Confronted by Compassion
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Confronted by Compassion
Kingdom Builders Projects:
Joni & Friends - $5k
Encouragement Mexico - $10K
Ivory Coast Pictures - $5K
Operation iDream - $25K
Church Rescue - $50K
Cashew Farm, The Gambia, West Africa - $5K
International Sharif Bible Society - $5K
Make Room Initiative - $300K.
Luke 10:25-37 NLT
One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”26 Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”27 The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”28 “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!” 29 The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”30 Jesus replied with a story: “A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road.
31 “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. 32 A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.33 “Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him.
34 Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. 35 The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’
36 “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked. 37 The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”
Point 1: We need to be exporters of God’s love, not just experts on God’s love
Luke 10:29 NLT
The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”Point 2: We need more Pure Religion and less Performance Based Religion
Luke 10:30-31 NLT
Jesus replied with a story: “A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. 31 “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. 32 A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.Indicators of Performance Based Religion:
Are the people in front of you, taking a backseat to the to-do list in front of you?
Is getting through your small group lesson more important than praying for someone in your small group to a place of breakthrough?
Do you avoid getting involved because it’s always inconvenient?
How many times have you passed on an opportunity because you didn’t think it was your responsibility?
James 1:27 NLT
Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.Point 3: We need to allow Compassion to Disrupt our Hesitancy
Luke 10:33-35 NLT
“Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. 34 Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. 35 The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’Neighbors are not determined by race, creed or gender; neighbors consist of anyone in need made in the image of God.
Isaiah 53:5 NLT
But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.Colossians 2:13-14 NLT
You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.Will you Allow Compassion to Confront You?
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This leads to the tension that I wanna share with you that I've been wrestling with as a pastor and a leader.
And the question that I've been asking the Lord for the last several months is this.
God, do we put God's mission on hold while we build a church home?
Or do we build a church home and by faith continue to allow God to build something beyond a building?
And I believe the answer is clear and God has called us to keep saying yes to his mission, but it's going to look a little different in 2025.
So instead of committing to a specific set of projects and bringing a specific set of projects and a particular financial goal, I wanna cast a vision this morning and the entire month and the rest of 2025 for what I'm calling disruptive compassion.
In the light of the Make Room initiative and our journey toward purchasing our future building, I don't wanna add additional financial pressure to give, but I do wanna challenge us.
How many wanna be challenged?
All right, six of you wanna be challenged.
How many wanna be challenged?
How many wanna be stretched?
How many know God has called us, come on, to a life of faith, not a life that's safe?
A life of adventure, a life of anointing, a life of breakthrough.
Come on, a life of believing God, come on, for what's possible.
Not what we can do in our own strength, but what he can do and him alone will get all the glory.
So this year, I want us to allow the Holy Spirit to disrupt our comfortability.
to be open to whatever he asks us to do individually and collectively as a church.
You say, Pastor Dean, that's great.
What's that look like?
So throughout March and the rest of this year, we're gonna be hearing from missionaries and ministry partners.
We're gonna have some guests this month.
And I'm asking each and every one that comes, not just in March, but the entire year, to challenge us about this concept of disruptive compassion.
So what could that look like?
It could look like you participating in a local outreach.
It could look like you going on a mission trip.
It could look like you helping with a summer camp.
It could look like you sacrificially giving to a kingdom cause when prompted by the Spirit.
It could look like whatever God wants it to look like, but this is what I want us to be in 2025, spirit-led.
Can we be spirit-led people?
So as we step into this year, I invite you to pray and ask with, I want you to pray this after me.
Say, Holy Spirit, in 2025, disrupt my life with compassion.
Did you realize what you just prayed?
I tricked you, didn't I?
What I wanna say is God is building something bigger than a building and I can't wait to see how he moves with compassion through us all.
Are you guys ready to jump in the word today?
All the notes are in the YouVersion app.
If you have the app, you can go to events, find Real Life Church Sacramento and there are all the notes.
I encourage you to share them, tag the church.
We share those things and again, it just extends our influence beyond Natomas, literally around the world.
It's exciting to see what God,
is doing.
I'm going to let Jesus do the talking and the Holy Spirit talk to you today.
