This is the word of the Lord. Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect. Dear Lord Jesus, this morning as we come to you and we come to your word, these few verses, I pray that you would be at work in us. We know you have the power and the ability to create the universe and equally amazing the power to save sinners. We wanna be part of your plan as you've invited us to be. We need to know how to do that. So I pray this morning that you would work in each heart and you would work in each mind in this time that we have together. Amen. You may be seated. Well, good morning again, church family. Good morning again, visitors. I've given the message this morning, the title, The Heart and Mind of Evangelism. Many of us know what evangelism is, but it's also a loaded word. It's even used widely in general product marketing these days. So I think it's a fair question to ask me, Nate, what do you mean by evangelism? So an alternate title that I could have used for this message is this, the heart and mind of sharing really good news that requires a total paradigm shift. It's a bit long, but I think it has a ring to it too. And it highlights two parts of evangelism in Christianity. First, the sharing of really good news. Second, the need for a total paradigm shift. The need for the listener to rethink how they have interpreted reality. It's like this, it's like telling you this morning I have great news for you. There's a way to get out of your life sentence in prison and to walk free today. You would all look at me and say, Nate, I'm not going to prison. But what if I went on to explain that the government has been tracking all vehicles since the 60s and for everyone who's gone even one mile over the speed limit at any point, They're going to punish us with life imprisonment. Anyone who's gone even one mile above is going to prison for life. Well, if that's true, then you'd see your whole driving history through a slightly different perspective. And you'd ask me urgently, how can I go free? But if you don't believe this fact about reality, then you don't think my news is quite so great. Evangelism is like that because a believer in Jesus uses words to tell someone who doesn't believe that they can receive forgiveness for sin and eternal life through Jesus. They don't have to experience God's wrath in hell. This is really good news for eternity. But only if it's true and only to those who are willing to replace their current explanation for reality with the explanation given in the Bible. And that makes evangelism and sharing the gospel both exciting to share, such good news, and difficult to share. It does require something of the listener. So this morning, let me address you. You may be in one of a couple places this morning, Maybe you're here and you're interested in spirituality, you value it, but you wouldn't consider yourself a believer, a follower of Jesus, a Christian. I'm so glad you're here. You are our guest who's been invited into our living room, if you will, to get an inside look into the heart and the mind of our family. And I hope you leave here today with a first-hand understanding of who our family is and why we live the way we do. And why the good news of Jesus is so important to us. But it doesn't end there because this isn't a completed or a closed family. You are always welcome as our guest, of course. But I pray you leave here as another son or daughter adopted into the family of God by God himself, just as each of us was. I also wanna speak to you if you have been adopted by God. I want you right now, this isn't pretend, I want you to think about someone you care about who does not believe. They stare at the ground and They tell you that life has handed them something terrible and it feels like the world is crashing down around them. They're doing everything they can to hold life together, but it's overwhelming and they're tired. It's just too much. Then they look up at you right into your eyes and they say, you're a Christian, so answer me this. How do you do it? Why not lose heart when everything's going wrong? Blind hope? Look around. God doesn't seem to be doing a great job. Are you prepared to make a defense, like our verse says? Or are people even asking you questions like this? How do we get to the point where it's a regular, exciting part of our lives? These questions honestly pile up in front of me as I think about myself and evangelism in my life. So how can I this morning avoid just telling you some things you already know today? How can I avoid you walking out of here and maybe even saying, he's right, I should do those things. And then you slip back into your routine. Maybe I need to do a better job of making you feel guilty. about the time spent on yourself and all the opportunities you've wasted. I know that would be easy for you to do to me. Now I'm not saying that repetition is bad. Sometimes we do just need to hear the same thing again until one day it sinks in deeper and we change. But if I was happy just doing that, then I think my work here is accomplished and we can all go home. Let's go home and see if we finally feel guilty enough to do something about evangelism. Well, if I was sitting in your seat, this is what I would need to hear. No amount of wishing or guilt or review of what I should be doing with evangelism is going to move the needle on sharing the gospel. I wanna set you free from that lie. At the same time, I'm not removing the responsibility from all of us to share the gospel. But I believe the Bible would have you and me move our focus from asking, how can I share more and better to focus on improving something else first that will then automatically result in an improvement in your evangelistic conversations. Point number one, healthy hearts. Please turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter six. Jesus himself is teaching in these verses and we'll start in verse 19. In this section he's teaching his disciples about their treasures. So let's read a few verses down through verse 22 together starting in Matthew 6 19. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth. where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." So Jesus is saying you have to decide. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So hold that idea in your mind, and now let's jump forward just a few chapters to Matthew 12, and you'll see something amazing. Matthew 12 and verse 33, we have a new picture now from Jesus, a new illustration. But again, we see contrasting exclusive conditions as before. Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, and Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees here. How can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good person out of his, now watch this, good treasure brings forth good. And the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. None of those verses may be new to you, but when you see them connected, Jesus teaches us something obvious but inescapable. And maybe this sheds new light on your conversations with unbelievers. Some verses from chapter six and 12 together, I've rearranged them a little. Listen to this. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Your heart will contain a pile of some kind of treasure. With what it values most, And that pile of treasure in your heart, from that, your mouth speaks. So, it doesn't matter what I want to do, no matter how guilty I am, or how oblivious, just like a peach tree doesn't try really hard to make peaches, and it can't make an apple, no matter how hard it tries, it's gonna make peaches. The Bible's telling us, you are guaranteed to have treasures in this life, And that treasure is guaranteed to be held tightly in your heart. And you are guaranteed to produce fruit, outward results from your heart. Bad treasure, bad fruit. Good treasure, good fruit. The ESV study Bible says, the true nature of people's hearts can often be seen when they speak off the cuff without reflection. You know, I've never had a real relationship with anyone who really loved something, who didn't talk about it. Unless they loved it, but were ashamed of it. And most people don't just share with me what they love, they want me to love it too. Doesn't matter what it is. And please remember, as you look at these verses, money isn't bad. a car, a house, gadgets, vacations, friends, hobbies, sports, exercise, clothing, shopping, food, drink, entertainment, intelligence, beauty, learning, influence, being liked, being loved. These are not bad either. But as much as you treasure them, you will exalt them. And they will become treasure in your heart, reducing space for treasuring God. As they grow, God shrinks. Our hearts don't stretch to make room for both. Treasure on the inside produces fruit on the outside. And you will blend up this smoothie of the fruits of your heart No matter what you'd like to say, this is what you're gonna serve to the people in your life. This is what you're gonna serve to unbelievers. If each of us is honest, the question isn't, do I have idols? The questions are, what idols have I set up? And how big are they? I'm afraid, brothers and sisters, that the main reason I don't share Christ more is because he isn't overflowing from my treasure enough. So how do we share more and better? Well, we need to treat our idols just as Moses treated the golden calf in Exodus. We must be daily burning our idols, grinding them to dust, flushing them down the toilet, and then straining with much effort to remember how much better a treasure we have in Jesus, in God. Friends, the devils would want us to believe that everything in life that we could value has to be rated on a scale from 1 to 10. And all the good things in life really do max out at 10. But I cannot put a number on the value of knowing Jesus. The bar stretches so high. that to quote the Apostle Paul in Philippians 3, whatever gain I had, all the other tens in my life, I count as loss, as zeros for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him. not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or I'm already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. My dear family, God through the Apostle Paul is telling us in Philippians 3, I don't want you to focus on your guilt and your failings in evangelism. I know you're not perfect yet, but I want you to press on to treasure Jesus. For your new soul to strain against your old flesh. I know you used to value those other things, but you can't press on toward the goal and hold on over here. My prayer for myself is to learn to believe that Jesus is the price, the goal of my whole life. I want to wake up every morning and remind myself that today I must be pressing on, make it my own, because Christ has made me His own. Because if I'm doing that, then when I speak to my neighbor, my coworker, my unsaved family member, I won't have to work very hard at sharing the gospel. I will overflow with good fruit. The elders of Orchard Bible Church care about the condition of your heart. Our prayer and desire for each of you is to have healthy hearts, hearts that treasure Jesus more and everything else less. We see this as such an important need and focus that our area of emphasis for 2019 is healthy hearts. We want you to spend this year considering the condition of your heart and focusing more on the inside than on the outside. Now of course we care about the outward things that come from your