[0:00] Take your Bibles and turn to John chapter 21, if you would, the Gospel of John chapter 21.! Last Sunday, we started this little mini-series, we're only going for three weeks, on coming back to Jesus.
[0:16] I hope it's a reminder to all of us that wherever life takes us, we can always turn and come back to Jesus. Last week, we talked about the heavy load, or the fortizo, that we carry with us.
[0:32] And we looked at that Greek word that we find that Jesus used for yoke, and he used it for burden and load. And he says the world and even religion will place a fortizo on you, a heavy burden on you that you have to carry.
[0:48] And instead of carrying that burden, he says exchange the burden that you place on yourself and that others place on you, and exchange it for the yoke or the fortizo that I want to put on you, because that's light, and I will help you carry it.
[1:06] So that's what we talked about last Sunday. Today, we're going to look at a different part of the life of Jesus, and that is found in John chapter 21.
[1:16] So go there with me, if you would, and let's look at this together. It's a very special story. It's almost like a footnote that the apostle John added in at the end of his gospel record.
[1:30] And he says in John 21, verse 1, after this, after what? After Jesus had been crucified, he had risen from the dead.
[1:41] By the way, that's how we have hope in Jesus, because we're not praying to a dead God. We're not praying to an idol that we made ourselves. We're praying to a living man who revealed himself to be God, the God-man.
[1:56] He came down. He was born of the Virgin Mary, left his heavenly throne, humbled himself, came to live among us, grew up around us, did many miracles, showed he was from God, said he was from God, said he was God himself.
[2:09] John testified of that, and he testified of that himself. And then the father himself testified of that on the Mount of Transfiguration when he said, this is my beloved son.
[2:20] Hear him. And so after all this, he allowed himself, according to God's plan, to be put to death. And then he arose from the dead by God's power three days later. And after that, he revealed himself to his disciples.
[2:35] And then he went away. As he had done so often when he was walking with his chosen 12 disciples and then the other followers that would go along with them and their troop as they traveled from town to town and region to region.
[2:48] And Jesus would perform miracles. He would teach them. He would fellowship with them. And then he would go off for a while. He'd disappear for a while. He'd go pray. He would restore his soul with the father. And he goes and he sees them.
[2:59] And then he goes away and he tells them, now wait. Wait for me. Wait until I give you power from God. Because I've got a great plan for you. He hadn't yet given them the great commission that we read about in Matthew 28.
[3:14] Kind of their marching orders for God's kingdom work all around this world. But whatever it was, well, that's fun. Hang on a second, y'all.
[3:27] These things just randomly happen. And I just got to turn the power off on that thing. And now we're good. All right. Probably those of you in the front row could hear that fun buzzing sound there.
[3:37] All right. We're good. Crisis averted. Listen. God had raised Jesus in power. He had come and he had appeared to his disciples. And now he told them, wait for a little bit.
[3:49] After he had appeared to them, man, they were blown away. Jesus, we saw him die. We knew he testified that he would rise from the dead. And he sure enough did. Look at this. Amazing. And he appeared to them in the upper room.
[4:01] And he shows himself at different points to his followers. And then he says, wait for a little bit before I see you again. I'm going to give you some marching orders. So what happens?
[4:14] Chapter 21 of John, verse 1. After this, Jesus revealed himself again to his disciples by the Sea of Tiberias. He revealed himself in this way.
[4:26] Simon Peter, Thomas called the twin, Nathaniel from Cana of Galilee, Zebedee's sons, and two others of his disciples were together. Why were they together?
[4:37] Because Simon Peter had said to them, I'm going fishing, boys. Remember what I was doing when Jesus called me to be his follower? I was fishing. Well, I've got a little time on my hands here while we wait for Jesus.
[4:52] I don't want to sit around and go crazy, so I'm going fishing. Who's coming with me? And these guys came and they said in verse 3, we're coming with you. They told him they went out and they got in the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
[5:05] Of course, on the Sea of Galilee, it was the best time of night to catch fish. Best time of day to catch fish was at night, and so that was the primary practice. And just like what had happened before, they're out there all night.
