for scripture reading this morning please turn to romans chapter one I want to read this passage from Romans. It's going to fit into our message this morning. And here Paul is writing to the believers that are in Rome, and he's very thankful for them. And he expresses his thanksgiving for their great faith, their strong and unwavering faith, and their partnership in gospel ministry. And he concludes with a wonderful verse here, where I'm going to stop the reading today, that really just zeroes in on what we're all about. what Paul was all about, what churches who claim the name of Christ should be all about. Romans chapter 1, beginning in verse 7. To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all. that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers, making request if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift to the end you may be established. That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith, both of you and me. Now, I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, but was let or prevented hitherto, that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles. I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. So as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, the Jew first and also to the Greek." Our Father, we thank you for Paul's stand for the gospel. We thank you for all the apostles and all the evangelists of the New Testament era who stood for the gospel of Jesus Christ. We thank you for all of the preachers and evangelists and missionaries who, since that day, have been proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. And today, we proclaim this very same gospel. And indeed, we are not ashamed of this gospel. We will proclaim it to all the corners of this world. We will cry out as loudly and clearly as we can that the people need to hear the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, that they need to hear that they're lost sinners in need of a Savior and that Christ is that Savior, and that He died on the cross to pay the penalty for their sins, that if they, by faith, would trust in Him and accept Him as their personal Savior and Lord, that they would have the gift of eternal life and would dwell with him forever. Lord, we are not ashamed of your gospel. So help us to proclaim it. Help us to really believe that it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone that believes. Help us to never give up on people that need to hear the gospel. Help us to never become tired and weary in this task of proclaiming Christ to this world. I pray that even today as we worship together, may the words that we sing, may the prayers that we pray, may the very lessons that we glean from Your Word proclaim Christ. We pray in His name, amen. I invite you to open your Bible to 2 Corinthians this morning, 2 Corinthians chapter 4. You'll note right off that we are departing from our normal series on Sunday mornings in the Gospel of Luke. I just wanted to take this Sunday morning, the Sunday morning before our missions conference, to devote a message to preparing our hearts for the conference itself. I've really been looking forward to this mission conference all year. I get real excited as I start to see it come together as we send out the invitations to our supported missionaries and see who responds and who might be stateside and available to come and speak at our conference and then to see how the Lord just weaves it all together in an amazing way. to put a conference together with a theme and time together in God's Word and a wonderful time of encouragement, really. So I really do want to encourage you to be here. But this morning, I want to just prepare our hearts a little for the mission conference. And my message is based really on this one verse that we have here in 2 Corinthians 4 and verse 5. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. and ourselves, your servants, for Jesus' sake. Our Father, I do pray that you will speak to us in this hour from this verse of Scripture. Help us to see how this theme is presented throughout the pages of our Bible. Help us to see its importance in our lives today. Pray in Jesus' name. Amen. What I'd like for us to do today is to focus in on our church mission statement. If you'll just take out your bulletin and you will look at the front cover of your bulletin, you will note that we have for some time now, really since January of 2013, we have been printing our church mission on the front of the bulletin. And that's to be a reminder to us every week of why we're here. what we are all about as a church. Now, we don't believe that our church mission statement is inspired. Of course, the scriptures are the inspired Word of God. But our leadership team got together a few years back and really worked on putting together a very concise and very clear, well-worded mission statement that would express the core mission of our church. And this is what they came up with, and I think it's a very, very good statement. Look at what it says, proclaiming Christ to the world through the ministry of His Word to make and grow His disciples for the glory of God. Now I want to get you to participate. Will you please say that with me? Say it together with me. We're going to pause between each phrase, okay? 100% participation. Are you with me? Okay. Proclaiming Christ to the world through the ministry of His Word to make and grow His disciples for the glory of God. Now, as I mentioned, a good mission