Biblical Evangelism/Missions

Providence Baptist Church

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Amen. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.

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I hope you believe that this morning. Because it's easy to look around our world today,

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I understand, and to get discouraged from Chinese spy balloons, to Grammy shenanigans, to terrible stories that come across our news feed, to earthquakes, to whatever got shot down over Canada, abortion.

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There's so many terrible things in our world today, and those things are discouraging.

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And no one should feel great, honestly, about the things going on in America today.

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And no one should rejoice in the debauchery of the Grammys, or in the modern -day holocaust of abortion.

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But also, let me say this, this morning. Though these things are discouraging, and though these things may tempt you to word, let me encourage you today, as we assemble under the

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Word of God, to lift up your eyes to Christ.

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Let me remind you on this day, February 12th, 2023, let me remind you that God hasn't given up on His plan.

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That God is working in our world today, and that He is worthy. No matter the outward circumstances that the church is faced with, our triune

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God is worthy to be proclaimed. Despite the wretchedness around us,

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God is working today in His churches.

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Turn in your Bibles, please, to Matthew chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11.

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We pick up today, covering distinctive 7 and 8.

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The world may be blatantly parading Satan, but the church will emphatically proclaim

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Christ. Always. Christ is King. And this brings us to our biblical distinctives of evangelism and missions today.

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So let me read our preamble, and then we'll get to our text. We've been reading this every week. So, we believe that our

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Lord Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man, risen from the dead and now seated at the right hand of God the

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Father Almighty, as King of all, is worthy of a healthy church in Perryville, Arkansas.

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We believe taking these 10 distinctives together sets us apart as a local church in the location where God has planted us.

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These distinctives do not exhaust all of our beliefs as a body, but they are a non -negotiable part of who we are as a local church.

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We hold these truths according to the Bible for the purpose of the good of one another and our community and ultimately for Christ's honor and glory.

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So today, what is Christ's vision for evangelism and missions in the church?

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Let's take up and read Matthew chapter 11, and we're going to read 25 through 30. I invite you to stand, please, as we honor the reading of God's Word.

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Matthew chapter 11. We've taken a break from our series in Ephesians. We've gone a topical series here on our distinctives.

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But Matthew chapter 11, verse 25 says this, At that time Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to your two little children.

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Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my

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Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the

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Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal

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Him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

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Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

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For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Let's pray.

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Father, we see both the majesty and meekness of Christ in this text.

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We see both the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man in this text.

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Help us today to understand what your word has for us. Help us today to understand

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Christ's vision for this church in evangelism and missions. Lord, we don't want to go a step, one step, in a direction that you're not with us.

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We want every step to be in your presence and with your blessing.

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We believe that Christ is worthy. He's worthy here in Perry County and in central

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Arkansas to be proclaimed and to have a church as healthy as He has dictated health.

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Father, I boldly ask that you would save even today. There are people here, there are adults and children and teenagers, some of them who are securely in Christ.

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They love Christ. They obey Christ. They seek to fight sin and hate sin in their life, and they are truly born again.

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But we know that there are others. Whether they outreject you or they've been deceived or they're a hypocrite or whatever the case may be, they're unconverted.

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They need to hear today of your sovereignty and their responsibility. We pray, dear

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Lord, that even today, Holy Spirit, that you would draw them to yourself and to Christ.

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Bless the preaching of the Word today. We don't know what's going on in our country. We don't know all the ins and outs in Syria and Turkey.

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Oh, but we do know that you are pleased to do great work through the heralding of your

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Word and the gospel of Christ. So would you bless today and let us be humble and let us hear what the

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Spirit has to say to the churches. And we pray all in the name of Jesus, amen. You may be seated.

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So the distinctives this morning, as you could tell from our teaching time, they were so long, we've already read them.

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But now I'm trying to flesh that out from our text today, and we're really going to get to that at the end. But let me remind you of something this morning.

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What we're doing here is we're latching our feet to the Bible. Come what may.

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It is our resolve, friends, to do what the Scriptures teach and to be the church that Christ would have us to be.

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It is our aspiration to submit to Christ's vision for the church in all things.

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It doesn't matter what the culture might say or what our friends or family might say, but in all things, because Christ is worthy, and in all things includes evangelism and missions.

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And we believe that Christ is honored when the church obeys Him. And so the first point of today's text is this.

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I want to discuss, number one, God's sovereignty. Number one, God's sovereignty.

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This lays the foundation for evangelism and missions. For if God were not sovereign, we would have no hope.

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Verse 25. At that time, Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.

