I want you to turn your Bibles this morning to John chapter 4, verse 43 through 54.
!
Let's begin with prayer.
Our Father God, this morning as we take up your word together as a body of believers,
those who have been redeemed, whose sins have been forgiven because of the Lord Jesus Christ
and his sacrifice on the cross, those who have come by faith, having first of all been
convicted of the darkness and hopelessness of our sinful state, and recognizing that there
is nothing we could have ever done to earn your grace and your forgiveness.
We who have been drawn by your grace to become believers in the Lord Jesus Christ gather this
morning to worship you and to delight in the truth that you've given to us.
And we pray for the work of the Holy Spirit this morning that I would preach with his enabling,
that your people would hear with ears that are tuned by your Spirit,
and that those who sit in our fellowship this morning that have never come to faith in Christ,
some who are here and deceived by the enemy to believe that merely growing up in a Christian
home was adequate, some who may even at one point or another have made steps that they have been led to believe
are sufficient.
Father, those who are here that do not know Christ, we pray that your Spirit would convict them
and draw them to saving faith.
Father, those who are here that do not know Christ, we pray that your Spirit would be
and we ask that Jesus, who we delight in as our Savior, and the Holy Spirit delights in lifting up,
would be the one that is seen most clearly.
And we ask this together in Jesus' name.
We are in John chapter 4, and at the very end of this chapter, we come to a very interesting,
little picture that is important for you to understand.
Let me help you see the picture by stepping back, if you would, for a moment to John chapter 1.
So turn back in your Bible to John chapter 1, verse 10 and 11.
In 10 it says,
He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him.
Now stop and recognize that this person that John is speaking about,
in John chapter 1, verse 1 says,
He was in the beginning.
He was the Word.
He is the one who not only was at the beginning, but all things were made by Him,
and there is not anything that has been created that was not made by Him.
And yet this is the one that, as it says in verse 10,
the world has not identified and recognized.
Verse 11,
He came into His own.
Speaking about the nation, the Jewish nation, it says,
He came into His own, and His own people did not receive Him.
And so, from the very beginning,
and I want you to understand that in some senses,
the early part of John is kind of an overview.
It's a little bit like going to the beginning of a book,
and you turn to the index,
and that little part that introduction explains,
this is what the chapters are,
and the chapter headers give you more or less an idea of what's going to follow.
John chapter 1 tells us,
this is how the book is going to play out.
The underlying theme that John the Apostle wants us to have fixed in our heart
is that his book is written to bring us to the spot of recognizing
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that believing in Him we might have everlasting life.
With that kind of as that overarching theme,
you then find John step in to a couple early little incidents with Jesus,
and one is the changing of water into wine,
not something that was recognized by a great many people.
It was not something that kind of a high on the food chain in terms of public impact.
It was his first miracle.
Following that, he walks into Jerusalem,
and he cleanses the temple.
If he wondered about something impact,
that was certainly high impact.
He took care of the mess and the deceit
and the wickedness that was going on in the very center
of Israel, the temple itself.
And you would think that, well, that is a starting point.
Everything kind of would go forward from there,
and you would just see Jesus in his ministry
and his effect kind of just climbing up the ladder
one thing after another, leading to tremendous success.
However, if you come to the end of chapter 2,
and I want you to just turn there just for a moment,
it says this, that now when he was in Jerusalem,
this is verse 23,
at the Passover feast,
many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.
They were impressed by what they saw.
In fact, they liked some of those things.
I mean, healing.
How would you like to be able to receive healing
without having to go to a doctor,
just immediately taken care of,
and the problems disappear?
He did things that people loved.
And yet, as we read there, it says in verse 24,
Jesus, on his part,
did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people
and needed no one to bear witness about man,
for he himself knew what was in man.
He knew that the attitudes of those that he was ministering to
was really, hey, I'm interested in the miracle,
and I'm interested in the good things you're doing for me,
but I really am not interested in you stepping into my life
and taking over and being in control.
I like some of the things you do.
I don't want you to be in charge.
And so we work our way through,
and we then come to chapter 3 and 4
that give us this lengthy picture
of several different evangelistic incidents
and the outcome of those.
And remember, why did Jesus come into the world?
He came into the world, as it says in John chapter 1.
He came to be the Lamb of God.
And we know also from both Luke and other places,
it says he came into the world to save sinners.
