Welcome to Calvary
Church with Skip Heitzig. We're so glad that you've joined
us for our annual Love Bomb weekend when we highlight Reload
Love, a global ministry that helps some of the world's
most vulnerable people. Here's Pastor Skip. [APPLAUSE] Good morning. How are you today? Hey listen, we love
Reload Love weekend because it gives
us an opportunity to show outrageous love
to the least of these, to people who would not normally
expect that kind of outpouring and that kind of gift. So thank you for getting
involved in that. I was asked by the
Reload Love team to do a passage in
1 Peter chapter 4. So if you'd turn in your
Bible to 1 Peter chapter 4, I want to do a little
look at something I'm calling "How to Live
and Love in the Last Days." How to Live and Love
in the Last Days. Oh by the way, there's going to
be a little of this coming up today, is that right? Is this a big deal to anybody? Is Super Bowl a big
deal to any of you guys? You're voting for
the Rams, right? You're cheering for the Rams,
right, right, right, right? OK. Home team, home team! So, I have this
out for a reason. You'll see in just a minute. Question-- how many of you have
heard the term "the last days"? The last days-- raise your hand. Or that we are living
in the last days? OK. Hands down. How many of you believe we
are living in the last days? Raise your hand. OK, I'll put my
hand up for that. I believe that as well. But I want to balance
something out. I'm going to throw up
a quote on the screen. I want you to look at it. This person said, "The
last days are upon us. Weigh carefully the times. Look for Him who is above all
time, eternal and invisible." Now that sounds like
a modern-day prophecy expert wrote that. But that was actually written in
110 AD by a man named Ignatius. So he wrote that. He believed that. He said that just a couple
of decades after John wrote the Book of Revelation. Here's another quote-- "We have reached the time of the
white horse of the Apocalypse. This world will not last any
longer than a hundred years." That was spoken by
Martin Luther in 1,500. So with that in mind,
would you look with me at 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 7. "But the end of all
things is at hand; therefore be serious and
watchful in your prayers." Now the only problem
with that statement is that Peter said
that 2,000 years ago. 2,000 years ago, Peter said,
it's the end of all things. How could that be? How could that be the
end of all things? How could these be the last
days if 2,000 years ago Paul said that, Peter
said that, et cetera. That's an issue. I just want to touch on that. And that's why I
have this football. So, guys, how many of you have
ever watched a football game-- you don't have to raise
your hand for that-- you've watched a football game and your
wife or your mother or somebody said, it's time to go. We've got to go. It's time to go. And so you say to them, OK,
the game is almost over. We're in the last quarter. OK, you're laughing
because what that means. Because she'll say, last
quarter-- what is that? It's 15 minutes. Well, there could
be five minutes left in the game of field play. Does that mean in five
minutes you're out the door? Not even close! Because five minutes could
mean 20, 30, 40 minutes, depending on what fouls go
on, or what calls are made, or what interludes play. Five minutes of play, five
minutes left in the game, or 15 minutes does not mean that it's
going to be over any time soon. So last doesn't mean short. Last means final. Last means final. There are no more
plays after this. There are no more
quarters after this. So, last times, last days
doesn't necessarily mean short. It means final. So there was, in the scheme
of redemptive history, there was creation, there was
the fall, there were covenants, there was the law. These are the final days. These are the last days. God sent His Son the
Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't have another play. He's not going to send
another messenger. There's not going
to be more prophets. That's it. So that's what it says in
Hebrews chapter 1, verse 1. "God, who at various
times and in various ways spoke in times past to the
fathers by the prophets, has in these last days
spoken to us by His Son." So question-- are
we in the last days? Answer-- yes we are. But the last days have been
lasting for 2,000 years now. Technically-- biblically
technically-- the last days began with the first
coming of Jesus Christ. And they will end with the
second coming of Jesus Christ. Last quarter! Almost over! I think you get the picture. I'm going to put the
football away now. OK. Having said that however,
the New Testament does tell us that the return
of Jesus Christ is imminent. Have you ever heard
that term imminent-- I-M-M-I-N-E-N-T? It means it could
happen at any moment. It could happen at any moment. There's nothing precluding
it from happening. And the New Testament does teach
that believers from the New Testament onward should
live in the anticipation that Jesus Christ could
come for them at any moment. Here's just a sampling of that. In Mark chapter 13,
verse 35, Jesus said, "Watch therefore,
for you do not know when the master of
the house is coming." Luke chapter 12, verse 40,
