(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love to tell the story of unseen things above. Let's lift our voices together now. On that first hymn number 228. I love to tell the story because I know it's true. It satisfies my long dreams as nothing else can do. I love to tell the story. It will be my dream and glory to tell the old old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the story for wonderful it seems. Then all our golden things cease of all our golden dreams. I love to tell the story. It did so much for me. And that is just the reason I tell it now to thee. I love to tell the story. It will be my dream and glory to tell the old old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the story. It is pleasant to repeat. Each time I tell it more wonderfully sweet. I love to tell the story for some have never heard the message of salvation from God's holy word. I love to tell the story. It will be my dream and glory to tell the old old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the story for those who know it best. It seems hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest. And when it seems of glory I sing a new new song. It will be the old old story that I have loved so long. I love to tell the story. It will be my dream and glory to tell the old old story of Jesus and his love. Amen. Good singing. All right. At this time we'll go through our announcements together. If you don't have a bulletin slip up your hand nice and high and we'll get to you with one. On the inside we have our service times. Sunday mornings at 1030 is our preaching service. Sunday nights at six. Wednesday nights at seven is our Bible study. We'll be back in the book of Psalms this Wednesday with Psalm 74. It's really a great section of the book of Psalms, the Psalms of Asaph. And there are just a lot of really great truths in these passages. So I'm looking forward to preaching through those in the coming weeks. Below that we've got a list of the soul winning times, salvations, baptisms. And then we had another cruise missions trip this week. And then just myself and Pastor Shelley. And then we also teamed up with Kenton when we were in Nassau. So three of us total. And we had 76 salvations for the week. So it was a really big success. So thank you for your continued support on that. And I know you guys heard a great sermon from Pastor Russell on Wednesday night from Straight Path Baptist Church down in Tucson. And then keep praying for our expectant ladies that they will have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery. The food donations, of course, typically on Wednesday nights we have a lot of good stuff. And then on the back, mark the calendar for the annual Mother Daughter Tea Party at the Spicery. Two dates are available. You've got an RSVP before the slots fill up. Because when they're gone, they're gone, gone, gone. So you have to make sure that you sign up because these do typically tend to fill up. And usually we have three dates. But just because of timing and logistics, only two dates. We usually have three. There's only two this year. So you've got to make sure that if it's important to you that you get in there. Don't RSVP, though, unless you're serious. It's totally free as all of our church activities. But obviously somebody's got to pay for it. So you want to be a good steward of those funds by taking your RSVP seriously. And then, yeah, just make sure that you also, when you do RSVP, either by emailing the church or using the Facebook members only group, that you give details such as this is who's going, this is how old they are, and stuff like that, not just like I'm interested or something. You need to say like it's three people going, one adult, two children. These are their names. Just give us a little bit of data to work with so that we can get the seating arrangements figured out and know how many people to expect. And then below that, other upcoming events. Of course, the Brother Segura-led cruise missions trip is going to be leaving a week from today. I'm not going to be on that trip. I'm going to be here preaching, but Brother Segura is going to be leading a crew of about 25 people. So I'm really excited to see what God's going to do with that many people in such a receptive place of Nassau, Freeport, Bimini, a lot of great soul-winning opportunities. So I think that's going to be a huge missions trip. I'm super excited for the results of that one. And then Pastor Mejia is preaching for us next month, April 9th. KJV Conference up in Portland, Oregon on May 15th through 18th. And that's about it for announcements. So let's go ahead and sing our next song. Come lead us. All right, you should find the insert from your hymnal with the hymn entitled, Be Thou My Vision. If you don't have an insert, please raise your hand and you'll receive one. We'll sing it on that verse together. Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart. Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart. God be all else to me, save that thou art. Thou my best thought, my day or my night. Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light. Be thou my wisdom and thou my true word. I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord. Thou my great Father, I thy true Son. Thou in me dwelling and I with thee one. Be thou my battle shield, sword for fight, fight. Be thou my dignity, thou my delight. Thou my soul's shelter, thou my high town. Praise thou me inward, O power of my bound. Riches I heed not, Lord, and empty praise. Thou mine inheritance, thou and always. Thou and thou only, first in my heart. High King of Heaven, my treasure thou art. High King of Heaven, my victory won. May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's sun. Lord of my own heart, whatever befall. Still be my vision, O ruler of all. Amen. Good singing, everybody. Take our hymnals down and turn to hymn number 106. Hymn number 106. Abide with me. Hymn number 106. Sing it on that first together. Abide with me. Fast falls the eventide. The darkness deepens, Lord with me. The darkness deepens, Lord with me. The darkness deepens, Lord with me. The helpless all abide with me Swift to its closest Outlies flint all day Purse joins broken ends Glories pass away Change and decay All around I see All thou who changes not Abide with me I need thy presence Every passing hour What but thy grace can Foil the tempters now Who, like thyself, My guidance they can be Through cloud and sunshine All abide with me All thou thy cause be For my closing eyes Shine through the blue Then point me to the skies As morning breaks And firstly shadows gleam In life and death O Lord, abide with me Man, good singing this morning. Alright, this time we'll pass our offering plates around. As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to 2 Corinthians 4. 2 Corinthians 4, as we always do. We'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number 1. Follow along silently with brother Dan as he reads. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, beginning in verse number 1. 2 Corinthians 4, the Bible reads, Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, As we have received mercy, we faint not, But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, Not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, But by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves To every man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, Lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, Who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, And ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, Hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge Of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, That the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair, Persecuted, but not forsaken, Cast down, but not destroyed, Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto the death for Jesus' sake, That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you. We having the same spirit of faith, According as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken, We also believe, and therefore speak. Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus Shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, That the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many Redound to the glory of God, for which cause we faint not. But though our outward man perish, Yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, Worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, While we look not at the things which are seen, But at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, But the things which are not seen are eternal. Father in heaven, thank you for your son Jesus Christ, who died to pay for all of our sins, and then he rose from the dead. I also thank you for the earnest of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of all your children, and I pray that you please bless Pastor Anderson as he preaches your word, so that your children, not just in this congregation, but elsewhere in the world, will also be blessed. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Man, the title of my sermon this morning is We Preach Not Ourselves. We Preach Not Ourselves. This is taken from 2 Corinthians chapter 4 in verse number 5, where it says, For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. Now I'm going to back up though to the beginning of the chapter, and we're going to go through most of this chapter, and I'm going to draw out about 5 or 6 points on this idea of We Preach Not Ourselves. The first thing I want to bring out of this passage is that number 1, we preach the gospel because we have received mercy. Look at verse number 1, it says, in verse number 1, Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not. And the idea here is, with mercy, it's basically not getting a punishment that you deserve, right? So you've committed crimes, we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God, and we deserve the wages of sin, the punishment for our sin, but we've received mercy, and so now we have this privilege of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ that we don't really deserve. Not only do we not deserve to be saved, we don't really deserve to be ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ, representing the most powerful creator of the universe, right? Jesus himself. And we're ambassadors of Christ. We don't deserve that. We've received mercy. And here's the thing about that, is that because we've received mercy, we don't faint. And in the context of preaching the gospel to other people, the idea here is that, you know, if we've received mercy, it shouldn't just be like, oh, well great, I'm saved, my sins are forgiven, I'm not going to hell, but I don't really care about everyone else. Like, I've received mercy. Paul is saying here that it motivates him not to faint because he doesn't want to quit on other people, right? Other people are relying on us to get the gospel to them. How can we quit on other people when we've received such great mercy? And this idea is found in verse 3, it says, But if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. And so, according to verse 3, when we don't preach the gospel, if we hide the gospel under a bushel, then it's other people who lose. You know, if our gospel's hid, it's hid to them that are lost. And so, because we've received mercy, we faint not because we want other people to receive mercy. And maybe think of that Old Testament Bible story, and we don't have to turn there for sake of time. But if you remember, the city of Jerusalem had been besieged, and so no one has any food, everybody's starving, and people are just eating all kinds of gross things and just anything that they can find. Well, there are these four lepers who pretty much just had nothing to lose because they're dying of leprosy anyway. And so these four lepers, they're just so starving and hungry, they just decide to just turn themselves into the enemy because they said if the enemy kills us, then we'll die. Well, you know, we're dying anyway. We're already starving anyway. We already have leprosy anyway. And then maybe they might even give us a little food before they kill us or something, or maybe, you know, they'll make us slaves, but at least they'll feed us. So these four lepers, they end up going into the enemy camp to just turn themselves in, but when the four lepers get to the enemy camp, they find it just completely deserted and abandoned. And so God had performed a miracle where he caused them to hear this other huge army coming and get scared and run away. And so because they fled, they left a bunch of their stuff behind. So basically these four lepers are just walking into the tents and just finding everybody's line to just eating food. They're just having a veritable smorgasbord of just meal after meal, and they're just eating and chowing down. But then after doing that for a few minutes or hours, they said, hey, we do not well. This isn't really right for us to just be chowing down and feasting and partying when we know that everybody in that city is starving. Nobody has any food. And then the four of us are just here, just whining and dining. This isn't right. We do not well. We need to tell other people about this, okay? So then they go back into the city, and they tell the king, and at first the king and the citizens don't believe him. They think it's like an enemy trick and that they've been sent to trick them. But then sure enough, they verify it, and yeah, the camp's empty, and then everybody's chowing down. Everybody's feeling great and happy, and God ended up blessing, and they ended up winning the war. But the idea here is that we have been saved. We're like those four lepers where we have gotten this amazing bounty and this amazing treasure, and if we just keep it to ourselves, that'd be wrong for us to do that. And we should want to share the wealth and share the salvation with other people. And so he's saying, look, we've received mercy, and so therefore we faint not. And so thinking about the fact that we've been saved should make us want to get other people saved as well. And obviously it can be exhausting. It can be tiring. The Christian life can be exhausting. Problems and maybe persecution can wear you down. Why do we keep, what keeps us going for six months, a year, five years, 10 years, 20 years of soul winning? What keeps us going? Well, you know what? It's because we've received great mercy, and that's why we faint not because of the fact that God has blessed us. And so remember the title of the sermon is We Preach Not Ourselves. It's not that we're so good, we're so great, hey, let's go promote ourselves. No, here's what it is. It's that we don't even deserve to even be here. We don't even deserve to be saved. We don't deserve to represent Jesus Christ, but we've received that mercy. He gave us something that we didn't deserve. He cut us some slack. He gave us a break. And because of that, we want to get other people that same forgiveness, and so that's why we don't faint. We keep going. How can we quit on other people, you know, and just enjoy it for ourselves, right? It'd be super selfish. People are relying on us, and if our gospel's hid, it's hid to them that are lost. That's point number one. Point number two is that we sincerely preach the truth from the heart, and what do I mean by that? We don't have an ulterior motive for preaching the gospel. We're not preaching ourselves, and we're not preaching for ourselves, okay? We don't have an ulterior motive. The motive is preach truth. Get the gospel out there. Look at verse number two. It says, We have renounced but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. So he's saying, when we preach the gospel, there's nothing dishonest about our preaching. There's nothing crafty. We're not handling the word of God deceitfully, as many people do. We're not twisting scripture, but we are honestly, from the heart, preaching what we actually believe. We really do believe it, and we're trying to preach that to other people for their benefits so that they can be saved, and so that Christ can be glorified, and that Christ's kingdom can be advanced. You know, it's funny. We were out soul winning this week in the Bahamas, and we were at the University of the Bahamas, and there was another group