Hey guys, this is the New Heights Church Podcast and we just want to welcome you and thank you for joining us today. We hope this message inspires and encourages you. Here at New Heights, we exist to love people and point them to Christ. Enjoy today's service.
Amen. Mother, I'm asking that your people would hear your voice today and not mine. Let your words shape us, change us and mold us like only you can. In Jesus' name and all God's people said, hey man, please be seated if you can and open your Bible to 1 Timothy chapter number six.
Premetto Timothy, Gaptullo Seis. I don't know that song, just got me trying, you know. Wasn't that beautiful? Praise the Lord.
Do y'all love our worship team at all, don't they? Just do a great job all the way around. I don't understand it because in my head, I sound like Michael. Then I start singing and I don't and so I'm just going to keep pressing.
Somebody say, man, first Timothy chapter number six. I want to talk just for a few minutes about the concepts of choosing wisely. You know, the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. At the end of wisdom, it's the starting point.
So let me just kind of put that in context for you. If somebody doesn't believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, their wisdom is not comparable to the dumbest Christian that believes in Jesus. The dumbest Christian alive, if I say not me, the dumbest Christian alive is smarter than the smartest person who rejects God. The dumbest Christian on the planet.
Come on, just picture him right now, the dumbest Christian on earth is smarter than the smartest person that rejects Jesus because the beginning of wisdom is the fear and reverence and recognition that there is a God who made us and our goal is to serve him and honor him, to believe in him, to thank him for rescuing us and ransing us from our own sin, our own folly. But as a believer, the beginning of wisdom is not the end of wisdom. So today we're going to be talking about going deeper, but we're going to be talking about going deeper about choosing wisely or making wise choices. One thing we talked about is how if you're going to go deeper in God, you're going to have to go higher.
What I mean by that is God is still holy. That means the Holy Spirit did not drop his first name. He's still the Holy Spirit. If you want the Holy Spirit to be with you, you go places, the Holy Spirit wants to go.
They say, well, God loves everybody. He wants everybody there. Well, if you're going to the bar to evangelize, then go to the bar to evangelize. But if you're going to the bar to act like a drunk heathen, don't act like God's going to walk in there with you and say, good job, Billy.
He's holy. If your mouth is racist, don't act like the Holy Ghost is going to be trying to share space with something that is evil and alive. He's not. The Bible says God's a jealous God.
So if you're going to go deeper in God, you're going to have to go higher. Somebody say, go higher. I mean, you've got to lay down some weights. You know, you carry some stuff up some small hills, but if you're going to get up in those high places and the clouds, there's going to have to be some stuff you're going to have to drop along the way that maybe you didn't even know when you first started serving God.
But now you know, God can shine a light on something that He's expecting you to change and His expectation of change is contingent, is related to your next level. You can't go out to how you want to act and act like God's just going to turn blind out. No sooner or later, He'll get somebody else to do what He asks you to do. Two things, two things never leave me.
I'll just tell you about one. The concept that God could get somebody else to do what He's asked me to do. It doesn't keep me up at night in the way of fear, but it keeps me motivated all the time. I don't want to get to heaven and have Jesus say, you did almost everything I asked you to do, but then I had to get somebody else to do the rest because you wouldn't do it.
And most people, they're just looking for giants. Well, I'd fight any giant that showed up. David fought one giant, or let me rephrase that because there were actually more, but we got one story of the lion and we've got page after page after page of placing me a new heart. We got page after page after page, bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that's within me, bless this holy name.
We got one giant in the middle of a field and we got page after page of it's better to be a doorman in the house of God than to spend thousands of days elsewhere, because there are certain things you can't carry to those higher places. You have to set some things down. So if you're going to go deeper in God, you're going to have to go higher. Another thing we talked about is if you're going to go deeper in God, here's one, you can't be full of God and full of yourself.
You can't be full of the spirit and full of it. You have to choose one. God does not compete. God is.
