Hello, and welcome
to this message from Pastor Skip Heitzig
of Calvary, Albuquerque. We pray that God
uses these messages to strengthen your faith. If He does, we'd love
to hear about it. E-mail us at
mystory@calvaryabq.org. And if you'd like to support
this ministry financially, you can give online securely
at calvaryabq.org/give. We live in a culture that's
obsessed with social media. In this series,
titled Hashtag, Skip presents God's thoughts on
today's trending topics. Some people use laughter
to hide their pain instead of being honest about it. In the message Hashtag
LOL, Skip teaches us to look past
the laugh out loud, and discover the truth of pain. Now, let's turn our
bibles to Proverbs chapter 14 as he begins. Father, we give
You our attention. We are here in this
place because we all have a need, every one of us. Whether we know it or not,
we need to encounter You. We need to hear from You. We need a word from Heaven. And that's why we
open up the Bible, because we believe that we
are looking at and reading the inerrant word of the
living God to human beings. We pray, Lord, as
we glean wisdom from this book of
Proverbs, that it would be wisdom
to our very lives, that the way we think about
these things would change, be refined. We pray, Lord, that we
would become instruments in this community for our
families, for our friends, for this world--
instruments that You use. In Jesus' name, Amen. There were two people
who were talking. And the first one
asked his friend, hey, do you have Facebook? And he said, no, I
don't have Facebook. He said, well, do
you have Twitter? He said, no, I don't
have that either. Well, so do you have Instagram? Nope. Do you have Snapchat? He goes, nope, don't
have any of those? He goes, well, what do you have? And he said, a life. [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] We live in a day and age
in which social media is sort of becoming an
obsessive thing with folks, who have decided that they
can have relationships with a device. People are communicating
to the device. But it's not like
the real world. One person wrote, I
haven't got a computer, but I was told about
Facebook and Twitter. And I'm trying to make
friends while applying those same principles
of Facebook and Twitter. So every day, I walk
down the street, and I tell passersby
what I've eaten, how I feel, what I've
done the night before, what I'm going to do
for the rest of the day. I give them pictures of my
wife, my daughter, my dog, me gardening and on holiday,
and spending time by the pool. I also listen to conversations. I tell them I like them. I give them my opinion on every
subject that interests me, whether it interests
them or not. And it works. I already have four
people following me-- two police officers,
a social worker, and a psychiatrist. [LAUGHTER] [SCATTERED APPLAUSE] Did you know that Facebook now
has over one billion users? I want you just to
think about that. That means one seventh
of the world's population goes through that
portal called Facebook. If Facebook were a country,
it would be the third largest nation on earth-- China, India,
Facebook-- the third largest country, and dare I say,
the least productive of all. Now, I'd say that for
a couple of reasons. Number one, we're not
going to get away from it. This stuff is not going away. We can joke about it, and
we can bemoan the fact that people do this. But it's part of
the culture now. You can fight it all you want
to, but it's here to stay. And it's going to
continue to evolve. It's sort of like when
cars were introduced, and some folks still held on
to the horse drawn carriage. Well, you can have
a horse if you want, but cars are here to stay. Or going from
radio to television or the use of the
computer-- these are cultural changes
that now mark who we are. So that's not going away. The second thing I want
to say about it is this. We can at least try and
understand it, because it is a cultural phenomenon. Man, I think if we could
understand it-- in fact, even get involved a
little bit in it-- if one seventh of the
earth's population is going through a
social media portal, don't you think some of us
could get creative and get the Gospel through that portal? Couldn't we use some of that
technology instead of saying, I'm just dead against it? You know, jump into the
pond and let the Gospel out. I think that we have
to think that way, because it's sort of
like a missionary. When you send a
missionary overseas, we expect that missionary
to learn the culture, learn the language a little
bit, not be so this culture, but be more that culture. Well, this is the culture
we find ourselves in too. And this is how
people communicate. And they communicate with
an interesting feature called the hashtag. The hashtag is a
metadata tag that is developed when you put
this symbol, that number sign or pound sign, in front of a
word or an unspaced phrase. It gives people the
opportunity to search in different categories
that have this tag. And it's easier to find
messages with a specific theme or content. It's everywhere, by the way. I know some people
don't know what it is. But it's even on
the nightly news. In fact, the word "hashtag,"
since June of 2014, has been inserted, added, to
the Oxford English Dictionary. It's a part of culture. Also, this year,
