 This morning I want to give you part one of this series and by way of introduction of the series Why I Believe and introduced to you maybe for the first time the understanding of a word called apologetics. Apologetics literally means in the defense of or the reasoned arguments or written justification of something it's the why behind the belief. And so apologetics, Christian apologetics is as old as our faith in which God has raised up people to give an apology or a defense of the hope that lies within us. I'd like to invite you to open your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter three. We're gonna read two verses here to kind of set the stage for this message and the series. First Peter chapter three and verse 15 says, But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy. Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect having a good conscience so that when you are slandered those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. Peter the apostle is writing to Christians that are living in the middle of days very similar to the days in which you and I are living in Christians and Christianity had spread not just from Israel but now throughout the whole Roman Empire. And as Christians are engaging with people who have no knowledge of Jesus, no understanding of the Old Testament scriptures, no understanding of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are for the first time being confronted with having to give an answer, what do you believe and why do you believe that? You see Christians stood out in the first and the second century as being awkwardly odd to a world that had a vastly different worldview. And Peter admonishes the church, be ready to give a defense of why you believe what you do and for the glory that is on the inside of you. But when you do it, do it with a spirit of gentleness and respect. And he says, because you're going to be persecuted, you're going to be slandered, there are going to be people that do not like what you say, they're actually going to reject it but maintain a good conscience on the inside and do it in a way that gives an answer to those who are looking for why you believe what you believe. Over the last 2000 years, nothing has changed except cultures have changed and what the world on the whole believes. That has evolved, that has changed. Most of our world doesn't believe like the Romans believed in a multi-polytheistic pantheon of different gods, although there are some places in the world that still believe that India still believes that. We were just there. Hinduism is the dominant faith, the dominant religion in Hinduism. And they believe in 360 million different deities. So they've got a God for everything. And it's not out of the norm for people to worship different deities within the ideal of Hinduism. But for the most part of the culture in which you and I live in, Western culture, we give our defense in a much different way. Barna research just did its most recent research on what Americans believe. And here's what they found. When they surveyed Americans and they asked them, do you believe that you have a biblical worldview, 51% of the respondents said that they believe that they have a Christian worldview. But as they begin to ask deeper questions that would indicate what they really believe, what they found out after the supplementary research and inquiry is they found out that really only about 6% of American culture has a biblical worldview. And that is, remind, remember this, this is not outside of the church as well as inside of the church. This is all American culture. So you've got 50% of culture says, yeah, I believe the Bible and I see the world through the lens of the biblical worldview. I see history, I see myself, I see others, I see God through the lens of a biblical worldview. But as they dug down deeper, they found out that really only about 6% actually do. Here was their summation. They said, our studies show that the Americans are neither deep nor sophisticated thinkers. And it says, most people seem more interested in living a life of comfort and convenience than one of logical consistency and wisdom. Our children will continue to suffer the consequences of following in the unfortunate footsteps of their parents and elders. People who are willing to fight for a more reasonable way of thinking and acting can make a difference, but it will be slow progress. One of the ways that we make a difference, I believe, is not just saying we believe in God, but actually knowing why we believe, what we believe, so that God can use you and I to reach a world by not just presenting Jesus, but actually able to engage in conversation. Now, I know that that can be intimidating. I know that for many of us, it's like, wow, that's way above my pay grade. But actually, when God inspired the words of Peter, in 1 Peter, and he said, you be ready to give a defense. He wasn't just talking about pastors. He was talking about Christians. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you need to be prepared for yourself to know why you believe what you believe, but then also to be able to give an answer to those that are around you. That doesn't mean you have to be a theologian or a scholar. It just means that you need to give it some thought, some prayer, and some preparation so that you're able to within your context. See, the church is living in an era right now that is very similar to where the church was in the second century. In the second century, Christianity was beginning to be persecuted on a pretty wide scale throughout the Roman Empire. And God raised up many of the early church fathers who engaged in what was called apologia or giving a defense of the faith inside of the church against heresies and make no mistake about it today in our world, we're facing all kinds of false teaching even within the church. You can go on YouTube and punch in all kinds of things and you'll be shocked by what people, even within the church, are teaching. But then also, God raised up church fathers who would give an answer or a defense, an apology for the faith to the secular society around them, to Roman philosophers, to Gnostic heretics, and pagan dignitaries. Some of those leaders were Justin Martyr who was a Greco-Roman philosopher who then investigated Christianity and became a follower of Jesus and engaged in conversations and actually wrote a defense of the faith to the Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Another one was Eranius of Lyons who wrote against heresies of Gnosticism, Tertullian, who was a North African scholar in convert to Christianity. Another was Clement of Alexandria. These were some of the original apologists and their writings are still with us today. But here's what I want you to grasp is that you and I are living in a time when our culture needs an apology for the faith. Because it's become more distant in Western culture. It's become further and further away from a Judeo-Christian worldview. In fact, I would say this, that the church of the 21st century actually has more in common with the church of the second century than we do with the church of the 20th century. It's because many of the same conditions and many of the same arguments and many of the same challenges that you and I are facing as followers of Jesus living in a hostile culture to the gospel are much more similar to what took place in the second century. So as we look back on the second century, we see that God raised up defenders of the faith. I believe God wants to raise up a church full of defenders of the faith who not only believe, but are confident in what they believe and are able to give a respectful, gracious answer for the hope that lies within them. And so that's what this series is about. It's why I believe and it's gonna be five weeks long. Today, I'm gonna give you an introduction of why I believe God is real. I like that. You're in church early on a Sunday morning, earlier than you thought you should be in church. Most of you probably already believe in God, but if I were to ask you why, can you give an answer? Next week, it will be why I believe the world is in such a mess. Week number three is going to be Dr. Michael Brown, why I believe the Bible is still relevant, and then week number four will be Scott Volk, why I believe Jesus is the Messiah. Sunday morning, Easter morning is going to be why I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And my goal is that over the next five weeks, not to turn you into a scholar, although that would be awesome, but it's to help you be able to answer the question of why you believe. And maybe you need to internally process that yourself. Doubt is nothing new, even for believers. Why do I believe what I believe? Hopefully you'll get clarity, but hopefully you will also gain the ability to be able to share in a cogent way why you believe. As you work with people, go to school, engage with people, even on social media, as you begin to see our culture becoming increasingly hostile to the gospel that we're able to give a good defense of what we believe. And listen, we're also living in a day, as we've been talking about over the last several weeks, where God is moving in our culture in a very profound way, especially among Gen Z and the younger generation. And as we look at that, we need to recognize that every revival also needs an apology. Within every revival, within every great awakening movement, there always comes a question. What is this and why does it matter? And when boldness comes upon our generation to witness about Jesus and to testify to what God has done in their lives, there also comes a necessity for discipleship so that as we go out into the world, we're able to answer the questions why I believe. So today, let me start by answering the question, why I believe that God is real. Let me do a quick poll wherever you're at, whatever room you're at today. How many of you would say, with your hand raised, I believe that God is real? Raise your hand all over the room. Awesome, put your hands down. Now, there are some that did not raise your hand. And that's interesting as well. I love the honesty because it's an important question that we need to ask. Why do I believe that God is real? Richard Dawkins, who many of you may be familiar with who's one of the great kind of new generation of atheists along with Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, he wrote a book years ago called The God Delusion. And in The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, the well-known atheist said this, if God exists or God exists if only in the form of a meme with high survival value