If you have a copy of the word of God, I invite you to turn with me to John chapter 12. We're going to be in John chapter 12. And before I begin reading, I just want to say how much I appreciate and give you all thanks for the opportunity to be able to present the word of God to you all this evening. I've been praying that God would bless it and that he wouldn't just bless it in the sense that you all feel good leaving here, but I've especially been praying and asking God that today would be the day of salvation for someone, if not multiple people here today. You know, there's often a temptation for young seminary students, myself included, that when I get an opportunity to preach, I want to show off my learning. I want to show what I can do. I want to impress you. The advice I've been given, which I think is very good advice, is don't do that. Preach what you know. And the one thing I know, if I know nothing else, is that Jesus died to save sinners. So my message today is going to be the gospel, pure and simple. For those who have not trusted in Jesus, this is the way of salvation. And for those who are already Christians, this is a great reminder of the joy of your salvation. So I'm going to begin in John 12. I'll begin reading at verse 32. This is Jesus speaking, by the way. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die. The people answered him, we have heard out of the law that Christ abideth forever. And how sayest thou the son of man must be lifted up? Who is the son of man? Then Jesus said unto them, yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you. For he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have the light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them. But though he had done so many miracles before them, Yet they believe not on him that the saying of Isaiah, the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report and to whom have the half the arm of the Lord been revealed. Therefore they could not believe because that Isaiah said again, he had blinded their eyes and harden their heart that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their heart and be converted and I should heal them. These things said Isaiah when he saw his glory and spake of him. Nevertheless, among the chief rulers also many believed on him. But because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue. For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." Well, amen. Let's bow one more time in prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, we are desperate for you. We are desperate for you right here and right now. Lord, if the gospel go out today by the power of man, Lord, it will do nothing. Lord, we need your Holy Spirit. to be here, to sanctify your word, and to break the hearts of those who are hard-hearted. Lord, open their ears, open their eyes, and help them see that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. Lord, we ask that your gospel will be glorified and that your name would be made great this evening. Lord, please be with me, be with us, and sanctify your truth. Your word is truth. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. I have a few interests, but one of them is not sports. I don't watch any sports. Don't watch basketball. Don't watch baseball. But the only sport I've ever really been into in terms of watching has been hockey. I used to be really into watching hockey high school and also college. But as soon as I moved to Kentucky, it stopped. And, you know, there's two reasons. One of the reasons for that is circumstantial. Kentucky doesn't have a hockey team. at least not NHL hockey, not professional hockey. I also didn't have access to cable television, and I wasn't willing to pay for ESPN or any of those subscription services. So I just stopped. It wasn't a conscious choice. It was just, I can't watch it anymore, so I'll just stop. It was something I was really into. I watched every game, and then I didn't. The second reason was convictional. I started having problems with my team. And the reason for that is because they got very political about things they had no business being political about. And basically what it was, several of the coaches, the goalie, the coach, several of the players, the goalie and the coach, they started going to pride parades as official representatives of the hockey team. And so my thing was, I don't know if that's something I want to support my team, give money to, cheer for them, if that's the kind of causes that my money, in a sense, is going to be going towards. So there was circumstantial and convictional reasons that I stopped watching. If I'm honest, however, the circumstances were the primary reason. I probably would have come up with some sort of argument to be like, yeah, they do bad things, but when they're on the ice, they're just playing hockey, so it doesn't really matter. But it would be really easy in this story for me to pretend, oh no, I was a man of conviction, I denied hockey for Jesus. It was circumstantial, but I could make myself a hero and be like, no, no, it's because I'm pursuing God. Some of you are here today, you're here in church for convictional reasons. You believe that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, you want to hear his word, and you believe being here this evening is the best way to hallow the Lord's day. And there are other people here who are here for circumstantial reasons. Maybe your parents dragged you here. Maybe all your friends are here and you want to have a good time. And then there's some of us who are dishonest about why we're here. It is circumstantial. And we've lied to ourselves and said it's for convictional reasons. And for those of us that that's the case with, we might not even realize it. And the reason for that is because some of us are walking And Jesus says in this passage that he that walketh in darkness knows not whither he goes. Unbelief is a powerful force and we often lie to ourselves. There are many non-Christians, many people who are not born again, who truly do think that they are born again. And if that is you, the same message for somebody who's honest about their sin. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's two things I wanna talk about in our passage today. I wanna talk about unbelief and true belief. When we examine unbelief, I wanna look at its causes, the way that unbelief is maintained, and its divine purpose. And second of all, when we look at belief, I wanna look at the focal point of belief and the power of belief. So this is going to be a law and gospel sermon. So first of all, unbelief. The great lamentation of the Holy Spirit in this passage is that men had exposure to Jesus Christ, and yet they did not believe on his name. And this was not a sort of innocent unbelief, such as those who perhaps have just never heard the name of Jesus. These people were well aware that he existed. They saw him do various miracles. This was not also the sort of unbelief that was maybe widespread and common in Israel at the time. Yes, we know that the Jews had the Old Testament, but like many today who call themselves Christian and maybe have a general understanding of certain Bible stories, yet there was still a general ignorance as to the substance of their religion. And it also didn't help that their religious professionals who were educating them at the time, the Pharisees, regularly missed central concepts of their own religion. And namely, that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who was to come, needed to be followed in their heart. But consider what our Lord says in verse 37. But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not in him. So the unbelief described here is not a plain thing. It's not an innocent thing. It's not a small thing. In fact, it would perhaps better to call it disbelief than unbelief. These men, in this passage, they had dealings with our Lord. They saw him cure the lame. They saw him give sight to the blind. They saw him raise men from the dead. They observed these miracles in a most tangible way, and they disbelieved. And it was not merely his sovereign divine power over nature that they observed, but it was also they observed his ability to forgive sins. Remember that when Jesus did miracles, it wasn't for the sake of purely doing miracles, but he often gave an interpretation to his miracles. He would, for example, heal the blind in order to show his ability to open spiritual eyes. So let's give an example of this principle. In Mark chapter two, we have Jesus healing a lame man. And I'm going to go ahead and read the first 12 verses in Mark chapter 2. He, Jesus, entered into Capernaum after some days, and it was noise that he was in the house. And straightaway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them. No, not so much as about the door. And he preached the word unto them. And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was born of four. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was. And when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. But there were certain of the scribes sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only? And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, arise and take up thy bed and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, he saith to the sick of the palsy, I say unto thee, arise and take up thy bed, and go thy way unto thine house. And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all." So they witnessed several things here. They witnessed, first of all, his power over nature. He cured this man. This man was able to take up his bed and walk. Second of all, they witnessed his ability to forgive sins as the son of man. And thirdly, and this is maybe less clear, less explicit from this passage, his absolutely impeccable character. Jesus Christ is the sinless lamb of God. In all ways, he walked righteously and he obeyed his father's will and fulfilled the law perfectly in everything that he did. And even with all of this, Our text still reads, yet they believed not on him. So the question has to be answered, why not? Why did they not believe in him? It's manifestly clear that lack of evidence was not the problem. If you have ever before heard the gospel and not believed, it is not because you have an intellectual problem. You have a heart problem. Something is not right between you and God. And maybe the problem today that's different from the problem back then is today we're largely a nation full of atheists and we just presuppose that miracles can't happen. We don't even evaluate that it's a possibility that maybe somebody got healed or God answered a prayer. Miracles can't happen. This was not a problem back then. This was not what was being challenged to Jesus back then. They didn't deny his miracles. They didn't say, well, Jesus didn't cure people. He didn't raise men from the dead. They couldn't deny that. They could only slander his character. They could only say things like, well, he's uttering blasphemies, or he's casting out demons by the power of Satan. He commits blasphemy. There's a lot of things they threw at him. And other people, they didn't even try to challenge him. They just didn't care. This is the guy who does miracles. Or maybe they were even intrigued by his miracles, or