Coming to Faith

SERMON: 2014-12-28--ac14148--coming-to-faith SOURCE DURATION: 00:48:05.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.98 APPROVED: false REASON: Candidate 14 is a concluding theological statement/exhortation (part of the sermon). Candidate 15 is marked as [BLANK_AUDIO], indicating the transition to non-sermon material (silence or music) immediately following the conclusion. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Well, we've been seeing in recent weeks that Paul's mission strategy in the book of Acts is relatively simple. Every time he comes to a new city or a town, the first thing that he does is he tries to look up if there is a Jewish synagogue. If there is, that's where he goes to worship on the Sabbath. And then in keeping with their open speaker policy, he would use that opportunity to preach the gospel to the people that were gathered, pointing out to them that Jesus is the Christ, the fulfillment of every promise that God had ever made in the Old Testament. And so that's what he does here again in Acts chapter 17, where we read in verse 2, "As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ." This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ. And so as he proclaimed Christ, or Jesus as the Christ, that is, the Messiah, some people believed and some did not. And that's why the chapter ends the way that it does. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women. What I want for us to do with this passage this morning as we come to the end of the year is do some reflecting on what does it take for a person to come to faith? George, can you turn the sound down just a hair, please? What does it take for a person to come to faith in Christ? We've just come through the Christmas season. A lot of you have taken invitations, you've shared it with family and with friends. Some of you had people take you up on those invitations. We had people in services over this past week that I have never seen before, don't know where they came from. Presumably they're connected to one or more of you here or heard about our services and they chose to come. The challenge and the question is not just to fill this place up with people who like to come to a special service, of course. The question and the challenge is what does it take for your family, your friends, your neighbors, our guests to come to a living faith in the person of Jesus Christ? And Paul's ministry to Thessalonica and the way that he goes about it gives us, I think, three keys that we need to buy into if we are to understand how this process of coming to faith works in the real world. So in the time that remains, let me try to walk you through that as quickly and as efficiently as I can. The thing that has to happen for men and women to come to faith is that their objections to faith have to be addressed. Their objections to faith have to be addressed. That's of course the reason Paul goes through the Old Testament in the way that he does systematically in his meetings in the synagogue. We talked about that a little bit last week, you will recall, and I pointed out that the Jews had two objections to Jesus being the Christ. The first is that he was very different from what they were expecting. What were they expecting again? They were expecting a warrior type of Messiah in the vein of King David, one who would get rid of all their enemies, one who would usher in the kingdom of God, and they would experience the fulfillment of the promises that God had made to Abraham so many years ago. Their second objection was the scandal of the cross. You may recall the Greek word scandalon. As far as they were concerned, to be hung on the cross was to be cursed by God. The Messiah was to be blessed by God, not cursed, and so Jesus couldn't possibly be the Messiah. And that then is why Paul goes through the Old Testament prophecies, he goes through the law of Moses, and he spells out in great detail how the Christ in fact had to suffer and be raised from the dead, truths in the Old Testament that they had been blind to, but that were substantially and completely fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. And as a principle there, that's really important for us to understand, and that is simply this. If a man or a woman, if your son or your daughter, your loved one, or your neighbors are to come to faith, one of the keys is you have to identify where they're stuck, what are their objections to faith in God, and how can you help them past that objection? Think back for a moment to our profession of faith service three weeks ago. How many of you were here when we had that profession of faith service? Were you here, Powell? You were here? You will recall Brenda and Joey and Powell all made public profession of faith and shared their stories with us. If you were not here, by the way, it would be well worth your while to listen to their stories. They're on our webpage, you know, www.maranatha-church.com. They're not only in the services archives, but they're also on the stories, real life stories on the front page of our website. Give it a listen, because when you listen to the stories, then you will discover that in each instance, for them to come to faith and to become part of this community, they had to work through significant objections that were keeping them from faith, and the objections were different for each person. If you think back to Brenda's story, Brenda's struggle was that of legalism. How can I be part of a community and feel safe? How can I not be browbeat with a legalistic approach, particularly by church leadership? How can I be loved for who I am? For Joey, it was a question of the existence of God. He was, because of many of his life experiences, steeped in atheism, had convinced himself there was no God, and so for him to come to