And so in chapter 3, we have Nicodemus,
a ruler who came to Jesus by night and asked some questions,
and it ended up being this wonderful evangelistic opportunity.
We don't know from this part of the passage at this point
whether or not Nicodemus came to be a believer or not.
There's no indication of it.
All we know is he asked some questions.
He really didn't get it.
Chapter 4, on the other hand,
is a very interesting picture of Jesus as he is leaving Jerusalem
and going back to his hometown area.
He, as he is making this journey,
stops at a well in Sychar in Samaria,
and there he ends up having a lengthy conversation
with a woman who was a known, wicked, ungodly sinner.
And what's the outcome of that conversation?
She comes to faith.
And not only does she come to faith,
but immediately after coming to faith,
she runs into town and tells all those who would listen to her about Jesus,
is not this the Messiah?
And a lot of people there in Sychar believed in Jesus as a result,
and they came to see Jesus as well.
Additional people then flocked to meet Jesus where he was at the well,
and the outcome of all of that is that it seems that there is a rolling revival taking place,
and it's just beginning to kind of mushroom out and affect everybody,
all these believers in Samaria.
It's great news.
And you would think that from that little start,
we're on the roll,
and everybody's going to believe in Jesus,
and the story's going to end up happily ever after.
Wouldn't that be nice?
That's not how it works.
And John gives us a clear and accurate picture of how the ministry of Christ would play out in the days to follow.
And that's what we have in these verses,
picking up there in verse 43.
Let me read it to you and frame it,
and then we'll move through and see a couple different points that are important.
After the two days,
he departed for Galilee.
For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his hometown.
So as we look at this passage,
what we find John the Apostle doing is wanting us to understand something about evangelism.
Is that important for us as believers?
We've come to know Christ.
We have the blessing of having confidence in where our eternal destiny is.
We have joy.
I love the songs that we've sung this morning about the fact that when we know Christ,
there is joy and peace in our hearts.
And that's entirely true.
But not only do we have that blessing of knowing Christ as our Savior,
but we also have the responsibility of being witnesses to his grace.
Isn't that right?
I mean, the reason I am here and not up there
is for that principal purpose of sharing with other people the sweetness of the gospel
and the hope that they have of knowing Christ as their personal Savior.
And so you would think,
man, that's what it's all about.
And I would like to see how that's going to play out.
John says,
whoa, stop just for a minute.
Understand,
it's not always going to go the way you'd like.
And that's what we're looking at here
in verse 43,
44,
and 45.
We find that there were people that were all about his miracles,
but rejected his message.
There in 43,
it says he left.
He was going back to Galilee.
That's where his hometown was.
And in making this journey back,
we are given this little picture there in 44 of what we could expect would take place.
He'd spent two days in Samaria.
And Samaria had ended up being very,
very responsible to the gospel ministry of Christ.
Many people had come to believe in him.
And yet we are reminded here that as he is headed back for the area in which he grew up,
we understand that things weren't going to go the way they had gone in Samaria.
And here we're given this little reminder.
Don't always expect everything in relationship to your ministry to other people
to be as productive and as easy and as wonderful as what took place at the well with the woman.
I think it's important for us to keep in mind
that this attitude of disbelief was not just something of Galilee
because earlier when he was in Judea, in Jerusalem actually,
and he had been ministering there,
there as well he had not been really well received.
We saw that back in chapter 2.
As we noticed there, it says that,
hey, people believed.
They liked the miracles that they saw.
But the truth of the matter is they really did not come to faith in Christ.
They liked the external fruit.
They liked the physical blessings.
But they really didn't have faith.
And they were not all about having him expose their sins
and bring the darkness of their heart to light.
How do we know that?
Look for a moment, just for a turn back in your Bible, if you will,
go to John chapter 3 and look at verse 19, 20, and 21.
I think it's important for us to track this.
So turn back in your Bible.
We're dealing with the truth that Jesus in his ministry,
received by some but rejected by most.
And this is the judgment.
The light has come into the world,
and people love the darkness rather than the light,
because their works were evil.
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light,
and does not come to the light,
lest his works should be exposed.
For whoever does what is true comes to the light,
so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out by God.
And so as Jesus is ministering first in Jerusalem and not well received,
then for a moment, very favorably, in Samaria,
now he's going back to Galilee, his hometown,
and he makes this interesting little statement.
John writes this.
He says, listen, understand this,
that a prophet is not going to be received in his own hometown.
