We are in Ezekiel chapter 36 in this room together today. Ezekiel chapter 36 verses 24 through 32. Doug just sang about breaking the heart of stone, and we're going to see where God does that for Israel in this chapter. You know, there's one of the most famous verses in all the Bible. You'll see it at a football game once in a while. I think a guy with a rainbow wig will be standing behind the end zone with John 3.16 written on a poster. Wonderful verse of Scripture. 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. John chapter 3 and verse 16 occurs within a context that is fascinating to me, both for some of the things that we know and some of the things we don't know. There's a man in John 3 who had come to Jesus, a Pharisee, who Jesus later called not a teacher of Israel, but the teacher of Israel. Par excellence. This man had a reputation. His name was Nicodemus He came to Jesus by night in John chapter 3 and even as we think about Ezekiel chapter 36 My mind goes to John chapter 3 because of the exchange there Nicodemus came to him and said rabbi We know that you are a teacher come from God for no one can do these signs that you do Unless God is with him It's quite a statement from Nicodemus the teacher of Israel. No man can do these things Except God be with him Jesus comes right out with it and he says to him in the next verse Most assuredly I say to you Nicodemus unless one is born again He cannot see the kingdom of God Nicodemus said to him How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb? Now, we might ridicule Nicodemus here, but don't. The man is smart, okay? He is the teacher of Israel. He knows that a man cannot go into his mother's womb. I mean, he's old enough to know these things. Nicodemus is a Jewish scholar. He's saying okay. You made an assertion about the kingdom of God you use the metaphor of being born again Let's play ball. Let me have skew to clarify. What do you mean by this term born again? Jesus said most assuredly I say to you unless his one is born of the water and the spirit now I take water to be physical birth in this context I'll show you why in a minute unless one is born of the water physically and of the spirit Spiritually, he cannot see or enter the kingdom of God And then here's how I know Jesus was talking or at least what leads me to believe that water is referring to water booth birth because Jesus repeats the pair He says that which is born of the flesh is flesh that which is born of the Spirit is spirit Do not marvel that I said you must be born again The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." Now, this is hard for Nicodemus. Nicodemus is a Pharisee. Nicodemus would say, well, we know who has the Spirit of God, the people who are keeping the law of God circumcised on the eighth day. keeping the law of Moses. Those are the ones born of God. Those are God's people. And Jesus just got through saying the spirit rebirths people spiritually. And you don't know when it's going to happen, where it's going to happen. It's all the leading of God in the individual heart to respond to the gospel. So Nicodemus is flabbergasted. He says, how can these things be? Jesus is flabbergasted. He said are you the teacher of Israel and you do not understand these things? Now I'm reading this as a pastor for many many years and I'm sitting there going How was Nicodemus supposed to understand this he had the Old Testament? Where does the Old Testament talk about being born again? And yet Jesus is clearly his jaw has dropped and he's like are you? the teacher in Israel and you don't know these things and Now, as I read the Old Testament more and more, I begin to understand I haven't been reading my Old Testament very well. Nicodemus should have understood these things from the Old Testament. It's all over the Old Testament. And if there's any verse that has this more clearly than Ezekiel 36 or any passage, I don't know what it would be. Let's read this passage today and let's see how would an Israeli Pharisee understand Ezekiel 36 to be talking about being born again, born of the Spirit. Let's read Ezekiel 36, verse 24 through 32. Eight verses. God says to Israel, for I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all of your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers. You shall be my people and I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and multiply it and bring no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and increase your fields so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good." And you will loathe yourselves or despise yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and your abominations. Not for your sake do I do this, says the Lord God. Let it be known to you. Be ashamed. and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel." Let's bow for a word of prayer. Lord, we love you. We love your people, Israel, because you put your hand on them centuries ago, millennia ago, and you said you would bless them, and you have. And even to this day, Father, that small piece of real estate in that small nation of a few million is in the center of the news and in the center of the world's concerns time and again. Father, Israel we see has not been faithful to you, but Lord, we stand sharing that sentiment. We too have not been faithful to you. We many times, Father, have looked at your word and your instructions