So you got to decide, well, I don't want to be this big flesh bomb that just blows up every time somebody talks to me, oh, I don't want to be talked to it. You got to decide that, listen, I don't know how it's so easy to get to this in modern society, you got to decide that your favorite newscaster is not the voice of God. Your favorite political party may or may not represent God on a given topic. And I have found sometimes it can be different parties that I think are on God's side.
Jesus is not a donkey and Jesus is not an elephant. Jesus is a lion and a lamb, but we have not you and me, but we have equated these philosophies and ideas that people are literally spending millions and millions of dollars just to tell people like you, whoever you are, in words that will get your goat so that you will get passionate about something. It's called a narrative and they'll put it in whatever narrative moves the needle for them at any given time. I'm not saying there's not things that you ought to champion because there are, but what I am saying is it should be Jesus above all.
It should be Jesus first. It should be Jesus all the way across. And if you get to the place where there's other stuff trying to fill up the occupancy of your heart and your life and your mouth, you'll find out God doesn't compete. He'll just let you do what you want to do for a while.
Then you'll wake up one day and go, man, I haven't heard from God in weeks and God's like, well, I hadn't heard from you either because you can't be full of God and full of yourself. Now today we're going to be talking about choosing wisely because what a lot of people maybe, maybe you know, maybe you don't know, one of the things that they're learning and foundations of faith is serving God is not always candy canes and lollipops. Matter of fact, nobody in your Bible is there because their life was like without challenge. The heroes of your Bible are there because of the challenges.
Think about Moses for a minute. He goes, he has an encounter with God on the side of a mountain and a burning bush. And God says, you go, tell me, bro, let my people go. He goes, I don't know if you'll listen to me.
He goes, throw your stick down, throws a stick down, turns to a snake. Moses says, what? And he said, pick it up. He goes, it's a snake.
He said, pick it up. He picks it up, turns to a stick against it. Put your hand in your coat, put your hand in your coat, put your hand in his coat and pull it out, boom, leprosy. What?
Put it back, put your back, pull it out, heal. He said, I'm telling you, I got power, Moses. Go tell Pharaoh, let my people go. Moses walks out of there and says, I'll tell you, Pharaoh, I need a meeting.
You need a meeting. So you're talking about your murderous self who ran out in the wilderness needs a meeting after you were raised in this palace. You think I should give you a meeting yes, you can give me a meeting. He walks in and says, look, I met with God.
He told me to tell you to let his people go. And Pharaoh said, no. What I'm trying to tell you is you can be in the will of God doing what God told you to do and still run into problems. If you're going to go deeper in God, you've got to understand, you're going to have to make wise choices even when things are going not as you plan.
Can we give God a hand of praise this morning? Thank you, Haley. Open your Bible first Timothy chapter six verse number 12, first Timothy chapter six verse number 12. Number one, first note I want you to take down this morning.
If you're going to push the kingdom forward, if you're going to go deeper in God, number one, you're going to have to choose your battles. You can't go fighting every fight. You can't go fighting every fight. The Bible says fight the good fight of faith.
Somebody say good fight. If there's a good fight, there's a bad fight. If there's good coffee, come on somebody, there's Dutch bros. All right, okay, fine.
Okay, here we go, here we go, here we go. If you are a Starbucks person, just raise your hand right now. Oh, snap. If you're a Dutch bros person, just raise your hand right now.
Oh, you got a standard. We're not playing bingo, Shirdana. No prize. Don't y'all love Shirdana.
So proud of Zion too. Zion was on keys this morning. Give Zion a big, we love you. Just doing great.
Looks like she left though. Praise God. Oh, she's in the back. Praise the Lord.
All right, so Starbucks and what was there another? Duncan donuts. Duncan coffee. Who's a Duncan coffee?
All right. Who's like, you guys are all fancy pants. I just like, you know, my coffee at the house. Who's that?
That's the richest people in the room right there. Everybody else, I'll take that $12 cup of coffee. Give me the Eagle Claw, Double Whip, no cream, terrible drizzle. My kids drink coffee.
