Essentials | Week 2

happened to come to church and he's like, Dude, I forgot about that. That embarrassing. I'm like, Thanks, dude. Good to see you. And as I think about that story, if I only looked ahead a little bit, if I only glanced a little bit further,

I would've made a different decision with what I ate that day. If I only decided to pay attention at what was coming, I would've made a different decision. This is what we're gonna talk about in our time together is I wanna tell you all of the information about who Jesus is so you and I can make an informed decision.

I don't want you to stand before a risen savior one day and say, I didn't know that's who you claimed to be. My job as a communicator is to make sure you have all the information and then you get to make a decision of what you're gonna do with Jesus of Nazareth.

If you're taking notes, here's here's the big idea. Here's the thing that we're gonna spend the rest of our time unpacking. It's the claims of Jesus demand a response. The claims of Jesus demand a response.

In our culture, whether you're a a Christian or skeptic, everyone has an opinion of who Jesus was. Have you noticed this? There there's very few people who don't have strong opinions about Jesus, and that is because

Jesus has impacted our culture more than anyone in human history. Think about this for a second. Jesus is the most recognizable face in our world, but yet we have no idea what the guy looked like. He has painted more than any other human ever,

but yet the bible just tells us he was an average looking guy. But if I put up a picture, you'd go, that's Jesus. He's had that much impact on our culture. That every time you look at your phone, every time you look at a calendar, it's reminding you and I something that happened two thousand twenty six years ago.

That somehow the birth of this man still is on our calendar to this day which means you have the birthday you have because he had the birthday he had.

No one in human history has had more followers than the person of Jesus. And how about this one? In our culture today, Jesus is savior to some and then he's swear word to others. Now what I'm about to say

might offend some of you in the room, and just to be real honest, I might offend a lot of you by the time this message is over. And if I do offend you, man, I'd love to get an email from you. So just email me at billbushrockpointchurch dot com, and I will get back to you soon.

Whenever I hear someone use the name of Jesus in, like, a swear word capacity, I gotta be honest. There's a part of me that's like, Yeah. That's my dude. Like, how awesome do you have to be to be a swear word?

I've never heard someone walking down the street and they stubbed their toe and they're like, Ah, Benjamin Franklin, that hurt. Even people who don't believe he is who he claims to be understands that there's power in the name of Jesus. You can't deny his impact over our culture but what we're gonna look at

together is who is it that Jesus himself claimed to be? This man who has impacted our culture more than anyone in human history, what did he say about himself? Taking notes, we're gonna look at three things of who this person of Jesus is. The first one in your notes is this, Jesus is fully God.

Jesus is fully God. Now here's some objections that people have to this. People who say, no, he's just a good moral teacher. Here's the objection. I've actually asked this question before. I bet many of you have. If Jesus is fully God, why is there not a sentence in the bible that just says, therefore Jesus is God?

Like, come Matthew thirty eight seven doesn't say, and therefore Jesus said, I am God. And I've asked that question. Some of you have asked that question. But here's the problem with that thinking. It's a very western version of how language works.

We're talking about the you gotta understand the context that Jesus is in. Jesus was in a context of a place two thousand years ago in The Middle East. The idea that he just would stand up and say, I am the god of the old testament. Here's my ID is a very Americanized understanding of language.

Right? Here's an example of this. I'm gonna say a sentence and I want you to finish the sentence, okay? You need to say the last word of this sentence. Got it? Grandma got ran over by a reindeer. Yeah. That's a weird statement. If I said that statement two hundred years ago, people would look at me like I'm crazy.

Right? If I said that two hundred years ago, people would be like, I don't know what you're talking about. But because the context in which you and I are in, we all know we're talking about Christmas.

Hang on that for a second. This might be a little cheesy. It helps my brain. We'll get promised we're going somewhere with this. I want you to imagine that we live in a culture that worships Santa.

And Santa shows up and he's got the hat on and he goes down the chimneys and he makes presents appear out of nowhere. And Santa says, Hey guys. He goes to town hall and says, I'm gonna leave but I'm gonna come back.

And I'm gonna put on the hat and I'm gonna say, Ho, ho, ho. And I'm gonna go down the chimney. It's gonna be awesome. Anyone who claims to be me, you better test their Santa Clausness. And he leaves.

