glory glory amen thank you brother Marcus for helping us this morning and reminding us because he lives amen because he lives. We can face the day we've been given and every day thereafter because of Jesus. Amen? Amen and amen. Well, Brother David, thank you. Thank you, brother. Thank you and your bride, Miss Kathy, and Miss Cindy, too. They come as a package. Amen? Glory be. Sweet, sweet. Thank you. Thank you, church, for loving on us this week. Thank you for being so kind to my bride and daughter and granddaughter and grandsons and son-in-law. We just appreciate y'all. Love y'all. Look forward to our opportunities to be able to fellowship with you in the near future again. We just thank the Lord for just open doors. Amen. and the Lord has bound our heart together. You've heard me say this before, family's family, right? Some are family by blood, some are family through the blood, but family's family. And y'all are family here, so we are tickled any time we get a chance to come and hang out. We want to thank y'all for housing us, taking care of us. Our accommodations this week have been wonderful and beautiful and pleasant and y'all have supplied us with everything in excess and abundance to take care of us. So thank you. Thank you for feeding us each day and each evening. I pray we've been able to feed you and love on you that would honor and bless the Lord and we just are delighted that we get to do it again today, amen? So I want you to take the revelation that you brought with you and go to the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Mark, the last chapter, chapter number 16. It's kind of going to be our springboard of what we may look at a couple of things in the scriptures. But I just wanted to continue our thought as we have been looking at this idea of being these disciples who want to live for the glory of the Lord, who know we have an assignment from the Lord. As we talked about Jonah last night and how Jonah ran long before he started running. And the evidence of him running was the mere fact of what would been sown in his heart. And he said he had given his attention to lifeless things, things that really didn't matter, things that God wasn't involved in. Doesn't mean they were bad things. We don't believe that they were bad things. They were just without the Lord. And anything we're doing in life that is minus the Lord is deadly, deceptive, and only will hurt us ultimately in the end. And we need God to do what? Bring His clarity into our life. We need Him to confront us. We need Him to convict us. We need Him to correct us. We need Him to confirm His way in our life so that we can be all that He intended us to be. And that will never happen apart from His presence and apart from His promises. We need the Spirit of God at work. and we need the truth, the scriptures that work in us. And we're going to see in this passage as Jesus was sending his disciples off into the work that they had been assigned to, we have to apply these things to our life because that's what Jesus came to make, his disciples. I'm not going to get into the distinctions that are drawn In our modern day, if you ever pay much attention to my teaching and my leading in any kind of form or fashion, something you'll rarely ever hear me use unless I have to explain it like I'm gonna explain today. And you could probably say, I didn't hear Brother Nick say that one time this week. And I make an intention not to use it purposely because it's completely misunderstood in our day in so many levels. But I don't use the term Christian in my vocabulary. I just don't use it. I attempt to not to use it. And the reason why is because we live in a society that really has no idea what that word means. Because they distinguish and the sad thing is it's distinguished in the church most dominantly Between what a disciple is and what a Christian is there are people that believe there are two different things and Jesus didn't come to make Christians. He came to make disciples and A disciple is a diligent, determined follower who's been made a new creature in Christ Jesus. When Jesus saves a soul, when He takes a creature who is bound for ruin, He salvages that life. He makes them His disciple. And a disciple is a follower, one who has been made able follow Jesus because of the transformation that takes place within them because he takes a heart of stone out of them and he puts a heart in them that is now sensitive to his voice. They're sensitive to his call on their life. They have a shepherd who they're now following. As Jesus said, my sheep shall know my voice, and they what? Follow me. That is a sheep, and a sheep is a disciple, and the Bible only uses the word Christian on three different occasions in the scriptures, and when it is used three times out of all of the word of God, just three times that word is used, and it's always in relation to how the disciples were viewed by an outside world. The outside world recognized the disciples as they followed Jesus and attached them to Jesus by giving them a name, Christian, by being Christ-like. But in our day, all you have to do is mention the name Jesus and people want to tag