Time to Build | Week 8 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

Okay, just so I know that I'm not crazy. I was asking my wife about it and she had no idea what I was talking about but any of you guys remember those like choose your own adventure books? Come on. Just show me your hands so I know I'm not alone. All right. Come on, man. That's where like, remember the Scholastic Book Fair that showed up to school and you like steal all your parents' money to go and buy stuff that would just get thrown away later? Like, yes, I need a NASCAR poster, right? Like, I would always at the Scholastic Book Fair go and find the choose your own adventure books and if you don't know what they are, again, they they're they're really fun where you you literally in the middle of a book, you get to be a part of the story. So, you'll, you know, there'll be a book where it's like, hey, you're in a basketball game and the the last moment is coming in the game and the ball gets passed to you with two seconds left on the clock and if you want to be the guy that attempts to be the hero, turn to page 42 or if you're a realist like most of us probably should be and you want to pass the ball to your friend that's a better basketball player than you, turn to page 44, right? And you got to choose. So, you go to page 42 like, no, I'm taking the shot and then you realize like, oh, you you actually missed the shot and the rest of school made fun of you for the next two weeks. You're like, well, I don't like that version of the story. So, what do you do? You go back and you go, wait, what's the other page? You okay? I'm going to page 44 and I I pass the ball. He makes the shot. We win the championship and we're all we're all heroes, right? You literally get to choose your adventure. You get to choose what happens next in the story. There was one that I remember reading about, you know, being on a walk and you go to the end of this path and there's a cave on your left and you can enter the cave and turn to page 40

or you can choose to be the guy that's not going to die first in the movie and you can go to page 44 and go around the cave, right? And and the part that's amazing with those books is it's really easy when you get to a part of the story that you're like, well, I didn't like the choice that I made. You just turn the page back to where you started and you just start over but the truth that we all know sitting here this morning is life doesn't always work that simply, right? Some of us are going to make decisions

to take us down a path that we wake up and we go, wait, I didn't realize it in the cave was a bear that was going to eat me like I never would have chose that but unlike a choose your own adventure book, sometimes it can be really hard to turn back the page and undo some of the things that we've done and the truth is is that you and I, part of our human experience is having to learn to navigate this thing called failure, right? Because we're we're all humans

and and we love the story of like, oh, I used to be a failure. I used to have and then I met Jesus and I'm like this new creation and everything's been amazing but the truth is is that even on the other side of a relationship with Jesus,

you will continue to make some mistakes and you will continue to end up in places going, wait, how did I get here? And the reason that this story, the Nehemiah nine is so important for us to see this morning is it's going to show us how to really begin to turn back the page if you will and and start over. We've been journeying through the book of Nehemiah looking at the story of this this guy, Nehemiah, that led a rebuilding effort to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem but but the construction project was all a setup to get to the ultimate reconstruction

job which was to rebuild the people that lived inside the city. See, god wanted the walls to be secure so that he could begin the process of helping the nation of Israel

turn back the pages of their life and go back to who they were supposed to be. What I want to show you today, what what I want to kind of speak to this morning is those of you who find yourselves in a position today going, man, how do I undo some of the the failures that I've done? How how do I undo some of the failures that I I've stepped into, some of the mistakes that I've made? What I wanna try to show you

is that I believe one of the greatest invitations of Jesus is that the good news of the gospel is that failure is not final.

The good news of what Jesus did for us is that it it it gives us the ability to start again and to try another path and we don't have to just be resolute to staying in the places where we've made mistakes and fallen short. Okay, here's how the story begins. Nehemiah chapter nine verse one. It says that on October 31,

again, it's Halloween night, right? The people assembled again. I'm just joking. It wasn't really Halloween night, okay? But the people assembled again and this time they fasted and they dressed in burlap and sprinkled dust on their heads. If it is Halloween, that's the lamest Halloween costume ever, right? Burlap and dust on your heads. But those of Israelite descents, they separated themselves from all the foreigners as they confessed their own sins and the sins of their ancestors. K, again, here's what's happening. If you missed last week, we we read in Nehemiah eight. This is the first time that the people of god are able to gather and they again worship a bit like we are doing this morning and the word of god is proclaimed

to the people of god and repentance is beginning to fall on their hearts and they're starting to see the standards of god compared to what they're living in and they're starting to go through this process of what we're seeing here on October 31

of repentance. They're dressing in burlap and they're putting dust on their heads.

