TRANSCRIPTION | Sunday, April 24, 2022 | JESUS Series | Heaven’s Seven 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Probably one of my favorite Bible passages in all of the New Testament is what's known as the Sermon on the Mount. It's found in Matthew, chapter five. Matthew, chapter six. Matthew, chapter seven. And it starts out with what's known as the Beatitudes, or, in other words, attitudes that we should bring to the Earth as a result of heaven.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

If you take a they don't have these two places on the screen. But if I could just kind of verbalize them to you. Blessed are the poor in spirit. There's is the kingdom of heaven blesses. Are they that mourn? They shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek. They shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who are hungry and thirsty after righteousness.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

They shall be sealed. Blessed are the merciful. They shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure and heart. They shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers. They shall be called the children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven goes on to say, Blessed are you. And men revalue and persecute you for falsely and all these things because so persecuted by the prophets that went before you.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Jesus wasn't finished. He continued on and talked about how that ultimately we are to be the salt of the earth and how that we are to be the light of the world. He still wasn't finished. He went on and talked about the fact that you've heard it said that you should not commit adultery. But I would say to you that if you lust after someone in your heart you've already committed adultery, he would tell them that you would.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

You've heard it said that you shouldn't murder somebody. But I would say to you that if you hate in your heart, it's just as much of a sin as murder. So Jesus just delivers this beautiful discourse. But if you really look at what he's doing, in that message, he is prophetically providing an autobiography of his life because Jesus was going to be meek and Jesus was going to live a life that would be the light of the world and the salt of the earth.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Jesus was going to exemplify what it was to not just do bad things, but also to have the right heart towards people. But when you really get to the gist of the Sermon on the Mount, not only is it Jesus giving us a prophetic glimpse of the autobiography he was about to live out on Earth, he was also giving us the attitudes and the examples that any of his followers are to live out on the Earth.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And I don't know how you're doing with it lightly, but even stuff like turning the other cheek I'm not so good at sometimes, especially when somebody blows their horn and acts like it's a gun, or they try to speak sign language, but they only choose to use one finger or you know, there's there's just moments where it's kind of difficult to live out these attitudes that Jesus so beautifully exemplified.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And what you learn about Jesus is that he tells us that the way that he lived his life, the only things that he did in the Earth were the things that he saw his father do. So Jesus had this beautiful relationship with his heavenly father in one of the ways that the son of God was bringing the kingdom of Heaven to the Earth was by exemplifying what the Heavenly Father was showing him in times of prayer.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And in times of worship. And then Jesus looks at His disciples and He tries to get the memo through to them that once he departs, they're supposed to do the same thing. But the way that he tells them is the only way they're going to be able to do it is if they have a relationship with Jesus in such a way that He's truly living on the inside of them.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And empowering them to be able to do those things. And so really what God wants to do is to continue to establish the Kingdom of Heaven in Earth through those of us that call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ. Now, with that context, kind of laid in that background, provided I want to show you in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah is one of the guys in the Old Testament that gives us as many or more prophetic glimpses of the coming Messiah than anybody in the entire Old Testament.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

The book of Isaiah is not just a beautifully written book, but it is extremely intentional about providing messianic prophecies. What that means is it it gives you some predictions about when the Messiah was to come to the Earth. These are specific boxes that he's going to check in order to prove that He is the Messiah. And one of the most famous passages that Isaiah provided about when the Messiah gets here, he's going to do these specific things is Isaiah Chapter 61, Isaiah, Chapter 61 verse one says this The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

So what Isaiah is saying is that when the Son of God comes to the Earth, when the Messiah shows up, Heaven is going to put an anointing on him, and that anointing that comes up on him is going to enable him to be able to preach good tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive, to open the spiritual prison to those that are brown, and announce the year the Lord is here.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Now, here's where it gets interesting. Jesus, when He came to the Earth, we know that He entered the Earth through the virgin womb of a young lady named Mary. He was laid in a manger in a little town called Bethlehem. But after they took him home and they began to raise him they chose a town known as Nazareth.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

