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[0:00] If you have your Bible, go ahead and turn to John 9, verse 35 through 41.

[0:19] ! If you don't have a Bible with you, there are Bibles in the pews that you can use. If you don't own a Bible, please take that Bible home with you today as a gift from our congregation to you in the hopes that you'll continue to be reading the Word of God. John, chapter 35 through verse 41. If you would please stand with me as we honor the reading of God's Word together.

[0:47] Jesus heard that they had cast Him out, and having found Him, He said, Do you believe in the Son of Man? He answered, And who is He, sir, that I may believe Him? Jesus said to him, You have seen Him, and it is He who is speaking to you. He said, Lord, I believe. And He worshiped Him.

[1:13] Jesus said, For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.

[1:27] Some of the Pharisees near Him heard these things and said to Him, Are we also blind? Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no guilt.

[1:38] But now that you say, We see, Your guilt remains. I got out a blessing to the reading of His Word. Would you please be seated? In the neighborhood that I grew up in, there was a cul-de-sac at the top of the street, kind of on an incline, not really a hill, but certainly uphill, if that makes any sense.

[2:05] And so, one thing I loved to do as a kid and with my friends is, I mean, we would just drive up and down throughout our neighborhood, especially up that street, around cul-de-sac up there.

[2:19] I mean, I had done that countless times, countless times. I felt like I knew the way from the top of that street that I lived on, all the way down to my house so well, that I could start at the top of that hill and drive down to my house on my bicycle with my eyes closed and make it there safely.

[2:42] And so, one afternoon, my friends were busy doing other things, and so I was by myself and thought, You know what? I'm going to do it. I am going to drive my bicycle down from the top of this street and the cul-de-sac with my eyes closed and see if I can turn into my driveway, into my house without seeing.

[3:05] And so, that's what I did. And I started out. I checked for cars. Nothing was coming. I closed my eyes, and off I went. And I made it home, but I turned just a little too short of my driveway and smashed my face into our mailbox.

[3:26] And I ran inside, crying, you know, bleeding, and as my mother was bandaging my wounds, they wanted to know what happened, and I just told them, you know, I drove down the street with my eyes closed, seeing if I could find my way home.

[3:42] And my dad said, without missing a beat, he said, Well, you found it. So, the good news was that I found my house.

[3:53] The bad news was is that I found it in a really hard way. And so, you know, in life we encounter many situations where there's good news and there's bad news.

[4:07] But oftentimes, that good news is still difficult news to hear. It can be. If you think about, maybe you have, or certainly you probably know somebody who went for a routine doctor's appointment, routine checkup, and test results came back, whether it was blood work or anything, you know, they had an x-ray, something was found, that they hadn't gone to the doctor thinking that they had.

[4:35] It was a cancer or a tumor or something like that. And they hear that really bad news. Hey, you came in here thinking this was just going to be a routine checkup.

[4:46] Well, it turns out that you have something inside of your body that if we don't treat it, could kill you. And so, they give you good news, say, Hey, but there's a treatment and we can get you better.

[4:57] Though that treatment often means a lot of pain, chemotherapy, undergoing surgery, but there's good news finally at the end whenever you realize that that disease has been eradicated from your body and you're healthy and you're whole and you're glad that you had that appointment to hear that bad news so that you could experience the joy in knowing that you are well.

[5:24] The blind man whom we've been looking at for some time now, who now sees as a result of Jesus healing him is found worshiping Jesus in verse 38 at the revelation that Jesus is the long-awaited and promised Messiah.

[5:47] But in coming to that revelation, he has suffered a lot, hasn't he? first of all, he suffers from the doubt of his neighbors in verses 8 through 12, who instead of rejoicing with him in his newfound sight, believe that he is an imposter.

[6:12] Second, he is interrogated and he is scrutinized by the Pharisees about how he received his sight. Third, he is abandoned by his parents who do not come to his defense, but seeking their own self-preservation so that they don't get kicked out of the synagogue, they forsake their son.

[6:44] Finally, he receives the punishment that his parents sought to avoid. He's kicked out. He's banished from the synagogue.

[6:54] He has experienced in a short time the rejection of his parents, the rejection of his community, all because he refused to deny what Jesus had done for him.

[7:14] Yet, despite all that he has lost and suffered, he has found at the end of this narrative rejoicing and worshiping.

[7:29] Why? Because he has come to realize that in having Jesus, he possesses infinitely more than whatever was taken away from him.

