All right, turn to Matthew Chapter 7, and we're beginning a new series today called Room 12.

The reason we're calling this Room 12 is because I was saved in Jake's motel in room 12 and I actually have a picture for you of the actual key so you'll know

Jake's motel is a real place or was a real place.

I heard it's either been torn down or something else now.

But this is the key I have and just to put your mind at ease,

I did not steal this key. This was not the first thing I committed after I got saved, stealing

the motel key. I went to him and asked if I could buy it. The guy said, why would you want

to buy a motel key and I shared with

them about accepting Christ in there and actually prayed with him so they gave

me the key so this is the room I got saved in and I'm going to take three weeks and share parts of my testimony over the next three weeks.

And the focus I want you to understand is not on how bad I was, not at all, but the focus is on how good God is. And he's extremely good and you're

going to be able to relate to parts of my testimony. And this first message I'm calling

religious roots because we just came out of this series called

Root Cause and I've been thinking about this about what roots were in my life that Jesus Christ has delivered me from and saved me from,

and one is religion, because sometimes, sometimes, please let me explain this, our religion gets in the way of our relationship with God.

And sometimes people think that they're saved because they've joined a church or filled out a card or been baptized or were

born into a certain denomination or christened as a baby or something but

according to the Bible God gave you a will, a choice, and you

have to make a choice to follow Jesus and to submit your will to the lordship of Christ.

And that's when salvation occurs.

So I want to share with you a little bit about that,

but before I do, Michael Jr. was here last weekend. I thought Michael Jr. did a fantastic job. Here's a picture of Michael Jr. If you never seen Michael. Michael Jr. if you weren't here, a comedian that's been very successful, been spoken

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