The Edge community, obviously at Bethesda, around the world on the Internet, here at

Transcription

1 McLean Bible Church Sunday, February 2, 2014 Bible Survey, part 4 New Testament The Epistles Romans God s Plan of Salvation >> PASTOR LON SOLOMON: Good morning, Prince William. It's great to see you guys, good to be here with you. Hey, we want to say a big good morning to all the other campuses that are watching. I want to remind you that this past week was the third anniversary of our Bethesda campus. So instead of saying good morning to each other, we are going to all wish them a Happy Anniversary. So when I say three, that's what we're going to do. So Tyson's, Loudoun, and everybody at The Edge community, obviously at Bethesda, around the world on the Internet, here at Prince William, are you ready? >> CONGREGATION: Yeah. >> PASTOR LON SOLOMON: All right. 1, 2, 3. Happy Anniversary. Indeed. We wish all of you at the Bethesda campus many more years of being used by the Lord. Well, it's great to be with you. I'm very excited to be here. Before we launch into our study of the word of God this morning, something very interesting happened that I want to share with you. If you remember last week, we talked a little bit about sharing our faith and about standing up for Christ the way the Apostle Paul did. And I challenged you guys to take these CDs called How to Have a New Life and to really go out, and hundreds of you guys did this. We ran out of them. We had to order 10,000 more. Which is great. And to use these, because you just never know who you might run into, and you just never know what might be going on in their life. You know what I'm saying?

2 Yeah. So last Sunday night, I was over at Silver Spring and I spoke the same message to them that you heard. And on Monday we got an e- mail from a young man who attends our Silver Spring campus, but he volunteers on the University of Maryland campus in College Park. I want to read some excerpts from this to you. Yes, we have his permission. Here we go. Ready? He said, "Hello, I have something convicting me this morning that I want to share. Darion Aguilar has been identified as the shooter in the Columbia Mall incident on Saturday." He goes on to say, "The convicting thing for me is that Darion worked at the Dunkin' Donuts beside my apartment in College Park. I have spoken to him probably 20 times over the last six months, but never about more than donuts or coffee." He said, "We hear Lon talk all the time and again last night about sharing our faith by striking up conversations with strangers. I've always thought that was a waste of time and effort. High risk, very low rate of success, et cetera. But my calculations have been off and it saddens me. I don't mean to suggest that I would have somehow impacted Saturday's events. But I do mean to suggest that God could have used me to accomplish something in Darion or anyone - any other stranger's life and I have been closed to that idea." He says, "I would not put it past God's reach to use a random conversation to lead to a life- changing moment. From what I hear, that actually happens on a regular basis. Well, hello. That's what happened to me, a street preacher, a random conversation, and here I am 44 years later. So he concludes by saying, "One thing from me going forward, I'll start a conversation with anyone giving me coffee now about Christ. And let me challenge each of you to take some risks for the kingdom." Amazing e- mail. Huh? You can clap. That's great.

3 Look, I don't know if this conversation with Darion would have changed what happened a week ago Saturday or not. But who knew what was going on in that young man's heart and how maybe handing him a CD that says How to Have a New Life might have changed that young man's life and changed a whole lot of other things. So folks, we never know what's going on with the people around us. We never know. Like I told you last week about that flight attendant and that she was just looking for someone to share with her. That's why we're giving you these CDs, How to Have a New Life. We have them out on the table. They're free. We have 10,000 more. Go take them. Go use them. We're going to have these out on the table from now until Jesus comes back. I'm serious. Really. Take them. Give them out. Let's never underestimate what God can do with a conversation, or a planned conversation when that conversation is about Christ. Amen. Are you all with me? Listen, you have to talk. If I'm here, you gotta talk. Are you with me? >> CONGREGATION: Yeah. >> PASTOR LON SOLOMON: All right. Great. Thank you. Get these when you leave. All right. Today we're studying the word of God together. We're in a series called a Bible Survey. And what we do in a Bible Survey is we go through the books of the Bible and we talk about, well, what's in them, and when they were written, and how they're all interconnected. And last week in Part 3 of our series, we did the Gospels, the four Gospels and the Book of Acts and I poured a ton of information out on you guys. We've been saying for the last three weeks, don't take notes. Don't try to keep up with that. Just pay attention and we'll have enhanced CDs for you out in the lobby every week