statement is going to be clear and concise and memorable. And I think our leadership team did a very good job of accomplishing all three of those objectives. I think you'll agree. It's clear, it's concise, and it is memorable. And it's memorable in the sense that it kind of unfolds like the petals of a flower. In other words, you can start at the beginning of our mission statement, and that's a pretty good summary of our mission statement. Even just the first two words, proclaiming Christ. I mean, that pretty much says what we're doing here. It pretty much says what I'm trying to do here in the pulpit. It says what we're trying to do as a church in our community. It's what we're trying to do in terms of our gospel outreach. And you go on to the next petal of the flower and it gives the scope of our mission. We're proclaiming Christ to the world. It's a worldwide proclamation of Christ. It starts here because that's where we are. It starts kind of in our Jerusalem, if you will, in our own town, in our own community. It spreads out to our Judea and Samaria and then to the uttermost part of the earth. And we are very thankful that we have the means through the generosity of you all to support 22 missionaries around the world. You can go back and visit our mission board in the back of the auditorium. It's just phenomenal. I look at that and I just go, wow, praise God that our little church can do that. And so we are trying to do this. We're trying to proclaim Christ to the world. But then you can kind of unfold it a little bit further and the rest of the mission statement tells us what we intend to do, how we intend to do it, and why. What do we intend to do? Well, we intend to make and grow disciples of Christ. This is the Great Commission. This is what we're all about. As a church and even as individual believers, we are to be making disciples. We're to be proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, evangelizing the lost world so that they can become a disciple of Christ. And then once they do accept Christ and become His disciple, we're to help them to grow. And really, the ministries of the church are all designed to encourage the making and the growing of disciples. So that's what we're doing. How do we do it? Well, we don't just make it up as we go along. We don't just use our own inventiveness or creativity. No, we rely on the Word of God. That is the means that we use because the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. It has power in people's lives. And so we use the Word of God because of its tremendous power to bring a person to the point of salvation. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. But we also use the Word of God to train and to help us to grow, to grow those disciples, to grow our understanding because this is divine truth that's been revealed to us. And it has the power in our lives, the power to transform a life, to make us more Christ-like. So that's how we do it, by proclaiming Christ through the ministry of His Word. And why? What's the overarching reason for all that we're trying to do here? It's for the glory of God. For the glory of God and for the fame of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory. Now, I'll just pause here and say that if you were not here a few years back when I did preach a short series on our church mission statement, I would encourage you to go back and listen to those messages. They're available on Sermon Audio. You can download them. You can go to our website and just click on the Our Mission link there and it will show you where those messages are. If you're not that sophisticated, you can request CD copies of those messages. And if you've never done this before, I just encourage you to be aware that we have CD order forms in the foyer. You can take one of those slips out and just write your name on there. And just you can just simply write GBC mission or church mission statement and we'll get those messages to you. So I encourage you to listen to those because I won't have time today to review the whole thing. And really what I want to do this morning is just narrow our focus in to really focus on the core. of what we're all about, our core mission. And I'm just going to state our theme this way this morning. Our mission, individually and as a church, is to proclaim Christ to the world. Our mission, individually, that's you and me, but also as a church, corporately, together, is to proclaim Christ to the world. Now the word proclaim that we have in our mission statement is related to the Bible word preach. It's related to the word preach that we find in our verse today as it starts out for we preach, we proclaim, we preach, we declare, we herald openly and boldly Christ. That's what we're doing. Every member and every attender of church is to be busy doing that very thing. Every one of us has a responsibility, a biblical responsibility, to be proclaiming Christ. This is our mission. And the biblical exhortation to you and to me is that we all get on board with this, that we all sign up and are directly involved in furthering the mission that our Lord has given to us. So using this verse this morning, this one verse as our theme verse for the message, I'd like us to consider just two things this morning. One is our proclamation. What is our proclamation? What should it be? And number two, what is our role in that proclamation? So those are the two things that we're going to consider this morning. So let's start