The Dependent Abundant Life
Sarah Street · Tidal Church Moncton · October 25, 2026
Sarah Street looks at King Hezekiah in 2 Kings 19 to show how depending fully on God leads to life to the full. She shares four steps: seek God first, spread it out in prayer, let the Holy Spirit sift out lies, and stand on Scripture.
Topics: Prayer, Holy Spirit, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] My husband Mark, he's playing drums this morning. We have three kids. Our oldest is in high school, our middle is in middle school, and our youngest is in elementary. And an article popped up the other day from the National Institutes of Health, and it was about raising teenagers. And behavioral researchers found that teenagers actually desire a dual sense of autonomy and connection. What do I mean by that? Well, basically, they found that teenagers don't actually want their parents to disappear like pop culture may suggest, but they desire them to move from more of a manager role, where they're controlling everything about their life, to that of a consultant, someone that they're connected to that they can come to for advice, but they're left to make their own decisions.
[0:51] And I actually had the privilege of speaking at a youth rally in Fredericton last weekend, and there were 26 youth groups. The place was packed. It was over 500 teens and leaders. It was awesome. And I polled the group and all but three agreed with that. And so it left me thinking that we need to be attuned to that as we're raising our teenagers, and that that is a normal part of teenage development. I can remember being a teenager. I was one of those people that could not wait to drive. I was so excited to drive. I still love driving. Who here, I'd like to know, you're the primary driver? You love to drive? Okay, raise your hand. Where are my drivers at? Okay, I see my people.
[1:36] And I can remember driver's ed. It had to have been the most beautiful summer days that were stuck in this basement. It's dingy and old, it smells, there's no windows, and you're watching outdated videos on defensive driving. But it was worth it. That, and the written test, and the driver's test to finally get my license. And I loved taking our family car and just going for a drive. And I can remember one particular Saturday in the spring, I had gone out in this little white Saturn and picked up some of my good friends, and we wanted to go on an adventure, so we headed to the underground lake. I don't know if anyone's been to the underground lake. I don't even know if it still exists anymore, to be honest. But it is a local gem that only the local people of Hillsborough are aware of. You have to go on a dirt path. It's not marked, there's no signs.
[2:23] But basically, you hike off that dirt path, and there's a cave that you can go into, and there's a lake. It's really cool. So we were excited about it. We got in the car. We were driving. I'm a new driver, and we're heading off onto backcountry roads, and we turned off onto the road, and I can remember feeling an odd sensation I hadn't felt before, but I just kept plugging ahead as any smart teenager would. And then I realized, see, the snow had melted in the city, but there was still a thin layer in the country, and it was only quite a distance out that road and down a slope that we sunk into mud. And I had a very distinct thought, "I should call my parents." See, my dad grew up in Carleton County, New Brunswick, in the country on a farm with a truck, had much experience being stuck and unstuck.
[3:10] He has a used car business, so he's familiar with tow companies. He really knows a lot about vehicles. He's kind of an expert in this area. That thought passed through my head so fast, and it was replaced with, "Nah." See, I wanted to be independent. In fact, I kind of wanted to prove something to my parents that I could handle it. And so me and my friends spent forever trying to get this little white Saturn unstuck. And I can remember I was in the front, and my friends were trying to shove it forward and roll it back and forth. We tried to stick pieces of wood under the tires to get it gripped. We would start to get some traction, just to sink again. Mud is sputtering everywhere off the tires. I can remember I was filthy, and we realized we are not going to get this car unstuck. And so my friend Lindsay, her uncle actually lived not that far away.
[3:59] So we decided to walk what seemed like forever, it was probably 45 minutes down the road to his house. And I can remember him muttering something about city slickers and teenagers without brains, he was muttering as he grabbed his truck and drove out to help us. And don't you know, he got stuck. And we tried to get his truck unstuck with a great degree of effort when he decided he knew somebody that had a big old tractor. And so we take that walk, what had to have been forever, to his friend's house, and he comes down that road with his big old tractor, and he almost gets stuck. It was a disaster. I don't know if you know that old Canadian country song that says, "The Chev got stuck, and the Ford got stuck, got the Chev unstuck when the Dodge showed up. But the Dodge got stuck when the tractor that eventually pulled out the Ford." Anyone know that? Is that just me? Can you raise your hand?
