Returning to the Acts of the Apostles, the chapter 5. The Acts of the Apostles, chapter 5. As was announced last Lord's Day, we're bringing the motto text for this year. And as we've prayed already, it does not mean that the motto text from last year now is put on the shelf. We can continue to prove even the blessing that is contained in that particular text. But we move on, and I trust that what the Lord has given will be even a help to us, a challenge to us, and we trust that God will help us now as we read the word. So we're coming to the verse 27 of Acts chapter 5. Acts chapter 5, verse 27. And when they had brought them, speaking of the apostles, They set them before the council, and the high priests asked them, saying, Did not we straightly command you that ye should not teach in this name? And behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a prince and a saviour, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses of these things. And so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him. When they had heard that, they were cut to the heart and took counsel to slay them. Then stood there up one in the council of Pharisee named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space. And said unto them, Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching these men. For behold, these days rose up Thaddaeus, boasting himself to be somebody to whom a number of men, about 400, joined themselves, who was slain, and all As many as obeyed him were scattered and brought to naught. After this man also Judas of Galilee, in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him, he also perished, and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed. Now I say unto you, refrain from these men and let them alone. For if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to naught. But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, lest happily ye be found even to fight against God. And to him they agreed, and when they had called the apostles and beat them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. And they departed from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's bow just briefly in prayer. Our gracious Father, we bow our hearts, our heads before Thee now, desiring to hear from Thee. We pray for the help of Thy Spirit. We pray for the enabling of the Holy Ghost. We pray that Thou will give power in the preaching of the Word. Bless our hearts. Challenge us, we pray. May we leave challenged as we sit under the Word. May the Spirit of God come and apply the teaching of the Word today to all of our hearts. And so shut us in with God. Send thy Spirit, Lord. Fill me with the Holy Ghost. And may I know power to preach. For I pray these prayers through the Savior's holy name. Amen. For what purpose does the Church of Jesus Christ exist? If I was to ask that question to a wide range of Christians from different theological perspectives and different denominations I'm sure that I would get a varying and many different answers to that particular question. There might be some and they would say to me the church of Jesus Christ exists to form a community of people in which all feel loved and all feel appreciated and all feel wanted. Someone else might say, well, the church of Jesus Christ exists to transform society so that the world in which we live becomes a better and a more peaceful place to live. Someone might say, well, the church of Jesus Christ exists really to right all social wrongs, to be, as it were, an agent of social transformation in a nation or in the world. Some might say, well, the church exists to relieve the oppressed and to assist the poor and to help the homeless and to care for the disadvantaged within society. Someone else might say, the Church of Jesus Christ, it exists to be a lobby group that seeks to affect political change within the nation. all of these objectives might be commendable the church of jesus christ exists for one purpose and one purpose only for the glory of god the glory of god when the apostle paul came to pray for the saints of god and the city of ephesus He prayed the following prayer and I want to read it to you. It's found in Ephesians chapter 3 and the verse number 14. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly, above all that ye ask or think according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. Notice how Paul will end that prayer in verse 21. Unto him, unto Christ be glory in the church by Christ Jesus. Unto God be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. You know, God is glorified in. The little Greek preposition also can mean by or through. God is glorified in and by and through the church in various ways. He is glorified by the increase and the advancement of His church. In that way He is glorified. He is glorified in His church in the administration of the sacraments and the ordinances which He has ordained for the benefit of His church. He is glorified by the observance of good order in his church and by the attendance of its members at the public gatherings of public worship. He's glorified in the church by and through the peace and the unity that ought to exist within the church. He's glorified in the holiness of its members within the church. God's glory is advanced also by and through the witness of the church of Jesus Christ. And there are various