When I was an intern here in 1998, the automobile I drove was called a Plymouth Breeze. I’m not sure how that happened. Never planned on buying a Plymouth Breeze. I’m not sure anybody does. Nobody says, “I want to save up my money for a Plymouth Breeze,” but there are cars like that on the road. It just kind of happens and you’re driving this car and you find out why you never planned on buying one. I had a lot of problems with that car. Something was always going wrong with it. One day I started the car and the “check engine” light began flashing at me, and I didn’t know what was wrong. I mean, I went over and opened the hood, which wasn’t easy on that car, but I got it open and I’m staring at the engine. But that’s about really all I knew how to do, right? Just stare at the engine. Unless there is a big on-off switch underneath there, there is not much I can do. I tightened some things and got back in the car. (I) looked at the dashboard and that light is still blinking. I needed to do something. I didn’t have any money to do anything with, so, you know, I just kind of lived with it for awhile. But it gets annoying—that blinking light. People get in the car with you and they’ll say, “Do you know your check engine light is on?” “Yeah, I knew that.” My wife gets in the car… “When are you going to do something about the check engine light?” “I’m going to do something. I’m going to do something.” Finally, I did. I just had enough of the blinking light and I’m like, “I’ve got to take some action here. Something needs to be done about this.” So here is what I did. I got a piece of black electric tape and I tore it to the appropriate size and I just covered that blinking light. (Laughter) Problem solved. No more blinking light. A month goes by, another month. I forget that there is even a blinking light behind the black electric tape and everything seems to be fine—until we’re driving home from the grocery store. The car is in drive and I’m giving it gas but it’s not going anywhere. Uh…it is something called a transmission. That was the problem. See, the manufacturers of the car designed it in such a way that when the engine was having some problems, when there were some signs that something was wrong or going to become wrong, that check engine light would begin to blink. And when that check engine light comes on, it’s a call to action. Now you can ignore it. You can cover it with tape. You can pretend like everything is okay. But it is not to your advantage to ignore the blinking light on the dashboard of your car. When that light comes on, you need to do something about it. If you do something about it now, it could save you a small fortune later, a lot of stress down the road.
And in our lives, God has what I’m going to call in this series an “Early Warning System.” He has these blinking lights that begin to show up on the dashboard of our lives to get our attention, to help us realize some areas that need some help. And when those lights come on, when God sends us His warning signals, it is an invitation to us to take action, to get some help, to spiritually wake up, to make some changes. Yet a lot of us cover it with electric tape.
Maybe…maybe right now in your life there are some early warning signals. There are some blinking lights that are flashing, some areas—maybe a marriage, maybe in your family, maybe your spiritual life—where God is trying to get your attention. So in this series we’re going to talk about God’s Early Warning Systems. God tries to draw our attention to areas of our life that we need to ask for His help (in) or we need to make some changes.
As we talk about God’s warnings, there are a couple of distinctions I want to make early on. One, there is a difference between commands and warnings, right? The commands in Scripture, like the Ten Commandments, are clearly established rules. Warnings come to us at the time in which we’re close to breaking one of those rules or commands. If you’re a parent, you understand the difference between a command and a warning. In your home maybe a command is, “You don’t lose self-control.” So that is a clearly established command. But there will be times when you’ll give your kids a warning because you can see they’re getting closer and closer to losing self-control. I’ve got a child or two that struggles with self-control at times, so we have some warning signs in our house. One of the things I’ll do to my kids when I see them getting closer to losing self-control is…you’ll see me do this…and this means, “You’d better lower the intensity level. You need to bring it down a thousand real quick.” So I’ll give them a little warning sign here. The other thing you’ll see me do occasionally in public is…I’ll do this. I’ll do this. Now that doesn’t mean, “Do you want to go fishing when we get home?” That’s not what it means. It means, “You better reel it in, sister. You better reel it in really fast before you get yourself in trouble.” And you have these warning signs. Another warning sign we have in our home is…that one. (Laughter) And, you know, you don’t want to lose it when other people are looking, but it is effective from time to time. (Kyle laughing) I’m just playing. Don’t send me a note. We don’t really do this to our kids. We do this! (More laughter)
You’ll even say it, right, to your kids? I mean, you’ll say, “Hey, you need to be really careful with whatever words you choose next.” Or maybe you did it as you came to church this morning. You said, as you’re getting out of the car, “Listen, you better keep control when we’re in church or you’re going to be in time out when we get home until Jesus returns. You’ve been warned.” Fair warning. So when you see…when you see that they’re getting closer to making a bad decision or going down a path that is going to lead to some bad consequences, you give them a warning.