you as a Christian. but have no evidence of being a disciple of the Lord Jesus. So I just make it a purpose in all that I do not to bring that word to life. I always teach the principles of what it means to be a disciple of the Lord, a new creature in Christ Jesus who is a vessel of his mercy, a sheep in his pasture, one who's been transformed and changed to follow, to treasure, to love, to reach a world around us with the good news of Jesus Christ. And he says these words in verse number 14 of Matthew 16. Later he appeared to the 11 as they sat at the table and he rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart. He's talking about his disciples. His disciples were operating in unbelief and hardness of heart. And the Bible describes unbelief as an evil thing. It's evil to have a heart of unbelief. Is Jesus trustworthy? Is he more trustworthy than anybody else in the world? Is he more trustworthy than you and me? Oh, no doubt about it. So when we don't believe him and we discredit his witness, that's an evil thing, isn't it? And that comes out of unbelief. And there are times in our journey that we display that evil heart of unbelief because we put more confidence in who we are and what we can do without him than really taking him at his word. and I wanna be in a position where I'm always heeding his message for what he gives me. So, he says in verse number 15, and he said to them, go into all the world and preach the gospel to some creatures. Is that what he says? What did he say? Go into the world and preach the gospel to what? Every creature. Look at your neighbor and say, Jesus told me. to preach the gospel. Come on now, y'all can do better than that, amen? Look at your neighbor, look at them eyeball to eyeball and say, Jesus told me to preach the gospel to you. Because if you're a creature, you need the gospel, amen? He said, there are no exemptions and no exclusions. Every creature in its original creation has to be transformed and changed by the glorious good news of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel, if you want to personify, it's Jesus. Go preach Jesus to every creature. There's not, and how many of y'all ever read this verse before? Raise your hand. How many have ever heard this verse before? Raise your hand. How many of y'all believe this truth? Raise your hand. Well, how many creatures did we come across this week that we didn't preach to? Think about it for a minute. We all know these things. We know the command. We see that's an evil heart of what? unbelief to think that I can walk through everyday life and rarely ever open my mouth and preach the gospel to every creature because Jesus said every creature in their original creation needs this good news that somebody took their place and died for them and Jesus is sending his disciples out to go make disciples for him. Matthew's gospel would read it like this. Go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations, teaching them those things which I taught you. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And wherever, however, however long you go, lo, I'm with you even until what? The end of the world, the end of the age. So that applies to me and you in here today, doesn't it? That we go teach them what he's taught us to observe in the walk-in. Now the word here in our message in Mark 16, go and preach the gospel. The word go is in a form that means as you go in life, in your going, for an example. Obviously you had to go from your home to get here today, and all God's people said. How many of you plan on getting up and going to work either tonight or tomorrow? Mr. Randall said he's retired, amen? He's shaking his head, he ain't got no plans to go to work tomorrow. He's done, right? Now I'm sure you still got some stuff to do, right? I'm sure you still do. How many of you, how many in here goes to the gym on a regular basis, anybody? I got the wrong crowd then, don't I? How many of y'all go to school? Well, I know school's out right now, but how many of y'all in college? How many of y'all in high school? How many of y'all got football, band, or some kind of practice going on this summer, anybody? Just got some back there. How many of y'all got doctor visits this week? Now watch, I got the right crowd now, raise it up. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. In your going, this is what it means. You're already going every day of your life. As you go, make this the priority, that you bring the message of Jesus. to every creature, because every creature needs it. That's the idea. It's not that, okay, we're gonna take a mission trip to Jasper, Alabama this week, or we're gonna take a mission trip to Meridian, Mississippi this week, or we're gonna take a mission trip to the Dominican Republic, or we're going to Ohio, or we're going to Africa, or we're going to Egypt, or we're going to China. Yes, all those things are part of that, that we're going, but it's in the everyday ins and outs, ups and downs, highs and lows of just everyday life. Always go with this in the forefront of your thinking, that every creature you come in contact with stands in need of the Lord Jesus Christ. They