or infective power in the environment provided by human culture. Faith is the great cop out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is believed despite even perhaps because of the lack of evidence for God. And then he goes on to say, I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. So this is an atheist perspective who's saying this is why I do not believe in God. Now, I would respond to Richard Dawkins and I wouldn't presume to be able to have a conversation with him. But if I did, if I were sitting across the table having coffee with Richard Dawkins and he were to make this statement, especially the part where he said that I'm against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world, I would tell him that I actually believe the opposite is true. That there is more evidence for God than there is evidence against God and that without acknowledging that evidence and the creator that it points to, we will never actually be able to understand the world. You see, without God in the equation, the world doesn't make any sense. Even a naturalistic worldview that Richard Dawkins would hold to doesn't make logical rational sense without God in the middle of it. Some sort of a supreme being. You see, everyone actually has a belief about God. There are really four different belief systems about God. There's the theist, which if you're a Christian, you by nature are a theist. A theist says God is the creator, the sustainer and the only eternal transcendent, self-existent being in the universe. So that's what a theist is. I believe in God and when I say that I believe in God, I'm saying that he's a creator, he's sustainer, he's eternal, he's self-sufficient, he's transcendent and he is the uncreated creator. That's what we mean by theism but then that's not the only worldview. When we talk about believing in God, there are three other views. There is the polytheist. This is an interesting one, like I just mentioned. When we were in India, it's amazing, when you preach Jesus in a polytheistic culture and polytheism is actually the belief that there are multiple deities with greater or lesser power and authority that interact with the created universe. So basically there's lots of different gods and deities. When you preach the gospel of Jesus in India, nobody has a problem with accepting the belief and the story of the Son of God coming into the earth, dying and being raised again. You present Jesus to them, they're just like, great, we'll just put Jesus next to all the other gods we believe in and so it's just one more in a pantheon of deities. That's not the difficulty. The difficulty in preaching Jesus in India is when you confront and say, no, I don't just believe that Jesus is a God. I believe that he is the only, almighty, living and self-eternal God. And all other gods must be rejected. They're all idols, they're all fake, they're all demons and you must reject them and believe only in Jesus. That becomes the challenge in India. That is what happens in polytheistic cultures. Rome was a polytheistic culture. Greece was a polytheistic culture. Many, many different cultures, minus Western civilization were rooted in polytheism. Why not Western civilization, Western culture? Because we were rooted in Judeo-Christian foundations. Christianity and Christianity influenced us. Psalm 115 verse five through eight says, talking about idols, they have mouths, but they cannot speak, eyes, but they cannot see. They have ears, but they cannot hear and noses, but they cannot smell. They have hands, but they cannot feel and feet, but they cannot walk, throats, but they cannot make a sound and those who make idols are just like them. So this is polytheism, multiple different gods. When you ask somebody in a polytheistic culture, say, do you believe in God? They'll say, which one? Which one do you wanna know? The third view of God, because remember everybody has a belief about God, the third view about the belief in God is pantheism. A pantheist is a belief that every part of everything is part of an all-encompassing, impersonal, imminent God. In other words, that God is in everything and everything is in God, that we're all part of the divine. So the tree is God, the rock is God. It's like God is this universal mind. God is a universal force that permeates all of creation and we're all part of that. So I'm God, you're God, the chair is God, the carpet's God. The tree is God, the wind is God, the birds are God. We're all part of God and when we die, we all go back to that universal spiritual sea of unconsciousness that is, quote, God. That is pantheism and you can find that not only in Hindu, but you can also find it in many of the world religious, even in indigenous faiths and Native Americans, some of your Disney movies that you've seen where they talk about Brother Bear and they talk about God being in the trees and God being in the wind and it's like, where did that all come from? That's pantheism. That's one view of God. God's not a personal being. God is an impersonal force that all of us have in us. And then ultimately, the fourth view of God is atheism, which says there is no God or higher power. Atheism, A, meaning nothing and the is no God. Psalm 14 says the fool has said in his heart, there is no God and they are corrupt and their deeds are vile and there