Well, it's a blessing to be here with you today as we gather around the Lord and around his word. It's a blessing for us to be exercised again in the house of the Lord and to fellowship together, to worship together. I would like to just say a word about the scripture reading. I want to commend the initiative there to consider a different passage. I mean, that's what we're looking for when Chris and I are appointing someone to something. We're not just looking for you to fill a certain slot, but to bring some initiative. And I just wanted to commend that and to show my appreciation for giving some thought to what would be profitable for the church at a certain time. And so I wanted to take this opportunity to say that. If you would open your scripture to the Gospel according to John chapter 16, this is where we'll be at today in verses 1, John 16, 1 through 4. And I thought earlier that I would be taking a larger portion, but I've decided to stay a smaller, a shorter section because of the nature of the rest of the passage from verses 5 through 15. I was thinking about going from 1 through 15, but verses 5 through 15 are packed full and I want to give a little bit more consideration to that. If this seems a little one-sided or a little passage by itself, I want to point out something here that in the middle of this passage, in the middle of this discourse of the last, we might say some of the last words of Christ to His disciples in a very intimate setting where it is just the 11, Judas had already departed and it was a matter of hours before the crucifixion of the Lord. and for his sham trial and is because it hated me. But anyway, so I wanted to point out that we have this passage where the Lord is warning them that there is going to be, you know, there's going to be difficulty for you in following after Me, that you will suffer, you will be ostracized, you will be persecuted, and maybe even killed for the sake of the Gospel, or the sake of your witness. But notice at the end of chapter 15 we have two verses, verses 26 and 27, and we have this teaching where the Holy Spirit is promised to the disciples to aid them. But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify of me, and you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning." And so he is making this statement to them that even though there is hatred going to come at you, that there's going to be a lot of things coming against you, I am calling you to a witness. I'm calling you that rather than you being fearful and drawing back and in hiding yourself know that you're actually actively going out and you're going to be testifying of me along with the Holy Spirit. So today, as we look at verses one through four of chapter 16, remember that on both sides of this passage, it's bracketed by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit is going to be with them, and it's going to be in them, and that He will actually be performing a work in the world. Notice what it says in verse seven, And we won't actually be teaching out of this passage, but I want to point out that when he has come, verse 8, and when he has come he will convict the world of sin. If you go back to verse 13, there's a different ministry there. And so we have the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the world in verses 7 and 8, and then later on we have the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the disciples and to the believers. But how do you believe that those men in Acts 2 were convicted? They were convicted by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Yes, Peter was preaching, but the Holy Spirit was working in and through the message preached in the world. These people who were convicted were in the world. But the point is that I'm making here is that it is the Holy Spirit preaching or convicting them. And so when we see this hatred, the world's hatred, of the disciples, and we hear this call in 15, 26, and 27 of being witnesses, then we recognize that this passage is bracketed by the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the promise that when you preach to the world, the Holy Spirit is the one who does the convicting. You know, the Holy Spirit is the one who does the actual, He takes what you've said and plows it into the heart of those whom He has called. And so, I wanted to make that point here at the beginning as a bracket of our text. But, as they hated Christ without a cause, so they would hate His followers. And briefly, three reasons why the world hates the disciples, and that is that Christ chose His people out of the world. This is still from our last time. Number two, for Christ's name's sake, because they hate Christ, those who bear His name will feel that animosity as well. And then lastly, I believe, also because He exposed their sin. And so, we see here that in the end of this chapter 15 that they are called to bear witness. Now, in verse 1 of chapter 16, let's read our text for today. These things I have spoken to you, and this was the point of a bit of review, is that these things I have spoken, he is referring back to the fact that He is warning them of this coming hatred. These things I have spoken to you that you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you." So we have a bit of a sobering passage. If you were sitting there with Christ or walking from supper to the garden, as I believe this is probably when it was maybe en route to the Garden of Gethsemane. And Christ would tell you, you know, in your future you will have people who, in the name of worshiping God, are going to take your life from you. It's a sobering thought and a sobering passage. But number one, here in the beginning, we'll work