You just have to look in your Bible. That's the only reason this morning. Genesis chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1 this morning. Verses 26, 27, and 28. And Genesis chapter 2 verse 7. This morning we've been actually preaching. Last week we started preaching a gift series about life. And today I want to preach about how life is God's gift today. I want to remind you tonight, if you can come back and be with us, we're going to be starting a very short series on the book of Ruth. There's only two ladies in the Bible that are named Esther and Ruth. And I believe my record show, I haven't been in the Ruth in 2002. 2002, I'm looking at some of the faces here. I think it was 2002, if I'm not mistaken. I didn't even do the whole thing then. And that's how far back that it was. I want to use it as, believe it or not, it's the story of Christmas in Ruth. And there's a lot more to it than just about the story of Christmas. So it's totally, if you think you've got it figured out, you don't. Because you'll be blessed tremendously. And it goes with all the other studies we've done on Sunday nights. It goes with the book of Judges. and Nehemiah, but basically the judges. So please, I want to encourage you to be with us tonight if you can. And let me cut this thing off here. Sorry about that. It's distracting now more than anything. And so you have your Bibles up there that are open. Would you stand with us as we honor the reading of God's word this morning in Genesis chapter 1, verse 26. Genesis chapter 1, verse 26. And the Bible says, And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. I want to ask you, if you would, look down to chapter 2 and verse 7, if you would. And this is the last of our text. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. You may be seated. Let's pray this morning. Father, we want to thank you for the gift of life every day. This Christmas, Lord, we've already been given the greatest gift. that every day we take for granted. And I want to thank you for every one of people of Valley Baptist Church this morning, Father, because all of us have experienced the loss of that life from our loved ones recently. And I pray this morning, Father, as we look at the many gifts and abilities that we have, one of the greatest gifts this Christmas that you have already given us on a on a daily basis that we just overlook is life itself. And I pray, Father, that you will challenge us this morning to be able to take the gift that you have given us and to present it to someone and more to do what you have called us according to your purpose, because you have given us one of the greatest gifts in this walks of life. Save us, you've reached us. And you've given each of our family members, Lord, what we have today. There's not a thing that we have that's ours. You've lent it to us. It's on loan. And so this morning, I pray, God, that if there's someone here that don't know you in the free pardon of sin, if they don't know you as a personal savior and never have experienced forgiveness from sin, I pray this morning will be the time, the day, and the hour that they will receive the greatest gift that keeps on giving. That's eternal forever and ever. Eternal life. In Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen. It's almost like the lady that was talking and basically she was in having a lot of surgery done and things. She just took it for granted. She started praying to the Lord. The Lord said, oh, don't you worry about it. You're not going to pass away soon. And so you just don't worry about it. So the next day, she'd been out. She'd already had all this work done in the hospital and everything. Next thing you know, she gets hit by a cab. And she goes back. She says, Lord, I thought you told me that nothing was going to happen to me. Who are you? Oh, I can't recognize you. You've had so much work done. You know, I'm sorry, but I did tell you that, but you've made so many changes. I didn't know who he was, and now you're with me. Don't worry about it. You're in the best place you can be. You know, I thank God today. Sometimes we change in so many ways, the Lord don't even know who we are. He don't even recognize. Now I'm not necessarily talking about how we've had maybe some kind of surgery done, but it's the way that we act. We do not act with the Spirit of the Lord that is in our life the way we should. Life is God's gift that He's given every one of us. I thank God today. As we look at this message, it's a message about responsibility. It's a message about discipline in our life. And we see in this text this morning, it is a gift from God that we have. In Genesis chapter 1, verse 27, the Bible said God created. And the word created means that God brought life into existence. J. Budziski, an author, said this. God is distinct from His creation. He isn't a part of it. It isn't a part of Him. He didn't arise from it. It didn't arise from Him. He spoke and where nothing was before, it was. You know, that's unquote amazing. The Bible says God created something where nothing existed prior. Look around. That's what you see. Every one of us are part of that creation today. A wonderful word because in Genesis 2-7 we read about the word called form. The Bible says, basically I had a picture where God was making you and blowing the breath of air into you with a PowerPoint. And I wanted to put that thought in your mind, how powerful that is. Every one of us, we are in the very image of God. It started out with Adam, a visible shape of him. that has the greatest artist that has ever existed, amen? This morning, I'm