This is what God does for us. He gives us commands but then He gives us warnings. And His warnings are personal; they’re individual, and they’re also timely. They come to us at just the right time—when we really need a word from Him.
The second thing I want to make a distinction between is that when we are given these warnings from God, we are not given these warnings from an angry judge but rather from a loving father. God gives us warnings in our lives because He wants what is best for us. So these warnings that we’re going to be talking about…these are not the bad news of Scripture. This is good news that God warns us because He cares about us.
An example of this is in 2 Chronicles 36. In this passage God is speaking and warning His people about some things and here is what it says:
(2 Chronicles 36) “The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them.” When it says God is “rising up early,” it doesn’t mean He set the alarm clock and got out of bed a little bit early. It means that He’s sending the messages…sending the warnings before there is really a problem. He’s acting early. He’s rising up early and He’s sending warnings through His messengers.
Then it says…it gives us His motivation. It says, “Because He had compassion on His people.” So it’s out of God’s love for us that He warns us, that He activates His warning system and gives us these blinking lights. That if we pay attention to them, if we look at the dashboard of our life and we see these areas that need attention, it can save us all kinds of heartache and all kinds of stress later down the road.
So as I studied this idea of warnings in Scripture, I just began in Genesis and I quickly came to what I would call God’s first, individual, timely, specific warning in Genesis chapter 4. If you have your Bibles you can turn there—the first book of the Bible, chapter 4. Adam and Eve have two sons at this time. It’s Cain and Abel. Likely this story that we’re going to look at is one that you’re a little bit familiar with, but there is a verse in the story that I had never noticed before and maybe it has not caught your attention either. In Genesis 4:2 it says this:
Now Abel kept flocks (so he is a shepherd), and Cain worked the soil (he is a farmer). In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
So here is the deal. You’ve got Abel, who is obedient to God’s command and he brings the first fruits. He brings a portion of the best of what He has and He gives it to God as an offering. But Cain doesn’t do that. Cain gives God the leftovers. He is a farmer. He goes around, sees what is on the ground. He collects it and he gives that to God as his offering. What is in his pocket, you know, when the plate goes by—he throws that in.
Well, when God sees this He accepts Abel’s offering and blesses Abel; He rejects Cain’s offering. Cain is discouraged about it. He is jealous of his brother. He is angry. He is upset. Then here comes the warning in verse 6. It says, “Then the LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right….’” If you’ll just do what is right, “’will you not be accepted?’” God as a father says, “Listen, listen, listen. It’s not too late. I know right now you’re feeling discouraged. I know my response wasn’t what you wanted. I know things haven’t really turned out the way you had hoped, but it’s not too late. You still have an opportunity here to do the right thing. If you’ll just do the right thing, even though you don’t feel like it…if you’d just do the right thing, you’ll be accepted.” Then God issues a warning: “But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
Here is the picture. Cain is getting ready to open up a door and on the other side of that door is a decision he is going to make that will destroy his family, devastate his life. God sees him going towards the door and He puts a heavy hand on the door. He holds it shut for a moment and He says, “Now wait a minute, Cain. Wait a minute. You need to take a deep breath and you need to recognize something. What is right behind this door, what is just a moment away for you—it has the power to destroy. It seeks to have you. Cain, you need to be really careful with what you do next.” And He steps away. Cain opens the door and in verse 8 it says, “Now Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let's go out to the field.’ And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.”
So God warns Cain that the path he is on is going to lead to destruction. At just the right moment He speaks into Cain’s life and says, “Look, sin is crouching right outside your door. You need to be on guard.” But Cain doesn’t see it. He takes a piece of tape; he covers the blinking light. He moves ahead and does what he wants to do. And…and everything just comes crashing down around Cain.
