Hear now the word of the Lord from Matthew chapter ten, verses 26 through 33.

"So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed or hidden, that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, say in the light and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops and do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not. Therefore you are of more value than many sparrows. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my father who is in heaven."

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. On September 29th, 1985, the pilot episode of a television show that would become, in many ways legendary, first aired. The show was called MacGyver. Now, I was a little too young to remember much of it. I was just one when that pilot aired, but I did see a few episodes, and most people know the basic plot, even if you've never seen it. To MacGyver, something has become proverbial. Here you have this secret agent who succeeded in his work, not because he was armed to the teeth with the fanciest, most up to date gadgets.

This wasn't James Bond. This wasn't Mission Impossible. But because he made the most extraordinary use out of the most ordinary items. And typically he was armed with his Swiss Army knife, duct tape, an ID card, a Timex camper watch which had no laser beams attached to it. Strike anywhere, matches paper clips, a flashlight and chewing gum. And of course, this is not the exploding kind of chewing gum. Now, the popular appeal of watching MacGyver was the thrill of seeing him use these everyday items and just basic knowledge of science and things like that to be able to succeed in the most daunting kinds of missions. Well, if you've been with us the last couple of weeks or are familiar with what precedes this passage, you know that Jesus has been telling his disciples that we have an incredibly daunting mission, that Jesus is sending us out to bear witness to him in the world. And Jesus says that this witness that we bear to Jesus is not going to be well received by the world, that people are going to hate us for what we tell people about Jesus. And so at this point, we might be wondering, okay, Jesus, and how are we going to be equipped if you're sending us on this mission, are we going to have whiz bang miracles? Are we going to have technological superiority to be able to broadcast this message? Do we get exploding chewing gum? What are we going to get? And Jesus says, no, none of that.

Instead, Jesus insists that we most must employ the most ordinary of methods. We are going to use plain, open, straightforward preaching. Not even extraordinary preaching, not even extraordinary preachers. My apologies. Uh, but rather Jesus gives us an extraordinary message, and he promises to do something even more extraordinary as the message of Jesus is preached an extraordinary message despite the most ordinary of media. The big idea today is that Jesus reveals himself through our preaching. Jesus reveals who he is, what he does, what he's come to do for us through our preaching. Jesus reveals himself through our preaching. So, so three parts to this sermon and all of these pick up on the fear that we might have. After the last passage where Jesus said that there was a lot that we should potentially fear. The first is that we should not fear men. Do not fear men. The second, rather, fear God, rather fear God. And then third, specifically fear Christ. Specifically, fear Christ. So first of all, do not fear men. Now again, in the previous section, Jesus warned us of many dangers. And he said, in light of those dangers, we had to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves to navigate through all the challenges we're going to face.

1. Do Not Fear Men (Matt. 10:26–27)
2. Rather, Fear God (Matt. 10:28–31)
3. Specifically, Fear Christ (Matt. 10:32–33)

Do Not Fear Men (Matt. 10:26–27)

This is going to be very difficult. And so in verse 26, he draws a conclusion from this. What should we take from this? And so in verse 26 he says, so or therefore you might translate that. In light of these dangers, how should we proceed? Well, this answer is incredibly surprising. So have no fear of them. There's a tremendous amount that you should fear. Everyone's going to hate you. Your children are going to turn you in. Your fathers are going to want to put you to death. But in light of all this, therefore have no fear of them. What a surprising conclusion that Jesus gives us here. Why give us more Jesus? Tell us about how the conclusion you are drawing follows from what you just told us about the dangers that we're going to face. Well, Jesus says, for here's the reason why nothing is covered that will not be revealed or hidden, that will not be known. So we have to ask the question, what are these covered things? What are these hidden things? Well, this is the language of God's covered and hidden mysteries and secrets. Not so much the apocalyptic secrets that will be revealed at some time in the in the potentially near or distant future at the end of time. But God's plans for the redemption of his people, what God planned to do, he has been hinting since the beginning through promises, prophecies, types and shadows that were pointing forward to Christ.