"Be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour
you do not expect." Titus chapter 2, verse 13,
"looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of
our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." James chapter 5,
verse 8, "Be patient. Establish your hearts, for the
coming of the Lord is at hand." All of those passages teach
the imminent return of Jesus-- that he could come
at any moment. Moreover, the New Testament
gives signs for us to look at and see
as things develop. So yeah, technically we've
been living in the last days for 2,000 years. But I would say,
based on what I see in terms of fulfilled
prophecy, we're like in the last days
of the last days. We're in the end of the end. I've always loved the
story about a pastor who went to visit an
institution where there were mentally
handicapped children who were being cared for. And as the pastor was walking
through the corridors, he noticed that there
were fingerprints on all of the windows
that faced outside, all these smudge marks. The pastor said,
what's up with that? I mean, your windows look dirty. They've got fingerprints
all over them. He said-- the man who ran
the institution said-- the children here love Jesus. And they are so eager
for Him to return that they lean on the windows
as they look up to the sky. And I read that, and
I thought, if that's what it means to be
mentally handicapped, let me be so afflicted-- to live your life in
such a way that you realize Jesus is coming, the
great hope of the church. Well, we're going to look at
1 Peter chapter 4, verses 7 through 11. I want to show you three
basic things, three elements that will help us
all stand strong and be effective in this world. Very easy-- pray, love, serve. Pray, love, serve. Pray diligently. Love deeply. Serve wisely. Let's begin with the
first-- pray diligently. Verse 7-- "But the
end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious
and watchful in your prayers." Now just get the
flow of that verse. The end of all things
is near, therefore be serious and watchful
in your prayers. Notice that prayer
is first on the list. Prayer is first on the list
because prayer is always first on the list. Prayer is basic. Prayer is primary. You can always do more than
pray after you've prayed, but you can never do more
than pray until you've prayed. That's where you begin. You begin that way. Think of it this way--
prayer is like the passcode or the password. If you have an app or
a program, the company gets you a passcode, a password. You need that password
because that unlocks the whole program for you. Prayer is the key that
unlocks the door of all the other blessings of God. That's why we begin with it. "The end of all
things is at hand; therefore be serious and
watchful in your prayers." Now I was reading through
this passage this week, and I couldn't help but
be struck by the fact that the way Peter writes
this sounds familiar. It sounds as if Peter
is almost repeating what Jesus said during His
last days of life on the earth. When He was in the Garden of
Gethsemane with His disciples, the Lord Jesus said
to them, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful
even unto death. Stay here and watch with me." How did they do with that? Were they really good at
watching in prayer with Jesus? No, they kind of like got
an F on that test, right? They failed that one. They were-- Jesus was praying. He comes back. They're sawing logs. They're sleeping over
by an olive tree. [SNORING] So He wakes them up. And He said, could you not
watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray. Watch and pray that you may
not fall into temptation. Interesting that Jesus
said, like you guys couldn't even make it an hour. You know, I wonder how many
of us could make it an hour. You couldn't watch
with Me one hour? So I've noticed something. I've preached for
a long time now, and every time I teach
on the subject of prayer, I notice that the audience gets
really quiet, almost nervous. Because it's like we
instinctively know, yeah, that's an area of my
life that really needs work. I'm not really great at prayer. Well, if you feel that
way, you're not alone. According to one source
the average Christian prays 45 seconds a day, and
that's usually over a meal-- 45 seconds a day. Now another source actually is a
little more generous than that. According to the
Barna research group, the average Christian doesn't
pray 45 seconds a day. The average Christian prays
a minute a day-- one minute, so 60 seconds as opposed to 45-- not much of a difference. Don't feel too bad. Pastors aren't a whole
lot better than that. Only 16% of pastors say
they are very satisfied with their prayer life. Now I'm not saying that
to make you feel guilty. I'm just saying
this to all of us, that I think we
could figure out ways to inject our daily lives
with a little more prayer. So let's just figure out how to
do that, without me telling you how to do that. There's a lot of ways you can
think of to remind yourself, whether it's things on
your phone or whatever. But just-- let's be
determined that we're going to add a little more
communication with God to our daily lives. So I want you to
notice something. He says, "the end of all