stand in need of this good message of what he came to do. And you go preach the power of his resurrection. Well, if he resurrected, Why did he resurrect? Well, he had to die. God only resurrects that which dies, right? Isn't that about our life too? That if I don't die, I can't walk in the power of God's resurrection. He only gives life to that which dies. And I've got a little saying, if you don't die before you die, you won't die when you die. If you don't die before you die, you won't live when you die, right? You'll be cast what? You gotta die in this life to yourself before you die. Because if you don't die with Jesus before you die, when you have to face him one day, the Bible refers to the lake of fire as the second death. You'll be cast into the lake of fire because you didn't die to who you are and put your trust in the Lord Jesus. And when you put your trust in Jesus, turn to Mark 8. Go back a few chapters, eight chapters to Mark 8. Let me show you this real quick. Notice how this plays into Mark 8. Look in about verse number 34. Mark 8, 34. Y'all don't mind me coming down here with y'all, do you? Mark 8, 34. 834 says, when Jesus called the people to himself with his disciples, also he said to them, whosoever desires to come after me, that would be follow after me, there's conditions that have to be met in following after me. The first thing that has to be met, what does he have to do? Let him what? Deny himself. The word deny means to denounce. And you could simply say the idea is you denounce the right to govern your own life. When you follow Jesus, you're submitting to another governor, you're submitting to another leader, you submit your life to his care, and wherever he leads, you're willing to follow, and you denounce the right to make decisions and to demand your rights in this life. Because as a disciple, what is the goal of every disciple? What does the Bible teach us? What is the end game for every single disciple? What is it? The end game of every disciple according to the scriptures is that they be like their master. They want to take on the identity of their master. They want to know who their master is. Or you can use the word teacher, that's the idea, a pupil and a teacher, a servant and a master, that's the role of discipleship. Every authentic disciple wants to know everything they can know about their master because they wanna be like him. If you're gonna follow somebody with all your heart, wouldn't it be a good idea to wanna be like that person? And isn't that what Jesus does when he changes a person's life from their original creation? You know, that creature that we were made from our mother's womb and came into this world, doing life our way, going our way, and Jesus had to make a complete turnaround. He had to salvage us. in that because on that way we were headed toward ruin, and His saving work salvages us from that ruin, from that dunghill, and He turns us toward Him, makes us safe with Him that we've been reconciled with a holy God through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and His life, and then He makes us safe to go with Him and work for Him. Well, that can only happen if He's teaching me. And that can only happen if I'm what surrendered and submitted to him and I'm denouncing the right to my own life. Then he says that he must deny himself and take up his. What does that mean to take up his cross? It means that when I follow this teacher, this teacher has an assignment for me to walk in and to fulfill. Jesus was taken up His cross because that was the assignment that the Father gave to Him. But Brother James, you're not gonna bear a cross like he bared, but the cross you will bear is the mission or the assignment that God's given you, like he gave his son an assignment. Well, see, my master gives me an assignment, and one of those assignments are, no matter where I go, as I go, I'm to go with his message and bring it to people. That's part of the assignment. And I can't legitimately say that I'm his disciple if he hasn't salvaged me from a path of ruin, made me safe with him, and now safe to work with him and for him, and that he's given me something to do in this life for his glory. And then he says that he must what? Follow after me how often? Luke would say it like this, he follows me daily. Luke would add daily to that. Well, notice what verse 35 says. For whosoever desires to play it safe, the word save means to play it safe, to play it safe with his life, that is to control his life, to make the rules about his life, to make the rules of what he does every day in his life, that his way is better, he says, look, for whosoever desires to save his life, He will what? He'll lose it. But whoever loses his life no longer plays it safe to control his life. For my sake and the what? Oh, don't miss that. You hear that right there? Whoever desires to lose their life to me and my message. What do they find? They become safe with God. It's the only way it works. Listen, I'll read it again to you. For whoever desires to play it safe with his life is gonna lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake, for me, and my message will make