with our proclamation. It's interesting that this verse states our proclamation both in a negative term and in a positive sense as well. So we want to look at both sides of this because the verse starts out, for we preach not ourselves. Our proclamation is not centered on us. It's not about us. It's not about me. Yes, I'm the pastor of the church, but it's not about me. It's not about you. You may be a star member of our church. I don't know that we have such a designation. You may be a faithful attender. You may be part of the leadership team of this church. You may bear the title deacon or pastor, but you know it's not about you. Our proclamation is not about us. And somewhere along the way, the contemporary church has really lost sight of this. They have detached themselves from this verse of Scripture where it says, for we preach not ourselves. Churches have shifted their proclamation to themselves. There are pastors out there writing books and preaching sermons with titles like this, It's Your Time. and become a better you. Now, I'm not going to say that there aren't some themes like that in the Scriptures that are encouraging us to become better in the sense of more Christ-like, but it seems like we're losing the focus here, and the focus is now becoming us. The proclamation is centered on us. One megachurch pastor explained the reason why his church grew so quickly. This is quite an honest confession here. He said, people are coming to our worship services because we give them what they want. Many churches have substituted the catchphrase worship experience in place of the traditional term worship service. You're now seated in a worship service this morning. We're not adopting that term worship experience. What's the issue with this? Well, first of all, worship service is focused on our service to God. When we worship, we're worshiping God. It's a service to Him. And it turns out that that word service is a biblical term. For example, in Ezra 618, we're told that they set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their courses for the service of God. which is at Jerusalem as it is written in the book of Moses. They were doing the service of God, the service of worship, worshiping God according to their Old Testament practices. What about the New Testament? Romans 12, 1, Paul writes, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Reasonable service. We are serving God. We are worshiping God together. And so ours is a worship service, not a worship experience. Changing the term like that moves the center from God to us, to the person in the pew. Or these days I might have to say the person in the theater seat, you understand. One church website that I went to invites the visitors to come as you are and describes what you can expect when you visit. And here's what their website said, quote, a worship experience, notice the buzzword, at our church, I'll leave out the name, is like a party that you're always invited to that can't fully be described in words. Like a party? What exactly does that proclaim? Apparently nothing because you can't explain it in words, you see. There's an issue there. So the problem of the contemporary church is the focus has shifted away from serving God in worship to a focus on self, a proclamation of self, in direct opposition to what Paul wrote in this verse, for we preach not ourselves. But there's another big problem that we see in the contemporary church. We see that people are flocking to churches with celebrity pastors who live celebrity lifestyles. Kind of the lifestyles of the rich and famous pastors, if you will. And many pulpits across our country, pastors are essentially proclaiming and promoting themselves. And that's why the people are coming. Now, folks, if that's why you're here, I'm going to disappoint you. I am not a celebrity pastor. I'm not intending to live a celebrity lifestyle. That's just off focus. That's off base. That goes against what Paul is saying here, for we preach not ourselves. These celebrity pastors are doing that which is really shameful. It is really a disgrace to the name and cause of Christ. To all these pastors and churches that have compromised in these ways, the Apostle Paul is screaming, that's wrong. That's wrong. We preach not ourselves. You guys are doing church wrong. Let's get back to what the Bible tells us to do. Do not be preaching yourself. So that's the negative that we see here, the negative description of the proclamation. We preach not ourselves. What's the positive? But Christ Jesus, the Lord. Our proclamation is centered on Christ. That's where the center ought to be. The gospel is all about Christ. We are proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord. He is Lord. He is worthy of worship and praise. The message of the gospel is that we are saved by grace through faith through the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other way. He's the very center of the gospel message. We are rescued from the flames of hell through Christ. We are redeemed from the slave market of sin through Christ. And we receive the gift of eternal life through Christ. The Christian life is all about Christ. The peace of God fills our hearts and minds through Christ, we're told in the scriptures, Philippians 4.7. We can do all things through Christ, Philippians 4.13. And we are more than conquerors through Christ. And then we look to the future and we realize that our future hope is centered on Christ as