Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through John 15:18-16:4, emphasizing the cost of abiding in Christ, particularly the persecution believers may face. He explains that just as the world hated Jesus, it will also hate His followers, and encourages the congregation to expect, embrace, and endure such challenges. The practical application focuses on remaining steadfast in faith, sharing the Gospel, and relying on the Holy Spirit for strength during difficult times, ultimately reminding believers of their identity in Christ and the importance of standing firm in their faith.
Welcome and Introduction
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms. Amen, amen, amen. Thank you, young people. You can be dismissed today. Thank you, choir, for singing. Children's Church will be available for you.
We are excited about being in the house of the Lord today. I know our young people are really excited about spring break. Young people, if you're excited about spring break, raise your hand. Yes, yes, all the hands of the young people go up. Parents, if you're excited about spring break, raise your hand.
Yeah, a couple of you are. Love it, love it.
And then all of everyone else has to work on spring break. We just get to work. And so we are going to be in John chapter 15 today. John 15, verses 18. And then we're going to go to 16, verse 4 today.
We're going to look at a couple of verses here.
Bear with me as I catch my breath from all that singing. That was a lot.
But I would rather be singing to the Lord than to anyone else. And so I'm grateful that he gives us a voice to lift up his name this morning. But we've been in this passage of abide and what it looks like. Jesus is teaching his disciples in the upper room.
And he has now transitioned to where they are leaving the upper room. And they're walking to the Garden of Gethsemane.
And last week we looked at what it looks like to abide in Jesus. But this week he changes his idea from abiding in him to what it's going to cost to abide in him. And he looks to the cross this morning.
And I told Allison, I said, as I planned through and worked through this passage, I did not realize because the schedule got moved a couple of weeks for the weather that happened at the beginning of the year, that
this was going to be where we were going to be at. But we're looking at the cross through Jesus,
predicting what's about to happen. He's talking about the persecution that's going to happen to him this morning. And so if you have your places there, John 15, verse 18, let's stand. The words will be on the screen for you to follow along as well.
Jesus starts by looking at this statement. He says, if the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you.
If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, I've chosen you out of it. The world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you. The servant is not greater than his master. They persecute me.
They will also persecute you. If they keep my word, they will also keep yours.
If they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they don't know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoke to them, they would be not guilty of sin. Now they have no excuse for their sin. No one hates me.
I'm sorry. The one who hates me also hates my father. If I had not done these works among them that no one else has done, they would not be guilty of sin. Now they have seen and hated both me and my father.
But this has happened so that the statement written in their law might be fulfilled. They hated me for no reason. Verse 26, They will do these things because they haven't known the father or me.
But I have told you these things so that when their time comes, you will remember that I have told them to you.
I did not tell you these things from the beginning because I was with you. Lord, we love you. We thank you for your word.
We thank you for the reading of your scripture. Pray that you would help me as I proclaim your word this morning, that your name be lifted high. And if there's anyone here that doesn't know you, today would be the day of their glorious salvation. In your name we pray. Amen.
You may be seated. As many of you know, I like history and I'm going to talk a little about history today. There's no greater history that can be told about Jesus rising from the dead. But there was a story that predated me.
Many of you may remember this or may have been alive during this time. But there was a little scandal in the government that never happens. Government never has scandal.
But there was a scandal in the government called the Watergate scandal. How many of you remember the Watergate scandal? Nixon was the president, I believe, then.
Bertie remembers it only because we've told him about it, right? He actually had a conversation about this the other day. But there was this moment that revealed everything in the Watergate scandal. There were some men who were in this room with Nixon.
And I believe it was Nixon that they were in there with. And they were talking.
And they decided that when the news came out, they were going to lie about what was going on. And so they lied. And they said that nothing was done wrong. And these men were powerful men. They were trusted men. They stood before cameras. They stood before courts.
And the record shows that one by one, each one of them began to fold.
The mounting pressures, the questions they were getting, the consequences were becoming real. And when it came time for the truth to be told, they all folded and said what they said was a lie. And they cracked. Now, why did they confess to this lie? Because they knew it was a lie.
History tells us that they were trying to perfect something that wasn't true. And when persecution comes, people will always save themselves for a lie.
