Hope Church LV Sermons
Easter 2010
We are finishing up spring break here in Las Vegas and I know the last two words that any student wants to hear today are pop quiz, right? But I'm going to begin the service today with a pop quiz. I'm going to give you a test and it's complete pass or fail, all right? There's no bell curve, there's no helping anybody out, it's all pass or fail. What I'm going to do is I'm going to put some pictures, some images up on the screen and then I'm going to ask you to answer out loud the holiday that corresponds to the images that I'm going to put up on the screen, okay? So as soon as you see the image, I want you to answer out loud the holiday that this image brings to your mind. Here's the test, all right? You ready? Here we go, put the first one up there. Christmas, very good. We see an easy one to begin with. Let's look at the second one. Fourth of July, man, you guys are quick, you're sharp. Let's look at the third one. Ah, now everybody's hungry, right? Yeah, looking at that food. Let's look at the next one. Halloween, exactly, you're doing great. Man, you're just knocking these out. Let's look at the next one. There you go, some of you got it. Tomorrow is opening day of Major League Baseball. Hey, man, I don't know why that has not been declared a national holiday. Man, that ought to be a national holiday. How could some of you have missed that? I mean, it's so obvious, right? All right, let me give you the last one. Easter, right? Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who live and all they know about Easter is what you see there on the screen, a bunny and some eggs. I grew up in North Alabama. You could really call that the buckle of the Bible Belt of America. That's where I grew up. And I grew up in a culture where everybody went to church. It's just what you did. Everybody had heard the Easter story. And so when I moved here to Las Vegas 10 years ago, we came here, got it, brought us here to be involved in starting a new church. And one of the first things we did was we tried to get to know the neighbors that lived around us. And I'm sure, like many of you, over 10 years, my neighbors have kind of turned over a couple of times. There are different people living in some of those houses. Now, but back then, there was a couple that lived two doors down from us, a man and his wife and their kids, and we'd gotten to know them. And we were here for our first Easter. My wife and I were having a conversation with the wife in this home. And she was born in America, raised in America. A college graduate, business professional sharp young woman. And we asked her to attend church with us on Easter. And her response, me being from the Bible Belt of America, I couldn't believe a response. She said, "What does Easter have to do with the church service?" She had absolutely no idea that Easter had anything to do with anything but an Easter bunny and an Easter egg hunt. And today, I'm not here to trash Easter bunny or the Easter egg hunt. Listen, this afternoon, my kids, we're going over to some friend's house and they're going to hunt Easter eggs. Those are wonderful traditions that are established in our culture. Nothing wrong with those things. But if that's all you know about Easter, man, you've missed something very important. Easter is about something that is so much more significant than an Easter bunny and Easter eggs. Easter is about a message that is the central theme of the entire Christian faith. Easter is about the gospel. What is the gospel? It's a word that maybe we've heard before. It's a word that maybe you've even used before. But what does it mean when we say the gospel? Well, the word gospel comes from a Greek word. It's what the New Testament was written in. And it really just simply means the good news to proclaim the good news. That's what the word gospel means. And when it's used in Scripture, it's referring to the good news or the story that is told in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. The entire Bible tells one amazing story of good news. And here's the story. God created the world. That's the way the Bible opens with the beginning that God spoke everything that you can see, taste, touch, feel, or smell. God spoke it all into existence. And then as the crown of His creation, God created human beings and He placed us right in the center of this creation that He had made. And He placed us there to enjoy all that God had made in creation, but also to enjoy that in the context of a relationship with Him. God made us to love us and to live our lives in fellowship with Him. But God also gave us freedom. And in the Garden of Eden where God placed those human beings, they made a choice to sin against God. And it was sin against God that caused humanity the ability to have a relationship with God when we sinned. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, they lost the ability to have a relationship with God. And the rest of the story of the Bible from Genesis chapter 3 all the way to the end is the good news of God redeeming that which we lost as human beings because of sin. You see, the Old Testament is filled with prophecies and poets' writings. Then they all were telling of a Messiah who would one day come, a Christ who would come and save humanity from their sin. The New Testament is the story of how that Messiah came. Jesus came into the world. He died on a cross for our sins. He was buried, but thank God he didn't stay dead. Amen? He rose again from the dead, defeating death hell in the grave. And now because of Jesus, you and I can be forgiven of our sin and be given by grace that which we lost because of sin. A relationship with God. That's the gospel. It's the good news. Now maybe you're here this morning and you're saying