[7:45] though he has suffered, it has brought him to the revelation of the truth of who Jesus is.

[7:57] Jesus had given him physical sight. Then he comes back to him with good news that causes him to rejoice.

[8:09] He is the Son of God, the long awaited, the long promised Messiah. This man is then transformed immediately by the good news that Christ has come, that Christ has come to him.

[8:25] That news instantly overshadowed whatever grief he may have been feeling from the rejection and the reviling that he had just recently endured. He knew Jesus, and he knew Jesus personally as his Lord, and he worshipped him publicly as such, unafraid.

[8:48] As I was preparing for this sermon this week, reading over this text over and over again about all that this man suffered and yet he's found overjoyed and rejoicing in the Lord, I was troubled by a thought.

[9:07] It seems to me, and maybe it seems to you too, that the unbelieving world seems more unified, more organized, and more passionate about spreading the lies that they have exchanged the truth of God for.

[9:29] They seem more passionate, they seem more unified, they seem more organized in spreading their lies than the church is unified, organized, and passionate about spreading the good news of Jesus Christ.

[9:47] The truth that we possess of him, the true truth. They seem better at advancing their progressive liberal agendas than we are advancing the kingdom of God by spreading the good news of who Christ is and what Christ has done.

[10:05] Case in point, there is currently a lawsuit amongst SBC, Southern Baptist entities, that is about to go before the Supreme Court.

[10:20] And to me, honestly, I don't care who is right and who is wrong as much as I am saddened that we are actually going to go as a church to the courts of men to settle our differences.

[10:38] Have we read Matthew 5, 25? Someone is going to win. Someone is going to lose. And without compromise, I fear that there is just going to be greater division within our denomination and in our churches.

[10:58] We should be preoccupied with spending our resources on advancing the gospel that the spiritually blind may see. Then we should be spending those same resources to pay lawyers hefty sums to settle our disputes that we can't resolve ourselves.

[11:18] I'm concerned that we who have been made to see are acting as if we hadn't by losing sight of the gospel that has saved us, that has united us with Christ and to one another.

[11:37] Maybe our lack of passion to advance the gospel together is a result of our not dwelling upon the gospel enough, remembering that we are sinners, but that we are sinners who have been saved by grace, not by works, and that without Christ we would stand condemned, helpless, hopeless in our sins that we have committed against a holy and righteous God, our Creator.

[12:11] And so what I think I need and what I think we need is to get back to the basics. And so as I've been troubled by that this week and reading this passage this week and others, I believe that the Lord has reminded me, that He has taught me, that in order to be of best use to Him, before I express my criticisms of His church or offer my complaints, I need to remember that I am a recipient of tremendous grace, called to share that same hope that I have with a world in desperate need of hearing some good news, and to do my part, leaving the results up to Him.

[13:01] And in order for that to happen, I need to preach the gospel to myself every day. And I think so do you. We need to preach the gospel to ourselves every day so that we become better communicators of this truth that we have.

[13:22] love. And with that, stop getting distracted by all the bad news that is out there in the world. Focus on the good news that we have in Christ.

[13:34] And then share it. This passage reveals that Jesus' first coming into the world created two diametrically opposed effects.

[13:47] We can expect this as we share the good news of Jesus Christ. Christ. And here's the main idea for this morning's sermon, and it will be the main idea for next week too. Those who receive Jesus see and are saved.

[14:04] Those who reject Jesus are blind and condemned. Those who receive Jesus see and are saved. Those who reject Jesus are blind and condemned.

[14:17] And so my hope is that the Holy Spirit today will accomplish at least two things in the time that we have this morning. First, that those of you who are here or maybe you're watching online who are not saved, who have rejected Christ, will be brought to repentance and faith this morning in Him by having His open your eyes to the reality of the fact that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.

[14:49] He is the only Savior we have. And second, for those of us who have been saved, I hope that today we will have a renewed passion stirred within us by the Spirit to advance the gospel that has saved us together.

[15:12] together. So first of all, this passage presents us with some good news. The good news, which is what we'll focus on today. Jesus gives spiritual sight to the blind.

[15:27] Jesus gives spiritual sight to the blind. This is the good news. The first three verses of this passage explains how Jesus gives spiritual sight to the blind.

[15:41] God, how He saves us, how He transforms our lives. This is what we need to be reminded of. This is the truth that we need to be preaching to ourselves every day so that we will live our lives as good news people who have received the good news and who share the good news wherever we go.