[5:20] If you remember back in Luke chapter 5, they were out all night and they caught nothing, and then Jesus comes and brings in a great catch of fish to them. Well, same thing happened here. They were out all night.
[5:30] They caught nothing. When daybreak came, verse 4, Jesus stood on the shore. But the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. So they were far enough away from the shore. They could see a figure out there, but they couldn't tell that it was Jesus.
[5:44] Probably wouldn't have even occurred to them at that moment that this was when he would reappear to them. But this guy on the shore says, friends, Jesus called to them, you don't have any fish, do you?
[5:57] He said, no, they weren't biting tonight. And then he says, cast the net on the right side of the boat and you'll find some. Now look, in hindsight, we get to read that and we get to say, well, obviously that's Jesus, right?
[6:14] These guys didn't have the benefit of knowing how that story would end. And so what Jesus had done before when he brought in the great multitude of fishes that we read about years before had spread like legend.
[6:27] It was almost urban legend in the minds of some. And for some, it was the greatest story, the greatest miracle that they couldn't believe Jesus had actually done.
[6:40] And so they think, haha, yeah, very funny guy on the beach. We'll put our nets on the other side and then all the fish are going to come in, right? But then probably somebody said, well, what if we just did it?
[6:59] What if we just went ahead and tried? Maybe the Holy Spirit of God moved them too in some way. But regardless of why they did, they went ahead and did.
[7:11] They didn't know yet that this was Jesus. They went ahead and they put their net back in the water on the other side of the boat from where they had had it before. And it says they were unable to haul it back in because of the large number of fish.
[7:29] So all night long, when the fish were supposed to be biting, nothing came in. And then Jesus performs one last mighty miracle for them. Going back to the beginning when he called them.
[7:45] Meeting them in that ordinary space. And that's number one. If you're taking notes in the outline you received this morning in your bulletin, Jesus meets you in the ordinary.
[7:56] The disciples were doing exactly what made sense. They were waiting. They were working. They went back to their normal routine. There was nothing wrong with that. I've heard preachers get up and preach, well, they should have been out there preaching about Jesus and said, well, Jesus didn't tell them to do that.
[8:11] He actually told them to wait. So they weren't doing anything wrong. But right there in the middle of a normal work day, the morning after a long night of work, Jesus appears to them.
[8:24] And it reminds us that Jesus is the God of the ordinary. You could almost say this was an ordinary miracle because he had done it before. This was repetitive.
[8:35] Something he had done before with them. And what was their reaction? They were unable to haul in the net because of the large number of fish. And then the disciple, the one Jesus loved.
[8:48] By the way, John loves to throw that little side note in there in his record. I'm the disciple that Jesus loved. Just in case any of y'all were wondering. He says to Peter, it's the Lord.
[9:00] And Simon Peter argues with him. He says, no, it's not. No, he doesn't. Instead, he tied his outer clothing around him because he had taken it off while he was fishing, this outer robe.
[9:11] He ties it around him and he jumps into the sea and he swims to shore. He wades to shore. They were not far from the land, about 100 yards away. And the other disciples brought the boat in, dragging the net full of fish.
[9:23] And then we'll get to the rest of the story in just a moment. But we see the heart of Jesus, that he is the God of the ordinary. I'm so glad that God is the God of the ordinary. John 1.14 reminds us that Jesus came to dwell among us.
[9:41] Sometimes we get this idea that God is waiting for us to come to him. The reality is God comes to us. You know why?
[9:52] Because we can't get to him. We can't make it to him. In our hearts, we rarely even want to get to him. Because we are sinful.
[10:08] We're full of pride. We're full of self-exaltation. We lift ourselves up above God and everyone else. God has to come to us.
[10:19] He has to captivate our hearts. He has to arrest our attention. And he does that all throughout the scriptures. That's how he dealt with his people, the Israelite people in the Old Testament.
[10:31] He would always come to them. And their hearts would wander. And sometimes they would physically wander. But in their worship, they would wander far away from him. And he would always come back and bring them back.
