Pastor Michael Powers: May 15, 2011 Going Beyond, Part III, “Beyond Mores: Are You a Fan or a Follower?” (There is a Power Point that goes along with this sermon and can be found at this link: http://faithcommunitychurch.net/beyond_mores.) If we’re going to be talking about “Beyond Mores,” we thought we should probably define that term: the accepted traditional customs and usages of a particular social group, moral attitudes; any given society’s particular norms, virtues, or values. The English word morality comes from the same route. There are a lot of things we could talk about and examples, but we’re going to go for a biggie right away. We’re going to jump right in. How many of you remember what early ultrasounds used to look like? I remember the first time I saw my son Caleb [on the ultrasound], and I was like, “Ha? There’s a baby in there?” They would have to tell you where the head was or the foot. I was like, “Okay, I’ll just take your word for it.” It’s amazing what they can do now in a 4D ultrasound. Now you can see the smile on a baby’s face. It looks a little creepy, but that’s pretty amazing. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this picture; and if you haven’t, there’s a reason for it. This is a picture of a 21 week old baby in the womb, and he had a problem with her spine. The doctors went in and performed surgery at 21 weeks. During the surgery, the baby’s hand reached out; the doctor put his finger out, and the baby latched on to the doctor’s finger (link to picture can be found at the following link: http://www.michaelclancy.com/story.html That’s just amazing-not only of the ultrasound technology, but of what we can now do in the operating room. That’s pretty amazing stuff. As our technology advances and as our culture advances, we begin believing that this so called old archaic Book is somehow out of date; that somehow we know better than God as to what is right and what is wrong; and we can decide what is right and what is wrong. By doing that, we end up in a pretty scary world. As believers in Christ, our standard of right and wrong goes way beyond what our culture may say. I don’t know if you’ve recently read what’s been going on in India, but let me read this short article to you. It says (article in its entirety can be found here: http://www.riazhaq.com/2009/07/female-genocide-unfolding-in-india.html), “The land of former Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi is killing its daughters by the millions. Economically resurgent India is witnessing a rapid unfolding of a female genocide in the making across all castes and classes, including the upper caste rich and the educated. The situation is particularly alarming among upper-caste Hindus in some of the urban areas of Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, specially in parts of Punjab, where there are only 300 girls for every 1,000 boys…” It should be about 105 males to every 100 females; and now it’s 300 to 1,000. “…One of the reasons for this accelerated rate of female feticide is the abuse of ultrasound technology to determine the gender of the unborn. The purveyors of the ultrasound business in every city, town and village of India entice parents by telling them to’spend 500 rupees now and save 50,000 rupees later.’ The cost of the ultrasound scan is Rs. 500 and the required dowry for marrying daughters off exceeds Rs. 50,000.00… “ActionAid has also found that girls are more likely to be born but less likely to survive in areas with more limited access to public health services and modern ultrasound technology…” and they will kill their daughters the old-fashioned way. One of the main things they’ll do is they will allow the umbilical cord to become infected, and they’ll just let their babies die of an infection. [This is] a culture deciding that it’s okay to do this. This controversy has come to America. I don’t know if you’re aware of the baby gender testing. Obviously, not everybody who is using this is doing it for this purpose, but one of the current controversies is that they’re using it for selective abortion. You can decide if you have a boy or a girl, and thus you can decide if you really want to kill that baby inside of you. In fact it’s estimated by 2020, there will be 25 million more males, surplus males, in India than there will be females. In 1972, our culture decided it was okay to kill an unborn child. Before 1972, it was wrong. We passed the law; and our culture decided that now from here on out, it is okay to do that. There have been 46 million babies murdered in America. Every two and a half minutes, a baby is murdered because we have decided to choose what is right and wrong. In the Bible, the slaughtering of an unborn baby is called murder, but we now call it a choice. Having sex with someone else’s wife or husband is called adultery in the Bible, and we give it a nice word and call it an affair. The Bible says of God’s plan for marriage is between a man and a woman, and our society decides it can be between two men or two women, and we call it an alternative lifestyle. You see cultural morality changes all the time, and I am so thankful for a church that will stand on the enduring, never-changing, and eternal word of God. “Your Word, Lord, is eternal. It stands firm in the Heavens,” (Psalm 119:89, page 609 of pew Bible). “All of Your words are true; all Your righteous laws are eternal,” (Psalm 119:160, page 611). “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away,” (Mark 13:31, page 1007). “The grass withers, and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever,” (Isaiah 40:8, page 714). “I am the Lord, and there is no other,” (Isaiah 45:5, page 722). “I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness. I have not said to Jacob’s decedents,’Seek Me in vain.’ I, the Lord, speak the Truth, and I declare what is right,” (Isaiah 45:19, page 723). You would think if there were anything that a culture could agree on it would be to protect babies, infants, and children. This is not a political issue; this is a moral issue. Somehow it’s become [a topic] that we can’t even talk about for fear of upsetting someone. I want to stand before you and say I don’t care if I upset somebody by saying that God says this is murder. I am going to stand on the Word of God, and when God speaks the truth and He declares what is right, I will stand up for that. What is the standard of morality? It’s the law that God gave us-specifically the Ten Commandments. God literally set His law down in stone. You know what we do as a society, as a culture, and as individuals? We come along and we decide, “You know what? I don’t like that particular one, and we’re going to kinda change this to fit what we think should be right or wrong.” The myth in our society-the cultural mores-is that we are good people. If you were to do a man-on-the-street interview and ask people, “Do you think you’re a good person?” most people would say, “Yeah, I’m a good person.” We’re going to look at God’s standard and see how you and I measure up to what God’s standard of goodness is. Commandment 1: You shall have no other gods before Me. In fact, Jesus said of this, “Love the Lord, your God, with all your hearts, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest Commandment. Have you broken this Commandment? I have. I have put things in my life in the place of God. At one time in my life, I took sports, and I put that on a pedestal and made it my god. It took the place of God in my life. Have you done that with anything in your life? Commandment 2: You should not make for yourself any graven image. I used to think, “Man, how dumb is this? I’m going to make a wooden idol or a gold idol. I’m going to dance around it and worship this thing.” I was like, “What a bunch of stupid people in the Old Testament.” You know what this is also talking about? Have you ever had an image of God in your head that’s not the god of the Bible? Have you ever had a discussion and said, “There can’t possibly be a hell. There can’t be a place of punishment because my God isn’t a God of wrath. He’s a God of love and mercy.” That god does not exist except as a figment of your imagination. To create a god in your mind, your own image of God, is something the Bible calls idolatry. Commandment 3: You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name. Maybe you’ve never uttered God’s name as a curse word, but let me ask you something and get a little more personal. Have you ever flippantly said, “Oh, my God!” or “Dear Lord”? The Bible says that’s called blasphemy. Using God’s name without a sense of awe and honor that is due His name… And we flippantly use His name that way. Commandment 4: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy for in six days the Lord made the Heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day; and therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Do you and I set aside a day each week to totally focus our thoughts on God? I don’t know how you’ve been doing, if you’re keeping score in your head, but I’ve messed up on every single one of these. Commandment 5: Honor your father and your mother. I’ve not always honored my mom and my dad. Commandment 6: Whew, you shall not murder. Before you get too comfortable with that, here is what the Bible says. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. I’ve murdered people in my heart. I have hated people in my life, and I fall short of this commandment. Commandment 7: You shall not commit adultery, and you should be learning by now not to get too comfortable because Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. I have committed adultery in my heart. Every single one of these, I have failed on. Commandment 8: You shall not steal. No matter the value-a paperclip, a pen from work-have you ever stolen anything? If you do steal, what does that make you? A thief. Commandment 9: You shall not give false testimony. Have you ever lied…even once? If you lie, that makes you a liar. Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. Commandment 10, the last one: You shall not covet. Have you ever jealously desired other people’s things? As we look at God’s standard of goodness, and if you and I were to stand before God on judgment day, I don’t know about you, but I know that I fall so short of God’s law. The huge myth in our culture is that somehow our good deeds will outweigh our bad deeds or that even somehow our good deeds would equal out to our bad deeds; and when we get before God, we can cross our fingers, “Please, one more good deed than bad deed. Whew! I’m in Heaven.” That is such a lie. Here’s what the Word of God says about us and our hearts (Jeremiah 17:9, page 767). “Our heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? ‘I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.’” “As it is written: there is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one,’” (Romans 3:10, page 1114). “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23, page 1114). We fall short of that standard that God has set. “All of us have become like one who is unclean and all of our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away,” (Isaiah 64:6, page 742). You see the penalty for not measuring up to God’s standard is death and separation from God. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23 “And so then who can say,’I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin’?” (Proverbs 20:9, page 645). So when we stand before God and we are judged on God’s righteous law and we expect to get into a Heaven where it says, “Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life,” (Revelation 21:27, page 1231), a very serious question [is posed]: if you were based on God’s standard and you were to stand before God, where would you go? But you see God knew that you and I could never measure up to that standard, so, “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin,” (Romans 3:20, page 1114). Not only the conscience that God has placed on our hearts of knowing what is right and wrong, He gave us His law to show us that we don’t measure up. It’s a mirror to see ourselves for who we really are. I don’t know about you, but when I measure myself by God’s standard, I fall so short and I fear what’s going to happen. Instead of jumping into the middle of the story where you tell people about the cross and what Jesus did, we need to go back to the beginning of the story. When Adam and Eve sinned and sin entered the world and our perfect union with God was broken and separated-and, “In fact the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness,” (Hebrews 9:22, page 1190). When Adam and Eve sinned, God had to shed blood to cover up their sin as a foreshadowing of the “Lamb of God who will take away the sin of the world,” (John 1:29, page 1050). “Adam’s sin ushered death, sickness, and sorrow into this once perfect creation, and He pronounced a curse on the world, changing it completely,” (paraphrased version of Genesis 3:19, page 4, and Romans 5:12, page 1116). As a result, the world that we now live in merely a decaying remnant, a corruption of the beautiful righteous world that Adam and Eve originally called home, but there is some good news: the Gospel literally means good news. “Rather than leave His precious handiwork without hope, God graciously promised to one day send a Redeemer who would buy back His people from the curse of sin and restore originally as He intended our creation to be,” (paraphrasing from Genesis 3:15). “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God,” (2 Corinthians 5:21, page 1145). “And God says that our sin and our iniquity were laid on Him, and at this moment in the crucifixion every single sin that’s ever been committed was placed upon a holy and pure God,” (paraphrasing from Isaiah 53:5-6, page 731). “…and that’s when He screamed out,’Father, why have You abandoned Me?’” Mark 15:34 Because a holy and pure God cannot stand the presence of sin, and He had to look away from His own Son. And Jesus paid a debt that you and I could never, ever pay, and He provided a way for us to get into Heaven. “He said,’I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6 “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7 How precious that blood is that was shed that it literally can take our “filthy rags,” as it says in Isaiah, and wash it white as snow, and Jesus will not even remember our sins. “That we can stand before Him dirty and sinful to the core, and if we accept what Jesus did by faith, He will wash that and make us white as snow.” “He can take our dead, spiritual hearts, and He can make us a new creation.” “And He wipes away that sin, and using His own blood, He pays the debt in full.” “And if you and I are standing before God and we have made the conscious decision to say,’I am a sinner, and I do not measure up, and I need Christ’s righteousness in my life,’ God will declare you not guilty.” “And by Him, God reconciled everything to Himself. He made peace with everything in Heaven and on earth by means of His blood on the cross, and this includes you who were once so far away from God. You were His enemies separated from Him by your evil thoughts and actions.” “Yet now He has brought you back as His friends. He has done this through His death on the cross and His own human body, and as a result, He has brought you into the very presence of God, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before Him without a single fault. We can lay our burden of sin at the foot of the cross.” Colossians 1:20-23 In Romans, it says, “I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and pleasing to God; and this is your true and proper worship.” “Because of what God has done for us, the amazing price that was paid, our lives should be radically different.” Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 12:1-2 I know I’m not getting what I deserve when I stand before God because I have put my faith and trust in Christ’s righteousness, but because of that, that mercy should lead to a dramatically radical and different life of how we live our lives. But the world is full of cultural Christians. Churches are full of cultural Christians who do the church thing on Sundays, and then their lives are totally the same as anybody else in the world on those other six days. When God calls us to be a follower of Him, we say, “Who, me? I don’t know about that.” So I ask you, “Are you a fan of Jesus?” Churches across America are filled with Jesus fans, but there are few followers. Are you a fan or a follower? A fan is an enthusiastic admirer. In the Gospels, Jesus never seemed too interested in fans. Is that how you define your relationship with Him: an enthusiastic admirer? Close enough to Jesus to get the benefits, but not so close as to require sacrifice. Our culture says that being a Christian is doing the church thing. Don’t you dare bring your faith into your personal life. Don’t bring it to school; don’t bring it to work; and we live the same as everyone else. Jesus calls us to be followers, but not just any follower-a completely committed follower. We don’t want to hear that. We’re pretty comfortable being a fan of Jesus. “Go, Jesus! I’m your biggest fan,” and we sit in the stands and cheer on Jesus; but we’re not willing to get out onto the field. The Bible is very clear that there are so many more fans than followers. “Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.” Of the narrow gate, “but small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only few find it.” Matthew 7:13,14 These three verses are some of the scariest verses in the Bible, “Not everyone who says to me,’Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only the one who does the Will of my Father who is in Heaven, and many will say to me on that day,’Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and in Your name drive out demons and in Your name perform many miracles,’ and then I will tell them plainly,’I never knew you.’ Away from Me, you evil doers.” Matthew 7:21-23 What a scary passage! That you and I could do the church thing for years and years and years and die and go before God. God will look at us and say, “I never knew you.” Pastors and priests could give their whole careers of 40 or some years of doing the church thing and stand before God and say, “Lord, Lord, did we not…” He looks at them and says, “I never knew you.” You see, it’s not that doing good works will get us into Heaven. God’s already said, “You can’t do that.” But it’s the fruit of our lives that shows whether or not we’re a follower of Jesus Christ. “By their fruit, you will recognize them.” “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” “And, thus, by their fruit, you will recognize them.” Matthew 7:16-20 “This is to My Father’s glory that you bear much fruit showing yourselves to be My Disciples.” John 15:8 God calls us. It says, “Whoever wants to be My Disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me.” Luke 9:23 Are you willing to do that? Am I willing to do that on a daily basis? Because I want to stand before you, church, and say, “I am not a fan. I want to be a totally, completely committed follower of Jesus Christ.” At the age of five, I asked Jesus to come into my heart. From the age of five until my freshman year, I was a cultural Christian. In my junior high days, I didn’t swear. I didn’t drink. I didn’t do drugs. I wasn’t involved in anything sexually, but if you looked at my life compared to the regular kids who didn’t call themselves Christians, you couldn’t tell any other difference. I treated kids horribly. In between my eighth grade and my freshman year, I thought to myself, “If Jesus was to come back, would I really go with Him?” At that moment, I moved that head knowledge of Jesus Christ to my heart, and I said, “God, whatever You want me to do with my life, I am a follower of You.” I began reading my Bible ten chapters a day. I brought my Bible to school, and I read it in study hall when I was done with my homework. I began to pray every day before I would go to school. I would say, “God, give me a chance to witness to somebody today.” While I said that in the back of my head, I was going, “No!” because I was afraid; but I knew “if this Word of God is true, my life should be radically different than what I was living.” God did some absolutely amazing things as I