If you take your Bibles and hold them for a minute, we're going to open to Romans. But as you're holding them, I want to underscore in your mind what you're holding. This is the only definition of God that's true. This is the only source of doctrine about God, about how we got here, creation, about the purpose and the participants in marriage, about when life begins and when it should end. This is the only source of authoritative truth about God. Everything else in the world, all other truth, is from God. This is the only source of truth about God. People can look at nature and be drawn toward a God they don't know. This book defines who that God is. And only this book. Not experience, not public opinion, not ancient books that someone might find someday. And I'm always a little troubled. When people come rushing up and they say, they just dug up another book in Egypt and it was written by Mary Magdalene while she had her arm around Jesus. What do you think of that? I said, I don't care if they dig up five million books and the Virgin Mary herself wrote them. It doesn't add one word of truth about God. You see, this is the source. You have it. Jesus said, God has spoken many times in times past on the fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken by his son. Jesus is the one that affirmed that this is his word, and nothing else is coming. So let them dig all they want. They're not gonna find, or let people have all the visions and all the ecstatic anythings. It's not adding truth about God. So we could put it this way. The Bible is the only key to unlock truth about God. No matter what the new discoveries, they add nothing to what we know about God. And those new supposed insights are not from God. You understand that? God would not reveal something contrary to his word, nor would he reveal something in addition to his word, because he's already said that we are not to add to his word. So this is the final authority. And if you want to know about marriage and family and parenting and life and business and social interaction and any other topic, God says everything you need to know here. It doesn't mean everything that's knowable is here. Everything that we need for life that pleases Him and godliness, knowing Him and experiencing Him. And we need to cling more and more to that. Because, do you remember, and someday, Lord willing, if we ever get done discipling, we're gonna get back to Revelation, but did you know the Antichrist is gonna be the nicest person, the nicest human that's ever lived? He's gonna be the most winsome human. He's gonna be so nice, everyone's gonna think, finally Jesus came to earth. The one we've always, kind of the smiling, you know, grandfatherly, never heard of fly that we've always dreamed of, he's gonna be here. He's gonna be the most deceptive, the most winsome, and the most deadly human that ever lived. And if Christians, Do not adhere to the truth once and for all, settled in heaven, this book. Then, if it was possible, Christ said, the very elect would be deceived by him. But it's not. Well, let it sink in that no matter what the next supposed prophecy, lost book of the Bible, or archeological or ecstatic experience, or out of body event that you hear about, they add nothing to what we know about God. And those new supposed insights are not from God. And Mohammed of Islam didn't get any true revelation from God. And neither did Joseph Smith of Mormonism. Neither has anyone else up to this day in all of history since John the last of Christ's apostles. And that's what the Bible says. And I hope that you build your lives on truth. In a world that is so quickly detaching from the Scriptures. In fact, according to the pollsters, the majority of so-called Christians today not only have never read the whole Bible, they have no regular study of God's Word planned in their lives. The majority. That's why Jesus said, when I come back, am I even gonna find the faith on the earth? The once and for all settled in heaven faith. Well, the Bible connects us to God's truth. And first, we each hold a copy of God's word, the Bible, which has just led us to celebrate the greatest week in history, Christ's death in our place, his burial for our sins, his resurrection for our justification, and that is an event that we share by faith so deeply, we celebrate it like it happened yesterday. because it's so vivid to us today. You understand, that's what God wants with his word. He wants us to believe it and know it so deeply that we act like it just happened yesterday because it's so real to us today. And if that happens, it would be much easier to talk about it. And maybe that's why largely the church is muzzled. We're not going out every day to every person we meet in an everyday language talking to them about Christ. We hesitate to do that as a body, as Christendom today. We know, we believe, we hold tightly unto the truth of Christ's death, his burial, his resurrection. We know Christ, we believe God, we've experienced his spirit, and those are the elements of salvation that have come to us through the gospel. So now, let's open to Romans 1.16, and that's what we're going to read in just a moment. Paul calls these truths the gospel. The word gospel means good news. In the early church, the apostles and Paul looked on Christ's death, his burial, and his resurrection to save sinners as the good news that they were eager and longed to share with the people around them. You understand that? They thought it was such good news, they were just looking for people every day in their life to share it with. That was an overarching element in their life. That is not an overarching element in Christendom today. It's amazing. The Lord