our way through this passage. And in verse one of chapter 16, the Lord gives the disciples the reason for his warning. He gives them the reason for his warning about the world. And to be forewarned is to be forearmed. You know, if you are expecting something, it is not that easy, it is not that hard to, you know, to prepare or to, you know, make ready for that. But if you are unaware that this is the reality that you are facing, it kind of can take you, it can blindside you. But so Christ is saying, these things I have spoken to you so that you should not be made to stumble. Though you may have the best of intentions when you're speaking the truth to someone, you may be witnessing to someone about the truths of Christ, you have the best of intentions, you have the best message that someone has ever heard, but that doesn't mean that they're going to welcome you. Just because you're speaking the truth, just because you care enough about someone's soul to share the truth with them does not mean that you will be appreciated. When you are testifying of me, he says, that is when you will encounter this hatred. Again, I want to just point back to verse 27, and you also will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning. So, I want to remind you and keep reminding each of us that this sort of reaction from the world is a result of someone speaking out, someone preaching. And we'll see that later too, but it is not just someone living a good life and being a good citizen of the community. Who minds that if you are you know, involved in social activities and you're helping with the poor and you're feeding the hungry or you're maybe even going, you know, who is going to persecute you, Brother Johnny, for going to North Carolina to finish out houses for those who don't have any homes? Almost no one, you wouldn't think that that would be No, it's not that sort of thing that brings persecution. The sort of thing that brings persecution is when you are witnessing, when you're opening your mouth and you're saying things that are true about the Lord Jesus Christ. That is where the hatred comes from. That is where the animosity comes from, is when you are speaking exclusive truths that can only be that is that is this certain truth that you that the audience must deal with. That is where this hatred comes from. It's not, you know, again, obviously, we would always advocate for good behavior and and a blessing to community. That's that should be who we are. But it is not necessarily good works that bring us this sort of. This sort of animosity, I just want to reinforce that, that it is coming from the proclamation of this testimony, this witness. The Holy Spirit within us is testifying of Christ, and then we are in turn bearing witness, which is the idea of a martyr, that it is that same, I believe, same Greek word. So Christ is saying, you must be prepared so that you do not stumble. The King James uses the word offended. And if you look up the Greek word for that, it means that you would not be scandalized. It's interesting. that it uses, it means, that's what that word means is that these things I have spoken to you that you should not be made to be scandalized. And if you think about in Matthew 11 and verse 6, here is where John had sent his his disciples to Christ and he said are you the one that we seek or do we await another and Christ Without turning back to it. He he was saying well the poor I mean we I lame are being healed, the blind are seeing, the Gospels being preached to the poor, etc. And then he says this, and blessed is he who is not offended because of me. That is where the blessing is. Blessed is he who is not offended because of me, or who is not scandalized because of me. And when we think about the word scandal, you know, we think about something radically wrong, you know, it's a scandal. But I want to remind you that to be offended by the gospel of Jesus Christ, that's a fairly easy place to find ourselves at, especially if we are in a certain category of religion that has already defined all the terms. And then we have Christ coming in here and upsetting The apple cart. I want to remind you here when he says that I'm saying these things to prepare you so that you would not be offended or that you wouldn't stumble or be scandalized. I'm saying these things to you because I want you to be able to be a faithful witness. And so that would be what I would like to title this. If I did not mention this it is bearing faithful witness. It is to it is bearing faithful witness. We are called to be a faithful witness for Christ. I want to say that we are ambassadors for Christ. We are ambassadors, not legislators. We are not politicians where we negotiate the terms. We don't have any right for that. We simply are ambassadors. We represent the Lord Jesus Christ. We do not make the terms. When we represent Christ we just simply state the terms that He has given us to state. We are representing, and the United States has ambassadors in every country in the world as far as I know. and they are literally just representing the United States in a foreign country. They're not over there legislating anything. We have our legislatures here in the Congress, and then those laws are being represented in a foreign country by these ambassadors. And so that's a distinction we must make is that we do not get to set any terms And to be a faithful witness is to be faithful to the terms, to the gospel, to the truth of the gospel. And that truth, that truth of the gospel is offensive to many people. And so I want to look at that a bit. As we said, we don't make the message, we proclaim it. And our allegiance, and this is important, our allegiance