It's a symbol of them going low before god. Them submitting themselves to god much like you and I when we go to a funeral service, we all wear black as an external symbol to the world that we're in mourning, right? They're literally wearing burlap, putting dust on their heads because they're signaling to the world and to god that they are going through the holy sanctified process of repentance

and then I love that it says in the verse that we just read that they actually have a separation between the Israelites and the foreigners.

They asked the people that are just there as guests but are not a part of them. They're not a part of the team. They're not followers of god. They're just foreigners to kind of sit this one out. That what they're about to go through this process of starting over is something that has to happen first in the house of god. It must start in our hearts and I love that there's a process of setting apart of the people of god to say, guys, before we're going to ask for god to do something through us, we have to invite him to do something

in us. See, we've been asking much like Nehemiah. God, would you use our collective yes, our collective obedience to spark something again that would impact not just our generation but generations to come but but I need to tell you the greatest threat to god doing that,

It's not what we often think that it is. See, we we can fool ourselves into thinking because of where we sit today culturally and politically that the greatest threat of the church is all of the bad people out there and all the big ugly sin that exist out there but I'm telling you, the greatest threat, I wrote it down this way, the greatest danger to the church, it isn't sin outside the walls.

It's the sin that's hidden within them.

See, the greatest threat to you and I getting to start over is never actually dealing with the things that we're struggling with and I love in Nehemiah and I what we see is the people of god being set apart to go through the holy process of sanctification of god carving some things off of them and drawing them back

to him. Verse three, it says, they remain standing in place for three hours while the book of the law of the lord their god was read aloud to them and then for three more hours, they confessed their sins and they worshiped the lord their god. The Levites, again, a bunch of names I can't pronounce. They all stood on the stairway of the Levites and they cried out to the lord their god with loud voices. Again, here's what's happening. What we're watching is a service that I I promise you if we built it and promoted it, you wouldn't come to it.

If I say, guys, check it out. Tuesday, we're doing a revival night, okay? First three hours, we're going to have guests get up here and they're going to read from the book of Leviticus. It's going to be wild but

that's just the beginning, okay? Then, the next three hour window, it's going to be you getting up on the same microphone and you're going to share the deepest, darkest sins of your life that nobody knows about. You're like, I'm busy on that night, okay? Like, I'll catch you the following week, bro. Like, I'm not I'm not coming to that service.

Why? Because you and I, as much as we read this, we go, okay, that's something cool for them. There's nothing about it that's exciting for us and and we become convinced that like the way to get people in the church is to do big, attractional things and I think I think that's part of it but those things have to lead the people of god to a place of doing business with god

and allowing god to see the parts of our heart that if if we're honest, we don't like that they're there and all of us sit in this room, the one great equalizer is the Bible says that all of us have fallen short of god's standards.

All of us have missed the mark and all of us have things that we need to bring before god and let him deal with.

If we want to walk through the process of revival, if we want to see some dead things come back to life in our own lives. See, what I see happening here is kind of the first step of this process, the stage of personal revival, not corporate revival. I think that's something that comes later but the process of personal revival,

it starts with the people of god going through the process of confession, of going through the the the holy

process of bringing what is in our hearts out into the open and and again, the part that's kind of confusing with this sometimes is you're like, wait, well, doesn't god already know? Why do I have to confess things if god already knows all things and it is true that god knows everything and there's nothing hidden before his eyes and the greatest lie that we will fool ourselves into thinking is that we're we're somehow getting away with something.

We're not getting away with anything. God already knows. Remember the book of Genesis? The very beginning, Adam and Eve with god, they used to they used to walk with him. They had a relationship with god where there was no barrier between them and he. They walked with him in the cool of day until

until sin came into the world and they ate from the tree that they were not supposed to eat from and all of a sudden, they started to realize there's now a barrier between us, between Adam and Eve, and between us and god and what did they do immediately on the other side of sin? They hide.