faith, had to undergo a radical transformation and discover that God was really real, and that he was worthy to be submitted to. And you'll recall his story, you know, how the light dawned on him, and do you remember what he said? It's not polite language, I suppose, in church, but he said, "I'm screwed." Unrightly so, because if you've lived a life of sin, and you discover that God is real after all, you are in big trouble. And that, of course, is intended to drive us to Jesus, who is the solution to our trouble. Well, and Powell here, you know, fair to say that feelings of unworthiness, how can I belong? Those were big objections that had to be overcome. And if you listen carefully to people's journeys in faith, you will discover that many, many people get hung up, they get stuck in some place that keeps them from coming to faith in the Lord Jesus. For some, like for Joey, the arguments weren't actual. How do I know there's a God? How do I know that the Bible is true? How do I get around the differences between the Bible and science? Those are huge issues, particularly for our young people when they go off to universities and they discover that everything they've learned in kindergarten and in Sunday school gets thrown out of the window by very intelligent and very clever people who have very clever arguments, intellectual objections to God. Those have to be addressed. For some people, the objections are not so much intellectual as emotional. How can I trust you? Where were you when my mother died? Where were you when the bottom fell out of my world? Where were you when I stood at the bedside of my sick child and I prayed like crazy for the child to get better and instead she died? How can there be a God when there is so much evil and suffering in the world? In fact, that's one of the number one objections that a lot of people have to faith. How can I believe in an almighty God who seems to either not have the power or doesn't care about the suffering that happens in the world? All of these things, biblically and theologically, have many answers, but if you don't address the question and give the answer, people will never come to faith. Or if they come to faith, it will be with reservations because in their hearts they are holding back because they do not really believe that God is who God says that he is. Isn't that true? Absolutely. And for some people, the issues are relational. Why should I believe in you when I feel that you've never done anything for me? And what's going to happen to my marriage or to my relationship with my friends or the people at the job? If I give my life to Christ and turn my back on my friendships, then I will be friendless and I don't know if I can handle that kind of friction in my life. And so there are many people who cannot give their lives to Christ because their friends are more important than Jesus. And then there are a lot of people whose objections to the gospel are moral in nature. If I really believe in God, then I have to change my way of life. I mean, that was Joey's big discovery, right? I've got to change my way of life, I'm screwed if I keep on living the way that I'm living, but I'm not prepared to change the way that I'm living. So now I'm going to develop all kinds of intellectual reasons to say I don't have to believe in God because I don't want to give up my sin. And the world is full of people who don't want to believe the Bible, don't want to believe the gospel, don't want to come to faith in Jesus because it means having to change who they are and how they live. You'll never lead somebody to Christ. Your kids won't come to Christ, your neighbors won't come to Christ, your friends will not come to Christ unless you can put your finger on where they are stuck and you can address the question that needs to be addressed for them to move forward. That's what Paul does with these Jewish believers. He lays bare before them the things they have missed in the Old Testament to demonstrate that Jesus truly is the Christ. A lot of you here have gone through the Alpha program years ago when we ran it. The Alpha program was a video program presentation that outlined the gospel in very clear and succinct fashions and then they had conversations and one of the strengths of the Alpha program when we ran it here was that it provided a very safe and non-threatening place for people to ask their questions and get their answers because without answering those questions you cannot move forward. And so let me say it again. If you have people in your life that you've been praying for, people in your life that you've been trying to drag into church, people in your life that you desperately want to see to come to faith and live in Christ because you realize that outside of Jesus they're going to be eternally lost, we really do need to understand the urgency of that. Then you need to start off by asking for the Lord to reveal to them and to you what are their objections. What's keeping them from, you know, think of it this way, wouldn't you think, wouldn't you think that when God offers the free gift of salvation with all that that entails in scripture, the glory of God for all eternity, the presence of God of the here and now, God with us and ability to live life in a way that we don't have to live it on our, wouldn't you think the whole, I mean, words fail me. Wouldn't you think the whole world would stand in line to receive that message? I mean, if I went on record tomorrow and saying I've got the cure to everything that ails the human race, wouldn't the whole world be the path to my door or to yours? But not to Jesus, why? Because we've got all these barriers that keep us from embracing him. And so if you have people in your life that you want to see come to faith, you want to see their lives changed, then ask the Lord to reveal