Ready for His Return | Last Words of Dying Man Series

3. We're wrapping up our series, journeying through this letter on this series we're calling the last words of a dying man. And so this morning, Peter is going to actually lily land the plane in this letter by talking once again about the return of Jesus, return of Jesus. And so, 2 Peter chapter 3, as you're turning there, let me just say this, my son and I had the opportunity a couple weeks ago to go on a hunting trip together and we were hunting the first couple of times together in an area. We didn't see a whole lot of activity, but some friends of ours were hunting another part of the property and they were like, "We saw several deer that we think you guys will love." And so we were like, "I'm all about that." And so they even videoed and sent pictures to us. And so that evening, the God we're with said, "Okay, we're going to put you, those videos and those pictures." So we were so fired up. We get in this area and we know there were two or three deer out there that we would love to hunt. And so when we got out there, because we saw the pictures and the videos, we kind of knew the areas that they were going to be moving in. And so, and because we knew they were in the area and they typically moved at night, like we knew this was going to happen. And so when we got on the stand, there was no small talk. There was no looking at our phone. There was no kind of horseing around. It was like all business. Like we know at any moment those deer that we've seen on pictures are going to bust out of the woods or they could potentially, from any direction. And when they do, we want to make sure that we're ready. We don't want to be full in with our phones or not be prepared.

So what we did was was that in that moment, because we knew at any moment those deer could show up, we stayed in a constant preparedness. We were ready. And it was a great experience for us. Now I tell that story to say this. When it comes to the return of Christ, here's what we know. The Bible teaches us, first of all, that Jesus is coming back. Anybody believe that today, amen? Jesus is going to come back. The Bible also tells us that we don't know the day or the hour or the moment that he's going to return. But we do know he's going to return, but the Bible also tells us that there are certain times and seasons that we can pay attention to, to know that we're nearer to the return of Christ. Let's say today we are closer to his return than ever before, and it could happen today. The Bible tells us that, and because that is true, here's what we must be. We must become a people who live with a constant state of readiness, that we are prepared for Jesus when he returns. Now when most people hear that, they automatically think, well, I'm a Christian. I'm saved. Well, of course I'm ready. The Bible points to more than just being saved as being ready, that there are other aspects of being ready, and we're going to see that this morning and second Peter. In fact, let me just say this before I read. These words we're going to read today, you know, let this sink in for a moment. Next to the apostle Paul, no one advanced the gospel in a greater way than the apostle Peter. We're talking about a guy that walked with Jesus three and a half years. He was the pillar of the early church. We're reading his writing 2,000 years later. This is a significant person in the history of the church.

And watch this. What we're going to read over the next few moments are the very last words that Peter ever wrote while he lived on planet Earth. The significance and the weight of what we're about to read, think about this guy, walk with Jesus for three and a half years, and his very last words that he ever wrote, we're about to read, and what he's going to call us to be, is to be ready for the return of Jesus. Second Peter, chapter three, if you're there, say the Bible is true. Verse 14, "Therefore beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish and at peace, and count the patience of the Lord as salvation, just as our Father, our beloved brother rather, Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him. As he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters, there are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you were not carried away with the error and lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and then he ends with this doxology, this declaration of worship, to him be glory, both now and to the day of eternity. So in other words, now and until the day that Christ returns to make Christ be glorified. So here's what we're going to do. Last words of a dying man. The very last things Peter ever wrote, and he's going to exhort us to be ready. He instructed us on how to be ready for the return of Christ. So if you're taking notes, I'm going to give you four instructions. for the return of Christ. Now listen to this, I'm primarily speaking to Christians. I'm speaking primarily to Christians. Now I'm gonna address another element of this

at the end toward those who are not believers. So if you're not a believer in the room, take notes, but then pay attention toward the end, 'cause we're gonna talk about you as well. Here's number one, write this down. The first thing we need to do is practice personal holiness. Practice personal holiness. That holiness needs to be practiced in our everyday life. Look what he says in verse 14. He says, therefore beloveds, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found in him without spot or blemish and at peace. Now he starts this section, this last section, starting in verse number 14 with a word therefore. And again, some of you have heard this before, but whenever you see the therefore, you should ask the question, what is it therefore, right? Because when you see the word therefore, what he's doing is he's connecting what he's saying in this section to what he said in the other section. And so what's happening is he says therefore, and he's tying it back to what he has already said in chapter three. And I think even more specifically with what he says in verses 11 through 13. So what he's doing is this is what we call tying a bow around it. So he's giving us information and then he's saying, "Now I'm gonna tell you what to do with the information that I just gave you."

