Well, it's a pleasure to be here with you again tonight. And one thing I want to say that I've discovered here that's really wonderful, how many of your members are on the mission field? I've seen at least three or four already, so that's terrific. Then I asked John tonight, I said, well, how much of your money actually goes out the door? And he said their goal is around 50%. It's 42% to 52%, which is beautiful. So praise the Lord for that. And if you have your Bibles, please turn with me to Matthew chapter 4. We're looking at Jesus' early Galilean ministry. And tonight, we're going to look at verses 18 and following. The Bible is the infallible, inerrant, inspired Word of God. It is our only rule of faith and practice. Amen? See, Presbyterians can say amen. How about that? hear God's word Matthew chapter 4 verse 18 and following now is Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee he saw two brothers Simon who was called Peter and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen and he said to them follow me and I will make you fishers of men Immediately, they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately, they left the boat and their father and followed him. Let's pray briefly. Father, we do ask in the name of Jesus for the Holy Spirit. Lord, I can do nothing, none of us can do anything without the Spirit's presence, his power, his anointing, his unction, his outpouring. So we do pray that your Spirit would come upon the preacher, but also everyone here. And Lord, the question for us tonight is, why are we here? And we pray Holy Spirit you would enable us to see that. And Father, we do pray also for any tonight who may be here without Jesus as their Lord and Savior. We pray that you'd open their heart to believe your glorious gospel. We wanna see Jesus. We want to see him high and lifted up. We pray in his name. Amen. Now, as I mentioned in my prayer, the question is, why are you here? And I'm not talking just about at this meeting tonight, the good food, the fellowship, the missionaries and so forth. Why are you here in this world? Now, if you have been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance imperishable, undefiled, that will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, that's wonderful. But why are you here? Now, some would say, well, of course we're here to go to church, and of course we're here to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. And we're to most of us are the young people eventually will find a spouse and you will marry and hopefully you will have children and maybe grandchildren and and you can work in the world and you can make money and you can enjoy life and all of these things are fine. That's not that's not a problem. Those are good. But still. Why are you here? Well, the answer to that question is found in the verses before us I just read. I want you to think about James and John, Peter and Andrew. These are working class men. What we might call blue collar workers. These are fishermen in the area of Galilee. They have a job. They have a calling. But they meet Jesus and everything changes. Again, Jesus is in His ministry in Galilee. He set up in Capernaum, the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. Capernaum had about a thousand people at that time. And there was at least 138 villages or towns within a one to two day walk of Capernaum, and we're told in a few verses later, which we'll look at tomorrow night, that Jesus visited every one of these cities. And if he took two days to visit each one, he did it in about 276 days, about nine months. Jesus was going to the people and he meets these four men. Now Luke's gospel in the fifth chapter gives us a little more detail. Jesus has been preaching and he comes upon Simon Peter and presumably Andrew. It doesn't tell us that in Luke 5, but you read this text, it seems to be Andrew. And they've been fishing and the large crowd is following Jesus. And Jesus says to Simon, I want to get in your boat. I want you to go out just a little bit. And so Jesus begins to preach from the boat, probably because his voice would carry better over water. So apparently he's preaching for some period of time. Then Jesus says, now I want you to go out deeper in the water, and I want you to cast your nets into the water. And Simon Peter, a professional fisherman, if you will, says, well now, Jesus, we've been fishing all night, and we didn't catch anything. Now, he doesn't say, you don't know what you're talking about. But you kind of get that impression. We are fishermen, we know what we're doing, and we've been fishing all night, and there's no fish. I'm telling you, there's no fish here today. But, because you're commanding us to do so, we're intrigued by your life and your preaching, maybe there's something here. Okay, so they go out further. Jesus says, now catch your nets right here. They cast the nets, and they're absolutely full to the brim. In fact, Luke tells us that they began to pull the nets up out of the water and the nets began to break. They were so full of fish. And Simon calls James and John, come here, come here, come here. And they come up and they begin to put some of the fish in that boat and then we're told that the boat began to sink. In other words, there is an abundance of fish And at that point, Simon Peter, the fisherman, the blue-collar worker, the one