got plugged into His Word. By my freshman year and into my sophomore year, not only were there other young men who were living their lives for Christ, but I had a young lady named Kristi Conway at the time that had been praying that God would raise up young men in our school to be men of God. As I prayed some really gutsy prayers, God started answering them. In my biology class, I had been talking to a close friend over and over about God. The biology teacher gave us seven or eight minutes at the end of class to just have time to ourselves. As soon as he said that, my friend turned and looked at me and said, “Mike, we have to talk. We need to talk about this. I don’t know where I’m going. If I were to die, I don’t know where I’m going.” In those seven minutes, I shared with him the Gospel. He bowed his head at Clinton High School in biology class, and he gave his life to Christ. My New Year’s resolution that year--as other kids were saying do this or do that--I said, “I’m going to do something that only God can step in and do.” I said, “My New Year’s resolution is that I want to be able to lead--with God’s help--20 people to Christ.” I didn’t even have 20 friends. There aren’t even 20 people in all of Clinton. I knew this was going to be a huge thing that only God could accomplish. I was sitting as a sophomore watching the girls’ varsity basketball game, and a friend started to ask me questions. I always kept a little New Testament in my locker. He said, “I want to talk about this.” We went out into my locker, grabbed my New Testament, I shared with him the Gospel, and he prayed right there in that hallway to give his life to Christ. I was flying high. I walked back into that gymnasium and sat down; and other friends were asking, “What were you guys talking about? Well, I want to know about that too.” I went back to my locker and got my Bible out; and we sat in the hall, and he accepted Christ. We went back in there, and a third friend asked, “What are you guys talking about?” I had about three friends in about 30 minutes [come to me], and God did that. Then I was at what is called Youth Congress in Washington, D.C., and we went out street witnessing. I was this skinny little pimply-faced sophomore, and I was walking around the streets of Washington, D.C. Seven different people gave their lives to Christ. I walked up to one lady in a power suit who was eating her lunch and reading a book on her lunch hour. I started talking to her, and as I started talking to her, she just burst out crying. Tears were just streaming down her face. She said, “This morning, I sat there eating my breakfast and saying to God,’God, if You are real, You need to show me that You are real!’” She didn’t know what she was going to do with her life, and she said, “And God sends me a teenage boy to talk to me about Him.” She said to me, “I will listen to whatever you have to say,” and she gave her life to Christ. If you are committed to being a follower of Jesus Christ, He will do amazing things. In my sophomore year, there was a young man named Brian. He was a mentally challenged student that was in special education classes. He would walk around the halls of Clinton High School, and kids would make fun of him. They’d say, “Hey, Brian, are you the Incredible Hulk?” He would act like the Hulk, roar, and pound at the lockers. He’d run up and down the halls of Clinton High School, and kids would laugh and laugh. He had no idea they were laughing at him. God whispered to me, “You need to do something.” “La, la, la, la. I can’t hear You,” because I didn’t want to stand up to these guys. Finally, God said, “You need to do something.” I got my courage up and said a prayer; and I told them to knock it off and stop. They looked at me and said, “Who do you think you are?” I said, “Guys, I just cannot watch this every day. Would you just knock it off and treat him like a human being?” I would love to tell you that they stopped, and from then on after it was never issue; but within about a couple of days, they started up again. The difference was Brian became my friend. I began to invite him to come to my house and play video games. This was the 1980s, and we had something called Intellivision, the first video games. We would play those video games, and we would talk. He would start asking me questions as to why I was different than the other kids at school. I remember sharing my Bible with him, telling him about Jesus Christ, and how He could come into his heart and was him away of his sin. I told him he could spend eternity in Heaven, and he prayed with me; and he didn’t even need any help saying the prayer. He said it in his own words, and he cried out to God. He grabbed my Bible, and he lay down on my bed and hugged it. He cried and he cried. The difference was this: when I cry, like when Mufasa dies, (congregation laughing)-I have to fast-forward to this day through that part. When I cry, I sob, and I’m very loud. This young man was so silent, and it was like somebody had taken a faucet in the back of his head and turned it on. It wasn’t drops that came down; streams