right now. Open up the book of 2nd Timothy chapter number 4. 2nd Timothy chapter number 4. 2nd Timothy chapter number 4. Go to verse number 6. but I'm now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. Let's pray. Our Father, I pray that you would bless us today as we look at your word, guide and direct us in our understanding of it, but even more so, guide us into the giving ourselves to it, to you, and living out your word every single day. Guide and direct and bless. We'll thank you for it in Christ's name we ask it. Amen. I've been thinking about this sermon all summer long. As you know, my mom went home to be with the Lord this past summer, and I've been thinking about it since then. And I knew I would go to 2 Timothy chapter 4 and verse number seven to preach this sermon. The sermon is on finishing well. Finishing well. Have you ever noticed that people are really good at starting something and really bad at finishing? You ever seen that? You ever heard of New Year's resolutions? You ever heard of those things? Okay, my guess is they're all done. They've been done for a long time and people quit because generally people start really well but don't finish well. You ever think about running a marathon? How many in here have run a marathon? Okay, I would be really good at it for about 10 feet and that's it. The Christian life is a marathon. Paul in writing, not Paul, but the writer of the book of Hebrews, we're not sure who it was, told in Hebrews chapter 12, verses one and two, that the Christian life is like a marathon that you run your entire life. We come now to 2 Timothy chapter number four, and Paul knows this is the last letter he will write. This is the last book of the Bible that he will pen. He knows that after he puts his pen down, from writing 2 Timothy, he's going to be taken to Nero's chopping block, and there he will lose his head on earth, open his eyes in the presence of Jesus Christ. And what does he say? I'm ready. I am ready. And to learn how that we can be ready in that day and finish well, he tells us what he did. Now again, hopefully, prayerfully, none of us are close to death. Amen? But understand, you don't wait till death to get ready for death. You get ready when? This wasn't a, Hard question. Now. And you stay ready. Amen? So how did Paul make sure he was ready to be offered? Verse number seven says, I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. I've taken those three phrases, broken them down a little bit into words that we can understand real easily and mixed up their order to help you understand how to finish well. That's anything you do and especially this marathon we call the Christian life. Okay, the three points are pick your battles, love the truth, and run through the tape. Pick your battles, love the truth, and run through the tape. Number one, pick The Apostle Paul said, I have fought a good fight. The Christian life is oftentimes a fight, amen? It is oftentimes a battle, and we need to pick our battles. We fight at times things that we have no business fighting, things that we should not be fighting. You should never fight your obedience to God. You should never fight your obedience to God, but I know you still live in skin. I know we still live in the flesh. I know that every now and then we have a battle on whether or not we're going to obey what God has told us to do. We do. We're not that bright sometimes, correct? We're not that bright sometimes. We talked about this a little bit in our Sunday school class this morning. You should have joined us if you were not here. We talked about this a little bit in Sunday school. When is God right? When is God right? All right, now, very often you have heard, and this was my wife's suggestion, very often you have heard that, a little responsive saying, when someone says God is good, you're supposed to say, All the time. Now I want you to say it together and say it loud. All right, so let's change it to God is right. Let's try it again. God is right. And he is. And he is. God is right all of the time. So when he tells us something in his word, he is right. And He is right and we can trust Him because He loves us and He wants our best and His honor and glory. And those things coincide. Those things are one and the same because what is best for us will bring glory to God and what brings glory to God is the best thing for us to do. But sometimes we fight that. Sometimes we think we're smarter than God. Sometimes we think I want my own way. Sometimes we think, oh, that temptation looks good and we're kind of dumb. And we fight being obedient to the God who gave himself for us and the God who loves us so very much. Don't fight your obedience to God. Understand that God is right. You guys are fired. God is right. Don't fight your obedience to God. Don't fight your commitment to Christ. Don't fight your commitment to Jesus Christ. Now, we should give ourselves to God. How much? Fifty percent? Sixty percent? Seventy percent? Stop me when I think I've gotten to you. Eighty percent? Ninety percent? Ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundredths? Or completely? Okay? Completely. How committed are we really to Christ? Let's go back and ask the question, first of all, how committed is Christ to you? How committed is Jesus Christ to you? He died for you. He laid down his life for you. He shed his blood for you. He took your sin in his body on the tree and God punished him. The wrath of God was poured out upon Jesus Christ that we might be saved. Amen. What should we do? Commit ourselves wholly and completely to Jesus Christ. Amen. But we fight that. We fight that, okay? We don't want to live completely changed. Jesus Christ wants to transform your life. We talked about it last week, remember? He wants to completely transform your life. The problem is we don't want him messing up our lives. The problem is we like our lives. We like where we are, we like what we're doing, we like how we live, we like how we spend our time, we don't want him messing up our lives and telling us every single moment what we should be doing. But he's right all of the time, and he is committed completely to you, and you can trust him, amen. So don't fight that. Don't fight your commitment to Jesus Christ, your obedience to God, and don't fight the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Don't fight the promptings of the Holy Spirit of God. Now, you know because you've heard me before, God does not speak to anybody in an audible voice. Okay? He doesn't do it. Now, there was a series of books written by a woman to women about God speaking to her heart, how God can speak to your heart. I don't care who wrote it. I don't care what they said. God doesn't do that in this day and age. You will not hear God's audible voice. When God speaks, it comes through the pages of this book. Amen. But at the same time, We also know when the Holy Spirit is prompting us to do something. We know when the Holy Spirit is saying, invite them to church. Give them the gospel. Call so and so. See how they're doing. See how you can help. See if there's an encouragement you can make. And we know that the Holy Spirit is prompting us to do something. And sometimes we fight that. Sometimes we say, not now. Sometimes we say, later, some other time. See, the part we don't know is God is working in our hearts. He's prompting us, not speaking to us with an audible voice, but we know, we don't know what God's doing in their heart. We don't know what's gonna happen to them. We don't know where they are in their life at this moment. And the Holy Spirit's working in them as well. So if the Holy Spirit is prompting you, it's time to do something. Don't fight that. Don't say no. Don't go ahead and say, I'll quench the Spirit of God and not listen. Kind of like a conscience, where we fail to listen to our conscience. and then we don't feel it anymore. Wow. When the Holy Spirit prompts us to do something, don't fight it, do what he says, and you will never regret it. Amen. Oh, but there'll be times when you've got a chance to say something, you've got a chance to do what the Spirit of God is prompting you to do, and you say no. And then all of a sudden you figure out that was my last opportunity. That was my last chance. That was it. Why didn't I listen? Pick your battles. Don't fight the promptings of God, the commitment to Christ or your obedience to God. Don't do that. But do fight some other things. You have three enemies the Bible speaks clearly about in his word. You've got the devil, you've got the world, and you've got the flesh. Those are your three enemies. Let's start with the devil. He is your enemy. Amen? Peter tells us, be sober. Be vigilant. Because your adversary, the devil, walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may, what? Devour. He wants to destroy your life. Now, the good news is he is not omnipresent. God is omnipresent. God is everywhere at one time, amen. Not just can be, he is. The devil's not. He can only be at one place at one time. And most of the time, he doesn't bother with messing with you or messing with me. He doesn't have to. Wow. Because we've messed with ourselves enough that we're of no good. And to eternity, that's not the way it should be. We should be doing right all the time and make him worried. Amen? Amen. We got to be doing what is right. The devil doesn't have to worry about most Christians. He doesn't. You ever heard the old statement, don't poke a sleeping bear? If the bear is sleeping, you don't want him awake, especially a crabby one. You don't wanna wake him up. You don't do that. That's how Satan works. He doesn't poke a sleeping Christian. Why bother waking you up to the things of God? Why bother taking the opportunity to say you ought to be busy about God's work and get you involved in it when you're not and you're sleeping? We gotta understand that we need to wake up. And that word is used throughout the New Testament. Paul has used it quite a few times. Wake up. It's high time to awake out of sleep and serve God and do what is right. Amen. The devil. He's one of our enemies. You need to fight him. But you need to wake up so there's someone to fight. Because he doesn't mess with most Christians. How about the world? This world is not a friend of God. Have you noticed that? This world doesn't like God, doesn't like Jesus Christ. Oh, you can mention God, you can mention faith, you can mention different things, but don't talk about Jesus Christ being the savior of your sin. Don't talk about Jesus Christ dying for you. This world doesn't like you. And it has certain values and certain priorities and certain things that this world wants to get you to get involved in, to think its way, to think their way to pull you away from serving God. Oh, that's a fight we need to fight every day. And you need to fight that fight. Paul said, I fought a good fight. Pick your battles, this is a battle that you need to win. You don't need to think like the world. You don't need to act like the world. You don't need to have the world's value system or priorities. You need to understand what God says about the world. Okay? All that is in the world, John tells us, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of this world. Fight that. But our biggest enemy is the flesh. When the Bible uses that word flesh, what's it talking about? The unredeemed nature, the old man that still lives with us. When you got saved, you were freed from sin's penalty. You were freed from sin's power. But because we carry this body of death around, It still haunts us. There are still things about us that like to sin, that enjoy sin, that will pull us away from God because, as Woody Allen once said, the heart wants what the heart wants. Wow, what a mess. That's where we go. Well, I wanna do that. I want to do that. I want to get involved in that. I want to be able to involve myself in these other things. Your biggest enemy and the person you need to fight with every single day is the person you get up and look in the mirror at every single day. Devil doesn't mess with most of us. Oh, the world is head noise if we'll understand it correctly, but it's us seeking to please us. That is the problem. And we need to make sure this is a battle that we fight every day if we want to finish well. Pick your battles. Secondly, love the truth. Love the truth. Paul says in 2 Timothy chapter four, verse number seven, I have kept the faith. I have kept the faith. What's he talking about there, that he's kept the faith? That means he has lived his life in obedience to all the things that God has revealed to us in his word, that is the faith. What God has told us in his book is right, is true, it's what we should believe and how we should live. We need to love the truth. It's found in the word of God, amen? It's there. First of all, in order to love the truth, you need to know the truth. You need to know the truth. Where are you gonna find the truth? Let's try that again. Where are you gonna find the truth? That's a junior church question in the Bible. You're not gonna find it in the Danbury News Times. You're not gonna find it on cable television. You're not even gonna find it on Fox News. Where are you gonna find it? There's only one place. That is the word of God. Can you ever get too much of the Bible? One more time, can you ever get too much of the Bible? We had a visitor come to our church a number of years back, and this visitor said, you know, your church was great, your church was nice, but you make too much of the Bible. I just said, thank you. That's all we can do. because it's God's word that doesn't return void. It is God's word that works in our hearts and makes us like Jesus Christ, and we've gotta know the truth. That means when the church doors are open, you need to be here to hear the word of God. I will teach you the word of God. I will preach to you the word of God. Every now and then, I will tell you my opinion about something. Every now and then, I will share with you my thoughts on an issue, but you can actually throw those things away. Now, you ought to listen to me because they've been bathed in the word of God, but they're still just opinions. But what God says, you can't ignore. Amen. And you got to know it. You've got to know it. One day you will stand before God and you will be judged. Now, one of the things to be judged on is how much you knew and understood of the word of God. How much of it do we have? All of it. How much are we supposed to know? All of it. I'll bet you we don't know it all yet. Therefore, there's some work we need to do. Study to show thyself approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. We need to make sure that our heads are into the word of God and it's getting into our heads. Amen. You need to know the word of God. But it was not given to us that we might win at Bible trivia. Had knowledge is one thing, and we need to have it. You cannot live the truth if you don't know the truth. Does that make sense? But knowing the truth always leads to living it out. Otherwise, it's worthless. It's worthless. Paul said, I've kept the faith. I've kept it, I knew it was true, and I lived it out. We didn't know the truth, but we need to live the truth. How much of the Bible do we need to live? Let's try that again. How much of the Bible do we need to live out? All of it. Now, I understand context. And I've talked to you about context before. Context is very important. You just can't take two words, two sentences out of the word of God, put them together and say, well, that's what the Bible says. No. Do you know the Bible quotes the devil? So you can't say, well, that's what the Bible says because the Bible quoted him accurately. but it's not right, amen? You have to understand that. We go to the book of Job, and I call Job a play very often. You got the opening act, and then you've got, it tells what happened, then you got his three friends show up, and then a fourth friend shows up, and they speak for chapters in the book of Job. You cannot go to the book of Job and take what these four friends of Job says and build any kind of doctrine around it, because they're wrong. In their assessment of Job's life, they are wrong. So you cannot build any kind of life doctrine around what they had to say. You need to understand context. That's one of my jobs, is to give you context. Jeremiah, you know how much I dislike that little plaque. Jeremiah, what is it, 2911? I don't even remember anymore. I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and plans to deliver you to a desired end. Well, understand context, because it's so important. Context is, Jeremiah 29, you're all going to die. Context is some of you buy the sword. Some of you will get run over by chariots. Some