Potted Or Planted: Evangelism

Philippians 2. So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this in mind among yourselves.

Which is yours? In Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by being in the likeness of men and being found in human form. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. When we speak, the name of Jesus comes with resurrection power.

That's why the name of Jesus is so mighty and so powerful and so significant. When we say, I'm going to speak the name of Jesus over my family, over the streets, when we say that the power comes from the truth, that Jesus shed his exalted self, his glory from heaven, he took it off and he stood into this world as a human being. He lived a life like you and me, except he was perfect in every way. He died a death on a cross as a sacrifice for us, and his blood and body given for us. And he was resurrected on the third day.

This is our entire hope. This is our entire hope. And this is what we celebrate as we share in communion. If you didn't get a communion cup on your way in, would you just raise your hand? Our team would bring you one.

These super simple emblems, they're just emblems, but they remind us of the richness and the power of the name of Jesus, because He conquered death on our behalf so that we could live. And we share with these emblems this small wafer that represents his body given for us. And he instructs us. He says, when you come together in My name, do this and remember. So eat of this and remember my body being given for you.

He took the cup and he instructs us that when you drink of this, let it remind you of the blood that I shed for you and took your place. Remember, King Jesus, we just exalt you now. We declare that you Are the resurrected Lord, that you are the Christ, the son of the living God.

We remember.

Thank you. Thank you. It's in your beautiful name I pray. Amen.

Well, good morning, church. Hey. If we haven't met, my name is Josh. And I'm glad you're here. In fact, I believe that you're here on purpose, with a purpose today.

I believe God has something very specific in mind for you today. And my hope is that you will be open to. To whatever that is. Before we get into the message today, I want to tell you about something coming up that's going to be a very meaningful gathering. November 13th.

We're going to be doing something new here called Night of Remembrance. And Night of Remembrance is specifically for those of us who have lost a loved one recently. And we're going to come together and share in a time of encouragement, of honoring and remembering our loved ones and mourning with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice. We're going to talk about this a lot more next week as we get into that gospel practice of one anothering, of bearing with one another and mourning with those who mourn. But as we look ahead at the 13th, if you have lost a loved one recently and you would like to honor them that night, we'll list off names and we'll have an opportunity to come forward and light a candle for them.

And if you would like to honor your loved one, you can register on our events page and let us know that you'd like to come. But it's not just exclusive for those who have lost a loved one. Heidi and I will be honoring the loss of my father in law last November. But it's also for those of us who are just part of this family to come alongside and encourage one another. And so there'll be a small reception and a beautiful service.

This is something that the church that I came for came from before here. I was there for 15 years and we did this every year. And it's one of the most, most special times of the year for us to gather together. So I hope that you'll join us for that. Let me pray before we get into it.

Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for being here with and among us today. Thank you for everyone that you drew here today. I believe it is no accident that they're here. And I pray that whatever you have in mind for each of us, that you would open our hearts and make us willing to receive it, even those hardened places.

Holy Spirit, please have your way in this place today. Be glorified. We pray that truth is proclaimed. We pray that you would go ahead of us and prepare the way for the things that we talk about today to actually change us and to actually challenge us and to actually not just matter for a moment, but matter for eternity. And so I am humbled that you would choose me to speak today.

And I pray that you will use me just as your vessel to share your word and that it will matter for eternity. In Jesus name, amen. Somewhere around late 2011, I herniated a disc in my lower back. And it started with a little bit of pain in my lower back, in my hip, and it would get better and it would get worse, and then it just kept getting worse. And any of you have had this experience of this sharp pain going from the center of your back to your hip all the way down to your pinky toe.

You're the one squirming in your seat right now because you know what that feels like. Because nerve pain hits different. It's a different kind of pain. And it wasn't long before it really started to impact my daily life. Because our kids were six months, two and a half and four, they needed help getting buckled into their car seats.

They needed somebody to lean over the edge of the bathtub to give them a bath. Two of them were in diapers. One needed to be carried around in a pumpkin seat all of the time. And the pain got worse and worse and worse until it wasn't long before most of the major physical things that our kids needed help with, I just couldn't help with anymore. It was just such pain.

