Faithfulness in Ministry

[Music] [Music] Well, good morning, Cross Church Phoenix. How are you? Good morning. I'm Pastor DJ, the campus pastor. If I haven't met you before, uh, come find me afterwards. I'd love to chat with you, get to know you. Um, but welcome to Cross Church Phoenix. This time I want to invite you to open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 6. 2 Corinthians chapter 6. And if you don't have a Bible, there's one in the seat back in front of you. And you can have it. That can be your Bible. Make it yours. Mark it, highlight it, write stuff down, make notes, whatever you want to do. All I ask is that you bring it back next week. Come back and join us. Uh, but we have replacements. I will gladly replace Bibles that are being used. But we want you to go home with a Bible in hand. And I pray that God would use it uh in your life. And as you're turning to 2 Corinthians 6, give you a moment. I want to share a quick story with you. And not all of you may even know uh this occurred, but we had many people in our church praying uh for a young girl named Jenny. And back on the 4th of July, um Jenny, who is a six-year-old daughter of old church friends of Becky and I, um they don't attend here, um but they reached out immediately when, um this occurred, but I received on the 4th of July a text message you would never want to get from anyone. You know, a friend that you've seen yesterday or a friend that you haven't heard from in a couple years, but their six-year-old daughter had drowned. um she's alive, so I want to throw that out there right now. She survived, but um she had drowned and um so I had been going down there multiple times and praying and spending time with them. Um and I just want to all glory to God who healed her. But she is home and after like about almost three weeks in the hospital, uh she is healthy, able to do what like we never thought she could do and she is home and healthy. So, I want to praise God uh for that. And I have a picture to share with you. Um I told my wife earlier, I said, I'm going to show everyone the thank you card. And she's like, no one's going to be able to see that from up there. So, thank you to Jordan who made a slide out of it. Um but that is uh Jenny. And I wanted to read, they wrote a thank you, and it's two cross church. Um because I wanted her to know that she has the prayers of a church behind her, not just uh me. But uh it says, I want to read it to you. It says, "Cross Church, thank you for lifting our family up in prayer. We are very thankful for all the love poured out to us. We know that Jenny's recovery is nothing short of a miracle from God. We are extremely blessed. Ashley, Chris, Harrison, and Jenny mom." And there's Jenny. So, I wanted to share that with with you all. Um God, the great physician healed her. Um and it was nothing short I I'll tell you right now nothing short of a miracle. Um many children as long as they've been under as long as she children who have been under as long as she was usually don't make it and she did. Um so we praise God for that. Um with that let's uh hopefully you're at 2 Corinthians 6. Let's pray. Father we thank you for this morning and we thank you for your word. Lord, we pray that um Lord, you would you would bring uh the the mom family um to us. Lord, we pray for them. We continue to lift up her recovery, but we pray, God, that you would also work in their life um spiritually, Lord, um in having your daughter back as nothing short of a gift and a miracle. I pray, God, that you would uh just continue to grow them and to build them up in their reliance upon you. And God, we um pray for this time as well, Lord. The time of of reading and just hearing from your word, Lord. I pray that you would speak your word to your people, not mine, not my opinions or thoughts, but your word, God, and that it would be your spirit moving in this place and convicting where we need it, encouraging us where we need it, building us up. Lord, I pray that you would use your word to um uh to to reveal to us what we need to apply from it in our lives. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Well, I want to start with a question. What is the measure of success in ministry? The measure of success in ministry. I'm not talking about the ministry of a vocational pastor like myself who's full-time gets paid to do it, though I'm including myself in it. But what is the measure of success in our ministry collectively? Because if you're a Christian, you're in ministry. Welcome to the ministry. I'm talking about the ministry we do in our home. The ministry perhaps we engage in at work or at the grocery store when we share the gospel. Wherever we are, the ministry we're involved in that God has given us. How do you know if you've succeeded in ministry? Because we know from last week, we have been given, Paul says in the previous few verses, we've been given the ministry of reconciliation and the message of reconciliation. We have been given the message of the gospel to go share. We are ambassadors for Christ. The scripture says we have been given this ministry. And it also says as Lyall preached last week, I thought Lyall did a great job, one of our elders. If you missed that, it's online. But Lyall in his text last week, last week, it says verse six, chapter 6 verse one, working with him. Who's the hymn? God. working together with God. We as ministers of Christ with the message of reconciliation, we plead on Christ's behalf that people be reconciled to God. That is our ministry. So is success in ministry then measured by numbers? How many people respond positively to it and show up to church on any given Sunday? Is that how we measure ministry? Well, I