Sermon Transcript
Welcome to Bridges Community Church. Our services will begin in just a few moments, but before we start, we’d like to tell you about some of the things happening around our church.
November 19th and the 20th. What is happening on November 19th and the 20th? That is our Feed My Starving Children mobile pack event here at Bridges Community Church, and you need to sign up. It is so much fun where we pack food that is then used by Feed My Starving Children, which is a wonderful international ministry, and they take the food that we pack and they spread it around to children and families around the world. Particularly in malnourished countries.
These are shifts that you will be signing up for, and you can sign up to serve at Feed My Starving Children by going to bridges.info to the service opportunities page. That’s bridges.info, go to the service opportunities page, and it will tell you all about the event on November 19th and the 20th. Feed My Starving Children, sign up for your shift, your family, you’re a single individual, Kids can participate as well. We’d love to have you. Go to bridges.info and sign up today for Feed My Starving Children event on November 19th and 20th.
Family Fun Night is this coming Friday, October 29th. Please spend time this week praying that God would use this event to bring himself glory and to be a blessing to our community. It’s not too late to be a part of this event, so please do consider joining in and donating candy, spending time in prayer, and signing up to host a trick-or-treat vehicle. And check your emails this week because I will be sending out an email with a training video to hopefully answer all of your questions about Family Fun Night so that we all feel prepared to welcome our guests and be an extension of God’s love and grace to our community. Have a wonderful week, and I’ll see you on Friday.
Lamb who was slain, holy, holy is he.
Sing a new song to him who sits on heaven’s mercy seat.
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Holy, holy is he.
Sing a new song to him who sits on heaven’s mercy seat.
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.
With all creation I sing praise to the King of Kings. You are my everything, and I will Adore you.
Clothed in rainbows of living color, flashes of lightning, rolls of thunder.
Blessing and honor and strength and glory and power be to you, the only wise King.
Holy, holy, holy is our Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.
With all creation I sing praise to the King of Kings. You are my everything and I will adore you.
I will adore you.
Filled with wonder, awestruck wonder, at the mention of your name.
Jesus, your name is power, breath and living water. Such a marvelous mystery, oh.
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.
With all creation I sing praise to the King of Kings.
You are my everything and I will adore you. Holy, holy, holy Holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.
With all creation I sing praise to the King of Kings. You are my everything and I will adore you. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.
With all creation I sing praise to the King of Kings. You are my everything, and I will adore you.
Come, thou fount of every blessing.
Tune my heart to sing thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the round time, fix upon it, Mount of God, I, I was lost in utter darkness till you came and rescued me. I was bound by all my sin when your love came and set me Now my soul can sing a new song.
Now my heart has found a home. Now your grace is always with me, and I’ll never be alone.
Come, thou fount, come, thou clean. Come now, precious Prince of Peace, hear your bride to you we sing. Come now, mount of our blessing. Come now, come, come now, King. Come now, precious Prince of Peace, hear your bride to you we sing.
Come, thou fount of harvest, flow to grace our great and tender, daily art come straight to me. Let thy goodness like a lantern light my longing heart Don’t you wander, Lord, I’ll keep thee. Don’t you leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, O Lord, take and seal it. Seal it, Lord, I confess.
Come now, love. Come now, King. Come now, precious Prince of Peace, hear your cry, to you we sing.
Come, thou fount of our blessing. Oh, come, thou fount, come, thou peace. Come, thou precious Prince of Peace, hear your cry, to you we sing. Come, thou fount of our blessing.
Come, thou fount of every blessing, to my heart to sing.
Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it, I see that my letter hurt you and but only for a little while. Yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended, and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
See what this godly sorrow has produced in you, what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. So even though I wrote to you, it was neither on account of the one who did the wrong nor on account of the injured party, but rather that before God you could see for yourselves how devoted to us you are. By all this we are encouraged.
If you’ve been around Bridges for less than 5 minutes, you might not know that I am slightly interested in college football. That’s a little. My childhood was in Ohio. My whole family went to Ohio State minus my brother and myself, and Ohio is a place where college football probably takes an unhealthy importance, but nevertheless, if you spent some of your childhood there, some of your formative years there, as I did, football really shapes who you become for better or worse. So, here I am.
