In John chapter 3, it's an old favorite passage of scripture, obviously, where Nicodemus comes to the Lord Jesus Christ by night. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, the ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God. For no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of the water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. so is everyone that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen, and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation that light has come into the world. And men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father, we thank you once again, just for a chance to come back to an old familiar passage of scripture. One, Father, that touches our hearts each time we read it and we sit back and contemplate and think about this man, this ruler of the Jews, Nicodemus. Pray that you might take the words of your book and minister to the hearts and the minds of each and every one that's here this morning. You are a great God, Father. You deserve to be worshipped and praised. And, Father, you deserve to be followed. So pray that you'd help us this morning. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Like I said, a very familiar passage of scripture, one that you can probably, for the most part, probably quote from memory. You've heard it so many times, and that's a good thing. But it's, nonetheless, it's a, you know, it's a fundamental and a great part of scripture to keep going back to. And every time you kind of glance at it and look at it, you, you know, sometimes you see it from different angles. There's a lot of different ways you could preach the passage. But this morning I'd like to focus on just three things, three simple things that Nicodemus did that changed the course of his life. There are three steps that he took that you and I can take that change our eternal destiny. And that's what I want to preach on this morning. So I titled this message very simply, Three Steps to a Better Eternity. I hope that you live your life with eternity in mind. I hope that you, on a regular basis, just contemplate the fact that you're gonna live forever somewhere. I know most of you do, and that's a good thing. If you don't, if that doesn't run across your mind on a regular basis, I'm not saying you should think about it every moment of the day, because that would be impossible, but it should affect every moment of your day. And if that's not the case, folks, now's the time to start. Now's the time to think ahead. Now's the time to think about eternity. Because the reality is every one of us is gonna face eternity somewhere, heaven or hell, right? And we'll spend our eternity in heaven or in hell reaping what we've done and what we've sown in this life. Amen? Amen. That is, what you choose now shapes your eternity. All right? Rather it is rewards or rebuke. Rather it is praises or prizes or punishment. Or rather it is precious stones or poverty. If you're saved or lost, it affects you equally. The things we do now affect our eternity. Amen? And those are the things that we need to keep in mind because sometimes in this life we get so caught up in the day-to-day routine and the responsibilities and the pressures And the weight that's put on our shoulders, sometimes we set spiritual things aside, we know them, but we don't consider them like we ought. And so I was looking through here and I came across three simple things, three simple things that you can do to improve your eternity. Three simple things, or three steps, to a better eternity, you might want to say. I guess this was before alcoholics and non-onus, and they got started with only three steps. There's not seven. So this should technically be easier. Amen? But three simple steps. And the first step is kind of obvious. But the first step is simply this. Come and listen. It says there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. And what did he do? The same came to Jesus by night. I mean, Nicodemus was going about his business. He was going about his life. And he was obviously a ruler. And he heard tell that there's this guy, Jesus, who's going around. And he knew something about him. He knew about him. He must have heard the stories. In fact, when he approached him, he said, hey, no man can do the miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. So he had some knowledge about Jesus Christ. And he took that. And the first thing that he did, folks, is he sat back and he goes, you know what? I'm going to go see for myself. I'm going to come to the Lord Jesus Christ and I'm going to find out for myself what he has to offer. Listen, I hope that in your daily life you have a desire to come to God on a regular basis. Amen? The most important thing for you in the world is not the next pay raise. although that would be nice. The most important thing for you in the world is not the next house or the next automobile or the next promotion. Those things are nice, those things are grand, and there's