Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to the Sept. 21 sermon from Clifford Baptist Church, 635 Fletcher's Level Road in Amherst. Today's scripture is Second Corinthians, chapter 4, verses 1 through 2. And the sermon is entitled Ministry Confidence, delivered today by Associate Pastor Nathan Williams.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: As a parent, I had this experience over a year ago. You drive home from the hospital, you get the baby out, and you walk in the house and you're like, oh, this is a real child that I'm in charge of now.
And I think, I hope it gets better. But I've heard from some people, you just continue having that experience as a parent. They are like, how in the world am I going to get this task done?
I believe we as a church have a task. We have a holy calling. We have a holy ministry that we're all called to be a part of. Every single member of the church is a minister, not just those who are ordained, but every single believer has a task.
When God created man, he made man in his image.
And Genesis chapter one shows us that he gave them a task.
He said, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
And that was quite a big task. The image of God was to be reflected through mankind in his creation. And it's a glorious thing.
But humanity rebelled against God and they kind of fumbled the ball.
And instead of filling the world with God's glory and goodness, they started distorting it and filled the world with sin.
And I think all of us know what it's like to be hit by the impacts of sin. We look in the world around us, we see the impacts of sin, people separated from God. But the good news is God did not give up. And in Christ, he made a way for mankind to be reconciled back to that original purpose, that original task of filling the earth with worshipers who are made in the image of Christ, made in the image of God by God's grace, even in our sinfulness, God's Spirit can be at work in believers, and we can help other people come to know the hope of Christ. So when Jesus says, go therefore unto all nations making disciples, he is recommissioning his disciples back to that original task, the ministry of filling the earth with God's glory and making him known in everything.
And if you're a believer in Christ, you are a part of that task.
We have the opportunity of bringing peace and in hope to people who have none, because God has given us peace and hope ourselves.
And we as a church are called to this ministry.
But it's a pretty big task.
And it can be really easy when you see everything going on in the world, or a little bit more honest, see the things going on in your own life, your own challenges, your own problems. You might go, how in the world can I have the confidence to fulfill this ministry that God has given me?
We're going to land in Second Corinthians chapter four. But we read a few minutes ago from Second Corinthians chapter five, where Paul unpacks what this ministry is.
He says that he gave us a ministry of reconciliation.
Our ministry is reconciling people back to God, and we're ambassadors of Christ.
We're meant to, in every part of our life, every day of the week, be ministers of the gospel.
But that is a scary thing to do.
But good thing we have Second Corinthians chapter four, where Paul shows us his own struggles with finding confidence in ministry and where he has found confidence. So look in second Corinthians chapter four with me. I'm going to read verses one through 12.
Therefore, having this ministry, by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth, we will commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel, of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord Jesus Christ, with ourselves as your servants. For Jesus sake. For God who said, let light shine out of darkness has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God and the face of Jesus Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
So death is at work in us, but life in you.
Let's go to our Heavenly Father in prayer together.
Heavenly Father, Lord, we praise you that we have Peace with you in Christ. We have a hope of being in right relationship with you, living life as you intend it. But God, we need your help and we thank you Lord that you use us in this ministry of helping other people come to the hope of Christ helping other people grow in Christ.
Lord, help us see from this passage today the confidence that we have in fulfilling this task and this ministry you've given us.
Sanctify us in your truth. Your word is truth in Jesus name. Amen.
In these 12 verses, Paul acknowledges and explains where he finds confidence in ministry.
We think of the Apostle Paul who wrote most of the New Testament, founded a lot of churches, went all over the known world. He must have had a lot of confidence, had it all figured out. But something I love about 2 Corinthians is you get a front door seat into Paul's real struggles and his real trials.
But in this passage we see that even in the struggle, even in the hardship, and he has confidence.
He does not lose heart in the ministry God has given him.
In verse 1 he says, Therefore having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.
He says, I have a big task. We as followers of Christ have a big task, but we do not need to lose heart because God's mercy has given us this ministry and God's mercy will see us through.
And these 12 verses specifically show where God's mercy is the clearest, most powerful and the most purposeful and helpful.
It's in Christ.
So if you have one sentence, one takeaway from this passage, Christ is our confidence ministry.
It's not just the Jesus Duke Sunday School answer that is the real heartbeat of our lives. Christ is our confidence in ministry even when it's hard. Even we don't understand how we can accomplish what God's called us to. Christ gives us that confidence.
This passage shows the three provisions Christ gives us that brings us confidence in ministry.
Jesus provides clarity in our confusing world.
Jesus provides power in our weakness and Jesus provides purpose in our pain.
And these three provisions allow us to face this task not just shaken and fearful, but with confidence in. In good confidence. Because we know that he is at work in us and through us and for us and with us.
So I want to look at these first few verses to see how Christ is our confidence because he provides clarity in a confusing world.
Paul says in verse two.
But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or or to tamper with God's word.
When Paul's describing his ministry, he says, I'm not trying to use any quick fixes.
I'm not trying to use scripture to fit my ends or make scripture say what I want it to say.
I want people to see Jesus Christ in my ministry.
And that's a good confidence.
Because I think confidence without clarity is just reckless.
If you're confident and you just run into something, you have no idea what you're doing. You're like me when I'm given that Amazon package to put together and I confidently start putting it together and throw the instructions, leave them in the box, and then an hour later I'm up creek without a paddle and I'm lost. I'm just being reckless.
Same way in our lives, God has given us a ministry and a purpose. We don't need to tamper and twist what scripture says. We can look to Christ, look at the big story of scripture, how it all points to what Jesus has done and what he is doing through us.
And that brings clarity to who we are, what we're supposed to be doing, and how we can do it.
Magicians do some cool things, but I hope there's no one too young in here that I'm going to ruin their world. Magicians are just tricking people.
They don't really have any magic up their sleeves. They just kind of make it look like they're doing something, but they're really not.
Christian ministry is not that we don't come and gather together. We don't go and share the gospel just so we can kind of make people think they feel better about themselves. We have a real answer to real problems in Jesus Christ.
So we do not have to twist Scripture.
We definitely don't ignore Scripture, but we let it transform our lives.
So the clarity of what Jesus teaches us can be used in our ministry.
Because the truth of Christ is sufficient for our success.
The truth of Christ is sufficient for our success in ministry, even when we don't feel sufficient.
Paul says in chapter three, the previous chapter, that all his sufficiency in ministry comes from God.
He doesn't have any of himself.
So that leads him to say, by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.
He says, I just tell it how it is.
I open up God's word. I don't just grab one verse, but I understand what the whole Bible teaches.
The whole Bible is a story of God's glory and God's redemption of humanity and how the point, the turning point of all that is Jesus Christ for all of humanity and for every individual life.
So he lays that bare by open statement of the truth. Clearly, because truth about Christ provides clarity in our lives.
Understanding who Jesus is, the creator of heaven and earth, the redeemer of our souls, and understanding how our faith in him can change us brings clarity to our chaos, brings resolve when we feel like we could be defeated.
Because Jesus is in control of everything that's happening and his Word reveals how we can face each and every day.
So Paul doesn't try to twist anything.
The truth of the Gospel is much more than just a little roadmap in the sense of here's turn by turn directions.
The truth of scripture is more than just these little texts we need for little parts of our life.
It is the full picture.
I'm old enough to remember not using a GPS to drive, but. But I'm young enough to remember using MapQuest.
So we go online and you would print off the step by step directions to get across to grandma's house, wherever she lived across the state.
And I would be in the passenger seat, my brother would be driving, and my mom was probably home praying. And we drove across the state and I would say, well, in three miles, and we would look at the odometer, we would look at the mile markers like, okay, then we turn right and then now a little bit later, we turn left and we made it to the destination. We had no idea how we got there.
The truth of scripture is not like that.
It might be helpful in different parts of our life, but the truth of scripture shows us the full map of reality, of our own hearts, of the world, of history, of the future.
And it's not like using MapQuest, turn by turn directions. It's like being in your hometown where you have every goat path memorized, every shortcut, you know everything going on. You might not even know what construction's coming up and what to avoid.
That is what the clarity of Christ brings us.
When things hit us. We don't have to go scrambling for what's the next turn.
As we grow in Christ and see more and learn more about him by open statement of his truth, we can understand where we are and we can have confidence knowing that he is still in control and we can still be faithful in our ministry.
And in verse three, Paul shows us another dimension of how Jesus shows clarity. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel. The glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
This is one of the most heartbreaking truths of Scripture.
It's that apart from Christ, people live in the dark.
They might have a text of Scripture that says, and 300ft, turn left, but they're still stumbling around in the dark. They don't really see the truth of who Christ is. They don't really know him. And Christ isn't really making an impact in their life.
That's why just pushing morals on people isn't enough to fulfill our ministry, we must make Christ know.
It's not just knowing about Christ brings clarity, but Christ himself provides clarity.
Christ himself, supernaturally, through the Spirit, provides clarity in people's hearts when they put their faith in him, in how they understand their own lives in the world.
In chapter three, Paul is talking about this image of being veiled and being unveiled. Whether you know Christ or you don't know Christ.
And he says, only through Christ. This is in verse 16, 14 and 16. Only through Christ is it taken away.
When one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.
Christ himself provides clarity to the darkened minds, the darkened hearts, and the lost people of the world.
That's why in our ministry we can have confidence because it's.
We just need to present Christ clearly and lovingly and, and faithfully and by God's grace.
It's between them and the Lord at that point.
And that gives me clarity in my ministry, my confidence.
Because see, the results of our ministry aren't tied up in how many people come to know the Lord, how many people lives are just turned around.
Our confidence ministry comes in us faithfully presenting Christ, faithfully following Christ, faithfully growing in Christ. And the Lord works through that.
We still have to do work, we still have to do things. But we have confidence knowing that it's Jesus who provides clarity to people, not merely us.
And this leads to the second thing that Jesus provides that gives us confidence in our ministry.
We can have confidence in ministry because Christ provides power in our weakness.
The image of God that Jesus is, he is the very image of God. When people see that, when the veil is removed and their faith is in Christ, the end of chapter three shows us. As we behold the glory of the Lord, it transforms us, it changes us.
So when we present the image of Christ clearly, it's his power by His Spirit that begins to change people's lives and change the world around us.
So we can be confident by entrusting our ministry to Christ, by being faithful to Christ and presenting him, his power is enough.
Even when we feel weak or we feel incapable or we feel like we don't have it all together so we can have some wise confidence.
Because I think confidence without power is delusional.
If you have confidence, we have nothing to back it up.
You're like a Chihuahua who's just barking at a lion because you just. You think you can take it on if you have a Chihuahua. I know you love your dog, but Chihuahuas think they are all that when they're really not.
I've been to people's houses. The dog runs up yapping. I'm like, I could just punt this like a football and have no problem.
Maybe that's just an intrusive thought, but I've not followed through with it.
But if we don't have actual power in our ministry, we're wasting our time.
We're wasting it. We don't actually have power in the faith in Christ we have. If Jesus doesn't even give us power, God, we're wasting all of our time.
But praise God that Jesus is the Lord of creation, and praise God that he is sufficient to bring about change in the lives of those around us and our own, so we can have confidence, wise, good, true confidence in our ministry to bring people to Christ.
In verse 5, we see Paul say, for what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants, for Jesus sake.
This is like a circle verse. He makes it clear that what he is proclaiming has nothing to do with himself.
We love to view ministry from worldly perspectives.
What I mean by that is we care more about resumes.
We care more about impressive statistics, how people look, how they talk, their charisma than their faithfulness. Just trusting in Christ and actually presenting him and being shaped by him.
And Paul's honest about that. He's facing some conflict with this church he's writing a letter to. Because they're saying, well, what about these guys? They seem to have it more together than you, Paul.
And Paul is saying, hey, I'm not proclaiming myself here.
I'm proclaiming Christ because He is enough to accomplish the ministry that I have come to do.
And Paul repeats that over and over.
In Colossians 1:28, he says, him we proclaim so that we can present everyone mature in Christ.
In First Corinthians, Chapter two, he says, he doesn't come with. Lofty speech empowers Christ and him crucified. That's all Paul comes with. And here he says, I'm not proclaiming anything about myself. It's Jesus Christ is Lord and my role in that is just a servant.
That's when it gets personal.
So I think when we try to be faithful in ministry, when we try to live out ministry, we start thinking it's more about us getting prominence, us getting more attention, us getting more praise for how good we are at things, how faithful we are, than just humbly pointing people to Jesus.
That's why I love what John the Baptist says. When he says he must increase, I must decrease.
When you've been changed by the power of Christ, you don't want people to see you, you want people to see him because you realize that's your only hope. You don't want to lead anyone else astray. So we proclaim him and you just serve, you love and you serve.
So we're talking to that person who's just hateful against everything you believe, everything you want to live for.
Since it's about Christ, not you, we can love and forgive and serve even when we get nothing in return.
Because Jesus has to work in a person's life.
We don't just say, you need Jesus and leave him alone. No, we love them and we serve them and proclaim Christ.
And his power can do tremendous things in our lives, often not in the timeline that we want.
But we can have confidence knowing that he will work through us if we're faithful.
Because look in verse six for God who said let light shine out of the darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Jesus, our Messiah. The Christ is the God who created the heavens and the earth.
I was driving up towards Harrisonburg yesterday and you see these signs on the side of the road that say Jesus is not God.
People trying to push that back saying he's not.
But the hope of our gospel, that the Christ is the same God who let light shine out of darkness.
In Genesis 1, God said let there be light. And he created the heavens and the earth. Everything beautiful, all the majesty, all the grandeur of everything around us, he made by speaking it in. The intricacies of our soul, of our hearts require the same amount of power to truly change.
A self help book isn't enough to change the depths of a sinful broken heart.
Some positive thinking isn't enough to help us defeat sin in our life and to change and become more like Christ. We need his light that created the heavens and the earth to shine in our own hearts and our own lives and to change us and to change those around us. So it's his power we depend on, not our own.
I think often we can fall into the trap of thinking that it's what we do that really matters in changing people's lives.
But we end up leaning on our own strength and not on the power of Christ.
It would be like going to the beach. Let's say all of us went to the beach at the same time and there wasn't enough room on the beach. It was high tide, you can't get all your chairs out.
So I had the bright idea of giving everyone a five gallon bucket. I said, let's move this tide back.
There's a bunch of us in here, we all got a five gallon bucket and started throwing water back into the ocean. Do you think we could open up the beach some and get some space?
No, we would just be a bunch of lunatics. That would make it on the news, I think. I don't think much would happen.
But God, who created the heavens and the earth, can rotate the earth.
That is a crazy amount of. I went up and looked up how heavy the earth was and I can't even pronounce the word that they use for how many zeros, how many tons the earth is. God can rotate that and move a big rock in the sky over 240,000 miles away to where its gravity pulls 1.5 trillion gallons. I mean tons of water in the whole world to where the ocean tide moves back.
We take that for granted because it happens in a pattern. But that's the God of creation.
That's his power. He can do things we can't do in our ministry. We have confidence like you can look at the tithe calendar and have confidence the tithe is going to move back. Not because someone got five gallon buckets and the local town took people out there to move it back, but God moved it back.
Then in our own lives, in our own ministries, we need the power of Christ to shine in people's lives in the same way that he created the world, he needs to recreate hearts.
So our confidence is found in his power, not our own.
And I love verse seven because it gets a little real with us.
It's not just that Christ's power is enough for us kind of mixed in with our power.
Notice that we have weakness, but his power still works and accomplishes his ministry through us as we faithfully yield to him and follow him and obey Him.
Read verse seven with me. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to Us, the power belongs to God and not to us.
We have a responsibility.
We have to make the truth known.
We have to help people understand who Jesus is and call them to putting their faith in him.
But the good news of our ministry, the confidence of our ministry, is it's not all up to us. If God's mission is accomplished, we can prayerfully depend on him, follow him, entrust him to work through us.
We're just vessels.
I love the imagery. We have this treasure.
The most valuable thing in the world is the spirit of God at work in believers hearts.
And we're just jars of clay.
We're just jars of clay that God uses.
And if we use our lives and point people to Christ and walk in obedience to Christ, that treasure brings worth and value to everything we do.
That's a beautiful thing because I don't know about you, I woke up this morning feeling tired and not feeling 100% capable of doing everything the Lord has me doing.
But by God's grace, if I depend on Him, I'm a jar up here. And if God's spirit works through his word to, he can accomplish great things the same way you might walk out these doors today not feeling ready to face what you're about to face.
Whether it's what you see in the news, whether it's what you see in your own home, what you see in your own heart.
But if you just depend on Christ realizing the power comes from him, not you, and you faithfully follow him, he can transform your life and the lives of those around you.
So that means if you're a parent who just feels kind of lost in the mess of trying to just keep the kids going and keep up with everything going on, or you feel like you're losing yourself and you're like, well, I'm trying to point them in the right direction. I don't know if I can just faithfully depend on Christ. Even in your weakness, you can trust that God will work through you.
If you work in a job that's hostile, or you're around people who just don't want anything to do with Christ and you feel like you don't have the right things to say, you don't have the right ways to twist things around and get people to change their mind, you can just faithfully model humility.
When you mess up, ask for forgiveness and share what God's doing in your life, and it's between that person and God.
And you can have confidence that the power of God might do wonderful things through that, you'll Never know the seeds that we plant we may never see the harvest of.
But I love how Paul kind of wraps this section up showing the third provision that Christ gives us.
Christ is our confidence in ministry. Because he provides purpose in our pain.
He provides purpose in our pain.
If we have confidence without purpose, we're just being prideful.
If we really don't have a purpose for what we're trying to be all bold about, we're really just trying to point everything at ourselves.
But we see Paul kind of get open about his own pain, his own struggles, and how the purpose Christ gives him is sufficient for him to be confident in his ministry even when he has nothing and he just feels beaten down and worn.
Let's read verses 8 and 9.
We see that we experience pain. I don't think anyone can deny this.
In verse 8 it says we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair. Persecuted but not forsaken, Struck down but not destroyed.
We see Paul unpack the pain he's going through. He's tormented, he's challenged, he's disoriented at times, he's confused, he's slandered, he's attacked, he's hurt, he's. He's thrown off track. He is dealing with pain in his ministry, but he's still confident, which we'll get to why. But he touches on every type of pain. I believe you can experience physical pain, mental or emotional pain, relational and social pain, circumstantial pain when things out of our control just come our way and just stop us in our tracks. And that's painful.
But Paul is showing that he is not giving up through that.
Not because he is strong enough, but because he has purpose through his trial.
In verse 10, he says he's always carrying in the body the death of Christ.
When Jesus died on the cross, it was a reality check that there was sin and brokenness in the world to where the Son of God had to take on that sin. For those who believe in him and for us, when we experience pain, it's a reality check that there's sin and brokenness still in the world and we still have ministry work to do.
But by God's grace, it's his purpose at work through us that gives us the confidence when we're at the end of our own rope.
I believe there's these little truism that people say that sound nice. People might think even come from the Bible, but I think actually just bring guilt and confusion to the reality of people's lives.
And one of them is, God will not put more on you than you can bear.
I think we love saying that. But sometimes God allows things to come in our lives that are more than we can bear.
It honestly kind of seems to be his favorite way of working in his people's lives.
And what happens when we experience pain and suffering? Like, well, what did I do wrong?
Why do I not feel strong enough to face this?
What is wrong with everything going on? Because I thought that God would never put something on me that I couldn't bear. But we see Paul is going through things that he can't bear, but he has a purpose through it, and he has confidence, knowing that Jesus can work in his weakness, in his brokenness, in his pain.
And sometimes that's our only hope in what we're going through.
Cause look at what he says.
Look at how in Christ our pain has purpose.
He says, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
Sometimes our pain breaks us down to where we have nothing left. We feel trapped. We feel like we have nowhere we can go, we can never get through it.
And all we can do his cry out to God and in our anguish, hold on to him.
And we feel guilty about that. We feel like, I'm supposed to be doing this ministry. I'm supposed to be helping people come to know Christ. Why can I not do all this?
Sometimes our ministry is just holding on to Christ.
And the sufficiency of Christ is proven through our life.
That's what Paul says. So that the life of Jesus may also be manifested or to be seen to be shown, to be broadcasted through our bodies. And the pain we're going through doesn't make it any easier.
That's not the thing you put on your mirror to make you feel better in the morning. Maybe, I don't know, it doesn't fix anything. But it gives you purpose in the pain you're going through.
That if you hold on to Christ and you wait on him patiently, you never know who might see Jesus through that.
You never know who might be encouraged in their faith through that.
You don't know.
And there's purpose in that. Sometimes it's our personal growth.
The Bible's full of of passages. In James chapter one, we're told to count it joy in our Trials. In Romans 5, we're seeing that trials and suffering can actually produce character and hope in us.
But here we see that sometimes our pain isn't just for our personal growth, but it helps other people grow the most Encouraging.
The most encouraging things in my life is seeing believers go through trials and Christ seeing through them. Seeing them through that is the most encouraging thing I see in my life.
But we live in this kind of Westernized, Americanized, that everything's supposed to feel good all the time. So when pain comes, we're like, what is wrong? What's going on? You never know what the Lord might be doing through your trial.
You never know. I'm not going to pretend like I understand your depths of your pains, the depths of your issues. But we can be confident in our ministry that if we hold on to Christ through the pain of our bodies, through what we're enduring, Christ may be seen.
It's not just when you stand in the pulpits or when you're on the mountaintops or when hundreds or millions of people are listening to you that you're being faithful in your ministry. Sometimes it's when you're on your knees in your room crying, holding on to God.
And then God uses that to change someone's life.
So we can be confident because Christ is providing purpose in our pain. He repeats this in verse 11. For we who live are always being given over to death for Christ's sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. Look at verse 12.
So death is at work in us, but life in you.
Death is at work in us, but life in you.
Paul says, I might be going through it, but I'm trusting in God that He is growing you and showing you the truth of Christ as I'm suffering.
And sometimes that's what being faithful in ministry looks like, just holding on to Christ and having a testimony.
So as I wrap this up, I hope that you're encouraged that Christ is your confidence in ministry.
You might be confused. Look to Christ who provides clarity.
You might be not enough on your own. Look to Christ. He provides power in your weakness.
And you might feel like you're going through too much to really be of any use to the kingdom of hold on to Christ, and He will use you for his kingdom because he has purpose in our pain.
So if you want to be faithful in ministry, if you want to be confident in your ministry, if you want to make an impact in this world that is losing Christ and going away from Christ. Be faithful in the little things of your life, in your own time of prayer, in your own time of studying scripture, in your time reading scripture with your family, praying with your family, helping model dependence on Christ with your family in church. Get plugged in. Be in community, grow in your faith. Don't be content just to show up in a pew and stay the same. Get plugged in and grow because that is doing ministry that impacts others.
It's not just the person who has the biggest platform that's been successful in ministry. You can be successful as you love your own families, in your own church, in your own community.
Let's depend on Christ together to do that. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, I thank you for the hope of Christ, the hope of the gospel, that we have a big calling, we have a big ministry of reconciling lost people to Christ, to God in right relationship.
Lord, thank you for Christ that he's not only enough for us and our salvation, but he's enough for our ministry and the impact in other people's lives.
So Lord, I pray that you will make Christ known.
There's people here who have never actually trusted in Christ, Lord.
Call them to yourself, Lord.
If there's believers in here who have been discouraged, Lord, help them to find confidence in Christ today so we can be a church that is vibrant and focused on the ministry God has for us.
In Jesus name, Amen.
[00:41:31] Speaker A: Clifford Baptist Church invites you to join us for worship every Sunday morning at 11am for more information about our church, please call our church office at 434-946-0555.