that just happened to be there at the same time as us from the Church of Christ, and if you know anything about Church of Christ, they're sometimes called Campbellites, and it's a totally heretical cultic group following this Campbell guy, and they believe that there's seven steps to salvation. So it's not salvation by faith alone. It's repent of your sins, get baptized, speak in tongues, and they believe you can lose your salvation and just totally the wrong doctrine. So I walked up to these two girls that were sitting at a picnic table, and it was a white girl and a black girl. It turned out that the white girl was from this Church of Christ group. I didn't realize that. The black girl was a local student of the university, and so I walk up, and I say, do you know for sure if you died today, you're going to heaven, and the white girl jumps in like, oh, yeah, I know for sure. I said, what do you think it takes to get there? Oh, you know, repentance and baptism. You know, she's giving all the wrong answers of a works-based salvation, and so I said to her, I said, well, you know what? Actually, I said, we believe something totally different than that. We believe that salvation is by faith alone. Are you open to that idea at all of salvation just being by faith? And she's like, no, I'm not at all open to that. I've studied it out. You know, I'm super confident in what I believe. And so I was just like, okay, no problem. You know, see you later. And she goes, but hey, I just want to really thank you guys, though, for being here and preaching the gospel on the campus. Keep up what you guys are doing. Just keep doing what you're doing. And I'm thinking to myself, I just finished telling you that I'm preaching the exact opposite message of what you're preaching. I'm literally telling people not to believe in your stupid lies, and then you're going to be like, hey, thanks for doing that. And it's funny, I told that story in a video that I made about the soul-winning trip, and then one of my Facebook friends comes on and comments, and he says, yeah, he says, I have an aunt that's Pentecostal, and she actively goes around telling people that I preach a wrong gospel and that I'm preaching false doctrine, but then she comes to me and thanks me and says, hey, thank you for sharing the gospel. Thank you for preaching lies. Thank you for preaching false doctrine, right, from their perspective. And you know what that tells me? It just tells me that these people don't, in their heart, actually really believe anything. They have some other reason for preaching the gospel. They have some other ulterior motive. It's not about truth. It's not about enlightening people with the real word of God. I don't know what they're doing, but why in the world would I think, they'd be like if a Jehovah's Witness came by, hey, thanks for, you guys are lying, and you're going to hell, but hey, thanks for doing this, guys. Good job preaching heresy. It's madness, but I'll tell you why. It's because they don't really believe anything. And out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. I'm not gonna thank people for preaching the opposite of what the Bible says. The Bible says let them be accursed if they preach a false gospel. And guess what? We can't both be right here. One of us is teaching salvation by faith. Another is teaching salvation by works. They're not both right. And of course, we're right, and they're wrong. And so I just thought that was just so telling about how insincere these people are with just, they're gonna flatter us and thank us and say how wonderful we are, even though we just finished talking about the fact that she is not even open to what I'm preaching at all because she just thinks it's 100% wrong because she's in the Campbellite cult. Number three, so number one, we said we preach the gospel because we've received mercy. Number two, we sincerely preach the truth from the heart. We preach not ourselves, but we preach Christ. And the doctrine comes from the Bible. It's not from our own heart. We don't have a ulterior motive. It's about Jesus being glorified. Number three, the gospel's about Jesus, not you. The gospel's about Jesus, not you. Look what the Bible says in verse five. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So notice what the Bible's saying here in verse six, that the knowledge of the glory of God is found in the face of Jesus Christ, right? So that's how we give the light of the knowledge of the gospel. It's about Jesus, not about ourselves. We preach not ourselves. We preach Christ Jesus our Lord. What is the power of God unto salvation, right? Romans 1 16, one of the most famous verses. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth to the Jew first and also to the Greek. So the power of God unto salvation to everybody who believes is the gospel, okay? What is the gospel? Well, a very narrow view of what the gospel is would be like 1 Corinthians 15's definition that says that the gospel is that Christ Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures, right? So in its narrowest view, the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But in a broader view, the gospel is also just referring to basically the entire story of Jesus Christ. You know, this is his birth, his sinless life, his death, burial, resurrection, his ascension, just the whole story of redemption, salvation by grace through faith as a free gift through Jesus, you know? That'd be the broader view of what gospel means. The narrower view would be death, burial, and resurrection of Christ if you wanna write it on the back of a postage stamp. But the bottom line is that it's about Jesus. That's where the power is. The powerful message is not here, let me tell you my life story or let me show you what a great person I am. You need to get to know me and I'm gonna win you to myself. No, it's about Jesus, right? The gospel's about Jesus. Focus on Jesus. Focus on the word of God. Focus on the gospel. And look, we go out and we do this successfully. I mean, we were out this week, right? Pastor Shelley, myself, Brother Kenton, of course, people from our church are out doing this every week. We're out there and what do we do? We're not going around telling people about ourselves. You know, a lot of times, we could have a whole big conversation with somebody, preach the gospel to them, win them to Christ, get them saved and walk away without virtually telling them anything about ourselves. I'm not telling them, hey, this is where I'm from, this is where I grew up, this is what I do for a living. You know, sometimes those things come up, but guess what? A lot of times, they don't because it's not a big infomercial about you as a person or me as a person. It's really about the gospel of Jesus. That's where the power is. And you know, we do sometimes hang out and get to know people maybe after we preach them the gospel and chat and talk about just fun things. But at the end of the day, though, you know, the gospel message, we don't preach ourselves. We preach Jesus. That's what the Bible is saying, right? And here's why this is so important. And this is my fourth point. Preaching the gospel as an imperfect person does not make you a hypocrite. It does not make you a hypocrite because this is where a lot of people get mixed up. They say, well, you know what? I'm backslidden or I'm living a sinful life or I'm not a very good Christian. Therefore, I don't think I'm a good representative of Jesus. Like, I don't think I should be preaching the gospel. And you know what I say? That's hogwash. Okay? And here's why that's hogwash is that you're never a hypocrite when you're preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ unless you're teaching works-based salvation. Now, if you're teaching works salvation and you're going out and telling people to work their way to heaven and then you're not doing the work, that would make you a hypocrite, wouldn't it? If you said, hey, you gotta turn from all your sins to be saved and then you didn't turn from your sins, that'd be hypocritical. But what is the gospel message? The gospel message is that we've all sinned. Okay, so let me ask you this. If you're a