Luke chapter 10 verse 25 to 37 says this, one day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question, teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?
Jesus replied, well, you're the expert.
What does the law of Moses say?
And how do you read it?
And the man answered, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.
And Jesus said, right?
Jesus told him, do this and you will live.
And the man wanted to justify his actions.
And so he asked Jesus, who is my neighbor?
Verse 30, and Jesus replied with the story.
How many know if Jesus replies with a story, you're going to probably be in it.
He said a Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho and he was attacked by bandits.
They stripped him of his clothes.
They beat him up and left him half dead beside the road.
By chance, a priest came along.
But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by.
A temple assistant or a Levite walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.
Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him.
In other words, this man, this good Samaritan, was disrupted by compassion.
And going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with oil and wine and bandaged them.
Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn where he took care of him.
And the next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, take care of this man.
If his bill is higher than this, I'll pay you the next time I'm here."
Now, which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits, Jesus asked.
And the man replied, the one who showed him mercy.
And Jesus said, yes, now go and do the same.
Holy Spirit, again, I ask you to disrupt our lives with your holy compassion and conviction in Jesus' name.
And everybody said.
This entire month, I wanna invite you to dare God to confront you with compassion.
It leads me to my first point today.
It's this, we need to be exporter of God's love, not just experts on God's love.
You see, this man,
was an expert in the law, but inexperienced in love.
He knew the right answer, but he failed in the application of it.
He understood the requirements of the law.
He was an expert in the law, but he lacked the obedience to the law that required him to love his neighbor.
You see, this man had extensive knowledge of the law, which required love to inherit eternal life.
How many know if we're going to get to heaven, we have to love Jesus with everything that's within us?
Some of you are not so sure.
Should we do the salvation prayer right now?
He had an extensive knowledge of the law which required love to inherit eternal life, yet he never internalized that love himself.
Listen, I believe the church is called to be a unifier in Christ Jesus, and in order for that to be accomplished, we need more exporters of God's compassion, love, and mercy rather than experts who just have knowledge but no fruit.
You see, an expert in the law, such as a scribe or a Pharisee, people that Jesus called whitewashed tombs, had it all together on the outside, but on the inside, they were dry rotting spiritually.
An expert in the law would have been knowledgeable, check this out, of about 613 commandments.
He knew them by heart.
He could quote them.
And this involved the first five books of the Old Testament.
You see, this man had the law memorized, but he failed to internalize.
And as a result, he lacked the compassion to truly care for his neighbor.
Why?
Because the law reveals the absence of love and it cannot inspire you to go in love.
You see, the expert was quick to quote the law, but slow to obey the law.
He knew exactly where to find the scripture, but he couldn't find it in his heart to love certain people.
And in this case, it was Samaritans.
How many know that can be just like us?
Listen, we can give people chapter and verse on where to find it in the word, but when it comes to finding the word active in our life, it's limited and hard to locate.
You see, the expert wanted to know who qualified to be his neighbor, because here was the truth.
He wasn't treating everyone like his neighbor.
And verse 29 says, the man wanted to justify his actions.
Now, I know we are all holier than thou in here this morning, and none of us have ever tried to justify our actions.
Come on, if you're honest, how many of you have ever tried to justify your actions before?
Man, I don't have all the truth people in the front.
I don't know about the back yet.
You know, we say things like this.
Hey, I know I'm on a diet, but I had a stressful day, so this cake I'm eating right now is self-care.
I'll say this one right here.
I've said it before.
Hey, I wasn't speeding.
I was just going in the flow of traffic.
I haven't been to the gym in months, but I can't cancel my membership because I got too good of a deal.
And you've been paying that $25 fee for 15 years and having dark in the doorway of that gym.
Or you'll say this, Jesus said to love my neighbor, but he didn't say I had to like him.
So what does it look like to be a neighbor?
Last year we introduced you to Josh and Acela Childress who had it in their hearts to start a chapter of royal family kids here in Sacramento.
Well, I'm happy to report, as I mentioned, through your generosity and a lot of hard work on the children's part, last year, they have now formed their own nonprofit and are planning their first kid camps for kids in the foster system this summer.