They run. They begin to cover themselves. They put barriers between them and god and god comes to Adam and he asks him kind of what you would think is a ludicrous question. He asks Adam, hey, Adam, where where are you?

It's like, are you not good at hiding go seek? Like, aren't you god that like sees everything? Right? Why would god ask Adam where he was? He it had nothing to do with location. It wasn't a location question.

God knew where Adam was. He was inviting Adam to come in agreement with where he was. See, this is what we've gotta understand with confession. Confession isn't revealing something new to god. It's actually about agreeing with him about what is true.

See, confession isn't showing god a part of our life that he doesn't really know about. He knows about it. He sees those things. He sees the things done in secret that we think we're getting away with. He knows them and yet the invitation

is to confess those things so that we can step into agreement with him on those things so that we can begin to see our depravity the same way that God sees them. So we can acknowledge, God, I'm I'm hiding. I'm running from you.

Confession is the first thing that starts the process. And here here's what's crazy. I don't know why this is such a, you know, like a shocking thing. You know, again, our whole faith thing, how do you go from being lost to being found? How do you start a relationship with Jesus?

It's something that you receive. You don't earn it but again, here's what I want you to see. The very beginning of our faith journey, Romans chapter 10 verse nine, it tells us, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is lord and believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead, you you will be saved.

This is something that I've read literally probably 10,000 times. I've preached this message. I've invited people to go through this process but this week was the first time I ever asked. Wait, wait, what? Why does god say that you have to believe in your heart and also confess with your mouth?

Because god is omnipotent, all knowing. He hears our prayers that are prayed in silence for sure but why is praying in your heart not enough for god to say that you're saved? He says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is lord and believe in your heart, then you will be saved.

Why is confessing with your mouth something that's even in there? Why is that the very beginning of a relationship with Jesus? Because I think there's there's really two things as I've wrestled with it this week. Why is public confession a part of our faith beginning?

Because there's something about you and I that loves to just be kind of partly in and partly out.

See, the danger of our humanity is we will be tempted to believe that we can have all the benefits of this world and all the benefits of heaven. We will want enough of Jesus to make sure we get to heaven one day but not so much of him that we become the weird guy at work.

What we wanna do is we wanna have private moments with God, and we think honestly that faith should be a private thing. Faith is a personal thing for sure, but it was never meant to be a private thing. See, when you declare something publicly,

you're now kind of professing to the world this is who you are. You can't confess with your mouth and still say on the sidelines. You you can't straddle the fence between faith and this world if you're going to publicly proclaim

the goodness of god. So, you're going to publicly proclaim that you have given your life to Jesus. It's literally when you share the video of you going through your baptism on Instagram and now, all your friends and coworkers have seen that and now you have a choice on Monday. What are you going to do? Are you going to live down to who you used to be? Are you going to start to live up to the new creation you are in Christ? See, when you publicly speak it, it begins to change things but I also think there's another reason that confession with our mouth is part of the faith beginning.

Again, go back to the Genesis account of god creating the entire earth, all the heavens and the earth. How did he do it? He spoke everything into creation. He spoke things into existence.

Now, again, don't hear what I'm not saying. I I do not believe that you and I have the power of god and we can speak things into creation

but the scriptures are abundantly clear that the the tongue, the words that we say have more power than we could ever realize. It says that your your tongue, the words that you speak actually have the power of life or death I think that there's something about professing things publicly,

confessing things with your mouth to begin to initiate the authority of heaven on your behalf. See, I think it's twofold. I think you confessing with your mouth, it begins to brings heaven realities into your world and it begins to get you off of the fence and going all in for god but confession,

it is an integral part of our faith journey. It's how we get in the door and I promise you, it's how you continue on the path of following Jesus. Confession is not a one time thing. It is a lifestyle that we live. Again, I wrote it down this way.