Now this is a story that I’ve become fairly familiar with. I could point to examples in my own life but also, as a pastor, I just hear it quite often—of people who have been warned by God, people who have been given opportunity after opportunity to listen to God and to do things God’s way but they don’t do it. For whatever reason, the blinking light…they just ignore it. They go at it their own way. They do things the way they want to do it, and then they come to church and it’s a wreck. (The) marriage is in pieces. The family has fallen apart. They’re no longer able to do anything about their grown kids. Their spiritual life has grown cold, and they don’t know how it happened but it happened.
Now here is what I’ve discovered about you and me and the blinking lights in our life. We’re pretty good at seeing the blinking lights in hindsight, aren’t we? Like, if I look back ten years…if you look back ten, twenty, thirty years in your life, you can see the blinking lights. You can see the times where God was trying to say, “Wake up! This is it. This is an important moment for you as a husband, as a father, as a wife, as a mother, as a follower of Christ.” God is trying to get your attention.
You might be able to point to a time in junior high when you were at church camp and there was a blinking light, but you didn’t…you didn’t do anything about it. Or you might be able to point to a time in a dating relationship where the light was blinking but you just…you kept moving…you kept moving forward. Or maybe as a parent early on with your kids, there were some warning signs that came but you were tired and you ignored them. You can look back now and you can see them now. You can see them in hindsight where God was trying to get your attention. But sometimes it is hard to…it is hard to see it when we really need…really need the warning.
So this is what I want us to do. I want us to look on the dashboard of our lives now. I want us to think about this season that we’re in now and just ask the question, “Is it possible that God is trying to get our attention? Is it possible that he is calling us to change, that He is wanting us to wake up and He wants us to do it now so that down the road we can be saved all kinds of heartache, and our families, our spiritual life can be saved devastation?
So are there some warning signs in your life? Is God trying to get your attention? I want us to look at just a few of the ways God warns us, some of the blinking lights that will show up. Here is one of the blinking lights that you can expect. God will send you His Word at just the right time. God’s Word at just the right time. That’s when He speaks to Cain—when sin is crouching outside his door. Now as a preacher I am fully convinced of this. There is a supernatural power of this book to speak into your life at just the right time when you most desperately need to hear it if you’ll have ears to hear. It is the supernatural power of the Word of God.
I see this a lot. I don’t know if you read the article in The Outlook this last week. A couple in our church, George and Cassie Soete, for the last 21 years have been helping couples…hundreds of couples…through problems in their marriages. And as I read the article, you learn that the reason they’re so passionate about helping couples is because earlier in their marriage they almost didn’t make it. They got to a point where George said to Cassie, “Look, there is less than a 1% chance of our marriage working out.” He had moved out and within a four year period he was in and out of the house like eight times. And it was just…it was just reaching this point of devastation, and in that moment a member of this church invited her to come to service. She agreed to come to church, and when she came to church the sermon happened to be on conflict in marriage. The sermon got her attention. She would give her life to Jesus. He would see the change in her life and give his life to Jesus. And they’re celebrating 45 years of marriage this Valentine’s Day week and they say it’s better than ever. Now what happened? Well, God hates divorce, so He activates His warning system and a friend invites her to come to church. It’s a blinking light. She agrees to come. The sermon happens to be on conflict in marriage, and the light is blinking a little bit brighter. She sees it and she responds to it.
And I could tell you many stories like that. In fact, I hear them almost weekly from people in one form or another—where they will speak about how the message or how the sermon spoke into their life right at the point they needed to hear it. Now that is not because of Dave and I; that is because of the power of God’s Word. So people will say, you know, “Are you reading our mail? Have you bugged our phones? Do you work for the Psychic Friends Network?” And why? It’s because the power of God’s Word speaks into their life as if they are the only ones sitting in the sanctuary.
And in case…in case you’re not seeing it, for some of you this is a blinking light. It’s not an accident that you’re sitting here right now on Valentine’s Day listening to a story about a couple who saw the blinking light. Okay? This is God saying, “You’ve got to act now. You need to give some attention to this now.” And maybe someone invited you here and you just kind of came along to be nice. Is it possible—? Is it possible that God is trying to get your attention, that there is a light that is blinking on your dashboard that you need to pay attention to? His Word will speak into your life at just the right time.
In order to see this light, we need to be reading His Word; we need to be praying daily, “God, speak into my life with the truth of your Word.” As we do that, we’ll have the heightened awareness to His warnings and to His guidance in our lives.
