God Can Bless You Anywhere

Good. Good. Well, you sound good and worship. It's great to see. I want to wish you a very happy Labor Day weekend. I hope you've got plans with friends and with family, have a barbecue or something tomorrow. Yeah, I'm ready for summer to be over. I'm just going to be honest, like summer 2026, you win. We surrender. All right? Like, let's get into some fall football weather. That's what I'm ready for. But I hope this is just a fun time with you and your family this weekend. I know because of that, sometimes we have people out of town that are watching online and so if you're tuning in from your car or from a hotel room or whatever, we're glad that you tuned in. And also, I don't know if everybody knows this, but we have church on the moves that are happening in Dick Conner Correctional Facility and Dr. Eddie Warrior Correctional Facility. That's a men's and a women's prison. And so we love that they are a part of our family. And so let's put our hands together for our brothers and sisters. We love you guys. Thanks for being a part that we're doing here. We are in the middle of an incredible series called Life Lessons. We're diving into scripture to find just the practical way to live our lives that's benefits us and benefits the people around us. If you haven't heard already, the first few messages, go back and listen to those. Pastor Witzman knocking it out of the park, which is practical stuff that we can apply in our life. Today, I'm going to try and do the same.

And here is our lesson for today. I'm just going to throw it up there just to start things off. God can bless me anywhere. God can bless me anywhere. I think on face value, you're like, right on Lee, I believe that. I'm not sure if we really understand this. Again, our culture, everybody, whether you're a believer or not, likes to use a little hashtag on social media called #Blessed. Have you seen this? Okay. I pulled up a couple of them. Let's get an idea of what people are saying. Found a curly fry in my regular fries today, #Blessed. Daniel said amen. All right. I mean, I guess. Yeah, you can see that it's the little things in life, right? Here's the next one. You PR for my 15K, best in my running group, #Blessed, or you might say, #I'm better than you. I'm in better shape than you. A little humble brag here on myself. I want everybody to see. All right. Look at this last one. I don't know about this one. 829 hotdogs in 10 minutes to win the company picnic contest today. #Blessed. No, that's not true. God is not blessing your gluttony, right?

But here's the deal. Whenever something good happens in somebody's life, they want to put a little #Blessed. I don't know if we're interpreting this the right way. I think we have a tendency to think if the situation that we're in or the circumstances we are in are favorable or what we want, God is blessing us. But what do we do when things aren't working out the way we want them to? Do we really believe that God can bless me anywhere, anywhere? Maybe first we should understand what is God really talking about in Scripture when he says he's a God who blesses us. The Hebrew word is barak. And this word has a relational quality to it. It means that blessing happens in relationship from one to another. And the original Hebrew word kind of had two different ideas for blessing that comes from a superior to a subordinate and vice versa. So when God blesses us, it has this definition of like bestowing benefit or empowering or enriching. Do I believe that God can bestow benefit and empower and enrich me no matter what my circumstances? The other direction is a little different. And someone who is in submission and blesses up toward a superior, it means to be obedient. It means to express gratitude. It means to express adoration and worship. And I just have to throw this in here because I think it's so important. Ryan Isaac is one of our pastors at COTM West and we were looking at this message this week and he said why is it that as Christians so often we are thinking way more about how God can bless us than about how we can bless God. And for some of you in the room, even though this is not where I'm going in this message, what you need to hear today is how can I in my current situation show more gratitude to God? How can I give him worship and adoration no matter what's going on? How can I be obedient to him?