That's an interesting selection because Nazareth was not a good place. NASA's with the Poor is a place where Outcast lived it was a place where rebellious people lived. In fact, there was a saying in Israel at the time that Jesus was living his life on Earth. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? In fact, there are scriptures that speak to us that say that Jesus would do something good, and then people would find out where he grew up at.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And they would literally follow it with the question, Really? Can anything good come out of Nazareth? So when Jesus gets ready to start his preaching ministry the way it works, the Bible says he's led by the Holy Spirit into a wilderness environment. And there he fast and he prays for 40 days. He goes through three different temptations. He overcomes every category of sin, the lust, the flesh, the lust, the the pride of life.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And this as he comes out of the wilderness, and he stops by a synagogue. Now, in the day of Jesus and in in Jewish culture, at that time, there would have been two types of places that Jews would meet to facilitate a relationship with God. One place was known as the temple or the tabernacle, and that's where they would go to do worship things would be sacrificed.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

They would go through worship type rituals. The other was called the synagogue. And on the Sabbath day, they would go to the synagogue and it would be an auditorium top gathering, and people would share the scriptures, and rabbis would even travel through certain areas and and really wise rabbis. They would draw a big crowd because of the revelation they could give of Scripture.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Well, it appears that Jesus almost interrupts a particular synagogue that is in Nazareth and it's in it's an interruption because nobody views him as a rabbi at this point. He's just the son of a carpenter. He's Joseph's son. And he walks in and they have this big scroll at the front of the room. And Jesus goes up and he asks the attendant to bring him the scroll.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

You talk about having the attention like nobody's moving. Everybody is trying to figure out what is happening here. Jesus lays the scroll down, and he turns to the book of Isaiah. What we now know is chapter 61 verses one, three, four, four, and he announces The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim the captives and the opening of prison of the brown to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And then the Bible says He folds it up, hands it back to the attendant, goes and sits down, looks out at this religious congregation of synagogue attendees and says, Today this scripture is fulfilled in you, is fulfilled in front of you.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

They freaked out. They were mad. Who does this guy think he is? He's nothing but the son of a carpenter. He has the audacity. He must have lost his mind to walk in here and decree himself to be the manifest messiah. And Scripture says they got so mad that they took him out to the hillside of Nazareth. And they literally are trying to throw him off of this cliff.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

In visiting Israel, they had the place, the chance to visit the place where they think this happens. And it's this massive hillside that overlooks this this valley and and it's as though they got him and they're trying to throw him down if you don't even deserve to live. But the Bible says he got away from them and he was able to avoid death that day.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Now, in this moment, Jesus has announced his mission statement, and he's announced that as he is in the Earth, the spirit of God is going to be upon him for a purpose. He is going to heal broken hearts. He's going to proclaim liberty to people that are bound It's going to be some things that happen very specifically associated with his mission in the Earth.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

In fact, he immediately started doing it. And we find out that it's not just a talk, but it's actually a walk. Matthew chapter four, verse 23 Jesus went throughout Galilee. So now he's moving beyond his hometown and now he starts teaching in synagogues. Watch this, Isaiah. 61 being fulfilled He starts proclaiming the good news. He starts healing every disease and sickness among the people and the people brought to him who were all ill with various diseases.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Suffering severe pain, demon possess, people having seizures, people that were paralyzed. And he healed them all. And this becomes the sign of Jesus and his entry into Israeli culture as the manifestation of the Messiah. Meanwhile, Jesus has got a cousin by the name of John the Baptist, and John the Baptist believes what's being said about Jesus, which is saying a lot for a cousin and the cousins over here preaching.

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Everybody needs to get right with God. Everybody needs to repent. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and you don't want to miss it. And so people are getting baptized onto repentance. People are trying to ready themselves for the move of God. And then a king gets mad at John the Baptist because he thinks he's trying to set Jesus up to be the future king of the Jews.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And so he decides that he's going to imprison John. And John goes into prison and he gets really confused because they're getting ready to take his head off. And he don't understand why if he's out proclaiming Jesus is who Jesus is, that Jesus is rescuing him from prison. And so John gets one of his friends, a disciple of his own ministry, and he says, you need to go find Jesus and ask him, is he the one, or do we need to look for another one?