I watch the games. I read the news. I keep up with the team. This season, just a couple of weeks ago, one of our players did something during a game on Saturday that got him kicked off the team on Sunday. Which as far as I know has never happened before.
You are like, what did he do? Right? Well, this player, he is a linebacker, he starts to go on the field in between plays, which is not unusual, they rotate players all the time. So, maybe he thought he was supposed to go in, that could totally happen. But the players on the field and the coaches start talking to him like, no, get back to the sidelines, like, you are not supposed to be in the game right now.
So, he goes back to the sidelines, and starts screaming at people. Don’t know what he said, but it probably wasn’t, you are a great coach! I love you! Probably wasn’t it. Then he takes off his jersey during the game and throws it into the stands.
Apparently, he is pretty unhappy. He didn’t go back into the game. So, some coaches come over and they, like, escort him off the field into the locker room so he is out of sight. Which you think would be the end of the story. But no, from the locker room this guy starts tweeting.
He goes on social media and he starts tweeting expletives about the team. So, the next day an announcement is made that the guy is released from the team, as you would probably expect, right? You need to do that. Right? If you’re the coach, you need to send that guy packing, right?
Can’t have someone like that on your team, right? Because what if other people started acting in some kind of other nonproductive ways, right? If discipline isn’t swift and decisive, other players might start acting out in other ways, and then it’s just going to spiral into chaos. If you’re the coach, you need to excuse that player from the team.
Or do you?
Do you need to send him packing? Shouldn’t you just forgive him, give him another chance? Aren’t you being kind of harsh if you don’t forgive him and let him stay on the team? If we ask the player’s mom, that is probably how she felt, right? Why didn’t you give my son another chance?
It is a dilemma, right? You kind of need to choose, don’t you? Are you going to be forgiving or are you going to have standards? Because if you say you have standards but you don’t enforce them and you just forgive everyone for everything, then you don’t really have standards, right? The standards are meaningless.
On the other hand, if you enforce expectations, hold people accountable for their wrongdoing, then you aren’t forgiving. It’s like it’s one or the other. Parents, you need to sort this out too, don’t you? You give your kid rules, you give your kid consequences, but at the same time you don’t want to be too strict, right? You want to teach there is such a thing as forgiveness.
You don’t want to give your children some kind of complex that it’s like do or die with everything in life. You want to you ingrain compassion and mercy and grace into your kid.
But if you say, I forgive you, every time your kid breaks a rule, like, no consequences today, what does your kid learn? Your kid learns there’s no rules, right? Your kid will just do whatever he or she wants, and then not very many people are going to like your kid. And worse, your kid’s going to grow up and you’re going to have a hard time in life thinking that rules don’t really matter. So do you enforce the rules or do you forgive?
Every parent has to figure that out. Every sports team has to figure that out. Every company has to figure that out, right? And to the point of our series, every church community has to figure that out. Can people just run around acting however they please in a church community with no consequences and the rest of us can still have a sense of community with each other?
How do we balance forgiveness and accountability? We probably want both forgiveness and accountability to be in the culture of our family, in the culture of our companies, in the culture of our church. So, can we have both? Can forgiveness and accountability both be in the DNA of us?
The Christian church is supposed to be known for both. The Christian church is supposed to be both forgiving and holy. An outsider should look at the church and see a group of people who, one, strive for excellence in everything that God has commanded, right? So, they strive for integrity and honesty and purity and hospitality and care for the poor and all the one another commands we have been talking about, on and on. They strive for it.
And when someone falls short of what God has commanded, it is addressed. It’s not kept quiet. It’s not swept under the rug, right? The offender is held responsible. That should happen.
An outsider should see that. But an outsider also, too, should, looking at the church alongside of accountability, see a group of people who quickly forgive, Regardless of how heinous the offense, right? We are supposed to do both. I will just mention a few of these commands. Last week we talked about Romans 15:7, accept one another just as Christ accepted you.
We talked about see you to the bottom, love you to the sky. I know your sufferings, your shortcomings, your sin. I am still running toward you, right? I am not running away from you. Colossians 3:13, bear with one another and forgive one another.
And if saying it once wasn’t enough, then he says, if any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you. So, there you go. We’re supposed to accept one another. We must forgive one another. We need to be known for those things.
