well hey everybody welcome to Eaglebrook Church my name is Drew along with Marcia and Madison and the rest of the team we're going to lead you all in a few songs here today so I invite all of you to stand and join us and whether you are here in the room or joining us online we're so glad that you all chose to be with us today because we believe something powerful happens when we gather as a group of people and sing the songs that we're going to sing today cuz these songs and these words remind us of the goodness and the faithfulness of God who loves us a God who's for us and a God who is doing a new thing in each and every one of our lives so we want to invite all of you to join in and sing along with us here today so here we go our church higher away is calling a wave of Change is coming next for me to leave behind my failures i will never be the same a better life is waiting no turning back you're the only way to leave behind the only I will never be the same jesus come do a new thing in me all I am is for you now only come have your way come have your way in come do a new thing we thank you Lord the new beginning is here now i hear your voice shouting out my name i'm moving forward to your way i will never be the same jesus come do a new thing in me all I am is real now only come have your way come have your way in me come to a new thing yes Lord how you how you are come on sing clear take the world and give me Jesus and have my heart and bring the new in with me take the world and give me Jesus come do a new thing yes do a new thing lord we say take the world to give you Jesus have my heart and bring the new and me take the world and give me Jesus come do a new thing come do a new thing jesus come do a new thing in the higher is now only come have your way come have your way yes jesus come a new thing in me all I am is now come have your way come have your way with me come to a new Give him praise and give glory he is worthy christ is my firm foundation the rock on which I stand when everything around me is shaking I've never been more glad that I put my faith in Jesus he's never let me down he's faithful through generations so why would he fail now he won't he won't i've still got joy in chaos i've got peace that makes no sense i won't be going under i'm not held by my own strength cuz I built my life on Jesus and he's never let me down he's faithful in every season so why would he fail now he won't he won't he won't fail he won't fail he won't he won't he won't f He won't christ is my foundation the rock can't wish I everything around me i've never been more glad that I put my faith in Jesus he's never let me down he's faithful through generations why would he be now he won't he won't he won't fail he won't fail rain came when blue was built on you i'm safe with you i'm going to make it through rain came when blue but my house was built on you i'm safe with you i'm going to make it through we came we blew my house was built on you i'm save you i'm going to make it through yeah I'm going to make it through cuz I've seen you stronger yeah I'm going to make it through cuz my house is built on you christ is my perfect foundation the rock shall see everything around me shaking i'll never be more glad that I put my faith in Jesus he's never let me down he's faithful to generations so why would he be he he won't He won't He won't pay he won't fail you were the word at the beginning one with God the Lord most high your hidden glory in creation now revealed that you are Christ what a beautiful name it is what a beautiful name it is the name of Jesus Christ my king what a beautiful name it is nothing compares to this what a beautiful name it is the name of Jesus you didn't want heaven without us so Jesus you brought heaven down our sin was great your love was greater what could separate us now what a wonderful name it is what a wonderful name it is the name of Jesus Christ my king what a wonderful name it is nothing compares to this what a wonderful name it is the name of Jesus what a wonderful name it is the name of Jesus death could not hold you the veil tore before you you silence the boast of sin and brave the heavens are roaring the praise of your glory for you are raised to life again you have no rival you have no equal now and forever God will reign yours is the kingom yours is the glory yours is the name above all names what a powerful name it is what a powerful name it is the name of Jesus Christ my king what a powerful name it is nothing can stand against what a powerful name it is the name of Jesus you have no rival you have no equal now and forever God to reign yours is the kingom yours is the glory yours is the name above all names what a powerful name it is what a powerful name it is the name of Jesus Christ what a powerful name it is oh nothing can stand against what a powerful name it is the name of Jesus what a powerful name it is the name of Jesus what a powerful name it is the name of Jesus jesus you are faithful you are good and you're worthy of our praise today you're worthy of our praise forever lord I thank you for the power that is in the name of Jesus power that breaks chains power that can break off anxiety fear depression loneliness sickness god I pray that if there are some of us in this place who have a hard time believing that God would you meet us there would you remind us that that is a truth that we can cling to in each and every season each and every circumstance god I thank you for the gift of your son Jesus that you sent him to earth to live a perfect life and willingly die on a cross on our behalf what a gift that is that we don't deserve we could never earn it but God you give so freely you're so rich in mercy and grace and kindness so we thank you for that thank you for this time for this place where we can come together sing the name of Jesus cuz you are worthy you are so so worthy Lord god would you draw near to us would you speak to us we love you so much we pray all of this in the name of Jesus amen amen everybody thanks for singing you can go ahead take a seat hey everyone and welcome to Eaglebrook online and I want to start with a shout out and a welcome to our new viewing group that is launching today in Madison Wisconsin we're so excited for you guys and we can't wait to see how God uses your group to impact your community for those that don't know a viewing group is when people gather to watch our online services together and most of the time they meet outside of the Twin Cities in all kinds of locations like in a living room or a movie theater or an office building and in Madison they're meeting in a hotel conference room so if you live in that area be sure to go and check them out you can find a map of all of our open viewing groups on our website we launched viewing groups a few years ago and I'm still regularly blown away by the thousands of people who are attend our church this way and I was emailing back and forth the other day with a family who lives in Wisconsin in the summers and Florida in the winters and he told me that when they're in Wisconsin they attend the Grantsburg viewing group and when they're in Florida they attend the Fort Myers viewing group and over the years we've had a lot of people express interest in starting a group in their community and often there's some hesitation because they aren't sure of what will make their group successful and so what makes a successful small group now we've learned a lot about the factors that tend to lead to success like starting groups in a place where people have heard of Eaglebrook but it's too far for them to drive on a regular basis we've also noticed that a lot of times groups that start with two or more leaders have an easier time growing especially in the beginning and it's helpful to have someone else owning that group with you but then there are groups that defy all of the odds and are successful without any of those things we have a private group in Phoenix Arizona that isn't even listed on our website because they meet in a community room and only people who live in that community can go which is only about 100 units and coincidentally this man named Jeff started it and started inviting people and has seen consistently 15 to 20 people attending each week and why these groups are important is because there are people who live in your community who might not watch online but would show up if they were invited to a group there are people that have never heard of our church who have been invited put their faith in God and have been baptized and God is using these groups in some amazing ways and if you want to start a group of your own and you want to learn more about what that looks like we would love to meet with you and answer any questions that you might have just head to eaglebrookchurch.com click on the viewing group tile and while you're on our website you can also check out all of our Easter service times because Easter is just a couple of weeks away find a service that works for you and your crew and as you're doing that I'm going to hand it over to Jason for today's message does Christianity still make sense today i have some close friends that have gotten into their faith and I can definitely see the benefits of it christianity has kind of become something that is used as an excuse or almost like a weapon for negative behavior and I think things have been misinterpreted with it and I don't think it started out that way and I think it can be used as something really positive as well science is a way to understand God's creation and maybe even use our knowledge to help alleviate suffering and heal people i don't think that everything is as concrete as we think it is i think a lot of people would go crazy if there's like this massive question and what happens after death i'm kind of the opinion of I'll find out when I get there i think it helps to make life easier for some people and make it make more sense than not believing in something i want to begin today with an observation human beings are prone to follow a crowd in 2019 MIT Tech Review published an article titled the hipster effect why all nonconformists end up looking alike the premise of the article was that hipsters in their attempt to differentiate themselves from the world end up looking just like each other after they released this article MIT Tech Review received a notice that they were being sued a guy said that he had they had used his image in the article without his consent there was a picture of him he said in the article and he did not sign anything and allowed them to do that so right away MIT Tech Review is confused they call Getty Images to see if the model that they had used had signed a consent form turned out that he had and through the process of digging into this here's what they found the guy who was suing them was not the guy who was in the picture remember the premise of the article all hipsters look alike you can't make this up when they talked to the guy afterwards and they said "Hey that's that's actually not you." He's like "Oh." He goes "I got that same hat and that same shirt." He said "Even my family members thought it was me." Human beings are prone to follow a crowd now that's no big deal when it comes to things like fashion and music and pop culture but spiritually speaking it can be incredibly dangerous look at what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7 he said "You