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And watch what Jesus replies Luke, Chapter seven, He replied to the messengers of John. You go back and report to John what you have seen and what you have heard. The blind received there say the lame walk and those who have leprosy are cleansed. The deaf hear the dead are raised and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

In other words, you go tell John that Isaiah 61 is being fulfilled, and if he has any doubts about it, he needs to be reminded. I am who I say I am. You know, God's got a way of proving a point even when humanity tries to argue with him, when Jesus would ultimately reach the point of his crucifixion.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

It would not be because he did not have an answer for Hill's plot. It was that all along God had a plan. There is nothing that Hale did that caught God by surprise. It's like Jesus entered the Earth fully aware that He was going to need to be led like a lamb to the slaughter. They didn't take his life from him.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

He laid his life down. That's why they couldn't kill him in Nazareth. Because he wasn't nobody going to take his life until he was ready to give it. And so what happens with Jesus is they mock him, they ridicule him. Oh, this guy that's talking about a kingdom. Okay. You want to talk about a kingdom, we'll make you a king.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

So they took all of his clothes off of him. They made a crown out of thorns and put it on his head to mock him as a king. Oh, that's not enough. Take all of his clothes off of him. And replace it with nothing but a purple garment, because that's the color that kings wear. Mock him further. Oh, but we're not finished yet because they're in a melting pot of culture where multiple languages are being spoken by the people.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

At least three languages were spoken on a daily, daily basis in the marketplace. So they take all three languages, and they write on a son, King of the Jews, and they put it on the cross above Jesus's head, and you're like, Mock him. Make fun of him. What they didn't recognize is that when they wrote it in the Hebrew language, the first letter of King of the Jews forms an acronym that literally spells out Yahweh, which directly means I am that I am God has a way I need to help And so Jesus is being hung and and Jesus is bleeding and Jesus is dying.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

But it was only after he had exemplified a mission and there are theologians that look at the life of Jesus, and they say that if you were to pick out seven characteristics of Jesus ministry, they all tie back to Isaiah. 61, that Jesus really did live out a mission of heavens. Seven Everybody say heaven. Seven Feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Welcome the stranger or the outsider. Clothe the naked visit and care for the prisoner. Care for and heal the sick. Befriend the sinners and assist the weak and the least. I just wonder, does that look like your life Does that look like my life?

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Because Heaven Seven has not changed and Jesus did not go do those things so you wouldn't have to. He went and did those things to show you how and so on. Our church, there is a mandate. We exist for one reason, and it is because everyone needs Jesus. And we've talked about how that we're going to seek the lost and we're going to make disciples and we're going to meet needs.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

But when we're talking about those things like it's not just a suggestion or it's not just a good idea, it's a God idea. And I believe that every church and furthermore, the life of every believer should be exemplified by living a compelling life in the community where that we are feeding the hungry and give and drink to the thirsty where are the people who are outcast, are welcomed for the naked, are clothed, and prisoners are not reviled, but they are cared for and the sick are prayed for and healed and cared for.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And sinners are befriended rather than look down people's noses self-righteously and people who are the weak and people who are the least they are assisted. Why? Because it's what Jesus did and it's what He's commanded and commissioned us to do. And so we're not just trying to be some social club that calls itself a church. We are trying to plunder hell and depopulate heaven.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And the only way that that can transpire is if we get beyond ourselves and that this isn't just a little thing that we do on Sundays or occasionally and casually do in a captivate event, but that we really do decide we are going to live a life that models what Jesus has showed us how to do. And it's now empowering us in doing it.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And so I've told you this many times, any time you are in a church building and you see an empty seat, it is not God's fault. Luke 14, 23. Jesus said, go into the highways and the hedges and compel the laws to come in, that the house of the Lord may be filled. And what you learn is many people are not interested in your spiritual truth until you meet their material need, and you actually are able to show that you care about where they're at in life and what they're going through.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And I came to challenge somebody to start living a compelling life style, to start living a lifestyle that constrains people to want to be a part of the Jesus that you've talked about in the Jesus that you've mentioned and the Jesus that you have claimed as Lord and Savior Jesus. Just tell somebody else about Jesus. Tell somebody else is all about Jesus.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Now remind yourself it better always be about Jesus. Here's the thing. When it becomes about Jesus, when Jesus gets to take authority, the hungry are fed, the outsiders are welcomed, the naked are clothed, the prisoners are visited, the sick are cared for and healed. The sinners are befriended and the weak are assisted. Why? Because the kingdom of heaven starts to show up in earth Lord, let your kingdom come.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Let your will be done in Earth as it is in heaven. 2000, six, 2007. Something was wrong with our church. I couldn't put my finger on it. I couldn't make sense of it. But something was wrong. I prayed about it. I saw God and I couldn't get clarity, but I knew something was wrong. And one day I was actually sitting in a gravel parking lot at the Russell Springs location.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

