Our sermon text reading this morning comes from Acts 8 verses 26 through 40. But a name will, Lord, spoke to Philip saying, get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is the dead road. So he got up and went. And there was an Ethiopian unique, a court official of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all of her treasure. And he had come to Jerusalem to worship. And he was returning and setting in his chariot and was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, go up and join this chariot. Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said, do you understand what you are reading? And he said, well, how could I, unless someone guides me? He invited Philip to come up and set with him. Now the passage of Scripture, which he was reading was this. He was led as a sheep to slaughter, and as a lamb before its share is silent, so he does not open his mouth. Inhumiliation, his judgment was taken away. Who will relate his generation for his life is removed from the earth? The unique answered Philip and said, please tell me to whom does the prophet say this, of himself or someone else. Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning from this Scripture, he preached Jesus to him. As they went along the road, they came to some water, and the unique said, look, water. What prevents me from being baptized? He ordered the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the unic, and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away, and the unit no longer saw him, that went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at asitus, and as he passed through, he kept preaching the gospel to all the cities until he came to Caesarea. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Please pray with me, how precious is your loving kindness, O God, and the sons of men take refuge in the shadow of your voice. You give them to drink of the abundance of your house, and you cause them to drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we see light. So Father, now I take those promises for me word, and I pray them over this sermon, and over every soul that you gathered in this room right now. But this morning, by the power of your Spirit, you would enlighten minds and hearts to see the light of the knowledge of your glory in the face of Jesus Christ, so that unbelievers who have entered this room with their minds darkened, but in the grace and power of your Holy Spirit, be enabled to see the light of Jesus Christ this morning. And for those already your people, Father, how I pray that we would drink more deeply of the abundance of your house and the river of delights that the gospel brings to us and that Jesus Christ has been to us and increasingly is found to be by us. So strengthen your church, dear Father, this morning, even as you add to her number. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, it staggers my mind to consider all of the different pieces that need to be in just the right place, at just the right time, in just the right way, for the encounter that is recorded in our passage to unfold. In order for this conversation, this gospel conversation to happen, in order for the Unix conversion to happen, here's what needs to happen at just the right place, in just the right way, at just the right time. I Greek speaking Christian named Philip, who loves outcasts and who has a heart for those who are separated and on the fringe of faith. He has to be traveling on a desert road, the same desert road, in the middle of nowhere that is being used by a fellow traveler who happens to be in a chariot. Now it's been a long time since I had algebra, but I want you to think about this. I've got a traveler on foot, I've got a guy in a chariot who originates their journeys in different places and travel at different rates of speed. How unlikely is it for them to meet together in the same place, very unlikely? But that's not all, there's more. This man in the chariot is returning to Ethiopia. He's been in Jerusalem to worship, and because he happens to be a unic, he was not permitted when he went to Jerusalem to enter the temple any farther than the court of the Gentiles, and so as he's coming back from Jerusalem, it's pretty clear that he is thinking a lot about what that means for him. But there's more. As Philip approaches his chariot, this Ethiopian appears to be studying and is studying a 700-year-old text from the Old Testament. Just happens to be reading it out loud and Philip approaches him on foot and asks him if he knows what he's reading. It so happens that this text is the clearest Old Testament prophecy of Jesus Christ's crucifixion and his resurrection. Now for all those, any one of those things, you could take any single one of those things and say, it's amazing. But when you weave them all together on top of one another and in a way that produces the coherent outcome that happens in this passage where the Ethiopian is brought to faith in Jesus Christ, what you have to do at the very beginning, as we say this passage, is stand back in awe of the sovereignty of God and his kindness in seeking out the Ethiopian and in bringing Philip to him. It is awesome. So last week, what we did is we looked at Philip's side of this conversation that happens, didn't we? And we saw that when we're thinking about the sovereignty of God, a mistake that people so often make and which I love to correct when I get the opportunity, is that a high view of the sovereignty of God ends that your actions, my actions, aren't that important? We're just a bunch of robots and automatons who do things with no significance really. We're just chess pieces that God moves across the table. And we saw from Philip's example that that is absolutely not the case at all. The Bible never struggles with the happy marriage between God's sovereignty and the importance the essential nature of our freedom in acting. And so Philip