John 20:19-31 - They Saw Him And Believed
Main Idea: We’re called to believe in & proclaim Jesus as the resurrected Lord.
JESUS HAS GIVEN US A MISSION (vs. 19-21)
- Jesus’ mission brings His peace.
- Jesus’ mission brings His authority.
- Jesus’ mission brings His declarations.
JESUS CALLS US INTO BELIEF (vs. 22-31)
- Jesus calls us into belief through eyewitness testimony.
- Jesus calls us into belief through personal experience.
- Jesus calls us into belief through Scripture’s witness.
Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)
We have been intermittently traveling through the Gospel of John since 2024. And now we are in our very last series through the book. And so we are in John 20 and 21.
And from these two chapters, we see that Jesus' resurrection, his new life was not something that was just hearsay. It wasn't that there was a spiritual resurrection that Jesus had. And so he is alive in spirit.
So we can be alive in spirit. Instead, Jesus physically, bodily, rose from the dead 2,000 years ago, almost 2,000 years ago. And that promise from the Lord is that one day we too will rise, that death is not the end.
And Jesus' resurrection was not something that one person thought up a couple decades after the fact. Instead, the resurrection of Jesus was seen by eyewitnesses.
And so in John 20 and 21, we hear the testimony of those who physically, bodily saw Jesus raised from the dead, that they interacted with him, they held him, they ate food with him, they touched him.
And through their eyewitness testimony, we can have confidence that what the scriptures tell us about Jesus and eternal life is true. Today, the message is going to be from verses 19 through 31, and the title is, They Saw Him and Believed.
They Saw Him and Believed.
1:38
Peace and Commission
Let's begin reading in verse number 19. We're going to read through the passage. We'll pray, and then we will dive into what the Lord has for us today.
It says, When it was evening on that first day of the week, which day is the first day of the week? Sunday. On that Sunday, the disciples were gathered together with the doors locked because they feared the Jews.
These officials, this governmental structure that had just crucified Jesus or had the Romans crucified Jesus, they were afraid that then would come after them next. But Jesus came. He stood among them, and he said to them, He said, Peace be with you.
To these frightened hearts, scared of repercussion, the resurrected Lord came through locked doors and said, Peace be with you. Having said this, he showed them his hands and his side, where these wounds only about three days old at that point.
So if you recall, Jesus is crucified on Friday morning from about 6 a.m. ish, 6 to 9 a.m., all the way till 3 p.m. And so Jesus is crucified on that Friday.
This is now that Sunday. This would be a whirlwind weekend. I know some people, occasionally, they party too hard.
They have a crazy weekend. This would be the craziest weekend you could possibly imagine. Crucifixion, death, hiding away.
And then all of a sudden, the Lord is resurrected, and here he is with them. And the response to seeing the hands and the side, that this was truly the Lord, this was Jesus that they had known, they rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Verse 21, Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I also send you.
The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world, and now the Son is sending the disciples to declare that whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved, and anyone that would turn in faith to Jesus for salvation could receive it,
not on the basis of their own works or good deeds, but based on Jesus' cry, it is finished. That Jesus substituted himself for us.
He, if you will, charted a new path into life and relationship with God, and he calls all who will to follow him along that path. Verse 22, after saying this, he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is God's own presence. It is that third person of the Trinity.
And so the Holy Spirit was not just some force, but here the word spirit, both in the Old Testament with the word ruach, and in the New Testament with the word numah, it is that breath, that life essence.
And so the Holy Spirit, yes, is the Holy Spirit of God the Father, and he is also, as he is called in Scripture, the Spirit of Christ. And so Jesus says, you need my Spirit, my presence in you, if you are going to be able to accomplish this mission.
Just as Jesus did what he did on this earth in the power of the Holy Spirit, now he gives that same Holy Spirit to his disciples. And with that mindset, he says, if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.
If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. Here's what this does not mean. Hey, Bryon, I'm going to pretend that you slapped me really hard because you were like, you said, I just don't like you.
You look funny, and so I'm going to smack you. This does not mean that then I can say, okay, well, I don't forgive you, and so therefore, God doesn't forgive you. Eternal damnation for you.
That's not what that means.
