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Mariners Church Weekend Messages
January 11 - What Happens 60 Seconds After You Die? - Eric Geiger
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Welcome to Mariners Church Weekend Message Podcast. Inspiring people to follow Jesus and fearlessly change the world. Discover your purpose and get connected by visiting MarinersChurch.org or click the link in the show notes.
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So good to get together to start our week this way. Singing to him, being with God's people, looking at his word. I believe that God has a word for you today, that he's going to use his scripture to encourage you wherever it is that you are. If we haven't met, my name is Eric. I'm the senior pastor here and I'm really glad that you're with us. I'm going to pray and then we're going to jump in. God, thank you for receiving our worship today, for inviting us to yourself, for letting us be here. This is sacred. We get to hold your scripture. We get to sing to you. This is awesome. And you're awesome. You're the greatest. You've given us life. And I pray that you teach us today. You'd help us understand who you are. It's in your name I pray. Amen. You can grab a seat. I'm so glad you're with us. There's a staircase that goes up to the floor where my office is located right here on this campus that on February 27, 2024, I had an interaction, multiple interactions on that staircase, actually the top of the staircase, that has changed how I view that staircase since. On Tuesday morning, February 27, 2024, I was walking up that staircase for a meeting early in the morning with our directional elders. I got to the top of the staircase and I decided to check my messages before I went into the meeting. And there was a text message from my mom that my dad's health was quickly deteriorating. I had talked to my dad the day before, and he told me that something was just off with his body, which was surprising because the doctors that he had been to just several weeks before as he was battling als. My dad had been battling ALS for a year. They had said that that doctor's visit was more promising and hopeful than the doctor's visit before. But my dad, a couple days before Fe Feb. 27, said, Something's off with my body. I made flight arrangements to go see my dad and my mom, and I was gonna leave in about a week from that time from that Tuesday morning. So when I got that message, I walked into the office and I have a meeting in my office. My assistant Amy, her office is right outside mine. She was in her office. And I said, hey, during this meeting, can you get on and switch My flight so I can leave right after this meeting to go see my dad. And so I was in the meeting with our elders, and they were awesome. They gathered around me and they prayed for me. And then right as I was leaving the meeting, I mean, right as I stepped outside my office, my mom called. And she said, son, your dad is passing right now. If you want to say something, I'm going to put the phone by his ear. And so I kept walking. And I got to that top of that staircase, and I started saying to my dad, I love you. I'm so proud of you. You as a father, have given me, as a son everything that a dad is supposed to give a son. I know you're passing right now, dad. You're about to hear, well done, good and faithful servant. But I'm telling you, as your son, well done. Thank you for being the father that you have been to me. I just kept speaking over him. And then my mom got back on the phone and said, eric, he's passed. Your dad's just passed. I was on top of the staircase right there, right outside my office. For months after that moment. I avoided most days that staircase, even though it's the easiest way to get into my office. I just didn't want to go to the top of the staircase. So I'd walk around and take the elevator up or go to a different staircase. But some. Sometimes I'd go to the top. Sometimes. Some of you have been through this. I don't even know why I'd go to the top, other than I just wanted to feel, once again the heaviness of the moment. I just wanted to feel it again, the moment when I'm telling my dad goodbye. 60 seconds after that moment, I was in a car driven by one of our elders to the airport to go be with my mom. But 60 seconds after that moment, where was my dad? What happens 60 seconds after you die? It's the question that we're putting on the table this weekend. What happens 60 seconds after you die? Now, we often don't like to think about death. In fact, I've learned this as a pastor. When I speak at a wedding or a funeral, it's two very different responses. At a wedding, I'm a necessary nuisance. No one cares at all what I say. They aren't there to hear me. They're there to see the bride and the groom. But when I teach at a funeral, what I have noticed is that it's a sacred moment. It's a sacred moment where everyone slows down and there's people that haven't been to church in forever or ever