But even though all of these were more or less openly declared, they were still covered. They were hidden. Uh, people could hear the prophecies, they could see the temple sacrifices, but it was covered over and hidden in the way in which those promises, prophecies, types and shadows were to point forward to Jesus. People looked at them and didn't know what they were seeing. And so Jesus is saying, now that he is here, all of these hidden things, all of these mysteries are going to be revealed. But what Jesus says even more than that, and this is the thing that should surprise us, is it's not just he who will be opening these mysteries and uncovering these secret things. Jesus says that his disciples are going to be instrumental in revealing mysteries about Jesus to the world, and particularly that they are going to reveal these secrets, reveal these mysteries about Jesus by their preaching. So where do we see preaching enter this? We haven't seen it so far. So look at verse 27. Jesus says, what I tell you in the dark, stay in the light. And we a lot of things that I tell you privately in the dark. You are to then pass those on to say those things in the openness of day, in the light of day. But here's what we see preaching come in and what you hear whispered proclaim on the housetops.

That word for proclaim is the word that is is often translated to preach. To preach is to proclaim. To proclaim is to preach. Proclaim this, amplify this. Jesus says from the Housetops what he is telling his disciples. They are to then go on and preach and proclaim to all the ends of the earth. Now at this point in time, they don't know everything they're going to eventually preach. They just know a little bit of the message. They just know enough to be able to begin to start telling people about Jesus. Back in verse seven, chapter ten, verse seven, Jesus says, and proclaim or preach as you go, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now we know a little bit more from the context of the rest of the Gospel of Matthew, what they were to proclaim as they preach that the gospel of the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Uh, Jesus in Matthew four verse 17, and John the Baptist before him in Matthew three, verse two, uh, both put the message this way repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So they were to preach a message of repentance. The king is here. The kingdom has come. Therefore repent. Make straight the way for the King. Now ultimately, Jesus is going to teach them more, but whatever he teaches them, their job is to proclaim this, to preach this.

Now read more about how this works to the rest of the New Testament. In acts one verse three, we learn that after Jesus died, after he was buried, after he was resurrected, but before he had ascended into heaven, Jesus spent 40 days teaching his disciples, instructing them by the Holy Spirit. He was giving them more of the information, more of the data about Jesus that they needed to know in order to preach accurately about him to the world, to make sense of what they had only understood in part while he was walking among them. And then we know that the Apostle Paul also was personally tutored by Jesus. In Galatians one verse 18, we read that he was instructed by Jesus in Arabia for three years, and the job of these original apostles was to take what Jesus had told them, and to then proclaim it, to preach it to the rest of the world. Now, in the rest of the New Testament, we see that these apostles did not then train more apostles. These apostles were handpicked by Jesus to be tutored directly by Jesus, to then preach the message of Jesus about Jesus to the wider world. But these apostles did not then replace themselves. They did two things. They first of all, committed the teaching of Jesus to writing. They didn't just preach it, they also wrote it down. And this became eventually the teaching that we have stored up for us in the scriptures of not only the Old Testament, but also the New Testament.

But the second thing they did was that they appointed elders, pastors to preach and teach the scriptures in the churches. So we have the scriptures today, these writings, the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. They serve as the foundation, the basis, the constitution of the Church of Jesus Christ, so that to this day elders or new pastors who come on the scene don't declare anything new. I don't have a new word from the Lord. I continue to preach to you everywhere what Jesus originally whispered to his disciples in the darkness, what he said to them in the darkness and what they heard whispered. Now this is said in the light and preached on the Housetops as people hear everything related to Jesus originally given to his apostles the same message, it's the same method, so that by preaching Jesus is still revealing the gospel, Jesus is still revealing himself. Now, preaching has been questioned in every generation whether there might be more effective ways to reach the new generation, whether there might be better ways to try to reach souls than just by preaching people in the very first generation, the first, the first century. Uh, Paul talked about preaching as the folly of preaching, the foolishness of preaching, because even then people looked upon preaching as though it were worthless. And he acknowledged, even the foolishness of God is wiser than men.