things is near, therefore"-- Look at that word "therefore." That's a bridge. The end of all things
is near, therefore, or because of that
fact, consequentially, be serious and watchful
in your prayers. Now to me there's a
principle embedded in that. And here's the principle--
as your days become fewer, you should pray harder. As your days become fewer,
you should pray harder. Which means this applies
to every one of us because, I don't know
if you know this or not, but every day we live,
our days become fewer. Right? Amen. Right? You could be very young
and have many years left. You could be older
like me and not have a whole lot of
road ahead of you. As your days become fewer,
you should pray harder. So as the years take their toll,
as life casts its long shadow, as life gets harder, it is
prayer that will sustain you. My early Christian walk-- let me
just tell it to you this way-- when I first discovered
authentic prayer it was life-changing to me. I grew up in a church where
prayers were all memorized and said without a whole
lot of thought or meaning. You can just say them. You just rattle them off. And suddenly I'm
around Christians who are talking to God like
He's standing in front of them, and it was so awesome to me! In fact, I loved it so
much I decided I would do these little camping trips. I would do like three
days of fasting and prayer away while I was camping. I discovered it's not easy
to go camping without food. But I did it, and it was pretty
exhilarating and exciting. But then I also
noticed I'd come back and that fervor would
sort of wear off. And I would kind of
get back to cold, professional, infrequent,
contained forms of prayer. I discovered that I was much
like the Church of Ephesus to whom Jesus said, you
have left your first love. I have many good
things to say about you and you do a lot of
activities, but I have one thing against you. You have left your first love. Or you don't love Me
like you did at first. I find that to be a tendency. By the way, it doesn't say
you have lost your first love. It says you have
left your first love. It's something you leave. It's not something you lose. And so the Church
of Ephesus was going through the motion of devotion. But there was an erosion
in their devotion. You know, all relationships
that can happen to. Any relationship you have with
anybody that's meaningful, this can happen to. So it often happens
with married couples. Jim Dobson used to
say, you can always tell married couples when
you go into a restaurant and go look around at the
couples who were at the tables. You can tell the married ones. They're the ones who aren't
talking to each other. And you know, he
said that and I just didn't think anything of it
until I went into a restaurant, and I started noticing
that it seemed like couples who had
been married a long time were just sort of staring
off or just saying nothing, or nowadays
looking at their own phones. They're not really
communicating to each other. Couples who date, they
talk to each other a lot. They're learning about
each other a lot. You can't shut them up. I remember driving across town
so I could just talk to Lenya and find out more about her. And our lives were growing. And so you wonder,
after a period of time with some couples, what
happened to that love? What happened to that young
man who couldn't stay away from that girl? What happened to the girl who
when he walked in the room went "aah." And he was so gallant, and he
would open the door for her. And now he says, open
the door yourself. Or he slams the door
on her, worse yet. So, leaving your first
love is a slow leak. It's not a blowout. Leaving your first love
relationship with the Lord is a slow leak. So, "the end of all things
is at hand, therefore be serious and watchful
in your prayers." First element then of being
effective in the last days-- pray diligently. Second, love-- love deeply. Verse 8-- "And above all things
have fervent love for each other for 'love will cover
a multitude of sins.' Be hospitable to one
another without grumbling." Now I love that Peter
begins with prayer. Number one, prayer;
then number two, love. But when he gets to love, he
almost puts it above prayer. He goes, above all things love. And all he means by that
is to top it all off, the icing on the cake, the
cherry on the whipped cream is love because love is supreme. Remember what Paul said? He said there's abides these
three-- faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love. That's why Peter likewise
says, "and above all things have fervent love." A better way to
translate "fervent love" is "love deeply." As some translations
actually put it, "love each other deeply." But the Greek word for
fervent is the word "ektenes" and it means
"strenuously," which almost sounds contradictory right? Love each other strenuously. You go, that's not love. If you have to strain to
love, you ain't loving. But let me explain
the word fervent-- "ektenes"-- strenuous--
was a word the Greeks used for an Olympic athlete
straining, pushing, exerting himself to win a prize,
or a word used for a horse who would at full gallop stretch
its body out as it was running. So then think of
love like this-- love like you're trying
to win the love Olympics. Love people like you're trying
to get the gold medal in love. I'm not going to throw
out a little nice word here and there. I'm going to love that person so
well that at the end of the day I get the gold medal,
not an honorable mention. I want to get the gold. Now there's a couple
aspects of loving deeply, and I want you to
notice both of them. One is a type of
love that covers and the other is a type of love
that recovers, or restores, you might say. First of all the type of love
that covers, that's verse 8-- "and above all things
have fervent love"-- strenuous love, stretch--
"for one another, for love covers a
multitude of sins." Now I don't know if you
have this in your Bible I have in mind quote
marks for quote, "love will cover a multitude
of sins," close quote. And that's because Peter didn't
make this up or write this by his own inspiration
of the Holy Spirit. He is quoting a verse
from the Old Testament. He's quoting Proverbs chapter
10, so it's in quotes. Proverbs chapter 10, the verse
that he is quoting says this-- "Hatred stirs up strife,
but love covers all sins." Or it covers a
multitude of sins. Here's what it means. Every time somebody wrongs you,
you have one of two choices. You can expose it,
or you can cover it. You can expose it
and get the word out and share their dirty
laundry with everybody and post it on
everything you can. "This person did me
wrong"-- just slander them. Or if you're a
mature Christian you want to discreetly
cover that up, not because it's a
cover up, but you're trying to restore that person. So you don't want to kick
them while they're down. You want to cover it. "Love covers a
multitude of sins." You want to stretch
out to cover that sin. That's mature love. Christian love is not sappy,
emotional, sentimental. Christian love is
sacrificial and practical. And it requires a stretching. We've got to stretch to forgive
people who have wronged us. That's a love that covers. Second is a-- I'm going to call it
a love that recovers. That's verse 9. Let's just consider that. Peter writes "Be hospitable to
one another without grumbling." I could do a whole sermon
just on that little phrase because you got
grumbling in there. You have a whole lot of things
the way that's qualified. But let's just consider
what it says here. "Be hospitable to one another." The word "hospitable"
is a word that means in Greek "to love strangers." To love strangers-- to love
people who are not like you-- "philoxenos." "Philoxenos" means
"love of strangers." So this is the kind of love
that widens the circle. So we all have our circle. We have our circle of
family, and we have our circle of close friends. We have our own connect
group, and these are the people we invite. We're like them. They're like us. We like each other. And that's OK. Love them fervently. Love them deeply. Love your circle well. But then, but then,
draw a bigger circle to include the strangers,
people who are not like you, which is what Love Bomb
weekend is all about. We're just drawing
a big old circle to people who are coming
into town who are outsiders. And you know, this
love of outsiders isn't just a New
Testament concept. It goes all the way back
to the Old Testament law. It was built into the
covenant of Moses. Exodus 22-- "you shall
neither mistreat a stranger nor oppress him for
you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Every third year the Israelites
took a portion of their produce and set it aside. Deuteronomy 14-- here's
the instruction-- "and the Levite because he
has no portion or inheritance with you, and the stranger
and the fatherless and the widow who
are within your gates may come and eat
and be satisfied, that the Lord your
God may bless you in all the work of your
hand which you do." Somebody told me about
Albanian hospitality. Seems that the Albanians
are pretty proud of the fact that, as a people, generally
they are very hospitable folks. And they pride
themselves in the fact that they are ready
in each of their homes with special food and supplies
in case strangers come by. And they say this-- "An Albanian's house belongs
to God and His guests." An Albanian's house belongs
to God and His guests. I can just imagine what it would
be like for an Afghan family to hit our shores-- so disoriented,
so confused-- only to be met with the
love of God's people who, in the name of
Jesus, "philoxenos" as they love the stranger. They widen the circle
and welcome them in. And we all know-- you're going to finish this
when I start quoting it. We all know this. We've all quoted it. Jesus said in John
13 "By this shall all men know that you are My
disciples, by the love you have one for another." We know that verse. But what's interesting
about that verse, in that verse Jesus is giving
permission to the unbelieving world to judge us. Do you ever think
of it that way? "By this shall all
men know that you are my disciples, by the love
that you have one for another." Jesus is actually opening
wide the tent and saying, look inside and see
if it's real, world. And here's why--
love is what makes an invisible God visible
to an unbelieving world. Nobody can see God. The Bible says no one
has seen God at any time. No man has ever seen God. So love makes an invisible
God visible, tangible, real to an unbelieving world. So pray diligently, love deeply. Third, serve-- serve wisely. That's verse 10 and
