Tonight we are looking in the book of Colossians chapter 2. This is the tenth message going through this book, this series called The Unsurpassed Savior on the Sunday nights that I preach. And tonight's message is called Deciphering Deception. Colossians chapter 2 in just a moment, verse 8, deciphering deception. Before my mom and dad moved up here to the Arnold area, they lived in northwest Arkansas, and of course we were up here, so any time we could get together, we would try to do that. And we would meet at different times at different locations, and one time going back a few years, Donna and I met my mom and dad in Ozark, Missouri, which is in Christian County. And I remember it was a pretty day, so we met at the Ozark City Park, which sits on the Findlay River. We were just visiting as a family, and just really, it's a very, very beautiful park. The Ozarks, where I was born and raised, I think is very, very pretty. And we were kind of walking around the park, looking around at things on some trails, and we went down by the Findlay River, and there's just these massive, I mean, massive trees down by the Findlay River. And I remember even making a comment about one of the trees about, as we were walking towards it, how big it was, and just its size, and just its canopy was just monstrous. And we went down by the river's edge, and I spun around and looked at that tree, and I was totally shocked. The inside of the tree was literally hollow. I mean, I could stand inside of it. So on this side, looking at it, it was this perfect, beautiful tree, but on the backside of it, it was hollowed out. I do not understand how it was still alive, and I really could not understand how, I mean, some strong wind coming through there did not blow the thing over. It was beyond my understanding. It was a tree that looked healthy on the outside, but a closer inspection revealed it was hollow on the inside. That tree deceived me because I was only looking at the outward things and not really what was going on in the inside of it. Not our text tonight, but Psalms 2 tells us that all believers, we are like trees planted by the river, and I know that none of us want to be like that Findlay River, Ozark, Missouri tree. I know none of us want to be spiritually healthy on the outside, but who we really are on the inside, to be hollow. And here's what I mean by that. See, sometimes as believers in Jesus, we can look healthy on the outside. In our Christian life, we can have emotions, hugs, acts of kindness, service, experiences. We pray, we gather, we smile. Outwardly, we can look like we're pretty healthy. But inside, we can be hollow in that we honestly don't know why we believe what we believe. hollow from the standpoint because we don't know the great foundational doctrines and teachings of Scripture. Now, there are times it's reasonable why we can be healthy in our emotions, in our experience, in our acts of service, but not really biblically ground on the inside. It can be because we're new believers, and that's to be expected. Someone who's a new believer, that's what we would expect them to have the experience, the emotion, and the actions, and the prayer, but not really be grounded in who they are and who Jesus is and the great teachings of the Bible. The second group of people that are not new believers, they're long-time believers who really are still new believers because they've never grown. They've never grown in their faith, may attend church 10, 20, 30 years, but if you were to ask five or six basic doctrinal questions in Scripture, and I'm not talking some theology class, I'm not talking working on your PhD in a seminary, I'm just talking some of the basic fundamental truths of Scripture, they would stumble to give an answer. None of us want to be like that. There's an article in evangelical press from a few years ago talking about not people who go to church, not people who say they're Christians, not even people who say they're evangelical Christians, but people who say they are born-again Christians. The article said, born-again Christians doctrinally are very weak. Born-again Christians are united by emotion and experience, but not by doctrine and moral beliefs. Let me say that again. that born-again Christians, this article said, are united by our emotions and our experiences, but not by doctrine and moral beliefs. The example was a third, one-third of all born-again believers, and this was out of baby boomers, believe in reincarnation and believe in astrology. If you're healthy on the outside, if I'm healthy on the outside in my experience, in my emotions, in my actions, but I'm hollow inwardly because I'm not growing and being grounded in the truth of the Bible, I'm like that tree by the Findlay River in great, great danger of the first strong wind that comes along to blow me away from my faith, not at all saying losing our salvation. but away from the faith we have in Christ. And again, none of us want that. To be healthy on the outside in emotion, experience, and practice, and hollow on the inside in doctrine, in the truths of the Bible, we are in terrible danger of being spiritually deceived. That's what is happening in the city of Colossae, in this church that the Apostle Paul never visited. Outwardly, the people had emotions. They loved one another. They smiled. They laughed. They hugged. They had experience of gathering together and singing and doing things. They had actions of doing acts of kindness in ministry. But inwardly, Paul knew that they were struggling to know who Jesus is and what