Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] When I was in college, there was this pretty grandiose haunted house that was put on every year. Does anybody like haunted houses in here?
[00:00:13] All right, I have nothing in common with you. I'm sorry about that. They're not really my thing.
[00:00:18] But, heck, I was a college kid, and it was five bucks, and what else would you do, you know? So this one was. This one went all out, man. They had abandoned buildings that they owned.
[00:00:28] They changed the theme every year. There was creepy actors, things flying through the air.
[00:00:34] I mean, special effects. And this would just build these crazy crowds. You know, you'd be in line for hours to do this. Tons of energy and effort went into this. And in the years that I went, at least after you made it through the abandoned building, you'd have been scared and trying to pee your pants, you know, or punch a clown in the face or something like that. You had to exit through these tents on the way to the parking lot. And I remember staying there shoulder to shoulder with a dozen or so people you'd just been scared half to death with.
[00:01:08] And then there'd be, like, some tea and coffee aside, and then somebody would stand up, and they looked very sweaty and nervous, and they'd be.
[00:01:15] And it dawned on me. I was like, oh, I think I know what's about to happen here.
[00:01:20] But not everybody else recognized what was happening. And I remember vividly, and this is a true story, this young guy walking up, and he was kind of nervous, and he said these words. He said, man, that was scary, huh? Just imagine how scary hell's gonna be.
[00:01:34] And I thought, oh, no. You know, and, you know, I'm pretty sure at one year, I was beside this guy who was probably a little bit intoxicated. He's like, wait, is this a church thing? What's happening? You know, he just thought he was coming to Haunted House. He was very caught off guard by this, you know, freshman in college telling him that what happened afterwards was an awkward gospel presentation, mostly about how to avoid hell and how to get into heaven. And at the end, he kept prodding to make sure someone. Rose. Rose. Raised their hands, like, are you sure? Are you sure that you're sure?
[00:02:06] Now, listen, I genuinely appreciate the zeal by those college students that put on these events, right? They had a passion.
[00:02:16] They cared. They cared about eternity, and they wanted people to know about Jesus.
[00:02:21] But I remember thinking, even then in my college years, is this really what Christianity is about? Can it just be summed up as, let's avoid the bad place and get into the good place. Cause that's kind of what I heard in that. And I couldn't help but wonder how many people left that tent, walk into the parking lot that night and said, man, if you. How could a loving God send people to hell?
[00:02:44] And that's the question I want us to address this morning. Now, there's so much on the topic of hell and judgment, eternity. And so I can't, in the time allotted, cover all the things. But I think we do have enough time to cover this question. How could a loving God send people down? I think it's one of the hardest questions that people ask about Christianity. It's one that I've received a lot. Maybe it's one that you wonder yourself. And honestly, I think if we start with just hell with that, if we begin the story there, then Christianity can sound cruel or manipulative or, as I experienced it that night, just kind of fear driven. Like, you don't want to burn forever, right? Like, get out of here. Like, raise your hand.
[00:03:20] But the Bible doesn't begin with hell. It actually begins in a place called Eden. It begins with the God who created humanity for relationship with him. And that starting place matters because it changes everything.
[00:03:32] So today, what we're gonna do with the time that we have, we're gonna look at Jesus story in Luke 16, where Jesus tells a very difficult story, but it's one about a rich man, a poor man, a reversal of situations and the great chasm between them. And through this story, Jesus helps us understand judgment, hell, and the heart of God. So if you have a Bible, go ahead and turn with me to Luke 16. It's gonna be on the screen as well.
[00:03:57] But let's read this passage together.
[00:03:59] And then I'm going to pray for our time.
[00:04:01] Luke 16, starting in verse 19.
[00:04:04] This is Jesus teaching the crowd. And he says this. There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. And the time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. And in Hades or in hell, he was in torment. And he looked up and he saw Abraham, far away from Lazarus, by his side. So he called to him, father Abraham, have pity on me. And send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this Fire. But Abraham replied, son, remember that in your life you received good things while Lazarus received bad things.