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Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my

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Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the

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Son chooses to reveal Him. The sovereignty of God is all over the

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Scriptures. Here's a definition of the sovereignty of God from Jerry Bridges. He says, God's sovereignty means

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His absolute independence to do as He pleases, and His absolute control over the actions of all

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His creatures. No creature, person, or empire can either thwart His will or act outside the bounds of His will.

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Friends, what we're saying here is this. God is God. Or if you want to talk about free will, well, let's say it this way.

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God has free will, right? God is able to do all that He pleases.

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He's free and He is independent of the coercion of outside forces. And all that He does with His creation is holy.

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And what we see here actually is the Son, if you notice in verse 25, we see

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Jesus praising the Father for His sovereignty. Let me encourage you with something.

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Some of you, maybe you're in here today, and you're like, well, I'm not sure about the sovereignty of God, and I hear you talk about election or predestination, and these things are hard.

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I'm wrestling with these things. Well, let me encourage you with this. The sovereignty of God is a joy for the church.

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When you talk about the sovereignty of God, some people say things like, I could never worship a

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God like that. But what does Jesus say? Verse 25. At that time,

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Jesus declared what? I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.

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Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. In other words, the sovereignty of God is not an argument for the church.

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It is a reason for humble worship and gratitude. Three truths here about God's sovereignty that I want to address.

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First is, number one, the sovereignty of God is powerfully exhaustive.

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Number one, the sovereignty of God is powerfully exhaustive. Now take your eyes and look at verse 25, and I want you to see where Jesus says,

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I thank you, Father, and then what does He say? Lord of what? Lord of heaven and earth.

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What does that mean? What does that mean that God is God of? It means that He is the Lord of everything in the heavens, and He is the

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Lord of everything in the earth. He is God of all. All things are

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His. Things that we see, things that we cannot see. Things that we know, things that we do not know.

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Every molecule, every particle of dust, every sunrise, every sunset, He is

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Lord of heaven and earth. Nothing in this life, nothing, ever happens outside the sovereign control of the

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God of heaven and earth. Every raindrop, every demon, every sinner, every saint.

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This is God's universe, and all things fall under His divine sovereignty.

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The King James says it this way, The Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

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The sovereignty of God is powerfully exhaustive. It covers all things, all of history, all of eternity.

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God is in complete control of all of it for His own glory. This could be a whole sermon in and of itself. It won't be.

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I commend you to chapter 3 of our Confession of Faith of 1689, as well as chapter 5.

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Those are two of the greatest chapters, I think, written by man outside the Scriptures. Two of the most helpful chapters to understand

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God's sovereignty. So read those. But now we move on. The sovereignty of God is powerfully exhaustive.

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Secondly, it is purposefully elective. It is powerfully exhaustive. Secondly, it is purposefully elective.

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Verse 25. At that time

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Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, for what? Lord of heaven and earth, for what?

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That you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.

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Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my

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Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the

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Son chooses to reveal Him. Purposefully elective.

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Christ, at this moment of prayer, thinks over His church, and He's full of praise. And why is

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He full of praise? He's thinking of His church, and He's praising God, and He's praising God because God in His sovereignty has hidden Himself from some people and has revealed

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Himself to other people. He has hidden Himself from the elite, as it were, of society, and He has revealed

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Himself to the despised. 1 Corinthians 1 .27 says, But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

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God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. Let me remind you of something here, church. Do not despise small things.

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The church of God may be made up of a motley crew of the inadequates of the world, but Jesus loves them.

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That's what He says in verse 25. Lord, I thank

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You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You've hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.

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This is Christ's little flock. Yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will.

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Listen, friends, God in His sovereignty has made a distinction in mankind.

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You think at times that maybe God looks upon mankind as neutral. That's why some people have a problem with the doctrine of election.

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They think that God looks at mankind as neutral and say, No, yep, no, yep.

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God doesn't look at mankind as neutral. God looks upon mankind as sinners, rebels.

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And He essentially says this, No matter, nevertheless,

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I will still have a people for My Son. And so we might think that God would choose the best of the best in the eyes of the world, the wisest, the richest, those of great knowledge and esteem, as it were, in the eyes of our culture.

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But this is not His good pleasure. In fact, it's the opposite. I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You've hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.

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Little children. Now, to be clear, this is not because that these little children are deserving of grace.

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By the way, if you're deserving of grace, that's not grace. They're not deserving of grace.

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But God has, in His sovereign grace, elected them for salvation from eternity past.

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God has chosen a people in Christ in grace from all eternity and He has chosen in His justice and holiness to pass over others.

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And in doing this, no one receives injustice from God. None can look at God on the last day of judgment and say,

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You have treated me unjustly by sending me to hell. And look at Jesus.

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And in case you're just like, well, maybe it's just the Father. Of course, this would be problematic in your Trinitarian theology.