sinner and then you tell everybody, hey, we've all sinned, are you being a hypocrite? Quite the opposite, aren't you? If you tell people, hey, the Bible says all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. I've lied before. Have you lied? Yeah, so we've lied before. You know, the Bible says all liars are going to hell. Am I a hypocrite for preaching that message? It's the opposite, right? I often tell people when I'm out soloing that the thought of foolishness is sin and that even just thinking something stupid is a sin and so we probably all sin every day just from thinking something stupid. Hey, the Bible says to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. How many good deeds do we skip in a day? How many opportunities for serving God or reading our Bibles or praying or preaching the gospel? Do we skip in a day? None of us is perfect. We've all sinned. We all come short of the glory of God and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. So if I preach that, I'm a hypocrite because I'm not living good enough. Does that make sense? See, but people will sometimes get hung up on this like, oh, I need to really clean up my life first. I really need to, you know, be a really good Christian before I can share the gospel, you know, so that I'm not being a hypocrite. But here's the thing, if the message is we're all sinners, how is that a hypocritical message? Okay, what's the next part of the message? Is that Jesus died for our sins, that he was buried, that he rose again. When we explain to them the life and work of Christ, how can that be a hypocritical message when it's not even about us at all? We're just telling about Jesus. And then when we get to the part about what you have to do to be saved, we're telling them that it's all by believing in Jesus. Now let me ask you this, do you believe in Jesus? Then you're qualified to tell other people to believe in Jesus. You believe in Jesus. You're telling them to believe in Jesus. How could that be hypocrisy? It can't. Is everybody following the logic here? Then when you explain to them how we can't lose our salvation because if we sin on this earth, we'll get punished on this earth, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourges every son whom he receiveth, and we're preaching to them how we will get earthly chastisement, but he will never leave us nor forsake us because nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Oh, how dare you preach that when you're backslidden. Folks, the whole message is that even if you're backslidden, you're still saved. And that's what you're telling them. So even if you were backslidden, you'd just be living proof of what you're saying. Now look, obviously I'm not saying it's good to be backslidden. You shouldn't be living a worldly life, a sinful life. I want you to be living a godly life, right? That's what Christ wants. That's all. Keeping the commandments, living a good life, going to church, reading our Bibles, praying, keeping ourselves pure, singing hymns of praise to God and being filled with the Spirit of God. Yeah, that's what God wants. That's going to make us an effective preacher of the gospel. It's going to be making us more effective. But what about getting started? Do we have to wait until we get mature to get started? No, it's nonsense. Don't let the devil put that thought in your ear of, oh, you're too sinful, you're too bad, you're too backslidden. Don't go soul winning. No, you are ready to go soul winning. As long as you're saved, you're ready. Now, if you would, go to John. Keep your finger there in 2 Corinthians. But John 15 is another place that we could look at if you want to flip over there. And this is where Jesus is giving the parable where he says that he's the true vine and his father is the husbandman. And this is where he talks about how without Jesus Christ you can do nothing. Right? So in order to be successful as a Christian, you've got to abide in Christ. So in the long run, you want to be a successful Christian, you want to be successful at winning people to Christ, you've got to abide in the vine, you've got to abide in Christ in order to be successful. But look what he says in verse 2. He says, every branch in me, this is John 15, 2, every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. So purge, a very similar word to purges, purify. These are kind of synonymous in many ways. Etymologically almost the same, they both start with P-U-R and they're related. And so the idea here is that the biblical order is not get your life all cleaned up and then go soul winning. That's not the biblical order. No. The biblical order is go bring forth some fruit, number one. Right out of the gate, bring forth fruit, that is step one. Not step two, step one is bring forth fruit after you're saved. Step number two is God purifying you, purging you, making you a better Christian, a better servant of God, so that you can step three, bring forth more fruit. So it's not like, okay, let me clean up my life, then I'll go soul winning. No, here's the order. Go soul winning, get some results, amen? Then get purified, then get Boku results. That's the order. Right? Bring forth fruit, get purged, bring forth more fruit, get purged again. Bring forth more fruit, get purged again. But what is the starting point? Who does God even purge? Oh wait, let me get it cleaned up. God's not even purging you because you're not even bringing forth fruit. He doesn't have time for you. You're not even producing. Okay? You've got to start by bringing forth fruit. You know, look at the woman at the well. Right? The woman at the well is living in fornication. She's living, she's already had five husbands, and now she's living with a dude that she's not married to. Right? That's a pretty messed up situation. And yet, what does she do? The first thing she does is she just goes out and starts telling people about Jesus, and a whole bunch of people get saved as a result. So was she qualified? Was she a bad ambassador for Jesus when she went from the well to the town and told everybody about Christ and brought people to Christ? Was she a bad testimony, bad witness, bad example? And you know what's so funny? And look, I am 110% for us having a good testimony. We should all strive to have a good testimony. We should all strive to live as clean of life. You understand what I'm saying, though. What I'm saying, though, is if you have sin in your life, don't add another sin by not witnessing. That's just sin on top of sin. If you got sins in your life, okay, well at least get one thing right, preach the gospel. Here's one thing you can do right, even if you're on your sixth husband or whatever, you know, bring people to Jesus. At least do that right. And so look, I'm obviously not saying, hey, your testimony doesn't matter. No, but here's what I am saying, though, is that the testimony is overemphasized by some people as basically just an excuse for their lack of fruit production, lack of soul winning, or to try to discourage people from soul winning. And here's what I mean by that, is they'll make this big deal about, oh, you know, you guys aren't perfect, so you're turning people away from Christ. And you know what I'm thinking to myself is, is, you know, are we sending them from hell number one to hell number two? Is that what's going on? Like everybody was heading to hell number one, and then we offended everybody, and now they're going to hell number two. Look, most of these people getting offended are not saved anyway. They were already going to hell before we came along. They'll already be going to hell after we're gone, okay? So it's funny, our church goes out and just gets tens of thousands of people saved, and then this preacher whose church has zero soul winning, I'm not even going to say his name because he's not even worth mentioning, because his church has no soul winning program, not even one soul winning time on the calendar. His church does not have an organized soul winning program, not in, it doesn't believe in door-to-door soul winning the way that we do it at all. 100% non-soul winning bro, and here's what he said. Well, yeah, you know, faithful word won a lot of