What You Should Expect from Preaching

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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January 30, 2023

00:00: Take out your Bibles and turn to Colossians chapter 1 and we are going to be looking at only one verse today We're going to be examining verse 28 So if you'll hold your place there in a moment, we'll read that together One of the things I meant to mention during the prayer time was that we do have a new member class today and so we need to be praying for those who have been with us and who have Over a time of deliberation Decided that they want to join our fellowship and they want to come to the class to learn what it means to be a part of Sovereign Grace Family Church So we need to be praying for those families and the reason why I bring that up now is because during that class One of the things that we hand out Many of you have most of you have taken that class those of you who are members During that class we hand out several things and one of the things that we hand out is a list of Expectations It's entitled what should you expect and we ask the question what should you expect from the church and Then what should the church? expect from you Because when you join the church, you become part of a covenant community and in a covenant relationship there are Expectations you should expect things from the body and the body should expect things from you That's only natural.
02:03: Well the number one thing on the list of expectations that you should expect if you are a member of this church is That you should expect Expositional preaching that's the number one thing on the list and What that means is that when The person who is preaching whether it be myself or Andy or Mike or even one of you that whoever mounts this pulpit and Whoever comes and stands behind the Word of God will in fact preach the Word of God Not opinions Not the latest and greatest Pop psychology, but the Word We are not storytellers we are preachers and though we may at times tell a story The role is to preach the Word that was the command Paul gave to Timothy Preach the Word But why is this paramount? Why is expositional preaching paramount? Well, it is paramount because preaching is not entertainment Preaching is training.
03:39: I want to say that again preaching is not entertainment preaching is training we are moving toward a goal and the goal is that we be More mature in our faith and that's what we're going to see today We are moving toward the goal of maturity and our faith and we do that through Discipleship and the primary means of discipleship among the body is the preaching of the Word of God Now there are other things that we do for discipleship, but the primary means of discipleship happens right here This is why it's so vital that you be here This is why it's so vital that you come and you be a part of the body of Christ and hear the Word of God preached regularly Because this is where discipleship begins and this is where maturity Begins Maturity comes through the Word So our text today Paul is going to give us three things.
04:50: The preacher must do and Three things the congregation must expect When the Word of God is preached So with that being said let's stand together And give honor and reverence to the passage.
05:05: We're going to study Colossians chapter 1 speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ.
05:20: It says him we proclaim Warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom That we may present everyone mature in Christ Father in heaven.
05:42: I thank you again for your word.
05:43: May you now bless its teaching and Preaching and may you be glorified through it in Christ's name Amen as I was putting my notes together this week and looking through my file folder for this particular series that we've been in I noticed That we've been in Colossians for 14 weeks and we're still in chapter 1 Wasn't on purpose This is a rich chapter I mean we spent six weeks just on chapters 15 to 20 because it was all about Christology and understanding who Christ is So this is a rich chapter and what we have seen so far is Paul has given his introduction He's offered up words of thanksgiving for the people at Colossae he has expressed in him to them the content of his prayers for them and Now he is beginning to address his concerns to them and the most important concern that Paul gives in this letter is the concern that it seems as if in the church of Colossae there has arisen a Teaching that Christ is not enough that Christ is Insufficient and we see that based upon Paul's Expressing the full sufficiency of Christ in chapter 1 verses 15 to 20 And then we see it again in chapter 2 when Paul begins to express all of the things that have crept up in the church things like the worship of angels things like asceticism things like Keeping Jewish ceremonies and Greek festivals and things like that.
07:34: All of those show that this this synchronism and That means simply the idea of bringing in all various ideas and religions and putting them together as one Synchronization syncretism has crept in and what it has done is it has called into question the sufficiency of Christ If I had to put the whole book of Colossians into one idea, it would be Paul's battle against those who would say Christ is not enough Paul's battle against those who would say Christ is insufficient or a simpler thing would be the sufficiency of Christ and I'm I'm mentioning this because as I said, we've been so many weeks in the book I don't want us to lose the theme of the book Sometimes we end up studying One part so much that we lose the whole and we miss the forest for the trees And we don't want to do that.
08:34: We want to keep in mind what Paul's major idea here is and the major idea of the book is the sufficiency of Jesus well in today's passage how that fits into the greater whole is That Paul is going to show that Christ is the object of our gospel proclamation See Christ is sufficient and therefore he is sufficient to be the one to be the one we preach about I just sounded really repetitive there.