Some of you need to think about it in those terms. But how I want us to look at is it possible? Does it really happen that God can bless us anywhere? And I think that is shown best in Scripture through the life of Joseph. The story of Joseph comes through Genesis 37 through 50, 14 chapters devoted to the life of Joseph because there's so much for us to learn from his life. Now some of you know his story, I'm going to do a recap of it right now, be a refresher. Some of you may not know this story. I would encourage you to go back and read those 14 chapters because it's an amazing story. First of all, Joseph was in the line of the people of God, Abraham was his great-grandfather, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then... Now, Joseph was of the people of God, the chosen ones that God had decided to bring his blessing through, and yet he came from a very dysfunctional family. Can you relate? Like, we're the people of God. I have a feeling we got a lot of dysfunctional families in here too. It's just a part of life, right? And so, Joseph is the second youngest in 12 different brothers, but he happened to be his father's favorite. In fact, he was so loved by his father. His father gave him this amazing Technicolor dream coat. You probably heard about it. This special gift that he got, that none of his brothers got, and that, among other things,

made his brothers resent him. They were bitter toward him. They hated him. In fact, one day, Joseph comes to find out how they're doing. They're out tending to the flocks, and they recognize him from a distance. I have to guess he was wearing that coat, right? They knew it was him, and they said, "Man, let's get rid of this kid." I'm sick of this kid. I hate the way, I hate who he is, and I hate the way he makes me feel about me. Let's kill him, and thankfully, one of the brothers was like, "That's a little extreme. Let's not kill him. Let's throw him in a pit. We'll figure it out from there." And while they're eating lunch, and Joseph is in the pit, a caravan comes by. Ishmael I's headed toward Egypt to do some trading, including slave trading. And so one of the brothers says, "I got it. Let's sell him to them. Make some money off of this. He'll take Joseph into Egypt. We'll never see him again.

We'll take the coat. We'll put some blood on it. We'll take it back to dad and say, "He got devoured by wild animals. Sorry, dad." And we'll be rid of this punk. And so that's what they did. They sold him as a slave. Here's Joseph. Not doing anything wrong. Just living his life, a favored son, part of the family of God, and the very people who you should have been able to trust, the very people who should have protected him, his brothers betrayed him. And I wonder if you can relate to that. I wonder if you find yourself in a situation or if you've been in circumstances where the people that you thought you could trust, the people that should have protected you, betrayed you. But something was happening in this story. Joseph decided early on, he was just a young man, that he was gonna have this relationship with God. Remember we said blessing happens in relationship. That's the channel that opens up an opportunity for God to bless us. And Joseph, despite his circumstance, has said I'm going to maintain a relationship with the God of my fathers,

and I'm gonna try and live my life in gratitude, obedience, and worship. And look what happens right after his brothers sell him into Egypt. It says in chapter 39 verse two, the Lord was with Joseph. And he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master. You see, the caravan sold him to a guy named Potiphar. Potiphar was high-ranking official in the nation of Egypt, the empire that controlled the world at that time. He had a large household and a state with many servants, many business ventures. Now, Joseph was a Hebrew, and the Egyptians thought the Hebrews were less than animals. There were dogs, but Potiphar couldn't help but notice there was something different about this kid. This kid was sharp. This kid seemed to have it together. There was a wisdom there, and everything that Potiphar gave to Joseph, he handled with excellence. He handled well, and before you know it, Joseph is running the whole household. He's second only to Potiphar in the whole household. Now, he was young, probably in his early 20s, sharp, young, and the Bible says attractive, handsome guy, and Potiphar's wife took notice. And she said, come, sleep with me, Joseph. My husband will never know.

And Joseph kept resisting it. Why? Because he wanted to be true to the God of his fathers. He wanted in the midst of a bad situation to live well in relationship with God. And so he kept rejecting her advances until one day. She cleared out the house. Potiphar was on a business trip. He's never gonna know, come, sleep with me. And Joseph said, I'm not gonna betray your husband, my master, who's been good to me, and I'm not gonna betray my God. And he ran, and she reached out to grab him, and he lost his jacket, and she held it in her hand, and as she held it, she became bitter and angry at the rejection from this Hebrew. And so when Potiphar came back, she said that Hebrew that you hired, that you put in power around here, he came to sexually assault me. And I screamed, and when he ran away, I had his coat in my hand. And this is evidence that he came to make sport of me, to sexually assault me. That's what she said. And Potiphar burned with anger. And he said, throw him in the dungeon. And so here he's gone from being a favorite son, the family, to being a slave, though God gave him blessing there. And now he's chained to the walls in a dark, damp dungeon,

