Immanuel Sermon Audio
Immanuel - World
There is an outline in your bulletin. If you'd like to follow along on Sunday mornings during the month of September, we are taking a break from our study through the Gospel of Luke. We've been studying Luke passage by passage. We are putting that on hiatus. We'll pick up right where we left off and during the month of September, we're talking about our church mission statement. We're trying to go back and ground that in the Bible, and the purpose is really two-fold. One, if you are not a member of our church, maybe you're a guest, a visitor, maybe you are a new member, this is a good opportunity for us to share with you what we feel like God has called us to do as a church family here at a manual Baptist. If you are a member, maybe a longtime member, it's good to be reminded, and it's good to go back to basic things and just make sure your feet are planted on solid ground and to say, "Okay, it's always good to reevaluate and say, 'Let's go back to Scripture and make sure that we are doing the things that God would have us to do as a church family.'" So if you have a Bible, open it to Matthew 28, our church mission statement, I will put up on the screen for you to see. This is also on your outline, "God with us for His glory, for the world, for this city and for you," this is week two, so last week we talked about what does it mean that God is with us for His glory, and this morning we're going to talk about what does it mean that God is with us for the world, and really those two things are connected and they flow right into each other. If you remember last week when we talked about God's glory, we looked at a passage in the Old Testament, Isaiah chapter 6, and the angels singing in the presence of God said this, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is filled with His glory." And so this morning we're expanding on from this sort of personal relationship with the Lord into what does it mean that God is with us, not just so that we can sing songs to Him and bring glory to Him. We can do that here in this room, we can do that in your car, on your way to work, you can do that in the shower in the morning, you can do that anytime. But what does it mean that God is with us so that His glory would fill all the ends of the earth? What does it mean that God is with a manual Baptist for the good of the world? And our passage is Matthew 28, like I said last week, this is a familiar passage I hope to most of you, if not all of you, and we're just going to read the entire chapter, beginning in verse 1, going down to the Great Commission. We're going to talk about what Matthew says in this chapter and think about what does it mean that God is with us for the world. And so you follow along as I read, beginning Matthew chapter 28 verse 1. The Word of God says this, "After the Sabbath toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning in His clothing, white as snow. And for fear of Him, the guards trembled and became like dead men, but the angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.' He's not here, for He has risen. As He said, 'Come, see the place where He lay.' Then go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead, and behold, He is going before you to Galilee, there you will see Him. See I've told you.' So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell His disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, 'Greetings.' And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. Then Jesus said, 'Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers, go to Galilee and there they will see me.' While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, 'Tell the people his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep. And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.' So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some doubted. Jesus came and He said to them, 'All authority and heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.' Let's pray. Father, we do invite Your Spirit into our gathering. We believe that Your Spirit inspired the words that Matthew wrote down in his gospel. We believe the words that we just read are true, that they have implications for our lives today as individuals and as families and even as a church family. And so as we think about this familiar passage, we simply pray that You would give us eyes to see the truth and we pray in Jesus' name, amen. I want you to look where the story ends. And this is not just the story of Matthew 28, but the story of Matthew's gospel. Verse 20, Jesus says, 'Behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.' It's a strange statement because He's leaving. On the one hand He's saying goodbye and on the other hand He's saying, 'I will always be with you,' and we understand that He's going to send His Spirit to be with His people. But that's where the story ends, 'Behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.' Interesting that Matthew would end his gospel like that because he's written the entire thing from Matthew 1 all the way up to chapter 28. He wrote the entire gospel to prove that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. That's His goal from the beginning to the end when He talks about the genealogy of Jesus. He's trying to prove this is the Messiah. When He talks about the Christmas story, the first Christmas, He's trying to say to God's people, 'This is your Messiah.' When He gives the sermon on the Mount, records what Jesus