And I wanna show you what it could look like.
Please pay attention to the screen.
Royal Family Kids Camp is a camp specifically designed for children in foster care.
provides a way of blessing kids who have been through so much trauma, so many difficulties.
A lot of these children feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for, not good enough, not valuable enough.
And that's not even adding the sexual trauma that kids have been through, domestic violence.
There's so much in the background.
And it just breaks my heart because these kids
Like, honestly, all they want is love and someone to actually, actually really care about them.
Royal Family Kids is really about showing God's love, helping these kids understand, regardless of what their life has looked like, that they are royalty.
So when the kids first come, they come with walls.
And as you slowly get to know them and as trust builds, those walls disappear.
Being a cousin and with the kids all week in some ways has been very exhausting, but extremely rewarding.
Getting to see these kids smile, getting to just be kids, not having to be responsible for anyone or anything.
It's been extremely rewarding and it's been really clear that God is at work in each and every one of these kids' lives.
In this camp we've talked so much about just God's unconditional love and not having to be a certain way for God to love you.
He's just gonna love you no matter what.
Just the opportunities to look them in the eye and just
speak life into them.
So to pull out these characteristics that are already so evident in their lives, it's like, no, this is who you are.
This is what's true of you.
You know, seeing these kids, you know, some of them that act up, but they're all really good kids and you know, they just need somebody there.
What I have learned about the foster care system and the kids that are in the foster care system is that they are kids just like every other kid.
They want to be loved, they want to be valued, and they want to be celebrated.
How was it when you got off the bus?
I felt really encouraged.
A lot of people were cheering for me.
Like, I belong here.
God cares more about these kids, loves these kids more than we ever could, and that He sees every piece of their story, and we only get to see a small fraction of it.
This is one part of the entire process of healing that we believe will happen in the lives of these kids.
They tug on you.
Like, I'm already thinking, like, okay, I need to do more.
What am I doing after this?
Who can I mentor?
Where else can I sign?
But sign me up.
I'm doing this again for sure.
I feel really excited to know that people love me.
Just the way I am.
Amen.
Can Acela and Josh, can you guys come?
Can we give them a hand?
Come on, as they come tonight.
Thank you guys so much.
I know you guys have been working hard.
And they have a booth actually outside today.
And could you just tell us about the opportunities that Royal Family Kids Camp is gonna open up for real life to jump in and let compassion disrupt their lives?
First of all, I just wanna say thank you so much.
I've been involved in this church for a little while and this is my heart and my joy to get to share and bring this to you guys.
You saw what Royal Family Kids Camp is and so this year, we brought to you last year that we were launching, this year we're actually going.
Our camp dates are July 2nd through July 6th.
So we will be celebrating the 4th of July holiday with our campers.
And this is our call to you that we are open.
We are open for volunteers.
We are open for partnerships.
We essentially, we can't have camp without your help.
So let's let Josh say a couple of words.
Yeah, and so this year we're looking to bring about 40 campers to camp this year.
What that means is we have to recruit about 50 to 70 staff members to come support that.
So that's one way you guys could help us disrupt that.
And like the video showed, these kids just want to be loved by somebody in a healthy way.
And, you know, we could be the ones to do that here in Sacramento.
Come on, amen.
Can we give, come on, Josh and Estella, just a good, and this is what you can do.
Outside after service, if you have questions, you can go and ask them and you guys have all the info there.
One last thing.
Yes, please.
We're showing a movie this Friday here just to bring more awareness to what foster families actually go through with foster kids and the struggle they deal with.
So we invite you guys, it's free, to come and check it out.
Come on.
So the cards are also available in the back and they'll give you the information at what time.
Again, it's free.
It's just to bring awareness to what the kids are actually going through.
Even once they're adopted and placed in a home, the trauma still follows them.
And so we really are just trying to disrupt them and invest in them in every step of the way we possibly can.
Amen.
Thank you guys.
You guys can keep that.
Love y'all.
Love you, man.
So this summer, will you allow compassion to confront you
by caring for some kids that are not your own, would you be an exporter of God's love and just not an expert about God's love?
Secondly, we need more pure religion and less performance-based religion.