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If you think, well, maybe it's just the Father, not the Son. No, no. Jesus talks about it too. His sovereignty. His sovereignty is purposefully elective.

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Because He says in verse 27, All things have been handed over to me by the Father. By the way, you know what that means?

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It means what it says. All things. He's in authority over all things. And He says no one knows the

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Son except the Father. And no one knows the Father except the Son. And anyone to whom the

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Son chooses to reveal Him.

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Christ as God -man is king. He has all authority. He could reveal Himself.

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Hypothetically, He could reveal Himself to everyone. But He does not do this. It is His sovereign right.

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Instead, He reveals Himself to those whom He chooses. Those He has elected in eternity past.

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All persons in and of themselves have no desire to bow the knee to Christ.

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They do not desire to worship Him. They do not desire to live for Him or rejoice in His glory.

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Christ could, listen to this, Christ could reveal Himself, hypothetically, to no one.

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And could leave them all to the righteous judgment of God. But He doesn't do this.

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In His sovereign right, He reveals Himself, the text says, to those whom He chooses.

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Again, the text, I'll read it. Verse 27, now. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father.

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And no one knows the Son except the Father. And no one knows the Father except the Son. And anyone to whom the

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Son chooses to reveal Him. Why is this?

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This brings me to my last point. The sovereignty of God is powerfully exhaustive, purposefully elective, and finally, personally exalting.

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The sovereignty of God exalts the persons of the Trinity. Personally exalting.

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Is there a mystery in the sovereignty of God? Absolutely. Is there mystery in the decree of election and the doctrine of predestination?

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Certainly. But verse 26, Yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will.

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Here we see it's ultimately, the sovereignty of God is ultimately to the praise of His glory.

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The sovereignty of God is personally exalting. God could have left everyone, listen, think about this with me.

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You have a hard time disproving what I'm about to say. So think very carefully here. God in His sovereignty could have damned all persons.

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He could have sent them all to judgment. And He would not have been unjust. Or God could have in His grace,

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He could have spread that grace out to everyone and He could have taken every single person to glory.

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But He has chosen neither of these options. Rather, He has chosen to show some

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His sovereign grace and He has chosen to show others His sovereign justice and He has done no wrong to any.

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As one theologian notes, whatever God has determined must be regarded by us as right.

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Now listen to me. Do you really believe that? That whatever

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God has determined must be regarded by us as right?

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This is the question that you need to ask yourself this morning. I can't answer it for you. I know

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I can't answer. I know the answer. But I can't answer your heart. The question you need to ask is, does

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God have the right to be God? Do you think that the God, the Lord of heaven and earth has the right to be

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God or not? The answer is unequivocally yes. Therefore, the right response is we lay all at His feet and we trust

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Him. Think about this for just a moment. Think about the God of the Scriptures. Help me here. Think through it in your mind.

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This is the God who the Bible shows is trustworthy and so we trust Him. We trust

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Him to do what is right. We put salvation in His hands and we trust Him. We trust Him.

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He is good. He is holy. Salvation is better in His hands than in any other's hands and we know that the

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Lord of all is going to do what is right. He's good. He has sovereign authority.

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That's theology 101. God is God. There is a God and you're not

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Him. And He's worthy of our praise. Let us surrender to His will like Jesus and praise the

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Father for His sovereign election. And let us praise the Son for His sovereign authority.

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See the majesty of Christ. Look at verse 27. See the majesty? Some of you in here are playing games with Jesus.

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Look at the Jesus of the text. All authority has been handed over.

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If He wanted to open up the pits of hell right now and cast you in,

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He has that authority because He's Christ. Behold His majesty.

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And this is the Christ. The one with all authority that the Bible says was crucified for sinners.

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Suspended on Calvary. Burying the wrath of God for our sins. This is the sovereign plan of God.

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God's sovereignty. Number two. We move to now mankind's responsibility.

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God's sovereignty. Number two, mankind's responsibility. Now, Jesus prays this great prayer and He prays to God and He thanks

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God for His sovereignty. And some people outthink themselves. Their brain falls off a cliff when they begin to think about these things.

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Or they wonder into like, you guys ever done the corn maze around in the fall and you go and you go to the pumpkin patch, there's a corn maze and my kids didn't do it right.

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They just cut through the corn maze. But some people go in the corn maze and get lost. Well, their brain begins to think about the sovereignty of God and then they just outthink themselves and their brain's left in a knot.

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And they think, well, if God's sovereignty is true, then I guess we just sit around and do nothing. But that's not what our

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Lord does. He praises God for His sovereignty and then He says this in verse 28.

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Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

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By the way, verse 29 is an imperative. It's a command. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

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So some people wrestle with the sovereignty of God. They outthink themselves. They try to be smarter than God or go off a cliff, as it were, intellectually.

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They become fatalists or apostates or maybe Pharisees. But listen to the words of J .I.

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Packer. He quotes this. C .H. Spurgeon was once asked if he could reconcile these two truths of God's sovereignty and mankind's responsibility to each other.

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I wouldn't try, he replied. I never reconcile friends. Packer goes on, friends?

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Yes, friends. This is the point that we have to grasp. In the Bible, divine sovereignty and human responsibility are not enemies.

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They are not uneasy neighbors. They are not in an endless state of cold war with each other. They are friends.

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They work together. So we learn here in our text. I think this is a beautiful passage to show it.

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We learn here in our text that God is sovereign and that mankind is responsible to heed these words from our gracious Lord.

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You need to listen to me, young people, teenagers, adults, senior adults, whatever category you're in.

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You're responsible to heed these words from Christ. Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

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God doesn't keep people away that truly desire Him and God doesn't drag the elect, kicking and screaming as it were when they don't want

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Him. The problem is, in and of ourselves, none desire God. So, O .G.

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Baptist, Benjamin Keech, he says this, The heart is evil and not good until it is changed or new made which none can do but God Himself.

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You understand that mankind's problem is a problem of the heart. That's the heart of the problem.

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Our hearts are evil apart from grace. This is why the idea of do the best you can, do the best you can and God will make up the rest.

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That's damning. You can't do any good apart from grace. Not good in God's eyes.

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Because God says whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. You're at Casey's later today.

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You see a little boy kick a ball out onto Highway 60. You see a big log truck coming.

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He runs looking at no one. He's about three years old and he runs and he goes to grab that ball.

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And here comes the log truck barreling down on him. And you run. You drop everything you have. You run and you grab the boy and you save him just barely in the nick of time.

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Does that please God? Does it proceed from faith? Is your heart regenerate?

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If you have an unregenerate heart that doesn't please God. It's sin. It's still counted against you as sin.

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Why? Because you do that in and of yourself and you prove in and of yourself that there is a moral standard in your heart, but you refuse to bow the knee to Christ.

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Apart from grace, our hearts are evil. And so God in His sovereignty, we need grace and God in His sovereignty, that's what

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He does. He changes people's hearts. And He does so through means of His gospel, the work of Christ for our sins.

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It's His perfect life, His substitutionary death, His glorious resurrection. And every person in this room and throughout the world is responsible to surrender to Christ.

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So three truths here about these verses. First, this is a comprehensive call. Number one, it is a comprehensive call.

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I'm just going to point out one word in verse 28. Really, it's the word all. Come to me, all.

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Come to me, all. Come to me, all. The all in our text is sufficient warrant for the church to take the gospel to the nations.

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All persons are sinners. All have resisted

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God. All have worshipped idols. All have suppressed the truth in unrighteousness.

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And all persons, regardless of ethnicity or gender or sinful behaviors, must be told of the gospel of our

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Lord Jesus and offered a real opportunity for pardon from our gracious King.

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There's sufficient work in the blood of Christ to pardon the vilest of sinners. And so we go to all.

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And we echo the invitation to all. This is a comprehensive call.

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Secondly, it bears a conditional clause. Number one, it's a comprehensive call.

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Secondly, it bears a conditional clause. Look at verse 28. So we have to move past the word all, though.

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Come to me, all. And then here's a condition. And what is the condition? Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

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So let me put it this way. All have sinned, but if you're here this morning, are you self -righteous?

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Are you a hypocrite? Are you a sin -loving, idol -worshipping, independent, proud, and happy rebel?

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You need not apply. You won't come, right? You don't want to come.

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And you may sit there and you may get mad about the doctrine of election, but the reality is you don't come to Christ because you don't want to come to Christ.

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But if the Holy Spirit is at work in you, then you begin to see your sin as a burden, as a labor.

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You see yourself as broken and undone. You see the despair of keeping the law of God to merit

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His favor. You see that left to yourself, you have no hope, and there is nowhere that you can turn inwardly into yourself.

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There is nothing that you can do in yourself. And here's the call. Here's the call. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

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Jesus has already taught on this truth, by the way. It helps us to understand theologically some of the truths that Matthew is pushing here.

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Go to Matthew 5 real quick. And this is what the Beatitudes are about. In Matthew 5,

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Jesus is actually already taught on this. Matthew 5, beginning in verse 3.

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So let me just read 3 and 4 and listen carefully. You've heard this a million times in your life.

