All right, so this morning, we're looking at 2 Corinthians again. And as we turn there and look at this passage of scripture, I ask the question, why are you here at this time? Why were you born now? Well, the answer is given in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse number 20, you are left here to be an ambassador for Christ if you are a believer, of course. Verse number 20, therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ and I want you to really get in your mind to live out your ambassadorship with confidence while you're here. Ambassadors do not, remember, come with their own agenda. They do not come on their own authority. Ambassadors come, we Christians, as aliens to this world we have been called to and live in at this time. to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to a world we know is steeped in spiritual darkness, and it's getting darker every single day. And what do people need more than anything else in this life is the gospel of Jesus Christ? They don't know that, but we know that. So the one and only institution that God has really called to mandate this message to the world, bring this message to the world as the true church, that we've been called out of darkness into light, into the kingdom of God. And because of that, we are now followers of Jesus Christ, and we have been entrusted as followers with a message of salvation, the only message of salvation, by grace alone, through Christ alone, and using the scripture alone. So today, let's continue to note the four distinctive marks of a baked-dirt ambassador for Christ. Now, of course, that baked-dirt phrase may throw you off a bit, but if you turn back to chapter 4, verse number 7, It says this in 2 Corinthians, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels. That's what I mean by big dirt, right? Earthen vessels, just a clay pot, and that's who we are. We're just clay pots, and we're just weak. We're weak. We're vulnerable. We need God's power to live the Christian life and to live for Christ. We need Christ's power. We cannot do it on our own, especially being an ambassador in a world that is not welcoming to us. So we are here. God knows we're here. He knows we're weak. And he's given us everything to be what we ought to be. So let's apply this to our own life to evaluate it and make adjustments if needed so we can live out our ambassadorship with confidence and holy zeal. So just by way of review, the first distinctive mark of a baked dirt ambassador for Christ is their disposition. Right? Constant integrity, genuine humility, a deep thankfulness for Christ's love. And Christ's love really does move a believer into a new sphere in which they no longer live for themselves. They're learning to do that. Secondly, the love of Christ moves the believer to a place where they no longer look at people in a fleshly way. Also, the love of Christ moves the believer to a place where they no longer look at Christ in a fleshly way. Christ is now their Lord, their Master. He is their Redeemer. We come to love Him because of what He's done for us. And of course, the love of Christ moves us to a place where all things are becoming new. So yes, believers in Christ, Jesus, We are ambassadors for Christ to bring the gospel to a lost and dying world. And the best disposition this message flows through is one with a constant integrity, a genuine humility, and a deep thankfulness for the love of Christ. The second distinct mark of a Big Dirt Ambassador for Christ is their work. The source of the new creation in verse number 17 of chapter 5, for therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things pass away. Behold, new things have come that the source of this new creation is God. God is the one who brought us into this new creation and made us believers. Secondly, the source of this new work is God, verse number 18. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ. So the source of the work is God, the bestower of the work, who gives us the work, verse number 18, and he gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That's what he has given us. But all the work has been done by God himself. And our Lord, in whom we love, He gives us a mission as an ambassador to carry out His unfinished business in this world. And this business is basically in the form of a message, which brings us to a third distinctive mark of an ambassador for Christ, and it's their message. It is not their own message. It is a message from God. It is a message that is received. It is a message once received we are to stand in and stay in for the rest of our lives. And be sure of this. that a baked-dirt ambassador for Christ must believe the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ themselves, and then they must hold fast to it. You can't be an ambassador in a foreign nation and not understand why you're there, or what message you're going to communicate to the ones that you are presenting a message to. So what is the gospel? The gospel means good news, but what good news? And then, you have to ask yourself, do you really believe it? Do you live and act according to your belief? Do you have a life-transforming faith? Is Jesus Christ your Redeemer, your Savior? your substitute, your sacrifice, your Lord, your God, or is He just some add-on to everything else you were believing before? Is Jesus just some little addition on the side? Oh, I'm going to include Jesus. I believe everything else. I might as well have Him, too. Ask yourself, are you a true possessor of Jesus Christ or are you a false professor? Have you received Jesus as your Lord and Savior and have the faith works to prove