well. We are raised up and seated in the heavenly places in Christ. And we are made heirs of God through Christ. So everything about the Christian life from its very beginning when we become a Christian to the life that we live out here on this earth as we're growing Christians to the very future eternal glory that we will enjoy as Christians. It's all through Christ. He is the center. It's all about Him. The hymn writer was correct when he wrote the words, Jesus is all the world to me. My life, my joy, my all. Can you say that this morning? As we open our Bibles, and I hope that When we are in a situation where we're visiting an area, maybe on vacation, or perhaps the Lord moves us to a new area where we have to look for a church, look for a Bible-teaching church. If you go to a church that's opening the Bible and proclaiming the truth of God's Word, you're going to hear about Christ, because the central theme of our Bible is the Lord Jesus Christ. Even in the Old Testament, it's full of prophecies concerning Messiah who would come, who is Christ. Jesus taught His disciples on the road to Emmaus that from the very beginning, the writings of Moses, our Bibles talk about Christ. So the central theme of the Bible is Christ. It's all about Him. It's all about Him. And so He should therefore be the center of our proclamation if we are a Bible-teaching church. In fact, if you open your Bibles and you look at the New Testament, You're going to realize that those apostles that followed after Jesus, as we've been studying in Sunday school, those 12 men that were chosen by Him and trained by Him and prepared to carry on His work after He left and returned to heaven, those men were proclaiming Christ that was central to their proclamation. We're told, for example, after the Jewish religious authorities had dealt harshly with the apostles in Acts chapter 5, verse 41, it says, And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. What did they do? And daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. That was their message. That was their proclamation. They taught and preached Jesus Christ. We see throughout the New Testament in the epistles that were written by the Apostle Paul that repeatedly he reminded his readers that the focus of his proclamation was the Lord Jesus Christ. For example, when Paul was in Thessalonica, and this is recorded in Acts chapter 17, verses 1 through 3, we're told that he came to Thessalonica, he went to the synagogue of the Jews there, as was his custom, and for several Sabbaths he taught there in the synagogue. It says, the opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead, and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ. Paul the Apostle proclaimed Christ, central to his message. And in other epistles, he clarified his ministry. For example, to the church at Corinth, 1 Corinthians 1, 17. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made to none effect. There in that verse, Paul is equating the gospel message to the message of the cross of Christ. It's all about Christ. Again, later on in that chapter, 1 Corinthians 1, 22-24, it says this, "...for the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified." That's our message, Paul says. We preach Christ crucified. We preach about Christ, His death on the cross, His burial, His resurrection. We're preaching Christ. He goes on to say, it's Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. It's the message of Christ in the cross that gives us power and wisdom and allows us to do and accomplish what God has put us on this earth to do as believers. Once again in Paul's epistle to the church in Ephesus, he writes this in Ephesians 3, 8, unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given? that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." Doesn't it bless your heart to think of it in those terms? It's unsearchable. I mean, we will spend all of our days on this earth learning and learning and learning more about the riches that are in Christ. Paul says again and again to all of these churches, my proclamation is Christ. I'm pointing you to Christ, to the cross. It's about Him. It's not about me. Jesus Christ is the prize. He is the reward. He is the treasure in the Christian life. So let's make sure that our whole life centers on Him and that our proclamation likewise centers on Him. Paul emphasized in his letter to the church at Philippi that having the right content in our proclamation is paramount. It is the main thing. Would you turn over to Philippians chapter 1? Philippians chapter 1 and verse 15. Here Paul is dealing with some issues that have arisen within the church while he is in bonds, and he's hearing these reports that there are other people out there, they're preaching, but maybe their motives aren't so pure. So what does Paul say here? Philippians 1, 15. Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife, and some also of goodwill." So there's a variety of motives out there. The one, preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds, but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel. So what does Paul conclude from all this? Verse 18, what then? Notwithstanding every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached. and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." See, it's not our place to judge the motives of other people, but we can judge what they're saying. What is their message? Is their message centered on Christ? Check. It's the right message. Keep on proclaiming Christ, brother. And so it is that the message, the content, is essential. We must be proclaiming Christ. Dear brothers and sisters, our proclamation is and must be centered on Christ. As a church, collectively and individually, we must proclaim Christ. And any deviation from this is not the gospel truth. As Paul wrote to the Galatian believers, he said, if anyone preaches another gospel unto you, let him be accursed. It's not a true gospel. It's not the gospel at all. So from our verse here in 2 Corinthians 4-5, we're focused on this theme, our mission individually and as a church is to proclaim Christ to the world. And what we focused on so far is our proclamation. We've learned that it is not centered on us. Our proclamation is to be centered on Christ. Well, let's move on now and consider what is our role in this? What is our role in this proclamation? Well, here's what Paul says here, where we preach, not ourselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord, and ourselves, your servants, for Jesus' sake. Paul says, we are your servants for the cause of Christ. This is our role. We certainly can see that this is true of every gospel preacher. The we in this verse where Paul writes, for we preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord, the we at least includes Paul and Timothy because if you go back to chapter 1 verse 1, that's who this letter is written from. It's from Paul and Timothy. They're the senders of the letter. But in the context that we find chapter 4 here, There's also a we that is mentioned there in verse 1, "...therefore seeing we have this ministry." Okay, who is the we? What's this ministry that he's talking about here? We'll go back to chapter 3, verses 5 and 6, where Paul writes, "...not that we are sufficient of ourselves as to think anything is of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God." who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament." So I think at least the we here should be understood to include every gospel preacher, every evangelist, every missionary, every pastor, everyone who has ever stood in a pulpit anywhere and proclaimed the truth of the Word of God. It should be taken at least that broadly. And what Paul declares there in chapter 3, in verse 5, is that our sufficiency is of God. That is to say, every gospel minister is made adequate to the task by the grace of God. Oh, I thank the Lord for that principle, because if that were not true, I would not be able to stand here today. I need the grace of God. As we go back to our central verse here, we see that the central verb of the verse is to preach. And so this really is addressed at least to preachers. Every preacher, myself included, is a servant of others for the sake of Christ. That should be our attitude. That should be how we view our role. I'm not the king here. I'm not the head honcho. I'm not the dictator of the church. I'm your servant. I'm your servant for Jesus' sake. And that last part is going to guide how I serve you. I'm going to serve in a way that is going to bring honor and glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. So we, pastors, are servants. In fact, the word that is used here is douloi. It's a word that literally means slave. We are slaves for the sake of Christ. Paul called himself a bondservant of Jesus Christ. That's the right attitude. So our role is that of a servant. It's true of every gospel preacher, but I will assert to you it is really true of every believer. It is true of you as well as a believer. The Greek word that's translated preach here means to herald, to openly proclaim. And in a broad sense, that's really what all believers are to do according to the Great Commission mandate. And I will refer you to the Great Commission as it's recorded in Mark's Gospel, chapter 16, verse 15, where all disciples of Christ are told, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. That's our Great Commission mandate. That's what you and I are to do for our Lord, to proclaim Christ to the world, to go and preach Christ, to preach the gospel of Christ to everyone. And so, yes, Paul and Timothy were proclaimers of Christ, but they really serve for us today as New Testament examples of what we are to be doing and the attitude with which we are to do it. We are to see ourselves as servants, serving others for the sake of Christ, serving in a way that will bring glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul repeatedly encouraged those to whom he wrote to imitate his example. In Philippians 3.17, he says, He told the young pastor Timothy, 1 Timothy 4.12, But be thou an example of the believers in word and conversation and charity and spirit and faith and purity. And again, Paul writes to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 11, 1, be ye followers of me, and the word there literally means be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ. And so it is that we have these New Testament examples of what it means to be a proclaimer of Christ, one who professes Christ, in other words, a Christian. A Christian is a follower of Christ who is proclaiming Christ to the world. That's what we're about. Every disciple of Christ is a servant of Christ whose mission is to proclaim Christ. And so let us be about our mission. Let us be carrying out our orders that we have been given from the Lord of the church, the great commander, the chief, the King of kings and Lord of lords. Let us