faster. Great story. Heard it before. What in the world does the death of one man in history over 2,000 years ago have to do with my life today in 2010? I mean I've heard people tell this story faster. I've heard the gospel. I've heard this stuff about Jesus. But how in the world is that relevant to me living today? Can I be honest with you this morning? For a long time in my life, I ask the same question. I told you earlier, I was raised in Alabama. We went to church multiple times every week, nine months before I was even born, I was going to church, man. I mean, it's just what you do in Alabama. You spend a lot of time at church. So by the time I got to college, I'd literally heard the gospel hundreds, if not thousands of times. What I just shared with you, the story of the Scriptures, I'd heard it over and over and over and over again. But let me be honest. I didn't get it. I knew the story from history and I believed it to be true in my head, but I didn't understand the relevance of that story to where I was living. And then as a freshman in college, I, by the Holy Spirit, came to know the truth of the gospel and it changed my life. And I want to share some of those things with you this morning that I learned about this Easter message, the gospel that I hope will be transformational for you as well. Take your Bible, turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. If you don't have a Bible with you this morning, I'm going to put these verses up on the screen so that you can follow along. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, Paul is writing about the gospel. Listen to what he says, "Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel." Paul says, "I'm about to let you know about the gospel." And he's telling him, "I'm going to make it known to you again," because he's already told these people to the gospel, but he was sharing it again. "I make known to you the gospel, which I've already preached to you, which also you received and which also you stand, by which also you are saved." If you hold fast the word, which I preached to you unless you believed in vain, now here it is, "For I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins." That, according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to see us, then to the 12th. After that he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also, or I'm the least of the apostles, and I'm not even fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me did not prove vain, but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believe. I want to share with you this morning two realities that forever changed my understanding of the gospel and its relevance to my life. And here's the first one. He died for me. I want you to say that out loud this morning. He died for me. His death was not just a historical event. He died for me. Did you hear what Paul said? I'm giving you the gospel. Here it is. Christ died for our sins. How many of you know death is a reality in life, isn't it? Death's a reality of life. It's something that we're all very aware of. Death is a reality in life in many ways, though many more than I think we even realize. First of all, death is a reality in life physically. How many would agree with that? Not your head. I mean, death's a reality of life. It's something that we know is going to happen someday. There's an organization that was founded by the US government. It's a nonprofit. It was founded in 1953 called the National Safety Council. The National Safety Council was given the charter to protect life and promote health in the United States of America. And every year they put out this publication called Injury Facts. As I was studying this week, I found this online called Injury Facts. And I looked at the 2010 edition of their Injury Facts. Now, one interesting part of the Injury Facts report by the National Safety Council is something that I think we would find interest in here in Las Vegas. They give you the odds of dying in your lifetime from certain causes in America. That's very Vegas, isn't it? Aren't you glad they're giving us the odds of what it would be to die from certain things in your lifetime in the United States? And so I want to put up on the screen that chart. This is an actual chart right out of the National Safety Council's Injury Facts report 2010. Now, I've abbreviated it just a little bit to get it to fit on the screen, but I've given you the bottom couple of things and then up at the top. But look at the bottom. The most unlikely form of death in America is for you to die by an earthquake or an earth movement. So all of our brothers and sisters this morning from California, you can breathe a sigh of relief. It is seriously unlikely that you will die from an earthquake in the United States in America. Look at the one above it. It's the second least likely to be bitten or struck by a dog. Now, I got to be honest, I get the bitten part. How do you die from being struck by a dog? I mean, just running by you real fast and it's over, baby. I'm looking at dogs very differently than I used to after reading them. Aren't you glad somebody's figuring this stuff out for us? They're studying and researching it so we know. Watch out for fast running dogs. Look at the top of the list. Total by any calls. Wouldn't you like to have been in the room when they discovered that? Do we really have to write that down? Do our tax dollars really have to go to print a report that says, hey, guess what? One out of one. We all go in someday. Some really sharp researchers putting this together. You know, all they had to do was read the Bible. The Bible says in Hebrews 927, "Inasmuch as it is appointed unto man wants to die." And after this, the judgment, the Bible says every one of us will die. It's a reality of