What If You’re Not Ready for Jesus to Come Back?

And I get it right in our everyday ordinary lives, it's busy going to work, paying the bills, raising the kids, the grandkids, planning the next vacation, deadlines, school, going to clients and offering bids, showing them with a crew, painting houses, right? I mean, life is busy. Sports, although as Gator fans, we're not complaining too much these days. Thinking about how you're going to decorate the house, Halloween, where are we going to lunch today? I don't know, where do you want to go to lunch? What's happening this week, right? Our lives are full, but none of these things that I listed are wrong, they're all a part of our everyday life. The problem, however, is that when everything temporary gets our focus while everything that's eternal gets ignored. It's not that in this space you haven't heard that Jesus is coming again. You've heard it, but some of us are reluctant to believe that it's close by. He might be coming, but it's like it's later. I know this from personal experience. The devil doesn't need to destroy you if he can distract you. As best tools, he just gets you distracted. He doesn't mind us living our lives as long as we don't live our lives through the grid, the reality that Jesus Christ is coming again. That's what Jesus is speaking to us in Matthew chapter 24. If you've got your copy of God's Word, join me. He's creating a sense of awareness. He wants us to be alert, and what I hope my prayer this morning is being aware that Jesus is coming back, being alert to the reality that he's coming back will now create action. That it won't just be another moment that we need to think I need to know more stuff about him coming back. Rather, I know enough it's time to act. Notice what Jesus says beginning in verse 36, "But concerning that day and hour that Jesus is coming again, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the Son, but the Father only." Again, God hasn't asked us to look at geopolitical events. He hasn't asked us to fixate on a date. He's asked us to look at our lives and to see how we are living. Go back to your Bible, look at verse 37, "For as we're in the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away. So will be the coming of the Son of Man." People are about doing ordinary things, and what Jesus is teaching, he's not giving us an either or. Either everything you do has to be so heavenly minded, right? You might know somebody who is so heavenly minded, they're no earthly good, right?

He's not asking us to love either or, rather he's saying, and also, "As you live this one and only life, as you go to work, as you love your wife, as you love your husband, as you raise your kids, as you go on vacation, when you go to the gym, your dreams and your goals as you pursue life, live this life with enthusiasm and passion through the lens, through the focus, with the mindset, Jesus is coming again. But in the days of Noah, that wasn't their focus. God wasn't their focus. Judgment certainly wasn't on their radar, and eternity wasn't in their mind. So consider this thought. Being involved on earth while ignoring eternity is disastrous. It's disastrous. Being involved in all these good moments, ordinary moments, that's good, but being involved on earth and ignorant of eternity is disastrous. You might define disaster different from somebody else, but one, I think that's common to all of us is like Monday mornings, Tuesday mornings, right? When it's going to be a busy day at work, you set your alarm and then went off and you hit the snooze button. And before you know it, you're already running late. And all you can do is barely get out the door. You didn't get to have a cup of coffee. Hello, hashtag. You haven't even had time to brush your teeth. You just thought that mint would cover up all that nasty stuff in your mouth, right? And then you get out into the roadways of Ocala and you noticed all the traffic. And then you start cursing all the developers and the commissioners and the councilmen. I can't believe that all this building going on. This is the problem we've all over. It's a disaster. It's a disaster zone, right? Some of you might be remember a particular date. Ladies, he finally asked you out. You were so excited. Like this guy was handsome, sort of, kind of, but it was good enough, right? And let me tell you what else.

He actually spoke, wasn't in grunt. It was like full sentences. We had conversations like, this is good. And then you got to the restaurant and you got to the table and then he said that. And it became disastrous. We all have different definitions for disaster. But if all that's true, if it's disastrous that our team loses in a game or we went out of vacation, it was a bucket list moment and, like, it rained every single day. All those are marked moments of disaster in life, but how much more disastrous not to be ready for eternity. Maybe that's what Jesus was getting to when he taught us what we have come to call the Lord's Prayer. What some of us as football players, right? In the locker room before we would go out for the game and we would recite the Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter 6, our Father who is in heaven, notice what he's doing, he's getting our focus into eternity, right? Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. He's not asking for us to separate. He's asking us to bring a little bit of heaven here on earth. Being involved on earth while ignoring eternity is disastrous. That's what's going on in the times of Noah. Now, we just read from Matthew 24, right? Jesus is looking back, he's telling a familiar story to the crowd that he's speaking to, the Jewish people that day, although it's not the full, it's not the full story. If you want to know the full story of what's happening in the days of Noah, you need to go back to Genesis chapter 6. And it's interesting, right, because I certainly get the sentiment when it comes to Noah and the ark, right, and all the animals and the giraffes and they came in two by two, right? And the king gurus came in two by two, right? I kind of get that.