[10:42] And the prophets would write about it in the Old Testament. Man, it's awesome to go back and read through those prophetic books in the Old Testament. You know, you've got your Lamentations, your Jeremiah, your Isaiah, your Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk.
[10:55] You read through these Old Testament prophets. And they talk so often about God's cry that my people have wandered far away from me. And God always came back to them and brought them back to him.
[11:12] He does that to us continually. He comes back and meets us in the ordinary of our regular lives in Clay County, Texas. He came back not to the temple to meet with these guys.
[11:27] He came back to their work day. He came back and met them in the middle of their everyday life. And that's where Jesus meets us. But John 1.14, the word, who is the word?
[11:41] Do we know? Well, let's say it with a little more confidence. Who is the word? Yes, he is. You're right. That's the right answer. Jesus is the word of God. So if you say, I love the word of God, usually people are talking about this, right?
[11:55] You know who the word of God is? Jesus. This word points us to the word, Jesus. So the word became human, became flesh, bone, blood, cells, DNA.
[12:12] He became human and made his home among us. Can we just stop and think about that for a second? If we just took a quiz right now, a little pop quiz on a Sunday morning and said, where is God's home?
[12:28] What would y'all say? Come on, be honest. Don't try to get theological now that you've got some context to it. Where would you have said if we said, where's God's home? Heaven.
[12:40] Heard a lot of heavens, right? Yeah. I mean, that's where we think. Yeah. It's where the realm of God, you know, it's heaven, right? Right? Jesus came and made his home among us.
[12:53] God's spirit now has taken up residence in us. God's home is us. It is with us. We read in the end of Revelation about God coming down to live with us.
[13:07] The new Jerusalem, the holy city coming down to earth to live with us. God has reconciled his perfect creation that he started with way back in Genesis.
[13:19] This is going to be my home. This is going to be the people with whom I have fellowship and then sin ruined it all. Right? But now it's going to be restored.
[13:32] God's home is with us. So the word became flesh and made his home among us. That was a little picture of what's going to come. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.
[13:44] We have seen his glory. And you can't handle the glory of God, right? Moses couldn't handle the glory of God on Mount Sinai when God passed by and he just saw a glimpse of his robe.
[13:55] And couldn't handle the glory. Anytime in the Old Testament when you see this pre-incarnate appearance of God on earth, they can't handle the sight. They can't handle the encounter.
[14:07] But we have seen the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We get to see what it looks like when he makes his home on earth. The glory of the Father's one and only Son.
[14:21] So Jesus comes to find you in your everyday life. It's what he does. Sometimes you think you've wandered far.
[14:32] But there ain't no mountain high enough. There ain't no valley low enough to keep him from getting to you, all right? It just feels wrong to put those words to talking about God.
[14:47] But that's all right. I think the point stands there is no place that you can run to hide from God. The psalmist wrote about that. Where can I go to get away from God's presence?
[14:57] I can't. He can find me anywhere, and he does. But that's a good thing. That is a good thing. He comes to us. We don't have to leave our life to find Jesus.
[15:08] He's already come to find us in it. He meets us in the nothing times. The average times. The mean times.
[15:20] He comes to find us in everyday life. And then he invites us into friendship. Number two, he invites us into friendship. That's where we left off. When they got to land, Simon Peter's first.
[15:32] He's the impetuous one. He's the bold one. He's the acting on instinct guy, right? We see that throughout the description of Simon Peter's time with Jesus and how God matured him and grew him up.
[15:45] But he still has this personality. Are you kidding me? That's Jesus out there? Well, of course it is. He brought the fish in. Man, I got to go see him. And he jumps out of the boat. He's not going to help bring the boat in. He's not going to help bring the fish in.
[15:56] He's going to go see Jesus. And there's nothing wrong with that attitude. But he gets out there, and he's first. And then the other guys come. And what do they find? They saw a charcoal fire there with fish lying on it and bread.
[16:10] You know what they didn't see? They didn't see a prayer circle set up or a church service set up. They didn't see Jesus ready for them to come and have a holy time of worship.
[16:22] Jesus came to have breakfast with them. I love that. It's one of my favorite things that I read about Jesus.