in his word has given us the gospel truth, and we need to connect to that. As we'll see, those first century believers believed the good news was unlike any other communication they could make. Paul explained the uniqueness of this message. He tells us that the gospel's good news comes surrounded by explosive power. You know, I was reading, in fact, I don't know how I got on the list, but I get Jane's Defense News, and before I erase them, if it looks interesting, I'll read a little bit of it. And, you know, a while back they were talking about the ground-penetrating, bunker-busting, newest, you know, we have all these BLM, whatever, missiles and bombs, but they've got the even bigger one now, and it can go through And James was talking about how many feet of concrete, and how much steel, and how much reinforced, and no matter how far it's buried, and it goes so far before it blows up, and it was just interesting. And I thought, and we carry around something far more powerful. That thing can only kill people and destroy things. We carry a good news that's packed with As it says in verse 16, the power of God, not a bomb, unto salvation. So from this Bible, the Gospel, when shared as the good news of what God has done to Christ for sinners to be saved, it is the very power of God unto salvation. When we tell people what God did to Jesus Christ so that they could be saved, We have just put into them a loaded explosive that can burst into life change. And it's not us. It's not how loud we say it. It's not how cleverly we say it. It's not how, you know, we get all these, you know, a lot of people spend all their time, they just want to know everything and have every possible gizmo before they go out and share. And they don't realize that all that is nothing. It's the gospel that is the power. It's not the delivery mechanism. It's the gospel that's the power of God. And that's what we have to get to and share and unleash. So from this Bible we can see clearly and hold deeply and believe intensely the truths of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ for sinners. And those events in the past connect to clearly and powerfully by faith to us today. And they impact us. And from the same Bible we see the gospel is not static. When we share the Bible, when we share the truth of the gospel, the gospel is prepackaged by God with this supernatural power. It doesn't need us to add power to it. In fact, do you remember Jonathan Edwards? You've all heard of Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of the Angry God. I mean, that still is echoing around in history books. I learned about it in Hazlitt High School, in colonial history. It came out. I don't even remember what they said. I just remember Sinners in the Hands of the Angry God. Did you know that Jonathan Edwards delivered that sermon? in a monotone voice without any expression, without raising his voice at all. And he just, in a monotone voice, read that. And as he read it, the people began to scream out, and they were afraid. They were falling into the fires of hell. Do you think it was Jonathan Edwards' amazing monotone voice? It was the power of God unto salvation. See, it's not the tool. It's who's holding the tool and what we deliver. It's the gospel and it changes people. Well, all that to say, the gospel is the power of God. And what motivated, amazed, challenged, and encouraged those early followers of Christ we read about in the Bible, was watching the miracle God did before their eyes every day. You know, there's a fascination for miracles. People will wait in line and go to the arena so they can see Benny Hinn or whoever the latest showman is that does something. And whether it's whipping his coat around and knocking everybody down or boop him and knocking him on the floor, whatever he does, people are fascinated because people want to experience what they perceive to be the miraculous power of God. Do you know why people weren't running around going to Benny Hinn shows 2,000 years ago? Because each one of them were experiencing the greatest miracle in their lives. What is that? When they shared the gospel, they saw the power of God, the explosive power of the gospel unleashed before their eyes in the life of the person that believed what they said. And they saw God at work. The early followers of Christ watched the miracle before their eyes every day, the miraculous transformation of individuals that were brought to life by the gospel of salvation, that were cured of spiritual blindness by the power of God unto salvation, that were healed completely of the horrible leprosy of their sin by faith in the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, death in their place. The one miracle that has never ceased to be displayed in the true Church of Jesus Christ from day one onward to today is the miracle of the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. And that's what we're going to read this morning. So let's all stand together we're going to read our text and you have your Bible and you can check it against mine because you have a translation of the same Bible that I have a translation of and your Bible says something very similar to this and what will be wonderful is this morning for us to realize as we stand here we have the same gospel that they had back then And by the way, we have the same mission that they had back then, to in every possible way communicate. And by the way, they communicated the gospel verbally. I think I'm a track giver, I'm a internet sharer, but the single most powerful tool God has promised to bless is for us to tell people about the Christ who changed us completely, who saved us from all of our sins and fears and doubts and