shows us somebody who knows how to live opportunistically and boldly along the revealed lines of God's will. See, Philip shows us that what it means to embrace a biblical view of the sovereignty of God is you say, okay. God has God revealed his will to be and then I am going to move down that line. I'm going to bring my life in alignment with this. So Philip gave us this great opportunity, particularly as believers, to reflect on the significance of evangelistic encounters and our role in them. We saw that Philip is obedient. He listens carefully to the Lord and he also has studied well for this encounter that he didn't actually even know what's going to happen, right? Well this morning what I want to do is I want to think about the lessons from the unix side of this conversation. It is a precious window onto the power of the gospel to reach an outcast life. And I have been very encouraged by it this week and I hope you will be as well. Just as Philip shows us how to live opportunistically to share the gospel, the unic, and this is particularly a word for you if you're an unbeliever here this morning, the unic is somebody who you really ought to study carefully to see what it means to live and respond opportunistically to the offer of the gospel because that's why God brought you here this morning. You may think that you're going to lunch at somebody's house but I know I am very confident that actually here's morning to come under his word and to hear the news that God doesn't exclude units anymore because he's made a provision for the outcasts and the separated and the alienated through his son Jesus Christ. And so I'm grateful to God for the opportunity to share this news with you this morning. The first lesson I want to think about with you is how God is the one who prepares us for the gospel. And in some ways this is a carryover from last week's message. But I want you to think about the unic situation here. God has obviously been at work in the unic life long before Philip ever shows up on a scene right? And that's a remarkable feature of this account that the unic is already occupied with questions that are totally necessary as a foundation for gospel conversation to begin. Isn't he? He's already wondering about Isaiah. He's already wondering who is this servant in Isaiah 53? Philip's response to him merely completes something that God has done for a long time already in Philip's life, excuse me in the next life. That is a very encouraging fact to me as somebody who wants to grow in sharing a Christ with unbelievers and as a church that wants to grow in encountering unbelievers and sharing the gospel with them and initiating gospel conversations with unbelievers. This is a great encouragement to us. It gives you so much hope to be reminded that we are never the pioneers in anybody's life. God is always and everywhere working in every single person's life to an extent at a level and at a depth that is beyond our wildest imagining. We fake in our arrogance that we know the full story of somebody's soul just because we work with them and we've talked to them a couple times. That is so dumb. Can I say that? I mean, that obviously wasn't true in our lives. There were questions on a screen of my soul long before, long before, for the Peter's ever shared the gospel with me in Japan. And the same is true for each of you. It is so encouraging what a hope-building thought to realize that God, whether or not the person admits it, see this is where we get tripped up, whether or not the person ever admits it. We know as the people of God that our Heavenly Father works all things after the Council of His will at all times, Ephesians 1 to 11. So we ought to have a lot of confidence that as we approach somebody in a conversation, when God has laid that person on our heart and we have a message of the gospel to give to them that there is a context already in that life that you and I are not responsible for developing, but that God Himself has developed already in that person's life. It's not for us to know somebody's whole story. It is for God, right? What a hope-building thing, what a humbling thing, too. Because some of them we did cocky, I'll speak for myself, just want to explain, help you understand. And God is the one who does work, right, is humbling to know that somebody is humbling as well as hope-building to know that somebody else's conversion in the end is not my responsibility. I'm powerless to affect the change that needs to happen. The part that God has given me to do, and it's an integral part, is to be faithful in praying for them and in witnessing Scripture to them, but they're not my project more than their God's. Okay? Now, unbelievers, I hope that encourages you as well. I hope it encourages you. It may actually threaten you to hear this at this point, but I believe by the end of the message you'll have a lot of material to be encouraged by. To remind you is privileged this morning that the living God is at work in your life. He was at work in your life to bring you here this morning, beyond your wildest imagining. And he's brought you here just as certainly as he led the eunuch down that desert road to meet with Philip. Now you'll notice, Philip had two supernatural things happen to hook up with the eunuch, right? Had the angel speak to him? And then he had the spirit land his heart that he needed to approach the chair. But the eunuch had no such overtly supernatural direction, did he? And maybe you haven't either. But notice, and don't take it for granted, that God is the one who has arranged that meeting just as he is the one who had arranged for your presence here. And I think that should greatly encourage you because God is very kind. As I was reflecting on this this week, it hit me very powerfully at how kind God is to have sent Philip to meet the Ethiopian. God goes to a lot of trouble if I can say it that way to read a single