09:09: I don't think I said that sentence very well, so I apologize Christ is sufficient for preaching He is a sufficient subject for preaching Preachers often think they have to be super creative and And I love creativity.
09:29: I love to build things.
09:30: I love to make things I love to look at the creativity of others and I see some of you who are artisans and craftsmen and and and Artists and painters and I see those things and those are wonderful gifts and I'm always impressed by craftsmanship and The ability to do those things But when it comes to preaching the word It's not about being the most creative it's about being faithful to the text and faithful to what this word says and So long as we are faithful to what the word says God will bless the preaching of his word and it is about Christ Christ is the object of our preaching The goal is to proclaim Christ to to warn with the law of Christ to teach with the wisdom of Christ and to present Every man mature in Christ.
10:31: That's what we're going to see today.
10:32: That's what preaching is about and I love to preach This is the great joy of my life.
10:43: I know Andy loves to preach.
10:45: I know Mike loves to preach But understand this preaching is not the end goal Preaching is the means The goal is maturity may it never be that the goal is that you come see a show What's Keith gonna say this week? What's Andy gonna say this week? What's Mike gonna say this week? We got a show to see and we got to be there at 1030 so we don't miss the show It's not a show It's a training moment It has a goal.
11:19: It has a purpose It's not entertainment.
11:27: It's discipleship first Corinthians chapter 3 verse 2 Paul says this speaking to the Corinthians.
11:38: He said I fed you with milk Not solid food for you are not ready for it.
11:44: And even now you are not yet Ready, the goal is maturity But the sad reality is we live in a generation Much like when Paul spoke to the Corinthians we live in a generation of people Who never desire to go beyond the milk they never desire the meat the solid food of the word and Therefore where churches proclaim the truths of Scripture and preach the truths of Scripture Well, they don't fill buildings maybe little ones but you go in places where the pastor is a comedian or a showman and we have Arenas filled why is it because there is a general sense in which there is not a great desire for growth and so many churches preaching has become nothing more than a self-help story time or a second-rate comedy hour and Preaching like that will never produce mature disciples.
13:13: So that leads us to the question.
13:14: What type of preaching should you expect? Well, as I said this passage gives us four things that we ought to expect from preaching four things that I say must be Based upon this passage and I'll give you the four things.
13:32: I don't have them on the screen But I'll give them to you one at a time the first is that Preaching must be Christ centered secondly Preaching must not fail to warn About the dangers of sin Number three Preaching must be instructional and number four preaching must be with a goal in mind and that goal is maturity So let's look at the first one The first one is preaching must be Christ centered.
14:12: Notice what the text says as it begins.
14:14: It simply says him we proclaim him we Proclaim and in the King James Version, I actually prefer this way of saying it.
14:26: It says him we preach My correct.
14:29: I always look to my brother Mike who I know is holding the the authorized version And it says him we preach because the word that is used here the Greek word is Intending to I to put across the idea of the proclamation or the preaching of Christ it is in the present tense and It's saying him we preach and it's in the it's actually in the imperfect Which is durative and it implies progression or ongoing action him we continue to preach Every time we preach we preach him Every time we come behind the pulpit He is the subject and and if you want to have a biblical example of that just read through the book of Acts Paul didn't go around giving marriage ceremony or marriage seminars Now I'm not saying he never addressed the subject of marriage He did address the subject of marriage and we'll talk about that but Paul preached Christ Paul didn't go about Doing all of the fancy fanatical things that we often do today Paul preached Christ and him crucified he said I I knew nothing among you except Christ and Him crucified and that's what it says here.
15:58: It says him we proclaim.
16:00: That's the ESV says him in verse 28 some of yours say whom we proclaim and the reason for that is because that particular Greek word there is a Pronoun and the pronoun has an antecedent the antecedent comes in the the the verse right before that when it says that Christ in you the hope of glory is the antecedent Christ is the antecedent of that pronoun and the pronoun can either be him or whom Because it's referring back to the verse right before it where it talks about Christ so Christ becomes the subject of this entire passage and Christ is the object of what we proclaim Him we proclaim.
16:48: I want you to think about this We did three years in the book of Genesis Many of you were here for that.
