by stirring up covetousness in our hearts. It's an industry that makes the same promises over and over again in different ways. And the promises are always along the lines of You'll be happier if you have this, you'll matter more. If you have this, you'll have more friends. If you have this, people will respect you more. If you have this. You'll be more attractive if you have this.
You'll attract the person you're looking for. If you have this. The promise of covetousness is always, "If you had this, THEN your life would be complete. THEN you'd be happy. You'd be at peace. You'd find love. You'd have purpose." Write this down: Covetousness falsely promises fulfillment through the acquisition of something or someone. I'll say it again: Covetousness falsely promises fulfillment through the acquisition of something or someone. "If you get this, you'll be fulfilled." That's the false promise of covetousness.
And yet those things don't ever really bring us any satisfaction. In fact, they usually don't even make us happy. In and of themselves. Because the moment we get something, we want something else. Don't we? The problem with coveting is that it's like lust when we feed it. It doesn't get satisfied. It just creates a greater appetite in us. We just want more. We get one house and we think, well, now that we're in we're in this kind of home now.
This kind of home is within striking range and we can start working toward that.
The truth is that if I feed my greed, I'll always be a need. I'll always be a need. It'll never be enough.
Now this one's gonna hurt. So hold on. Most of the time, we're not happy with the things we have. We're happy with the things we have that our neighbor doesn't have. I say that one again to most of the time, we're not happy with the things we have, we happy with the things we have that our neighbor doesn't have.
And if that didn't make you say ouch, that you're not paying attention if you're a parent. One of your great frustrations is likely how quickly children lose interest in their toys.
But we all know that there's a magical way to get them to crave that toy again more than anything in the world. All you have to do is have another kid play with that toy in front of them. Because suddenly it's, "Mommy! Saddy! That's... that... that's my toy! I want to play with it!" Even though they haven't touched it for nine months, right? Our natural self is not happy with the things we have, it's happy with the things we have that our neighbor doesn't have.
And so, we go round and round on the same ride, repeating the same pattern over and over again into adulthood, often until the day we die. Never clueing in to what's right in front of us. To the obvious thought. Hey, hey, wait a minute. None of those other things that I thought would make me happy. Did. Maybe stuff, maybe things, and having people is not really the path to true fulfillment. We just repeat the same empty cycle over and over again.
Never acknowledging the obvious. That stuff. And covetousness never leads to real fulfillment. One of the hardest things to be honest with ourselves about is, is why we want things. We're not very good at being honest with ourselves about that. Most adults will never get to the place where they're honest enough with themselves and know themselves well enough to be able to recognize when their behavior is being driven by insecurity, a need for affirmation, or a desire for status.
This commandment is a call to do just that. It's God saying I wouldn't be talking about this if it wasn't a really, really big deal and a danger to everybody. Coveting will take over your life. If you don't recognize it and intentionally live against its every beck and call. As parents, we need to be very careful that we don't unintentionally nurture coveting in our children. We need to help our children understand why they want things, and we need to help steer them away from being driven by coveting.
Here's what I mean, because this is what we'll do with our kids sometimes. There's another kid playing with a toy, and we'll say, well, you can play with that toy later.
They're playing with it. Now, what we're really saying is, well, you can cover it, but just make sure you add patients to your cover. Still not a virtue. It's still coveting. Or we'll tell them what we'll I'll go and buy you one of those toys. What we're saying is, "Oh, you're right to covet. And to prove that you're right to, I'm going to give in to your coveting." Or we'll say, "Why don't you play with this toy?"
It's even better what we're saying is, oh, you can satisfy your covetousness by getting something even better than that other kid has. The problem is those core beliefs they've been taught are going to manifest when they get older and get their first credit card. It's going to affect their career, their ambitions, their motivations. It's going to affect what they devote their life to, their life's pursuit. We have to be intentional about raising our children to be heavenly-minded, eternally-minded rather than earthly-minded. Good parenting says, "Hey, buddy... Hey, sweetheart, I know you'd really like to play with that toy. But right now, they're playing with it and they're enjoying it. So, let's be happy for them. Let's find joy in their joy. And then you go find something that you already have that you can be grateful for because you're blessed."