But also, when Paul writes to the Corinthians, someone has done something in the Corinthian church so immoral that Paul tells the Corinthian church, expel that guy out of the church. He actually says, don’t even associate with that guy anymore, which might make you wonder, what did he do? Right? Just like the Ohio State player, you are like, what did he do? What could someone do that would get them kicked out of church?
I am not going to tell you because I am not sure I am allowed to say it. In church. Paul wrote it in the Bible, but I’m not sure I’m allowed to say it in church, but you can read it, 1 Corinthians 5, okay? But ultimately, Paul instructs the church, 1 Corinthians 5:13, expel the wicked person from among you. Expel him.
Now, admittedly, expel the wicked person seems a bit contradictory to If anyone has a grievance against someone, forgive them. Those seem contradictory, don’t they? You are like, Paul, I thought we were supposed to accept people here. I thought we were supposed to see them to the bottom and love them to the sky. What is all this expel talk?
And we are right back to our question, aren’t we? Can you be both forgiving and at the same time hold people accountable? Are they mutually exclusive? I don’t know how you want to work that out in your company or your sports team, but Scripture teaches us how to work that out in the church, and the answer is repentance. Repentance is the bridge that holds forgiveness and accountability together.
The idea, as best as I can tell, is the standards of holiness, purity, integrity, compassion, hospitality, Those are not loosened for anyone. Those standards are rigid even though we all fall short of them, but they are pressed on us giving us like no quarter, nowhere to hide until we acknowledge the error of our ways and we are really broken up about it and we make significant effort to change. We will talk about the different markers of repentance at the end of this message, but we wake up, we turn around, We accept responsibility. The goal of accountability is repentance. The goal is restoration.
It is not vengeance or something. It is not, I am trying to get you back. It is not, I am going to vent my rage at you. Accountability is about restoration through and only through repentance. Even in the Corinthian church, when Paul says, expel the wicked person, he also says, why they should put that guy out of the church.
And it’s not because he’s like nasty and disgusting and so vile, it’s not that, it’s because Paul hopes it’s kind of a wake-up call to the guy. This guy is doing something that is horribly destructive to himself, horribly destructive to his own family, horribly destructive to the church, and Paul’s like, if we care about this guy, we need to have an intervention. It’s like if you have an addict in your family who won’t turn around and isn’t turning around, isn’t trying to turn around, just continues to get worse and worse and worse. What do you do with someone like that? At some point you say, okay, this kills me to say it, but for your own good, like, you can’t live with us anymore.
And the only reason we’re saying that is because we hope this is finally the thing that ends up helping you. That’s Paul’s desire for this guy in the Corinthian church. And good news, it appears to have worked. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, Paul’s like, kick that guy out, to help him. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, something has changed in between letter 1 and letter 2.
Something has changed. There is grief, there’s remorse, there’s repentance, there’s transformation. It’s everything you would hope for if you ever needed to kick an addict out of your house. It’s the best possible outcome, right? Like, the wake-up call has worked.
Now, biblical scholars, we’re not 100% sure that the repentance that Paul talks about in his second letter, which Laura read just a second ago, is the same situation as the guy who needed to be expelled in the first letter. We’re not 100% sure of that. It doesn’t specify, but there is a continuity between letters, same author to the same church, so it’s reasonable to assume we’re talking about the same situation. And Paul is like, praise God for the repentance, and he welcomes the offender back. Like, there is no grudge.
There is no skepticism about it, just celebration. This guy received the wake-up call. Paul put pressure on the guy. He knows that he caused the guy grief and the church grief, that is verse 8, but Paul says, your sorrow, your grief that was caused, it led you to repentance, and so we celebrate and we embrace you. The interchange shows the requirement to be part of the community is repentance.
You don’t have to be perfect to be part of Christian community. Maybe you need to be perfect to be on a football team, don’t know, but not in a church. We’ve been trying to answer the question in October, why is it that some groups have a sense of community with each other and others don’t? And in a church, you don’t need to be perfect to be part of the community. In fact, if you think you are perfect, it really kind of hinders a sense of community from the rest of us.
You can actually be pretty sideways and belong here. And really, our doctrine of sin, which says we’re all pretty messed up, should lead us to expect that we are all pretty messed up, right? So, you can come to Bridges with a lot of issues and belong here, but in order to belong here, we need to be able to admit, I am not as moral, as holy, as innocent as you think I am. Repentance is required. We will talk about 3 markers of repentance in a little bit so we know whether we are doing it or not, but first, I just want to give you a picture of what repentance and embracing each other and messiness and sin and community might look like if they’re all happening simultaneously in real life.