In the Father's mission of declaring the gospel, in the power of the Holy Spirit, with God's own presence animating the church, which is what here is the fledgling group of believers is gathered on a Sunday many, many centuries ago, this young body
of Christ, together God says, you as the church have the responsibility of declaring who is forgiven in the sight of God, and who is not yet forgiven in the sight of God. How do we determine that? It's on the basis of the gospel.
Those that repent and believe in Jesus, those are the forgiven. Those that refuse to believe in Jesus, or those that refuse to repent of their sin, those are not the forgiven.
Scripture says that the church has this authority that as believers, we declare the gospel, and the response to the gospel tells us who is forgiven by God, and who is still in their sins, who retains their sins, they have not given them up, as a
result of not turning to Jesus. This is not say, all right, Dave, whoever you refuse to forgive, they're just done, they're condemned forever. That's not what this verse means.
6:38
Thomasʼs Belief
Verse number 24, we encounter someone that we've seen once before, or actually twice before, once in John 14, and the other time in John 11. But Thomas called twin, or didymus, in Greek, one of the twelve disciples was not with them when Jesus came.
How many of you have ever missed out on like a really cool thing before that some of your friends were at? Can you imagine missing out on seeing the resurrected Jesus on that Easter night?
Verse 25, so the other disciples were telling him, we've seen the Lord. But he said to them, if I don't see the marks of the nails in his hands, put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will never believe.
This is where he gets the nickname Doubting Thomas.
Although to be fair, this is like the one time that it comes up, so I don't know if you can say this one time Thomas doubted, and so therefore, that's going to be his moniker for the rest of eternity. But here he says, I'm not believing.
I know all of these other guys, at least the 10 of the 12 disciples. Remember, Judas is now gone after having betrayed the Lord, and Thomas was not with them, so the 12 became the 10.
We also know there were some other individuals that were there in that upper room.
Even Mary Magdalene would have been one of those, as well as a couple other women that were Jesus' disciples that were hiding away from the persecution that was happening.
And so Thomas says, no, the at least 11, probably upwards of 20 to 25, all of you are lying. I am right. I'm not going to believe your eyewitness testimony.
Verse 26, a week later, so now again, a week after Sunday is what day? Also Sunday. A week later, his disciples were indoors again, and Thomas was with them.
Even though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. I don't know if you guys have ever like locked your door or something.
One of the sad things of when your kids grow up a little bit, if you don't have like a real lock on your door, but it's just one of those like tourney locks, is kids can get into any room, and so you can, you know, wake up in the night, and all of a
sudden, child right there, and you're like, Oh, my goodness. And I can imagine that there would have been some fear and trepidation as all the doors are locked because they're scared of what could happen to them.
And Jesus appearing again says, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, he doesn't say, You have not believed. I condemn you forever.
He says, put your finger here and look at my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Don't be faithless, but believe.
Thomas responded to him, not, okay, I'll test it out. He sees him now. He gets it.
He understands. He says, we respond to him, My Lord and My God. The Lord is the master, the one that is in charge of Thomas.
Thomas was no longer in charge of his own life. He had to obey and follow Jesus. And he calls him My Lord and My God.
Jesus is not just a good role model. He is the Lord of all. Verse number 29, Jesus said, Because you've seen me, you've believed.
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. Here, speaking even into your life and my life today, I have not yet seen the risen Christ. But my hope and my hope for all of you that believe in the Lord is this.
Jesus here pronounces a blessing on those that have not yet seen him and yet believe.
And what a joy when, as the old hymn writer puts it, when my faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll, the trumpet shall sound, and the Lord shall descend. Even so, it is well with our soul.
10:30
Purpose of Scripture
Verse number 30, Jesus performed many other signs, miracles in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. The gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not exhaustive.
They do not tell us everything that Jesus said and did, even as we'll hear at the end of chapter 21 as well. But John tells us the reason that he told us the things that he did.
About the water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, why he told us about the feeding of the 5,000, why he told us about the healing of the lame man at the Pool of Bethesda, why he did those healings.
John says, I told you all of this for a reason. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, that is the Anointed One, the King of the world, and the King of you and me.