[16:05] You know, if you think about it, most people like sharing good news, don't they? You've read a good book. You've seen a good movie. You ate at a good restaurant.

[16:15] What do you like to do? You like to share that good news. You like to even share it on Facebook. You guys should go check out this thing or that thing. It's great. And you get enjoyment out of other people experiencing that good news that you've shared, don't you?

[16:30] Not everybody is like that, though. There are also people who seem to enjoy sharing bad news better than good news.

[16:41] The world is good at sharing bad news, not so much the good news. There's people who remind me of Eeyore and Winnie the Pooh. You guys know who I'm talking about, old Eeyore?

[16:53] Yeah. Some of you are like Eeyore. Eeyore would take whatever good news came his way and spin it in a negative way, wouldn't he?

[17:05] Winnie the Pooh would come to him and say, good day, Eeyore, or good morning, Eeyore. And Eeyore would say, well, if it is a good morning or a good day, which I doubt.

[17:18] And there are some people like that. There are people like that in our churches. We've received the good news. We're too distracted on what's going on in the world or our own circumstances because we're not preaching the gospel to ourselves every day to realize that we have a king who has conquered our sin and death.

[17:38] We have reason to be joyful always. And so, as we focus on the gospel and how it is good news, and it's good news that is meant to be shared, we need to dwell upon it.

[17:57] And so, that's what we're going to do this morning as we see how Jesus saves the blind man. First of all, we see in verse 35 that Jesus initiates salvation. Jesus initiates our salvation.

[18:10] Verse 35. Now, Jesus has already come and He's already healed this man. He saw him. Now, He comes back and it says there, Jesus heard that they had cast Him out and He found Him.

[18:22] He went to Him. He found Him. After healing the man of his physical blindness in verses 1 through 7, Jesus disappears from the scene for a time in verses 8 through 34 as the man is questioned by his neighbors, abandoned by his parents, interrogated by the Pharisees, and finally excommunicated from the synagogue.

[18:42] News of this gets back to Jesus. And what does He do? What does He say? Well, that's too bad. I mean, I healed Him.

[18:56] He can see now. He can get a work. He can get a job. He can get work. He can take care of Himself. He'll be okay. He'll be okay. No. He doesn't say that.

[19:07] It appears to me that whatever He's doing, He drops whatever it is. Of course, He's omniscient. But He goes and He finds this man. He searches for him.

[19:18] Why? Because Jesus cares. Just as He took the initiative in opening the man's physical eyes, now He goes to him once more taking the initiative again to give him spiritual sight.

[19:34] Rejected and reviled by the religious leaders, He is sought out by the Redeemer. The Bible explicitly communicates this truth that God is the initiator of salvation and that if He wasn't, we would forever be blind, forever lost, and eternally condemned.

[20:03] You don't believe that? Well, let's go back to the beginning of the Bible. In Genesis chapter 3, Adam and Eve have sinned by disobeying God.

[20:15] They ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And when that happened, their eyes became opened, remember, and they saw that they were blind.

[20:28] When they ate of that fruit, when they sinned, did Adam and Eve go searching for God? Did they seek Him out? Oh God!

[20:42] Oh no! What have we done? We've sinned. We better find God. Oh God! Where are You?

[20:54] We've made a mistake. We see that we're naked now. We feel ashamed now. Would You please come and help us? Would You please kill something so that we can have it skin to clothe us now?

[21:08] We're so sorry. No. That's not what happened. Who sought out who? God sought them out.

[21:21] And when He did seek them out, what did Adam and Eve do? Oh, we're glad we've been looking for You. Would You forgive us? They ran and they hid from God.

[21:37] It was God who had to call out to them. And even when He did call out to them and their sin was clearly seen, did they ask Him for His forgiveness?

[21:51] No! They didn't ask Him for forgiveness. But God chose to forgive them anyway. God takes the initiative.

[22:03] God chose to forgive them though they didn't ask. And so again, if God did not take the initiative with us, no one would be saved.

[22:17] No one would seek for Him. This is what the Bible says, Romans 3, 10-12, it sums it up, our sinful condition that we are all born with very clearly.

[22:29] As it is written, none is righteous, not, well, you know, Brian is righteous, but all the rest of you guys are not righteous.

[22:40] It's none, it's everybody. None is righteous, no, not one, no one understands, no one, no one seeks for God.

[22:51] All have turned aside, together they have become worthless, no one is good, not even one. look at what Jesus has to say in John 6, 44 and 65, no one can come to me unless the Father who sends me draw him, unless the Father does the initiating, and I will raise him up on the last day.

