Just like we celebrate a new year, we celebrate a New creation. How can you become a New Creation?

 

 

You know, we live in a country that is filled with opportunities, filled with stuff, filled with all kinds of direction. And sometimes it's hard for people to think about god being all they need. Every commercial tells you you need a lot more than that. Right? Every commercial tells you you need everything. You gotta have all this stuff. Everything you look at says that. But the reality is, all we really need is God. That's what we need. In this new year, ring in the new not just year. Ring in the new everything. Be renewed. It's a new year. It's an opportunity to do over. Last year, maybe, it wasn't as great for you as you had hoped. Maybe last year, things weren't so good. Maybe you had a hard time, but this year, you want to do it right. This year, you want to strive to do better. Many people begin the year with a opportunity, and they say, I want to read the Bible through this year. I've never done that before. That's a awesome thing. Do that. If you've never read the Bible through, there are so many different plans out there that you can get, and you can read it through. Don't hurt yourself if you don't make it through in a year. Just keep reading. You know? Yeah. There's plans to read the Bible through in a year, and, actually, it's fairly simple to read the Bible through in a year if you just take the time to do it every day. But even if it takes you a little longer, read it all the way through. It's something you need to do. You need to read it all the way through. How do you live your life for God if you don't know what's in the book? Right? So you need to read it all the way through. Many people say, well, I wanna serve God better this year by x, fill in the blank. Last year was a very difficult year for our church. Last year was a very difficult year for me as the pastor. As I was thinking about the new year, I look back over the last year, and I I feel like that there were many times throughout this last year because of the things that were going on that I was kind of in a, maybe in a depressed state of mind. I said, god, don't let me be that way this year. Let me get past that. It was hard. We lost a lot of people in our church that I was personally very close to. It was a tough year. But you know what? They are all celebrating today. They finally got where they wanted to be their whole life, and I need to be celebrating too. And so let's ring in the new. Let's start fresh this year, and let's ring in the new. So, first of all, happy new year. Happy new year. Thank you. It's a new year. We want it to be a happy new year. We want it to be a fresh start, and we want to look at it with a very positive outlook. Here's the thing. You know, when you look at things that are coming with a negative outlook. Right? I've gotta have some skin cancer taken off this week. So if I'm sitting there dreading that, thinking, man, it's gonna be horrible, I've gotta have that done, it's hard to get past it. But if I think about it in a positive way, hey, I'm getting that cancer off my body. It's gonna be better. It's gonna be a great thing. I'm so glad that that's happening. It changes your whole outlook. We look at the new year 2025. It's gonna be a great year. Why? Because God's still in control. God's in control. No matter what else is happening in your life, no matter what else is happening in the world, it's gonna be a great year because god is in control. So just like we celebrate a new year, we wanna celebrate a New Year in Christ. It's a time to reflect and make changes. It's a time in secular world to reflect and make changes. Right? How many people have seen, more weight loss commercials than you ever wanna see in the last week? Right? Man, they're on everywhere. Why? Everybody wants to make a change. It's time to make a change, lose weight, get healthy. Gym memberships, they'd sell them for 25¢ a month, to start the year and then raise it up, of course, as you go. They do all of these things. Why? It's time to make changes. It's time to be different, to do something different. Well, why? Because it's a new slate. We've given been given a new chance. It's time to make changes, to look back and reflect over what went well last year, what didn't go so well, and how can I make it better this year? I'm gonna encourage you to do this. Think about your walk with Christ over the last year. What went well? What didn't go so well? What do you what did you want to do that you didn't do? Where did you fail him? It's a brand new year. Let's strive to make the right changes in our life this year. Strive to read God's word. Strive to spend time in prayer. Strive to spend time together with brothers and sisters in Christ. Strive to live your life so that others can see Jesus in you, and even strive to tell people about Jesus. Make those changes. If last year that wasn't you, then this year, that's where we need to go. We need to ring in the new. It's a time to reflect on the things that didn't go so well, and it's a time to make changes so that this year will be better. It can be different than before. Sometimes we get wrapped up in this, well, you know, that's just how it is. It's always gonna be that way. I can't really do anything about it. Well, can you? Sure. There are things in life that you can't really change, but most everything in our lives, we can do something about it. We can do something. We can take that opportunity and do something about it. Do you want to do something about it? You reflect on last year. You wanna make changes this year. What can you do