life. But death is not only a reality physically. Death is a reality spiritually. The Bible speaks of a spiritual death, although most of us came into the room aware that death is a reality physically. If you're not aware, you've now been informed by the National Safety Council. You're tax dollars at work. But you may not have been aware of the reality of death spiritually. The Bible says in the book of Ephesians, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins. You see, the Bible teaches us that when Adam and Eve sinned against God in the garden, what happened is they died spiritually. Here's what that means. They died to God. They lost the ability to have a relationship with God, alive to sin, dead to God. And the Bible goes on to say that since Adam and Eve, every one of us have been born into the world, guess what? Dead to God and alive to sin. Let me show it to you in the Bible. Look on the screen, Romans 5, 12 says, "Therefore, just as through one man Adam sin entered the world and death through sin, speaking of spiritual death, and so death spread to all men." Because all sin, spiritual death, every one of us comes into this world, dead to God, alive to sin. You say, I don't know if I believe that. Where's the evidence of that? Well, he tells us, the evidence is we've all sinned. If we were going to get real honest today, if every one of us would just be willing to take off our church, east or face, you know, and tell the truth, you know, we'd all have to acknowledge every one of us have lied at least once in our lifetime. Most of us have lied many times in our lifetime. Now, have you ever had this thought, who taught you how to lie? I got four kids that live at my house and all four of my kids, I could tell this story about any one of them because they've all done it. At that age of three, four or five years old, you tell them not to do something, you walk up behind them, they don't see you and they're doing exactly what you told them not to do. There they are with the hand in the cookie jar and you get around and you say, "Did you just do that?" Who taught them to do that? You don't have to teach little kids to do wrong, right? You got to teach them to do what? To do right? Doing wrong comes what? You know what the root of the word naturally is? It's the word nature. You know what we just said? You know what we do when we're little kids, we grow up, hey, and it's cute in a four or five year old. It gets real ugly the older we get, doesn't it? You know what we're saying? We're just acting according to who we are, our nature. Where's that come from? We come into this world, dead to God, alive to sin. Listen, if you don't believe me, you just come next week, keep the nursery in one of our services. We're not teaching kids back there how to steal, that comes now, they know how to do all that. Dead to God, alive to sin. Why is that such a big deal? Because the very meaning of life, the only real significance of life is found in a relationship with God, and yet I come into this world, dead to the very thing that I exist for because of sin. It's why the world spends all of its time trying to feel that emptiness on the inside. We try to fill it with money, possessions, power, pleasure, relationships, sex, music, everything. We try to fill it, whatever we can fill it with. But the only real answer to that is a relationship with God. Death is not only a reality of life physically and spiritually. Thirdly, death is a reality of life eternally. You see, because I'm dead spiritually, if I die physically, dead spiritually, then I go into an eternity separated from God. The Bible says it this way in the book of Romans, for the wages of sin is death. In that context, the word death is speaking of eternal separation from God. You say, "Pastor, do you really believe here in the 21st century that people who die without a relationship with God spend eternity separated from God?" Listen, I'm not just telling you that's what I believe. I'm telling you that's what the Bible says. Death is a reality of life physically. And if we die physically separated from God, we spend eternity separated from God. But here's what I came to understand about the gospel. Jesus' death forever changed the reality of death in my life. His death forever changed the reality of death. How is that? He died for me. He died the word for in that, in the Greek text there in where Paul said Christ died for our sins. It means on behalf of or in the place of. Here's what that means. What Jesus did when he came, was he died for me so that I could have life. And on the cross, Jesus didn't just stop physically. I mean, he did die physically, right? That's why they buried him. You don't bury living people. You bury dead people. Jesus died physically, but he also died spiritually. Remember what he cried out from the cross? My God! My God, why have you forsaken me? You studied on your own. It's the only time in the New Testament Jesus ever addressed the Father as anything but Father. The only time he called him God. Every other time in the New Testament he cried out Father. What happened in that moment? The Bible says God turned his back on his son. Why? Because the weight of the sin of the world, your sin and my sin, had come on the person of Jesus Christ and he lost his fellowship with the Father. He was separated from the Father. He died spiritually. But he also died eternally. You say, what does that mean? You see, there's a reason why only Jesus could be the sacrifice for our sins. He not only needed to die physically and spiritually, but it had to be an eternal death, right? To pay the full penalty of what I'd earned because of sin. It had to be an eternal death. Who was Jesus? He wasn't just a good man. He was eternal God who took on human flesh and lived a