Special Guest, Denny Barger

Sorry. Good morning, everyone. Today is the day that the Lord has made. So we will rejoice and be glad. That's right. All right, just a few announcements. Number one, we are having a trail mix hike. Wednesday, we're meeting here at 8 AM.

And we're going to North Jersey about an hour and 45 minutes away to Mount Tammany. So everyone is welcome to come. If you're about under six years old, it might be too much of a hike for you. If you're a strong six-year-old or over, it'd be good.

Or if you're too old, maybe you want to hang back. But everyone is invited if they think they can make the hike. It's about 3 and 1 1 miles up and then 3 and 1 1 miles down. So it isn't uphill both ways in the snow.

It'll be fun. Pastor Jeff is packing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches along with trail mix. So we'll have fun. If you want to bring more than that, feel free. If you can make it, 8 AM, Cornerstone Church, Wednesday.

And then we'll all be leaving together. Thursday, Domenna Missions Night. The Domennas are missionaries from China. They're coming, and they're hosting a missions night. They'll be talking about missions, their journey.

I'm sure there'll be a Q &A. If you have questions about missions, questions about them, they have answers for you. You can bring cookies or snacks if you want. There will be coffee and beverages provided.

So come on out Thursday night at 7 PM for the Domenna Missions.

Night.

And those are the Domennas right there. Number three, VBS. There's VBS, August 5th through the 9th. If you're interested in helping in VBS, please come see me. Please tell your neighbors about it, your grandchildren about it, your children about it.

It'll be a fun time. It is jungle theme. We're going through the seven seas of history. So VBS, August 5th through the 9th. Number four, baptisms. We're doing baptisms again September 8th. So if you want to be baptized, September 8th, we're going to Long Beach Island.

And we're going to be baptized in open water. So this is your chance. If you want to be baptized, talk to Pastor Jeff, talk to one of the elders, talk to me, and we'll get you ready for baptism. And speaking of Long Beach Island, that is where Pastor Jeff is today.

He's speaking in Long Beach Island. He's not here today. There's a pastor shuffle going on. He's speaking in Long Beach Island. I think Luke Frazier is speaking somewhere else. And today, we have a guest speaker named Denny Barger.

So when he comes up, give him a warm welcome. He's from the Pine Barrens, really cool guy, gave a really good message the first service. I anticipate it's going to be another good message in the second service.

So when he comes up, give him a warm welcome. And other than that, worship team.

Let's all stand.

The Love of God and the Call to Worship

So this first song is a hymn. We're going to start with a hymn. This is The Love of God. And it just speaks, our verse on the screen speaks of, for God so loved. And it's just so hard to put into, for us to fathom the love of God for us.

But as we come before the Lord, let's just bow our hearts in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we come to you in the name of your Son. And we bring hearts full of worship, Lord God, for you. We have treasured you up in our hearts, Lord God.

And Jesus, for your gift that you've given to us, Lord. There's no words that we can speak, God, but we just pray that by your Holy Spirit, you would draw out that love for you that we have in our hearts, Lord God, as we sing these songs of praise and adoration to you this morning.

Glory to your name, Lord, amen. So we have some special guests with us today sitting in the front row, Mr. and Mrs. Denny Barger. And before Denny gets up, I just wanna encourage you guys, if you hear something that's true or you hear something you really believe, don't be afraid to shout out amen.

I'm sure Denny will appreciate that. I think Jeff knows Denny from a local pastor's meeting that meets at an undisclosed location at an undisclosed time. And without further ado, why don't we give a warm welcome to Denny Barger.

Come on up.

God as a Mighty Warrior Who Will Save

Well, he said, shout amen. I'm up here hoping the Lord will show me where I didn't put my bookmark in. Tim, before you leave, a quick quiz. I'm gonna say a word in Arabic and I want you to say it in English, okay?

In fact, you can all join in. This is a quiz, pop quiz, okay? Because I found out in all my travels, there are three words known in every language. So I speak a little Arabic. I'm gonna give it to you in Arabic.

You ready? First one's easy. Ameen. Amen, good deal. We're getting a little tougher now.

Alleluia.

Are you ready for the big one? Coca-Cola. Oh Lord, I said I wasn't gonna tell any jokes up here, but I'm gonna anyway. I join in with the psalmist who said, let us go into the house of the Lord. I said that wrong.