But people will go to their death defending the truth. Now, when we begin to contrast this to a group of men, the disciples who followed Jesus,
they came to follow Jesus. These were not powerful men. They didn't have influence like these men at Watergate did. They did not have wealth. They did not have a platform. But what they had was this. They had seen a risen Savior. They had seen Christ crucified on a cross,
buried in a tomb, sealed the tomb so that no one could get in. And yet they got to see Jesus afterwards. They saw him alive.
And when persecution comes, and you can look at history, and every single one except one died and was martyred for their faith, was killed for their faith. One died of old age. All the rest were killed for their faith. Not one of them folded.
Not one of them turned their story around. And not one of them said, you know, guys, I was mistaken. I was wrong. He's actually dead. He's actually, we put his body over here. Every single one of these men went to their grave, beaten, imprisoned, threatened, scattered.
And history tells us that every single one of them said, this is the truth, and we're not going to walk it back. Now, why would someone go to that much extreme?
Like I said, no one's going to die for a lie. They're going to die for the truth. And these men said, we're not going to fold like the men later at Watergate folded because the pressure of the truth came upon them. The disciples endured because they knew it was real.
Now, how does all that story come into today's sermon? Here's what it means. Abiding in Christ isn't proven when it's easy.
When we live for Christ, when we decide that I'm going to sacrifice my life for Jesus, I'm going to give my life for him, I'm going to turn my life over and say, Lord, I believe you died on the cross for me. I believe you rose again.
I'm going to live for you. It doesn't get proven when everything is good.
When we're on the mountaintops and everything is great and all the blessings are flowing and everything is happening, that's the best ever, that's the easy stuff.
The hard things is when we have to prove something when it costs you something. When your job is on the line because your boss comes to you and says, recant Jesus and don't say that he rose from the dead. Stop talking about Jesus or you're going to get fired.
And now you have to choose between, am I going to choose my job who's providing my income or am I going to choose Jesus? Or when you're in school and your teacher comes to you and they say,
Jesus isn't real, we're not going to talk about Jesus anymore. And now all of a sudden you have the choice to make. Am I going to proclaim Jesus or am I going to crack under the pressure? The question is not,
will the pressure come? It will come. The question is, when it comes, how am I going to respond?
Understanding Hatred Towards Jesus
And that's what we're going to look at today because the Bible starts out in chapter 15, verses 18 to 25, by talking about the hatred that happens toward Jesus. And the age-old question,
some of you know I like music, the age-old question that has been asked through song, who has been asked throughout all of time is, why can't we be friends? Why can't we just all get along?
Why can't we all be a part of a big happy family? And why can't we just be hunky-dory, right?
Why can't we just be the best of friends and put all the other things aside, right? The bumper stick that says coexist and we try to mix all the religions together. Why can't we just all get along? Jesus says this, if the world hates you.
And he's saying here, the world hated Jesus first. So why is there hatred?
Number one, if you look underneath A here, the world hated Jesus. The Bible says, if the world hates you, understand they hated me first. Now, a lot of people read this and they say, if the world hates, they read this if as a question, right? If this happens, then this.
This, really, it should be, I'm not trying to correct the Bible or anything. This is what it should say. Since the world hates Jesus,
they're going to hate you. Since the world hated Jesus and killed Jesus, understand the disciples, he's telling them this, understand they're going to come after you. They're going to fight you. They're going to beat you. They're going to persecute you. But he gets this glorious thing later.
But hatred towards believers is not personal first, right? It's theological because they don't want to accept someone who has died for their sins.
So because of that, they hate you and they hate us. And we must ask ourselves, are we rooted in the rejection of Jesus? Are we rooted in understanding that Jesus was rejected? He came into his own.
His own looked at him and said, I don't want to have anything to do with you.
He went to Nazareth and he went to his hometown and I've stood in the town and I've stood on the mountain where they were going to throw Jesus off the mountain.
And he stood in his synagogue that he would have grew up in, that he would have read scripture from, that he would have made noises in, that he would have ran around in, that he would have been a part of all these people and everyone knew who he was.
And he stood up in his synagogue and he began reading from scripture and reading from the Old Testament that he was the Messiah.
And they looked at him and they said, is not this Jesus, the son of the carpenter?
And they got mad at what he was saying. They said, we don't like this man named Jesus. And we're going to take you up to a very high mountain, the Mount of Presbyters.
And we're going to throw you off because we don't like what you have to say. This is what people did to Jesus. This is what they were trying to do. And Jesus said, it's not my time.
And somehow, miraculously through this miracle, it says he passed through the crowd and they couldn't touch him. And Jesus understood that they're going to hate him.