4 that has all the notes, all the maps, everything in a Word doc right on the CD, as well as the audio. So we have those out there for you for the first three weeks. Go on out there and get them right after the service. My goal this week - - by the way, you can get it all free on the Internet if you want to do it that way. My goal this week is for us to pick up and finish the series. This week I had planned for us to do all of the letters of the New Testament and the Book of Revelation. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I know exactly how many pages of notes I can have - yeah, exactly. I know exactly how many pages of notes I can have and stay inside my time limit. It's 11, if you really want to know. But I was already at page 6 when I was working on the message this week and I hadn't even gotten into the Book of Romans yet. I was like, uh- oh, this is not going to work. So I said, Lord, this is not going to work. What was I thinking? I must have been out of my mind to think we could do all this in one week. I really sense the Holy Spirit saying to me, who said you had to do this in four weeks? I didn't tell you that. So, is it okay with you guys if we stretch this out a little bit? Is that all right? Okay. Because I want to do justice to all the letters of the New Testament. And in 15 minutes we can't do that, we can't do that. So you say, how long is this series going to go? I don't know. What difference does it make? We're studying the Bible. You know, the Lord may come back. Who knows. Anyway, we'll get through it. Why are we rushing through the letters of the New Testament when they are so important to our faith? Amen.

5 Okay. So with that okay from you, what we're going to do today is talk a little bit today about the Epistles in the New Testament, a little general introduction, and then we're going to cover the Book of Romans. The Epistles of the New Testament. I read a Charlie Brown cartoon a few years ago where Lucy was trying to convince Charlie Brown that an Epistle was the wife of an Apostle. That's not what an Epistles is. Okay? An epistle simply means a letter. And I think most of you know that once we get past the four gospels in the Book of Acts, pretty much the rest of the New Testament are the Epistles, made up of these New Testament letters that we're talking about. When we look at these letters, 21 of the 27 books in the New Testament are these Epistles. 14 were written by the Apostle Paul, seven by other apostles. So I think, therefore, it's fair to say that particularly the letters of the Apostle Paul formed the spine of the New Testament. Now, we've given you a chart in your bulletin today to help you with what we're going to be looking at over the next few weeks. If you look on one side, we've broken the letters of the New Testament up into a chart with dates and into some other categories to help you. And on the backside we've given you a chronology of Paul's life so that you can see how his letters fit into the events of his life. This is a really helpful tool. Whenever you open a letter in the New Testament like 2 Timothy to go, ooh, when you go, where was that written? Where does that fall? Where was Paul in his life? So I hope you'll keep this and use it as part of your Bible study material. Every week it will be back in the bulletin again. Anyway, let's talk about the letters of the Apostle Paul since we're on that subject. As you can see from the chart, there are nine of Paul's letters which were written to the churches, most of which he started on one of his missionary journey and there are five letters that are written to individuals. You'll also see from your chart that the letters of Paul are not in

6 chronological order in the New Testament, rather they're grouped differently. There are two sections of the New Testament letters of Paul. Section number one, which is Romans through 2 Thessalonians, were the letters Paul wrote to the churches, and that's followed by Section 2, which is first Timothy to Hebrews which are the letters that Paul wrote to the individuals. And there are many ways to study the letters of Paul. We could study them chronologically. We could study them thematically; meaning what are they about? What are their common themes? You know what, why won't study them in the order that they're in the New Testament? That's the easiest thing to do. Is that okay with you? We're going to go right through them. Which means today we'll talk about the Book of Romans, which is the first letter that he wrote. So when we talk about Paul's letters to the churches, which are the first ones, that first section, there are a couple of things that are really important for us to know in general that I want to give you before we dig into the Book of Romans. All of Paul's letters to the churches follow the same basic pattern. That is, in the beginning of the letter Paul deals with theological issues. Either it's a theological issue or issues that the church is struggling with, or it's just a theological issue that the Apostle Paul wants to expound on for our own personal growth and edification. And then in the second part of each of these church letters, the Apostle Paul deals with a variety of practical, every day Christian life truths. And all of the letters follow this very same pattern. So when you go to a letter of Paul, you should expect to see if it's to the churches, theology first and then practical Christian advice second. You guys got it? You got it? Okay. Now, let's turn our attention now to the letter that he wrote to the church in Rome. So this was written in 56 A.D. And it was written while he was on his third missionary