of you are gonna die a messy death. It is not gonna be cute. It is not gonna be good. It is not gonna be nice. But I know the plans I have for the nation. And I will bring you back to Israel so that the Messiah will be born through this nation. Put that on a plaque. Okay, that's a fact. Context is huge. What did God mean when he said it, where he said it? Okay, we need to know what God says, amen, in context, and then we need to live that out. You cannot say, well, the Bible says Judas went out and hung himself, and the Bible also says, go thou and do likewise. Okay, no, that's not what he's talking about here. We need to know what God says, and then live what God says. Because any kind of faith that doesn't affect the way you live is worthless. You don't really believe it. It's not a part of your life. We need to know the truth. So live the truth, know the truth, and then share the truth. Share the truth. You know the truth. Who are you supposed to share that with? Wow. What did Paul do? He shared the gospel with everybody he knew. Amen? And if they were already saved, he shared with them how they could live the Christian life more effectively. That's what we need to be doing. Learning, loving, leading, and taking the truth and putting it in someone else's life. And putting it in someone else's heart that they might be exactly what God would have them to be. Okay? In order to finish well, we've got to pick our battles. In order to finish well, we need to love the truth. And in order to finish well last, we need to run through the tape. We need to run through the tape. He says, I have finished my course. Again, he likens it to a race. He likens it to someone running a race. Now, let's say for instance, you're running a race. I know that's hard to imagine, okay? But the finish line is ahead and you're planning on stopping right at the finish line. So what do you do before you get there? You slow down so you can finish at the finish line. What happens if you slow down? You're getting passed and you're losing. What do winners do? They run through the tape. They go as hard as they possibly can and run straight through the tape. If you've got kids in karate or one of those martial arts things, If they're breaking boards, you understand that, they teach them, the board is here, where are you supposed to end your punch? Here. You're supposed to punch through that board and hit something back here, because if you stop at the board, guess what it's going to do? Not break. Okay? You've got to punch through it. When you're kicking a soccer ball, Okay, that soccer ball is not to be kicked at the last moment when all your energy is expelled, you're supposed to kick through that ball. Okay, your bad foot next to it, your knee over the top of it, kicking through that thing, so it'll go as far as fast as you can get it to go. It's a matter of running through the tape. What does that really mean? Well, it means while you're running your race, don't get weary of running your race. Go in your Bibles to Galatians. Book of Galatians. Galatians chapter. 6, go to verse number 7. Galatians chapter 6, verse number 7. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. Okay? You get tired of doing what is right. Is doing what's right every single time tiring? Yes, pastor, it is. Is it the right thing to do? He says here, you are determining your future. You're on mile six of this marathon we call the Christian life. You got a long way to go, but the decisions you make at mile number six will affect you at mile number 20. So choose rightly. Choose correctly, otherwise you'll get weary. Otherwise, you'll get tired. Otherwise, all of the pressure will begin to add up on you and it's gonna slow you down and keep you from running through the tape. And keep you from finishing right. Because there's so many things that can stop you, slow you down. keep you from being your best, and tire you out. Get weary. I've said this before, and probably recently, I don't remember. Hebrews chapter 12, verse number one, tells us to lay aside every weight in our running of the Christian life. Weight. I've mentioned it before. marathon runners don't wear five-pound ankle weights or wrist weights or a weight vest on their run. There's nothing in the rules against it. They could. Okay, why wouldn't they? They'll get really tired and they'll get weary and they'll quit. Does that make sense? You talk to a marathon runner and they know how much their socks weigh. I'm sure it's been quite a while since you weighed your socks. Okay, they know every ounce that they're wearing because they want to be as fast as they can, as light as they can, so they can finish the race that is before them. And Paul says, lay aside every weight. Lay aside and be like, yeah, sin's easy. We know we shouldn't be sinning, amen? We all know that. I don't even have to go into a list of what sins there are. You know that too. We're not dumb enough to say in our lives, well, I didn't know that was sin. Yeah, you did. Yes, you did. Okay, our problem is, wait, what is good, better, and best? Now, something that is good, something that is not a problem, something that is not specifically sin may turn out to be a weight for you in your life. You need to decide, is this thing holding me back from running my race for Christ? Is this thing back slowing me down, making me tired, too much weight to have to carry in this race I have for Jesus Christ? And if it is, get out. rid of it. Wow. Whose decision is that? Let's try it one more time. Whose decision is that? It's yours. It's yours. Can I ever tell you? You need to