Co-Mission sermons

2 Corinthians 5. It's on page 1161, and, we're just going to read versus 9 to 11. First 9 to 11. So 2 Corinthians 5. 1 1 6 1.

So we make it our goal to please him. Whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. So that each of us may receive what is due to us for the things done in the body with a good or bad. Since then, we know what it is to fear the lord, we try to persuade others.

What we are is plain to god, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. I thought where should I start? With looking at commission and church planting. And what I've decided to do is I've decided start off by looking at why we persuade people of the gospel. And then we can have a look at methods and techniques maybe later on.

Maybe not even in this particular sermon, but we're just gonna look at why do we persuade people about this good news of Jesus Christ? And for that, I think a good place to start is with my postman. Now, Just so I can remember just how ridiculous it is. I went out shopping nearby where I live, and where I live, there's a petrol station. And the petrol station is is almost 24 hour.

It's open a lot of the time and it's brilliant because I can get the things and come back again. Not completely brilliant. Because it's been disastrous for me at times to to live next to a petrol station. Anyone ever live next to a petrol station. Am I the only 1 here?

Oh, a couple of people live next petrol station. Have you ever done this? Have you ever driven and and bought petrol and then bought a few things, some items forget that you've added petrol to your car, walked home, and then the next day had a knock on the door by the police because you've left your car in the petrol station all night. No. I'm the only idiot that's done that.

So that's the negative side of having a petrol station next to where you live. I've done that twice. So it's more shameful, isn't it? Right. So anyway, Yes.

I went across to buy a few things, met my wife, and it's just New Year's Eve. And she'd gone over and we got some things together. I hadn't got some petrol. It's all good so far. We get to go home, we get home, and I unlock the door, and my wife goes in.

She hadn't know and I say, hang on a second. And I pull the door closed, and then I look at the door. What do you think could be on that door? Well, I have to spin back in time a little bit for this because our Amazon Postman had brought a parcel for us and he realized that we won't in when we he knocked on the door and it mattered to him so much that I would get this parcel that he reached down in his pockets, I imagine, and he couldn't find the bit of paper that you write on. You know, that kind of red slip from Amazon saying where they've put the package.

And so he got started to panic He went next door, knocked on their door. They opened up. He gave them the package. Number 20 got the package. He went back and then he thought, what am I gonna do?

Had no paper, then he came to a brain work on New Year's Eve, pulled out a Sharpie, wrote across my front door in the Sharpie, The parcel is at flat 20 in big writing and then left. So I arrive and find that my front door in big writing is written across it, parcel, spelt wrong. His English teacher that matters to me. And so that every time people come and visit us, they say, oh, you do know you got a parcel in Yes, I know we've got a parcel at flat 20, but I can't get it off. And so my wife's been doing the hard work they have talking to Amazon trying to work at how much do we claim back to get the door repainted so that's that can be written off.

Now, yeah, could we have the slides? Slide, please. And so we're gonna ask my postman. There you go. So we're gonna have a look at a few things together.

Do not be alarmed at the right hand side, which can look a bit at the fear of the lord at some point in the talk. But My postman is an inspiration to me in 1 way. And it's the passion with which he wanted to communicate that message You know, you can see that he was probably afraid a little bit of me, but not that much. Compared with being afraid of Amazon finding out that I didn't get to know about the package. So he had so much more respect and fear for Amazon and making sure he got the message across than me really being bothered about my door being ruined.

And I got respect for a man who wants to communicate that passionately with me. And in a in a similar way, Paul is a man who wants to communicate with reckless passion I need to get a Bible, and it wasn't 1 at the here, actually. Thank you. And we're gonna have a look at this passage here. I'm not gonna go too deeply into the context because Paul has been talking about the difference between being alive, being able to serve god and being in heaven, and how they're both wonderful things in different ways.

But he then goes to talk about why we're driven to live this life with focus and purpose when we could be like, oh, I'm going to heaven. I'm not gonna bother with anything else. Countdown begins now sooner or later I'll get to heaven, or we'll all be lemmings, and we'll just leap off the nearest building to get to heaven quicker. No, we've got a a purpose right now while we're alive to do something wonderful for god and he explains what this is about, and we're gonna look at the language of that together because it's so relevant with what drives us all as Christians to bring the good news to others. Let's have a look from verse 9 through to verse 11.

