Fish Talk

Somebody told me one time, you know, small church, you have less challenges, you don't want a bigger church. I said, bring it on. We need more seats. That's what I want to talk about today because God has called us to reach people who are unchurched, people who are not in church, and we need more seats for the people who are not in church because it's bigger than us. Church is bigger than us.

When we get caught in it being about us, which is always the draw, it's about me and what I'm getting out of and I like where we are, then you're not really following what Christ has commanded us to do. And he's called us to fish. So that's what we're talking about today is fishing. And we've been in a Summer of Salt curriculum series, I guess you can call it that, where we have different types of messages every week. You're not really following a theme per se, but the last two weeks we have been following a theme because I just feel the Lord is challenging us to step out of our comfort zones.

And people don't like messages like this about sharing the gospel because it's very uncomfortable. We just rather the pastor do it, or we rather the elders do it, or we rather, you know, the evangelists do it. But the truth is, God didn't give us any other choice. And God loves these messages more probably than any other message. Why?

Because he is concerned about those who are far from God. He is very concerned about people who are far from God. In fact, he, I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but God is more concerned about the outsiders than the insiders. He loves you. Don't get me wrong.

He's glad, you know, he loves you as much as the other person, but he's more concerned about those who are outside the church that aren't there. That's why it says, God loved the world. And this theme verse that we've been going with here in Matthew 4, Jesus, when he first encounters the first two disciples, he says, And Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen. And he said to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Not better Jews, not better religious people, not more holy people, but he says, I want to make you fishers of men.

That was his number one priority. That was his top agenda item on his list is that when he immediately, when he called somebody, he immediately said, I'm going to send you out. We're going to, we're going to, we're going to talk about this thing of lost people because that's who we're after. So we've been talking about that for the last two weeks. First week, we talked about what it meant to fish.

We followers fish. If we're followers of Jesus Christ, we're meant to fish. we're going to eat for fish.트. .

. It's what we do. By the way, if you're following notes, you can pull up the Bible app and pull up the electronic notes there in Bible.com events area, and you'll find Salt Church Live there, and you can pull up the notes. Or just pull out your good old-fashioned Bibles.

How about that? That'll work, too. You know, some of you are Bible people. I hear it being slapped right now. Bible thumper.

There's a Bible thumper out there. So he calls us to be fishers of men, and in week one, we talked about followers fishing. Week two, last week, we talked about being snake birds. That's an interesting concept, snake birds. I think of a mystic novel when I think of that.

But that's what Jesus called us to be. The Bible tells us to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves, right? So we are to be wise in the way we communicate, we interact with people. Not browbeating them to heaven doesn't work, but to love them where they are, understand their background, and win them to Christ that way. This week, I want to go a little deeper because I left you with three points.

I hung you off a cliffhanger with three points, and we're going to dig into that a little deeper this week, and we're going to talk about fish talk. When you're fishing, what do you do? You talk. You talk. You talk with people.

You talk about life. You talk and connect with different things, if you're a fisherman, that is. Maybe you have another thing. Maybe you're a golfer, and that's your thing. There's a lot of in-between when you're on the golf cart or walking the holes.

You talk, right? And we need to talk to people, have conversations with people, and sharing the gospel isn't as hard as you think it is. Sharing Jesus Christ, we've made it very challenging, but it really is easy, and not only is it easy, we're called to do it. There's no other option. We're called to be a royal priesthood.

That's why 1 Peter says, but you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for a high calling of priestly work. You know what that means? You are a priest. You may not have the credentials to be called pastor, per se, but everyone is a minister. Everyone is a priest.

Everyone has a high calling. You have a high calling, a purpose on your life. Amen? You need to receive that, accept that, say, man, God has a purpose because that's what you really want anyway, right? Well, here it is.

You are a, you're priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, set apart. You've been set apart to do something special. God's instrument to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night and day difference. I love how the message says that. He made for you for nothing, from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.

That's powerful. You have a story to tell. You were this way, and now you're this way. Everybody has a story, and How do we share that story? Well, let's talk about today.

What do we need to do? Well, we need to first share the hope we have. Share hope. Because guess what? People need hope.