can enter God's kingdom only through the narrow gate." Years ago I was talking to a group of high school students about this verse and a few of them were a little takenback by this idea that Jesus was the narrow gate and that the only way to the kingdom of God was through him and they're like "Well what about all the millions of Buddhists and Muslims and agnostics and atheists who have lived throughout the years i mean Jesus is the only way you're saying that he is the narrow gate and the only way to God's kingdom and part of what I pointed out to them was notice who's speaking in this verse it's not Christians see they were interpreting it like Christians kind of going around going "We're right you're wrong we're better you're worse." But it's not Christians who are speaking in this verse it's Jesus himself he says "I am the narrow gate it's the only way to God's kingdom." Jesus goes on in the next verse and he says the highway to hell if you are a child of the 80s maybe you're kind of new to the Bible you're like is he quoting AC/DC pretty sure it might be the other way around the highway to hell is broad and its gate is wide for the many who choose the easy way but the gateway to life is small Jesus says and the road is narrow and only a few ever find it so Jesus says there's a wide gate that leads to a wide road and there is a narrow gate that leads to a narrow road but the question I've always wondered is what makes the narrow road narrow i mean does does God make it really difficult to get on the narrow road and he's like "Hey if if you want to get on that road here's like a checklist of 10 things you need to do." Not at all in fact the narrow road is available to every single human being who's ever walked on planet Earth and the way to get on the narrow road is actually quite simple the Bible says "Confess with your lips and believe in your heart and you will be saved you will be on the narrow road." But sadly many people choose to walk a different road they choose the wide road and spiritually speaking they are following the crowd today we are continuing on in a series called Does Christianity Still Make Sense and today's topic is one that I have personally felt led to teach on but I also think it's the most difficult in this series it's a topic that Jesus spoke on more than almost any other single topic just think about that for a moment of all the things that Jesus did teach on all the things that Jesus could have taught about this is one of the ones he taught about the most and yet it's a topic we don't like to talk about at all the topic is hell cs Lewis once said this about hell he said "There's no doctrine I would more willingly remove from Christianity than hell." Like like if I if I could if I could take something that makes me uncomfortable that I would rather not have it there or to talk about it he says I would remove it but then he says this in the next sentence but it has the full support of scripture and especially our Lord Jesus Christ when Jesus talked about hell he used the valley of Hinnan as a metaphor it was also known as Gehenna gehenna was a trash dump outside of the city walls of Jerusalem where they would burn trash all day and all night in the Old Testament it was a place where kings would sacrifice their own kids to false gods like Baal and Moolok but now during the time of Jesus it had been turned into a trash dump the fire never went out the smell was horrific and so when Jesus talked about hell he used words and phrases like an outer darkness a place of weeping and nashing 20 different times he used the word fire to describe hell and he said "The fire never goes out." Was Jesus meaning those metaphors to be taken literally maybe but here's what I know about metaphors when you're using a metaphor you're doing it because human words and human language can't convey what you're trying to convey you you can't even put it into words and so you try to use imagery and pictures to convey what you're wanting to convey and so what Jesus is saying here whether the they're literal or literal or not is hell is horrific i want to pause here for just a moment and think about the fact that people that we know that there are probably people in your life and in my life who are going to die and go to a place of outer darkness where they are going to be separated from God and his love forever do we believe that that's true some some people say "No I I I don't I don't believe that god is so full of love he's so mer so full of mercy i don't think there's any way that God could do that." They they'll maybe believe in hell and they'll say "Well you go to hell for a period of time and then you just cease to exist." But I want to take you to Matthew chapter 25 where Jesus teaches a parable and he talks about the sheep and the goats the sheep are righteous the goats are unrighteous and here's what he says to the unrighteous he says "They will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous will go to eternal life." The Greek word that is used here for eternal in both places is the same in other words eternal life is forever eternal punishment is forever as well how could God do that when we think about God we think about God is love we think that God is full of mercy he's full of grace and all of those things are true we love those things about God and they're all true but that's not all that's true the Bible says that God is also a God of justice speaks about his wrath against sin and against sinners how do those two things come together how can he be loving and merciful and gracious and at the same time justice and wrath against sin maybe this analogy will help you imagine if you're a parent and something horrific happens to