Jesus did and who they are in Jesus. And again, to their defense, they were all relatively new believers. They were not longtime believers who were still new believers because they had never grown. They were still relatively new believers. And Paul realized something, that if they did not get grounded in the biblical doctrine and truth of what this book teaches, of what God teaches them, He knew that they could fall to some of the false teachers and the cults that wanted to pull them away from the truth. And what was true for Paul and Colossae in those days is true again in our world in 2019. I know I keep repeating this. But if my Christian life is based only on my emotions and my experiences and my actions, and not on the foundational teachings of the Bible, I'm ripe to be deceived. I'm ripe to bring disruptions into the church. Ripe to be led away by false teachings and cults. Bob Defenball says there's over 4,000 cults in the United States. New Age movement, Eastern mysticism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, Green, the Mother Earth stuff, Scientology, the Unification Church, the Hare Krishnas. Still, Hare Krishnas believe in reincarnation, so if a Hare Krishna comes to you at the airport wanting you to give money, tell him you gave in your past life. Liberal mainline denominations, many of our liberal main, you know, as a Southern Baptist group, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, we have been affected by church attendance. It's been something like 8%. From memory of, we just were at the meeting in Alabama, I think it's like 8% over the last 10 years. You know, many of our mainline denominations have lost over 50% of their membership. And it's not because people aren't going to church, it's because they have totally walked away from the word of God. It's just absolute believe anything you want. All these cults and all these false teachers and false teachings have some things in common. We've talked about these before and we'll need to talk about them again. They always attack the Bible question. We believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God. It's truth from cover to cover. False teachings and cults will attack the Bible three ways. They'll either say the Bible is man's word about God. It's not God's word. Or they'll say that dreams and visions are equal to the Bible. Or they'll say, yeah, accept the Bible, but you need to add this book or this extra biblical revelation to the Bible. All those are deception. There's always the Jesus question, and I'll talk more about it in just a moment, at the end of verse 8. We know Jesus, born of a virgin, God in the flesh, 100% man, 100% God, the only Savior. False cults and teachings will say that Jesus is a great man but not God. They deny his deity. Or they add to Jesus or take away from Jesus. They want you to follow them and follow their teaching and not follow Christ. That's deception. There's always the gospel question, that is, the gospel is the good news of God that's found in the person of Jesus, our only Savior, and His work He did is death, burial, and resurrection on the cross. Well, false teachings and teachers and cults say that they teach and live a prosperity, personal pleasure, humanistic moral theology type of a gospel. Their beliefs and teaching is over the gospel, and their teaching is the topic, not the gospel and not the glory of God. They won't talk about the glory of God in the gospel. their teaching as the topic in themselves. There's always the salvation question. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus alone. It's only by the cross. These false cults and teachers that deceive will say, you do not need to be saved, as we all end up in heaven anyway. All roads lead to heaven. Or they'll say that it's works, not by grace. You need to add something to Jesus to be saved and to stay saved. It's deception. And the holiness question, we know that after we come to Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, He gives us a new standard of living, to live by the truth of the Bible, to be transformed with the image of Scripture, that we're serious about sin and we want to separate ourselves from sin. We're on mission to take Jesus into this world. But the false teachers and cults, it's amazing if you really look at them, how many of them are just… ripe with sexual immorality. They teach that you can know God and live any way you want. Idolatry, sexual immorality is okay. They appeal to the flesh, tickle the ears. Live like they live and everything will be okay. It's alarming. It is absolutely alarming the number of people who join cults, who join false groups and follow false teachings, who are from Christian families and have a Christian background. How does that happen? Again, Bob Deffenbaugh said in the Dallas area, and some of the cults in the Dallas, Texas area, they did extensive research, and most of the people who left a Bible church and ended up in some sort of a cult were from Southern Baptist churches. How can someone, if they're a Christian, raised in a Christian home, who attends church, how can they be deceived into a false teaching or a cult? Well, I'm convinced. It's because, like that tree by the Findlay River, they're healthy on the outside. Their Christian life is based on their emotions, their experience, and their activities, and they're hollow in the inside. They are not grounded in the truths of the Bible. Coming on Sunday morning is not enough. Haven't spent time reading the Word, studying God's Word, growing, and none of us, again, I'm