themselves safe with me. will save it, will make themselves safe with me. For what will it profit a man if he gains the entire world and lose his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whosoever is ashamed of me and my message, my words, my teaching, In this adulterous and sinful generation of him, the son of man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with his holy angels. Man, that's a mouthful, isn't it? That is saying that the only people in the world who will ever lose it all for Jesus can see by faith that Jesus is worth it all. And I'm going to tell you in here today, he's worth it all. He's worth everything that you are or ever will be, amen? And you and of yourself are only gonna harm yourself, hurt yourself, destroy yourself, and the only way to find life and be safe with God is to take him at his word, to trust him. But when you do, here's the thing. Not only are you giving your life to Jesus, But you've given your life to Jesus in his mission. You've given your life to Jesus in his ministry. You've given your life to Jesus in his message. That's the gospel. That's what you've given your life to. So, remember I told you last night, Jesus never delivers us from something without delivering us what? to something. So somebody that says, oh yeah, I've been saved, I've been delivered from this, but they don't have anything he's delivered them to, you have to question, have they been salvaged? Are they safe with God? And have they been safe to sin? Is his saving work evident in their life? I would say that it's not evident in their life. Why? Because if he delivered you from sin and selfishness and from this society and from the grip of Satan and delivered you from his wrath, he's always going to deliver you to his service. And you know when you put your confidence in him because the good news of Jesus is the best news ever. And if it's the best news for me, it's the best news for everybody. And I'm giving my life to him and his good news. And I want to go share that good news with everybody that I have a chance to share it with. Why? Because his good news is my life. It's my life. His message is my life. I'm nothing without that word. Amen. I'm nothing without his work. I'm nothing without that witness in my life. I can do nothing, I am nothing, I won't be anything without that word in my life. And I wanna tell you, he hadn't asked us, now he may have, and he may ask you to do some things that are bizarre. I wouldn't put it past him. Have y'all know that God has asked some of his people to do some extremely bizarre things in the past? They'll shock you when you hear about them. Things that are unprecedented. Things that, unpredictable, you'd have never thought in a million years He would ask you to do it. And they are unprotected from the scrutiny of men. Let me give you a couple examples of it. And I pray before we leave here today, you're gonna say, whew, I'm glad He didn't ask me to do that. But I want to tell you, he has asked you to do something. You didn't know what it is. Well, let's go with the first guy. There's a prophet by the name of Ezekiel. Ezekiel was a prophet that God took and planted in Babylon with his people when he dispersed them under Nebuchadnezzar. We talked about Nebuchadnezzar this week. Remember how God given all authority to Nebuchadnezzar and how the people must submit to him and follow him, and if anybody didn't, what would happen to them? They would perish, just like with Jesus. If you don't submit and follow Jesus, what's gonna happen? you're gonna perish, it's just inevitable. Well, Ezekiel goes in the Babylon with the people and God raises him up and gives him a word and he's got a ton of things that he teaches on and preaches on. And how many of y'all in here love a good illustration? Y'all like good illustrations? Illustrations speak to us, they help us. And everybody loves a good illustration until you become the illustration. And Ezekiel, Again and again and again became the illustration of God to those people. Well, one of the illustrations is this God told Ezekiel and this is in Ezekiel 24, you don't have to turn there I'm just gonna walk you through it for time's sake because we're gonna talk about a couple of them in here today and I'll give you where the references are for you to look at another because they're interesting you're gonna want to go look at it and But Ezekiel 24, God came to Ezekiel and told Ezekiel out of the clear blue, unprecedented. Hadn't seen this happen before, but it's about to happen. Couldn't predict it to come. But Ezekiel was told in Ezekiel 24 that God was gonna kill his wife. God said, I'm gonna take your wife away with one stroke. And when I take your wife away, now, Ezekiel wasn't an older man. He was a younger, middle-aged man, more likely at this time. How long he had been married, we really don't know. But his wife, they were probably in the prime of their life. I told y'all, Stephanie and I are about to celebrate 36 years next month, and I tell everybody, we hadn't been married long enough. I do not want the Lord to come take her out of my life. I want to live for many, many days with this pretty woman over here and I'll do everything I can for that. So I wouldn't want God to come to me and just wake up one day and the Lord meets with me and says, Nick, I'm taking Stephanie away today. And when I take her away, this is what I want you to do. I don't want you to cry one tear. Number two, I want you to make sure you put your turban on your head. Number three, I don't want you to receive bread from people when they bring you the bread of sorrows. Because you know how it is when somebody passes away. I've got a funeral due tomorrow in Meridian, Mississippi at one o'clock, and I'll imagine over the last couple days, people have been bringing food to the Mathis family. and they've been blessing them and showing their sympathy to them and letting them know they care for them, and they don't want them to have to worry about cooking or food, and all you've been in this situation before, most of you in here, and that's normally what we do as a community, to bless people and help them through those times. Well, God told Ezekiel, do not accept any bread of sorrows. But he says, you make sure you eat and don't go fasting and mourning and crying and weeping And the people are gonna ask, why? Why are you behaving like this? Why are you acting like this? This is out of the norm. You're not acting normal. And I'd imagine the community around them was saying, man, something's wrong with Ezekiel. He hadn't shed the first tear over losing his wife. And the Bible describes her, Miss Donna, as the delight or the desire of his eyes. He won't accept our bread. He won't accept our sympathy. He hasn't been mourning. He's not in sackcloth and ashes. He's got his turban on. He's just living like he's always lived. Why in the world is he doing what he's doing? Well, God says, when they come and ask you, this is what I want you to tell them. I want you to tell them that what I'm about to do in Jerusalem, What I'm about to do in Jerusalem is gonna shock you. You've been telling everybody for years and years and years that that sanctuary, that temple is God's pride and glory and he'll never do anything to it. But I want you to let them know that I'm fixing to wipe it off its foundation. I'm destroying the sanctuary. I'm gonna defile it with a foreign army and they're gonna run it rampant. And I don't want you to cry over it. I don't want you to mourn over it. I don't want you to put your turban on. I don't want you to accept the bread of sorrows. And the reason why is because you're more concerned about that building than you are sinning against me. You're more concerned about a thing than you can. And because you are more concerned about it, and that's your pride and glory, and you have no connection to me on this, I'm fixing to take away what you put your glory in, and I want you to get your hearts right with me. You see, that was one of the things the Israelites always would do. They figured they can sin however they want, live however they want. All they had to do was go sacrifice an animal and bring it, and put it on the altar, and everything would be all right. And they got really good at bringing sacrifices, but not living for the glory of God. That's why they were in Babylon to begin with. Man, I don't want that. I don't want to be that kind of living illustration. Amen. There's another time. There's a prophet by the name of Isaiah. Anybody ever heard of Isaiah? And Isaiah 20, don't have to turn there, but just make a reference of it. You can go read about it. The Israelites have been putting their confidence in two nations, Ethiopia and Egypt. And they've been relying upon them to do what only God was able to do and that's protect them. So they make an alliances with these foreign nations to come under their covering because they were big and powerful and they were having to deal with the Assyrians and Syria and all these other nations. So they come and got up under like this big fella here They got up under their wing and said we want you to protect us and we'll give you resources We'll do whatever we need to do if you'll be our protector if you'll be our insurance policy We will we will do whatever you want us to do. Well, what God did was he said Isaiah This is what I want you to do I want you to take your sandals off, and I want you to remove your garments, and for the next three years, I want you to walk around Judah with your buttocks showing. Praise God he ain't asked y'all to do that, amen? Can you imagine for the next three years the prophet who had been saying, thus saith the Lord, the mighty God of Israel proclaiming the holiness of God is all of a sudden told by God? I mean, it's unprecedented. It ain't happened that way. It's unpredictable. He could have never come up with it of his own. But God said, I want you to walk for the next three years with your backside showing because this is what's going to happen. you, Israel, are going to watch both Ethiopia and Egypt ransacked by other nations. And when I ransack them by the other nations, you are going to watch them leave their nations in chains and bonds, men and women alike, shorn from the head down, completely barren naked, walking in chains and shackles, leaving Ethiopia and Egypt. And that's the people you've been putting your trust in. Isaiah became the living illustration. Can y'all imagine Brother John walking around Eldritch with his backside showing? Would y'all call the state hospital and tell them to come pick him up? Can you get it? What about it, Miss Susan? Wouldn't it happen? Miss Mary Jane, you'd be calling for help, huh? Can you put your mind around that? But Brother David, that'd be a hard one to swallow, wouldn't it? Now God ain't asked y'all to do that, I know, praise God. He ain't asked me to do it, but I know he's asked me, he asked me to do something for it. You know what Isaiah did? He did it. You know what Ezekiel did? He did it. There was another man that God came to a prophet by the name of Hosea. Y'all ever heard of Hosea? God came to Hosea and told Hosea, this is what I want you to do. Unpredictable, unprecedented. and unprotected from the scrutiny of men. Can you believe people talked about Ezekiel and talked about Isaiah? Well, they're going to talk about Hosea too. God told Hosea that I want you to go find a particular woman. She's a prostitute. She's a harlot. She's in the business of a harlot and I want you to go buy her and I want you to take her as your wife. Here's the man of God who's been standing and proclaiming, thus says the Lord, the holiness of God. And God tells him to go take a prostitute. But not only that, God told him up front what the prostitute was going to do. He says, she, Gomer, when you marry her and you bring her home, she's going to give you children, but she's going back in the prostitution again. She's going to leave you. And she's going to leave those kids. you go marry." You know what Hosea did? Can you imagine when he called his mama and said, mama, God told me I had a wife out there I need to go marry. He said, well what's her name Hosea? Her name is Gomer. His mama said, son you need to talk to your daddy. You need to go talk to daddy about this. Something ain't right here. Do you know who she is? You know what she lives like? You know what she's been doing? Well, the Bible says that Hosea did what God told him to do. He went and bought Gomer, brought her home. Gomer gave him one child and then she had an extramarital affair and had another child by another man. Then she leaves those two children with Hosea, and she goes back into the prostitution market again. Ain't the end of the story, is it? What did God come to and tell Hosea? What did he say? Pull that money out of your pocket and do what? Go buy her again. And he went and bought her again. And he brought her home. And you know what? And Gomer, Gomer began to realize that there was something different about this man. He was just not another casualty of the job. These children wasn't just another product of her profession. She realized that this man actually loved her. And her heart changed toward him. And Hosea became the living illustration of the fact that God's people, Israel, had played the harlot with him and kept going back into harlotry. But God paid an ultimate price for them to buy them off the slave market. Amen. And one day, it hadn't happened yet, but one day Israel are not gonna see God as Elohim creator. You know who they're gonna see him as? Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. And they're gonna yield their life to him, amen? Can you believe he went unprotected by the scrutiny of men when he was doing what he was doing? Do you think we, when we deny ourself, take up the cross and follow after Jesus, that we'll have to deal with the scrutiny of men in our society too? Yeah. There was another guy I'm sure all of you are familiar with, have heard the story at least once, a man by the name of Noah. Then when God came to Noah and told him that he was to build an ark for the saving of his household. And in those days, why in the world would you ever build a major ship? Why would you build an ark like that? Do you think people thought Noah was crazy? I don't believe Noah built it all by himself. I believe Noah had to have, that was a major deal that he built. It took him a while to build it, but I believe he hired people out to build it. But you see, the people he hired out to build wouldn't trust him, didn't believe him, wouldn't follow him, and he wouldn't preach the message to everybody. The Bible says Noah was a preacher of righteousness. Isaiah 54, 9 calls those waters the waters of Noah. They identified with him. You know why? Because Noah preached waters were coming, judgment was coming, but nobody believed. And all those mamas and daddies told those little boys and little girls not to believe him either, that he was crazy, that you can't trust him. Yeah, he spent a lot of money. Yes, he's paying us. We eating good right now because we helping him build this vessel that he's building. But we're following. We're not going to follow him. But I want to tell you, the rain started falling. And when the rains fell and God put him in the ark and those little boys and little girls started looking at their mom and daddy and said, I thought you told us not to trust him. That he wasn't worth following and giving our life to. But only Noah and his sons and daughters made it on that vessel and made it through that flood. Unprotected from the scrutiny of men. But you know of all that, you know what's even more extraordinary? than Ezekiel, more extraordinary than Isaiah, more extraordinary than Hosea, more extraordinary than Noah, even more extraordinary than a man like Jeremiah, who God came to him in Jeremiah 13 and told Jeremiah to go bury his undergarments at the Euphrates River. That was a 10-day journey there and a 10-day journey back just to go bury underwear at the Euphrates River. And then many days later, God tells him to go back and go take another 10 days, a 20-day round-trip journey. So for 40 days, he walked just to go uncover the underwear. that had rotten and fallen apart and he became this illustration 720 miles one way, 10 day journey to just illustrate what was gonna happen with Israel when he took them into Babylon. Man, can you imagine 40 days and 40 nights walking through a wilderness just to go bury underwear by a river? Don't make a whole lot of sense, does it? Until God's involved in it. But beyond all that, the most extraordinary news is the fact that God Himself came to this earth and was clothed in the womb of a woman, took upon flesh, walked and lived and was tempted, was tested, and overcame every single temptation and test and trial and lived a righteous life to rescue a world who wanted nothing to do with him. That's the most extraordinary news or bizarre thing that could ever happen to anybody, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he came so that every creature could hear what he came for, that he came to rescue their lives. And I wanna tell you in here today, God's got an assignment for you as an individual and you as a husband and wife and you as a family to fulfill and walk in. And one of those assignments is that we can go tell of his extraordinary life, of what he's done on our behalf. And there's no task in the world greater than what Jesus was given to do. And there'll be no task ever greater than that. So the means that he's given you and I to walk in is to walk in his extraordinary life. And we just have to go tell his story, amen. Does every creature in Walker County need to hear Jesus? Does every creature in Alabama need to hear Jesus? Does every creature in Mississippi need to hear of Jesus? Does the world still need Jesus? He, they, we all need Jesus, amen. What an extraordinary thing that God has done for you and me. So here's the message for us today. As you go, go with his story and how he's affected you in mind and just keep telling it again and again and again and again and again. Just repackage it. Retell the story. Come at it from different angles, like we've been doing this week. But always get them back to Jesus, amen? And what he's done. You've heard me say before, I got leukemia, and I go every six weeks and have blood work done. And I get a Imuglobulin, which is an immune booster they put in me, but when them girls take my blood every time, I always talk to them, and I tell them I'm in the blood business. And they asked me, each one, I never get the same one, rarely ever, and they stick me six, eight times when I go. So I get to tell them, I say, look, I'm in the blood business, and they ask, where do I work, what clinic did I work in, who do I work for? And I say, well, I'm in a little bit different kind of blood business. I'm in the blood business of Jesus. I said, this old blood of mine is corrupt, it's rotten, it's ruined. Ain't nothing in the world can be done for it. But somebody, somebody took my place and spilt his royal, perfect, pure blood to wash me of all my wickedness and imperfections so that I can put my confidence in him and no longer trust in myself. And I want to tell you, I was headed for ruin, but he salvaged me. made me safe and now he's made me safe to send with his good news amen man that's Jesus amen that's Jesus would you stand with us today father we bless you at this time and ask you to do your work every single soul in here we know has a desperate need for your work in their life. There's not one that is exempt, not one that is excluded. Me, being the chief of centers in this place, need you more today than I've ever needed you. I need you to repurpose and refocus my life. Put your passions and priority and purpose in me that when I go, I go with that in mind of what you've done for every creature. Help me. Remind me. Send messengers to me. Equip me. Prepare me. May I go. You haven't asked me to do anything like you did Isaiah or Ezekiel or Jeremiah or Noah or whoever else. but you have given me a work to do and I'm ever grateful for it. And I'm thankful today that I know as well that I can't do it without you. So Lord, where you send, I pray you go with me in that sending and I'm gonna find life exactly the way you said it would be when I follow you. So I pray for every soul in here today that they're seeking you. They trust in you, they believe in you, and they've given themselves to you and your message, and they're ready, they're ready, they're ready to go. Revive us, oh Lord, in Jesus' name, amen.