Marked as the Real Deal: A Study of 1 Thessalonians

Welcome to the Valley Baptist Church sermon podcast.

We're so glad you're here,

and we hope this message inspires you,

builds your faith,

and moves you toward a deep relationship with God.

Today, you'll find great insight into the Bible

and learn how you can apply it straight to your life.

So welcome and enjoy the message.

If you have your Bible, please open it with me

to 1 Thessalonians 1,

in a message I'm calling Marked as the Real Deal.

Last week, we started a verse-by-verse study

of the book of 1 Thessalonians.

And we're gonna see in this short letter

that the Apostle Paul is writing

to encourage the believers in Thessalonica

and to answer a few of their questions

concerning the second coming of Jesus.

Now, a number of months earlier, the Apostle Paul and his team had gone to Thessalonica

and they'd shared the gospel with him.

And many people believed and were saved and a new church was formed.

Now, ideally, Paul and his team would have stayed there

for a long time with these new believers,

discipling them to the point where they were strong enough

to be left alone, but they didn't have that luxury

because persecution quickly hit

and the governing authorities forced Paul to leave.

So it appears that Paul, Silas, and Timothy

were only in Thessalonica for a few short weeks

before they were asked to leave.

So for months now, the Apostle Paul and his team,

they had no clue what came of those new believers.

And they were even concerned that that little church

that they had started had died.

That's why Paul writes in chapter three, verse number five,

he says, for this reason, when I could no longer endure it,

I sent to know your faith,

lest by some means the tempter had tempted you

and our labor might have been in vain.

So Paul was very concerned that their gospel work

in Thessalonica didn't bear any lasting fruit.

Now that might sound like Paul's being a little bit

of a pessimist, but the truth is there's a lot of people

who make professions of faith in Jesus who aren't genuine.

And Jesus is who actually told us that.

He said that his kingdom is like a farmer who goes out and he scatters seeds.

Some of the seed falls on good soil and it roots itself and it grows and it produces a crop.

Other seed falls on hard ground and the birds of the air come and they snatch it away.

Other seed falls on rocky soil.

and it's unable to root very deeply.

And so when it grows, soon enough, it withers away and it dies.

So Paul is not being a pessimist. He's being a realist.

And so after he could take it.

No longer.

He sent Timothy back to Thessalonica to see how these new believers were doing.

And after his visit, Timothy returned to Paul with a glowing report.

Their gospel work had not been in vain.

It had changed.

met the Thessalonians with power,

and their lives had been completely, radically transformed by the grace of God.

And so Paul has written them this letter,

the letter that we're studying in the coming weeks,

in order to encourage them.

We pick up in verse number 2.

He says, we give thanks to God always for you all,

making mention of you in our prayers,

remembering without ceasing your work of faith,

labor of love, and patience of hope

in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of our God and Father.

So Paul is clearly proud of this young church.

He's almost giddy, I think, as he writes.

We thank God for you, for your incredible transformation

that's taken place in your life.

What he's basically saying here,

and I think through the rest of chapter one,

is that I'm thankful to the Lord that you're the real deal,

that you are genuine in your faith.

And Paul lists out some specific markers in their life

that he's thankful for that were evidence

of genuine conversion.

Now there are a lot of so-called cultural Christians

within the United States.

These are people who kind of run at times

with the Christian crowd.

Maybe their parents were Christian

or their grandparents were Christian.

Maybe they claimed the name Christian.

They even attend church from time to time.

But if they were ever arrested and placed on trial

for being a Christian,

there wouldn't be enough evidence to convict them.

That was not the church of Thessalonica,

because it met them with power.

Because when God's grace and God's spirit come upon a person,

that person doesn't leave the same.

They leave changed.

They're transformed.

They're marked by God with some distinguishing marks.

Now let's be clear up front.

All these marks that we're gonna be discussing this morning

that we see from chapter one

aren't all equally visible in our lives.

There might be some of these marks that aren't visible,

very visible in your life.

Now, that's not good.

That's a problem that needs to be addressed.