Listen to preaching. Uh, 100 years ago, people thought that maybe carnival like events, uh, would be better to to have these big revivals where people would be entertained. Maybe that would work better. 20 years ago, people thought, well, maybe it would be better if if the church sort of imitated the one place where people were still listening to a single person speaking the comedy nightclubs, and you had churches that tried to pattern their architecture after comedy nightclubs, everything was darkened, and there was a stage that people would wander up without a Bible or a pulpit or anything like that. Um, and even recently people have said, well, maybe we need to move more to video or social media. Maybe that's how to reach people. Why try to be a MacGyver when you can have all the gadgets of James Bond? Well. Sometimes the original methods work best, the old ways work best. There's a reason that Jesus still wants preaching to proclaim the gospel. Now let me illustrate the way an old method might work best. Um. In 1825, there was a professional artist who was commissioned to paint a portrait of Marquis de Lafayette, one of the French allies of the United States in the Revolutionary War. And while this painter was off in Washington, D.C., painting the portrait of this Marquis de Lafayette, um, he received a letter. A letter came to him with the tragic news that his wife had died while he was away.

And not only that, but that letter came so late that he was not able to get back in time for the funeral to attend the funeral of his own wife. This man, who was so poignantly gripped by a need for rapid communication across long distances of important messages, sat down to create some kind of code to be able to encode messages, to send them a long distances. This man, whose name was Samuel F.B. Morse, created a system of dots and dashes where people could communicate these kinds of messages in an 1844. It may not seem like a big deal to us today, but it was a big deal when he communicated, tapped out the message what hath God wrought? Uh, quotation from the Bible, from the Book of Numbers, from Washington, DC, all the way to Baltimore. Now, very quickly, that technology became outdated, outmoded. People began to look to to new kinds of methods and modes for communicating information. Pretty soon the telephone came along. Pretty soon the radio came along. Pretty soon the television came along. Aren't those all better methods of communication? Faster methods of communication than Morse code? Well, not for some people, not in some situations. You see, this still remained taught in certain places. You may know the story that the Navy, the United States Navy still teaches it to intelligence specialists, because sometimes it came in handy.

In 1966, there was a Navy pilot, prisoner of war, who was put on television, uh, by his captors to say that his captors were treating him and his fellow American prisoners of war humanely. And while he said that with his lips, with his eyes, he blinked out in Morse code the message t o r t u r e. And he communicated home that he and his fellow prisoners were being tortured. Now, that was a place where there was this ordinary method of communication that was far outmoded, even in 1966. But it was much more effective for getting across that message, that extraordinary message that he had to get home because he was able to blink it in a way that his captors did not recognize what he was doing. Again, there's always proposals for how to outthink God in the methods that he is giving us for proclaiming the gospel. But Jesus continues to call us to use plain, ordinary preaching. Why? Because this is the most ordinary thing that we could use to advance the kingdom of the great King of Jesus Christ. I am nothing as a messenger of Jesus. I am an unworthy servant. And one day Jesus, sooner or later, is going to bury me. Jesus continues to bury his workmen and carry on his work. But wherever Jesus is proclaimed, it's so that you cannot look too much at the messenger so that you are forced to hear in the word.

The extraordinary gospel of King Jesus. And Jesus has continued to proclaim this until he comes again. Jesus has given his apostles and through them his whole people a mission. And this mission is to preach openly God's previously hidden and covered wisdom of Jesus Christ crucified. While the world is going to rage against this gospel, Jesus tells us not to fear because his message will find success. Jesus is going to use this ordinary method to accomplish the extraordinary, um, accomplishment of furthering the Kingdom of God in this world. But there's one more reason Jesus says not to fear man. Remember, Jesus said all of this in the context of don't fear them. There's success coming. This gospel is going to take root. But there's one more reason not to fear man. Namely, because the second thing Jesus says is that we should fear God. Rather fear God. That's the second point. Rather fear God.