asking questions like, God, why me? Why this? Have you been there? Somebody told a lie about you. Somebody tarnished your reputation. And you said, "Why?" But look at what happened after Joseph was thrown into prison, chapter 39, verse 21. "But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison." And you know what happened? The warden said, "There's something different about this guy. This guy's sharp, like everything we give to him. He seems to do really well with it. He has great relationships with the other prisoners here. And before long, he's second-income man in the prison." Now, I don't like the career trajectory that Joseph is on. It's like family, okay, in the house, okay, now he's in the prison, but he's doing really good in all of them, right? I don't know if I'm comfortable with that, but you may not be comfortable with where you are now either. God can bless me anywhere. Look at what it says, last one, chapter 39, verse 23. "The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph's charge, because why? The Lord was with him." And whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed. Despite every detour, despite all that had happened, Joseph has given success in his circumstance.

And so while he's there, into the prison one day, comes the chief baker and the chief cup bearer of Pharaoh himself. These were men who were in the palace and Pharaoh got mad at him and said, "You guys are gonna go to jail for a while until I figure out what I wanna do with you." And of course, Joseph is running the prison and so he welcomes these guys in. And one night, they both have a dream. It's a similar dream, a little bit different, and they come and they're tormented by it. They say, "Joseph, we don't know what to do with these dreams. What do they mean?" And Joseph says, "Only God knows how to interpret dreams, but if you'll tell it to me, I'll try and help you understand it as though they tell him the dreams and what ends up happening is the cup bearer gets restored back into good favor with Pharaoh. And the baker gets impaled, gets put to death. Exactly what Joseph said would happen from these two dreams. But before the cup bearer leaves, Joseph grabs him and says, "Hey, hey, hey, I'm here unjustly. I didn't do anything wrong to be held in this prison. When you get back to Pharaoh's house, you seem to be a person who has a little bit of influence. Would you remember me? Would you remember me when you're in that position so that maybe I could get out of this?" And the cup bearer's like, "Right on, Joseph, you helped me out. I'm going to help you out.

Don't you worry about it." And then he forgot. Maybe you've been forgotten, overlooked. You know you were most deserving of the promotion, but somebody else got it. Nobody saw the hard work that you put in. Nobody saw that you were doing your absolute best, and you got overlooked for it. Maybe you've been there, Joseph knows, and two years passed. And then Pharaoh had a crazy dream. Two of them, actually. And the cup bearer went, "Oh, I can't believe I forgot. There's a dude in the prison. Hebrew guy, really sharp guy. He knows how to interpret dreams. Pharaoh says, "Bring him in here." So Joseph goes in to the Pharaoh's chambers, and Pharaoh tells him these two dreams about some fat cows and some skinny cows, about some really flourishing wheat and some wheat that was just scorched by the East wind. But the bad wheat swallowed up the good wheat, and the skinny cows swallowed up the fat cows. And Joseph said, "Only God knows how to interpret dreams, but I'll tell you what I see in this. There's going to be seven years of abundance, bumper crops. It's just going to be high and to the right on the charts for Egypt. Everything's going to go well." And then after seven years, the worst famine the country has ever experienced.

And if you don't make plans in the first seven years, your will be destroyed in the second seven years. And Joseph lays out a whole plan for how to hold things back and put things in storehouses. And Pharaoh looks at him, and he looks at the men who are his counselors, his elders, and he says, "Has there ever been a man like this that has this kind of wisdom and the spirit of God in him? And wouldn't you know it?" Pharaoh said, "This guy's sharp. Everything he does succeeds." And he becomes second in command in all of Egypt, the most powerful empire in the world. And it happens just as he said, seven years of bumper crops where they saved back, held things back, and then right at seven years, horrible famine. People dying, people starving. But Egypt is saved because of what Joseph had done, because of the favor that God had given Joseph. And even neighboring nations were saved too. Canaan being one of them, which is where Jacob and Joseph's 11 brothers were. They come to Egypt, they say we're looking to buy some food and some supplies here because we are completely out in Canaan. And they're in front of him as a man that they don't recognize. Second in command in all of Egypt. And it's kind of sad if you look at those last couple chapters of the story, how broken

