I'll be mentioning and perhaps turning to a couple other passages, but primarily will be in Romans. The title of the sermon today is Emotional About the Gospel. Emotional About the Gospel. And, you know, I'm a man, so I don't have emotions. No, we do. It's a weird thing, and I'll just start with this, and then we'll get into the text. I prescribed some medicine recently, And it was a heavy steroid. And when I followed up with the doctor, she asked, have you noticed any emotional changes because of the steroids? And I said, well, I haven't had roid rage. You know, sometimes steroids will make you mad or angry. I said, but as a matter of fact, as I was driving to the office this morning, I turned the radio station on and I heard a new song that I'd never heard before. A modern song, which I don't normally listen to. And I was listening to the lyrics of it and I was just struck by how good the lyrics were. I didn't think they made any good music anymore. And I started crying. And I'm like, I'm a man, I don't cry. So there's gotta be the medicine. And so when I think about the gospel, I usually don't think so much in emotional terms as I think in theological terms of the gospel. But we're gonna see a little, a little, I trust, a little of both this morning. So let's begin in Romans chapter one, verse one, where the author, excuse me, the human author of Romans introduces himself I'm reading from the English Standard Version of the Scriptures. It just begins, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. And so that's his simple introduction. You know, the Apostle Paul formerly was Saul, Saul of Tarsus, who was persecuting Christians, and then he was gloriously saved by Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. And Paul describes himself, first of all, as a servant of Jesus Christ. Not only had Jesus Christ saved him, But he had become his Lord, and Paul's life now is devoted to serving Jesus Christ, not living for himself anymore, but living for his Savior. He also says, called to be an apostle, called by God. That's why Jesus saved him, called him to be an apostle. And apostle merely means a sent one. So Jesus called Paul to himself, saved him, transformed his life, and then sent him out with a message. And what was Paul's message? Well, verse one, set apart for the gospel of God. Paul's purpose for the Apostle Paul was to tell the gospel to other people. And I've mentioned the word gospel many times, and it's in the title of the message, but what is the gospel? I'm sure you're very familiar with what the gospel is. The word gospel simply means good news. And I think it's great news, the gospel. But what is the gospel? Well, there's a, years ago, I came across a good book, and that's the title of the book, What is the Gospel? by Greg Gilbert. And it's a short little book. It's a black cover, and it's one of those little books, but it does such an awesome job of explaining, from beginning to end, what is the gospel. And the gospel is simple, okay? It's simple, it's not hard to understand, but it's, at the same time, it's complex. and it's deep, and it's beautiful, and it's precious. The Bible also says that it's a mystery, all right? Only the Holy Spirit of God, as He works in our hearts and minds, can open our eyes to see the beauty of the gospel. and to receive it for ourselves. So the clip notes for a description of the gospel as the Apostle Paul would describe it in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. I'm gonna read this so I get it right. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the first four verses. Paul says, now I would remind you brothers of the gospel I preach to you, which you received and in which you stand. and by which, this gospel, by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. And here he describes the gospel, probably the simplest, clearest explanation in the scriptures, verse three, for I delivered to you as of first importance. Paul says the most important thing that I can talk to you about is the gospel. I deliver to you what I received as of first importance that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance to the scriptures. So what is the gospel? In its simplest terms, it is that Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal son of God, came into our world 2,000 years ago, lived a sinless life, and died on the cross. He gave his life for us. He was buried. He laid in the grave for three days. I think it was just last week we celebrated Easter. He was raised on the third day to eternal life. That's the gospel, that Jesus died for our sins so that our sin can be forgiven and we can be restored to God. The gospel is good news. How can we sinful humans be right with God? How can our sins be forgiven? How can we have eternal life? It's through Jesus Christ and only through Jesus Christ. And so the gospel is beautiful. And we see, we know from reading about the apostle Paul in the book of Acts and then in all of his writing and the letters that Paul's life was devoted to the gospel. He talked about the verses we read in first Corinthians about how he preached the gospel. The gospel is a message. The gospel is what God did for us through Jesus Christ so that we can be reconciled to God. But the gospel is a message. And I was struck as I was studying this and reading about the gospel. In the New Testament, all of the verses, several of them where the word gospel is used, the vast majority of them talks about the gospel being preached. or the gospel being proclaimed, or the gospel being shared. And so the gospel is a message that is preached, I think, 45 times in the New Testament, talks about the gospel being preached or declared, this message of God about new life, eternal life in Jesus Christ. And so Paul's life was devoted to the gospel, and I like all the different ways Paul describes the gospel, or he talks about the gospel. He talks about the gospel. Singular. Not a gospel, but the gospel, because there's only one gospel. There's only one true gospel. There are many false gospels. But there's only one true gospel that we have here in the scripture. He describes it as the gospel of God in some places. We just read about it in verse 1 of Romans chapter 1. Set apart for the gospel of God. Elsewhere he says it's the gospel of Christ. He describes it in one place as my gospel. My good news that I'm sharing with you about Jesus Christ, the gospel of the kingdom, the kingdom of God, the gospel of the grace of God, the gospel of God's Son, the gospel of peace, our gospel. And I hope that's how you could describe the gospel this morning as our gospel, my gospel, because you believe the gospel and you've received it for yourself. Paul describes it in another place, the gospel of your salvation, the glorious gospel. And in Revelation, near the end of Revelation, it's described as the everlasting gospel, the eternal gospel. It will never change. And I don't believe it will ever get old. I mean, we should love the gospel in this lifetime because it's what God uses to transform us from the living in the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son. But I believe even in heaven, when everything is perfect, I think we're still gonna love the gospel because it's so awesome. And as we look at the gospel through all the scriptures, we don't have time to do it this morning, but it's a great study. It is the gospel that makes possible several things, and it introduces us to, well, the idea of atonement. The atonement, having our sins atoned for by Jesus Christ. It introduces us to this idea of justification. All of these big theological works that we use to have a right standing with God. Without the gospel, there's no justification. Propitiation, bigger words. satisfaction that when Jesus died on the cross by his sinless life, his sacrificial death, he satisfied the demands of God for sin. And we're gonna see a little bit of that from the scriptures as we continue. This idea of redemption, being redeemed, us being redeemed back to God. To redeem is to buy back. We were separated from God by our sin, He redeemed us to Himself, but at the price of Jesus Christ, His Son, dying for our sins and rising. Reconciliation. I love that word, to be reconciled to God. Reconciliation is to make peace between two parties that are not at peace, two parties that are enemies or fighting together, and that's what the gospel does. It reconciles us to God. this idea of pardon, and again, being saved. None of these terms, none of these real things are possible without the gospel. Only the gospel, and so when we describe the gospel as good news, I think it's great news, what God has done for us. The whole purpose of the Bible, why do we have the Bible? It's to reveal to us the gospel. this great news that we can be reconciled to God, and it urges us to believe it, to believe the gospel, and to receive it for ourselves. And since this gospel is such great news, we're gonna see as we continue in chapter one that the Apostle Paul is emotional about the gospel. and we'll see his emotions, and we'll see why he was emotional about the gospel as we continue reading. Well, what do I mean, Paul is emotional about the gospel? Let's jump down to verse eight, and I'm just gonna hit a few verses through here. Paul writes, Romans chapter one, verse eight, first, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, all that he's writing to, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. The first attitude that I'm talking about for the Apostle Paul about the gospel is that of gratitude. He's thankful for the work of the gospel. Thankful because of your faith. Now, their faith? Their faith in Jesus Christ. Their faith that comes only through the gospel. And so he's thankful that they had heard the gospel, that they believed the gospel, and that they have received eternal life. through the gospel. And so I asked us this morning, are we thankful for the gospel? It's one thing to know the gospel, it's another thing to understand the gospel, it's a greater thing to receive the gospel, but how do you feel about that? Are you thankful that God has given his son and has given you eternal life through his son? Are you grateful for the gospel? Are you thankful when other people receive the gospel? It should be one of the highlights of our lives when we hear that someone has been saved, that they've been born again, because we can take that for granted, that that's what's supposed to happen as we share the gospel. But Paul was thankful, he was grateful for what God has done. The second