I wrote these things so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His name. The point of John's Gospel is this.
I'm telling you everything I'm telling you, so that you would believe that Jesus is the King of everything, that He is the Son of God, God the Son, and that as you believe in Him, you experience everlasting life, eternal life, both a life here and
now with God's presence, His Holy Spirit that we read about in verse number 22 inside of you, and then either when the Lord returns or when we die, we are forever with the Lord. So, let's pray.
We'll dive into a few things that we can see from this passage. Dear Lord, we thank you for today. God, we thank you that there is hope to be found in you.
Lord, that in the impossible moments of our life, when we feel like we might be locked in, when we are trapped, Lord, you make a way in, and your peace can enter our fear-filled hearts. God, we ask that you would be with each of us today.
We pray that we would be sensitive to hear the voice of your Spirit, and Lord, that we would obey as you talk to us.
Lord, I pray today if there's anyone here who does not yet know you as their Savior and their Lord, that today they would make that choice to follow you. We love you, and we pray this in your name. Amen.
12:53
The Mission of Jesus
From this passage, I want us to see today that we are called to believe in and proclaim Jesus as the resurrected Lord. We're called to believe in and proclaim Jesus as the resurrected Lord.
Many of you would be familiar with the phrase, seeing is believing, or you can think about Missouri, which is the show me state. It's those kinds of mindsets that say, no, I have to physically see it in order for me to believe in it.
Somehow, we kind of get past this a little bit when, like, I've never seen Australia in person, but I believe that exists. I've talked to people from Australia. I actually went to college with a couple of people that were from Australia.
I've seen the pictures. My son could tell you all about kangaroos and koalas and all sorts of things. I have to stop talking now or he will start chiming in with kangaroo facts.
We would all say there are things in our world that we don't personally know about that we have not seen, but yet, because of eyewitness testimony, we do believe that this occurred.
Even just the other day, my wife was telling me, oh, we have to replace one of the lights in our bathroom. And she said, two of the lights have bulbs, but the third one doesn't have a bulb. It's on, the light is on, but it doesn't have a bulb.
And I was like, what in the world does that mean? I was like, what do you mean by that?
And so I walked in and I saw, for some incredible reason, the ninth wonder of the world, the glass around the like filament stuff in the bulb, the glass around was completely gone from the light. And so there was just the filament that was burning.
I've never seen it before in my life. I did not believe her that the light was on, but there was no bulb until I actually went and saw it myself.
But then I looked a little dumb and not like a very good husband for not believing her right away when she said, there is a light, but there's no bulb on the light.
For us today, as we think about Jesus, we are called to believe in the eyewitness testimony that transpired 2,000 years ago and that multiple individuals saw it. It wasn't just one person or two people.
In fact, the Apostle Paul would tell us that over 500 individuals at one time saw Jesus. This was not just personal hallucinations or wishing, hoping that Jesus was back.
Instead, this was empirically what actually happened in real time and real space 2,000 years ago.
And the first thing that I want to see from this passage in verses 19 through 21 as we're called to believe in and proclaim Jesus, is that Jesus has given us a mission.
We can see this in verses 19 through 21 as Jesus comes on that Easter evening to talk to the disciples. We can see first that Jesus' mission brings his peace. Jesus' mission brings his peace.
Before he says anything else to the disciples, they're in verse number 19, they're in verse number 21, and then a week later, as he says in verse number 26, Jesus says, Peace be with you. Jesus declares peace over us.
Jesus' peace, which is the inner calm in the middle of the storm that tells you that you'll be okay, it is a fruit of the Spirit. It is one of the things that the Holy Spirit of God naturally brings about in us as we rely on Him.
That calm in the middle of our storms that says, You will be alright, God loves you, He will take care of you, we know the end of the story, God's Holy Spirit brings us peace.
Jesus' peace is the echoing cry from Easter night throughout each New Testament epistle.
If you guys have ever read through some of the letters of Paul, or the letters of John, or James, or Peter, they start off each of their letters to Christian churches by saying, grace and peace. And I want you to think about that.
Each time you read through those passages, that peace of God echoes from that first Easter night, that as Jesus is risen from the dead, comfort is supposed to come into your heart.
There's supposed to be a stillness, a settleness, that even though everything around us is crazy, God loves you and he is for you. So peace is there. Peace is the character of God that we're called to rest in when everything goes to pieces.
I also love this, that Jesus' mission, which if I can summarize it as this, we are called to, in our personal relationship with God, hope to make other disciples of Jesus so that they can know and have a relationship with God. That's the mission.
You are not called to make a gigantic financial impact on this world, though some people may do that. You're not called primarily to have all the nicest stuff and the nicest home and the nicest things or the best vacations.
You might be able to enjoy some of those, but your ultimate purpose, the mission given by Jesus, is to let the world know that they can be forgiven, that they can be saved, that they can have a restored relationship with God, because all of us have
wandered off the path. We've all done our own thing and not followed the way of God.
And so, God, in His rescue mission to save us from the disastrous destruction of our souls eternally that we were headed for, God Himself came in the person of Jesus, and He took the penalty of death on Himself, so that all who call on Him would not
experience eternal destruction, but that we would experience eternal life. This message that we proclaim is not primarily judgment and doom, but that humanity is offered new life, forgiveness, eternal life, and an everlasting home with God, and His
own guiding presence each day. Today, is peace the way that you would describe your inner state? You might say, well, listen, you don't know all of the things that are going on around me. I absolutely get it.
But in the middle of crazy circumstances, we can experience the peace of God on the inside. If you will, it's kind of that eye of the hurricane. Secondly, today, Jesus' mission not only brings his peace, but it brings his authority.
And we can read this over in verse number 21, where Jesus says, as the father has sent me, I also send you. That Jesus' mission brings his authority.
Because God himself has called us to the mission, it doesn't ultimately matter what our parents, our neighbors, our family members, our boyfriends or girlfriends, or our government, or anyone else, says. We are here to make disciples of Jesus.
That might not always be popular with everyone in your life, but God is the one that has called us to this purpose. It's not any other person, and so we must follow the Lord.
If my three-year-old daughter, Evelyn, tells you to do something, you are absolutely fine if you don't do it. You're not going to be in trouble with pastor if you don't take orders from a three-year-old tiny little dictator sometimes.
If a police officer tells you to do something, you better obey that instruction. If God himself has commanded us to accomplish the mission, then that's what we have to do. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
The authority comes from the ultimate authority himself. I have not called you to make disciples. It's not a church calling.
It's not that Tabernacle said, all right, Pat, you got to make disciples. And so you go, okay, well, I guess if Tabernacle said, I got to do it, I got to do it. It's not me.
It's not our church. It's not any other person that has called you to the mission of making disciples. It is a Jesus calling.
That means both that you are capable of doing it, because Jesus called you to do it, and he will not call you to do what he will not equip you to be able to do.
How you make disciples might look different than how Myron might, or how I might, or how Miss Marla might. Each of us will have different ways in which we walk with the Lord and show others what our walk with God looks like.
You don't have to be a carbon copy of anyone else. But if God has called you to make disciples, then it's not something that we can say, no, I'll leave that to Laurie, or I'll leave that to Bob. That's something that God has called each of us to do.
We can do it, and we must do it. And then lastly here, Jesus' mission brings his declarations. That is the forgiveness of sins.
This is the gospel message that though we have, if you will, sinned, we have committed offenses against the holy eternal law of God that was born out of his character and nature, that the God who is love, we have been unkind.
We have been cruel towards others. The God who is truth, that we have lied. The God who is loyal and faithful, and we have been the promise breakers.
We have been the ones that are unfaithful. That though we have committed offenses against the holy God, God is not desiring for anyone to experience condemnation and destruction. He wants every person to experience forgiveness.
This is our declaration as Christians, is the forgiveness of sins. We as believers, contrary to some popular opinions, can actually tell someone if they are forgiven of sin and restored to relationship with God. How?
Through the gospel message. Those that believe in Christ alone and repent of their sin have their sins forgiven. And those that do not believe and or do not repent retain their sins.
The church declares this regularly in our evangelism, our proclamation of the gospel.
When we tell someone, maybe for the first time, what the story of the Bible and the story of Jesus is all about, we tell them how they can know that they are forgiven of their sin. I love the verse 1 John 5 13.
