MHBC Lord’s Day Sermon: (4/12/26) John 9:1-7, Pastor Jimmy Hazlett

Join us as we continue through the Gospel of John at Mount Hebron Baptist Church, Waynesburg KY

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Thank you, Jesse. Between that song and the hymn that we sing, that will understand these trials and these difficulties better in glory. I don't know that I could have picked two songs myself that would have lined up better with where we are today in the text. And you say, Brother Jimmy, you're the preacher, don't you pick the songs? No, I don't. I trust the people singing to do that. And uh they just so happen to line up very nicely with where we are today in the Word of God. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn to the Gospel of John chapter 9. We're gonna begin John chapter 9 today. And this morning I'll preach through verse 7. John chapter 9, verses 1 through 7. If you don't have your Bible, Jamie has done a wonderful job of printing that text for you in our bulletin if you grabbed one of those. And there's also probably some pew Bibles laying around that you can grab. But we invite you to turn with us in the text. As we come to John chapter 9, we're stepping into a very interesting story in the Gospel of John. We've got this man who has never seen, that by the end of this, he's going to see. We've got a man that's lived his entire life in darkness, and because of Christ, and because of the Christ of the work that Christ is going to do, he's going to walk into the light. But I want you to notice something and have this in your mind before we get started, because a lot of the time we'll read this and we'll focus on the blind man. We'll focus on the man who was blind that had his sight restored. But what I think you're going to find as we walk through this text is that while he's certainly there, and he's certainly a part of this story, ultimately the work that Christ is doing here is going to tell us a lot about Jesus. It's going to point us to Christ. It's going to tell us about who he is and about what it is that he does and why he does it. And if we're not careful, we'll read a miracle story like this, and instead of seeing it for what it is, we'll miss it. And what this is, I believe, is a living story of what all of us would be like apart from Jesus. It's a living testimony of what our lives would be like spiritually if Christ did not intervene. In this story, we are the blind man. We're certainly not Christ. We are the man who needs his sight restored. And so look with me in the text in John chapter 9, beginning in verse 1. As he passed by, he saw a blind man from birth. And his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, Go, wash in the pool of siloam, which means scent. So he went and washed and came back seeing. Let's pray together this morning. Lord, we thank you for your word. I thank you, Lord, for the Spirit of Christ. And Lord, we would see Christ and Christ only today. We pray that as we open your word and as I preach, as we listen, as we give our minds and our hearts over to the power of the Spirit to work and to give us understanding and help us apply your word to our lives, we pray that we would hear the sound of Christ among us. That we would see him for who he is. And that today we would see and savor his glory and his majesty. And Lord, that through the preaching of the word of God, you would draw men unto yourself. You would draw people to you. Because our greatest need, more than anything else, is to experience Christ. It's to have a relationship with Jesus, to trust in his finished work. So, Lord, I pray that Christ would be magnified today. And we pray all this in Jesus' name and we trust you with the outcome of the preaching of the Word of God. Amen. We live in a very broken world. We live in a very broken world and we see it all around us. We see pain, hurt, sin, death, agony everywhere we look. The text tells us that as he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. Now listen, in this narrative, in this particular account, this man that Jesus is going to interact with wasn't born with sight and lost it by an accident. He wasn't doing something to lose his sight. This man never had his sight. From birth, this man has been in total darkness. He's been unable to see anything. He's never seen a sunrise. He's never looked at the faces of those that love him. He's never experienced the uh the beauty around him. He's never seen color. This man has never seen any light at all. I was talking, or I was actually listening to someone who was blind talk about what it is that they see one day. And of course, those of us who have had sight, we don't have any idea of what it's like to be blind. Because you can close your eyes now, but if we were to shine a light on your eyelids, you're gonna know it, aren't you? There's going to be even some light that gets through in that situation. And so when we close our eyes, we see the back of our eyelids. We see darkness, but we still have some kind of sight, some kind of ability to see. This man was trying to explain it, and he said, No, listen, I don't see black, I don't see the backs of my eyelids, I literally see nothing. There is no sight. And that's how this man was born. And the rab uh the disciples asked Jesus a question when they saw this man. They said, Rabbi, who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind? In other words, the question that they're asking is, whose fault is it? You know, but because for someone to have been born blind, for someone to have this kind of suffering, this kind of lot in life, there must be someone in his life that sinned. Or he must have sinned. What a foolish question. He was born blind. What could he have done to have caused it? So was it his parents? Why is it that he's blind? You see, the disciples saw suffering and they did like we do sometimes, they immediately began looking for someone to blame. There's got to be a reason