[00:04:53] But now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And beside all this between us and you is a great chasm has been set in place so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone, cross over from there to us. He answered, I beg you, Father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them so they will not come to this place of torment. Abraham says they have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them. No, Father Abraham, he said, but to someone. Send someone from the dead to go to them and they will repent. He said, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, then they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.
[00:05:33] God, I just pray in the time that we have, Lord, that you would soften our hearts to the reality of eternity and what that means for us. I know that's a really difficult conversation and, and it's hard and it can be messy. And Lord, I just pray right now, Holy Spirit, would you just begin to peel back those layers, the resistance, and we would just hear your word clear this morning. In Jesus name, Amen.
[00:05:55] If I got a chance to sit with you and you've brought this question to me and we were sharing a cup of coffee, here's where I would start. I would start with the fact that we are created for communion. See, the Bible begins in Genesis with this idea that tells us that humanity was made in God's image. We were made for relationship with him. And they lived in a place called Eden. Eden is a place of abundance, of peace, of joy. It's a place of belonging. And ultimately we see where humanity resides in God's presence. I think that matters because it tells us something essential about God's heart.
[00:06:31] God's first posture towards humanity is not of wrath, but it's to welcome humanity. It's not to reject them, but to towards relationship. Not condemnation, but communion.
[00:06:42] And that's really important because I can hear God. Maybe you've heard it in news feeds and things as people discuss God is that it's almost as his primary desire is punishment, that he's just looking for someone to smite at all times.
[00:06:55] But the Bible says that God made us for Himself. Colossians 1 says this. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created to hear this through Him. And for Him God's Heart is for us, he delights in us, but something gets in the way. So let's go ahead and look at this passage in Luke 16, the story that Jesus told a crowd as they're trying to understand both eternity, but also this life. And so there's two main characters in the story. The first one is the rich man who he describes as dressed in purple and fine linen and luxury. Now, purple was a sign of royalty, so he would have been, you know, grand status.
[00:07:42] He would have had luxury, comfort, security, pleasure in his life. You know, so he. Some verses say that he ate.
[00:07:49] He ate like, you know, amazing amounts of food every day. It's described as that. Now, none of those things by themselves are bad, right?
[00:07:57] They're actually gifts from God. I don't. We don't know how he got these things, but he's living a good life.
[00:08:03] But the problem with this story that Jesus is going to point out is this guy Lazarus, not his situation. Right at his gate, it says, at his gate lies Lazarus, which implies to us that this rich man must have known Lazarus at some level, enough to know his name, as we're going to see later.
[00:08:23] But Lazarus described as being covered in sores, longing to eat what fell from his table. He wanted to scratch just the crumbs that would fall from his table. And then he was described as even having these sores that dogs would come and lick. And that's extremely graphic. But it's in that context that would have been. Made you unclean, you know, the fact that you were that level. And so he would have been isolated from community, from people. No one would have looked. People would have looked away from him. And Lazarus seems to be in the woes of life, you might say.
[00:08:52] But I want you to notice something here.
[00:08:55] It doesn't say anywhere. Jesus doesn't teach that Lazarus was outwardly harmed by this rich man anywhere. It doesn't say that he inflicted this upon him. It doesn't say that he caused it. It doesn't say he mocks him.
[00:09:09] What I would argue that his sin is so much subtler. He just ignored him.
[00:09:15] The rich man must have walked past him every single day. I mean, it was his gate, after all.
[00:09:19] But he has been so curved inwardly in his own life that he could enjoy all that God had given him. And he didn't care about an image bearer right outside his door.
[00:09:28] And that's how sin works.
[00:09:30] It turns us inward.
[00:09:32] We begin loving comfort more than compassion. We love our possessions more than people. We love God's gifts more than God. Himself. Ultimately, our lives just come about ourselves, don't they?