in the Super Bowl-- do you know what a Super
Bowl ad costs, by the way, 30 second Super Bowl
ad? $4.5 million. Audi, the car
manufacturer decided that for its $4.5 million spend
on that 30 second commercial, they would use a hashtag. They flashed a hashtag
to the audience, hoping that viewers would
tweet using the hashtag, and they could win
a substantial prize. So it's gone mainstream. Now, why would I decide to do
a summer series called Hashtag? Because what I
want to do is take some of the popular hashtags
used in social media and explore. Is there any Biblical
significance to it? And here's why-- because these
tags are expressions of people. This is what people think about. This is what people are saying. This is what people
like or dislike. And I think that every
issue, every belief, God has an answer to
it in His word-- to every single
concern of mankind. So I want to see what
the Bible says about some of these issues, see if we
can learn anything from it. LOL-- laugh out loud--
very popular hashtag. When somebody uses that,
what they're saying is, I think that's funny. Now, they actually
may not think that. But you read it, and
you think, that person is responding with an
LOL-- I think that's funny, laugh out loud. You know, the Bible
actually has a lot to say about laughter,
about happiness. Some of it may surprise you. Look with me at
Proverbs chapter 14. We're going to look at
the 13th verse, primarily. But can we get a little
context surrounding it so we see how
Proverbs is laid out? Let's begin in verse 10. The heart knows
its own bitterness. And a stranger does
not share its joy. The house of the wicked
will be overthrown, but the tent of the
upright will flourish. There is a way that
seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. And now, for our verse-- even in
laughter, the heart may sorrow. And the end of
mirth may be grief. I want to share with you three
discoveries about laughter and the human condition
from verse 13. The first one is this. Your God knows you well. Your God knows you well. Just the first reading
of this verse, the first blush over these words-- as I
was going through it this week, that was my first discovery. Your God knows you well. I want you to look
at that verse again. And I want you to notice with
me four words, four nouns, each different from the other
noun, different in English, different in the
original Hebrew. Look at them. Laughter-- that's the first--
sorrow, mirth, and grief. Boy, what a gamut
of emotion, right? From highs to lows, the Bible
acknowledges the full gamut of human emotions and has
something to say about them. It's written like this because
your God knows you well. Now, let's just
understand Proverbs. The book of Proverbs
is a book that is filled with sayings,
little pithy sayings, about all aspects of life. Who's the author of this book? Solomon. It's a trick question. He's the human author. The divine author is God. All scripture is given
by inspiration of God, and is profitable for
doctrine-- correction, reproof, instruction in righteousness,
that the man or woman of God may be thoroughly furnished,
complete in every good work. This is part of all scripture,
the Book of Proverbs, and the one we're reading
from is part of God's word. The word proverb,
our English word-- that's the title, the beginning
of this book Proverbs. Our English word comes from
a Latin word "proverbium" that comes from
two Latin words-- "pro," which means instead
of or on behalf of. And the second word is
"verb," or "verbum," words. So it means a statement
that takes the place of lengthy explanations. So you have these pithy sayings,
these maxims, these epigrams, aphorisms. So one of the things you notice
about the book of Proverbs-- it's simple truth. It's simple truth. It's distilled truth, or truth
in a highly concentrated form. I love the fact
that God is simple. I'm not saying there's not
difficult stuff in the Bible. There is. But here in the
Book of Proverbs, it's just these simple
sayings that, if scholars, if academics were to
write them, you probably would never understand them. Somebody once said,
if a scholar were to write some of
our modern proverbs, rather than "Twinkle,
Twinkle, Little Star," a scholar would say,
"scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minific." That's how academicians think. But God gives us simple truth. Why? So we'd remember. See, what good is truth
if you don't remember it? So when you read a proverb,
especially if you commit it to memory, think of it
like a little truth bomb-- B, O, M, B-- that will
detonate at the right time. You commit it to memory, then
you go through an experience, and at the right
time, bam, it goes off and you remember it
because of its simplicity. So it's simple truth. But not only is it simple truth. This is expert truth. You see, the Book of Proverbs
isn't just good advice. It's God's advice. It's part of that all scripture. So it's simple truth. It's expert truth. But it's also beautiful truth. Do you know that the Book of
Proverbs is a book of poetry? Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes--
a few other books-- is written-- you
may even notice it as you look at your Bible page. It's just set up differently
than the narrative sections of scripture. That's because it's
poetry, Hebrew poetry. Now, a word about Hebrew
poetry-- it doesn't rhyme. That's American poetry. That's English poetry. Our poetry has meter
and cadence and rhyme, because we think
that's important. But the Hebrews didn't think
that any of that was important. What they thought is that
words don't need to rhyme, but thoughts need to either
be parallel with each other or contrast to each other. That's called
Hebrew parallelism. And so you have a
thought expressed, and then a similar thought
or the opposite thought. Go back to verse
10 and notice it. The heart knows
it's own bitterness, and a stranger does
not share its joy. That's one thought that adds
or complements another thought. Verse 11-- the house of the
wicked will be overthrown, but the tent of the
upright will flourish. Now, you have a thought
that is in direct contrast to the first statement
in the couplet. So it's simple truth. It's expert truth. It's beautiful truth. Why is it beautiful? Why poetry? Don't you find that interesting
that God decides that poetry should be in the Bible? You know why that is, I think? To help our memory. Beauty helps us remember it. Do you know that the human
mind retains only 25% of what it hears? That's on a good day. I gotta tell you, that's
very discouraging to a public speaker, to hear those
statistics-- that people, when you talk to them, they're only
going to pick a fraction of it up, and at their best,
if they're really listening and not engaged
on Instagram at the moment, they're going to
retain only 25%. And experts say that's
if they hear it twice. So let me repeat
what I just said. [LAUGHTER] So it's simple
truth, expect truth. It's beautiful truth. But it's also very
practical truth. It's where the rubber
meets the road. It's about real life. And here's what it tells me. It tells me that
God is concerned about all the issues in real
life that have to do with me. I love what the Psalmist wrote. I think it was Psalm 68. He said, the Lord will
perfect or complete that which concerns me. He's concerned about the
things that concern my life. I tell you, that's
a liberating truth. The day that I realized that
God was as interested in me when I was at the office
or on a bicycle ride or praying for waves at
the beach or in church with my Bible open,
that was liberating. All of that, all of
that, even my emotions were important to Him. Example-- in your Bible, the
word sorrow appears 70 times; the word sad another 13 times;
bitter, or bitterness of heart, eight times; the word grief 62
times; the word joy 158 times; laughter 30 times; and
the word glad 139 times. Do you think that God
has something to say about your emotional life? Absolutely. Speaking of sorrow,
Psalm 56-- You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all
my tears in Your bottle. You have recorded
each one in Your book. What a beautiful,
tender thought, that the Lord keeps track, not
just of the hairs on my head, like Jesus said, but
every tear I cry. He knows what number
that is in my life. And they're recorded. That's why I love the end
of the Bible, where it says, in Heaven, there's no
tears, there's no sorrow, there's no crying. There will be a time when the
sad part of your emotional life will be gone and only the great
parts, the joy, the peace, will remain. So this proverb,
and other verses, teach me that our
God knows us well. He knows that we
have ups and downs. And they are expressed in
all of these different ways-- laughter, sorrow,
mirth, and grief. See, God has given us
a wide range of emotion to correspond with the wide
range of human experience. And how has He done that? Well, He's put something in
your head, I mean, literally. They're called lacrimal
glands, tear glands. They're connected to little
ducts that water your eyes. When you have certain
emotional responses, that water begins to flow. God designed you that way. He also put muscles in your
face so you can do this. We ought to do that more often. And so we can laugh. God designed us that way. And we're told by virtually
every medical expert that laughing is good for you. It's healthy. Laughing helps reduce tension. It relaxes tissues. It exercises vital organs. However, there's a time for it. Isn't that what the Bible says? There's a time to laugh. There's a time to mourn. And then there's a time not to. Have you ever laughed
at the wrong time? I distinctly remember, as
a boy-- now, keep in mind, I am the fourth of four
boys in the Heitzig home. We were all a
little rambunctious. The last two-- Bob, my next
oldest brother, and myself-- were probably the worst. My dad believed in
corporal punishment and took us to the
woodshed, so to speak. And I remember, one time, we
did some wrong, we deserved it. He took off his belt, and he
was going to give us a whipping. And a thought struck me. And I started cracking up. I started laughing hysterically. And I'm here to tell you, that
did not help the situation. [LAUGHING] There's a time to laugh
and a time to mourn. I got those mixed up. It wasn't helpful. But it is good. It is healthy. Laughing is healthy. Weeping, as well, is good. Tears are cathartic. They cleanse not only the eye,
but they cleanse the emotion. In fact, it is unhealthy
to suppress those emotions. One doctor said,
suppressed sorrow can wreck havoc on
your nervous system. He said he had one patient that
died of ulcerative colitis, and he believed it was directly
related to him suppressing grief when his father died. Yet, to this day, I
still encounter people who will say-- they're
well-meaning, but ignorant. And they'll say things
like, don't cry. Don't cry? I was designed by God to cry. Don't you think if God put that
capability within me that He expects it to be used sometime? That's normal and healthy. Not only is laughing and
weeping, but grieving is. And you'll notice
that in our text. Look at the word sorrow in
verse 13, that second noun. It means to be pained
by grief, grief associated by loss,
typically-- pained by grief. And then notice the very
last word in verse 13. The word grief means heaviness
or depression due to grief. Grieving is normal. Grieving is healthy. It is not healthy
to hold it all in. Do you know that the
Hebrews were given 30 days to grieve publicly? They were expected
to mourn publicly. And if you know anything
about Hebrew grieving, it's very demonstrative. They would put sackcloth
on, ashes on their heads, tear their clothes, wail, mourn,
bring in professional mourners to sort of set the mood. They made a show
of it for 30 days. The Egyptians, even
longer-- 70 days. British author Graham Scroggie
said, let grief do its work. Tramp every inch of
the sorrowful way. Drink every drop
of the bitter cup. To see our loved ones and
what they have left behind will give us daily pain--
the clothes they wore, the letters they wrote,
the books they read, the chairs they sat in,
and the music they loved. But what would we be
without these reminders? Those who truly love
will say that they have found in sorrow a
new joy, a joy which only the broken hearted can know. So by looking at
verse 13, I discover your God knows you well. And He has made you
an emotional being. The second discovery is that
your face is not reliable. I hate to be the one
to tell you that, because you have some nice
faces as I'm looking at them. And as nice as they look, some
of them-- not all of them, but-- [LAUGHTER] They're not reliable. You can cover up
a lot of reality with a facial expression. Look at verse 13. Even in laughter,
the heart may sorrow. The New Living
Translation says, laughter can conceal a heavy heart. Appearances can be deceptive. You see, by laughter,
you give the impression that you're happy
or light hearted, when in reality, you may
actually have a broken heart. You may be a very sad person. But you're laughing it off
so that people think, oh, so happy. You think that actor
on that TV commercial who's smiling and
laughing and saying, this car changed my life--
once you get him off camera, he's not doing that. He's as ornery looking
as he normally is. That's a show. That's concealing
what he really thinks. He may not even like that car. So when somebody
says, LOL, it doesn't mean they're actually, at that
moment, laughing out loud, or that they even think
it's funny at all. In fact, do you
know that comedians are among some of the saddest
and most depressed people ever? The world was shocked
a couple years ago when Robin Williams
took his own life. And people wondered,
how could that be? I mean, you listen to him,
you listen to the jokes, and you see these
comedians, and they seem so happy and so funny. Psychology Today
said, quote, we know that the funniest people are
often surrounded by darkness. The deeper the
black hole, the more humor you need to dig
yourself out of it. One expert, Dr. Rami
Kaminski, professor of psychiatry at the Columbia
University School of Medicine, said the reason so many
comedians are at risk for mental illness is
because being funny is not the same as being happy. He said he believes many
comedians will mine humor as a way to escape
depression and anxiety. Many comedians have
admitted to this, actually. Some have gone on camera, and
they've said, let me tell you how I really feel. This is who I really am. This is what I really deal with. One comedian, I won't
mention his name, admitted, the people
that bring the most laughter into this
world are usually the ones hiding the most pain. You remember that Solomon,
the writer of this book, wrote another
book, Ecclesiastes. And he was at that very
journalistic period in his life, where he's writing
down all of his ramblings and feelings. He's tried everything. And he comes to a
point where he says, I said one day to
myself, to my heart, I'm going to test mirth,
pleasure, laughter, joy. And he said, I said of
laughter, madness, and of mirth, what does it accomplish? It is all vanity and
vexation of spirit. Now, I am not saying
you shouldn't smile or you shouldn't laugh. In fact, some of you need
to do a lot more of it. We have enough grumpy people
in this world as it is. I've always loved what
Christianity Today wrote. I've held onto it
for a long time. The author said, some
people think that you can't be a Christian and laugh. I think it's the
other way around. God has written lots of comedy. It's just that He has
so many bad actors. Don't be one of them. So I'm not saying don't
laugh and don't smile. What I am saying is
that laughter and joy are two different things. In fact, I'll say it this way. Laughter and happiness,
they're different from joy. Joy is fixed. And I've seen people go through
horrible experiences who still have joy, because the joy