here. There's bound to be someone to blame. Now, listen, this isn't just a first century problem. Because we think very much the same way. We do the same thing. When something goes wrong, a lot of the time we'll say, Well, what did I do? It must be my fault. Who is it that messed this up? Or we'll say, Why is God doing this to me? I've been so good. Why would God let something like this happen? We want to need explanation. We want someone to break down for us the cause and effect. Because if something bad happens, then someone must have earned whatever that bad is. But Jesus here, as he's talking with his disciples, is going to dismantle that way of thinking. Now, I want you to understand this morning, there is a root to all human suffering. There is a root to all of the pain that we face. And we read about that in Genesis 3, don't we? What happened in Genesis 3? Well, let's back up. What happened in the beginning? The Bible tells us that God from nothing created everything. God is our creator. And it tells us that when he was finished with his creation, God looked at his creation and he said, It is good. Right? There's no sin, there's no rebellion. There's no one shaking their fist at God. He said, It's good. And God placed Adam in the garden and he made him a helper named Eve. And they had one rule to follow. You see this tree over here? This tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Don't eat from that tree. And then we all know the rest of the story. The serpent comes along and tempts Eve. Adam is tempted and they eat the fruit. They eat from the tree, the knowledge of good and evil. And the Bible tells us that immediately they recognize their nakedness. They recognize their shame. You say, why, why? Why was that such a big deal? Because they had never known shame. They had never known nakedness. They had never known sin. And immediately, what did they do? They go and try to hide from God, don't they? They try to hide from God because they know that they once had this relationship with God where they walked with him in the cool of the day in the garden. They enjoyed this wonderful, close relationship with God. But their sin had broken that relationship. And God gave them consequences, didn't he? In his grace, he gave them consequences. You see, God could have killed them on the spot. God could have immediately murdered them on the spot for what they had done. And it would have been just. But look inside your own heart. Examine your own heart, and what you're going to find there is a heart that willingly sins. You're going to find a heart that willingly rebels against a holy God. But Jesus says, listen, it's not that this man sinned in verse 3 or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. Jesus says, listen, listen, disciples, you're looking at this the wrong way. You're thinking about suffering in the wrong way. You're looking at this man who was born blind from birth and who is who's suffering, and you're thinking that there must be someone to blame or someone to point to. And Jesus says, listen, that's not it at all. Don't misunderstand Jesus. He's not saying that sin has nothing to do with suffering. We live in a fallen world, and listen, sin has broken everything. But what Jesus is saying here is that not all suffering can be traced back to any one particular personal sin. He's saying just because this man was born blind, it doesn't mean that his father and mother were particularly worse sinners than anyone else. This isn't a consequence of some personal sin that was committed. Here Jesus is going to lift their heads to see something higher and greater in suffering. The question isn't who caused this. Jesus says the question is, what is God going to do through this? What purpose does God have in this? And that's a completely different way of seeing. Now I want to camp out for just a moment here. And I want to take you all the way back to verse 1. You said, oh, Brother Jimmy, you were doing so good on time. And now you're heading back to verse 1. Just bear with me for a second. Because I want you to see something here in this text. Verse 1 says, as Jesus passed by. That he just happened to be going that way. He just happened to be walking by that place. He just happened to be walking by that man. But here, verse 3 pulls back the curtain on the story, doesn't it? This isn't a random chance, friends. This is a sovereign design. Jesus isn't randomly walking by this man. Jesus is passing by this man because there was purpose in it. Jesus essentially says to them, listen, do you want a reason? Here it is. This man is blind from birth for this very moment. There's a higher purpose in why this man is blind. It's not his dad's fault, it's not his mom's fault, it's not his grandparents' fault. We're not tracing this suffering back into his family tree. He is born blind for this very moment. There's a greater design, there's a greater purpose. Jesus says, it's that the works of God might be displayed in him. In other words, Jesus is saying, it's so that I can show you my glory. This man was born blind so that you could see the light of Christ in this very moment. And as we continue in this chapter in the coming weeks, we're going to see something even greater in this story. And that's that this man is going to receive far more than physical sight. He's going to receive far more than the ability to see with his eyes. Jesus is going to literally open up the eyes of his heart. And he's going to believe, and this man is going to receive eternal life. And what was once a devastating thing, that he was born blind, especially in that particular time, in that particular place and culture, what once was very devastating is now seen in the light of something far greater. And I don't want to minimize the man's suffering, but what once was very devastating now very much feels like a blessing. If you can say that, listen, I've I understand. Not because I've been through a whole lot, but I understand the words you are saying. I may not understand your suffering. I may not understand the pain that you've been through. I'll grant you that. But I understand that suffering comes at a price. I understand that it's hard and it's difficult. And the last thing that you ever want to do is minimize it. But what I hope you see today is that in the midst of suffering, in In the midst of pain, God is able to do something far greater. You say, Well, what's he gonna do? Is he gonna take my pain away? I didn't say that. I can't stand up here today and promise you that. I can't tell you today that if you come to Christ and you trust in Christ, that whatever it is that's that's caused you so much pain and suffering from a physical perspective is going to immediately go away. I can't promise you that. In fact, I would say that probably won't change. I don't want to offer you this morning any kind of false hope that the same type of miracle that Christ worked in this man is going to be worked in your life. It doesn't always work out that way. In fact, it usually doesn't work out that way. I don't put it beyond God. But here's what I can tell you. Coming to Christ and trusting in Christ means that your sin is forgiven. It means that your broken relationship with God is restored. It means that the Bible continually says that this time that we have on earth is such a small blip on the radar to all of eternity. And that if you come to Christ, what Jesus promises you this morning is not a total freedom from physical suffering and physical pain. But what he promises you this morning is a freedom from sin, a freedom from death, a freedom from hell. This morning we had a good time in Sunday school, and I love what Jerry said. Jerry was talking about hell. And he said, he said, I used to worry about hell. But here's what I know for sure. I'm never going to have to go there. And if you say, well, why is it that Jerry don't have to worry about hell? Jerry be the first one to tell you, it ain't because of anything I've done. It ain't because I'm so good. It's because of what Jesus has done. It's about what he did for me on the cross. Listen, I may not understand your suffering and your pain, but I can tell you there is one who does, and his name is Jesus. And this morning, if you come to him, you will find not only forgiveness, but you'll find a sympathetic high priest who in every way is tempted as we are, yet without sin, and who is our advocate before the Father. Jesus says, This man was born blind so that I may show my glory right now, and this man is going to end up believing. God is not wasting this man's blindness. You see, pain and suffering oftentimes seems very arbitrary, doesn't it? And I can understand that. I I remember uh, you know, I've seen pain and suffering here in America. I certainly have. I lived in eastern Kentucky for a while, and if you want to talk about poverty in other countries, I would encourage you to drive through eastern Kentucky, the parts that nobody shows you on TV, and you'll see poverty. You can see it here. There's poverty and pain and hardship, but I've also been to other countries. I've been in Africa on the edge of the Sahara Desert, and I've seen homeless people in Africa laying on the streets covered in dust with no one to help them, no water nearby. I've seen people in slums in Mexico struggling. I've seen pain. I've seen difficulty. And I understand that sometimes it all seems very arbitrary, but here Jesus is telling us pain and suffering are not arbitrary. God does not waste them. And here Jesus says there's a reason in it. None of it is meaningless. In fact, it was all leading to this moment. Listen, I can just imagine this young boy born blind. He probably had some very hard conversations with his parents. Mom, dad, Abba. Why was I born blind? Why me? And I can imagine his parents wrestling with that question. Maybe a lot like the disciples did. Maybe his parents were looking and searching their own souls, wondering, what did we do for our boy to be born this way? But every bit of that, every bit of that hardship, every bit of that pain, every bit of that suffering, every bit of those questions, it all leads up to this moment. When he's going to meet Jesus from birth, from years of darkness. And the works of God are about to be displayed in his life. Let me say it to you like this this morning. What often feels very pointless to us is purposeful in the hands of God. These questions you don't have answers for. And this morning, if you're wondering, is Jesus going to answer my questions for my pain? Listen, maybe not. Maybe he won't. Maybe you won't get the answers this side of glory. Maybe you won't see the reasons this side of glory. Listen, we just sang about it, didn't we? We'll understand it better by and by. And that's the heart of the Christian when it comes to pain and suffering. That's the heart of the Christian when it comes to tragedy and loss and pain. We very often, listen, sometimes this side of heaven, we do see the reason. I'll never forget, I believe, well, I say I'll never forget, and then I start questioning immediately what I'm getting ready to say. But I believe it was Charles Spurgeon. My favorite preacher who's ever lived. I've never heard him. He was around before audio recording. But I've read him. And he said, in struggling with debilitating gout, that made him almost immobile. And made every step, if you've ever had gout, it makes every step feel like razor blades are shooting through your tissues. And he said, I would hate to think that anything could ever come to me apart from the hand of my sovereign loving God. And he understood that God had allowed him to have this gout, that even though it's painful, it's given to him truly as a gift. Because God has a purpose in it. And there's a reason for this kind of pain. And ultimately, what it does is it takes your focus off of yourself and it forces you to trust in God for your strength.

unknown 30:53

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

Jesus doesn't always tell us why. But he does assure us that God is doing something. That God is doing something, and one day, either in this life or in glory, we're going to see that God was not absent in our pain. That he was there. And that there's a purpose in it. I want you to see something else here. It's not because this man went looking for Jesus. This man wasn't looking for Christ. You see, this man couldn't even see Christ. He was blind. He was unable to see Jesus. He was unable to see the glory of Christ. But I want you to see in the text that Jesus went looking for this man. Jesus passing by him was not by accident. Jesus had a divine appointment to keep, and he kept it. Jesus tells his disciples in verse four, we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. There, Jesus says something with a lot of urgency, doesn't he? There's a lot of urgency in the words of Christ. He's telling his disciples, listen, we must work. Not I must work. He's including his disciples in the work, and he says, We must work. You're part of this mission. Jesus says the clock is ticking, night is coming. You say, What night is he talking about? I believe he's talking about the cross. We just spent a lot of time thinking about and reflecting on the cross and the resurrection. The window of his earthly ministry here is closing, and Jesus is saying, Listen, there's work to be done, and there's not a whole lot of time to do it. And I want us to understand today, friends, listen, that mission of Christ is now transferred to us. Christ is still doing the work. The Holy Spirit of God is still supplying the power. But we as the church are now the hands and feet of Jesus. We are the body of Christ. We are in our work. Listen, don't run me out here. I promise you, this is biblical. We are filling up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. You say, well, that sounds terrible. Well, that's what the Bible says. That word in the Greek, Paul also uses that particular phrase when he's writing to the Philippian church. And he's writing to them about this man named Apaphroditus. And what is it that Aphroditus did? Apaphroditus took a love gift from the Philippian church and delivered it to the Apostle Paul while he was imprisoned. Now, could the whole Philippian church go? No. That would be silly, right? The whole Philippian church can't go on this mission to bring this love gift to the Apostle Paul. But Apathroditus volunteered to go. And so Aphyroditus takes this love gift and he begins journeying toward the Apostle Paul to help supply his needs as this gift from the Philippian church is in his hands and it's making its way to the Apostle Paul. And Paul tells us in his letter to the Philippians, he says, listen, he became sick unto the point of death. He almost died. And then Paul says, filling up what is lacking in your service to me. Filling up what is lacking in your service to me. What was lacking in their service to Paul? Not the gift, not their love for Paul, not their desire to want to see Paul taken care of and supplied for. What was lacking? Just the physical presentation of it. That's it. That's the only thing that was lacking. But Epaphroditus took it upon himself to take the love, to take the gift and bring it to Paul. Well, in the same way, what does the church do? It takes the love gift of Christ, the love gift of the gospel, and it makes the physical presentation of this love gift of Christ to those who desperately need to hear it. Right? And Jesus says, the clock is ticking on my earthly ministry, and so we need to be working. Jesus is basically training his disciples because he knows that when he's no longer physically on the earth to present this gift, that it's going to be up to them and up to all of us that come after them to take this love gift of the gospel, this love gift of the love of Christ, and present it to those that desperately need to hear it. But we don't have forever either. The clock is ticking. And so let us work while it is still day. What are we doing with the daylight that God has given us? Listen, I want to tell you, I became convicted myself recently. We went to watch in theaters A Great Awakening. Now that is a story of the life of George Whitfield. If you're familiar with him, God used him in a mighty way along with others, Jonathan Edwards or Jonathan Wesley and Charles Wesley and these other faithful men to preach the word of God, and it lit a flame of revival from England all the way to the Americas. God used George Whitfield in a mighty way. And one of the things that Whitfield did, and one of the things that God used him to do, was to essentially tick off the Church of England because they were content to sit and listen to dead preachers preaching dead sermons. And Whitfield came, lit a fire by the glory of God, lit a fire with this urgency to proclaim the word and this desire in his heart to see souls be saved. And he began preaching in the Church of England until they kicked him out. And he said, Well, if you're going to kick me out of here, then I'm going to go out into the streets and I'm going to preach it to them. And people came and they followed and they listened. Listen, the clock is ticking on us. And it's time, it's high time that we stopped being so complacent. That we understood the urgency that Jesus is conveying to these disciples. That we understood, listen, there are people out there that need a physical presentation of the love gift of the gospel. And it's our call, it's our commission to take it to them. To invite them to come here and receive it. Because we long to see people trust Christ the way that we've trust Christ. Jesus says, as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. Now, Jesus has just said this in chapter 8. And here we see that he's saying it again. Remember in chapter 8, when Jesus said this, it's at the Feast of Booths, and they've got lights all around, symbolizing the fire by night by which God led the children of Israel. And Jesus said, There, he is the light of the world. And here Jesus in chapter 9 repeats it again. I am the light of the world. As long as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world. But here, instead of just saying it, Jesus is going to demonstrate it. He's going to demonstrate the light. What does the light do? What does it do? It reveals, doesn't it? It illumines, it guides, it gives life. And most importantly, we learn, especially here in the Gospel of John, that light overcomes darkness. Light overcomes darkness. This man's problem is darkness. He can't see. And Jesus is essentially saying, I am the answer to this man's blindness. I want you to understand this morning, he's the answer to your blindness. You say, Brother Jimmy, I'm not blind. Listen, maybe you're not physically blind, but if you have not seen and savored the light of Jesus Christ, you are spiritually blind. This morning, again in Sunday school, if you don't come to Sunday school, let me encourage you to come. Jerry and Patsy do a wonderful job. We have children's classes. If we have some young people that want to come, we'll start another class right here. But listen, in Sunday school we were talking about the rich young ruler. And we talked about how his problem was ultimately his blindness. He didn't see his spiritual condition. Jesus confronted him with the law, and his response back to Christ is, I'm good there. I've done all that. No, he hadn't. He didn't see his blindness. I want you to understand this morning, friends, Jesus is the answer to our blindness, and it's because he's bigger than our physical blindness. He is the answer to our spiritual blindness. Listen, apart from Christ, we are all blind. We're blind to the glory of Christ, we're blind to our own need for Christ. But when Jesus' light shines in our hearts, it changes everything, doesn't it? I was just talking about Jonathan and Charles Wesley. Charles Wesley, yes, he preached, but he's probably most known for his hymns that he wrote. He wrote some of the most wonderful hymns of our faith during that particular time. And in one of his hymns, And Can It Be, which is One of my favorite hymns of all time. It's such a fantastic doctrinal, theologically rich song. And he says in there in one of the verses, long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night. Listen, friends, that is all of us apart from Christ. We are bound in sin. We are blind, we are in darkness. But then Charles Wesley in this hymn, And Can It Be, he says, Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke, the dungeon flamed with light. What is he saying? He's speaking of his own testimony. And he says, For a long time my heart lay in darkness, bound in sin, bound by nature's night. What's he mean? Genesis three. The darkness of our sin nature apart from Christ. But thine eye, the eye of Christ, the power of the Spirit, the power of the gospel, diffused a quickening rain. Your spirit awoke me from my blindness. From my darkness, I saw my sin. And when I saw my sin, I saw the glory of Christ. He finishes that verse. He says, My chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed thee. When you quickened me from my spiritual blindness, when you quickened me from my spiritual death, when you brought my heart to life, the only response I could have in the midst of my newfound freedom in Christ was to go forth and follow you. You say, Brother Jimmy, listen, I believe that. How do we get other people to believe that? Here's the deal: we can't. We can't. If I thought, if I thought that the success of gospel preaching depended on me, I would quit this job. I would never preach another sermon. I wouldn't. Oh, listen. I am powerless to awaken a dead heart. But you know who can. It's God Almighty, God Himself, God the Holy Spirit. He can quicken you, He can bring you to life. He can change your want-tos. He can change your desires. Listen, I am totally incapable. But Christ is able. What an interesting way that Jesus returned this man's sight to him. He spit on the ground and made mud. The Bible says he anointed this man's eyes with it. Listen, let's be honest. It's kind of weird. We don't have to act like it isn't. It's a very strange way of doing it. You said, Brother Jimmy, why did Jesus do it that way? Oh, listen, I'm sure if you gave me enough time, I could come up with this wonderful answer for you. That was so spiritual and so uh so wonderful, you would say, oh yes, that must be it. Listen, I'm gonna tell you right now, today, as your pastor, I have no idea why Jesus did it that way. I don't know. Why did he spit on the ground and make mud? Why would he do it like that? I have no idea. Here's what I know the power wasn't in the mud. The power was in Christ. It was in Christ. Jesus himself was the power that returned this man's blindness. He gives him a command, he said, or returns this man's sight. Jesus says, Go wash in the pool of Siloam. Listen, in that moment, this man had a decision to make, didn't he? He could have said, first of all, why did you just spit in my eyes? Why did you rub mud on me? And why would I go wash in the pool? But what did this man do? He obeyed Jesus. He did what Jesus commanded him to do. He went and he washed in the pool. He didn't argue with Christ. And what does the Bible tell us happened? He came back seeing. Sounds like such a an inconsequential tagline on the end of this text. But what could be more amazing? Listen, if I if back then, if the gospel writers were typing on a computer and they had bold and all caps, I think this would probably be in bold and all caps. He came back seeing. How amazing. Listen, what is it that returned this man's sight? It was Christ. Christ working by his grace through faith. Through faith. This man said, Okay, Lord, I'll do it. I will trust and I'll do it. And he came back, seeing. This is a sign. This is a living parable. Because what Jesus did physically is exactly for us what he does spiritually. He gives us sight. He gives us life. He gives us eyes to see his glory. Listen, your whole life you may have lived like Jesus was just some important religious figure. He was some guy that we come to church and we talk about. He set a good example for us. Listen to me, friends. But when the Holy Spirit of God moves upon your heart and he opens your heart to see your need for Christ, all of a sudden you see Jesus in a way that you never imagined you would see him before. He's not just some guy that died on a cross 2,000 years ago. He is your Savior, your Lord. He's the answer for your blindness, he's the answer for your sin. And this morning, listen, the call of the gospel is this come to Christ. You say, How do I come to Christ? Listen, I want to come to Christ. How do I do it? By faith. You trust in his finished work. You trust him. That's it. Listen, there's no amazing hoops that you have to jump through. There's no card you have to sign. You come to Christ by faith and you say, Lord, I believe you. I believe you died for my sin. I believe you are who you say you are. Lord, I'm calling upon your name. Forgive me of my sin. You know what the Bible says? Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. This morning, if you need to be saved, let me tell you something. There is no shame in that. Listen to me. That is the most glorious thing that could ever happen to you. God redeeming your life. God saving you, giving you eternal life, forgiving you of your sin, giving you a new heart with new desires. Listen, there's nothing greater. And let me tell you something this morning, friends. If you turn from Christ and put your hope, or you turn from your sin and you put your hope in Jesus, this church will celebrate like something you've never seen before.

unknown 54:38

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

So we want you to come and tell us about it. Because we want to rejoice with you and because the Bible tells you to. It tells you to make your faith public. And so this morning, if you see your need for Christ, we would love to pray with you and we would love to rejoice with you. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the power of Christ. We thank you for the gospel. Lord, we pray that we would be obedient to what your word has to say. We would put our hope and our faith in you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.