Justified! The Real Path to Peace | Dr. John Ewart

Well, good morning, Englewood. So take your Bibles this

morning. Turn to Romans chapter 5.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

I know we have several folks who are on holiday this misty

weekend. So thank you all so much for

being here. And if you're listening online,

thank you for tuning in with us. Maybe some of you just got done

building this hand castle. Appreciate you all being here.

So a few days ago a guy was serving me Gelato which I'm not

supposed to eat and he told me this story.

He goes one Sunday morning a little boy walked up to the

preacher, had this real sad look on his face and the preacher

says what? What are you?

What are you so sad about, son? He goes, well I'm worried about

you, preacher. He goes, I know that you need

money and I want you to take my last dollar out of my Piggy

Bank. Preacher looks down at him and

says, well, well, that's very kind of you, but why do you

think I need money so much? He says, well, preacher, my

daddy says that you're the poorest preacher in town.

It wasn't very good Gelato either.

But listen, I want you to here's what I want you to do.

I want you to refrain. I want you to hang on to your

dollar donations. And let's just see how this

sermon goes first, OK, We'll do that.

Listen, I want to thank Pastor Dylan and Pastor Jordan for

filling in for me when we were off.

I was doing some writing. We're also getting away together

a little bit in the mountains, so appreciate that.

You know, Romans 4 on senior Sunday.

There's your challenge. That was funny because every

verse, almost every word is a sermon in the book of Romans.

I'm telling you, it's so rich. In fact, it's so rich.

We're only going to try to tackle 11 verses this morning as

we continue in our series justified, a study of Romans.

If you've been with us week to week, then you know that we're

walking through this book verse by verse and and you're also

going to notice that Paul switches gears in chapter 5.

And I'll talk about this more in a moment.

He he's been talking about how to be saved and that and he'll

still talk about that some, but now he's going to talk about how

to live also now that you are justified.

So we'll talk about that in a minute.

Tony Morita, who wrote a great commentary on the book of

Romans, said this. He says Paul Paul style shifts

from argumentation to adoration. The overall tone is celebratory,

triumph and jubilant. In other words, Paul is helping

us enjoy God here. There's a difference in saying

I'm a Christian and actually enjoying God.

It's one thing to be legally married, but it's another thing

to actually enjoy your spouse. Paul's radiating a contagious

Christian joy and excitement because of what God has done for

us in Christ. So that kind of sets the stage

because what Paul's going to do is he's going to share multiple

blessings to us in this passage about being justified by faith.

In other words, now that you're saved, So what then?

And these blessings ought to 'cause this great joy, because

now that you're justified, life only gets better and better and

better is what Paul's going to say.

And he's going to reveal to us in this passage the real path to

peace. Now listen, this becomes

important because the things that I'm going to share, very

simple outline, these are the kinds of things that I use when

I share the gospel with people. I was meeting with the team

going to New York last Wednesday night before our study in here.

And when we were talking some about evangelism in that part of

the world. And, and I was just sharing some

of the things. And, and I've shared this with

some of you before, but every religion has three parts.

And I won't go into all that, but one of those parts is just

called the functional part. In other words, what does this

thing produce in your life? Does it actually produce

anything? Does it produce anything that's

worthwhile? So, so more than the form, more

than just the content, what is this thing actually doing for

you? And, and, and, and, and, and

what do we now possess that we didn't possess before Jesus

Christ? And that's exactly what Paul's

going to talk about. And every single verse that

we're going to look at could be a sermon series.

So look at verse one with me, he says in verse one, therefore,

and that's an important word in the book of Romans because of

everything else that we've heard, because of all these

things, including the examples we heard last week from Pastor

Dylan. Therefore, since we have been

justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord

Jesus Christ. So the very first thing, if you

look into the outline, it just simply says that we have peace.

It says listen, because of what we have already experienced.

Since you have believed or make a verb out of it, since you have

faith, you are justified and you now have peace with God through

Jesus. This is the kind of thing I

share with lost people. I don't just talk about I and I

do. I talk about the cross, I talk

about the resurrection, but I also want to talk about So what?

So what? What difference does that make

in my life today? Do I really have peace?

Do I know what that means? Don't pass by this too quickly.

Don't treat this with some passive attitude if you're a

believer. I've been a believer so long,

you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is huge news. This is like saying you are now

cured to a person with a terminal disease.

This is like saying you are now free to a condemned criminal.

This is huge news for these people.

