The Crossroads of Worship and Mission

Well, thank you, Jim. Good morning. It is good for Jessica and I to be here with you again.! As Jim said, we were here for two years, but long before that. Jessica was actually born here in Leavenworth! And was here for about eight years of her life before the family moved. Many of you know her parents, Tim and Judy Heath, who pastored here, of course. And so it's always a joy for us to have the opportunity to return here to Leavenworth, to return to Cascade Mountain Bible Church, and just have the privilege to open up God's Word with you this morning. And as Jim said, my ministry, we're both on staff. Jessica is associate staff. I'm full-time with the Navigators. And it is wide-reaching.

If you're curious about that, I'd love to tell you more about that. But it's a ministry that reaches American college students, military, and first responders. Our specific work is with international students. And we're just coming alongside them, introducing them to Jesus with the hopes of seeing spiritual generations come out of their lives, especially as they go back to their home countries and engage in their own families and friends and spheres of influence there. And so it's been a neat fit for us to work with students, many of them from Southeast Asia and other countries in Asia, Japan, and so forth. As we were living in Thailand for many years, it's a very natural thing. So we're just grateful for that. And yeah, I do have the privilege this morning of opening God's Word.

We're going to read our passage in Psalm 96. I'm going to flip it. And I need to begin too by, I need to apologize because I think I was looking, I sent the wrong thing, the crossroads of worship and mission. And so I sent whatever's on the bulletin. Does it say crosswords? Maybe I had Scrabble on the brain. I don't know. But I sent, I apologize. That's my mistake. So I just want you to know that up front. But we're going to look at Psalm 96. If you don't have a Bible, I've got it here on the screen as well. I'm going to be reading from the New American Standard and I'm going to read the entire Psalm, all 13 verses of Psalm 96. Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth.

Sing to the Lord, bless His name. Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day. Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples. For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before Him. Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. Ascribe to the Lord, you families of the peoples. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

Ascribe to the Lord the glory of His name. Bring an offering and come into His courtyards. Worship the Lord in holy attire. Tremble before Him all the earth. Say among the nations, the Lord reigns. Indeed, the world is firmly established. It will not be moved. He will judge the peoples fairly. May the heavens be joyful and may the earth rejoice. May the sea roar and all it contains. May the field be jubilant and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy before the Lord. For He is coming. For He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in His faithfulness. Father, as we open Your Word, we would pray that Your Spirit would be our teacher this morning. That You would clear out anything that is not from You.

And that You would communicate clearly to our hearts, to our minds, to our lives. And that, Lord, You would transform us more into the image of Your Son, Jesus, through the power of Your Spirit.

And that You would change us to look more like Him. We pray this all in His name. Amen. Amen. Well, to begin with this morning, I want to just brag a little about my wife, which isn't very hard to do if you know her. For the last year, Jessica's been taking a course in nutritional therapy. In fact, she just turned in some of her last assignments. And so she will be a nutritional therapist practitioner, which is, if you want to know more about that, she can tell you all about that. It's fascinating to me. Throughout the year, I've helped her study a little bit here and there. We did flashcards at least once. And she prepared them, and I tried to read them. I couldn't pronounce most of the words on them, but she did a great job. And one of the things that she's been learning in this course, and I've picked up some on as she shared it with me, that's just fascinating, I think, is the interconnectedness of the human body, right? And this idea that health and wholeness depend on several factors, right? It's not just one or two things, but it's, for example, eating nutritionally dense food or getting quality sleep, having good digestive help, properly managing emotional stress, regulating blood sugar, getting good exercise. These are a few of those things. And they work not in isolation, right? But all of those things together work in concert, all these functions and practices. And that when one of them is neglected, it affects our entire body system, right? All of it suffers for that. And at the same time, when we pay attention to one of these areas, it helps us form habits in the other areas, it results in better overall health for our human bodies. And I think, as I think about that, that there's a spiritual truth here, right? And that just as the functions and systems of our human bodies are interconnected, the functions and the practices and the purposes of the body of Christ, the church, are also related together. And so, for example, how we care for one another is linked to our prayer life. Our growth, spiritual growth, is connected to how well we know the Word of God and know God through His Word. Serving others in the body of Christ is linked to understanding our own identity in Christ, right? So we see those connections. So this morning, I want to think about another one. And that's really here that the idea, the point of connection between worship and mission.