Rather, Fear God (Matt. 10:28–31)

In verse 28, Jesus puts it this way. He says, and do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. The worst Jesus is saying that evil men can do is to kill the body. They have no ultimate lasting power over our eternal souls. So Jesus says, if this is true, instead, think who you should fear. Fear God who can not only kill the body, but can cast the soul into an eternal torment of hell.

The word destroy here cannot mean the annihilation of the soul. The Bible everywhere teaches that hell is an eternal torment, away from the loving presence of God to face only the wrath of God for all of eternity. And this is what everyone who does not yet believe in the Lord Jesus faces. Friend, this morning, if you have come here and you don't yet know Jesus, this is the promise that he has for you the warning that he offers for you. He says, fear the God who can inflict this kind of punishment upon you forever. Now the Bible often talks about the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The Bible says it's a recognition of who holds the true power and of orienting our lives toward the truth. That if God truly has this power, then I need to live like it. I need to listen to him like he has that kind of power. But what's so interesting about this here is that Jesus doesn't go on to say so. Let me tell you all the reasons you need to be afraid of God. Jesus doesn't motivate us primarily with fear. Rather, he pivots and begins to speak about the love of God in verses 29 through 30. It is true that God is the one who can cast both body and soul into hell forever.

But that's not the whole story. There is much to be told about the great love of God. And so Jesus in verse 29 says, are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not. Therefore you are of more value than many sparrows. Now, the monetary units that Jesus is talking about is that if two sparrows were sold for a penny. He's saying that they were about 1/32 of a denarius. Uh, one, uh, sparrow or. Yeah, one sparrow would be 1/32 of a day's wage. They were incredibly of little value, monetarily speaking. But what he says, even the father knows when they live. They he knows when they when they die. And in fact, not only does he know this about the sparrows, he knows this kind of thing about you. He knows all the hairs on your head. They are all numbered. Now, some of you feel more of an urge than others of us to really test that knowledge of God. Uh, there's a more content. Not trying to see how high God can count. But the point is, God cares about you whether you have a lot or a little hair on your head. He knows every one of them, and not a single hair follicle falls to the ground without his knowledge.

How much more does he care about you as a person, as a human being made in his image? He knows the most trivial details about your life. He knows you intimately. Did you see the shift that Jesus made here? He says, fear the one who can cast body and soul into hell. Don't fear men. But then what does he say in verse 31? Fear not. In other words, fear not. God therefore, for you are of more value than many sparrows. Jesus begins by saying, you need to fear God with the fear of the Lord, but by fearing him, you come to know his love in Christ Jesus. And by coming to know his love in Christ Jesus, you pass beyond fear. Into the joy of the Lord. We maintain the fear of the Lord in the sense of wisdom all the days of our lives, but we pass beyond the kind of fear that is associated with punishment to know God as our father in heaven. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is constantly teaching us about the love of our Heavenly Father. When we preach about Jesus, we must then preach a gospel of God's love for people through Jesus Christ. And it's so interesting. Every time Jesus talks about anxiety or reasons to fear, it seems like he understands just how confused we get when we're in the midst of great fear. Suddenly we get all kinds of things and factors, and we're contemplating all kinds of possibilities of what might happen, and it can really bog us down.

And so if you notice that whenever Jesus says, don't be anxious, don't fear how he focuses in on the most simple images earlier, when Jesus says, don't be anxious about what you eat or what you drink or what you'll wear. You remember what he pointed us to. He said, consider the birds of the air. Consider the lilies of the field. Here, he says, consider the cost of buying two sparrows in the marketplace. Consider the number of the hairs on your head. Jesus cuts through the noise and says, think about something simple. This last summer, I was a chaperone with one of my sons, my son Caleb. When the kindergartners went on a zoo field trip, I had a lot of fun doing this. One of the most interesting things that happened on that trip was the very beginning. Their teacher was trying to tell them, what do you do if you get separated? Now, I hadn't thought about that at a moment. I was supposed to take care of these five year olds, and I suddenly realized how wandering my own five year old can be. And I'm thinking, yeah, what do they do if they get separated? If I can't keep track of the group that I'm supposed to watch and their teacher says, here's what you need to do. Find a mom with a baby and a stroller and ask her for help.

