 For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not pay much but have eternal life. Hey everybody, can we start off by just welcoming our other campus, Portage Campus. Let's put our hands together and welcome those who are over at Portage. We love you guys. Pastor Richard and Sarah, your little beautiful baby is so gorgeous. And Jane and I are looking forward to our grandson being born in January. And Ashley is doing well. So we're going to be in the middle of Sikh. So Jane and I are going to be praying and fasting. But I just want to warn you, if in the middle of the fast my grandchild is born, I am eating pizza and celebrating. So you guys will just have to hold it down. So good to be with everybody this morning. Turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 3. This is part six of our series entitled 316. And while you're turning there, we just want to share with you a celebration point, something really cool that has happened in the last couple of days. Our very own Pastor Caleb Culver and Pastor Corey Asbury just received word that they have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Gospel Song of the Year. It's awesome. So all you need in life is to just be nominated for a Grammy. But it'd be even better to win one for Best Gospel Song. The song Reckless Love is just, it's impacting so many people's lives, but we just honor them and what God is doing from Kalamazoo, Michigan. Isn't that amazing? Kalamazoo is on the map, baby. We've been nominated. So John chapter 3, this is part six of our series 316. And today we're going to be talking about whoever believes those two words, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish, should not perish, but have everlasting life. How many of you have it memorized already? You've got John 316 memorized. Let's say it all together one more time. They put it up on the screens, both campuses. It says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Today we're talking about whoever believes. I actually grew up memorizing the King James and New King James Bible. So all my Bible memorization is New King James. And the New King James, when it translates this verse, uses the word whosoever, not whoever. Whoever's what the English standard version, which this is what I typically study him and preach out of. But whenever I read John 316, my old New King James kicks in. And I love the flow of that word whosoever. Everybody say whosoever. See, it sounds better than whoever, but they're both kind of the same. So it's whatever. It's whosoever, whoever. But it's interesting that when we use the word whoever, it's typically in the context of just kind of whatever. I mean just whoever, that's fine, whatever. But when God uses that word, as he does in John 316, whoever believes, shall be saved, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord. He's using it in the context of an open door of opportunity that includes everybody. See, the reality is in our world, we typically attribute great things, good luck, significant opportunities, awards, prizes, celebrity status, being well known to somebodies. People that are somebody. You mentioned names. Oh, that's somebody. Well, of course, they had that, you know, that open door of opportunity because they're a somebody and you have to know somebody. But when it comes to how God relates to us and the offer of salvation, the gift of giving his son Jesus Christ, he didn't give his son Jesus for somebodies. He gave him for whoever's. Whoever's. And you know, you're a whoever. I'm a whoever. I'm not a who living in Whoville, but I am a whoever. You are a whosoever. And the two key words there that are so significant are whosoever believes. Number one, if you're a whoever, that means you qualify for the Christmas gift from heaven, which is God's son Jesus, which produces salvation and grants you eternal life. But the key is the whoever only works when you do the second part of that phrase, which is to believe. It's to believe. It's important that we believe, not just that we recognize that in this world, I'm maybe not a somebody, but I'm definitely a whoever. And I'm qualified for salvation because as Romans 10, 13 says, everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's me. I'm an everyone. I'm an anyone. God is able to take whoever, wherever, who's done whatever and give you life forever. He's just able to do that. So the good news of the gospel is that if you've ever felt obscure, if you've ever felt like you weren't significant, if you've ever felt broken, if you've ever felt like good things didn't always happen to you, that something was wrong on the inside of you, but you didn't know how to fix it. I've got good news for you. That means that you are a whoever and God doesn't overlook whoever's. God sends a savior to redeem whoever's. And that's you today. That's me. If we will only believe. You see in the world, it's good performance actually qualifies us for good things. But actually, it's the fact that we can't perform good enough that actually qualifies us for God's righteousness, for God's salvation. It's the very fact that you are broken, that you don't have it all together. That makes you a whoever. That's actually the reason why God sent Jesus. You are the one Jesus came for. Jesus didn't come for the ones who are well. He said the physician comes for the one who's sick. He didn't come for the one who had it all together. He came for the one whose life is a mess. He didn't come for the one that is celebrated in tabloids and all over celebrity magazines. He came for the one that is hidden. The one that was the one lamb that he left the 99 to come in pursuit of. There's good news in being a whoever. And I know that in my life, I've been a whoever. That anything that is good that has happened in my life has not been because I somehow qualified myself or deserved it. Anything that is good that has