In this sermon, the speaker shares a powerful testimony of a group of Calvary Chapel pastors who distributed 40,000 tracks over two days. Despite the organizers' intention to keep people moving, groups of about a thousand would stop and listen to the music and preaching of the gospel. The police had to intervene to keep the crowd moving. The speaker emphasizes the power of music in connecting with people and encourages believers to step out in faith and use their gifts to serve this generation by sharing the gospel. The sermon also highlights the importance of living a life that reflects Christ, as it is through our actions and testimonies that we can attract unbelievers to the message of the gospel.

Let's turn together to Acts 13. We've been going through Acts here on Saturday night, and we're considerably further along than chapter 13. We're actually in about chapter 24 or so, but rather than jumping back into our verse-by-verse study, I wanted to just take a verse tonight and speak specifically to you about a particular subject, and that subject has to do with serving the Lord. So we're going to look just real quickly at the 13th chapter and the 36th verse. Paul is preaching in the synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia, and in the course of his message, he mentions David. And he says something here about David that I think is pertinent to us as well. And so he said in verse 36, he said, For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep. David served his own generation. That's what I want to talk about tonight. Seizing the opportunity, taking advantage of the time that has been allotted to us here. You know, we don't have forever. Each of us have been given an allotted period of time in which we'll be here on the earth, and we've been afforded the great privilege of serving the Lord while we are here. I believe it's God's will for each of us, like David, to serve our generation as well, to serve our generation in the sense of getting the gospel to them. Now, it is a hardened, cynical, self-satisfied, pleasure-seeking generation that we happen to be in the midst of. It's a generation without shame, you might say. I read an article last week as I was on a flight and one of the the heading for that particular article was a generation without shame. And it it just went into all of these details about the lives of the young people in Europe and particularly in Britain and how they're they're just so steeped in every kind of perversion, imaginable and drunkenness and drug use. And that is just really basically what they're living for and how they don't seem to have any shame or any you know, nothing seems to even prick their conscience in regard to what they're doing being wrong. And as we look around us, we see that we're living in, as Paul said in his day, we're living in the midst of a crooked and a perverse generation. I read an article today that that was entitled The Ten Commandments Complied. And the gist of it was that the state of Alabama has complied with the federal judge's decision to remove the Ten Commandments from public view. So they've taken this stone image of the Ten Commandments and they've moved it into a room out of public view. And now, you know, the the attorney general of the state and all he's he's very happy to report to the federal judge that the state of Alabama has complied in removing the Ten Commandments. And, you know, you look at these kinds of things and you think of this new movie that Mel Gibson is producing about the death of Jesus and all of the uproar about this that's going on, the hostility, because he wants to put in a film version what's recorded in the Gospels. And all around us, we find ourselves in the midst of this crooked and perverse generation. This is the generation that God has chosen that we live in. It's no accident that we're here at this time. And I do believe, as I said, that God wants us to serve this generation by getting the gospel to them, just as David served his own generation. And so tonight we want to take a few minutes and just talk about that very thing, how it is that we can really fulfill that calling, that calling to serve this generation by getting the gospel to them. And there are three things that I want to highlight for you this evening. And the first is that if we're going to impact our generation, if we're going to serve them in a positive way and somehow influence them for Christ, the first thing is we have got to be living the lives ourself. Because if we're not doing that, then there's absolutely no attraction on the part of the unbeliever to us. There's no attraction whatsoever. If our lives are no different than the lives of our neighbors who aren't believers or the lives of our colleagues at work who aren't believers or whoever it might be, if there's no difference in my life, then I'm not going to really have an impact on my generation. There's got to be a distinction. And I think one of the most damaging things to the testimony of the church today is the fact that a lot of Christians just aren't living like Christians. They're living like non-Christians. They're living like everybody else around them. We find this is all too common that in the churches we find that adultery is all too common in the churches, fornication, divorce, drug