My Favorite Story, July 26th, 2026

and we'll see you in a moment. Good morning family. Good to see y'all this morning. Get your Bibles, open up to Acts chapter eight. Those in the chapel, we're so glad that you are joining in today. I have been a part of Fellowship for 13 years. I grew up in this area. This is, so much of this is home. I didn't share this, the first service, but I grew up missionary Baptist and there was a Sunday I snuck over and I listened to Ben Parkinson or Bill Parkinson preach when I was missionary Baptist. And I did, I snuck so I wouldn't get in trouble. And I've loved Fellowship. And so it's wonderful to be a part of staff for this long. This story is, we've been talking about our favorite stories. Today, we get to Philip and the Ethiopian, my favorite story. There's a lot of Philip story that kind of I relate to. And you'll kind of hear a little bit, but Philip, this story stands out because when I grew up, when we did baptism, we read from this passage. And so when I was baptized in 1986, we read this passage, my pastor did. And it just always stuck with me. Well, there's different ways as well

as I've grown up here. I grew up Southwest Little Rock, moved to Saline County. I've got a lot of Saline County in me, as you can hear. It's thick. Grew up in this area, went to school, went to university, then moved off to Africa with this accent, I moved to Africa. And I loved, I lived in Botswana for a couple of years. Loved it, was there serving as a missionary. When I got done with Botswana, I moved to another foreign country, Texas, where I rescued my wife and I brought her back to Arkansas. Jessica and I have been married now almost 20 years. We have three beautiful daughters. Maddie, Lucy, Josie, they're also right here as well. My good friend, Tom Hill, who used to be a part of Fellowship, passed away. But Tom had four daughters and he described his life as an estrogen hurricane. And that is a well thought out statement for a dad. I love it though, I love having girls. All three of them are incredibly special. Jessica is incredibly patient and gracious to be married to me for 20 years. And so it's such a sweet time. And having that same heart of teaching them to love Christ, teaching them to understand the gospel. Today we get to talk about Philip.

And the story is not the disciple. Philip is a deacon that was elected back in the first part of Acts with Stephen. Stephen has died and Philip specifically has been ministering to the poor and sharing the gospel. Philip has four daughters, all four love the Lord. And so there's part of this story that I'm listening in and he's ministering to an African. And there's such a great second part of this that we know through church history, but not through this part of Acts. That we see the beauty of the gospel, we see the gospel presented, we see baptism administered, and then we see how to share this wonderful gift of the gospel. So I'm excited that I get to do this today. I'll be honest, normally I try to culturally fit in where I'm preaching. Today you have to culturally fit in where I preach. So you are all gonna pretend you're from Saline County. We're gonna do some crowd participation, so get with it. Put on your best camouflage, put in a dip. Ladies, you think I'm joking. We're gonna do a little bit, we'll do some bent in here today, okay? And here's how we're gonna start. We're reading from Acts chapter eight, verse 26 through 39. If you're able, would you stand with me as we read God's word together?

Now, an angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go towards the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert place. And he rose and went, and there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning seated in his chariot and was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, do you understand what you're reading? And he said, how can I, unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now, the passage of scripture that he was reading was this. Like a sheep, he was led by a sheep. was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearers is silent, And he was led by a sheep. And he was led by a sheep. so he opens not his mouth. And he was led by a sheep. In his humiliation, justice was denied him. And he was led by a sheep. And he was led by a sheep. Who can describe his generation, for his life is taken away from the earth?

And Eunuch said to Philip, about whom I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, see, here is water, what prevents me from being baptized? And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way, rejoicing. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you, for your goodness and grace to us, through your word. We thank you for the good news that we hear week to week, that reminds us of who you are, and who we are, and what you've done. Lord, I pray that today,

you'd give me words to speak, and prohibit me from saying anything that I don't need to say, and ask this in Jesus' name, amen. You can be seated. This morning, we're gonna look at three specific things through this text. First off, that we are called to be spirit-led messengers. Secondly, we're called to be good news sharers. And thirdly, we're called to be baptism commissioners. There's such beauty in this story, as we see the ordination of the gospel being shared. We see the gist, or the meat, of what is the gospel. We see the commissioning of baptism, after somebody has responded to the gospel. And we see that you and I have a role in all of this. Let's look first here at this, that we are called to be spirit-led messengers. Read again, verse 26 through 31. Now, an angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go towards the south, to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. Philip, at this point, is in the north. He's in Samaria. He's made his way from Caesarea, which is kinda, I like maps. He's in the northwest. He's coming down to Samaria.

He's gonna go through Jerusalem. And going to this specific road, as an angel told him to do. This is a desert place. There's nothing there. Just go. And he rose and went, and there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. Candace is not her name. Candace is like a title. Candace is what they would call their queens, like we would call Caesar for Rome. This is Candace as the queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. That is a pretty sweet gig. You're in charge of the money for an entire empire. High position. He had come to Jerusalem to worship, and was returning seated in his chariot. He was reading the prophet Isaiah. He had made a 1,500-mile trip in a chariot. That's a road trip. There's no buckies on the way. Like there is in Slane County, amen. Okay. And the spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet.

He's reading it out loud, and asked, do you understand what you're reading? And he said, how can I unless someone guides me? He invited Philip to come up and sit with him. And what a beautiful moment here. A beautiful moment to see that God indeed has planned something special. That an Ethiopian in the southern part of the Sudan area, out of this great empire, has come to Jerusalem because he wants to worship. There's a lot of ignorance that he's admitting here. He wants to come and worship in Jerusalem, and he does so, and he's returning home. And as he's doing so, God had plans for his life. God had plans for Philip to be there. Verse 29, and the spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot. God ordained this meeting. This wasn't by chance. This wasn't accidental. Philip wasn't in the county at all. He was told to go. By the way, he didn't say, hey, what's gonna happen there? When an angel says, you need to go south of Jerusalem, he doesn't go, well, let's talk about this. He just goes. In fact, he's going down the road, and it says that he ran to his chariot to catch up to the chariot. That the spirit led him all the way.

There's no such thing as chance. This is beautiful ordination of God. Understand that God is meticulously sovereign over all things. Do we know that? He is sovereign over every detail. If he is not meticulously sovereign over all things, he is not God. He is not just sovereign over the big things. He is sovereign over the very little things. That is a comfort to us because you and I know that one, we are praying to a God who is powerful and ordains all that is to occur. We don't have to be unsure in this life. We don't have to worry that we're gonna mess up God's plans. That's a little bit prideful, isn't it? To think somehow you're gonna mess up the divine ordained plans of God by what you do. He ordains all. He accounts for all. What a comfort that is to us. He is sovereign over this moment in the desert and He is sovereign over your life. John Calvin says, if God should withdraw His hand a little, all things would immediately perish and dissolve into nothing. That's a powerful God, isn't it? That's a God you can rely on, you can trust Him.

And that's true for our calling and coming into the faith. When I was young, God called me. The Spirit took the word and the gospel of Jesus and applied conviction to my heart and awakened my heart to understand the gospel, to repent and believe in Him. The precious thing here is that the Ethiopian, though he has the scroll of Isaiah open, he's not looking for Jesus, but Jesus is looking for him. And ordains that this would occur for Philip to be there. The beautiful action of God in applying our salvation indeed is that He supplies it, the Son provides it and the Spirit applies it to us. This is God's doing, this is God's starting, and this is God's completing. The only contribution that you and I make to our salvation is the sin necessary for Christ to die. We don't make any contribution to this. Praise God. He gets all the glory, doesn't He? He is sovereign over all, He's the one that calls, He's the one that saves. John 6, 44, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. It is He who calls, He calls us. It's His grace that does the saving. We know our condition is this, Romans 3, 10 through 12, for as it is written, no one is righteous, no, not one. No one understands, no one seeks for God.

All have turned aside, together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. When it comes to any of us that would come into the faith, it is a work of the Holy Spirit awakening our hearts to love Christ. I'm so thankful for that grace. R.C. Sproul said, unless we are born of the Spirit of God, unless God sheds His holy love in our hearts, unless He stoops in His grace to change our hearts, we will never love Him. It is the work of the Spirit to awaken us. It is the work of the Spirit to awaken the truth of the gospel. And we see this by what is happening through an angel and through the Holy Spirit, leading Philip specifically to this particular Ethiopian. I want you to take a moment, I want you to think back when you came into the faith. Can you go back and appreciate all that a sovereign God did in order for you to hear the gospel and respond to it? Cody, I grew up in church, me too. I'm thankful, mom and dad had us at church every time. My dad had us at church when church wasn't even open and he forgot it was daylight savings time and we showed up an hour early. I've always been at church, but I had no heart looking to love Christ and it was the Holy Spirit who opened my heart and awakened me to the gospel and saved me. I wasn't robbing banks at 10 years old.

I wasn't just doing the worst of worst, but I was a broken, sinful person not looking for Christ. And His grace and mercy saved me. That's the power of God. Philip approaches the chariot and says, so Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah, the prophet and asked, do you understand what you're reading? And he said, how can I, unless someone guides me? He invited Philip to come up and sit with him. As we see the beauty of the gospel, as we talk about even more how we share the gospel, I love that Philip starts with a question. I think much of our sharing of the gospel that we talk about when we talk about Jesus to other people, it should start with questions. What do you believe? Do you know that God loves you? Can I share with you about what Christ has done for me? Can I hear about what has your life been like up to this point? What are the things that you wrestle with spiritually? How can I help you with those? It's asking good questions and engaging. But as much. We love to engage and ask questions. The most important thing is number two right here. We're called to be good news sharers. We're called to be good news sharers.

Verse 32 through 35 again. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this, like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth. And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom I ask you does the prophet say this? About himself or about someone else? I love this next part. Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning with the scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus. He opened his mouth. You wanna share the gospel with somebody? You gotta open your mouth. But you have so much to say. Philip here is walking up to the chariot, not by chance, but at the moment that the Ethiopian is reading Isaiah 53, which is known as the suffering servant passage. If you've been here for a little bit, we did the book of Isaiah. We called it the fifth gospel. Because so much of Isaiah is pointing forward to a Messiah who would fulfill all things. And in Christ, 700 years later at this moment, Philip is taking a passage

and showing how Christ fulfilled this passage. That indeed as John, his cousin would say, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He is the sheep that has led to the slaughter. He is the lamb silent before his shears as he opened not his mouth. His life was taken from this earth. He was denied justice. And yet all of this was God's plan. Philip took a moment with this Ethiopian and showed how Christ fulfilled this passage. That it wasn't about Isaiah, it was about Jesus. All scripture is about Jesus. And points us to him. But here's the moment that he presented the gospel. And here, you ready? Here's your crowd participation. Here's the gospel. And we'll teach it to you. God, holy creator of all that we know, created everything for his glory to reflect his character to us and created humanity for relationship. He is holy. That means all of his characteristics are perfect in what they are. He is wholly loving. He is wholly just.

He is wholly gracious. He is perfectly in all those things, God. Come on, get with me. What's this? Thank you. Come on, let's wake up, let's go. You ready? One more time. Man, by the way, I do this in Benton every Sunday and nobody's caught on yet, so you're fine, okay? Man, God created us for relationship, but yet going back to the garden, we sinned, we disobeyed God. We wanted to be little G gods of our lives and we rejected him. And in doing so, going back to the garden, all of us are born sinful. We have sinful DNA that's just attached to us. We know how to sin from the time that we're born. If you don't believe that, go hang out in the toddler room. Sinners everywhere. That's a great commercial for fellowship kids, by the way. Just saying. But we are. If you leave us on, just watch us, leave us on our own. We're the most selfish, sinful people you've ever met. And that sin separates us from a holy God. Just as Adam and Eve were placed outside of the garden, you and I have spiritually and eternally been placed outside of God's holiness.

And if you and I die in our separation, we are destined to what we deserve, and that is hell. Because we've chosen sin. Separation in this life and separation in the life to come. That is terrible news. But here's the good news. Let's do it again. Jesus, that the only contribution we have to add to this is our sin. Therefore, the problem is not, the solution's not inside of us, the problem is inside of us. Therefore, we need divine intervention to deal with our sin. And to deal with that, Christ came. God in the flesh, part of the triune God, would come and put flesh on and condescend to us, putting flesh on and live obedient to God, what God required of us, and that is perfection. That the aim is not to be good, the standard is perfection. that you and I don't have, and Christ is that perfection. Was obedient to all that God commanded, willingly went to the cross to lay down his life, that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin. And so just like the lamb on the altar in the Old Testament, there would be sacrifices, neck would be cut, they would bleed out for the sins of the people, and that would be temporary because as soon as they left the altar, what would happen?