[16:34] It reveals so much about his personality. His personality. It reveals so much of the human side of Jesus and how much he identifies with us.
[16:50] He knew in that moment those guys' biggest need before he could teach them, speak to them, share whatever was on his heart with them.
[17:01] They were hungry. They might have even crossed over into that dangerous territory of being hangry. You and I never get there, right?
[17:15] These guys have been working all night. Not only had they been working all night, but they hadn't caught anything. So they maybe probably weren't in the best frame of mind, right? It was an unsuccessful night out fishing. Well, then they get this incredible miracle.
[17:27] And here comes Jesus. So that's great. They got the dopamine hit. But that hunger is going to sit back in real quick. And Jesus anticipated their needs just like he does for us. I'm reminded of a verse where it says sometimes we don't even know what to pray for.
[17:41] When we pray to God, we don't even always know the best thing to pray for. But Jesus prays on our behalf. Because he anticipates what we need before we need it.
[17:54] He anticipated what they would need. And what does he say to them? Jesus says back in verse 5, the first word he spoke to his disciples, friends.
[18:07] He called them friends. How many of you remember a worship song that came out? It's been quite a few years now.
[18:18] It said, I am a friend of God. He calls me friend. Anybody heard that one? Yeah. I am a friend of God. He calls me friend. That comes from scriptures where God calls man friend.
[18:31] He did it with David. He did it with his disciples right here. There are times when we see God himself have a friendship with his created beings.
[18:45] It's a weird thing to think about. But that's how he sees us. He sees us as something, someone he wants to have a genuine friendship with.
[18:58] I love the word relationship. But relationship is a broad term. You can have good relationships, bad relationships. You have a relationship with the people that you like the worst.
[19:09] It's not a good relationship. But Jesus wants to have a friendship with you. He wants to be your friend.
[19:22] Who is the friend who sticks closer than a brother? Think about it for a minute. Who is the friend who sticks closer than a brother? Who is he? He's Jesus.
[19:33] We learn that from the scriptures. From the word that points us to the word of God. Jesus. So who are your best friends in your life?
[19:49] Guys, you're supposed to say your wife right then. Wives, you're supposed to say your husband. Kids, you're supposed to say your parents. I don't know. I'm your dad, not your friend.
[20:00] Well, there's probably some truth to that. But look, we have friendships. Some of us are blessed with close friendships on this earth. But regardless of whether you have close friendships with other human beings, Jesus is a friend to you.
[20:18] And if he's not a friend to you, it means you're not his child. You may not feel the friendship, but it's because you've been ignoring him. It's because you've been running from him.
[20:30] He is ready to be a friend to you at any moment. And guess what? Even while you've been running, even while you've been trying to hide, he has still remained a faithful friend to you.
[20:41] He's still been blessing you in ways that you probably aren't even aware of, aren't even always able to identify in the moment. But in hindsight, who was it? I just heard somebody.
[20:52] Was it this morning? Somebody said the... No, I think it was last night. I think it was Cindy who spoke at the Bank of the Deacons banquet last night who said our vision is always much clearer in the rearview mirror than it is out the windshield.
[21:09] Wasn't that Cindy? I think it was Cindy. Yes, that was you. That was so good. We can always see far more clearly how God worked in the past than we do in the moment usually.
[21:21] And that's what God is. He's a faithful friend even when we don't see it in the moment. So what should we do? John 15, 15.
[21:32] Jesus reiterates this. He says, I no longer call you servants. This was six chapters earlier. I no longer call you servants because a servant doesn't know his master's business.
[21:43] Strictly a business relationship, right? Master and servant. I'm your employer. You're my employee. He said, instead, I have called you... What's that word? Friends.
[21:53] For everything that I have learned from my father, I have made known to you. Y'all, he's not holding any mysteries back from us. He's being open and honest.
[22:06] He's saying everything that my father has revealed to me, I have revealed to you. That's incredible. We get the fullest picture of God that we can handle right now through Jesus Christ.
[22:24] That means you've got to go and read what Jesus had to say. That means you've got to open up Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and you've got to read what Jesus revealed. Because that's what we need.
