Take your Bibles to Luke chapter 2, if you will. Luke chapter 2. While you're turning there, I want us to think about something just a minute. Many years ago, there was a movie that made popular the phrase, Bucket List. Bucket List. I grew up Never hearing anyone talk about a bucket list. I guess their idea was to live. That was their bucket list. But the idea of a bucket list is to, what things would you like to see? What would you like to accomplish? What would you like to experience before you kick the bucket? Well, that's a pretty somber thing, isn't it? What sights would you like to see? What would you like to do? And people have different things on their bucket list. I heard someone said they'd like to jump out of a plane and parachute. And I'm thinking, that's not a bucket list, that's a dumb list. Jump out of a perfectly good plane and no, don't do that. I'll let other people have that in their bucket list. I'm not doing that. So I don't know that I've really had some things in my bucket list. I've seen a few sites. I've been to India and saw the Taj Mahal and was able to take a tour through that. And it's an interesting building in New Delhi, outside of New Delhi, actually, around Fort Gujarat. And so I was there. And then it's made out of translucent marble. It was meant to glow in the moonshine. It has an engraved There's flowers all through it, precious stone that makes these flowers and vines and everything. And you can take a flashlight and hold it to the end of a flower and the whole thing lights up. This is an amazing thing. It was built and everything was multiples of 22. There's 22 fountains outside of it. There's 22 steps leading up to it. Now that's not a multiple of 22, but 122. And the reason is the king's bride had passed away and they'd been married for 22 years. And so he made that big, beautiful building as a tomb for his wife of 22 years. It's on one side of the river, and on the other side of the river, he was going to build another Taj, but not made out of marble, but made out of black stone. So one would have been perfectly white, the other one would be black, and that was supposed to be his tomb. But before he could build that, his son wanted to have power. And so he imprisoned his father and put him in Fort Gujarat. And he's able to look through his jail cell window and see the tomb of his wife. He died in that prison. And now if you go in there, there's two tombs, one for him and one for his wife. And that is the whole thing is one big grave site, but it is a beautiful thing to see. I've seen the Victoria Falls on one side is Zambia and the other side in Africa is Zimbabwe. And I've been there and I've actually stood about eight feet from when the water just pours over. It falls down in a big valley. It's so deep you can't see the bottom of it because the It's narrow as well as deep and the water hits the rocks and then comes back up. You have to have an umbrella or a plastic sheet around you because you get sopping wet standing there watching it from the downside of the river. That's why I enjoyed being up on the upside. There's some other things. This year I got to walk the Great Wall. I got to see the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. see all those mighty things. It's pretty impressive to realize that wall and just see it go on forever and ever and ever and how they built it and everything. There's been some things I've seen. And you know, if I would ask around, I am sure there's things you've seen I've never seen. And things that would be so wonderful to see. Places you've been, experiences you've had, Some of you might have built a business and you're very proud of that and you've had that experience. All of us that have had the joy of having a family, that's one of the greatest things we could ever put in a bucket list is to have children and grandchildren and have life. I guess the greatest thing I've ever experienced in my bucket list is I went several years ago, probably a dozen years ago now, time flies, and I got to go to the church where I was led to Christ as a nine-year-old boy, and I took a picture of the spot. I knelt. On my knees at altar and my pastor led me in prayer and I trusted Christ as my savior. And to me, that's almost a sacred spot. That's where I got saved. That's a great one. Today we're reading about a man who had one thing in his bucket list and that is to see the Lord's Christ. He wanted to see the Messiah. It's what he was living for. He had one thing. It wasn't about sites he wanted to see or places he wanted to go. It was a person he wanted to meet. And he had been told by the Holy Spirit of God that he would live long enough to be able to see the one thing in his bucket list, and that's to see the Messiah, the Savior of the world. His name is Simeon. And it starts in verse 25 and we read down through verse 35. And today we're gonna be looking at the story and the proclamation of Simeon. So if you're able and you can stand with me, would you stand as we read God's word as our custom normally is on a Sunday morning? If you can't, don't worry about that. Just be seated if you have trouble. And we'll start reading in verse 25. I'm asking you just to follow along as I read. And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Ghost was upon him. And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law, they then took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord, now let us, thou thy servant, depart in peace according to thy word. For thine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. And Joseph and his mother marveled at those things which were spoken of him. And Simeon blessed them and said unto them, marry his mother. Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel. And for a sign which shall be spoken against, yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. And let's bow our heads for a quick word of prayer and then you may be seated. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word We pray that you would speak to our hearts through your precious word and by your spirit. And Lord, we've assembled together today because we believe you have a message to speak to our hearts. And I pray, dear Lord, that you'll do just that. We trust you will. Your word tells us where two or three are gathered together. There you are in the midst. So Lord, we know you're here. Please take charge of this service. Bring glory to God, our Father. And Lord, I pray that our worship to you would be well received. We love you, Lord. Speak to our hungry hearts, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. In this passage of scripture, we have Simeon in the temple. I wanna give a little background here. We know that Mary and Joseph have just traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem. And the Bible will tell us in the Christmas story, Luke chapter two, verses one through 20, that there was a taxation in the day of Caesar and everyone had to go to their hometown. Well, because both Jacob, I mean, Joseph and Mary were both from the tribe of Jacob, excuse me, the tribe of Judah, they had to go to Bethlehem, which was the city of David. They went there as an engaged couple. They were a spouse, they were engaged. It's a little more firm in their culture. It was like a marriage before the actual marriage. And we know the story how the angel came and shared with Mary how she would have a child and that child would be the Messiah, Emmanuel meaning God with us. So they made this trip from Nazareth, which is about 15 miles from the Sea of Galilee, and they had to go 90 miles south, about five and a half miles south of Jerusalem to get to Bethlehem. Now, if you were to travel that today, which there's a lot of walking routes in Israel. I was there about two months ago and it's interesting to see so many people just walking through the countryside and many of them are are traveling the route that Jesus Christ experienced when he was on earth. And so sometimes they'll spend weeks, sometimes months, just walking around. And let me tell you, it's a very dry and arid place. You gotta carry your water with you, but they also had tents on their back and different things along those lines. Well, if you travel it today, it takes about 100 miles. because Israel has places where it's ruled by the Jews and then others that are ruled by the Palestinians. And if you wanna walk that route from Nazareth to Bethlehem, you wanna make sure that you walk around the land that's controlled by the Palestinians or you're gonna get a lot of trouble and may not be heard from again if you get in the wrong territory. But back in that day, it was a 90 mile trip Most scholars would say it took them about 10 days. Keep in mind that Mary is with child. And when they get to Bethlehem, the Bible's gonna tell us that she's great with child. And because of that, the days were accomplished that she should give fourth birth. Now, I don't think that they got to Bethlehem and the next night, you know, Mary goes into labor. I think even though Joseph was a young man, he was smart enough to know that you don't wait till the last week of labor or birth to start going 90 miles. My wife and I have had four children. I should say she had four children. But one of the things I would know is when that date is close, sometimes what a woman will do is she'll say, I'm gonna go walking around. And so you walk around, you have that movement. And the hopes is that that baby is going to get lined up and he's gonna drop, she or he's gonna drop and get ready for birth. And especially if your due date is coming along and you're thinking, oh man, I want to have that natural birth. I don't want to have a C-section or whatever. And so you'll get out there and you'll walk around. Let me suggest, if you go 90 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem, you will want to give birth. Because it's up and down and it's a hard journey. But I think they probably were there for many, many days, if not weeks before Christ was born, just because common sense would dictate you want to go. Now, I know that we always have this picture of Joseph walking, and then you have this donkey, and Jesus is, I mean, Mary's on the donkey with her child, and here they're going to Bethlehem. The only problem is if you read the story, you don't find the donkey. He's in every picture, but you know, apparently the author never read, the artist never read the Bible. The donkey's not in there. But they make that journey to Bethlehem. The Bible will say there's no room in the inn. We don't see anywhere in scripture there's an innkeeper. It just says there's no room in the inn. And