He says, I've written you these things so that you may know that you have eternal life. God doesn't want you to have to guess what the state of your relationship with God is, or what the state of your eternal soul is. He wants you to know what it is.
How do I know if I've been saved? Have you called on the name of the Lord to be saved? Saying, God, you are the one that is now in charge of my life.
God, I'm not going to hold on to the evil, the sin, the wicked things that I've been doing. I'm not going to insist on my way anymore. Instead, I'm going to choose your way.
I repent of sin. I believe that Jesus will forgive me. Jesus will empower me through the Holy Spirit to do his work.
That is what God calls us to do. The person that has done that, that has believed in Jesus for salvation, repenting of their sin, they are forgiven. What a joy that that is.
You don't have to guess where you're at with God. You can know, my friend, you can know today. I found that out as a nine-year-old boy on December 1st, 2006, that I knew a lot about Jesus.
I had grown up in church, but I had never personally put my faith in Christ. And on that evening, I'd had some conversations and discussions with my cousins that day. They were talking about a recent kind of cheesy Christian movie that had come out.
But as they were talking, I realized that I had never personally put my faith in Jesus. I knew about Jesus, but I'd never asked Him to forgive me of my sin and to be my Lord. And so on that night, I knelt down actually with my parents.
I said, hey, would you pray with me? And I asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins. If you've never done that, then I want to encourage you.
You can do that today. You can do that even while I'm preaching. It's not something that you have to say out loud.
It's something that in your heart, if you say, God, I'm yours. I believe in you. I believe you died and you were buried and you rose again.
Forgive me of my sins and help me to live for you. You can make that choice today, and I encourage you to do so. So the church declares this regularly in evangelism, in declaring that gospel message.
And the church corporately declares this forgiveness through baptism and the Lord's Supper. In baptism, the church says together for the first time that this person has been forgiven and is on Team Jesus.
It's why we only baptize those people who say, yes, I have asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins and to be my Lord. We don't just dunk people who are like, man, I really need a bath, and would you dunk me? Great.
I'll baptize you. That's not the purpose. The purpose is the people that say, I have been forgiven.
The church corporately together says, yes, we will baptize you. You have been forgiven in our on Team Jesus.
And in the Lord's Supper, the church says together each time that we take it, these people that are partaking together are the forgiven ones, shown by their participation in the body and blood of Christ.
And even in church discipline, the church together declares, this person at one point both believed in Jesus and had repented of their sin, but now they are attempting to hold on to both sin and Jesus.
Since those that have their sins forgiven are those that believe and repent, we can no longer claim to the world that this unrepentant person is forgiven. When the church declares that, it is hugely important because of verses like verse 23.
If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.
With the church saying that to the world, that this person is no longer a member of our church because of discipline, it does not mean that the person cannot repent, but that until they repent, they are told in flesh and blood, by real people, by the
body of Christ, armed with the word and the Holy Spirit of Christ, that they are not in Christ without repentance and belief. There, Jesus has given us this mission. Declare the gospel. Declare forgiveness.
It's a mission that brings peace, that comes with Jesus' own authority, and is one that brings Jesus' declaration of the forgiveness or the retaining of sins.
27:49
The Call to Believe
And then lastly today, Jesus calls us into belief. We can see this in verses 22 through 31. Firstly, that Jesus calls us into belief through eyewitness testimony.
That it is because of what the apostles actually saw that we believe.
Our faith is not a blind leap into the darkness, but a measured response to historical facts, eyewitness testimony, fulfilled prophecy in the word, and a consistent reality that explains our world and its nature.
That when you look at scripture, you see that it matches up with the reality that we experience every day.
It aligns with what we see in human choices and nature, the way that we interact with one another, and what is really going on on the inside of us.
So we believe, based on eyewitness testimony, that as John, as Peter, as the twelve disciples here, well, eleven disciples, because Judas is gone, but as these apostles saw everything, they told us, and so we believe, not based on blind trust, but
based on the fact that someone actually saw and recorded it, and what they have recorded, we have found to be true over and over and over again. Will you today choose to base your life on the truth of the apostles by witness testimony and the Lord
and the Savior that they tell us about? Secondly, Jesus calls us into belief through personal experience. We can see this even in Doubting Thomas' Interactions.
