Corinthians chapter 4 verses 1 through 11. Have you ever had someone tell you about somebody else and they said it may be like it was shocking and you went obviously you know it's just something that you look at that person you say that's characteristic of them. I don't think anybody here that knows Tommy if I said Tommy likes to kid around or likes to It's shocking, I can't believe that. If you know Tommy, you know he likes to have a laugh, you know, likes to be lighthearted about things. Nobody would be surprised if I said William Horsford rides a bicycle even after he's been ill. Did you ride it here this morning, this past week? You know, he rides his bike everywhere and has done it for I don't know how many years, we'll have to figure out after the service. That's something that is a characteristic of him, right? And so some people, it's obvious that they're a sports fan. You know about it because they talk about it. That's their life. You know, they'll spend hours discussing sports or their, you know, their dedication. They're not going to be there at that time because they're going to be in the sports stadium because there's a game on. And, you know, if the game's on, they're going to be there doing that. They might wear their team stuff as well. It's obvious that someone is passionate about politics or social concerns. or something that they advocate for. They might go to a demonstration or something like that to advocate for that. These things are obvious because you look at their life and go, that is a personality, that's a character trait, that's something that I see in that person's life. This morning, my message is Jesus seen in us. And so as a Christian, it ought to be obvious that we're saved. It ought to be obvious that Jesus is in us. It ought to be obvious that that person of Christ is there. And that's really what this text is speaking about this morning. 2 Corinthians 4, if you look down at verses 10 and 11, it says, always bearing a doubt in the body, the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. earthly body that others would look at us and say, you know, I see Jesus there in your physical person. Verse 11 says, for we which live are always delivering to death for Jesus sake that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. Okay, manifest means to make evident, to be clear or obvious, to show or to demonstrate. And so again, it ought to be something that something that people look at and say, oh, I know they're a Christian because I see Jesus Christ in them. So, Paul is reminding the church at Corinth that Jesus' life ought to be seen in our body, in our physical body, in our flesh. And so, your body ought to demonstrate Jesus to all who are around you. So, we stop and step back from that and say, well, is that true? Do people see Christ in me? Would they be surprised, you know, that, oh, you're a Christian? You know, or would it be, oh, of course you're a Christian. And so do they see Christ in us? Let's pray and ask God to help us as we come to the word of God. God's blessing. Father, we thank you for the word of God. Thank you for the opportunity that we have to look at this text this morning. And Christ in you, the hope of glory. And Father, we thank you for Jesus Christ. We thank you for what a change has taken place in the lives of those that have taken Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. And Father, those that have recently gotten saved here at our church, we've heard a prayer prayed just a week after somebody got saved, saying, speaking about that truth of how drastically their life had changed, and they may not fully understand that the change is the reality of Christ in us, and yet it is. And so, Father, we praise you for Jesus Christ. We thank you for the person of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, who indwells us as believers and is in our hearts and in our lives. And even as the text says, he that hath the Son hath life, he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. And so, Father, we thank you for as we look at this text to consider how we can make Jesus more clearly seen in our lives as believers. And Father, if anybody here this morning does not yet have Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, a prayer for them would be that the Spirit of God would speak to their heart the truth of what we'll consider this morning, and by that the blessing would be full and given here today by the grace of God. We thank you for your goodness, thank you for your love, thank you for the time that we have in the word of God this morning. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen. All right, and so your body ought to demonstrate Jesus to all who are around you, and so I'll start this morning with make Jesus obvious by courage, make him obvious by courage. It says, therefore, seeing we have this ministry as we have received mercy, we think not. Okay, so what's Paul speaking about? He's speaking about gospel ministry. Turn back in your Bible to chapter three and verse six, and you'll see the context of what he's speaking about. He says, who also have made us able ministers of the New Testament. So God has gifted them with the ability to go and preach the gospel and share Jesus Christ. And so, to minister the New Testament, again, it's to minister the gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ and what Jesus Christ did for us. What the law could not do, the law could never make men righteous. I have people often say to me, I'm going to heaven because I'm a good