He was so blessed to have a great mother. OK, we'll go on from there, alright. I counted a privilege to be here this morning thank you for being here. Listen, listen, this is true only the best people go to church on Sunday after a major summer holiday that's true. So thank you for being some of those best people right. Uh, sorry about the chair. I'm gonna sit this morning, but I tweaked my back. Again And people say, how'd you tweak your back? and I was like, well, I was. Saving these dogs from a rescue shelter, they caught on fire and I had to keep going back in and all this dog's heavier and all. Or Maybe I did it playing pickleball. I'll let you decide which of those two is actually true. All right. So, uh, a little boy's kind of sad coming home from church one Sunday. His dad goes, Son, what's wrong? He said, Dad. My Sunday school teacher said that we'd all be better off if if we were raised in a good Christian home. And he said, Well, why so sad, son? He goes, I'd rather live with you guys. I know, but what would your children say about you as Christian parents? Hopefully wonderful things. Here's one I heard in youth group many, many years ago see if you've heard this one. If you were put on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence for them to convict you? If you were put on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Would there be testimony from others? Oh yeah, he's a Christian, yeah. Would there be physical evidence of your behavior or whatever? I don't know. Here's one too. Does your, does your life reflect real devotion? Or does it just reflect religious activity? Well, that's where we find the church this morning, the church at Sardis, uh, the title of our sermon is wake up. Sardis wake up Christian church. Sardis was the capital of Lydia. It's about 50 miles east of Ephesus. It's a wealthy city. The unique thing about SARDIS is that it sat on a plateau about 1500 ft above the sea level, and it actually had like cliffs and everything, so you could only get up there through small winding roads, which was both good and bad. I mean good in the sense of security and defense and being safe, not so good in the sense of being a trade center. Uh, and growing, there was, they were landlocked so there was no room for the city to grow, but they were blessed with a lot of gold mines nearby and this discovery of gold changed everything about Sardis and they quickly became a very wealthy city, a lot of wealthy noblemen living in Sardis. This is in the 500, 600 BC. And they actually, they actually were recorded in history as making the first gold coins minting their own own gold coins that people would come and trade for now this attracted attention as well and the one thing we need to know here is Cyrus the Great, the king of Persia, had his eye on Sardis because of the wealth, found a way to sneak up the mountain and overtake the city because they were kind of taking it for granted that nobody could invade them and the thing that it's interesting about that. Is that because he had captured the Jews and they were slaves in Babylonia he transplanted, he relocated 2000 Jewish families to the city of Sardis to be the labor force for the noblemen that were rich there. So they ended up with a huge, uh, Jewish population. This was actually prophesized in chapter one of Obadiah. Right now some of you are going There's a book in the Bible called Obadiah, yes, there is, and, and, and, uh, of course, hundreds of years later, uh, they built. Uh, the Jews actually built the largest synagogue outside of the state of Israel in the world is in Sardis, so it was a large Jewish population that popped up there and then later there was, uh, uh, a witnessing from the apostles and started a church and the church was thriving for a while, but then we pick it up in Revelation 3 verses 1 through 6. If you brought a device along you wanna follow along it's Revelation 31 through 6 things weren't going quite so well. I know your deeds. You have a reputation of being alive, but you're dead. Wake up. Strengthen what remains. And is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. So Jesus not, not too happy. Man looks at the outward appearance, Jesus looks at the heart. You have this reputation for being alive. You have this reputation for being pretty cool, and you fooled everyone into thinking you're quite religious, but really in your heart you're quite dead. The little translation of wake up comes from the root word to be watchful. The idea is a guard on a watchtower keeping watch and seeing diligently what's coming on, be on alert, be, be, uh, be watchful. Strength and what remains is actually kind of a play on words because the literal trans uh translation of the word Sardis is that which remains. So what he's saying is that just as the natural city of Sardis is in decline, so the spiritual climate of Sardis is also in decline, which brings us to our big idea today if you're taking notes, you can write this one down that God wants faith walkers, not sleepwalkers. God wants faith walkers, not sleepwalkers. Uh, uh, my wife reminded me of a story when when Pastor John, your pastor, was, uh, in 2nd grade and I was up late one night watching the news and all of a sudden he came walking down the stairs. I said, what are you doing John? Gotta go ride my bike. I was like, What? Got ride my bike. I was like. He's sleepwalking and I followed him out to the garage actually got on his bike and he was about to head out down the street sleepwalking. So anyway, uh, it was just a crazy side story. Uh, uh, when I first what what what pertains to the message today is what I heard from Pastor Ed Lewis many years ago at the Moody Church in Chicago. Christians need to be thermostats, not thermometers. You understand the difference? Thermometers only measure the temperature in the room. Thermostats determine it. And we as Christians should be the thermostats of our culture, not the thermometers. We got plenty of those. We need to be the thermostats. We need to determine where the culture goes. The church at Sardis had lost their desire to influence their culture. They had conformed to their heathen neighbors. That was, it was warned of that in Romans 12:2. Do not conform to the pattern of this world. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Paul also writes in Philippians 3, our citizenship is in heaven just a reminder that we are in the world but we're not to be of the world, OK? So our citizenship is in heaven and then the writer of Revelations in 1 John 2:15 wrote this do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. And that's a whole sermon by itself they had lost their desire to make a difference in the world they lost their passion for ministry. Let's take a moment and talk about passion. What brings couples together? What's the one ingredient that's sure to be there when two people start falling in love? It's passion, right? Uh, by the way, side note, on Tuesday, my wife and I just celebrated our forty-seventh wedding anniversary on Tuesday. Thank you so much. I actually wrote in my notes, hold for applause, so thank you for doing that. But yeah, it, uh, and she's still my best friend today and I could go on but then I'll start crying. I don't do that right, not all marriages fail because of a cheating spouse. Some marriages fail because the passion dies out. And if I can just do a quick side trip to the husbands, OK, husbands? Just gonna give you a little bit of advice, maybe you know this, hopefully, if you don't, you learn it. Never stop dating your wife. Right, wives, amen from the wives. All right. Never stop dating your wife. Remember when you were dating and how exciting that was and you would plan things and you'd be like, OK, I gotta say goodbye now. When am I gonna see her again? Oh yeah, I'm gonna see her there. OK, good. It's just, it was just that excitement. And then I would plan surprises for her. Surprise you thought we were going here, but we're really going here. Ah, she loves it. Remember those days? Never stop dating your wife. Keep the passion going. Why? Because passion, it, it burns like a fire. Jeremiah 20:9 says, then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire. God loves it when his children are passionate about loving him. Psalm 42, as the deer pants for the water, so my soul pants for thee, my soul thirsts for thee, for God. Being a Christian is best when we thirst after God's truth. Again, the psalmist in 63:1, 0 God, thou art my God, I shall seek thee earnestly. My soul thirsts for thee. My flesh yearns for thee. And then as we heard from John a couple weeks ago, Jesus in Luke 10, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind. The church at Sardis had lost its thirst for ministry. George Hegel once said this, he said, nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion. Charles Spurgeon said it in religious terms, spiritual terms. He said, let the passion of your life be to know Christ and to make him known. Uh passion comes and goes. It, it, it's like a fire. And it can start from nothing. We don't just flick on the passion. It builds it grows and it grows because you feed it like a fire. You ever started a fire, you know, you put the little kindling together and the little maybe use some paper and you get a spark and then it it starts and you blow on it you fan the flame and it gets a little bigger and it gets a little bigger, you add a little more fuel you a little more wood, you had a little more kindling and after a while you built that beautiful pyramid and then it starts to really get bigger and bigger and bigger and now you've got a real fire. As Tom Hanks said in Castaway, I have, I don't know if you remember that, it's just a favorite movie of mine. Thank you. Thank you this played along. What happens to the fire if you don't add the fuel? You see what happens in the in the history of ministry is that it burns and it bright and it's flaming and it's hot. And the world sees it and admires it and then we stop feeding it and it just starts to die out. That's what's happened here. Paul admonishs the church in Romans 13:11. He says, uh, now is the hour for you to awaken from sleep. Don't be a sleepwalker. Because right now salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed. Interesting. Right now, salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed. We'll talk about that in a second, what that means. What happens to a campfire? Just a pile of embers barely staying alive. This is where the church in Sardis was. The question is, is this where the church of Christianity is today in our culture? Are we seeing the flames grow hotter or are we starting to see the flames grow, uh, dimmer and, and start to burn out? Then we turn to verse 3. Remember, remember, therefore, verse 3, what you have received and heard and hold it fast and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come. We're gonna split this one in two parts here. Hold it fast. And repent. Hold it fast as a Hebrew expression comes from the root word of your very life depends on it. The word originated from a military standpoint where you've got the secret plans of how you're gonna attack the battle, how