Transcription
Discovery Church. I think you guys are pretty cool. It's great to see you guys. Thank you for gathering the church in these walls here at Sand Lake. Those of you online and of course friends, can we give it up for Winter Garden Alfa, thankful that you are all here.
And friends, um, pens down, eyes forward, we're going to jump into a pop quiz right now. And so I want to ask you to turn your attention to the screen. And what you're going to see right now is the gospel in one sentence. Okay? We're going to cannonball right into the deep end right out of the gate with this. And so I'd like for you to I'd like to ask you if you would read this scripture from Ephesians 2 with me. You ready?
"For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast." Amen.
Here's the quiz. Based on this truth, this is the gospel in one sentence. Based on this truth, what percentage of your salvation depends upon God? You don't have to shout it out. I'd like to ask you to to think about what percentage of your salvation depends upon God. Maybe not even what your mind says, but what your life has been saying. Is it 50%? Is it, you know what? All right. Okay. It's 90% and you know I help with 10% of my own. Is it 99%?
If I could have permission to stab you awake with another stat. There was a a survey actually a group of surveys that were done not too long ago and what it found was that 70% of Christians, I'll put them in air quotes, 70% of Christians believe that salvation equals Jesus plus something. 70%. Now, I hope that's not true of Discovery Church. This is a it's a nationwide survey. And so, just have to ask the question. You just got to think about that those numbers if that's true that 70% of Christians believe that our salvation is Jesus plus something. Meaning, uh, some of our personal good works or or good deeds. Then that would mean that here at Sand Lake about 900 of us, at Winter Garden about 270 of you in that room, at Alfa about 265 of you in that room, seriously believe that Jesus needs our help to save us. Now, if that's true, and I know that laughter is nervous, that's enough to give any pastor worth their salt a widowmaker because it's false. Because it's a lie. Because it's just not true.
Look at Ephesians 2. We are saved by grace through faith. And friends, we cannot be wrong about the core message of our faith. We must not be wrong about the gospel. And that's why one of our core values as a church is to be messengers of the actual gospel. That's why we're spending over a month in this series called Jesus the Savior. Because what's the gospel in one sentence? Well, Don told us another sentence last week. The gospel in one sentence is Jesus Christ is the savior.
So my holy goal today is that 0% of you here leave believing that you are saved even in part by your own works. In other words, Jesus plus something. Because each of us needs to memorize this spiritual math formula. I want you to take a look at this formula. Jesus plus something you need to understand means nothing. It means nothing. Jesus plus something means nothing. That means if you say, you know what, Jesus, 50% you, 50% me, that's nothing. Means if you say, you know what, Jesus, uh, 90% okay, thanks for doing what you did. 90% you, 10% me. Means Jesus, even if you you say you know what Jesus 99.9% you but you know just a little bit me. Friends, that I'm not good at math, but here's the math: it's nothing. Jesus plus something equals nothing.
So flip side of my goal is that 100% of you would leave this place believing that your salvation is 100% reliant upon Jesus and nothing else. That you trust in Jesus alone and his finished work on the cross for you. In other words, that your salvation is this: It's Jesus plus nothing equals everything. Means it's 100% Jesus. 100% Jesus. Jesus plus nothing. Nothing that you do. That equals everything. That equals all of your forgiveness. That equals all of your hope. That equals all of your salvation.
You know who really got this? Lazarus. But Lazarus really got this. I want you to remember when Jesus raised him from the dead. Just imagine the people who came to him after they saw him alive after he was dead. And for sure he got the questions like, "Hey bro, Laz, what what did you do to get Jesus to do that?" You know what Lazarus's response was? Nothing. I was dead. Lazarus, how how much of how much of that whole thing? How much was that your part? Lazarus, guys, listen. Zero. It was 100% Jesus. It was all Jesus.
So, you know what? Here's my big idea just right up front and we're going to tease it out the rest of the time. It's this: Put your 100% trust in your 100% savior. All of your trust in all of Jesus and what he did for you. You can completely trust Jesus to completely save you. You can totally trust him to totally save you 100%. And guys, think about it. If this is true, and to my core, I believe that it is. If this is true, then this changes everything, doesn't it?