not talking having PhDs. I'm talking about just growing and understanding the Bible. See, believers focus on, we will get to verse eight in just a minute. Believers focus on practice and not doctrine. That tends to be what happens in our country. I can't emphasize enough. Believers focus on practice and not doctrine. We focus on being and doing and gathering and supporting and hugging and in serving and bringing backpacks, we focus on the practice instead of on doctrine of the Bible. Don't get me wrong, we need both. We don't throw away the practice. We focus on our emotion and our experience, and we're not grounded in the Bible. I'll give you a silly example. Someone walked up to someone and said, hey, we're starting a new church in the St. Louis area. It's called the Church of Mars. Now, to be a part of our church, you've got to paint your face silver, you've got to wear aluminum foil hats, and you can eat nothing but green cheese. Would you like to join us? No one's going to do that. No one's going to join something that weird. But here's how people are deceived. Okay, follow me here. Groups and cults, their practices look like our practices. They have religious buildings, the people smile, they sing, the words they use are similar to our words, they make biblical references, they may say the name of Jesus, they may do acts of kindness out in the community, they may care for the family and care for marriages, and their practice resembles our practice. And if my faith is based upon my emotions, my experiences, and my practices, and not the word of God, It's easy for me to slide from my practice into their practice, from my experience into their experience, from my emotions into their emotions, because I'm not grounded in the Bible. You and I, by all means, should be healthy on the outside. A million times, yes, the emotions are important, the experiences are important, the practice is important, but you and I, we must, we must, we must, Sunday night in the middle of summer, Fourth of July weekend, people, we must, we must refuse, refuse to be hollow on the inside. We should have a desire and a passion in our lives to grow, to know the teachings of the Bible, to know why we believe what we believe, to know who Jesus is and what Jesus did and who we are in the Lord Jesus Christ. With all that said, we come to our text tonight, and it is a powerful passage of scripture. This passage is so relevant today in a world where Jesus is being denied, the Word of God is being doubted, and believers are being deceived. That's the setting in Colossae, this young church in danger of being deceived, in danger of being led away, but Paul writes a letter to warn them and to instruct them. Yes, the practice. Yes, the emotion. Yes, the experience. But Paul knows that no one in that church really wants to be deceived, just as no one in our world today wants to be deceived. So he gives us a message in verses eight through 15 that we need to hear and know. And I'm just gonna, if we get through one verse, we'll be fortunate. May it fortify and strengthen us. And if you and I walk out of here, with a greater lifetime commitment to saturate our hearts and minds with the word of God. Man, that's a huge win for us all. Colossians chapter two, verse eight. If you were physically able, would you mind to stand as we read God's word? Deciphering deception. Colossians 2.8 says this, beware. lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ." When you only preach through one verse, you don't have to stand up very long. You can be seated. Thank you. Appreciate that. Three lessons for living real quickly. Let's go through these verses. Number one is the inspection of deception. The inspection of deception. Let's see what Paul is getting at here. We're just studying one verse, verse eight. Look at the first part of verse eight. He says, It's a warning of deception. The first word in verse eight is the word beware. It is like alert, danger, give this your attention, look at this, lights flashing, neon red, underlined 20 times, alarms going off. That word beware is super strong. Paul, this isn't some little passing thing. Paul, he loves them and he's saying beware. You've got to be alert of the danger that's looking around you. He says, beware lest anyone cheat you. That word cheat there is really interesting. It's only used here in verse 8 in the entire New Testament. And it literally means to carry you off captive. It literally means to kidnap you. That's what it's teaching us here. It means to spiritually be held hostage. He's saying, look out, someone wants to spiritually Kidnap you someone wants to spiritually take you away They want to take you away from Christ and the truth of the Bible and they want to bring you into their false teaching their cult and Kidnapping is not just by accident. It's organized and intentional my father-in-law and I when we lived in Springfield, Missouri and The Valley Watermill is about, I don't know, a mile and a half from my in-law's home. And we were down there, I think, doing some fishing at Valley Watermill. And they had, at this time, this cat named Ralph, Ralph the Cat, this black and white cat. And we were there at Valley Watermill, and we could not believe there was Ralph the Cat a mile and a half from home. So Carl opened up his truck door and Ralph jumped in, was sitting in the seat between us. We drove back to Donna's parents' house. We pulled in the driveway with Ralph sitting between us and there looking out the window was Ralph the cat of the house. Ralph was in it. Ralph too