person. Well, if you called the law to stand beside you at the judgment bar, you're standing before God, and God said, law, tell me about Ben Shor, what would the law say? Guilty, guilty, guilty. But what the law could not do, Jesus Christ did, as he died on the cross for us, paid the price for our sin. He paid the complete price. The Bible says, but God commended his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. I love that verse more than any text as I preach on the street in Edinburgh, that one comes most frequently to my lips. God demonstrated his love toward us in that while we are yet sinners, Christ died for us. Why? To pay the price for our sin, to make a way for us to be judicially forgiven by God. Jesus Christ didn't stay in the grave. Praise God, right? that died and rose again. Jesus Christ and Christ alone walked out of the graves. What the angels said is they witnessed that event and they came as the ladies came and as the disciples, the apostles came to that tomb. He's not here, for he has risen, as he said. Better yet, it's not just the truth that Jesus Christ died, paid the price for our sin, and not just that he rose from the dead, but that made the way for us to receive God's gift of everlasting life. Romans 10, 9, 10, that thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Praise God, right? So that gospel message is there. How did Paul become a gospel preacher? Did Paul receive the mercy of God? Well, if you don't know the story of the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Paul hated Christians and would arrest them and put them into prison. He would take them, persecute them. Some would go unto death, and yet on the road to Damascus, the light shined upon Paul, and God opened Paul's heart and mind to the truth of the gospel, and Paul got saved. And Paul said in Ephesians 3 verse 8, He said, unto me, whom less than the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Paul looked at that and thought, who am I? How in the world could I be somebody that advocates for Christ? I was somebody that persecuted Christ. I was somebody that was against Jesus Christ. And yet the mercy and grace of God saved him, opened his eyes to the truth of the gospel, so that he became a great evangelist for God. He received the mercy of God, same as you and I, if we've been saved. And so Paul would say in 1 Corinthians 15, verse nine, he says, for I'm the least of the apostles that am not meet to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace, which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God. Again, who am I? I shouldn't be doing this. It shouldn't be my privilege to advocate for Christ and to stand up and to preach the gospel, but God in His mercy saved me. And so because of that, Paul said, I labored more abundantly than they all. I got in there for the gospel and the gospel saved me. And so Paul took courage because of the grace that God had given him. Notice again what it says in our text, verse one. It says, therefore, As we have received mercy, we faint not. Okay, to faint is to lack courage, it's to quit. It's to stop, it's to give up, it's to walk away and say, well, I'm just gonna throw in the towel, as it were, a boxer in a boxing ring, if they were faint on their feet and felt like they couldn't get in there anymore, they would take that towel and they'd cast it into the ring and casting that in the ring, they said, that's me, I'm done, I'm finished. Paul said, you know what? I'm not going to throw in the towel. I received the mercy of God. God's done something tremendous. And because God's done something tremendous, he's given me this gospel ministry. I'm not going to quit. I'm going to take and have courage. Galatians 6 verse 9 says, let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall weep if we faint not. Again, we're speaking about Jesus being seen in us, that Christ will be seen in us. He's not gonna be seen in the life of somebody that walks away. He's not gonna be seen in the life of somebody that says, well, that's it, it's just too tough, I can't do it anymore. Again, Paul looked at it and said, I've received this mercy from God, because of that, I faint not. And I'm gonna keep that gospel ministry. And so God gave us a gospel ministry to make Jesus obvious by maintaining your courage. And then make Jesus obvious by clarity, by clarity. We can't make Jesus obvious by craftiness or things like that. It says in verse two, it says, but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty. Paul said, I'm very clear when it comes to what I believe in and in sharing the truth of God with others. You know, our world can be crafty at times. You might be surprised to hear that even dentists sometimes use deceit or things like that, or can lie about something and think, you know, it's kind of harmless to lie like that. Our daughter Kaylee, was very scared of doctors, okay? Sorry, Joy. And getting weight to her was, you know, on the scales or getting measured or anything like that, my wife will attest to the fact that, I mean, she got pretty old before she would willingly step onto that and tell me she's terrified, that kind of thing. And she, in the States, she got a, a tooth that was sore and she had to go into the dentist. I think I have a tooth pulled. I remember it had to be taken. All right. And so we go to the dentist's office and the man was very kind and they're working with Kaylee. And and and so he goes to do a procedure and he completely lies to her. And I said, actually, honey, what he's gonna do, he's gonna, and I