[22:36] That's what we need to hear. When you read through the rest of the scriptures, Genesis to Revelation, you read them through the lens of Jesus. God is revealing himself to us in the person of Jesus.
[22:49] We can learn everything that we need to know about God when we read the scriptures through the lens of Jesus Christ. So he says, I've revealed all this to you because you're my friends.
[23:01] I want to be a friend to you. God is many things to many of us. Unfortunately, I wouldn't put friend high on that list. God is one of us. God is one of us.
[23:12] Because it's hard to think of him in that way because we don't see his physical body with us anymore. But if we remember that his physical body did come down and was with us.
[23:23] And now his spiritual presence is with us everywhere. And he left us this love letter. He left us this instruction manual.
[23:35] He left us this valuable record of his life and all these other historical records that point us to him. Then we see the foundation is laid for a friendship.
[23:48] But there's got to be some participation on our part. We've got to pursue him. Just like any other relationship, any other friendship, we have to pursue him. So everything that he's learned, he's revealed to us because we are his friends.
[24:04] What does this tell us? Jesus is more interested in having friends than employees or even volunteers. Now churches are more interested in having volunteers.
[24:15] Trust me. Ask Megan, does she need friends or volunteers? In the children's ministry. Both. There you go. That's a great answer. I was going to say in her spiritual moments, she would say friends.
[24:28] In her reality check moments, it's like give me some people, man. I see some bodies in those classrooms. You don't like me? That's okay if you'll volunteer for a Sunday. No.
[24:39] Look, the reality is we do want both. We do want to have relationships with the people who serve here at this church. Jesus is more interested in having friends than having worker bees.
[24:50] If you are his friend, you're going to find yourself doing the things that are important to him. You're going to find yourself caring for those children.
[25:03] You're going to find yourself investing in the next generation in the youth department. You're going to find yourself using the gift and the talent that God gave you up here in the choir, in the music program, up on the sound deck that nobody thinks about until something goes wrong.
[25:18] By the way, those people up there, they get so little appreciation when everything goes according to plan, but everyone notices when anything goes off. And most of the time, it's not even their fault.
[25:29] It's a technology failure of some sort. But you're going to find yourself doing the things that help God's kingdom work because you care about him.
[25:40] And then you won't burn out so fast. Then you won't get bent out of shape when you don't get the appreciation or people don't pat you on the back and say, what a good job you're doing. Because you're not doing it for them.
[25:52] You're doing it because you love your friend. And he cares about this stuff. So you're going to help him in any way you can and help his people, help his body, help his church.
[26:04] But Jesus is more interested in friendships. Say, I've been serving this church for a long time. Have you been serving Jesus for that time out of a spirit of friendship? Or has it been motivated by something else?
[26:18] And this leads us to 1 Peter chapter 5. Give all your worries and cares to God. Cast all your cares upon him. Why? Because he cares about you. Why?
[26:28] Because you're his friend. He wants to be your friend. He is your friend. Whether you recognize him as that or not. And this leads us to the last point.
[26:41] Jesus restores you with kindness. Where we left off. Breakfast time. Verse 10. Jesus says, bring some of the fish you've just caught, Jesus told them.
[26:52] So Simon Peter climbed up and hauled the net ashore full of large fish. 153 of them. I love that they gave us the exact number. Those guys got in there and counted.
[27:04] 153 fish. Even though there were so many, the net did not break. It did not tear. What does Jesus say? Come and pray with me.
[27:15] Come and worship. Let's have a holy time together. What does he say in verse 12? See, y'all don't have your Bibles open.
[27:26] If you had your Bibles open, you would know. John 21, 12. What does he say? Come and have breakfast. I love it. The overt spirituality of this, right?
[27:37] Come and have breakfast, boys. I got food ready for you. None of the disciples dared ask him, who are you? That boat is, that ship has sailed. You know, we're past that point at this point.
[27:49] Everybody knows who he is. They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and he took the bread and he gave it to them and he did the same with the fish. This was the third time Jesus had appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
[28:00] Then he gets into the other stuff after breakfast. But y'all, can we just stop at breakfast and finish our time here? Remember, Jesus had the fire burning.