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But maybe I can, by the Spirit of God, help you to see what

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Jesus' intent here. Matthew 5, verse 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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Verse 4. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

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Have you ever heard someone maybe read that at a funeral or maybe try to share it? They mean well -meaning.

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You know, blessed are those who mourn. They mean well -meaning. But do you know what Jesus means here? The point that Jesus is saying is that when the

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Spirit of God works in our life, we realize that we are impoverished in spirit.

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Meaning, we have nothing to offer God. When the Spirit of God comes upon us and begins to work in our life in this way, we understand

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I've got nothing. I've got nothing. And so then what do we do? We begin to mourn our sin.

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Why? Blessed are those who mourn. He's talking about those who mourn their sin. Not just about those who have to mourn the death of a loved one.

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Everyone has to mourn the death of a loved one. Death is a reality. Mourning is a reality in this fallen world.

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Everybody mourns. But he means specifically those who mourn their sin. They see themselves as empty and they see their wretchedness and their poor in spirit and they mourn their sin.

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And Jesus says they're blessed. What? They're blessed. Why? Because it's those who hear this call in verse 28.

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Come. I'm back in Matthew 11. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

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So we see a comprehensive call, a conditional clause, and thirdly, a compassionate command.

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A comprehensive call, a conditional clause, and a compassionate command. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

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Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

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Jesus does not merely invite us to come to him. Listen, please. Jesus doesn't merely say, man, it would be a good idea if you came.

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I really think that would be a wonderful gesture. Jesus doesn't say this. Why don't you come try me?

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Why don't you come try me just a little bit and see if your life is different. Come try me out and then if I don't work out for you, go back.

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That's not what he says. He commands all authority, the text says, all authority in heaven and earth.

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There's not a king that's ever been higher. There's not been a president, a government. No one has ever been higher than the king of kings and lord of lords.

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And it is this Jesus that commands us to take his yoke upon us.

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But how compassionate of a command is this? Friends, please.

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I know I get excited. Don't let me wash over the compassion of Christ. Please, friends, see his meekness in this text and his kindness.

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Look at these promises that he says. He says, come to me and what will I do? Here's the promise. Come to me and I will give you rest.

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And another promise. You will find rest. Listen, who are you to doubt

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God? Who are you this morning to call Jesus a liar?

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Your soul is at enmity with God. And you begin to realize you hate the wretched man or woman or boy or girl that you are.

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You see the futility of law keeping. You see that in and of yourself you have no righteousness to gain you access to heaven.

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And then Jesus commands you to come to him and he promises to you, dear soul, rest.

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And he will give it to those who come. Rest is that the war is over with God.

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It is resting from the ways of man and is resting in Christ. Maybe you're tempted this morning to let your mind dwell upon predestination and you're going to get confused or mad.

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But if you do that, you disobey Christ here because the command here is not to figure out a perfect doctrine of election.

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The command here is to come to Christ. The command here is to take his yoke upon you.

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Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke.

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Now I've got to make a point about this. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.

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For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. There is a point that needs to be made here.

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There's two errors I think that we can see here that Jesus teaches to avoid. Some of you in here, there are people

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I think that need to hear both of these errors. The first error is this. Jesus says, take my yoke upon you.

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So listen to this. The first error is that you think that if you come to Christ, like some of you,

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I've heard different stories, some things that people have said around Sunday school and stuff like that.

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So I understand that some people think, oh, I'm forgiven. I'm forgiven by Christ.

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And what they mean by that is there's been a time in their life that they've said some words to Jesus. Oh yeah, I accept you.

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Oh, come into my heart. Forgive me of my sins. But then they left that and they went back to their sins.

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And they went to live in their sins. And they went to live in the disobedience of the world. And they went to live in carnality and worldliness.

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And they will tell you, and maybe they're even in here this morning, and I know they're in the community because we've been talking to them, and they will tell you, oh, but I know

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I'm forgiven. Well, how do you know? Well, I just know. No, no. Jesus says if you're going to come to Him, you take your yoke.

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Sorry. Clear. You take His yoke upon you. You take His yoke. You don't just come to Christ and punch your ticket to Heaven, go back to your sin, and now you don't have to feel guilty about it.

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No, no. You take His yoke upon you. That is, you come to Him as your new master. Right?

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A yoke, like it goes around oxen, goes around your neck. You repent of your sin, and you take off your yoke of the world and rebellion, and you replace it with the yoke of Christ around your neck.

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When the Holy Spirit gives us a new heart, we desire now Christ.

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We desire to follow Him. His commands, the Bible says, are not burdensome. Why? Because we love

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Christ. So if you're in here today, and your idea of salvation is,

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I said the right words at some point in my life, but I live in my sin. I continue to look at those pictures on the internet.

