And if you have your Bible, turn with me to Matthew chapter 5. I know we’ve been in the Beatitudes here for a while. We’re almost done. We’ve got like probably two more weeks, and then we’ll be through with them.

But Matthew chapter 5, verse 8 is where we will be.

And Jesus says,

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

This season seemed to be one where a lot of people have gotten sick a lot. I can’t remember a winter when so many people have gotten the flu, have gotten… Colds have gotten this, that, and the other. And it’s not over yet either, I don’t think. So it’s just a bad season for getting really, really sick. And I remember a few years ago, I thought I had a really bad cold.

And as I usually do, I’m taking like cough syrup, and I’m trying to deal with the symptoms of a cold. And I go to sleep, but I would wake up feeling worse. I’d take more cough medicine and all this cold medicine, and I’d just wake up feeling even worse. And so eventually, I go to the doctor and discover I didn’t have a cold. I had a sinus infection. I never had a sinus infection before. And so my white blood count was really high, and she gave me antibiotics. And after a few days, it went away. And it’s a reminder that you can deal with symptoms as much as you want, but until you get to the heart of a problem, it’s never going to go away. And as we look at the Beatitudes, as we consider Jesus coming, to preach the kingdom of heaven, Jesus is not interested in staying on the surface with us. Jesus is going to go deep. Jesus isn’t going to let us hide. Jesus is going to get to the heart of the human problem.

And I think it’s just part of our sinful nature to want to hide and cover up. I read all the time social media is really unhealthy because it causes depression in people. Because you get on social media, and what do people do? They put the best version of themselves out for you to see. No one puts their marriage problems and their sickness on the internet. It’s always the best screenshot of me having fun, losing weight, having a great life. But Jesus cuts through all that, and He gets to the core and the heart of our problem. Not the symptoms, but He cuts down to the root. The Scriptures say that God looks on the heart. So He sees through us. And as Jesus is talking about this morning, blessed are the pure in heart, I think there is the impurity of the heart that we have to deal with. And I want us to see what Jesus has to say about the consequences of an impure heart and how, if possible, how is the impure heart made pure? And that’s what Jesus is really pushing here in this beatitude. So blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. So when we talk about, those who are pure in heart, you have to think back a few weeks to when we talked about

those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And we said it’s really silly to think about that as a physical reality, like I’m going to physically eat or physically drink righteousness. Obviously it’s not a physical reality. Jesus is talking about a spiritual reality. He’s talking about something of the heart. And you think, well of course He is. It sounds silly to think about Jesus talking about a blood pumping vessel in our chest. We know that’s not what He’s talking about. But don’t think it’s that obvious because it’s not hard to look around in our world or look at Scripture and see how people think you can affect spiritual realities through a physical reality. If I could do something right, if I could say something right, if I could act a certain way, maybe I could affect a spiritual reality. Jesus says it’s from the heart that our impurity flows. In Luke 11, Jesus says about the Pharisees, you people are clean on the outside like a cup. You look really clean, but on the inside you’re dirty. All their rituals, all their rules, their life, they thought they were staying clean before God. But Jesus says you’re filthy on the inside. He said you’re like unmarked graves. People are walking over you and they don’t realize that there’s a dead body inside of you. So people do try to change the heart by what they do.

Paul says in Romans, a true Jew is one who’s not circumcised physically, but circumcised spiritually in the heart. I mean, when you think about the world around us, people are doing what they can with their life to affect spiritual realities. I had a conversation with someone who came from a Hindu background. And I asked him, I said, so how do you know when you’re a good enough Hindu? Like, how do you know when you’ve done it well enough? And his eyebrows frowned. He said, that’s a really good question. Like, I don’t know. How do you know when you’ve kept all the rules well enough? So you consider aestheticism and all the ways that world religion teaches you to do all these things. Even people who aren’t particularly religious, if you ask them like, hey, you know, in the afterlife, if there was a heaven, why would you go there? You get something like, well, you know, I just try to be a really good person. But it always comes back to that question. How do you know when you’re good enough?