Okay, so before I came to Bridges, I was a campus minister at Georgia Tech for 7 years, and I had a student leadership team. Some of you know this story. And with these student leaders, during our weekly leader meeting, we always made time for accountability. With each other. We had a whole list of questions to help us check in with one another what was really going on in our lives.
And anytime someone said, I have failed in one of these areas, one of these questions that we check in with each other, I have failed and I’m sorry, the rest of the leadership team, do you know what they did? So someone has said, I have failed with one of our accountability questions. Right? And this is college students, so it could get pretty interesting sometimes. The rest of the leadership team would all get up and come around the person who had just confessed, and we gave him or her a high five, said, we love you.
Literally, we would high five the person who confessed failure, not hit them with a stick, high-five them. We just want to celebrate repentance. Jesus says, Luke 15, there is much rejoicing in heaven whenever someone repents. And we’re like, if there’s rejoicing in heaven right now, I think we should be rejoicing too. So we’re not going to scold you, we’re going to rejoice.
And we’ll say, honestly, we’re struggling too, so let’s just lean on each other and pursue God together. But we’re going to admit that we have failed. We’re not going to try to cover it up or minimize it, which means when I had a leader, and I only had this happen once in 7 years, but when I had a leader who told me, and I’m not going to give you the specifics, but the leader said, I’m doing XYZ in my life. I’m going to keep doing XYZ in my life. I don’t really see any problem with XYZ.
So, no repentance. Right, what did I say? Did I give a high five? No. I’m like, well then you really can’t be a leader.
We can still be friends. In fact, I’d like to get lunch with you more if you’re open to that, but you can’t be a leader in our organization. We don’t require our leaders to be perfect, but we do require them to admit that they aren’t. We require them to care when they have failed and actually call it a failure. So, if you say XYZ isn’t a problem, that’s a problem.
So, removed from leadership. A couple months later, I’m still meeting with the student, praise God, and the person says, okay, I’m tired of this. I want this out of my life, and I’m sorry. Same behavior, same XYZ from before, but now it’s, I’m tired of this. I want this out of my life and I’m sorry.
We were sitting at a lunch table and he jumped up and hugged the person, right? So, that’s the picture of how forgiveness and accountability, they’re not mutually exclusive, and the bridge is repentance. We’re going to look at this text here, 2 Corinthians 7, where Paul is rejoicing over someone’s repentance, right? The intervention has worked and he gives us 3 markers of repentance, more than that actually, but we’re only going to look at 3 of them. And it’s important to be able to identify when repentance has happened and when it hasn’t, because you don’t want to let the addict back into your house if they aren’t broken yet, right?
You need to keep waiting. As hard as it is, you need to keep waiting. Or a less extreme example, not an addict, I don’t know how many of you listen to podcasts, but Christianity Today is producing a podcast about the rise and fall of Mars Hill, which was a huge church primarily located in the Pacific Northwest. Are you one of the millions of people who are listening to this? While there are many reasons for the fall of Mars Hill, one of the main reasons of the fall was the unrepentant behavior of the lead pastor who was apparently a bully.
The report was— I’m not in the church, I don’t know what really happened, but but the report was that he was kind of crass with everyone inside and outside the church. It’s actually kind of how he made a name for himself. But people felt really torn down by him. Like, lots of people tried to talk with him about it, nothing ever made a difference. So, at one point there was an organized effort from some other leaders in the city to try to get this pastor to see what he was doing to people, right, to try to get him to repent.
Honestly. And because there was so much pressure and it was so public, the lead pastor who needed to repent eventually said something like, well, maybe I have some things I need to learn. That’s all he said. But the other leaders who were putting the pressure on him declared that to be an adequate apology, and they removed the pressure. The crass pastor, of course, continued to do what he always had done, many more people ended up feeling hurt, and eventually the whole church went down in flames.
It’s a very interesting podcast. So, Christianity Today is interviewing everyone involved with the implosion except the pastor who is kind of at the center of it all. But these leaders who put pressure on the pastor, like looking back now, like current day, it’s years later and they’re looking back and they realize they shouldn’t have declared victory so soon. When the pastor said, ah, there are some things I need to learn, mistakes were made, they shouldn’t have let up. They should have kept the pressure on because he didn’t really repent.