And I know you're thinking, "Jeff, you're out of your mind if you think that's going to work with my kids." And I'll just tell you what my wife says to me when I get frustrated and I say, "How many times am I going to have to tell my kid this?!" And she'll always say, "Only about a thousand. Only about a thousand." It's like anything else in parenting. You've got to repeat it over and over and over again. But we've got to be real careful about not giving in to the coveting that exists in our children's hearts that is naturally there. We've gotta teach them how to be happy for other people. You know, I don't know how your children are, but most of the time, my children are never more passionate about justice than when they suspect that one of their siblings may have been given a little bit more than they were.
They turn into superheroes if they think that their brother may have been given one more minute of video game time than them. This is an outrage. Justice is at stake. Equality must be defended. You know, fairness is good. Fairness is a good thing. But so is learning how to be happy for someone else. When they get something that you didn't. And far too many adults have never learned how to be genuinely happy for someone else.
They haven't recognized how much they're driven by coveting and they haven't learned the secret of happiness, which is contentment. In Philippians for the apostle, Paul writes about the secret to happiness. The solution to coveting and he says this. It's on your outlines. I have learned in whatever state I am to be content. I know how to live humbly. And I know how to live in prosperity everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Paul says the secret to contentment is allowing Jesus to meet all of your needs and trusting that the way he meets those needs is what is best for you. Sometimes that means poverty. Sometimes that means prosperity. In either case, trust the Lord and find your peace in him. When we don't learn that lesson, when we don't teach it to our children, we reach adulthood and suddenly the issue is not a toy car anymore.
It's a real car. Or a real woman or a real man. You see, our coveting just grows up with us. But make no mistake about it, we simply go on being driven by the same childish impulses that drove us all those years ago.
The stakes just get higher. The toys become more expensive. Make a note of this. I need to recognize my susceptibility to coveting and replace it with contentment that comes from trusting the Lord to determine what's best for me. The solution is contentment, trusting the Lord to determine what's best for me. As always, Jesus has some priceless insights for us on the topic at hand in Luke 12, beginning in verse 13. We read this then one from the crowd said to him, Teacher.
Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. So just to bring you up to speed, at this point in his ministry, Jesus has been preaching and teaching about the kingdom of God with power and authority and insight like nobody's ever heard before. He's claimed to come directly from heaven and that Veve Father in heaven is his literal father and to back up all of these incredible claims. Jesus is performing miracles of a magnitude and volume that nobody has ever seen or even ever heard of before.
And now you have his attention, your face to face with Jesus.
Obviously, you're going to ask the question or raise the issue that you think is the most important thing you could talk about with Jesus.
And for this guy, that issue is Jesus. My father has just died and left everything to my older brother. Brother, tell him that the right thing to do is to divide it with me. Not a question about eternal life. Not a question about ultimate reality or truth, not a question about who Jesus really is. Rather, he tells Jesus what to do. Fix my problem. Jesus, get me my money. You see, that's what coveting does to us.
It causes us to miss what's going on in our lives right in front of our faces. It causes us to miss the blessings that God has already given us, because all we can focus on is the thing we don't have that we think we should have. The tragedy, of course, is that everything this man was looking for. Was right in front of him, literally. Jesus, the way, the truth and the life. Was right in front of him.
And he missed it. He missed it because he was consumed with covering.
No wonder Jesus response was basically, are you kidding me right now? This is what Jesus said. But he said to him, Man, who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you. And then Jesus turns to his disciples and he reveals the problem at the root of this man's blindness. And he said to them, take heed and beware of covetousness. Please. Please, church, hear these words of Jesus. For one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.
Jesus, the one who created you, who knows you better than you know yourself. Is not giving you an opinion. He's telling you the truth when he says the meaning of life is not how much stuff you can accumulate. Our culture says the exact opposite. Consumerism says you are what you wear. You are what you drive. You are the kind of phone that you have.