Now, there's a little discourse or a little discussion
whether or not that statement is,
a prophet is not received in his own hometown or his own home country.
Both could be the way it is, and it was true.
He was not received in his hometown,
and he was not received as a general principle in all of Israel.
And so as you stop and ask yourself the question,
why would that be?
Why would it be that Jesus,
the one who came to be the Savior of the world,
and came in particular, first of all, to the Jewish nation,
would not be received?
What would lead a person to be indifferent to their spiritual need?
I want you to think about that,
because all of us today are involved in ministry.
I'm talking to you who know Christ.
All of us are involved in working with individuals,
sharing, praying for them,
with an interest in seeing them come to faith.
What is it that makes them kind of tone deaf
to their spiritual need?
Well, I want you to recognize a couple things
in relationship to this.
One is this.
Sin is far more blinding and deadening than we might think.
I want you to turn in your Bible back to or forward.
You're in John, so just go to Romans 1, verse 21.
How does sin affect the sinner?
Romans 1, verse 21.
It says,
Although they knew God,
they did not honor Him as God.
Or give thanks to Him,
but they became futile in their thinking,
and their foolish hearts were darkened.
I want you to think about that for a moment with me.
It says here,
they became futile in their thinking.
How many of you have ever tried to do a math equation,
and you had some of the starting principles wrong?
You copied them wrong,
or you just didn't get your hands around the starting principles.
Anybody else besides me
have had that miserable experience?
And you keep on doing the problem,
and it just keeps on not working out.
The lack was,
you didn't understand the core issue.
Here's what it says.
They became futile.
They didn't get it.
And as a result of refusing the truth of who God is,
the outcome was that their thinking
became progressively darker and darker.
And do you think they recognized,
Man, I am descending into the abyss.
My thinking is getting worse and worse.
How many of you bump into people every day that say,
I am becoming a more wicked person?
Anybody?
The truth of the matter is,
is every time,
listen up,
everybody say,
they're following me here.
Every time we say no to what the Spirit of God convicts us of,
what's the outcome of that?
If we're a child of God,
He won't let us get away,
but what does it do?
It brings firmer dealings.
How many of you understand that?
That's for the believer.
For the unbeliever,
it just progressively dampens down.
The sensibility and sensitivity we have
to what God is in the process of teaching us.
And so here in Romans chapter 1,
it says,
their thinking became futile,
and their foolish hearts were darkened.
When we squelch,
the promptings of our conscience,
or His Holy Spirit,
things just get darker and darker in your heart.
And so when we think back to John chapter 4,
and we recognize the general reception that Jesus received,
you understand that as people were saying no,
no thank you,
I'm not interested,
I don't want you messing with me,
I don't want you interfering with my life,
and my own little idolatries.
Every time the nation of Israel,
and people all around said no to Jesus,
the consequences were that they were darkening their spirit.
And Jesus here understood what was going on.
So in the first part of our lesson this morning,
one of the things that I want you to recognize
is that you can sit under the teaching of the Word of God,
you can hear what God is saying,
and you can be part of this fellowship,
and yet not necessarily have come to faith
just because you have quieted,
you've squelched the ministry of the Spirit
and the convicting work of God in your life,
and it's a dangerous thing.
It's a dangerous thing.
Well, you go back there,
and it says,
so when He came to Galilee,
the Galileans welcomed Him,
having seen all that He had done in Jerusalem at the feast,
for they too had gone to the feast.
And we find that here,
and when He got back to the area that He'd grown up in,
everybody was glad to see Him,
but why were they glad to see Him?
Do you think they were saying,
hey, listen, I have this nasty sin problem,
and I really want you to do something
about the hard, dark heart that I have?
Most of the time,
people are willing to recognize
that there are problems in their lives,
but usually they think the problems are,
guess what?
Everybody else.
Jesus comes along and says,
hey, listen, the problem you have is sin in your heart,
and I'm here to help you with it.
No, thank you.
I don't want you to deal with that.
They wanted the miracles.
They wanted His attention,
but they were not willing to allow Him
to touch the reality of the root of the problem,
which is the darkness of their own heart.
And so when we find this little passage here,
verse 43 through 45,
it gives us a picture that I think is important
for us to understand.
Hey, listen,
not every time that you are engaged in ministry
to other people will the light bulb go on,
and will they immediately recognize
what God is doing and be drawn to the cross.