[5:00] I'm feeling really awkward. Okay, thank you. Thank you. People know that song. We were living it. And it was a nightmare as I watched these two gentlemen in their vehicles. But thankfully, with a great degree of effort, the tractor could get the truck unstuck, which got our car unstuck, and we were on our way. And I was feeling pretty good about myself arriving home to my father, like, "Look what I did." Until I realized we'd wasted our entire day. We'd also wasted these two fine gentlemen's entire day. And my father pointed out that we actually had done quite a bit of damage to the bottom of the vehicle. And what sticks out to me was my father's response. See, he was just so confused. Like, "Why didn't you call me?" In fact, it almost seemed like his feelings were hurt, which I remember stuck out. He was like, "Sarah, this is my thing. I want to be there for you.
[5:49] Why would you not call on me?" And I think that is so similar to our spiritual lives. How often do we act like spiritual teenagers, where we desire a dual state of autonomy and connection? We don't want God to disappear. We want to be connected to Him, but we'd like it to be more of instead of a manager who controls everything, a consultant, someone we can go to, ask advice to, and then make our own decisions. See, it's normal for teenagers to want independence, just like it's normal for adults to be dependent, but God actually calls us spiritually to be like little children. Jesus says in Matthew 18:2, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven." See, God desires actually full dependence on Him. And so this morning, we're going to go through two questions.
[6:50] What does it practically look like to be fully dependent on God? I'm actually going to give you four practical steps. And how exactly does dependence on God lead to a full and abundant life? See, if any one of us had asked our parents if it was a good idea to go to an underground lake on an old country road in spring, any one of them would've told us no. Not because they wanted to ruin our day, but actually because they wanted us to have a great day. And we have a God who desires to give us life to the full. One of my favorite verses is John 10:10. "The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy." But Jesus says, "I have come to give life, and life to the full." See, the Bible is not just a set of rules to ruin your life. It's actually a guide to draw us into life to the full. So we're going to dive into the Word this morning.
[7:48] If you've brought your Bible, we are going to look at King Hezekiah in 2 Kings 19. So if you have your Bible, I encourage you to open it up. Leave it open. We're going to go verse by verse this morning. So King Hezekiah is in the Old Testament, 700 years before Jesus came. And in the Old Testament, God chooses a group of people called the Israelites, and He works in their lives. He actually blesses them. He works miracles in them in order that they would ultimately be a blessing to the world. And Jesus comes from this bloodline. And so Hezekiah is one of their kings. He's the 13th king of the southern kingdom of Judah, and he becomes king at a young age of 25, and he loves the Lord. Let's read this together.
[8:36] 2 Kings 18:3, "Hezekiah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done." Verse 5, "Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. He held fast to the Lord and did not stop following him. He kept the commands the Lord had given Moses, and the Lord was with him, and he was successful in whatever he undertook." I love that scripture. Is that inspiring? Don't you want that to be said of you someday? This is a guy that we want to pay attention to. He held fast to the Lord. He didn't stop following Him. That sounds like dependence on Him to me.
[9:24] So in this context, what's happening is that there's actually an evil Assyrian Empire, and they are overtaking every kingdom. You can see on the map here that Assyria is in orange, and they have actually overtaken the blue kingdoms. The yellow has completely surrendered. And Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, has now invaded the kingdom of Judah. He's in the purple, and he's surrounding Jerusalem. See, Hezekiah knows that he's too overpowered. He doesn't have a sufficient army to fight. So he does the rational thing. He tries to make a deal with Sennacherib. He gives him gold and silver and treasures and is like, "Let's work together." Sennacherib's having none of it. It's kind of like a cat and a mouse.
[10:09] He's playing with him. He wants full and complete surrender. The prophet Isaiah sends a word to Hezekiah saying that God will protect him, but Hezekiah is distressed. We see in chapter 19, verse 1, that he actually tears his clothes. He puts on sackcloth. That's a sign of great distress. And what happens next is so inspiring to me. See, he receives this letter from Sennacherib, and basically it says, "Do not let the God you depend on deceive you when he says Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of Assyria. Surely, you've heard what the kings of Assyria have done to the countries, destroying them completely, and you'll be saved?"