And we're going to see that these two are also interconnected elements in our life as believers, that there's a crossroads of worship and mission throughout the scriptures and in our own lives.

And so we go to Psalm 96, we've read it already. And the first thing that I want us to notice here in this psalm is that God is calling all creation to worship Him. As we read through it, I don't know if you caught it or not, but this psalm gives us several descriptions of God showing why He deserves our worship. Three different times in verses 3, 7, and 8, it talks about His glory. In verse 4, it speaks about His greatness. His splendor and majesty are in verse 6, along with His strength, which is in 6 and 7. His beauty, His royalty, His fairness, His righteousness, His faithfulness.

All of these attributes of who God is are laid out. And this is far from an exhaustive list, right? Because this is nothing about God's goodness, His grace, His mercy, His compassion, His justice, His patience, His wisdom, His power, His love. And we could go on and on and on considering the different reasons why God deserves worship, just for who He is, His character, not to mention the things He's done. We're going to look a little bit at that this morning as well. And so here in this passage that God's calling all creation to worship Him, and it's clear in this psalm that throughout, and really not just this psalm, but throughout all of Scripture, that God's people specifically are called to worship Him, right? All of creation, but let's narrow it down that you and I, if we know Jesus Christ as Savior, the church, God's people are called to worship Him, right? We see this going back, and I want to look at some, I'm going to put them up on the screen, several other passages that sort of panoramic view of this throughout Scripture. We can go back to Exodus and chapter 3, and here we see God's people are commanded to worship Him, right? The context here, God's going to call Israel out of slavery in Egypt. He says, Moses, you're my man, you're going to lead him out, and He gives Moses His promise in Exodus 3.12, that when you've brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain. He's calling to Moses there at Mount Sinai, right? The burning bush. This is the promise, you're going to worship God here. My people are going to worship me. And we see that go throughout the Old Testament, God's call on His people Israel to worship Him.

And we jump, we come into the New Testament, and we see in John chapter 4, Jesus speaking with a Samaritan woman. And there's this whole very intriguing dialogue he has with her, and it's narrowing in on where's the right place to worship. And he says this, the Father is looking for those who still, who will worship Him, for God is spirit, so those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth, right? And so there's this very, I think it's an amazing thing, God is looking for these people that will worship Him. This is who God's interested in. And then we fast forward even more, we come to Paul's epistles, and throughout it, I've just chosen, again, these are just some samples, right?

But I want us to see throughout all of scriptures, and Paul's writing to the Ephesians, and three times in Ephesians 1, as he's describing all the spiritual blessings that you and I have, because we are now in Christ, because we've all these things, he says this is to the praise of His glory. Three different times, it's thematic there, that our lives are, what's the result of receiving all that? To the praise of His glory, to worship Him. So this is, well, this is sort of a no-brainer, right? God's people are called to worship Him. But Psalm 96 also tells us that God's creation, we're part of that creation, but I'm thinking like the created order, you know, non-humans, the rest of the creation is also worships God. Look again at the third portion of this psalm, verses 11 and 12.

May the heavens be joyful, may the earth rejoice, may the sea roar in all it contains, may the field be jubilant, all that is in it. Then all the trees of the forest, excuse me, all the trees of the forest will sing for joy, right? And so there's this idea here, and I just love it, how God's Word personifies the natural world, what we would call the natural world. And so it makes me think of longer passages like Psalm 19, right? The heavens proclaim the glory of God, the skies display His craftsmanship.

Day after day, they continue to speak, and night after night, they make Him known. They speak without a word or sound, their voice is never heard, yet their message is gone throughout the earth, their words to all the world. So we see this reality that creation, the natural world is also worshiping God. It looks different than our worship, but it's worshiping God. Several years ago, my son and I, Matthias is 24 years old now, but this was when he was in high school, and we went on a father-son camping trip up Ching Dao Mountain in Northern Thailand. And we went with a lot of other, there's fathers and sons. We got up there, set up camp that night, about 15 minutes or so of hike from the summit of Ching Dao Mountain. And we went up there that night and got a look over. It was really beautiful.

And then we had the idea, we said, oh, what if we got up before the sunrise? What if we climb the summit back up tomorrow morning? And we can see the sunrise up over the morning? Oh, this is a good idea. Let's do this. And so still dark out. Matthias actually got up first, stepped outside the tent. And I hear him calling me. He says, dad, dad, come outside. You got to see this. And so I, you know, half awake, you know how it is, right? After especially sleeping on the ground overnight and groggily drug my way out of the tent. And they're looking up the stars that were covering the sky. We lived in a major city, right? Chiang Mai. And we didn't see stars a lot, let alone just what you could see out here, just this blanket of stars. No, I couldn't even begin to capture it with a camera. It was amazing. The heavens were proclaiming the glory of God. And so then we stood for a few minutes, we were talking, we said, hey, let's, let's climb up to the summit. And so we made our way up there in the dark, thankful that we'd done it the night before when we could see, because there's all rocks and stuff. We're climbing over and we get up top and we were ready. And there's a few others that are gathered there.

And by far the most glorious, awesome, beautiful sunrise that I've ever witnessed in my life, right? We wait a little bit, the lights start shining out of the East. And here is a photo. You can sort of see it here. I know it's hard to capture. It looks just like, but this is all the next one's a little better. Those are clouds, a sea of clouds, a sunrise coming up over there. You can see a couple other mountain peaks and it's actually Matthias there in the foreground. He's doing a time-lapse thing.

And I just took this photo, but what a beautiful picture of what scripture says of the heavens are proclaiming the glory of God. Creation is worshiping him. It reminds us of what we read in Psalm one night, or excuse me, in Romans 119. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky through everything God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities, his eternal power, and his divine nature. God's creation is reflecting his glory, is worshiping him. He's reminding us as humans that he deserves worship. And so here in this Psalm, we see God's people, that's you and me, we're called to worship him. That his created world worships him. And then I see what comes to me as a surprise here in this Psalm. We see that, because we expect believers, right? We expect believers to give praise to God. It makes sense that the heavens and the oceans and the mountains and the trees would reflect his glory. He's their creator. But we also see that the nations of the world are called to worship him here in this

Psalm. Look again at verses 1, 7, and 9. I think I've got them there. The first part of 1, or the second part of 1, says, sing to the Lord all the earth. And then 7, the first part of 7, ascribe to the Lord you families of the peoples. The second part of 9, tremble before him all the earth. This is, the scope of this is not just limited to us as believers gathered on a Sunday morning, but it's every person that exists is called to worship God as well. In fact, if we pay attention throughout this Psalm, we see that the nations are really thematic here. The global language is used. The earth, the nations, the peoples, the world. I counted them. 13 verses, 12 different times words like that, talking about the nations, right? Show up. 12 times in 13 verses. So, I don't know about you, but it causes me to sort of pause and consider, okay, we know God's people are worshiping. We know creation just does it.