think that could be part of it possibly. But if we were to say that ministry is measured by numbers, we would have to say that Jesus himself had a ministry failure. You say, "What are you talking about?" John chapter 6, many people are following Jesus. And then he starts giving them hard truths like, "I am the bread of life." And he begins to teach them and give them truth. And in John chapter 6, it says, "Many, not some, not a few, many of his disciples turned away and followed him no longer." So many that he turns to the 12 and he says, "Are you guys going to go too?" And Peter says those wonderful words,"Lord, where else will we go? For you alone have the words of eternal life." But we can say biblically Jesus lost followers. Does that mean that he had a ministry failure? No, not at all. What about uh money then? Is ministry success mean financial success? Then um you know if God likes what we're doing, he'll give us more money and the church will have more money. And while we do preach and teach that giving is an act of worship, is financial gain a me measure of ministry success? Well, that doesn't really describe Paul who suffers immensely for the sake of ministry as we'll read. He ain't getting rich off of it. He's suffering much for it. And so, I don't think any of us here would say Jesus or Paul had ministry failures. And you know what? They just needed to get more followers on Facebook and Instagram. um they needed to have more of a financial backing and learn some new leadership skills to be more successful. I don't think any of us would say that. So, how do we gauge ministry success or failure? In a word, faithfulness. Faithfulness in it. Are we faithful in doing what God has called us to do in the way that he's called us to do it? And that's what I believe our text is about this morning. Faithfulness in ministry. So, let's read verses 3 through13 to begin. If you'll read along, Paul says, "We are not giving anyone an occasion for offense. We, him and his ministry team, so that the ministry will not be blamed. Instead, as God's ministers, we commend ourselves in everything by great endurance, by afflictions, by hardships, by difficulties, by beatings, by imprisonments, by riots, by labors, by sleepless nights, by times of hunger. Sounds prosperity to me. Not quite. Verse six, by purity, by knowledge, by patience, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, through weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left, through glory and dishonor, through slander and good report, regarded as deceivers, yet true. As unknown yet recognized. As dying yet see we live. As being disciplined yet not killed. As grieving yet always rejoicing. As poor yet enriching many. As having get this nothing yet possessing everything. We have spoken openly to you Corinthians. Our heart, our heart has been opened wide. We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. I speak as to my children as a proper response. Open your heart to us. And so, as I prepared this week for for this morning's sermon, the word paradox kept coming to my mind. What is a paradox? Paradox basically is a statement that seems contradictory at first but upon further thought, reflection or investigation, it is truth or there is truth to it. For example, maybe you've heard someone say less is more. Less is more. It seems contradictory, but in certain contexts it's not. It's what Apple and Samsung use to get you to continue to buy their products. They don't see how they can make the phone as complex as possible. But they turn something that is very complex, but what do they do? Simplify it. Make it as easy to use as possible. Less is more in cell phones. And we like simplicity in complexity, but complexity made simple. and you continue, we continue to buy their products because it's more user friendly but less complicated. Or like this one, maybe you've heard the beginning of the end, right? Have you have you ever heard the be this the beginning of the end for this thing or person? And so here Paul is using paradox to reshape what godly ministry looks like. You remember Paul is defending his ministry after it's been attacked by false teachers. They've come in and they're challenging his authority. That's what's happening. And so he wants the Corinthians to know that despite the hardships that he is enduring, his ministry is genuinely godly. It's a paradox, so to speak. His ministry looks like pure misery. And yet it is in it is in fact packed with godly joy. And knowing this about ministry should comfort and embolden the Corinthians and it should comfort and embolden us. And so the first thing I want us to see in the paradox of ministry is first loving the lost may lead to being hated by the lost. Paul loved the lost. He loved them dearly. If you'll recall, Paul actually would says that he would be accursed. He was pronouncing a curse upon himself if it meant that his Jewish brothers and sisters would come to know Jesus Christ as their Messiah, Lord, and Savior. He's saying, "I would go to hell myself if it meant they believed in Christ." Now, that couldn't actually happen, but he said if it were possible, he pronounced a curse on himself so they could know Christ if it meant they knew Christ. And he loved them. He loved them so much. And the people who are returning the most hostility to him are what? Those brothers and sisters he loves the most. The gospel wasn't always welcomed in Paul's time. You look, you see it in there. Paul endured a lot of hatred from the lost and especially Jewish brothers and Jewish lost people in his day. He loved them so much, but he endured a lot. Look, afflictions, hardships, difficulties, beatings, imprisonments, riots. The