Faith and Repentance

Call to Worship

Welcome to First Baptist Church of Artesia. We're going to get our service underway here. Thank you so much for joining us online and in person. We're so glad that you're with us. I'm going to read a little bit of Psalm 33 to start off our service this morning.

Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous ones; praise from the upright is beautiful. Praise the Lord with the lyre; make music to him with a ten-stringed harp. Sing a new song to him; play skillfully on the strings, with a joyful shout. For the word of the Lord is right, and all his work is trustworthy. He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the Lord’s unfailing love.

— Psalm 33:1-5 (CSB)

Join us this morning as we worship the Lord.

(The congregation joins the worship team in singing praises)

Introduction: What Makes Someone a Christian?

Happy Lord's Day. My name is John Lee, and I'm on staff here at First Baptist Artesia. I hope all of you survived the hurricane! I was at home waiting for God's wrath to come, and it was the closest feeling I had to being part of the Passover—nothing happened.

It brings me great joy to bring you God's word this morning. If you have a Bible, go ahead and open it to the Book of Mark. If you're using a pew Bible in front of you, that's going to be on page 707.

Last week we started this book, and every time I come up and preach, we'll be going through the Book of Mark. Last week we looked at verses 1 through 13, and this morning we're going to look at verses 14 through 20. If this is the first time you've used a Bible, the big numbers are the chapter numbers and the little numbers are the verse numbers. I'll read the passage, and then we'll pray and get started. I'm going to be reading from the Christian Standard Bible, and the translation shouldn't be too different from whatever Bible you're using.

After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” As he passed alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, Simon’s brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. “Follow me,” Jesus told them, “and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. Going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat putting their nets in order. Immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

— Mark 1:14-20 (CSB)

Let's pray. Lord, we come to you this morning eager to hear from your word. We know that for any of us to be able to hear your Son's call and respond to it requires a supernatural work of your Spirit. So Lord, as we hear from your word, we pray God that you would open our spiritual ears and our spiritual eyes to be able to see your glory in your word this morning. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

What makes someone a Christian? Maybe you think about going to church every single Sunday, or a time in your life where someone gave a gospel invitation and you prayed a prayer. Maybe you think it's taking communion and being able to receive grace from Christ, or reading your Bible every single day. Maybe it involves not doing bad things and trying to do good things. All of those are good things to do—I encourage you to take communion, go to church, read your Bible, and live a holy life. But in our passage this morning, when Mark introduces Jesus in his gospel, Jesus starts by laying out the main idea, his own main point for his entire life and ministry: what Jesus expects us to do.

Jesus calls us this morning to do two things: to repent and to believe. The primary call that Christ issues to all of us is to live a life of faith and repentance. So here is our main command to obey this morning from this passage: follow Jesus through repentance and faith. We're going to look at the two parts of this story by first looking at the call that Jesus gives, and then looking at the response of the disciples.

The Call of the Kingdom

Let's start with the call. Read with me from verse 14:

After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

— Mark 1:14-15 (CSB)

Last week we looked at how Jesus is introduced by Mark. He is the true baptizer, the true Son of God, and the true Savior. He is presented as the one that all of the Old Testament is prophesying about and pointing to through the prophecies of John the Baptist as he gives baptisms and calls Jews to repentance. Through the prophecies of Isaiah and Malachi, Jesus is identified as God. Through the Father's love for the Son, and as the dove of the Holy Spirit descends on him in his baptism, he is revealed as the true Messiah, the true Israel, and God's true Son who succeeds in the wilderness where Israel failed in their temptation.

The idea there is that Jesus is able to deliver us and bring us into the true Promised Land. After Mark spends all that time in his introduction hyping up the most important man in the world, Jesus finally speaks in verse 15. Jesus says, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news."