What determines how much you matter and what your value is, is the stuff you have.
But Jesus says I determine your value. Your worth comes from how much I love you. And I have loved you with my body and with my blood. I have loved you with my very life. Do you realize that the value of anything? Is determined by what someone is willing to pay for it. And what did Jesus pay for you? What did you cost him? That is your value. That is your value. One's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.
When I covered something for whatever reason. What I'm really expressing is the belief that Jesus is not enough. Would you write that down? I'm expressing the belief that Jesus is not enough. Lord, I know your words says that you supply all of my needs, that you know my needs before I even ask for them and that you know me better than I know myself. So you know how to give me what's truly good for me. But despite all that, I think you're wrong.
I think this is what I need. This is what I deserve right now. Your judgment, God, of what I need is wrong or it's I know that your word promises joy and peace and fulfillment that comes from your Holy Spirit and has nothing to do with what I do or don't have. But that's not enough for me. However, if I had this thing, it would be enough. Then I'd be happy. However I phrase it, however I frame it.
The bottom line is that covetousness is me saying to God, you're not enough for me. I also need this thing. You see, that's how Satan works in the life of believers. He gets us to take the first step toward coveting by deceiving us into believing the lie that what we need to be satisfied in life is Jesus and fill in the blank.
Jesus. And if you believe that, you'll be happy when you have Jesus. And something else. Let me tell you the truth. You are coveting whatever gets filled in that blank space. Whatever comes after the word and you're covering it. Jesus was asked Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law. Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
You ever realize that that is one heck of a command from the Lord to love him with everything we have and above everything, and God only asks us to do that for one reason? Because he is enough. Because if we love him with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind, we will have everything we need and we will be more blessed than we would be loving anything else. That's why God calls us to do that. The liar says God's not enough.
The liar says, what you really need to be happy is Jesus. And but the Lord says, no, love me with everything you have, because I'm everything that you need to be happy, to be content, to be fulfilled. And if you love me with everything you have, you will be more satisfied than you will be loving anything else. God didn't give us the Ninth Commandment for his good. He gave it for our good as a loving father.
He doesn't want us to waste our lives pursuing things he knows are empty and will not satisfy us. He doesn't want to see that happen to us. Just ask the wealthiest man who ever lived, King Solomon, who summed up his lifelong pursuit of pleasure and riches and fame by saying this when he had exhausted everything the world had to offer.
This was his summary statement of his findings. Vanity of Vanities. All is vanity. Or as the new living translation puts it, everything is meaningless. Completely meaningless. If you don't believe him, John Rockefeller said the same thing in his own way when he was one of the richest men on the planet. He was asked how much money is enough for a man? With a wry smile, he replied. Just a little more, just a little more.
Covering creates an appetite that will never be satisfied, because if you believe what the world tells you, there will always be something greater to shoot for. There will always be someone who has more. There will always be someone undeserving who has what you believe you should have. And perhaps most cruel of all, even if you reach the pinnacle and you get it all, you have it all. You will discover, not fulfillment. But even deeper emptiness and meaninglessness as the worthlessness of your life's pursuits are laid bare.
And like Solomon, you too will cry out vanity of vanities. All is vanity. Mark Twain answered the question, what is civilization? By saying this, a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities, a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities. That's what our civilization is. Your heavenly father loves you. And he's good. And so he desires to spare us from that pain and vanity. So he invites us to give our entire heart and soul and mind and life to loving and pursuing the only thing that truly satisfies and never disappoints himself.
He's a good God, and he doesn't want you and I to waste our lives on the meaningless. Would you write this down if I allow God's word to define success? I will be satisfied if I allow the world to define success. I will covet and never be satisfied. Now, I want to pause here and put Jesus in his rightful place in our minds as we read this next test. This is not a really, really smart man offering commentary on the meaning of life.