So we're making our goal to please him whether we're at home in the body or away from That's the stuff to do with, you know, being alive or being in heaven. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each of us may receive what is due to us for the things done whether in the body or good with a good or bad. Since then, we know what it is to fear the lord, we try to persuade others. What we are is plain to god, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. So we start off with this thing that we persuade others.

Now, in the original Greek, it's just persuade others. It's not trying. So if you're thinking, oh, man, even Paul was trying, wasn't getting very No. The actual original is that we persuade others. The way that the NIV have dealt with this is because it makes it sound like, the persuading of people to turn to Christ is purely down to our intellectual skills and techniques.

And so the NIV has gone out of his way here to to make clear that actually persuasion of someone becoming a Christian is a work of the Holy Spirit. So that's going on in the background. That's why they've written the tribe bit, and some will follow our persuasion. Some won't we're not a cult we haven't got secret persuasion techniques. So in that sense, it's right.

But another sense, Paul was really straightforward. He was saying, we just do persuade others. They do become believers and it's wonderful and it's happening all the time. And that is true. So we do persuade others But why do we persuade others?

So I'm gonna do something that you ought not really to do when you're using the bible? Well, we're gonna go backwards because sometimes that can be really helpful. Not all the time, but we're gonna look because it's helpful when you've got things like because because you can go backwards. You can understand why, can't you? And things like therefores and sense in since and all that kind of thing.

We've got a lovely, therefore here, in where we're sort of, since, in verse 11, therefore, since pretty similar in the Greek. And and so it means we can go backwards to find out what they're there for, the sense is is all about. And so we can do the same thing with this. We try to persuade others. So why are we trying to persuade others?

Because we know what it is to fear the lord. Old K JV. Anyone anyone familiar with the AV? Authorized version, King James version. I've mem I memorized my bible verses as a child.

And so when I first come across, I thought, terror of the lord, isn't it? Well, n I v have got this 1 spot on. It is fear of the lord. It's not terror of the lord. What happened with the KJV translators, they're looking at it and they're thinking, this is about, being scared of the judgment and so we're gonna use the word terror when actually this is about a biblical phrase fear of the lord, which is a hugely significant phrase in the whole bible.

And, if we took it out of that content, so I've stick in the word, Terry, and we'd missed a point here, So, we persuade people because we know the fear of the lord. In literal Greek, it would be knowing the fear of the lord. We persuade people. And so why do we fear the lord? That's my point through.

Well, to do that, we're gonna get back and find out a little bit about what this means fear of the lord. The idea of fear isn't an attractive thing. I mean, even people wear hats with things like no fear written across it. I don't know if you ever thought about it, but fear actually isn't such a bad thing. There's a kind of paralyzing fear, you know, where when you're rabbit in with, headlights just can't move possibly.

And sometimes we are paralyzed with fear. I don't know what to do. Left or right, left, right, right, left, right, that kind of thing we can get so anxious and stressed about things. But, you know, I've got a quotation here. I'm gonna jump straight to the quotation right at the bottom.

Fear is wisdom in the face of danger, s c, I'm sorry, s h c s. Which commentator is that? Is it an early spurgeon, quote, fear is wisdom in the face of danger? Do you think it could have been bonds or the other commentators in the middle of Matthew Henry? Could have been John Stott?

No. The s h is Sherlock Holmes Christmas Christmas special. Sherlock holmes Chris, especially a couple of years ago. At 1 point, I think he's talking to Watson and Watson says, oh, but we're afraid and he says this line. Fear is wisdom in the face of danger, and it's actually true that 1 of the great things about, the way that god's made us is when we recognize danger, we don't just walk headlong into it and get smashed in ruins.

We spot that something has the power to be dangerous towards us. Something has a power to significantly influence us to harm us, to have an effect on us. And it's this recognition of great power that is the way the Bible deals with this word fear. Because every fear we have is a recognition of power, potential power over us. And in Christianity, we are constantly dealing with different kinds of powers in our life and and how we will treat them whether we will have a greater respect for the voice of of particular powers in our lives, fears that we have versus the respect for god's voice in our life.

Which always needs to be the greatest power because of course it is, and the greatest respect, and therefore the greatest fear And so there's there's competing voices of of who are we gonna listen to? What are we gonna listen to? Let's have a look at this old testament. Of course, the new testament f word that's so significant is faith, but in the old testament, there's not a lot so much said about faith. You you get it in word like trust.