so they have to find a place and they do. and birth is given and Jesus is laid in a manger. Now, Many times when we see that, we will see a replica maybe of a manger, a church will put on their front yard or maybe somewhere else and you see this wood slats and wood top and straw and you see all the animals around there. Well, missing from the Bible story is where Jesus was born. We don't know if it was a shed. We don't know if it was a cave. In fact, I would doubt it's a shed if you tour Israel right now, you're gonna find that very, very few of the buildings are built out of wood. There's not a lot of wood, there's no forest, there's no wood around there of any size at all. It's a very arid country and most of the trees have a lot of thorns on them or they're olive trees and they're for the purpose of money, making olives and olive oil. And so there's a lot of things that we see and we have these preconceptions that are not in the story that we find in Luke chapter two about the birth of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he lays him in a manger. Now it sounds fancy. It's almost like we think of a baby bed or something, but the word manger is a fancy word for feeding trough. So it was the feeding trough of an animal. We have a picture of Jesus being laid on straw in a manger. Of course, the straw is not mentioned in the Bible, so it's probably not there either. But they lay him in the feeding trough, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and baby Jesus is born. The shepherds have already come and they have worshiped baby Jesus. They see the child, they've come because of the announcement of the angel. And then they heard the heavenly host singing, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill to men. So they journeyed from there. When I was at Bethlehem about two months ago, we were standing there And we're looking out over a valley and then all of a sudden a shepherd with his sheep start coming up the hillside. And we thought maybe that's how it was. Maybe that's where they were. Well, chances are they were probably a little further out from Bethlehem. At night, they would gather all the sheep together and they'd all bed down and you'd watch over them to keep any wild animals from getting them. Sheep is, To any predator, sheep is just available food. They're harmless, they don't bark at you, they don't bite at you, they can't kick at you. And so they have to be protected by a shepherd or else they're gonna get all eaten up. In the daytime, they would never be in one place because sheep have to constantly be on the move. What happens is the sheep will actually eat grass to the ground, they'll eat it all the way. If you kept them in one area, they'd just eat it all and then they'd starve to death because they're not smart enough to travel on. So a shepherd is always pushing the sheep to new grass and new territory. It's interesting, the Bible calls us like sheep. All we like sheep have gone astray. We're dumb. You know, one thing I know about sheep, they're dumb, they're smelly. Hopefully we smell better than sheep, but we're not always very bright when it comes to spiritual things sometimes, and we need a shepherd as well, but that's why we have a good shepherd. His name is Jesus, and he guides our life, and he gives us wisdom and direction, and watches over us and protects us. That's what the good shepherd does. So here in this passage, have the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ taking place, and now eight days later, they're going into the temple. I wanna speak just a minute about the birth of our Savior. We come to this 25th of December, and we're worshiping the birth of our Savior called Christmas on that day. Now, I grew up with people saying, well, nobody really thinks it's December 25th. It's probably somewhere in the spring. It's probably somewhere along time. That's just a date that was picked out for Christians to be able to recognize the birth of Christ. And that's how I always thought. But it's interesting, if you'll research that, you'll find that they had some very good reasons for choosing that exact date. You see, the first man who came up with that deal, his name was Hippolytus, and he was from Rome. And he writes around the early third century. And what he says is, they assumed at the spring equinox, which in those days occurred March 25th. Now, today in our calendar, The spring equinox is somewhere between March 21, March 19th and March 21. But keep in mind, we have a Gregorian calendar, 365 days, where in the days of Jesus, they had a 360 day calendar. And so it'd fall on March the 25th. And they believe that that was the day that Jesus was conceived. And because that was the day that the angel spoke to Mary. And they believe that because there were festivals along those times. And nine months later from March 25th, add nine months, you come to December 25th. Now they also believe he was conceived on March the 25th because they also believe that that was the time of the crucifixion. Now you and I celebrate that as Easter, it's usually the end of March or early in April. We don't have an exact date, what we have is an exact time and depending on our calendar it goes from late March to maybe early April. It changes so much and most of us don't even know why it changes but it