[00:09:43] And that's the story as old as Genesis 3. The first lie and sin always leads to exile.
[00:09:51] If you're familiar with the Genesis story, you know there's the story of the serpent or the enemy, Satan himself, who comes and he says that lie to Adam and Eve. Did God really say.
[00:10:02] Did God really say that?
[00:10:04] Right. He says, you will not die. God's actually holding out from you.
[00:10:09] God doesn't want you to be like him. God does not have your best in mind.
[00:10:14] Then in Genesis 3, when humanity rejects God, they distrust him and they grab autonomy from God. They say they choose for themselves over communion with him. And what's the result?
[00:10:24] It's exile.
[00:10:26] And they're driven east out of Eden. And from that point on, the Bible describes judgment as exile. You see that with Adam outside the garden, you see Cain. And in his wandering you see Israel in their exile in Babylon. Time and time after again, judgment is described as the separation from the life and the presence of God.
[00:10:47] I want to do what I want to do and I don't want God to tell me anything otherwise. Luke 16 actually shows that same exact pattern. Here's what's striking about that passage. I would argue that the rich man is already in torment long before he's in death.
[00:11:03] It begins before that, right? Spiritually, he's already disconnected. We don't see that he has. He's isolated. He doesn't talk about any family or friends in there. He's self absorbed. He only cares about himself and he's indifferent to the abilities of those around him.
[00:11:17] Even after death, he still hasn't changed. Think about this in verse 22, just how it's portrayed. It says that he's in Hades, which is hell. He's being in torment. We see that there's anguish and flame, there's fire. It's a. The horrible place to be. And yet here's what I want you to point out. He says, send Lazarus to dip his finger.
[00:11:38] So somehow in this condition he's at. He still looks at Lazarus as his inferior.
[00:11:44] He still thinks Lazarus job is to serve him. Even in the midst of his torment.
[00:11:50] He's like, send that guy to bring me some comfort. He doesn't cry out for mercy, he doesn't cry out for forgiveness. He doesn't cry out for repentance. He doesn't express any sorrow in his life.
[00:12:01] He just says, send that guy to help me.
[00:12:05] The tragedy is not just merely his pain, but I think a soul that is so Hardened that even suffering doesn't wake him to the reality of God.
[00:12:15] And this helps us understand something so important about Hell. Hell is not God sending people who want him throwing them away.
[00:12:23] I would argue that hell is the final form of a life turned away from God.
[00:12:28] It says this in Romans 1:8. We read this this past fall. We studied Romans, but this is Paul talking about humanity. It says, furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind so they would do what they ought not to be done. And if you read Romans 1, you will see that phrase over and over again. So God gave them over to themselves.
[00:12:56] Friends, our sin, our inwardness, our exile is one that we do to ourselves. When we follow, we take a bite from the apple, just like Adam and Eve every single day when we say God doesn't have my best in mind. I want to do whatever I want to do. If you read that whole chapter, that's the phrase that will stick out in Romans 1, which means that eventually God will allow humans to have exactly what they think will suffice them.
[00:13:18] It's like a parent when they think you're fighting a give me candy, give me candy, give me candy. You think that's going to suffice you and it's going to end up giving you a belly.
[00:13:26] CS Lewis said this way. He said, there's only two types of people in this world. Those who say to God, thy will be done, and those whom God will say, thy will be done.
[00:13:36] We can either say, God, I'll do your will, or you'll say you can do yours and it will lead to a different place.
[00:13:41] And that can be difficult, very uncomfortable. But it is revealing because I think it refrains the question of why would God reject people? To why do people reject a God who created them for himself?
[00:13:54] Or more personally, why do I reject God when what he wants is relationship with me? Who am I to think that I know what is best for my life? Because left to myself, I will end up in some pretty horrible places.
[00:14:08] You know, in my life I've had the privilege this September to be celebrate 10 years of marriage with my wife, the love of my life, with whom I have three beautiful children who call me Daddy. And it's. It's the best thing in the world.