and make different? We look around our church and we see that we have people that are here, but there's a lot of vacant seats. There's a lot of vacant seats. We lost 8 people from our congregation last year. We lost 8 people, but we hadn't brought in 8 people. We don't have the seats filling up with new people. Why is that? Is it because we're not telling them about Jesus? Is it because we're not telling them about, the need for a savior? Is it because we're not living our life as we should? Why is that? Think about that. Why is it? It can be different than last year. It can be different if we strive for that, but we have to strive to do better. We have to absolutely strive to do better. Do you know that the majority of people who make a New Year's resolution to get in better shape are done going to the gym by the end of January. By the end of January, they're through. They're not working out anymore. They have for forget about that. That was too hard. I'm not doing that. Many people who strive to read the bible through in a year don't make it through Genesis. They get started and they start reading through Genesis. And if they get through Genesis and Exodus, guess where they stop? Leviticus. They hit all those laws and, man, they just quit. They stop. People say I'm gonna do better, but they don't strive to do better. They say I want it to be different, but they don't really try to make it different. They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing the same way you always have and expecting it to be different. Expecting to get different results. Well, if we do the same thing the same way we always have, it's not gonna be different. We're gonna get the same results that we've gotten in the past, both in our personal individual lives, and our spiritual lives, and our church lives, and all of it. If we do the same thing we've always done, we're never gonna get this any different results. And so we have to strive to make it a better year. We have to strive to make those changes. We have to strive to do better. That means that even when we don't feel like it or even when it gets hard, we have to keep working. Just like celebrating a new year, we celebrate a new creation in Christ. We celebrate a new creation. This the word says that if anyone who has come to know Jesus as Lord and savior is a new creation. A new creation. Not the same as they were before, but different. A new creation. If it's new, it's not what it once was. Right? Think about that. If it's new, it's not what it once was. Some people will say, well, you know, I've always been this way, and I just don't know that I can really change. Well, here's the news flash. On your own, you can't. But if you call upon the name of Jesus as lord and savior, and he makes you a new creation, then it's totally new. And God can help you to be a brand new creation in Christ. He can help you to change how you were into how you need to be. We can be a new creation. We every year, we celebrate New Year's and and so many people say, I'm gonna be better this year, and then they fail. But with God making you a new creation, you can be better. You can be better. He's there with you. You are a brand new creation in Christ. If it's new, it's not what it once was. The old has passed away, and the new has come. I said to the children, you can never get back 2024. You cannot turn the calendar back to 2024. It is not possible. It's gone. There's no way you can go back to 2024. Well, if someone becomes a new creation in Christ, there is no way they can go back to being lost. It can't happen. God said that those which I have in my hand, no one can take you out of my hand. If you are a new creation in Christ, you can't go backwards. If it's a brand new year, you can't go backwards. The reality is what we have to do is strive to go forward, strive to do better from here. We have to continue to look at that new thing. God has made us new. God has made us new. Just as surely as if you, had a a facelift and you looked in the mirror at your new face for the first time and went, wow. That's really different than what it was before. Look in the mirror of Christ and say, you know what? God has changed me. I am not the same person that I was. I'm different. I'm a different person than I once was, and it's time that I start doing something about that. It's time that I live my life that way. It's time that God made me a new creation. Let me live like a new creation and not live like I used to. The old has passed away. The new has come. Don't dwell on the old. Look to the new. It doesn't have to be the way it has always been. For me, that's a big big one to think about. It doesn't have to be the way it's always been. Well, you know, that's just kinda who I am. That's just kinda the way I do things, and that's just, you know, whatever. Okay. But it doesn't have to be that way. You don't have to continue to do the same old things that you've always done. You don't have to continue doing that. Listen, as people who are believers, one of our commandments, the greatest commandment that was given to us is go and tell. Go and make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit. We're supposed to go and tell. That is our number one. That is the greatest commandment that we go and tell. So here's the thing. If we look at that, and that's our great commandment, but over the years as believers in Christ, we've never done that. It doesn't mean that we have to keep living that way. In fact, it means we should not keep living that way. The old has passed away. The The new has come. Don't look for the same old results doing it the same old way. Look for new results. The new things, the new creature, a new creation in Christ. And it's time for all of us to take a long hard look in the mirror and say, hey. You know what? I'm a new creation. Why am I still doing things in the old way? Why am I still living my life in that way? I need to change. God has called me to be his son or daughter. Why am I still living in this bad way? Why am I still doing things in this way? Why am I not doing what I need to do? Pardon me. How can you become a new creation? Maybe that's what you're saying today. He's talking about this new creation. I've never done that. I don't know what that means. How do I become a new creation? 