life. But we've had multiple areas of emphasis that focused on the things that we say and do and how we live. But if you don't have a healthy heart on the inside, it's going to be frustrating and disheartening to try to produce the right kind of fruit on the outside. This is such a simple truth yet so far reaching. I can't wait to see what we will learn from each other in the next 11 months. And the prayer of your pastors is that your heart will grow healthier this year. And then you will bear much good fruit. So in summary, my first point is this. We often spend too much time measuring our abilities and our performance when it comes to evangelism. If we spent that effort to focus on the fact that we have a blood bot, inexpressibly happy, totally undeserved future, we would treasure the gospel more. And if we valued it so highly that everything else looked like loss by comparison, then our hearts would pour out naturally when we talk with unbelievers. Your friends and family will see that your circumstances look really similar to theirs, but that you have a radically different outlook. Let me end this point on healthy hearts by sharing a great illustration I read a couple of weeks ago. Imagine you have two women of the same age, the same socioeconomic status, the same educational level, and even the same temperament. You hire both of them and you say to each, you are part of an assembly line. I want you to put part A into slot B and then hand what you've assembled to someone else. I want you to do that over and over for eight hours a day. You put them in identical rooms with identical lighting, temperature, and ventilation. You give them the very same number of breaks in a day. It is very boring work. Their conditions are the same in every way, except for one difference. You tell the first woman that at the end of the year, you'll give her $30,000. And you tell the second woman that at the end of the year, you will pay her $30 million. After a couple of weeks, the first woman will be saying, isn't this tedious? Isn't this driving you nuts? Are you thinking about quitting? And the second woman will say, no, this is perfectly acceptable. In fact, I whistle while I work. Well, what's going on? You have two human beings who are experiencing identical circumstances in radically different ways. What makes the difference? It's their expectation of the future. This illustration is not intended to say all we need is a good income. It does however show that what we believe about our future completely controls how we are experiencing our present. We are irreducibly hope-based creatures. Now with that lens of a heart that treasures the eternal life that we know is ours through Jesus, listen afresh to this verse from 1 Peter. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your heart's honor, Christ the Lord is holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Note that this verse says we need healthy hearts. And it also says that we need prepared minds. So let's go on to point number two, prepared minds. What does the word prepare mean? Well, Merriam-Webster says to make ready beforehand for some purpose, use or activity. So if you don't prepare dinner by taking the time to shop and cook and mix everything together and serve the food, then dinner will never be ready, no matter how hungry you are. If you don't prepare for a trip to Paris by planning it out and buying tickets, getting up at the right time to make sure you're at the airport, then you'll never get to Paris, no matter how badly you'd like to visit. Even God prepares. Jesus told his disciples in John 14 too, that he was going to prepare a place for you in heaven. and then come again for you. If he didn't prepare, your home would not be ready. So when Peter says always being prepared, it means something must be made ready beforehand. If you don't prepare to explain your reason for hope, you'll never be ready. And if you aren't ready, you'll be stressed out when called upon. So imagine this, the doorbell rings, You pause your show on Netflix, set down your nuked leftovers, dodge through some clutter in the living room, go to the front door, open it wide in your sweats, and there before you stands the family that you invited over for dinner. Panic, stress, looking for some window to jump out of, and no escape. Well, you could experience that and then conclude, we should never host again. But the issue isn't having someone over for dinner, is it? You just have to prepare. Then it's a joy. Evangelism is the same way. What if I walked down right now off this stage and went directly over to you, handed you a mic and asked you, how can you say that your religion is the only right way to God? What makes you so sure? Did you get a little flutter just now? Did you say he better be joking? He better not do that. Well, if you did, it doesn't mean that you should never engage in evangelism again. It means you need to prepare, that's all. Well, how should you prepare? It's a good question. Unfortunately, I can't answer that question for you. I know Jeff promised you last week that I would, but I can't answer that. Because if I tell you how to prepare, I know what you're gonna say. Nice try, but that way doesn't work for me. So I say, do it your way. How do you prepare? How do you prepare in other things in your life? How do you prepare for those? What if you tried what works for you with evangelism? I can guarantee you one thing. If you go home today and you don't do anything, you won't be prepared. And the next time you're watching a show and the doorbell rings, I want you to ask yourself a question. Am I prepared? I might even do some ring and runs this week, swing by your house just to help the