sinless life. And what qualified him to be our Savior is that he was more than a man. He was God in the flesh. On the cross Jesus died physically. He died spiritually and he died eternally. All of the penalty of my sin. Jesus took it for me and then listen to the promise that he made in John 11. I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even if he dies. And he who lives and believes in me will never die. His death forever changed the reality of death in my life. Through what Jesus did, I can be forgiven of my sin. Not because I deserve it, but because Jesus paid for it. I can be forgiven of my sin and be given that which I'd lost because of sin. A personal relationship with God. You say, but hey, wait a minute. You're still gonna die physically one day unless Jesus returns. You're exactly right. But listen, it changed my perspective on it. You see, now I don't have to be afraid of death. Death's not an end. Death is not slipping out into a dark eternity separated from God. You know what Jesus did? Jesus blew a hole in the backside of death so that now for the follower of Jesus Christ, the child of God, death is simply a passageway to a better place where I get to enjoy fellowship with God for all eternity and enjoy fellowship with my brothers and sisters in Christ. His death forever changed the reality of death in my life. He died for me. But if all he did was die, then we still have no hope. We didn't read down all the way to verse 17 in our text, but listen to what Paul said in verse 17. He said, "If Christ has not been raised from the dead, your faith is worthless." Here's what he's saying. If Jesus Christ, if all he did was die, we just will pack up and go home. We're wasting our time. What we're doing right now is useless, but the rest of the story that Paul wrote is that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and that he was buried, but he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. Yes, it is true. Jesus Christ died on Friday, but on Sunday morning, Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. And when they got to the tomb, the angel said, "He is risen. He is not here." His death forever changed the reality of death in my life because he died. I now can live. That leads me to the second reality that changed my understanding of the gospel. Not only he died for me, but look at the next one. He lives through me. Say that out loud with me. He lives through me. Here's where a lot of people get it wrong. Here's what we think the deal is. Jesus died for you. Now, to get in on what he's done, you must live for him. Sounds fair, right? He died for you. You go live for him. That's not the message of the gospel. He died for me so that he could come and live in me and through me. I know what some of you are thinking, "Man, there is no way I can live the Christian life. I can't do it. I hear what you're saying that I can be forgiven from my sin and that Christ will save me, but I can't live up to the expectations. I can't do it. Can I let you in on a secret this morning? You're exactly right. I can't either. If it was up to me to live the Christian life, I'd be hopelessly and helplessly to loss. Jesus didn't save me to live for him. He saved me that he might live through me. And the radical change that happens in the life of a Christian is not me getting better. No, it's Christ living his life in and through me for his glory. That's why the resurrection is so important because the life that I have is his life in and through me. Let me show it to you in Galatians chapter 2. Look at the way Paul wrote it. He said, "I've been crucified with Christ." You know what that says, right? "He died for me when he died." That was my death. Then he says, "And it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." Then listen, the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith. I don't look to me. I look to him. I trust him who died and rose again on my behalf, who gave his life for me. That is the gospel. He died for me that he could bring me to life and live through me. Let me ask you a second question this morning. Why should I believe the gospel? Pastor, I hear what you're saying, but there are a lot of faiths, a lot of world religions out there. Why should I believe the gospel? Well, I want to quickly just show you three things Paul says here about why you and I can believe the gospel, the confidence we can have in the gospel. Here's the first one. The gospel was written in detail before it happened. Two times in these verses Paul says Christ died according to the scriptures. Then he says he was raised according to the scriptures. It's a phrase that refers back to the Old Testament. Here's what it's basically saying. Throughout the Old Testament scriptures, hundreds, sometimes thousands of years before the gospel events ever took place. Poets and prophets sat down and they wrote in detail exactly how the events of the gospel were going to happen. And I'm not just talking about a few random things. They didn't just say, well, he'll wear a blue shirt one day. It's not the kind of thing I'm talking about. They wrote so specifically these details that it drew for us a figurative fingerprint of who the Messiah was going to be to the point that only a divine fulfillment of that prophecy could complete it. Give you some examples. In the book of Isaiah, Isaiah specified that the Messiah, the Savior would be born of a virgin. That's not something you see every day, right? I mean, that's not just something you're right down to know. Well, there's a good chance that's going to happen. The book of Micah, Micah pinpointed the city where he was going to be born. Bethlehem, anybody in the room get a choice over which city you are going to be born in. Beyond our control, right? In the books of Genesis and Jeremiah, it specified his complete ancestry that he was going to be born of the lion and lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob of the tribe of Judah in the house of David. You know what that means? Generations, hundreds of generations before his birth. The prophet said, this is going to be the family that he's born into. They named his grandparents, his great-grandparents, his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents. My favorite is in the 22nd song. In Psalm 22, David describes Jesus being pierced through his hands and his feet and being crucified. You want me to tell you why that's a big deal? He wrote it 700 years before crucifixion had been invented as a means of execution. Meaning that it would be 700 years before anybody ever saw anyone crucified, and David wrote when he comes, they'll put nails in his hands and his feet. It was a man named Lee Strobel. Lee Strobel had a master's degree in law from Yale University. He was the lead editor for the Chicago Tribune's legal section, and he was a devout atheist. And he set out on a journey to disprove Christianity. Specifically, one of the things he looked at was all these Old Testament prophecies. He said, I want to show that that's just a bunch of stories and fables and they made it fit. At the end of his research, he became so convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, that he gave his life to Jesus Christ and he published his journey in a book called The Case for Christ. If you've never read it, I encourage you to read it. In that book, The Case for Christ, Lee Strobel begins to examine the probabilities of the odds of one man fulfilling 48 of these prophecies. Now, there were more than 48, but he just identifies 48 of them. You know what he says, the odds are of one person fulfilling 48 of these prophecies. He says it's one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion. Listen to what Lee Strobel said. After his research, he said, our minds can't comprehend a number that big. This is a staggering statistic that's equal to the number of minuscule atoms and a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, billion, billion universes the size of our universe. Let me tell you what that means. It was a mathematical mathematician. It was a mathematical impossibility for someone to fulfill the prophecies that were written about Jesus before he was born. And yet Jesus did not just fulfill one of them or eight of them or ten of them. Jesus fulfilled every single one of the Old Testament prophecies. We can have confidence in the gospel because it was written in detail before it happened. Number two, we can have confidence because the gospel was confirmed by our witnesses that it happened. Four times in these verses I've read for you this morning, after we read about the gospel, Paul says then he appeared to see this, then he appeared to the twelfth, then he appeared to five hundred brethren at one time. And he said, most of them still alive. Paul had written this a couple of decades after the death bell and resurrection of Jesus. And he begins to tell us about these appearances. The word "appear" means to be seen by. And it means more than just to see a vision of, it literally means to have fellowship with, to have a conversation with, to enjoy a relationship with. The Bible doesn't say that these people just had some visions of Jesus. The Bible says these people had fellowship with Jesus. They talked with him. They touched him. They saw him. They communicated with him. Historians tell us that most of these eyewitnesses died for defending the truth of the gospel. And you say, well, that's not uncommon. People die all the time for things they think to be the truth. Yeah, but there's a big difference. For example, 9/11 happened in the United States. We had some men get behind the steering wheels of airplanes and crash them into buildings believing they were doing that for the truth, right? The difference is they were doing it based on what somebody told them to be true. The people I'm talking about, they saw it with their own eyes. It's one thing to die for something you believe to be true. It's something else to die for something you saw with your own eyes and you know whether or not it's true or not. Sure, a lot of people have died for a lie that they believe to be the truth, but I don't know many people die for a lie. They know to be a lie. These people died because they saw it and they said it happened. Paul writes, he says, ma'am, if you don't believe me, go ask them. When he wrote it, he said, most of them still alive. Third reason. You can believe in the gospel because the gospel has been changing lives ever since it happened. Paul writes and he says, man, last of all he appeared to me is one untimely born. Paul said, I was a persecutor of the church. You know what that means, right? Some of those 500, the reason they were dead, is Paul or men like him had killed them. Paul was trying to murder Christians. He was trying to stamp out the name of Jesus. He didn't want this new faith, this new religion, they called it, this new way. And then Paul met Jesus Christ himself and he personally experienced the power of the gospel and the gospel changed his life. And he went from being a murderer of Christians to a missionary to the nations who wrote most of the New Testament. The gospel changed his life. Listen, the gospel changed my life. I'd heard it many times before, but as a freshman in college, I met Jesus Christ and understood he died for me so that he could live through me. And the gospel changed my life. How many of you in this room today would give a testimony and say, pastor, the gospel has changed my life. Let me see your hand. Just hold it up for a minute. Look around, hold it up for a minute. Heart you can put them down. There are people in this room from all walks of life, different races, cultures, nations, backgrounds. And you just saw hundreds of people say, I know it happened 2000 years ago, but I'm telling you it changed my life today. It's changed my life. Last question, what does it mean to believe in the gospel? See, to believe in the gospel means more than just to acknowledge some facts in your head about what Jesus did in history. Paul closes this passage of Scripture by saying, whether it was I or they, so we preach, so you believed. He uses that word belief, and I want you to hear it in another paraphrase. It was by a man named Eugene Peterson in a paraphrase called the message. Listen to the way he translates that last verse. He said, so whether you heard it from me or from others, it's all the same. We spoke God's truth, and you entrusted your lives. You see, that's what it means to believe in the gospel. It means to entrust your life to the person of Jesus Christ. It means to turn from your way and to turn to his way, to turn from my sin and embrace Jesus as the one who died for me, but who rose again and desires to live through me. It means to surrender everything I am to the person of Jesus Christ. So here's the big blooming question. Have you ever believed in the gospel? I'm not asking if you've heard the story. I'm not asking if you can tell the story. I'm asking, have you ever believed in the gospel and been changed by the gospel? Easter is all about the gospel. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we come before you this morning and we thank you for the marvelous truth of the gospel. And Lord, I pray right now for people all over this building. God, I pray for people that are here that already know you that right now they have been encouraged with a fresh look at the gospel. Lord, I pray right now for people that don't know you. God, that right now you would speak into their heart, that you would open their minds and their eyes, that you would bring conviction that would lead them to salvation. And Lord, we trust you to do that. As you sit there quietly before the Lord, I'm going to ask you just to remain in that posture of prayer to sit with your heads bowed and your eyes closed and nobody looking around right now but me. I want you to try to go to a place in your mind's eye where it's just you and me and God in the room. Have you ever entrusted your life to the gospel? Have you ever been born again? Have you ever experienced God's salvation and forgiveness? Do you know him? Not do you know about him. Do you know him? If this morning you would say pastor, I've never done what you've described today. I've never embraced the gospel. I've never given my life to Christ. If you've never done that this morning, right where you're sitting, what I want to do is I want to lead you in a prayer. It's not saying the words of a prayer that saves you. It's faith in the gospel that saves. But if this morning you are ready to put your faith and trust in the gospel of Jesus Christ, right where you're sitting, I want you to pray this prayer with me. Just pray it right there in your seat. If for the very first time in your life you're ready. I'm ready to give my life to Jesus. Just pray with me. Here we go. Say Lord Jesus, I know that I've sinned. Lord I know that my sin separates me from you. Lord I know that you died for me. I know that you rose again from the dead to give me life. And God right now I turn from my sin and I trust Jesus Christ as my Savior. Lord come into my life. Give me your life. Forgive me and be my Lord and my Savior. Now say Jesus thank you for saving me. Now with nobody looking around still if you just prayed with me for the very first time and you were sincere crying out to God to save you. Let me encourage you not because I say so but because the Bible teaches it. If you just embraced Jesus Christ and his gospel you have been forgiven of your sin. You have been given life in Jesus Christ. You are no longer dead to God. You are alive. And you have a relationship with him. And you don't have to fear death anymore. Death for you now is a passageway to a better place called heaven. But I'm going to ask you to give a testimony. In just a moment I'm going to pray for you. But if you just prayed with me for the very first time I want you to give a testimony in just a moment by just raising your hand. Now I'm not going to embarrass you. I'm not going to call you out. But if you just prayed with me for the very first time to receive Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior I want to pray for you. Would you just as a testimony just slip your hand up and then put it back down right now. God bless you man. God bless you. God bless you. Thank you. God bless you. All over here. God bless you. Thank you sir. God bless you. Thank you so much. God bless you. Anyone else? You prayed with me and gave your life to Jesus Christ. God bless you man. God bless you. Thank you man. God bless you. Lord Jesus I pray for every person that just raised their hand. God I pray right now that the Holy Spirit of God would flood their soul with assurance of their salvation. God that they would know that they are saved not because they deserve it or because they've earned it but because you've given it to them as a gift by your grace a gift that was purchased in the cross. You died for our sins. You were buried and you were raised. And Lord we give you glory honor and praise this morning. Thank you for the wonderful gift of salvation. It's in the glorious name of Jesus Christ we pray and all of us say together. Amen. Would you just give the Lord praise for all of these this morning that indicated a new relationship with Jesus? Amen. God bless you. We want to encourage you today.