Hope Church LV Sermons
Colossians 1:3-8
Amen. Well, you may or may not know this. You are a blessed people to be at the 11 o'clock service. Okay. Because as the teaching goes for this is the third time that I've taught this lesson in the whoever's teaching in the weeks, to be honest with you, the best sermon to come to is this one. Because we've refined it and we've thrown some stuff out and we've added some stuff. There's some stuff that we've studied. But let me tell you, the choir on the third time, at this last service, it's actually a second time for them, is incredible. Am I lying? Teddy. Good night. So thank you, Teddy, for that. I thought I was going to pray for you, not just because the microphone didn't work. I don't know if you had the breath to pray. So anyway, turn to the book of Colossians chapter 1. We're going to look at just seven verses today, chapter 1, verses 3 through 8. We're going to look at the evidences of a changed life today. Last weekend, Pastor Vance began the study and we're probably going to be at this study for at least a year in the book of Colossians. This is the way that we like to study. This is the way that we like to teach and give it to you as well. So we hope that it'll be a blessing to you. But last week, Pastor Vance opened up and really began the series by just giving you some background about what the book was, why it was written, where it was written, who wrote it, just some in general stuff like that. Paul, Timothy, gave you some awesome stuff about grace and peace. And so today we want to kind of hit the ground running and talk about the thing that Paul probably talked about more than he talked about, anything else, the gospel. Now, before those of you who are Jesus followers zone out and begin to doodle or think about lunch or go to some other happy place for a moment, okay, the gospel is not only for those who haven't given their life to Christ, it's for those who have. And so today what we're going to do is we're going to look at the evidences of a changed life. 23 years ago, I met my wife 20 years ago, we were married this coming July of 20 years. Since that time, God has blessed us with five children. And one of the things that Crystal and I talked about when we were just first newly married and we found out that we were going to have our first child, who will be 19 this August, was the fact that we wanted him to know how much we loved him. We wanted to be able to say it. And it is one of the things that we've said that we are saying and that we are going to continue to say to our children, we love you. Now they're going to be some actions that go along with that because that's what makes it real, right? But we want them to know this. I love you and we say over and over and over and over and you know all the kisses and the hugs and her parents, you've been there, right? Over and over. Why would we repeat something over and over? Not just because it was true in our minds, but we wanted them to know, we want you to know it's true. Kids, children, we want you to know we love you. So we said over and over and repeat after repeat after repetition. That's what Paul does here. Did you know that in the 13 books that we're for sure that he wrote, in 12 of the books, he mentions the gospel. In fact, it's mentioned 64 times over those 12 books. Listen to this. In every book that it's mentioned, except for one book, so 11 of the 13 books that he wrote, it's mentioned in the first chapter. Do you remember who Paul was? He was a guy who was very religious and that may be you today, okay? Very religious, but not spiritual, not of Jesus following. Paul was very religious. He had Judaism down, right? But he didn't know God. Then one day on the road to Damascus, Jesus met him there and his life would never be the same. This gospel message that we talk about today is the one that he has written about in this book and in the other 12 books that he wrote. Here, he talks about it seven different times in seven different ways. He calls it the gospel, he calls it the word, he calls it truth, he calls it it four or five times, proclaiming to what we know to be the gospel as the gospel. Listen, it made a difference in his life. And if you're sitting here today and the gospel has made a difference in your life, there are going to be some characteristics, some evidences that it really happened to you. So, what I want to do is I want to read the Scripture here and then we want to look at the four different evidences, the four different characteristics of what it looks like to be a Jesus follower and how that changes you, the gospel, okay? So, let's read it together. Chapter one verses three through eight. Here's what Paul says, "We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel, which has come to you just as in all the world, also it has the gospel. It is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth. Just as you learned it from Apaphorus, our beloved fellow bond servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit." Now, before I get too deep into these four characteristics, I want you to see one thing that's really not even part of this sermon and the other two haven't even heard this part because I have to pick and choose and also because I have to give you time to get in this place. Now, I can keep you till two. You're the last service. I'm just kidding. The very first verse that I read, "We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Listen to this, "Praying always for you since we heard of your faith and your love." Paul, he knew what happened to people who gave their life to Christ when he lived. We have a little bit different view of what he had. His