who were there. And they are asking some of the deeper questions about life, like what happens? Why did this take place? But we don't have many of those sacred moments where we really slow down. In fact, think about it. This is really. It's surprising that all of us know that one day we're going to die in this world. But we figured out how to live without ever thinking about it much. We have figured out how to distract ourselves, how to throw ourselves into so many activities in this world that we don't think about an experience that happens to every single person. Blaise Pascal, the famous philosopher, he marveled about this. He said, despite his afflictions, man wants to be happy, only wants to be happy, and cannot help wanting to be happy. But how shall we go about it? The best thing would be to make himself immortal. But as he cannot do that, he has decided to stop thinking about it. We just. We just decided we're not going to think about this at all, which is actually unwise. It's wise to think about something that's going to happen to you. It's going to happen to everyone. What happens 60 seconds after you die? Now, that brings up a whole lot of questions. One of them being, why do we even have death anyway? Now the scripture gives us a really clear and gracious answer to why do we even have death? We have death because when God created everything, he created good and perfect. The first two chapters in the Bible, Genesis 1 and 2, God made everything. And it was awesome. It was flourishing. There was peace. Man and God were at peace with each other. Man was at peace with one another. Everything was as it should be. And then the third chapter in the Bible, humanity. We decide to disobey God and go our own way. And that is sin. When we say, no, we're not following you, we're following ourselves. And sin brought separation into the world, separation between God and us. And sin also brought death into the world, as God judged the world because of our sin. Death is separation. Death is separation of your soul, who you really are, and your body. And so it's our sin that brought separation into the world. Separation from. From God in us, and separation and death. Our bodies and our souls separated from one another. But the story of the Bible doesn't end there. God loves us in the midst of our disobedience. And he pursues us. He goes after us. He still loves you. And God, the Son enters this world. He dies on a cross in your place for your sin and your shame. But the death of Jesus on the cross was the end of your sin, but it wasn't the end of Jesus because Jesus was buried. And on the third day, he was resurrected from the dead. He. He's the only one who's able to defeat the last enemy of death. And if you believe in Jesus, his victory is your victory, because he's the one who defeats death. That's the story of the Bible, and it is good news. You could have clapped for that. Some of you did. But it's really good news. It's good. So that's the macro answer. But then there's so many other questions. There's so many questions that this brings up, and I'm not gonna be able to get to all of them today. So I encourage you to listen to the if I Had More Time podcast. I have Lee Strobel on this week. He's a journalist and a scholar, and he's awesome. He wrote a book recently called Heaven. And we're going to answer some of the questions that you have. Like, if my parents die, is cremation okay? Is it okay for a Christian to be cremated? What happens to a child when the child dies? Or an infant with a miscarriage, what happens? Or what about. What about our pets? What about Roscoe the Goldendoodle? Is he going to go to heaven or not? So those kinds of questions we talk about on the podcast. But today I want to talk about you. I want you to wrestle with what happens to you 60 seconds after you die. And here's the verse in the scripture that I want you to think about. Hebrews, chapter 9, verse 27. God's word says it's appointed for people to die once and after this judgment. So the verse says, it's already been appointed when you're gonna die. And after you die, you don't cease to exist after you die. You aren't reincarnated. After you die, you stand before God and you're judged. It's appointed once for a man to die after this judgment. So the scripture is really clear. Now. The world will say, I know that after you die, you go into nothingness. That's called annihilationism. And it's so hopeless that you just die and it's over. Others believe in reincarnation, that you go into a next life. And depending on how you live in this life, you could go to a higher form or a lesser form. The scripture says, no, you die once. Once. And after that judgment, you stand before God and You give an account for the life that he gave you. He's the one who gave breath to you. So for the Christian, death is actually. You're going to see a glorious transformation. It's not reincarnation or annihilation. It's transformation. I'm going to show you. This is all really good