They'd sin again. But Christ is the once and for all sacrifice, bearing the weight and the consequence of my sin, my sin, and your sin, that I owed a debt and I couldn't pay it and he paid it for me, though he didn't know it. And on the cross, he took my place, shed his blood for the forgiveness of my sin. And he was placed into a borrowed tomb. Why was it borrowed? Because he only needed three days. And he rose again, and he defeated sin, and he defeated death. So that sin can no longer be held against me, and death doesn't have the final word of my life. And when I die, because I have repented of my sin and put my faith in the Savior who took my place, I will be with him for all of eternity. And I earned nothing. It is all his grace and mercy to me. A Puritan pastor's dying and a friend comes up and says, pastor, you're going to receive all of your reward, he looked at him and says, no, I'm going to receive mercy. And that's what we get in Christ, mercy. He has taken your place, he's taken my place. And to receive this gift, I'll repent of my sin and I'll put my faith in Jesus. God, amen, Jesus. That's it.

You got it. You got it. Cody, I don't know what to share. If somebody's in front of me that doesn't know the gospel, what am I going to share, what am I going to say? God, amen, Jesus. That's it, you got it. It's not, it's way less complicated, isn't it? Well, Cody, what if somebody asked me questions I don't know the answer to? You say, if you'll email Justin Billson, jbillson at fellowshipar.com, Justin will be happy to answer those questions. I don't know what the answer is, you can just ask him. But you know what you get back to? You just come back to it. I don't know, I don't know it's a sufficient answer to tell somebody. I don't know, we'll figure it out. But you come back to this. You rehearse it. Do you know what I'm going to need when I wake up in the morning and I'm looking at myself in the mirror? You know what I'm going to need? I'm going to need this again. Why, Cody, didn't you trust in Christ? I did, but I forget. I forget the gospel. So not only do I need to prepare to share with others,

but I need to rehearse this for myself. My identity is not what I do. My identity is the one who's already been, who's already said it's been done. My identity is not in my performance. Christ has done all. And if I wake up tomorrow with nothing, I have Jesus, that's enough. And I forget that, and I'll forget that tomorrow. And I need to rehearse the gospel all over again. I need to work my way through God, man, Jesus. I don't know if you know this about fellowship. We got one story, that's it. And we wear it out. But we wear it out because it is the best story. It is foundational to all stories. It's foundational to all lives. And Sunday to Sunday, we all need to be reminded. And that's what we share. There's some things we need to know. First off, not everybody you share that with is going to trust in Christ. Does it break our heart? Sure, it does, it does. I've had people just say, no, I'm not interested in that. What I need to understand, and maybe for us, is that they're not rejecting us, they're rejecting the gospel. And I'll be honest, that hurts a little bit more than it does just rejecting me.

If you reject me and you love Jesus, then we're fine, we're good. And you're gonna have to sit next to me in heaven. But we'll be fine. Not everybody's gonna say yes, but listen to me. Your obedience in sharing the gospel is what gives God glory. It gives God glory that you would share. So share. There's a couple other things we need to remember in the midst of all of this. One, we can have confidence because we've rehearsed it, right? Every single one of you can walk out of here and sit across the table from somebody at lunch, take a napkin and a pen and write God, man, Jesus, and you can rehearse the gospel right there with them. All of us can. The confidence is not in your best ability. The confidence is the Holy Spirit that will speak in your understanding of the gospel. That's it. We can trust. You don't know where you're at in the process. That's with somebody who's sharing the gospel. You may be number one, you may be number six, you may be number 12, you don't know. And your goal is not to somehow be the last one, your goal is to be one of them. You can share the gospel and just trust

that the seed of the gospel is being planted somewhere in their lives. You can rest, I love this one. You can share the gospel and then rest. You don't have to close the deal. You don't have to feel pressured, somehow you just gotta get them to do something. In all my years of ministry, I have never saved anybody, but the Holy Spirit has saved others. And that's the Holy Spirit's job, not mine. You don't have to push, the Holy Spirit will convict. That's why we did the first point, right? God is meticulously sovereign, the Holy Spirit works, the Holy Spirit awakens us to the gospel, the Holy Spirit has to do that. Cody can't do that and you can't do that. We rest in the work of the Spirit. Here's maybe another favorite I have. You can't mess it up. Cody, what do you mean? Well, first off, I mean, don't go preach heresy, that'd be bad. But when you're sharing the gospel, you need to understand the condition of the person. If we are dead in our trespasses, you're sharing the gospel with a dead person. My good friend, Tad Pruitt is a surgeon and I'm sure that he learned how to do surgery this way. If you're at UAMS and you're learning how to do surgery, they don't wheel in a healthy person

for you to do surgery on for your first time. If they do, I don't wanna be that healthy person. Who do they wheel in, what do they wheel in? A cadaver, right? If you're gonna do surgery, you wanna make sure that you're not gonna mess anybody up so bad, right? So you're gonna use a cadaver to practice surgery. Now, that's a terrible example, so just go with it for a second, okay? When you share the gospel with a dead person, you're not gonna make them more dead. Do you understand? The pressure's off. You can't really make them more dead, they're already dead in their trespasses. And if the Holy Spirit's the one that works, the Holy Spirit's the one that calls and awakens our hearts to the gospel, listen to me, you're preaching the gospel to dead people. One pastor said evangelism's nothing but standing in a cemetery going, here's Jesus, here's Jesus. You can't mess it up. If I know that, if I know it's the Holy Spirit that does the work, if I know that I can, as I'm sharing the gospel, I can actually be free, it oughta make me the most bold person to share the gospel with anybody. You can be bold about your faith,

not worrying that you're gonna mess it up. Well, Cody, I'm afraid, aren't we all? But you're not gonna mess it up. Share, share what Christ has done for you, share the gospel, and then let the Holy Spirit do what the Holy Spirit does. Be bold, you don't have to be afraid, you don't have to be worried. And here's my genuine prayer as I drove in today, is that God has put somebody on your heart that you know you need to share the gospel with. There's somebody, family, friend, co-worker, whoever it might be, classmate, whoever it might be. That there's somebody that God has put on your heart and He does it to me. And my prayer is for their salvation, my prayer is for opportunities to share, my prayer is for boldness, my prayer is that the Holy Spirit would speak through me, my prayer is clarity. I love to tell you that it's really not as hard as we think it is. Try it one time and see if you can't wait to do it again. By the way, look around, can you imagine all of us going out through the city, the Little Rock, Central Arkansas, every single one of us, this week sharing the gospel with somebody? Can you imagine what next Sunday would be like? Can you imagine what it would be like to be baptized?

Can you imagine what it would be like? Be pretty cool, wouldn't it? Once we come into the faith, there's a joyous celebration, there's a beautiful declaration, and that's baptism. That's the next step. As we see Philip here, look at point three. We're called to be baptism commissioners, look at verse 36. And as they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, see, here's water, what prevents me from being baptized? And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. Verse 39, and when they came out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away. I don't know if that's teleportation, I don't know what that was, but Philip is gone. He's not around anymore, but here's what's sweet, the next part, and the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing. You know what church history tells us, by the way, about that? And then this is the sidebar, this is your extra sermon. History would tell us through one Ethiopian in the scroll of Isaiah that God would plant a humongous church in Eastern Africa. God's plan all along was just through one Ethiopian the gospel would be shared. That it would absolutely turn Eastern Africa upside down.

That's the kind of God we serve. So what happens here? He trusts, he responds to the gospel and he follows it with baptism, a beautiful means of grace to us to represent the death, burial, and resurrection of our Savior. There's nothing else like it. Next Sunday is Baptism Sunday. It is one of the most beautiful things we do here. As we see someone who was dead in their trespasses made alive and have a Savior to follow. It's a declaration, I belong to Christ. Jess and I have been married almost 20 years. The commitment didn't start when we did the wedding. The wedding was actually just a celebration. The commitment happened back in April of that year, of 06, at a Red Sox Rangers game because I'm so romantic. But the commitment was there. The commitment was as we courted, the commitment was I will marry you and you will be my bride and I will be your husband. The wedding is when family got to see. Baptism doesn't save you but it does declare that you are saved. Baptism is the celebration with family. Through baptism, we see first off that Jesus modeled it back in Mark 1. If you remember the story, Jesus is being baptized. John doesn't wanna do it. Says he's not worthy to do it, but doesn't.

And the truth is that it says Jesus was baptized to fulfill all righteousness. That is all obedience that he requires of us. Then to follow him is that we would do the same. He commands it. If you go back to Matthew 28, go then to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and cease them to obey everything I have commanded you. Baptism is a command that once we come into the faith, we follow in obedience through baptism. We confess Christ at our baptism. Colossians 2.12, for when you were baptized, you were buried with Christ and in baptism, you were also raised with Christ. It's this picture of what baptism is. That word literally means dunk, submerge. Because it's a picture of our death that when I was baptized, I'm symbolically pointing to the fact that Cody is now dead and I've been raised to walk in new life with Christ. It's incredible that we are saying, not only have I given my life to Christ, have I trusted in Christ, it's reflected that I am dead and now I am alive now with Christ. I'm walking and following Christ.

It's a joy to be able to declare that with family. It's a joy to say, I belong to him. And it comes after faith and repentance. Acts 2.41, those who accepted his message were baptized. It's a confession. Now, there's verse 37 in Acts 8. Did you notice that it wasn't there? You OCD people, did you notice 37 wasn't there? It's in later manuscripts. Here's what it says, and it doesn't hurt the story, but here's what it says. And Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, you may. And he replied, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Which manuscript, it doesn't matter. But the truth is that if any of us are coming to baptism, it is through confession that Jesus Christ is Lord. Here's my question for you today. Have you placed faith in Christ? And if you have, have you followed in baptism? We would love to talk with you about it. Maybe it's about baptism. Maybe it's about your baptism. Maybe it's about the subject of baptism. Elders are here to be able to answer some of those questions for you and to walk with you about what this means. You can email baptism at fellowshipar.com or even better, go to the Connection Center.

There's a lot of us hanging around out here. We'd love to get to visit with you about baptism. But it's a beautiful response. It's a declaration of whose you belong to. And we do so in obedience. I love too that we. Whoever's in charge of discipling you is gonna baptize you. I'm a pastor, I love to baptize people. I love to go home with my shirt wet from baptism because it's just God's little precious reminder of the lives I get to be a part of. But if there's somebody that you have led to the faith or you've been involved in their discipleship, we want you to baptize them. It's beautiful for dads to baptize kiddos, for friends to baptize friends, for those that have maybe led us to the Lord to baptize us to say, look, I love my brother or sister in Christ and I'm here for their growth. I'm here to help them. I grew up missionary Baptist. It was only the pastor. But nothing brings me to tears like watching people who have poured into somebody else, cross the line of faith and then baptize them. That's pretty precious. Today, I don't know where some of you are. Maybe for the first time in your life,

you've heard God, man, Jesus. Maybe today through the work of the Holy Spirit in your life, you're ready to repent and trust in Him. We wanna help you. You can do that through, you can come talk to, we're gonna be hanging out down front. You can come talk to us, but even better than that, somebody probably brought you today that's been waiting to have that conversation with you and they would love to talk with you about Jesus. If you've never been baptized, this is a wonderful invitation to do so. It's not too late. You can be a part of next week or whenever you want, but you can follow in obedience. But lastly, it's this. Maybe there's somebody today that's been on your heart that you wanna share the gospel with and you're already struggling. You're already doubting. You're already wrestling through that. Please don't walk out of here feeling obligated or guilty. I've been a pastor long enough to realize that obligation and duty and guilt are not very good motivators. They might be for a week or so. That's the way my gym membership works. Guilt and obligation, and that wears off. You know what the best motivator for evangelism is for sharing your faith?

Love. If you and I went out of here and had lunch today, you give me 10 minutes and I can tell what you love. You'll start talking about friends or family or things you like. In about 10 minutes, we'll sit down and you'll hear me and I'll hear you. The aim of today is not to make you feel guilty or shame you into sharing the gospel. The goal today is to love Jesus. We share what we love. And today, if you would see yourself as a broken, sinful person in need of his grace and you rehearse that gospel, and I would dare say the word, and you get really romantic about the gospel and what it's done for you, you won't have a problem sharing. My lack of sharing those around me is more, I need to fan the flame of my love for Christ and my love for others. But I see the gospel is true for me and I'm a debtor to grace. And I can't wait to share with somebody else. I hope that happens for you today. I pray that it does. I pray for the people as you walk out these doors you're gonna encounter, and this week that the Spirit's gonna lead you and go, hey, go over there.

And you'll go and you'll ask questions and you'll look for a moment that you get to share Jesus because you love Jesus and you can't help for it to come out. I love you. I'm praying for you. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for your mercy to broken, sinful people, people that were not worthy, people that don't deserve anything from you, but your grace and mercy have saved us and redeemed us. You have bore our penalty upon the cross. You have shed your blood for our forgiveness. And we are debtors of grace. And in gratitude and worship and thanksgiving, Lord, we walk out of these doors with a gospel on our lips for ourselves and for others, looking for every moment we can to share, knowing that you're the one that ordains these things to happen. Knowing that we have the freedom to share because Lord, you speak through us and you've given us a message worthy to share with every single person on the face of this earth. Lord, teach us to treasure you as we share the treasure. We pray all this in Jesus' name, amen. Have a great week.