emotion we'll look at quickly in verse down in verse 15. Paul writes, So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. Now, most of Paul's letters that he wrote in the New Testament were written to people that he knew. or were written to churches that he had started or pastored in those churches. But here, he's writing to believers and people in Rome that he had never met. He had never been to Rome. And he says, I'm eager to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome. It's the emotion of excitement. The excitement, Paul says, I'm getting to preach the gospel to a new audience, like I'm doing this morning, all right? Most of all of you are new to me, and it's exciting to be able to share God's word. Again, the gospel is almost always connected with proclaiming, sharing the gospel. And so I ask a question of us, are we eager to share the gospel with strangers? People we just happen to meet as God puts them in our path or us in their path? Are we eager, are we excited to share the gospel with our family? Sometimes there's some fear about that or uncomfortableness. Our co-workers that we work with, we should be excited to share the gospel. One of my greatest joys of pastoring at Hyde Park Baptist Church for 15 years was to see God working in the lives of the congregation to make them excited to share the gospel. And the Muniac family was a huge part of that. And we had others in the church that would, they would rent a booth at a flea market on Saturday just to share the gospel. They'd have all kinds of free literature and Bibles to give out, and we had the most amazing conversations with strangers sharing the gospel. And during the fall season, you have the county fairs. They'd rent a booth at the county fair just to proclaim the gospel to people. And Reg Games, before the game starts, thousands of people streaming in. We had guys who would go down and preach the gospel to them. We should be excited to share the gospel. So I asked you this morning, are you excited about sharing the gospel? If you are, that's awesome. If you're not so excited about sharing the gospel, I would ask, why not? maybe because of what we read in the next verse, verse 16. As we see another emotion of the Apostle Paul, he says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jupiters and also to the Greek. Paul's emotion here about the gospel, how does he feel about it? He's not ashamed. So if you're not ashamed of something, I would say Paul was proud about the gospel, not for himself. He's pleased with the gospel, how God uses it in the lives of individuals. Why is he not ashamed of the gospel? Why is he excited and eager to share it with people? It's because of what the gospel is and what the gospel does. He says it's the power of God for salvation. The gospel is the only way, the only message by which people can be saved, born again, receive eternal life, have our sins forgiven. If we want God's grace, if we want God's love, God's mercy in our life, the only way we can receive that is through the gospel. There's no other way that it comes. God's favor, God's love, God's mercy does not come through religion. That's made very clear as Jesus was introduced to this very religious man, Nicodemus. I dare say he was far more religious than any of us are. I don't know you personally, but he was far more religious than I am. But as religious, he was a religious teacher of the nation of Israel. He was a Pharisee. He did everything in his power to please God. Jesus said in Lecture 4 and again, Nicodemus, you'll never see the kingdom of heaven. So salvation does not come through religion. It does not come by good works. It comes, how does it come to us? Verse 16, it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Everyone who believes the true gospel of Jesus Christ. And I mention the true gospel because there is a wrong gospel that is out there. There are false gospels. The Apostle Paul writing to the church in Galatia in the New Testament says, I am surprised, I'm amazed that you're so quickly turning away from the true gospel And you're accepting this false gospel, which really isn't the gospel. It's not good news because certain religious men had come into the church and told them, yes, you need to believe in Jesus to be saved, but you also have to follow the law of Moses in the Old Testament. So it's Jesus plus your good works. And Paul says, that's not a gospel. That's not good news. It's a false gospel. And there are many false gospels in our world today. the incredibly huge and popular religion of Mormonism. When we were in Africa, there's Mormons in Africa sharing the Mormon faith. They have a gospel that they proclaim, but it's not the true gospel. It will not lead anyone to heaven. The Jehovah's Witness religion all around the world. Just yesterday, I got a mail, I got a letter in my mailbox, and we recently, just last year, moved to a different house, and it's from one of our neighbors. I've never met them yet. And they started telling me about the good news of Jesus Christ, but I was afraid of where it was going, and I was right. They told me, go to the website, JW.org, Jehovah's Witness. It's a false gospel. This, in the Bible, the Apostle Paul is talking about the true gospel. There are Christian denominations