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Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's Word you hear today.
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Will bless your life and draw you closer to Him.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 8:30 or.
[00:00:17] Speaker A: 10:30Am if you have any other questions.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: About the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, find [email protected] Be sure to also check out our Bible Study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:37] Speaker C: Good morning family.
It is so good to see all of you here this morning. I wish you could see it from my point of view. It is amazing to see this auditorium filled and your Shepherds want you to know that we appreciate everyone's attendance this morning. Whether you're in the auditorium or online.
We are so glad that you're with us this morning and again, we want to offer a warm welcome to our visitors.
Thank you for being here and worshiping our God with us.
For those of you who may not be familiar with it, the purpose of Vision Sunday is to provide an opportunity for your shepherds to present the Focus theme for the coming year.
Vision denotes planning, perspective and looking forward.
But to do that we need focus.
Focus allows us to better incorporate God's vision that he gives us in Scripture into our lives, both individually and corporately as the Body of Christ.
We as your shepherds, strive to implement the vision of God and that vision that he has laid out for us in Scripture for the family here at Madison. Every day, the development of an annual Focus theme by the shepherds and ministers is done with careful and prayerful consideration.
We ask God for His guidance, his blessing, as we do everything in his name.
Now, while themes are great and they make nice slides, they make nice banners, the most important reason that we do this is to support the continuing process of spiritual maturity and health for our family here at Madison.
We are so excited over the past year to see how so many of you adopted a renewed and deeper desire to delve into the Word of God.
How you spent more time in prayer, not just alone, but with each other.
Sometimes that prayer time was spontaneous and sometimes it was planned, but we saw it deepen your relationships with each other and with your God.
It is our desire to always be building on the biblical framework and foundation of these focus themes from the past years and from the lessons that we have every Sunday.
We want God to continue to be seen in his church here at Madison. We want him to continue to be glorified through us in the community here at Madison and the world.
This year will be no different as we take these next steps.
In 2025, Madison will focus on fellowship and hospitality as we continue to build on the foundation built during last year's theme of prayer and Bible study.
Today's presentation will be divided into four segments.
The first will be reflection on the past year and what we've accomplished and what God has accomplished through us.
The second is engaging in the actions of construction, both physical and spiritual.
The third segment is encouraging the family's participation again, both physically and spiritually.
And finally, the sharing of the invitation of God.
You see, fellowship and hospitality begins with an invitation.
God models fellowship and hospitality for us and expects us to do the same.
As God invites us, we are to invite others.
And David will expound more on that during the invitation.
We are so excited about the coming year, but we can only give you a brief overview of the plans that we have and we believe that God has for us in 2025.
This morning after service, though, your shepherds will be down front and we invite you to come and talk to us if you have any questions regarding what.
[00:06:15] Speaker D: You'Ve heard.
[00:06:17] Speaker C: So we can help give you the information that you need.
We want you to know that your shepherds are always available to you.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: Thank you, Norm.
It's always a good thing when we start a new year to take just a brief moment to reflect back on the previous year. We want to do this in order to give God the glory, to give him the gratitude. It also gives us an opportunity to take our lessons, some learnings that we have from it. We'll take just a few minutes this morning to reflect back on 20, 24, 2nd Peter 3:18 there that you see, we here at Madison, we want to be this people. Here at Madison, we want to be God's people. We want to grow every year in grace and knowledge, in faith, every year. And we want our actions as individuals and as a congregation to reflect that growth that we encounter every year. If we think about this past year, Norm just mentioned our previous focus last year, which was on prayer and Bible study. And these are just a few things that kind of come to mind. I particularly think of that class we had on prayer psalms. I was telling someone this morning that I don't see either of those the same after that study. And I think any biblical study should bring about that kind of change in our lives. The idea that we focus on prayer together and now not necessarily putting it off to some later time. Let's pray together. I love that we've been in each other's homes more this year. We've had Bible studies in our homes. We've had prayer time in our homes as well. It's given us an opportunity to pray together, to think about, to bear one another's burdens. Right. To share the good times, but also to share those difficult times together that we have as a family.