This is not a philosopher pondering the purpose of true wealth. This is not a life coach offering tips on how to manage your finances.
This is God in the flesh, the one who stepped into space and time but has existed for eternity outside of it.
This is the son of God who has conversed with his Heavenly Father about how the world will end one day, about what will take place when every person is judged before the throne of God.
This is the only one who has ever set foot on the earth who actually knows how this thing called Earth and the human race and Eternity are going to play out.
The only one and that one that Jesus is telling us, his disciples, this is what really matters in life and what will matter for eternity. And I hope that, as I've shared, that we're we're lifting Jesus up to the highest place of honor in our minds and our hearts and that we've gotten our hearts and souls into a pasture before the word of God, where we're saying, oh, I'm listening, Lord, I'm going to hang on every word that you say next because you're about to tell me what matters most in life and in eternity.
And so, with that posture taken, what Jesus is saying, the first thing he wants us to know is this. Jesus says, take heed and beware of covetousness for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. Then he spoke a parable to them, saying the ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself saying, What shall I do since I have no room to store my crops? So, we said, I will do this.
I will pull down my barns and build greater. And there I will store all my crops and my goods.
And I will say to my soul, soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink and be merry. But God said to them, for this night, your soul will be required of you. Then whose will those things be which you have provided? So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. This man who says, I got so much stuff, I don't know what to do with it.
I know I'll tear down my current house and storage sheds and build a bigger house and a bigger garage and a bigger storage shed for all my stuff.
But none of his wealth could give him control over the fact that he was going to die that night. Find himself standing before God, where all his wealth was worthless. He couldn't take it with him. And let me tell you, it sure doesn't impress God. The folly of covering the foolishness of living a life driven by covetousness will be obvious to all of us. One second after our earthly life ends in the blink of an eye. All that stuff will be worthless.
And those who have lived their life under the control of covetousness will cry out. I have wasted my life. I've wasted my life. Would you write this down? The greatest remedy for coveting is learning the character of our heavenly father. The greatest remedy for coveting is learning the character of our Heavenly Father. The more you know, when the moral trust him and the more you trust him, the more accessible contentment becomes.
I've said before that as we grow in maturity in the Lord, two things become more and more glaringly apparent. The first is the depths of my depravity. And the second is the grand of God's grace. The longer you live as a Christian, the deeper you grow in your relationship with the Lord, it becomes shockingly obvious the depths of your own depravity, but also, oh, the grand here and the greatness of God's grace. You know, our church exists in a very unusual situation.
We reach thousands of people every month who watch our videos and listen to the messages online.
And we have a few dozen adults in our live local church. And for the first few years, I thought, God, why? Why? And then one day it really hit me. It really hit me. The penny dropped that my heavenly father knows me better than I know myself. And he knows what's best for me. You see, here's the hard truth. I don't know what would happen if this church just exploded overnight locally or if it had exploded overnight five years ago.
Maybe I'd get a massive ego and I just turn into a giant jerk and then fall in love with the money. I mean, I don't think I would. I hope I wouldn't. But again, I also know that I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner, and I would never, never put it past me to sin. And here's what I do know. God is always doing good in my life. He's always doing what is best for me.
And here's where the understanding really changes for us. That means there's a reason for what is happening in my life right now. There's also a reason for what is not happening in my life right now. And as I've gotten to know my heavenly father in a greater and deeper way, I found it easier and easier to trust him because he is wonderful. He is good. And I know I know that he loves me. I know he's doing what's best for me.
And he loves you, too. And you can trust him to. There is a reason for what is happening in your life. And there's a reason for what is not happening in your life. And I think sometimes we really wouldn't want to know what the reason is for some of the things that aren't happening in our life yet. It might be hard to hear, hey, hey, maybe you're actually still single because you're not ready. And maybe if you got married right now, you'd be divorced within three years.
None of us wants to think that. But what if that's true? And the best thing God can do for you is say, "We're going to grow those parts of you that would destroy a relationship so that when you get into it, it's going to be a blessing. You're going to prosper because I'm going to do what's best for you." Maybe God is saying, "There's some things you've got to learn before I can answer this prayer because I'm going to do what's best for you."