11, the last two verses says "As each one
has received a gift, minister it to one
another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him
speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers,
let him do it with the ability which God
supplies, that in all things God may be glorified
through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and
the dominion forever and ever. Amen." I draw your attention to the
word in verse 10-- "gift." Gift-- we've all
received a gift. The word gift here simply
speaks of spiritual gifts, divine enablings. Spiritual gifts--
let me give you a definition of
a spiritual gift. A spiritual gift is
a God-given capacity to serve others so that
they may be edified, and God may be glorified. That's the best I
could come up with. If I look at the teaching
of what a gift is in the New Testament, it is a
God-given capacity to serve others so that
they may be edified, and God may be glorified. So in these two verses
that we just read, I learn five things
about spiritual gifts. Number one, every
believer has a gift. Every believer has a gift. Verse 10 "as each one
has received a gift." You say, I don't have a gift. I don't have a spiritual gift. Not only do you have
a spiritual gift, my guess is you have a
bunch of spiritual gifts. You have a cluster that
complement one another. And it is our responsibility
to discover those gifts and to use them. And if you don't
know how to discover your own spiritual
enabling, spiritual gifts, that's what Life
Track is all about. We'll will help you. We'll give you hands-on help
to identify what your gift is. So that's first-- every
believer has a gift. The second truth
in these two verses is that your gift may not be the
same as somebody else's gift. It might be, but
it might not be. Third, you should use your
gift to serve other people. Four, some gifts are noticeable. Some gifts are unnoticeable. Right? Some speak the oracles of God. Some minister or serve
behind the scenes. So some gifts are noticeable;
others are unnoticeable. But all of them are helpful. And number five, the
reason we serve, verse 11, is to glorify God. The reason we serve-- that's
the overarching truth of this little section-- is to glorify God, which
infers that if we don't get involved and
serve other people that God doesn't
get as much glory-- by our in-- or our
unwillingness to get involved. "I'm not going to get involved. I'm not going to serve. Yeah, I got spiritual
gifts but I'm not going to find out what they are. And I'm not going to
help anybody else." So you are robbing God of a
certain portion of His glory that He would get if you did
get involved and serve others. Now something else
about serving-- I want you to look at a great
little phrase in verse 10-- "As each one has
received a gift, minister it to one another as
good stewards"-- here it is-- "of the manifold grace of God." Now I know manifold is probably
not a word you use much. I'm guessing that you never
used that word yesterday once. Unless you're a mechanic--
if you're a car mechanic and you worked like on an
exhaust manifold or an intake manifold, you may
have used that word. But if you're not, you probably
did not use the word manifold. You didn't go into
the grocery store and say, oh there's a manifold
of groceries right here. You didn't say that. So what does it mean
and why is it here? It's a good word. It actually and literally means
"many-colored," many-colored. So literally you could
translate it this way-- "As good stewards of the
many-colored grace of God." You know God's grace
is not monotone. It's like light that
shines through a prism and has a rainbow effect. And you can take one
source of white light you shine it through a
prism and it comes out all these different colors. Right? So that's how God's grace works. God's grace shines
into one person's life and is sort of a greenish
hue, another person's life a little yellowish hue, somebody
else red, somebody else purple. If you're ADD like me,
it's like polka-dotted. You got a lot of
different things going on. One author put it this way-- "It's as if God
dips His paintbrush into different colors
or categories of gifts on His spiritual
palette and paints each Christian a unique
blend of colors." So what that means is you can
get two people with exactly the same gifts, and they
come out differently. 1 Corinthians 12-- "There
are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit
distributes them. There are different kinds of
service but the same Lord. There are different kinds of
working, but in all of them and in everyone it is
the same God at work." So spiritual gifts are like
snowflakes or fingerprints. They're unique to you. And so when you do whatever
thing God has called you to do, it is so important
because it is so uniquely an expression of
God's grace that can't come through anybody else. It's that unique. All of that to say
every one of us-- all of us-- are important. Every member of the body
of Christ is important. Each one is vital. Again, I just want to draw
your attention to verse 10, "As each one has
received a gift." Please get this. There are no vestigial
organs in the body of Christ. Have you heard that