2nd Chronicles 5 17. You can take a look at it in your bible. The words will be on the screen. 2nd, Corinthians. I said chronicles. 2nd Corinthians 5 17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. The key part of that phrase is if anyone is in Christ. Have you ever given your life to Christ? Have you given your life? Have you said, I wanna make you Lord and savior of my life? Have you given up your old ways and given yourself to him? If you are, you are a brand new creature in Christ. The old has passed away, and the new has come. Do you know him? Has that happened in your life? If it has never happened in your life, I'd like to talk with you about that personally one on one. If anyone is in Christ, then he's a new creature. The old has passed away. So a brand new creature. A brand new creature. This year, 2024, my family, my wife, and I, welcomed a new grandchild. Right? New babies are so special. They're wonderful. I know many of you, you know, you got 27 of them. That's this. But it's still fresh. Right? Every time you have a new one, it's still wonderful. It's still an amazing thing. As parents, we have a new, child in our life. It's a brand new creature. Then this new creature comes into our life. And, man, it is so different. It changes everything in our life. We've been blessed and been able to be close to our grandchild, and so it's been a wonderful time for us to be able to do that. He's a brand new creature, and it's so neat watching every day. Watching, literally, every day new things he learns, new things he's doing, the new things that's happening in his life. He's getting stronger. He's eating, you know, more solid food, things that are, not baby food stuff as much, and, you know, all these kind of things. And so we're looking at all that. We're watching them grow. And I'm thinking when I'm looking at all this, I'm thinking, you know, that's exactly how our our walk is in Christ is supposed to be. We become a brand new creation, a brand new creature, and we're supposed to continue to grow in strength in him every day. We're not supposed to be the same as we were before. We're supposed to continue to grow and be a better person, to be worthy of that lord and savior that we have accepted. New believers are just like newborns, and they're learning every step of the way. But how do they learn? Well, how do they learn? Somebody's gotta be there to teach them. Somebody's gotta be there to show them. Somebody's gotta mentor them. How does that baby learn to wave? Every time he leaves, I say, bye. I wave at him. The other day he was sitting there and he started going, ah, he's getting it. He's remembering that wave as as creatures in Christ. And it wasn't just me, but the creatures in Christ, brand new. They come in, and and they accept Jesus as lord and savior. And then sometimes we just expect them to know everything right then. Well, you don't know everything. You didn't know everything when you became a believer. How are they gonna know everything right then? They're not. They gotta be mentored. We have a new believer's class. It's only 6 weeks. We go through a new believer's class. That doesn't give them everything they need. That gives them some basics to build upon. They gotta have mentors. They gotta have somebody there helping them to strengthen. Well, I'm 80 whatever years old, and so I've been, you know, in church my whole life. Yeah. Are you perfect? No. Are you gonna be perfect? Not till I step into heaven. So while you're here, you still need to be taught, you still need to be mentored, you still need to do things, but you also need to then turn around and pour into other people. Pour into other people. Well, I'm too old to do this or to do that. Yeah. But you know what? You can still teach. You can still talk to other people. You can still share with other people how they can be a better creation in Christ. How they can learn to be stronger. The things that will help them in the hard times. You know what? I went through that before. Let me tell you what happened in my life. This occurred, and this is how I handled that. This is what I did. And listen, it wasn't right. I learned to do it this way. You can share all that with new creations. New creations in Christ. Even if they're not new, but they're not yet in heaven, they're still learning. We still need to work together to help each other to grow in Christ. They new creations have plenty desire to learn. Every child, they have desire to learn. They wanna learn something all the time. They're constantly watching. They're learning everything. They're they have this desire to learn from you, to learn from the ones that are around their life, a new creation. In a church, they have a desire to learn from you. They know there are people that have been here for all of these years, and they want to learn something. They have that desire to learn. They must have things taught to them. They don't just know it. As much as we'd