And for some of you who are sitting here this morning
who have loved ones that you care for
and you are praying for,
let me encourage you to know
that your ministry does not change
just because they don't receive it at the moment.
Christ knows what it's like to be rejected.
He knows what it's like to pour His heart
into individuals and have them turn their back.
That didn't change His heart
towards those people who rejected Him.
He persisted in His affection and His love,
and we in Christ's stead are to do the same.
It's important.
Let's come to the second part of the message this morning
and recognize another picture of conversion.
Verse 46 on to 54
is a little interesting story
that is radically different from the Samaritan woman.
How did the story go with the Samaritan woman?
Remember, Jesus sits down at the well,
a woman comes to visit,
he asks about water,
and from there on in,
the whole conversation goes over to this issue
of this woman coming to faith,
and then she scampers back into town,
and she says,
hey, you've got to come meet this guy,
and a lot of other people believe in Jesus as well.
Now, we have a completely different story.
And I want you to recognize
that one of the benefits
of this kind of completely different conversion picture
is that it reminds us
that the Holy Spirit's work
in drawing people to the cross
is quite varied,
and we've got to be careful
that we don't get in a little box
and say, well, this is the way it has to be.
You have to come to Christ
when you're four years old,
and your mother has to be the one
who is doing devotions in your home
and sharing the gospel,
and you have to pray in your bedroom.
Okay?
Or you have to have been
at a Billy Graham crusade.
Some of you have come to faith at a crusade.
Or you have to be at a youth group event.
Or you have to come down front.
I will never forget
sharing the gospel with an individual
as he was rolling in for surgery.
He had already heard
that he had cancer in his bowel,
and he was a hard-headed
German plant manager,
and strangely enough,
he said, his wife said,
you need to come and pray for this guy,
and I did.
I'm walking down the hall
towards the surgery,
and guess what I'm sharing with him?
I'm sharing the gospel with him,
and he started crying,
and he trusted Christ on the gurney.
Died six months later.
That's okay.
I'll see him in heaven.
I've seen people walk down the front,
and I remember someone saying to me,
I need Jesus.
Happens all different kinds of ways.
And we need to be reminded
of the diversity of ways
in which the Spirit of God works.
And that's what we see in this case.
We see another picture of conversion.
So let's kind of recognize
as we work our way through this story
of the different little signals
that give us indications
of the Spirit working
in this person's life.
We have the story there.
Here, an official comes to Jesus,
and his son was sick,
not just sick with the flu,
not just sick with a little bit
of a head cold,
but he was dying.
And so the man had made the journey
from where he lived
up to where Jesus was.
And the journey from Capernaum
to Cana was about 16 miles,
which would translate
into five or so hours.
And so I'm going to just,
think with me here
just for a minute,
how many of you here
walked five miles,
five hours one way
to visit anybody lately?
Anybody do that?
Five hours?
I mean, hey, we're stretching it
when we drive five hours
to visit somebody.
You know, it's like family.
And so here is a father
who is willing to walk
five hours one way
to talk to Jesus.
And when he shows up there,
we find there,
when this man heard
that Jesus had come
from Judea to Galilee,
he went up to ask
and he came and says,
hey, listen,
you've got to do something
for my son.
He's at the point of death.
So Jesus said to him,
unless you see signs
and wonders,
you will not believe.
Well, recognize,
first of all,
that the Spirit
is creative
in drawing people to faith
through challenges
and heartache.
Do you understand that?
There are some of you
sitting here this morning
that really are going
through some very difficult
moments in your life.
It seems like the pieces
are not just aligned properly.
And I want to challenge you
to think,
what is God at work
doing in your life?
If you're here
and you do not know Christ,
I want to encourage you
to recognize
that he may well be
using those heartaches
and those challenges,
those difficulties,
and those burdens
to bring you to the point
of recognizing
you can't solve
these problems by yourself.
And that's what happened
with this man.
I have no doubt
that before he decided
that it was reasonable
to take a five-hour hike
to see someone
that he'd never seen before,
that he probably had asked
every other resident medical expert
in the little town
that he was living in,
can you do something
for my son?
No.
He's dying.
Well,
I think it's reasonable
for me to take
a five-hour walk
so I can ask Jesus
if he'll do something for him.
So I want you
to understand this morning,
if you're here
and the weight of life
is pressing down on you,
it may be that
the Spirit of God
is using those heartaches
to draw you
to realize
that there is something
in your soul
that only Jesus
can care for.