It would take my breath away. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't sit, I couldn't stand constant pain. And Heidi was doing her best to balance. Like a full time job and three little ones to take care of and now one big one to take care of. And of course the chiropractor promised me, if you just keep coming and you just keep writing a check to me, I can help you.

And the pain management doctor said, if you'll just come and get another $1,500 epidural where I can stab you in your back, I'll help you. And the physical therapist kept saying, well, if you just keep coming and paying and doing the exercises, then I can help you.

And still, just to get in and out of the car, in and out of bed was a chore. Every time I pushed the brake pedal, it made me wince. When I knew a sneeze was coming on, I would pre cry knowing how Painful. This was. You're laughing.

It was not funny. Okay. I knew the explosion that was going to go through my body.

My 4 year old was helping me put my socks on every morning. And man, the lowest morning. The lowest morning. Heidi had already gone to work. I was getting the kids ready in the morning before I went to work, and I got out of the shower and I couldn't put my own underwear on.

I could not get my foot in.

I was starting to become hopeless because it was exhausting. It was debilitating. Well, In October of 2013, I officiated a wedding for a friend. And after the ceremony, I ended up at a table with a bunch of people that I had never met before. And as I sat at the table, there was a guy at the table.

And he noticed how uncomfortable I was. And he said, are you okay? And I said, I'm not okay. Let me tell you my story. So I tell him my story, and turns out he's a physical therapist.

And so he's asking me about the question. Turns out two other guys at the table have experienced what I have been going through. They each had a herniated disc in their lower back, and they both had surgery. And they tell me about this surgery, and all three of them say, you have got to go to a surgeon. You gotta go to a surgeon.

And they tell me they went through this surgery. Both of these guys had the same surgeon, too. And so the physical therapist, two guys, they're like, we've been there. You should definitely get the surgery. It changed our lives.

And so, man, I'm sold. I'm sold. So the next morning, I get up and I call the surgeon and I get an appointment, and I go in, and after he looks at the mri, he goes, no wonder you're miserable. You need surgery now. So the day before Thanksgiving that year, I went in to have a lumbar discectomy.

The surgery took 45 minutes. 45 minutes. So two hours after they wheeled me back for the surgery, I'm sitting on the edge of the bed. Heidi's helping me put my shoes on so that I can walk myself to the bathroom. I take two steps and I stop.

And tears are running down my face. And she panics, thinking something's wrong. And I just said, it's gone. The pain is gone.

See, I spent almost two years chasing every possible fix, hitting dead ends until I sat at a table with a few guys who had already been where I'd been. They knew the pain in my eyes because they knew what it felt like here's the thing. They didn't heal me, but they knew who could.

All they did is notice my need, tell me what they'd experienced. They pointed me to the one who healed them. And because they had found their own healing, they were confident that I could find my own healing too. They basically said, I've got a guy. I think you know where I'm going.

Today I want to talk to you about a gospel practice that every follower of Jesus is called to live out. It's something that I think all of us say that we wish that we would do or wish that we could do. But it's the one that we avoid the most, like the plague. It's the practice of sharing our faith, of passing on the hope we've found in King Jesus to people who don't know him yet. It's saying, I've got a guy.

The Bible calls this sharing the good news. We most often call it evangelism. That phrase, the good news or the gospel, it actually comes from a Greek word, euangelion. Euangelion. Back in the day before there was news and newspapers and the Internet.

And if there was a battle won in victory, then there was one who was sent, a messenger who was sent to run back home to tell of the good news of the victory. So the runner would run through the streets shouting, good news, good news, victory has been won, the war is over. And that's Euangelion. It was good news worth shouting about, worth telling others about. Euangelion isn't just pretty good news like your Amazon package has shipped.

It is life changing news. And those of us who are in Christ are carrying with us this life changing good news that we've got a guy. We've got a guy who conquered sin and death. We've got a guy who heals what no one else can heal. We've got a guy who brings peace where there's been chaos, who brings hope where there's been despair and life and restoration, where there's been death and decay.

We've got a guy. And many of us know what it's like to chase after every fix that this world promises us. Every self help promise, every distraction, every temporary comfort, every self medication. And we already know it's a dead end. Because Jesus is the only real solution to our brokenness.

He doesn't just make the pain bearable. He doesn't just cover it up temporarily. He brings real miraculous, eternal healing. That's what he promises. And if that's true, if Jesus is the only true solution to our Very real problem.

What keeps us from sharing him with others as we see the pain in the eyes of those around us, pain we recognize from our own story, we should be compelled to. To share with joy, with excitement, to say, I know what that's like. I've been there and I've got a guy. But so often we don't, do we? And when I say we, I mean we.

I mean we. You might think I'm some master evangelist since I stand up here and preach the word to you, but the truth is, it is way easier to stand up here hiding behind a podium, talking about Jesus to people who already know him or who are already interested in him than it is to talk to my neighbor I've lived next to for 15 years or to a complete stranger about Jesus. And I've got my own excuses. Often when I sit down at a table of strangers at a wedding reception or something, the first question that comes out is, what do you do for a living? And then I tell them, and it either shuts down all the conversation at the table or it becomes like this confession booth moment where they tell me that they used to go to church with their grandma, but now they sell drugs and they're dating their sister and they know that they shouldn't, but they're really trying.

We all have our excuses. I've got mine. When I say we, I mean we. And at the same time, man, if I eat an incredible meal at a new restaurant, I. I cannot wait to tell you about it. When I go on an awesome vacation to an incredible place, I can't wait to tell you.

You have got to go there. When I have a surgery that changes my life, I want to tell anyone who looks like they might need it.

I'm willing to tell complete strangers all this good news. But when it comes to Jesus, we clam up. We clam up in fear and insecurity and pile up our excuses because it feels risky. It feels intimidating. What if they think I'm weird?

What if they ask me a question I can't answer? What if this changes things in our relationship forever? And we live in a world where to disagree with someone is like the greatest personal sin you can commit against them? Sharing our faith feels complicated and intimidating. Can I get an amen?

But the truth is, Jesus doesn't ask us to have all the answers or be the most compelling argument in the room. So let's look at what Jesus does ask of us when it comes to sharing about our faith. Let's look at the final words that Jesus gave to his disciples after his resurrection, before he ascends into heaven, first he gives him the Great Commission. We'll be familiar with this. Matthew 28:18.

Then Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. If you've been in church for more than five minutes, you have probably heard the Great Commission. It's the mission or the job of every Christian church on the planet, and every individual Christian too.

But what does this look like for us to practically do this? Well, the Great Commission is in fact the closing words of Jesus in the Book of Matthew. But if we look at the Book of Acts, the first chapter of the Book of Acts, we find out that he actually had a few more things to say too, before he ascends into heaven. He says, hey guys, I've got to go to the Father. I'm going there very soon, but in a few days after I'm gone, the Holy Spirit is going to come.

And don't you dare go try to do that Great Commission thing. Don't leave yet until the Holy Spirit comes. Because when he comes, he's going to help you live this out. Here's what Jesus says in Acts 1:8. He says, but you will receive what power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.

And you will be my what? Witnesses in Jerusalem. Power's coming. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Jesus says, the Holy Spirit is coming.

And when he comes, he will give you power. The Greek word here is the word Dunamis. It's the word that Alfred Nobel used in 1867 for his incredible new invention. You might have heard of it, dynamite. Dunamis is a miraculous power.

It's abundant strength. Paul tells us in Romans 8 that this explosive power that the Holy Spirit brings, it's the same, the same power that raised Christ from the grave. That's the kind of power that the Holy Spirit brings. Death, conquering life, giving, resurrection power. That's what's in those of us who have given ourselves to King Jesus and received his Holy Spirit.

Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit provides miraculous, abundant, explosive resurrection power so that we can be smarter than everyone we argue with, so that we will be able to answer any question Anyone asks us so that we will be the greatest salesperson that ever existed and all of our friends will come to church and we will single handedly save the universe while wearing a cape and having perfect hair.

That's not what it says. He says once you get this power, you will do something. That doesn't sound like much at all. You will be my witnesses. That word is Martus.

It literally just means be one who attests to what you have seen, heard and experienced. Now that sounds pretty simple. Why would we need the power of the Holy Spirit, resurrection, explosive dunamis dynamite power to just say what we've seen, heard. Shouldn't that be like the easiest thing that we can do? If it's that simple to be a witness, why is it such a difficult thing for us to take part in?

It's because of what's at stake. It's because sharing the good news with others is an open act of war against the powers of evil, against hell itself, against. Jesus recognized this. But he also promises us that the gospel message is greater than the power of hell. In Matthew 16, Jesus is with his disciples and he asked them, who do you say that I am?

And here's what Peter says in Matthew 16:16. He says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter Petros rock. You are Peter.

And on this rock, yes, Peter, literally. But on the rock of his confession of faith, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now that sounds nice for the disciples, for guys like Peter. Peter's a stud, right? But what of us everyday normal, non theologian people?

Well, there's a story in the Bible where Jesus gets a witness party together and he sends out a group of plain old everyday normal people like you and me to share the good news of God's kingdom that it has come into the world. And I think we can learn a lot from this story. So let's pick up in Luke 10, starting in verse one, it says after this, that's after Jesus performs miracles, he feeds 5,000. He. He sends out his 12 disciples to cast out demons and heal the sick in the name of Jesus.

After all of that, the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are Few ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go. I'm sending you out like lambs among wolves. So Jesus chooses normal, everyday people.

He sends them into places where he says that he is about to go. File that away. He told them there is a plentiful harvest out there if they will just go and look for it, it's ready for the gathering. One big problem, there aren't enough workers for the harvest. It's plentiful, but there aren't enough workers for the harvest.

So be praying that God would send more workers for the harvest. But don't just pray for others to go. You go. Now. When we say that the harvest is plentiful in 2025, I don't think that we can quite get our heads around what this would have meant in first century.

In the first century agrarian society, their entire collective economy, literally their entire economy, and their personal and collective survival would have been dependent on taking advantage of the harvest. When the harvest is ready, you gotta move, you gotta move. Jesus is speaking with a kind of urgency that they would have understood completely. The harvest can only stay on the stalk where or the vine or the tree for a couple of days, up to a couple weeks before it rots, before it falls to the ground, before it's not useful anymore, before you can't preserve it anymore. So he says, pray for workers for the harvest and get to work yourselves with an urgency like your survival in the survival of others is actually at stake.

And this next sentence shows us that he understands just how difficult this will be. He says, go. That verb is present, active, imperative, and plural, which means all of you keep on going all of the time. Go. I'm sending you out like lambs among wolves.

Remember, our witnessing is an act of war against the powers of hell. Jesus knows how hard this will feel. Jesus knows the fear that will come with this. He knows how hard this will be because he compares it to being a sheep among wolves. This sounds like a terrible plan.

Sheep have no protection against wolves, except one thing, the shepherd. He goes on to say that they don't even need to worry about what they'll wear or what they'll eat, or where they will sleep as they go, because they. The good shepherd will take care of them. He promises to be with them as they go. David writes of this in a psalm that they would have known so well.

Psalm 23. He says, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He Restores my soul.

Don't worry about what you will eat or drink or wear or sleep. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Why? For you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. When we go, like Jesus tells us to go, we go with the power of the Holy Spirit and with the guidance and providence and protection of Christ, our good shepherd. And still Jesus recognizes it will be scary and hard, and sometimes there will be people against us, trying to destroy us or consume us. But he goes on to give some instructions that I think can help us better understand how we can be his witnesses. Verse 5.

He says, when you enter a house, first say peace to this house. If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them. If not, it will return to you. Stay there eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Don't move around from house to house.