[23:13] And he said, in verse 65, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father. Moving on to John 15, 16, Jesus says, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

[23:37] In fact, John, the apostle who is inspired by the Spirit to write this book, this gospel, made it very clear at the very beginning in chapter 1 that our salvation is totally dependent upon God's initiative, God's power, and God's sovereign grace.

[23:53] John 1, 12-13, but to all who did receive him, how did they receive him? Who believed in his name, how did they believe in his name? He gave the right to become children of God.

[24:04] How did they become children of God? Well, they were not born of the blood, this didn't happen, pass through the blood stream, nor of their own will or their own good works, but of God.

[24:17] God has done it. God has saved us. And so the man in John 9 worships Jesus because he knows that apart from Jesus taking the initiative, he would still be blind and he would still be begging.

[24:38] He'd be without hope. He'd be helpless. And you see, in this narrative, we who have been saved are the blind beggar.

[24:52] That was us. Jesus is the hero of your testimony, not you.

[25:04] When the blind beggar goes and shares this good news, do you think that he takes any credit for it himself? Well, if I hadn't have been there in that one spot when I was, but I just knew there was something about that spot.

[25:21] And I put myself in a spot where Jesus just had to see me. And I, you know, we don't know what he looks like, but maybe he thought he looked well. And I'm so handsome and attractive. Jesus knew how great of a disciple I was going to be, so he didn't have any insurance.

[25:33] Of course he was going to save me. You would never hear that come out of his mouth. We're not saved because we are beautiful than others, more desirable than others, smarter than others, more morally upright than others.

[25:49] We were like that blind beggar who received his sight and an eternal inheritance in Christ, understanding that we were undeserving recipients of this amazing grace that we have received.

[26:09] Genuine worship flows out of a heart that has grasped that truth. When people, though, observe us worship, do they see our hearts overflowing with joy?

[26:35] Do they see on our faces expressions that communicate the joy that we have of Christ and the joy that is in our hearts?

[26:54] Do they hear our voices lifted up in praise, making a joyful noise to the God of our salvation? Or do they see a lack of passion?

[27:07] do they see people just going through the motions? If you know that the Lord has initiated your salvation and that He loves you and that He's been gracious to you, how can you not worship Him passionately?

[27:23] second, we see here that Jesus invites us in salvation to respond in faith to Him. Jesus invites us, He takes the initiative and then He invites us to respond in faith to Him.

[27:38] Verse 35, the rest of verse 35 and verse 36, He said, do you believe in the Son of Man? And He answered, and who is He, sir, that I may believe in Him?

[27:49] So again, Jesus has taken the initiative and He invites the man to respond to a question, a question that confronts Him with His need to place His faith, His trust for forgiveness and salvation in Jesus.

[28:07] And so Jesus uses the first person pronoun with Him, you. He says, you, do you believe? This is the invitation He extends in salvation.

[28:20] The man had trusted that Jesus was a prophet, in verse 17, we saw that, who had been sent from God, he testified to that in verse 33, because he knew that it was Jesus that had healed him.

[28:32] At this point, he knows that there is something very special about Jesus. And so, he trusted Him to direct Him further on to the truth of the one in whom he should place his faith.

[28:50] He trusted in all that Jesus had done for him. Here's someone who can get me to the full realization of the truth. We, I don't know, maybe about a year ago, we got a second dog whose name is Mack, who we rescued.

[29:13] And, you know, interesting story, he had been dumped, we had been transported from one place to another. We bring him home, fell in love with him at the dog place where we got him from, and bring him home, and he's just, he just, he becomes, he just curls up like in a little shell.

[29:33] Where is that personality? Where is that dog that we brought home? And he was afraid of us, afraid of us touching him, almost expecting like we were going to harm him or something like that.

[29:46] For that first day, in fact, I remember Danny and I having a conversation like, maybe we made a mistake here with this dog. But we stuck it out, we were committed. And sure enough, as we showed him that we cared for him, petted him, fed him, loved him, he began to come out of his shell.

[30:09] And he was. He's a great dog because he knows that we love him, and he knows that we love him because we've shown to him how much we care for him.

[30:22] Jesus had shown this man how much he cared for him. And so he was willing and wanted to hear more of what Jesus had to say. So my question for you, as a believer, do your unbelieving family members, your unbelieving co-workers, your unbelieving neighbors view you as someone whom they can trust?