You can sometimes have the word trust in Psalms and there's there's some parts of it, but the fear of the lord drives through the old testament. It's the shorthand way in the old testament of saying someone who is actually behaving properly towards God. And when it will say they have no fear of the lord, it's not a way of saying they just are not behaving towards god the way they should be. It's a very shorthand expression. We'll have a look at what this means that we can start off with proverbs verse 1 So chapter 1 verse 7.

So grab your bibles, open them up, and let's jump in this together. Proverbs right in the middle, Just after Psalms, verse chapter 1 verse 7. I'm gonna keep going because the next one's the next page so you can always catch up. The fear of the lord is the beginning of knowledge but falls despise wisdom and instruction. The fear of the lord is the beginning of knowledge.

So it's saying here this expression to fear god is the starting point of knowledge elsewhere, it's the starting point of wisdom. It's the same concept of knowing a special kind of knowing. So what kind of knowing are we talking about? So if you flick over to chapter 2 verse 5, we have. We have this, the wise man is talking to his son and he's saying, if you if you're gonna turn your ear to wisdom and you're gonna desperately cry out and hunger for understanding and seek it more valuably than silver or hidden treasure, then if you really, really go for it with all your heart you see, then verse 5, you will understand the fear of the lord and find the knowledge of god.

And so we find it is a particular kind of knowledge. It's knowledge of god. The knowledge of god is the fear of the lord. So what happens is the person knows about god in some in another sense knows god on a relational level as well. So at that point, we'll just jump into Ecclesiastes, so you've got to go back a little bit for this.

So if fear of the lord is the very starting point of knowing god. The starting point even knowing properly or understanding anything about god If we go to Ecclesiastes, verse chapter 12 verse 13, Again a little bit further on from serums and from proverbs. Chapter twelfth verse 13, we have these words. It's right at the end of the book. It's a book of wisdom.

Now all has been heard here in the is the conclusion of the matter. Fear god and keep his commandments. For this is the duty of all mankind. Then it says, for god will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. So we have a duty to fear the lord.

In fact, all mankind has a duty to fear to fear the lord. So this fearing the lord, do you see what it says there again? For this is the duty of all mankind. So his summary of what is the duty of mankind towards god fear the lord? Wow.

And then he goes on to explain it's to do with god bringing deeds into judgment. Every hidden thing being made, clear. So the hidden is made plain, and god sees it. Judy of all mankind, then we'll jump to Romans 3, very famous pass and we see what a disaster this is for us. Fearing the lord, duty of everybody before god, duty of all mankind, and then we go to chapter 3 of Romans.

Now, we find just to skim a little bit. We've we've got Romans where Paul is talking about Jews and gentiles. Those were brought up religious. Those who aren't brought up religious. They're all in the same boat.

Some of them might think they're closer to god than others. Nope. All of them have exchanged the truth of god for a lie. All of them have gone from a knowing god to choosing to worship false things because they don't want to worship the living gods. And so we're in a state of position where everybody is in the same place, and we find that where Paul starts to quote the old testament in particular the behavior of Jews to show that even the most righteous people in inverted commas were not in that position where we'd think they would be before god.

In verse 10, as it is written, there is no 1 righteous, not even 1. There is no 1 that understands There is no 1 who seeks god, see that understanding that knowledge. No 1 has that. All have turned away. They've altogether become worthless.

There's no 1 who does good, not even 1. No 1 who does god. Good. That doesn't mean no 1 who isn't good enough. I really don't like.

I mean, if you do this, then I'm not complaining because it's sometimes helpful evangelistically, but I personally don't like it when people say, you know, be be when you're a human being, it's a bit like you're not quite good enough for god, and you do the test, and you you get 95 percent, but god expects a hundred no one's getting 95 percent in in life. It's not saying that we're not good enough. We are not good. 0 in the test. Every 1 of us.

What's the point in telling a story of a 95 percent test? We have all got no marks to offer in the test at all because every work we do in the flesh with the 1 exception of works that we do in Christ as Christians Every work we do in the flesh has 0. It's all offensive to god. It's all filthy rubbish. Utterly worthless.

There's no 1 who does good, no not 1. Their throats are open graves, their tongues practice deceit, The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness and their feet are swift to shed blood. So just talking about how the body is used by human beings for the wickedness of the heart and the way of peace they don't know. And to summarize all of that, In 1 phrase, where does Paul go to sum it all up?

He says, there is no fear of god before their eyes. That's his way of saying, you know what? It's bringing it all together into the worst way of seeing this summary. They do not fear god. You might be wondering what it means by before their eyes.