news. Five metaphors that the scripture gives us about what happens to you 60 seconds after you die. And you're gonna see that a trade is made. And it's a gracious and glorious trade. And so let me show you in the scripture 11:30 service. I always love you. You ready to look at some verses in the Bible? Okay, here we go. Here's the trade that is made. Number one. Exile is traded for home. 60 seconds after you die. Exile, or really immediately after you die, exile is traded for home. You've heard people say he went home to be with the Lord. Where does that come from? It comes from this verse, 2 Corinthians 5, 8. In fact, we are confident and we would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. The Apostle Paul wrote this. He understands that death is to be away from the body, that death is separation from your body. But he says, for the Christian, it's really good news because you're home. You're home with the Lord. The reason he's using that language is because the Bible describes, for those of us who are Christians, life in this world is not home. But life in this world is exile. This world tries to tell you that this is your home. It tries to say it has everything for you. But the longer you live, the more you know it doesn't satisfy you. And if you're a Christian, you understand that this world is not your ultimate home. You're in exile here. You're passing through here. This isn't what really quenches you. But when you leave this world and you're separated from your body and you have everlasting life, if you're a Christian, you're at home. And what makes it home is you're at home with the Lord. What makes heaven heaven isn't all the glory and splendor and the beauty, although there's going to be lots of glory and splendor and beauty. What makes heaven heaven is that you're going to be at home with the Lord. And when you're at home with the Lord, you're not going to want to then come back. No way. You're at home with the Lord. You're not going to want to leave there for here, for exile. You're at home with him. Richard Baxter was a Puritan author, and he said, here's how you can tell someone's a Christian. This is the mark of a Christian. Not if they would prefer heaven over hell. Duh. Who doesn't? Who doesn't say, hey, you have a choice. Do you want heaven or hell? Who doesn't say, I want heaven? He said, that's not the mark of a real Christian. The mark of a real Christian is the person who chooses heaven over this world. That this world you've decided is nothing compared to what he offers you, nothing compared to life with him. When I was a freshman in college, we had to live at the public university I attended, Louisiana Tech University. All freshmen had to live in the dormitories, and they assigned me to live in Hutchinson Hall. Hutchison hall was known as the worst dormitory on campus. In fact, a year after I moved out, they condemned it. It was really bad. The rooms were super small, like prison cells small. You and a roommate. And each floor had a community shower that. That everyone shared. It was disgusting. There were like six shower heads, but three to four worked at a time. No curtains. It was just gross. I got athlete's foot. That lasted for six years. After being in Hutchinson hall, my sophomore year of college, I moved out of Hutchison Hall. I paid the due. I did one year there. I moved out and moved into an apartment. The apartment wasn't amazing, but compared to Hutchinson hall, it was awesome. There was a shower curtain and warm water. Hallelujah. It was so good. The gap between Hutchinson hall and. And the apartment in my mind was massive. I would not ever want to go back to Hutchinson hall after having the apartment. The gap between everlasting life at home with the Lord and exile here is infinitely greater. And anyone who is there isn't going to want to come back to here. It's the first trade that is made. The second trade is a decaying body is traded for a perfect body. We see this earlier in the passage that we are in, second Corinthians 5, verse 1 and 2. You're gonna see, this is amazing, that your earthly body right now is called a tent, and that when you are with him, you're gonna get a new body that's called a building. You don't have to be a genius to figure out that a building's better than a tent. And so see what the scripture says. For we know that if our earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal dwelling in the Heavens not made with hands indeed. We groan in this tent, desiring to put on our heavenly dwelling. We long for the day when everything's right. We're groaning in this tent. Our body in this life is called a tent. Your body is a tent. Now in Southern California, you know, we try to take care of our bodies. We try to go glamping instead of camping. But it's still a tent. Your body's still a tent. When I was first married, I was invited to speak at a junior high camp. And I said yes. And I went to go speak at this camp for like five nights. All junior hires. And I thought they'd