Heart for Worship

Introduction

Well, today begins our gospel meeting and spring gospel meeting. It runs from today through Wednesday. And so I’m up here doing two things. One is plugging that gospel meeting, reminding you of that, and then secondly, introducing our speaker to you. Monday through Wednesday, we’ll be meeting at 7 30. Please note those times, Monday through Wednesday nights, 7 30 each evening. And so please put that on your calendar. Make every effort to be here Monday through Wednesday evening at 7 30. They are flyers on the tables in the lobby. If you’ll pick those up, share those with your friends and neighbor. Our guest speaker for this series of meetings is Brother Sean Jeffries. As you saw during our Bible class period, Sean is an effective speaker of God’s Word.

Sean joins us from the Monte Vista congregation in Phoenix. And so for those of you who are complaining about losing an hour of sleep this morning, Sean lost three hours.

And as you have seen and will see this week, his being an effective, clear communicator of God’s Word. We’re privileged to have Sean with us this week, and we look forward to his delivering God’s word. Sean. Well, good morning, everyone. Good morning. It’s good to see you this morning. Thank you, Brother King. I appreciate you so much and your wonderful work for the Lord. Appreciate Brother J.R. I know the wonderful work he does here. Your wonderful preachers you have. I appreciate your shepherds and their invitation and the wonderful work they do in the kingdom. I really, really appreciate your elders and I appreciate this church. I have been an admirer of this congregation from afar for about two decades. Going back to when I even first started preaching, I knew of this congregation.

And I appreciate you so much. Appreciate your love for the Lord. Appreciate the work you’ve been doing in this community so effectively for so long. And I appreciate especially you giving me the privilege, the honor, and the responsibility to be in this pulpit to teach the word of God over the next few days. That is a responsibility that I take very seriously. And I’m very, very thankful to God. I’m thankful. I’m thankful to you. I think it’s going to be a good week we will have together. Well, about a about a month ago, about a month ago, millions and millions of people prepared for one of the biggest events in American culture. They prepared a lot of food. They prepared a lot of pizza and nachos and dill and wings.

They prepared guest lists. They arranged chairs and sofas in their living rooms so they could have enough room to accommodate their guests. Some even prepared their clothes. Some even prepare jerseys and hats and t shirts and other sporting gear so they could cheer on their favorite team and support them. Hopefully, they could win. So many people, so many people across this country and across the globe. Put a lot of time and energy into watching the most televised event in the United States of America, and that is the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl. Brothers and sisters, did you know that the Super Bowl is typically the most watched television event in the United States of America? It averages well over a hundred million viewers.

They make a lot of preparations beforehand. And don’t you worry, I’m not going to spend this lesson talking with you about the Super Bowl and how I dread that the Philadelphia Eagles won because I’m a huge Washington Commanders fan.

You see, while millions and millions of people prepared a month ago to watch a meaningless football game.

Did you spend a lot of time picking out your clothes? Even though you lost an hour last night, did you get a good night’s sleep? Did you eat a good breakfast? Did you make sure you had your contribution ready beforehand? Did you challenge yourself to make sure you came here, ready to think and learn, during Bible class and doing the preaching of the word of God? Did you do those kinds of things to prepare to come here and worship the Lord? Or did you do some things this morning that had nothing to do with preparing for worship at all? Did you maybe spend about an hour this morning watching and listening to the news? Did you spend a lot of time watching basketball highlights on Sports Center?

Did you spend a lot of your morning going through a company report or learning about the weather forecast for the week? Or maybe you spent your morning working on your taxes, working on your family budget. It’s interesting how in numerous passages in the Old Testament we learned that the priest of God in Israel were commanded and told by God to purify themselves before they began worshiping the Lord. They were actually told to go through a ritual of washing that was designed to make them clean before the Lord. They had to prepare themselves to go and worship God. And as priests of God under the new covenant, as people who are supposed to be spiritually transformed in Jesus Christ, we have to do the same. We have to do the very same thing because not only does God want our bodies to be present in the worship assembly, but God also wants our hearts.

God also wants our minds. God also wants our inside involved in worship as well as our outside. And that means that if we come here to this place and we find the worship here to be dull and dry and not very exciting and inspiring, then that’s likely because we have not put in the work beforehand. That’s likely because we have not adequately prepared our hearts to worship the Lord. Now we may be sitting in the pew this morning. We may have on nice church clothes this morning and have a Bible in our laps. We may have sing all the songs and prayed all the prayers and partook of the Lord’s Supper and put some money in the collection plate, but we still haven’t worshiped. We still haven’t worshiped in a way that really pleases God.