He said, I was glad. I was glad when they said, let us go into the house of the Lord.

Are you glad to be here today?

I mean, there's probably 10 ,000 other places you could be, but this is the place the Lord wants you to be. And we're here together worshiping him and that's just a wonderful, wonderful thing. I travel in places where it's a little challenging to worship the Lord openly.

And I'll share some of that with you. But this is where I go. That's my happy place right there. And my wife and I had the privilege of living in Cairo for five and a half years when we were young and later in Bahrain for more than seven years.

Our ministry began back in 1977. We got saved in 75, married in 76, but we were poor kids in college, didn't have any money and couldn't take a honeymoon. So the Lord gave us one about a year later and we were able to go to Europe and smuggle Bibles behind the Iron Curtain.

Now, usually if I say that to a high school crowd, people just start looking like this, what's the Iron Curtain? But you know what it is. And that's the place that divided the freedom to worship God and atheist communism.

So praise the Lord that you were born in America or that you live here in America. I said this at the first service, it's not in my notes, but I really encourage you to go out and vote. We live in the greatest country in the world and many people around the world, you see them coming in by the millions, however they can get here.

Why is that? Because here we have freedom of speech and freedom of religion. In our church in Bahrain, there were police outside the door, okay? They were there saying they were protecting us, but who knows what other reasons they were there for.

You don't have that here, you had freedom. And that's a wonderful thing. You can share your faith with anybody you want to. The only person stopping you from doing that is you, okay? So we're gonna talk a little bit about that, but Jeff asked me to share with you about our ministry.

It's called Dreams Alive, the Arab American Alliance for Relief and Development. That's a big title, but it's like an umbrella, which gives us the right to do whatever we feel like, okay? And that's why it is.

So let's put one up there, Jacob. All right, way back in 1982, we were able to go and live in Egypt. And by God's grace, I was called to minister among garbage collectors. They were all Christians who had moved from the Southern part of Egypt to the city because they raised pigs.

And a lot of you think, what, pigs in the Middle East? Yeah, there's Christians. There's a lot of Christians in the Middle East. They were allowed to raise pigs. They went to the city to collect the garbage to feed the pigs.

And of course, they did a lot of recycling. I think it's March of 1983, National Geographic. We're on the cover, not me and Sue, but the garbage village for their recycling. And in that picture, you can see, these are three little girls carrying big tins of rubbish on their head, and they're taking it to be recycled.

This is a street scene, and that's what they lived in, in those houses. And it was an amazing time. They had it rough there, there's no doubt about it. I was told that over 60 of the children died by their fifth birthday.

That's a lot of death. And they never even named them until they were living at least one week. It was quite a situation. I myself was blessed with amoebic dysentery three times. You don't want that. I'm kind of tongue-in-cheek saying a blessing there.

But these little bugs get inside you, and they were building condominiums in my intestines for a while until I figured it out. But we were there, and it was actually a wonderful thing. While there, I served with a pastor named Saman Ibrahim, Simon Abraham.

Let's see the next one. This was the church and the way I found it. You can see some of the homes around the church. And that thing under construction is a school. And again, by God's grace, we were able to help build a school and help build a hospital.

They have a hospital in there now. At that time, there was no hospital, no doctors. I used to walk around with a bag with medical stuff in it, and I'm no doctor. You wouldn't want me operating on it, I'll tell you that.

But I'd see people on the street. I remember one lady had her arm all bandaged up, and she said, can you help me? And so she took the bandages off, and she had a slice of tomato and an onion slice in there, trying to heal a wound.

Well, at least I knew how to dress a wound so we could help. But today, again, God's grace and faithful people, there's a hospital there for those folks. And it looks so much better. I mean, you should have seen the day they brought asphalt into the streets.

I was so giddy, I almost got down and kissed the ground. It was amazing. But while we were there, Saman and I used to go about once a week. We'd go, there was a cave above the slum, easily accessible.

And there was a man named Galini who lived in that cave. He was a hermit, and he just stayed in that cave. And so we'd bring him some food, check up on him. And he would often say he saw angels. And so we'd get up there, and Saman would say, well, Galini, are the angels here today?

And he'd roar, he'd point up in the car, there's some over there. And I didn't see them, the angels. And I always wondered, is Galini a madman, or am I a man of little faith? Because I can't see the angels.