put me in a dormitory or like a cabin, which I was cool with. I stayed in Hutchinson Hall. I can handle a dormitory. But no, it was one of those camping experience where you stayed in tents in this big open field. And they assigned me to stay in a tent with eight junior high dudes for five nights. And it was disgusting. These guys, they didn't bathe the entire time. I'm like, guys, go take a shower. Oh, we're swimming, brah. I don't need a shower. Axe body spray all over themselves. Jolly Ranchers and Reese's ants coming into the tent. It rained multiple nights. The tent got stuck, saggy and dilapidated looking. Your body is a tent. Over time, it gets saggy. That's just what happens. That's what happens. We age, we. I know this. I just turned 50. I used to get injured playing sports. Now I get injured getting into bed at night like, ah, kids. Like, what happened, baby? I don't. I got into bed wrong. I don't even know. It's what happens to your tent. Your, your body currently is a tent. But a trade is made that you're gonna have a. A heavenly, glorious body and everlasting life. People ask me, what's it going to be like? I don't know for sure. I know. I don't know. I'm imagining no limits. Like I'm going to be able to dunk on you. I don't know. But I know for sure your body won't decay in everlasting life. And that your life here, your body here is a tent that decays. And eternal life wasn't meant to be lived in a decaying body. You don't want to live forever in this body. You don't. Not when you're 120, 180, 640, 930. Can you imagine 900 years in this body? You don't want eternal life. In this body. Now, there is a debate among scholars. When do you get your new body? Most scholars agree. Most scholars believe, and I agree with them, that you actually don't get your new body right after you die. That the new body, based on 1 Corinthians 15, is given when Christ returns at the second resurrection, when all of us are gathered together with him in everlasting life. Now, there's a smaller group of scholars that believe, no, you get a body right when you die. But I. I believe that the biblical evidence would say, you get it when he returns. And so some of you have said really kind things, like when my dad passed, and I would never correct you, ever. In a moment where you're being so kind and tender to me, people would say, eric, I'm praying for you. You'd hug me. You were so gracious. And I bet. I bet now your dad's in heaven riding his bike. Because my dad was a cyclist. I didn't correct you right then, but you were wrong. He was not in heaven. He's not, like, cycling right now. I don't believe he has his body yet, but. But I'm not. If he does, awesome. But according to the scripture, I believe we get the body later. We talk more about that on the podcast. But here's what we know. Those of us who are in him. One day, we will be given this building of a body. Number three. Labor is traded for rest when someone perishes and dies. You've heard it said, you see on social media, rip, rest in peace. Where does that come from? It comes from this passage in the book of Revelation, which is the last book in the Bible. Chapter 14, verse 13. The Scripture says, I heard a voice from heaven saying, write. So write this down. Here's what you write down. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. So it's not just blessed. All the dead, those who die in the Lord, those who die knowing God, they are blessed. They're happy. So happy. Or blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, So they will rest from their labors. So everlasting life is compared to rest right here. Rest. Now, compare that to the very first book in the Bible, the book of Genesis. Right after sin entered the world, God judged the world and told Adam and Eve, who ushered sin into the world with their disobedience. God said to them in chapter three, verse 17, the ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. So the Bible after sin enters the world gives us the sense that we have painful labor now, but when we are with him, we have everlasting rest. So labor is traded for rest. Your work, even though your work is a gift from God, your work is a gift from God. Your career is a gift from God. He gave it to you. He gave you your talents and your abilities, and you should use them as unto the Lord, but they won't give you real rest. Some of you right now are living with the angst of, you have this goal, and you just are so fighting, striving for this goal. Some of you are living with the angst of, you hit the goal and it's three weeks after and you've learned it's not enough. This world gives us strife and turmoil and struggle and even angst in our careers. But then everlasting life, there's no more angst. You're at rest. There's no more sense of, I'm trying to prove myself. I'm trying to justify myself before my peers. There's no more sense of, if I can get this, then I'll be happy. No, you are blessed and happy as you rest eternally. Which is why the Christian should never