Turning to God

Christ's second coming is transformative. It gives every moment eternal significance and empowers Christians with profound hope, urgency, and purpose. Discover this compelling truth about Christ's second coming through this series in Thessalonians and see how this changes everything.

Man, just so grateful and excited what God is doing here at First Family Church and just grateful to be a part of it. I hope that you are as well. If we've not met, my name is Travis.

I'm one of the pastors here. My main responsibility is to oversee our small group ministry, but one of the things I just love so much, what a great privilege it is, is to help to be involved in that process, to help people walk through the membership process at First Family Church to become your family members. And as a way of promotion, what a beautiful video that is, I'd like to just take a few minutes at the beginning of my sermon today to remind you or maybe to share for the first time what membership is at First Family Church.

I word it this way, it's two-way commitments. It's commitments from the elders and staff of our church to be involved in your life, to shepherd you, to care for you, to be there for you, to know you. It's commitments on your end to be active and involved and to use your gifts, talents, and abilities for the kingdom.

And if you've never gone through the membership process, let this be a little bit of a primer for you and maybe lower the scariness factor on what it means to join as a member. And if you are currently a member of First Family Church, use this as just a reminder of what you've committed to. So let me just throw these commitments up on the screen for you and allow you to reflect on these for a little bit.

Membership, as we say, is a gift and a responsibility. It's something you receive and something that you are tangibly a part of. It's the elders coming alongside of you and shepherding you and caring for you and you being here, being active and serving and carrying your part of the load.

One of the things we said 20 years ago is it takes a team to reach a town. And that's not just the elders and staff, it's each member of this family. The second commitment you make when you join as a member is this, is because I am a member of the body of Christ, I will strive to be a healthy, growing, functioning member.

First Family Church does not care about how many members we have. We want our members to be active and involved. We don't care about a certain number we can brag about.

We care about each individual playing their role. We want you here. We don't care if you just call this your church.

We want you to be here. We wanna see your face. We wanna hear your voice.

We wanna see you serving. That's what it looks like to be a member at First Family Church. And you may be wondering, how do I fulfill number two? What does that look like? It's a phrase you hear all the time here at First Family Church.

We celebrate, grow and serve for the glory of God. That's what it looks like to be a healthy, growing, functioning member. That you celebrate the gospel with us on Sunday mornings, regularly, weekly.

It means you're committing to growing in community in a small group. We believe that's the environment where we grow the best when we're known and held accountable and we confess sins and we're prayed for. That happens best in a living room.

And then lastly is I'm willing to serve the mission on a team. It takes a lot of volunteers to make all that happens here work. And we need each individual to play their part using the gifts, talents and abilities that God has given them to help us be a blessing to our community and to advance the gospel.

So that's what it looks like to be a healthy, growing, functioning members. Celebrate, grow and serve for the glory of God. And then the last commitment you make is I will seek to be a source of unity in my church.

And Taylor said that so brilliantly. What we desire is for this to be a family. And you all know families take work.

It's easy to get sideways with somebody, across with somebody, and it takes each member of the family to be committed to its unity, to get along, to repent quickly, to apologize quickly, to get along and to understand what we agree on, what the non-negotiables are and the things that are more open-handed. And I think First Family Church does this super well. And so if you're a member here, thank you.

Remember what you've committed to. And if you're not yet a member, would you consider joining as a member of this body? We would love to add you to the team so that we can be a blessing to this town. We offer a membership class regularly almost every other month.

And so you can sign up on our website to join. This is what you'll be committing to. And this is what us as the elders will be committing to you.

And it's a great, it's so fun to see new families and new individuals join this body. But I think my favorite part of the membership process is week two. In week two of membership class, you have to share your story.

And we give everybody a little bit of time to share their conversion story of how they came to Christ. We call it the long version. We wanna hear how you grew up, the environment you were in, who shared the gospel with you, who those instrumental people or environments were that brought you to your conversion or your salvation.

And it's probably just one of the greatest things I get to do is just hear story after story after story of people coming to faith in Christ. It would be a really long video if we recorded all their stories and showed them to you on a Sunday morning, but it would be tremendously blessing to you. And so what we wanna talk about today is that moment of conversion, your story of when you came to Christ and look at the word of God and see what it describes as conversion or salvation.

And so that's our hope today is that we would see from God's word what conversion looks like. And then you would consider your own salvation. The word of God tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, to consider it, to humbly seek God's will and God's word for what that looks like in our lives and to have confidence that we are his children.