1. Come Here With High Expectations

We still have not worship God with our hearts. Maybe that describes some of us here this morning. And if it does, what I want to do is I want to offer you some things that hopefully can help with that. This morning in this lesson, what I want to do is I want to give you four things. Four things that spiritually born again and transformed people must do to prepare our hearts to worship God so we can avoid just going through the motions. And here’s the first thing right here. How do we as spiritually transformed people, prepare our hearts to come here in the assembly to worship God? Well, the first thing we got to do, the first thing we got to do is we got to come here with high expectations.

God have high expectations. Sam Walton, the man who started Walmart, he once said that high expectations are the key to everything. High expectations are the key to everything. That is so true, brothers and sisters. That is true with respect to starting a business. That is true with respect to getting married, having kids, coaching a sports team. That is especially true when it comes to worshiping the Lord. And so let me ask you right now, what did you expect was going to happen when you came here this morning? What did you expect was going to happen when you got up this morning and you ate your breakfast and you got dressed and you loaded your family up in your car and you drove here and you were making your way to the front door?

Did you expect to come here this morning and be bored? That you expect to come here and just do a bunch of church stuff. Did you expect to come here and just sing some church songs and put some money in a collection basket and hear a preacher fumble and bumble all through his sermon and maybe just satisfy a checklist of spiritual things to do? Is that what you expected before you came to this place? Or did you expect to come here and be part of something great? Or did you expect to come here and see something great? Did you expect to come here and see God? Did you expect to come here and see God this morning? Don’t misunderstand what I mean when I say see God.

You know that there’s no way that we can physically, physically see God. You know that John 4 24 says that God is a spirit. You can’t see a spirit with the physical eye. We can’t see God physically in this place, but we can see God spiritually. We can in the worship assembly see the goodness of God and see the impact of his forgiveness and his love and how through the blood of Jesus Christ, a unique group of people have assembled together in this place, and they are a family and they love each other and they want to worship God in spirit and in truth. That you expect to come here this morning and see the goodness of God, and that you expect to come here and be in God’s presence.

That you expect to come here for God to look at you and look into your heart and be emotionally invested in what you are doing. That you expect to come here and please God and bring glory to God and be strengthened spiritually and be stirred to grow and love and engage in good deeds. That you expect to come here and be reminded of your blessings. That you expect to come here and regain focus. Be brought back to center, be reminded that no matter what you got going on in your life right now, nothing is more important than God and His Son Jesus Christ. I want to show you several scriptures that I believe talk about having the right attitude when it comes to worshiping the Lord and having high expectations.

And the first is found in Psalm 99. Many of you know that the Psalms. Many of the Psalms deal with worship and talking about having the right attitude and mindset when it comes to worshiping the Lord. And in Psalm 99 and verse number 5, the psalmist says, Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his footstool. Holy is he. Brothers and sisters, did you expect to do what that verse says before you came here this morning? Did you expect to exalt the Lord through worship? Did you expect to worship at God’s footstool? Did you expect to praise the Lord because he is perfectly holy? That’s what the psalmist says. And then you put that what the psalmist also says in Psalm 122 in verse 1. A powerful passage that says, I was glad, not sad, not disappointed, not dreading it because I think it’s going to be boring.

No, I was glad when they said to me.

Did you feel glad? Did you feel excited? Did you feel passionate about coming together with brothers and sisters to worship the Lord? The psalmist felt that way. And then what about what Jesus says? As Jesus is instituting this memorial meal that we just partook of together as a family a few minutes ago, the Lord’s Supper. On the night in which Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, he said to his people, But I say to you, I will not drink. That is here drinking spiritually of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day. Now, the that day there I submit to you is talking about the day we’re living in now, the time of the new covenant, the time of the church, the age of the kingdom of God.

Jesus says, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom. That you think about the Lord’s words before you came here today. Did you think about how when partaking of the Lord’s Supper, you’re not only in communion with brothers and sisters, but you’re also in communion with Jesus. You’re spiritually eating with Jesus. You’re spiritually drinking with Jesus. You are spiritually dining with the Lord. That’s what Jesus says happens when we partake of the Lord’s Supper. Did you think about that? And then what about our singing? Our song leaders is such a wonderful job. Such a wonderful job this morning. And I’m reminded of Hebrews 13 and verse 15, where the scripture says, Through him that is through Jesus.