told her exactly what the procedure would be, and I could sense that the guy was kind of upset. Why are you telling her about that? Well, I was telling her because I didn't want my daughter to grow up never trusting a dentist because a dentist lied to her. She's gonna go to the dentist every time and think, every time I go to a dentist, they're gonna tell me a lie, and I can't believe her trust in dentist or dentistry. You know, there's a lot of people today, they don't trust religion because of the lies that religion's saying. Because, you know, for whatever reason that somebody can think of, they've tried to be deceitful with the truth and tried to kind of turn the truth and twist the truth to try to, for whatever reason, again, and people look at that and they see that and they think, I can't trust religion. You know, I can say today, our world knows that the word of God condemns homosexuality. The word of God is abundantly clear about it. The Bible calls it abomination and speaks about that sex is for marriage and it's for that marriage relationship between a man and a woman is what the word of God says. that these places are very clearly articulated in the word of God. Our world has a general understanding that Christians are not to be worldly, that there ought to be a difference in the life of somebody that's a believer. They know that God's word says these things, but they know also that religions are coming out and changing the truth, as it were. You know, church, we need to be careful in our day that we're very clear with the word of God, that we don't let the pressures that are out there in our day make us change the message that God's given. Paul said, I'm gonna make it very clear. And so we need to make it, Jesus, obvious, not by craftiness, but by clarity. It says in verse two, it says, but by manifestation of the truth. commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. Okay, so everybody that's around us, I have no doubt as to the truth that we espouse or the truth that we believe. We gotta be very clear about that. Have you heard the phrase, he didn't mince his words? Is that a familiar phrase? All right, he didn't mince his words. It's an idiom. It means to speak in a very direct and honest way without worrying about offending somebody, okay? So just to be very clear, to be very frank, we would say. For instance, he doesn't mince words when it comes to giving his opinion about the new law. In other words, it came out and he wasn't ashamed to say, well, I believe this, or I believe this about that. Now, I found a problem definition about mincing words. It said this, listen to this. mincing, to cut or chop into very small pieces, to soften, moderate, or weaken one's words, especially for the sake of decorum or courtesy. I read that definition and thought, that sounds like a good thing. That sounds like somebody's being good at mincing words is okay. And then I thought, wait a second, you can take the definition and put it for political correctness. And our world teaches this idea that you have to be politically In other words, that you say what somebody wants to hear instead of what they need to hear, what actually is the condition that you're speaking about. You know, Paul didn't miss his words. He didn't worry about, what's somebody thinking about what I'm saying? He just said it because it was the truth of God, okay? And look again at chapter three, verse 12. He said, seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech. Because this is the truth and this is going to be what saves somebody. This is going to be what reaches somebody's heart. I'm not going to mess around with that. I'm going to be very clear as I say that. Now I'll say this, a dentist ought not to say, I'm going to jab this big long needle into your cheek. I'm going to grab that tooth with the forceps. I'm sorry if you don't like, if you're starting with dentists, I don't want to make you have or something like that. And so we don't go to somebody today and knock on their door and just jump in with unbridled truth that is cruelly presented to somebody or anything like that. But we ought to go to their door and say in a loving way of what the Word of God speaks about, even if it's speaking about something that's difficult, okay? And so the Bible says, Ephesians 4 verse 15, but speaking the truth in love. There's a way for us to convey even difficult truth in a way that's a gracious way or a right way. You know, we have a woman, a mother, this past year, actually at MBT last year, that got upset about the fact that we teach about hell and what the word of God says about hell, that it's eternal, a separation from God, that the sounds that you hear in hell will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, that it's a fire, and that there's no chance, there's no second chance. The Bible says this one man wants to die, but after that, the judgment. And as we looked at this morning in Sunday school, whosoever's not found written the book of life is cast into the lake of fire. We're looking at that final judgment before Jesus Christ comes and sets up his eternal kingdom, okay? And so we're not ashamed of that truth as a church. But she got upset, maybe a bit afraid about that. My child worried about hell and or worried that somebody that she knows might be in hell. But I just ask this question, won't that child be afraid someday when they die and they're eternally in hell away from God? Won't that terror be worse than the thought right now about I don't wanna go to that place called hell? I'll