And hundreds of years pass by and people are waiting for Santa Claus to return. And one day, someone shows up in town hall and he takes Santa's hat and he puts it on. Now, he would not have to say a word for everyone to know who he's claiming to be.

Then he goes down a chimney, he goes to Rudolph and says, Hey, it's been a while. It's good to see you again. And people are like, Again? Then he puts the robe on. He puts the shoes on and he stands before everyone and says, Ho, ho, ho. Mic drop. No one would question

who he claimed to be even though he never said he's Santa Claus. And what I wanna show you in Jesus' culture, nobody questioned who he claimed to be. I'm gonna give you three examples of Jesus saying he's fully God in his culture. John chapter eight verse 58. We're gonna do a lot of bible today. Stay with me.

Jesus answered, I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I am. Last week, Jonesy talked about how God shows up in a burning bush and says and and Moses, well, what's your name? He said, my name is I am. Tell them that I am has sent you.

Now what what God is doing hang with me. This is gonna get a little nerdy for a second, but it's important to understand that what what Jesus is saying. The phrase I am, when you and I hear that, we think of it like a verb. Like, I'm going to the store.

But what what God did was he took that word, and he actually added something to the grammar of it to turn it from a verb to a proper noun. Hang with me. So instead of it just being, I'm going somewhere, what God did was said, I am is now a a a name.

It's not just a thing. It's like this. In our culture, the word page means a male servant to the king. This is why if most men named page are it's spelled p a g e.

But people like the name page, so they use it for a a female, but it doesn't make sense. Male servant to the king. What do they do? They spell it different. They spell it p a I g e. It is now a proper noun. This is what God did with the word I am. And this word was so sacred, people stopped even saying it out loud.

And then Jesus shows up and says, before Abraham was even born, the proper English proper grammar that he should have said was, and I was. But he said, I am. He's pointing back to the Jesus, the God of the Old Testament, and saying, we're the same thing. I am God. That's Jesus saying,

Ho, ho, ho. This is who I'm claiming to be. Next one. This is what Bronwyn led read. John fourteen one through seven, Do not let your hearts be troubled. This is Jesus talking, Trust in God. Look at this. And trust also in me. Meaning, if you trust God, you should trust me.

There's more than enough room in my father's home. Interesting. If this was not so, would I have told you that I'm going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you so that you'll always be with me where I am. And you know the way to where I'm going. I love this response. No, we don't.

No, we don't know, Lord. Thomas said, We have no idea where you're going. So how can we know the way? And Jesus answered him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the father except through me. Now look at verse seven. Verse seven is is Jesus putting on the Santa hat and putting on the Santa robe. Look at this. If you had really known me, you would have known who my father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. In

in our culture, when you hear father son, like, why did Jesus call God father and say he's the son of God? In our culture, we tend to think father is greater than son. In the context of Jesus two thousand years ago, this is important, the firstborn son and the father were considered equals.

So when he says, God is father, which by the way is the first person to ever call God father, he's saying God is relational, but he's also saying, Me and God are one. And he said, If you wanna know what God is like, you'll look at me. I'm the full image of God.

This reminds me, about a year and a half ago, I started taking my boys on a walk. I've got four boys. At the time, my wife was pregnant, so my boys have crazy energy. So I take them on a walk to try to get them ready for sleep. And the first time we went on this walk in our neighborhood, we came across a police car.

Now, my kids are like all boy. So when they saw this priest police car, they started freaking out. They come up to me and they're like, Dad, can we hug it? Like, That's kinda weird but there's no policemen, so go ahead. You can hug it. And my youngest, Orion, who's three, comes out to me and goes, Dad, picture.

I don't know, it's already weird. We're hugging it. You're gonna get a picture of his license. This might not end. Fine, you're cute. I give him my phone, my three year old. He's like really little for three so my phone looks ginormous in his hands. And he go he's getting ready and goes, Dad, get in the picture.

All right. All right. I go to my twins. One of them wants to get in the picture. The other one doesn't. So I'm standing next to the police car, he pulls up the phone. He takes a picture. He's like, Dad, let me see you. Let me see you. Let me see you. I'm like, Dude, it's 140 degrees out. Let's get home. So I grabbed my phone, put it in my pocket.