said in that famous sermon. He's trying to point them to the fact that He's fulfilling the law and the prophets. This is the one you've been waiting for. He is the Messiah, the miracles, the parables. Jesus predicting His own death, eventually dying, rising from the dead. All of it, Matthew is driving this to this conclusion that Jesus is the one that God promised to send. And at the end of His story, Jesus, the one that God promised to send, says, 'I'm leaving, but I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.' Now I realize for some of you, as we read Matthew 28, that this is old news. You know this chapter? You know what happened to Matthew 27 and 26? You may not be able to outline it in detail, but you know the general gist of the story that Jesus, the Messiah, came that He lived a life of perfect obedience to God's law and that He had to do that because we needed righteousness as we stand before the God we talked about last week, who was holy, holy, holy, and so Jesus lived the life of obedience we have not lived. Jesus died on a cross to take the punishment that should have fallen on us. Not only did He live our life, but He also died our death, and He took the wrath of God that should have fallen on us. And in this gospel and in the rest of the New Testament, Jesus' call on your life is very, very simple, repent of your sin and believe in Me. Turn away from living for yourself and make an intentional, conscious decision to be a disciple. You understand Jesus is not just asking you to make a decision about who He is, but He is calling you to be a follower, a learner, a disciple. And the promise that Jesus gives you is amazing. What He says is, "I will take your death and I will give you my life." Will swap. "I take the punishment that should have fallen on you. You get the righteousness and the life and the eternity that is only possible through Me when you make the decision to turn from your sin and you make the decision to be a disciple. I am looking for disciples." Understand that Matthew has been hammering that home from chapter 1 to the end. He is looking for followers, learners, disciples, and He says the same thing here in Matthew 28 when He sends His people out to make disciples. For some of you, all of that is old news. It's good news, but you know it. For others of you in the room, maybe you have never read Matthew 28 in your life. Maybe you have never thought about the fact that Jesus lived for you and died for you and is calling you to be a disciple and He is offering you life. You have never put all the pieces together and maybe today you need to accept the good news for the very first time. And you need to say, "You know what? I want to turn away from my sin and I want to become a follower of Jesus Christ." Maybe it's old news for you. Maybe it's new news for you, but for all of us it's good news. When Matthew sums it up with this story of the resurrection and the attempted cover-up and the angel and all of these things, look with me where He lands in Matthew 28 verse 17. We're skipping over some of the story, but it's pretty self-explanatory. Look at verse 17, "When they saw Him, they worshiped Him." We read that up a few verses above about the women, the women saw Him and they worshiped Him. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him. Look at the next three words, "But some doubted." I had a hard time wrapping my mind around that verse this week. Some of them fall down in worship and some of them stand back and say, "I don't know." They've walked with Him, they've listened to His teaching. Maybe they've been at the lunch where Jesus multiplied a small basket of food for thousands of people. Maybe they saw Him walking on water, maybe they saw Him heal the sick, maybe they listened to Him teach and preach. Mark says, "As one who had authority," I don't know what they experienced of Him. I know they experienced Him face to face alive after He had been dead. They looked Jesus, resurrected from the grave in the eyeball and they stood back and said, "Well, I don't know, I just don't know." I think most of us in our gut say, "Man, if I could have just seen these things, if I could have just been there to experience it, if only I could have been one of the few who got to see Jesus raised from the dead, that would eliminate all my doubts and all my questions and all my uncertainties and I would have rock solid faith." And the Bible says, "No, you wouldn't." There were people who looked the resurrected Jesus Christ in the face and doubted. And look what Jesus says next. Some are worshiping, some are doubting. Verse 18, "Jesus came and He said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.'" Now, you know the Great Commission. Most of you have read this. Most of you could probably, if not quote it, verbatim, get pretty darn close in a pop quiz to telling me what the Great Commission is. We're supposed to go make disciples. Sometimes our familiarity with the Bible passage makes us miss something that's really important. And Jesus says here, "Before He gives the command to go and make disciples and to baptize and to teach, He says, 'All authority in heaven and on earth belongs to me.'" Just let the weight of that statement fall on you and think about what it would look like for a human being to look you in the eye and say, "I have all authority on the earth and in heaven. It all belongs to me. The buck stops here. There's no higher power. There's no higher authority. I'm the one. I have all