message of the gospel wasn't always welcomed in Paul's time by Jews or Gentiles. And it's not in ours either. Regardless of that, he continued to bring the message though and so do we. Think for a moment. We have the absolute greatest possible message to bring to the world. How to be reconciled to God. That message has been given to us. We have the answer to the deepest need of every human being on planet Earth. We know it. We know what their need is and how to fix it, so to speak. We know that they need reconciliation with God. And we have the message of reconciliation that they can be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. Are we going to be quiet about it? We say no, but are we quiet about it? Why do we go out and share the gospel? Why is it because we can't stand the world and we hate the world? No. It's because we love it. It's because we love people. It's because we love God and God commands us to. We share the gospel because of our love for the lost world. And yet your love for them, those whom you share the gospel with, might very well be returned with hostility and hatred. Not all the time. Not all the time. People will respond to it if the Holy Spirit is working, but for some they will not. And sometimes the world's hostility is right at home. When, for example, a Muslim child who grew up in a Muslim home comes to know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, what happens? Rejection, disownment, that's a word, disownership, hostility to their own son or daughter over Jesus Christ. I have um a friend in their family who has endured this. Um she is a Bangladeshi woman. She's a pastor's wife of a pastor in Glendale and she came out of being a Muslim and became a Christian and her parents cannot stand her. They've gone back to visit on trips to all the way to Bangladesh. Come, they want to show her, show them their grandkids and they are met with complete hostility. because of her faith and trust in Jesus Christ. But she loves them very much. Of course, she does. She doesn't want to see them remain lost. But it's her love for her family that means she cannot compromise the truth. And if she can't compromise the truth, she must endure hostility rather than change the truth to make the hostility lessen. And it's hard when you maybe you didn't grow up in a Muslim family, but when you start living for Christ in your family or in your workplace or in your neighborhood, you might start experiencing problems too. You stop watching that show like La talked about last week, those shows that blaspheme God and mock Christ openly. you stop watching it with your friends or you don't go certain places anymore. That place where it's going to be a guy's night out or girls night out and you know you shouldn't be there. It's an ungodly place. You stop going because you're a Christian and you know that God is not honored in that place and you stop going with your friends. or you stop saying certain things, certain words that you know are ungodly and that God would not have that filthy talk come out of your mouth. To put it in the scriptures terms, let no unh wholesome or filthy talk come out of your mouth, it says, right? Don't let that happen. Why? Because you're a Christian. But then you stop talking a certain way and what happens? you stop doing certain things, going certain places because you know it doesn't honor God. And then you're met with hostility from friends who are like, "Oh, so you're a Christian now. You're better than me." And you know the opposite is true. I'm not better than you. I'm nothing. I'm weak. The reason I'm a Christian is because I'm nothing and it's all about Christ. But they don't understand that. And so they they revile you or persecute you or they're hostile towards you. They may mock or jer at you, right? Because they think something that's not true, but it's because you're living for Christ. We may not endure what Paul has gone through, imprisonments, being beaten, but it may happen in your family. And this shouldn't be surprising. It shouldn't be surprising when this happens because Jesus warned us about it. In Matthew 10:34-38, it says this. This is Jesus speaking. He says, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth." Whoa, Jesus. Hold on. It's not Whoa. Whoa. Like really. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. What? Hold on. Come on, Jesus. It's like just it's just all like rainbows and unicorns, right? Like it's just peace, nothing else, right? Verse 35. For I have come, listen, to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a person's enemies, get this, will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. What is Jesus warning us about? What Jesus is not saying is this. If you if you are Christian husband and wife and you have kids, darn it, your kids ain't going to know you as savior because they're set against you. That doesn't mean that it doesn't mean your kids won't get saved. But what Jesus is warning about is that it may come. There are times there are families that are divided over the gospel. There are families divided over Jesus Christ. It's happened in my family happens in other families. Division over the gospel. It's a reality. But our love for them compels us, right? To still share the gospel, to still love them even when they don't love us back. And that leads us to our second paradox. We die to ourselves to see so the dead might live. We die to ourselves so the dead might live. Let me ask you something. Do you we do you do I do we really think Paul wants to be beaten and imprisoned? No, no, he's not looking for trouble, but he's willing to endure it if it comes for the sake of Christ. And what got Paul through the trials of verses four