Verse 30 said, Jesus replied with a story.
A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho.
He was attacked by bandits.
They stripped him, beat him.
and left him half dead beside the road.
And by chance, a priest came along, but when he saw the man lying, he crossed to the other side.
A Levite came, he saw him cross to the other side.
There's three, actually four characters in the story that I want us to take a look at.
First, there was this Jewish man that got attacked by bandits.
That represents you and I, someone in desperate need.
The scripture says, how many know the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
You see, you might be here today and you need some help.
You might be here today and need someone to pray for you.
You might be here today and absolutely need divine intervention in your situation or your circumstance.
You might be here today and need a Christian brother or sister to lay hands on you and come and be the hands and feet of Jesus to you.
You see, that's all of us.
We all have different needs and desperate needs.
Secondly, there was the priest.
He was the pastor of the day.
He was in charge of offering sacrifices and leading worship and teaching the law.
These guys could be expected to model righteousness and mercy in their day.
And then there was the Levite.
They assisted in the temple handling its maintenance music.
They were the visioneers, come on, of their day.
And both of these men, both of these men crossed the road and passed by on the other side.
It would be like one of you laying down in the street on Truxell and you were beaten up badly and your eyes were swollen shut and you open up your eye and you see me walking down the sidewalk and you said, hallelujah, Lord, you heard my prayer.
And then you closed your eye again only to look up and you saw me crossing the street, jaywalking across Truxell.
And you said, man, he must have not saw me.
And then you saw one of our most popular visioneers and you said, okay, Pastor Dean didn't see me, but here comes Agnes, right?
And here comes Agnes.
And you opened up your swollen eyes and said, okay, Agnes is gonna come to my rescue.
And then all of a sudden you look up
And Agnes is jaywalking across Truxell to the other side.
Both cross the road to the other side.
What happened here?
See, Jesus in this story is pointing to a greater reality.
You see, it's important to understand the priest and the Levite represent a picture of the powerlessness of the law to help the dead sinner that the law commanded, love your neighbor as yourself, but it did not give the power to obey the law to love your neighbor.
You see, the law focused on the external and the conforming from the outside in, but how many of you know pure religion, pure faith works from the inside out?
In other words, a priest and Levite could fulfill all their duties and look good on the outside and still be bankrupt of the love required to fulfill the commandment of loving your neighbor.
It reminds me of what Paul said.
It's not on the screen, but 1 Corinthians 13, two and three, Paul said, if I had the gift of prophecy and if I understood all of God's secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but I didn't love others, I would be nothing.
If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it.
But if I didn't have love for others, I would have gained nothing.
Now, before we come down too hard on the priest and the Levite, can we just be honest for a moment and say, Lord, forgive me for taking a pass when I should have participated in the problem.
I don't know if some of you saw the wreck a couple of weeks ago, the car flying off of West El Camino, the over ramp.
Anybody ever see, did anybody see that on the news?
Just right here on I-5, a car flew off the overpass
I mean, nose first.
Fortunately, the guy lived, I believe.
He had some critical injuries, but I believe he is still alive.
It was a crazy thing to see.
Someone recorded it on their dash cam.
But what actually floored me was actually the people that kept on going.
It was like the modern day Good Samaritan.
Like if you watch this dash cam video, like people slow down, they dodge the branches and they're like, we're good, woo!
And I'm like, couldn't we have just stopped and just been there until somebody got there, till first responders got there on the scene?
You see, the priest and Levite were more focused on the ministry they had to perform at the temple rather than the person right in front of them that needed ministry.
And here are some indicators that you may have fallen into performance-based religion.
Are the people in front of you taking a back seat to the to-do list in front of you?
Is getting through your small group lesson more important than praying for someone in your small group to a place of breakthrough?
How do you know we need compassion to be able to disrupt us?
Do you avoid getting involved because it's always inconvenient?
How many times have you passed on an opportunity because you didn't think it was your responsibility?
This is what I want to encourage you with this morning.
Stop taking a pass and start saying yes.
Maya had a beautiful devotion in our vision air huddle talking about when we say yes, we actually elevate those around us.
Come on.
And when we do that, heaven invades earth.
Amen.
Amen.
