How to Live (and Love) in the Last Days - 1 Peter 4:7-11 - Skip Heitzig

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.