hearted he is, that he's estranged from his family. I mean, he's second in command in the world. He has far surpassed his brothers. I mean, but based on success, he has nothing to feel bad about with them. And yet, there's something about the broken relationship with family that is so deeply painful. I wonder if you're in a situation like that. A strange from family. No matter how good everything else is going in your life, the pain of broken relationships, Joseph knew what that was like. He puts them through a series of tests to find out whether they have any remorse for what they did to him, to find out whether his father was still alive in Canaan, but eventually he reveals who he is. And there, as they hold one another in tears, he says, what God intended for evil, or what you intended for evil, you intended to harm me, God intended for good, for the saving of many people, including my own family. God can bless me anywhere. God ultimately got Joseph where he wanted him to be and blessed him at every step and stage of the journey. So that's it. I'm going to pray, and we'll close things out. No, I'm not Gabe George. I know everybody loves Gabe when Gabe's preaching because we're out of here and we beat the crowd to lunch, right? I don't know that we really believe it. I don't know that we really interpret the circumstances and situations in our life in such a way that we think that God can bless us anywhere. See it matters how you see things. One of the things I love about climbing mountains is as you climb the mountain and you turn around and look, the perspective keeps changing.

You keep seeing more of where you've been. And things that maybe seem like a big deal lower on the mountain, but you get higher on the mountain and you go, oh, that wasn't that big a deal. And when you get to the summit, we have this phrase we like to say that the summit perspective is the right perspective. Why? Because you're at the highest point where you can really take it all in. You can see it all. And that matters because how we see things will shape what we believe and what we believe will shape how we behave and how we behave ultimately, what we talked about this last week, shapes who we become, who we are. So we want to see things the right way. What's your perspective on God? A. W. Tozer wrote in his famous work, Knowledge of the Holy. The quote that's most famous from that book is this quote right here. What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. What comes into your mind when you think about God? Just a little lower in that paragraph on the first page of that book. You know what he says? He says one of the best ways to predict a man's future is how he answers that question. What you think about when you think about God, how you perceive him, has everything to do with where you end up and how you interpret your life, every situation, every circumstance. And so three questions that I want to lay before you. And hopefully three ways we can look at these things differently that it will make a difference. Here's the first one. How do you see God? I'm not a tattoo guy. I don't have any tattoos. But I have a son who like as soon as he could get a tattoo, he was getting a tattoo, right? I mean that's my son, Ethan, he's a seven on the Enneagram, right?

Like he's ready to go be the life of the party and he wanted a tattoo. And me and Shannon were just like, are you serious? Like I don't know about that. Would you tell us a little bit more about it and you know what his response was? Pastor Whit has tattoos. So I was pretty stuck. But Ethan's first tattoo and notice I said first because you guys know how this is. You tattoo people know how this is. It's never just one, right? His first tattoo, Ethan's actually here this weekend. He lives out of town. So it's really good to have him here. But his first tattoo was, it's a pretty good one as tattoos go. He was, at that time, it was during the summer and he was traveling with a youth conference. They were doing student conferences and they had a theme for that summer and it was out of Psalm 23. And even though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear for you are what? With me. Did you hear that theme in Joseph's story? And the Lord was with Joseph. And so Ethan got with me tattooed right here on his arm. And I think that's a pretty good tattoo because I need that reminder just as much as he does. or circumstance where I forget that he is with me no matter how things look around me. It acts as somewhat of a north star or a magnetic north. If you have a compass in your hand, and I learned to do this when I was young, being out in the wilderness, if you've got a compass in your hand,