term-- vestigial organs? It means a useless appendage. So it was thought years ago-- I remember reading this in
science books years ago-- it was thought that the
appendix, the human appendix, is a vestigial organ. The way the book
explained it is, it's part of our evolutionary past. And now that we have
evolved beyond this and that we don't need it. It's really a useless organ. Since then scientists
disagree with that and have come to believe that
the appendix is very important, that it is like the
gatekeeper between the sterile part of your guts and the
non-sterile bacteria-laden part of your colon. So, sorry to be
so graphic there. All of that to say,
in the body of Christ there's no such thing
as a useless appendage or a vestigial organ. You're all important. And so we are to use our gifts,
as it says again in verse 10, "as good stewards of the
manifold grace of God." So the variety of color that God
expresses himself to each other and to the world with
through our lives-- we are stewards of that. A steward is somebody
who is in control of somebody else's wealth,
somebody else's resources. That's what a steward is. That's a stewardship. What that means is when
you stand before God, He's going to ask you, what did
you do with what I gave you? Because that's what stewards
get asked by owners. What did you do with
what I gave you? What did you do with My gifts,
My talents, My finances, the influence you had? What did you do with
what I gave you? You see, you're not going
to have to stand before God and answer for how
I use my gifts. I wish Skip would have
done this or done that. You know what? You're not going to have
to worry to God about me. You're only going to have to
answer questions about you, not me. We're each stewards of
what God has given us. So 12 years ago-- I think it was 12 years ago-- a
movie came out based on a book. You may have seen it. You may have seen
it and read it. It's called Eat Pray Love. Anybody hear of that movie-- Eat Pray Love? I've heard of it. I have never read the book. I've never seen the movie. I hear it wasn't
great, but who am I? Never saw it so I
couldn't tell you. But it was about a
woman who was trying to discover true satisfaction
and significance in life after some terrible things
had happened to her. So, it was called Eat Pray Love. If Peter were here, he would
look at that book or that movie and say, well, you
got two of them right. But he would say,
pray love serve. Pray, love, serve. And if you do these
things-- pray, love, serve-- it'll give you
satisfaction, number one. It will impact your
world, number two. And it will glorify
your Lord, number three. Pray, love, serve. So I want to encourage
you as we leave, I want to encourage
you to get engaged in God's work around the world. How do you do that? You pray. You ask God, God,
I sincerely want to know what You want me to do. Just ask Him that. Spend a few minutes this week
asking the Lord that question. Number two, love. Love strenuously, fervently,
deeply those in your circle. And then, draw a bigger circle. Draw a bigger circle. Because you and I, we
should evaluate our life not based on how
many people love us, but how many people we love. We often evaluate our lives
on how many people love us. How many likes did I get? Not very many. Really? That's how you are
evaluating your life? Based on how many likes you
get on a stupid Instagram post or tweet? How about thinking and
evaluating about your life based on how many
people you show love to? Far better metric. Far better metric. So pray, love, then
finally, serve. Find your place in this church
and your place in this world. World War II was a time when a
lot of Europe was devastated. One of those places was France. France had got bombed
out like Britain did in a number of towns. One particular French
town that got destroyed, as they were trying
to rebuild it, the first thing
they wanted to do is get the statue
of Jesus Christ that was in the center
square of their town-- they wanted to get that up. And they found all the pieces
to it, glued it back together, and put it upright
in the town square. Only one problem-- they
could not find the hands. In every pile of
rubble they searched, they found every piece
of the statue of Jesus except His hands. And they wanted those hands
because it had the nail prints. That was significant to them. Got to have the hands. They couldn't find them. The statue was put
up without the hands. And somebody put a
plaque at the base of that statue that read,
"He has no hands but ours." He has no hands but ours. It's true isn't it? He has no hands but ours. He has no feet but ours. He has no lips but ours. We are the body of Christ. Whatever the world is
going to understand about the reality of
who Jesus Christ is comes from hands and feet,
eyes and lips that we have. He has no hands but ours. So let's get busy because Jesus
might come by next weekend. Father, thank you for that
reality and that truth that we are in the last days. The end of all
things is at hand. And Lord, though the church has
been anticipating and talking about and writing and
singing about that for a couple of thousand
years, yet we instinctively know based upon what Your
word says prophetically, the signs that were given to us,