We are no longer subject to God's wrath for our sin.

So there's no more. I hope so.

We're now in a position of I know.

So we're now in a position of assurance.

This word peace means to bind together that which was

separated. The things that were separated

are now brought together. We are now stuck to God.

This is supernatural, theological, spiritual super

glue and we're stuck to him and Jesus permanently bound God and

man together by his blood on the cross.

In fact, Paul wrote about this in other places in Colossians 1.

He wrote this, he says, and through him to reconcile to

himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace

by the blood of his cross. Now, as Pastor Jean mentioned,

we're celebrating Memorial Day weekend this weekend.

Tomorrow's a national holiday. Many of you will be off work if

you're still working and, and, and the main purpose.

Now, we use Memorial Day for a lot of things in our society

today. Sometimes we use it to go to the

cemetery to remember loved ones and things like that, or we use

it as a family holiday. But the real purpose started

many many years ago for Memorial Day was to remember those people

specifically who died in the service of our nation while they

served for our armed force, our armed forces throughout history.

And So what better weekend to remember what Christ did for us

through his death in the war against sin and lostness because

of his death. I want you to see these things

because of his death we have notice the the verb tense there

we have peace. It's present tense.

We have peace with God if we faith in Him.

Now that's a big if. It's the whole point.

We're no longer in danger of God's wrath and being separated

from Him forever. But Christ is the only real path

to this peace. To be bound, the to be bound

tightly together with God. The only way that works is

through Christ. That which was separated has

been eternally connected, and we have freedom from eternal death

due to Him. But that's not all.

It keeps getting better and better and better.

Look at verse 2. Through whom?

Through him, excuse me. We have also obtained access by

faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope

of the glory of God. There's about a six week sermon

series in this one verse. Listen, we not only have peace,

we now have access and this is huge.

Now have in verse one and have in verse 2 are both in a verb

form to mean that we have and we still have and we keep on

having. We don't not ever have.

We will always have. We have and we have and we will

have. We will always have proso proso

go gay. We will always have access.

This describes this word is used in in.

In other terms, it's used when somebody is ushered into the

royal presence of the king and they are announced to the king.

In other words, the king knows you, he knows your name, he

knows who you are. And this word comes from two

different words brought together.

It means to bring face to face. And so we are brought face to

face with God. And it implies not only the

right to be there in the presence of the king, but it

also implies the right to actually address or speak to the

king. What a powerful thing.

Ephesians 3 says this. Paul wrote about this.

He says this was according to the eternal purpose that he has

realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness

and access with confidence through our faith in Him, faith

obtains access into grace. This free gift is offered to us.

We believe in that. We receive that gift and, and

Jesus does this for the believing Sinner because we're

now, when we do this, we're now clothed in his righteousness.

We're cleansed and we're covered by the blood of Christ and

clothed with his righteousness. And so the Sinner has now able

to have bold and confident access to God's full flavor of

grace through faith. Now you got to think about how

significant this was to the original readers in Rome.

To these Jewish readers, this was this was mind boggling

because in their whole experience with the law, in

their whole experience with the Tabernacle, in their whole

experience with the temple, they never had this kind of access to

God. They couldn't just March into

the Holy of Holies only one day a year during the Day of

Atonement on Yom Kippur, would even the high priest dare to go

into the holy of Holies. And yet now Paul is saying you

now have direct access because of what Christ has done for you.

You think about these Gentile Pagan background believers who

never had this kind of relationship with the Pagan

gods. It was fear based.

It was works righteousness. And now they have they're not

being able to to be ushered into the very presence of grace

because of Christ. I mean, this is, this is huge.

And, and it also means for us that we now have the right and

the opportunity to speak with God, but not only just to

believe in him. And this is what Paul's going to

do. Paul's shifting gears here.

This isn't just about being saved anymore.

He's, he's still always going to talk about that.

But now he's going to say that because you're saved, you ought

to live differently. This ought to affect who you

are. So what this is a So what

passage? And in other words, what

difference does this make? And so, so not only do we have

access to God, but now we have the ability and the opportunity

to live differently because of this.

So, so this new life under grace operates under completely new

standards, under completely new methods, under completely new

rules. Faith into this grace in which

we stand. You'll start seeing these active

verbs. So faith in his grace.

Notice what we're believing in. We're believing in this

incredible grace that has been extended to us.