So let me just put you on the spot a little bit, friends. What is your story? How would you share your conversion moment? If I brought you up on stage, put you under the lights and said, share your story with our church, what would you say? Who shared the gospel with you? When did you believe the gospel? When did you respond to the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ? When did you place your faith in him? Sometimes we say it like, when did you ask Jesus into your heart or when did you pray and ask for salvation? However you word that, what would you share? See, I think it's worthwhile exercise to think about that and consider that. It will be a blessing to you.

And for those you share it with, it will be a blessing for them as well. One observation I've made from leading membership class over the last several years now is that most people aren't ready to share their testimony. It's a little foggy.

And I get that, life's a little foggy. The events of my life are foggy. And so I completely understand that.

But I think it's a worthwhile venture to go through that exercise of considering how you grew up, who shared the gospel with you, when you truly placed your faith in Jesus, if you've been baptized or not and the role that played in your salvation. And I just think that's a worthwhile experiment and to go through that story. It will bless you.

It will bring clarity to just the grace of God in your life and what he has done for you. And that's exactly our sermon today. As we go through 1 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, it's quite a lengthy series.

What we're gonna do is take these theological rest stops. Rather than just keep moving from verse to verse, paragraph to paragraph, we're gonna take just a couple of pauses to allow us to reflect. So our text today is the same text it was last week as Pastor Todd discussed for us with this idea of like gospel proclaimers and their testimony.

And we're gonna zero in and focus a little bit more intently on just this idea of conversion as described in 1 Thessalonians 1. So if you have your Bibles, open up to 1 Thessalonians 1 verses 8 through 10. And what we're gonna be looking at is, how does the Bible describe true conversion? And rather than just rushing on and learning a lot about 1 Thessalonians, we wanna allow the word of God to dissect our hearts and to reveal whether or not we are truly children of God. Are we truly saved? So that's my hope and prayer today is that today would just be a beautiful reminder to you that you have been changed by God, or it might be a revealing moment where you wonder or come to the realization that you have yet to be changed by God in true conversion.

So that's our hope and prayer today. Let me read for us 1 Thessalonians 1 verses 8 through 10. It says this, therefore, we don't need to say anything for they themselves report what kind of reception we had from you, how you turned to God from idols.

That's a key phrase. Then it says, to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath. What a beautiful text.

So I'm not gonna discuss the entirety of that paragraph. We're gonna just zero in on a few phrases that describe for us true conversion. These verses teach us another beautiful truth about salvation.

Every believer, this text teaches us, has three key change moments in your life. If you've been truly saved, you've had these three key change moments in your life that were the result of your faith in Christ. So we're gonna look at number one, the moment you turned to God, as you see in verse nine, the moment you turned away from idols, also in verse nine, and then verse 10, is to serve the living and true God.

Those are the three changes that happen in every life who comes to the faith of Jesus Christ. But before we jump into the heart of our sermon, I do wanna just make a few notes of importance that will be helpful to understand this. It will be addressing the topic of salvation, the doctrine of soteriology, we call it sometimes.

And there's a lot more than I can address in my sermon today. What I'm going to be addressing today is how 1 Thessalonians 1 describes it. And it seems to be from the human's vantage point or what salvation feels like and looks like from our eyes.

Does that make sense? The moment I turned to God, the moment I turned away from idols, the moment I began to serve the living and true God, it's gonna be from my eyes. I want you to know for the theologians in the room, there's a lot more I'm not going to describe. And that is from God's vantage point.

There's a whole doctrine of soteriology that we could describe from God's view. For a text that I would reference you to would be Romans 8, starting in verse 29. We call that the chain of redemption.

And that's the doctrine of soteriology from God's eyes where he says, for I foreknew you, I predestined you, I called you, I justified you. See all those beautiful theological terms. Unfortunately, we're not gonna talk about all those today.

The doctrine of election, the doctrine of predestination, doctrine of justification. Those are all things that God does in your life. What 1 Thessalonians 1 describes is what role you play.

Does that make sense? I just wanna communicate that clearly so that afterwards you're like, you missed the doctrine of election. I know, I know. I'm not gonna be able to dive into all that today.

The second thing I wanna highlight before we jump in is the story. Because 1 Thessalonians 1 verses nine summarizes a whole story that is told in the book of Acts chapter 17 of when the Thessalonians came to true faith in Christ. But Paul in 1 Thessalonians 1 just summarizes it by saying, when you turn to God.