the compass is always gonna point toward magnetic north, the north pole. So no matter how lost you may feel, or feel off track, you can reference that compass. It could point you back in the right direction. God wants you to have a relationship with him, a real relationship that allows you no matter what you're going through, the good or the bad to reorient toward him. I have the privilege of bearing with people all the time in their grief, sorrow, pain. I have people talk to me every week. They come down right here at the front and they say, I just lost a loved one. My marriage is falling apart. I haven't heard from my children. I just got a bad diagnosis. They're laying off at my job, horrible circumstances. And I've kinda learned over the years how to predict, just like A.W. Tozer said, I've kinda learned how to predict how this is going to end up based on how the person views God. If in the midst of their difficulty, if in the midst of their pain and their suffering, they maintain a relationship with God that continue to trust him, to give him gratitude, to obey him, adoration and worship. I know they're gonna be fine. They're gonna make it through.

God will get them ultimately where he wants them and he will bless them at every step and stage of the journey. But what often happens is that people had in their mind the way God should bless them. And when he doesn't bless them that way, they turn away from him and look for satisfaction elsewhere. And it always leaves them empty. Always. Why are we far too often more interested in receiving God's promises than we are in learning to enjoy his presence? Because his presence is available no matter our circumstances. I want to reframe maybe the way you see God. I can tell you, you know the way I see God? I see God as a loving father. And praise God my own biological dad contributed to that a lot. He was a loving father. And so seeing God as a loving father is easy for me. But for some of you that wasn't the case. The relationship you had with your father was a strange, maybe you were abandoned. It's hard for you to think of God as a father. Kind of reframe it for you a little bit. I've been sharing this a lot lately, but maybe stop thinking about your relationship with God like your relationship with your dad. What if, and I know this doesn't apply

to everyone in the room, but I think you can track with me. What if we started thinking about a relationship with God like our relationship with our children? For those of you who have children, think about when they were born. Think about that first time that you held them. And it was a kind of love that you had not felt before. Like I enjoy kids. I love to get down on my knee and play with kids and tees and that kind of stuff, I love it. But I don't love any kids the way I love my own two boys. And my own two boys are just in a class of their own in terms of how I love them and what I would do for them. Why is that? Because they're my kids. They were made in my image. They look like me. They talk like me. Good or bad, right? Last night, I'm down here during worship. And I noticed that Ethan and I are clapping and swaying the exact same way. We never worked on that. It just like, how did that happen? He's like me, right? Did you know that the Father loves you that way? I mean, Jesus said, if you, dads, though you were evil, know how to love, give good gifts to your children, how much more does our Father in heaven love you? You belong to him.

You gave me such a good, Daniel's mom and dad are here this weekend. And when Daniel was singing and I was watching you watch him, he's yours, that was special. It's a different kind of love. That's the way he loves you. Do you believe that? Here's the second question. How do you see yourself? These are in the proper order because you can't see yourself correctly until you begin to see God correctly. And in the last 10, 15 years, this idea of identity has really been pushed into the cultural narrative. Like if I would have put up here instead of how do you see yourself, how do you identify? That would have made us all nervous, right? Oh, we know where that's going. I don't like that that idea has been hijacked because I think that's a very important question. Who are you? How you answer that matters? It matters how you answer that. I think I know. I'm Lee Martin. I'm the son of Herschel and Lynette Martin. I'm the husband of Shannon Martin. I'm the father of Ethan and Isaac Martin, and I will have my revenge in this life or the next. (audience laughing)

That's gladiator, for those of you who don't know, that's gladiator. And I'll make movies like that anymore. All that stuff is true, but you know what's the most true thing about me? I am a beloved son of the most high God. I am. (audience applauding) He favors me. I'm his heir. He loves me. I was made in his image. That's who I am. And I'm so tired of this prevailing language in our culture that just puts everybody in groups. And typically, those groups are power dynamic groups, abusers and victims, oppressors and the oppressed. And let me be clear. We as Christian people are called to stand up for justice, to step in and protect those who can't protect themselves. The orphan, the widow, we have a role to play, but I'm talking about the way we see ourselves. Listen, the enemy comes to you and he lies. That's what he always does. And he says, you'll never, it will never happen for you. You know why? Because you're not connected to the right people. Because you didn't get that degree. Because you don't come from money.