That really is the main message of the entire book. If you read books that are well-written, they'll start out with a main idea or a thesis, and this is Jesus's. Let's break down what Jesus is saying here. When Jesus says that the time is fulfilled, he is not saying that the work is already done. He's not saying, "Time's up, pencils down." After all, this is chapter one of the Book of Mark; there are still fifteen other chapters of Jesus to get through! Jesus is stating rather that the time is fully culminated or led up to the present—that the decisive moment of human history has finally arrived.

Now, I don't follow sports very closely. If you look at me, you'll just know I'm a professional indoor-man, right? But if you've been following anything in the news regarding sports lately, you'll know that Lionel Messi left his team in Europe and joined an American soccer team. That is like the equivalent of LeBron James going to play basketball in Spain, or Michael Jordan leaving for China. In one season, Messi's arrival resulted in Inter Miami going from an average team to winning the entire league, simply because one player showed up. When Messi steps onto the pitch, everyone knows it's over—they're going to win.

When Jesus shows up here, he makes a definitive, clear statement of absolute domination: "The time is fulfilled." The Son of God has arrived. The Messiah that the Jews had been waiting centuries for has finally shown up. When Jesus shows up, everyone needs to know that it's over; we're in the endgame now. Jesus has come, and he is going to win.

If you look at the people of Israel and take time to read through the Old Testament, you would know that the primary job of Israel over the centuries wasn't to conquer lands or to establish world peace; often, their job was simply to wait. Abraham had to wait decades before he was finally able to see the birth of his first son, Isaac. Israel had to wander the wilderness for forty years before entering the Promised Land. After entering that Promised Land, they endured centuries of being dominated by pagan, wicked kings. Even after that, just a few centuries later, Judah was banished and exiled to Babylon, where they had to wait for future deliverance from a coming Messiah who would finally deliver his people. Now, after all that waiting, after two-thirds of your Bible, Jesus has finally come, and the time is fulfilled.

When Jesus shows up, everything changes because the kingdom of God has come near. The idea of a good kingdom can seem foreign to us. Every four years we get a new president, and while one side celebrates, another side mourns. It doesn't take long, even for the winning side, to get disillusioned with whatever that leader is doing. But that didn't happen back then. When a new kingdom arrives, things change. The people of Israel were under the thumb of real, oppressive rulers—the Romans. For a nation that God had promised would be a blessing to all nations, and that God would curse anyone who opposed them and bless anyone who blessed them, Israel was the underling of a pagan empire under Caesar.

But the prophets talked about a day where God would come and establish his rule, where they would never have to fear another invasion, where they could take their swords and hammer them into plows because they wouldn't need them anymore, where they could worship freely in an immaculate temple with music ringing in the streets and true peace every day. They were waiting for a truly righteous man on the throne forever, a truly supreme, holy nation. They were waiting for the day that kids could play on the street without any worries, that they could build a home and feel for sure that the home they built would be truly secure, and that they could know with confidence that they were right with God. Now, that kingdom that they had been waiting for has finally arrived, and that is good news.

What is True Repentance?

In light of that good news of the coming of Jesus, Jesus calls us to repent and believe. The distinguishing mark between a Christian and someone who is not a Christian is not whether or not they attend church, or whether or not they tithe, or whether or not they're nice to their neighbors. Those are all good things, and I encourage you to do all of that, but the real distinction is whether they have repented of their sin and believed in Jesus.

What does it mean to repent? It is a Christian word that we use all the time. Let me tell you some things that repentance isn't. Repentance isn't just sorrow for the consequences of sin. There is a big difference between expressing true sorrow for sin versus being sorry that you got caught. We all know, seeing a toddler with a hand in the cookie jar, the difference between true sorrow and a selfish, sinful sorrow. Repentance is also not just despair. It is right for us to feel the weight of the wrongs that we do, but when we catastrophize or think that we are beyond help, then sometimes our tears can be used as a shield to block us from real accountability and change.

True repentance occurs when we turn, when we redirect ourselves away from the sin that we once loved and come to a place where, in our hearts, that sin we loved becomes a sin we hate. Thomas Watson, a Puritan pastor, gives six attributes of true Christian repentance. He says that true repentance requires: a true sight of sin, true sorrow for sin, a true confession of sin, a true shame for sin, true hatred for sin, and a true turning from sin. If any of these is left out, he says, repentance loses its virtue.

What Thomas Watson understands is that to repent involves a redirection of our entire lives. It's not a decision that we make at just one point in our lives and then continue to backslide afterward. True repentance grieves sin genuinely, not just because it broke God's rules, but because we know that it breaks God's heart. It takes full accountability for our wrongdoing and recognizes God's right assessment of who we are: that when we sin before a holy God, you and I act as rebels and enemies of Him.

So let me ask you: do you repent? Have you really confessed your sins to God? Christians ought to be the ones who denounce sin the hardest, and not just the sins that we see in culture and in the world, but the sins of our own hearts. We should be the first to echo the words of Paul, that we are the chief of sinners. When we minimize the sins that we commit, when we rationalize those away as "normal" sins or "respectable" sins, what we actually do is minimize the work that Jesus had to accomplish for us in order for us to be saved.

A true Christian is a true repenter. A consistent Christian life consists of consistent repentance and confession. That means that there is no such thing as a "carnal" Christian. If someone chooses to come to church on Sunday but then lives like a pagan for the rest of the week, they should not have an ounce of assurance that they are a Christian. True conversion doesn't happen by osmosis. Being in a church doesn't make you a Christian any more than being in a garage makes you a car. True conversion happens by the call of salvation and a real response—a decision to abandon the sin that once gripped our hearts and to grab hold of Christ. The old children's hymn says: "Repentance is to leave the sins we loved before, and to show we in earnest grieve by doing so no more."

That is not the only command that Jesus expects us to obey. He tells us to repent, but he also tells us to believe—to have faith. Faith and repentance are two sides of the same coin. If repentance gives us sober-mindedness and an accurate assessment of who we are—that we are dirty before a holy God—faith gives us peace and joy.

To believe, to have faith, is to trust. Trust affects all of our lives. Every time we fall asleep, we trust the bed that holds us. We trust our hearts are going to keep beating. We trust that our loved ones aren't going to try to get rid of us. All of us live our lives by faith. We trust that the ground will continue to hold us, that our cars are going to turn on, and that the lights and the speakers are going to continue to work. But we know that sometimes, instead of sound, we get feedback. Our cars can sputter and die, and our bodies will inevitably fail us.

Faith is only as good as the thing that we place our faith in. Thankfully, when Jesus calls us to believe, when he calls you and me to have faith, he calls us to believe in the most reliable, trustworthy person in all of creation. He calls us to trust in Himself. When you feel the weight of your sin, when you realize that you are a sinner before a holy God, and that you are worthy and deserving of eternal punishment, the key is not to deny it. It's not to live in denial or to minimize the significance of your sin, but to look outside of yourself to a more effective, more powerful, more gracious King.

Richard Sibbes puts it this way: "There is more mercy in Christ than there is sin in us." The Israelites had been waiting for a Messiah, but humanity had been waiting even longer, going all the way back to the Garden of Eden where we fell into sin. As a result, the world has been fractured and broken, and we are deserving of eternal judgment. But Jesus comes and he gives us real good news: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near." Jesus comes to provide a true, permanent, eternal remedy to our deepest eternal wound. By paying the penalty of sin for us on the cross, dying for our sin, and rising from the dead, he establishes a true avenue of forgiveness—real forgiveness. It is a forgiveness that doesn't deny the reality of what we've done, a forgiveness that doesn't make our eternity contingent on what we do for the rest of the week, but a true forgiveness that is able to take the worst evils we have done and will ever do, and apply even greater grace.

Tim Keller says this:

"The gospel is that we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dare believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus than we ever dared hope."

If you're not a Christian, this is what Christians believe: that all of us deserve judgment, but Jesus is a great Savior. If you want to hear more about what it looks like to follow Jesus, I would love to talk to you after the service.

It is that faith in a bigger Jesus that also gives us the power to live a true, faithful Christian life. Thomas Watson says, "Until sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet." I also think that the reverse is true: until Christ is sweet, sin will not be bitter. It is like brushing your teeth and then biting into an orange—cleaning your mouth makes citrus taste completely different. In the same way, the cleansing work of Christ reveals the bitterness of sin in our hearts. As you enjoy Christ more, it poisons your delight in sin. It's not just that we're trying to avoid vices like chocolate or candy; it is that we enjoy Jesus more than sin, and that we delight in Christ more than the best that the world has to offer us. As we enjoy Christ more, it poisons our delight in sin, and Jesus's light exposes sin for what it truly is. As we get rid of more sin in our life, we get rid of the muck that obscures our vision of the beauty of Christ, and as we see more of the beauty of Christ, we see more of our sin and we hate it more, and on and on it goes. All of that is motivated and propelled by our love for Christ. We are enticed because Jesus loves us, and that love draws us closer to him.

True faith in Christ leads to real sacrifice, real commitment, and real work. I'm sure all of us know that, but that doesn't happen mainly because of obligation, or because of a preacher standing behind a pulpit and scolding you every week. That happens because we love Jesus. When you love him, obedience turns from a duty into a delight.

First Baptist must be a church where we exemplify this kind of grace—one that doesn't minimize the gravity of sin, that recognizes its significance, and that challenges others who are stuck in its grasp, but then comes armed with even greater grace in Jesus. Let's be a church where rehearsing the gospel and applying it to real sins in our life is normal, where we can be honest about how our weeks are actually going, where we can talk about real struggles, real temptations, and real failures in our lives, and where we can apply the grace of Jesus to each other.

Psalm 51:17 says this:

The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God.

— Psalm 51:17 (CSB)

I love that verse because it summarizes what repentance really is. If you want to please God, the trick isn't simply to say a prayer or to go to confession; true repentance involves a broken spirit. The God of all things expects you to have a genuine sorrow for your sin. Secondly, if you have a broken spirit, you can know, believe, and trust with absolute certainty that God your Father will not despise you. He sees you for who you really are and applies real grace. That's the main message of Christianity, and this is what Jesus calls us to do. Jesus takes that call in verses 14 and 15 and now brings it to his first disciples in verse 16.

The Cost and Urgency of the Response

That brings us to point number two: the response. Read with me from verse 16:

As he passed alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, Simon’s brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. “Follow me,” Jesus told them, “and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. Going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat putting their nets in order. Immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

— Mark 1:16-20 (CSB)

Jesus calls four fishermen, normal working people, to do his eternal work, and he tells them he's going to make them fish for people. When Jesus goes to recruit his first disciples, he doesn't go to the seminary, he doesn't go to the university, and he doesn't go to the business sector. Instead, he goes to the sea. Jesus calls normal folks to follow him. Jesus can call anyone—we know that because we're here—and he calls us to follow him. But the bar isn't set by the qualifications to follow him, but rather by the job description after responding to the call.

Following Jesus is a calling, and that calling to follow Jesus is two things based on this passage here. The first thing you can see is that following Jesus is costly. You can see that in verses 18 and 20. The disciples leave their nets to follow Jesus; James and John even abandon their dad to follow after Christ. James and John see Jesus, they hear his call, and they decide that following Jesus was more important than even their closest familial ties. The disciples had to let go of their nets before they could latch onto Jesus.

What have you had to let go of? What sacrifices have you made in your walk with Jesus? Have you given up your own preferences in order to follow the Lord and to submit to him? Many say with their mouth and aspire to be able to die for Jesus, but are unwilling to give up their own Sunday morning for him. If your desires always trump Jesus's, then who really is the Lord of your life? Following Jesus should cause us to abandon everything for the promise of true, everlasting life.

John Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim's Progress, which for many centuries was the best-selling English novel next to the Bible. It tells the story of Christian, who abandons his old, wicked way of life for the sake of following Jesus. After hearing the gospel and the call to follow Christ from Evangelist, Bunyan describes his response here:

"I saw in my dream that the man began to run. Now, he had not run far from his own door, but his wife and children, perceiving it, began to cry after him to return; but the man put his fingers in his ears, and ran on, crying, 'Life! Life! Eternal life!' So he looked not behind him, but fled towards the middle of the plain."

There are many of us in this room this morning who have made that kind of difficult decision to follow after Jesus, where the world has called after us and we made the choice to press on. Some of us have sacrificed relationships, job advancement, and convenience for the sake of following Jesus. Let me encourage you this morning: the Lord sees you. There is not a single thing that we've given up for the Lord that he does not see, and God promises that he will repay you and me a thousandfold for everything that we've left for the sake of following him.

Following Jesus is costly, but it's also urgent. You see here that Jesus doesn't encourage a deathbed conversion. He calls James, John, Simon, and Andrew to follow him, and they respond immediately. They don't even wait to park their boat; they leave to follow Jesus. The call to follow Christ resulted in an immediate redirection and change in the trajectory of their lives.

Some people think of faith in Jesus like eternal fire insurance. That might be a convenient thing to have, but "do I really need to have it right now? After all, there's so much life that I want to live. Isn't Christianity something that I could just come back to once I need it, or in the last minutes of my life?" If that's you and you're here this morning, let me just level with you: first, tomorrow is not promised to you. I'm sure all of us have loved ones who have met unexpected tragedies. Eternity is too precious to be playing spiritual Russian roulette. Second, delaying Jesus to live your own life is precisely the opposite of what you actually get. All the pleasures of this world will actually fade away. None of our worldly priorities will last past our own heartbeat. We can amuse ourselves to death, but death is where it ultimately stops.

With Jesus, we get something everlasting, something real, something that provides true hope after death, and something that provides true purpose as we honor God and glorify him in our families, our jobs, and our weeks. If you look to anything that isn't God to fulfill your life, you will find it ultimately disappointing and vain. But believing in Jesus isn't you giving up your life; it is actually gaining it.

What following Jesus does is it creates eternal purpose in otherwise mundane things that we do week to week. As C.S. Lewis puts it:

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

When you believe in Jesus and understand that your life orients around following him, bringing a neighbor chicken soup when they're sick takes on eternal significance. Following Jesus and being honorable in your work is something of eternal purpose. You're not just doing those things because of what you get out of it, but because your eternal Heavenly Father sees you, and as you live a godly Christian life, it brings him glory. Christians ought to be the people who enjoy life the most, seeing God's fingerprint in the good things that we enjoy, and seeing his purposes in his call to us to obey him. Following Jesus is urgent, costly, and worth it, and the disciples, when they hear Jesus, are able to make that assessment. They make the choice to follow him.

Calling Others to Follow

That's what we are as a church. We have a higher calling. A church is a group of believers that covenant together to worship God, disciple one another, and evangelize the world. That's why we exist. That's why First Baptist exists. That's why every church that believes the gospel exists: to worship God, to bring him glory, to disciple each other, and to evangelize the world. Every single gospel-believing church is an embassy of a foreign nation that has gathered together, having made that difficult decision and declared that following Jesus is worth giving up everything for. That's what we believe.

So let me ask you: do you call others to follow Jesus the way that Jesus does? Notice how Jesus calls them there in verses 16 to 20. He doesn't entice them with how helpful Christianity can be as an accessory to their lives, right? He doesn't promise them an abundance of fish, or a healthy family, or freedom from stress. Instead, he calls them to a greater purpose, something that transcends their week-to-week problems: he calls them to follow him.

You and I, when we share the gospel, we're not salesmen; we're disciples. When we share the gospel and call people to follow Jesus, we want to evangelize the way that Jesus evangelizes, the way that Jesus calls others to follow him. Sometimes we can be tempted to try to present Jesus as a key to everything that our sinful hearts want, to improve our current condition, to kind of spice up our own lives. A lot of churches grow by offering that type of deal: "Come to Jesus because he'll fix the main things that are going on in your life." We certainly believe that the gospel applies to things in our daily lives, but Jesus doesn't primarily come to fix our marriages or to help us in our jobs. Jesus comes to redeem us from our sin.

Second Corinthians 2 says that when we make that call like Jesus does to follow him, when we point others to follow after Christ, that call will be the aroma of life to some and the aroma of death to others. So when you share the gospel and they reject you or they don't listen to the gospel presentation that you give, that's not inherently a failure. God doesn't expect us to be the ones who effect salvation in the lives of others; rather, it is God that calls and saves people.

In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul says that the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," shone in the darkness of our own hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ. When God says, "Let light shine" in the Bible, that should remind you of Genesis 1, the very beginning of creation, where the world was formless and void, and God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. What Paul is saying here in 2 Corinthians 4 is that it takes that level of a miracle—it takes the amount of strength that it takes to create something out of nothing—in order for you and me to be saved from the darkness of our own sin.

Which means that none of us can do that. You and I can't force salvation in the people around us. Rather, when we share the gospel clearly, when we give that same gospel call the way that Jesus does, then the Spirit is able to do something supernatural in their hearts that you and I could never do. He can speak light into darkness, and the Lord is able, behind our own imperfect, stammering, clumsy words, to be able to say into other people's hearts: "Follow me."

That's why we can be confident when we share the gospel—not because we're experts or because we have degrees in theology, but because we believe the gospel. We know that when we preach the gospel clearly, God can and will call sinners from darkness into light. It's also why we share the gospel with everybody. I'm sure all of us can think of a person in our lives right now that we think will never come to know Jesus. Do you believe that God can call them?

A friend of mine from high school was just an absolute pagan. I could tell you stories after the service—he was a nasty fella. I remember in college getting a text from him one day, inviting me to come to his baptism. I was like, "I have to see this!" So I went. When I went, I got to hear the story of how he met an annoying Bible geek in high school—I have no idea who he is—who kept asking him about where he went to church. Years later, after his life began to fall apart, he remembered conversations of the past, and other Christians around him began to encourage him with the gospel and invite him to church. Soon after, he repented of his sins and trusted in Jesus. Do you believe that Jesus can call dead sinners to life? If you do, then share the gospel. Share the gospel.

Charles Bridges says that sometimes the seed we plant will lie in the ground until we die, and then spring up. You might be gospel conversation number 53 of 2,000 that needs to happen before the Lord chooses to save someone, but you can still share the gospel knowing that faithfulness to God isn't dependent on those results. The Lord does that, but he will honor our prayers. He hears us, he sees our efforts, and the Lord will bring the growth. Spurgeon says our job is not to entice a fish to swallow the bait, but to cast the net all around us and to lift sinners out of the element in which they lie, into the boat where Christ is.

Let me encourage you: don't sell a cheap gospel. Don't sell a convenient gospel. Give a clear gospel. Let the light of the glory of Jesus Christ shine into darkness. That's what we believe that God did to us, right? It's like how Charles Wesley writes:

"Long my imprisoned spirit lay, Fast bound in sin and nature’s night; Thine eye diffused a quickening ray— I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed Thee."