And because they hate him, they're going to hate us. But the question we have to ask is, are we're folding, but just because of hatred that comes, or are we living in the life that Jesus has given us?
And saying, if I get rejected, my Savior was rejected. And it's okay.
You see, as I talked about this morning, when the sun came up this morning, the darkness never negotiated with the light. The light pushed away the darkness.
And you and I are the light of the world, Jesus says. And we get to be the light that pushes away the darkness in this world.
And we have to ask ourselves, are we being that light in this world that doesn't try to negotiate, but simply expose and say that Jesus is the one true Messiah who came to die for our sins?
Then Jesus continues on in verse 19, and he says, not only is the world going to hate Jesus, but I have called you out of the world. I have taken you, and I have pulled you out of this world. And what this simply means is that we have a different identity now.
We are chosen. We don't get to blend in, right?
I wore this bright blue jacket for a reason. If I go outside, I'm not going to blend in with anyone in this room. I'm going to stand out.
I had an orange one that I was going to wear that I wore a couple weeks ago, right? I wore this because I wanted it to be a visual representation. If I were to walk through Walmart, as crazy as Walmart is, it's one of Josh Green's favorite places to go.
If I were to go through Walmart, and I were walking through the crowd, you would be able to spot me out because I look different, not only because I'm crazy, and I got red hair, and I'm excited, but because I've got on this massively bright blue jacket.
And Jesus is saying the same thing. When you have made this decision to follow me,
you have a new identity. You're chosen. You're going to stand out. People are going to think you're weird at times, but not only have you a new identity, but you have this new allegiance. You now belong to a new system. You don't belong to the world system.
What the world says is right or wrong can sometimes be flawed, but what Jesus says is right and wrong is the truth. And the world doesn't hate people that blend in. Someone that just goes along with the flow, right?
If you've played sports before, if someone who doesn't want to challenge the status quo, the world is okay with. But the moment someone stands up and say, hey guys, let's be a little more determined in our attitude. Let's hustle around.
Let's run on the field. Let's jog off the field. Let's do something with some purpose and some intensity.
All of a sudden, other people are like, hey man, stop being an overachiever. We don't want to do that. I'm okay with just walking around.
But the person that decides to go against the grain is the person that stands out and the people begin to go against them. And this is what Jesus is saying about his disciples. You have been chosen.
You have been changed and you are not going to blend in anymore. You're going to stand out and the world's going to see that and the world's not going to like it and they're going to come after you. Started watching a documentary just the other day on the Dallas Cowboys.
Where did Vicki go? Where is she at? All right. Marty's in here. Vicki's not in here. I know she's a Cowboys fan. My buddy John, he's like, James, you've got to watch this documentary.
It goes through all the Cowboys from Jarrett Jones. And so I've been watching through it a little bit. I came across this scene and it so perfectly illustrated this.
There when Jarrett Jones first took over, they had a player, a great running back or a great defensive lineman. I can't remember which one it was. And they traded him away to like the Vikings or to the Redskins or one of their rivals. Okay.
And this is what it showed when this happened. When they traded him away, none of the fans followed him. They were Cowboys strong. We're going to go for America's team.
He's playing for the enemy now. We don't care about him. We don't care about what he's doing. And all of a sudden, when you begin to switch sides and you go from the world's side to Jesus's side, they're going to look at you and they're going to say,
he's not with us anymore. All of a sudden, he's not doing the same things we used to do.
He's not trying to live the same lifestyle we're trying to live and who you thought was going to be your friends at one moment.
Just because you start serving Jesus, as Jesus says right here, they once were with you and now they're not with you and now they hate you just as they hated me.
They thought Jesus was going to be the Messiah they wanted and all of a sudden, he came and became the Messiah that they didn't want. And all of a sudden,
the world looks at us and says, I don't like what you're doing. Is there enough difference in my life
than those that are of the world and can people tell a difference and notice there's something different about me? Not only are they called out from the world, but they are, we serve the one
Expecting Persecution as Followers
who has been risen, right? Verse 20 and 21, the Bible says, a servant is not greater than his master. Jesus lays out three specific things here.
The first, he says this, expect you're going to get persecuted. Expect it's going to happen. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. He then goes on, he says, embrace it. Don't run from it. Don't look at it and say, this is something I don't want.
Embrace it as a way of saying, it's going to happen.