Well, about, Galini died, and about, oh, 1988, 89, Saman felt led of the Holy Spirit to dig the dirt out of that cave. And this is what came of it. Jacob, that's a 20 ,000 seat outdoor church. They call it the Cave Church.

If you have a chance, go home, look up Cave Churches Cairo. And people come from all over the world to go there and worship. And Saman preached Christ crucified. He was a strong preacher. He passed away last October.

And over 40 ,000 people came to his funeral. That's amazing. This is just one guy, didn't really know the Lord, wasn't a priest, but met these garbage collectors. God put it on his heart to minister to them.

He became a priest for their sake. And it was good, it was a good time. So I asked you, was Galini a madman, or was I a man of little faith? I know, I was a man of little faith. I believe there were angels there.

There might be some in the corners here, who knows? So also during that time from 1982 to 2023, more than 8 ,000 Muslims were baptized into Christ in that place. And let me tell you something, don't just, oh, that's nice.

No, 8 ,000 Muslims became Christians in that one church. And to give up Islam to become a Christian, it behooves your family to change your mind. And if they can't change your mind, they have the right to kill you, okay?

Or put you in a mental institute, because who would leave the divine religion of Islam? Do you understand when people give their heart to Jesus in that part of the world, it's like putting a target around themselves.

And we love them, you know, and we've had opportunities. Some of them couldn't stay there, and we were able to get them out into Europe and other places where they had freedom. I tell you this again, cherish that constitution you have, people.

Don't let anybody take that away from you. It was given to you by God. And we have such freedom here. I wouldn't be in this church if we didn't have that freedom. Anyway, we were there loving the Lord.

In 2008, we came back to the States. I wanted to go to Bible college, and we did that for a while, and we began Dreams Alive. Now, initially, we began teaching Christians how to reach out to Muslims. And there was actually a couple here in the last service who said, hey, do you remember us?

We were in your class, you know? And we went, I took them to a mosque, you know? You think, why would he do that? Well, to get you over your fear. And, you know, hear it from the horse's mouth. I had a group down in Atlantic City one time after the six weeks of lessons, we went to the mosque and they asked the imam, they said, if you died tonight, would you go to heaven?

You ever hear that question? He said, I don't think so.

I don't know.

He said, that's up to God. Now, this is the leader of the mosque. He doesn't know if he's gone to heaven after doing all the things he's done. Well, why is that, sir? Well, you know, God is so precocious that you could give your heart to him, but maybe you did a sin that he never forgave, nor will he.

And for a Muslim, getting into heaven is like going on the edge of a sword and God can just look down and go, sorry. Anyway, it would blow you into the cavern of hell. They have no assurance. Christian, if you died tonight, do you know where you'd be going?

Okay?

We sang about the blood of Jesus. It's the blood of Jesus that's gonna get us into heaven. And even while we were singing today, I just started praying and I said, Lord, you know, if I die, please, when I open my eyes, let me see your beautiful face.

That's the goal. That's the goal.

God is less concerned about your comfort than he is about your commitment. Do you love him? He loves you. We're gonna talk about that in a minute. So anyway, in 2012, we had a chance to go back and live in the Middle East once again, and we moved to a little country called Bahrain.

Okay? If you were in the service, you might know about Bahrain. We have a large military base there, about 5 ,000 Americans. So I served as a pastor there and we had 70 different nations, nationalities, attending that church in the seven years.

And guess what? We all got along with each other. We didn't argue about the color of the carpet. We didn't have a carpet, you know? But it was a wonderful experience. And look at our neighbors, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

And it's kind of a fun place to live, really. By the way, we do a lot of fundraising and support missionaries as well. And we've got folks that have just moved with their children into Saudi Arabia because by God's grace, it's opening up and you can go there as a tourist now.

I couldn't go. Even, I live so close. I wanted to go into Saudi. I couldn't do it because you have to have an identity card. Okay? You'll be carrying one of them soon. Don't worry. At least that's what the Bible says.

And anyway, on my card, it said I was a priest and they didn't allow priests in Saudi Arabia. Well, all that's changing. God is opening a wide door. And if you feel like the Lord may lead you to go into one of the darkest places on the planet, see me afterwards.

These friends of mine went in a few months back and there was a big concert. Now get this, Saudi Arabia. Okay, when I say Saudi Arabia,.

Do you know what it's like there?