say this about hell. We're not trying to scare children about hell, we're seeking to save them Our desire in presenting the gospel, and we have to speak about hell, there's nothing to be saved from if there is no hell. Somebody that commits suicide would very gladly think that when they end it, that's it. They're seeking a remedy for their life, and that remedy, they think, is death, but yet death has put the door to awakening before God and to be judged according to our works as the Word of God speaks it out there, as I said in Revelation chapter 20. But you know, I would say about hell, hell isn't scary when you know you're not going there. The great thing about getting saved, and I'll tell you this, I got saved as a child, as a five-year-old, as my dad preached a message on hell, and as a little boy sitting there, I thought, man, I don't wanna go to hell. I went down to my dad's study. Dad showed me the gospel, and that's when I invited Jesus Christ to come into my heart and to save me, the greatest thing I ever did, and I have no doubt that I'm going to heaven, not because of my goodness, but because of Christ. John 5, 24 says, verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death into life. You know, that's a great thing for a believer to know beyond a shadow of a doubt, I'm never It's not because of my goodness. I don't deserve the grace of God. I don't deserve the favor of God. I'm not better than anybody, but I obeyed the gospel and I took Jesus Christ as my Savior. I can say today, I know for certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if I died, I'd go to heaven. All glory to God, right? And so praise God. But we never get ahead by telling somebody, hey, there is no hell. We're never gonna get ahead by softening what the Bible says about sin or about truth. We need to be honest with the word of God because that's what it takes for somebody to get saved. And so we make Jesus obvious by clarity, we make him obvious by courage, and then we make Jesus obvious by calling out. Notice verse three. It says, but if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. Okay, now I don't like to feel lost. GPS lets you down, you don't know where to go, and you feel like, oh man, I'm lost. That's frustrating. I'll say this, I've been lost like that. My wife will attest, I hate it. I don't like to feel lost, but I've never been lost and in danger. I've never been lost in the way that, oh, okay, that could have been potentially life-threatening or something like that. I had a friend when I was in P6, and he got lost in a blizzard as a child, and his fingers, his fingers were short and they were very thick. Because he had gotten frostbite, he lost basically all his fingertips, okay? But he had been rescued because he curled up in a tire or something like that and it saved his life. Now that's very dangerous, okay? That's the idea of what we're speaking about. We make Jesus obvious by calling out to somebody that's like that, that's lost, trying to seek to reach them. Dr. John Pike on the Isle of Skye, All right, was in one of those wind storms that you guys enjoyed there. And he was lost, not because he lost his way, but because he got injured. And so they had to try to find him. The Coast Guard Rescue Helicopter 948 from Stornoway was searching from the skies above at Sky Mountain Rescue Team and members of Portree, Kyle, and Dunn-Fagan Coast Guard Teams, Assistant Police on the ground. In total, more than 50 volunteers and professionals were involved. At one point, rescuers were as close as 164 feet away from Mr. Pike, but it was getting dark. He had fallen, and the wind silenced their calls. Weather returned with a vengeance. According to James Stevenson, the deputy leader of Sky Mountain Rescue Team, he said, Mr. Pike is in good spirits, okay, right now, while he's waiting on Operation S.F. He's talking to BBC Good Morning Scotland, And he said where he was found was very open hillside. There weren't even any boulders to shelter behind or anything. It was quite remarkable. It must have been quite an experience. Through Friday, the weather was okay. There was a cold wind blowing and it was just above freezing. And so they're searching for him, 164 feet away, but their calls were silenced and he could not hear them, okay? Dangerous to him because he couldn't hear the cry of the rescuers. like silencing a lighthouse by turning the beacon off. That which is needed by the seamen on the ship can't be seen. The sailors are in danger. Why? Because the light has been silenced. Matthew 5.14 says, hear the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hit. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. As a believer, we ought to be somebody that's getting light out there. Jesus Christ, when he was on this earth, he was the light of the world. But then as he left, we are the light of the world. We have Christ in us and that light needs to shine. For it to shine, it's got to be, it's be given a voice, calling out. And so when we take a gospel track, like we have here at a church, and we have that opportunity to meet a clerk or somebody like that, and to say, can I give you something? I wanna invite you to my church, and it has the truth of the gospel, that's crying out. We knock on doors as a church. And why do we do that? So that we can have opportunity to engage with somebody about Christ, to give the gospel a voice, and to speak to them again about Jesus. We do street evangelism. Why do we do that? Again, to give the gospel Why do we do that, to give the gospel