where the objections lie. Ask him to show you where their objections lie. Ask him to flush those out into the open and then ask him to give you the ability to identify those objections not only but to speak truth into them so that the arguments against the knowledge of God can be broken down. Paul put it this way and I'll talk more about this in just a moment. In 2 Corinthians chapter 10 he says, "Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary," now listen carefully to this, "they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." You catch what he's saying? We demolish every argument and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. The big obstacle to the gospel for many people is this whole way of thinking that has justified the way of sin and rebellion that keeps the gospel at bay. And the average pagan and the average unbeliever in your life has all kinds of reasons why he thinks or she thinks that they should not bend their knee before the authority of Jesus Christ. And that's why come the day of judgment when all of a sudden every argument is exposed, people are going to shout out for the hills to cover them and for the mountains to fall upon them because suddenly they will not be able to stand in the presence of God. Far better that you and I use the power of God's Holy Spirit to try to identify those obstacles now and bring down every pretense against the knowledge of God. Well very closely tied into that then is a second lesson that we learned from this and that is this it takes the Holy Spirit to bring people to faith. Now you don't learn this from Acts chapter 17 but you do learn this from Paul's first letter to the church of Thessalonica. If you read on in Acts chapter 17 he wasn't able to continue his ministry in Thessalonica for very long maybe as short as three weeks, why? Because Paul always runs into trouble, the Jews came after him, he had to flee and so as you read on in the chapter he goes down the road to Berea and then he goes down to Athens and he has a big speech in Athens we'll talk about that Lord willing at some point in the new year and then he ends up in Corinth and when he's in Corinth and he stays there for quite a while he hears stories about the kind of persecution that these new believers are experiencing in Thessalonica so he's very very concerned about their well-being and so he sends Timothy to find out how they're doing and he writes them a letter and in the context of writing that letter he gives us a very key insight as to how these folks at Thessalonica came to faith. Listen to these words this is 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 4 and 5 he says we know brothers loved by God that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. Notice the emphasis there on the Holy Spirit our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. The key to conversion is the power of the Holy Spirit if you've ever tried to share the gospel with somebody you will have discovered two major obstacles that you encounter almost immediately number one you're hard-pressed to know what to say sometimes you know when you try to bring the gospel to somebody it just sort of it feels like sometimes preaching feels that way it just hits the floor right there and it never gets beyond and even if you can find the words to speak then you discover their hearts are closed and nothing penetrates so for people to come to faith there are two things that have to happen two things that we all know are key to communication you need to be able to speak words with power and with clarity with the insight of the Holy Spirit that cannot be resisted and God has to open up the heart of the other person so that your words are no longer just your words they are God's word and they are recognized as God's word that is a function of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit has been given to the church precisely among other things for that reason because we all know Acts 1 verse 8 you will receive power and Jesus said to his apostles in Acts chapter 1 when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth you will be my witnesses when the power of the Holy Spirit has come upon you I suspect we've all had moments like that haven't you ever had it where you're in conversation with somebody and they're you know maybe sharing their story maybe sharing their heart pulling their problems and most of the time if you're smart you just sit back and you listen because most of the time people aren't interested in advice they just want a little sympathy just for the record but every so often don't you have it that something rises up within you you have a clarity about what the issue is that they are facing and then you have a boldness to speak into that in ways that are totally unlike who you are and then you go back home and you say oh my goodness did I really say what I think I said not true we have touches of that in our lives don't we that's fair to say and all of a sudden you know you know that you know that God's at work here this by the way and we don't have time to deal with it is one of the ways in which you can tell people are elect the doctrine of election is very confusing to people because it means that before the foundation of the world God has already chosen those who are going to be saved and we can't get our heads around that because we live in time God is timeless because we now know from science that time is a created aspect of this universe God is outside of the universe and so God knows the end from the beginning because God is timeless get your head around that I don't understand that but I know that happens to be true and a lot of people say well if God chooses then what can I do right and the use election as a doctrine of any mini-mini-mo you're going to make it you're not going to make it