James 1, 27, pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.
This summer, we have another incredible opportunity because how many know it's not just about your treasure?
Let me try this side over here.
How many know it's not just about your treasure?
Amen.
It's about your time.
It's about your talent.
It's about investing your life in eternal things and allowing, listen, compassion to move you to action, to move you to ministry and love somebody like you wanna be loved.
And so this summer, we have an incredible opportunity and we're opening it up now to the entire church to go to Baja, Mexico with Student Reach and Pastor Isaiah and their team.
And I wanted to show you a video of what could happen there if you allowed compassion to disrupt your life.
San Quentin Valley of Baja, California is an amazing place with rugged beauty and even more rugged people.
Each year, hundreds of volunteers from all over the United States come and make this the center of the universe for one week, where they intend to do one thing for one family, build them a house.
language and culture barriers and especially the economic disparity between the volunteers that come and the people that they build for who are living on less than two dollars a day can almost make the family that you're building for one-dimensional they're simply poor that is until you get to know their story and every family has a story this is one of those stories of the martinez family
Hector took a second job so he could afford the down payment for a piece of land where he could build a home for his three young children and his loving wife.
In the meantime, all he could afford was an abandoned RV that had already been stripped of all the beds, cabinets, and anything else that made it livable.
One early morning as Hector was on the way to his second job, the pickup truck he was riding in was struck and he was thrown from the vehicle.
Tragically, he was killed.
And it seemed that the dream of having a home for his family died with him.
That is, until a team of volunteers from San Antonio, Texas and Lodi, California came to build a home for a family whose story they didn't know.
As they handed the keys over to her new home to Tatiana Martinez, she wept aloud.
But when she asked her boys to speak, the moment came that no one will ever forget.
You made our dad's dream come true, they told the group as tears welled up in everyone's eyes.
It seemed like the dream had died, but through compassion, the dream lived on.
Compassion changes things.
Compassion changes us.
It can even bring dead dreams back to life.
The question is, will we take another pass?
That's not for me, Lord.
You didn't call me to that.
Or will we dare to ask the Lord, disrupt my life with your compassion and move my life to places that I've never been?
The last point I want to bring to you today is that we need to allow compassion to disrupt our hesitancy.
Luke, are you guys still with me?
Then a despised Samaritan came along and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him.
And going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them.
Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn where he took care of him.
And the next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins telling him, take care of this man.
If his bill runs higher than this, I'll pay you the next time I'm here.
The Samaritan...
the Samaritan arrives on the scene in this story, and he doesn't hesitate to help the Jewish man in need, even though if he did hesitate, it would be completely understandable.
You see, hatred and prejudice ran deep between Samaritan and Jews.
A lot like, come on, the tension that we feel now between, come on, partisan politics and the left and the right.
Come on, the blue and the red.
It's that type of tension.
Hatred and prejudice ran deep between Samaritans and Jews.
Jews and Samaritans had a long history of hostility.
Jews saw Samaritans as impure because they had intermarried with Gentiles.
But instead of crossing over to the other side, the one who was most likely to take a pass, the most one who was likely to cross the street, this good Samaritan crossed over.
You see the Samaritan chose to love his enemies and crossed over racial and cultural barriers.
The Samaritan wasn't considered holy but he acted in mercy and crossed over religious barriers.
The Samaritan risked being rejected by the Jewish man and crossed over the social barriers to bring healing to his life.
He risked being robbed himself and beaten to save this man.
And he crossed over the barriers of safety and comfortability.
Helping this man cost him his time, his talent, his treasure.
But he didn't hesitate.
He crossed over time barriers and financial barriers and any other excuse that he had.
And this is exactly what Jesus did for you and I. You see, Jesus is our good Samaritan.
Jesus is the one who came down to where we were and he had compassion on us.
He saved us from our sins when we were dead in our trespasses and he made full provision for our healing and our wholeness.
You see, Jesus crossed every line.
He broke down every barrier.
He touched every wound.
He paid every debt.
And when we were left on the side of the road, the road of death, an enemy of God, Jesus found us and he called us neighbor.
He called us friend.
When we were our farthest away from God,
when we wanted nothing to do with him, Jesus said, you're my neighbor.