I want you to recognize
something else,
that as you look at this,
you find out that
the heartache
and challenge
that this man
was facing
was something
that at least
prompted him
to realize
that Jesus
could be the answer.
Now,
if you go back
just for a moment,
back to John chapter 2,
and we all referred to it,
but I want you
to look at it again.
In John chapter 2,
verse 23,
it says that
many believed
in his name.
Now,
does that mean
that in this case
necessarily they were saved?
No,
not at all.
And the reason we know that
is because of what we read
in verse 24 and 25.
They believed in the power
that Jesus was manifesting.
They saw the evidence
of something supernatural
taking place,
but their belief
was not a belief
in Christ
as their personal Savior.
And so,
again,
in 3.2,
it says the man
came to Jesus
talking about Nicodemus.
He said,
Rabbi,
we know you're a teacher
come from God.
How do we know that?
Because no one
could do the signs
that you're doing
unless God was helping him.
See,
people saw
the power
of what Christ
was doing.
And this man
had heard the stories
and he recognized
that Christ
was someone
that could do
something unusual
and as a result
of that,
he wanted to see
Jesus face to face.
Now,
let me carry this over
into your life
just for a moment.
Do you realize
that you and I
are living examples
of the miraculous
power of Christ?
Do you realize?
Say that with me.
I do understand that.
When I look in the...
Stop.
Everybody look.
Hello.
Okay.
If you are here
and you are a child
of Christ,
you are a living
example
of the supernatural
power of Christ
to do something
that is beyond
human ability
and reason.
Am I right or wrong?
Hmm?
Yes or no?
If any man
be in Christ Jesus,
he is a...
I'm something.
That word creation
there is a word
that is used
in relationship
to the creation
of the world.
Something out of nothing.
Spectacular.
Now, when I look
at myself in the mirror
and probably when you
look at yourself
in the mirror,
you say, really?
But when the Spirit
of God is at work
and we are growing
in grace,
do you know
that other people
see what is taking place
and they're curious
about that
and then in the bankruptcy
of their soul
and the brokenness
of their moment,
they say,
well,
I don't know.
The mess I'm in,
I'd at least like
to find out
what He knows
and how He's making it.
You see,
God uses heartache
and challenges
to draw people
around you
to wonder about
the faith
and the life
that you live.
And that's part
of what He does
in evangelism.
Well, I want you
to recognize
another thing
that plays out here.
We find that
the Holy Spirit
used Christ's rebuke
of a limited view
of His power.
The man comes
and says,
hey,
I need you
to do something
for my son.
He's five hours
down the road.
You need to come
down there.
You need to do
something for him.
And Jesus says here,
verse 48,
unless you see signs
and wonders,
you will not believe.
Bang!
How's that
for a favorable response
when you walk
five hours
to talk to Jesus?
What do you think?
That's pretty stunning,
isn't it?
What Jesus was rebuking
was the attitude
that many people
can have
of limiting
the power of God
to do what really
needs to be done.
Hey, you know,
if you would do it
my way,
it may pull off.
I read Tom Wolfe's
interesting blog.
How many of you
know Tom Wolfe,
our missionary
in South Africa?
He had a winsome blog.
By the way,
if you're not reading
Tom Wolfe's blog,
you should.
It is the best
missionary blog
I know of.
Now, I'm not
a mega blogger reader,
but that's a good one.
Okay?
And he was talking
about the devastation
of the prosperity
gospel in Africa.
Just Google something.
I want you to look up
the ten richest pastors
in the world.
Do that.
The largest percentage
of them are in Africa.
That's stunning.
A land of abject poverty
as a general rule.
I shouldn't say abject,
but of challenging
economic status,
and yet,
the idea of
name it, claim it,
God is there
to do it your way,
and by the way,
if you need a Lexus,
just ask and put something
in the offering plate
to help it along.
You see,
this idea that God's
kind of a power
that we can manipulate
for our own purposes
according to our own plan,
Jesus says,
hey, don't go there.
I'm not about doing it
your way.
I want you to recognize
that the Spirit
also uses persistence.
I love what we read next.
Verse 49,
put your finger on it,
the official said to him,
sir, come down
before my child dies.
How's that for blunt?
Huh?
The man blew right past
Christ's rebuke
and was unrelenting
with his brokenhearted plea.
You come down
before my child dies.
One of the things
that characterizes
the work of the Spirit
as that He prompts persistence.
He keeps on pressing.