be carrying out His orders. to preach the gospel to every creature. I'd like to give you a couple examples where just an average person, if you will, someone who wasn't a great preacher or orator, was given a responsibility to proclaim Christ in the Bible. I want to remind you of the demoniac of Gadara. Here was a man who was literally out of his mind because he was demon-possessed, and the Lord came to him and healed him. And do you remember the interchange that took place between him and the Lord Jesus where he went to the Lord and he said, I just want to follow you, Lord. Will you permit me to follow you? What did Jesus tell him to do? No, I want you to go back to your own people. I want you to go back and to profess what you have seen and heard and speak of them concerning myself. Speak of them concerning Christ. I want you to go back and proclaim Christ. That's what Jesus told him to do. And so we're told in Luke 8, 39, that He went His way and He published, and the word there literally means He preached throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done for Him. Folks, that's what we're to do. We're to tell the world what great things Jesus has done for us. We're to proclaim Christ, give our testimony, our salvation testimony, how we were lost in sin, hopeless, without hope. under the condemnation of God, but God in His mercy sent His Son to save us and we put our faith in Him and we're saved. Let's share our testimony with those who need to hear it. Let us proclaim Christ. On another occasion, Jesus told the witnesses of His resurrection in Luke 24, verse 46, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise again the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem. And he adds, and ye are witnesses of these things. Folks, those words could be spoken from the lips of Christ to us today. We are witnesses of these things. No, we did not behold the risen Christ with our physical eyes, but with the eye of faith we do. So we are witnesses of these things. and we are to preach, we are to profess Christ, we are to be witnesses for Him. In fact, in that great commission that He gave His disciples just before His ascension, Jesus said in Acts 1.8, you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and unto the outermost part of the earth. So we are commissioned to be witnesses for Christ, to be proclaiming Christ, to tell the world that Jesus Christ is Lord, and so let us be proclaimers of Him. Let us see our role in this as servants for the sake of Christ. So our mission individually and as a church is to proclaim Christ to the world. Let us never allow the proclamation to be about ourselves. It's not about us. But let us always make sure that our proclamation here in this church and from our own lips individually is Christ. Point people to Christ. They need Christ. He's the answer. He's the treasure. And our role in this is to see ourselves as servants, lowly servants, serving our Lord, but yes, and serving others as well. We're serving them. We're seeing the importance of a soul that needs to hear the gospel, or the importance of a believer, a disciple of Christ who needs to grow. And so let's see ourselves in the right way. So let's apply this. Let's apply what we've learned today as clearly as we can. How about as a church? Well, let's make sure that we're proclaiming Christ. Let's make sure that He's central to what we do. It doesn't necessarily mean that absolutely every message that is preached from this pulpit is going to present the gospel in all of its color, but it ought to point to Christ at least. Even if we're in the Old Testament, we're going through our series in the book of Genesis repeatedly, again and again, it has pointed us to Christ, time after time. So we want to make sure that we as a church are proclaiming Christ, but not only in this pulpit, but also in all of our teaching ministries, in our Sunday school classes. Let's make sure that our teachers are proclaiming Christ, that the curriculum that they're using is proclaiming Christ. Let's make sure in our teen ministry that we're proclaiming Christ. Let's make sure in our children's church and in all of the teaching ministries of the church that we're proclaiming Christ. Let's make sure that even when we have various fellowship type of ministries, maybe college and career, the men's ministry, we're going to have our breakfast this coming Saturday, the women's ministry, the seniors ministry, all of these different ministries where we might get together and there's fellowship involved in that. It's our conviction that Christ ought to be proclaimed in some form. Otherwise, it's not really a ministry of the church. It's a social club. So let's make sure that our ministries are true ministries, that Christ is being proclaimed. And it might be as simple as just somebody giving a testimony, or sharing a verse of Scripture, or a short devotional. It doesn't have to be elaborate. But let's proclaim Christ in all of our ministries. In our music ministry, let's make sure that the hymns that we sing and the songs are proclaiming Christ and pointing to Christ. That was beautiful today. The hymns that we sung and special music really pointed us to Christ today. In our worship services, let's point to Christ. In our outreach ministries, it's all about pointing people to Christ. It's not really about inviting them to our church. It's about pointing them to Christ. They need Christ. And the missionaries that we select to