Okay. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to another session. Everyone, can you hear me okay? Yes, Pastor. All right. Great. Okay, so let's pick up from chapter four before that. Let's do a quick review of what we did last week. Last week, we looked at ministering in power and love. So God has given us this wonderful privilege to be ministers of God, to go ahead and share the gospel with people around us. Yet, He has given us the responsibility to minister in power and in love. We looked at several examples last week as well. The Lord Jesus Himself ministered in power and He had compassion on people. So the root of our ministry should always be out of compassion and out of love. So if we want to share the gospel with people around us and if it's for the wrong reasons, maybe it is, for example, to become famous as a pastor or become famous as an evangelist or people should know you or any other reason, it will be a failure from our side. Remember, Jesus said, you shall be known by your fruit. So it's very important that it's wonderful that God has given us this opportunity to spread the message and share the gospel but share with power and share with love. So there will be times when people may reject you, people may say, hey, I don't believe in this Jesus. I don't believe in the message that you're talking about. So all of these things will be there. But what is important is we need to continue to minister in love. So that should be our foundation. So that's what we looked at last week. We also looked at a few points we, you know, some of us shared in chapter four, overcoming inhibitions. Some of us also shared a few of the inhibitions that we face, that you have faced while sharing the gospel. So let's pick up from chapter four. I know we did a couple of points but let's pick up from there, overcoming inhibitions. First one, not knowing what to say. The fear of, you know, one of the inhibitions of not wanting to share the gospel is not knowing what to say. Some of us also shared that, you know, sometimes I don't know what to say. Should I respond to this? Should I not respond to this? Or sometimes I panic. All these feelings and emotions are part and parcel of sharing the gospel, right? Not knowing what to say. But here's the thing. We look at it. We need to prepare. We need to practice. Right? Now, when I say prepare, what is important is we prepare both in the practical aspect, right? And we also prepare spiritually. Now there will be times you will have to take times of extended prayers, spending time in worship, spending time in reading the Word of God, your personal time with the Lord should increase. And the more we spend time with God, the more the power of God flows in us. And all these inhibitions will slowly fade away in our lives. Right? I just wanted to share, you know, personally what happened in my life, you know, at a young age, I was a very, very shy person, extremely shy. So shy that from first, I think from my school days till 10 standard, I never went on stage. No programs, no events, no, you know, the children go for all these competitions. No, nothing. Extremely shy. I till about 10, the only time I went on stage on 10 standard was to take my, you know, my certificate, 10 standard certificate. That is the only time I went on stage, extremely, extremely shy. Then many years later, as I accepted the Lord, I was still very shy. I was thinking, okay, now God has called me and I knew somewhere in my heart, okay, I want to be a worship leader. I want to share the word. I knew what I wanted to do. But I was very shy. I thought, how am I going to do this? So I tried on my own flesh.  I tried it on my own, but it didn't really work. And then I began to read the word of God. The word empowers us. At many places, the word says he gives us courage to face our challenges and all of that. So I began to prepare more than, you know, how you know, how to sing songs or how to play music and how to preach more than all of that, just spending time in the word of God, spending time in prayer. I said, God, this is a challenge that I have. And you know, it helped me to overcome these challenges. So slowly, you know, I auditioned for the worship team. And it was very, very scary because all of a sudden you're, you know, you're in front of, you know, it was a smaller church, smaller setting, one of the locations.  But I remember the word of God, the Holy Spirit, empowering us, empowering me personally. And so there came a time when, you know, I don't really, it doesn't bring any fear anymore, right? That fear just left me. I was able to overcome that inhibition, that fear that used to always grip my heart. And I was able to, you know, come out of that, you know, do a lot of outreaches, street ministries and all of these things. So, so the fear sometimes stops us. And we look at that also later on, right? So point two, feeling that nobody is interested in the gospel. Let's read Ecclesiastus chapter three and verse 11. Could one of us please read that Ecclesiastus chapter three and verse 11? He has made everything beautiful in its time. Okay, I think, I think the voice was, the voice was echoed. Yeah, there's some echo. Yeah, there's some echo. I just request those who have unmuted, those who have unmuted please mute. Okay, is the echo there now? No. Okay. Yes, Rosalind, can you please read that again? Ecclesiastus chapter three and verse 11. Ecclesiastus three verse 11. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. The Lord, God has put eternity into our hearts, right? So the reality is many people are looking for genuine friendships. Many people are searching for meaning and purpose in life. Many people are hurting and are looking for healing. So remember that, you know, God designed us as spiritual beings, right? You will also study in different subjects about how, you know, we are human we are human beings who have a soul and we have a spirit inside of us. So we are spiritual beings. We are not robots. We have emotions. We have feelings. And so if you remember, I did mention that every human being has a God shaped vacuum in their heart, so which only God can fill. No money, no fame, no popularity, no pleasures of this world can fill that void because it's only God who can fill that. So we need to come out of this feeling that, you know, hey, this person may not be interested in knowing the gospel because he's got everything. He's got everything that this world offers. I don't think he needs to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. No. So we have to come out of that, right? Every person is a spiritual being and every person wants that feeling of genuine friendship, a searching for meaning and purpose, right? Third point, fear of rejection or ridicule, right? How many of us have gone through this fear of rejection and ridicule, right? Many of us, I'm sure, I personally have gone through it. Fear that, hey, what if they don't accept the message? What if I share this gospel and then they make fun of me? What if they just reject what I say? You know, it becomes a fear. Now, here's the important thing. Remember that even when the Lord Jesus ministered in his ministry, not everyone accepted his message. I think most of them did not accept his message. He was saying that I'm the way, the truth and the life. He's proclaiming himself as the Messiah. Many of them didn't accept the message. We go on to look in the first century church and then the second century church. You go on to see many people faced rejection and ridicule for the sake of the gospel, right? So if any of us feel that, you know, okay, I'm going to share the gospel. If there's a fear of rejection or ridicule, what are they going to say about me? What if I fail? What if they make fun of me? If we have this, we need to pray and ask the Lord to help us overcome that because the gospel will be rejected by many people, right? It's not the end of the world. Go on, right? The Lord Jesus himself says, when you go, remember he mailed a team of 70 people of twos and he said, go and preach the gospel. They went and Jesus told them, when you go, if they accept the message, stay with them, bless them. If they don't shake off the dust of your feet and move on, right? So there will be times of rejection. There will be times when people will ridicule you, make fun of you, right? But here's the important thing. We must learn to respond graciously to those who reject us. We must learn to respond graciously. Why? Because we should not be people who remember we are ministries out of love. The foundation is love. So we cannot say, okay, if you don't accept this message, you're going to go to hell.  