fear death, because death is described as rest. You don't fear rest. You don't call a buddy and say, hey, man, bro, this is crazy. I need you to pray for me. I'm about to go take a nap and I don't know what's going to happen. I'm so scared of that nap. No, you aren't afraid of a nap because it's rest. And the Scripture paints a picture that everlasting life is rest for the believer. Okay, let me give you two more. Are you still tracking with me? Okay, all 34 of you who are, I'm so jacked that you are the rest. Here we are. Number four. Suffering is traded for glory. There's a verse in Romans that really ministered to me during the time where I'm watching my dad's body deteriorate because of ALS. Verse 18 of Romans chapter 8 reads, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. Now, I don't want you to misread this verse as if the Bible or the Apostle Paul who wrote this is minimizing your suffering. He knew how to suffer. He's not minimizing your suffering right now. Some of you suffer with anxiety or depression. He's not saying that's no big deal. Some of you are suffering with the fallout of a divorce, and it's so painful. He's not minimizing that pain. He's not minimizing the doctor's prognosis that knocked you off your feet. He's not minimizing the pain of your betray. Betrayal. He. He knows that the suffering in this world is heavy, and it's real. What he's doing in this verse is trying to maximize your understanding of the glory that is to be revealed. That the suffering in this life is really, really heavy, but that the glory in front of you weighs much more. That the suffering here is heavy, but what's in front of you is infinitely greater and infinitely better. And there's times where you think the weight of the suffering is high, which makes the glory even higher. That's what he's saying. Saying in this passage. When my dad was suffering with als, he came out, and the last time that he was here, we went to dinner at a steak place. He loved to have a good steak. And so I took my parents out, and Kay was with me, and we sat at an amazing dinner. Except this was the first time that I remember my dad, who I have always thought is the strongest man I knew, couldn't cut his own steak. And we had to cut. We had to cut the steak for him. And I felt like my dad was embarrassed, and I didn't want my dad to be embarrassed. And we get in the car to drive back to our house, and my dad is in the passenger seat. I'm in the driver's seat, and he's looking at his hands, and he says, son, look. Look at this. Look at this, son. Three weeks ago, there was muscle here. There's no. There's no muscle here. My body is just wasting away. I don't understand how it can happen so fast, how my body's just fully wasting right now. In that moment, I didn't know. I didn't know what to say. I just prayed to God, silently, lord, give me the wisdom to shepherd my dad. And as I was praying, he brought up that verse, Romans 8:18. I said, Dad, I am so sorry. This is so horrible what's happening. ALS is so cruel. It's such a brutal disease. I hate seeing this happen. I am so sorry. But for the first time, I think I have an even elevated understanding of Romans 8:18. Because this is so horrible. The verse says that the glory that you're about to experience, dad, is. Isn't even worth comparing to this. And this is so horrible. This is more horrible. Than I imagined. And because this is even more horrible than I thought, that must mean that the glory that is in front of you is more glorious than I could ever imagine. That the glory that you're about to taste, that is even greater than I've ever known. If you know Jesus, when you pass from this life to the next, you trade suffering, forever lasting glory and then number five. Knowing in part. Knowing in part is traded for knowing in full. The Apostle Paul says in First Corinthians 13:12, for now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will fully know as I am fully known. The apostle Paul says, I don't understand everything here. I only know in part here, like looking into a mirror. But a time's coming when I'm gonna fully know. And the reason I'm gonna fully know is because I'm fully known. Because God fully knows me. Cause I'm his. I belong to him. We don't know everything here. Now we're not left alone. Right now some of you are in deep pain. You're not left alone. He's given you his spirit. His spirit lives within you. His spirit is with you. He's with you. You are not alone. He's given you his word to guide you. You're not alone. He's given you his wisdom and insight in the. But your knowledge is still limited. My knowledge is still limited. There are times I now stop on top of that staircase and I still have questions. I don't fully know everything. My knowledge is Limited. But 60 seconds after my dad left this world, he fully knew and everything made sense. After you die, if you were his, it's going to all make sense because you're going to see the goodness of God, the power of God, the grace of God