it? Or have you been a kind of person who comes to church every week and listens to the word preached over and over again, but you do not act upon anything that you have heard? Now these are very probing, convicting, sobering questions. But brethren, they need to be asked, and more than once throughout our life. Because Scripture warns us that there is a faith which does not save. The Bible teaches that there is such a thing as a false faith, or a believing in vain. I read an intriguing story by Pastor D. James Kennedy that I thought would illustrate well the seriousness of true salvation. The story happened many years ago in the Eastern Soviet Union in a small rural church. The people had come together on a Sunday morning and were engaging in worshiping Christ. They had just finished singing, Him and they were seated and suddenly there was a loud crash. Somebody kicked in the front door and two Soviet soldiers in uniform carrying submachine guns stomped down the aisle and faced the congregation. They said, you filthy Christians, you are a disgrace to our glorious Soviet Union. You do not deserve to live, and we have come today to see to it that you live no longer. And they pulled the bolts on their submachine guns. The congregation had sat frozen, wide-eyed, and in their seats. Then one soldier said, however, some of you may not really believe this stuff. So you have a few minutes to decide. In fact, you have exactly one minute to do so. There was complete silence in the congregation. Then there was a shuffle of feet, first a few, then more until finally a large number of people were scrambling out of the pews and down the aisle, falling over one another in a desperate attempt to get out the door before the minute was over and about 40% of the congregation was fleeing across the countryside for their lives. One of the soldiers walked up to the door, slammed it and closed it, and came back in front of the church and said to the people who were silent, of course, no doubt praying feverishly, then one of the soldiers says, brethren, we too are Christians. and we've come to worship with you. But first, we had to get rid of those who didn't really believe. Now, of course, that is an extreme situation. And you would think, how would I react? Well, what group would you be in? See, that's how serious it is to be a Christian. And yes, the gospel must be believed. It must be lived out every day. And this is the only message that saves and reconciles people to God. It's the only one. There are not many, there's just one. And that makes the world mad. Because they don't want just one way. So the third distinctive mark of a baked-earth ambassador for Christ is their message. Now, ministers of a message with far-reaching effects, God is doing this wondrous work, bringing reconciliation and pardon from sin to a world of people from every tribe and every nation. So there's five essentials to the message found in our passage. In verse number 19, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, the first essential is the person of the message. And who's the person of the message? Look what it says. It says, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. So the person of the message is Jesus Christ, not just the generic name God, but Jesus Christ. the one who was sent into a world as the perfect man, who became obedient to the Father and even obedient to the point of death and died in the place of sinners. So this becomes the first essential part of the gospel, that it always starts with God and his character. God was reconciling through Christ and doing it in Christ. That's what it says here. That the whole reconciling process takes place in Him. So that means that ambassadors cannot fudge, cannot fiddle around with, cannot sidestep Jesus Christ as being the central figure of the message. That this great plan of redemption always, always, always centers in on the Lord Jesus Christ. Like Paul said in the Ephesians, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in heaven and things upon the earth. That means the plan, the purpose, the way of redemption are always in him, always in Christ. If someone adds to or takes away from the message, it's no longer the gospel. It's some other message. So there's an exclusiveness about who we are presenting in the gospel message and the message of an ambassador. And so the person of Jesus Christ is the first essential. The second, in verse number 19, the target of the message is the world. Notice what it says, reconciling the world to himself. Now, don't let that term the world trip you up. The world means the world of people, but not every person. It means the world of the Jews, and the Gentiles, and the bond, and the free, and the rich, and the poor, and the pagan, and the barbarian, and the people with red skin, and yellow skin, and brown skin, and black skin, and white skin. See, God gives us a love for all groups of people. That's not normal. That's not in our flesh. We can't do that, but God does that. They may look different, they may speak different, they may dress different, they may eat different food, yet the same, they have the same problem everyone else has. And that problem is they are not reconciled to God. And that's what they need to be. And just for your information, concerning what's happening today with the CRT, critical race theory, and the subjects that go with that, there's a new book out called Christianity and Wokeness by Owen Strachan. And it's a book actually praised by people like Vody Bachman, and Wayne Grudem, and Steve Lawson, and Ken Ham, and Paul Washer, and C.J. Mahaney, and Rick Holland. And John MacArthur writes