perhaps they even sought healings of their own. But the thing that many were indifferent to was the purpose of his miracles, the thing that the miracles pointed to. It was Jesus's message that many did not care for. And yet, why the disbelief? So let's move on and examine the causes of unbelief. The Jewish audience of Jesus, upon hearing of the kingdom of heaven, they went from a state of sinful ignorance to a state of sinful rejection. And both states are bad, but the latter is far worse than the former. In the first state, that of sinful ignorance, the cause is original sin. We read of original sin in Romans 5, 19. The word of God says, For as by one man, this is speaking of Adam from the Garden of Eden, for as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. So by the obedience of one, this is speaking of Jesus, by the obedience of one, many shall be made righteous. The Bible speaks, when it speaks of natural man, that is the posterity of Adam, that we inherit not just a propensity to sin, a natural tendency to sin, but we also inherit Adam's guilt. This is why the Bible, when speaking of natural man, it speaks of him as a child of wrath, conceived in sin. We are not born as a blank slate, but we are in dire need from the moment of conception, in need of a savior. But when we consider the second state, that of sinful rejection, our trespasses are now magnified. For you've evolved from a state of just living in sin and not knowing nothing about anything except for sin, to now you know something about the way of reconciliation, you know something about the path of peace, and you have rejected it. Now I have heard some stories, and certainly we do have scriptural examples of this, of men who, the first time they're presented with the gospel, the first time they hear about whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved, the first time they hear that, they repent, they believe, and they are justified. However, speaking from experience, that seems to be exceptionally rare. It seems that most of us went through a period where we were hard-hearted, and having known both darkness and light we preferred the darkness. And we would rather have had sin and filth and the pleasures of this world than Jesus. Jesus and the cross in comparison? No, I'd rather not. You know, I'm kind of indifferent. Jesus doesn't appeal to spiritually dead men. And therefore our gospel, when we present it, it must be presented not only to dead sinners, but God must be present in power as it is proclaimed. If God does not grant the new birth, it's like speaking to a brick wall. Jesus must grant the new birth. He must give us the gift of faith. So second of all, the maintenance of unbelief. Our Lord quotes Isaiah twice in this passage, and the first time he cries out to God in verse 38, saying, quoting Isaiah, Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? So his cry here, his lamentation here, is who is going to hear what we say, and who's going to believe what we have to say? Many of today's faithful evangelists feel the same way. Most who do not hear the gospel, most who hear it do not believe. And it's a sad thing, it's a terrible thing. If you are here today and you do not know Jesus, this should not be a point of comfort for you. Take no comfort in this. Broad is the path that leads to destruction, and there is no safety in numbers on that last day. Now, there are all sorts of reasons why you might delay or cast aside the day of your salvation. Our text mentions one reason in verse 42. It's because some people are afraid of being put out of the synagogue. There are some churches that if somebody becomes a Christian, believes what the Bible says about the gospel, one of the first things they have to do is find a new church. Because the church they're in right now might not be preaching the truth. Now, I think I can say with a great level of confidence that that is not a problem for anybody here today. We preach the gospel regularly and faithfully. You have no fear of needing to be put out of this church because you come to Jesus. However, the second reason that is given is in verse 43. It says, for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. Is this second reason true for you? Is the second reason true? Are you too embarrassed by Jesus to own him? Is being a friend with the world worth being an enemy to God? I mean, this is no small thing. You might lose, by following Jesus, you might lose everything except Jesus. And he's worth it. But do you believe that? Do you believe that he is worth it? You know, we present the gospel over and over and over here, and I'm afraid that maybe perhaps the chief reason that some of us have not yet come to Him is because you've become dull of hearing. When the blood of the Lamb is presented to you over and over and over again, and your repeated answers are something along the lines of, no, not yet, I just don't know if that's important to me right now, do you not think this affects you? Do you not think that you are, you know, not just facing greater condemnation on the last day by rejecting the Son, but do you not think that affects you right now? You know, it's not just heaping up guilt, but your soul today is becoming harder and harder, and it's becoming more difficult to break you and to renew you to repentance the more times that you put off Jesus Christ. Your sin doesn't just have consequences when you die, but it affects your communion with God right now. And some of you are abiding in this darkness that Jesus speaks of. You are abiding in darkness because you have rejected him. And you don't know how dark of a house that you've made for