happened in my life is the result of God's grace because he saw me when nobody else saw me. When I was just a whoever, he was willing to send Jesus. Do you know that Jesus had all kinds of whoever's that approached him in his ministry? When you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the four Gospels, you see a variety of people who were drawn to Jesus, who were whoever's just like you and I are whoever's to this day. You think about the list of people that approached Jesus. Jesus had the hopeless that approached him. People that were at the end who had no hope, who thought everything was lost. Think about the leper, the man who approached Jesus in Matthew chapter eight who had leprosy and you might think to yourself, well, why would a leper be hopeless? We need to realize that for a leper in Jesus's day. When you were diagnosed with leprosy, there was no cure for that. And it meant that you had to leave your family. You had to leave your children. You had to leave your job. You had to leave your community and you had to go live by yourself out in the wilderness. And if anybody ever came across you, you had to yell out long before they ever got to you, unclean, unclean. Because you were ceremonially unclean. But when this man who had leprosy, who had lost all hope approached Jesus, he didn't leave the same way that he came. He came to Jesus unclean, but he encountered Jesus. He believed Jesus and he was made clean. He was a hopeless man who found hope in the Son of God. Jesus had religious experts that came to him. We know that, right? I mean Pharisees and Sadducees and scribes and theologians. They came to Jesus for a lot of different reasons. Some came out of curiosity. They were whoever's that came curious. But there were some of them that came because they were trying to catch Jesus, trying to debate with Jesus, trying to prove that he wasn't the Messiah. They came with wrong motives and they came with contempt in their heart for Jesus. And they wanted to debate theology. Debating doctrine and theology is fun at times, but don't debate theology with God. How many of you know that's a losing battle? Well, you know, the Bible says, and God says, I know what the Bible says. I wrote it. Thank you very much. Debate with the Jehovah's Witness who comes to the door or the Mormon is walking around with a badge and a 17-year-old elder. And debate with them or debate with the philosophical person who has a lot of questions. You can debate, that's fine. But you are going to lose the battle every single time when you debate with the living Word of God. And every time that they came with the wrong motives to approach Jesus, they all walked away with their tail tucked between their legs because Jesus put them in their place. Jesus said, I'll answer you when you answer me. And it's like, ah, I'm out. But do you know that Nicodemus was one of the religious leaders? And that's where we find in John 3, he came to Jesus in the middle of the night asking questions because he came with a hungry heart. He came with a desire to be right with God. What's interesting is that the religious leaders who approach Jesus, the legalistic, the self-righteous, they approach Jesus, they didn't know it, but they were one of the who-evers that Jesus came to save. But you know, God can't save that which doesn't know it's lost. Arthur Wallace says, you can't offer a pardon to a man who's never been convicted of a crime. And the Pharisees and Sadducees thought they were righteous. And so when you approach a religious mindset in an attitude towards who Jesus is, if we approach Jesus with a religious mindset, we're approaching him with our own self-righteousness, if you don't leave your self-righteousness at the feet of Jesus, then you walk away with your own filthy rags. But what salvation is, and Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were two of the religious leaders and many of the priests and many of the scribes, when they came to Jesus for a whosoever in need of Savior and they left their self-righteousness at Jesus' feet. So the list goes on. Jesus had the hopeless, excuse me. He had the religious experts. Jesus had sexually broken people that approached him. They were who-evers. Jesus had the rich young ruler approach him. You remember that story where Jesus has a man who the gospels described as rich, young, and a ruler. He had the three things the world tells us is the key to success. He had money, youth, and influence. Rich young ruler. And he came to Jesus with his pedigree and he says, I've been good. I went to Sunday school and I've kept all the laws of God. Am I saved? And Jesus said, you lack one thing. Give everything away and come follow me because your problem isn't what you've done. Your problem is that you find your identity in those things and you think you're good enough by yourself. So I want you to empty everything that you believe is a description or a badge that defines your own identity. I want you to give it all away and I want you to come follow me and then you'll be made right with God. So he had the rich who came to him. He had criminals. Remember the thief on the cross who approached him. He had children who came to him and he said, suffer the little children to come unto me. Jesus had tax collectors. He had pagan soldiers and he had demoniacs who approached him. And you know what all of them had in common? Whether they were the Pharisee or the demoniac from Gadarenes or whether they were the Samaritan woman at Jacobswell who had been married five times, divorced five times and was living with a guy. They all had one thing in common. They were all whosoever's. They were all in the same classification that whoever believes in him, in Jesus, shall not perish but have everlasting life. They all, listen, they all approached Jesus as a whosoever who had the same common issue. They all had sin problems. They all had