Well, guys, this is the gospel and the possible best possible way for for me to prove to you this truth is with more of God's word. So, we're going to look at the greatest example in all of scripture that salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. This means we get to go to the cross. And so, I want to encourage you to open up your Bibles to Luke 23. Luke 23. And as you're doing that, let me pray for us.
God in heaven, I just thank you so much for the beauty of this scene that we're going to be able to step into today. It's just so unbelievably rich and so often we can just pass right through it, pass right over it, read it kind of quickly, but we want to marinate in it today. We want to soak our souls in it today. And so we ask that you give us your grace and strength as we do so. Would you be the one that communicates your truth in these moments? This is what we ask in Jesus name. Amen.
So friends, I want to encourage us to sit in this scene for a moment. Just soak in in this scene on the cross for a moment. It's easy for pastors to throw a lot of words at their people when we're talking about the cross. I'm convinced that one of the most important most powerful things things we can do when we're talking about the cross most often right out of the gate is silence. So I want to ask you just stare at this image for a moment and just soak it in. It's sobering, isn't it? Because this scene proves to us that Jesus is our 100% savior. That you can trust in his finished work on the cross for you alone. This proves to us that we belong to our Jesus plus nothing equals everything savior. Let me prove it to you.
Luke 23 starting in verse 32. "Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with Jesus to be executed. Executed. When they came to the place called the skull, they crucified him there along with the criminals, one on his right, the other on his left." Got it in your mind? And Jesus said, "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they're doing." And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. The people stood watching. And the rulers even sneered at him. They said, "He saved others. Let him save himself if he is God's Messiah, the chosen one." The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, "If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself." There was a written notice above him which read this. This is the king of the Jews. Just mega mockery. Are you are you getting that sense?
One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him. "Aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself and us." But now listen. But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God?" He said, "Since you're under the same sentence, we are punished justly for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man, he's done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And Jesus answered him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."
Guys, the longer I gaze at the cross, the more I realize that the cross is chocked full of paradox. Because the very same scene shows us both horrible cruelty as well as glorious beauty. Jesus crucifixion is the deepest valley in scripture. But this conversation between a crucified savior and a crucified sinner, I'm convinced, is the highest peak. Highest peak giving us this incredible panoramic view of the gospel. And so, just to give you a map for the rest of our time together, I want to hike down to the valley floor of this scene for just a few moments to give us context that we need to really see God's heart in this. But then we're going to climb up to the peak and we're going to witness this man's salvation. And we're going to observe what happens in our hearts at the very moment of God's supernatural work of our conversion because this story gives us the anatomy of a conversion. 100% God.
All right. So the lowest valley, the scene of the crucifixion where Jesus, the Son of God, is murdered. You need to know that the Romans spent centuries refining the torturous cruel death of crucifixions. They wanted to maximize the slow, torturous physical suffering. But they also they also did what they did to be able to intensify to maximize the emotional suffering to bring about as much shame and humiliation as possible. Probably good to know that Romans never crucified anybody privately. Crucifixions were always public spectacles. They were a tool of terror. It was kind of the combo platter of punishment and propaganda. Like you go against us, this is what's going to happen to you. The idea was to maximize the physical pain, but also the emotional pain. And please hear this as we're going to zero into with this this idea of the the the shame and the mockery of it. Because people would intentionally seek to max out the the humiliation of the experience. They would file by the cross, which was usually only about 18 inches off the ground, and they would jeer, they would spit at, and they would mock the victims, who, by the way, were always naked. None of these loincloths. They were naked because the goal was complete indignity, utter shame, total humiliation. And some people would file by, make fun of him, spit at him, mock them. All the while, most of the people on the cross would scream in their suffering and shout back.
What I want you to see here is that crucifixion is humanity at its cruelest and ugliest. All this and more is why crucifixion was known as the most horrific and shameful shameful form of death imaginable. This is why the Roman philosopher Cicero said, "Let the very mention of the cross be far removed not only from a Roman citizen's body, but from his mind, his eyes, and his ears." Friends, mockery rang in the ears of Jesus as he hung on the cross. Did you catch it when we read through the the passage three different times? All kinds of different people are shouting out, "Save yourself if you are the son of God. Save yourself. If you are the Messiah, save yourself. If you are the chosen one." Just imagine how that must have broken his heart as he hung there for us.