The problem is is that you and I want to admit and avoid and the truth is is that you can't heal what you won't reveal. Our natural tendency as humans is to cover up and to hide and pretend like things aren't there. And yet the invitation is to confession and to bring those things out.

And the truth is is the things that you keep hidden, they'll continue to have power over you. You won't be able to heal the things that you you don't reveal. Jesus tells us Luke chapter eight verse 17.

He says, for all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all. That's a verse that if you read it with the wrong understanding of god's heart, you you can take it as almost a threat.

Jesus says, friends, you gotta understand that everything that's done in the secret eventually will be brought to the light.

There's nothing that is hidden in your life now that stay hidden forever. It might stay hidden for a little bit longer, but eventually, the god that loves you out of love and compassion and care for you, he will bring those things out. It's not a threat.

This is actually a really encouraging thing. This is this shows the heart and love that god has for you. When you begin to understand

what all the medical data tells us happens when you and I hold on to secrets, when we keep things hidden that begin to erode us from the inside out. It's amazing what takes place. The the increased blood pressure that happens. Anxiety goes through the roof. Diseases begin to grow. Cancer begins to grow at faster rates. Like, they've studied what happens when you and I hold on to secrets and it's it's amazing how much it rots us from the inside out and the god that loves you says, friend, you gotta understand, eventually, all of this is gonna get brought out into the light. And here's what I've learned over fifteen years of being a pastor. Here's what I've learned in my own my own journey. You have two options when it comes to the things in our life that we we think nobody else knows. You have two options. You can continue to conceal them or you can confess them but the scripture is clear that eventually those things are coming into the light whether you confess them or not but here's my encouragement. Here's my gentle nudge to you. What I've seen time and time again is that the cost of confession,

it's always less than the price of concealment.

What I mean is is that it's much more damaging in your relationship with your wife for her to catch you watching pornography than for you to just admit it and bring it out on your own. It's much more damaging for you financially when the IRS does an audit of your books and your business than for you to just kinda go, hey. How do we start to clean this mess up? I made a bunch of poor choices. The price of concealment, I promise you, it is always greater than the price of confession,

but it requires faith to step out in confession. It requires boldness to say, you know what? I'm gonna bring these things out in the light. I'm gonna let god deal with them. Understanding and trusting that he knows better than I know on what is best for me. See, what the enemy doesn't want you to know

is that on the other side of confession,

it is not shame, it is not guilt, it is not condemnation. On the other side of confession is a promise that we see in Psalm chapter 32 verse five. This is King David, a guy that did incredible things for God's kingdom, but he also sinned in ways that you and I probably will never really experience. I mean, he did some horrendous things, yet he talks about what's on the other side of confession like this. Psalm chapter 32 verse five says, finally,

I confessed all my sins to you and I stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, I will confess my rebellion to the lord and and you forgave me and notice what happens and my guilt is gone. See, God wants you to walk in freedom.

But some of the freedom that he has for you is going to require you to take the shackles off of yourself that you've yourself.

It's gonna require you to go through the process of confession and getting rid of some things that you've carried for a while. The scriptures talk about how to confess. Practically, how do we do this? There's two things we have to do. The first one is the scriptures tell us we have to confess to god so that we can find forgiveness.

See, confessing to god is how we are forgiven.

Psalm chapter 103 verse 12 says that he has removed our sin as far as the east is from the west. Just the moment you ask god for forgiveness, he cast your sin as far as the East is from the West. He he remembers it no more. He no longer sees you in your mistake. He sees you in the completed work of the cross. That's the good news of the gospel is that when you confess to god, you will be forgiven

but that's only the first step in the process. See, forgiveness isn't what we ultimately need. Forgiveness is what starts the process but what we really need if we're going to walk into our new identity and live in the new creation that we are in Christ, we need not just forgiveness but we also need healing

and healing doesn't come by confessing to god alone. The second part of confession, if we're going to do this correctly and biblically is we also must confess to another person so that we can find healing. See, healing comes when you admit your brokenness not just before god but to another person and that person sees the most broken part of who you are and they love you in spite of you.

James chapter five verse 16 says, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. Confess to God and you'll find forgiveness.