At that time, we were a church of about 200 people, maybe a little more or less. And if I look like the Lord just kind of said to me, Eric, the problem is that you are a come and see church and you must first be a go until church. And so it was almost as though we were sitting inside our four walls and we were like, Hey, man, there's something here to come and see there's something here that can be experienced.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And, and yet God was saying, How are they supposed to know? This was to come and see if you haven't gone and told us. And so as a church we realized okay, we're going to have to get activated and we're going to have to figure out how to go and tell. And it was Isaiah 61 that heavily influenced us and passages from Jesus teaching that heavily influenced us, that I look back now and in many ways it was heaven seven do these things and well, how do we do?

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

I have a church with a couple of hundred people. We, we didn't have a large budget. We, we didn't really know how to go about organizing it. And we tried to kind of just tell people, hey, you know, go do these things. And it was like, nobody can really find the courage or the clarity. And it just wasn't happening in Finally, we decided, here's the way we're going to start this thing.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

We're going to we're going to take a Saturday and we're going to rent a local fairgrounds and we're going to just love on people. Well, how are we going to live on them? Well, we surveyed the congregation, and we realized that in the body of our believers, there were people that were gifted in different ways. We found out we had some mechanics, found out we had some great cooks I knew about them before.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

I knew about the mechanics, found out we had some hairstylists. We found out we had people with medical backgrounds and a few other things on that list. And we decided, you know what, we're going to just announce the community come out. And even if you don't need food, we just want to bless you, love on you, and share a great meal with you.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

If you're a single mother or you're a, you know, an elderly person, and you haven't been able to afford your all change, we just want change your oil for free. If you need a medical screening and you haven't been able to figure that out or pull that off, we we want to be able to just, you know, screen you in a medical way and give you some feedback or maybe some next steps you could take for being healthy.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And we set that up and hundreds of people showed up. In fact, the first time it was almost three times the size of our congregation that showed up in a three hour period of time. I remember when those guys were running back and they kept buying more oil and they kept buying more oil filters. I was like, who is going to pay for all of this?

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Because we had made it clear that we were not doing it as a fundraiser. We were not trying to accept donations. In fact, people you know, people are so like jaded towards church that when we were trying to give away a meal people would walk up and like, where's the fishbowl that I put my money in? Because it's not really free, right?

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Like, what is wrong with us churches that we're like, Oh, it's free fish, it's free spaghetti. Oh, put your money over here. Like, like you just, just blessed people just bless people. And so we were like, Okay, we're going to bless people. And and then I remember we had to go get more food, and I'm like, Who's going to bless these people?

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And you know, we didn't receive any donations that day. We didn't receive any funds. Just loved on people and when we went to pay those bills and we went to pay those invoices, to this day, we have no clue who did it, but every single one of them were paid in full and God took care of it, and God did it in a matter of fact, for a number of years.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Every time we would go to pay those invoices, they were always paid in full, completely resolved, and we never even knew who was doing it. And those events grew from five or 600 people to five or 6000 people.