Simply tell them the decision you made and why you made that decision. That's really what you're doing here. 1 Peter says it like this, chapter 3, verse 15, but in your hearts, revere Christ as Lord. Okay? Now, first of all, you got to make God first in your life.

You got to make Jesus first in your life. He needs to be on the throne of your heart because your heart will not be in the right place when you're connecting and sharing the gospel. They need to see the gospel in you, okay? They need to see that Christ isn't just a religion. That Christ is a personal relationship.

That he has really done something incredibly life-changing in your life. It's a night and day difference. So we revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks to give you the reason for the hope that you have. There's the key word right there.

Hope, right? We have hope in Christ. It's not a theological explanation of why God exists, per se. It's nice to know those things, but that's not what he's saying here. It's not an apologetic of bringing, although the literal word here is defense.

It's not a defense in terms of standing in front of Harvard graduates and trying to debate whether there is a God or not. That's not what this is talking about. He says simply the hope that you have. Be prepared to share your hope. Be prepared to show the simple message of how God changed your life, what he's done different for you.

You all have a sphere of influence to connect with people, and you have a story to share, so let's share our stories. And that's what he's saying here. Always be prepared. But do this with gentleness and respect. Don't get on a box, on a corner, and yell people into heaven, okay?

It turns them away from heaven. They need that hope, but you don't sound like you have much hope to offer when you're scaring people into heaven, okay? So we need to have, with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. They'll be ashamed of it. Because we know that people, in fact, somebody posted on social media the other day, I have a friend on social media, he was talking about how he couldn't, he just can't believe how people just condemn Christianity and talk bad about Christianity and know nothing about Christianity.

Well, we can argue with them all day long, but truly the story that you have and that you're actually walking out now, that's the story they want to see and hear. So, we need to do it with gentleness and respect, share our hope, and they'll feel bad about that. They'll feel bad about how they were slander, especially when they... When they come to know Jesus Christ themselves, they'll look back and say, oh my goodness, I didn't know what they really had. Now I have that, and I feel so ashamed.

Even people who aren't following Christ, it's very respectful, being respectful with people, understanding their background and their culture. Let me move on. So I want to give you three elements to sharing your stories, because some of you are like, how do I share my story? It's so simple, guys. It's so simple.

First of all, you've got to share how you realize you needed Jesus. There was a point in your life that you realized that you actually needed something more than what you were currently doing or being given or whatever it is. Some of you found Jesus when you were very successful. It's not always when you're in a place of desperation, is it? You might have been successful.

You had money. You had all that you ever could need, but you still felt empty. You knew that you needed something more. There needed to be purpose and love in your life, and you didn't know where to find it, and it was only Jesus. For others of you, it was a place of desperation where you lost everything, maybe a failed marriage, a financial hurt, or whatever it might be.

You were at a place where you realized that I cannot. I need help. I need help, and I don't know where to go, where to turn. The world's not giving me that. I need Jesus.

Maybe that's it. Or some of you, it might just be a middle mark in your life, you know? For me, it was growing up religious. When I was a kid, I would get saved every year at camp. Have an evangelist come in, you give your heart to Jesus, you go home, and as I grew older, became a teenager, I grew further and further away from Christ because it was religion.

It was about how much I went to church, how much scripture I knew. That's not what God was looking for. God was looking for a heart that simply loved him because he loved that heart. He wanted a relationship with me. And over a period of time, as I went through college and then I went into the workforce and I was working my way up the ladder, success, what we would determine success was, I was like, man, I've got everything going for me, it seems like, but I feel empty.

A number of events happened in that particular time to make, you know, God messes with you. You know how he messes with you, kind of plays with your heart a bit. And it's like, okay, what am I missing here? And I realized through a series of events that, you know what, I don't really know God. I know about God.

There was a time where I would sin and then the next morning after I went out and partied and I did all night, I would wake up and say, well, God's still Lord of my life. No, he wasn't. He wasn't Lord of my life. Me and a best friend, we would do that all the time. We know he was still Lord of our lives.

No, he wasn't Lord of our lives because we didn't really have a relationship with him. We thought that going to church and coming from a good, nice Christian family was enough, but that's not it. There's a lot of people that go to church because their family's in church and they think they're saved through their family, but you're not saved through their family. You're saved through your family. You're saved only by Jesus.