I don't understand this until they let me taste their coffee. I said, baby, when I grew up, that was called a snow cone. They found a way to get in our bucket. Look here, if there's a good fight and there's a bad fight, you got a fight, the good fight, a faith.
There's a lot of things you can be passionate about, but nothing should ever outrun your passion for the kingdom of God. Nothing should ever outrun your passion for going deeper in the things of God. And so many times in your life, in my life, these little trip hazard fights come around where it's, it's some little topic or maybe it's even a big topic. But if you put it on the scale of your life, if your passion level for that topic outruns your passion level for the things of God, the Bible says an unjust balance is an abomination to our God.
So you can't put God at this level and then let something else be weightier than your relationship with God. When I grew up, everybody was passionate where I'm from. I was from a very small town and seem like every kid, my age or age bracket, particularly the guys, we thought we knew more about pickup trucks than the manufacturers of the pickup trucks. Some like Ford, some like Chevy, and some psychos like Dodges.
I don't know what that was. Just kidding. All kind of things happen that will try to go to a fight and you were actually made for war. You were just not supposed to be fighting all these little petty fights that come your way.
You're supposed to be fighting the good fight of faith. You're supposed to wake up and understand when your feet hit the ground, it's you should hear the clamoring of armor and the clanking of weaponry and you should know that you are called to be at war. But if you're at war with all these other things, the enemy has got you in a skirmish to distract you because he knows if you could just focus on the good fight of faith, you could be unstoppable. If you're going to go deeper in God, you've got to understand, you've got to fight the good fight of faith.
What does the good fight of faith look like? The good fight of faith is you crucifying your own flesh before you start pointing at somebody else's flesh. The good fight of faith. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
It's what I'm saying magnifying God or is what I'm saying magnifying the problem. The good fight of faith. When somebody does you wrong, you can actually find a way to thank God. It happened to you so that it didn't happen to somebody else who would respond in haste and maybe turn that person away from God indefinitely.
Somebody does you wrong, you find a way to pray for your enemies because you understand the good fight of faith means I hand vengeance over to God. It's not my job anymore. Let God vindicate me. Let God make away where there is no way.
It's not my job. I've lived long enough to walk people's lives, turn into ashes when they do Christians wrong. But I've never seen it happen when the Christian took upon themself to seek vengeance and to go after it. I'm going to write this situation.
I can't believe them. Let me tell you something, Billy, you got enough skeletons in your closet. If somebody walked in your house with the right search warrant, all of them would be available. Don't you go fighting all these little petty fights?
Because anything that you try to attack, you will be measured for. Anything you try to attack, you will be measured for. So we just fight the good fight of faith. What's the good fight of faith around here?
Our vision is real simple. If you know what, say it with me. We exist to love people and point them to Christ. If you get serious about that, I promise you, it's fight enough.
I remember before we started New Heights Church, my pastor he told me, he goes, hey, look, I'm just going to tell you, you're going to meet devils you never met. He said, some of them are going to go to your church. I was naive. I said, I don't know.
No way. Praise the Lord. No way. Look, I'm going to tell you something.
If you stay about the Father's business, there'll be enough fight comes to your front door that you don't have to go pick and fights and responding to everybody. Floyd Mayweather said this, elephants don't beef with ants. You are a monster with that quotation marks in the Holy Spirit. And when you're walking and you're walking out your life of faith and you're walking out this journey between your birth and eternity and you're walking out this life of faith, there will be so many small things that will just try to grab your attention just long enough because it might not be able to steal your witness, but if I can just have your attention for a moment, you're ineffective in the direction you're supposed to be going.
They're going to go deeper. You're going to have to recognize that there are other fights you could be involved in. There are other fights that you could challenge. This is a bonus.
You got to choose who to fight. We don't wrestle against flesh and blood. That's not our job. Now, there's a time.
The Bible says there's a time for peace, a time for war. But in the general Christian life, Monday through Friday, Sunday through Sunday, you're not supposed to be wrestling against flesh and blood. You're supposed to be crucifying your flesh. The more of your flesh you crucify, the less offense you have to walk in.