Through him, then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips that give thanks to his name. Did you think about that before coming here to worship God? How when you sing today, when you praise God with your lips and with your voice, you’re offering up a sacrifice. You’re offering up praise to God. You’re giving thanks to the name of God. That’s what that scripture says. And then one more passage, it’s not on the slide, but it’s I want us to go right into our Bibles. Look at Philippians chapter 4, please. In Philippians, the fourth chapter and in verse 18. In Philippians 4 and verse number 18, as the apostle Paul is getting ready to wrap up this wonderful epistle to the Philippian church, he says in Philippians 4 and verse 18, but I have received everything in full and have abundance.

I am amply supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent, a fragrant notice, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. Notice how Paul there talks about how the Philippians offered up a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, something that is well pleasing to God. What is he talking about there? He’s talking about money. Talking about money in that context. And the giving that these Christians did to support Paul in the preaching of the gospel. Did you think about that before you came here? How through your financial prosperity, through the your giving to the Lord, you’re offering up a sacrifice, a fragrant aroma, something that God is pleased with. There’s so many other scriptures we could consider. You know it and I know it.

But the point remains the same. The point is, in all these verses, we learn that what we’re doing right now, it matters. It matters. It is important. It is something that has a direct impact on God and our relationship with God. It is something that God is emotionally invested in. That’s what these scriptures tell us, and being mindful of that beforehand will help us prepare to worship God. It will help us come here always ready to give God our best effort and be excited about worship and passionate about worship. It will help us always be eager to give God what He is due and avoid viewing worship as something that we just have to do, but instead it’s something we want to do. We want to worship God.

2. Have the Right Frame of Mind

We want to come here in the assembly and see the power of God’s love and grace and mercy. We want to see unity and fellowship among the brethren. We want to passionally worship the Lord because He is good to us all the time. That’s how we prepare our hearts to worship God. We prepare our hearts to worship God by first setting high expectations before we even come here. And then after we set the high expectations, the second thing we got to do to prepare our hearts to worship God as spiritually transformed people is secondly, we got to have the right frame of mind. You got to have your mind right. In fact, maybe that’s something you do before you get home from work. Maybe after having a long day at work, after dealing with kids all day if you’re a school teacher, after dealing with patients all day if you are a doctor or nurse, after dealing with numbers all day, if you are an accountant, or after dealing with customers all day if you own a business, maybe before you go home and spend time with your spouse and with your kids, you got to get your mind right.

You got to get into the right frame of mind. You got to use that car ride on the way home as time to decompress. You got to decompress by maybe listening to your favorite music, or maybe you stop by the gym and work out for a little bit, or maybe you listen to a book read to you or a podcast, or maybe you just enjoy a period of silence, quiet time. Maybe before going home after a long day at work. You got to spend time getting your mind right before you go into your house. And maybe we need to do that before we come here to worship God. Maybe before I come here to this place to worship the Lord with God’s people, because of all the things I got going on in my life, maybe I need to do some things that will transition my thinking and help me get into the proper frame of mind.

Let me give you some examples as to what I’m talking about. One particular example. Look in your Bible, please at the hundredth Psalm. Will you please go to Psalm 100? Psalm 100 is a short psalm. It’s only five verses, but it is powerful. And as you turn to Psalm 100, will you allow me a moment or two to just set up the background to give you the context of this particular psalm? You see, the background for Psalm 100 is this. The people of God under the old covenant, the people of Israel are preparing to go and worship God. They’re prepared to go to Jerusalem, where the temple is to worship the Lord. Remember, under the law, every male Israelite was required to go to Jerusalem, where the temple is three times a year.

They got to go at least three times a year. They got to go during the feast of Passover. They got to go during the Feast of Weeks, which is also called Pentecost, and they got to go during the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Booths. Every Israelite, male Israelite, has to go to Jerusalem to worship God at least three times a year. And this Psalm is written as though they are taking that journey. It is written as though they’re making their way to Jerusalem to worship God. And so for all the brothers, for all the men in the room this morning, I want you to imagine that we’re taking that journey together. Let’s imagine that maybe we live in Galilee. Maybe we live in Capernaum.