[28:13] He'd already been cooking. He doesn't ask for a report on how they'd been spending their time since the last time he saw them. He says, come and have breakfast.
[28:27] Turn to Hebrews chapter 4, would you? The author of Hebrews, we're not 100% sure who the author of Hebrews was. A lot of people think it was Paul. Some people think others.
[28:40] It's hard to exactly identify. It was certainly one of the apostles who knew Jesus very well. But regardless, the author of Hebrews says, we have Jesus.
[28:52] Verses 14 down through 16. We're not going to read the entire passage for sake of time. But we have Jesus who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. He is able to have sympathy for your weakness.
[29:10] He knows my weak areas. And he doesn't sit there and shake a finger. He doesn't mock. He doesn't criticize. He sympathizes. He was tempted in every way that we are.
[29:25] But he didn't sin. So we can go confidently to him. We can get help from him. We can go confidently to the throne of God's kindness or grace.
[29:38] My typical translations that I use said grace. I love the God's words translation that goes back to the Greek word of this that actually has more of a kindness type of grace.
[29:50] It's a kind grace. Sometimes you can give begrudging grace to somebody. Sometimes you can give a grace from a place of haughtiness or look like I'll have grace on you.
[30:02] I should respond to you in this way, but I'll show grace to you. This is a grace full of kindness that we get from God. And I think sometimes that's why it's good to go back to the Greek translation and the internet today.
[30:16] You can do that pretty easily and see what exactly that word meant. Because sometimes we don't always have a good word in English to translate to that. But the throne of God's kindness to receive mercy from him and to find that kind grace which will help us at the right time in our time of need.
[30:35] This is what we get from Jesus. And it shows up in such simple ways as him wanting to have breakfast with us. He knew they were cold.
[30:49] He knew they were made of fire. He knew they were hungry. He made bread. He made breakfast. Coming back to Jesus is homecoming to a Savior who prefers to feed you rather than fix you.
[31:05] God's going to restore everything someday. He's going to heal everything someday. He's going to right all the wrongs. Justice will finally be on earth. God's righteousness will reign.
[31:15] Everything will be just right and perfect. But so often we're interested in fixing all the little things and Jesus is interested in feeding us.
[31:28] I want to invite you to have breakfast with Jesus. Because that's what he wants to have with you. God's been impacting me with this truth recently.
[31:41] Can I be honest with you for a second? I've been fighting it. It's hard to accept the simplicity of this. I've been to Bible college.
[31:54] I've been to seminary. I'm hopefully getting ready to start pursuing a doctorate in theology and that kind of thing. But look, all that kind of stuff, there's use to it.
[32:05] There's helpfulness to it. Some of you have been teaching for many years. Some of you probably know more about the Bible or maybe have forgotten more about the Bible than I'll know. Knowledge of God is important.
[32:18] But friendship with God is so much more impactful. When your knowledge of God grows from a place of real friendship, then it's useful.
[32:32] Then it helps that friendship become more real. It helps it go to the next level. But you know what God is interested in? He's interested in feeding you by his spirit.
[32:43] He's interested in feeding you from this book that he left us. He's interested in feeding you in the quiet times in the morning, at night, in the normal, in the usual, in the boring.
[32:58] He's interested in meeting you there. So I want to invite you to join me in prioritizing, making it chief priority.
[33:10] Whether you're a child in this room, got a group of them down here with my kids and others. Whether you're a teenager, we got a group of those down front. Or whether you're something else.
[33:22] We'll just leave that up to y'all to determine what you are. Whatever stage of life you're in, would you consider, check your own heart and consider, how strong is your friendship with Jesus?
[33:37] How good of a friend are you with Jesus? I think we all know how good of a friend he is to us. But how good of a friend are you with him?
[33:50] Every day, every morning, he invites you to come and have breakfast with him. When I do that, it makes the rest of my day go so much better.
[34:03] Even if life is crazy, even if curveballs are thrown at me, I've had breakfast with Jesus. It's going to be okay.
