Redemption

Can you believe that we have been walking through this drama of God for 11 weeks? We started this on the very first Sunday of the year, and week after week after week, we've continued to walk through this drama. We're gonna walk through it today a little bit more and we still have three more weeks to go. So in the end, this'll be 15 weeks of walking through the drama of God. Now I know for a fact that there are probably some folks here today for the very first time or second or third. Whatever the case may be, we're super, super grateful you're here. Don't know who brought you or forced you to come. We're just grateful that you're here this morning for sure. But here's what I want to do. For the sake of those who might be new and only caught a couple of these messages so far, and to bring all of us up to speed a little bit, I just wanted to go back and do a little bit of a recap, if you will. So we looked at this drama of God as being a four act play. Here you see them here. Act 1, Creation and Fall. Act 2, Promises. Act 3, Redemption. And Act 4, Restoration. And I'm going to again, quickly walk through this. So I'm gonna give you like the Cliff Notes of the Cliff Notes of the Cliff Notes of the Cliff Notes. So that's how brief it's gonna be. But just to bring us up to speed a little bit. So Act 1, we had Creation and Fall, and in the beginning God created everything and everything was good. And it became very good when he created us, male and female, to be in his image, to be in a loving relationship with him. But very shortly thereafter, given a choice to live under God's rule and God's authority, Adam and Eve said, "No, I think I want to be God instead." And then sin entered the world through the crafty temptation of Satan. And it all went wrong from there. And sin entered the world and all the mankind, it has stayed with mankind to this very day and will stay with mankind until the day that Jesus actually returns. Then we jump into Act 2 with the promises and the covenants, and God unfolds his plan for redemption, for not only his people of Israel, but for his people of Israel to be a light, for his people of Israel to be a light to the Jews and the Gentiles alike. And then he rolls that out in a series of covenants. We had the Abrahamic Covenant, then the Mosaic Covenant, and the Vitrian Covenan. And then we get this new covenant in which God promises to give us a new heart, a new spirit to write his law on our hearts, and he would be it his people forever. Then we got to redemption. And then God showing his infinite love for his creation, he sends his one and only son, Jesus Christ, who was with God from the beginning. He reveals the Jesus to the world that he created through a miraculous birth. And then he reveals Jesus as the only one in whom we would have redemption, the only one who we'd have forgiveness, and the only way that we would have eternal life was through his son, Jesus Christ. And then Jesus, and then he ushers into the kingdom of God to save all of mankind, Jew and Gentile alike. But he was rejected by his own, and by all accounts, he was rejected by you and me as well. And since there was no forgiveness and there's no redemption and there's reconciliation without the shedding of blood, Jesus took your sin, he took my sin, and paid the ultimate sacrifice to the torturous death on the cross. The righteous one, for the unrighteous. The sinless one, for the sinful. That's what Jesus did on our behalf. So listen, if you've missed any of these in these last 11 weeks, I would encourage you just to go back, listen to those again, dive deeply into those. And fact of the matter is I think is one of those series that you just want to bookmark 'cause you're gonna want to come back to this with other people as well. So make sure you bookmark that. So lemme just pray. If you're, husbands, if you're with your wives, grab her hand. Father, we thank you so much for this morning, the opportunity to see those beautiful, beautiful stories of baptism, of what you did in the life of that family. As I watch those, I'm saying to myself, "I don't even think I need to preach. We just saw the message right there." But Lord, in this last little bit of time, I pray that we would give you our full attention and allow our hearts and our minds to be impacted by what they would hear and then lived out in their lives. Lord, we thank you. We love you. In your name we pray. Amen. So as we conclude Act 3, understand this, that without the most significant event in the history of mankind, this drama would've actually ended on the day of the crucifixion. If the drama ended on the day of the crucifixion, guess what today is? It's just another day. It is just another day where we would be separated from God, just another day with no way to be redeemed or restored. It'd be just another day without the one and only true God. Folks, the resurrection of Jesus Christ changed all of humankind. It changed all of history because as real as the crucifixion was, which is gonna be a day that we're gonna be able to remember in just a few weeks, as real as the crucifixion was, Jesus, the holy one, rose from the grave just as he said that he would. And once and for all, bridge this chasm between God and man, created by us, not by God, he bridged that chasm between us and man and his resurrection provided the only way, the only way in which a man could be forgiven of their sins, the only way that man could be restored, the only way that man could be redeemed and reconciled to the Father. The day that Jesus rolls from the grave, that day, which we get to celebrate in a couple of weeks as well, God proved his love for Jesus, he proved his love for you and me. He proved victory over sin, victory over death, and victory over Satan. That's what God did. The crushing of the head of the serpent as a serpent struck Jesus as healed, just as it was promised way back in the garden when it all began. This was God's plan all along. And as we read in scripture, God's plan cannot and will not be forwarded. So let's take this as our first point, okay? This is gonna be our main point this morning. Get your pens ready or type fast 'cause it's a little bit longer, okay? The resurrection of Jesus Christ provides hope for the believer that is worth sharing with the world and making disciples of all nations. We'll leave that up there for a moment. You can take a picture if that's easier for you. And I'll repeat that again. The resurrection of Jesus Christ provides hope for the believer that is worth sharing with the world and making disciples of all nations. So here's what I wanna do. I wanna break that up into two pieces first. Where I wanna break that up first into the part about the resurrection that provides hope and then we'll break that into what we do with that as believers, in sharing that with the world. But before we jump to the resurrection, I wanna go back real quick to what Pastor Jerry had shared with us last week when he taught about the death of Jesus, that Jesus' death was the plan of the Father since the beginning and was the centerpiece of the Bible. This was God's plan, that Jesus would die. You know, not too long ago I had the opportunity to say these words, "It is finished." That car note, was done. It is finished. And right around that time my wife had reminded me that okay, well my car has got almost 250,000 miles. So guess who needs a new car now? All right, so we got back in debt again. But there is one day I will be able to say again that it is finished. We have another day that's coming up and not in the distant future about our mortgage being fully paid. It is finished. No debt. I'm looking for hallelujah. I'm looking for that one right there. And I would suspect that many of you have that same, I can't wait to say it is finished. Maybe it's a credit card debt that got away from you. Maybe it's your automobile debt, as well. Maybe undergrad that turned to grad, that turned to some other stuff, maybe that is out there as well. And maybe as well you have the same thing with that mortgage debt that you cannot wait to say it is finished because the debt has been paid. You see, there's something really extraordinarily freeing about not being in debt, right? That no one is or can hold anything of you because whatever needed to be paid, whatever that was, it has been paid. No one can hold anything over you. There's no burdening, there's nothing hindering you from moving forward freely because you can breathe now. It is finished. Paid in full. Now see, there's no way that I could remotely compare the earthly debt that we have to the heavenly debt that we have. But I think in that illustration, you see what I'm getting at there. But way more importantly than our earthly debt is our sin debt. When sin entered into the world and Adam and Eve deliberately chose what they did, that they wanted to be God, instead of being under God, sin started this treacherous path and each and every DNA of every single person that has ever lived on the face of the earth, sin is in our DNA. And then sin, it took this beautiful image that we were created in, beautiful image of God, and it went... And next thing you know there's a little bit of something there, but it's smudged and we really can't see it. But sin actually smudged that DNA, that path that we had for God. And you might be saying to yourself, well Leroy, I'm not a sinner. Okay, well there's your first lie. So welcome to the club. There we go. But listen to what the Apostle Paul pinned under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit here in Romans 3. "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." So let's just all put that aside, let's just agree that you and I are sinners in thought, in action, and in deed, as well. We're born sinners. So this holy and perfect God who created us to be in a relationship with him, now there's this chasm between the two of us that we actually are the ones that created and there's a sin debt that must be paved, and if not paid, then their judgment is coming. There has to be justice when there's been injustice. And staying with Apostle Paul, here's what we find in Romans 6 again. "But the wages of sin, is death." And folks, that's what our sin debt deserves. It deserves death. It deserves eternal separation from God. But this holy and perfect God who loved us more than anything, you know this verse. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only son." You see, there's a sin debt that has to be paid and the only way that can be paid it back is through what we would call atonement. Atonement simply means just reparation for the sin. It's gotta be paid back. But you and I, see this is, you and I are hardly capable of actually atoning for our own sin. There's no way that you and I can do that, which is why God had to send his son to be atonement for our sin. And the only way in which we can have atonement is that there is a shedding of blood, but not just any blood. Your blood won't do, my blood won't do, the blood of bulls, the blood of cows, that won't do, as well. Just as we see in the Old Testament because that was a foreshadowing of the blood that Jesus would actually shed for us. Jesus' blood is the only blood that takes away the sin of the world. And this was confirmed in the book of John as he wrote about John the Baptist in this testimony to Jesus. Take a look at it here in John 1. "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" It was at the cross that Jesus' blood was shed to atone for the sins of the world. Take that personally folks. Your sin and my sin, as well. So yes, the death of Jesus was God's plan all along. And Jesus willfully fulfilled every prophecy that needed to be fulfilled to ensure that payment was made. And then just seconds, seconds before his death, listen to what Jesus says here in John 19. "When he had received the dream, Jesus said, "It is finished." And with that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." So yeah folks, at his death, it is finished, but praise God, it ain't over. Because if you recall, Jesus, the prophet, the king, he said this several times during the course of his ministry. Listen to it right here in Matthew 16, you'll see it. "From that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life." And then when Jesus was being questioned at the temple, when he was flipping all the tables in that scene that everybody loves, listen to what he says here in John 2. "Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days." And my friends, he wasn't talking about a brick and mortar temple, he was talking about his body himself that it would be raised again. And the Apostle Paul pens this also in First Corinthians. "For what I received, I passed on to you as the first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas and then to the Twelve, and after that he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James and then to the apostles, and last of all, he appeared to me, as one abnormally born." My dear friends, the resurrection was real. And there were many, many, many witnesses to that resurrection. There's this beautiful, beautiful exchange that we also read in scripture. The very night that Jesus was to be arrested and the very night before the crucifixion, there's this beautiful passage of scripture that I want you to read, and let's see if you catch this here. So Jesus is getting ready to pray to the Father and his disciples are around him. And here's what we read in John 17. "My prayer is not for them alone." Now remember, he's praying to the Father. The "them" there is the disciples that are around him. "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are one in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me." Did you catch that? Those that Jesus was talking about, that's you and me. Jesus was praying for you and me because we would believe because of the witness that these folks who saw what happened when Jesus rose from the grave and because they know what happened in their lives, you and I would be witnesses and you and I would believe because of that right there. There's a hope that we have in Jesus because of what he did for us. That same hope we saw in those baptisms. There's hope that we have for Jesus because of our faith in Jesus Christ. And by that, I don't mean this earthly kind of hope, like, "Boy I hope I win the lottery." I'm not talking about that kind of hope. I'm talking about the hope that is assurance of it will happen. He does not lie. He keeps his promise. So if Jesus said it, if God said us, it will happen. That's the hope that I'm talking about that we have right there. And listen to Hebrews 10 because here's where it comes out. "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope that we profess, for He who promised is faithful." So what does hope actually look like for the believer, right? I mean what does this actually look like for the person who said yes to Jesus Christ? So take a look at this on the screen here and consider this your fifth grade test and your teacher says, "Circle which apply". You might as well circle all of these because this is what we have in Jesus. We have hope, there's Jesus. There's peace, there's life, there's freedom, there's power, there's blessing, there's eternal life, there's forgiveness, there's reconciliation, there's redemption, there's probably more. But this is the hope that we have in Jesus Christ, that blessing right there. So yeah, you might as well just circle 'em all. Now, is there hope for a better tomorrow? Yeah, we all have hope for a better tomorrow. But at the risk of sounding insensitive, everyone's tomorrow may not be better. There's nothing that says, "Come to faith in Christ and your life is going to be smooth sailing." There's nothing like that. So while we hope for a better tomorrow, that might not be the case. But there is certain hope in the future. There's certain hope in eternity that we have in Jesus Christ. When you looked at those things you saw up there, how many of those do you think apply to the non-believer? None. For the non-believer, none of those things that we listed that we have hope for, none of those things apply to someone who does not believe in Jesus Christ. But they are available. They're only apply when we say yes to Jesus Christ to be in our Lord and our savior. And it's because of the joy that you and I have because we have this relationship, because of that and because we have this hope, that is why you and I should be positioned to share this with other people, so they too can have the same hope as well and then we look at that main point again, where it says it again. "The resurrection of Jesus Christ provides hope for the believer that is worth sharing with the world and making disciples of all nations." Folks, that is the great commission right there. Jesus is with his disciples after the resurrection and he's getting ready to be prepared, to ascend to the Father, to see it at the right hand of God, and this is what we read in Matthew 28. "And then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Now when we read that passage right there, when it gets to that "all nations", that's where you and I say, "Oh man, that means I gotta leave my home. I gotta go to another country so that I can serve the Lord and let the people know about Jesus." And although yes, that will be the case for some, but for almost everyone else, that is not the case for you. Surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age". Now when we read that passage right there, when it gets to that "all nations", that's where you and I say, "Oh man, that means I gotta leave my home. I gotta go to another country so that I can serve the Lord and let the people know about Jesus." And although yes, that will be the case for some, but for almost everyone else, that is not the case for you. You know, just a couple of weeks ago we had a beautiful time of commissioning with Joel and Katie and Eden and the baby in the belly as they left for Tanzania. Awesome time together, to see that the Lord did say to them, "Yeah, the other nation is Africa, Tanzania for you guys." So they faithfully and obediently took their family and went straight to Tanzania. And if you have not heard, they arrived safely. We've seen pictures and they're starting to get things together and understand what the Lord has said to them and they're being faithful in that right there. So obedient to the call to go to another nation. But check this out here, check out this picture here I've got. I met this guy from Zambia last Saturday when we were at the Iron Sharpens Iron Men's conference in Hamburg. So I'm thinking, "Oh dude, you came all the way to learn more about being a Christ follower, to help out in leadership, and maybe some pastoral training. Dude, what brought you to Hamburg from Zambia?" He said, "I'm here to be a missionary." Whatcha you talking about Willis? You mean to tell me there are people in western New York that don't know the gospel? This guy has moved from Zambia to Hamburg to be a witness to you and me and others in our community that you and I should be able to walk to. So I always ask myself after I talk with them a little bit, and I'm like, there is a mission field folks that we have right here in our own backyard. No moving to another nation even needs to apply. So if this man can move with his wife and children, 7,600 miles to be a witness to someone who lives 50 feet away from me and you, what are we doing? We have a mission field that we have been called to. But here's the beautiful thing. When you said yes to Jesus, he gave you the Holy Spirit, he gave us the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit empowers us as we witness. And in this verse right here, we see that empowerment and we also see the commission again in Acts 1. "But you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." You see, in Jesus Christ, you and I have been made new. We're a new creation with a new king, with a new kingdom, and a new eternal home that awaits us. But for a little while, a little bit of time, we are gonna be foreigners in this foreign land. So while we are here, we need to make sure that we represent the king and we represent the kingdom and do that well. And to remind us, this is what we read in Second Corinthians. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, it is a new creation. The new creation has come: The old has gone and the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might be become the righteousness of God." Implore, not a common word that we kind of use every day, but if I were to state it this way like this, I would say, we eagerly appeal to you on Christ's behalf. Be reconciled to God. You feel the passion there? There's a difference in that right there. We know what Christ has done in our lives and that should give us hope, it gives us life, it gives us peace, it gives us freedom, it gives us eternal life with Jesus, and it frees us from the captivity of sin that we have. So why would we not want to share that hope with others so they can experience the same hope that we have in Jesus as well? There's this incredible story in the Bible, in the book of Luke, I believe it's in Luke chapter five, where Jesus is doing like a bunch of healing, right? He's healing a whole bunch of people and forgiving people. And some of these guys, they're running to go to the same location. They pick up a guy who was paralyzed and they take him to the house and they get up on the roof and they lower him down to be at the foot of Jesus. And you'd like to think, okay, well that was cool, but let's stop and really think about that for a minute. These guys grabbed this paralyzed guy, we don't know anything about it. He grabbed these paralyzed guys, they probably went to the front door, nah, couldn't get in, went to the side door, couldn't get in, went to the other side door, couldn't get in, the back door, couldn't get in. Hey I know, we'll go up on the roof of a house and rip off the ceiling tiles and then lower this guy in front of Jesus. What? I think what we see there is this. We see two things that I want us to really ask ourselves about. These guys knew the importance of bringing Jesus in front of this man for healing and forgiveness. They knew how important it was for them to get this man in front of Jesus, and they were actually willing to do whatever it took to get there. I think there's a slide right there. Yep. They knew the importance of getting this man to Jesus and they're willing to do whatever it took to get there. And I think that because going up on a roof that you don't own and cutting the hole in it and dropping some stuff down, ain't your first choice. So they used a lot of what they needed to do, but they understood this man needs to be at the foot of Jesus. So when I think of that story and I talk about that kind of regularly, I've gotta ask myself and I want to ask you also, are you those kind of people? Am I those kind of people? Do I truly recognize and understand the importance of making sure that people get to the foot of Jesus? Do I? Do you? Are we really willing to do whatever it's gonna take to do that? That's something that we have to ask ourselves because there is gonna be a cost to following Christ. There's a cost to following Jesus. A friend of mine, we put it this way, Hey man, there is nothing convenient about the gospel. There's a cost and what are we willing to pay? But to ensure that those around us get to hear the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That fifth grade test that I gave you a moment ago, check out this up here 'cause I want to ask you this, for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ, are you willing to pay these things? To be hated, to be laughed at, to be uncomfortable? Will you cross party lines for the sake of the gospel? Will you cross racial lines for the sake of the gospel? Are you ready to be called intolerant? Are you ready to be called a lunatic? Because that's what will happen. Are you ready to be persecuted? To lose family? What are you willing to do to make sure that you get people to the foot of the cross and so that they know the truth of the gospel? Are we willing to make sure we will do anything so that every man, every woman, and every child will hear that Jesus Christ is the only way to be saved? Go with me on this right here. This is gonna take a little bit of imagination, but go with me on this. Just think if the moment that you accepted Christ, bam, snap, you went to heaven, right? Some of you're like, "Man, I wish that was the case." But the moment you went to Christ, accepted Christ, bam, there you go. You're up in heaven. But think about that. How would you have come to faith in Christ if there is no one to tell you about Jesus Christ? You wouldn't. There's no way that you would know. The simple fact that God did not whisk us up to be with him forever 'cause he loves us that much, the simple fact that he did not do that tells us that we are here to be witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ, for every man, every woman, and every child. Listen to this verse here in Romans 10, it's one of my favorite verses and one that always comes back to me and I use for my encouragement. It says this. "How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one in whom they've not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news!" Gentlemen, that's the only time your feet are gonna be called beautiful, when you bring the good news. Let's just say that. But what we have to understand is this. We have to understand that we are God's plan A for sharing the gospel to the rest of the world. There is simply no other way this would happen unless you and I took the responsibility of the commission that we were given by our king than to share Jesus Christ with those that are around us. I am super, super grateful for the folks that continue to plant those seeds and stir it up and dig around in my life, all the way back from Trinity Baptist Church to walking down Sheridan Drive and recommitting my life to Christ. I am super grateful the folks that continue to do that. And I know there are people in your lives as well, that you are super grateful, did that to you because that was part of that path. Why would we not do the same thing for those who have not yet accepted Christ and keep planting the seeds and plant another seed and plant another seed and stir it up a little bit? That maybe and maybe one day that they would come to faith in Christ and they would say, "Man, I am so glad that Brenda continued to share her faith with me." "I'm so glad that Roz pulled me aside to share her story with me, and what it meant to come to faith in Christ." "I'm so glad that family we saw there get baptized, shared their story of what Jesus did in their lives." Why would we not do the same as well? I mean as follows of Christ, we remain here as children of God, foreigners in this world, for the purpose of ensuring that every man, every woman, and every child have repeated opportunities to see and to hear and to respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Have you ever heard that? Of course you have. 'Cause we repeat it each and every Sunday. And the reason we do that is we wanna make sure that we recognize and remember. And in our DNA, we wanna make sure we remember that that is what we have been called to do. I mean, there's a lot of things that we have been called to do and called to do and a lot of really good things, right? To be a husband, to be a wife, to be a kid, to be an employee, to be an employer, to be a student. We've been called to be a lot of good things and that's awesome, but when the loudest and most influential and authoritative voice in our heads is that of our Lord and Savior, that of God, we will remember that our biggest calling, our greatest calling, will it be a witness to a lost and dying world. Those who are gonna be eternally separated from God in a place called hell, where there's gonna be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Have you ever heard a non-believer tell you this? "Oh man, I'm just going to be in hell partying with my friends." You all have heard it. You probably said it at one point. But that was when you didn't know what hell is like, the true separation of what it means to be away from God. You see, we're all gonna live forever. It's really just a matter of the address of your eternity. Will it be in a place called heaven where the streets will be paved with gold, where there's no crying, there's no weeping, there's no pain, there's no suffering, there's no sickness, there's no death? A place where we will be with Jesus Christ forever. Do I exactly know what that looks like? I don't know. It doesn't matter. If Jesus is there, it can't be nothing but good. But why wouldn't we want to make sure that others know about that as well? So what can I leave us with, with what we've talked about? I'm hoping that I told you what I was gonna tell you and that I actually told you what I was gonna tell you and hope it made sense. But I wanna make sure I leave us with a little bit of something because we wanna make sure we leave with something when we leave. And there's a couple things, some movement. You see, you might have come into this building being really cynical about this whole Jesus thing. If you came in and you're a cynical about God, this is how you probably came in. Arms crossed, sitting like this, you might even be asleep. The thing about a cynic, a cynic is unwilling to change their heart in the face of evidence. My hope for you, if you came here as a cynic this morning, is that you will just soften up just a little bit. That something that was shared, something you saw, something we saying, something I said, might begin to penetrate your heart. So that maybe just maybe you go from cynic to being a skeptic. You see, here's the thing about skeptics, what I love. Skeptics actually came in like this. And you're here today, you're thinking, you're skeptical, which is okay because skeptics, their heart actually says, "I'm willing to change my heart in the face of evidence." So to be skeptical here, I get it. I was right there with you. My hope is if you came in as a skeptic this morning, again, something that you heard, something that you saw, the nudging of the Holy Spirit will say today, like we sang in that psalm, I believe. That you believe that God sent his one and only son through a miraculous birth to live a sinless life, to die on the cross for your sin to be placed into the grave. The devil thought he won on day one, the devil thought he won on day two, but on day three, Jesus Christ rose from the grave proving victory over all of those things. He did that for you. So my hope, Mr. or Mrs. Skeptic, is that you'll recognize that and receive Jesus Christ this morning. We're gonna pray in just a moment, but I don't wanna lose sight of the fact that there are my brothers and sisters here who are followers of Jesus Christ. What does this message actually mean to you? I would want you to join me this week and remembering that we are Christ's ambassadors. Everywhere you go, we are Christ's ambassadors. My hope is that you would join me with my friend from Zambia who may be onto something, that there are still people in Western New York that need to hear the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And just as we open this morning from worship, we read from Ephesians 6, I wanna read that over you and I read that over me. And as I do that, I want to be praying for each and every one of you. But I want you to be praying for me as I read this again from Ephesians. "And pray also for me that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it as fearlessly as I should." Let's go before the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, I'm grateful for this morning and the opportunity that you have given us all to be reminded of what your word says. For those who may have walked in the door this morning and were cynical about the gospel, I pray that something prick their heart, that they would at least turn into a skeptic. And those skeptics that are here Lord, I pray that you have spoken to them clearly today, that today would be the day that they would step into the most precious relationship in their entire lives. There is no relationship more precious and important than that with Jesus Christ. So I pray that you would motivate them and move them this morning, Lord, that when we close, when we have our prayer partners here in the front, that they would stand to their feet and come let our prayer partners know, so they can be welcomed into the kingdom. And Lord, for my brothers and sisters, I pray that we would first maybe take the heart posture of repentance and repent for the fact that even though we know you have commissioned us to be your ambassadors, we've walked away from opportunities. We've shied away from it. We got scared. We thought something was gonna happen. Let us all repent from that this morning, Lord. But I pray that we would be encouraged by the words you have said, that your Holy Spirit empowers us. That in my brothers and sisters this week, wherever we go, when we see a door that is open, we will walk people into understanding what Jesus can do for them because of what he done for us. But more importantly, Jesus's story. So give us the sweet boldness weekly, Jesus, to be your disciples, to be your ambassadors, to bring truth and light to a lost and dying world. So Father, we love you and we thank you and we praise you. In the holy and precious name of Jesus Christ, our risen Lord and Savior, and church said, amen.