The Truth of the Gospel

[Music] [Music] Well, good morning, Cross Church Phoenix. How are you? Good, good. That bumper video always kind of ends so abruptly, so I'm like trying to time it right. But uh yeah, I am Pastor DJ, the campus pastor here uh for Phoenix. And uh welcome. If I haven't met you yet, or if you're new here, welcome. Um again, as uh Brian said, you can fill out that new card and drop it in the giving box. Um and that gives me an opportunity just to follow up with you, chat with you this week. I can tell you more about myself, the church, whatever you want to know. I'm pretty much an open book. So, uh you can fill that out and drop it. That would be great. Again, I'm Pastor DJ and I would like to invite you to open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. And if you don't have a Bible, there's one in the seat back in front of you. Feel free to use that one. You can mark it up and highlight it and make it your own Bible. Uh but bring it back next week. I'll be glad to replace that Bible. We have extras. Uh so don't worry about that. But I pray that you would use um a Bible this morning because I want you to see the word of God for yourself and not take my word for granted, but look at the text itself. Now, I do want to I guess by way of warning, um we're in 2 Corinthians 4. We're going to be covering 1-6 this morning. We're going to spend a lot of time in the first couple verses. So, um we will get through six verses, but the first two are so powerful and have so much modern application that I had to kind of limit myself on examples, but um they are here. So, we'll talk about all of the all six verses this morning. Some of you might remember Pastor Adrien Rogers. I don't know if you know him or not. Pastor Adrien Rogers. He was the pastor of Belleview Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee for like 33 years. Uh he's a powerful preacher with a booming voice. Man, you listen to him and you're just like, man, he's boom. He's like like a more modern Spurgeon almost. Just bam. He had a radio ministry. if you listen um I don't know what times but Christian radios will play his ministry called love worth finding so they'll play his sermons and he has a website that you can log on to and it's a ministry resource but one of his most famous and somewhat controversial quotes was this and it had to do with the concept of biblical truth and so I'm quoting here he goes he says this quote it is Better to be divided by truth than to be united by error or united in error. He goes on, it is better to speak the truth that hurts and heals than falsehood that comforts and then kills. Let me tell you something, friend. He would say, if you know his voice, you can hear him saying that. Let me tell you something, friend. It is not love and it is not friendship if we fail to declare the whole council of God. Meaning all of scripture. He goes on to say these things. It is better to be hated for telling the truth than to be loved for telling a lie. It's better to stand alone with the truth than to be wrong with a multitude. It is better to ultimately succeed with the truth than to temporarily succeed with a lie. There is only one gospel. And Paul said, "If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." End quote. So Adrien Rogers and and even Paul himself were very pointed on the truth of the gospel. And if it gets distorted in any way, shape or form, Paul's words are and God's word ultimately is let them be cursed. Anathema, it's the word he uses. Strong word. But what I want you to also know about Pastor Adrien Rogers is how loving and kind he was. Because if you just hear those words, you can think, "Wow, it's kind of a divisive preacher." No, it's the truth. But he was very, very loving man. When he passed in 2005, tributes poured in about his love for Christ, his love for scripture, and preaching the gospel, and many testimonies about his love for people. And so, love and truth go together. They go hand in hand. They cannot be separated. Well, they should not be separated. And as we'll see here in our text in 2 Corinthians 4, Paul is a staunch defender of the truth. There's no denying it. There's no doubt about it. He wants truth to be known. And he will fight tooth and nail for the truth. even eventually at the cost of his life and during his life while he lives, it's at the cost of his comfort and well-being. And while Paul will focus on the truth in 2 Corinthians 4, we are also reminded of how much he loves him. You remember and we went through chapter 2 a few weeks ago, 2 Corinthians 2:4, Paul says, "For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of my heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain, but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you." And so, while Paul is like all about the truth of the gospel and uncompromising, he is also full of love for the church. And it is because he loves the church that he will stand for the truth of the gospel in God's word no matter what the cost is. So let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning. Thank you for your word. I thank you for your people, God. And I pray that you would um apply your word to our lives in ways that only you can. Lord, I pray that what I say would be what you say and nothing more, nothing less, God. And I pray that you would um speak your word to the hearts of your people. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear what the spirit has to say to the church at Cross Church. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Let's read verses one and two. Paul says, "Therefore, since we have this ministry, because we were shown mercy, we do not give up. Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful things, not acting deceitfully or distorting the word of God, but commending ourselves before God to everyone's conscience by an open display of the truth. So the first point that I want you guys to see is this. The truth of the gospel must be presented clearly. It must be presented clearly. Paul says, "Therefore, since we have this ministry because we were shown mercy." Now, as you'll recall, chapter divisions are not original to Paul's writing. And so the therefore refers back to the end of chapter 3. We have this ministry. What ministry? The ministry of the glorious new covenant that he just talked about in chapter 3. The ministry of proclaiming Christ, spreading the gospel everywhere. Paul says, "We have that ministry because because we ourselves have been shown mercy. God showed his grace and mercy to us. Therefore, we have this ministry. You'll recall grace is getting what you don't deserve. Mercy is not getting what you do deserve. And the Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And the wages of that sin is what? Death. And so, we all deserve death. But in God's mercy, he doesn't give you that. and by his grace he saves you and gives you life. And so Paul says because we've been shown mercy, God has been gracious to us and given us this ministry of proclaiming Christ, therefore we don't give up. His source of strength, energy, and motivation is because of God and not men. Why does Paul say we don't give up? Others translations will say we don't lose heart. Basically meaning we don't get discouraged. We don't get distraught. We're not going to give up on the whole thing. Why does he mention that here? And it's because he's experiencing all kinds of opposition. Things that might cause you and I to want to give up on something. people are coming against you, you might want to throw in the towel. And Paul's saying, "We're not going to give up." Even though there might be reasons to give up because of what we're experiencing, he's experiencing opposition from false teachers who have infiltrated the church and opposition from people within the church who've been influenced by false teachers. That's what Paul is experiencing. Opposition that would be tempting for anyone to want to give up because it feels hopeless and it feels like everyone's against you. Why would I just why would I continue this ministry if everyone's against me? But he says absolutely not. We do not give up. Paul refuses to no matter who or what's against him. Paul will not compromise the truth and he will not give up the ministry he's been given. And verse two is an expression of how Paul's not giving up the truth. Says he's renounced secret and shameful things. He wants nothing to do with a deceit or distorting God's word because that's precisely what false teachers are doing. False teachers are engaged in secret and shameful things, deception, distortion of God's word. False teachers are doing it for selfish gain to promote themselves, to gain a following to themselves, not to Christ. But Paul says, "I'm not doing that." We've renounced those things. And instead, Paul says, "We commend ourselves before God and to everyone's conscience by what?" An open display of the truth. And so, he's using words to contrast secret and shameful things of the false teachers versus his open display of the truth. It's not secret, it's open. It's not distortion, it's clear. It's not deceitful. It's honest. It's before God Almighty who sees it. And that is our calling as well. An open display of the truth of the gospel of Christ, of the scriptures, regardless of the opposition that we may face. Much of our opposition comes from current cultural trends. The culture may change, but the Bible never does. Societal pressure may change, but the scriptures never do. different pressures. Society, culture may change, but the gospel never does. The Bible is being distorted by many so-called Christians and so-called pastors today. One example, maybe you've heard of him, is Brandon Robertson. You can look him up. It's Brandon with an A at the end. Brandon Robertson. He's a prominent voice in the gay Christian movement. He's an o He's the openly homosexual pastor of Sunnyside Reformed Church in Queens, New York. Maybe you've heard of him, maybe you haven't. He's also a PhD student at Drew University. I don't know where Drew is, but he's a PhD student at Drew University focusing on the New Testament, which is ironic because what he does is completely distorts the whole thing. He has a website. If you go to his website, you'll see a Rolling Stone endorsement which reads this way. Quote, "Robertson is spreading the good news of an inclusive modern gospel." End quote. So, if you listen closely, you'll hear the problem with the statement. It betrays everything wrong with his ministry. What a modern gospel. How many gospels are there? One, it was given a few thousand years ago and preached, right? But here we have a modern gospel. And so he preaches, he's the pastor of a reformed church, which is obviously not truly reformed, but it's reformed. He preaches a modern gospel which is no gospel at all. It is a distortion, a modern twist on the gospel that is not the gospel. One of his claims to fame is an article spread worldwide online. You can look this up. It's why the Bible does not say LGBTQ is sin. Now, as a New Testament PhD student, you might think he'd have a really good argument. Now, I read the whole thing. you can too. It's not very good. All he does is twists the scriptures that he does use and then he ignores scriptures that come before and after the ones he cites. And he's a PhD student in New Testament. So he addresses Romans 1 mildly, but it's one of the most open and famous passages, one of the clearest passages describing homosexuality as sin in Romans 1. And so he shares Romans 1:es 24 and 25. And you you can look those up, but basically says this, Romans 1:24 and 25, he says, "The