[10:55] And so Hezekiah receives this very threatening letter, and his response is so interesting. See, kings of that time had many forms of advice available to them. They had military strategists. They had political advisors. They had spiritual advisors. If you were a believer, you had priests, and you had prophets, all kinds of people that he could go to for advice. But I love what it says in verse 14. Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it, and then he went to the temple of the Lord. See, the very first thing that Hezekiah does is seek the Lord first. And my question to you is, when you're facing a threat of any kind, it could be a very life-altering, very threatening threat.
[11:43] It could be the smallest little inconvenience or anything in between. Anything that is stealing your inner peace is a threat. And when you are experiencing a threat, what is your first reaction? See, we also have, like, never before, so many forms of advice available to us. We can ask AI, and it will outline the answer. We have YouTube Shorts, and we have Instagram videos, and we have podcasts, and we have friends and family, and if you're in a church, you have pastors and mentors, and some of those things are great. But my question is, where do you go first? Seek God first. How often are we like teenage Sarah, where we kind of want to just figure it out on our own when God is right here, the very best Heavenly Father, much better than any human parent could be?
[12:39] And He's just waiting and desiring that you would call on Him, that you would depend on Him for everything. He wants a real relationship with you. See, this is how God designed it in the garden. God creates the world, and He makes this Garden of Eden, and He puts humans in it, Adam and Eve, and they walked with God. They talked to God. They had a real and tangible relationship with God. That was His original design. But then what happened? Eve and then Adam disobeyed God. They bring sin into the world, and because of that, we have all been born into sin. I've got three kids. You cannot tell me that if you've raised a toddler, that their leniency isn't towards sin. We're constantly correcting them.
[13:30] You don't have to look far in this world to see that there is evil everywhere. And see, that sin within us separates us from the holy God. We are not worthy or able to be in His presence. So John 3:16, "God so loved the world that" what? "He gave." "He gave His only Son, Jesus," who came to this earth, lived a perfect life, died on the cross to pay our penalty, like we just sang. Three days later, He raises from the grave so that we can be with Him so that whoever. Believes. Whoever believes in Him. Not the most spiritual, not the people that come to church in pant suits, not the people who look like they have it all together. This gift is not for any specific race or culture.
[14:23] It's not for a specific gender or political party. It doesn't matter where you've been or what you have done. This is not for a specific socioeconomic class. He says whoever, and that means you. Praise God. Whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life. And Jesus says that kingdom life starts today. "Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven." And you see, Jesus Himself said, "It's actually good that I leave because God is sending to you the Holy Spirit, a helper." See, it is by the love of God, the blood of Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit that that relationship can be restored, and you can have a real and tangible relationship with God.
[15:22] Seek Him first. Matthew 6:33, "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Seek Him first. And Christians who know that know that He's a safe place that we can run to. I think about these kids on stage or toddlers out in the atrium. You know when a toddler toddles too far away from their parents, and I'm always that person that wants to talk to them, like, "Hey." And you can tell right away if a toddler thinks you're a threat or not. What do they do if they think you're a threat? They run right back to their parents. And I love the verse, Proverbs 18:10, that says, "The name of the Lord is a strong tower that the righteous run to, and they are safe." God is our safe place. He is waiting for you to seek Him first.
[16:18] The next thing is so awesome. Are you ready for it? This gets really good. Okay, so Hezekiah, he receives the letter from the messengers. He reads it. He goes to the temple of the Lord, and then he spreads it out before the Lord, and he prays. I just love that visual. See, God knew what was in that letter, just like God knows what's going on in your situation. And yet Hezekiah takes the time to spread it all out before God, and he prays, and that is what a relationship with God is about. That looks different practically. I spread it out when I'm walking with my dog.
[17:04] I love to spend time with God in the quietness of my car. Some of the most holy moments happen when I'm getting ready for the morning, when I'm in the shower, when I'm running errands. You can meet God anywhere. See, Hezekiah was before Jesus. He had to go to the temple. But because of the blood of Jesus, you are the temple. You can seek Him anywhere. And when you do that, He is desiring for you to spread it out in real relationship. He wants to know and hear from you. Ephesians 5:11, "Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them." Spread them out. See, the enemy in John 10:10, who wants to steal, kill, and destroy, he wants you isolated. He wants you alone.