I love our how to study focus that we had. Several quarters were spent thinking about how do we study and our study of learning God's way. And I hope that that's been transformative for you. Open your eyes to other ways and other things that are available to help us study and to be able to study together. And of course, so many times this year we've tried to pull in our neighbors to our building to come to us, to come see what it's about to be a part of God's family, to come with a desire to learn and to know more. We'll talk a little bit about some of the numbers. This time last year, we went through a list of a lot of numbers of how we have been growing. Right. And growing for quite a while. Well, that.
That theme has not changed at all in 2024. We continue to grow numerically. You can see there from a conversions perspective. We had over 130 conversions through our Limestone Correctional Facility baptisms, as well as those here at the building. We've already had one out at Limestone Correctional that I'm aware of this. This year, in 2025 already new families. That trend is about the same as last year. That number there may be a little bit lower than 2023. That represents about 85 adults.
So then there's also the kids that are involved there. So 51 new families, almost an average of one per week. Our growing. Our Bible classes are growing. MKC is growing. We were fortunate and been blessed to have added six new elders this past year. So the theme, of course, of growth, what God is bringing to this area and bringing to us as a congregation, the opportunity that's represented is huge. And it's something that we want to be ready for and be able to do in the way that God would have us to do it. And, of course, spiritual growth is so much a part of what we desire. You've seen it from the pulpit, the things that are being taught and our continued excellent preaching that we have there. And then, of course, your participation in the things in the classes and in your own study. And things like that have been effective.
We're also did something in 2024 that we really haven't done in a long time, and that's. We initiated the building campaign and we gathered up plans and commitments for that effort. That was. There were times that. That was challenging. And we want to say thank you for that. We definitely appreciate your patience as we kind of went through a bit of a learning curve there ourselves. But look at those numbers. A commitment that represents over a million dollars a year for the next three years. That's. That's a phenomenal, fantastic amount of money and great. Represents giving hearts. And we appreciate that. We thank you for those commitments, not just to the building campaign, but all the giving that you do every week and in so many different ways. And we definitely appreciate your patience. We got more to come on that, and that'll be coming up in the next section. Thank you.
[00:11:47] Speaker E: Good morning. Yes, this is our construction section of our vision for 2025. And I know what you're thinking, and we will talk about our facility expansion in just a minute. But we first want to start with a different kind of construction, a more important kind of construction. Jude, in his writing to Christians, wrote this in chapter one, verse 20. But you. And he's talking to Christians. But you, beloved, by building yourselves up. And that's just another way of saying constructing. By building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God as you await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you eternal life.
Five years ago, the elders in the 2020 time frame put together and presented in 2021, I believe a challenge for Vision 2025. And here it is. It's now 2025. But that Vision 2025, back then five years ago was 10 essential elements for future growth. The building up of a congregation of the Lord's Church, specifically, we were targeting, of course, us. And these essential elements still hang today behind you on the walls of this auditorium. And they remind us of the importance of these essential elements in our spiritual growth. Your spiritual construction. Well, now that it's 2025, we have seen over the last five years, your spiritual construction efforts.
Loving people the way God loves them. We've seen that.
Dedicating ourselves to God's truth found in his word through Bible study, We've seen that.
Seeking the lost, serving the community.
Five years ago, we were not serving the community the way we are now. And we're so very proud of you for the way you've started reaching out and help the community as we do now.
Transforming spiritually, individual transformation, spiritually imitating Christ anywhere we are, whether you're at school or at work, talking to your neighbor, we imitate Christ. We are the hands and the feet of Jesus.
Honoring God in our worship, focusing on our mission efforts as we heard this morning, and growing visionary leadership. Those are the 10 elements that we've been working on. And so Vision 2025 has been going strong now for five years. And we want to just keep it going, keep working on these important spiritual elements for this church and for you individually.