You gotta confess to somebody else if you wanna find healing and to ultimately put this thing to bed and to put it to death. The reason we have a prayer team down here in the front is I know for some of us to just go and tell somebody that we know some of the things we've been carrying for a long time. It can be a lot.

Our our prayer team is down here. You can pray with somebody anonymously. Heck, you could even make up a name and just tell em you're somebody else.

What what I'm trying to encourage you to do is tell somebody. At some point, you've got to let the cat out of the bag and watch the power that this thing has over you in the dark begin to be destroyed as you drag it into the light.

And what has so much power over you, I'm telling you, it can be defeated, but the enemy doesn't want you to think that.

I love that the very beginning, the first step in this process of turning back the page in our lives starting over and walking again in the promises of god is you gotta start with confession but here's how the story continues. Here's what confession

leads to. It tells us in chapter nine verse five, then the leaders of the Levites, again, all the guys I can't pronounce, they they called out to the people, Stand up and praise the lord your god for he lives from everlasting to everlasting and then they prayed and they're now corporately praying.

May your glorious name be praised. May it be exalted above all blessing and praise. You alone are the lord. You made the skies and the heavens and all the stars. You made the earth and the seas and everything in them. You preserve them all and the angels of the heaven who worship you and now they're going to start to recount their history. They're going go back all through the entire nation of Israel's history and their story. Verse seven, you are the lord god who chose Abraham and brought him from Er to the Chaldeans and you renamed him with you renamed him with Abraham.

When he had proved himself faithful, you made a covenant with him and you gave him and his descendants the land of the Canaanites, the the Hittites, the Amorites, the Parasites, Jebusites, and Gergashites and you have done what you promised. For you are always

true to your word. If we had time, I would read all of the next 37 verses to you. This is the longest recorded prayer anywhere in the Bible. It is what happens on the other side of the people of god confessing

the places in their life where they fallen short of god's standards. See, confession, what it begins to do is it it lifts the veil of shame that we walk with. See, you and I, we were not built to carry shame and condemnation

and when you walk with the filter of shame over your life, you will see your failures incorrectly and you will miss the faithfulness of god that's always been a part of your story. What's happening here is they're literally, they're starting all the way back with Abraham.

The very beginning of the nation of Israel's history and they're remembering, wait, we we thought god had abandoned us at certain moments but now, as I look back with the correct lens, not a lens of shame but one of faith, I properly see that god was always with me. He's never abandoned me. If anything, it was it was me that left god. It was me that wandered away. It was me that made a wrong turn yet god was always faithful and he redirected us back onto the path and for 37 verses, all they do is they sit down and they corporately recount how good god has been to them. The second thing, what the enemy does want to tell you what's on the other side of confession.

I promise you, it is not shame, it is not guilt, it is not condemnation, it is, it's celebration. See, this is how the people of god are supposed to walk. We're supposed to walk in victory,

full of joy, understanding that because of what Jesus did on the cross, our our best days are in front of us but the enemy wants you to walk around with your head down believing that because you made a mistake, because you did some things last week, that god is through with you and he's done with you. I'm here to tell you that you, your sin is not so grave that you can miss, you can get rid of the promises of god over your life. Don't I know if you're like me but man, I I don't know why but I feel like recently, I've just gotten terrible at following like the GPS on my car. My wife's always like, hey, you're about to miss the turn and I missed the turn but the good news is is what is the GPS in your car do when you miss the turn? It just figures out a new path on how to get there, right? Never at any point has it ever told me, hey, bro, you missed too many turns today. Just turn around and go home. Like, today is not your day, right? It constantly just redirects you and that is like the faithful, providential plan of god in your life that god is always redirecting even when you miss a turn, even when you make a mistake, god steps in and he redirects you and if you can have the veil of shame lifted, if you can have the key of confession, unlock the door. I promise you, you can start to live a life of celebration again. You can walk with your head lifted high. You can begin to walk in the promises of god. Understanding that my my faithfulness

is not the ultimate determiner of the favor that I walk in But because of what Jesus did on the cross, my best days can be in front of me. I wrote it down this way. Confession, it is the thing that paves the way for celebration. You you can't get to celebration without confession. We we all want to.