7 journey. I'm sure all of us know where Rome is. Just so we're sure, let's show you a map so you know exactly where Rome is. When Paul wrote this letter, he had never actually been to Rome. Someone else started the church there, we don't know who, but it was a thriving church. Listen to what Paul says. Verse 8. He says, "I thank my God for all of you, because your faith is being talked about all over the world and I long to see you, that you and I may be encouraged by each other's faith." Obviously these guys were doing well spiritually if their faith was going to encourage the Apostle Paul's faith. He goes on to say, "In fact, I want you to know that I planned many times to come to you, come visit, but I've been unable to do so up to this point." Now, we skip to the end of the Book of Romans where he says, "Now I'm on my way to Jerusalem the end of his third missionary journey for the churches in Greece were pleased to take an offering for the poor among the believers in Jerusalem. And so in Acts Chapter 21, the Apostle Paul shows up in Jerusalem with this offering thereby ending his third missionary journey. He goes on to say, "And after I have completed this task of delivering the offering to Jerusalem, I plan to go to Spain and to visit you, that is in Rome, on the way." Now, if you've read the Book of Acts, you know that the Apostle Paul eventually got to Rome. But he did not get there the way he had planned to get there. He got there in chains and got thrown in jail. And it was six years after he wrote these words at the end of the Book of Romans saying, I'm coming. I'm on my way. I'll be there real soon. It was six years later before he actually got there. So, let's take a look now, shall we, at the contents of the Book of Romans itself. And remember what we've already learned, that we should expect to find two halves to this

8 book. We should expect to find a first half that deals with theological items. And we do, Chapters And we should expect to find a second half that deals with practical Christian living. And we do, Romans So let's launch into the first half of Paul's letter. And in the first half of the letter to the Romans, the Book of Romans, the Apostle Paul gives us the most comprehensive explanation of God's plan of salvation in Jesus Christ anywhere in the Bible. So if you're looking to go somewhere and find a complete and thorough treatment of God's plan of salvation, what book do you go to? Book of Romans. That's right. In the first 11 Chapters, Paul answers four very important questions about God's plan of salvation. Number one Why it's necessary.? Why we even need a plan of salvation. Number two How it works. Number three What are the results? If I appropriate it for my life, what are the results for me? Finally, number four Is anyone exempt from needing it? So we're going to answer these four questions and every verse is coming right out of the Book of Romans. We don't need any other verses because that's what the whole Book of Romans is about. Comprende? Si? Okay. Here we go. Ready? Number one Why is God's plan of salvation necessary? Well Paul says, Romans 5:12, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin - - who's the one man? Adam, right, in the garden. so death passed to all men and women because [in Adam] all men and women sinned." What Paul is telling us here is by his disobedience to God in the garden, Adam polluted the entire human race so that every descendant of his is born with a sin nature and we prove it by the time we're two. Right? Yes, sir, okay.

9 Roman 5:18 continues, "Through this one trespass that Adam committed, condemnation resulted for all men." Paul is telling us here that both because of our sinful nature and because of our sinful actions, we are all under the judgment of a Holy God, the condemnation of a Holy God, and this is why we need a plan of salvation. Simple? Yes. Now, number two, the Apostle Paul goes on to tell how this plan of salvation God created for us works. Now if you go up to almost anybody on the street and you say, Okay, tell me, in your opinion, how do people get into heaven? How do people get eternal life? How do people get right in the sight of God? What you will hear is human activity, human effort, and human work. Well, you have to go to church. Well, you have to get baptized. Well, you have to get confirmed. Well, you have to get BarMitzvah d. Well, you have to be a nice person. Well, you have to do the 10 Commandments. Well, you have to recycle. Whatever it might be it's all human work. You know, the same thing is true with all the religions of the world. Go to any religion of the world and ask them how you get in to whatever it is they call heaven and it's human works. Whether it's praying to Mecca five times a day, whether it's going to synagogue and being BarMitzvah d, whether it's going out in the woods and sitting cross legged and going, om om all day long. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter it's human effort, human activity, religious works. Are you with me? The Bible says that's not right. The Bible says that's not how we do it. That's not how God's plan of salvation works at all. Listen to what Paul says, Roman 3:21. "But now a way to be right in God's sight - - say the next four words apart from human works." You see that. Now, a way to be right with God apart from human works has been made available to us through faith in Jesus Christ in God's mercy. It's free, this way to get right with God. It's

