Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on February 8, 2026.
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Audio Transcript
I invite you to take your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 13. It’s page 926 in the pew Bible. If you did not bring your own scripture today. Luke 13, 6, 9. As we look today at the patience of God, may we pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it instructs us how to have a right relationship with you through acceptance by faith of what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross, that he died, was buried, and he rose again as a sacrifice for us to pay for the penalty, Father, that we deserve, so that all of our shame and our guilt might be removed, that we might stand in your presence, holy and know you as our Father, know youw as our friends, know youw as our true Lord and Savior. Give us understanding of youf Word today, Father, how we might apply it to our life, and how we might appreciate youe more for your great patience with us. In youn Son’s name we pray. Amen.
I begin reading in verse six. And he told this parable, A man had a fig tree that was planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. He told the vineyard worker, listen, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down.
Why should it even waste the soil? But he replied to him, sir, leave it this year also until I dig around it and fertilize it. Perhaps it will produce fruit next year, but if not, you can cut it down. We’re looking today at a parable about the patience of God. And as with all parables, you can’t apply every single fact to something that has meaning.
But we’re looking for what the context is, what is it that Jesus is trying to to relay here today? And that is that God is patient. The first says, he told this parable, a man had a fig tree that was planted in his vineyard and he came looking for fruit on it. The owner had an expectation. He had an expectation that there would be fruit on this tree that was in his vineyard.
And when he got there, he found none. We kind of have a similar true life event that either happened twice in scripture or it’s the same thing from two different angles. In Matthew 21 and Mark 11, we read about how Jesus, at the end of his three years of ministry, before he went in to Jerusalem for the final time, that he cursed the the fig tree because he found no what on it. He found no fruit. So here this parable is in essence giving us a better explanation of why Jesus did that.
First thing is we have the expectation of the owner. The next thing I want you to see is the anger of the owner. The owner said, I have come looking for fruit on this tree and haven’t found any. And his response is, cut it back down with an exclamation point. Why should it even waste the soil?
Now, when we think about anger, anger can either be wrong or anger can be righteous. I think you know the difference. If you see a crime that is committed, or you see someone that is deliberately being harmed, especially an elderly person or a child, you feel what? You feel anger, and that’s good. Anger.
That means something needs to be corrected here. In this situation, the owner is having what I call right or righteous anger. He was right to be disappointed or angry because the lack of fruit is not there. But it should be the anger of the owner. You could say that he’s being impatient.
But when you look at the text, it says, how. How many years has he come looking? He says, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. I want us to go to Leviticus 19 so that you understand it’s actually more than these three years that he’s been waiting for fruit. In Leviticus 19, according to the law we read, when you come into the land and plant any kind of tree for food, you are to consider the fruit forbidden.
It will be forbidden to you for three years. It is not to be eaten. And in the fourth year, all its fruit is to be consecrated as a praise offering to the Lord. And in the fifth year, you may eat its fruit. In this way, its yield will increase for you.
I am the Lord your God. It’s now the seventh year. It’s not just the third, third year that the owner has not found fruit. He waited till the fifth year. He’s already been through four.
In the fifth he looked. In the sixth year, he looked. In the seventh year, he looked.
The Jews expected to enjoy the fruit of their trees in the fifth year. This owner had a right to do that.
But in the parable, we see that this man has waited seven years. And we could say, you know, he’s really been patient. But there’s another character in the story. It’s someone who exhibits even more patience. So we want to compare the impatience of the owner to the patience of the caregiver that is here, the one that had been taking care of the tree for all these years said, sir, leave it this year also until I dig around it and fertilize it, Perhaps it will produce fruit next year, but if not, you can cut it down.
So compared to the seven year impatience of the owner, this worker has a greater amount of patience. Now, we’re just going to presume that he’s the one that’s been caring for the tree for seven years. He remembers planting the tree, he remembers watering the tree, he remembers staking the tree, he remembers pruning the tree, he remembers fertilizing the tree, he remembers spraying the tree for fungus and for pests. And not just once a year has he come, but every day for seven years he’s checked on this tree and he’s watched it grow. I have a small garden.
Every year I like to plant tomatoes and cucumbers. And the reason why I like to plant them is just to look at the leaves. Is that what I do? What do I want? I want fruit off of those plants.