ways in which that witness can be done. And we have one of those ways in our reading today. You see, in Acts chapter 5, the fledgling New Testament church is found in the furnace of affliction and in the crucible of persecution. The high priest, along with his supporters, has had the apostles rounded up and they have been put into the common prison, only for them to be miraculously set free by the angel of the Lord who came that particular night and opened the prison door. The next day the apostles are brought before the Jewish council and interrogated there. Realizing that there was nothing that they could do with regard to the activities of the apostles, the authorities beat them and command them that they should no longer speak in the name of Jesus Christ. As the apostles walk free, Acts 5 verse 41 tells us that they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. undeterred by the council's threats, we're told in verse 42. And daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ. This activity of teaching and preaching of Jesus Christ, in that activity the New Testament church came to glorify God. It was the words at the end of the verse 42. they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ, that the Lord impressed upon my mind to be the motto text for this new year. They are words that remind us of the purpose for which we gather as a church fellowship. We exist as a body of believers for the purpose of teaching and preaching Jesus Christ. That is why this church exists. Not to transform, as it were, society on a social level, not as where to entertain, not as it were to simply gather on the Lord's day for some kind of public gathering, but simply to preach and to teach Jesus Christ. And by doing so, we will, as a church, glorify God. As we consider what the apostles did here at the end of this chapter and what the church of Jesus Christ ought to be doing relentlessly, I want to direct your attention to a number of matters that the Lord drew my attention to as I came to meditate upon this passage of God's word. The first matter that I want to address your mind upon is the period in which the church engaged in teaching and preaching Jesus Christ, the period. They all begin with the letter P, the period. We're thinking about the period in which the church engaged in teaching and preaching Jesus Christ. Now, I've already tried to set before you in my opening remarks the setting and what was really taking place in church history whenever the apostles ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ. The days of blessing that had accompanied the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost have now given way to the blast of the enemy. as the church's entire spiritual leadership in the form of the apostolic band is arrested and imprisoned by the religious zealots of the day. Having given the opportunity to defend themselves before the Jewish council, the religious authorities took to publicly shaming the apostles by beating them And then, by proceeding to direct them that they should not speak in the name of Jesus Christ anymore. Verse 40. These were days of religious persecution. It was a period in church history and in world history whenever curbs were being placed on the freedom of speech, especially when it came to the preaching of the gospel. It was a time whenever the message of Christ was not welcome in the public square. Does it sound familiar? It ought to. Things have come. Full circle for the church of Jesus Christ. Once the gospel was freely preached without any opposition to it, today the powers that be want to curb the preaching of the gospel. Nowhere is this better seen than in our capital city, Belfast, where presently there is a public consultation taking place regarding the city center's bylaws. Maybe you're not aware of this, you ought to be. Let me quote from the opening paragraphs of that consultation. It says, the council has encountered issues in recent years relating to loud busking, religious preaching, and various other activities involving the use of amplification devices and or the display of graphic imagery in the city centre. When developing the bylaws, the council has sought to strike the balance between freedom of expression and the need to tackle the nuisance that can result when multiple individuals or organizations come together in busy pedestrian areas to share their views ideas or performances often using amplification devices. And so Belfast City Council want to introduce a permit scheme by which they will be enabled to prohibit the preaching of the gospel in the city centre by those who use amplification along with handing out promotional literature, which I would hazard to guess includes gospel tracts. Today, in the 21st century, 2024, there is an attempt by sinister and by satanic powers to silence the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. More and more, society is becoming hostile and antagonistic to the message that is contained within the word of God. Such is seen to be politically incorrect, in the 21st century and some have even labeled the preaching of the gospel hate speech. Certainly we find ourselves back in the days of Acts chapter 5. The response of the apostles was simply to continue in the task that the head of the church had entrusted them with because we're told, and daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ. You see, beloved, the church of Jesus Christ is never to look at the wind vane of popular opinion to see what direction it is pointed towards whenever it comes to the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because if that was the case, the church would never make known the gospel of our Savior. Well, the present circumstances in our land It may not be favorable in our estimation when it comes to the preaching of the Word of God. We must resist any attempts to draw back from the task in which Christ has entrusted his church. Like the Apostle Paul would say to Timothy, we are to preach the Word, to be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine, leaving the results to the one who alone can give, the increase. There is no period, no period in church history, brethren and sisters, when the teaching and the preaching of Jesus Christ is not needed. Because men and women are still born sinners. And therefore they are in need of the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so whether the circumstances in the land are favorable or not, We are to preach Christ and Him crucified. The period in which they taught and preached Jesus Christ was not, as it were, at least in Acts chapter 5. It wasn't a time when the gospel was readily received, but they preached it anyway. They went forth, filled with the Holy Ghost, preaching the word, believing that God himself would give the increase, the period in which this teaching and preaching took place. But there's something else I want you to notice. Notice the places, the places the church engaged in teaching and preaching Jesus Christ. Now, as you would expect, the New Testament church taught and preached Christ in the temple. Verse 42, and daily in the temple. Now the temple was the center of religious worship for the Jew. And so it was, I suppose, the most obvious place to begin when it came to spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the temple, you would have had a captive audience. You would have had people who were sympathetic to spiritual things. These were people who were coming to the place of religious worship. These were individuals who were sympathetic to the things of God. They weren't like the agnostic or the atheist who would have stayed well clear of the public place of worship. No, here were a people who were desiring to hear what the Lord would have to say. And so they find themselves in the place of public gathering, in the place of public worship, the very center of the place of public worship. They find themselves in the temple. Now, that wasn't a safe place. didn't matter to these men the temple was the place where they were arrested but yet they went to the temple again and Joseph Benson, he said, though in the temple they were more exposed and were under the eye of their enemies, yet they did not confine themselves to their little oratories in their own houses, but ventured into the posts of danger. And so this teaching and this preaching of Jesus Christ, brethren and sisters, it is to take place in the house of God. You may think, well, of course, that's obvious. Is it? Have you listened to preaching in certain places? The name of Jesus Christ is hardly mentioned. It's all about how you are and how you feel and what you are as a person, especially in these places that Stray far from the Word of God, you find that it's more a social gospel. There's no teaching, there's no preaching about Jesus Christ. Certainly within the public ministries of this meeting house, this, we would say, center of worship, we are to engage in the teaching and preaching of Jesus Christ. This is what our Sunday school teachers and our Bible class leader does each Lord's Day with our children and our young people. They teach and they preach Jesus Christ. The pulpit ministry is one in which the minister draws the attention of the congregation to none other but the Lord Jesus Christ. And in our children's meeting and in our youth fellowship, each worker, they are to faithfully present to those who attend those places of worship and those meetings the person and the work of Jesus Christ. This meeting place is a place where Jesus Christ is preached. May it ever be. May it ever be the case. May there never be a divergence from that as long as this house shall stand. We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. And so in the public gathering, the public place of worship, Jesus Christ was taught and preached. But notice that their teaching and their preaching ministry was not just confined to the precincts of the public place of worship. Because our text says in verse 42, And daily in the temple and in every house they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. And you need to underline in your mind those words, that phrase, and in every house, because that statement indicates to me that those who belong to the New Testament church taught and preached Christ to all who belong to their household. Could I suggest to you that that statement in verse 42 argues for the instruction and for the catechizing of the family unit in the things pertaining to Jesus Christ. And I say that for this reason, because the word house in verse 42 can be justly translated another way, and this is how it's translated. It's translated family. Family. And so the verse