I just have to deal with it just like getting old and having to get a knee replacement or a hip replacement or parts of my body. I've just got to get it and deal with it and move on. I can't just continue to run from it. I've got to embrace it.
And then he says this, endure it. He says, we serve an audience, the one who had came to die for your sins.
The crowd didn't die for us, but the one Jesus came into this world to die for us.
The soldier, as he's following into the command of his leading officer, as Mickey said this morning, as we pray for our military,
as that soldier is following the commands of the person in front of him, if he sees that his commander has been struck down in war, he must know that if they strike out my commander, they're probably going to come after me as well. And he has to make this decision.
Am I going to continue on with what I'm doing or am I going to be a Benedict Arnold and turn around and tuck horse and go backwards the other way? Right?
Or what am I going to do? How am I going to respond? And we have to ask ourselves, are we expecting the same treatment Jesus received
or are we experiencing or expecting something different? Are we expecting that Jesus was treated one way and all of a sudden they're going to treat us a completely different way? The Bible says that as Jesus is rejected and hated of men, we also will be. Now I'm not giving you a great explanation of why you should follow Jesus.
I'm trying to prepare you for what the world is going to come after you because as I have lived for 37 years and many people in here have lived for a lot longer than me, they can all testify that it's not always roses and good smelling bushes.
There's going to be persecution. There's going to be hurt and pain and torment but in the end, all of a sudden we can look back and say, Jesus, thank you. Jesus, thank you for what you've done. I know in the moment I didn't understand why I was going to be persecuted.
I didn't understand why but every single one of those disciples when they were killed and they were hanging on a cross and Peter who said, I can't be crucified the same way Jesus was crucified, flipped my cross upside down and crucified me upside down.
And he said, the only way I'm going to be crucified is if I do it the opposite way of Jesus because I'm not worthy to die the same death he died.
This is what changes our life when we begin to understand that it's worth it when we give our lives to Jesus because he gave us everything. And then in verse 22-25 Jesus begins to expose the failures of the people.
He says, they would not be guilty of sin if I had not come. Now Christ didn't create their sin he revealed the sin. He showed them what they had done wrong.
It's like a teacher who looks at your paper and all of a sudden you've made all the answers and you thought, man, I studied my best I did all the best things that I could do. Teacher, my wife's favorite statement, I did my best.
I got all the answers wrong but at least give me credit for doing my best, right? A good teacher would look at that and say,
yeah, but you got everything wrong and they're going to reveal all the things you did wrong in that paper to make you better.
And Jesus in the same way he came in and he confronted the Pharisees and their thinking and he said, the way you're thinking you have twisted scripture and I've got to come in and correct this and the way
you've lived your life is different than the way I want you to live your life.
And the works that he did confronted their unbelief. They said, I don't know if I want to believe this man. He's healing people on the Sabbath.
He's doing things to sinners and he's having dinner with the reprobates and he's having dinner with the tax collectors and I don't know if I want to be around that guy. And all of a sudden the things Jesus was doing was confronting them.
You see, people didn't hate Jesus because he was harsh. Jesus didn't say a lot of harsh statements. Now he did say some harsh statements. He called them a brood of vipers and he said some things but most of his speech was compassion. They hated him because he was holy.
They hated him because he lived a perfect holy life and his standard of living was up here and they were falling short and they didn't like it and so they've got to get rid of that guy.
And this is what happens in our life when we begin to grow holy and grow closer to Jesus and when we begin to get to the point where Jesus is everything we begin to say this is why people hate us because they go through these things. They expose these things.
One statement that I read I don't know where I read it but it has spoken to me all week long is this. Jesus was everything we claim to admire truthful living loving pure
and yet they still hated him. Jesus was everything that we claim to admire truth love and purity and yet they still hated him.
