Proclaiming the Gospel of Light

Turn with me in your copy of God's Word to 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, verses 1 through 6. It would be our main text for today, 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, 1 through 6, in a message out titled, Proclaiming the Gospel of Light. Proclaiming the Gospel of Light. That's really a double positive for those of you who may be interested if there were ever a possibility to link this phrase to the Greek language. We will probably call it a double positive because you can't have the gospel of Jesus Christ to be darkness.

It has to be light. But nonetheless, we need to proclaim that and we're going to learn why that is important this morning. 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, 1 through 6. Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.

But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's Word. But by the open statement of truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the gospel of light of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as servants for Jesus' sake. The glory, the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

What a text. I do believe that we're living in an era where the proclamation of the gospel is probably more needed, more important, and more relevant today than perhaps any other time before. Never, I believe, never has there been a time where inequity and prejudice seems to be so obvious and blatant before us. Never has there been a time where dishonesty and the twisting of truth, corruption, immorality, and situational ethics are boldly, boldly paraded before us. What do we need?

How do we solve this? The gospel of Jesus Christ. Never has there been a time where more babies have been murdered in various stages of abortion. Apparently, we have so lost our fear for the Almighty, the Creator of the world. The one who has given us life that there are those who would now say, apparently it is never ever too late to murder, to take the life of a child. Even if during the process of aborting the child, the child is accidentally born and survives, then there are still those who would say, yes, we can still go ahead and murder that child. I just wonder, perhaps, if that child's life matters. Regardless of the color of that child's skin, is the life of that child, does it matter?

Apparently, it does not. But we also need to do this through the proclamation of the Word of God. I don't know in my few years on earth here a time that we've seemed to be more hopeless, broken, despondent, and fearful than the times in which we're living. And one of the sad realities I'm seeing more and more people, including God's people, Christians, believers, turn into politicians as if to say they are the ones who are going to solve our problems, as if they are the ones who are going to give us hope.

I have news for you. Regardless of who wins the upcoming election, I suspect the things that bother you in your life are going to remain the same, and they're not going to give you hope because they cannot do so. Our hope comes from Jesus Christ and Him alone.

Now this is not to say we don't go out and vote and that we prayerfully consider who we should vote for. We certainly do that, but we should remember that our hope is in Christ. And therefore we as God's people have been given this wonderful ministry of the Gospel.

What do we do with it? We are to proclaim the Gospel of light. What is the Gospel? Someone may ask.

Well I'm glad you did. The Gospel in a nutshell, I would say it is simply the good news that Jesus is the remedy for man's sin. It's a simple way of putting it. We all have a problem. We came into this world with a problem, a problem of sin. We were born with a disease which is far worse, yes, far worse even than the coronavirus. The coronavirus is here and I suspect very soon it will no longer be. I don't know when there would be a vaccine and I'm not advocating whether one should take it or should not take it. That's the reason my family and I will make when the time comes.

However the point is nearly 100 years ago we had the last pandemic and that time went as well. So we know this too shall pass. What will we be left with? Where will our hope stand?

Who do we fix our hope on? So the Gospel is simply the good news that the remedy, the solution, the vaccine if you may for man's sin problem is Jesus Christ. With that said then, what do we do with this Gospel that we've been entrusted with?

What do we do with it? People live in darkness around us, spiritual darkness. As it's difficult for us to walk around in our homes or anywhere else in darkness, can you think of how much more difficult it is for those who live in darkness?

You should just remember, those of us who are saved, the time when we also live in darkness and what that was like. It wasn't pretty. It was hopeless. We were miserable. We were trying to do things, trying to change things, trying to honor God to a limited extent, trying to be good as it were. But we failed at it.

Why? Because we just couldn't in and of ourselves. We needed someone and that person is Jesus Christ. So we who have been changed by the Gospel then, we have a responsibility to those who are living in spiritual darkness around us. And the responsibility is to proclaim the Gospel of light. Saint Francis of Assisi I think puts it very simple but very well said when he says that we ought to do all that we can to preach the Gospel and if necessary use words. Do all you can to preach the Gospel and if necessary use words. Preach the Gospel.

Live the Gospel. How will people be changed around us if you and I are not shining the light of the Gospel in the darkness of their world? And at Calvary here we recently launched a ministry that we are calling Be A Light.