on full display. I don't understand everything now, but a time is coming when you will know in full. A great trade is going to be made for the sons and daughters of God. Josh Gnome is a sports fan, specifically a baseball fan, and he collects pictures of walk off home runs. He says he loves walk off home runs because they remind him in his mind of what's gonna happen when a believer leaves this world and goes into everlasting life. That they're gonna go home. They're gonna go home and there's gonna be people around them celebrating. So Josh Noem on his social media profile has this picture pinned. It's the Cubs with a walk off home run. I prefer this picture better. It's Freddie Freeman after game three of the World Series. For some of you, that's like the best part of the sermon. You're like, that's my pastor right there. That's my pastor. I'm with you, man. Bro, I'm here for you, man. I'm here for you, dude. It was awesome. Super long game, six hours long. And it finally ends when Freddie Freeman hits a home run, a walk off home run. He rounds third and goes home to his teammates. Welcoming home, Los Angeles. Sends a fly ball to center field. Marshall's going back before the catch gets McMahon. Freeman is under it. It's a repeat hero with the last word from a game three classic. Freddy Freeman had a walk off home run, went home, and he went home with victory because he won the victory. He did it. He. It was on him. He hit the home run and he was victorious. You are gonna live a world that is filled with strife and turmoil. Even the gifts of God that he gives you end up not satisfying you because we misuse them, because we don't receive them as we should. And you're gonna live a life. Your life's not gonna be perfect. There's gonna be struggles and turmoil and tumultuous times. And you're gonna walk around the bases and one day you're gonna round home. And as you round home, he's going to be there to receive you, to welcome you into everlasting paradise. But you're going to go home. Not because you're the victorious one, not because you hit the home run in life, not because you played the game of life well. You're going to go home. Because Jesus is the victorious one who conquered the grave, who overcame death, who defeated the enemy that none of us can defeat. He defeated death. And because he defeated death, if you have believed in him, his victory is your victory. That is true. For the sons and daughters of God, a glorious trade is made. But if you are not his. For the unbeliever, for someone who doesn't receive the grace of God, another trade is made. But it's a horrific trait. Exile in this world. For someone who doesn't know Jesus and doesn't believe in Jesus, exile is traded for everlasting lostness. Everlasting exile. Labor and turmoil in this world is traded for eternal turmoil. Suffering in this world is traded for everlasting suffering. As God pours out his holy wrath on sin throughout eternity. Because he's a holy God and sin must be judged. See, for the unbeliever, this world is the closest thing to heaven. You will ever experience. For the believer in Jesus, this world is the closest thing to hell you will ever experience. If you receive the gracious trade of what Jesus did for you on the cross, you then have the gracious trade of everlasting life. But you have to receive the gracious trade of what Jesus accomplished for you in the cross. And this is why he entered the world to give you this trade, to give you a gracious trade. He placed Himself on the cross for six hours on a Friday afternoon to trade you his righteousness, his forgiveness in exchange for your sin and your shame. As Jesus was crucified, all of your sin, if you believe in him, was placed on Jesus. He absorbed it in his flesh to trade you all of his perfection. So those of us who believe in Jesus, the reason we go into everlasting life, the reason we round third and go home, isn't because we're awesome, isn't because we lived good lives. It's because the goodness of Jesus has given over to us, because we gave him our sin. He gave us his forgiveness and his grace and his goodness. And those of us who believe in Jesus, God the Father looks at us as if we are perfect, though we've never lived perfectly. But because Jesus made a trade for us, he took our sin and gave us his perfection. We opened. We opened with this reality that it's appointed once for someone to die, and after that, the judgment. You are going to stand before God one day, the One who gave you life, who breathed life into your being, and you are going to give an account and you are going to be judged before him. You are going to be judged either on your goodness or his goodness. You're going to be judged based on your works or his work for you on the cross. See, on the cross for six hours, Jesus suffered hell for you. Jesus was judged on the cross so you wouldn't have to be judged for your evil deeds, for your wrong motivations, for your sin, your shame. All of us have it. Jesus was judged on the