Your coach doesn't even like you. Your boss is a jerk and he hates women. Your husband or your wife doesn't even love you anymore. Just accept it, resign to it. You're never going to fill in the blank. I say not so with the people of God. We do not see lousy circumstances as having the final word in our life or for our outcomes, those belong to God. God is in control of our life and our outcomes. If anything, we are anti-victims. As the people of God, he says we are more than conquerors in him. Can I encourage you please? Don't be a victim of your own life. Don't be a powerless passenger in your own life. Don't be a disengaged bystander of your own life. Do you know what God has said about you? You are a partner with the Most High God. Genesis 1, 26 through 28, he says, "We are going to make men and women in our own image." And they will rule and they will have dominion and they will build and they will create all the things that our dad does. We will do. Just like him. You're a partner of God, live like one. So what's your next step in light of that? Listen, I understand that there are sometimes situations and circumstances

that you just need to get out of. What's been talking about this the last few weeks? We need wisdom. I'm not up here saying just be happy in whatever your situation is. No, we need wisdom to know how to act. But I am saying stop saying I can't because I never will have because. Who you are always matters more than where you are. Our identity in Christ and our obedience to him are not circumstantial. Here's two perspectives I want to give you on your current situation. Could it be that in your current situation God has you in a school of development? Could it be that he either is allowing you to be where you are or possibly put you where you are because he wants to develop something in you? Because he wants to show you something. Because he wants to make you stronger for what's ahead. Could it be that God might be in the very thing that you're trying to avoid? Here's another angle on it. Could it be that you're in the situation you're in right now to be a blessing for someone else? Could it be that you're there because he needs a conduit of his love and his gospel and his good news to somebody else who's suffering far more than you are? What if you reframed the way you saw it?

Here's the last one. How do you see your future? How do you see your future? Paul says in Philippians, "I am confident of this, "that the one who began a good work in you, "he will see it to completion." He'll get you ultimately where he wants you to go and he can bless you at every step and stage along the way. We live in a world where there's a crisis of hope, suicides, or through the roof, the number of people that need, and I'm not against medication, but the number of people who need something to help with depression and anxiety, we're just, we're at a place where we have It makes me think about Jesus' words in Matthew the 19th chapter. He looked at his friends, and I love what he said. Listen, he said to them, "Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel, and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields. For my sake, we'll receive a hundred times as much and we'll inherit eternal life." The line that I love the most in that is,

"I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things." Do you know what day is coming? Where all will be made right? Where every tear of grief and sorrow will be wiped from our eyes? I don't know exactly how it's going to work. And I know that some of you are sitting there saying, "But I prayed for healing, and they still died." There's no reversing that. But I fought for my marriage, and we still got divorced, and they got remarried, and so there's no going back to that. There is a day coming where all the things that you thought were impossible to make right will be made right. And it happens to the blood of Jesus Christ. It's him who renews all things. Did you know it was 13 years from the time that Joseph had a dream, that his life was going to matter, that one day he was going to be in a place where others would bow down to him, to the time that he delivered his family as second in command in Egypt, 13 years. And from how I look at that story, most of it was a lot more downs than ups. But God got Joseph where he wanted him to be. And you may be in the middle of something. You go, "How long is this ever going to change?" Some of you are sitting in this room right now, and you have physical pain, and you're going, "How long, God, can God bless me here?"

I don't know. I don't know the timeline. But I can relate to the 13 years of Joseph, because this is kind of crazy, you guys. But 17 years ago, today, Labor Day weekend, 2009, was when I stood on the stage at a church in Omaha, Nebraska, and confessed in disgrace and shame, an affair that I had been having with a woman on my staff. I thought my life was over 17 years ago. I shared that long ago that the church actually, this past, last year, they invited us to come in August, last month, to be a part of a 40th year celebration. We were shocked that they asked us to come back. We've had very little contact at all with that church since we left. So just last month, Shannon and I went back. We came into that place, and just so many familiar faces, people coming up to us, hugging us, tears falling down. We're so glad to see you. We're so glad that you guys made it. We're so glad that you're back in ministry. It was a meaningful time of reunion, but my role in the service was, I got to lead into a time of communion. Each of the senior pastors that had been pastors had a role to play. And so I was stepped up on that stage just a few weeks ago, the same spot I was standing in, the lowest, worst time of my life. And I was able to say to them, of all the people in the 40 years of this church, the least deserving

