Trials, Temptations, and Joy

The Book of James. A few times a year we do something a little different. Usually we do what we call worship series, where we carry you through multiple weeks on a particular topic. And a lot of these topics we kind of pull Scripture around, you know, just to try to shape them in very practical ways.

But we set aside some time from periods of our series, or our year, to talk about a book of the Bible. So instead of just creating a topic and building Scriptures around it, we actually let the Scripture itself speak. So we're going to walk through sort of like a verse-by-verse teaching, or a chapter-by-chapter teaching of the Book of James. And what's cool about this is that this is going to be a teaching team. So we're going to have several people teaching throughout the summer, teaching this.

So I won't be teaching everything. So it's really cool to get some more perspective from other people as we talk about the Book of James and roll through these different chapters in the series. And let me just share a little bit about the background of the Book of James. It's a very practical book. It speaks on things like taming the tongue, not showing favoritism, living out your faith, how we handle our wealth, how we gain wisdom, and just all these different things.

And it was written by James. And we're not talking about the Apostle James. A lot of people remember James and John, but that's not the James that we're talking about here. James was the half-brother of Jesus. The guy who wrote this book was the half-brother of Jesus.

What happened is Jesus obviously was born of the Virgin Mary, but later on Joseph and Mary got married, and they had other kids. And James was one of those kids. And interestingly enough, James did not believe Jesus was the Son of God when he was walking the earth. Imagine you trying to convince one of your siblings that you're God, right? Probably wouldn't go too well, right?

It'd be a hard task to try to complete. And I'm sure that was the same way with Jesus, you know. But we see this dynamic change take place in James' life somewhere from the resurrection to this point where he actually rises up to be a leader in the church. One of the top leaders, in fact. We see him in the book of Acts with the Council of Jerusalem when Paul and Peter and others approached him about, approached the council.

He was on that council about whether we should still be participating in Jewish ceremonies and things like that. We see him kind of come out in the story here and there. But something dramatic happened to him. A change took place that he was actually willing to give his life for his half-brother Jesus. And it didn't just happen by some, oh, I'm down and out.

Maybe Jesus is real. Something, I mean, had to really regenerate him at that moment when he knew. And that very event that took place was that Jesus had resurrected. And there's no, for those who are probably skeptical about Scripture and like, I get it, you know, the hocus-pocus Jesus, it seems a little hocus-pocus, right? It seems a little weird.

But what would call somebody like James who completely said, no, this guy's crazy. He's a loony. There's no way he follows. He's the son of God. Changed his mind.

And actually, in tradition, he was martyred for what he believed. Martyred. Tradition tells us he was thrown off the temple by a mob to his death for the name of Jesus. So James, he jumps in. When we start off the Scripture here, let's just go ahead into the Scripture here.

He jumps immediately into two topics right off hand. I mean, James is a bit preachy. He's a preacher. He gets a little hard with us, okay? And sometimes we need these hard messages.

And that's why we're carrying you through the book of James. We have lighthearted messages sometimes during the year. But we get a little deeper. We get a little deeper. And during the summer, I want us to really get deep and see what James has to say, what God is telling us through James.

And he talks about trials and tribulation. So the title of this message is Trials, Tribulation, and Joy. And what does joy have to do with trials and tribulation? Well, let's just see what James says about that. So in James 1, beginning with verse 1, it says, James, a servant of God.

And just put in your mind the things I just told you about, James. Not believing in his half-brother as the Son of God, and now believing. He says this, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ. To the 12 tribes scattered among the nations.

Greetings. Consider it. And this is where it gets a little wild. Consider it pure joy. My brothers and sisters, if we want an accurate description there.

Whenever you face trials of any kind. So right off the bat, he challenges us to think a little different about the things that we're going through. When you're faced with trials of many kinds. I mean, when we face trials, we typically think, man, this is like world-ending stuff, right? I mean, we're never going to get through this.

And this is tragic, and this is awful, and this is extreme. And how am I ever going to make it past this point in my life? And we mope, and it's hard. It is really hard at times, especially when when things unexpected happen to us. But he tells us, consider it joy, because I'm getting ready to teach you something that God may be doing inside you.