They're all excited to get home to see the picture of the police car. And we get in our house and he's like, Picture, picture, picture. So I grab my phone and I open up the photos and this is what I see.

Here's what we see in the old testament of your bible. We see little glimpses of who the father is. We see these little moments where we get a glimpse of God, and Jesus shows up and says, I am the full picture of who God is. If you wanna know what the father is like, look at me.

And every time Jesus would do this, people would freak out. I wanna show you an example. John chapter 10 verse 30. Jesus says, the the father and I are one. And once again, the people picked up stones to kill him. And Jesus said, at at my father's direction, have done many good works. Which one are you gonna stone me?

And they replied, we're stoning you not because of any good works but for blasphemy. You, a mere man, claim to be God. Everyone in Jesus' culture understood what he was claiming to be. Ultimately, the reason why they'd put Jesus on a cross and kill him was not because of what he did,

but because of who he claimed to claimed to be. So that that means you and I have to make a decision if we're gonna believe that he truly is God or not. C. S. Lewis is a very famous Christian author, and I love what he says about what we could do with God and what our culture does with God. I'm gonna read you this quote.

It says, I'm trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say when it comes to him. Him is Jesus. I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. This is the one thing we must not say. A man who is merely a man and said the sorts of things

Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level of a man who says he's a poached egg or else he would be the devil from hell. You must make a choice. Either this man was and is the son of God or else a madman or something worth.

You can shut him up as a fool. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon. Or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about him being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

C. S. Lewis is famous for saying, You can really only put Jesus in one of these three buckets. He's either a con man and a lunatic sorry, con man and a liar, meaning he knew he wasn't God, but he wanted to create this this false religion to get popularity and fame. You're allowed to have that claim.

He's either a con man and a liar or he's a crazy person and a lunatic where he truly believed he was God but just because he was he was crazy. Or he is the Christ and he is the Lord of lords. Those are the only options we have with Jesus. He can't simply just be a good moral teacher. He didn't leave that on the table.

And Jesus claimed to be fully God.

The other thing, we've taken notes, he claimed to be fully God, and the second thing we know about about Jesus is Jesus is a perfect human. Jesus is a perfect human. I'm gonna read you John one one verse five. As I read this, you're also gonna see some of the deity of Jesus show up. In the beginning,

the word, the word is capital that's talking about Jesus. In the beginning, the word already existed. The word was with God, and the word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him. Notice that. And nothing was created except through him.

The word gave life to everything that was created and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. And look at verse 14. So the word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and forgiveness, and we have seen his glory,

the glory of the father's one and only Son. It's an incredible statement here. It's this picture that the creator of everything stepped into creation, that the God who put everything into motion from last weekend with Pastor Jonesy chose to take on human flesh and step into his creation. And if that's true, that means he

created us. He gets to define what it means to be human, and he is the perfect human. If it's true that he created us, he gets to define what it means to be human. And this is where, just bluntly in our culture, there's a lot of pushback against Jesus because Jesus says he gets to define things like marriage, like forgiveness,

like success, like sex, like what your purpose is. Jesus gets to define these things, but you and I have a culture that says, Man, you can define it however you want. If you feel good about it, it's okay as long as you don't hurt people. Have you noticed this? Our culture says, Man, you just do you.

You be you. There's no ultimate truth. Like, you get to define what it means to be human. And this is where we have to be intellectually honest about Jesus. Jesus doesn't give us that opportunity. He says, No. I get to define what it means to be human.

I remember my first day of college, me and my roommate, we decided we wanted to throw, like, a barbecue for all of our friends because we're finally, like, grown ups and adults.

And he sends me to the grocery store to get all the condiments and to get, like, lettuce, tomato, ketchup, and all that. And I've never gone grocery shopping before 18.

Not great, but this is my first time going to grocery store and grocery shopping. And when I got in there, there's, like, 47 options of everything. And I'm like, I don't know which one to pick. So I'm just grabbing stuff. And I get back to the dorm, and he I'm pulling stuff out. I'm like, this is gonna be a fun day. And he looks and goes,

What is that? And I'm like, That's a tomato. And he says, No, it's not. That's a red bell pepper. I didn't know. And then he says, and what's that? And I'm like, lettuce? He goes, dude, that's a cabbage. What are you doing, man?