problems that they could not fix themselves. They had sin problems. Every one of us in this room have sin problems. How many in this room just by a show of hands have ever been tempted to do anything wrong? If you didn't raise your hand, you'd just sin your first time. Welcome. Welcome to the club of the messed up. I've heard it said, if you're breathing, you have issues. We all do. That's what makes us a whosoever. You see, religion tells us that if you want to be made right with God you have to build a ladder high enough, climb all the rungs and eventually you'll be face to face with God. You can make your way to heaven. But Christianity is different. Jesus is different than religion because what the gospel is, the story that we find in John 3.16 tells us that God knew that we could never save ourselves. And so instead he built a ladder but he climbed down it and he came to us. And he died on the cross in our place, took our penalty so that we could take his life. And that we could have the same life that he had always had, the same relationship that he had always had. That he had always had with God the Father. You see sin is powerful. Temptation is powerful. We've all experienced temptation. We've all sinned. I know sometimes we come to church and we think, wow, my problems are much worse than everybody else's. Maybe I'm not worthy to be in church. Can I just tell you, you have no idea the things that other people are facing. Sin is an equal opportunity destroyer. It's a cancer that we're all contaminated with. It doesn't matter whether you're sitting out there or whether you're up on the stage. We all struggle. We all are whosoever. We all need God's grace. But the good news this morning is this, that sin is not the most powerful force in the universe. Even though it lies to us and it tells us that it's stronger, that it's always gonna dominate us, that this is how things are always gonna be, that you can never be free, that this is just who you are, that there's never going to be any chance of change or transformation in your life. Sin is loud and obnoxious but it's not the most powerful force in the universe. The most powerful force in the universe is the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Romans chapter one verse 16, Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation. For the Jew first and then unto the Greek. I mean, it is the power of God to save us. Sin is powerful but the gospel of Jesus Christ, God's grace is so much more powerful. You know the word gospel actually means good news. You can find the entirety of the gospel in John 3.16. God, love, gave, whosoever believes, eternal life, perish, there's the gospel. It's a narrative, it's a story that when we recognize our part in the story as a whosoever, it positions us for salvation. We say, you know what, I need to save your God. I need you to save me, forgive me, I can't save myself. And God says, I've already done it. When I sent Jesus, He was the way. He was the truth and He was the life. But you know, in our world today, there are a lot of false gospels, a lot of false narratives, stories that we live under and attach our lives to. And here's what I've come to find out. Whatever gospel, and you might not call it a gospel, let me tell you, in our culture today, what we call it is my truth. So I'm just kind of living my truth. And your truth is different from my truth. If that's your truth, you go ahead and live your truth. But this is my truth. What they're really saying is that there are multiple different truths. What we're saying is that I've got my gospel that I've identified as the truth for me and I'm living out the implications of that gospel, that good news. Let me give you a few of the gospels that are permeating and pervasive in our culture today. There is, number one, there is the gospel of humanism. Here's what humanism says. It's the gospel of humanism. You're not gonna find a book that says the gospel of humanism, but it's the truth that a lot of people are living out of. The gospel of humanism says this, everything in this world came from nothing and by random chance, and you are at the center of your own universe. Save yourself from the concept of sin, lack of significance, or the need of salvation, and then you'll be happy. So there are a lot of people, atheists, agnostics, skeptics who say, you know what, I don't think any, there's any reason, there's any purpose for life. This is all that there is and I'm at the center of my own universe so whatever I've, I gotta get rid of all this religious legends and mythologies. If I could just get rid of that, then I would just be happy and that would be the best life. And there are people that live under that truth, that gospel, then there's the gospel of hedonism. And the gospel of hedonism says that salvation is actually found in doing whatever feels good to you. Extinguish your shame and your sense of right and wrong and extinguish your own conscience and just live for today. Hey, if it feels good, do it. If it makes you happy, that's cool. You know what, that's great if there's not a God who actually is the creator and we are part of his creation and as being creator, he actually put into place natural and spiritual laws by which everything is designed to flourish and live, of which we as part of his creation will one day give an account for the lives we lived in the middle of this world. If that's not true, then yeah, it's like, live it up, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. Might as well have fun. He who wins with the most toys still dies. But there are a lot of people that live their lives out of this truth. And then the last one is more of a spiritual one. And there are a lot of people in our culture today that live out of this. It's called the gospel of universalism. And here's what that says. It says, yeah, there's a God, but there are many different paths