"sermon_section": "Welcome to Calvary Church with Skip Heitzig. We're so glad you've joined us today. Being a Christian is hard. Whether you've been a believer for a day or a decade, faith in Jesus won't make you immune to the challenges and troubles of life. We all need a little help, and we find the help we need in Scripture. So let's dive into God's Word, the ultimate source of truth, wisdom, and supernatural comfort. Would you turn in your Bibles, please, to the book of First Peter, chapter 3? Easy to find, it's right before Second Peter. First Peter chapter 3, that's where we're going to be studying. A quick question, show of hands, let's take a quick poll. How many of you have heard of cancel culture? Raise your hand. Okay, how many of you have been canceled on social media because of something you said or posted? Cancel culture is a culture that says, yes, you can say anything you want, you have First Amendment rights, you have the right of free speech, but if you exercise that right, we'll make sure you get fired or at least slandered or, in the very least, marginalized. We will cancel you. According to a Harris poll, 64% who responded see a growing cancel culture as a threat to their freedom. 54% said they were concerned that if they expressed their opinions online, they would be banned or fired. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, cancel culture is defined as, and I'm quoting, 'a way of behaving in a society or group, especially on social media, in which it is common to completely reject or stop supporting someone because they have said or done something that offends you.' So cancel culture is essentially a culture of shame. It is brought to you by the internet, brought to you by social media, brought to you by all the technology that we enjoy, and it has become a tool that is used by groups that find just about anything offensive. And so if you do not toe the line, if you don't say what they think you should say or represent the way you think they think you should represent it, then you are or you will be canceled. There's some notable examples of this. I'm sure that if you know about cancel culture, you know these examples. Even a few years ago, JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, also a defender of common sense and reality, she just simply believes that there are two biological genders, and she stated that, and she tweeted about transgenderism, and she was absolutely, and still to this day, is blistered on social media. Then another famous case is that of Joe Rogan, the most popular podcast in the world. He made comments about COVID-19 origins, he made comments about the vaccine, and he became the target of many people in the mainstream media. He became a target of the platform Spotify. Musicians like Neil Young and others decided to go off Spotify if they would carry him, etc. That's the current culture. The current culture is if you say something out of step with that culture, you will get shamed. In recent years, Christians have discovered that sting of cancel culture. It's because their counterculture that they get canceled. In January of 2021, Twitter, before it was purchased by Elon Musk, Twitter locked the account of a publication some of you may be familiar with called The Daily Citizen. It is the online magazine presence of Focus on the Family, and Twitter locked their account. And the reason they locked their account is because they violated the rules, and they violated the rules because they posted something on their Twitter feed, and here is what they posted: 'On Tuesday, President-elect Joe Biden announced that he had chosen Dr. Rachel Levine to serve as Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Levine is a transgender woman, that is, a man who believes he is a woman.' That was the post. Well, Twitter sent immediately an email pointing out that, and I'm quoting, 'repeated violations stating truth, repeated violations may lead to a permanent suspension of your account,' end quote. So what that means is it's perfectly acceptable to be pro-abortion, to be pro-homosexual, to be pro-transgender, but if you are a Bible-believing follower of Christ in the 21st century, look out, you could get canceled. We have now become a society exactly like what Isaiah the prophet described in his day, a generation that calls evil good and good evil, who puts darkness for light and light for darkness, who puts bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Cancel culture. What I'd like to do in looking at First Peter chapter 3 is give you a few ways to handle cancel culture. Let's look at our text, 1 Peter chapter 3, we're beginning in verse 13. Peter asks, 'And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed. And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear, having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.' That's the text. Let me give you a few principles now in handling cancel culture. Here's the first: react calmly. React calmly. You will notice that in verse 13 and 14, he asks a question. He says, and it's a rhetorical question, by the way, 'And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good?' In other words, who's going to bother you if you live a good life? Is the question. The implied answer