homosexuality that God condemns in Romans 1 is only related to only related to homosexuality associated with Roman pagan worship. So if you know anything about first century church, it's occupied by Rome. Israel is occupied by Rome. And they would also and the gospel has spread throughout uh the Mediterranean and has gone west modern day Turkey and around into so the thing is is that yes contextually in those days pagan worship in the temple of Aphrodite or other temples was associated with sexual immorality not just homosexuality but all kinds of sexual immorality. Yes, that is true. True. And he would say, see, so the homosexuality that he's condemning, that Paul is condemning, and God is condemning is only that which is associated with pagan worship. So as long as you're a homosexual, but you worship Jesus, you're good to go. That's his argument and then he leaves it there. And that is completely false and an abuse of the text. He's actually done harm to the text rather than making it clearer. You can read his entire entire article if you like, but he conveniently leaves out verses both before vers Romans 1:24 and 25 and after 24 and 25. I don't know if you're aware of this, but Romans 1:18 comes before Romans 1:24, right? We can count. We have this down. Romans 1:18 says this, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against listen all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." And some translations will use instead of men, it will use people. It's Greek anthropos where we get anthropology, study of mankind, anthropos, it's men or people against all unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. And so Paul says this, this is all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, people in general, not just Roman men or pagan worshippers only. All ungodliness of all men, all unrighteousness of all people. The word all in Greek means all in English. Okay? All means all. And to make matters even worse for him was that and I know this might be a news flash to you but Romans 1:26 and 27 come after 24 and 25 he does not address this but we know God's word says Romans 1:26 for this reason after God talks about idolatry and sin says for this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Now, if you trace Romans 1, read it yourself. Romans 1:18, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people, all people, all men. If you trace the they and the them, this is how you do Bible study, right? If you trace the they and the them, who's he talking about? All people. All people. Okay? He's not changed between um all people in 18 and then in verse 21 he says all Roman people, they the Romans, they the Roman pagan worshippers. No, it's they them. They them them. And it's talking about all people. And so he says, "For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions for their women, all of them, theirs, the ungodly and unrighteous, right? There women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise, the men, all kinds of men, not just Roman men, the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another. Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. So what Paul is doing in Romans 1, basically you can break Romans 1 through3 up into everyone's a sinner. That's what Paul's saying. That's Romans 1 through3 summarize. Everyone's a sinner. He talks about everyone who would be a non-Jew and then chapter two, everyone who is Jew and then three, all have sinned. That's what he's saying. He's laying the foundation for chapter 4, which is justification and how God saves everyone, Jew and Greek or Jew and Gentile. That's what Romans is about. And so, here we are. Paul is just pointing out and not leaving any stone unturned to say all of y'all have sinned. Here's how all of y'all have sinned. This, this, this, this, and this. And he calls homosexuality sin in general. Not if it's just associated with pagan worship or not, but in general. Yet Brandon Robertson conveniently left those passages out of his article. Why? To convince his readers, just trust me on this, right? Just just trust me that modern homosexuality is totally fine as long as you're worshiping Jesus is what he's trying to say. And he is wrong. And he's a PhD student in New Testament, which drives me insane. Now, I want you to hear me right. Homosexuality is not an unpardonable sin and it's not different than the heterosexual thief or the heterosexual gentleman hooked on pornography. Sin is sin and we call sin what it is sin. It's not different or worse than any other sin. It is sin that God can save us from. As the pastor of this church, I receive email inquiries about the church from different people and I've been asked a few times in emails if gays their term if gays are welcome. Hey um are gays welcome at your church to which I will respond yes because all are welcome to come to church. Check us out music. Get to know us. Most importantly I will say and we come and we our mission make Jesus known to come hear the gospel to come hear the word of God as we make Jesus known. Now of course you know that's not what they mean. I know that's not what they mean. They know that's not what they mean. But I will kind of force their hand. So I'll get I'll get an email saying okay I get that we're welcome. Are you an affirming pastor? Will you affirm homosexuality? Different word terms matter. Welcoming versus affirmation. These are two different terms with two different meanings. To which I will then respond, I will not affirm any sin at all. Now, I say it as lovingly as possible and as specifically on that question, I will share scripture, Romans 1, and talk about why we would love for them to come. We would love for this person to come, but they're asking if I will affirm them in their homosexuality. And I must tell them that I cannot affirm what