to get to God and salvation happens when you choose your own pathway and your sincere and your intentions are right and you live a good quote, moral life, your sincerity, your intentions, and your best efforts. God will ultimately say, well done. So you just pick your path. You choose your path. And it doesn't matter if it's Buddhism, it doesn't matter if it's New Ageism, it doesn't matter whether it's Catholicism or whether it's being a Protestant, it doesn't matter if it's worshipping a dog, it doesn't matter whatever it is. You name it, if that's your path and you're sincere about it, that's all that God's looking for. Listen to me. Number one, all religions are not true and all religions are not the same. And if all religions, if there were many ways to get to God and to find salvation, then God is cruel because there was no need for Jesus to go to the cross. The fact that Jesus went to the cross was a fulfillment of Jesus' words in the garden when he said, if there's any other way, let this cup be removed for me. If universalism was true, God could have said to Jesus, you know what, they can kind of do a whole bunch of different options, so you're good, don't go to the cross. Jesus went to the cross because it was the only way and Jesus said it, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus didn't say I am a way, I am a truth, and I am a life, and by the way, if you've ever studied comparative religions, you realize all religions are not the same. They're radically different from one another and sincerity is awesome. I've got some great friends who are sincere believers in other religions. We're friends, we're actually friends. I have friends that are Hindu and they don't believe in Christianity and I've got friends who really don't even believe in God. They're kind of skeptical and agnostic. They're curious about me, and so we have some interesting conversations, but we can still be friends and they are radically sincere, but let me tell you something, sincerity doesn't save you. I can be sincere and ask you, hey, I wanna go to Chicago, how should I get there? And if I were to ask you how to get to Chicago, would you say, well, you know what, you can kind of go any way that you want to just really be sincere about it? No, you would say, well, what you do is you jump on 94 and you go south to 80 and you take that into Chicago and you gotta definitely go west. If you were to give me directions and I told you, well, you know what, that's really narrow-minded of you. Who are you to tell me that I have to go west if I wanna go to Chicago? I wanna go to Chicago, but I wanna go north. I'm gonna take 131 north. Well, that won't get you to Chicago. You bigot. That's not politically correct. You must hate me because you just told me that if I go that way, I'm going the wrong way. No, I love you. I'm trying to tell you you're going the wrong way. Well, I'm going north and you know what? I'm sincere and so my good intentions are gonna get me to Chicago eventually. No, what's gonna happen is you're gonna be eating frozen cherries overlooking a cloudy Grand Travers Bay full of art, full of snow and having to hitch like a ride on a snowmobile to get back to your car and have a plow get you onto 131 so that you can return home and take a Greyhound to Chicago because we don't trust you to drive. Sincerity doesn't get you where you wanna go. Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the life. The power of salvation is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ alone. Recognizing we are whosoever and Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Whosoever. Well, okay, so we're all who-evers but do we believe in Jesus? Because that's what it says, whoever believes. You know right now if you were to do a poll Rasmus and Poll recently just came out across Americans and over 70% of Americans say they believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Numbers have actually dropped over the last few decades which I actually think is probably a more accurate reflection. Over 70% of Americans say that they believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Over 60% believe that the Bible is the Word of God. But here's what's interesting to me is that we take polls like that and we say that we believe but do our lives really bear that out? Because you see, acknowledging something is not the same as believing something. It's not the same. We can say well I acknowledge the existence of Jesus, but that's not the same as actually believing Jesus that produces salvation. Belief, the word belief in the Bible is the same word for faith and it comes from the Greek word piste and what it means is to be fully convinced to be radically confident in something. When I just listed off humanism, hedonism and universalism here's what I say is our culture today when you look at people who live under these different gospels you can work your way backwards, you can look at their actions you can look at their time, you can look at their words, the relationships and you can do the math back and go oh I know what you believe. But can people do that with us based on what we say we believe about Jesus? A long time ago I was in another city and a guy came up to me street witnessing. Anybody ever had somebody like just cold call street witnessing walk up to you and hand you a track and it's like hey do you know Jesus? He said this is your life and I'm like oh I love this I wanted to see if he had the goods I was like oh so what do you believe and he says I believe that Jesus died on the cross and he rose again and he's coming again and that you're either saved or you're lost and I mean bullet points he was going out pretty good he's like what do you believe I said well I'm a Christian he says how do you know I said well I'm a pastor he goes that doesn't matter I go oh gold star and I explained to him why I believe that was a