the foreword to that book. And he says in that foreword, Wherever CRT is introduced, critical race theory, deliberately provokes and feeds on disunity. It intensifies ethnic hostility, promotes crass identity politics, foments resentment, imputes guilt or victimhood to people according to their skin color. He went on to say that the divisive effects of such a worldview are now obvious. CRT has not helped, much less healed, social strife and ethnic division. It has made those problems exponentially worse. And perceptive people have noticed. See, the world is not going to produce unity through their ideologies. And that's all they are, is ideologies. They're quaint little information bits that go out there till they saturate people's minds and then people begin to believe it, but they don't even understand what it is. And just for your information, God has provided our skin with millions of tiny umbrellas to protect us from the sun's damaging rays, visible and invisible rays. The umbrellas in our skin are darkly colored. The dark pigment in our skin called melanin is typically black or brown. Melanin is a pigment primarily responsible for our skin color. Just recently I visited the ARC in Kentucky, and Ken Ham was giving a seminar on, actually, he said in the seminar, which is an interesting fact, there are no white people. Human skin is normally never truly white. Though some people have less melanin in their skin than others, surprisingly, all humans, regardless of the shade or color of their skin, have approximately the same number of melanocytes per square inch of skin. Some people have darker skin than others, not because they have more melanocytes, but because they retain a greater amount of melanin after the cells are no longer able to divide. People with lighter skin break down most of their melanin. So then in reality, we human beings are different shades of brown. Now, I say that for this reason. I say it because that is not an issue with God, and it should not be an issue with Christians. that the issue that we should have at all times is that we should not think of people in terms of race, but in terms of people groups, in terms of people who are different, who have different cultures and from different tribes and different nations. And in these groups, people have different shades of brown skin color. And remember, we are all offspring of Noah and his family, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. So we should think of people in the spiritual realm as saved or lost. If they're saved, they are in Christ, period. And if they are lost, then they're in darkness and bondage to sin, dead in their sin, alienated from the life of God and under God's wrath. And so people who are in desperate need of a word from God, that's what we ought to give them. So the term world. specifically embraces only those who repent and take advantage of the offer of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Only these are reconciled to God. The gospel is to be given to the whole world, yes, of people groups and out of those people groups God saves some. So you see The target message is to the world. If the ambassador has a problem with going to a certain group, it should not be an ambassador. They need to quit and go home and deal with their issues. An ambassador cannot look at appearances. They have to look at the eternity and the soul of that person. And in that case, brethren, we are all in the same boat. We are sinners. And so that brings me to the third reason for the message. And it's this, transgression or trespasses. Look what it says in verse number 19. Not counting their trespasses against them. Not counting their transgression against them. So clearly it indicates in our passage that sin is the problem. And as recorded in Isaiah the prophet, or he said in Isaiah 59 too, but you are iniquities. have made a separation between you and your god and your sins have hidden his face from you so he does not hear so see the gospel message must include the problem of the human heart and the problem of the human heart is that we are sinners rebels we are rebels we are enemies of god so sin sins were the cause of the alienation of people from God. And pursuing one's bent to sin usually starts out as a search for freedom and happiness, but it ends up in slavery and fear and remaining under God's wrath. So brethren, because of people's transgressions and sins, they are in trouble with God. And transgression means, or it means really the result of falling off the side, away from the right road, or in the English, going where one is forbidden to go. It was transgression that caused God to drive out our first parents from the Garden of Eden and away from his presence And it had been a barrier between him and man ever since. So here in our passage, it says, not counting their trespass against them. And this word trespass has the idea of crossing over a boundary of right and entering the forbidden land of evil, wrongdoing, and crooked living. And we've all done it. That's where we lived before. And we were fine doing that. We loved our sin. Our desires drove us. Our passions drove us. And we made the necessary adjustments on how to define all that. And yet, we did not know we were under God's wrath and under judgment and heading for hell. You have heard the quaint saying, God loves the sinner and hates the sin. Well, this is totally wrong. God does not view a sinner apart from his sins. God's wrath is upon the sins and the person responsible for them. Psalm 711 says, God judges the righteous and God is angry with the wicked every day, King James Version. So when people repent, They hear