We love celebration but it's confession that paves the road to get there. Again, this is David in Psalm chapter 32. He says, oh what joy for those who disobedience

has been forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight. Yes, what what joy for those whose record the lord has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty. The other thing on the side of confession,

it's celebration. It's joy. It's walking again in the promises of god. I love that one of the attributes of god that's all throughout the scripture is that he's referred to as being the light of the world and we know again the there's so many different scientific studies that tell us about the power of light and how it can heal different things and it can destroy bacteria.

I don't know if any of your wives are into this red light therapy thing. You know, it's like every day I come home, I walk in like, what what are you doing? Right? Like, she's taking a detox bath with a face mask on and red light therapy. I got a picture I'll show you. No, I'm just kidding. Could you imagine I have that picture? My wife is in the service. You'd be mortified, right? But I'm like, what this red light and then I asked her, how much did you spend for that thing? And I immediately regretted asking, right? I'm like, it's just a red light bulb but the principle of red light therapy is that it gets into your cellular structure and it begins to restore that which is broken. I'm not sure if it's actually real or not but the truth is is that we do know all throughout science, the power of light. The the reason that I I tell you that is you've gotta understand

the power of god also being light because what what grows in the dark, what will continue to increase as you keep it in the darkness, that same thing, it will be destroyed if you can bring it into the light.

But the enemy will try to convince you to just keep that thing hidden. Don't tell anybody. Don't acknowledge it. It's just a it's just a relationship. Don't worry about it. And I'm here to tell you that one of the things that is foundational

to finishing this race well and to living a life where we follow after god. It is learning to have confession and celebration be a regular rhythm of our life because we are humans that struggle to make the right decisions.

There is a war that is being waged between our flesh and against our spirit. This is something if you go read Romans chapter seven, you'll hear Paul, the guy that wrote the majority of the New Testament. He talks about this. He goes, god, why do I constantly do the things that I don't want to do? And the things that I want to do, the things that I know will lead me to you and to your blessing.

I struggle so hard to do those things and he concludes in Romans seven saying, what what a wretched person I must be but then he turns to the page and I think honestly, one of my favorite chapters in the Bible is Romans chapter eight because it's Paul on the other side of acknowledging the tension of our humanity

but it's also him beginning to declare the promises of heaven over him and it's him reminding himself, wait, I am not what I've done. I am not what's been done to me. I am who god says that I am. He says, therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and just because I make mistakes, that does not mean I'm a mistaker.

It doesn't mean that that's my identity. It just means it's something that I I struggle with and his crescendo is in Romans eight verses 37 to 39. He says, no. All of these things, overwhelming victory is ours to Christ who loved us and I'm convinced that nothing,

nothing can ever separate us from god's love, neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today or our worries about tomorrow, not even the power of hell can separate us from god's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below. Indeed, nothing

in all of creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of god that is revealed in Christ, Jesus our lord.

Says, nothing can separate us from it. I am not what I've done. As I learned the rhythm of confession and celebration, I get to lean into and walk in the new identity that I have in Christ. Here's what want to do right now. As I was literally preparing this week, I was thinking about the story and this picture.

These are the people of god not just playing church and going to the motion and showing up on a Sunday to check the box of religious duty. No, these are people who walk in and understand that this place

is a holy place where for just a few moments, we we get a reprieve from the world and the stress of work, the busyness of medical diagnosis, the craziness of our kids and schedules and all the busyness of life for a few moments in here.

We get to just stop and we get to have heaven touch Earth and we get to commune with our father and I would be remiss if I missed an opportunity to not stop right here even though my message is not done and I got a point that if you leave, I'm telling you, going miss the best point in the whole message but I want to stop and just go right now.

Let's practice this thing. Let's not just talk about it and then walk out of here and forget it. Let's go through the process right now. The holy process of confessing

and celebrating the goodness of our god. The band is gonna lead us in a song and it's a powerful song talking about the realities of Jesus and who he is and for some of you, you need to take this moment. I know right now, it feels like I'm speaking directly to you. You need to take this moment and you need to confess before god. You need to have a private moment for you. Maybe it's just sitting there and allowing god to speak to you. For others, our prayer team is going be down here in the front and for some of you, I'm telling you, you you need to run down the aisle and just talk with somebody. Pray with somebody.

The reason that so often we stay stuck in ruts is because we're so afraid to take action and I'm here to tell you that sometimes stepping out and getting uncomfortable, it it's stepping out in faith and you'll put a miracle in motion when you do that and I'm going to encourage you. Come down here. Ask somebody to pray with you but for all of us, what we're going to do is we're going to celebrate with god and allow the holy spirit to just speak to us in these moments. Amen? Let me pray for us. Father, god, we right now, we ask for you to continue to speak to our hearts.

God, for the people here who need to walk through the process of confession, would they do that? God, would you give us the courage and the boldness to say yes to what it is you're prompting us to do. God, I know the enemy right now is in our our ear telling us why this message isn't for us or why we can't.

In the name of Jesus, we rebuke all of that and we ask for you to give boldness and courage in this place. Lord, right now, we bring our our worst moments before you. We we celebrate you for never leaving us where we are. And god, we declare that over every single person here today,

their best days are still in front of them. So, Jesus right now, we worship you.

You're the one I hold on to for the beauty of your name. My soul will live to say. Jesus, I love you. My soul will choose

Father, that's our hearts. That above everything else, Jesus, we we love you. We are thankful for your sanctifying word, for your spirit that draws us back to you when we when we run from you. So, father, we confess all the areas that we've fallen short before you. We celebrate because of the finished work of the cross,

our best days are still in front of us. In Jesus name, all god's people said, amen and amen. Hey, you just again, stay with me for just a second. Sit back down. I know it feels like a Catholic service. Stand, sit, kneel. Just a couple more.

I I have to show you how the story ends because again, the the worst thing that I could do is just kind of create this emotional

moment for us, this emotional response, and then and then just ask you to leave and go right back to your lives because the truth is is that emotions

change and even though you have a moment, a temporary moment where you feel like you can do this thing, if you don't do what we see happen here at the end of the story, I'm telling you, it's not a change that will last. Look at what happens at the very end of this this whole story. Longest prayer in all of the Bible, ounting the faithfulness of god. Nehemiah chapter nine verse 38.

It says, then the people responded. In view of all of this, we are making a solemn promise and we're putting it in writing. On the sealed document are the names of our leaders and Levites and priests. See, the people of god say, god, we know for so long, we lived

outside of your blessing and we're done doing that. We're confessing the places where we've fallen short. We're celebrating again, remembering that who you are, a god that has never abandoned us, but they don't stay there. And you and I cannot live from emotional high to emotional high.

And I've watched it as a young adult pastor watching these guys just chase conference after conference after conference because these moments can be powerful but I'm telling you, emotion is supposed to put us in motion. It's supposed to lead us to take action

and what the nation of Israel does is they they go through what I believe is the third step of personal revival and it's a it's a biblical term. It's a theological term. Just stay with me. It's called consecration.

See, it's confession that opens the door to celebration but it's celebration that will give you the boldness and the courage to go through the holy ceremony of consecration which is drawing the line in the sand and saying, god,

I'm not going back to who I used to be and in a service like this, if this was literally in the the Old Testament, if this was in the temple, there would been an altar at the front of this room and we would have brought out an animal to sacrifice and we would have burned that animal in front of us to say, this, this moment is consecrated now. We are not going back. We're drawing a line in the sand. We're writing this down. I am no longer straddling the fence. I'm going all in and I'm telling you, if you and I don't get to the place where we ultimately walk through the holy process of consecration,

it won't stick and we'll be stuck chasing emotional moment after emotional moment but if you can, if you can make a decision to draw a line in the sand that says, god, come hell or high water. Come blessing or cursing.