yourself. You don't know. The text says that darkness knoweth not whither he goes. And We don't understand how dark our dwelling is. You don't understand how dark it is. It's not because it's not dark, but it's because your eyes have adjusted to the darkness. And the darkness, the more times you delay Christ, it gets darker and darker. And your eyes keep adjusting and adjusting. And you keep telling yourself, it's not as bad as it is. It's not as bad as it is. If we could think of Jesus as the light switch of our soul, reach for him with faith and he will illuminate every square inch of that darkness that you have accrued for yourself. Nothing will be left untouched by Jesus who is the light of the world. He promises to expel that darkness and he says, You can have that light. That light is available to you today. Only reach out to Him in faith. Trust in Him. Believe that He has the power over sin and death. But if you don't, if you don't, if you continue to delay Him, you will eventually find yourself in a darkness where your eyes are fully adjusted and yet you cannot see. So think of maybe an unlit basement, there's no windows, and it's so pitch black dark that you can't see your hand in front of your face. Perhaps it gets to that point. And as you fumble in the darkness for that divine light switch, you find that he cannot be found. You find that it is too late. My friends, I don't want anyone here to end up in the outer darkness. How terrible is that place? Hell is a reality. And if we ignore the encroaching darkness, we will find ourselves in hell. But Jesus, the good news is he is here right now. He's available right now to ransom you from that abyss. but you have to reach out to him in faith. He says, yet a little while, the light is with you. Not a lot longer, a little while. So there's a sense of urgency. Don't presume that you have time. There have been many who have landed in that outer darkness by saying, little bit later, little bit later. You don't have later. So take care of your soul today. Now I want to talk about the divine purpose of unbelief. God desires that none should perish, but that all should repent. He desires that none would go to hell, but that all repent. Which is why I can freely proclaim the gospel that anybody who calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved. Yet the promise is this, either way, whether you go to heaven when you die, or if you go to hell when you die, God's going to be glorified. You're not hurting God, you are hurting your own eternal soul. And God will be glorified in the last day, either through the manifestation of his great love towards his saints, or his great wrath towards those who have offended his righteousness. When our Lord quotes Isaiah the second time, he says in verse 40, He, being God, he hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. Part of Jesus's ministry, part of God's plan, is that some would be closed-minded to the gospel. And this isn't to say that God at any moment in time was powerless to save, but rather it's to say God's will is always done. God will save everyone he intends to save. Everyone. He has the power to open and close hearts, and he has the power to open and close eyes to his truth. He alone saves. So the question is, do you plan to put God to the test? Do we plan to test that theory? Well, God, if you can save me, then I'll wait for you to save me. I'll wait for God to do it in his own timing. Well, if we've fallen into that error of saying, you know, I'm not going to take any responsibility. I'm going to, you know, if God wants to save me, he'll just save me. Then you've fallen into the error of denying your responsibility to believe in him. God says, believe in him. That's an action that you have to perform. Or maybe we've gone the totally opposite direction and made a different error. You know, maybe you've denied and maybe you've erred in saying, you know, maybe I'll repent later. You know, I'm having a really good time in my current season of life. You know, maybe I wanna get a little bit older or things a little bit different, then I'll seek the Lord. I'll become more of a church person and a family man and stuff like that. Do you believe that you hold the keys to death and hell? Jesus says that of himself, that he alone holds the keys to death and Hades. When he calls you, that is when you can come. Call to him, he's calling you now, so come to him now. Ask him, plead before him in prayer to give you a new heart that causes you to love him, and come to him today. Okay, so now that we've covered the bad news, let's carry on to the good news, the nature of true belief. First of all, let's talk about its focus. We're given three exhortations in our text from the mouth of Jesus. First of all, believe in the light. Secondly, walk in the light. And third, be children of the light. So first of all, believe in the light. Part of the message of biblical Christianity is that we must intellectually affirm certain truths about our faith. And we can think of these maybe as propositions. So for example, we have to believe in one God. We can't be atheists, we can't be people who believe in all these bunch of other gods as well, there is one God. One God who's the father of Jesus, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, there is one God. Another thing we have to believe as Christians is in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The gospel is defined first in the scriptures as Jesus dying according to the scriptures, being buried, and being resurrected according to the scriptures. Another thing we have to believe as Christians is that salvation is by the grace