authority." You look at a person like that and you say one of two things. Either you're a moonbat or you're a con man. Either you're crazy or you're trying to pull one over on me. But Jesus looks at him, serious is a heart attack and He says, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." All of it belongs to me. You understand this dispels with any idea, any possibility that Jesus can be not who He says He is and still a pretty good guy, a good moral teacher, a decent human being, somebody who was wise and had some insightful things to say. If somebody who really doesn't have all authority in heaven and on earth claims to have all authority in heaven and on earth, they're not a good person. They're rotten or they're crazy or they're lying. Jesus looked at His followers and He said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." Look at verse 19. It begins with the idea, "Therefore in the original language, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you and behold I am with you always to the end of the age." Again, most of you probably know what I'm about to say but it's good to have review and some of you have never heard this idea. In what Jesus says in verse 19 and 20, He tells His disciples to do one and only one thing. One thing He tells them to do and that is make disciples. He does not command them to go in the Greek in the original language. He does not command them to baptize, He does not command them to teach, He says, "Make disciples." I'm leaving, I will be with you forever and your job is to make disciples. Let me state the obvious. There's a world of difference between a decision and a disciple, a world of difference. We live in a part of the country where everyone has made a decision but not many are true disciples. And let's raise our hand and stand at the front of the line and say, "As Baptists, we are the world's worst at getting this confused, the absolute worst." Let me give you a couple of examples of what this looks like. We just moved from Oklahoma. We lived in Kingfisher and in Oklahoma there is a Baptist campground. It is an amazing, amazing place to go visit. The facilities they have are just off the chart. I have a picture of the worship center at this campground. It holds 8,000 people, an amazing facility. It's the largest single-story performing arts building on planet earth, amazing place. Amazing things happen at this campground. It's an awesome place to go, to go to camp, to hear about Jesus, to bring your friends. I love it. It's fantastic. In the spring, I'm going to have the opportunity to speak at a children's camp at this camp. And I'm excited about that. It's a wonderful place. But sometimes at this campground, and I said these things when I lived in Oklahoma, by the way, sometimes at this campground, they get disciples and decisions confused. And sometimes they celebrate the wrong thing. And so there's kind of a neat tradition every morning where they have a giant bell. But in the middle of camp. And every person who walked the aisle the night before gets one ring of the bell. So about 8 o'clock every morning at camp, the bell starts ringing. Everybody likes to go outside and count. One, two, three, 25, 60, 100, 250, what a great night at camp. And they celebrate and it's exciting. And you know what? It is exciting. It is somebody who went to that camp with a huge group of students and watched so many of them go make a decision and then come home and not live as disciples. I look at that and I say there's a problem here. And I realize I'm raising a problem without giving much of a solution. But you understand where I'm going. Sometimes as Baptist, we count decisions and we get excited about decisions when what Jesus said to us is go and make disciples. Let me give you another example of what I'm talking about. Grew up in Amarillo and put a map up on the screen of Amarillo up there at the top and there's Odessa. When I was in high school, there was a big crusade famous evangelist coming to town. And this was not like a pop in on Friday preach and then we go home. This was like come in, set up, do work for a month and then go somewhere else. And so my church in Amarillo was asked would you help with the crusade? Would you be a part of it? Would you volunteer? And so our pastor said sure we'll be a part of whatever we can do. But he was curious. So my pastor started calling churches in Odessa because Odessa was the last stop before they came to Amarillo. So they had just been in Odessa getting ready to come to Amarillo. He started calling churches in Odessa. And he said, now, I heard that when this big group came to town that there were thousands and thousands of decisions, that's right, thousands of decisions, thousands of people trusted Jesus. Man, that is great, my pastor said. And here was a second question. How many people have plugged into your church who made a decision at that crusade called one church? The answer? Zero. He got, well, maybe I picked the worst church in town. Maybe nobody wants to go to that church. Let me call another church. Same question. Heard there was thousands. How many people plugged into it? How many new folks did you guys get from this? Well, we didn't get any. Third church, zero. Fourth church, zero. On and on and on through the phone book he went, calling pastors, calling churches, he could not find one person in Midland Odessa that had plugged into a church as a consequence of the decision that they had made. And you understand that this group