and have said we would go our own way and assure our own happiness. And Father, I just pray that we'd learn from your people Israel, that we'd learn from your word, and that we'd see how you can remove our hearts of stone, give us hearts of flesh. Lord, that you'd remove our hearts that immediately want to retaliate when somebody does something against us, and give us a heart that has your law written upon it that immediately wants to love and serve and reach them for your glory. Lord, bless us now as we study your word. Help us to understand. In Jesus' name we ask. Amen. As we start here this morning, there is a sermon outline you can follow along in the bulletin. But consistent with God's promises is point number one. God will gather Israel into the promised land. And I use that word consistent because God is all about consistency. He is a consistent God. When he says something, it stands. Okay, and and so consistent with his promises. He's gonna gather Israel into the promised land. Look at verse 24 For I will take you from among the nations gather you out of the countries and bring you into your own land Why is that important? Well in Genesis 3, that's really where we first see the gospel mankind has been beguiled by the serpent by Satan embodying a serpent and And mankind has sinned against a perfect holy God, disrupted perfect holy fellowship with God, and here sits woman, man, and the serpent, the enemy of mankind, who just plunged mankind into a world of sin and death and thorns and disease. And God says to the serpent there in Genesis 3, her seed, the woman's seed, will crush your head. In other words, her seed and offspring from her is going to destroy you, Satan. That offspring is eventually Jesus Christ, the seed of woman. There we have the gospel. God is consistent with his word. He went on in Genesis 12, and he called this man Abraham to himself to a special country. And he said to Abraham, I'm going to make of your descendants a nation. And I'm going to give them this land forever before me. I will be their God. They will be my people. And they will be a great and mighty kingdom. And in you, Abraham, all the nations of the world will be blessed. God is very consistent. But God has a problem here. Because God also said to Moses in Deuteronomy 28, these people, when they obey me, I will bless them in the land. When they disobey me, I will curse them, and I will scatter them, and they will no longer be a people. Well, what happened to the promise she gave Abraham God? Here we are in the book of Ezekiel. I mean, we started the book of Ezekiel with a very scary sight. God riding in a chariot against his people Israel from the north to attack them. Why? Centuries of sin. God was attacking and punishing his people consistent with Deuteronomy 28. But then how does God be consistent with the call of Abraham when he said, I'm going to make your descendants a nation and bless them and I will be their God and they will be my people? That's where we pick it up in Ezekiel. How can God be consistent? well, he's going to gather Israel back into the promised land and How can he do that when there are dirty defiled morally corrupt people God will wash Israel clean of her sin verse 25 and Then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols now what was Israel's sin we've been studying Israel's sin throughout the book and There were numerous sins that are listed but we could categorize them in two broad categories murder and idolatry and literal murder from her princes who were corrupt, who were taking advantage of those who were less powerful, and downright murdering them, filling the streets with blood, is how God described it. There was also idolatry, which encompassed all kinds of things. Whenever you read of idolatry in the Bible, think of gluttony, drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, And you've got at least the foundation of idolatry. An idol was an excuse to get together, have a party, and do what man wanted to do anyway, in the name of a god. And also with Israel, it was documented in the book of Ezekiel that they caused their children to pass through the fire so that these fertility gods would bless their prosperity. To cause your child to pass through the fire speaks of human sacrifices. So those are the broad categories of sin that we see for Israel, murder and idolatry. But underneath those headings are all of these subcategories that you and I could identify with. I hope no one in here can identify with being a murderer this morning. And I would hope that you would say together with me, well, I'm guilty of sin, but I haven't gone that far in my sin to where I've murdered someone. Now, Jesus made it clear in the Gospels. He said, if you are angry at your brother without a cause, you're guilty of murder. If you look on a woman and lust after her in your heart, you're guilty of adultery. So we can identify with the broad category of hatred, of anger. But I hope we can't identify with literal murder. In other words, you might be hearing Pastor Tim saying, I hope you're not that bad this morning. There is a sense in the Bible in which sin is sin. And there is a sense in which some sins are worse than other sins. And so we all might look in the mirror this morning and we might say, you know, I'm not that bad. And I hope you can say that, honestly. But don't turn that around