person. I think that all the things that God has to ordain and coordinate and carry out in order for a single man to hear the gospel. What kindness? So a single man can discover and hear the news that he specifically is forgiven. So that he specifically can know that even though he's a eunuch and has been disqualified from something about his history, that he is powerless to change that now in Jesus Christ God has done something so radical that he is now free to take up those promises. And I say 56 that Jim read, and to hear from God's own lips, never let the eunuch A behold I am a dry tree anymore because you're not. If you're joined to Jesus Christ, that God would go to all this trouble so that one man could take up that promise just blows me away. Same thing is true. You think about everything that God has done and you're like to get you here this morning. What kindness? You are very important to God. You matter. You matter. A tremendous amount to God more than you know, but even more than you matter, Jesus Christ matters to the Father. And so God delights to bring people into places and to put them in situations where he can ignite the glory of his Son and honor Jesus Christ and bring glory to him as Savior and Redeemer people. And ultimately Jesus Christ's mattering to God more than even you and I matter to him is our greatest hope. So God is actively kind this morning. And I wonder, I have been praying that this will be the case, but I wonder if you will leave here rejoicing just like the unit did after his encounter with Philip. Now the path to joy, this is a second lesson, the path to joy begins with humility, humility. That's what we see so dramatically in the unit. The gospel is for the humble. God does the preparing. He ordains that you will come under the influence of the gospel and the hearing of word of God. But who is it that the gospel is for? The gospel is for the humble we learn from the unit. Let's just think about his background because this is pretty amazing that the unit would be so incredibly humble. His background wouldn't seem calculated to produce humility, would it? I mean, he's a man of influence. He has a very important job. He's the secretary of the treasury at Kingdom of Ethiopia. He's a wealthy man. He has power. He is intelligent. He has skills. He's even a pious man. He studies Isaiah. Those usually aren't the kinds of things that produce humility. He has a profile of somebody that you would think would never be teachable, doesn't he? And yet, and that is what makes him so striking in his humility, do you notice how humble he actually is? Who puts yourself in a chariot and you've got a driver of the chariot, you're not driving the chariot yourself because he orders the chariot to stop, which means, right? This is like a hummer-style chariot. And this stranger runs up alongside your chariot and says to you, has the audacity to call out to you. Do you know what you're reading? And rather than with him, rather than drive on right past him, he says, well, how could I, unless someone guides me? Different socioeconomic class, different ethnic group, different power places, amazing. He's already studying the Bible in order to learn. He admits he doesn't understand, verse 31, he asks for a teacher. How often in your life when you're caught in the middle of not knowing something, as somebody wants to correct you or offer to teach you how many times you say, I got it, I got it, I got it. And you're lying to him. Why? Because we're so proud. We're so proud. And nothing, nothing is more calculated to reveal the depths of our pride and when it comes to spiritual matters. And the unit is not proud at all. This man is on the road to being set free by Jesus Christ and that road begins with humility. It begins with teachability. It begins with the willingness to admit he doesn't know something. It begins with the willingness to admit he may be mistaken and he, an elevated person may need a teacher. Don't be the kind of unbeliever that I was. I was a nightmare. I had very passionately held convictions. I know that comes as a surprise to you as an unbeliever but that rested almost exclusively when I was really honest and evaluated them on the second hand opinions of others. Whether it was my parents or whether it was experts or so-called experts or teachers. I had this passionate structure and rationalized arguments for unbelief but in the end what they were founded on was hearsay. And I'm here to tell you that you can and will go to hell forever if hearsay is all you trust. Don't be that kind of unbeliever. Don't be like that. Be like the unit who says, I don't understand this. Would you help me? Would you help me? There are two things that just jump out about the unity that are that if you want to be on the path to joy. If you want to be on the path to being set free but the power of God and Jesus Christ, there are two things that are utterly essential for you if you're an unbeliever. One is the Bible. You notice that from the Unix example? He's studying the Bible. Now this is such an obvious fact but it is so often overlooked. It was overlooked by this guy when I was an unbeliever. You cannot evaluate Christianity without reading the Bible just. You cannot evaluate Christianity whether you think you're going to be in a position to refute it or to receive it. You can't do either of those things without the Bible, okay? So if you're really serious, if you're not just blowing smoke like Mike Francis was when he was 18, if you're really serious about this then the Bible has to be part of the equation. Have you actually, here's one that was a question I hated to receive. Have you actually read the Bible? I love that. I love being lectured by unbelievers about what's in the Bible. God helps those who help themselves, Mike. Excuse me. That would be Porture's Almanac, Benjamin Franklin. Have you actually read the Bible? And if so, how