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1) "Your life choices bring us to who we are, and we are the result today of every decision that we make. We are the result today of every decision that we make. We are the result today of every decision that we make. We are the result today of every choice that we have made. Right here today, you are who you are and where you are because of the totality of choices that you have gone through and that you have made." [45:06] (17 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

2) "Confident faith is developed by our choices. We don't just fall into it. You don't wake up one day and say, wow, I have powerful faith. Confident and powerful faith grows by each choice that we make. And that's what we do. We don't just fall into it. We don't just exercise it. Today, we're going to explore how to build and sustain the confident faith that you need before, during, and after the crisis. Looking at Daniel as our example." [46:52] (29 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

3) "It's how we react in the midst of the crisis that's directly related to the confident faith that we have. And that, again, is based on the choices that we make. We've made prior, during, and after the crisis. Just to recap from Pastor Terry last week, at around 15 years old, Daniel and some other young men were violently taken by an invading army from their home in Jerusalem and marched all the way to Babylon to serve in the king's court. And as we read the book of Daniel, we can see that even at an early age, when Daniel gets to Babylon, his faith was confident that God would sustain and keep him." [48:24] (43 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

4) "Parents, sometimes we have to make choices for our children, okay? Let me tell you just a little bit about some choices that my parents helped make for me. First, I want to say this. My choices, not anything my parents did not do, led me away from God. Not because I didn't get the bicycle that I wanted. Not because I didn't get to do that or go out or do this. It was a choice that I made. But it was also the choices that my parents made, instilling a faith in me early in my life that led me to circle back around to God and bring me to where I am today." [49:59] (42 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

5) "Your choices impact, others around you, sometimes more than yourself. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, there was a Russian submarine with nuclear weapons on it, and it was off the coast of Cuba, and they lost communications with the rest of the fleet. And they actually, due to some debris and other things that they saw in the water, they thought the war had already begun. They thought the United States and Russia had already begun. They thought the United States and Russia had already started a war. This particular submarine needed three specific officers, the top three officers, to fire that nuclear weapon. The captain and the first officer wanted to fire that nuclear weapon, but the information officer, Vasily Arkhipov, vetoed it and said, no, we cannot begin World War III without knowing. Think about that. One choice, by one man with limited information, probably prevented World War III and saved probably all of our future lives." [55:52] (72 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

6) "We need to choose to strengthen our faith in times of peace and happiness, right? When we're all in a crisis, what do we do? We hit our knees, we open our Bible, right? It's human nature. When things are going well, it's easy to say, eh, maybe I just won't spend as much time with God right now. Things are going well, I'm doing pretty good. But we can see in Daniel's life from what he accomplished that he chose to continue to strengthen that faith during the good times." [57:26] (28 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

7) "Ladies and gentlemen, parents, young people, instead of scheduling the things of God around our lives, it's time we begin to schedule our lives around the things of God. Point three, is this. We have to choose to consistently exercise our faith during the crisis, right? Daniel has choices now. The law has been made. Now, the first choice is this. He could take 30 days off. God will understand, right? God doesn't want me to die, Daniel could say. I just won't pray just for 30 days. I That's not what he chooses." [01:00:31] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

8) "Daniel's prior choices in the good times gave him the strength to choose faith over fear when he faced his greatest crisis, his imminent death. Your choices, again, impact those of us who are in the midst of a crisis. The king knows he has to kill Daniel. He has to throw Daniel in the lion's den. That's what the law was. We're going to see here where the king actually prayed and fasted for Daniel. The Bible says this, the king said to Daniel, may your God whom you serve continually rescue you." [01:03:39] (36 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

9) "Choose to grow your faith when the crisis is resolved, right? That was a pretty big crisis for Daniel. He could have took a little bit of time off. But as Pastor Terry taught us, last week, Daniel continued to choose to grow his faith in three distinct ways. Daniel 9, one through four, tells us this. And during his first year as king, that would be Darius, I found out from studying the writings of the prophets that the Lord had said to Jeremiah, Jerusalem will lie in ruins for 70 years. Then to show my sorrow, I went without eating, dressed in sackcloth and sat in ashes. I confessed my sins and earnestly prayed to the Lord my God." [01:06:47] (40 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

10) "We need to choose to persevere in faith when you need an answer. Every single person that's sitting in here needs an answer about something. It could be a relationship. It could be something spiritual. You're struggling with God. It could be financial. Whatever it is, we all need an answer. We need to continue to persevere in our faith. I don't have the time to flesh this out, so this is your next step today. In Daniel chapter 10, Daniel needs an answer. He chooses to fast and pray for 21 days before the answer comes." [01:08:07] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

Would you join us?