And I thought, that's a brilliant idea. They don't have time to teach these children FBI tactics for reading body language and discerning threats. Give them something simple to focus on to cut through all the noise. Find a nurturing mother with a baby and a stroller and she almost certainly is going to help you. Jesus is doing the same thing. Cut through the noise. Forget about all the things that you might be afraid of in your life. Think about even the sparrows, even the birds of the air, even the lilies of the field. If Jesus cares about the number of hair on your head, don't you think he cares about you? Don't fear men. Rather, fear God. And by fearing, learn his love so that we do not fear him. Because fear has to do with punishment. The fear of the Lord and our knowledge of the love of the Lord are not in opposition. He certainly deserves our fear, even apart from his love, because he is Almighty God, the creator. But by his love we learn to fear him more and we learn to fear him deeper and better. We learn to fear him without fear because we learn. And here's where Jesus goes in this final section, because we learn to fear Christ. This is the third section specifically for Christ. Verses 32 through 33 fear Christ. Jesus says in verse 32, so everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my father who is in heaven.

Specifically, Fear Christ (Matt. 10:32–33)

Jesus declares here that he is the one mediator between God and men, the single gatekeeper, the single personal reference we need. And if we acknowledge him before men, Jesus promises that he will acknowledge us before the father in heaven. But verse 32, he says, this hour, verse 33, he says this, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my father who is in heaven. If we deny Jesus before men, he will deny us before our father in heaven, his father in heaven. Jesus is not talking here about some generic, vague, unknowable deity who is out there. He is saying that we need to fear him, to confess him before men, because he is the one who can get us in right with the father. He's talking about a very specific, not a vague fear, but a specific fear focused on the person and work of Christ. So how do we gain this fear? Well, again, this fear is grounded upon the preaching. Of the hidden mystery of Jesus Christ. As Paul writes in first Timothy three, great indeed is the mystery of godliness, that the second person of the Trinity was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, and taken up in glory. The message of the Lord of glory was crucified for our sins, that he was raised for our justification.

And he is now ascended as the King who will one day return to establish the fullness of the of his reign, as he puts his final enemies, including death, itself under his feet. Now without the Word of God, the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, we would not know that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. So Jesus sent his apostles to preach this word, to preach this gospel, to proclaim on the housetops who he is and what he has done for us. Further, we would not know his love for us. Certainly there are lots of religions that talk about a scary God up in the heavens that we need to be afraid of. And certainly Jesus says, be afraid of the one who can cast your body and soul into hell forever. But without this gospel we would not know his love for us. We would not know that God purposes has brought all of this about for our glory. That's what Paul writes in first Corinthians two verse seven. But we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages unto our glory. This is for our glory. And this is why this message is what we preach from the housetops so that Jesus might reveal himself to broken, bruised, guilty, sinful, unclean sinners like you and like me. Now it's important to recognize the hope here.

The word that Jesus uses in his warning in verse 33, this word deny. Maybe you're wondering what about Peter's denial? It's the exact same word that's used when Peter denied Jesus three times in Matthew 26, verses 70, and then again in 72. Now, the fact that Peter denied Jesus once and was forgiven does not soften Jesus's words here. He says what he says. But it much more deepens our understanding of our Lord's grace. Maybe you're here this morning and you've denied him in significant ways. The gospel here is that just as Jesus was gracious to forgive Peter. So he will forgive you. Repent from your sins, believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and confess him. He promises to be your personal mediator between God and man. He promised to be your personal reference before the father. Everyone knows the power of a personal reference. Whether it's getting that letter of recommendation from a trusted expert in your field, whether it's having a friend put in a good word for you when you're applying to the same company, whether it's knowing someone close to a decision maker who can advocate for you. Jesus promises to secure our salvation as our personal reference. Beloved, I'm writing these things to you that you may not sin. John writes in first John two verse one, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