Coveting is the result of God saying, "This is what I want for you. This is what is best for you." and me saying, "Well, that's not what I want for me." It's rejecting the idea that God knows what's best for me. It's me telling God to get off the throne in my life because I know what's best for me. Coveting is what drove the sin of Lucifer and heaven. He coveted God's throne and the position of God Almighty. Coveting is what drove Eve to eat the apple and eat. And she coveted being her own God, becoming her own God.
In James 4 it says, "Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure, that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures." Our Heavenly Father always does what's best for us. And so, if we're being motivated by covetousness, if we're asking for something because we're coveting, God could see in our hearts what's driving that request. Would he be a good father if he gave it to us?
Of course not. You see, we generally don't want to consider the possibility that perhaps some of our prayer requests aren't being answered because our motivations aren't right.
I've also shared before that I really believe that God would make all of us billionaires if he could. I really believe that. But he can't because he does what's best for us. And almost all of us, unfortunately, would stop trusting God and put our faith in our money if we became billionaires overnight. And that wouldn't be good for us because it would cause us to waste our lives and enter eternity as paupers rather than live for things that will benefit us for eternity.
This is why the writer of Proverbs humbly says this Remove falsehood and lies far from me.
Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food allotted to me lest I be full and deny you and say, who is the Lord?
Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God, the wise, humble Christian says, Lord, you decide what's best for me. Give me what is best for me. That will keep me humble before you serving you and trusting you. That's the prayer of a righteous, humble heart, Lord. You decide what's best for me so that I make wise choices and don't waste my life in Matthew six. Jesus spoke about choosing where to place your future hope and trust.
He told us not to hope in the things of the world, not to cover the things of the world, but to find contentment in knowing that our Heavenly Father cares about us and will provide what is best for us. This is what Jesus says in Matthew six, verse 24.
No one can serve two masters for either. He will hate the one and love the other. Or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon. Mammon is basically worldly wealth. So Jesus says you cannot serve God and worldly wealth at the same time. Therefore, I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body.
What you will put on is not life more than food and the body more than clothing. Look at the birds of the air. For they neither so nor read nor gather in the barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them, are you not, of more value than they? Which of you, by worrying, can add one Cuba to a stature. So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.
They neither toil nor spin. And yet I say to you that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not a raid like one of these.
Now, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you? Oh, you have little faith. Therefore, do not worry saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? For after all these things, the Gentiles see Jesus as saying, when you worry about that stuff, you're acting like those who don't believe in God. You're acting like God doesn't exist.
You're acting as though you don't have a heavenly father who takes care of you.
For your heavenly father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you. I love that Jesus says, "Instead of worrying about all those things. Seek God. Live for God. And He'll take care of all those things for you." What's the solution for coveting? It's gratitude. It's contentment. It's trust in the character of the father and his generosity. Why generosity?
Because, hey, when we give, we're being like God, we're being more like that, which we were created to be. And when we're generous, we're responding to what Jesus said, which is it's more blessed to give than to receive. And the blessing of generosity is that generosity comes from the belief that I don't have to hoard because I have a father who will provide for my needs. I don't have to have the best of everything because my value comes from God and not from my stuff.
That's why one of the solutions to covering is generosity. It's giving it away, saying, hey, I'm not defined by what I have. So if God wants me to give it away, that's no problem. I don't have to hoard. I've got a father who provides for me and my identity is found in him, not in my stuff. Here in the Final Commandment, I'm going to wrap up with this. We're prompted to ask the logical question.
But how do I deal with my internal sinful desires? How do I control them? The answer, I can't. I need new desires. And those are only available through God who gives me a new spirit, his spirit that brings with it new godly life giving desires.