10 free through the redemption that's found in Jesus Christ whom God made an atoning sacrifice for us. Where did Jesus become an atoning sacrifice for you and me? On the cross that's exactly right. And how do we access this free, merciful, atoning, wonderful redemption? Look at what Paul says in Romans 3:25. He says we do that, we access it, we appropriate it by faith in, by relying on, by trusting in His, Jesus' blood. Shed on the cross, paid for our sins, instead of trusting in our own human effort, our own human works, our own human activity, our own religious deeds. Everybody got it? Okay. Verse 20. "For by human works shall next two words no one." Do you see that? "Shall no one become right in God's sight." And this is what Titus Chapter 3 says. It says, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done I don't have care what they are but by His mercy." Where was that mercy of God expressed? Where was it? On the cross. "By his mercy God saved us." So this is what the Bible is telling us. That human effort is nice. There's nothing wrong with being good. There's nothing wrong with trying to keep the 10 Commandments. There's nothing wrong with recycling. There's nothing wrong with sitting in the woods going om, om. But none much that gets anybody any closer to heaven because God doesn't accept human works as the way to get to heaven, He only accepts the atoning sacrifice of Christ on our behalf and we appropriate that work of Christ on the cross by taking our trust off of every human activity we've ever trusted to get into heaven and placing our full trust, our full reliance on Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross, plus nothing. Not plus the rosary, not plus being Bar Mitzvah d, not plus anything. Are you with me? Are you with me? >> CONGREGATION: Yes.

11 >> PASTOR LON SOLOMON: Okay. That's so critical that we understand that. Now, let's say we do that. Third, Paul answers the question, Well, what are the results of accepting God's plan of salvation? Romans 5:1, "Therefore, Paul says, having been justified to having been declared right in God's sight, having been declared acquitted, having been pronounced righteous in God's sight. This is what this word means. It's a courtroom word. It's like the Judge bangs the gavel and says, acquitted, not guilty, charges dismissed. Having been declared righteous in God's sight by faith, look what we have. Not only do we have that, which is great, but we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. through whom [Christ] we have been given say the next three words access to God. And by whom? Christ. We stand in this - - what? New gracious position with God. You say, I don't know, Lon, that's a long verse and to me it sounds like (making noise.) Well it's not that complex. Let me explain it to you. Paul simply says when we give our life to Christ, we get three great things in addition to going to heaven. Number one, we get peace with God. Now, don't misunderstand. This is different than the peace of God. See, the peace of God, Philippians Chapter 4, is when we take all of our burdens and all of our problems and we give them all to the Lord Jesus and in place of that He takes our burdens and He gives us experientially the peace of God in our heart that says, I got it. You don't have to worry about it. I'm here. I got this under control. This is not what we're talking about here. This is not the peace of God. This is peace with God. Meaning, God buries the hatchet. Meaning, we and God sign a peace treaty. Meaning we and God smoke the peace pipe. Do you understand what I'm saying? There's no more condemnation between God and us. There's no more going to hell. The war is over. We're not enemies anymore. Everybody understand that? We get peace with God.

12 Number two, we get - - Paul says, "We get access to God." There's no more separation between us and God. No more alienation between us and God. We have direct access to God. We don't have to go through a priest, a pastor, anybody. It's us directly accessing God. And this is what Romans 5:10 says, "We have now been reconciled to God through the death of His Son." You remember how when you first came to Christ and all of a sudden God just seemed to come alive in your life? It was like somebody flipped on a light switch and God was everywhere. You could talk to Him and He was alive. Well, what happened? Well, you got access to God you didn't have before because you came to Christ. Finally, number three, what do we get? We get a new gracious position with God. We are now His adopted children in the Lord Jesus Christ. And folks, don't kid yourselves that there is a sense in which the whole world has this position. Look what the Bible says. It says, "When we come to Christ, we have received the spirit of adoption as sons and daughters by which we cry out to God, Abba! Father! Meaning, we're now in a close personal relationship with God that we didn't have before and He now is happy to be called our personal father. He's adopted us through Christ into his family. Romans 8:16, "For the spirit of God Himself bears witness with our spirit that we have become what? children of God. Don't you kid yourself and think that the whole world, everybody in the world is a child of God. I know they tell you that on television. It just ain't so. To the contrary, every human being in the world is one of God's creatures. Yes. But you and I only become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. That's the only way He adopts people into His family. This is why John 1:12 says, "But to as many people as receive Him, [that is the Lord Jesus] to them and I might add, to them alone God gave the right to become the children of God."