you're gonna let it go. How you're gonna, how you're gonna advance and you're giving the plans to someone else to hold on to them very dearly hold them fast you take these plans over to that general over there and you hold on to them as though your very life depends on it. That's what hold fast means and then we get a key word here, repent. Ah, it's not a bad word. We think of it as a negative word. It's not. It's a very positive part of God's process of cleansing you. Take repentance in as your ally, as your friend. It should be a core value, you know what core values are? Some of that work in business, you know what core values are, am I right? Cause you meet every so often. We have to have to write down our core value. What's the core values of our company? Anybody been there? Yeah, OK. How long did those meetings last? Longer than they should have. All right. Let me tell you, Christians, you too should have core values. What are core values? Let's look at them real quick. One, it's your foundation. It's what your life is built on. This is my core belief, OK? Second, it's your compass. It points you in the direction you should go. It gives us direction. It gives us, uh, uh, a strategy of which way to, to, to, to go and then finance your filter. It shapes what choices you make. Let me give you a core value that I think every Christian should have. You ready? Deal with the sin in your life. Deal with it. Here's the reality we're all gonna sin. I'm not a genius to predict in the next week we're all going to fall short and sin. Some of us will sin by the end of the day. Some of us will sin before we sit down to eat our Sunday lunch. It's just a part of our fallen sinful nature. That we're going to fall. We're not gonna finish out our life. Oh, that was such a great sermon. I don't think I'm gonna sin anymore. I wish, right? It was only that easy. If you could only go to Walmart and buy it off the shelf. No. So what do you do with it? Deal with it. Don't let it sit in the sink as dirty dishes. John mentioned this, I think a couple of weeks ago. You know what happens to dirty dishes when you just leave them in the sink. It doesn't get easier. It gets harder. The longer you let the dishes go, the harder it is to clean them up. Sin is like that. I like to equate it to weeds in the garden. Here's the thing about weeds. If you've ever been a gardener or planted tomato plants or whatever you're planting food with vegetables, whatever, you understand this, you cannot tolerate weeds in that garden. You cannot tolerate weeds. But sin is like that weed. Sin is like the weed that comes in and just wraps itself around your ankle. And you look down and you go, did you see this pathetic little weed around my ankle? It's so pathetic. I could just pull my foot free from that weed without any effort at all. It's ridiculous. So you don't deal with it, you just let it hang there. What does it do? Another strand wraps around your ankle. Another strand wraps around your ankle. Oh my, weeds are starting to multiply around my ankle. What should I do? Uh, I'm still powerful. I'm still strong. I could pop my foot free. I could break those weeds anytime I want. It's just, I, it doesn't have me. I have control of it. It doesn't have control of me. And you let it go and you don't deal with it and you don't repent of it. And then one day you wake up and that. Strand of weeds around your ankle has become a rope. That holds you back from going where you wanna go and doing what you wanna do. And now you're just shocked. Because it's got you as a as a prisoner, it's chained you up. That's what sin does. It wants to chain you. And keep you from being the person God wants you to be. That's why we need to deal with the sin in our life right away. When it happens, recognize it for what it is confess it, repent of it ask for forgiveness. God says he is faithful and just he will forgive you of your sins and he'll cleanse you of your unrighteousness, right? Make this a core value. Recognize what's wrong. Take steps to fix it. Don't think you can coexist with the weeds. One will win out, one will lose out. And then in verse 3, he says, but if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I come to you. This is really a reference to Matthew 24:42 where Jesus says, therefore keep watch, there's the word watch again, same word used in Revelations, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. The apostle Paul warned of this too in 1 Thessalonians 5:2. He said, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. I don't think anybody in this room wants that. Nobody would welcome that. We lock our doors at night. We, we, we, we, we buy pets that can bark at people at night. We, we, we take precautions to keep thieves from breaking into our home, and yet the Lord says, hey, you better watch out because when you're not watching and you're not ready, I'm coming. Are you ready? Jesus is really saying, are you ready for the coming of the Lord? Here's a tough question for you. Are you ready to meet your maker? There is no guarantee that any of us will see tomorrow. My heart breaks. Those kids in Texas. Man, that was hard. You know what I'm talking about. Kids at Bible camp washed away, no warning. You think those kids woke up that morning thinking, well, that'll probably be my last day on Earth? No. There's a there's a huge funeral in Portugal right now. One of the top soccer players in the world was killed in a car accident with with his younger brother Andre single car accident. They just figured it blew a flat tire going at a high rate of speed, went off the