And the more of your flesh you live, the more blind you become to offense. And everybody around you can see it. Can you believe this? Can you believe that?
Can you believe that? Everybody's going, no, no, no, that's not the case. And you're just saying they're going, yeah, yeah, but this is what I see. Well, Billy, you got scales on your eyes.
Like, we're not mad at you. Everybody named Billy. I just used that name. I used it in place of Jake from time to time.
If you got scales, you can see. So when you got scales, you need somebody to see what you can see. This is the whole reason to read the Bible, to have people around you that you can trust that will speak into your life. You know, most people are more comfortable having a type of adjustment come from a television screen than they are somebody they actually trust in love.
Most people would rather find out the heart, not you and me, but would rather find out the hard way instead of somebody just saying that's no will burn you. And now you got to get the same scars that the people in front of you got scars while they were learning, because there's only two ways to learn things in all of society by your experience or somebody else's. And if you're not willing to learn from somebody else's experience, you're destined to learn from your own. And you'll walk around with the same scars and it'll be a whole tribe of people with the exact same scars.
And on one side, people will look at it and say, wow, they got scars and they kept going. I'm sitting there going. They should have never had another scar in that area when one person got it. When one person touched the stove, everybody else should have listened to the person who touched it.
You don't have to go build some chaotic testimony to know that God is faithful. The greatest testimony you can have is I never touched the stuff. If you magnify testimony so big, your kids who have never touched things, they will start to think that they have to go out there and build this testimony. And that's how they know God is good.
No, you don't have to find out God is good by going and doing it. You can actually find out God is good by never doing it. As a matter of fact, the only way you know the full strength of a military is to wage war against it, never to get into it. Because wherever you get into it, you don't know what they had left in the tank.
But if you decide to fight the rest of your life, so I will keep eyes from my wife and my wife only, and I will fight off any other distraction in the name of Jesus, you will face more war than the person who commits adultery 10 times. And not here, but people will take that scenario, a 10-time adulterer, put them on a platform, and they'll start talking about how good God is for giving him. And he is. But the truth of the matter is the best testimony is you got one wife, you stayed married to that wife, you never looked at another woman, you never touched another woman, you didn't pursue another woman, that's the will of God.
That's how you go deeper in God, is you fight the good fight and you don't give in just how you talk about God's goodness later. The devil is a liar. Christian's got to go to a higher place and we got to start walking in holiness. Holiness doesn't mean something that we can't describe.
It literally means a separated lifestyle. The devil is a liar. Dr. Phil is not your philosopher.
The apostle Paul is sufficient. The holy Bible is sufficient. You get it down deep in your spirit, you commit to fight the good fight of faith and you never stop. So your heart stops beating in your chest and you exhale the nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, the oxide air that we have here, then you inhale that radiant fragrant of heaven only to be faced to face with your Messiah, Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God, and have him say, well done now, good and faithful servant, enter in right here.
That's when you stop fighting. But if you're fighting all these petty fights, your fight gets low. And when it's time to fight the good fight, you've expended all your energy on this foolishness. I don't know if I believe in that.
I don't know if I believe in this. Then read your Bible. But don't argue with some Pharisee whose goal was to get you in an argument. I don't want to be right.
I want to find right. Fight the good fight of faith. Come on, let's give God a hand of praise right there. Number two.
If I say number two, you've got to choose your weapons wisely. You've got to choose your weapons wisely. Second Corinthians chapter number 10, verse three. The scripture indicates that we do not war after the flesh.
Second Corinthians 10 and verse three. We don't war after the flesh. We walk in the flesh. We're still human.
But we don't war after it. That's not where we make our war. We don't decide that if you offend my flesh, that gives me the right to get back in my flesh. You offending my flesh should be evidence that I still have some left that I get to go crucify.
A fence should be an opportunity for an execution. But it's not an execution of somebody else's flesh. Because you don't have a legal right to somebody else's flesh. But you get crucified your own flesh daily.