We're offering training and we're offering opportunities and encouragement to people to go out and evangelize their space, I call it our community for Christ. How many of you are involved in that? How many have chosen not to be involved in that?

How many of you are too busy to be involved in that? I tell you it is not too late and my prayer is that we would understand perhaps like never before the urgency, the importance of being is light bearers to the darkness of our world. So from our text today we will see four reasons why we must, not that we may, but four reasons why we as God's people must proclaim the Gospel of light.

Four reasons. First of all we must proclaim the Gospel of light because we've been called to this ministry. We have been called to this ministry. Look at verse one, therefore having this ministry by the grace of God we do not lose heart. This is a ministry to which all of us as believers have been called. The proclamation of the Gospel is for us as believers.

And I'll explain a little bit more later on why this is the case. Notice that we've been called by the grace of God. We've been given this ministry by the grace of God.

I wonder why is that the case? I think my second point will make that even a little bit more clear. But this ministry is inseparably linked to a life changing message. This ministry, the Gospel ministry is inseparably linked to a life changing message. A message that when presented and the work of the Holy Spirit coming alongside that convinced the hearts of men of sin, righteousness and judgment and can change people radically. We know as we read in 2 Corinthians 5.17, if any man is in Christ we are a new creature.

The old has passed and the new has come. We must therefore proclaim the Gospel of light because we've been called to this ministry. This ministry also has a messenger that must be true to the message. We don't lose heart.

We shouldn't stop. We shouldn't become weary in the way we do because we know that what we do or what we are striving to do is for the Lord. And the Lord promises that he will come alongside that and he will bless that and he will call persons to himself. But look at the life changing message.

Look with me one chapter over or prior chapter, chapter 3. Let's look at this and compare two different ministries here. First of all in verse 7, 2 Corinthians chapter 3, now if the ministry of death carved in letters on stone came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of the glory which was being brought to an end. Moses went up and he met with God. He saw God. He received the commandments.

He came back after a time with God and his face was so radiant that the people could not even look at him. But you know as he received the commandments, we are told that this was a ministry to death. Why is this a ministry to death? It's a ministry to death because the law was not intended to save.

The law does not save. When you're driving down the highway or some street and you come around a curb and you see a police, what do you do? You check your speedometer or you take your foot off the gas pedal, right?

Or you begin to think, I wonder what's the speed limit in this area, right? That's what the law does. The law checks us in that regard but the police in and of themselves and all he represents does not reach into our cars and make us stop.

Now there's a point in which he might come on behind you and turn on the wonderful blue lights that some of us enjoy seeing or not. And then we pull over and if you don't pull over, you're involved in a police chase and there's a whole different set of problems you will have then, right? So the law doesn't fix anything. The law tells us we're sinners. The law reveals our sin.

The law really brings death to life to us but through the blood of Jesus Christ when he died, think of the Old Testament system. We're told in Hebrews that the priest stood daily offering sacrifices which could not take away sin but the sacrifices simply covered sin for a period of time. But Christ, having died once, his sacrifice removes sin forever. And so for those of us who come to Jesus Christ as far as the East is from the West, so far has he removed our sins from us and he will remember them no more. That's the ministry to which we have been called.

We're given this message to take to a lost and dying world and we must go. Now in contrast to this message of the law that brings death, verse 8. So this message, it will, not the message of the Spirit, now compare in a different message, will not the ministry of the Spirit which has even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, that's the law, the ministry of righteousness much far exceeded in glory.

Now look at verse 12. Since we have such hope, this ministry of Jesus Christ, of righteousness that brings a life, eternal life to you and to me, it also gives us hope. Since we have such hope, we are very bold. We can be bold. We can be bold for Christ and yes we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

So what will we do? Are you living in a home with a spouse that might not be saved? A man or a woman, very difficult to live with, near impossible to live with. Perhaps children, perhaps neighbors that are tough to live with, coworkers, bosses at your places of employment.

What do you do? How do they change? Yes, you are impacted by them. Sometimes you don't even want to be around them. How do these people change so that you can enjoy their presence and relationship with them?