and five is verses 6 and 7. You might recognize some of those as fruits of the Holy Spirit. Love and peace and patience and kindness and goodness. fruits of the Holy Spirit. He says, "The power of God, weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left." This is what gets you through the trials of verses four and five is the truth of six and seven, right? He labels some some of these negative things being beaten, imprisoned in hardships and sleepless nights, but then by purity and knowledge and all these good, godly, wonderful things and God himself. That's what gets you through those other things. Because the temptation would be what? To shriek back, give up, be quiet about the gospel. Why? To save ourselves some heartache. To save ourselves the drama or the stress of having someone not respond positively. But Paul doesn't give into that temptation. And he dies to his wants and his desires. And he lives for God's. Dying to ourselves as believers is part of loving the lost. You say, "Well, what does dying to yourself look like?" It's a good question. What does dying to ourselves look like? I think a lot of us, myself included, have been silent about the gospel for fear of rejection, fear of ridicule, harassment, mockery. Because none of us want rejection, right? Like how many people wake up in the morning like I can't wait to be rejected by someone today. No. No. We don't want that. Nobody wants one one pastor opened up a sermon one time despite what people might think. Um I like I want people to like me. I thought that was funny, but that's another story. Um but none of us want that. And so we don't want this ridicule or rejection to come and then we are prompted and led by the Holy Spirit to share the gospel with someone. Then at that point we have a choice, right? Number one is you can be quiet about making Jesus known to preserve yourself to keep you from the potential pain or suffering that might come. Or choice number two is you follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit and you die to your will and you say, you know what, I absolutely don't want to be rejected, but I am willing to for the sake of Christ and to obey him. I choose to deny, to die to my will and submit it to God's. It's not about what I want. It's about what he wants. It's about obedience to him. And oftentimes I'm preaching to myself. Um, trust me, the the passages hit me during the week before it ever hits you. But I think that this can also speak to us who are parents. How often will we spare the rod, which means not discipline. Spare the rod because we don't want our kids to be mad at us. Is that love? It's not when parents refuse to discipline their kids. When we know that they need it, right? When they know they need this discipline and we refuse to give it to them because we don't want them to be mad or because of what their response will be. What are we doing? We're choosing our own comfort and ease over their good. There are times where I'm like I'm not looking forward to what Elijah's response going to be this but I have what do I do I have I either I do it and put him through the discipline that he needs that I know he needs or I let it go for my own sake and that's not love that's called selfishness you realize that withholding what is good and right for our kids for our own comfort is selfishness and self-preservation. Not doing what's good for them. That's not denying ourselves as as parents. That's preserving ourselves at the expense of raising up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Proverbs 13:24 says this, "Whoever spares the rod hates his son." Scriptures are very confrontational, especially Proverbs. But he who loves him is diligent to discipline him. And we know the scriptures say of the father's love for us, he those whom he chastineth to use the King James, those whom he chastens, disciplines, he loves. Why does God discipline us? He loves us. Why do we discipline our children? Because we love them. That's not my opinion. That's scripture. Sparing discipline isn't a sign we love our kids. It's a sign we love ourselves over our kids. Now, think about the gospel. Same principle. If we spare the gospel out of fear and rejection of the response, that is not a sign that we love them. It's a sign we love ourselves. And we're preserving ourselves and our comfort rather than serving and loving the lost. It's tough. When you do things in ministry that you don't really want to do, but you do it anyway because God would have you do it. That's dying to yourself and living for God. To put it plainly, you do what God has commanded and called you to do even when you don't want to. It's saying, "Not my will, but yours be done." Jesus exemplified it. And the reason Paul lists all these po positive godly things in verses in verse 7 after all the negative things in verse four and five is to remind us remind us that God and godly attributes will sustain us when we're rejected or mistreated. So we have nothing to fear. This is encouragement. This is Paul saying, "This is what gets me through all of this. And this leads to our last paradox in ministry. Our greatest blessings are found in our sufferings. And I like it. Paul gets a little paradoxical himself in 8-10. He he says, "People think we're deceivers though we're giving the truth. We're unknown but recognized. We're dying and living, disciplined and not killed." He says, "We're grieving and rejoicing. We're poor but somehow we enrich many. And having nothing yet we have everything." How do you have nothing and possess everything? You see, Paul was a master at finding the good and godly purpose in his sufferings. How about us? Are we willing to suffer a little bit for the gospel? You