[00:14:22] I have a support system of friends and family who love me and support me that I could never possibly repay or deserve.
[00:14:32] I love them and I've received love from them. And this is what I'VE learned that is, if love is real, then it cannot be coerced.
[00:14:40] God will not force communion on us.
[00:14:43] How could God send people to hell?
[00:14:46] He doesn't.
[00:14:48] But if we do not want his presence, he will not force it on us, but he will pursue us because we serve a God who answered our exile.
[00:14:58] And I was reminded of that this week with Memorial Day and thinking about the stories of men and women who put their lives down for us.
[00:15:06] And one of my all time, this is kind of like a shameless plug here. One of my all time favorite movies is Black Hawk Down. Has anybody ever seen that movie? Awesome. It's a great movie.
[00:15:18] But in that, there's a, there's a special story in that movie that just, I think totally, you know, just, totally just reveals who God is in this. And it's the story of, of the two Delta snipers in this story. Obviously, I don't know if you're familiar with this story. In the battle of Mogadishu, there was these helicopters that went down.
[00:15:38] And when the second chapter went, chopper went down. Master Sergeant Gary Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randy Shugart, they were snipers and they saw this happen.
[00:15:47] And they could see the pilot and they could see the crew. And they asked multiple times, would you put us in? Would you put us in? And it says that they asked the first time and command told them no. They asked the second time and they said no. And the third time they said, would you let us insert us and could we try to save the pilot's life?
[00:16:06] Command, you know, as it's portrayed in the movie, it says, you know, we don't know when backup's coming. You know, when you go in there, it is a hopeless situation.
[00:16:14] Like there is probably, you know, what you're asking, right?
[00:16:17] And these two men, they say, we know what we're asking. And they rappelled down and they wanted to buy time for the pilot, Mike Durant.
[00:16:27] And they knew they were walking into the situation and they fought for their last breath, their last round of ammunition, fighting off unbelievable forces to defend him and at least give Durant a chance to survive. Who he would, he would later be captured, captured, but he would later be released. But both these men would die in the process.
[00:16:49] They would later receive the Medal of Honor, you know, posthumously, but they were the first ones to receive the Medal of Honor after, since Vietnam at the time.
[00:16:59] And when I hear that story, you see it in a movie, there's something maybe even right now that wells up in us, right? Because we're like, man, what a story. What a, what a, what a sacrifice. What a man, what kind of love for. For their fellow soldier. Would you just, you would go into a situation saying, I know it's gonna cost my life, but there, his life's worth it, I'm willing to do it.
[00:17:20] And I think that reason that stirs in our hearts is because that's eternity written in our hearts.
[00:17:25] It's what Paul says in Acts 17. He says, you know, that God wants to be found and if we just reach out, we'll find out that he's not very far. Friends, God's not looking for someone to smite and send to hell. No, he wants to be found.
[00:17:39] And that's what we celebrate. A God who entered exile. God doesn't merely warn us about judgment. Like, hey, man, you're going down a bad road. Watch out, can't wait to get you later. No, that's not who God is. He enters himself. See, Jesus, he steps into our exile. Think about his life. He was rejected, mocked, betrayed. He was abandoned and ultimately he was crucified outside the city, outside the camp.
[00:18:03] He bared the weight of the curse of sin. He wore the sin and shame, the death that we deserve. And on the cross he experienced exile himself. That's why he cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
[00:18:17] Because Christ entering the far country of human rebellion to bring us home, knowing very well it cost him his life.
[00:18:26] And this completely changes how we think about hell and judgment. Christianity is not about a God wanting humanity to suffer from distance. It's about a God who suffers for humanity.
[00:18:36] It's about a God who absorbs judgment into himself, a God who loves his enemies enough to lay down his life for them. And that's why the cross matters so much. Because if judgment is not real, then why would Jesus go through it?
[00:18:51] What need is there for a cross? Why would he go through the suffering, through the nails, through the abandonment, if sin was not that costly, if that judgment was not on the other side? See, the cross reveals two great realities. I think simultaneously the horror of our sin.
[00:19:05] Make no doubt about it, our sin costs God his best.
[00:19:10] Your and I, the things that we do, we think about the things we want to do, the things that have done to us, all the horrible things that we experience in this life.
[00:19:20] It costs God his best. But it also describes the cross, reveals the depth of God's love for us.
[00:19:27] Go back to this passage as Jesus teaches on it. It says in verse 27, this is an interesting part in this story because basically there's this dialogue that's now happening.
[00:19:38] And basically he's trying to convince Abraham to. He's like, hey, I don't want brothers to be here. So God, would you like send them Lazarus again? Remember, he still thinks Lazarus deserves to do all his bidding, right? He's still so self centered, but now he's looking at him like, well, send Lazarus to help my friends or help my brothers, excuse me. And Abraham makes this point, he says, but they have Moses and the prophets and he's like, no, no, no, no, they're not gonna listen to them. But if you send someone from the dead, then they'll be convinced. And this is very telling what Jesus says. He says neither will they be convinced that someone should not rise from the dead.
[00:20:13] Do you hear what Jesus is? This is Jesus, the master storyteller. He's telling a crowd right in that moment who have read Moses and the. They knew the Bible, they had heard the stories, they heard about it. And he's saying, you know what, if they're not willing to listen to them, they're not gonna be convinced. When someone rises from the dead and Jesus is foreshadowing the fact that he would rise from the dead, he's pointing to himself. See, the tragedy, friends, for us is not that God hasn't revealed it to us or that we don't know. The tragedy is that some hearts will reject even the resurrection. Jesus says it himself.
[00:20:48] God sent the prophets, he sent scripture, he sent his son, he rose him from the dead. And still some refuse to say, I don't want to listen to that. I don't want to believe that.
[00:20:58] So when some people ask me, they say, how could a loving God send people to hell? I would say, what more could God have done than send Jesus on the cross?
[00:21:08] What more could he have done than actually send his very son? The cross proves that God's desire is not destruction.
[00:21:15] His desire is rescue.
[00:21:18] There's one more thing we need to cover in this passage.
[00:21:22] You see it in this earlier dialogue, but it's this idea about a great chasm. A great chasm, it says, between us is a great chasm in order that those who pass may not be able to get there. So saying so Jesus is describing somehow between Hades and reality, or with Abraham is almost as a form of heaven, right? This idea of eternity, that between it there's this chasm, you just can't kind of go willy nilly. That's not how it works. At least that's how Jesus describes it. But what we see is this place for the rich ruler, the rich man. It's a place of thirst. It's a place of separation, of torment, of exclusion. Meanwhile, Lazarus is experiencing a reprieve. He's. He's being comforted.
[00:22:10] And friends, I want to be really clear on this. There's lots of debate and please spare me your YouTube videos. You want to email me, I'm good, but I'd be happy to talk with you. But don't send me some YouTube video.
[00:22:23] There's lots of debate about hell and how it works and all stuff I don't know.
[00:22:28] I don't plan to go to hell. I don't want to find out.
[00:22:32] But what I want to make it really clear is just to make it really crystal clear in this room. The Bible is very clear that there are two eternal destinies for all of us.
[00:22:43] And there's lots of debate about how that works out and what that looks like. But here's where it is. There's a reality for all of us. There is either eternal communion with God that we describe as heaven, or eternal separation from him that we describe as hell.
[00:22:57] In Revelation, the last book of the Bible, it describes these really clear for us. It talks about a restored creation, a tree of life where there's no more curse or the effects of the curse. There's no more tears, there's no more death.
[00:23:11] It's described as Eden restored. It's where the story begins, where we're gonna end, that we get to be in a presence with God. We get to live with him forever and experience the goodness of life. It says that he'll wipe away every tear, but it also speaks of the opposite.
[00:23:26] It speaks of exclusion, of outer darkness, of a lake of fire and sulfur, sometimes described as the second death.
[00:23:36] See, hell is the anti Eden. If heaven is life with God forever, then hell is the eternal existence apart from God that we were made to be with.
[00:23:47] We were not meant for hell. We were meant to be with God.
[00:23:51] God does not delight in suffering. Jesus speaks about judgment with grief. He weeps over Jerusalem. God's heart is rescue.
[00:23:58] But love does not force itself on people.
[00:24:02] God will not coerce eternal communion upon those who eternally reject him.
[00:24:07] And friends, eventually our choices do become permanent.
[00:24:12] See the rich man in Luke 16. You will not find a verse where he is suddenly longing for God.
[00:24:18] He just wants relief. Yes, but he still doesn't want to surrender. And so. So let's ask this question one more time. How could a loving God send people to hell?
[00:24:30] Hopefully you hear Me today is that I don't think that's what's true. I don't think he's sending people to hell.
[00:24:36] The answer is not simplistic, but it is profound. A loving God has created us for communion. He's warned us about sin. He enters our suffering. He bore the judgment that I deserve on the cross. He rose from the dead and he now invites us home.
[00:24:50] And that's how. That's the reason I could stand there in that tent as a college kid. And no matter how hard that guy tried, I wasn't gonna raise my hand. Not cause I didn't believe it, because I'd already wrestled with that reality.
[00:25:02] And so he didn't have to scare me into anything. I just had wrestled with, man, is this real? Am I following God? Years before that, had realized that the judgment that I. I wasn't wondering, like, man, I hope there isn't judgment. I was going, man, I can't believe that God actually would do that for me.
[00:25:18] And so friends, that's the decision before us today.
[00:25:22] And I'm not gonna try to conjure anything or make you upset, but I do think this is something worth pondering. And as I was thinking about how to do this, and I wanna just preface this by. We're gonna do something a little bit different this morning. I know sometimes there can be a, you know, we do a great song at the end and we could do something like that. And it's like you're like. That was kind of heavy. I'm glad that song kicked on so I could leave a little early, you know, or like. Or I might say, hey, think about this this week. And you're like, cool. And then by the time the song happens, you're like, where are we eating lunch? You know, And I know that happens. It happens to me too.
[00:25:54] But I want us opportunity this morning to ponder and pray. Because eternity, our reality. Where. Where what? What is this life? And where am I going? And this is something worth pondering, not rushing past.
[00:26:08] And so to help us do this, I want to give you an illustration. This is a picture of light of the world. Jesus knocking.
[00:26:16] Now, I'm gonna clarify. I am not an art historian in any major, okay? So if this is your jam, bear with me here, okay?
[00:26:24] But this is a painting by William Holman Hunt.
[00:26:28] And this is known as the most traveled piece of artwork in history. Did you know that? I did not know that. This has been in more galleries and museums around the world than any other piece of artwork.
[00:26:42] It NOW sits in St. Paul's Cathedral in London, but it has been described as a sermon in a frame.
[00:26:49] And what's interesting about this painting is the artist was trying to explain.
[00:26:55] It's Revelation 3. 20. It's this idea of God knocking the doors of our heart and he wants to come in and eat with them. This is how he describes salvation. That's how Jesus describes it in Revelation 3. He says, I knock at the door of the heart and anybody who opens the door, I will come in and I will eat with them.
[00:27:13] And I want you to notice a couple things about this picture and I know it's gonna be hard to see maybe right here, but you'll get to see it a little bit bigger in a second.
[00:27:20] And one of these things, it shows Jesus the imagery of this passage where he is knocking on this door. And what you'll notice is there's vines and it's rusted and it's supposed to represent a heart or a mind that has never opened the door to Jesus.
[00:27:36] And Jesus is knocking ever so patiently.
[00:27:42] And then if you notice in the background, it's supposed to represent dawn is just cresting the hill just a little bit. There's a little bit of light in the background.
[00:27:50] So maybe it's the idea that maybe today there's an opportunity to open that door.
[00:27:55] But the thing that is most profound about picture, which I wonder how many people have walked by and sat and gazed at this in galleries and wondered, huh, that's nice. And just moved on with their life, is that there is no handle on the outside of the door.
[00:28:08] There is a handle on the. It's supposed to be a metaphor for that. We have to let Jesus in. Like Revelation 3 says, Jesus does not come and knock the door down. He doesn't kick the door down. But he is the light of the world and he promises to be that.
[00:28:23] And here's the thing about Jesus and what I've learned, and this is why I could sit there with confidence in that tent as a 19 year old is going to, you know, when you open the door to Jesus, he wants to make his home with you. It says that he wants to, he wants relationship with you. He doesn't just want to save you from a bad place. He actually wants to come in and reorient your life.
[00:28:43] But I want to be really clear about what that means for you. If we let Jesus come in into our hearts, that means he gets to move around the furniture a little bit, huh? He's going to make himself at home.
[00:28:53] He's not coming just for A little pop in. He wants. He wants all of us.
[00:28:58] He's not. I don't want to just hand out some fire insurance today. That's not what I'm looking to do. That's not what Jesus wants, but he is knock on the door of our hearts this morning.
[00:29:10] So here's what I want to do.
[00:29:12] I want to give you a chance to ponder and pray.
[00:29:16] I don't want to rush past this, but if I believe the word is alive and well, then that means right now he is knocking on the door of some hearts in this room.
[00:29:25] And so it's your. I wish I could open the door for you. I can't either.
[00:29:29] But you gotta open the door. Would you be willing to. This is what we're gonna do. I'm gonna get out of the way.
[00:29:35] I'm gonna give us a few moments to just think about this. You're gonna see the passage in this picture up here. And here's what I ask. Pray.
[00:29:42] Scripture says that if we believe in our hearts and we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord, that we can be saved.
[00:29:47] And if that's you today, maybe you can cry out in your heart and say, lord, I need you. I need. I need.
[00:29:52] I want you. I want you to open the door to my heart, to you.
[00:29:56] And maybe you want to pray with someone beside you. Maybe you came with someone today. Maybe you would just lean over and begin to pray with them. Or maybe if you didn't come with anybody, we're going to have people at prayer tables and maybe they would love to pray with you. And this is a great time to do that. We're not going to have music. We're just going to have little keys in the background. And you can just have a moment to reflect. Because you know what? This is worth spending a few moments thinking, man, am I so inwardly focused?
[00:30:20] Have I said yes to Jesus? We've been asking this whole series about these honest questions. Now it's a time to take an honest look in our lives.
[00:30:29] So let's go ahead and bow our heads. I'll give you guys a few moments to pray.
[00:30:53] Lord, even right now, I know there's people who are waking up to the reality. Maybe there is a God who loves them, who's not afraid of their questions or their doubts or their fears.
[00:31:03] But, Lord, I pray right now that men and women in this room, those and those who online can hear the steady knock that you are on the door of our hearts, Lord, that all we have to do is let you in.
[00:31:16] We don't have to have the house tidy we don't need to try to get everything ready. Lord you just want to come in and make your home with us.
[00:31:23] In doing so we don't have to fear what's next or eternity or where we'll spend because Lord we know that if we want you we get to spend eternity with you. And so Lord I pray that would be true this morning this morning that men and women, students young and old everybody in this room would would hear your voice, hear your heart and they would cry out to you this morning.
[00:31:45] Amen.
[00:31:47] Amen.
[00:31:48] Journey thank you guys so much for being with us this morning.
[00:31:52] Two quick things as you head out this morning please don't rush past this moment. There's still time to reflect. We'll have people at the prayer tables would love to pray with you and be sure to check out the Bolivia table on your way out. God bless you guys have a great week.