So we not only obtain grace, we also have the ability to stand

firm in that grace. So listen, that word stand is

written in a tent where it means permanent access.

We're in a fixed state before God in this connectivity, in

this super glue being held together by him, that which was

separate, brought together. We're now in a fixed state in

God's grace through faith. What an amazing place to be.

And this is what strengthens us to thrive and to grow.

So, so he says, so then think about it.

Because of all this, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

And this word, hope doesn't mean wishful thinking.

It it, it, it, this word means an an assured expectation.

I know this is going to happen. I'm expecting it.

I, I, I, I'm looking forward to it by faith.

I have an assured expectation that God will bring about his

great glory, which is why this is part of our mission statement

or his mission statement here at Inglewood.

We believe he's going to bring great glory to himself.

We buy into, we believe that with all our hearts because it's

here. And the word glory refers to a

state of things in this in this existence where where everything

is as God desires it to be one day.

Charles Wendell writes about it. He says good triumphs over evil,

justice prevails, sin has no place, and everything exists in

harmony with his holy character. So we can stand permanently

bound with him in his grace by faith, with his incredible

assured expectation of hope, knowing that one day God will

reveal his whole full glory and everything will be in order one

day. One day.

So we we rejoice. And that rejoicing hope isn't

just something we sit back and we think this rejoicing hope

empowers us to live in a different way.

So we live in a different way until that time comes and we

live with peace. We live with access to Him,

which helps us to live the way He wants us to live.

Look at verse three. He just keeps building.

We're done with that. We're done with that six week

sermon series and verse 2, sort of look at verse 3.

Not only that, I mean, if that wasn't enough, but we rejoice in

our sufferings. What?

That's counter intuitive, but we rejoice in our sufferings

knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces

character and character produces hope.

Now I just summarized this by saying we have strength.

Pick out any words you like there.

But I just, I just thought of this in the way this is what

strengthens us. So even though we have peace and

even though we have access leading to this hope, we still

live right here, don't we? And we still have suffering for

now. Our grace filled life is not

free of trouble. I don't know why we're surprised

by that. Jesus promised us that we would

still have trouble. Remember what he said in John

15? He said if the world hates you,

know that it has hated me before it hated you.

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own.

But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of

the world, therefore the world hates you.

So it's easy for us. It's easy for people to have

hope. It's easy for people to rejoice

in times of blessing. But it's much harder, much more

difficult to live with such joyful confidence in times of

suffering. And I want you to understand

this word suffering. This word suffering in a general

usage can just refer to pressure or distress.

Think of olives being pressed in the olive press.

That's what that word would be used for.

It's that idea of pressure. We all face pressure.

We all face distress in this life.

In fact, some of you here, some of you listening, you might, you

might feel the squeeze right now.

And it comes in many shapes and it comes in many sizes and it

comes at varying times and it comes up with varying degrees.

And it hits from all directions sometimes, often catching us off

guard. And it can feel overwhelming.

Life can feel overwhelming. It's too hard, it's too pressure

filled. But Paul's trying to help us

understand because we've been ushered into a completely new

manner of life and grace. We can still live with a joyful

confidence. We can still live with grace, we

can still live with joy, even during these times of great

pressure. Now, how in the world do we

obtain such supernatural ability?

Well, it's not simply going to come from our own manifestation

or from our fellow human beings. No power positive thinking

created by the human brain is going to muster this up.

No vision board, no dream catcher, no incantation or self

manifestation can ever achieve this.

No matter what this world tries to jam down your throat, it will

not happen that way. So Paul then describes a

powerful chain. It's like I said, a Domino's, a

powerful chain reaction, revealing how the process of

strength grows and eventually gives us the ability to

experience joy even in the midst of difficult circumstance.

So let's just look at them together.

Suffering produces endurance. When the pressure builds, we

seek to relieve the discomfort. That's what we're going to

naturally do. And sometimes we can't.

Sometimes we can't avoid it. Sometimes we can't escape it.

I've got a hole in this eardrum. Teresa was with me on this trip.

I think I'm always going to have a hole in this eardrum.

It never does heal. It's been some years now.

I, I was preaching overseas and I had a translator who was sick

and he was right here for, for all this time, right here

talking right next to me. And he was sick as a dog talking

to me. And, you know, as he's

translating everything I've got to say.

And by the time I got on the plane, I had an earache.

And in the middle of that flight, my eardrum burst.