say, "DJ, this sounds familiar, like a broken record. It's come up a few sermons." That's because that's what this says, and I'm not going to change it. Paul's saying the same thing over and over different ways. He's going to say it again in chapter 11, so buckle up, right? We may want to see our family get saved or a family member get saved, but are we willing to spend the time in prayer for their salvation every day? Are we combining our prayer with fasting over lost people in our lives that we want to see come to Christ? Are we willing to share the gospel with them even if it means a little hostility or suffering? We might not be put in prison or beaten, but we fear just a negative response and then we buckle up and don't do it. Are we willing to lay aside our comforts for the sake of others? For example, are we willing to turn off the TV for a 25 minute episode of something and pray for lost people in your life, family, friends, co-workers, and then go and then go watch it, right? But are we willing to give up a little bit of our own comforts, time, energy? Right? People say time is money. Sometimes I think time is more worth more than money and we won't give our time. And this is particularly convicting to me. I, Pastor DJ needs to be praying more, fasting more, bringing my own family, church members, lost people in North Phoenix before the throne of God more. Are we willing to sacrifice time and other things to plead for others to be reconciled to God? Are we willing to open our hearts, so to speak, to those with closed hearts towards us? Let's finish by reading 14 to 18. Paul says this, "Now don't become partners with those who do not believe. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? What agreement does Christ have with balile? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? And what agreement does the temple of God have with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God said, "I will dwell and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore, come out. Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch the unclean thing and I will welcome you and I will be a father to you and you will be sons and daughters to me says the Lord Almighty. So here I want us to see living out holiness in ministry. Living out holiness in ministry. Now a lot of times we might read this especially verse 14 and immediately think marriage right in the CSB this translation it says don't become partners but it would literally mean do not be unequally yolked with unbelievers maybe you've heard that before and we immediately think of marriage but we need to be careful with that now I want to put this out there first of course a single Christian man or woman should be seeking a Christian spouse. Okay. Absolutely. On the flip side, this is also not a license, a get out of marriage free card to a Christian who's already married to a non-Christian. This is not a license to get divorced. Hey, I don't want to be unequally yolked, so I get out of this scot-free. No, you don't. Remember, scripture must be interpreted with scripture. And Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7, if a believer is married to an unbeliever, stay married. Stay together for the sake of the children and the unbelieving spouse might get saved. Stay together. If they abandon you, okay, that's out of your control, but stay together if they are willing. Others take this passage to mean you can't associate with unbelievers at all. And so guess what? You need to get rid of your house and your apartment or your car because your contract or mortgage might be with an unbeliever. It's not what this is saying either. But some people take it that way. That's not what this is saying. So we've talked about what this is not saying. What is it saying in context? Paul is talking about ministry. He's talking about literally pulling together in the same direction. That's why I like other translations that say, "Do not be unequally yolked." What Paul is drawing from is Deuteronomy 22:10. And that simply says this, "You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together." So remember that when you go home, don't put your ox and donkey together. Okay? I'm just kidding. But in all seriousness, what does that mean? Well, in those days, if an o if two oxen were going to plow, they put a yolk on and they plow together. But they're the same animal, same size, same strength, and they go together. If you put a yoke on an ox and a donkey, it's awkward. It's weird. They're not the same size. They don't fit together, and they're not going to plow together, and it's going to be a disaster for your field. And so he is saying the church cannot plow together or work together with the world for the common goal of reaching the world for Christ. You see what had happened is Corenth connected themselves with false teachers, worldly unbelievers and it negatively affected their relationship with Paul and their own ministry. Remember he says they have closed hearts to Paul. Why? because they're aligned with unbelievers. They're aligned with false teachers. Paul says, "I love you as children and yet you have closed hearts to me and it's because of their alliance with the world, with false teachers and falsehood in general. Alliance with the world can't happen." Plain and simple. We, the scriptures say, have a holy calling. 