You're the one I love.
You're the one who I wanna treat like I wanna be treated.
You see, neighbors are not determined by race, creed, gender, or political party.
Neighbors consist of anyone in need, made in the image of God.
And we have a responsibility of being ambassadors of compassion and restore those who bear the image of God.
See, here is a lie of the enemy.
The lie of the enemy is this.
Everybody's a child of God.
That is not true.
Everybody is created in the image of God.
We have to choose to be restored to the creator of that image.
Amen.
And as God's children, we cannot restore those with a broken image if we don't allow, come on, his love, his mercy, his compassion to disrupt our lives.
As ambassadors of compassion, we have a responsibility to restore those who bear God's image to the God who created them in his image.
And this is what God has been doing here at Real Life Church.
Amy and I were walking out last week.
We heard a young lady.
I don't even hear these stories and I get so excited when I do.
But she says, I've been coming to Real Life Church.
She says, and every time I'm here, I experience the presence of the power of God.
And she said, I've been addicted.
And she says, for two months while I've been coming, she says, I've been sober.
Woo!
My life is getting back together.
Why?
Because we have a God who yearns and longs to share his love, his mercy, his compassion with people.
Listen, without people like you and me walking this planet, they will never encounter the power and the presence of a loving God.
Isaiah 53, verse five, and I close, but he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins, beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
Colossians 2, 13, 14, you were dead because of your sins and because of your sinful nature was not yet cut away.
Then God made you alive with Christ for he forgave you all our sins.
He canceled the record of the charges against you.
and took it away by nailing it to the cross.
And today, I wanna ask you, maybe you are far away from God.
Maybe you are like that Jewish man on a dusty road that's leading to death.
And today, the Holy Spirit and Jesus wanna step into your life and allow you to experience the love and the compassion and the mercy that God has for you.
With every head bowed and every eye closed, you say, Pastor Dean, that's me.
I need Jesus to intervene.
I came today because I need some help.
Is there anybody with a raising of your hand, say, Pastor Dean, will you include me in that prayer?
Is there anybody in the first service that you say, Pastor, yes, in the back.
Thank you so much for being bold and raising your hand.
Yes, right here.
Yes, right here.
Several hands going up.
Yes, in the back.
Yes, in the back.
Come on, we got about seven people at least that lifted their hand.
Anybody else, one last time.
Listen, you need, come on, compassion right now, the compassion of Christ to interrupt and disrupt your life.
Come on, from the road of death, the path of death that you are on.
Listen, if you raised your hand today,
and you wanna come to know Jesus, or maybe you need to rededicate your life to him, I wanna include you in this prayer.
It's on the screen behind me, and I want us to pray it together on the count of three with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength.
One, two, three.
Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner and I ask for your forgiveness.
I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead.
Right now, I turn from my sins and invite you to come into my heart and life.
I want to trust and follow you from this day forward.
I confess you as my personal Lord and Savior.
Thank you for saving me in Jesus' name.
And everybody said, come on, can we give those seven or eight people that raised their hand?
Listen, we are so excited.
We believe if you prayed that prayer for the first time or second time and you meant it with all your heart that you were born again.
We have a Bible that we want to put on your hands as well.
There's some next steps.
We have a Wednesday night class for people that are looking to lay a foundation in their life.
We'd love to share with you.
My friend Jeff is in the back.
Just bring that card or the digital electronic to Jeff and we'll hand you a Bible on your way out.
Can you stand with me, church?
Because I want to do one more thing as our
Prayer ministers come, and again, if you need prayer in any area of your life, unrelated to this message, listen, don't leave without prayer.
I really sense, listen, there's some desperate need in the building, and we wanna pray with you before you go.
But with everybody's hands lifted in the building, and as we step into this new season, I wanna invite you to pray and ask again with me what we already prayed.
Will you say, Holy Spirit,
In 2025, disrupt my life with compassion.
Open doors.
Give me opportunities.
Bring people in my path.
I wanna be spirit-led.
In Jesus' name, disrupt my life with your holy compassion.
In Jesus' name.
And everybody said amen.
Amen.
Can we give God praise today?