Good morning, Father's House. Good morning, Online Church. We're glad you're with us today.
And we just saw the Walk for Freedom video. If you haven't registered yet, it's not too late. Please shoot the QR code right up there on the screen. Go to our website. Let's get out there and let's support. That'd be so awesome if we just packed this walk out even more than we did last year. Yes, please. Do it.
If you're new with us today, if this is your first time, thank you. Thank you for coming today, especially on a day when it would have been so easy to stay home. The seat back in front of you has a connection card. It looks like this. If you would take that out, fill as much information as you feel comfortable doing. Take it to our "New Here, Start Here" table in the foyer where we have a gift that is just for you.
For those of you that don't know me, good morning again. My name is Pastor Tim, and I am honored to serve as the Freedom and Care Pastor. Pastor Terry, buddy, we miss you so much up here, but he is home recouping from his knee replacement. He's doing well. We're praying for him. We're praying for his physical therapist that is working with him every day, Pastor Anita, and the outside PT people that are coming in. Buddy, we love you, and we miss you today.
Today, we have a new YouVersion for you. It is called "Make Up Your Mind." If you go, again, you can scan that QR code. You can go on our website. It continues with making choices in the book of Daniel. I think it's a four-day. It's going to be great. So let's all do this together as a church, and then like in your life groups or your serving groups or with your friends, talk about what God is saying to you through here.
We're going to continue today talking about Daniel and the prayer that Daniel prayed in Daniel 9. We're also going to look kind of at some different things. We're going to look at the prayer that Daniel prayed in Daniel 9, events that happened in Daniel's life. And today, we are going to together learn why choices matter.
Your choices matter. Did you know that the average adult makes between 33,000 and 35,000 total choices or decisions in one day? I know. 225 of those revolve around food. You make 225 decisions about food.
I got some young men here saying, "That's right, Tim. That's right."
So a lot of them are involuntary, right? I felt a tickle in my throat. I cough. I don't have to think about that. But a lot of our decisions are decisions that we have to take our time. We have to make. And those decisions are based on the totality of our life, what we've come through, and things that are impacting us.
Your life choices bring us to who we are, and we are the result today of every decision that we make. We are the result today of every decision that we make. We are the result today of every decision that we make. We are the result today of every choice that we have made. Right here today, you are who you are and where you are because of the totality of choices that you have gone through and that you have made.
Everybody in here probably knows, if you know me, you know I love movies. One of my favorite movie series is Back to the Future. I love Back to the Future. Marty McFly, right? He goes back in time and through a bunch of kind of comedic mishaps, he helps his parents make better choices. He helps his parents make better choices. He helps his parents make better choices. He helps his parents make better choices. He helps his parents make better choices. He helps them make good choices. His dad finds self-confidence. He writes a best-selling novel. His mother is not an alcoholic. And these choices float down through life where they're successful and their kids are successful.
So the concept's a little silly, a little fun, but what it suggests to us today is that little things can have a big impact, not only in our present situation, but our future situations. The same is true of your faith today. Confident faith is developed by our choices. We don't just fall into it. You don't wake up one day and say, "Wow, I have powerful faith." Confident and powerful faith grows by each choice that we make.
And that's what we do. We don't just fall into it. We don't just exercise it. Today, we're going to explore how to build and sustain the confident faith that you need before, during, and after the crisis, looking at Daniel as our example.
Let me stop right here for a second and just say this. God knew this Sunday was going to be taught right after a crisis. I had no idea. Think about that for a second. That's how much our God loves us, that he's going to talk to us. He's going to talk to us. He's going to talk to us. He's going to talk to us. He's going to talk to us today about how we can respond during a crisis.
Jesus told us in John 16:33, "You're going to have trouble, right? You're going to have chaos. You're going to have crises in your life." And just making the decision to follow Jesus doesn't ensure a trouble-free life. It's how we react in the midst of the crisis that's directly related to the confident faith that we have. And that, again, is based on the choices that we make.
We've made prior, during, and after the crisis. Just to recap from Pastor Terry last week, at around 15 years old, Daniel and some other young men were violently taken by an invading army from their home in Jerusalem and marched all the way to Babylon to serve in the king's court.