is no one who does good. So all of these views, the theists, the polytheists, the pantheists and the atheists, everybody has a belief about God and what you believe about God shapes the story of how you see the world. That's what's called the worldview. Most recent psychologists who aren't even Christians, when they investigate how people live their lives and how they make decisions, have reduced it down to this that human beings are psychologically wired to believe or to see the world through stories. So everybody based on how you view the existence of God has a form of a story, which is called a metanarrative. It's how you see the world. So if I believe in atheism and I say that there is no God, then I have a naturalistic worldview and there is no morality because there is no absolute truth because there is no absolute truth. Giver, everything is subject and culturally relevant. It's just my right and your right, whatever is right for you. There is no judgment, there is no higher power. It's a naturalistic worldview and actually you can either move in the direction of moralism just based on human supremacy which is much of what atheism is trying to do and much of that is influenced by the zeitgeist, the cultural ghost of Christianity that is still infecting our culture regardless of whether you're an atheist or not or you move into the arena of nihilism which says there is no meaning and the story of human history is all about the struggle for power and dominance. And this is where atheism really doesn't make sense and it really is lacking the story of the need for God in order for things to make sense because if there is no God and there is no morality and there is no absolute truth and all there is is power and the struggle, then why do we get upset when the more powerful dominate the weaker? Because after all, that's what evolution is supposed to produce. The dominant of the most superior species and so when a child is killed, why are we upset about that? When there are wars between nations, that's just the outworking of that. Why is there this internal sense that some things are right and some things are wrong? You need God for that story to make sense. Now this morning I'm gonna give you just five reasons that I believe in God and I could give you 25, but today what I wanna do, I'm not going to in the next 10 minutes give you the answer to why everybody should believe in God. I'm gonna skim across the water and we're gonna touch on five unique evidences that if you'll dive deeper into these, we'll help you more fully form the answer to the question of why I believe, but these five reasons I think are significant. So here they are, five reasons that I believe in God, number one is the creation and the universe that we all live in. The creation and the universe that we all live in to me is evidence of the existence and the goodness of God. Psalm 19 verse one says, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Romans one verse 19 through 20 says, for what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made so that we are all without excuse. When we look at the universe and the world that you and I live in, the fingerprints of a creator are all over the place. Creation has a designer. There's no question about that. The fine tuning of the universe that made it possible for human existence is so, it is so mathematically impossible that it could not have happened by accident. When you think about the fine tuning and if you look at even some scientific books, it talks about why life on earth actually works. It's because of the fine tuning of every aspect of the universe, the power of light, the speed of which our earth rotates, its closeness and proximity to other things, even down to the molecular level, the atomic level. It's almost like dials would have to be on about a million different levels, would have to be finely tuned and then continually adjusted in order to create the perfect environment for life to exist. Francis Collins, who is a scientist, he wrote the book called The Language of God. He's a world-class physicist in science. Described it like this. He said, when you look from the perspective of a scientist at the universe, it looks as if it knew we were coming. There are 15 constants, the gravitational constant, various constants about the strong and the weak nuclear force, et cetera, that have precise values. If any one of these constants was off by even one part in a million or in some cases by one part in a million million, the universe could not have actually come to the point where we see it. Matter would not have been able to coalesce and there would have been no galaxy, starts, planets or people. This is from a well-respected physicist and scientist. And what we're seeing is even scientists now as they begin to evaluate the age of the universe are looking backwards and saying the universe is not eternal, the universe had a definitive beginning. They oftentimes call it the big bang, but what they don't often realize is if you go back to the big bang, there's a big banger. In other words, everything that is had a beginning and if it had a beginning, it was not random. If it had a beginning, the second law of thermodynamics that talks about everything that starts with life and energy goes into entropy, we actually see the universe not slowing