point sink in. You need to be prepared to give a defense for the hope that is in you. Well, maybe you feel frozen. That's a possibility. How does one even start preparing to share the gospel? Okay, I'm willing to answer that question and give you some ideas. You'll notice that I'm gonna give these to you in the imperative mood as a command, not because I'm bossy, but because you actually have to do these to prepare. Remember this, I'll give you some recipes. I'm not giving you precooked meals. You have to cook the meal for yourself if you want to eat. As you look down, you see in your outline, you've got five ideas that we'll list out. I want to tell you that those of you that are the guessing type, One of those is not reading your Bible, and another one is not coming to church, both to this preaching service and to Lord's Supper. Reason being that those are so obvious and so needful for so many things in life that I didn't even want to include them. Well, here's idea number one. Change the way you pray. How often in your personal, family, or even in your home group time of prayer Do you pray for unsaved people? Are you making room in your prayers for the lost? I mentioned a couple weeks ago that prayer both reveals and changes our hearts and minds. So this is so easy. Prepare your mind for evangelism by praying for the lost in your life and others. Pray for missionaries. Come to the orchard prayer time like we had this morning before church. It's each first Sunday of the month. Because when you pray, or even better, when someone prays for you like this, Lord, help Nate as he meets with his dear friend this week. Give him the right words when he doesn't have them to clearly explain the great news of forgiveness and unbounded grace in you. Jesus, give him boldness but wisdom to show respect and not push farther than is helpful. Remind him that bringing life to hearts of stone is the Holy Spirit's job and his job is just to share, amen. When you pray like that and others pray for you like that, that will change you. It prepares your mind. So idea number one, change the way you pray. Idea number two, talk with, read about people who are sharing the gospel. I want you to load up your mind with stories of God at work, here at Orchard and way beyond. When your faith and motivation are low, this will prepare your mind. Let me show you how it works. Here's an excerpt from the January Prayer Warrior letter that we get from Camp Elam. While Dan and Terry Faulkner were in New York City, they struck up a conversation with another patron. As they talked, the man realized where he recognized Dan from. Camp Elam, he exclaimed. That's where I know you from, Camp Elam. I gave my heart to Christ at Camp Elam back in the 80s. He remembered Dave Michaud had been his speaker. He attended as a child. He had grown up in a Mormon household. And when he came to camp, he was confronted with his need for a savior. And today, this friend is living in Utah and is involved in full-time ministry to win Mormons to Christ. Isn't that amazing? Think about it. There are kids at camp right now who aren't saved. But one of them or more will hear and be saved and could spend their whole life reaching out to someone with a background like theirs maybe because someone prepared their mind in advance to share. Here's another example, the Swanson family, complete strangers who you and I have never met before. They're missionaries to the Philippines. Listen to this letter from them. Today, as I was paying for 75 Bibles that we passed out at a jail, I thought of you and your commitment to Christ. One of the gals that comes to our Thursday home fellowship goes several times a week to visit her partner in jail. We went with her and passed out Bibles to all of the inmates and guards. You guys were part of that. We were told later that disputes in the jail have gone way down because people are reading their Bibles. Last night over 50 youth and adults showed up for dinner and Bible study. Many of them are unchurched and are just learning that Jesus loves them. Thanks for being a part of their discipleship. We've never met this family. but hearing about their faithfulness in sharing the gospel, it moves us. It builds my faith. It prepares my mind to share. And there are hundreds of true stories in your own circle, here in our own midst and way beyond. So spend a little less time reading and talking about material that was made by the world, and it's about the world, and it's for the world, whatever that is in your life, and read about and talk about the God who created the world and who is using people in the world to save the world from sin. Come to Missions Connection that meets here at the church once a month. Others have prepared minds. Let that rub off on yours. So that's idea number two, to prepare your minds. Idea number three, read one book about evangelism. And listening to books counts too, if you're not a big reader. This idea may sound extremely cliche to you, but it's not cliche and it's not difficult. Books prepare your mind by equipping you with information and tools to be skilled and ready to share. They also keep evangelism in your mind, fresh, excited. And I wanna share an example here of how a book prepared me. The book is called The Story of Reality, How the World Began, How it Ends, and Everything Important that Happens in Between by Greg Cockel. We're often stressed because we don't know how to get a conversation to the gospel. It feels awkward, so maybe we bail out, or we force it in and then we're discouraged by the reception. Well, here's Greg's point, one of his in the book that prepared my mind. In the foreword we read this, one of Francis Schaeffer's most memorable sayings was that Christianity does not start with Jesus saves you from your sins. It starts with in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Schaeffer's point is this, that Christianity cannot be reduced to a tract or a technique for getting saved. It's a comprehensive account for the structure of reality, a rational and real world account of the history of the universe, a verifiable storyline of the unfolding of the cosmos. We all need context. If we look into the Bible and see how people share it, it's the same. The Apostle Paul started with sweeping things that we all know about when talking with Gentiles. and then differentiated God from the idols that they knew. But when talking to Jews, he started with the Old Testament account of God's plan and the coming Messiah before getting to Jesus. So when talking to someone about Christianity as your personal relationship with Jesus, which it is, and you need to get there, they may accidentally categorize these as happy beliefs that you have, but that don't apply to them. Well if Christianity is a picture of reality, the one reality that we all share, then maybe we should start at this worldview level. Kochel says this, this story in their mind is what people are referring to when they say they have certain beliefs about things like meaning, value, purpose and significance. Or they will say, this is the way I look at things, or that was the right thing to do in that situation. Every statement like this is informed by an understanding of the way people believe the world actually is. It's their belief system. If they did not have a basic story in their minds, they would have a difficult time making any of the important decisions that people are faced with in life. And in this sense, there's no difference between an atheist and a religious person? None. Kochel explains that there are four parts to every worldview. Creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. Now I had heard this before, but here's the idea that helped me turn it into real conversations that prepared my mind. You can restate those as four questions. Where did we come from? What's our problem? What is the solution? And how will things end for us? Let's look at the second question. What is our problem? Every person you meet knows that the world is broken. It's a hurting place with lots of things that are wrong. Nobody believes that everything's working the way it should. I've never met someone that believed that. So the question is why? Seeing the problems is easy. Explaining why it's broken is much harder for people. Question three is what is the solution? Okay, things are broken, so how can we fix our problem? That's also a challenging question. People have answers for this. And all answers from all other worldviews do two things. They offer too small of a problem to explain the world and too small of a solution to fix it. But here's what's so great. The questions are easy to ask, they're easy to understand, And yet the answers give you a picture of what a person believes as they try to make sense of reality. The framework is easy to remember. So with a prepared mind from reading this, I used this at a recent lunch. As I talked to this man, conversation naturally went, as it often does, to things that are broken and messed up in the world. And we were able to agree. Explicitly that the world is broken and lots of people are hurting. So I asked, what do you think got us here? His answer, I don't know. So I asked him, well, how do we fix things? What's our hope? And his answer was that we need to find what makes us happy and then do our best to get there. That's what's driving his decision. So I asked him, what is he pursuing? Well, he had set his sights on buying a house and had accomplished that. So I congratulated him and I asked him how it was working out. And he said, well, it's nice, but all of the stresses and costs of owning a house came into the discussion. He wants to get remarried. And that's what he's pursuing most right now. But as we talked, he admitted he wonders if that will make him happy. He has doubts. As we continue to talk, we pondered the fact that some of the struggles we had talked about earlier were actually good in the end and were the way that we and our kids grow stronger. As we wrapped up lunch, I told him that I believe the Bible's God's word and it holds the answers. and that maybe next time I could hear about his spiritual background and where he stands on those things. Here's why I share this story. You can see I didn't do anything special but reading this book prepared my mind and it enabled me to challenge this man on his explanation for the reality of this world's brokenness and the solution. And it opened the door for me to share how the Bible's answers to the problem and the solution are big enough to explain the reality that we experience. So, idea number three, find a good book or an audio book. I listened to that book as I drove around. It will prepare you. Idea number four, prepare questions. Jeff encouraged you to ask questions last week, and it bears repeating. Most people will make statements about God, religion, and faith, but they've not thought carefully about what they really believe, or what they're basing this belief on, or how well it fares in comparison with Christianity's answers. Now, there are many, many questions you could ask that are great, but here's probably the easiest and most important question you should be prepared to ask. What do you mean by that? Let me read you a few quick examples from another one of Kochel's books called Tactics, just to illustrate for you. When someone says there is no God, you ask them, what do you mean by God? If they mean