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[0:00] Well, it is lovely to be back with you here at Brunsfield in Edinburgh. It's a bit of a pity that some of you get a soaking in the way in.

[0:13] ! But as I was driving through from the west, I'll plead guilty because it just followed me! All the way here. But it's going to brighten up this afternoon. It is good to be here. My name is John McKinnon. I'm involved principally in two ministries. My local church-based ministry has very much been about the revitalizing of small churches that they might once again just focus with laser-light precision on making known the good news of Jesus Christ.

[0:50] And so I went to Calderwood Baptist Church in East Kilbride when it was a small church, and God in His grace has just been building and strengthening and growing that church.

[1:03] And He gave me a great heart for revitalization. And so under God's grace, we were able to go on to be involved in the revitalization of Deniston Baptist Church, and of Kilmarnock Baptist Church, and of Bells Hill Baptist Church. And now I spend a lot of my time on the Isle of Bute, Rothsey, Dundawater, for those of you who are familiar with the West Coast expression, and I'm involved there in the revitalization of that little church on that island.

[1:38] And the other part of my ministry is given over to the ministry that was formerly known as the Word One-to-One. Now that might be news for you. The Word One-to-One has changed its ministry name. Nothing has changed about using the Word One-to-One in terms of our app. So John's Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, still very much there and still very much available, and encouraging God's people just to open up God's Word with family members, with friends, with fellow students, with colleagues, with those we meet in our day-to-day living, and making known the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ. But because as a ministry we've been expanding and we're developing a number of other resources, the ministry name is now Make Known.

[2:33] And simply we want to make known all that God has made known. And so that's the ministry name for what used to be the Word One-to-One. The Word One-to-One is still very much available, and if you watch very closely fairly soon you will see a number of other resources coming down the pipe.

[2:56] And in all of that I hope you see a theme that my heart is driven by one message, a message that is all powerful, a message that has the ability to transform, to radically transform, not just individual lives, it does that in the most beautiful and powerful way, but in actual fact to radically transform entire churches and to radically transform entire communities. And so my life is driven by one purpose, to make known the good news of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I get encouraged and I get excited when I hear about lives that have been changed. Last Sunday morning I was getting up to go and preach on the Isle of Butte and a friend of mine from Belfast. I don't know how well you know

[3:59] Belfast, but it's from Rathcule in Belfast. And Rathcule in Belfast is a pretty tough area. In actual fact it was an area that was plagued through the troubles. It was an area that's high in terms of the crime rate.

[4:16] It's an area that's high in terms of drug use and abuse. And I got a little video WhatsApp. In actual fact I get eight videos, one after the other after the other, from a little friend who ministers there in Rathcule. Every single video was a video of a baptism. A baptism of people from Rathcule.

[4:42] If you were to see these videos, some of the folks had faces that were lived in. You know what I mean? Some of them had a face like a melted wellie, right? They had been through life in all its hardships, in all its challenges. They had abused themselves in so many different ways. And they had been, you know, involved in all manner of activity that was totally and utterly destructive for them.

[5:16] Not all of them, but many of them. And when you saw them in their baptism, what you were witnessing is just the testimony to the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the gospel that we've been singing about to transform lives. And it was the most beautiful start to a Sunday morning. Through the week, I got another message. Message from a friend of mine. I'd preached in his church, a little place called Royston, not in Glasgow, but Royston just outside Cambridge. And many of the people that worship in that area, they all travel up to the big churches in Cambridge. But he ministers very faithfully there in Royston. And it's not an easy place to minister in. And a couple of years back, I preached and I trained a number of his members on how to take John's gospel and just to share the word of God with those that didn't know Jesus Christ. He calls the word one-to-one, which is really just John's gospel, or the Acts of the Apostles. He calls it the best book in the world. Why does he do that? Because he was writing to tell me that over the last year, he saw eight different people all come to a living faith in Christ through individual members of his church, just actually believing, is the word of God true? Actually believing that just by reading this word with others, there is power not in who we are, not in what we might do, but there is power in the message of the cross, in the word of God, in the good news of the gospel to utterly transform lives. And he was writing to tell me about the eight new people. There's nothing significant in eight baptisms in eight new people. It's just a real blessing to small churches that are seeing people come to a living faith in Jesus Christ.

[7:27] And I could go on in that vein, and nothing thrills my heart more than reading about it, than hearing about it, than seeing people set on fire by the power of the gospel to transform them.

[7:47] And I think that's what really made the Apostle Paul get up in the morning. I think he was just driven by that same desire. I think it's something that God, by the Holy Spirit, puts in the hearts and lives of believers. A desire that just drives us to want to make much of Jesus, to want to make him known.

[8:10] When Paul went to Corinth, you can read about it in Acts chapter 18. When Paul went to Corinth, it's a strange, it was a strange old city, Corinth. In actual fact, it was a pretty corrupt city.

[8:22] It was a pretty, you know, sort of wealthy, and with that wealth, vast levels of corruption. To Corinthianize was a byword for living a debauched life. And when he went there, he didn't have it easy in ministry. When he went there, he started to preach the good news of Jesus Christ, to make known Jesus from Scripture in the synagogue. But very quickly, they threw him out. And he actually moved this beautiful, beautiful little story worth reading in Acts chapter 18. He actually moved out the synagogue and moved into the house next door. And that's where he established the church in Corinth.

[9:05] If you wanted to go to church in Corinth, people would say to you, it's just next door to the synagogue. Right? And that's where he went. And what happened is that even though many, many people were going to try and remove him from that city and to even remove him from planet Earth if they could, Paul was given a wonderful reassurance from God that God had a plan, that God had a purpose, and he was to preach on, and he was to plant a church in Corinth. And there in Corinth, God's hand, his providential hand, would keep Paul, and he would establish a church. And he stayed there for 18 months. And it was 18 months in Corinth, and they had Priscilla and Aquila working alongside him.

[9:52] They had others who come in to help him. And they established a church there in Corinth before he eventually had to move out. What happens is that sometimes churches that are well planted, that are well established, that are going strong in the gospel, can suddenly start to take their eyes off the main thing. When they take their eyes off the main thing, they start to become a little bit bloated in their own pride. They start to make things that are of secondary significance, of primary significance. And it's interesting that sometimes they start to adopt a little bit of the culture in which they're planted. Corinth had a lot of Jewish people who loved the miraculous, who loved signs. It's interesting when you look at it, that it tells us even in that passage that was read for us, that the Jews loved signs. And if you read anything about Corinth, Paul actually had to write four letters to them, two of them we still have. And if you read anything about it, there were so many people that were drawn to the gifts. And they loved all the gifts. And they loved to sort of show that they had a certain gift. You ever met people like that? I remember being in a church and this guy came up to me and he said, you know, he gave me his name and then he told me all the gifts that he had. Spiritual gifts. It was like a list. I've got the gift of prophecy. I've got the gift of this.

[11:26] I've got the gift of that. I've got the gift of this. And I just looked at him and I just said, brother, did the gift of humility pass you by? But I just consumed by the gifts. Not consumed by the giver. Consumed by the gifts. And Corinth became like that. The Greeks, of course, they loved the wisdom. They loved the philosophy. They loved the great debate. And Corinth, in actual fact, became a lot like that. Some of the people at Corinth, if you read the early verses of 1 Corinthians chapter 1, you'll find that they were a divided church. If you read on, you'll find that some of them were saying, you know, I favor Paul and I favor Apollos and I favor this one and I favor that one.

[12:11] And some in their self-righteousness, I favor Christ. They were a divided church. What do you do with a church that's began to take its eye off the main thing? What do you do with a church that's divided over secondary things? What do you do with a church that's beginning to lose its way?

[12:29] Well, Paul knew exactly what to do. You bring them right back to first principles. You bring them right back to the whole purpose of the church of Jesus Christ here on earth. It's interesting, in verse 17, Paul said this, Now, Paul actually did baptize Christmas. It tells us that in Acts, you know, chapter 18.

[13:05] But his focus wasn't in who he was baptizing. His focus was in making Jesus known. And listen to this, not in words of eloquent wisdom. Friends, when I remind us today as we unpack this text about the importance of keeping the gospel front and center, I want you to hear me very clearly.

[13:29] And I'm not doing or saying anything that is anti-intellectual. And I can appreciate teaching some of our older young people, odd phrase that, apologetics. But here's the truth. We can make a case for certain things about God and about Christ and never actually share the gospel.

[13:53] And the most important thing you and I need to do is be a people who know how to articulate the power of the cross of Jesus Christ and the good news of the gospel.

[14:07] And so the reality is Paul's not writing in an anti-intellectual way. This is the guy who wrote Romans. And he's writing to the Corinthians. It didn't come with lofty speech and powerful words of wisdom. But have you read Romans? This is the guy who wrote Ephesians. And yet he said, I didn't come with lofty words of speech. Have you ever read about the supremacy of Christ in Colossians? It's the same guy that wrote it, right? He's not anti-intellectual. But he knows something. He knows the simplicity and the power of the simple message of the cross of Jesus Christ.

[14:47] And he knows that nothing cuts through the hardness of an unbelieving heart more than the message of the gospel applied in the power of the Spirit to a person's heart. Nothing. Nothing. And that's what he came to do. And it's incredible when you look at it, he says, because the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God. I want to ask you, how did you get saved? And I'll guarantee you that somewhere in your life, the word of God applied by the Spirit of God was working in conviction in your heart. I will guarantee you that the word of God and the Spirit of God were working to convince you of the reality of the eternal God made known to us in Jesus Christ. I'll be convinced that the word of God and the Spirit of God were speaking into your heart and life, showing you that by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, your life could be transformed.

[16:01] And the same word of God and the Spirit of God was showing you that you're going to be welcomed into the family of God and be part of the body of Christ. It's always how God brings people to himself.

[16:14] And what's happening here is that Paul has just taken this church at Corinth back to first principles. And he says, the power of the cross, the gospel message preached, the power of the gospel message shared is the power for the transformation of individual lives, of corporate lives, of entire communities.

[16:44] And for some, the message of the gospel, the message of the cross is foolishness and the perishing. And for others, it's the message of salvation. And it's always that way. There are only two ways to live.

[16:59] You either live for God or you live in rebellion against God. If I were to say to you, what is the gospel? I wonder what you, how you would answer that.

[17:12] Well, let me just encourage your hearts just as we think a little bit about that this morning. The gospel is first and foremost a message from God.

[17:30] That's what it is. It's a message from God. You and I would know nothing about the gospel. You and I would know nothing about God unless God chose to make himself known.

[17:43] Unless God chose to reveal himself. Unless God chose to show us who he is. We would know absolutely nothing unless God made himself known.

[17:53] And the gospel is a message from God. It's a message from God and it's so powerful in every facet. Because in actual fact, it shows us that the God who is the creator and sustainer and maker of this world and therefore the creator, sustainer and maker of each one of us is a God who in this message tells us very clearly that he is for us and not against us.

[18:26] That it's his desire in and through Jesus Christ to in actual fact reconcile us to himself. It's a message from God.

[18:37] That's what the gospel is. It's a message from God and it's a message for man. It's a message for mankind. To think about it, you know, sometimes people say, if only I could see who God is.

[18:50] If only I could, you know, get a little bit of insight into something of his attribute and his nature and his character. If only, you know, he would give me some sign or if only I could intellectually grasp hold of it.

[19:02] And God says in his gospel, I have a message and the message is for you. So the gospel is a message from God and it's for man.

[19:13] And you don't have to read God's revelation of himself for long before you discover that it's all about Jesus. And that God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

[19:25] That's what he's doing. God is in Christ making himself known. Alistair was preaching last week about what it is to be in Christ. And we've sang today in Christ alone.

[19:38] This is the gospel. It's a message from God. It is for man and it's all about Jesus and it is good news. But here's the thing. It is a message that must be shared.

[19:51] And the interesting thing is that they in the church at Corinth, they were beginning to get caught up in the different wonderful gifts. Every good and perfect gift is a gift from God.

[20:04] But they were beginning to get caught up in all the different things that God pours into our hearts. And they were more interested in the things that God was going to give them and bless them with than they were in actually taking this message which is from God for mankind, all about Jesus, good news, and sharing that message with others.

[20:30] And I want to suggest to us that sometimes in our churches, we actually can become more interested in all the other different things we're going to do than we can about this message that is from God for man, that is all about Jesus, that is good news, and that God says to you and I, Share.

[20:48] Share. That's the most purposeful thing you could do this week, is share. I don't know what your employment is. I don't know what your work is. And you should, as a believer in Christ, do that to the very best of your ability.

[21:02] Right? But you know the funny thing is, you know, that's not going to get anybody into glory. But the simple sharing of a message from God for them about Jesus, which is good news, will and can.

[21:23] It's amazing how we can make this far more complex than we need it to be, can't we? You ever notice that, you know, God, the creator of the world, makes that which is incredibly complex so simple when he shows us who he is in Jesus?

[21:37] And then we take Jesus and we make him very complex? Now don't get me wrong, he's the eternal God, right? So, you know, there's nobody like him.

[21:49] But his message is simple. And his message is life transforming. When I've shared with people how to use the word one-to-one, how to just open up John's gospel and read it with a friend, I've had people, believers, Christians, who've actually said to me, John, I can't do that.

[22:05] And I push them a little bit. I say, why can't you do that? And they say, well, it's just too simple. And they go, what's simple about that? You know?

[22:18] And what do you mean it's too simple? And what they mean is they'd rather be involved in some big sort of argument, in some big debate, and they'd rather try to be proving everything, when in actual fact God says, why don't you allow the power of my word, the power of the gospel, to speak into a person's heart?

[22:36] Why don't you actually trust my word to bring about salvation in the same way that it did in you? If you want to get more intellectual, read Romans.

[22:51] I don't care which one you read. Just read God's word. But at the end of the day, look what Paul is saying to the church.

[23:04] He's saying, I destroy the wisdom of the wise. The discernment of the discerning I thwart. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe?

[23:14] Where is the debater of this age? Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world? You know, that's part of the problem with the gospel.

[23:25] That's why it was a stumbling block to the Jews. And that's why it was folly to the Gentiles. It's funny that believers actually sometimes use the same excuse as unbelieving Jews and Gentiles do about not sharing the gospel.

[23:47] because we actually, even although we say the word of God is sufficient to the salvation of souls, the one thing we don't want to do is open up the word of God and share it with an unbeliever.

[24:00] And Paul, he's just running to a church that's very broken and he's taking them back to the power of the word of the gospel, the power of the cross that saved them.

[24:14] And he said, what do we preach? We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and followed to the Gentiles, but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.

[24:29] He says, we preach Christ. We show people Jesus. We talk openly about his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, his being seated at the right hand of the Father.

[24:41] This message from God that is for us, that is about Jesus, that is good news we share. It's interesting because as he starts to sort of unpack this, he actually sort of says at verse 30, and because of him, you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

[25:15] And there's these wonderful big theological terms, righteousness in Christ Jesus. You are in a right standing with God.

[25:28] Sanctification. by the ongoing work of the gospel in the power of the Spirit, you are being made to be more like Jesus day by day by day and then redeemed.

[25:47] In Christ Jesus, there is now no longer any condemnation, but you are completely free. free. And Jesus said, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

[26:03] That's what we are. It's incredible, isn't it? I stand today a saved sinner. I stand today somebody who is so undeserving, who has not with any merit in myself earned anything that God has given to me.

[26:21] but I've heard this wonderful message from God that was for me. It's about Jesus. It's good news and it transforms. That's what it does.

[26:35] And now, the righteousness of God is mine in Christ. I am in a right standing before God. Hallelujah, right?

[26:48] You've got no idea how unmerited that is. I do, right? But I'm in a right standing before God. And God has not left me there. He said, John, you need this gospel every day of your life.

[26:59] He knows me better than I know me. He says, you need this gospel every day of your life. And by this gospel and the power of the Spirit, I'm going to make you more and more and more like Jesus. He says, but I want you to know something.

[27:15] That's why Paul was preaching the power of the cross. That's why Paul was not willing to empty the cross of any of his power because in that substitutionary death that Christ died for me on Calvary's cross, all of my sin was nailed to him, dealt with there, and he purchased, that's what that little word redeem means, he purchased my freedom.

[27:41] So here's the beautiful news. I am saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved. Nothing can pluck me out of his hand.

[27:53] I am his. Friends, I only illustrate that through myself because that's the story of every born again believer in Christ. That's your story and that's my story.

[28:04] There is one gospel of which I sing. That's your story and that's my story. That's our position. And that's what he's writing to the church at Corinth. He's saying, you're kind of losing sight of things here.

[28:18] You're making it all about you when it's really got nothing to do with you. It's all about Jesus. That's what it's about.

[28:29] And sometimes we can, we can do that in every aspect of church life, can't we? You know, we can gather together on a Sunday morning and we can make the gathering together about ourselves or we can make it all about Jesus.

[28:43] So there's a number of people that come to church and they say, well, you know, I used to go to that church but I don't go to that church now because, well, the worship just wasn't doing anything for me. And I think they weren't worshiping you.

[28:56] Stupid. But that's their excuse, isn't it? It's like I just wasn't doing anything for me. What do you mean I wasn't doing anything for you? Worship's not about what it's doing for you.

[29:08] It's about what your heart is doing in extolling God. And you could enter in where they're playing ancient old music out of tune.

[29:20] But if your heart's in tune with the living God, you can give it yee-haw. But we make it about us. We make it about us.

[29:32] And sometimes we make ministries about us as well, don't we? We make ministries all about us. We make things about the believers. And what happens is sometimes we prioritize so many ministries that are about believers that in actual fact we'll lose sight of where is the ministry, where is the contact, where is the connection, where is the open door to those who don't yet know Jesus Christ?

[30:01] Because I tell you what, this is the place they should find them. And they should find them as they come in and they should find them as we go out. And Paul was rebuilding a broken church here.

[30:15] I'm not saying you're a broken church, that's not what I'm saying, I'm just saying he was rebuilding a broken church at Corinth. But how did he do that? We learn a great deal from how he did that. He did that by bringing them back to first principles and that is the message of the gospel, the power of the cross for the salvation of souls.

[30:34] And he was reminding them of what God was doing in Christ through Paul in that 18 months of ministry that he had with them.

[30:47] That's what he was doing, he was reminding them of that. And he was taking them back to what it is that they were involved in. You know what I love about it? He doesn't miss and hit the wall.

[31:00] Look what he says there at verse 26, he says, For consider your calling. Brothers and sisters, not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

[31:12] But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.

[31:25] Friends, that's been a big part of my story. A big part of my story has been sometimes just in the economy of God to go into, you know, some of the great seats of learning in our country.

[31:41] Both, you know, academic schools of excellence and universities of excellence. And sometimes I've went there in absolute fear and trembling. And I've went there in fear and trembling because I never went there on any merit of my own.

[31:58] In fact, in fact, I didn't like school. Well, in fact, I hated school. In fact, I spent most of my life trying to make up reasons for me not to be there. It's remarkable that in the grace of God, it was a teacher who saw something in me I never saw, who prayed for my salvation, even though I spent a lot of my time actually making arrangements with teachers not to be in class.

[32:26] And I didn't just skip. I just used to go up and negotiate with teachers. I used to say, look, you know, if I'm not here, it's going to be better for the class. It's going to be better for you. It's going to be better for me. Why don't I just not turn up?

[32:38] You mark me as present. You know, I'll go and do what I'm doing. And, you know, everybody wins. And I had arrangements with teachers. Now, this is not great for your academic achievement.

[32:49] But in actual fact, that's what I did. So as soon as I was the legal age to get out of school, they threw me out. And that meant that I had to go and find a job because I didn't have a lot of academic qualifications.

[33:01] And that meant that I went to work in the printing industry. And that meant that I was there for six and a half years. And in that time, I got saved. And in that time, I discovered that God had given me something I was completely unaware of.

[33:12] It was called a brain. And in actual fact, you can use this, you know, to learn wondrous things about who he is because he's made himself known. And in actual fact, if you study him, you're studying the greatest of all there is to study.

[33:29] And you can learn what it is just to realize that he has spoken. And he's spoken a message that's from him and it's for mankind. And you can, you know, make that good news known. Well, that was all fine until people started opening up the doors to private schools.

[33:44] I've conducted assemblies where members of the royal family have been sitting there and I've been opening up God's word and thinking, what is going on here?

[33:56] Why am I here? I've been in universities where guys were kind of like, you know, studying things. I had no concept even what this field of study was.

[34:08] But I was speaking at their university mission. And it's not an anti-intellectual thing. They're incredibly bright people. But here's the interesting thing is, you can be super bright, you can study that all your life, and yet if you never consider the gospel of Jesus Christ, you will die and perish for all eternity in your sinful rejection of the living God.

[34:32] And so I knew I had one simple thing to do. And my simple thing to do, and let me just read this little bit again, was that according to worldly standards, I was certainly not wise.

[34:47] And I was certainly not powerful. And I was certainly not of noble birth. But I did have a promise from God that God in His grace sometimes chooses that which is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

[35:03] God in His grace sometimes chooses that which is foolish in the world's eyes to open the eyes of those whose intellectual blindness is keeping them from the living God.

[35:18] From those who are weak to shame those who think they're strong. Those who are low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are. And I say that, my friends, because sometimes in church we think that the people that are going to be the gospel front and center people are the people like Graham and Craig and others.

[35:40] No, no, this is all of us. God chooses all of us. God chooses every single one of us to be His mouthpiece.

[35:52] God chooses every single one of us, not to be preachers and teachers, but to be those who share the Word of God. God chooses every single God chooses every single one of us. God chooses every single one of us.

[36:02] And what I love about this is that God's Word looks deep into our hearts and He says, because in the presence of God, no human being can boast.

[36:21] We can. This is all of God. It's all of grace. It is all of God's grace. And our message seems incredibly simple, but I'll tell you this, it's incredibly powerful.