It's hard when you face trials of different kinds. And he goes later into temptations, but the thing about temptations and trials, trials just happen. And I'll get to temptations in a minute. It works a little different, but we don't, like trials just happen to us randomly, unexpected. It's outside of our ability to handle.

We can't just cause trials to stay away. They just come to us, right? They just happen to us. And he talks about trials, and trials are random things that happen, but perhaps God is trying to teach us something. So James is like, God is actually trying to teach you something through these trials.

So I want you to consider it pure joy. God doesn't want trials in your life. Let me just say that to start off with. You're like, what? What are you talking about?

He allows it. Yeah, he allows it, but he doesn't want trials. In fact, Jesus prayed that very thing, that you'd be delivered from the evil one, right? God wants you to be delivered from the evil one. He wants you to be delivered from trials.

But God will allow trials to help you because he sees the value in trials. He sees value that we don't. Because our values are a bit different than God's values. We see things in a small picture, a small way, but God does not place the same values on things as we place on things. When tragedy happens, for instance, somebody, a child passes away, and we ask why, and we're bothered by that, right?

Well, God's not. Yeah, God mourns with us, and God senses, you know, God knows what we're going through, but God sees a bigger picture because there's something going on the other side. I know this is heavy stuff, like God, God, why would you allow these things to happen? Because He's trying to bring us to another. He sees them as opportunities, opportunities for us to grow.

He sees the value in trials and opportunities for us to grow. And let me just say it like this. We look at our kids the same way, don't we? We do the same thing with our kids. The values our kids place on things aren't the same values we place on things, right?

For instance, candy. Your kids think that the greatest value in the world is eating candy, and they want to eat candy all the time. But we as parents know that's not a good idea if you eat too much candy, then you have, you know, your teeth won't do well. You'll get a stomach ache. You'll not eat proper nutrition, and this and that.

So, we hold back from our kids, and our babies are going through a little bit of misery, you know, in their life because they can't have candy at that very moment, right? Or our kids waking up in the morning. I send Max and Savannah to bed early, and they don't know why. Why do I have to go to bed at 8.30?

I mean, that doesn't, you know, I should be able to stay up and play, right? But we see the bigger picture. Well, you're going to be tired in the morning if you stay up too late, and I've got to get you to school, and I want you to be able to function. And with teenagers, it's just miserable when they're not able to do what they want to do. The world has come to an end, right?

I hate you. I can't believe you've ended my life. You know, and they go, and they march off, and they do the thing. But we see things when we send them to school, when we prepare them for life, and we help them through things, we know it's going to bring about a better future overall. And when God gives us trials or allows trials to happen in our lives, He sees a bigger picture.

There's something more going on. He knows down the road where He wants to take you. He knows this is going to be better for you. Why? Because He's that good.

He's a good, good Father that wants the best for you. And if He didn't allow us to go through these things, it would not be the best for us. God wants you to make, He wants to make you whole, not happy. I like to say it like this. He wants to give you life, not a lift, right?

Because people go through life with lifts. Lift, lift, lift here, lift there. I'm going to do this, you know, give my ups. And I walk through, I'm going to get another up. They, you know, we call them, in ministry we call them conference hoppers, you know, where we go to conference and we get her up and then we're back to drown zero and then we get her up and up and up again.

But we're not really living out who we are because we're just going for the next facelift, right? I think a facelift, you know. Nothing wrong with facelifts. Some of you may have had one or you're going to have one or, I mean, in Hollywood, man, there's facelifts everywhere, right? I mean, like the comedians nowadays, like the women comedians on the shows, an example, not to pick on Courtney Cox, but man, she can't even smile anymore, you know.

She's like, you remember having friends when she made those faces and she was so funny? Now it's like, it's like this all the time, you know. Not to be mean, but sometimes, you know, people go, you know, have these facelifts and they go through, you know, tummy tucks and they do things to your bodies because there's insecurities there, right? And they want people to think better of them and I got to continue to look good. Sometimes it is a job thing, but sometimes it's just, you know, and in a lot of cases it really is about, I need that lift so I feel better and and we go from lift to lift, but God doesn't want just to give you a lift, he wants to give you life.