who's been intrigued by Jesus, when he sees this, he is in amazement. And the word there is in awe. There's almost a holy fear about him. And he says, Jesus, depart from me, for I am a sinful man. James and John said the same thing. Then Jesus said to them, from this day forward you will be catching men. Now in the Matthew passage, you shall be fishers of men. But Luke's rendition is, from this day forward, you will be catching men. In other words, now they know why they're in the world. Yes, they've been fishermen. Yeah, they've been pretty good fishermen. But now they understand they are called to be fishers of men. They're to catch men with this message that Jesus is giving them. But that still doesn't answer the question, what about you? Because you could be sitting there and say, well now look, that's the apostles. That's these four men who are very, very close to Jesus. And then, of course, you've got the other disciples who become apostles. Okay, we get it. Yeah, they're called to be fishers of men. And yeah, I guess maybe we could say that those in Luke chapter 10, the 70 that are sent out also are to be fishers of men. But you know, these guys, this was a very, very special time. This is the beginning of Jesus' ministry. They're with Him for three years. Yeah, we get it. They, of course, are to be fishers of men. And maybe every now and then you'll find some missionaries like David Livingston or some of the missionaries here. Yeah, absolutely. We get it. They're called to be missionaries. Yes, we love that. That's wonderful. They have their calling. Now, I have a different calling. But in 1 Peter 2, Peter says, And by the way, that's the second person plural. You know, in the South, it would be y'all. Y'all are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession. Why? That you might, watch this, that you might proclaim the excellencies of Him who calls you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, now you are a people. Once you had not received mercy, now you have received mercy. He says, your job is to proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. And again, perhaps we might object. Well, now, you know, he's talking again to people in the apostolic era. He's talking to these particularly unusual, maybe really gifted people. But you've always got to remember the context and the salutation. of 1 Peter 1, he says to the aliens abroad who are in Galatia, Pontus, Cappadocia, Bithynia, Asia, basically that's the whole nation of Turkey, the whole thing, to those who are chosen called by God the Father, sanctified in the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with His blood. In other words, it's not just a few people here and there. It's not just a few people who are very special, you know, rarely gifted people. No, no, no. He's talking to all the aliens abroad. Every last one. You get my drift? What is your calling? There's only one reason for this world. It's not to be nation-building. It's not simply to make money. Money is a vehicle. It's a resource. It's not merely to make this world a better place. This world will be destroyed one day, and Jesus Christ, when He comes back again, will make it a new heaven and a new earth. There's only one reason for this world. And there's only one reason, ultimately, that we're in this world. Because you see, this world is a spawning ground. And we, all of us, are to be fishers of men. Now, you remember in Matthew 28. At the end of his ministry, after his resurrection, just prior to his ascension, Jesus gets his disciples together. And by the way, almost every, in fact, every English translation I've ever read on this passage butchers it severely. The New American Standard has it, go into all the world and make disciples. baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you, lo, I'm with you always, even at the end of the age." That is a very poor translation. In fact, there's only one verb in that passage. And there are three participles. Now, young people, you've just got through doing English grammar, so you understand. Some of y'all are going, oh yeah, I remember, what's a participle? This is important. Going is a participle, it's a present participle. Baptizing is a participle. Teaching is a participle. See, a participle is an I-N-G word in English. And the only verb there is the one we typically translate, make disciples, but that's even lousy. That's not a good translation either. It doesn't say make disciples, it says disciple. Now what am I talking about? The verb tells you what you're supposed to do, and the participles tell you how you're going to do it. For example, clean up the kitchen. That's the verb. That's the command. Clean up. How do you do that? By clearing the table, by sweeping the floor, by washing the dishes. Those are the participles. Repair the car. That's the command. How? By changing the oil. by changing the brakes, by tuning up the car. You get it? It's a present participle going. In other words, literally what's being said is, as you go, it's assuming that you're going to go. It's not a command, it's an assumption. The way that you disciple is you begin by going. Isn't that what we saw Jesus do last night? He comes in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's on Him. And He goes from town to town to town. He's going after disciples. He's going. And James and John and Peter and the