That's a joyful experience. And after that I had to go see a

doctor and he had to put a machine in there and do all

kinds of really gross things to get all kinds of gross stuff out

of my out of my head. But it left a messed up eardrum.

It broke because of the pressure.

It couldn't handle it. It burst and it's never grown

back. Sometimes the pressures a lot,

but in Christ, in Christ and his grace, the distress and the

pressure can actually help us build patient endurance that's

sometimes hard to understand. He he might even allow us to

walk through the storm and to walk through certain

circumstances purposely to do this in our lives, to help us

grow and to help us build. As one of our shut insurance,

and one of the great joys I have is every, every week I go out

with one of our deacons to see some of our folks.

And often some of our folks are shut insurance who can't

physically make it here. And I, I, I, I remember the sign

that she had. It's not original.

I've seen this saying before, but it simply said don't fear

the storm. Learn to dance in the rain in

him. We must choose to recognize the

temporary sufferings we endure here can actually be powerful

trainers to build up our strength of faith for what's

next. So suffering produces endurance

and endurance, Paul says, produces character.

So the ability to endure actually will develop.

And it's not just any character. The word, the word here is

actually talking about a tested or a proven character Dokieme.

It's talking about to be proven by testing.

So this could be like testing the purity of a metal or it

could it's also used in terms of soldiers or athletes who have

been proven and and their endurance has been proven by

combat or by competition. So this is a strengthening of

character. And this isn't pretending this

isn't denying this isn't coming up with some some false.

I'm just fine. I hope you are kind of moment.

This comes as the trials of life become instruments in the hands

of the Holy Spirit who crash within us, a proven character, a

strong character because who we are not, not just what we know,

not just what we do, but who we are actually becomes stronger.

But this demands faith in him. This isn't something we do on

our own. The Holy Spirit has to do this.

We have to faith in him and and then this character produces

hope. We almost come full circle here.

We see that that proven tested character will that will bring

about this sure expectant expectation and hope again.

So we can observe without anxiety.

We can endure without panic. We can hope without

disappointment. Because we know I don't have to

guess, because we know. We faith that we have an assured

outcome in the end. The fact that our guaranteed

victory is true and real provides me both destination and

direction so that I can live the life that I'm supposed to live.

Look at verse 5. And hope does not put us to

shame. Why?

Because God's love has been poured into our hearts through

the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

So the Holy Holy Spirit provides the power for this progressive

development. This is what we call spiritual

maturity, this progressive development.

He helps us this to occur. Our hope is in Him, not in US.

My hope's not in you. It's in Him.

It's not in this temporary place.

It's not in this world, it's in Him.

So when I'm free from that idolatry, we trust in and expect

Him to help us work through this life.

And He provides the strength in our weakness.

He provides wisdom in our foolishness.

He provides love in our doubt. He provides evidence in our

despair. As Swindell writes, the Holy

Spirit living within us is our ever present guarantee, a future

victory. So my strength is I believe in

him, not in me. Listen, our world pushes self

belief. Just pay attention for a second.

You can believe in yourself. You can achieve anything.

That's a lie. This world pushes self belief.

We're going to push Christ's belief because it's only in him

that you can do all things. So peace, access, strength, what

a valuable list, but he's not done.

Some of these verses are going to be more familiar to you.

You've probably heard sermons just out of these few verses.

Look at verse 6. For while we were, while we were

still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps

for a good person one would dare even to die.

But God shows his love for us, and that while we were still

sinners, Christ died for us. So we not only have peace, we

not only have access, we not only have strength, we have

love, a pure love, a God love. You go back to verse 5 just for

a second and just remember, because God's love has been

poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has

been given to us. Why does all this happen?

How does all this happen? Listen, don't, don't

misunderstand or try to define Christianity in some non

biblical way. We do not determine the

expectations. We do not determine the

standards. We do not determine the outcome.

Once we are saved, we are not on our own and we must not live by

our own strength. We're still helpless without the

forgiving grace of God. We never rise above our need for

Him. He's done everything.

He's done everything we need, even when we could not do it

ourselves. And so Paul stresses the fact

that nothing in US deserves saving.

Nothing in US deserves saving. Yet Christ died for us.

When we're sitting there in the gutter, Christ died for us, but

God shows his now I want you to say this big deal, but God shows

his love for us. I want you to notice this that

that verbs in the present tense. Now a lot of the other verbs

around it or not they're in the past tense is something God did

in the past, but God shows present tense.