You know, women all covered and all you can see is their eyeballs and couldn't drive cars. They're allowed now to drive. And anyway, my friends went in and there was a big concert, an outdoor concert.

100 ,000 people attended. Guess who the headliners were? Metallica. I'm like, I wouldn't listen to Metallica in America, let alone in Saudi Arabia. You know, I mean, the world has just gone crazy. But in the craziness, God is opening doors.

So they went to the concert and started talking to people about faith and about the Lord. So we lived in Bahrain. We loved it. Susan, my lovely wife, was a kindergarten teacher there where she could love on the kids.

And that was a wonderful experience for her. It was a wealthy Muslim school. In fact, one day she had the kids on the carpet sitting there and reading them a story about a young girl who was a princess.

And this little girl said, Miss Sue, I'm a princess. And she said something like, well, you know, all daddies think their little girls are a princess. And she goes, oh no, Miss Sue, I'm a real princess.

You don't hear that in New Jersey, right? Well, she heard it there. And I asked her one time, why do you do that? Why are you working in that particular school? Because their motto in the school was to teach Western critical thinking and coupled with Islamic values.

I said, well, you're a Christian.

How's that working out? She said, well, the values they're talking about are have a good home, have a good marriage, get your kids to college, respect people, that kind of stuff. She said, but the reason I'm there, she said these children may in fact grow up and be influenced by people that want them to hate.

Now you understand, okay? You know there's a war going on, right? With Hamas and Israel. Hamas are haters, okay? And they hate you. There's a saying in the Middle East, first comes Saturday, then comes Sunday.

Once the Jews who worship on Saturday are gone, we're coming after you Christians, okay? So they teach the kids to hate. And it's a sad thing. Now, not all, I mean, you know, but she said, if these kids grow up and when they're, you know, late teens, early 20s, someone wants them to hate Jews, Christians and anybody else that isn't like them.

I want them to remember Miss Sue and how much I love those kids. Well, here's your chance for that, amen. Love wins the day, people. Love, not your opinion about politics or global warming or anything else.

It's a love of Christ flowing through you, flawed as you are, you know, flowing through you into others. And it's such a blessing. The show authentic Christian love. Jesus said, a new command I give you, love one another as I have loved you.

So you must love another, one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. So, again, in SAR fellowship, that was the name of our church. I was privileged to be the pastor.

We had a lot of Americans, but there was over 70 nationalities there and only the Lord knows how many denominations there were. I mean, Catholics would come, Orthodox, Protestants of all flavors. And this was a day we had a baptism.

And as you see, the guy on the left was a Bahraini, is a Bahraini, a former Muslim. And you got three Chinese girls, a girl from Sri Lanka and a South African. And yes, it's shaded for a reason, but it was amazing.

After that particular baptism, one of the Chinese gals was given a testimony. And I want to read to you what she said. I was an atheist living in a communist dictatorship. God moved me to an Islamic monarchy in order to meet Jesus, the Jewish Prince of Peace, and be baptized by a Christian pastor from America.

Wow, how far the hand of God will reach to save sinners like me. Thank you. Now the rest of you, listen, amen.

God saved you.

And I bet you if I went back and talked to some of your cousins when you were a teenager, they'd all say, boy, that was a miracle. I know I was a miracle and I'm so grateful to God for my salvation. I hope you are as well.

So a wee bit more of the ministry. We go to Jordan once a year, actually more than that, but once a year we go. This is my friend, Pastor Hytham, and that's what we do there. Let's see the next one, Jacob.

Medical mission trip, a big deal for us. This was our team last year and we went again February. If you are a medical professional and you can give up a week of your life, we'll work you half to death, okay?

My team sees roughly five to 600 people, most of them, vast majority of them, refugees from Iraq and Syria, from those wars. There's still residue going on over there because of the wars. It's a mess, but they see them and bless them.

They always ask if they can pray for them and we always pray in the name of Jesus. They give them scripture and hope for the best, you know? So we got that going on and if you wanna stay longer in a week, we can work that out too.

All right, we also have a school there and we call it the Good Shepherd School and if you can read that, since 2015, over 2 ,000 refugee kids have received an education in our school and that's a wonderful thing.

You may not understand this because by God's grace, we have not had a war on this particular place, you know, in America here for well over 100 years. But when a war starts, education stops, business stops, life stops.

You know, I had a group of pastors over there one time, just, you know, introducing them to the area and we were sitting with an Iraqi guy from Baghdad who had lost everything and he's talking with the biggest smile on his face ever.

