Again, it's a privilege to be with you tonight. If you would turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, look at the first five verses. You'll find it on page 1357 in the Bibles you have here. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, look at verses 1 to 5. hear God's Word. And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. Let's again pray. Father, can we come to You recognizing that You are the giver of life, that it's by Your work and by Your Spirit in our hearts and lives that You take us from death to life that you are in our names in your book of life, that you adopt us into your family, that you are the one who has given us your spirit. And so we come to you, our God and our King, asking that you would teach us from your word again. Open our hearts to you. Remind us of the things that we know, but we've forgotten. Teach us things that we need to know and be a work in our hearts so that your name might be exalted. We ask in Jesus name. This morning we looked at the importance and the centrality of the Word of God, to understand and recognize that it's God's Word that goes forth from His mouth, that He is the one who sends it, that it never returns to Him into your void, but it always accomplishes what He sends it to do. And tonight, from the Apostle Paul, here by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we look at a passage where he talks to a church that, in a sense, have begun to lose their way with respect to the sense of what true faith really is. Now, my hope and trust is that none of us have really strayed at all in our sense of what true faith is. But it's always good for us to be reminded, what does God say to us? Is it true, genuine faith? How do we understand the proclamation of His Word in our lives and in the lives of other people? And what does the Lord say to us from 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 1 to 5? Well, we all hear the word faith. We've heard people say, keep the faith. We usually don't really know exactly what they mean by that, but you're holding on to something, where you're believing in something that's out there. And we all have a certain kind of faith, where we trust Not only in the Lord, but in people. We have people that we trust. We believe that they are there to help us, and that whatever it is that they do, we believe that they're reliable. You may find a mechanic that you would say you have faith in. That may be a hard thing to find. It's a wonderful thing to find. Perhaps a plumber that you have faith in is even better. But having faith in these folks is a good and a wonderful thing when they are worthy of our faith. But sometimes people think that faith is blind, that it has no real sense of rationality, that it's always irrational. The Scripture doesn't teach us that. That there is a real, true, genuine faith that makes sense. I remember years ago, I was lying in a dentist chair, and in the dentist chair You always want to be very careful in the types of conversations you engage in. First off, because you're talking with their hands in your mouth, and you may not be able to really make a lot of sense. But secondly, they have weapons that they can really hurt you with. And plus, I've never really met anyone who really says, you know, I love to go to the dentist. And I'm not one of them either. But I was talking to this gal. She was a dental assistant. And we were talking. Lo and behold, the gospel came up, and so I was talking to her about faith in Christ, and she told me she had gone to a church, and she had a church, and she had learned this verse, and that their pastor had talked about the idea of faith, and she knew Hebrews 11, 1, kind of the big verse on faith, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the confidence of things not seen. But she couldn't quite articulate it real clearly, but she had an idea that that's what it was, but it didn't seem to make sense to her. She understood what the Bible said to some degree, but she didn't understand what faith really was. And my experience is there are a lot of people who are in churches that don't really understand what real saving faith is all about. We have an idea, and some people obviously know better than others, and our hope is that everybody in a good solid biblical church will know what true faith is. Years ago I was doing an Evangelism Explosion seminar. It's a program that Jim Kennedy developed on sharing your faith with people. And it actually was in his church, and there was at least one person there who was there to learn how to share her faith, but she didn't have true saving faith. She didn't really even understand the gospel yet herself. That happens sometimes, that people think they know what it means to be a Christian, but they don't really know. And sometimes we sort of assume that they do know is that they're going to know, and we fail to make it really clear. Here the Apostle Paul calls this church back to the beginning. You know, and if you've ever talked to people, they say, you know what we really need is we need to get back to the New Testament church. That's the church for me. I would not want to be in this church in Corinth. They were screwed up. Look at this church. There are divisions. There are schisms. They are divided. They're engaged in hero worship. They're pitting one pastor against another. They're struggling with the leaders that they follow. In some ways, they're rigid and they're legalistic. And in others, they condone sin that even the rankest of pagans would blush at. They're filled with pride, superiority, and self-satisfaction, and even the way that they celebrate communion is so selfish and so contrary to God's Word that the Lord tells us through the Apostle Paul, some of them have died as a result of taking communion at all. Do you want to be in that church? I don't know. But here the Lord calls them through the Apostle Paul back to consider what true faith really is. He wants them to consider what is your faith grounded in. So let me ask you this evening, what is your faith grounded in? Well, my hope and trust is that it's in the Lord Jesus. But as you look at this passage, I want you to see what the Lord tells us through the Apostle Paul that true faith must be grounded in the power of God that's revealed through Jesus Christ. One of the constant dangers for us as believers is to drift. Now even boats with anchors can put their anchor down, and if their anchor isn't firmly secure, the boat will still drift. And as believers, it's always a danger. And here, this church has allowed all kinds of things to come in and dissuade them from where they really needed to be. The Apostle Paul introduces a contrast for them between what he had brought to them and where they had come. Now, I'll let you keep your secret, but I'm betting some of you have seen American Idol before. And some people love American Idol, and some people run from it like the plague. But if you notice, if you ever watch it, you'll see some performers. And I remember one performance in particular. The guy is decked out to the nines. He's got glitter everywhere. And he's coming down this huge staircase. And it is definitely a performance. It's definitely a show. They almost want their singing to speak for them rather than all the extra stuff going on. And this church in Corinth, they were looking for performers. They were looking for people to wow them, to show them all these wonderful things, to be grateful And it was through the impressiveness of their words, through their vocabulary, through their personal dynamic presentation, that that was what really mattered, and that they had fallen into this pattern that I think is a danger for everybody, that sometimes the method of the presentation of the message becomes the message itself. And they were in danger of allowing that to happen for them. The Apostle Paul says in verse three, and I in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, I came to you. And notice the Apostle Paul begins to talk to them about how he came to them to preach the gospel to them. When he first came to this church as a church planter, He didn't come with all kinds of powerful, persuasive words. He didn't come to them in a way that demonstrated this powerful wisdom. He did not come to them to impress them, or to wow them, or to knock them off their feet. But he came in weakness, and in fear, and in trembling. Now some commentators think that the Apostle Paul was weak. physically and in his appearance and so he couldn't help it. The Apostle Paul was brilliant and he felt what he taught them from the very depth of his soul. I don't think that's what's going on here at all. I think what the Apostle Paul understood was that he could not save these people, only the Lord could. That he went into a town where there was no Christian witness at all, and he had no idea how they were going to respond to him, what they were going to do, what they were going to say, and he recognized that he was completely dependent upon the Holy Spirit. He went in weakness, and in trembling, and in fear. Listen to what he says in Romans chapter 9 verses 1 to 3. And I think, as we think about our ministry to tell other people about the gospel, this is something sometimes we forget. We fall into techniques, we fall into methodologies, we fall into attitudes, even though we understand God is sovereign over salvation. We can easily drift into thinking, the way that I say this, the way that I do this, and we won't finish the sentence this way, but sometimes it creeps into our thinking, is more important than the work of the Holy Spirit. And we know that's not true. But there's a danger to think that the way I do something is more significant. Let's do what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 9, I am speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh. The Apostle Paul says, I could almost wish myself to be cut off. for the sake of my brothers. His desire is so powerful that his brothers will know the Lord Jesus, he could almost wish himself cut off. Now I want you to stop for a second. Who is there in your life that you could almost wish yourself cut off for their sake? That's a hard one, isn't it? I mean, we want to see other people come to Christ, but here the Apostle Paul's love, his passion, his anguish for the lost. He desires that his brothers will know the Lord Jesus so passionately that he wants them to know the Lord Jesus and he could almost himself be willing to be cut off for that sake, for their sake. So he comes with an attitude to say, unless the Holy Spirit will work, what I do is in vain. So I want you to see, he saw that he could not save them. As I looked at this passage and I thought about these verses, I love to share the gospel with people. And I'm always looking for a better way to do it. A more effective way to do it. I don't know that that's bad, but I realized, honestly, with some horror, that I have some guilt with respect to this passage. Because the Apostle Paul wanted not to do anything from any human standpoint so that they would be wowed or that they would be persuaded that it would be by the power of the Holy Spirit. And so easily we fall into traps and techniques so that we try to draw people to Christ. But the danger is, if they are drawn through emotionalism, through our persuasive words, through ways that we convince them of something that is not of the Spirit of God, we fall short. Have you ever cheered the gospel of somebody and then tried to talk them out of it? I have. And there's wisdom in that. Because we want their faith to rest in Christ. Paul saw, number one, He can't say that. It's got to be by the power of the Holy Spirit. Number two, he was totally dependent on the work of the Holy Spirit to wake them up spiritually, to raise them from the dead spiritually, to make them alive. It is a spiritual work that happens in their souls that by the work of the Holy Spirit, he goes into the life of a person and makes them alive. that that comes by His Spirit, by His power. And third, so that for those who believe, they will believe because of the power of God, not because of the preacher, not because of our persuasion, not because of our clever stories, but by the power of God. You see, they had gotten caught up as a church in the techniques and the desires to have this picture. And so they had strayed, they had drifted from the Word of God and the power of the Spirit to the presentation, the technique, the preaching, the persuasive personality, the rhetoric of the day. They have swayed from the Word of God and the power of God's Spirit to human devices. And that's something we all have to be careful about, to be on guard against. The danger for us, I think, is to think that a display of emotionalism is the power of God. It isn't necessarily. It may just be a display of emotionalism. So here, the Apostle Paul tells us that our faith must be grounded in the power of the person of the Lord Jesus, that we are always pointing people back to Christ. Verses 1 and 2, what he didn't do. When I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. Well, you know, I've done a seminary, I've studied all kinds of really great, cool things. I can, I can spout Hebrew. You know, Gershif Barah Elohim, Eifasha Mayimu Eitarach, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth in Hebrew. Cool! The Apostle Paul didn't come to impress them. And sometimes we need to just distance all the cool stuff we've learned, so that they will know Jesus. and him crucified, to lose all those things, not persuasive words. He judged or determined that word emphasizes a deliberate act of the will, Weizmann says. Hence, I think the Apostle Paul did not come in weakness and fear and trembling because he wasn't a good speaker. I think it was because he understood what he was doing. This is a spiritual battle. people's souls hang in the balance. This is not a game. This is spiritual reality. And he is helpless but by the work of the Holy Spirit. Now with Paul's conversion, it was a powerful act of God. When you look at Acts chapter 9 and see the Apostle Paul, he is on the road to Damascus to bring Christians back to Jerusalem to put them up for trial. Because they have rejected the Jewish ways, and Christ meets him, and appears in a great light, and speaks to him, and sends him to Damascus. And Ananias comes and prays for him. The Apostle Paul's conversion was a powerful spiritual reality. We can't do that. I mean, we can do smoke and mirrors, you know, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Only God can do that. Martyn Lloyd-Jones has a great message in talking about Elijah and the prophets of Baal. And he points out that Elijah prepared everything, that only God could send the fire, that he was dependent upon God and he prayed. and God sent the fire. And so we seek to be faithful and yet at the same time realize we are dependent upon the work of the Holy Spirit and we should be careful to not to try to evoke false conversions from people. That doesn't mean we don't share the gospel and it doesn't mean we don't point them to Christ and it doesn't mean that we don't help them understand. Remember years ago I was in St. Louis, I had a guy in my youth group, and I was his youth pastor, and I would hammer him, in love of course, on a regular basis, about putting his faith in Christ, and for five years. That's really cool, man. You know, that sounds great, but, you know, I'm not ready. That's not for me. I don't understand that. And I would talk to him again and again and again. And then after five years, in God's good time, He drew Jeff to himself. The last I knew, he was doing youth ministry. Because the Lord had impacted him. But it was the work of the Holy Spirit in his time. And anything I tried to do to convince him he was honest enough to not believe until he And that's a wonderful testimony to him as well. So here, in Paul's conversion, he sees the power of Jesus coming. We have the incarnation in John 1.14, that the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only, that Paul met the risen Christ. And we have, too, not only the coming of Christ, who gives us this life, but the power of Jesus' life. Think of Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 to 4. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs." And then Colossians 1 verse 15 to 20, Speaking of Christ, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. It is this Jesus that the Bible presents to us. It is this Jesus that the Apostle Paul took to Corinth. It is this Jesus who is able by the power of His Spirit to take people from death to life, to draw people to Himself. Now, I don't know if you've ever gone to a church where they do an altar call. But often what happens is, they do an altar call at the end, and in that altar call, they call people. you know, first to put their faith in Christ. Now, sometimes, you know, you bow your head, you close your eyes, raise that hand, I see that hand, the buses will wait, the buses don't usually wait, but I see that hand. Other times I'll have people come forward, and of course that doesn't save anybody, sometimes it's emotional, sometimes they're genuine conversions that happen. But sometimes when it doesn't happen, the preacher begins to manipulate. Now, if I were to ask you to come forward at the end of this service and renew your covenant with the Lord Jesus, I'd expect you all up here in the front. Because every worship service is a covenant renewal ceremony where we renew our covenant with the Lord. You're safe. I won't do that tonight. To rededicate our lives to the Lord, that's a wonderful thing for us to do every Lord's Day even. To recalibrate our lives, to live for Christ, to follow Him. But sometimes it becomes all about manipulation. And the Apostle Paul wanted nothing to do with that. And we should be careful about that too. It shouldn't be about manipulation. It should be about the work of the Holy Spirit. working in people's lives, drawing people to himself. And so the challenge for us tonight is to say, where is my faith? If I put my faith in the Lord Jesus as the Lord of heaven and earth, do I believe In this Jesus that the Apostle Paul preached, that met him on the road to Damascus, do I believe that Jesus is the Messiah who came into the world to rescue his people from their sins? Have I put my faith in him? Do I trust in him? Do I believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and that it has given me the truth about who Christ is? If it is, Then my hope is that you have put your faith in Christ. That you, though you know, I hope that if you ask Him into your life, I have good news for you. He already came. Because He's the one that made you alive. Or if you desperately want the Lord Jesus, but you feel like you don't have Him. I love John chapter 6. Jesus says, All that the Father gives to me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never drive away. If you struggle with your faith, you wonder, am I really one of God's children? If you've come to Jesus, He will never drive you away. What a great comfort. He calls us to follow Him. He calls us to live for Him. He calls us to put our faith actively in Him. But he's a gracious and a loving and a patient God calling us to himself. Our faith has to be in the power of the Lord Jesus, not in the persuasive words of people. It has to be focused on who Jesus is and what he has done. And here the Apostle Paul says that he came to preach to them to know nothing except two things, Jesus, the person of Jesus, and the work of Jesus, Him crucified, His death on the cross. It has to be grounded, not only in Jesus, but in the crucifixion. The crucifixion is central to the Christian life. I think I've only been kicked out of one home in my life so far. That's probably pretty good. I probably had people who wanted me to leave and were gracious and didn't kick me out. Years ago, I had a couple girls that were in a summer camp that I had done, and I went to meet their mom and talk to her about faith in Christ. I had understood that she was a Christian, and I went into her home, and she was a black velvet Christian. Now, do you know what I mean by that? She had those black velvet pictures of Jesus and the Last Supper and all kinds of stuff all over her home. And so I wasn't sure where she was spiritually. And as we began to talk, she said to me something to the effect, isn't it terrible what those awful people did by putting Jesus to death? Well, yeah. But I also told her that in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 24, the scripture says it was necessary for Jesus to die. That Jesus is our substitute. He is our substitutionary atonement that he takes our sins upon his body and dying on the cross pays the penalty for our sin by becoming the Lamb of God. She didn't like that too much. She got really mad at me. And I think I probably sealed my coffin when I told her that it was God's will that Christ should die. So it happened at the hands of sinful people and that any of us In that same situation, being filled with our own sin would have done exactly the same thing. So she kicked me out. It was sad, and I prayed for her from time to time, hoping and praying that God has opened her eyes to the truth. Didn't go to church, because church was filled with hypocrites. I said, ah, what's one more? Go ahead and come on. And for reality, most churches aren't filled with hypocrites. We're filled with sinners. who need Jesus. We may have our hypocritical tendencies, but when we can see our own sin and our need for Christ, and seek to point other people to Jesus too, then that's a good and a wonderful thing. So here, in this passage, we have to see that what the Lord tells us is that His crucifixion was central to Paul's message, and it needs to be central to our message too. Charles Hodge said, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul's only design in going to Corinth was to preach Christ, and Christ, not as a teacher, or as an example, or as a perfect man, or as a new starting point in the development of the race. All this would be mere philosophy, but Christ as crucified, that is, as dying for her sins, Christ as a propitiation. That word means wrath bearer. He bears the wrath of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Jesus bore his own wrath on the cross of the triune God. Christ's propitiation was the burden of Paul's preaching. It has been well remarked that Jesus Christ refers to the person of Christ and him crucified to his work, which constitute the sum of the gospel. If we think of Jesus as a great man who taught platitudes and examples for us, and if that's all, we're still in our sins. We have not come to put our faith in the Lord Jesus. As we think of Him as a great trailblazer, a perfect example, and someone we should emulate and follow, but that's all. We have not come to put our faith in the Lord Jesus. We must see Him as God incarnate who took on a human nature and gave His life for us to pay the penalty. The crucifixion must be central in our understanding of what God has done, to see that the Lord Jesus takes away our guilty stains, that God provides a way for us, that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, Now I remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand. This is now the end of the book, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. And so we see that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. I think sometimes when we look at the cross, it's lost its impact for us. We hang it around our necks. We wear it as jewelry. Now, I'm not faulting you for that. We have to remember that the cross was an instrument of torture. It's sort of like wearing an electric chair around your neck. It was an instrument of torture. It was a shameful way to die. And Jesus took the worst seat in the house, the worst seat on the planet, to give his life as a ransom for us. And so the cross reminds us of the power of what Jesus has done. And the reason, and we know this, the reason there is no Jesus on our cross as Protestants is because he isn't there anymore. He rose from the dead. He overcame the power of death. He sits at the right hand of God, the father almighty. He has accomplished what He set out to do. And we rejoice that He has given us life in His name. So the cross declares to us that we are guilty. We cannot save ourselves, that only God can save us. He is the one who can rescue us. And so it declares to us the tremendous joy that Jesus came into the world. It declares to us the tremendous power of God overcoming the power of death. That God loved us who were in the world so much. that he sent the Lord Jesus into the world to rescue us from our sin. And the response is, to the Jew it's a stumbling block, and to the Greek it's foolishness. In other words, if you really clearly explain to people Jesus and the cross, they won't come. unless by the work of the Holy Spirit, because it won't make any sense to them. You're not going to have somebody go, well, you know, that makes a lot of sense to me. You're not going to say that unless the Holy Spirit's working in their lives, or we're doing a really miserable job of explaining to them the gospel. It should be only by the power of the Holy Spirit. And we want to make sure as much as we can that when people put their faith in Christ, it is a true conversion. We can only do so much of that. But we need to be careful not to soft pedal the gospel so that we woo people in and they're dead in their sins and they don't understand. We don't want anybody to stand before God and say, you know, Lord, Lord, You know, I've done a lot of great things in your name. I, you know, cast out demons and, you know, I've done all kinds of great things in your name and for the Lord Jesus to say, I never knew you. Depart from me. We don't want that. So we need to make sure as much as possible with us that we help them understand the centrality and the critical nature of the cross of the Lord Jesus and his death on the cross. Our faith must be grounded in the cross and we must make sure the faith of others is grounded in the cross too. But it's also grounded in the power of the resurrection. Verse 2, in talking about Christ as crucified, the Apostle Paul is implying that he is also risen from the dead. And in chapter 15 he goes on to say that, that he died, he was buried, he rose from the dead, he appeared to many brothers, going through that process is critical, but it's the resurrection as well. 1 Corinthians 15, 3 and 4, I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. That resurrection is critical. What's Christianity without the resurrection? There is no Christianity. It's only moralism. The Apostle Paul says, without the resurrection, we as Christians are to be pitied more than all the people in the world if Christ isn't raised. And he goes through an elaborate discussion and then he tells us that Christ has been raised. We know that the Lord Jesus has been raised, that he rose from the dead. And so for us as God's people, we need to see that when God's word goes forth, it doesn't return to him void. It accomplishes what he sends it to do. That we should not be so focused on our techniques, on the ways that we do things. Well, we want to be careful. We want to be clear. We want people to understand. We don't want to be But neither do we want to think that it's by what I say and how I say it that they will be saved. It will be by the power of God. That's what we want. We want their conversions not to be based in human wisdom, but in the power of God, in the work of the Holy Spirit. And so for us as God's people, though we may have wonderful programs in the life of the church, those can be great things, we always need to bring them back to Jesus and Him crucified and Him risen from the dead. That they need to know the gospel because the human heart, you may have heard this before, is deceitfully wicked above all else. Who can know it? Jeremiah 17. And we so easily fall into habits and patterns where we imagine ourselves to be better than we really are. And to drive them again and again to see the need for Christ is central. James Buchanan in 1843 said, it is of great importance to form a clear and definite idea of what is meant by a revival of religion. Speaking about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the work of the Holy Spirit in the world. It properly consists in these two things, a general impartation of new life and vigor and power to those who are already of the number of God's people, and a remarkable awakening and conversion of souls who have hitherto been careless and unbelieving. In other words, it consists in new spiritual life imparted to the dead, and in new spiritual health imparted to the living. Some years ago, I knew a guy that had gotten involved in doing a lot of stuff he shouldn't do. And actually, he sold drugs. When I met him, he had a scar on his lip. And he told me about his scar. He'd been involved in a drug deal that had gone bad. The guy pulled a gun on him, and he pulled his head back just in time. The gun went off, and it how to graze his upper lip. That got his attention. And so he came for help. And he lived with his grandfather, a godly Christian man, and his grandmother, a godly Christian woman. And this young guy, 18, 19 years old, would tell me about his grandfather, about his faith. And I would talk to him about faith in Christ. And I saw the Lord working in his heart and life, the testimony of his grandfather, his grandfather's love. And this guy turned his life around. The Lord got a hold of him and changed him by the work of his spirit. And the Lord can do that in our lives too. The Apostle Paul calls us for our faith to be in the Lord Jesus and in Him crucified. And when we look at the church and we look at ourselves as believers, sometimes we say, you know, I believe in Jesus. But so often we feel weak. And we think people don't want to hear what we have to say. We know sometimes they don't. But they need to hear what we have to say. Pray for God to work in your heart. to pour His Spirit out upon you. Focus on Jesus and Him crucified and risen from the dead. See who He is. See His love for you and for this lost and broken world. The Lord has given you a tremendous privilege. You are in a university town where there will be people who will come from all over the world. I heard a story from a guy recently. He had been a Muslim. He had been in Chicago. He was studying. A guy came up to him and grabbed him and said something like, put your faith in Jesus. Well, it was pretty startling to him. And the guy wouldn't let him go. He said, I'm not recommending this, OK? Just so you know, I'm not recommending this. Terrorism evangelism is not a good approach, OK? Just don't even think about it. It's not a good idea. But what happened was, he said, I will give you, the guy said, you have a Bible. And thinking that that would get this guy off his back. And he said, I will only give you a Bible if you promise to read it. OK, I promise. And then the guy was going to check up on him. He put the bookmark in the Gospel of John. The guy took it, he closed the Bible, he put it in his backpack, and when he went home, the bookmark was in a different place. Now I can't explain that, I'm just as reformed as anybody in here, but the Holy Spirit still works. It was at the beginning of Matthew. He couldn't explain it. He opened Matthew, and he started to read. And as he did, the Lord opened up to him the truth of the gospel. And this young man, who was born a Muslim, grew up a Muslim, from a Muslim country, put his faith in Christ. He had talked to that guy who had collared him. and said, do you usually do that to people? He said, no. I was just so frustrated and I talked to so many people and they were all just ignoring me. I thought the next guy that comes to me, I'm going to grab him. And he did. So again, I don't recommend that approach, you know, but the Lord even used that. Now this guy goes into Muslim countries and shares the gospel with Muslims who are in these closed countries. The Lord can do amazing things. Know Jesus. Know Him crucified. Know Him risen from the dead. And see the glory of God. Let's pray together. Father, we thank You that You are able to do beyond all we can ask or imagine. We pray that by the work of your Holy Spirit, you would drive home to us the power and the truth of your word, and that we too would desire with the Apostle Paul that people might not have false conversions, that we would know the Lord Jesus and know him crucified and be able to talk to people, recognizing our dependence upon you and the work of your spirit, recognizing that you must work. And we pray that you will give us divine appointments to tell people about who you are, that you'll work among us, work in this city, open the hearts of those who are dead to your truth, make them alive, draw them to yourself. Use this congregation powerfully to minister effectively in this community so that your name would be exalted and that you would be lifted up, that your kingdom would be furthered. Father, remind us of how significant, how important, how powerful, how wonderful it is that we know You through the Lord Jesus and that You have given us life in His name. Glorify Yourself in our lives and in our ministries and fill us with Your Spirit that we might boldly tell people the truth about Your love and mercy and that You would change hearts. For we ask in Jesus' holy name. Amen.