And he still gets mocked today, doesn't he? I don't know if you've noticed. I I've just noticed a lot lately in movies or even TV shows how often Jesus' name is just tossed in like some writer's sprinkling spice in their script to to add something. I don't know. It completely takes it away from me. I that's one of the things I can't stand seeing that. Annie brought it up to me not too long ago. My wife said, "It's just fascinating to me that you never see people in movies like stub their toe and go Zeus or get cut off in traffic and yell Buddha or Muhammad." I mean, never ever have I heard that. And yet Jesus' name probably gets more ridicule and mockery every day just on the screens that we watch than he ever has throughout history. And he's being mocked here in this moment. Jesus, save yourself.
Can I just ask you to think about for just a brief moment? What if he had? You know what I would have done? If I'm hanging there and people are spitting at me and I'm God and I'm all powerful, I think I think it just would have taken a one one millionth of a second for me to be like, "Oh yeah." And then I just like levitate up, pull the cross out of the ground, flex, break this cross into splinters and like with my eyes fire coming out destroying everybody. And I'm not trying to be funny. But Jesus didn't do that. Oh my gosh. Jesus didn't do that. He could have called down all the angels of heaven to rescue him and to obliterate humanity, but he didn't do it. He stayed on that cross and he died on that cross because that was the only way to save you to save me.
And even as we witness this horrible cruelty of this scene of the cross, the deepest valley, so also it's amazing to me the same scene Jesus makes sure that we also see and we hear the glorious beauty of it. So let's climb up now to the highest peak and let's witness a true salvation as demonstrated through this surreal crucifixion conversation. Think about it. All that pain going on, all that noise and there's this unbelievable soul deep, heart deep conversation between the crucified savior and a sinful man. Now to do that, I just must point something out. The the one criminal, the one thief who rebukes the other criminal, the other thief. Three minutes ago, he was doing the exact same thing and he was joining in on the mockery of Jesus. We know this from Matthew's account. Look at this. "In the same way, the rebels, see the s, in the same way, the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him." So guys, we read this account of Luke and you got to go, what happened? What happened? How does this guy go from heaping insults on Jesus one minute to defending him the next? How does he go from mocking him to embracing him? How does he go from hating on him to trusting in him? What happened in his heart for that change to take shape?
Well, joy of all joys, I was preparing this message this week while I was called to jury duty. And so, as I'm sitting there in downtown Orlando, right after we had gotten sworn in, I'm just I'm just waiting there. I had a lot of time to think about this. And so, I started thinking about the evidence of God in this story, the evidence that that God did something in this man's heart to create such a dramatic change of heart. Because what this man says tells us five pieces of evidence that God changed his heart of how do who Jesus really is. If you're taking notes, you can do that now. So, I hereby swear you in as a cosmic jury, friends. And I'm I'm going to present to you this evidence. And I think what you're going to find is that the facts will prove something around your verdict. But the question for you is, is salvation 100% God's work or not? I believe you're going to see the facts will prove that this criminal's conversion was 100% God's work. I'm not going to belabor them, but let's just run through them to see the power of God's gospel at work in the human heart.
The first evidence that we see that God changed his heart is the fear of God. The fear of God. We we see this when the other thief rebukes the other criminal in verse 40. He says, "Don't you fear God?" Now, think about this again. Few minutes earlier, this guy's piling on, too. But now he's busting on the other guy. "Don't you fear God?" The other criminal must have been like, "Bro, hold up. Three seconds ago, you were with me on this. What's with the flip?" What happened in this man's heart to change his mind about Jesus? Friends, without question, the Holy Spirit of God impressed upon him the truth of Jesus' identity as the Son of God. Very likely it started when in verse 34 he hears Jesus shockingly, in the midst of all the the mockery and this this stunning prayer that just gets breathed out, "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing." What? Who would show such forgiveness through their murderers while being murdered? Well, God does. God does. And the thief is like, "Oh my gosh, this this is God." And in this moment, this man shifts from fearing man, especially some earthly judge that put him on the cross, to fearing God, the ultimate judge. He's realized that if this is how he's lived his life and it's landed him here from men, what's going to happen to him when he stands before God? And so, there's a fear of God in his heart.