And as we read the book of Daniel, we can see that even at an early age, when Daniel gets to Babylon, his faith was confident that God would sustain and keep him. So where did that faith come from? We have to start and make about two assumptions right now. The first is this, that his parents instilled a love for God in him and taught him to study the word and to pray. And we'll see how that played out later in his life.
And then also that Daniel made the choice to follow God and grow in his faith. Let's park right here for just a moment.
Parents, sometimes we have to make choices for our children, okay? Let me tell you just a little bit about some choices that my parents helped make for me. First, I want to say this. My choices, not anything my parents did or did not do, led me away from God. Not because I didn't get the bicycle that I wanted. Not because I didn't get to do that or go out or do this. It was a choice that I made.
But it was also the choices that my parents made, instilling a faith in me early in my life that led me to circle back around to God and bring me to where I am today. So parents, again, sometimes we have to make choices.
So about 12 years old, I'm playing little league baseball and I don't know, hit a ground ball. First baseman's in the way, I run him over, right? You're out because you're not allowed to run the guy over, right?
But my coach, who was also the little league football coach, I come back on the bench and he's like, "Tim, man, you ought to come out and play football for us in the fall." All right, I'd love to because I always wanted to be Mel Blunt, right? I thought I was going to grow up and be the greatest cornerback or safety the Steelers had ever played, you know? Obviously, that didn't happen.
So I go home and I tell my dad how excited I was to be invited on this football team. And the coach had actually given me a schedule because it was close to signups. My dad looks at it and there are Saturday night games and Sunday morning games. My father, without blinking, looks at me and says, "This is great. I'm proud of you, Tim. You can play all the Saturday night games. We go to church on Sunday. That's not a choice in this household."
I chose to play and I had a great time playing. Never got to play for the Steelers, but you know what? It was that choice that my parents instilled in me. When I walked away from God later on and I was doing a lot of crazy things, and a lot of you know my story, I still would go to church. There was still that drive in me to come back to the house of God.
So it's really important, parents, that we make some of those choices for our kids because they're not at the point for them to make their own.
So we also know that Daniel chose to bring the word of God with him, right? This is the way I picture it anyway. I think he had to smuggle it in because I don't think that the Babylonians would have wanted him to take the word of God with him. So I see it. They're coming in and these kids, man, they're 15 years old. They grab their backpack. They're snatching their favorite shirt, you know, that Steelers jersey. They're snatching everything they got. And then they, you know, Daniel says, "Man, I need these scrolls. I need the word of God with me."
And I really think that God allowed him to take those in and kept those scrolls safe because 60 some odd years later, Daniel still had and studied those. God protected his word. He knew Daniel would use it.
Another kind of story from my life. So my brother goes into the army at age 18, directly out of high school. And we go to his induction ceremony. And at that induction ceremony, they gave him all, remember the little New Testaments with the Psalms and Proverbs in it? Well, I'm not sure if either he didn't take it or he was given it.
But he flipped that Bible to me just before he walked through that door. When I was running from God at my worst up in Jersey in the winter, I wore a flake jacket. A lot of you know what a flake jacket is. Green on the outside, orange on the inside. Those flake jackets, the reason that I wore that, and a lot of kind of guys that I ran with wore them, was because of the inside pockets, okay?
On this pocket in here, I carried a cold combat commander, all right? 45 was a perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect for protection. On the other side, for all those years, I carried this Bible my brother gave me. Bro, I still have this Bible. And it wasn't kind of like some magic talisman that kept me alive. But even through all my running from God, it still reminded me of what was instilled in me by my parents at a very, very young age.
So Daniel, we're going to get back to Daniel. Break from that. But Daniel chose to be faithful. And that's my first point today, is we have to choose to be faithful.
See, upon arriving in Babylon, Daniel's given a new name, and as Pastor Terry taught us, possibly became a eunuch. He then enters a three-year training program designed to brainwash him to forget his Jewish identity and embrace the Babylonian way of life. He has a very big choice to make very early.
He has a very big choice to make very early on. They want to give him wine and all the sweet delicacies that they were giving all the other young men. Daniel goes to the guy that's over them and says, "Look, me and my three boys here, my buddies, we want to do a 10-day test where we will do nothing but water and vegetables. And at the end of those 10 days, we're going to be in better shape than all these other guys."