nothing wrong with those things in and of themselves, but the most important thing for you and I in this world is coming to the Lord Jesus Christ and sitting at His feet and finding out more about Him. Amen? Listen, coming to Jesus Christ, folks, it changes your life. It changed Nicodemus' life, right? I promise you it will change your eternity if you put that time and that effort into the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen, when Nicodemus came, I want you to know that he didn't come and have all his ducks in a row, so to speak. Nicodemus had doubts about, hey, what's going on here? Well, is this really gonna work? How does this all plan out? He said, hey, he came to him by night, right? There was a little bit of hesitation. He's like, But he overcame that and he came to see the Lord and he said, you know, hey, I know there's something going on here because, you know what? I see all this stuff going on. I see all these prayers being answered. I see God working in people's lives. I see God moving in different ways. And I see, I know God is at work. No man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him. Now I'll grant you it may have been a little easier in the flesh to see it because Jesus was walking around town healing people and raising them from the dead and that sort of thing. But for you and I, listen, we have the same thing. You've seen God move in people's lives. Amen? You've seen God answer prayer. You know God is real. You've seen God provide things that people thought there was no way that was going to happen. Right? And so you and I, you know, we've seen, and I know that we live by faith, we walk by faith and not by sight, that's true. But even with that, we've seen God move in a lot of different ways. Not only that, we have the Bible, and we have the Bible, and that Bible builds our faith, and as we read through, we read about the miracles that he did, and that, again, adds to our faith, and builds our faith, and strengthens our faith, and the reality is, is we have no reason not to come and listen to God. Amen? When Billy Graham was a teenager, The reality, folks, he wasn't really interested in church. You may find that hard to believe. I don't know how much you know about him. But he grew up during the Great Depression on a dairy farm near Charlotte, North Carolina. And as a teenager, he said, I grudgingly attended church with his family. his family would have Bible reading and Bible devotions and pray and they would, you know, sing and quote Psalms. And he said, I just, it left me restless. I just wasn't all that interested in it. That may be kind of hard to believe. But in May of 1934, there was a Christian business group in North Carolina, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and that group of men got together and they happened to go to William Graham's seniors, his dad's farm, and out in his field, they had a big prayer meeting that went on. And there was a whole bunch of men that got together in that town, and they began praying. And those men, Billy Graham's father had told him, he said, one of the men in that group prayed something to the effect that, God, would you raise up somebody out of this town that would reach the world for Jesus Christ? Billy Graham said, it certainly wasn't obvious to me that someday that would be me. He wasn't interested. The local pastors, that Christian men's club, they got together and they invited Dr. Mordecai Ham, very famous evangelist, preacher. He was coming to town, they booked him, and he came in and set up a revival meetings, and there were thousands that flocked to hear it at the tabernacle that was built especially for this meeting. It had like a sawdust floor. He came into town and he preached six days a week, morning and night, for 11 weeks. And some of you get tired after three or four days with a quote, revival. So when Brother Spurgeon comes in and it's quote, busy and you've got other... Twice a day, six days a week for 11 weeks. I'm sure they took Sunday off to go to church. Right? That would be my guess. Maybe they took Monday off. I don't know. But they invited Dr. Mordecai Hamm in. And he came in and held those meetings. And he said, Billy Graham said this. He said, everything I heard about him made me feel antagonistic. He said, I was just antagonistic towards the whole thing. He said, you know, it sounded like a religious circus to me. He wasn't interested. His parents attended the meeting. but it didn't rub off on Billy. He was about to turn 16 years old and he said that, he told his parents this, he said, I don't want anything at all to do with that evangelist. Particularly with somebody as colorful as Mordecai Ham. He told his parents, he said, no, I'm not going to hear him. Pretty wild, isn't it? A while later, his interest got kind of peaked. And the reason his interest got peaked is because Dr. Ham was preaching on the high school students. And during the preaching meetings, he began preaching against some of the