16:55: We went all the way from Genesis 1 1 all the way to Genesis chapter 50 and in and those sermons We proclaim Christ did we not Over and over and over again, we proclaim Christ now we did not shoehorn in allegories Because that's not the call of the pastor preacher But what we did was we showed Christ in shadow and in prophecy and how as he says in Luke chapter 24 that beginning with Moses Those things were written about him and So someone says well, what if you're preaching in the Old Testament, how do you preach Christ you still preach Christ? You show how this points to Christ you show how the overall Metanarrative of Scripture points to Christ We were talking our Sunday school class this morning with the young people about how there is one story Throughout the Bible and it's the story of creation fall redemption and restoration We tell that story now all the time just about every story that's ever been told has told in some way that story Some kind of a fall redemption restoration story.
18:11: That's just that's the way we tell stories.
18:14: There's a hero.
18:15: There's a villain It's the way we tell stories why because it's based on the grand metanarrative that God has created and the grand metanarrative is that there is a hero and The hero is Jesus The hero of the Bible is Jesus like when brother Mike preached about David and Goliath How many stories have you heard people talking about David and Goliath and they want you to be David and they say you just need? To stand up to your Giants.
18:40: You just need to conquer your enemies You need to go forward in faith and all those things are true.
18:46: But when it comes down to it at the end of the day David is a picture of Christ Because it's Christ who stands between the people of God and the enemy and Conquers the enemy by the power of the Word of God You understand? We see Christ throughout the Bible Christ is the object of what we preach no matter what we preach as As Charles Spurgeon said this he said a sermon without Jesus is like bread without flour Now he never knew that gluten-free Was going to be a thing and Y'all all know my wife has a gluten allergy and she for 12 years Has not eaten anything with gluten in it And I got to tell you I've tried it Spurgeon was right a sermon without Jesus is bread without flour because it is like a Shingle And if you've ever put peanut butter on a shingle, it's still a shingle Our sermons are pointing to Christ I Want to read a quote from Graham Goldsworthy From his book gospel centered hermeneutics now hermeneutics simply means the method by which we interpret the Bible That's the our hermeneutic and he says we should interpret the Bible with a gospel centered hermeneutic and this is the way he says He said the hermeneutical question about the whole Bible correlates with the question.
20:34: What do you think of Christ? The hermeneutical center of the Bible is therefore Jesus in his being and in his saving acts the Jesus of the gospel We can say that while not all scripture is the gospel all scripture is related to the gospel that it is its center The Bible makes a very radical idea inescapable Not only is the gospel the interpretive norm for the whole Bible But there is an important sense in which Jesus Christ is the mediator of the meaning of Everything that exists here that again Jesus Christ is the mediator of the meaning of everything that exists In other words, the gospel is the hermeneutical norm for the whole of reality This is why Paul says him we preach Him we proclaim Must be we don't have anything to say but that Christ must be What we preach The second thing our sermons must be Christ centered and again if you're coming to be a member here if you're joining this church If you're visiting this church, this is what you should expect That your sermons be Christ centered number one number two that your sermons must not fail to warn That your sermons must not fail to warn notice what it says.
22:06: He says it says him we proclaim and Then it has the word proclaim is the main verb then it has two participial phrases One is warning one is teaching and then later it has another phrase Which is another verb which says we may present and all of those are tied to two Greek words ponta anthropon, which means every man or every person So if you imagine it like this Paul says we have to be warning every person teaching every person presenting every person mature so that that every person happens three times every man every man every man and And so the three things that Paul says once we have are in the midst of proclaiming Christ These are this is what we do and the first thing is worn and the word worn there is Where some of you may have heard this word this kind of a weird word, but if you've ever heard the word new thetic the word new thetic and there used to be a And there still is something called new thetic counseling new thetic counseling means counseling with the Bible With the purpose of seeking to to confront the person Because the word here the word new they tune tastes actually means the idea of confrontation It means to warn someone to admonish someone to to to face them to come and place before them the need for Change.
23:56: In fact, I want to read this is from the mid America Institute for new thetic studies Jay Adams think was the name in it.
24:04: Jay Adams Is This is how they define new thetic.
