Faithfulness Today

Introduction

And our trip back from Kentucky and Tennessee on Friday. At one point, Chelsea shared a meme with us that I think will actually help illustrate some of what I want to accomplish today in thinking through some texts of scripture. It said, I run every day for 15 minutes. If I miss a day, I add 15 minutes to the next day. This has truly been a game changer. Tomorrow I’m supposed to run for three months. Performance goals like this, like I’m gonna run 15 minutes every day, they tend to focus on the result. This is sort of a daily kind of goal, but ultimately it’s the point is to get somewhere, right? We want some result out of this. I want to get healthy, so I’m gonna do this thing every day.

Unfortunately, what tends to happen with these is we get behind and overwhelmed and ultimately discouraged. It feels like a good plan, but instead it becomes a reminder of repeated failure. Sometimes it’s just obstacles beyond our control. So maybe it’s raining heavily outside, or your treadmill breaks, various other things that can happen that may not be something you can control at all that then hinder this goal, and then sometimes we start to think, well, what’s the point? Maybe have you ever done a to-do list? You ever sat and done a to-do list and then never do anything on it? I mean, these are the sorts of things that happen, right? We put all this effort into something and we think it’s gonna be helpful, and then it just becomes a reminder of the things we haven’t done.

And so this strange transitional period of the year, I want to take some time to think about. You know, we went from I want to sit on the couch and do puzzles for hours to now I want to think about my future and what I want to do this next year, which is great. And I think that’s there’s a lot of good purpose behind that sort of thing, but I want to maybe think about from a spiritual standpoint, especially ways we can think through this that can produce good results in our life by thinking about it from the kind of the short term, maybe the most basic element rather than these big performance goals, some of which can be great, like I want to read the Bible in a year.

That’s a great goal. But what are some ways maybe I can break that down that would be just as good that won’t leave me discouraged if I miss three days in a row? That’s the idea. Process or system goals are about building habits and shaping behavior today or in the moment so that the results happen naturally over time. They promote better long term results. Now, should I just stop caring about my health because I miss a few 15 minute runs? Obviously not. But have we ever felt that sort of thing? Whether you maybe lift weights or you run or whatever your exercise is, you miss a few days, and you just think, ah, what’s the point in this? Obviously, that makes no sense. Should I just stop worrying about getting things done because my to-do list is so long I can’t get it done today?

But this is the mentality that’s very easy to get into when we allow this to dominate our thinking. But what if we think more on a system level or a process level? I’m going to set out running clothes every night before bed. So when I get up at 6 30 in the morning, I don’t have to think about where everything is. Or I’m going to wake up and my goal is just to get outside by 8 a.m. What I do after that, who knows? But I’m going to get dressed and I’m going to get out the door by 8 a.m. I know, at least for me, and research shows for most people, this actually works way better. You know, once you get dressed and you get outside, well, might as well run 15 minutes.

I’m already out here. But it’s a different way of processing the information and thinking through the things that we want to accomplish. Or instead of a big long to-do list, many of you have probably done this, moms. I know you have, set a 30-minute timer or a 15-minute timer and say, we’re gonna clean until the timer goes off. How much do you get done when you do that? It’s not a whole lot different, it’s just a different way to focus and a different way to think about the same kinds of problems. But primarily, what I was what I want us to think about is more about how this works in the moment, or how it works today, rather than getting bogged down by big long futuristic thoughts, thinking about the importance of right now, this moment that we’re in.

1. Be Ready Now, Every Day

I was thinking about this as I preached through Matthew 24 and 25 a couple weeks ago now, crossing a few of these texts, particularly because we’re in the time of year that we’re in, it just made me think about this. When you look at Matthew 24 and verse 44, as Jesus is working through things about the judgment of God here, I think it’s about the destruction of the tavern of the temple in Jerusalem. But the same concepts really apply to any time of judgment. He makes this statement to his disciples in verse 44. Therefore, you must also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming in an hour you do not expect. Then he goes on to tell a couple stories or parables.