Paul's trying to make a point. Holy Spirit's inspiring Paul to

remind us that we received what we did not deserve and we aren't

what we should be now. But God still faithfully

provided undeserved grace to save us from sin.

And He continues now to offer that same grace and love to help

us live for Him today. It's amazing.

We receive what we did not deserve, and we aren't what we

should be now. But God is still doing this.

So this act of grace, by the way, what we're talking about

right now, distinguishes biblical orthodox Christianity

from all the other world religions, from all the other

belief systems. This is why Christianity is the

only real path. Other beliefs are going to make

you earn it. Other belief systems are going

to make you work for it. But what we see here is that

while we were yet sinners, the sacrifice of Jesus granted

access to us into a completely new territory called grace.

Grace doesn't exist anywhere else in which we can thrive

according to a completely new perspective.

So our God don't ever take this lightly.

Our God lowered himself. We ought to spend a whole lot

more time on the doctrine of the incarnation.

We ought to spend a whole lot more time on the sacrifice of

the Incarnation. We focus a lot on the

crucifixion than the resurrection, rightly so.

But we ought to focus more on the incarnation.

God perfectly in a in an agape, a choice of the will to love us

no matter what. In fact, in spite of who we

were, he lowered himself to perfectly become one of us, to

be our perfect blim, blimless sacrifice, and to pay our price

for us. So he gives us peace, He gives

us access, He gives us strength, and he gives us this perfect

love that this world cannot offer.

Those are the kinds of things I mean, I'll share about.

I have to share about a cross. I have to share about an empty

grave. But in our world today, I also

share about those words when I'm talking to a lost person,

because I have those things and they don't.

The reason I have them isn't because of me.

I'm a gutter dweller, but I haven't because of Christ.

But we're not quite done. Look at verse 9.

Since therefore I'm telling you therefore is a big word in

Romans. We have now been justified by

His blood. Much more shall we be saved by

Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we

were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more now

that you. Now that we are reconciled,

shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice

in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now

received reconciliation and point #5 I just said we have

relationship. If you like the word

reconciliation, put that in there.

We have reconciliation. I, I used the word relationship

because I felt like it was more relatable.

Perhaps. But if everything else, if

everything else we gained is not enough, there's, there's still

much more. He didn't just die for us, He

rose again. And because of his life, because

of his resurrection, we have a guarantee of eternal life and an

abundant eternal life with him, and we were reconciled to God.

Past tense and and the cost so the cost of reconciliation has

been completely paid and and so the bridge that connection that

binding that peace has been permanently fixed.

Our access to live connected to God has been obtained much more

now that we are reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

So I have been reconciled past, I'm being saved present, and I

will be saved future I'm covered.

Salvation includes all of that. Which also means, my friends,

that salvation includes any of our future sin that threatens to

keep us from enjoying our new life in the land of grace.

More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus

Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

All this truth then, ought to lead us to a place of rejoicing.

That's what Paul's trying to get to.

Listen, I've been talking, he's been talking, he's been talking,

he's been talking. Both Jew and Gentile have the

opportunity to be saved. They have both acts, access to

salvation because of Christ. Now you've been saved.

You ought to be happy about that.

You ought to. The one translation you might

have, your translation might say exalt in God.

So live with a joyful confidence that despite the afflictions of

this fallen world, despite the consequences of past sin, and

even despite the failure to live as we ought to today and

tomorrow, we can still have forgiveness, we can still have

hope, we can still have grace, but only if we faith in Jesus

Christ. So things are not yet as they

should be. We still have a lot of the old

sinful nature in us. We're not perfect.

This church isn't perfect. It's made-up of us.

Nevertheless, we who have trusted in Jesus have been

declared just by faith by the Judge of heaven and the

universe, and we no longer have to fear his wrath.

We have peace with Him through our Lord and have been ushered

into a new existence with Him. So we ought to thrive.

We ought to rejoice with a sense of assured confidence, knowing

that one day, one day, all things will be made right, sin

will be removed, and everything will exist with God's holy

nature. But we also have to remember

that this joy, this peace, is not attained by natural means.

We can't muster this up ourselves.

The Holy Spirit has to work within us.

Justification, salvation, and reconciliation.

These big words are ours, but they're only ours through Jesus

Christ. So forgive the poor theology of

this story for just a moment, but I want to make a point.