of God through faith alone and not by works. However, the gospel is also very, very clear that following a checklist of orthodoxy is insufficient for salvation. Even if you have the best theology in the world, even if you're a fully confessional Reformed Baptist, that's not enough. You have to throw yourself upon the mercy of Jesus Christ and trust in him fully. The reason I bring this up is because there are some here who believe in him but have yet to believe on him. The apostle Peter is asked by Jesus, who do you say that I am? And if your answer to that question is, well, Jesus is like, you know, he's fundamentally the science to be studied. And you know, we can learn all these things and all these books about him, and it's about accumulation of knowledge purely. Well, then something is wrong. To believe on him is not simply to know of him, but to know him. to know him as a faithful friend, as precious savior, as lover of my soul, as the one who meets with me in prayer. So who is Jesus to you? Is he more of an idea, a concept to be studied? Or is he someone that you know on a very intimate level? Have you had personal dealings with him? I don't mean just from the pulpit or in family prayer time or stuff like that. Have you secretly in your prayer closet, in your personal private devotional time, has he met with you? And has he comforted you? And has he reminded you of this great and glorious gospel? Secondly, we're told walk in the light. Pastor Jim has been given several messages lately, preaching out of Hebrews chapter six, he's been giving messages on the real danger of apostasy and falling away from Christian faith. And we have in scripture both warnings and encouragements to stay on the straight and narrow path. In our passage, we have the positive, walk while you have the light, and the negative, less darkness come upon you. Those of us who have been Christians for any considerable length of time can testify that, yes, there are some dark nights of the soul. And so Jesus presents two ideas here. I'm not saying this is the only reason that dark nights of the soul come, but one reason these might come is through spiritual neglect. It's through the neglect of the ordinary means of grace. We haven't been praying. We haven't had our Bibles open. We've been either drifting off during the sermons or maybe not attending. There's been no real struggle for holiness in our life. And the fact is, if you do nothing, you're not really doing nothing. You're actually drifting from the Lord. We need to be proactive in pursuing God and in not neglecting our salvation. Secondly, the second idea, is this darkness, this spiritual darkness, can be cured by returning to Jesus again. And not only is the gospel offered and not only are the arms of Jesus opened, for non-Christians, for sinners to enter, but they are especially open for his children. And he does not give you, fellow Christian, he does not give you his spirit only then to forsake his own gospel by denying your return because of your backsliding. Jesus does not change, his love does not grow cold just because you have. His love is fixed because God cannot deny himself. And if He has given you His Spirit, and if He has sworn a covenant by His own name, sworn upon Himself that He will never leave you and forsake you, then we ought to believe that. He commands you to believe that. He commands you to believe that He is that fountain by which we must be filled. He commands you to believe that He loves you. not because that's a burdensome commandment, but because we are so sinful, we wanna make the gospel complicated. We wanna make it, you know, in some sense, we wanna smuggle in our works somewhere along the process, but it always is as simple. Jesus is enough. Just come back to him. First time, one millionth time, come back to him. Walk in the light. And thirdly, be children of the light. We ought to rejoice in our redemption. You know, I think we often do a lot of whipping of ourselves, especially as Reformed Christians. You know, we're always reminding ourselves that we're sinners undeserving of grace. Yeah, there's an element of truth to that, but that needs to be very quickly followed up, and I've been forgiven by Jesus Christ, and therefore I walk in the light, and I do so with joy and with boldness and confidence in my salvation. So rejoice in your salvation. Take full advantage of all the benefits procured by Jesus on that cross. Children of God, understand that God loves you as the father loves his own son, because you are united to him by faith. If Jesus has made you a child of light, simply be. You know, we never have to tell a flower to act like a flower. You know, we never go into our garden and say, tomato plant, gotta be a tomato plant today. You know, it's absurd. Or if we have a dog, we never have to tell him to be a dog. Now we might say, you've been a bad dog, but we never question whether or not it's a dog. But we as Christians, we're unique in this matter. We have this unusual amnesia that we forget our identity. We are told, be children of the light, because we are slow to remember and quick to forget. But God is not like that. God actually reminds us over and over of who we are in light of the gospel. And so this command, be children of light, it's both natural, we do what we are, and it's needful because our spirit wars with our flesh. Now I wanna carry on to the power of belief. Now considering the power of belief, I think we should first of all consider the power of belief as belief. So, biblically, faith and belief are the same words. Perhaps in English, faith has a religious connotation, but either way, belief is