All of our guests who came to our house, they had an option to make. They could either not want to offend me and pretend like it's truly a tomato and lettuce and take a bite of the hamburger and go, It's great, Rocky. It's awesome. Or they could be loving enough to tell me, No, that's not what that is.

And we have a culture that says, just take a bite and it's awesome and you can define it however you want. But we have a God who says, no, I get to define humanity because I created it.

And we can't redefine what God has defined. And here, I work a lot with the next generation, a lot of younger people, and I wanna talk about two things in particular on this topic that I'm seeing and I'm saying this out of love. I'm not saying this out of anything, but I care for people. But I wanna talk about gender and and marriage for just a second.

And before I jump into these two topics, I wanna say something to everybody in the room before I say anything else. I'm gonna quote you a verse in Romans. It says, All have sinned and fallen short, the glory of God. I'm gonna say it again. All have sinned and fallen short, the glory of God.

Have you noticed that the church, big c church, usually likes to pick on sin that they don't struggle with, and they think sin that they don't struggle with is worse than? What the bible teaches is all of us are sinners. All of us are in need of a savior, and his name is Jesus.

Let's talk about gender and marriage for just a second. There there's a very real and biological issue called gender dysphoria. Hang tight with me. And what we know through studies, about zero point six percent of people in our culture struggle with this very real and biological issue.

What what what it is is people believe that they were born in the wrong body. And this is a very real thing. This is a very medical thing. And this is a real biological issue that people really struggle with. And what I wanna say, if that's you in the room and you've got this very real thing, man, I wanna say

I have so much compassion for you. I really do. I I can't imagine struggling with that at a deep level. And I want you to hear me, I am not against you. I'm really not against you. God loves you. He cares about you. However, what we're seeing with the younger generation is while that number has hovered about 0.6 for decades,

what we're seeing with people fifteen to twenty five is now three point three percent of them are now identifying as transgender, and we see this massive spike happening. And the question is, what's going on there? It's not hey. Hear me. It's not biology. It's ideology.

The reason why we're seeing this spike is not an increase in biology. It's ideology. And people, we we need to be compassionate for those who are hurting. That's like the Jesus thing. Jesus came for for those who are hurting, and we need to be a people who are compassionate

to people who are hurting. And part of being compassionate to people who are hurting is we point out opposing ideology that is hurting people. And what this book teaches is God

created and He gets to define. And this book says that you and I were created biologically male and biologically female. That that how is how God created us, and we don't get to define that. Let's talk about marriage for a second.

It's another thing I see a lot of in in our context. What this book teaches is that marriage is designed between biological male and biological female. That's what this book teaches. God designed marriage. He gets to tell us how it how it works. Now I wanna talk to the Christian in the room for a second. Those of you who say, man, I'm I'm all in on team Jesus. I'm all in on God's word. Let me talk to you for a second.

The church, historically speaking, not I'm not talking Rock Point. I'm talking Big C Church. We've done a horrible job talking about same sex marriage and and Christian values of marriage. This isn't something that I have just read about. This isn't I've experienced this on on a real personal level.

My my family is very conservative Christian, grew up in a very my dad was a pastor, the whole thing. And when I was about 15, one of my brothers came out as gay. In your context, that might not be a big deal. In my context, this was a huge deal.

We were at a Christian church, a Christian school, like our whole world and this was a big deal. And what I saw happen from afar and up close is Bible believing Christians using this book as a hammer and using this book to say things to him that, man, I would never say with the microphone on.

In the name of Jesus, dehumanizing him as a person. And I saw this, and I heard it. Remember one Christmas, we were my my family's super religious, like I said, and before we had opened presents, we had to sing hymns. And for a high scorer, that's like torture. Like, just get me to the presents. I don't wanna sing.

And this Christmas, we were getting ready to sing, and I saw my brother kinda tearing up, and he he walked out of the room, went outside because me and him were really close. I decided to join him. And we just sat outside for a bit. No one said anything.

And then he said something that I'll never forget. And if you're a bible believing Christian man, I want you to hear this in your soul today. He looked at me and said, Rocky, my issue is not what the church believes about same sex marriage. He said, My issue is how they believe it.

