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And once again, once again, can we thank those who led us to today. Super, super grateful for your leadership and being able to start the morning this way. And may our gracious God be pleased to meet us to open our eyes as we open the word. May we have ears to hear, eyes to see, and the courage to move and to respond. So first four conversations we had were about life and where we found it and the beauty that Jesus is and the counterfeit gods that we tend to cram our lives with. Today we turn a corner. Those thoughts on life and where we find it. Counterfeit God's idolatry. I've presented those at Ada Bible Church in the past. I turn a corner today because I am test driving material with you that I plan on using some weeks from now. So the family of Ada Bible Church thanks you for being the guinea pig in allowing me to work some of the bugs out of these conversations. And you'll figure out where these two conversations this morning and then this evening are going pretty quick. But I want to begin with a movie that's about 12 years old. Did any of you see the movie Fury? World War II tank movie closing days of World War II. And you're following a tank crew, a battle hardened veteran tank crew that has been together since North Africa and now wrapping up the war in Germany. As the movie opens, a member of the crew, this tight knit crew, has been killed. And a guy has been thrown into the tank crew from the typing pool. All right, guy's name is a Norman. It's this guy here. He's naive, he's never seen combat. He's never been in the proximity of a bullet or shell fired in anger. And so Norman is thrust into this tight knit tank crew. And Shia LaBeouf plays one of the main characters. His nickname is Bible Boyd Bible Swan. And so in one of the first interactions between boy and this Norman who has just been thrown into this group, he asks Norman this question. He says, you a praying man? You a praying man? And Norman says, I go to church. And Boyd says, which denomination are you? Episcopalian. You are, aren't you? You're mainline, ain't you, Norman? Kind of sheepishly, yeah, I am. And then Boyd asks, are you saved? And Norman goes, I'm baptized. And another member on the tanker goes, that ain't what he asked you. And then Boyd Bible Swan repeats the question, are you saved? Are you saved? Now if someone asked me the question, are you saved? I give two answers. I would give one answer and then I would think another answer. The answer I would give is, yes, I have been saved. But even as I was saying that, there's another answer in the back of my mind, which is, I have been saved. I am being saved, and someday I will be saved. Saved. We tend to use the word saved. If we can go to the next slide, salvation, just. We tend to use the word saved or salvation almost exclusively in the past tense, as in, I was saved as a sophomore in high school while attending this camp, or I was saved at an easter service in 2002. We look at it exclusively in the past tense. But our the New Testament of our Bible, the instruction given to new Christians, uses the word salvation. Salvation, or the rescue of God in the past tense and in the present tense and in the future tense. So it's like this, those three expressions. I was saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved. God is in the process. While I was saved, God is in the process of rescuing me now. He desires to rescue us from our capacity to be condescending to the less accomplished. He desires his ongoing rescue mission to rescue me from my reliance on my stuff, to make me feel adequate. He desires to rescue us from a gossip that harms people, from a rage, a quick temper that destroys intimacy. He desires to rescue us from lies that make it impossible for relationships to thrive because trust is the glue that holds relationships together. He desires to rescue me from my illusion that I am at the center of the universe. I was saved, and I am being saved now, and I will be saved. So there's three, all of five syllable, three, five syllable expressions today, theological terms, and they're these. I was saved. That's called justification. I am being saved. God's ongoing rescue project in my life, that's called sanctification. And someday I get to be with him and all the grime is gone. And that is glorification. All right, Justification, sanctification, glorification. And this is about God's ongoing rescue mission. It's all about rescue. Remember salvation. It's about rescue. It's about freedom. All right, so three last expressions here. Justification is when you're saved from the penalty of sin. Sanctification is the ongoing process, day by day by day, where God begins to free you from the power of sin, the grip of sin in your life and glory. Hallelujah. Someday the grime is gone. You get rescued from the presence of sin. And that is something that the heart longs for. So I was saved. I am being saved, and I will be saved. So this morning I want to talk about the One in the middle, sanctification. And there's a reason I didn't advertise that in advance. Manny's going to be speaking on sanctification tomorrow morning. I don't know what that means, but it doesn't sound very interesting to me. Didn't you want to take the boat out sometime this week? You know, maybe extended devotions or something like that? So today I want to talk about sanctification. What it is, how it works. And this evening, my favorite is glorification. And it's something the heart longs for. And if your image in your mind is of heaven being monochrome, the boring white place, be ready to have that tipped upside down. There is something to look forward to in a resurrected