2 Timothy 1:es 8 and9 says this, "Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God." Verse 9, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. And so this is a holy calling that you're a part of. Holy ministry. Holy simply means set apart. We've talked about this. So our calling to share the gospel is holy. It's set apart. Meaning it can't be mixed with lies, falsehoods, and darkness. That means we can't link up with unbelievers for the work of ministry. And that's our first point. We do not partner with the world in ministry. That's what this is saying. You say, "What does that mean for today?" It means you can't, we can't go out and go knocking doortodoor doing outreach with Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons. For for example, we can't do that. We wouldn't do that. What we should probably do, here's the sad thing though, is they're doing more outreach than Christians are. What we should do is go after them, right? because they're sharing false teaching, we have to follow back and give right teaching to the neighborhoods. But we would never say, you know what, we basically believe the same thing. Let's get together and do outreach. We can't. Why? Because we do not believe in the same Jesus. Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Islam, get this. Every other religion in the world does not believe Jesus is God except Christianity. You say, "What's the one unique thing about Christianity? It's just one among many." No, it's not. It's unique. It's We're the only ones who believe Jesus is God. No one else does, hands down. And so, if we say, "Let's team up and go and do ministry with people who don't believe Jesus is God," that is fellowship with darkness. Denying the deity of Christ is nothing short of satanic and demonic theology. Plain and simple. And so if you look at verses 14 and 15, what's the implied answer? What is the answer Paul's looking for? The answer is none. Right? All five questions, none is the implied answer. Believers, he says, have nothing in common with unbelievers. That doesn't mean physically, right? You and an unbeliever might have a car, a job, and get sick every now and then. You and an unbeliever got COVID when CO was going around. This is spiritually. Spiritually, we have nothing in common with an unbeliever. Spiritually, we are the temple of the living God who dwells in us. And we have no agreement with idols. We belong to God. That's why we get rid of our idols. And that's why we can't partner with unbelievers in ministry. You say, "So what's the answer?" Well, the answer is number two. We remain separate from the world as we minister to it. Maybe you've seen those stickers on cars, right? Not of this world. Exactly. We are in the world, but not of the world. And Paul said the same thing in 1 Corinthians 5. He said, "I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, but I did not at all meaning not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy or swindlers or idoltors since then you would need to go out of the world." He's talking about I don't want you to associate with somebody who's sexually immoral who proclaims that they know Christ. I'm a Christian and I'm immoral. Paul's like, well, there's a problem. But to the world, you can't expect the world to live Christian lives. It's not doesn't happen that way. Paul is not saying to go be a monk in a monastery, which is other how other interpretations of this passage go. Go remove yourself completely from the world. That's not what he's saying. This is saying be in the world, love the world, but don't team up with the world from ministry. Teaming up with the world doesn't make us shine brighter. It diminishes our light. And so, our closing thought is this. Making Jesus known requires willingness to endure hardships and be separate from the world. That is faithfulness in ministry. But are we up for the task? That's the question. Are we up for the task of being faithful in the ministry God has given us? I'm going to invite the worship team back up and we'll close in a word of prayer. Um, Father, we thank you. We thank you for your word. We thank you for the truth that is in it. In God, it all points to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, the eternal son of God, who came to us, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross for our sins. He knew no sin. He, Jesus, knew no sin, but he was made sin, a sin offering for us. We didn't deserve it. We didn't earn it. We were enemies of God when he did it. But you loved us. Loved us who were enemies but are now your friend, your children. We've been reconciled to God through Christ. And now we know him. But perhaps that's not true of all of us. Lord, if there's anyone listening to my voice who says, "I'm I'm not an ambassador for Christ. I don't have the message of reconciliation. I'm not a minister of reconciliation. I'm just here because I got dragged here, cuz I need to be. I don't want to be." God, I pray that you would convict hearts who need it. I pray that their hearts would be open to Christ. Pray that your spirit would move in them and convict them and do what only the spirit can do. Pastor DJ can't do it. No other pastor can. Only the Holy Spirit can. And I pray God that you would do it. And I pray that they would respond putting their faith and trust in Christ and become a minister of reconciliation. God, I pray that if there is anyone here who does not know you as their Lord and Savior, that this would be the last time, last day that that is true about them and that they would come to believe in Christ, turn their life over to Jesus Christ, turn from sin to Christ. And I pray Lord for those of us who have been walking with you. Have we been faithful in the ministry we've been given? Have we been faithful fathers and mothers? Have we been faithful roommates? Have we been faithful brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, faithful employees? Have we been faithful in what you've called us to do? May we be faithful in Jesus name. Amen. Let's stand and sing our last song.