problems, drunkenness, all of these kinds of things that Jesus came to liberate us from. Our churches are full of people that are still wrapped up in these things. And, you know, I'm not talking about the person who's struggling here and there with things. We all struggle to some degree with a lot of things. But I'm talking that there are people that are just blatantly living sinful lives and somehow justifying it or excusing it or thinking that, you know, it doesn't really matter. But it does matter. And it matters to God, of course. It matters to the overall witness of the church. But it really matters to the unbeliever, too, because if you're saying you're a Christian and they don't see a distinction in your life, they're they're just, you know, prone to dismiss the whole thing and just to count it off as nothing of any sort of legitimacy that they ought to take any time to think about. And so we have got to be living the life. And, you know, it's not that hard. I mean, you know, God has given us his spirit. We've been born again. He's he empowers us. He's provided us with this word. He's given us the great teaching we have in the fellowship and all those things. It's not really that hard to live the Christian life. I think a lot of people. Maybe think that it is, but it's not the most difficult thing is getting beyond ourselves. The hard thing is denying ourselves, turning over our will. That's the thing that is really behind it. For the most part, it's the the tendency to do our own thing and to live for ourselves rather than to live for the Lord. And so if we're going to effectively serve our generation, we have got to start living our faith. We've got to live it at home. Our homes ought to be places where the Lord Jesus is comfortable, his spirit is present and manifest, where our kids are growing up in an environment where they know the Lord is there and the Lord is touching them just through their experience there at home in the family. And they're wanting to go on and walk with the Lord. You know, many kids are lost because they don't see any real valid witness in their own homes among their parents. We have a school here. Many of you know that. And boy, I'll tell you, some of the kids, the horror stories we hear about what's going on at home with their parents. And yet their parents attend church and they put their kids in Christian school, but they're just not living it. We've got to begin to live it at home. We've got to live it on the job. We've got to live it among our neighbors. We've got to live it in the business world and all of these places being surrounded by the the sin that we're surrounded by. There is a strong pull and there's temptation all of the time. But we can rise above it. Jesus came to give us the power to rise above sin, and there's no reason whatsoever why we ought to be living in sin. There's just absolutely no reason. Some people say, well, that's awfully harsh. You know, you're not very sympathetic or understanding. Well, you know, there comes a time when we just need to grow up. We just need to realize that now it is high time to awake out of sleep. Our salvation is nearer than we when we than when we first believed. And the night is far spent. The day is at hand. And those things that Paul told us, it's time to put on the Lord Jesus and make no provision for the flesh. You know what a lot of Christian people are doing? They're making provision for the flesh. They're making excuses for the flesh. They're saying, oh, well, you know, you just don't understand. And I've got a problem. And my psychologist told me that I could probably never overcome this and all of this kind of stuff. But it's time that we just realize that Jesus came to transform our lives. He came to set us free. When we were ministering over in Britain recently, we were doing this music festival that I shared with some of you about and one of the particular groups that came through, you know, they were an interesting group of guys. They were foul mouthed and wondering where the beer was and all of this kind of stuff, you know, and and we're just looking at them thinking, you know, what are you thinking? You're you're you're ministers of the gospel. And one of them excused it by saying, oh, well, you know, we're British. No, that's not the problem. The problem is your carnal. That's the reality. British, American, you know, Chinese, who cares? That's that's the issue is that God has given us a new life and we need to be living that new life. But a lot of times people are making excuses and and we see it all the time. So if we're going to serve our generation effectively, we've got to begin by living the life ourselves. Remember, Jesus came into the world to liberate us from sin, to set us free from sin, to give us the power to rise above it and to live a life that's pleasing to him and attractive to other people. And as I've already said, that's one of the main reasons why people are not impressed with the church. It's because of the hypocrisy. I met a person in England a few months back and he was telling me that he actually was living a homosexual lifestyle. And when he when he saw this attempted ordination of a man to the position of bishop who was also involved in a homosexual lifestyle, it did something to him. It shocked him and