And like, we decorate the nurseries and Noah and the ark and the rainbows and all that kind of stuff. But if you really know the story, like in the days of Noah, it was cray-cray. Here's what God says, Genesis 6 and verse 5, "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." And notice verse 6, "And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart." Now there's some things in my life I've regretted. I think there's some things in your life that you've regretted. And maybe a shared regret was you went to the car dealership and you saw that shiny vehicle. I mean, they would look good. And that salesman, are they not good? He comes out, "Hey, can I help you?" And he starts talking about that vehicle. He talks about that big grill. And you look so muscular and you're thinking yourself, "Oh, I'm going to get me that pick-me-up truck. It's got those big rim-type, I mean, I'm going to be looking. I'm going to look good." They never dawn on you that like when you're in your truck and you're driving your truck, you can't see your grill, you can't see your tire. Every ounce can see it, but you can't. And he gives you the sales pitch and it sounds so good. And then he takes you over to the finance department. I mean, they kind of, I mean, they just convince you. I know it's a $125,000 SUV, but I'm telling you, I know you only make like $33,000 a year. Not a problem. This is in your price range.

And so they signed you up for payments, right? And, you know, from now to 2086, you're paying off that vehicle. And the first payment's actually not that bad. And it's like, because it's that new car smell. It's good. And somebody actually at a stoplight looked over at you and said, "That grill, brother." But we all remember that seventh payment, then that ninth payment, and you're looking at it like, we've all had things that we've regretted. The God of the universe is saying out loud that because men, men and women, us are every thought. Our inclination was to do evil. God says, "I regret the day that I created humanity." You see, when eternity is ignored, sin increases and becomes normalized. I think we're living in a similar day. We have forgotten. We have not remembered that this life is temporary. This afternoon, we will celebrate Ron's life. Ron was here for too short of a season. Now the good news is we know where Ron is. To be absent for the body is to be present with the Lord. So we have great confidence. And we will celebrate his life right here in this space this afternoon. But many of us live our lives as though like we're here forever. And what happens is when eternity gets lost from our thinking, when it gets lost from our planning, sin in our life begins to increase and it becomes normalized. That's what was happening in the days of Noah. But just in case you're sitting here and you're like,

"Okay Mark, I kind of hear this." But was there anything else kind of going on that I should know about? And Jesus knows that too. Because what Jesus does, if you look in Luke chapter 17, he tells another example about the evil of men and women. Notice what it says, Luke 17 and 28. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, notice same language. Just as it was in the days of Noah, just as it was in the days of Lot. They were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. Ordinary moments. But on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, there was a marked moment when God says to Noah, go into the ark, he shut the door, and the floods came. Noah and his family was rescued. On this particular day, God was going to rescue Lot and his family. And on the day that they were leaving the city, and God was going to bring judgment on this city to destroy them because of their wickedness. Now I'm not going to take all the time to explain what's going on in Sodom. But what I do want you to know, and you can look for yourself in chapter 18 and chapter 19, but in the days of Noah, that's Genesis chapter 6. Just 12 chapters later, you would have thought, right? Noah and his family. They trusted God. They believed in God. They go into the ark. They are rescued. They are saved from the flood. They come out. All the other human beings on the face of the earth are destroyed. Now it's Noah and his family. They have an opportunity to reset humanity. They have a second chance to live with God and live for God. But 12 chapters later in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