one of your kids talking about abuse something worse would you want justice to be done absolutely you would we are made in the image of God there is something in us that is hardwired to desire justice but what happens if the person who committed that crime or that horrific act against your son or daughter what if it seems like they got away nobody caught them they didn't experience any consequences for what they did hell means that justice will happen even if they don't experience consequences here on earth there will be justice in fact I would argue that God cannot be loving and good if he's not at the same time also a God of justice and wrath god can't cover his ears and pretend he doesn't hear the cries of the oppressed and the abused god can't just turn the other way and let sin go unpunished if God is going to be truly loving and truly good then he also has to be a God of justice as well now you might wonder like well why doesn't he make it more obvious then i mean this this is pretty serious we're talking about you're going to spend your eternity in one of two places seems like kind of a big deal why doesn't God make himself more obvious why doesn't God just write a note in the sky hey Joe believe in me or you're going to go to hell and Joe's like okay I got it now like that was pretty clear i don't know the answer to that question but I think it has something to do with love you can't force someone to love you love must be freely given and not only must love be freely given but there has to be an element of commitment when when I asked my wife Sarah to marry me when we were dating I went through a phase of like you ask questions she was asking questions i was asking questions are we going to be compatible with each other is this marriage going to work but at some point I had to go buy a ring and get down on my knee it wasn't going to work 50 years later to be like you know I just still have a few questions like I don't think she was going to be there listening to me in that moment she would have moved on at some point that there has to be a moment of commitment here's what I know about what Jesus said there is no middle road there's a wide road that leads to destruction there's a narrow road that leads to life there is no nar middle road there there is no road where you just go your whole life going "Wow I don't know i mean I just I'll figure that out later i guess when I get there I'll just kind of you know figure that out." At some point there has to be a commitment and so today I want to ask three questions related to this issue of hell and the first question I want to ask is this at the end of my life what will my greatest regret be at the end of your life what will your greatest regret be jesus told a parable one time about a rich man who dies he goes to hell there's a beggar named Lazarus and this beggar used to beg at the rich man's table he dies and goes to heaven and he's next to Abraham from the Bible lazarus and Abraham in heaven and this rich man in hell and in this unprecedented moment this rich man is allowed to look from hell into heaven and he sees Lazarus this beggar who used to beg for food at his table next to Abraham and so he cries out to them and Abraham responds back and Abraham says this "Between us and you a great chasm has been set in place." so that those who want to go from here to you cannot nor can anyone cross over from there to us." The rich man answered "Then I beg you father," he's speaking to Abraham "send Lazarus to my family for I have five brothers let him warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment." Abraham replied "They have Moses and the prophets let them listen to them and I want you to remember this part because I'm going to come back to this no Father Abraham this is the rich man crying out he goes "But if someone from the dead goes to them they will repent." And Abraham says back to them "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead." Now notice how this began abraham says "There's a great chasm between us you can't go from where you are to where we are hell is not a place where you pay for your sins and then eventually you make your way to heaven the Bible says it's appointed once for us to die then face judgment then that's it there there there's no crossing over there's no moving from hell to heaven or heaven to hell you are where you are for all of eternity and notice what this rich man says to Lazarus and Abraham he says "Go and warn my brothers." I've had one dream that I can remember from when I was in like my college years and I I don't think all dreams are like spiritual in nature but this is one I remember i was at the Metrodome and if you you're if you're younger you're like "What's the Metrodome?" Like think US Bank Stadium vikings used to play there but I was at the Metrodome in the dream watching the Minnesota Twins play with some of my high school friends and as we're at the Metrodome Jesus returns and so the roof of the dome goes off here comes Jesus you know descending from the heavens and I start rising up in my seat the Bible says that when Christ returns that we who are alive in Christ will rise up to meet him and so in the dream I'm rising up to meet Jesus and I look around the stadium and there's others who are rising up to meet him as well and I'll never forget looking down the row there was this man like seated down here and he was rising up with me and we looked at each other and it was like like can you imagine that moment it was like this is real this is true like this is happening and we're just grinning and we were so joyful and then I had this moment where I looked back and I looked down and there was a couple of my high school friends