gonna tell you, he's the one. He's the originator. He's the one that give us all the things that we have today that man takes in and tries to use. He formed man, he formed this world, and he is a creative God that we serve today. And I thank God for the three truths that are about life. Life is a gift, number one. It's a gift from God, number two, We're going to learn that life is grief as well. We don't want to waste our days on this earth. And number three, I thank God that we're going to learn that life is to be lived for the glory of God. It's not to live for ourselves, but it is to live for Him this morning. And I tell you this, I have to say, old me, that there's been so many years that I've not lived this life for the Lord. I've lived it selfishly. I've done my own thing. I've went on. And I thank God that He has got my attention, and especially this coming year. I know exactly, you say you know exactly, I sure do. I know exactly what the Lord wants me to do this coming year. He said, how do you know that? Because I've been asking the Lord. And I've been asking the Lord. And I've been asking the Lord. And finally, recently, the Lord spoke to my heart and let me know what I needed to do and what my challenges are for this coming year. And not only does it include me, it includes a part of this church. It also includes men in this church. Ladies, you're not left out, but the focus is going to be on our men. I know it settles on you. I'll talk about it a little bit later, but get back into the message this morning. What's my purpose as a person on this earth? What's God's will for our life this morning? The purpose of my life, I'm going to tell you, I think this is probably one of the best statements that can ever be written. Not because I wrote it, but I didn't. But a pastor friend wrote this, and he says, to glorify God by living with a mind of Christ, loving and providing for my family, and impacting my generation with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Man, I think that's it. That's our purpose in life. I'm gonna read it again one more time. To glorify God by living with a mind of Christ. But what did I preach about last Sunday? Loving and providing for my family and impacting my generation with the gospel of Jesus Christ. I really believe that with all my heart. Men and ladies, I tell you spiritual leaders this morning, all of us need to be living with this thought. I want God to get the glory for my life. He gave me this life and it's not mine to squander and wastefully and extravagantly waste it. It's the gift that he has given to each one of us and I want to discipline my life come early every day of the year, you'll think about your life and how precious it is. You see, there's the ripple effect. I know you've heard this over and over, but I'm going to say it again over and over, because this is exactly what happened. They call it the ripple effect. You go back to 1855, the Sunday School teacher, Mr. Kimball, right? I know you can say, he's told me that so many times, I'm going to tell you again. All of a sudden he was in there in a storeroom in Boston. He was a Sunday school teacher. He led the shoe salesman in Boston by the name of D.L. Moody Timmel Oil. Right? It started with a ripple effect. He said, you know what, I'm going to do something. And in Sunday school, he led D.L. Moody. The clerk, the shoe salesman, D.L. Moody, became an evangelist. All of a sudden, in England in 1879, D.L. Moody awakened an evangelistic thing across the nation. All of a sudden, he began to preach to a preacher by the name of F.B. Mayer. Mayer, all of a sudden, found God in him. He began to preach a revival in a small In American College, all of a sudden it went from him to Wilbur Chapman. Wilbur Chapman started preaching. The Holy Spirit got a hold of him in this rebel effect. He started preaching. He got a hold of a guy that was a sports athlete by the name of Billy Sunday. He got changed. He started preaching. He went all over, he preaches the ripple effect. All of a sudden, Billy Sunday began to preach a revival in Charlotte, North Carolina. A group of local men began to come together. They planned another evangelistic campaign, bringing Mordecai Ham into it. And he came into town to preach. And when Mordecai Ham began to preach, all of a sudden, a young man by the name of Billy Graham got saved, amen. And Billy Graham took it from there and began to go everywhere with the gospel, the ripple effect. by the name of Mr. Kennedy. He started every bit of that. If a Sunday school teacher can start all of that, every one of us with our life can do something today. And you say, well, what is it? It can't be much. Don't take it so damn. Because God can take something with your life and make one of the greatest things. I promise you. He can do that. This morning, we look and we see the first thing that we learn about this is the origin of life. You know, we never understand how special it is until you know where everything came from. Everything originated, the life came from God. And in Genesis 1, when we were reading just a minute ago, that life begins with the eternal God. And our eternal God, I believe God is one of the greatest. In Numbers 14, 21, the Bible says, but as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. You know, God is saying that truly as I live, in other words, He was eternal. He's an eternal God. Jeremiah 17, 13, another reference, it goes with that. Oh Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed and they that depart from me shall be ridden in the earth because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters. He's