In Genesis 18 and 19, God's having a conversation with Abraham. And he says, listen, I've heard about this place where your nephew, Lotius, called Sodom and it's not a good place. And so I'm going to send my angels there to bring judgment on it. And Abraham, because he has a relationship with God, he starts kind of almost negotiating. Do you want the whole world to think that you're just this vengeful, angry, mad God? And as soon as people start like acting in the evil way, you just annihilate them? And so he says this, hey, if you found 50 people inside of them, would you spare everybody else? committed to you, would you spare? And God says, okay, I can do that. Abraham says, God, what if there's only 45? What if there's only 40? He's negotiating. God says, okay, we'll go 40. What if there's 30? You begin to get the sneaky suspicion that Abraham knew how cray-cray Sodom was. But he was pleading with God because his nephew, part of his family, was in Sodom. He finally gets them or down to 10. God, if you just find 10 people, would you spare them? God says, okay, I'll do 10. So, chapter 18 comes to an end. Chapter 19, the two angels show up to Sodom. They actually meet Lot at the beginning of the city, the front gates of the city. And the angels say, hey, listen,

we're here to kind of check things out. We've heard that there's evil going on. We're gonna stay in the town square. And then he's like, yeah, no, that's not gonna work. You need to stay at my house. In our world, they'd be like, he's staying downtown, Ocala. And he's like, yeah, no, no, no, we went. He says, you don't understand. You can't be out at night because, you know, at night, the freaks come out at night, right? I mean, he says, like, you can't, you cannot be out there at nighttime. So the angels say, okay, and they come to Lot's house. They're inside, maybe having a cup of coffee, getting ready for dinner. The sun goes down and the Bible says, read it for yourself, chapter 19, that the men from that city go to Lot's house. They had been texting, hey, do you see those two guys who showed up? Man, there's these two guys. They kind of look kind of good. They're at Lot's house. Let's go all meet up there. They all meet up there. They're knocking on the door and they say to Lot, bring out those two visitors. We wanna have sex with them in the streets tonight. Correct, Craig, read it in your Bible for yourself.

Lot says to these men in the city, hey, hey, this would not be good. Come on, guys, let's not do it like this. Here's what we'll do. Here's the compromise. I have two daughters. They're both virgins. I will send them out to you. You do what you want with them and spare these two dudes. The depravity of humanity. I think sometimes when it comes to sin, we've come to this idea that sin is just bad choices, no. No, no, sin is despicable. Sin is your deliberate disobedience of a perfect righteous God. Sin is your willful decision that your will is better than God's will. Sin is the assertion that your ways are far more satisfying than God's ways. And God's judgment is real and God's judgment is needed. Just as much as God's mercy is real and God's mercy is needed. If you've had a loved one who's passed from this life and you knew that they were a follower of Jesus and they're not with God, do you want them to be? Do you say things like this? My dad, my grandfather, my son, my husband, my wife, they're in a better place. Have you said something like that about someone? You want to have that thought.

You want that sentiment, right? The reason that we think heaven, we know heaven is better because there is no sin in heaven. For there be no sin, that means the judgment of God is required. We have to wrestle with the reality of our sin. Not just what's happening in the days of Noah and not just what's happening in the days of Lot but what's happening in our everyday life 'cause our tendency is to see sin as something out there, something that somebody has done that, those people. When we look at ourselves and we're like, "Hey, listen, I'm not really like that." We as Christians often will come and this is the language we'll use that we're coming on a Sunday and we're coming into the sanctuary. Here's the problem with that mindset. The moment Mark David stepped into this sanctuary, this is no longer a sanctuary, this is a sinful space. And by the ways, the moment you stepped in this space, it's no longer a sanctuary, it's a sinful place. Why? Because the Bible says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Sin is so horrific that God judged in the days of Noah and God judged in Lot and the Bible wants us to know that God's gonna judge again, but not for us to be fearful of that. I want sin to be eradicated.

I'm looking forward to living in a place where there is no abuse, there is no trauma, It is the presence of Almighty God day after day after day. I want to give you some scripture that you can share with friends and family and co-workers, because we all have friends and family that are like, "Man, Mark, if God was so loving and so good, why would he allow anybody good hell?" I get that sentiment, although it's flawed, and it's wrong. So get out your number two pencil, get out your phone, and I want you to put in your notes Ezekiel 33 and 11. As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord. This is God speaking. God says, "You share this with your friends. You share this with your co-workers." I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways. God warns us in His Word not to destroy us. God warns us because He wants to rescue us. This is the good news. He rescued Noah. He rescued Lot. And He wants all of us to know that He sent His Son Jesus to rescue us. 2 Corinthians 5 and 21. God made Him. That's Jesus who had no sin to be sinned for us, so that in Him, in Christ, we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sins. Just as required a sacrifice. Your sin and my sin required payment. The books had to be reconciled. And so God says, "I will send my Son, my one and only Son, and He will go to the cross. He will pay the penalty for your sin and my sin." He loves us that much, so that we would now live with Him by faith. Notice the words in Hebrews 11 and 7. It's by faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen. Pause for a moment. I'm teaching right now about events yet unseen. I'm talking to you about the second coming of Jesus. It has not happened yet. I understand. I feel the pressure. I'm talking about a moment in time that, at best, you're kind of like,