And so he goes on to say this, he goes therefore, and then he says this, since you are waiting on these things, so what things are we waiting for? All the things that he just told us about, the return of Christ. When Christ returns, we remember this from last week, that Jesus is gonna bring condemnation on unrighteousness, he's gonna bring judgment on sinners, and then he's gonna bring restoration of righteousness. In other words, the fullness of our salvation who were in Christ will be fully consummated and realized in our life. And so what he's saying is this, as believers, there should be anticipation for this. There should be a longing for these things. So he says, since you're waiting on this condemnation on unrighteousness and the restoration of righteousness, he's gonna tell us if we're waiting on this, this is the disposition that our life should have. He's gonna call us, watch this, to lives of holiness. So if you're truly anticipating and longing for the restoration of all things, if you're truly longing for Christ's return, there should be a hunger and a thirst in your heart for righteousness that holy living would be incorporated into your life. So how do you know this? Look what he says in verse 14. He says, if you're waiting on these things, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish

and at peace. In other words, he's saying live a life of holiness. When Jesus shows up, it should be the great longing of the heart of every believer to be found by him on that day, holy and blameless. That's why he uses the word spotless. What does that mean? It means that we should rid ourself of every sin and questionable activity. We should let the Holy Spirit wash those things, cleanse us, free us of those strongholds of sin in our life that we would be without spot or blemish. In other words, we wouldn't be living lives that are comfortable with sin when Jesus shows up. That there shouldn't be sin in our life as Pastor Anthony talked about in week two of our series that we've made peace with. There should be a hunger for holiness, a desire for purity. See what this means is that he's talking about what is holiness. Holiness is the life of Jesus being applied to our life so that verbally and sexually and mentally and physically, we represent him both in the secret, personal areas of our life and the public life that we live. That both the public sin and the hidden sin, we'd be washed and cleansed and be made holy. I think sometimes, like if I'm honest in my own life, there are certain areas of sin that I can just get comfortable with.

And I can just write those things off. Well, that's just a struggle that I have. That no, that should not be the heartbeat of those who are longing for Christ's return. The heartbeat should be, no, watch me, make me clean, purify me from the hidden sin. Or say, as the psalmist says, where he says, hey, there's hidden iniquities that I don't even know about. Would you cleanse me from those as well? A desire for holiness, for purity. Now, what's the motivation for this? I mean, is the motivation fear and condemnation? Well, no, not for a believer, why? Because we've been forgiven of our sin. Well, we've been forgiven our sin and we're not fearful of that. Then why should we be so, have such a desire? look back when he says in verse 11. Verse 11, he says, "Since all these things "are thus to be dissolved." In other words, since Christ is coming and he's gonna bring judgment on sinners, he's gonna bring restoration and righteousness to the saved and the redeemed, he says, "Since all of this is gonna take place, "what sort of people ought we to be?" In other words, what kind of people should we be in light of Jesus' return? Look what he says.