down, speeding up. We actually see the universe expanding. We actually don't see chaos in the universe, we actually see order. We see design and that's when we look at the stars. There's design. When we look at the human eye, there's design that a million, billion, trillion years could not have produced that level of intricate design. The idea that everything that exists just came out of boom, you know, a molecule exploded into the universe and then all of a sudden it just arranged itself in intricate design. That takes more faith than actually seeing and believing there has to be a grand creator. Imagine with me for a moment if a tornado went through a junkyard and accidentally assembled a 747 Boeing down to the nuts and bolts, how many of us would stand there and go, wow, that was random? You just don't see it at every single day. This is, that's micro scale compared to the intricacy of the universe that testifies to the existence of a creator. So the first reason I believe in God is because of the creation in the universe we all live in. The second is the moral law that we all possess internally. The moral law, Ecclesiastes 311 says that God has put eternity into man's heart yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. In other words, God has put something of eternity in the human heart, even though we live within time, space and matter that causes us to be self-aware and ask questions that the animal kingdom is not asking. We're investigating and we're looking at all that God has done, but yet we can't figure it out. And what that does is it begins to drive us towards asking greater questions. Why am I here? How did we all get here? Is there a higher purpose? All of these things are the evidence of a moral law that was deposited in our hearts right from the beginning. Paul talks about this moral law in Romans 2, verse 15. It says that they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts. Talking about Gentiles or people that are far from God, even they have written on their hearts. And it says that while their conscience also bears them witness and they have conflicting thoughts that accuse or even excuse them. I think the fact that the human heart, even under the effects of sin, still has the law, the natural law of right and wrong, good and evil written in our hearts. And our conscience is like this homing device telling us that there's something greater, there's something that's right, and there's something that's wrong. We don't have to really work hard at figuring out thou shall not murder. Even an atheist acknowledges that for different reasons. We all can look at evil and know it when we see it, even if we don't have a definition for it. We can all look at good and know that there's something good. Where does that come from? That doesn't come from education. That comes from the inside out, that God has put eternity in man's heart. So that our conscience, again, convinces us, convicts us of right and wrong and actually becomes a homing device that points us back towards God. This is the beauty and the power and the wisdom of God, that he's done it in the human hearts. That's why you will never go to any primitive culture that's ever been discovered and find a culture that is atheistic. They are all worshiping something. Now it might be wrong, it may not be the truth, but what is it in the human heart that no matter where you find human beings on a planet in any era on any continent, they're all choosing to worship something. Atheism is actually the product of deconstructing theism. It's not the other way around. We don't go from atheism to theism. We go from theism towards atheism. That's true in every single culture because the human heart knows that there's a moral law and if there's a moral law, there must be a moral law giver. Number three, why I believe in God. It's the beauty that we all observe around us. Beauty is evidence of a grand designer, a creator of God. It's been said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In Acts 17, verse 25 through 27, when Paul is ministering to a pagan culture in Athens, Greece, he says he's speaking about God to a bunch of polytheists. He said, nor is he the living God served by human hands as though as if he needs anything since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything and he's made from one man, every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place. That they should seek God and perhaps feel their way towards him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us. How is it that God has set us and positioned us in a world that the things around us will actually trigger a desire to pursue and to grope until we find God? One of the things that is connected to the moral law and actually creation is beauty. It's beauty, it's a baby being born and tears beginning to flow down the face of someone who's never desired or seen themselves to be a parent but in a moment their heart bonds to this beautiful child. It's standing on the edge of a body of water and seeing a sunset and being overwhelmed at the beauty of it. It's staring up into the night sky and seeing the stars and the beauty and the profound design and the wisdom of it. Standing in a museum staring at a Rembrandt or a Picasso or a painting or a work of art and there's something about it that captures you and