But as you yield to the Lord and walk with him,

he will grow you in these areas where those marks

will become more visible and evident within your life.

Now, Paul first says, I'm thankful for your work of faith.

We see here that Christians are marked by an act of faith.

Some people have so-called faith that is inactive.

It's sort of a name only.

Now, this phrase, work of faith,

it's referring to works that are produced by faith,

a faith that's alive, it's active,

it's producing something.

Now, the Judaizers of Paul's day said it's Jesus plus works,

Jesus plus circumcision, Jesus plus keeping the law.

But Paul argued throughout the New Testament, no, it's Jesus alone.

And we're saved by grace through faith alone.

But Paul also taught that genuine faith produces genuine works.

Ephesians chapter 2, verse number 8 says,

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

For by grace you've been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God.

Not of works, lest anyone should boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,

which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

So we're not saved by our good works,

but we are saved for good works.

Martin Luther, the great reformer said,

we're saved by faith alone,

but the faith that saves is never alone.

Amen.

And so let me ask you, is your faith alone?

And if it is, if there's no obedience

accompanying your faith, you have some reason

to do some soul searching between you and the Lord

to examine your life.

Is my faith actually the real deal?

Paul rejoices over their work of faith,

but he also thanks God for their labor of love.

You see, Christians are to be marked by a laboring love.

Now, it seems like those two words don't go together,

but they do.

The word labor here means working with intensity.

You see, love is not just some feeling.

It's not just words.

It's sometimes an intense labor.

Now, as a Christian, you can labor and not love,

but you cannot love and not labor.

Because love, it gets involved in people's lives.

It gets involved even in the messiness

of other people's lives.

That's what James said in chapter two, verse 15.

He said, if a brother or sister is naked

and destitute of daily food,

and one of you says to them,

depart in peace, be warmed and filled,

but you do not give them the things

which are needed for the body,

what does it profit?

Love takes action, doesn't it?

Look at 1 John 4, verse seven.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God,

and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

The Apostle Paul knew the Thessalonians were the real deal

because they were marked, their life was characterized

by a laboring of love.

Now, he also refers here to their patience of hope in Christ.

See, Christians, we are also to be marked by a persistent hope.

Now, whenever you read the word hope within the New Testament,

don't think of the kind of ways that we use the word hope.

Like, you know, I hope Oklahoma wins the national championship next year.

That's...

Dreaming, right?

I mean, it might happen.

I hope it happens.

But that kind of cockeyed optimism, that's not biblical hope.

Biblical hope is a confident expectation,

an expectation of the future that's anchored in reality

because it's anchored to the promises of God.

Now the word patience here could be translated

as persist or endure.

And so you might be wondering as you read this passage,

were they enduring in hope

or were they enduring because of their hope?

Perhaps both.

You see, their work was produced by faith.

Their labor was motivated by love,

and their endurance was inspired by hope.

You see, faith believes the truth of the past.

Love meets the needs of the present,

and hope longs for the promises of the future.

And that future longing, that future hope in many ways is the main theme of 1 Thessalonians.

Persecution, affliction had hit these new believers.

And Paul says, keep on enduring with hope because Jesus is coming back.

Now, in verse number four, Paul is still in the midst of giving thanks to the Lord.

And he says, he says, knowing, beloved brethren, your election by God.

We see here that Christians are marked by God's choosing.

Ephesians chapter one says that God chose us in him

before the foundation of the world.

And that led Charles Spurgeon to say,

it's a good thing God chose me before I was born

because he surely wouldn't have afterwards.

I think that sounds pretty accurate in my life, I know.

Paul wants to make clear, that's what he's doing here, that he's thankful to God, yes,

but he's thankful to God for what he's done, not what they've done.

Their faith, their work, their love, their hope was ultimately a result of God's grace in their lives,

and he gets all the glory.

Now,

There are a lot of people who want to get into a debate.

Every time the word election comes up in the Bible,

they want to fight about it, right?

And there's two basic camps out there.

There are Arminians and the Calvinists.

Arminians emphasize that we choose God in salvation.