the wrong way. This is the mistake we make when we say, I'm not that bad. I'm not that bad, therefore, God, I'm good enough for you. I'm not that defiled, so I'm good enough to be in your presence forever. Don't do that. Spiritual defilement is defilement before God. Now, when I say spiritual defilement, you and I don't relate to that as well as God does. God is spirit. He is eternal. So the element of spirit has been eternal forever here. Material? Earth, like what's under me right now? That's a recent phenomenon. God spoke it into existence several thousands of years ago. It's a fairly recent phenomenon to have material. But here's the odd thing. You and I relate to material so well, don't we? So let's get an illustration of defilement that is material that you and I can relate to before we go saying to God, God, I'm not that bad, so therefore you should accept me into your presence. We have a meal plan for you right after this service. When you go out this door, there'll be a line, two lines actually, to your right. You'll get the food first, and then when you exit the food, to your right, there'll be a counter, and there'll be coffee cups, there'll be cups with lemonade, there'll be cups with water in it. And if you were to continue out that door about 200 feet out here, there's two 1,000-gallon tanks in the ground. Now, I have smelled those tanks. Those are septic tanks. They collect the solids, if you know what I mean, and the liquids, if you know what I mean. And if you lift that lid, it stinks to high heaven. But to save on water this morning, we're going to be using some of that water. So some of the cups are going to be 50-50, alright? Half a cup of that with lemonade or water. But other cups won't be that bad. They'll just have a couple tablespoons. Okay? And so I highly recommend to you when you get your food and you're in that line to get the cups of water with only two tablespoons of defilement from the septic tank in them because they're not that bad. That's the argument we're making with God on a spiritual level. You would say to me if I was seriously doing that you could smell it from in here already I mean that stuff is foul. Okay, but if I were seriously doing that this morning, you would rightly be offended You would say, you know something. I don't need your water. I don't need your lemonade. I don't even need a meal I've got money in my pocket. I'll buy my own. Thank you very much I am offended that you would invite me in here and even offer that kind of defilement to me And yet that's us with God Well, I'm not a murderer. I'm not that bad. Therefore, God, I'm good enough for you in my sin and rebellion. Or we do this. Here's the next thing we do. I'm a pastor. I give my life to serve people. I'm a Sunday school teacher. I teach Sunday school. I join the choir. I give money in the offering. That's like me saying, oh, you know the water out there that has the sewage in it? I added some mint to it, so it has a nice aftertaste, OK? I mean, you're just like, it don't. Does that work for you? It does not work for you. It does not work for God for us to take spiritually defiled lives and say, well, it's not that bad. It's good enough for you. And I'm fortified with eight vitamins and minerals, OK? God doesn't need you. He doesn't need me. Now, this is kind of harsh, but here are the Father and the Son and the Spirit, eternal beings, infinite in their being, delighted in one another. They were not sitting around saying, boy, we've been here for eternity past, it's getting kind of lonely. You know, Son, you're just not that interesting. We need some people. And man, I'm looking at some people, and they could really help me to be entertained, or they could help me. No, God is not deficient in any way. The fact that we are created is a grace of God. It's a gift of God. And so there is nothing that God needs in us, just like you don't need this meal after the service today. You don't need us to feed you. God doesn't need you for anything in His life. And to sit there and offer ourselves to God and say, well, I'm not that bad. You should accept me. I'm good enough That's spirit offering God spiritual defilement. So God says to Israel. I'm gonna wash you I'm gonna make you clean you have soiled yourselves. I will make you clean He continues here by saying how he's gonna do it. He's gonna renew Israel spirit putting his Holy Spirit within them verses 26 and 27 I would give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you and I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and I'll give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them." That's not the natural response for Tim Graham, to do the statutes of God. I want to do what feels good at the moment. And if somebody has offended me and made me mad, I want to lash right back out at them. I don't want to do the Word of God. But God says, I'm going to change you so that the instant reflex of your mind and your heart will be to do my will. God is taking Israel's defiled spirit and remaking it. This is spiritual rebirth. This is being born again. Jesus introduces the metaphor born again But the concept of spiritual rebirth this making a new spirit out of mankind is in the Old Testament It's all over the Old Testament and all those passages that talk about I will circumcise your heart I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. These