That's what makes us Christians: light shining in the prison of our hearts, and we rose and followed after him. That's what we get to do. It's a weighty calling, it's a glorious calling, and one worth giving our lives to. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for this clear message from Jesus calling us to believe and to repent. We know that we can't do that ourselves. So we ask, Lord, by the strength of the Holy Spirit, that you would help us this week to believe, to be able to confess our sins, and to go before you boldly, knowing that you forgive us. Help us to be able to bring the gospel to those around us with conviction and clarity, knowing that you are able to save. We pray, Lord, that you would give us the strength for all eternity to be able to live our lives wholly dedicated to you until the day that we see you face to face. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Pastoral Announcements and Benediction

Somebody praise the Lord! I hope you take notes. I take notes because, you know, when you hear a sermon, you hear a good word, but by the time you hit the parking lot, you probably do not retain 75% of what you heard. But if you take bullet notes, you'll remember what was said or what really grabbed you. In my notes in here, the thing that really grabbed me was "time fulfilled." We live in a time fulfilled, is what he was saying—that the time is now to share the gospel. It's now to do what it is we're supposed to do. There's no more waiting; we live in the now, in the presence where time is fulfilled. That's my takeaway among other things—it just reconfirms what I've been feeling, sensing, and saying to a lot of people. Now is the time that we have to get busy. Now is the time that we have to do things. So praise God for that. Thank you, John, for a wonderful word.

A couple of announcements as we finish up here today. Don't forget, today is our Prayer Corner Ministry. We'll be going into the other building just for a time of gathering together in prayer, and we'll have a lunch fellowship after that. Once we're done here, we can just go over there if you're able to do that. Also, our 75th anniversary is coming up, and we've been talking about this. We're putting together a committee, so if you were not here for that announcement, see Billy if you want to be a part of the team that's putting all this stuff together. In October, probably towards the end of October, we will have our 75th church anniversary. So see Billy if you need more information about that.

This Thursday, we have our Men's Ministry Fellowship. We'll be meeting from 7:00 to 8:00 PM over here in the Bible study room. Also, until the second week in September, there is no Wednesday night Bible study; we're taking a summer break. But we will return in the second week in September, and we will be doing the Pastoral Epistles. If you don't know what the Pastoral Epistles are, you need to be in the class!

On Sunday morning, we also have adult Bible study over in the library, and I hope you are able to attend that. We get a good turnout in the morning for that. Take advantage of the good teaching that God has supplied before us and the opportunities to pray.

One housekeeping item: a couple of weeks ago, if you were here, I said that per our bylaws, whenever I bring someone on staff as pastor, I have to announce it to the congregation, and we did that. But our bylaws also state that if I'm going to give anyone the title of Pastor—whether it be associate, assistant, or lead pastor—it has to come before the congregation for a vote. So what I'm going to do right now, I'm going to present John Lee to you. This is not a senior pastor vote or anything like that; this is just so that he has the title of Lead Pastor. What that means is he's going to be taking the lead in a lot of things because, as I told you, we are in a transition time. We're going to be working together, doing things together, and at such time as the Lord sees fit, he would be called to be senior pastor. But this is to give him the title of Lead Pastor, which means he's going to be taking the lead in putting together a lot of things during this coming year.

So I'm presenting that to you for a vote. All those who are in favor of John Lee receiving the title from First Baptist Artesia, per my recommendation as Lead Pastor, raise your hand. You can vote for yourself, John!

(The congregation votes)

Well, John, you got more votes than I did! So just so you know, he now has the official title of Lead Pastor. It's a formality, but it's also a part of authoritative ministry. You'll be hearing more about that. Amen.

The reason I like to do the benediction from the Book of Numbers, as I say to you all the time, is because God told Moses to tell Aaron and his sons (meaning the priests, those who come after), "If you say this over the people, God will do it." So listen to these words. As I say them, I'll say it in Hebrew first, and then English, knowing that God is saying if you say this over the people, he will do it in your life.

Yevarechecha Adonai Veyishmerecha...

“May the Lord bless you and protect you; may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.”’

— Numbers 6:24-26 (CSB)

May the love of God and the power of the Gospel be with you wherever you go. And may God's light so shine on you in the midst of the darkness that we walk through, that that light would overcome any darkness, and that we would share the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. Be blessed and have a good week. Thank you.

(Worship team sings "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow" as the service concludes)