does. Back in those days, they believe that a great prophet died the same time he was conceived. And so they honestly believe that about Christ as well, that his conception was around March the 25th, because they believe that to be the timing of his death as well. Well, so Hippolytus, Hippolytus, that's quite an interesting name. I guess everybody called him Hippo for short. Well, that was early third century, but in early fourth century, we also had the writings of John Christensen, and he believed also that Jesus' birth was on the 25th of December. And he had different reasons though. He was saying that it was on Yom Kippur or Yom Kippur in early October is when the angel spoke to Zacharias because he was ministering in the temple for that reason, because it was a holy day, Yom Kippur. And from that day, they had 15 months to the birth of Christ. You see six months for John the Baptist, because when Gabriel spoke to Mary, remember that he said, your cousin Elizabeth, who is called Baron, is with child and has been for six months. And so Gabriel announced to Mary that she is going to be with child. And so she is, because she says, be it unto me, the handmaiden of the Lord, as thou has said. And then you add nine months more, and then you have the birth of Christ. So from that date in October, 15 months later is December 25th. So let me say there's good reason why they believe that. Now, another extra biblical reason is if you've ever done studies on the Bethlehem Star, which you can get on YouTube or different things like that, and they have programs where you can go back with astronomy and you can pinpoint the view of the skies at Bethlehem. And you can go back to the birth of Christ where you have the star Regulus and the planet Jupiter and Venus all come together. Well, certainly they're not together, but from one viewpoint in space, they've come together. And it's the brightest light. It does that once every 2000 years. Early in this century, early in the 2000, it did it again. And we got to see that. And I remember saying, that's the brightest star I've ever seen. That's not the North star. What is that? And one of our men who took astronomy in college said, well, pastor, that's the alignment of the star Regulus, the planet Jupiter. and the planet Venus coming together. And there's some science about that. I've already shared that on a Sunday night. But the thing is, from that time that they all came together would have been the conception of Christ that would have signaled the wise men of the special event. And the birth of Christ would take place nine months later. And they would come over, having seen the separation of Regulus and Jupiter and Venus, and seeing them just separating those months later. The wise men get there when Jesus is about a year and a half. So if you take the date of the stars, they say they all came together on December 1st. 25th, the birth of Christ. I said his conception earlier, I'm wrong on that. They all came together on that day 25th of December and representing the birth of Christ. Now whether that's true or not I don't know, but people who know a lot more about the subject than I do believe it is. Let's look at the day at hand. According to verse 25, they have come to the temple to do with Jesus after the law. Now, when I've always thought about that, you think about him coming into a building called the temple, but the reality is he's not in the temple, he's in the temple yard. As we were in Israel, we stood on the Temple Mount. There's no temple there, but we stood on the Temple Mount. We went through the museum of the temple, which shows how it used to be and shows how they hope that it will one day be again. And you have to realize that inside the temple, only the priests went. It's not like a church service. The temple was the place where God dwelt. And so nobody else went in that. Only God was there and the priest only went in at given times once in their lifetime to serve or minister in the temple and into the holy places only the high priest could go once a year and twice in that one day. one spreading blood for his own sin and then blood for the sins of the children of Israel. It was probably in what's called the temple court because it was there you would have the brazen altar and that's where people brought their sacrifices. It's also where he had the labor that the priests would have to wash their hands and feet before they even went into the temple. On the outside, there was a wall of fabric and on the outside was called the court of the Gentiles. So they never even got to see those things because the wall was tall enough, they couldn't look over it. They could only see the top of the temple. And that's as close as a Gentile could ever get. Well, on the eighth day, Joseph and Mary are taking their newborn child. They take that child for two reasons. Well, first of all, it's a man child. They're gonna circumcise that child according to Old Testament law. Also, they named the child on the eighth day. They didn't introduce the shepherd and say, oh, this is baby Jesus. They knew the name of the child, but you give the name of the child eight days later when you go to the temple to make a sacrifice, temple yard to make a sacrifice. Now, there were two sacrifices that were made on that day. The Bible's very clear in