Second evidence that God has changed this man's heart is his admission of sinfulness. His admission of sinfulness when he says in the beginning of 41, "We are punished justly." This reveals his his recognition of his own rebellion against the God of heaven. Again, the Holy Spirit, we're told in John 16, convicts us of our sin and of God's righteousness. And so now this thief admits to his own guilt. He's come to realize the truth that he himself has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23, he's just missed the mark. Way off the bullseye.
Then the third evidence that God has changed this man's heart is closely related to the last because after he admits his sinfulness, he agrees with God's judgment. And so this is confession. He's agreeing with God. That's what confession means, to agree with God that we deserve that he deserved judgment. And so from his own mouth, and again verse 41, "We're getting what our deeds deserve. What our deeds deserve." He agrees that the Roman death sentence was a just and fair punishment for his guilt. What an astonishing confession during his crucifixion. Right? He's come to realize the truth that the wages or the earned consequences of sin is death. Romans 6:23. He deserves death. He gets that.
The fourth evidence that God has changed this man's heart is his conviction that Jesus is the sinless Son of God. He offers this testimony when he says in the end of verse 41, "But this man," speaking of Jesus, "has done nothing wrong." Now, this thief is the third person in the Passion accounts to declare Jesus' innocence. And not only is this a declaration that Jesus did not do anything to deserve this capital punishment, he told no lie, he sold no object, he committed no crime, he spoke no blasphemy. Not only is he declaring Jesus' innocence, but this is also a declaration of his identity as the true Son of God. Something that's going to be echoed in just a matter of a few minutes from the Roman centurion who says, "Truly this is the Son of God." And so this thief, this criminal realizes Jesus is who he said he was. Jesus is the Messiah. He is the king. He is the sinless Son of God. All this in an instant.
Fifth evidence that God has changed this man's heart or or any heart is reliance on Jesus alone as our savior. This is what the thief does. The thief on the cross undoubtedly did this. He declared that when he calls Jesus by his name. Don't miss this. Please don't miss this. This is the only time. This is the only time in all the Passion accounts where Jesus is called by his name. It's really important to realize this because you know what Jesus' name means? The word Jesus is the Hebrew word Yeshua. Can I hear you say Yeshua? Yeshua. It's a beautiful word. Yeshua literally means Yahweh saves. And so this criminal in this moment, look at what he says. Verse 42, "Jesus, Yeshua, Yahweh saves. Remember me when you come into your kingdom." He calls on Jesus' identity as the God who saves. He sees what many of us have seen that God is a forgiving God. Remember echoing no doubt in his mind from verse 34 when he hears Jesus say, "Father, forgive them." And he thinks to himself, "If God can forgive them, his murderers, well, maybe he'll also forgive me, too." And so he asks Yahweh saves to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. And guys, this is a bold ask. We can spend so much time on this. This is a bold ask to be with Jesus, to be with the Messiah, to be with the king in his coming kingdom. Wow. This this is what he asked.
Now Jesus' response, and this is of course what matters most in this conversation, right? Because Jesus could have ignored the thief, but he didn't. Jesus could have said to him, you know what, fella, too late for you. Should have thought about that before you started mocking me, but he didn't. Instead, in the midst of his immense suffering and pain, physically and emotionally, Jesus the King, Jesus the Savior, graciously looks over to this pitiful, helpless, hopeless, broken, sinful, dying man. And he speaks such words of love and light that have ever been heard by human ears. "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."
And when Jesus says truly I tell you, this is the Greek word amen. Every time we say amen, we're supposed to be that's basically us saying this is true, God. He's bracing him for what he's about to hear by telling him this. Like, hey, what you're about to hear, I know it's going to sound too good to be true, even unbelievable. But listen, it's true. He's about to express a love and a grace and a mercy that is so mind-boggling that the only story that we can parallel it to is the parable of the prodigal son that Don taught us over a few weeks a few weeks ago. A prodigal son returning home to his loving father who's been scanning the horizon. And when he sees him, he bolts for him. He embraces him. He hugs him. He kisses him. He throws his robe on him. Puts his signet ring on him. Puts his sandals on him. Throws a party for him. All to symbolize his restoration and his full rights as son, his belonging as the father's son. When Jesus says these words to this criminal, this is the father's kiss. This is the father's embrace. Unheard of to the older brother, remember? But it's true. It's what grace is. God's grace is true.