Well, it's Simmons expression where we say do not be wise in your own eyes. In fact, this is 1 of the proverbs. Don't not be wise in your own eyes depart fear the lord depart from evil. So when you say, oh, you're very wise in your own ways. In your own perception, in your own thinking, There's no fear of god in their thinking.

There's no fear of god in their understanding of reality. No. That's probably the best way of putting it. No fear of god in their understanding of reality. And what that means is they are not aware of god being in any way influential, in any way alive in their life.

Now at this point, maybe some of you in this room might be able to relate to this experience. Only do on a daily basis go through moments in my life as if god is not even alive as if god does not exist as if there is no god who sees me at all. I don't know if you ever like that might be unique. And yeah, it's crazy, isn't Look at what Paul says, sorry, not what Jesus says in Luke chapter 12 verse 5. It's good to jump around the bible, isn't it?

Luke chapter 5, chapter 12 verse 5 says these words. We'll jump back to previous verse. I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who killed a body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear. Fear him who after your body is being killed, has authority to throw you into hell.

Yes, I tell you, fear him. And so Jesus is saying Don't fear the things that don't have that much power because there's 1 who has supreme power and he is the 1 who judges the living and the dead. Fearer the 1 who has power over your life and your afterlife. The best way of explaining this is that we fail to realize that god sees us, that god sees you, that god sees me. We want a god who is blind We don't want a god who sees you I mean, we could have gone back to Romans 1, but I don't wanna do that because I wanna press on.

But if you look at Romans chapter 1, you will see how they exchange the truth of god for a lie and the reason they have those statues and idols is they don't want a god who can see It's quite convenient, isn't it? You think yourself, god can see me. God can hear me. If I'm gonna have a god in my house, the last thing I want is a all hearing, all seeing mobile god following me around. What I want is something nice and static.

Preferably kind of pretty blind, deaf, static doesn't really move very much at all in the house. And it will stay there so that I can worship it in that room. Then I can go next door and I can swear and I can fight, and I can cheat, and I can lie. It won't hear a thing. It won't see a thing, and it's just stuck.

You can't even move. And then the Stonemason say, we can sort you out exactly with that material. We've got something perfect for you that's never gonna go anywhere. Ideal, isn't it? Dumb, blind, deaf, fit for purpose, idols.

Now some of our idols these days are more mobile, aren't they? They've got 4 wheels, and we can polish them on a Sunday. But it's essentially the idea things that won't follow us around watching what we're doing. That's the last thing we want. But the moment that we realize that god's Our creator god is alive and present in our lives, and he is watching everything that happens in the world.

And he can see us, and he can see you and me, and he can see our hearts. Everything changes. Can you see that's the beginning of knowledge, the beginning of wisdom? Wow. It's a completely different story for my life suddenly.

It's like when I I teach as well, I teach in Bromley College, and, I teach teenagers. And teenagers have very short tension spans that I tend to teach. And, so I have to use shorter sentences. They don't want a long sentence. Don't want to confuse them and make it too difficult for them, but I teach them maths and with maths, they particularly none of them wanna be in the room.

And so I'll be teaching a whole bunch of people, none of them wanna be in the room. But what is fascinating for me is that none of them seem to think that I can see that they are using their phones underneath their desks to text while I'm teaching. I don't mind. I get them to pull them out and do some user calculator, which is quite useful, but they seem to think that I can't see. And the moment I say, you know, I can see that you're texting under your desk.

It's a moment of shock for them. Because they aren't aware that I can see the things that they are doing, and it changes when we know that the person with authority can see what we're doing. And it transforms everything when we realize that god sees you and me He has eyes to see ears to hear. He has hands to bless and hands to discipline and he sits on a throne where he has the authority to bring discipline upon us now and to judge our eternity. After we've died.

Everything changes. Now the best way, I can't put it any better than the way that Paul himself puts it, actually, in 2 Corinthians. So if you jump back to 2 Corinthians, you won't do any more jumping around now. If you jump back to 2 Corinthians, Give us a moment to get there, in chapter 5. Says, in verse 11, What we are is plain to god.

And that is earth shattering if you really understand what I'm saying there. If you understand what Paul is saying there, we can't be fake with god. And it drives everything. It's why we tell people about Jesus. It's why we become Christians and then tell people about Jesus.

It transforms everything if we realize that we can't be fake with god. We can't hide things with him. What we are, all of what we are is just plain before him. If we jump back to the previous verse, it says we must all be appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Now, that's very important for unbelievers.

Because god sees them as plain as day. Everything about them. And he's already says they are already condemned if they don't believe. It would just be the formality of facing judgment and they need to know this. People need to hear about this.

Everybody needs to know this, that what they are is plain before god write down to the deepest thoughts and desires of the heart, and all of us will come before the judgment throne of god to be judged according to what god has very clearly laid out as how we're to live in terms of right or wrong. The only way that this can be dealt with in a way that has any good news to say is through grace and through the redemption of Jesus Christ, through the forgiveness that comes about through his death. But a starting point is and our recognition that we need a rescuer, we need Jesus the Savior. Don't like the word saviour too much because it's being so overused It's a great word. What I mean?

But when I talk to people on the estate, they don't know what their savior means. So, like a fireman who grabs you out of a burning building, throws you over the shoulders, and off you go, That's Jesus, the rescuer. And that's what we need, but we've burnt our own building. We've caused the fire ourselves. We're the arsonists.

So that's why Paul says, we make it our goal to please god because we know what the fear of the lord means We know that he sees us. And it's not for believers here about, oh, you know, I'm I'm I'm gonna have to feel guilty all the time. God sees me. You're you're saying I've gotta walk around and not be living in grace. I gotta be walking around thinking, oh god sees everything I do.

I'm supposed to feel bad about it. You're suggesting, I'm gonna maybe I'm gonna go to hell. You're talking about, no, no, no, I'm saying that god sees all that we do like a loving father sees all that we do. And I I don't know about you, but it depends if you've got a relationship where there's someone authority that's ever been loving and gracious. You don't wanna let them down.

You don't wanna see the disappointment of in their faces that you've wounded their hearts It's not about a salvation issue if you're a believer here. Jesus Christ has paid the price. You are going to heaven because He, god will not punish you for what he's punished on his son, but you can still cause such damage to that relationship with the way that we abuse and, the good news that we know of Jesus Christ the way that we mistreat the time and money and health that god gives us. The way that we think god doesn't see the stuff that we do. Oh my goodness me.

You know, Jesus might not be an IT expert, but he knows what we look at in our computers and on our phones. He knows what we write on Facebook. He doesn't need to be an expert. Doesn't need to hack into our systems and know what is going on in our thought processes, and the gossip and the anger and the the jealousy and the lust, he knows it all. And it's not okay.

It's not okay. Who we fear affects what we communicate? Because if we fear god more than anything else, we will want to persuade people with truthfulness and honesty. And 1 of exciting things about being in commission is the bravery and boldness of people in different churches to bring a gospel and to plant churches that bring a gospel, which is honest with people. Truthful with people loving, but honest.

People need to know the good news of Jesus Christ with the honesty that Jesus gave. We're tempted nowadays to say things aren't wrong that are biblically wrong. We need to be truthful and honest with people about what god says offends him because people are gonna be judged for that. And it is just selfish of me if I say that something is fine when the Bible says that god is angry, fiercely angry with particular behavior. Whether it be the way we treat our money, whether it be sexual behavior, there are a whole host of ways that our society says things are okay.

And they are not. And it's not just a matter of opinion. The final answer on this matter has been laid out and we will all have to face the throne of God and find out the truth, which is that god will do something about all that we do. We're good at forgetting the things that we've done wrong and just leaving it to 1 side, and we don't recognize that we need to mend where we've damaged in our relationships with god through repentance, through honesty with god, through saying sorry, But it's deep in that, isn't it? For those, there are some people that maybe they've never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ and recognized that god sees and and suddenly realized that because he is all powerful and almighty and he's the judge of all things that they need to fear him above all things, They need to respect him and be in awe of him and live a life recognizing that what they are is plain to god's sight.

John Newton is a fascinating guy. He used to be, a slave owner. Anyone know what I'm talking about by John Newton. Wow, quite a lot. Not too fantastic.

And, he he wrote, an autobiography, and in an autobiography, you can see that he is, struggling with a lot of moral issues, but he's still selling slaves and he's still wrecked with guilt and confusion. He's aware of things to do with god, but he's in a mess. And suddenly there was a massive storm. And in the horror of the storm, the boat is shaking. The waves are crashing.

I've never been on any kind of storm anywhere near as bad as that, and I'm terrified of water, and boats and things, but the the waves are crushing on him, and, he found these bible verses in Proverbs chapter 1 verses 27 to 29. And according to his bioga autobiography, he shouts them out into the, into the waves and the storm, and he starts crying in a horror at where he thinks this is all going. Because he knows that god has power over all things, and it's incredible moment of god touching him for a second with reality. And he says, he quotes these words. Proverbs chapter 1 verses 27 to 29.