of tears flowed down his face. | Two weeks later, he really opened up to me, and he told me what had really happened in his life. When he was five years old, his dad packed a suitcase, walked out to his car, put the suitcase in his trunk, and as this little five year old boy was saying, “Daddy! Where are you going? Daddy, where are you going?” just before he got in the car, the dad looked at his son and said these words: “I can’t stand having a son like you! I am leaving, and I’m never coming back!” He got in his car and drove away. He left this little five year old with the last memory of his earthly dad totally rejecting him. Then I knew why Brian cried those tears that day. He had been looking for a father’s love since he was five years old, and because a young teenage boy decided to say, “You know what? I’m done being a fan! I’m going to be a follower of Jesus Christ,” God used that young boy to talk to another young man and to radically change the direction of their lives. There are all kinds of stories I could tell you of what God does when people decide to become followers of Jesus Christ. One of the hardest things in youth ministry, one of the saddest things in youth ministry, is watching Christian teenagers come in the door, put their Christian masks on, say all the right things, do all the right actions, sing all the right songs, and when they leave youth ministry, they take their masks off and act just like everybody else. It hurts so bad to see that they’re rejecting God like that. Let me ask you a very personal question: does it really shock us or surprise us when our kids and our youth end up just like us? We do the church thing and then we put our Christianity aside for the rest of the week, and they learn to mimic us. See this tombstone photo here? It has my name on it, my date of birth, and a date of death that I randomly picked. This was freaky for me to do. When I did this in Photoshop, it was like whoa! I want to put this up there for this reason. What are you doing with that little dash in between the date of birth and the date of death? Are you going to be a fan, or are you going to be a follower? What will your legacy be in your family? Can you say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”? We’re going to watch a short video, and then my son, Caleb, is going to come up and play a song he wrote as we end the service. As this is going on, I want you to think to yourself, “Are you going to miss Heaven by 18 inches, the distance between your head and your heart? Are you going to continue to be a cultural Christian and someday have God say to you,’I never knew you.’?” I don’t know where you’re at. Maybe you’ve been trying and have been stumbling. Maybe you’re in the stands, and you don’t even get on the track and run the race. As you watch this video and see what happens here, it is my hope and prayer that through this video and through the words that God gave Caleb for this song, today would be the day you could look back and say, “May 15, 2011, was the day I got out of my seat, and I got out into the field.” May you be able to say, “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the face. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all of those who have longed for His appearing.” 2 Timothy 4:7,8 You can watch the video at this link: http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=FB2EMCNU Come as You Are Original music and Lyrics by Caleb Michael Powers age 15 Verse 1 Why do you hide your face, from those you love? You always try to escape, from what you've done Why do you always think that, you don't belong? Don't you know what I did? I gave you my Son But now I'm calling out to, you who are lost Come as you are to Me, come to My cross Chorus Come as you are in the darkest of days Come as you are when you've lost your way Just come as you are when you're broke and afraid You can come as you are its not too late (Cause you are mine) Verse 2 I know you're lost, in deep with sin To be renewed, just let Me in Though you've fallen, time and again You keep on reaching high, returning back and then Chorus (x2) (You) come as you are in the darkest of days Come as you are when you've lost your way Just come as you are when you're broke and afraid You can come as you are its not too late Ending (x4) Come as you are "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." "I will call them 'my people' who are not my people; and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one," "In the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they will be called 'children of the living God.'" Romans 9:15, 25,26 Closing Prayer. Heavenly Father, I just want to say thank You so much that You have taken my sins, and You cannot remember them anymore, that as far as the east is from the west, You have removed them. As I fall on my knees before You and I admit my need for You, You raise me up; You give me Your righteousness; You cleanse me with Your blood; and You allow me to spend eternity with You. Thank You so much for doing that. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.