Praying and Praising in the Midnight Hour

Well, today I have a message for you. I believe God sent me here to tell you because this is a message for everyone. If we believe there's hope for everyone, it's going to show in the way you live your life. You can say it, but are you putting it into practice? You can look like it, but I just want to I want to really challenge you. Do you know this hope of Jesus Christ? So, I just need you to be a preacher for a moment and turn to a stranger and say, "This message is for you." Come on, somebody. This message is for you. Because this message, this is a message for those who go through some hard times. Jesus said, "In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart. You can have courage. I have overcome the world." We have a God that's greater than anything you've gone

through. But when you're going through something, it can be difficult. In fact, sometimes it seems like, God, where you been? If you're the great healer, why haven't you healed me? God, if you can do this, why haven't you done it? And I want to give you some tools today. It's just only two things. You can remember two things. In fact, you could write it down. You could write it on your hand. You could write it in your Bible. I'm going to give you two things of what to do in hard times. I'm gonna ask you to get vulnerable for just a moment. One of our core values here at Journey Church is to be relentless and real. How many of you are going through a hard time right now? Just a show of hands. You don't have to say what it is, but just raise your hand. Let's look around. There's other people just like you. Come on. Thank you for being honest. You can put your hands down. This message is for you. And for those not going through a hard time, you're going to need this at

some point. I want to look at a clear example of what we ought to do in the most difficult hour. I'm going to turn to the text that's found in Acts chapter 16. If you brought a Bible, I want you to turn to the book of Acts, chapter 16. In this story, we learn that God is moving through the church. New churches are starting all over the world. And we find ourselves in Acts chapter 16 in a city called Philippi. Paul and Silas are there and they're joined with Luke and Timothy. And they're in this city called Philippi, which is a large city. There's much entertainment. There's many false gods. and they come to the city of Philippi to bring the hope of Jesus. If they did a crusade, they would have called it hope for Philippi. And they were bringing the good news of Jesus.

Now, right away at the beginning of Acts, we learn about a woman named Lydia that gives her life to Jesus. Our God is a God for all people. He's for young people. He's for the ladies. He's for the men. And a woman named Lydia who happens to be a businesswoman, gives her life to Jesus. I tell you, if you give your life to Jesus, it changes the trajectory of not only your life, but your entire family. Now, while they're there in Philippi, which is where we pick up in the story, I want to start with verse 16 says, "While they were there," verse 16, "As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination." This is an unclean spirit. This is what we would call a demon. and brought her owners much gain by fortune telling. Now, the spirit of divination is still alive today until

the devil along with every demon is locked up in hell forever. They're tormenting us and they're doing the same thing that they've done for many a millennia. So, the same demons three or four or five or 6 thousand years ago are the same demons tormenting us today. And the devil is not very creative because he's not the creator. And in this case, you have a young woman who is demon-possessed. Now, I just want to warn you that most Americans have gotten their theology about demons from Hollywood. That's not a great place to learn about the devil. Uh because the Bible taught us everything we need to know about demons. That we have all authority over every demonic spirit in Jesus. Now, this is a young girl who's got the spirit of divination. Now, what is that? We see here she's a fortune teller. The spirit of divination taps

into unclean spirits that is demons and and seeks to know the future seeks to know information. This is what we would see today as uh fortunetelling, palm reading, psychic readings, tarot cards. This demonic spirit is very active today. And I want to warn you today that this type of demonic activity will not lead to life. The devil is a counterfeit. The devil is not the truth. Now, some of us have this false view of the devil that he comes out as blatantly evil, dressed in red with horns and a tail. But the devil is a counterfeit and wants us to think that he gives us the truth. Let's continue to read the story. Verse 17. This young woman, she followed Paul and us, crying out, "These men are servants of the most

high God who proclaim to you the way of salvation." Now, at first, this sounds so good. What's wrong with this? And that's where I want to show you how the devil is a counterfeit. He likes to look like the truth without being the truth. You know, when you're deceived, often there's some truth in that deception. The devil likes to just get us a little bit off. It doesn't always start with just a a quick left turn. It just starts with a little decisions, just thinking about certain things. And what this girl begins to do is distract those who are trying to bring the gospel of Jesus to this city. One of the greatest tools of the devil in your life is distraction. You probably have one in your pocket right now or your hand.