It's not just that we believe because of what we read in Scripture, but also through our own lived experience, we find Jesus to be real and personal.
Today, none of us enter a relationship with Jesus through church attendance, through nation of origin, through just our family background, or through any other natural means.
Jesus wants us individually and volitionally to surrender to His rule and salvation. If you will, He is a personal Savior who wants a personal relationship with you. And I love hearing the account of Thomas.
Jesus could have come down and been really angry with him. He could have smacked him upside the head a little bit and said, You know, why didn't you listen to these 15 or 20 people that were all telling you the same thing?
Instead, He deals kindly with him, gently with him. And He wants to meet Thomas where he is, that Thomas here didn't have a lack of belief in what God maybe could do. But He said, I need a little bit more, God, I need some answers.
I need to know that it's real, that my hope is founded. And what Jesus does in response is, here's my hands, here's my side, test it out. I love the verse in Psalm 34 that says, taste and see that the Lord is good.
God is not scared of your doubt. God is not nervous or angry about the times when it's hard for you to believe.
But keep pursuing after Him, and you will find over and over again that God loves you, He hears you, He cares about you, and He wants to speak to your heart and life. And then lastly today, Jesus calls us into belief through Scripture's witness.
We can see this even in verses 30 and 31, that John writes what he did in Scripture, and this is the case for all of Scripture. Scripture was written so that we could believe in God's message to us.
The Bible is intended to show you from the beginning of creation till today that God is the creator of everything, that He made you and He loves you, that all of us abandoned His path and plunged ourselves towards death and hell, but that He came to
rescue us in the person of Jesus Christ. And through His perfect life, His substitutionary death, His victorious resurrection, and His kingly ascension, all who call on Him as Savior and follow Him as their Lord and Master, they experience new life.
They are indwelled by His Holy Spirit. They are adopted into His family, and they are guaranteed eternity with Him. Every part of the Bible is valuable.
It speaks to the deepest questions and hurts and desires that we have. So spend time in the Word of God. If you're like, hey, I don't really know where to start.
Maybe I don't have a Bible that I can like read and understand. Please talk to me right after service. Talk to me downstairs at the fellowship meal.
I would love to give you a Bible. Those of you that know me well know, yeah, Bryon, Bryon will give a person a Bible. You just have to ask.
So I will get you a Bible. Or if you're like, I don't know where in the Bible to start. Hopefully as we spend time each week in the Word of God, in times of preaching, you learn some about the Bible through that.
But that's also why I have the Tabernacle Talk Bible Study Podcast.
32:56
Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tabernacle-talk-a-bible-study-podcast-with-pastor/id1725589302
artwork representing URL
It's on Apple and Spotify podcasts, as well as on Facebook, on YouTube. You can even go to our church website, and you can find it on there as well.
The reason that I do those is because I know what it was like for me growing up and not knowing, not understanding the Bible.
And so I wanted to hopefully help someone else out to be able to know and understand and fall in love with God's Word, like I've had the privilege of being able to do. And so I want to encourage you, be in the Word of God.
Today, the apostles saw Jesus and believed. And so now Jesus calls us to believe in and to proclaim him as the resurrected Lord. If you've never turned to Jesus in faith for your salvation, I want to encourage you, make that choice today.
There's no better time. There's no better place. God wants a personal relationship with you.
Call out to him today. If you have any questions about that, we're going to have a time of invitation. Mary Jane is going to sing.
Randy is going to play the piano. If you'd like to talk with myself, one of the other elders, I'll be right at the back of the sanctuary. A couple of our elders will be up here, right at the front.
We would love to answer any questions that you have about knowing Jesus as your Savior. If you are a Christian today, are you living for Jesus' mission? Are you walking in the peace that he provides?
Are you carrying his authority? Are you realizing that God has equipped you personally for the work that he wants you to do?
And then declaring the gospel, actually telling people how they can be forgiven, how they can know that they are right with God. However, the Lord has spoken to you today. I want to encourage you to respond in faith to him.