And when you do that, now all of a sudden you begin to expose your weapons that are actually supposed to be used. Our weapons, verse four, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They're not wrapped in the flesh. They're not wrapped in carnality.
But they are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Listen, one translation says to tear down arguments. What are we arguing about? How much of our day, our week, our time is wasted in conversation or ideology that is arguing about what is settled.
The Bible says the word of God is settled. The only thing we need to know is what does it say? Not what do you think? Well, I think this.
I think that. Well, then you need to change your method for determining your conviction. Because your thoughts will lie to you and many of them are not your own. Many of them are fiery darts.
Fung at you to see if you will take the shield of faith and quench them. The Bible talks about the armor of God and one of the things that says take the shield of faith. Well, when Paul would have written this, he would have been looking probably at a Roman soldier because they were everywhere. And most of their shields would have been a wood or some type of a bronze or potentially even a steel or iron piece of iron.
And a lot of times it would be wrapped in leather. And what they would do if they knew they were going to battle is they would take their shield and they would soak it in water so that when they got on the battlefield, if anybody started loosing arrows or darts at them that were on fire, whenever they hit the shield, the shield would quench the fiery dart because it had been soaked in water. This is where he got this. Let the shield of faith, let those fiery darts be quitched.
The reason this is critical is because your shield of faith is supposed to be submerged also, but it's not supposed to be submerged in the swamp that is your mind. It is supposed to be submerged in the washing of the water of the Word of the living God so that when the fiery darts come, your shield of faith is not just in your arm. It is dripping with the residue of the Word of the living God. You've got to determine how to choose your weapon wisely.
You can't just go running around with your attitude as a weapon. Your attitude is supposed to be used for God, but most of the time our attitudes can be used against us quicker. We can talk ourself out of a miracle. If God said it, that settles it.
We can talk ourself out of a healing. We can talk ourself out of a manifestation. We can talk ourself out of a promotion. We can talk ourself out of anything because the truth of the matter is the power of life and death in your life is in your mouth.
But we like to act like the power of life and death for our life is in somebody else's mouth. Well, they said this, so what? God said, let there be light. You think the devil enjoyed that?
You can say what you want to see. And when you say what you want to see, you will see what you have said. But you've got to weaponize your vocabulary against the adversary and not against yourself. Somebody said choose wisely.
You have to choose your weapons wisely. There are good fights. Therefore, there are bad fights. Our weapons are not carnal.
I'm reminded of David one time, David was pursued by his predecessor, King Saul. And King Saul was trying to kill him on a regular basis. And one day, he found himself hungry. And he found himself without any weapons.
And he ran into the temple. And the Bible said, he told the priest, he said, you have any bread. He said, I don't have any common bread. He said, what do you have?
He said, I've got this show bread. He said, this is holy bread. He said, give me that holy bread. He said, well, I don't know if you can eat it, David.
He said, my God wants me to eat it because he wants me to be sustained. And then later, Jesus would make a beautiful statement. He said, man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. In other words, if you want to find out the word and the bread that you need to live from, you don't just go look in everywhere for it.
You got to be in the house of God. He consumes the sustenance that he needs. And then all of a sudden he goes, man, this is pretty good bread. He said, I wish you had some garlic butter, but it's fine.
He said, here's the deal. Do you have like a spear or a sword or something? You're trying to kill me on all fronts. I love it.
He didn't go to the pawn shop. He didn't go to the gun store. He didn't go down the road to his trance. We can borrow a pitchfork or some type of piece of equipment.
If he needed a weapon, David knew exactly where to go. He went straight to the house of the living God. It matters what you fight about. It matters why you pick up your weapons.
Won't you come in here and be entertained? Won't you come in here and act like this is just a checklist on your week? Don't you come in here and act like we're just reading from Dr. Seuss.
We are reading from the living, breathing word of the living God. This is where you pick up your weapons because there's a fight outside these doors fighting for your soul, fighting for your family, fighting for your faith, fighting for your effectiveness, fighting for your attention, fighting. And if you go running out there with all your carnal weapons, sooner or later you'll be left with you and your flesh talking about why it didn't work until somebody will listen and then you'll have you a little pod of people. I call it pods of purpose in complaining.