and and and it's never used that way in scripture election in scripture is always used as a doctrine of comfort for God's people so that when times get rough and I don't know how to hold on when my basement floods my furnace breaks down my car has four flat tires my spouse leaves me and all of my kids hate me God is still God and the work that he's begun in me he will bring to completion in the day of Jesus he will help me to hold on when everything falls apart and how do I know that I'm elect because when the word of God comes to me it comes in power it reaches into deep places in my life and I know that I know that I know that God is there he's got his finger on my life and he is bigger than anything that I can bring to him one of the ways in which I can tell over the years if God wants to use me in somebody's life he gives me and I've said this before he'll give me a supernatural love for that person and that supernatural love enables me to love that person unconditionally no matter what they throw back at me or how big their challenges or their difficulties are because when there is election that is at stake then you know God's gonna be there in life and in power and he will do whatever he needs to do to get that person to where he wants that person to get think back with me again to these stories three weeks ago at the profession of faith service as I said before there were many things about that service that really blessed me one of the things that blessed me was because each of those stories was a testimony to the living reality of the power of God how did Joey come to faith how did he give up his atheism well first his dad Joe had given up his atheism and he had come to faith that was a deal-breaker for Joey then Joey starts coming to church because he's afraid that Maranatha is a cult Alice Joe's wife is a recruiter and it's his job to keep his father from being deceived you remember that story it's hilarious and then he studies a biology textbook on cell division now how many people do you know who in their sanest moments are studying biology textbooks and who would have thought that cellular division would be one of the things that God would use to point him to faith and then of course you know then there was let me just think back to that for a moment there was the whole question of nothing something cannot come from nothing remember that those of you that were here that's a profound philosophical concept by the way that is one of the most persuasive arguments to the fact that the universe did not start itself because even secular scientists if they're honest know that something cannot come from nothing people can't get their heads around it because they don't understand that nothing is nothing they almost always think nothing is something some of you will remember Anthony Flew one of the foremost atheistic philosophers in the world smarter than just about anybody else towards the end of his life became a deist he didn't necessarily become a Christian but he became a believer in God and one of the reasons that he gave for it was that from his philosophical understanding and remember this is a guy who knows and understood every theory of origins in the universe he said this is where the evidence has led me and so in that moment there is that moment of revelation and it's changed joey's life and it will change it forever and then there's powell how many people do you know who are running away from home and there's a voice from the back seat that says i'm not done with you yet now you know you're in big trouble when god starts speaking to you from the back seat of the car and for those of you that wonder why doesn't god speak to me like that it's probably because you don't need it so rather than thinking well why does that happen to other people and why does just remember that where sin abounds grace abounds more and a guy like powell no offense powell it took some real holy ghost conviction out of the back seat to smarten him up and to send him back to his wife and again brenda's story was different not as dramatic in some ways but just as powerful because god had to break through her objections to being part of community to lay bare the fact that he was big enough to look after her and to love her what's beautiful about a manual what's beautiful about god with us what's beautiful about the gospel is that god really is here he is all powerful he is determined to seek and to save the lost and is there if there's even a little bit of a desire in somebody's heart to come to faith however long it takes god will let the light shine through and once the light shines through everything changes and here's the thing we need to understand about salvation it is by our wickedness as the book of romans in the first chapter that we suppress the truth that is to say you have to work very hard to keep the truth out of your life did you know that it's like light why do we have blinds on the windows here because if we want to darken the place you got to work at keeping light out and if you've ever been in a dark room then you know that all it takes is a pinhole in the blind to make the light shine through and to show up what's there that's how anxious god is to save people do you know that given half a chance if we seek him we will find him and so again if there are people in your life that you want to see come to faith a living faith a life-changing faith a faith that works from the inside out then not only ask god to show you where the objections lie but ask god to start shining his light into that person's heart ask god to start showing himself in that person's life so that in the light of his life everything changes because suddenly everything is exposed and you know that you're in trouble without jesus and you fall flat on your face to acknowledge that he is