that take the gospel and they believe it, but they add baptism. You've got to be baptized in water to be saved. Or you've got to do good works to be saved. You're saved by the gospel, but you gotta keep yourself saved by good works, because if you do bad works after you're saved, you can lose your gospel. Some teach you have to worship on Saturday, the Sabbath. And these are all things that are added to the gospel that makes it a false gospel. And so the Apostle Paul, he is excited to share. He's not ashamed of the gospel. Now, Again, it's received by faith, not by religion, not by good works. Paul says it's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. A faith, a trusting in the gospel. Not just mentally believing, yes, I believe that Jesus lived a long time ago and he died on a cross, he was raised from the dead. That's not the belief or the faith that the Bible speaks of. It is a trusting in. the gospel. What are you trusting in to be right with God? Not my church, not my religion, not my good life. The only thing I can trust in to make me right with God is what God did through Jesus Christ and the gospel. The next verse, in Romans 1, verse 17, for in it, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. And that's the great news of the gospel is that we don't have to be rich to be saved. We don't have to be popular or famous. We don't have to be super intelligent to be saved. We can receive forgiveness for sin and eternal life through what Jesus did simply by believing that God sent him to save us and trusting that for our salvation. Jesus died on our behalf. He was sacrificed for our sins. Someone may ask, why do I need to trust in Jesus? What do I need to be saved from? And Paul answers that question as he continues in Romans, the very next verse in fact, but here he tells us about the emotion of God in regards to the gospel. the emotion of God that we need to be saved from. And I always thought it was strange as I'm reading Romans here, verse 16 and 17, he's talking about the good news of the gospel, eternal life, salvation through Jesus Christ. And how does he start the next verse? Verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. Talk about a change of direction. Good news of salvation and now bad news of wrath. What is wrath? It's the fiercest type of anger that you can imagine. It's strong anger. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. The good news of the gospel actually begins with bad news. the wrath of God against sinners. Now, most people don't like to believe that about God, that God is angry with sin, that God is angry with sinners. I mean, even Christians don't like to believe that. What do we focus on? God is love. And you ask some people, what is the gospel? They'll say, well, the gospel is God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. No, I'm sorry, that is not the gospel. That's not the gospel. The Bible says that God is angry with us. But we don't like, you know, I don't like the idea of God being angry with me for my sin. I like the idea of his love. There's a new, at least to me, a new Christian song, In Christ Alone, by Keith and Kristen Getty. And it's awesome. song, Christian hymn, praise hymn. And they've become very famous. They've written, they've performed lots of Christian songs. And I heard Keith Getty say that at one time, several years ago, a Christian musical publishing house, some business came to them and said, we want to promote your song, In Christ Alone. It's an awesome song. We want you to change one line in the song, if you would. And the line of the song is that, on the cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied. And that's propitiation, and it's biblical. It's what the Bible says. But they said we don't, that won't sell, okay? So can you change it to that, on the cross as Jesus died, the love of God was magnified. And that's a true statement. But it's also a true biblical statement that the wrath of God was satisfied by what Jesus did for us. And they said, thankfully, no, we're not gonna change the words of the psalm. It is what it is. It is true. The Bible gives us the whole picture. Psalm 7, verse 11 tells us that God is angry with the wicked every day. Sin is a serious matter. And the Bible tells us that we are born into this world as sinners, and we live as sinners. We live against God until He works in our hearts and lives. God is angry with the wicked every day, but the beauty of the gospel is that the gospel delivers us from the wrath of God. It rescues us from the wrath of God. We sang that hymn this morning, the last one we sang, I forget the title of it, What's that? Rock of Ages. And at the end of the first line, that the blood of Jesus is a double cure. It saves us from wrath and makes us pure. That's what God did to the gospel. And so surely, as we think about what God has done for us through the gospel, it should evoke some emotions from us. If we have believed the gospel, But before we look at our emotions about the gospel, let's look at God's emotional response to His gospel. The first emotional response of God, we don't sometimes think of God as having emotions, but I take it from John 3, 16. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him puts their faith and trust in Him, should not perish but should have everlasting life. What is God's emotion about the gospel? Love. Love, the gospel flows out of His love. Yes, God has wrath against sin, anger against sinners, but in His love, He sent His Son to rescue poor, wretched, needy sinners. to rescue us from His wrath. God's love for sinful humanity is what motivated Him to give His Son on our behalf. And we're so blessed that God has chosen to deal with us in love rather than in wrath, because wrath is what we deserve. And, man, I don't like to hear that. I don't like to think that I deserve wrath from God because, you know, I'm a pretty good guy in my own mind. But by God's standards, I'm a sinner, okay? How does Ephesians 2, verse 3 describe us? It describes everyone apart from Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2, verse 3, before we were saved, it says, among whom the world among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath." You know, there's a popular saying today that we're all God's children. You know, everyone's God's children. No, not in the biblical sense of being a child of God. By nature, being born as a sinner and living against God, we're children of wrath, objects of wrath. That is what is in store for us. And we were, by nature, children of wrath like the rest of mankind. And so God's love motivated him to send his son on our behalf to deliver us from his wrath so that we could be instead, we could become a child of God and have eternal life. Romans chapter five, starting in verse eight. But God shows or God demonstrates his love for us in this way, that while we were still sinners, while we were still God's enemies, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified, saved by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him, saved by Jesus from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life. We were naturally God's enemies. We were dead in our sins and trespasses. but because of God's great love for us. He sent his son, he gave the gospel that we can be redeemed, and that's great news. And so not only is the emotion of God's love involved in the giving of the gospel, we also see the emotions of Jesus Christ, the son of God, in the gospel. And we find that in the first couple of verses of Hebrews, chapter 12. Find that here in a second. Hebrews chapter 12, verse two, looking unto Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. What was Jesus's emotion about the gospel? Well, it was joy. It was joy. Now, we see different emotions in Gethsemane. Jesus was wrestling with grief, sorrow. My soul is sorrowful even to the point of death, but overpowering that sorrow was the joy And we think, well, what joy would come from being tortured and beaten and mocked and spit on and crucified on a cross? What joy comes from that? I don't think the joy was from in what was happening to Jesus as he suffered for our sins, but the joy was in the idea that Jesus is the one who enables all of us to be saved, to be reconciled to God. Jesus joyfully participated in the work of salvation. He joyfully laid down his life that we might be reconciled to God. The gospel is so rich and so deep that we may never comprehend all of it. And so we've seen some of the emotions of the Apostle Paul. He was proud of the gospel, he was eager, he was excited to preach it. The emotion of God that's sending and giving the gospel in love, and Jesus Christ his Son providing the gospel with joy. the joy we have in the Psalms that Jesus quotes in the New Testament. Conversation between the eternal Son of God and the Heavenly Father. Here am I, a body you have prepared for me. And he took joy in that. Leaving the glories of heaven, taking on human flesh, living in this sinful fallen world, allowing himself, giving himself to be crucified, and yet joyfully understanding and participating in it, because without him doing that, no human could ever be saved, because salvation only comes through the good news of the gospel. But what about our emotions about the gospel? Emotions about the gospel. Well, we read from Romans chapter five down to verse 10, but look at verse 11, Romans chapter five, verse 11, More than that, more than being reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, more than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Now that through the gospel, through trusting in Jesus Christ, being saved, we've been reconciled to God, what's the emotion we should have? Paul says, we rejoice. We rejoice in that. I don't know, I've been in many churches where I don't sense much rejoicing. You know, it's possible to come to church just out of habit or out of duty. I won't tell you raise your hand, but how many of you are here today because your parents made you come? All right. Rejoicing. We should rejoice. We should be overcome with joy because we understand God saved us from hell. He delivered us from being his enemy to being his beloved children. That's got to bring rejoicing. Do you rejoice over the gospel? Are you rejoicing over the gospel? How could we not? From objects of wrath to beloved and accepted children of God. We have to rejoice over that. If we don't, do we really understand the gospel? Another emotion in Romans chapter five, again, verse one, one of my favorite verses in the Bible. I say that all the