rest of them were cowards. And yet after Pentecost, Peter preaches his powerful sermon. Then he and John are locked up in jail. They're thrown in prison overnight. A one night stay. They're trying to scare them. You know, that's the original scared straight program. We're going to get these guys straightened out here so they're going to get rid of this foolishness of preaching about Jesus and the resurrection. Now Luke tells us that when they were brought before the Sanhedrin, the Sanhedrin was amazed because they were fishermen. In other words, it's a put-down. They were fishermen, they were untrained men, and the Greek word for untrained, you're going to love this, the Greek word for untrained is idiotes. Can you understand what that means? These guys are idiots! And in 1 Corinthians 4, Paul talks about that we are fools for Jesus' sake. And the word fool in the Greek is moron. So they're morons and they're idiots for Jesus. And yet, when the Sanhedrin says to Peter, you must stop preaching. I love what Peter says. Well, you guys can discuss that among yourselves if you'd like. We can't stop speaking what we've seen and heard. In other words, we've been with Jesus for three years. We've seen him cast out demons, heal people, raise people from the dead, preach these glorious sermons. John could say, you know, I was with him when he was crucified. Now my brothers here, they were cowards. They ran away. But we all saw him later. We hung out with Jesus like several times over 40 days. And then he ascended into heaven right before our very eyes. And you guys want us to be quiet? You're out of your mind. You know what Peter and John had. You know what the other disciples had because they had the fullness of the Holy Spirit upon them. They were bold as lions. They had what I like to call the divine swagger. There was a boldness. Not an arrogance, not a self-confidence. These were fishermen, untrained, moronic, idiotic, to use their words, blue-collar fishermen, and they had found their purpose. We must disciple. Going to disciple, not make disciples, disciple. That's the verb. And it's in the aorist imperative, which means do it now. We're not going to negotiate this. We're not going to argue about it. Do it now. Imperative, not a suggestion. That's their calling. That's your calling. That's my calling. How do you disciple? You're going. And you're baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now what are you doing when you're baptizing? You're bringing them into the church. In Romans 6 it says, having been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. In Colossians 2 he says, having been circumcised with a circumcision made without hands and the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been raised from the dead. In other words, what Paul is talking about there is baptism, circumcision, is the idea that you've gone from death unto life. They were dead in their sins, now they've been raised up with Jesus Christ. It has the whole idea of conversion. It has the whole idea of regeneration, justification, sanctification, adoption, ultimately glorification. In other words, our job, the way that we disciple, first of all, we evangelize. We call people to faith in Jesus Christ, going disciple, baptizing, and teaching. Teaching the truth. Not only teaching the truth, But moving them to what? Obey the truth. It's one thing. Now listen, we're great in our denomination with teaching. We love our theology. We attract pastors who love to study the word and theology. And that is absolutely essential. You'll never hear me downplay that in any way. But we have the mistaken notion that as long as we have the information in our head, that's all it requires. I don't think so. I have a six-year-old grandson, Avery. Let's say that Avery's spending the night with us and he gets up in the morning and I notice he didn't make up his bed. Avery, do you not know how to make up your bed? No, Oma, I don't. They call me Oma. Now listen, I thought that was a pretty cool name until I was coming back on a flight one time from Europe and I'm watching a Dutch movie with the English subtitles. And I noticed they kept saying the word Oma, and then I realized that Oma is grandmother in Dutch. But it's the diascast. I mean, I'm Oma. So he says, Oma, I don't know how to make up my bed. Okay, well look, here's how you make up your bed. Let me show you. So I go through the whole thing. I say, now would you like to practice? So he practices. So now, Avery has the information in his head. He's even practiced it. So according to the way we typically think in today's church, we've got the information. Maybe we practiced a little bit. That's all that's required. But let me ask you the question. Those of you who are parents, you know where I'm going with this. Just because Avery knows how to make up his bed, am I guaranteed that he will, in fact, make up his bed? And you know the answer is no. Why not? Because something's got to happen in his head that reaches down to his heart. So teaching's important, but we must grip the heart. Because the heart is what changes people. And the only way that you can do that is you've got to have passion for the truth and you've got to pray for the Holy Spirit. Those of you who are teachers in Sunday school and so forth, parents, you teach your children the truth. Absolutely. But you pray that God