He keeps on bearing in.
He keeps on convicting
till we come to that point
where we recognize
that unless Jesus does something,
there's nothing
that can be done.
And I love that.
I want you to mark
this man's persistence
as something
that was not credited
to a character trait.
Now, I want you to think
about that for a moment.
Some people are easily discouraged.
Others just bear in.
I would say that
this man's persistence
was ultimately
the work of grace
in calling out to Jesus
and saying,
unless you do something,
it's going to be
a desperate situation.
And how did Jesus respond?
Come to the last little bit.
I want you to recognize
the Spirit used Christ's words.
Here we have the man say,
you better come down
before my child dies.
Verse 50,
Jesus said,
go,
your son will live.
The man believed
the word that Jesus
spoke to him
and went on his way.
Now, you stop
and think about that.
You've traveled five hours.
You finally see the doctor.
And you tell him,
you need to come to my house
because my child is dying.
And the doctor says,
who are you to tell me
how to do things?
Go.
Your son will be okay.
How many of you
would pack up right then
and leave,
going back
and expecting your son
to be okay?
Okay.
That man believed
Jesus' word.
That's what happened.
The Spirit of God
prompted his heart
to recognize
that the one
he was pleading with
had the authority
and the power
to do something
16 miles away
at that instant.
And he left.
He left.
Satisfied.
As we find,
when he got back,
everybody said,
hey,
you're not going
to believe this.
Five hours ago,
your son got better.
Hmm.
Yeah.
And then what we read there,
it says,
and he himself
believed in all
his household.
Aren't you encouraged
that we have
this little picture
of developing faith
that isn't just like
the woman at the well?
Huh?
I mean,
all we know
is Jesus said
to this woman,
go call your husband,
and she says,
well,
I don't have one,
and Jesus says,
well,
yeah,
that's true.
You've had five,
and the man
you're shacking up
with right now,
you're not married
to him,
and she's,
bang,
saved.
It'd be pretty
spectacular
if everybody
got converted
that way,
but the problem
is there aren't
that many Samaritan
women at the well.
There are other choices,
and we have this man
comes because he's
driven by need
and love,
comes because
of the bankruptcy
of all the effort
that he'd put in,
and he comes crying
to Jesus and said,
you've got to save
my son,
and Jesus says,
it's done.
It's done.
And when he comes
back to town
and finds out
the power of Christ
over 16 miles,
it's not just a matter
of believing
in a physical miracle,
but it is a matter
of believing
in the one
who came
to save lost mankind.
Here's the truth.
There are some of you
here this morning
that desperately
need Christ.
And the truth
of the matter is
is that
it may be
that the pressures
and the heartaches
and the difficulties
of the moment
you are in
is nothing other
than the gentle,
persistent tapping
of the Holy Spirit
saying to you
today,
only Jesus
can solve
the problems
of your broken heart.
Only Jesus
can take away
the burden
of your sin.
Only Jesus
can forgive you
and make you
new again.
Only Jesus
is the Savior
of the world.
Do you know
what it takes
to come to faith?
Not complicated.
Number one,
recognizing
that you're
a bankrupt sinner
who cannot
in any way
redeem themselves
before a holy God.
Number two,
understanding
that the day
of judgment
is coming
eventually.
And the Spirit
of God
is prompting you
and tugging
on your heart
and saying,
deal with it
now!
Because what it
says in the Scriptures,
it says it's appointed
unto man once to die
and after that,
what?
there's judgment.
And I would
encourage you
this morning
if you are here
and do not know Christ,
today is the day
that you need
to humble yourself
and cry out
and say,
I stand
condemned
before a holy God.
but I believe
Jesus died
for my sins.
I can't save myself.
And I am willing
to humble myself
and say,
the mess I am
has no solution
but Jesus.
Don't let that pass.
Let's close.
Precious God,
thank you for the Lord
Jesus Christ
who came into the world
to save sinners.
And I ask that
as we sing this song
this morning
that your Spirit
would work
to draw people
to the cross.
make us a people
that are passionate
about lost mankind.
Make us a people
that because of
the Lord Jesus Christ
live lives
that are winsome,
gentle,
loving.
That the unbeliever
around us
would be drawn
to ask us
a reason
for the hope
that we have.
And our answer
would be Jesus.
We ask this
in Jesus' name.
Amen.
As we sing this song
in closing,
let's stand together
and let me encourage you
if you are here today.
as we call it