voice? Why do we speak to people and engage them in gospel conversations, speaking to them about their soul, to give the gospel a voice? And so if we stop doing that, is Christ seen in us? The answer is, limitedly, right? And so that needs to be a part of us manifesting Christ, is that we are speaking to people about the gospel and sharing Christ with them, crying out to them, because they're lost. Luke 19 verse 10 says, the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. I've heard it in the last month, somebody saying I'm lost. And I said to them, I said, you do know that the Bible says Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. No, but that's it. Somebody that's lost needs to be found. They need the truth of the gospel. How do they get that? We express it to them, okay? So make Jesus manifest by calling out, by clarity, by correction. And then make Jesus obvious by conquest, by conquest. Verse four, it says, in whom the God of this world, Satan, Hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. Satan is purposely a deceiver. Satan is purposely seeking to destroy what God has created and what God has designed. He purposely wants to take people to hell. He does not want somebody to get saved. He wants to do everything in his power to prevent them from understanding and comprehending and taking in the gospel. The Bible says in Ephesians 6 verse 12, it says, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Okay, so there is an unseen realm, we've studied it in our study recently of angelology, the study of angels, so there is an unseen world. Demons are fallen angels that went with Satan. When Satan rebelled against God, and that's very real, even unbelievers understand that, acknowledge that, but then on the other hand, obviously God, righteous angels as well. But there's these behind the scene battles that are taking place. You know, if you do evangelism for any length of time, And you begin to share the gospel, and Kate will talk about this. It has stories that I have because she's been with me many times, not gonna endorse. And all of a sudden, you're having a great gospel conversation. And somebody comes around the corner that you didn't know was there. And they're like, they've got to go now. I mean, the person you're talking to could be like a 27-year-old young man that lives at home with his mom and dad, and it's his mom. And he can't talk anymore at the door. Or a spouse or partner that jumps around the corner. Suddenly, it's like conversation over. They're not gonna speak about that anymore. It's like, this is an adult. You're talking to an adult about this, but all of a sudden there's that battle that's there. They don't want that person to hear it. Why? All of a sudden the phone will ring, many times. Get to the heart of the gospel. Jesus Christ, his crucifixion, his payment for us. He rose from the dead. Salvation's by grace through faith. You get right to that, all of a sudden, there's a cutoff thing that happens. It's very interesting. It happens all the time. A pet runs out the door. Or one time, we had somebody else's cat come into the house. And the lady's like, I gotta go, that's not my cat. And goes to get the cat. These things happen. And again, we can laugh at it, and some of it's kind of humorous, but why did it happen right then? What's going on there? When you think about doing evangelism, You're like, you know, I really need to get out. I really need to get that message out that, you know, you're looking at in church about sharing the gospel. But then you start to think the weather is gonna be bad. They're gonna think of, you know, maybe a cult or something like that when I knock at their door. It might be a thought like door to door doesn't work. And yet in our church, we've seen many that trust in Christ knocking on doors. They don't want what you have to offer, you know. And I'm just saying, if you got burdened about this, you think, right, I wanna make Christ manifest. I really wanna do something for the Lord. There's this spiritual battle that's gonna take place because Satan does, the last thing Satan wants us to do is get more involved in sharing Christ. And so again, what do I do about that? How do I get victory in that area? How do I come to conquest in this? Well, you have to win a victory, right? I've not been in physical warfare, but I've played sports and competed against other teams. And to overcome an adversary, you've got to win, right? You've got to win that battle. And so what can I do to better share Christ? Well, learn the fundamentals, right? Learn the fundamentals of the gospel, maybe like the Romans wrote. Just in your Bible, mark up how to share with somebody how to accept Christ. Be disciplined in your life spiritually, that you're walking with God and spending that time in the word of God and dealing with sin. Listen to your coach as God the Spirit guides you in that conversation, let him lead in those opportunities. Pray for help, right? Ask God, God will be sharing the gospel Would you help me to be effective in communicating Christ to that person that needs Jesus? And then when you win, you put that behind and then you look ahead for victories. And I'm just saying this this morning, if you think, right, I wanna get more involved in making Christ manifest, Satan's gonna do his best to stop you, so what do you do? You gotta win. You gotta ask God, God, I'm gonna be faithful. I'm not gonna let the excuse stop me. I'm gonna continue to knock on doors. I might have a rough experience, but I'm gonna speak to these people