he just thought that is wrong. You know, funny response from a person who's living that lifestyle. You would have thought that, you know, as so many people do think, oh, that's that's great. But this guy thought, no, that's wrong. A Christian should not be doing that. And it caused him to repent of his sin and to turn to the Lord because because the Christians are doing it all wrong. And he was he had enough sense to know that, wait, something's not right with this. But, of course, that's not the kind of evangelism that we should be promoting, is it? Just living in all kinds of sin so people can look at us and say, well, those Christians are wrong, but I'm going to still follow God. That's the exception to the rule. Most of them look on and say, well, you know, if that's what Christianity has to offer, then I don't want anything to do with it. You know, one of the one of the main things that the fundamentalist Muslims have against the Christians and, you know, one of the ways they justify their attitudes and so forth is because they they talk about the loose moral standard among the Christians. Now, they do have a problem in distinguishing between, you know, who are really Christians. They kind of look at any Western nation as a Christian nation. But yet I think sometimes, you know, we have given them a bit of ammunition because we're not careful to live godly life. So if we're going to serve the Lord in this generation, if we're going to impact our generation, we've got to live the life. Secondly, we need to pray. We need to pray hard. We need to cry out to God. Things are, you know, things are just going from bad to worse. It seems I talked to my dad on the phone today. Today's the 64th birthday. And he's the first thing he said to me. He goes, can you believe what's going on in the world? It just seems like every day some major thing happens again. And it does seem that way, doesn't it? Nothing is is really slowing down and sort of settling and getting back to normal. It just seems to be escalating all over the planet. And we look around and even sometimes as Christians, we we start to revert to the wrong things. And we think that there's hope in the political system, perhaps, you know. You know, maybe you were one of those people that signed to recall the governor. I signed that. But now that I signed the petition, I'm in a quandary. I still want him out, but I can't. There doesn't seem to be anybody to put in his place. And you just think, my, you know, it's it is seems to be coming to where Jesus said that the nations would be in perplexity with no way out. You know, I'm sorry, but Arnold isn't the man. He's not going to he's not going to do it. He's not going to help the situation any. Because really, this is the problems, whether they be problems in our own country or problems, you know, in an international level, really, they're spiritual problems at the root. And so how do we deal with that? How do we address that? What can we do about that? Well, we, of all people, can do something that nobody else can do. We can pray. You see, we can pray. And God has promised that he listens to us. That is one of the prerogatives of being a child of God. I have the Lord's ear. I can go right to him and I can say, Lord, you have got to do something about this. God, we call upon you. But I wonder how. Often we neglect that great and awesome privilege and just spend our times fretting or spend our time, you know, pursuing other avenues that aren't really going to solve the problem. We need to pray for this generation. We need to pray that God would open people's hearts. You know, I mentioned a few minutes ago reading, you know, one of the great things about flying is you get to read a lot because you're bored, you know. So I usually get pick up all kinds of interesting information as I'm flying around to different places. But, you know, again, I was reading one of these articles just about the state of the youth. And it's not just in Europe. It's all over our own country as well. And, you know, as I read that, I thought, you know, humanly speaking, there absolutely is no solution. There's no solution in these things. I don't know if you read the article in The Register today about this new movie that's just come out. I think it's called 13 and it's chronicling the life of these 13 year old girls. And it's sort of a docudrama kind of a thing and talking about how now, you know, girls younger and younger are getting involved in things and all the pressure that's on them to conform and the way they're dressing and the lifestyles are getting into with the drugs and the alcohol and the sex and all that at 13. And you look at this sort of stuff and then, you know, there they had along with it, they had some different organizations that you could contact if your daughter's involved in some of this stuff. And, you know, it was Orange County Mental Health and some of these other organizations. And I just think, you know, what are these people going to do for them? What in the world? How are they going to help them? I mean, this is the kind of stuff they're being taught. I saw the clip from the the Video Music Awards the other night, and there was a clip of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera kissing each other on the lips. And, you