people to Christ, but how many people did they turn away from Christ? Hmm. And the idea here is, it's like, so we're just getting tens of thousands of people saved. Oh, but we sent some people from hell number one to hell number two over. Like, do you really think that there's just all these people in the world that are like, you know, I was going to believe in Jesus, but Stephen Anderson exists, therefore, ah, not going to believe in Jesus. And here's the thing, let's say there were like one or two people like that, or three people like that, and then we're over just winning tens of thousands of people. Meanwhile, you're doing jack squat, right? You're doing jack squat, and what does the Bible say? He that gathereth not with me, scattereth. So who's scattering the flock? Who is scattering? It's the one who's not gathering with Jesus. And so everybody's just worried about, hey, we don't want to offend this world. Hey, we got to make sure the world thinks we're good. Hey, the world's going to hate you. The world hated Jesus. You're not going to make this world so happy that they just come to Christ by osmosis. No, they're going to come to Christ when you preach Christ. Oh, we're not perfect. Oh, we offended people. Oh, we said some stuff that, you know, hey, here's the good news, we're not preaching ourselves, we're preaching Christ. If we're preaching Christ, we're not preaching ourselves, then, hey, it is what it is. And you know what, yeah, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. You know, but I'd rather be doing something when in somebody or a bunch of somebodies than to be a nothing sitting by the sideline just criticizing someone who's doing something. And look, we got some great soul winners in our church. We got some movers and shakers in our church. And you know what, if you wanted to, you could pick each of them apart. You could pick some of the people in our church, Faith Forward Baptist Church, who do some of the most soul winning, who are spending hours and hours putting in a bunch of time and effort and getting a bunch of people saved. And if you wanted to, if you pulled out the magnifying glass, you could find everything wrong with those people and tear them down and pick them apart. But you know what, that just makes you a big loser if you do that. Because I'd rather just say, hey, the work is awesome. You know, and look, obviously that doesn't mean we're gonna turn a blind eye to gross sin or something, right? Obviously, look, if somebody's out there drinking, committing fornication, those things have to be dealt with. But I'm just talking about imperfect people. And you're gonna sit there and just pick apart good people, good souls, you know. And here's the thing, you take a magnifying glass to me, yeah, you're gonna find problems with me too. You know, because we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. There's none righteous, no, not one, including this preacher. I am also imperfect and if you examine me and you, you know, just scrutinize me, you're always gonna find something wrong. Okay, and that's just the way it is. But you know what, it just makes you a big loser for just criticizing people who are doing stuff, just to make yourself feel better about the fact that you're doing almost nothing. It's a really bad way to live your life. You know, and here's the thing, you know, God wants us to bring forth fruit so that we can become a better person. Not become a better person and then now you've achieved, you know, achievement unlocked ability to give the gospel. No, that achievement is unlocked the moment that you're saved. The moment you're saved, you're ready to tell other people how to be saved. And so don't get this backwards. We want to become fruits, we don't want to become fruit. We already are fruit, okay. But what we want to do is we want to become fruitful so that we can become a better person. And here's the thing, what you'll find, people who do put in a lot of effort of soul winning, they do put in a lot of time, they do put in a lot of hours and effort out there preaching the gospel, they become better people. Why? God's purging them so that they can bring forth more fruit. God does purify those people. It's a symbiotic thing though. It's a back and forth of you bring forth fruit, you get purged, you bring forth fruit, you know. And it's just a kind of a give and take and the two things are working together. It's not like you get one totally done and then you do the other, right. We do both at the same time. We don't just go soul winning all week. We don't just go soul winning every day. I mean someone from our church is out soul winning every day. But even people who go soul winning a lot, they typically aren't going to go every single day. What are they doing on the other days? You know, they're working on themselves. They're working on other things. They're reading their Bibles. They're spending time with their families. They're praying. They're working a job, right. We're doing all kinds of stuff in our lives and it all happens at the same time. So don't make this prerequisite for getting to a certain level before you're ready to share the gospel. No, you need to get into that ASAP. Get into it. Start opening your mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. So just a super quick review. Number one, we preach the gospel because we've received mercy, right. It's mercy. It's grace. It's not our birthright. It's not something that we would deserve by our own goodness. Number two, we sincerely preach the truth from the heart. It's God's message, not our message, and we don't have an ulterior motive. We do it for Jesus, not ourselves. Number three, the gospel is about Jesus, not you. We don't want to overemphasize ourselves when we're preaching the gospel. We want to focus on Jesus and the gospel because that's where the power is. Number four, preaching the gospel as an imperfect person does not make you a hypocrite, okay. Back in 2 Corinthians 4, this is one of my favorite soul-winning verses, 2 Corinthians 4, 7. I don't use it out soul-winning. I think about it when I go soul-winning. And I remember back 20 years ago, I had a soul-winning partner named Brother Reggie, okay. And Brother Reggie and I would go soul-winning together 20 years ago, not different Reggie. But anyway, Brother Reggie and I would go soul-winning and we would literally, every Saturday when we would go soul-winning, we would read this verse every Saturday. It was a ritual that we did. We would literally go to 2 Corinthians 4, 7 and we would read it or we would quote it. We would pray this to God. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. And every single time we went soul-winning, we said, God, it is not us. The excellency of the power, it's not of God. Excuse me, it's not of us. Got to get that right. The excellency of the power, it's not of us. It's of God. And we would always just remind ourselves of that. We would remind God of that and we would say, look, without you, I can do nothing. The excellency of the power, it's of God. It's not of us. You know, and I think about that when I preach a sermon. But I mean, when I go soul-winning, this is like, this is one of my kind of like theme verses for soul-winning. 2 Corinthians 4, 7. And it has been for like 20-some years. And so being an imperfect person doesn't make you a hypocrite. You're an earthen vessel, okay. You know, in the modern verse, like, we have this in jars of clay. I think it's like a rock band called Jars of Clay or something. You know, and that's where this comes from, like a wrong version of this. You know, but we're in an earthen vessel. And if you think about an earthen vessel, it's not, it's not even necessarily gold or silver or ornate, you know. It's kind of just a really basic kind of earthy primitive piece of pottery. An earthen vessel. So we have this treasure, this amazing treasure, the gospel in like a cheap container. It'd be like we have the gospel in a Tupperware or something. You know, it'd be like you open a Tupperware and it's filled with like diamonds and rubies and stuff. You open like one of those styrofoam to-go packages that you get from a fast food place, like the Panda Express two-item combo or whatever plate. And you just kind of open it up and it's full of like necklaces and jewels and precious stones, right. That's what it's saying. It's like we have this treasure of the gospel in an earthen vessel, in a clay pot, right. Why? So that the excellency of the power is of God, not of us. Okay. And so again, being an imperfect person and preaching the gospel doesn't make you a hypocrite. We should all do the best that we can, but step one is to get out there and start preaching Christ. But number five, we sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others and the gospel. And this also goes back to what we said earlier, you know, about the fact that we don't have some ulterior motive where we're doing it for ourselves. Like these- because here's the thing. When people are going out and preaching a false religion, they must have an ulterior motive. Just stop with me for a second. And I hope that you heard my sermon, some of you Sunday morning glories. I hope that you heard my sermon from last Sunday night, even if you weren't here. I hope that you tuned in or download it. And if you haven't, I highly recommend. Why? Because of the fact that the main point of that sermon was this. Liars believe lies. Wicked people believe lies. Okay. And that believing lies is wicked, just like lying is wicked. So is believing lies. That's wicked too, according to the Bible. And I, you know, I showed you all the scriptures and I'm not going to re-preach that sermon. But here's the idea here. You got Mormon missionaries going out and preaching the gospel. No, they're not, are they? They're going out and preaching lies. They're preaching garbage. They're preaching their weird Joseph Smith, Brigham Young cult. Yeah, I said Brigham Young, not Brigham Young. But you got, you know, it's lies. So stop and think about it. Are they sincere? Oh, they're so sincere. They just really love Jesus. They just really love the Lord. You know, are they though? Are they though? I mean, what does the Bible, does the Bible teach that false prophets are sincere? I mean, does the Bible teach that, you know, false prophets are sincere but they're sincerely wrong? Look, there are a lot of religious people out there that are sincere and they're sincerely wrong. That's why we're out, you know, trying to get them saved. But when you cross the line from just being a victim of a false religion to being a purveyor of a false religion, when you're like spending years of your life to go out and spread your false religion, sorry, you're no longer a victim anymore. You're the perpetrator now. And the Bible talks about people preaching false gospels and preaching, you know, lies that they're wicked people. And the Bible, you know, and if you need proof on that, read the chapter, 2 Peter chapter 2 and the entire epistle of Jude. It makes it super clear that false prophets are usually reprobates. Okay, they're evil, they're wicked, bad people who are out doing... It's not like the Pope is just this really nice guy and, you know, he just got confused about which religion is the right religion. No, he believes lies because he's wicked. And so here's the thing, therefore, when these people... Why are they going on their two-year mission? Are they going on a two-year mission because they just love God so much, love Jesus so much, just want to... They just love the truth so much, they just want to spread truth. You know, I don't really know what their motive is, but whatever their motive is, it's trash and their works are trash and their motive is trash. You know, and maybe... I don't know if it's just to fit in in their religion or, you know, to get whatever accolades they get or, you know, maybe they just want to see the world or get money or get accolades. I don't really know what's in it for them. I don't really care. All I know is they're not serving God, they're not serving Jesus Christ, they're serving their own bellies. That's what the Bible says about these wicked false teachers, their God is their belly. They're serving their own interests, they're not serving Jesus Christ. And so we have the right motive if we're preaching the right gospel and it says, you know, here, starting in verse 8, the point is we sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others and the gospel. Look what the Bible says in verse 8, we're troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We're perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed. We're always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. And then look at the coup de grace here in verse 12. So then death worketh in us but life in you. And what's he saying here? Death worketh in us but life in you is that as preachers of the gospel, we're kind of quote unquote taking one for the team. We're taking one for the team, right? We get maligned, slandered, persecuted, attacked. Many Christians have over the years been thrown in jail, beaten, whatever, right? Hebrews chapter 11, sawn asunder, you know, tortured, whatever. They're taking one for the team. The Apostle Paul said, yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all. You know, I'm going to be sacrificed so that you can be saved, right? Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sake that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. He's saying, look, I do it so that people can get saved. I'm doing it for them. The gospel be hid. It's hid to them that are lost. And he says, look, we're perplexed. We're troubled on every side. We are persecuted. We're always, verse 10, bearing about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body for we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake. That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. But he's saying, look, we're not just doing it for Jesus. We're also doing it for you. So then death worketh in us but life in you. He's saying, I'll die to get other people eternal life. I'll lay my life down so that other people can have eternal life. So think about this. When we go out soul winning, there's two things going on. Number one, it's our love for Christ that's constraining us. And number two, it's our love for other people that's constraining us. And a lot of people say, well, you guys go soul winning because you love God but you guys just don't love people. That's impossible because the Bible literally says that if you don't love your brother whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you've not seen? If anybody says I love God and hated his brother, he's a liar, the Bible says. So it's like you can't say like, oh, this person just super loves God but they just don't love other people. They don't love the lost. They don't love their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Impossible. Because it's impossible to separate loving God from loving others. These two go hand in hand. People who love God the most love others the most. People who love others also love God or else they're not truly loving others because love is of God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. And so the idea here is that we are motivated both by love for Jesus Christ and also love for other people. So death worketh in us but life in you. We're perplexed. We're distressed. We're persecuted. We're always bearing about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus so that Jesus can be glorified and so that you can go to heaven so that you can be saved. So soul winning, preaching the gospel, witnessing for Jesus Christ is taking one for the team as it were. Sacrificing your time, your energy and doing it for other people and frankly opening yourself up to criticism, attacks and persecution because the Bible says, Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. You don't want to be persecuted then don't do anything. You know, if you start winning people to the Lord, you start preaching the gospel, you start witnessing to friends and family, expect there to be a little bit of pushback. You're not just going to just get away with it. You know, you're going to get punished for doing that, for preaching but it's worth it. You know, you open yourself up to persecution so that people don't go to hell. You know, and I think about all the garbage that I've been through in my life and it's like well if I could push a button and undo bad things that have happened to me but then these people over here would go to hell for eternity? I'll never push that button. I'd rather just my life just completely go down the toilet and just circle the drain and get sucked down into the toilet if it means other people going to heaven. Because even if I live the most, you know, just dismal life on this earth, I'm going to heaven for all eternity. Whereas people who aren't saved, you know, whatever I go through like on my worst day on this earth is not as bad as going to hell. You know what I mean? Like whatever they're going through is so much worse. You know, I didn't have this in my notes but this kind of popped into my mind. You know, we were on a hiking trip one time and one of our friends got hurt and we'd already been hiking throughout the day. We were like really tired and I had to hike out to try to get help for our hurt friend and I was like trying to jog this uphill trail and it was really hard because even just hiking this trail was hard and I'm trying to like jog it and stuff. And I remember just, you know, my sides hurting, you know, you get the stitch in your side and my legs are hurting, my feet are on my side and I'm all out of breath. And then I'd start, you know, I'd go back to walking and then I'm just thinking like he's in more pain than I am. He's the one who's injured. Like I would much rather feel the way I'm feeling than the way he feels because he's actually hurt. And then I'm like trying to push myself harder, push myself again. But here's the thing, frankly though, even though I always had that thought in my mind, he's in more pain than I am, there were times when I slowed the pace because I'm just like dang this hurts man, I got to slow down a little. And part of me is like yeah but he's hurting more and then, you know, I got the shoulder angel telling me like he's hurting more, go push yourself. The shoulder devil's like dude this hurts, let's just, you know, stop and take a drink of water for a minute here. And I'll be honest with you, it's kind of a mix of both. You know, sometimes I was pushing myself hard, other times I was just like well sorry man, this is all I can do. And you know, that's kind of our lives, right? We're living our lives and sometimes we're pushing ourselves hard for God saying well you know what, no matter how much persecution I endure, whatever sacrifices I make, if I give up houses, lands, mother, father, brother, sister, wives for the gospel's sake, you know, if I give up those things, you know, it's a small price to pay to get people out of hell. But then other times we're just like yeah but I just really want to have that nice car. I really want to have that, I really want everybody to like me though, you know, or whatever. And I think that none of us is going to be perfectly on the side of just always sacrificing our own personal comfort and personal agenda always for Christ. You know, if I got up here and just said hey, I'm just always maximum sacrificing everything for Jesus, I'm always sacrificing my own, obviously that wouldn't be true, would it? You know, it's kind of like we're sacrificing and we're not sacrificing. But the more that we think about Christ and what he did for us, the more that we're filled with the Spirit, the more that we love other people, the more we're going to put aside our own agenda and do what? Push ourselves a little bit for God. And look, let's face it, getting started out soul winning can be a little bit, you know, you can be nervous, it can be awkward, maybe you're a little embarrassed, a little bit shy. I've talked to some people that said, well I'm afraid to go soul winning because I'm afraid I'm going to run into someone I know. But the good news is we're in a city of like five million people here. The chances of that are so super slim. You know, and you know, if it happens, I'm sorry. You know, you run into like your boss at work or something, it's your first time soul winning and you knock the boss's door. You know, just go to neighborhoods where you know your boss doesn't live. Because those are the more receptive areas anyway, right? Go to those poor areas where your boss doesn't live and then you'll be fine. But the point is that yeah, you know, there's, or witnessing to family or inviting a friend to church, inviting a family member to church. You know, you get scared, your heart's pounding, you're nervous, you're shivering and you're thinking like, oh man, you know, I'm so embarrassed to do this. But you know what, why don't you get out of your comfort zone a little bit because Christ got out of his comfort zone when he died on the cross for you. Right? I mean, you've not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin. He's out of his comfort zone and unsaved people are dead sure going to be out of their comfort zone when they split hell wide open. And so therefore, we should be willing to take one for the team because look, our lives are so good anyway. Our eternity is so good. We're dialed in. Hey, it's worth it to take one for the team, sacrifice a little bit so that other people can be saved. And that's what Paul is saying here, death worketh in us but life in you. And so here's the conclusion of the whole sermon. Do not be focused just on yourself all the time. Be a part of something that is greater than you. Be a part of something bigger than you. And here's the thing. If you're a part of Faithful Word Baptist Church, obviously, we want you out there, you know, preaching the gospel, soul winning. We'd love to see you on missions trips. We'd love to see you show up at a soul winning time. We'd love to see you get involved and get your hands dirty actually doing the work. But you know what? At least even just by being a member of Faithful Word Baptist Church and just coming here, supporting our ministry and being a part of the team in any capacity, at least you are a part of something greater than yourself. I'm a part of something greater than myself. Because this is a killer team that is out there tearing it up, preaching the gospel, winning souls, doing stuff. So like being a part of this church is like, man, I'm a part of something big, part of something where there's action, people are getting saved. Look, other churches, sorry, but you go there for years and people aren't getting saved and nothing's really happening a lot of time. Say whatever you want, but our church, like stuff happens here. Things happen. You know, and it's like you're a part of something big. It's exciting to be a part of something big. But you know, when you just go through life just kind of focused on yourself, it can get depressing. Even if you get everything you want, it can still get depressing. Just being focused on yourself will depress you like nothing else. Be a part of something bigger, be a part of something greater than you, and you know what that is? It's the work of Christ. Because you know what's even bigger than our church is just even broader than just our church is just being a part of getting the gospel to the world. Which all Christians should be part of. Even outside of our church, lots of other churches are involved as well. Be a part of that. Greater pursuit of getting people saved. Okay, and here's the thing. Preaching the gospel, out of all the pursuits that we could have in our life, preaching the gospel is the ultimate pursuit. Okay, look what the Bible says in verse 17. I'll close on this thought. It says, for our light affliction, so all the persecution, distress, all the bad things that we go through, all the sacrifices we make, maybe getting made fun of, maybe losing a job, getting criticized online, whatever. Having friction with family or friends, that's light affliction. Because you've not yet resisted on the blood striving against sin. Our light affliction, which is but for a moment in the scheme of things, right, because you know life is long and eternity is even longer. Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us, and don't miss this phrase, a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Now, think about the glory that's going to be revealed in us as servants of Christ. The Bible says, I reckon that the sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that's going to be revealed in us. And when you think about the weight of that glory, okay, you put it in a scale, whatever glory you could earn by becoming an actor, actress, rock star, athlete, famous entrepreneur, millionaire, billionaire, whatever. And then you put the glory of being a part of this team, preaching the gospel, winning souls. This is a far more exceeding weight of glory. Like, it's not like, oh, which way is it going to go? It's just like, boom. The whole scale just tips over and breaks. Because it's just such a far more exceeding weight of glory than even people that are the most famous people in the world right now. A thousand years from now, 2,000 years from now, that won't be the case. Who is the top musical artist in the 15th century? Name any musical artist, 15th century musical artist. Let's go, 1400s. Who are the big hits? Nobody's sure, okay. Now let's go back, 8th century BC. Nobody knows, right? Okay, who was, name the pharaohs of Egypt, most powerful nation in the world at that time. Let's go back to like pharaohs of Egypt, you know, for 300, Alex. No, I'm just kidding. But anyway, like, you know, pharaohs of Egypt when, you know, let's go 1500 BC. Let's go. You know, maybe, you know, you can name three of them or four of them or five of them, you know, if you're into it. But what about the other like 50? Yeah, Ramses, Khufu, Khafre, Tutte. Okay, but you know what? That's like a tiny percentage of how many pharaohs ruled in Egypt over the course of this century. How many pharaohs were like the most powerful political leader, like, you know, right now everybody knows who Donald Trump is right now, right? Everybody knows who Putin is. Everybody knows who Zelensky is, right? Because these are kind of the characters that people are talking about right now. But what about a hundred years from now? You know, there are some presidents where you're like, what? There was a president named Franklin Pierce? Wait, Mount McKinley was named after a president? There's a President McKinley? You know, like, obviously, again, if you're into it, if you're into history, you can, I know you can rattle off all the presidents, okay? But what I'm saying is most people would look at these presidents, some of them be like, Grover Cleveland? You know, who's he? What did he do? I don't know. But man, there was a time when he was a really important guy. Fast forward 500 years, nobody's going to care about Grover Cleveland. They're just not. But at the time, he was super important. So here's the thing, not only is it a far more exceeding, and these are like glories that the average person is never going to reach anyway, being the president of the U.S. or something, being the top musician or whatever. But even if you did reach those levels, serving Christ is a far more exceeding weight of glory, number one. But number two, it's also a far more exceeding weight. It's also an eternal glory. It's eternal glory. You earn a reward in heaven that fadeth not away. And this is why serving Christ is the ultimate pursuit. Preaching the gospel of Christ is the ultimate pursuit. Evangelizing and spreading the word of God is the ultimate pursuit. And I'm not just talking about as a pastor or as an evangelist. I'm just talking about as a Christian. Because here's the thing, not everybody is cut out to be a pastor or an evangelist. You know, we don't want to have all chiefs and no Indians. And so a lot of people are going to serve God by just being a great wife, a great mother, a great father, a great church member. But you know what? While you're a great mother, also win souls to Jesus Christ. While you're a great plumber, while you're a great carpenter, while you're a great computer programmer, while you're a great electrician, also win souls to Jesus Christ. Okay? Because at the end of the day, that is the ultimate pursuit. And at the end of the day, we need to take one for the team. Because hey, if it makes me a little uncomfortable, take a little of my time, a little of my money, a little of my energy, well, you know what? Hey, other people are going to hell. You're going to heaven. Can you help, can you help them out a little? You know, basically like you're sitting on the lifeboat and you're just like spreading cheese on your crackers and like everybody around you is drowning. And you've got, and you've got like a stack of life preservers in the boat that you could be like throwing to people, but you're just like, well, no, because I'm really hungry. You don't understand how long it's been since I've eaten. I've got to spread this cheese on these crackers and I've got to eat this and this guy is just going to have to drown because I'm hungry. I mean, a guy's got to eat. And again, I think that we all do that a little bit to an extent, but we, but you know what? At least some of us do spend part of our time hurling life vests to the drowning men of this world. Yeah, we spread cheese on crackers as well, but other times we're hurling that life vest, you know, and then you've got 99.999% of Christians who never will touch the life vest and they just, when they're done spreading cheese on crackers, they're just going to take a nap. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we look not at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen, for the things which are not seen are temporal, but the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. So we need to get eternity's values in view, right? We need to think eternity. How do you think that way? Well, you know, being in church will remind you of that because like when you woke up this morning, maybe you weren't thinking about heaven and hell. Maybe you weren't really thinking about winning the loss. Maybe you weren't really thinking about evangelizing, but now you are because you came to church. So this is what reading the Bible will do for you. Coming to church, getting around other Christians, it's to remind you of what we're supposed to be doing here and get you ready to make some sacrifices for the team. We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. The message is not us. The worthiness is not us, you know, and it's not for us. It's us actually sacrificing for the team. Let's bow our heads up for a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you for your unspeakable gift of salvation and Lord God, I pray that we would share that with other people and that we would never listen to the devil's lie that somehow we're not good enough or too backslidden and that we're pushing more people away from Christ because of course we know the true story is that the number one way to push people away from Christ is just by not witnessing. That's the number one way. And so help us not to be guilty of that, Lord. Help us to open our mouths boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel and in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Amen. All right, ladies and gentlemen, take your hymnals. Please go to hymn 384. Hymn 384. In the service of the King, hymn number 384. Be on that verse together. I am happy in the service of the King, hymn number 384. Sing it out now. I am happy in the service of the King. I am happy, oh so happy. I have peace and joy that nothing else can bring. In the service of the King. In the service of the King. Every talent I will bring. I have peace and joy and blessing in the service of the King. I am happy in the service of the King. I am happy, oh so happy. Through the sunshine and the shadow I can sing. In the service of the King. In the service of the King. Every talent I will bring. I have peace and joy and blessing in the service of the King. I am happy in the service of the King. I am happy, oh so happy. All that I possess in Him I gladly bring. In the service of the King. In the service of the King. Every talent I will bring. I have peace and joy and blessing in the service of the King. Amen. Good singing this morning. We are dismissed. Thank you. Thank you.