Another blinking light that God will sometimes send our way is the examples of others who go before us. It is interesting if you study the life of Cain in Scripture you’ll find that his name is mentioned several times in the New Testament. Whenever Cain’s name is mentioned in the New Testament, it is always used as a bad example. In other words, in the New Testament Cain becomes the blinking light. The New Testament writers point to Cain and say to the rest of us, “Look, be careful. Be careful of following the path that Cain was on because if you do, here is what will happen to you.” Let me give you two examples of this from the New Testament. First John 3:12 says, “Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother.” Jude 11, “Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain.” So Scripture will point to Cain, and we have other examples as well—people who are, for us, an example of what will happen if we continue down the path we’re on. There is something about seeing someone else experience the consequences of the decisions we are now making. We see that they made the same decisions we’re now making and here is what happened to them, and it’s an opportunity for God to get our attention.
When we were on our mission trip last month, one of the challenges we had was there were a lot of wild animals around. And when I say “wild animals” I’m not talking safari; I’m talking about non-domesticated dogs and cats and chickens and pigs just everywhere. Dogs were everywhere! And my second grade daughter…she is the ultimate animal lover and this was no small problem, because a lot of these…I’m pretty sure they weren’t up-to-date on their shots, and a lot of them, you know, had things like Rabies and other diseases; and she just could not stay away from them. We were getting her in trouble. She probably spent half of the first three days we were there in time out. She just…she would not stay away from these dogs and they were…you know, the sickly ones especially she wanted to reach out to, right? So it was a real problem. At night she would say, “Dad, after we help all the people can we help the animals? Can we help the dogs?” I knew I had to do something when a few days after we were there I gave her a camera to take some pictures, and later that night I looked at the pictures she had taken and there are about twenty pictures like this—just one after another of these dogs on the street. And I’m like, “Okay, we need to do something here.” So I had warned her and warned her and warned her. I had gotten her in trouble. She just couldn’t resist the temptation. So one morning I woke up early and I got online and…you know, saying this now in front of thousands of people it seems like a questionable parenting tactic. I recognize that in advance, okay? I get online and I look up video footage…download some video footage of children who have been bitten by rabid dogs and are in the hospital. (Audience laughing) It worked, all right? Say what you want to. So when she wakes up, I had carefully chosen a few clips to show her and said, “Look, I’ve talked to you about this. I have warned you about these dogs. You’ve been getting in trouble for it but you’re not staying away from these dogs. So here is what we’re going to do. We’re just going to see what happens if you’re not going to pay attention to this, if you’re just going to continue to do things your way. Here is what happens.” Push play. And as she is watching the video, I can see it in her eyes. The warning is getting through. Now she didn’t do perfectly after that, but it made a big difference, right? There is something about it—when we see someone else experience consequences of decisions that we’re currently making it should get our attention.
And you just need to step back from some things and you need to ask yourself, How has it worked for other people who have decided that being a little flirtatious at the office isn’t that big of a deal? How has that worked out for them? How has it worked out for my buddy who felt like…you know, a little pornography now and then wasn’t that big of a deal? How did that work out? How did it work out for the parents who decided that they weren’t really going to be home much and they were going to keep a really busy schedule and they go to church when they feel like it? How did that work out? How did things turn out for that family? So you step back from different areas of your life and you can allow other people to be a blinking light for you. They serve as a warning to you: “Look, if you keep going down this path, if you keep going in the direction you’re going, you’re going to end up in the same place.” So God will sometimes speak to us…He will sometimes warn us through the life of someone else.