13 So you have a new position with God. You're His child. Now how cool is that? Because He's your Father, you can call him Abba, which in Hebrew means Daddy. Because we're His child, it means that He cares about the details of our life in a way that He doesn't care about everybody else's details. God bless you. I'm sure your children are sweet. I don't care about the things in their life as much as I do about the things in my own children's life. Do you? If you say yes, you're not telling the truth. It's that simple. We care about our own children the most, right? Can we just be blunt and honest? Yes, we do, we try to be nice to other people's children, it's a challenge sometimes, but we try to be nice to their children. But it's our children that we will go to the mat for; right? Well, God's the same way, friends. When you join His family, you become one of the people God goes to the mat for. Do you understand? Yeah, praise the Lord for that, huh? Amen. So that's what we get, along with a lot of other things. But Paul goes on to answer one more question. That is, is anyone exempt from needing God's plan of salvation? Now, lots of people will tell you they are. Jewish people will tell you they have a separate arrangement with God, that hell is a Gentile problem. That's what my Rabbi told me when I was growing up. That was a Gentile problem. We're all going to heaven. I said, really? That's great. I said, Whether you come to synagogue or not? He said, Yeah. So that's pretty much the last time I showed up. I mean, why go if you don't need to go. Yeah? Yeah. He's wrong. That's not right. And other people will tell you, we're all going to heaven. Everybody is going to heaven. We don't need Jesus Christ. We have our own way. What does the Bible say? Look what Paul said, Romans 3:9, "We have already made the case that Jews and Gentiles alike are What's the next word? all under sin." Romans 3:23, "There is no difference for who? All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."

14 One more, I can give you others, but Romans 11:32 "For God has concluded, ALL men under disobedience so that He may be able to offer mercy to all." Do you understand what Paul is saying here? Paul is saying if there was a way you could get to heaven, that you didn't need God's plan of salvation, that means you don't need God's mercy and that means there would be people in heaven who got there some other way besides God's mercy. And God says, oh, no. Every single person in heaven, they're going to be able to say they got here one way and one way only, and that's My mercy. That's why I conclude them all under sin, because they really are, but I do that so I can offer mercy to all and the people who get to heaven are the people who take it. "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, Titus 3:5, but by His mercy in faith." Do you understand? If you're in heaven, you're going to be there for one reason and one reason only. God offered you mercy, because you and I needed it, and you were smart enough to take it. That's why you're there. So Paul's answer to everything we need to know, the bottom line about does anybody not need this plan of salvation? It doesn't matter if you're Jew or Gentile, whether you're Buddhist or Muslim, whether you're a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker doesn't make a bit of difference. God says, "We all need God's plan of salvation to avoid his internal condemnation and to escape hell." And there's just period, period, exclamation point on this. That's just the way it is. So, folks, this is the fastest summary of the theological Book of Romans you will ever find in your whole life. You all followed me; right? You stayed with me? Good, you got it. All right. Now, it's in the second half of the Book of Romans that we find a cornucopia of Christian life proof that the Apostle Paul talks to us about. Everything from absolute surrender to Christ, Romans 12:1 and 2; to humility, Romans 12:3; to not returning evil for

15 evil, the end of the Book of Romans Chapter 12; to personal holiness, Romans 13; to accepting other people the way they are, Romans 14. And on and on. And I urge you to get into the second halves of all of these letters of Paul. Because if you go through the second half of every one of Paul's letters, there will not be one area of Christian living that you and I have not been properly instructed on in the ends of his letters. Okay. Now, that's as far as we're going to go in the letter to the Romans. But we have a really important question to ask, don't we? Yes, we do. I know you guys are loud, because sometimes I can hear you over at Tyson's from Prince William. But we're going to prove it today; right? Okay. So all you guys at Tyson's, and all you guys at Bethesda, and all you guys at Loudoun, and all you guys at The Edge, and all you guys around the world on the internet, I want you to see if you can do it as loud as Prince William is about ready to do it. Here we go. 1, 2, 3. >> CONGREGATION: So what? >> PASTOR LON SOLOMON: That was sweet. Way to go. All right. Now, you say, Lon, so what? Well, friends, look, I don't know how you can miss a so what of the Book of Romans. It seems pretty clear to me. The So What? of the Book of Romans is that every single person here, every single person listening to my voice, every single person on the face of the globe needs the plan of salvation in Christ that God mercifully created for us. Doesn't that seem like a pretty clear so what to you? In light of that, let's just, to make sure we got it, review very quickly the four cogent points Paul made in Chapters 1-11 in the plan of salvation. Here we go, point number one is that we're all sinners in the sight of a Holy God. For all of us have sinned, Romans 3:23, and fallen short of the glory of God.