[30:50] Does your life indicate to them that you have something in Christ that they lack? are you the peaceful neighbor in your neighborhood who waves at your neighbors, who initiates conversation with your neighbors?

[31:14] Are you that one who everybody is hoping will sell their house one day and move out of the neighborhood? If you shared the gospel with them, your neighbors, your co-workers, your unbelieving family members, would they listen to you?

[31:30] Because they know that you have showed them that you are someone who cares about them. You see, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

[31:47] Jesus cared for this man in a way that no one else had ever cared for him before. He trusted him then. He trusted him that he knew this truth.

[32:00] He could leave him further into this truth. But he still had a responsibility to respond in faith to what Jesus was revealing to him.

[32:14] Salvation is always divinely initiated but never separated from a response of faith. faith. John 20, 30-31, John says this is the purpose of this gospel.

[32:28] Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of disciples which are not written in this book, but these are written, why? So that you, you may believe, what?

[32:40] That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. faith. And yet, and yet, this faith is a gift from God.

[32:58] Ephesians 2, 8-10, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It's the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

[33:14] for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

[33:29] This is an irresistible invitation. He initiates it and then he extends this invitation that I believe is an irresistible, I believe it because that's what the Scripture says, is an irresistible invitation.

[33:48] My heart was recently broken a couple of weeks ago. My wife showed me a picture of, and I thought we had children's church today, so I don't know if I'm going to get in trouble, but let's just say a pastor friend of mine's daughter.

[34:10] In this picture of his beautiful, precious little daughter, she is standing amongst a bunch of other students, front and center, and a boy is holding her hand.

[34:30] and he seems really happy about it. And so this pastor is thinking, who is this kid who would take advantage of my sweet, precious, innocent, beautiful little girl, reach down and snatch her hand and smile about it for the camera.

[34:56] So there were some questions, some questions that this pastor had. Come to find out, come to find out, the one who instigated the hand-holding situation was the beautiful, precious, innocent, little girl, to which the pastor then realized, you know what, of course, of course, if I were that little boy and someone so beautiful wanted to hold my hand, you better believe I would grab that hand and hold it, right?

[35:32] I can't blame that kid for such an irresistible invitation. God's invitation is irresistibly good, irresistibly gracious.

[35:55] Isn't it? For those of us who have been genuinely saved, who have turned from our sin and repentance, who have trusted in Christ, when Jesus revealed himself to you as your Savior, you responded positively, and you will respond positively, anyone will respond positively when Jesus opens their eyes to see who he is.

[36:31] And we will respond to this invitation. We have to. Romans 8, 30. And those whom he predestined, he called, those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified.

[36:48] I love that. Every person, every Savior is there and moves from one category to the next, which means those of us who have been justified will be glorified because of God and his gracious work in our hearts to open our blind eyes to see the truth.

[37:15] The Lord calls you to salvation that you did not deserve, that you did not earn, but that you cannot lose. How should we respond to such good news?

[37:28] Well, like the blind man who now sees, he answered when Jesus asked this question, and who is he, sir, that I may believe in him? And Jesus said to him, you who were blind, now you see, you have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.

[37:49] What a great revelation. And he said, what? I don't know. I don't know if that's, no, he said, Lord, I believe.

[38:02] And then what did he do? He worshipped him. The man totally sees. The darkness has been dispelled. He sees clearly who Jesus is, and he worships him openly, passionately, unashamedly.

[38:19] He knows that Jesus is his Lord, and he doesn't care what anyone might say about that. He's gone from being spiritually blind to seeing, from spiritual death to spiritual life.

[38:36] It was Jesus who did it. He didn't pat himself on the back, didn't give himself any glory for what Jesus had done. All of the worship, all the praise goes to Jesus.

[38:50] But not everybody shared in the good news that he had received that day, and their reaction will be the subject of next week's sermon. I'll go ahead and give you the fill in for blank number two, though many of you probably already put it in because it's not real hard to decipher.

[39:04] The bad news, the bad news, those who reject Jesus remain blind and condemned. But I still want you to come here next Sunday because there's going to be good news, trust me, that comes from that bad news.

[39:24] But you know, meeting Jesus did not make the blind man's life easier, did it. He was abandoned again by his parents, reviled and rejected by his community.

[39:35] His life didn't get easier, but his life did get a whole lot better. He goes from being a blind beggar to a man who sees and knows Jesus as his Lord and his Savior.