was fake. I don't know. So what do you do? You put the old truck in reverse. You drive back down to Valley Watermill and you put Ralph too out and let him go. We kidnapped him. It was unintentional though. We didn't mean to do it. That's not the way with these cults. I want you to please hear me. It's not, it is an organized intention. That's what Paul's saying here. Beware how they want to kidnap you. It's very, very intentional. They want to kidnap you from Jesus, from the gospel, from the love of God, from God's word, and they want you to follow them and their teaching. A buddy of mine, Uncle owned an armored car company in Southwest Missouri. And whenever I left the zoo to go back to the Redford School of Theology at Southwest Baptist University, and I was pastoring Spring Hill Baptist Church, I was bivocational, and I needed a job to make some extra money. And so I went to work for this armored car company. I drove the big armored car around, and I remember at Christmas season, we were warned by the police that the word was out that there was going to be an armored car robbery in that part of Southwest Missouri. And to this day, I don't know if there was ever a time I was more alert in my life. I mean, the intensity, the seriousness, the focus that we took with that as we went to each one of our stops before Christmas, We were looking out really intensely that we would not be robbed, and that's what Paul is saying here. There has to be this intense focus to realize, to beware that there are those who want to carry us off captive. That's the inspection of deception, to beware of those who want to kidnap your faith and take you away. Second lesson for living look at the weapons of deception sticking with verse 8. What are the weapons of? Deception, you know from time to time on the on the news here in our area They'll talk about a scam or a con artist and the tactics that they're using. I remember one time it was a While you were away on vacation, they would offer to seal your driveway and then get your money. And there's actually the Federal Trade Commission has a website and it's called the scam alert page. The most recent scams of telephone, internet, different ways that people want to scam us, the tactics that they have. Well, that's what Paul is sharing here. He's sharing the tactics of how these deceivers want to scam us and how they want to kidnap us and pull us away from our faith. And there are three listed here and it's the same three today. The first keyword though about the tactics is the word deceit. It says, beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit. Now that word deceit, the Bible defines as telling a lie to get something from someone. The word deceit in the Bible speaks of, in the scriptures, as an action or activity to suppress the truth and to intentionally misguide someone. Again, you're intentionally lying because you want to get something from someone. You're suppressing what is true and misguiding someone into error or a lie. John Phillips, the great Bible commentary guy, says the word deceit, as you see here in verse eight, is found 19 times in the New Testament. in every single time the word deceit is used with Satan. Every single time. There's no doubt who is the puppet master behind all these cults and false teachings that want to pull us away from Christ and our faith, Satan's behind it all. It's not just misguided people, it is sinful man under satanic influence following through with his schemes. He hates Jesus, he hates the church, he hates you and I, he hates our faith. This deception tied into Satan goes all the way back to the beginning, to Genesis chapter three, when he said to Adam and Eve, you won't die. Don't believe what God said to you. Look at the three weapons. The first weapon of his deception we see in verse 8 is philosophy and empty deceit. Verse 8 says, Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit. This first weapon is speaking of human intellect. In other words, to use the arguments of intellect and intelligence to challenge the faith. It sounds really intellectually strong and argumentative and good, but it is very, very hollow. This is very prevalent today. Let me say right here, the Bible is not anti-intellectualism. There's nothing wrong with being an academic, brilliant people, C.S. Lewis and others. There's nothing wrong at all. throw away wanting to learn and higher education in any way, shape or form. But what this human intellect philosophy and empty deceit, this is, I can figure out stuff in my own human mind that it's this rationalism that my intellect can solve all the problems of the world. It's someone who sits there and intellectually is going to try to take apart the Bible and who God is and the truth of God. It's this philosophy and empty deceit. It's not what the Bible reveals to us, not what the Bible reveals that God is like, but in my own human intellect and wisdom, kind of like if you have a really high IQ, it's a big secret. If you have a really big IQ, you won't follow Jesus or believe the Bible. People like you and I are kind of lower IQ people. And if you really have a high intellect, you'll politely walk away from all this. How many young people have went away to an institution of higher education and have turned their back on their faith? It's one of his weapons. Intellect. The second weapon is the traditions of men. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men. This is human tradition. This is the plans that man come up with in their own minds. It's not things that's in the Bible. There was a day in the life of the Baptist church where if you chewed gum in a Baptist church, they would throw you out. I would rather you chew gum than have bad breath. That's just my preference, okay? And if your jaw's moving while I'm preaching, at least I know you're awake. I love it. There's nothing in the Bible that says you can't chew gum in church. But we make traditions, we make traditions truth. And it's not biblical truth. And it goes further than that. The traditions of men where philosophy and empty deceit is human intellect, this traditions of man is human planning. And the greatest example of all is evolution. It's just a plan of man that grandma was King Kong who came from a tossed salad because of the Big Bang. It flies in the face of everything the Bible is about in creation and genesis. You have to throw away genesis 1 through 11 to believe it And young people and christian families and others raised in church. They they buy into evolution Evolution is a religion and you'll slide right into humanism to teach children that the Bible is true and that Genesis 1 and 2 is true is so important. And Donna and I are not some kind of heroes. We had a dear brother here recently, Brother Brad, on creationism in our church. And Ken Ham, we bought all of Ken's hand tapes for my kids when they were young. And you know, millions of rock things buried in that thing, whatever it is. Oh, what is it, Lauren? You know it. Oh, I'm sorry, I put you on the spot, honey. Okay. I guess you didn't study as hard as your brother then, did you? Oh, you were six. We don't want to hear excuses. You can't even catch a roll, so leave us alone. I'm sorry, we're having a little interaction. Yes, okay, I stand corrected. Don't argue with a woman named Qualls. It will get you nowhere. What in the world was I talking about? Oh, yeah, Ken Ham. Dustin watched all those tapes and read the books and explaining dinosaurs and all that stuff from a biblical creation perspective And I remember his freshman year. He had a class where the professor just absolutely ripped it to shreds and Dustin came home and said dad Didn't impact me any because I know I believe what the Bible says. I Theological error is under traditions of men, higher criticism, liberalism. The Bible is a good book, but it's word about God's, not God's actual word. I've shared before in Orlando in the Southern Baptist Convention, Orlando, Florida in 2000, I had a guy who stood right behind me, went to a microphone, held up his Bible and said, it's just a book. Not God's Word. The Jesus Seminar which happened where 135 New Testament scholars came together and said 86% of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is not true. And they have serious doubt about the 19% that Jesus isn't what He did. He didn't do any of the miracles. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not written by those guys. These 135 scholars are not scholars. They are absolutely lost infidels is who they are. And all those challenges in the Jesus Seminar, by the way, by some of the brilliant men and women of God, we have totally challenged and dismantled every one of their arguments about the Jesus Seminar. That's from the minds of man. And then the third weapon, I've got to go quickly here, are the principles of the world. There's the intellect of man, the plans of man, and look at his third weapon. It says, according to the basic principles of this world. Now the phrase there in the Greek language, the basic principles of the world, it's talking about being from the prince of this world in John 14, which is Satan. But the word in that day in Paul's day for astrology and the stars and all that is wrapped up here in the principles of the world. It's about Stars angels heavenly beings in other words. It says the principles of this world that are lying and deceitful and falsehoods mysticism astrology the horoscopes New Age movement and how how mainstream is that in our world today? Have you heard of Marianne Williamson who is running for president was recently one of our debates who is an outspoken New Age author and guru It's all a bunch of garbage from Satan's landfill and hell is what it is and When we were at the zoo, we had an alligator snapping turtle that weighed about 120 pounds. And how alligator snapping turtles get their prey, it's amazing how God made them. They'll lay in the water. I mean, he could take your hand off. His jaws are so powerful. They just lay in the water, motionless, with their mouth open, and they've got this little bitty pink tongue that looks like a worm, and they wiggle it. Nothing moves but the tongue. And a fish comes in to get the worm, and the alligator snapping turtle gets the fish. and he's eaten. The alligator snapping turtle survives by deception. Satan wiggles his deceptive bait of philosophy, the intellect of man, of the traditions of men, the planning of man, and of the principles of the world, like astrology and horoscope and all that sort of stuff. And if a Christian's life is based upon emotions, experience, and practice, and are not grounded in the Bible, it can look like a meal. And we can easily slide from our emotions, experience, and practice into their emotions, experience, and practice, because we think it's going to benefit us, but it's deception and chomp. We become their next meal. Third and finally, we've talked about As we've looked at deception here, third is the watermark of deception. We've talked about the inspection of deception, the weapons of deception. Third and finally, the watermark of deception, we're