about Jesus because they need to hear about Christ. And so make Jesus obvious by conquest, by calling out by clarity, by courage, and then make Jesus obvious by conviction, by conviction. It says in verse five, for we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord, for Jesus' sake, okay? So the message Paul preached wasn't about himself, but it was about something he had convictions about. It was about Jesus Christ and getting out the message of Christ. He was their servant for Jesus' sake. You know, conviction applies to a belief that's strongly held by an individual, all right? Something that we hold tenaciously to. People have convictions about different things. Greta Thunberg, what's her conviction? Environmentalism, right? Donald Trump, what's his conviction? Rigged election, right, or whatever. You know what his conviction is. David Attenborough has a conviction about evolution. That's his thing, and if you were to say, what's the conviction of that individual, you certainly know what it is. I doubt you could talk these people out of the convictions that they hold. They hold, again, to them tenaciously. You know, I'd say about Paul, you couldn't talk Paul out of gospel conviction. from evangelism. 1 Corinthians 9, verse 16, says, for though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of, for necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. Paul said, I mean, he had gospel convictions. He's like, I'm gonna preach Christ. We preach not ourselves, but we preach Jesus Christ, our Lord crucified. That was his conviction. And so he tenaciously held to that. I would say this on a scale of one to ten, Paul was a ten, right? He would make Jesus manifest. Again, look at our lives. What kind of convictions do we have about evangelism? On a scale of one to 10, how serious are we about making Christ manifest in our mortal bodies, that we would declare Christ and say, we preach not ourselves, but we do preach Jesus Christ. And people can stop me from a lot of things, but they're not gonna stop me from sharing my faith and speaking about Christ. Make Jesus obvious by conviction, by conquest, by calling out, by clarity, by courage. And then make Jesus obvious by command, by command. It says in verse six, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Okay, Paul had a conviction about preaching Christ because God commanded the light to shine. God said spiritually let there be light. My wife and I are reading Genesis together. We're starting going through that, and we've just read the beginning of it, and so Genesis 1, verse 3 says, God said, let there be light, and there was light. So nature and scientific laws, when God said, let there be light, nature and science, they obeyed. Right away, there was light, and evolutionary scientists need to be reminded that when God created, God created with age. God did not say, let there be light in a million years or light in a trillion years, and when light gets here, there will be light. God said, let there be light, and there was light. It was immediate, even though you look at it and say, well, it'd take this long to travel there. God made it as if it had always been there, just like he created man with age. But he commanded light, and what happened? There was light. And so spiritually, God has commanded the light to shine out of darkness. And so God did that, and we perpetuate that. We share that light that God has given, that Jesus started at the cross. It shined in our hearts to give them knowledge of the glory of God, okay? So God again, he commanded this light. So Matthew 5 verse 16 says, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father, which is in heaven. Mark 16 verse 15, he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Okay, so that has been entrusted to us. And Paul says, we preach not ourselves, but we preach Christ. Paul, why do you do that? Because the God that came to this earth, died on the cross for us. When he left, he said, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And Paul had that by conviction and he had it by command. And so this morning, Jesus said, go ye into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature. Is that pastor's responsibility? No, I pray, God, help me be faithful. Is that a missionary's responsibility? Is that a deacon's responsibility? And see, that illumination's what's necessary to bring somebody to saving faith. Without it, they can't get saved. And so, we wanna make Jesus manifest in our mortal body, we do that by conviction, this is something that I am gonna do, but also by command, God said to do this. And so it is a command. But people won't hear it unless we obey that command. Somebody did for us, praise God, can you think who it was that shared the gospel with you? Who it was that put the leaflet through the mail slot, handed you a gospel tract, told you about Jesus? There's somebody. that obeyed the command, God that commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts, praise God. And I know that's spiritual, and that God illumines our heart, but I believe it's also the verbal witness of somebody that obeyed and got that gospel message there, because without that, the light doesn't shine. And so make Jesus obvious by command, and then make Jesus obvious by connection, by connection. It says in verse seven, it says, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, of the power may be of God and not of us, okay? And I called my youth pastor last night. He turned 60 two days ago, okay? And Pastor Reggie Coleman. I called him because