I just don't understand my life. This, my life, that, I thought it would be different. I thought this would be different. Did you swing a weapon this week or did you point at the problem?
David knew exactly where to get his weapons. David knew exactly where to get fed. Number one, you got to choose your battles. Number two, you got to choose your weapons.
Number three, last one I'm going to make. I'd like to triage these. I almost said I feel like this might be your most critical one, but I have trouble saying that because I feel like each one of them is critical. But just understand what I'm about to say can be the difference in whether or not you walk in victory or your back is exposed.
You have to choose who you fight with, not who you fight, but who you fight with. Don't recruit the passive to go to war with you. A double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. Don't recruit the unstable because you will wake up and nobody will be watching your back.
You have to choose wisely who you fight with. If they think sickness comes from God, don't ask them to pray for your health. They are wrong and they will potentially stop you from receiving from God. The Bible says, Jake, come up here, please.
The Bible says one puts a thousand to flight, but two puts ten thousand to flight. See, when you have two, it's not like you've increased your vision a little bit. Jake, look that way, please. I can now see 180 degrees this way.
And Jake can see 180 degrees this way, which means now one putting a thousand to flight, two putting ten thousand to flight. It means that we can see the full circle. Nobody's hitting Jake in the back of the head while I'm here. Nobody's sneaking up on Jake.
Watch this. But here's how it's supposed to work. Just stare right there, Jake. Jake, I know you can't see it.
And you know I love you. But I'm telling you, you've got something right here that needs to be dealt with. Because if you can't have somebody, have access to your life at a level that you can at least listen to hear what they can see, but you cannot. You will be destined to fight alone.
Thank you, Jake. You have to choose who you fight with. One way I would say it is choose your tribe wisely. That doesn't mean that we don't see other people, love other people, hang out with other people.
But if you're looking at your job as your tribe, but your job is not a bunch of Holy Ghost filled Bible believing fanatics, you have put yourself in a condition that weakens your ability to fight the fight that he's called you to fight. I wasn't joking, but go to James chapter number one very quickly. We'll end with this right here. James chapter number one very quickly.
Keep in mind, James who wrote this is Jesus half brother. He's the son of Joseph and Mary. He was younger than Jesus. Yet he gave his whole life for Jesus.
Jesus knew everything about James. And James probably knew more about Jesus than every other disciple in our book. Just from a time standpoint, the time they would have spent together. But you got to be careful about who you fight with.
Because you can find yourself asking somebody to pray who might not even believe what they're praying. Believe you receive when you pray, the scripture says. James chapter one verse six is this, but lay mask in faith, nothing wavering for he that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. If I look this way for just a second, a wave is evidence of something else.
A wave didn't make itself. A wave is a result of the wind, a result of the tide, or some other external force. But a wave doesn't just jump up. The water is just water until the wind hits it and then it becomes a wave.
In other words, a wave is just showing that it can be moved around. It is not doing anything itself. Somebody who wavers in God is like a wave. Well, God is good, but I don't understand why I'm having to go through this like this.
God is good, but all of a sudden you're wavering. Time's got tough. I started questioning God instead of threatening the devil. Time's got good.
And instead of remembering God, I started forgetting from whence I came and how he had placed my feet on a solid rock. Now he forgave me and I sensed his embrace because I am wavering which way is the wind blowing today. It's interesting. It's hard to see a wave until it crashes against something.
And then all of a sudden you realize you've been pushed in a direction you didn't even want to go. For that not the man that thinks this way, don't let him think he'll receive anything from the Lord. It matters who you fight with. It matters who you link arms with.
It matters who you ask to believe God with. Who you ask to believe God with you. Can I say it differently? It matters how you behave when somebody asks you to believe God.
It's a very short list of people that I ask to pray for me about things that are specific. Now, one of the primary reasons is you can have about 12 relationships in your life. Try to have many more than that. I'm not saying friendships and acquaintances and get together.