Calvinists, they emphasize that God chooses us in salvation.

But the Bible emphasizes both,

that God initiates and chooses us in salvation,

and that we respond and are to choose him in faith, right?

Now, that's what's called a paradox.

It's an apparent contradiction.

Now, it's only a contradiction in our own mind.

It's not a contradiction in the mind of God,

for his ways are above our ways.

It was Charles Spurgeon who suggested that perhaps

when we get to heaven, over the gates of heaven,

it will say, whosoever will may come.

And if we were to walk through the gates

and we were to turn around and look back at that gate,

then it would say, chosen in him

before the foundation of the world.

Some things are beyond our ability to fully grasp.

Now, some people will read a verse like this in the Bible

and they focus all of their attention

on trying to explain it away as meaningless

and they miss out on the wonderful blessing

of the truth that it contains.

Some people say, well, I just don't believe in election.

Well, if you're a Christian,

you don't really have that option.

Now, you may disagree with the nuance

of how people articulate election,

but you can't just say,

I don't believe 1 Thessalonians 1, verse number four.

We don't get to make up God's word as Christians,

we receive it by faith, don't we?

The language of election and God's choosing,

it actually permeates the scriptures.

In the Old Testament, the Bible says that God chose

the nation of Israel.

And He chose them not based on how good they were

or how smart they were or how powerful they were.

No, He chose them based on His sovereign love for them.

We see that in Deuteronomy 7, verse seven.

It says, the Lord did not set his love on you,

nor choose you, because you are more in number

than any other people.

For you are the least of all peoples,

but because the Lord loves you,

and because he would keep the oath

which he swore to your fathers.

So clearly, we see here that God chose the nation of Israel.

But what's a little different here in Thessalonians

is the church was made up mainly not of Israelites,

but of Greeks.

And so Paul is saying,

I thank God something new is taking place.

God has chosen you.

You are, I'm thankful for your election.

Now Jesus said in John 15, verse 16,

John 15:16

you did not choose me,

but I chose you and appointed you

that you should go and bear fruit

and that your fruit should remain.

And whatever you ask the Father in my name,

he may give you.

So as a believer,

election should not cause us to fight in war,

it should cause us to be thankful

and rest and be encouraged to how much God loves us

and produced his incredible confidence

and security in our salvation because God loves us

and he loves us so much that he chose us.

1 John 4, verse number 19 says,

"'We love him.'"

Why?

"'Because he first loved us.'"

Verse number five, Paul continues, he says,

"'For our gospel did not come to you in word only,

"'but also in power and in the Holy Spirit

"'and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men

"'we were among you for your sake.'"

Here we see that Christians were marked

by a powerful work of the Holy Spirit.

I mean, when you think about it, these people were not really discipled like Jesus told us to disciple people.

Jesus told us to teach them to observe everything I've commanded.

They only had a few weeks.

There's no way they possibly could have done that.

And yet, the Holy Spirit discipled them, didn't he?

Now the word gospel that's in this verse,

it means good news.

But before there's good news in the Bible,

we have to recognize that there's some bad news.

And the bad news is that we're all sinners.

The Bible says, for all have sinned

and fallen short of the glory of God.

And for the wages of sin is death.

It's separation from God, physical death, spiritual death, to spend eternity away from the presence of God.

But the good news of the gospel is that God loves us so much that he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins.

And then he rose again the third day.

Romans chapter five, verse number eight says, but God demonstrates his own love towards us.

And that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

So Jesus didn't die for us because how good we are.

No, he died for us in spite of how bad we are.

Now, the question is, why in the world would he do that?

It's because he loves us.

It's because he loves us and he really loves us.

In spite of your sin, in spite of all your failure,

your messed up life, your mistake upon mistake upon mistake,

he still looks at your life and he loves you.

And he loves you so much that he sent his only begotten son

to die on the cross for your sins,

to die on the cross for the sins of the world.

That's the gospel.

And Paul says this wonderful good news gospel,

it wasn't just words to you.

No, no, no.