Now, predicting his doubt, Jesus says, "Truly, I tell you." And then he says, "Today." Now, this is important. All right? I have a Catholic background. I need to share this. He says, "Today." He doesn't say, "Tomorrow." He doesn't say, "Uh, you know, someday." He doesn't say not in a thousand years after you've worked off your sins somewhere. He says today, meaning in a matter of moments. In other words, there is no such thing as purgatory, a place that you have to go to purge away your sins before you get to go to heaven. Jesus himself says it. Don't listen to me. Jesus says, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise." With me. That's the real prize, isn't it? In paradise. That's that's the real place, friends. This is a mind-blowing gracious assurance of immediate and total salvation to this poor man that's hanging on the cross who just all of a sudden became wealthier in his wildest dreams. Jesus' heart in this is to encourage and comfort this broken man in his final moments of suffering and to let him know what's about to come, what he's inherited as a cherished son of God. What infinite grace, getting what we don't deserve. What infinite mercy, not getting what we do deserve. Jesus' amazing response displays his stunning heart of compassion even as he dies at our hands.
I want you to imagine just a few moments later, maybe it's five minutes, 15 minutes, I don't know, but a few moments after this exchange, this redeemed thief breathed his last, his last breath on that cross and he woke up in the very next moment in heaven. Could you imagine his eternal joy as he sees Jesus there right away? There's a Scottish preacher named Alistair Beg who preached a a message where he shares an illustration about this. So funny, so amazing. I I got to share it with you. He says, you know, can you just imagine this thief waking up in in heaven and the angels come over to him and say, "Hey, what are you doing here?" He's like, and he's kind of speechless and they're they're they're pinging him with all kinds of questions and trying to understand. He's like, "Wait, wait, wait. Let let me go get my supervisor." So the angel goes and gets his supervisor and comes back over and he's asking the thief this criminal questions like, "Okay, okay, all right. What do you know about the doctrine of justification by faith?" And the guy's like, "I I got nothing. I I've never never heard of that before. All right. Uh, what about the the doctrine of of the inspiration and inherency of scripture?" The guy, "Sir, what are you doing here? Why are you here? How are you here?" And just in frustration, he just looks back at the angels and says, "The man on the middle cross said I could come." And Jesus comes over and smiles, puts his arm around him. He's good. The man on the middle cross said, "I could come."
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, tell me, what did this criminal do to deserve eternal life with Jesus in paradise? Can can you name even one accomplishment? Can you name even one good work? He never walked an aisle. He never prayed a prayer. He never got baptized. He never went to this is Discovery. He never became a member of any church. What percentage of his salvation was a result of his own effort? The answer is zero. What percentage of his salvation was God's effort? 100%. So, are you telling me that Jesus plus nothing equals everything? Is that what you're saying?
So, what does this matter to us? What does the redemption of the thief on the cross teach us? Run through these. We'll finish up, have communion, sing, and go home and live it.
First, it tells us that you are never too far gone. Would you let that echo in your mind? You are never too far gone. On this side of heaven, no one is unredeemable because your salvation does not depend on what you've done at all. 100% depends on what Jesus has done for you. With that in mind, can I show you something else that might help you to be able to explain this to someone else? See, the way the world spells religion is do, because it's your works. It's the things that you do. It's your personal goodness. It's the things that you achieve. That's what gets you favor with God, the world says. But the way God spells grace is no. It's actually it's done, because Jesus said, "It is finished," right? It's as simple as do versus done. Where are you putting your 100% trust? You're never too far gone, friends.
Then number two, God's loving mercy and grace are utterly awesome in the real sense of the word. That word has been used way too much and it's been robbed of its beauty. I'm trying to infuse all of its beauty and strength and power back into it because the power and the grace and the mercy of our God are awesome. When you see this passage, astonishing, amazing. Tim Keller explains the gospel this way. He says, listen to this: "You are more sinful than you ever dared imagine. Yet you are more loved than you ever dared to believe." See, the gospel confronts and it comforts, right? The gospel exposes the depth of our sin and need. And at the same time, it proclaims God's radical grace and acceptance of us through Jesus. That's awesome.