an old man with a beard who sits on a throne out in space, Christians don't believe in that kind of God either. When someone says all religions are basically the same, you ask, really? In what way are they basically the same? The point here is not to determine if there are any similarities between religions, but to see if the similarities are weightier than the differences. When someone says reincarnation was taken out of the Bible, you ask, what do you mean reincarnation was taken out? Here you're trying to determine how someone removes lines of text from thousands of handwritten documents circulating around the Mediterranean region. in the first four centuries. When someone says, how could God exist when there's so much evil in the world? Then you ask, what do you mean by evil? Or what in your mind is the conflict? The question of evil doesn't provide evidence against God, but in favor of him. For God must exist to provide an absolute standard by which evil is measured. Asking people what they mean engages them in an interactive way. It flatters them because it shows a genuine interest in their point of view. It forces them also to think more carefully, more precisely, maybe for the first time about his or her intended meaning. It also gives you valuable information about what they really believe about something. And it positions the non-believer in a defensive position of thinking while placing you in control of the conversation. So don't underestimate this power of this question. What do you mean by that? Use it often. As you interact with others, have a mind prepared to ask good questions. But don't forget to have a healthy heart that's overflowing with good answers for the hope that is within you. I hope one of these four ideas is worth trying as you prepare. But if you're afraid still to try and to fail, then I think idea number five is for you. So listen closely. Idea number five, get out there and fail. You will fail. I will fail. We won't do a perfect job, probably ever. But remember this, God doesn't need you to do a perfect job. He asks that you prepare and he asks that you share. Who cares if you fail? No amount of secret preparation is gonna get you prepared. Actively sharing your beliefs is a key part of the preparation, and it protects you from making up stories in your mind that aren't true. Don't let the fear of man or the fear of failure keep you from sharing. As our verse says, have no fear of them, nor be troubled. But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord is holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. And remember this, there is someone better at sharing the gospel than the person who shared with you. And God used them when he saved you. I've been speaking primarily to my family in Christ this morning. I want us to have healthy hearts that overflow with eternal treasures that we have in Jesus. I want us to have prepared minds that are ready to talk about eternal matters. But I want to close with a few words to you who are our guests this morning. I told you at the beginning that I'm glad that you're here. That you would see an inside look into the heart and mind of our family. And I hope that this message helped wipe away some of the misunderstandings maybe you had about Christians and encourage you to think about your answers to reality's hardest questions. Well, this morning as you look into your heart, you're going to find that you were born with a heart condition. We all were. It's called sin and it hurts us and it hurts others. And it makes us feel guilty because we are. But you don't need to live like this any longer. You don't have to die with your heart condition. You can have a new heart, a heart transplant, a healthy heart. God himself is inviting you right now to accept his ability to do this for you. He knows everything about you. He knows your reasons for pushing him away. and he doesn't care. Those are only in your way, not in his way. Don't try to get rid of your past or your baggage. Just be honest and admit that you need him to save you. And know this, there has never been and there will never be a sinner so bad that God's arms couldn't reach around to embrace and forgive. And you are no exception. But many before you have spent a lifetime pushing his open, nail-pierced hands of limitless love away and have finally died in spiritual exhaustion and are now paying the full price for sin. So please don't waste another minute of your life fighting off God's free gift of eternal life. Finally find your soul's rest in him. Please stand as I close our time in prayer. Lord, how wonderful that you have seen into the depths of every heart here. You have seen our heart condition. You have seen our need. And you, through your Holy Spirit, open our eyes as we consider the eternal things of life and meaning to the fact that while we know we can't do it on our own, we have a Savior. There is a truth in the Bible that can explain all of the pain we've felt, all of the brokenness of the world, and that God himself died in our place to fix it. Lord, how we long for the day when you return and you make all things right. In judgment, you will perfectly let all things be put into the place where they should be. The perfect and complete solution for all eternity. And I pray for each of us today as we go forward, that we would consider our heart condition, that we would live and move to have healthy hearts, and that we would prepare our minds also to not keep this wonderful good news to ourselves, but would share it with many people around us. Help us to these ends. We can't do it alone. Thank you for your promise to be with us always. In Jesus' name, I pray these things. Amen. You're dismissed.