He says, "You ought to be in lives of holiness and godliness." In other words, he says, "What kind of people "should the church be in light of the fact "that Jesus is returning? "Holy and godly." We should be holy and godly. Now why? Because when we know that when Christ is gonna return, he says this again in verse 13, listen to this, when Christ returns, but according to his promise, what's promised, the promise of his return, we are waiting for what? A new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Now watch this, how many of you struggle with sin today? Raise your hand, all right. So he's saying, this struggle that you have when Christ returns, he's gonna usher in righteousness and you won't struggle with sin anymore. Praise be to God for that. So in the end, righteousness is going to reign. So here's what he says, our motivation for holiness is this, in light of the fact that Jesus is bringing in righteousness when he returns and he's made righteousness available now for the redeemed, that we should be pursuing now that which he's ushering in when he returns. Our motivation is, in light of the fact, Jesus, the fullness of my salvation means the completion of this righteousness and because of that, I don't long for that in the day when you come, I long for that now and so because of that,

I'm gonna let the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit work in me so that on that day, you already watch this, find me becoming who I ultimately will be. This is motivated out of an overwhelmed heart because of the grace that God has given us, because of the love that he's already promised that he has for us, it's unconditional love. Listen, your pursuit of holiness is not out of duty, not driven by fear, it's out of delight, it's driven by love. Like I don't want to be righteous because I'm afraid God's gonna get me, I wanna be righteous because in Christ, he's made me righteous and he's given me something I don't deserve, therefore, in response to his great love for me, I want to embrace that which he died to give me. I'll use this as a metaphor, a wedding day for a bride is a big day, is it not? I mean, the entire day is leading up to the wedding is all about preparation, but the wedding day is set aside like no other day, right? I mean, it is a day of hair and makeup and just everything is gonna be put in its place and put in order and the wedding dress is gonna be perfectly prepared and the whole day is this anticipation. And let me tell you why a bride does this. Not that I've ever been one, all right? So I'm just gonna, I'm gonna speak in ignorance

of that which I do not know, right? So think about it, so here's what a bride's doing, here's what I do now, if a bride is going through all that links to prepare herself, she's not doing so hoping the groom will say I do. She's not doing so hoping the bride would give her love. Her preparation is not for love, it's because of love. It's not driven by the insecurity of a love that's not promised, but the security of the promise that's already been made. So she goes through, great preparation, why? Because of the love that she already walks in and has for the groom and the groom has for her, here's why she prepares herself. She wants to be on that day, everything the groom desires. And this is what Peter is saying. In light of the love that we have received, in light of the grace that we've been shown, in light of the gift of salvation, in light of the longing that we have for our groom to return, we want him to find the bride just like he longs for us to be found. Prepared for him. Pursue holiness. Practice holiness in your life. Here's number two. Here's how we get ready for the return. Proclaim the gospel. Proclaim the gospel.

Peter makes it very clear here in verse 15. He says, "And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, "just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote "to you according to the wisdom given him." What he's saying is in light of the fact that Jesus is coming, and when he does, he's gonna bring judgment on sinners. we are living in a season of redemptive history that God is offering an invitation to sinners to repent and place their faith and trust in Christ. Because when Christ returns, that season is gonna be over and the loss will be lost forever. Sinners will receive the judgment of their sin, but we know that right now there is a window of grace, a season of hope for unbelievers. And here is what Peter is saying, because we are in this season leading up to Christ's return, we must recognize that we have to see the patience of God. What does he mean patience? The delay of God's return, the delay of Christ's return is the patience of God. And here's what he says in verse nine about that. Listen to this, verse nine, last week we saw this, "The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise," the promise of His return as some count slowness. Listen to this, "but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." So because God is patient,

He is giving a season of redemption. And in light of that, here is what Peter says to you and me, we should be on mission every single day, proclaiming the gospel while we have time. You see, here's where most Christians get the return of Christ wrong. We go, ah, we got Jesus wins in the end, amen? I've read the back of the book. And so what we can do, we can just sit back, we got to worry about anything, we're just going to kind of put it on cruise control. And what we do is we just get comfortable with our own salvation. And here is the reality. We've never been told to be comfortable in light of Christ's return. We've told to be busy in light of Christ's return. In fact, every time Jesus talks about His second coming, He always makes the application at the end. And here's what He typically says, something to this effect. Therefore, the servants of the house ought to be busy doing what the master said, because the master could show up at any moment. His call is not sit back and just be comfortable. It's to recognize there is a responsibility that we have been given by Him. Do you realize that the church of Jesus Christ? And by the way, when we say the church, we're not talking about the organization or the building, we're talking about the people, you and me.