[17:52] He wants you entrapped and entangled. He wants you to bury it down. He wants you to pretend it doesn't exist. But God desires that you would come to Him and spread it out. And as we spread it out before the Lord, this really cool thing happens. I don't know if anybody uses flour sifters anymore. My grandmother, I would see her using a flour sifter. I don't bake a lot, so I'm not sure. Have you seen sand toys that kids use? You know those little sand toys? This is my sifter. The Holy Spirit is like a sifter. And actually, as we come alongside God and we start to spread it out, we start to share with God what we're experiencing. We start to pray and tell God about our emotions. We tell Him all the hidden parts that we are thinking, our intrusive thoughts, all the things. You bring it, and you spread it out.
[18:44] The Holy Spirit actually comes alongside you, and He starts to listen to all that we're saying. And actually, what He starts to do is He begins to isolate the truth from the lie. See, the enemy is not God's equal, but he's surely His opposite. What God has come to create, the enemy desires to destroy. What God comes to heal, the enemy will try to hurt. What God makes beautiful, the enemy tries to tamper. What God frees, the enemy tries to entangle and ensnare.
[19:32] See, Jesus came to give life, and life to the full, and the enemy came to steal, kill, and destroy. Actually, Jesus calls the enemy the father of all lies. And he hasn't changed his method since the garden. See, God creates this perfect relationship in the Garden of Eden, and what does the enemy do to destroy it? Well, in Genesis 3 it says that the serpent was more crafty than all the wild animals, and he comes to Eve, and he starts to whisper a lie. "Did God really say you must not eat from the tree in the garden?" And the woman said to the serpent, "Well, we may eat fruit from the trees of the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat the fruit from that tree in the middle of the garden. You must not touch it, or you'll die.'" "You'll not certainly die," the serpent said to the woman, "For God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be open, and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil." See, the enemy won't tell you a blatant, ridiculous lie. We would never fall for that.
[20:35] What he does is he takes a lie and wraps it in so much truth, it becomes very confusing for us. See, when the serpent says to Eve that their eyes would be open and they would know good from evil, this is new information, and also this is true. When they ate from the apple, their eyes were opened. They realized, because they brought sin in the world, that they were naked, and they sewed clothes from fig leaves. That part was true. The lie is that they will certainly not die. And the enemy is still doing that with us today. He's whispering to us lies that are wrapped in so much truth, they become confusing. And that's why we need the Holy Spirit to come alongside us and sift them out for us and expose the lies to us. And we see this with King Hezekiah.
[21:27] In verse 17, he goes from being a king who's distressed, and as he's in the temple, he prays for a couple of verses. And as he's praying, he begins to say in verse 17, "It is true, Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations and their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them." And you can almost sense that Hezekiah, as he's praying, the truth is starting to be exposed. See, the truth is they were surrounded. They were overpowered. They were in trouble. But the lie is they had no hope. See, God was their only hope.
[22:13] And you see that shift where Hezekiah begins to say, "For they were not gods that the Assyrians destroyed, but they were only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands." We're going to talk about lies for a moment. I want you to picture your home with me right now. Okay? You may own a home. You may rent. You may be in an apartment. You may be in a room in a rooming house. Wherever you live, picture that with me for a second. Okay, and I want you to picture some stranger comes in, and they set up this tent right in the middle of your home, and they declare that they live there now. I know this is ridiculous, but stick with me. And they aren't going anywhere. So they set up shop. They are living here. You have two choices.
[23:00] The first is you can kindly ask them to leave. "Sorry, you have to leave, or I will call the authorities, and they will remove you because this is my home and you can't live here." The second choice you have is that you can accept now that this person now lives in your home. That's awkward. Your home should be your safe place that you can relax after a long day, where you can be safe. That's really hard to do when someone is living in the middle of your house, but you can accept the fact that they live there. Now, when the enemy whispers a lie wrapped in so much truth that it's confusing, what he wants to do is implant that lie into your heart to live there now. And you have two choices. One is you can accept the lie.
[23:49] "I guess this is just part of me now." Can I tell you that you do not have to believe every thought in your head? And that is a word for someone this morning. You do not have to believe every lie in your head. See, King Hezekiah, when he is tearing his clothes and he's distressed, you can tell that he is coming into agreement with the lie that there is no hope. You do not have to come into agreement with every lie in your head. In fact, when the Holy Spirit sifts that out for you, we need to denounce it. What does that mean? Denouncing means "be gone" in the name and blood and power of Jesus. It means I will not choose to believe this lie anymore.
[24:35] See, if the Lord reveals it, He's ready to heal it. And when He shows you a lie, it is our job to say, "Be gone." Amen. Praise God. You may say, "Sarah, my lie is more than a flimsy tent. It can't come down that quick. My lie is like a brick house that I've been living with since maybe childhood. It can't come down that easily." I'm going to tell you that right there is a lie from the enemy. The truth that's wrapped around that lie is that some lies have been there for a long time. Some lies are so intertwined in our identity, we call those lies strongholds. Those are lies that we've been in agreement with for a long time. But I'm going to tell you, the truth of God's Word is found in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, "Though we live in the world, we don't wage war as the world does.
[25:31] The weapons we fight with are not weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish every argument and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ." See, the biblical truth that is the opposite of that lie is Isaiah 54:17, "No weapon formed against you shall prosper." Growing up, I didn't realize how much I was struggling or why I was struggling. See, my mom is a pastor's kid. Her mom is a pastor's kid.
[26:18] There's a lot of pastors in my family. Actually, Pastor Sam's my second cousin. His dad's a pastor. His grandfather's a pastor. And my mom and my grandmother and my two sisters and my two best friends growing up, they all shared a similar personality. They're all just so sweet. I love them all so much. And they're quiet, and they're really supportive. They're very organized people. They're good listeners. It feels like they're full of wisdom when they do share. They're homemakers. They love to craft. I get together with my grandmother and mom and sisters, they talk about their crafts. So great. I am nothing like that. I'm a disorganized mess. I'm a bull in a China shop.
[27:05] I'm loud, and I'm really type A. And growing up, I realized that I had come into an agreement with a lie that who I was, my personality, well, first of all, I was simply too much. That who I was was not holy or sanctified or righteous, and never could be. And what happened was the enemy implanted that stronghold in my life where for years as a teenager and young adult, I tried desperately to be somebody I wasn't. I had unnecessary guilt and shame all the time, and I was all tied up in knots. I don't know if you know what that's like. And it was only through developing a real relationship with God, it was only through spending time seeking Him first, spreading it out with God, that over time the Holy Spirit came alongside me and started to sift that lie out of me.
[28:01] It was through His Word, through 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul teaches that we're a body of many parts. Some of us are amazing ears, some of us are hands and feet, and some of us are big old mouths. And that is okay. In fact, the Lord gave me a scripture, Psalm 16:4, that the Lord has made everything for its purpose. See, I want you to understand that there was a lot of truth around that lie that was confusing for me. See, the truth was, I had rough edges in my personality that God needed to smooth out. The truth was, I had sin in my life that the Lord needed to heal me of and free me of and restore in me.
[28:49] The truth was, I had a lot of wisdom that I needed developed in me, that I still need developed in me, praise God. But the lie was that I was simply too much. The Lord has made everything for its purpose. That scripture was one I could stand on, which leads me to my final point. Stand firmly on biblical truth. You see, it's not enough to simply denounce the lie and be done. When we leave that space in our heart, it's so easy for the enemy to come back and have that lie back. We have to replace that with biblical truth. In Ephesians 6, Paul talks about the armor of God. If you haven't studied it, you need to study it. But in the armor, there's a helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the belt of truth, the shoes fitted with the gospel of peace.
[29:40] Those are all defensive parts of our armor. The one offensive thing that we have to actually fight back is the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. You see, Jesus says in John 14:26, "But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said." See, the Holy Spirit, His whole job is to come alongside you and bring you back to the Word, to His truth. That is why, church, we need to be a people of the Bible. We need to be a people who are bringing the Bible to church on Sunday. When we are studying Philippians, we need to be a people who are reading it at home, who are underlining it, who are marking it up, who are memorizing it.