"Okay, Mark, I kind of believe that, but it's not going to happen now." And so we get caught up in our everyday life. You might be aware of it. You might be alert to it. But as far as acting upon it, you're just not quite there yet. And so by faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events, put your name in there. By faith, Ron, by faith, Karen, by faith, Julius, by faith, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen. Right now, we are being warned by God's word about events that we have not seen. There was an event that had not happened. It's called the Flood. Noah is warned about it. He listens. He hears and notice in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this, he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. It's interesting. He not just heard the word. He acted upon the word. In reverent fear, he had a holy understanding of a righteous God. And he adjusted his ways to God's ways. And notice, he constructed an ark. Now, here's the good news. God has not asked you to leave this morning and go to Home Depot and to buy some wood and to go in your backyard and begin to build an ark. But what God has asked you to do is to deconstruct the throne that you built and you've set your life upon as the God of your own life. God has not asked you to construct, God's never asked you to construct your faith. You hear it all the time about different, maybe, artists or different athletes or pastors who get online and they say, I'm deconstructing my faith. Here's the problem is God never asked one person to construct their faith. We do not construct our faith. God constructed his plan of salvation. We don't construct it. God constructed it. We simply sent His Son Jesus as the arc, that you and I by faith, we walk up into the presence of God and just like the arc, it saved and rescued Noah and his family. When you step into the presence of God, He rescues you in Jesus. He saves you from the judgment that is coming.

God warns us in His Word, not because He wants to destroy us, but because He wants to rescue us. You know in our town, there is a bridge that goes over Interstate 75. Trucks on Interstate 75 on the northbound side have had a tendency to hit and damage that bridge. Finally, our state officials said we need to build that bridge taller. And so that bridge has been out for some time. It's created traffic all across our town. Now let me ask you a question. When our city fathers put up a sign that said construction ahead, bridge out ahead, there's a detour, is that sign helpful or hurtful? Of course, it's helpful. If our city fathers don't give you a sign and you drive up and you don't know that the bridge is out and you drive right off the side of that cliff and into the oncoming traffic on Interstate 75, that's disastrous. God in His Word is giving us a sign. Jesus is saying something is ahead. I'm coming again, be ready. So here's the question and here's the decision for you to make this morning. God has given you autonomy. God has given you agency. Will you or who will you trust more? What you see around you or what God has said ahead of you? In Acts chapter 1, after Jesus had resurrected from the dead, the angel said to the disciples, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from heaven, taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven." I'm teaching from Revelations 1 this verse. We've been teaching these words of prophecy because I want us all blessed. Look what it says, blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it for the time is near. Let me ask you a question this morning when you got up. Did you look at your You version, Bible app? Did you read the verse of today? If you did, you know exactly how familiar the verses today let those who have ears hear. God is speaking to us. God wants us to be aware. He wants us to understand that just like Noah being worn by God, he believed God enough that it changed the way he lived. Is that true for you? Will you listen to God this morning and being worn by him? Will you let it change? See, Noah, he's building day by day. He's building brick by brick. He's building year after year. No rain still building. People are questioning him. People are laughing at him. People are ridiculing. The influencers are coming by and taking selfies and posting and saying, "Look how crazy this guy." But there is Noah. He just keeps on building day after day. Culture is moving in the opposite direction and he's still building. Why? Because Noah believed God about what he had said about tomorrow. Enough to change how he lived today.

You know, most people aren't ruined by bad decisions. Most people are ruined by delayed decisions. It's not that we don't know what to do. It's delaying what we know to do. The goal is not in knowing more. Jesus says the goal is always in obeying him. I know we're convinced some of us are in this space and like, "Well, if I know more about the end times, if I know more about what's happening in geopolitical events and kind of what's going to happen in Russia and Iran and the gas prices, and if I kind of know who's going to win the mid…if I know more stuff, if I know more than I'll believe more, then you are deceiving yourself." great event in Ocala, the TEDx talks. If you've never been, I encourage you in 2027, go and attend the TEDx talk. Speakers come and and speak for 8, 12, 15 minutes about different topics. One of the one of the speakers was our very own Julius Bryant and he was motivating the crowd about how to become better men and he was putting it around the word action and there is a temptation for us to believe that if we know more and so then he asked the crowd. He gave the crowd different examples of things that we know we should do but for whatever reason we often don't do what we know we should do. So he asked, he gave us some examples and he asked the crowd that if one of these described them if they would just raise their hand and just hold it up there. So I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to give us some examples. If you can relate to one of the examples I'm about to give I want you to hold your hand but don't bring it back down when I move on to a different example. Just keep your hand up. You with me? You understand? Okay, so how many of us know that in the morning when we get up we should reach for a glass of water before we reach for a gallon of coffee to drink? How many people know that? Okay, okay, all right, keep that up. How many of us how many of us know that like we we should we don't have to go do an Ironman race or a marathon but we should probably move our bodies more than we currently do. Yeah, you kind of know. Okay, okay, that's good. I mean how many of us know that we probably in the morning should talk to God before we scroll on our phone? Right, I mean how many of us know that if like we anticipate being with God forever in eternity we should maybe talk to Him for a minute or two each day. Okay, you can put your hands or no, leave them up for a second. Look around the

room. Almost everybody's hands are raised and if you don't have your hand up you're just lying right now. I love you but you're just lying, right? Okay, you put your hands down. The point that Julius was teaching us and the point that's being made here today is that knowing isn't enough. You think that if you know more then you'll act. No, we have to move from knowing about it to doing something about it. There's a gap between knowing and doing and I want us to bridge that gap with two action steps to take this week because the longer the warning is delayed the easier it becomes to believe the warning doesn't matter. That's what some of you are doing. Your blood pressure is kind of creeped up to a certain point. Your doctor's been warning you about it but it but it you don't have to take the pill yet. You don't have to drastically change your lifestyle. Some of you, right? The warning that maybe the relationship with your spouse isn't as good as it could be. There's warning signs but it's really nice. There's a warning sign on the dash but right I really don't want to go and spend the money at the service department at the dealership. The longer the warning is delayed the easier it becomes to believe the warning doesn't matter and this is not about us living scared. This is about us living ready. Faith says, "Oh my goodness I don't know that I'm ready. I'm terrified that Jesus might come back." Faith says, "I'm prepared whenever Jesus returns." So here's the two steps. Number one is this is I want you to take action. I want you to move from awareness to alertness to action. Bring eternal purpose into everyday life. Just live your... when you're out and about, when you're going shopping, when you're at work, when you're at the gym, all the spaces and places. Keep on living. Plan that vacation. Raising your kids. Do all the great things but we live through the focus that perhaps today Jesus is coming. Again, God hasn't asked us to be weird in life. I think sometimes Christians are just weird. Make all these list of rules about what kind of clothes you can wear and where you can go and can't go and they walk around with a 20-pound Bible and if you don't look or act the way they want to beat you over the head or... I mean that's not what God's asking. I think... let me ask you. Would you say by raising your hand in this space