who were still seated in their seats and they weren't rising up and they had this look on their face that was a mixture of fear and confusion and I have never forgotten that dream that's kind of what the rich man is saying to Abraham and Lazarus please go warn my brothers is there someone in your life that you need to warn i mean you just been kind of putting this off and you haven't really talked to him and you haven't really had a chance is there someone that you need to warn think about this wouldn't the greatest lie that Satan could ever tell be to convince people that everybody just goes to heaven i mean even if you don't believe in these kinds of things just think about this logically wouldn't one of the greatest lies that Satan could ever tell would be to convince people everybody's going to go to heaven because we would lose all urgency we would we would have no motivation no urgency to tell people about Jesus because we'd be like "Well we're all going to go to the same place i mean different roads they all lead to the same spot it it doesn't really matter you just live your life i'll live mine." We would lose all sense of urgency in the 1800s there was a man named Charles Peace who was sentenced to be hung and so they sent the chaplain to visit him and the chaplain kind of started going through his normal you know checklist and he's like "Is there anything you want to confess to God and anything you want to get right with God about?" And and if finally Charles Peace stopped him and he looked at the chaplain and he said "Do you believe this stuff?" The chaplain's like "Well yeah believe what?" He said like hell eternity this do you really believe this because if I really believed it I would walk across the entire nation of England barefoot even if the nation was covered in glass just to tell one person about Jesus Christ we don't have to walk barefoot across glass all we have to do is walk across the culde-sac all we have to do is walk across a hallway walk over to someone's desk walk over to someone's locker walk across the street we We don't have to walk barefoot across class we just have to walk a few feet is there anybody in your life that you need to warn eugene Peterson is an author who's written the message translation of the Bible and he tells a story in one of his books about his first ever Christian convert it was a kid named Garrison John's garrison was this bully and he used to bully Eugene every single day i mean we found out Eugene was a Christian his bullying got even worse and so Eugene writes this in his book he said "I arrived home most days bruised and humiliated my mother told me that this had always been the way of Christians in the world and I'd better get used to it she also said I was supposed to pray for him one day I was with seven or eight friends when Garrison caught up with us in the afternoon and started jabbing me and that's when it happened something snapped for a moment the Bible verses disappeared from my consciousness i grabbed Garrison and to my surprise and his I was stronger than he was i wrestled to the him to the ground sat on his chest pinned his arms down with my knees he was helpless it was too good to be true i hit him in the face with my fists it felt good so I hit him again blood started spurting from his nose i said to Garrison "Say uncle." He wouldn't say it i hit him again then my Christian training reasserted itself i said "Say you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior." He wouldn't say it i hit him again i tried again i said "Say I believe in Jesus as my Lord and Savior." And he said it garrison John's was my first Christian convert we would maybe love that at times we would love to make someone believe i mean wouldn't you just love to like grab your brother and just be like "Just believe." And he's like "Okay we we would love that." But it doesn't work like that i think that's partially what the rich man was saying when he saw Abraham and Lazarus when he said "Hey just tell my brothers if they hear about me someone who's died who's you know come back to life well then they're surely going to believe." And do you remember what Abraham said abraham goes "No they won't." And I remember reading that and I'm like "Well why wouldn't you want him to come back from the dead so that his brothers would believe?" I mean surely if if he came back from the dead his brothers are going to believe and then I remembered who's telling this story it's Jesus jesus is going to die he's going to resurrect back to life and still there are going to be people who do not believe who is that person that you at least need to tell this leads into my second question and it's more personal it's this what if someone I love dies and I'm not sure where they are now i got an email from a woman very recently and she didn't even know I was talking about this this topic but she was telling me about her daughter and her daughter when she was younger you know she went to church and she was went on missions trips and I think she had been involved starting some Bible studies at her school i mean it really seemed like she knew God and then in her 20s she moved out east and she started to drift from God and she said to her mom "I no longer believe in Jesus." And then she died and this mom wrote me this email and I'm not going to read the entire email but I'll just read one sentence she said this "Until I can settle this in my mind I will have no peace i can't even think about her without immense pain because I fear that she may be in hell maybe you can relate maybe you have a mom or a dad a brother a sister son a daughter and either they've passed on or they're still alive but you just don't know and I won't have the right words to match the emotion of that email but I was talking to my wife Sarah about it and she said "That is my greatest fear as a mom." And she said "There's actually a story in the Bible that has given me some encouragement." And when I tell you what the story is you're why why was that encouraging but it's a story of when God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah and he goes to Abraham and he says "I'm going to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of their evil and because of their wickedness." And Abraham starts to pray and he starts to plead with God he says "If you could find 50 righteous people in the entire city wouldn't you spare those cities for the sake of those 50 righteous people?" And God responds back he says "Yeah I I would spare the entire two cities if I could find 50 righteous people." But the problem he cannot find 50 righteous people and then they start negotiating the number and it gets down to about 10 and Abraham says "Would you spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah if you could find 10 righteous people?" And God's like "Yeah I I would spare the cities for just 10 righteous people." But he can't find 10 righteous people and so God destroys the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah but before he does he sends an angel to the house of Lot lot was Abraham's nephew and the angel warns Lot 'Get out god's going to bring judgment on this city you and your family get out and here's the verse that kind of wraps it all up verse 29 says "But God listened to Abraham's request and kept Lot safe removing him from the disaster." If you read through the book of Genesis you realize Lot is not a righteous man at this point in his life Lot probably worships pagan false gods he is not a righteous man but God spares him why the verse says it's because he listened to Abraham's request and it was just a reminder the power of our prayers now praying for someone doesn't save that person they have to put their faith in Jesus Christ but it was a reminder to be praying for your mom and dad be praying for your brother and sister be praying for your son or your daughter now in the case of this woman I'm almost certain she prayed a lot for her daughter and so what I said to her was this here's my hope my great hope is at the end of your daughter's life that like the thief on the cross next to Jesus that she cried out to him and she was saved that's my great hope but I said 'Either way here's what I what you can trust and this is what's going to give you peace it's trusting in the character of God that that we don't know but what we do know is who God is we know his wisdom we know his character we know who he is and we can trust in him here's the third question what if I'm worried that I'm going to hell what if you're worried that you're going to hell was talking to someone and they were kind of addicted to pornography and at one point kind of jokingly but sort of not they said I I'm going to hell and then I talked to a guy who had committed an affair and rather seriously he said I I think I'm going to hell my father-in-law is a recovering addict he's sober now but when he was in the middle of his drug and alcohol addiction I remember one time he said "I I had these thoughts that that I'm just I'm destined for hell." And maybe that's how you feel today maybe there's something from your past something from your life and you say "There's just no way God could forgive me i feel like this is where I'm headed." I want to read to you what the Bible says in Romans chapter 5:8 but God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were still sinners Christ died for us while we were still sinners not after we had like cleaned up our life and gotten everything presentable to God while we were still sinners Christ died for us and in the very next verse it says this since we have now been justified by his blood how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him through Christ the word justified means declared not guilty the Bible says that when we repent of our sins when we put our faith in Jesus Christ when we believe in him we are saved and we can live with that assurance now does that mean that there's not going to be consequences for your behavior here on earth no it doesn't mean that there will be consequences does it mean that we didn't deserve punishment no we did deserve punishment in fact every single human being deserves punishment every single one of us deserves hell the Bible says the wages of sin is death that's physical death it's also spiritual death and separation as well that's what we all deserved on our own but Jesus Christ made a way jesus canceled our debt he paid the penalty we could not pay for ourselves that while we were still sinners he died for us galatians 3:13 says it this way christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us if you have trusted in Christ then you need to know and live with the assurance of eternal life but I want to speak to those of you right now who aren't sure that if I were to ask you if you died tomorrow on a scale of 1 to 10 how confident would you be that you're going to be in heaven you would not answer a 10 in fact when I ask people this question here's the most common response I get seven eight i don't you know I'm I'm pretty good i'm a good person you I'm pretty religious i've done some good things i mean I'm pretty I'm seven or an eight I would say for sure and I just want to speak to you if you are not a 10 and you're kind of like I I I'm not totally sure hebrews chapter 9 verse 27 says this people are destined to die once and after that face judgment that that's it see we would all love to believe we're