And after I spend three months of watering and staking and pruning and spraying and all this stuff, just for three months, if I don’t get some tomatoes or I don’t get some cucumbers, it’s very, what? Disappointing. It can almost make me feel angry about it. Why in the world did I put these plants out? That’s just for three months.
This man has been looking for seven years taking care of this tree. The owner is impatient, but the worker says, what? Just please leave it one more year. He’s hesitant to cut it down. He’s hesitant to cut down what he has diligently labored at for seven years.
Now he is willing to cut it down eventually. But he says, just be patient for one more year. Don’t cut it down yet. The patience of the worker. We also have what we want to call the care of the worker.
Not only has he done this for seven years, but now the worker is willing to go beyond the normal expectations. He says, I will dig around it and I will fertilize it. You know, he could have rightfully cut it down in year five if it had no fruit, or in year six or in year seven. He’s already gone three years beyond what was necessary. And by that point you would say, this must just really be a bad tree because it’s not producing any fruit.
But the worker gave extra care to it. And the reason why he did that is because we call it the hope of the worker. He said, perhaps if I fertilize it, perhaps if we give it just one more year, perhaps if I cultivate it around it, perhaps it will produce fruit next year. It’s almost as if he’s positive to a fault. You ever know somebody in your life, they’re positive to a fault?
I’ve seen parents, especially grandparents, oh, just keep praying. Just. Just hang in there. And somebody’s life is completely disastrous. But somebody is positive to a fault.
They continue to pray, and often what happens is their prayers are answered. That’s. That’s how this worker was. He was looking for the future, a better future for this tree. But the truth here is that he does recognize that the patience and the care of the worker will one day come to an end.
If there is no fruit, perhaps it will produce fruit in the next year. But if not, the worker realizes and says, you can cut it down now. It’s small but significant. You need to see this fact. The owner tells who to cut the tree down.
Here’s your test. He tells the worker to cut the tree down. Now, does the worker say that if it doesn’t produce fruit, I will cut it down? What does he say? No.
He looks at the owner, says, you can cut it down. It’s going to be important to remember that in a minute. The concern, the care, the patience of the worker still continues in his mind. He has no desire to cut it down, but yet he acknowledges what we would call judgment is coming for that tree. Now, hopefully you’re already seeing what the tree and the owner and the worker represent.
But I’ve got it up here on the screen for you. The first thing is the tree is. What does it say? Israel. The owner is Jesus.
Now remember, all things on the parable don’t always fit for everything, because Jesus is just as bad patient as God the Father. But in the purpose of the parable, he’s pictured as someone who has patience to a certain point. And the worker is who? He’s God the Father. Why is God so patient?
2nd Peter 3 says, the Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come. Repentance. And here in this parable, God is showing that he is patient in waiting Israel to come to repentance. Now, According to John 1, Jesus the owner here came unto his own. And John says that his own received him not.
He came as the promised Messiah. He came as the anointed One, the Savior, the King that they were looking for. And Luke gives us 11 chapters of explaining why he is the Son of God and showing us examples, teachings, miracles, that all verified who he was. He started his public ministry at age 30 and how many years later did he die? Three.
Now go back to the parable. How long has the owner been coming? He’s been coming for three years. What we’re seeing here is this is saying Jesus has been proclaiming to Israel for three years, I’m here for you. And he hasn’t found any what yet?
He hasn’t found any fruit in their lives. Jesus, being creator of the universe, being the Messiah and the Savior, he had every right to turn against the people of Israel and strike them. But we have the worker here who is the Father. He demonstrates great patience, he demonstrates great love, and he demonstrates great care for the people of Israel. He says, give Israel more time.
Let me give them even more special attention and care. He’s hoping that they will turn to him. And he says, but after a prescribed amount of time, which only God the Father knows, the King, Jesus is also going to be a righteous judge who will one day cut down the tree that bears no fruit. Why does the Father do this? From the day that God rescued the Israelites from Egypt to this day, they have continuously turned away from God to follow any and every idol of their own making.
If you’ve read the book of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, they continually complain, we don’t have food. And then God gives them food. And then they say, we don’t like the food. And then they say, we don’t have meat. So God gives them meat, and then they say the meat makes them sick because they eat so much of it.
Moses goes up into the mountain and they. They make a golden calf that they can worship. And all of this after they’ve seen the 10 plagues going through the Red Sea, the Pharaoh’s army completely destroyed, and yet they’re continually turning against God. That’s why in Scripture they’re continually referred to as the adulterous, unfaithful wife.
And God says that he allows divorce in those situations. And God says he divorced himself from Israel, but he doesn’t marry anyone else. In Scripture, he still waits for that unfaithful spouse, Israel, to return to him. If we go to the minor prophet Hosea, we read in chapter one, verse two, when the Lord first spoke through Hosea, he said to him, go marry a prostitute. Now, how many of you would tell your children to do that?
You would not do that. And he says that this prostitute is going to have illegitimate children that you’re going to take care of. And the reason for this is God was trying to display his intense love and patience with the nation of Israel. He said because the nation continually commits spiritual prostitution by turning away from the Lord. And in this story, Hosea goes and pays for home for Gomer and redeems her and brings him back because he’s displaying God’s great love for his people.
What do we learn from this? First thing is that God’s patience is as immense as the universe and beyond. Don’t ever let anyone say that God is not patient with you. And Satan tells people that, you know, you’ve committed that sin over over and over. You’ve said that over and over.
You’ve done this and that over and over. God is going to lose patience with you. That’s a lie from the devil because God is always willing to forgive and to lay aside those things that we confess to Him. Secondly, God’s patience has kept him from destroying the people of Israel to this day so that they might have an opportunity to turn to Him. His patience has been displayed over and over many times, not just for Israel, but for the world after Adam and Eve sinned.
If I had been God and probably you, what would we have done? Just get rid of them, start all over again. And then when the flood came again, he could have just destroyed even Noah and his family and started all over again. He could have cut the tree down and started with a new tree. But God’s patience over and over has kept him from destroying the people of Israel and the people in this world.
Now, not to just blame the Israelites for how they’re unappreciative, but we, like them, are fickle. We are unappreciative, and we are just as idolatrous as they are. Finding individuals, hobbies, things in our life that we place before God in our lives, looking for those people and those things or activities or whatever to bring to us the joy that we’re supposed to only look to the Lord for. So, like the Israelites, we’re fickle, we’re unappreciative, we’re idolatrous. None of us are any worse than they were.
But also none of us should say that we’re any better than than the Israelites were. Therefore, number four, we can know for certain that God, because He was patient with the Israelites, who seem to be the worst people in the world that he chose, he can be what? He can be patient with us no matter how we are. When there is not fruit in our lives, he’s still willing and waiting for us. And he’s giving us extra care, care so that we can grow and produce the fruit that he desires.
But as the parable ends, the day of judgment will eventually come. The people of Israel as well as the rest of the world will be eventually held accountable by the owner, held accountable by Jesus Christ, the final judge. We have to ask ourselves, have we accepted Jesus as the promised Messiah and are we bearing fruit? Because if we haven’t accepted him and if there is no fruit in our life, then it’s the obvious question, am I really truly a believer? Maybe what I think is faith is something different now.
This is not the only place that we hear about gardens and fruits and vines and owners and gardeners. There are these recurring themes throughout scripture. We have the lilies of the field in Matthew 6. We have the grass and the flowers in Isaiah 40. We hear about the tree in Psalm 1 and the sheep in Isaiah 53 and 6 and over and over again the grapevines and the fig trees.
Specifically picture Israel. But I want you to turn in your Bibles now to John chapter 15, because we want to look at another object lesson from nature. Whereas this parable is very specifically pointed at the Jews, the same ideas and concepts are true for all believers. It’s page 958 in your pew Bible if you want to turn there. In John 15, the occasion is the Last Supper.
Jesus has washed the disciples feet. He predicts the betrayal by Judas. And he gives the first command, a new command. Love one another as I have loved you. He then predicts the denial of Peter.
He promises a prepared place for his disciples and a certain return to take them home. He talks about the Father. He talks about prayer. He promises that another comforter will come, someone like him, that will never leave them. And then he gives them a new command.
The first command was, love one another as I have loved you. But now he gives us a second command. And that command is, remain in me. And then we come to this familiar passage about the gardener, the vine, the branches and the fruit. I begin reading.
In verse one, Jesus says, I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. Every branch in me that does not produce fruit, he removes. And he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me and I in you.
Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. The parable was about Israel. Jesus is talking here to his disciples who are clean. These are believers and he’s expecting fruit out of them, just as God expected Fruit from the Israelites. In the first passage, we learned that bearing fruit will keep us from judgment.
But here, a more important reason to bear fruit is that we’re going to see at the end of this text is that fruit brings glory to God. And to produce much fruit even brings much greater glory to God. And in this passage, Jesus shares this greater to reproduce fruit. And he also gives us instruction on how we will produce more fruit. Just contemplate me for a minute.
If God has been patient with me, if God has saved me by the death and burial and resurrection of his one and only son, Jesus Christ, if he’s adopted me into his family, if he’s blessed me with every spiritual blessing, if he is the best father I can have, if he is the dearest and closest friend that I can have, then I should be paying close attention to what Jesus says, because God doesn’t need anything from me. He did not need to create us, but he created us so that he could have a loving relationship with us. And therefore, because of all he’s done, we should want to appreciate him and give him glory. And Jesus tells us how we do that. Here I want you to consider four things that we can know with certainty from this passage.
The first is, know that God is going to work in your life to help you produce more fruit. And the work here is compared to pruning, which means cutting off the things that distract and draw away energy away from the one thing that we’re supposed to do. You take suckers off of plants because they just take energy off and they don’t add to production of fruit. And the thing about pruning, it hurts. When I prune the apple trees in my yard, if they could make a sound, they’d be saying, ouch.
Why are you doing that? That hurts. I don’t like that. You know, there are things in our lives that are just like this, that are keeping us from the main thing. And when God cuts them away, it’s going to hurt.
They are usually there because we enjoy them and we’re holding too tightly to them. I mean, habits, addictions, activities that seem good in our life. Things, relationships, people, jobs, the list goes on and on. For anything that is in our life that’s zapping the energy away from what we are supposed to be doing. And that’s bringing glory to God.
Grapevines are coming. Cleaned. That’s the word. And Jesus used that word here. He says, you are clean because of the word.
And when it talks about the grapevines being cleaned, it’s an intensive winter pruning using methods like cane or spur pruning, to remove old, to remove dead, and to remove excessive 1 year old wood to improve yield and health. And like the gardener, does this in the deepest, darkest, coldest time of the plant’s life, in winter. Often God uses the most difficult, darkest, most chilly times in our life to remove things that are keeping us from producing fruit. Number one, know that God is going to work in your life to help you to produce more fruit. Number two, know that you are completely unable to produce fruit.
You can’t make fruit on your own. If I cut a branch or a vine off of a tomato plant and I set it on my porch, is it going to get any fruit on it? No, it’s absolutely impossible. If we think back to when there was a question about who was supposed to be the high priest and some of the Israelite leaders were complaining, well, we should be leading, not just Aaron. And they were all told to bring their staff.
It’s what you use to walk with. It’s a dead piece of wood. And they all wrote their name on it. Aaron took his staff, wrote his name on it, they placed all of them in the tent of meeting, and when they came the next day, all of those dead pieces of wood were still dead pieces of wood, except for one. And Aaron’s staff had buds, it had leaves, it had flowers, and it had what had almonds on it.
Complete impossibility.
It is impossible for you to produce good works in your life. You’re completely unable to do that unless you are connected to the vine. The third thing we know is that Christ alone produces fruit through you. All you can do is, according to the text is to abide. And the word here is remain.
In our version of the Bible, you see it over and over, Remain, remain, remain. And when we go to the next screen, we’re going to see again, remain, remain, remain. If God says something one time, it’s important. If he says it twice, we can say it’s very important. If he says it three times, it’s very, very important.
It’s just like raising your kids. What you tell them over and over is most important. Well, God goes way beyond just mentioning this three times in the text. It’s over and over and over. Just remain in me, abide in Christ, stay connected to Jesus, be close to him, and that’s the way that you’re going to produce fruit.
Verse 5. Again he states, I am the vine, you are the branches. Here we have it again. The one who remains in me And I in him produce as much fruit, because you can do nothing without me. If anyone does not here is again remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers.
They gather them, they throw them into the fire and they are burned. And again, if you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. What does Jesus want you to do? Remain in him. And he gives us a clue here of one way of doing that is to let his words also remain in you.
We do that by reading the Bible. We do that by studying the Bible. We do that by memorizing the Bible. We do that by talking about the Bible. When we spend time with Jesus, our goal is to get to know him better.
Just like it is in any relationship with we have in this world. If we remain in Jesus, if we do what we can to get to know him better, and we stay close with him, we’re going to bear fruit in our lives.
What is the reason for all this? It’s for the glory of God. Verse 8. My Father is glorified by this that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples. Jesus doesn’t want a little harvest.
He wants to see a large harvest of fruit in our lives. And not only does it give glory to God, but there’s a benefit here for us and a benefit for those around us. That fruit in our lives proves that we are his disciples. I’d like you to take your Bible and turn to James, chapter two, verse 26, or turn in your Pew Bible to 1072. And we’re all going to read this together.
So I’m watching to see if you’re turning. If you don’t have your Bible, pull out that pew Bible. I’m giving you time to turn page 1072. It comes right after 1071. Okay.
Okay. James 2:26. You read it out loud for me. For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. Now, James isn’t telling us that if we do a lot of good works that we’re going to have faith.
It’s just the opposite. He says if faith is already established, if it is true faith that you have in Jesus Christ alone, that he has given you salvation, then like the caboose on a train, it’s just going to naturally follow that there are going to be works in your life. It’s either an encouraging proof, yes, I can see God working in my life. I can see the fruit of the Spirit in my life. I can see good works that God is working through me.
That’s to encourage you that you are a true believer. But if you don’t see any growth in your life, if you don’t see any fruit of the spirit, if you don’t see any good works, or maybe they’re going on in your life, but you’re doing it yourself and it’s wearing you out and you don’t really enjoy it, you need to step back and say, well, if I don’t have good works, if I don’t have fruit, then maybe my faith is not what it’s supposed to be. What do good works look like? What does fruit look like? Let’s turn to Galatians, chapter 5, verses 22.
It’s page 1034 in your Bible. Because this fruit that we produce, it can be through sharing the gospel with others, that there’s the fruit of someone getting saved. It can be the fruit that God calls you to do some ministry to someone outside the church or inside the church. But it’s also about our character, that we see changes there, that we see fruit in our life. And we read this familiar passage in verse 22.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Now here’s a trick question. How many fruits are there?
Anybody dare to answer? There’s only one fruit. Look at it. It doesn’t say the fruits of the spirit are. It says the fruit, the spirit is.
So you might say, well, I’m a joyful person. That means that I’m a Christian. I have a fruit of the spirit. Well, you’re supposed to also have love and patience and kindness and goodness. It’s like I hand you a strange fruit and I say, well, what does it taste like?
And you say, well, it tastes like a pear and a peach and a watermelon and a kiwi and a banana. You know, it’s all these different flavors in one. All of these things are supposed to be evident, that they’re growing, that we’re becoming more like them. It says that the law is not against such things. Now, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, meaning that we’ve laid things that are evil in our life aside.
And it says in verse 25, if we live by the Spirit, let us also. And here’s the key. Keep in step with the Spirit. In order to keep in step with the Spirit, that means you are walking with the Spirit. I wasn’t in the army.
My dad Was. But he talked about how when they were marching, it’s always this left, right, left, right. And if one person starts doing right left, when everybody else is doing left right, it doesn’t look good. It confuses everybody. So they have to get back in step to work as a unit.
Another example is Mary and I like to walk every night. My legs are obviously longer than hers. In order for us to be in step, I have to do what? I have to shorten my stride in order that we can walk together. Now she’s faster than I am.
So what does that mean? She has to slow down for me? No, it means that she wants me to do what? Speed up with her. That’s what being in step with the Spirit is.
We’re not expecting him to look how we are walking and how we want to walk. We’re watching him and walking in the same way with him at our side. Are we in step with the Spirit, or are we in step with something else? Are we in step with the Spirit or step with our work? Are we in step with the Spirit or in step with our family?
Are we in step with the Spirit, or are we just walking out there on our own? If you’re not in step with the Spirit, you’re not going to have the fruit of the Spirit. And if you don’t have fruit in your life, you should be questioning whether you really have true faith in Jesus Christ. Let’s look at some concluding bullet points that just kind of put these two things together. We started out talking about Israel, that God expected fruit.
Now we’ve talked about believers. He inspects fruit. Let’s just kind of review it all. The first thing is, like the owner, we are impatient. Is anybody willing to admit that?
Today I am. We can be impatient with our own spiritual growth and want to grow faster.
How long did it take the trees to grow? It’s going to be at least five years. There are a lot of things in our life that God develops over time. We need to be patient with him and with ourselves. But we see him working and removing things.
Eventually there will be fruit. But we can be impatient not only with our own spiritual growth, that we can be impatient with the spiritual growth of others. You ever look at anyone say, I can’t believe that person said that. I can’t believe that they did that. They’re Christians.
They shouldn’t be behaving that way. And we’re very, what, impatient with them. We need to learn to be patient for them as God is like the worker. God is patient with Us. And God is patient not only with us, but with others.
Therefore, what does that third statement say? Read it with me. We need to be patient also because we represent him in the world. When you are impatient at work, when you are impatient with your spouse, when you are impatient with your friends, when you are impatient with your children, you are not representing God Almighty to them. But when people see you being patient in different difficult circumstances and when they see that you are being patient with them, it gives you an opportunity to share the gospel with them.
That I am patient only because of the work of God in my life. The next screen. God, who is the gardener, expects what us to bear fruit.
The next thing is that God the gardener does what? He cleans us so that we bear more fruit. When God takes something out of your life and it hurts and you don’t like it, you’re not the gardener. He’s only removing those things because they’re taking away strength that should be focused on bringing glory to him. The truth is that Jesus, who is the vine, he alone provides all that is needed to produce fruit.
And he especially does that by his word. We also have the Holy Spirit in us, guiding us. We have others, we have the church to help us as we grow in the faith and we produce fruit. But it’s not because we’re doing it in our own strength. And there are people in churches, I hope they’re not in our church, and they’re doing, doing, doing, doing, doing all the time.
And they think they’re producing fruit, fruit, fruit, fruit, fruit. But they’re doing it in their own strength. And if you’re doing it in your own strength, whatever you’re producing, it’s either a bad fruit or it’s not the fruit that God wants you to produce. We produce the right type of fruit by abiding in Christ. We learned that there’s an advantage to this.
It says that we, the branches, we’re more effective in our prayer life when we abide in Jesus. Just like if you spend time with someone every day, they’re more likely to listen to you when you talk to them. And if you don’t spend time with people and then you have a problem, you don’t even think of calling them up because you’ve not been around them. Jesus wants you to abide, abide with him always, so that you are continually going to him first thing when there is a need or a concern in your life. And the last statement here is that we, the branches, glorify God.
When we produce fruit, we should want to glorify God out of appreciation for all that he does, all that he has done, all that he will continue to to do in our life. How will you respond today? There are so many different things here. I don’t know how God has spoken to you, but when we come to this time of invitation, ask God, do I appreciate you enough? Do I appreciate your patience enough?
Maybe the question is, am I being patient with myself and with others so that I represents you in this world?
The question may be, do I have fruit in my life? Because if I don’t have fruit, maybe I’m not a believer. Maybe something else has led me to think that. Some people may say, well, I raised my hand at a meeting. I’m a Christian.
That’s not the way that you become a Christian. Someone might say, well, I walked down the aisle and I shook the pastor’s hand. That doesn’t make you a believer. Some people will say, well, I was baptized as an infant. That’s a decision your parents made.
That is not deciding to follow Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and an evidence of true faith is going to be change in your life. There’s going to be fruit. We’re going to have a word of prayer after that. The worship team is going to be leading us. We have some prayer team members at the back of the church today.
If you want to hear how to become a Christian, they are there to share that with you. But maybe you just have something that you want somebody to pray with you about and you want to talk to them. Those people be available at the back when we stand to sing. Just get up and start heading to the back so that you have plenty of time to talk to them. Will you stand with me now as I lead us in prayer?
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your awesome, unending patience with us. And yet, Father, we know that the day is coming for those that have not truly placed their faith in Jesus Christ, that they will be cut off eternally. Let that burn in our hearts and our minds that we need to share the gospel with others, that we need to glorify you in the way we live so that others will be attracted to your great love that you have. Guide our hearts now, Father, in decisions that we need to make. Guide our thoughts in choices that we need to make.
Let us call upon you to help us to make these changes that you desire to have in us. In your son’s name we pray. Amen.