So you realize you're at a point, and then you need to talk about how you committed to Jesus, how you committed your life to Christ. Share that. Share that. I was at this place, and here's what happened. I had an experience.

For me, at that point, I knew that nothing else would fulfill me. It didn't matter what it was. In that particular point in my life, I was in my early 20s, I realized, hey, you know what? I've got this going for me. I've got that going for me.

I've got everything going for me. I've got the job. I've got the connections. I've got the network. I've got the new car.

I've got all those things, but something was missing. Something was missing. And I was hurting, guys. I was really hurting because I said, is this it? Is this it?

Is this all that life is? And it didn't have to be in a church service. It doesn't have to be in a church service. A lot of times it may be. Maybe it's you committing your life to Christ right here.

But a lot of times it just can be. It can be anywhere. And for me, it was in my bedroom, crying out to God on the floor, knowing that where else do I go, God? What else can I do, God? I submit to you.

I give my life to you. I confess that you're the only way. I can't do it on my own. And I cried and poured my heart out to God. And I told him that night that I would give it all to him.

I surrender everything. Wherever you send me, whatever you do with me, I'm willing to do it for you, Lord. You are Lord of my life. He came into my heart. He came into my life.

And I walked out of that room a different person and never turned back. I surrendered my life to Jesus. And it was a night and day difference. And that would lead me to my next point, the difference is, and share how the difference he made in your life. Share the difference he made.

Tell him where you were and where you are now. It's like the blind guy. I don't know all this stuff you guys are talking about when the Pharisees came to him. What did Jesus do healing you and all this other stuff? He says, I don't know anything about what y'all are trying to figure out.

All I know is I was blind and now I see. I can see. And I see that there. I didn't see that a couple hours ago. That's all I can tell you.

A night and day difference. I am a different person. I can't explain it fully. All I know is some type of thing happened inside of me. A regeneration happened inside of me.

I was born again and I'm a different person. I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But I was certain, and I'm still certain, that whatever happens, God is good and heaven is my destination and I have nothing to fear. There was fear before, but there's not fear now. Because I'm walking with Jesus.

And I remember when I was so excited about Jesus, I didn't care. I was like, send me to Afghanistan, wherever, you know. John and Chelsea are in the house today, so I'm kind of picking on them a little bit. But send me there. Send me to wherever.

I don't care. I'll go. Whatever you send me, I'll go. And I was so excited. I remember one time I was up at App State, my alma mater, and we were having like a home, there was a big homecoming game, and my sister went there too, so she was up there, and it was a couple of friends, and I'm driving, I have a Jeep, and I'm driving around the mountains, and I'm just swerving around corners, and everybody's like holding on, what are you doing, Leon?

You know, because I was kind of a wild driver back then, and I was used to the mountains because I'd lived there for a couple of years, and Miranda says I'm still a wild driver, so that's, that still happens. No, actually, I'm kind of a grandpa now, to be, yeah, I'm a grandpa now. I go slow, my sisters and all them pick on me because I've gotten so much slower in my driving, but, but anyway, I was wild, that wild driver back then, and I remember somebody in the, in the seat over with me, and maybe this wasn't the right response, he said, he said, man, I don't want to, dude, we're going to, we're going to die. He says, well, great, if we die, we go to heaven today, and that's even better, and he's like, well, I don't want to go to heaven today, I want to go to heaven, but I don't want to go to heaven today, but that's how I felt, that, that was just, it was just exciting, it was just different, everything was different, I could see things differently, I could, I could, I think, I thought differently, life, you know, the concerns of life just didn't matter anymore because Jesus was in my life, and so sometimes we just, we just need to share the hope that we have. You have that hope, you have that story.

The second thing is share, share my church. I share my church, share your church, you're, you're here because, a lot of you are here because you found hope right here, and, and you want to bring somebody in so that they can know the hope, because we intentionally set up our church services so it's not only for the believer, but it's for the unbeliever, and if you're an unbeliever today, it's, it's okay, no condemnation in Christ Jesus, amen. You can come in here, you can sit, you can listen, you can hear me, you can talk to the people, and we are not going to make you feel bad, okay? We know that you are where you are, we believe that Jesus, we believe that Jesus is the only way, but for you, we'll, we'll just let you sit in here, we want you to be here, we're so glad you're here today, amen, if you're somebody who's not ready quite yet, amen, we're glad you're here, I'm glad you're here, I welcome you, you're welcome and wanted in this place, agnostics, atheists, those who are, don't, don't know where, what they believe, uh, Buddhists, Muslims, I don't care, come on in and sit down and be with us today, amen, because we are going to be people who are open, and particularly those who just don't know church, that, that's why we, that's why I'm asking, you know, for you guys to, to help us finance some things here so that we can reach more unchurched people, um, so that, and, and there's always this, you know, kind of going back, there's always this, this mentality with, with smaller churches, and guys, I, I like smaller churches, I'll be honest with you, I, I like knowing everybody, I like connecting with everybody, and, and, but, but there's this small church mentality that takes place in a lot of people's, um, thinking, um, and, and the problem with that is, it, there's a gravitational pull to, to be, now I'm not talking about small church, just as. Small church.

Small churches are wonderful. Most of America's small churches, okay? But I'm talking about a mentality of small church because what the mentality of small church does is it says it's about me. It's about my pew. Excuse me, sir, you're sitting in my pew.

Could you move over when the guest comes in? That's a small church mentality. It can be a big church that has that small church mentality. So it's not based on how many people attend your church. It's based on how you're your mentality is.

And God doesn't call us to be that. The gravitational pull is always to be about ourselves. But here's why. Why do we build bigger hospitals? Because there's a lot more sick people, right?

During COVID, they were trying to open up rooms to bring sick people in, right? The church should be doing that. We need to open up more. We need to bring the people in because there's a lot of sick people out there. Let's make room for people.

Let's figure this out together. Let's do this together. We're called to do this. That's why Luke 14 says, go out into the country and urge everyone you find to come in so that my house will be what? Full.

My house is full. In context, he tried to invite all of his people in. They said, I don't want to go. He tried to invite the Jews to the party, you know, or the people that were like them to the party. They didn't have time.

So he says, let's open it up for people that don't know church. Let's open it up for people who don't know God. Invite them in. Go out in the highways and the byways and share the gospel. So we need to pray for them.

Pray for them. Pray for people. In August, we're going to pray, okay? I'm going to challenge everybody to begin to pray for those who are unchurched or de-churched and think about ways that we can, you know, pray for our church. Pray for our church, how we can be better at this.

Pray for a larger place for more seats because, again, there's been summers here. I shared last week. There's been a few summer weeks where we just didn't have any chairs left, okay? This is summer and people are on vacation and out and about and we don't have seats. So we need more seats.

Show them that you care. Show them that you care. Before you invite somebody to church, you need to show them first that you care because they don't care about how much you know. They just want to know that you care. You got to build people's trust.

You got to love them where they are. You got to let them know that you care because people are asking three correct questions. Can you help me? Because people need help. They need help in their marriages.

They need help in their finances. They need help. And with their kids, they're hurting and they need help and they want to know. And if you're not a part of a small group, you need to get part of a small group, whether in our church or outside. I don't care.

You need to be with people who are helping you grow and helping you with these problems. And that's why we have that. That's why we tailor our messages. We could have a deep theological message every week and that would be wonderful and I would love to teach it. And there are seasons where I do that a little bit.

But most of our messages are tailored towards people that are unchurched because they want to know if you can help me. Can you help me with my finances? Can you help me with my marriages? Nothing else has given me answers. Can God give me answers?

So that's why we do what we do. And they ask, do you care about me? Do you care about me? Y'all need Jesus isn't going to work, okay? You can say that all you want to to those who don't know the Lord and it's not going to work.

They just need to know that you care. They don't need you to have your little numbers chart out seeing how many salvations you get that week. That's not what it's about. They want to know that you really care that they're not just a number. And thirdly, can I trust you?

Can I trust you? See, I don't care. If you're new here today, I don't really care that you join our church today or run and sign up to be a volunteer or anything like that. I just say, just sit and enjoy and take the opportunity to, I want to build my trust with you. I want you to trust me.

I don't expect you to run and do something right away. And that's what we want to do. We want people to come in and just have an opportunity to just experience and the trust that can develop through that. And sometimes that takes years, guys. It takes years to build those trusts.

Trust me. No pun intended. Pun intended. Trust me. We need trust.

A pastor shared one time about a local basketball player, a girl basketball player that was really good. She was a teenager. She would score like 50 points a game and everybody was all about this girl in the news. And he felt God tell him to go to this game and introduce himself to this little girl. This little girl.

She was, you know, 17 years old, probably about six foot tall. Who knows? But he goes to this game and he watched her play and she's phenomenal. And then in between, I think it was like a double, double headers baseball. But, you know, it was two games that day.

He goes out and tries to meet her, you know, and goes up to her and says, hey, I'm Pastor so-and-so. And she's like, oh, yeah, you're weird. Who are you? And they're like, well, who is this guy? I don't know who he is.

So she kind of walks off and he's like, well, I guess I miss her God on that one. And, you know, she's kind of, but he goes and sits back down and he watched her again. And then he comes out after the game and he goes up to her again and says, hey, hey, I just want to say phenomenal game, great game. She says, who are you? Why are you even here?

And he says, well, I'm a local pastor and I just felt God tell me that I needed to come and meet you and introduce myself. And she said, well, let's talk, you know. After, after I go to my locker room and get all that done, we'll talk in a minute. And he was like, okay. And he waited.

It was about 45 minutes before she came out. He thought she jetted and she was gone. She was freaked out. She found a way out. But, um, came back.

She came back and sat down with her, with him and says, why would you come to my game? Nobody cares about me. Nobody cares about me except that I can score 50 points in a game. My dad doesn't even come to my games. And you're here.

Nobody cares about me. And he said, well, we can talk about this more. So, you know, my, my wife makes, makes the best chocolate chip cookies. He said, and you come over to our house and we can talk about it. And over, over weeks and, and, and months, she'd come every day.

And then one day she said, so, so when are you going to tell me about Jesus? And he's like, well, I was just waiting for the right time or until you're ready to receive Jesus. He says, well, I'm ready. Why haven't you told me about him? And, uh, and sure enough, he led her to the Lord.

But really, what it came down to is this girl didn't feel like anybody cared. And over time, he built trust up with her and was able to, to share the gospel with her. And sometimes it may take years, but it's worth it. It's worth it. Sometimes it's taken many, many years for, for even some of you here in the church today to even trust me.

That pastor, he wouldn't leave me alone. He always wanted to hang out with me, get to know me. I tried to run from him, but he, he was there and invite them to join me or join you at a service. I need to invite them to join me and not just invite them, sit with them. Okay.

Bring them in. Sit. Don't, don't invite them and then show up, you know, 30 minutes late. Just be there, have a seat ready for them. And, and I would challenge each and every one of you to do this, to invite at least two people a year that are completely unchurched, unchurched, nothing about church.

Invite them, bring them in. That's your homework. Okay. The bring two people a year. So invite people in, just invite people in.

Cause we live in a post Christian America. And, uh, one statistic says more than 80% of people who don't go to church will never go unless we have a one-on-one with them. So these one-on-ones are really important. How, how we connect with people. And, uh, thirdly, and lastly, share Christ.

See, we've made it too hard, right? We've made it too hard to share Christ, but we all have a story and people really want to know two things. They want to know that God loves you and God has a plan for your life. God loves you because people don't know that God loves them. They don't think God likes them.

They need to know that God loves them because y'all know the verse. God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him should not, will not perish, but have everlasting life. Right? God so loved the world. He gave his son.

They want to know. And, and, and Christina, I'm going to share your story with her little niece. Now, number one, before I even shared this, did you know that her sister came to church here while she was in town about back in Christmas time, and she was so touched by us and what God was doing here, she went home and found a church and gave her life to Jesus. Praise God. And the family's now, you know, going to church.

The kids are going to church. You did this, Salt. You did this, Salt. We're affecting people in California now, okay? Praise Jesus for that.

But her little girl went home, I mean, or their little girl's going to church and stuff, and Christina was with them, and forgive me if I don't share the story quite right, but she, so they were talking about the girls, you know, singing Jesus songs and stuff like that, and Christina said, did you know that Jesus really loves you? He says, he loves me. He really cares about you. He thinks the world of you. Really?

God thinks the world, even little kids. God thinks about me? God loves me? People want to know that God loves them, and then God has a plan for their life. People want purpose.

They want, that's what led me to Christ. There was no purpose in anything I was doing. It was empty. You can travel the world, you can do everything you've ever wanted to do, and there's no purpose with it, then what is it for? And people may say, you know, I don't want that, but, you know, you can always, you know, when you're sharing the gospel, they can say, well, you know, I'm not ready right now, or I don't want to hear it, or whatever.

He says, okay, that's fine, but if you ever want to talk about those two things, that God loves you and he has a purpose for your life, I'm always available. I'm always available for you to hear. So why do people need these two things? And I'm going to close on this, okay? And this is going to help you share the gospel, okay?

There's three things, the problem, the solution, and the response. Problem, solution, and response. The problem is they can't experience God's love and that he has a plan in his life because there's a chasm called sin. Sin is on people's lives. It separates us from God.

That's why Romans 3, 23 says, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So we have a sin issue to deal with. A lot of people say, well, I'm not good enough to get in heaven. Well, that's not what gets you into heaven. I'm too bad to go to church.

I'm too bad to know God. That's not why, you know, that's not true because if it takes, if it's about doing right and wrong to get you to heaven, then that defeats the purpose of Christianity, right? I'm so bad that I'll never make it to heaven. That's not why you're not going to heaven. You're not going to heaven because you have a sin problem.

From the very beginning, you were born into sin. And it separates us from God. But what God did is he saw that there was a debt that we can never pay. We had a debt to pay. And you know what the debt was?

Death. We were given death. The only way that we could pay that debt was death. And it's kind of a catch-22 because it took a death. A death to fix a death.

The debt of death. There's a lot of D's there. The debt of death to fix death, you know? And it says the wages of sin is death. That's the debt that we had to pay.

But the solution is this. The solution is, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. It's a free gift that is available to us, not by works, not by what we do, but receiving Jesus as our Savior. That is the solution. Romans 5a, God demonstrates his own love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

God will pay the death bill. He has done it. Jesus was the only perfect person. He was perfect in his nature so that he could pay the death debt. And he gave, God gave Jesus for us.

That's why Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. No other philosophy takes you to Jesus. No other religion takes you to heaven, to God. That connects you to God.

No other work connects you to God. It's all about Jesus. He is the only way to heaven. The only sure thing, the only sure way to heaven. Why?

Because Jesus was perfect. And he didn't have to pay for his own bill. Right? So he paid our bill for us. And Acts says, salvation is found in no one else.

No one else. For there is no other name under heaven given to man by which we must be saved. There is no other name. Amen? There is no other name.

If you're here today, you're trying to figure it out, there is no other name. There is salvation available for you for free by the cross of Jesus Christ. And then lastly, the response. The response. John 1, 12, but to all who believe in him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.

Children of God. If I can have some music here and we'll just close. Romans 10 says it is, for if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. There's power in that. There's power in the gospel.

For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified and is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. So we make a response. You don't have to join a church. You don't have to get better before you go to church or you don't have to do anything. Look, remember the thief on the cross?

Jesus didn't, when he turned to Jesus, he says, I believe that you are who you say you are. He didn't say, well, you need to go get better. It's too late, dude. You're on the cross. Now you're getting ready to die.

You did so much wrong. No, he said, today you'll be with me in paradise. Today you will be with me in paradise. Do you hear me, the hungry heart out there? Today, he says, you can be with me.

I can give you hope. I can give you a future. And perhaps he's missing with you today. Because. Because he says he stands at the door of your heart and knocks, and if anyone hears your voice, or my voice, that's what he says, I will come in and make a home in his heart.

He wants to make a home in your heart, and perhaps that's you today. God's just been missing with you. I'm missing with you a whole lot. You've been stirred, and maybe you're here today, and there's power in the gospel. And if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, you can be saved.

If you'll pray that with me, with all heads bowed and all eyes closed. If that's you today, I beg, I plead with you, with everything that's in me. Give Jesus a chance today by praying this. Father, I believe that you are the Son of God. I confess with my mouth that you are Lord.

Come into my life, I give everything today, Lord. Forgive me my sin. Pay the debt that I could never pay. Make me a new creation in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen.