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Cross City Church

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Maybe I just thought I would start off with this. Most of us here in the room and online, welcome if you're online. We've been on our church for a little while and we do talk about the gospel a lot. We mention the gospel a lot. One time back in, now 2000, I wanna say 2008, nine, I was in a church planning meeting one time and someone just said, I'm so tired of hearing the gospel. Gospel, gospel, gospel. And it was a pretty studdingly bad statement to make about the gospel. And it didn't even trigger any warnings that they were saying that. But the idea of the gospel, it can become a little bit ridiculously stated at times if we're lazy about it, right? And we hope that we are not being lazy about it. For some of us in the room, we recognize that, man, we've heard it, some of us heard the gospel So many times, tens, scores, hundreds of times, before it actually took root, sprouted in our lives. It was like, okay, back in the day, let's just say the year of our Lord 1995. I was on a mission trip to Alaska where a bunch of our folks are gonna go, and I, internet wasn't hot back then as in non-existent, and I needed a pair of waterproof boots, and so I went to my favorite company, which is called High Tech. They were at Sports Relay, it's a California place, I looked all over and I was a poor college student and they had the expensive waterproof boots, this mysterious magical substance called Gortex. And then those were always 150 bucks and someone here didn't have 150 bucks. And then all the way down here like in the $60 range was the high-tech rogue. It was an all leather looking shoe that advertised being waterproof. And I proudly get my $60 high-tech rogue and I show up to a meeting with Jesse Hampton's older brother JR when my life on friends who's from Alaska who has all the $150 gear. And I'm like, hey man, look at my boots, their waterproof, are they Gore-Ticks? I said, no he goes, no bueno. I'm like, what do you mean? It's like, waterproof. Well, we then go to Alaska, we go around and do our thing and I'm walking across some small creeks and stuff like that. I put my shoe in there. You look down, it looks kind of glossy, you know, like what a waterproof look where it's kind of like an air bubble on it and you pull it out and all the beads come off and I'm like, look at my shoes, look at my shoes. Well about three weeks into this, I crossed another river where I'm standing in the lake at some point in time, and I felt a little drip, a little cold cold in my foot, and I looked down, and what was once a glossy exterior, because it had some wax or some other carcinogen on it, all of a sudden it made a run for the border, and it just desecrated my shoe. The whole thing just went dark brown, and it just went both feet. Both feet were soaking wet and cold. And I was out this time working up there, and I worked every day in the water, and I never could get them to dry out, and I couldn't get my feet to dry out. For weeks at a time, I was starting to have foot problems because, like, jungle foot. And that was the day that I repented and found the lesser good news of GORE-TEX. And there's $150 boots, of which I still own some, because they're pretty wonderful. But what had happened was that cheaper, that a shell on that shoe had withheld the water for so long, but then eventually it just got through and it just permeated everything. And I think to some degree, spin it in a positive way. That's what the gospel does in a lot of us. You'll sit and fellowship for so long, hearing it, hearing it, hearing it. You can see bits and pieces of it back and forth, whatever, but it's just not breaking through until it breaks through. And most of us in this room, I would say we've experienced the gospel breaking through. Finally, those things we memorize or heard when we were a kid, finally a broken through him, a saturated heart, and we're so incredibly thankful for it finally getting in there. But for you, you may realize it might not have got in there yet. And in your fellowship, it still might not have got in there. And so we should not be, we should not be foreign to the concept of people coming into fellowship in friendship with us and us talking about the gospel, but it just not breaking through. And the older we get, the more this might be and the sicker we get the more this might be and that's why as I get older and as I get sicker I am going to perpetually need you guys as my brothers sisters to sit next to me and remind me refreshingly about the gospel. Bring it over me like coats like waves of water upon my soul so I don't start believing what I tend to think instead I'm looking clearly to Jesus and when the day comes that I'm laying in the hospital bed my eyes are closed, read the gospel to me. I can read it. That's what I need. That's what you need. So gospel, gospel, gospel is everything we have, but there is this problem of a hardness of our heart, so it's a problem to kind of shed it. Today's passage is gospel crux. It was nearly almost accidentally the passage that Aaron Stenop read when he was read, and I'm like, oh, he's going to read a passage. And so I'm really thankful for it. I hope the Lord will bless us through it. Let me pray. Father, in the weakness of flesh, come to you. And thanking you that you are my forgiveness, you are my righteousness, that you have reconciled me, and most of us in this room to you. So thankful for the work of your spirit, you've put them in us so we might know you and understand scripture and relate with you, that we might actually have love for one another in a new way that you've commanded us. And I pray that you would help us by your spirit, would for your glory, which is fitting and wonderful, and is life-giving to us, that for your glory, you'd help us all listen to your word, and help me as a present Lord, that I would not be foolish or say wrong things. Lord, please, center us on the gospel of Jesus Christ by the power of your spirit, for your glory, your honor, our joy, and Christ's name, amen. So if you are hanging around with people who are Christians, Okay? Here's something I would say. A lot of the world doesn't know the gospel very well, at all. And a huge reason why the world doesn't know the gospel is that the Christians that the world knows don't know the gospel very well, right? The home team is kind of blind to what the gospel is. If you are interacting with believers around you, I don't mean this thing up a shameful way, but if you're interacting with people who call themselves believers around you, you're going to find a lot that people don't really get it. Maybe they just get the tip of what the gospel is. Maybe authentically they believe in a real cursory level of the gospel, but for a lot of times it doesn't go much deeper than I was driving up 104 the other day and there's a sign that says hell is real and it is real, but that's just the curse that's a cursory point of it, right? Another one you're going to die. As you're going south on 71, there's all those big ones out in the field, right? Those are cursory points for the gospel. And Jesus used cursory points for the gospel, but they were always entry portals into something deeper. Unfortunately, a lot of us and our friends might actually live off the cursory points of the gospel and not really getting it. We know the bad results of the fall, but we don't really know the problem of the fall, where it came from, right? We know there's judgment, we don't want that, but we don't know it's really with the cause of it all. We know that there are better results being offered to us, but not much of an idea of what's really being proposed by God to us. We know a tiny bit about Jesus dying and rising, but not much about his full and exclusive merit in our lives, right? So that's why you can ask people all day long, do you trust in Jesus' death and resurrection for you? and like, heck yeah, but they don't know what that means. They don't know what that means. And so because they don't know what that means, they're still relying upon their own works to their own merits to make them okay with God. So Christians, we often have like mass deficiencies, right? Not so much in our authenticity of what we believe, but even what we can believe, right? It's not so much the authenticity, it's actually even what we can believe. So in Christianity, and you're hanging out with other people that are claiming to be Christians, and we ourselves, we often find a lack of humility, which flows out of blindness to understanding our sinfulness in the fall. We understand that we see a bunch of different set of dreams. So we're talking about life together, but we're all of a sudden encounter. They have a different set of dreams. I don't mean dreams at night. I mean like hopes and cherished treasures. They have a different set of dreams from not understanding our created design to glorify God. A different set of true authority from not getting the kingship of Jesus being offered to them. A different sense of merit because of vague notions about the payment of Jesus, different insurance, different senses of what true His family are, different absolute morality flowing from momentary cultural consensus rather than Christ, different ideas of what truth is and how it's found in a different view of the world. We get a lot of those things. If you are talking to other Christians, these things will abound. If you're really talking about it, these things are abound. They're there everywhere. And these things all flow from one thing. Lack of gospel clarity, and might not even just say it this way, gospel centrality. Gospels centrality, that's where these things flow from. So the gospel must be clear in order to be believed. So it may not be the issue for a lot of our folks that the problem is authenticity and actually might be the object of what they are authentically believing. They don't understand very much. And so our text today is about the gospel crux. It is about gospel centrality. I'm a Titus chapter 2, as James read it for us. So would you guys please turn their Titus chapter 2 verse 11? And I want to walk through a very simple gospel passage. Aaron walked through a very simple gospel passage in Titus 3. It's a very simple one in chapter 2. I'd like to take a look through and just point your attention towards. So our first piece is this, Titus 211, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people. Our first piece is this, the God and his gospel are exclusive. The God and gospel are exclusive. He says in verse 11, for the grace of God has appeared, he brings salvation to all people. So the gospel itself is as exclusive as it gets. There's only one true God of all the universe and only one salvation option for all people and this is not a statement of universalism. So if you're looking this, I don't have this verse on board, you have to read in your own Bible here. It says bring salvation for all people. So you could read that as if there weren't one chapter in 10 verses before this verse and a bunch of verses after this go, oh look Like all people are saved. All people are not saved in the gospel. But the God of the gospel and his gospel are the only God in salvation for all of humanity. There is none other by which they can be saved. So we saw it even last week in our text for Easter when Paul's an Athens. He's talking to the Athenian polytheistic people and dropped some monotheism right on him, right? He says, I see that. That unknown God. this in Acts 17, for as I passed along and observed objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God. What therefore you worship was unknown, this I proclaim to you, the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man." Right? So funny. It's argumentative. It's kind of funny, right? If you are you, if you're following what's happening here, But this is the truth. God and His gospel are exclusive. Number two, in verse 12, repentant transformation is the gospel proposition. Verse 12, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in the present age. Repentant transformation is the gospel proposition. So when we see that humanity's core error is falling short of the glory of God, or the way you could say that is de-godding God, rejecting his reality, rejecting his exclusivity, rejecting his superiority or authority, denying his goodness and greatness, now being unable to see it. That is what is falling short of the glory of God. Then we then see why reversal of this is so essential. is repentance, running away from de-god in God to enthroning God, to glorifying God, denying ungodliness and worldly passion. So when we say that God isn't all of that, isn't real and isn't all that and isn't that great and isn't that good, you will say something else is that great and is that good. And honestly, it doesn't matter what you tend to think it is, it's just not true. It's just not right. It's just not good. You have dethroned Him and enthroned. Who cares what else, but you got something else that you think is hot. It's in your heart. So repentance is saying no more this. I want this. This is what I was made for. This is what I was redeemed for. Is a passion not for earthy things, but for heavenly things. Not other deities, but God Himself. My human reason, my intellect, the meaness, it's about him. So repentant transformation is the gospel proposition and it has effects to embrace godliness and the things that flow from it, upright living, controlling self-under God rather than self-impulse, self wisdom, self-righteousness being what controls us in the old days. So the gospel's bringing us out of being, out of God's glory, into loving God's glory the center of us where all of our activity flows out of. The third piece is found in verse 13. It says, waiting for our blessed hope, our happy hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. So just one moment, I'm not going to go down it, but you understand Jesus is called right there. The appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus is our Savior, Jesus is our God. Jesus isn't an angel. He's not a creative being. Jesus himself is God and he is both God and our Savior. That's why we sing songs of praise to him. That's why we can pray to him. So waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Our third piece is this. Christ glorified is the gospel treasure. Christ glorified is the gospel treasure. We have a new hope. We have a new thing we're excited about. It becomes the fixed identity targeted of us. This is now us. We belong to him. Now in reality on earth, we struggle with this, right? We struggle with still thinking the old way. So we're fixed. We now belong to Jesus. He's gonna be our treasure, but progressively through our lives, our hearts are transformed to be more and more like that. And you can measure that, maybe not numerically, but you can see it in your life. You want to see it? Are you alive? Is that moving? Is your hope, your confidence, your treasure, progressively more and more Christ, or is it stalemated or maybe has it not even moved? If it hasn't moved or it's stalled out, something's wrong. I can't tell you exactly what is wrong. You could be the person where the gospel is just hitting you and running off. It's not transforming you. It's turning the words, it's turning some chance and some loyalty, but it hasn't turned to heart transformation. This is what happens in salvation. Heart transformation. God changes us. And so if we are truly His, if we're truly a live tree, we'll have true fruit coming out of us. We will be able to see the progressive and incremental shift of our hearts away from the oral old stuff to Him. So when you read that verse in 13, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior. When you first come to know Jesus in that first year, you're not honestly probably going to be that waiting for great God and Savior. This is something you're going to grow to, grow to a maturity, but it's going to be able to see it. You're going to be able to tell what's happening. And where it's not happening, we rest in the gospel and say, God, thank you for forgiving me, for being a repentant idolatry. Please, fresh new work in me, stir in me, push my heart towards this. Let me cut off the things that are like, timey down over here. So it's something that is our fixed identity, but it's a current progression that way. The gospel makes us no longer fall short of the glory of God, but now rather treasure the glory of God in Christ, namely longing for the return and the glorious reign of Jesus. And that is different than waking up on the other side of glory, right? All of a sudden you start to love Jesus and you love what Jesus is into. And what's Jesus into? He's into coming back and ruling gloriously over all things. Your old heart doesn't like that. And maybe you've lessed a degree, it doesn't care about it. So believer in Christ, that is a health of our heart. That is our new disposition. And so where you see it, don't hide from it and don't make an excuse for it and then don't self-beat yourself over it. Look to Jesus and say, okay, I see this is where my heart should be going, looking for the return and the rule of Jesus. And honestly, out of a scale of one to 10, it's like a one. Confess it to him. He's not shocked. He knew it. He's actually brought it to your attention by bringing the Word of God with some bozo preaching at this morning. And he's bringing it to you so you can see, he looked how your heart is transformed a little bit, but maybe not that much yet. How will your heart be transformed at the foot of the cross? Remembering who he's made you to be. And as you follow him and lean into him asking by his spirit and ask your fellowships help to how do I progress towards this so my heart embraces the return of the king more than waking up on the other side of glory. Our fourth piece is this, only the performance of Christ can save. Verse 14, by the way, if you're looking for a really good gospel passage, and you see you don't have a big gospel passage, the gospel workshop we talked about, everyone should have at least one big gospel passage. So when And you're talking to your friend and you've said all you can say and you're trying to send them back into the Word to read stuff and you don't want to have them read a chain of disconnected verses, a gospel passage, super helpful. You can say, hey bro, hey sis, hey mom, hey dad, whoever, you should totally just read this. Just read it in its context and get out of the way and let the Lord speak. This passage here is a beautiful one because it has such a great progression of what's happening. Verse 14, Jesus, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness. This is what's so unique about the gospel. Not only is the single God identified in a Savior, but what his saving son did, what our divine son did. He lived perfectly. He died sacrificially and he rose in victory. He did something that had to be done in order to the word there is redeem us to buy us out of our predicament because my friend, older, young, male or female, you have nothing with which to buy yourself, to redeem yourself. You're under judgment. You're under a debt. And God says this word, we're spiritually dead. He tells us actually cross view as a quotation out of basically out of Romans 8, 8. If you don't have the Spirit, you cannot please God. You can spend the next 40 years trying to do the nicest things in the world and for one moment you will never bring a grin to the face of God. You will never earn one penny to redeem your payoff of things. You cannot do it. But one has done it. One has gloriously done it. But you got to put away the idea of you ever being able to do it. The knee has become clear in your heart and your heart. I've got nothing. And Christ has everything and He is delighting to give it away. It is unique to the gospel. Friday and Easter are the sweet celebration of Christ giving himself for us by living and dying and rising from the dead to redeem us to buy us out of the penalty and the power of sinful treason. And finally the last point is looking 14 and 15. We see this who gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness to purify for himself of people for his own possession, who are zealous for good works, a people for his own possession. That's a group. That's next week as we talk about the church in God's family who are zealous for good works. That's the following week that comes to the mission of what God's given us. Verse 15, declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority, let no one disregard you. So two things happen in this. The gospel is central and propulsive. The gospel is central and propulsive. So number one, we get transformed in the center of who we are, we're now a people. We once weren't a people, but now all of a sudden you're part of a group that you weren't a part of before. So people not just isolated, gathered people for his own possession who have a passion for good works. There's such a transformation that when we walk away from earthly passions to Christ's passion and our heart is transformed to wait for that one who's loved us so much and died for us to transform us to this. now changes our everyday thing, we now if we're thinking correctly we actually have a passion for good works. Works matter. They never save but they deeply, deeply matter and we should have a passion for them. That's the right thing. So not just a good work count but actually a heart for that. Strong words there. Bless you. Number two, we get sent out with the message to affect others with it. Verse 15, declare these things, exhort and rebuke with authority, let no one disregard you. What we're bringing is not just another worldview option to the world. When we're carrying this message on behalf of Christ, we're carrying it with the authority of Christ. He has sent us out to declare these things, to exhort, to rebuke. Let no one disregard you. You're not just carrying some kind of worldview buffet option that is better than the one next to you. You can't sell Jesus as the one who will take care of your heart and your dreams and your idols better than all the rest of the gods will. There is a new God. He makes all things new. We're not just sharing the news, we're working it through people's lives. It's not just simply loud speaker, but we're actually taking it in people. This is the exhort and the rebuke part. This is where we're actually working it through people's lives in special way. This is what gospel centrality is. Why? preach these things, bring this stuff that just happened for four verses to the lives around you. The people that don't know them, the people that do know them, bring this back and forth to them. This is what gospel centrality is. So I have two brief disclaimers for you to consider. Number one, you might be like the person I mentioned earlier in the sermon that finds gospel centrality and gospel talk kind of exhausting and redundant. And that's fair if guys like me or people like me or ladies like me, we all just say gospel gospel gospel and we don't unpack it and we're just cheaply throwing out there but we need to be unpacking it and expanding it and connecting to it, that fatigue is fair. If a person just says gospel gospel gospel because preaching, living, that has a lot of gospel word connected to it but not unpacked it or connected, that's just flapping of the gums and that fatigue is fair. But for many, the indifference or apathy to gospel centrality is because they have a different gospel, they have something different, I would call it gospel entombment. They're going to believe the gospel, they're loyal to it, but it is isolated, it's cocooned, it's entombed from the rest of life. They're loyal to it, but by no means becomes the center out of which they build all things. It's not the rock on which the house of their life is built off of, so loyal but entombed is a common common thing in Christianity and it's a terrible thing. A simple and sometimes theologically detailed concept of the gospel that's just not unpacked into everyday life to be believed yet. Maybe they're authentically saved? Maybe we're not authentically saved. Number two, well it's there, is the gospel is there, but it's bound with chains of unbelief, right? How's it in tube? It's bound with chains of unbelief and the deep heart persuasion that other things are just better than Jesus in his gospel. We're not gonna say that, but we're gonna watch that. We're not gonna say that, but we're gonna spend that. We're not gonna say that, but we're gonna schedule that. We're not gonna say that, but we're gonna parent that. The gospel is bound by chains of unbelief, of something else being better, better than Jesus, and better than what he promises, and more moving than what he commands to. And that's really, really dangerous to have gospel entombment. We're coming down to, are we understanding the gospel? And as the gospel actually believed in our hearts, we need to have caution. Every single person, that is you, that is me, we all have a sense of centrality. And if the mention of the gospel of gospel centrality fatigues us, what would he suggest is a better central thing? Like what is their force? Just claim our number two is true center. A true center, true center, if it's the gospel, has to be verbally expressed. Has to be verbally expressed. You can have true centers in life that aren't the gospel and they don't demand verbal expression of it, but the gospel itself does demand verbal expression of it and true centering of it. And the question is, what is the center for you? So it's just a question for you. What truly is the center for you? What moves everything? What, I'm not saying loyalty, I'm not saying the jersey you wear, but what moves everything, what comes first, what determines the money, what determines the schedule, parents, just a couple questions here, be careful, stand in the gospel as I mentioned this, okay, stand in the gospel, don't excuse and don't beat yourself in this. But what would your kids say is actually most important to you rather than what you say is most important? If we can really get new kids' minds and say like, what's most important to mom, what's That's most important to Dad. Now what they say, but what shows them that? What do you think is actually most important to them? Second question for you is is your centrality message in line with your more powerful modeling message? Is it in line with it? Maybe there's four ways I just want challenges to think about this as we go forward. Are you number one gospel center in conviction? Do you agree? So do you agree to the notion of gospel centrality? Do you believe that the gospel is not just an Abricut Abric statement, but it actually is the foundation and summarization of all things. Do you hold to that theoretically in your heart and mind? That's level one. Because you can't believe it if you don't hold to it in conviction sense. Okay, so number one, are you convinced from that? And I would say, brother and sister, you are fundamentally off if you're not holding to that. So you can disagree with me, but I would say, let's study. And I'm not making fun. I'm not trying to challenge anybody to fight whatever, but if you don't hold convictionly of gospel centrality, you're fundamentally off, and really there's nowhere else to go in the pleasures of God, because we come out of our driveway and ran right off the hill, right? So do you in a convention sense, hold to this being true at a conviction level? So think about it, and if it's barely a yes, I would really challenge you to advance biblically in your concept of gospel centrality. Let's have coffee, talk to your MC leaders, hang out with us, those kinds of things. Let's go down that and flesh that out. So you actually hold to it and don't just nod to it. Okay, so at a conviction level, number two then at a belief level, if you are convicted to it and you believe that this is true, is it really true of your heart? And I would say, are you aware of the battle for it in your heart? Because if you actually do believe in gospel centrality, you get it and you hold to it and you're trying to step into it, I would say what you're going to experience almost all the time is actually a battle for the belief of gospel centrality. There's gonna be high days and low days. And if you can't tell me about high days and low days in gospel centrality, I'd go, I maybe we're playing a different game here. Cause I for one, and all the gospel center people, I know around me, we all go through the highs and lows that always resting back, okay Lord, you've forgiven me, you've loved me, you've adopted me through the work of Jesus, I'm forever secure before you, I am justified, I am filled with your spirit, I have you, get in my flesh still, I wrestle. And I need you to be with me. I need to rest that I'm in your love and I need your help in a new, fresh way of my life to fight against the idolatities or use of my life. That is so much of the New Testament, is God telling his gospel-centered people about how to be fight through gospel-centered belief. So in your belief. And then number three, in your effect. So concept conviction, be what I actually believe, through my effect, what does it do to other people when they're with you, when they're really with you, when they really know you. Does your life and your mouth and your heart move them towards centrality in the gospel, or doesn't move them into some other centrality, like the American dream, or like earthly natural family rules, or Dave Ramsey, get out of debt, as long as we're out of debt, we're just fine. I'm not saying he believes that, but a lot of us take it that way. I don't know the dude, okay? But I know a lot of people who all of a sudden find good news to be the hopes of being debt free, not only anything like what is your center? What does your life bring and effect upon people? And if it doesn't bring them towards and move them towards and bring the effect of gospel centrality to them, it is moving them to something. What is it? What is it? That would be probably a really good, hard, long, prayerful conversation in the backyard over a cup of black coffee as you pray the Lord or tea and say Lord what is the effect, what is the overwhelming effect of my life both in my words and in my modeling and forth finally in the church. My friends in this room most of you guys will be very significant influences in churches here and other places in this world. Gospel centrality has to be the core of the church and how we structure things and think things through. And so you need to believe that and know how that works. And we have a number of things here to help you out think through. Okay, so as we close, here's a couple of things. Number one, what does gospel centered mean? These three things, I'd say it in simplicity. Number one, a rich understanding of what gospel is and does. Number two, how it connects to everything in the Bible and the universe. And number three, the simple identity and prioritize pursuits of Christ. There's a gospel center life, right? So there's three things, a rich understanding of what the gospel is and does, how it connects to everything in the Bible and the universe and the simple identity and prioritize pursuits of Christ. If you will let us help you, and we hope that you let us help you, because you are upstream of hundreds of lives, oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. If I wish I had a thousand tongues of sing, but really you are in connection to a thousand tongues are gonna sing something. So you have to be gospel centered so you can have gospel centered effect on people so they can be gospel centered, right? So let us help you in these ways. These are the ways for us to church, pastoralists, we've thought and prayed about helping our church people be gospel centered. Here are some of the basic ways. Number one, pray and talk to your MCU leader about this. This is all, if any of us that believe in gospel centrality, we battle with it. So let's fellowship over it. Pray for it, ask for help, talk to the MC leader about it. Number two, do our gospel workshop at least once, probably two to three times, giving a chance, right? Let's really go through it. Let's work through it back and forward, try it one time, go put it to work, come back, do our gospel workshop. Number two, foundation study and DNAs. We have them out there. We have a nine week study to do in DNAs where we're trying to think through what does it mean to place my life on the center of the gospel. Third, keys of a gospel center church class that will happen in the fall. That's how, since you are going to be a key player, male or female, you're going to be a key player in the church, most of you guys, you need to know what the church is. And you need to know what it means to be a gospel center church. And that apparently is not that simple. So give us time in that class to be with us and push it back and forward and thank you to all you guys that work so hard on this year. And the last one is this, fellowship using your new gospel centrality and emphasis. Put it to work. If you're going to be gospel centered, you have to speak gospel centered. You have to believe gospel centered because you are having effect on a thousand tongues. And the question is, what will your effect be? The good news of Jesus is both the foundation and summary of who God is and who we are in Christ and the purpose of our existence and redemption. Therefore the gospel must be truly clear, believed, and be the fully functioning priority in every aspect of our individual lives in church. And if it's not, there is a different center. It's a different center. Can you identify it and can you repent from it? Would you want to repent from it? Repent to be gospel center. Our first priority in the foundation for all things is us being truly gospel centered. So brothers and sisters, it's the first step out of all things. We center ourselves in the gospel, both in conviction, in belief, in our effect, in our church. Let's do this together, let's not pose, let's not try to clean our stuff up and impress each other. Let's push forward to believe our Savior because in Him is the joy of all time. Let's pray.

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