this text is what he preached at my ordination. And I didn't say that to him. I said, I was reminded of you, so I called you. My sister had texted saying his birthday was coming up, and so it was good to talk with him. But we have this treasure of earthen vessels. Have you ever stopped and think about how weak you are to do anything for God? You ever felt your inability to express truth or share the gospel? I think anybody that's done any gospel ministry just has recognized, I just have no ability of myself to convey truth. What do we need? We need God's power. We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. We cut our hedge not this past week, the week before. And so I said to our charge 100 feet long, and many of you have seen it anyway. But with our electric chainsaw that I got, it was working great. And so day one, cut down a lot of it. Day two, we had to get the 10 foot one that's beside the house, and I have it at. And so I got the chainsaw out, and I got it all sorted, got the chain nice and tight on it, made sure it had oil in it. And then I didn't go to crank it, because you don't do that with this one. You just go to use it, because it's connected to power. And it wouldn't work. And the kids would go plug it into different things, turn the switch on. Is the switch on? Yeah, the switch is on. Took the fuse out, replaced the fuse and the plug. And then I remember this. You know, when I got it out, I thought, oh, it has an adjustment for the handle. You bump this forward, you got a little bit more room for your hand. And then I got to thinking, wait a second, maybe that's a kill switch. And that's what it is, it's a safety feature that if you slip and you fall, you hit the kill switch and it's dead, so it doesn't work. And so no matter what you do, you don't have power if that kill switch is on. I just wondered today, we're seeking to give the gospel, but could it be that the kill switch is on? Could it be that there's things in our life we can't really share the gospel because there's inconsistencies in our life that we're not living the gospel? We're not connected to God. We're not really with that power source. We're recognizing our dependence upon that power source. The Bible says in Proverbs 28 verse one, the wicked flee when no man pursue it, but the righteous are bold as a lion. So if I'm defeated in sin in my life as a believer, the last thing I'm gonna be is a man filled with the spirit of God to testify to others the truth of God's word. And so what I need to do to have God's power, deal with the sin. Maybe I'm just not spending time with God. Not in the word of God. in prayer, and Jesus said, you know, without me you can do nothing. And so God does, I would say this to us this morning, God desires us to have gospel power, and so the Bible says in Matthew 28, 18, and 19, Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. You know, I'll say this, you will never bring anybody to Christ. He that watereth and he that planteth are nothing. It is God that gives the, But I would ask you this, can God use you and your feebleness? By his power, yeah. And see, that's our hope. I'll just tell you, I feel woefully inadequate at sharing the gospel in the sense of, I've shared the gospel for a long time, what have we seen as far as that goes? I'll tell you this, it's gotta be God. It has to be God. I can't convince anybody. to work in the heart of anybody, I can't. But if God has the power to touch somebody's heart in ways I can't, and work in them in ways that are convincing and convicting. The Holy Spirit is a convictor of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. He can convince the heart of somebody way beyond anything I could possibly ever do. He has that power. Bible says in Acts 1a, God wants us to have gospel power, but you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witness unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Paul had this power in his life. 1 Corinthians 2, 4, my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of men's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. You know, when I fixed that kill switch, it was awesome. We pray as a church on Sunday afternoons by 15. Why do we pray? We need the power of God. We need the hand of God. We need the guidance of God. And so let's ask for that. So we make that by connection. By connection, we make Jesus manifest. But then finally here this morning, we make Jesus obvious by continuation, by continuation. Again, it says in verse eight, we are troubled in every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down, but not destroyed. Always a bearing about in the body, the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body, for we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. The first time I did evangelism by knocking on doors, I was with Dr. Ed Nelson, a great man of God, and I love him to death, and he just recently, two years ago I think, passed on at 98 years of age. But a great man of God, I knocked on the door with him, I'm sure with our church, he just hung me out to dry. I froze, the guy opened the door and I just froze, I didn't know what to say. And so we're just kinda looking at each other and I thought, you know, there you go. Jump in and he just stood there. That was quite a while ago, I think I was, I'm 47 now and I think I was probably 23 years of age. I've shared the gospel a lot since then. He's got a sign on his church that says, sermons that will knock your socks off, okay? Just an unusual guy, great guy, great, good preacher, loves the