That is the wrong way of responding to someone who rejects your message, right? So for example, you're sharing the gospel with a friend of yours or a couple of friends or at your workplace. They may reject you or they may make fun of you.  So these are the wrong ways to respond. Respond out of love. Respond graciously and say, okay, I just, I understand that you're not able to understand what I'm trying to share. You need some more time. I know you feel that, you know, it's not making sense to you, but I pray that God opens up your heart, the Holy Spirit ministers to you and just leave it. Or sometimes you may not even get the opportunity to tell them that. They may just reject you and walk away. That's all right. That's all right. Just continue. Go on. Go to the next person and continue to share the gospel. There are many stories where people came to Jesus and ridiculed him, right? The Pharisees themselves said, before Jesus said, before Abraham was I am, I'm sure they would have had a good laugh because it doesn't make sense. You're what we're probably about 30, 31 years old. You're saying before Abraham was I am. Abraham was born thousands of years ago, about 3,000 odd years ago. And you're saying before Abraham was I am. It was a, it was a really, they were, they ridiculed Jesus, right? And plenty of other places as well. So Jesus himself warned us that people will reject us, right? So it's okay not to be accepted always, right?  We go into the corner of our room and sit and say, oh, people have rejected us. No. Remember, the message of the gospel is the power of God and the salvation. So if this person's rejected it, go on to the next person. Go on to the next person. Continue to share the gospel. So we don't become people who say, okay, I think I don't know how to share the gospel. I give me another year. No, no, no. We, even if people reject us, don't worry about it. Don't sit and contemplate and think about it.  Don't have to think about all that. Just move on and continue to share the gospel, right? If they reject us, they're not rejecting us, but they're rejecting the message of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is, they're rejecting the one who sent us, right? So let's read Matthew chapter 10, 11 to 16. Can one of us please read that? Matthew chapter 10 versus 11 to 16. Matthew chapter 10 was 11 to 16. Whatever town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay at their house until you leave. As you enter the home, give it to your greeting. If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it. If it is not, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. Truly, I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. I'm sending you out like sheep among wolves, therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as dogs. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Divya. Right. So here we just read about what Jesus himself said. He said, if they accept you, stay there, bless them. If they don't shake the dust off your feet and move on, right? Acts chapter 5, 40 to 42. Can one of us please read that? Acts 5 was 40 to 42. Acts chapter 5 was 40 to 42. His speech pursued them. They called apostles in and had them flung. They ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. The apostles let the sand rains rejoicing because they had counted worthy of suffering, disgrace for his name. Day after day in the temple courts, from day after day in the temple courts, from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ. Amen. Thank you. So we see here that the apostles were flogged, beaten for the gospel, for sharing the gospel, but what did they do? The apostles counted in joy to be rejected and suffering and being persecuted for the sake of the gospel. So we are to count an honor to suffer shame for his name's sake. Now, I want to be very clear. Now, just because people reject the gospel, just because people look down on you or me, very, very important is to be established in your identity in Christ. I'm sure you have that subject who we are in Christ this semester. It is very important to be established in your identity in Christ. Now, if your identity is out of Christ, when persecution, when rejection, when failure, when suffering and shame comes, if our identity is not in Christ, what will happen is we may easily fall away. And I've heard of plenty of testimonies of not only ministers of God, pastors, people who are servants of God, serving the Lord for many years, and somewhere along the line, they give up on this call that God has for them. I think it was probably two years back, or there was this young man in his early 30s, pastoring a church, and he had a good church. He had about maybe about 100, 150 people, which is a good church. It was not in the city, but it was in the town. And he was ministering there. And all of a sudden, a lot of people began to leave his church because there was some great evangelist or something who came, and the healing evangelist he came, he started doing events and programs there. And then eventually he started a church in that same locality. And so all the people from this church went to that church. He was so depressed. He didn't feel like going to church. Suddenly, the church from 100 became 25, 30 people. He went into a feeling of rejection, a feeling of failure. And I remember he said, we got to meet and he was discussing this with me. And after he said this whole thing, he was very, very sad. He was very sad. And he said, I don't want to start the church. I don't want to continue the church. So I've given the church to somebody and I just want to give up on this because it's too much for me. And I asked him, why? So he said, no, this is what happened. I said, it's okay. So one of the things I told him was keep your identity established in Christ. Your identity is not a pastor. Your identity is not evangelist. Your identity is not profit or whatever these titles are. That's not our identity. Our identity is in Christ. And so why is this important? Because if our identity is in Christ and we know who we are, so whether there is fear, whether there's rejection, whether there is failure, whether people accept us or not, our identity remains the same. So even when these challenges come, we'll count it an honor for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. So I remember telling him, go back, continue what God has called you to do. Don't compare your calling with somebody else's calling. And I did request him to spend time in prayer and reading of the word and now he's able to, he also started his church, continued things. But what I'm trying to say is not only for those who are believers but also leaders in the church, pastors, it's very important to be established in who we are in Christ. And here we see that the disciples counted it an honor. They went back home rejoicing saying, hey, it's an honor for people to reject us, to ridicule us and the persecutions that we are facing. It's an honor for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so that should be in our spirit as well where we say, God, we will share, we will continue to share. People may accept wonderful praise God, people may reject, people may ridicule, persecute. But remember that it's an honor to suffer for his name. Remember the year 2009, 2010, I just became a believer, 2008, 2009, some of that. And I joined the corporate sector. I joined the corporate sector, began to work there. And I was so passionate about wanting to share the gospel, but I didn't know how. So remember