could be justly read like this. daily in the temple and in every family, they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ. Now, we need to remember that at this point of New Testament church history, about 3,000 souls had been added to the ranks of the church of Jesus Christ on the day of Pentecost. In Acts 2, verse 41, we read, Then they that gladly received the word were baptized, and the same day were added unto them about 3,000 souls." So that initial band of disciples comprising of some 120, was it there up there in the upper room along with the apostles? There we find that that is added to, that number is added to with now these 3,000 souls. But in addition to those who were saved in the day of Pentecost, 5,000 men were added to the company of the saints, according to Acts 4 and the verse number 4. For there we read, Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed, and the number of the men were about 5,000. So now we have got 8,000, over 8,000 people belonging to this church. But then if you turn to Acts chapter 5 and the verse 14, you'll read these words, This verse was prayed in our prayer meeting this morning. So you're talking about, I don't know, 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 people, multitudes, how many that takes in, we're not too sure, but we're well over I'm sure the 10,000 mark. Now whenever you think that there were only 12 apostles, remember Judas is replaced, There's 12 apostles, and we're speaking here about the apostles, the ministry. When you think that there's only 12 apostles, it's hard to imagine that 12 men could have gotten around every home of every person that had now come to put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ in order for them to instruct them in the things of Christ on a daily basis. It would be humanly impossible. to have 12 men going around every house, instructing every family in the things of God on a daily basis. And so, brethren and sisters, could I suggest to you, and I'm only making this suggestion to you, that this leaves only one option, and that option is that the head of the family must have taken upon themselves the responsibility to teach and to preach Christ to all who were under their care on a daily basis. Now, you know what question that I'm about to ask, or you should know. Do you as a father take time every day to gather your family in order that you might read to them the Scriptures, and speak to them about Jesus Christ. Do you have a family altar? If I was to ask your children, if I was to ask your wife, if such a practice takes place in your home, what would they say? It is the duty of every man on a daily basis have their children and their wife. If only it is you and your wife. It is your responsibility to take the scriptures and to read the scriptures to your children and to pray with them at the family altar. Because daily, in every family, in every house, they taught They taught and they preached Jesus Christ. Now I want you to listen to some voices from the past, what they said about family worship. James Alexander said, every father of a family should consider himself as charged with the souls of those with whom he hopes to leave behind him. And as contributing to the future propagation of the truth, by every act of devotion performed in his house. Thomas Brooks said, a family without prayer is like a house without a roof, opened and exposed to all the storms of heaven. Jonathan Edwards said, every Christian family ought to be a little church. consecrated to Christ and wholly influenced and governed by his laws. J.C. Ryle said, the Bible and the pulpit must never supersede the Bible at home. But listen to Robert Murray McShane's words. They're the most startling of them all. Robert Murray McShane said, if you do not worship God in your family, you are living in positive sin. You may be quite sure you do not care for the souls of your family. If you neglect to spread a meal for your children to eat, would it not be said that you did not care for their bodies? And if you do not lead your children and servants to the green pastures of God's word and to seek the living water, how plain it is that you do not care for their souls. Maybe there has been a slippage in this area of family life. Not here to make you feel guilty. Maybe time restraints and work restraints that have been placed upon you have saw to the stopping of this practice. Maybe you've never had family worship in your home. Maybe you've never been challenged with regard to that. Well, let me recommend you to recommence. No, no, let me implore you to recommence if this practice has ceased or begin this practice today. And if you're not convinced, if you as a Christian are not convinced that such is required, then read Exodus 12 verse 3. Read Deuteronomy 6, verses 6 through to 8. Read Joshua 24, verse 15, where the importance of family worship and the family gathering for worship is presented in the Scripture. And then come back to me and say that I should not be involved in family worship. In every family, there was a teaching and preaching of Jesus Christ inside the church and outside the church. And that's the problem, folks. We come and we get a little taster on a Sunday morning and we fail to instruct and catechize the family throughout the week. May God work in our hearts and our lives. May you see the importance of this. And so we see the period, we see the place. Let's note a third point together. Note the persistence shown by the church as they engaged in teaching and preaching Jesus Christ. There are two phrases within our text that indicate to us that the church was persistent in its teaching and preaching of Jesus Christ. Notice the word daily. Daily. And secondly, notice the phrase, cease not. They cease not. And daily in the temple and in every house, they cease not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ. You know, these two phrases suggest to me, this was no fizz in the bottle movement. All eager at the start and all the fizz then dies out. That happens in our Christian lives. God challenges us and we're ready to go at it. then it dies after a couple of weeks. These people were persistent. The early New Testament church persisted in making Christ known to all that they came into contact with. They didn't do this simply in the Lord's day. This was their daily habit. This teaching and preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and round again to the next week. They were daily at it and they ceased not. They didn't give up on it. They kept at it. Though they faced opposition and hostility, though they encountered, I'm sure, apathy, I'm sure they encountered indifference, though they experienced maybe rejection and ridicule by many, the church continued to teach and to preach Jesus Christ and how we could learn, how we could learn as believers, how we could learn from the persistence of the first century church. We could learn from their persistence. this great task of teaching and preaching Jesus Christ, we could learn from their persistence to keep on doing what God has directed His church to do. Maybe it seems that your labors are in vain, children's worker. Maybe, Sunday school teacher, you despair at the unresponsiveness of the pupils in the class that you teach the Bible lesson every week. Maybe, youth worker, you go home on a Friday night and you think to yourself, the word has fallen on deaf ears. And maybe you've reached the point that you feel, well, it's time to set a step aside and let somebody else have a go at it. If that's your thinking today, learn from the consistency shown by these men and this church in their labors. Let's not cease from the task. Let's not cease from the task that God has entrusted us with, for great will be our reward from heaven. You see, far from desisting, these men became more zealous in their work for God. May God give us a similar spirit. Sadly, I feel that too many are just kind of sleeping into another year, and 2024 is just going to be the same as next year. I'm not going to do anything. I'm not going to get my feathers ruffled. I'm not going to try and step out for God. I'm not going to try and get myself involved in the work of God. No, I'm just going to simply drift, drift through 2024. It's about time that you, and we did more for God. To have a zeal for the work of God and a passion like we've never had before to teach and to preach Jesus Christ. Whether that's in a ministry or whether that's simply in our day-to-day lives, the people that we meet from day-to-day. Oh, that we would be everlastingly at it. Maybe you have kind of resigned. Maybe not put in a letter of resignation, but you resigned. You stepped aside. Oh, that our resolve would be like these men. They ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. It was the passion of their lives. It was the passion of your life, the teaching and preaching of Jesus Christ. Quickly notice a plan. They've got a plan, the church, the plan that is followed by the church in teaching and preaching Jesus Christ. There is a two-pronged approach that was adopted by the New Testament church regarding the task of making Christ known. There was teaching. Their text says they cease not to teach Jesus Christ. The Greek word is diaskio. That'll mean nothing to you. It means nothing really to me. really the meaning of the word is this now listen to the meaning of the word to impart instruction or to instill doctrine into one the instilling of doctrine into one You see, the saints of God, they were taught regarding the doctrines of Christ by those who were in spiritual leadership. You see, even their enemies come to testify in the verse 28 that they had filled Jerusalem with their doctrine. These were doctrinal preachers. They didn't shy away from the doctrine of grace, and the doctrines of grace, and the doctrines found within the Word of God. They taught them. They communicated them. They instructed them. They instilled doctrine into the hearts, and into the minds, and into the souls of their congregation. And such doctrinal preaching is needed more than ever. within the church of Jesus Christ more than ever. While many are blown about with every wind of doctrine and the craziest things are happening in the professing church of Jesus Christ and I could name them from this pulpit. The reason is that men and women are not grounded in the doctrine, the teaching of God's Word. And it needs to be instilled perpetually, constantly. instilling good doctrine, instilling sound doctrine into the hearts and the minds of the congregation, essential as it is, so that whenever false doctrine arises, it can be detected and it can be rejected by those who have been taught the truth of God as it is found in the Word of God. Now I want to counsel, I want to counsel our young people just at this time. Some of you are going to marry. So if you're going to get married someday, you're going to decide, what church am I going to become a member of? Because you should be a member of the church. Let me put that out to you. 2023 saw you outside the membership of the church. Shouldn't be. You should be a member of this local congregation. But you'll become a member of a church someday. You should join the church of Jesus Christ. Whenever you decide what church, whenever you come to decide what church, your top requirement, now listen to me, your top requirement is not what ministries are there for my children. What kind of program is there for my young people? That is not the top requirement. The top requirement is the church that you're going to join as a family, that it teaches sound biblical doctrine. That's your top requirement. And if that means you're sitting with 80-year-olds and 70-year-olds and 60-year-olds, and there's no other young people there, it matters not. You need to join a church that preaches the truth of God. Whether you like it or not, and it rubs you up the wrong way, and you go home and you spit your teeth out at the preacher. If he's preaching the truth, then sit under its ministry, and get behind its ministry, and support its ministry, and don't be sitting home on a Wednesday night watching football. when the man of God is trying to preach the word of God. Wise up! Get real. Get earnest about this. Here they were, they taught, they preached doctrine. Young person, you make sure. I don't know where that'll be. I trust it's here. But you make sure they teach doctrine. And not tickle your fancies. And please your flesh. And so they taught. And something else they did, they preached. They ceased not to preach Jesus Christ. The Greek word is evangelizio. Now that sounds familiar, doesn't it? Evangelizio. It's a word that means to announce good news, to evangelize. That's where we get our English word, evangelize, to declare glad tidings, to preach the gospel. That's what the word means. They preach the gospel. You see, the New Testament church, they took the approach that if the saints are to be taught, then the sinners need to be preached to. That's the approach they took. So willing. evangelism, evangelistic preaching is what the New Testament church did. You know some people will say, well you shouldn't preach evangelistic sermons on a Sunday night. Rubbish! Rubbish! Because here it is. Acts 5 verse 42, They ceased not to teach, instill doctrine, and then they preached to preach the gospel. That's what they did. This double approach in the preaching of the Word of God. This was no side issue. This was no afterthought. This was no, well, I might preach a gospel sermon now and again. This was every week, daily. They preached the gospel. This was the focus of the church. They preached Christ as they reached out to those in their sin. And our two services on the Lord's Day follows the pattern of the New Testament church. We teach Christ to the saints in our family worship service, and we preach Christ to the sinner in our gospel service. Both services are vital, and both ought to be supported by those who belong to the church. And that's why, in the will of God in the month of November, we will have an evangelistic campaign. a gospel mission because we believe that the gospel and the preaching of Christ will change the whole face of society. Brethren and sisters, into this basket we have placed all our eggs. We preach Christ crucified. That's what we do. And so this is their plan. They're going to teach the saints, and they're going to preach to the sinner. And did you see what happens? Don't think that verse 42 ends the chapter because there were no chapters when the original manuscript was written. So you need to read verse 1. What happens whenever they do that? And in those days when the number of the disciples were multiplied. That's what happens. God saves. God adds to the church and God works in lies and in hearts. Now there's one concluding thought from the verse and I need to go on. And it is the most important thing. And it is the person exalted by the church in its teaching and preaching ministry. As you read through the book of the Acts of the Apostles, and then on into the pastoral epistles, you'll find that the one subject upon which God's servants preached upon repeatedly was Jesus Christ. Our text informs us that daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ. the person of Christ, the work of Christ, was the subject matter that the apostles centered on in their preaching. Now while undoubtedly they dealt with other matters in their teaching and preaching ministries, they always came back to Jesus Christ when addressing their congregations on those matters. I'll give you one example. Paul, to the church in Ephesus, he preaches about marriage. but he gets back to Jesus Christ because he says concerning marriage that it is a picture concerning Christ and his church of how a husband ought to love his wife and how a wife ought to be submissive to her husband. And he says, I speak concerning Christ and the church. So as he deals with the matter of marriage, he always goes back to Christ. And you'll trace that throughout