A Passion for Proclamation

I forget exactly when it was, but several weeks, maybe a couple of months ago, Pastor Mike Berry described a worship experience that he had a few years back when, when Vladimir Guerrero got Game-winning hit in Fenway Park to sink the Red Sox' hope for a championship run during the 2009 Division Series playoffs. That's Vlady, him getting his game-winning hit to sink my team, the Boston Red Sox. Needless to say, I don't know that I appreciated what Pastor Mike had to share, but I forgive him.

I would like to draw your attention to another moment in baseball history.

The year was 2004. The Red Sox had lost, and there's Luke up there laughing already. The Red Sox had lost the 1st 3 games in a best of 7 to the New York Yankees. Miraculously, the Red Sox were able to tie the 4th game in the bottom of the 9th inning off of the greatest relief pitcher to ever play the game.

The game remained tied until David Ortiz stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the 12th inning. Now keep in mind the Red Sox had lost the 1st 3 games. They needed to win 4 games in a row. This was the first of the 4 that they needed to win, and here we are in the midst of a nail biter.

It's the bottom of the 12th, and David Ortiz, affectionately referred to as Papi. I call him Pappy. Steps up to the plate, and it was then that he drilled a pitch into the Boston bullpen for one of the greatest walk-off wins in the history of baseball, and there he is, celebrating with his fist in the air, the hit, the home run, that he just hit in order to propel the Red Sox to, to a win. The fans erupted, and you would have thought by the way the team celebrated on the field, that an 86 year curse had already been broken.

They had been winless in the World Series for 86 years, and here in 2004, they are attempting to break this supposed curse of the great Bambino. And, and the Red Sox would ultimately go on to defeat the Yankees on their way to the first World Series championship in 86 years. None of that would have happened had it not been for the heroics of David Ortiz in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series. The good news of Pappy's home run has been passionately proclaimed countless times by Red Sox fans everywhere, and not that this means a big deal to you guys since you are not necessarily Red Sox fans, but to me as a member of Red Sox Nation, this is a big deal, and I will admit that I have observed the video footage of Pappy hitting this home run probably 150.

Time since 2004, whenever I, I need to feel good about my team, I'll go back and I'll show the video again. And the funny thing about this video is when you watch Pappy run the bases and he turns around, he comes to third, he turns the corner, he's coming into home, throws his helmet in the air, and you look at his teammates on the other side of the plate, you would have thought that. They had just then broken the curse and had won the World Series. The celebration, the joy, the excitement, and to watch the fans, the fans in Fenway Park, the minute the ball was crushed, lifting their hands, standing to their feet, shouting at the top of their lungs, high fiving one another, there was joy inexpressible at that moment.

Indeed, to Red Sox fans everywhere, that was a great moment. It is perfectly appropriate for Boston fans to recall, celebrate, and even proclaim that moment. But how much more should we as God's people recall, celebrate, and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ? Indeed, we have every reason in the world to passionately proclaim Jesus.

Our message this morning is entitled A Passion. For proclamation, 6 truths to encourage us in our proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so if you have your Bibles, you can turn there to First John. If you do not have your Bible, the text is on the screen behind me.

First John chapter 1. First John chapter one. Listen to the word of the Lord. What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled concerning the word of life.

And the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us, what we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you also, that you also may have fellowship with us, and indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write. So that our joy, that our joy may be made complete. Again, the message is entitled A Passion for Proclamation, 6 Truths to encourage us in our proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I submit to you brothers and sisters, that we have every reason in the world to lift our hands and praise and to shout unto the Lord, the glory of the Lord before a lost and dying world who are, who have no hope and are without Christ. And so let us go ahead and have at it truth number one, the Jesus we proclaim is divine, the Jesus that we proclaim is divine, the Jesus that you preach, the Jesus that you talk about, the Jesus that you bring to the lost and dying, that Jesus is divine, and we see this in In First John chapter one, at the very beginning when he says, what was from the beginning, he's referring to Jesus as the one who was from the beginning.

He is not saying that he was the first one created. He is saying that at the beginning, when all things were created, there was Jesus, what was from The beginning.

If you were to cross reference John's Gospel, moving away from his epistle here onto his gospel, and look at first, look at the Gospel of John in chapter one, just, just know that he said that in the beginning, in the beginning, again, the same term being used, what was from the beginning, here it is in the beginning, he says, was the word. The word the Lagos, he says the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He's going to go on later to say the Word became flesh. Clearly, this is a reference to Jesus.

He goes in verse in verse two to say he was in the beginning with God, all things came into being by him, by Jesus, and apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. In other words, this Jesus that we are referring to the one from the beginning, he is nothing less than divinity, he is nothing less than God Himself. He is God, God, He is eternally God, all the way back in eternity past, we have this Jesus, who did exist. Brothers and sisters, when you proclaim Christ, you proclaim the one who was from the beginning.

To say that Jesus is eternal then is to affirm nothing less than his divinity. So John begins with the eternality of Jesus. This is a truth that serves to underscore the fact that Jesus is divine, He is God, the Jesus that we proclaim is great, and we should fear no man when seeking to make him known because he is the Almighty One. We should be encouraged in our proclamation because the one we proclaim is God.

He is the one who has been from the beginning. Let's move to the next point. Number 2, OK, having established his divinity. We move to 2, the Jesus we proclaim is human, the Jesus that we proclaim is human, he is human.

And so the picture that is being painted here is that of Almighty God becoming a man, Jesus became a man, and John is underscoring this as he is proceeding to, to, to preach forth the gospel. Notice what he says in verse one, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes. What we beheld and our hands handled concerning the word of life. And so based upon this section of the passage, we discovered that Jesus was in fact heard.

And notice he says what we have heard, not just John, but John and the apostles and anyone else who would have been there. Here, John, I believe is representing himself and the apostles, and part of his ministry team, those who were with him, he's saying, we have heard him, Jesus was heard. Well, what did you hear him say, John? What did you hear him say?

If you go to John's Gospel, he would say, what? There is so much that he said and so much that he did, we don't, we, we can't even record it all, there's so much. But since you're asking, let me tell you a few of the things that he said, and he records these things in his gospel. In John 6:48, we, we hear Jesus saying, I am the bread of life.

In 8:12, John 8:12, we read, Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life. In John chapter 8, verse 58, the scribes and the Pharisees are questioning Jesus, and saying, surely you are not greater than our Father Abraham, and Jesus responds to them by saying, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. And in John 10:9, Jesus refers to himself as the door.

He says, I am the door, I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture. John 10:11, Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

John 11:25, Jesus said to her, I am the. direction and the life. I am the life. He who believes in me shall live, shall live even if he dies.

John 14:6, Jesus says, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. And then John 15:5, I am the true vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing. So if you were to ask John, John, what were some of the things that you heard Jesus say, John would point to these things. This is some of what I heard Jesus say, and he records these things for us in his gospel. So Jesus spoke, he spoke audibly, and he was heard by those who were in earshot of him.

But not only was Jesus heard, Jesus was seen by. The apostles and others, Jesus was seen. And, and if you were to ask John, John, what did you see Jesus do? What is it that you saw in the life of Jesus?

What did you observe with your eyeballs? And he would say, for example, in John chapter 2, well, well, we saw him turn water into wine. That was the first of his miracles. We saw him John chapter 4, healing the official son of his.

Extreme illness. John chapter 5, we saw him healing a man paralyzed for 38 years. He healed this man at the pool of Bethesda. And in John chapter 6, John says, we saw Jesus, feeding of the 5000.

Later in chapter 6, John says, we saw Jesus walking on the water, walking on the water. Chapter 9, we saw him healing a man that was born blind. He healed a blind man, a man that could never see, not from birth. He had never had the experience of eyesight, and yet he, he gave to him eyesight.

That is what we saw. John would say, we saw him raising Lazarus from the dead. He was dead, and yet Jesus Christ raised him from the dead. That is what we saw.

And these are just some of the miracles that John would point to. John might even say, what? We saw Jesus. At the Lord's supper, his final supper, we saw him bend down very low, to wash the feet of the disciples.

He washed my feet. That's what we saw from Jesus, and we would see him. We would see him being forsaken. We would see him being abandoned as the Roman guards came to seize him and to take him along the path that led him to his crucifixion at the cross.

That is what we saw. We saw him hanging on the cross, suffering and beaten down in absolute agony and torture and torment and pain, crying out to his God, my God, my God. Why have you forsaken me? This is what we saw.

And this is what we heard the apostle John would say. You see, we are underscoring here the fact of the historicity of Jesus. This is no myth. This is no fairy tale.

Jesus is real, and he came into this world, and he lived amongst us, and this is John's burden. This is what he wants for his readers to sink their teeth into. Yes, we saw Him. We saw him dying on the cross, but what?

We saw that the Lord Jesus was raised bodily from the dead. Three days later, he was raised in resurrection power, raised bodily from the dead, and we saw Him there. 2, we saw him. I'll tell you about my friend Thomas, Thomas would not believe and he says, I've got to see him.

I've got to touch his scars. And Jesus appears to him and shows himself up to Thomas and says, Here I am, touch me, touch me. Touch me. And so we know this from this passage that Jesus was heard, he was seen.

Let's move to this next thing. Jesus was beheld, he was beheld. Now you might think that he's essentially saying this, well, you already said he was seen. Well, he's going further than that.

He, he, it's not just that he was seen, but he was beheld. The idea behind this is the fact this is what John is communicating. We, we thought deeply. About this one.

We meditated heavily upon this Jesus. We heard what he said, and we gave careful thought to what he said, we observed what he did, and we gave careful thought to what he did. We beheld him, we thought long, hard and deep about this word of life, this eternal life, this life manifest. We, we beheld him and then he goes on to say, Essentially, the point being here that we touched him.

Jesus was touched. He was touched. Could you imagine what it would have been like in his earthly ministry, to get to hang out with Jesus, and to be able to shake hands with the Messiah, to be able to greet him with a holy kiss, to be able to come to Him with all of your depravity, and all of your brokenness, and say to Jesus, I need help. And to have Jesus respond to you in compassion.

Could you imagine what that would have been like to literally have been there? And John is saying, we touched him. We touched the Messiah. He's real.

He's physical. He's not some apparition. He's, he's there and we were there and we hung out with him and we fellowship with him. We touched him.

Thomas touched him, and that's all the reason he needed to say, My Lord, my Lord, and my God. And so really, the bottom line, what is John seeking to get off of his chest here? The bottom line is this, that the life, the life who is Jesus, Jesus was manifested, the words here speaks of openly revealed for everyone to see. This isn't some secret Gnostic insight, some secret wisdom, some secret knowledge.

Jesus didn't keep himself a secret. He revealed himself openly and publicly. And John says the life was manifested for everyone to see. He didn't go hiding in a corner, so to speak, but he revealed himself plainly.

He revealed himself plainly. Notice he says in verse 2, and the life was manifested. And he's reiterating what he has already said, which is quite John-like. He says, and we have seen and bear witness, and we proclaim to you, we proclaim to you the eternal life.

Do you get a sense from John himself that his proclamation was charged with passion? We proclaim to you, we proclaim to you the eternal life. We've seen that we bear witness and we proclaim to you the eternal life. Part of what's going on here is he is underscoring the historicity of Jesus, is he not?

He's historical. He really existed in time, space, and history. And, and one of the things that, that I think about is, is going back to my college days. I grew up as a nonbeliever.

And I landed myself at Cal State San Bernardino, and for about the 1st 2.5, 3 years, I was a nonbeliever. And on a whim, I decided what, whatever, I'll be a history major. The, the day came and I had to make a decision and I thought, what, I'll major in something I know nothing about. And so I became a history major.

And I was forced. As a history major. To deal with the historicity of Jesus. I took a class on the history of world religion, and I studied the five major world religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.

I studied those religions, and one of the things that was unavoidable to me is the fact that the death and the resurrection of Jesus was something that really happened in history. And so you see what happened is God used my study of history, in order to get me to a place where I would believe in the historical Jesus as revealed through God's word. And so for a season, I was an unconverted believer. I assented to the truth, but I had yet to be born again.

And eventually what would happen in December of 1991, I would be up there in San Francisco for the first time, I would hear the gospel, and my eyes would be opened. My eyes were opened. I saw what I I had never seen before. I saw that Jesus came, not for the righteous, but for the unrighteous.

He came to seek and to save that which was lost. And you might be here this morning, you may be a young person this morning, you've never come to faith in Jesus. And I want you to understand that what I am telling you is no fairy tale. It is something that is rooted in history.

Jesus Christ really did die on the cross for your sins. He was raised bodily from the dead, so that in him, you might have life. If you ever want to experience life the way it was meant to be experienced, you've got to come to Jesus. You've got to have an encounter with Jesus.

You have to come to this place where you can say with absolute certainty that I know the one who is life. I know Jesus. I know him. I've been born again.

It's not just head knowledge. It's not just what mom and dad told me to believe, but I know it with absolute certainty that this Christianity, this Jesus is true. He is true. Brothers and sisters.

Proclaim Jesus with absolute confidence that what you proclaim is historically verifiable. There is no question about it, proclaim Jesus, knowing that there are many who are clueless about the historicity of Christianity, many out there dying and going to hell and they have never heard And they don't understand, and they are ignorant, and they need to be confronted with the facts of Jesus, and God would have you to passionately proclaim the Messiah to a lost and dying generation going to hell without hope and without God in the world.

You are surrounded by need. And God through His word this morning is speaking to you, and he I want you to know that he has called you to proclaim the gospel.

He has called you as his children with a high and holy calling to make Christ known. You've got friends and family members, you've got neighbors, you've got coworkers, you've got kids on your little league team, you've got kids on your soccer team. You are surrounded by people that need to know the Messiah. They need to.

and God is speaking to you and he is saying, I want to use you. I want to use you as an instrument of my grace, and I will use you. I am the God who became man, who is the one who will impart life and just trust in me and take steps of faith and make Christ known, make Him known. Well, this is going to lead us to the next point, number 3, that the Jesus we proclaim his life, the Jesus we proclaim His life, be encouraged with who it is that you proclaim.

He is life. Here in this passage at the end of verse one, he's described as the word of life. At the beginning of verse 2, he is described as the manifested life or the life that was manifested. And there in the middle of verse two, he is described as the eternal life.

Again, the idea that as the eternal life, he is the life and the life that, that is him is a life that has existed eternally. And he is at the end of the day, the source of life. He is the one through whom we experience life. The use of the word life, the Greek word is zo.

this, this word, as it's used in connection to Jesus, can speak of a life that is marked by vitality. A life that is animate. A life that is full, full, one that is active and vigorous, devoted to God, blessed, marked by happiness, a life that extends itself, it imparts life. And I know, I know, many of you, the majority of you have experienced this one who is eternal life.

You have experienced life in Christ. He has made a difference and continues to make a difference in your life. And you can say with absolute certainty, I know the one who is the resurrection and the life, I know him. And you just know him and that Him.

He who is the life has imparted life to you, going back to when I was born again way back in 1991. 1 of the things that I remember about that as I came to the one who is life, and on the other side of that, I myself experienced life. I just remember experiencing this life for the first time. I was dead.

And those who don't have Christ, they are dead. They are not alive. They are not experiencing life in the sense that we are called to experience life, they are dead. And when I, when I went from the domain of darkness into the light, when I came to life in the Lord Jesus, everything changed.

And you can testify to that reality too, can't you? Christ has made a difference in your life. The impartation of the life of Christ to you has caused you to experience life in a full way, in an abundant way. I remember Just being freed from sins, guilt and power, and the burden lifted, I felt alive.

I remember experiencing this peace with God, a peace that I had never known before and being at rest in my Savior, and I felt alive. I remember having a joy that I had never had before. It was a joy that was an honest joy. It was a joy that was an acceptable joy.

It was not a joy that was connected with anything. sinful. I did not have to sin to be joyful. I needed Christ to be joyful, and I was experiencing this joy.

This is quality of life that we are talking about. And this is what Jesus wants to offer to all of those who don't know Him. And this is what he wants for you to give to those who don't know him. He wants you to pass Jesus on to those people.

Want to move us on then to the next point. We've talked about how Jesus is divine, Jesus is human, he his life. Truth number 4, Jesus. The Jesus we proclaim is relational.

The Jesus that we proclaim is relational. Now follow with me here. I'm gonna start with verse two, just to kinda review a little bit before we get to the main part of the passage to focus on. And the life was manifest, and we have seen and we bear witness, and we proclaim to you the eternal life.

Mark this. Which was with the father. Which was toward the Father. The picture that is being painted here is one of relationship in which the Father and the Son are in relationship with one another.

Jesus here, the word of life, the manifested life, the eternal life is being described as the one who was with or toward the Father, staring at each other face to face. This speaks of relationship between these two members of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son in relationship. To one another, and because we understand what the Bible teaches regarding the Spirit, we know that our God is one God eternally existing in three persons, the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and there is this relationship that has all the way in eternity past existed between these persons of our God.

He's relational.

And, because the Bible describes us as His creatures being created in His image, he made us to be relational as well. The Jesus we proclaim is relational, and so this point serves to underscore the Trinity, but I want to say something else about the relationality of Jesus. It says, which was with the Father and was manifested to us again, the word is plainly revealed for every. want to see, and the million dollar question here is, why was he made manifest to us?

What was the purpose in him being made manifest to us? John, help me to understand, unpack this for me, John, please tell me. And John would say, because he wanted a relationship with you. Our God is relational.

He came into this world. to accomplish for us what we could not accomplish for ourselves, that is to secure for us salvation. He rendered himself upon the cross as a sacrifice, so that we would not have to die for our own sins. Jesus himself was willing to die for our sins, and he took upon himself the wrath of Almighty God as the punishment that we deserve was poured out upon Jesus, and he took the whipping.

the beating, he took the suffering, he took the anger, he took the judgment in our place. Why? Because he wanted so bad for us to be brought into relationship with Almighty God, the God that we proclaim is a relational God, not just in terms of the Trinity, but in terms of the Trinity's desire for his, for, for, for his salvation to be brought to those that need him. The Jesus we proclaim is relational.

And you take this Jesus, as John takes this Jesus, and you deliver it to those who need to hear, you proclaim this Jesus to those who need to hear. Well, this is going to move us on. to the next point. Number 5.

The Jesus we proclaim produces within us a desire for others to be brought into fellowship. Think about that, the Jesus that we proclaim, he produces inside of us a desire for others to be brought into fellowship. Listen to what John says in verse 3, OK? What we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you also.

We are proclaiming to you, This Jesus who is divine, who is man, who is life, who is relational, we are proclaiming this Jesus to you. Why, John, why are you proclaiming it? He says, so that, that you also May have fellowship with us. You see, this is the effect of the gospel in the life and heart of John himself.

He wants so bad for those who are reading his letter to be brought into this relationship, to be brought into this fellowship. So that you also may have fellowship with us. Oh, we want for you to be brought in. Oh, we want for you to experience what we have experienced by God's grace, His goodness.

We want for you to be drawn into this fellowship with us, and know what he says, and indeed, our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ. At the end of the day, This is what we want. We want for you. to be brought into a relationship, to be brought into fellowship, to enjoy the one that we enjoy, to taste, the one that we have tasted of, and to know His goodness, his greatness, his majesty, His supremacy, to understand what it's like to experience Almighty God in the person of Jesus Christ.

We want for you to be brought into fellowship, this represents the heart of God. God is not pleased. He desires not that any should perish, but that all would be brought into everlasting life. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

Yes, we know he is sovereign, and yes, we affirm that doctrine of election. And yes, we know that no man can come to him, unless the Father who sent him draws him. We understand these things about the Bible, but there is something about the heart of God that the Bible says he so loved the world, he so loved the world. that whoever believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.

There's the word again, life. Brothers and sisters, you are surrounded by those who don't know the Lord. And what, God desires not for them to be condemned at the end of the day. You've got friends and neighbors and coworkers.

You've got children. Your children have kids on their baseball and soccer and volleyball teams and so on and so forth. You are surrounded by those who do not know the Savior, and I want you to understand this morning that God has a desire for their salvation. And it should be the desire in our heart, as it is produced by the gospel to want for such people to be brought into this fellowship.

It's interesting to note here. That the picture that is painted is this. God In eternity past. is in relationship with the members of the Trinity.

There is love. There is exuberance and joy and celebration in the context of the Trinity. He wants for that to bubble over and to be experienced by those whom he has created in His image, and he wants for men to be able to experience the goodness of Him. He wants to give of himself to humanity.

And John is one who has experienced it. And so what, what happens with John is, is he's gonna bubble over with the desire to see others brought into this fellowship. That's his heart, that's his passion, that's his desire. This is why he passionately proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Let us move to the 6th, the 6th and final point. The Jesus, we proclaim, produces within us a desire for others to be brought into fellowship. I already said that, but listen, so that, so that Call it selfishness, call it what you want, but John here is admitting to something. I want to experience joy.

I want to experience joy. And so I'm writing these things to you so that you might be brought into this fellowship so that our joy, so that my joy, so that the joy that me and my ministry companions, so that our joy might be made complete. We will never experience joy to the nth degree, apart from a passionate proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We can never experience joy to the nth degree, knowing that there are people out there in the world who are dying and going to hell.

And they will spend eternity in, in the, in hell. We can never be joyful about that. And John is so passionate about his desire to see people get saved. And part of the reason why he wants this is, I want to experience complete joy.

I want my joy to be complete. I want our joy to be complete. John, what makes you happy? When Big Papi hits a home run?

No, really, John, what makes you happy? I'll tell you what makes me happy. I have no greater joy than this to hear of my children walking according to the truth. I have no greater joy than this, to have my mind wrapped around the gospel and to be in relationship with the savior, and to be an instrument of God's grace in the lives of those who don't know Him, in order to bring them to faith in Jesus Christ, and to see them come to faith and to see them walking to be brought into this fellowship, that is when I experience joy to the next level.

And brothers and sisters, If you wonder, some of you might wonder why, why am I not as joyful as I should be? Let me ask you, are you faithfully proclaiming, are you passionately proclaiming the savior to those who are unsaved? If not, that might be the reason why you struggle to experience joy, because I believe God has wired us in such a way that we are called by Him to proclaim Christ. And the only way by which we can experience joy to the nth degree, apart from being in relationship with Christ, but you see, when we are in relationship with Him, we have his heart, his desire, and we're going to go and want to proclaim Christ.

It's just a natural overflow of being rooted in Christ, who is the gospel himself. He says, we write these things so that our joy may be made complete. And so the sermon this morning, a passion for proclamation, 6 truths to encourage us in our proclamation of the gospel of Jesus, Truth number 1, he's divine, He is God, you are giving God to the unsaved. Truth number 2, he is human.

He is a real man who existed in time, space, and history. You can take that one to the bank, you can sink your teeth into it. He is historical, and in history, he existed. a human, and as a human, he represented us perfectly to God and he can relate to us, he understands what it is that we go through.

He is not distant from us, but he is nearer to us. He is close to us. He has reached out to us in his humanity, the Jesus we proclaim as life, you give to people when you give to them Jesus, you give to them the opportunity to experience life. They are dead.

Understand they are dead. They don't have life, they might be breathing, but they are breathing dead people. They don't have life. And when you give to them Jesus, you give to them the opportunity that they might be brought into the one who is life and thereby experience life themselves.

The Jesus we proclaim as relational. Again, we talked about how this underscores the Trinity as well as his love for humanity. He is relational, he desires relationship. Understand that, and let these truths encourage you and motivate you, and propel you to be a passionate proclaimer of the gospel.

The Jesus we proclaim produces within us, a desire for others to be brought into fellowship, you see that with John, and I submit to you that such should be true about us. We should have a desire. To see others brought into the beauty of this fellowship that we have with Almighty God. And then 6, the Jesus we proclaim produces within us a desire for others to be brought into fellowship, so that our experience of joy might be made complete.

the Bible says that when a sinner repents and comes to faith, the Bible makes it clear that there is rejoicing in heaven. Could you imagine what the scene at the throne room of Almighty God must be like when a sinner repents of a sin and believes in Jesus, and how much celebration and explosion of praise that there does exist in the presence of Almighty God, in His presence, there is fullness of joy, and such a fullness is more manifest when lots of people are coming to faith in Jesus.

We want to experience joy. We want our joy to be made complete.

That's why we proclaim the gospel. There's nothing wrong with being motivated by the desire for you to be joyful, because ultimately at the end of the day, Your joy is God's joy. He wants for you to experience joy in this sense of the word. And that just causes him to rejoice himself.

it pleasures our God. Our stated purpose here at Cornerstone is to help folks journey from brokenness to wholeness. We envision a path from brokenness to wholeness that we desire for all folks to experience. It starts with conversion and it goes on to include immersion, community outreach, and finally glory.

Our care group leaders have been exhorted with the theme of outreach going all the way back to the end of the summer before care groups began this ministry year. We've been encouraged and exhorted to make the theme of outreach central to what we are doing over the year. You have been encouraged to make a list of the people in your spheres of influence and to begin to pray for those people and to ask the Lord to open up doors of opportunity for you to reach out to those people.

This is our passion.

This is our desire. We want to see people brought from brokenness to wholeness, and I submit to you this morning that God wishes to use you as an instrument of grace in the lives of those in your spheres of influence to reach out to them. But our care groups also have been instructed to think of ways in which they as a care group can do outreach. And also as a church, we are thinking about ways that we can do outreach.

And one of those ways, one of the things that we have done for, for many years now is we have had the festival of treats. Outreach and that's what we're doing Thursday. I want to encourage you not just to pray for that event, but to do whatever you can to show up and to be a help during that event. We need people to help and if you show up and if you ask what can I do, I can guarantee you we can find a way to put you to work and you'll be doing this for the glory of God so that we might have opportunity to rub shoulders with those who don't know Him because we want to see them coming to faith in Christ.

That is what it is all about. And this, this festival of treats is just one example of a few events that we'll do over the year in an effort to reach out to those who do not know the savior. I began with a reference to the worship experience of Red Sox Nation regarding David Ortiz's history-changing home run back in the 2004 ALCS. What a moment.

What a moment. Red Sox fans have relived and proclaimed that moment until this day. Brothers and sisters, We live to proclaim a greater moment, the moment that Jesus Christ died on the cross, was raised bodily from the dead, and ultimately ascended onto the right hand of the Father, and we live to proclaim the one who is going to come again someday, and you are the person that God wants to use in the life of someone to bring them to faith in Jesus. Inside of your bulletin there is a blue connection card.

And if you are visiting with us for the 1st time or maybe a 2nd time, maybe you've decided to be a regular attender, please fill that connection card out and let us know. We want to be in contact with you. And as the ushers come forward and we prepare to give to the Lord, a portion of what the Lord has given to us, I want to ask that you would join with me in prayer. Let us pray to God.

You are the life. You are the eternal life. You are the life manifested. You are the word of life, Jesus.

Oh, Jesus. Shame on us for our failure to exalt in you in the way that we should. We ask that you might Help us. That Lord, our lives would be arranged around our lives would be centered on one thing that we would be focused.

On you. And proclaiming you. and making you known. Lord, that we might experience joy.

Give us joy. And do not give it to us. Unless we are faithful about your business proclaiming Christ. Be faithful to yourself and give to us your joy.

As we are faithful to you to proclaim Christ, and we are thankful for Christ through whose blood we have redemption, the forgiveness for our sins, we have come to you this morning in repentance and in need. And we thank you that you are seeing fit to minister to our needs, draw us closer to you, oh God, and draw those around us closer to you, and may we see lost people come to faith in Christ, and may we see in our baptismal people being baptized for the glory of God, and we thank you in advance.

for how you will be faithful to your cause. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.