He said, I can look at this and understand where you guys are coming from, and I can even respect that. My issue is how that gets played out. We we need to be people who call truth, truth. Jesus did this all the time.

Jesus would look at things and say, no. I care for you. I love you. So I'm gonna tell you what's true. But we need to do it in a way that is loving and compassionate and out of grace, not to win arguments but to win people, man. Because that

is the truth, that you and I are made in the image of God, and we should represent him, and he gets to define what it means to be human. And I'm gonna talk to some of you in the room. I'm gonna throw a punch at you a little If you're sitting here and you're like, Man, I'm so glad you're talking about these things, but you're gonna walk out of here and sleep with your boyfriend you're not married to, come on.

Come on. We are all sinners. One's not better than we're all broken. If you're gonna sit here and be like, Oh, I'm so glad you you said that, but you're gonna walk out of here and look at pornography, come on. You're not better.

If you're gonna sit in here and say, I'm so glad you said that, and you're gonna walk out of here, and you're not gonna show love and mercy and compassion to your spouse? Come on. You're gonna walk out of here, and you're not gonna do what God says with your finances. You're gonna do it whatever you want. Come on.

God God gets say over all of it. If he really is God and he really is the perfect human, he gets to tell us what to do with it all. We we are here to manage what he's given us. The truth about me, though, and the truth about you is we're all broken. We are all broken in need of a savior.

It's why point three is so the greatest news you're gonna hear all year is Jesus is the only savior. Jesus is the only savior.

About a year ago, I was hanging out at home with my kids. Again, my wife was pregnant. And I'm pretty good husband because I told my wife, You can go take a nap. And I will You go take a nap, and I'm gonna babysit our kids. And she's like, Dude, it's not babysitting. They're your kids. So I agree

to disagree. I'll babysit. You go take a nap. And so she goes and sleeps and hanging out with the kids and I got one next to me. The two of them are in the room and I heard one of my kids, Orion, the one who took the picture, he screamed

in such a way that was like, Parents, you get this. It was the type of scream that's like something has gone horribly wrong, right? So I get up, I quickly go and what I saw was he was behind his door. The door was shut but all I could see was his thumb was sticking out from the corner of the door.

And I see he's trying to like yank it and I'm like I immediately like, no, no, You can't get out of this. Don't move. Stay there. So I try to unlock the door but his brothers who's in the room with him locked it because brothers are the worst. So I'm like, I gotta find a key somewhere. So I get a key and I I open the door and I look at his thumb and it's so bruised and it's bloody and it's tough and I'm like, I don't know what to do so I did what any good parent would do. I went to go get my wife

And I knock on the door and I'm like, Hey, don't freak out, but I gotta show you something. And I pulled the thumb up and he's screaming, I'm panicking. My wife looks at me and she's like, We have to take him to the hospital. Now, I'm a man, so don't judge me for a second.

When she said, We have to take him to the hospital, I just saw dollar bills go across my head. So so I looked to my wife and I said, I think he's okay.

Like, he's got another one? It's gonna be a cool Jesus story one day, like, God can use this. Like, he's gonna be fine. My wife looked at me, you know the look if you're married, and said, We're taking him to the hospital. And Rocky, I don't care the cost. You're gonna pay for it. And I said, yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am.

Jesus' central mission was seeing humanity stuck in sin with no way to get out on our own. And Jesus looked at humanity and said, I don't care the cost. I will pay for it.

Jesus is the only savior. We're gonna wrap up where we started. John fourteen:six, Jesus told them, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. John ten:nine, look at this, I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved. Jesus did not say, hey, there's many ways to heaven.

There's many ways to salvation. He says, I am the way, the truth, the life. No other way. I am the door. And some of you hear that and you're like, ah, it feels exclusive. Like you're telling me there's only one way to heaven? You're really telling me there's only one way to be saved that feels so

that feels wrong? It feels like there's gotta be more ways. You're telling me that if that heaven has a door and there's only one way in? And if you're sitting here going, Man, that that feels wrong. That feels that feels like you're this eliminating

all other options. And if that's you, here's what I want you to do. Want you to go home tonight. I want you to take the door off your front door, take it off, and let anyone in who wants to. That'd be absurd, right? A strong

dad, what do they do at night? They go home and they put a lock on the door and say, No one can get in without my permission. Is that a loving act or is that a hateful act? Of course, it's a loving act. That's why some of you moved to Arizona because it's an open carry state.