A woman named Susan dies and goes to heaven and meets Peter

at the gate. And she says, what do I got to

do to get inside? And Peter says all you got to do

is spell the word love. So Susan spelled it right out

LOVE and goes right in. Well, some time passes and one

day Peter asked Susan if if she'd watched the gate for him

one day he had some other things to do.

And so Peter standing at the gate, when she notices her

husband in line, four or five folks down the line, when he

finally gets up to the gate, he greets her.

I mean, it's a, it's an, it's an incredible moment.

You know, how, how are you? You know, I've been missing you.

How are things up here? How are things down there?

How are things going? Everything's wonderful.

How in the world are you and how and, and how did you die?

Susan asked him. Well, you know that nurse that

took care of you toward the end? I I ended up marrying her and

then I won the lottery. And then I bought a Big Lake

house like we always wanted and a big boat.

But I wrecked that boat, and that's why I'm here.

So what do I got to do to get in?

And Susan looks at him and says, honey, all you got to do is

spell the word Czechoslovakia. Now aren't you glad it doesn't

work that way? It's not according to the work

on our part. Just listen.

You might even close your eyes. You don't have to, but I, I, I

took some portions of our passage today, nothing out of

context, but just took some phrases out of our verses and I

just want to put them together for you for a moment before we

close. Just listen to what God is

saying to us. We have also obtained access by

faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope

of the glory of God because God's love has been poured into

our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

God shows His love for us and that why we were still sinners.

Christ died for us. More than that, we also rejoice

in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now

received reconciliation. My friends, the password for

access into eternal life is Jesus.

He's the only way and you have to faith in Him.

We must believe in Him. So we should rejoice.

We should exalt. That word literally means to

boast about Him. It means to, to to give a

massively high degree of confidence to God in grace.

We can live with this complete confidence and boast of our Lord

because we recognize that our confidence isn't in us.

Our confidence is in our faith in His free gift of grace that

He offers us, and we can grow even more because we know what's

ahead of us and we know who overseas it with complete,

assured expectation. Father, thank you for the hope

of your glory. Thank you, Father, that we do

not have to somehow figure this out on our own.

That Father, we cannot do that even if we tried.

The Father, you extend to us a gift of grace, that while we

were still sinners, Father, Jesus Christ died on the cross

to pay for our sins, and then he rose again because death could

not hold him in his perfection. And through Him we have

salvation and assurance. Now, Father, there might be

somebody here, I'm sure there is even listening online or here

live, who would have to admit I don't have that kind of peace.

I don't have that kind of hope. I don't have that kind of

strength. I, I don't know if I have access

to God or not. Well, Father, there's no reason

for them to leave this place without knowing.

You tell us in the Bible that we can know for certain that we

have eternal life if we believe in Jesus as your son.

And so Father, right now I pray that as our worship team leads

us in just a moment and we sing praises, we exalt you, we praise

you, we rejoice in you that Father, we recognize that only

in Christ alone can we find this answer.

And I pray that your Holy Spirit now would be be pouring into

their hearts, in their minds, no denying your presence, no

denying this truth and that right now, Father, they would

ask you to come into their heart and through life to forgive them

of their sin, that they would turn from their sin, that they

would commit themselves to live for you.

Father, there may be believers here who've just kind of been

passive. They take all this for granted.

And I pray that this morning will be a moment of recommitment

or rededication of renewal to recognize what an incredible

gift you've given us God. What an an amazing life you've

given us. God, Father, we have to, we have

to believe in you. We have to trust in you.

We have to walk with you. We have to take advantage of

that access with you, speak with you.

So Father, as we sing, I pray that people might come take a

pastor by the hand, Father, to ask what do I need to do to be

saved? What do I need to do to join the

church? What do I need to do to be

baptized? Or would you just pray with me

about this? Or maybe they just need to go

and talk to one of our trained volunteers in the Next Steps

room and have a private conversation about your Father.

Or maybe they just want to come and pray a prayer of praise, a

pray of forgiveness, of a pray for repentance, a pray for of

intercession for someone else. Help us to have the freedom to

respond. You've given us the grace.

Now help us to believe, help us to faith and to receive that

gift as your Holy Spirit helps us.

Thank you, Father in Christ's name, Amen.

Will you stand with me? We'll have pastors here.

The Next Steps room is open where people would love to just

pray with you and share with you in private.

Our ushers are going to come and take up the offering.

If you're a guest, put that Next Steps card in there for us.

Or you can just come and pray at this altar.

Whatever you want to do as the Lord leads you, you come right

now.