I'm following after you. I'm not choosing my own ways. I'm living for an audience of one and one alone. Look at this. It's all over the scriptures but one of my favorite ones is Joshua chapter three verse five. They're getting ready to walk out of the forty years of wandering in the wilderness. They're stepping into a new territory, a new land, the promised land where the people of god can begin to thrive again and Joshua tells him,

consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, the lord will do amazing things among you and I just wonder what amazing things god has for you and your future that are on the other side of you making a decision to go all in for him,

to make a decision, to not just live emotional moment to emotional moment but to consecrate yourself, to to make a decision,

to sacrifice some things in your life. Paul, Romans chapter 12, he says, dear brothers and sisters, I I plead with you to give your bodies to god because of all that he's done for you. Let them be. Here's the new sacrificial system. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice. The kind that he find acceptable.

This is truly the way to worship him. It's no longer a dead animal on the altar that god is asking for. It's your life. It's you living for him is what consecration looks like today. My my last verse that I share with you is Paul in second Corinthians chapter five.

He says, this means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old is gone, the new has begun. Friend, you are not what's been done to you.

You are not what you've done. That is the old person that you used to be. Before you gave your life to Jesus. So, the question that I have is, why do you keep going back and picking up the old dead person? Live into the new creation you are in Christ and watch what god will do with the life that is consecrated to him.

Here's kind of the so what I think walking out of here, all of us here have three choices of what we can do with message.

The first one is we can make a decision to say, you know what? That was a really great message for somebody else in the room but not for me. It's not for me. It's not me. I'm not dealing with anything. Like, I'm good. He's he must be talking to somebody else. I don't really have anything in my life that I need to confess but let me remind you what first John chapter one says, that if we claim to have no sin, we're only fooling ourselves and we're not living in the truth.

The great equalizer in this room is that all of us have fallen short and made mistakes. All of us have sinned. So, really, option one doesn't really present an option for us. The second choice that we can do with a message like this is we can make a decision to say, I can fix this. I can do this on my own.

I don't need help. I'm not talking to nobody. I'm not telling anybody anything. I'm figuring this out on my own and I'm telling you the greatest lie, the lie that the enemy himself fell for is the lie of self sufficiency.

You can do it on your own. You don't need god and you don't need anybody else and I'm telling you, the lie of self sufficiency will keep you trapped in things that the that the god of the universe is trying to set you free from. Here's my hope of what you will do with this message is that you will wave the white flag of surrender.

Just throw up the banner and say, I will walk through the process of confession, celebration, and consecration and friend, I promise you, god can do some incredible things with a life that is consecrated to him, that is consecrated to the things of god.

My prayer, my hope, my ask for you is that you would make a decision to say, god, I've drawn a line in the sand and I am living for you. So, here's I want to close this service. I'm going to ask you again. I told you it's a bit like a Catholic service. Stand one last time. This is it. We're done after this. Stand

with me one time and here's what I want to do. Again, understanding the power of confession, the power of celebration, and consecration. I'm going to ask you, we're going to put a saying on the screen behind me and what we're all going to do is prophetically,

we're going to declare these things over us. We're going to profess these things over us and I want you to not not passively, not with your insider voice but I want you to declare this thing as I read it out loud over you, over your life, and over your family. Here's what I want you to say. Say, today,

I walk as a new creation in Christ. I am not defined by what has been done to me or by my past choices. I surrender my past, my habits, and my future to god. I consecrate myself, setting my heart apart for his purpose. In Christ, I am transformed, renewed, and fully committed to his will. In Jesus'

name, I pray. Can we give him a shout of praise in this place? Come on. So, father, it is with all that is within us. God, we declare your goodness. We declare that over every circumstance and every situation that you are bringing healing, you are bringing restoration.

Father, we thank you for the marriages that are on the verge of falling apart that you're going to restore. Father, for the addictions that will be left in this room. God, for the people who've been settling for so far from what is your best for them, that god, they will begin to pick up your promises again

and to live up to who they are in Christ and no longer are we going back to the old person and we are living a life of revival. God, bring all that you have for us into our lives. It is in the mighty, holy, and precious name of Jesus that all god's people said, amen and amen.