the message of Jesus Christ. They hear the message of the gospel when they repent and are then reconciled to God through Christ. God no longer charges their sin against them. That's what he's saying here, and that is the goal of an ambassador. An ambassador doesn't want the sins of people accounted against them anymore. He wants them washed away, and that can only be washed away by the blood of Christ, by the death of Christ in their behalf, in their stead, in their place. See, God no longer charges their sin against them. As the passage says, not counting, There are trespasses against them, but brethren, that is a blessed place to be when you know your sins are not counted against you again or ever will be counted against you again. That your slate is clean because of the blood of Christ. You realize the freedom and the peace you have when that takes place? That's how you can be bold as a messenger. because you understand the message, because you love the one who gave you the message and died in your place. And to know there is no longer any condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. That's what an ambassador desires. That's where his focus at, the focus of an ambassador is. So the person of the message is Christ. The target of the message is the world. And the reason for the message is sin, and transgression, and judgment. But a fourth essential is the messengers of the message. Look what it says in verse number 19 and 20. It says, he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Look at verse 20, therefore we are ambassadors for Christ. as though God were making an appeal through us. Those are just a sentence and a half that is stressing that we are the messengers. The word ambassador could mean representative for someone, on behalf of someone, and it is, but the word also is connected to the word Presbos, or a word that means old man. See, old men were usually sent by the emperor or the king to represent their kingdoms and their governments. Why did they do that? Because they understood that old men understood the difficulties and the tensions that could come up between different countries. So in some respects, an ambassador needs some maturity and experience. It should be an admonition for us to grow in knowledge and wisdom of Jesus Christ so we represent Christ well in our life. See, the Apostle Paul and us, the church, us as the church, Because we are priesthood of the believers, we too have been given this ministry. You can't sidestep it. You can't say, well, that's not my ministry, that's your ministry. No, that's all our ministries. However that works out in your life, you are an ambassador wherever you go for Christ, for another kingdom. So we are given the ministry of reconciliation. We are his mouthpieces. We make an appeal to sinful humanity as if God himself was making an appeal through us. And what is that appeal? Be reconciled to God. Be reconciled to God. So that brings me to a fifth essential of the message, and it's this, the earnest of the message. Notice what it says in verse number 20. We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. We beg you. Sometimes the message is there, but the urgency to tell it is not. It's not a ho-hum message, brethren. We can't make this grave mistake. The message must be accompanied with a strong sense of importance and urgency. In fact, if you look at verse number 20, again, the verbs are packed with a real sense of pressure to beg, to urge, to implore, to plead, to entreat, to beg people for a specific response, to implore, to ask for a specific thing. And what is that specific thing? It is the command to be reconciled to God. This command This command further expresses urgency. It's an imperative. In other words, get reconciled to God and do it now. Become friends with God today through Jesus Christ. Take advantage of the peace terms of the gospel and do it now. We keep begging for Christ. And that begging also has to be done on our knees in prayer. begging that God would save people, save our families, save our children, save our aunts and uncles, save our neighbors and our co-workers. Those you know are truly not in the kingdom. So this urging continues in our context because the Apostle wants his hearers to have proper reception of the urgent message. Look at chapter 6 verse 1, and working together with him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain. This term vain means for nothing or without reason, thoughtlessly, without proper consideration. In other words, receiving this urgent message which brings reconciliation with God in a superficial manner. And by definition, superficial means of or being on the surface. And here it means a surface faith, a faith that lacks depth, a hasty consideration of something without pausing to note the details of it. A great example of a superficial response to the gospel and to this urgent message is really pictured in the parable of the sower, where the seed of the word of God falls on shallow, rock-based soil. And of course, the shallow soil is the picture of the heart. Like Matthew 13 verse 20 and 21 says, the one on whom the seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. Yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary. And when affliction and persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away. So the soils in the parable of the soul represent the heart, the heart of man, and how various people receive the Word of God. The heart of the hearer is the spiritual equivalent of soil, like receiving a farmer's seed to the soil. There's nothing wrong with the sower. There's nothing wrong with the seed. The problem is the condition of the soil, the condition of the heart. So the soil that is not properly prepared will never bear a crop. So the important point in the spiritual lesson of this parable is a person's response to the gospel depends primarily upon the preparation of a person's heart. A superficial response is a person who receives the word without fully acting upon it. Their response is enthusiastic, but lacking any thought or of counting the cost of following Christ. He is happy to hear the word of God, but his commitment to Christ is superficial. In other words, he has a non-saving faith. There's no true repentance from sin. There's no brokenness over sin. There's no following Christ for the rest of their lives. So when trouble and persecution and trials arise or a stand must be taken or a sacrifice must be paid because of the word of God, they abandon the faith. They just have no root. to support growth or to endure harsh weather or to bear any fruit at all. They just wither away. So Paul was very concerned that people would not receive the grace of God in vain without thinking about it, without thinking about the implications for themselves. If they reject this message, where will they go if there's no other message? And if they do receive the message, how serious are they in receiving it? Are they going to repent from their sin and turn from what they were trusting in to save themselves, whatever that was, to believe in Christ? The Apostle Paul brought the same concern up in the first epistle of 1 Corinthians chapter 15, where he says, now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel. which I preached to you, which also you received, in which you stand, and which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain." And there's no results to your profession of faith. So God wants us to make sure that we are believers and we are real, we're the real stuff. And if they hold fast to the gospel, then that's what he wants for them to do. But of course, in Corinthians chapter 15, the problem was they weren't, some weren't holding fast to the gospel. Why they weren't, they didn't believe in the resurrection. If you don't believe the resurrection, you can't be saved. You believe in vain, believe everything else about it, but I don't believe the resurrection. You can't be saved. You can't pick and choose what you believe about the gospel. Another translation records it like this, and it is this good news that saves you if you firmly believe it. Unless, of course, you believe something that was never true in the first place. Unless the basis of their faith was inadequate, exercise without due thought. In that case, it would be a non-saving faith. You believe a false gospel. A false gospel. An old Puritan, Matthew Henry, wrote, we believe in vain unless we are continuing and persevere in the faith of the gospel. It's not just an initial believing, it's the rest of your life. Oh yeah, I believed Jesus ten years ago. Oh, you did? What are you doing now? Oh, I'm just doing my own thing. Go to church? No. Read your Bible? No. Talk to other people about the gospel? No. People can believe the simple facts of the gospel and not be saved. Because there's no real depth in the soul of their heart to commit themselves to Christ. Repentance is committing yourself to Christ forever. Brethren, can you give an enthusiastic yes to the fact that you came to believe in Jesus Christ and that the blessed effects of your salvation continues to be evident and present every day in your life. Biblical faith demands and produces costly and radical changes in one's life. Its essence is really supreme commitment to Christ. And oh, by the way, in our passage, don't take too long to believe in Christ if you haven't. Why? Look what it says in verse 2, a timely response to the urgent message. It says, for, he says, at the acceptable time, I listened to you. And on the day of salvation, I helped you. That's a quote from Isaiah. But then now, look what he says. Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. So you always stand at the edge of eternity. Everyone does. never knowing how much time you have left. So you need to trust Christ now. And today, believe the gospel message and repent of your sins and Transfer your trust to Jesus Christ by a simple transfer of trust and what you could do to earn Your eternal life to what Christ has done that matters little what you've done Doesn't matter at all. Actually, it's what Christ has done And then what you do That's when you receive the free gift of eternal life offered to Jesus Offer from Jesus Christ. I can't buy it I can't offer God anything for it. I can't turn over a new leaf. I can't make my life right so I can come to God. You come with all your sin, all your baggage, all your junk, and all your sin, and everything that's gone on in your life, and you bring it to Christ and say, Lord, save me. Save me. I'm yours. You know what happens? Jesus says, if you come to me like that, I will no wise cast you out. That's exactly why I came. That's exactly why I came. So this is an ambassador's urgent message. As he bears it to people from God, it's not easy. It is not a friendly message. It is not a seeker-sensitive message. It is not a politically correct message. It is not a culturally woke message. It is in a rosy, perfect world where Jesus gives you anything you want. It's hard to believe. It's hard to believe. That's why you need divine intervention to override everything so you see. and are made alive to trust and believe in Christ. So becoming a Christian means being sick of your sin, longing for forgiveness and rescue from present evil and future hell, and affirming your commitment to the Lordship of Christ to the point where you are willing to forsake everything to follow Christ. That's when you really think about it. There is a cost to being a Christian. This means as dirt, baked dirt ambassadors, there are some things we cannot do. We cannot retreat in surrender and cowardice. We cannot tamper with the message. We cannot manipulate people to get the desired results. Someone offering the gospel wrongly may say things like this, if you want a better life, If you want a better marriage, if you want a better job, if you want a better financial situation, come to Christ. That is not the gospel. That is not the gospel. That's psychological mumbo-jumbo. That's what that is. And yet people will flock to that. They will fill stadiums with that message. You may come to Christ and lose all that. But if you're truly a believer and a follower of Christ, you will never lose your soul. You may lose your life, you may lose everything you have, but you'll never lose your soul. Plus, God, by the Holy Spirit, will transform your mind and your heart so that you will know and want the good and the acceptable and the perfect will of God. So we need to tell the gospel as ambassadors, 100% unfold around with and let it fly. We cannot tamper with the gospel and make it less offensive. We cannot do that. Changing the message is useless since no one can believe unless God grants him understanding through the true gospel of Jesus Christ. It was Johnny Mac who said, if they don't hear the truth, cool music won't help. If they don't see the light, PowerPoint won't help. If they don't like the message, drama and video won't help. See, the problem is their heart, not the seed of the Word of God. There is nothing wrong with the message as is. The problem is sin. Sinners are blind and they are dead. They need divine intervention in order to be saved. This comes by the gospel of Jesus Christ. So we must beg and urge them and pray for them to repent. and to submit to Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord, it is a supernatural message, this message of everlasting life. And the message never changes no matter when anybody has ever lived. Once we're gone, the message is not going to change. If people refuse the messenger and send that messenger away, For whatever reason, they break off relations with the kingdom of God in which you represent. They break off relations with Christ himself. See, why is all that important for the ambassador that people's eternal souls are at stake? And quickly, the last distinctive mark of a big dirt ambassador for Christ is their objective hope. Look at verse 21 of chapter 5. It says, he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God. This is what God has done for us. It does not say God made Jesus a sinner. No, what he did was laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all, and that is by charging all that is sin in us against him. That's what he did. The Father let Jesus bear all this burden with all its guilt and penalty in our place in order to deliver us. And what happens when that takes place? Look at the passage. So that we may become the righteousness of God in Him. Sinners become righteous before God. And this righteousness, remember, is not our own. We have no righteousness to give God. But it is a righteousness reckoned to us by God the moment we exercise faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior So the death of the sinless one enables God to declare us just. He's one of mine. His price has been paid already. Let him into my kingdom. Making it possible for God to set aside his wrath and welcome into a state of peace all who turn in repentance to him. It's like what Paul said to the Philippians, and may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. So what is the mission of a baked dirt ambassador for Christ? It's difficult. serious, it's an extremely important one, it is a difficult task, yet is a doable task that we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not ourselves. Nobody can take the credit It's our job to make sure these marks are in our life. The mark of a disposition that God can use to be an ambassador. The mark knowing that the work that God gives us comes from Him. The work, the mark that we as big dirt ambassadors for Christ have a message that we have to bring from the Word of God to people and not mess it up. And then that fourth distinct mark that a baked-dirt ambassador of Christ has an objective hope that we are made righteous based on everything God has done. Nothing we've done. Nothing. Amen? So here's the takeaway. Go, be growing disciples of Christ, and live out your ambassadorship with confidence and zeal. Do that. Do that. That's your job description. Let's pray. Lord, thank you again this morning for your awesome word. Lord, it is convicting. It knows how to shred us, but it surely knows how to build us up again, too. And I thank you, Lord, that this section of scripture is there. And in these days in which we live, let us be people. that are truly growing in Christ Jesus so we can live as ambassadors. And Lord, those who have not yet called upon you as Lord and Savior, even this morning, today, today, Lord, I pray we would beg that they would come to Christ and not wait one more moment as they stand on the edge of eternity. They'd come and call upon Christ as their Lord and Savior. Repent of their sin and trust you wholeheartedly for eternal salvation. Please, Lord, use your word in a very powerful way to build up the saints and to bring sinners into the kingdom of God. And I pray this in your name. Amen. Let's stand together.