all of the subject matters. They always go back to Jesus Christ. The point of reference for all subject matters taught and preached by the church was Jesus Christ. The apostles were Christocentric in their preaching. And that always should be the case. When any preacher preaches or any layman preaches, whether that be in this pulpit, whether that be in the open air, whether that be in the youth work, whether that be in the children's work, whether that be in any other ministry, Sunday school, Bible class, always back to Jesus Christ, always back to Him. And so let it be, when it comes to the witness of this church, let it be said of us that they cease not to teach and to preach, Jesus Christ. Let every other name perish but his name. Let every other person be forgotten but him. Let all other works be forgotten but his work. You may say, preacher, here's a text. This is our motto text for 2024. They cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. You may say, preacher, that's really a text for you. You're the preacher. This is your task, to teach and to preach Jesus Christ. Really, preacher, this isn't for me, is it not? I believe that every Christian should be teaching and preaching Jesus Christ. And in fact, this is what the church did. And with this I close, and I promise, turn to Acts chapter 8, and the verse 1 and the verse number 4. And Saul was consenting unto his death, Speaking of Stephen, in that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem. And they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. Now you need to notice that the apostles stay in Jerusalem. They stay at the center of worship. the Jerusalem church. So they stay in Jerusalem. Now the rest of the church, they're now all scattered throughout all Judea. Now notice in verse number four what happens. That's what they did. That's what they did. The membership of the church all of the members, not just a select band of men maybe from the congregation, but everyone, men and women, they went everywhere preaching, preaching the word or gossiping the word. And that's what you need to do at school. That's what you need to do at home. And that's what you need to do in your workplace. And that's what you need to do in your house and development. You and I, we need to be preaching Christ. All the church got involved in the preaching of Christ and the teaching of Christ. Would to God that we would all be involved in this. I know many of you are. Speaking a word for Christ, what a blessing that is. Witnessing to family and loved ones and friends, what a blessing and what a benefit that is. But could we not do more? Could we not be at this every day? Could we not ask the Lord every day, Lord, bring someone along my path that I may teach and preach Jesus Christ to? And so this is not a text for just the preacher. It is a text for him. And many times I feel like giving up. But they cease not. to teach and to preach Jesus Christ. May God give us a resolve as we go through 2024 not to cease from preaching Christ by our lips and by our life. For we preach Him in our living, by our living we preach Christ. Preaching Him every day, let us make it our chief business. advance His honor and to advance His name. For such will glorify Him, and one of the ways in which we can do that is that we teach and preach Jesus Christ. May the Lord bless the Word to every heart this day, for Christ's sake. Amen. Let's bow in prayer. On your way out today, you'll get one of the little ten calendars that you can make up. The motto text is on it. And you pray. You pray for your minister every day that you look at it. You pray that he'll cease not in teaching and preaching Jesus Christ. That he'll not get deflected. That some other subject matter will take the precedence in his preaching. Let's keep it central. Let's keep it where God places the emphasis. the teaching and preaching of Jesus Christ. May God help us in this business. May God help you, may God help me, even in these days. Our loving Father and our gracious God, we thank Thee for Thy Word. We thank Thee for this church, this church that ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. He meant everything to them, and so they spoke of Him and only Him. Oh, save us, Lord, from simply preaching our own ideas, simply doing our own thing and thinking we know better. We know a better message. How can we better the message of Jesus Christ? We thank before our Savior, the one who suffered and bled. We think of those in this house who knew not Jesus Christ, who are still in their sin. Lord, will you not bring them to the wonderful Christ today, the Savior, the one who can cleanse them, for that's who they need. They don't need a better house. They don't need a better car. They don't need a better paid job. They need Christ. May Christ become all to them. May they turn from their sin and receive him as he is freely offered to them in the gospel. Help us tonight as we preach Christ. as we preach the gospel as we take this our pattern this this way of approach that the new testament church took lord bless the labors of our hands we don't want to diverge from this practice help us lord therefore we pray and may oh god in the hearing of the word some precious soul find peace through believing, for we offer prayer in and through the Savior's precious name. Amen. Amen. Thank you.