Third thing that the redemption of the thief on the cross teaches us is this: Your salvation is 100% God's work. Am I a broken record on that? Yeah. Your salvation is 100% God's work. This story is proof that we can do nothing whatsoever to save ourselves. Our salvation is a gift, absolute gift from God by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus plus nothing equals everything. We are 100%, utterly, completely, totally dependent upon the grace and the mercy of God.
Fourth thing that we learn from this: Your response to God's grace matters. And that response, I pray, is faith. It's faith. Let me share with you this. This is the gospel in, we could just say, five words. It's something that you can sit with yourself if you're still thinking about whether or not to to trust Jesus with 100% of who you are for his 100% salvation, or to share with another person in your life who needs to hear it. The first word is love. God loves you and he created you in his image. He wants to be in relationship with you. But sin entered the picture and our rebellion pulled us away from God. It separated us from him. It fractured our relationship and there's nothing that we could do to bridge that gap. So what did God do? Well, God sent his own Son to die on the cross in our place to pay the penalty of our sins. That's what he does for the thief right here. And what we're told is, as we read right at the very beginning, that it is by faith that we receive this grace. We say by grace through our faith that once we put our 100% trust in Christ, then we get to live a life with him now and forever. That's what everlasting life is. It's the gospel in five words. What did that take? 30 seconds. Is there 30 seconds of your life this week that you can share with somebody that you love that you think might appreciate having their destiny changed? That might like to hear that the man on the middle cross said you could come.
The fifth thing is salvation means forgiveness and eternal life with Jesus in paradise. Again, Jesus is the real prize. Heaven is a real place and if you trust him alone, you'll never be alone. You'll have eternity in heaven with him forever. The one who loves you enough that he would stop at nothing to give his life for you. He's the 100% savior and you can trust him 100%. You can put your 100% trust in your 100% savior.
Another way of thinking about this is something that we're going to be learning in our uh groups, our Messengers of the Gospels groups uh session this week. And that's something that we call the the bridge illustration. You're going to be trained in this so I'm not going to spend too much time on this. But the idea is that there's a huge chasm between you and me and between God. And this chasm exists because of our sin. And that also results in our death. And there's nothing that we can do. It's not uh I'm going to do some good works. I'm going to get a degree in Bible or I'm going to do jury duty. I mean, there's nothing that we can do that can help us to bridge that gap. The only thing that can bridge this gap is what God did when he sent his Son Jesus to die on the cross for us in our place. When Jesus said, "It is finished." What that means is now we can move from where we are to where he is and be with him forever. Jesus is the bridge, the 100% trustworthy bridge.
Friends, these these couple little tools I'm just conversation tools to just be able to have in your mind so that when God gives you an opportunity as we're all praying for these days over the course of this month, they can allow us to be in a conversation with somebody who needs to hear, "The man on the middle cross said you could come."
Would you bow your heads in prayer with me, please, wherever you are? And I just want to ask you to be honest with God in this moment. Are you clear on the fact that Jesus' saving work on the cross for you is 100% effective? That your salvation depends 100% upon him. Are you clear on that? Would you ask the Holy Spirit to to move in your heart right now to reaffirm that or to affirm it for the first time? Another way of asking this is, is there anything you're trying to add? Even even maybe subconsciously you're like feeling like you have to earn something from God, his love, his approval, his affirmation. Is there something you're trying to add to Jesus 100%? You don't need to. You want to just recommit right now in these moments that your salvation is Jesus plus nothing equals everything. We just tell God that. And then by the power of the Holy Spirit, we've been asking God all week long, God, please move in the hearts of those who hear this message today or 50 years from now as they're listening to this, that you would sense such a conviction in your heart from the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit that you would want to declare to God that for you it's Jesus plus nothing. That you would even communicate to God from your heart something like this that you'll see on the side screens that I'll read aloud now.
"God, I see my need for Jesus. I admit that I've sinned. I ask for your forgiveness through the death of Jesus on my behalf. I accept you, Jesus, as my 100% savior and I acknowledge you as Lord of my life. Thank you for saving me. I want to live in relationship with you now and for eternity."
In the name of Christ we pray. Amen. Amen.