are all passages speaking about spiritual rebirth now think about Israel's history that's culminating right here in the book of Ezekiel and centuries of sinfulness God has chosen this generation to judge them they have been through a great several great seizures with Babylon where people were in starvation people reading the corpses of loved ones that had died I mean and and they they knew what famine was and And yet God, and then God takes them and He exiles them into Babylon, into the Gentile lands. The Jews, whenever they came from traveling afar, they would often shake off the dust of their sandals from their garments as they left that country, because they really felt like that land was defiled. It was idolatrous land, and they worshipped idols there. The very dirt, the very soil was defiled in their mind. And they came into the holy land, God's land, where God dwelt in God's temple. It was beautiful to them. But here they are exiled into the dirty lands, into the Gentile lands. They are not a people. And God is saying to them in the midst of all that, I will wash you, I will put a new spirit in you, I will be your God, you will be my people. And Jesus is saying, how can you miss this, Nicodemus? How can you miss God taking a wicked nation in exile, scattered around the globe, and changing them from the inside out individually so that every person has his law written on their hearts as the natural response. How can you miss this? This is the result of spiritual rebirth, a new spirit in man. Now, for Israel, there are going to be some physical results of this, because there were consistent blessings from Deuteronomy 28 that God said they would have. Let's explore those for just a moment, because we relate to the physical much better than we do the spiritual, and that's what God is doing with Israel here when he talks about bringing them back literally to the land. Consistent with God's promises to Israel and Moses, Deuteronomy 28, God will bless Israel mightily in the land. Look at verses 28 through 30. Then you will dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers and you shall be my people and I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and multiply it and bring no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations." So God said, I'm going to bring you back to the land. I'm going to bring you back into this kingdom. Letter A here, Israel, forgiven and cleansed of her sins, will still always be mindful of her sin. God gives us great blessing. He said, the famines you've been through, you'll never have them again. I will bless you in the land. But nevertheless, you will always remember your rebellion. Look at verse 31. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good. And you will loathe yourselves or despise yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and your abominations. Now isn't that interesting? God said, I'm going to make you new, but you will always remember your wickedness and your iniquities, and you will always loathe those iniquities. Now, how are we as Gentiles supposed to take this? Okay, we're not Israel. We weren't literally there doing the murders and the idolatry of the type that they were doing. Are we to sit here and say, oh, too bad for Israel? Glad I'm a Gentile and I won't bear any of this guilt before God It'll be kind of like we're all gathered around the throne of God and we're looking over at the Jews and we're saying yeah You remember how wicked you were to God? Yeah We're with God. You're kind of the second-rate citizens of heaven Is that the picture that the Bible places and gives us for Israel in eternity? Quite the opposite. The Bible speaks of 24 thrones occupied by the 12 sons of Jacob, Jews, the 12 apostles, Jews. Heaven is going to be a very Jewish place. And as God says, I'm going to bring you into this land, into this eternal kingdom, and you'll never hunger again, but you will always remember your sin, your iniquity, and despise yourself for it. I don't think we're supposed to be sitting there as Gentiles going, yeah, too bad for them. They really messed up as a nation. I think that's all of us. Individually, you, me, we have sinned against God. Now usually it looks like sinning against loved ones, sinning against people we work with, sinning against people in the neighborhood. Usually it looks like having wicked thoughts when we pillow our head at night or when we wake up in the morning. Usually it looks like gossip, lying, Okay, but I don't think we're gonna be sitting there in heaven saying oh look at the Jews They're all back there in the corner despising themselves. Glad I wasn't a Jew Nothing to despise here No, see and and that's the amazing thing to come to God is a humble event Because we are all confessing that we are all unworthy We have all sinned against God There's a humility in coming to God if you truly come to Him. Now, modern psychology teaches us to value ourselves, to love ourselves, that you are of inestimable worth. And as the Bible paints us, it paints a different light, doesn't it? It paints the light that you are a sinner. That You have offended a pure, holy God. And that you need to come to Him humbly, loathing yourself. And it gets a little worse. If I can go here with you. This is where God's Word goes, so let's go there. Israel has no intrinsic value that caused God to work in her, to save her. Look at verse 32. Not for your sake do I do this, says the Lord God. Let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel. And that really matches up with verse number 22 if you go back to verse 22 Therefore say to the house of Israel thus says the Lord God I do not do this for your sake O house of Israel, but for my holy namesake in other word God said I'm consistent. I told Abraham I would make a nation of his children and they would be a very special people in a very special kingdom and It's not for your sake Israel that I'm doing this. It's not that I look at you and I say oh, what a beautiful nation What wonderful people I need them off I could have Israel. I'd be so happy Okay God says it's not for your sake. It's for my holy namesake. Now. How should we look at that as Gentiles? Oh Should we say, well, God just moved in my life individually, not because I'm a child of Abraham, but because He wanted me. No. Once again, God would say, it's not for your sake, it's not for your intrinsic value that I am doing this. It is for my name's sake. See, God said something to Abraham in Genesis 12, verse 3. He said, all the families of the world will be blessed in you. All the nations of the world will be blessed in you. See, once again, God is being consistent with His Word when He works in a Gentile heart to convict of sin and to convince that that Gentile needs salvation. We had a great illustration of this last week that I'm going to repeat here this morning. We use the metaphor of marriage because the Bible describes the church as the bride of Christ. And there's somebody using our church next month here for a wedding, and I don't know this bride. I mean, I've had contact with them, and I know they're believers and all of this, but I could just imagine this bride thinking about her husband, and what kind of a husband she wants. And I asked this question last week. Do you want a husband, if you're a bride, do you want a husband who stays married to you year after year out of concern for his character and reputation before God and man? In other words, do you want a husband who says, I committed before God that I would stay married to you and therefore I'm going to stay married to you for better or for worse because I'm a man of character. I'm a man who is concerned with my reputation. A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, the Bible says. Or, here's your other choice for this bride. Would you rather be married to the man who stays married to you because he is perpetually attracted to you? Year after year he looks at you and he said, you know, the main reason I'm staying married to you, I'm just so attracted to you. Every year I grow more attracted to you. I like to tell my boys, I'm like, you know, as you're picking out a wife, just stop by the nursing home, No, no, no. I mean, of the hundred ladies there, find the best-looking one. The best-looking one. And at the end of your marriage, hope for that. Okay? Now, you probably won't get that because you're picking the best out of a hundred. But you can hope. Okay? So, as we think of this, do you want a husband who says, I'm staying married to you because I gave my word, and I'm a man of my word, or do you want a husband who says, I'm staying married to you because I'm just perpetually attracted to you? That's a trick question, right? Okay, hopefully there's a combination of the two, but the primary motivation ought to be over here, that when we make a marriage commitment, it's the commitment that's more important than me as an individual and what I'm attracted to or not, because the fact is, My spouse could be in a car accident this afternoon. Burned over her body. Hard to look at due to the scars. Her mind could be altered in that accident to where she's moody and melancholy all the time and she's not able to care for herself. And what she's going to need is not somebody who wants to stick around because he's attracted. She's going to need somebody who sticks around because he made a commitment to love her and to care for her, for better or for worse. We see this is God. If you've married God, you've married well. Because God is consistent. He says, I gave my word. I said to Abraham, I would call his children. And so it's not for your sake. It's for my holy namesake. That is the primary motivation here. I said I would bless the nations, even though the nations have rebelled against God and mankind individually. I said, your word says this. Oh, no, I will not honor my parents in my youth or in my adult life. I will not honor them. I'm too busy. I want to go find my own happiness. Your word said not to lie. Well, you know, I'm sorry. You just don't understand doing taxes Your word says to love my neighbor as myself. He's a jerk. I am not going to bless him when he does this to me and Man continually we raise our fist against even as believers and we continually Defile his word and yet we want to come to God and say, you know, I'm not that bad You should accept me two tablespoons of sewage. That's all drink away If you've married God, you've married well. And God said, and it's a humbling thing to come to God and to hear these truths, but if you've come to God, it's not because of you and who you are, it's because of God and who He is. He is working in your heart. You know, here at Cornerstone, we preach through this Bible week after