Just not what I'm talking about. But I'm talking about that covenant style. It's very difficult to have more than that because sooner or later one will start costing you more than it should or it'll start taking from a family member or whatever. These things happen all the time.
But I have a very tight knit circle when it comes to specific prayer in my life. Because if I ask you to pray, I am not asking you to wonder what God says about it. If it's health, I'm asking you to believe God that those strikes that were laid on our Galilean Savior gave us a legal right to walk in health. Therefore, the demonic influence as a symptom on my body or somebody else's body is trespassing on what God has already purchased.
And I will not stand for it. And I need somebody that's going to believe God with me and not waver. Because the person that waver let him not believe they'll receive anything from God. When it comes to increase, if somebody's wishy-washy on whether or not God wants you bless, I don't even want you praying for me.
Well, you know, man, God just trying to teach me something you know, God, God, God, God, God. People blame God for their shortcomings more than they blame anything else. They blame God for their own laziness. I guess God didn't want me to have it.
Well, maybe you should have worked harder. I can't believe they got promotion. I can't believe you've never been to work on time. You got to choose who you fight with.
And just so everybody's on the same page at this church, we fight against the devil, not against each other. You're going through something. We're going through something. You got a victory.
We shout like it's our own. You got a problem. We got a problem. You're under attack.
We're under attack. And we're not wondering whether or not God's good, just because our circumstance changed. We're not waives. We are waives makers.
Every head about every eye closed, just for a second. I'm done teaching. I'm out of time. And I want to give you the opportunity.
If you've never given your life to Jesus, you've never made it into the Lord of your life, or maybe you used to walk strongly, even something happened in your backslidden, you need to get it right. Maybe it's your first time at our church, and you're saying something's hitting me different. That is the long standing hand that stands at the door and knocks. And if you'll let him in, he'll change your whole life, both now and all eternity.
If that's you, you've never given your life to Jesus and you want to, or you say it this way, you say, I used to walk strong with God, but I'm backslidden and I need to give my life back to him. If that's you, I want you to lift your hand and I'm going to include you in a prayer. When I count to three, I want you to lift it tall and bold. One, two, three, lift your hands.
Lift them tall. I see that hand. I see that hand. I see that hand.
I see that hand. I see that hand. I see that hand. I see that hand.
I see that hand. I see that hand. God bless you. Let's do this.
Let's all stand to our feet. If you lifted your hand or you want to, I want to, I want to lead you in a prayer. The whole church is going to pray it together and we've all been there. And this prayer, you're not joining our church, but you are committing or recommitting your life to the king of kings.
As a sign of surrender, let's all lift one hand like this. Repeat after me, say, Oh God, I come to you now and I ask you to save me. Write my name in your book. I believe Jesus died and rose from the dead from my victory.
I'm a Christian now on my way to heaven. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
Praise God. Listen, all of you prayed that prayer. We are thrilled. You made that great decision.
Make absolutely sure you get yourself in our foundations of faith class. You could get registered for that online at newiteschurch.info, but we want to help you get a great foundation that you can build a solid life on the solid rock that is Christ Jesus and His beautiful Word. So you can get registered for that. Also, I want to just say again, all of our first time guests were so glad that you're here.
If you didn't stop by the blue desk before you came into service, make sure and stop by the blue desk before you leave so that we can send that donation out on your behalf. Can you say amen to that? Well, did you receive anything this morning? Praise the Lord.
Let me pray a blessing on you. We'll be dismissed. Father, bless your people coming in, going out in the city in the field this day and every day. In Jesus' name, come on, give God some praise this morning.
I hope you enjoyed the podcast today. If you did, there are a couple of things that I'd love for you to do. Number one, subscribe to our show. That way, the most recent episodes will always be in your feed waiting for you, ready when you are.
And secondly, follow us on social media. That is the best way to stay up to date on everything happening at New Heights. We look forward to you joining us next time on the New Heights podcast. And if you are ever in the Bryan College Station area, we invite you to come out to New Heights Church for a live service.
I promise we'll make you feel right at home.