[30:30] The devil can't hear your thoughts. So we need to be speaking scripture out loud to our children, to our families, to our friends in our home. It shifts the environment around us. It shifts our whole spirit within us. This is how we fight back. And we see this with Jesus. Actually, after He'd been fasting for 40 days, He was in the wilderness with the enemy. And the enemy's trying to get to Him, and what does he do? He's not that smart. He does the same thing as in the garden. He starts whispering lies to Jesus, one after the other. Go read it. And how does Jesus respond? By quoting scripture.
[31:17] See, for every lie that is out there, there is a scripture that God the Holy Spirit wants to bring you back to. See, if He reveals it, He's ready to heal it. And I would ask you to pray that as you encounter lies, that you would seek out the scripture for that and then stand firmly on it. Memorize it, write it out, speak it out loud. It is so powerful. And you see this with Hezekiah. In verse 19, he starts to say, "Now Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, Lord, are God." You feel this powerful shift from this frightened, distressed king who's tearing his clothes to this powerful king who's ready to stand on God's Word.
[32:13] I just want to share with you for a moment, before we close, a few lies that the Lord has exposed in me, and the truth, just to inspire you. My worth depends on what I accomplish. No, no, no, for it's by grace you've been saved, through faith. This isn't of yourselves, it is a gift from God, not of works, so no one can boast. I'm too broken for God to use. Oh, no, "My grace is sufficient for you." So actually, God says, "My power is made perfect in weakness." Fear controls me. No, "The Spirit of God does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline." I have to control everything. Anyone else in that? Okay, just me.
[32:59] I have to control everything. No, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight." What people think of me is most important. No, "Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord will be kept safe." I'm alone in this struggle. No, the Lord goes before you. He will be with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. I can never be free from this sin. That is a lie. The truth is, no, we, in all things, are more than conquerors through Him who loves us. See, this process, these four steps. Yes, let's give Him praise, absolutely. Praise God.
[33:49] These four steps, seek God first, spread it out, sift the lie and denounce it, and stand firmly on biblical truth, is a process not meant just for this morning. This is a life process. God has worked in this way in my life again and again and again, and He wants to do this in you in a real, tangible, relationship way. And as the band comes, I'm not going to tell you how the story of King Hezekiah ends because I want you to go read it for yourself. I want you to reflect on these scriptures. I want you to pray through it. I want you to dig into the Word. And as the band comes to play, we're going to have a moment of response.
[34:37] See, I believe that the Holy Spirit can speak to you way more powerfully than my words ever could. And as we sing this next song, I would ask that you would ask the Lord what He is saying to you. If you don't hear anything, it is not because He's not speaking. Ask the Lord to give you ears to hear and eyes to see Him because I believe every person in this place has a response, including myself. And as we sing, you've been given a piece of cardstock that's blank. And what I would ask is that you would pray, "Lord, is there something that I've been trying to deal with on my own that I need to spread out before You?" And write that thing down. If you feel that there's a lie that has been revealed to you, even now, something that you've struggled with coming into an agreement with, I would ask that you would write that down.
[35:33] If the Lord is calling you into deeper truths for something, I would ask that you would write that down. If you aren't comfortable writing it down, that's okay. Bring your blank cardstock. God knows. But I don't believe that there is a person in this place, balcony or main area, that doesn't have something in their life to respond to God to. And as we sing, I would ask that every single one of you, certainly you don't have to, but I would encourage every single one of you to bring that cardstock to the foot of the cross, And to actually lay it on the steps here. I'm going to ask the prayer team if they would come and go into the corners of the room. If you're in this place and you want to follow God, if you're not following Him and you want to seek Him first, you can come pray with someone, and they will pray with you through the salvation prayer so that you can begin a real relationship with Him. See, you need to know Jesus.
[36:32] Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Jesus is truth. And He says, "When you know the truth," when you know God, "the truth will set you free." Life, and life to the full. And so we're going to sing this song. You can stand with me. And I would invite you to respond to God. See, I've learned over the years that sanctification, holiness doesn't come to those who are naturally better at following rules. Praise God. Sanctification, holiness, restoration comes to those who want it the most.
[37:19] The Word says, "Seek Him and find Him when you seek Him with your whole heart." So I would invite you to respond this morning as we sing.