is, well, no one should. No one typically would. Any good society would see the benefit of your trying to improve that society. They would applaud you for doing good. But even if you do get hassled for doing good, verse 14, 'Even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed.' And then notice what he says at the end of verse 14. He says, 'Do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.' In other words, stay calm. React calmly. Don't be afraid. Don't be troubled. And he says, 'You are blessed.' You're blessed. Remember what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, 'Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.' And then he added this, 'For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.' In other words, cancel culture is nothing new. It has been around since truth has been around. Every society that got a good dose of truth has tried to cancel that truth. It's been around a long time. Jesus mentioned the prophets. Let me just give you a few examples. There are literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of scriptural examples, but in the Bible itself, you recall that there was a queen in the Northern Kingdom of Israel named Jezebel, and her solution to the mouthpieces of God was to massacre all the prophets of the Lord. That's First Kings chapter 18, and she even tried to kill Elijah the prophet. Then a few chapters later, First Kings chapter 22, there's a prophet named Micaiah. We're going to see the parallel of that on Wednesday night for our Bible study. Micaiah was a prophet who got slapped in the face and put in prison and rejected because he spoke truth to power. He spoke to King Ahab. Another example in the Old Testament is Jeremiah. Jeremiah was threatened, he was beaten, they put him in stocks, and they threw him in a cistern full of mud, and he began to sink in the mire. That's Jeremiah chapter 20. By the time we get to the New Testament and the Lord Jesus Christ comes on the scene, we realize that Jesus himself was canceled by the religious leaders of his day. They tried to throw him off a cliff in Nazareth. That would be canceling. John chapter 10, when Jesus said, 'I and my Father are one,' the religious leaders picked up stones to throw at him. In John chapter 11, he did the notable miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead. It says, 'And so they plotted to put him to death from that day on.' Then eventually, ultimately, they succeeded in canceling his life. I would say crucifixion is the ultimate canceling. They put him on a cross after beating him, and they crucified him. And Jesus predicted that if you're going to follow him, be prepared to be canceled. He said this, 'You will be handed over to the courts, you'll be beaten in the synagogues, you will be accused before governors and kings of being my followers, and this will be your opportunity to tell them about me.' So he predicted that they would be hassled, hounded, canceled, marginalized, and of course, they were. John the Baptist was permanently canceled by Herodias, who had him beheaded because he dared speak the truth of her immoral actions with Herod. And then just think for a moment about the early church. The early church was birthed into a cancel culture. They were mocked at Pentecost. They were shut down for preaching the gospel publicly in Jerusalem in Acts chapter 4 and Acts chapter 5. They even passed a law that said you cannot speak anymore in this name. They tried to cancel them. Paul the Apostle, before he was Paul the Apostle, what was his name? Saul of Tarsus. Saul of Tarsus, talk about, he was the canceler in chief. He was part of the cancel culture. He hunted down believers and had them arrested, not only down south, but he moved all the way up to Damascus to take that campaign, that cancel culture campaign, all the way up to the borders. Well, we know what happened. He got saved on the way to Damascus, and he joined the very movement he tried to cancel. And so they tried to cancel him over and over again. Now let me just say something here. If you're going to get canceled, make sure you're getting canceled for the right thing, for the right reason. Jesus said, 'Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, not for weirdness' sake, not for being obnoxious' sake, not for any other reason than you are just doing good, as it says. And if you're doing good, be calm, don't be troubled. In fact, there is not a Christian doctrine I can think of that would not be seen as objectionable, insensitive, and cancelable. Let's just begin with the claims of Christ. 