It was accompanied with the power of the Holy Spirit that came upon you.

Did you know that there's nothing we could possibly ever do to earn our salvation,

to save ourselves?

Nothing.

The Bible says we're dead.

We're dead in our trespasses and sin.

A dead man can't earn his salvation.

No, he must receive his salvation.

He must receive a powerful touch from the Holy Spirit of God.

And that touch from the Spirit, it brings new life.

And that new life comes by means of faith.

Of saying yes to Jesus Christ.

of responding by trusting in him.

The Bible says we are new creations in Christ Jesus.

All things, they've passed away.

Behold, all things have become new.

See, what we desperately need in this life,

is the touch of God, deep,

a deep place where only he can get to

and for his spirit to touch us.

And there's no formula for that.

We can't manipulate it, we can't fabricate it.

We simply receive it by faith.

by trusting in him.

And when we do that, the Holy Spirit, he brings a sense of security and assurance to our souls as we walk with him, doesn't he?

Romans chapter 8, verse number 16 says,

Romans 8 · chapter mention

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are indeed the children of God.

Verse number six, Paul continues.

He says, and you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much

affliction with joy of the Holy Spirit.

So you became examples to all Macedonia and Achaia who believe.

Christians are to be marked by joy.

Did you know that?

Did you know that?

Sometimes you meet Christians,

you wouldn't learn that from them.

But we are to be marked by joy.

The Apostle Paul, when he was in prison in Rome,

he wrote to the church of Philippi and he said,

"'Rejoice always, again I say rejoice,'

while he's in prison."

You see, Paul knew, and amazingly,

these new believers in Thessalonica knew that our joy

is not connected to our circumstances of life,

it's connected to Jesus.

And Paul said, you received the word in much affliction.

In other words, when you finally trusted Christ

with your life, a lot of bad things started happening to you.

Persecution hit, but nevertheless,

in the midst of all that affliction,

you received the word with joy.

Now, how can those two things exist at the same time

in the same person of affliction and joy?

It's because joy is a gift that comes

from the Holy Spirit, isn't it?

It's not a gift that's connected

to our circumstances of life,

it's connected to Jesus and Jesus alone.

Now, this world, it can take a lot of things from you,

but it can never take Jesus from you.

Once we're connected to Jesus, he has a hold of us, we have a hold of him.

His spirit has molded us and mended us and put us together.

And joy comes from walking with him.

Joy is the fruit that's produced in our life when we abide in Christ and we walk in the Spirit.

You see, when we remain in this connected relationship with Jesus,

the Holy Spirit produces the fruit of joy.

Now, there's a lot of fruit that he produces.

He certainly produces joy.

So my question becomes, why are so many Christians and churches grumped up

Well, there could be a number of reasons.

It could be that they have unconfessed sin in their life that's robbing them of joy.

That happens.

After King David committed adultery with Bathsheba and he had her husband Uriah murdered on the battlefield,

He finally came to a point of confession and repentance

in his prayer of confession.

He said, Lord, please restore to me

the joy of your salvation.

He didn't say restore your salvation.

I don't think he lost his salvation,

but he had lost the joy of it.

And so it could be sin in your life

that's unconfessed to the Lord

that's just stealing that fruit of joy

that God wants to give you.

Or,

It could be that you're allowing other people

to steal your joy.

Legalists will do that if you let them.

If you let them, they'll get you focused on rules

all day long instead of your relationship with Jesus.

And a focus on rules will always rob you of your joy

because joy doesn't come from rules.

It comes from Jesus.

And so when you're focused on rules,

you're trying to measure up to some standard.

But the problem is, no matter how hard you try,

you're never gonna be enough.

You're never going to measure up.

The standard is too high.

Joy comes from God.

And it comes upon a person and to a person

and within a person who knows already they don't measure up.

And so instead, they walk confidently

in the grace of God in their life.

Verse number eight.

He says, for from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth.

In other words, you've started telling others.

Not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place.

Your faith toward God has gone out so that we do not need to say anything.

We see here that Christians are to be also marked

by their witness.

Did you know that?