His words revealed his works rebuked them it's like I heard a story the other day
an older lady was at her house and as she's at her house and she's trying to get ready she started screaming she started calling for her husband to come into the room and he came in and she said
the mirror is broken I need a new mirror and so as every good husband would do he got in his truck and went down to Lowe's and bought a new mirror and took down the old mirror and put the new mirror up
and the next day she comes in and she said what are you doing honey the new mirror you bought is broken
and he walked in and he looked at it and said there's nothing wrong with it and she said look at these wrinkles this mirror is broken it's showing wrinkles and I don't have wrinkles
and the problem was it wasn't that the mirror was broken the problem was that she had gotten older and she didn't want to accept it now she had one of two options she could have went out to the building and grabbed the hammer
and walked in and just started beating that mirror and smashed it into pieces and said I don't want this mirror anymore I don't care about this mirror anymore it's not what I want it's not what I want to
see or she can say I'm going to accept the truth of this mirror
it's revealing some things in my life it's revealing that yeah I have gotten a little older yeah I have gotten a few wrinkles not many women don't get a lot of wrinkles right I've got a few wrinkles and I've gotten older and I've got to accept this or I can resist it
are we in this room resisting the conviction that Christ lays on our hearts or are we saying God thank you for exposing it thank you for being that mirror
and showing me that I don't look like Christ that I don't look like the one who died for me and there are things in my life that I need to change there are things in my life that I
need to get right there are things that I need to say Lord I need you to forgive me of these things because I'm not living the way you want me to live
and all of a sudden Jesus exposes our failures he exposes what we've done wrong
and it's not in a way to condemn us even though we are condemned but it's in a way for him to say yes you have done wrong but I'm not going to leave you there
I came into this world to die on a cross so that you can have eternal life if only you would trust in me I'm going to die on a cross and say it is finished
to tell us I'm going to die and I'm going to be placed in the grave and then three days later I'm going to rise again so that I can pay the penalty for your sin
and he says to these disciples I'm going to this cross in just a couple of hours right this is Thursday night when he's telling them this I'm about to be betrayed I'm about to be crucified
Responding to Hatred and Persecution
but when this hatred comes towards you how do you respond and this is the practical application of the message how do we respond to the hatred that comes in our life the world tells us this if someone punches you in the face
throw your coat off get mad put your guns up and punch them back in the face
this is what the world says Jesus gives a completely different attitude as Scotty always says it's not turn the other cheek it's not turn their cheek it's turn the other cheek right it says when you get persecuted how
do we respond we want to look at the life of Jesus and how he responded when persecution comes to him the first is this in verses 26 and 27 don't stop sharing Christ you will also testify the Bible says
the spirit comes and lives with us and will testify with us not instead of us we are still the vocal pieces Jesus came to his disciples and said go and tell other people he came to Mary as we
looked at in the early sunrise service Mary came to him and Mary was there to prepare the body and he looked at Mary and he said go and tell my disciples my brethren that I have risen he used
her as a vocal piece to go and to tell other people and we in that same way are to go and to tell others our responsibility is faithfulness to faithfully go out and encourage the neighbor encourage the person
at Walmart encourage the person at the gas station that's just having a hard day not the results for their lives to be changed but to be faithfully sharing who he is and what he's done silence is not an option for those who believe in Christ
if we are silent we are no longer obtaining and doing the great commission what he has commanded us to do is to go out and to share and to tell others we are to proclaim boldly who Jesus is
and to tell them that he came to die for their sins
we're to partner with the spirit and say spirit I can't do this on my own
I'm a shy person not me I'm just saying in general I'm a shy person Jesus I can't do this I need you to embolden me to go out and to ask that person that sits beside me in school
that I would never talk about Jesus to say hey do you know who Jesus is hey who's Jesus to you
Lord I'm not able to go and ask my co-worker what they believe or ask the person at Walmart when they say how can I help you they're asking you a question you get to respond hey do you
know Jesus I want to help you right we get this opportunity and we can pray for the spirit to help us and then we can be persistent in what we are saying to others
I want you to imagine again for a moment a courtroom scene
and you're there and you're called up to witness and you're called up to talk about what had happened and you're the person that's going to talk about it and you're called to the stand and the primary witness is
the Holy Spirit inside of you that's going to come out of you the Holy Spirit is the memory inside of you that you saw that happened and you are the person that gets to verbalize what you saw and how your life was changed
the question we have to ask ourselves is are we relying on the spirit or are we relying on ourself
I like to do things on my own I don't like to ask questions and often times we are that way we say I'm going to rely on myself I'm going to do whatever I want and all of a
sudden when we get halfway through the project we're afraid to ask for help we're afraid to do things and we retreat and we never finish a project
the Bible says that the spirit is there to testify with us and for us and through us if we would just tell others and not stop telling others about Jesus
