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Well this morning as we continue on um I am wearing a watch. That may be kind of a random statement. I'm wearing this watch and I've been wearing it for about a year, and uh it's it's a it's a very comfortable watch. I like it. It's got kind of a rubber uh band on it, and and it's got this uh face that I I think is pretty cool. Um I don't I don't know if anybody else likes it, but I like it. I think it's kind of cool, that's why I picked it. And uh it was a Christmas gift um a couple about a year ago or so, and uh and I've been wearing it, but the problem is that four weeks ago it stopped working. And uh I don't know if you've ever done this or not, but I I bis I just keep going to my closet every day, and and it's sitting there on my little shelf, and I pick it up and I put it back on, and yet every day I put it on, I look at it, and it's not the right time. And so it's kind of silly to be honest. But I do it because it's habit and because I just like wearing a watch. But I I continue to stick this watch on and I wear it around as if it still works, and most people don't look at it, and if they ever ask me what time it is, I pull my cell phone out because I can't tell them what time it is. And I've tried to fix it and I've tried to mess with it, but I actually pulled the pen off of it, so now it's it's really it's messed up forever. But I was thinking about that this week, and I was thinking about how wearing a watch that doesn't work is a lot the way the way that we sometimes see church. And what I mean by that is that sometimes we see church as this thing that we do. It's just a habit that we participate in, it's just something that we go through, and it's something that we have all the components that's there, but it's not really working for us. It's not really working the way it was intended. In fact, there are a lot of churches that have all of the right components to church. They have a building, they have a uh they have a group of people that gather, they have a worship band, uh, they have some Sound and A B people, they've got child care, they've got all these different things going on. And yet, and all the components of the church, they aren't experiencing what the church was intended to do. It's not working. And let me explain to you why I believe that's the case. Because I believe that a lot of churches are going through the motions of doing church, but they've lost sight of the mission of the church. Okay? Um, I think that a lot of churches are doing the things that we do as churches, all of the behaviors and rhythms and routines, but they've lost sight of the mission of the church. And I would be amiss to teach seven weeks on the gospel and not talk about the gospel mission. Because here's the thing: the gospel message, and I'm gonna recap that here in a second, the gospel message is not simply a message that just gets people started in their faith. It is something that drives all of us day in, day out, to continue to follow in Jesus' footsteps, to follow the way of life that Jesus has called us to, ultimately into eternity. It is what has rescued us, it is what has redeemed us, it is what will restore us. The gospel message and his mission for the church is so critical to our lives as those who follow Jesus. And the reason I hope that you come to a church gathering like this on Sundays is not so that you can say, I've done my weekly duty. Because I know growing up in church, I felt that way a lot. There were times where I was like, I just want to get there, I want to do it, and then I want to go home and do what I really want to do. Ever been there? But that's not how the church should be. It should be a life-giving place. And I believe that when we are accomplishing the mission that God has given us and when we rally around the person and work of Jesus, it is life-giving and more than just something that we do by habit. It becomes something that we want and that we need and then we get to participate in. And I'm excited about that this morning. I'm excited to get to preach about that this morning. If you have your Bible and ask you, go ahead and let's go straight to Romans chapter 10 and get to work. Romans chapter 10. If you don't own a Bible, there's some Bibles in the seats in front of you, should be stuck up underneath uh there in the little rack. If you um don't own one, own a Bible personally, I encourage you, take a Bible home with you. Uh, we're not gonna charge you for it when you're walking out the door, okay? So don't feel like you stole it from the church. Um if you do own multiple Bibles, then don't take it with you, okay? I said that last week, I'll say it again. Like I know some of you have about 15 Bibles already somewhere, and uh, so don't take another one. But if you don't have a Bible, we want to make sure you have a copy of God's Word. In Romans chapter 10, beginning in verse 8, I want to read this section to you. It's verse 8 through verse 17, so hang with me for a minute. I may make a couple of observations as we go. This is the message of faith that we proclaim. This is the end of verse 8. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. With me? You will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. Now the scripture says, everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, since the same Lord of all is rich to all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. What an awesome verse. I mean, I don't even know how to move past that. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Let that sink in this morning. But verse 14 says, But how can they call on him they have not believed in, and how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who announce the gospel of good things. But all did not obey the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our message? So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ. Thank you, God, for your word. Thank you that we don't have to make this stuff up. Thank you, I don't have to come up with something to preach this morning because you've already given it to us, right? Thank you, God, that there is a truth that is transcendent, that applies to all cultures, all generations, for all time. And the Bible says that it will last forever. And so as we read that this morning, we are talking about the Word of God. And for some of you, maybe you don't believe that, you don't buy that yet. And I just encourage you and challenge you, continue to read it. Don't dismiss it. Spend time in reading it. When I think about this mission, I think about this gospel, like I said, I would be wrong for us to talk about the gospel for six, seven weeks now and not talk about what we're supposed to do with this gospel and specifically what we do once we have personally received this gospel. And the thing that I want us to recognize this morning as we wrap up this series is that the gospel first is a work. The gospel is a work. Now, before you get up in arms, because we've been preaching and teaching every week, that no, the gospel's not about work. The gospel is about God, right? Let me say this the gospel is not my work. The gospel is not your work or works, the gospel is God's work. In this passage, it tells us that we are to be able to put our faith, our trust in what God has done. In fact, he says, if you confess with your mouth, this is verse 9, that Jesus is Lord, that he's in charge, that he's the king. I mean, this is the big reason why we don't want to buy the truth that this is true. Because let's be honest, if this Bible is true, that means we're not in charge. God is in charge. And I deal with this all the time with my kids, but when I'm talking to my kids about who's in charge, I remember that I struggle with the same thing. Right? And what it says to us is that the message is if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that who raised him from the dead? God raised him from the dead, that you will be saved. Now, what's amazing about that is that in that passage alone, right there, just those verses, it tells us that God did the work of saving us. God does the work of saving us, doesn't he? Now, I don't know what your story is, everyone in this room, I don't know what your background is. I don't know what church you grew up in or didn't grow up in, but let me make it very clear to you this morning. If you haven't heard this over the past six weeks, if you've been a part of our services here, let me say this again. There is nothing that you or I could ever do to earn our salvation. This Bible says that our works, our good works, the best that we could do is like filthy rags before a holy God. It's not trying to just slam us and say, hey, don't do good things. In fact, we find in scripture, and I'm gonna talk about in a minute, that it's important that we do good things. He's saying that your best attempts to try to make it right between you and God are gonna fall short. But thankfully, God didn't say, you're gonna fall short, okay, sorry, you're gonna fall short and walk away. Because the message is no, he raised Christ from the dead so that we could have life in him, so that we could be raised to new life. And so the scripture tells us that the gospel is a work. It's a work, it's something that God did. God raises Christ from the dead. God makes us righteous, meaning that he puts us in right standing with God because of our sin, because of our rebellion to God, we deserve wrath. Remember this? We've been saying this. We deserve wrath. We deserve to be kicked out of his presence and never to be brought back in again. But he says, No, I love you and I'm gonna bring you in. I'm gonna make you right, I'm gonna make you righteous. Not only that, but it says that he saves us. He saves us both here and now and forever. He saves us from an eternal destination that is separation from him. And I and I just gotta say this this morning because it helps me to remember that I don't know what hell in full is gonna be like. And some of you in this room may not even believe in a literal hell. I've heard people say things like this. I want you to know the Bible teaches that there is a literal place called hell. The Bible tells us that there is a day coming when people will be separated, and one group of people are gonna spend eternity with God, and one group of people are gonna spend eternity apart from God. And whenever I say that, it just reminds me of the urgency to which I need to proclaim the message of the gospel. It does because I remember there are gonna there's an eternal destination for those who don't believe in God, just like there's an eternal destination for those who do believe in God. I have to believe that because that's what the Bible says, not because that's my opinion. But when I believe that, I have to remember that here's what I know about hell that scares me to death. It's what gives me the most urgency, is that whatever hell is like, we know this that hell is the absence of the goodness of God. In our lives, there are so many things that you and I enjoy that are direct results of God's goodness to us, just purely because he is a gracious and merciful God to all humanity. He has given us time to receive his invitation to be with him forever. He has given us time to receive the work that he has done on our behalf. But he's also given us blessings like our children and like money and food and clothing and shelter and all the beauty of the sunset and the mountains and the trees and all of creation. He's given us all those things to enjoy, and he didn't have to do that. But he's given them to us. But here's what I need us to understand and myself this morning is that if you don't know Jesus Christ and you never put your trust in Christ, this is as close to heaven as you will ever get. This is as good as it's gonna get. But listen, if you know Jesus Christ this morning, then this world and all that you face, the bad and the good, this is as close to hell as you will ever experience. And we need to rest in that reality today that there is a beautiful truth that God is saving humanity if we will receive it. He doesn't force himself on us, does he? But he offers us life. The gospel is a work and it is God's work. Maybe the most, I heard this this past week, and it's just still just been rattling around in my brain and just wrestling in my heart, but it's so true, and that is this maybe the four most important words in all the Bible are the very first four. In the beginning, God. You see, the whole world, the whole universe starts with God. The whole world, the whole universe starts with God, and guess what? The whole world, the whole inner universe will end with God. And the problem that you and I have is that we want to be the center of the universe. We want it to start with us. But anytime you start with something other than God, you always will get a false gospel. You will always look to something other than God to save you. You will always look to something other than God to satisfy the longs of your soul. My prayer is that we would understand that the work has been done for us and we would receive that work. But the gospel is not only a work, it's also a word. The gospel is not only a work, it's a word. Now, what do you mean by that? What do I what am I talking about? In the passage, he says, the message is near you, it's in your mouth, it's in your heart, the message of faith that we proclaim. All through this passage we just read, there's this language of the message and proclaiming. And we need to understand this morning is that the gospel is a word that has to be spoken. It's a message that we get to hear, it's a message that we get to declare, it's a message that we must hear and respond to if we're going to experience life in Christ. In fact, the message that we said of all the Bible, if you could summate the Bible all down to really four words, they would be maybe the words creation, fall, redemption, restoration. You could summate the whole Bible into that reality that God created, that man rebelled and fell into sin, that ultimately Jesus Christ came and he rescued through his personal work on the cross, and that one day he will restore all things and make it perfect again. That's the Bible. That's what it's about. Now, there's a lot of other things in there. There's a lot of things that make us scratch our head and say, why did you put that in there, God? There's a lot of things that are confusing, there's a lot of things that are messy. But the truth is, is that that's what this is all about. And that's a word, it's something that we have to teach, it's something that we have to speak. Now, hopefully, our gospel doesn't stay at information, but that's where it starts. It's something that we have to declare. In fact, in the passage he says in verse 14 there, I thought this was really important. As some of you, as I was reading that, you were asking the question, or maybe you were thinking to yourself, um, I guess I'm off the hook because it says that they need a preacher. Anybody felt that? They're like, hey, it says in verse 14, let me just read the end of this. It says, how can they believe without hearing from him? And how can they hear without a preacher? Yes, that's what we need in the world, is more preachers. And what I would say is this, yes, that's right, we need more preachers, but not the kind of preacher you're thinking. The word in the Greek there actually means herald, which we don't use in our culture. But what you could think say it this way is messenger. Messenger. Notice what it doesn't say. It doesn't say that we need more moral police in the world. And some of you are like, yes, elbow, right? You're giving your spouse a little elbow to the ribs. I don't need more moral police, all right? Because the scripture doesn't say we need more moral police, it says we need more messengers. Messengers for what? Messengers to bring the good news. Messengers to bring the message that we've been rescued and redeemed. Messengers that would tell us about the person of Jesus. In John 20, verse 21, it says this. It says, as Jesus is about to leave his disciples, he says, just as the Father sent me, now I send you. Sent to be what? To be messengers of this good news, to speak this good news, this message of the gospel. He even goes on in this passage, in that Romans 10, verse uh verse 15, he says, How beautiful are the feet of those who announce the gospel of good things. I gotta be honest, I don't normally think beautiful and feet in the same uh phrase, but it feels a little bit weird, you know. But what he's saying is that listen, when you see people getting up and moving and bringing this message, this gospel like that is a beautiful sight. It is a beautiful reality. It is an awesome thing to know that this message is being proclaimed. But here's the third thing I want you to hear this morning. The gospel, it's