the Bible calls sin. and I'll share God's word. I will give scripture and ask and be open and say, "Let's talk about it." But usually I will get crickets after that. Right? Because they're not looking for a biblically sound church. They're looking for a church that will affirm them in their sin. And here's the thing. Here's where I stand. I, Pastor DJ, will not lie to get someone in the door and then tell them the truth later. It's very difficult, but I won't do it. That would be called a bait and switch anyway. And that would be deceptive, which is what Paul renounces, right? We renounce secret, shameful, deceptive things, distortions of the word of God. How could I possibly say yes, we will affirm? And then if we ever go through Romans as a church, I'm preaching against it. And they're like, wait a minute. You said that this was okay and I'd have to Well, that was just to get you here. Now, I want you to know though that God's word says it's not okay. Not that it won't be a struggle. That's different. Struggling with that. And there are many Christians who struggle with those things. Absolutely 100%. But there it's a struggle. We all have our struggles. It's not perfection we're seeking, but it is the forgiveness of God from sin and sanctification. I must join Paul in renouncing deceptive things. But DJ, the church could grow if you respond differently. Yes. And my conscience would destroy me. I'd rather be fired from this pulpit than lie about the word of God. Okay. But if you want to know the true gospel, of course, we want the church to grow, but we want it to grow in the knowledge of the truth. We don't want the church to grow at the expense of the truth of God's word. If we grow at the expense of truth, we're only deceiving ourselves. We want to grow because the spirit of the living God is moving through music, through worship, through preaching and teaching of his word, in our kids ministry, and in here, all over, in our nursery, everywhere. Not because we compromise the truth, but because we are given open display of the truth. And the true gospel is that Christ died on the cross for all those sins. Christ paid the price for those sins. And the precious blood of Christ cleanses us from all unrighteousness and sin. All that unrighteousness Paul talks about in Romans 1 is cleansed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But you mark it down. False gospels are often, if not all the time, characterized by a soft stance on sin. A lot of times, sin isn't even mentioned in many churches. And what's happening is we can't is we're ignoring the very thing Christ came to save us from. We can't ignore the very thing Christ came to save us from on the cross, which would be sin. How could we possibly ignore the one thing he came to provide salvation from? The whole point of Christ on the cross is salvation from sin. Not to make us more comfortable in it. Not to distort the word of God and do away with sin. Christ didn't come for that. He came to save us from sin and call us to himself and to follow him. Now in similar ways uh by means of another example there are Christians who have tried to justify abortion with scripture. There are many ways that this happens but one of the popular ones is that God is pro-choice because he created choice. Um because he created put Adam and Eve and put the tree of knowledge good and evil and gave them a choice. What some pastors call a choice, I would call a command. And I think that those are different. But we could also say that God is the creator of life. So God is pro-life. So which one is it? Right? Because he can't be both pro-choice and pro-life. You say, why? Right? Because if God is pro-choice, then we have to say that God is pro- giving you the option to murder. Right? Rather than pro-coming you not to murder, which is what God does in his word, it is a command. You shall not murder. Because yes, God calls killing innocent humans murder. And it's against God's commands. You have to understand this. This is not choosing between two equal options like vanilla or chocolate ice cream. This is obedience versus rebellion. vanilla chocolate ice cream, obedience versus rebellion, very different things. And if you're wondering, yes, the Bible calls babies in the womb human beings. Jesus Christ himself, the Bible calls Jesus in Mary's womb, the child to be born, a child that just hadn't been born yet. It's to be born a child. That is a child to be born. And in the same way when Mary goes and visits Elizabeth, it's in the Gospel of Luke, it says John the Baptist leaps for joy in Elizabeth's womb. This is not a blob of stuff jumping and leaping. This is a human being leaping for joy. His name's John the Baptist. It says he leaps for joy. How can a nonhuman being leap for joy? It's a person leaping for joy at the presence of Christ in Elizabeth's womb. And then you have Psalm 139, which is basically a the entire psalm is about God uh knitting David together in his mother's womb. And other uh prophets in the Old Testament say, "God, set me apart in my mother's womb. you knew me before I was ever born. And the same is true about Paul himself. Now, I could go on and on, but you get the point. I hope God is not pro- having the option to kill babies. He is pro-life. End of discussion. And choosing to kill innocent children is sinful. But again, just like homosexuality, it is not unforgivable. It is sinful. But God pays the price for those sins. And if you or someone you know have been down either of those roads, it is not it it is not that Christ oh like you know if as long as you're um heterosexual, but if you're a thief thieving murderer, lustful person, um you're a lot better than the other guy who's homosexual, like this is no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The the the ground is level at the foot