Now, I don't know exactly all of the implications of what this means, but here's what I think we can learn from this. Jesus says, go looking for the harvest. Go looking for the harvest. And as you come into a new place, as you come upon a new person, the way you test to see if the harvest is ripe, is ready, is to extend peace and blessings to others. And if you find someone who kind of echoes that peace and blessing back to you, stay there.

Stay there and witness. It's like all those Instagram reels and YouTube shorts and Martha Stewart suggestions on the best way to find a perfectly sweet watermelon or a perfectly ripe avocado. We all go there and knock on it and look at it and act like we know what we're doing, and then we don't, right?

But Jesus also gives a way out if things aren't ripe yet. Verse 8 says, Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what's set before you, heal the sick in it, and say to them, the kingdom of God has come near to you. But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, even the dust of your town that clings to our feet and we wipe off against you. Basically, he says, if it's not ripe, move on to the next tree. We're instructed to be orchard checkers, people sent out every day to walk through the fields, walk through the orchards to look for fruit, and when it's ripe, we simply attest to what we've seen, what we've heard and experienced.

And when it's not ripe, we move on to the next one or until next time. Thank God he does not call us to stand on the street corner with a bullhorn and tell everyone they're going to rot in hell.

So let's take all of this and get practical about what this can look like for us. Because if we want to take seriously the call to be ambassadors of reconciliation, to be the kind of witnesses Jesus is actually calling us to be, we've got to understand what that looks like first. It all starts with prayer. It all starts with prayer. Before we open our mouths, we ask God to do what only he can do.

We pray for doors to open like we talked about when we studied through the Book of Colossians. We pray for opportunities to share our story. We pray for workers, for more workers to step into the harvest. We pray for boldness so that when doors do open, we're willing to step into them, that we'll have courage to walk through them. And we pray for obedience that when we walk through those doors, we won't talk ourselves out of doing what the Spirit prompts us to do.

And as we pray, we have to be expectant that God is actually up to something. What if God is actually up to something in this world of ours? It's amazing how when we start to pay attention to what God might be doing, we start seeing opportunities and people all around us. As we pray, God begins to highlight complete strangers and draw us into conversations with them. Have you ever been in a conversation, you thought, like, how did this happen?

Or you bring specific people to mind that we're already close to? But instead of believing that the whole world is resistant to the truth, we have to be expectant and actually believe him when he says the harvest is plentiful. We want to be expectant broadly and specifically. We practice being expectant broadly by keeping our eyes up, paying attention as we go, by slowing down long enough to see pain in somebody's eyes, to see the weariness in their words or the worry in their tone by looking for the moments when someone opens a small window into their heart. It might sound like I'm really struggling right now.

It might sound like I feel like I'm losing hope or I don't know what to do next. It might look like an exasperated mom in a line somewhere, might look like a co worker who's struggling with a deadline. It might look like a friend at school who feels like they. They don't matter, or the one kid sitting by themselves it could look like somebody who dropped all their papers out in the middle of the street. Those could be ripe moments, divine opportunities to step in with kindness or prayer or our story or help or to extend peace.

And if that peace echoes back to us, then we stay and we witness. But we also want to do this specifically with those who God has already given us relationship and access to. The way we want to do that is through. You probably saw these on your seat when you came in. This one more card.

Grab that real quick. You'll find one of these on every seat. Or they might be on the floor in front of you. If you don't have one behind you, grab one. I want everybody to have one of these.

The term one more comes from our mission to make more and better disciples, both here and not here. Each of us needs to regularly have a one more in our sights for the kingdom. So I want all of us to take one of these cards and write down the name or few names of one to three people who you know and you will claim as your one more for the kingdom. What's your one more? Your one more is a person in your life who is closest to you but furthest from Jesus.

The one who's closest to you but furthest from Jesus.

Maybe it's a friend or a co worker, a neighbor, maybe somebody who lives in your home. Many of us already know who that is. Like the second I started talking about this, you already knew who that was. Some of us need to pray about it and consider for a little bit. But once we've got that name, here's what we're asking everyone to do.

Write their name down on the back of this card and commit to praying for them every single day. Every single day. Pray that God would soften their heart towards the Gospel. Pray that God would open doors for spiritual conversations. That he would.

That when the time comes and the light cracks through the door and there's a ripe moment, that he would give us the boldness to share what we've seen, heard and experienced. Not beat them over the head with it, not sell it to them, but witness. That's all we've been called to do. Witness. And then keep checking for rightness.

Just keep checking. How do we check? It can be as simple as a word of encouragement, a warm smile, a genuine question, an offer to pray for them. It's telling a co worker, hey, I know life's been really heavy for you lately. How are you really doing?

It can be as simple as texting someone to say, I was thinking about you today. I just want you to know I'm praying for you. And just type out a prayer. It can be as simple as looking at your neighbor and saying, hey, we're right next door. If you ever need anything, please don't hesitate.

That's how we test for ripeness. And whether it's with a complete stranger or with our one more, if that peace and kindness is echoed back to us. If there's curiosity or openness, just stay there. Stay there. Keep investing, keep praying, keep listening.

Keep showing up. Look for opportunities to witness by sharing what you have seen, heard and experienced. And if the fruit isn't ripe yet, don't force it. Just move on to the next tree or the next time, or the next person. Because if Jesus is right, if Jesus is right, if there is far more harvest than there are workers, then Satan would love for us to get hung up.

He would love for us to slow down our efforts because we feel so defeated on one if there is far more harvest out there than there are workers, then the only reason we can't find ripe fruit is because we aren't paying attention. It's because we're not asking, we're not looking for it. Our heads aren't up because we're too scared to do it. So every day we pray. We pray for our one more.

And every new space we walk into, we pray and ask God, is there anyone here that you want us to extend peace to? Right now, we pay attention. We check the orchard. And when the time is right, we witness. We share what we've seen, heard and experienced.

Believing that the harvest is plentiful. Believing that we are God's plan A for reconciling the world to himself. We are God's plan A for reconciling the world to himself. We I don't know if it was a bad idea or not it was God's idea. But we Church, come on.

We are God's plan A for reconciling the world to himself.

And we don't have to be a salesman or a genius or a defense attorney. We just have to be someone who has had an experience that we share. We just have to say, I've got a guy, so please take one of these cards, write a name or names on the back of it, identify your one more and put it somewhere that will remind you to pray for them every day, trusting that God will unveil the ripeness at some time.

And in the meantime be looking everywhere you go. And over the next weeks and months, we're going to be talking about our one more and looking for opportunities to bless them and invite them and encourage them. This matters so much. It matters so much because every single one of us is supposed to be a worker for the harvest. The harvest is plentiful.

The lie Satan's been telling us is the harvest is stunted. The harvest is stale. The harvest is closed off. The harvest isn't out there because you're a minority and nobody really cares and you don't even matter to people. But Jesus says the harvest is plentiful.

Plentiful. And this room is not full right now. And heaven's not gonna be as full as it ought to be because we are stuck. The harvest is plentiful. And you are God's plan A to reconcile the world to himself.

This is our call. Church. To go. To go. Let's do this together.

And let's watch as God does incredible things in front of us. Will you pray with me, God? We just confess. I'm confessing on behalf of all of us. I'm confessing that almost all of us, if not all of us, are.

We are just hesitant. We're hesitant. And I. Man, I know. I know.

There are so many of us in this room we can look back on. We have felt that moment when the Holy Spirit just kind of kicked us a little bit and we didn't.

So I pray that you will help to make us willing and obedient and that we can see this for what it is. You are doing the work of ripening the fruit. You are the vine dresser. You were the one caring for the trees. And our job is to check for ripeness and simply tell about the guy we've got, the one who saved us.

So take away this fear. Help us to trust you as our shepherd in this, and make us bold to tell others what we've seen, heard, and experienced. We pray all of that in the power of the Holy Spirit, in your name, Amen. Will you stand.