[39:55] Savior. And he's radically transformed by that. And he has an amazing story to share, doesn't he? He has great news to proclaim what Jesus had done for him.

[40:12] I read a quote recently from Adrian Rogers who's gone to be with the Lord. He said, sometimes I almost wish I were lost so I could get saved all over again.

[40:27] Those of us who have been saved, you know what he meant by that, don't you? Remember when you were first saved? We get to see this still in the church. People who are born again Christians.

[40:39] They're so excited. They're so passionate. They have been recently transformed. They have been saved from their sins. They realize that Christ has saved them totally, radically, transformationally.

[40:57] And there's a lot of excitement that we get from seeing that and from being around them. But then as time goes on, cares and concerns of this world, not that they aren't saved, but they just lose that passion, that excitement, and that fire.

[41:15] And so sometimes I think, yeah, we wish, you know what, I wish I could just be saved all over again so that I could experience afresh that great joy.

[41:27] But you know what, we don't need to be saved over again in order to have that joy and that passion and that zeal. You have the Word of God.

[41:39] You have God as your Father. You can pray to Him. He will hear your prayers. You have His Word. You have the Gospel that has saved you and that keeps you saved now and forever more.

[41:53] Christians, brothers and sisters in Christ, we should be passionate every day about this great, amazing grace that we have received. And so if you lack that passion this morning, I would say that it's because you're not spending enough time with the Lord.

[42:13] Lord, you're not preaching the Gospel to yourself. Preach the Gospel to yourself every day and see what happens. See how that changes your perspective.

[42:24] You see how great God is and your circumstances are going to seem a whole lot smaller. Even in your sorrow, you'll realize God is doing something here for my good, making me more like Christ.

[42:39] And the more you preach the Gospel to yourself, again, the better communicator of the Gospel you are going to be. We have good news to share. We must share it.

[42:52] Three questions of application. Question number one, what does this passage communicate to us about the character of Jesus?

[43:03] What does this passage communicate to us about the character of Jesus? Go back through and read through these verses again and notice the character of Jesus.

[43:15] What is He doing? What is He saying? What is He communicating through His words, through His character? Question number two, who is Jesus calling you to initiate a Gospel conversation with?

[43:32] Who is Jesus calling you to initiate a Gospel conversation with? This is where you take what you've answered in question number one. Follow the character of Christ. Model it in your life.

[43:44] Pursue this person to have a conversation with. And then think about, plan out, what steps will you take this week to do that? To share that good news with them?

[43:57] And then the third question. Why is the Gospel a message that we consistently need to hear and spend time reflecting over? how will that affect our worship?

[44:10] Why is this a message that we need to hear and preach to ourselves every day? How will that affect the way that we worship? Or how should it affect the way that we worship?

[44:24] I have a time of invitation before we take communion together as a church. church. And I invite you, if you want to pray in your pew, if you want to come forward, it's up to you.

[44:41] But I encourage you to begin asking the Lord, who is that person now? Who are those people now that you want me to share the good news with? I encourage you to, before we take communion, that you come forward if you have realized that, you know, you've lacked the passion, the sin in your life that you need to confess of, and you want to come forward or do that in the pew, whatever the case, I encourage you to do that today too.

[45:08] If you've heard this message and you realize that I'm blind, and you realize that Jesus has taken the initiative with you, you realize that He has invited you, He has given you that faith to place in Him, we want to know about that.

[45:21] And so, if you feel comfortable, you can come find me right now. I'll be standing up here. I want to pray for you. If not, please come and find me or talk to me some point after church, because we have a responsibility to you and to the Lord to continue to teach you and disciple you.

[45:36] It's a responsibility that we take seriously and that we do with joy. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the fact that you are the initiator in salvation.

[45:48] You are the author and perfecter of our faith. God, to you belongs all the glory forever and ever. Father, forgive us that so often we, your people, get distracted by things in life that cause us to complain, cause us to be negative, cause us to pursue this world and live in it as if it's our everlasting home.

[46:12] But God, we know that it's perishing away. We know, Lord God, that this is not our home. We know that you have given us a mission. We know that you have given us great and good news that has saved us, news that we must share with gladness, joyfully sharing it, knowing that you have given us the privilege to take part in being used by you to communicate truth that transforms lives.

[46:40] Father, use us, we pray, and help us, Lord, to preach the gospel to ourselves every day, that we would be good news people who worship you and serve you unified, organized, passionate, for the glory of Jesus' name, in whose name we pray, amen.