And because he didn’t really repent, he continued on the trajectory of hurting people. And now these leaders who tried to get him to repent, they have guilt. They are like, we should have kept trying to get this guy to see what he was doing. But because we let up, a whole bunch more people got hurt. So, it is important to be able to correctly identify repentance.
It is important. It is important to check in our own hearts if we are really repentant. I don’t want Bridges to be a place full of people who think they don’t have any issues or who think their issues aren’t really that big a deal. That will not help us have a sense of community with each other, right? Anytime you think that you are better than someone else, You aren’t going to feel very connected to the someone else.
But I do want Bridges to be a place where we know we are broken, where we admit our need for Jesus, and we lean on each other in our pursuit of Him. Okay, so what does repentance look like? Paul says, verse 9, your sorrow led you to repentance, for you became sorrowful as God intended. Verse 10, godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret. So, newsflash, God is not about regrets.
Maybe that’s the one thing you needed to hear this morning. If you have shame or regret, you can let that go. It’s not from God. Paul continues, verse 11, but see what this godly sorrow has produced. So, first marker of repentance, sorrow.
Of course, it is sorrow, right? We have to actually care that we have failed or hurt someone. This is the classic— I don’t know if your mothers did this with you, but when my brother and I were little and we were fighting and she broke us up, she would make us apologize to each other, right? Did your mothers do this? And both my brother and I would be like, sorry.
And then mom would say, no, don’t say sorry like that. Say sorry like you mean it. We had the same mom. That’s amazing. And I always thought, but I don’t mean it.
I’m not sorry, right? And then she would make us act like we were really sorry, which I always thought was silly. And now I do the same thing with my boys. But like you have to actually mean it, right? There needs to be real sorrow.
That’s the first marker of repentance. But sorrow by itself is not enough. If you only have sorrow, it’s not repentance. Someone has tears, you think, oh, alright, they’re repentant. Well, maybe, maybe not, right?
You need to see if the other markers are there. So, second marker of repentance, accepting of judgment. Paul uses the phrase there, verse 11, readiness to see justice done. In another translation, it actually says punishment. It’s like, I know I’ve done wrong and now I’m ready to face the consequences.
In fact, I agree there needs to be consequences. I’m not going to protest consequences or punishment. I’m not going to try to squirm out of it. I’m not going to make excuses for my behavior. I am not going to say, well, I tried my best.
Can’t you give me a break? I am not going to blame somebody else. I am not going to say I am a victim of circumstances. I am not going to say it is unfair that I am being punished. I am not going to try to get people to feel sorry for me because I am facing the consequences of my own failure.
I am not going to say people are being mean to me or they are out to get me because they are holding me accountable for the something that I did. I am not going to say, oh, I really shouldn’t be punished because of all the other wonderful things I’ve done, none of that.
I’m ready for the judgment I deserve, for justice to be done, for the punishment I deserve. I’m ready. I will receive it. There’s a settledness about it. If that’s not there, not repentant yet.
Last marker, eagerness for restitution. Like, how can I fix this? Paul uses the phrase there, verse 11, eagerness to clear yourself. And later he says they have proven themselves innocent because they have done all these markers of repentance. But when we hear the phrase something like eager to clear ourselves, we think that that might mean that we are trying to prove that we never did anything wrong, like, let me produce some evidence and explain why this failure isn’t really my fault, right?
That is what we might think. Clear ourselves means, but that’s not what Paul means because if these Corinthians weren’t actually responsible for what happened, then they wouldn’t need to repent at all, right? So instead, when Paul says, clear yourself, it’s restitution. Like, how can I make this right? I messed something up.
Can I do something to put it back together? It’s making the other person whole again. And thereby you have cleared yourself. So, small case study, see what 3 markers of repentance might look like. Maybe a kid hits a baseball through the neighbor’s window and he comes in crying to tell his parents, and he is like, I am sorry I broke the window.
Good start, right? Maybe he is repentant. He has sorrow. Is he willing to receive punishment? Is he ready for judgment?
If the parent says, well, Johnny, since you broke the window, no screen time for you tonight. I’m going to take your iPad away. Is Johnny like, that’s not fair! Or is he like, that makes sense. That’s— good job, Mom and Dad.