cross. He drank the full cup of God's wrath. So there's no more wrath left for the sons and daughters of God, only grace and mercy. If you believe in Jesus, Jesus absorbs all of the holy anger against sin in his flesh for for you. But if you don't receive his grace and you stand before a holy God alone on your own works, then God pours His holy wrath out throughout all of eternity to judge sin because He's a holy God. Sin is going to be judged either in the flesh of Jesus for six hours. Augustine, the early church father, said, this way, sin is going to be judged either in the flesh of Jesus for six hours on the cross or the flesh of the sinner for eternity. It takes God the Son, only six hours to satisfy the holy wrath of God because He's perfect. You're going to die once and you're going to stand before God. Are you going to stand before him in your work, in your goodness, or His? He wants to give you all of his forgiveness and grace. Last week there was a young adult at one of our services. She came and talked to me. Awesome, sweet young lady. She's been here for a couple months. And she said, I. How do I officially convert? I grew up Muslim, and I now understand God completely differently now. He's loving and gracious. I. I want this. How do I officially become His? How do I officially convert? I said, it sounds like maybe you already have. How do you officially. Somebody had given me a Christmas gift. It was sitting right here on the front of the platform. And I said, how do you get a gift? How do you get a gift? How do you get a gift? You just take it. You know he loves you. He created you, pursues you right now, entered this world to die for you. He wants to give you this gift of everlasting life. But you, you must take it. And you take it by believing in Him. The scripture says in Romans 10, 9, if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Right now, this is about to be a really sacred moment. So I'm gonna ask us to be as still as we can. I'm gonna invite you who are ready to become his and receive his forgiveness to believe in Him. So becoming a Christian is a process where you're like that young lady, where you're asking questions and some of you've been on the journey. Last night I talked to a lady. She said, eric, cause I'm about to ask you if you want to become his. To stand and say, I believe in a couple moments. And. And she didn't. Last night. I talked to her in the patio. She says, I'm 99% there. I almost stood. What do you suggest? I said, what? I'm so proud of you for sharing this. I'm on this journey. I know he's pursuing me. I know he's going after me. I said, he totally is. You know, he wants you. Here's what you do. You ask him to give you the faith because even the faith is a gift. You ask him to give you the faith next time. Some of you've been saying next time for a while. This is your day where you are going to receive his forgiveness and become His. And so in a moment, I'm going to ask you if you are ready to confess with your mouth and believe in your heart. Believe in your heart means believe with all that you are, that you're not trusting your work anymore. You're trusting his work, you're not trusting your goodness. You're trusting his goodness that you're going to stand and you're going to confess aloud. You're going to say, I believe. And we believe that the moment that you believe in him is the moment that he makes you his forever. And so when you stand up, you're essentially saying, I'm not trusting myself anymore. I'm not trusting my old life. I'm trusting Him. And so there's no more sacred moment in all of the world than this moment right here. So out of respect for the people around you, would you have let this moment be sacred? The moment where some of you are gonna say yes and thank you, and you're gonna confess your belief in him and receive his forgiveness. So if you are ready to become his, now's the time. You're like, why would I do this in front of everybody? When Jesus died for you, he died for you in front of everybody. When Jesus invited people to follow him in the scripture, it was never private. It was always public. Because Jesus is gonna change you anyway. It's gonna become public. He's gonna change. And every commitment in your life that you ever made that's important to you is public. And this is the most important one there is, because this impacts not only this life, but all of eternity. And so if you're ready to receive his forgiveness and become his, just one at a time, you stand and you confess. I believe. All right. Extend your hands, please, and let me pray a prayer of blessing over you as we go. Jesus, I pray you'd bless your sons and daughters this week, that you would remind them that you are gentle and approachable and that you love them. Cause your face to shine on them. I pray they will experience your mercy and your joy this new week. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Go in peace. Have a great week.
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