moves on to the next city, next city with their arms in the air, clap and patting themselves on the back. You can't believe how many people made decisions for Jesus in the last town. That's great. How many are being discipled? How many disciples are being made? I don't know. One last example, and you are going to think that I'm making this up, but this is the honest truth. There's a large church in Texas, and I won't tell you which church or where, but a large church in Texas, and about 15 years ago their pastor was concerned about their sagging numbers. Not so much in attendance. They had a lot of folks coming to church and everything was going pretty well, but they weren't baptizing enough. And if you know anything about Southern Baptist pastors, we turn numbers in and we go to associational meetings and state meetings, and a lot of these guys like to see their name up at the top of the list. How many baptisms? How many? How many? How many? How many? How many? And so this pastor said, we have a problem, and they sort of put their heads together. Here's what they came up with to revive their sagging baptism numbers. They bought a bus. They renovated the bus, and they turned the bus into a mobile baptistry. Right? Put a picture of the bus up. Look just like that. Bought it. This is like West Coast Customs, right? Take the bus down to the shop and chop it up and put it back together. They put basically a hot tub in the back of the bus. You know how the ice cream man has loud speakers on his truck? They rigged some of those up on the bus to Blair Christian music, and they stalked the back of the bus with candy, and they drove through some of the poorest neighborhoods in their community, passing out candy, blaring loud music, dunking kids in the back of the bus. You think I'm making that up, I'm not. And then they turned in their fine looking reports and said, "You can't believe revival is breaking out. Baptisms left and right. We can't even get the next one out of the water before the next one wants to get in the water." Lots of decisions, and I'm sure that it was not as simple as, "Would you like a lollipop? Now let's get baptized." I'm sure they shared some truth about Jesus, and they said, "Would you like to make this decision and on and on and on?" But they were decisions. They were not disciples. And the one thing Jesus says that you must do as his people in Matthew 28, 19, and 20 is make disciples. That's the command, make disciples, make disciples, make disciples. He knew that we're dense, and so he made it really simple. He didn't give us 10 things to do, 50 things to do, 5 things to do. He said, "You go and you make disciples." How do you do that? First you go, you go home, you go to work, you go to school, you go across the street, you go around the world. And as you're going, you baptize. You share the good news about Jesus Christ, and you baptize those who make the decision to follow Him, and then you teach those people, all the ones that you baptize, you teach them to obey everything that Jesus commanded until He comes back. And when you've done all of that, you've gone, and you've baptized, and you've taught, then you can pat yourself on the back and say, "We made a disciple." But don't get too excited about decisions, because Jesus said, "I'm looking for disciples." Now here's where the rubber meets the road. Where do we do this? Because the world is a big place. And as far as I know, everyone in this room can be in one place at one time. So where do we do it? And there's been a lot of debate on this. I can tell you what the apostles and the earliest Christians did. They went as far as they could possibly go. The first believers, the apostles, and the first generation of believers, they went as far as what we know of as Great Britain. They went as far north and east as what we call Russia. They made it all the way to India. They made it to the continent of Africa. They went as far as they could humanly possibly go. I can tell you that a couple of hundred years later, when the emperor of Rome declared that Christianity was the religion of every person in his empire, missions got a little bit weird. Because just about everywhere they went, they said, "Well, we're already Christians. We don't have a choice." So missions starts to wane. You go through the middle ages, the dark ages, and nobody is doing much of anything in the realm of missionary activity. And then you get to the Protestant Reformation, and things start going off, and light bulbs start going off, and people start going back to the Bible, and they start reading verses like Matthew 28, 19, and 20. Make disciples of who, all the nations, all the peoples. When somebody sits down and they read Mark 16, 5, "Go to all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation." Somebody reads Luke 24, 47, "Preach repentance and forgiveness of sins to all of God's creation." Somebody reads Acts 1, 8, "Be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth." People started going back in the Old Testament. Somebody read Genesis 12, 3, that said, "In Abraham, all the families of the earth would be blessed." And the light bulb went off, and they said, "Wait a minute, God's not just concerned about us. He's concerned about every family on planet earth, and he wants blessing to come to all of these people." Somebody read Psalm 67, and you should read it this afternoon. It says, "God, may your way be known on the earth, your power among all nations, let the peoples praise