Illegitimate Children

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Hebrews chapter 12.
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We have been studying through the book of Hebrews verse by verse over the last couple of years and we've gained a lot of insight into what the writer wanted his hearers to know about Christ and the Gospel and about how we are supposed to live in light of that Gospel.
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The main focus of this text, the book of Hebrews, is to encourage people to remain steadfast in their faith.
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During the first century a lot of pressure was on believers to reject Jesus Christ, especially among Hebrew people, Jewish people.
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There was social, political, economic, and religious influences that were forcing people to abandon their fidelity to Christ.
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And the writer is making this point to them throughout the book of Hebrews.
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Christ is the Son of God.
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He is Himself divine.
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His atonement is the only true atonement and only in Him can you ever know salvation.
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Why then would you retreat from Christ and turn to anyone or anything else? That's really the book of Hebrews, the crux of it, the thematic thrust of the book is why would you turn from Christ and go to anything else when only Christ can save? Well over the past few weeks, prior to Resurrection Sunday, of course last week we looked at Luke 24, but this week we're back in Hebrews and again prior to Resurrection Sunday we had been looking at chapter 12.
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In this chapter the writer is focusing on how believers will face difficulties in this life and particularly difficulties for following Christ and how we ought to receive it in the same way a child receives discipline from a loving father.
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We ought to appreciate that our difficulties force us to rely more upon God and thus spur us along to greater spiritual maturity in very much the same way that our fathers disciplined us as children and forced us to physical and emotional maturity.
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Now, in the midst of this discussion of discipline, the writer makes a statement which I believe deserves a more in-depth focus.
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So this morning our message will be focused on just one verse from chapter 12 and that is verse 8.
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So I invite you to stand, we always stand to give honor and reverence to the reading of the Word of God and we're only going to read this one verse and then we will pray that God will move on us and guide us in this message.
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Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 8 says, If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
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Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to be about the business of studying your Word.
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We thank you that you have brought us to this hour and this time of study.
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And Lord, I would pray that you would keep me from error for the sake of your people and for the sake of my conscience.
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Lord, keep me from error.
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And Father, at the same time, Lord, I pray that you would open up the hearts of the people to hear the word, that it might go and plant a seed that would grow forth and produce fruit.
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Lord, all these things we ask in Jesus name and for his sake.
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Amen.
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Every once in a while I will title a sermon and after having done so, I'll think, you know, that's probably going to make them think I'm talking about something a lot different than what the actual crux of the message is going to be.
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And I realize when you see a title like illegitimate children, this probably causes some question as what the content of the sermon will be.
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But as you probably noted in our reading of the sermon text this morning, it comes straight out of the scripture that we are studying.
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The Bible uses the term illegitimate to describe a person who would call themselves a child of God, but yet are not legitimately, truthfully, actually, whatever word you want to use there, they are not genuine children of God.
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In short, an illegitimate child from God's perspective is what we would call in our modern vernacular, a false convert.
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Someone who has a false convert is someone who by verbal profession has identified themselves as a follower of Jesus Christ.
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He or she has also received, probably received the ordinances of baptism, have received the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, and likely has even joined a church and may even be active in that church.
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Yet in spite of all of those outward trappings, his or her heart has not been converted.
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This person, though a verbal professor of Christ, is not truly saved.
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Now, I want to read to you just a few quotes from some very important men in regard to the gospel, some very important pastors on this subject of false conversion.
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Because I do tend to think that even though I think we all think it's possible, I tend to think we all sort of overlook just how widespread this problem really is.
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It really is a very serious issue.
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A.W.
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Tozer, a very famous theologian and pastor said, It is my opinion that tens of thousands of people, if not millions, have been brought into some kind of religious experience by accepting Christ and they have not been saved.
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Dr.
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D.
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James Kennedy.
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I don't know how many of you are familiar with Dr.
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Kennedy.
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Dr.
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Kennedy was a wonderful pastor, wonderful expositor, wonderful theologian and was a I believe it was the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church.
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And he was for years just a great voice for theological conservatism.
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And he recently died.
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But one of the things he said prior to his death was that the vast majority of people, and again, this is his opinion, but I want you to hear what his opinion was, because I think it does bear weight on this matter.
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He says, The vast majority of people who are members of churches in America today are not Christians.
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I say that without the slightest fear of contradiction.
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I base it on empirical evidence of 24 years of examining thousands of people.
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But what could give someone like Dr.
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D.
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James Kennedy, what could give him a reason to make such an outstanding claim? Such a powerful claim.
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Well, maybe we should just look at the numbers because sometimes the proof is just right there in front of us if we have eyes to see.
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In November of 1970, a number of churches combined for a convention in Fort Worth, Texas and secured 30,000 decisions.
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What they call decisions.
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That means someone came forward, somebody filled out a card, somebody said a sinner's prayer, somebody said they made a decision for Christ.
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30,000 of them.
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Six months later, a committee was brought together, a follow-up committee was brought together to see where all those 30,000 people had ended up.
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And they found only of the 30,000, 30 of 30,000 were still continuing active, living out their Christian faith.
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30 of 30,000.
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It's not pitiful.
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It's shameful.
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Charles Hackett, the Division of Home Missions National Director for the Assemblies of God, churches in the United States said this.
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He said, quote, a soul at the altar does not generate much excitement in our circles because we realize approximately 95 out of every 100 will not become integrated into the church.
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In fact, most of them will not return for a second visit.
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End quote.
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He said, we don't get excited.
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Why get excited? Yeah, we can do really good at getting people down to the altar.
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We can do really good at getting people to come and get on their knees and repeat after me and say, dear Jesus, dear Jesus, I repent of my sin, I repent of my sin.
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You know, we've all seen it.
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And they do really good at doing that.
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But he said 95 out of 100, 95 out of 100 will not even get integrated into the church and some of those won't even return for a second visit.
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You see, the problem is that many churches have removed the gospel.
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That's the problem is that many churches have taken and replaced what the Bible says is the gospel and they've replaced it with a Jesus sales pitch.
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Jesus has become a commodity.
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He's become the as seen on TV product of the church where we dim the lights, we pump up the music, we get everyone excited to have this emotional experience.
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And just like spending $19.95 on the latest ShamWow, somebody is real excited to take Jesus into their heart that very moment only to realize they had buyer's remorse.
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Many people, including some pastors, feel like saying a sinner's prayer is all that is involved in the Christian conversion experience.
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And if they can get someone to just say that prayer or just sign a card or just raise their hand, please, everyone, close your eyes so we can have them raise their hand.
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And nobody has to look at them.
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We want to make this as easy as possible.
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And we want to make sure that the baptistry is nice and warm and ready to go so we can make this experience codified in their baptism.
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And of course, we want to make a child sized baptism.
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We want to make one that looks like a firetruck so that when the children go under the water, all of the bells and whistles start going off.
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And if you think I made that up, I'm not.
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There was a church up north that built a firetruck baptistry so that during their vacation Bible school, they could get as many baptisms as possible.
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Because who in their right mind at six years old doesn't want to get in a firetruck baptismal pool? It's sad, but true.
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I must tell you that saying a prayer and making a statement and even being baptized have no power in and of themselves for conversion.
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The Holy Spirit must change our heart to bring about true faith and repentance.
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That is conversion.
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And conversion demonstrates itself in a life that is changed.
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God's church has become filled with people who have denied His righteousness and come to Him with hearts that have no intention of repentance.
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None at all.
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In fact, it's not even part of the Gospel presentation anymore.
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And again, I use Gospel there, lowercase g with quotation marks.
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It's not the true Gospel.
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But what comes about is somebody will give a 25-minute self-help presentation.
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They'll give a 25-minute on how you can be a better you.
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And the you that you are needs to just get a little better.
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And that's what we're going to tell you for 25 minutes.
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And in the last 30 seconds, they'll say, OK, say this prayer, repeat after me, come to Jesus, get wet, and all will be well.
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And that's what plays now as the modern Gospel.
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Well, this morning, we're going to look at the subject of false conversion.
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We're going to look at what the Bible says about it.
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We're going to look at actually three things that the Bible teaches about false conversion.
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Now, I don't always have three points in my sermons.
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Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.
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This morning, you just happened to catch me on one of those times that it just happened to fall that way.
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So this morning, we're going to actually be looking at three things that the Bible teaches about false conversion.
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Number one comes straight out of this text.
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And we're here in chapter 12, verse eight still.
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And that is a false convert is left without discipline.
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Read it again with me.
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It says, if you are left without discipline in which all have participated, and we need to qualify the word all there only to say that he's talking about all believers there, because that is the context of the message that he's giving.
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He's saying there all believers have received discipline from the Lord.
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And if you have not received discipline from the Lord, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
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And remember, I made this point a few weeks back, but just I don't ever want anyone to forget this.
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When we talk about being sons of God, that is not a universal statement like some have tried to make it out to be.
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Some people say everyone is a son of God.
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Everyone is a child of God.
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The Bible says that we become children of God through faith and repentance.
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We become children of God by the work of Christ.
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We are not born children of God.
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We become children of God.
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The Bible says Jesus came into his own and his own received him not, but to as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become children of God, who are born not of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of God.
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That is a very powerful, important truth that when we are saved, we are saved and we then become children of God.
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So thus, when he uses the term illegitimate children, he's saying that.
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He's saying they're not really God's children, though they may have that name, they may call themselves that.
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And here he says, if you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate and not sons.
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But what is the discipline that is in view here? What is the picture of discipline that is in view here? Well, if you've been with us for the past couple of weeks and you've been listening through the book of Hebrews, you will know that the context of what we're talking about here is specifically the discipline of having suffered for the gospel.
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If we had not suffered for the sake of the gospel, it is likely because we have not truly lived for the gospel.
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Jesus Christ's words are clear.
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He said these words.
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He said, if you follow me, the world will not receive you.
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In fact, he said the world will hate you because they first hated me.
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There's a bumper sticker and T-shirts that are very popular right now.
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And they say this, it says on the T-shirt, it says, I love Jesus.
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I just hate Christians or I love Jesus.
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I just can't stand his followers.
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Something like that.
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It's some kind of some kind of, you know, and really, it's really just a distortion of something that Mahatma Gandhi said.
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I think he said his name wrong, Mahatma Gandhi.
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Something that Gandhi said.
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Gandhi said, I love your Christ, but I do not like your Christians.
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But you see, the thing is this.
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Gandhi was wrong.
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And the people with the T-shirts and the bumper stickers are also wrong because they don't love Jesus.
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When they say, I love Jesus, I hate Christians.
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They're wrong because what they love is they love the Jesus that they have created in their own minds.
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They do not love the Jesus of Scripture.
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They do not love the Jesus who says that I am the way, the truth and the life.
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And no one comes to the Father but my me.
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In fact, they'll deny he ever said that because that doesn't fit into their view of who Jesus is.
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They hate the Jesus who says that God is going to at the end of the world, take some and take them to eternal life and some he will consign to eternal perdition because they don't believe in hell.
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But see what they forget is that the number one hell theologian in all the Bible is Jesus Christ.
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The person who spoke more about hell, the person who spoke more about eternal perdition, the person who spoke more about what hell will be like for those who remain in their sins was Jesus.
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So when you hear somebody say, I love Jesus, I hate Christians.
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Ask them this, do you believe in hell? Well, I don't know.
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Do you believe that Jesus is the exclusive way to heaven? Oh, no, no, no.
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Do you believe that Jesus will consign to hell all who reject him? No.
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Well, then you don't really love Jesus because that was the crux of his message.
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That was the foundation stone upon which the gospel is set that we who are sinners deserve to be consigned to the very condemnation of God.
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But yet he came as the only propitiation for our sins.
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The only way God can be appeased is through the sacrifice of his son.
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Appeasement and propitiation are similar words.
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And God is angry over sin.
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God is wrathful because of sin.
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But when Christ died on the cross, he took upon himself the punishment that God had reserved for his people's sins and he gave it to his son.
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That way his people could receive his righteousness and thus be saved.
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And people say, I love Jesus.
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No, they don't.
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They love a caricature that they have created and produced in their own mind.
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When they are faced with the Jesus of Scripture, they will do just like the unbelievers of Scripture.
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They will turn their face from him and they will not look upon him because they do not want to see who he really is.
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Likewise, the world will hate us because our existence demonstrates their own condemnation.
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As believers, we are a constant reminder of the coming judgment.
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They have suppressed the knowledge of the truth according to Romans chapter 1.
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And this is why the world is so anxious to silence believers.
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The world wants to silence believers because the world sits in condemnation at the word of believers.
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And when we face these times of persecution, of suffering for the gospel's sake, these are demonstrations of the legitimacy of our own faith.
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False converts do not stand up to persecution.
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In fact, Jesus said that.
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Jesus said when he talked about the seeds that get spread among the different types of soil.
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Do you know that whole story is about false conversion? When Jesus said a sower went out to sow his seed, and some of the seed fell along the path, and some of the seed fell along the weeds, and some of the seed fell along the stony ground, and some went into good soil.
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And that which fell along the path was eaten up by the birds, didn't even get a chance to take root.
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And that which fell among the rocky soil sprung up for a time, but didn't have any roots, so it died, it withered away.
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And that which sprung up among the weeds was choked out, because it didn't have any way to nourish itself.
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It didn't have any way to remain alive.
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And that which was put into good soil grew, and it bore fruit.
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And that's a picture of false conversion.
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Because you have some people whose heart is stony, and their heart is dead, and somebody tries to give them the gospel, and it repels like the hard ground of a pathway.
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And then you have others who receive it and say, yeah, that Jesus thing sounds pretty good.
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I don't know, maybe I need to get some health insurance.
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Maybe I need to worry about eternal life a little bit.
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Maybe I want to think about that for a second.
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I think it's a good idea, because I know a long time, maybe when I die it's going to be a long time.
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Maybe I need to think about that.
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And you know what? If you tell me if I say these words, and I do it just right, and I go get wet, and all these things happen, maybe I'll believe in Jesus, and maybe I'll have eternal life, and I can try that.
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And they try Jesus out, and then they find out, hey, wait a minute, you know, the world still looks pretty good to me, and I didn't really want the Jesus thing to begin with.
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I just wanted the eternal life.
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So now, hey, if you believe in how some people teach, that all you have to do is say these words, and you never, ever, ever again have to even concern yourself with your salvation, then I can go act however I want, cut the fool, do whatever I want to do.
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And then, still at the end of my life, have a pastor stand up and say, well, I know John was a good man, because when he was six years old, he said a sinner's prayer.
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We've all seen that.
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You know exactly what I'm talking about.
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The Bible says the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
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And if children, then heirs.
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Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we might also be glorified with Him.
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I've always thought that word, provided we suffer with Him, I always thought that was an interesting little part that the writer there, Paul, included, because he's saying there basically the same thing that the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews chapter 12, that if we are without discipline, if we have not suffered for the Gospel, if we have not stood with Christ opposing the world, that we have not had a genuine faith experience.
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Now, some of you might be asking, well, are you saying that suffering for Christ earns our salvation? Not at all.
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Not for a second.
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It's not a works-based righteousness.
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What I'm telling you is if you are a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, if your faith is genuine, you will experience in your life times where the world and you are at an absolute enmity because the world will see you as its antithesis.
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The absolute opposite.
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And because of that, you will experience times of persecution, times of suffering, times of discipline where your faith will have to mature to survive.
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And that's part of what Hebrews 12 is all about.
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Our faith matures in order to survive.
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We strengthen.
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We grow.
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Our roots become more firmly ingrained in the solidarity of the rock of Christ.
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If we live for Christ, the world will hate us.
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And it will be obvious.
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Some of our persecution will be more than others.
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As I've said many times, Pastor Nadar Tanghi in Iran who right now sits on death row waiting the day that he will be killed for the Gospel.
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Yes, his level of persecution is much greater than mine is because I live in a country that affords me the right to preach the Gospel freely, at least right now.
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We have the freedom to preach the Gospel freely.
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We don't know how long that will last because freedom is always, always hanging on the balance of sinful men who want to take it away.
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So we don't know how long we'll preach the Gospel freely.
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But we will.
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But we still experience persecution.
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We still experience hatred.
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We still experience name calling, people wanting to silence us, people wanting to shut us up.
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If we are truly speaking for Christ, we will have those who truly want our mouths stopped.
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And it's part of what we will experience as Christians.
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So that's one thing that is a reminder to us that we are children of God.
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That if we suffer, we have this encouragement that we are suffering with Christ.
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And that's an encouragement to our faith.
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The second thing that I wanted to bring up is that a false convert will try to justify sin instead of repenting of it.
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And this sort of gets away from the text in Hebrews, but I wanted to show you this over in Romans, because that's where we started our service this morning.
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You remember we opened up this morning in Romans 6.
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Turn there with me.
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Because if you think about it, think about the way the church is going today.
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And when I say the church, I'm talking about the church as a whole.
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I'm talking about the multitudes of local churches that make up what is called the church in America.
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And the things which are being allowed to be practiced today, which the Bible clearly calls sin, yet people are refusing to repent of.
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There are entire movements that are based in sin and they're based in debauchery and behavior that is opposed to the Gospel, yet they're calling themselves Christian groups.
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And beloved, that is an example of an entire movement that is based in false conversion.
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There are groups that would call themselves homosexual Christian groups.
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Christian homosexuals.
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I've often said that's like saying we're going to start a Christian liars group.
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Because if it's sin, it's sin.
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And the antithesis of sin is righteousness.
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And if we're Christians, we're called to righteousness.
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I've never once said that I think that homosexuality is by itself the one unforgivable sin or it's the sin of sins.
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And there's no way to save people who are lost in that particular condition.
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But I cannot stand before you and say homosexuality is not a sin because it is.
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The Bible is very clear that it is.
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And when we see a group that is lauding, exalting and encouraging such behavior, they have been encouraged at that same time a departure from the Gospel.
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And they're encouraging false conversion.
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Because they're saying, yes, you can be a convert and at the same time live in constant, habitual, unrepentant sin.
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And the Bible is very clear that that is not the case.
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In fact, Romans 6 and verse 1 says that very thing.
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What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? Do you know why Paul even asked that question? You all know on Wednesday night we're teaching through Romans.
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It's been a while because we're in Romans 12 now, so it's been a few years back.
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But if you remember why that question was even asked is Paul had been preaching the Gospel of Grace from chapter 3 of Romans all the way to chapter 5 of Romans.
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Paul preaches the Gospel of Grace.
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But then when he gets to chapter 6, he asks the question, does the Gospel of Grace mean that we can just continue in sin so that grace will increase? Because he's already said where sin increases, grace increases.
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He says, what does that mean? Should we should just continue to sin so that grace can abound? And then the Greek phrase there is may genoita, die no means.
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It actually means let it never be.
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May is the word for not and genoita to exist.
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May it not exist.
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That thought not exist in our minds that we would consider that we would just continue to sin so that grace would continue to increase.
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And he goes on to ask the question, how can we who have died to sin still live in it? And he talks about how we've been buried with Christ in baptism.
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Anytime a person makes the claim that they are comfortable in their sin because they are under grace, they demonstrate the lack of a changed heart.
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Now at the same time, I'm going to tell you, every one of you deals with sin in some way or another.
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Every one of you lives in the flesh.
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Every one of you has to battle with the flesh.
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But that's the difference between the believer and the unbeliever is the believer is in a battle and the unbeliever is in love with his sin.
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That's the difference.
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The believer is in a battle with his sin and the unbeliever is in love with his sin.
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It's just that's the main difference is we have been called to righteousness and our heart desires righteousness.
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And what these churches do by exalting this sinful behavior is they fall under the curse of Isaiah 5.20.
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Do you remember Isaiah 5.20? Isaiah 5.20 says, Woe to you who call evil good and good evil.
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Finally, number three, and we'll come to a conclusion.
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We've already seen that when we are believers in the Gospel, we will suffer for the Gospel.
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We've already seen that those who are false converts will try to justify their sin.
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That is the hallmark of false conversion is that somebody will not recognize and repent of their sin, but will try to justify it.
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In fact, just make a little addition to that.
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You all are familiar with church discipline.
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How does church discipline operate? Someone in the church sins.
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It is the responsibility of the one whom they've sinned against or somebody who has recognized their sin to go to them and say that they have sinned and try to get them to repent.
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Then if that doesn't work, you go to get two or three witnesses.
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You take those two or three witnesses with you.
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You then use those people to try to encourage that person to repent.
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If they still reject repentance, what do you do? You go and you take them before the church and have the church call for their repentance.
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And if they reject repentance, even at the weight of the pressure of the church, they are then to be removed from the membership of the church and put out of the church and to be treated, as Christ said, as a tax collector and a sinner.
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Why all that? Why all those steps? Because the idea is this, if someone has rejected repentance at the call of another believer and they've rejected repentance at the call of multiple believers and they've rejected repentance at the call of even the church, they've demonstrated that they are not a true convert, but actually a false convert because their sin has been shown to them and they have shown that they are unwilling to repudiate it.
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And that's the very hallmark of false conversion.
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And here's the thing that's most scary.
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Number three.
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Last one.
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The most scary of all of this that we're going to talk about today is that a false convert can appear to be genuine.
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Very genuine.
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Last place I'm going to ask you to turn in your Bible is to Matthew chapter 7.
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Many of you know this passage.
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You've probably repeated it before.
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You may even have learned it by heart.
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Some of you may know it, but not know where it is.
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I want to show you Matthew 7, verse 21.
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And I can honestly tell you of all of the passages of Scripture that to me are warnings, I find this one to be the most powerful of warnings.
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From the very words of Jesus Christ Himself, He says, "...not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
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Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness." Some people do good works associated with Christianity, yet they have never experienced the change of heart that comes from salvation.
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They obviously know who Jesus is, they call Him Lord, yet the epistle of James declares that even demons know and believe and shudder.
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This is where I think the biggest disconnect in the modern church has come.
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We have somehow combined belief in Jesus with faith in Jesus, and it's not necessarily the same thing.
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I believe in parachutes, but I ain't jumping on no airplane.
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I mean, it's just that simple.
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That's the simplest way I can make it.
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I believe it will work.
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I've seen it work.
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I've got a friend who was in the 82nd Airborne.
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He took like 30-something jumps during his time in the military.
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Not this guy.
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But you see, I believe it, but I do not have faith.
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And that's really the disconnect.
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In fact, the Reformers during the time of the Reformation, they made it very clear.
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They actually used three Latin words to describe what was called assensus in fiducia, and assensus in fiducia was knowledge of something and believing in it and actually trusting in it, faith in it.
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It's sort of the same thing I said about the parachute.
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They said there is a difference.
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Somebody can know Jesus is the Son of God, but not trust in Him as the Son of God.
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They can say, I know He's there.
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But not have faith in Him.
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Is there an example in Scripture of this? How about Judas Iscariot? Probably the greatest example of false conversion in all of Scripture because Judas was a hypocrite.
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He was a pretender.
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His desire was for riches and power choked out his affection for Christ.
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He knew Jesus had said who He was, but he didn't believe who He was.
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In fact, when a woman used expensive ointment to anoint the feet of Jesus, Judas complained that the ointment should have been sold and the money had been given to the poor.
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But yet, that wasn't what Judas wanted to do at all.
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The text tells us he wanted to keep the money for himself.
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He didn't believe Jesus was worth spending that on.
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In fact, he thought Jesus was only worth 30 pieces of silver.
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Nevertheless, Judas had all the outward signs.
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He was so trustworthy, they gave him the money.
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The reality is that all of the good things that are said and done mean nothing without true fidelity to Christ because words are shallow and works can be in vain.
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The reality is, Dr.
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Kennedy was likely very correct in his assessment.
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The church today is filled with folks who have had the outward appearance of faith, but have not been changed on the inside.
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Pastors don't preach on sin.
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In fact, many of them are fearful to preach on sin.
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They're fearful to say what the Bible says.
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They've become so focused on getting people to accept Jesus that they water down the message of the Gospel.
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They remove the essential nature of the truth of the Gospel, which is recognizing and repenting of sin.
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The scary thing is, of course, the reality that we see around us and the reality for those folks who will face the Lord one day and hear those words, depart from me for I never knew you.
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Now, if this sermon has caused discomfort, good.
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It's not my job to tell you what you think you want to hear.
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It's my job to challenge you to be diligent in evaluating your own heart, to make you ask yourself, do I know the Lord? Am I in the faith? Is my Christianity just words or is it accompanied by a changed heart and a changed life? 2 Peter 1 and verse 10 says, Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election.
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For if you practice these qualities, you will never fail.
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Make your calling and election sure.
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Are you confident that you are numbered among the Lord's elects? Or is your profession of Christ simply words with no accompanying life change? Only you know your heart.
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And I encourage you to examine it this morning.
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Father, as we begin to now digest the words of the text of Scripture and the words that have been preached this morning, and we begin to look inwardly and concern ourselves with the condition of our own heart, I do pray that if there is anyone among us who does not know you through faith, who does not know your son Jesus through faith and repentance, Lord God, that you would at this moment convict their heart and open their heart to the truth that they might not go through some flesh fulfilling false conversion, but Lord, that their hearts might be changed and they receive a spiritual resurrection buried with him and raised to new life.
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Father, we do pray, Lord, as you are moving on all of our hearts to consider our salvation and to consider our standing, to consider our position in Christ, that you would move believers towards confidence, unbelievers towards conviction, and bring us all into faith.
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In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
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Stand with us now as we are going to sing our song of benediction, and if you have need for prayer, please come as we sing.