Only through the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed on the cross. You see one of the challenges with our secular world, we try to change people from the outside in and that is impossible because our focus then is simply on the behavior of the person and we want to see them stop doing this. You know one of the words children learn very early in life is know and stop.

No wonder why they repeat it back to us. Our first daughter, that was apparently one of her favorite words, know. Say something is your name Ruth? No. Am I your dad? No. Do you love chicken?

Yes. Somehow when it comes to the food they know the difference but nonetheless we didn't have that problem with our second daughter. We realized that we had taught the child the word know and stop because every time she's about to do something, know and stop and so we changed that with the second daughter so we didn't have that much of an issue. We focus on the external, we focus on the behavior but true change comes from within the person, change that is affected by the Spirit of God alone. So we've got a life changing message to bring to the world. My question is are you taking this message? Understand as believers that we have been called to this ministry so we must then take the message of the gospel otherwise we are in disobedience. We must go. We must tell the message of the gospel.

Who else is going to do it? God is calling you, he's calling me. So we must go and proclaim the gospel of light first because we've been called to this ministry but second because we've been changed by this gospel. We've been changed by this gospel. We who have experienced this change ourselves, we know the lives we once lived.

We remember the things we gravitated towards. We remember how we violated others, destroyed others through our lives and through our lives and know that we are in Christ, we are different people. Yes, we may fall periodically but we have a different passion, we have a different drive, we have a different purpose in life only because of the change in work of the Spirit of God and the gospel that came to us. We often sing a song, the gospel changes everything and that's certainly true, the gospel changes everything that our God is mighty to save.

No other one can accomplish what he accomplished for us, he changed us. Perhaps you got married as an unbeliever and later you came to faith in Christ but that man or that woman hadn't been converted yet and you had to live with him or live with her and it was just agony and you go through it day and night and you wonder why you're even still there. But as you continue to pray and live the gospel, share even the gospel, shortly thereafter this brother, this young woman comes to faith in Christ and you begin to see instantaneously the change that Jesus makes in that person. You now can celebrate that, that's the kind of change you and I have experienced. Again Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5 17, any man is in Christ or woman.

We become this new creature, the old has passed as the new comes. Think about the apostle Paul. What was his life like quite shortly prior to this as he's ministering here to the Corinthians? Remember he was a murderer himself. Remember how he had plans to wipe out the church, to kill anyone who belonged to the way. Notice how he took it upon himself to travel all over the era at that particular point to find those who belonged to the way, to kill them, to beat them, to drag them through the streets. He had a zeal for Judaism and anyone who's going to come and say about they believe in this Jesus who died and is now alive deserve to die as far as Paul or Saul was concerned.

It wasn't too long before Acts 9 and 7, we see how he officiated as it were the stoning of Stephen. This was the kind of man he was but he was no longer that person because he had now been changed. He met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus and that radically changed his life.

Why wouldn't you want to see a similar change in someone else's life? And if we want to, if we desire that, certainly we should share the gospel. Such a change that took place we see in verse 2. That now that this, Paul and us, we are new in Christ, notice he says but we have renounced disgraceful and underhanded ways. There was a time when he would not renounce disgracefulness and lies and underhanded ways but now that he's in Christ he renounces those, setting those aside, not living according to the old way any longer.

Not only that he says but we refuse to practice cunning, telling those lies and trickery or to tamper with God's word. Again there was a time he wanted to destroy God's word and anyone who represented that or was found in any portion of the word of God deserve to die as far as he was concerned. If you belong to the way, if you're promoting this Jesus then you needed to die but now he's different. Now God is going to use him with a new passion, with a new heart to evangelize the world, to raise up churches and to disciple the same. No longer is he trying to destroy God's word but the open statement of truth is what he would now proclaim that we have commended ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. This was a new person, this was a new man, no longer living the former life but now seeking to honor Christ. No longer living a life of trickery and tampering with the word of God as we know in Revelation 22 we are told that those who add or take away a special judgment is reserved for them.

Those changed by the Gospel then should live the Gospel and share the Gospel with others. If you found something you like, maybe a new gadget, maybe a new restaurant comes to town or you saw it and you pop in and you take a bite and you enjoy it or a new gadget, you want to tell others about it. You're excited to share it with others and indeed you have.