Last year we focused on two foundational Christian elements and that was prayer and Bible study.
And this year we want to build on that with a focus on fellowship and hospitality. Fellowship, where we build relationships within the Madison Church so that we can support each other as we walk this life here on earth. And then hospitality, where we build relationships outside the Madison Church and invite them to enjoy the blessings that God provides here for the Madison family. David Wade's going to be talking more about that here and provide us some more details in a few minutes.
So as your elders and your shepherds, your spiritual construction is our primary focus and it will remain that in 2025.
So let's talk a moment about building up or constructing up one of our ministries.
Did you know that here in this congregation, the Madison Church of Christ, we have three hundred and twenty children from birth through the sixth grade.
320. That's a big congregation in some areas because of the overflowing growth that God is blessing us with, and so many of them being young families with children, we have decided that we need a full time children's Minister.
So in 2025, Jordan Abrams, who is currently one of our youth ministers, working alongside with Richard Turner, Jordan will be transitioning to this new position with the plan to have this transition completed by the end of August of this year.
But because of the great work that's occurred over the last two decades and longer work by Brandon Presnell and Jason Helton, Brian LeMasters, Richard Turner and Jordan Abrams. Because of all that work and all you great parents out there who have been working and helping with our teenage youth through that period, we have a well oiled machine when it comes to our youth group, our teenagers. So Richard Turner is going to continue to lead our youth group and he'll be doing that with the help of Ashley Peden, his administrative assistant, the deacons, the parents, the rest of the church staff, and let's Just say we're going to all pitch in and help Richard and Jordan as we transition Jordan into the children's minister's position.
Now, in this role, there are several things that Jordan will be doing and be responsible for. Just wanted to make you aware of these.
He will be leading in many ways the events for our children, activities focused for children like our VBS Air camp. And there's many others that are listed on the screen there. And that is a short list. The list is bigger than that. But this is just to give you an idea of what Jordan will be doing in this new position.
Jordan will lead worship related tasks for the Madison kids, like Madison Kids Corner, development of worship handouts for our school age children that they can have here in the middle of worship service kids give and many other things.
We'll also be looking for Jordan to provide some support for our young families, parents and children. Providing marriage development, growing parenting skills, parent and young family retreats, and identifying the need for clinical counseling and connecting them with our counseling resources when that need is there. And it goes without saying that Jordan will be working with the deacons and teachers in our children's education program, improving our Bible classes and our teachers training. And lastly, Jordan will also be helping provide a smooth transition for those kids that have reached that point where they are transitioning into our youth group. This is an exciting time for the Madison congregation. We've never had this before and we are so excited to have this now. So please reach out and support Jordan and Richard during this transition in 2025.
And now I'm going to turn it over to Bob Howden. He's going to give you an update on our facility expansion and the budget for 2025.
[00:18:58] Speaker D: I want to start by saying it's such a blessing to just sit up here and look out at this congregation because I love you guys so much.
I love the smiles. I want to see a smile on every face. It's just, it's a family and I love you guys.
For our construction, we. We're ready to start. We're ready to break ground. We're ready to do something in 2025 that moves towards our plan that was presented in the campaign kickoff.
You can see here the building as we proposed it. We're going to be starting in the design phase and there may be some changes that are made as we go. I want to announce too that Chris Preston and his son Braden, we're going to contract with them to build this, this facility.
We feel that this is an important move for Madison that There's an importance for this facility here in this community. We see God's hand in every decision that we make.
We see the growth that he continues to send to us, that you just saw on the board, a family a week. We know. We know that there are differences of opinion on what we should have. This plan has extensions on our wings with eight new classrooms there and new classrooms upstairs above the fellowship hall. We know that there are differences of opinion, but we want to encourage all of us to seek one united family and one goal of unity throughout this effort.