The 03:00 cheered a little too much for that joke. You did well. God is our father. Heaven is his home. He loves his kids so he protects with the door and the door is Jesus.

Jesus is the way. And if you're sitting and go, if Jesus is the way, why is there so many different religions? Why is there all these options out there and you're telling me it's just Jesus? Let me help you with that. Everything that God creates, our enemy counterfeits.

Everything God creates, our enemy counterfeits. So you see, all of these religion out here, here's why. Your enemy, my enemy wants you to walk through any door out there except for the door that actually leads to life.

Our enemy says, Pick any religion. I don't care. Pick anything you want. Go through that door. I'm gonna do whatever I can to keep you from the actual way to salvation.

This is why in our culture, if you have any other religious background, it's like, man, we love you. We tolerate you. You're awesome. But the moment you say you're a bible believing Christian,

man, there's pushback in our culture. Why? Because we have an enemy that says, I don't care what you pick. Just don't pick the door that leads to God.

And the truth is there's one way to heaven. There's one way to salvation. And this is where I I'm gotta say this. I'm not trying to scare you. I'm trying to warn you. I'm trying to tell you what this book teaches. What this book teaches is you and I, what we deserve is separation from God.

And and what the bible teaches, that means hell. That every one of us is gonna spend eternity in heaven or hell. And that depends solely on what we do with the person of Jesus. And you and I have an enemy just frankly that doesn't want you to believe in hell because he wants you and I to have the ability to reject Jesus

with no fear of consequences. And he wants Christians not to believe in the reality of hell so we don't feel the urgency to talk about it. But the truth is we have an enemy who's trying to get us to look in any other direction but the only way to God. This is why Jesus said, I am the door. No other door is there salvation.

There's no other way. And just to say it very blunt and just to be as as raw and honest as I can, and I know some of you come from different religious background. I'm not saying this to hurt you. I'm saying this because I care for you. What Jesus is saying, he is the only way which means through Buddha, no one. Through

Islam, no one. Through Mormonism, no one. Through Hinduism, no one. Through I'm I'm religious, I'm spiritual, no one. Through I'm a good person, Nobody. Through Jesus Christ, anybody.

Anybody. That includes me. That includes you. Doesn't matter what you've done. It doesn't matter some things that have been done to you. Anybody. Because he is the only savior.

Because God came to us in the person of Jesus. He lived a perfect life. He died on the cross, and he looks at you and I and says, I'm your way. I'm your truth, and I'm your life. Will you trust me? Some of you, you you've never decided to walk through the only door.

You've never truly decided to give your life to Jesus, and I wanna give you that opportunity today. So I'm gonna ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes.

If you have never given your life to Jesus and you wanna put your hope and trust in him, I want you to say this prayer in your own heart and mind. There's nothing special about the words. It's just it's just you communicating this to God. If you wanna decide

I'm gonna put my hope and trust in Jesus today, want you to repeat this after me in your in your own heart and mind. Say, father, I know that I need a savior, and I believe his name is Jesus. I believe you died on the cross for my sins and rose from the dead to give me life. So to the best of my ability, I'm gonna put my hope,

my trust in you. Keep your heads bowed and eyes closed. If you said that prayer for the first time and you received Jesus, I'm gonna ask you to do something bold. I'm gonna count to three, and I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand and keep it up.

And when you raise your hand, the rest of us in the room, man, we are gonna celebrate with you. We're gonna celebrate you walking through the only door.

I know it takes some courage, but there's something that happens when we physically connect to what's happened spiritually. So I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand, raise it boldly when I count to three, and then the rest of us are gonna celebrate the new life that has happened. One,

God loves you. Two, you're here for a reason. Three, raise your hand. Yeah, keep it up all over the room. Church, can we celebrate?

Father, you are good. Thank you that you saw us broken in sin. You love us too much not to leave us there. That you said not on my watch. Father help all of us represent you well. We are in a culture and a community that desperately needs to hear from you and we might be the only way they're gonna hear.

Father help us reflect you and your love to the people around us. Pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for joining us online today. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay up to date with everything happening here at Rock Point.