#GoForthAndTell #salvation #Jesus #Evangelism #bibleteaching #history #christianity #christian #Hymn #HarrySmith #God #doctrine #ChartridgeMissionChurch #chesham #thefriendliestfellowship
Harry Smith takes one of his favourite hymns, 'Go Forth And Tell', and turns it into a sermon call to go into all the world and share the good news of Jesus' resurrection and the free gift of eternal life for all who believe. Christians are privileged to be Christ's ambassadors of reconciliation to the world that remains unsaved. The harvest draws near: will you Go Forth And Tell?
Chartridge Mission Church was founded in 1844 and remains in the village of Chartridge, just outside Chesham, in the picturesque Chiltern Hills of Buckinghamshire, England, UK.
We are a friendly fellowship and would love you to visit us in person. Join us for our Sunday service at 6 pm, followed by refreshments.
Our Church is wheelchair friendly, with an accessible toilet.
Chartridge Mission Church, Chapel Lane, Chartridge, Chesham, Buckinghamshire, HP5 2TH
Support our work at Chartridge Mission Church:
Donations via Stewardship.org.uk:
https://www.stewardship.org.uk/partners/20005300
Cheques can be made payable to Chartridge Mission Church and sent to the above address for the attention of Pastor Barry Kempson.
Recorded on Sunday, 29th June 2025.
Join us for our Sunday service at 6 pm.
www.Chartridge.UK
The Friendliest Fellowship.
Harry Smith takes one of his favourite hymns, 'Go Forth And Tell', and turns it into a sermon call to go into all the world and share the good news of Jesus' resurrection and the free gift of eternal life for all who believe. Christians are privileged to be Christ's ambassadors of reconciliation to the world that remains unsaved. The harvest draws near: will you Go Forth And Tell?
Chartridge Mission Church was founded in 1844 and remains in the village of Chartridge, just outside Chesham, in the picturesque Chiltern Hills of Buckinghamshire, England, UK.
We are a friendly fellowship and would love you to visit us in person. Join us for our Sunday service at 6 pm, followed by refreshments.
Our Church is wheelchair friendly, with an accessible toilet.
Chartridge Mission Church, Chapel Lane, Chartridge, Chesham, Buckinghamshire, HP5 2TH
Support our work at Chartridge Mission Church:
Donations via Stewardship.org.uk:
https://www.stewardship.org.uk/partners/20005300
Cheques can be made payable to Chartridge Mission Church and sent to the above address for the attention of Pastor Barry Kempson.
Recorded on Sunday, 29th June 2025.
Join us for our Sunday service at 6 pm.
www.Chartridge.UK
The Friendliest Fellowship.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Come, come and tell, O Church of God arise, Go in their strength, which Christ should not surprise,
00:12Those in all nations his great name adorn, And serve the Lord ending forevermore.
00:30It's good to be here, and we're certainly going to enjoy warm fellowship, literally as well as we trust spiritually, as we meet on this rather warm evening.
00:44Psalm 148 begins, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights, praise him all his angels, praise him all his hosts,
00:54Praise him sun and moon, praise him all you shining stars, praise him you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens,
01:01Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created, and he established them forever and ever,
01:09He gave a decree, and it shall not pass away. Praise the Lord from the earth, and then it goes on a great list,
01:16Sea creatures, deeps, weather, mountains, hills, beets, livestock, kings of the earth and all peoples, praise the Lord.
01:25And now, Christine, if you could come and give us this evening's reading, please.
01:29There are two short readings this evening.
01:31The first one is from 2 Corinthians chapter 5, beginning at verse 17.
01:37The letter of Paul to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17.
01:53Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
01:58The old has passed away, behold, the new has come.
02:02All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
02:11That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them,
02:19and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
02:23Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.
02:29We implore you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
02:35For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
02:44And now Matthew chapter 28, verse 16.
02:51Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.
02:56And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted.
03:02And Jesus came and said to them,
03:05All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
03:10Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
03:14baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
03:20teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
03:23And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
03:29May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word.
03:32Well, the last few weeks, of course, we've had what really is the climatic time of the church year.
03:41We've had Easter, when we remembered the fulfillment of the atonement.
03:48Why did the Lord Jesus come?
03:49Why did God send his son?
03:51He sent him, of course, to lay down his life for his sheep.
03:56He came to save his people from their sins.
04:02He was the only person born on this planet who came specifically intending to die at a specific time.
04:10Galatians 4 tells us,
04:12When the time had fully come, God sent forth his son.
04:16There was nothing accidental about it.
04:18God was not having to change his plans because his plans in the Old Testament had gone wrong.
04:25No, this was all God's eternal purpose.
04:28And of course, the Old Testament spoke prophetically of the Messiah, the Christ, God's anointed one, who was going to come.
04:37And then 40 days later, after the resurrection, of course, we had the ascension.
04:44That the Lord Jesus, his work on earth, in the flesh, in his humanity, finished, was received back into heaven.
04:53And 10 days after that, the giving, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
04:59Who doesn't just come upon people, as in the Old Testament, for the acts, for their works of ministry that he was going to do through them.
05:08But rather to indwell each of us, each of God's people, to serve the Lord, to live for him, to grow in grace and the knowledge of him.
05:19And also, of course, to be his witnesses.
05:23And he did say this.
05:24He said to them,
05:25You shall be my witnesses, beginning in Jerusalem.
05:29The Jews thought, of course, that the God of Abraham was their God only.
05:35It's interesting when you look at the Old Testament.
05:38God's intention was that they should spread the gospel.
05:41Abraham was going to be blessed and be a blessing to all nations.
05:46And you see this all the way through.
05:48But they became proud.
05:50They became selfish.
05:52They thought he was all for them.
05:53They thought of Gentiles, non-Jews, as dogs, of less than human.
05:59And, of course, the apostles had to be thrust, really, and the early Christians, out of Jerusalem by persecution to go and take the gospel around the world.
06:10But while he was here, he met with the eleven who were left.
06:18And he gave them, he told them, he showed them what was in the Old Testament about him.
06:25And then later, we don't know the specific time.
06:28Paul tells us in the great resurrection chapter, 1 Corinthians 15, that Jesus was seen by many after his resurrection.
06:40And particularly, he says, and if you don't want more proof, more than 500 at once, we presume that was up in Galilee.
06:48And it was as if he was saying, don't just take my word for it.
06:54Don't just take the word of the apostles.
06:57Go and ask these people.
06:59Many of them are still alive.
07:00You can get their personal testimony.
07:02But at the end of Matthew 28, we have that well-known little section, that little passage, what we call the Great Commission.
07:14And the eleven disciples, the eleven apostles who were left, were sent to Galilee.
07:20It seems it probably was more than them who were there, because there were many believers, of course, in the north, in Galilee.
07:27But we're told that when they saw Jesus, they worshipped him.
07:30And Jesus came and said to them famously, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.
07:42Go, therefore.
07:43Actually, in the original, that's a poor translation.
07:47There's only one imperative.
07:48There's only one command in the Great Commission.
07:52The rest are participles.
07:54It would be better going, or rather having gone, into the world.
08:01I think that's important.
08:03I know when I was young, I was brought up in a brethren assembly, and every so often we had missionary meetings.
08:09And you'd have a missionary or two who were home on furlough from, well, I was little, places that seemed distant and way away.
08:20And they were somehow, they were special.
08:23They were the missionaries.
08:24They were the ones who fulfilled the Great Commission.
08:27They're the ones who had gone to foreign countries with the gospel, and people who lived in darkness and didn't know the good news of Christ.
08:36But, of course, having gone applies to all of us.
08:43Wherever we are, we are where we are now.
08:46We're in this building now.
08:47We live where we live at the moment.
08:49Our life history has been according to God's plan for us.
08:53And, therefore, we have a responsibility to make disciples.
09:01Are we available?
09:03I think one problem with the church so often today has been, and I'm talking sometimes about the evangelical church, a danger of thinking, well, we're the chosen, pulling up the drawbridge and kind of being content, almost, although we might not realise it.
09:21Our churches can become like a social club.
09:23It's where we meet our friends.
09:26It's where we do our things.
09:27But do we still have the enthusiasm?
09:30Do we will have the, not just as we look at the world around us, to almost tut-tut and think, like the Pharisees, aren't they terrible?
09:41People who don't know God, who don't know the Lord Jesus, what do we expect from them?
09:47They're controlled by, they're slaves of the evil one.
09:51They're children of wrath, and as Paul says to the Ephesians.
09:53Just as we once were, it's by God's grace, God's mercy, God's love to us, that, in a sense, in a very real sense, the lights have been switched on.
10:06We've been given the knowledge, but not to keep it to ourselves.
10:10One old saint used to say, it's like we're just beggars, showing other beggars where to find bread, the bread of life, of course.
10:20But Jesus said, therefore, as you go, or having gone, this is the one imperative, make disciples.
10:30Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
10:40And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.
10:44They had to be available.
10:47They had to go to where Jesus had commanded them to go.
10:50That was the first question.
10:52Are we available?
10:53I realise I'm speaking here, not just to a congregation sat in this building, but to many I can't see.
11:01You can see me on screen.
11:03Wherever you are in the world, although we're separated by many miles, different continents, different lands,
11:11yet, if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, we're all one in Christ, and we all have a responsibility to tell others,
11:21to share what's been shared with us, the good news of the Gospel.
11:26The other thing they did, of course, you noticed, when they saw him, they obviously recognised him and worshipped him.
11:35Worship's based on recognition.
11:36Do we recognise who the Lord Jesus is, that he is God the Son, and that he's entrusted us,
11:45God's entrusted us, weak, fallible, faltering often human beings, with the message of redemption, the message of salvation.
11:55God could have sent angels.
11:57They'd have done it perfectly.
11:59They'd have done it without no mistakes, no disobedience, no excuses.
12:04But he chose you and me, wherever we are, to make the good news of Christ known.
12:12Availability and worship.
12:14When we recognise that he is God incarnate, or he was God incarnate as they did,
12:20but that he is now the risen, ascended, exalted Lord Jesus Christ.
12:28And we don't have to do it with our authority.
12:31We can't.
12:31We have no authority of our own.
12:35It's his authority.
12:37All authority has been given to me, he said.
12:39In heaven, the whole created universe, the heaven of heavens.
12:46All authority.
12:47And he finishes it.
12:48He says, I'm with you always to the end of the age.
12:54We have him, if you like, at the front.
12:56We have him at the back.
12:57It's his power.
12:59It's his authority.
13:01And it's been given to us to use, not in our own strength, but in his.
13:08And so, of course, there has to be submission.
13:13Submission, exousia, the Greek word there, means authority or power.
13:16Of course, in ancient times, kings, emperors had absolute power.
13:23They were despots.
13:24They, it's what we mean by Lord, of course.
13:27If we say Jesus is Lord, at the time scriptures were written, the people would recognize Lord as somebody who owned them, somebody who had absolute authority.
13:38It's why most of our English versions have sadly, where we've got the word doulos, slave, bond slave.
13:48In the, you look at a lot of the epistles, they begin with Paul or whoever it is, a bond slave of the Lord Jesus Christ.
13:55Lord and slave go together.
13:58That shouldn't surprise us.
13:59The words used of redemption, ransom, they're words from the slave market.
14:07We've been bought, not with precious gold, silver, precious stones, but with the precious blood of Christ.
14:14He owns us.
14:15We're under new ownership.
14:18Before that, like everybody else, we were, we were slaves of sin and slaves of Satan.
14:25Unwittingly, unknowingly, but we've been bought.
14:28We're under new ownership.
14:30Therefore, his authority, we bow to.
14:36Of course, Christianity is the kingdom of God.
14:39It is a kingdom.
14:41He is the king.
14:43And therefore, we are available at his command.
14:47We recognize him.
14:48We worship him.
14:49We submit to his authority.
14:53And that means obedience.
14:56It's not optional.
14:58Now, those of us who preach regularly have, I guess, a particular privilege and responsibility of witnessing publicly and making Christ known.
15:10But it applies to all of us.
15:15To our friends, our neighbours, our work colleagues, those who the Lord brings into our sphere of witness.
15:22To do that.
15:24And to make them, and to baptise them in the name of Father, Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
15:32Just in passing.
15:33It's not the name of the Father, the name of the Son, and the name of the Holy Spirit.
15:37You've got the triunity.
15:38I prefer that term to Trinity.
15:42God the Son.
15:43God the Father.
15:44God the Holy Spirit.
15:45One God.
15:46One name.
15:48That's the authority we have.
15:50But what's the message?
15:51What do we teach them?
15:53What is making a disciple?
15:55The word disciple means learner.
15:58And hence, we learn.
16:01Peter finishes his first epistle.
16:04There's growing grace in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
16:10We were listening to, I think it was R.C. Sproul, the late R.C. Sproul, a day or two ago.
16:16And he was saying, and this was a few years ago now.
16:20He was saying the big problem in the church today, and he's talking about the evangelical church.
16:24He's talking about the evangelical church in America.
16:26It's the ignorance.
16:28The ignorance of so many of God's people.
16:31Of God's word.
16:33Many of us were privileged to be born in Christian families.
16:37And brought up in churches where we were taught the word of God from an early age.
16:41People sometimes say to me, how come you can, you know so much of the Bible?
16:46You can refer to it.
16:47I say a lot of it was when I was young.
16:49I always remember my father, who was rather Victorian in his approach,
16:53taking me along, if I'd finished my homework, to the midweek Bible study.
16:58And I was probably the only youngster, the only teenager there.
17:01And I remember one of the elders patting me on the head and saying, good to see you.
17:05You might think it's a bit boring and a bit of a waste of time, but the Lord will use what you're learning now.
17:14We have a response.
17:15The devil will do everything to stop people getting into God's word and to knowing it.
17:22And we need to pray that the Lord will stir up his people and our church leaders to get back to the serious teaching and study
17:31and encourage God's people to get into his word.
17:35Because you can't teach what you don't know.
17:39And is that one of the reasons why, certainly in the West and certainly in this country,
17:44there's such weakness and a failure, really, in ministry.
17:51But what is the message?
17:55The message, of course, is one of reconciliation.
18:00Paul, writing in his second epistle, his second letter to the Corinthians, is replying,
18:07we haven't got all Paul's letters.
18:09There's obviously one at least, maybe two missing.
18:12But Paul was under great attack, great attack from false teachers and false self-appointed apostles
18:21in that fellowship, that church which he had planted.
18:28And in here, he's basically, a lot of his second epistle here, he bears his heart.
18:34But in chapters 4 and 5, he's talking about ministry.
18:40And I love the way he starts it.
18:42He says, having had this ministry, chapter 4, 2 Corinthians,
18:46By the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.
18:48We've renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.
18:51We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word.
18:55But by the open statement of the truth,
18:57we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.
19:01That's it.
19:02The temptation, and sadly, so many churches that would claim to still believe in conversion,
19:09still believe in knowing Jesus as your saviour.
19:14Often without recognising he has to be Lord if he's saviour.
19:20He has to be Lord of all.
19:22But have failed to do that.
19:25There's a lot of feeling that somehow the gospel, the word of God's not relevant to modern society.
19:31We've moved on.
19:33People don't like authority.
19:34People don't like to be taught.
19:36People don't like to be told that this is the truth.
19:39And this you believe and you accept.
19:42And so it's very easy to get into gimmicks.
19:45To almost go and say, what will attract people into our churches?
19:49And let's make our churches like the world.
19:52We're not supposed to be of the world.
19:53We've come out of the world.
19:56We're to call people out of the world.
19:58But if we start trying to become worldly, we lose our confidence in the word of God and in the gospel.
20:05Then we have no gospel.
20:08We have no good news.
20:09So Paul having said that, and having said the reason why the gospel's hidden, it's veiled, people don't get it.
20:17The reason why, because they're perishing.
20:20Because Satan, the God of this world, has blinded their minds.
20:24You see, the gospel is spoken.
20:25It's preached.
20:26God's a speaking God.
20:27He's given us his word.
20:30Romans 10.
20:30Faith comes by what?
20:33Hearing.
20:33Hearing what?
20:35The preaching of Christ.
20:36It's God's word, which is alive and active.
20:41And I was preaching this morning at a Methodist church up in Trestwood.
20:47And I took the passage there, 1 Thessalonians chapter 1.
20:51And Paul says he's excited about these believers.
20:54Because when the word came, they didn't expect it just as the word of men.
20:58It came in power, in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.
21:03He goes on to say he was rejoicing because he recognised that the word was not what he had to say.
21:13Or anybody else, not human philosophy.
21:16But God the Holy Spirit speaking through his word.
21:20So in the middle of the section, chapter 4 and going into 5, having said at the beginning that we don't preach ourselves, but we preach Jesus Christ as Lord with ourselves as your bond slaves for his sake.
21:35And I love verse 6.
21:36God who said, let light shine out of darkness.
21:39The creator God who called light out of darkness.
21:42Which is exactly what's happened in our hearts if we know the Lord Jesus, if we're true Christians.
21:49And has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
21:57Then he goes on to develop, to speak how weak we are.
22:01We've got treasure.
22:02There's treasure in jars of clay.
22:05Showing that the surpassing power belongs to God, not to us.
22:08And he talks about him being afflicted but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted, not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies.
22:25I love verse 16.
22:28He starts by saying we don't lose heart.
22:30He says again, we don't lose heart.
22:31Our outer self is wasting away.
22:34Our inner self is being renewed day by day.
22:36For this light, momentary affliction.
22:42Paul, towards the end of this epistle, he just gives a summary, a praisey maybe of some of his affliction.
22:50His floggings, floggings that often people didn't survive.
22:54His shipwrecks, his persecution, all the trials he had.
22:58False brethren, false believers and leaders who attacked him and tried to discredit him.
23:04And he says above all the care for all the churches.
23:10Now, Paul goes on to say we're weak.
23:13We know, but the power is his.
23:16The power is in the gospel.
23:18And when he gets to the end of chapter 5, having spoken and said that warning, we've all got to appear before the judgment seat of Christ.
23:27So each one may receive what is due for what he's done in the body, whether good or bad.
23:32Therefore, knowing the fear or the terror of the Lord, we persuade others.
23:38But then, just at the end, having said, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.
23:46The miracle of the new birth.
23:49God doesn't just take us in our sinful state and men and women, boys and girls in their sinful state and clean them up a little bit and polish the edges.
23:59It needs new birth, new life in Christ.
24:04He's a new creation.
24:05The old's passed away.
24:06Behold, the new has come.
24:08All this is from God.
24:10And then in the next three verses, 18 to 20 there, five times in three verses, we have this word reconciliation.
24:22You see, the gospel isn't just Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.
24:30It isn't just say the sinner's so-called sinner's prayer.
24:34Just confess your sins.
24:36Tell Jesus you believe in him and you'll be saved.
24:40And you can live as you like.
24:42It doesn't matter.
24:44It's a new creation.
24:46It's from God.
24:47And it's a matter of reconciliation.
24:49Why?
24:50Because God hates sin.
24:53God, by necessity, being holy, means he can't even look on sin.
24:58And he must punish sin.
25:02People often say, well, if God's almighty, surely he can just forgive sins.
25:09He can just write everything off.
25:11And that's OK.
25:12But no, no.
25:14God is also just.
25:17I used the example this morning.
25:19If a judge had one of the, if you think of the most heinous crime you can think of, maybe a paedophile who had abused and tortured young children and killed them was up in the dock.
25:31And the judge said, well, you know, today I'm feeling pleased with myself.
25:36It's my birthday.
25:38I'm about to go on a great holiday and I've won the lottery.
25:41And I know you're wicked and I know you've done wrong, but I'm going to let you off.
25:47There'd be an outcry.
25:48We'd all say that's not justice.
25:50Justice has not been done.
25:51How much greater the sin, the crime of rebellion to God.
25:59And the Bible tells us that it was when we were yet enemies that Christ died for the ungodly.
26:07So God has to punish sin.
26:09The great story of the resurrection, the great story of Easter is that on resurrection day, on Easter day, God raised Christ Jesus from the dead.
26:17And that we can be reconciled to him through the blood of his cross, because he, the sinless one, took the place of sinners.
26:30And therefore it is reconciliation.
26:33It is peace with God.
26:34I love the beginning of this chapter.
26:37Romans chapter five, Paul having dealt with the great, having said, shown how all people, Jew and Gentile, are under God's wrath and judgment.
26:46Then we're justified by faith in Christ.
26:49But he says there, since we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
26:59Peace with God.
27:01Possibly Billy Graham's best known book was called Peace with God.
27:08The world wants peace.
27:10The world looks for peace in men.
27:12It will never happen, because the heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.
27:20And only faith in the Lord Jesus Christ can deal with that.
27:25We want the world put to rights.
27:27We want peace.
27:28We want men and women to love one another, to live as they should.
27:34Then they have to be right with God.
27:36And so Paul here emphasises reconciliation.
27:41But what else does he say?
27:43He says, we have a ministry of reconciliation.
27:48All it's from God.
27:50Through Christ, he's reconciled us to himself.
27:53He's given us the ministry of reconciliation.
27:55That is, in Christ, God was reconciled in the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them,
28:07and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
28:11Many times, if we have plenty of time, particularly Paul, we have this word reconciliation coming up.
28:19This being made right with God, having peace with God through the Lord Jesus.
28:26But then he goes on to say,
28:28therefore, on the basis of that, we are ambassadors for Christ.
28:33What's an ambassador?
28:35What's an ambassador?
28:36We all know what an ambassador is.
28:37An ambassador is sent to a foreign country, foreign government, maybe completely different language, traditions, and so on,
28:48to represent, in the old days it would be his king or emperor or the government.
28:53The ambassador has one responsibility, and that's to take the message that he's been entrusted with.
29:00He has no right, no liberty, to make the message up, to adjust it, to change it.
29:09He has to faithfully represent his, let's say, king who sent him.
29:17We're ambassadors.
29:19We have no right, no liberty to change the gospel, to change the message,
29:24to water it down, to not warn people that as sinners in their state,
29:32unless they repent, change their minds, their thinking,
29:35and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in his finished work on Calvary,
29:41then they're going to a lost eternity.
29:43They're going to eternal hell.
29:45Unless we're prepared to do that, we're not telling them the truth.
29:50We're not telling them the whole gospel.
29:51You see, if you don't know your need, if you're not convicted of sin,
29:57why would you want a saviour?
29:59Why would you be interested in submitting to the Lord Jesus?
30:04And so Paul says, we're ambassadors.
30:07That's the role, that's the great commission.
30:10That's the commission we have, to be ambassadors for Christ.
30:15We're in an alien land.
30:17Peter starts his epistle, doesn't he?
30:18We elect aliens.
30:21That's what we are.
30:23An ambassador goes to a different country, different traditions and so on,
30:27different culture.
30:29His job is not to adjust the message,
30:32to try and make it more acceptable to the nation he's gone to.
30:36We're in a world that is alien to the word of God, where people have no time for God.
30:48And just as Paul, just as the apostles, suffered for the gospel, we need to be prepared to,
30:56not to soften it, not to change it.
30:58And Paul says, it's God making his appeal through us.
31:02We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
31:09Be reconciled to God.
31:12And then this wonderful verse at the end, 521, for our sake, he, God, made him, our English
31:21versions say to be sin.
31:23In the original it's made him sin, not to commit sin, but be sin itself.
31:29God treated Christ as if he were the worst sinner could possibly be.
31:34Why?
31:35Because he bore the sins of all those who will trust in Christ,
31:39all those who will repent and accept the Lord Jesus Christ.
31:45That's why in those three hours of darkness, the Lord Jesus cried out,
31:49quoting Psalm 22,
31:52My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
31:56Not Father, every other occasion he referred to his Father as his Father.
31:59Now it was my God.
32:01Why?
32:02Because he bore your sin.
32:05And mine, if we accept and trust him.
32:08And theologians call it imputation.
32:12Our sin was imputed to Christ, reckoned to Christ as if it was his.
32:17All of it.
32:19And his righteousness, his rightness, his perfection was reckoned to us.
32:27That's why some of the old hymn writers talked about being clothed in the garment of righteousness,
32:32and it's the dress of righteousness.
32:35That's what the gospel, that's the heart of the gospel, reconciliation, based on what God in Christ did.
32:43I wonder, are we excited by it?
32:47There's a great, a great hymn, we finished it this morning.
32:51It's one where in a little URC church near Harpenden.
32:56The organist, she died earlier this year.
32:59But one day, I chose the hymn, we have a gospel to proclaim.
33:05And she normally hadn't said anything.
33:07And she shouted out from the organ at the back.
33:09She called out.
33:10She got so excited.
33:11She said, that's my favourite hymn, because it tells the story of how Jesus, it starts with,
33:18and it's great, because, you know, when it's somebody who normally doesn't have much to say
33:23and just sits there and you think she's just doing the job, and that's it,
33:26because she was an itinerant organist, she'd be paid to go around various churches and play.
33:30And we thought, she'd heard the message many times and never got, but she said, this is wonderful.
33:35She said, it tells how God sent Christ into the world and what he did and how he lived and how he died
33:40and how he rose again and so on.
33:43We do have a gospel to proclaim.
33:47But are we doing it?
33:49Are we prepared to do it?
33:52Are we praying, as per the end of Matthew 9,
33:55that the Lord of the harvest will thrust out reapers, workers, into his harvest field?
34:03It's interesting, just on that, that when Jesus said that,
34:08and he said to the apostles, looking at the fields around, ripe for harvest, and the workers being few,
34:16he said, pray the Lord of the harvest, and it's earnestly beseech the Lord of the harvest
34:20to thrust out workers into his harvest field.
34:24Next few verses, he sent them.
34:27Are we prepared to pray that, Lord, use me, here I am, fully available?
34:34Are we, no matter how young or how old we are,
34:38if we can't go, we can pray that the Lord will raise up workers for his glory?
34:43Come on, forth and tell, O Church of God away,
34:50God's saving news to all the nations sing,
34:56God's way by Jesus, the Saviour, God and King,
35:02and all the rotten, solid, restless sheep.
35:07Come on, forth and tell, O Church of God away,
35:12God's love and grace should all be easily praised,
35:18reach on to all the poor.
35:21How shall they call the good who have ever heard
35:27the gracious invitation of his word?
35:32He, no matter how old we are,
35:33He, no matter how old we are,
35:36God's day shall, O Church of God away,
35:37God's love and grace should all be sealed with his word,
35:42Come on, forth and tell, O Church of God away,
35:44How shall we bear the good who have ever heard
35:46the Lord of the harvest,
35:48He, no matter how old we are,
35:51He, no matter how old we are,
35:55He, no matter how old we are,
35:58He, no matter how old we are,
35:59Girl, look forth and tell, the doors are open wide.
36:06Share your world to kids, let no one be denied.
36:13Live out your life as nice, your love shall choose.
36:19Your answer shall pass for his love and use.
36:24Girl, look forth and tell, the doors are open wide.
36:32Go in the same place, the doors are open wide.
36:38The doors are open wide, the doors are open wide.
36:45I'm standing on the floor forever, Lord.
36:54Go in the same place, Lord.
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