love to think that when a person becomes a new creature in Christ, that immediately everything they need to know is imparted upon them, and they don't ever need anybody else to show them anything. That is not how it is. Even the scripture says, they're like newborn babies on milk. Right? And they need solid food. They need to grow. They need to learn. We're the ones that know Jesus, have known him for all these years, that need to be the ones to help teach them. We're the ones they're looking towards. We're the ones they're looking at saying, how do I do these things? And if we're not doing things as we should, how are they gonna do them? A new baby can learn things. A new believer is a new creature, and a new baby can learn good and bad. Woah. Hold up. What do you mean? Well, they can learn your bad habits just like they learn your good things. They can learn things. You know, it's amazing. You know, people who before they became parents, they had we'll say a colorful language. They used a lot of words that shouldn't have been used. They have a child, and when suddenly that child begins to use those words, they're shocked. And that's when they have to start changing their vocabulary. Right? They start changing it because they're shocked that that word came out of their child's mouth. Well, why? Because they're watching you. They're learning from you. They learn the good and the bad. They learn the good habits, and they learn the bad habits. They learn everything. They're watching everything that's happening. Brothers and sisters, new believers are watching you. They're watching everything you do. They're watching if you have a a a good habit in your life, a habit of reading God's word and and talking to others about him and doing all those things. They're looking at you have bad habits that the only time you pick up God's word is when you come back to church. On Sunday morning that you talk about God in one way, but then you don't live that way during the week. They're watching those things. They're learning those. Well, you know, so and so. So they've been a believer for 60 years, and, you know, I don't see them doing whatever. So I guess it's not something I need to do. They learn the bad with the good. We as believers, those of us who are more mature believers I didn't say who are mature believers because probably most of us in here aren't mature yet. We're more mature, but we haven't made it to that mature stage yet. We're still striving. We're still learning. We're still trying. But if we're more mature than those who are new in Christ, we should be helping to mentor them. We should be helping to mentor them to bring them along, and show them exactly how they need to do things. Bad examples teach just like good examples. Sometimes, they teach even quicker than good examples. Bad examples teach just like good examples. The person is doing things in a way that's bad and negative, that teaches that child just like it teaches a young believer. It teaches them just like good habits. Sometimes even faster. And so we have to be careful with what we're doing. We need to teach. We need to share. We need to bring them along. But we need to do it in a way that's pleasing to God, and we need to be good examples. We have to be diligent not to be bad examples, but to be good examples. Well, they they shouldn't watch me. I'm I'm just not that good. You know, I I struggle. I have a don't don't don't do what I do. Don't do what I do. Is that really how you wanna live? Is that really how you want to live, to tell people, don't do what I do. I'm not doing it right. I'm not doing it right. Paul said that we should tell them to follow us, that they should mimic what we do. And if we know that people are following us, you know what we gotta do? Follow God. We gotta follow God. We gotta be that good example. Instead of saying, don't do what I do, stop doing the wrong things. And instead, follow God and do what God puts in your heart. Do the things that are right in his sight. Do the things that you know you should have been doing all along, but you haven't. Don't tell people, don't follow me. I'm not a good example. Become a good example. Be that person that leads someone to Christ. Be that person that shows someone how they can overcome those hard things in their life. Be that person that is the mentor and braze them up. It's been said that growing the body of Christ cannot be done with addition, but it has to be done with multiplication. You see, with addition, it's the whole body brings in 1. But with multiplication, everybody brings in 1. And so then suddenly, that's multiplying. That's not just adding. I'm you know, I would love to see this congregation packed out, but that's not what I'm talking about. When I'm talking about growing the body of Christ, I'm talking about the the kingdom of God. I would love to see the kingdom of God be growing, being multiplied exponentially. Because those that do not know Jesus Christ as Lord and savior, they have a a eternal destiny in hell. Only by giving their life to Christ can that change. You know how. We should be sharing with them how. We need to be letting them know how. We can be a bad example, and we can say, well, don't do what I do. Instead, do what I do. Instead, live your life so you can say, hey. Follow me. I'll show you how you do this. I'll show you how to you know what a a carpenter that's any good? They don't say, hey, don't do it like me. They say, let me show you the best way to do it. And then they show you exactly how to build something so that it comes out right and proper. Somebody who is, good in computers, they