My old spirit, my old nature cannot be rehabilitated. It is hopeless. It is irreparable. It is death. That's why the language that Jesus used is that we need to be born again. We don't need to be rehabilitated. We need to be born again. And thank God through Jesus. We can be. I've shared this before, but I think it bears repeating the concept of bankruptcy is that a person lays out their financial situation to the court with total transparency and acknowledges the reality that they are in a situation they cannot repair themselves.
They have incurred debts that they cannot repay. Bankruptcy is a remedy for a hopeless situation. But in order to receive the remedy, you have to acknowledge the hopelessness of your situation. You and I have incurred a moral debt, a sin debt to God that we cannot repay. Our situation is hopeless. But praise God, there's a remedy available. And his name is Jesus. He stepped up and took our place. He took on all of our debt and received the punishment for it.
That should have gone to us. And in so doing, he canceled our debt, freeing us from it completely. But in order to receive that forgiveness, we have to acknowledge the debt. We have to acknowledge our hopeless situation. And that is why the Ten Commandments were given to mankind. They reveal God's perfect standard of holiness, his perfect standard of moral goodness and the law.
The Ten Commandments serve as a mirror to show us our own sinfulness, to show us the truth that we've all fallen hopelessly short of God's standards.
We've all incurred a sin debt we cannot repay. The apostle Paul said it like this. The law was our tutor to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. This is why we love Jesus so much. He saved us. He forgave us. He canceled our debt when as he died on the cross. He cried out in Greek to tell us stye meaning. Paid in full. Paid in full. Your debt and mine was paid by Jesus.
But in order to receive that debt forgiveness, we have to acknowledge our sin debt. And if you've never done that, you're going to have a chance to do that in just a moment. And if you have done that already, then make sure that you use this coming time of worship as an opportunity to pray. Thank God. Take communion and rejoice over the fact that your sins are forgiven. Your debt has been paid in full. Would you buy your head?
Close your eyes. Pray with me.
Father. You're a good and loving father, and we confess that. You know what is best for us? And you want what is best for us and you do what is best for us. So, Father, help us to want the same things for ourselves that you want for us. Because your heart for us is what is best. Help us to live in agreement with you. Help us to not fight against you when you're only doing what is best for us.
You're a perfect father. And so we ask that you would just forgive us for the times when we've resisted you. When you've only been acting in love for us. Father, I pray for those who are struggling right now to trust you. Father, I pray not just for a change in behavior, Lord, but for the thing that causes a change in behavior.
Father, I pray for an encounter with your goodness, with your character. Father, I pray for anyone struggling with trust right now that they would have an encounter with you. With your love, with your heart and with your character. That would make trust easy, because the more we get to know you, the more of you we see, the easier trust becomes because you are simply wonderful. You're just wonderful, Lord, so reveal yourself to us.
God. If you've never given your life to Jesus, if you've never asked him. To take that sin debt of yours, if you've never acknowledged that sin debt, but you want to experience the forgiveness of God. You want to be born again. You can choose to do that right now by just saying, Lord, would you come into my life?
I want you to be my God. I want you to forgive me of my sins. And I'm ready to get off the throne of my life and have you step onto it. I'm ready to have you lead my life. If you want to make that decision right now. I'm going to pray for you in just a moment. And I want to ask you to also go to our Web site, go to my new hope that seei slash gospel, watch the gospel video there, learn more about what God has done for you and fill out the form.
Let us know you've done that so that you don't slip through the cracks so that we can follow up with you and get you going in your new relationship with Jesus. It'll be the best decision you ever made. If you've just done that, let me pray for you. Father, I thank you for anyone who's just given their life to you right now. Father, I thank you that you are moving in them, that, Jesus, you are doing a good work already.
Right now.
You're bringing healing and wholeness into their life. And father, they are beginning a completely new trajectory in their life toward wholeness, toward fulfillment, toward joy, toward peace.
Father, I thank you that you have good things in store for them. And Father, I pray that even right now, they would be overwhelmed by your great and unfailing love for them, that they would already begin to experience your peace in a radical, tangible way. We love you, Jesus. A man.