And as Paul writes in Romans 834, who is to condemn? Who can bring charges against you, because Christ Jesus is the one who died? And more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us, advocating for us. Jesus promises this to you if you will believe in him in your heart, and you will confess him with your mouth. Maybe this morning as you think about how to apply this, how to take this message. Maybe you are wondering, I don't have that kind of a relationship with Jesus. I am not convinced that if I were to stand before the throne of God the Father today, that Jesus Christ would be my advocate. Maybe you're asking, what shall I do? How then shall I be saved? Well, as a preacher, Jesus has appointed me as an ambassador to present his terms as a minister to administer the rule of his reign, his kingdom. As a steward of his mystery. He's a slave assigned with the responsibility to feed the rest of his household. I myself am nothing again an unworthy servant. Jesus will bury me, one of his workmen, and carry on his work one day. I am utterly unimportant. I am not the message, but Jesus has called me to preach a righteousness that comes by faith in him, and not through works of the law. What the apostles have here just whispered, just presented to them in darkness, just sketched out for them.

They will later have more fully revealed, especially Paul. Who tells us the gospel, perhaps most clearly in the greatest summarization in Romans chapter ten. And when Paul summarized what the gospel says in Romans ten verses five through 13, he says this for Moses, he says, writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven? That is, to bring Christ down to us, or who will descend into the abyss, that is, to bring Christ up from the dead? But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith that we proclaim. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes in his justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Jesus reveals himself through preaching.

Who he is, his.

Person, what he has done, his work. What he demands faith to believe in him and to receive his righteousness, a righteousness that we cannot do or accomplish by ourselves, by the works of the law. And to give us a mouth that freely, boldly confesses our faith in him before the world. And if you believe in your heart, 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. This is a gift that God gives to you by faith. If you don't yet know Jesus this morning, if you are not certain that Jesus would be your advocate before the father, that he will acknowledge you before men, and I want to plead with you, would you believe in Jesus this morning? Would you turn from your sin and put your faith in him so that Jesus, this promise that he makes, would be for you, that you would no longer be under the wrath of the curse of an eternal condemnation in hell forever, body and soul. But that you would know the joy and the love you would pass beyond fearing God to the fear of the Lord, which is without fear because it's trans, it's gone beyond the threat of punishment. Would you believe in Jesus for salvation today? Or maybe this morning. You do know Jesus and you're crying out, I believe, but help my unbelief.

Maybe this morning you are going through deep places of fear. Maybe your own livelihood or reputation is at stake because of what you believe about Jesus. Maybe something in this world is challenging you and testing the limits of your faith. How then can you bolster your confidence in Christ this morning? How will you set your affections on him? How will you convince your mind and reinforce your will, strengthen your courage in him? But what does God promise will make the difference? Well, the answer again is preaching. In Romans ten, verses 14 through 17, picking up right where we left off earlier reading from Romans ten 5 to 13, we'll hear in the next verse, verse 14, Paul writes this. He says, how will they then call on him and whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what he heard from us. So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ. Jesus reveals himself through preaching. Jesus says just to his original disciples, what I tell you in the dark, stay in the light and what you hear whispered, preach on the Housetops this same word, the same message by the same method, is being proclaimed to you today for the folly of preaching the power and wisdom of God.

Do you savor the preaching of Jesus Christ? Do you hang on it? Do you draw strength from it? Again, one reason to have another evening service is to gather together and hear preaching again. Now my apologies. You'll be getting the same poor, lisping, stammering tongue tonight of me, an ordinary preacher. But through the word you get the magnificent, glorious Jesus Christ who reveals himself to you through the word preached an ordinary method to proclaim an extraordinary Savior. Will you trust in Jesus Christ this morning? Let's pray. Heavenly father, we pray that you would give us Christ Jesus and Him crucified, that you would help us to know Jesus through your word and by your Holy Spirit, who gives us faith to believe the promises, to fear the threatenings and to obey the commandments. Father, if there are some here who believe, even just a little bit, help their unbelief to turn to Christ, and if there are some who don't yet believe. We pray that you would put your Holy Spirit upon them as a burden to convince them of their sin, and to point them to the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, that they might be saved. We pray this all in Christ's name. Amen.