And it showed me like how much people just want to know you care, even if it's just for a few hours and I look back and once we were able to go and tail, it seemed like people were so much more willing to come and see in three trees. Now goes through periods of time where we grow in more in six months than we used to grow in six years.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And it's a direct result of you guys choosing to say, I'm going to go into the highways and I'm going to go into the hedges and I'm going to compel the laws to come in. And one of the reasons that we don't have to do some of those massive events today is because and we still there'll be times and places for those.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

But a lot of the reason for that is because of the way that you are living Monday through Sunday out there in the highways and the hedges, and you're just blessing people and you're loving people and you're caring for people and you're accepting people. And I just want to encourage you, if that's who you are, don't stop. I look back at one of the greatest testimonies, in my opinion, in all of three churches was the time period when we were trying to do this Meet Me thing and and I was trying to figure out how to do it.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And, and it was a family that I found out they didn't have baby formula for their babies. And I found out that the father was a really substantial dealer of drugs and also was somebody that fought pit bulls and just a just kind of a hard living situation. And I thought, man, it's bad that these babies don't have food.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Like, we got to do something about this. And I remember I went and took some my own money and bought some baby formula, and I took it to this family. And I'll never forget this. The screen was removed from the front door, and I couldn't wake up the father or the mother. They were completely passed out and there were kids playing surrounded by these big pit bulls that were actually fighting dogs at what the dogs were trained to do.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And I'm I'm trying trying to make sense of this, and I'm trying to wake them up, but I can't take a moment. I remember finally I started to stick the bag of formula through and run as I did one of those big dogs lunged at me and I dropped the formula. And and then I'm on the outside. I'm trying to shake the door and rattle it and get these people woke up.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And finally I was able to get them roused enough to wake up and they were able to take the formula. And I thought, okay, the babies are going to be fed. But I had to go back again and had to go back again and had to go back again. And one day I finally found found that father in a situation to wear that he was alert enough to have a conversation with me.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And after weeks of meeting, the material need he opened to a spiritual truth and I was able to lead him in an acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and savior. And the next and the next Sunday, I found out that he he showed up at church. He brought his wife with him. And then then he brought his kids with him.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And then he brought another guy with him. And then a few Sundays later, there was a row behind him full. And then a few Sundays there was another row behind him falling. And I looked up in a few weeks and there was like five rows full all around this guy. And I go to him like, Who are all these people? And a true story, you got to be. So I got him all hooked on drugs. I forgot to get them hooked on Jesus.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

How about we cause hell to lose another one? Like, just make a decision that you were going to share your faith, embrace heaven. Seven You don't have to wait on a captivate event to do something compelling for your neighbor or for a stranger or an outcast, or somebody at God's light just lighting up to you of like, I need to help this person.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

I need to bless this person. I need to pray with this person. I need to let them know that Jesus loves them and so do I. And I don't care what you've been through and I don't care what you've come from, and I don't even care where you're going in regards to what you had planned because God's about to transform every bit of that and you never going to be the same if you're just.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

I don't know. I'm not sorry. I get a little excited compel the loss to come in. You know, I'll give you this and I'll get out of your way. Almost. Let me just say it this way over and over again. If you feel logically, you evaluate the preaching ministry of Jesus more often than not, things he said and did were accomplished in less than 60 seconds. Specifically, the things he said is how I should say that Luke Chapter four, he goes into the synagogue, he reads the scripture takes less than 60 seconds to do that.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Almost every parable that Jesus ever delivered you can recite in 60 seconds or less the Sermon on the Mount. You put in outline format, put it in He break poetry. You can actually deliver it in less than 60 seconds. It's interesting to me what Jesus was able to do and just a one minute message. So I challenge you so often get to where you can tell your story, share your testimony in 60 to 90 seconds think about the elevator ride that God's going to set you up for the moment where you're standing at the watercooler or you just stop by somebody's cubicle or you went by the back of somebody's truck and you're able to just in a few