chains and all the evil that were sinking us into hell. and we know Him, and we walk with Him, and we love Him, and can I tell you about Him? His Word says, and we just go right into it. That's the Gospel. And let's read about it together. Romans 1, 16 and 17 says this, For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation. for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Let's bow together. Father, I pray that we would understand and embrace and invite your power to make us sharers, witnesses of the good news. And I pray that you would encourage some saints of this fellowship by letting them see the miracle before their very eyes of you turning someone from darkness to light. of seeing someone turn from the power of Satan unto God, of someone who receives an eternal inheritance by faith in you and are sanctified. And that's a miracle. And oh, how that gives us amazing confirmation because we see you are alive and at work, just as in us, in others. Thank you, in the precious name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. You may be seated as you're seated. I want you to know that when you go through life, and when I go through life, we're sharing the same gospel. Now, remember I said that this is the source of truth. Do you want to know how the church is supposed to be run? If it doesn't match up with what the Bible says, it's not being run correctly. Do you want to know how counseling is to be done? It's done the way they counsel in the Bible. You want to know how soul winning is to be done? It's not finding what the latest denominational... How did they share the gospel? Did you know that there are actually dozens of times Jesus shared the gospel? That's how it's supposed to be shared. Did you know that there are exactly 22 times in the book of Acts that we see the early church articulating the gospel? That's how it's supposed to be done. We don't need to hire someone to package and make something new. See, that's the whole thing that we've gotten to. It's this, we're in the cult of noon. I mean, it's got to be the latest iteration. And God says, seek out the old paths. That's where you find rest for your souls. And some of the iterations, the upgrades, the updates, have gotten so completely removed from the source file that they're really not connected anymore. So, we share the same gospel. Each of us here today that are saved have been saved in the very same way the disciples were saved. We have been saved in the same way that the church born with 3,000 coming to Christ on the day of Pentecost were saved. We are saved the same way Paul was a few years later. We're all saved by the same gospel. In fact, everyone we read about in the New Testament from Acts to Revelation, we're all saved by the same gospel that saved us. We are sharing with others the same gospel they shared. And the simple truths they knew, we also knew. No, and we also should share. And what did they share? They shared the gospel that Jesus Christ came and died and rose and offers them something. Jesus Christ came as the promised Messiah. He came as the perfect human. He came as 100% God in human flesh. He came as a virgin-born Son of God. Jesus came. And that's what they were absolutely convinced of and told people. Jesus Christ died. He died as the Lamb of God. He died as an innocent sacrifice. He died as a substitute for sinners. He died as a target of God's wrath to purchase sinners with his own blood. Jesus died, and he died because I'm a sinner and you're a sinner. If you know you're a sinner, you can be saved. So we just, we roll right into the gospel. Jesus Christ rose. He rose as a fulfillment of God's word, as a proof of his deity, as the conqueror of death, as the completion of all of God's plans. But Jesus rose to be available to anyone, anywhere, at any time. You see, the resurrection liberated Christ from being localized. During his earthly ministry, he was localized. He was only in one place at one time. After the resurrection, he could be everywhere, all the time, with anyone. So Jesus Christ offers to forgive anyone. He offers to cleanse anyone of anything. He offers to comfort anyone through any troubles. He offers to guide anyone all the way through life. And he offers to welcome anyone who comes simply by faith in his death for them as sinners to a place he has prepared in his heavenly Father's home. Do you see why the early church thought this was such good news? Because it was simple, they knew it, and they had experienced it, and they didn't want to let anybody go through life without at least having the power of God unto salvation presented to them. That's why Jesus said, go into all the world and deliver this good news to every creature. Go to every human and tell them. So, we also have to realize, not only are we supposed to share the same gospel, But we share the same mission. In fact, turn back to the book of Acts. Let's look at the launch of the church. Acts chapter 1. And I want to show you the mission. Today we're each just as called as they were back then. In Acts chapter 1, we see the first century Lord Jesus Christ who saved those believers, those disciples, those early converts to Christianity. Jesus in the first century asked them to go through life communicating the gospel. Now see, it's in verse 8. See what it says? But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and everywhere else. So in the first century, the Savior that saved him said, I want you to do something, I have a mission for you. I want you, you're gonna have to support yourself, and you're gonna have to earn money, you're gonna have to live somewhere, and you're gonna have to keep it clean, and prepare food, and clean the dishes, but that's just to keep yourself alive. What you're living for is not to get a bigger house in Jerusalem with a better view. and more art put on the walls and finer softness to surround yourself. That is not why you're here. You're here, look at verse 8, to be my witnesses. Witnesses to me is actually what it says in the New King James. We're supposed to go through life witnessing to Christ. He's there. He came. I know it. He died. I know. He died for me. I know. He rose. I know. I've met him. He offers, I know because I've gotten it. I have what he offered. You ever met someone, they found out about some deal, you know, there's this link and you can download something for free and you go, oh, I want to know about it. You've downloaded a show to me, wow, what's the link? That's the gospel. It's a link to God. And we can connect them to the power of God. That's what he left us here to do. In the 21st century, the same Lord Jesus that saved us also has asked us to go through life communicating the gospel. Well, how did those early believers do? Well, we have a first century record. That's phenomenal to think about. Acts 1 starts at the ascension of Christ on a Sunday six weeks after he arose. And if you look at the last words to the disciples, think of the impact verse 8 had. They heard this, and the very next Sunday, they were there on the day of Pentecost, and the church was born. And what do we find as we analyze all 28 chapters of the carefully scripted events recorded for us by God in the book of Acts? We could summarize the whole book of Acts in one little phrase. Christians verbally communicating the good news about Jesus. How did they do it? Look at verse 8. You shall receive power. It's the Holy Spirit who energized them into action. The book of Acts is not about the Apostles. The printers put in the Acts of the Apostles. That's really not the name of the book. It's the Acts of the Holy Spirit. It's the Spirit of God that energized them and gave them the power to see people transformed. But you know, if you let all the key players drop off the screen for us, you can actually look at the rank and file average nameless early church members who were right there through these momentous times. What did normal people, I mean if John and Peter and all the other galaxy of apostles are off the scene, what did the normal people do? Did they sit back and just watch them on television witnessing? Mm-mm. In fact, turn to chapter eight. I wanna show you something fascinating. And the book of Acts is very picturesque. And chapter eight, verse four. It's interesting. Verse four of chapter eight tells us, answers the question, what did the normal, everyday believers see as their priority of life back then at the start of Christ's church? And what we see in verse four is, therefore, those who were scattered. Who are those who are scattered? Well, if you read verses 1, 2, and 3, it's the occupants of that super-charged, excited, just amazing fellowship in Jerusalem. The church where you could go to church and you could meet the apostles themselves, and you could meet our Lord's mother, and you could meet people He raised from the dead, Jesus, and it was so exciting to go to church, and nobody wanted to leave. And Jesus' brother was the pastor, James. I mean, wow-dee-dow. Who wouldn't want to go to church there? The Saul, the persecutor, is unleashed in verses 1, 2, and 3, and he starts going house to house, dragging Christians to their death. And so it became so intense that look at verse 4, therefore those who were scattered Those who were a part of this fire of excitement of the gospel in Jerusalem, when the heavy hand of persecution came, poof, on the fire of what the Lord was doing there, what happened to them? Like sparks, they radiated outward. And what did they do? They went into hiding, right? They got a bunker, and they got their Y2K supplies, and they laid low, right? Is that what they said? No, look what it says. They went everywhere, and these are nameless, rank-and-file, normal churchgoers of the first century. They went everywhere preaching the word. The word is declaring as heralds the good news, the gospel. They just kind of like, you know, tornado horns. When we lived in Tulsa, there were all these tornado horns, and when they pushed one button, every horn made the same noise in that part of Tulsa. And, you know, or whatever it was, I don't remember, because we always ran and got our mattress, got in the bathtub, and put it over us. Isn't that great? When you have a tornado coming, an F5, that levels houses and uproots trees, The emergency management system says, take your family, get in the bathtub, put a mattress over the top of you, and lay there. What happens if you have so many kids they don't fit in the bathtub? I mean, I didn't even fit in it, you know, and so we're all, you know, with a mattress I can't, but... But when the tornado came, all the horns gave the same message. When persecution came, all those sparks of everyday normal believers landed and the message started playing. They went everywhere proclaiming the gospel. When we are walking in the Spirit, we will be talking in everyday terms to everyday people about the most extraordinary event of all time. Jesus becomes a part of our everyday life. That's what he saved us to do and to be. Believers shared God's Word. In fact, if you want to analyze the book of Acts, you'll find that there are 31 different Greek words that explain the 160 scenes in the book of Acts where the norm of the Christian life is that they found ways to verbally communicate the Gospels. Did you catch that? There are 160 scenes in 28 chapters of normal people talking about Christ. And they use 31 different Greek words. They exhaust the Greek vocabulary for how to start a conversation about Christ. They tried every one. It's amazing to see how everybody knew what they were for. If you look closely, most of the words and acts are used for both local church leaders and unordained average normal believers. In other words, we could say personal witness was the norm in the first century. And we could also say personal witness is not the norm in the 21st century. And that's what's so hard. No matter how you read the 28 chapters of Acts, you see that believers operated quite similarly in their desire and in their effort to tell, in every way possible, the good news of the gospel. Wow. They heard the mission from Christ, that it was to work as a team, where everyone played, everyone, there was no spectator section of the early church. Everybody played, everybody was on the team, everyone knew that the goal was to go out and to share the gospel. And they heard that gospel, and they heard that mission, and they did it. That's the first century church. Now, not perfectly, not completely, not sinlessly, not without problems, but it was really clear what they were there for. A pastor in Wheaton, Illinois, Arkent Hughes, wrote this. He said, the comprehensiveness of the early church's outreach from their homeland and out to the ends of the earth forbids the evangelistic schizophrenia that we easily fall prey to today. And what he says is, church is kind of this split mind. One side, we lavish our attention on foreign missions while neglecting our neighborhoods. And you know, that is an off-balance church. I mean, they're just pumping every dime and they just are proud of, we got one gazillion out there. While nobody has personally walked out the front door of the church to every adjoining property and looked them in the eye and shared the gospel since who knows when. And that's an out of balance church. And the other out of balance church is the opposite. They attend to the immediate needs around us and spend everything on the people that are right there socially and feeding and clothing and everything while millions overseas have never heard about Jesus. He said this, we need balance. We need to reach our neighbors and the world with our gospel witness, with our social witness, with our money, with our time, with ourselves, with our offerings. We must pull and put all we have into the hands of Christ and allow him to use it in his way, in his time, for others' salvation and for his glory. That's what the early church was about. Did you know when they gathered, do you know what they talked about? They said, You wouldn't believe the miracle I saw. The former, this person, and they were the most, and Christ changed them, and here they are. Can you imagine that? Bringing to church these transformed, radiant, and the believers that heard that wanted to go out and see it happen again. See, they saw this miracle of the new birth. And they loved it, and they were infected with it, and they realized they had the power of God-packed gospel, and all they had to do is let it out. And they realized that they had the mission. Christ said, this is what I left you to do. And they did it. And it's the same for us. And let's bow for a word of prayer as we prepare for communion and the elders and deacons prepare to serve us. With heads bowed and eyes closed, this is going to be a communion where we decide what God has called us to do. We have the same gospel, we have the same calling, the same mission, and all he's asked us to do is to let it out. And at this communion would be a great time to surrender and say, I want to be your witness. Father in heaven, I thank you for Jesus Christ, blood and righteousness, That He came, that you died, that you rose, and that you have changed and forgiven and indwelt me, and you, every time I go anywhere in this world and share the gospel, you're standing right over me with your arms open wide, offering salvation. and you just want me to be your voice. You just want me and us here today to be your hands, your mouth, your eyes, looking at a world with compassion, expressing your love, speaking, talking, using every word of the English language we can think of to communicate the gospel. Thank you for this bread, a picture that you personally hung on that cross bearing the absorbing, being the atoning sacrifice for my sin as the wrath of a holy God was poured upon you from me. And I pray that as we partake of this table that you'll stir our hearts with what you did for us and that we will say, because of that, I love you so much, I want to do what you left me here to do. I want to start talking about you, Lord Jesus. Thank you for the bread. Bless us as we commune with you. In the precious name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. As the men pass the bread to us, we're going to sing about Jesus Christ, our sacrifice, who paid it all, and we can declare that to this world. I hear the Savior say, Thy strength indeed is small. Child of weakness, watch and pray. Find in me thine all in all. Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. Next stanza I'm going to have the men sing. We always have the ladies sing first and the men you know, get left out. So men, let's declare, Lord, I find your power. It changed the leper spots in my heart. It melded my heart of stone. And boy, I want to tell that to someone else. And then ladies, we'll allow you to join in with us. Here we go, men. Lord, now indeed I find thy power and thine alone can change the leper's spots and melt the heart of stone. Ladies, join us. Jesus paid it all. You know there's so many people And I don't know, you know, you read the news this week, that poor fella in Oklahoma, I think it was, that, you know, they were doing the lethal injection and something went awry. And, you know, I read all that and I thought, you know, that was horrible and everything. I mean, it was right, because God instituted capital punishment, but they kind of did it not a very good way. But you know what I really thought about? I wonder if that guy died with his sins on him. or on Christ? Every time you read about a death, attend a funeral, that's all I think about. Did they die with all their sins on Jesus, past, present, every moment of their life, every one of them, Jesus paid for, or are they going to be paying for those sins forever? Once you start thinking that everybody you see in this world either has the Son of God or they don't, either they have life or they don't, Then all of a sudden, you say, I've got all the Tamiflu here, you know, if everybody's dying of H1, 5N, something, and your pockets are just bulging with Tamiflu, and you're afraid to share it, and everybody's dying of the flu around you. All of a sudden you realize the gospel is what they need. And this bread is a reminder. It's when I say, Jesus became sin for me. I've partaken of him. I believe that with all of my heart. And then we go out and we want to tell people of what he did in my life. So Jesus said, this is my body, which I gave for you. Do this remembering me. Let's partake together. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that on the cross you became our sin, we became your righteousness. You bought us, we belong to you. You live within us and you have unleashed your Spirit's power to give us the boldness whenever we ask for it, to tell people that our sins are forgiven and Christ can forgive yours. I pray that as we celebrate the cup this morning, that it will be the cup of blessing, Paul talked about it, that we would be blessed to realize why we're here and what we should be doing and that we would do it for you. Thank you for this cup. Most of all, thank you for what it represents, your blood you poured out to forever cleanse and seal and redeem and purchase us. In the name of Jesus, we thank you, amen. As the men are passing the cup, we're going to sing at the cross. And I hate to do this to you, but you've been sitting so long. Let's stand up and be cautious as you do all the passing. And now we have the voices to sing, and let's worship our Lord who died in our place. Alas, and did my Saviour bleed, and did my Sovereign die? Would He devote that sacred head for sinners such as I? At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away, It was there by faith I received my sight, And now I am happy all the day. Now I said in first service, that's the one line of the song, I'm not sure it's accurate. Are you happy all the day? I was, and it was dark this morning when I left, and someone that used my car this week plastered the front windshield with so many bugs I couldn't even see my driveway. And I thought, loan your car to your wife, she drives it 2,000 miles and leaves it buggy. So I was unhappy, but immediately had great joy. See, the Holy Spirit produces joy. in our lives. We might not be happy, but we have joy. You know what my joy was? That I had a wife and children to get my car messy. And that I had a car, I didn't have to walk to church. And that as I drove toward this building, I was coming to the gathering of the greatest group of people in the universe, the Church of Jesus Christ. I wasn't very happy about the bugs. But we have joy because of what Christ did for us. Ladies, we're going to let you sing this and men will join in and then we'll partake together. Ladies. Was it for crimes that I have done? And this is the cup of the new covenant that's in Christ's blood. This is the reminder we got a new heart, a new spirit. He took away our old stony heart that held grudges and hated and was bitter. He took that out and he said, I'm giving you a new heart. And that new heart, I will, as you yield to me, cause to do what I want you to do. All we have to do is surrender and he does what he wants to do through us. That's what the new covenant is all about. And so Jesus said, This is a new covenant in my blood. As oft as you drink it, remember me. Let's partake together. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for such a great salvation. I pray that we would sense and know and comprehend how great Our salvation you have given to us is that we would not want to hide it, but we would want to share the power of God explosively packed message of the gospel. And I pray that someone here would decide this week they're going to pray and take that opportunity you give, share the gospel. And Lord, what a blessing it would be if someone here actually saw the miracle of the new birth. And when they came back next Sunday, they just couldn't wait to tell their life group, their friends. And then someone else will say, wow, I'd like to see God at work too. I'd like to see that miracle. And what a joy it would be to slowly percolate through our body the expectancy to come together and talk about how we saw you at work as we lived as witnesses to you. at our jobs, at school, at home, just doing the mundane, but talking every time we could about the most extraordinary event of our lives. Thank you. And Father, I pray that anybody here who has never had that extraordinary event, have never been saved, that you would draw them to yourself. Use the elders and our tightest two women that are at the front at the end to even be a tool to lead them to you. And for the rest of us, may we love you so much we obey you. and be your witnesses. In the precious name of Jesus, we pray. And all of God's people said, Amen. God bless you as you go.