not only just a work, it's not only just a word, the gospel is advancing. Listen, if you are a Christ follower this morning, if you've put your trust in Jesus, you are on the winning team. I want to be on the winning team, right? Anyone else want to be anybody want to be on the losing team? Right? None of us. We're on the winning team, and here's why. Because from the very beginning, God has been at work. God has been at work, and he has been using this simple, what may seem to people, foolish message to radically transform his people, to radically transform humanity. In fact, how many of you have seen or experienced some sort of foreign mission environment where you went to some foreign place, another country around the world, and you experienced the gospel at work there? I've had that opportunity on several occasions, and I can honestly tell you, it is unbelievable to watch what happens when people understand the simple, pure message of the gospel that Jesus Christ came to save humanity. It's amazing. In the early church in Acts 1, it tells us that when Jesus left, he sent his disciples and the followers, those that were with, that had been with him, those that had been kind of hanging out around him, he sent them to an upper room and he said, Pray and I want you to wait until the Holy Spirit comes. At that time, there were about 120 believers in that upper room. I don't know how big the room was, but it sounds like they were sardines in there. They're kind of like packed in there. 120. Anybody have an idea of how many Christians there were at the end of the first century? Estimates tell us that there were roughly one million Christians at the end of the first century. One million believers in Jesus by the end of the first century. What I'm telling you is this that that message, that gospel message, it changes and it is expanding. It is growing. In fact, Paul even says that in the book of Philippians. He says the message that is going out, even while I'm in chains, my time in change is helping to expand the gospel message all over the globe, all over the world. We have a message that is advancing, a gospel that is changing people's lives, that is radically transforming culture and humanity. Not even the Romans and all their brutal acts to try to squash what was going on in the first century could do it. I mean, literally, I know it's it's it's vulgar and it's even horrific to think about, but they would literally dip Christians in tars, stick them on posts, and light them on fire to try to get them to stop talking about Jesus. And they said, no, we cannot. Who does that? Who's crazy enough to, in the face of that, continue to talk about this? People who've been radically changed by a message that doesn't just have temporary effects, but eternal effects. People who see that this is much bigger than just my current circumstances. That sounds crazy, doesn't it? But that's what the gospel does, is it radically changes lives. In fact, the rat the gospel is still changing lives today. And the the country of China, which, if you know much about China, it's not an open country to Christianity. In fact, because of some of the historical things that have happened there, they're doing everything they can to try to stop Christianity in China. I spent some time there last fall and was working with some pastors in the southern parts of China. And as we worked with these pastors, I could see in their eyes this incredible intensity because every day when they leave their home and they would walk the streets, they weren't sure that they would ever return back to their family. They would literally tell their kids goodbye in the morning and their wives goodbye in the morning, and they would say, I don't know if I'll see you at the end of the day, but I will see you on the other side. And they would leave their home and they would go and start telling more people about Jesus because they're so committed. In 1949, estimates tell us there were about 750,000 believers in China. Any ideas of how many believers there are in China today? People who say that they follow Jesus today? Try 67 million. Since 1949. You know, sometimes when you live in the United States, all we see is that people are going away from Christianity. But in places like China, places like India, places like South America, places where there is poverty and there is oppression from governments that do not want the gospel to go forward, the gospel is thriving. I'm telling you that this morning because I want to remind you that this gospel message that we take so lightly changes. Lives. It changes lives. And it may very well be that we in our American comforts have gotten so accustomed to hearing the gospel. Maybe we've gotten so locked into our own little world. Maybe we've gotten so addicted. Wait, I just said that, didn't I? We're addicted to our comfort. That we forget the beauty of the message of what Christ has done. It's advancing. And I don't know if if you're like me, but I want to be a part of seeing that gospel advance in my neighborhood, in the spheres of influence, the relationships that I have with others. I want to see that gospel advance. So the gospel really advances practically in two primary ways. It advances in two primary ways. As God empowers his people, I can't underestimate that. I don't want to underestimate that. That God is empowering his people. In fact, just like I said a while ago in Acts 1, God said, or Jesus said to them specifically, go and wait until the Holy Spirit comes on you. Go and wait until the Holy Spirit comes. And the Holy Spirit comes and fills them with such boldness that