[34:14] That might be a physical breakfast. It might be taking your copy of the Word of God and sitting down in the Scriptures and sitting down and reading it and having your coffee or your donut or your cereal or your oatmeal or protein-heavy breakfast.
[34:28] Whatever you do, all right? Your shake, whatever you do. Whatever your breakfast is, can you have it with Jesus? Or maybe if it's not an actual physical meal, you can still set aside some time to go meet Jesus on the beach, so to speak, at the campfire.
[34:47] And just reignite your friendship with him. Can we pray together? Let's ask God to show us how to do that. God, you've got a room full of people here that you want to have breakfast with.
[35:04] You're calling us into the campfire. Maybe it's been a long night of working for a lot of people. Maybe it's been long years that it feels like we've been out of your presence.
[35:25] You're meeting us at the beach saying, Come on in. I'm ready for you. I've got exactly what you need right now. God, you meet us with kindness.
[35:36] That's the kind of grace you show us. You meet us with love. God, help me to make that more of a priority in my life.
[35:50] Meeting you first thing and having breakfast with you. Let that trickle over to my family. Let my children see a difference. Let my wife see a difference.
[36:01] Our church staff, the church, my friends, people I interact with every day. Let them see the difference when I have breakfast with Jesus. God, I pray that every heart, every family would pray that same thing.
[36:17] Send us to you. Send us running to you. Early. First thing. Early will I seek you. Remind us of the friendship that you desire from us.
[36:28] What a privilege that is to be called the friend of God. It's in Jesus' name we pray all this. Church, with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, just for our final minute or two together, I'm going to ask you a couple questions.
[36:45] If you would like to place your membership in this church, please come down front at this time and talk to me. I'd love to have that conversation with you. We want to welcome you into our body of Jesus followers here. If you need to give your life to Jesus for the first time, please come down and talk to me here.
[37:01] Love to have that conversation about how God so loves you and wants to have that relationship with you. And because of his death and resurrection, you can be forgiven. You can be a child of God. If there's something else that's on your heart, this altar is open.
[37:15] Your pew is a great place to pray and do some business with the Holy Spirit right now. But for just a minute or so, let God speak to you as the friend that he is.
[37:28] that's who has that relationship with you. Let him have that relationship with you. Let him have that relationship with you. Let him have that relationship with you. Thank you.
[38:02] While some are praying, I'm sorry, and our ladies are playing up front, if you'd like to continue in prayer, if you'd like to join us in softly singing, In My Heart, Lord, Be Glorified. Let's sing that now.
[38:20] In my heart, Lord, be glorified. Won't you be glorified? Same thing again.
[38:36] In my heart, Lord, be glorified today.
[38:48] In my life and in my life, Lord, be glorified.
[39:01] Be glorified. And in my life, Lord, be glorified today.
[39:19] I want to advise Josh Tiller up to close us in a final word of prayer. And as we do, as we prepare to send you home, and whatever your plans are the rest of the day, I want to send you with a blessing from the Lord.
[39:37] And also remind you this Wednesday evening, we're gathering for our regular Wednesday activities. We're coming up on May, y'all. It's about to get real busy, and we've got summer plans and all that.
[39:48] But let's prioritize our friendship with the Savior. Let's not let that drop. I think it'll make all the difference in the world. Thank you for being here this morning. If I haven't gotten a chance to meet you, I'll be in the back.
[39:58] Love to do that. And God bless you all. Josh. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this day. Like the choir sang earlier, Lord, we just have 10,000 reasons to thank you.
[40:13] Most of all, as Pastor Sam reminded us today, we're just thankful that we have a God. That meets us where we're at and desires that relationship with us. Pray that we would pursue that in the same way that he pursues us.
[40:26] Father, just thankful for the rain. We pray for all those that had just property damage or any damage to any people during this difficult time, Lord.
[40:38] That you just be with them and allow us to minister to them. Just pray that you'd be with this church as we go throughout this community, Lord. That we would just be the light. We just thank you most for sending your son Jesus for us.
[40:50] Amen.