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I continue to do something with a man or woman who's not my wife. I continue to have filthy language come out of my mouth.

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I continue to steal from my place of work. Well, friends,

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Christ bid you to come and take His yoke upon you. Putting the yoke of Christ around your neck means you desire to follow

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His Word. Repentance is turning from your way of life and now arranging your life according to what

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Christ tells you in His Word. Listen, I'm going to tell you as plainly as I can, there is no salvation apart from bowing the knee to Christ as Lord.

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He is our Master, and we are

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His slaves. And then here's the second error. The other error I think that Jesus teaches us to avoid here is in verse 30.

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He says, For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Why would the church want to add burdens upon Christians?

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Why would you want to do that? This is what the Pharisees did. So I'll read to you from a commentary, Daniel Doriani.

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He notes how the Pharisees added rules to the Sabbath. He says, As for the Sabbath, a man could write a two -letter word, but not a three -letter word, for three letters would constitute labor.

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As for food, he must lay out everything he might want to eat or drink on the

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Sabbath on the night before the Sabbath, lest he work. Clearly such rules devised by men and not given by God readily become burdens.

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That is, listen to me, the Pharisees said, Well, if God says do this, we're going to keep adding to it.

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But Jesus says my burden is light. So why would Christians want to add to the commands of Christ?

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I'm saying that Christ's burden is light and His commands are a joy for the believer. But we also, we don't add to them either in order to take a light and joyful yoke and make it heavy and burdensome.

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This dishonors our Lord. That's why we don't have a man standing at the back of the door and when you come in, he sees what you're, are you wearing jeans?

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Sorry, turn away. You're right. We don't add to the commands of God and we don't take away from them.

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We don't make Christ more beautiful by taking His light burden and making it heavy. Okay, so we've seen, we've seen now

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God's sovereignty and we've seen mankind's responsibility. I want to pause and I want to just bear my heart with you for a moment before we get to our last point.

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How can we read such a text and have our hearts remain cold to Christ?

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At that time, Jesus declared, I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.

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Yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father and no one knows the

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Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal

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Him. Come to Me. All who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

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And take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls for My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

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How can we read this text and remain cold to Christ?

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Jesus literally, this doesn't happen a lot in the Scriptures per se, well, maybe more than I'm saying, but a little bit hyperbole, but Jesus literally exposes

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His heart. Literally, verse 29, look at that. He literally says, what is the heart of Christ?

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What is His heart? Is He a tyrant? Is He mean?

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Is He hard? What is His heart? And He says, this is My heart. I am gentle and lowly in heart.

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Hear the compassion, friends, of our Lord in this text. See His willingness in the text to give you rest.

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See His willingness to teach you, to be your God, to count you among His own, to wash you clean, to forgive you of all your sins, to pardon you, to bring you in.

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He bids you come to Him, to the miserable man, to the wayward woman, to the burdened boy, to the grieving girl.

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Jesus says come. Come to Christ. Sinner, hear the call of Christ.

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Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

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Only the coldest of hearts, only the stiffest of necks, only the foolish of fools, would hear such a meek and compassionate

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Savior and turn their backs upon Him. How wicked and rebellious to reject such a

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God. What I'm saying to us this morning, friends, is here is Christ. Here He is.

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Come to Him. Repent of your sins. Bow your knee to Christ.

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Let Him place that yoke that He says, that He talks about here around your neck. Find there in that yoke rest for your souls.

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Find pardon for your sins. Find healing for your transgressions. Find deliverance from God's justice.

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Find atonement. Find reconciliation. Quit pretending you're good enough and feel the burden this morning of your sins.

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Oh, but if I come to Christ, everyone will know I'm a hypocrite. They'll know that for years that I've been deceived and they'll know that I've been pretending.

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And what will they think of me? If you come to Christ right now, I know what the church will think of you. They will celebrate!

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Because here comes a prodigal home. In the story of the prodigal son, it's actually the prodigal sons.

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There was one that left. And there was one that stayed. But they were both away from the heart of their

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Father. One came away. One came back. And the one that stayed remained cold.

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Friends, don't remain cold. Our salvation is in Christ.

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He obeyed when you resisted. He worshipped God while you chased idols.

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He bore God's wrath while you enjoyed God's patience. He rose again while you remained locked in the tomb of sin.

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And yet here He is today. Here is Christ, the Sovereign One. Here He is before us bidding us to come, to hear

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His command and to lay hold of these truths by faith and to close with Christ. Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

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Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

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I need God's grace to preach this to you. And you need God's grace to receive it.

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Will you have Christ? Will you repent of hypocrisy?

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Will you cast off your idols? Oh, some of you are young.