We live in Beth Seda. We live in Nazareth. And we’re making our way to Jerusalem. We’re making a 90-mile trip to Jerusalem. We’re going to worship God. We are excited. We are so excited that we’re going to sing this right here. Psalm 100 and verse 1 says, Shout joyfully to the Lord all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before Him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord Himself is God. It is He who made us and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Can you see us doing that together, brothers? We’re making our way to Jerusalem. We’re saying these things. We’re singing this together. We’re praising God. We’re excited about God. And then we get there. We get to the gates.

And when we get to the gates, the scripture goes on to say in verse 4, enter his gates with thanksgiving. And his courts with praise. Give thanks to him. Bless his name. For the Lord is good. His loving kindness is everlasting. And his faithfulness to all generations. Do you see what’s going on there? I’m a football fan. And for us football fans, you know what we call that? We call that the pregame. We call that spiritual tailgating. We’re getting ready for the big event. That’s what’s going on there. You see, as these men of Israel make their way to Jerusalem to worship God, what they’re doing is they’re getting their minds right. They’re getting their hearts prepared. They’re singing praises to God and offering thanksgiving to his glorious name.

That’s what they’re doing. They’re getting into the right frame of mind. And the question is, how do I do that? How can I do what they’re doing? I mean, in addition to physically preparing to worship God by making sure I get sufficient rest, eating a good breakfast, get my clothes ready the night before. In addition to doing those physical things, how can I mentally prepare to worship God? Well, let me give you some practical things. Some practical things that we all can do to mentally prepare to worship God and get into the right frame of mind. How do we do this? First, we need to spend some time in prayer. Before we even come here, we need to pray to God. At some point before walking through those doors into the worship assembly, we need to talk to God.

We need to ask God through prayer to help us come here and be focused. We need to ask God to forgive us for any sins we have in our lives that will hinder our worship to Him. We need to ask God to help us be humble, help us be zealous, help us be passionate, help us pour our hearts into what we’re doing and avoid just checking boxes and going through the motions. We can mentally prepare to come here and worship God by first spending time talking to God. And after we spend time talking to God, the second thing we can do is spend some time letting God talk to us. We can also mentally prepare by reading the word of God. Before coming through the doors, read a psalm.

Read a psalm about worship. Read a chapter in the Gospels about Jesus and the glory of Jesus. Instead of listening to the news and all the bad stuff going on in the world right now, as you drive in the car here, listen to your Bible. Listen to the Bible read to you. Listen to a sermon. Listen to some a cappella singing. Listen to a spiritual podcast. Spend the drive here talking about the Bible lesson that your kids are going to engage in. Do those kinds of things. Or maybe before you even get to your car, get at your kitchen table, get out a piece of paper, and just write down all the blessings God gave you the past week. List all those blessings one by one.

3. Come Here Ready to Participate

And then after you do that, pray to God and say, God, thank you. Thank you for every single one of these blessings. I believe that doing that will only help us properly determine what we’re going to give God. These are just a few practical things we can do, but the point is we probably need to do them. Because all we have going on in our lives, because we’re so busy, we have jobs. We have things we’re doing with our kids, getting them from this place to that place. We have all the stress of life. Before coming here to worship God, we may need to get our minds right. We got to set high expectations. We got to get into the right frame of mind. And then the third thing we got to do to prepare for worship as spiritually transformed people is we got to come here ready to participate.

Got to come here ready to participate. And there’s a couple of verses I want to look at when it comes to this. The first is John chapter 4, 20, verse 24, a verse where that many of us are very familiar with. Jesus is speaking to a Samaritan woman. He sparks up a conversation with her. And what starts out as a conversation about water, physical water, leads to some spiritual things, spiritual water, and even talk about talk about worship. And he says that God is a spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and in truth. Now, so often, whenever we look at this passage, we really focus on the last part of it, right? When we worship God, we have to do it the right way.

We have to worship, we have to worship in spirit. That means we got to do it with our hearts. We got to do it with zeal, with passion, with concentration, with enthusiasm, and we got to do it in truth. That means we can’t just worship God any way we desire. We can’t just do whatever makes us feel good. We can’t just do what we think is going to fill the pews. No, we have to worship God according to his word, according to what he has prescribed. We focus on that so often, more than anything else, when when reading this verse, and I understand that, but for the purpose of this lesson, I just want to look at the word those. Those. Those who worship him must worship in the spirit and in truth.

That means every child of God has to participate. We are the those. We have to do this. Not just the elders, not just the preachers, not just the Bible class teachers and the song leaders. We all have to do this. And this was a problem the people of Israel had in the time of Malachi. Will you go in your Bible, please to Malachi chapter one? In Malachi chapter one, we see here that in the time of the prophet Malachi, before the Old Testament comes to a close, the people of Israel are really struggling in their worship. Even the priests are offering to God vain worship. And why were they doing that? What were they doing exactly? Well, we see some things here in Malachi chapter 1 and verse 13.

And Malachi chapter 1 and verse 13, God through the prophet says this. You also say, My, how tiresome it is. It’s such a chore to worship God. And you disdainfully sniff at it, says the Lord of hosts, and you bring what was taken by robbery, and what is lame or sick. So you bring the offering. Shall I receive that from your hand, says the Lord? But curse be the swindler who has a male in his flock and vows it. But sacrifice a blemished animal to the Lord, for I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name is feared among the nations. Notice God’s temperature at this time. You see the temperature of God? God’s temperature is hot. He’s very upset. He has a high temperature at this time.

He is fed up with his people because they are engaged in pathetic and vain worship. They are engaged in pathetic and vain worship. And the reason why their worship is so bad is because they’re not putting a lot of effort into it. They’re not giving God their best. Instead of giving God the best of their animals as sacrifices, the scripture says they’re giving God junk. They’re giving God leftovers. They’re offering him animals that are weak and sick and blind and feeble. They’re not getting much out of their worship to God because they’re not putting a lot of effort into it. They’re not being zealous and reverent and passionate about their worship. And that same thing that happened to them, it can happen to us. It can happen to me and it can happen to you.

It can happen to us whenever we come to the worship assembly with the expectation of being spectators instead of participators. It can happen to us when we determine to come here and just fill a pew. We’re just gonna sit there and we expect everybody to do something and we’re not gonna do anything. We’re not gonna, we’re not gonna sing. If we do sing, we’re not gonna sing very loud, or we’re not gonna think about the words or the songs, we’re not gonna concentrate during the prayers. We’re not really going to think about what the bread represents and what the juice represents while partaking of the Lord’s Supper, we’re not even gonna open up our Bibles. We know the Bible too much. We don’t need to open up our Bibles.

We don’t need to listen carefully when the word of God is being taught. We don’t need to make application to our lives. In fact, maybe we could come here and expect other people to worship for us. Maybe we could come here and expect other people to make our worship acceptable to God and just make us feel good. We expect the song leader to pick the right songs, and if he doesn’t, I’m not gonna be passionate about worship. If that preacher doesn’t preach on a sermon that I like or a topic that I like, I’m not gonna be interested in anything he has to say. I’m not gonna listen to when the word of God is being presented. Those are pitfalls we all can fall into, and when we do, if we do, we need to understand something.

We’re being selfish, we’re being spiritually immature, we’re being no different than the people in Malachi’s day. We’re being no different than those who offer to God weak and pathetic and feeble worship and put themselves at the center of worship instead of God. That can happen to us. And here’s how we fight that. Here’s how we combat that. We combat that by coming to the worship assembly with the expectation of participating. We’re going to participate. We’re not going to just fill a pew. We’re not just going to be a spectator. We’re not going to be someone who’s just satisfied with showing up and who walks through the door with a mindset that says, Well, I better get something out of this today. Don’t get me wrong. While worship can certainly do something for us, there’s no doubt about that.

While worshiping God can certainly strengthen us and encourage us and spiritually rejuvenate us, we also at the same time have to understand that if our worship is going to truly please God, we have to do it. We have to do it. We have to enter into the worship assembly with a determination to worship, to participate, to be people who are ready to honor and praise the Lord. We have to understand that nobody in the room can worship for us. Nobody in the room can make our worship pleasing to God. No one in the room can make my singing pleasing to God. No one in the room can make me move my lips and make me sing with thanksgiving in my heart. No one can make me visit the cross and think about the death of Jesus when partaking of the Lord’s Supper.

4. We Also May Need to Reconcile

No one can make me stay engaged and follow along and listen carefully when the word of God is being presented. No one can do those things for me in the worship assembly. Instead, those are the things I must choose to do. I have to do those things. As a Christian, as a spiritually transformed person, I must participate. I must be engaged. I must offer worship to God myself. There must never be any spectators in the worship assembly. We’re all supposed to be participating. That’s how we prepare to worship God. We set high expectations. We have the right frame of mind. We come here ready to be engaged, ready to do our part, ready to participate. And then finally, I’ll give you this. Another thing we have to do to prepare our hearts to worship God is forth and finally, we also may need to reconcile.