know, this is this is what's being thrown in our faces all the time. And then you think, oh, well, you know, your kids are in trouble. Well, let's send them down to mental health. Maybe they can sort them out. No, they can't. The only thing that can help these kids is the power of God, salvation, Jesus coming into their lives. And we're at that kind of a place again where we need to see God pour out his spirit. And we are the ones that can ask him to do it. And nobody else can ask him. Only Christians can ask him because, of course, nobody else would think to ask him. And beside that, we know that his ear is open to the righteous, those who have been justified by faith in Jesus. We are the ones that can pray our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Nobody else can pray that prayer. So we have got to pray. We have got to pray hard. We've got to pray faithfully, diligently. And so those two things, if we're going to serve our generation, we've got to live the life. We've got to pray. And then thirdly, we need to take steps of faith. And this is the thing I really want to emphasize tonight. Do you realize that God has called you to serve your generation by getting the gospel to them or having some part in that happening? Do you realize that? You see, if we don't realize that in the first place, then we're stuck. We we've got to get a vision for life in a sense. We've got to come to the realization that, you know, my life is meaningful. There's a purpose. God put me here for a reason. I'm living on this planet right here tonight. August 30th, 2003, because God ordained that I be here. He knew the circumstances that I would be living under. He knew the condition of the world at the time and he put us here. He saved us. He's left us here. Why? Because he has something for us to do. But you see, if we're all consumed with the life of the flesh and living for the world and doing what everybody else is doing and trying to, you know, get one up on our neighbor and, you know, bigger house and faster cars and more money in the bank and more vacation time, all of that kind of stuff that everybody else is doing. We're completely missing the boat because that's not what we're here for. David. He served his generation by the will of God. David was here to do something for God. You're here to do something for God. I'm here to do something for God. That's why we're here. That's why God has left us here. Have you ever wondered why the rapture hasn't happened yet? I mean, it seems like it could have happened a long time ago. But evidently, God still has something that he wants to accomplish, and the church is his instrument through which he accomplishes things. And so we have to get a vision for that. And then we've got to take steps of faith. We've got to just begin to step out. It would be a good idea tonight. To just stop for a moment. And just ponder where we're at in life, what we're doing. And just to even ask the Lord, God, is there something you want to change in my life? Lord, if I become complacent, am I too comfortable? You know, those are things that I think we really need to consider as the church of Jesus Christ. We have to always be on our guard because there's always the temptation to just settle down into the world. And so we need to be on our guard and we need to be taking steps of faith. We need to put ourself in a place where we can say, God, here I am. Use me. Use me in this generation. Use me with my family. Use me with my neighbors. Use me on my job. Use me out in my leisure time, whatever I'm doing. You know, use me. Lord, send me somewhere else if you want to. Are we open to that sort of thing? Are we thinking in those terms? We need to be because that's what God wants. He wants us to be a people who are available to him, who are simply saying, Lord, here I am. Whatever you have, I want to do it. If it's stay right here and keep doing what I'm doing, but have a different emphasis, maybe that I haven't seen before. That's great. If it's pack my bags and head to the other side of the planet, Lord, I want to do that, too. You know, the one thing that happens to me every time I go on these trips back over to Europe and Europe is just the place God's kind of sent me. But it's all over the world. The one thing that always happens to me is I get this deep burden and to some extent a great frustration over the fact that there's so much work to be done and so few people doing it. But I remember Jesus said that we're to pray the Lord of the harvest and and that's what I'm doing. But I just I know right now personally myself of five different opportunities in key cities in Europe to plant churches. But I don't know of anybody who's interested in going. And I just think, Lord, you got to do something, you got to get people off their seats and get them out there in the battle. It's. Time is running out, and so we need to take steps of faith. And let me give you a few practical examples of where to start with that. Take a step of faith as an adult, take a step of faith, start teaching Sunday school, perhaps. You know, we think about the possibility of future generations and all of that, and what's the future? The future is children. I think of how much the devil and his world system has invested in children. Boy, they've aimed all their guns