of the cross, let me tell you. And sin is sin is sin. And so no matter what you've been through, Christ died on the cross for that sin. Well, yeah, we could talk. Yeah. But as a church, as a church, as a church, and that is different. Yes. As a church, we must be committed to an open display of the truth and never give up no matter the season. Let's read verses 3 through 5 where Paul says, "But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. For we are not proclaiming ourselves but what? Jesus Christ is Lord and ourselves as your servant for Jesus' sake. And we'll read verse six here at the end. But I want you to see our second point is this. When the truth of the gospel is presented clearly, it will be met with spiritual opposition. Spiritual opposition. There's a reason why Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 4 to preach the word in season and out of season. What that means is there'll be times where it's received well. After 911, churches were packed. It's faded. But then went about when it's out of season. When people don't like it, when the word of God confronts sin, when the culture does not like what God has to say, we preach it anyways. It's what Paul is telling Timothy to do. And he's the pastor at Ephesus. If you look closely at what Paul is saying in verse three, he says this, and check it out. If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to the perishing. Okay, here's why. Because the god of this age, a term for Satan, has blinded the minds of unbelievers. So, I want you to see where is where is Paul placing the problem here. The problem is not with the gospel. The problem is with Satan's deception of unbelievers, not the gospel he's preaching. He doesn't say this, if our gospel is veiled, then I got to do something about that. Maybe I'll tweak it a little, fine-tune it a little to make it more comfortable for unbelievers. No, it's not what he says. He says, "If the gospel is veiled, it's because Satan's blinding their eyes. The gospel doesn't change. Even though some people can't see its light, see its truth, see how it glorifies Christ, spiritual opposition is the problem, not the gospel." But how many times are we seeing churches now, the modern church, act like the gospel's the problem rather than Satan? Maybe you've seen bizarre churches online. You can check this out. And there's some crazy things happening in churches. There's a YouTube channel called The Holy Nope. It's kind of funny. I like this guy. He's interesting. He grabs his Bible, right? And he has a little clip where he's like, "Got my Bible, ready to sit down and hear the word of God." and he sits there and then it cuts right out to some bizarre things like a a church playing Mario Brothers. My daughter Claire was like, "What are you watching?" Cuz I was cur I wanted to give some examples. She's like, "Is that Mario Brothers?" I was like, "Yeah." She's like, "Is that church?" Mhm. That's not church exactly. Thank you, honey. It's not church. But churches are playing Mario in the sermon for some reason. Or there are churches whose pastors jump on trampolines or turn the church into a full-blown dance party show. You could check it out. One particular church's Easter service was so bad that I would call it demonic. It's called Transformation Church. You can check it out. Games and gimmicks with no scripture. Sometimes it's hard to even find a Bible on the stage wherever they whatever they're doing because there's not one there. But there's games and gimmicks with no scripture or confrontation of sin because hey, this will be get people to come. But once again, Paul says, "No, an open display of the truth will suffice." Many people turn their backs on Paul. And guess what? People turn their backs on Christ. John chapter 6, the truth is offensive. The truth will cause you to lose followers or friends. It happened to Jesus. It happened to Paul. You don't think it'll happen to us? Of course it will. But Paul says, "We're not proclaiming ourselves. It's not all about us. We're not going around telling you how great we are. We preach Christ as Lord. Lord means he's in charge. He's sovereign and in control. His way goes, not yours." That's what it means to be Lord. When Peter says no Lord, contradictory statement, right? As soon as you tell the Lord no, you've placed yourself as Lord. So yeah, it's always yes Lord. Yes, Lord. As many as many you say no Lord, it's oh dang, I guess I'm trying to be Lord now. You can say no Lord, but you can't say no Lord and mean it. It's impossible. It's contradictory terms, right? He's Lord and are we are your servants for Christ's sake for Jesus' sake. Meaning that we serve you and even though we have all this opposition from you, my motivation and my passion is not coming from men who will oppose me or leave me uh desert me. My motivation comes from God. We are serving you for Jesus' sake because God has called us to no matter the season whether we have the support of of men or not. And so Christ should take center stage every Sunday. Nothing and no one else. If you ever go to a church where Christ is not the center of attention, run. Leave. If the pastor is the center of attention, run away. Christ is the center of everything we do in the church. And when he is taking center stage, we can expect opposition. Now let's read verse six. For God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ." And so these points are kind of building on each other. So we open display of the truth, the gospel clearly. So when we present the truth of the gospel clearly and are met with spiritual opposition, finally we rest in the fact that God is the one who saves. He is the one who saves. You notice who Paul is relying on as he preaches the truth. No matter what the opposition is, his confidence is solely on God. Because it is God who