moves your emotions. It's a song that you hear that stirs your heart. It's a moment of witnessing sacrificial love. It's the gift of beauty and beauty is one of the greatest indicators of wisdom and goodness in the universe. Without God, beauty doesn't make sense. And as it says, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We all are beholders of beauty. Tim Keller in his book, Reasons for God says this. He says, doesn't the unfulfillable longing evoked by beauty qualify as an innate desire? We have a longing for joy, love and beauty that no amount of quality of food, sex, friendship or success can satisfy. We want something that nothing in this world can fulfill. Isn't that at least a clue that this something that we want exists? This unfulfillable longing then qualifies as deep innate human desire and that makes it a major clue that God is there after all. The things that we long for, the things that we want and the things that we possess can never satisfy but the beauty of them points to a wonderful, beautiful creator, God. Number four and five, why I believe in God is the revelation of God that we receive in the Bible. In a couple of weeks, we'll talk much more about this so I won't spend a lot of time here but think about the Bible is a miraculous testimony of divine revelation of God to us and in and of itself is a profound evidence. 40 authors, 66 books, three languages, three continents, 1700 years in the writing and a major unbroken theme of a God who creates a God who loves humans who sin and a God who doesn't neglect us or forsake us but actually comes and enters into human history to redeem us and takes everything that we broke and restores it back to its beauty again. We look at the Bible and we see the gift the supernatural gift of prophecy. It's like breadcrumbs, God prophesying things, hundreds and thousands of years in advance and you and I are beginning to see those things that have taken place and those things that are continuing to take place in our very day. It's evidence of the existence of God in and of itself, maybe not enough but it goes along with all the other pieces that continue to point us back to God. Number five is maybe the most personal and the most significant and it's this, I believe in God because of my personal experience. Now, before you kind of push that aside, John Wesley had a concept called the quadrilateral way of thinking and here's what John Wesley said. He said, how do I determine if something is true? Well, number one, what does the scripture say? That's primary. As a Christian, what did the scripture say but not just that, what does Christian history and Christian orthodox teaching say? And then the third question is what does reason and logic say? Is it rational? Is it logical? I would say that the belief in God is actually very rational and very logical but the fourth part of John Wesley's quadrilateral was what is my personal experience? What is my personal experience? See all the other things that we've talked about are breadcrumbs that God has deposited in creation, in nature itself, in our consciences, in beauty, and in scripture. It all is leading us, it's like breadcrumbs leading us to a burning bush for God to personally encounter us because God is not content with us having an intellectual knowledge or belief in him. What he desires for us is that all of these things would actually lead us into a personal experience with him. He is the God who created. He is the God who's transcendent and I'm glad that we worship a big God. How many are glad God is not small and insignificant and sniveling and just trying to get our attention? He's a great God but he's also an imminent God, a God who draws near to us, who breaks into human history, who reveals himself and who personally impacts and transforms our life. And for me, the greatest evidence for God's existence is my experience with him. When he spoke my name at 12 years old and when he transformed my life against all odds and helped me break cycles and overcome statistics, you see today I can look at my life and my story and I can see the fingerprints of God from the very beginning even before I knew he was there. And as I look at my life, I'm fully aware that if God was not part of that story, the trajectory of who I should be and where I should have gone would look vastly different than it does today. I should not be standing behind a holy desk, preaching to thousands of people. This is not how my life should have gone. It was only the divine intervention of a good God, a transcendent God who stepped out of eternity into my history and broke through and spoke my name and called me and by his Holy Spirit transform my life, changed me and called me that my life makes sense. As we look at our lives, it's important that all of these other things that we consider all lead us to this one point that we should be able to look in the mirror and say, my life doesn't make sense if God is not in it. It's the missing number in the equation. If it wasn't for God, I would not be. And you know, you might say, well, that's not a convincing argument to somebody who's not a believer, but it's one of the most powerful, one of the most powerful evidences that we add to the other things because it's one thing we can argue facts all day and you can argue physics, you can argue