at the kids, haven't they? Through the educational system, through the media, everything's pointing at the kids and trying to seduce them and lead them astray. It's just amazing. And yet sometimes we don't have enough vision ourselves to think about the kids and educating them and training them up in the ways of the Lord. But these kids, these hundreds of kids right here at our Sunday school every Sunday morning or Saturday night or Sunday or whatever, whenever we're gathered here, these kids are all potential servants of God. But we've got to make an investment in their lives. We've got to point out some people, you know, look at children's ministry as sort of, you know, second class service. That's what you do if you can't get to the big people and, you know, get a platform there. Not so. That is a great ministry. It's a glorious ministry. One of the great evangelists of the past century, D.L. Moody. He was initially a minister to children. He had a church of some 700 kids. There were no adults there when it was all children, and he faithfully taught them and ministered to them. And as his ministry expanded and grew and as God sent him to minister, you know, on an international scale, some of those children that grew up in his church, they became his workers and his closest associates and friends who labored alongside of him. And so take a step. Maybe God's been speaking to you about stepping out music ministry, you know, music as you you're here today. You're listening to music. We enjoy music. Music is such a powerful medium, isn't it? I mean, it really is the universal language everywhere you go. Music connects with people. And we see that more and more. The most popular, you know, the most popular TV program in the world is MTV. MTV is all over the planet, music, TV, people watch it all over the world, the younger generation specifically. And I think of the power of music and the way that it can impact people, and I think of the gifts and the talents that God has given to people within the body of Christ. But we need to we need to step out in faith. We need to take those gifts and cultivate them and use them and put them in the altar and say, God, what do you want to do with this? And this festival that we did in the UK, the music was just such a powerful medium to connect with the people. And then my son, Charlo, and the guys in the band with him, they went and they were touring all over into Wales and back into London. And they were doing outreach. And just the music itself was such a powerful tool to connect with the young people and to bring them in. And so we take a step and utilize those those gifts that God has given us. Maybe it's not music. Maybe it's drama of some sort or or some other artistic ability. All of those things. Do we think in terms of using those things to the glory of God? That's the question that I'm asking. Are you thinking in those terms? God's given you a gift. Are you looking for an opportunity to use that gift for him? And then, of course, there's just plain old rubber meets the road evangelism, just getting out and sharing the gospel with people and coming up here once again next month. We're starting a new ministry team to go out Friday evenings to different places. We had the soul winners thing a while back. Joey Rosek was doing that. And Joey left for New Jersey. And now Jarrett Petro is going to be taking that over. But just getting the gospel out to people, talking to people about the Lord, telling them about what Christ has done in your life. You know, sometimes I think as Christians, we're sitting around just waiting for the unbelievers to show up at church. But think about yourself before you were a Christian. How likely was it that you were just going to stumble into church one day? It wasn't all that likely. I mean, it was a possibility, but yet it probably wasn't all that likely. You see, Jesus, he told us to go to get out, to go make contact with people, not to simply sit and wait for them to come. I mean, thank God people do come. Thank God for radio and thank God for people who invite their neighbors and friends. That's all wonderful stuff. We should be doing that. But we've also got to get out there. And, you know, it's interesting when you get out there, you find that although you could easily get the idea that nobody's interested in this, what you actually find is that people are a lot more interested than you might realize. And a lot of people have really never heard the gospel at all. I was down at Huntington Pier a few weeks back and it was right before the Harvest Crusade. And there was a team down there on the pier evangelizing. And I just stood there and I watched this young guy talk to two young guys that were just passing by. And I was intrigued as I watched at the interest that these two guys had. They didn't just simply blow this guy off and tell him to shut up and don't talk to me and, you know, get out of here. They said they listened and they were asking questions. I thought, you know, I think there are many people out there. You see, the more things go south, the more things become disoriented and confusing and difficult for people, the more people start to think, you know, what is going on? They're looking for answers. Some friends of ours that have been here and visited