get this out of your life. Not unless it's sin. Otherwise, I can't. That's not my job. It's Holy Spirit's job. It's your job when you take inventory of your life, this thing's slowing me down, I need to get rid of it. I need to get rid of it. Back in college, I think four or five years ago, back in college, we used to play football on every Sunday afternoon. Now, you know me, I'm sports crazy, they're playing football, I'm playing football. But I'm the kind of a knucklehead that is gonna win at all costs, okay? If that means cheating, I'm gonna do it. Because if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying. It's a joke, you're supposed to smile. I'm gonna win at all costs. Well, I got to the place where I would get into fights, I got to the place where I would yell at somebody, I got to the place where I would completely lose my testimony playing football with a bunch of Christians on a Sunday afternoon. You hear what God said? Knock it off. Quit playing football. Now, again, it wasn't an audible voice. It was just a prompting. I knew this was not good for me. I had to quit. You know what I did? I quit playing. I quit playing, because it was a weight for me. Now, that was a big deal for me, because I loved it. I loved every second of it. But that was me, and I had to make that decision. you have some of those decisions that you need to make. Guess who needs to make those things? You do. Because hanging on to things that may not necessarily be bad, but they're not the best thing for us are weights and they'll make us tired. They'll slow us down and we can't be and do our best with those things on. Okay, run through the tape. Don't grow weary. Don't faint. Don't faint. What does faint mean? Literally means quit. Quit. Don't get weary in well-doing, for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not. If you don't quit. All right? Does failing make you a failure? No, we've all failed, we've all messed up, we've all not come to the success in certain endeavors that we have had. Everyone's failed. Failure, failing doesn't make you a failure. What does? Quitting. Quitting makes you a failure. Wow. You know the old story about Thomas Edison talking to reporters one day about his trying to find what works as filaments for a light bulb, and he tried about 1,000 things, and he kept finding things that didn't work. So one of the reporters said, so you failed 1,000 times. Edison's response was, no, I found 1,000 things that didn't work. He didn't quit. Had he quit, we'd all be watching TV in the dark. You can laugh at that later. He didn't quit. Okay? Let's not quit. Not quit. Remember we talked about the devil back at the beginning? There are two times that he's going to fight you hard to get you to quit. Two times he's going to fight you hard. First of all, he will fight you hard after you make a decision to be obedient, after you make a decision to be committed to Jesus Christ, after you make a decision to follow the promptings of the Spirit of God in your life, after you follow the decision to know the Word of God, learn the Word of God, he's gonna fight you right after you've made that decision because if he can knock you down quick and get you to quit early, you're done. And he knows that better than anybody. So he's going to come after you hard when you make a decision to do what's right. He will. Mark it down. Second time he comes after you hard is just before you're going to get the victory. Because he doesn't want to see you win. He doesn't want to see you accomplish something. He does not want to see you get to the place where you know you would be by doing right, and doing right, and doing right, and doing right, and doing right, and doing right, and you get weary of doing right, and you quit just before the reaping. Wow. He fights you at those two times. So understand when you feel circumstances weighing you down, understand I just made a decision or I'm about to get something good in my life, accomplish something for Christ, I gotta keep going. Don't quit. Don't quit ever, amen. In fact, run through the tape. Don't stop, run right through the tape. Don't quit. Don't quit. Wow. You will never hear me say, come to Jesus and your life will be rosy and your life will be easy and your life will be wonderful. and you'll never be poor or sick again in your life. You'll never hear me say that. Why? It's unbiblical. God said, in the world, you're gonna have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. And you can too. Don't quit. Don't quit. Don't stop early. Don't stop before the victory. Don't stop at all. Run right through the tape. Amen. Years ago, I heard a Christian comedian and this Christian comedian was talking and he was funny and he ended up saying that we as Christians are supposed to put on the whole armor of God. And when we get to heaven, Jesus Christ will take it off of us. That's how long we're to keep it on. Put the whole armor of God. He said, but I don't want to get there and have Christ take the armor off me and find it clean and shiny and new and nice. I want my armor to be beaten up because I've been in the fight. I want my armor to be Battle shown. Because I've been doing the right thing the entire time. Amen. There will be battles. There will be skirmishes. There will be things that you do not enjoy, you do not like, you do not want to go through again. But understand, through every one of them, Christ is with you. He is there every step of the way and you can trust him. Amen. You can trust him. And one day when we do get to heaven, if we finish well, do you know what we're gonna