of the Lord is their strength. They're fixed. They may not be
laughing at that moment or smiling at that
moment, but there's a joy. It's deep. It's real. It anchors them. Happiness is different. You see, happiness
depends on the happenings. If the happenings are good, wee! If the happenings
are bad, grumpy. They're up and down
with the happenings. Joy is very different from that. The second thing I
want to say about this is I believe firmly
that we need a place, we need a person or
a group of people with whom we can be honest with
and share our true feelings without the fear
of being judged. This is a great need in the
Church, in the body of Christ. You need a safe person with
whom you can be real with. You can let down your
guard and they're not going to tweet it or
gossip it or judge you. They're going to work
through it with you. It's a desperate need. One of my favorite
children's stories is the Velveteen Rabbit. Do you remember that story? The velveteen rabbit,
the little velvet rabbit is having a conversation with
the skin horse in the toy room. And the skin horse
is all beat up. And he's been loved by a child. All the fur's rubbed off,
the little button eyes are fallen out. He's real, he says. You become real by having
that happen to you. And so the velveteen rabbit
is asking the skin horse about being real. And the skin horse
says, but these things don't matter at all,
because once you're real, you can't be ugly, except to
people who don't understand. I'm saying, forget about the
people who don't understand. Find some who do. Life's too short. Find those people that you
can be honest and real with. It's a great need. Your God knows you well. Your face isn't always reliable. And the third discovery is
that your beginning may not be your end. Look at the second
half of that verse. And the end-- see
that word the end? That's a key word. And the end of
mirth may be grief. So the whole verse-- even in
laughter, the heart may sorrow, and the end of
mirth may be grief. It's really the same kind of
thought as the previous verse. Do you mind? Would you look at verse 12? After all, we're
only doing one verse. Verse 12, there is a way
that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. See, it's the same thought. The path you choose
may end in death. The party you go to
may end in grief. You ever think about the end? Not only does laughter-- not
only can it mask reality, but the end can be worse
than the beginning. Where I find most of us,
most human beings, fall short is we don't think much
about the end of things. We don't think about
consequences much. We don't. I mean, we're thinking about
now-- that extra piece of cake? Come on. That's OK, but that extra
piece of cake every day for the next 40, 50 years? There will be some consequence. You may not care,
but there will be. But nobody thinks about that. Or that mouse click
that takes you to a website, that
illicit website that is not good for you. What will the end
of that be like? A broken home, broken marriage? What about that urge to pick
up that cell phone and text while you're driving,
because you just can't stand to let that thing go? Will that end up in a crash? You see, we don't like to
think about the consequences, the end of things. Eve didn't. When she saw that fruit and
took it and ate it and gave it to Adam, she wasn't thinking
about the consequences. But one of the key features
to this book of Proverbs is that nothing should be judged
by its initial enticement. It's a father writing
to his son or sons. Solomon is writing to his
sons under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, telling
them, just by what you see, don't be enticed by that. Don't go down that road. But stop and think where
that's going to lead you, because it may not
be to a good place. There are a lot of
examples of that. Here's one-- adultery. He'll say, son, when you
see that woman and she looks so good and that affair,
it looks so good, it looks so promising,
stop and think of the end. For Proverbs 5, Solomon
says, in the end, she is bitter as wormwood and
sharp as a two-edged sword. I have some friends who like
to go white water rafting. They've invited me. I haven't gone yet. I will maybe one day, maybe not. But it does look fun. I was having a conversation
with them once. And I said, hey, I hear that the
river just above Niagara Falls is awesome. Have you ever thought about
taking and rafting that? And they looked at me like,
what are you, an idiot? Now, I was playing with them. I was joking with them. I wanted them to think that
way, because their response is what I wanted to hear. They said, look, I'm
sure it's awesome, great river, great rapids. But it's the ending
that I'm worried about. It's those falls that
I'm worried about. And even the initial drop off,
that would be exhilarating, but it's not going to last long. It's going to be a bad ending. And we have to start
thinking about the end. What's that like? Would you agree
that the worst end, to use the word of
the writer here, the worst end and the
worst and saddest grief is an eternity separated
from God in Hell? Isn't that the worst? And yet that is exactly
what people do not, will not, deal with. And they should, because one
day, there will be an end. Jesus gave a story--