We are the church of Jesus. That the church of Jesus Christ is God's plan A to take Jesus to a lost and dying world. And there is no plan B. It is you and me taking the hope of the gospel to the nations. That's why the Great Commission has been given to us. And so if Jesus before He ascended, says go and make disciples of all nations, listen, the master of the house is going to return. And may He find His servants doing the very thing He's called us to do. We have a responsibility. This is what He refers to Paul's words on this. We know what Paul says about himself. He says, we are ambassadors for Christ. And so we live our life imploring. He says, urging you, begging you, be reconciled to God. There should be an angst in the heart of every Christian as we live our life in a godless world with friends and family and loved ones who are far from Jesus, that if Christ was returned today, the window of redemption is closed for them. And eternally, they'll be separated forever. There should be something inside of us that we beg them and urge them and plead with them. Please be reconciled to God. We should take the disposition of Charles Spurgeon. This is what he says, if sinners are damned, at least let them leap to hell over our dead bodies.

If they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped around their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertion and let not one go unworned or unprayed for. But can I just kind of be honest with you? And I say this about my own heart. At the end of the day, we're just cowards. At the end of the day, we're just cowards. And we love ourself more than we love the people that God has sent us to share the good news of hope with. And we hide behind things like, well, I don't know enough. I don't know that I can share the gospel. I don't even know what to say as if the Holy Spirit's like, oh, then you get a pass. We're just cowards. Well, what if I'm rejected? What if they don't respond? You got the book. Let's stop hiding behind our excuse and just acknowledge it. We don't walk in gospel courage and we desperately need to surrender that to the Holy Spirit and be filled with His fire and passion and burden. Amen? And start loving the people that God has sent us to more than ourselves. There's a story I heard years ago about a missionary couple from America that went to a predominantly Muslim area to start churches and to share the gospel and God was using them. But, you know, they live in a constant state of fear, so they were traveling from one community to another and the one region they were going in was very hostile. A lot of hatred toward Americans, a lot of hatred toward Christianity as they were traveling through this area, they had to stop for gas in and not a real friendly area.

So they stop and they're getting gas and as he's pumping gas, he looks over and there's an old man sitting outside the gas station door and the guy's just staring at him, like burning a hole in him. And as he's pumping gas, he's trying to hurry up, get back in the car, the Holy Spirit clearly said to him, "Go share the gospel, go tell them who Jesus is." And he's like, "No, like this is not the place, this is not the time to be a hero." And he's really literally negotiating, saying, "This is probably just me trying to be tough or whatever." And he's literally now, he's like, "I'm not doing this." He puts the pump back up, gets back in the car and he starts pulling off and he's driving down the road and his wife said, he said to his wife, he's like, "Man, I feel like the Lord wanted me to share the gospel with that old man at the front door." She's like, "Yeah, I saw him too." And she's like, "Why didn't you?" And he's like, "Well, do you know where we are?" And she's like, "Yeah, God brought us here, I know where we are." And she's like, "Why didn't you say..." "Yeah, but it couldn't have been, it couldn't have been, it's too dangerous for that." And she's like, "So you're not going to obey Jesus because you're afraid." Wife he called him out. And here's what she said to him next, "I would rather be the widow of a martyr than the wife of a coward." So he did a U-turn. And he goes over to the man and he says, "Hey, I've been sent here to tell you about Jesus and here's what the man said. I've been waiting for you all day. God woke me up in a dream and told me to go to this gas station and sit until his messenger comes to tell me who Jesus is. Gave his life to Christ. Here's my question for you.