the fountain of living waters. He's the source of life is what Jeremiah was talking about, the old weeping prophet. And so Psalms 36 9, for with thee is the foundation of life. For with thee is the foundation of life. Jesus Christ described that he is the self-existent one. He's describing himself as being self-existent. Nobody else has done what he's done today. He's the one that is the originator. All the way back in Exodus chapter 3 verse 4, God said, under Moses, I am that I am. And he said, thus shall thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. Only a self-existent God could create something like you and I, and something from nothing. And so he is the I am that I am. He is the originator of life. And I thank God here this morning, not only is our eternal God, but he is our creative God. He's the creator of life, as we read in verse 26 of chapter one of Genesis. This morning, and God said, let us, let us, the Trinity, the triune, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, let us make man in our image. And so I thank God, what a wonderful message that we have of the Trinity here that God created every one of us. And so in his own image, according to verse 27, amen, that God created, male and female. And so it's in His likeness that we have today, the reference of this that He's given us, the countenance, the appearance that we are in His very image today. Ephesians 4.24 says, in righteousness and true holiness. Adam was in the likeness of God. He was the original new man. And he had no sin. That's why he was like God at first. He was like God. Some people have different accounts of God creating the men and the women because someone said that when God created Adam, he looked and he said, hmm, you know what? I can do a little better than that. And so he created woman. And I'm not sure how all that happened. I think God created man and woman, but they were both in His image without seeing, that's for sure. And His intention was fellowship with Him. And so we read in Genesis 2 saying that the Lord God formed, that's one word, out of the dust of the ground, and then He breathed into His nostrils the breath of life. And so I thank God. Try to picture that for just a moment. What God has done for every one of us. And you'll just get it because that's the gift that we take for granted every day. That's the gift that we say, oh, I'm not able to do this. You know, just as a Sunday school teacher led a shoe salesman, D.L. Moody, to the Lord. And so we see that God is the originator of life, but he is also the sanctity of life. Sanity. And so I thank God. Why is it that we as Christians take seriously the sanity of life, amen, today? It's the holiness of life. It's the character of life that we're talking about. It's because it's been provided by God. God provided us the sanity of life. It's been provided. You see, putting aside the rank of all the political speeches that are going on in America today, putting aside all the line divisions, Every very baseline. If there were no political parties today, a Bible-believing Christian wouldn't make much of life because God and His Word, I thank God, has much of life. And when our current president on the very first day, notice how I'm saying, I didn't say his name, but our current president, on the very first day in office, you know what he did? And he made a presidential declaration. He's doing that a lot lately. And you better watch it about that and know what he's doing. But he made a presidential declaration. He gave funding to provide abortion in Africa. That was the very first thing he did when he came to office. If you don't know that, you better look it up. He funded abortions for the nation of Africa. And it grieved my heart. as a pope, not as a political aspect, but it grieved my heart as a Christian. Look it up what I'm telling you. I'm going to tell you to see if it's not true because I know what God says in his Bible about life. And I want you to learn with me what he says because life is sanctified. and recognized by God at the moment of conception. And I want you to see that this is a biblical issue with me, and it ought to be with you with the upcoming elections. And I'm not preaching this just for you to choose a candidate. I'm preaching this because this is what God laid on my heart for the message this morning. So I'm not just trying to do this to educate you about political, who to vote for, and all of that. I want you to know your Bible this morning. Jeremiah 1.5, when you want to know about writing the womb from the birth, 11 weeks that are already formed, I was going to show. It wasn't meant for me to show that, I guess for some reason, or it would be shown. Jeremiah 1-5, before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nation. Already when he was just formed in the belly of his mother, Jeremiah, it says, I knew thee then. And so God didn't say, Jeremiah, you're just some equal matter. It really didn't matter at all. God said, Jeremiah, I knew you in your mother's womb and I have a plan for your life. Probably all those babies that have been aborted, Lord, we're going to see all of them in heaven. I believe and every miscarriage, and every baby that something happened, those are going to be in heaven, praise God. God, I tell you, when he spoke about John the Baptist, what did he say? He says, for he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's wound. In Luke 1 15. So church, I want you to understand this morning, from the mother's wound, we have a purpose for life. God's already had a plan started when you were in your mother's womb. He had a purpose for every one of us, amen. And so I thank God, as I was talking about Sister Doris, I had no idea that when I met her that we would cross into Bible study. But 20 years ago was where I met her in a Bible study class with the Georgia Baptist Extension. program. And didn't know I'd ever be a pastor back then either. But ain't that, it's amazing. You know as well as life begins in the womb that you know perhaps as well that the word child in the New Testament, when you study the Greek word for child, that same word is used for child in the mother's womb as well as the child outside of the mother's womb. And so I thank God, it's special to God. And so a lot of people today, we look, and I ain't gonna stay on this long, but very quickly, God is the giver of life and it begins in the mother's womb. What a tragedy to think of abortion in America ending so many lives. 1.2 million abortions every year in our country. A lot of people today are just doing what society does. They're just doing what society does. And they think, well, it's okay because society is doing it. But I'm telling you, God's word says it's not okay. And so what does God say about the innocence of preborn? 53 million times since Roe versus Wade, life has been taken away from a mother's womb. There have been more than 47 abortion patients for every one receiving prenatal care. in Planned Parenthood this last year. So back in 2010, abortions outnumbered adoption referrals at Planned Parenthood at a margin of 340 to 1. Let me make that real simple. The choice was abortion, one time the choice was adoption. That's simple, if I put it that way. 17% of all abortions performed in America last year were teenage children. All of this simply says that America isn't even pausing to consider what God says about the sanctity of life. Planned Parenthood, you go on their website right now. And they will tell your teenager how to legally get an abortion without you even knowing anything about it. Jim Brown just came back in the governor. He's the biggest one. He wants some of the children under the age of 12. to be able to get shots for sexual transmitted diseases without the parents even knowing about it. And he's done that. He's the most liberal governor in the Secretary of Office. Well, let me get back off of politics and on the Lord of God. Sorry. But so there is a Christian teacher, I thank God, that was a while back by the name of Rabbi Zacharias. He was lecturing at a state university and was speaking about how blessed every one of them was. It was basically a lady called in about abortion and began to talk about it. They hadn't even brought it up yet. But it was on the radio at Ohio State University. And man, all of a sudden, the host of the radio program says, well, lady, we haven't even brought that subject up yet. Well, by the way, where do you stand on abortion, Ann? Where do you stand on it? What's your thing on it? And he said, man, can I ask you a question? First of all, this was Zacharias. He was a Christian man. He said, I lecture in universities all the way across America. Often, somebody will stand up and say, how? God is an evil God. because he allows evil in this world. She said, that's right, that's right. He said, well, the person typically will say, well, you know, if a plane crashes, sometimes 30 people are killed, 20 people may live. And what kind of evil God would choose to let some live and some die? But Zacharias said this, he continued, when we play God and when we determine whether a child within a mother's womb should live or die, we argue that it is our moral right. So when a human being has the privilege of playing God, it's called a moral right. But when God plays God, we call it immoral act. Can you justify that for me? And so now, when we think about the sanity of life, we need to recognize that God is the originator. He provided life for every one of us. Our doctors take oaths to protect life today. And whether it's pre-born child or 80 years old and in the home, somewhere's rest home, He's the originator. He sanctifies life. And it's been provided by God, amen. And I think God not only has it been provided, but it's been protected by him as well. Every one of us today, one of the first things that we teach people in church, we teach them in Sunday school, is what? The Ten Commandments. Essence 23, thou shalt not kill. And so every one of us, God prohibits murder. God brought in the world right after the first family of Adam and that thou shalt not kill when murder, when the blood is crying upon the ground. And so every one of us ought to respect life for what it is today. The law of Moses sanctioned that the taking of human life as the penalty for serious crime is committed against God today. And so every one of us, God says, I've given you a commandment. I've given you police officers that you can avenge evil. We don't want people going around avenging themselves. And yet we should be fair of the court of law. Remember what we had the serious court case here recently with the teenagers that took place. And there'll be sentenced, I think there'll be sentenced here soon, I believe. Where else, the 10th of this month. The 13th, thank you. And so yes, every one of us, God says that when someone is guilty of taking another life, they've been apprehended by the authority that God says within the realm of Scripture, their life can be taken. And so I thank God we've got the origin of life, the sanity of life, but we also have the sovereignty of life. Because at this point we come to a subject where all of us have a a good person, why do we see some of the things, why do we go through the things in our life today? Why do we experience death? What's the umbrella that is over them in these questions that we look? God is the sovereign God over life. He knows everything. He knows the future. He knows who could suffer. He knows what people are going through today. And so God says, I'm the sovereign in the affairs of life. I'm the giver, I'm the originator of life, I'm the one that knows about life. And so I thank God we go back and savor, savor begin to languish because how many people in their 80s are having kids? You know, but God says nothing is impossible with me. God let her have a child when she was 80 years old. And so I'm telling you, in Sarah's day, just like our day, it wasn't really known for 80 and 90 year old women to have children. But Sarah was laughing at the thought of having a child. But listen to what I'm fixing to say. But God asked this question, is anything too hard for the Lord? Why? Listen, because according to the will of God, Sarah's womb was open and she gave us the lineage to the Messiah. You see, you're always looking at it as he's the son, but he was needed for the Savior. He was needed for the Messiah. We had to have him. And thank God, brother, through 80 or 90 year old, nothing is impossible with God. He is the one that provides life. Hannah, she gave that child. She had a worthy portion. I thank God and the Lord had shut her up. but it wasn't long before he opened her wound and blessed her. Hezekiah, all the things he did, he added 15 years to his life. In Isaiah 38.1, amen. Hezekiah, Isaiah 38.5, he follows up, I will add unto thy days 15 years. God can do with life because he's the giver of life and he's the blessings of life. And so I thank God, we ought to pray every day for a spiritual revival in America so that we would once again be a nation that he would trust. That's what our forefathers did when they said it. I was in Washington and I had a great privilege. Why didn't I get to go to Washington? When I was in Washington, let me tell you what I saw in the Rayburn building. The scripture says, where there is no vision, the people perish. When you walk into the Senate chamber, you look around and you begin to look up, you'll see the words in Latin which say this, God has spared our undertakings. You see, our forefathers wanted the nation of America to be favored. He wanted the nation. Our forefathers knew what was best for our nation today. The blessings of God. They wanted the blessings upon this nation. And that's what has given this nation its blessings ever since. But we're losing those today. I thank God for the words in God we trust. Our founding fathers felt that if we would trust in the Lord, we would favor the undertakings of our lives. We would give more of our life to America. The more that we trusted in Him. And God has. God has done that through the years. That's why we ought to pray every day for a revival in America today. Yeah, the newest Chinese jet fighter outdoes ours. Congress has voted to only make so many of the ones that we have. Everything is just holding us back in every area today. We've got to worry about every area of our life, of all the things today. I think they only allowed to build an F-22, 18 of them, and we're a hell of a back because they built a cheaper F-35. Of course, yeah, that's politics again. But I'm going to tell you, China's got a J-20 that's got so much technology that's just like the money market that you're seeing in America today. Then it's zooming past America. Today, every one of us, as we look at the strength of our hearts of the founding fathers, they knew that we wanted to be blessed. Discipline life is a very important topic today. Life is God's gift to you and what you do with it is your gift to Him. Can I say that again? Every one of us today, God's given us a gift. Life is God's gift to you and what you do with your gift is your gift back to Him. Some of you can be that Sunday school teacher this morning. You are that Sunday school teacher. You can make a difference, amen. And so I thank God. His sovereignty gives life. And so in the conclusion of all the things that he gives us today, God knew what would take place in Noah's day. Because of sin and the wages of sin, it's short today. According to his will, every one of us, let me tell you what happened if you didn't know this back in 9-11. The portions of the Pentagon that were attacked, the first five, areas of the Pentagon that were attacked were recently remodeled. That's right. They had just been remodeled and they were able to sustain or there would have been more deaths. That's how sovereign God is. God knew that. Let me go beyond that. Three of the four jets that were traveling with less than 25% capacity, people on that jet. The fourth jet was 33%. All the tragedy, but thank God for the grace and mercy that those jets were not packed out. They were not packed out, thank God. And so I thank God, 25% capacity on the three, the fourth one had 33. Could have been fully packed. That's mercy, that's grace. Why this one and in the affairs of man. And God is good even in the difficult times of our life today, church. God retains His sovereignty over life and the withholdings of life. Man's life is then roamed to Him at God's good pleasure. And true life consists not in the transient, even though prosperous, life of the wicked, but in having God as my portion for heaven. And so I thank God this morning, every one of us, as I close out this morning, he's the promise of our eternal life. Every one of us, he's the I am that I am. He's the only one that can give. He's the one that has given you the greatest gift this Christmas. Never overlook that after life, we'll enter into eternity. Every one of us as a Christian at the end of this life will be instantly raised to be with the Lord Jesus Christ. A spiritual body like Adam, amen. Every one of us, I thank God as we begin to look. One lady survived 9-11 in the train tower. She was a waitress. Her name was Hilda Meyer. She was in the bottom floor when the planes come in. She heard something. She wondered what was going on. Finally, she gets to thinking, you know, of all my misfortune in this happening, I'm originally from Puerto Rico, let me take my girls, let's go back. While she gets on that flight, not knowing, she went, November the 12th, to JFK Airport, got on a plane of American Airlines flight 587. They taxi, they got up in the air, some birds flew into the engines, and seconds later, Even though that she missed the death of the traitor coming down on her. She went down on flight 587, American Airlines, with the girls. How tragic. Some people tell me, hey, I almost died doing this or that, and probably maybe you're in the Vietnam War. God spared you for a reason. Every one of us, God's serious about life. We all need to realize the need to receive Jesus Christ while we can. And we need to see that he is an eternal God this morning. Yes, you survived how many times? This morning, there's the promise of eternal life based from an eternal God and because of an empty tomb. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you because you rose from the grave. Thank you, Lord, because what you have given to us is pretty obvious as we're sitting here right now. Every one of us being here, Psalms 49, 15. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for he shall receive me, sealant. So also, I thank God in the resurrection of the dead. It's sown in corruption. It's raised in incorruption. It's sown in dishonor. Raised in glory. Sown in weakness. Raised in power. Sown in natural body. Raised in a spiritual body. There's a natural body and there is a spiritual body. So question, do we have eternal life? Every one of us can answer that this morning. We've got the greatest gift this Christmas because we have the origin of life. In the beginning, God created. We have the sanctity of life. I knew you in your mother's womb. I have a plan for your life, every one of us. He's a sovereign God over life because he knows the affairs. He already knows your outcome of what you don't know. I thank God he's the promise of eternal life. This morning's heads are bowed, eyes are closed. I want to challenge you. If you've never received, you've never remembered this gift, the gift of eternal life, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord. As we enter through this Christmas season, do you know for sure that you know the real season for this time of the year, the real reason for this season? Do you know Jesus more than a baby that's in a manger? He is your personal Savior. As they start playing softly on the piano. It's not just a story in a book or sweet thought, but It's a lot more than that. It's more than just a busy holiday season that we need to be sure. Do you know surely as Adam and Eve, as they came to the end of their lives and died and went out into eternity, will you too? You need to know where you're going to go when that event happens this morning. Where you go hinges upon what you do with Jesus Christ. Are you safe this morning? I ask you every heart this morning, as heads are bowed, eyes are closed, I want to make sure that I challenge every one of you. If you don't know Jesus Christ and you never remember asking Him to come into your heart in life, there's no one looking this morning. Every head is bowed out of reverence. Every eye is closed. If you've never made a confession of faith and asked God to forgive you of your sins this morning, you need to know for sure. Do you know, without a shadow of a doubt, if you've never made that confession of faith, right now I'm talking to you, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. If you're to step out on faith and ask God to come into your heart and life this morning, that's as simple as this. He hasn't made it hard. He hasn't made it complicated for any of us this morning. Write who you're sitting at as soon as you Put the word, Amen, that you agree and ask Him to come into your heart and life and forgive you of your sins. The moment that you say, Amen, is the moment that the Holy Spirit will come into your heart and life and cleanse you and forgive you of those sins and set up a residence that very moment. How about saying, friend, right where you're sitting at, if you've never asked Him, What you need to do to respond is you can put that hand up right now and say, that's me. For the very first time, this, I'm asking the Lord to come into my mortal life and to save my soul. That would be the greatest gift, the gift of life. that the Lord makes to all of us. If you have never received that, that's the greatest gift you'll ever receive this Christmas. No matter what mom and dad or husband and wife, sister, brother, get you this. God's outdone them all. He's given you the greatest gift and promise you'll ever receive this Christmas. I thank God that's what hinges everything upon. Right now, Father, I thank you for the message. I thank you for the gift of life. your family today, send us your emails to People's Valley Baptist Church at pvbc47 at yahoo.com. That's pvbc47 at yahoo.com. Remember, Jesus is the heart of the message.