24:10: He says new thetic counseling consists of lovingly Confronting people out of a deep concern in order to help them to make the changes that God requires so new thetic counseling is confrontation concern and change And that's the idea here is Paul says when we preach Christ There's going to be a confrontation When we preach Christ we are going to have to confront sin and One of the saddest things in the world today is preaching that is afraid to confront sin sermons must confront sin if they don't Warn about the dangers of sin and the consequences of rejecting Christ they may lift the heart, but they will never mature the soul a Sermon that tells all the good and never confronts with the bad may make you leave feeling good But it will not grow you in your faith Paul says warning every man Confronting Exhorting admonishing whatever word you want to put there.
25:32: It can be translated again admonish warn console Exhort all of this is the idea in this word.
25:43: I want to tell you there is a there is a real temptation to dilute warnings Genuine temptation to dilute the warning Because the one who gives the warning is often not very popular the one who confronts Is the one who's avoided the one who calls out is the one who himself is called a radical And so because of our ever desperate attempt at popularity Because of our ever desperate attempt at trying to make friends and influence people We tend to diminish and dilute the warning Because of this one attitude and I'm going to be I'm gonna be real honest for a moment speaking as a Man who is in the place of elder here with other elders here.
26:51: Here's the thing That I know other pastors feel and other churches if you confront them they will leave if we say anything They'll be offended if we if we go to them They'll be angry So it's better Just not to say anything You understand why that's a problem But you understand that's what happens in so many places we're so afraid to offend That we won't preach I'm not saying we I mean by God's grace I'm surrounded by men who if I didn't preach the word they would kick me out of the way and They would do it and by God's grace, that's good.
28:04: And I'm not saying we have a perfect church y'all We we do not and I'm not here to kick the teeth of every preacher in the surrounding area either But I am saying this the problem that exists and the reason why we don't see revival The reason why we don't see change the reason why we don't see The movement of God's hand in the churches is because we don't want it.
28:36: I know of a pastor very Older very a man very much my senior and he was sitting right out here one day.
28:44: This was about 15 years ago We were having a men's barbecue We're sitting out here and he was Been in the ministry 50-something years and He was just can see was just confiding in me some of the things that he's faced in his 50 years of being behind the pulpit And he said yeah, just the other day just the other day He was in a business meeting and the lady in charge of the meeting chairman of the whatever's Wasn't a church like this.
29:16: It was we don't have that kind of stuff here But but they used to But the idea of chairman of this and charge of that whatever so this lady who was in charge looked at the pastor looked him dead In the face and she said don't you know we pay you to tell us what we want to hear Don't you know, that's what you're paid to do Just tell us what we want to hear now.
29:41: First of all imagine The sheer intestinal fortitude to say something so stupid Because you gotta have guts To say something so wrong and yet be so confident But beloved she ain't ashamed by herself.
30:05: It's okay if I'm talking about Things that don't pertain to you But don't you think my email won't blow up if I say something that steps on your toes That's the problem.
30:19: Who do I have to be afraid to offend? That's right.
30:25: That's right.
30:26: That's the point That's the point and that's what Paul's saying my job as a preacher is to warn every man not some of you but all of you and the most important warning is this if you are Continuing in sin so that grace can abound if you are continuing to live a life of unrepentant Rebellion against God you will go to hell and you need to turn from your sin and turn to Christ and If you call yourself a Christian and your life is marked by habitual Unrepentant sin you need to go to the scriptures and see if you're calling an election or sure Now we don't want to live like this all the time worried, but we do want to be honest If you leave this place today and you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ know this my heart Breaks for you because if you walk out of this place today and on your way home You do not make it home.
31:34: You will find yourself in a place of eternal torment forever and I give you that warning because I love you Like the atheists who I went to see in the hospital that time who told me I never came back to your church because I came One time and you talked about hell and it offended me and I said, you know why I talked about hell No, I said cuz it's real I'm not warning you about something that ain't gonna happen I'm warning you about what the scripture says happens to those who reject the Lord Jesus Christ How much would you have to hate a person? to know that they were going to go to hell and refuse To tell them about Christ Paul says we warn We preach to warn men And not just about hell either Because you can be a believer and still be affected by besetting sin and you may need some help in other areas as well So don't think I'm just talking to the unbelievers You may need to be warned about your relationship with your wife You may need to be warned about your relationship with your children You may need to be warned about your own spiritual disciplines You may need to be warned about a bunch of different things and that's why we don't preach just one sermon over and over And that's why we preach through books of the Bible so that we can hit every area You know what happens when you only preach topically? You only talk about the topics you want to talk about you know what happens when you preach through books of the Bible you end up having to preach on the daughter of Jacob who got raped and I had to do a whole week on that Because that's where we were But you get the whole word So we must warn Next We must be instructional We must be instructional.