The story's so beautiful of what happens in Acts 17. Can we go back just for a moment? So turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter 17. This is the story that is summarized in 1 Thessalonians 1 as you turn to God.

And it's a story where Paul and Silas go to Thessalonica and Paul goes to the synagogue and shares the beauty of Jesus, that Jesus is the Messiah. Remember, this is the Jewish synagogue that loved and admired the Old Testament and they would have known the theology taught in the Old Testament of a coming Messiah, the prophecies that God would send one to save us, to buy us back, that he would forgive our sins, that the snake crusher would come and crush the head of the serpent. Like all those beautiful analogies in the Old Testament of a coming Messiah, the prophecies in Isaiah, all those things.

Like the Jewish synagogue knew those. And so Jesus shows up, Jesus, sorry, Paul shows up in the synagogue and says, let me tell you who he is. Let me answer the questions for you.

He's come, his name is Jesus, the son of God and the savior of the world. And he died on the cross for your sins. And this is Paul in the synagogue in Thessalonica.

And in Acts chapter 17, it tells us of the revival that breaks out when Paul answers the Old Testament questions for them of who is the Messiah. And Acts 17 tells us brilliantly that many were persuaded in Thessalonica. This is where the church comes from that Paul is writing to in 1 Thessalonians.

What's so brilliant about this story is who is converted. The text teaches us in Acts chapter 17 that some Jews were persuaded, but it also says this, which I find super interesting. And a large number of Greeks, or it says God-fearing Greeks were persuaded.

And then it says a large number of leading women were persuaded. This is what's interesting or so remarkable about the Thessalonian conversion is that it wasn't primarily Jews. It was primarily Greeks and women that started this church in Thessalonica.

And if you're a Bible nerd, feels weird to say, but if you like the Bible, we all like the Bible, you'll notice that the CSB refers to them as God-fearing Greeks, and the ESV uses the word devout. So let me just summarize their story for you. These are Greeks living in Thessalonica, and they're curious about what the Jews are doing in the synagogue.

They're worshiping God, they're praying, they're confessing sins, they're offering sacrifices. And so before the Greeks come to saving faith in Christ, they're persuaded or interested in Judaism. So this is the story of Thessalonica, and they become devout or God-fearing.

So you have this group of devout Greeks and leading women. They're playing a significant role in this movement of worshiping God. And Paul shows up and convinces them it's Jesus, and they place their faith in Christ.

So now flip back to 1 Thessalonians 1, and this is who he's referring to when he says, how you turned to God. These devout Greeks, these Greeks, well Greeks who became devout Jewish people who then were converted to Christianity. That's the chain of redemption that is described in 1 Thessalonians 1. And so Paul's addressing them and their beautiful story of how they came to faith in Christ.

And so for us as readers, we're able to look in on their conversion and apply it to our lives is do we have a similar conversion? And my appeal to you is yes. If you've been truly saved, your story is the same. There's a moment when you turn to God from idols to serve the true and living God.

And I want us to evaluate that today to consider, or one, to be grateful, and two, to consider whether or not we are truly sons of God. So let's look at that now. The three elements in every true conversion.

Number one, in every true conversion, there's a moment of turning to God. I just wanna make sure we don't skip by that too quick. That may seem obvious, but friends, conversion really is all about the restoration of a relationship.

That's what conversion is, the restoration of a relationship. The story of the gospel is the story of God reuniting mankind to himself. That's conversion.

It's a story of enemies becoming heirs. This is God's goal in conversion, to get us back. For context on that, go all the way back to Genesis chapter three.

When Adam and Eve eat of the forbidden fruit, they rebel against God. What does God have to do in his justice and his righteousness? He has to remove them from the garden. He kicks them out of the garden.

But then Genesis chapter four should be a striking, amazing chapter for us because the story doesn't end. God and his righteousness could have destroyed Adam and Eve and the story could have ended. But in Genesis four, you meet Cain and Abel, the offspring of Adam and Eve.

And life seems to be going on. And in verse three, Cain and Abel are compelled to give a sacrifice to God. Interesting.

What I think is interesting, you might not, but they think they're able to give God an offering. And they don't think, oh, we should go back to Eden because that's where God lives. Cain and Abel are under the assumption that God is present with them.