I deserve that. I don’t think that’s how I would punish a kid in that instance, but it’s just an example, okay? If Johnny doesn’t protest, if he’s like, yeah, I need to face what’s coming to me, that’s 2 out of 3 markers checked off. Third one, third marker, is he eager for restitution? Does the kid try to make it right?
Does the kid go over to the neighbor’s house and say, listen, I broke your window. I want to pay for it. I want to fix this. I’m sorry. If you have all those, if you have sorrow, if you have a readiness for judgment, you have an eagerness for restitution, you probably have repentance.
If those aren’t in place, you aren’t doing anyone any favors by letting them off the hook for something they have done.
It is possible this morning as we have talked about repentance, something from your own life has come to your mind, something you never repented of, Maybe you were stubborn and didn’t want to admit you were wrong, but you know, actually, really, I was. Here is the challenge for us, as difficult as it is, we need to talk about it. If we feel convicted about something we have done or some way we have been living, we need to talk about it. Talking about it, confessing it will actually bring freedom. It will help us drop a weight we didn’t even really know that we were carrying.
Now, we’re terrified to talk about it because we think— we don’t think it will bring freedom, we think it will bring shame, right? But the beauty of Christianity is that Jesus carried our shame for us. Our guilt was taken away because He paid for it on the cross. So, even as we are speaking our wrongdoing, we can know that we have been declared innocent by God himself because through Christ’s sacrifice we are forgiven completely. If you’re someone who has never asked Jesus to carry your shame for you and you’re wondering how to do that, you just tell God, God, I failed, I’m sorry.
Jesus, will you carry my guilt away? And he does. He embraces you. It’s a high five. It’s a party in heaven, and we’ll have one too.
I promise you that you are not a bigger mess than us.
We are counting on Jesus to carry a lot of guilt for us, and so you and us can lean on each other and pursue him together.
Let’s pray. Father, thank you for Jesus who carried our guilt for us. Lord, I pray any embarrassment or shame that we have in our hearts over our past or our present, Lord, that we could see Jesus carrying that away from us. I pray that you would give us the courage to speak transparently to others. Pray you would help us drop the weight.
I pray as we speak in such a way to others, as others hold us accountable, as we confess, as we are forgiven, and as we do the same for others, Lord, I pray that you would bind us together in a way that only transparency and forgiveness and acceptance and restoration can do. We pray those things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Lord, I come and I confess, bowing here I find my rest. Without you, I fall apart. You’re the one that guides my heart. Lord, I need you.
Oh, I need you.
Every hour I need you, my one defense, my righteousness. Oh God, how I need you.
Where sin runs deep, your grace Grace is more. Where grace is found is where you are. Where you are, Lord, I am free.
Holiness is Christ in me. Where you are, Lord, I am free. Holiness is Christ in me.
But I need you, oh, I need you every hour. Oh God, how I need you, my one defense, my righteousness. Oh God, how I need you.
So teach my song to rise to you.
When temptation comes my way, when I cannot stand, I’ll fall on you.
Jesus, you’re my hope and stay. When I cannot stand, I’ll fall on you.
Jesus, you’re my hope and save.
Oh, Lord, I need you. Oh, I need you every hour. I need you. Oh, I need you, my one defense. My righteousness, O God, how I need you.
My one defense, my righteousness, O God, how I need you.
Remember, we got a big day coming this Friday. Family Fun Night. It’s going to be an awesome night, and we hope that that every person can participate either by being here, inviting someone, donating candy. Please be in prayer for the event that our community can come in and feel loved and appreciated here in this place. Let’s pray that it doesn’t rain, but we’re still having it even if it does rain.
I look forward to seeing everyone at Family Fun Night. As always, we appreciate your tithes and your offerings, and that’s how we fund the ministries here at Bridges Community Church, both locally like we’re talking about and And as we’ve been sharing all these stories of our missionary partners around the world, you can give online at bridges.info, or there are boxes on the back if you would like to give a physical check or cash in the boxes on the back. And also, we love to continue the conversation. Pastor Dan loves receiving questions from everyone, so go to bridges.info, submit a question if something came to mind as he shared this message. Today.
I’m looking forward to seeing everyone Friday night, looking forward to seeing everybody next Sunday. And in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Trinity, amen. Have a great week. Drive safe.