But the nations, wait, how is God accomplishing this? How is he bringing nations of the world to himself to know him, to love him, to worship him as our only God? Well, let's read again verses 1 through 3 and also verse 10. Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name. Proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day. Tell of his glory among the nations. His wonderful deeds among all the peoples. Verse 10. Say among the nations, the Lord reigns. Indeed, the world is firmly established. It will not be moved. He will judge the peoples fairly. What I want us to see is not only is God calling all creation, all humanity, to worship him, he is also calling his people to proclaim his good news so that the nations might worship him, so that those who don't yet worship him do worship him. Again, we ask that question, well, how is God accomplishing this? We see that there's this gap between the nations and the glory of God, right? The people of God are called to stand in the gap. The body of Christ is God's method to connect the nations of the world with their creator and their redeemer to worship him.

that the church, that the church, that's you and me, that we're to have a longing for the nations to give God his worth and then co-labor with God to make this happen. In his book, Let the Nations Be Glad, author, pastor John Piper, he says it this way, sort of a lengthy quote by him, but it's really important. Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exist because worship doesn't. It's the goal of missions because in missions, we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God's glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. I really like that quote, the idea of bringing the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God's glory. By the way, mission or missions, as Piper says it, I think we might think of it, I want us to think of it more broadly. It definitely includes missionaries going to other countries. I mean, today you're emphasizing missions, specifically in Asia, the missions conferences coming up. Missionaries will come and they've been, and this is a good thing that they're doing, and it includes that. But by mission, I also want us to think about our role, each and every one of us that's here, in being on mission for God. So whether that's in our local context of saying, hey, my next door neighbor, I'm on mission to reach them with the gospel, or going globally to reach the nations across the world, to think of mission in that way, right? And that this activity of mission, of God's people announcing Him to the nations so that they will worship Him, we see this throughout Scripture as well. It goes back again to the nation of Israel. This is Psalm 96. It was originally, shows up in 1 Chronicles 16.

We won't look at that this morning, but if you have time, I want to encourage you to go back and read it because Psalm 96 is just part of 1 Chronicles 16, a longer psalm there in that passage that was sung in thanks to God when King David brought the ark into Jerusalem, and he placed it in the tabernacle.

And so there we see worship, right? The tabernacle is the center of worship for the nation of Israel, and mission linked together. We can go back further beyond that, and I do have a slide for this.

Think, again, that promise God gave Israel in Exodus 3, gave to Moses. You're going to bring him out, worship here on this mountain. He comes out with them in Exodus 19. We see, he says this, you shall be my own possession among all the peoples, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

They're there to worship God on Mount Sinai, and what does God say about them? They're a kingdom of priests. What's a priest do? They go between, between God and the people. And now Israel is the kingdom of, they're to be the nation that God uses to bring the nations to God, to know him. That's mission, right? And we know that they failed. And if you know the Old Testament story and why, you know, but the reality is this was God's intention. So there again, we see worship and mission.

How about Isaiah 6, where the prophet here has a vision of God's throne room, right? And the seraphim are worshiping him, and they sing out, or they speak out day and night, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of armies. The whole earth is full of his glory. And then Isaiah has his confession and the atonement there, and then his commission to go and speak, because he hears a voice. I heard a voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send? Who will go for us? Then I said, here am I, send me. Worship and mission again, right? Ephesians chapter three, Paul is recounting how he was called to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ. Preach to the Gentiles. Gentiles, just a word for nations, the unfathomable riches of Christ. That sure sounds like worship to me. And so here we see again, God's glory in the gospel, going out to the nation's worship and mission linked together again.

We could go on 2 Corinthians chapter four, one more. Four and five, Paul's talking about the glory of God in the face of Christ. And then Paul concludes that whole section with 2 Corinthians five, saying we are Christ's ambassadors. God's making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, come back to God. You know, chapters three and four about worship and the glory of God and now mission, worship and mission. This is just a few examples throughout scripture. We see these linked together. Let's go back to Psalm 96. Let's look at specifically what we're to announce, right? And this is verses two and three. I'll just start in verse two, sing to the Lord, bless his name, proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day. Tell of his glory among the nations, his wonderful deeds among all the peoples. So when we think about mission, whether that's overseas, next door, what God's calling us to do, we're called to proclaim, declare, announce. Even the word preach is there, but let's not use preach because that's just what pastors do, right? We're not, yeah, we're also to preach, right? But it's not maybe from, but, you know, proclaim. This is a good idea here or a good word to help us understand this. Proclaim the good news of his salvation. Tell of his glory, his wonderful deeds.