not a parable, an actual story-- of a
rich man and Lazarus having a conversation after death. Here's a portion of it. Then he cried out, and
said, Father, Abraham, have mercy on me
and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip
of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I
am tormented in this flame. Abraham said, son,
remember, in your lifetime, you received your good
things, and likewise, Lazarus evil things. But now, he is comforted
and you are tormented. That's the end. You're experiencing now
the end that you never considered before. He is comforted. You are tormented. What's the most famous
sermon Jesus ever preached? Sermon on the Mount--
everybody likes to quote it. Even unbelievers love to
quote the Sermon on the Mount. Well, quote the end of
it, because at the end of the Sermon on the
Mount, Jesus said, you know, there's basically
two paths in this life. There's two doors. There's a wide door and
there's the narrow door. And the wide door doesn't
lead to a great place, and the narrow one does. And so He says, you know,
that broad way looks good. It's enticing. And there's so many
people gathered around it, wanting to go in,
and very few people lining up for that narrow door. It's too restrictive. Jesus said, enter in
by the narrow gate. For wide is the gate
and broad is the way that leads to destruction. That's the end. And there are many
who go in by it. But narrow is the way
that leads to life. And there are very
few who enter therein. That's striking,
sobering language. The Lord Jesus Christ,
in other words, said, most people are going
down the broad way that leads to Hell, destruction. And very few people are
going through the narrow gate that leads to eternal life. You know, it's interesting. When I go to New York--
and I love New York. But there's a street there. And as a preacher, I'm
interested in this name. It's called Broadway. It's a big, broad, way
street-- broad street. And Broadway is very
famous, of course. There's every conceivable
human pleasure on Broadway. But there are also
little streets that are narrow, off-Broadway. And there's one in
particular where there's this church, a pretty well-known
church that is impacting the city, is located. People go to it, but not
as many as are on Broadway. If you look at Broadway, you
see thousands and thousands at any given moment. On that little, narrow
street where that church is, there are people, but not
nearly as many-- narrow way, broad way. I say we take that term LOL
and sort of reconstitute it, our own acronym--
not laugh out loud, but how about this one? Live on lastingly. How about living forever? You know, you go back
to that conversation we shared at the beginning--
do you have Facebook, do you have Twitter? What do you got? A life. Do you have life? Do you have eternal life? Are you sure that if you were
to die, you would go to Heaven? It's the question we ask a lot? Do you ever think
in those terms? Do you ever think about the end? After life is over and
you go over the falls, what's that going to be like? Even in laughter the
heart, may sorrow. And the end of mirth--
may be, it doesn't have to be-- may be grief. Father, we pause and we bow. And we, in prayer,
consider what we have gleaned from this
distilled, concentrated truth found in one axiom, one
aphorism, one proverb, one pithy saying. And we consider our end. And I pray, Lord, even as
it says, it may be grief, I pray it will not be grief. I pray for everyone listening
to have made a choice to follow Jesus, to let
Jesus be our sin bearer, to let Jesus be the
one who carts off, carries off, our iniquity--
by His work on the cross, shedding His own blood, taking
the rap for what we have done, so that we can receive
everlasting life. I pray we would live
on lastingly, enjoying everlasting, eternal life. As we are closing
this service, you might not know Jesus
personally as your Savior. Right where you're
seated-- some of you are seated in the
main sanctuary. Some of you are seated outside. Some of you are seated in
the family room or balcony or in an overflow
room next door. Some of you are
tuning in by radio or watching by
podcast or computer. Wherever you are,
you ask yourself about the end of the
choices you have made and where you're walking,
what road you're walking down. Will the end thereof be death
or life, spiritually speaking? Will the end be joy or grief? Because that can be
settled right now. And if you are willing to trust
in Jesus, then tell Him that. Right where you're seated,
right where you are right now, you pray this. You say, Lord, I am a sinner. I believe it. I know I am. I'm sorry for my sins. I believe Jesus died on a cross,
shed His blood for my sin, and rose again from the dead. I turn from my sin. I turn from my past. I repent of it. I turn to Jesus as Savior
and Lord, to follow Him. Fill me with your spirit, Lord. Help me to do that. I can't do it alone. I need you. In Jesus' name, Amen. Sometimes, a person's
visible disguise is not their invisible reality. How will you use the truths
you learned in this message to reach others for Christ? We want to know. Email at mystory@calvaryabq.org. And just a reminder, you can
give financially to this work at calvaryabq.org/give. Thank you for joining us for
this teaching from Skip Heitzig of Calvary, Albuquerque.