world with our resurrected Christ with a resurrected heart fully, you know. And so that's this evening, the last message on glorification. So I'm gonna jump into sanctification, but I just have to say a couple words about justification. Just I don't wanna assume in any way that everybody knows what this is or what this means. So when someone says, I was saved. I was saved at a summer camp in high school. So I was saved at that Easter service. I went to this men's event and they had us pray a prayer. I remember when I fell on my knees and asked Christ into my life after a women's Bible study. We're talking justification. I was saved. And it's the most. In our conversation, it's the most common use of the word saved. We talk about it past tense. I was saved. The salvation that takes place in justification is based on the sinless life of Jesus, his crucifixion and his resurrection. For you, what happens at the cross? When we understand the cross and we come to the cross, what happens there is that someone, Jesus was paying off debts that weren't his. Jesus was paying off debts that were mine. And he was paying off debts that were yours. Dave Ramsey show. Some of you listen to Dave Ramsey financial program, Financial Peace University. He's got these call in programs, debt free. And where people do the debt free scream, where they've worked off this debt over time. And then he has them do this. We're debt free. Anyone who has trusted Christ as their savior should walk out of the tabernacle yelling, I'm debt free. Not because you paid down your debts over time, but because through Christ's sacrifice, those debts were canceled. Not just erased, paid for in full. There should just be this sign on the cross that goes, paid in full. That's justification. But what happens now? Let's keep this image up here. What happens now is that often someone goes, I have been. So it's one more thing about justification. It's a double transfer. My sin gets transferred to Jesus. That's half the transfer. The other half of the transfer is Jesus. Goodness gets transferred to me. My grime transferred to Him. His rightness transferred to me. Which means that when God the Father looks at me, he sees me in the term that's used in Scripture is clothed in Christ. God the Father sees me through, through the lens of the goodness of Jesus. Double transfer. My grime transferred to Jesus. Jesus goodness transferred to me. Justification is a beautiful, beautiful thing. The mistake, though, is when someone goes, I have been saved and someday I will be in heaven. I go, dude, you just jumped from justification to glorification and missed out this daily process in between. Because when you get saved, past tense, justified, God gives you a new heart, but you have a new heart with old habits. And so this is what sanctification. So what I want to do is I want to just say four different things about sanctification. I could say much more, but just four different elements of sanctification. So thing one, thing two, thing three, thing four, and then I'm giving you an opportunity to give your life to Jesus. I'm not kidding. Thing one, thing two, thing three, thing four. The first is just this. Oh, no. Pardon me. See, I told you you were a test drive on this, didn't I? You're guinea pigs. But this map here, we're going to be looking at stuff from Philippians, Corinthians and Ephesians. And I just need you to remember this. Geographically, that is. The apostle Paul establishes a Jesus community in Philippi. Philippians is his correspondence back to them. He spends a year and a half of his life establishing a Jesus community in Corinth. First and second Corinthians is guidance written back to them. The longest place Paul stays, Ephesus. Fourth largest city in the Roman world, major trade city. Three years, almost three years of his life in Ephesus. When we have the book of Ephesians in our Bible, Paul is writing to people who lived in, but also around the city of Ephesus to further ground them in their faith. I guess what I'm saying here is don't kill the characters. We can read from Corinthians or Philippians or Ephesus as if there are no Ephesians and there is no Paul and there is no relationship between the two. He's writing to real people who have become followers of the Christ in order to ground them in this faith that they have received. So let's go to the next slide. Okay, here we go, present tense. The sanctification. Justification. I what? I was saved. Sanctification. I what I. So this is the way Paul worded it to his friends in Corinth. First Corinthians, chapter 1. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God. And if you read this, what does he mean, being saved? I was saved at that camp. That was justification. This is sanctification. Those who are being saved in the process of being rescued. Second Corinthians, same idea. If we can go to the next verse where he writes, oh, here we go. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and to those who are perishing. And tonight we look at glorification, we'll look at some verses to talk about, and we will be saved. And it's a future. Future tense. So, four things about sanctification. Number one, sanctification is about freedom. Sanctification is about freedom. Because it might look like. Sanctification is about rules. You're justified. Your grime transferred to Jesus. Jesus goodness transferred to you. Okay, now here's the rule book. It's about freedom because those of us who have a new heart, but a new heart with old habits, and those habits are dark habits, we are in slavery to those habits and those behaviors. Our Jesus would word it this way in John, chapter eight. When he said this, Jesus replied, very truly, I tell you, everyone who sins is what is a slave to sin. Sanctification is God's ongoing rescue mission to free me. Sanctification is a jailbreak. It's about freedom. What if your gracious God longs to free you, to save you, to rescue you from resentful bitterness over past wounds? I have a right to be bitter, my friends. What if that's a form of slavery? You end up being a slave to something someone did to you 13 months ago or 33 years ago? What if your gracious Lord desires to free you from the selfish streak that always has to be right? What if God desires to free you from your simmering anger that boils over at people that you care about and diminishes those relationships and reduces human flourishing, the flourishing of the people around you through your rage? What if our gracious God desires to free you from lust, where energy is being consumed in fantasy land instead of focusing on real people in a real world. He desires to free me from my illusion that another $10,000 or another million dollars will fill the empty space that is me. He desires to free me to love disgusting people, remembering that he loved me when I was disgusting, by the way. That is the heart of the gospel. That we are more messed up than we can imagine and that we are more loved than we will ever know. I am more messed up than I can imagine and I am more loved than I will ever know. He desires to free you to forgive people, to let an offense go, and to discover that we were held captive by that lack of forgiveness extended. He desires to free you from anxiety about tomorrow because fear of tomorrow will rob you of joy today. He desires to free you by allowing you to experience contentment even when you are in uncomfortable circumstances, and to say, with the Apostle Paul to the Philippians, I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. It is that capacity of being alive to God and alive to other people, even when you're not where you want to be. It's about freedom, Jesus. Whoever sins is a slave to sin. But as you grow in your sanctification, God's ongoing rescue process in your life, you don't go from being a slave to sin to being a slave to nothing. You're always going to serve somebody. The way the Apostle Paul worded it to the Romans is that you go from being a slave to sin to a slave to righteousness. So Paul worded it this way. But thanks be. Thanks be to God, though you used to be. What three words, Slaves to sin. Hey, you've come to obey that sanctification from your heart, the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and become slaves to righteousness. You're always going to serve somebody. Don't trust me, Trust this guy right here. Any of you know who that artist is? Bob Dylan, way back in the Day, 1980s, wrote this song. I'm not going to try to imitate his voice. You're going to serve somebody. You know, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're going to serve somebody. And so salvation, sanctification. I am being saved. Just remember, it's about freedom. It's about freedom. It's about freedom. Following the Christ is about learning to walk in new freedom in life. It's ongoing rescue mission. I was saved. I am being saved. So if you are sanctified enough, if you grow enough, then God will accept you. No, you grow because you've been accepted. And so part two or conversation two is just this. And this is very critical. Sanctification is the result, not the cause of your justification. You walk in new freedom because you've been justified, because you are dressed in Christ, because you're debt free, not in order to become debt free. And so let me show you a couple verses that are really confusing to some people and not individually, but when you kind of see them back to back and over Ephesus, that fourth largest city in the Roman world, when Paul writes Ephesians to that area. Famous words for it is by grace that you have been saved through faith. Now it is by grace that you have been saved. Past tense, justification. It is by grace that you've been saved. Listen, it's through faith you believed. And this listen. And not of yourselves. It was a gift of God, not by your good works, so that no one can boast. Here's the way I like to word it. God does not love you because you're good. He loves you because he's good and offers this and offers this gift. So just repeat those line three, the words that are highlighted. Three words, ready, ready, ready, not by works. And check out the very next verse. And this is when it gets confusing to some people. For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. And I go, which is it? Which is it? Is it not by works or by works? Listen, you're not saved, justified by your good works. You are justified for good works. And so what you have in these three verses is the justification that takes place and the sanctification that should be the result of the justification. It is fitting for me to seek a life of freedom that honors Christ because of the debt freedom that I have received. We are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Just something. If you're going like, justification is not about try harder, do more, try harder, do more, try harder, do more. Justification is based on I believe that Jesus took my place, his sinless life, his crucifixion, his resurrection that calls out new life in me. I believe I'm debt free because of Jesus, not because of my goodness. That's justification, sanctification. He will call you to a life of good work. Notice that it's called work, good works, but in this seed here. So order is critical here. You're not saved by your works, but you are saved for works which God prepared in advance for you to do. Order is significant. Sanctification