First and foremost, as we stand, you know, we understand Psalm 96 is written before Jesus was on the scene, but we're here this morning post the cross, post his resurrection. We first and foremost tell of what God has done for us in Christ. When we think of his salvation, his glory, his wonderful deeds, that through his death and resurrection, he's forgiven our sins. He's reconciled us to himself. He's given us eternal life. He's adopted us as his children. He has saved us, right? But it also includes how he's at work in our life from day to day. I want you to think about your own life.

Where have you seen God's glory recently? What are some of the wonderful deeds, verse three, or another version says amazing things that the Lord has done in your life lately? Maybe he's worked in your heart to help you forgive someone. Perhaps he's restored a relationship that you thought was just broken and beyond hope. Has he led you into a new career or provided you for you in an unbelievable way? Has he brought you comfort and encouragement as you walked through a difficult and painful time? These are the kind of wondrous works that show us God's glory and I think can be a part of what we tell others along with the gospel as we are on mission for God, saying, oh, let me tell you what Jesus has done for me. He has saved me and he's continuing to work. And this is what he's done in my life. And then in verse 10, say among the nations, the Lord reigns. In other words, we sang it earlier, right? Jesus is King.

And so this is what we're to announce to the world. This is our message. Worship and mission going together. Why? Why are we called to do this? Because God's heart is for the nations of this world to know and worship him.

Several years ago, Jessica and I, when we came back from Thailand, came to the U.S., we bought, had to buy a car, right? And we bought a Nissan Rogue, used to us, but it was really, used car, but new to us. It was really, it's been a good car. Just had to get the brakes changed on it the other day. Yeah. But, you know, it's funny because before we bought the Rogue, I don't think I could have told you like that was a car that existed. I didn't, you know, I knew about Nissan, but like, oh, a Rogue, is that a car? Okay. And so we bought this thing. And then the strangest thing happened as we're driving it around Seattle. We're at a stoplight and I'm like, oh, there's a Rogue over there.

And then we're going down and like, oh, that person said, look, like there's two more Rogues right there. Like, did everybody go out and buy Rogues this week? Because suddenly they're all over the road, right? You've had this happen to you. Of course they existed before that. We just didn't notice it. And I think this is, this, what's what we see here in scripture, right? This truth that God loves the nations and wants them to know him, it is, that is the Nissan Rogue that's driving all over the pages of scripture from Genesis all the way to the maps, right? We see this truth that God is, is calling the nations into a worshipful relationship with him. And he's doing that through his people.

That God's heart is for the nations of the world to know him, to love him, to worship him. And so this truth reminds us that this task that the church has been given to proclaim the good news of God's salvation, this mission is really, it's not our idea. It's God's mission. He is the Lord of the harvest.

It's his work. He calls us to labor together with him. And so it's, yeah, it's not our kingdom, but we belong to the kingdom of God's beloved son, King Jesus. And he is rescuing others from the realm of darkness as we proclaim his salvation. And so as we think about who God is and what he does, what he's calling us to do, there's another truth in this Psalm that we need to consider. And that's not there.

It's here. And it's the reality that God is coming to judge the nations of the world. Did you catch that part in here? The Psalm tells us that God is creator, that he's savior, that he's king or ruler, right? It also tells us that he is the judge.

Um, now the word here, and we see it in verses 10 and 11, right? The Lord reigns the end of verse 10. He will judge the peoples fairly. Um, verse 13 before, uh, for he is coming, he is coming to judge the earth. Now this, this word here for judge, it has the idea of a ruler, right? And we see it connected to God as King. Um, and, and we don't need to worry by the way that God is some type of greedy or power hungry or selfish, corrupt ruler. Like so many of the rulers we see in our world today, right? His character isn't like that. Um, the characteristics we have describing him here in verses 10 through 13, as God is judge, this fairness, equity, righteousness, faithfulness.