When calamity overtakes you like a storm. When disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when desire and distress and trouble overwhelm you, then they will call to me, but I will not answer. They will look for me, but I they will not find me. Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the lord. And he's terrified that it's too late because he didn't live a life of fear of the lord.

He didn't acknowledge god's presence that god saw him and what he was was plain to god's sight. He's terrified that it'll be too late because that's what he says. There's a time where through stubbornness of heart we can shout out to god on a deathbed or a moment of a car crash or some kind of situation. Lord god help me and god can say, no. I will not respond.

That's not the god that we know. Is it? That's shocking, isn't it? But it's truth. I saw the Bible saying, no.

He will not call back. Because we chose not to fear him. I'm sorry. Too late. I know I'd like to say, I know I would like to say something nicer, but that's not the point.

The truth is what we need to hear. There will come a time where god will recognize that thou shouting out is a selfish, desperate, desire to get ourselves out temporary trouble or a moment of death, not a crying out for eternal life and a crying out for the recognition that god needs to be lord of our life. We know what this message is. Jesus Christ is lord, and any other kind of cry out is that not in that direction of acknowledging the lordship of Christ and a need for rescue from him for salvation, not because of the car crash or any other things may not be what god chooses to answer. Because it starts with the fear of the lord.

Now, wonderfully, John Newton became a believer. And then he wrote amazing grace. Great preacher. But there's something we can learn here, and my final thought is What if John Newton was my Amazon postman? That would be awesome because he'd get his Sharpie out.

And he he wouldn't care. And he'd he'd be gras he'd be grasping these verses and he'd be be able to be driving these thoughts threw into people's hearts and minds. He'd be taking the verses where it says here. Disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind. And he will want people to know that a moment of disaster can happen to people, and he'll want them to know they need to fear the lord.

Now I'll tell you something every single person in Kingston will face a moment of disaster unless they do not have faith in the lord Jesus Christ. Unless they do not recognize that they need to fear the lord. If they do not know the fear of the lord, they will be facing calamity. This is when calamity overtakes you like a storm. Your neighbors, calamity is overtaking them like a storm.

Disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind. That is your best friend. When distress and trouble overwhelms you, that is your relatives, your mom, your dad, your sisters, your children. I'm sorry to say that. They need to know that calamity is what they are facing unless they fear the lord and recognize the rescue of the lord Jesus Christ.

It's wonderful news, but calamity is where it begins. We need to take our sharpie pens out guys. I was gonna say not literally. I'm not even sure. Maybe literally, I don't know.

It's that important, isn't it? Because I don't think there's an overkill way of of getting through this message of calamity for London unless people fear the lord. He sees and he will judge That's why commission is planting churches because most of London is in calamity most of London is facing a storm. And every day, another person faces their own personal storm of calamity. And it is too late for them to fear the lord, and they will face eternity in anguish not like any pain that we experience in on this earth.

So, I mean, John Newton, be my postman. Seriously, we all need to be like John Newton as a postman and get out there and find our way of working with commission or working in this church or working by yourself is so much better if you work together with with god's people because that's how god gets most stuff done, making sure that the calamity that this world faces that London faces, that Kingston faces, that your family faces, that your friends and children and relatives face is addressed with the good news of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Lord almighty, your word teaches us that the whole world is facing calamity unless they turn in repentance to you. Your word teaches us that you see us and what we are is plain to you.

You know our wickedness and our sin And you know the sin and wickedness of our friends and family and neighbors and the people in Kingston, the people in London. And you want us to acknowledge your presence that you see us you want us to fear you to recognize your awesome, majestic authority over us and that we will face your judgment. Lord, this is too weighty for us to hold in to to ourselves and not to pass on to other people. Lord give us a passion to persuade others of this terrible news of calamity, but the wonderful ending to this news of rescue by the savior Jesus Christ, your son coming in to lift people onto his shoulders, and carry them into eternity. Lord, we want to be on your shoulders.

That's why we trust you And lord, if there's anyone here today that has not put their faith in your son, lord by your spirit speak to their heart now, if there's anyone that does not know the fear of you, lord, show them that you are seeing them as they are and that they need to put their trust in the savior and lord Jesus. Lord give us a passion, give us a boldness, give us an urgency Give us a spiritual Sharpie to write your gospel on the doors of people's hearts around us in your holy name, amen.