three. Could we do that? Well, I enjoy church, don't you? I spent a lot of my life the last, I guess, 35 years or 40 in church. Now, my whole life I've been to church. I never can remember a time when my parents didn't drag me to church, and I'm glad they did. I was able to come to know the Lord and plunged beneath the blood at the age of 17. God changed my life. God can change your life today. Isn't that good? And you're in the right place, and today's the right time. The Bible said now is the day of salvation. There's never a wrong time to be saved. And if you're not sure you're saved today, you're in the right place and we'd love to help you come to know Christ. You should be in the book of the Revelation, last book of the Bible, chapter number 3. We're in verse number 1 this morning. We've been looking the last several weeks on what Jesus thinks of His churches. Here at the beginning of the book of the Revelation in chapters 2 and 3, the Lord is dealing with what we understand as the church age. God is growing and building His church, His churches. And these seven churches, the conditions within them are reflective of the conditions of all churches of all ages. It doesn't matter whether it's the very first century, third century, fifteenth century, or today in the twenty-first century. Every church is going to fit into one of these seven churches. You see, it really doesn't matter, Calvary, what we think of our church. Now I want to think good of our church, don't you? I'm glad to be a part of it. I couldn't imagine being anywhere else on the face of the planet on a Sunday morning worshiping together with a church family, being a member of a church. This would be the church that I'm glad that God's let me be a part of. I love it here. But it really doesn't matter what we think. What matters is what does Jesus think. You see, what we think and what He knows may not always be the same. That's not only true of a church, it's true of individual life. We may have a reputation like this church we're going to learn about today. We may have a name, but that doesn't mean there's reality. You see, it's what's beneath the surface that really matters. Let's begin reading in verse number 1. Could we do that? Notice the Bible says, "...and unto the angel..." We know this to be the messenger, the pastor. He's the recipient of the letter that will share it with this church. "...and unto the angel of the church in Sardis." We know that to be a city that would be in today, modern-day Turkey. It was in Asia Minor, a part of the Roman Empire. In that day, a city by the name of Sardis. He said, right. John is recording the words of the Lord Jesus to this church. It's being delivered by the postman. We're reading them today 2,000 years plus later. These things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God, and the seven stars. I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die. For I have not found thy works perfect before God. Verse 3, Remember therefore how thou hast received, and heard, and hold fast, and repent, Now you know what? Here we have what's called a polysynthet. What this is is a repetitive use of the conjunction and. The Holy Spirit does it on purpose. We could read this, Remember therefore how thou hast received, heard, hold fast, and repent. But He didn't do that. He's going to put the word and in there three times to slow us down. Remember what thou hast received, and heard, and hold fast, and as a result of that, and repent, if therefore thou shalt not watch. I will come upon thee as a thief suddenly, unexpectedly, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He that overcometh the same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life." Now preacher, what does that mean? Will you come back tonight and I'll tell you. Verse, he said, but I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. He that hath an ear. The person who is willing to hear. The Christian who is willing to hear. Let him or her, that's generic, let him hear. what the Spirit saith unto the churches. According to churchleadership.org, 4,000 churches will close their doors in America this year and will never reopen. Tom Rainer in his book, The Autopsy of a Deceased Church, he makes this startling statement out of the statistics that they found through Lifeway Research that 80% of churches in America are sick, in decline, and are on a downward trajectory leading to death. Now let me give you a few thoughts here about Why churches don't die. Can I share that? Churches never die because an enemy on the outside tried to kill it. Satan, as a roaring lion throughout history, has sought through persecution to stamp out and destroy God's churches. That happened in Paul's day. It's happening even in our day. Right now sociologists tell us that if something doesn't dramatically change in the Middle East, in certain regions, there will be no more Christians and churches in those regions. But here's what I know. That churches really never die because of the attack of Satan. They may go underground, but they don't die. I've preached in them. The communists can't stamp them out. The Islamists can't stamp them out. The Hindus can't stamp them out. And the Buddhists can't stamp them out. None of that ever destroys a church. It doesn't. You see, throughout history, here's what we've learned. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. No matter how hard Satan tries to destroy a church or churches in an area or a region of the world, no matter how hard he tries, it just seems to propel greater growth. Do you realize there are more believers behind the bamboo curtain in China today than there are people in the United Kingdom? Churches don't die because somebody on the outside tried to kill it. Churches never die from intentional suicide. Nobody ever sets out to destroy their own church. They don't do that. Even when people tear up and divide churches out of sinful, jealous, whatever reasons there may be, their intention is really not to destroy that church. That's not their intention. Another reason churches never die. Churches never die because they've been abandoned by God. When God abandons a church, it's already dead. And such was the case at Sardis. Sardis was a city located in the fertile Hermas Valley. It was at the foot of the Timulus mountain range. It was about 60 miles inland from Ephesus and Smyrna, about 35 miles from Thyatira. Cities and churches we've already studied in our series of messages. It was the capital of ancient Lydia. At its zenith, it was one of the wealthiest cities in the world, known for its wonderful climate, its center of commerce. It boasted a gorgeous palace and it was a great attraction. Coins were first minted in this city. Sardis was surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs. It was approachable only by a narrow plain or isthmus that was easily defended by a small band of soldiers against the hordes that might come against it. That city in its day, in its heyday, was considered impregnable. But here's what you learn. By John's day, it was only a shell of its former glory. It had been conquered two times by enemy soldiers that had scaled the cliffs and dropped over the city walls while the guards slept because they just didn't believe that their city could be taken. The city of Sardis was merely a monument to a great past. Sadly, the church at Sardis had taken on the characteristics of the city of Sardis. The dire condition of this church is seen in the opening words of the Lord of the Lampstands in verse number 1. He said, I know thy works, with the latter part of it, I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Could you imagine being the pastor of this church, and you open the letter from the Lord Jesus, and He says, Dear Sardis, your church is dead. Could you imagine sitting in the congregation and the opening words are, you're dead? Can you imagine that? See, when you and I think of a dead church, we think of the members being scattered, the doors and windows boarded up, the weeds growing up in the parking lot, the building in disarray. But the truth is this, the church died long before it shut. its doors. You see, the church at Sardis had a name. They had a reputation for being alive. Thou hast a name that thou livest. They had all the semblances of being alive. The lights were on. The cars were in the parking lot. Activities were in the bulletin. But the great physician had put his hand on the wrist, so to speak, and felt her pulse and pronounced her dead. Sardis was a church that was dead and they didn't even know it. Do you realize that there can come a time that Calvary Baptist Church can be dead and we don't even know it? Let me give you an illustration. Now, I'm only going to preach a portion of the message this morning, so don't get nervous at the lengthy introduction. The North Star, also known as the Polar Star. Scientists calculate that it takes somewhere around 33 years from the light once it leaves the North Star to reach the earth and for us to see it. The light we do see when you look up tonight if it's clear and you see the North Star, the Polar Star, and you see that starlight, the light of that star shining and twinkling there. Do you realize what you're looking at actually shone 33 years ago? or shined 33 years ago. It's possible for a star to die. If the North Star died today and became just a black deadness in space, you would still see its light for the next 33 years on earth. A church can look alive, seem alive, They can go through the motions of being alive and yet be dead. A Christian can have all the semblances of life. They can go through the motions, perform their ministry activities, and on the outside look like they are a vibrant Christian. But they're dead on the inside and dried up. And it's all just an outward show with no inward reality. Churches don't die suddenly and neither do Christians. But experience long, slow, agonizing deaths. Sardis may have been a dead church, But she didn't have to remain that way. She didn't have to stay dead. She could experience a resurrection. You see, as someone wrote, the condition at Sardis may have been fatal, but it didn't have to be final. You say, preacher, how do you know that? Because with Jesus, there's always hope. If there was no hope for this church, Jesus would never have addressed this church. He's going to give it the recipe. He's going to share with it the way back. And the good news is that no matter how dead and dried up we may become in our lives, there's always a way back to Jesus. Isn't that a blessing? By the way, let me just say this. Jesus has a way of bringing dead things back to life. And I'm going to preach to you this morning and tonight, and I hope you'll be a part of it because we need it. on making a dead church live. Because that's the message of Sardis. Let's pray together. Father, thank You for Your words this morning. I thank You for the truth of Your Word. I pray, Lord, as we study the passages together that we'll not just hear with our ears, but we'll hear with our hearts. Because, Lord, I believe we're a live church. I believe we're a healthy church based on what I understand from the Bible. Not a perfect church, but a healthy church. Lord, even healthy churches can have problems because there's sinners in them like me. Imperfect people. But yet, Lord, we can be healthy and vibrant and alive and growing, but that doesn't mean that we'll always remain that way. And I pray, Lord, that we'll put into our hearts and our lives those things necessary, Lord, that what will make a dead church live will keep a living church alive. And I'll thank You for what You teach us this morning. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Now the Lord's going to make five statements, or give us five elements, so to speak. We're going to see them. I don't have just five, I've actually got six points. I'm only going to preach half of them this morning. Does that make you feel better? We're going to come back tonight and get the other three. You say, why don't you just give it all to us right now? Well, number one, you'll get hungry and quit listening, and so I'll get hungry and wish I wasn't preaching, okay? The second reason is because we can only take in so much at one time. And I want to make sure that we take in what I'm saying this morning. Number one, if we're going to make a dead church live, there must be a recognition of one's spiritual condition. As I begin to meditate and study over these passages, the Lord began to impress upon me these different thoughts. And the first one was this, that a church dies because a church and the people within that church no longer are aware of where they are spiritually. You see that in verse number 2. Notice he says, thou hast to name, verse 1, that thou livest and art dead. But look at the first two words of verse number 2. It's a command. Be watchful. You remember how Sardis, the city, died? How it became a shell of its former glory? It was conquered. The enemy came in while the guards slept. Do you know why churches die? Because they fall asleep spiritually. The church at Sardis, like the city of Sardis that was conquered while the guards slept, died while the membership slept. Not talking about physical sleep in our beds, but a spiritual slumber. Listen to me, Christian. The devil would love nothing more than to allow the routine of life to lull you and me asleep spiritually. Seldom does that happen in a land where there's persecution. But where we have freedom, where we have worship. You think about it. If you're in Iraq, and I preached in house churches, underground churches in Iraq, there would be a man that would drive from the Iranian border. He was actually an Iranian. that would sit in that service that morning that had multiple death sentences on his life because he was a Christian. And he would secretly drive into this service and he would hear the Bible because that was his lifeblood. He knew that the only way he was going to make it spiritually in that persecuted land was to be among other believers to draw strength and hope and encouragement and have his soul fed. But you know what? In America where it's just sort of optional. We're free to do it, but we don't have to do it. I mean, who goes to church all the time? By the way, do you know one of the semblances of America that church attendance is at an all-time low, but the new faithfulness, this is what they say, the new faithfulness in America is two times a month. I thought Hebrews 13.25 was still in the Bible. Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. Which means whenever the church assembles, the church ought to gather. That's Bible faithfulness. And they had a name. Thou hast a name. They had a reputation. what they one time were or even thought they were. That was their name. That was what the other churches and the other believers in the area thought of them. But now Sardis, watch it, Sardis had a reputation, but they didn't have reality. They had form, but they didn't have force. They had motion, but they had no movement. They had programs, but they had no power. Sardis had a form of godliness but denied the power thereof. They went through the motions of worship and Christianity and what good Christians do. And they sang the hymns and they listened to the sermon. But there wasn't any power. And there wasn't any life change. And they just remained the same. And now the church, instead of being a lighthouse, was just a landmark. I love what Vance Havner said. He said, The Lord is never impressed by the beauty of a well-kept mausoleum, knowing inside are the bones of a dead man. A church is made up of people. churches die through its individual members. If the members that make up that church are unhealthy, the church will be unhealthy. I'm not talking about unhealthy because we don't eat the right foods and we don't get enough exercise and we don't sleep enough. I'm not talking about that. That's not what we're talking about. I'm talking about being unhealthy spiritually. Churches decline because the membership within that church declines spiritually. Churches become dead because the individual members within that church have become dead and dried up and they're just going through the motions. And what we need, Jesus says, is to wake up. We need a spiritual awakening to where we are. That's why Ephesians 5.14 says, Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life. Romans 13 verses 11 and 12, and that knowing the time, that now it is high time, past time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. He said, listen, Jesus is coming for us. It's closer now than it's ever been before. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. You know what he's saying? He's saying that there comes a time in our lives as believers that we need a spiritual awakening to where we really are and where we need to be. A church or a Christian that's in tune with their own spiritual condition They're alive and healthy, spiritually loving God, walking with Him, serving Him, praying together. By the way, one of the struggles in churches is finding ways to pray together. You know, as I read a recent book on the death of churches, This was number one at the list, at the top of the list. Churches failing to pray together. Reaching others and the world. We become in-focused rather than out-focused. You can always tell the direction of a church's trajectory by where it spends its money. What does its budget look like? Is there a healthy part of that budget that is out-focused? It's designed at reaching the world rather than making us comfortable. I just put it this way, when a church is all in for Jesus, that church will never die. How many want to say amen? I just believe that we've experienced an exponential growth in the last several years since COVID. Our church has always been a growing church, but it's exponential. I mean, what I mean by that is it accelerated. And I believe the reason for that is you as a membership just took another step spiritually, and you just... I mean, all in for Christ. There needs to be within every one of us a holy dissatisfaction with where we are spiritually and a burning desire to be more of where we should be in our walk with Jesus. Let me just say, number one, you want to make a dead church alive, then recognize your spiritual condition. There needs to be a renewed submission to the Spirit of God. Look what he says in verse number 2. And strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die. Evidently, there were elements within this church that could bring it back to life. Not everything had died. It was dead, but there were still elements within it that could bring it back to life. And remember how the Lord introduces Himself. I didn't mention that in the beginning of the message. How He said, write these things. Look at verse number 1. And to the angel of the church in Sardis, write these things, saith he, which hath the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. Now I'm going to invert that. I'm going to deal with the seven stars first because that's God talking to me. The stars we learned in chapter 1 are the messengers. They're the pastors of these churches. You know what Jesus is saying? Kevin, you're answerable to Me. Kevin, one day you're going to stand before Me of how you preached and led My church. It was a direct word to the pastor of the church in Sardis saying to him, if you want this church to live, pastor, you need to live. A church will never rise above its leadership. I'm going to come back to that tonight. I'm going to come back to it because I've got another point that I'm going to drive that one home. And I'm going to tell you why I believe 80% of our churches are in decline in America. But notice he goes on to say, the seven spirits of God. Now what he's talking about here, and you're going to see that phrase multiple times through Revelation, it's a reference to the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. Now he's not saying there are seven Holy Spirits. The number seven in the Bible, and we're not going to make too much out of too many numbers, you begin to get outside the realm of Scripture, but the number seven has significance. It's the number of perfection. It's the number of completion. It's the number of fullness. It speaks of the perfection of the Holy Spirit's person, the plenitude of His power, and what this church needed was a fresh infusion of the fullness of the Spirit's power. and presence to breathe new life into the people of God. Can I just say something? A church dies when we stop depending on the Holy Spirit. I can't strengthen me, and you can't strengthen me, but God can. Amen? That's why the Bible says, Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. I want to show you something. Would you hold your place? I wasn't going to turn there. I was just going to tell you. But let's go there. Turn all the way back. If you can't get there, that's fine. Just write it down. You can go back and read it later. It's very important that you lean in here and don't come away with something that I'm not saying. But turn to Ezekiel 37. Would you turn there? This is a wonderful prophecy of the regathering of the nation of Israel. And Ezekiel the prophet is going to be taken to a valley, and the valley is full of a bunch of dry bones. There's dead things in the valley. They're people. And they're not just dead people. I mean, they're just skeletons. I mean, all that's there is just a bunch of dry bones. Look what he says, Ezekiel 37 and verse number 1. Would you look there? The hand of the Lord was upon me, Ezekiel said, and carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley, which was full of bones. Now, you know what? If you're in a valley full of bones, I don't think there's much living there. Would you all agree with that? There's not a whole lot alive there. Luke verse 2, And caused me to pass by them round about, and behold, there were very many in the open valley, and lo, they were very dry. They just weren't, hey listen, they weren't bones that had a little bit of meat left on them. No, this valley of bones were dry. They were dry bones. I mean, they were dead, dried, I mean, parched. Verse 3, And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? What a question. And I answered, O Lord, thou knowest. God, I don't know, but you know. I don't have any idea whether they can live or not. And then God commands him to prophesy. Look at verse 4. And again He said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, All ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones. Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and watch these next words, and ye shall live. Do you know what God's saying? Ezekiel, those dry bones can live again. Look at verse 6. And I will lay sinews, that's muscle and ligaments, and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live, and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded. As I prophesied, there was a noise and behold, a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. I can't help it. Every time I read that, I hear the spiritual, the African American spiritual. You know, the thigh bone connected to the... I think about that. Y'all think about that. And when I beheld And bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them above, but there was no breath in them." There's the semblance of life, but there's no life yet. then said unto me, A prophesy unto the wind..." Wind is an emblem of the Spirit of God in the Bible. "...Prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God, Come from before winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." And so here the Spirit of God is breathing life into these dead, dry bones that have come together And they're living again, so I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood upon their feet an exceeding great army." Boy, isn't that an amazing picture of the power of God? So He prophesied, they lived, there's an exceeding army. Now what are these dry bones? Well, they're not the church. They're the nation of Israel. that have been scattered and buried in the graves of the Gentile nations for centuries, for millennia. And there's coming a day when the Spirit of God at the command of God at the second coming of the Lord Jesus will breathe upon these bones and a nation will be revived and a nation, the nation of Israel, will be born, born again in a day. And here's the application. You say, preacher, how do you know that's a nation? Look what he says, verse 11. Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Did you see that? So it's a prophecy of Israel, not the church. But there's an application here. Hey, all Scripture may not be written to us, but it's all written for us. It's profitable. God's saying something to us. If the Spirit of God can revive a nation, He can breathe on the dry bones of a dead church and make it live again. And church, can I tell you, we begin to decline and die when we depend upon our strength, and our ability, and what we can do, and we're used to singing the song, and we're used to playing the instrument, and we're used to teaching the class, and we're used to standing in the pulpit, and we're used to doing this, and we're used to doing that, and we've done it before, and we've done it, and we've done it, and it's second nature. It just is. And we do it! but God's not in it. Because I gotta tell you, King doesn't need a church that can just do it. They need a church that God's at work doing it through them. And we need God. I need God. The letter killeth. It's the Spirit that giveth life. That's why there are children and young people that will walk into a church on Sunday morning and they'll walk out seeing absolutely nothing of the presence and the power of God Almighty because they're in a church that's dead and it's dry and it's going through the motions and they're just singing the songs and they're just letting the choir and they're going through the routine. and then they go to their parking lot, and then they talk about other church members, and they talk about the pastor, and they run this down, and they run that down, and they wonder, is there any reality to this? What they need to see on a regular basis is lives being touched and changed because of a group of people that are filled with the Spirit of the living God. I need God. I need Him right now more than I've ever needed God before. The letter killeth. It's the Spirit that giveth life. And the church at Sardis had been operating in the power of the flesh rather than the Spirit. They lacked His fullness in their lives, in their worship, in their witness, in their work. And the church died spiritually. I hear people say this, well, we just need another Pentecost. No, we don't. Pentecost was a one-time event that the Spirit came. We don't need another Pentecost. We just need the Spirit's power that flowed out of Pentecost. You know, when you read the book of Acts, the early church recognized their own weakness, their own inability, their own insufficiency. The apostles, they would come together, and they would pray, and the place would be shaken, and they would confess their dependence. They were looking to God for the power, and the ability, and the sufficiency to do what God had for them to do. You can actually call the book of Acts the Acts of the Holy Spirit. Working through God's people. They weren't dependent on what they