That should be normal, not abnormal.

In our world, it's kind of the abnormal,

it's for the elite Christians.

No, this should be normal.

But somehow it's not.

The Thessalonian believers didn't just receive the word,

they became conduits of the word.

And I think they became a very contagious, infectious church.

People saw their love for one another, their joy.

They saw their hope and it was infectious and they shared Christ with others.

Now, we know from the book of Acts that Paul and his team did not go to every city in Macedonia.

They didn't go to all of Europe.

It appears that they were strategic as God led them to be.

You see, Thessalonica was a strategic city.

It was a capital of the providence of Macedonia,

and it had about 200,000 people in it.

So this is a large city that had a lot of traffic through there

to go worship the Greek gods.

It's your teaching.

And Paul says, the word is already going out from you,

not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but beyond that,

so that we're not even needed to go to these places you've been to.

Amazing witness for the Lord.

William Carey, who was called to be a missionary

in the late 1700s, a man in his church said to him

after he expressed that he wanted to go to India

as a missionary, he said, young man,

if God wants to save the heathen,

he can do it with or without you.

And I suppose that's true, God can do anything he wants,

but that is not God's chosen means.

God's plan,

It's for those of us who know Jesus

to tell those who don't know Jesus about him.

And this church, I think, responded exactly

how you would think people would respond

to the message of the gospel.

They told everyone they could think of

about the amazing news that God loves them,

that this world full of sin and pain and suffering and death,

it's not all that there is,

that God has a plan for eternity, a plan for your life now.

He loves you so much, he sent his son Jesus

to die on the cross for your sins,

and he rose the third day.

And yet many Christians today,

they may go a lifetime without telling another soul

about Jesus.

That's hard for me to fathom.

It's hard for me to get my mind around.

Let's say on a cold foggy night,

we understand fog here in Bakersfield this morning.

I don't know, was it foggy out just a little bit?

It was early when I showed up to church.

Let's say you're out on a cold, foggy night

and you're approaching a bridge that you're about to cross

but you see someone out in the road

just waving you down frantically to stop you

and they stop you and they say the bridge is out ahead.

I've been warning people, some people have already gone over

but I'm warning people, I need to go get some more help.

Will you stay here and will you warn people

that the bridge is out?

How many of us would just stand to the side of the road

and watch car after car go by to their destruction

off that broken bridge?

None of us would do that.

There isn't a single person who would do that,

and yet it seems that's what so many Christians do

when they don't share about the wonderful news of Jesus.

You see, this world is in a death spiral,

and it's a painful death spiral,

and it's not gonna get any better for them.

It's only gonna get worse without

Jesus. Our job is to warn them and to lovingly tell them about the wonderful news that God loves

them and will meet them right where they're at and that he's full of love and grace and mercy

for those who yield to him. Verse number nine, Paul says, for they themselves declare concerning

us what manner of entry we had to you and how you turn to God from idols to serve the living

and true God.

Now, Thessalonica was only 50 miles from Mount Olympus,

which was home to some of the most famous Greek gods,

Zeus and Poseidon and Hermes and others.

And so, idolatry was rampant in Thessalonica.

It was just like part of their culture,

not to mention the worship of Caesar.

And so Paul says,

"'We have heard about how you have turned

"'from those dead false idols to the true living God.'"

What he's talking about is repentance.

You see Christians, we are to be marked by repentance.

Now the word repentance in the Bible,

it's kind of the flip side of the same coin of faith.

Repentance means to turn.

You're going one direction towards the life of sin, and you turn.

You start going the other direction towards Jesus.

The Thessalonians had repented of their idol worship, and they had turned to Christ.

Now, sometimes we're tempted when we read a verse like this,

I can't really relate to that because there's no idol worship today.

Think again.

We may be a little more sophisticated.

You may not have a carved image that's sitting in your house

that you bow and you worship,

but we make idols of all kinds of things that consume us.

Money, sex, power, hobbies, comfort,

on and on we could go.

Now, all of those things are bad in and of themselves,

but they are bad when we pursue them

instead of pursuing God.