you, let all the peoples praise you, let all the peoples praise you, let the nations be glad and sing for joy, let all the ends of the earth fear God." And light bulbs are going off, left and right. Somebody reads Isaiah 11, 10, "The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." And somebody else reads Daniel 7, 14, that says, "The Son of man will have dominion over all peoples, all nations, all languages, all of it belongs to him." And then the light bulbs really started going off when they looked at the book of Revelation, and they got a glimpse of the end. Revelation 5, 9, "The lamb is worthy because he rants some people from every tribe, every language, every people, every nation. Two chapters later, same verse, Revelation 7, 9, "There is a great multitude from all tribes, all peoples, all languages, all gathered before the throne." And people start reading the Bible, and it's just obvious. It jumps off of every single page. The field, the assignment, the task is global. It's the whole world. So we back up and we're all in agreement. We say, "Okay, all nations, all peoples, all languages, all the families of the earth." That's who we're going to. And then the question becomes this. Where do we start? Where do you go first? You're going to go over there first. You're going to start here first. You're going to go over there first. Where do you go? I can tell you one thought that I have had at a time in my life, and maybe you've had it too. I've had the thought at one time in my life, maybe we ought to take care of business in our own backyard before we go around the world and tell those other people what they need to do. I've thought that thought, and I've had people express that thought to me. I don't know exactly where that thought comes from, because I don't think it comes from the Bible. I think maybe it comes from our frustration, maybe, our frustration with the government that likes to fix problems all around the world or try to fix problems all around the world and doesn't sometimes seem to do what they should be doing here, and maybe that bleeds over into our church experience and we say, "Hey, let's take care of business here before we go over there." I think sometimes, not all of the time, but I think some of the times that that statement or that idea is a mask for folks who are afraid to leave the United States of America, and folks say all the time, "It's a dangerous world out there." Those other countries aren't like our country and you're right. They are dangerous. I wouldn't pretend for a minute that they're not, as long as you don't pretend that Odessa is not dangerous. The world is dangerous. It's dangerous here and it's dangerous there. There's nice folks here and there's nice folks there. I'm not sure where we get this idea that we have to take care of all of our ducks in a row here at home before we go somewhere else. Here's the real problem with that idea. It's a Bible reason. Acts 1-8, Jesus gets the guys together and he says, "All right, fellas, here's the deal. You're going to go tell people about me. Where do we go? You go here. Start here. You go out there and then you go to the ends of the earth. Here, there, to the ends. Great. We got it. See you later. Jesus goes back to heaven and what do they start doing? They start taking care of business here. They start making disciples here, baptizing and they're going to the temple, they're going to their homes, they're going to work, they're teaching people to obey. It's all going great. But guess what? Everybody's in Jerusalem. You know why? You will never get done with your own backyard. Never. Do you need any more clear of a reminder than the people who look Jesus in the eyeball and doubt it, you will never finish the task here. And if your mindset is, we got to do missions here before we ever go out there, all you're going to do is stay here and you're never going to do a blasted thing for the world. That's exactly what happened in Acts. You can read it yourself. Chapters roll on. Everybody is in Jerusalem. No one has gone to Samaria. No one has gone to Judea. No one has made it to the ends of the earth. And so do you know what happens in Acts? Persecution. God says, "I'm going to allow persecution to break out in Jerusalem." And Luke tells us in the book of Acts that as these believers were persecuted, they flee their homes and as they are going, light bulbs, they're going, they're sharing, they're baptizing, they're making disciples. It only happened when God literally allowed them to be driven from their home. And then light bulbs start going off. Someone goes to Samaria. Somebody shares a gospel with an Ethiopian. Somebody sends out a team from Antioch and the snowballs roll in like crazy. But until they got out of Jerusalem, none of that happened. And if your mindset is, we got to take care of business in Odessa before we worry about Kenya. It is never going to have anybody go because we will never get done here. So we work here and we labor here and we share here and we pray here, but we also go there. And we also go to the ends of the earth. Look what Jesus says, Matthew 28, verse 19 and 20, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." We'd all like to hold on to that promise at different times in our lives, that Jesus is with us always to the end of the age. And there's a world of application for what that means in my life in your life. But you understand that when Jesus said it, He was talking about the world and He's talking about