Is that striking or compelling to you? It's striking and compelling to me because what it shows is a pursuing God. Let me summarize Genesis three and four with you. You have a rebellious people who are wandering away from God and you have a pursuing God.

God in Genesis three kicks them out of the garden. The very next thing he does is go after them. That's the God we worship.

That's the God of the Bible. Not distant, but loving and gracious and merciful. A God who chases down rebels like you and I. We have a wandering people and a pursuing God.

This is what is happening in conversion. It's the moment where we fully understand his grace and his mercy and we turn back to him who's been pursuing us the whole time. Notice in Acts chapter 17, just in your mind, you don't have to turn back there.

The drastic moment of change in these Greeks' life is not the moment they converted to Judaism. As radical as that is, Greeks converting to Judaism, that's not the moment of highlight in 1 Thessalonians. The moment of highlight in 1 Thessalonians is the moment they turn back to God or they place their faith in Christ.

That's what Paul's saying in 1 Thessalonians. The magical moment, the pinnacle moment of the story is when they place their faith in Jesus. That is what restored their relationship to the father.

That's friends, that's what conversion is. Being restored in relationship to the father. The pinnacle moment of your life, friends, is not when you change from Catholic to Protestant or Lutheran to Baptist.

Like denominations aren't the pinnacle moment. A change in denomination is not the pinnacle moment of your story. The pinnacle moment of your story is the moment you put your faith in Jesus as the Lord and savior of your life.

That's the moment of change. Where you turned back to God. So my question for you is, has that happened? Has your relationship with the father been restored through faith in his son, Jesus Christ? If so, then you have a 1 Thessalonians 1, 9 moment.

The moment you turned to God through faith in Jesus. This is why we've titled this series, This Changes Everything. Because faith in Christ changes everything about us.

True conversion always involves a return in relationship to God. But a false conversion, which is what I wanna talk about a little bit this morning. False conversion is thinking that a specific religion will save you.

And not seeing that it is God himself that saves you. No denomination can save you. No affiliation with a certain group of individuals will save you.

It's God through the saving work of his son and faith in Jesus that saves us. That restores our relationship to the father. That's what it means to turn back to God.

Friends, have you turned back to God? The second turning moment in every true conversion is turning away from idols. That's what 1 Thessalonians 1, 9 teaches us. Not only did they turn to God, but also what God did in their life was he turned them away from idols.

Conversion always involves repentance or a turning away from something. A word we need to get more comfortable with, friends, is repentance. Something that should be normal in our vernacular.

We may be asking, what do we turn away from? What does repentance look like? Repentance from what? And the blanket answer is the love of anything other than God himself. God demands, wants, desires first place in your life. Repentance or an idol is anything that takes that place.

Repentance looks like turning from anything that is more supreme in your life than God. Anything that you worship or serve more than God. If there is something in your life like that, you have to repent of it.

That's what true conversion looks like. So 1 Thessalonians 1, 9 says they turned from idols. Doesn't necessarily describe what those idols were because those idols were different for the Jews, for the devout Greeks, maybe even for the leading women.

Like they all had idols that they had to repent of. And friends, 21st century Americans, so do you. You have idols you need to repent of.

True conversion always creates repentance, a turning away from idols. True conversion is seeing false gods in my life and rejecting them. False conversion is just thinking you can say a magical prayer that will protect you from hell.

This is one thing I think 21st century America struggles with. We think oftentimes that we can just add Christianity onto our already busy, super important life and that will just keep us out of hell one day. As if nothing needs to change ever in my life as long as I head nod to existence of God.

That's not conversion. That's not true Christianity. First century Christians knew nothing of that.

The moment you converted, there was a death sentence. And we've gotten so comfortable and life has become easy and there's less risk of becoming a Christian that I think we've forgotten what true conversion creates. A death to our idols, a rejection of anything we serve or worship more than God.

Friends, you can't add faith in Christ to your list of beliefs or your list of gods. Faith in Christ demands repentance of faith in anything but Christ. You want a good like theological statement for what we believe? This is what we believe about salvation.

We believe that salvation comes by faith alone in Christ alone. That's salvation. That's the doctrine of salvation.

Salvation comes through faith alone. Nothing I can do by faith alone in one person alone, Christ alone. I don't get to make a list of things that saves me.

It's Christ alone who saves me. Anything else is an idol. Anything you serve or worship more than God is an idol and must be repented of.