will work in their hearts. The heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. Our children must be told that they must be born again. One time we were in Oklahoma when our middle son and his family lived there, and I noticed that Marshall, who was about three years old at the time, was beating up on his little brother. I know how that goes, you know. I used to beat up on my little brother, too. We all did it, you know. But he seemed to be a bit over the top with it. So I said, Marshall, what are you beating up Graham for? Oh, I don't know, old man. I said, well, I'll tell you why. I said, Marshall, you have a cobra heart. What's that? I said, well, a cobra is a deadly snake. And that's what your heart is like. Now, we're going to pray that Jesus will take out your cobra heart. and that loves sin and hates God, and we're going to ask you, we're going to ask him to give you a heart that loves God and hates sin. About three months later, my son calls me and tells me, yeah, we're driving along one day, recently, and Marshall's in the back seat, you know, there's a little seat there, and he says, Daddy, I have a cobra heart. Something else, he must have been beaten up on Graham some more, I don't know, maybe he's under conviction. They pulled over and my son led Marshall in a prayer. And I got to tell you, we'll see the verdict is still out. He's only seven years old now, but I want to tell you something. He is a sweet little boy right now. So the heart has got to be changed. And you know what happens when we really understand the glory of our calling? Every one of us, if you're in the business world, you work, you're diligent in your work, you're faithful in your work. When you get an opportunity, you speak to people about Jesus, but you're able to give your money. And your money's able to fund world missions. And in the home, you're training your children, you're training neighbor children. It's everything, ultimately, at the end of the day, as we like to say, is all about making fishers. We're fishers of men. The world is a spawning ground. We want to catch men, women, and children with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I want to tell you something. When you're doing that, there's nothing like it. There's joy inexpressible and full of glory. As you are going, the best person I know, perhaps other than Kennedy Smart, on this whole idea of going, just going every day in the world and looking around is my wife. She's got incredible stories. She wakes up in the morning, she says, now Jesus, I pray that you will open a door for me I want to give a gospel tract to somebody today. I want to witness to somebody today. If you open the door, I'll go through it. I've got a ton of stories. I'll just give you one from today. How about that? Today. She goes out. She's going to the GNC store. She's got to get something. She goes in there. She starts talking to a woman, 57 years old, divorced, having some issues and so forth. When he's into the gospel, no time at all. and gives her the ultimate questions book, John Blanchard, she loves that little book. You know, because you give tracks away, sometimes they throw them away. They're not going to throw that away because it's very nice, it costs about a dollar and a half, so you got to be a little bit judicious, you know, you give it to. But I mean, I could tell you stories like that all the time. And so her life is generally one of joy. Why is that? Because you see, listen, you know what God's greatest desire is? The greatest desire that God has is His glory in the salvation of His people. How do I know that? One, it says, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ Himself, to the praise of the glory of His grace. That's the Father's electing love. Then it goes on to say, in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, Jesus, poured out His goodness and His mercy by shedding His blood. Why? To the praise of the glory of His grace. And then in verses 13 and 14, In Him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, He was given to you as a pledge. the Holy Spirit to the praise and glory of His grace. So the Father's greatest desire, the Son's greatest desire, the Spirit's greatest desire is His glory and the salvation of His people. So when you do what God's great desire is, you will be filled with joy. A couple of years ago, I was at the Super Bowl when it was in New York City. And I was doing some street preaching up there. I was more or less doing some teaching and then training some street preachers. So I was going around Manhattan, listening to the guys, giving them critiques and so forth. And then we had about 10 guys over on Staten Island. So I got on the ferry and I went over to Staten Island. Of course, it's February, it's cold. And so we're in this enclosed area and there's several hundred people waiting to get on the Staten Island Ferry to come back to Manhattan. And I'm watching the guys preach and they say, Al, would you like to preach? I said, I would love to. There's about 400 people standing there waiting to get on the ferry, which is going to be there in about 10 or 15 minutes. They're not going anywhere because they want to get there, they want to get on the ferry. So I stood there and I said, we live in a world that has a lot of bad news, don't we? There's bad news everywhere. Can I give you some good news? And