much? Have you read it with your heart in the posture of an angry critic or like the unic, humble seeking? God doesn't have to prove anything to anybody. He's never in the dock, he is never the defendant. So don't you go to the Bible as an angry critic with a prosecutor's glare and expect him to shower you with his kindness. A human's posture before God must always be this, teach me, teach me. If you go to the Bible and you ask God to teach you, he will. See, that's humility to say, teach me. The way most of us deal with God as unbelievers is, let me tell you something, right? We've forgotten who we're dealing with. So I have good news for you. If you are serious about this, this church has lots of opportunities for you to study the Bible. There are Sunday school classes where we study the Bible. There are life groups for men, women, couples with kids, without kids. There are all kinds of opportunities during a week for you to study the Bible to be in a place where you can actually be in the Word of God. And if you're really serious, please put yourself in a position where you'll be taught and where you'll learn what the Bible actually says. Please do not be content with caricatures, right? The unic wasn't. He was wrestling. Now believers, as a reminder to us, right, that when we interact with unbelievers, it is absolutely central that we not simply talk about God, that we not describe the gospel in our own words, but we make sure that the Bible is central in any strategy that you follow with an unbeliever. You have got to get them to read the Bible. You have got to get them to be in the means of grace. It is not a means of grace for me to describe the outline of the plan of salvation. That won't save anyone. What is a means of grace, empowered by the Spirit, is the Word of God. This is the sword. If I just talk about the gospel with somebody, all I'm doing is drawing a sword on a piece of paper. Okay? It's not the same. So make sure that the Bible is central. This should give you great encouragement. Parents, as you deal with your kids, the Ethiopian Unic, I was so encouraged by this. When we get chapter 9 and we see Saul's conversion, now Saul's conversion is dramatic. I mean, the risen order in his glory appears to him on the road to Damascus. And wow, don't we always say that it happened to us at some level, but most conversions are not like that. Right? They're like the Unic's conversion, Bible open, friend, look at Jesus in the Word of God. Don't. He's set free. That encourages me as a parent to continue to be reading the Bible with my children. Make that couch a chariot bench and to say, let's just look again and to hope and to hope that God will do this. Make the Bible central. And the second thing, which is implicit in what I've said, that marks the Unic's humility, is the fact that you need, like him, you need to admit that you need help in order to understand. You need a teacher, you need a teacher, you need somebody who knows what he or she is talking about. And again, if you're looking for a teacher, lots of opportunities in this church to be around people who have walked with Christ who are not perfect and who are broken and who know what grace tastes like and who have been fed from the Word of God. And so you don't have to look very far to find a teacher. And if you don't have a Bible, I neglected to say this earlier. You come find me after the service and I'll make sure you have one today before you leave this property. So the gospel comes to the humble. The gospel is also our third lesson. The gospel is for the disqualified. This is what we learn from the Unic is that the gospel is for the disqualified. I can't even imagine how much tension the Unic must have been experiencing in his mind and in his heart as he was biting home from Jerusalem. Why do I say that? I say that because he was a Unic. Now that's a significant fact in the Old Testament, okay? And the tension arises from what appears to be promises or command of God that appears to be intention with a promise of God. Deuteronomy 23 verse 1 makes it very clear that any male who is a Unic may not enter the assembly of the Lord. It's very clear. So the Unic, by God's law, is excluded from the heart of the assembly of God's people because of something about his history that he probably didn't have any input over. I want you to think about that. Nobody volunteers to be a Unic, not in the ancient world. Probably had no control over it. At a minimum, it was something about his history that he was powerless to change. Got anything like that? Anything like that that you think of as a barrier that keeps you from moving towards God? You have something from your history that you cannot change. That you feel like is this insuperable barrier that you could never leap over that wall to enter the sanctuary of God's people. Is there something like that in your life? Why don't you keep listening? Because on the one hand, the Unic knew that text, undoubtedly knew that text. I mean, if he's a… I mean, I was thinking about this this week. You know, I'm a father, right? I'm a pastor. I'm a husband. So, texts in the Bible that relate to those three things, I know where they are. Now, when I read the Bible and I come to a father text, it's usually because I feel like such a failure, but I know where it is. The pastor texts, right? The husband texts, I know where those are, and I can imagine that a man like this who was a Unic would know the Unic texts. He would know them because they're about him. So, on the one hand, he's got this Deuteronomy 23 text, it's very clear. But on the other hand, there is a very, very powerful text. It so happens that's in Isaiah, which is the book he's reading, that we had for our Old Testament lesson. I want you to go back to page 7 in your bulletin. So, Deuteronomy 23 says, hey, you're a Unic. You're categorically excluded from the assembly of God's people, but Isaiah 56 has this promise of restoration for the Unic's that is so overwhelmingly generous. Look at this. Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, the Lord will surely separate from his people, nor this is God's command, nor let the Unic say, behold, I'm a dry tree. In other words, God is saying to the Unic, don't you ever say that your life is unfruitful. Why? Because, thus says the Lord, verse 4, to the Unics who keep my Sabbaths and choose what pleases me and hold fast my covenant to them. Now, think about this promise. For them I will give in my house what he was prevented from enjoying when he was in Jerusalem, in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than that of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off. Can you imagine how confused you would be if you knew Deuteronomy 23 one and you read this Isaiah 56 passage and you thought, how do I reconcile those? The one you say I'm excluded and in the very next you say there's going to be this awesome restoration where you're going to give me, you're going to make me have a name in your house in the assembly of your people that will never be cut off. That is quite a puzzle. Wouldn't that frustrate you? Or would it make you look for a resolution? How is God going to bring about the fulfillment of that promise in Isaiah 56? Because if you're a unic and you've been excluded and you read a promise like that, you smell freedom and joy. You want that. And I think the answer to the puzzle is exactly what the unic is reading which is Isaiah 53. You see he disqualified by Deuteronomy 23. He disqualified from fellowship with God because of something in his history he's powerless to change. And yet God promises in Isaiah 56 that he'll be anything but disqualified anymore. And the answer is that he is reading Isaiah 53 and this is where Phil starts because Isaiah 53 right is the tale, the prophecy of the sin bearer and God will provide. There's only one way that the unic can be qualified that any unic can be qualified to enter the assembly of God's people and that is for God himself to enter right to change what the unic is powerless to change and he does that as he promises in Isaiah 53 God as we read about in Isaiah 53 why don't you go there with me we had it as our Old Testament lesson last week but I want you to see this because it is so glorious and can you imagine having Philip explain these verses to you right God what unlocks the unic's joy is the news that God himself has provided a flawless defectless substitute to so identify with the defective and the alienated and the separated that he bore all their griefs and all their sicknesses and all their defects to be under the judgment himself that alienated all those people and God because of their imperfections right that was ultimately the reason that the unic was excluded from the assembly in Deuteronomy 23 one because the presence of God could bear no flaws right the lambs that were offered had to be without blemish why because God was perfect right and Isaiah 53 tells the story of a flawless substitute who God has put forward for all the unics and all the flawed and all the defective people in the world to take all their griefs all their sorrows to so identify with all their imperfections that he became in their place a curse bearer on the cross and to satisfy all the demands of God's law and God's righteousness so that in offering himself he satisfied all the needs that people who are alienated from that had with God in order to approach God that's what Philip hears in Isaiah 53 and he's identified by Philip as Jesus Christ and the unic hears this news he hears the news at verse four tells surely our griefs himself for in our sorrows he carried yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken smitten of God and afflicted the unic the unic is hearing the news that just as you Mr. Unic were considered by the authorities to be cast off and separated from God so God's own servant came and allowed himself to be cut off so that you might be grafted in what an awesome promise now the answer is exactly the same by the way for us because we are all you and I are just like the unic we're just like the unic in this sense my friends we were designed by God to be fruitful to live our lives to bear fruit for him but what sin has done in each of our lives is it has mutilated our souls has deformed us it has it has broken the image of God in our lives and it has made us dry trees who don't bear fruit for God we bear fruit apart from Jesus Christ we don't bear fruit for God right but we bear fruit of is sin and so we're just like the unic in the sense of being powerless to change our own history powerless to remedy what separates us from God do you know that about yourself by the way I mean do you know do you know yourself to be in your own standing in your own right totally disqualified from fellowship with God do you know that have you embraced that do you know that when you sin you are separated from God there's a there's an alienation that happens and do you know that you are powerless the Bible says to remedy that I mean you you you have a response when you hear that when we hear things like I'm separated I'm behind I'm failing to meet the standard our heart tells us okay work harder do better learn the rules and just move up but that's an unbridgeable gap unbridgeable you're powerless but here's what the good news is right what's impossible with man is possible with God Jesus and so just as the unic look to this servant of Isaiah 53 so you and I can look to Jesus knowing that he is the one who wears the robes described in Isaiah 53 and on the basis of his life in your place his death in your place and his resurrection in your place somebody's taken all the defects away and remove them as an obstacle for you to enjoy fellowship with God in your place he has bridged that gap so that now you stand here not