The story of many devote Jews, this is going back to Acts 17, was this adherence to the law. Was law keeping a good thing? It absolutely was. But if law keeping becomes the way to salvation, then it's an idol that has to be repented of.

Listen to Romans 10, one through three. Paul says, brothers and sisters, talking about to Jews, my heart's desire and prayer to God concerning them is for their salvation. So he looks at these devout Jews and he's worried about their salvation.

He says, I can testify about them that they have zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Since they are ignorant of the righteousness of God and attempting to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to God's righteousness. So just assume he's talking to those Jews in Acts 17.

He was saying, you know what your weakness is? You are your savior and you're putting your faith in you as your savior and you've rejected the savior. You know what that is? Not conversion. That's not saving faith.

If you are the savior of the world, not Jesus, unfortunately, you're not yet saved. Turn to God. This is what Paul is describing.

The same is true for us, friends. If we put our faith in anything, but Jesus for our eternal salvation, we are not believers because it's by faith alone in Christ alone. All people have to turn from something to worship the living and true God.

Friends, what have you left behind? In your story that you tell of your conversion, what have you left behind? Theologies, practices, idol worship, what have you left behind? Every true conversion has that. The third and last turning point that 1 Thessalonians 1.9 describes is to serve the living and true God. Friends, every true conversion creates a changed life.

It takes individuals who are serving and doing other things and creates in them a service to the true and living God. You can't find a true believer who doesn't have a heart to serve King Jesus. That's what 1 Thessalonians 1.9 is describing.

How do we change? It's not only in our theology, but also in our appetites and our passions. Sometimes we describe this as sanctification and it is progressive. Sanctification does happen over time, but it's also immediate.

The moment you turn to God, something changes in your heart. Every one of my friends on the video that we just showed could tell you a story of how God changed them, who they once were and now who they are. That's true conversion.

What God has done in their life to make them different. Also, over the last two weeks, we talked about this earlier in our service, we've had the privilege of not only seeing those 20 folks become members, but we've seen 11 baptisms in the last two weeks. We're just so grateful for that.

I want you to consider our friends who have gotten baptized over the last 11 weeks, or two weeks, 11 people over the last two weeks. Why would they get baptized? Let's just think of it convenience-wise. Would you wanna stand in front of hundreds of people and get wet and clothes cinch and tighten? It's not very flattering.

Baptism's not very flattering, is it? So if I were to come to you guys and say like, hey, don't you wanna get baptized? And I've got a great idea. Like come in front and stand in front of a couple hundred people and get wet and your hair gets weird and clothes get tight. You wanna do that? Wouldn't that be fun? No, the answer is no.

Nobody for convenience sake wants to get baptized. That's not flattering. Why do they get baptized? Because they wanna serve the true and living God.

And if it looks a little unflattering to serve, to obey the true and living God, I'm all in. I'll do whatever it takes. Even if it's in a big tub in the middle of a middle school with water all over the ground, I'll do whatever it takes to serve the living, the true and living God.

That's the change that happens. Why do people get baptized? Why do people join as members? It's odd because it's a command to be involved in a local church. Why do we go and share our faith? Because it's commanded.

Why do we fight sin and say no to temptation? Because it's commanded. That's what we're described to do. These are all changes that happen in believers lives at conversion.

Progressively, yes, but immediately, for sure, a change of appetites and passions. Every true conversion has a change of service to God. Why do we have people right now in the kid's wing changing your kid's poopy diapers and entertaining your kids while I go on and on? Because they love Jesus and they wanna serve.

And we have kids up at camp right now entertaining your kids and they love Jesus. This is what happens when you are converted, true conversion. You wanna serve the true and living God.

Friends, where are you serving? How are you serving King Jesus? Do you love him? Then you'll do what he says. And this is a change that happens at conversion. I wanna just make a plug for baptism.

If you've never been baptized, you need to. It's a command. We believe in believer's baptism, which means baptism comes after conversion.

We say at First Family Church, baptism is your first act of obedience as a Christian, true Christian. If you've never been baptized, would you? We're gonna be baptizing people on Easter Sunday at all three campuses. We would love to baptize you, help you obey, help you serve King Jesus.

Would you get baptized right here, Easter Sunday? Be my privilege to walk you through those steps. Let me know if that interests you. Here's what false conversion is.

We call it easy believism. It's the idea that nothing in my life has to change. I can just become a Christian.

I can check some card somewhere that states my religion and I'm now a Christian. That's not Christianity, friends. There is no thing as easy believism.

The moment you turn to Christ, everything changes. Faith without life change, faith without any obedience isn't faith. And this is something we've got to be reminded of.

God changes us. So friends, look at this list of three things and start working on your testimony. How would you share what God has done in your life from your perspective? Would these three elements be in existence? Would you be able to share these three things with others? If the answer to that is yes, you're probably truly converted.

If the answer to that is no, you're probably not. You're probably still dead in your trespasses and sins and God is yet to make you alive. But guess what? He still will.

When we turn to him in faith, through faith in his son, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins, when we believe that Jesus is the savior of the world, the son of God, that's what brings faith and life to spiritually dead individuals. Have you been saved? What's your story? What did God free you from? What has he freed you from? And how has he changed you to serve him? That's the story of every true believer in this room right now. Let me say it another way.

Can 1 Thessalonians 1 9-10 be said of you? Could someone say, well, let me tell you about how they turned to God from idols to serve the true and living God. Could that be said of you? If the answer to that is yes, that's true conversion from our vantage point. If that could not be said of you, would you be willing to place your faith in Jesus and God's son, Jesus Christ today and be saved? I don't have time, but I definitely wanna point your eyes there.

Would you sometime go read Acts 9? It's Paul's story of true conversion. That's Acts 9. There was no one more devout in the history of Judaism, in my opinion, than Paul. Paul, persecutor of the church, a Pharisee of Pharisees, according to the law, sinless, like he gives his pedigree, his resume, and he's Galatians and a law keeper.

Like no one was more devout than Paul. Yet Acts 9, that devout Jew is converted. His faith is placed in the true son of God and the savior of the world.

And if Paul has to be converted, even though he was good, then so do you and I. Do you have an Acts 9 story? A moment where you turn to God from your idols to serve the true and living God. Friends, you're in my conversion. Story may not be as dramatic as Acts 9 or first or Acts 17, but they are equally transformative.

God saves and we turn. That's the story of every true conversion. Let me just put it in a take home truth for you today.

You can see my wording of this. You're welcome to put in your own wording. I just think this is a good summary of the idea of conversion found in 1 Thessalonians 1, verses eight through 10.

True conversion happens when hearers of the gospel respond by turning to God from idols. Is that your story, friends? It's for sure my story. Is that your story? Lastly, just as you're writing that down and thinking, I don't wanna miss a key phrase in verse 10.

In verse 10, it says, and to wait for his son from heaven. This is a whole nother sermon, but I just wanna highlight it as a form of announcement. One thing that is true of truly converted people is they wait for King Jesus to return.

And waiting is never passive. It's not like me staring at the microwave for my pizza to warm up. That's passive waiting.

Waiting in God's economy is active. Actively sharing this same good news with others. What I'm doing right now is actively waiting, declaring the gospel to others.

This is what he's called all of us to do. As a way of announcement, I just wanna prep you for something. March 16th, 3-16 is a Sunday.

And our church wants to put some emphasis on gospel proclamation on 3-16. You know, John 3-16, it's kind of a catchy. We wanna put some emphasis there on sharing the gospel.

So for the next few weeks, we're gonna prepare you for March 16th, which is a day that we're gonna be actively waiting for Jesus to return by being heralds of the good news. You'll hear us talk about that more in the next few weeks. So I don't want you to miss that.

That's what we're doing until Jesus returns. We're actively waiting for his return. Friends, thank you for considering your conversion this morning.

If right now as you're wrestling with, if that's you and you have nervousness, a thumping in your chest, a prompting of the Holy Spirit that you are yet, you have yet to be saved, would you mind talking to one of us? Our prayer team and elders will be up here. We would love to help you know for sure that you are a child of God. Let's pray towards that end.

Heavenly Father God, we thank you for your love for us. We thank you for the story of the Bible, which is your creation of mankind, mankind's rebellion and your pursuit of mankind to bring them back to relationship with you. Thank you so much for the word of God and the power that it brings.

It truly is the word that does the work. And so I pray towards that end right now, the Holy Spirit that you would work in our hearts and lives, that for those who are still far from you, that you would bring them to saving faith in your son, Jesus Christ. Father, we love you.

Pray that you would bring many sons to glory, that you would save us through the preaching of your word this morning. Give them boldness to respond in faith. We love you in Jesus's precious and holy name.

Amen.