Here is another blinking light that God will use: He will use the words of someone in your life. Now here is the thing. I don’t know if you know this, but most people know…like friends and family…they know about your blinking lights. I mean, they may not know about their own, but they know about yours. And when you’re not around, your friends and family will talk about the blinking lights on your dashboard. Do you know that? Do you know they do that? I mean, they do. Every once in awhile…not very often…but once in awhile you’ll have one of them who will come to you and here is what they’ll say. They’ll say, “Your check engine light is on, and you probably ought to give that some attention.” Now when someone comes to you and points out a blinking light in your life, your response, like my response, is to become defensive. “You see my dashboard…? You ought to see your dashboard! My light is blinking; your light is blinding. Why don’t you do something about your own dashboard over there, pal?” So we quickly become defensive and we… But maybe that is the voice of God in your life. The Bible says in Proverbs 26 that “wounds from a friend can be trusted.” Maybe you have a friend who comes to you and says, “I don’t…I don’t want to overstep here but it seems to me that your drinking has become more and more of a problem. Look, I don’t want to make you upset but I’ve got some real concerns about your teenage son, and I know this is awkward but I feel like I need to talk to you about it.” The tendency is to be defensive, but maybe this is God’s warning system and He has sent someone into your life. Maybe it’s a pastor, or a parent, or a teacher, or a neighbor, or maybe it’s a child or a stranger. They come and they say something to you, and if you’ll have ears to hear you’ll realize this isn’t…this isn’t them speaking. God is saying something to me.
Second Samuel chapter 11 David…King David is on the roof of his palace and he looks down and he sees a woman bathing below. At that time there is a trusted servant with him. He calls his servant over and he says to the servant, “Find out who this woman is. Find out who this is for me.” The servant says, “That is Bathsheba.” Doesn’t stop there. Probably swallows hard and he says to the king, “That is Bathsheba…the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” “David, that is the wife of one of your most trusted soldiers fighting for you right now on the battlefield. That is who that is.” And I think that was God. I mean, I think that was a blinking light that he should’ve noticed, but his eyes were in another place. He didn’t see the light. He has an affair. It leads to murder, the death of a child. It leads to generation after generation of heartache in his family.
And if you have someone who will come to you and speak the truth, someone who will say something to you—maybe you don’t want to hear it—would you just consider the fact that maybe…maybe it is God’s Word to you? Maybe the very thing you’re most defensive of is really the thing you need to pay the most attention to.
Another blinking light for us is sometimes a sample of future consequences. Here is what God will do. He’ll give us…He’ll give us a taste of what the consequences will be if we continue down the path that we’re on. So what He’ll do is He will allow a fender bender to prevent us from a train wreck down the road. Maybe that is where some of you are.
Another blinking light is the supernatural leading from God. We don’t always call it a supernatural leading. We sometimes call it a coincidence. We sometimes call it, you know, chance or maybe even indigestion. We just kind of dismiss it. But I think God speaks to us more than we realize. I say that because I talk to folks here at church quite often and they don’t see it, and I’m like, “How can you not see it? God is trying to get your attention here! How can you not see it? How can you think that is just chance?” But we can dismiss it. And I know I can do it too.
When we were on our mission trip, one night a man from Haiti…a Haitian man and his four-year-old daughter stayed at the house where we were staying. His name was Isaac; her name was Isadora. They had spent the last four nights or so out on the open streets and didn’t have a shelter, didn’t have clean water to drink. So this was kind of their first night since the earthquake where they were actually going to get some rest. As I refilled his cup of water and I brought it to his table, in broken English he told me his story. He is a chemistry teacher there. Couldn’t really explain why…didn’t use any kind of spiritual or religious language but for some reason on the day of the earthquake he had this sense that he should leave the school where he is a teacher. So he did. Five minutes after he left the earthquake strikes (and the) school collapses. Around sixty or so students, fellow teachers are buried in the rubble. His house is gone. Everything he has is gone. As he’s telling it to me, he says several times, “I keep wondering…I keep wondering if God is trying to get my attention.” Yeah, maybe. Maybe He is. Or maybe it is just a chance that a few minutes before the earthquake struck you had a sense that you should leave, and maybe it is just a chance that four nights later where you first spend the night there is a pastor from Louisville, Kentucky, in the next room working on a sermon series about the extraordinary measures God will go to to get our attention. Maybe it is all just a fluke? Nah, God is trying and He is speaking. The lights are flashing.
So what I want us to do as we finish is to just take a moment to do what we’ve talked about, to just look at some of the lights that may be blinking on the dashboards of our lives. So if you would just bow your head and close your eyes, I want you to visualize yourself driving a vehicle. It needs to be one with quite a few seats, so a minivan would work. If you’re a real man I would go with an SUV, but it is up to you. (Laughter) Look around. Who is in the car with you? Maybe some family, some people you would expect, but likely there are some folks crammed in the backseat. Your life affects more people than you know. As you’re driving, I want you to pay attention to some of the signs that may be showing up, some warning signs. Maybe one of the warning signs that is coming up right now is a sign that says “slow down.” One of the biggest reasons we miss God’s voice in our lives…one of the biggest reasons we miss those blinking lights is because we’re going so fast. I didn’t even see the light. You need to slow down. So hit the brakes a little bit. Slow down a little bit more now.
Look who is in the van with you. Are you going so fast that they are not getting any priority or attention in your life? Maybe you’ve only got a few years left now with your high school daughter and God is saying, “Look, this is a window that you don’t want to miss. Slow down here. You need to slow down. If you don’t slow down now there is going to be a hefty price to pay later on.” Or maybe it’s your spiritual life. You have good intentions but you’ve just been so busy with other things and it’s suffering and you’ve grown cold to the things of God. You need to give this some attention, but it’s not going to happen going the pace that you’re going.
Maybe a sign that has been put up along the road where you’re driving is a warning sign that says “sharp turn ahead”…sharp turn ahead. God is trying to get your attention because things are going in a certain direction, and maybe it is financially but you just need to be prepared for the next six months or a year. You need to be aware of some things.
Or maybe you’ve got a junior high, middle school child at home, and they’ve got some friends that you’re concerned about but you want to be their friend, too, so you haven’t really said anything. You need to say something, because now is the time. If you don’t do something about it now, it’s going to become a bigger problem.
Or maybe you’re the student and in a few years from now you’re going to go off to college, and if you don’t make decisions now… I mean, you’ve got a sharp turn coming up and if you don’t make decisions now about who you are and what you believe, you’re just…you’re just going to go flying right off the road.
Or maybe there is a warning sign up as you’re driving and it says “Kids at play.” If you’re not careful you’re gonna…you could seriously hurt one of them…with your words, with your example. Maybe your kids are trying to warn you, “Dad, how come you never play with me? Mom, why are you always angry at me?”
Maybe the warning sign says “construction ahead,” and God is just letting you know, “Look, you need to be prepared to do some work. On this Valentine’s Day you need to be thinking about a lot more than some chocolates and roses.” It needs some maintenance.
Or maybe the sign is a little bit more dramatic. It’s a railroad crossing sign. The lights are blinking. God is trying to get your attention because you’re hiding some sins; you’re hiding some struggles and you’re afraid that somebody will find out about them but you don’t realize that quickly they’re leading to your destruction. So that sign is flashing at you. Your anger is a moment away from being abuse. I mean, it is crouching at the door. And the lust that you think you have somehow controlled, it’s created this spark and that spark is about ready to become a fire that will burn down your home. Or maybe it is your spiritual apathy or your hypocrisy. It’s just kind of gone on for so long, but what you don’t realize is it’s quickly leading to children who are going to want to have nothing to do with God. So the light is flashing and God is saying, “Wake up! Wake up! Now is the time. Sin is at your door.”
But there is one sign I want you to picture no matter where you are at on this road, one sign that is always held up. No matter how far gone you think you are, how much of a wreck things may be, here is one sign that is always held up by Jesus: It’s a U-turn sign. It says, “Look, today is the day. Now is the time. It doesn’t have to be this way.” God would say to you what He says to Cain, “It’s not too late. You can still do the right thing.” The reason it is not too late is because Jesus has paid your price. He has died on the cross for your sins. So He specializes in coming onto the scenes of wrecks and putting the pieces back together if you’ll just turn things over to Him. So there is a light that is flashing on your dashboard. What are you going to do? Ignore it? Put it off? Cover it with a piece of tape? Or will you listen to God’s loving voice in your life warning you to take action?
God, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ who mastered sin for us because, like Cain, we couldn’t master sin either. It got the best of us time and again. But, Lord, you come in and you offer us a grace and you offer us a strength that we just don’t have on our own. Thank you, God, that you are the God who redeems and puts the pieces back together. God, would you help us now just to have eyes to see and ears to hear the warnings from you? God, if there are some blinking lights in our lives, would you help us take action today? In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
If you want to talk to someone about your relationship with Jesus, it would be a great day to do it. You can meet me down front over here. Or maybe you’re ready to make this your church family. We would love to have you. You can meet me down front over here as we stand and as we worship our great God.