He said, I had a business, I had two businesses actually. I lost them both, I lost my home. I had to take what I could and get out because the Muslim neighbors wanted to kill him and it just wasn't safe and he was there in Jordan.

He said, but you know what? I was too busy to go to church back then. He was born a Christian, but that didn't mean anything. He didn't bother, but now that he was in Jordan as a refugee, he said, you know what?

I gave my heart to Jesus. And while he's talking, I hear this crying behind me and I turn around and it's a pastor from Vineland who was with me and I said, Frank, are you okay? And he goes, I've never heard anything more beautiful in my life.

My friends, please cherish, cherish your salvation. Cherish the fact that God looked at you and thought there's somebody I want in my life and so God saved you from your sin and from hell. God is so good.

Now where am I? I was thinking about baptism. Tim said there's a chance to be baptized in the ocean. I used to serve at church just outside of Long Beach Island and one day some teenagers came to me and said, pastor, we want to get baptized.

I said, really? Oh, that's good, but we don't want to get baptized in any swimming pool, hot tub or the bay. We're surfers. I said, yeah. They said, we want to be baptized in the ocean. I said, okay, now you gotta understand for a pastor to have teenagers come to him and they say they want to be baptized,.

That's a pretty cool thing.

So I looked around the congregation and found the biggest, toughest guy there. He used to be in Jimmy Carter's Honor Guard as a Coast Guardsman himself. His name was Alvin. I said, Alvin, these kids want to get baptized in the ocean.

I don't want to look like the Three Stooges and I certainly don't want to lose any of them. I got your back, pastor. So Tim, I don't know where you are, but I wonder if you're going to be baptized in the ocean or the bay.

I challenge you, go to the ocean, but make sure one of these big guys goes with you.

Ministry in the 1040 Window and the Call to Friendship Evangelism

Northern Iraq.

No, I got to stay in Jordan for a minute. You got to hear this because it shocked me and much doesn't shock me anymore. We decided to minister to Palestinian refugees who are living in a place, there weren't any trees at all.

It was literally a concrete jungle and little skinny streets. I was a bit nervous going into where we were going because I don't like skinny streets in the Middle East, you know, where they can block streets and do that kind of stuff.

By the way, I am not a courageous person. My biggest nightmare is somebody sticking a black bag over my head and me being kidnapped. I hope that never happens, okay? If it happened to one of you, I'd pray for you.

But, you know, my wife and I already talked about this. I said, honey, they'd probably only do it just to get money. She said, well, you just tell them we don't have any. 48 years of marriage, find some money, come on.

Anyway, let me get back to it. So we were in this Palestinian refugee place, terrible place, and we decided to go in and bless the kids, teach about God's love for them. And there was a magician who did, you know, stuff that was fun for the kids, you know, not miracles, what do you call it?

Sleight of hand and all that. And while that's going on, I'm talking to the mayor of that area, and it's a woman, and she's totally covered. All you can see is her eyes. She's got gloves on and everything.

And I said, so, madam, what is your biggest problem in this slum? She said, young girls getting married.

I said, what do you mean by that?

Well, you know, 11, 12, 13. So I was kind of chewing on that for a minute. And then I said, well, what's your second biggest problem? Young girls getting divorced. Well, what do you mean by that? Well, you know, 16, 17.

These old guys like them young, she said. My friends, I'm telling you that to ask you to pray, people need Jesus. And that's what Islam allows, okay? You know, the prophet married one when she was seven and consummated it when she was nine.

And I had a conversation with a guy out in the middle of the desert one time in Jordan. He was trying to push my buttons, tell me the Bible was full of lies and all this. And I said, yeah, well, at least my prophet wasn't a polygamist or a pedophile.

And he said, what, what is that?

And I explained it to him, and he got really mad. And then I thought, Denny, you are the dumbest guy.

In the world.

You're in the middle of the desert talking to this guy,.

And he might have a knife.

I mean, he was serving us lamb.

He had to slice it.

What'd you say, dear?

Yeah.

Oh, the bag on the head. Hey, I got faith, man. I'm gonna tell you, last time I was in Jordan, I let this guy shave me with a straight razor. I said, my faith is growing. Yeah, it turned out he was a Syrian refugee and the church had blessed his family.