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Some of you are young. And you think, I've got many years to come to Christ.

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I'll enjoy the foolishness of my youth right now. I'll play around with my boyfriend or girlfriend.

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I'll waste time. Christ bid you to come. Christ commands you to come.

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Some of you are old. And if things progress naturally like they do in life, you will meet

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Christ sooner than those of us in here who are younger.

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What are you going to do with the days you have left? Are you going to live for self and selfishness and self -righteousness?

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Or are you going to come to Christ? Will you forsake your own ways? Hear me, friends.

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Will all of you, will you leave the gods of this present culture? Will you come to Christ right now?

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How could we hear the text we've heard and live one more moment in sin, knowing the compassion that we have from Christ?

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How could we hear this text and live one more moment for the world or the flesh or the devil or in fear or in sin or in transgression?

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How could we hear this text and not come to our Savior, trusting Him as Lord and seeking to follow

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His ways? Oh, the grace of God before you today. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

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Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

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I don't know how to preach an invitation any differently than that. Let me say this.

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I want to make it as clear as I can right now. If the Spirit of God is working in you right now and you feel your need for Christ, you understand right now your forgiveness, that you need forgiveness of sins, and you see

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Christ right now, you see His beauty, you look upon Him and say, Yes! That's Christ! I want Him! What do

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I do? If you see that and you want that and you desire that, you see Him and you see the combination of His majesty and His meekness in this text, if this is you, your responsibility right now, call out to Him.

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Call out to Him in your heart. Where you are, I'm not saying come down here and sign a card or we're not gonna play a song right now.

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I'm saying call out to Him in your heart. Confess your sins. Repent of your sins. Believe on Christ.

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Trust the gospel you heard today. And even after the sermon today, let this church know that you have decided to follow

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Jesus. Friends, how could we refuse such a glorious God?

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Worship Him. And now to our last point, God's sovereignty, mankind's responsibility.

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And finally today, let us consider the church's mission. The church's mission, bad news and good news.

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Bad news, we haven't even gotten to our church's distinctives really. Good news,

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I think I can really tie this up. I think I can make it, the connection, plain and simple.

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And how we're gonna do that is we're gonna stay in the book of Matthew, but we're gonna go to the end. So go to Matthew 28. Now I know some of you are like, oh yeah, he's gonna talk about the

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Great Commission. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. You need to listen to the

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Great Commission now in light of the sermon that you just heard. You need to listen to the

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Great Commission in light of what you just heard about God's sovereignty and Jesus' responsibility. And you need to listen here in verse 16.

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Now the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw

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Him, they worshiped Him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, now this sounds familiar, all authority, all authority, in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the

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Holy Spirit. And then look at verse 20. Teaching them. Teaching them what?

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To observe what? All. All that I have commanded you and behold,

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I am with you always to the end of the age. So what does that mean? It means all that Jesus taught in Matthew 11, the church is to go and teach to the nations.

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God is sovereign. God is glorious. God is good. God has made atonement for our sins in Christ for those who repent and trust

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Him. All mankind is responsible to do so. And by this message, God saves sinners for His glory.

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And Christ is with us. And it is our great privilege and duty to take this message to all. This is evangelism and missions.

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This is the mission of the church. It's not that it's wrong to feed people or clothe people.

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It's just that those things must flow out of a desire for their souls. We care about the souls of Perry County and the world.

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Can I say it this way? How much must you hate somebody to not share the message that we've heard today?

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You're going to chat with them on Facebook? You're going to make deals with them about buying and selling stuff?

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You're going to work for them? You're going to work with them? You're going to hang out with them?

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You're going to have them over to your house? You're going to be family men? But you're not going to tell them that there's rest available in Christ?

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How much must we hate? How much must you despise someone not to tell them that Christ bids them come and trust

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Him? But even more than that, and please listen here because that gets most of us, but we need to also listen to this.

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Christ is worthy of our proclamation. It's not just about, I don't care about people when we don't evangelize.

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It also signifies that you don't care about the glory of Christ. His majesty,

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His compassion, His sacrifice, His authority. Christ is worthy of the church giving their lives to this mission in proclaiming

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His glory. So listen to Richard Phillips. He says, Our goal in evangelism is not to convert sinners.

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What? Our goal in evangelism is not to convert sinners since power for this lies beyond our ability, but to present the biblical message about Jesus faithfully.

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We preached Christ yesterday in the Harps parking lot. That was wild. Praise God.

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And then I found out that the sound was echoing off the Harps building and you could hear it in town. You're going to say, well, was that effective?

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How many people got saved? I don't know. I want people to get saved. I want people to be converted. But my goal is not first to see people converted, although that is a desire.