He wants to give you purpose. So, he tests us. So, in those tests, he gives us a few things and Proverbs 17, 3 says, the crucible of silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart. And when gold and silver is purified, most of you know this, I'm sure, because you're smart people, but when gold and silver is purified, it's heated, it's put through a furnace, right? And then the impurities rise to the top and they scoop off the top and then you have pure gold and pure silver.

And in the same way, God skims the impurities out of us through trials. So, let me offer you a few things, if you're following your notes here, to kind of help you through those trials that kind of pull you through and understand the bigger picture. Number one, recognize what's really happening. Recognize what's really happening. Back to James, he says, consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of any kind because you know it is the testing of your faith that develops perseverance.

It develops you. It stretches you. So, the next time when you're faced with that boss treating you bad or that person doing something evil to you or that unexpected financial burden or whatever that unexpected thing that comes into your life, stop and consider. Recognize. Maybe God's doing something in this.

The ability to go through that helps us to learn not to react in a way that we wouldn't otherwise. So, we learn, we become stronger. And in turn, we begin to help others that are in those similar trials. So, recognize what's really happening there, that there's a bigger picture there. And which leads me to the next step, trust God's growth process.

You ever heard the term trust the growth process? You know, just, or trust the process? Just trust the process, right? Trust the process. Just trust.

I know it's, I know it just seems like, you know, you're, maybe you're in, you're in a business, the business world and you see trust the, you're like, you hear your boss say all the time, trust the process, trust the process. Well, it's not really, trust the process. Just give it time. Just give it time. Because once it starts rolling in, for us, you know, we, we, we launched GrowTrack, um, back, back in, um, uh, January.

We have a GrowTrack and, and, uh, by the way, uh, next weekend, if you are interested in being, uh, getting involved in our church, Church 101 happens next weekend, our membership, uh, process. You don't have to commit to being a member, but if you just want to hear more about the church and where we're going, nine o'clock a.m., we'll have coffee and bagels for you in the library. You can hear about my vision for the church and more about where the church comes from, overseers, all that kind of thing, if you want to become a part of the church.

So, that's just a little tag there. So, write that down. Be here next week. If, if this is, if this is, you're like, man, I really like what's going on here. I want to be a part of this.

I want to make this happen. I want to be a part of the team to, to, to grow this church and, and, and be a dynamic impact in this city. But when we started GrowTrack, um, uh, the one thing that was said to me by my overseers is trust the process, right? So, so, you know, some weeks we have 10, some weeks we have five, some weeks we have 15, some weeks we have zero. You know, you walk in on 101 and you just don't have anybody that week, right?

But we trust the process, right? Trust the process. You need to have these things to lead people into who you are and their purpose. And that's why we do GrowTrack because Our intention is to help people grow into and understand and know their purpose, why they exist, why God created them. So we trust the process no matter what it looks like.

In fact, James says, perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. He wants you to not lack anything. He wants you to be whole. And God, and let me just be real here, a lot of Christians think God is like this cosmic Santa Claus, you know, or a genie in the lamp. Let's rub him.

He's supposed to give me everything I want in life, right? He's supposed to give me all this because I'm a Christian. I'm a believer, you know, and I love the Lord. I preach on Sundays, right? And I started a church, you know, God, you know, this should, this should, you know, and it just doesn't work that way because God works differently.

He wants us to be complete. He wants us to be whole, not happy, like I said earlier. And look at it this way. Often, God actually answers our prayer. You know, you're praying for God to do something in life.

He actually answers our prayers through our trials. trials. And perhaps you, like, for instance, you probably prayed for financial blessing at one time in your life. You're like, Lord, I need, I need a breakthrough financially. And then the opportunity came open for you to go back to school, to finish school, or even to go to school for the first time.

But guess what? School's hard work. That's a trial in and of itself. You got to put aside time, and if you're working full-time already, you've got to go through the, you know, you got to read, you got to prepare for tests, and he's testing you. You know, you go in and write papers and do all of that, you know, and then some of you are called to graduate school, and then it's all a deeper level, you know, of research and study, and it takes a lot of time.

And a lot of us are like, why can't you just download the information in me, you know, and just go that way? Come on, God. You're God, right? You can make that happen, but that's just not how it works. Sometimes there's pain in it so that we can gain, right?

He puts us through that. I remember back when I first was called to ministry, and I was in seminary, and I was praying for God, like, God, I just want wisdom. I just want wisdom. I just want wisdom. And you know what God did?

He put obstacles in my life. He put conflict in my life. He put me under leadership that was helpful, but at other times was almost harmful to me. But God, in the process, was teaching me things. He put me in disputes and sudden turns of events so that I could better gain wisdom in those things because He was developing me.

Someone once said this, how do you become, someone asked a question, how do you become successful? The other person said, two words, good decisions. He said, well, how do you make good decisions? He says, oh, that's easy, one word, experience. He said, how do you get experience?

That's easy, two words, bad decisions, right? Bad decisions. That's how we grow. No pain, no gain. And a lot of churches mess out on teaching this.

They give these, you know, feel-good messages about, you know, you can be all you can be, and if you just ask God, He'll give it to you. And that's, there's the skin of the truth there, but I'm going to be your pastor today and tell you that's just not how it works in most cases. In fact, there's a lot of verses in the Bible that talk about the value of suffering, and we tend to skip over those things. Let me just share one with you here, Romans 5, 3, and 4. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our suffering because we know that suffering produces perseverance and perseverance character and character hope.

How about Peter? He says it in 1 Peter 1, 6, and 7. It says, in this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes even through refined fire, refined by the fire, may be proved genuine, and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. And many times, we go through these things, and we reject the very things that are actually helping us, right?

So, God's asking us to cooperate with the process. Thirdly, we got to ask God for help. It's funny how we tend to, you know, do everything else before we go to God. When trials come, you start working right away and go, why don't we just stop and ask God? In fact, James tells us to do that.

If any of you lack wisdom, he should ask God. It's pretty simple, right? It's very practical. Makes sense. Who gives generously to all without finding fault?

And it will be given to him. James just tells us, why don't you just talk to God first? If you want to bring it to our culture, just talk to God first, you know? Stop and talk to God. God, and let me just give you some practical advice about how to pray.

Instead of, you know, when we go to God, it's like, why, God? Why is this, you know, why are you doing this? And we get angry with God. How about, you know, changing how we pray and actually asking God, what are you teaching me in this? Where are you going with this?

Help me to understand. Stretch me, Lord, so that I better understand why I'm going through this process, and I'm going through these trials. Which leads me to my next point. Number four, keep the right attitude. Keep the right attitude.

It's easy to get, woe is me. God, why are you doing this? I know that you're going through this. You ever talk to those people like they're Christians, and they believe the Lord's like sovereign and in control, but they just don't act like it. They believe that God's a good God, but they act like he's a terrible God.

God, you know, it's just, I know, it's just, God's good, but man, I'm sure going through stuff right now. And it's just always like that. And I get it. Sometimes we have to cry, and we have to go to our brothers and sisters, but we need to keep the right attitude. We need a can-do attitude, right?

James 6, verse 6 says, but when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who is, and this is crazy, he gets real serious here. He who doubts is like a wave in the sea blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from God. It's challenging, because I doubt. I'm sure you doubt from time to time.

And he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does. And then he goes on, jumping over to verse 12, blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive a crown of life that God has promised to those he loves who love him. And then in the same breath, Paul, Paul, James, Paul did write most of the Bible, so most of the time when you say Paul, it's correct, right? But this time it's James. James says, well, I need to deal with this other issue, because these trials are unexpected things, but temptation is a whole other thing.

Now, while temptation is not our, and when temptations do come without us knowing, we can actually beat temptation. We can't really, you know, keep the trials from coming, but we can block the temptations. So he handles this, and he says, if I'm going to deal with trials, I need these people to understand there's a difference between trials and tribulation. So let's, so what does James say about that? He says this, he says, Let's do this.

He hits on some of these areas because he knows how vulnerable it is. So I'm going to share with you some points even there with temptation. Number one, like trials, we need to recognize the source of temptation. Okay? Where does temptation come from?

Now, let me say, first of all, we like to blame the devil a lot when things happen. And he can't, I mean, he causes, he brings temptation. We see in the Bible, he throws the temptations out there, right? But we are the ones that act on them. The devil cannot make us act on them.

Satan cannot make us act on temptation. Although the temptation is there, we have the power and the ability to resist the temptation. Well, the devil made me do it. No, you made you do it. The devil only offered the opportunity.

He put the lure out there. But you said, wow, that's a good, you know, whatever it is. And you were drawn to it. You have the ability to fight temptation. The devil doesn't have any more power than God allows him to have.

And he certainly doesn't have the power to push you into a temptation. He has the power to lure you into the temptation. He just sits over there waving it, right? James 13, verse 13 in chapter 1 says, When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.

So the devil does the tempting. God doesn't tempt you. God allows Satan. As we see in the book of Job and beyond, we see that Satan has to even ask permission. God, your servant, can I do this?

So we need to realize, recognize the source of temptation. And then, number two, understand the enemy's strategy of temptation. So we do know that the devil can't make us do anything, but we can't understand how he pulls us and lures us in where we take the bite, right? His strategy, get this, his strategy is us. His strategy is understanding and knowing us.

His strategy is to study you. It's to figure you out. Where's his fall? Where's her fall? He looks, and it's funny, pop culture, we kind of see the exorcist, you know?

And we think, well, you know, the devil, he makes heads spin, and he makes things float around, you know? And, oh, it's the devil. But if we saw that, we'd all be running to Jesus probably, right? So it's probably not the devil's best strategy. Yeah, in certain cultures, there's a little more of a supernatural thing going on.

But our culture is so dry to spirituality. It's so dead. The devil knows that. So he uses other instruments to lure you in. In fact, he doesn't even want you to know he exists.

Did you know that? Because we have a culture that says, oh, the devil isn't even real. Satan isn't even real. Evil, doesn't it really exist? And what better way does Satan want to kill the church, kill God's movement, than to make people believe, to lure people in to thinking he doesn't exist?

On the other hand, if he can create temptation through culture, it's a very crafty plan. 1 Peter 5.8 says, Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. So he studies you, right?

Genesis 3.1, we see in the garden, where we have the serpent who deceived Eve into biting into the fruit. What does it say? The serpent was more crafty than the other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He was crafty.

He studies people. Ephesians 6.11 even calls it the wiles. What are wiles? The wiles, so you can avoid the wiles of the devil.

What does that mean? It's deception, trickery. He tricks us. He makes us think one thing. I'm this, but he's actually this.

And he pulls us and lure us in. And James speaks about temptation in verse 14 through 15. But each one is tempted when, and by his own evil desires, he is dragged away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death.

So let's just look at that just for a second, right? Temptation happens. What is temptation? Because it didn't say if you're tempted. It says when you're tempted, okay?

Because you're going to be tempted. And temptation itself isn't bad. In fact, we should consider it joy, right? Because if you're being tempted, maybe God's got some big plans for you. And he starts throwing these temptations at you.

It's not sin yet. The temptations will come. It's not sin to be tempted. And when we're tempted, we must be doing something good. But then there's the process, the second part of the process, if you're following your notes, fantasy.

Then we start to think about it and wonder about it. What if? What if I drank this? What if I ate this? What if I slept with this?

What if I, you know, you know, after all, and you start to reason, it won't hurt anyone else. It won't. I mean, nobody will really even know about it. I mean, I deserve it. I work really hard, had a hard week.

You know, I try so hard. And we fantasize and reason about it. And then we come to the third place where we begin moving toward sin. Okay, if I've convinced myself, we start taking steps towards it. And we see things, you know, the grass is greener over there.

And you start walking, walking that direction. It may look greener, but the water builds a lot higher over there. Okay? I mean, it ain't greener over there. I can promise you.

You go that direction. And 1 Corinthians 6, 18 says this. You need to flee. It specifically talks about sexual immorality there. But we see over and over in Scripture, it says the best way, just flee.

When you get to that point where you start walking towards sin, it's time to start walking this way. All right? Sin's over here. Let's just start taking, take a 180 and start, flee. Flee.

Run. Run from it. But if we don't run from it, then it becomes the act of sin. We take a bite. Proverbs 24, 16 says, a righteous man falls seven times and rises again.

You know, that's hope. Because a lot of you have fallen. You've taken the bite. But I want to give you hope today. I want to give you, you can fall.

But get up and sin no more. Maybe you've fallen seven, ten, fifteen, twenty times. You've taken the bite. You've participated in the act of sin. And you feel like there's just no way out of it.

But the righteous man falls. If the righteous man falls and can be delivered, you can be too. The act of sin. But if we don't, if we don't look to God rather and look to that thing, whatever it is that's luring us in, then it ultimately leads to death. It leads to death.

Death. Strong word, death. Dying. Yeah. Dead.

Dead. No longer existing. Yeah, that's what he's talking about. Yeah. Cease to be living.

Death. So that's the process. He starts out with... Something small and leads us and lures us. And what seems right to men, according to the Word of God, what seems right to men, leads to death.

It may seem right in our eyes, but I'm just telling you, I want you to live. I don't want you to die. James wanted you to live. God wants you to live, not die. Thirdly, learn how to overcome temptation.

So how do we actually do that? We know the process now. We understand the devil's strategy, but how do we overcome temptation? Well, James tells us a little bit about that. He says in verse 16, Don't be deceived, my dear brother.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting sand. He says, Don't be deceived, you've got a way out. In fact, 1 Corinthians says this, chapter 10, verse 13, No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.

Meaning, that He's not going to give you anything that you can't get out of. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand under it. So let me just provide you quickly three things. I know we're getting on our time limit here, and we're going to be done in a minute. This is not in your notes.

Make decisions that will not put you in a place where you can fall for temptation. Number one. Number two, counter temptation with God's Word. If you're tempted, come back with God's Word. Jesus did it.

And thirdly, develop healthy relationships. Get in the right relationship. Stop participating. I know this friend's been your friend forever, but they could be poisoning you and pulling you into death. Back down that path towards death.

Healthy relationships. And number four, and lastly, fall in love with Jesus. Fall in love with Jesus. Just don't like the idea of Jesus or think it's a good... Like, love Him.

Fall in love with Him. James 1.18 says this in the NLT. He said, He chose to give birth to us by giving us His true Word. And we, out of all creation, became His prized possession.

We are His prized possession. He loves us so much. John 14.15 says, If you love me, you will obey what I command. Now, I used to look at that, and I used to say, Well, God's pointing His finger and says, If you love me, you'll do what I say you do, right?

You should do, right? And that just sounds like kind of a mean God, you know? But then when you look at the Scripture, when you actually study the Scripture, it says, it's more like, If you really understand how much I love you, if you really understand how much I want to pursue you and have a relationship with you, if you really understood that I gave my life for you because I want you, then it's not hard to follow me and love me back. Because He first loved us. Not that we loved Him.

He first loved us. And maybe some of you here today have never known or experienced that love. You don't know that love that God has for you. That you just always thought He was that guy that's all preaching at you. He's up in the sky, like, throwing things at you, trials and tribulations and all this other stuff and temptations.

And He just says, I want to see you fail. He's not that God. That's not Him. He loves you. So with all heads bowed and all eyes closed, maybe that's you and you've seen God as just this angry God.

Today, I hope in the little time I have here that I can convince you by the Word of God and everything He says in it, that He really does love you. He really does love you. And that pull in your heart right now towards Him, that's no coincidence. That's God's love for you. He wants a relationship with you.

He loves you deeply and dearly. And He desires to have that. With all heads bowed and all eyes closed, I don't want to embarrass you. But if that's you today, I just want to pray for you. And I just want to know who you are because I want to pray for you.

So if that's you today, if you could just quietly lift your hand and say, Lord, I'm in. I'm making this decision. This is my day. He's pulling you. There's hope in your tragedy and your struggles.

If that's you, just lift your hand. Just lift your hand. Anyone else? I see you. Hallelujah.

Anybody else? Hallelujah. Anyone else? Anyone else? Anyone else?

Pray with me. And there's no magical formula in the prayer. Let me just say that. There's no magical formula in this prayer. It's just you believing.

You believing in Jesus. You say, Jesus, I realize that I've done it wrong for a long time. And I've tried other things. But today, I surrender my life to you. You, Lord of my life, I know that you died on the cross for my sin.

And I believe today. And I confess that I can't do it on my own. Today, I make a decision to take a 180 away from my way of life and fully place it on you. And so I walk with you from here on out. You are my Savior.

You are my King. In Jesus' name.