curve, went into ravine, killed them both, exploded. Uh, Diaggo Jota Jata Diagoatta. Just just led Liverpool to a, to a soccer championship 5 weeks ago. Just got married, 3 kids, thought, well, it's time to get married. Gone. Standing in front of his heavenly Father. Passing into the next life. And his heavenly Father says, why should I let you into my kingdom? What would you say? When that time comes for you to meet your maker. You know, when we're playing pickleball. We came up with this saying over time, it didn't happen right away, but it evolved now become a running joke. The ball hits the tape and it falls over and we win the point, we probably shouldn't have won it. And first we'd go sorry. And then we turn our back and go, not sorry. Or you accidentally hits your opponent in the chest because they got in the way of your slam. Sorry, and you turn away, not sorry. We won the point, not sorry. After a while, it's like, what'd you say? What'd you say? So it's now it's a running joke. So now it's like, sorry, not sorry, OK. Folks, I'm sorry to have to ask you this question. But I'm not sorry. It's absolutely one of the most important questions you'll ever face in your life. What, what will you say to your Creator when you pass from this life into eternity and God says, why should I let you into my kingdom to live with me in glory forever? Because I did good deeds. Lord, I did, I did a lot of good works. I was the goodest of the good. Nope, wrong answer. But I'm a good person, Lord, if you, if you, if you put us in categories. Good people, bad people. I am gooder than all those bad people that are bad. That should count for something. Nope. Doesn't get you in. But, but Lord, I I went to church faithfully at Mission Grove. I probably went to more Sunday services than than I went to Sunday services after a major summer holiday. Doesn't that count for something? Heavenly Father, No. What would you say, folks, it's a, it's a question you must answer before you must answer the question. We'll circle back to it. Let's go to verse 4. Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me dressed in white, for they are worthy. The one who is victorious will like them be dressed in white. Now. What the Lord is not saying. Is that they're worthy to be in the book of life. We're gonna explain this a little bit. They will walk with me. They're dressed in white. All right, what do we wanna address first? Let's dress the meaning of white first. White would have had great meaning to the people of SARTIS because SARI was known for its gold and it's clothes. It was a clothing capital of the world. It made the finest linens and the finest robes of any city in the world. That's what a good investment of gold will do. They brought in the finest weavers and designers and whatever. They were the, they were the, if I could say it, I'm not even sure this counts anymore. They were the Paris of their day, I guess, in terms of fashion. Romans would Romans would, would travel all the way to Sardis just to buy their wardrobe. Seriously. And more specifically, the best uh robes were made in red, you know why? Cause red is the hardest color to keep consistent when you're weaving cloth. It's the hardest to get right with the dyes and the mixture and everything else, so it took the longest time. And therefore they were the most expensive. So if you go down the street and you see somebody wearing a red robe, what do you immediately think? You pull up to the creek for some good food and a Lamborghini comes pulling up next to your car. What do you think? Oh, there's a really rich person, right? That's what they thought in SAI. Oh, there goes, oh there, oh, don't, don't talk bad to that person. He's really rich. Look, he's wearing red. And Jesus comes along and says, uh uh. White is better than red. This would have meant something to the people of Sardis. The most expensive garments are red, and yet Jesus is saying white. White is better White is more worthy And in the Roman culture they would get this too because in Rome white was the top color if you became a senator in in the Roman Senate you were given the whitest robes and the whitest garments to wear in the Senate that was your sign of prestige and power and political influence. White is mentioned many times in Revelations. Look at Revelation 1914. I could have picked out 10 examples. Here's one, the armies of heaven were following Jesus, riding on white horses, and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Wearing white was a sign of purity and holiness in biblical times. Jesus is saying those dressed in white are even more important than anyone dressed in red. They will walk with me dressed in white, for they are worthy. Now we get to a controversial place here in the, in the, in the passage in verse 5. He who overcomes shall thus be clothed in white, OK. And I will never blot out that person from the book of life, but we acknowledge that name before my father and his angels whoever has ears, let them hear what the spirit says to the churches now the reference to my father and his angels makes it clear that Jesus is talking about eternity and heaven. He said, I'm not gonna show you off to my father. I'm gonna show you off to my angels. You're gonna be with me in heaven where the angels are. Now, is this a condition of salvation? That you have to be worthy to wear the white. And the answer is resoundingly no. This is not a reference to good works and earning your way in. The book of life is, is separate from the book of life he's talking here. Let's look at it. Luke 10:20 says, rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Revelation 2015 says anyone whose name was not written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. And Jesus said it himself in John 10, listen to this, My sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow me and I give eternal life to them and they shall never perish and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. There's a clue in here. As to what to answer to your heavenly Father when you meet your Maker, do you see the clue? There's some clues right here in John 10. What should you say, your Heavenly Father? Why should I let you into heaven? Well, right here in John 10, he's giving you some pretty serious clues. I believe the Bible clearly teaches eternal security. Once saved, always saved. I taught at a Baptist school for a while and one of my uh non-B Baptist friends said, well then you should get some Baptist shaving cream and I said, Baptist shaving cream. He goes, yeah, once shaved always shaved. I know. That's the kind of friends I have, OK. I believe once saved always say Warren Whisby agrees he preaches this too he says, listen, when you accept Christ as your savior, you are born again and there's nothing you can do to become unborn. I'm gonna quote Warren Worsby, Salvation is a work of God, not based on human merit, therefore it cannot be undone by human failure. wow. God's love for us is unconditional. You've heard this. There's nothing I can do to make God love me more. But my favorite part of this is part two. There's nothing I can do to make God love me. Less Thank you. Right? Thank the Lord for that part. Cause I'm not so worried about God loving me more. I, OK, but I'm, I'm a little worried about him loving me less. Cause I do things all the time that. Should make a person love me less. Guy says nope. My love for you is unconditional. We don't understand unconditional. We don't get it. Because we can't do it. Yes, I can. I love my spouse unconditionally. to a certain point you love your spouse. You could come up with some circumstances like Netflix does or whatever where it, it's, you know, right? Oh, you mean that? No, I can't love you anymore. Oh, I love my kids unconditionally. Uh, to a certain point that might be true. But they could, they could also break your heart. And tear your love they could. It's It's not in us. We're not, we're not Spiritual enough, we're not, we're human. We'd love to love people unconditionally, but we can't because we're flawed people ourselves. But God loves us without condition. I, it's, it's hard to wrap my head around that. Nothing I can do to make God love me less. Are you serious? How is that even possible? Who can do that? Jesus, Ken. And we all say thank you. Right? Now what's the book here? It's the contrast between the book of life, which is your name written in permanent ink. Once you accept Christ as your savior, your name is written in the book of life in permanent ink and Romans says nothing you can do nothing the devil can do nothing the world can do can take me away from that. Jesus says they, they cannot snatch them out of my hand once I got them I got them. Not even you can snatch yourself out of my hand. I got you. But in SARDIS, they also had what they called the book of life. Really wasn't a book of life, it really was a book of citizenship. Now don't underestimate citizenship was important in this culture. Citizenship brought with it like a passport to privileges. And remember you can, you can go in the in the text of Rome uh of uh of Paul the Apostle. How many times did he claim his citizenship in Rome to get him out of something? You can't hold me in prison here. I'm a Roman citizen, OK. Citizenship was was a big deal. In Sardis, if your name was written as a citizen, you were no longer a slave, you were no longer a servant of someone else. You were now a somebody. You had a free will and independence. Kind of important. Now your name could get moved out of the book of life or the book of citizenship, one by dying, OK. They take it out. They don't want dead people on the on the rolls. OK, fine. Also, criminal behavior could disqualify you. Murder, definitely. Uh, embezzlement, uh, uh, forgery, uh, stealing. Your name could get erased from the book. In fact, if you were such a bad criminal that you were put to death, they didn't even give you a a burial. They wouldn't honor you with uh with a gravesite or a burial. They would just toss you off the cliff down into the rocks below. They don't want any memory of you whatsoever it was that serious to them, but Jesus is saying here to the true believers, even if Sardis erases your name from their book of life, I will never erase your name from the book of life. Even if the world persecutes you and rejects you, you will always be a citizen of God's eternal kingdom. Makes sense? God wants his children to be faith walkers, not sleep walkers, as they go through life. The way we live should impact those around us. Couple of points as we're finishing up this morning. Number one, wake up. Be watchful, be on guard against the schemes of the devil. The Bible says he's a roaring lion walking about seeking whom he may be friends with. No. Seeking who he can coexist with, no. Seeking whom he may Devour. Yeah, be watchful. #2, remember what Jesus did for you. Remember we're gonna have communion here today. We're gonna remember he gave up his life so you could have life. Jesus didn't sacrifice his life so bad people could become good people. He sacrificed his life so dead people could be made alive. So dead people could join him alive in heaven again someday. Make it a core value. Deal with the sin in your life. Don't let sin have a seat at the table. Number 3, strengthen what remains. Fan the flame, engage the world sure. Live in the world, of course, work in the world fine. But do not adopt the sinful ways of the world rather reflect the light of Christ. Let the let the let the flame burn brightly of Jesus' gospel so that people will see it and go, oh my gosh, I think it was John Wesley. I hope I get this quote right. He said, You should be so on fire with Jesus that people will come from miles around to watch you burn. It's quite clever. I kinda liked it. Little graphic but still clever. Matthew 5:14, you are the light of the world. Let your light verse 16. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see how you live and glorify your Father who's in heaven. friends, God's grace is always there for those who turn back in humility. So how do you do it? How do you develop a passion for God's word? Passion is not a light switch. You just don't OK, you're right, you're right, preacher, you, you got me, man, from, from, from this moment on I'm gonna be passionate about God. Passion dies over time. Passion grows over time, just like in a relationship. It can't be turned on or off on a whim. It grows over time So how do we fan the flame of passion for God in His word? Couple of quick suggestions, just real practical ones. Number one, read, read and study one Bible verse a day this week. Oh my, that's so much, pastor. No, it's not. Read one passage from scripture every day this week. I would suggest you read the same pass uh passage. I would suggest you, you study the same passage, just one passage, and then next week. Two passages Build on it, see where it goes from there. Read your Bible, even if it's, even if it's one verse a day. Number 2, memorize a verse from the Bible. Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knows them who trusted him, name 1:7. Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:33. Just take one passage and memorize it. It's such a gift to be able to remember. One of the cruelest things in life is when a loved one gets older and they lose their memory it's so cruel I've been through it. To to memorize is such a blessing you can take it with you you can take it with you when you come to a red light. I don't think anybody in the room hates red lights as much as I do. You think you do because you don't, I do. One red light, OK. Has to be 2 red lights. Now that's annoying. 3 red lights. No, I'm starting to burn. Anybody with me here, I know. And if I'm by myself, I literally yell out loud, but if my wife's in the car, I've learned not to yell out loud. I, the light can't hear you, honey, I can hear you. All right, sorry. So I had a little trick. I turned a little trick. Cause after you get that 5th or 6th red light on in a row, you're just like, are you kidding me? What is wrong with the city of Phoenix? It's only me. I it's probably just me. All right. Take a Bible passage and recite it at the red light. Red light acquaint myself with him and be at peace and good shall come on to thee. Job 22 verse 21. Ah, green light, thank you. I have a theory, it's just me, it's not in the Bible, that if you do this often enough, if you say a passage at every red light that the devil will start giving you green lights just so you don't have. Yeah, it's just me. I don't know, maybe it doesn't work. All right. Number 3, search out and connect. With a group of believers, come on. We're not meant to live alone. We're not, we're meant to connect. We're meant to, to join. Check out the the Mission Grove website. There's a there's a lot going on. Find a group, find an activity, sign up, visit, attend, connect. Connecting with other believers really, really, really can help fan the flame of the gospel passion. Those are just a few suggestions, there's there's more. But I'm not gonna let you go today until we answer that question. Sorry. Not sorry. You must answer this question. You need to answer this question before you need to answer this question. What do I mean? Like seat belts. When you put your seatbelt on? Well, I'm not going to be in an accident today, so I don't need my seat belt. If I get into an accident, I'll put my seatbelt on. Said the most foolish person who ever drove a car. Right? You don't have time? Oh, I'm gonna be in an accident. Better grab my seat belt. But this is how people think about eternity. I'll worry about that when I get there. I'll think about that when I'm standing in front of my heavenly Father. I. Too late. You need to answer this question before you need to answer this question. If you were to stand before your heavenly Father, And he says, Why should I let you into my kingdom? What would you say? I'm a teacher And I'm gonna do something teachers should never do. I'm gonna give you the answer to the final exam. And I'm gonna do it in the form of a prayer. And I'm gonna ask you to pray with me. As we do this, And I want you to imagine now you're standing in front of your heavenly Father. You're standing at the gates of heaven and he says, hey. Why should I let you in? To my heaven Pray with me. Why? Because I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. Your son who died and rose again. Truth is, God, I don't deserve to go to heaven. My hope and grace and mercy. Is given to me only through your Son Jesus. Jesus is my answer, Lord. It's because Jesus paid the price for me to enter into your kingdom. Thank you so much that you made a way for me to be part of your family once again. Heavenly Father, I fall upon your mercy and grace.