This is, this is good. This is what you want in a ruler. Uh, the word judge also has the idea, uh, no surprise here of bringing judgment, right? The Psalm speaks about the false gods of the nations, those who are worshiping idols, those who've turned away from the one true God. And so when he comes to judge the earth, to rule over the earth, it says here that the Lord will bring judgment on those who do not worship him. Uh, friends, this is not a popular description of God, uh, especially not in our world, but sometimes even within the church, we don't want to talk about God as judge. Um, it's not a comfortable reality, but it is a biblical one. And throughout the scriptures, we see that Jesus is the one who will judge the world. I just want to read some different verses that highlight this. Acts 17, verse 31 says, he has set a day that is God has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed. That's the Lord Jesus. And has proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead. Romans two. And this is the message I proclaim that the day is coming when God through Christ Jesus will judge everyone's secret life. Again, in second Thessalonians, he will come with his mighty angels and flaming fire, bringing judgment on those who don't know God and on those who refuse to obey the good news of our Lord Jesus. And then one more from revelation from his mouth came a sharp sword to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod. He will release the fierce wrath of God, the almighty, like juice flowing from a wine press. If you're here today and you are unsure of how

Jesus might judge you when this time comes, I want to tell you the good news that Jesus is ready and willing to save you from judgment. That you can put your trust in him today and be saved.

That you don't, you do not have to face the wrath of God because God's grace is that Jesus himself underwent the judgment that you and I rightly deserve. He became a sin offering for us. He experienced suffering and death for us in our place. And then raising to eternal life. He ascended to heaven.

He was seated at the father's right hand. He's promised to come again. So if you and I know Jesus as savior, we can rejoice at his coming as judge and ruler over the world because he saves us from the wrath to come. You don't have to be living. You don't have to live in fear of that.

This is the salvation that Jesus has given to each of us who believe the salvation he freely offers to the people of all nations. So I want to emphasize that because as we speak of God's character and we see these things and these wonderful things, sometimes it's hard to reconcile that with, wait, he's going to judge sin. But the reality is we don't need to fear because in Christ, we are saved from that. So if you are here today and you're thinking, oh, what's going to be my fate in that judgment? I would invite you today to place your trust in Jesus.

So as we consider all this together, a question I have then is how might Cascade Mountain Bible Church, how might you individually in your lives, in your families, as a church family, how might we proclaim the good news of God's salvation from day to day? How might we tell of his glory among the nations? I want us to be encouraged here with this final truth, and that is that God gives us his heart for the nations as we worship him. Again, that crossroads of worship and mission, right? We've seen here in this psalm, we've been reminded from other places in God's word of this interconnection, the crossroads of worship and mission in the life of the church, how God calls believers into both of these. So how can worship and mission become more of a reality in the life of Cascade Mountain Bible Church? Well, the obvious answer might be, well, worship God more, tell more people about Jesus.

And that's great. Yes. But I want to encourage you first to take a step back and to just pray. Pray that God will give you a heart that wants to worship him more, right? And it sort of sounds like, oh yeah, of course, but it's one of those things that's counterintuitive maybe. In other words, another way this I think works out is when I don't feel like praying. I picked this up, I think from, uh, it's Ian Bounds that wrote all the stuff on prayer. I mean, it's really old, but it's really, really good, right? Um, when I don't feel like praying, God, I pray about that prayer. God, I don't feel like praying. You need to help me. Please help me feel like praying, right? So when we don't feel like worshiping or when we want to worship God more, pray that God will help us worship him more. Um, he deserves it and he loves that, that prayer, I believe. So I want to encourage you to pray, pray that God will give you a heart of worship. Uh, Piper earlier who I quoted, right?

He said that worship is the goal of missions. He also goes on to say this worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can't commend what you don't cherish. If, if I'm not, if I'm not desiring to share the good news of Jesus with international students that I work with or my next door neighbor or, or to support missionaries who go across the world, chances are there's a worship problem, right? Because the more I worship God and see, wow, he deserves this, the more it'll just overflow into my desire to share that goodness of Jesus with others. So I would encourage you to do that, but then also consider how you might be praying for the nations of the world. If you're not already doing this, uh, begin by praying for our own nation. Um, and I think many of us do this, right? Uh, for most of us, our own nation is the U S right. And then expand your prayers to include other nations of the world.