is not to the listeners. is to our Lord. It is not to who you're speaking to, you have a desire to bless the one who's hearing you, you are sharing with Him the truth, you love Him, and you're giving Him the blessed news of how He can be saved, but your allegiance is not there. And so he says, I say these things to prepare you so that you would not be stumbled by the opposition that's going to come when you open your mouth. And Paul says in Galatians 5 11 and it's a it's a beautiful passage in Galatians 5 11. And I love how he kind of encapsulates the book of Galatians. in this one verse and he says in 511 Galatians, And I brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offense of the cross has ceased. You see, so there is an offense of the cross. It's the scandal of the cross. It is scandalizing to say to a Jew that, look, you don't have to be circumcised to please the Lord. That's a scandal to a Jew. And it has to do, again, with what he was preaching. It was not with what his, it was not with his, you know, his social programs or anything that he was doing practically. No, his, the trouble was with Paul was that he was committed to the message. He was committed to the gospel. Look, if any man, he said, to these very same people, bring any other message than what you've heard from us, let him just be anathema. Just let him be accursed, let him be forever cursed. Do we recognize the severity of that message? That there's no quibbling about the terms. You're either going to have to deal with it or not. There is a concrete set of terms. All we are to do to be faithful witnesses are to be sharing those terms. And part some of the terms of the gospel are that there is no need for circumcision. And so we bring this this truth out and we testify that to follow Christ and to please God One need not be circumcised. And you may say, well, that's old stuff. Well, yes, it wasn't back when Paul was teaching this and it wasn't that old stuff when I was coming out of a situation 24 years ago where the parameters were all set in stone and you do not rock the boat, you see. This is a very new, this is a very prevalent principle that is that we give allegiance to the doctrine of Christ and his teaching and who he is and what he has done and how we're justified, how we're saved, all of these things and there's no quibbling. It's the truth of the Scripture and everybody is called to bow the knee to that. And you know that's not a popular message in the world. And so therein lies the rub of this anger and animosity and hatred toward those who are a faithful witness of Christ. All Paul would have had needed to do to make his message palatable to the Jewish audience is to preach that circumcision is still required. You see, when you take away the fine points of the gospel, that sharp spear point of the gospel, you dull that by accommodating some untruth, everybody's going to embrace you and love you. But when you leave that fine point, and we're all goaded by this truth, and everybody must comply to that truth, you see, then that is where persecution comes. Paul simply says persecution ceases when the offense of the cross ceases. Isn't that interesting? I believe it's a bit this way. For somebody like myself who is very small government oriented. I think they should be out of our business as much as possible. Right? Get out of the way and let us work. Let us get out there, use our abilities that God has given us to labor and we have this attitude of no You know, we don't want welfare, etc., etc. But I am telling you, unless you are willing to let the gospel, let the cross of Jesus Christ pay for your sins, you will never be saved. You see it's this concept that we can earn our own way, we can buy our way in, we can labor, we're strong, we're independent, we can do these things. No you can't. And so the cross of Jesus Christ puts us all on unemployment. It does the work for us brothers. It does the work for us. And we must be willing to accept that because the terms are there is no other person qualified to labor for our salvation. So that's the terms and we we must submit ourselves to that. And we want to we want to submit ourselves to that. But when you are laboring and you're in this mindset of, you know, that is why he says that no flesh may glory in my presence. Because if you can do something to please God in the sense of earning some sort of credit with God, then your flesh will glory. And that's kind of the attitude that we have in a practical world where we work and we work hard and eventually we look around and say all these things I've earned. None of them has come by way of the government. You see that it's a bit of the same attitude. But still and all I know that in a spiritual sense we must come to this place of humility. where we simply say that the cross of Christ is all my hope and all my plea. And when you say that, then that means that all the man-made laws and rules that some religious organization has put in place is now abolished. You see, that there's no value in those things. They have a show of wisdom. But there is no value in the indulgence of the flesh, Colossians 2. And so that is a scandal. That is scandalous, you see. So there is this offense of the cross. Jesus is teaching in John 16, do not let the threat of persecution change your message. Do not let the threat of persecution change your message. We're called to be a faithful witness. Do not be stumbled by the fact that others will be offended by your witness of Christ. You know, this is how the church has lost its message. Because it has been unwilling to suffer for what Christ died for. Isn't that a shame? We are unwilling to suffer and to be ostracized and