missions and He's saying, "As you go out there to the ends of the earth, to all the peoples, to all the nations, as you make disciples here, there and everywhere, I'm with you." Now, what does it mean for a manual? Three quick ideas and we'll wrap up. Number one, applying this to our church. God's heart for the world should expand our focus. It should expand our focus. I hope that you're proud of the town you live in and I hope that you're proud of the states you live in and I hope that you're proud of the country you live in and I hope you understand how blessed you are to live where you do live and I hope you're grateful for that and I hope you have a heart for this community and for this state and for our nation. And I realize as well as anybody else that in lots of areas of life that lines on a map have real meaning for us. I realize that. But also understand that when the one who has all authority in heaven and earth looks at the map, he's not too concerned about the lines. He's concerned about the whole thing. And if your vision never goes outside the lines, it's too small. Your vision for what Jesus wants to accomplish in you and through you must be a global worldwide vision. It must be because that's the mission in Acts 28. Second idea is this, God's heart for the world should drive our lives. God's heart for the world should drive our lives. You've got a couple this with what I said last week when I said God's glory should drive your life. You've got to have both of those things. If you're a glory-only person, you're going to do a lot of singing and a lot of praying and a lot of Bible study all by yourself. If you're a world-only person, you're going to go drill a lot of wells and help a lot of orphans and do a lot of nice things for a lot of different people. You've got to have both of them. You've got to say I'm concerned for all the peoples of the earth. My concern is not just humanitarian in nature, but it's spiritual in nature. I want to see God glorified among all of these peoples, just like God wants to see God glorified among all these peoples. If Psalm 67 is God's heartbeat, that all of the nations would praise Him and give Him glory, then that's my heartbeat. That all of the nations would praise Him and all of the nations would give Him glory. So a heart for the world, God's heart for the world should drive your lives. You know as well as I do that if you're not careful and you're not intentional about life, something else will drive your life. Might be work, might be another person, might be a relationship, might be school, might be a hobby, could be a lot of different things. If you think you can put life on autopilot and this is going to happen, you're wrong. You've got to be intentional about God's glory among all the peoples driving your life. Last idea is this, number three, God's heart for the world should shape our church, should shape a manual Baptist. So we started last week with number one, God's glory, and we said above all else, we want to be people who exist to bring glory to God and as a very close second we come in behind this morning and we say we want to be a people, a church, who are concerned about all the folks on the earth. A day is coming when we get to specialize. You get to heaven someday, you can check the missions box off and you can worry about what does it now mean for me to bring glory to God. But as long as you are here and as long as we are here, we will be a church that exists yes for the glory of God, but secondly to make disciples in Odessa, in Texas, in the United States, in Kenya to the ends of the earth, not to chase after decisions, not to be so preoccupied with reports and numbers, but to say we want to see people growing as disciples of Jesus Christ. That's my prayer for you as an individual and that's my prayer for us as a church family. You bow and join me in prayer. Father, we love you. And it is by your grace that we can call you, Father, that we can come into your presence. Father, we do pray this morning for those who are here who may be heard the good news of Jesus for the very first time, that his life and his death and his resurrection was for sinners, it was for us. Father, we pray that by your grace today they would turn from their sin and believe in Jesus. Father, I look out over the room and I pray for the many who are followers of Jesus, who are disciples of Jesus, and I pray for their families and their Sunday school classes and I pray for our church that we would be people focused on making disciples, that we would seek your glory in all things and that in turn we would seek to see people growing as disciples of Jesus Christ, that we would baptize as we share the good news, that we would teach people to obey all that you commanded us to the end of the age, that we would believe that you are with us in your spirit to accomplish these things. Father, we want to take a minute to sing and to give you glory. Father, you deserve every note that comes out of our mouths or our instruments. You are worthy of every song that we could sing. And Father, we worship and we make disciples because we believe that Jesus is better than anything else the world has to offer. Jesus is better. Sometimes we forget that ourselves and we need to be reminded and we need to reconfirm it in our hearts and so we're going to sing about that this morning. Father, be honored in our worship. Help us to believe that Jesus is better. Help us to give glory to Jesus. We pray it in His name, amen.