separated from God and that when you come to Christ and you acknowledge that you haven't lived a fruitful life for God then you say I was under an obligation to do that you're my creator you're entitled to set the rules and I broke them every single day of my life I didn't give you fruit that you deserved I grew fruit and I wanted it for myself sometimes I stole it from others sometimes I trampled the fruit in other people's lives but I certainly didn't give it to you if you acknowledge that and you embrace Jesus Christ with sorrow for your sins and hope in his work alone then guess what happens in that moment you're not a dry tree anymore in that moment it's that simple for you to take up it was a funny thing this week as I was as I was working I've got this outbuilding on our property that were my office sits right and there's a window just one and I look at well actually the two but I work at one and every time I was working on this sermon it's great funny think about the unique this enormous butterfly would appear in front of my window I mean this thing is huge I had the wingspan of stealth bomber I mean it was gigantic and I saw it on Monday I worked again on Tuesday Friday and yesterday and it showed up every time and it would just be how's time my window going like this going like this and yesterday as I looked at this thing I thought that thing was once a worm with legs I thought you know if you weren't an earthling sorry if you weren't from this planet I would just go Berkeley so I'm entitled to those kinds of fanaties if you weren't from the earth or you hadn't had the experience where you'd seen a caterpillar become a chrysalis and from a chrysalis a butterfly emerge you would not believe that that was possible right because what possible connection does a worm with legs that has to crawl everywhere by little steps to get some or what connection does that have with this beautiful swallow tail butterfly that can fly to the top of the trees the change that happens in somebody's life when you acknowledge before God that you have lived life separated from him and that you now see his provision for you in Jesus Christ and then what he asked you to do is let go of your sins just let them go they're not attractive they don't they don't give you anything they don't help you to let go of your pride to let go of your self-aligned so just let it go to don't think you can stop thinking you can solve it yourself or hide it but to let it go and to place them on the back by faith of Jesus Christ who bore them on the cross the change that will come in your life makes that difference between that caterpillar and that butterfly look like nothing because when you do that my friends that means that your whole soul has been renewed by the power of God's grace and his spirit and you have gone from being separated from the living God to being his adopted child who now stands before him free and forgiven and welcomed and embraced and loved why why would you not receive that gift why would why would you not move towards him as he has moved towards you see the question you have to answer if you're an unbeliever is same question that the unit asks he says after Philip tells him all this he says what prevents me from being baptized why would I not do this right now he gets it why would you delay you need to ask yourself I want to ask you what prevents you from moving toward Jesus Christ in repentance for your sins and in faith to see his work on your behalf this morning is it is it that your sins are attractive to you is that what it is is that what prevents you from moving towards him well how much have they really given you and at what cost
is it that you feel your sins are too great and too many to be forgiven you need to take your eyes off yourself and to fix them on Jesus Christ because what is it that you could find defective or too weak in the Son of God in his life and in his death and in his power not to answer for your sins I mean come on is there any situation in which you can overpower God so don't you dare devalue the worth of Jesus Christ in his power by claiming pridefully I might add that your sins are too great for him to forgive is it that you think you're ignorant and you need to learn some things while we all are ignorant we all need to learn a lot but think about what you do know do you know your center do you know your sin separates you from God do you know you can't remedy that breach do you know God has provided a substitute or do you do you begin to believe do you feel like the dawn of the light of belief is happening in your heart right now and that that substitute is Jesus Christ who God has provided do you believe that and are you willing are you willing to entrust yourself to him if you know those things then you can enter the kingdom of God right now right now all you must do is call on the name of the Lord and be saved as we read in our call to worship friends I want this question to chase you around this week to pursue you what prevents me from accepting God's loving invitation to leave life as a dry tree behind and to be joined to him through his son Jesus Christ for eternity let me pray father now I believe your spirit has been a foot in this room and has drawn attention to your son Jesus Christ and I want to pray specifically and I know my brothers and sisters join me now in interceding for the unbelievers whom you've brought here this morning and specifically father that that you would draw forth from them the confession of the dryness of their lives and their unfruitfulness for you and that they would abandon all hope in themselves to remedy that and to receive your son Jesus Christ as a substitute faithful and righteous and more than sufficient to answer for your claims against them and would you grant them faith to rest upon him alone for their salvation before you this morning father I ask these things in Jesus name amen