week, one paragraph at a time, and we do that because we don't want Pastor Tim acting like some great mind who says, well, I'll do this chapter, but I'll skip the next five, and then we'll do that chapter, skip 18 more, we'll do that chapter. We don't want Pastor Tim doing that, okay? We have a God who gave us a word, and we want to cover the whole word. But when we do that, we spend a lot of chapters talking about sin and judgment. And it gets kind of hot in here. I mean, for me, as well as everybody sitting here with me, right? And a lot of people hear this preaching against sin, and they get the wrong idea. They think, oh, the church is sitting here in their ivory hall, talking about all the sinful people out there. No. We need to preach against immorality, because Pastor Tim has immoral thoughts. as does every other man and woman in this room. We preach against sin so we can better understand ourselves and better understand God. And as we understand ourselves, we understand we are sinful. We need His salvation. As we go back into Nicodemus's life, Jesus is continuing that conversation with Nicodemus, and he's talking about a spiritual rebirth. that all mankind needs. We need to have our sinful heart taken away and a heart of flesh, a heart that loves God, put in there. And Jesus continues, he presents himself as the basis for God doing this work. He said, as Moses lifted up the servant in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. And I believe that's a reference to his crucifixion. That whosoever believes in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And Jesus is preaching from the Old Testament as he shares that truth. Paul preached from the Old Testament. Being born again is not a New Testament concept, it is an Old Testament teaching. It speaks of the Spirit renewing the human heart. The foundation for this promise? Genesis 3, the seed of woman crushing the serpent's head. Jesus coming and dying for your sins, rising again from the dead, the firstborn from the dead, the first of those who would be resurrected eternally. If you're here this morning and you feel like you're too sinful to be saved, if you feel like, I've just messed it up, God is not interested in me. He's not interested in any of us. Not that way. There are none of us who could say, I'm good enough to be in your presence. The wind blows where it wishes to blow. And no one can tell where it came from or where it's going to. It just blows. If God is working in your heart this morning and saying, yeah, you're sinful, but I love you. My son died for you and I want you to trust him to be your savior. Don't think you're too simple. Israel were murderers and idolaters, and God said, I'm going to take you to myself. I'm going to sprinkle you, cleanse you of all your filthiness, and I'm going to put a new heart in you. If you're sitting here this morning and you feel like, no, I'm not that bad. then you weren't listening. You weren't listening. It's like you're the cup of 20% sewage, and you're expecting somebody to go back there and drink it during the fellowship hour. And if you think you've done really good things that offset your sewage, you've just sprinkled some mint and some lemon into the sewage. I'm sorry, we're not impressed, and we're not buying it, and neither is God. We all need an accurate view of ourselves. We are all sinners. We all need rebirth in the spirit, and we all need to trust Christ as our Lord and Savior. Have you done that? Came to a point in my life, heard that so many times, and I never just stopped. Nobody said, have you done that, Tim? And finally somebody did, and it registered with me. I need to bow and trust Christ as my Savior. We're going to close in prayer here in just a minute, and I'm going to ask you to do that silently to yourself. to pray and to let God the Father know that you're a sinner, that you believe Jesus died for your sins, and that you want to trust Him as your Savior from sin. Make Him the Lord of your life. Let's bow for a moment in silent prayer. You talk to God silently, and then after a minute of silence, I'll close in prayer. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we love you. Thank you that you are a consistent God, that when you created man and man sinned against you, you did not abandon your plan to be glorified in this world. But Father, Jesus was crucified before the foundation of the world for our sins. God, I thank you for your commitments that you made to Eve, to Abraham, to Moses, to David. And I thank you for your faithfulness to your word that all nations of the world can be blessed through the lineage of Abraham through Jesus Christ, your son. Father, if there is anyone here today who has never before nailed this down and just trusted Christ as his or her Savior, realized that it's all accomplished by Jesus, then Father, I pray this would be their day of spiritual rebirth. that Father, you'd even begin today in their lives, building them into a spiritual being that will be completed in your presence when we are sanctified in heaven. Lord, bless us now as we continue. We pray for your blessing on Mary Heisey as we celebrate her coming to faith in Christ and her desire to be identified with Him in the waters of baptism. Just bless this time now. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. If you would stand together with Tony and myself.