How many divine appointments has God set you up for every day but we're too big of cowards? And see, we don't live in the fear of losing our life but we do live in the fear of losing a friendship. And eyes right here, listen to me, and it's about time that we start loving our friends more than our friendships. I would rather this church be a church of martyrs than a church of cowards. We're going to be ready for the return, proclaim the gospel. Verse number three, protect the truth. Protect the truth. This is huge, especially in our day and time, that we would be ready by preserving and protecting the truth that God has given us. Look what he says in verse 16. He says, "There are some things in them," talking about the writings of Paul. He says, "There are some things in them that are hard to understand which the ignorant and unstable twist of their own destruction as they do other scriptures." How many of you have ever read the New Testament specifically Paul and you're like, "I have no idea what he just said." Anybody feel like that? Well you're in good company because Peter felt the same way apparently. And here's what he says. He says, "False teachers will take difficult things to understand in the Bible and they'll manipulate them and twist them and distort them and change the truth in order to lead you astray." And here's what he's saying. You've got to guard yourself from that. Look what he says, verse 17. You therefore, beloved, knowing this before, and listen, he's saying, "You know that false teachers are rising up. You know there are going to be people that manipulate the Bible. You know that there's going to be teachings that stray away from the scriptures."

And if you know that beforehand, look what he says. Take care that you are not carried away with the air of lawlessness of people and lose your own stability. He's saying, "Look, if you know that there's false teaching out there, then you've got to start paying attention to what you're letting into your life." Just because a podcast is popular doesn't mean it's for you. It's because there's a great book written that's written by Christian author, doesn't mean it's going to be explaining and unpacking truth. He says, "Guard yourself, protect yourself." And here's why. He says that you don't lose your stability. In other words, the Bible should be the foundation of the life of every Christian and should be the bedrock foundation of every church. And therefore, we must guard and protect the Word of God, the church. you already said it, the Bible is what? The Bible is true. So here's what I wanted to make you give you just two nuggets in the notes, not on the screen, but just write this down. How do we do that then? Listen, we gotta be rooted in God's word. But here's how we're rooted in God's words. Number one, write this down. This is gonna be novel. Read the Bible. You wanna be rooted in truth? You wanna protect the truth in your life? Read the Bible. We are living in a day and time where there are more copies of God's word available,

more opportunities for Christian growth and resources than ever in the history of the church age, and we are more biblically illiterate today than we've ever been. Because at the end of the day, we're just lazy. We are men and women who use God's word as decoration pieces on our coffee table, but we won't pick the book up that God says is the pathway of life and read it for crying out loud. Like read the Bible. Be familiar with God's word. Let God's word be taken into your heart. Memorize scripture. Today we're passing these little Bible, and I'm this, by the way, I didn't even know we were doing this. After this first service, one of our pastors came by and was like, hey, you knew no, we're handing out the Bible reading plan, and you just hit on reading God's word. We have a Bible reading plan. You say, I don't even know where to start to read the Bible. We got to start in place for you. Chapter of day, reading and meditating, ask yourself some questions. Let God's word Bible intake, memorize God's word. And listen, I'm gonna close my eyes and say this so no one says, "Hey, is he looking at me?" When he says this. We are living in a day that we don't even bring

our Bibles to church. Like what is happening? And we've got all this information bombarding our hearts and our mind every single day, and yet we have this book that God says you got to filter everything through this book. We don't read it. We've got to be people of the word. And let me just hit on the soapbox while I'm making folks mad, all right? Let me just get it all out. Put your devotions down for crying out loud and pick up God's word. Some of you are 30-year-old Christians and you're still eating fruit loops spiritually. Sugar-coated breakfast cannot be a steady diet for a healthy person. Like physically speaking. Anybody agree with that amen? Eat fruit loops three times a day. See what happens to your body. You're like, "I got stuff in my belly." Yeah, but that stuff's gonna hurt you over time. It's not gonna nourish you. Listen, I understand for a new Christian, maybe taking some baby steps with devotionals are easy. Listen, but if you want a maturing Christ, you got to put the fruit loops away. You got to start eating the meat of God's word. See, I don't know if I understand the Bible.