done. Look at the end of verse eight, and not according to Christ. Always, always, always, the bottom line about a cult, a false teaching or a false teacher, Always, always, always to be instructed on deception, to decipher deception are those last five words, and not according to Christ. There's two, it always, always, always comes down to Jesus. There's two ways that cults and false teachings and false teachers will deal with Jesus. They'll leave him out totally. They won't mention him. He's irrelevant to them. Or number two, they will misrepresent Jesus. Great man, best teacher ever. He's loving and kind, but he has no supernatural powers, maybe some aspects. I'm amazing the people who have slid into becoming a Jehovah's Witness, which believes that Jesus and Satan are brothers. It's amazing. Always always the watermark of deception is not according to Christ He is either irrelevant or he may be a great man a great teacher. He's loving and kind He helped the poor but he was not born of a virgin. He is not God in the flesh He did not live a sinless life. He did not claim to be God and proved to be God He did not die on a cross for the sins of the world. His blood alone does not save he's not the only way to heaven And he did not come out of the grave alive. Any system, any religion, any philosophy. I don't care how sweet they are. I don't care how much stained glass they have. I don't care how many groceries they give to the poor. I don't care how many songs they sing. I don't care if they care about kids and care about the marriage. Any system, religion, and philosophy, even if their practices are similar to ours, even if they claim a higher influence, if they claim they can change your life, if they do not give 100% complete honor and glory to the resurrected Jesus from the Bible, you better watch out and stay away. It's deception. You can test any group, any teaching, and any teacher by how they view the person and work of Jesus Christ, period. That's why Paul spent his time saying this is who he is, what he did, and who you are in him. I was reading an article recently about the worst deals in history. And one of the worst deals in history involves all of us. Happened in 1803 when Napoleon wanted more money to build warships. So for four cents an acre, he sold the Louisiana Purchase to Thomas Jefferson and the United States doubled in size. It's considered one of the worst deals ever. Well, the worst deal ever is to trade the truth of Jesus and his word for error and for a false cult. Satan is always willing and dealing. Our emotions and our experience and our practice is vital. But let's join our hearts together tonight with a commitment each and every day to grow in Jesus, to grow in the Word, to know what we believe and why we believe what we believe. To know that greater is He that's in us than he that is in the world. To know everything we are and everything we do is according to the Savior, Creator, Messiah, risen from the dead, all glory and honor and praise, the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know Him as your Savior? May the Lord protect us. May we be a Bible people and a Bible church. that is always able to decipher deception. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word. God, one verse. We know there's a lot more to cover here as Paul is teaching. And God, we recognize the truth today. We recognize that there has always been those who want to kidnap and capture our faith and our love for you. It is an absolute spiritual war. Lord, thank you that we know the weapons, the intellect of man, the plans, traditions of men, the principles of the world, all the mystical, super spiritual, starry astrology kind of stuff. But Lord Jesus, we proclaim that we believe that you are God, that you were born of a virgin, that you are the Son of God, that you are the way, the truth, and the life. You're the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us, that you lived a perfect life, that you claim to be God, you prove to be God, that you died on a cross, that you arose from the grave, that you're coming back again. There is a real heaven and a real hell, and the Bible is the inerrant perfect Word of God. that the soul of man is absolutely, totally depraved and lost without you, and Jesus, you exclusively, are the only hope by grace of salvation. God, whatever you may choose to do in this, your church, in the coming days, the coming years, oh God, may we always keep our eyes on you and be committed to the Word of God. Help us to grow. Help us wherever we've been in our past. Help us to make a commitment today to say, I want to grow. I want to spend time every day in the Word. I want to be a part of a small group. I want to read. And God, I want to just, Jesus, I have a hunger to know you more, to become more like you. God, thank you for the experience and the emotions and the practices that we share. But, oh God, may we ever be growing and grounded in your Word. Lord, is there one here tonight who has never received you? Would they say yes? Would they admit their sin and turn to you? Is there one here tonight who would say, Jesus, I've been away. I'm coming home. Is there one here tonight who would say, Lord, I've never really been committed to growing. I'm going to join a small group. I'm going to start reading my Bible every day. I'm going to have a hunger to grow. God, you know where we're at in our lives and we just surrender it to you. We love you and we thank you for your word. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Would you stand please?