33:47: Not only must we warn but Paul says we must Be teaching he says him we proclaim warning every man and teaching every man with all wisdom John MacArthur in his commentary on this particular text says that he sees this as a negative and a positive He says he sees the warning as the negative and The teaching as the positive.
34:19: I'm not certain.
34:20: I agree, but I think that that's that that's a possible way of looking at it I do think the warning can be negative.
34:27: I think the war I think an exhortation can have positive and negative So I'm not sure Newton Newton taste is only negative but I get what he's saying if you compare the two because the idea one is confronting or warning about something that we shouldn't be doing but teaching is Instructing and what in godliness right instructing and what we ought to be doing and so I can see that as a balance here And it could very well be how Paul is balancing out these two ideas because teaching adds to what you know About the Word of God That's what we are doing.
35:04: Is there a difference between preaching and teaching? Well philosophically practically there are some Distinctions that can be made Preaching always has a goal in mind preaching always has a sermonic thesis Mike and I've talked about this many times about what you know about what preaching is indistinguishable from teaching but Preaching should always include teaching Preaching is not just getting up and telling 50 stories about you know different things in life and All this stuff preaching should have an instructional component It is a sad thing For a person to spend their whole life as a Christian and not grow in their knowledge of God.
35:55: It is a sad thing And I've said this before but some of you may have never heard it.
36:01: I want to say it again If you spent your whole life as a hunter But you never became a better hunter There's something wrong because if you spent your life caring about being a hunter you would get better How is it then that we can spend five ten twenty years under the preaching of the Word and still not know the Word? And not get better.
36:34: That's the point Paul says we're teaching the Word Some people say well, I just don't need to I don't need that.
36:42: I don't need to understand the Bible you do that for me Oh, no, I don't That is not the job of the elders here You don't we don't we we're not We are we are not here To be your Bible answer man We are here to shepherd your souls, but as I was teaching on Friday to our homeschool group I said the job of the elders according to Ephesians is To equip the Saints for the work of ministry to equip the Saints.
37:12: That's our job is to instruct you and equip you You are the ministers here We guide and direct and shepherd and teach but you are the ones doing the ministry if it's only the Pastors doing the ministry.
37:28: It won't be enough If it's only the deacons doing the ministry, it won't be enough those deacons have the responsibility of being Shepherd, I'm sorry now of being servant examples of being servant examples They go out front and lead but they can't do it alone We must grow we must be instructive.
37:59: We must learn Somebody says well so long as I have God in my heart, it doesn't matter, right? So long as I have God in my heart, what does it care what I know? I don't need to be able to explain the hypostatic Union who cares? I don't need to understand how to describe the doctrine of the Trinity who cares till the Jehovah Witness shows up And you don't know how to answer any of their questions and then you're calling one of us.
38:28: Oh Did I just step on your toes? Well, I don't know what to do when the two boys on the 10-speed come to my house and want to share another Jesus I don't know what to do Is that enough? Did that get you? Okay.
38:53: I Love what RC Sproul said this he said the Word of God can be in the mind without being in the heart But it cannot be in the heart without first being in the mind Yes, a person can have God up here and not have him here.
39:04: Yes, that's true the 18-inch gap There are people who just know but don't have Christ in their heart.
39:09: Yes, that's true But if Christ be in your heart and you don't know him that the Christ in your heart probably ain't the real Christ we must be instructed and I'm not saying everyone has to be Andy and Mike or Mike Smith or Mike Ward or Gary or I mean I could go around the room We have some very learned men here, and I'm very thankful for that Not everybody has to be that I'm not saying that but as I said to the men yesterday We had our men's dads and dudes what I say to the men at the very end I said first Corinthians 14 says this it says that women are to be quiet in the church And if they have a question, who are they supposed to ask the pastor? No their husband What does that verse say about the responsibility of the husband? That he is to know the word if she is to be able to go to her husband then her husband ought to know the word So the responsibility is on you men To know the word and we got some fantastic lady scholars here, too, and they asked some hard questions And that's good, but you understand we do need to learn the word we need to be instructed and it starts here it starts with the preaching of the Word of God as it says as goes the pulpit so goes the church, so it begins with warning and Instructing and finally Thirdly Well fourthly in this is it must be Christ-centered must not fail to warn must be instructional and finally It must have the proper goal in mind Notice what it says that we may present every one mature We have in this what's called the henna clause and that basically means a clause of In order that and that's actually what we need to consider Is that the warning and the teaching are done in order that Every man might be presented every person might be presented mature in Christ Now sometimes this is translated perfect Some Bibles will trend this word Teleon is the word and sometimes it is translated perfect like when the when in Matthew chapter 5 verse 48 It says be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.
41:57: That's the same word here the word for perfect and Some people then take an eschatological Approach to this passage meaning that they see Paul as saying that the goal of preaching is that at the end of time? Every man will be in Christ and therefore every man will be perfect in Christ And that's the goal Well, I think that's a possible understanding of what he's saying, but I don't think that's the actual intention of it Because I think this has a practical use and the and in that sense it would not be the idea of eschatological perfection, but rather Christian maturity Would be what is and that's why the ESV does translate it mature And I want to show you another passage to show you why I think that remember how I said that Ephesians is a sister book to Colossians and much of what Paul says in Ephesians He says in Colossians and in slightly different way Well, I want to show you how Paul says this in Ephesians to show you the comparison and show you what I mean Go over to Ephesians chapter 4 And go to verse 11 This is the passage I was saying that I used for the kids on Friday, but we only looked at verse 11 today We're going to look at the verses that follow it and I want to show you Paul's argument here.
43:25: So Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 Speaking of God he says and he gave the Apostles the prophets the evangelists the shepherds and teachers to equip the Saints For the work of ministry for the building up of the body of Christ That's that's God gave the church men We what's interesting is we don't plan where the confession lands But isn't that exactly what the confession this morning says that God has risen up certain men within the church for the purpose of leading And and overseeing and teaching that that's what God did.
44:04: Well, that's what Paul says God did He says he did that to equip the Saints that's you for the work of ministry for the building up of the body of Christ notice what he says in verse 13 until We all attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we no longer be children Tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine by human cunning by craftiness and deceitful schemes Rather speaking the truth in love.
44:41: We are to grow up in every way into him Who is the head into Christ from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint? With which it is equipped when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in Love guys We are a body and we are a maturing body and we mature by the preaching of the word That's Paul's point That God has given men to preach the word so that the body doesn't remain a baby body but that the body begin to grow muscles and begin to get some definition and strength and Maturity and over time we see that we have reached mature Manhood and we're no longer feeding off the milk But we are now eating the solid food of the Word of God.
45:44: That's Paul's analogy here That's what the goal must be practical maturity by sanctification through the preaching of the word That's what preaching is and that's what you should expect You should expect that your sermons Focus on Christ you should expect that your sermons confront Your sin You should expect that your sermons teach you the word and you should expect That through that God will grow you in this most holy faith Now I Draw to a close.
46:33: I want you to notice one more thing in Colossians if you'll jump back there in Colossians Chapter 1 verse 28 it begins with the pronoun which relates to Christ.
46:48: We talked about that earlier Him we proclaim and it ends with the word Christo, which is the word for Christ So we have in this passage Beginning and ending with Christ in him we proclaim For what purpose that we might be mature in him if it is the purpose of the preaching to proclaim Christ warn and teach and seek to mature I Asked you this and this is the confrontation of today The moment where you have to consider is that really why you're here? Are you here? That you might be warned confronted Admonished are you here that you would be? instructed Educated in the word and are you here that you might become mature in Christ? Or are you here? Because you want to have your ears tickled Beloved we should want our word our sermons to change us And that is my prayer That that would be our desire Let us pray father.
48:28: I thank you again for your word.
48:31: I Thank you for the moment of time that you've given me to preach and I pray that I have preached it faithfully And Lord, I know that Today we have talked about many different things But I pray that Christ has been exalted above all I Pray Lord that if anyone in this room does not trust in Christ That today would be the day that they would be confronted in their sin That they would turn from their sin That they would repent and trust in Jesus And that they would have a desire to follow after him in Baptism and father for those who have believed on Christ Who have trusted in him Father now as we seek to partake of the table.