saves, not us. We don't save anybody. God does. When we share the true clear gospel, we can rest in the fact that God will do what he's going to do. And it's very freeing because if you share the truth of the gospel with someone and they outright reject it, they say, "No, I don't want anything to do with that." It's not on you. We are commanded to share the gospel. Yes, but the outcome is up to God, not us. You can't take responsibility for people rejecting the gospel. Paul doesn't Paul's like the gospel is not the problem. Satan is veil deception darkness in their hearts. That's the problem, not the gospel. If it's veiled, it's because of this, not because of that. Right? Paul doesn't take responsibility for the rejection of the gospel. We shouldn't either. We must remember that they are blinded and veiled. And we should pray that that would be removed. And if you remember what Paul has said before, the only way that the veil is removed is what? When one turns to the Lord. Chapter 3. That's the only way this veil is getting removed. Now, if you read carefully again, verse 6, the God who let light said, "Let light shine out of darkness." This is a hearkening back to the creation account. God says, "Let there be light in the midst of dark and void." Darkness and void. that God, the creator God, has shone in your hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Does that sound like something you can do? Can you make light shine in someone's heart? That sounds kind of to me like something only God can do. I can't. If you think you can, you're wrong. But none of us can shine in someone's heart. But God can. God is the only one who can shine in anyone's heart. And so he talks about how the creator God of the universe is the same God who shines light into lost people walking in darkness. Our job is to make Jesus known, not try to make light shine in someone's heart, which is an impossibility for any human being. We let God do that work. The Holy Spirit does that work. But our command is to preach the gospel, share the gospel with everyone around us. And the results are up to God who is the only one who can save and shine that light. We cannot argue someone into becoming a Christian. You can't do it. Apologetics are great in answering questions, but you you're it's not about us. It's about what God's going to do. But we do we do share the truth of the of the gospel. I've also seen this uh attempt. You can't threaten someone into becoming a Christian. It's about what God is going to do. We simply give the truth of the gospel and pray that God will shed light into their hearts, the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ. So, right now, I'm going to invite the worship team back up and we'll we'll pray here to close. But I want to challenge us with this question. Has light shone in your heart? Because coming to church doesn't mean light has shined in your heart. Growing up in a Christian home doesn't mean light has shine in your heart or you know God. Do you truly know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior? I think it would be a good time to reflect on that. Has light shone in your heart? Do you love Jesus Christ so much that you just want to serve him and make him known in our community? Or is he just someone you hang out with on Sunday? Remember Paul says, "We proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord, not Jesus Christ as your homeboy." This is truth. Jesus Christ is Lord. Whether you acknowledge him as Lord or not is one thing, but he is Lord regardless and we will answer to him. The same passage, second Timothy 4, you can read that as well where Paul says, "Preach the word in season now of season." He prefaces that statement by the way. Preach the word in season out of season with saying because Christ who will come and judge the living and the dead. So Paul says in light of coming judgment, preach the word and that is my job and it's our job because one day judgment will come and it's serious and it's truth and I don't want anyone here hearing these words to enter into that. So if you would say Jesus says in John chapter 8, if you follow me, you will not walk in darkness. He doesn't leave it as an option. It's not like, well, you might walk in darkness, you might not. No, he says, if you follow me, you will not. He says, I'm the light of the world. Those who follow me will not wholesale will not walk in darkness. Are you walking in darkness right now? Do you need the light of the glory of Christ to shine in your hearts? If that's you, you can come find me at the I Said Yes corner after service. We could talk about it. If you need to just turn your life over to Jesus Christ right now, right where you're sitting, you can do that on your own. You don't need Pastor DJ to give you special words. You can do that right now. It's a heart transformation thing. It's turning from sin into Christ. That's basically it. The free gift of God's grace is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. And if we confess with our mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts God. It's not just intellectual ascent but it's believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Not you might be saved, you will be saved. And he demonstrated that love for us and that while we were yet sinners, he died for us. So the invitation is open to you to come to Christ even now. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning. I thank you for your word. I pray God that your light would shine in the hearts of each person here this morning and in our community. God, I pray that you would convict us of sin, that you would reveal to us where it is we have gone astray and bring us back into the fold. Bring us back to you, Lord. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Let's stand as we sing our last song.