Can you imagine? I mean, there's no coincidence in the world, but he was so blessed, he was happy to give me a shave and a haircut.

Ministry in Iraq and the Call to Be a Somebody

Iraq.

We go up there. I just got back, actually, a couple weeks ago. We live in Ocean County, but I go back and forth as often as I can. This was the school. You can see it's a mess. That thing on the right was the heater for the wintertime.

And the government, really, down in Baghdad, they don't really care about the Christian people up there. These people are Assyrians. We minister to six different villages there. And again, by God's grace and people giving to the ministry, we were able to change it.

Jacob, there you go. That's the school, the way it looks today. In the middle up there is my friend, Ramon. He's the principal. And they have a wonderful school today. I got a chance to hang out with Ramon and fellowship together.

And one day, we went to church. It was a special service where all the villages came together. And they had a bishop show up. And so we worshiped and had communion. And afterwards, Ramon said, hey, you want to meet the bishop?

And I wasn't too keen on it, but I don't have a bishop in my life. So it was a little different. But anyhow, I gave in. And so Ramon goes up to the bishop, says something in his ear. And then the bishop looks at me, and he said, so you helped our people.

You renovated the school. And I hear you've done quite a bit to help. I want to thank you for that. And I said, well, praise the Lord. And he said, you're from America? I said, yeah. He said, vote for Trump.

He said, if my people in Iraq could vote in your American election, we'd all vote for Trump. I'm not telling you to vote for Trump. But when the bishop tells you what to do, you've just got to go along with it.

Anyway, that's enough of that. I will add one more thing. In March, I'm leading a group to Israel to teach the Bible there. We do this as often as possible. It's a wonderful event. There's some slots open if you'd like to go to Israel.

We don't go where they shoot each other. We just go where the good food is and where you can teach the Bible. So we have some papers up here if you're interested. But let's open our Bibles now and go to the book of Zephaniah.

Zephaniah. And as you're getting there, I'm going to pray an old Scottish prayer. Dear Lord, what we know not, teach us. What we have not, Lord, please give us. And what we are not, make us. To the glory of thy son Jesus, amen.

God Is for You in Zephaniah 3

So the message is entitled, God is for you. God is for you. Zephaniah knew that. This is a book written in the time of King Josiah, about 625 BC. There are prophecies in here of destruction and all that.

But there's also a lot of encouragement in here and some blessings. And this particular verse is a blessing that Zephaniah is pouring out, especially for the people of Judah, but for all of us who love the Lord.

I'd like to go old school, old church with you for a moment. Can we say this together?

Let's say it together.

The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exalt over you with loud singing. Well, the first thing I would point out here is that the Lord, your God, is in your midst.

And I would ask you, do you believe that? Do you believe that God actually cares for you, that he watches over you? You know, the Bible says a man makes his plans, but the Lord guides his steps. Do you believe that?

You know, even Jesus said, wherever two or three or more of you are gathered, I am there in your midst, okay? So the Lord is with us. And we need to know that deep down in our knower. Fact is, you know, God has actually known you longer than you've known yourself.

Jeremiah chapter one, verse five, God declares this. He says, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you. That means he set you apart unto him. So all those life experiences that you've had and the education and all that, it's been building to a point where you can serve him.

Save people, serve people.

Can you get that?

Save people, serve people.

Would you say that?

Save people, serve people. Some of you didn't say that, and I'm wondering why. Try it again? My wife is so gracious. She gotta be married to me for all these years. Let's try it again. Save people, serve people.

You see, we've got it mixed up. We think if we're a child of God, he's just supposed to comfort us and bless us. I remember a preacher saying one time, I wanna live by the spout where the blessings pour out.

Well, I do too.

That's a great place to be. But when the blessings pour out, we're to share those blessings. That's the Christian life, and boy, is it fun. It's an adventure. So you won't know until you think about serving people.

We'll get into that more in a minute. This is your chance to leave if you don't like it. God loves us. He knows us. Bible tells us over and over, more than 40 times, more than 40 verses tell us that God loves us.

That's his nature. He told us that in 1 John chapter four, where it says God is love. That's what he is. He more or less can't help himself. He loves us, and that's wonderful. And you don't have to work for his affection.

You don't have to get right before God before he accepts you. You know, there was nobody at the doors here, you know, checking were you dressed properly or whatever. No, you came in because you have the freedom, and God grants us that freedom to worship him.