Exodus, excuse me, Leviticus chapter 12, it spells out these sacrifices. One sacrifice was for Mary. Because you see, when they gave birth, eight days later, they were to give a sacrifice. And it was like, it was a whole burnt offering. And in Leviticus, it says, she's unclean till that day. And at that day, she gives a sacrifice and now she's clean. And you say, well, that's clean and unclean. That's a Old Testament thing, but it's a very interesting study. And then the other was a sacrifice in thanksgiving for the child being born. In Leviticus chapter 12, there's two provisions. Usually it'd be a lamb that they would sacrifice, but if you were poor, the Old Testament law made a provision for those who were poor. And by the way, I don't know a young couple that doesn't start out poor. So if you're like that, you're in good company. That's how my wife and I started out. We were poor. I mean, we got married and we got in the car and we left. We didn't have a reception. We didn't have this. We didn't have that. Did we even have a, we had a cake. We didn't have a cake. Well, we were really poor. But by the way, I was happy driving away. I got a wife. Whoa, I'm happy. So all those things really don't make a lot of joy. But they were a poor couple. And because of that, they could offer two turtle doves or two young pigeons. Pigeons, a mature pigeon gets pretty big, but two young pigeons would be just little, almost like chicks that you'd get at Wilco or somewhere like that. And so they were, There were provisions for those who were poor. And so they've offered that sacrifice. They're there in the temple yard. And now the Bible says that Simeon is led by the Holy Spirit of God to this couple. Now, Simeon is a good man, a just man, the Bible says, a godly man. And he's also a man that is led by the Spirit of God. He did not have the indwelling Holy Spirit because that did not fall on any Christian until after the resurrection of Christ. The Spirit of God was upon him. Just like we read in about Samson, the Spirit of Lord would come upon him and he'd do great and mighty deeds. He did not have that indwelling Holy Spirit. But in verse 25, verse 26 and verse 27, The Bible mentions the Holy Ghost in verse 25 and 26, and in verse 27 it says, and the Spirit directed him. Now here's a man who doesn't have the indwelling Spirit, and yet the Spirit directs him. You and I who've placed our faith in Christ, we have the indwelling Holy Spirit. I would hope that we also have the Holy Spirit directing us. And if we yield to him, he will guide us and direct us all our life. And that's a wonderful thing to know as a believer. The Bible says, it is not in man that liveth to direct his steps. But it also says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not into thine own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy path. The Bible says the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he delighteth in his way. So God has a way of directing us and guiding us if we'll yield to his prompting and his leadership in our life. It's a wonderful truth for a believer. They've come to do for him after the law and Simeon sees the child and he goes over and he blesses the couple And then he picks up the child and he blesses the child. Now you have to understand that's an act of worship. He takes this baby Jesus. By the way, here's another interesting point. I have always imagined Simeon as being an old man picking up the child of this young couple and blessing it and holding it and saying, Lord, you can let me die now. I've seen the salvation. And so when I read it again, I kept looking for that phrase, old man, but it's not there. So we don't know how old Simeon was, do we? Not really. In our minds, we perceive him to be an old man. Now, Anna, that's a different thing. She is old. But Simeon is just a man the Spirit of God has said that his bucket list is gonna be fulfilled. He's going to get to see the Messiah. And the response is that he worships Christ, the child. He praises God for promises kept and the fact that he's seen the Prince of Peace. The Bible says he's been waiting for the consolation of Israel. We don't use that word consolation very often, and when we do, it means something totally different. In those days, consolation meant peace. He's waiting for the peace of Israel. He's waiting for the Messiah. Now, they did not understand the full meaning and mission of Messiah. They thought Messiah would bring back peace to Israel and make Israel again a prominent nation. What they misunderstood is the Messiah's task was not to be a savior of Israel, he was to be the savior of the world. Every country, every tribe, every tongue, all kindreds, The whole world can come to Christ because of his birth and his life and his death and his resurrection. And so now he worships this child. He says, mine eyes have seen the salvation. He makes an interesting statement. He talks about it. This child being a light to the Gentiles. And then he talks about the glory of Israel. Now, when he says the light of the Gentiles, that had to shock anyone who was in hearing distance because the Jews had nothing to do with Gentiles. And the very next verse says that Joseph and Mary marveled at his words. because they understood him to be the king of the Jews, but they did not understand