support and to go into the uttermost parts of the world, let's make sure that they're, by design, they're proclaiming Christ. That's what they're all about and that they're staying on task, on mission when they do that. If they don't, let's remove them. I thank the Lord that we have wonderful missionaries who are proclaiming Christ around the world. And so in all of the ministries of our church, let's make sure that we're proclaiming Christ. And that we're doing so with that right heart attitude that is an attitude of service, service to the lost who need to hear the gospel, service to disciples who need to grow. How about you individually? Can you make application of what we've talked about today to your life? Well, let's understand, let's clearly see, make sure that you see your biblical role as a proclaimer of Christ. This is the assignment that God has given the Lord of the Church through the Great Commission mandate wants all of us to be proclaimers of Christ, every one of us individually. You have a spiritual debt, an obligation. Paul said, I am indebted both to the Greek and to the barbarian, both to the wise and the unwise. What's his debt? To proclaim Christ. You have a debt to proclaim Christ to everyone that you can. Now, some of you may be really doing a good job of that. I'm going to allow the Holy Spirit to do that conviction in your heart and life. If you're a believer and you name the name of Christ, but you don't ever share the gospel with anyone, the Lord is not pleased. So you individually have a biblical obligation to proclaim Christ to your family members, your extended family, to your neighbors, to your friends, to your co-workers, to everyone you can. Proclaim Christ. Don't be a closet Christian. Let your Christianity shine forth so that they have to, they're just compelled to ask you, what is the reason of the hope that's in you? In the Old Testament, the Word of the Lord came to the prophet Ezekiel, and through his prophecy gave this wonderful illustration. The illustration involves the duty of the watchman of the city. You see, the watchman of the city has a tremendous responsibility, and that is to protect the entire city from attack. He is on duty, he is watching, he is looking for the enemy's sword. And if he sees the enemy approaching, his job is to sound the alarm. If he sounds the alarm, he's done his job. And if somebody in that city ignores his alarm, it's to their own peril, and the responsibility will fall on their own head. But the watchman of the city who sees the enemy sword approaching and fails to sound the alarm, has not done his job. And the Lord speaks through the prophet and says, that watchman will have the blood of those innocent people on his own hands. He will be responsible. He will be held accountable for his own neglect. Now, what does that have to do with us in the New Testament era, in a New Testament church? Well, the Apostle Paul made the application. Acts chapter 20, verse 26. Wherefore I take you record this day that I am pure, and the word there means guiltless, from the blood of all men. Paul is referring back to this concept. Why, Paul? Why, Paul, are you guiltless from the blood of all men? Here's his answer. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. It has to do with proclamation. Our mission individually and as a church is to proclaim Christ to the world. That's what we are about. That's why we're here. That's why God did not just take you to heaven immediately when you got saved. We must, as a church, proclaim Christ. You must individually, as a believer, fulfill your mandate, your Great Commission mandate, to proclaim Christ. And if you do not sound the gospel alarm and warn sinners of the wrath to come, the Lord will hold you accountable for your neglect. There's an old gospel song with these poignant words. written from the perspective of the one who is lost. You never mentioned him to me. You helped me not the light to see. You met me day by day, and you knew I was astray. You never mentioned Jesus, this Jesus, to me. Our Father, I pray that You will do the work of conviction in our hearts through Your Holy Spirit. May we see our great neglect in fulfilling the commission that You have given to us, to carrying out our orders, to completing the mission that You've given, that we should proclaim Christ the Savior, the Lord, to the world. Lord, I pray that we as a church would never deviate from this central task and that we might have many expansive ministries and do many things. May we never lose sight of this central proclamation of Christ in our ministries. And Lord, I pray for each of us individually. Really, I think everyone in the room who is a believer, who names the name of Christ will feel some conviction in some measure. If they're not, I would really question whether they're a genuine believer. Because the task is great, the harvest truly is plenteous, and the laborers are few. And Lord, may we see ourselves as part of the great commission. May we individually see our role as servants for the sake of Christ to be proclaiming Christ to this lost world, to be making and growing disciples of Christ. And I pray that you, by your grace, will help us in this task. May we trust entirely upon your strength and your power to even give us the very words that we need to speak, but help all of us to overcome our natural inhibitions and to speak out and to proclaim Christ to this world. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.