That's exactly what happened. That 10-day test turned into a three-year lifestyle. And I'm assuming probably, I don't know, maybe it's going to be probably a continuous lifestyle for Daniel. This paid off big dividends.
In chapter 2, we read where the king had a dream, and he wanted it interpreted. He gathers all his wise men and says, "I had a dream. I want you to interpret it." They're like, "Cool, king, tell us what's the dream. We'll interpret it." He's like, "No, no, no. If you're truly wise, you'll tell me the dream and then interpret it. He said, because if I tell you the dream, you're just going to get together, you're going to make something up, and then you're going to come back and tell me. And he said, if you can't do this, I'm going to put you to death."
They go to Daniel. Daniel spends time on his knees. He prays for an answer. He goes to the king, and he says, "King, no man can do this, but my God can do this." He tells the king the dream. He tells the king the interpretation.
The king is so impressed that he does not kill all his other wise men, and Daniel and his three friends are promoted. See, the point here is this. Your choices impact others around you, sometimes more than yourself.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, there was a Russian submarine with nuclear weapons on it, and it was off the coast of Cuba, and they lost communications with the rest of the fleet. And they actually, due to some debris and other things that they saw in the water, thought the war had already begun. They thought the United States and Russia had already begun.
This particular submarine needed three specific officers, the top three officers, to fire that nuclear weapon. The captain and the first officer wanted to fire that nuclear weapon, but the information officer, Vasily Arkhipov, vetoed it and said, "No, we cannot begin World War III without knowing."
Think about that. One choice, by one man with limited information, probably prevented World War III and saved probably all of our future lives. So remember, your choices impact others.
The second point is this. We need to choose to strengthen our faith in times of peace and happiness, right? When we're all in a crisis, what do we do? We hit our knees, we open our Bible, right? It's human nature. When things are going well, it's easy to say, "Eh, maybe I just won't spend as much time with God right now. Things are going well, I'm doing pretty good."
But we can see in Daniel's life from what he accomplished that he chose to continue to strengthen that faith during the good times. In chapters four and five, God uses Daniel to interpret another dream and handwriting on the wall. You got to go home and read this in chapter five, right? The king's having this big blowout party. They're partying, and all of a sudden, a literal hand appears on the wall and writes it. Everybody's freaked out.
So what do they do? They call the old sage Daniel to come in and interpret this. Daniel interprets the writing. He is promoted to number three in the position, and he definitely lived out that it was better to strengthen your faith during the time of peace because when a crisis hits, you're going to need that strengthened faith.
Here's a good quote. You may want to shoot a picture of this. It says, "Crisis is destructive. Strong faith during your crisis is decisive. In the crisis, your prior choices impact decisions and behavior. Will you crumble, or will you allow your faithful choices to exercise your confident faith?"
So join the crisis. We all just went through a crisis. Some of you are still living in that crisis. So anybody here that still doesn't have power, we had a few in the first service. Let's pray for our friends and family who are without power right now.
I woke up this morning. Our neighborhood is without power. We're blessed to have power. My prayer, again, first thing this morning was, "God, please restore power to our neighborhood." And again, a great shout out to our linemen and the support teams that are doing this for us here today.
So we have to work on our faith so that during the crisis, we don't break down. So enter a new king, King Darius, and he wants to set Daniel up over all the kingdom, okay? The other guys around were very, very jealous. They want to catch Daniel. They try to catch him lying for the kingdom, stealing from it, cheating.
But check this verse out here in Daniel 6. It says this, "They could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent." Finally, these men said, "We will never find any basis for charges against this man, Daniel, unless it has something to do with the law of his God."
Wow. The brother had integrity. God, make that my legacy, that people could look at me and say, "The only thing that I could say is I don't believe like him, but I could find no corruption in him."
So they go to the king. They soup him all up, right? They convince him to make a law that for 30 days, nobody can pray to anybody but you, king, because you're the greatest in the land. The king's like, "Yeah, that's good. Law." And once those laws were made, they could not be flipped.
These guys knew they had Daniel. How did they know they had Daniel? I'm glad you asked me that. I think it was because of his consistent life and his consistent prayer life. And I'll bet they had to schedule their meetings around Daniel's prayer time. I can see him saying, "Okay, next Thursday at two, we're all going to get together and we got to make this decision." And somebody's like, "No, we can't do that. Why? Daniel's prayer time. He won't be here."
The king loves Daniel. He's got to be here. Ladies and gentlemen, parents, young people, instead of scheduling the things of God around our lives, it's time we begin to schedule our lives around the things of God.
Point three is this. We have to choose to consistently exercise our faith during the crisis, right? Daniel has choices now. The law has been made. Now, the first choice is this. He could take 30 days off. God will understand, right? God doesn't want me to die, Daniel could say. I just won't pray just for 30 days.
That's not what he chooses. Another choice, I could hide. I could pray in the dark. I could pray silently. Nobody will hear me. And I'll do it at different times so they don't think that I'm praying.
I want to talk to our young people in school. You have a great opportunity to share your faith with this one simple thing. Every day when you sit at the lunch table, take a moment and say a short out loud prayer over your food. I'm not saying you got to pray some long King James version prayer. You don't have to jump up on the table and be like, "Oh, bless us this food for all of the high school." No, you don't have to.
You don't have to be like, "Oh, bless us this food for all of the high school." But how about just, "Heavenly Father, I just want to say thank you for this food that was prepared for us."
But adults, you know, we can do the same thing in our workplace. We can do the same thing at a restaurant. We can do the same thing when we're out with our friends. Just a way to exercise our faith.
Daniel's third choice was this: exercise faith over fear and choose consistency. Ding, winner, winner, chicken dinner. That's what Daniel chose.
The Bible says this, "Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to God just as he had done before."
Daniel's prior choices in the good times gave him the strength to choose faith over fear when he faced his greatest crisis, his imminent death. Your choices, again, impact those of us who are in the midst of a crisis.
The king knows he has to kill Daniel. He has to throw Daniel in the lion's den. That's what the law was. We're going to see here where the king actually prayed and fasted for Daniel. The Bible says this, "The king said to Daniel, may your God whom you serve continually rescue you." This is after he threw him in the lion's den.
Then the king returned to his palace. You know, I never saw this before. I love it how I can read the Bible. I love it how I can read the Bible. I love it how I can read the Bible. And God can just make something jump out at me.
Okay. The king returned to his palace, spent the night without eating and without any entertainment being brought to him. I truly believe that the king prayed for Daniel. Your choices influence others. Are those around you meeting or growing closer to God? Or do they have no clue who God is because you're not showing that with the way that you live?
Okay, so this is the way I see it. This may not be the way I see it. It's the way I see it. The next morning, the king gets up super, super early, right? He runs to the lion's den, throws open the sealed door. "Daniel, Daniel, are you alive?"
The Bible says that Daniel said, "Oh, king, live forever. My God sent an angel to shut the lion's mouth."
This is my, Tim's version of this. "Daniel, are you alive?" "Oh, man, bro, what's up? Why are you waking me up so early? Dude, I had the best night's sleep ever. Because you know, every night, your other wise men throw these parties. It keeps me awake. I curled up on one of these big old soft lions. They purred me to sleep. As a matter of fact, please, one more night in here, man, one more night."
The thing of it is, Daniel's choices led to God's favor and protection and led to the king decreeing that the whole nation of Babylon would pray to no other God but Daniel's God. And then he threw the wicked guys who had tried to trap Daniel into the lion's den.
Your choices matter, not only for you, but for your family, your friends, your community. Your choices matter.
The next point is this. Choose to grow your faith when the crisis is resolved, right? That was a pretty big crisis for Daniel. He could have taken a little bit of time off. But as Pastor Terry taught us last week, Daniel continued to choose to grow his faith in three distinct ways.
Daniel 9, one through four, tells us this. "And during his first year as king, that would be Darius, I found out from studying the writings of the prophets that the Lord had said to Jeremiah, 'Jerusalem will lie in ruins for 70 years.' Then to show my sorrow, I went without eating, dressed in sackcloth and sat in ashes. I confessed my sins and earnestly prayed to the Lord my God."
Three things Daniel did after the crisis that would continue to prepare and build his confident faith. First, he studied the word. He didn't just open up the Bible and say, "I'll read this verse." He studied. He asked God to show him what the word of God would say to him.
The second thing he did was fast. Christians, fasting brings us closer to God. You need answers. It's time that we fast.
And then the last thing that he did, he earnestly prayed and confessed his sins. Now, we know that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Our sins are covered under the blood, but he wants us to confess when we mess up to him.
Parents, it's just like this, right? You catch your kid doing something or you find out your kid done something and you ask him, "Did you do this?" Now, you already know the answer, right? This is my house. "Tim, did you do that? Did you break that little bird that was up on the wall?" "No, Jim did it." "No, Jim did it."
Well, they already know I did it. So now I get in more trouble for the lie than I do for the action. Why? Because they were trying to teach me to be a young man of integrity. They were trying to teach me to be a young man of honesty. They were trying to teach me to own up to my mistakes and then make them right when I can.
I think it's the exact same thing with our heavenly father. He wants us to come to him so that he can lovingly say, "My son, my daughter. Of course, I forgive you. I love you. You are forgiven."
So let's keep that in mind as we continue to grow in our faith.
The last point is this. We need to choose to persevere in faith when you need an answer. Every single person that's sitting in here needs an answer about something. It could be a relationship. It could be something spiritual. You're struggling with God. It could be financial. Whatever it is, we all need an answer. We need to continue to persevere in our faith.
I don't have the time to flesh this out, so this is your next step today. In Daniel chapter 10, Daniel needs an answer. He chooses to fast and pray for 21 days before the answer comes. But it's just not that. There's a whole lot more in that.
So I want you to go home this afternoon and read chapter 10, study it, reflect on what God would reveal to you regarding your questions. Note any messages that he would tell you, that he would speak to what you need today.
We have to practice and grow confident faith so that we can react as Christian men and women when the crisis comes.
If you just kind of bow your heads today, maybe close your eyes. Let's just kind of lock in with God today. Right now, I just want to talk to those of us that have already made the decision to transfer our faith, and we are following Jesus as our Savior.
Daniel chose to strengthen, consistently exercise, grow, and persevere in his faith. He was rewarded with wisdom, favor, protection, and answers. Today, if there's an area that you say, "Hey, I could either strengthen or I need to consistently exercise or grow or persevere in my faith," I want to pray for you. Just lift your hand up. Man, both of mine are up because I need to do all of those, especially that I need to persevere in faith.
I thank you for these hands going up all over. Our Lord and Savior, we just thank you today. Lord, we humbly come to you, and we say we need to grow our faith. I ask, Father God, for everyone here who raised their hand that you would show us ways to better grow our faith. You would allow us times to exercise that faith, put that confident faith into action, to make decisions that not only honor you, honor us, but influence for you others that are around us. In Jesus' name, amen and amen.
As we continue in this attitude of prayer, Daniel's life from a young boy with his family to slave to official began with the single most important choice of his life. See, somewhere early in his life, Daniel chose to transfer his trust to God. Maybe he said, "Hey, all right, I tried it my way. It really didn't work."
I want to ask you today, have you taken that step? Have you put your faith and trust in Jesus? Maybe you did a long time ago, and maybe now you say, "I need to do that again." Today, I want to tell you, don't assume that you have. Don't hope that you have. Don't think that you have. You must know that you've made that choice today.
If you have any doubt in your mind today, right now is the time to make that choice. So on the count of three, if you're just even considering making that choice or doubting whether you have, just raise your hand. We're going to pray for you. As we prayed for others, you can see that we didn't embarrass anybody.
So if there's anybody that says, "Tim, I need to make that choice. I want to put my faith and trust in you." Thank you. I'm seeing that hand right there. We are going to celebrate this together. We're going to say a prayer together as a family. Awesome. Thank you for raising your hands today.
So I want everybody to say this prayer together. Just real simple.
Dear God, thank you for sending your son to die so I could live. Today, I want to put my trust in you. I've tried it my way. Now I want to live your way. As best as I know how, I'm going to trust you. In Jesus' name, amen and amen.
Let's celebrate today.
I want to leave you with one line. The great poet Geddy Lee said this, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." It's not too late for you to make that decision. At any point in time today, you can just ask God to take your sins away and tell him you want to put your faith and trust in him.
So our prayer team is going to come down front. And for those of you that prayed that prayer with me over here and over here, right here, we have first step tables. Would you just, as we all stand to worship, and you can stand now as we get ready to worship, would you just slide over here to this table and over here to this table? We have some material I want to put in your hand. I want to put a book in your hand, a Bible if you need it.
Come on down front, prayer team. Our prayer team is here to just agree in prayer with anything that you might need today.
Hey, remember, exercise that faith. I'm going to turn it back over and we're going to worship our way out today.