by the way, I base this all on Luke chapter 4. When Jesus is at the synagogue, and Jesus is given the opportunity to read from Isaiah the prophet, and he picks up Isaiah and he reads chapter 61, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind. to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. I don't have time to unpack that, but you can tell just by what those words are. This is a marvelous, glorious, positive message. You get that? To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord, the year of jubilee. These people squander their inheritance, they lose their land, but every 50 years God says, okay, we're going to push the reset button, we're starting over. It's amazing. This glorious gospel. So I said, I said, I want to give you some good news. So I started preaching Jesus, lifting him up. And I got to tell you, 400 sets of eyes were locked in on me and I'm just lifting up Jesus. And after I finish, I called my wife and I said, I've had the most glorious experience of my entire life. There's nothing like it. And those of you who venture out of your comfort zone and you speak to an individual about Jesus, you know what I'm talking about. There's nothing like it. Absolutely nothing like it. You know why? Because that's what you were recreated to do. Going, and it's assumed that you'll go. Why? Because you've been delivered from the domain of darkness. You've been transferred into the kingdom of His beloved Son. That's why Paul says, I'm under obligation to the Greeks and the barbarians and the wise and the foolish. And for this reason also, watch this, I am eager, I am eager to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome. Why? I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Why is he not ashamed of the gospel? Because it's the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. My dear friends, let me remind you of something. He says, Paul, to the Ephesians, who formerly were wicked, vile, Gentile pagans, he says, Therefore remember that you who are Gentiles, who are called circumcision by the so-called circumcision, which is performed in the flesh by human hands, remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in this world, but now you, who were far off, have been brought near by the blood of Jesus Christ. Think about this. Your condition prior to God's great, regenerating, marvelous work of grace in your life is you were without God. You had no hope in this world. Now here's my analogy. September 11th, 2001. These thousands of people on those twin towers. You know those planes hit and almost nobody above the line where those planes hit got out. A few but not many. Now I've tried to picture what a horrific scene that must have been. And you know it had to be horrific because you saw those daunting pictures of people jumping from a thousand feet to their deaths. Can you imagine? They had to make a choice. Am I going to go ahead and die being burned alive, or am I going to jump to my death? What a choice. That's what it was. Now clearly, there were some there who knew Jesus, I'm sure. And I'm sure that when that plane hit and they understood the circumstances, I'm sure that in their flesh there was a moment of fear, because we all naturally fear death. That's our last enemy. But I can also promise you this, very soon, Jesus gave them what he promises all of us. He says, I'll give you peace that passes all understanding. I am with you always, even at the end of the age, I promise you. And you've been in situations yourself, maybe not like that, but in utterly devastating situations, and God gave you peace, didn't he? So God gave them peace. But what about those people who didn't have Jesus? They're crying out, but there's nobody home. There's nobody to answer them. Why? Because they are without God and they are without hope in this world. That's the situation of people around you in your community. In this nation, wherever our missionaries are going, that is the condition. There are people everywhere who are without hope. They have no God. And God has been merciful to you. He's opened your eyes to see. He's given you ears to hear. He's turned that cobra heart that loves sin and hates God into a heart that loves God and hates sin. And when we get it, there's great joy. Let me close with this. A number of years ago, when we were at St. Simon's Island pastoring the Golden Isles Presbyterian Church, we developed a ministry with HIV-positive homosexual men. I'll maybe say more about that later at another time, but I'll tell you one story. There was a man who was 42 years old. He was already in hospice. He had full-blown AIDS. He was near the end. And I had, on Wednesday night, sort of a support group, you might say. I'd have 15 to 20 HIV-positive homosexual men come to this meeting. And I would listen to their needs and their concerns. And I would go pick this guy up at the hospice. I'd go into his room, 42 years old. He was on a walker. I would help him get out to my car. I'd put the walker in the back seat. He'd sit next to me. We'd drive to the meeting. Then I'd drive him back after the meeting. But during the meeting, I would ask them how they're doing. And then, but before we leave, I said, now, before we go, I got to tell you another story about Jesus. And I just went through the Gospel of Mark, painting these vivid pictures of the glory of Jesus and what a