There’s a faithful servant, and this faithful servant, he has this task. His task is to feed people at the proper time. Now, these are the kinds of details that sometimes get overlooked. I probably, I think in my own mind, I thought about the faithful servant. He’s running the house, he’s doing all kinds of things, but specifically in the text, his task, his job is actually very specific. He’s to feed people at the proper time. That’s what his job is. And in doing his job every day, it seems like he’s working as if the master could come back that day. And he just does his job. Every day, he feeds people at the proper time, and the master comes back, and he’s rewarded actually with now he’s going to run the entire house.

The wicked servant, however, seems to lose sight of the big picture. We’re not told how all of this happens, but at some point he decides to just do for himself. He mistreats fellow servants. He’s eating and drinking with drunkards. He’s living a life that he wants to live for his own perceived benefit, not worrying about what the master had told him. And maybe it is he’s been waiting day after day, and the master just keeps not coming back. Well, I’m waiting forever, and he just doesn’t, I’m just gonna do what I want to do, right? So he’s kind of losing patience here. He decides he’s gonna live life the way he wants to live, rather than just every day getting up as if the master could return this day.

And Jesus has some things to say about this. The master’s eventually going to come back, and the one who’s got up every day and did what he was supposed to do will be rewarded, while the one who has lost sight of the big picture for whatever reason is going to receive harsh judgment. It can be distraction, it can be discouragement. How many of us have started the daily Bible reading? Or read your Bible in a year only to not complete it? And then we’re hard on ourselves because we missed a week or we missed a month, and we realize we haven’t been doing it the way we wanted to. Maybe we could do something more simple this year. Just set a timer for 10 minutes every day.

And if you miss a couple days, you just decide the next day you’re going to set another timer and you’re going to keep reading. Interestingly, if you read for 10 minutes a day every day, you will read through the Bible an entire year. But what if it takes you 18 months instead of 12? Is that still good? I would say so.

Don’t miss the big picture. Because we’re so focused on the result, on the performance. Don’t miss the importance of the process of the system. And it is likely that if we develop a system or a process, we will ultimately actually accomplish more. What I’m trying to get at here is if we focus on the moment on today, rather than bogging ourselves down with all the plans for the future and all the various ways we want to accomplish various tasks and ideas, whether spiritual or things in our daily life in the world, work or whatever, those sorts of ideas sometimes can take away from the actual results that we want because the mentality of it causes us to lose focus. And so I want us to think about the idea that today matters, even this moment right now that we’re in.

You got up this morning and you showed up here. That’s amazing. That’s great. You’ve made a great choice to be with God’s people, doing God’s things, singing songs to Him and praying to him and opening scripture and thinking about important things about life. And maybe you didn’t come last week. But you’re here today. There’s a lot of things we could get into with that, but I want us to, at least for now, just focus on the moment and the importance of this moment and what this means. I want us to kind of take the implication from what happens in the story of the faithful servant in Matthew 24, and then I want to bridge this eventually to some thoughts in Hebrews 3 and 4, maybe some other texts as well.

And think about this idea if today matters, what that’s telling us is we need to be ready now. We need to be ready every day. That’s the whole story of the faithful servant. The reason why he’s the faithful servant and he’s the good guy in the story is because every single day, even the days that the master doesn’t come back, he’s ready as if the master’s coming back. In his mind, he’s not thinking, you know, in a couple weeks I’ll be ready. You know, or in a year. No, I’m gonna do some things, I’m gonna work on myself, and then a year I’ll be ready if the master comes back. This is not his mentality at all. Now, obviously, it’s important to think about growing in our faith and working on things in our life to get better, to be more faithful, to be more loving, to be more knowledgeable, to be more devoted.

And all of that. Planning spiritual growth is both good and it’s important, but it is not in opposition to being prepared right now. To be doing the very best I can for the Lord at this very moment doesn’t mean I can’t also be working to get better in the future. Those things are not mutually exclusive. And what we’re seeing in scripture, what Jesus is wanting them to understand is that we need to be the kind of people who every day when we wake up, we’re going to live that day ready for the Lord’s coming. Whatever that may mean ultimately. We tend to think, this sort of illustrates my point, we tend to think about going to heaven. Now I want to go to heaven. And that’s our concept of like the big picture, the plan.

But, you know, the day of the Lord for any one of us can be very different. And actually, throughout recorded history, I think almost everyone has died and had their day of the Lord without the Lord coming again a second time. And we don’t know when that’s going to be.

This is about the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, but really the coming of the Lord can happen. It could happen to me today. It could happen to me tomorrow. There are various ways, and obviously we don’t like to think about these kinds of things a lot of times, but it’s just a reality. It’s the type of reality Jesus wants us to understand. When we’re following him, we need to think very carefully about the reality that this moment might be my last. Can I say I’m ready to meet God right now? If the answer is no, that demands some action immediately. I mean, right this moment. If you are sitting there this morning, you’re thinking, I’m not ready to meet God today. It’s time to start asking some questions about what needs to happen right away.

And we’ll see some more about that here in just a few minutes. But I need to ask this question am I ready to meet God today? And if the answer is no, something is not right, and that becomes a priority, and it needs to change immediately. Whether or not I’m working on things in the future or what I want to change long term, if I’m not ready in this moment, what do I need to do to be different? To answer that question differently. Maybe it involves keeping some daily routines that help us focus on daily readiness. And many of you probably do these things already. Maybe you wake up and the first thing you do is say a quick prayer in the morning before you start your day.

2. Focusing on the Moment and on Today

Or maybe you have your Bible next to your bed and or your phone or whatever you read your Bible on, and the first thing you do is sit and read for a few minutes to start your day. That’s that’s great. These are daily exercises, routines that launch the day in the right way with a concept of ready readiness at the foundation. And of course, they also have long-term benefit. Scriptures have a lot to say about focusing on the moment and focusing on today. I can’t even begin to go through all of them. I’m just gonna offer a few thoughts from Scripture, particularly Jesus here in the beginning, of what he says about this. Maybe one of the most critical passages in all of Scripture, it’s according to multiple gospels about discipleship and what God expects from me and what he wants from you.

He says, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross. A lot of times that’s where we stop. Great point, great idea. Deny self, take up our cross, follow Jesus. In Luke 9 23, he says, take up his cross daily and follow me. It’s a daily decision. That we’re gonna give up self and we’re gonna take up the cross of Jesus and carry that and follow him. It’s the same phrase that’s used in passages you’re familiar with, like Acts 2 46 and 47, where it says, day by day. Like day by day they were in the temple. Day by day they were sharing meals in each other’s homes. This is the same phrase used here in Luke 9 23. So take up your cross day by day today.

So, right now, don’t even worry about tomorrow, but think about today am I taking up the cross of Jesus today? And how am I doing that? Jesus in his prayer in Matthew 6 said, Give us this day our daily bread.

You know, making provisions for weeks or months. The thought is here, just give me today what I need for today. That may be all I need. This is the thought, the mentality. And maybe this comes from the Exodus story where they have their daily manna. God does this purposely, we’re told in Exodus 16. He does this so he can test them to see if they will walk according to his statutes. And so every day they wake up, they can’t store up except for the day before the Sabbath. They just get what they need for that day only. And if they try to go beyond that, bad things happen. It’s a different story. We can talk about some other time. But basically the idea is do they trust God or not?

Are they thinking about today and this moment and leaning and depending on God? Now, or they are they trying to preserve and to store up in their own way for the future, as we as humans tend to want to do. God’s testing them.

This is the day the Lord is made. Rejoice and be glad in it, the psalmist says in Psalm 118, 24. Probably the most popular verse that has to do with this idea of thinking about today. It may be most convicting for many of us is James’ warning about getting too focused on the future. He says, Come now, you who say today or tomorrow, we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit, yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. Now, scripture is not teaching us that we can never make plans for the future. We could have a whole other sermon about the importance of planning. This is not against that idea. However, I will say the purpose of planning is so that we can best use our time and our efforts today.

That’s the reason that we do it. It’s very frustrating when we haven’t planned well and we waste a bunch of time not using our time well in the day because we didn’t put a little bit of effort into planning. And so this is not saying you can’t ever plan, you can’t ever think about the future at all. But what Paul and others understand is that the best way to prepare for the future is by focusing on the moment, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on, he says in Philippians 3 13. Just before that, he mentions he’s not perfect. He hasn’t fully attained all of this. Right? So he’s made mistakes in the past. Things have been bad in his history and his background, but he’s not going to let that stop him from what he’s going to try to accomplish.

3. Exhort One Another Every Day

And he’s going to strain forward. He’s going to work for the things in the future that need to be God’s way. But the way he’s going to do that is to press on toward the goal. He’s going to do that in the moment, today. And so the message, if we understand the importance of today, is to be ready right now. Am I ready at this moment if the Lord were to return? But this also goes beyond the personal level, also to the congregational level. When we kind of transition our thoughts to some things in Hebrews chapter 3, which I want to do now, there’s a personal aspect to this, which we will come back to at the end, but there’s also the nature of how we work together to focus on the right things.

And when we understand that today matters, we want to be encouraging each other about this reality. Knowing that life is difficult, there are struggles. It can be hard to keep focused on the right things, to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and let all the other things kind of take care of themselves. This is part of Jesus’ Matthew again and a message in Matthew 6. Not to be anxious about tomorrow, but let those things take care of themselves. Make sure you’re ready in the moment today and you’ve prepared for that. Don’t get tied up in all the problems that might happen. This is the idea Jesus is getting at in Matthew chapter 6. Our spiritual family is a built in way to help avoid a hard heart.

A heart that is drifted away from the Lord. Through constant encouragement, exhortation, maybe even rebuke at times, we are shaped and remodeled into the things that God wants us to be working on and building in our life. And he uses the Israelites as a model here in Hebrews chapter 3. He quotes Psalm 95 in verse 7. So Hebrews chapter 3, verse 7, he begins this with this quotation from Psalm 95. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation and said, They always go astray in their heart. They have not known my ways, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

And he’s trying to encourage them to focus on this moment right now, to make a choice to follow the Lord, and to see the warning of what comes when you don’t do that like the Israelites did. These are Israelites who have been brought out of Egypt, and the Lord had carried them out with power and might. They had seen him divide waters and then walk through on dry land. They had seen him give them water when they were thirsty and give them manna and quail. They’ve seen all of this, and yet they still grumbled. And maybe we can sort of see the comparison that the Hebrew writer is trying to make to these brethren. You’ve seen and you’ve heard all about the coming of the Messiah and how God has delivered on his promises, and yet now you’re struggling and you’re grumbling and you’re having a hard time doing the right things.

So we all need constant reminders to seek what is most important first in our life. No one wakes up and suddenly has an evil, unbelieving heart. None of us think if I string enough bad days together, I can fall away. That’s not how we think.

As unfortunately, we’ve seen. Maybe in our own life or in the lives of others, when we neglect the things that matter most, we slowly drift from what is truly important. The phrase here is leading you to fall away. Don’t have an evil unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God. The whole implication there in that statement is that this is a process. Falling away from God is not something that just happens in a moment. All of a sudden you decide, I’m out. I don’t want to do this anymore. No, it’s a process that takes place day by day by day. Too many unfocused today’s lead to a life that has drifted from God. And so while we can make the big plans, you know, we want to read the Bible in a year or whatever the big plan might be, don’t lose sight of the importance of today and the choices made now.

And how important it is to decide I’m going to be devoted, whatever that may look like, because that can change. You may be doing your daily Bible reading, and there may be some need that needs to be fulfilled. That’s part of your devotion to the Lord. Someone has some need, and you need to go meet that. And so you have to break your plans for something else that may be more important. Don’t lose sight of the real goal. This is our devotion to God and to his ways. This all speaks to the importance of developing relationships as well in the congregation. Maybe we should ask some questions to ourselves or think through some thoughts to consider. Who can I go to when I’m struggling? Maybe I have doubts or fears.

Things aren’t going well in life. Who is it? Who is it here? Look around. Who is it that I can go to and talk to about that for encouragement? Who have I encouraged today? This is kind of a system sort of goal or a process kind of goals. Or walking around, and we’re told to do this daily. It’s not just on Sundays and Wednesdays. Those tend to be times where we see each other face to face. But how am I going to set out to encourage somebody every day? Maybe not be the same person, but am I putting thought into that? Because this is the idea being presented here in Hebrews, the importance of exhorting each other daily so that we’re not hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

We’re not caught up in the things of the world. I think for the most part, we do this quite well here. I get lots of encouragement from people in all sorts of ways. So I’m not trying to rebuke anyone here, but it’s just part of the thought process that goes into following Jesus and thinking about the importance of this day. I’m guilty as anybody else with struggling with these sorts of things, making lots of plans and having ideas. And sometimes it’s hard to just stop for a second and send a text message or make a phone call. But it very well may be that’s actually the most important thing in that moment. How many times have you said I was gonna text you or I was gonna call you, but I just didn’t.

Sometimes it happens. That’s just part of life. At least for me, sometimes it’s that I just didn’t prioritize the things that mattered most in that moment. The people in my life that I need to be focusing on encouraging and uplifting as best I can. And then maybe a third question. So who can I go to when I’m struggling? Who can I encourage today? I want you to think about that. Like there’s this is not some big long-term plan. I’m not saying you have to plan for the next month who you’re going to encourage every day, but just today. Think about who can I encourage today? Seems rather simple. And then number three, what am I going to do to make sure I have important relationships that thrive?

What am I going to do today? And a lot of this may be more simple than we would imagine. I want to come back to that at the end. Again, it’s it’s great to have some big thoughts and big ideas. And that’s great, but sometimes it’s the smaller things that can make a bigger difference, right? Like setting out your running clothes the night before. So when you wake up, there’s no work to be done. You just change and you walk outside. That’s so small. But can have such a huge impact in actually being successful. And what the text is telling us here is the importance of working together to build each other up and to exhort each other on this day that we have right now.

4. Don't Delay Obedience

We have no promise of tomorrow. And then the last thing we see here in this text, which sort of connects with Matthew 24 in a big way as well, is that we’re focused on today, and we realize the importance of today. What we’re not going to do is delay obedience. We’re not going to say, well, I’ll just wait and do that tomorrow or next week. We realize the vital importance of taking care of what God wants us to do in this moment today. And that could be a variety of things in our various lives and whatever it is we need to do to be obedient to the Lord at this very moment may be different across the spectrum of all the people who are here. But the basic principle is to listen to the voice of God and to not delay obedience, to act now on what you know that you need to do.

If we’re not alert, all those things are in Matthew 24 as well, to just kind of slowly drift off without even realizing that’s what’s happening. And part of that is just not being attentive to the voice of Scripture or to the voice of God, to delaying obedience. That’s important, but I’ll worry about that a little bit later on. Today, if you hear his voice, the psalmist says, and the Hebrew writer quotes do not harden your heart as in the rebellion. It’s just a hard thing to imagine. We’re pretty hard on the Israelites. I think probably too hard most of the time. But it is amazing to think about. Can you imagine standing on the side of that sea and Moses takes his staff and the water just divides?

I mean, you would think that if you saw that, you would say, I’m never going to defy that guy, and I’m never going to defy the God who put him in power. Because that’s wild. And then he goes on and he takes the same staff and he hits a rock and water comes out. Anybody ever seen that before? I mean, we would think that would just lock it in. Like I’m never going to go against whatever this guy says, and he’s talking to the Lord. We’re just going to go forward with it. Yeah, I know these cities are huge and these people are like giants, but that guy divided a sea and he made water come out of a rock. I think we can trust him.

And this is the whole point that God is making through the Hebrew writer. He’s looking at this warning. It seems like it should be so obvious. And probably the reality is it’s the same in my life. And maybe I just don’t see it. It seems like it should be so obvious, and yet through distraction, through delay, we end up not doing the things that we ought to do sometimes. We’re waiting for the right time. You know, I’m going to figure it all out. I’ll do it when it makes sense. Delaying obedience does not soften the heart. If I know what I need to do and I don’t do it, that is sin, James says. Or maybe you’re someone who’s not even in Christ. But you know it’s the right thing to do.

It’s not going to get easier and easier the longer you wait. Your heart doesn’t become softer the more you delay and put it off. It works just the opposite. Our hearts become harder, more stubborn the longer we wait, and the more we put off this call to respond to the voice of God. And so this is why the Hebrew writer says it over and over again. If you read chapter 3 and 4, he just keeps repeating this phrase from Psalm 95. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart. And so whatever your situation is this morning, if you’re not in Christ and you’re not following Jesus yet, but you’re feeling that need to do that, don’t delay. Don’t delay obedience. It doesn’t matter if you have it all figured out and all your questions have been answered, and you understand everything about how Scripture works, how the world works, that’s not actually important.

5. Go Make Disciples Today

What is important is that you decide right now, you realize you need to follow Jesus Christ, and you’re going to do that today. You’re going to begin that process. This year we’re going to make an effort to follow Jesus’ statement to go make disciples. Greg sent it out an email last night. We’ve read the text already from Matthew 28 this morning. And we can make this effort by setting some goals, result oriented goals, like I’m going to invite five people to church per month, or I’m going to baptize 12 people this year. Those are great goals. Sometimes they may seem too big. What if I fail the first month? Or the first six months. Changing our behavior isn’t always easy, but then it kind of begins that cycle of discouragement, seeing my failure, that I didn’t do the things that I wanted to do.

So maybe I can suggest some other goals that may seem small and rather unimportant, but actually may open doors more than we realize. Maybe just smile and be friendly to a stranger today. Or maybe the next level of that is to try to start a conversation with that person. Maybe you’re a really comfortable, extroverted kind of person, and so you can go beyond the smile. Pretty small. I don’t think that’s asking a ton, but it’s amazing you’ve experienced this before. You know, somebody you see a license plate from Ohio. I’ve got family from Ohio. Oh, you’re from Ohio, and then you have this long conversation that comes out of this. It’s just a small little open door. Just even just getting in the habit of this sort of thing may be the kind of thing that opens the door for influence.

Second, maybe just find a way to mention God or something spiritual in a regular conversation with a coworker, someone you know from a homeschool group or a baseball team or band or whatever it might be, the things that we do, just finding ways. There’s some people who are so good at this, they find a way to bring God into everything. But maybe for you today, it’s just, I’m gonna do that one time. At some point today, I’m gonna find a way to bring God into the conversation. And maybe we discover the person we’re talking to also wants to bring God into the conversation. Maybe it’s someone who desperately needs Jesus and they don’t know answers. We actually don’t know until we begin opening these doors. But the first steps, those are very easy.

Smile, be friendly, find a way to mention God. But the first step is that I need to decide today to be devoted to Jesus personally. If I’m losing sight of what truly matters in my life, I’m going to have a hard time influencing other people. I need to see the importance of everyone in this building that’s here with me today, this congregation, and working on encouraging, exhorting the people who I do life with on a regular basis and worship with and pray together with. And then I’ll be in a much better position to consider how people in the world need Jesus today. It’s all part of God’s plan. This is how this works. We see the importance of today. We see the importance of encouraging each other today.

And if we really understand the importance of this moment today that we have, we will want to tell people about Jesus when we have the opportunity.

Now, maybe I’m wrong and you disagree with me, but at least in my brain, that seems a lot easier to accomplish on a regular basis. The obstacles sort of get taken out of the way. I don’t see any kind of punitive sort of thing. I didn’t get my five people this month. Oh. Just having conversations. Just smiling, being nice, holding doors, being friendly. The sorts of things that Christians ought to be doing anyway. And then looking for those moments to talk about the things that matter most in life. Don’t lose sight of the importance of this moment of today.

Conclusion

The Hebrew writer goes on to talk about those who did not enter God’s rest. You know, they heard the good news. It came to them, he says, just like it came to us. They knew the message of God. It’s not that they didn’t know truth or had they hadn’t heard truth. It just didn’t benefit them because they didn’t have faith. They didn’t trust the things that they were hearing. They became hard-hearted and they drifted away and they focused on things that weren’t important in life, and then ultimately, because of that, they were judged. They failed to enter, he says, because of disobedience in verse 6 of chapter 4. And so in 70 says again, he appoints a certain day, today, saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.

I’m not saying you’re going to get all your answers today, and then every question you have, you’re going to figure it all out. But I do want to recommend the thought of Scripture in Hebrews that today, if you hear the voice of God and it’s speaking to you, and you’re realizing you need to do the things of God, don’t delay. Make it known that you want to follow Jesus Christ, whatever that may mean for your future, and we will be here to walk beside you on that path. Can we help you this morning? Why don’t you come now as we stand and we sing together?