said they don't say, don't do it like I do. Let me show you the best way to do it. Somebody who knows Jesus as lord and savior shouldn't be saying, don't do it like I do. Let me show you the best way to do it. Let me show you how I walk. And and you may be a little different. God may get put you in a different direction. Maybe use a different devotion than I do. Maybe you have your prayer time and devotion time at night instead in the morning. Maybe you do it a little different. But do those things. Let me show you that because I'm gonna do them. And I wanna walk in that way. That's the way we should be teaching them, not bad things, but new things. We have to be diligent, not to be bad examples. New believers sometimes fall away quickly. You know why? Due to bad examples. Well, you know, I gave my life to Christ, and I'm looking around, and none of these people are living like that. What's the difference? They look just like the people that aren't going to church. Why would I wanna continue to follow them that way? Why would I wanna continue to do that? I can go back to doing things the way I was doing before. I can do this or that. They fall away from the walk. Before. I can do this or that. They fall away from the walk. That doesn't mean they fall that they've lost their salvation, but they fall away from the walk. And instead of growing as a believer, they never grow because they fell away because of bad examples that have been given to them in the 1st place. They're taught bad habits like not putting God first. Not putting God first. We gotta put God first in everything that we do. So think about this, if I'm getting paid the first thing I should be doing is taking what I got paid and giving part of that back to God. Giving him a tithe. Giving him an amount of that money as it's been given to me. I give back to him. I should be doing that. That should be the first thing. When I get paid, I should be doing that. First thing I should be doing during the day is I should be focusing on God. I should be putting God before all those other things. I need to be doing that. And if I'm not putting God first in all things, then the people that are following me are not seeing that. I'm a bad example. I need to get be a good example in order that others can see that. I need to make changes in my life. Perhaps you are here today, and you're thinking, you know what? I have not been doing the greatest thing. I haven't been putting God first. I haven't depended on God for everything. Well, you know, I mean, I don't I don't wanna say I depend on God for everything. I mean, you know, some things I just I I don't necessarily need to call God to, ask about or try to get him involved or, you know, I can do these things on my own. Really? The scripture says apart from me, you can do nothing. The reality is when we start thinking about, I can do all these things on my own. I don't really need God for this. You need God for everything. You need God for everything. And if we're not putting God first and putting God above everything else in our life, then we're going to be bad examples. Just like a new year, sometimes we fall short of our goals. In a new year, we make resolutions or goals, and we wanna do this, we wanna do that, but we fall short. We just don't make it. Say, well, I wanted to do this, but we didn't. Why? A lot of times, the reason we don't is because we don't really take our goals seriously. Oh, we say we're making goals, but we don't really take them seriously. We just want to have a good list to share with somebody and say, this is what I'll plan on doing this year. And if I do, okay. If I don't, okay. It's kinda like marriage today. You know, people get married, and they say, well, if we make it, fine. If we don't, it's okay. Not a big deal. No. A goal when you set a goal, it should be something you strive for. When we make a new goal, then we should strive for it instead of falling short of it. The reason we're falling short is because we're not really trying to reach it. So it's a new new year, a new creation, then strive for that goal. For all of us, we need to be striving for those goals. Sometimes it's because we don't fully buy in. What do I mean by that? Well, sometimes we make a goal because it sounds good, but we didn't really buy into that goal. Right? You know, I think that probably, you know, this is what I should do this year. But, you know, you didn't really buy fully into that. It just like I said, it sounded good, and I never really bought in. Well, I'm gonna tell you this. If you don't fully buy in, you're never gonna reach that goal. You'll never reach it. If you say, you know what? Last year, I challenged at the beginning of the year for each person to lead 1 person to Christ during the year. If we took a a tally today and said, how many of you achieved that goal? I dare say that it wouldn't be a very high total. It wouldn't be a very high total. Why? Because we said, okay. Yeah. We wanna do that, but we didn't fully buy in. We're like, yeah. That sounds good. We didn't really buy in. We never really tried to reach that goal. You know, if God happened to put somebody in our way and we had opportunity to tell them about Christ, maybe that woulda happened, but, you know, we didn't go out of our way looking for it. Sometimes we don't reach goals because we don't fully buy into it. We don't try. We just say, well, it's a goal. I'm never gonna reach it, but it's a goal. If we don't buy in, we'll never reach the goal. If we don't buy in, how are we gonna reach people for Christ? Make no mistake. He is a new creature. Those who accepted god as lord