Here's the thing, read and pray. And then go to church faithfully, get in a life group where God's word can be talked about. I promise you, if the Holy Spirit is in you, He will start giving you understanding of His word. He is not hiding this from you. The Bible says He's the revealer of truth. He wants to show you it. So here's the second way. So read the Bible. Here's number two, trust the Bible. Trust God's word to be true in your life, trust it. So here's a statement that I just wanna give you, and this is huge for our culture today because we're seeing us drift away because we don't trust the Bible. We're drifting away from truth because we don't believe the Bible is true or we don't trust the truthfulness because whenever culture says something and the Bible says something and then culture makes us feel like, man, we're wrong for saying what the Bible says. All of a sudden we try to find loopholes to make the Bible say what the culture says. Listen to this, allow your interpretation of culture to be filtered through the lens of the Bible rather than allowing your interpretation of the Bible to be filtered through the lens of culture. The Bible has never been meant

to be interpreted in light of culture. It has been given to us to transform culture. So how do we understand what's happening in the world around us? We look at God's word and God's word tells us what's happening around us and what choices to make and what right and wrong is. And so we interpret the world in light of what the Scripture clearly reveals, what churches are doing today and what a lot of believers are doing today is that we're going, okay, this is what the culture is saying, I got to figure out how to make the Bible relevant to that. The Bible has never- It is meant to penetrate and transform the culture. Trust the Bible. Here's the last thing we do to be ready. And it goes hand in hand with what I just said. Listen to this. Prioritize spiritual maturity. Prioritize spiritual maturity. This is one of the ways that we protect the truth. And it brings us full circle to the very beginning of the book of 2 Peter. Look what he says in verse 18. He says, "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen." And these go together.

One of the ways we protect the truth is to grow spiritually. We talked about this week one. You don't remember this? Or you weren't there. Let me just tell you what is spiritual maturity. Spiritual maturity is simply becoming like Jesus. It's the process of becoming like Jesus. So in essence, Peter is saying at the end of the letter, what he said at the very beginning of the letter. Pursue intimacy with Jesus. He says, "Grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus." What does that mean? Grow in the grace of Jesus means it can become more aware and more familiar and more understanding of the salvation that you receive. What does that mean to grow in the knowledge of God? Not just grow intellectually, but spiritually speaking intimately with Christ that you know him more and you love him more. And he transforms you and he turns your life around and grows you to look more and more and more like him. And here is the great news. Peter tells us at the very beginning of this letter that you actually can live a life that looks more like Jesus because you've been given the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. That the power of the resurrected Christ, watch this, has given you everything you need for life and godliness.

What is he saying for spiritual maturity? He's given you everything you need for spiritual maturity. The Holy Spirit. He is the one that opens your mind to understand scripture. He is the one that convicts you of the sin that you have hidden. He is the one that comforts you when you're alone. He is the one that forms Christ in your life and produces the fruit of Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit, the very presence of Jesus in your life. This is why church, the apostle Paul said this, the great mystery of redemption is this, Christ in you, the hope of glory. What is Christ in you? The presence of the Holy Spirit means that Jesus is inside of you doing a work. And if you submit to him and surrender to that work of the Holy Spirit, he will completely transform you from the inside out. That's the Holy Spirit. Am I grateful for the Holy Spirit? This is the great gift a couple of weeks ago. It's my last words of a dying man. Peter here, listen to this, in his final words, is saying, "Hey, look, God has given you everything you need "to be the power of the Holy Spirit, to become like Jesus, "to be transformed." About four weeks ago, I got a call from a family, a family that I'm fairly close with. And they said, "Hey, we want you to come to the hospital

"and it was Billy Goodman, he's faithful member "of our church, so many of you know Billy. "I hug his neck every week." And Billy's been sick and he's gonna pass away probably today. And he's actually requested for you to come up. He wants to talk to you for a moment. And the prayer request, Billy and I have shared through the years and the four year and the hugs, man. I just love this guy, I went up to the hospital and I see you and I didn't know what to expect. I thought maybe he was not gonna be coherent, but he was full of life. As soon as I walked in the door, he just put his hands up, says, "Come in." Like I gave Billy a big old hug and I said, "How are you doing?" And here's what he said. He says, "I'm gonna go home, be with Jesus soon." And I'm ready, I'm ready. And I said, "Well, they call me and I wanted to come see you "and they said you wanted to talk to him." And he says, "Oh yes, and big tears." And here's what he said. He said, "I just wanted to tell you something before I go. "I love you. "And I wanna tell you, thank you." And I said, "Well, what for specifically?" And he says, "I wanna tell you, thank you. "You taught me something three years ago