'I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except by me.' That is an exclusive statement, and when somebody hears that, they immediately think, 'How dare you say that?' Because that immediately excludes Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims. Yes, it does. So react calmly. This is to be expected. Even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, don't be troubled, don't be afraid. So that's number one, react calmly. Second, resist firmly. What I mean by resist firmly is resist the temptation that you will have when you are canceled to cancel those who cancel you. I'm going to cancel them then. Resist the temptation to reject them. Now I'm going to take you back. I know we're looking at these verses, but you've got to get a little context here. If you go back to verse 8, 'Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another, love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous, not returning evil for evil, reviling for reviling,' I would even say canceling for canceling, 'but on the contrary, blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing. For he who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.' You're going to face a temptation when you are marginalized or when you are demonized or you are written about or slandered or canceled. The temptation is to lash out at them. If they lash out at you, you're going to lash back at them. Social media is notorious for this. That's what children do. When children get yelled at, they yell back. When they have somebody lash out at them, they lash back. That's the practice of childishness. So resist that, resist firmly. You know, some people, this is just a common psychological phenomenon, some people reject other people before they can be rejected. I had a friend who used to call this rejection junkies. They just, 'I'm going to make, I've been hurt enough by enough people that I'm going to reject people before they can ever reject me. I'm going to keep them at arm's length.' And because of the mistrust of other people, they're very suspicious and even paranoid, and this is called rejection avoidance. You want to reject those who might reject you or even before they can do it. So we cancel unkind coworkers or classmates. What I'm saying is you don't have to do that. You can make a choice to do what Jesus said, turn the other cheek, love your enemies. Jesus said, 'If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even the sinners do the same. Bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.' Can we say, 'And cancel you, that you may be sons, children of your Father in heaven.' In other words, you show what family you're a part of by responding in love. So resist firmly that temptation. I just want you to think for a moment about Jesus. Before Jesus came, do you think he knew what he was getting into? Do you think he knew that he was going to go to a society, a culture that would cancel him effectively, that would hate him? He was stepping right in in the middle of cancel culture. And of course, he knew that a thousand years before he came, it was predicted in Isaiah the prophet, 'He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.' He knew that he would come to his own, and his own would not receive him. They would reject him. And knowing all that, he still came. And he didn't cancel Judas, even though he knew what Judas was going to do. He didn't cancel Peter, even though Peter denied him three times. In fact, he went to the cross, and from the cross itself said, 'Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing.' So react calmly, resist firmly. Third little thing you can do, reply clearly. Reply clearly. Verse 15, 'But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready,' here it is, 'to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.' Now, I know this is a very famous apologetics text, but I want you to consider it in light of this context. Just because people disagree with you and get offended by the truth that you speak should not cause you to stop speaking the truth. What it should do is make you get really good at explaining the truth articulately, clearly, intelligently, and reasonably, because people are going to ask you, 'Why do you believe that?' And you should have something ready to go, prepared to speak clearly, reply clearly. Now, when people ask you, as he indicates here, why you believe what you believe, they might be asking the question because they're either considering listening more to you or they're on the verge of canceling you. They're considering, 'Should I listen or should I just get rid of this person?' So you should have reasons ready to share. Now, notice what he says here. He says, 'But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.' That is, set Jesus apart in your heart. Set him apart as Lord of your life. And just think of Daniel in Babylon for a moment. It says, 'Daniel purposed in his heart before he ever went into the court of Nebuchadnezzar.' Something happened inside his head, his heart, his inner being, where he made a decision. He purposed in his heart not to defile himself with a portion of the king's delicacies. So when I say, when it says, 'Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts,' the idea is know who you are in Christ. Be firmly aware that you belong to him. You're his child. You're his representative in this world. It always has to start inwardly in the heart before you ever take it outwardly to the world. So that's the idea of sanctifying the Lord in your heart. Know that Jesus didn't cancel you. You belong to him. You're going into this as a child of God, as a representative of the kingdom. And then also in verse 15, 'Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense.' Now, just a couple notes about that word 'defense.' It's the word 'apologia' or 'apologia' in this context. And we get the word 'apologetics' from that. The idea of apologetics or an apologetic defense is