time. We shouldn't have favorite verses, but Romans 5, 1, Therefore, since we have been justified, saved through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. No longer enemies of God, but we have peace with God. And so what does peace produce in our lives? Well, to be an enemy of God, if we understand that, that should give the emotion of fear, of dread, because it is appointed unto man once to die and after that to judgment. Every human being who has ever lived will stand before God, alone before God, and give an account of their life and what they've done with Jesus Christ, either receiving the gospel or rejecting the gospel. And to stand before the all-knowing, all-powerful God of the universe and to still be an enemy of God, to be dead in sins and trespasses, understanding that hell is our destination, that should bring unbelievable fear and dread and trembling. But to be at peace with God, to have the threat of hell taken away and own eternal life, that should be the emotion of peace. How can we have this peace with God? Well, Romans chapter 8 verse 1, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. No condemnation. Everyone who has not received Jesus Christ is under God's righteous condemnation. But if you've been born again through receiving the gospel, there's no condemnation for you. There's only love and acceptance with our Heavenly Father. And so what is the point of my message this morning? Well, just that our understanding of the gospel should not be just theological. Now, it needs to be theological. We need to think right about the gospel from the scriptures, but our reception of the gospel should result in the emotions of joy and peace in our minds and our hearts. just as Jesus provided our salvation with joy and God the Father reacted to our sin with love? What are our emotions? What are your emotions about the gospel? Well, usually if you have emotions, it shows, okay? Many people have emotional response to winning the lottery. Some people, especially this last year, have had an emotional response to the Cincinnati Bengals winning a lot of games and going to the Super Bowl. So if you have good emotions in regards to the gospel, it should show. How should we demonstrate that we are emotional about the gospel in the right way? Well, first of all, I believe we should be eager, as Paul was, we should be excited to share the gospel with others. Great news! How can we not share? Secondly, our worship. As we come together as the body of Christ, our worship, we should worship and praise God with our singing, our singing with emotions and our praying with emotions in our corporate worship. And then the third way that came to my mind was that our emotions about the gospel should be demonstrated in our daily living. Every day we should show gratitude to God for redeeming us. We should live out our life in this dark, evil world. We should live as children of light. Our lifestyle should reflect Jesus Christ. We should truly love God, the emotion of love. We should truly love God with all of our heart, all of our mind, all of our soul, and all of our strength. And with the love of God in our hearts, the love that he has given us, we should love our neighbor as ourself. We should even love our enemies. Emotional about the gospel. I hope you are. And the emotions that come from receiving the gospel, believing it. I don't know where you stand with Jesus Christ. I hope everyone here has received the gospel. But if you're not sure, where you stand in regards to the gospel, in regards to Jesus Christ, I encourage you before you leave today, please talk to your pastor. He would love to share with you, answer any questions you might have about how you can be reconciled to God, receive eternal life through the gospel. Father in heaven, I thank you that this morning you've given me a little time to talk about the good news of Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that everyone here has received Jesus Christ through faith, Lord, and you are working in their lives to live for him. And Father, that you would give us boldness and eagerness to share the gospel with those who have not yet heard it or received it. Lord, I pray that you wouldn't let any of us leave today without seriously questioning in our own lives, no matter how long we've been a church member, no matter what we've done in our lives, without questioning, have I truly received the gospel? Am I really, truly trusting in Jesus Christ and Christ alone for salvation, forgiveness of sin and eternal life? Lord, I pray that through your Holy Spirit, you would do your work in all of our lives this morning. And having, if we've received the gospel, Father, that you would make us eager to share it, to live as children of light in this world, to partner with you in bringing people into your eternal kingdom. Father, magnify yourself, magnify our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, draw our hearts and minds ever closer to him with every day of life that you give us. May we be grateful to you, show our gratitude to you by becoming, as the Apostle Paul was, a servant, a servant of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And you will be blessed and honored forever. I pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.