some of them are unmistakable. We just sense that we are
at the end of the end. And so we should live
wisely and talk to You more, be engaged in prayer more, and
love our circle more, and then widen that circle out to people
who need to experience it who will be just gobsmacked
and flabbergasted by that kind of eccentric love
in the name of Jesus Christ. And then Lord, I pray we would
serve and honor one another because all of that will
bring a tremendous sense of satisfaction
to us, edification of the body of Christ,
and glorification of You, our Father. So Lord we are
closing in prayer, not because Christians do
that at the end of sermons, but because we really need Your
help in doing these things. We really can't do these
things without You. And so Lord, we're in the
last quarter of the game. Help us, Lord, make
all the right moves, all the right plays, to
be faithful to the end and to finish well. And finally Lord, I
just pray for somebody who might be here today who
has never said, "yes" to Jesus. They have been spiritual
people, religious people even, but they've never made an
authentic personal commitment to Christ to turn their
lives over to Him. And that's where it
begins because they really can't pray until they have
a relationship with You and say the prayer of faith
that every person must come in believing in Christ. So Lord, I pray they
would do that today. I also pray for those
who may have once had a relationship of intimacy
with You but walked away, fallen away. They're not walking
with You today. They're not living in obedience. They need to come back home. Rescue them, cover
and recover them. As we close the service,
if that describes you, if for the first
time or maybe you need to come back
to the Lord, and you are willing and ready
to do that this morning, I'd like to pray for you. But I need to know
who I'm praying for. So with our heads bowed
and eyes closed, would you just slip your hand up in the
air and say, Skip pray for me. Keep it up for a
minute so I can see it. God bless you, sir. Who else? Right up here, right
up in the front. Anybody else? Raise that hand up. In the family room, so good. In the back-- God bless you. Yes. Who else? In the back over here to my
right, and again to my right, right there on the
edge, on the aisle. Thank you sir. A couple of you
right over there. Again in the family room. You could be outside-- raise your hand. There's a pastor who's
going to acknowledge you. To my left in the back. Lord, I thank You for
this kind of honesty, this kind of reality. We pray that You'd
strengthen each one who has raised that hand. Fill them with a sense
of peace and belonging and family and community,
value and importance, that they would realize
that they are individuals for whom Jesus died. You love them madly. We ask it in Jesus' name, Amen. Would you stand to your feet. We're going to close in a song. And I'm going to ask those
of you who raised your hand to do something you
probably didn't factor into, coming into this room. But I'm doing this
not to embarrass you. We're doing this
to encourage you. I'm going to ask those of you
who raised your hand, if you're in the family room
or in the auditorium, to get up now as we
sing this last song, and make the walk from where
you are and stand right up here in the front where I'm
going to lead you in a prayer to receive Jesus Christ. We're going to do business
with God right now. So you get up and come. Jesus called people publicly. You get up to come and
just stand right here. Without shame. [MUSIC - ELEVATION WORSHIP - "O
COME TO THE ALTAR"] (SINGING) --the altar, the
Father's arms are open wide. Forgiveness was bought with the
precious blood of Jesus Christ. O come to the altar, the
Father's arms are open wide. Forgiveness was bought with the
precious blood of Jesus Christ. Doors right up on the front
of that room to the right takes you into a hallway. If you raised your hand,
please come through those doors and come into this auditorium. Maybe somebody can help
them find their way there. But it's important that
you make this step. [APPLAUSE] God bless you. Yes, yes, yes. [CLAPPING] [MUSIC PLAYING] (SINGING) Oh the Father's arms
are open wide, yes they are. Yes, they are. Real quickly, anybody else? Come just as you are,
but by all means come. Come. Come to the fountain
of forgiveness and love and God's peace, God's promise. Yes, thank you. Welcome. Welcome. All right. I'm glad you came. Listen, I'm going to
lead you now in a prayer. And I'm going to ask each of
you to pray this prayer out loud after me. Say these words from your
heart as you surrender. You give your life to the
One who gave you life. Let's pray. Say, "Lord, I give You my life. I admit I'm a sinner. Please forgive me. I believe in Jesus. I believe He died on a cross,
that He shed His blood for me, that He rose again. I turn from my sin. I repent. I turn to Jesus as Savior. I want to follow Him as Lord. Help me. Amen." Amen. We hope you enjoyed this special
service from Calvary Church. We'd love to know how
this message impacted you. Email us at
mystory@calvarynm.church. And just a reminder, you can
support this ministry with a financial gift at
calvarynm.church/give. Thank you for joining us for
this teaching from Calvary Church.