not that you are saying, 'I'm sorry for what I believe.' It's not an apology. It's a defense, as it's translated here. It's a word that means a formal defense in a judicial courtroom. That's the idea. You're going to state your case. We are always, do you know this? We're always in a courtroom. We're always in a courtroom. The world is a living courtroom, and people are deciding. They're always deciding, 'Am I going to reject Christ? Am I going to receive Christ?' They're thinking about those options, especially when they hear the gospel and perhaps when they're around you. So it's really not about you or canceling you. They're really deciding if they should cancel God or not. So you want to go in sanctified in heart, ready to make an apologia, a defense, a formal defense. Here's what I've discovered about the typical unbeliever. For the most part, unbelievers have good questions. They have very good questions. The problem is we don't always have good answers. And we should. We can. We can learn a few things and have this stuff ready to go when we need it. And the Bible encourages us to do so. Jesus said that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, our soul, our mind, and our strength. You need to know what you believe, but you also need to know why you believe what you believe. And I've discovered there's a lot of Christians who will say, 'Well, I believe this.' And they go, 'Well, why?' 'Because he said so.' Okay, think that through a little bit, because you have just a few seconds or minutes to gain or lose an audience. So you want to have this stuff ready. I remember when I was, my own experience, I've told you before, I was saved at 18 years of age. I was 17 turning 18, gave my life to Christ. A few months later, I found myself in the back of my first college course called Integrated Zoology, in which my professor said, 'Anybody here believe the Bible?' I didn't know what I was, yeah, I figured he was a believer. He wanted fellowship. I raised my hand. I stand up, and he said, 'Part of the aim in this class is to dismantle your belief system.' That's what he told me. So, you know, I put myself out there, and I immediately got attacked. Well, a few months after that, I found myself in an anatomy class, a radium physics class, and a number of those kind of courses where the Bible was considered myth. And I was shaking in my faith, and I said, 'I don't want to follow a myth. If I'm following a myth, I'm quitting. I'm not going to follow a myth.' What that did is that drove me into a search, an intellectual search, and I became intellectually satisfied by the answers that I found. And I got so ready and equipped to share this in the college campuses that I was in, in the workplace, that it was the most exciting time of my life. One commentator said this, and I'm quoting, 'Any Christian who cannot present a biblically clear explanation of their faith will be insecure when strongly challenged by unbelievers. In some cases, that insecurity can undermine their assurance of salvation. The world's attacks can overwhelm them.' Well, I got overwhelmed, and I was determined if I'm going to believe in this, I want to know why I believe it so that I never get overwhelmed ever again, but I will overwhelm them with love and facts. So react calmly, resist firmly, reply clearly. Let me give you a fourth way to handle cancel culture: respond humbly. Okay, you're equipped, you know all the answers, you're looking for people to talk to and maybe whittle down to size with your clever arguments. Watch out. Notice what it says in verse 15, 'Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you.' Notice there's a comma, not a period. It says, 'With what? Meekness and fear.' That means humbly and respectfully. The New Living Translation says, 'You must do this in a gentle and respectful way.' Paul talked about speaking the truth in love. So the goal then isn't to not get canceled. The goal in the conversation is to hopefully open up their heart to the one who cancels their sin. See, it's not like, 'Well, they may not like me.' So we've got to get over that quickly. There's a lot of people who will not like you. Most people in the world will not like the Christian if they're living in Christ. All those who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. That's the promise. So the goal isn't to not get canceled. The goal is to open up people's hearts. And the goal is not to win an argument with apologetics. The goal is to save the soul or to realign the soul if they're off a little bit. So be humble. Be humble. Respond humbly. Just remember this. I've always been fond of saying this. I've said it for years. If you want to win some, be winsome. Be winsome in order to win some. When people see your humility, they're more apt to open up their hearts and their ears. Be respectful. Listen and speak with deference. I read a little section this week by a pastor named Chris Walker who talked about believers canceling other believers. And that's sort of a whole subset of the cancel culture. You have Christian believers canceling other Christian believers. And he says there's a built-in arrogance and self-righteousness to it. The unspoken presumption is that my theological views are so perfect they cannot be questioned, and I cannot be wrong, and I could never be dismissed. Yours are such that I feel free to pass judgment and dismiss you. The Apostle Paul knew and saw and understood more than any of us, and he understood that, and nonetheless, he confessed, 'Here on earth, we know in part.' 1 Corinthians 13. God breathed his scripture infallibly through Paul and others, but we who interpret those words are not ourselves infallible. Surely no one's theology is perfect, and we should be humble enough to admit that and humble enough to extend that same grace to others in a disagreement. That is so good. It's so rich. Yes, the words of scripture are infallible. You and I, however, we have our view and interpretation of it. And yes, most scriptures are clear and have a single interpretation, but give grace. Give grace. So respond humbly. React calmly. Resist firmly. Reply clearly. And respond humbly. I'm going to give you a fifth and final little way to handle cancel culture: rest inwardly. Rest inwardly. It's called having a good conscience. Verse 16, 'Having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. For it is better, if it is in the will of God, to suffer,' notice that suffering can be part of the will of God, 'it's better if it's in the will of God to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.' Now go back to that little phrase, 'good conscience,' clear conscience, you might say. A good conscience. There's no pillow as soft as a clear conscience. You want to sleep well? Clear conscience. Benjamin Franklin said, 'A good conscience is a continual Christmas.' I like that. It keeps giving. It keeps giving. It's the best tranquilizer, he said. Now, having a good conscience, what is a conscience? A conscience is a divinely placed internal mechanism that either accuses you or excuses you. Let me say that again. The conscience is a divinely placed internal mechanism that either accuses you or excuses you. That, in a nutshell, is the definition of a conscience. It's good to have one. It's good to have one finely tuned. Now, what happens at salvation when we come to Christ? God cleanses our conscience from all the guilt and all the shame accumulated over all the years. We are aware of our sin, but we are also aware that he's cleansed me from my sin. So Hebrews 9 says, 'The blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.' That happens at salvation. You know you're guilty. You realize it. You're poor in spirit. You confess it. All that accumulated shame and guilt cleansed away. And I see it. I see it when people come to Christ. I often see tears in their eyes. I see a relief during their prayer or afterwards. But that's just the beginning. That's at salvation. Then we must guard our conscience, and I would say keep our conscience tuned by prayer, by exposure to the Scriptures, by fellowship and hearing how the Word lives and breathes in other people. Acts 23, Paul said, 'I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.' They slapped him for saying that, but he meant it. Very next chapter, Paul said in Acts 24, 'I always strive to have a good conscience and without offense toward God and man.' A clear conscience is a clear conscience will help you endure counterculture because you know the truth inwardly. They may say anything they want, but you happen to know the truth inwardly. So as you face criticism, a clear conscience. I notice a couple words: defamed, reviled. That's all cancel culture stuff. Defamed, reviled. It means evil speaking, verbal abuse, social media shaming. I love how the message, that paraphrase by Eugene Peterson, renders this. He writes it this way: 'Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They'll end up realizing they're the ones who need the bath.' Clear conscience, clear conscience. Soft pillow is a clear conscience. I remember a number of years ago, I had a very difficult time in the ministry here. It was about 20 years ago. Some of you may recall the volatility of that episode in our church history. And I had a number of critics, and somebody came to me after a service, and they said, 'Man, this must be so rough for you. This must keep you up at night.' I said, 'No, actually, I sleep like a baby every night.' They said, 'Really? I wouldn't be able to sleep.' I said, 'You know why I can? Because I know the truth. I'm sustained by the truth. People can make up anything they want. They can say anything they want. I happen to know the truth, and Jesus said the truth will set you free, and it will. It will.' Now let me close. I'll bring this plane down to a landing by saying this. You ready for this? God has his own cancel culture. He is willing to cancel our sin. He is willing to cancel everything that is opposed to us, all the things that are true about us that would cause us shame. Colossians 2:13-14, 'You, dead because of your sins and because of your sinful nature, then God made you alive with Christ. He forgave all our sins. He canceled the record that contained the charges that were against us. He took it and he destroyed it by nailing it to Christ's cross.' Let me kind of rephrase all of that and just simply say, Jesus Christ, remember I said he came into this world, he knew what was up, he knew what he was about to face. He's stepping right into the very culture that's going to cancel him and kill him. Jesus came and was canceled so that you and I could get uncanceled by God. He willingly went through the canceling so that you and I could be accepted in him. I don't know if you have ever received Christ. Most of you have. This is a church. By and large, believers are here. But you know, sometimes they invite friends or family members, and they come close, they listen to messages, they like the songs, they feel good about it. Some even fancy themselves as being believers. And I find that I preach the gospel to unbelievers, but I also preach the gospel to people who think they're believers who are not. They're not following Jesus. They're not pursuing him. There's no evidence of any life change. There's no real proof that there's a disciple in the making. Jesus said they're going to produce fruit, some 30, some 60, some 100-fold. There's no evidence that they realize their sin has been canceled and they have new life. So I want to just give an opportunity as we close this message that if you online or in this room have never given your life to Christ or in any of our campuses, today's an opportunity for you to absolutely make sure that you belong to him, you're part of the family, and that God, when you come to him, will cancel every ordinance, every commandment, every rule, every regulation that is written that says you blew it. He'll cancel it and make you his child, forgive you. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for the clear teaching of Scripture. We first realize that nothing much has really changed ever since there has been humanity on the earth and ever since truth has been spoken in every generation by any man or woman of God, that culture that did not like the message sought to cancel or eliminate those people from their midst. It happened to prophets. It happened to Jesus. It happened to Paul. It happened to Peter. It happens to us. So we have come to learn that it's normal. We can be calm about it. This is to be expected. And we can resist the temptation to want to reject people outright, to lash out at them or back at them. Help us rather, Lord, to know the salient facts of the gospel and arguments thereof clearly enough to articulate it and to be able to not win an argument but win a soul. And then, Lord, I pray that when there's any success in that, that we would be humble and not puffed up. Our approach would be with respect and humility, and our conscience would be so well-tuned, our hearts so sanctified that Jesus is Lord, that we can rest. We can rest because we have a pure and clear conscience, even though there are accusations, even though there are stories. We know the truth, and it's that truth that sets us free and keeps us clear. Thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ, who made a way possible for our sins to be canceled completely. Thank you that you are willing to do that by simple faith in Jesus Christ. I pray for anyone who might be watching online, a part of our campuses here in this room today. You've been trying to get to these hearts for a long time. You've been knocking on the door of their hearts a long time. But it could be, Lord, that they've come to a place where they're willing and ready to surrender. I pray they would. I pray that when they do, there would just be this knowledge, this conscience that I'm a new creation. This is a brand new start. I just want to give an opportunity to you if you're in this room and you've never given your life to Christ or you're not following Jesus now, you need to come back to him. I want to give you the opportunity to do that. If you're here, our heads are bowed, our eyes are closed. I'm going to leave mine open. I want you just to raise your hand in the air so I can notice you. I want to pray for you as we close. But as you're raising your hand, God bless you. You're just saying, 'Pray for me. I'm ready to have my life changed, have my sin canceled, ready to come into the kingdom.' I saw one hand. Anybody else? Just raise up. A couple of you right over here to my right. Anyone else? Anyone else? Awesome. If you are watching online and you are willing to make this decision, you can text, if you've got your phone, text the word 'LIFE' to this telephone number: 505-509-5433. That's text the word 'LIFE' to 505-509-5433. Just text that, and we will respond like white on rice. We have people who will respond, reach out to you, and tell you what to do next. If you raised your hand right where you're seated, just pray a simple prayer. Say, 'Lord, I give you my life. I know I'm a sinner. Forgive me. Forgive me. Cancel my sin. I believe that Jesus died on a cross, was buried, and rose again. I turn from my sin. I turn to Jesus as my Savior, and I want to follow him as my Lord. Come into my life. I'm yours. In Jesus' name, amen.' Let's all stand. Listen, if you did pray that prayer, those of you who raised your hand, we're going to have a decision team up front here after the service. It would be really great if you would just come up and tell one of them, 'I raised my hand.' We want to give you a hug. We want to welcome you into the family. We want to give you a Bible and just give you a few things to do to get started on the right foot." [Processed]