and then verses 1 through 4 and we're going to pick up next week with the end of verse 4 he simply tells us to not fall away I have told you these things to keep you from stumbling we all understand there are times in life we just want to give up
we just want to be done we don't want to deal with the fighting we don't want to deal with the controversy we don't want to deal with anything and Jesus is saying I want to prepare you so you're not surprised
I don't want you to be surprised I don't want you to understand what's not going on and all of a sudden he said that persecution as it comes in your life it can shake you
as this persecution comes you can begin to say I don't know if I can handle this I don't know if my faith is rooted strong enough and Jesus is telling you trust in the Lord don't be surprised these
things are coming and I don't want you to be surprised he's telling us this be prepared
know that it's going to come know that it's going to happen but not only know these things but be persistent be so persistent in your mind that you're like I want to just continue on no matter what happens
I'm not going to let the little things of life that come in the big things of life that come in shake my face so that I can't move forward
The Importance of Connection to Christ
and in this whole passage he's telling us this be planted or connected to the vine when we're connected to the Holy Spirit when we're connected to Jesus when the vine comes and gets shaken the vine is the one
that is our strength the branches rely on the vine to give it that strength and he says be planted be connected to the one who has given you the strength to carry on
the other day about a year ago we had a wind storm that came through and we had some trees that had fallen in our yard and me and the kids got out there and we're cutting them up one of the trees had fallen and the roots were like
six eight foot tall they were huge they were massive
when it fell Brady's like man I didn't realize all these roots were underneath the ground
the storm didn't produce the roots the storm exposed the roots
in the same way in our life when the storms come they expose what's been around us that allows us to be planted and grown in there but it comes before the storm it comes before those things happen and
we must be planted in Christ so that as we begin to go through things it reveals how close we are to Christ and others get to look at us and say I didn't realize you believed that way I
didn't realize that you were so strong in your faith and I'm encouraged by this because you love Jesus more than I ever thought or imagined and all of a sudden our faith can be growing deeper and deeper through
the persecution through the pressure it doesn't depend on our comfort it depends on when we begin to grow in Christ as Terry comes I want to bring it home in this way
the cross is the ultimate example of hatred without a cause
when they came before Jesus for him to be crucified they had no cause to crucify him
there was no reason they were bringing false witnesses in they were mocking him they put a helmet of thorns on his head they put a they whipped him 39 times with lashes they made him carry the cross and yet they could not find any fault in him
Pilate stood up and he said I wash my hands of this man because I cannot find any fault in him if you want him crucified it's going to be on your hands not mine the world did its worst
to accomplish its best to kill him they hated him so much they said we've got to crucify him the ones one week ago that had the palm branches as the kids brought him in and were laying the palm
branches down and were calling Hosanna Hosanna glory to the God in the highest the king has come the same ones one week later are saying crucify him we don't want him around anymore he's not the messiah he's not
doing what he promised we want someone else and they were expecting this grand applause and as they looked down as they began to go through this time of mourning the crowd was looking for the approval of what was going to happen and all of a sudden they got the cross
and all of a sudden when we go through our life we measure our life by the acceptance of others and we have to ask ourselves not am I being accepted by others but am I being accepted by Christ one day we're going to stand before God a holy judge
and he's not going to say how well did your friends like you
Final Reflections and Call to Action
how well did you get along with your co-workers he's going to look at us and ask us one simple question who is Jesus to you is he your savior or is he someone that you just thought was a good person
and we stand before Jesus and we answer that question of have you ever accepted Jesus he's not going to ask about our friends he's not going to ask about our work he's not going to ask about our 401k he's going to ask about who is Jesus to you
and I'm coming to ask you the same question today who is Jesus to you this morning is he your savior
is he the one that you've put your full trust in know that when we do that it's the greatest decision of your life it's the greatest thing you'll ever make in your life but know there's some heartaches that come with it
the one thing I've learned is there's heartaches either way
but with the heartaches by following Jesus I've got the Holy Spirit and I've got Jesus on my side and no matter what happens in this world I can still look to him and he's going to be the one that delivers me and carries me through no matter what when the pressures come
will you bend with the world or will we determine that we're going to abide in Christ Father we love you
help us this morning as we come before you as we ask you to work in our hearts as we are about to partake in communion as we are about to partake in the Lord's Supper that you would help
us to prepare our hearts for that Lord that you would help us to know that you are the Son of God Lord if there's anyone here that doesn't know you help us to be
today the day that they would come to know and trust in you Lord we thank you for what you've done in your name we pray amen thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio of Pleasant Grove please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week
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