the lord of all and you know what amazes me about this journey and i i've seen this oodles of times over the years of my life in ministry is that you can never figure out just how god's going to do that all i know is that if he can find a pinhole in your blind he'll put a spotlight on it and the light will begin to shine and sometimes that happens in a moment of prayer sometimes that happens in a moment of worship sometimes that happens in a moment of conversation just casual conversation somebody will say something and it will have power to cut deeply through all your defense mechanisms and all of a sudden you know that you stand naked before god sometimes that even happens when people are preaching thank god because the word of god is living and active it you know cuts to the quick and it divides soul from spirit bone from arrow it knows how to find you in the deepest of places and and sometimes it just happens totally unbidden i heard the story just a little while ago a young man who i would consider one of the prodigals of this congregation because he was raised here hasn't had much to do with faith or with god for for many years ago the lord has been working in his life and driving along in his truck listening to country music a secular song came on that had nothing to do with the gospel but there was a line in that song that resonated with where he was finding himself and it was so powerful that he began to weep so prodigiously they had to pull his truck over to the side of the road until the emotion passed and that is the beginning of a profound change in that young man's life because you see this is always very comforting god can even speak through the voice of a donkey not to say country music is have to watch how you put these things but you know what i'm trying to say don't ever underestimate god's power to speak live in faith and expectation that when you are faithful when you pray and you use those god moments to speak into somebody's life don't underestimate what god can and will not do some of you've heard me tell the story Charles Spurgeon famous preacher in England in the 1800s young student preacher came up to him all depressed because he couldn't see anything happening when he was preaching and and Spurgeon with great wisdom and insight asked him well you don't expect somebody to be converted every time you speak do you and the young man hesitated a little bit and he said no I no I guess not and Spurgeon pointed a finger at him and said that's your problem because you see if you don't expect god to be at work it's not going to happen so expect god to be living and active and able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think happened to the believers in Thessalonica when some of them came to faith that's third lesson that we learned here and I'll try to wind this up as quickly as I can but there's important points still to be made and that is this that coming to faith means making a choice not only do obstacles need to be overcome not only does it take Holy Spirit anointing but it means making a choice verse four some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul in Silas as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women two things I want us to know just very quickly in this passage and the first is this people had to make a twofold choice notice how the text words it some of the Jews were persuaded what does that mean they bought into Paul's message what was Paul's message Jesus is the Christ he is the long-promised Messiah so the first choice that these believers in the synagogue had to make was the conviction that Jesus was who he said that he was so they had to come to faith in Jesus Christ simple enough but notice there's a second choice they ended up having to make and that is this they were not only persuaded but they joined Paul in Silas they joined Paul in Silas what does that mean they became part of a new Christian community it wasn't just them and Jesus it was them and Jesus and everybody else that belonged to Jesus that's why in this church when you make profession of faith you're not just making profession of faith that you believe in Jesus you also become part of community you know why because God isn't interested just in saving a whole bunch of individuals he's interested in building new community you've heard me talk about this before he's interested in building community that can stand together against the world and everything that the world stands for new community that marches to the beat of the drum of heaven new community that loves gone that loves its neighbor and that is looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth and part of the challenge of the Christian life is not just to come to faith in Jesus but to be part of community shot through as it is with failure and with sin and with shortcoming one of the modern-day themes that you hear all the time in postmodernism is oh everybody loves Jesus but people don't love the church well number one I'm not so sure it's the Jesus of the Bible they love to begin with because if you love the Jesus of the Bible you gotta love the rest of his people even when they're up to obstinate and downright nasty the challenge that these believers faced was not just to come to Christ but they identified with Saul or Paul and with Silas and they became part of Christian community because they knew that God was building a bride for Jesus that one day if you can believe it is going to be presented to him without any wrinkle or blemish or spot you know why I am so committed to the ministry of the local church is because I believe with all my heart that God wants to do a work in your life and in my life to make us a people of whom he can be proud of people who know how to love God who know how to love each other who know how to forgive and to go