an act of the human will. And it could be influenced by a variety of factors such as our reasons, peer pressure, societal pressure, emotional leanings. But whatever our reason for our belief is, people tend to be consistent with their beliefs and their actions flow naturally from what they believe. So for example, why do people wear a seatbelt? Well, one reason is I believe that if I get into an accident, a seatbelt might save my life. Therefore I wear a seatbelt. Or I believe if I don't wear a seatbelt, I'm gonna get a ticket. I'm gonna get pulled over. So your actions flow from your beliefs. But belief or faith being an act of the human will, even when you're right about something, it doesn't produce any sort of immediate effect on reality. Works always need to follow it. But if we consider belief not just as belief, but we consider belief in the object of Jesus Christ, we do see a difference. Belief and mere belief does do something if the object of our belief is Jesus Christ. We are promised in the scriptures an immediate effect of eternal life when we believe in him. And that's not because belief is just a human work and we've done something to earn and contribute to our salvation. But belief, Jesus has promised to bless and to sanctify. And he has ordained that belief is the means by which we lay hold of his righteousness. So when he tells us, believe in the light, he's saying have faith in the light, have faith in him. And that is the gospel, it truly is that simple. The book of Romans tells us in chapter 10, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. And the power of belief is this, Jesus says that even faith the size of a mustard seed, that faith is enough to cleanse us of all filth, all uncleanness, to blot out our transgressions as far as the east is from the west, and that that sin we can think of as having the power to move mountains. And the moment we first believe, no matter how weak and how frail our belief is, when our belief is focused upon the impeccable Jesus Christ and his power and his glory, we are immediately and fully justified because he has promised us that he is enough. He tells us on the cross, it is finished. And when we believe in him, we are fully forgiven in heaven's book of records. So I do wanna conclude tonight by being transparent and candid about my burden behind choosing this text. And my reason is primarily because of the children here. It's you young children who don't know the Lord. And kids, we just read about Jesus, how he is the light of the world. And our text says in verse 37, children, but though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him. And so young ones here of this church, how many miracles have you witnessed of Jesus? How many? Have you witnessed them in the lives of your friends when they proclaim him in baptism? Have you seen their lives transformed for the better when they trust in Jesus? Have you seen him work in the lives of your parents? Have you seen them lean upon Jesus during their hard times and give him every praise in good times? I know you have tasted of the spirit of Jesus when the word of God is preached here, and I know you have an awareness that he answers prayers. It's not just one or two testimonies, oh yeah, he answered prayer this one time. He regularly does this for this congregation. How many more miracles does he have to perform in your sight before you lay down the burden of your sins and follow him? How many more? Do you not trust him? What is it that stops you? Do you not believe that he's good? He loves you enough to have given you a loving home and friends that care about you deeply and have secretly cried for you and for your salvation. Some of you are in darkness, and you don't know it. I almost preached Luke 23, 34 today, and that's when Jesus is on the cross. And he tells them, or he cries out to his Father, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they do. And you kids here, you don't know what you're doing. You don't understand. You don't understand where your sin is going to take you. You don't understand where it's already taken you. and you need the blood of Jesus to cleanse you. You don't know. Don't neglect him. Do not end up in hell. Jesus is the good shepherd, and the radiance of his goodness is brighter than that of a thousand suns. We need to return to him in faith. He's given us every good and perfect gift under the sun, and all he asks is that we would believe in him, that he is good. And for you Christians here, I hope that this sermon today was an encouragement for your faith, a great reminder of how great a salvation that we have in Christ. And I want you to continue to walk in Christ. You've been such an encouragement to my own soul. And I want to continue to worship him with you together, for he is good and he does good. Let's end in a time of prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father, God, I thank you for how good you are. I thank you for your cross. I thank you for the free offer of forgiveness. I thank you, Lord, that whoever calls upon your name will be saved. I thank you, Lord, for my own salvation, for ransoming me from my sin. And I ask, Lord, that you would not close your arms, but Lord, that you would pour out your spirit abundantly upon this congregation. Lord, I ask that sinners would be saved today, that they would grow to love you and trust in you as the good shepherd. Lord, I ask that you would continue to soften our hearts, that we would praise you and adore you for such a wonderful gospel you've bestowed upon us. Lord, thank you so much for what you've done. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.