is not the cause. It's the result of having been justified. But I love that first sentence there. For we are whose handiwork? God's handiwork. This is wonderful. It's his work to sanctify me. Created in Christ Jesus to do good works. It looks like it's my work. Whose work is sanctification? Is it God's work or is it my work? Part three is just this. Sanctification is God's word and yours. Sanctification is something that God will do in you. It is not something that God does for you. You have to be an active participant. And Philippians, that Jesus group way up in the north of Greece, up in Philippi, a couple verses from Philippians that help explain this as God's work and as your work right out of the gate in Philippians, this is a famous verse. Being confident of this, that he, God, who began a good work in you, will carry it to completion until the day of Jesus Christ. By the way, I think in that single verse you find justification. Sanctification and glorification. He who began a good work in you, justification, point in time will carry it on to completion. Sanctification, God's ongoing rescue until the day of Jesus Christ. Glorification, that day when we're with him and removed from the presence of sin. But he says, I am confident of this, that the God who called you to be his sons and daughters, that he is going to continue this work in you. Great. It's God's work. Well, until you get to chapter two. Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only he's in prison when he writes this, he's incarcerated. Not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence. That's why he's writing. He tells them this. Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. He doesn't say, work out for your salvation. He says, work out your salvation. So people who read that and go, work out your salvation. I was saved. And you look. Justification. This is about. See, this is a. The reason that we're preparing this for the family of ADA Bible Church is it's clarifying. See that verse there? Looks like you're working well, you are. But that's about sanctification, not about justification. That's after you're a son. That's after you're a treasured daughter. That's about the ongoing freedom. So continue to work out your salvation. With fear and trembling, you continue to work it out for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. Is it God's work or is it my work? Here it appears to be both. Side by side you work out your salvation, for it is God who works in you. And this is critical because it's not like justification. God did his part and now sanctification. Now I do my part. No, God is involved. Grace is involved. Faith is involved in both justification and sanctification. But just notice that it's called work. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. It is work. Forgiving someone who inflicted a deep wound in your life is work. Following a foot washer is work. Jesus washes his disciples feet, looks at his disciples and said, do you understand what I just did? This is at the Last Supper. This is hours before he gets arrested. Do you understand what It's a question. Do you understand what I just did for you? Then he looks at him and says, I, your Lord and master, I just washed your feet and I want you to wash each other's feet. This means Peter washing Matthew's feet and James washing Thomas feet. As I have done this for you, so you must do this for each other. We follow foot washer. And when you awaken in the morning and say, I'm yours today you're inviting work. It is work to break away from a pornography addiction. It is work to break away from a gambling addiction. It is work to break away from a alcohol addiction. It is work to break away from a shopping addiction. Work out your rescue and it's God who works in you. When I say I need a new level of freedom, I need to break away from this. I've got a new heart, but I'm a new heart with old habits. I need you so badly to rescue me day after day after day. This is a process that God gets involved in. And it is spirit empowered. And often he will bring believers into your life to provide counsel and to provide coaching and to provide encouragement in the journey. You don't do it without God. It is God's work and it's your work. But it's work. We are his Ephesians 2, 10, workmanship. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good work, which he prepared in advance for us to do. Sanctification is God's work and yours. And the fourth one here that I find most disquieting and also quite frankly could risk some serious misunderstanding. So I feel like I'm walking on a little bit of thin ice here. It's not just that if you've been justified, if I was saved, that sanctification should happen. If you've been justified, sanctification will happen to some degree or another. Not evenly, not equally, not with the same intensity at all times. But if God gave you a new heart, something's going to change. And if nothing changes at all, man, you got a question. Whether or not God gave you a new heart, not only that sanctification should happen, but if you've been justified and given a new heart, sanctification will happen. What I want to turn you to here is from the writings of the Apostle Paul to John. And I believe this is the John who walked around with Jesus for three years. He's older now and he's coaching Jesus communities. Is he writing to unbelievers or is he writing to believers? There's a third category. There's unbelievers, there's believers and there's unbelievers who think they're believers. There's people in church that are not in Christ and don't know it. This is the scariest category to me. People who think they've been justified because they prayed a prayer at a crusade in 1982 and nothing changes. John is writing not only to believers, he's writing to people who think they're believers or say they're believers. So just absorb this first John 4. This is John's letter. I, John, dear friends, listen, let us love one another. Love, it comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God, the new birth and knows God. And then he drops this bomb. Whoever does not love doesn't know God because God is love. God is love in his very being. If this God of love has entered your life and I find myself just as indifferent, just as self absorbed, just as angry at other people, just as unforgiving, I got to go back and say, did I get a new heart? Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. And again, this is talking to people who claim to be believers. And he says, you might want to call that into question whether that new heart was ever given to you. Now, John, this isn't the only place. He said, that's kind of a one off. This is not the only place. He does this first John, the next one. We know that we have come to know him. See, that's interesting. If someone came up to you and said, I think I'm a Christian, but I'm not quite sure, how do I know that I really know God? He doesn't take them back to their decision. Did you pray the prayer? Did you ask Jesus into your heart? He asked them to look for fruit. Whoever says, I know him, but does not do what he commands, that person's a liar. Truth is not in that person. So let me just kind of paint a case scenario here. If you came up to me, asked this question. In the question and answer time is going to come. Next you say, okay, my uncle. My Uncle Harvey, he prayed to receive Christ at some men's breakfast thing he was invited to back in 1998. And I go, and then. And then nothing. Let me read to you some statements I wrote about nothing. And then nothing. Then what? Nothing. No desire to grow? Yeah. None I can see. No desire for Christian fellowship to be among other believers? No. Are you kidding me? Just as angry, just as self centered, just as greedy, just as unloving, just as self focused, just as impatient. No joy, no peace and no effort. And that doesn't seem to bother him. But he believes I made that decision. I prayed that prayer. I'm good. Now you say, and the question is, is my Uncle Harvey saved? And I would give a two part answer. I'd say, number one, that's not a decision I get to make. I can't see his heart. I'm not going to make a call on whether God has justified him or not. I'm not going to make that call. That's not my decision. But the second thing I would say is if Uncle Harvey came up to me and asked if I thought he would save, I would say, harvey, at some point, no. Fruit, dead tree, Harvey. I just say, at some point you gotta question whether or not Jesus really came in and gave you a new heart. If there's no desire and no interest, and I wanted him to be my savior, but there's no stinking way anyone's telling me what to do. I'm not sure you accepted Christ. You accepted a version of Christ which was truncated, but not the whole thing. You didn't accept the Jesus that he came to be. You accepted a fragment of that Jesus. And we do have a tendency to hire Jesus as our savior and fire him as our Lord. So I would look at Harvey and I just say, you know, the longer this goes on and doesn't trouble you, the more I would question whether or not that was true saving faith and whether God gave you a new heart. So you're saying Harvey lost his salvation? No, I believe in something called eternal security. I believe in something called eternal security, which means that some people truncate it to Once saved, always saved. It's like eternal security. You don't lose your salvation once God grabs you. It's not your ability to stay in, it's his hanging onto you. All right? That's called security. There is something else, though, called assurance. Security is you don't lose your salvation once saved, always saved. Assurance is the question, how do I know that I was once saved? And scripture doesn't take you back to your prayer to receive Christ. It says, look at the fruit. And if there's like zip, nada, nothing, I'd say at some point you have reason to believe. No fruit, dead tree. You know, I don't even know that Christ came in because I just. He's not working, I'm not interested. And it doesn't trouble me. Now this is why I say thin ice. I believe the following things. I believe that Christians can make miserable failures, miserable mistakes and still be God's kids and blow it radically, as in Peter denying Jesus three times in one night. I believe that Christians can go through fairly lengthy seasons of stagnation. And I believe that Christians, those who have been justified, can wrestle with a bad addictive pattern for a significant period of time. And so I'm not trying to paint some. If you're really saved, there's this kind of sinless perfection here. I think there can be miserable failures. I think there can be lengthy stagnation. And I believe that there can also be. What was the third one? I hope some of you are taking notes. Yeah, an addiction pattern that is very, very challenging, you know, to break away. To break away from sanctification. I was saved. I was saved when I was five years old. I really think I was. There's a top of my parents stairs in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. My mom was taking a nap and I was looking through my Sunday school papers and somehow being raised in a past home and in church week after week after week. And in Sunday school I had learned that you had to invite Jesus in. And in a very childlike, unsophisticated way, I opened my heart to Christ as a 5 year old. And I've had kind of a God consciousness since that point. I think I was saved as a 5 year old. I was saved and I am being saved. I need to invite the saving work of Jesus into my life. And every single stinking day I need to wake up day after day and say, I'm yours today. Help me grow, help me learn. I'm stuck here. I'm cranky, I'm unthankful, I'm Self centered and once again to ask for his freedom. This is the daily saving that he does. And I'm still a mess and so are you. Quite frankly, I'm looking forward to a day when I won't be. John would say this, he would say now, right now, right here and now, we are the children of God and it does not yet appear what we're going to be. But one day when we see him, we're going to be like him because we're going to see him as he is. Justification, glorification. And by the way, everybody who has that hope purifies themselves even as he is pure sanctification. The three are in one verse together. So I said, he's going to say four things about sanctification and then give you an opportunity to give your life to Jesus. Sanctification is about freedom. It's about freedom. God desperately longs to rescue me day after day. Sanctification, it's the result and not the cause of my justification. I don't earn God's love by being good. Sanctification is God's work and it's my work. And he cooperates with me and I cooperate with him in this daily transforming process. And if I've been truly justified, sanctification will happen to some degree. And the longer someone's go with absolutely no fruit and not really caring about it and no desire to grow, I'd say, whoosh, man, whatever faith you had, are you sure that was saving faith? So two invitations, invitation number one would just have to do with this ongoing rescue project that God is about. Sanctification. Back to Boyd, if we can. Asking Norman the question, are you saved? I'm baptized. That ain't what he asked. Are you saved? She goes, yeah, I was. But I have not been cooperating much lately with the ongoing washing and ongoing cleaning and ongoing rescue that Jesus intends for me. Quite frankly, I've just been kind of lazy. I want God to work, but I don't want to work with Him. And so perhaps this could be a significantly profound moment of renewal where through the scripture today and through the voice and tenderness of your Lord. Just something triggers in you where you go, I got to get moving not to earn it, man. I believe I'm debt free. He paid for me. But I am not acting like someone who's debt free. There was a day when I was growing, and I was growing rapidly and I was growing eagerly and man, I've just been stagnating, man. I'm just telling you, perhaps this conversation today, the five Syllable words. Sanctification is a huge motivator for you to re up and maybe just in your own mind, just pray the prayer, I'm back in. I'm back in. I need you'd saving every day. And I'm back in. I need to sign in again to the hard work. As you work in me, I am your workmanship and it's my work too. Four years from now, will someone remember a day Wednesday morning at Gold Lake Ministries when you say, I remember when I re upped I was a believer. I just remember the day where I was prompted to begin to offer the fitting response to the salvation that I had. There's another category, a question that Boyd Bible Swan asks Norman, are you saved? And quite frankly, it should be more than a few people in the room that went. Jeff, based on your description that no fruit dead tree thing, I don't know. If someone had asked me last week, I would have said, yeah, but I haven't grown in years and I don't desire to and I don't feel anything changing. I would just encourage you to go back to the beginning. It won't hurt you one way or the other to go back to the beginning. Say, gracious God, I believe you came and died for me, and I don't want to be one of those people that hired you as my savior and fired you as my Lord. I need your guidance. I need your daily saving. And I want to long for the day when I'm actually with you and unashamed. I don't know if the tree's dead or not. I just know if I were looking for fruit, I wouldn't find much of anything. So if I wasn't saved in 1987, do it today. Come in today. Free me today. Give me a new heart today in a way that empowers me to walk with you at a level of freedom, quite frankly, that I have never known. And four years from now, there ought to be a few people who go. It was a Wednesday morning at Gull Lake Ministries, and before the week started, if someone had said, are you saved? I'm baptized. That's not what he asked. Are you saved? And quite frankly, I would have said yes. And then, no. Fruit, dead. I wasn't sure. I invited him in. I invited him in. I went back to the beginning and I started over. We worship our Lord for what he has done, for what he is doing and what he will do. We praise and thank and follow our Lord because he saved us. He is saving us. And the day will come. Finally when the grime is gone and he will save us finally and completely. Take 30 seconds, 45 seconds. Some of you are great and some of you just need to do some interior work for a moment. And then I'll pray and offer invite happy to come up and join us. It. Gracious Father, the Father who welcomed the prodigal home with open arms. Gracious Lord Jesus, who said, I stand outside the door and knock, Just open the door. Just open the door. I'll come in, I'll eat with you and you with me. Give us the honesty to see what's really going on, and give us the confidence to move toward you this day. And we ask this in Jesus name, who desires to transform us into the people we were created to be. It's in his name that we pray. Amen.