We believe this is the direction that we're being moved. We see this as an endeavor that's not just for today and our needs of today, but for 10 years and 20 years and 30 years in the future for this community and in service to the Lord here in Madison. And that's the vision that we see with this construction.
Madison is so generous. Thank you.
You can see our budget numbers here, and I know they're small, but we increased our giving over our budget by 4.6% last year.
We've planned our budget for 2025 for a 4.8% increase over last year's budget.
But here's the thing.
In addition to that 4.6% that we gave, we gave an additional $215,000 towards special contributions towards disaster relief, towards missions, efforts, towards the ministries here at Madison. 215,000 above the 4.6 that you gave towards our budget and above the $1 million that you contributed towards the campaign.
Madison is so generous, and we can't thank you enough for the way that you serve the Lord here in this congregation for our overflowing campaign. It's already been said several times that we've hit over a million dollars in this first year.
We're only seven months, eight months, seven and a half months into the first year of campaign giving. We started this in June of 24, and it runs through May of 25. And so we are at 93% of our giving for this first year, and that includes those that filled out campaign cards and those that didn't. It includes special giving and donations by those that did not. We ask that those continue because we have plans for that.
This is a commitment card, and I want to say we have many new members. You saw 51 just this last year. That may not have been here when we filled these out. But to all of our members, I want you to know that these commitment cards are intended for planning. They're not intended for oversight. The elders don't know who committed what that's all handled through a committee.
We use those for planning purposes so that we know how, that we can plan to spend that funds and what we can do before or we have to look at a loan. And so I encourage anybody that hasn't filled one out, take the time to do it if you don't want to, it's fine. It's not a binding thing that we put on you. It's not ever what we sought. We sought those for planning purposes.
So here I want to talk about financing. So our goal is to finance through contributions and commitments entirely. But the plan is $8 million to construct this. That's going to be a big haul. And we understand that we have three and a half million in commitments and we hope the contributions exceed that by far. But because of that, we reached out to a bank and we've selected one and he gives. He's given us some flexible spending options.
And what I mean by that is that he's working with us to secure a loan that may be less than prime, that's outstanding if we can get less than the prime rate. He's also offered flexible options for the terms so that we can go 10, 15, 20, 25 years so that we can control what our payments will be monthly. And so this is an example of what a loan might look like. If we were to have to borrow 4.5 million for 20 years of 7%, that would put our monthly payment towards the building at just under 35,000 per month. That equates to a little over 8,000 per week. And one and a half. We want to look at another one and a half thousand to cover the increase in utilities and, and our insurance because we know that with a larger building, those expenses are going to go up.
We want those payments. You know, we're planning for those to be paid for through our contributions and through our budget. But let me talk about the budget plan. So for 2025, we don't want to borrow any money. We want to use that $1 million in contributions. And any further contributions, we get to pay for that through the donations that we have. By doing that, we can stave off having to budget and plan for a payment for this building.
In 2026, we'll be in a construction loan phase and we'll be paying interest on that loan and that will be factored into the 2026 budget. So when you look at 2025, we didn't factor in a payment. We're doing that through the contributions for 2026. We will factor in a payment, but it won't be this full amount, 2027. That loan will convert at the completion of construction to a permanent loan. And this amount is what we're looking at for a target we plan. We hope that contributions will exceed that and that we will be able to borrow less, far less than this.
We are committed to minimizing the impact to our ministries and our mission work here at Madison. We know that by adding a payment that it may impact those. But that's not our first plan for doing this. It's through the contributions and the giving that we get. And so be aware of that.
I also want to invite you, anybody here that wants to know more about this or discuss this, to reach out to the elders and have a conversation. There's so much more than I can tell you right now, but we're open, our door is always open for that.
And so I want to talk milestones next. We do have some near term milestones and I know this timeline is hard to read, but in January, we will sign that, that construction commitment with Preston Construction and we will move out. We will go to the design phase from there. And during the design phase, we'll look for opportunities to control cost and reduce things by looking at options. And that's going to be done in the second quarter. Third quarter, we're looking to start construction hopefully as early as July and break ground and start construction on this.