[36:42] And because of that message, you are in Christ Jesus. Because of that message, what He says to us in His Word is let anyone who boasts boasts in the Lord.

[36:59] If you get any boast, it's just the fact that you're known by Him. It's just the fact that you know Him. It's just the fact that He's made you His child.

[37:10] It's just the fact that He's called you to be someone who knowing this good news can share that good news with others. We don't have to do it with lofty speech and wisdom.

[37:22] We can follow in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul. We can decide to know nothing among us except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We can go in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.

[37:35] We can go when our speech and our message are not in plausible words so we don't sound that eloquent and clever. We've just got a simple message. But we're faithful in sharing it.

[37:47] But here's the thing. Those words come in the demonstration of the Spirit of God and of power. And our faith doesn't rest on the wisdom of men but it rests in the power of God.

[38:06] So every single day in life I'm just looking for an opportunity to share Jesus. Why do I want to do that? Because I want more stories like my friend in Wrathcule where he's got transformed gangsters and the most beautiful teenage girl brought up in a Christian home all going into the pool at the same time.

[38:25] Because that's the power of God. That's the message of salvation. That's what God does. I want more of my little friend who faithfully ministers in Royston just outside Cambridge.

[38:36] and he calls the word one to one John's Gospel the best book in the world. And why is it the best book in the world? Because not in words of eloquent wisdom and yet if you read John's Gospel it's amazing.

[38:47] But just its power in reading it with other people can bring about their salvation. And he's got folks that are entering into the kingdom of heaven whose eternity is radically transformed because of it.

[38:59] And one more just to encourage you as we stop. Got a little video by WhatsApp from a friend of mine dear friend of mine a lovely Christian family.

[39:14] Two sons. One son would go with them to church the other son would go nowhere near church. Those of us are Christian parents we know the hardship of this but one would go nowhere near church.

[39:27] Live for football and live for the weekend and live for the just abusing the body with alcohol and with other substance.

[39:41] But he ends up broken. And he comes to his parents because he knows he can. Because even all the while that they were disappointed and everything else they were still loving him and still praying for him and still longing for that day.

[39:58] That's what we've got to do with those that are prodigals. We just love them and pray for them. And he came to them and he said I need help. Through a great friend a Christian doctor the Christian doctor started to help him physically with the chemical addictions.

[40:17] But he said I think you need a greater help than this. Notice what he just said by the way he's a GP. But he didn't mind saying to this young lad I think you need a greater help than this.

[40:28] He says why don't you and I get together and we'll read John's Gospel. Young man agreed. We started to read John's Gospel together. Doctor and the young man.

[40:44] And the little video he sent me was of the same young man on a mission trip to Bulgaria with his father and the doctor being interviewed in a church in Bulgaria.

[41:02] He's not fluent in Bulgarian. He was speaking with the broadness of a Glasgow accent. He had a interpreter in Bulgaria who was getting her head around the thickness of a Glasgow accent.

[41:19] and she was sharing his story of transformation. He was in weakness.

[41:33] He was in all humility. He was not one who would have wanted to make a great intellectual defense of the faith.

[41:44] but he was sharing something very simple. He was sharing that the Gospel is a message from God and it was for people like him and it was all about Jesus and if you trusted this Jesus he could transform your life and he was sharing how he transformed his life and how he was still transforming his life and how in Christ he was justified and being sanctified and redeemed and he was there in Bulgaria sharing that with the church.

[42:31] Isn't it interesting that Paul's way of bringing a church like Corinth back on track was to bring them back to first principles the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

[42:47] Friends will you never lose sight of the simple power of this Gospel message. Let's pray. Our gracious Father we do thank you that in Jesus Christ you reconcile people to yourself.

[43:11] Our gracious Father we thank you for the message of the Gospel that is for us that is about Jesus that is good news and that you call us to share.

[43:29] Would you embolden us by your Spirit would you help us to stop making excuses would you help us to realize that you take people like us and you delight to work through us as we share the good news of the Gospel with others to bring others to a living faith in Jesus and this is how you grow your church and Father we thank you that you will build your church and the gates of hell will not prevail against them and so we ask that in the power of the Spirit you would enable us to go from this place and to be a Gospel people amongst those that you've put us amongst and to be faithful in making you known we thank you that we can make you known because you have made yourself known to us and even although we say for that we are eternally grateful we don't even fully understand what that means because for all eternity the gratitude of our hearts will be poured out in praise and in thanksgiving and it all be for your glory and your glory alone

[44:51] Amen Thank you.