16 Point number two that he made, is that this puts us on a collision course with God's eternal condemnation, For the wages of sin is death... Eternal death, death in hell for all of eternity. Don't let anybody tell you that's not where people outside of Christ are going. That is exactly where they are going the Bible says. Number three, cogent point number three, is that God has created a free way out for us through what Jesus did for us on the cross. For the wages of sin is death, but... What a great word, huh? That word is worth your soul. That word. But, but, the free gift of God look at this is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. Man, I thank God for that but, don't you? I better stop here because, you know, there's a little bit of a different meaning. But that's an important but; right? With one T. Okay. Now, point four is this, that we access this free way out by faith in, by relying on, by trusting in Jesus' blood shed on the cross to be our atoning sacrifice for sin, plus nothing. So how do you activate this? Well, friends, same way I did 44 years ago; we transfer our trust, everything that we've been relying on up to this point to get us into heaven and up to the word on the cross alone. You know, I met somebody after the first service and this lady said to me, well, I'm trying to get there, she said I'm having trouble with trust. I said, Well, ma'am, I don't mean to be offensive, but you're already trusting something to get you into heaven. She said, What do you mean? I said, If I asked you how do you plan to get into heaven, you'd tell me something; right? You'd tell me you're keeping the 10 commandments, you're trying to be a nice person or, you know, you're working hard to come to church. You're trusting something already; right?

17 She said, I guess I am. I said, Well, then all I'm telling you is that salvation is about getting that trust and putting it at the right place. That's all it's about. Instead of having it at the wrong place, which is where most people have it, getting it to the right place meaning it's on Christ and not on you. Everybody with me? If you're sitting here today and you believe there's a heaven, you're trusting something to get you there. You may never have thought about it, but you are. All I'm telling you is if it's not Jesus's work on the cross, whatever your trust in it, it's wrong. It won't work. It's going to land you in hell. You say, Lon, be straight with me. All right. It won't work and it will land you in hell. That's what I'm here to tell you. But, if you transfer it to trust in Christ, it won't land you there. It will land you into being God's child with access to God, and peace with God, and declared not guilty before God. And the day you leave this earth, the next breath you take will be on the shores of heaven with Christ, praise God, and it's all about just putting your trust in the right place. Okay. So my question to you as we close is: Have you done that? And if you haven't, are you willing to? Because we're going to give you the chance right now. Let's bow our heads. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, here's all we're going to do is I'm going to lead us in a very short prayer. You're going to pray silently, I'm going pray out loud one phrase at a time and we're going to simply transfer your trust off of whatever it is now and on to the blood of Christ and the atoning sacrifice He made for you and me on the cross. So here we go. You pray silently, I'll pray out loud. Lord Jesus, I come to you today to access the plan of salvation that You made for me in Christ. And today I renounce every other remedy that I've ever trusted in to get me into

18 heaven and earn me eternal life. And I transfer that trust on to Jesus Christ and His shed blood and His atoning work on the cross for me. Plus nothing. Come into my heart today, forgive me for my sins. Pronounce me justified in your sight. Make me a child of God and give me a new life in Christ while I'm awaiting heaven. Honor the transfer of trust I give today in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. >> Listen, if you prayed that prayer with Lon this morning, there's a couple things I want you to do. One, we want to know if you prayed that prayer. If you prayed that prayer would you have the courage to raise your hand right now so we can pray for you this week. If you praised that prayer, there's no better place to say you're Christian than here. We're all excited to hear that. Right after the service, if you prayed that prayer, we'd like you to go across the Lobby to the Connect Room, where we have a gift for you that will give you all the tools to really begin walking with God. Even if you're just starting to figure this out, this would be a great tool for you to get, to go over and get one of these boxes. Also, we want you to sign up for Christianity 101 over there. That's going to be the way to begin to change your life and watch God really work through every step with these teachers. It's a short program, but something you really need. Now, if you didn't pray that prayer, but you thought about it, then we want you still to go across the Lobby and - - you can do my job, right? Sign up for Christianity 101. Go across there and sign up for Christianity 101 so you can figure this thing out. Take some time listening and talking with others and get your questions answered. There's nothing more important for you to do. Listen, we thank God for you guys coming here. Have a great Super Bowl Sunday, all right? Thank you.

19 [Music] ******** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ********