[0:00] It's lovely to be here. It's great to be back with you all this morning. If I've not met you, my name's Thomas. I'm the pastor at Calderwood Baptist Church over at East Co-Bryden.
[0:12] It thrills our heart at Calderwood to hear what the Lord is doing here among you at Bells Hill. You're a great encouragement to us. We get such joy when we hear from Cal and from others just as to how the Lord is working in each of your lives, how you continue to place your trust in Christ and how you continue to look to him.
[0:37] And we're encouraged to hear of growing numbers. We're encouraged to hear of folks coming with a desire and a willingness to know more about Jesus and to come and to love the church and serve in this place.
[0:52] So please know that you are an encouragement to us and you bring us great joy and we're just delighted in all that the Lord is doing. Let me bring greetings from Calderwood, from the brothers and sisters there at Calderwood Baptist.
[1:08] They send their greetings to you. And please know that we pray for you often. And I know folks are eager this morning because as well as Cal preaching, Cal's going to just be sharing a little update on how things here are going.
[1:21] And folks at Calderwood are really eager to hear that so that they can be praying more specifically for all of you. And we would love you to pray for us as well.
[1:34] We are working towards planting a new church in East Coelbride. Grace Church East Coelbride is what we're seeking to establish in the kind of Kirkton home area of East Coelbride.
[1:49] So if you know East Coelbride at all, it's kind of around the area where the train station is, just down from the Dolan swimming baths, just in that community. It's right on the edge of Stuartfield.
[2:02] Stuartfield is a huge housing estate where there's no church at all. And the community where we are as well, there's very little gospel witness in that community.
[2:13] And so we would love you to join with us in praying for labourers for that work. And we would love you to pray that in time we would be able to establish a gospel church where that would preach the gospel and would reach out to many in that community.
[2:34] We got the keys for the building where we plan to meet just on Wednesday there. So we can give thanks to the Lord for his good provision of a building as well. And we're just, yeah, we're working towards that.
[2:47] So we would greatly, greatly appreciate your prayers for that. If you've got your Bibles, we're going to read just now from Romans chapter 10. We're going to be in Romans chapter 10, a passage that I'm sure is well known to many of us.
[3:05] We're going to be reading from verse 5 through to 21. And we're going to be looking this morning at the only message that saves.
[3:19] The only message that saves. I think if you're using, if you don't have a Bible with you, I think if you're using one of the ones that are here, it's on page 890. If you're using one of those.
[3:31] But it's good to have your Bible open and for us to read this together. And just before I read, let us just commit this time to the Lord. Let's pray. Father, as we come now to your perfect word, your word that gives life, your word that is wholly sufficient to reveal Christ to us.
[4:02] Father, we pray that as we come to your word, you would speak to us. Help us always to remember that as your word is read and preached, these are your words.
[4:17] And we bow our hearts before them. And we ask, Lord, that you would speak into our hearts. In Jesus' name. Amen.
[4:32] Romans chapter 10 from verse 5. For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.
[4:47] But the righteousness based on faith says, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down, or who will descend into the abyss, that is to bring Christ up from the dead.
[5:01] But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith that we proclaim. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
[5:20] For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the scripture says, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.
[5:31] For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For everyone who calls in the name of the Lord will be saved.
[5:44] How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
[5:58] And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. But they have not all obeyed the gospel.
[6:09] For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. But I ask, have they not heard?
[6:23] Indeed they have. For their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says, I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation.
[6:38] With a foolish nation, I will make you angry. Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, I have been found by those who did not seek me. I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.
[6:51] But of Israel, he says, all day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people. Amen.
[7:02] This is the word of the Lord. Well, this section of Paul's letter to the church in Rome is well known, I'm sure, to many of us.
[7:14] It's a rich summary of the gospel, and how the gospel is spread and received. Paul moves us from the impossibility of achieving righteousness through our own works, to the simplicity of salvation through faith in Christ, to the necessity of proclaiming that gospel so that all may hear.
[7:37] at the very heart of the passage is a simple, powerful progression. Hearing leads to believing. Believing leads to confessing.
[7:49] And confessing leads to salvation. If you remember a little else from today, try to remember that. Hearing leads to believing. Believing leads to confessing.
[8:01] And confessing leads to salvation. And this morning, we'll trace that progression. And lying behind that progression are two core convictions.
[8:12] These are convictions that I know many of us share because these ought to be the convictions of every believer and of every gospel church. The first is that salvation comes through the preaching of the gospel.
[8:26] People are not saved by some sense of vague spirituality. They are not saved by seeing good works.
[8:38] They're not saved by actions without words. They are saved when the gospel is proclaimed, preached and shared. And through the preaching of God's word, their eyes are opened and they are enabled by the Holy Spirit to believe upon the Lord Jesus.
[8:56] And the second conviction is that the church exists to proclaim the gospel. That's why we're here. From this neighborhood to the nations, the gospel must be preached.
[9:10] The local church is the means by which God is chosen to declare his gospel message to the world. It is through God's people, his chosen ambassadors, that the message of the king is delivered to the world.
[9:27] So let us walk through this passage carefully. And as we do, let us listen, not only for understanding, but also for obedience. Because, you know, this is one of these passages that is not difficult to understand.
[9:39] It's not a tricky passage. There are some tricky passages in the Bible. I don't think this is one of them. The question at the end of the sermon, as you leave the door, is not really going to be, do you understand it?
[9:55] The question is, are we going to live by it? Will we do what the word of God says? So let's begin with Paul at verse 5.
[10:08] And we see, first of all, the futility of self-righteousness. We see these in verses 5 through to 8. Paul explains to the Christians in Rome and to us today that man-made religion, seeking God in our own terms or relying in any way upon ourselves for salvation, is futile.
[10:31] Here's what Paul says in verse 5. He says, For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.
[10:44] So here's a question for you. It's kind of a trick question, but don't worry about that. Is it possible to get to heaven by keeping God's law?
[10:58] Here's a question. Is it possible to get to heaven by keeping God's law? I'll not ask for a yes or no, hands up or down, but just give me a nod or a shake, yes or no. Is it possible to get to heaven by keeping God's law?
[11:12] There's a few shakes, a couple of nods. Well, Paul says, and I did say it was a bit of a trick question, but Paul says that according to Moses, the answer is yes.
[11:25] It is possible to get to heaven by keeping God's law. Now, before you start throwing your Bibles at me, okay, let me ask you another question.
[11:36] How much of God's law do you need to keep in order to get to heaven? I'll make it easy for you. I'll give you some options. A, most of it. B, nearly all of it.
[11:48] C, more than your next door neighbor. Or D, absolutely all of it. It's D, isn't it?
[11:58] Absolutely. The only way to righteousness by the law is to keep absolutely all of it. Every single part of it kept perfectly.
[12:11] And so let me reword that first question. Is it possible for you or for me to get to heaven by keeping God's law? I want you to answer that question in your head because I'm assuming that we've said no it's not.
[12:31] Because none of us keeps God's law perfectly. None of us can say that we have kept every command of God perfectly. None of us can say that we always love and honor God as we ought.
[12:46] None of us can say that we love our neighbor as we should. None of us can claim that we're always truthful, always just, never self-centered and never proud. And in the book of James it tells us that to stumble in even just one point of the law is to be guilty of breaking the whole law.
[13:08] And that's why self-righteousness is futile. Because it doesn't matter what good we do for God. It doesn't cancel out the sin that we've committed.
[13:19] And just as in ancient Rome it is true in Bells Hill today perhaps even for some of us that there is always a great temptation for us to try and base our standing before God on our own self-righteousness.
[13:40] Whether that's dressed up in religious clothing, how we attend church so faithfully, how over the years we've done this thing and the next thing for the Lord.
[13:52] Or whether it's our sense of relative morality that you know if you asked my friends, if you asked my colleagues they would agree that I'm a good person.
[14:03] I'm confident that when you stand up at my funeral service they'll say that I was a good man or a good woman. Or perhaps it's based on what we've achieved in our work or the things that we've done for our family.
[14:22] family. But you see because at the very core because Paul has already said in the book of Romans that we have all fallen short of his glory, we have all sinned, looking to God and looking for his acceptance based on things that we have done is a futile act.
[14:49] But despite that, humanity never tires, does it, of inventing its own way to God. Every false religion is a new version of the same old story, I will climb my way to heaven.
[15:03] But here Paul reminds us that we do not need to ascend into heaven to bring Christ down, nor do we need to descend into the abyss to bring him up. God has already done the work.
[15:15] Christ has already come down, lived the life we failed to live, died the death we deserved, and been raised in power. And you see, this is the wonder of grace, that the life-giving message of the gospel is near to us.
[15:33] Christ has brought it near. We don't need to go on a great quest or a great search to find God. We don't need to go on some mammoth spiritual journey to discover for ourselves who he is.
[15:52] Christ has revealed God to us, and we have it in his word, showing us who he is, that he is near to us, that this life-giving message of the gospel is near to us, in our hearts and in our mouths.
[16:10] Because you see, salvation is not hidden in secret knowledge, it's not hidden in vague spirituality, it's not hidden in amazing good deeds or heroic achievements, it is brought near to us in the person and the work of Christ.
[16:29] Christ. And then Paul brings us on in verses 9 to 13 to show us the simplicity of the gospel. In these verses, Paul says in verse 9, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
[16:52] For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. The scripture says everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame, for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.
[17:12] And what that means is verse 13, that everyone who calls in the name of the Lord will be saved. Paul gives here the clearest and most beautiful summaries of salvation.
[17:26] If we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. You notice the order.
[17:37] Hearing comes first, but then believing in the heart, confessing with the mouth, and salvation follows. So let's unpack that.
[17:50] What does it look like to believe in our hearts? Well, to believe that God raised Jesus from the dead is not merely to accept a historical fact.
[18:01] It's not merely to say, well, yeah, I believe that there was somebody called Jesus roaming around the Middle East 2,000 years ago, and I believe that historically he was crucified, and yeah, somehow other people saw him afterwards again.
[18:22] It's not simply to accept historical fact. It is to trust that in the death and the resurrection of Christ that he died for your sins and was raised for your justification.
[18:38] It is to believe that that historical fact of Christ's death and resurrection has everlasting power for those who would believe in it and place their trust in it.
[18:48] it is to believe that Christ now reigns at the right hand of the father because he is the only one who went through death and was not held by the curse of death because he was free from sin and instead was raised in power to be seated at the right hand of God.
[19:06] It is to rest the whole weight of your hope upon Christ. I was talking to someone not so long ago and a man who is relatively new to church and he said I don't have a problem believing that Jesus died for me and was raised again.
[19:33] He said my problem is ending the sentence there. He said because what I want to say is that Christ died for me and Christ was raised and I have done this or that or he said I struggle to put the full stop and to place all of my trust in what Christ has done and none of it in what I've done.
[20:05] and it was a very honest reflection from this man that he wasn't yet saved and that he was asking the Lord to help him to put the full stop at the end of the sentence of what Christ has done for him.
[20:26] To believe in our heart is to rest the whole weight of our hope, the whole weight of our life, the whole weight of our salvation upon Christ and Christ alone.
[20:38] To resist the temptation to add anything to Christ but as the hymn says to wholly trust in Jesus' name. And Paul brings us on that believing we confess confess.
[20:58] And confessing with the mouth, often when we hear that word confess, we perhaps think of that sense of perhaps going to someone to confess our sin.
[21:10] We perhaps think of those in the Roman Catholic faith who would go to confession. But of course we see here that confession, if you like, as we will know it, is part of true Orthodox faith.
[21:26] To confess to the Lord, to confess our sins to him and to confess our faith in him with our mouth. Not to confess through someone else but to confess to Christ.
[21:41] To confess that Jesus Lord is again not simply to say certain words but it's to openly acknowledge before God and man that Jesus is king.
[21:53] Now of course remember who Paul writes this to. Because you see, yeah you do, you still have it on your banner here, Bells Hill Baptist Church, what does it say right above it?
[22:04] Proclaiming King Jesus. Now I'm quite confident that you could take that banner and you could take that tagline and you could blow it up to whatever size you like and stick it on the outside of this building and it wouldn't cause a huge amount of controversy in the town.
[22:23] But remember who Paul's writing to. Paul's writing to Christians in Rome and Christians in Rome 2,000 years ago lived in a city where the only king in Rome was Caesar.
[22:41] The Christians in Rome had put proclaiming King Jesus Rome Baptist Church. I'm not going to claim that the church in Rome was a Baptist church but maybe a bit much.
[22:53] But anyway proclaiming King Jesus and they were to blow it up to a great size and hang it from wherever it was that they were meeting. That would have caused a riot, confusion and probably the arrest and the killing of these believers because to claim that anyone but Caesar is king was a great crime.
[23:17] But for these believers Paul said that they were to do exactly that. They were to do exactly that. They were to lay down their lives and confess that Jesus is Lord.
[23:36] And just for the church in Rome perhaps differently but nonetheless all the same there is still a cost to following Christ for us.
[23:47] Because we can no more call Jesus Lord while clinging to the throne of our lives than a defeated general can shake hands with his conqueror while still clutching his sword.
[24:00] There's a story of Admiral Nelson who came face to face with an enemy soldier and they had defeated the enemy and the soldier reached out his hand to shake Nelson's hand and Admiral Nelson said your sword first.
[24:22] In other words I'm not shaking your hand until you've put down your sword. Once you put down your sword I can shake your hand. And it's true for us with the Lord Jesus.
[24:35] We cannot embrace the Lord Jesus as our friend and our saviour while still claiming to be on the throne of our own lives. We must lay down our sword.
[24:49] Confess that Christ is Lord. Bow the knee. Gladly submit. And then embrace him as our saviour and our friend.
[25:00] And then we see this wonderful promise that salvation is for everyone who believes and confesses.
[25:12] Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. Verse 11. Verse 13. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Think of who this includes.
[25:25] Fishermen like Peter as Raymond had opened us with who denied Christ three times. Tax collectors like Zacchaeus. Persecutors like Saul.
[25:37] Adulterers like the woman at the well. Think of who this includes today. The religious and the irreligious. The moral and the immoral. The sceptic and the seeker. All who call on Christ are saved by the same grace.
[25:51] And so that means that there are no second-class citizens in the kingdom of God. There are no believers more or less important than others in the church. And what it means is that no matter how messy your background is or how different you feel to others in the church, you are saved by the same grace.
[26:12] And so Paul would tell us elsewhere that we ought not to think of ourselves more highly or indeed equally less worthy of this grace than we ought. God.
[26:24] No one in the church should find ourselves thinking ourselves more highly than another. No one in the church should find themselves thinking themselves less worthy of this grace than someone else. For none of us are deserving of this grace, but all are saved by it.
[26:40] how wonderful it is to know the simplicity of the gospel, to know that there is nothing that we can do to be saved, but that Christ has done it all and to place all of our trust in him.
[26:58] And Paul, having given us this incredible truth that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, immediately then moves on to ask a series of piercing questions in verse 14 and 15.
[27:14] Do you see the chain that Paul gives us in these questions? Paul basically tells us that people cannot be saved unless they call on Christ. And they cannot call on Christ unless they believe.
[27:29] And they cannot believe unless they hear. And they cannot hear unless someone preaches. And preachers cannot preach unless they are sent.
[27:44] And this is why preaching is at the very heart of the church's mission. You see, preaching is not a man-made invention. It is God's chosen method for bringing sinners to salvation.
[27:59] Faith doesn't come by vague inspiration. It doesn't come by being a good person or doing good deeds. But it comes by hearing the word proclaimed.
[28:09] Paul says, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. But you know, the truth is that gospel messengers often do not look impressive.
[28:31] The truth is that their feet are often battered and bruised from long journeys. people are often but it is their work, their message that is beautiful because it brings life.
[28:48] Do not look for impressive preachers. Do not look for impressive gospel messengers who look shiny on the outside and who will gladly day in day out preach a message that makes you feel warm and fuzzy.
[29:12] Instead, gospel messengers are often people who look unimpressive, whose feet are battered and bruised, but who faithfully proclaim the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
[29:32] And of course it reminds us, doesn't it, that faith comes, verse 17, from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
[29:44] You know, one of the best things, in fact, the very best thing that we can do for someone is to invite them to come and to hear the word of Christ.
[29:57] It's the best thing that we can do for someone. We are confronted, I'm sure, in our families, in our communities, amongst our neighbours and our colleagues, I'm sure we're confronted regularly with people in need.
[30:13] People who are struggling, broken, finding life difficult. I don't know what you're like, but my temptation is always to kind of think, how can I help?
[30:24] What can I do? And I need to remind myself, and I think we all need to remind ourselves, that the very best thing that we can do for someone is to invite them to hear the word of Christ.
[30:41] Because that is what will enable them to have faith. And I can be kind, and I can do something nice for them, and I can go out of my way to support them.
[30:56] But if I'm not inviting them to hear the word of Christ, then all I'm doing is helping to meet a physical need for someone that I know is spiritually dead.
[31:11] God's word is the greatest thing that we could do for someone. And so whether that's inviting them yourself to sit and to look at the Bible together, or whether it's to invite them to come on a Sunday, and to come and to hear the gospel being preached, inviting someone to church so that they would have the opportunity to sit under the preaching of God's word is the greatest thing that we could do for someone.
[31:42] And I've got a bit of encouragement for you, because there was a survey that came out just over the summer, and it asked, this was a survey that was commissioned by Passion for Life, a Christian evangelistic organisation, but it was conducted by a regular survey company, what are they called?
[32:07] You know these folks that phone up and ask all different questions, questions, and they were asking questions about what would someone do if they were interested in finding out about Christianity, and so they asked a couple of thousand non-Christian people, if you were interested in finding out about Christianity, what would you do?
[32:28] And they gave them different options, going to a course, looking online, different things. the number one answer was go to church with a friend.
[32:43] The number one answer. Before attending a course that would explain the Christian faith, before going online to try and find out themselves, before any of the other options they were given, the number one answer was go to church with a friend.
[32:57] And I don't know about you, but I sometimes think that asking my friend, my non-Christian friend to church is the scariest thing in the world. But yet, that was the thing that came out of the top.
[33:16] Inviting them to come, inviting them to come and to hear the word of Christ being preached. But yet, Paul was realistic.
[33:28] Not all who hear will believe. Paul goes on in verses 16 to 21 to show us that Israel had heard, but many had rejected.
[33:40] Isaiah laments, Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us? He's basically saying, we've told everybody about you. And it seems like nobody believes.
[33:53] But you know, this reminds us of three truths. hearing is necessary, but it's not a guarantee. Some people will hear, but they will not believe.
[34:07] Some people will hear, but they won't believe straight away. the word must be received with faith. It reminds us that God reveals himself to outsiders.
[34:22] Because you see, what we saw here is that Israel, the very people who should have believed, were the people who didn't. But yet, they were others. They were others that God was calling to himself.
[34:39] And it reminds us that sometimes we can look at our friends and we can think, well, I should probably invite them to church, but there's no way that they would ever believe. Well, maybe they are the skeptic that the Lord will call.
[34:54] Because sometimes those that God calls are those who weren't seeking God. It was the Gentiles, or it's the atheists, the skeptics that are found by him.
[35:07] All the while, those who might look religious miss the point. And this should humble us, and it should remind us that salvation is all of grace.
[35:22] And it reminds us, doesn't it, that God is patient, even though many are disobedient. Verse 21 pictures God stretching out his hands all day long, to a disobedient people.
[35:38] I have been found by those who did not seek me. I have shown myself to those who did not ask me, ask for me. But all day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.
[35:54] God is amazingly patient, but yet we still see that despite the patience of the Lord, he is still spurned by some.
[36:09] So Christian, do not be discouraged if not everyone that you share with believes. The response is not in your hands.
[36:22] Our task is to sow the seed, our task is to invite people to come and to hear the word of Christ. And some will not respond the way that we would want, but others sometimes, sometimes the least expected will believe.
[36:46] And so as we finish, what does this mean for us today? Let me finish just with a few brief applications. first of all, if you're here this morning, perhaps you could identify with that man that I spoke about who said that he could believe that Christ had died for him and been raised again, but he wasn't able to place his whole trust on that truth.
[37:20] If you can identify with that sense of saying, yes, I know what Jesus has done for me and I believe that, but I'm also adding this to my salvation, my church attendance or my good works or what I've done for my family, whatever it might be.
[37:51] Can I gently say to you that that is not true faith in Christ? True faith in Christ is to stand on him and on him alone, to recognize that there is nothing that we bring to our salvation.
[38:15] Can I encourage you to take time to think about that, that, to pray on that, to ask that the Lord would help you to stand on the finished work of Christ, to set aside the things that you've done, even though everyone in this room would say, yes, those are good things, but they are not sufficient for salvation.
[38:45] Can I encourage you to examine what you believe about Christ and to know that we must stand on what he has done alone?
[39:02] Brothers and sisters, I think I've explained already, haven't I, the importance of us sharing our faith and inviting others to come to church.
[39:16] But let me remind us that we should not think that our kindness or our good works or our hospitality by themselves will save anyone.
[39:27] Those things are good and necessary, they adorn the gospel, they make the gospel look beautiful. when Christ's people look beautiful in how we live and how we act, they make the gospel look beautiful, but they're not enough for someone to believe.
[39:46] Salvation comes only through the word being preached. Can I encourage us to be more ready to open our mouths, to speak of Christ, to speak with our children, to speak with our neighbours, to invite our friends to come and to hear.
[40:04] Can I speak to us as a church? Because Paul's chain of logic ends with the need of sending people. And this is where the whole church comes in.
[40:16] Because we're called to be ascending and supporting people. That means being involved in praying and perhaps even in time planting churches where there are none.
[40:33] It means revitalising weak congregations, it means sending missionaries to the nations, it means supporting those who are taking the gospel to places where people haven't heard of Christ.
[40:46] And it can be easy to think that we can't do much. Because let's face it, all of our churches, all of our local churches are pretty unimpressive, aren't they? We can look around any of our local churches and think, what do we think we can do for the gospel?
[41:05] But yet isn't that how God often chooses to work? Using what looks unimpressive, weak and insignificant to the world to spread his gospel and to grow his kingdom so that it would be abundantly clear that the power belongs to the Lord.
[41:23] You know I often use the analogy of the church being like a life boat. world. You've had this call, you're part of the volunteer crew, you've had this call that there's a ship out at sea and it sent a distress call.
[41:42] And tragically the ship that is out at sea is a distress call, it's a cruise liner, it is packed full of people. And it's a case of grab your kit and get on the lifeboat and get out there as quick as you can.
[41:55] And as you travel as fast as you can across the water and as the waves are battering the side of the lifeboat and you head towards the cruise liner in distress, the question that goes through your mind is how many do we want to save?
[42:19] Surely, surely the answer is everyone. lifeboat speeds towards the people and we quickly realise that we can't get all these people in our lifeboat because our lifeboat is small and insignificant and it looks like nothing compared to this vast cruise liner.
[42:48] And so what are we doing? We're on the radio, aren't we? And we're saying get every lifeboat there is out here beside us, call the helicopter, do whatever needs to be done to get more out here to join us.
[43:10] Is that not what Paul is encouraging these Christians in Rome to do? to realise that in the city that they are in and the town that we are in we are called, we are called to be those who are out proclaiming that message, that life saving message.
[43:33] But we're called to be supporting and sending others as well because the world is too great a harvest field for Bells Hill Baptist Church. it needs gospel churches all over this land and all over the nations who would go and who would proclaim the good news of our Lord Jesus, that beautiful good news, because we believe with all that we are that faith comes from hearing and hearing comes through the word of Christ.
[44:10] let's pray. Precious Heavenly Father, we come now and Lord we bring this town and the nations to you.
[44:32] Lord we pray that your gospel indeed would go forth that people in this town and people throughout this world would hear your gospel being proclaimed.
[44:50] They would hear the life-giving message of Jesus Christ. Father, we are humbled that you would choose to use us in that mission.
[45:04] salvation. Because Lord, we know that we are jars of clay, we are broken and fragile and unimpressive people.
[45:19] Lord, we feel our weakness. But Lord, we are reminded that salvation belongs to you and that you use your church to proclaim the good news.
[45:35] And that you are the one who takes that word and you are the one who grants faith. And so Father, would you work in each of us.
[45:50] As we sung before this message, Lord, would you give us a passion for your name that would see the gospel go out into this community and that we would be able to play our part in seeing that good news go to the ends of the earth.
[46:23] Remind us, Lord, that we have a task to do, that you have placed us in this harvest field, that we might scatter in soul the word of Christ and that we might rejoice in a harvest of souls that brings glory to your son.
[46:51] this, Lord, we long to see in our day. Would you be kind enough to us, Lord, to help us to see fruit from our labours?
[47:05] Would you be kind enough, Lord, to allow us to see people in this town giving their life to Christ and choosing to follow him for the rest of our lives?
[47:17] Father, we ask this in the precious name of Jesus. Amen. We're going to close our time together.
[47:32] We're going to sing O Praise the Names. So let us stand and sing together.