Christian he said this he said let me ask you a question he said if you were put on trial for being a Christian would there be enough evidence for you to be found guilty in your life could they look could a prosecuting attorney look at your life look at your bank records look at your conversations look at your relationships look at what you invest your time and look at the decisions that you make is there enough evidence in your life that if they did the math it would lead back to going oh yeah this person's a Christian I was like ooh that's really good I'm stealing that think about that see because we can say that we believe something but sometimes it's just we're merely acknowledging something oh yeah Jesus it's Christmas time I know I got that but yet live like a practical agnostic like live throughout our lives as if Jesus really didn't come as if Jesus really wasn't the Son of God as if Jesus really didn't rise from the dead that's why I get wound up guys it's like when I'm when we're talking about things like Jesus and the resurrection and the power and the second coming that's not like golf clap material that's not like oh yeah that's now this is like he is coming I mean it's shocking that God became a child in the Middle East to a 14-year-old Middle Eastern woman and it was God and fully man in the flesh and he grew up as the Son of God this stuff should blow our minds and listen it should alter our lives it should alter our lives it should change the way that we believe see if all we do is mentally ascend to something and yet it hasn't sunk into fully convince us 18 inches can actually determine your eternity the difference between here and here our life the the ramifications of who Jesus is and what the Bible says he taught and what he did should radically reorder our lives it's like if that's true then all bets are off you see it's not enough to say that Jesus was just a good moral teacher that's what a lot of people say Bessias Lewis said like this he said a man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher he would either be a lunatic on the level with a man who says he's a poached egg or he would be the devil of hell he's either a liar a lunatic or Jesus is who he said he was Lord what do we believe because when we come to the issue of belief sometimes it's an issue of mentally just saying okay I acknowledge that but I'm not really sure the implications of that real belief changes us but here's what we typically do a lot of times this happens where when we are confronted with the message of God's soul of the world that he gave has only gotten a son and we realize we're a whosoever and we're being presented with the gospel here's a lot of times the response that we have to Jesus in the gospel number one is someone to dismiss Jesus because if you can dismiss Jesus you don't have to acknowledge and alter the course of your life based on who Jesus claimed he was and so we want to dismiss Jesus that's why magazine covers like this are published on a pretty regular basis where we're in a search for the real Jesus Jesus the son of God but maybe he was just a good carpenter a good moral teacher listen like C.S. Lewis said this was just a good man and everybody else got it wrong the things that Jesus said made him crazy like when you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no part with me before Abraham was I am destroy this temple and three days later I'll raise it back up again those are he somebody asked him are you the Messiah he said I am are you God I am those are radical statements but a lot of people in our society today listen even right now want to dismiss Jesus Jesus was a good man Jesus was a good moral teacher he was a prophet but if we dismiss Jesus we'll miss Jesus someone to dismiss him here's the one that's probably more common you ready we want to customize Jesus right now you can order some really sweet Air Force One Nikes on Amazon and you can go on there and you can actually customize them the color of the stripe, the color of the leather you can have names embroidered on them it's I mean incredible perfect Christmas present if you're looking for one by the way I wear size 12 but you can customize all kinds of things we live in a culture of customization you want to go and order a couch pick out your fabric what kind of filling do you want the down filling or the super deluxe filling or the memory foam filling do you want wood legs you can get all kinds of things you go and buy a car all the options when I grew up there was only one option for a car it was the only one we could afford had roll up windows no air conditioning and vinyl seats and in the summer you stuck to the seats anybody remember that we had 260 air conditioning two windows at 60 miles an hour that was your air conditioning now everybody customize like oh I need satellite navigation DVDs I need to have a refrigerator I need to have not only heated seats but cooling seats I need to have you can customize your car but listen all that's great just don't customize Jesus because what happens when we customize Jesus in our post-modern secretistic culture is we take parts away from Jesus and if you take parts away from Jesus that you are uncomfortable with in order to customize Jesus to fit your life then you'll miss parts of Jesus and if you add things to Jesus to make him more like the Jesus you want him to be you'll end up with a different Jesus beware when Jesus agrees with you all the time see when we customize Jesus we might end up with a hipster Jesus because we want to cool Jesus Jesus who agrees with our politics Jesus who listens to the same music Jesus that gets mad at the same people Jesus who only certain parts of the narrative of what Jesus taught really applies to us and Jesus agrees with us on the other things Jesus is my homeboy see what we want to do is we want to customize Jesus and in customizing our Jesus we might actually end up with unfortunately an Americanized Jesus can you put the might end up with a blonde blue eyed Jesus because he's like us but I don't say that Jesus loved America although he does God so loved the do you know that Jesus had dark skin do you know that Jesus was Jewish and he was part of a minority that lived in a country that was under military occupation and oppression do you know that Jesus was an immigrant do you know that Jesus had to run for his life to another nation wait a second now hey you're messing with my no I'm messing with your American Jesus just don't customize them that's what I'm saying let Jesus be Jesus and stand back and let the chips fall where they may I don't care what the gospels say they are true every single time I don't get to do like Thomas Jefferson doesn't go through the gospels and say I don't like that part and cut it out so that what you're left with is the Jeffersonian gospels where Jesus says the things that you like and you remove the things that you don't like you want to know what believing in Jesus is it means taking him lock, stock and barrel which leads us to number three some of us want to domesticate Jesus we don't want Jesus free and wild we want Jesus meek and mild we want Jesus who's just nice and sweet not the Jesus that's confrontational and turns over tables when we think of Jesus turning over tables sometimes thinking about Jesus turning somebody else's tables over what happens when Jesus comes into your house is there any tables he might want to turn over how about in your life any tables that maybe Jesus wants to turn over Jesus doesn't turn over tables in a fit of rage Jesus turns over tables because of his passion and his zeal for the house and when God confronts and corrects and convicts in our life he's not doing it because he's mad and angry he doesn't set things in order because he's zealous for you because he wants to save you from yourself how do we respond to the gospel when we recognize we're a whosoever we don't dismiss Jesus we don't customize Jesus we don't domesticate Jesus what do we do with Jesus you ready believe believe Jesus tis so sweet to trust in Jesus just to take him at his word just to hear I messed up the words just to hear the says the Lord Jesus Jesus how how Jesus Jesus well done oh for to trust him believe Jesus come on let's stand up would you stand up with me father today would you help us to believe you would you help us to trust you would you help us to push back the storms of our greatest fears and would you help us to cast off and to shake off all the impediments all the lies all of our biases prejudices all the things where we try and self-justify ourselves and just simply come as a whoever and say Jesus gift of God I believe I believe I'm a whoever I can't fix myself but I believe in you I can have eternal life in you everything can be different I shall not perish but I will have everlasting life in both rooms I just want to ask you to keep your eyes closed for just a moment today you may be here and you've tried you've tried going to church that wasn't enough you've prayed a prayer that wasn't enough try to improve yourself but things remain the same and you wondered is there anything that can bring peace you know my heart is there anything can remove the burden and the weight and the shame of the things I've done and the way I'm living is there anything that can assure me that I'm right with God today I want you to hear me his name is Jesus and I'm not talking about joining a church I'm not talking about signing a piece of paper I'm talking about you acknowledging that he is the way the truth and the life and inviting him to come into your heart when he comes in he makes everything new he brings peace he brings life he brings hope and he brings assurance that we are the children of God today if you're not right with God today if you're in this room and you feel so far away I want you to know that today he stepped into this room for you and it's a gift that he just is hoping that you will receive you don't earn it you just receive it today all over this room with no one looking around if you're here and you say Pastor Lee today I know that I need to get my life right with God today I need that gift of God's salvation today I believe in Jesus I don't know how to do it all but today I believe and today I want to receive this gift I want to make Jesus the Lord of my life I want a new beginning pray for me and include me in this prayer we're going to pray I want to include you in this prayer but all over this room and at Portage if that's you right now I want you to just lift up your hand pray for me include me in this prayer today I'm ready to come home and get right with God thank you thank you come on I see that hand yes yes yes who else yes I see that hand God bless you down here yes young man I see that young lady all the way in the back sir I see your hand just keep it up all over the room many God's moving in our midst hands all over the room this is your moment come home receive the gift of salvation today you can put your hands down thank you so much I want everyone in this room I want everyone at Portage to say this prayer with me out loud as a confession to the Lord say heavenly Father I come in Jesus name and today I believe that Jesus is the Son of God that he died on the cross to pay for my sins that he rose from the dead to give me eternal life if I would believe and today I believe Jesus come into my heart sit on the throne rule and reign just as you are from this day forward I turn my back on my past I turn my back on all other Gospels and I choose to live for Jesus as a child of God I have a hope and I have a future thank you for loving me God and sending Jesus to this whosoever in Jesus name amen and amen come on somebody you just prayed that prayer you just translated out of darkness and into light