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

For me it sounds something like this the only drug problem I ever had is my parents drove me to church whether I wanted to go or not. But at the age of seven, I realized I still had to have a personal relationship with Jesus. I became aware I was a sinner at the age of 12. I sit in a sister in a race class room disappeared.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Don't have to explain it. Don't how to describe it as and tell you. I knew I had a purpose beyond just going through the motions of life. At the age of 18, I was going to school to be an engineer, pull the car over on the side of the road, and I promised God that day I'd spend the rest of my life doing whatever he wanted.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Me to do whenever he wanted me to do it. And from that point until now, I've made a decision to tell as many people as I possibly can about what he's done for me, because I believe he can do it for you to and learn to tell your story, and you'll be amazed at the conversations that can come from a one minute message about the goodness of Jesus Christ. Journey is going to play it's none of that resonates with you.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Then maybe this will Romans chapter three verse ten says, This as it is written, there is none righteous, not even one. Why? Verse 23 same chapter tells us this because all have sinned and all have fallen short of the glory of God. But Romans Chapter five or say promises that God has demonstrated His love towards us, and that while we were still sinners, He decided to die for us.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And much more then having now been justified by His blood. We are saved from any wrath that would have been associated with the sins that we've committed. What an incredible promise to think about the fact that even though nobody is righteous and we have all sinned and we've all fallen short of the glory of God, that God loved us so much that even while we were still in our sin, and He knew we were coming to this earth as even greater sinners, that He would die for you and for me.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Why? So that he could just offer us freely with His grace and all you and I have to do to accept that. Is this Romans? Ten, nine? If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. You mean that's all I got to do?

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Yeah, because it ain't you that saves you. It's him that saves you. And when you confess him and you believe that he's done what he said he would do in your life, I'm telling you, old things can pass away and everything can become new again. To the point that you don't even have any condemnation or guilt or shame left in your life.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And it's important to make that decision because Romans Chapter 12 tells us that we get to present our lives as a living sacrifice under the Lord. It's the least we could do. It's a reasonable service. And from that moment forward, we get up and live our life in such a way that we're not conform to this world, but we are transformed by the renewing of our mind.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And we get to prove to the whole world what is the acceptable and the perfect will of God. That's Romans. Chapter 12 versus one through two. And maybe you're here today. Every hit is about every eyes closed, and if you're honest, you feel far from God. You don't feel near to God. You feel like that there's just something that's turning over on the inside of you.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Even now, that man, I need honey to make sure that I'm ready for heaven. There's only one thing that can do that, and it is the grace of Jesus Christ. And if you feel God tugging on your heart, you feel God pull on your heart. Like, don't ignore that. That's not a small thing. And I would challenge you right now just to begin to reflect upon the power of God's cross and what he did through his blood.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

That He would shed his blood so that it could become in a race or for our sin maybe right now you just start to talk to God in your own way. That's really how you talk to him, just like you talk to your very best friend, admit to sin, admit the failure maybe there's some stuff bubbling up in your heart right now where you're like, Well, man, I messed up here and I messed up there.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And I mean, I've just continue to struggle with this. This habit, this hang up, come on, poured out to God. Right now. Confess it to him. Ask him to forgive you of it. Believe that he's willing to do it because of what he did on the cross and salvation can belong to you. Maybe for somebody. This moment is a moment of rededication.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

It's a moment of coming back to God. It's it's a moment where you're like, Yeah, man, I've been on the wrong path, but today I'm not leaving this place like I came. I want to pray with you. I want to pray for you. Father, we're so grateful that you would be willing to save us what we do not deserve Grace.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

But you have blown our minds by being willing to give it to us. And, Lord, we thank you that Jesus came as the Messiah. And He is said an example for how we can make a difference in the Earth. But God, we know that that difference has to start personally at our own heart. And God, I believe today that there's going to be some folks who are going to be used mightily by you in this community, in their family.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And that's almost a surprise to him. They didn't expect it. They didn't anticipate it. But God, because of what you're doing in them right now, saving them, setting them free giving them the good news in place of the bad news, God, there's a victory that's happening in their life and they will present their body, their life as a living sacrifice to you.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And they invite you, God, to use them to show the Earth what your will looks like when it comes to pass through an obedient believer and follower of Jesus. Lord, we thank you for salvation in Jesus name. And this church said, amen.