praying, I said, God, when will you call me into full-time ministry? I want to be in full-time ministry and all of that. But God very clearly, one day after prayer, he clearly, very clearly ministered to me and said, in your office, you've got hundreds of, hundreds of employees. Why don't you start sharing the gospel with them? Then I thought, okay, this is a good opportunity. Okay, I thought about it, spent some time practicing, preparing. And so I began to share the gospel with people in my office. I would go in the mornings, I would find people from other faiths, go sit with them and try to minister to them. I know what rejection and ridicule is. There came a time when we started a small prayer fellowship in the IT company where early morning, before we log in to our works, so we would meet for about half an hour and pray and all of that. But people ridiculed us. Like we were about nine, 10 people. People ridiculed us. People made fun of us. I remember they would come with a bottle of water. When I think of it now, I laugh, but at that time, it was hurting things. They would come with a bottle of water and they'd say, hey, why don't you turn this into wine? Because they know, they would call me Jesus boy and all kinds of things. And it was hurtful. There were times when I felt, God, why should I go through all this? I can just do my work and go back home. But over time, God gives us the ability. The Holy Spirit empowers us to be willing to take up and suffer for the name of Jesus. Amen. So some of us may be in a place where, oh, I don't want to share to my friends what will they think, overcome that. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you overcome that. Let's look at the next one, next point, fourth one, being ashamed. Now, this is a big inhibition that we face in this current world, in the current days as well. So being ashamed, what if I speak about Jesus and what if my friends leave me? What if people make fun of me? Sometimes we deliberately hide the fact that we are Christians and we hide it from others. And now this is not right. Sometimes we are ashamed of being Christians in the workplace or in our colleges. We deliberately hide the fact. Right? Now, just because we wear a cross, a chain with a cross on our neck does not make us Christians. Right? Just because we have a tattoo of a cross does not make us Christians. Right? Sometimes people may brand us as fanatics. Oh, you know what? You are only talking about Jesus. Forget about you. It's better to just be, you know, be with somebody else and, you know. So all these kinds of feelings, being ashamed of the gospel. Now, very important, do not be ashamed of the gospel. The gospel is, it is through the gospel. It is through our Lord Jesus Christ that you and I have eternal life. We have found forgiveness of sins. It's a gift that God has given us.  Right? Right? Now when you study about the Roman crucifixion, it's a horrendous practice. It was actually started by the Persians. Crucifixion was started by the Persians, but it was mastered by the Romans. Right? Usually what they would do is the Romans, if people had, you know, rejected or people are against the Roman government, what they would do is they would actually, Roman history says that they would crucify people on the sidewalks of the streets of Rome. Right? People were crucified on the sidewalk. So probably if you're going out to the market, you can see people being crucified. It was like a reminder that if you go against the Roman government, this is going to be what you will face. Right? So it was that and there were times when so that, you know, people could throw anything on this body. He lost all rights once you're on the cross. Right? You're naked, beaten, bruised. Usually what they would do is they wouldn't even take off the body from the cross. Roman history says that the body would remain there. The vultures, the birds of the air would come and eat on the flesh and eventually the bones would just fall off from the cross. It was so bad. Now when we read the old, the crucifixion and I know some of us have watched Passion of the Christ and Passion of the Christ is nowhere close to what really happened to our Lord Jesus Christ. It was, it was more than that. He was, the Lord Jesus was, that's why the book of Hebrews says he was obedient to death, even death on a cross, which was the most humiliating way of dying. So he was not ashamed of it. When he was on the cross, you and I were on his mind. So what I'm trying to share is I'm not, I'm not here to, I'm not stirring up your emotions. What I'm saying is, do not be ashamed of what the Lord Jesus did for you, right? Because he was not ashamed of dying on the cross for us. Sometimes we need to be bold and unashamed of Jesus Christ. We need to do that. We need to take your stand. But we do it without being brash, without being rude, and just let people know that we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's all right. You know, in Mangalore, we get opportunities to go to many colleges. And there was this one time we went into this college. It was not a Christian college, but and so they said, can you come and speak about life and all the challenges that people, life skills basically, and all the challenges that students face and how to overcome all these challenges and all of it. And so we were talking and there were some politicians who were sitting in the, in that place and we were discussing and, and I remember they said, so can you come and talk to our students? We are about maybe 500 old students. I said, okay, but I said, at the end, I want 10 minutes to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. They were taken aback. They said, no, you, you cannot do that. We don't believe in all of that. And I said, I can't come. I can't come. I can't share because if I'm only sharing about life and how to overcome and all of this, it's just going to be like a lesson on, you know, how to improve life. Right. And that you can get on YouTube and all of that. But I remember telling them, if I'm coming, I need 10 minutes to share the gospel of Jesus Christ because it's only the gospel that can change lives. And, you know, there were a lot of people there and they were taken aback.  That's why our nation is spoiled and all of it. I said, this is, this is what it is. And if you're giving me 10 minutes at the end, I will share. They said, no, I said, no. End of story. We went away. So there will be times when you have to hold fast and to your confession be bold, be unashamed of Jesus Christ. Right. Romans 1.16, we all know that. Maybe one of us can read that just to refresh our minds. Romans 1.16. Yes. So Paul is writing to the Romans. He's saying, I'm not ashamed of the gospel and it's true because if we read about his missionary journeys, he goes into Athens, he goes into Corinth, he goes into Ephesus, all these places which was filled with idol worship, sexual immorality, sin. He goes in there. He was not nowhere was Paul, you know, in any kind of fear, nowhere in his ministry. He never said, can I, you know, is it possible you can, can I share here about Jesus? No. In Athens, in Greece, he goes there and into the great Mars Hill sermon and he begins to preach in front of the people the gospel of Jesus Christ. He was not afraid. He was not ashamed people said some people accepted him. Some people said too much of studies or too much of learning has got into your mind. You don't know what you're talking about, but that did not stop him. Right. Important thing is to not be ashamed of Jesus Christ. Right. When you get an opportunity or maybe in your college, in your workplace, wherever it is, I'm sure all of us will get opportunities. Go ahead, take that step. Right. Take that step. Don't be afraid of what, of people calling you old fashioned or people calling you fanatic. Don't be ashamed of it. People call us old fashioned because, okay, Jesus died so many years ago. You're still behind him. He's dead and gone. Forget about it. So people may call us old fashioned. No, no, no. Gospel, the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it's