"that changed my life." He says, "Three years ago, you taught me "that the Holy Spirit was my friend." there to tell me when I got it wrong and make me feel guilty over my sin." He says, "But you taught me that He was actually a companion that would walk with me and that I could talk to, that I could have a relationship with." And he says, "These last few years building that friendship has been the sweetest years of my faith. And before I die, I just wanted to say thank you. I'm telling you there's a thousand things that man could have said to me and there would have been nothing more meaningful than that. But listen to this, the last words of a dying man saying, "I'm so thankful for the Holy Spirit who's made me into the person that I am." Church, I just want to tell you, this is how we get ready. The Holy Spirit, Christ in you, makes you spotless and blameless. He produces holiness in your life. It's the Holy Spirit that gives you the courage to proclaim the gospel to the people around you. It's not you, it's not you trying to find it. It's the Holy Spirit that does this. It's the Holy Spirit that guards your heart and illumines God's Word and keeps you grounded in the faith. It's the Holy Spirit that produces spiritual maturity in your life. One of the greatest gifts that we receive with our salvation is the very presence of the resurrected Christ inside of us. Are you walking with Him? I'm going to ask you to bow your heads if you would, and just the imitation this morning is going to be very, very simple. I just want you to focus in and listen to these questions. The first question I want to ask you is this, is do you know Him?

Do you know Jesus? Have you trusted Him as your Lord and Savior, understanding that Christ could come at any moment and that if you were not in Him, you were not a believer, you will be lost forever. In light of that, do you need to know Him today if you're uncertain? Do you have a relationship with Him? And right now for those of you who need that relationship with Christ, you're like, I don't know that I know Him, but I know I need to. Right now where you are, just say, God, I need a Savior, and I know it's Jesus. And I repent of my sin, and I trust in Him, and I place my hope in Him. I turn from my sin and I submit to Jesus as my Lord. For those of you in the room, I'm going to ask you to do something. If you just pray to receive Christ, you're saying, I want Christ in my life. I'm uncertain, but I want to make certain, or pastor, I just prayed with you right now to receive Christ. I'm going to ask you to do something bold. If that's you, you prayed to receive Christ, or you want to, with no one looking around, I'm going to ask you just to do something courageous, just stand to your feet if that's you. You say, I just prayed with you to receive Christ. I want to know that I'm saved. I want to know that I've been forgiven of my sin. Praise God. Anybody else? Just standing, remain standing. You're not alone. Anyone else? Praise God. If you're standing, they're going to be encouragers that want to come alongside of you, to pray with you, to help you begin this new journey. Anyone else?

All right, believer, here's the response for you. Here's the question I want you to wrestle with. Is there any sin in your life, when we're called to be holy, is there any sin in your life that you've made peace with that you need to repent of, areas that you've let sin settle in without dealing with it? I'm not talking about, we say, I don't have any big sins. I'm not, I'm not any sin, it's time to repent. Are there people in your life that you know are lost, but you've been too afraid to share Jesus with and you've been convicted of that this morning that you ought to repent of that and ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with courage and say, God, I'll go whenever you send me. If it's now, I'll go, what are you going to do with that? Believer, are there lies that you're believing that you need to just lay before the Lord and trade that lie for truth? So, if any of this resonates with you, we're going to stand in a moment. This altar is going to be open. There are prayer people available. My encouragement is in light of the fact that Jesus is coming and we should be ready. My encouragement is this. Let's be found in Him walking in holiness, proclaiming the gospel, protecting the truth, and pursuing spiritual maturity. to respond. Father, give us the courage to submit to you whatever it is that you're wanting to do in our life. We ask this in Jesus, precious name.