A Christian is someone who says,

I'm gonna turn from all of my sin.

It starts in the heart.

It's a change of mind, a change of heart.

I'm gonna turn from that,

and I'm gonna turn also from the idols

that have consumed my life.

that I've been putting as priority,

they're not gonna be priority anymore.

I'm gonna serve instead the Lord Jesus.

And then you start pursuing,

that doesn't mean you do it perfectly,

it means that you're pursuing the Lord.

You fall down, you get back up by his grace,

and you keep on pursuing.

Now in verse number 10, Paul says that,

They also wait.

It says, they wait for his Son from heaven,

whom he raised from the dead,

even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

Now in all five chapters of 1 Thessalonians,

the second coming of Jesus is mentioned,

and this is the verse in chapter one.

Now this last mark might be the faintest mark

among many of us,

but I think it's clear here that Christians

should be marked by their anticipation

of Christ's return.

One of the marks of spiritual maturity

is to think about eternal things

and not just the here and the now.

A mark of immaturity is to only

be able to think about the here and now.

And kids are like that, right?

I mean, your little guy will ask you for something,

you say, wait five minutes after dinner,

then you can have it.

And you would think, you told him the world's ended.

I can't wait five minutes.

Patience belongs to maturity,

to the person who can look down the corridor of time

and wait patiently and expectantly

for something that's worth waiting for.

Know what I'm waiting for?

I'm waiting for Jesus to come back

and fix this whole mess of a world.

And when he does, he's gonna deliver us,

it says, from the wrath to come.

That is God's wrath.

For those of us in Christ,

we'll be clothed in the righteous robe of Jesus,

forgiveness, grace,

and we're not gonna experience God's wrath.

We'll be delivered from it.

You know, Christ's return is viewed

in a lot of different ways.

For some people who reject Jesus,

his return brings about fear.

The uncertainty of it brings fear.

For some who simply study Jesus,

his return is something they speculate about.

But for those of us who have received Jesus,

his return is something we long for.

Vance Havner, the old preacher,

told a story about a woman who was,

waiting at the train station for her fiance to arrive.

He was coming in on the train, and when he got there,

the two of them were gonna get married.

And so she's there at the station,

and she's waiting on that train,

and she's excited, she's giddy, she's looking,

she's listening for it, she's longing for it to arrive.

And there with her was the old station master,

He was also waiting.

He had all his charts out.

He had the schedule.

He knew exactly what time it was supposed to arrive,

when it left, and all of these different things.

And he was waiting too,

but he wasn't waiting like she was waiting.

She was waiting with anticipation

because her bridegroom was on that train.

Folks, our bridegroom,

The Lord Jesus Christ, he says, I'm coming back for you.

And we're going to find out in chapter 4 that the dead in Christ,

they're going to miss out on his return.

They're going to rise first.

We're all going to be there when he returns.

And what a glorious day that will be.

We need the spirit of the young lady not to speculate about the return,

but to long to see Jesus face to face.

Come, Lord Jesus, come in all of your glory.

Usher in your kingdom in full.

What a day that will be.

But until then, we wait.

And as we wait, we work out our faith.

We labor in love.

And we endure with hope.

Now, as we close today, this message has been about marks of genuine conversion.

Marks that come upon the life of someone who's the real deal.

You see, when God saves someone by his grace, his children, he marks them as his own.

New life means you're different than when you had spiritual dead life.

It could be that today some of you are realizing that perhaps some of the marks of Christianity are very, very faint in your life.

Almost non-existent.

Others of you may be prayerfully reflecting, and the Spirit of God is making clear to you today that those marks are non-existent.

Either camp, the solution's the same.

Draw near to the Lord.

Draw near.

Allow him to transform you by his amazing grace.

You know, sometimes people panic with a message like this

and they go, I need to start working harder

so the marks of my salvation, they show up

so people see them, so I see them,

so I will be a genuine Christian.

No, that's not how it works.

It's not how it works.

You don't work harder to prove and to make somehow you'd be a genuine Christian.