could do. They were dependent on what God could do through them by His Spirit. And that's why the Bible says we're to be filled with the Spirit. That means every day of our lives we're to be filled with the Spirit of God. There needs to be a willing submission and yieldedness to the Spirit's control in our lives. You and I need to lose control and let Him have control. And when we come to church, we need to pray in the Spirit and sing in the Spirit and preach in the Spirit and worship in the Spirit. And when we go out, we need to and testify in the Spirit. The Spirit of God can put life back into a dead or dying church. Let me ask you a question. Are you right now filled, Christian, with the Spirit of God? Did you meet with Him before you came to church? Did you pray that God would speak to you this morning? Or was it just part of the routine? We need God. We need to be crying out to God. We need to be crying out to God for our nation, for our church, for our children, your grandchildren, our community, because God can. Jeremiah put it this way, calling to me, and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. That word show means to clip. It means to take something that's out of our reach. It's an agricultural term. It means to take something out of our reach. It's the gardener clipping the fruit and handing it down to someone below. There are things out of my reach in my life. I can't reach them. And I began to claim that verse. And I said, God, I can't do it. I don't have the ability to do it. I can't make a church live. I can't save a soul. I can't forgive a sin. I can't restore a backslidden believer. I can't fix a marriage. I can't repair a broken life or a broken family. But God can. I can't bring wayward children home, but God can. I can't save unsaved family members and friends and loved ones, but God can. God can. Do you believe that? When was the last time that we agonized with God And we opened our Bible to Jeremiah 33 and said, God, I can't. I can't. God, these are beyond my reach. I can't be the parent you want me to be. I can't be the father you want me to be. I can't be the wife you want me to be. I can't be the husband. I can't be the father. Whatever it may be. God, You can. You can through me. You can enable me as I yield to You, as I submit to the Holy Spirit, as I'm obedient to You. I can't teach that class. I can't lead that life group. I can't make a difference in the lives of that group of children. I can't. I can't. I can't. But You can. Could it be the reason we're not seeing more answers to prayer is we're not serious with God in our prayers? And church, I believe we're a healthy church. But if we want to stay a healthy church, and we want to stay a vibrant church, and we don't want to just have a name in our community, we want reality, then we have to be a church that's fully dependent upon God and desirous of what He can do in our lives. It starts with me. The seven stars and the seven spirits of God. But it also involves you. And maybe this morning, you would look into your life and say, you know what? I've just been going through the motions. And I've not been as serious in my spiritual life as I should have been. And I've sort of just been lulled to sleep. I'm still doing the same things. But the reality isn't there. And the presence of God isn't there. Oh, you know what I believe? I believe there's a majority of churches in America. I need to stand up here so you can see me, right? Or I just become a voice. That like Samson, when they cut the seven locks of his hair and God departed from him, the power wasn't in his hair. It was in his dedication to God. And Delilah deceived him and cut his hair. And the Lord departed from him. That hair was a symbol in that day of his dedication to God. He had a Nazarite veil. It was a special thing. It was a unique thing. and he had compromised all of it, and that was the last one, and the Lord departed from him. He didn't lose his salvation. The power of God left his life, and all the strength that Samson had, the mighty man of God that had defeated the Philistines. He said, when Delilah said, the Philistines be upon you, Samson. He said, I will arise at other times, and I will shake myself. And the saddest words, and he wist not, he knew not the Lord. had departed from Him. And I believe there's churches in America that on a Sunday morning come together and they're like, Samson, we're going to shake ourselves as before and we're going to go through the routine and we're going to sing the song and they don't even know that God's not there. And I don't want to be there. Do you? And it starts with us. Maybe today God, the Holy Spirit's tugging on your heart and you need to come down here. Because one of the next ones I'm going to get to is repent. It's just to confess and change our mind about where we are and where we need to be. And say, God, I have been praying like I ought to. God, I have been dependent on you like I ought to. Lord, I've just been reading the Bible, but it's just been going through the motion of reading the Bible. I come to church, but it's just going through the motion. There's no reality there. God, I want something real in my life. Maybe you need to come down and get serious about that wayward son or daughter. Maybe you need to get serious about your role that God's given you as a Christian in your home, in your marriage, in your family, in this church. We don't want a name that we're alive, but we're dead. Let's bow our heads and pray.