Intentional and specific. Uh, if you need help with this, there's resources, uh, excellent, uh, websites like the Joshua project operation world voice of the martyrs, Wycliffe Bible translators.

Um, even the navigators have some stuff on a site. They all have places where you can, how to pray for the nation, something like that, some tab that's on their homepage and there's guides and it'll take you through. These are the needs of this specific country. And, and in Japan, there's this many believers and this is the church and how you can pray and in the persecuted, uh, countries of the world. And, and all, all of these nations are listed there where these organizations work and these, these, these mission places. So encourage you to do that as well. And then as you do that, and I've seen this in my own life, God begins to transform your heart and it gives you, um, yeah, as you pray for these places, the God who created these nations, who sent his son, Jesus to die for the nations, the world, and he desires for all the people from all these nations to know him. He changes our heart to be more like his. He gives us his heart for the nations.

And then in other practical ways, you might think of like, how can I impact the nations that are right here in our backyard? Part of the work that we would do with international students is, um, challenging, but also rewarding and seeing these students that God's bringing right here to us and an opportunity to give them the gospel and they return to their home countries. Do you know international students?

Do you know immigrants or refugees? Do you know people who might not be like you, but definitely needs to know the goodness of Jesus and the gospel? So begin praying about that.

I guess as we leave here today, um, or as we, as we wrap up this time, we're not leaving yet because we've got a lot of food to eat downstairs, but as we wrap up this time, I want us, I, this is what I don't want you to hear as we close here that, well, here, this guest speaker showed up today and he's coming back next week. And oh man, he's just given us one more thing to do, right? That that's not at all what I want us to take from this time. I think this quote, um, I've got one more quote here. Uh, this guy's name, uh, he's French, so I'm not going to do this correctly, but Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, I think sort of close. Um, he, he wrote the little prince, uh, if you've ever read that. All right. Um, he was an aviator and author, but he said this, and it applies so well to this. If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood. Don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. See, as we worship God and long for the endless immensity of his glory in our own lives and into the nations, then I believe that it's his heart and love for the peoples of the world overflows from us naturally into our neighborhoods, into our communities, into our country, and even into the entire world. Let's pray together. Father, as we look at this passage, as we see God and, and we, we, we confess and we agree with a psalmist that we praise you for the wonderful things that you have done, the amazing things, the wonderful works. First and foremost, in sending your son, the Lord Jesus, to be our sacrifice, to die in our place, to raise to life so that we might be made at peace with you, God, that we might have a relationship restored, that we might be forgiven, that we might have hope in eternal life, that we might be able to walk through this life knowing you, God, that this is eternal life, to know you, the one true God in

Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So God, we praise you for that, and we praise you that you're also at work in this world and that you would for, in your wisdom and your goodness, that you would call us to labor among you. God, you could do this in so many different ways, but you've chosen to use us as, as, as weak and, and fallible vessels to display your goodness and glory to a world that's watching us.

And so, Lord, we just look forward to that day. We think of that scene in Revelation where it tells us that, that, that, that, that every knee will bow before you, that, that the song will be sung, that you are worthy, Lord Jesus, to take the scroll, to break its seals and open it, for you are slaughtered and your blood has been ransomed for people, for God, from every tribe, language, and nation.

And, Lord, this great worship service where it speaks of a vast crowd, too great to count from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the lambs and, and shouting with a great roar, salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne and from the lamb. And, Lord, that, that worship service of, to end all worship services, Lord, that we, we desire, we long for that time. Until then, Father, uh, give us, give us your heart for the peoples of this world, whether that's across the street or across the ocean, God, that you would show us how you desire to use us in this way. We thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.