to stand here and address you, it's me. I was the cause of some of the worst pain and destruction in this church. And even for some of you, and I'll never be able to apologize enough for what I did. But then I held up the bread and the juice. And I said, even so, here I stand because of this. Because the blood of Jesus, his sacrifice on the cross, is enough. He loved me so much that for his glory, I stood there and testified to what he could do. Even when I was at my lowest spot, God can bless me anywhere. And he can get me where he ultimately wants me and bless me at every step and stage along the way. And he can do that for you too. I hope you believe it. And so today I want to invite you. I want to ask you, do you have a relationship with God where he can bestow blessing on you, benefit, enrichment, empowerment? Because the way you have it is through Jesus Christ. That's how you have a right relationship. He's the only way we have a right relationship. And he's a conduit of blessing in your life because he loves you that much. Would you bow your heads with me if there's anybody in this room? Maybe you've been in situations and circumstances that are very devastating that you had nothing to do with, or maybe like me, you find yourself in a horrible spot

because of your own sin, your own failure. Doesn't matter. Jesus meets us at the bottom. He says, I will take your place in suffering and punishment so that you might be forgiven and free and whole. If that's you today, I want you to throw your hand up on the count of three. If you're saying, I want that kind of relationship with Jesus, I'm not gonna make you come forward, eyes are closed, I just want you to acknowledge to the Lord, I want that kind of relationship, I want what Jesus is offering. If that's you throw your hand up right now, one, two, three, put your hand up in the air. Yep, I see you right down here, I see you over here. Yep, got some back here, thank you. I see you right there on the aisle. Who else, back here in the risers, thank you. Who else? I'm looking for you, over here. Yep, I see you, sir, right back there in that section. Over here, Shadd, thank you, yes, anybody else? Up here in the risers, thank you. Anybody else? Just wanna give you a second. It's available to you. Are you ready? Yep, I see you, sir. Are you ready to have Jesus come in to the situation, in to the circumstances and change everything?

That's what he does. Let's do this, we're gonna say a prayer together. If you raised your hand, I want you to repeat this after me, even if you didn't, church on the move, this is good for us to remind ourselves, to recommit ourselves, so let's pray this together. You just repeat after me, heavenly Father, thank you for sending Jesus to die in my place. I surrender all. I am a child of God. I ask you to come into my life, into my circumstances and set me free. Thank you, Jesus, for loving me enough to die in my place. I give you my allegiance in Jesus' name, amen. Let me put our hands together for those who raised their hand. Amen, that's a big deal, that's a big deal. Listen, when the service is over, if you raised your hand, they're gonna be prayer partners all down front here. They would love to talk to you, put a resource in your hand. We have a little book that says, what does it mean to be saved? How do I walk this out? What does it mean to live in a relationship with God where he can bless me and I can bless him, right? We'd love to have that conversation with you, won't take too long. If you've got a prayer need, family, work, health, whatever, this team would love to pray with you also.

So I hope you'll take us up on that. We stand to your feet. We close out all of our services with a blessing. We speak this over ourselves. We speak this over each other. So that's why we say it out loud. It's gonna be on the screen here behind me, you can say it with me, here we go. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Love you guys, we'll see you next time. Thank you so much for watching this message from Church on the Move Tosa. We really hope it encouraged you to take a step toward Jesus. Church on the Move is a family of churches in Northeast Oklahoma, each with its own in-person pastor. We love our Bibles, learning and community and taking steps toward Jesus. If you live in the area, we would love for you to join us in person. For more information, check out our website at churchonthemove.com or we've got a few videos we think you might like. Check them out here. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)