hear him say? Well done. Good job. I'm proud of you. That should be our goal. Amen. Back in 2 Timothy. Chapter four, verse number six, once again, for I'm now ready to be offered. And the time of my departure is at hand. He knows what's about to happen. I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. You are not in competition with any other Christian. You are not in competition with anybody else in this world. It is your race to be won by you. Amen. How do you do that? Paul said, you love His appearing. You love His appearing. Now, two ways to understand that His appearing. Number one, it's the rapture of the church. He's gonna appear, we're gonna see him, we're gonna leave, but we're gonna stand face to face with Jesus Christ, amen? And if you love that, you're gonna look for it every single day, and you're gonna live in accordance with Jesus Christ may come back today. And that'll change the way you live. And that's how you run through the tape. The other way is we die. We die. Now that's gonna happen to some people. But understand, death for the Christian is simply a door to heaven. And instantaneously, when your heart stops beating, your eyes will open in the face of Jesus Christ. And he will appear before you. Wow. What's the first thing he's going to say? What is the only thing you want to hear? Welcome home. Well done. The only way to make sure that happens is number one, trust Jesus Christ as your Savior. Number two, finish well. Pick your battles. Love the truth. And run through the tape. Our Heavenly Father. Thank you for Christ. Thank you for salvation. Thank you, Lord, for your word. I pray that you'd impress upon each one of us now that we can't wait to the end of something to make sure we finish right. We've got to do it now. We've got to make it a part of who we are every single day. Guide us and direct us in this that we might know the Word of God and live the Word of God and share the Word of God wherever we go that other people might join us. Lord, we've got to make a decision right now. Many have already made that decision. I pray that others would follow and join in. How are we going to finish? How are we going to finish the Christian life? Strong. Running through the tape for your honor and glory. Lord, if there's anyone in here who is unsaved, show them that heaven can be theirs because Jesus Christ paid the sin penalty in full. Lord, bless us now as we make decisions in Christ's name, amen. Every head bowed, every eye closed, no one looking around. This morning you say, pastor, I'm saved, I know it, I'm going to heaven, my sins are forgiven, I've trusted Jesus Christ as my savior. Pastor, I'm saved and I know it, put your hand up as a testament of that fact. You're saved, you know it, amen. God bless you, amen, amen, amen. Amen, amen. Christian, how are you doing in this race? How are you doing in your Christian life? You wanna finish well? Well, steps need to be taken to do that. I've talked about them the entire sermon, so you know what they are. You know what you need to do. Are you gonna do it? Are you gonna do it? You say, Pastor, God has spoken to me. Pray for me that I would follow through on how God would have me to live that I might finish well. Anyone like that, put your hand up, put it back down. Pastor, pray for me, amen, amen. God bless you, amen, amen, amen, amen. Anyone else, just slip your hand up, put it back down. Pastor, pray for me. Maybe you're here today and you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior. Heaven, that's just a thought that I gotta worry about one day later, not now. No, you need to worry about it now. Today, Bible tells us today we need to think about it, not tomorrow. We don't know when death of the rapture may come. So if you've never trusted Jesus Christ as personal savior, do so today. I've always found it Amazing and ironic at the same time that a God who has eternity says now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. And we, who are finite, that don't even know if we'll be here later on, put things off. Put things off. Put things off. Now God says, come to me and do it today. Do it today and he'll save you. You say, pastor, I don't know that I'm saved. I don't know that Jesus Christ is my personal savior. I don't know about heaven. I don't know that my sins are forgiven. I don't know Christ. Pastor, would you pray for me? Anyone like that? Just slip your hand and put it back down. We love you here. We want to pray for you. Christ loves you. He wants to save you. Pastor, pray for me. Anyone like that? Put your hand and put it back down. Our Father, thank you for Christ. Thank you for salvation. Thank you, Lord, for going to the cross to pay our sin penalty in full that we might one day be a part of your heaven. Thank you. But help us to know and remember now that we ought to be living to please you. Oh, not to gain salvation. That was bought and paid for by Christ. But to say thank you. and then to do what's best for us. Because your glory and our best interest coincide. And you've laid them out for us in the word of God. And I pray we would just understand that God is right all the time. Guide, direct, bless as we make decisions. We'll thank you and we'll praise you for it. In Christ's name we ask it, amen. Let's all stand. We're gonna sing a hymn of invitation. It's on the screen. If you can go ahead and sing and talk and do what God would have you to do right now, do that. If you need to be saved, come down. I'll talk to you about the word of God as we sing right now in verse number one. ♪ Hallelujah Jesus, hallelujah Jesus ♪