And I think the answer is you’ll never be good enough because Jesus makes plain you can’t affect that spiritual reality. You have an empty heart and there’s nothing that you can do about it. So what is the heart? The heart is the seat of your emotions, of your will, the place from which you decide what you do love, you don’t love, what you are for, what you’re against. It’s the place that your inclinations start to animate your life outwardly. So think about the definition we’ve been using for the kingdom of heaven for the last couple of months. It’s the spiritual rule and reign of God in my heart, mind, and life. So while my heart’s going to affect my outward, it’s never going to be able to work in reverse.

And my purity is whether I have or have not offended this kingdom. Am I guiltless before God for having not been right or clean in His sight? So that’s the favored, that’s the fortunate, blessed person who’s never offended God in their heart. The seat of their emotions, will, thought, and actions is perfectly conformed to Christ and to His kingdom. But problem, that’s no one. And so I want us to see what are the great consequences again of that, and then if possible, how does Jesus deal with and address the impure heart?

So I’m going to run through a string of scriptures here with you. If you go to Genesis 3, verse 22,

and I know we go to the garden a lot, but it says, Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground which he was taken. And he drove out the man. And at the east of the garden of Eden, he placed a cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. So God says, Hey, you did what you were not supposed to do. You’re now impure before me. So what happens? God separates Himself from man. Look in Exodus 19. In Exodus 19, 19-24, it says, And the Lord said to him, Go down and come up, bringing Aaron with you. But do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the Lord, lest he break out against them. So the people of God are at the foot of the mountain, and it’s lightning, and it’s thundering, and there’s smoke covering it. And God makes clear to Moses, Hey Moses, if those people get close to the mountain and try to see me, I’m going to break out against them, and they’re going to die. In Exodus 33,

it says, Go up to a land flowing, with milk and honey, but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people. Now why did God say that? He said that because even though God had given them the Ten Commandments, they immediately sinned. They immediately broke those commandments. And though God Himself had been traveling with the Israelites, He says, I can’t do that anymore. I can’t be that close to you, because if I got that close to you, I would kill you.

And then in Exodus 33, 7, it says, Now Moses, Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp. Used to pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp. And he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. So Moses is no longer, after this incident, setting up the tent of meeting close to the people. He sets it up after they sin very far away from the camp. So if you want to see God, you’re going to have to go way over to this tent of meeting, because God’s saying, I’m not even going to dwell around you people anymore. And then in Exodus 33, 18, Moses says,

And God said, Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take my hand away, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.

And then just one more here in Exodus 26, 33. It says, And you shall hang the veil from the clasps, and bring the ark of the testimony in there within the veil, and the veil shall separate for you the holy place from the most holy. So do you see what’s happened here since man got an impure heart? God says, We can’t dwell together in the garden. Don’t come close to me on the mountain. I can’t journey with you. I can’t be in the camp with you. Moses, as much as Moses loved God, he said to Moses, Moses, you can’t look at my face. And God said, Hey, we’re going to have to have this veil permanently in the tabernacle, because you people simply cannot be in my presence. God has made abundantly clear here that due to the impurity of the heart, man has lost nearness to God. That’s what we’ve lost. We’ve lost nearness to God. Nearness to the holy, pure, righteous, majestic God in all His glory. God’s very clear. Hey, that would kill you. It would kill you. God’s so holy and pure, and you’re so impure. And you would be killed like someone would be killed if you stormed into the courts of a king uninvited. So the psalmist says, Hey, who can ascend the hill of the Lord? And who can stand in God’s presence? He who has clean hands and a pure heart. But Jesus has made clear for us, hasn’t He? No one has clean hands, and no one has a pure heart. Again, no one can affect the spiritual reality of an impure heart.

But friends, isn’t that what makes the gospel such good news? This is why Jesus is precious beyond the comprehension of our minds. And this is why Jesus is lovely. And this is why Jesus is worthy of being thought upon, meditated upon, worshipped and adored. He is the pure, holy God who humbled Himself by taking on a full and real manhood and so brought together God and man again. And it’s really important for us to grab this because I think if we don’t grab this, you lose everything else in the Christian life. You really lose what it means to know Christ, to follow Christ, if we don’t grab this. So again, I want to look at some scriptures with you here, starting with Philippians 2, verse 5. Paul says, Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. So when Paul says that Jesus was in eternity past in the form of God, he’s saying Jesus was the very full and real manifestation of God in eternity past.

J.B. Lightfoot says He had all the essential attributes. This means He had the same nature and character. Another theologian, Peter O’Brien, says this, The expression does not refer, simply to external appearance, but pictures the preexistent Christ as clothed in the garments of divine majesty and splendor. He was in the form of God, sharing God’s glory. The Hebrew writer, he says the same thing. He says Jesus was the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of His nature.

John, the apostle, says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word, what? Was God. Paul says, To Titus, Jesus is our God and Savior. Paul says to Timothy, He’s our King and God. The apostle Peter says, He’s our God and Savior. So you have the witness of Scripture saying very clearly for us to believe Jesus isn’t a man, Jesus was and is God. But take Jesus and that His own words. In John 8, 58, Jesus says, Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. Now when Jesus did that, here’s what Jesus was doing, and He knew what He was doing. I am is what God said to Moses. Hey Moses, when you go to lead the people out of Egypt, tell them I am sent you. So I am was the God of the Old Testament. So Jesus saying to the people, Hey, I am before Abraham, is Him claiming equality with the God of the Old Testament. In John 17, 5, Jesus says, The glory I had with you before the world existed. And then Jesus in John 2, verse 19 says, That He had the power, that He had the power to raise Himself up from the dead. So you see, if you’re going to take Jesus seriously, if you’re going to take the Scripture seriously, they’re saying to you, you have to believe Jesus is God. There’s very little to no wiggle room to believe Jesus is something else. Jesus is explicit about it. And I emphasize it, and I’m not saying this like it’s Pastor Chad, and I’ve got all my theology figured out. I’m just saying this as Chad and humility. I just, I wouldn’t know what, I wouldn’t know what to do with Jesus. I wouldn’t know what to do with Christianity if we couldn’t conclude that Jesus is God. If Jesus isn’t God, we have no way to be near God again. It all rides on Jesus being completely human and completely God. Because here’s the thing, if Jesus is just a human, you know what that means? It means He has the same impure heart that we have, and who could help us? No one, not Jesus. And if Jesus is just God, then our human problem of an impure heart, that’s our problem. And still we don’t have anyone to fix it. But the power of the Gospel is that Jesus is both fully God and fully human. And by the power of God, He perfected our humanity in His life. He gave it up as a sacrifice to pay for our impure hearts and lives. And by His power, He raised Himself up from the dead to an indestructible humanity, an indestructible life, the Apostle Paul says. So Jesus alone, as all God and all man, He alone addresses the great consequence of a loss of nearness to God.

I think the Hebrew writer says it maybe the best.

He says, Therefore, my brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. So it’s nothing you could do for yourself. It’s nothing someone else could do for you. It’s alone what the God-man could do for us. And I think that’s really exciting or it’s really boring based upon the premium you give to being near God.

That becomes the grand question. Is there a desire in us for a nearness to God? Do we understand what a thing it would be to experience it? I think the desire for nearness to God, it gauges our love, it gauges our understanding of what the God-man did. Because the God-man reminds us this, that knowing God in His presence is what we were created for. Being satisfied in His presence is what we were created for. The God-man… The God-man reminds us that He is our Creator, and so He knows our humanity better than anyone else, and He can show us how to live as humans better than anyone else. In the presence of God is a joy, is a peace, is a purpose that couldn’t be had otherwise. In the presence of God, because of what Jesus did, we’re loved, we’re made whole, we’re kept, we’re provided for. We know what it means to be precious, to be loved, to be dear to God. That’s what we were created for, and Jesus through Himself, takes us back to that again. So what the impure heart can never know, the pure in heart can know in the presence of God through Jesus Christ. And that’s the endless treasures of God’s love.

And the great truth for us as New Testament saints is this, we can always in every moment be in the presence of God because the Spirit of God rests on us. And so I can know in this moment because of what Jesus did through His flesh, God loves me and God’s for me and I have His peace and I have His protection and I have His promises and I can feel very kept in my loneliest moments. I can feel provided for. I can know that God is for me and God will never be against me because of what Jesus and Jesus alone did. Nearness to God means I have a Father who loves me. It means I have a shepherd king that’s going to rule me well and take care of me. And it means the Spirit of God is filling me, guiding me, comforting me. Are we mindful of that over and over and over again? I think we lose sight of it often. I can remember several years before, well a couple years before I got married to Jessica, she was away working at a Christian camp

and we were doing this letter thing. I’d write her this big long love letter and she’d write me this big long love letter back and this went on like all summer. And it was nice. But you know what’s better? It’s better when you’re actually in the presence of someone, when you finally get to see someone’s face. And I think we lose the value of proximity in the 21st century because of technology and social media, text, even phones. We forget just what a joy and privilege it is to look at someone in the eye and just see their expressions and just know in their presence you are loved and you can love back. Friends, because it’s true, Jesus brought us back into the presence of God, you can seek the presence of God and find it. James says, draw near to God and God will draw near to you. Because of what Jesus did, you can enjoy the presence of God right now. You can literally just enjoy the truths that He loves you more than you could ever be loved and you’re kept and you will always be in the presence of God. You can be satisfied. So many people are looking for a purpose. They’re looking to be satisfied, yet you’ll never be satisfied. Until you rest in the presence of God in Christ.

And I think if we just, again, we look at our times, we have to say it’s busyness, isn’t it? We’re so busy. I’m too busy to sit and just enjoy and meditate upon the presence of God. You look through the Psalms and what does David often do? He meditates upon who God has been. He meditates upon who God is. He meditates upon who God will be. So it’s a privilege. It’s a privilege we often throw up because we’re busy going here and we’re busy going there and I’ve got this going on and we don’t set aside that time to just sit and meditate upon the presence of God in me, the presence of God around me and that will never be lost. That is a great privilege for us as followers of Jesus. So Jesus has through His flesh done away with that first consequence. We are no longer distant from our God.

But I want us to see the second consequence of an impure heart.

Second consequence of an impure heart is loss of likeness to God. Loss of likeness to God. So Old Testament again, once Moses passes away and God raises up Joshua to lead the people into the promised land. They go into the promised land and they conquer the Canaanites and most of the Canaanites. But the book of Judges starts and when the book of Judges starts, it says that Joshua, Joshua and the elders who honored the Lord and lived right, they passed away. And as soon as they pass away, it says another generation rises up that does not know the Lord and they do evil. And the book of Judges says this twice throughout. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. And that’s kind of the banner to put over the book of Judges. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. So it’s a very dark time in the history of Israel. Everyone’s wicked, doing what they want to do and you get from it what’s known as the cycle of Judges. And here’s how the cycle of Judges works. The people of God run from Him. He throws them into captivity for it under harsh tyranny. They repent. They come back out. They immediately run from God. He throws them back into captivity. He raises up a judge to save them. They immediately run from God. And so over and over again, you get this nasty, vicious cycle. And what this cycle tells us plainly is this. There is an undeniable link between nearness and likeness. In other words, people don’t like being near people they don’t like. We don’t go closer to cultures and lifestyles and ways of other people if they are repellent to us and we don’t want them. So what’s that mean?

Shockingly, it means God’s people didn’t want to be in God’s presence because they didn’t want to live God’s way. They didn’t want to be pure. They didn’t want to be holy like Him. So every time they get a chance, what do they do? They run to the Baal. And they run to all the false gods. And they do the wickedness of the nations. So much so, despite God’s mercy and love for them, they say, hey God, we don’t want you to be our king. We want you to give us a man to be a king. Give us a man like all the other nations.

And how does that work out? Well, God gives them what they asked for. They got King Saul. And Saul was a wicked man who ran from God and didn’t love the heart of God. And so what does God do? He does away with Saul. But after Saul, God raises up King David. And King David’s different from the time of the judges. He’s different from Saul because God says about David, David is a man after my own heart.

David loves God for who God is.

David wants to be in the presence of God. David wants to be with the people of God. David wants to meditate and know and study the Word of God because David wants to, as much as he can, look like his God. Right? So he, he gets the connection between presence,

nearness, and likeness. But even David, as much as he loved God and God’s saying, hey, you’re a man after my own heart, he has an impure heart.

David commits adultery and then David murders the man of the woman he committed adultery with. And what is it, what happens to David when he does that? His hotness cools. He stops being like God. He stops pursuing the presence of God.

And it’s so telling when you look at David’s repentance in Psalm 51. Because though he does sin, he repents and he knows it. And see what he says. He says, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Here’s the connection. Cast me not away from your presence.

David repents because he wants to be back in the presence of God to be like the God he loves. And friends, what that means for us is that a passion for purity is always going to accompany a truly pure life. A passion for purity. You can’t just say, oh, I’m pure and I’m a Christian. Let me see the passion in your life where you want to look at and look like Jesus. And so often that does mean a repentant lifestyle. Because yes, it’s true, Jesus has purified our hearts, but we’re always going to have that struggle to fight against an impure nature. That wants to be out of the presence of God. So purity can’t mean I’m 100% clean and sinless in this life. It does mean this, and by God’s grace it’s true, the Spirit of God is constantly going to convict me and poke me and push me until I look just like God someday. So it’s an ongoing process where the Spirit won’t let me alone about it. So the pure are always looking forward to that moment when we’ll be just like God. Now, what are we doing? We’re striving, striving to throw it off. Throw it off. So repentance shouldn’t be a very rare word in your vocabulary. Confessing sin to God, confessing sin to brothers and sisters, it should be a normal habit and lifestyle if I’m constantly trying to look like God. A.W. Pink, the theologian, says this, The truth is that one of the most conclusive evidences that we do possess a pure heart is the discovery and consciousness of the truth. The remaining impurity that continues to plague our hearts. So are you constantly sensitive to the Holy Spirit and conscious when sin knocks at your door or has a hold on you? The question is, what do you love to love? Because what we love to love gets our best time, it gets our best energy, it gets our money, and it shapes us. It will get your life. Friend, if we’re following Jesus, it must be true that we’re staring at Him, we’re looking at Him because we desire His likeness.

A visitor going into the studio of a great painter found on his easel some very fine gems, brilliant and sparkling.

Asked why he kept them there, the painter replied, I keep them there to tone up my eyes. When I’m working in pigments, insensibly the sense of color becomes more and more important. By having these pure colors before me to refresh my eyes, the sense of color is brought up again just as a musician by his tuning fork brings his string up to the concert pitch.

When you constantly weigh yourself against yourself, you constantly weigh yourself against other people, you’re going to get further and further from the original.

So friends, it pushes us to ask if I looked at the last week’s show, the last week of your life and you looked at the last week of my life, how much time did we spend looking at the original, looking at Jesus, looking at Him in His Word, looking at Him in prayer, looking at Him by allowing believers that know us and we love to hold us accountable and to encourage us. How much time do we spend looking at Jesus or is something else owning you? A job? A person? A hobby?

Or is it Jesus?

Is it laziness? Is it idleness? Idleness owns me sometimes and I need the Spirit to say, hey, get up and start running again. Throw off the sin. Throw off the weight. Look at Jesus. Look at His likeness and don’t stop until you have fully attained it. I don’t want to be tainted. I think we’re following Jesus. I want the whole thing. I want the full thing. I want the real thing. That’s why Paul says, I fought the good fight. I ran the race. I’m not trodding along. I’m keeping my eyes on the prize, which is what? It’s Christ in heaven.

It’s your desire.

Look with me at John 14.9 here. I want us just to see this interaction between the apostles and Jesus.

It says in John 14.5, Thomas said to Him, Lord, we do not know where You are going.

How can we know the way? So Jesus has basically said, hey, I’m going away, but they don’t really understand it. Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him.

And then Philip says this, and I think luckily Jesus has enough like humility and grace to respond to what Philip says. And here’s what Philip says. He says, Lord, show us the Father, and it’s enough for us.

And I think what Philip was saying in layman’s terms was, hey, Jesus, this has been great, but when do we get to see the real thing?

Like this has been really good. I’ve enjoyed following You, the miracles and all that, but when do we get to see, you know, like God?

And Jesus says back to Philip,

have I been with you so long and you still do not know Me? Tell me, Philip, whoever has seen Me has seen the Father.

Friends, our impure hearts can be made pure not because of what we’ve done, but because of this. Jesus, who because He is God and has always been in the presence of God, and Jesus, who’s always been pure and came and lived a pure life, Jesus, who is in the very, in the very likeness and form of God, He came and He lived that perfect life and He died for us and by His power He rose up over the grave and He accomplished purity for us. There isn’t anything we can do to affect that spiritual reality. But here’s what the Scripture tells us to do. The Scriptures tell us if we place faith in Jesus, Peter said this, hey, God didn’t make any distinction between Jew and Gentile, but the one who places faith, faith in Jesus is cleansed and purified. When I look on Christ and I see that Jesus alone, the God-man, He made purification for my soul, He brings me back into the presence of God, Jesus, the God-man alone, He makes me like God by faith, the Spirit comes upon us and we are made like Christ. We are pure and cleaned before God the Father. That’s what Jesus, the God-man, has done.

So friends, we can behold God because Christ alone has purified our hearts.

And so I think that’s the big question for you this morning. For us, do we surrender to that God-man and say, have your way?

Or do we pick up a stone with the Pharisees to throw it at Him? Because I really don’t think there’s an in-between there.

You know, C.S. Lewis is popular for saying it. You can call him a liar or a lunatic or Lord. Good people don’t go around saying, I’m God. So he was a liar, he was a lunatic, or Jesus really was who He said He was. But friends, I believe on the testimony of Scripture and the empty tomb, Jesus was exactly who He said He was. And Jesus, by God’s grace, made purification for our hearts that we may someday behold God. Not look at. You know you look at something. There’s an in-between looking at something, perceiving something.

In Christ now, yes, we have a taste in the Spirit. We see darkly, but someday, we will see clearly, face to face,

Jesus, we will see the glory of God. So do you look forward to beholding that glory? All because, not of what you’ve done, but surrendering in faith to what Jesus, the God-man, has done for you.

And the good news of that is it’s not just for you. I think we as a church get to do this. We get to point the way. Hey, look at that Jesus. Look at that Jesus. Look what He did for you. Look how He alone took an influence. He took a pure heart and He made it pure. So let’s live in the truth of that Gospel message and let’s preach it to the rest of the world. Let’s pray.

Father, we just praise You this morning because there are not enough words to say

how thankful we are.

Lord, our minds can’t grasp.

How great Your grace is that You would send Your only beloved Son and that He would willingly come to die for us, Lord. I just pray You would, Lord, convict us in Your Spirit, Lord, and just give us now maybe what we lack and that’s a passion for the name of Jesus. That’s a passion for the glory of God to be like Him, to be the aroma and fragrance of Christ to this world.

Lord, forgive us when we just hit the cruise control button. Lord, we just want to get along. Lord, we know that You are our hope. You are our power. You are our peace.

Father, Your Son is everything to us. So we just want to be awakened to that this morning and we don’t want to go out of here just sluggish and ready to hit a new week. We want to live in Your presence. We want to live in Your power. We want to, by the power of Your Spirit, live in Your likeness. We want to surrender to and proclaim

Jesus Christ, the God-man, the God incarnate,

who did for us what we could never have done, Lord, for ourselves. So we just praise You.

We worship You this morning.

And friends, I would just say to you this morning,

just surrender your heart to the Lord.

Pray that the Lord would stir you up in faith. And if you’ve never surrendered in faith to Him,

there’s no better time than now to truly place faith in that Jesus, and call Him Lord and Master, and freely receive the gift of salvation, freely be made pure by His sacrifice.