wonderful Savior He is. And I remember it was particularly telling the story of the leper. Went into whole detail, the lepers were estranged from people, they were ostracized. And I said, you know, Jesus, it says there, Jesus reached out and touched them and said, literally, actually now, what the word means is that He embraced the man. I said, now, you know, I said, you know, people look at you guys and you're kind of like the modern day leopards, right? They go, yeah, yeah, yes. Well, look, you see what kind of Jesus I serve? You see what kind of love he has for people? That's the kind of Jesus I know. That's who he is. Well, I'm visiting this guy one day at the hospice. We're talking for a while and I say, how do you feel? And he began to weep. He said, I'm afraid to die. I said, I understand. I said, may I tell you what happens to the Christian when he dies? Yes, please. I said, well. And I said, this can be true of you if you repent and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. Here's what happens when the Christian dies. Paul says to be absent from the bodies to be present with the Lord. So that means that when you as a Christian die, your soul will immediately be in the presence of Jesus. Yet, your Christian loved ones who went on before you will be there, and all the great saints. You'll see the Apostle Paul, King David, the rest. You'll see the 24 elders, the four living creatures, myriads and myriads, and thousands and thousands of angels worthy as the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. And that's wonderful. It's beyond anything you can possibly imagine. But all these people around you, that's not your focus. Your focus is on Jesus. Because there he is, this glorified Jesus. And you're not going to be able to take your eyes off of him because he has eyes as a flame of fire. His head is white like wool, like snow. He has the voice like a sound of many waters. His right hand are seven stars. And all are praising Him. And the most magnificent thing you can ever imagine in this world, heaven is infinitely greater than that. Now as wonderful as that is, I said, that's pretty good, right? He goes, yes, it is. I said, it gets better than that. I said, you've got AIDS. We know you're not long for this world. And we know the disease is killing you. You're wasting away from the disease. You have a very weak, frail body. But 1 Corinthians 15 says that because he's the first fruits of those who are asleep, then we will also be raised with Him. I said, for example, Paul says, our bodies are sown a perishable body. They're raised an imperishable body. They're sown in dishonor. They're raised in glory. They're sown in weakness. They'll be raised in power. They're sown a natural body, but they'll be raised a spiritual body. I said, Paul goes on further to say, Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment of the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. The trumpet shall sound, and we shall be changed. The perishable will put on the imperishable, and the mortal will put on immortality. When the perishable will put on the imperishable, and mortal will put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O grave, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin, the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor in the Lord is never in vain." I said, you know what all this means? You've got this frail, weak body, but if you're in Jesus Christ, you die, your soul goes to heaven, and He's coming back someday, and you're going to get a perfect, glorified body, just like Jesus has. That's the kind of God I know. That's the true and living God. That's why we believe this. That's why we proclaim this. Nobody has to go to hell. Nobody has to face the lake of fire. Jesus Christ came and died on the cross, was raised again from the dead. You can have this if you want it. Turn to him. Oh, I got to have that. Six days later, he's gone. Hinduism going to do that for you? How about Islam? Buddhism? Animism? Materialism? Secularism? What a savior. We're here in this world, which is a spawning ground, and we're to be fishers of men, every last one of us. You've got your different ways of doing it. But that's why we're here. That's why this church is here. That's why you give Faith Promise money. That's why you're teaching the children. That's why you're here to worship. You're to learn and to be motivated to go out into your community. And you don't have to go overseas to do it, although some are called to do that, going. As you're going, it's assumed that you're going, go with the gospel of Jesus. Now, Maybe some of you here are not yet there. You don't have Christ as your Lord and Savior. Let me urge you to repent now. He's quick, ready and able to save. But you must humble yourself and you must say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner, and he will save you. The rest of us, my dear friends, we're under obligation. Under obligation. to take the unfathomable riches of Christ to the world. Do you understand that? You are called. Let's pray together. Father, what a great Savior. It's astonishing, really. While we were still helpless, helpless, At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man may dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. To whom much is given, much is required. Hallelujah, what a Savior. In Jesus' name, amen.