they just go out and start to declare this message of the gospel, this good news that Christ was the Savior of the world. And so we can't underestimate that. We need to make sure that we remember that it's about the filling of God in our lives who gives us the power to do these two things we're going to talk about. But the first one is this that he empowers us to demonstrate the gospel. To demonstrate. Another way to say this is that we do ministry. We minister to others with our lives. We minister to others with our lives. That's one way that we share the gospel. It's one way that you share the gospel with your family members. It's one way that you share the gospel with your coworkers. It's one way that you share the gospel with those that live in your neighborhood. It's to minister to them with your life. But practically, even within demonstrating, how do people see that we are, we believe this gospel and that we want them to know this gospel? Two things. First is this we get to go. We get to go. Bill Highwels has a book he wrote called Just Walk Across the Room. And in that room, he tells stories of how he as a pastor struggled to get over his own fears just to simply walk across a room and talk to someone about Jesus. And the truth is, is what he says in that book, we all feel and experience in our everyday life, don't we? If you know the gospel, if you know Jesus, then you're confronted daily by the fact that there are people around you, unless you just totally wall off your heart, unless you just kind of block it all out, that there are people around you that right now don't know Jesus, that haven't put their trust in Jesus. And one of the greatest things that gets in the way of us sharing that gospel message is our fear of man. I mean, I'll just be honest. It's funny how I can come in here on a Sunday morning and stand up and teach you, and I just feel like God just gives me the power and he gives me the encouragement, and I don't feel fear of that. But I can go home and I can see a neighbor out in their front yard, and I can struggle with going and telling them what I believe. Because there's this fear of man, isn't there? But you know what? If we are going to demonstrate the gospel, we have to get up and we have to go. And maybe that going is going across the street, maybe that going is going to another country. Like I said, so I've spent time in China and in Central Asia and in South America, and in Yucatan Peninsula and Mexico, and those are great trips and I enjoy those, but really those are more like mission vacations. Because the truth is that going in those situations are good and they're encouraging and they're exciting, but in some ways they're easy compared to going across the street, compared to talking to the person at HEB, compared to dealing with the people that I encounter every day that are like me, that are peers. That can be a lot harder. And for some of you, it's your own family members. It can be a challenge. But we must go. One of the things that's helped me is to remember not to just wave, but to walk. To not just wave when I see somebody out. In fact, I think I've probably made my neighbors a little bit gunshot now. Like, don't look, don't look at him, don't look at him. He's not just gonna wave, he's gonna come. But seriously, are we willing to go and talk to people about the message and the hope? And I'm not talking about the first time you meet them. Hey, I'm Nick. Do you know Jesus? Like, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, but to demonstrate that we care enough about people to go and to engage them. But also, here's the thing it's not just about going, it's also about staying. You see, the scripture says to us that Jesus dwelled, he dwelled among us. For 30 years, we don't know a lot about Jesus' life. For those 30 years, we get these little glimpses when he was born, we get this glimpse whenever he was 12 and he goes to the temple, but then we just kind of don't, we don't really know. We know he was, his dad was a carpenter, so we know Jesus was kind of raised in this home where he was a Jewish carpenter. We don't know a whole lot, but we know this, but he dwelt among us. And maybe, maybe, just maybe, in our culture, the new going is staying. Maybe, maybe, just maybe, the new going, taking the step of faith and getting up and going somewhere, is actually staying and being with people long enough to have the opportunity to share the gospel with them. Because here's the truth. If we don't like relationships or we don't like people or we don't like a situation, we just leave. Or for that matter, if it just gets hard or it gets difficult or gets challenging, we just leave. Maybe that's in a workplace, maybe that's in a neighborhood. My prayer is that we would be a people who not only go, but also be a people that stay and remain so that we can be a faithful gospel witness over a long time. Because you've probably noticed this. Um, people, a lot of times, they'll listen to what you have to say, but they're constantly looking for reasons not to believe. They're constantly looking for reasons not to believe the message that you're saying. And you know what gives them, gives that message credibility? Your consistency over time. Your consistency to just be there and to demonstrate the gospel again and again and again. And as we do that, my prayers that we would learn, my prayer that I would learn, how to listen for the gospel, how to listen for what people are looking to to save them. Because the longer I spend time with people, the more questions I ask, I find out pretty fast what their savior is. For some, it's being a parent. For some, it's making money. For some, it's just being successful in general. For some, it's that other relation, that relationship they have with their husband or their wife. But all of us find things that we try to find our salvation in. And when I find that, by listening to their story, I can tell really fast that they know that even though it's something very important to them, that it really can't save them. And not only that, but what happens is when that relationship or when that job or when whatever it is that they're looking to to save them, whenever that thing is threatened, or whenever that thing uh goes away because of hardship or trial, they are desperate for answers. And it's in those moments, if I've stayed, if I've built relationships, that I've found are the best places to come in and to speak the good news of Jesus. But not only do we have to demonstrate the gospel, we get to declare the gospel. We get to declare the message, because we said a while ago, it's a word. It's something that we have to say. And here's what we get to do: this is the message of the gospel from our lips. If it was the ministry of our lives, it's also the message of our lips. Uh St. Francis of Assisi, he said uh something to this effect. He said, you know, um, preach the gospel always, and if necessary, use words. Now, I like that phrase, except for the problem is that you have to use words to preach the gospel. Can I be honest with you? Uh you can't stop it just what you do with your life. Hopefully your life looks different. Hopefully, when people watch you parent, when they watch your marriage, when they watch you manage money, when they watch you go to work, hopefully that builds credibility that what you believe is true. But here's the thing: we have to open our mouth and actually to preach the word. Because what it says in that passage is it says, how can they believe in something that they've not heard? And so we need to be ready and able to give an account and to talk about that. So, how do we do that practically? One, we get to tell God's story. We get to tell God's story. That's the first thing, to tell God's story. We already said that a whole Bible can be really summated into this is God's book, this is God's story, this is what He's written, and it was God created, we rebelled, but He rescued, and one day He's gonna restore. And we get to tell that story again and again and again and again. Maybe the reason why we're fearful of telling that story is because that's not the story that we heard. For some of you, the story that you heard is God created, you messed up, and now you gotta fix it. And so you don't want to tell anybody that story because you feel like you're telling people you gotta fix what you broke. No, that's not the message. That's not good news, that's bad news. That's really bad news. I don't want to tell anybody that. To tell that story. It's funny, we were at the hospital this week. My daughter, uh my youngest daughter, Emery, she had um surgery on her palate. She was born with a cleft palate. Um, she's five years old now, and we've been on this journey. This was her third surgery where they're trying to completely rebuild her palate. Um, it's really fascinating and gross. Um, and and so, but it's this interesting journey we've been on watching uh the body respond to these surgeries as they literally build uh a palate, which is the top of your the roof of your mouth out of the flesh from the sides of her mouth. And and so uh as she had surgery this week, we were in this hospital in Houston, and the nurse came in and he was a really, really uh great nurse. I mean, just loved kids, very friendly. But as always, they get at some point, you know, they're gonna be there for a pretty lengthy shift, a 12-hour shift. So at some point, uh the question came out, what do you do for a living? And I said, Well, I work in a church. I'm I'm part of I'm a leader in a church. And so you're a pastor? And I saw his eyes get big, you know. Uh yes, I'm I'm a pastor, a pastor in a church. And immediately from that point forward, he began to start to justify himself. He starts telling me all the things that he's done, and all the things that he hasn't done that he wanted to do, but he said no to. And he starts telling me about his upbringing, he starts telling me about his story, and he starts telling me about how, you know, he at one point he wanted a tattoo and his mom said no and smacked him, and that was it. And so he's like, he's telling me all this stuff, and I don't even know this guy, right? And he's just like confessing all this sin. I'm like, dude, man, like seriously, chill, chill, you know? Like, you want a tattoo, go get a tattoo. Whatever. I mean, seriously. I can't control you. But here's what I heard in his voice. I heard it in the story that he was telling me as we sat there in the hospital. I heard him telling me that I have to do something to get God to like me. I've got to act this way to get God to accept me. I have to act this, I have to act a certain way so that you will accept me, because you're a pastor. And the beauty in that moment is I got to say to him, listen, I want you to know that the story of the Bible is that God has rescued humanity because he is good and he is gracious and he is loving. And it's not about our performance, because we're all in trouble if it's based on performance. It's not about what you do or you don't do, it's about what Christ has done. And that changes everything. I don't know if he got it. I don't know if he received that message or not, but it was a great opportunity just to say to him, listen, I that's not the gospel what you're saying. That's not the gospel. Because the gospel is not about how you clean yourself up before a holy God. That's an impossibility. But the second thing is this, we get to tell our story. I run into people all the time and they say, I don't believe the Bible. I just can't buy into that Bible. I mean, it it contradicts history. Uh these stories, they don't make sense. I mean, how does somebody come out of the grave? How is a how is a baby born of a virgin? I mean, all these stories in the Bible, they just start to try to make a case against them. And I'm listening when I find people like that, I realize that is a long conversation to try to get them to understand the credibility of the Bible, okay? But here's what I know you can do and I can do, whether you're trained or not, is that you can share your story. How has God rescued you? What has God done in your life? What has God done to set you free? And here again, if you still think that you have to earn your salvation, you're not really excited about sharing that story. But if you know that Christ has rescued you regardless of who you are and what you've done, guess what? You're excited to tell other people about that. You're excited. I don't know what your story is, I don't know what God has done in your life, but my hope is that every one of you have had a moment, had a time, and even a process through which God has brought you where he has showed you that he alone is your life. He is your salvation. And you get to tell that story again and again and again and again. And it's awesome to be able to participate that, in that. Here's the thing. I've discovered that all of us in this room are evangelists. All of us are evangelists. You're thinking, I'm not an evangelist. No, everybody's an evangelist. It's just a question of what you're selling, what you're evangelizing. Because here's what I see is people in our culture who won't talk about God, but they evangelize their health product. Or they evangelize their sports team. Hook them. I mean, I know that so many of us talk about the things we're passionate about, right? We talk about the things we're excited about. The question is, are we excited about the things of God? And I can, I can, I could very easily make that a manipulative thing this morning and say, like, hey, you should be excited about God. But my prayer is that God would do something in you and in me daily to remind us why we should be so excited about the salvation that we've been given in Christ. People can deny the Bible, but they cannot deny what God has done in you and I. So I want to close out with this because I hope that you know, again, when we think about this gospel, God has given us an opportunity to not just keep that gospel, to receive that gospel for ourselves, but to take it to the world around us. And one of the things I consistently hear with people is I don't know what I would say if somebody asked me what I believed. Or I don't know what I would say if somebody asked me how to become a Christian. Anybody in here know the verse John 3.16? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever would believe in him will not perish but have eternal life. I know people that don't even go to church that know that verse. I know people that haven't been in church in a long time, but they know that verse because it's one of the most popular and one of the most famous verses out there. I just want to take it apart just really quickly as we close out this morning and remind you of this. If someone asks you, how do I come to know Jesus? You tell them God's story. That's the first half. For God so loved that he gave. God loved, so God gave. That's God's part of the equation. God loves all of the world. He loved humanity, he loves you. Even if you don't think he does, he loves you. God loves, so God gave. He gave what? He gave his son. He gave Jesus to come, to live, to die, and ultimately to be resurrected from the grave. But he gave him so that what? Our part of the story. Whoever believes will receive. Whoever believes that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation, we can have life. Whoever believes that Jesus is sufficient to save us and to rescue us, we can have eternal life. I'm telling you that this morning because I think a young child can understand that. We don't have to complicate it. We don't have to dress it up. We can simply say to people listen, there is a God who loves you, and he loves you so much that he gave his son Jesus Christ to die for you. And if you believe in that message, you can have eternal life. All of us here have people in our life who don't believe that message. And I'm praying that this week I would be a faithful messenger to those around me who don't know Jesus Christ. That you would be a faithful messenger to those who don't know Jesus Christ. Because we have been saved. We have been saved. Let's pray. God, thank you so much for every person in this room. And God, I pray that if anyone has never, if anyone has missed that truth, if anyone has struggled to believe that truth, if anyone has rejected that truth, that you love, so you gave, so that when we believe, we can receive. I pray, God, that you would help us today to believe that message, for them to believe that message. Thank you so much that you didn't leave it up to us to fix what we broke. And I pray that as a church, as Point Community Church, that we would be faithful to point others to life in Christ. We would never grow tired of talking about you and what you have done. We just pray it's on your strong and powerful and holy and awesome name Jesus. Amen.