math, you can argue philosophy, you can argue theology, but you cannot argue a person's testimony. I don't know if Jesus is the Messiah, but here's what I do know. I was blind, but now I see Lazarus can say, I don't know all of your theological arguments, I can just tell you for four days I was in the tomb, but then I heard him speak my name and a stone rolled away and my grave clothes dropped off and here I am once again. I am the one who is dead and I am alive again. And your experience may not be as profound as a resurrection but make no mistake, salvation is the first phase of a resurrection. And what the world needs more than anything, more than all of our intellectual arguments is people who have a testimony. We are the greatest evidence that God exists. This is why I believe in God. This is why I believe that he not only exists, but he's here. And today, if you will open up your heart, you will open up your ears and you will just take a chance and say, God, if you're real, open my ears, the ears of my heart to really hear you. Open my eyes, the eyes of my heart, so that I can really see you. I believe he will break in. And if you are a believer today, I invite you to say there's nothing worth more than giving my life to shaping and forming an understanding of why I believe what I believe. God, prepare me to be able to give an answer for the hope that lies within me. Would you stand with me wherever you're at? And let's pray. Let's pray to the God who created, who calls, who convicts, who draws near. Heavenly Father, today we call upon you and even though our faith is still asked through a glass where we dimly see you, the evidence is all around us that you are here and that you are near and that you are real. And God, that you are good. You so love the world that you gave your only begotten Son, that whosoever would believe on you would not perish, but have everlasting life. Today, would you break through into our lives? Lord, would you stir in us a passion for your name and a passion to know you and to grow in our faith and to not just go along. Lord, we don't wanna be that 6% that says that we believe, but we don't know why we believe. We don't wanna be that 6% that thinks we're living from a biblical worldview and seeing things according to your story, but yet we're living like practical atheists. We say we believe, but we live like we don't. Lord, today we want our faith to become real in our lives. We want it to be evidenced in the way that we live. If taken to court, we want there to be enough evidence in the life that we live and the testimony that we have that we would be convicted of being Christians. Holy Spirit, only you can do this in us. And so we're asking you help us to not just know why we believe, but help us to know who it is that we believe. We want to know you. We wanna know you more. Today, with everyone's eyes closed and heads bowed in this moment, perhaps you are watching or you're here in this room and you've been a skeptic, maybe a agnostic or a lapsed believer, or perhaps you're someone says, I've said that I believe and I'm a Christian, but my life has not been evidenced by that. I've actually probably lived my life more like a practical atheist than as a follower of Jesus. Today, here's the promise that Jesus gave. He said, if anyone will believe in me, if anyone will call upon my name, I will save them, rescue them from their sins and I will give them eternal life. I will come to them. God says, I will come to those who are hungry and thirsty, who call to me. I will come to you, I will save you, forgive you, rescue you. Today can be a day of faith, a day of placing your faith in the one who's known you long before you ever took your breath. If today you're listening to me and you say, today I believe, God helped my unbelief, but I believe that you are the son of God, save me. I'm far from you. I don't know how to get to you, but I believe you came for me. You sent your son Jesus and today I want to accept Jesus as my personal Lord and savior and I want to begin a journey of following him. If that's you, all over the room, I just want you to raise your hand. I want to pray with you and for you. If that's you today, thank you. I'm looking all over the room. If you need to get your life right with God and save today, raise your hand and we're gonna pray together and this is gonna be the beginning of a brand new life. Thank you. I see two hands, who else will join these? You can put your hands down. Everyone in the room, we're gonna say a prayer, a prayer of faith, a prayer of agreement and when we do, I want those of you who raised your hands to say this, this is you talking to the God we've been talking about and he will hear you and the rest of us in this room, I want us to join these who raised their hands in solidarity because we all need it. Let's say this together, say, Heavenly Father, I come in Jesus' name. I confess, I've sinned, I've lived for myself and I've even ignored you but today I believe, I believe you're real God and I believe you set your son Jesus to die for me. Save me and forgive me and open my eyes so that I can know you. From this day forward, I'm a believer and I belong to you. Thank you for loving me and saving me in Jesus' name. Amen, and amen, come on. If you just prayed that prayer, welcome to the family of God.