that you're a Christian? Do we have any Christians in the house? At home online do we have any... you say you're a Christian. So as Christians what we say is and the Word of God as He guides and directs our life. That's what it means to be a Christian. See, I think weird is better described when Christians really are inconsistent in living what they say that they believe. See, I think weird is believing in Jesus, but you live with that person and you're having sex with somebody who's not your spouse, that's weird. See, I think to those of us who would say I believe I'm a follower in Jesus and you know ESPN better than the Holy Spirit, that's weird. Weird is that you would say I believe in Jesus, but I spend more money on a cup of coffee than I do on giving financially to His bride, the church, that's weird. Weird is that you've got time for sitcoms, but you don't have time to be in a small group with other Christ followers so that you can grow in Christ. Weird is saying that I refuse to honor God with my body. His Word says that we are to honor Him with our body. This is my body. You don't have to do marathon. You don't have to do be weird about it. But he says, "Hey, listen, this is your one and only life. I want you to live on purpose." It's weird when we're watching that latest show on Netflix and that episode ends and it's a cliffhanger and it's like, "I know I should go to bed because I got to get up tomorrow morning, but you stay up." It's weird. It's weird when you know that you should hydrate your body. You should have real food as nutrition in your body. It's weird to think that your addiction to food and coffee and sugar is somehow less than someone's addiction to crack cocaine. That's weird. They're both addictions. They have control of your life. I want to imagine and you know you probably have someone in your life and it might even be you. You would not want to be around you if you didn't have sugar or coffee or potato chips. I just want you to know that's called an addiction. Good news is we have celebrate recovery every Friday night at 6.30. Be here. It is prideful and is arrogant as Christ followers to be addicted to food and point your fingers who are addicted at some chemical. And you wonder why we don't have a stronger reputation with people who don't know Jesus. That's weird. It's weird to say I believe something on a Sunday and then I don't live anywhere close to it Monday through Saturday. It's weird to call church of hope your church or any other church your church while sitting, soaking and consuming while others serving give that's weird. It's weird to pacify your children rather than raise them. It's weird to give them what they want because if you give your children what they want they will never experience what they need, a parent.

See readiness isn't something you prepare for someday. Readiness is something you practice today. That'll change your life. It'll change your marriage. It'll change your family. It'll change your finances. It'll change your health. It'll change your relationship with God. This will change every single thing. I'm going to illustrate something for you. Are you ready? It's 11.30 crowd. I think you're strong enough. I know you have excuses. We all have excuses of why we can't do something while we're going to put it off to something to tomorrow. But here's the problem with excuses. Excuses are like belly buttons. Everybody has one. It's time to shut up and just do the work. Do the work. You've got an excuse. So what? Welcome to humanity. At some point you are mature. We are growing up. We have the power and the presence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit who lives within us. We have the Word of God that guides us and directs us. We are followers of Jesus. We do not live for victory. We live from victory. He gives us hope. I was noodling in my journal this week and this sentence came out and I give it to you. Don't wait until eternity becomes your reality to make eternity your priority. That's good. Don't wait. Don't wait until eternity becomes your reality to make eternity your priority. Why? Bye! Believe in Jesus, but don't live in a way that you shine the hope of Jesus and all the places that you go. You say that you believe in Jesus and your life isn't making people thirsty for God, this is a disconnect, it's time. And I want you to know we can't make anybody, I can't make you choose Jesus, I can't make you to leave here today and to follow hard after crying, I can't make you. But what we can do is we can set up blind dates with our friends and our coworkers to discover, to taste and see for themselves how good Jesus is. So first I want you to take action, everybody in this space can do this. And here's a second is I want you to invite one, invite one to discover the same hope that you're experiencing. In Corinthians 5, notice what God says, therefore as a result of all of this, we are Christ ambassadors. What is an ambassador? Ambassadors are somebody who lives in a foreign country and they are representing their king

back in the homeland. God says to us, as Christ followers, you are His ambassadors. See, I live here, He wants us to enjoy life, He wants us to have a career, He wants us to have hobbies, He wants us to have a great marriage, He wants us to spend time with our kids, He wants us to go on to the king. He wants us to live in this space understanding that we are ambassadors, that we are representing our king, King Jesus, who right now is in His kingdom. We are in this space, we are Christ ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. God is making His appeal to the world around us, through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sinned for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Thank you. Being together in this space today is really good. If you've never begun a relationship with Jesus, I'd like to invite you today to start following Jesus. It's not about your behavior, it's not about your church attendance, it's about the reality that Jesus is for you. God's not managed you, He's madly in love with you. Would you right now pray this prayer with me, "Hey God, it's me. I've sinned and I know it and I can't fix me." Today, I receive you, Jesus, as my Savior. I believe that you died on that cross for me, and that you were buried for three days, and then you became alive again, and I invite you into my life to guide me and direct me all the rest of the days of my life. And with that prayer, my friend, welcome to God's family. I'd like to continue our friendship. If you would email me, [email protected], I'll follow up with you and together, we'll celebrate Jesus in your life.

Peace. [music] (upbeat music) (upbeat music)