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My goal is that Christ is worthy to be preached in Perryville because He is the one with all authority and the one with all majesty.

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Christ is worthy. And so we preach Him. Christ is worthy of us to proclaim

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Him faithfully in this city. Christ is worthy of us going door to door, passing out tracks, having conversations about the gospel and repentance and the necessity of a new birth.

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Christ is worthy of qualified men in this church preaching Him on the streets. And both in Matthew 11 and Matthew 28, listen to this, we see that Jesus has all authority.

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There's not a place in this town. There's not a place in this nation. There's not a place on this planet. There's not a place on the backside of Pluto anywhere that we don't have the right to proclaim the good news of Christ as the only hope for sinners.

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Sir, sir, sir, sir, sir, sir, sir. You can't share that message here.

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Oh, yes, I can actually. I have a permit.

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Christ is king. I could share the message everywhere. Because all authority in heaven and on earth is given to Christ.

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Biblical evangelism is a distinctive of our church because this is Christ's church.

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Don't tell me today that you're a Calvinist or that you love the doctrine of God's sovereign grace or that you trust the

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Bible's teaching on predestination. Don't tell me these things if you're not evangelistic.

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We ought to love evangelism and be an example of evangelism to all. I'm not trying to pull other churches in this, but I'll just say this.

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If a church wants to understand what a passion for evangelism looks like, it's my desire to be able to say, look at us.

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Look at us. This is what evangelism looks like. Because if we really believe that God is sovereign, this will fuel serious evangelism because we know

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God is worthy to be preached, that Christ is worthy to be proclaimed, and that He's really going to save undeserving sinners by the proclamation of His gospel.

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Here's the good news. I've got good news for your family. I've got good news for your neighbors. I've got good news for this town. I've got good news for America.

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Jesus saves. Let's go. Right? Let's go. Let's take the message to the nations and let's pray for and support those preaching

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Christ. Let's go door to door. Let's have the conversations over coffee. Christ is still beckoning sinners.

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He's still at work today. I don't care about the Chinese five balloons. I don't care about the markets. I don't care about all the things going on in the world.

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I mean, yes, they're important and we need to have a level of concern about those things. I understand, understand, understand, but what I care about more than anything else is that we preach

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Christ. We preach him and we see that he's working in the world today for his glory.

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Now a final catch -all statement and then we're going to close. This is a catch -all statement about missions and then we close.

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Our affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention is waning because they have forgotten the primacy of the local church in missions.

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They have forgotten the glory of the gospel preached here today They have requested our money but have rejected our oversight.

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But in the New Testament the mission's organization is the local church. And so it's been our endeavor to take back control of what

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God has entrusted to us. We've partnered with faithful churches in Mexico.

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We pray for families in Belize. We look for other providential opportunities. But the point is we take seriously the local church's privilege and responsibility to take

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Christ to the nations. And we understand that mission organizations I'm not against them. They can be helpful.

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They can be helpful. They can come alongside the church and be helpful. But if they choose to go whack or woke we will choose to withdraw.

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And so this mission is too precious. The cost is too great. Our Lord Jesus is too worthy for us to do it any other way.

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This is who we... This is

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Christ's vision for the church. Now what you have to do in this moment and throughout the rest of the afternoon and throughout the week what you have to do is think through these things you've heard today and think how am

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I going to respond to that? Because you understand that every one of us in here is going to respond.

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I'm closing it off so you know I'm done. I really am done. You're going to respond to this message.

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But don't let that response be no response. You're like, oh yeah, I'm just neutral about it. No, that's response. You've rejected it.

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Will you respond to this message in faith? Some of you need to come to Christ for salvation. Some of you need to have a healthier vision of the church, to unite with the church, to love the church, to be evangelistic with the church.

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Some of you, maybe you're crossing all the T's and dotting all the I's and you just need to take a moment and praise

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God for His work in the church for the glory of Christ. Let's pray. Let's stand and pray. Let's pray. Father, we're thankful for what

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You've done and what You are doing and we're thankful for the work of Christ and we're thankful for Christ's vision for the church and we pray we submit to that and we pray that the

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Spirit would work in the midst of us even now and we pray that we wouldn't be cold -hearted or hard -hearted or stiff -necked or stubborn.

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We pray that we would be submissive and that we would praise You for all that You've done in Christ and all that You're doing. And we know that at a moment's notice

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You could pour out revival even on this place and we pray God that even in this moment that You would be pleased to awaken dead hearts to warm cold hearts to soften hard hearts to encourage church members.

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Lord, there are church members here who need to be reminded of the tenderness of Christ and they need to rest again in Him.

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We pray Your blessing as we sing this song. We pray it in Jesus' name.