with us, the hip hop guys from London, M.O.D., they go by M.O.D. Last week they did in London, there's a festival every year called the Notting Hill Festival, Notting Hill Carnival. And it's one of these street carnivals, kind of like a Mardi Gras thing where, you know, actually attendance was down this year. It was only a million point five. And so it's one of these things you just tons and tons of people. Well, these guys have been given an incredible opportunity to have a couple of places where they were able to set up and and do their music and and preach the gospel. By the way, these guys are all pastors. They've started recently Calvary Chapel of South London. And so they're they're not just a hip hop band anymore. Now they're they're Calvary Chapel pastors. And that's one thing I'm really excited about. But I was talking to Ephraim yesterday on the phone and he was telling me they gave out 40,000 tracks over two days, 40,000 tracks. And then he was telling me that what was happening, you see, it's the kind of thing where they've got music in different locations and food and all kinds of cultural things. But the idea is that everybody needs to kind of keep going so they don't like people to congregate in any one place for too awful long. But what happened is these guys were doing their music and preaching the gospel and groups of about a thousand people would just stop and stand and listen. And you couldn't get them to move. They wanted to hear the gospel. The police had to come and say, look, we're going to shut you down if you can't get these people moving on. So they say, look, if you heard this message already, if you've received the literature, please move on so other people can come. And he said all day long, that's what was happening. And the thing that strikes me is just what my point is this, there's more interest out there than we might realize. And then he went on to tell me that the carnival officially closes at seven o'clock. But the police were so impressed with what they were doing, they let them go till 1030 that night. And so they had the metropolitan police guarding them and watching them as they preached the gospel there and at the Notting Hill Carnival. So evangelism, stepping out in faith, looking for opportunities to speak out and to share Jesus. You know, I want to emphasize that for a minute, to share Jesus. Sometimes we can get caught up in all kinds of other things. There's a big temptation. I have the same temptation. I get tempted to get caught up in social issues and politics and things like that and to concentrate on those things. But that's a waste of time, because if I convince somebody that their political position is wrong and mine is right, who cares? They're still going to hell. There's a lot of great conservative people that are going to hell because they don't believe in Jesus. They haven't received forgiveness of sins. So we've got to get the gospel out to people. Missions, another area where we can take a step of faith. You know, I know lots of missionaries. We just spent a week with a couple of hundred of them, and I know most of them personally. And most of them are just people just like you, just like me, just ordinary people who were going about life. And God spoke to their heart, put a place on their heart, gave them a desire. And they've stepped out and they're they're in places and doing things they never would have dreamed that they would have been doing. Maybe you're sitting here tonight and you're just you could never imagine being a missionary, but perhaps God would call you someday to the mission field. Perhaps he would call you out to take the gospel into these places where people are begging for something. You know, Don McClure and I were in Austria last week and we were teaching together at the conference, and Don was telling a story about when he was pastoring out in Redlands, California. He was telling a story about how for about a year, every time he would go somewhere and fly back in to the area, he felt like he was returning to spiritual Disneyland. And he couldn't shake that thought in the whole, you know, gist of what he was feeling was that I'm coming to a place that's overly saturated. And there's so many places out there with the need. And he just began to feel this this burden, like I can't keep coming back to this spiritual Disneyland. I got to get out there. There's too much work that needs to be done. And after about a year of that, the Lord just that was part of the way God was calling him. And so he moved up to northern California where things are not nearly as saturated as they are here, but we've got a whole country, we've got a whole world. And so taking steps of faith, moving out in the area of missions or believing in missions to the point that you say, you know, God hasn't called me to go, but he's called me to give and to support and to help get other people out there. That's an important part as well. Maybe God is wanting to lead you into a teaching ministry. Maybe God is moving on your heart, maybe he's giving you a great passion for the word and the ability to understand it. And and you just have this desire to communicate it. And sometimes as you're talking to people, you sense the Lord is using you. God is maybe calling you to take the next step, maybe