view, when he knew people gave their life to Christ, here's what he knew. I want you to listen closely that they had to give something up. In our society, when we give our lives to Christ, we really don't give up that much, right? Well, we'll do baptism and we'll make pictures and videos and everybody will clap and we'll hoop and holler and hope that Pastor Teddy gets his groove on up here. You know what I mean? We're happy. We're celebrating. We're excited. But Paul knew for these people together and after Christ, here's what he knew. It meant for them, probably most of them, some persecution and for some great persecution. So here's what he said, "Since I've heard of what happened to you through the gospel, I'm praying for you." It wasn't just, "I'm thanking God for you because you gave me..." No, no, it was like this. Since you've given your life to Christ, just know. It's not going to be easy. You're going to lose your family. Some of you are going to lose your jobs. Most of you are going to lose your lifestyle, for sure. And so here's what I'm telling you. When I pray for you, I always thank God that you've given your life to Christ. He knew the seriousness of it. He knew the seriousness of the gospel. I'm not sure that in our Christian subculture of Christianity here in North America, that we actually understand the relevance of the gospel in our life. I believe we believe it saves us, that it makes us into who we're going to be. But I'm not sure that we're on the same wavelength as Paul is here when he begins to talk about the gospel and how determined he is to get this gospel to the world. And I think that's the point. I don't know how determined we are to get it to the world. Some of us have already determined to get it to the world that's many miles away from here. Yeah, let's get the gospel to China and North Korea and Laos. Let's get the gospel to Indonesia. Let's get the gospel to Iran. But how about just your next-door neighbor? God had saved him. He was intent on helping those who'd also give their life to Christ. And there are some evidences that we're going to look at just these four, just real quick, that will help us to understand for some of us today if we're even in the faith or not. If we even know God, because I'm convinced that many of us prayed a prayer, I'm convinced that many of us may have signed the card, gone through the baptistry, maybe we're real nice and polite to our pastor, but that doesn't make us a follower of Jesus. I grew up in a great Christian home where my parents read the Bible to me, where they took me to church, where I heard the gospel over and over and over, but I was still lost. There's a lot of things in my garage besides a car and everything in there's not a car. You understand? Just because it sits in my garage doesn't make it a car. You may sit in the home of a pastor, you may sit in the home of a Christian, but that doesn't make you a Christian. There's a day that you give your life to Christ. And so today what we want to do is offer that to you. And for those of you who are already believers and followers of God, I want you to be able to take what we're going to say today and place it right over your life and say, does this fit? Is this me? Are these evidences evident in my life? So let's look at the first one, looking verse four. After Paul says, we give thanks to God, to Jesus Christ, the father of our Lord, to God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying for you always. Look what he says, since we heard of your faith, point number one, the first characteristic, it is noticeable. A changed life produced by the gospel is noticeable. Paul said, since we heard of your faith and your love, here's the takeaway today on this one. The gospel brings a noticeable change in the life of a Jesus follower. In other words, people recognize that you're different. Not only we're different, maybe sometimes, but not funny looking, not weird, but different. It's noticeable. What I've noticed in many of our lives, in my own at times as well, is that people can't tell that I'm a follower. There's no way anybody can tell if you're a follower, if you're actually not a follower, but what Paul says here is what I've noticed is your faith, listen to this, and your love, your faith, no matter what's going on around you, and these people were about to have some major stuff. In fact, what had happened was in the church at Colossae, his heresy had crept into the church, and that heresy, we're going to look at it, and it's one of the reasons that we're going to have the awesome series we're going to have on the deity of Jesus of his incomprehensibleness. It's just the fact that there were people in the church who call themselves believers, listen to this, who said Jesus wasn't God. That's a problem, and they would sit, and they would talk to the other believers, and they would say, but here's the deal, he's a son of God, but he's not really God. Listen to me. In our city, there are people who are saying that. Thank you, Teddy. Brother, in our city, your neighbors, Jesus is the son of God, but he's not God, but he is God, and he always was, and he always will be God, and this is what happened. It crept into the church, and these people were going to undergo persecution, they were going to undergo heretical teaching, but he said, here's what I've noticed about you, and I don't even know you. I've never met you, I've never talked to you. A pafras gave us off to Christ through Paul in Ephesus, a pafras who's the pastor now, Colossae, went to Colossae, a church began there, he became the pastor. Now he's passing on the gospel that was given to him by Paul, and here's what Paul says, I've noticed that the gospel that I gave to you got to them because you gave it to him, and now what I'm noticing is, through your faith and your love for all the saints, that you have the real deal, that the gospel has absolutely changed your life. It's noticeable. Here's what I want to ask you today, is the gospel for those of you who are followers of God, of Jesus. Can anybody look at your life and see it? Are you still the same mean, ordinary person you were? Are you still the impatient, non-understanding, never show any grace and mercy person that you were before you gave your life to Christ? Now here's what I want to say, because we're sinners, we are all still like that, but it doesn't need to be consistent. Is it noticeable? Has the gospel so changed your life that if Paul were to hear a report from a paphorous about us, would he go, you know what I've noticed this? Since we've heard of your faith, Paul here uses the term faith, hope, and love, which is actually the third time he's used it in his writings, he uses the first Thessalonians, he uses it in first Corinthians, and first Corinthians he uses it in the order of faith, hope, love, or because I'm looking at you, faith, hope, love. All right, faith, hope, love, and and puts love last, and the reason that he puts love last is because in chapters 12 through 14, which is one writing of Paul, where he's answering one of the questions, the question was basically this from the Corinthian church, about gifts. Tell us about spiritual gifts because there are people in the church who say that I may not be a Christian because I don't have a gift that they have, and the gift was actually speaking in tongues, and they were asking the question, we can't speak in tongues, but some in our church can speak in tongues, and are we not Christians because we can't? And so what Paul says is here's the deal, spiritual gifts are great, they're wonderful, praise the Lord for spiritual gifts, but chapter 13 here's what he says, the greatest of these is love, faith, hope, love, but the greatest is love. If you don't have love, forget the gifts. I don't care what gift you got. If you don't have love, you may not even be a Christian, probably not. So there the anchor was loved, but here the anchor's hope. You say, Tom, why hope here? Why couldn't it be love here? Why couldn't it be faith here? It was it was love, excuse me, it was hope here. Why was it hope? They had faith. That's what he said. They had love for all the saints, the Bible says, but they were about to endure heresy and persecution. And what they needed to rest in was the hope of Jesus Christ. And here's what he wasn't, here's what he was saying, I'm noticing. And I want to ask you today, is there anything in your life that's noticeable, that's been a noticeable change because of what the gospel could do? Because here's a fact that I do know the gospel makes things in your life noticeable, noticeably different. All right, that's point number one. It is noticeable. Number two, characteristic number two, a changed life produced by the gospel is also constant. Here's the takeaway in that. The gospel brings a constant change in the life of a Jesus follower. Now, the way this is written, and I don't want to get into the whole original language and things, but I do want you to understand this really well. If you'll look where he says in verse six, which has come to you just as in all the world also, here's where I want you to get it. Okay, listen to this. It is constantly bearing fruit. The it there is the gospel. The gospel is constantly bearing fruit and increasing. Here's what I've noticed. Here's what I see. Here's a characteristic, an evidence that you know the gospel that constantly you are still changing. Now, here's what I want you to hear as believers or followers of Jesus. If you are the same person you were whenever you gave your life to Christ, something's wrong. There has to be a constant change. Why? The Bible says here that the gospel itself will bear fruit of itself, and it will continue. It will increase. It will grow a few years ago here. I know I watched it on the internet. I wasn't actually here, so for some of you, you're going to have no idea what I'm talking about, and so I want you to go grab this, but our church did a series. Let's see what was it called? Help me Teddy. The Vineyard Series. The Vineyard Series. Chapter 15, the book of John. And one of the things that Pastor Vance covered in that series was this issue of God didn't ask us to bear fruit. Do some of you guys remember that? That we were not asked to bear fruit, that it is God who bears fruit through us. And that bearing fruit is actually the life of the vine being pressed out through the branches. Do you remember that? That's still the case here. That fruit in us is God doing His work, but here's the deal. You know that God is changing us and doing work through us all the time. That it's not going to be the same as it used to be. You see, 32 years ago I gave my life to Christ, and I know what you're thinking, you sure look young. I know that's what you're thinking. I gave my life to Christ when I was 11 years old. I'll be 44 this year. 32 years ago God changed my life. And can I just say this? I'm still a mess, but I'm not the mess I was. You know, anybody else with me isn't just me today. I can't see you for all the lives, but I hear you. Listen, we're still messed up, but we can't be the same. There has to be a change. It's a constant change. Here's something that was me. I'm going to say something here because my mom did. And by the way, my mom's here too. She wouldn't want me to say anything, but she's right here sitting beside my dad. A couple of nieces too, not that that matters, but my parents were huge impact on my life, but there was a time when I had to choose to be a Christian. Like when I was home, I didn't have a choice. There'd be 11 beside my head. If I didn't get the car and go to church with my parents, you know, I didn't have a choice. But when I went to college, there were some choices. And I remember my mom would call me often and say like, hey, did you go to church today? What was the sermon on? Uh-oh. Gotta pull that from somewhere, you know? Because here's what I would do. I would go to church, but man, that was pretty much it. I was faithful, you know, pretty faithful, sorry. But let me just say this, if you're waiting to grow by coming one time per week, if you ate like that, you would die. You're just going to eat on Sundays at 10 or 11. Spiritually, that's what we do. It is constantly changing, bearing fruit. And then he said, it's increasing. It's continual. It's continuous. It keeps going and going and going. And the gospel changes us. Let me just say this, because you are a follower of God, other people are going to think you're crazy and weird. You're doing things that make no sense. I had a guy tell me when I was just right out of college, I went and bought a car, my first car, you know. But before I bought the car, about 6, 8, 10 months passed, and one of my friends that I work with said, Tom, why don't you get a car? Your car is awful. I mean, that thing's a jalopy. It barely runs. You're wondering if it's going to make it to the next model marker. I mean, why don't you just, here's what he said to me. He said, you know, if you didn't give to the church, you could buy a new car. I said, you're right. It looked crazy to him. See, here's what we think. We believe that the people who were going to share the gospel with, which is what we're talking about today, are going to think we're crazy if we do. But how much do we love them? June the 16th is gone. The 17th is all we have for today. We're not even promised tomorrow, but we're one day closer to Jesus Christ coming back. And if we believe, listen, that's good for us, but that's not good for the world that doesn't know him. I said, it should grieve us that while we're the same as the day we gave our life to Christ, we are not changing enough so that other people could know him. And that's where you'll be. There is a constant change. And that's what he says there. It is constantly bearing fruit. It is constantly the life of the vine being pressed out through the branches. Here's what I want to ask you in application to this. Is there any obvious fruit from your spiritual walk with Christ? Let me put it this way. Is there enough that other people know God because of you? Are you being changed? Now, listen, it's not something you can manufacture because I've already said it's the life of the vine being pressed out through the branch, but the life has to go through you. You must be the branch attached to the vine in order for that to happen. And I'm not here today to browbeat you. I'm here today for all of us, including myself. This is the third time for me. You should be me for our trees to be shaken, for us to be shaken out of our sleep and our slumber to say, what does my life really look like? Am I going to work, making the money, paying the bills, going from week to week, month to month, but is my life really having a difference because of the gospel? Are people recognizing is it noticeable? And then is it constant? Is this change constant in my life? You can't be the same. The gospel brings about constant life change. And here's what I would say today that if there's no life change, how do you know you're even a believer? Listen, I want you to think about that today. I'm not here to make you doubt your salvation, but I am here to encourage you in it. A change life produced by the gospel, also number three, is immediate. It is immediate. This characteristic number three, it is immediate. Here's the takeaway. The gospel brings an immediate change in the life of a Jesus follower. For there to be a constant change, there must be an immediate change. Look at the end of verse six. The Bible says, even as it, the gospel, has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God and truth. Even since the day you heard of it. You say, Tom, is salvation a one-time deal or is it a process? Yes. You got it. You said, no, no, no, I'm wanting either or. I can't give it to you. Because the Bible talks about justification of you being right with God from the moment of salvation. That is salvation. But that He has begun a good work in you and will be faithful to complete it. The sanctification part of our salvation. Listen, if you got justification with no sanctification, you have no salvation. Because there really was no justification to begin with. You're changed. Weird change. We didn't even change. And listen, there was a day and a time for me, August 17th, 1980. There was a day. You say, I don't know the date. The date doesn't matter. I just know because I'm weird. I actually went back and looked online at the days because I knew I was baptized on a Wednesday. I knew I got saved on a Monday and I know when that was. But there's a day. You know, you say, have you ever talked to anybody and they've said this? Or you've asked them the question. So tell me about your relationship with God. Tell me about the day that you gave your life to Christ. Tell me about your salvation. Tell me something about it. Here's what they've said. I've always been a Christian. And can I just say this with love and grace as much as I can muster? That's impossible. Either there was a day you gave your life to Christ or you're still not a believer. You say, I was born in a Christian family. Kittens are born in bread baskets every day, but they're not bread. Right? You must be saved. And that change that happened to the people in Colossians or in the book of Colossians in Colossae, it was immediate for them. They didn't, you know, have to go through a class and take a bunch of stuff and then memorize some things. And then if you work up to it and if you get, you know, no, no, I gave my life to Christ. Repented a place, my faith in him. He saved me. That's how it works. It's immediate. You say, Tom, mine's kind of been a process all along. And listen, I understand the whole thing of counting the costs and I understand, you know, wanting to, but listen, you're never going to know everything about God. And if you're waiting to know everything about God, you will die and spend eternity separated from him. You have enough to know. In fact, nobody's going to walk out these doors today and not know how to be saved. And here's the deal. You're going to have to deal with it. And I don't mean to sound brash, but I want you to hear what I'm saying. You're going to make a decision today. The decision might be no, but that's a decision. And I think I speak for all of us who are followers in here. We don't want you to be like us. The Lord, please don't be like me. We want you to be like him. We don't want you to know us as much as we want you to know him and knowing him will help you to know us, but just know this. Don't be like me. I don't want you to do what I'm doing because it's right. I want you to do what I'm doing because if you don't do what I'm doing, as far as being a follower of Jesus, you will spend eternity separated from him. And man, June the 16th gone, but 17th and on. Who knows? He is coming back. It's immediate. It is immediate. The gospel brings about immediate life change. Here's the application. Was life change immediate when you were saved? Praying won't save you, being baptized won't save you. Because it's not about our self-effort. It's about what God has already done for us. If there's no life change and there's no salvation, but it is immediate. So I encourage you at the end of the service today, when I ask you, if you have never given your life to cross, he will change you before you walk out these doors. Number four and last. That was quick, huh? You like that? You should tell Pastor Vance to let me come up more. A change life produced by the gospel lastly is reproducible. It is reproducible. Now here's, here's probably the area where most followers, believers, Jesus followers, would say, this is where I am. Time I got the immediate part. I got the constant part. I understand the noticeable part. Man, I got all those and I'm working on those, you know, and I'm asking God to do some stuff through me and to show himself more to me. But number four, this is where some of us fall off the wagon. It's reproducible. Here's the take away in that today. The gospel brings reproducible change in the life of a Jesus follower. The gospel brings reproducible change in the life of Jesus follower. You say, Tom, where do you see that in the scripture? Where is that in the scripture? Look in verse seven, the Bible says, just as you learned it, the gospel from a paphorus, our beloved brother and bond, excuse me, our beloved fellow bondservant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf. You see, a paphorus was so changed, by when he met Paul in Ephesus before Paul went to jail in Philippi, the paphorus took this gospel and he started that church that was there in Colossae. He shared the gospel with these people and they were changed, but he wasn't finished. He began to reproduce himself. First of all, you got to understand that reproduction happens when you share the gospel with somebody else. Reproduce that, that you and them, not the you and them, but the God that's in you to them. If I were to ask you how many of you have led him by the Christ, not just this year, but in your life, I promise you, some of you wouldn't want to answer the question. Listen, it doesn't matter to me what theological persuasion you are, and if that didn't mean anything to you, pray the Lord, if it does, hear me out. The gospel is the perfect life of Jesus and his awesome life dying on the cross for our sin and then being resurrected on the third day. And here's what I have absolutely figured out about that, that if I share the gospel with people, they give their life to Christ. Do you believe that? And if I don't, they don't. It's crazy. You say, well, Tom, I just believe that, well, share the gospel, reproduce it in the life of others. Listen, I'm all for one-on-ones. I love one-on-one discipleship. I love it when guys get together and disciple guys. I love it when ladies get together and they do discipleship, and I'm for all of that. But here's what I believe that so many times when we get caught up in that and I love it, I do it. I'm going to continue to do it for the rest of my life. But that's only half of evangelism. The other half of evangelism is winning them to Christ. And so I want to challenge you today and ask you this question. Who in your life or many who's are you making a difference in and reproducing? Remember when I started this morning, I said, I want you to be able to take this as a template and place it over your life. Is it noticeable? Is it constant? Is it immediate? But how about this one? Are you reproducing yourself? Not just in discipleship to get more mature and more mature because we get in the groups and that's all we do and that's all we do and all we do. People go by the wayside and we lose our influence with them. How many people have you had in your life that you knew you should share the gospel with you didn't and they moved away or they got a different job or you moved away or you got a different job? God has strategically placed us where we are because of the gospel. You say, "Tom, small group, that's really a place where we grow deeper and I walk with God." Yes, but that's not all. Man, I really see small groups as a place where people are one to Christ. It's happened in my group. We've invited people who weren't even part of our church, who now are, who have given it off to Christ. They've even been baptized. What about in the youth department? What do y'all do over there? We're looking to share the gospel. What about in the children's department? You know how children, you know, they're young and they're, you know, impressionable. You got it. Impressionable. That's where we want them, man. It's adults who aren't impressionable. The gospel. Who in your life? Listen, if you call yourself a believer and one or many of these things are something that is really a struggle for you. I'm not questioning your salvation today, but here's what I am saying. You need to evaluate your life and say, "Am I really in the faith and am I am? If I am, what am I going to do about it? What am I going to ask God to do in my life to change me, to change my heart, to make me sensitive to the things of God? Because of Paphras, he knew the seriousness that if people in colossate didn't hear the gospel, they would spend eternity separated from God. As my parents and many other people in my life to the age of 11 had shared the gospel with me, somebody cared enough about me to say it. Don't we? 95% of our city is lost. Don't we want to tell them? You say, "Tom, they're not going to accept. That's not up to us." God didn't say, "Look at the field and inspect it." He said, "Get in it." He didn't say, "Check it out and see if it's okay." He said, "Step in the field and begin to harvest." Here's the takeaway today. Application part. Who is growing in their walk with God because of you? Who's growing in their walk with God because of your walk with God? Who is growing in their walk with God because of your intentionality to reproduce yourself, to share the gospel of Jesus? Because here's what the gospel does. It brings about a reproducible, a reproducibility of change. Not just noticeably, not just constancy, not just immediacy, but reproducibility. Who are you impacting with your life? Now, I'm finished, but I've got two more things I want to say. If you're a follower of Jesus today, I want you to just take these things that the Bible has talked about, that Paul wrote that the Holy Spirit inspired him to write, and I want you to think about these four things. Not your husband's life, your wife's life, your friend's life, your brother's life, your sister's life, your grandparent's life, not the greatest Christian you know's life, not the worst Christian you know's life, your life, like I've had to do and take all four of those and say, "Is this what my life like? Is this what it's like? Is this what it's like? Lord, help me. Lord, don't just help me. Take over me. Live through me." And then secondly, because at the end of the service, this altar is going to be open for you and there are going to be some pastors standing here and we're going to pray with you as believers and we're going to help you in any way that we can. We're going to build you up and bring you to that place, but ultimately you're going to have to decide because I just know because I'm part of this culture, we play Christianity. I don't want you to stand before God and him, Jesus, look at you and say, "Depart from me, I never knew you," and you're going to have the list out, but did I not, but did I not, but did I not, but did I not? This is serious business. And then secondly, for those of you who are in the room who don't know Christ, maybe you've been convicted in the past, maybe you're dealing with conviction at this very moment, today is the day of salvation. Now is the appointed time. I don't want those doors to open until you hear what I'm going to say in the next two minutes. I say this with love to you, that if you don't accept Christ, you won't just miss a great life here on earth, you won't just miss the will of God for your life. You will be separated in eternity from him. You say, "You try to scare me? If I could, I would." This is serious. It's too serious. It's not scary. It's just fact. You need Christ today. The Bible says that Jesus lived a perfect life. He died a cruel death to pay the penalty of your sin and mine, but then he didn't stay dead. He actually rose again on the third day and that someday, and here's the wonderful part, right, he's coming back. And that's going to be a great day for those of us who know him, for those of us, for those of you who do not know him, it won't be a good day. But the Bible says that if you were believing your heart and confessing your mouth, the Lord Jesus, you can be saved. For everyone who calls on the name of Jesus will be saved. You see, I don't really believe that what he did is, is payment enough. Well, until you do believe that, you can't be saved. He is the king and the Lord and he is God, and he really did pay the penalty, and he really is coming back. And it won't be a great decision. It'll be the best decision you've ever made. And if you've never made that decision and you're one of those people who said, well, I've always been a Christian, listen to me. You aren't. It's impossible to always be a Christian. There has to be a day that you gave your lost across. I think it should be June 17th.