Distractions can get you and your mind off that which matters most. So you got this girl following them around. sounds like she's saying the truth, but she just keeps yelling it. She just keeps saying this and she's a major distraction. They go to preach about Jesus and she just blurts out, "There are sons of my and and it gets distracted and everybody looks at her instead of hearing the message of Jesus." Are you following with me? Because when you start taking Jesus seriously, you will have distractions in your life. We get it here at Journey all the time. It's crazy how distractions come. And distractions come in so many different forms. Have you ever noticed if if you're not healthy and you try to get healthy, you'll get sick right away? That's called a distraction.

Or maybe you you came to meet with Jesus today and you got a text message right before the service started and your mind just went somewhere totally different than focusing on the Lord. That's a distraction. It could be some other person, but the devil knows. He just wants to distract you. Here you got this girl trying to distract him. Verse 18 says, "And this she kept doing for many days, Paul, having become greatly annoyed." The Bible is really honest, turned and said to the spirit, now notice he didn't say it to the little girl, to this young woman, he said it to the unclean spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." And it came out that very hour.

That's the authority of Jesus. If you have been tormented by devils, I'm here to tell you, it can change in just a moment. It doesn't change by you going to church. It doesn't change by you willing it out of you. It comes through the authority of Jesus Christ. You've got to be willing. Here we have a girl that's been tormented and she set free in just a moment because of Jesus. Now, what could go wrong? Look at verse 19. But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, "These men are Jews and they are disturbing our city." Praise God.

When you're doing the work of God, you start disturbing your city. Now, some will not understand it. When when cannabis doors start to close, growers will be frustrated. I always hit a nerve when I talk about cannabis. I just want the Holy Spirit to do the work there. It's not just cannabis. Right next door to us, we have lottery, which is a tax on the poor from our very government. You start to disrupt the city when gambling is not your hope of getting out of your financial problems. You start to disrupt the city. What would happen in our city and in our nation if we disrupt this place with Jesus Christ?

I'm talking about closing the doors of the porn industry. Human trafficking no longer being a problem because we have all authority because of the hope of Jesus Christ. He's for the young women who are being abused by grown men. He is for them. And we ought to be what Jesus is for. But I want to warn you that when you disrupt the city, not everyone's going to be happy. We learned this when we went through the book of second Timothy and Paul at the end of his life warned us in the last days people aren't going to be living for God. They're going to be living for themselves because of the love of money and the love of pre pleasure. And if you truly live for Jesus, you will be persecuted.

Not you might be, not some, this is not a maybe. You will be. Look what happened to them next. We're we're somewhere around verse 21. They they referring to the accusations towards them. Advocate customs that are not lawful for us Romans to accept or practice. So the crowd then joined in attacking them. And the magistrates, look what they do to Paul and Silas. They tore their garments off of them, gave orders to beat them with rods, and when they had inflicted many blows upon them. They threw them into prison. That's a really bad day. You go do the work of Jesus, you end up naked, you end up beaten, end up thrown in prison.

I don't know what type of bad day you've had, but you got to know it could be worse. That's why you should go to Uganda with us. When you see people with no clean drinking water, with no access to resources, you see people working really hard all day, 10-hour days, they're educated, they have skills, and they make $2 a day. It puts things in perspective. Maybe my day is not that bad. We look here. They they get thrown into prison. I want you to see what happens. We're in verse 23. They threw them into prison ordering the jailer. Everyone say jailer. Jailer. I want you to remember this guy. We're going to come back to him later in the sermon. They ordering the jailer. He was given instructions to keep them safely.

So, having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. That's the deepest, darkest part of the prison. It's the dungeon. It's the dirty, dank, cold place. The jailer's given really clear instructions. Just look after them. What could go wrong? These guys are naked. They've been beaten. They're Christians. I'm All you got to do is keep your eye on them. That shouldn't be a hard job. I want to just remind you today, whoever you are and wherever you are, that when you follow Jesus, it's not easy. There are a lot of myths out there that if you follow Jesus, it ought to be easy. Now, I'm here to tell you that you have a God that can do anything. When Paul writes to the church in in Philippi, it's a letter called Philippians. You can see that he has a heart for this city.

Wouldn't you remember a city like this where you preached the gospel and some got saved, some got delivered from demons, and as a result, you got stripped naked, beaten and thrown in prison. Wouldn't you remember that place? So, when you read the book of Philippians, you read it through a different lens and perspective that this guy has a heart for this city. So when he says, "I can do all things through him who strengthens me," he's not talking about winning a basketball game. He's talking about being in that dark place when you've been beat up and you're stuck in chains and can't go nowhere. That's the kind of God I serve that he's with me even in the darkest place. Following Jesus is not easy. In fact, we can read through the scriptures from Genesis to the book of Revelation. And the reason it's not easy is there's a real enemy that's attacking you. And the greater the anointing on

your life, and anointing is the power of God himself, the Holy Spirit working through you, the greater the anointing in your life, the greater the attack. The devil has to stop God working in your life. That's why it seems like one step forward, two steps backwards. You ever been there? That's because there's a spiritual realm that you can read about in Ephesians chapter 6 that's real. You try to do something good, something bad happens. Why did something bad happen? There's a real enemy that's going to attack you because you're doing the work of God. And his whole goal is not just to distract you. He wants to discourage you. He wants to do more than discourage you. He wants to destroy you. Because the gospel changes a community. It changes the trajectory and the destiny of families.

Now, the jailer put them in this innermost cell. And this is where I I want you to look at your life. We're going to use some illustrations here, metaphors, if you will. You probably won't be put in an actual prison, but there's going to be times in your life where you feel stuck. If that's true, just shout, "Amen." You got to get real with yourself, or else the devil's going to deceive you, and you're going to not think the power of God can get you through this. And I'm here to show you that the power of God that worked before can do it again. It's the same God. I want to pick up in the story. Acts 16 25. And here here's going to be the application for us. But this is an illustration of your life about midnight. Everyone shout midnight. Stop there. Two words into this verse. About midnight. Midnight represents the darkest hour.

This is the times of trouble. This is where you can't see what's going to happen next. It's pitch black. There was no electricity 2,000 years ago. The torches have been blown out. Midnight is what some have said is the dark night of the soul. And you don't know it until you're there. You thought you were going through something troubling until you get to that midnight hour that you ask yourself, "How did I get here? Yesterday I was preaching the good news. Yesterday I was delivering people from demons. Yesterday I just went to pray. And in prayer, I ended up in prison. That will happen to you at some point in your life.

You sign up for marriage and say, "I do." And a few years later, it's I don't anymore. That's the midnight hour. You spend a lifetime raising kids to love the Lord. And as adults, they end up doing things that just embarrass you and you're ashamed of. And how did they start doing those things? It's when you have an addiction that you didn't want in your life, but you need to keep coming back to something that's not helping you, it's hurting you. That's the midnight hour. The midnight hour is when when you are facing bankruptcy and you still got bills to pay, but you got no money to pay those bills. That's the midnight hour. The midnight hour is when you've been diagnosed with an incurable disease from a doctor that's a lot smarter than you and you don't know what else to do.

The midnight hour is the moment that you absolutely have no control of your life. Are you tracking with me? We live in an amazing nation. I love America. God bless this nation. May God cause revival in this nation. But this is a nation that thinks that we're so independent, we don't even need God anymore. But if you're in a midnight hour, I'm here to show you the only thing you have is Jesus Christ. Let's look at this. About midnight, we're verse 25. We will get through this. I'm just going to preach Ugandan style. We'll be here till 3. All right. About midnight, Paul and Silas naked, beaten in chains. They were complaining. They were whining. They were griping.

No, I'm actually adding to the scriptures here. My apologies. I'm reading from the wrong Bible because that's what so many of us would do. All I got to do is go to Facebook and see what some of you would do in prison. You just got to let the world know. I give one star to this restaurant. They didn't treat me with customer service. I'll tell you this, you shouldn't go there either. That's your worst problem. About midnight. Some of us love throwing pity parties, hoping everybody's going to join us. But nobody likes a pity party. Those parties are terrible. Don't go. You shouldn't even throw that party. Here's what you should do. About midnight, this is what you do in your midnight hour. About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying. Everybody say praying. Praying and singing. Say

singing and singing hymns to God. This is what they did. They prayed and they praised God. They prayed and they praise God. That's your two points today. Pray and praise. When you're in trouble, what do you do? Pray and praise. That's what you do in times of trouble. You pray and praise. Do don't call up the divorce lawyer. Don't call up your auntie. Don't call up your best friend. Before you do anything else, I'm here to tell you, pray and praise God through songs. This is what you do at midnight. Because when you pray and you sing songs, something's going to change in your life. It cannot stay the same. When you pray to a God that created all things just by speaking it into existence, you're praying to a God that's alive. You're praying to a God that can do anything.

And when you sing to this God, you're singing songs of gratitude. They couldn't even sing the song we just sang. I throw up my hands when I can't throw up my hands. So, am I still going to sing when I can't throw up my hands? It got real quick. About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. I'm not sure if you know, but people around you are watching you and they're listening to you. Some of you look like you got your lives together. That's not what people need to see right now. The world needs to hear us praying and praising God even at midnight, even when things don't make sense.

Because people are listening. And when they're listening and they're looking at you, there's only one person you're pointing them to. The one you're praying to and the one you're singing to. They were all listening. What are these guys? Crazy. Yep. Crazy in love with Jesus. They were listening to them and suddenly, everyone says suddenly. This is what happens when you pray and praise. Some of you need an unsuddenly moment. Some of you think that God's just taking too long. Nope. He's never late. He's always on time. He might be teaching you something. You need to pray bolder prayers. You need to sing louder songs. Somebody else needs to hear your song. Someone else needs to hear your prayers.

And suddenly, there comes a moment in your life when you pray and you praise. There's going to be a suddenly where God shows up. And it's nothing that you've done on your own. You've just petitioned God to do what only God can do. And that's the anointing and power of the Holy Spirit. Because next, what happens? And suddenly there was a great earthquake. So the foundations of the prison were shaken. Do you know the only person that could cause an earthquake? That's God. The one that made the earth. He didn't have to bring down the walls. He decided to just shake up the earth a little bit. The very foundation of the prison. That's my God. He's a mountain moving God. He's a God that moves the foundations. That whatever's holding you back right now, he's not going to start with the top. He might just start with some shaking right now. You might feel some shaking in your life right now.

Keep praying. Keep praising. There was a great earthquake that shook the foundations. Now, what happened then? Immediately all the doors were open and everyone's bonds were unfassened. They have an opportunity to be set free. Praise God. This is why church is important. When you show up to church, you should expect chains to be broken. I'm talking about strongholds. You got to keep coming and praying and singing. Doors of opportunity are going to open up. Some of you are waiting and you're making deals with God when God's actually waiting for you. He says, "You trust me in your finances. I will open up the floodgates of heaven. And yet

you're turning to God say, I'm not sure I like that promise. There's just something about waiting on the Lord that when you go to God and you surrender everything, you know what naked means? It means you're completely vulnerable. You're exposed. Genesis 3 teaches us that when you're naked, you're simply saying, "Listen, I got nothing." But all of a sudden, God gives me everything. Now, verse 27, remember I told you to remember somebody. What was his name again? The jailer. We don't know his name, but the jailer. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself. Supposing the prisoners had escaped. This guy had one job to do.

One job. Watch these beat up prisoners who are in chains. How could you screw that up? Well, when he realized that the doors were open, the chains were off, his only answer was suicide. And that's because culturally he would have been killed for losing these prisoners. So he knows he would have been killed. So to keep his dignity, he thinks that actually the only solution is take his life. I need to speak of this. This is a demonic spirit. Suicide is not of God. It is never a good option. Yet the devil wants to lie to you and say that when you're in a dark time, when you're in a troubling time, when you've made mistakes, when you've messed up, when it looks like there's no hope, when you're helpless, then your only solution is to take your life. That's a lie of the devil.

And God sent me here to tell you that suicide is not the option. That when you lay down your head at night and you start getting suicidal thoughts, there are two things that you need to start doing immediately. Do you remember those two things? Say them with me. Prayer and praise. That's what you got to start doing. You get out your phone and you get out that worship playlist and you just raise up the volume and say, "I'm going to welcome the Lord in this place because that thought in my mind is not of God." He wants you to live. He wants you to overcome this. He wants you to see that he's a God. That when you trust in him, you are more than a conqueror through through him who loved you. That's Jesus. He loved you. Now you got this soldier, which by the way, God bless our military men. God bless those

who serve our community, police officers, our sheriff's deputies, and they're put in very stressful situations. But I'm here to tell you, suicide is not your option. I'm going to give you a better option. So, he goes to commit suicide. We're at verse 27 now. Let's go to verse 28. But Paul cried with a loud voice, "Do not harm yourself, for we're all here." Paul could have left right away with those prisoners. The doors were open. The chains were off. But he stops because when you have Jesus, life's not about you any longer. They came to Philippi for church. The word church in the Greek is eklesia. It means the gathering, not of some people, not the good people.

This is not a holy huddle. This is a place where there's hope for everyone. That's why you come in here with suicidal thoughts, you're going to leave with hope. You come in here in your darkest hour, you're going to leave with hope. Paul says, "I got good news for you. We're starting a journey church in Philippi. Let me tell you about what we're doing and why we're doing it." Verse 29, the jailer called for the lights. Remember, there's no electricity. They get these lamps burning and he rushed in. The jailer rushed in trembling with fear. He fell down before Paul and Silas. Verse 30. Then he brought them out and said, "Sers, what must I do to be saved? I want what you have. You have hope. I want this hope. H how can I be saved?" And they said in verse 31, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.

Not only you and your household." And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds. And he was baptized at once. By the way, I don't know if I've mentioned this today. It's baptism Sunday. If you haven't been baptized, this would be a great day to get baptized. Immediately he and his family were baptized. Today, you can immediately be baptized. Verse 34. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. and he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God. Let's just stop there for our time today. I want to just explain this some more. This guy goes from being a jailer

to believing in Jesus. Now he becomes a healer with a gift of hospitality. Do you see this? He was there to watch them in chains and now he's helping them get healed. He was there to watch them rot in prison. Now he's giving them food. Because when you believe in Jesus, you're born again. And you now have the spirit of Jesus, which is the Holy Spirit. And now you would do what you'd never do on your own. You used to beat people with rods, but now you're feeding them. That's a shift of Jesus in your heart. When you're not just talking bad about people, when you're not just talking down with people, when you're not just telling the world what's absolutely awful, but now you're letting the world know where you find hope, and that's in Jesus Christ. It might still be the midnight hour. You might be the one that

needs to call for the lights to turn on, but this is the place that what's inside of you is going to come out of you during your most difficult hour. Don't miss this. Paul and Silas in their midnight hour, what did they do? They prayed and praise. What' the jailer do? He wanted to commit suicide. What's in you will come out of you when your life is shaken. When you're going through difficulties. Now, now only about a third of you raised hands and said you're going through hard times. For the twothirds of you that are not in a hard time, it's coming. You need to put inside of you what needs to come out of you in your midnight hour. So if you're not praying to God and praising God when things are good, you're probably not going to do it well

when things are bad. Now, I have a theory. I believe it's true that all of us in our darkest hour pray, but you don't pray the right prayers. If you haven't been praying and you're driving your car and you see red and blue lights, what do you start doing? you pray. You're praying the wrong prayer. You want to be delivered from that moment. Even though you deserve justice, you're not praying for that officer to be saved. What you should be saying is, God, even if I go to jail, I've been given the instructions of what to do there. I'm going to pray and I'm going to praise.

See, so many of us, we pray when it's too late. You're in the back of the police car. That's too late. That's not the time to say, "Okay, now I believe in you, Lord. You get me out of this mess. I promise I'll go to church every Sunday." We make deals with God. He's not a dealmaking God. He's a waymaking God. So, we go to God saying, "I don't know what you're going to do, but you're God and I'm not. God, I count it a privilege that I would be beaten for you. I count it an honor that I would be put in prison for you." So, all I have is a hallelujah. Which, if you're new to that word, it means praise the Lord. All I can do is praise the Lord. I'm not going to praise you because it's good. I'm not going to praise you because I have everything.

I'm going to go to you, God. I'm going to give you everything. And by the way, this is a mandate of scripture. Do you know what the longest book of the Bible is? Psalms. Do you know what the word Psalms means? Praise. The last chapter of Psalms praise says, "Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise God in his mighty deeds. Praise him according to his excellent greatness. Praise him with the trumpet sound. Praise him with the loot and the harp. Praise him with the tambourine and dance. By the way, praise him with the strings in the pipe. Praise him with the sounding symbols. Praise him with the loud and clashing symbols. Let everything that has breath, if that's you, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. You are made to praise.

Now, sometimes you got air in your lungs. God's not done with you yet. But you say, "I'm in the place I don't want to be. I've taught you what to do today." Pray to God and praise God. You don't praise God because everything's good. You praise God because there's victory in Jesus no matter what. The devil thought he had Jesus when he was in the tomb. The devil thought he beat Jesus when he died on the cross. But we read in the scriptures on the third day Jesus rose from the grave. He defeated the devil. He defeated death. And he didn't do that so you can keep living the same way. He wants you to overcome the enemy as well. Hallelujah. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 3:17, "Now the Lord is spirit." When you believe in Jesus, you get the Lord and the Lord is spirit.

And where the spirit of the Lord is, what is there? There's freedom. Now, do you remember where they were? They were in prison. You can be in a prison still and still have freedom. Because what happens is your prayer and your praise is going to start bringing down walls. And by the way, it's not you. It started with the earth moving. It's going to be God working because you prayed, because you praise God. Paul was so focused on the Lord. He knew he was on a mission. We have a mission here at Journey Church. We want to lead people on a journey of transformation in Jesus. We are not here to be a country club. We're not here to be a holy huddle. Is not some good organization trying to do good things. We want people transformed by Jesus.

He alone is our only hope. In a world of crisis right now, as we're entering into another election season, there's no greater time than to point people to the true hope that's found in Jesus. When Paul wrote to the Philippians, he said this in chapter 4 19. He says, "And my God," I love that. That's how I feel when I come to church. And my God, because so many of you have needs today, and I just want to tell you today, and my God, if you just knew what my God has done for me, if you knew what my God has done for my marriage, if you knew what my God has done for my children, hallelujah, if you knew what God has done for this church, my God has done the work.

You don't have some supernatural pastor. You got somebody so weak that when he doesn't know what else to do, all he could do is pray and praise. Praise God. Oh my friends, I just want to point you to the person Jesus. Philippians 4:19. And my God, my God, my God. Wherever you are right now, my God, my God shall supply. All shout all. Oh. Oh. You need to have a conviction that if you believe that, you'll pray to my God. My God shall supply all your needs according to his riches and glory in Jesus. Praise God. Okay, I want to get serious for just a moment. This is between you and the Lord right now.

I'm shifting gears from the sermon right now to your heart. If there's anyone here today that has not surrendered their life to Jesus, the question was asked, "What must I do to to be saved?" And the answer is really simple. Believe. Believe in Jesus. Believe in Jesus. A parent can't save you. A preacher can't save you. But as the band comes up here right now, I want to just invite you. Do you want to believe in Jesus today? This is between you and the Lord. I just want every eye closed right now. Here's why we're doing this. You do not need to close your eyes to pray. You should be praying when you're driving. Don't pray with your eyes closed. The reason I do this at church is for you to focus all of your attention on the Lord because God is real. I don't want you to worry about who you came to church with or who's

around you. I just want this be to be between you and the Lord. If you want to believe in the Lord Jesus today, would you throw a hand up nice and high to the Lord, saying yes to Jesus? Nice and high. Keep your hand up nice and high. Put your other hand up in the air right now. Now, if you want to believe in Jesus, put both hands up in the air. Both hands up. This is a posture of surrender. This is between you and the Lord. This is between you and the Lord. Today, your destiny and eternity has changed. Keep your hands up if that's you. Lord, you see those hands that are raised high, they have received you today. To those with their hands held high in your heart, you need to pray to the Lord. It's talking to God. It's conversation. Say, "I believe in you, Lord Jesus. I trust you. forgive me of my sins. From this day forward, I

believe in you. I will follow you. I will pray to you and I will praise you. And friends, in that prayer, the Bible says, you're now born again. You're not the same person. You have a new life in Jesus. You're a new creation. The old is gone. You now are one in Christ. Lord, I thank you for those hands and those hearts that believed in you today. And I celebrate you and give you the glory in Jesus name. Amen. And amen. Praise God. Can you give just a praise to the Lord today? [Applause]