to start a home Bible study or a Bible study at work or to go out and help with a new church plant or something like that. You see, these are all possibilities and there's many, many more. But we've got to take steps of faith. I met a guy here about a year ago. We had a few conversations. I've seen him around. He's come on Monday nights to the study. And but I got to know him a little bit on this past trip. He was with us on the trip. An interesting story. I would have never known he was the CEO of a 70 million dollar company. And he was there doing his thing in his business and making money hand over fist and every single thing he touched just kind of turned to gold. And, you know, and one day things kind of started going a bit sour. And in the process of things going a bit sour, he remembered a commitment that he had made to God back as a teenager. But now 23 years had passed and he hadn't really followed through with that. And before he knew it, everything that he had built up just kind of slipped through his fingers. But the great thing is, as we were talking, he was telling me that he signed up for the school of ministry. He doesn't even have an income presently, doesn't know what's happening, but God's providing for him and he's just preparing himself because he wants to serve the Lord. I think, man, that's great. Those are great stories. They're stories of faith. And so, you see, we've got to take steps of faith like David of old. God has called us to serve this generation to get the gospel to them. It's no accident that we're here at this time. God didn't place us in the wrong period in history. He's got us all here because this is when we're supposed to be here and he wants to work in us and he wants to work through us. But remember, it starts very personally with us just really being serious about him and living for him. Get the junk out of your life tonight. If you've got sin in your life, just repent of it. Turn away from it. You might say, oh, but you don't know I've been doing this for so long. Yeah, you have been way too long. It's time to stop. And you know what? You can stop. Oh, but no, you don't know. I'm I'm addicted. Yes, sin is addictive. But the power of the cross can break the addiction and you just have to come to Jesus and say, Lord, help me, forgive me, deliver me and mean it. And he will do it. And we need to begin to pray more and to really seek the Lord, to cry out to him, to ask him to intervene and to do something. I don't have any idea in my own mind necessarily that we'll ever have a restoration nationally to the kind of thing that we might have had at one point in our history. But that's not the point. The point is souls being saved, people being brought out of this world and made members of God's family and part of his kingdom. That's what we need to be about that kind of business there. And finally, again, taking those steps of faith and remember this as we close. You've heard it before. I'll say it once again. There's only one life and it will soon be passed and only what's done for Christ will last. You see, that's the thing that I need to be concerned about, first and foremost. That's where my thinking needs to be before everything else, because when it's all said and done, the Lord is not going to be remotely interested about anything like how much money you had in the bank or how successful you were in the world or how many people thought you were cool or great. Or none of that stuff matters. The only thing that's going to be weighed out on that day is what did you do with the time that I allotted to you? What did you do to serve your generation, to get my message to them? God, help us like David. To serve our generation as God has willed, and so when our time is up, we'll hear those words, well done. Good and faithful servant. Let's pray. Lord, we do pray that you would help us, Lord, to fulfill the calling upon our lives. And Lord, I realize tonight with this crowd of people here, there's the call varies from person to person. But Lord, you've called us all to live the Christian life. You've called us all to pray and you've called us all to do our part, whatever it might be, in helping get the gospel to others. So tonight, Lord, we want to make a fresh commitment of ourselves to you. And Lord, I would pray tonight for anyone who's living in sin, anyone who's compromised, anyone who's still in the grasp of iniquity, Lord, that you would show them right now that you died to set them free and that they no longer have to serve sin, as you said in your word, that we are to not to let sin reign in our mortal body. And so, Lord, show them that the victory is there if they'll simply take it and help them to take it, Lord, and help us to pray. Forgive us, Lord, for being negligent of that great and wonderful privilege of prayer and help us to become people who pray. People who for whom prayer, Lord, is just as natural as breathing and Lord, help us to take steps of faith. And I also pray, Lord, for everyone here tonight as they would just maybe do somewhat of a survey of their own life the last month or whatever, just asking about. Whether or not you might have changes for them, Lord, move them in the direction that you'd have them to go and give them the faith to take the steps in Jesus name, we pray, amen.