salvation for the Gentiles as well. Wow. And that's a wonderful thing. You know, the same Jesus that Simeon was worshiping that day was the same Jesus we worship today. And do you realize that you and I have a more understanding of the mission of that babe that Simeon held in his arms? Because we know about his life. We know about his sacrificial death. We know about the crucifixion. We know about him being laid in the tomb. We know about his resurrection three days later. And we know that Jesus Christ will save our soul because we placed our faith in him. And so we have more reason to worship Christ than Simeon had because he had such a little understanding. Aren't you happy this morning all that Jesus has done for you? Could I just say this? If all he did was save your soul and never did another good thing in your whole life, that's enough. I'm going to heaven when I die. I'm excited about that. I get to be with Jesus forever and ever and ever and ever. And so whatever hardships I have to go through between now and then, that's okay. I got heaven waiting for me. forever in the presence of the Lord Jesus. If there's any people that ought to be more mindful to worship Christ, it ought to be each one of us that are believers. If you're a believer, you ought to have a heart of worship for our Savior. I mean, you ought to be thankful and grateful. By the way, the word worship means to show worth to, show worth. That's what the word worship means. It's to acknowledge to Christ what he means to you. That's worship. I know it's 12.15 and I've got to wrap up this sermon, but could I just say, could I have all of us just take a moment and bow our heads and close our eyes And in this moment, could you just talk to Jesus and tell him how valuable he is to you as a believer? Because that's called worship, showing him worth. Dear Jesus, we want to show you worth because you mean everything to us. We were sinners, we were undone, we were without the fold of God, we were not even known to God or we didn't know God, we weren't seeking Him. But Lord, by Your love and Your grace, You sought us out. And one day we heard the wonderful message of the gospel and we responded in faith. And because of that, we have an eternal relationship with you that will never die. Lord, we are thankful, we are grateful, and this morning we worship your holy name. We worship you for what you did for us. In your precious name we pray, amen. You see, Simeon worshiped baby Jesus, and then he also turned and gave a blessing to Joseph and Mary. More particularly to Mary, he said that he is for the rise and fall of many in Israel. For those who will trust him as their Savior, he is the rise of all who will trust him. To those who will reject him, he is the fall. You see, Jesus Christ not only changed history, that's why our calendars is B.C. and A.D. Now I know they try to change that because they don't wanna acknowledge Christ, but let me say the whole calendar of the whole world has been changed because of Jesus Christ and his birth. But he didn't come to change the calendar. He came to change lives. Save souls. We who were headed for hell are now headed toward heaven. And when we trust Christ as our Savior, that's the rise of many, because one day we're gonna go to heaven. But for those who reject Christ and have never trusted Christ when they die, it's the fall. Because that's what we all deserve. But the only way to escape that fall into hell is to have trusted Christ as your Savior. You know, you're in good company this morning. If you're here and you don't know Christ as your Savior, you are in the company of everyone else who at one time didn't know Christ as their Savior. But at some point in their lives and in my life, Jesus spoke to us and the Holy Spirit of God prompted us and we invited Christ into our life and it made all the difference. And so maybe you're here this morning and you've never trusted Christ as your savior. You know, the greatest gift that God gave the world was his son. But you have to receive that. See, the Bible says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. But you know something about a gift, you have to receive it. Many of you have Christmas presents already under the Christmas tree, but before that present can be redeemed, somebody has to unwrap it. Somebody has to receive the gift. Jesus Christ is the gift of eternal life. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. The Bible says, he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. But it's all our choice. The gift has been given you by God. He paid for it. Christ endured it so that you could have the gift of eternal life. All you have to do is be willing to receive it. He came into His own and His own received Him not, but as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. How do you receive the gift of eternal life? You say, I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe He's the Savior of the world. I accept Him and I ask Him to forgive me. If you want Christ in your life, The greatest Christmas you'll ever have begins today because you can invite him into your life. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Heads are bowed and eyes are closed. And I'm gonna lead you in a simple prayer where as a nine-year-old boy, I invited Christ in my life. It made all the difference. It saved my soul. But if you want Christ to be your savior, if you want to receive his gift, of eternal life. Would you just word a prayer like this? Say, dear Lord, I ask you to save me. Come into my heart and forgive me of my sin. I right now accept you as my personal savior. Please take me to heaven. When I die, thank you, Jesus, for saving me. Heads are bowed and eyes are closed all across this auditorium. I wouldn't embarrass anybody, but I would like to rejoice with you. I wonder if there's someone here this morning or several someones that would say, Pastor, I prayed that prayer and I meant it. And if that's true of you, would you just slip up your hand and slip it right back down? God bless you, sir. God bless you. God bless you. Thank you so much. God bless you. Are there any others? Several people. God bless you. Wonderful. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time. that we can think about the birth of our Savior. I pray, dear Father, that you'll bless, as we have this invitation, a time where people can make profession of faith, a time where people could follow you in baptism, which you've commanded all Christians to partake of, a time that people could join a church, dear Lord, We're not the only church, but we're a good church. And Lord, you want every Christian to be identified with a local church. And so I pray that the Holy Spirit of God has spoken to some hearts and that today we would see decisions that are pleasing to you, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let's all stand on our feet. We're singing Just As I Am without one plea. And if God's speaking to your heart and there's a spiritual decision that you need to make this morning, would you come while we sing? How about you this morning? Let God do something in your heart. Let Christ do something in your life. Heads are bowed and eyes are closed and Christians are praying. Let God do something in your life. Let God speak to your heart. What is it that Christ wants to do in your heart, in your life? Others are making a decision for the Savior. How about you? Are you willing to commit that life to Jesus Christ? Let God speak to your heart let God do something in your life to be pleasing to the Savior God bless you may be seated Leslie Wilson came this morning to profess faith in Christ and then also follow the Lord in believers baptism and then also asking to be placed in membership here at Grandview Baptist Church. So in just a little while, we'll see them get baptized and we'll be able to vote into the membership of our church. Let me just mention that when you trust Christ as your Savior, the very next step is baptism. Now, I don't know if When I got saved as a nine-year-old boy, our church did not have a baptistry. And so I got baptized two weeks later because we had to make an arrangement with the church to use their baptistry. My pastor made all that arrangement and so I got baptized two weeks later. In the New Testament, you're gonna find that the day they got saved is the day they got baptized. And if you wonder how much they meant that, you're gonna find the Philippian jailer, remember Paul and Silas singing at midnight? They went to the Philippian jailer's house, their whole house got saved, and then the whole house got baptized that night. They probably thought it ought to happen right after you get saved. So the whole idea of getting saved and waiting for months or sometimes years, you don't find that anywhere in the Bible. And sometimes people will say, well, I want to make sure I understand baptism. Well, I've been a Christian for a lot of years. All I know is Christ told us to be baptized. I do know that the Bible says it represents the death, the burial, and resurrection of Christ. Buried in the likeness of His death, raised in the likeness of His resurrection. So baptism doesn't make you a Christian. It just announces to people that you have received Christ as your Savior. So it's showing outwardly through a death, burial, resurrection illustration. that you have inwardly trusted in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in your heart. So that's what it means. And then also let me encourage every Christian to be a part of a local church. Maybe you're visiting from out of town or out of state, or maybe you're in the local area. Grandview Baptist Church is just one of many good churches around. Just one of many. There's many, many good churches. But every Christian belongs in some church. And Jesus Christ wants you in a church. And by the way, not in five or six churches. He wants you in one. No more than he wants you to marry five or six wives, or five or six husbands. He has one for you. And the home is a picture of the church. That's what Ephesians chapter five, we hear the teaching about the home, but the home is the illustration. He says, I speak of the mystery of Christ in the church. So he's talking about a one-on-one relationship. You never get strong transplanting yourself from this church, this church, this church. It's always better to find one. make it your home, put down some roots, grow in the Lord. And it may not be here, but I do know the Holy Spirit will let every believer know where that is. And when you find that, put some roots down and grow in the Lord. You'll be a great blessing to the cause of Christ.