Then would we not recognize the changes that have come to us through the saving grace of Jesus Christ that it would catapult us to share also with other unbelievers. I remember it wasn't too long ago we were meeting here on campus on Wednesday evenings for our supper and then after supper we would go to the electives and I was sitting at the table once and one of my daughters had a friend there and we were eating or among the things I had on my plate we had some fries. And apparently my fries may have been tasted better than other people's fries so next thing I know I stepped away I think I stepped away and my daughter helped herself to a piece of fry. And then of course her friend wanted to help herself to a piece of fry as well. And I'm thinking go get your own fry and leave mine alone. No I'm a few fries short of a Big Mac, go get your own. You know by the way this young lady, I love this young lady, I can imagine maybe in the next 10 to 15 years she may get married and if she ever invites me to her wedding, those of you who know me well know I would do justice. Just walk my way right up to the head table and help myself to a piece of food off her plate and say you remember when you did this to me so now I do it back to you. Hopefully the food would be good and if it's good enough I might even invite others to come and help themselves.

Right? If we find something we like we share it with others. We've been changed by the Gospel. Why wouldn't we share the Gospel? The life's changing message of the word so that others also can come to faith in Christ.

We should do that. So first of all we must proclaim the Gospel of light because we've been called to this ministry. Secondly because we've been changed by the Gospel but then thirdly we must proclaim the Gospel of light because they, unbelievers, have been blinded by the devil.

And we remind ourselves that's where we also once were. We also walked according to the course of the flesh and this world running behind the devil, the father of lies and we didn't know any better. And we thought we were living up, we were having a wonderful life, enjoying the pleasures of the world.

Perhaps others are attracted to us and all of that and we thought we were living the best life ever. But what we didn't know and what unbelievers might not even realize is what the devil is trying to do. Look at verse three.

We're told that even if our Gospel is veiled it is veiled only to those who are perishing. Verse four, in their case the God of this world, what has he done? He has blinded the minds of unbelievers.

Why? What's his purpose? What's his rational?

What is his goal? Why has he blinded the eyes of unbelievers? He has done so to keep them from seeing the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That's it. He doesn't want to spend eternity in hell all by himself. He needs a few more down there with him. So he's going to blind the minds. He's going to distract unbelievers.

A lot of lights around and they're attracted to the light and they think, yeah this is it. This is the best life that I can live. I'm enjoying the pleasures of this world. This is my best life. And the devil is laying back there thinking, live it up, live it up. You're going to join me in that place.

Right? They've been blinded by the devil. The idea here of veiling, the Gospel being veiled it means to cover, to conceal or to put it away in such a way that it can't even be traced.

It can't even be found. That's what the devil is trying to do. He's trying to distort the Word of God. He does not want you to hear the message of the Gospel. He certainly doesn't want you to be convicted by the Spirit of God, let alone to say yes to Jesus Christ.

That's not what he wants. The Gospel is veiled, veiled only to those who are perishing. And it's not just the work of the devil that causes the Gospel to be veiled. Unbelievers who hear the Word of God and choose not to believe the Word of God. Romans 1 tells us that God has given them over to their own passion so that they burn within that area. You choose not to say yes to God, well have it your own way.

You then harden your own heart. And so each time one hears the Gospel and says no to Christ, it becomes much more difficult the next time around to say yes to Jesus Christ. But the devil is very much at work.

He's active in this situation. The devil has and continues to distract or to blunten by providing darkness for the minds of unbelievers. Look with me to John chapter 12. John chapter 12 and verse 40 add some context to this.

And I'll read from verse 39 just for context again. He says here, Therefore they could not believe, for again Isaiah said, why wouldn't they believe? They could not believe because he, the devil, the evil one, has blinded the eyes and hardened the hearts lest they see with their eyes and understand with their hearts and turn and I would heal them. What does the devil not want?

He doesn't want you to turn. He doesn't want the unbeliever to understand the message of the Gospel. He doesn't want the unbeliever to be convicted by the Spirit of God. No, naturally God is far much greater than the devil. And so he cannot forever but he continues his three-fold ministry as we see in John 10 is to steal, to kill, and to destroy.

Think about it. The devil is this wicked, evil serpent of an angel, an angelic being. On the other hand, Christ represents everything of righteousness. The devil hates, Jesus loves. He's a father of light.

Jesus represents and is a personification of truth. The devil wants to kill us. The Lord has given his life for us. The devil is the accuser of the brethren or Lord is the defender of the brethren. Who would want to be living with and want to serve such a one and spend eternity in this dark dungeon called hell? That's what the devil wants but God has something else for you who do not know Christ as your Lord and Savior.

His desire is to see you saved, to see your life changed. But the devil continues to work against you. The devil hinders the message of the Gospel. In Mark 3, we see the parable of the sower. The sower goes out and he scatters his seeds, right?

Some fall on good soil, some among thorns, and some on the pavement and the birds come and snatch it away, we're told. But then verse 15 tells us that the birds, they're snatching it away, represents the devil himself who tries to remove the seed of the Gospel, the message of the Gospel as it's proclaimed through distractions, through the hardening of the hearts. So that unbelievers would not turn to Jesus Christ. Therefore, unbelievers would remain on this slippery slope. The broad road that leads to eternal death, many are on it.

They're having this wonderful party, they're living it up and again they think they're living their best life. But think about it. Wouldn't it be better to live for Christ now? How many years do we normally get in this world?

Maybe three scores ten, maybe a few might go to eighty, maybe even far fewer might get to ninety. Think about life in its longevity. Think of life in terms of quantity.

How do you quantify a few years here on earth in comparison to eternity elsewhere? That tells me that I ought to use my few years here to live for Christ. Someone say, well Nathaniel you're wasting your time. What if you're restricting yourself, restraining yourself all these years and you get to the end and you find out that everything the Bible teaches is not true, wouldn't you have lost? Well I would introduce such a person to Pascal. You remember Pascal's Wager. He says listen, in essence if one lives their life for Christ and live a really good life, a moral life, is known for being honest and well loved in his or her community, restrains himself or herself, living a good life so to speak. And if they get to the end and realize they were wrong, they don't lose anything.

It's called Pascal's Wager. You've not lost anything on the other hand. The man who is skeptical, the woman who is skeptical, who refuses to believe the message of the scripture, who refuses to turn to Christ, who even believes that there may be error in the word of God, if they just live a sinful life and then they die and find out that they were wrong. It would be too late. What should we do then? Live for Christ now. See the stakes are high. There is much to be lost here and much to be gained as well for the Kingdom of Christ. So what must we do? We must preach the gospel.

The devil is active, he's at work, he's distracting, he's blunting the minds and darting in the hearts of men and women so that they would not come to Christ. The story is told of a farmer who had what many of you call a machete. Where I'm from, we call it a machete.

In our dialect, it's even more colorful. We just say, well, machete. But anyway, we'll just stick with machete since we're in Rome for today. So here goes this farmer who had a machete. In his community, he was known to have had the sharpest machete. People would come and bar his machete. News went out, you want a sharp machete to chop down whatever, go to Farmer Joe or whatever his name was.

After a while, Farmer Joe realized a pattern. Some people would bar it and not return it. He would have to go to their home to fetch it. Some people wouldn't return it at all. He would have to replace it at his own cost. Some people may even return it damaged. After one point of his machete being gone for over two weeks and he had to go to the borrower to borrow it, his own tool from the person who borrowed it in the first place.

You all know anyone like that? You got to go borrow your hose or go borrow your shovel from someone who borrowed it from you. Finally, he decided because it came back damaged, he would buy a second one that he would not lend to anyone. He would keep that for personal use, but knowing people would continue to come, he did even more damage to the damaged machete that was returned to him. I mean, he messed up the blade so that he wouldn't even chop a fly. And then comes another neighbor to borrow his machete.

Of course, he kept his brand new machete for himself and he loaned them that old raggedy, beat up, bent up machete. A person came back, what am I going to do with this? Here, take this. I don't want it. Toss it back at him. And then the world went out in the community that machete is no good.

Don't go there. You waste your time. So pretty soon they stopped coming to borrow his machete. No longer had he needed to go and borrow back his machete from a person who borrowed it. He intentionally dulled the thing, blunted the thing to the point where no one would be interested in it. You see, that's what the devil is doing to the hearts and minds of unbelievers. So twisting their minds, seeking to twist the word and the message. He's seeking. He's not going to be successful with the message of the gospel, but provide sufficient, you know, for the lights to attract unbelievers, to distract unbelievers so that they won't come to faith in Christ.

He's dulling their minds, he's darkening their minds with the other things of the word. So what must we do? We must proclaim the gospel of light, the message of light.

The lost need to hear it. They need to have an opportunity to be saved. And if they choose not to, each time then their hearts are hardened. And you would then have delivered yourself, as Ezekiel says, as the watchman over the city.

When you see trouble, you should warn the city of impending danger. Anyone chooses not to listen. If they were to die, then their own sin or blood will be on their shoulder. You and I must deliver ourselves as we present the gospel, bathing it in much prayer as we ask the Spirit of God to change that spouse, to change the heart of that child, unbelieving child, to change the heart of that brother or sister or other family member or that neighbor or that difficult person at work.

Change them and ask the Lord to use you to be a part of this through the proclamation of the gospel of light. You see, my unbelieving friends joining us here and those online, you must understand what is at stake. Again, each time you say no to the gospel, your heart becomes harder and all you're doing is to play into the hands of the evil one. When you think of what the Scripture tells us about heaven, a city paved with gold, a city where there's no sickness, no crying, no death, we don't need the sun, the moon because the Lord himself will be the light of that city.

When you compare just those facts about heaven with what we also know about hell, I mean the choice is obvious. Jesus died for you because he loves you and he wants to save you. He wants you to spend eternity with himself. So we must preach the gospel, proclaim the gospel of light because we've been called to this ministry, because we've been saved by this gospel, because they've been blinded by the evil one, the devil, and then finally because we've been called to preach Christ, not ourselves. We've been called to preach Christ, not ourselves. Look at verses 5 and 6. This is the call that God has placed upon us who believe. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, Paul says, but Jesus Christ as Lord with ourselves simply as servants for Christ Jesus' sake. Why? For God who said let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Right? We don't preach ourselves. Paul said we don't preach ourselves and sometimes when we share the gospel, oftentimes we may share a personal word of testimony and that's good as long as the testimony shines the spotlight on Christ, it is more about Christ and it's less about us. If anything about us, the only thing we should be showing is the change and tell of the change and the goodness of Jesus and shout and share the glory of God that you have come to experience.

That's it. We don't need to compete with others and their salvation story, their testimony. You know, one guy got, you know, saved from drowning and he turned to faith in Christ or one guy had died in this car crash and somehow God brought him back after he was, you know, determined to have been dead or declared dead.

And all of a sudden he's awake again and later he just, and then you are sitting there thinking, man, am I even saved? I don't have a story like that. It's not about you.

It's not about me. It's about Jesus Christ and we should keep the order of priority. Let me give you a few reasons why we preach Christ and not ourselves. First of all, we preach Christ because he's the one who died for our sins, not me, not you, no other human being. Christ is the one who died for our sins. We preach Christ because salvation comes through him alone.

Acts 4 to 12 tells us there's salvation in no other name but in the name of Jesus Christ. So that's the name we should promote. That's the name we should preach. That's the name we should share and live and tell. We preach Christ because there's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

You want to be a part of the Pierce family? There may be some condemnation there but you want to be a part of Jesus Christ and there's no condemnation to those who are in Christ. We preach Christ because our hope comes from him alone. Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 15, 17, if it were only in this world that we had hope in Christ, we'd have been of all men most miserable.

Some virgins say most to be pitied. Our hope comes from him. It is sustained by him and our hope is not limited to this world but our hope transcends this world.

Who wouldn't want such a hope? Who wouldn't want to live with and have a relationship with such a person who loves you to the point of death? One husband said to his wife, you know I love you but my love is an undying love. She didn't quite understand what that meant until someone broke in their house and he went to hide.

And when she asked, why didn't you rise and defend us? He said, did I not tell him my love is an undying love? Not so with Jesus of course. Not so with Jesus. He willingly gave his life because of his love for you. I don't know anyone who is going to be willing to die for me.

You know we have the President of the United States and the secret service around him and they're supposed to be willing to take a bullet for him but push comes to shove, who's going to do it? But Christ died, I'm sorry that was Jamaican right? It just came right up, push came to shove. But only in Christ do we have such hope. We preach Christ alone because he delivered sinners from darkness.

He's the only one that can take us out of darkness. The light of Jesus has shone in our hearts, therefore the light that is in us needs now to come out of us and be sheared with the rest of a dark, dying and hopeless world. That's why we've been saved. We've not been saved to sit around here in the church on our blessed assurances doing nothing and join those who complain about everything. We've been saved to serve. Ephesians 2, 10 tells us we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good work or service. What are you doing?

What are you doing? Do you not care about those who are perishing daily around you? We ought to care. We preach Christ because he brings light into our darkness, the darkness of the world. The same God who in the beginning said let there be light as the same God who has graciously shone light in our hearts. And then finally we preach Christ because the light of Jesus Christ illuminates the darkness of our hearts and our world. All of a sudden we begin to see things differently. We begin to reason differently. We begin to live differently. We begin to love differently. We give differently. Everything is changed for those who are in Christ.

So again it's not optional. If as believers we are not sharing the gospel of light then we are in disobedience and we need to share the gospel. We do so verbally. We do so through the lives that we live. We live the gospel. Paul's heart was changed. He understood that the light came and shone in the darkness of his heart and brings forth something new from him and a passion now to go and share Christ with the rest of the world. What about you?

What are you doing with your time? Some people make excuses as to why they can't share Christ with the rest of the world. And let me provide you a few of those excuses. Some would say well I can't share Christ because I'm very nervous. I don't know where to start that conversation. Others say well I can't share Christ because I really don't know what to say. And one that is very very prominent, some would say well I'm fearful of rejection. I understand it.

I experience it myself. It shouldn't deter us but we should share. I maybe ask questions I cannot answer. Should that deter us?

It should not. I'm not responsible for sharing the gospel. Pastors are.

Professional evangelists should be sharing the gospel. That's not my job. Others may even say you know I don't have time to share the gospel. I'm too busy with my family, with my career, with my education. I don't have time. Somebody else can do that.

No. God has called you. He has saved you. He has given you this ministry.

Others may say I don't want people to think that I'm judging them. Where can we go and find lost people with whom we can share the gospel? Again, sometimes right in our very homes, in our community, at the grocery store, at the park, walking down the street.

You know, we fight on the airplanes, buses, and trains. Sometimes God gives us captive audience and we waste the opportunities to share Christ. If someone dies and you realize you had the opportunity to share Christ and you didn't, how would you feel as a believer?

What would happen within you? I think it was Dale Moody on his deathbed called for his brother who had known Christ before him. And when his brother came, he said to him, had it not been for the grace of God, I could have died and slipped into eternity not knowing Christ as my Savior because you did not share him with me. Someone else did. Praise God. But you, as my brother, didn't share him with me.

Oh, that we would love the people within our homes and people that God has placed in our lives, people in our community so that we would be compelled to go and share the gospel so others may hear and be convicted of their sins and come to faith in Christ. If we are the body, why aren't the feet going? Why aren't the hands moving?

Why aren't the mouth telling? We should go and tell. God is calling you. God is calling me. And he has given us here at Calvary this wonderful ministry. And you can be involved.

It's not too late. Contact Pastor Cebu. He'll tell you how you can be trained and how you can be ready to go and share the good news of the gospel.

We provide all of that here. So why aren't you involved? And for you who don't know Christ as your Savior, will you allow this moment to pass you by not knowing if you are going to get home when you leave church or your next location that may be from your living room to your kitchen? Who knows? You might not make it.

Do you want to risk it? The Spirit of God is calling you, speaking to you, begging you. God loves you. He wants to save you.

Now is the acceptable time. Today is the day of salvation. I pray you will come to trust Christ, the one who loves you, and pay the penalty for your sins on the cross before it's eternally too late. Let's pray. Our God and our loving Heavenly Father, thank you, Lord, for your Word.

It's quick, it's powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. Pierce us through today, Lord, we pray. Cut away from us anything that needs to go so that we, Lord, can just go and freely share the gospel. With those you have placed around us, because they're there, Lord, help us to look, help us to see, and help us to share. May we be more concerned about the lost around us than any other time in our lives. Work in us, Lord, we pray. Thank you for your Word. In Jesus' name. Amen.