even lose our reputation because of something, for something that Christ Jesus shed his blood for. We have accommodated the listener to the point that we have lost the message. You see, we have given our allegiance to those who hear us, not to the Lord. We cannot be a faithful witness of Christ when we do not hold to the message. And that is what Christ is saying here in John 16. These things I am telling you so that you would not stumble when you go out here. Let me just ask you, when do you stumble? Practically speaking, a lot of times it's when it's dark, right? Or there's something unexpected in your path. That's when we stumble. We stumble over something that was not usually there. And so Jesus warns us in our path of following him, you will have to step over these obstacles. You're going to have to be willing to face this fact that you will be hated. And if you are unwilling to recognize this truth, then you're going to stumble. And when you stumble, that means you're going to accommodate your listeners. That is, I believe, what it means to stumble, is that we are beginning to bring in what they want to hear. As Timothy says, preachers preaching for the tickling of the ears. People are wanting to bring other things in that would tickle their ears. Now, we also have this concept in 1 Corinthians 1, in verse 22 it says this way, For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block. A stumbling block indeed, that is that scandal, it's that same word. To the Jews it's a scandal. that Christ crucified is the answer for all that would please God. But we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Praise God, we have this clear teaching. And then you have it also in 1 Peter, You have it in chapter 2 where he says this way, in speaking about coming to him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, et cetera, et cetera. He says in verse 6, Thurford is also contained in the scripture, behold, I lay in Zion, a chief cornerstone, elect and elect precious, and he who believes on him will by no means be put to shame. therefore to you who believe he is precious. But to those who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone and a stone of scandal, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, a stone and a rock of scandal. It is scandalous to them. But so but if you know that it's coming it can be navigated. That is verse 1 in our text. These things I have spoken to you that you should be made ready so you don't have to stumble. Now I want to go to verse 2 and I want to I want to just ask this question. How does this stumbling block present itself to the followers of Christ. So there's this danger of persecution, and it could, by chance, stumble our witness. The words that we speak, well, how does it come to you? How does this stumbling block present itself to you? Well, first of all, by the threat of censure. Notice what he says, they will put you out of the synagogue. That is that threat of censure. This idea that this strong disapproval and that, you know, we will do something to you if you do not change your message. You can't be part of us if you keep spouting off with these truths about Christ, and the fact that you don't need this law, and this law, and this law to be saved. You can be free in Christ, etc., etc., and if this religion, this religious system that you're a part of will censure you. Dead religion must maintain some means of control so as to maintain the religion. Isn't it interesting that our religion, the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ, the gospel of truth is maintained by the Holy Spirit and by Christ himself. But there are so many religions out here that they must have your allegiance and the allegiance of their followers or they would collapse. And how do they do that? Because they set up, they do, they set up these methods and means whereby they can control that if you do not abide by these bylaws, then we're going to censure you. And this idea of censorship is, you know, it is the one form of control that they can apply. To those who are not falling in line, we will disfellowship you if you continue. Isn't that what happened in John 9? In John 9, in verse 22, it says this way. His parents, in verse 20, his parents, this is the man born blind that was healed. His parents answered them to the Pharisees who, the Jews who had asked his parents, is this your son who you say was born blind? How then does he now see? His parents answered and said, We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, but by what means he now sees, we do not know. Or who opened his eyes, we do not know. He is of age, ask him. He will speak for himself. His parents said these things because they feared the Jews. For the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed, there's that word, that bearing witness, that testimony, if anyone should confess that this Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. See, that's that threat of censure to keep people from following Christ. that if anyone would confess that he was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, he is of age, ask him, I'm going to plead the fifth. I'm not going to incriminate myself. Yeah, because you don't love the Lord. You're not willing to stand up for the Lord. That's why you don't open your mouth. We plead the fifth because it incriminates ourselves. By the way, I think the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution is you do not have to admit any sort of thing that could possibly incriminate your own self. That's the idea, and I'm sure you probably knew that. This incrimination that when we open our mouths, we align ourselves with something that is not accepted, it is disproved by the world. This censorship is strong disapproval, and it includes loss of reputation. That's a big thing. When you are in a system of whatever it is, and you have clout and esteem and privilege, and when you are censored with the possibility of a bad name, you see, you lose, this idea is, it's a loss of reputation. It's not only that, it's also a loss of fellowship. It's a loss of family ties. It's all the things that you might have built up over years of labor, of engagement with this whatever it is, and if you're unwilling to lay that on the line, then you're about to stumble. You are about to stumble if you're unwilling to just lay that down. Notice in John 12, this idea of censorship continues in John 12 in verse 42. Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in him but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him lest they should be put out of the synagogue. Isn't that interesting? They gave an intellectual agreement Christ, but they were unwilling to come out. And what does it say in Romans? In Romans 10 it says that if you believe in your heart and you confess with your mouth, you shall be saved. You see, you're not allowed just to hide. You're not allowed just to go with the flow and believe inwardly. You're called to be a faithful witness, to bear witness to Christ, to come out of the woodwork, to be bold with your position, to come out of the woodwork and say, yes, that's me. Notice what he says, lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they did what? They loved the praise of men. more than the praise of God. And now you begin to see that when it says that they believed in him, it was just a spur of sort of, it was a, it was not a genuine faith that drove them to say, yes, he is everything to me. For they love the praise of men more than the praise of God. This is that fear of censorship that is meant to shut your mouth. It is meant to keep you from being a faithful witness to Christ. In Luke 14, we have a similar passage, and of course, familiar to us, but I want to bring this in. In Luke 14, it says this way, in verse 25, Now great multitudes went with him, and he turned and said to them, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. You see, whatever it costs you to follow Christ, you might have a different cross than I do. Something that you hold dear, that you put on the cross for Christ, and you say, I'm going to go for Christ regardless. And mine may be a different thing. But whatever costs you to follow Christ, that is your cross. That is the cross that you are called to bear. And to bring it along and say, for the glory of Christ, I'm going to be a faithful witness bearing testimony to the Lord. And so the next thing that presents itself on how that this stumbling block presents is the threat of your life, your very life. They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you thinks that he offers God's service. Wow. See, the first is this idea of putting them out of the synagogue. That is the religious authorities. The second part, you have got to have the state behind here now. This is now the government that has the power to put you to death. There were definitely times in the Christian church that those two were together, the church and the state were together, and it was the Inquisition, it was the Roman Catholic Church persecuting the Protestants, etc. But then there are also cases where you have you have communism where they literally are anti-God and they will kill you as well. But this seems to be that it must be an entity that has the power and the authority to take your life if you do not comply. And so it's not just now, we're not just talking about loss of reputation, loss of fellowship, loss of family ties, but now we're talking about loss of life. And this is how far that this bearing of faithful witness goes. It is meant to take everything that you hold dear here and put it in service to Christ. And they will kill you in supposed service to God. Isn't that interesting? We have a very clear biblical example of this and that is Saul himself. Wasn't it Saul who was just determined to exterminate the church of Jesus Christ and he thought he must do this for the glory of God? In Galatians 1.13 and 14 he says, For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God. beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. You see, the traditions of your fathers and the testimony of Jesus Christ, those are oftentimes incompatible. They are, if you have a family lineage of someone who has been a faithful witness of Christ, praise God, but not many of us do, I don't believe. In Acts 26, I want to, again, this is Paul's testimony of how he went about this. Paul in Acts 26 was giving his testimony to Agrippa, I think, King Agrippa. in verse 9 he says this way, Listen to what he's saying. He says, He literally thought he must do these things. This I also did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests. And when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. And I punished them often in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme, and being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities. And He did it all in the name of service to God." This is exactly what Jesus was warning his disciples about. That if you don't recognize and if you're not up for this, if you're unwilling to consider this as a future reality, then you will stumble. And so he's preparing them and he is giving them these words of warning. Now in verse three, And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father, nor me." Do we know this? Do we recognize the significance of that verse? No one kills the children of Christ, the followers of Christ, because they know God. No one. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father, nor me. It doesn't matter how much they say they do. If they're killing the children of God, but we know better, we know that we don't have to go that far. Let's ask this. If the children of God cannot fellowship with you, Now that brings it a little bit closer to home, doesn't it? Are you unwilling? Am I unwilling to fellowship? Am I afraid of my reputation because of who meets with me here? You see, it can become very practical to us here. If the Lord has accepted someone, brothers and sisters, do we have a right to persecute them? No, no. See, sometimes we like things a certain way, don't we? And so we kind of push people back because they don't really fit what looks good for my reputation or for the reputation of Believer's Chapel. But if we do those things, I believe it becomes indicative of the fact that we do not know God. Because if we know God, then we recognize that God has, by grace, by the work of the cross, he has made it possible for Jew and Greek alike to come and fellowship together, to be saved together, to fellowship one with another. And if as long as you are willing to bear faithful witness, then you belong here. You see. And so Jesus is making this teaching here, and he's saying, if they do these things to you, it's because they do not know the Father, nor me, he says. And we must understand this, in order for us to not be stumbled, we must understand that this opposition is coming from people who do not understand the gospel. They don't know God. And that's a strong word, actually. That's a really strong word. And that's what I'm saying about verse three. Do we understand the strength of verse three? That they really don't understand and know God? Opposition to the gospel may come from religion, but it is not true religion. It may be done in the name of God, but that doesn't mean that they know God or his son. Verse four, he foretold these things, but these things I have told you that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. Isn't this a beautiful picture of the care of the Lord for his disciples? When these things occur to you and you're sitting in this jail cell, you wonder why is this going on? I thought we were following the Lord and you've just gotten beaten for preaching on a street corner or whatever. And you're sitting in the cell and then the Holy Spirit reminds you, remember, remember I told you of these things. And see then that helps you to not stumble at that point. To remember that the Lord foresaw this coming in my life and he graciously warned me about them. And then when they occur to us, as it says here, when that time comes, you may remember, you may call to mind, you know, this is just what the Lord said would happen. And so it's not, as Peter says, don't think as if some strange thing occurred to you. You know, don't think of some strange thing happening to you if you suffer for the cause of Christ. Because I told you that that would happen. And I think we looked at that briefly Wednesday night in our passage in Peter. And these things I did not say to you at the beginning. because I was with you." Jesus did not focus at the beginning of His ministry on the fact that, come, I will make you fishers of men. They're going to hate you for it, but come. No, He didn't say that, did He? He said, come, I will make you fishers of men. These things I did not say to you at the beginning because I was with you. The ostracism, the opposition, the hatred was pointed toward the Lord. He took the brunt. He took the brunt of the opposition because He was with them. He bore the brunt of that. Now at His departure, when He's going away, they would come into focus. The disciples who bore the name of Christ What did he say in John 15? They will do these things to you for my name's sake, because you bear my name. They can no longer take it out on me, because I'm in glory, I'm exalted, and we'll talk about that in the next passage. But he says, I'm going, but you're still going to be here, and you're going to face this hatred of the world, in my departure. And that's what Paul says in Colossians 124. He says, I fill up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ by the things that I've experienced. In his work of blessing the Colossian church, he says, I'm just filling up what they were not able to get done to Christ. They're doing to me now. So I want to just look at this passage and consider this passage and remind us, you know, salvation is free, but it's called us to work, hasn't it? Call us to work. And we're called to be faithful witnesses, bearing testimony of Christ to open your mouth with boldness. Knowing that what you're going to say doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be looked up to or blessed. But just open your mouth anyway. Just go ahead. Just speak the truth. Stand up for Christ. Stand up for the Lord. He died for you after all. You see, we have great reason to glory in Christ. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you would bless these closing words of the Lord Jesus to us as he is about to go and die for us. They're just hours away from these very words he spoke. Father, I pray that you bless these words to our hearts. Give us courage to not stumble at opposition. To not be discouraged, to not be fraught with discouragement or frustration, but to recognize that these things are called to be ours because we represent you. Father, I pray you will bless each of the brothers and sisters here. And may these words give us courage to go and open our mouth for the cause of Christ and for His glory. Through Christ we pray, amen.