Lord. And I'm knocking on doors with him, and a guy answers the door, and he's wearing boxers and a bad t-shirt, and he's got one scuba boot on. And he looks at me, he goes, I don't know what's dumber, your shoes or my scuba boot. And he's intoxicated. And so we're there, we're having this conversation with this guy, and seeking to share the gospel with him. And the guy goes, I guess I won't be needing this. He took a Glock pistol out from under his, I guess I won't be needing this. And I'm thinking I got a crazy pastor and a drunk guy. It's kind of like the wild west. And that's, again, kind of humorous. I've got stories, some things like that. But there's other tough times. It's tough when we start getting some social media pressure because we're unashamedly declaring what the word of God says about truth. It's tough when we lose our location as a church because of social media pressure on those places. It's tough when Somebody slams the door, somebody's rude. I've been bumped with a guy's belly. I've had a little dog nip me. We've had some experiences. But you look at what Paul says. Paul says, I've been through this, trouble on every side, not distressed, perplexed, not in despair, persecuted, not forsaken, cast down, not destroyed. But next phrase, verse 10, always what? Bearing a vow in the body of the Lord Jesus. people stop. A lot of people give up. But if you do that, is Christ going to be seeing the life of somebody that walks away and just stops? No. And so what do we have to do? Get back in there. It might be tough, but stand there. Continue. For God. So the truth is today, there are things that are obvious about us. And so Tommy has a sense of humor. William rides a bike. purple okay there's things like there's gonna be things about our life in the in the many things that there are about our life what do people see of Christ do people look at us and say well one thing I know I've received the mercy of God, I'm gonna use that. We make Jesus manifest by clarity, that we take the word of God and say, well, I'm just gonna be honest with you, I'm gonna take you to where the word of God says this about sin, about hell, about eternity. We make God, Jesus, obvious by calling out, that we take opportunity to share the gospel. We have to do that as a church. And we don't have that requirement as a church, you gotta do this, this, and this. But I'll just tell you this, we've gotta get it done. But getting that message out of Christ ceases to be seen. We make Jesus manifest by conquest. Satan's against it. He's gonna do everything he can to stop it. He's gonna try to stop us, and he's gonna try to stop the person that is hearing the truth. He's gonna try to stop that as well. And so what do we do? Ask God, yeah, we gotta have victory. We gotta have the power of God. We gotta have wisdom from you. What we say, what we don't say, but God, use what we say for you. We gotta have victory. And then by conviction, no, I'm not gonna stop because we preach Christ and we'll keep on. By connection, make sure, okay, I don't have the power of God in my evangelism. It's been a while since I've seen somebody say, I'm just gonna go on forward. Paul did that. And so Paul, Paul could say Jesus Christ is manifest in our moral flesh. Jesus Christ is manifest in our body. But I just ask us this morning, can I honestly say that? That Jesus Christ is seen in me. And he needs to be. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the word of God this morning. And Father, I pray that Christ will be seen in us. And I pray, Father, no matter what we do, what kind of vocation or where we're at in life or age or anything like that, I pray that one thing that people would say, well, you know, I don't know maybe that much about that person, but I know this, they love Jesus. And they're all about Jesus. And Father, if that's kind of the furthest thing from somebody's mind, when they think about us, that they don't recognize that, then Father, we need to really study this passage more. We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of lies. Father, the only vessels that are carrying the gospel in the water of life, in the light, in the truth, the only people carrying that in this world are believers. And Father, if that light's hit, it's hit to them that are lost. And Father, I just pray this spirit of God speak to our hearts. We could do better, Lord, we all could do better. We need to be more gospel-focused. that. And Lord, we pray for souls to be saved. Father, we pray that as a church that that would be frequent. Again, we're not worthy, and we feel our weakness so often. But Father, it's not us. We'll try to be faithful, but God, you give the increase. And we have seen souls saved. I praise you for the number of people that we've seen saved right here in this church building. And Father, again, there could be somebody completely unknown to us this morning that is not saved, that is convicted of their need to get saved. Even today, we pray, again, that today would be the day where they accept Christ as your Savior. I'd love to talk to anybody like that, and my wife certainly would love to speak to anybody like that this morning. And so, Father, that there's an opportunity for that, we pray that that would be given. But we thank you for your love, we thank you for your grace, thank you for this truth. Blessed to our hearts, it's in Christ that we pray, amen. Amen, let's please stand and we'll sing, this morning we'll sing a hymn of invitation. Dear my Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine.