Ten More Minutes on The Narrow Door

The question behind Luke 13 is uncomfortably personal: when Jesus talks about the narrow door, am I actually walking through it or am I just near the crowd? We take Ten More Minutes to slow down after Sunday’s message and get specific about assurance of salvation, doubt, and what it means to strive for the narrow way without turning Christianity into a works-based treadmill.

We talk through why assurance feels hard for so many people. Sometimes the anxiety is a signal that we have never truly trusted Christ, and sometimes it shows up because we forget how massive salvation by grace really is. We also name a mistake that drains confidence fast: looking for assurance in the wrong places like perfect discipline, steady emotions, or a spotless record. Instead, we anchor in the promises of Scripture, including 1 John 5 and Jesus’ words in John 10 about eternal security and being held in the Father’s hand.

From there, we connect the inner fight of Romans 7 to the relief of Romans 8, learning to welcome conviction without carrying condemnation. We also wrestle with the narrow path in everyday life, especially when “popular” choices pull us toward the wide road. If you’ve ever wondered whether your struggle disqualifies you, we offer a different frame: the struggle itself can be evidence the Holy Spirit is working.

Listen, then share this with someone who needs steadier hope, and if it helps you, subscribe and leave a review so more people can find it. What part of your faith has been hardest to feel sure about lately?

Transcript

Cold Open And Settle In

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We'll get after it. We don't have our drinks.

Why Ten More Minutes Exists

SPEAKER_03 0:03

I don't have drinks today. Uh-uh. But your drink, I I referenced the hourglass the first week, and then your drink was like right in the way of the hourglass. I feel like people didn't see it. So I meant to touch it last week and like turn it over. No, it's just stuff that I noticed when I watched it. I don't think people are watching it that closely yet. Hey, welcome to Ten More Minutes, an original podcast from Cross Point Church where we take just a little extra time each week and reflect on Sunday's message. I'm Ryan Ritchie. I'm here again with the man, the myth, the legend, David Rogers. The heart behind the show, listen, it's simple, okay? We just want uh to reflect a little more. Sunday morning moves so fast, and often there's a lot more that we want to say, a lot more that can't fit in to a Sunday service. And so this is our chance to slow down just a little bit. This is our chance to revisit the passage. This is our chance to revisit its application in our lives and just take 10 more minutes. All right. I'm starting the clock. Let's get after it. Let's do it. Welcome back, man. We missed you last week. Thank you. I missed being here. Yeah. Yeah. So uh before we get going, I do think we need to address just some of the feedback we've been getting. Okay. Okay. Uh Ross and I talked about it a little bit, but we got some more feedback this week. And, you know, the podcast is called 10 more minutes.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:33

But that sounds like an efficient conversation, but when you get us in the room, it's really just more of a suggestion. It's a loose rule, not a strict rule. Uh, if there's anything that pastors do especially good, uh it's gabbing. And uh, you know, the other thing is grubbing, uh, which we don't have here, unfortunately. So we're just gonna talk. I've heard several people say, why isn't the 10-minute podcast 10 minutes? I say, well, why isn't a 60-minute football game 60 minutes? Right. You know, it takes four hours. I don't hear anybody complaining about that. You know, that's right. And actually, interesting stack, fun fact, if you didn't know this, uh, when you watch a 60-minute football game, there's only actually ever 16 minutes of real game play. Other than that, you're just watching for four hours the clock go. That's kind of all you're doing. Uh anyway, this we just kind of wanted to have a chance to slow down and talk a little bit more, and that's what this is really about.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

You know, it was never intended to be a 10-minute podcast, right? It was it was about talking about if we had 10 minutes on Sunday, right? What else might we talk about?

Luke 13 And The Narrow Door

SPEAKER_03 2:38

It's a little prompt, and it kind of gave us some thoughts that we could really expound on and spend more time with the message. If you want it to be 10 minutes, there's probably a little uh turn off. There's a little speed up feature you can use, right? Like uh there we go. But we're having fun with it, we're enjoying it. I've heard several people tell us that they've really enjoyed listening to it as well, and so thank you for being a part of it. Let's dig into this week. This week, your message was on uh Luke chapter 13. We've been kind of journeying to Jerusalem, right? And you brought that back out in the first part of this passage, but this one really was on the narrow door and this path, this this narrow way that Jesus lays out for us and this question that's given to him of um, you know, are there gonna be few or will there be many? And and Jesus says, Listen, the the way is narrow that leads to righteousness. And uh you did a great job again this week of unpacking that and passionately giving us um a way and a knowledge of how we can know Jesus for sure in our life. And there's been a great response to that already. But oh yeah, you know, you you you even mentioned before the message you said, listen, I've got a lot on the table this week. There's a lot we can talk about. I'm excited for the podcast. And so here it is. Uh, I just want to get into what were some things that maybe didn't make it into this Sunday's message uh that you worked on all week long.

Why Assurance Feels Hard

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Well, you know, one of the things is uh uh I kind of zeroed in on at the the beginning of the message was assurance of salvation. Yeah. And uh I really, as I was putting the whole message together, thinking about uh what I could say about that, and and uh obviously couldn't say all that I wanted to say about that, but one of the things I thought about were the reasons why we struggle with assurance of salvation. Okay. What are those real reasons why we do? And I think there's a couple of them that I jotted down was first of all, I feel like uh there may be some people in the world that struggle with assurance of salvation because there's an absence of salvation. Right, they're just not saved. Uh and so uh, you know, God is working in their heart, the Holy Spirit's drawing them near, uh, and so there's a struggle because they aren't saved. And so uh obviously we hope that all would come to know Christ as Lord and Savior. And so uh that that's nothing to be ashamed of, it's just a reality of where they are spiritually. Um but the second thing I was thinking about, and this is one for believers, is I feel like a lot of times believers we struggle because we don't understand salvation to be that incredible uh gift that it really is. You know, the fact that uh that God has has saved us by his grace and his mercy, and we don't we don't really appreciate it for what it will is the the greatness of the gift itself. In fact, uh the apostle Paul he even said when he was writing to the uh the Corinthians, he said, Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift. And he even uses that word inexpressible. You can't really even describe it, it's so powerful. And so I think sometimes we just sort of miss out on that.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Yeah, for the first week that Carly and I were here at Cross Point Church, we preached a message on the beauty of Jesus. I'm even sort of tearing up right now thinking about it, but we both left that morning just crying to each other because I don't know that we thought that we talked too much about how beautiful Jesus is in our lives, how wonderful He is to us. And if we do, sometimes it's more academic than it is relational, and it was really neat just hearing you convict us and challenge us in that way. And I agree with that, man. Just a heart that gets lost in the wonderful gift that Christ is for us.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Right. The third reason I think that uh that we often struggle with assurance is because we're looking for assurance in the wrong places. You know, oftentimes we uh we're we're experiencing our Christianity and we're we we know that maybe there are things that we should be doing that we're not doing or things that we shouldn't be doing uh that we are doing. And so I think sometimes it's in that struggle, you know, and and uh I know we had some conversations about Romans 7, you know, and even thinking about how Paul even said that in Romans 7 and 8, you know, where he talks about this idea of I I do the things I don't want to do and I don't do the things I want to do. And so a lot of times when we find ourselves there not practicing the spiritual disciplines like prayer and reading scripture and things like that, we begin to say, Well, I wonder if I'm even saved, you know. And so that's uh I think those are some of the reasons why we might struggle with assurance.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

That might be the most relatable passage in all of scripture for a lot of people, right? Is that just to understand that even Paul himself, you know, uh this this great you know missionary, this great author of so much of our you know scripture that we have today helps us understand who Jesus is in our lives through the power of the Holy Spirit, but he himself struggled in the same ways that we do. And uh man, that's a helpful passage to come back to. So if we are looking in the wrong places for assurance, uh where do we find assurance in the right places?

Where Real Assurance Comes From

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Well, I I I thought about that, and um, and uh that's one of those pieces where I feel like maybe I I could have expounded a little more on Sunday. Um but really uh the word of God uh is really the only place the the the fact that what Christ has done in us, uh knowing Jesus as our Lord and Savior, um, we we have to believe and trust in the promises of God's word. You know, God's word is full of promises to his people. And uh and when we begin to realize that, you know, uh by by reading scripture, you know, God has revealed to us that if we know Christ Jesus, we are saved. You know, and um I love what John says in in 1 John uh chapter 5. Uh he says this, he says, and this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life. And this life is in his son. Whoever has the son has life, and whoever doesn't have the son of God does not have life. And then he says in verse 13, he says, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. That's assurance, right? That you may know that you have eternal life. This is the reason he's reminding us of these things. And he says, and this is the confidence that we have toward him. And so, you know, Jesus says, I am the door, right? He is the way for eternal life. And so we've got to press into that. We've got to know. And um, and I think too, Ryan, I think what's really incredible, I had a conversation with somebody years ago, and we were talking about the struggles of Christianity. In fact, we probably were talking about Romans 7. Yeah. And um, and as we were talking, I remember uh saying to this friend, I said, you know, I I don't know that that the that the struggle that we face in Christianity is the evidence of our salvation. Right? Yeah. It's the evidence. I mean, because uh people that don't know Christ, they don't struggle with sin. They have they haven't been rescued from it, they don't care about being rescued from it. You know, lost people that don't know Christ, those who have not been saved, they're not they're not on this journey of pursuing his righteousness, you know. But people that do know Christ know what they should be doing and what they shouldn't be doing. And so I think uh sometimes the struggle that we face in Christianity, that is the evidence of our salvation. That's where we can find the assurance.

SPEAKER_03 10:22

Yeah, I think sometimes we feel like conviction for sin is a wrong thing, a bad thing. Exactly. It sends us into a doghouse of emotion.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 10:31

And uh while sin in our lives is certainly not something we want to continue to be persistent, the conviction of sin through the Holy Spirit is actually something wonderful. The confession of sin is something that helps us overcome sin itself, and we need to be able to sit in that space of conviction and confession without feeling shame.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

And that's where Romans eight actually becomes the conclusion to Romans 7. When Paul says, Oh wretched man that I am, just a few verses later in Romans eight verse one, he says, There is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus, and that's where we can be convicted and we can confess our sin without feeling that level of weight of condemnation and shame over our lives, but recognizing that just that struggle itself is the evidence of the Holy Spirit working and moving in through us, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Absolutely. I love that. You know, I I've often said, I think it's when I find myself feeling conviction that I feel closest to God because I know that is the Holy Spirit within me that is convincing me that where I'm at is the wrong place. That's right, right? And so uh when I feel conviction, not that I want to go to sin so I can feel conviction, but when I feel conviction over sin in my life, uh I know that that's the presence of God revealing that to me.

Popular Culture And The Wide Road

SPEAKER_03 11:46

Well, there's so much of scripture we could point to. Paul says, In my weakness, that's when he is strong. That's right, right. Um there's even the idea that uh that that we we we have a savior that didn't come to seek and save the strong or the well. He came to seek and save the lost and the sick. And uh, and not to say that we should stay in those places, but just that when we find ourselves in those places, that's when we really do have a savior that's closest to us, right? So good. So good. Um I I thought about this when you were preaching, and actually, this is where um when we went home as a family, we kind of continued to talk about this message, and I love when we get the chance to do that. I think everybody should do that. It's not just about coming to church for the 40 minutes, but go home and have your own 10-minute conversation at home about what the Lord is teaching you with those that you love, especially with your children.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

And so this is where we went after your message yesterday, but it the the narrow door, the narrow gate, you know, uh Matthew says the narrow way, right? Um and and in Matthew it even goes, it says the way is wide that leads to, and you brought this out to destruction. To destruction. Okay, so this underlying application to to all of that that's that's often convicted me in my life in terms of the decision-making process that I go through. If the way is narrow that leads to Christ, and the way is wide that leads to destruction, then we can look at the world around us and we often see the popular things of the world.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

Things that many people gravitate towards.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:22

And if many people are gravitating towards it, and it's a popular thing in our world today, it would seem to me to think that that probably flows in opposition to Christ.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 13:34

I'm not saying that applies to everything, right? But I think it's a good rule of thumb in my life that's helped me so much to go things that are popular are things that probably lead away from Christ. Right. And things that are not popular sometimes in the Christian life are the thing I need to lean into in order to find Christ again and press into his way for my life. Um, I I caught a student here recently in our halls, and and whatever you think about this, just forgive me for a minute. Um, but this popular trend of six, seven that has gone uh you know viral everywhere in the world. And there's been a lot of things said about where it starts and the origins of it, and it seems like people don't really even understand the origins of it. I'm not saying I do understand the origins of it. All I'm saying is it's a popular thing. And so I caught one of the students that leads worship with us on a Wednesday night, and and uh I'm not gonna call him out in this whole setting, but he just, you know, in the microphone during rehearsal time, was trying to joke about six seven and everything like this. And I just sort of stopped him for a second. I said, Okay, if we want to be a leader toward the narrow way, right, then we need to leave behind things that are the wide. Right. You know, we need to make sure we're not promoting things that lead towards the wide way. And that means being set apart, you know, this holiness that God calls us to is a narrow road, is a narrow way. And so anyway, I just thought about that, and it's kind of an instruction for our sons and for our kids as a rule of thumb in their life. Can we can we leave behind popularism? Right, you know, and can we pursue the narrow way? Pursue the narrow way, pursue things that are set apart that look different. We're supposed to look different, you know, and we should look different. And uh, it's challenging in my life to go back and think, do I look different enough?

SPEAKER_01 15:14

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 15:14

You know, or am I just sort of trying to pursue the popular things of life and look like everyone else or sound like everyone else? So I sort of thought about that.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Yeah, well, I'm I'm glad to hear that you're having those conversations and and uh I love the fact that uh we I think you and I and and even some of the other pastors, you know, Michael and Ross, we were talking the four of us yesterday about how people are responding, you know, to this message. And so it's it's uh it's good to know that there are a lot of people thinking about this in their life and even having that continued conversation. Um, you know, I I love the story that I think Michael shared with us about someone who was who was literally watching online at home, and uh, and and as the message was sort of wrapping up, uh this person looks to his wife and says, I've got to go down to the church because I need to talk to someone about my salvation. Oh, wow. And and I just love that story. I mean, that's just a testimony to God working in people's lives and using the word of God to convict and to to draw people near.

SPEAKER_03 16:17

And so Yeah, Michael's telling us he made it just in the nick of time. Right, before we all left all leaving, and he found a pastor you want to talk about, getting that assurance of salvation. It's so cool.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

It is it is really cool.

Eternal Security In John 10

SPEAKER_03 16:28

Hey, looking back on yesterday's message, um what was one area of uh the the the message you might want to go back to and and spend 10 more minutes on?

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Well, I think a lot of what we've already talked about, you know, is is where my heart was. But I I love what Jesus uh said in John 10. Um he he he's declaring himself that our salvation should be secure in him. And this is what he said. He says, I give them eternal life and they never perish. No, not one will snatch them out of my hand. My father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. You know, I know we struggle a lot with assurance of salvation, but we also need to understand that uh that when Christ has saved us, our eternal life is secure. You know, that we we can find we can find hope in Christ for salvation, but we can also rest in that, that we can we can camp out there. We we can know with with a certainty that what Christ has done is eternal. And so I I think if I had a few more minutes, maybe I I would have gone there a little bit. Yeah. But uh just uh you know, we always say we we have this term once saved, always saved. You know, but it's uh that's a that's something we need to understand. You know, we don't have to if if Christ has saved us and our eternity is secure in him, then we don't need to worry about losing that. Um He it is secure in Him.

Striving Without Earning Salvation

SPEAKER_03 18:10

You you said yesterday you said Jesus is the exclusive means of salvation. Exactly. And you said you made a great point of saying it's not based on what we do. When you look at this passage, there's that word strive that's in there, strive to enter the narrow gate, and it makes it seem as if there's some amount of effort that can be given towards getting to where we're going. And certainly that effort is combined with a relationship through the Holy Spirit that gives us a chance to do that. But you were very clear of saying, listen, salvation, this is not saying that it's based on what we do, right? It's not based on on works, and I thought that was great. Um, but it should also be this salvation, I think, the motivation behind everything that we do. Right. Right. And uh I thought of this illustration uh just you know, as you were talking about it in in correlation with this whole point that you were making, you know, um, we have five sons, you know, you have several daughters as well, and grandchildren, and um our sons are our sons no matter what they decide to do from this point forward. When they're born into a family, they didn't choose to be born into that family, they didn't do anything to get born into that family. They're in our family and they're our sons no matter what happens from this point forward. They can choose to be good sons and obedient sons, uh, sons that, you know, are helpful and do things around the house to provide, you know, for the the welfare of all of us, or they can choose to be bad sons, right? Sons that are just pursuing their own selfishness and don't help with anything. It doesn't change the fact that they're sons. Right. And when Christ has called us into the body of Christ and makes us a son or a daughter, an heir to the throne, uh, even from that point forward, we can choose to be good followers of Jesus, or we can choose to be bad followers of Jesus or inadequate followers of Jesus. Those are still choices we get to make on a daily basis. But we need to strive. We need to strive for what's good. For what's good. But what our choices is on a daily basis doesn't change the idea that we're still part of that family.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Exactly. All right. We're the part of the family of God. Christ has made that possible for us.

Practical Self Assessment With Others

SPEAKER_03 20:23

Yeah, absolutely. Hey, let's land here. Um, you know, this is a great Sunday morning to kind of spend a little bit more time on the application of this um in our lives. And and there were several yesterday um that just really uh gave us a clear indication that that God was stirring in their hearts and moving in their lives. And um, so you know, looking back on this, if we were just to kind of spend 10 minutes talking individually with each person watching this or each person that was struggling on Sunday morning with their hearts and their lives, uh, you know, what's something we would want to encourage them with of how they can take this message, you know, and apply it to their walk with Christ right now?

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Hmm. I mean, I I think first of all, just uh honestly evaluating, you know, just uh doing some self-reflection of where they stand, uh, and then turning to Christ, uh, you know, for uh for the answers, uh turning to Christ for spiritual growth, turning to Christ, you know, to continue to pursue the righteousness of God. I love what you said earlier about the the fact that we are uh uh the the when you talked about how the broad way was though those things that are popular. And um and I just I just feel like uh so often we see in the life of the church people that are pursuing the popular, the you know the easy, right? The you know and I and I haven't mentioned this Sunday that we we desire and it seems like uh modern day Christianity just desires easy Christianity. Yeah. And uh, and it's pretty obvious that um you know Jesus himself, he said, if you love me, keep my commandments. And so there's such a desire for Jesus uh to have his followers pursue the righteousness. We are called to be Christ-like. You know, we are called to be little Christ. That's what the word Christian literally means. I love that. And uh, and so to just uh spend some time reflecting on on where you are where you are in your relationship with Christ, you know, we uh we talk about assessment a lot uh sort of internally among us uh as pastors, yeah, you know, uh and and Linnell and I are actually involved in assessing church planners, you know, but assessment is good. Yeah, assessment uh helps you understand where you are and helps you understand the action steps that you need to take. Yeah. And so um applying the truth of God's word to your life, uh, no matter where you find yourself, as you may be a spiritual babe, a co-lay, I mean, a spiritual babe, a maturing disciple, a multiplying leader, a co-laborer. You know, you wherever you're at on that spectrum, just finding finding your place and where you are spiritually.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

Well, and sometimes these are great conversations to have with other people too, I think. That's what I'm talking about. So what I mean by that is we're not great at evaluating ourselves. Oh, yeah, yeah. We'll self-excuse a lot of things in our own lives. You talked yesterday about people that are religious but think they're safe. That's right. You know, people that go to church and think that they're good, people that have grown up in a Christian family their whole lives and think that they feel like, well, I probably am saved because I've just been in it my whole life. Right. And and we're not great at evaluating ourselves. Um, part of a parenting study that Carly and I have done several times and just help people grow in in their ability to parent their children is about evaluating your children. And it's evaluating them in three ways. Uh, one is evaluate their relationship with God. Do you feel like they have a relationship with God? Do they pray? When they pray, does it feel like they understand what they're saying? Do they read scripture? That sort of thing. And you may need somebody in your life to say, Hey, how am I doing in my relationship with God? When you look at my life, do you think I have a relationship with God? You know, does it look like there's evidence of that in my life? And maybe somebody around you very close to you could honestly say, I don't know. Right. I don't really see you doing those sort of things, right? Right. Um, another thing is uh, you know, look at your relationship with other people. When you treat other people, does it look like you treat other people with the kind of patience and love and compassion that's representative of the fruit of the spirit in your life? Right. And we may need other people to help us evaluate that and say, honestly, you know, honey, sweetie, right? Am I really loving you the way that God's called me to, or friend, coworker, does it seem like I love you with the heart of Christ? And that's right. There may be some honest reflection that's meant in those conversations. Absolutely. Um and then the third one is relationship with self. If you notice children um having overwhelming senses of anxiety in their lives, uh sometimes that means that uh Christ has not come to redeem them of that yet. You know, and um so maybe if it's constant stress, it's constant burden, it's constant worry, it's constant anxiety, our relationship with ourselves even is evidence that we need Christ still to come in and redeem us in our own hearts and lives. And so uh you might be able to ask someone else, does it seem like in my own just personal life, do I walk with a sense of peace and assurance and hope, or do I wrestle on a regular basis? That's right. Other people around you might be able to help you answer those questions.

St Patrick And A Real Conversion

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Right. I love after the service has ended, uh, because so many people come up to me afterwards. It's funny, we make ourselves available during that last song, but a lot of times people don't move during that last song, they just choose to to worship. The music is just so good. Yeah, the the worship team is just killing it, right? So uh, but uh but afterwards, you know, we we close out in prayer, you send everybody out, and uh and I love the conversations afterwards, but this past Sunday, just having a conversation about that very thing with someone, and we we were able to move into the evidences or the fruit uh that Christians should produce, you know, and we had some genuine conversation about, you know, when people look into our life, what do they see? Yeah, you know, do they do they genuinely see Jesus in our life? Because that's who we're supposed to um emulate, right? We're supposed to look like Jesus. And so do they see the the righteousness of Christ? Do they see somebody who is uh set apart different than the world, you know, living a life of holiness and not to say perfection, uh, but uh but the they're striving, yeah, right? They're striving.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

I want to close with just uh an interesting little illustrative story. Okay, can we do that? Sure. Um so uh there's a story about a young man who whose dad was a preacher, pastor, and uh just the same way we're talking about the religious safe that think they're part of the family of God, but maybe haven't made those decisions. This young man had never made a decision to follow Jesus. And uh eventually in his life he grew cold in his relationship with his father. He grew weary of the ministry and he grew rebellious and decided to run away from home. Right. And so he ran away from home. Uh he boarded a ship to try and get as far away from home as he could possibly get. And somewhere along his journey, uh, he was taken captive, and uh he ended up becoming a slave in a foreign country out of captivity, and uh just completely worn down and beaten in his own physical body, but also in his own spiritual body. He had a moment in his life where he finally cried out to God honestly for the first time, and he said, God, if you'll redeem me from this situation, I will follow you. I'll pursue you. I want to live for you, I believe in you now. And uh God was able to give him rescue from captivity and send him back uh to where he came from. And he committed his heart to Christ and he followed Jesus and decided he wanted to go into ministry just like his dad. He went to school to learn all about it, and one day in the middle of the night, he had a vision and God had called him to the same place that he was held in captivity. God said, I want you to go back there. Right, and I want you to share the gospel of Jesus with the people that beat you, that enslaved you, that held you captive. And he woke up the next day just absolutely fearful of what it is that God had called him to do, but pursuing it all all the more.

SPEAKER_04 28:42

Right.

Reach Out And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_03 28:42

And so he went as a missionary to that foreign land and redeemed so many back for the name of Jesus. Right. His name was Patrick, right? And the foreign land was Ireland. We're filming this on Tuesday, we're gonna release this on Wednesday, and today is St. Patrick's Day, so happy St. Patrick's Day to you. I love that story. Oh, yeah. And it's a great story of someone who needed in his own life to have his own conversion story, not just saved because of his family or his past, but saved because genuinely the Spirit of God had moved in his own heart and in his own life. And we thank you for listening today. And we want you to have that same assurance of salvation. We want you to be used of God. And if there's any questioning going on in your heart right now, we just want you to be able to reach out to us. You can comment below and let us know that you want to talk to one of us, maybe. Uh, you can call here at Cross Point Church. We'd love to be able to visit with you and certainly just maybe find time to come and worship with us and come meet us uh and talk to us about what God's doing in your life. We'd love to hear all about it. And so uh we want to pray for you right now and pray just that you maybe would feel that same assurance of salvation and that same calling in your life. Pastor David, would you close us in prayer?

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Absolutely. Let's pray. Father, we are just so thankful uh for the gift of salvation. And Lord, we we recognize that uh by your grace we have been saved. And Lord, we never want to be able to take that for granted. We want to always remember, Lord, the inexpressible gift that salvation is. Father, we thank you for the assurance of salvation, knowing that we can have confidence that Christ has saved us. And Lord, we recognize that a lot of people struggle with that. Lord, we recognize that a lot of people still uh wrestle with uh that assurance that, Lord, just brings so much peace into our hearts. And so, Father, I just pray for those that are listening today, God, that that maybe they could uh first and foremost find you as Lord and Savior if they haven't already, to place their trust in you, to to uh to live their life, to begin living their life for you, God, that they may experience the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. But Father, I also pray for the believer out there, for those who have been following you, that may struggle like so many do, God, with the assurance of salvation. That God, that you would help them to have the confidence, Lord, to help them know uh, God, what you're doing in their life and what you have done. Lord, we love you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_03 31:09

Amen.