and savior, he is a new creature. A new creature. Not the same as before, a new creature. Not the same. Different by design. What do you mean by design? Well, god said, if anyone comes to me, he is a new creature. He designed it that way. You are new. You're not the same. You are not the person that was walking in the shadows. You are not the person that was in the darkness. You are now the person in the light. And if you are a new creature, then you need to be walking fresh and new. Every day, we need to be trying to walk fresh and new. We need to be putting God first in everything we do because we are a new creature. If you're a new creature and you want to bring other people along with you, then we have to do it that way. It's a new year. It's time to realize the old has passed away. The old has passed away, it's gone. It's no longer here. It's passed. Now we have a new slate. We have a new year. We have a new life. We have a new opportunity. The old person for that has accepted Christ. The old person is gone. The old person is gone. The old has passed away. Grasp the truth that as a new creature, we have to have new habits, new goals, new opportunities. And every year, we need to be striving to reach those goals. We need to buy into them a 100%. I'm gonna challenge you again this year just like I did last year. I'm gonna challenge that every person in this room would lead at least 1 person to Christ this year. Lead at least 1 person to Christ this year. The reality is that for most people, if you lead one person to Christ, you know what's gonna happen. You get so excited about it. You start looking for another. That's called multiplication. That's when we start multiplying. You get so excited, you start looking for another. And then if you lead that one, and they lead 1, and they lead 1, you see what's gonna happen. Today, we're gonna celebrate a baptism. You know why? Because brother Tim led a person to Christ. It wasn't the only one. He led several to Christ this year. But this particular one, we're gonna baptize today because he led into Christ. You know what? The old has passed away. He's a new creature. That means he needs mentoring by all of you who know him as lord and savior. That means that we now want him to lead someone to Christ. Now we wanna continue to do that. Just think about it. If everybody led someone to Christ, we'd have to keep the baptism full all year long. We'd be baptized in all the time. And the great thing about that is not that the church would be growing, but the kingdom would be growing. And that's what we need to strive to do. New things have come. New things have come. The old is past, new things are here. What God has put in your life is new and better than anything you ever had without him. That anything you ever had without him, what God has put in your life is new and better than anything you ever had without him. Grasp that. Be excited about that. The things that God installs are always perfect. Everything he puts in our life is always perfect. I was telling James today, I think about 6 weeks ago, 5, 6 weeks ago, God put this message on my heart for today. This was the day it was going to be. And between the time that God put that message on my heart and today, James got saved. And then we talked about baptism, and he said, originally he was gonna be baptized next week, then he came back. No. I wanna be baptized this week. It's gonna work out better for me. I said, that's awesome. I went back and looked at my message for today and went, wow. Look how God put all that together. It's amazing how God does all that. God does everything perfectly. He puts it in our life perfectly if we will follow what he's doing for us. When he puts it in our life, if we follow it, it's always gonna be perfect. Instead of trying to hold on to the old things or think that we know better than he does or do things differently, we have to trust in these new things. We have to trust in them and follow them. Here's the question I have for you today. Have you been renewed? Have you been renewed? When I say have you been renewed, have you trusted God in your life? Have you trusted him as your Lord and savior? Have you become a new creature because you've given your life to Christ? Has that happened? If it hasn't happened, then what are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? Today can be that day. If it has happened and you already know Jesus Christ as lord and savior, when's the last time you consider yourself renewed? Are you renewed daily? Have you given your life daily? Are you daily taking up your cross and following him? Are you doing that on a daily basis? Or are you kinda hanging around in your old ways, and not really growing and maturing in Christ? Giving it all to him. Well, today, I wanna ask you this. If you know that you need to be renewed, you need to give your life to Christ fresh and new this year, then I'm gonna have a time of invitation in just a moment. The altar will be open. If you need to give your life fresh and new to God this year, I'm gonna ask you come down here and do it at the altar. Do it at the altar. If you've never given your life to Christ, but today, you know you want to do that, come talk to me. I wanna talk with you about it and tell you exactly how you can do it. Whatever God puts on your heart during this time of invitation, answer. And if you need to come down to the altar to do that, then come down. It'll be open. If you are not physically able to do that and you need to stay where you are, that's okay too. But answer him. Don't let it pass by. Answer whatever he puts on your heart. Let's pray.