the power of God unto salvation. So very, very important. Make sure your identity is rooted in Christ. If it is not, we may feel ashamed. When persecution comes, we may just, you know, fall away. Now I'm not saying that, you know, in the face of persecution that we may not feel fear. We may feel fear. We may feel all these other, you know, feelings of overwhelming feelings, fear may come in, but it is there where the Holy Spirit comes and empowers us. Remember Paul says, in my weakness, his grace is sufficient for us. Right. So do not be ashamed. Next point. Fear of mixing with unsaved friends. Now another important point is sometimes as Christians, we may feel that, okay, now maybe things have changed, but many, many years ago, maybe 10, 15 years ago, if you are a Christian, you can, you know, there's this, this mindset that you should not be with people who are not saved. Why? Because we may be contaminating ourselves and that is so wrong. We must be willing to meet and be around non-Christian friends. Most of my friends, 9 out of 10, are unbelievers, were unbelievers. Right. I purposely made friends with them. I purposely spent time with them. Why? Because it's, the end was not so that, okay, yes, I wanted them to accept Jesus as their personal savior, but I genuinely had good relationships with them. And I thought, okay, if I am a good friend to them, I have to be willing to share what Jesus has done in my life for him or her. So I genuinely made good friends who are non-believers. Right. Remember that light is more powerful in darkness. Right. If we are only sitting and making friends or with people with only Christians, light and light, that's good. Fellowship is very, very important. Remember the Lord Jesus in John chapter four, what did he do? He met the Samaritan woman.  You better go back quickly before the disciples come. Jesus didn't do that. Now we know the history between the Jews and the Samaritans.  Reason being the Jews, some of the Jews started intermarriage with the Samaritans for people in Samaria. And so the Samaritans would worship the God in the idols that were on the mountain. And they would also worship the God of the Jews. So the Jews hated them. Right. So, you know, deliberately, what the Jews would do is if they want to go to a certain place, they would never cross Samaria. They would go through a different route altogether. Because it is said that history says that the Jews didn't even want to breathe the air that the Samaritans breathe. That was such a kind of hatred. Jesus is here. I'm sure his disciples would have thought, why are we going through Samaria, a place which is, you know, these people are against us.  Not only are you speaking to a Samaritan, secondly, you're speaking to a Samaritan woman. Right. And what is Jesus saying? He's sharing the gospel. He's sharing who he is.  So what if Jesus did not go and talk to her? What if Jesus just kept quiet about it? She would not have accepted the gospel. Later on, we see that the entire place, people of Samaria, all of them accept the message, accept Jesus as a Messiah. Because later on, it says that, you know, we accept you not because of what this Samaritan woman said, but because of what you have said to us, because of the message that was shared to us. Right. So don't be afraid of mixing with unsaved friends. Right. Remember that, yes, you have to be strong spiritually as well. Right. So if you've every day, if you're in the college or in your workplace, a lot of people from other faiths, you be spiritually strong. Right. Be friends with them. There was a friend of mine many, many, many years ago. I just became a believer. He was a Muslim, a very good boy. We were very good friends all throughout school. And he was very, you know, he always wanted to know, Paul, how did you change? How did you become like this?  He said, no, no, no, don't tell me about Jesus. He's a good man, but how can he save you? It doesn't make sense, Paul. How can God have a son? And so I didn't know much about all this apologetics and all of that, giving a defense and all of that, but I tried my best. So every day I would go meet him. I would talk to him.  His father was running a food joint. And his father was also the, like, you know, the Imam of the mosque, who would make announcements, who would sing the morning devotions. I'm sure some of us have heard those recitations. And so he was that. And so I would go and begin to talk to him. And over the course of, you know, we had a lot of, you know, misunderstand, I won't say misunderstanding, but a lot of discussions between us. There were times when he accepted what I said. There were times that he also got upset sometimes, but we were just friends. So we continued to talk.  So I would just withdraw back and just talk about something else. So God gives us the wisdom for all of that. But over the six months of meeting with him, finally, he accepted Jesus as his personal savior. What a joy it was. One of my best friends, a very close friend of mine. And he accepted the Lord Jesus. And then he was, he went home. He was ready. He's, and I told him, see, what are you going to do if you tell your parents, they're going to make you leave the house? He said, no, no, no, that's okay. I know the truth now. I don't have to be afraid of anything. And he went home. He told his parents. His parents were very upset, but they loved him because he was the only son. They kept him at home, but he was not allowed outside, but he would sit and read the word and pray and all of it. And eventually he was able to share the gospel with his mother and then his father. And they all, the entire family accepted the Lord Jesus. And they went through a lot of persecution because his father was part of the leadership team in the mosque, but he went through a lot of persecution. But they all are believers and they all serve the Lord in the city of Bangalore itself. So here's the thing, do not be afraid of mixing with unsaved friends. Let's read 1 Corinthians chapter 9, that's 19 to 23. 1 Corinthians 9, 19 to 23. 1 Corinthians 9, 19 to 23. Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible, 20. To the Jews, I become like Jew. To win the Jews. To those under the law, I become like the law. So as to win those under the law. To those not having the law, I become like one, not having the law. Though I am not free from God's law, but I am under Christ's law. So as to win those not having law. To weak, I become weak. To win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means, I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the Gospel that I may share in its blessings. Hey man, thank you. So we see here that Paul is writing to the Corinthians, he's saying to the Jew, I'll be a Jew, to the Romans, I'll be a what he's trying to say is my whole life is so that I may reflect the love of Christ. To the Gentiles, I'll be as a Gentile. To the Jews, I'll be a Jew. To the people around, if they are weak, I will become weak for their sake. If they are bold and strong, I will become bold and strong for their sake. And so Paul was willing to mix with all kinds of people. And that is the whole point of evangelism, to go and to touch other people's lives. And finally, there are other excuses that we may have. It's not just my personality. Sometimes we may feel, okay, I'm just a worship leader. I can sing. I can sing. I can play the drums. So let that evangelism and all that others do, let the pastors and evangelists do. I will write songs and I will sing songs. That is my calling. That's good. Praise God, that God has called you for that. But the commission for all of us is go and make disciples. So God will work through anyone who is willing. So don't put a tag on, we should not do that. We put a tag on ourselves, oh, I'm a worship leader or I am this and I am that. So I'm not sure if I can share the gospel. No, we all are called to fulfill the commission. Then we look at a second excuse. It says, not my responsibility. Maybe it's a responsibility, somebody else. Maybe it's a responsibility of my pastor or my leaders to just share the gospel. I'll serve in the church. I'm happy doing that. You need to get out of that mindset. Or the third excuse is, okay, I am living a good life. I have a good life. I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm praying every day. I'm doing everything. It's good. It's important to maintain a good testimony. But it is also important not to what you have to keep it to yourself, but to share it with others. The gospel needs to be communicated with people around us. We need to get out of these excuses. Finally, I'm afraid of the difficult questions that people may ask. Now, it's a common thing that people will ask different difficult questions. We may not know the answers, but one of the things that we did mention is, we can always say, hey, I don't know this. I don't know the answer to your question. But what I do know is this. I was a sinner and the Lord Jesus saved me. What I do know is that Christ set me free before I was living a life of hatred and jealousy and anger. But now the Lord has changed me. There will be difficult questions, but let it not stop you from sharing the gospel. One of the things you can say is, can I get back to you about that? You can go. You can ask your pastors. You can read up and check and get back to them. I'll just share this quickly and I'll close again. I think about six, seven years back, just something that I was reminded of. It's not too well-versed with the scriptures and all of that many years back. This friend of mine, he was from a different faith again, and he was a Muslim. I would always share with him. He asked me this question. How can God have a physical appearance on earth? He asked me that, and I didn't know what to say. I said, I don't know. Then how can you say that Jesus is the Son of God? I didn't know what to say. I said, okay, I don't know that. But my stance, my identity did not change because of that question, because I didn't know the answer. But here's what happened. I went back and began to read. I bought a Qur'an and I began to read that and reading. There's a Surah, one place, where it says that when Moses was in front of the burning bush, the scripture said that God was in the bush, in the Qur'anic scriptures. It said that God was in the bush. So I met him the next day and I said, if you read the Qur'an, it says that God was in the bush. So his physical appearance was manifested in the bush. So he read that and he said, yes.  He didn't sleep for three days. Three days he didn't sleep. He came back after three to four days and he said, that question was just, it kept haunting me and then it gave me an opportunity to share the Gospel with him. He accepted the Gospel and he became a believer. So yes, there are difficult questions. You may not have the answers to all of them, but let not your identity be shaken because of that. So some of the declarations you can make is, I am an ambassador of Christ. I have no fear. I am not ashamed of the Gospel. So all these declarations continue to make it every day in your life. Amen. Amen. Any thoughts, any questions any one of us have, I know we've passed our time. Quickly, any thoughts, any questions? Okay. Could one of us please lead us in prayer? Could one of us close in prayer for us? John, if you're there, can you lead us in prayer? Yes, that's great. Father, we thank you for the time you've given us to learn from your word and to understand the importance of sharing your Gospel to the people around us, O God. We thank you for the privilege you have given us to know you more. We thank you. And we also pray that the words that we learned today will be fruitful in our lives, O God. We thank you, Jesus. In Jesus' most precious name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, everyone. I see that I think it was Elisha. You raised your hand. Maybe we can pick up your whatever you want to share or question. We can pick that up from next week. Thank you, everyone. Have a blessed week. Catch up next week. God bless.


Welcome to the Maine course with me, Natalie Rock. Growing up in a small town in Minnesota, the only exciting cuisine was that of our state fair. Now that I'm in Maine, I am so excited to meet all the talented chefs that create such delicious and unique food. Come with me as I explore Maine and all the different foods it has to offer. Having us today, it's so great to be here. I would just want to get us started by asking how you guys got started in Westbrook. You know, the Frog and Turtle has been here for a few years. I just want to get some background and some history. Yeah, we've been here actually 15 years coming up this month. And it starts as any restaurant starts, you know, with a dream and a vision. And I had cooked for many years, working for different owners up and down the East Coast. And I finally got a chance to open a restaurant or take over a restaurant called Oofa in Portland with this gentleman, Todd Waters. And after about four years, I had bought him out. And it was a small like 40 seat restaurant and it was a little bit more higher end. And you know, it was all right, but it was always just going to be a paycheck. And then, you know, I had a new wife at the time and I'm a baby on the way. And I wanted to do something that was going to generate a little bit more revenue from the family. And we had bought a multi-unit out here in Westbrook. And so we were looking for new locations to move to. Our lease was coming up. We found this spot. It used to be Chickie's Fine Diner. And before that, it was the cornerstone. So it had some nice history to Westbrook. And it was a good prime spot. And we came in, we renovated it, made it our own. And after, I would say about eight years that Cody's had been dining from Oofa and followed us out here. They actually lived in Westbrook. And I was at the end of my wits of trying to be, can I be a chef? Can I be a restaurant owner? How do I do on boats? And the restaurant's getting great reviews and it's blowing up and we're busy. And I took Guy out for a cup of coffee. It was the best worst cup of coffee ever. And talked to him about, like, Guy's been very successful in the engineering field and with his company previous. And so I was like, hey, how do you do it? How do you manage it all? And I'm just, I just can't do boats. And he called me back up a couple days later and he said, what do you think about us buying in partnering and they came in with a very small percentage just as the joke was, if nothing else, we'll eat for free. And then after like about a year or so, we all sat down and we had a chance to buy the building and then doing, buying the building, they understood the next vision, which was to build everything you see up here and expand the kitchen. So we're able to produce the food necessary for two floors and yeah, it was really truly, truly awesome. And at that point, we've just been 50, 50 partners together and it's truly been a wonderful, wonderful experience. And, you know, I worked very hard for so long and then that really became the opportunity of a lifetime meeting the co-tees and having them come in. So, always super grateful. So Guy, you have a background in environmental engineering. I wanted to know if you had any background in restaurant. Only in high school. Three years at daring ice cream, scooping ice cream and a short order cut. So, but at the same time, it did give me some insight into the restaurant business, you know, working 60, 70 hours a week as a high school student kid. I did get to see and meet a lot of really great people in that business and to understand the commitment it takes. Definitely, definitely. For a restaurant. And as you are now a part owner of the Frog and the Turtle, how has your experience been owning a restaurant, you know, and being able to help management manage it? Are you falling in love with it more? Are you? Yes. Certainly, I think originally it was more of a silent partner role for Jane and I. And with COVID, it's been all hands on deck. And it's, and actually we've had to think outside the box to, for these last two years, to make sure that the lights stay on and the