I have some challenges for the congregation with all this in mind. First, I pray that you pray for this congregation and you pray for this construction process.
I challenge you to increase your committed giving. And so if you haven't filled out a committed car commitment card, please do that. And if you choose not to understand and so additional giving outside the commitments, we challenge you to continue that so that that number increases so we can borrow less money.
And above all, you know, look at this as a commitment until we pay this loan off.
As opportunity comes to give towards payment of the loan, we look at that also. And I know that that's not necessarily a 2025 thing, but we have near term goals and we have long term goals. So look at that as you look towards Madison. And with that, I turn this over to David Wade. Thank you.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: So what are some ways that we can participate in God's vision for his church and specifically his vision for us at Madison?
Encourage you to think about that as we turn to our text this morning. Acts, chapter two, verses 41 through 47.
As you're turning there, I would like you to take your minds back 2000 years ago to the very first Christians. The church has just begun. There are 3,000.
There are 3,000 brand new Christians in the city of Jerusalem, and they're forming a new community of believers.
These people have been waiting for this day for a very long time. For generations, for hundreds of years, they've been eagerly anticipating, longing for the coming of this kingdom, a kingdom that would be unlike any other, a kingdom that would last forever.
I want you to imagine the excitement that they must have had, the awe, the amazement there must have been among these new believers. I can imagine them saying things like, can you believe this is finally happening? Or this day is finally here?
The Church began with great power. The Holy Spirit came upon the apostles in a miraculous way. But not only that. The Holy Spirit came to all the believers, not in a miraculous way, but in a powerful way nonetheless.
So do you sense some of that excitement from 2,000 years ago?
But a more important question is, are we still excited about the Kingdom of God today?
Are you excited about what? About what God can do and what God is still doing in Madison.
I hope that you are.
So we now have 3,000 brand new members.
This new kingdom, and remember, the kingdom of heaven is primarily about the king, about the one that reigns. And to be part of the kingdom, it means that you put yourself under the rule of this king.
It means that Christ is ruling in your heart.
It means that you are his disciple.
You're an apprentice. He is your standard, your everything. He is your way, your truth and your life.
So what did this new body of disciples do?
What did this group of people who have just been saved from their sins, who have just been added to God's kingdom, and who have just received the Holy Spirit, what did they do In Acts, Starting in chapter two, verse 42, we find out.
First we see that they were hungry for the truth. They knew that truth came from one place. It came from God and from His Word. And because of that, they were devoted to the apostles teaching.
I like this word, devoted here to them. This was not just a casual thing. It wasn't just a convenient thing. This was devotion.
Do we long for God's Word like we long for the air that we breathe?
We must see God's Word as the source of truth and of blessing and of life itself. And only when we view it that way will we be truly devoted to it.
The second thing I see is that they were devoted to prayer. And what a privilege it is to be able to go before the Creator of the universe in prayer.
So these two things, their devotion to God, to God's Word, and their devotion to prayer. They speak to their desire for fellowship with God. So we've just spent the last two years focused on Bible study and prayer. And these things are foundational to our relationship with God. So let us continue in these things in the coming years so that we can grow in our faith, that we can grow deeper in our love for God.
The third thing I notice from Acts 2 is that they were devoted to fellowship and the breaking of bread.
These new believers became a community within the larger community. They became a fellowship, a family.
They spent time together, they ate together, they lived their lives together.
They were together in the temple, they were together in their homes. They were together in public places and private places.
Verse 44 says that all who believed were together and had all things in common.
So God placed these new believers into a community, into a body. They were not each on their own, but rather they were woven together, united in faith one in Christ.
It should be mentioned that in God's family you don't lose your individuality, but rather your individual talents are expressed and they're brought together for the benefit and functioning of the body. And this all to God's glory.
So as we begin 2025, our first focus is on fellowship. And we encourage everyone to participate in fellowship with your church family.
Be devoted to it. We encourage you to have meals together, to worship together, to play together, to pray together, to serve together, to encourage and support one another. We encourage you to do this at the building, in your homes, at the park, and everywhere that you live your lives.
We are greatly blessed that God has added us to a church, to his family.
What a blessing this is.
It is our hope and prayer that we can grow even stronger in our fellowship with one another. In fact, we want every member here at Madison to grow in fellowship this year.
The fourth thing I notice about these early Christians is that they were part of a larger community and they participated in their larger community.
Verse 46 says that they attended the temple together.
The Temple was the center of Jerusalem life. The early Christians lived their lives within this larger community.
Verse 47 says that they had favor with all the people.
These early Christians also had a desire to share their love of Christ, to share the message of the Gospel with their community. And as they planted seed, God was producing fruit through them. Verse 47 says that the Lord was adding to their number daily those who were being saved.
The word hospitality is literally the love of strangers or guests.
Our second focus area for 2025 is hospitality that is sharing our lives with our community, with our neighbors and friends, with those people that we already know and with those that we don't know yet.
We have a great opportunity to share Jesus Christ with those living around us. And this can start by showing hospitality to the people in our community.
In 2024, we focused on Bible study and prayer. In 2025, we are encouraging you to continue in these things. In addition, we are encouraging you to focus on fellowship and hospitality. We want the kind of fellowship that the very first Christians experienced. We want everyone to be connected with a bond of fellowship. We also want everyone to have a spirit of hospitality to our neighbors.
We have seen incredible growth this past year in Bible study and especially in prayer. And hopefully in 2025, we can build on that foundation by growing in our relationships with one another and with our neighbors.
One of the primary ways that we hope this will happen is by continuing to get together in our homes with both our church family as well as with our neighbors. And more is going to be said on this in the coming days and weeks.
I would like to wrap up my thoughts here with one other observation from Acts 2.
Another thing that really stands out about these early Christians is their generosity.
Verse 45 tells us that they were selling possessions and giving to those that had needs.
In chapter four, we also read that several of these Christians were extremely generous, some selling their property and donating the proceeds.
One of these men was a man named Joseph.
He was such a positive impact among the Christians that the apostles ended up giving him a new name, Barnabas, which means son of Encouragement.
Madison has always been a very generous church and I'm very thankful for that.
We want to encourage everyone here to participate in generosity because God loves a cheerful giver.
In addition, we are blessed when we give.
Your generosity will allow us to grow, to continue and to grow in the many works here at Madison.
The building project was mentioned earlier. At the end of the day, the building is really just a tool to help us to be able to grow in our Bible study, to be able to grow in our fellowship, to be able to grow in our ability to reach out to the community.
So with your generosity, it is our hope that Madison will be able to continue to grow, to be able to continue to support that, as well as the many other great works that we have here at Madison.
[00:38:40] Speaker F: If everyone would like, I'm going to spend just a few moments in John chapter 14.
Our elders are making their way up here before we share the invitation with you. So today we will not have any Elders at the back doors. Any responses? You'll need to come up here. I want to thank my brother Norm for the way he did the introduction. I think he made a very valid point that that word invitation is the start of all fellowship and all hospitality. And we're going to look in particular at the invitation. Not that the elders are extending to you, not that David Dykas is extending to you, but the invitation that is extended to us by God the Father, the creator of the universe, through Jesus Christ his Son. Now I'm going to read John, chapter 14. This is a very familiar portion of Scripture. Then I'll say over the last couple of weeks, as we've prepared for this invitation, I've come to appreciate this section of scripture much more than I did previously. And we'll talk about that just a little bit. But the scripture goes, do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in Me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If that were not so, I would have told you, because I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will take you to myself. That where I am, there you also will be. And you know the way. Where I am going. Thomas said to him, lord, we do not know where you are going. How do we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Again, this is a very, very well known section of scripture. It's actually a very simple portion of scripture. And we're going to break down why this is simple. And some of the messages here.
Number one, verse one, there is a God.
Verse two, Jesus is his Son.
Also in verse two, Jesus left earth to prepare a place for us. Verse 3, Jesus is going to return for us. Also in verse 3, Jesus wants to be with us. And then finally in verse 6, a way has been prepared for us. And I'm going to get to that way in just a moment. So this is the invitation that's been shown to us. And this is an amazing invitation that's been extended to us. The invitation to spend an eternity in the presence our Creator. And because of that, we should be engaging in fellowship and hospitality with those around us.
And so what do we do with that? Well, this morning I'm talking to two groups of people.
And those two groups of people are people who have accepted this invitation and people who have not accepted this invitation. And if you're here and you're listening and you haven't accepted this invitation. I want you to hold on just a minute. I'm going to talk to the people that have accepted this invitation in just a moment. You all know this. We're going to sing something that we traditionally call the song of encouragement.
And if you have something that is amiss in your life, maybe you've got a problem with a fellow brother or sister, I want to encourage you during that song, find that person here in the room and make that right. Or maybe you have a relationship problem between you and God. There's something that you need to confess to him and get forgiveness for that. You can do that where you sit. Okay. You can say a prayer, confess that sin, and God will take that away from you. Okay.
Or maybe you feel like you need to respond publicly that you want to come down here, and one of the elders will. Will say a prayer for you. We're prepared to do that. Now, that's for the people who have accepted the invitation.
For this second group of people, those of you who haven't accepted the invitation, here's what you're going to need to do. We're going to sing that same song, and we'll ask you to walk down here. The first thing you're going to have to do is have heard this message, and secondly, you have to believe it. You have to believe that there is a God and that Jesus is his son. You've got to make the decision that whatever it was in your past, whatever your life has been up to now, you're going to turn away from that. We have a fancy word for that. We call it repent. That's all it means, is you're going to turn away from that. You're going to come up here, we're going to ask you a very simple question. We're going to ask you if you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And if you believe that, you're going to confess that in front of men. And then we're going to take you right up here in this little alcove where there's water, and we're going to baptize you. We're going to immerse you in that water, and you're going to come out of that water and you're going to begin your Christian walk, free from sin and free from the law of sin and death.
And so we want to encourage you that when we sing this song, we want you to. To come forward and do that. And I know there's a lot of people here and that can be a little bit intimidating. But I promise you, the reward you're going to get far outweighs any discomfort from walking down here. I can still remember 36 years ago, and I was a little old when I accepted the gospel 36 years ago. I still remember what I felt like when I came out of that water. It was great knowing that you're completely clean, you've accepted this invitation, and you know that you're going to spend the rest of eternity with God. It's an amazing feeling. And I don't know. I don't know what holds you in the pew. I know I did it. I waited longer than I should have. I don't know. I don't know why we do that. But I want to encourage you guys, time is of the essence, and I say that, and I don't mean to end on a downer. We've spent some time looking at the past, and we've spent some time looking at the future, and all of that is exciting. But what really matters is right now and what you're going to do. Because we had members and family and friends that were around for Vision 2024, and they're not here for Vision 2025. And we have some maybe that are here today, and they won't be here for Vision Sunday 2026. And I can tell you, the ones that come to my mind that have left us in the last year, the great comfort is, for the most part, the ones I can think of, they had accepted this. And guess what? They're asleep in Christ. And we'll all get to be with them again.
And so this is the final question today.
And it's a question you've got to answer right now. Just before we started, David Wade said to me, life is a series of right now decisions.
And so I'll leave this question with you. Will you accept the invitation again? Not my invitation, but the invitation of the Lord. We hope you will. We're ready to take your response. Please do that while we stand and sing this song.