The answer is simply to respond to Jesus.

Yield to him with childlike faith.

Come to him.

God says that if you seek me, you will find me.

He will transform your life, and he's the only one that can do it.

The Bible says, whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

No one ever missed being saved who wanted to be saved.

If you want to give your life to Jesus today,

then you just come and you give your life to Christ today.

The invitation is open.

It's an open invitation for all to come to faith in Christ.

Jesus said, if I be exalted and lifted up,

I will draw all men unto myself.

You see, the Bible ends with an invitation.

The Spirit says, come.

The bride, that is the church, we say, come.

Let him who thirsts come

and taste of the water of life freely.

So I want to invite you to taste of the goodness of God today.

Let me ask you, are you thirsty for more in life than what you have?

Are you hungry for new life?

If that's the case, I want to invite you not to work harder, but to surrender.

And just to place your life...

in the arms of Jesus and just find rest there

and allow the Spirit of God to do a work

that you haven't been able to do on your own.

Come to Jesus today and experience his love and his grace.

Let's bow together in an attitude of prayer, if you will.

This is a holy moment in the life of our church

where we've dedicated this moment to respond to God.

And my prayer and my desire is that every single person listening today

will do some prayerful business with the Lord.

Invite him in to touch your heart where it needs to be touched.

Just a moment, I'm going to pray.

And after I pray, we're going to stand to our feet.

There's going to be pastors and other leaders and prayer partners here at the front.

We're going to invite you to give your life to Christ.

First of all, I want to speak to those of you that it's becoming clear to you that you need Jesus.

You know you need him.

And you want him.

You want some new life.

You know you need it.

Maybe you're aware of your own failure and your sin today.

That's the Spirit of God convicting you, pursuing you because He loves you.

And so I want to invite you to say yes to Jesus.

To respond to His Word today.

Amen.

I wanna invite you as soon as we stand to our feet,

if you just come forward, walk down one of these aisles,

walk down one of these staircases

and take one of these leaders by the hand

and say, I wanna give my life to Christ.

They'll know exactly how to help you.

And we'll help you take the next steps

in your journey with the Lord.

Maybe you are a Christian.

You've met God by His grace, but somehow, someway, the marks of being a Christian have become very faint in your life.

I want to invite you to confess whatever needs to be confessed and to renew your pursuit of the Lord.

Amen.

to just walk with Him.

Maybe God's touching on your heart to be baptized,

to go public with your faith like others today have done and are doing.

We'd love to talk with you about the meaning of baptism

and set up a time for you to do that.

Maybe you want to join our church family and say,

you know what, I kind of want to make this thing official,

become an official member of this church

so that the pastors here can be your pastors.

so you can serve and be connected to us in that way.

If God's leaning and leading you to do that,

come, we'd love to talk with you about what that means.

However God leads in just a moment, you come, let's pray.

Father, thank you for your amazing grace.

Thank you, Lord, for doing a work for us

that we just couldn't do it.

We have all failed to do it.

We've all tried and we've all failed.

And so you stepped in and you made a way

where there seemed to be no way.

Thank you for your son, Jesus.

Thank you for the honor and the privilege of my life

of knowing him, of knowing you.

Please help others today that desperately need you.

I pray that you give them the courage that it's going to take to surrender to you, the faith.

Nudge them, Lord.

Open their eyes.

Soften their heart.

Prompt them, Lord.

Pursue them, please.

Give them the courage it's going to take to step out and come today.

We give this time to you.

It is all yours.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks for listening today.

We hope you enjoyed this message.

And if you did, we would be so grateful

if you left us a review.

Also, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast

if you would like to be notified

when a new sermon is released.

If you feel the Lord calling you

to take the next step in faith

through salvation, service, or giving, don't wait.

reach out to us by texting podcast to 88988.

That's podcast to 88988

or connect with us on one of our social media platforms.

You can also visit our website, valleybaptist.org

to find even more great resources.

No matter where you are in your journey,

know that we love you.

We're praying for you

and we can't wait to see what God will do in your life.