employment. We have a great staff here. They work really hard. Frog and the Turtle, that's a bit of a unique name. I have to know if there's a story. Well, as any good name, there's a story. So, when we first started looking at like our concept and what we wanted to do, like we broke it down to like different categories from your fine dining restaurant to your chain restaurant to your local pub to look at all the pros and cons of them all and what you liked about one, what you didn't like for other, like your local pub, the bartender knew your names, you knew your drink, but the food was never really that good. You know, your high-end restaurants, the food's awesome. Like, you know, it's pricey and this. So we were like, how do we make like an everyday eatery that still has chefs cooking from scratch, but you could get like a really amazing burger or you could get really a pizza with like top ingredients on it, like pancetta and stuff. Things that you just really weren't seeing, you know, 18 years ago, 15 years ago and in the search of it and looking at stuff, you know, the internet's kind of coming up big and like we started hearing about all these gastropubs in Europe and just really looked at kind of duplicating that formula because we were like, wow, it's pretty much what we're doing. It was just finally someone put a name to it. And so, you know, that's what we went. We don't really focus so much on the gastropub part of it anymore. We just kind of just say we're a pub, but the original gastropub was called the eagle. So we wanted to pay like a little bit tribute to that. So we wanted to use animals. We're French, Canadian, my wife at the time, Heidi, you know, we're both, she was from Northern Maine. I was, you know, Sanford on the Midtown. So we knew it was going to be the frog and at first it was going to be the frog and pig. And then we were like, I don't know. And then we were thinking about frog and toad because they were both aquatic animals that Heidi was like, well, nobody likes toads.  And I just don't see it. And she's like, what about turtles? And they're like right there. It was like that beam of like, I'll go go go go go. You can see them both hanging out on the, you know, the log together. They're not enemies. They're both in the pond together. So, you know, the frog always kind of represented our French, Canadian history. The turtles are like everybody else. So you're all coming together, hanging out in the pond together, speaking. That's kind of it. If anyone knows me, I'm kind of like a mile of minute all over the place. Like a frog, Heidi is very methodical. So she was kind of like a turtle even though she's a French, Canadian too. So like they're just with tons of plays. This is French town that we're in. So it kind of worked that the river was right there. And then, you know, that's kind of the history of it. That's great. It was cool. Like everybody would call us up and like, that is the worst name. Nobody is going to go to that. They're going to think you're like an aquarium shop. Like the mayor at the time is like, hey, you know, you're like talented and all in Portland. But our restaurant was Oofa. We were expecting the restaurant to be called Oofa. So everybody from Portland would come out here. And I was like, don't you worry, man. They're going to come for the food. We'll be OK. I mean, a guy can have his shirt on at the golf course. I'll have a hoodie on.  I love that place. You know, like the branding just works super well. That's great to be able to be recognized out in public, especially so far away. So I had some questions about your community involvement. It seems like you guys do a lot of your music. I see your stage is set up outside. We've got some great shots of it. Would you mind speaking a little bit to that? Yeah. First, the stage outside. That's I discovered downtown Westbrook. I'm fortunate enough to sit on the board of directors for that. So they're working big to bring attention to Westbrook's downtown. And the thought process of it is, does the downtown grows, all of Westbrook grows. So that's them, me and my buddy, Mike, who's on the board as well, from Glacial Meteors. We've been just planted together. So they're very good at the design, marketing element. Us having knowledge of getting bands. We've been really good at booking the bands. And that stage started as a little eight by eight platform, two inches off the ground on the sidewalk three years ago to what you see now. And we've just keep fundraising all the businesses up and down Main Street. They truly believe in it. And they've given sponsorships. And the nice thing about it is it's all local small businesses really putting their heart and soul behind it. You don't have any of these giant multi-billion dollar corporations hitting your check. It's like every mom-and-pop business around here really truly believe and edit it in our process of being bred in Westbrook as Main Street Music City because we have a rich history of music here from Rudy Valley all the way through to today. So speaking a little bit more to the pub side of things, what kind of menu do you guys offer? Any sort of special dishes or anything like that you guys are known for? As James mentioned at the beginning of French-Canadian cuisine, including a pub menu, things standard fare such as poutine. And when my son comes here to eat, he always orders a large just for himself and everybody else can share another dish. And it's all from scratch. And I think that is where the flavors and the creativity of the chefs that we have here really bring out the food, the ambiance of the food and things. And it's why I think that as James describes the restaurant as a white tablecloth restaurant without the white tablecloth. And it really does bring in the diners that are looking for that next level of dining for their food and things. So the desserts, we have one of the desserts, a teardrop of happiness that's been on the menu since the beginning. It's a go-to for any occasion. It's all chocolate. So it's easily the pick of the list. But it's a menu that changes seasonally. The crepes, for example, in the fall and the winter. So things a little more hearty. Fresh seafood. We have fresh seafood deliveries. Whole salmon that the chefs fillet each day the haddock, for example. So it's a menu that has specials every day along with just freshness of the meats and the fish poultry. Yeah, definitely. It sounds delicious. Do you have a personal favorite? So when we're able to get fried clams for the food. He's making his head. Your brother's going. So for me, I love spicy food. And so what I do is they make their own sauces for the chicken wings. I have them sauce up my fried clams. Oh, that's great. But no, the steaks is actually truly, for me, it's a meat and potato person. The steaks here are awesome. That's great. James, do you have a favorite? Yeah, I think it's all across the board. Good. Whether we're doing our house-made street tacos in some places, you can only get chicken or pork. We'll allow people to mix them up. And they're always blown away, like how much thought and process goes into a $17 entree. The taco shells, the tortillas are hand-griddled to order, and made, the pulled pork one, we got four hours of a braising process to shred it. And people have these, and they're like, man, this is insanely good. And that sauce is made in-house. So I think sometimes some of our moderately priced items like really showcase the skill and attention that a chef can have to that, like another that always has to be the $72 tomahawk steak, and I think that's why we're busy, especially mid-week all the way through. Everybody's like, I don't have to check the bank account before I come here, but I got to save the charcuterie board and cheese plates here. If you like charcuterie and cheese, it's a step above what anyone else is doing. A lot of places will buy hard salamis, they'll buy patties from a high-end purveyor and to put them on the board. We're doing everything in-house. So it doesn't matter if we have a hard Genoa salami, we've made it in-house. A pancetta, we've made it out. Spicola, which is similar to a prosciutto, will have a leg of lamb hanging and curing in-house. Patties, everything's made from scratch. Even Guy talked about the fried clams. Even the dredge, we don't buy a dredge. The insanity of my head is we have to make it in-house. We make fresh bread every day. Ice creams, we'll make ice cream. Our own bacon, we make our own bacon just because I'm like, I don't want our food to taste like anybody else's food. Yeah, it definitely gives it that unique aspect, that unique frog and turtle sort of taste that people love so much. So speaking of the future of the frog and turtle, where do you guys see yourself in Westbrook the next five, 10 years? I know. For me, I see myself standing in the corner over a six-burner range cooking, you know? I love to cook, you know? It's a challenge in market as we, for the last three years out of everything that you've weathered and that they keep throwing at you. But, you know, I always, my philosophy has always been small steps, long journey. So, you know, you do exactly what you know well. You try to look at the market. You have six months projections. You have yearly out projections, but I mean, as far as expanding, we expanded, you know? So you don't really have much bigger, we're never gonna open a second restaurant. We're not gonna, you know, do it. You're not gonna put a third story on. You just try to keep refining what you do well and keep the energy level for your staff there. And hopefully that you're always a good steward to your community, which is important to us as well. I think one of the areas that will help us succeed is the way the city has been growing. We have the development just across the street with harvest. There'll be the hydroponics and the fresh vegetables that we'll be able to get year round. The city has been looking forward so that the growth is in a controlled way, but at the same time, it's bringing a critical mass down here. And that's what we need to be successful here. We have our reaches. James said, you can go to Kennebunk, even Massachusetts and elsewhere, and they've heard of the frog internal. And so having people down here, that's part of the equation. And so the city has been very helpful over the years in making sure that they're helping us reach those, those ends that we're looking for. Thank you, Guy and James, for having me and speaking with me today. It was great learning about the frog and turtle and make sure if you're in Westbrook and you need some poutine or some live music, please stop on in.


In the previous video, we saw that a linear system can only have three types of solution sets. Either it's inconsistent, it has no solution, it could have unique solution, which would make it consistent, and we call this the independent case, or it could also have infinitely many solutions, which would make it consistent, and we refer to that as often as the dependent case. And so these three possibilities are the only possibilities when it comes to solving systems of linear equations of any dimension. In this video, I wanna talk a little bit about how three dimensional pictures might, how you might visualize them and think about these three possibilities here as well. Because the same three possibilities are, those are the only possibilities available for three dimensions as well. So if you recall a previous example we did in this lecture series, example 113, we had the following system of linear equations. It was a three equations, three, we were to graph the planes associated to each of these linear equations. You get something like the blue, orange, and green planes illustrated here on the screen. You would see that because of the incline of the three planes, there would be one point in an intersection common to all three of these points. You can see this point right here, which would be 234. And so in the three dimensional case, this is an instance of this independent consistent case because all of the planes in the system intersect at a unique point. Visualizing this can be seen as these three planes intersecting at that unique point. And one of course can move around, but that's the idea, they come to a single point. For the inconsistent case, this would occur because not all planes simultaneously have a single point. Imagine you're looking top down on three planes. You could have it that the three planes make some type of triangular region for which no point comes together for all of them, right? Or you could have like two of the planes are parallel to each other. And so another plane crosses. Again, we're looking from the top down on these planes right now. There might not be a common point of intersection for all of these. Now, these all kind of constitute the same issues that lines, if you had three lines of the plane would give you as well, but planes extending out of the screen coming towards your face. Look out. Okay, it's not gonna hit you. Let's think about the dependent case though, for a moment. So one of, like we saw with lines, the dependent case occurred when the two lines completely overlaid each other. And that is a possibility here as well. We could have a plane, right? We could have a plane and then we have a second plane that just lives entirely on the same plane, something like that. But like you can see in this image right here, it could be that the planes intersect each other.  There are points distinct for the different planes, right? So we could distinguish between the green, the red, or the green, the orange, and the blue one right here. But there still is a common intersection that's more than just a single point right here. We see that there's this common line that lives amongst all the planes. So in this situation, we still do have infinitely many solutions, but we don't necessarily have that the two or three planes are equal to each other in any capacity. So we could still get the dependent case even when the plane, and this graphic you see on the screen is actually a visualization of our example one-one-fourth a previous slide. And we have this three-by-three system, the two x minus y plus z equals 11, you can read the rest of it there. In which case we saw that this system had multiple solutions. Two of the solutions reduced earlier, we had five comma negative one zero. We had a six comma two comma one as a second one. But I claim that there's gonna be infinitely many solutions here. And in fact, one can find the so-called general solution in the following manner here. We could take as our general solution, pick any z-quant, z could be anything, anything, anything, pick your favorite number. Whatever that number is, the x-coordinate will be five plus that number you chose, and the y-coordinate will be three times that number, but take away one. And so we can construct the other two coordinates based upon the choice of z. So we could make up some more coordinates on the fly right now. Like if we wanted to, we could choose z to equal negative one. That would imply that x equals negative one plus five, in other words, four. And we would say that y would have to be three times negative one minus one, which would give us negative four. And so then we see that the point negative, or positive four, negative four comma negative one is yet a third point on the intersection of these three planes. And that's because the intersection is in fact this line. We can pick any point on this line and that would be a solution to the system of equations. This here in the yellow box is what we refer to as this general solution here. Some other vocabulary we wanna mention here is that in this system of equations, we're treating the z-coordinate as a so-called free variable. A free variable. The idea behind the free variable here is that we could choose anything we want for z. I picked negative one. In these previous examples, we took z to be zero, z to be one. You could choose z to be 17, the square root of seven if you wanted to. You could choose z to be whatever you want. But once you choose what z is, the x-coordinate and the y-coordinate of the solution will then be dependent on that choice. And so this is referred to as the dependent variables. And I should mention that the free variables are sometimes called independent variables, sometimes on the vocabulary you wanna use their same idea here. So this system has one free variable and two dependent variables. Once we choose the free variable, the two dependent variables will depend on that choice we made for z. And this is something we're gonna see often in the future that when we have this dependent case, that's because there is some non-zero set of free variables and then the dependent variables are then dependent upon. And so that's giving us some idea what this independence and dependence is all about, although there is more to it than just what I've said here. And so just a few things to kind of finish up section 1.1 here. I wanna mention a proposition, we'll call this proposition 118, that actually gives us some expectations of when a system of equation will have free variables or things of that capacity. So let's take a system of equations with M equations and N variables. So if we were to kind of list this thing out, our system of equations, we have one equation, two equations, three equations, no, dot, dot, four, M equations. So that's what we have here. We have M mini equations. And then the N value, N right here is gonna count your variables. You have like X1, X2, up to XN equals something B. And so the second number N is gonna be keeping track of the variables inside of our system. So this is what we said earlier. We call this an M by N linear system. M rows in columns, the way we kind of organize this thing. Now in the situation where we have N is greater than M, this means more variables. You have more variables than rows here. Then you're gonna have at least N minus M, many free variables. If you have too many variables, then some of them have to be free variables. That's what we wanna kind of get from this statement here. If N is greater than M, then I guarantee N minus M of them have to be free variables. Apply, there's multiple solutions here. All right, on the other hand, if our system of linear equations satisfies the condition that M is greater than N, this means we have more equations than variables. In that situation, if you take M minus N, we're always taking the bigger number minus the smallest one, then it turns out that M minus N many equations could be removed without modifying the solution set. So I wanna come back to this graphic we saw on the previous screen right here. So notice that we have these three planes that intersect on a common line. What if we kind of exit, just take it out. So I'm gonna use my white marker here, right? Because the background's white, so you can kind of, it kind of looks like I'm erasing it a little bit. Oh, you don't see the orange plane anymore. If you're like, well, what happened to the blue one? There's a big chunk out of it. Oh, no, no, it's there, right? This is really good graphics right here, I know. But it's like, oh, what if we took the orange plane out? You'll notice that the intersection of the green plane and the blue plane doesn't change when you take out the third one. And this is the dependence relation in action right here. The orange plane isn't really offering anything to the solution set. You can get the same solution set without it. And so condition two right here is giving us a situation which we can guarantee that there are needless equations in the system of equation. If you have too many equations, then it turns out you could remove without actually changing the solution set. Now, this first situation when N is greater than M, that is you have too many variables, this is what we often refer to as an under-determined system. Under-determined system. In contrast, if you have too many equations, this is what we refer to as an over-determined system. Because the idea is if you have too many equations, then there might be too many restrictions on the system of equations, so you have too many. And when you're over-determined, it starts to become very likely that your system is inconsistent. The more equations you add, the harder it is to solve the system because you have to find a solution for all of the equations. On the other hand, the more variables you add to the system, then it's easier to solve it because you have more freedom. You might be able to correct some of the defects that the equations have.  And there are some conditions we can guarantee from these under-determined systems and over-determined systems. One last bit of vocabulary that we'll give you in section 1.1 is the idea of a homogeneous or non-homogeneous system of equations. So we say the system of linear equations is homogeneous. When you take every single equation, it can be written into the form where the right-hand side looks like a zero, right? So you have all your variables on left-hand side. They will equal zero on the right-hand side. And this is what homogeneous means. The word homogeneous would translate as one gene, one family, everything's the same. So for a homogeneous system, the right-hand side, they're all zeros. And so we say that a system that's not homogeneous would be non-homogeneous. And we're just describing the right-hand side of the equations. We want those to be all zero. A quick example of that, consider this first system right here. You'll see that x plus 3y plus 5z equals zero. That looks good. 2x plus 4y plus 6z equals zero. That looks good. 4x plus 2y, there's no z's, okay, equals zero. Looking at the, on the right-hand side, you have only zeros. On the left-hand side, you have all the variables. And so this is an example of a homogeneous system of equations. This one's homogeneous. Now you have to be careful, right? Because when we say that a system of equations is homogeneous, all the right-hand sides have to be zero. One might be very tempted right here to be like, oh, this system of equation is homogeneous because all the variables are on the left and you have only zeros on the right-hand side. But gotcha here. You'll notice that there are some constants on the left-hand side. We can't declare whether a system is homogeneous or not until it's been put into that standard form. All of these friends need to move to the right-hand side. And when you do that, this system translates into the following. You get x plus 3y minus 2z equals four. That's what the first equation will look like. Then you get 4x plus 2y plus 3z equals five. And then you get negative x plus 5y minus 3z equals two. And so once you put this system of equations into standard form, we can then very quickly identify that, okay, this is a non-homogeneous system. It's non-homogeneous because the right-hand sides are not all zeros. They have to be all zeros to be considered a homogeneous system of equations. It's a very simple definition, but we do want to be aware of what this thing actually means. And what we can say about homogeneous systems, right, is that a homogeneous system of equations is always consistent. There's always a solution to a homogeneous system of linear equations. And I'll leave it up to you to kind of determine why is there always a solution, but you're gonna see that the solution to a homogeneous solution, it's kind of a trivial solution, but it's a pretty important solution that we'll be seeing over and over and over again in this course to you to kind of find what is that guaranteed solution to a homogeneous system. So that brings us to the end of section 1.1. Hopefully from the contents of these videos you'll be prepared to start working on homework 1.1 and the associated questions you'll find there. If there are of course any questions at all while you're studying this subject matter, feel free to post comments in the comments below here on YouTube, I'd be happy to answer any of your questions you see there. If you feel like you learned something, hit the like button. If you wanna get more updates about math videos in the future, feel free to subscribe, excuse me there. And I hope we'll have some fun together in this course. I'll see you next time everyone, bye.