going to live to 85 years old and then die in our sleep right you you you believe that right like in your head you're like I'm going to live to 85 you know it's 87 then I'll die in my sleep i think that too when I picture my death I'm in the hospital room my kids are all around me i'm saying my final goodbyes but that might not happen you might be driving along a two-lane road and the person over there swerves over boom you You might feel something and you're like "What's that?" You go to the doctor and find out "Well that's it." Have you ever been walking at like an old house on a front porch and some of the wood had rotted out and you're walking along just kind of fine on the front porch or the deck and then all of a sudden you step on a piece of wood that's kind of rotten out boom down you go that that that's life we we all think we're going to live this long life and then die peacefully but you might not you you might be walking along just fine and then all of a sudden boom down you go and you're in eternity and what I want to say to some of you is wake up why are you putting this off why are you just floating through your life just kind of drifting along going "Well I'll figure that out when I get there." A person in hell would do anything for the opportunity that you have right now which is life and breath and the opportunity to cry out to Jesus Christ and ask him to save you see I don't think people want to go to hell that's such a flippant thing that people say these days people I don't want to worship Jesus i'd rather go to hell oh I I don't want to go to heaven with all those boring religious people i want to go to hell with my friends that is such a flippant way of looking at eternity and there's even some in Christian circles where people like "Oh well people go to hell because they want to." I actually don't see that in the Bible bible talks about people being thrown into the lake of fire you're not thrown if you want to go on your own there's people in the Bible who start listing off all of their religious good works and God says "I never knew you." And they're like "Wait what when when the rich man sees Lazarus and Abraham he's not like "I'm doing great this is where I kind of rather be." No he he he doesn't want to be there at all i don't think people want to go to hell but we get so distracted we get so caught up in our job and our boyfriend and our girlfriend and school and sports and all the things that we have going on that we just forget that this life is not all there is and we drift and we're shortsighted and we put it off but Jesus is so clear that you must be born again the Bible speaks of two births when you came out of your mother's womb but then when you're spiritually reborn when you put your trust in Christ that's a second birth but the Bible also speaks of two deaths there's your physical death there's also the death that you experience if you're apart from Christ and apart from God and that's the death and separation from God for all of eternity in a place called hell i heard a pastor once say "Do you want to be born twice and die once or do you want to be born once and die twice?" I would so much rather be born twice and die once and so for some of you here today I want to give you the opportunity to say "God I repent of my sin i put my faith and my trust in Jesus i am trusting in him for my salvation." And if you pray this prayer with me I even feel just like stupid saying this but would you text the word begin into 7788 and I don't I don't even like texting right now but we want to give you some free resources that will help you know God this isn't just fire insurance of like okay I did that now I'm I'm good to go and we want you to know God we want you to experience joy and peace here and now to walk with him daily throughout your life to experience the plans and the purposes that he has for you both now and for eternity and so we want to send you those resources for free would you join me across our campuses as we pray together god there might be someone here today who is not sure and it's not that like they're hate you or they're like living their life opposed it just they just got distracted and busy with other things and forgot that this life is not all there is god I'm praying this prayer right now that they would wake up that they wouldn't put this off any longer that we don't know what tomorrow brings God and that they would get right with you and so right now in the quietness of their mind they're just going to pray this prayer with me god I confess my sins to you i turn from them i believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty I could not pay for myself and I receive that God right now as a free gift a free gift of salvation not by my works but because of what Jesus did on the cross I receive his grace and the promise the assurance of eternal life and God if there's someone here who knows you and has trusted you but is having a hard time receiving your forgiveness God I pray that they would know that it's by the blood of Jesus Christ it's by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that they are saved and that their sins have been removed as far as the east is from the west and God maybe there's someone in our life who we need to talk to in love in compassion we need to sit down this week and just say "Man I love you and I want to talk to you about eternity." God would you use us this week would you give us just the right words and just the right tone at just the right time in only the way that you can we pray this in Jesus name amen next week is the topic of suffering and I think it is the most relevant for everyone in our church you will not want to miss it we'll see you then