You won’t hear perfect preaching at all this week. I promise you that.

And Matthew chapter 5 and in verse number 21. And Matthew 5 and in verse 21. Jesus says this. You have heard, you have heard that the ancients were told, you shall not commit murder. And whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court. But I say to you, I say to you, Jesus says, that everyone who is angry with his brother should be guilty before the court. And whoever says to his brother, you good for nothing shall be guilty before the Supreme Court. And whoever says you fool should be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar, that’s worship. And there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go.

First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. What’s the Lord saying there? Well, here the Lord is saying that He doesn’t want anger or hurt feelings or harsh words to become tools the devil uses to separate members of the spiritual family. He doesn’t want those things to be tools. Satan uses to divide the kingdom of God, but you and I both know that in the real world, that happens from time to time. From time to time, we get angry with each other. We have problems with each other. The Lord knows that kind of stuff is going to happen in the spiritual family. And when it does happen, he tells us what to do. He tells us that whenever we have a problem with somebody in the spiritual family, whenever we get sideways with somebody, whenever we’re angry with somebody, whenever we say some things to a brother or sister that we should not say, what we need to do is take the initiative to make it right.

We need to take the initiative to make it right, to fix the problem, to reconcile with that brother or sister before going to worship God. That’s what Jesus says there. And I want you to think about that practically. Think about how in the ancient world, in the time of Jesus, how difficult it would have been to do what he says here. Imagine you live in Galilee. You live in Capernaum, you live in Nazareth, Beth Seda, and you’re gonna go to Jerusalem to worship God. That means you got to walk 90 miles. No cars. You got to walk 90 miles. So you’re taking that 90-mile journey up to Jerusalem, and when you get there, you go through the gates of the city and you see the temple.

You see the massive temple, you see the massive courtyard, but you can’t go in there. You have to turn around. You got to turn around and walk 90 miles back home and reconcile with your brother or your sister that you have a problem with. That’s what the Lord is saying there. And do you know what that means? That means that while worshiping God is important, and while it is necessary, reconciling with a brother or sister is more important. Reconciling with a brother or sister is more important than going to church. If that’s not what the Lord is saying there, I don’t have a clue what he is saying. That’s clearly what he is saying. Reconciling has to be done. Before my worship is pleasing to God.

And so that means that if I have a problem with somebody in the spiritual family, if I have anger towards someone, if I’m bitter towards someone, if I’ve said hurtful words or gossiped about somebody, or have any kind of resentment or ill feelings towards anybody, what I need to do today is I need to obey Jesus. I need to obey Jesus and I need to go to that person and try to make it right. I need to talk with them. I may need to ask for forgiveness. I need to do my best to try to mend that relationship so my worship can finally be pleasing to God. That’s what the Bible says.

Conclusion

Christians, people who’ve been born again through the blood of Jesus, we got to put a whole lot more effort when it comes to preparing to worship God. We got to make sure we put in the work before we come here because our God is great. Our God is awesome. Our God is wonderful. He is worthy of not just our bodies in the pew, but also our hearts. God? Have you given God your heart? Have you given him your mind? Are you a disciple? Have you been transformed? Spiritually? If not, you have the opportunity to do that today. The good news of the gospel is as long as you are alive, you have an opportunity to obey Jesus and have your sins forgiven by the blood of Jesus.

And if that’s what you want to do, we will accommodate you. If you are willing to profess faith in Christ, you believe he’s a son of God, you believe he died on the cross for your sins, you believe he was raised from the dead. If you’re willing to confess him as the Lord and the Son of God, and if you’re willing to repent, turn away from sin, we will baptize you. We will baptize you for the remission of your sins. You will die to sin, and you will be raised to walk in newness of life. You will be raised to become a spiritually transformed person, or if you’ve done those things, but you know you stray, your heart’s not with God anymore. If you’re willing to repent, God will forgive you.

He’ll forgive you. And if you want us to pray for you, we’ll pray for you and we’ll encourage you because we love you and we’re your family. So there’s anyone here this morning who needs to respond to the Lord’s invitation. This song is for you. Come to the front. Let’s stand. Let’s sing.