on and live life the way God wants them to live because the world will stand up and take notice when they see people who love each other the way Jesus loves them that could use a good amen because I'm gonna hold you to that now understand that for these new believers in Thessalonica as well as all these other cities there was a high price to pay for that high price because it meant separation from their old community and it meant belonging to a new community and that always comes at a price because it meant a tearing of old relationships even as God was building a new relationship so when in this place we talk about evangelism we talk about people coming to the Lord here's the thing that you and I really need to understand when people come to faith in Christ and if they want to walk it out with integrity that almost always means leaving an old lifestyle and old friends behind and if you and I don't step in to provide new community new support and new friendships they will not last very long in the journey of faith because the pull down will happen so quickly so understand the role that you and I play in embracing people not only but bringing them into our lives and into our social relationships are you hearing me when I say that people need to know that you love them more than just words if we at time I'd look with you at what Paul says to the Thessalonians about how he gave them his heart and how he loved them like a mother and he loved them like a father and that's why they were able to persevere under the intense persecution that they experienced well there's one more thing that I want us to notice here and we need to move up just a couple of slides to get to it and that is that and I alluded to this last week that while many of the God-fearing Greeks came to faith not very many of the Jews did and here is the verse verse 4 if we can put that out some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women notice the contrast some of the Jews in contrast to a large number of God-fearing Greeks remember God-fearing Greeks were former pagans who had become proselytes to the Jewish religion so they had left their Greek culture and their Greek background and their Greek religion and they had joined the God of Israel and they had become part of the synagogue a lot of them came to faith but only some of the Jews why text doesn't tell us but we know from the rest of scripture that God opposes the proud but he gives grace to the humble it was so hard for many Jews to come to faith because they were so steeped in being the chosen people they were so steeped in their tradition they were so steeped in knowing all the right answers they had so much to lose by giving that up and recognizing the fulfillment of all those promises in the person of Jesus and so fact of the matter is a lot of them couldn't make the transition they closed off their hearts and they became as we'll see later on enemies of the gospel the Gentiles on the other hand had already made that transition they had already said goodbye to their culture in many ways they had come to faith in the God of Israel and when they saw that Jesus was the fulfillment of everything that they had joined in joining the Jewish religion they were just thrilled to the core and God showed himself with great power in their lives and again the principle here is this you know I said earlier sometimes when you hear testimonies and God shows up in great power in somebody's life it often gives church people I've discovered over the years very mixed emotions sometimes we hear those stories and we're just really glad and we're encouraged and and we feel you know really good because God's on the go but sometimes it stirs things in our hearts and we say well why him and why not me and that can be good because it can lead me on a journey but it can also lead me on a very negative path to the ground that I've already said one of the reasons is where sin abounds grace abounds more so we need to recognize that God treats everybody differently your experience is not going to be my experience I hear these stories that Powell and Joey and Brenda relate and they're not part of my journey I sometimes wish God would speak to me from the back seat of the car but usually when God speaks like that you're in trouble so be careful what you wish for right so God treats us all differently and that's an important thing to embrace but there's another side to it and that is that sometimes we don't hear from God because we're not humbling ourselves we think we're okay we think we have it all together we think we're pretty good and the answer to that is very evident you get down on your knees and you say God I really want you and I want to find whatever it is that you have for me I want in my life because I want to be free to love you and I want to be free to love my neighbor and I want my life to bear fruit and those kind of prayers God will always hear maybe not in the way that you think maybe not in the kind of time frame did you think but God is more anxious to reach you and me then we are prepared to receive him and if there's anything that I look forward to in the new year it's the fact that I believe with all my heart that God is going to continue to reveal himself to our hearts in ways that we have not yet begun to imagine and when the light shines in those places of our hearts the light will go on and we will have a renewed determination and faith that God is alive that he loves us with an everlasting love and that he is worth everything that we can give him for the glory of his name because in the Lord our labor will not be in vain will you join me in exercising that kind of faith going forward knowing that he's far more able to do far more abundantly than all that we can ask or think. 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