high school students who were participating in immoral activities. He had found out that there was a house right across the street from the high school that a bunch of the high school students were going to on lunch, supposedly to get lunch. But he said there was some immoral things going on under the house, and he began preaching against it. And a bunch of the high school students, they got angry. They didn't like it. And so they all banded together, and they thought, you know what? Let's go tear up these meetings. Let's go to these meetings. Let's cause a big ruckus. Let's go to these meetings and stir up some trouble. And if we get a chance to thump the preacher, then all the much better. Well, Billy Graham got word that this was going to happen. And he thought to himself, oh, now that I'd like to see. Right? That's why he wound up going to the revival meeting. I mean, teenagers, you thought everybody, you know, all these old time people, they were all holy their whole life and they never thought that way before. Oh yeah, no, they were just like you, just like me, just like everybody else. He thought, this is gonna be fun, I'm gonna go watch this. And so he wound up, you know, long story short, he wound up, he went to see. he came to see Dr. Mordecai Ham. But that's the background. That's the background for how he got there. He thought, oh, somebody told him that this guy was a fighter. And he thought, I'd like to see that. I'd like to see it. But then he had a problem because he told his parents he wasn't going to go. And these meetings had been going on for over a month, and he had absolutely refused to go. One of his friends invited him out and told him that he could take his truck, a big vegetable truck. So Billy Graham wound up gathering a whole bunch of his friends on the back of this truck, and they all headed into town to watch this big event that was going to happen when supposedly the high school students were going to raise a big ruckus. And he said this. He said, I have no recollection of what he preached about. He said, but I was spellbound. He said, in some, this is what he said, in some indefinable way, he was getting through to me. I was hearing another voice. The voice of the Holy Spirit. You know what Nicodemus did when he got to that point? He heard about everything that was going on and he saw some of these things that were happening. And you know what he did? He just took the time to go see for himself. Amen? Hey, you wanna change your eternal destiny? Saved or lost, right? Saved or lost, hey, come and see what the Lord Jesus Christ is doing. Right? That's how Billy Graham started, was he didn't even wanna go. He just decided to go and see what was happening. He had plenty of doubts about this whole, quote, religious thing. But when he gave it an opportunity, the Lord was able to reach down and touch his heart. The Lord was able to do something in his heart, and folks, you know the rest of the story. It changed the world around. Hey, has the Lord done something in your life? Has the Lord worked in your life? Is there something going good or bad in your life that maybe it's the Lord trying to get you to come and see? See, that's where Billy Graham was. Right? He wasn't really interested, but the Lord did something. The Lord arranged this weird set of circumstances. You would have never guessed it. But I tell you what it did, it got him to go, hey, you know what? Maybe I'll listen. He just came and he heard. Hey, maybe the Lord's pricked your conscience about something. And you know all he wants from you? That first step? Hey, that first step to a better eternity for you? All he wants from you is just for you to come in here. Just take step one. Just get started. You say, well I don't know, I'm afraid of what's gonna happen. Okay. Just take step one. You want a change in eternity? I promise you it's gonna be for the better. Just give the Lord a chance and just take that step of opening up and coming and hearing. Maybe the Lord's dealing with you about your sin, about stopping or starting something, and maybe the Lord is getting all over you about some of those things. Hey, you know what the best thing that you can do is? Is just give the Lord a chance to speak to you. It's not rocket science. It's just, hey, come in here. Amen? First thing, step number one, Nicodemus did it. Billy Graham did it. They just came and they heard. You never know what's gonna happen on any given day. Any given service, the Lord can reach down and touch your heart and help you in that place where you need it. And change some things around in your life that will make your eternity far better. Amen? Second thing that Nicodemus did, second step that he took, and that is once you've allowed yourself to come and listen, hey, okay, I'm here. Now what? The second thing that Nicodemus did is this. He just, he contemplated what he heard. Nicodemus engaged with the Lord Jesus Christ, and he starts asking questions. He's kind of inquisitive. He's like, hey, tell me more about this. Give me some more information. What's going on here? How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? How can these things be? Nicodemus, he came, and he heard, but after that, it didn't stop there. That first step sparked the second step, which is, hey, what's this all about? He had enough interest that he began to kind of engage back and forth and have a little bit of dialogue. It meant something to him. He had a little bit invested in it, right? It doesn't do any good at all if you come in here and then you just kinda... Right? That's not gonna get you anywhere. Right? Now, that happens. And hey, I worked night shift for 30 years. I understand falling asleep in church. Believe me, if anybody understands, I've told you this before, I think the Lord put me behind the pulpits to keep me from falling asleep in church. I'm just telling you the truth. My sleep schedule is so messed up for so many years, I literally can sleep standing up. I have done it before. That's an impressive feat. But the reality is, folks, if you come and you hear, you know what, if you come with that mindset, ho hum, you know, forget it. It's not really going to help. Nicodemus went and he started talking to the Lord and you know what, he began to take this little interest in that Hey, what about that? I mean, I love it when people come up and ask questions afterwards. Or just in general, you're sitting around talking and people have questions. That shows they're engaged. It shows, hey, they're thinking and I don't necessarily have all the answers and that doesn't matter. But being engaged is the key. You know what, the Lord took note of that in Nicodemus. The Lord took note of that and said, oh, here's a guy that's actually got some interest. It makes a big difference. Hey, three steps to a better eternity. Number one, you just gotta get there and hear. But after you hear step number two, you know what you gotta do? You gotta start contemplate what you've been listening to. Think about what you've been hearing. Hey, is there any merit to this? How can these things be, Lord? Can a man enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? I don't get it, that doesn't even make sense. What on earth are you talking about? Hey, I know no man can do these miracles that you're doing, except God's with him, and he's genuinely got a little bit of interest. You know, nothing can replace a little bit of zeal or interest or at least questions when it comes to the workings of God. Amen? Far better than coming and sitting there like a lump on a log. Right? Looking at your phone. Hopefully you don't have anything so important somebody's calling you during the middle of church. Now I will admit there's once in a while where, you know, I've had my phone up here because there's been something going on just in case that something major did happen. It's always possible. But that's a rare exception. And when the Lord saw that Nicodemus was contemplating what he was hearing, you know what that caused Jesus Christ to do? All of a sudden the narrative of this whole thing shifts. And the Lord starts focusing on the guy that's asking questions. I mean, Jesus Christ is out talking to a whole group of people, you got all this stuff going on, all of a sudden you got one guy comes to him and he's got questions, and you know what the Lord does? The Lord now takes and focuses all of his attention on Nicodemus and says, okay Nicodemus, I'm gonna have a conversation with you. Wouldn't you like the Lord to do that for you? Wouldn't you like for the Lord during a service or during your Bible reading or something to just set aside some time so that He can commune with you individually? Well, I mean, who wouldn't love that? Right? How do you get that? Well, first you gotta go listen. Come and see. And then you just have to actually just think about what it is that you're being told. Contemplate. Contemplate what you hear. Nicodemus engaged and the Lord focused his entire attention on Nicodemus for a while. And we've got, I mean, it's not a whole chapter, but the big part of a whole chapter of scripture just on that one conversation. How would you like to have your conversation with the Lord recorded in the Bible for that lengthy of a conversation? That'd be amazing. Say, how do you get God's attention? Well, you come and listen. And then you contemplate what you hear. Okay, Lord, how do I apply that to me? How does that make my life any different? How does what I read about with Jeremiah, or Ezra, or Nehemiah, or Moses, or Nicodemus, or somebody else in the Bible, how is it that when I read about that particular character, how does that have any impact on me, and how can that help me in my life? And the Lord begins to take an interest, because you're interested, and he begins to show you how it can help. Billy Sunday was a professional baseball player. He was, you guys like those uniforms? Pretty impressive, right? I can't quite tell the one on the left, but look at the one on the right. His professional baseball photograph, he's wearing a tie. I don't know if they wore that during the game or not, but That's pretty impressive. But he was born in Iowa in 1862. His father died in the Civil War and his family was poor. They were in dire straits and Billy lived in a in Iowa in a soldier's orphan's home for a few years, and kind of ran across this ability that he had to play baseball. He was kind of athletic and he was quick. When he was 14 years old, he began supporting himself, working on a farm and doing odd jobs. When he was 18, he was recruited for a fire brigade baseball team in Marshalltown, Iowa. within three years he was playing professional baseball with the Chicago White Stockings. Cap Anderson, the Chicago White Sox, heard of him and decided to give him a tryout. And he asked him to have a foot race with a guy named Fred Fetter, who was the fastest man in the National League at the time. Barefooted, Billy Sunday beat him in a 100-yard dash by 15 feet. That was the fastest man in the National League at the time. They said during his career, he stole 94 bases in 116 games. And he became the first player ever able to run the bases in 14 seconds. It'd take me 14 minutes. He wound up as a professional baseball player. They say he wasn't a real great hitter, but he was fast. And he got on base. He was good at stealing bases. And that's what he was good at. But in 1886, he was in Chicago. And he stopped on a Chicago street corner to listen to an evangelistic team from the Pacific Garden Mission. Isn't that something? and uh... they were singing hymns and uh... you know they were in he remembered some of those hims from when he was a child his mother used to sing him and uh... you know he wrestled with god for a while he didn't he didn't get saved right away but he wound up going back and he wound up going back to the pacific guard mission for a service later on and wound up sitting down with the director's wife and she wound up leading him to christ but he had that time from where he was uh... where he was introduced to it he heard and then he actually sat back and he thought about it for a while Right? It takes, folks, you hear something from the word of God, it takes a little bit of time to sink in sometimes. Amen? It's not like you hear it once and automatically poof, you're super Christian. It takes some work. It takes some effort. It takes time to kind of get ingrained in your, you know, your DNA needs to undergo some genetic changes. Right? So he heard that group on the street corner, and it prompted him, and he listened, and he began to listen. Finally, after that contemplation, he submitted his life to Christ, and his teammates and his fans noticed the change. He was kind of a rascal before. He denounced drinking, swearing, and gambling. made a change in his life. And he began to attend church on a regular basis. That's where he met Nell, who he married in 1888. In 1891, he was offered a professional contract in baseball somewhere, you're gonna laugh at this, guys, somewhere between $3,500 and $5,000 a year to play baseball. Now, that was 1891. That was a lot of money back then. Instead, he refused it, and he went to work at the YMCA for 83 bucks a month. And so started the evangelist Billy Sunday. Later in John chapter 7, you can see that Nicodemus has been contemplating that conversation he had back with Jesus Christ in John chapter 3. And he goes to the feast, and Jesus Christ is at the feast, and it says, in the last days, In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood up and cried, saying, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. And Christ was preaching, and the people were listening to him, and some of the Pharisees and officers were there listening to him, and they were kind of bantering back and forth. The people were divided. Some said, wow, this guy's amazing. This guy's great. Others said, I don't know. Right? I don't know about him. Some said, hey, nobody ever spoke like this before. The Pharisees popped up. Hey, what are you? Right? Who do you think you are? Because obviously the Pharisees didn't like him. Well, Nicodemus was a Pharisee. But he had been back there, he had been contemplating this stuff in the back of his mind. He'd been watching. He'd been watching what was happening with Jesus Christ. He'd been watching the Christians around him and seeing how God worked in their life and he's going, hmm, yeah, God's doing something. And when those Pharisees started to kind of raise up against Jesus Christ, Nicodemus stopped and said, hey, excuse me, he said, right? He said, is it right to condemn somebody before we hear him? By this time he's been thinking about it and he's willing to stand up against his peers for the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course they turned on him and said, are you going to be one of his disciples too? You know, changing eternity, one step at a time. First, you got to just come where you can hear. Second, you have to sit back and think about it. And that thing starts mulling over in your head, and you've got to decide, hey, what are you going to do with your life? Where do you take your life from here? Hey, what is next? Right? Okay, Lord, I've heard and I'm learning some things. Well, hey, what happens next? Where's the Lord trying to take you? And if you never get to that place where you begin asking those questions, you never begin to contemplate those things, you never begin to ask the Lord, hey, Lord, where is it you would like me to go from here? Listen, it doesn't matter how young or old you are, right? Obviously, when you're younger, there's a lot more time in general. When you're older, there's maybe less time, but you still have, what are you gonna be doing for the Lord tomorrow? Hey, what does the Lord want me to do? How am I supposed to take all of this and incorporate this whole Christian thing into my life? And right away you think, well, you know, maybe the Lord called you to be a pastor, a missionary. Great, that's a great thing. But that's not everybody. So you need to ask that question even if that's not you. Now, especially if you're young, you need to open yourself up and say, okay, well, Lord, maybe, maybe that's me. You ever thought about it? Hey, is it me? Would the Lord like that out of somebody? I don't know. That's above my pay grade. But I know this, I know that if you come and you hear, and then you start contemplating, I know the Lord begins to take notice and spend some special time with you, and then he begins to open up some doors, and the Lord begins to put things in motion and goes, hey, hey, there's somebody right there who's interested. Right? It's not enough just to hear. You gotta contemplate, you gotta think, you gotta mull it over. You have to ask yourself, hey, how does this thing apply to me? And finally, well, Billy Sunday said this, he said, going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to the garage makes you an automobile. I thought that was pretty cool. Three steps to a better eternity. You come and you listen. Then you begin to contemplate what you've heard. You begin to ask, hey, how does this affect me? Hey, how do these things that I'm learning about, these stories I'm reading, these sermons I'm hearing, this Bible that I'm reading, how does that affect me? Lord, what are you doing in my life? And you begin to think about those things. You begin to open yourself up and say, okay, Lord, would you show me what you're doing? Would you give me direction? So you come and you listen, you contemplate what you've heard, and then finally you either convert if you're lost, or you commit yourself unto the Lord if you're saved. If you're lost here this morning, the Lord Jesus Christ brings you to that place, and you hear, and you begin to ask yourself, hey, is that about me? And it's my sin, like I said, we're talking about a better eternity. If you're lost, your eternity right now is destination is hell, forever and ever. Well, there's a better eternity than that. Amen? And if you're lost, you begin to realize that. You begin to realize, hey, that's not the eternity I want. And then you begin to contemplate it. You begin to think about it. And you go, OK, how does that apply to me? How can I do things different? And the Lord will show you. And the Lord will take you to a cross on Calvary some 2,000 years ago. where a man who was God shed his blood to forgive you of your sins. And the Lord will show you that, and the Lord will take you to that cross, and he'll make you to realize, hey, you don't deserve it, but God loved you enough anyway to die for you. For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And you'll realize, you'll realize Calvary was for you. And when you decide to put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, listen, your eternity changes for the better instantly. Let's say you're saved here this morning. You already have a home in heaven. You already have eternity settled as far as a destination, heaven or hell. Right? What happens to your eternity. Boy, hey, listen, if you're saved here this morning, you know what the Lord's looking for you? That third step for you is to take that step of committing yourself to Jesus Christ. Okay, I'm saved, but you know what? The Lord's after more than that. Right? The Lord's after everything about you. Right? The Lord is after your whole life and every aspect of your life. And the Lord is waiting for you to commit to Him in every aspect. And you get to that place where you say, okay, Lord, you know what? I'm going to commit everything I have. I'm gonna commit when I choose my spouse, when I choose my job, when I choose my hobbies, when I choose my friends, how I spend my time, how I spend my money, how I spend my energy. When all those decisions come up in life, I'm gonna default back and remember, hey, I'm committing my life to the Lord, and the Lord's gonna come in in every one of those decisions. You see, you've came, you heard, you sat back, you contemplated a little bit, and then the third step of changing your eternity is you begin to take those things that you've contemplated about, you begin to see the benefit of following Jesus Christ, you begin to integrate them into every aspect of your life, and as you do that, your life changes, your Christianity changes, and you begin, literally, you begin living closer with the Lord, and you begin you begin reaping rewards and earning rewards at the judgment seat of Christ. You change your eternity because you've put forth this, you know, we call it, in this, you know, point, you've committed your life to God. You know, a lot of people do, Christians, they hear, they contemplate, but when it comes right down to actually taking that step of jumping off the cliff and doing something, they... it's too big of a jump. I'd rather stay back here where it's comfortable. I'd rather stay back here where it's comfortable. We've talked about salvation, taking that jump, but that's not what Billy Graham did. That's not what Billy Sunday did. They heard. They contemplated for a while. And folks, the Lord got a hold of their heart. And you know what they did? Hey, they committed. You know what they just simply said? They said, OK, Lord. All right. From here on out, I'm yours. It didn't happen instantaneously overnight. It took some time. But they made that decision to make that commitment. And Billy Sunday winds up this crazy wild evangelist, touching peoples all over. Somebody said this about him. He said he preached with all his might. He walked an average of one and a half miles during a sermon on a 30-foot platform. I mean, that's pretty amazing. I mean, you might as well get your workout while you're up on the pulpit, Pastor Jim. How many steps do I got here? One and a half miles on a 30-foot pulpit? And they said this, they said it wasn't simply walking, it was running, sliding, jumping, falling, throwing himself around the platform. They said he usually did not remain in one spot or one position for more than 30 seconds. When he was not pounding the pulpit, he would stand one foot on the pulpit, one foot on the top of the back of a chair. At the right moment, he'd leap down onto the platform. He'd pick up a chair and bring the chair back and set it down. Sometimes he'd pick up a chair and break it in just a dozen pieces. I mean, I'd try to do that with one of those chairs, Brother Sean, but... You need some old-time wooden chairs for the right effect. Because if I grabbed it, it went pink, and it went boing, and just kind of bounced a little bit, it just wouldn't have the same effect. But if you notice one that's cracked one day, let me know. You take Billy Graham, you know, he starts off as this teenager who's not interested at all. He doesn't want to go to church. He doesn't like family Bible study. He doesn't like family devotions. You know, the preacher comes to town. He's like, he tells his parents, no, I'm not going. And then some things change around. And you know what the Lord does? The Lord comes down and gets him contemplating, gets him to come in here. And then the Lord begins to work in his life. And folks, things completely changed. Because he gave the Lord a little bit of an opening. He wasn't really interested in it at the first. But you never know what God's gonna do. Now God didn't take everybody at that meeting and make them a Billy Graham. But he sure did it for Billy Graham. I bet he took everybody at that meeting, for those that were willing and those that were willing to commit. I bet he did something with every one of them. There's no telling what God's going to do with you. Something small, something big, either one of them is possible. But the main thing is, hey God, do with me what you want, big or small, I don't care. Just do something with me so that I can have a better eternity. For Christians, we're looking at the judgment seat of Christ. We're looking at, hey, when we go step off into eternity, are we going to wind up being paupers? Or are we going to have plenty of rewards to show for our service to Jesus Christ? Right? It's all about our eternity. And I'd just like to ask you this morning, what do you plan for your eternity? Billy Sunday and Billy Graham, two great examples of some men that started off very hesitant, didn't really want much at all to do with it. Completely different world. But they just gave the Lord a little bit of chance. They went and heard. They started contemplating about what they heard. And then, folks, here's the key. They got down to that place at the end. And you know what they did different than most people? They made a commitment. They said, OK, Lord, you got me. I don't know what you're going to do with me. I don't know where this is going to go. I'm not even sure that I completely like it. But you got me. Amen. Romans 6.22, I think I put it up there a little bit earlier, says, and now being made free from sin and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. You want to change your eternity? You want to change your eternity? Hey, make that commitment. I don't know what it is. You probably don't know what it is. The Lord very seldom shows you what it is before you make the commitment. But I promise you this, if you make that commitment like Nicodemus, Nicodemus winds up at the cross. Right? He winds up at the cross, and what is it, Joseph of Arimathea? He's carrying the Lord's cross. Nicodemus shows up with him, and he's, after the crucifixion, and he shows up, and he's bringing 100 pounds of spices for the burial. And he's sold out, man. He wasn't sure at first, he came by night. But at the end, by the end, by the time this whole thing gets done, he's committed, right? He heard it, he contemplated it, he thought about it, he had some pressure from his peer Pharisees, and he overcame that. And by the end of this whole thing, he's completely on board. And when everybody else is scattering from the Lord Jesus Christ, he's there bringing the spices for his burial. A hundred pounds. You know, you bring those bags of salt in for your water softener. Hey, that's two and a half of those bags. All because he chose to make a commitment. You never know where it's going to take you. Couple things about commitment, and I'm done here. Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality. I thought that was pretty good. Abraham Lincoln said that. Without commitment, you cannot have depth in anything, whether it's relationship, a business, or a hobby. A lot of truth in that, too. Here's another one. It takes deep commitment to change and even deeper commitment to grow. That's pretty good. And here's one. Don't look at who it's from. Just read the quote. Just leave that alone. Your commitments can develop or destroy you, but either way, they will define you. Hey, it's a good thing. Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality. I thought that was pretty good. Decide, commit, focus, succeed. Here's the reality and I'm done. The reality is, every one of us has got an eternity coming ahead. And Nicodemus found three steps to a better eternity. Right? He just came and he heard. He listened. Just come and listen. Step number two, he just began to think about, contemplate what he had heard. mull it over in his head, hey, how does it affect me? How can I integrate all this stuff that I'm hearing into my life to make my life better? To make my life more pleasing to the Lord? And then the Lord opens some things up and shows you, and then that third step, brethren, that third step is what gets most people. That third step is what Nicodemus did, is he committed himself. what Billy Sunday did, what Billy Graham did, and anybody else. Many of you here at that stage, you've committed yourself to the Lord, and you're not going back. Praise the Lord for that. Right? But that third step, that third step, and it's good to be around people that have made that decision. I know you guys are here through thick and thin, right? You love the Lord, you're committed to the Lord, praise the Lord for that. That third step is, all right, Lord, Whatever you've got for me. I'm gonna do it Come and listen contemplate what you hear if you're lost convert if you're saved commit Commit amen Would you have the courage to commit As the Lord been trying to get you to commit I Most people are hesitant at first. Don't think there's some magic with some of these pastors and evangelists that have gone on before us. Hey, they suffered from the same struggles you suffer from. The difference is, when they got down to that final step, they made the jump. Right? They jumped down. They made the jump. Right? If I could, I'd do a, you know, it's, I mean, it's not me. I'm not a professional baseball player. I do the Billy Sunday thing. I put my foot up on the pole, but before, right? Commit. My wife's shaking her head, no. Oh, I will. Not a problem. Hey, I committed to doing that. No, just kidding. Hey, what does the Lord want you to commit? Really, folks, that's what it's all about. Take that final step. I promise you, you'll have a better eternity. Let's bow for a word of prayer. Father, we thank you again. You're a great God. You certainly are a holy God. And Father, you took the time to sit down and have kind of this one-on-one conversation with Nicodemus, somebody that just did all these three points. He had enough interest to come here. He had enough heart to think about what he heard. And then he had enough character, Father, to commit and to make that step. I pray that each and every one of us would have the same attributes as Nicodemus. Lord, I don't know what you're going to do with each and every one of us, and the reality is it doesn't matter. As long as we're doing what it is that you've chosen to do with us, we're in your will. So Father, help us to make that third step that's so difficult for people to make. That step of commitment. I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.